Work Text:
It was an ordinary mission, was the thing. There was nothing unusual about it, in any way. The various attempts on Bond’s life were unremarkable; the resulting injuries mild enough that he’d have only a cursory stop in medical when he got home. The villain was dispatched with a middling amount of effort, and the collateral damage contained enough that it would only incite a small international incident: the British ambassador would be still summoned, but the bollocking would be half-hearted, and she would still make her afternoon meetings. Statistically speaking, the only anomalies were the below-average amount of seduction, and the above-average amount of Q Branch gear that would be making it home in one piece, but those averages had been slowly shifting of late, Q had noticed, though he hadn’t dared jinx it by commenting on it. The mission wasn’t overly long, so Q could hardly blame what happened on exhaustion, and the action had more than wound down by the time Bond was ready to board his plane, so it wasn’t an adrenaline hangover, either.
No, there was no conceivable excuse for it. Bond had prepared to sign off comms the way he always did—
“I’ll see you in London, Q.”
—and Q, only half paying attention, closing camera feeds, verifying flight paths, had responded—
“All right, 007. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
It wasn’t his worst nightmare, exactly, but it was up there. He signed off so many of his personal calls that way—with his foster mother, with his sister and his passel of niblings, with his best friends from uni. He’d even joked with Moneypenny a time or two that one day he was going to do it at work, out of habit. But he’d thought it would happen with her, or with Tanner, or—what he’d assumed at the time would be the worst-case scenario—on a budget call with M and the other department heads. Not on comms, in front of all of Q Branch. Not with Bond.
But then again, perhaps the determinative factor in accidentally telling someone you loved him was secretly loving him in the first place.
It was predictable, in its way—Q had even been warned against it at one point by an MI6 psychologist. She’d mentioned in passing that she thought there was a risk of transference between the agents and the people who ran their missions, much like there could be between a patient and a therapist. “You listen to them for hours,” she’d said. “And they listen to you. It’d be stranger if there wasn’t a connection. MI6 even encourages it, to an extent—it helps ward off the more antisocial tendencies of the agents.” She’d paused, then, looking at Q over her glasses. “Just be careful, is all. Some of the double ohs are more charismatic than others.”
Q didn’t think that was what happened with Bond, not exactly. But the long hours on comms certainly hadn’t helped. That was where Bond had first learned to respect him, to treat him as an equal, as Q walked him through missions, talking him through top-of-the-line security systems and around armed henchman, guiding him out of exploding buildings and labyrinthine cities. Ariadne, Bond had called him once, in those early days; the spinner of the golden thread that saved Theseus from the minotaur.
But Bond hadn’t made it easy. Inadvisable or no, he knew more about Q than anyone else alive. There had been enough close calls with hypothermia, with fevers, or with life-threatening injuries, where Q’s voice was the only thing keeping Bond anchored to the world, to safety, while he waited for an evacuation team to arrive. Whatever the price, then, Q would have paid it. He’d spilled his stories like gold coins from a cut purse.
And Bond had listened. Somehow, despite the haze of injury, or the stupor of an endless stakeout, Bond remembered what Q had told him. It wasn’t always apparent, right away. But Bond once brought back a box of tea from Russia weeks after Q mentioned that it had been his birth mother’s favorite. Another time, he left an illustrated edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on Q’s desk after Q had recounted the way a primary school bully had ripped Q’s treasured childhood copy to shreds on the bus. And maybe this was what the psychologist had warned about, after all. It hardly seemed possible not to love someone who knew all his secrets, who could chart so many of his hurts and his longings with the precision of an expert cartographer, and responded by treating them with tenderness.
Still, unlike Bond, Q remembered the rest of the myth of the minotaur and his labyrinth. Theseus had abandoned Ariadne, in the end, after she’d outlived her usefulness. Q had resolved not to repeat her mistakes.
And then he’d let his guard down for one idiotic moment, and told Bond he loved him anyway.
He hadn’t intended to go into hiding, afterward. Not exactly. He’d thought a little distance wouldn’t be amiss, is all. He’d ended the comms connection after his mistake, and made it through the rest of the work day and the start of the next with as much dignity as he could muster. It would pass, after all—one of the agents would seduce the wrong celebrity and end up splashed across the front page of The Sun, or one of the minions would get cocky and accidentally singe off their eyebrows again, and there’d be something new for MI6 to gossip about. Better not to feed the monster by showing that it bothered him.
Still, that didn’t mean he needed to be there when Bond got in. There was no reason to have that conversation in front of half a dozen technicians, his second-in-command, and an untold number of security cameras. Instead, Q worked through lunch, and then took the rest of Friday afternoon off. He sat in a park to read a book and eat a sandwich, then picked up fresh cut flowers at a local stall, and stopped off at the grocery store nearest to his apartment. He’d planned to make something special for dinner that night, to drown his sorrows in pasta and garlic bread and Humphrey Bogart films. To Have and Have Not, maybe, or The Maltese Falcon. He thought he might even bake, over the weekend. Something autumnal. Something that said, “I am an actual adult, and not the type of person who gets embarrassed by accidentally disclosing their unrequited love on an open line.” He wasn’t sure what sort of pastry said that, exactly, but he was sure one existed. A pie, perhaps.
“This is ridiculous, you know,” said a voice from behind him. Q startled, dropping the apples he’d been putting in his cart. Bond bent down to help Q pick them up as he continued. “A man shouldn’t have to go undercover as a cabbage to talk to his quartermaster.”
Q looked at him balefully. “These are all bruised, now,” he said, holding up an apple.
“Then put them back and get new ones.”
“That’s appalling.”
Bond sighed, holding out a hand. “Then give them to me. I’ll buy them.”
Q handed him the bag and stood up. “Lurking in the produce aisle hardly counts as deep cover.”
“You weren’t in Q Branch when I got back.”
“Yes, well, there’s such a thing as time off, you know.”
“You weren’t at home, either.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Would you believe me if I said I tried all the local markets?”
Q folded his arms.
“Fine.” Bond pulled up an app on his phone, holding it out. “It’s possible I may have tracked you.”
“You put a tracker on my bike?” Q hissed, snatching the phone from Bond’s hand. “Delete this. Immediately.”
“Not on your bike, per se.” Bond looked at the helmet in Q’s cart.
“Oh my God.”
“You put a tracker in my blood,” Bond pointed out. “I’d say you got the better end of this deal.”
Q relented. “Why are you here, Bond?”
“I think you know why.”
Q looked away. “Did you come to take the piss out of me, then? I would have thought that could wait until Monday.”
“No,” Bond said gently. “I know it was an accident. What you said on the comms.”
“Yes.”
“What I don’t know is whether you meant it.”
“I’ve already said it was an accident.”
“You and I both know those aren’t the same thing.”
“I would think very carefully about whether you actually want an answer to that question, 007.” Q pulled out his shopping list, crossing off ‘apples’ so vigorously that he tore the paper.
“I have done. I’ve had nothing but time to think about it, over the last 24 hours, and as you see, I’m here.”
Q looked down at his list again, smoothing the ripped paper as best he could.
“Theseus was an arsehole,” he said suddenly.
“I’m sorry?”
“He deserted Ariadne, did you know that? He left her on an island while she was sleeping, and snuck away in the night.”
“Ah. I see.” Bond peered at Q’s list, then reached behind him to put two lemons in the cart. “He was an arsehole, then.” Bond paused. “And I’m not him, Q. The myths aren’t meant to be how-to guides, after all.”
“You never did say why you were here.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I can assure you, it’s not.”
“Q.” Bond closed the distance between them, wrapped a large hand around Q’s wrist. “Is it so hard to believe that I just want to hear you say it again?”
Q opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I…”
“I thought it might come to this, you know.”
“Come to what, exactly?”
“This.” Bond pulled his phone out of his pocket, and hit a button. Q’s phone started ringing.
“You’d better get that,” Bond nodded at the phone in Q’s hand as he lifted his own phone to his ear, and walked just out of sight, into the bakery section.
“What in the world—“
“Say it again, Q. You can pretend we’re on comms this way, if it’s easier.”
“I’m sorry?” Q squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at his temples.
“Say it again. What you said before. Please.”
Q cleared his throat, opened his eyes, and took the leap. “I’ll see you soon. And—and I love you.”
“That’s good. Because I love you too, you know.”
“You do?”
“Haven’t you noticed?”
“What was I supposed to notice, exactly?” Q’s voice rose, loud enough that a pensioner glared at him from over by the grapefruits.
“Well, I’ve been bringing home all my gear, for a start.”
“Is that how you show your love, then? By not destroying things?”
“Not destroying things. Not taking unnecessary risks. Not seducing the marks. Doing everything I can to come home to you.”
Bond walked back toward Q, still holding the phone to his ear. “I’m not opposed to traditional forms of courtship, mind. But you don’t like diamonds—“
“They’re not ethical—“
“And wine gives you headaches—“
“It’s the tannins, technically—“
“And you have enough cats—“
“Can one have enough cats?”
“I don’t know, Q, you tell me.” Bond hung up his phone. “The point being, I thought you knew that I loved you. At least I hoped you did.” He reached out, gently taking Q’s phone from his hands and slipping it back into his jacket pocket. “But I see I’m going to have to do a bit better at showing you.”
James kissed him, then, and if someone had told him years ago that the best kiss of his life would be with a trained assassin in the produce aisle of a Tesco’s, Q would have laughed them out of the room. And yet.
“That’s a good start,” Q said, when they finally pulled apart. “At showing me, I mean. It’ll do for now.”
“It will, will it?” James cupped Q’s face in his hands. “And just so you know, not all of us are so quick to forget the voices that lead us out of the dark.” He leaned back in.
“Do you mind?” asked the pensioner, still standing indignantly next to the citrus.
“No, actually,” James said, not bothering to turn around. “I can’t say that I mind at all.”
“Nor do I,” Q said, and he kissed him again.