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Q didn’t look up when the door hissed open.
“I didn’t request backup,” he said flatly, fingers dancing across the touchscreen as lines of code updated in neat, silent succession.
“I brought tea,” Bond replied.
That made Q glance over. He raised an eyebrow, then shifted his gaze to the twin paper cups in Bond’s hand — proper ones, not the machine-swill cups from the break room. Branded. Artisan. Predictably smug.
“You took a detour through Covent Garden for Assam?”
“I don’t do anything halfway.”
“Except following orders. Or safety protocol. Or common sense.”
Bond handed over the cup. “Strong. Splash of milk. No sugar.”
Q took it with a reluctant sort of grace. He didn’t thank him — but he also didn’t correct the order. That was, Bond noted, progress.
It had been three days since the decrypt session.
No one had spoken about it. No one had needed to. But something had shifted, quiet and gravitational — the way satellites slowly adjust their orbit without saying so.
Bond had the distinct sense that if he’d shown up empty-handed today, the reception would’ve been colder.
Not unfriendly. Just... efficient. The old Q.
Bond took a sip of his own. Same order — more out of convenience than taste.
He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but he hadn’t disliked it yet.
And it saved the trouble of choosing.
Q glanced over, just briefly. His eyes flicked to the cup in Bond’s hand, then back to the terminal.
He didn’t say anything.
Bond caught only fragments of the muttered acronyms that followed:
“...Node latency... redundant loopback... Ugh, I told them the Russian sector keys were unstable...”
Bond made a neutral sound of agreement. He had no idea what any of it meant, but Q seemed to appreciate having an audience.
Then the lights flickered.
Just once — a slight stutter in the overhead fluorescents. Monitors blinked. One of the diagnostic rigs gave a low-pitched error tone.
Q froze. His eyes tracked the nearest status screen.
“...No. No, no, no—”
The screen turned amber. Then red.
“What's wrong?” Bond asked, setting down his tea.
Q was already moving, sweeping a portable tablet off the counter and navigating rapidly. “Intermittent signal drop across internal sectors. Server redundancy’s offline. Probably a bad relay node — or a cascade failure. Either way, it’s going to need manual overrides.”
“How long?”
Q exhaled, sharp and irritated. “Two hours. Minimum.”
Bond checked the time. Nearly nineteen hundred hours.
“You’re not calling in anyone else?”
“I don’t trust anyone else not to make it worse.”
Bond didn’t move.
Q noticed. “You’re not on duty.”
“No,” Bond said. “But you’re clearly about to crawl into a server rack and swear at cables. Wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
Q gave him a look. Not angry. Not grateful, either. Just… measuring.
Then he turned back to the terminal and muttered, “Fine. If you're staying, you’re pulling patch cables.”
Bond followed Q through a secure maintenance corridor two levels below Q Branch proper — all exposed conduits and humming server racks. The kind of place MI6 rarely showed in recruitment brochures.
Q shoved open a low cabinet, cursed softly, and handed Bond a thick coil of cable.
“Patch node 4-C to the upstream relay above it. The slot’s labelled. If you force it, I will break your fingers.”
Bond took the cable, his arm moving stiffly at first. He crouched with care — not dramatic, just practiced — and braced one hand against the floor.
Q paused. “How’s the rib?”
“Still there,” Bond said lightly. “Still functioning.”
“That’s not a medical status.”
“Didn’t realize I was being evaluated.”
Q gave him a look. “Everything’s an evaluation.”
Bond didn’t answer. Just rolled his shoulder once and started patching the cable.
“Nice bedside manner,” he muttered. “You ever moonlight as a nurse?”
“Only if the patient’s unconscious and heavily sedated.”
They worked side by side. No gunfire. No chase. Just glowing indicators and the faint, reassuring thrum of systems regaining order.
Bond didn’t mind it.
Q moved like someone used to working alone — quick, precise, slightly irritated with the laws of physics — but he didn’t tell Bond to leave. Not once.
After about forty minutes, Bond’s jacket was off, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly mussed from crouching under a rack. He wasn’t complaining, and that fact alone seemed to catch Q off guard when he looked over mid-calibration.
“...You're tolerable at this,” Q admitted. “In a blunt-force kind of way.”
“I aim to exceed expectations,” Bond said, handing him a line tester. “And occasionally bypass them altogether.”
Q snorted. “You’re not clever, you just sound expensive.”
Later, back in the main lab, they checked the diagnostic panel. Systems were stabilizing. Q's hands hovered over the console, fingers flexing faintly.
Bond noticed the wince when he tapped the glass. Quick, restrained.
“You should have someone look at that,” Bond said.
Q didn’t look over. “It’s RSI. Comes and goes.”
“Still.”
There was a pause — not heavy, just considered.
Then Q said, more lightly, “You’re the only one here, 007.”
Bond glanced at him. “Then you’re out of luck. I’m not qualified to give medical advice.”
“No, but you’re irritating enough to be distracting.”
“Consider it a free service.”
The tension, when it came, didn’t feel like danger. It felt like weight.
Shared weight. The kind that settles between two people after hours of quiet company, where the silence is no longer awkward — just... full.
Bond looked at the console again. “System’s steady.”
Q nodded. “Stable across all relay points.”
Neither of them moved.
It was past midnight when the final system alert cleared.
The overhead lights dimmed automatically, reacting to the late hour. The hum of servers had softened into a gentle, rhythmic pulse — a machine sleeping, if such things could.
Bond leaned back in the office chair he’d claimed, stretching his arms over his head with a muted wince. The motion tugged at something in his side — duller now, but still there.
Q glanced over his mug. “Still functioning?”
Bond exhaled through his nose. “Marginally.”
“Try not to make a habit of collapsing in my server room.”
“That’s a threat,” Bond said dryly. “I’ve heard your lectures.”
Q hummed into his tea, not quite disagreeing.
They weren’t talking anymore. They didn’t need to.
After a while, Q reached into the bottom drawer and produced a tin. He cracked it open and, without ceremony, offered it across the space between them.
“Emergency biscuits?” Bond asked, eyeing the shortbread.
“Don’t tell M. She thinks I’ve quit sugar.”
Bond took one, broke it in half before eating it, crumbs trailing down his fingers. Q mirrored the motion. Not quite in sync — but not far off, either.
Somewhere near 01:00, Bond stood.
He didn’t make a show of it — just moved slowly, like a man who had nowhere in particular to be.
At the door, he paused.
“You know,” he said, “you’re not entirely unbearable when you’re focused.”
A beat. Then, with the barest hint of a smirk:
“Returning the compliment.”
Q didn’t look up from his monitor. “You’re improving. Slowly.”
Bond tilted his head. “I’ll take that as glowing praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. You still lifted the wrong cable twice.”
“Sabotage,” Bond said. “Keeps you humble.”
A small exhale that was almost a laugh.
Bond turned to go. Then Q’s voice, softer now:
“I didn’t log the help. You won’t show up in the report.”
Bond looked back over his shoulder. “Didn’t expect to.”
“But the biscuit,” Q added, almost as an afterthought, “that I’ll remember.”
Bond’s smile wasn’t wide. But it was there.
And he left the lab without another word, leaving only the biscuit tin open and the scent of Assam — strong, familiar — fading into the hum of cooling servers.