It starts with a mission in New York City.

There are bright lights. There are people. There are underground groups of various dispositions. There is Bond. And there is Q.

It starts with Bond trying to infiltrate a terrorist group bent on creating bombs in New York that will go off in London, under the guise of a group of scientists working on nuclear reactors for power plants soon to be built across the United States.

MI6 doesn't like to send their Quartermasters with their agents, because Quartermasters are meant to be behind the scenes. Quartermasters are meant to run the computer programs, to develop weapons, and to track agents. But Bond needs his Quartermaster, because Q is the only one who might be able to disable any weapons they come across, and given that these are dangerous nuclear weapons hidden away in one of the world's largest cities, MI6 would rather have someone with finesse disabling them. Agents shoot bullets, but bullets won't help, in this case.

M watches Bond and Q's progress, as they infiltrate the terrorists' programs from an office building not too far away. After a bit of investigating, Q has gotten enough intel to do what he does best, and he's on his laptop, running programs that M can see on his own computer but can hardly follow, in an empty floor. He's hacking into the terrorists' network, getting layout of their headquarters and important details on their weaponry—what it is, how it works, how much do they have, where is it located, and what kind of security surrounds them.

M purses his lips. Q is a bit overzealous sometimes, carried away with his knowledge. He gets lost in the computers and fails, most of the time, to take any of his colleagues with him. Including and especially Bond.

Not that Bond is a colleague. Bond is an Agent, a tool Q uses to pull triggers and make things happen that he can't necessarily accomplish from his computer. Not that Q only sees Bond as a body, but there are times when he can think of Bond in that way, as he would of any agent, a pawn in a plan. MI6 employees aren't meant to get too attached to each other, of course; they all know the risk. But some are more important than others.

Some need to be alive longer.

This is why, when M looks at his laptop and the program freezes, and the words, "Say Goodbye to Your Quartermaster" pop up, M places a call.

Bond picks up and M says, "Q is in danger. Make sure nothing happens to him."

M knows they won't kill Q, at least not right away. But the loss of a Quartermaster is even worse than the loss of a good agent; it's MI6's worst nightmare. The Quartermaster develops weapons and maintains the computer programs that protect the information of the British government; they know enough to bring the country down, should the inclination suit them. The Quartermasters are geniuses; they develop weaponry, they run programs, they run MI6. And they have information that anyone trying to take down the British government needs if they want to do it right.

Gain the information that a Quartermaster has, and Britain falls. Not only Britain, too. MI6 houses information on the United States secret service as well. The United States could fall. Europe could fall.

M hopes that Bond won't let him down.

The blue light from the computer reflects off Q's face, data scrolling across his glasses faster than Bond can comprehend. Q seems to be in a trance, eyes zooming back and forth, mouth moving silently as he gathers each new piece of information. Sometimes Bond thinks that Q is a computer in human form, which isn't exactly impossible for an organization like MI6, but then Q does something stupid like comment about how that car Bond destroyed was particularly nice, or that Bond should stop flirting with the waitresses of a particular restaurant and get back to work, and Bond is reminded that Q is, regretfully, human.

Q doesn't look up when M calls, doesn't look up when M says that Q is in danger, and doesn't react when Bond touches him on the shoulder and says, "Q, we have to go."

Q remains staring at the screen.

Bond shakes him, hard. "Q, we have to go now."

Q looks up, jerking his gaze towards Bond with a small frown on his face. "I'm working," he says.

"M says you're in danger."

"Of course I am, I'm with you," Q says with a roll of his eyes.

"Look," Bond tells him, "I don't want to have to deal with you getting shot or something because you don't know how to fight. You're not even supposed to be in field-"

"I can fight," Q snaps. "I invent your weapons. What makes you think I don't know how to use them?"

Bond doesn't respond to that, not because he can't (he can say a lot, like about how Q doesn't look like he's stepped outside for more than two days judging by the pallor of his skin, how he's skin and bones and no muscle, how Bond has never seen Q do anything that couldn't be done behind a laptop screen). In that moment something explodes, sending them both flying.

"Run!" Bond yells somewhere through the rubble, as Q picks himself up off the remains of a desk. His laptop's somewhere, destroyed, but if it isn't he has to destroy it himself. He runs towards Bond's voice, assuming that somewhere between him and Bond is the laptop.

The smoke begins to clear. Q makes out his laptop on the floor, surprisingly not as harmed as he would like it to be. He dives to his knees and types in a line of code that will destroy the hard drive beyond recognition, and presses enter. At the same moment there's a metallic click and something ends up against his head. Q closes his eyes.

"Q," Bond says through his earpiece, "are you out?"

Q grits his teeth. The person behind him, male, from the sound of it, hisses, "Do what I say or I'll blow your brains out."

The laptop sputters, sparks fly.

Q suddenly jerks his arm back, elbow hitting the man in the crotch. The man goes down; Q grabs his wrist and spins him around, as if in a dance, and forces him to drop the gun. The man does so and Q takes it, not because he doesn't have one (he does, and it's better) but because he'd rather the man not have one. This man is dressed in black, masked. Q points the gun at him.

"Not quite yet," he murmurs to Bond, "but I'm on my way."

"For god's sake, Q, quit playing around and get out of there," Bond says.

Q rolls his eyes and exits the office, using his free hand to dust off his sweater. He hates getting his hands dirty with agent-work.

"Are you out?" he asks Bond.

A pause, and then shots that sound as if they're coming from the floor below.

"Bond?" Q repeats, not allowing worry to creep into his voice. Not yet.

Banging, and more shots. Q heads for the stairs and runs down.

He's about to open the door to the next floor down when Bond crackles to life in his ear, but he sounds off. Strained. "Q, they have me. Get out of the building. They'll kill you."

"I can't leave you here," Q says, hand on the door. He hears running down the steps. "You have my best weaponry."

"There are five," Bond says.

Before Q can respond there's a yell and the earpiece transmits nothing but static. From above, footsteps thunder down. Q wraps his hand tighter around the gun and shots ring out in the stairwell—not his.

Not yet.

Q reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small sphere that resembles a marble. He tosses it up the stairs and runs the opposite direction.

There's a satisfying explosion from above, and more shots are fired.

Q continues to run and wonders why he and James decided to work from an office on such a high floor.

A bullet ricochets off the metal railing and nearly hits Q before exploding into a wall.

Q turns around and spots a gun, and he doesn't hesitate to shoot. The gun he stole isn't the same as his gun, though. It doesn't respond to his touch as well, kicks back to far, and Q tosses it aside with a, "Oh, for god's sake," and draws his own gun, coded to his palm print, and fires.

This time the bullets hit home, incapacitating the men shooting at him (possibly killing them, but Q doesn't like to think about that) and buying time for Q to run down the stairs and burst out the door.

"M, there's been a security breech," Q yells into his communication piece, small and unobtrusive on his sweater collar.

"I know," M says. "Get out of there."

"Bond-"

"You're coming back, Q," M says.

Q looks up at the building. From the outside, it's all glass and sleek city skyscraper, and no one would suspect—

Thirty floors up an explosion rips through the glass, shattering the illusion.

"You can't just leave Bond," Q murmurs, hoping that Bond isn't at the heart of the explosion, because that one looked worse than the first.

"I'm making a call, Q," M tells him, sharp. "Get on the next flight back to London through JFK. You're needed here."

Q curses. All around him, sirens shriek and lights flash as the police and firemen, New York's finest, all gather around the building. Q pulls a policeman aside and tells him, "Please, there's a man in there that I know. His name's Bond-"

"There's a lot of people in there," the policeman says, brushing him aside. "We'll do the best we can."

Q looks back up at the building, all shattered glass and smoke, through which he can see nothing. No Bond. He turns away and takes a cab back to his hotel room—his and Bond's hotel room—and packs.

Q can't get over the intent of the attack. It was meant for him. "Q is in danger," M had said. What did that mean?

Q packs the last of his sweaters into his suitcase and slams it shut. He sits on the bed, spare laptop whirring away. The last to go. He shuts it down, frowns.

This isn't Bond's mission.

Q's known that from the outset—why else would MI6 send the Quartermaster, who rarely leaves his computer? Q was the one with the ability to shut down the terrorist operations, to infiltrate their labs, and Bond was the muscle, the one who would protect him. There are still terrorists out there and now they have a bargaining chip, and everyone is in danger.

And Q is in the middle of it.

Information. That's what they need. That's what Bond doesn't have, and what Q has. Bond will get killed and the terrorists will set off their bombs. Q has what they want; he can get into their labs and stall them, and figure out what to do while MI6 sends help. They won't send anyone after Bond, but they'll send people after him.

Release Bond and have MI6 smoke out the terrorists. Q could kill two birds with one stone.

Q is smart. He knows how much he's risking. He'll be held, perhaps tortured. He calculates the likelihood of torture for information the same way he would calculate the amount of kickback on a gun; cold and detached. He's lateral damage, but he's needed alive. Bond isn't needed alive, not by the terrorists, but he's needed by MI6.

And he's saved all their lives, at some point. He's owed a favor. Q rarely does favors but in this case he'll make an exception.

And a tiny part of him wants to prove to Bond that a Quartermaster isn't just a geek with spots who can't do anything except type. He may not be an agent, but Q was hired by MI6 for many reasons, intelligence being one. The largest one, but still. Q has many talents.

Q sighs and looks at his laptop again.

It was a good laptop.

He opens it, types in a few lines of code.

With a spark the laptop shuts down again, hard drive melted.

Q walks out of the room.

"Q, have you arrived at JFK?"

Q ignores M's voice. He knows where the terrorist labs are located. He knows the layout. He knows where Bond might be. Q has an excellent memory.

"Q, tell me you're boarding Delta 1965 to London."

"I'm boarding Delta 1965 to London," Q tells him. The taxi driver stops, lets Q out. The factory is posing as an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront of the Bronx, facing Queens. The area screams desolate. Nothing but criminals and prostitutes…and terrorists, apparently.

And Bond.

"You're lying," M says, and then he curses. "Damn it, Q, you're putting the country in danger."

"By not rescuing Bond we're putting the country in danger," Q says. "Send your agents to where I am. I have a tracker on me. Turn on the program—my coworkers will tell you how. Get your men here and you'll find the terrorists, their weapons, their plans, everything."

"Q, I could fire you over this."

Q smiles grimly. "But you won't, because there's no one better at the moment."

M curses again.

"I'm taking out the earpiece," Q continues, "so they won't find it and get suspicious. They won't notice the other tracker."

"Why not?" M asks, exasperated.

"Because it's under my skin," Q says, rolling his eyes. Before M can respond he takes out the earpiece and detaches his mic from his sweater, crushing them both underneath his shoe.

"You better be grateful, Bond," Q murmurs as he walks towards the warehouse. "I've destroyed far too many of my valuable possessions for you today."

The entrance consists of two metal doors, which scrape loudly. Q looks into the darkness beyond, impenetrable, like a cave going miles-deep. Q remembers the layout of the facility in his head, and he also remembers to take out his gun.

His plan might be to get captured, but he sure as hell isn't going to lie down and take it. They'll work to get him.

Bond has spent 24 hours underground in a lab, with two Americans, three Iranians, and a man from London, all of whom remain nameless. In fact, Bond is blindfolded, so they are faceless as well. He only knows where they're from because of their accents. Bond is good at accents.

He's strapped to a chair, held by metal bars that dig into his wrists and ankles. They haven't tortured him. They debate killing him.

"Tell us where your quartermaster is," the man from London says.

"You don't need him," Bond points out, and knows that no rescue is coming because M has reached the same conclusion. An agent is expendable. They always are. "You can create your bomb and set off an explosion in London without him."

"We could, yes," the man from London says, "and we will. With or without him. But with him we can gain information to destroy world powers, to show them where they went wrong. To show the world how easily their government can fall."

At the fingertips of a young man with glasses wearing a cardigan, Bond thinks. It would be more amusing if it weren't also frightfully true.

"Well after all that," Bond says, "why would you expect me to tell you anything?"

"We will kill you if you don't."

"Agents are expendable." Bond found that out the hard way, when the previous M ordered him shot for the sake of a mission.

"But do you feel that you are expendable?" the man from London asks.

Good question, Bond thinks. For them, he has no answer.

Q knows how to get around quietly. He's used a mobile device that once resembled a cell phone to hack into the lab system while in the building, because the cell phone has no important information. This can help him keep track of where he is and where Bond might be, and it's useful. And Q's tired of destroying tech.

He goes down hallways, managing to avoid people. He wishes his gun had a silencer. He makes a mental note to add that to the next version.

The hallways start to look more modern. At the end of the warehouse had been a set of stairs underneath a trap door, which Q had found rather easily because he'd remembered the information from his computer. From there, everything started to look a lot more like a science lab and a lot less like a sketchy abandoned city building.

Q makes it as far as the room he thinks Bond is in, mostly because it's a small lab that shouldn't, according to the schematics and data, house any weaponry or experiments. He steps in front of the door and looks at the handle. If he tries it, he gives himself away.

If he shoots the door open, he also gives himself away.

Q tries the handle. He's never gone for the brute approach.

The door swings open and Q allows himself a second of shock that it wasn't locked before bringing his gun up, but before he can see who he's aiming at he hears a familiar voice sigh, "You're joking."

"Ah," a voice murmurs. Q can see six men of varying ethnicity, wearing suits. Bond is in a metal contraption that resembles a chair in the middle of them, a blindfold around his neck, useless. He looks relatively unharmed.

"Let him go," Q says.

"We don't let people walk free for nothing," one of the men says, with a London accent.

"I'll make you a deal," Q says, stepping into the room. He thinks. He could just shoot them all now, but they're probably armed. Bond won't be able to get free to help him; likely they'll kill Bond as well. And, well, these men are better off being interrogated by MI6 to smoke out others like them.

Q lowers the gun. "You let him go, and I'll stay."

"Why would that satisfy us?" the London man asks.

"We all know that it's me you want," Q says. "I have the information you need to most effectively destroy governments. Not," he adds, "that you won't have to work for it. I have a price as well. But you get to keep me in your custody, at least, if you let him free."

Bond glares daggers at him. He obviously would have done things differently, and Q makes it obvious that he doesn't care.

The men deliberate on this, gathering into a tight circle. Bond doesn't even look at them; he's still glaring at Q.

"You were supposed to leave," he hisses from the metal chair device. "This is my job, not yours. You're the one with the information."

"There's no reason for you to be here," Q murmurs. "You'll just get killed. You're useless to them. It's not always about the agents."

Bond groans. "You fancy yourself a field agent."

"No, I fancy myself a quartermaster," Q corrects, "and a fully capable one at that. I'm doing my job. I'm saving the country."

"You walked straight into the terrorists' trap," Bond points out. "How is that saving the country?"

Q drops his gun, which clatters loudly on the floor, and clears his throat. The men look around.

"I need an answer," Q says. "I haven't got all day."

"You act like you can control what happens," the man from London says.

"I can," Q tells him. "I'm the one with the information. You've got to persuade me to give it to you. Giving in to my demands might be a good start."

"You'd betray your country for one man?"

Q purses his lips. "I didn't say that." A pause. "It's possible. You won't find out unless you try it."

A pause. The man from London steps forward. "Fine. I'm Howard Reynolds. And you are?" He holds out a hand.

"Q." They shake. "I'm afraid I'm not willing to trade my name for Bond's life. Only my freedom, thanks."

Reynolds makes a motion to the men, who re-blindfold Bond. One of them injects something into Bond's neck; he flinches.

Voice beginning to slur, Bond tilts his head in Q's direction, a good estimate, and murmurs, "You bloody fool. Not…you're...job."

"MI6 is not solely maintained by agents," Q tells him.

He watches as the men drag Bond away, and turns to face his captor. He claps his hands together and smiles, awkwardly. "So, let's get to it then."

Reynolds responds by restraining him in the metal contraption previous occupied by Bond.

MI6 finds Q 24 hours later.

During that time, Q is asked a lot of questions, and asks questions of his own, and both sides are at a stale-mate.

Q isn't an interrogator, but neither is he the sort of person to bend under pressure.

Not that the terrorists didn't try. Q discovers that the chair he's strapped to receives an electric current sometimes, and when that fails to persuade him, Reynolds tries drugging him. This also fails, though it makes Q wonder what else happened because he feels as if he can't remember things properly, feels as if he's in a dream, and everything is sore. (He later finds out that they tried to beat the answers out of him but he just laughed and told them he'd rather have Earl Grey.)

24 hours after Q put himself in a trap partially of his own making, MI6 bursts through the doors and raids the place, confiscating some weapons, destroying others, and taking plans and computer hard drives. Reynolds is the only one left alive of the terrorist group because the others commit suicide with cyanide capsules as soon as the raid begins. He escapes.

But there are guards. Q managed to avoid them, but they add to the chaos, shooting at agents and making things generally more difficult.

Q wonders where the NYPD are. New York's finest missing a huge shootout. Seems unlikely.

Amidst the fighting and shooting, Bond breaks through and frees Q, who attempts to stand and falls onto Bond, who pushes him upright. "You look like shit," Bond says.

Q is still a bit dazed, the drugs haven't worn off and standing up he realizes that he's bleeding and things hurt, but what he says is, "Give me a gun."

"I don't think-"

"Bond. Gun. Now." He holds out a hand, expectant.

Bond rolls his eyes and hands Q a gun. Q cocks it. "We have to get Reynolds," he tells Bond. "He'll try to escape. He's the head of the operation from what I could gather."

As they run out of the room Q passes an agent carrying computer hardware and yells, "Careful with that, I have to hack into it later!"

Bond and Q round a corner and Q wonders whether his cell-phone device survived, but he's going off pure instinct. He drags Bond down a hallway, they turn a corner, Q running through maps in his head, when a guard shoots at them. Q shoots back and the guard falls. They don't look to see if he's dead.

"We should get you out of here," Bond tells him as they round another corner.

"You'd be useless without me," Q says. "He's important. Reynolds. We need to get him."

"The others can take care of it."

"Damn the others," Q snaps, and he's breathing a bit too hard and he might be shaking but he's not going to back down. "I am perfectly capable of doing this. I want to get Reynolds. I want to see him locked up."

It's probably a revenge thing. It's probably because Reynolds is one of the few people to make it about Q and not about the agents, or about M, or about anything else. It's personal.

And Q isn't one to let others fight his battles. He's okay with others pulling his triggers, but only if it's in the name of MI6.

Q isn't MI6. He may not have a name, and he may not have much of a life outside of his professor, but he is still his own. He is Q, and it's as much his identity as it is an initial for his job title.

Q opens a door, and concrete steps lead down into the darkness.

"I need to invent bullet proof sweaters," he mutters. Bond snorts, behind him, and they start down.

Reynolds is against the wall of this…basement. Q can see him through the darkness, the shadow of a man. There's a gun, too, pointed at them.

"I'll shoot," Reynolds says.

"So will I," Q tells him, and shoots.

Reynolds drops the gun, Q and Bond rush over. He's bleeding from the leg, a serious wound, but not fatal. Bond says something into his earpiece and Q looks into Reynolds' pale face.

Reynolds looks afraid.

"I walked straight into your trap," Q tells him, "and you walked straight into mine. Plans within plans. "Q leans forward. "You're dealing with a genius. You were never going to win, I'm afraid."

He stands up. Bond watches him, a strange look upon his face, like a mix between curiosity, confusion, and a strange sort of respect.

"I think," Q says, surveying the damage, "I will take that flight to London now."

There is an inquiry, and paperwork, and a medical visit, but overall Q is deemed fit for duty, and he begins by unraveling the plans of the terrorist group, which stretch beyond the United States to encompass most of the western world, and parts of Asia.

The corruption of governments. Q wonders why they don't focus on governments that are worse off, like some in Latin America, whose leaders are openly corrupt. Then again, power breeds hatred.

But Q can stop them, and he does. All from his computer, before his first cup of Earl Grey. Not quite in his pajamas, but Bond is impressed nonetheless because he does it without a gun.

"I have a list of things I need you to test out," Q tells him, handing him a piece of paper. "Given this last mission I've decided to improve upon several of our weapons and tracking technology."

"You want me to inject a tracking microchip into myself?" Bond asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I certainly can't do it for you," Q says, not taking his eyes off the computer screen. He's scanning addresses of suspected accomplices to the terrorist plot. There are more than enough to keep half of MI6 occupied for the next month, which is good. They tend to get bored, otherwise.

"Why?"

"I'm not trained." Q pauses, then seems to realize what Bond's asking. "I want to make them standard issue for employees of MI6. Everyone is so often traveling, and often to dangerous places. It would be prudent to have a tracking system that couldn't be found on your person."

"Because it's in your person," Bond says, with a grimace. "And if they find out about that?"

"They won't. I'm developing it."

"Of course." Bond looks up and down the rest of the list. "When will it be ready?"

"End of the week at the latest."

"Why did you inject one into yourself?"

"A nurse did it for me." Q sighs. "I test all of my inventions to make sure they work. M says I can't use the agents as my personal lab rats, so I make do with what I have."

"Which is yourself."

"And the rest of the Q department." Q looks up. "Don't expect me in the field. That was a one time thing."

Bond smirks. "Of course. I know how you hate getting your hands dirty."

"I can't stand the flying," Q adds with a smirk. "Besides, someone needs to run MI6 while the rest of you play around with guns."

Bond rolls his eyes. "I'll be back."

"Right." Q's already back to his work, in his own world.

Bond hesitates at the door, turns around. Sees Q in his element, bathed in the neon glow of his computer screen, glasses reflecting lines of data scrolling, Q's thin fingers typing as deftly as a pianists' would play a piece of music.

Q plays his music, a constant patter of keys on a keyboard, and he looks right.

Bond clears his throat and the moment is broken, and Q looks up as if he's waking up.

"Thank you," Bond says, "for you're work. You're not half bad in the field."

"No," Q says, "I'm not. But this is much better."

Bond leaves and Q returns to his programming, a small smile on his face.

And so the quartermaster remains, running the world from his computer, and making his computer his world.