Fancy Cover
He'd barely been working for five minutes before there was a knock on his door and someone slowly, almost cautiously, stepped in.
Q barely spared them a glance, looking up just long enough to recognise them - fucking Daniel - before turning back to signing the frankly absurdly tall stack of reports in front of him. He goes away for three days and look what happens…
The alpha remained silent, hovering awkwardly at the edge of his office. Q signed another seven documents before sighing and finally looking up.
"Daniel, either tell me what you want or get out".
The blond flushed, face turning red in equal parts anger and embarrassment.
"Yes sir. I, uh… I have… ah… sensitive… information?"
Was he asking him or telling him?
"We work for MI6" Q said, flatly, "All of our information is sensitive".
"Not that… kind of... sensitive". The usually arrogant man was acting strangely… sheepish. "It's, uh… personally sensitive".
Personally sensitive?
Q put down his pen and gave the man a rather irritated look.
"Daniel, just get to the bloody point! I have three days of work to catch up on, an agent to outfit for a time-sensitive mission, and so many requisition forms to sign that I could scream. Now what do you want?!"
"I need to update my personnel file!" he blurted, "I, uh, I- I got a- a medical… condition that I need to include so I- I need to update my personnel file but- but I don't have high enough clearance to get into vault four so I was, uh, I was- I was hoping to ask you for help, sir".
"... A medical condition?"
The tips of his ears turned bright red.
"Yes sir".
"You need to update your personnel file… with a new medical condition?"
"Yes sir".
"And you decided that the best person to go to about updating your personnel file with a new medical condition… was me?!"
He at least had the decency to look some bit ashamed.
"I, uh… I'd really rather not get HR involved, sir".
"You-"
Huh.
Now that was a statement that Q could relate to - he wasn't exactly a big fan of that vapid touchy-feely subtly-dynamicist department either.
"And- And I wouldn't have bothered you with it except R is super busy too!" Daniel rushed to add, "But she's in the workshop testing explosives so- so I thought that approaching you would be… uh… well… less dangerous?"
That was definitely true. Distracting R while she was holding a grenade wouldn't have ended well for anyone. Perhaps Daniel was finally starting to grow a brain…
Q glanced down at the mountain of paperwork in front of him and sighed.
He, on the other hand, would kill for a distraction right now - and apparently, he didn't even need grenades to get one.
"Alright, fine". Standing up, he gestured for the man to walk ahead of him. "Let's go".
Thankfully, Daniel had at least enough sense to not try and make small talk as they walked to the elevators and descended five floors into basement level one. Q wondered, distantly, if this was why the alpha had shown such a weird interest in his plans on Friday night - perhaps thinking that this experience would be less awkward if they were "friends" first.
There weren't many medical conditions that would make him too embarrassed to go to HR, after all, and the omega had to bite back a snort at the possibilities as they reached tunnel thirteen and he typed in his security code for room four.
"You have five minutes" he warned, and Daniel quickly nodded, giving him a grateful look before dashing in.
While he waited, Q mentally ran through his to-do list once more. In reality, all of those reports and files that he had to sign weren't urgent - or, at least, weren't as urgent as his other tasks, so he could, technically, just… ignore them for a bit.
He'd already set up a meeting to establish a game plan for questioning Janssen, so he could put that mission out of his mind too, until tomorrow, which just left Jake's mission in Mozambique. A lot of his equipment was standard, which meant he could get one of the minions to gather it, but there were still a couple of items that Q would prefer to look over personally.
His lock-picking set, for one, although he had already upgraded most of the picks with his carbon nanotube wire invention, which would hopefully get 004 out of every sticky situation that the lock picks themselves couldn't.
So that was more or less done for now, but he still wanted to triple-check Jake's gun of choice - the Heckler and Koch USP. It was a simple yet reliable weapon, similar to the man himself, but Q really didn't like the fact it only had a capacity of twelve rounds. He'd already successfully added a microdermal sensor for palmprint recognition, but if only he could just find some way of upping its magazine capacity…
"Heya boss".
The omega jumped and spun around as someone suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor.
"Silvia" he said, surprised, "What on earth are you doing down here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you" she replied with a cheeky grin, before holding up the folder in her hands, "R sent me to update one of the new hires' files".
"Already expanding your duties, is she?"
"Well apparently, someone suggested to her that I'd make a good replacement" Silvia replied, her grin turning softer now, more kind than mischievous, "I believe I have you to thank for that, sir".
"Oh, so I'm sir now, am I?" he teased, "You really must be grateful then".
She came to a stop in front of him and almost cautiously put a hand on his arm, as if not sure where the boundary between professional and personal lay.
"I am" she said, quiet but genuine, "Really. I know I haven't been here long, and there are plenty of others with more seniority and- and greater experience than me, so… I am grateful. Thank you".
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable, but to his relief, she didn't seem to be waiting for a response. Instead, her grin returned in full force as she took a step back and nodded at the vault door.
"Any chance you could buzz me in?"
"Oh, yes, of course!" he quickly replied, glad to change the topic, tapping the code into the keypad before standing aside to let her pass, "And, uh, hey, do me a favour, will you? If you see Daniel in there, tell him to get a move on".
"Will do, boss".
Fortunately - or, perhaps, unfortunately - Daniel appeared not long after, and they headed back to the elevators in silence. The alpha looked just as embarrassed as he had before he'd updated his file but still tried to stutter out an incredibly awkward thanks, which meant that Q was disproportionately happy when the lift stopped on the first floor to let someone on, and he saw their Chief of Staff walking down the corridor in front of him.
"Bill!" he quickly called, before telling Daniel to go on ahead and stepping out of the elevator himself - beyond grateful to not have to finish the rest of the terribly uncomfortable long walk back to his lair with the alpha.
"Bill" he repeated, jogging over to him, "Hey, uh, do you have a minute?"
"Quartermaster". The man's voice was as warm as his smile. "Of course… You're looking well".
To anyone passing by, it'd seem like a casual remark, an offhand throwaway sentence that many Londoners used in greeting - but given that Q knew that Bill knew about what had happened last Friday night, he was able to detect the undercurrent of concern and relief in the man's voice.
"I am" he replied, perhaps just a little too firmly to sound natural, but the way that Tanner's shoulders relaxed minutely made it worthwhile.
"So, what can I help you with?"
"I have a… question" he finally settled on, before subtly nodding back down the hall to where the elevators were - Daniel having thankfully since disappeared.
As usual, Bill got the hint, and the omega thanked whatever deity out there that such a sensible, intelligent man had been promoted to his position.
"Alright, I'll see what I can do, but I'm afraid I've got a report due in about an hour and I haven't even started it yet. Walk and talk?"
"Sure".
They made meaningless conversation as they waited for another lift to arrive, discussing everything from the weather to traffic to his four-year-old son who had just started primary school and his six-year-old daughter who had recently performed in her first ballet recital.
As they slowly rose up to the top floor of the building, Q felt a brief pang of something in his heart. It wasn't from the talk of Bill's kids; unlike most omegas, Q had never felt the desire to procreate and he didn't particularly like children anyway. But there was something in the way that the beta spoke about them, a loving fondness in his tone that the younger man couldn't help but wish for himself.
He quickly shook himself out of it as they finally arrived on the sixth floor and reached Bill's office. They had far more important things to discuss, after all.
"Please, take a seat".
"Thanks". Q obediently sat down across from the man, before giving him a curious yet somewhat cautious look. "So".
"So?"
"James told me he rang you, on Friday night".
"Saturday morning is more like it" he grumbled, but with a smile, "The wife was not impressed at being woken at that hour, let me tell you".
"So it's true, then".
"What's true?"
"You helped the double-0s get rid of a body".
Bill looked at him silently for another moment before sighing and leaning back in his chair.
"The double-0s are… different".
Q snorted. "That's putting it mildly".
"Yes, well, they're… terrifying. Highly trained psychopathic hitmen for hire… But they're also loyal" he admitted, almost reluctantly, "They have to be, or we'd have no use for them. If they aren't loyal to England, then there's nothing stopping them from turning on us… Except for you".
Q felt his cheeks flush and he desperately hoped that he wasn't about to get another stay-away-from-them speech given that he'd already sat through both R and Eve's already today.
"I don't claim to understand it" Bill continued, "Quite frankly, I am beyond confused about the- the relationship that you and those maniacs have, but clearly, something you're doing is working because they're now loyal to you".
"They're still-"
"-faithful to MI6, I know" he interrupted, "But are you honestly telling me that you haven't rearranged their priorities? That MI6 and England don't come second now? That if you walked out that door you wouldn't be taking at least half of them with you, whether you wanted to or not?"
"... It doesn't matter, because I'm not walking out" Q eventually replied, "Even if I wanted to I couldn't, so the double-0s are not a threat!"
"I'm not saying that they are" Bill placated, "My point is that they're loyal to you. Incredibly loyal. To the point of murder… So when I got a phone call at two in the morning from James bloody Bond telling me that there was a mess they needed help cleaning up, I knew that it had something to do with you".
"And that was reason enough to dissolve a man's body in flesh-eating acid?!"
"Yes". He shrugged simply. "I mean, aside from the fact that if whatever he did was bad enough to warrant double-0 execution then he very likely deserved to die in the first place, the double-0s never ask for help. Ever. You've seen how much evidence they leave behind; how little they care about the clean-up - and that's them being on their best behaviour for you. You cannot possibly imagine how many more bodies there were before you became Quartermaster. It was horrifying".
Bill shuddered and then shook his head.
"No. They wouldn't have asked for help in any other situation that didn't involve you. So yes, after 007 called, I broke out the barrels of acid. Mind you, I was at least smart enough to check the body for any distinguishing features first - something which your pet wolves made rather difficult - but there wasn't anything. No tattoos, scars, piercings, nothing that could lead to an ID. The guy had about a hundred pounds in his pockets, cash, but no wallet or phone either. And so, since the body couldn't tell us anything, I, uh… disposed of it, shall we say, with 001, 002, and 008".
Alexis, Charlie, and Milli, Q silently translated. That made sense - they were the most human of the double-0s aside from Jake, but he had been far too shaken to be of much help, and when Duncan had inevitably reappeared, they had likely gone off somewhere together to try and settle their nerves. Alec and James had been with him, obviously, which left just Saif and Edie - both of whom were just a little bit too intense for a quiet man like Bill.
"I think I liked you better when you were still scared of them".
"Oh, believe me, Quartermaster, I still one-hundred-per-cent am. We just… happened to have a common goal at the time".
"An enemy of my enemy?"
"Something like that". Bill gave him a bland smile. "Either way, that man will most certainly not be bothering you ever again… I take it that he was the one responsible for those bruises, though?"
Q automatically reached up to prod at the multi-coloured splotches on his cheek and nodded.
"Yeah. He, uh… He cornered me. In the club. He said a few things, and tried to do a lot worse, but the double-0s fought him off… You didn't tell M about any of this, did you?"
"No, and I'm not going to either - although I will say that things like this have a way of coming out, in the end". His blue eyes were kind and sickeningly sympathetic. "You might want to consider telling him yourself before that happens".
Q was already shaking his head. "No. No, it's bad enough with you and Eve knowing - no offence - and the double-0s would rather set themselves on fire than talk to M, and Mortner's dead now, so it's not as if he could tell him-"
"Wait- Mortner?"
Oh. Yes. Of course. Bill didn't know yet who that bastard was - Q hadn't told him and he highly doubted that any of the double-0s did either, especially since he hadn't even told them about the confirmed facial recognition so-
"As in Hans Mortner?" the beta continued, "The nurse we fired for attacking you?! That Mortner?!"
"Well… I mean, technically, you fired him before he tried to kill me that first time but-"
"Q".
"... Yeah. That Mortner".
"I thought M had the juniors searching for him?"
"He does. And they did. But, uh… well, obviously they weren't successful, so he tried to… finish the job, I guess".
"... Q, you have to tell M".
"No, I don't".
"Q".
He steadfastly avoided the older man's gaze, and after a moment of tense silence, Bill sighed.
"Alright. Just… take a few days, catch up on your work, and think about it. Can you at least promise me that much?"
"Yeah" he quickly agreed, because thinking wasn't doing, after all, "I promise".
"Good. Now then, was there anything else you wanted to discuss? I wasn't lying about having that report due soon".
"Uh, yeah, just one other thing" Q replied, "During the… incident at the club, I lost my phone. I modified it to explode if anyone tried hacking into it, so there's no security issue, but I need to put in a request form for a new one".
"And since you've yet to tell M what happened, you don't want to go directly to him" Bill finished knowingly, "Alright. I'll see what I can do. He still has to sign off on it, of course, but I can slip the form in between something bland and boring so he won't read what he's signing".
The omega eyed him suspiciously.
"Have you done this to the Head of MI6 before?"
"Of course not" he replied immediately, voice and expression both innocent - too innocent.
"Uh-huh". Q gave him a look before standing up and heading back towards the door. "Right, well, thanks for everything, Bill, seriously".
"Don't mention it".
With one hand on the door handle, he paused. It hadn't been odd, as such, and yet…
Well.
Since he was here anyway-
"One last thing" he said, and Bill looked back up. "Yes?"
"There's an alpha in my branch; Daniel Hughes?"
The man's brows furrowed, but after a moment, he nodded.
"Blond? Wears those t-shirts with children's cartoons on them?"
"That's the one" Q replied dryly, "He hasn't… said anything to you lately, has he?"
Bill looked surprised. "Not a thing. Not that he'd have much reason to, however. I mainly deal with the higher-ups; if he's having an issue with another member of staff then it's HR he needs to go to, not me".
"... Right. Thanks".
The man's blue eyes were as knowing as ever.
"Alpha, you said?" he asked lightly, "He's not… giving you any trouble, is he?"
"What? No! No, gosh, no, nothing like that!" Q quickly said, "He just, uh… I don't know. He's just been acting a bit… weird over the last few days and I wasn't sure if there was an internal problem that I wasn't aware of or- or something like that".
"There's nothing that I've heard about, but like I said, it's HR that would really know. If you're that concerned, then you should swing by the second floor on your way down".
Q made a face. "Ugh. Yeah, thanks but no thanks. It's probably nothing; I'm just… looking for ghosts where there are none, I guess".
"After the week you've had, I don't blame you".
"Yeah... Right, well, uh, thanks again. I'll talk to you later".
To say that Q was currently stressed, would be the largest understatement in the history of humanity, so it was with no small amount of joy that he shoved the pile of requisition files he had to sign to one side as soon as there came yet another knock on the door. He knew who it was, of course - he'd been the one to schedule the meeting, after all - but that didn't mean that he still didn't feel a wave of relief as his two favourite people in the world stepped into the room.
It was just after noon; he'd only been back at work for three and a half hours, but already the lack of familiar scents had him set on edge, and as soon as he caught sight of his alphas - agents, he mentally corrected, his agents - he let out an involuntary whine.
Alec and James both immediately rushed over, the former pulling out his chair while the latter effortlessly hauled him to his feet and-
Froze.
James frowned and gave a quiet, unhappy rumble while Alec leant closer, took a deep inhale, and then promptly sneezed.
"Why do you smell like- like-"
"-like flowers?!"
"Flowers?" Now it was Q's turn to frown. "I smell like- Oh! Uh, Eve was here, earlier on. Well, actually, she was here first, waiting to tackle me with an interrogation, but I have no idea how long she was sitting here before me and… well, she wears Chanel, so-"
He shrugged.
James blinked.
Alec scowled.
"I don't like it".
Suddenly ducking down, he wrapped both arms around the omega's waist before lifting him full-bodily up off the ground. Q yelped in surprise, automatically reaching out to cling onto his shoulders as Alec carried him with ease - the absolute bastard - over to the battered old couch in his office.
The alpha collapsed down on it, swinging his legs up so he was lying back with Q sprawled awkwardly on top of him - a position which he was given no time to adjust to before James bloody Bond had thrown himself down on top of him.
Okay.
Well.
Maybe saying "thrown" was just a bit of an exaggeration considering that the man had, in fact, very carefully and very gently laid down across him, and he even kept himself propped up on his elbows which were on either side of Alec so that Q wasn't being squished to death underneath his weight but-
Still!
"What, on earth, do you two think you're doing?!"
Beneath him, Alec placed a soft, gentle kiss on his forehead, before promptly shoving the omega's face against his neck.
"You smell weird".
Above him, he felt James nod, as the alpha nosed his curls and rubbed his cheek and jaw against Q's own neck.
"We're fixing it".
They were- They were scent-marking him, Q belatedly realised. Making him smell like them instead of Eve. Making him smell like- like he was theirs.
… Was he?
He could distinctly remember what Alec had told him in his kitchen only two days before - We will discuss it, cub, I promise - but no one had said anything about it since; about Alec kissing him, about James winking at him, about Q spending three nights in their clothes, in their bed, in their home.
He heard the alpha hum above him before James kissed the back of his neck, a move far too intimate given that his partner was literally right there and for some strange absurd reason, Q wanted to cry.
"What's the matter, pup?"
"Do you not like our scents?"
He squeezed his eyes shut tight against the oncoming tears because- were they fucking serious?! Did he not like their scents?! When they smelled like warm safe warm safe warm safe warm home?!
He pressed his face further against Alec's neck and took deep breaths in an effort to calm down. At the same time, he felt James move slightly so that his weight on top of him increased and Q was both irritated and relieved to realise that his human weighted blanket was actually starting to make him relax.
Stupid bloody instincts.
"Our cub is grumpy today".
"Maybe he needs a nap".
That, at least, was enough to snap him out of it, and he was pleased to find that his voice was only a little bit choked when he replied.
"No. No nap. I don't have the time. I still have to sign all of those bloody requisition forms and get Jake's equipment ready and- and talk to M as well at some stage and- oh god, I still need to set up Janssen's interrogation tomorrow and- and- and I can't do any of that with you lot manhandling me like this!"
"Manhandling?" James asked, his voice perfectly innocent, "I thought we were cuddling. Do not want us to cuddle you?"
And how in the bloody hell was that fair?!
"I… You… You'll wrinkle your suit!" Q finally replied, bypassing his question entirely, "If we stay like this then you'll wrinkle your fancy designer brand suit!"
"Well, I'm not wearing a suit" Alec replied with a smug grin, and to be fair, he wasn't. Instead, he was wearing ripped jeans, a dark t-shirt, and a black leather jacket, and what was really unfair was how ridiculously attractive he looked in them.
"I am" his partner said, sounding somewhat disgruntled, "But alas, that's a risk that I'm willing to take".
Q had never seen James bloody Bond look anything less than perfect before, so the fact that he was willing to do so for the rest of the day just so he could cuddle him out of a panic attack was…
"We can't talk" he blurted, "Not- Not now, not today, not with- with everything that I still have to do and prepare and- and catch up on and-"
"Okay" Alec said, calmly cutting him off, "We don't have to talk yet, not if it'll stress you out even more… but that's no reason for us to stop hugging you, is it?"
"... No".
"Well then. There we go, pup. Problem solved".
Q felt more of James' weight press down on him and he felt himself going boneless, the tension in his shoulders finally releasing as he allowed himself to simply exist for a moment, without any expectations or concerns.
"Is there anything else we can do, cub? I know we're not as smart as you, but we're pretty damn good at forging signatures so we could take some of those forms off your desk at least".
"As tempting as that sounds, 006, I feel the need to strictly forbid you from ever forging an executive's signature!" he scolded, but they could all hear the smile in his voice so it didn't do either of them much good, "What you could do, however…"
"Yes, pup?"
He let out a heavy sigh, and Alec gently pressed his face even closer against his neck where his scent was strongest - warm, safe, home, and ever so slightly smokey. He'd been up on the roof with Jake again, then.
"I need someone to question Janssen tomorrow morning" Q explained, "She's been stewing in the basement long enough and we've already lost far too much time where we should have been trying to find Ourumov".
"And you want us to be the ones who interrogate her?"
He tried to shrug but it was made rather difficult given that he was currently being smushed to death in between too unfairly muscular alphas.
"She already knows James' face, and chances are Ourumov told her about you too" he replied, "So both of your covers are blown, and I want to keep the others' identities a secret for now, in case we ever have to send someone in undercover again. Between that and the fact you two know the case far better than the other double-0s, it makes you the best choice".
"Sounds good to me, pup".
"Me too" Alec agreed, rubbing his cheek against the omega's curls, "But we can go over all of that tomorrow, alright? Right now, however, I think you could do with a power nap".