Work Text:
Bond moved through the market like smoke.
No coat today — just the grey suit and a casual gait, tie loosened, sunglasses tucked into the inside pocket of his blazer. The crowd pressed in on all sides, busy with their own lives. He barely registered as a presence. Which was the point.
“Target’s passing the second flower stall,” came Q’s voice in his ear. “Green jacket, shaved head, messenger bag.”
“Got him,” Bond murmured. “Not much for subtlety, is he?”
“He’s not supposed to be. We want him to think no one’s watching.”
Bond’s lips twitched. “Then what am I doing here?”
“Being beautiful and expendable. Keep up.”
The op was routine — a suspected leaker with low-level access, monitored for pattern analysis. Bond’s job was to follow, observe, and not intervene unless absolutely necessary. Easy.
And Q was running comms from home base — not MI6 proper, but a secure hub in Soho, comfortably tucked above an unremarkable bookshop.
It was their second joint run since Bond had been cleared for light field work — enough time for a rhythm to start forming.
Q’s voice had become familiar. Not just professionally — but in tone, in rhythm, in timing.
Bond knew the micro-pauses before a correction, the little lift in pitch when Q was about to say something passive-aggressive, and the way his voice flattened when he was focused and forgetting to mask it.
He liked that voice in his ear.
“Target’s taking the Baker Street turn,” Q said. “Slow your pace by four seconds or you’ll tail too tight.”
“Four seconds is very specific.”
“It’s a mathematical model, not a vibe check.”
Bond smiled, faintly.
He turned the corner.
Then the comms cracked.
Just a soft pop at first — a breath of static.
Bond touched the mic on his collar. “Say again?”
Nothing.
The noise grew — low interference, faint at first, then sharp. The kind of static that wasn’t accidental. Not random.
Q’s voice flickered: “—lost sig—hold on—adjusti—”
And then: silence.
Bond stopped walking. Not obviously. Just slowed near a newspaper kiosk and pretended to browse the headlines.
He checked the street. Target was still in sight, oblivious.
The signal hadn’t come back.
Bond looked up toward the rooftops. He’d clocked a relay node earlier — basic MI6 repeater, standard for urban tracking. Someone was jamming it.
“Q?” he said under his breath. “You there?”
Still nothing.
He clicked the fallback switch — an older analog band, lower fidelity.
“Q. I’m fine. Interference. Still with the target. Will resume contact soon.”
He kept moving.
But miles away, Q didn’t hear him.
Only static.
And then nothing at all.
He stared at the waveform monitor like it had betrayed him. Replayed the last transmission three times. Tried the backup channel. Checked the node data. Nothing.
Bond was gone.
And for five minutes, Q sat in a room full of blinking lights and felt it.
The silence ended at 17:48.
Q’s headset clicked. A channel reconnected. Data flow resumed. The relay node at the Strand registered green.
Normal.
Everything was normal.
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t try to hail Bond, though he could have. Didn't reopen the voice channel. Just sat at the console for a few seconds longer than necessary, eyes fixed on the map as the tracking dot reappeared.
Moving. Steady. Unharmed.
He exhaled — through his nose, measured — and adjusted his posture like nothing had happened. Then typed in the incident log:
Minor relay disruption.
Bond continued without contact.
No deviation from mission parameters.
He saved the file and muted the channel.
The bell above the door jingled.
Q didn’t look up right away. The bookshop below was closed at this hour — the door locked, the security protocol engaged. The only people who could enter were cleared agents. Or ghosts.
Heavy footfalls on the narrow stairs. Then silence at the threshold of the small upstairs office. The hum of servers. The scent of something warm — paper, city rain, and that sharp, clean trace of whatever Bond wore. Subtle. Expensive. Unmistakably him.
Bond.
Q didn’t turn from the console.
“Relay glitch,” he said. “Likely a proximity jammer. I’ve recalibrated the fallback frequency in case it happens again.”
No response. Just the sound of Bond setting something down — first a soft clink of ceramic lids, then the crinkle of folded paper.
Q finally glanced over.
Two takeaway cups sat on the desk, faint steam curling from the lids. Assam, if Bond had listened. Beside them, a small white paper bag. Folded twice. Familiar.
Shortbread.
Bond stood on the other side of the desk, jacket off now, sleeves rolled. No smirk. No pretense.
“Didn’t like the silence,” he said.
Q didn’t answer. Not right away.
Then: “Five minutes.”
Bond nodded.
Q looked at the tea. Picked it up. “You got the ratio right.”
“I’m observant.”
Bond reached for the second cup — matching order, though he didn’t seem to think twice about it. Took a sip, quiet and automatic. Like it was just what he drank now.
Another pause. Not heavy. Just full.
Q sat back slightly in his chair, the hard edges of adrenaline worn down to something tired.
“You didn’t have to come here,” he said.
“No,” Bond replied. “But I did.”
He didn’t stay long. Just enough to finish his tea and hand Q a printed incident log he could’ve easily sent electronically.
But when he left, the silence he left behind felt different.
Less like absence.
More like residue.
The next morning, Q arrived at HQ earlier than usual.
Not because of anything specific. Not really. Just muscle memory, perhaps, or unfinished code whispering for attention. He slipped into the lab while most of the building was still half-lit and yawning into motion.
On his desk, waiting neatly atop a diagnostic report, was a folded note.
Still listening.
– 007
No flourish. No explanation. The handwriting was clipped, clean, efficient — the same as the translated file from two weeks ago.
Beside it sat a warm paper cup. No name written on the lid, but Q didn’t need one. The scent said enough: Assam, strong. Just how he liked it.
He didn’t smile. Not quite. But something in his shoulders eased.
He tucked the note into the inside cover of a server maintenance log, precisely three pages in. He would find it again when it mattered.
Later that day, Bond passed through Q Branch without stopping.
Q didn’t call him over. Didn’t look up. Just adjusted a data stream, the glow of the monitor reflected faintly in his glasses.
But as Bond passed, Q said — offhand, to no one —
“Next time you lose signal, don’t wait five minutes to reconnect.”
Bond paused at the doorway, just long enough to reply.
“Didn’t want to interrupt your panic.”
Q didn’t look up. “You’re not that important.”
Bond’s voice came quieter. Less flippant this time.
“Aren’t I?”
The door hissed closed behind him before Q could answer.
But Q’s fingers hovered above the keyboard for a second too long.
Like something in the room was still adjusting.