Work Text:
James meets Harry for the first time on the side of a thirty-storey building in Abu Dhabi, and to be honest, it’s starry-eyed admiration and green envy from first sight. Elegant suit—Bond’s is more modern, slightly more fashionable—wit dryer than a good martini, and there’s something feral in that refined grin when they recognise the animals in each other’s skins that makes him immediately likeable. Bond would offer his hand if they weren’t clinging to this windy ledge; as soon as they’ve landed on the carpet inside, he does. Then he takes Harry’s glass cutter—it looks like a typical Savile Row tie pin—and runs covetous hands over it.
“It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?” Harry asks.
“Gorgeous,” Bond agrees. “Can I—? My tech could replicate it, I’m sure.”
Harry looks apologetic. “Sorry, no. I would, you know, but ours gets tetchy over having his designs copied.”
“Understandable. Think no more of it,” Bond agrees reluctantly. In the interests of friendship, he doesn’t even try to pocket the pin when they leave, though he does take with him the shape of a new holster that will melt into the hollow of his armpit. It’s fair enough.
::
He’s doing his best not to pout at the wholly underwhelming tech kit, and Q is having none of it.
“I wasn’t aware explosives were considered essential tech, Double-oh Seven,” Q says dryly. “In fact, considering the delicate nature of this mission, one might think to find them rather unhelpful, really.”
“You say that and now I’ll need them, of course,” Bond replies sullenly.
“You’ll manage.”
And so, of course, he finds himself caught out, trapped between two mobs of terrorists and a cement wall. There’s the rattle of a carabiner, the hiss of rope sliding through a rappelling harness’s rings, then the quiet patting sound of leather tapping to the ground.
“James, lovely to see you again.”
“Galahad.”
“I told you: Harry, please. What brings you to sunny Hanam?” Harry asks. He lifts a beautiful silver cigarette case from his breast pocket, offering Bond one before tucking one into his own lip.
“Ta.” Because of course the lovely gold cigarette lighter is explosive. Of course it is, with its delicately engraved body and elegant, classic finish. Of course, because this is Bond’s life. “That’s pretty,” Bond says mildly.
“Merlin the Magician,” Harry agrees.
“Standard issue?” Bond asks, fishing in his pocket for matches. Harry pitches the lighter at the wall, then leans into Bond’s match where he holds it cupped against the blast. The cigarettes even stay lit as their jackets whip in the wind. “And stay-lit paper.” It’s hard to keep the open envy from his voice.
“Quite useful.”
“Quite.” Bond’s voice is dry.
::
“Harry gets one,” Bond says, and it’s not quite whinging but it’s close. Q rolls his eyes.
“Harry,” Q repeats, uninterested. “From accounting?”
“Other agencies equip their agents better.”
For a moment, Q is silent and Bond wonders if he’s actually offended him. Then Q rubs his eyes, yawning. “Still banging that old drum, Bond? Sorry, life at home hasn’t been quite conducive to sleep lately.”
“New baby?” Bond asks, curious enough to be distracted from his prize a moment.
“Don’t be daft.”
“Trouble with the Missus, then,” Bond asserts confidently.
Q stares at him. Finally: “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. The Mister and I are doing just fine, thanks.”
“Then—?” Bond presses, at least as much for the annoyed flush forming on Q’s cheeks as a genuine interest in his Quartermaster’s private life. Q goes quite pink.
“The Mister and I are doing just fine, Mr. Bond,” he repeats primly.
It takes a second for Q’s meaning to sink in, and when it does, Bond’s wolfish grin makes Q go smug. “Well!” Bond says. “Congratulations, then.”
“A job well done is its own reward,” Q tells him, ducking back into his computer screen. Bond whistles, and Q’s blush creeps over the tops of his ears.
“Cheeky.”
Q’s face is nearly glowing now. “Anything else I can do for you, Double-oh Seven?”
“It was a hand grenade,” Bond repeats readily.
“Anything other than that I can help with, Bond?”
“Gold-plated. Engraved.”
“Go away, you menace.”
::
“He died.” This new Galahad is younger, gruffer, with a charming violence in him that echoes his predecessor. His eyes are like a wounded animal’s.
“Pity. He was a good man,” Bond tells him honestly.
“Yeah?” Galahad is terse, though whether that’s sentiment or exhaustion, Bond can’t be sure. They’re ringed by corpses, some still hissing green poison from the slashes in their flesh, and Galahad’s fist is still clenched around the shredded remains of what was once a lovely oxford shoe, a three centimetre blade still jutting rudely from the sole. He’s trembling slightly—adrenaline.
Bond stops him with a hand, stretching out a cigarette as a peace offering. “He was. Harry was a good man, and a great agent.”
“Yeah,” Galahad says, softer. The tension leaks out of his frame, replaced with an idle cockiness, and Bond watches as he pulls out a fountain pen to flip between his fingers, distracted and pensive.
“Galahad—” Bond starts.
“Eggsy.”
Eggsy. He smiles, and Eggsy’s smile back is crooked. “James Bond,” he offers, shaking Eggsy’s hand.
“Yeah, you said.” Eggsy’s voice is steady now, injury shoved deep and confidence seeping back in. He’ll be a remarkable agent, too.
“Some things bear repeating.”
“—so your geezer doesn’t give you anything like this?” Eggsy asks, waving his shoe. Bond tuts.
::
It’s not a full-blown snit, but even Bond can recognise the inherent five-year-old in his behavior. Q barely seems to notice, instead enjoying the silent treatment as Bond grows dangerously close to a tantrum.
“It dissolved their veins. Their veins! Dissolved them!” Bond repeats emphatically.
Q doesn’t even glance up. “Duly noted.”
“I want it. I want one.”
“No.”
“I will defect,” Bond threatens, a trump card he’s been holding for the last resort; Q’s eyes shoot to him finally, startled.
“Over a pen?”
“Galahad was impressed by my skills on our last joint venture,” Bond says smugly.
Q’s snort is slightly disheartening. “Galahad is twenty-four and thinks Jack Bauer is ‘proper cool.’ Ask him about his dog sometime.”
“Is he really?” The thought surprises Bond, knocks him off course for a second. “So young? That’s a bit impressive. Why didn’t we pull him in?”
“When he dropped out of the Navy, we closed our files on him,” Q says, turning back to his mobile. “He fell through the cracks.”
“He dropped out of the Navy? I suppose I’ll try not to hold his against him,” Bond hums. “But how do you know all this?”
The look Q gives him is gently patronising. “It’s my responsibility to know things, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Bond agrees.
“Well,” Q says decisively.
“I still want one.”
“Tough.”
“Eggsy called you a geezer,” Bond tells him, a childish taunt intended to mildly annoy. Instead, Q looks wounded.
“What!” He looks like he’s been smacked. “That brat! I always thought he liked me well enough.”
“You know him?” Bond asks, surprised.
“He’s due at the house for supper on Sunday!”
A thought catches in Bond’s mind—“Your Mister?” If he’s got the boy in trouble with his partner—
“No,” Q corrects him promptly. “Absolutely not. Eurgh, for that matter. Not my type at all.”
“Well,” Bond says. “Just checking.”
Q sighs. “Since you seem bound and determined to shatter my work-life balance, come to dinner Sunday. Consider it your one chance to snoop to your heart’s content.”
“Are you cooking?”
“Don’t push your luck, Bond.”
::
Q’s home is a tidy little house not far from Whitechapel tube station; from the outside it looks simple enough, but the retina scanner just beyond the street door says otherwise.
“Don’t look in the scanner, Bond, unless you want to be blinded. Buzz the bloody door like a proper guest, you heathen.” Q sounds peevish and tinny over the speaker, and there’s a droning hum before the lock disengages with a heavy clunk.
There’s a man nearly Bond’s own age standing in the doorway; as Bond gawps at him, he dries his hands on his apron and steps to the side. When he speaks, it’s with a thick Scottish brogue: “Come on in, then, or himself will electrocute you for lingering on the step.”
Q would. It’s this thought that jolts him again, and Bond follows him into the house closely, too stunned to take in much of the admittedly lovely mid-century furnishings. This man isn’t the young thing he’d expected Q to have taken up with; he’s sturdy and quiet, with intelligent eyes. If nothing else, he reminds him of Q in twenty years, and that feels odd until they meet Q in the kitchen and the man ducks to press a kiss to the edge of Q’s mouth.
“Take it back now or I’ll burn it,” Q says, shoving a dripping whisk at the man, and the man just laughs.
“It was only five minutes,” he says, and Bond can hear the obvious affection between them. Q has a partner—an actual partner—and Bond feels the same dissonance at discovering your schoolteacher is getting married or that an older sibling is having a child.
“Burned. Irreparably.” Q is flirting. Bond has to put a hand on the wall to steady himself.
“Why don’t you go sit with Eggsy and wait,” Q’s Mister says, and Bond follows numbly as he’s guided to the sitting room.
Gone are the fancy clothes, and at first glance he’s not sure it’s the same young man at all. Then Eggsy’s eyes go wide with recognition; he turns between Q and Bond almost comically before leaning back against the arm of the sofa. “You’re his governor!” Eggsy blurts out. “The one who won’t give him nothing! I know it; you are.” From the kitchen, there’s a bright peal of laughter, and Q scowls.
“I give him exactly as much tech as he needs, and no flashy gadgets. They’re overrated,” Q says with a sniff. “I can hear you pouting in there, Merlin,” he adds, and the name clicks with the face: Q’s Mister is Galahad’s Magic Merlin.
Dinner turns out to be a lovely roast, as traditional and timeless as Bond could expect from what he knows about his hosts now. After, Q henpecks Eggsy into helping with the dishes—“A geezer, am I?”—and Bond is helping Merlin tuck away the extra leaf for the table, storing it and the spare chairs in one of the cupboards, when Merlin puts a finger to his lips and gestures for Bond to follow.
He worries for a moment when Merlin guides him to a door down the hall, but when it’s opened, it reveals a tidy workshop. Bond recognises projects on the bench—LED lights in the process of being wired to a hand grip, a distress signal not dissimilar to the one he’d taken on his last trip to Panama—but others are foreign, almost exotic—blowdarts lying next to a bottle with warnings in three different languages, a gentleman’s chain with thin wires coming from within its links. He gravitates toward that side of the room and Merlin’s eyes twinkle.
“We just won’t tell him, right?” Merlin says, producing a small velvet box with a flourish. Bond snaps it open to reveal a simple pair of cufflinks stamped with lion and unicorn, emblems of the crown. Merlin stifles a laugh at Bond’s eager look. “Does a bit more than your usual armament, I think—emergency flares. Take them off and twist off the stem; they’ll stay lit without heat for eighteen hours.”
Some of his disappointment must show, then. “I don’t dare give you a weapon,” Merlin tells him apologetically. “He’d string me up.”
“He might very well, anyway.” Q’s voice is dry from the doorway; Bond tries to school his expression to innocence. The look Q shoots him shows just how much he believes that. “You can stop with the puppy eyes, the both of you. It was a damned mistake to introduce you two.”
He’s probably right. “Are you joking?” Bond says. “Merlin’s going to be my new best friend!”