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Bond doesn’t think of herself as ‘Jane’—she hasn’t for a long time. ‘Jane’ is the little girl who hid in a tunnel after the death of her parents; ‘Bond’ is the woman who came out two days later.
But she still tells Q to call her that, because 007 is what M calls her—it’s impersonal, as if she’s nothing more than an agent. Which she supposes she isn’t, most days, but during these idle hours she spends in Q Branch getting on Q’s nerves, she isn’t an agent, not entirely. She’s not sure who she is, but it’s not 007, and it’s also not Bond, and while it’s not really Jane, either, it’s the closest she can get.
And, well. That weaponized cell phone had saved her life, in the end. Bond likes to keep her debts paid.
-
Q gets a very curious look on her face when Bond comes back from her mission and presents her with the shoes Q’d made for her, perfectly intact. Bond had even cleaned the blood off them.
Bond can’t help but smirk a little. “Honestly, Q,” she says, “surely you didn’t think me completely incompetent.”
“I had wondered,” Q says mildly. “Do you mean to say, Bond—Jane—that all this time, you have been perfectly capable of returning your equipment to me in one piece, and you have simply chosen not to bother?”
“When you put it like that,” Bond says, resting her hip against Q’s desk and leaning forward a bit in a way she knows does wonders for chest, “it does sound rather bad, doesn’t it.”
“It does,” Q agrees. “You are insufferable, as I’m sure you know. Leave me in peace, and take your damned shoes with you while you’re at it—they’re not MI6 issued, not officially.”
Bond raises an eyebrow, feeling the corners of her mouth begin to lift against her will. “Why, Q, you don’t mean you made these for me in your off hours? How thoughtful.”
Q rolls her eyes, but Bond can see that she’s smiling too. “Less thoughtful, more worried that M would have me fired in a heartbeat if he knew what sort of frivolous gadgets you wrangled me into creating for you. Now get out, I’ve work to do.”
For once in her life, Bond goes when she’s told to do so, because she heard Q’s unspoken And you’re distracting me, and that means she’ll be welcome back anytime she likes. Bond knows this much about Q: she loves anything that can hold her attention.
-
Bond doesn’t really know how to do this.
She knows how to seduce anyone in about five minutes flat, knows how to kill someone in less time than that. But even before MI6, she was never one for anything—serious.
The last time she did serious, it ended badly.
That’s a point in Q’s favor, though—Q is unlikely to up and die on Bond, or at least she’s unlikely to do so without putting up a good fight.
Therefore, as so often happens, Bond gives up on the idea of doing what she should and instead does what she likes, which in this case involves spending much more time at Q Branch than is really excusable, bringing Q disgustingly sweet coffee drinks that Bond knows she hates, and kissing Q whenever they’re alone for more than five minutes at a time.
Q doesn’t seem to mind. Well, she does make some protests about the terrible coffee, but she continues to make Bond gadgets that Bond doesn’t have to return—off the record, she says, and it makes Bond grin every time. She even makes Bond exploding lipstick, which earns her a very thorough snog and an invitation to dinner.
“It’s not even all that advanced,” Q complains as they sit down to eat, someplace fancy where Bond, with her sleek cocktail dress, blends in perfectly, and Q, with her woolen jumper and loose trousers, decidedly does not. “It’s essentially dynamite, Bond. Jane. Very, very compact dynamite.”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s all very simple,” Bond says. “Too bad it’s much too advanced for a girl of my delicate constitution to understand. Red or white wine?”
“Delicate? Well, if that’s what they’re calling it these days,” says Q. “Red.”
-
Bond keeps on flirting with Moneypenny, after she and Q start…whatever it is they have. She asks Q if she minds, once, and Q, the obnoxious brat, has the audacity to laugh.
“Hardly,” she says. “While I know this might not always be apparent, what with my high-ranked government job in the field of espionage, I am in fact quite intelligent. I don’t expect you to be anyone other than who you are.”
“And who is that?” Bond asks.
“A killer and a flirt,” Q replies. “If you stopped flirting with Moneypenny—or with every other warm-blooded human you meet—I think the world might tilt off its axis, or something equally distressing.”
“And we couldn’t have that, could we.”
“Not at all,” says Q.
Moneypenny begins complaining that she’s been getting emails from online dating profiles she didn’t set up, and that they refuse to disappear when she tries to delete them. Bond has a hell of a time suppressing her smile.
“You are the jealous type, aren’t you,” she says to Q, on another late night spent watching Q doing…something technical and complicated and of no interest to Bond whatsoever. “Don’t pretend you aren’t, I know what you’ve been doing to Moneypenny. A little petty, don’t you think?”
Q sighs, and flips her laptop closed. There are still several monitors with programs running on them in front of her, but apparently they can take care of themselves for the moment, because Bond can feel the weight of Q’s full attention. “Jane,” she says, having finally gotten used to calling Bond that, “I told you this before: I am not an idiot. I am perfectly aware that you sleep with other people as part of your job. How jealous do think I can be?”
Bond goes quiet, for a moment. “Does that bother you?” she asks, finally. This is probably the sort of thing they should have discussed earlier. Or possibly something they should ignore and never discuss at all.
Q purses her lips, and pushes her glasses further up her nose. “It’s not as if I relish the thought,” she says. Snaps, maybe. “But I am not stupid, and I am not going to be a clingy sentimentalist. I want you to be safe, and I want you to do your job, and I know that sex if a part of that. I would prefer you not go beyond what is necessary for the mission. If you’re amenable.”
“Are you asking me to be exclusive, Q?” Bond asks, taking a step closer, crowding Q back against her desk.
“As far as is reasonably possible, considering your line of work, yes.” She crosses her arms as she says it, raising her chin, as if expecting Bond to argue. Bond uses her tipped up chin as an excuse to kiss her, instead.
That done, she says, “I’d like nothing better, Q.”
Q twists a hand in her ponytail and tugs her in closer, and ends up half-sitting on the desk for her efforts, to compensate for the height difference—Bond is an inch or two taller without shoes, and often towers over Q in stilettos, as Q stubbornly refuses to wear anything with more than a kitten heel.
“Besides,” Q says, a bit later, after her cardigan been tugged up to bunch under her arms and Bond’s hair is spilling over her shoulders and they’re both quite flushed, “if I didn’t take my petty revenge against Moneypenny, do you have any idea what I’d have to do to the men you sleep with on missions?”
Bond bites Q’s lip, and smiles against her neck when Q tugs at her hair in response. “I think there’s quite enough pigtail pulling in this relationship already,” she says.
“Relationship?” Q asks, raising her eyebrows.
“You’re the one who brought up being exclusive, Q.”
“Fair enough,” Q says, and then she kisses Bond again, hard, and that occupies them both for quite a while.
Bond never does ask what Q would do to the men she sleeps with, because there’s really no need. The message is clear: Q can be just as dangerous as any 00 agent, even Bond, if she wants to be. And Bond would do well not to forget it.
As if she would.
-
Sex for Bond is a means to an end, more often than not. The most carefully guarded men in the world, along with their most carefully guarded secrets, become infinitely less guarded the moment clothes start to come off.
Which is not to say that she doesn’t enjoy it—she wouldn’t be nearly as good at her job if she didn’t. But the fact remains that it can become a bit mundane, after a while, which is perhaps why sleeping with Q is, in a way, almost refreshing. Bond is very rarely is called on to sleep with women for Queen and country, and even when she is, they are never a thing like Q. They don’t wear glasses with plastic frames that are always slipping down their noses, they don’t have messy hair that’s twisted in a bun more often than not, and they don’t go days wearing the same wrinkled jumper and trousers because they can’t be bothered to go home for a change of clothes. And they aren’t snarky little shits like Q, either.
There’s something profoundly different about it, though, beyond the superficial. There’s something profoundly different in the way Q will let Bond push her against her desk after-hours, but clenches her fists and refuses to make any noise until Bond wrenches it out of her, with lips and teeth and tongue. There’s something profoundly different in the way that Q will meet Bond’s eyes until she physically can’t anymore, the way she keeps her glasses on as long as possible, even when they start getting in the way. All of this should be annoying, frustrating, and yet somehow Bond finds that it’s endearing, instead.
It’s possible she should be a little worried.
-
Bond starts spending more and more nights at Q’s flat. Not just for sex, either—she starts coming there after missions, because the thought of going back to drink alone in her own empty flat is becoming less and less bearable.
Q doesn’t even complain when Bond drinks all her good scotch. Eventually Bond realizes that it’s because Q buys the scotch for Bond, not for herself. Q appears to prefer vodka. It’s nice, to have someone who will silently match her drink for drink, before dragging her to bed.
Bond doesn’t know what the hell any of it means, but it’s nice all the same.
-
When Bond comes back from a mission with the tips of her hair singed off and several new burn scars to go with it, M orders her to stay on the ground for two weeks. Which is ridiculous—her wounds are superficial at best—but what M says goes, at least when he has Moneypenny on his side. Which he does, at least according to the very sharp look Moneypenny gives Bond as she walks out of M’s office.
Bond does what has, without her noticing, become second nature to her, and goes down to Q Branch to bother Q.
Q takes one look at her and demands she go down to Medical. Bond may have neglected to do so before meeting M, but she’s surprised that Q can tell. She thought she was hiding her limp rather well.
“I’d prefer to stay up here,” Bond says, carefully leaning against one of the empty desks—it’s about three in the morning, which explains the absence of any sane or stable employees. God knows when M or Moneypenny ever leave this place. “The view’s nicer.”
“Oh, you think this is funny?” Q says sharply. “You almost died, Bond. I was listening. You almost made me listen to you die. Forgive me if I’m not in the mood for any of your bloody quips.” She starts typing intently, the keys very loud in the empty room.
Bond doesn’t leave. She’s certainly not going down to get fussed over in Medical, and going back to her flat sounds even worse. So she stays, and watches Q’s back, watches her shoulders get tenser and tenser with each passing moment.
“I’m not your caretaker, Bond,” Q finally sighs, turning away from her computer. “There are many people down in Medical who would be happy to attend to your needs, but I am not one of them—I’m rather busy eliminating the targets who nearly blew you up, in fact, so please kindly leave me alone for once.”
“And what are you, then?” Bond asks. “If not my caretaker. If we’re going to get into the business of defining things, that is.”
“I am me,” Q says, once again beginning to type, “and you are you.”
“And who is that? Me, I mean? A killer and a flirt, right?”
“You’re Jane Bond,” says Q, looking up from the computer. “You are stunning and insufferable in equal measure, you kill and you flirt and you also take me out to dinner on occasion, and you are breaking several different protocols by cultivating a relationship with your Quartermaster. And you are now apparently in a snit about whether or not I’m your girlfriend, despite the fact that you just nearly got yourself killed and have much bigger things to worry about. You can also be a bit of an idiot sometimes, come to think of it.”
“Well, are you? My girlfriend?” Bond did in fact almost die today. It’d be nice to have her affairs in order, for once.
“We’re not in primary school, Jane,” Q replies, with a sigh. “It should be patently obvious by now that I’m yours, which is the best you’re going to get out of me. Now will you please leave? These terrorists are not going to become victims of my revenge all by themselves, you know.”
Bond leans in and kisses her on the cheek, her lips leaving behind a slight pink imprint, her fingers leaving behind a bit of ash on the corner of Q’s jaw.
“You’re not going down to Medical, are you,” Q says, resigned.
“No. I think I have somewhere else to be.”
“There’s a first aid kit under the sink,” Q calls as she leaves. “Do try not to die on me, Jane.”
When she gets there, the door to Q’s flat is only locked, not alarmed. When it comes to Q, that’s practically an invitation.
Hell, when it comes to Q and Bond, it’s practically the same as giving her the key.
Mine, indeed, Bond thinks, as she lets herself in.