Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I.

In James' broad experience with life to date, something was usually about to become an utter disaster if 006 became excited about it.

"I don't see how this is anything new," James said, pointedly disinterested and pretending to read one of the reports on his desk, "New Ms always bring in their own personal staff."

"Weren't you listening?" Alec frowned at him from where he was slumped into a spare chair, pulled up opposite James' desk, "He didn't bring any personal staff. He brought a new Q-branch. Got rid of the existing one."

James blinked. Q-branch had been a shadow of its former self after the retirement of Major Boothroyd, the previous Q who had been a fixture in MI6 for as long as anyone could remember, but- "That seems drastic."

"And all of the new members of Q-branch look as though they'd possibly only just graduated from University, if at all," Alec added, "Moneypenny said that they're mainly a team of hackers."

"You're addicted to gossip, Alec."

"The new Q," Alec continued, ignoring James, "Is gorgeous."

"Ah." Suddenly, Alec's enthusiasm was beginning to make sense. "If he's your type, that means he has to be young, dark-haired, pretty and utterly disinterested."

"I like a challenge."

"If you can't recognise the sheer inadvisability of sleeping with the Quartermaster on your own, then I'm not going to bother trying to point it out to you." Staying on the old Q's good side had always been good for survival. At best, it determined which 00 was assigned the latest, gorgeous outfitted sports cars; at worst, it ensured that field equipment always worked as it was meant to, without any 'hilarious' side effects. The old Q had a dark sense of humour sometimes.

"You're a pessimist. It'll age you before your time," Alec retorted, rising up from his chair. "I'm going to ask him out for dinner."

"Good luck."

"Oh," Alec added, as an afterthought from the doorway, "M wanted to speak to you."

Bastard. "And you tell me this now?"

James was sweating a little by the time he came to a stop outside M's office, and Moneypenny arched an eyebrow at him over at her desk. "You're late."

"006," James stated, by way of explanation, and Moneypenny's lips curled briefly as she turned to her laptop.

"Go in. M's waiting."

The new M wasn't quite what James was expecting. He'd seen the circulated photograph in the official notice, certainly, but the composed portrait hadn't managed to convey anything about M at all - not the catlike poise, the calculating eyes, the smile like the edge of a knife, sleek and handsome like a panther, waiting for a chance to strike. The new M, James recalled, as M waved him to a seat, was the first 00 to have ever survived to the mandatory retirement age; he supposed that the new rank had probably been inevitable.

"Ah, 007." M settled into his chair with the same, neat elegant poise.

"M."

"I have missed London," M noted, with an ironic glance towards the window; gray clouds and a chill fog blanketed the view, in London's traditional autumn smock.

"Hong Kong must have agreed with you."

"Ten years is enough to stay in one place at any one time, even if it is Hong Kong," M lifted a shoulder into a shrug. "But it is an interesting place. More exciting. You've been there, I think."

"Only on business."

"Ah, yes," M noted, with the studied neutrality of someone who had most certainly read all the 00s' personnel files. "Scotch?"

"No, thank you." James had never particularly enjoyed small talk, especially during downtime, and the previous M had been all business.

"Pity. I have a good Macallan." M pulled out a bottle and a glass from the cabinet behind him, pouring himself a generous shot. "A good year. 1979. I heard it was one of your favourites."

"Not while I'm working."

"You don't mix business with pleasure?" M's lazy smirk was a little unsettling, and James frowned slightly.

"Not unless it creates an opportunity."

"Always focused on the mission, I see. That's good." M tipped back a sip, a pink tongue curling lightly over the rim of the glass. "But it's a cold way to live."

"It's the only way to live," James corrected, a little confused now, "You used to be a 00 yourself. Sir."

M's laugh was startling, a rich bark that never reached his eyes; half feigned, James thought, half played. He felt like he was being circled by a predator, assessed, and he wasn't sure whether he liked it. The previous M had been an accountant, treating the 00s as the dangerous assets that they were to MI6; this one, though-

"I never lived that way. Too... boring. Life is short. It is meant to be enjoyed."

"I'll bear that in mind, sir," James noted politely, wondering how to extract himself from the conversation. "Did you have a mission for me?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted to see how the 00 division was going," M drawled. "And until you, I was disappointed."

"The rest have their strengths," James said defensively. "002 is a crack shot with any rifle and-"

"Yes, yes, I know all that," M interrupted, with a dismissive wave of the hand holding the glass of scotch. "It is not anyone's fault. The 00 division is a little... anachronistic, I think. Much of the Great Game is played online now, with numbers. Destabilize a regime? Pouf, it can be done. Shore up a local economy? Even easier. Almost anything can be done with a computer."

"So why keep us around, sir?" James asked bluntly, narrowing his eyes, getting up when M did so, instinctively keeping his feet flat on the ground as the predator part of his hindbrain sensed its own dangerous kindred, even as M rounded the desk towards him.

"Ah, I'm sure that you still have your uses." James stiffened as M patted his shoulder lightly. "It was certainly good to meet you, James."

"Thank you, sir." James said warily, now that he was close enough to recognise the smoky gleam in M's eyes for what it was - avarice - and as much as his own curiosity stirred, logic kept his hands firmly to his sides. "Will that be all?"

"For now," M grinned lazily at him as he tipped back the glass, leaning against the desk. "Call in 008 for me, please."

1.0.

Tiago groaned as Q let himself into the room dressed in a new and startlingly offensive mustard-brown cardigan. "You are hurting my eyes."

"I know," Q said calmly, "Consider it self-defence."

"When have I ever been a threat to you?"

"When you're bored, you'll fuck anything that's remotely fashionable, regardless of whether it moves," Q retorted, unimpressed, "Did you want my report, or did you call me in here to waste my time?"

"I could send you back to Hong Kong."

"Oh yes, please send me back to Hong Kong, where the average tech level is higher, the weather's better and so's the food. See if I care."

"London's not so bad," Tiago temporised, all too aware that he was starting to sound plaintive, and Q sniffed.

"Name one way in which it's better than where we used to be."

"The pay?"

"Oh yes, the pay," Q drawled, with the deeply unimpressed tone of someone who could hack into any bank account he wanted in the world before finishing his first morning cup of tea.

"The company?"

"What?"

Tiago grinned. He had, in fact, been regretting his impulsive decision to uproot himself and his team from Hong Kong to accept the M posting in MI6, up until he met the existing 00 division. Sometimes it was nice to be circling around other predators for a while, exhilarating - he'd forgotten how that had felt in his long posting in Hong Kong as the only 00 assigned to the region.

And as for the most dangerous hound that worked for Her Majesty, the handsome Commander James Bond... bello.

Q was studying him closely, and then his face screwed up a little as he likely deduced what was on Tiago's mind, clever boy. "You mean that you like the local attack dogs? And here I was thinking that you'd possibly evolved beyond that stage."

"I like one of them."

"Which?"

"Guess."

Q's expression went distant for a moment, as his considerable brain calculated possibilities, and while Tiago waited, he poured himself a little more scotch, if just to avoid having to look at Q's awful sweater. After a while, Q said, mildly, "007 has simian features."

Tiago choked on the scotch. "He's not so bad."

"You have no taste whatsoever. Do you want to hear my report, or should I just email it to you?"

"006 has taken a shine to you."

"Oh, you mean the other blonde monkey," Q noted, unimpressed, and Tiago was briefly moved to feel a touch of sympathy for Alec Trevelyan, "Quite."

"Give me the report," Tiago conceded, amused. By all reports, as far as Tiago knew, if something wasn't electronic and/or made out of code, then Q wasn't interested in it, and 006's doomed pursuit might prove to be entertaining, if nothing else.

"The existing security system is horrific. We'll have to replace everything. The equipment, as well. Outfit the entire building, if possible. The previous Q-branch seemed far more interested in ridiculous gadgets like exploding pens and humorously trapped phone booths than anything remotely resembling useful modern technology. My team is doing a full inventory, but I suspect that we won't be keeping anything."

"You're going to use what you can get," Tiago disagreed. "Budgetary restraints."

Q stared at Tiago, wide-eyed and aggrieved, "We never had those in Hong Kong."

"Yes, well," Tiago pointed out mildly, "I only had to answer to M when we were there, and we were a long way off from any routine inspections. Arrangements could be made. Also, tech is cheap in Hong Kong. A little went a long way. Now I answer to the Minister, and Parliament, and they're rather less understanding."

"Let's go home," Q suggested, with just a hint of begging in his tone, "You can't expect me to run anything remotely useful from the wreck on that floor."

"We are home," Tiago noted dryly, "And you're going to have to make do, hm?"

" I can resign if I want to," Q growled. "Fire some of the 00s and shunt their considerable salaries into Q-branch. We'll be far more useful than they'll ever be, with a proper set up."

"Don't tempt me." Tiago relented a little. "I'll see what I can do. Get our rig flown over from Hong Kong, maybe."

"I suppose that would be acceptable," Q decided, after a moment's thought. "There were some luxury cars in the lab. We could sell those. Our old fit out is better than what we have here, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. It could do with some upgrades."

"They're usually for the 00s." Gorgeous, deadly cars had been one of the highlights of his 00 career.

Q eyed him flatly, "Yes, well, they'll only be getting practical equipment from now onwards. If you still refuse to come to your senses and take us home, I suppose I'll have to have a requisition list emailed to you by the evening."

"Get used to London, Benjamin."

"I'm beginning to think that the sole purpose of your existence is to ruin my life," Q said loftily, never above a touch of melodrama when surrounded by tech that wasn't cutting edge, and let himself out.

Tiago sighed, pouring himself more scotch. Maybe he should have gone rogue after all. Life would have been easier.

II.

Alec could be unbearably pathetic when things didn't go his way, which was why James found himself padding gingerly through the gutted Q-branch floor of the MI6 building, looking for its new master through the frantic reconstruction.

Q wasn't difficult to find - he was in what looked like a nest of computer monitors, towers and wiring, set up on a haphazard and temporary set of benches within a new cylindrical glass room, surrounded by other Q-branch employees who looked just as young or younger than he was. James shot the scrolling code on the screens a brief glance, then rapped his knuckles on the glass.

Q glanced up sharply, frowned, then reluctantly extricated himself from his seat, picking his way carefully out of the room, the door letting out a hiss when opened and shut. Pressure sealed, then.

"Sterile room," Q confirmed, when he padded up next to James. "What do you want, 007? You're not scheduled to pick up any equipment."

"Nice set up."

"It's clearly temporary," Q said, sounding annoyed at the observation, "My predecessor had a primitive idea of practical technology. We're still settling in."

"His equipment saved my life a few times."

Q sniffed, unimpressed. "With any luck, the incidence of unnecessarily desperate situations will be reduced. Possibly without having to send out a 00 in the first place."

James smiled, amused at Q's acerbic self-confidence. "I'll drink to that."

"I don't drink. Terrible habit. Impairs cognitive function." Q adjusted his glasses and stared at him, oddly distant for a moment, then he added, "Let's do a trade. I'll do what you want and go out for dinner with 006. In return, I want you to promise not to sleep with M."

Startled, James swallowed what he was about to say next and started coughing awkwardly. "I beg your pardon?"

"He was starting to regret his ill-thought decision to uproot us all to come here until he met you. Eventually, however, once he realizes that he can't have you, he'll grow bored and take us home to Hong Kong. Ergo, a trade."

"I wasn't going to sleep with him," James growled, with a quick glance around them to see if any of the workers had overheard.

"Of course you weren't," Q didn't seem particularly convinced. "I'll give you a hint. Each time you're summoned to his office or have to meet him, wear something awful. In fact, to be safe, just wear something awful all the time at work, just in case you run into him somewhere. It doesn't have to be overt. A tartan handkerchief, perhaps. Or a pink polka dot tie. Something. Paisley. Tie dye. Argyle. Plaid."

"I... what?" The conversation was becoming increasingly surreal, as far as James was concerned.

"You'll see. Try it. I think you'll even find his reaction amusing. I do."

"If all of you dislike London so much, why did he even agree to take up the posting?"

"Boredom?" Q lifted a shoulder. "He makes bad decisions when he's bored. I'm not sure. Either way, we don't want to be here."

"Then go," James pointed out dryly. "No one's stopping you. Let M stay here if he wants. You're a hacker, aren't you? Location can't be important for you as long as you have an internet connection and a good computer. Why do you need him?"

"You mean, you haven't noticed?"

James frowned at Q, then glanced belatedly back at Q's computer. Across the scrolling text, additional lines were still being fed in along with the other prompts, even though Q wasn't at his... "That's M's work?"

"He's better than all of us combined, I think, or close." Q said, clipped and matter-of-fact. "Do you think that we work for him because of the salary, when any of us could be millionaires with a few unnoticeable tweaks to the Swiss banking systems?"

"Well-"

"Stealing money from banks, that's child's play to M," Q continued, ignoring the interruption. "What we look to learn from him is how to use code to shake governments. Manipulate entire economies. Move the world itself. That's far more interesting than adding a few more zeroes to our bank accounts."

"That's..." James trailed off, grudgingly impressed, despite himself. He'd just thought that M was yet another retired field agent, seeking to carve out a niche at the top for himself until he grew too old to let himself into the MI6 offices.

"Quite." Q patted him absently on the arm. "You can tell 006 that I'll find him in his office after work hours, and I expect to be taken somewhere civilised, preferably Japanese. In the meantime, I hope that you'll uphold your end of the bargain."

"Plaid, did you say?" Alec was going to owe James a very big favour for this.

2.0.

"Did you say something to James?" Tiago demanded, when Q was showing him the new fitout to the armoury. The rest of Q-branch's floor was nearly complete, and the sterile room was no longer a tiny cylinder but a stretch across half the floor space, with a platform near a main console screen for Q. MANDALA winked at Tiago from across the floor, a whirling visual representation of code, already synched into the MI6 mainframe.

"Would I do that?"

"I think that you would." Tiago rubbed at his eyes. "Do you know what he was wearing today? An orange and blue speckled plaid tie!"

"Isn't orange in fashion now?" Q, Tiago noted, depressed, was wearing red striped Converse sneakers. Striped. "I'm reworking the security camera locations-"

"We're not leaving London, Benjamin."

"Yes, you've made that quite clear to me, Mister Rodriguez." Q picked up a sleek Walther PPK from the wall. "Here's our first prototype. Palm print sensor. Keyed to the user."

"It is hardly innovative, hm?"

Q glowered at him. "I don't have a budget to be innovative with."

"How was your date with 006?" Tiago asked snidely, by way of response, and had the pleasure of watching Q grimace, though he ignored him, turning instead to pick up something else in a box on the shelf.

"Distress signal. Wide frequency radio." Q held out a tiny silver chip.

Tiago rolled his eyes. "Oh, a radio. What a brilliant and modern idea."

"If I force it down your throat I think it would still kill you," Q mused out aloud, and out of habit, Tiago leered.

"There are better things to... a plastic watch? Did you have to?"

Q slid his cuff back over the pink monstrosity on his wrist as Tiago groaned, feeling a headache starting to creep back in. "Honestly, I'm surprised that none of the dictators you ever faced managed to blindside you with a slip of paisley."

"You're the only one who relentlessly takes advantage of my weaknesses." Tiago scowled, then amended, "Or, you used to be."

"Quite." Q even smirked a little, this time, hijo de puta. "How long can you hold out, M? Jumping hoops for all those ministers and bureaucrats? Working on other peoples' deadlines?"

"Get back to your workstation," Tiago growled, "We still have a situation in Gaza to defuse."

"Yes, sir," Q said mockingly, and Tiago glowered as Q sauntered back to his platform. He was going to revenge himself on the boy somehow.