Chapter Text
"People speak sometimes about the ‘bestial’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
He who smiles in a crisis has found someone else to blame.
The saying flashed through Q’s mind as he sat in the meeting with M and the other higher-ups, in the aftermath of Skyfall.
All of them turned in his direction with small, pitying smiles on their faces.
“Quartermaster...”
Slowly, he sat up straighter, took a deep breath, and looked calmly back at them as he waited.
***
Q was well aware that that was the way the system worked: MI6 had just been through hell. Their security had been breached, their existence called into question, and above all, M was dead.
MI6 needed a scapegoat.
And there he was, perfectly wrapped in an oversized cardigan like a Christmas present. The youngest ever quartermaster—most of his subordinates were at least a decade older than he was and unfamiliar with the pop culture references he offhandedly doled out in the middle of work conversations— new to the job, lacking experience and connections and just about anything important.
Except brains. He had those in spades. Unfortunately, that didn’t count for all that much when the whole Skyfall assessment was one big power play between all the department heads eager to point out why they were entirely blameless.
Fact: Q had been the one who’d been foolish enough let Silva into their computers.
Not such a clever boy.
Fact: He’d been the one who’d gone rogue when he’d laid out a trail for Silva to follow to Skyfall, knowing full well that he’d be operating outside of orders.
(Of course 007 had gotten no more than a slap on the wrist from the new M. Double-Os got a ridiculous amount of leeway. Q supposed that their ability to kill annoying people with just their thighs was probably a factor, although he wished that he could point out that with a neat bit of hacking, he could turn off every life support system in London or send every train crashing off the rails. He could be Silva if he wanted to be.
He didn’t bother. He didn’t want to be Silva—it seemed to involve an unnecessary amount of drama, and he’d never been much for theatrics—and he wasn’t stupid enough to remind them of what kind of a danger he posed.)
Fact: Q had few allies with any clout to support him. The new M vouched for him, yes, but Gareth Mallory was only days into the position and couldn’t risk rocking too many boats just yet. Tanner was on his side, but Tanner was still grieving and had gone on indefinite leave since M’s death.
Q hadn’t been Q long enough to build up his own network. He was a private person by nature; before his sudden promotion, he’d only had a small circle of friends in MI6. Most of them had died when their old headquarters had been attacked, and even more had resigned or retired afterwards, partly because some of them had been badly injured, and partly because most had been sane enough to realise that the likelihood of them leaving MI6 in a body bag was a little bit higher than they’d expected—nobody really expects tech support to lose body parts for reasons other than poorly timed in-house experiments. He was supposed to be interviewing more potential recruits, once HR got their act together, but at the moment they were busy trying to fill the other departments. Including their own.
He’d started making some tentative friendships among the agents and his staff, but nothing solid enough to help him in this particular situation. And just about all of those potential relationships quickly disappeared once the official story trickled down through the ranks, neatly placing all the responsibility on his shoulders.
Not quite a fact, but pertinent nonetheless: Q blamed himself, in his weaker moments.
Rationally, he knew that it was a combination of factors that had let to the situation. Silva had been planning to infiltrate MI6 long before he’d assumed the quartermaster position. Anyone could have made the mistake of plugging Silva’s laptop into the mainframe. He’d done the best he could under the circumstances. It was illogical to think that he was the sole cause of everything.
Q had never claimed to be a wholly logical being.
So Q nodded along and said nothing when they talked about his ‘grievous errors’, which had ‘contributed significantly to the damage involved in Skyfall’. He stayed complacent as they threw around words like ‘probation’ and ‘permanent record’.
He carried on being Q, because M said so, and because despite it all, brains did count for something.
***
“Too many people are starting to figure out how to get up here. We’ll have to think of another hiding spot soon.”
Q looked up from his solitary rooftop lunch to see Moneypenny standing by the doorway. “Miss Moneypenny.”
“Moneypenny’s fine. Or Eve, if you prefer. Why are you up here?”
“The cafeteria’s too crowded, and I can’t abide anyone eating or drinking around sensitive tech down in Q-Branch.” Exceptions were made for anything with caffeine in it, because Q was strict but he wasn’t a monster, and his grip on Q-Branch was tenuous enough without forcing his undercaffeinated subordinates into outright rebellion.
“Fair enough,” she said, sliding down to sit beside him on the ledge, heedless of her silk skirt. She kicked off her heels with a sigh before turning to run a critical eye over him. “You’re holding up very well, all things considered.”
All things considered—which could mean anything from the additional cuts they’d made to his budget, the conveniently ‘misplaced’ paperwork that meant that he still didn’t even have a quarter of the staff he needed, the fact that agents sometimes made pointed requests to have someone else handle them on missions, the way people ignored him in the hallways... it was like being transported to his school days, though at least he was spared the indignity of kneesocks.
He shot her a small, weary smile. “It’s a stressful time for everyone.”
“And yet you’re the one lurking up here like an overgrown bat.”
“It was my childhood dream to become Batman when I grew up.”
“You’d make a very scrawny caped crusader,” she observed.
“Being Q is better than Batman,” he answered, raising an eyebrow and offering her his vanilla pudding. She brightened as she took it with an obscene amount of glee—he bit his lip to prevent any Gollum jokes from escaping. “It’s far more efficient.”
She grinned. “Sarcastic and provides pudding. I like you.”
“Nice to know that someone does.”He’d meant it to come out light-hearted, but it sounded more strained than anything.
“I’ve been where you are,” she said. And he did know that. He’d been around when the news had gone out that she’d killed the infamous 007. Moneypenny had been ostracised for a short time. But it was different, then. M had put a stop to that nonsense quickly, and everyone had listened to M.
Now M was dead, and they thought it was Q’s fault.
“It does go away, Q. Eventually.”
“How?”
“Well, in my case the dead person just resurrected himself,” she said with a shrug.
He gave her a sombre look. “I already looked into regeneration techniques, but then my test subjects started craving brains and I decided it would be a poor idea all around to carry on.”
“Sensible of you.” She got to her feet and smoothed out her skirt; she’d already been gone ten minutes, and the piles of paperwork on her desk had no doubt magically tripled again. She would swear they were reproducing. “Give them time. Just stay on your toes, keep providing people with shiny things, and do try and socialise with your subordinates every now and then.”
“They can hunt me, because I can take it. Because I’m not your hero. I’m a silent guardian, a watchful protector,” he said with a straight face.
“Shall I fetch you a cape?” she asked dryly. “If you can leave off your dark, broody persona sometime, you should join me at my desk for lunch tomorrow.”
“You only want me for my pudding.”
“I prefer chocolate, for future reference.” She smirked and glided away, quietly singing, “Nana nana nana nana nana nana—Batman!”
***
The first day, Q didn’t show up. Moneypenny had to go up to the roof to fetch him. “Do you see how high these heels are, Q? If you make me climb those stairs again, I’ll bring down Q-Branch with the power of paperwork.”
“There’s a lift, Moneypenny.”
“There are also fifty-something odd documents that may or may not need your signature by the end of the day. They’re long and excruciatingly boring.” She examined her nails. “I also haven’t decided yet whether they need to be filled out in triplicate.”
Q got to his feet. “You’re very attractive when you’re bullying people into doing your bidding,” he said.
“I’m very attractive all the time,” she countered, dragging him down to her desk where she proceeded to make horrified noises at what he considered lunch.
“It isn’t a meal if it’s composed of ninety percent coffee,” she insisted.
“The other ten percent is a salad,” he pointed out.
“I’m not sure if it counts. It looks more like you’re drinking caffeine soup with a few pieces of lettuce as garnish on the side. Where did you even get that silo to anyway? Why are they letting you keep it a silo on our roof for coffee storage, of all things?"
“Won it off the Explosives team in a poker game when I was still a Q-branch grunt. I think they used to use it for storing chemicals? Not really certain.” It was one of the most heavily guarded things in all of MI6, mostly because it would have been one of the first targets in their little we-hate-Q campaign otherwise. As far as he was concerned, he was doing them all a favour. If they touched his coffee, he would probably rain fire and death on MI6. He wouldn't even need to salt the earth after, since there would be nothing left to salt.
“Are you trying to induce genetic mutation in yourself?”
“All part and parcel of my attempt to become a superhero,” he replied blithely. “If I can’t be the Dark Knight, I always did like Professor Xavier.”
After that he simply went straight to her to spare himself the indignity of being caught by the scruff of his neck like a naughty kitten. He packed puddings for her for an entire week until she made him stop, citing her girlish figure.
“I’m not keeping you around for your pudding, Quartermaster,” she said, affectionate exasperation creeping into her voice as she batted away his offering of strawberry pudding.
“It’s my dry wit, isn’t it? It brings all the boys to the yard,” he deadpanned.
“Exactly,” she agreed. Q made a face at her (he was young, and he couldn’t help acting like it sometimes—Moneypenny knew she should discourage it, but it was adorable) before offering the pudding to Mallory, who accepted it graciously. Moneypenny had a rotating cast of people dropping by her desk for lunch. Occasionally Mallory joined them, sometimes it was the Double-Os, often the secretary pool.
The latter, in particular, had gotten fond of Q, whom they coddled with the force of a thousand grannies, even the ones in their mid-twenties. Even the male executive assistants, who all dressed in suits that cost as much as his tech and made scarily envious pronouncements about the fluffiness of his hair while clucking over his constant lack of sleep, tendency to walk into things, and poor life choices in general. They reminded him of M, and none of them blamed him at all for the Skyfall incident.
“You were so new to the position,” one of the older assistants said sympathetically, patting him on the arm. “Besides, that rascal Bond no doubt convinced you, you poor dear.” Q had early on in life learned that his face and rumpled clothes would mean forever being treated like a silly child, and he had no shame in capitalising on it when it served his purposes.
“He’s just so terribly convincing, I couldn’t say no,” he said with a little lip wobble and much casting down of his eyes. Moneypenny had to excuse herself to hide her fit of laughter from the rest of them.
He didn’t mind the hair-ruffling quite so much, but their attempts at switching his coffee for decaf were simply unacceptable. They’d quickly hammered out a compromise where he suffered through their matchmaking attempts with minimal complaint—because he was apparently a ‘nice young man’ who needed looking after, and all of them invariably had single cousins/nieces/daughters, which had quickly switched into cousins/nephews/sons when he hadn't shown the least bit of interest in their former offerings—if they didn’t touch his probably-hazardous coffee.
Most of Moneypenny’s lunchtime companions just watched Q with wary, curious looks. He hadn’t known quite what to say, at first, but Moneypenny inevitably needled him into bantering with her, and then he forgot to be guarded with his words.
It began with Moneypenny, and Q knew that she’d known exactly what she was doing by inviting him to eat with her. The visible show of support from her—and M, when he could be torn away from Very Important Things—had people slowly warming up to him again. At the very least, the open hostility had died down a bit, and 004 had stopped polishing her gun in front of him whenever she came down to Q-Branch, so he was chalking it up as a partial win.
***
It happened after a fortnight. Q supposed he should have expected it, but he’d still gotten caught off guard and nearly spilled his coffee down his front when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Moneypenny, I’m away two weeks and you’re already starting up a home for wayward little boys?”
“Empty nest syndrome, Bond, you know how it is,” she replied, as Q pried Bond’s fingers off him. “Don’t damage the merchandise.”
“He can handle a few broken fingers,” Q huffed. He hadn’t even reached for his taser; he thought this showed remarkable self-restraint.
“I was talking to Bond. No molesting the Quartermaster, 007, or we’ll have words. Be nice. I’d like to keep this one.”
Bond stole a kiwi from her fruit salad. “And here I thought I was your favourite.”
“I shot you for a reason.”
“Are we pretending that that was intentional, now?”
“See, this is why Q’s my favourite,” she said sourly as Bond laughed.
***
Q didn’t mean to like Bond. The man was egotistical enough as it was. Bond toyed with him because he was prickly, and Q knew it. His reactions were amusing to the man; he was a novelty, and nothing more.
But when he ran into Bond at the cemetery, the two of them stared at each other. Q clutched the bouquet a little tighter in his hand.
“Bond,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“Q.” Bond had a bottle of scotch and was carefully placing it on the grass growing atop M’s grave. Q was fairly certain that Bond was about to make some hobos or wandering teenagers very happy, once the two of them cleared off. Bond glanced at the arrangement of tulips. “She was allergic to those.”
“...bollocks.”
Bond’s face was blank. “She won’t know the difference. She’s dead.”
“You shut up,” Q said sharply, because of course it made a difference.
Some of the tension left his frame, as though Q had just passed some sort of test. “I never did thank you for Skyfall.”
Q snorted. “I didn’t really think you would.”
“Oh, good. Then I won’t.”
“Rude,” Q said, smirking. “How is that you’re somehow even worse than the cautionary tales the secretarial pool’s been feeding me?”
“I do my best to exceed expectations,” he deadpanned. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Before he left, though, he paused, taking in the messy hair and the dark circles that never seemed to leave the Quartermaster’s eyes. He clasped a hand on Q’s shoulder. “If you can’t accept that it wasn’t your fault, you can at least know that the ones who really matter don’t blame you for it. Not me, not Tanner, not Eve, not Mallory.”
His eyes were very blue, Q thought in a daze.
“And fuck anyone who says otherwise.” He released Q and walked off.
“Is that a thing you do?” Q called after him. “Deliver a one-liner and then just stroll away with your coat flapping dramatically in the breeze?” Bond chuffed out a laugh without turning back, waving a hand lazily back at Q.
He waited until Bond left before he let himself sink down to sit beside M’s grave. He reached up to touch the spot where Bond’s hand had been. He glared at M’s grave, because he just knew that had M been alive, she would have known about his newborn crush within a week and laughed at him before giving him a lecture about the life expectancy of Bond’s sexual partners—oh God, they hadn’t even had sex and he was already expecting to die due to Bond relations.
"Do not," he told the grave with an annoyed scowl.
He had the impression of M snorting derisively at him from whatever afterlife she was in. (And the thing was, Q personally didn't even believe in an afterlife, yet he was absolutely certain that it existed just for M to judge him for his poor life choices.)
Q had to remind himself that it would be very poor form to take a swig of that scotch Bond had left, no matter how much he found himself needing a drink after that little revelation.