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At seven, Q learns that chalkboard instruction is not difficult to follow, trees are not blurry, and glasses are not very fashionable in the esteem of his fellow children. It’s just as well, as neither are the rest of his clothes. Showing "exceptional academic aptitude," he is shuttled to a prestigious private academy with a standard uniform by the next year regardless. The glasses come with him. Each day, they become a more permanent fixture of his sense of self, and he finds amusement in pushing them up and down the bridge of his nose, marveling at the two-fold clarity and obscurity of the world.
At nine, Q learns it is dangerous to get attached. He outgrows his glasses faster than he can rightly become fond of them, and he never breaks them, excepting one occasion when they were broken for him. He isn’t terribly upset by this in the aftermath; red isn’t his color, as it turns out, but it looks quite satisfying on the mouth of the boy who had smashed them.
At fourteen, Q learns to appreciate the different styles of glasses. The way certain frames—colors, models, and sizes—can complement the face. In a frantic attempt to seem grown already, he abandons childish bright colors in favor of shades of black, gold, and tan. He also learns, regrettably, that no slender boy with unruly dark hair and green eyes can get away with wearing round glasses in England. It simply isn’t to be done.
At sixteen, Q learns he still has things to learn about glasses, like if it is better or more polite to take them off before kissing. If they will get in the way and be awkward. He does not properly find out in earnest for another year.
At nineteen, his unassisted vision has become truly abominable, and Q learns of the dangers of owning both dark glasses and dark furniture simultaneously.
Q decides, over a decade later, that if he could learn these things as a mere child, then at forty-nine, James Bond can learn not to be a giant, sulking toddler just once.
Predictably, 007 comes to stand elbow-to-elbow with him in the sanctity of his workshop; Q judges it best if this happens without hosting the entirety of Q-branch as an audience. Bond has barely uttered a greeting before he eyes the discreet black box next to Q’s keyboard.
Bond always expects something as flashy and dangerous as himself.
While Bond rummages through his newest toy box, Q continues setting up the surveillance for the man’s upcoming rampage into Borneo.
The Walther is the same as ever. As much as Q enjoys the thrill of improvements, he knows their limitations and the value of a familiar gun, when the weight and grip are second nature and as natural as a limb. Too much modification, and she becomes a new date. A stranger, with all the awkward, getting-to-know-you baggage that comes with new people and new weaponry. Sometimes, old friends are the most reliable.
The tie-clip Bond frowns over until he finds the sliding mechanism on its edge. He at least has the courtesy to check Q’s gaze and affirm that it won’t blow them both to hell if he presses it, and when Q doesn’t snatch it from him like a toddler eating pennies, Bond releases the micro-blade from the tie clip.
The agent frowns more, if possible.
“Don’t think I could kill a mouse with this,” he complains.
Q does not look away from his screens. “Are mice of particular concern on this mission? We may have gotten different briefings.” When Bond’s silence presses him, Q adds, “Nick yourself with that, and you’ll be paralyzed for four hours. So, don’t.”
He's pleased by how carefully Bond moves then, as the blade draws back into the clip, but to his credit, Q does not smile. Instead, he plucks the now harmless tie clip from the agent’s fingers and makes short work of removing Bond’s current one. Q fashions his own in its place, with its extra fastenings to endure the sort of running, jumping, climbing, paragliding nonsense that Bond excels at. Q straightens the tie until it is as smooth and sharp as the rest of the man. He does not miss Bond's smirk at being tended to, but he pretends he does, just as they always do.
Bond picks the watch out next, which requires some explanation. The dial needs to be set just-so to access the digital interface necessary to lockpick the security system Bond will encounter, and Q has made it a tad complicated, so naturally Bond picks it all up before he even finishes speaking. Q tries to feel bitter about this rather than impressed. Bond gets too much of that in his travels, and it won’t do to have him going around sponging it up here, too.
The agent has been given capture alive orders for this mission. If Q were not so well-acquainted with bureaucracy, he would swear the administration has a sense of humor. It's rather like sending a cat to fetch a rat while expecting its innards to still be in tact. Regardless, Q has tried to offer Bond some options in terms of stealth and non-lethality; at the very least, perhaps Q’s items will be so under-utilized, they will actually be returned to him this time.
“What are these then?” Bond asks, picking up the glasses and turning them around.
“Glasses,” Q offers.
Bond puts them on and looks Q over. “Not X-ray,” he says, disappointment unmasked.
“Equipping you with X-ray vision seems a redundancy, and I have a budget,” Q points out, absentmindedly hacking into a Russian satellite. “It’s an ophthalmic device.”
Q senses the stirrings of hope even without looking at Bond. He almost feels bad as he smirks at the lines of code on his monitor.
“Which means?”
“It corrects vision problems.”
Bond tosses them onto the desk, as if these glasses are the real poisonous equipment in his kit.
“What am I to do with a pair of reading glasses?"
Q refrains, with great self-control, from asking Bond if he can read. It’s low-hanging fruit, and Q is better than that, at least where outward appearances are concerned.
“My vision's 20/20. Look at my file,” Bond adds.
“Or I could look at the security footage of you flirting with the optometrist. Honestly, 007, you squint at your watch too long and hold your phone a certain distance from your face,” Q informs, steady as any other mission brief. “Much of my tech is designed to be small and discreet, with the march of time making it ever more small and ever more discreet. I am not bumping up any font sizes on your account.”
Bond’s lip curls as Q double-checks the glasses have not been damaged, then offers them to him again.
“Do you not like the frames? I did pick them out specifically for you.”
Bond says nothing. He’s glaring at Q like an enemy, but he’s not shouting at him either.
Carefully, Q slides the glasses onto Bond’s face, surprised that he receives no animal-quick reaction or stroppy admonishment. Not even a grumble. The spectacles settle into place and Q steps back to judge his work.
He realizes, immediately, that this was a tactical misstep.
Because of course Bond looks good in glasses, and of course even Q’s largely controversial taste in fashion would fail to make a bespectacled Bond any less the stunning, sharp-dressed, peculiarly attractive man that he is.
It’s nearly upsetting.
Bond’s arms cross, his gaze souring behind the corrective lenses.
“Do I look like a schoolteacher?” Bond demands, very seriously.
“No,” Q answers, equally serious as he straightens the man’s jacket, “You would have certainly made headmaster by this age—" The man is already trying to claw the glasses from his face a second time, only to be stopped by Q’s hand around his wrist. “Moreover, I think you’ll find glasses can be a surprisingly useful tool in the field, when utilized appropriately.”
“In case I need to stop and do a bit of light reading on how to kill someone.”
“There are multiple ways to be disarming, 007, not all of them so brutish as breaking a wrist. You know that,” Q says.
“If my target fancies headmasters, maybe."
“Have you caught a case of modesty, Bond? I didn’t put that in your kit.”
The silence that follows is less than comfortable. Q thinks he is allowing Bond’s perpetual mid-life crisis space, some room to breathe and settle. Then, he realizes the man is looking at him. And Bond cannot possibly just look at someone with polite interest, no, that would be far too pedestrian for a man like this, who is scrutinizing Q behind those glasses. He doesn’t even try to hide it. It’s little offensive, really, since Q knows he can hide it if he so chooses.
Bond has gotten closer, mysteriously, as Q hasn’t noticed him take any steps. “Then show me,” Bond says.
“Pardon?” Q scoffs. “This is your expertise, not mine, I was merely pointing out—”
“Show me,” 007 interrupts again, and Q finds his dry wit has suddenly dried out and grown brittle. Bond is standing too close to him, and he’s smirking that dangerous smirk, and he either looks nothing like a headmaster or everything like one, because Q feels rather like he’s in a good amount of trouble now.
He becomes hyper-aware of his patterned jumper and mulberry-colored shoes, talking about something he knows nothing about. He flees back to the screens.
“Apologies, 007, but some of us have work to do that doesn’t involve flirtation. Unless, of course, you count what I’m doing with this security system, though that’s gone well beyond flirtation and into things more unspeakable—" The dense text on the screen blurs suddenly, becomes indecipherable, more hieroglyphs than letters. Bond drops Q’s stolen glasses on the keyboard in front of him.
Q sits still, processing, considering the glasses still well within his reach. He does not take them. He sighs, chair swiveling toward the stubborn agent and his disregard for everyone’s personal space and comfort. Q studies the tops of Bond’s out-of-focus shoes.
“You’ll realize, being the expert you are, it hardly works unless—”
The words hang on his lips. Bond’s calloused fingers touch his jaw, tilt his head up with no urgency. It’s easier for Q because he can’t see him. His judgment, his admiration, his ridicule. Whatever it is, the small details where such emotions would reside are all fog. Impressionist. He cannot say at all what Bond thinks, and he tries very hard to tell himself that it doesn’t matter.
(It does, of course it does, because he’s an absolute fool, and he’s somehow inadvertently contributed to Bond’s already numerous and unfair strengths, like some terrible science experiment gone awry—a mistaken overdose of raw attraction made possible by a pair of stupidly expensive frames. Damn him, damn him.)
Q is drawn to standing, Bond’s hands guiding him like a tactful puppeteer.
He barely knows himself what he looks like without glasses. Unless he leans very close in the mirror, the details are all lost. Younger, he imagines, which is annoying. His eyes have more color to them, probably, and the true shape of his face is evident without distortion. A bland assessment, in Q’s opinion.
But the silence is long and weighty. It aches over them. Bond scrubs a thumb against his skin, traces a line up to his cheek bone. The approval jolts through him like a spark.
“Consider me disarmed,” Bond says, the words barely a mutter. Q doesn’t need glasses to know Bond has another gun and at least two knives on his person. He thinks better of rejoining with such an observation.
“Right, well—” he clears his throat, tries to put distance between them where there isn’t any, “Does this mean you’re persuaded to the benefits of being able to see?”
“I’m coming around to the idea.” The details that are James Bond begin to slide back into focus, because he is too close now, much too close, leaning in until Q is aware of aftershave and body heat and the rustle of expensive business attire. “It does have its advantages, doesn’t it? Being able to see quite close. Every fine detail—" And where Bond could not see up close, Q could not see far away, and like this—everything switched, topsy-turvy—they are drawn to meet in the middle, where there is no sensible thing left to do but drift nearer and nearer, until sight is quite useless altogether, and Q is compelled to close his useless eyes—
His hand lands softly on Bond’s chest.
“If you kiss me at work, 007,” Q breathes, “in some desperate attempt to reaffirm your youth and worth, I will bury you in so much paperwork, you will weep with gratitude for those glasses and be forced to upgrade your prescription sooner than expected.” They are so close, Q swears he feels the other man’s smile.
Bond sighs and leans back against the workstation, hands slinking to his pockets where they might better behave. Q takes his glasses again and tries to straighten his clothes and thoughts simultaneously. He is not sure what to say. Perhaps some. . .invitation, some hint that maybe after work, when they are not in Q's workshop, when Bond is not about to leap across the world to reap destruction, when things are convenient, which they never are, when it's not all so out of focus—
But then,
“Reading glasses,” Bond is saying, still, like the giant sulking toddler that he is. It’s a gravity other people might have given a death sentence. Q smiles. The glasses have stayed on for over five minutes now, he tells himself. It’s a victory.
Bond can face death, like all double-ohs, but Q knows he bristles ever-so-easily at the encroaching threat of uselessness. Bristliness, though, Q knows how to handle far better than anything else Bond has offered him. It is sharp and familiar. A territory he needs no assistance to navigate. He sees this side of their relationship, clear and close-up, while the other half remains shrouded. He feels seven again.
Bond still looks unfairly attractive in those glasses, and Q feels a petulant urge to make him pay for it all.
“Look at it this way,” Q is saying, with renewed levity, “I’ve yet to pull the blueprints for the cane, for when the knee finally goes.”
“You used to be afraid of me,” Bond reminds, in a crotchety grumble.
“Yes, well,” Q mumbles, calculating the number of seconds between himself and the door, “You used to be able to out-run me.”
If anyone in Q-branch notices the squeak of shoes or the fluttering of papers as two grown men go barreling through their midst, none of them bother to look up.