Work Text:
Another bleary Monday. Q navigated the underground level under the new MI6 building on autopilot, the badge already in his hand, ready for a decisive thump against the reader that would allow him into the world of headache and bad coffee and worse news.
He almost made it when something caught his eye and made him stop short.
To the right of the double doors leading to Q Branch proper, on the spot that had been, when he’d left on Friday, nothing but an empty, forlorn stretch of wall, now stood a table holding two trays and a laminated sign:
APOLOGIES REQUESTS
(please make sure all items have undergone security checks so we wouldn’t have to go into lockdown)
Q stared blankly for a stretch of a few seconds, waiting for his brain to boot and provide reasoning.
It didn’t come.
“What the hell,” he muttered, slapping the badge to the reader, punching the code into the keypad and letting himself into Q Branch.
Not right now. He’d ask R at the status meeting.
***
In retrospect, Q had only himself to blame.
The whole circus had started with him having one small budget-related breakdown in public.
It had all been 009’s fault.
Marcus had been sulking about a bloody car he’d had to use on his last assignment. According to him, it was less a car and more a death trap with a steering wheel and cup holders.
Q, in the depth of despair after yet another budget meeting where he’d had to defend that his figures were entirely reasonable and barely enough to send the government employees into hostile environments with real, functioning guns, had been waiting for a lift when 009 cornered him.
“You’re not sending me back out in that thing,” he declared with bravery of somebody who hadn’t seen Q’s budget spreadsheet even once.
“I don’t actually print money here, Marcus,” Q had replied through his teeth.
009 had blinked. “I know.”
Q stepped into the lift, resigned to being tailed, and continued, “Do you know what I need to make you a cool car?”
“Uh. Time?”
“A car! Do you know how much a reliable car costs?!” Q snapped, his voice climbing and bouncing around the confined space.
The pause was long enough for the lift to arrive at its destination and politely spit two men out into Q Branch’s fluorescent dungeon.
“...Oh,” Marcus said, softly, following Q along the maze of hallways.
“Yes. Oh.”
“So if you had a car –”
“I don’t have it.”
“But if you had a car.”
“That,” Q bit out if only to stop this bloody conversation, “would be a prototype.”
“Fine,” 009 said without any notable inflection, and stormed back towards the lifts without another word.
Q forgot the conversation within an hour, as he did with most nonsense people threw his way these days - there was always something even more ridiculous waiting in his inbox.
By week’s end, R found him with an expression warring between pleased and worried. It was an odd look on him. Mostly because his face was reluctant with pleasure and too comfortable with concern.
“What,” Q sighed, “did you do?”
“Nothing too bad,” R assured. “Probably. Come see.”
Q glared and followed.
Parked in the service bay sat a car.
Not a field-issue sedan, sensible and boring. Not a hopeless vintage that was hell to work with (fuck you, James Bond). Something black, sleek, and aggressive; something expensive. Something with opinions about speed limits.
“What. Is. That.”
R smirked and held out a folded note.
No obligations, it read, consider it a thank-you for keeping me alive in Kuwait.
There was only one person who had tried to die in Kuwait lately.
009 had dropped off a car for Q Branch to play with.
Q should have told him to take it back. He should have explained that this wasn’t how procurement worked; that wasn't how any of this worked. That his department wasn’t desperate enough to function in this mode, stuck between charity and bribery.
He didn’t.
He touched the smooth flank of the beast, dragged fingertips over the cold metal, and heard himself say, “We should have her checked before making any plans.”
“Her,” R repeated thoughtfully.
“Hush,” Q ordered back, and returned R’s smile.
***
It escalated from there: the word inevitably spread through the building full of bored people with clearance and bad coping mechanisms.
Suddenly, Q Branch began receiving… offerings.
Nothing as outrageous as a car, at first: just harmless things, most of them strangely useful.
Variety packs of decent biscuits. Tins of tea. Posh coffee beans that Q Branch couldn’t utilise, having a coffee machine that had perished from sheer demand. A packet of printer paper with a plea: Please make it stop printing everything sideways.
(Q did.)
Coils of solder. Boxes of nitrile gloves (hot commodity). Heat-shrink tubing. Fancy screwdrivers with: Sorry I tried to fix it myself.
Then: a sealed antistatic bag containing a part Q tried to requisition for three months. Raw materials. A few plants, one after another, followed by a lamp that provided them with proper light. Fruit baskets began appearing every Monday.
I didn’t mean to blow it up. Twice.
Can you make my laptop work without the fan noise of impending death? I have to be quiet when I steal bloody data.
You all need vitamins. I read fruit has that.
Q hoped they’d get bored eventually, despite the fact that all the biscuits, tea, and even useless coffee did wonders for Q Branch morale.
Q Branch wasn't a big crowd. Their numbers dwindled to just eleven of them; most weren’t mad enough to endure the stress and secrecy that crippled almost every relationship outside the MI6 bubble for the average paycheck.
Now, with that table as obvious encouragement, there was no chance it would stop anytime soon.
M passed by the table one morning.
Q thought the man would be his salvation, demanding to stop at once and remove the ridiculous shrine from government premises.
Instead, the traitor paused, hummed and rubbed at his chin, regarding the trays mildly. There was already an item waiting. It looked like a cat toy. Q refused to be curious.
“Interesting,” M said. “Voluntary taxation.”
“Oh, do not,” Q groaned, slapping a hand over his face.
“What?” M sounded almost pleased. It was unsettling. “It’s good for morale. Keeps the Double-Ohs thinking they are part of an effort. Maybe they’ll be more mindful of equipment.”
“One could hope,” Q muttered.
***
The table stayed. From there, it didn’t just escalate. It evolved.
REQUEST gained a clipboard with a fillable, standardised form. Above all, the form mentioned that the offerings did not grant the task priority.
It was also mentioned that, while ambitious REQUESTS were accepted, it was the applicant’s role to provide resources, at least in part.
A third category appeared spontaneously.
One day, Q came in to TRIBUTES written on an A4 page in blue marker. It rested atop a box containing a brand-new coffee machine.
A smaller, folded note read:
To Saint Q of Perpetual Repairs,
For resilience.
Sadly, Q wasn’t the first to come in that day. He’d agreed to have breakfast with Moneypenny. An obvious ploy, in hindsight. He should have been more suspicious.
Q rummaged in his bag, found a pen and added (DO NOT).
The next day, a third tray appeared. A laminated sign smugly declared:
TRIBUTES (DO NOT)
***
Eventually, he had to admit: the whole bizarre system was weirdly effective.
Double-Ohs became more cognizant of equipment. They brought it back with useful feedback. They left small trinkets they guessed might help push development along, and sometimes they were right.
Q Branch, appeased, worked with new vigour.
Sometimes the requests weren’t about equipment at all.
Sometimes it was: How do I stop shaking?
Or: Would you kill me if I asked your third-in-command on a date?
Q took those into work, too.
He wrote 005 (he knew the handwriting): My office, 7PM if you will.
He wrote on the back of a carefully anonymous date-request form: Depends on your intentions.
***
Five months into the existence of the odd Q Branch shrine, on a rather pleasant, sunny Thursday, Q came in to a set of keys neatly sitting neatly in APOLOGIES.
He reached to pluck the note tucked beneath them, but before he could do that, recognition hit.
Q knew that fob.
His heart lurched and proceeded to beat somewhere up his throat.
He stood there for a full two minutes before scooping the keys and shoving them into his pocket. He decided to ignore the note. Whatever it said, he’d prefer to hear it said aloud.
Aston Martin waited next to Marcus’ Mustang. James Bond waited, leaning his arse on the latter, wearing the best impression of carefree.
Involuntarily, Q scanned Bond’s form for signs of injury.
No visible blood or bandages, but Bond looked tired. Not the dramatic exhaustion he could wear like a suit and make perversely compelling. A quiet, human kind of tired, that made his skin a little sallow, and the blue of his eyes a touch bleak. The sort that didn’t come from one bad night, but from months of mediocre sleep and a life stubbornly refusing to be worthwhile.
“007,” Q finally said. His voice behaved and came out perfectly crisp. “For future reference: returning stolen equipment does not qualify as an apology.”
Bond’s mouth curved. “You allowed me to take it.”
That was, technically, true, but for one tiny detail: he did it only because fighting Bond was like arguing with wildfire. He’d have taken the damn car anyway. It had been easier to just give it up.
He didn’t mention it. It wasn’t relevant anymore. Or so Q told himself.
“Still doesn’t qualify.”
“Would it be enough for a peace offering?”
“Remains to be seen.”
Bond pushed off the Mustang and walked closer, but not close enough for Q to be compelled to take a step back. It was rare for them to be face-to-face during a conversation. Q much preferred being a disembodied voice in an earpiece; it made everything easier.
“You look well,” Bond offered.
Q blinked. “Do I.”
“Yes,” Bond’s gaze slid over him, doing the same inventory Q had just done on him. “You look like you’re sleeping.”
Annoyingly, Q had been sleeping. It’d been a calm fortnight. And look what he had now.
“That’s almost offensive.”
Bond huffed a quiet laugh, and it was the thing that nearly put Q sideways, because it meant Bond was here, real and alive, and Q’s hard-won peace of mind was probably over.
As if the universe had noticed him getting comfortable and decided to snatch the luxury away.
“Why are you here,” Q asked and accused it all in one go. Efficiency.
“Must we have that talk here?” Bond indicated the space around them.
“Nothing wrong with the place.”
Bond waited.
Q took a long inhale and made an even longer exhale. “Fine. Five minutes. Then you leave and go upstairs to haunt somebody else, if you’re so inclined.”
Q turned on his heels and strode toward his office.
“I like the new system,” Bond shared merrily, falling in step. “But what are tributes?”
“Do not,” Q grumbled.
***
“Did you read the note?”
“No. If you can’t say it to my face, it’s irrelevant,” Q muttered, and turned away to make tea because it was something to do with his hands that didn’t involve grabbing Bond and shaking him until the answers fell out.
He shoved a mug towards Bond. “Sit.”
Bond sat, suspiciously obedient. “Have you got biscuits?” he inquired.
“Offerings,” Q corrected.
“Oh. So you accept them.”
“I risk mutiny if I don’t, by this point,” Q muttered and shoved the biscuit tin towards Bond. “Three minutes.”
Bond hummed, unconcerned, and opened the tin to peruse its contents.
Q waited, realised Bond was in no hurry to speak, and plonked into his chair, booting his computer with unnecessary violence.
“You could have bothered with filling out the resignation, you know,” Q nagged since Bond decided to keep silent. “You can’t imagine the hell of paperwork that ensues after a person with a license to kill becomes a romantic rumour.”
“I’m sorry.”
Q glared at him. “You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s not helpful, is it?” Q sighed and opened his inbox.
Opposite of him, Bond said quietly, “You didn’t think I’d come back.”
“I didn’t think about it that much.”
“It’s not a question. An observation.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t,” Q snapped, and that was the truth of it.
It was better this way. Easier, because 007, while famously effective, was also famously disastrous. No other agent caused so much destruction – or so many deaths – in their wake. But the part of this hope was benevolent: James Bond deserved his peace. Just as Q deserved his.
Q didn’t plan to elaborate. He didn’t plan to do anything, actually – only to survive this conversation with his dignity intact.
“I’m here because I couldn’t stay gone,” Bond said.
Q’s laugh came out thin and disbelieving. “That’s not the reason. That’s a confession.”
Bond’s gaze held his. “Then consider it one.”
Q looked away, flustered. “Five minutes are up. I’ll walk you.”
Bond rose without argument – again, deeply suspicious.
At the door, Bond eyed the table with an expression that told Q he was in for trouble.
Bond smugly reached for a clipboard with blank request forms that R had put on the table after the first month to make processing more efficient.
“Don’t you dare.”
Bond grinned and took one. Pulled a pen from a pen holder.
Q watched as Bond leaned on the table and began writing in crooked letters.
REQUEST: Five minutes of Q’s time.
REASON: Apology.
RESOURCES PROVIDED: Tea and Biscuits (pending)
MANUAL READ: Yes.
ARE YOU LYING: No.
Bond capped the pen, slid the form into the clipboard with the others, and winked at Q, unbearably smug.
“Get out,” Q said.
He absolutely did not smile.