Something Evil Comes This Way
Q half expected Alexis to be behind the wheel of the Land Rover that he was ninety-eight per cent certain the double-0s had stolen from his branch - but it was Alec sitting there instead, with Edie perched gracefully in the passenger seat.
Duncan held open the back door for him, sharp grey eyes scanning their surroundings as he climbed in, before walking around the back of the SUV to sit in the other side himself.
"I heard that you had an eventful night" Alec said in greeting, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror.
"That sure is one way of putting it" Q agreed, before raising a rather pointed eyebrow at him, "And just where is your partner in crime this morning?"
He pressed the 'start engine' button and beneath them, the jeep hummed to life.
"Don't worry about it, cub".
His second eyebrow rose to join the first. "I kind of feel like I should".
"He's not trying to blow anything up, I promise".
"He's James bloody Bond!" he shot back, "He doesn't have to try".
Edie flashed him a perfectly-white grin. "And that's why Alexis went with him to babysit".
"I thought she went to help him?"
"That too". Edie flipped her long braid over her shoulder. "But in reality, she's there as his impulse control".
And his day hadn't even started yet.
Q wasn't surprised to see Eve waiting just inside the door for him - although he was surprised at the look she gave the three double-0s as they flanked him.
"I specifically remember M officially banning any and all double-0s from attending executive meetings way back in February" she said sharply, "So just where on earth do you lot think that you're going?"
"Hello to you too, dearest" Edie mumbled, but Eve ignored her, instead planting both hands on her hips and scowling at them. "Well?!"
"Well what?" Alec asked, his usual charming, harmless grin out in full force, "We're not here to cause any trouble, Miss Moneypenny; we're just trying to protect our Quartermaster".
"From who? M?!"
"... I mean-"
She threw her hands in the air in exasperation and gave Q a rather pointed look as if to say "see! I told you! You shouldn't have encouraged them!" but if he were being perfectly honest then…
Yeah.
He'd feel safer with three double-0s at his side, even if it was just M that he was going to see.
"And besides" Alec added, "That rule was only put in place after Alexis snapped at the man, and she's not here today so…"
He shrugged, as if that was that, and Q started to wonder if sending Alexis to babysit James was just an excuse to keep her out of HQ for the moment as well - which only further raised the question, just where on earth were they?!
"... It's your funeral" Eve finally replied, "If M decides to kill you over this then don't expect me to save you".
"I'd like to see him try" Alec replied, his pleasant smile still firmly in place.
Q mentally groaned, grabbed the man's hand, and dragged him down the corridor.
Just inside Eve's office sat Charlie, Saif, and Milli - their heads low as they spoke about what was no doubt going to cause him a headache in the future. Since Jake was halfway to Mozambique by now and Duncan, Edie, and Alec were behind him, that only left James and Alexis unaccounted for.
Again.
Q had a suspicious feeling that his agents were plotting something.
"You're not all coming in" he stated.
Saif immediately jumped up and bounded over to ruffle his hair. "Good morning, my little menace!"
"Good morning, 005" he replied evenly, "You are not coming in".
"I wouldn't dream of it" he said easily, "We already voted, after all".
"Voted? What the hell do you mean voted?!"
"On who got to go in with you" Charlie explained calmly, even as his gaze remained sharp on Eve's willowy form as she stepped around the group to return to her desk.
And, now that Q thought about it, they were all acting somewhat… stiff today. Not to him, of course, but to everyone else. Suspicious, almost.
Clearly, the break-in at his flat had more than just him rattled.
"We drew the short straws" Saif finished, "So we're just going to wait out here until you're done".
"Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Not at all".
"We quite literally have a supervillain in the basement, 005!" he shot back, "And she still hasn't told us a damn thing!"
"If you want me to question her, then I can - but you assigned that task to Alec and James for a reason, Q".
"One of whom is missing!"
"Not missing, cub" Alec said, snaking an arm around his waist and pulling him back against his chest, "Just… otherwise detained".
"Then you go question her then!"
"Can't". He flashed him a roguish grin that set his heart racing. "I drew a long straw".
From behind him, there was a rather pointed cough.
"I don't care who drew what as long as one of you goes in there!" Eve snapped, jerking her chin at M's door, "As surprising as it may be, the Head of MI6 has a tight schedule to keep and I'm the one who'll have to rearrange everything if you lot keep delaying him! Now get!"
In the end, it was just three of the six double-0s present that followed him into M's office - Duncan; who seemed intent on taking over watchdog duty from Jake while he was away, Alec; because of course, and Edie; who gave him a sharp smile as she stalked past to throw open the brown leather bound door.
It was still three double-0s more than what M was apparently comfortable with, given the uneasy look he gave the agents as they entered, but at least he was smart enough to realise that, by now, there was no convincing them to leave.
"Quartermaster" he greeted with a nod, and from the seat across from him, Bill did the same.
"Sir" he replied, giving the three double-0s a look before taking the other chair - a look that promised more than just a lack of hugs and explosions if they stepped one foot out of line.
"So" M started, clasping his hands together on the desk, "Your flat was broken into and you said something about the alarm-?"
Straight to business then.
"Yes sir. When I first moved in I reprogrammed the system to, uh… suit my needs. Yesterday, when I arrived home, the alarm told me that it had been bypassed".
"And when you say bypassed, you mean…?"
"Hacked into, for lack of a better term" he explained, "Someone managed to re-code it so that it wouldn't be set off when they opened the door without entering the correct passcode first".
"So whoever broke in has programming knowledge" Bill said, a statement rather than a fact, "Technical skills above the average person".
Q grimaced. "Yeah. And that's not all - they also managed to erase some of my security footage".
"Some of it?"
"The camera feed cut off at five-twenty-seven yesterday evening exactly, and it didn't come back online until just after six. I arrived home myself about an hour later, give or take".
M leant back in his chair, a troubled expression on his face, and the omega couldn't help but agree.
"So there's half an hour unaccounted for" he said slowly, "Presumably because at least twenty minutes of that, the intruder was inside your flat - giving them ten minutes or so to safely leave before the CCTV started working again".
"Why would they need twenty minutes inside your flat?" Bill wondered out loud, but Q could only shrug in response. "The double-0s triple-checked everything - there was nothing taken, nothing left behind, and no cameras or listening devices anywhere. It didn't appear that anything had even been touched".
"And you're sure there was a break-in?" Mallory asked, "This couldn't have been a power failure or a glitch or-"
He was already shaking his head. "No sir. I specifically set up the surveillance system in a way that ensures that that can't happen. Someone manually bypassed the alarm and deleted that half hour of camera footage; there's no question about it".
"And yet there was no sign of forced entry?"
This was where things got… scary. Q had to quickly bite back a wave of fear before replying.
"No sir. Jake- uh, I mean, 004 checked for any signs of tampering with the lock, but… well. There were none".
"Is it possible that 004 overlooked something?"
Q stared at him in disbelief - and based on Duncan's derisive scoff from behind him, he wasn't the only one.
Jake? Overlook something? That had to do with locks?!
"... No sir".
Next to him, Bill suddenly frowned.
"But- Hang on, if there were no signs of forced entry, and your flat was broken into, then…"
"Yeah". He swallowed thickly. "They, uh… They probably had a key".
There was a beat of silence as the others took that rather crucial little piece of information in, while Alec took a step forward and subtly wrapped his hand around the back of his neck, right at the base of his skull, and Q couldn't help but lean into it - the rough, warm hand grounding him more than he'd like to admit.
"... Are you in the habit of giving out keys to your flat, Quartermaster?" M eventually asked.
"No sir. I have one myself, obviously. Miss Moneypenny has another. And the only other copy I ever made is in my desk drawer in my office - and, before you ask, I already messaged R, asking her to check, and she said it's still there".
She also said that they would be having words about it, but he'd decided to focus on only one crisis at a time.
"Could someone have taken it and made a copy?"
"I highly doubt it. To begin with, no one knows it's there - none even R knew until this morning - and I open and close that drawer probably five or six times a day and I've never noticed it missing" he replied, "But, copy or not, sir, that still leaves the question of somebody here knowing my home address - which they don't".
"And you don't even have a digital file that someone could hack into either" Mallory mused, "Then again, even if you did-"
"-my file is stored under an alias and absolutely no one on this planet knows my real name… Asides from my mother" he added, belatedly, "But she usually knocks".
And despite the fact that his siblings usually didn't, they had no reason to want to break in - and even if, for some strange unknown reason that they had, they wouldn't have left before he even got home.
Which raised yet another question…
"Why did they leave?"
"Quartermaster?"
"Whoever broke in. The intruder" he explained, mind racing miles ahead, "Why did they leave? They didn't take or drop anything, so… so the only other explanation is that they weren't there for my stuff, they were there for me".
Three almost identical growls rose up behind him, but he ignored them easily after months of practice.
"If this was a- a kidnapping attempt or- or a hit or something - they wouldn't have just stayed for twenty minutes and then left again" he continued, "They would have waited until I came home… but they didn't".
Both M and Bill looked appropriately disturbed by the thought, but a quick glance at his agents revealed them to be more pensive.
"... Unless that was the point" Alec suddenly said, sea green eyes sharp as his hand briefly tightened on the back of Q's neck.
"Care to elucidate, 006?"
"Well, it's like Q said, sir - nothing was taken, nothing was left behind, and they didn't hang around for him to show up either" he replied, his tone uncharacteristically serious, "They weren't there when he got home because they didn't plan to be".
"It was a scare tactic" Edie realised, "If they wanted to kidnap you, they'd have waited, and if they wanted you dead, then they could have easily rigged your microwave to explode, or mixed arsenic powder in with your tea, or planted a time bomb under your pillow, or-"
"I think we get the point, 009".
She gave Q a rueful smile. "Sorry, sweetheart. My point is, the entire purpose of this break-in could have just been to rattle you".
Mission accomplished.
"There are too many things that don't line up for it not to make sense" Alec continued, "I mean, they planned everything to the very second. They got your address, they got a copy of your key, they knew when your neighbours wouldn't be around… You don't plan something with that level of detail and then just- forget to check when you'd come home, cub".
"They didn't want you" Duncan finished, "They just wanted to fucking scare you".
There was a moment of tense silence, a brittle charged atmosphere in the room because-
Well.
Yeah.
It made sense, of course - the double-0s were rarely wrong about anything - but now that they had this information… What could they even do with it?
"If that is true, then the break-in was conducted by someone who knows your schedule" M said quietly, "That's not a point in MI6's favour, Quartermaster".
And they never did figure out who'd tipped off Mortner to him going up that stairwell, did they?
Q shook his head.
No.
He couldn't believe that it was someone at MI6 - or, even worse, someone in his own department. He just… couldn't.
"What reason would they have?" he challenged, "There have been no disputes lately, no- no arguments or fights for months! Why would anyone here want to- to scare me?"
"Well". Bill drew out the word. "Not to bring up the elephant in the room, but… you are an omega in a position of power, and it wasn't that long ago that people were taking offence to that".
"But that was that long ago!" he protested, "It's been months since anyone tried anything truly bad, and- and it's even been a few weeks since the last of the rumours died down. If someone was upset about my dynamic, they've had plenty of time to make it known before now - I've been Quartermaster for six months! They'd have no reason to wait this long!"
"Which leaves us with someone else" M said, "Someone outside the agency… You make any new enemies lately?"
"Oh sure! Why, just last week, I grabbed the last box of Twinings in my local Tesco and the woman I beat to it was very upset-"
"Q".
From behind him, he heard Edie muffle a snort - whereas Duncan did nothing to hide his.
"No sir" he bit out, "Aside from our usual day-to-day villainy, there's been no one who has it out for me".
"Could a stranger do this?" Bill cautiously asked, "It feels like far too much work for it not to be personal on some level-"
"It doesn't matter who fucking did it!" Duncan snapped, "Not yet, anyway. What matters is how they fucking did it".
Mallory gave the man a rather disparaging look for his language but entertained the thought all the same.
"If it wasn't someone from inside the agency, then how did they know your schedule?"
"I don't have a schedule" Q said simply with a shrug, "I keep rather… strange hours, being perfectly honest, and I rarely ever walk or cycle home using the same route. I'd also like to think that if someone was following me, then I'd notice them".
"So it's not impossible that someone's been watching you, but it's also not very likely".
"It's still our most likely possibility" Bill countered, "But - forgive me for saying this, Q - if this is a recent development, then there is a chance that you wouldn't have noticed them yet. They might have planned out everything else first, and then started following you only in the past few days or so".
The beta didn't exactly look at him when he said this, but there was something in his way of not-looking that clued Q into what he was really saying.
He hadn't exactly been at his best this past week, after all, so it was entirely possible that he hadn't noticed someone following him.
Which, you know, was a great theory and all, except for the fact that-
"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary this weekend?" M asked.
-that Q hadn't even been at home this weekend.
Fuck.
"... Anything out of the ordinary, sir?"
He desperately hoped that his voice sounded level.
"Yes. Someone hanging around your flat that you've never seen before, for example, or… I don't know, something that you thought was strange at the moment but then dismissed. You were off sick on Monday too - did anything stand out to you over those three days?"
Fuck.
"I… uh… I was… that is to say, that… well… You see, sir, I was, uh…"
The double-0s were tellingly silent behind him, the absolute traitors.
"I… wasn't… really… at… home?" He cringed. "At all? This... weekend?"
"... This weekend?"
"Yes sir".
"All weekend?"
"Yes sir".
He could feel the man's sharp blue eyes burning into him, but he studiously avoided his gaze.
"You mean to tell me, that you weren't at home on Monday?"
"No sir".
"You were off sick, but you weren't at home?"
"No sir".
"Care to explain, Quartermaster?"
"... No sir?"
From behind him, there came a barely muffled snort, but M was anything but amused.
"Try again".
Q vaguely remembered his conversation with Bill only the day before and how the man had told him things like this always had a way of getting out. He only wished that the man hadn't been so bloody right.
"I… was… with the, uh… with the double-0s, sir".
"... The double-0s?"
"Yes sir".
"Which of the double-0s?"
"... All of them?"
M looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry - like a computer screen that had started to glitch and the omega had to quickly bite a somewhat hysterical laugh at the mental image of switching the Head of MI6 off and then back on again.
"Do you mean to tell me that you spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with all nine double-0s?!"
"... Yes sir".
"Doing what?!"
Q heard Duncan take a step closer and mentally cursed at the inevitable subordination that was about to happen.
"Doing none of your fucking business! He was with us, and that's all you need to fucking know!"
"003-"
"I don't give a fuck about what you want to know, Mallory, that's all you're getting!"
Oh christ, he was going himself shot, wasn't he?
"Sir, the point is, I wasn't at home" he quickly interrupted, "I was sick, I promise; I wasn't lying about that, and the double-0s… helped me through it. So I was with them this weekend, and I wasn't in any position to notice if someone weird was lurking around outside my flat".
"... What kind of sick?"
There was a beat of silence.
"... Sir?"
"I'm not an idiot, Q, no matter what your guard dogs seem to think. If you had the flu, you would've called in yourself. Instead, my secretary informed me about your sudden, mysterious illness that apparently extended to the entire double-0 sector too!" M took a deep breath in an effort to calm down. "Now. I'm not saying that you're lying, because I don't believe you are. I presume that something happened that caused you to be… out of action, as such, for a few days, but I do not believe that it was as simple as a bad cold! You may have done your best to hide it, Quartermaster, but I'm as much of a fool as I am blind and I saw the fresh bruises you were sporting on Tuesday morning. So I will ask you this only once. What happened?"
Q swallowed thickly, briefly glancing around the room for help that he knew wasn't coming.
Best to rip it off like a bandaid then.
"Hans Mortner cornered me in a nightclub bathroom with less than honourable intentions and he compelled me to obey him before the double-0s broke in and killed him and then dissolved his body in flesh eating acid so I had the worst drop I've experienced in years and went home with the double-0s so that they could make sure I wouldn't end up scratching my own skin off" he blurted, "... Sir".
There was a long painfully silent pause.
"... I don't even know where to begin".
"Uh, sir" Bill started, leaning forwards, "If I may-"
"No, you absolutely may not!" he interrupted, and then, as if hit by a sudden revelation, he turned to the man. "Did you know about this?"
"I… didn't… not… know about this".
"Do I have a stamp on my forehead labelling me a simpleton?!" M snarled, slamming his hands on the desk as he suddenly stood, "Or is my entire bloody organisation just incapable of telling me the fucking truth?!"
Q couldn't help it - he flinched, and immediately three vicious snarls reverberated throughout the room as each and every single double-0 took a threatening step forwards.
M actually paled at that, but thankfully the sudden pang of fear managed to snap him out of his anger, and he collapsed back in his seat with a heavy sigh, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
After a long, tense moment, he spoke.
"Hans Mortner, you said?"
"... Yes sir".
"He attacked you? Compelled you?"
"Yes sir".
M slowly nodded before his gaze drifted over Q's head to his still-snarling bodyguards behind him.
"And you lot murdered him?" he asked, "And then dissolved his body in flesh-eating acid?!"
"It's the least that the fucking bastard deserved!"
Mallory shook his head before finally turning to face Bill.
"And just what was your role in all of this?"
"I, uh… I may have supplied the flesh-eating acid".
"... Does anyone in this organisation actually listen to me? No, seriously, I am genuinely asking if there is a single bloody double-0 who is even capable of pretending that I hold their leash?!"
"Milli".
Q snorted and then quickly tried to cover it up with a cough.
"What?"
"Milli" Duncan replied flatly, "If you want a good little agent who'll listen to what you fucking say, then you should talk to Milli. Other than that, let the rest of us do our fucking job".
"Your job is to follow orders!"
"Mmm, no, actually, it isn't". This time it was Alec who spoke. "Our job is to protect King and Country and we all decided long ago that the best way to do that is by protecting Q. Put simply, sir, if Q falls, England falls".
There was a beat of tense, deafening silence.
"... I didn't train him to say that I swear".
M snorted but looked more resigned than amused.
"Doesn't make it any less true though, does it?"
He leaned back in his seat, briefly closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and thought. After one long minute, he looked back up.
"Okay. Here's what's going to happen" he said evenly, "Quartermaster, you are going to write up a detailed report on everything that happened yesterday evening. Mr Tanner, I need you to go down to HR and see if anyone is filing more complaints than usual. I know that we said it's unlikely to be anyone inside the agency, but I am not taking a chance on this. As for you-"
Here, his gaze cut across to the three double-0s who stared back at him, completely unabashed.
"-you lot are going to devise a protection detail for Q. I don't care how you do it and I don't care what it takes - he is not to be put in this position again, are we clear? As soon as you've formulated a plan, get 008 to deliver it since apparently, she's the only one who still respects my authority!"
"Uh, sir-"
"I wasn't finished" he cut off, "Quartermaster, I want you to analyse that surveillance system of yours. Find out how they bypassed the alarm, how they erased camera footage, and how the bloody hell they even got in to begin with. We need to keep this quiet, for now, so if you absolutely must get help, choose one or two of your most trusted employees and no one else! Find out how your system was compromised and ensure that it doesn't happen again".
"Yes sir" he agreed because- well, he'd gotten off pretty lightly, hadn't he?
"And as for the issue of someone knowing your schedule, we'll have to investigate that separately. Bill, I'll leave that up to you. Work with our internal security team to track any irregularities in surveillance footage around the Quartermaster's residence. I want to know who was watching the place by the end of this week".
Bill gave a brisk nod.
"And finally". M turned back to the double-0s. "I don't want any unauthorised access to this case. If anyone gets in the way, there will be consequences… Now get out".
Q quickly stood to leave with the rest of them, but before he could, Mallory spoke once more.
"Not you, Quartermaster. I'd like to have a private word".
The double-0s immediately halted.
"I said a private word, agents!"
They held their ground until Q himself gave them a look and nodded at the door. A second or two later, after many more looks, the trio reluctantly followed Bill out of the room.
M waited until the door shut soundly behind them before sighing heavily and turning back to him.
"Given what just happened, I believe that I already know the answer, but I still feel like I have to ask". He suddenly pinned him in place with a far too serious gaze. "Do the double-0s have anything on you?"
Q blinked, frowned, and then blinked again. "... Sir?"
"Are they holding anything over you?" Mallory pressed, "If a single one of them is making you say or do anything that you don't want to-"
"Wait, what?! No! No! Sir, really, that's just- No!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!" he all but shouted, "Good god! The double-0s aren't- There isn't anything- They're not-"
He forced himself to stop and took a deep, calming breath.
"The double-0s are not making me do or say anything, sir, I promise. They're just… a bunch of overprotective idiots who have no bloody idea what personal boundaries are! That's it, I swear!"
He slowly nodded, once more leaning back in his seat.
"... And you spent this weekend with them?"
"Yes sir".
"Where?"
"... At 006 and 007's flat, sir".
"Willingly?"
"Yes!"
"... Alright" M finally replied, "And you're… okay, now? Better than before? They… helped you?"
Oh sweet Merlin, if only the ground could open up and swallow him whole.
"Yes sir" Q said, very carefully staring at a spot over the man's shoulder instead of meeting his gaze, "It was… a rather unpleasant situation to say the least, but… the double-0s helped. I honestly don't know what I'd have done without them".
"Okay. I believe you… but if that situation changes, if they ever try to take advantage or-"
"I'll tell you" he quickly interrupted, heat rushing to his cheeks, "I promise".
"Good". M nodded, once. "Well, in that case, Quartermaster, you are dismissed. Do try to keep the beasts in line, won't you?"