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Q gave a gentle sigh. He was having some notable difficulties with removing Sean from his general vicinity; Sean was one of the sweet, gentle ‘Q-branch kids’ – as everybody in MI6 had nicknamed his developing team – that Q had dated, for approximately three days, before Bond had re-entered the scene in his usual inimitable fashion.
“Bond, could I ask you to get some more milk on the way home, I’m almost out,” Q asked lightly, watching the bottom-left screen, only a very small one, with a map of London, and a single red dot. Q watched it, smiling very subtly.
“Yes, but I’m getting semi.”
“You know I hate semi,” Q said petulantly, eyebrows creasing. “Can you get one of each?”
“We’re not home enough to have one of each. Just be grateful I’m not getting skimmed,” Bond retorted, Q’s face torn between indignation and laughter.
“I hate you,” he said petulantly. “Also, I don’t know what in the hell you did to that handgun, but if I can’t fix it, that is genuinely impressive.”
“Q?”
“Speak soon, Bond, try not to die in the supermarket,” Q said with a sideways smirk. He pressed a few keys, and spun around to Sean. “Hello. What can I do for you?”
“I… Q, I… erm…” Sean mumbled, running a hand through his own hair. He was a pinched-looking, quite endearing ginger, one of the researchers in Q-branch. Sean epitomised nervousness and anxiety, constantly worrying his hands together, glancing at Q through overlong eyelashes.
“Sean, we talked about this,” Q said patiently. “I’m sorry, but I am with 007. Was there anything else?”
Sean didn’t even manage to form words, just shook his head slightly, looking like a kicked dog. Q sighed, picking himself up from his chair; he cupped his hands over Sean’s chin, lifting his face to place a light, chaste kiss against his lips. Sean’s eyes widened with comical hope; Q held his eyes for a long moment, waiting for the moment Sean would give up.
Sean visibly deflated, slowly, and just nodded. Without another word, Sean scurried from the office. Q sighed deeply, moving his glasses out the way to pinch the bridge of his nose.
---
Q came home to find candles burning on stands on his table, a truly spectacular dinner on the cooker, and Bond completely and entirely absent.
Q tapped his earpiece. “Bond, where are you?” Q asked pleasantly, a little confused. It was technically their anniversary, and the state of dinner implied that Bond had actually remembered this fact, however implausible it was.
“I’m sorry Q, MI6 called me in, they need to deploy me out on a mission. They don’t need Q-branch monitoring for this, it’s a simple one, and I still have my stuff from last mission,” Bond explained, as Q poked his way around the dinner table. It was his ideal type of meal; curry and homemade naan, bottle of Merlot, already aerating in glasses.
“You told me you lost those pieces,” Q suddenly realised.
“I lied,” Bond snorted, making Q sigh exaggeratedly. “Stop whinging and just enjoy it? It’s a jalfrezi, you like those.”
“Did you make this from scratch?” Q asked, looking at the washed-up pans on the side; perhaps ironically, Bond was by far the neatest of the pair. Q just forgot, got bored, got distracted; Bond liked to clean up everything around him. And by the look of it, he had definitely cooked.
“I spent several weeks in India at one stage, I was taught how to cook curries properly,” Bond said, by way of an explanation. Q snorted out a laugh; he could never fail to be surprised by the things Bond could come out with. Q could make precious little more than cheese on toast, and even then, he tended to burn it. God help the kitchen if he tried to use the microwave.
“Will you be back?” Q asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
“Not tonight, I’m sorry,” Bond replied, and Q shrugged slightly to himself. They hadn’t shared any major occasions to date; all public holidays were high-season for MI6 employees, and their anniversaries had managed to constantly coincide with various international incidents that commanded one or both of their attentions. It wasn’t that surprising.
He opened the stainless steel pan that was simmering on the cooker, and served himself the curry, getting rice out the saucepan. “Bond, you can’t leave the cooker on when you leave. If I’d got called in on emergency, we could have ended up with the flat burned down, and I’d lose my backup computers,” Q told him, settling down at the table with a fork.
“Understood. Now quiet a moment, I need to concentrate, and M’s getting pissed off,” Bond said, smirking. Q settled down, spearing a piece of onion; in his ear, he could hear gunshots, Bond swearing at people in some dialect of German, the thump of bodies hitting the floor.
“How long did you leave the cooker on, exactly, to already be in location and shooting people?” Q asked conversationally, humming in satisfaction at the curry. Bond really was very good.
“You don’t want to know,” Bond grunted, suddenly swearing; Q dropped the fork. Definitely pain.
“James, are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Look in the fridge when you’re done. I need to concentrate, going offline, too many people in my ear. Talk soon.” Bond told him; Q couldn’t deny that he was worried, but this was an occupational hazard on active missions. Agents put themselves in danger as a matter of course, and in Bond’s case, was superb at getting himself out again.
He finished the curry quite happily, throwing the plate haphazardly into the sink while picking chicken out of his teeth; he noticed absentmindedly that he had flicked a little onto his sleeve. He cursed under his breath, putting it into his mouth and sucking at the stain as though it would change anything about the turmeric in the white cotton.
He opened the fridge; Bond had made a cheesecake. Of course. Q was never going to let him forget this. James Bond, Agent 007, one of the most dangerous men alive, had made a cheesecake.
And he’d bought full-fat milk.
And there was a strange, square package sitting on top of the cheesecake, on a tiny plastic stand. Q was literally past the point of believing what was going on. To say this was unprecedented would be grimly understating the matter.
He picked it up, with a strange, placeless sense of foreboding. It opened quite easily.
Q stared at it for several minutes, entirely motionless. He was actually entirely frozen in place, until the cold air from the fridge became just a little too much, and he found that he could no longer feel his fingers.
He backed up to the table, and sat down.
He was still staring at it nearly an hour later.
---
They don’t do romantic gestures, as a general rule.
Q was very confused.
---
Almost exactly one month later, they are perilously to actually being in the same place, at the same time, for a relatively important event in their relationship.
This means, of course, that Q gets called into MI6 HQ on urgent business. The MI6 servers are undergoing several attacks, there are some high-importance missions that need monitoring, and while yes everyone understands that this is important, the security of the British nation is more important.
Both are inclined to disagree. Yet they met through work, they exist through work, they are work. It characterises and shapes them, and the people they are, and how they work with one another.
Bond is in a tuxedo.
So is Q, but Q isn’t actually there.
“I cannot believe that we are conducting our own civil partnership by webcam,” Bond says with deep chasms of sarcasm, and Q laughs. “You do realise this is socially unconventional enough, without…”
“Shut up a second,” Q said quickly, and muted his mike; they did have a very small number of people who had turned up, mostly MI6 colleagues and ‘Q-branch kids’ who had managed to get the day off, only to find that Q wasn’t there. He had to mute his mike to avoid sensitive information getting out, was currently trying to stage-manage a delicate operation, and couldn’t afford anybody hearing.
“You look gorgeous, honey,” Bond says, his voice absolutely drenched in sarcasm. It’s actually true; Q in a tux is quite a unique sight. Rather than the cardigans and floppy fringe, he’s actually combed his hair, and is wearing a crisp white shirt that hasn’t got even a suggestion of tea stains on the collar.
Q, on the laptop placed opposite, rolls his eyes emphatically, and taps back into Bond.
“At least I’m using a decent camera,” he says with a slight snarl. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, I need to prevent people getting killed. You might as well start the ceremony.”
“Go for it,” Bond says to the registrar. The registrar looks to Eve, the only person communicating any type of competence, with a slightly pathetic expression. She just giggles, and shrugs. Bond and Q’s glares are twin, as they watch the registrar.
He sighs, and starts talking about the meaning of marriage, the importance of the joining of two souls in love. Q looks into the camera, and smiles, an unbelievably genuine, gorgeous smile.
They’re getting married. Jesus.
---
After finding the ring, it hadn't been until nearly two hours later that Q was finally able to construct a sentence, and trusted himself to tap through to Bond without accidently SOS-ing MI6 in the process.
“Bond. Reply. Now,” Q rasped, blinking foggily. “Bond, you have exactly ten seconds before I remotely detonate absolutely every explosive you currently have on your person.”
“What?!” an exceptionally put-upon Bond managed, grunting with exertion as he ran as fast as possible.
“You left a ring in my fridge, Bond. There is a ring in my fridge,” Q said in a tight, variably toned voice.
“Do you like it?”
“I… Bond, that’s… I mean it’s lovely, I just… Why, why is there a ring in my fridge?!”
Bond was still panting out sharp breaths, ducking somewhere out the way. “M, I’m in position, backup?... yes, yes, fine. Q, I’d have thought you could work that out. M, I’m going offline, back in a moment. Q, could you?”
“Done,” Q said, his voice flinty. He had been watching Bond’s progress, the ring box sitting by the mouse, his eyes constantly flicking to it. Disconnecting Bond’s link to MI6 was something he found quite simple, and he needed to have a private conversation with Bond as a point of urgency.
“You sound angry,” Bond pointed out; Q tapped a few keys to try bringing up any images of Bond, cursing when he found the CCTV cut off.
“I’m not angry, I’m… I don’t know what I am. I really don’t,” Q burbled. “If it is what I think it is, then I can’t deny I’m surprised, not… I’m not upset about it, not at all, but I’m just… I don’t…”
“Would you like to get a civil partnership? It would help both of us at MI6, if anything happened we’d be legally together, reduces paperwork, MI6 have a lot of perks for married couples…”
“This is for practicality?” Q asked, with light sarcasm, perfectly concealing his vulnerability.
“In part. Also, I love you, and it didn’t seem like too bad an idea,” Bond panted. “I’ll be home in a few hours, we can talk more then.”
“Do you not want to know what my answer is?” Q asked with forced casualness. Bond was very quiet for a very long moment.
“That would be good, yes,” Bond admitted.
“I… Yes, Bond. Yes.”
---
They should probably never have started their relationship. It is altogether a very foolish venture, on both of their parts. It is dangerous for both of them.
It doesn’t matter. They’re in love. They make it work, however dysfunctional it may seem. They’re not exactly poster children for ‘normal’, after all. A civil partnership was not perhaps the most illogical of moves. As far as MI6 were concerned it was rather useful, actually; they now could stop making various excuses, and have it on file that special consideration could be given to each.
It didn’t count on their wedding. That was their excuse, anyway.
---
“I promise to love you and not let you get killed in action. I can’t promise on anything else, but I’ll do my best on that score,” Q told Bond, smiling over the top of his glasses.
“Romantic. I promise to love you,” Bond returns, and Q snorts a laugh.
“And intensely romantic on your part, Bond, well done.”
“Both of you, please?” the registrar asks, in a slightly pleading tone; Q’s eyebrow rises somewhere into his hairline, and Bond shoots him a hard glance. Q’s eyebrow returns to its usual location, and Bond’s expression fractionally softens. “I’m not sure how we’ll do the rings…”
“I sent 003 on my behalf,” Bond said, trying to peer around Q on screen.
“003 is on a mission, L has taken the ring, he’s here,” Q explained, waving L onscreen; he poked his head around, and waved. “Eve has yours. I also created an interface that will allow me to sign the register. One moment, I need to mute again.”
Q does so, his brow creasing in worry at something nobody else in the registrar’s office is party to. Bond is getting oddly used to the feeling of wanting to hold Q close, pull him away from the situations that make him worry this acutely; Bond has already cleared five days away from MI6, which nobody will defy on the threat of more pain than Bond is capable of expressing.
Eve looks distressingly happy, as she slips Bond’s ring on his finger in lieu of Q himself. On screen, Q winks at L, an operative Bond has only ever met once, and is now helping Q and Bond marry.
“Do you take each other?” the registrar asks hopefully, looking wearily at Bond and the computer screen; he looks in urgent need of a stiff drink, actually. Bond wordlessly reaches for his hipflask, and passes it over. The registrar shoots him a look of sheer gratitude.
“Yes,” Bond says simply. Q, who has been babbling at the other end, stops abruptly, and un-mutes his microphone; they grin at the misfortune of the registrar, at Eve’s expression, and in Q’s case at 003 who is really not delighted that his Quartermaster is busy getting married while he’s trying to avoid getting killed.
“Always,” Q says, with the quicksilver intensity Bond fell in love with nineteen months ago.
“In which case, congratulations: I am delighted to pronounce you partners in civil union,” the registrar says, with tangible relief.
Q glances up at Bond, shy and gentle and wicked in ways Bond cannot adequately describe. He is intensely cheeky; this is everything they hadn’t envisaged, but it epitomises the pair of them so absolutely that neither of them can really bring themselves to mind.
"Well, that would be that," Q says lightly. "Come into the office, Bond, I'm nearly done."
"On my way," Bond replied. Q cut off the videofeed, leaving just their voices in one another's ear, as it has always been with them.
"I love you, James Bond."
Bond snorts. "Well yes, Q. I love you too."