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There is a morbid, ongoing retirement joke at MI6 and it goes like this: When an agent dies, he retires.
See? Morbid.
Its tastelessness however, stems from the fact that it's more often than not, true. Particularly for the double-oh agents who either die on the field, by their own hand or - as M would say - 'have the common decency to disappear and stay gone'.
This last one was mostly a jab aimed at 007, which proved to be uncannily fitting when Bond got shot in the head while on a mission somewhere in eastern Europe, and instead of dying like any other decent human being would, he decided to out-stubborn death because 'I'm not done yet, god damn it'.
After a week of it mostly being touch and go, he stabilized in spite of the Doctor's predictions. Q and M weren't surprised because 'it's Bond, it's what he does'. (Though Q hadn't left Six since the incident, except for one time to bring clean clothes for Bond because he would wake up, it was just a matter of time).
Another week passed and Bond came out of his coma. Q was down at medical before he even got the call, and the first thing James asked him was: "Why does my head hurt?"
And Q answered: "You got shot in the eye."
Bond blinked with his good eye. "Well, shit."
***
Bond recovered spectacularly considering the circumstances, again, in spite of the Doctors' dire predictions and concerns ("he's 65 years old", "he has overly abused his body", "his liver is strained", "his heart won't be able to handle the stress"). Q had given them his trademarked unimpressed look with matching derisive snort and gone back to work. The world didn't stop just because one agent (his agent) was down for the count. And anyways, Bond proved them wrong, it's what he does.
James was finally released from medical on a Thursday, and Q took him home and did his best not to hover. He was handed a small box of medication and matching instructions and Q had the ridiculous thought that he had once handed a similar box to Bond, with a gun and a radio in it, a sort of first aid.
"You killed the plants again," Bond commented after he stepped into their apartment, carefully avoiding mirrors and even more carefully trying not to show it. The apartment was aired and cleaned (thanks to Moneypenny who thought of arranging these things even when it wasn't her job to do so), but the two pitiful plants on the windowsill in the living-room had dried up and stood now like a mockery of still-live.
"It was an eventuality," Q responded and followed Bond into the bedroom where he was stripping carefully, methodically. Q watched from a side, watched muscles bunch and relax as they shifted under the skin. Watched as Bond measured every movement, as if counting the exact amount of energy he expended. Watched until he had to clench his fists to fight the urge to do something completely ridiculous. Bond turned and held out a hand.
"Come to bed," he said and Q unclenched a hand slowly, and took his outstretched one. When James tumbled them onto the mattress, it was Q's turn to be careful and even more careful to keep it to himself. Later when James slept, Q pressed his face into the pillow and breathed in the sob that was clawing up his throat. He hadn't let it out while Bond had been cheating death, he had absolutely no reason to let it out now that he was back in their bed where he belonged.
(Q received an email from MI6 detailing that he'd been granted leave for a week. Q and Bond returned to Six on Monday on sheer principle and because they knew that the world didn't stop turning.)
***
Bond was debriefed, examined, tested and then told to retrain in everything. Slowly. So Bond did, putting back the muscle he lost in his month and a half of almost constant bed rest (the rehab hours during that period had been hellish but James was grateful for them now). He ran on treadmills, on tracks, in parks, with electrodes and oxygen masks and without them. He built up stamina, resistance, and learned to ignore the aches and pains throughout his body. He learned to shoot with an altered depth perception and later, relearned everything about hand-to-hand combat because he now had a really big fucking blind spot.
Q returned to his own work, which was mostly uneventful in itself except for the one time Tanner suggested that he might consider splitting responsibilities in order to keep more regular hours. Q had stared him down and locked him out of his email for three days. The topic was never brought up again. Q worked exactly like he always had, because he hadn't been shot in the head and therefore had no reason whatsoever to change his unpredictable schedule or his same obligations. The only difference was that Bond left the office when Q did, and if Q didn't, neither did Bond.
When they both managed to get home, Bond fucked Q like his very life depended on it and Q thought that it probably did.
Business as usual.
***
Until Bond got his bandage removed for good. Every time they had changed it, they had asked if he wanted to see, and every time he had declined. When the bandage was removed permanently he had left early and Q had followed.
He arrived at their apartment only moments after Bond and found him in the bathroom, leaning over the sink, staring at himself. Q stepped quietly behind him and faced him in the reflection.
There was a large burst-like scar around his left eye socket, the eyebrow patchy and puckered. He had a glass eye inserted to prevent complications, but it was completely white on Bond's orders. It made little difference as it was since the eyelid was almost closed completely. He could blink, but not open it as much as before and it had been reconstructed entirely. Instead of bone, he had metal bolts and frames. It wasn't hideous. It was, however, hideously obvious.
Q said nothing as Bond watched him watching him. There was nothing to say. There was perhaps too much. But they had always understood each other best when they said nothing at all.
Bond finally turned around standing a breath away from Q who kept watching him, and the agent thought that the man was memorizing the new details on his face. The scars, the new slant of his lid, the odd texture of his left eyesocket, where the wrinkles had been smoothed out to fix that which had been shot away.
Q lifted a hand and carefully trailed over his brow, the corner of his eye, the cheekbone.
"Does it hurt?" He asked, the first time he had asked.
"Yes," Bond answered and whether the pain was physical or not, mattered little. It hurt, that was all there was to it.
"I have to go back," Q said and rummaged in his coat pocket and took out a small flat box. "Eve gave me this. I agree with the sentiment."
He pushed the box into Bond's hand, fisted a hand in his hair and pulled him in for a kiss full of teeth and heat, and then just as abruptly turned and left.
James opened the box and his brows twitched, amused in spite of himself. That night he seduced Q slowly, full of laughter and flirting and made him come twice.
The next morning James showed up at the shooting range with the plain, black, eye-patch.
***
The thing is that when one is used to doing certain things in a certain way, it's hard to suddenly change. Especially if they have been ingrained in instinct and muscle memory. So even though James trained, and obeyed directions, his marksmanship was still of 70 and he kept getting knocked off his feet in the heavier training sessions. Because his depth perception was shot to hell, because he now had to fully face his targets to see them, because he was an old man and every single injury made itself know all the fuck at once sometimes and all he fucking wanted was a fucking drink, god fucking damn it.
But he was still taking medication (probably would for the rest of his life) and his liver was strained as it was and he hated the look Q got when Bond blatantly disregarded his own well-being.
And it was mostly alright because he was old and he could privately accept he didn't bounce back as well as he used to and because he admitted to himself that had this happened twenty years ago? He would have put a bullet through his other eye and ended it.
So really it was fine. Until the night he was with Q and in spite of having him doing all sorts of delightful things to his nether regions, he couldn't get it up. Not even remotely close to it. His body was boycotting him and fuck it, Bond had had enough. He'd turned them around then, had spread Q out underneath him. Had sucked and fingered him, had left bite marks and bruised kisses into his skin until he came with a hoarse shout and an arched back.
He'd swallowed him down greedily and then kissed him because 'fuck you, that's why'. Q had dozed off after that. And then got called in 'cause the thing in Syria went pear-shaped and Bond had pretended to be too tired to move.
He ignored the issue for three days, then tried the shower. Then ignored it for a week and tried Q. Then he tried the internet. Which was the worst idea ever because he was told that it was a 'natural occurrence for men of a certain age, particularly if under stress, duress, or suffering of an injury and that he could either change his diet, remove himself from the stressful environment or simply try a little blue pill'.
He'd slammed the laptop shut and gone to MI6. He defeated his opponent in hand-to-hand combat in record time and achieved a perfect 100 in his marksmanship, and fuck if he knew what to do with that.
When Bond went home later that day, he found an unmarked small flask of blue pills on his bedside table. He stared at it. And then got a message from Q.
Stop being an idiot.
It was immediately followed by:
I'll be home in 30 minutes.
James thought about tossing the flask out a window, preferably on Q's head. And then he looked at his phone again.
Q had just closed the door behind him when he was being slammed against it, his mouth greedily devoured in something too fierce to be called a kiss.
"James," he panted and then trailed off in a groan when he felt him hard against his thigh. Bond fucked him on the kitchen table, on the living room floor and finished in the bedroom. The ordeal left them bruised and rug-burned and Q was in a daze and slightly worried that he might never come out of it. He also lost his glasses but that happened every other Wednesday.
And then James had pulled him in, tenderly, carefully as if Q were the one who might break, had pressed kisses into his mussed hair, had trailed a large warm hand down his spine to pull them even closer, and Q understood a 'thank you' when it was expressed so clearly.
The next morning Q woke up to a mouth on his cock and a finger stretching him. He was turned onto his front by strong, steady hands and just moments after felt James press into him.
"You shouldn't abuse the pills," Q panted when James was fully inside him and the older man leaned over him, pressing chest to back, his mouth close to his ear.
"I didn't," he murmured and bit Q's ear who let out an 'oh fuck', arched his back and spread his legs. He came with just the friction of the mattress underneath him, his hands bunching up the sheets as James pounded into him hard enough to make him feel it for a week. When he came he did it biting off a scream and buried deep inside of Q.
James went back to Six that day and retook his marksmanship test out of scientific curiosity. He scored 90 and thought that he was allowed some handicap since his lower back was killing him.
***
Bond passed the physical and psyche evaluation with flying colours (for Bond anyways). Until then, everyone had been politely ignoring the fact that Bond was now in actuality, a big problem.
He had the experience and the skills for a 00 agent. He was also really fucking obvious with or without eye-patch. So the subtle part of the job was mostly out of the question.
But he was an asset, had always been one of the best in spite (the other M would have said 'because of') his roguish nature. And thus he was cleared for active duty.
The mission went well. The mission, actually, went excellent. Intel was acquired, not a single shot was fired, no unexpected confrontations, no problems encountered at borders. Bond had been in and out in 57 minutes.
It had left a bad taste in everybody's mouth.
Bond reported back, delivered the recovered intel and equipment at Q branch and got debriefed. Everyone had studiously avoided voicing the fact that a veteran agent had just completed a novice mission. Nobody wanted to admit that they were babying 007. Bond apparently seemed not to have any opinion whatsoever regarding the mission or the staff's behavior, which in turn worried everyone. James had changed into his own clothes back at MI6 after he'd been dismissed and had gone to Q branch.
"All done?" Q had asked when James had leaned against his desk. He nodded.
"Dinner?" He asked and Q looked up from his screens, a small apologetic frown on his brow.
"I got 005 to babysit. Breakfast?"
James had nodded again and left Q branch silently. Q flexed his fingers for a moment, controlled the unhelpful desire to go after him, and went back to work. There was an agent he needed to get back home safely, but he opened a screen to track James anyway. Habits and all that.
Bond left HQ and ignored his car. Instead he walked aimlessly through the city, his coat flapping in the wind. He ended up in a pub simply because he hadn't felt like going home and it had started to rain.
He sat at the bar, ordered a whiskey and sipped it idly trying not to think about the day. Because he had been glad to be back on the field, had been glad the mission had gone well, and had absolutely hated how everyone seemed to feel embarrassed and apologetic on his behalf because it had made the entire thing feel wrong. He had to relearn his job (begrudgingly) and that was fine, but he'd be damned if he was demoted (even unofficially) to a novice. That was worse than being confined to a desk job.
Might as well retire.
James was distracted from his own mind by a beautiful young thing that had sidled along his side to flirt shamelessly at him. It happened two more times, the first two accepted his refusal gracefully enough, they'd still winked and left their numbers. The third one was determined to not take 'no' for an answer.
"I'm married," he'd said eventually, mostly to see what that actually felt like, surprised by how smoothly the words tumbled out of his mouth. The woman had still insisted, had been amenable to a threesome (James had been hard pressed not to laugh uproariously at that). He'd left the pub with three numbers on napkins and higher spirits. He tossed away two numbers and kept the third napkin because it said 'tell your wife to join us' and it amused him. There was even a kiss in red slutty lipstick. He was a sucker for an old cliche.
He was serving breakfast when Q came back to the apartment, blinking owlishly, glasses askew, coat rumpled and hair like a bird's nest caught in a hurricane. He placed his bag on the table, rubbed an eye without taking off the glasses and shuffled close to James to simply lean against him in a sort of lazy full-body 'hello'. James had smiled throughout the whole thing, his stomach doing a lovely slow roll. He put down the spoon and let Q reach across the stove to snatch a piece of toast.
"Marry me," he said jokingly, still thinking about the woman at the bar and Q froze, toast midway to his mouth, and stared at James with shocking disbelief. The fatigue had vanished as if punched out of him and James didn't know whether to laugh or be insulted.
"What's wrong?" Q asked instead and Bond hadn't meant it to be serious except that apparently he had because now the look on Q's face was doing things to him worse than any bullet ever had. Suddenly angry, mostly at himself, he stepped away.
"Nothing. I'm going out," he announced snatching up his coat and left, ignoring Q's call.
He walked aimlessly for an hour. Then made his way back. He'd decided to take the Bond approach to the whole thing (ignore it and pretend it never happened). When he entered the apartment he saw Q's laptop on the kitchen table with a post-it stuck on it.
READ ME
Bond wanted to snap it shut on principle but instead woke the machine up and frowned. There were seven files in the opened folder, all of them bearing a different male name. They were his aliases, the more 'unofficial' ones, he could use if he ever wanted to disappear. Curious now, he sat down and opened one of them. It was a complete personal information sheet. He'd seen them a million times. Name, birthdate, birth location, hair colour, eye colour, height, etc etc etc.
He didn't know why Q had left it out for him until his eyes skimmed over status.
MARRIED
He stared. Then clicked on the listed spouse's name and another sheet opened up. Another fake profile, this time, with Q's face on it. He stared again, closed it and checked all his aliases. All of them listed Q as a spouse. The dates were different, so were the names and places where they'd acquired their supposed marriage license.
James closed the laptop and sat back. Then he went to the bedroom. Q was lying face down in bed, naked, sheets bunched around his hips, his hair still damp from the shower. Bond stripped to his underwear and then crawled into bed too, not being careful about it at all.
Q stirred and blinked the fog out of his eyes and James moved closer, circling an arm around his waist and pulling him in close. Q grunted but let himself be manhandled, legs tangling under the sheets.
"Since when," James asked into his hair after moment and thought that maybe Q had fallen asleep before he replied.
"A year after Skyfall."
Bonds brows went up. They hadn't been together then. Or well, not really together, not seriously so. At least not on his side but maybe he had misjudged his Quartermaster yet again.
"Why?" He asked instead.
"I didn't like you not having a next of kin," he replied and James could feel it was half of an answer, so he waited. "You were still in a bit of a flight or fight mood and if something happened... I just wanted to know."
James stared at the mass of unruly locks underneath him, mostly brown still but streaked (adorably so) with gray. He didn't know what to say, hardly what to think, barely what to feel. His heart was doing an honestly deplorable thing in his chest, and so was the pit of his stomach and he was afraid that all of it was brutally obvious in his face. So he buried it in the hair that smelt like James' shampoo and that just added to the things he didn't know what to do with and when Q tipped up his head, curious about the silence, James closed his eyes (both) and kissed him. Kissed him without urgency, without fever, slow and deep so it stirred the soul and Q made a sweet keening sound in the back of his throat. His hands came up to grip James' shoulders trying to anchor himself to something because he somehow had forgotten how to breath and it didn't matter that he hadn't slept in two days, because James was pulling him to lay on top of him, and James' hands were trailing down his back and James' mouth was on his neck and his voice in his ear and really, that was all everything had ever been about.
***
James took novice missions for the rest of the year. They went uneventful, textbook if a textbook on spying ever existed. When he wasn't, he was training, or shooting, or annoying Q, because that was preferable to all the weird tiptoeing going on around him.
During one of the lulls between assignments he came upon a training session for new recruits. He listened in on the interrogation techniques and swallowed a snort.
Later that same day he saw Tanner leave one of the observation rooms shaking his head. Curious he walked in and watched quite possibly one of the worst fake interrogations of his life. There were other trainees there with him, all of them discussing where the girl in the interview had gone wrong or even worse, right.
"She won't last a day," Bond commented mostly to himself, wondering if he'd ever been that green when he'd been, well, green.
"Why?" A girl asked and Bond gave have her a look. Everyone knew who he was, everyone knew to give him a wide berth. The girl apparently had enough stones or arrogance to ignore it. Both were needed on the field, he could respect that.
He nodded towards the room. "She is doing the cop thing, the whole 'I know it already might as well fess up'. Might work on the common thief, the guilt-ridden housewife. But the kind we deal with?" James shook his head.
"We don't care for confessions, we don't... arrest people," he spoke the word as if it where offensive somehow. "We want intel, the more we know, the better. So we beat it out of them blackmail it, buy it, threaten it and back it up. Empty threats don't work, because they are either more afraid or more loyal to them than they will ever be with us."
He stepped away from the two way mirror and turned to leave. "Don't promise something if you aren't willing to pull through with it. And never, ever, leave a witness," he added almost as an afterthought.
Bond made it a habit to stop by the trainee courses, out of curiosity and, well, boredom, and more often than not he was approached by one or another young thing asking subtletly for advice. It was frequent enough that one day he asked honestly bewildered why they were asking him and not their trainers.
"Because," one kid with peach fuzz on his chin had said, "well, you are 007. Sir." James had left without another comment or advice.
***
A year since 'the incident', he was assigned a moderately high risk mission. Not nearly like the ones he was used to take, but dangerous enough that he and Q had shared a look. He'd missed it, he realized morbidly, this one steady look where James said: "I'll try not to die" and Q said: "Please do that."
There hadn't been any of their customary 'please don't die' sex before the mission, instead, there had been a quiet, wordless, tangling of limbs with gentle caresses. They arrived at Six together, and then James was taking a flight to Sudan.
Q was quiet, focused, steady as he monitored James. It wasn't by far the hardest or riskiest mission he'd ever taken, but it was another milestone and no one at MI6 pretended otherwise. Q issued orders, indulged in banter, and repressed sighs (and shouts of joy) when Bond decided to go against the plan because his gut was telling him something else.
It was going well. There were unexpected situations, some corners had to be cut, but it was going well on mission standard. Then a completely unknown third party got involved and it all went to hell. Q lost contact with James near to the end of it and the silence that filled Q branch felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Q sat quietly staring at the screens and thumbed the ring on his left hand absently. ("Shouldn't there be rings?" James had asked that day in bed after Q had been properly debauched.
"Isn't that a bit old fashioned?" Q had replied and noticed that James was rubbing his ring-finger with his index and thumb.
"I like old fashioned."
"Hm, shouldn't there be a ceremony then?" Q had asked and both of them stilled, imagining no doubt the utter and absolute disaster such an event would be.
"Who would even stand for us?" James had asked slightly bewildered by it all and Q had burst out laughing. James had looked at him then, had looked at this man who had maybe never quite laughed as happily, as honestly as he did then. So he kissed him and wondered how he had ever lived without knowing Q's smiling kisses.
There hadn't been much talk after that, but James did appear with two, plain, platinum bands a week later. They where unobtrusive, adorned only with a simple pattern of straight lines. Q had taken them and engraved them ("If we are being old fashioned then let's do it properly."), not with dates, but with words.
Time Stops
James had smiled at that.)
Q let out a breath carefully and stopped rubbing his ring to get back to work. He had a fake husband to find.
***
Bond turned up three days after being MIA. He had managed to cross a border in the meantime (he claimed he did it on a pack-mule and Q said his hips couldn't handle that), and was picked up immediately. He walked into Q branch with his arm in a sling (dislocated shoulders hurt more now) and handed Q the hard drive he had retrieved, and two completely broken gadgets.
Q gave him an utterly unimpressed look (the one he knew got James going) and handed him the chain with his ring on it.
There was enthusiastic celebration sex the next day because Bond hadn't slept in three days and Q deserved better.
***
Bond stayed on active duty for two more years. He'd been fully reinstated for the last year and a half, doing what he did best, and using his lack of subtlety as a trait instead of a burden.
On the anniversary of him losing his eye he handed M his resignation. M looked at the letter for a moment, amazed at the novelty because, well, double-ohs didn't retire.
He sat back, folded his hands on his stomach and gave him a calculating look.
"How do you feel about staying on as a trainer?" He asked and Bond looked at him incredulously before laughing out loud.
"Not a fucking chance," he answered and M sighed.
"Didn't think so."
"I wouldn't mind consulting occasionally though," James added because lets face it, he wouldn't know what the hell to do with himself now that he couldn't drink his sodding self into oblivion and Q was still Q, which meant, he was at Six more often than not.
M smirked. "That can be arranged," he answered and when he stood up offered him his hand.
"Exceptional work, 007," he said when James took it.
It was the first and last time they ever shook hands.
***
Among the halls of MI6 lives the legend of a man, a one eyed dragon who in spite of his best efforts, made it all the way through the maze.
***
Ten days after James Bond retired, a new 007 was appointed. MI6 wasn't, after all, sentimental or any sort of rubbish like that. There was a nation to protect, a world to control, a balance to uphold, and there were men and women working in the shadows who did it.
In a hotel bar, Q met with the new agent, a woman who was five foot nothing, with sly eyes and a romantic lilt to her speech. He sat down next to her, ordered mineral water and cleaned his glasses. She eyed him, dismissed him and then eyed him again.
Q smirked.
"007," he said over the rim of his glass. She tilted her head to a side and her carefully waved hair moved like water.
"Q," she replied and offered her hand. The grip was strong for her size. He handed her a slim briefcase.
"Passport, driver's license, flight tickets and money, a secured laptop and phone, and a dossier with all the information you require. Memorize and dispose of it before you leave tomorrow."
"No gadgets?" She asked opening the case and Q smirked standing up as he did.
"A gun and a radio. Do try to return all the equipment in one piece, it makes for less paperwork," he added and nodded at her. "Good luck, agent."
***
"How was it?" James would later ask when Q returned from the meet. He was sitting in the living room, looking through a file, reading glasses perched high on his nose (Q had offered him an exploding monocle once and James had resolutely ignored him. There had been spectacular angry sex that night so he hadn't felt too bad about it).
"Uneventful," Q replied and walked towards him.
"How is the new appointment?"
He looked at James, with his hair completely white, still short but longer than he used to wear it. With a three day stubble just as white, with the lines of time and scarring chasing each other across his face. With the arctic blue eye, as sharp and piercing as it had ever been. He was wearing black slacks and a white button down shirt, the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, and instead of designer shoes, there were ridiculous (adorable) house slippers.
Q thought of the petite brunette with the exotic curves to her body, with the smoldering eyes full of secrets and the lush tempting lips.
"Dull," Q answered and kissed James' smiling mouth.