Work Text:
Q’s cat died shortly after the Skyfall incident. As if it wasn’t enough to face death in his own workplace—between the operatives that died in Silva’s initial attack, and M herself on the cold Scottish moors—Q returned home to find Spock curled up in the spot of carpet where the midmorning sun, if there was any, often fell.
In retrospect, Q wasn’t really surprised. Spock was almost sixteen years old. But he’d been with Q since before he’d been promoted to the letter, before he’d even worked for MI-6. He’d sat in cantankerous judgment of Q’s taste in men, and the odd woman, throughout his twenties and beyond. He’d kept him company during uni all-nighters, curled up on the bathroom tiles beside him while he recovered from hangovers, sat on keyboards, drank tea from Q’s own mug whenever he could get away with it, and hogged the bed mercilessly (on one memorable occasion, had even rolled one of Q’s sleeping lovers out of bed in the middle of the night. Really, in retrospect, that ought to have been a clue.)
Q wasn’t feeling retrospective though, when he reached down to ruffle Spock’s fur and found him cold to the touch. He wasn’t feeling retrospective when he carefully moved the stiff little body onto an old towel, and dug a hole in his small backyard at nine o’clock at night, after a fourteen hour day from hell. He was just glad that there weren’t a lot of lights and no one else was around to see him lose his composure entirely and just ugly sob over the fresh grave of a cat. Go figure that he’d met the deaths of his colleagues with a steely-eyed stoicism, and completely lost it over his pet.
By the next morning, he had a handle on himself. He went to work, equipped his agents, monitored 008’s assignment in the Maldives, and continued fixing the holes Silva’s program had left in his firewalls. If he left work a little early in order to buy a flower to plant on Spock’s grave, that was no one’s business but his own. If he was a little quieter than usual for the following days, then he’d pass it off as too much work and not enough time to properly socialize.
He ought to have known that his peace wouldn’t last.
His house might be dark, but it wasn’t unoccupied. He’d gotten the notification on his phone about an hour ago, and had accessed his hidden cameras to confirm his theory.
“I hope as a Double-Oh that you’re more subtle about breaking into your target’s houses than you are mine,” he said, flipping on the kitchen light.
Bond blinked at the sudden light, but otherwise just continued to drink Q’s whiskey. At least he was using a glass and not swigging straight from the bottle like a heathen. He’d also been expecting company in his drinking, if the extra glass was an indication. Bond poured a couple fingers of whiskey into the second glass and held it out wordlessly to Q.
“And, pray tell,” Q continued, “why you’re sitting in the dark like a stalker. Or why you’re here, at all.”
“You have a cat,” Bond said. His blue eyes had a few more lines around them than the last time Q had seen him, at M’s funeral, and the man looked as tired as Q felt. Death hadn’t been restful for Bond, and his return to the living hadn’t been quiet either. For all his debonair charm, it showed. The kitchen lights bleached out the short blond hair, and he had a graying five o-clock shadow.
“Had,” Q said. He dropped his laptop carrier onto the table and accepted the whiskey.
“Sorry.” Bond glanced at the cat bowls taking up space along an unused kitchen wall and didn’t say anything further.
Q tipped his glass in a salute. “Back to the original question, Bond.”
“I passed all my exams, for real this time,” Bond said instead. “I report to Mallory tomorrow.” Those blue eyes watched Q with an impassiveness that Q couldn’t quite read.
Mallory, he’d said. Not M.
“Congratulations,” said Q. “I’m sure you’ll find common ground with him. He helped Tanner and I lay the breadcrumbs Silva followed, you know.”
“It sounds like your career in espionage is safe for the time being, then,” Bond snarked into his glass. “Will you get another cat?”
“Have to have time to go find one, first,” Q said. “Probably shouldn’t, with all the time I spend away from home these days. Spock was so old he slept most of the day and probably didn’t notice I was gone.”
And wasn’t that a glum thought. The two men sat in contemplative, oddly comfortable silence. Q studied Bond from beneath dark lashes, thinking, So is this it? Am I your new M? After all, the stories of Bond breaking into M’s house and files were legendary. Q was surprised that Bond had come to him instead of Tanner, who Bond got along with, or Moneypenny. Surely the lovely woman who had accidentally killed him would be more welcome company than a skinny computer geek with a vitamin D deficiency. Q granted that even the most infamous Double-Oh had to have some kind of human connections beyond his missions and marks, although what he was looking for from Q wasn’t clear.
“Thanks for the drink,” Bond said.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said dryly.
A smile cracked the edges of Bond’s façade. “All the same. Q.”
“007.”
With nary another word, the agent slipped out the back door and into the night beyond.
Q stared after him, then poured himself another measure. “He could have at least dropped his glass in the sink as he went by.”
***
Weeks passed and MI-6 settled into its new normal under the new M and Quartermaster. Q kept busy updating systems, overseeing the mad scientists down in R&D, kept up with various active missions, and met most of his Double-Ohs. With his swift promotion through the ranks, and considering he’d been sequestered away with his computers and R&D for a majority of his employment, he hadn’t had time to meet all of his charges. Luckily, most of them fell into line with minimal fuss, happy to be distracted by the inventive gadgets and the novelty of his reliable palm-coded weaponry. 004 purred over her favorite Glock, smiling disturbingly as the lights flashed green. The ever-dapper 001 actually made grabby hands at the lockpick tie pin, and for one terrifying moment, Q rather thought that 009 was going to have him over the hood of the gorgeous blue Aston Martin DB9 when Q told him it had both front and rear rocket launchers.
No, for the most part, they were all right. 003 was a creep with a habit of staring at everyone, unblinking and predatory. But considering the fact that they all seduced and killed people for a living, one overtly weird one out of the baker’s dozen of agents was a lower statistic than Q had expected. Even 006 was delightful, pyromania and pathological flirting aside.
007 was the one who gave Q fits. He regularly went dark and reappeared days later with barely an explanation, destroyed a ridiculous amount of property, and seemed to be an opportunistic klepto. Q lost so many pens to the man that he started requisitioning the cheapest ones he could find, in bulk. He even switched to the girliest pens he could find, with glittery pink and purple inks, for a while. Didn’t help a whit. Q rather thought that Bond must have a collection of crappy stolen pens hidden away somewhere, like some kind of pen-hoarding dragon. And then. Then there was the agent’s sense of whimsy. Q began to get postcards from all over the world, most of them blank but for the address. A couple of them bloodstained. Occasionally other objects would arrive via the mail or were just left on his desk while he was out and about: a broken earpiece, a steering wheel, a box of artisan tea, sweets, kitschy tourist keychains. And yes, souvenir pens, which Q used, at least until Bond inevitably stole them back.
“Is that normal?” Q asked Moneypenny once, over an impromptu lunch.
“What’s normal to a Double-Oh?” she’d asked philosophically, and stole half his chips.
Thievery must be part of MI-6, he’d thought, and let the matter drop.
After a few months of this, when the agent suddenly went dark following his infiltration of a drug ring, Q didn’t lose too much sleep over it. Bond was a grown-up who knew what he was doing, and who was damn near impossible to kill. Q made a note in the case file and started the clock—he’d give Bond three days to check in before getting worried—and went back to fixing wires damaged by rats and mice. Being underground in the bunkers had its drawbacks.
So when the Quartermaster looked up from his desk five days later and found a grinning, battered, slightly singed Double-Oh swaggering toward him at nine in the evening, he was both relieved and exasperated.
“Three days, Bond. We agreed. You missed your check in,” Q snapped.
“Unavoidable, my dear Quartermaster,” Bond said. He placed his intact Walther on the tray at the end of Q’s desk and then held out a squirming bag. “But I think I’ve something to make up for it.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“So look,” Bond said. He put the bag on the desk and rocked back on his heels in a loose parade rest, blue eyes twinkling.
The bag meowed angrily.
“Bond.”
“Q.”
Q opened the bag and the cat stepped out with a stately flick of a tale. It was a sleek little tuxedo cat with green eyes and a white-tipped tail.
“He did my job for me, killing his master,” Bond said. “He got around his feet and tripped him down a flight of stairs. Leaving him to get blown up with the rest of them seemed a churlish way to repay him.”
The cat chirruped agreeably, and washed a paw. Despite being brought from south Ireland in a bag, the feline looked well-cared for.
“You brought me a cat. A murder cat, owned by your villain du jour.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I think you’ll treat him better than his last master. You don’t look the sort to kick at animals. And anyway, aren’t you used to deadly creatures around, these days?”
“I…” Q trailed off, absently running long fingers over the sleek coat. The cat purred, stretched, and hopped down from the desk to sniff around a computer bank. “Thank you?” He hadn’t replaced Spock yet, and his house still felt empty without all the cat toys constantly underfoot.
“Wouldn’t want you to get lonely, Q,” Bond said, a smile curling the edges of the agent’s lips. “Besides, I can’t keep him. Too much time spent out of the country.”
Q opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what—when the cat suddenly plunged into a tangled mess of wires and emerged a moment later with a squeaking mouse. He worried it like a dog and the squeaking stopped. Satisfied with himself, the cat trotted back to the desk, hopped up, and deposited the soggy corpse on a stack of file folders.
Q watched as Bond reached out to scratch the cat’s ears and tried to ignore the surge of warmth caused by the sight of a trained assassin gently petting a homicidal little cat. “All right,” he said softly.
A week later when Bond shipped out to Morocco, Q sent him off with a brand new palm-coded sniper rifle and a state of the art scope that registered heat signatures through walls.
***
The cat became a fixture around Q-Branch. Named Jack by popular vote (some minions swore it was for Jack Bauer because they were MI-6 and spies, and others said Jack Harkness for his charm and ability to seduce even the hardcore dog-lovers to his cause) Q kept him at the office most of the week and took him home on weekends and days off. He moved a litter box, a bed, and bowls into a quiet corner of the branch. While Q worked, Jack napped nearby or hunted. The minions kept a running tally of kills on the community whiteboard in the break room. It was an arrangement that suited one and all.
Jack was, to no one’s surprise, a favorite of the Double-Ohs. Apparently, they all found something absolutely adorable about a cat who killed little scurrying things and laid them neatly by Q’s office door or on the tray he used for agents’ returned equipment, before trotting off to cheerfully kill more things.
Q emerged from R&D to find two Double-Ohs waiting for him in his office. “I thought there was a moratorium on sending the two of you out together,” he said, circling around to his side of the desk. James Bond and Alec Trevelyan graced him with terrifying grins that would have sent a lesser man running for his life. The former propped up a wall, a book on thermodynamics in his hands, while the latter lounged like a giant blond wolf in Q’s uncomfortable guest chair and fiddled with a prototype utility tool.
“We accidentally burn down one forest and we’re pariahs for life,” Trevelyan said mournfully.
“The Americans tend not to appreciate forest fires, 006. Especially when it’s a national park. They have an entire ad campaign featuring a touchy-feely bear aimed at preventing fires and everything,” said Q.
“Sounds appalling,” said the Russian.
“And short-sighted,” Bond chimed in, turning a page. “We probably did them a favor, come to think of it. Some plants and trees need to be burned in order to propagate. Like sequoias.”
“That’s Americans for you,” Trevelyan sighed. “Ungrateful sods.”
“That may be, and the delightful botanic trivia aside, how can I help you gentlemen?”
“This needs a flamethrower,” Trevelyan said, turning the prototype over in his hands. “And I need my kit for a little trouble-making in Budapest.”
“Ah.” Q rescued his prototype from the agent, and retrieved a plain lockbox from the shelf he designated for agents’ kits. R must have finished it early. “Passport, plane tickets. Standard radio and your Glock. USB drive with a nasty little surprise inside for their systems. The red USB keychain isn’t real, so don’t try to use it. Push that button there and hold it for five seconds and it will release enough knockout gas to clear a room. Hold your breath. Don’t mix them up. Any questions?”
006 pouted. “That’s it?”
“We have faith in your ability to cause trouble with nothing but a pack of bubblegum and a paperclip. You’ll be fine.”
The agent gave one last lingering look at Q’s prototype and took his kit. “You’re a hard man, Quartermaster,” he said.
“Out,” Q said, leaning forward and planting his palms on his desk.
Trevelyan grinned and got up.
Outside in the bullpen, someone shrieked. “Rat!”
“Damn. Again?” said another. “Jack! Here Jack, kitty, kitty.”
Q sighed and straightened up. “Third one this week.”
“Rats?” Bond pushed off the wall and closed the book on an index finger. “I thought your problem was mice.”
“Mostly. And Jack’s done a good job of dropping the population. It’s the rats that worry me. With the mice on the decline, it seems like there’s a vacuum of power and rats are moving in. He’s not a big cat, and some of them are almost his size. Jack’s vicious though, so he has that going for him.”
The Quartermaster and his two agents watched as a black-and-white streak chased a rat out of the computers and into the middle of the room. Ears flat, fur fluffed, and claws out, Jack pounced on the rat, latching teeth onto its neck and holding on while it flailed and squealed. After a brief battle, the rat was dead.
Jack panted and prodded at the body gingerly, as if checking if the rat was really dead.
“Rat down,” called a minion, to a smattering of applause. Q went over to check on Jack, who chirruped proudly.
“Yes, you’re a ferocious one,” Q said, crouching. “Good for you, slaying the evil beast and saving the damsel.”
“Hey!” said the (very male) minion who’d first yelled.
“Mrrrow,” Jack added.
“At least he didn’t scream like a five year old girl this time,” Q muttered to the cat. Bond snorted. Damn man had the hearing of a bat, despite years of guns going off in close proximity. “Someone call the janitor. And get back to work. The CIA isn’t going to hack itself.”
“Well, this has been exciting. On that note, I’m off. Q, Jack,” said Trevelyan, sauntering off.
“006.”
“Well, glad to see that Jack is working out,” Bond said. “Earning his keep and all that. I’m surprised Mallory lets you keep him here.”
“Haven’t told him,” Q said. “It’s not like he comes down here often to check on us. So if he thinks Jack is a new minion, who am I to correct him?”
“Who’d have thought under all those grandpa jumpers, beats the heart of a rule-breaking rebel.”
“Yes, yes, you’re all a bad influence on me. I’ve sent 006 on his way, so what can I do for you?”
Bond’s eyes sparked with sudden mischief. “Can’t I visit my favorite Quartermaster and his cat?”
“I’m your only quartermaster, Bond, unless you’ve been cavorting with my counterpart from MI-5. Although I have it on good authority he has dogs,” Q said, nose wrinkling.
Bond leaned in close to pet Jack, who arched into the agent’s hand enthusiastically. Q got a whiff of Bond’s woodsy cologne. “Perish the thought,” Bond murmured. And then with what could only be described as a smoldering grin, the man was striding out the door.
“Oh, hell,” the Quartermaster muttered, a little befuddled and a lot alarmed. Then, “He stole my book.”
***
The car was a complete loss and probably better off in a junkyard somewhere. Bond brought Q the shell of the fire-bombed car and a half-melted steering wheel, and that was it. Even most of the paint had flecked off. Still, Q had it hauled off to a corner of his garage and put on blocks until he figured out what to do with it.
“I’ll pay for the repairs,” Bond had said.
“Buy another car, it’ll cost less.”
“But it won’t be the same.”
“If I can fix this car, it won’t be the same by virtue of having been completely rebuilt from the cannibalized parts of other cars. I can’t even use this wheel,” Q said, brandishing the steering wheel.
“Yes, but you’ll do a better job. Besides, I thought you liked a challenge?”
The two men stood in front of the car. It was a sad looking thing, a quiet little hunk of metal that had been destroyed in Silva’s fit of pique. Bond didn’t seem to care about much, but he wouldn’t let this one go. Q had the impression that if he refused to work on it, Bond would just put the corpse of it back into storage. Why, he had no idea.
“I’m an engineer, Bond, not a necromancer.”
“Your predecessor built it.” Bond said. “Well, I say built. He augmented it. Weaponry, eject seat. It’s one of the few cars to survive me for longer than five minutes. Not a terribly comfortable ride, but…” he shrugged. “It made a statement.”
“I’m surprised MI-6 let you keep it.”
Bond looked like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Not everyone is as assiduous as you are about returning equipment. Things get…missed, sometimes. Besides, none of the others wanted it.”
“Bloody hell, Bond.” A niggling suspicion started in the back of Q’s brain. How much “missing” equipment was actually missing? He wouldn’t put it past Bond to have a squirrel cache of weapons and other bits and bobbles hidden away for a rainy day. Probably with all the pens.
“M didn’t seem to mind when she found out,” Bond added helpfully. “But then I had just kidnapped her, so auto larceny didn’t quite make the impression it might have otherwise.”
“I’m working on stolen MI-6 property.”
“Possession is nine-tenths, Q, and she’s currently in your possession, which means she’s made it back to MI-6 after all. Besides, look at her.” Bond gestured expansively. “I doubt even 009 would want her. He prefers the shiny and…new.”
Q narrowed green eyes at the agent, catching and not appreciating the insinuation. “And you, Bond?” he asked sweetly.
“I prefer lovely, intelligent, and a little bit deadly.”
“Of course you do,” Q muttered, feeling a headache start behind his eyes. “I can’t make any promises. I might not be able to find all the parts, and I’m busy enough as it is with my regular work that I haven’t really the time to take on side projects.” Sighing, Q unzipped his jumper to fold and lay beside his toolbox, unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.
“I’ll pay for it,” Bond said. “Might as well use my hazard pay for something other than whiskey, according to Psych. Whatever you need for it. I’ll set up an account.”
“Listening to Psych, are we?” Q asked softly. He grabbed a rag from his toolbox and bent over the hood of the car, reaching into the shot-and-burned remains of the engine. He prodded a few things and a couple bullet casings clinked onto the floor. “Should I be pleased or concerned?”
“Well, actually, they advised me to pick up a hobby and suggested fixing the car.” Bond padded over and peered over Q’s shoulder. “But I don’t much fancy motor oil on my clothes, so this is the next best thing.”
“Cheers,” Q said. He stood back, wiped his hands on the rag, and then ruffled his hair in agitation. He circled the entire car. The doors had already fallen off, and were leaning against the wall of the garage.
The car had been beautiful and unique. It would have to be, to catch Bond’s attention. He was used to the finer things in life: excellent food, classy hotels, fast cars, beautiful women. The thing was, all of those things were ephemeral, and never lasted long. If the man’s file was any indication, he wasn’t just good at resurrection, but at surviving everything and everyone around him. He was the only living thing to survive Skyfall, save for the groundskeeper. The manor itself was a charred-out husk, much like the car Q was absently running his fingertips along. But while Bond would leave the house to fall in on itself, he’d move heaven and earth to resurrect the car.
Q glanced over his shoulder at the man, considering him at length from beneath long dark lashes. The agent had developed a habit of shadowing Q, standing at a loose parade rest like a sentinel behind his shoulder. Close enough to be companionable, if the Double-Oh could ever be described as such, but far enough that he stayed out of Q’s immediate way.
There had been a frisson of awareness when they’d first met at the National Gallery. Q had fired the first shots by intentionally being a pretentious little shit just to get a reaction, but somewhere along the way between snarky banter about spots and pajamas, a connection had been established. When Bond had looked at him—actually looked, and seen past his initial assessment of a awkwardly flirty art student—Q felt that he’d been granted a chance to prove himself.
So it surprised the hell out of him when he made a rookie mistake and Bond still trusted him to help. Didn’t even seem to hold it against him, never once blamed him for M’s death, even if Q quietly carried a measure of guilt for his stupidity. If he were honest, he might have been trying to impress Bond with his hacking skills, to show him that despite his youth he was an equal to the infamous agent. If Bond could be brilliant and devastating in the field, Q could be just as effective in the cyber world with a laptop and a pot of tea. It had backfired, spectacularly, but that weirdly successful dynamic remained.
He wondered if Bond thought Q’s youth made him more malleable to suggestion and manipulation. The agent was trained to spot weaknesses and curry favor. To what end, though? Q couldn’t quite decide if he was being played for a mark or if this was Bond’s emotionally stunted overture of friendship. Or seduction. Who the hell knew with the man, and Q was undecided as to which he preferred, himself.
With a sigh, Q ruffled his hair again. “I’ll look into it. Again, no promises, because I’d hate to make and break one. But I’ll see if I can find any others of this model that are more or less intact. Parts availability is one concern, but structural integrity is another.” He tapped the skeleton. “Fire’s warped part of the frame. If this is too damaged to fix, I won’t even bother with the rest. Whatever your sentimental attachment to the thing is, I won’t send my agents out with unsafe equipment. And I’ll only work on it when I have the time, around other things. I’m not putting off my own work for a pet project. So this could take months. Years, even.”
Bond’s eyes were gleaming. “Understood. Thank you, Q.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Q said grimly. “I might still give you bad news.”
“Even so.” Bond froze and frowned. “Q? What is that?”
Q followed his gaze, then clicked his tongue at the gigantic gunmetal gray feline now stretched out on his folded jumper. “Natasha, come say hello. I didn’t realize she was down here.”
“Natasha?”
“As in Natasha Romanov. The Black Widow? 006 brought her back from Romania. I didn’t realize how many villains have cats.”
Natasha sauntered over, taking time to rub against Q’s knees with a rusty purr.
“That’s not a cat, Q. That’s a bloody panther. In fact, I think I’ve seen smaller panthers.”
“Nat here is a Russian Blue. They’re a large breed overall. Sufficed to say, she’s working tag team with Jack—he handles the mice and whatever scurries in the ventilation, and she mostly kills rats. We always know what she kills because she eats their heads off and leaves the rest.”
“Charming,” Bond said. He still looked a bit perturbed, and even a bit annoyed.
“It rather is,” Q said, grinning down at the cat. “In a creepy, macabre way.”
When he looked up, the agent had pulled a disappearing act.
***
“Mauve alert!”
Q’s hands stuttered on the last line of code, and he swore loud enough that the minions in earshot tittered.
“Shit, shit, buggering shit. ETA?”
“30 seconds.”
“And we’re just finding out now?” Q demanded. “Where are the cats?”
“Unknown, sir.”
“Bloody hell. We might need The File.”
Never let it be said that Q did not run a very tight ship, or that he gave off the impression of being anything other than omniscient. What few people outside of Q-Branch knew was that there were warnings, codes, and protocols in place for absolutely everything from handling explosives to coping with a surprise visit from M-Branch.
Q left his minions to scurry behind him, and trusted that when the doors swooshed open that nothing would look amiss.
He contented himself with fixing the last line of code, and keeping an ear out for the footsteps behind him. It was rare that Mallory came alone, so Q expected Tanner to be sharking along in M’s wake.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Q said. “How can I help you?”
“Oh, I’m just checking in,” M said. “I do like to keep up with all my executives.”
Q liked Mallory. He really, genuinely did. Perhaps it was the Skyfall incident, or the fact that both of them were fairly new to their positions and had trials by fire. Mallory had yet to prove he had the claws and fangs of his predecessor, but he let Q get on with his own work with minimal fuss or interventions. And although it had been years since the man had been a field agent himself, the new M still had a very agent-like fascination for the gadgetry and inventions that Q-Branch was known for.
Seriously, if the Double-Ohs were menaces, sometimes they had nothing on their own boss. Who was currently holding a prototype. Of all the things on Q’s worktable, Mallory just had to pick up the most innocuous and yet most dangerous item.
“That is a grenade,” Q said, rescuing the lighter and disarming it. “We’re still working out the issues.”
“Didn’t I just see something like that in a film recently?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Q said. “In practice, I have my doubts.”
“Hm,” Mallory said, eying the lighter with new, avaricious interest.
Just as bad as his Double-Ohs.
Think of the devil, and one will arrive. 004 sauntered into Q-Branch, all dangerous curves and crimson lipstick, looking the part of a 1940s femme fatale in a spy film. She looked around while dismantling her weapon, the hint of a pout in the delicate line between her eyes. “No Jack today?”
“He’s around,” Q said. “Feel free to keep him occupied for the time being, if you find him.” 004 took the hint with the twitch of a smile and slinked through Q-Branch. Q held his breath and waited for the sounds of dropped items. The Double-Ohs were known for causing disruptions among the boffins, either through the sex appeal that seemed to ooze from their pores, or from just generally being terrifying. Sometimes both, at the same time.
“I keep hearing about this Jack,” M said conversationally. “Seems to have everyone wrapped around his finger, if the chatter is anything to go by. New minion?”
“Of a sort, yes. He does a lot of…debugging and catching things.” Q cleared his throat, shot Tanner a warning look to stop doing that thing with his face, and turned to the room at large. “Sitrep on 008?”
One of the minion-handlers removed her headset. “Bitching about the rain, but he’s on his way to the airport, mission successful.”
Q nodded. “We’re in a bit of a lull at the moment, sir. 008 should be back by morning, 007 hasn’t blown up Paris yet, 004 just got back safe and sound, and I think 001 is in Montenegro, hunting for that embezzler.”
“Very good,” M said. “I was hoping to get a look at some more of your prototypes, Moneypenny was saying something about a new motorcycle…what was that?”
“What was what, sir?” asked Q.
“That is a cat,” M said. “Something you want to tell me, Q?”
“Sorry Q,” 004 said, trotting over. “Tried to catch him, but you know how he is when he has something.”
“Not your fault, Scarlett.” Q said.
Jack paused by Q’s office door, confused at all of the attention he was suddenly getting. He meowed through the mouse in his mouth, sounding vaguely questioning.
“M, meet Jack. He’s our official mouser. And, erm, my cat.”
“Your cat?”
“007 brought him to me. Jack comes to work with me, most days, and stops mice from nesting in the servers and wiring.”
A minion dutifully handed Q a manila folder.
“I wondered why complaints about rats had gone down,” M said.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Q grimly regarded his boss, considered the fact that for a spy he was a really, really awful liar, and sighed. “No, the rat reduction would be Natasha.”
“Two cats?”
“She’s a Russian Blue that Trevelyan brought us after his assignment to Budapest a couple months ago. We were concerned that the rats were too big for Jack to handle.”
“We.”
“The minions and the entire Double-Oh section,” 004 said. “Some of the rats down here are big enough to rope and ride, as the Americans would say. And Jack is a dapper little guy.”
“Mrrop.” Jack said agreeably.
She scratched his ears, delighted when he arched up into her hand with a meep.
Q cleared his throat and opened the file. “We’ve made a study of it, sir. The minions have kept graphs and charts of each cats’ kills every month. And because they’re handling the pest control, we’ve actually been saving a considerable amount of money now that we aren’t constantly replacing wires and equipment, and having to pay man hours to do the repair work. They earn their keep, sir. Also they can test some of our camera prototypes. Furthermore, we have psychological reports. According to psych, the stress levels of Q-Branch have gone down, morale has gone up, and even the Double-Ohs seem to be benefitting from…having cats around…”
Q trailed off when he looked up, as M was regarding him steadily, his arms full of purring Jack. “Oh, please do go on. You had me at ‘saving a considerable amount of money.’ Government budget cuts, you know. God knows neither Bond nor Trevelyan go out of their way to save on expenditures.”
Q closed the file. Wondered if he was in an alternate universe. “We have more specific figures if you’d like them,” he said faintly.
“Please,” M said. There was a spark of mischief there. Jack purred happily at all the attention. “If the PM can have a cat, so can we. And at least ours work for the safeguarding of England’s networks. Right?”
“Mrrrowr.”
“Good man, Jack.” M put the cat down and brushed off his suit. “Well, I certainly understand why more people have found reasons to drop by Q-Branch.”
“Yes,” Q said.
“Just one last question.” M narrowed his eyes a bit. “Why did Bond bring you a cat?”
Q blinked rapidly, aware that his boss, Tanner, 004, and bizarrely, Jack were all looking at him expectantly. Tanner was doing that thing with his face again, wherein he was trying not to laugh and managing to look constipated, while Scarlett looked between Q and M as though watching a particularly interesting tennis match.
“I really don’t know, sir. Who can tell with 007?”
Now they all looked amused at him. Q decided discretion was the better part of valor. He had his suspicions, but to voice them aloud to anyone other than Bond…no. He remembered all too clearly seeing the haggard agent sitting across his kitchen table, looking like death warmed over and as though someone had kicked his puppy, and Q just wasn’t willing to be the one to put a chink in that careful armor. Whatever the gesture was, be it of manipulation or friendship—or something else—Q would defend it.
“As you were, Jack,” he said to the cat. “R! If you would, I think M and Tanner would like to see our progress on the motorcycle. And take them to the range to demonstrate the exploding bullets.”
M’s eyebrows rose. “Exploding bullets?” There was a note of hopefulness.
“We’ll start there, sir,” R said, grinning at Q as she ushered M and Tanner off.
Q took a deep breath. “That went well,” he said.
Scarlett grinned terrifyingly at him, all red lips and shark-like dark eyes. “You fool no one but yourself, lovely. But we do like you immensely for that.” She kissed him on the cheek once and sauntered out of Q-Branch, leaving a trail of flustered boffins in her wake.
****
Saturday night was Doctor Who night. Q had missed most of the season as it aired, so he made a point of ordering a pizza and watching a few episodes on the Saturday nights he had off. It was something he’d started in college—trying to dedicate a quiet night to his science fiction television or films, and making An Occasion of it. He ordered takeout, bought something ridiculously decadent at the bakery on the way home or ate ice cream straight from the carton, and settled in to relax and let his brain have a rest for a little while.
Jack was a welcome addition to these nights, even if he did try to filch Q’s pepperoni and drink his beer.
“I’m not a crazy cat man,” Q said, giving up and holding out a piece of cheesy pepperoni. “I only have two cats, and one of them lives at work. And if this makes you sick, it’s your own fault.”
Jack gave him a dirty look, and then his ears pricked and he bounded off the sofa and down the hall. Q heard an inquisitive sound from Jack, and a soft voice murmuring to him. Q wasn’t surprised when Jack reappeared with Bond on his heels, holding a bottle of Glenfidditch.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” the agent asked.
“Are you going to going to ask me to work on something?”
“No.”
“Are you going to ask me for a favor?”
“No?”
“Are you going to mock me for my television choices of the evening?”
Bond glanced at the television. “Is that Doctor Who?”
“Yes.”
“Then, no, I won’t mock.”
“Then you aren’t interrupting.”
Bond sat down and helped himself to a piece of pizza. Jack curled up on Bond’s lap. “Which Doctor are we on now? I stopped watching regularly after Tennant. He’s a close second to Baker as my favorite. Although, I wouldn’t have minded a season of John Hurt’s War Doctor.”
“Twelve,” Q said, swallowing. “He’s really good.” And if he ogled the sight of Bond in casual dark jeans and a soft-looking t-shirt, eating pizza on the other side of his sofa with the cat, and showing off a surprisingly geeky side, then really, could anyone blame him?
Bond turned that arctic blue gaze on him and grinned. Coherent thought tangled in his head, and for a moment—one beautiful, wild moment brought on by a long, stressful week—he wondered what would happen if he dislodged the cat and climbed into Bond’s lap instead and ended this confusing whatever this was between them? Because any guy who looked like that and brought him cats and talked Doctor Who was clearly out to seduce him.
“The cat would spend the night unattended with the pizza and throwing up pepperoni, and I’d never get to see the Twelfth Doctor,” Bond said, grinning with eyes that were entirely too bright. “But I’m game if you are.”
“Shit,” Q said. “I…uh. I’ll start over from the first episode of the season?”
Bond took a bite of pizza, looking entirely too smug and calculating for his or Q’s good. “Also a good plan.”