MI-6 Family Values
“So he took the Aston Martin?”
“Without so much as a please or thank you.”
Eve pulled up a chair from R’s long empty work bench and put it on the opposite side of Q’s desk. He had been cooped up in his damp little basement since sunrise and of course insisted on being the last person in Q-Branch to leave. This was the fourth consecutive 17 hours shift he had volunteered for since Bond walked away from the bridge with Dr. Swann, and it didn’t take a Double 0 to figure out why. It was actually R who texted her that James had come back for the car (without checking in with anyone else at MI-6 of course who fought tooth and nail for him, of course), and warned her that the Quartermaster was yet again planning to close for the night. Every other night this week she had checked on him, the young man had been hard at work typing at the speed of light or tinkering with some new weapons, but tonight the poor kid just sat in his chair with his arms crossed, staring at a completely black computer screen. Eve sighed.
“Get your coat, Q, we’re going out,” she ordered, reaching across the desk to push his laptop screen down.
He blinked quizzically at her several times over the top rims of his specs.
“I’m not really in the mood.”
She rolled her eyes and leaned even further over the desk so she could grab his tie and pull him out of his chair.
“Yes you are, mate, and I already called Tanner and Mallory. They’re meeting us at a pub down the road.”
“Eve,” he practically whined as she physically pulled him up and forced him to put on his heavy green coat. “I’m not fit to be out in public and you know it.”
Though he squirmed like a child, she stared him down until he had no choice but to meet her commanding gaze.
“That’s exactly the point. You’re a mess, and you need a drink. Come on, I’ll pay for a cab.”
Q finally let out an exasperated groan and followed her back up to the London streets. She guessed that at this point his veins were more caffeine than blood and that there were prisoners with lifetime sentences whose skin got more sun that his. The least she could do was get some food and a stiff drink into him. Hell, they all needed stiff drinks after the last few weeks, which was precisely why she talked Tanner into “kidnapping” M for the evening as well. Between dealing with the aftermath of C’s death, deconstructing the Nine Eye’s project, reinstating the Double 0 program, and cleaning up Bond’s mess in general, it was Eve’s full intention to get everyone as shitfaced drunk as possible.
***
“I mean, who the hell does he think he is?!” Mallory growled, kicking back what had to be his fourth shot of absinthe and Crown in the last hour alone. “Waltzing in and out of MI-6 like he runs the whole bloody kingdom?! You know what? I should have him arrested for treason! I’ll do it, I swear to bloody God, I will!”
“You should, you definitely should,” Tanner joined in. “Did you know that I missed Kathy’s birthday because I was here helping to clean up that Mexico disaster? She nearly divorced me after that.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Q slurred, barely audible from where his forehead was pressed flat against the table. “I have bent over backwards for that man since the day you pricks assigned him to me. I put my career and my life on the line for him, but instead of even giving me a second thought, he rides off into the sunset with some damsel in distress in the car that I put back together for him! Where’s my happy ending, hm? I love him more than that blonde doctor ever will, but it will be a cold day in hell before he ever realizes it.”
Eve suspected that if M and Tanner had been on the more sober side, Q’s confession might have shocked them, but instead they simply nodded and grunted in sympathetic agreement. Eve smiled and took the last sip of what was only her second glass of wine. The pub owner owed her a favor from back at uni, so he was more than willing to keep it open a few hours passed last call, and this was exactly what her emotionally battered boys needed. Yes, she probably worked her ass off more than the three of them put together, but she also knew how let go and unwind at the end of the day; they didn’t. Since she was a child, people had told her that there wasn’t a mothering bone in her body, but there was something distinctly rewarding and distinctly maternal about finally seeing her friends let out some of their stress. Then she choked on the wine.
Her friends. Jesus Christ, Mallory, Tanner, and Q were her friends.
“You boys need a good night’s sleep,” she finally chimed, interrupting what had descended into a cacophony of overlapping bitching about Bond. “I have a feeling you’ll need it if you want to wake up without a splitting headache, and even that’s pushing the limits.”
Though all three of them groaned in protest, she succeeded in herding them all up and toward the door. However, even in their drunken states, M still noticed that she left her coat at the table.
“Aren’t you going home too?” he asked sincerely.
She smiled but shook her head.
“No, I’m going to stay a little while longer.”
Though he tried to utter something about her needing her rest as well, she ushered him out the exit with his Quartermaster and his Chief of Staff. When she checked that they had each caught cabs toward their flats, Eve walked back over to their table and collapsed into the chair with a sigh. Almost her entire life had been fueled by spite. She was motivated to succeed where people said she would fail just so she could prove them wrong. For years, nothing but competition and achievement fed her passion; trust, comradery, those where just things that got in the way. But she realized that her life had not been that way for quite some time now. Maybe it started when she finally admitted to herself that she wasn’t suited for fieldwork, but more and more she wondered if the real bonds she had finally developed with the people around her was grounded in the mutual betrayal they shared. Though it was sort of twisted, perhaps she did owe these newfound attachments to 007, even if it was because of his perpetual status as MI-6’s biggest twat.
She chuckled to herself and propped her feet up on the table, signaling to Owen at the bar to bring her one more glass of wine.
***
“R, what time is it?” M asked, staring the Q-branch minion down with a glare that could melt iron.
“7:15, sir,” the mousey woman squeaked nervously.
“And what rule is in effect at 7:15?”
Eve could see R sweating around her collar and had to bite back a grin. The minions stayed down in the basement for good reason, and it really was unfair for M to be so hard on the poor thing.
“Fr-from 7:00 am to 7:30 am, M, Q, Mr. Tanner, and Ms. Moneypenny are not-not to be disturbed and meeting room 241 is not to be entered un-unless an international emergency arises,” she finally managed to stutter out. “But sir, I think you might-might-might want to make an exception.”
Mallory cocked an eyebrow, but Q threw him a warning glance to let him know to go easy on her. It was probably Q who enjoyed their specially earmarked morning breakfast “meetings” the most, and was the most keen on keeping them private, but at the same time he was such a benevolent dictator to his employees.
“What is it, R?” the Quartermaster asked kindly.
“007 is back. He was sp-spotted in the lobby a few moments ago and should be here any-any second now.”
Tanner suddenly started choking on his doughnut and Eve nearly dropped her cup of coffee. She spotted M’s jaw clench up tighter than a newly wound clock, but Q was the one she worried about. The kid’s face went as white as a sheet and his breathing became shorter and shorter. He was trained enough to keep his cues subtle, but by field operative standards he was an open book, and a pang of sympathy ran through her. Practically everyone at 6 wanted to shag Bond, that was no secret, but she knew that with Q it was more than that. He had held out his heart to James, only to have it crushed under the wheels of that Aston Martin. They barely had time to recollect their composure before 007 came striding in like he had never left.
Like he had never abandoned them.
“You have a lot of nerve showing up here,” M snarled before James even had time to offer a greeting, his hands clenched into fists.
“You know I could never stay away,” the agent replied coyly with enough snark to make even Eve snap.
How dare you…
“What happened, did you get bored of Dr. Swann?” Q quipped with no attempt to mask his contempt.
Everyone’s heads snapped around to stare, jaws all slack. Q was usually dry, witty, warm, or occasionally authoritarian. Even when a mission went horribly wrong or one of his minions royally screwed up in a way that threatened the whole of British security, he retained a professional and comforting reserve. Eve had never heard something so directly harsh or accusing come out of his mouth, but she was more than a little proud of him. The kid was finally standing up to Bond’s bullshit.
“She decided to go back to work in Austria,” James stated, he himself more taken aback than Eve had ever seen him.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you thrown out immediately,” M growled, but Q was already on a track.
“You abandoned us, James!” he burst, completely ignoring Mallory. “The four of us have been working day and night for weeks to put MI-6 back together after the mess you made and you abandoned us! We risked everything for you, and you took off without a word except to come back for your bloody car! After everything we went through, did you ever once stop to think about us? To think about me?! I-“
He finally stopped himself, but Eve was still holding her breath. Why didn’t he just say it already? He put a hand down on the table to steady himself and she gently brushed her hand against the side of his leg in a silent show of solidarity. It looked like any second now he was either going to scream or punch Bond in the nose. The older man took a few steps forward.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” Q said quietly. “We aren’t anything to you, not really. Just things that you let into your life when you need them and throw away when you don’t. Why did you even come back?”
They locked eyes and it was as if everyone else in the room disappeared. Eve’s own indignation suddenly melted away and even though she wanted to knock out James’ perfect teeth, she most of all wanted Q, her friend Q, to get his closure. She swapped careful glances with M and Tanner, who seemed equally resolved to keep their mouths shut and watch how this whole scene unfolded.
“I came back for you,” James stated, and rested his hand on the young man’s jacket lapel so smoothly and so swiftly that Eve almost didn’t catch it happening. “I realized it wasn’t Madeleine who I needed to be happy.”
Tanner made a noise that didn’t even sound human, which earned him two harsh glares from Eve and M, but James and Q didn’t seem to care. Q just let out a choking laugh, as if he was trying to hold back tears of joy (and she knew for a fact he would rather swallow nails that cry in front of Bond…). She was elated that Q might finally get his well-deserved happy ending, and gave them a few more minutes of private silence to gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, but then she couldn’t help herself.
“Get a room, you two,” she finally groaned sardonically. “And James, if you even think about pulling another stunt like that on us again, this time I won’t miss.”
The Double 0 slipped an arm around Q’s waist and flashed her a ridiculous grin.
“I’m counting on it, Eve.”
She rolled her eyes and took a long sip of coffee as the two men practically bolted out of the room. Things were going to get a lot more interesting in their little family from here on out.
“Should I make a call to HR?” Tanner asked.
“Don’t bother,” M scoffed. “We’ll just leave that to R when she finds them fucking on her desk.”
Eve laughed so hard that her scalding hot coffee came right out her nose and all over her white blouse.