Chapter Text
Madeleine was really something special. She was the island of sanity in an ocean of pure madness, her touch so soft that it could rival velvet, her patience rivalling that of a saint and her passion as hot as fire. She was so much like Vesper and yet, her total opposite and James cared deeply for her.
But that was it. He just cared for her. He didn’t love her and it took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure that one out.
He also missed the thrill of the field, the spark of energy that travelled through him when his fingers brushed against the gun’s trigger, the pure ecstasy that filled him when he caught a whiff of the gunpowder. He liked the peace that followed the missions, but he loved how much he had to work for that part.
And frankly, he missed MI6. He missed Eve and her knowing gaze, M and his no-nonsense attitude mixed with his sharp tongue that took down everyone who dared to go against him and his agents, the fidgety Tanner who secretly loved to talk about his wife and children and, surprisingly to himself but not so for the woman for which he left his world, he missed Q with his horrible jokes that rivalled his horrible one-liners.
“Took you long enough,” she said, a little smile gracing her lips. “At least you’ll bring him the car in one piece this time.”
James hummed, kissing her temple. “Something tells me I have a lot of grovelling to do before the Quartermaster allows me back in his good graces. Maybe a certain painting will speed things along.”
She snorted, hitting his chest lightly. “I highly doubt he’ll appreciate you giving him something stolen.” She picked up her magazine and started to flip through it. “But from the many things you told me about him, bringing him another bottle of champagne might end with it up your arse.”
He started to crawl over her, placing his head on top of her magazine. “Since you seem to know so much, might you also know what I need to buy to make my sullen Quartermaster not turn me into the other agents’ walking target for the next three years?”
Not that he didn’t deserve it, but he wanted to get that out of the way as fast as possible and go back to the normal days when he’d poke his nose around Q’s office. The things he found in there were simply amazing and if he pestered Q enough, he was allowed to do more than hold them for five minutes while he explained in great detail and with excitement and pleasure in his voice what each of them did.
“Oh no, I am not helping you with that. I helped you accept what you really need and,” she winked at him, “who you really need, but I am not helping you cheat.” She pulled her magazine out from under James’ chin and placed it on his face. “That poor man deserves to use you as a mop after all the things you did to him, you brute. And you better hurry because your flight leaves in three hours.”
By the time he was finally on the plane, he was both loved and hated by four shopkeepers, two thousand pounds lighter and with an extra suitcase in the plane's hall, but at least he was 15% sure that Q wouldn’t zap him into a coma the second his eyes landed on him. Or let his two cats use him as their personal scratch pole – although he wouldn’t mind if it were Q’s nails that left marks on his body.
London was dreary as always and the old MI6 building was towering once again over the Thames – though security was seriously lacking because James had no problem bribing someone into lending him their boat and then using it to reach the entrance of Q’s domain. Seriously, you’d think that part of the river would be filled to the brim with all sorts of security cameras and with patrols, but nothing.
No alarms started to blare and he wasn’t attacked by any strange robots that were shaped like tin cans and had plungers from which they shot electricity – he found plans for those hidden in the bottom of Q’s desk awhile back and the young man dropped his favourite mug on the floor when he walked in on him reading them – when he entered Q’s branch which was both odd and a relief.
Another thing that was odd and that tipped him that something was extremely off was that the branch was full of people, all running around, all shouting at each other, all typing madly at their computers and little iPads, looking like the end of the world was just around the corner.
And no one noticed him. Well, they were all aware of their surroundings because they all stepped around him and were careful not to bump into him, but no one seemed to see that he was there. He tried to grab one of the boffins, but they were surprisingly slippery and uncaring that they were shoving a former double oh.
He headed straight for Q’s office, expecting the find him all tired and in a bad mood, surrounded by a mountain of papers and empty cups. Q would take his glasses off, rub his eyes and then look again at James just to be sure that he was really there. And then he would smile for a fraction of a second before glaring and probably saying that he was out of cars to give.
But instead of his Quartermaster, he found R looking like she hadn’t slept in a week, hands trembling a bit as she emptied what appeared to be her third cup of coffee for that day. And that was the real sign that something bad had happened because Q never left his office open if he was home sick or away on a mission and R hated coffee almost as much as the Quartermaster did.
“Civilians are not allowed in here,” she said coldly without glancing at him. “Vacate the area immediately or I will be forced to call security.”
James placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, eyes narrowed. “Where is the head boffin? Don’t tell me he actually managed to go on vacation now that I was not here.” He was really hoping that the woman would send him to a beach or a cabin in the woods somewhere, but he had a feeling that wouldn't the case - and his stomach lurched.
She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Q’s idea of a vacation was visiting all the museums or locking himself in his house so he could invent more things.” Her computer beeped and she pushed James out of her way, the message she had just received angering her so much that she threw the keyboard at the wall, yelling.
“R, what happened? Where is Q?” James insisted, placing a hand on her shoulder again, his heart beating erratically.
She shrugged his hand off, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I am not at liberty to discuss this with a civilian even if he is a former MI6 agent.”
“R—”
"Set an appointment with M and see if he’ll tell you something,” she interrupted him, nodding her thanks to the boffin who came to replace her broken keyboard. “Bond, no one in this branch has time to fill you in on what happened while you were away.” She pulled Q’s headphones over her ears and immersed herself in the wall of text that flooded her screen, typing something every now and then.
He tried to talk with the others, but they all ignored him, too busy doing whatever. Eve eventually showed up, Tanner and M in tow, all three of them looking only slightly better than R. Well, maybe not Tanner. The man somehow managed to look like he was sixty and the bags under his eyes were so large and pronounced that James had to do a double-take just to be sure that they weren’t bruises.
“I am really tired of asking this, but where is my Quartermaster?” He growled.
The three exchanged looks and Eve took a step forward, James really not liking the way she was looking at him. “Q has disappeared three weeks ago while on a mission in Austria.” James felt his blood turn to ice, the air harder to breathe and the world around him became sharper. “No ransom demand has been made as of now and no one attempted to hack our servers. We do not know who took him, why they took him or if he is still alive at this point.”
James needed a minute to calm himself down, counting back from ten just as Madeleine had taught him when he felt the need to brush his hand against the gun he no longer had. “Surely the agent who he was assisting was there and got a good look at the assailants, right?” He said slowly, gritting his teeth.
“Mister Bond, this is not something for civilians to concern themselves with and I am afraid that the Prime Minister has forbidden us to rehire you,” M spoke up, barely managing to keep his voice emotionless. “Because of that, you are currently trespassing on government property and if you do not leave in the next ten minutes, I will have no choice but to arrest you. Miss Moneypenny, be kind enough to show Mister Bond the way out and make sure he understands.”
Eve nodded and started to drag James out before he could find his words. “I can't reassure you that everything will be fine since I do like you just a smidgen. And, we are already going against what the Prime Minister ordered - namely to simply declare Q dead and move on - so don't waste your breath trying to get me to convince M to reinstate you.” She sighed, stopping by James’ boat. “So feel free to worry away; get a taste of how he felt every time you pulled a disappearing act.”
That was different because he was someone trained to deal with all sorts of situations while Q was more like a precious bauble that needed to be kept safe. That is why he had gone to Eve for field information on his last mission and was shocked beyond belief when he heard Q’s voice right next to him in that disgusting health bar.
He could feel a vein on his forehead throbbing when he thought about the PM. What an ungrateful sod; Q had done so much for the country and the world – temporarily saving it from being run by a complete mad man – and yet, instead of allocating extra resources to find the man, he was expecting everyone to simply move on as if Q was nothing more than a pawn.
And he also owed Q so much for everything he did for him and for the countless times he risked his job just because James had to complicate his missions. He couldn’t simply abandon him in hell. “I want to help,” he said, stopping and forcing Eve to stop with him. “Even if I am no longer an agent, Q is still my Quartermaster and I want to help bring him back home.”
Eve furrowed her brows, her brilliant, sneaky mind trying to come up with a plan to get around the Prime Minister without causing harm to anyone in MI6. And then her face lit up and she smirked and James wanted to pull her in his arms and kiss her – but he didn’t, because she made it clear a long time ago that she wouldn’t hold back from kicking the daylights out of him if he ever did that.
“While we can’t have you on as an agent again,” she started, phone already in her hand, “the Prime Minister never said that we can’t bring you on as a consultant. Or a civilian mole of sorts.” She grinned when she saw the text she had received, showing James that M was more than happy to have him collaborate with them like that. “The pay won’t—“
“I don’t care about the pay, Eve. I just want my Quartermaster back and the head of whoever dared to lay their hands on him.” He also wanted the head of the agent who had allowed for such a treasure to be stolen, but he figured now wouldn’t be the time to try to get the man’s – or woman’s – name out of Eve.
Eve patted James’ back and a boffin appeared from behind her, showing a small USB stick in his hands. “We also cannot provide you with equipment as you are a civilian and no agency is allowed to give weapons to someone who is not trained to handle firepower,” she rolled her eyes and James looked unamused, “but, woe unto us, we never learned our lesson and it is still so dreadfully easy to break into Q’s branch to take whatever one wants.” The boffin gave James a little wallet that was filled with the necessary tools. “And we still misplace USB sticks.”
James glanced at what he was holding, feeling that addicting surge of power that he always got whenever he accepted a mission. “Oh, that is just awful, Eve. I do hope that the stick in question did not hold missile plans like the last one?” He just had to be sure he was holding what he thought he was and not something Q was working on.
Humming, Eve tilted her head to the right, cupping her chin. “Well, Q actually made sure that never happened again, so this time we misplaced the one that contains all the information we have on his disappearance alongside the clone of the program we're using to try to track him down.”
She left after she gave James a quick hug and welcomed him back, the former agent suddenly feeling empty and cold on the inside.
The following night, Q branch reported a break-in and presented M with a list of things that had been stolen, making a quick note that it wasn’t troubling and that they will keep an eye on the black market in case the thief tries to sell the things he stole.
Two days later, James was camped out in Q’s apartment, suffering through the cats hissing and clawing at him as he followed R’s instructions to access the young genius’s computer. By the end of the week, he was feeling like he was having a nervous breakdown because the program that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore showed Q in different parts of Germany.
“It has to be defective, R,” he growled into the phone, lighting his fifth cigarette in a row and opening his second bottle of scotch. “Because if it isn't then I am going to track down the agent he was with and chop him up.”
She clicked her tongue and sighed. “Bond, I am sure that the Quartermaster explained to you at one point that the nanomachines stop sending out signals the moment the blood they were in coagulates. The program must be picking up samples of Q’s blood. Try to search for an area where the signal is stronger.”
“R, you wouldn’t dare send me to bring back his—“
“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t send you after Q’s dry cleaning,” she interrupted him. “But Q trusted you, so I have to trust you despite every fibre in my body telling me not to. Although I fail to understand why since you are the only agent who blew up a castle while he was on vacation.”
She went on insulting him and Q’s tastes, but James tuned her out because he had just found Q.