#we need 00Q like right now

[thestalwartheart]

May I ask for 00q and a 💛 please

Hello my friend! Thank you for the prompt. This was such a lovely one to fill.

You can read the fill below or on AO3. 💛

After a weapons test goes wrong in Q Branch, Bond spends a moment dancing with regret.

relief.

One minute and seventeen seconds.

James Bond has lived through a lot. He’s lived through seconds that felt like years and years that felt like fleeting moments. He’s seen people suffer. He’s seen plenty of people die; killed some of them for duty, and loved others to their death.

So, a minute should be nothing. He’s held his breath for longer.

“Q.” With the hand that isn’t holding his jacket to the wound at Q’s head, he cradles Q’s chin. Blood slicks the path of his fingers, then sticks.

“Medical team are two minutes away,” says someone. Not Tanner. Not anyone useful.

“Tell them to hurry up. They can take the bloody stairs if they have to.”

Two minutes. Christ, Bond's only been here on the floor for one.

He strokes his thumb over Q’s mouth. His lips are blood red now, stained from Bond’s messy hands. They’re a grotesque mockery of their usual cherry red, that colour for which Bond has never found an equal.

“Come on, Q. Wake up.”

There’s a pulse at Q's neck. That’s positive. Breath, too. Even better. All good signs. None of them do much to quell the frightful adrenaline in Bond’s bones. It’s been there since he saw Q land badly after his fall. No, not a fall. The body-flattening shock from the blast which—

“What the hell happened to proper safety regulations?” Bond barks. The techs around him flinch, but he doesn’t spare them another thought.

Under his thumb, Q’s lips are moving.

“Since when were you an expert on health and safety, 007?” A warm puff of laughter comes from his lips, and Bond doesn’t waste another second.

The kiss tastes like blood and cordite, and Bond’s own blood rushes to his ears. His pulse is on his tongue.

This wasn’t how it was meant to go, not with Q. He was meant to take Q out to dinner, wine and dine him, and see him in a proper suit. There didn’t seem a man in the world more in need of sweeping off his feet than Q, and Bond had intended to rise to the occasion. But as always, as always, the universe sought to remind him there just wasn’t enough bloody time for all the things in the world he wanted. There was only time for this. This kiss. This moment, holding Q's bloodied face in his hands on the debris-littered, dusty floor of Q Branch.

Q hums into his mouth, then winces.

Bond pulls back. “All right?”

“Mm. If I’d have known on our last field mission together that this was all it would take…”

Bond remembers his and Q’s last mission well. It was three weeks ago now, though it may as well be a lifetime. They’d spent days under the bright, arid haze of Rome’s summer sun, where Bond had, for once in his life, turned down a blatant invitation to sleep with someone with no strings attached. Because Q wasn’t just anyone. And Bond was, frankly, finished with starting things under a hail of bullets that were only doomed to fail.

Regret settles under his skin now. He wishes he’d given into the delicate warmth of Q’s hand on his knee. They could have kissed at sunset with the Colosseum to their backs. He could have watched Q drink his fill of Chianti under the stars. Everyone believes Paris is the city of love, but Bond has always preferred Rome. Vesper once joked it was the memory of all those strapping Roman soldiers.

Gently, Bond strokes his fingers through the dusty, greasy, sweaty mess of Q’s hair. Unbelievably, it still looks intentionally styled. “Don’t. I didn’t want—you deserved more.”

“Oh,” croaks Q. “To hell with what we deserve.”

With a weak fist, Q grabs Bond’s blazer and brings him down for another kiss. And this time, Bond doesn’t wonder about the paths not taken. He sighs and kisses Q back. Q will live a long life if Bond has anything to say about it, but if they only have a minute left together, then Bond knows how he wants to spend it:

With love rather than regret.

[aniron48]

Love Letters - Day 5

Welcome to Day 5 (!!!) of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! We're in the home stretch, friends--as a reminder, we'll wrap up on the evening of 2/14, around 9ish EST. If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up here: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

And for those who have been here for the long haul, come see how your voting turned out! Day 5 starts below the cut. 😁

He just had to make one more stop.

Bond arrived in Q Branch to find Q underneath the hood of one of his cars.

“James,” Q said, straightening up at his approach. He rubbed ineffectually at the engine grease on his cheek, only succeeding in smearing it further. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“Why in god’s name do we have a Ford Fiesta?” Bond asked, leaning against one of the work benches.

“Believe it or not, some of the agents actually appreciate being inconspicuous on their missions. You should try it some time.” Q reached for a rag to clean off his hands. “Are you here just to see me, or...?”

“Just to see you,” Bond confirmed. He held up a bag from the Thai place down the block. “I’ve brought lunch.”

It had been meals like this one that brought them together in the first place. Bond had learned early on that Q, in many respects, was not dissimilar to a giant panda: both of them had to eat almost constantly in order to survive, and like the panda, if left to his own devices, Q’s natural diet was almost entirely devoid of nutritional value, consisting of sour gummy worms, liters of tea, and whatever biscuits he could scrounge from the break room. 

He and Bond had barely been friends, in those early weeks after Skyfall—there was a newly-forged trust, and a certain grudging respect, but that had been it. But one afternoon, Q had nearly fainted while fitting Bond for a holster. Bond had stormed down the street to the nearest Tesco, returned to throw a sandwich, an apple, and a packet of digestives at Q’s head, and had stayed in his office until he’d finished them. Before he knew it, he’d fallen into a pattern of bringing Q meals whenever he was in London.

Bond couldn’t pinpoint exactly when these lunches with Q had become the thing that felt most like home to him—more than his empty flat, more than the ruins of Skyfall, more, even, than the halls of MI6 itself. It had happened gradually, a slow thawing of the frozen earth under the relentless advance of spring. And then one day, a few months back, he’d leaned in to wipe a bit of curry from Q’s face, and Q, misreading Bond’s intention, had kissed him.

Bond had never been a selfless man. Self-sacrificing, maybe; reckless with his life and well-being, certainly. But he was selfish at his core, incapable of denying himself the things he wanted most—first MI6; then Vesper; and now Q—curling around them instead like a dragon with his secret hoard. And so he’d kissed Q back, that night, instead of letting him go; kissed him, and gone home with him, and stayed.

Bond lingered over the takeaway containers after lunch, gathering them up to take them to the bins.

“Is everything all right?” Q asked.

“Yes. Everything’s fine. Why do you ask?”

Q smiled, but didn’t answer, reaching out to smooth at the furrow between Bond’s eyebrows with his thumb.

“I’m all right. I just wanted to say…” Bond scrubbed a hand over his face, the words he’d planned suddenly out of reach.

Q sat down on the edge of his desk, his grey-green eyes on Bond as he continued.

“It’s about what you said, the other night, after the movie. I know you didn’t want to talk about it, then—maybe you still don’t. But I wanted you to know—it isn’t just you. I’ve never had a love letter, either, as it happens. I should have told you that night, but I’m telling you now, because I need you to know that any—any lack that you’ve experienced has nothing to do with you. It’s certainly nothing to do with who you are. It’s not a fair world, nor a particularly kind one, in my experience. And if it comes down to whether there’s something wrong with you or something wrong with the world, then the answer is the world. Unquestionably.”

He’d had more to say—at least, he thought he did. But Q was on him, then, knocking the empty takeaway containers out of his hands and kissing him within an inch of his life, and anything else was forgotten.

He wrote the letter in Q’s flat that night, sneaking out of bed while Q slept, the cats curled around his feet. He sat at the kitchen table, the light from the moon coming in the window, and wrote until he’d said all he had to say. He had one last surprise up his sleeve, however, and for that, he needed to go to Bath.

You've probably noticed that Bond did, in fact, write the letter at the end of this segment! If you're wondering how this outcome differs from if you'd picked "sit down and write the letter," the spoiler-free answer is that you would have gotten to read the text of Bond's letter to Q a little bit earlier. You'll just have to wait a little bit longer... 👀

[patrice-bergerons]

now you need to tell everyone about your 00q idea set in istanbul

OMG thank you Faatimah for indulging me 💖

The elevator pitch goes like this:

First as background, Q had a (OC) Turkish bf back in uni and they got along like a house on fire; only broke up when the bfs parent got cancer or sthing and he decided to move back to Istanbul. They kept in touch though and for Q it was one of those easy, wonderful relationships where you can not see or talk to someone for months but when you do see them again you just pick up where you left off. The dude (I want him to have an old fashioned name like Bülent) was also always talking abt moving back to London someday and altho what they have never stopped either from dating other people, I suppose in the back of his head Q always thought they would one day find themselves in the same city and get back together again.

The fic opens when this friend falls suddenly and fatally ill and Q wants to visit him before he dies. Q has also been put in some peril on the job a couple months back and he is emotionally still reeling from it, so not wanting to brave the trip alone, he asks Bond to come with him.

Now onto Bond--he and Q kinda dated a few years ago but Bond (self)sabotaged it and it took a lot of time for them to find their rhythm as friends again. But then when Q was in peril, everything fell into place for Bond. He realised that he loved this man, that he messed up before bc he was scared and that he wants to build a life with Q; if he gets a second chance (which he then thought he might) he would do everything in his power to make Q happy. And hell, even if he doesn't get that second chance he would still just be there for Q in any way Q needs him. Which is also why Q felt so comfortable asking him to come along, bc he has been so good subtly being there for Q in the aftermath of this traumatic event.

Except, Bond has been dragging his feet re making another romantic overture, bc, he has been saying to himself, Q is still vulnerable but its also low key bc he is scared--of the answer he is going to get, of the ways he can mess it up again. It's one thing to decide you will be the perfect boyfriend in your head and another to commit to it day in, day out. It's no matter he thinks, there is no rush, they have time.

So then SURELY in Turkey while Qs friend is dying is the worst possible time to bring any of this up, which is...fine up until Q says he's got this offer from a hedge fund in new york and he will accept it bc he just needs a fresh start somewhere else.

So I guess it's a fic about second chances and being too late - Q grieving for his friend and all the time they wasted and Bond - while pulling a masterclass in looking after Q - grieving for much the same, this realisation that Q will slip away from his fingers, and after everything Q has been thru, after everything Bond has done in the past, how can he ask him to stay?

I LOVE using descriptions of imagery to set the mood and I can go on and on when it comes to Istanbul; I also have a lot of pain and grief in my relationship to that city which would transpose very well onto Q and Bond's grief here I think. Especially as, they would have some time to kill between the friends death and the funeral so they would be going here and there in Istanbul so as to get out of their heads a little, Bond wanting to visit maybe the traumatic places from Skyfall, and bc Bond has that cushy inheritance they would stay at a posh hotel right by the Bosphorus with a view of the strait from their rooms.

And idk after all this angst and pain maybe we can still have a happy-ish ending, perhaps featuring Bond following after Q to NYC and offering his services as a bodyguard.

[blackidyll]

I was tagged by the lovely @saint--claire for this! (❁´◡`❁)

3 Ships I have so many ships that I can mention, so I'll just do one each for three arbitrary categories.

1) Ship I'm reading: IceMav from the Top Gun movies. I mentioned this before, but I needed both movies to fall in love with this pairing so hard. Like if I watched the movies individually I would be interested but not this much - but throw in the fact that they canonically have 30+ years of history and TGM made it very clear that their bond has gotten even stronger over the years *chef's kiss*. Rivals to wingmen! Ice as Mav's guardian angel! Mav was the only one Ice trusted to teach the kids so they could all come back home alive! Mav pounding his wings onto Ice's coffin!!! The angst from Ice's canonical death adds a sort of realistic bittersweetness that makes the ship somehow more appealing to me. But also, because real life is depressing enough as it is, I'm happily rolling in OG!TG wingmen era fics and found family MavDad/IcePops and Dagger kids AUs forever.

2) Ship I've written: Halfdain from Genshin Impact. I like a lot of Genshin characters and relationships (both romantic and familial), but Halfdain was the one that broke my two-year pandemic lockdown writer's block. Halfdan literally appears onscreen for like three minutes, but his loyalty to Dainsleif! He followed Dainsleif's final command for 500 years! He remembered and recognized Dain even when his memories should have completely eroded away! He believed in Dain so much. And Dain! How he recognized Halfdan even in his shadowy husk state! The way his eyes flickered and he smiled the gentlest smile for Halfdan! The hand clasp in the flashback, and the Black Serpent salute! Halfdan's fate is also what inspired me so much - I was so distraught at the fact that Halfdan dies and they couldn't be together despite everything they've been through, I broke my own writer's block to fix things. Tragic endings what? I WILL FIX THEM WITH FIC. This is probably the rarest pairing I ship (<50 works on AO3), but I love them so much.

3) Free choice: 00Q from the Daniel Craig James Bond films. So, I've kind of stopped writing for them. However, I see a pattern with my current ships and like.. I haven't actually watched No Time To Die, but I know what happens to Bond. And going by my track record, I'll either write my own fix-it fic or I'll look for all the fix-it fics. And that's why I still haven't watched NTTD: 1) i'm not quite ready for things to end, and 2) I don't want to risk switching hyperfixations, so I'm procrastinating on it. But 00Q will always have a special place in my heart, both for how long I was actively in the fandom for, and for how much I grew as a writer writing for them.

First Ship I'm probably aging myself right here, but considering the timing of when I got into fandom it's either Yuki Sohma/Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket or KakaIru from Naruto.

Last movie Enola Holmes 2. I enjoyed it!

Last song Hoyoverse just dropped The Stellar Moments Vol 3 album and I've been listening to it while writing this. My favourites are Chapter of a New Era (Yunjin's theme), Storm Chaser (Heizou's theme), Evening Luxury (Diluc and Fischl's outfit teaser) and Surasthana Fantasia (Nahida's theme).

Currently reading Uhhhh.. I have far too many fic tabs opened, but two IceMav fics that I'm actively following are As Lions by @qin-ling (Time travel fic! The angst of Mav's now unreturnable original timeline and his Ice's death, but also hope in the form of getting to save Goose and befriending '86 Ice again!) and ICE - In Case of Emergencies by @derpinathebrave (post-breakup IceMav where Ice gets called as Mav's emergency contact after an accident. The title is already excellent but also the writing is impeccable).

Also I have a ton of Sandman fics opened before my brain took a sharp dive into TG fandom, so here's a fic I was halfway through: We have all the time in the world (a great exploration of Dreamling throughout their once-a-century-meet ups, where Dream is slightly more in-tuned to his feelings for Hob).

Currently watching I just finished watching Season 3 of Mob Psycho 100. I (surprisingly) did not cry at the ending but the moment 99 (the season 1 OP) played in the final episode? Oo, good chills, it was so excellently done.

Currently consuming All the Chinese New Year snacks. Actually, I can't eat most snacks yet because we're saving them for 初一 . But you know what you can't save for too long? Mandarin oranges. So many mandarin oranges. This is the best season for mandarin orange lovers :D

Currently craving Milk tea (not boba. Just tea and milk variants, no tapioca pearls or other toppings).

Tagging @qserasera, @no-gorms, @solowinged, @kamicom (welcome back!), but only if you feel up to it. And if anyone else would like to pick this up, please feel free!

[notsuchacleverboyq]

Why we aren't getting a canonically 00Q relationship any time soon

This is just a bunch of reasons I thought about.

IT'S NOTHING OF CONFIRMED, IT'S PURLEY A FAN THEORY.

1) The Audience

We for sure know that some decisions can be influenced by the profit that could derive from the movie.

00Q, being an LGBTQ ship, is something really risky for the producers. I'm sorry to say it, but it's unfortunately true.

007 is a vintage saga.

In fact, the first movie was made in 1962, with Sean Connery in the role of James Bond.

A lot of things changed through the years and with the new 007s.

A lot of people hate those upgrades that 007 universe met. For example, they don't like Daniel's character as much as they did with the first ones, or totally dislike the new Q because he's younger than the previous ones.

This would be the umpteenth innovation.

Being this a saga that goes on since 1962, we also expect the majority of the audience to be over fifty years old.

In my country, Italy, it is in fact like that: I honestly don't know a single person who's a fan of 007 without being older than forty.

Adding an LGBTQ couple in a movie, and it makes me really upset, is never something easy, specially if it is 007, where we've never seen such a thing.

We can do nothing but wait for the audience or the producers to refresh.

2) The Books

This isn't actually a big and really valid argument, but it has its importance in this.

Talking about plots, the movie that followed the books the most was actually Thunderball and some other Sean Connery's 007s I forgot the title of.

I actually read the book, you can trust me.

Eventually, the movies detached more and more from Ian Fleming's plots. So we don't actually need to worry about it.

We should be more worried about the characters.

Daniel Craig's James Bond is actually the closest to Ian Fleming's 007: he's got flaws, alcohol problems, he's a playboy, he gets constantly in trouble, he's a dickhead...

Ladies, gentlemen and others, this is Fleming's James Bond and it is a really big problem.

Why?

Because in the books he is everything but gay.

The majority of the people on this planet actually see James Bond as the most heterosexual living being to have ever existed.

They clearly haven't tried Tumblr.

But it is also true that other characters don't follow Ian Fleming's books.

For example, Q used to be like this:

Moneypenny was like this:

And now they're completely different.

So, it's not actually something we need to overthinking that much.

The point of all of this is that we have no hints telling us that Bond might actually be gay.

3) Bond and Q

Another tricky thing about this James Bond is that Daniel has already given the job to someone else. This means that there'll be another actor playing James Bond and that we won't have any 00Q relationship in No Time to Die.

Changing an actor is already challenging, I don't think that giving a couple to the audience right before choosing another actor to play one of the characters interested in the said couple would actually be smart.

Secondly, Ben is getting older.

Alright, he's just forty, but it's gonna get another ten years before the audience completely refreshes.

It's also true that Ben's characters look quite younger than he actually is.

HE WAS F*****G FORTY HERE.

We don't actually know how old Q is, but we know that the character is canonically young, considering Bond's reaction as he met him.

He might actually be around thirty or something.

(I've just made a random calculation considering how Ben managed to play a character that wasn't even twenty-five, while being thirty-two himself)

Which means that, in ten years, Q might actually look forty.

Anyway, we're not getting any 00Q until Q and the new 007 hang out properly.

4) Bond and Q's Sexuality

Here we go again.

I believe I've already said it a thousand times, but I'm gonna repeat it again: we have no hints telling us anything about Bond and Q's sexuality.

We basically go by sensations.

About Bond, no 007 before Daniel Craig had ever been shipped with a man, nor anything different from a woman.

Perhaps, except for Pierce Brosnan's 007, which I know is sometimes shipped with Alec Trevelyan.

We see Daniel's 007 fall in love with Vesper Lynd, but we could simply label this love as something Bond rushed himself in, being affection starving.

And then, there was Madeleine, which is tricky for 00Q shippers, since Q was already around at the time.

Why did he chose Madeleine if 00Q could actually be a thing?

He either isn't into to Q or he isn't into men.

In both cases, 00Q shippers will have an heart attack while reading the previous line.

But we haven't considered the possibility of Bond being an unaware bisexual with a preference for women.

In fact, the 007 fandom is formed by people who believe that Bond is straight and people that see him as either bisexual or pansexual.

But we actually have no hints telling us that.

About Q, honestly I just look at him and get instant gay vibes.

Even my homophobic dad is convinced that Q is the less heterosexual creature to have ever stepped on Earth. You can trust my dad.

Q's gay and you just can't unsee it.

5) Age Difference

This is another problem.

We don't know for sure Q's age, nor Bond's one.

But the fandom usually appeal to the actors' real age.

Daniel is fifty three and Ben is turning forty one thus year. So, we have a twelve years difference between Bond and Q.

For people, this usually is a way too big diversity, but actually my granny and my grandpa had thirteen years of difference.

But it becomes less of a problem in the moment we actually realize that we aren't getting 00Q before a new actor appears and plays 007.

The age is not a problem anymore, unless Q starts looking old and he eventually becomes the new Geoffrey Boothroyd.

[a-forger-and-a-point-man]

my thoughts on *no time to die*

the spoiler-free stuff first:

cary fukunaga nailed this so hard that it hurts. it hurts in all the best ways. i have never ever felt so many things and appreciated so many characters and marveled and gasped at a bond film before. and i have seen ALL OF THEM multiple times. i’m a bond fan for sure, well beyond 00q, despite 00q being a kind of gateway drug! 

not a single moment of this film felt contrived or forced or cheesy or laughable. i couldn’t believe it. 2 hours 43 minutes. i kept waiting for the one scene when i’d roll my eyes. and that’s fine - that’s bond! every film has it’s UGH moment, yes even skyfall (the shower scene) - but NTTD was was the realest, most grounded, most impactful film out of the entire franchise. yet it remained entirely BONDIAN. the throwbacks, the one-liners, the way you root for james through the whole thing. have i ever rooted for james through an entire film? i don’t actually think i have, which is crazy right? yeah this time is DIFFERENT. 

this is the one that non-bond fans need to see - but at the same time, almost every moment has a wonderful, satisfying reference to a previous film that you can’t fully appreciate it and squee in delight unless you’re a proper 007 devotee. i am so glad i went to see this after years of watching bond films on a loop!

cary we are in awe of you and you are a master. you UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT and not only delivered, but you gave us freebies too!!! we are not worthy!!!

now for the spoiler-inclusive stuff:

**STOP READING HERE** if you haven’t seen it

FYI this isn’t articulate or coherent so good luck comrades

now keep in mind i’ve only seen NTTD once and i will have more nuanced thoughts down the line. i’ve waited so damn long for this film and IT MET AND EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS. i went in assuming there were going to be problems, because JAMES BOND, and i was ready to attack tbh, but I’M THE ONE THAT GOT ATTACKED WITH FEELINGS INSTEAD -shakes fist-

-the gun barrel opening: fabulous. classic. old-timey. and cary wanted to remind us that this is in fact a bond film that we’re about to see, even though 25 percent of it is OTHER CHARACTERS and SCENES WITHOUT BOND. the first thing we hear is the bond theme and it’s reassuring and satisfying. we’ve waited an extra 2 covid years for this. 

-the prologue/cold open: i forgot i was watching a bond film. HE’S NOT IN THE PROLOGUE? gasp! and yet it was perfection. it was riveting and fucking terrifying and i loved that we didn’t know the outcome exactly even though madeleine told this story to james on the train in spectre. it was just excellent filmmaking. 

-matera: gorgeous cinematography. were they actually married? i don’t think so. this seemed to be just a few weeks after james abandoned his squad (read: q) and ran off with the car and maddy. was it a honeymoon? where did they actually live? i have many questions. what was on the note that each of them burned (their secret?) - i didn’t catch the handwriting! 

-“we have all the time in the world” FUCK OFF HOW DARE YOU UTTER THOSE WORDS FIVE MINUTES INTO THE FILM FOR GOD’S SAKE WE HAVEN’T HAD THE OPENING TITLES YET HAVE YOU NO SHAME IN FORESHADOWING LIKE THIS????????? NO JAMES NO

-the age difference between bond/madeleine really showed in this. i’m all for age gaps, no discrimination here, it’s just that WITH THE PROPER DIRECTION (hi sam mendes! sorry not sorry sam mendes!) i finally believed they were a couple. cary took something NON-EXISTENT in spectre, which was their relationship, and... well... MADE IT INTO A RELATIONSHIP. there was chemistry!!! i couldn’t believe it. i was invested in them! the acting was on a different level. it’s like they had both matured. or... received better direction :) THANK YOU CARY FUKUNAGA you did the impossible. i ship them. i walked out shipping them, not 00q. i haven’t lost my love for 00q but do you know what it takes for me to ship bond with any woman? he’s toxic as fuck and he’s got the dick of death and i gotta protect all my ladies. but this bond was... a person drastically changed by circumstances in life. he was a broken, old, retired man in love. and i believed every minute of it. 

-vesper’s tomb. the SECOND the vesper theme started, a tear rolled down my face. it was far too early to cry in this damn movie but it got me so hard. “i miss you” - BYE. I AM DEAD. 

-how many explosions did bond survive in this film. legit tho. how does he have any hearing left. how is he not deaf. he has survived the most insane shit only to... surrender? submit? or is it sacrifice in the end? i wanna have a long discussion about this. someone who is avoiding spoilers but is worried about triggers asked me if there’s suicide in this, and i couldn’t answer yes or no. it’s very complex. it’s very subjective. 

-PRIMO! ok now that’s how you do a henchman!!! it wasn’t just the traditional “bond fights him in 2 or more countries and he barely speaks more than two words” - primo was a henchman who tracked bond from start to finish with exceptional finesse. he’s also smart, not just a hired assassin, as we see demonstrated in the scenes with obruchev. i wondered what his little physical quirk would be and i loved the whole cyclops thing. nicely done.

-i will take this moment to say that my partner (who is a visible minority) quickly pointed out that while it’s a diverse cast and things are progressing, the two main baddies are both north african arabs (rami + dali) which may not register with most folks, but ultimately, when minority groups see themselves up there on the big screen they wanna know they’re being included in the positive worldview narrative. 

-also on that topic: we really really have to get past every single bond villain having an accent. it’s really fucking TIRED. it’s xenophobic UNLESS you show us a MAIN character among the mi6 squad who has a thick accent. i mean since you’re saying it can go either way right?? well then show us accents are meaningless by spreading the accents around! rami and david both had to PUT ON an accent. ffs! you expect to scare me more when someone sounds FOREIGN? cary fukunaga can do better than that as a mixed-race person who speaks multiple languages. i think either he had no choice in the matter or he figured he’d continue a “bond tradition” because it’s one of the few he can get away with. well i’m not cool with it. 

-okay back to bond/madeleine. did anyone notice when he puts her on the train, she’s in the white button up dress and he’s in a tan suit???? SPECTRE THROWBACK HAYYYYYYY. that was effective. loved how the opening credits / theme song crept in. 

-the opening credits BEGAN WITH A CALLBACK TO DR. NO! i loooooved that. nicely done. and STILL it didn’t feel forced. i was absolutely invested in the seriousness of the story. i need to watch it again to take note of the details in the graphics... i did like the guns forming the DNA strands, and then the repeat images of bond/maddy instead of any other character. i now realize in hindsight that for the first time in bond history, the theme song is not about bond or the villain. it’s about madeleine. and for that to work we needed to believe in her and to believe in the relationship and i think that was a resounding success. 

-thank you robin roberts of good morning america for revealing that nomi is in fact 007 and spoiling that for so many of us. it was supposed to be a major plot point. i’m still mad. james making her call him “commander bond” tho - does he force all the kids to call him that? def makes q shout it in bed. 

-more felix/james in da club!! more of them bring bros not hoes. i was digging this so much.

-if you know state department dudes, you know that the billy magnussen casting was TOO PERFECT and james calling logan “book of mormon” made me lose it. that was hysterical. (well, until it wasn’t...) 

-PALOMA! ok listen it’s not normal for bond NOT to sleep with her. i can’t stress this enough. THAT WAS AWESOME. also, she’s super sexy and a major ass kicker but also a TOTAL DORK. the dorkiness is what made her relatable and endearing. i wonder if that was phoebe waller bridge’s doing. 

-moneypenny had hardly any screen time compared to previous films and that was a real shame. not fair. i wanted more of her gossiping with nomi at least. i do like that she wasn’t taking any shit in this movie though. her face was just DONE with everything in every scene. rightly so. 

-felix. i bawled my eyes out. i was audibly saying NO NO NO and choking on my sobs behind my triple-layered mask. i couldn’t bear it. that was really unexpected, and then the way he said LET ME GO. fuck. fuck it all. i couldn’t. 

-when james finally avenged him and said “i had a brother, his name was felix leiter” i just started crying again. even though a second earlier i thought, “wait what brother?? FRANZ OBERHAUSER?!” because i’m stupid like that. i thought he was avenging blofeld’s death lol. i do love that Q MADE FUN OF THE WHOLE STEP BROTHERS plot in spectre by referencing it when he examined bond hand for the nanobots. it was something like “well good thing you’re not actually related!” that was brilliant. i feel like cary might have written that one. 

-bond flew planes in this movie and it didn’t feel corny. in spectre i LAUGHED OUT LOUD at how silly it looked. it’s so strange how very bond this film was and yet... not. 

-never in my life did i imagine that when m dragged bond’s ass across his desk that i’d be ON BOND’S SIDE. i was literally telling everyone i really wanted a scene where m gives bond a proper scolding. screams at him. it’s usually so satisfying! but my how the tables turned this time around. m’s secret felt natural to me - he’s the head of mi6. lots of hidden shit goes on. even within a team people keep secrets from one another. that’s why that business is so fucked up. still, m should have resigned. i’ve been saying that since i saw the movie. remorse is not enough. i bet the PM asked him to resign later at the very least because of the diplomatic debacle in the pacific. m looked so defeated the entire film. 

-ok also i found it hilarious that the thing that made m the most angry was bond “working for the cia” lol. you can do anything but YOU CAN’T GO OVER TO THE AMERICANS. 

-i loved the edits in the london street scene. the cuts. very modern but never felt forced or out of place. 

-loved the portraits of the old Ms in the hallways at 6! i love throwbacks like that!!! makes me feel super cool for knowing the franchise reasonably well! 

-Q’S FLAT! THE APRON! THE JAPANESE CUISINE! THE MUSIC! WAITING FOR HIS MALE DATE! THE SPHYNX CAT! JAMES MAKING FUN OF THE CAT (he legit had a death wish) JAMES STAYING OVER AT Q’s! MONEYPENNY SETTING IT ALL UP! y’all did someone read ao3??? that’s not a joke, you don’t think scriptwriters from franchises prowl ao3? it’s fucking free and it’s TOP LEVEL SHIT. of course they’ll be like “and i’ll take that, and that, and that...” and i do appreciate also that ben tries to make sure his characters are presented as gay characters when he can. it’s even more important in the bond franchise. i love that we got a lot of q, and q in pajamas on the aircraft carrier!!! nomi  actually saying SORRY WE WOKE YOU and he’s like casually headed to the pacific in his pjs? honestly that’s just badass. of course when u think about how this all ended... it’s not like he could just climb back into bed in london. and on their final communication, he called bond “james” which he has NEVER DONE. hold me. i’m not fine. i will never be fine again. 

-christoph waltz gave a better performance in those two minutes onscreen than he did in all of spectre. that MUST BE the directing. everyone’s acting improved drastically. 

-safin in madeleine’s office. that was a better scene than when he was with bond for their shared couple of mins. it felt a lot more eerie. 

-safin did not terrify me as a character the way we were promised though. the heracles concept was very scary - yes - but i actually asked myself if “safin was really that bad”. now i know both cary and daniel had plans to make the villain walk a fine line so that their humanity isn’t entirely compromised - and that’s great storytelling - but i did start thinking “the difference between safin and m is really slight...” 

-the fact that mathilde biting him was the thing that made him go OH HELL NO I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR A BITEY BABY PEACE OUT was so damn funny. kids and cats can really best a villain. 

-the mathilde plot line was leaked briefly by the daily mail about a year ago but it was quashed quite quickly using a distraction. i forget what that was. i believed that she WASN’T bond’s daughter. i thought she was logan’s! then i thought she was safin’s! we were really taken on a ride there. but i think mathilde was written in to suggest that a) madeleine stayed true to james, b) james gets to leave a part of himself behind, because the common understanding is that that’s what most humans faced with death wish they did. not everyone agrees - i know a few people who hate this idea and think bond should go out in a blaze of glory for queen and country, not for love. but he wasn’t even on the books. there wasn’t going to be a plaque for him at mi6. the reason he gave up even trying to leave the island was because the only reason he had to live was madeleine and now he could never touch her again. the way he kept asking q if there was a way to remove it... omg it was so heartbreaking the way his voice broke... he was so desperate... and q didn’t understand at first... it hurt me so much because cary fukunaga made me buy the idea of bond x madeleine. how, i still don’t know. fucking miracle i tell you. 

-BOND MADE EGGS FOR MATHILDE. CRAIG!BOND MADE EGGS. WE FINALLY HAVE THE SCENE. this is canon to the power of 10. fleming and bond and their egg obsession. i smiled from ear to ear!! mathilde giving it a “not bad” was so funny. 

-hans zimmer: ok let’s be real he did recycle a lot of shit because it’s bond, and the bond theme was weaved in and out a lot. that’s very classic bond - it doesn’t happen anymore, not since connery, so i loved that. but then the entire third act was music from interstellar and pirates of the caribbean???? come on ya’ll someone must have heard this too. i laughed. i was like HANS. I THINK I EVEN HEAR GLADIATOR. the matera theme was largely “borrowed” from david arnold in casino royale. so maybe the only really original NEW music was the no time to die orchestration based on the billie eilish song. i loved it. it’s particularly beautiful on the track “home” which you can hear below:

look, i know i need to see it again. and i also know many bond purists were let down because bond was a STRAIGHT UP HERO in this. the guy was clean! honest! monogamous! totally in love like a puppy dog! even offered to save the world for... free! i loved him. me. and everyone knows i roll my eyes at bond nonstop! i thoroughly enjoyed it because i prefer to love the protagonist and cheer him on than feel conflicted. it is, after all, still a popcorn flick. so i’m going to give it a  9/10 because i felt like it catered to me and all the elements i love. 

if u made this far... holy shit, why are u reading my dumbass posts

(and thanks!) 

[dhampir72]

WIP Wednesday - 00Q {bloom}

(working!)Title: bloom

(working!)Summary: Bond’s hands are made for killing. Q shows him they can be made for something else.

(Or, the one in which Q’s passion for botany teaches Bond how to bloom.)

Relationship: 00Q

Tags: brief depictions of alcoholism, depression, and ptsd; developing relationship; friends to lovers; flowers; gardening; baking; cosycore; soft because we need it in this world

Current word count: 20,024

Note: Before I leave on a jetplane for a few days, here’s a long(ish) snippet of what I’ve been working on for 007 Fest. I hope you all enjoy!

“They’re called moth orchids,” Q says. 

“Why moth orchids?” Bond asks. 

“Well, when the flowers are in bloom, the petals look like the shape of a moth.”

Bond regards the plant in front of him. The last remaining flowers are barely hanging on. They’re shrivelled and dry and make a sound like paper when Bond moves it from the bin to the counter. 

“Is it dying?” he asks. 

It looks worse than when Q had bought it. Certainly nothing like other beautiful, healthy blooms in his greenhouse.

“No, it’s actually pretty healthy. The flowers bloom and fall off a few times a year. It’s perfectly natural. If the conditions are right, you can get them to bloom almost all year.”

“Like yours?” Bond asks. 

Q smiles, pleased.

“Like mine,” he says, and then makes a motion with his hand to have Bond follow him. “When they’re in full bloom they’ll look like this.”

Bond sees it now, why they’re called moth orchids. They have the shape of a polyphemus moth, but they’re even showier in a rich, luscious purple. Bond reaches out a hand, but stops before he touches.

“You can touch them,” Q says, and, perhaps sensing Bond's hesitation, goes on encouragingly: “it won’t hurt them.”

Q lifts a hand and strokes one of the petals with his fingertip.

Bond is transfixed by the gesture, its tenderness. He’s always watched Q’s hands—the fluid way he moves them when he speaks, the manner in which he meticulously fixes equipment, the precise, confident manner in which he checks the chamber of a gun—and always admired his efficiency, his quickness; the skills needed to go quickly without fumbling or causing error. But now he sees them in another way, the way he’s pretended not to notice for a while now; like how soft they can be, like they are when he applies antiseptic and plasters; the graceful arc of his wrist as he unwinds fresh bandages. It’s all here now in the elegant sweep of his finger across this orchid’s silken petal.

What would it be like, Bond wonders traitorously, to have Q touch him like that? So purely, so purposefully? Is he even deserving of it? That gentleness?

“Go on,” Q says softly.

Bond hesitates again. His hands are made for killing: with a gun, with a knife, with his fingers wrapped round someone’s throat. He’s been doing this for so long that he’s not sure he’s capable of anything else. Gentleness? He’s not sure how to be, not anymore. 

But Q’s watching him, and it’s almost imploring, and Bond can’t deny him. He’ll try.

The back of his finger brushes the soft, purple petal. It’s smooth, and tender; fragile, almost. Like touching the inside of someone’s wrist. He could easily rip it, crush it in his palm. There would be no effort on his part to destroy it entirely. 

Instead, he touches it again, with the utmost care, just to prove he can. And he’s filled with awe and wonder at this, that he can be gentle, maybe even kind.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Q smile. He allows himself to smile, too.

His hands may have been made for killing, but maybe, just maybe, they could be made for something else.

[word-processing]

wip wednesday (word ~1,300)

I’m reviving this blog purely because I’m writing this fic. I want to say that it’s inspired by my favorite 00Q playlist by @gayjamesbond. So if anyone needs me I’ll be singing Breathless by Dan Wilson in my car. 

Summary (sorta): Fairly new MI6 agent James Bond is sent to Paris to track down a young hacker and bring him back to MI6. For recruitment or arrest, he’s not sure. Things go both as planned and completely off the rails. (Also, I’m planning 2 more fics in this series).

“Agent Bond,” it was Tanner’s voice instead of M’s, which was almost a disappointment. He enjoyed trading banter with the older woman. Of all his superiors in the Navy, she was the most permissive and the least accepting of failure. Bond liked her.

“Mr. Tanner,” Bond replied just as evenly. Tanner was fun to pester too. He got frustrated easily. Bond was aware that he shouldn’t be this disrespectful to superiors. His life in the SIS was based solely on their good graces, but there was no brig to throw him in this time. Not that he ever was disciplined in such a manner.

“M has a mission for you, and she needs you to come in to be briefed. How quickly can you come in?”

Bond looked at his watch. It was 1504, and he had to make it across London to Vauxhall. “Quarter-til?”

“Good. Your train out of St. Pancras leaves in 1800.” Tanner said with no explanation and hung up.

Right. Best to pack a bag then.

Bond arrived outside M’s office at 1543. “Tanner.” He nodded to the man sitting at the desk in the front office.

“Bond. You may go in.” He said and pressed a button on his desk. The lock on M’s door clicked open.

“Thank you.” He dropped his leather weekender by Tanner’s desk and pushed open the door. 

M sat at her desk. Somehow, despite all the heavy dark wood, it didn’t swallow the older woman up. She looked in control. Like she’s carved out a space for herself in this male-dominated world and was now ruling it quite happily. She was an absolute menace, and Bond was starting to like her quite a bit.

“Agent Bond. Thank you for coming. I have a new assignment for you. This one is a little more…freeform.” She slid a folder across to him and then folder her hands again.

“Freeform, ma’am?” It was only his sixth assignment. Freeform implied she thought he was ready to run free. Which Bond knew she didn’t believe. He did have a habit of making a mess.

“I’m not going to tell you how to go about this. It’s a simple case of getting some information and bringing someone in.”

“Bring someone in?” Bond sat down and crossed one leg over the other. He leaned forward to grab the file, slowly, watching M like she might stanch it back from him. In his private moments, Bond still expected them to take this away from him. He’d felt the same way when they handed him his Commander strips. James Bond never got to have anything good for very long.

With the file securely in his hand, Bond opened it and rested it on his knee. Clipped to the left side was a far-away picture of a young man, hair tousled in the wind and chin buried in a knit scarf, but his face was unmistakable. He was very young. If M told him he was 18, Bond would believe her.

The rest of the file was a series of computer terms that Bond didn’t fully understand and a short dossier.

Name: Matthew Quarles Age: 23 Hometown: Newmarket, Suffolk, UK Education: Ph.D., Computer Science, Cambridge. MS, Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge, BS, Physics, Cambridge. Parents: Thomson Quarles, Father. Charlotte Quarles, nee Dupont, Mother (French-British dual citizen). Current Location: Paris, France. Criminal Record: None (see attached).

Attached was the longest part of the dossier, which was five pages of suspected hacking crimes in 12 different countries. The evidence was robust, but there weren’t any charges. Yet.

“Think of it as repatriation,” M said. “We need his list of contacts and to have him brought back to England.”

“To arrest? You can’t have him arrested by the French and extradited?” That would be the simplest way. Even if he went over there and got him, they would still need to alert the French.

M leaned back in her chair. “We’d like to prevent this from being an international incident. If the French find out about him, every other country on the list will, and they’ll want him. Do you really think we’ll get him back once he’s stood trial in Russia?”

No, Bond knew that they wouldn’t.

“He’s a British citizen. We’ll handle him.”

She very clearly hadn’t said that he would be tried for his crimes. Bond wondered if they were looking to arrest him or recruit him.

“And you don’t have a preference of how I go about things?”

She smiled, grandmotherly. Well, like a wolf in grandmother’s clothes. “Surprise me, Agent.”

He understood then that this was the test. She wanted to see what kind of agent he would be. If she could let him off the lease and how he operated. This would determine his career.

“Thank, ma’am.” He stood up and buttoned his jacket, nodding respectfully. “Tanner will have your train ticket. You leave for Paris in a few hours. Get there, locate him, and get him home. Alive.” 

So, they did want something from him. 

A woman was leaning on Tanner’s desk outside of M's office. She had long legs, and her dark curls were pushed away from her face. “Whose bag is this?” She was asking. “Looks posh. Though I think they’ll find, a weekender isn’t going to get them very far. I’ve never had a mission take me less than four days, and M almost gave me a medal for that one.”

“It’s Bond. The new one.” Tanner replied. 

“Oo, a new one. I do love fresh blood.”

“I’m not that fresh, I’m afraid.” Bond said as he emerged, hands in his trouser pockets.

The agent, to her credit, didn’t startle or ask as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Instead, she just smiled at him. “A pleasure. Eve Moneypenny.” She held out a hand, and Bond took it. Her fingers were as gun calloused as his. He smiled.

“Bond. James Bond. And the pleasure is all mine.” She dropped his hand and returned to her leaning position. Tanner looked like he would rather be anywhere else. “I believe you have something for me, Tanner.” 

“Yes. Here is your train ticket, passport, a secure laptop, credit card, and hotel information.” Tanner said, setting a white, blocky MacBook on the desk with an envelope on top. “You have your work mobile, yes?”

“Of course,” Bond deadpanned. 

“Good. There’s a car waiting to take you to the station.”

“A car?” Moneypenny hummed. “My, you must be the new superstar Q mentioned. He didn’t mention you were handsome too.”

Tanner glared at her. Clearly, that was Need-to-Know information.  

Bond was catching onto the game now. He put the laptop under his arm and picked up his bag. He stepped in front of Moneypenny and took her hand in his free one, leaning over to kiss her knuckles. “I aim to please, Agent Moneypenny.”

She smiled. “I don’t doubt it, Agent Bond.” 

With a nod to Tanner, Bond left. He slid into the car and nodded for the driver to go. He slipped the passport and ticket into his inside pocket. Bond shoved the laptop and files into his bag, thinking that Moneypenny with right and he was going to need a bigger bag. 

On the train, Bond looked another look at the file. Quarles was known to hang around the Latin Quarter, which made sense. He was known to have relationships with men, which… Did M expect this to be a honeypot? Bond wasn’t wholly sure that honeypots were a real thing. He mentioned it once, and Tanner and Q just looked at him. It wasn’t like they had a division just for agents who fucked people for information.

Unless that was really what the 00s were. License to kill was just a euphemism.

He supposed they would see. Quarles was undoubtedly handsome enough. But at 23, he was a decade younger than Bond. It was possible he wouldn’t be interested in Bond. 

Best to cross the bridge when they come to it. He that didn’t work, he could pretend to be an MI5 agent who came to bring Q home because he was in grave danger. It was almost the truth.

[shijiujun]

NTTD is a masterpiece!!!! Spoilers below but combing through Casino Royale to No Time to Die

Q and Bond

Like we’ve all shipped 00q since Skyfall and for good reason - as Ben Whishaw said there’s affection even though between Q and 007 there’s irritation and annoyance, exasperation. And yes Q has a potential boyfriend in NTTD and ahhh still doesn’t stop me from shipping em both as an old 00q shipper.

They’re so consistent in every movie - I love Ben Whishaw’s Q and how they went from sitting in a museum looking at the painting of a sinking ship, of Q’s sassy and exasperated ‘Bond’s, and to the very last, panicked ‘James get out of there’. Although canon-wise we don’t get a lot of 00q moments but at the very least their friendship is profound and Q cares deeply for him. We don’t get to see it, going from Skyfall to Spectre to NTTD, but he must’ve been in Bond’s ears for years, and their very last hurrah together was fitting.

Q in Bond’s ears, the very last person to standing right at his back, yelling at him to get out of there, wanting to see him off the island safely and seeing probably his favorite and least favorite agent through on his last mission - that meant more to me throughout this entire franchise than anything else. Everything was just nice.

(Now time to go find all my fix-it fics and revisit some of my fave 00q ones)

Bond and Everyone Else 

Wish we had more badass Moneypenny but glad she was there nonetheless - Mallory as always playing the in between white and black, and Tanner being the flustered, stressed out admin that needs a break. Nomi, who stood equally next to Bond and accompanied him on his very last mission. And perhaps it was also fitting that Felix Leiter went out with him, earlier than he, but since the start they stood shoulder to shoulder, a man Bond was glad to call his friend.

And these five movies gave Bond the dysfunctional family he never wanted but had to some extent - after Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace he truly was, even if he thought he was, never alone. Quite an anti-thesis to the suave, solo Bond that seems to we had until Skyfall. And contrary to the belief that he would die alone without anyone to remember him, he does. He truly does. And they are the ones who count.

Bond and Madeleine + Matilde

I thought I’d hate this token wife and kid and happy ending thing but I don’t. I really don’t. I love the different side we got to see for Madeleine, and Matilde was hilariously cute in several ways. It didn’t feel forced, like Casino Royale’s kind offff did. I love that they gave her characterization and that she was always generous with her emotions - of her longing for Bond on the train, of her anger, of how tough she was, and at the end.

Bond + The Villain + Safin

The only thing that kind of gets me is that Safin kind of came out of nowhere, doesn’t actually have much beef with Bond, and I can’t really tell what his obsession with Madeleine and Matilde is. I guess the moral of the story is that it’s always the same old story with villains right and that there’s always another one of Safin, but it’s almost hilarious how Safin doesn’t really have it coming for Bond. Blofeld’s antics were... just antics, and it’s almost like there was no true villain for this entire story, which is almost poetic.

Pacing + Other Things

We’ve come full circle from Casino Royal, Quantum of Solace to Skyfall (where I feel like Daniel Craig’s Bond really flourished) and then Spectre and No Time to Die - The storytelling is consistent throughout 15 years of run time and I’m glad we went from the cacophony of betrayal and trust issues, emo sadass i’m-gonna-die-alone vibes in every movie.

To be honest I thought it was going to be drawn out and cliched and it was to some extent but in all the nice ways - Daniel Craig really sang his swan song with NTTD and we had it all - the sort of happy ending he got with the love of his life and leaving behind a child, a part of him, with a strange professional but the closest thing to a family he ever had with Mallory and Tanner and Moneypenny, Q. He had the hero’s shot in the sunset at his very last moments, and not wanting to die but realizing at the moment that it was, to some degree, the end he was waiting for if he had no other choice. 

He got to die as 007 - and it was never just a number to him, and I’m glad he got to die with it. He got to die after using up all his shiny gadgets from Q, after saying goodbye to the love of his life, after having at least one day and night as a normal, actual family with Madeleine and Matilde. 

Did I think his death was necessary? I think it was fitting. I’d loved for him to get the happy ending truly, but this was a fitting way to go and as one review said “this eliminates any possibility of him having to come back and do a role he’s been wanting to drop since forever”. It was so fitting. His death was almost a quiet, peaceful and calm one, but at the same time he literally did go out with a bang as he probably thought he always would - he had both, and he had regrets but it truly was time and he was content with that.

Humour was on point too - softened Bond around the edges, made him seem not so emo and destructive (like he was at the beginning of Skyfall) anymore. A good mellowing out. 

I also loved that they came back to the betrayal trope but didn’t go too much into it because we’ve had that for every single 007 movie so far. Loved that Ana de Armas came out as a hilariously anxious but also weirdly confident and exceptionally competent interjection to the whole movie - Bond gets to work with gorgeous women all the time and he’s almost slept with all so it’s so nice to see Paloma and Nomi like going ‘nopeeeeee gotta do ma job cool thanks’ - no standard Casino Royale situation.

(I’m still amused that he went to infiltrate the island with like a navy knit sweater and a thin white shirt damn man)

Plenty of regrets of course - if he didn’t let Madeleine go five years ago he would have gotten five more years of family time with her and Matilde but I suppose trouble would have come knocking sooner or later, and I’m glad he had some soft tender moments with the sunlight behind him - we didn’t get much or any of these in the first three movies. 

NTTD was softer in all the right ways and every single loose end was tied up. I’d have loved for some mention of Judy Dench M or that pitbull figurine thing, but every box was checked, from Vesper to Felix to everyone else.

[thestalwartheart]

Falling asleep on your partner's shoulder for 00q please!

Hi!

Here you are 😊 This was an absolute joy to write, so thank you for sending in this charming little prompt! I hope you enjoy.

Under the cut or on AO3, as always.

Enjoy! 💜

late.

Q has thankfully never been subject to torture training, but he imagines there’s a whole section in it devoted to overcoming the unbearable stiffness in one’s muscles when they haven’t moved an inch in hours.

He almost wishes he’d gone through the training now. His back is killing him. In fact, it’s making him consider getting a new couch, which is ridiculous. Only months ago he’d paid thousands for this lovely midcentury one.

The problem is the constant heaviness at his shoulder where 007’s head rests. He’d fallen asleep hours ago, somewhere around the time they’d watched the grainy live CCTV footage of their surveillance target heading into a private swimming club.

“Bond.”

Nothing. Not a twitch or a snuffle. (Does James Bond snuffle? Q doubts it.)

A touch louder, he murmurs, “Bond.”

Still nothing. If he sleeps this hard on missions, it’s a wonder any of them have ever succeeded.

Q tries a touch to his knee this time. “James.”

Success. Bond wakes with a sudden inhale, looking up at Q with eyes that are really far too startling. There should be some sort of dimmer for them, Q thinks. Especially in close proximity. Otherwise, they might convince the viewer to do something entirely daft, like stroke gently at Bond’s knee or smile far too softly…

…both of which Q can feel himself doing. Shit.

“Q.”

“Bond.”

“What happened to James?”

“You were asleep for quite a while,” Q says, rolling his eyes. “Waking you required drastic measures.”

Bond gives him a little smile and turns back to the screen, nodding at it. His head is still resting on Q’s shoulder, and for all his poor, poor back is complaining about it, Q doesn’t want to risk moving.

“Where did we get to?”

“Nowhere particularly fascinating. He’s visiting his second mistress.”

Bond snorts. “And that’s not fascinating?”

“Well, it’s not like we have a view of them shagging.” Shit. Bond’s eyes are on him again, and Q clears his throat. “Not that…erm. Not that that would be fascinating.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re right. There are better things to watch.”

Bond continues looking at him, and Q looks away. He knows his face must be flaming red. Hopefully, the screen and the lighting are dark enough to conceal it. The last thing he needs is Bond thinking Q has some sort of crush on him, accurate or inaccurate as that assumption might be.

Imagine the liberties he’d take, for a start. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Q texts R to crack on with the surveillance. She’s on the night shift, and Q’s probably been awake too long to be reliably observant. As he puts his phone back down, he sees Bond checking his watch. It's quarter past two in the morning.

God knows what compulsion overcomes him, but before he can think about it, Q is whispering an invitation. “Don’t drive home. I’ve got a spare bed.”

“Not worried about me, are you?”

Q can’t help a smile. “Constantly.”

Bond’s head finally vacates Q’s shoulder, and Q gives it a satisfying roll, sighing with relief as the joint cracks. The sigh becomes more of a groan as Bond’s hand gives the back of his neck a cursory massage.

Oh, mortifying, absolutely mortifying.

Fortunately, Bond doesn’t seem to be in the mood to make fun. He digs his thumb into Q’s muscles for a few moments and then strokes over the nape of his neck, as if to will away the pain of undoing his knots.

“Bed?” Bond asks.

There’s a hint of flirtation making its way through his general air of exhaustion, though Q half suspects that’s just because he’s James Bond, and there’s always a hint of flirtation. The hand currently rubbing at Q’s back hasn’t taken any more liberties, but Q doesn’t know whether Bond means to accept his invitation to sleep in the spare bedroom or to talk his way into the master one.

He supposes he’s about to find out.

“Yes, bed.”

[starkerintheparker]

starker reclist - AUs

Hey guys! Welcome to the second part of my personal Starker reclist, dedicated to AUs. Last week I posted my canon-based recs, you can find them here.

I tried to incorporate as many tropes as I could, hoping everyone will find something special within their interests. There are a few a/b/o and underage fics, all properly tagged in case anyone wishes to avoid them. I also tried to highlight soulmate AUs because I reckon it’s a somewhat popular trope. Enjoy! ❤️

Last updated: April 25th, 2020. All new fics added will be marked with ***

• 007 AU by @darker-soft-starker (T, 4k, completed)

Summary: Undercover and bored at an art auction, Tony finds entertainment in Peter Parker.

Review: Look, I’m a simple woman. Daniel Craig has owned my ass ever since Casino Royale and I was reading 00Q and Hartwin before I even shipped Starker. Point is, I like spy movies, ok?! So naturally I couldn’t leave this fic out of my reclist. I you need further incentive, consider this quote: “What, a little late night espionage not romantic enough for you?” Peter retorts, whipping a pistol out from his jacket and aiming it at Tony’s chest.

• 3 Times I Told You I Loved You & 1 Time You Said It Back by @starkeristheendgame (E) background Peter/Steve, Peter/Bucky, Peter/Scott

Summary: Peter Parker confesses his love to Tony Stark three times. Once at ten, once at fifteen and once at twenty. Finally convinced that Tony will never love him back, Peter ventures out into a different path, desperate to find the love he seeks from someone else. But you know what they say about star-crossed lovers.

Review: This lovely fic holds a very special place in my heart. I’m so invested I decided to wait until it’s finished so I can read it all in one sitting. Peter’s longing and heartbreak hurt my poor soul but I trust Jensen to give me that promised Starker endgame - I know it will be glorious when it finally comes.

• A Night on the Town by @scarletmanuka1 (G, 2.3k, completed)

Summary: Nightclub AU. Years after the events of Endgame, Tony has hit rock bottom. The Snap left him crippled, Pepper has abandoned him and has taken Morgan with her, and he's feeling old and lonely. Peter arranges a night out at the nightclub that he works at to try and cheer Tony up.

Review: I love get together fics, especially if it involves oblivious!Tony getting his shit together and going after his man. Seeing him bitter and broken after Thanos was hard, but special kudos to IronBros moments because that friendship is true goals!

• Age of Adeline by @starkerforlife6969 (completed) background Harley/Peter, Bucky/Peter, Wade/Peter

Review: I’d never in a million years think about this movie as a Starker AU but gosh, this is everything I needed in my life and it completely devastated me but I loved every minute of it. As a devoted monoshipper, I was surprised to realize that I got emotionally involved with all pairings, even more so with Starker, which totally paid off. Gorgeous, powerful and heartfelt. God bless SFL.

• assume makes ass for u and me by @pretty-well-funded (M, 1.6k, completed) tw underage

Summary: In Tony’s defense, he was sure the kid was a rent boy.

Review: This 1.6k fic caught me completely off guard and now I’m crying because I need MORE. I love the premise, the dialogue is criminally good, their voices are amazing and I can’t get enough of cheeky!Peter charming Tony with his wit and filthy mind.  

• Bamf!secretary Peter by @starkerforlife6969 (M, completed)

Review: Who could ever resist some corporate espionage drama with bamf!Peter leaving Tony speechless and horny? Not me. I’d read more 30k of this verse because competent, sassy Peter Parker is such a kink, omg.

• Biker!Tony by @starkerforlife6969 (T, completed) Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Review: Same age AUs are not usually my thing but I can’t resist cute high school sweethearts written by this fandom goddess. Plus, protective!Tony calling Peter “doll” does things to my heart - and Peter’s.

• Breaking Character by @cagestark (E, 8.3k, completed)

Summary: Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and spy for SHIELD. Working with another SHIELD spy, the infamous Spider, he will take down an infamous human trafficking ring in New York. But the act they have to put on will demand more from Tony than he ever thought he'd have to give. Not that he minds.

Review: The spy trope seriously needs more fic like this one, because I’ll have bamf!Peter lying back to save his country while Tony freaks out any day. Cage hits the perfect balance between plot building, fantastic sexual tension, clever dialogue and the hottest smut sequence. What a ride! (Pun intended).  

• Curiosity Killed the Cat by @areluctantsblog (T, 1.5k, completed)

Summary: Peter has been modelling in an art school for years. He's used to strangers' eyes roaming his body - clothed or naked - and he knows that it's not him they are looking at. Not him who they are interested in. He's just a model, a tool for their work. And for a long time he doesn't notice the one pair of eyes that, despite seeing him but rarely, is looking right at him.

Review: Very soft and atmospheric, this fic left me in a bit of a daze and it took me a while to realize it was over. Great writing will do that to you.

• Detective!Tony, Graffiti Artist!Peter by @starkerforlife6969 (M, completed)

Review: Oh don’t mind me, just appreciating this author’s talent at writing from the filthiest smut to the softest “Tony saves Peter in all ways that matter” like this ficlet. We stan.

• Eat at Pete’s by feyrelay + glorious art by @peachbabypie (E)

Summary: Peter gives him an unimpressed look, “If you didn’t do your work, then you wouldn’t be able to earn my time though, would you?” Pfft. “Kid, I have more money than god. I can splurge on your delicious pancakes and attention, trust me,” Tony informs him loftily. Peter smiles that wicked, crooked little smile that's just for him. It's not even and perfect like his the-customer-is-always-right one that's more frequently on offer. “I didn’t say you couldn’t afford it. I said you wouldn’t have earned it.”

Review: How can we ever say no to dom!Peter putting Tony in his place and hopefully on his dick + Tony loving every second of it?? Their dynamics are fantastic and that TASTY COUNTER DIALOGUE KILLS ME. EVERY TIME. Check it out and come scream with me: sub!Tony rights :D

• Fire and Ice by LeafyGreenQueen773 (M, 3k, completed) Soulmate AU

Summary: AU where when someone writes on his or her skin, the same thing shows up on their soulmate in the same place as a Mark that fades away in a few hours.

Review: This was the first Starker soulmate fic I’ve read and it made my heart ache so soft and good. Lovely and bittersweet, quiet and painfully honest. 

• Genius, Acrobat, Playboy, Philanthropist by @scarletmanuka1 (E, 28k, completed)

Summary: After Peter's aeriel acrobatics partner, Adrian Toomes is fired from The Avengers Circus Troupe for theft, he is shocked to discover that his replacement is non other than legendary performer, Tony Stark - the man that Peter had hero worshipped since he first learned how to tumble. 

Review: After reading this fic I realized I need more Circus AUs in my life. I could read jealous idiots falling in love while doing beautiful acrobatics for the rest of my days. Original plot, nice character development and I really appreciated how the author inserted little canon things here and there. 

• Happy to Disappoint by @deaded-blush (M, 60k, completed) tw underage, domestic violence

Summary: Adrian Toomes is in quite deep with notorious mob boss Tony Stark. But when Tony comes to collect the debt owed, he's surprised to discover Toomes has an adoptive son. The chance meeting changes the direction of both their lives...

Review: Hands down one of the best Mafia!AUs I’ve ever seen. Read it all in one sitting and by the end I was SHOOKETH and utterly obsessed with this story. Nothing about it is okay so brace yourself for whump!Peter and lots of h/c. Bonus points for an incredibly satisfying ending that will make you gasp out loud.

• Hey Baby, Slip between my Beta-Pleats and get to know my Alpha-Helix? by @starkerforlife6969 and @darker-soft-starker (E, 37k, completed) A/B/O

Summary: Even though Tony can't tell the difference between Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo, Peter really has no other choice. His heat is around the corner, so even though he loathes the party-going, booze drinking, smug playboy know-it-all that is Tony Stark. He'll just have to do.       

Review: I can’t believe life went on as we know it (or did it??) after these two geniuses wrote together. This is the Starker version of “enemies to lovers” we all wanted and deserve, where spoiled-bratty-posh princess Peter finds the perfect balance for his chaotic energy in goofy-unapologetic-charming playboy Tony. Their falling in love is just so tender, so genuine and so good, it’s impossible not to cheer for these two sweethearts through this delightful, carefully crafted story.

• If you let me by @css1992 (E, 12k, completed)

Summary: Peter had tried dating younger guys, but it just didn’t do it for him. They were often too eager, too fast, too rough. Just too young, in general. Not that older men couldn’t be too much, too, Peter learned it the hard way. The man looking back at him from across the room seemed like a good one. He knew he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but he was gorgeous. Possibly the most handsome man Peter had ever seen in his short life.

Review: I remember the first time I read this fic it hit me in such a powerful way I cried a bit and was too overwhelmed to do words and tell the author just how much I loved it. But I never forgot this fic or the way it made me feel. It’s so evocative, so sexy, so raw, so heartbreaking, so sweet and so gentle. Great atmosphere, even greater characterization and some of the hottest smut I’ve ever read. Treat yourself and check this out right now.    

• I’ll be Home by @starkerforlife6969 (M, completed) A/B/O

Summary: The story starts when Soldier Tony comes home for a few days, and is introduced to the love of his life.

Review: Will I ever stop reccing SFL’s works? Maybe, but today is not the day. This gorgeous, breathtaking fic attacked me in my own house during Christmas day and made me cry like a baby. I’m a sucker for reunion stories - the longing, the heartbreak, the power of endurance. This fic reminded me that no matter how long or difficult the journey, love will always find a way.

• Little Spider by @stfustucky (iwillpaintasongforlou) (E, 5k, completed)

Summary: Peter Parker is one of the country's best hitmen, known in the underworld as the Little Spider. He spends his days in the lap of luxury with his billionaire fiance Tony Stark, and his nights doing dirty work for various shady characters. Life is good, right up until someone puts out a hit on Tony and wants Peter to pull the trigger. It... might be time for them to have a talk.

Review: Omg this fic was so deliciously good in a totally surprising and sexy way. Bamf!Peter took my breath away with the perfect balance between his two personas. Tony getting off on that sheer power and confidence is a BIG MOOD and my second favorite thing in this fic. The first being the badass power couple they make. 

• love somebody like you (E) by @intoxicatelou

Summary: five times Tony was Peter’s roommate and one time he was his soulmate instead.

Review: Who doesn’t love some forced proximity mixed with the unbeatable soulmate trope? This plot is the hottest take and my heart cannot handle young!Tony with his brilliant mind and sassy charm protecting and flirting with Peter, unfff feels everywhere *cries in Starker*

• Love Thy Neighbour by @darker-soft-starker (T, 2.3k, completed)

Summary: Tony's new neighbour is kinda weird.

Review: I know I keep saying that same age!AUs are not really my thing but I’m the softest bitch for feel-good, cozy domesticity, and I love how this charming story shows that ordinary life become magical when shared with someone special. I could babble all night about how eccentric and confident Peter seduces our man of science that for once has absolutely no idea of what’s going on - but you really should see it for yourself right now :)

• Mafia Boss!Tony Break Up Make Up by @starkerforlife6969 (E, completed)

Review: Man, this fic was so rude to my heart. The heartbreak, the rough sex, the guilt, the hopeful make up, the gorgeous ending. My body literally cannot take the stress, why are Mafia AUs so doomed and beautiful and more importantly, why is SFL so good at writing them???

• Microcosm Series by @bloomblood (M, 32k) tw underage

Summary: Tony and Peter become each other’s heroes after the Snap, saving themselves before they offer aid back to the world.

Review: I haven’t read many post-apocalyptic fics but this series’s raw atmosphere sucked me in. I adore the quiet intimacy, the slow and tentative healing, and all the silent and complex emotions underneath apparent simplicity. Big aesthetic mood, just as its lovely author. 

• Musechaser by @nightskygardenia (M, 10.5k, completed)

Summary: Eighteen year old art student Peter Parker is desperately searching for his muse, someone who can bring his creative skills to the next level through inspiration. Lucky for him, his next class just so happens to feature a gorgeous model by the name of Tony Stark, a man Peter's convinced is his muse, to the point of staying after class to ask for private modeling sessions.

Review: Another big aesthetic mood, this fic paints a gorgeous imagery. I love the setting, the slow pace and the building anticipation until the sexual tension finally breaks. Peter is adorable and Tony exudes confidence; their voices are spot on and their chemistry is palpable and intense.  

• My Best Friend’s Dad by @darker-soft-starker (M, 17.6k, completed)

Summary: Peter is home for the summer, back from his first year away at college. Having stayed over at Harley's house every weekend since they were fourteen, he never used to think much of his friend’s dad. A few years worth of college experience has Peter noticing Tony in a different way. This time, Tony notices him back.

Review: Turns out that Tony Stark being a dad and a daddy is too much for my body. I worship this fic. I wanna get married to it and have its babies. No words will ever make it justice *sobs* no but seriously, secret relationship is a perfect Starker trope and this one will take you to the edge of your seat until the very end. A+ characterization, lovely build up, infuriating cliffhangers and the wholesome happy ending we all deserve. This is the kind of fic that leaves you a bit depressed once it’s over, because you suddenly realize you’ll never read it for the first time ever again. So get to it and make sure to enjoy every second!

• One Call Away by @readysetstarker (E)

Summary: Tony didn’t need the phone sex gig. He was more than well off, his own sex life was in great shape, but damn, there was just something about listening to someone else get off to his voice. 

Review: Omg who could ever resist sex hotline + daddy kink + identity porn? Dev is coming after our own hearts and bodies with this hot combo. I love the balance between their cute chemistry and the hot phone sex, plus the identity porn is deliciously fun. I was so happy to know this fic is getting longer than the author had previously anticipated because I’m definitely not ready to let it go.

• Open Road by @starkerflowers (E, 2.5k, completed)

Summary: It’s not love, but it’s good. TW: implied abuse (not between Tony/Peter); bruises/violence; panic attack. 

Review: This refreshing not-quite-a-love-story will capture your heart, make it hurt, make it ache, make it hope and finally, make it heal. This fic is so gorgeously written I honestly cannot rec it enough. Yes, it’s dark and angsty, but it’s also gentle, hopeful and deeply evocative.  

• Panty Raid by @starkerforlife6969 (M, completed) A/B/O

Summary:  Imagine Tony being forced to do a panty raid as an initiation for his fraternity. So Tony, keeping up his playboy appearances, sneaks into the omega dorms. And he sees sweet innocent Peter who is so alarmed by the alphas raiding their dorm Tony can’t help but comfort him.

Review: Unf this fic is just too charming and cute, my heart cannot take it. Frat stories are so fun they make me forget my preference for age gaps and realize I could read more 50k of protective young!Tony any day, please and thank

• Pete’s Eats by @darker-soft-starker (T, 9.3k, completed)

Summary: Peter has a YouTube channel where he just drinks wine and teaches people how to cook things if they live in a mediocre apartment. While cooking and drinking he just talks about stuff like memes and school and, most importantly, his undying thirst for Tony Stark.

Review: This is legit the funniest shit I’ve ever read, everybody else can go home. I was already sold on Peter being a relatable thirsty dork, but Tony’s A+++ characterization (for a moment I thought it was RDJ on the big screen) and the identity porn side trope killed me for good. And what a way to go. I’m an angst hoe but I could read this forever and would be okay with it. 

• pondus, pondera by spqr (M, 9.3k, completed) underage prostitution but not between P/T

Summary: Peter sells his virginity for $5,000 when he’s fifteen.

Review: Ugh I’m so weak for the angsty hooker trope, I just love the potential to simultaneously explore whump, mutual pining and gentle recovery. Trust spqr to deliver it all with a carefully crafted slow burn, god-tier characterization and a heartfelt and satisfying get together. This fic is a gem.

• Powerful by @cagestark (E, 4.6k, completed) SIM!Tony

Summary: After finding out about Peter's abusive ex, Tony privately vows revenge.

Review: This fic took my breath away and made me realize that dark!Tony with a soft spot for Peter is everything I need in my life. Precious Peter being empowered by a viciously protective Tony is now my absolute jam, and it was fascinating to see see their dynamics mutually feeding each other’s nature. This fic is gorgeous, sexy and liberating. 

***Red Light District series by @starker-stories (17k, ongoing)

Summary: Everyone knows that Tony Stark is a playboy who has dozens of women passing through his life and through his bed. What everyone doesn't know is that Tony Stark is deeply closeted, longing for something he can't ever have -- a life and a love with another man.

Review: I’m completely in love with this series and not only because it explores the good old hooker trope which I’m very partial to. It’s so well written and atmospheric, if a tad bittersweet and heart-wrenching. Great narrative tension, Tony and Peter’s chemistry is insane, their voices and dialogue are amazing and the smut is looong and scorching hot *chef’s kiss* 

• Samadhi by @starkercrossedlovers (E, completed)

Summay: Tony goes to yoga to try and deal with his anxiety and ends up falling for the instructor, one Peter Parker.

Review: Okay so yoga fics are among my guilty pleasures and I can’t get enough of feel-good fics like this one. Peter’s such a sweetheart, so thoughtful and amazing with Tony. I love it when they take care of each other and find solace together, this fic made me soft :’)

• Single dad baker!Peter and lawyer!Tony by @starkerforlife6969 (G, completed)

Review: I’m not usually a fluff girl but this fic is just too wholesome to go by unnoticed. Nothing hits my soft side harder than a cynical character reaching that turning point that makes them start to believe in love. Fuck yes, YOU SHOW THAT MAN SOME HAPPILY EVER AFTER PETE

• Soft Kitty by @ko-fiandfanfiction (E, 33k, completed)

Summary: Peter wasn’t wearing something Tony would call normal, not that there was anything inherently wrong with what he was wearing or anything. It just struck him as…different. To put it plainly. Tony is not sure what to make of this new development.

Review: For those of you who love some occasional feminization, this is the perfect treat. Soft, sexy and sweet, it combines top guilty, pining Tony with oblivious idiots in love, two of my favorite tropes. Amazing slow burn with glorious sexual tension, infuriating dancing around each other and a very satisfying get together. Bonus points for including the “Avengers living together in the Tower” trope, this is the 2012 team building fic we deserved.

• Solitaire by @darker-soft-starker (M, 29k, completed)

Summary: After a traumatic experience, Tony loses his marriage and his business empire in one fell swoop. At rock bottom, it takes real change to pick up the pieces, to dig himself out of the funk he's been living in. It's not pretty. Along the path of healing Tony meets a bright young man, Peter Parker, who makes the entire journey worth it.

Review: Oh man, this was a tough ride on the soul. Few things hurt me like reading whump!Tony but his healing journey is so beautiful it’s all worth it. Top notch characterization, amazing dialogue, FEELS EVERYWHERE, and a gorgeous portrayal of loneliness, friendship, hope and love.  

• Someone Who Makes you Happy by tuesday (T, 6k, completed) Soulmate AU

Summary: Peter was born with several marks already marring his skin, including an interlocking AES over his heart. A scar-sharing soulmate AU.

Review: This fic is absolutely stunning and it makes my heart ache in all the right places. Great worldbuilding (I LOVE the scarring concept, so unique and fitting to these characters), A+++ Tony characterization (the wit and the self-hate are so spot on I could weep) and a journey full of longing, until they finally get to be on the same page. 

• Splice by Mezzymet (E, 35k, completed) A/B/O

Summary: "He's not...." The doctors polite nature and disposition hadn't been able to mask the odd tone of his voice, like he had been reading someone's death certificate. Only Peter hadn't been on his death bed. "Peter isn't like the other kids.

Review: I keep coming back to this story because it’s such a fascinating and unique take on this trope. Very well thought and put together - the world building is fantastic, the sex sequences are breathtaking, and Tony’s gentle thoughtfulness makes me wanna cry.   

• Stopover by @cagestark (E, 10k, completed)

Summary: A stopover is just a break in a journey. Tony is on the run from the organization he used to kill for, and when he stopped for gas and coffee in the small town of Stopover, IL, he had no plans to leave with anything more.

Review: *sigh* this is the mob boss!Tony fic I’ve waited for all my life. Even more impressive than the delicious smut checking all my kink boxes was the phenomenal build up, the overall urgent atmosphere that surrounds those “on the run”, combined with the gentle wonder of stealing a moment in time to find solace in the most unlikely place. Breathtakingly moving. 

• Student Body President Election by @starkerforlife6969 (T, completed)

Summary: Tony and Peter are competing for Student Body President and a smear campaign takes things a little too far.

Review: GIMME ENEMIES TO LOVERS AND ALL THE HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA. This ficlet is so fun and adorable it will make your heart smile. Great plot idea and the usual bonus points for protective!Tony being a sweetheart. Will have more 30k, pls and thank.

• Such a Softer Sin by @css1992 (E, 18k, completed) background Peter/Norman

Summary: Tony is a self-made man. Peter is a sugar baby – someone else’s sugar baby.

Review: Another fantastic slow burn that hit me hard in the feels. I love it when fics explore the characters’ personal struggles before they get together, and while the Peter!whump destroyed my heart, Tony’s parallel journey of growth took my breath away. css1992’s talent took the good old sugar baby trope to a whole new epic level. 

• Summer Daze by @darker-soft-starker (NR, 4.3k, completed)

Summary: Starker no-powers au where Peter watches construction worker Tony from his bedroom window as the older man works across the street.

Review: Ahh yes, the classic “food as metaphor for love” trope, my absolute jam. This fic is so adorable and endearing, pining!Peter in his wooing mission makes my heart ache and the sweet anticipation is so good. There’s something about this fic that gives me nostalgia; it’s as soft and warm as a summer breeze.

• Tamed by @cagestark (E, 8.3k, completed)

Summary: Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and spy for SHIELD. Working with another SHIELD spy, the infamous Spider, he will take down an infamous human trafficking ring in New York. But the act they have to put on will demand more from Tony than he ever thought he'd have to give. Not that he minds.

Review: It’s no wonder this is Cage’s most beloved fic. Bad boy!Tony being all soft for Peter is everything we deserve, not to mention a mesmerizing (and HOT AF) first time together. This fic shows how rich and captivating Cage’s writing is - she’s able to transform that old basic trope into something unique and heartfelt. If you need one more reason to read this, please consider: best first bj ever :)    

• Teacher!Tony wrong number by @areluctantsblog (T) tw underage

Summary: Peter’s using a replacement phone and mistypes Ned’s number asking for help on a physics problem.

Review: I have such a soft spot for this fic! It was one of the first AUs I’ve ever read and I’m completely in love with their dynamics. Peter’s underage but this fic is carefully written and pretty tame, so I’d rec it to anyone looking for the good old “they probably shouldn’t, but then again nothing’s happening” trope.  

• The Bleedover Effect by tuesday (T, 11k, completed) Soulmate AU

Summary: The first time Tony got punched in the face by nobody there, he had a lot of very complicated feelings about it that mostly boiled down to, "I deserve this." A pain-sharing soulmate AU.

Review: Tuesday truly is the queen of soulmate AUs, we have no other choice but STAN. First of all, I adore the concept here - being such a sucker for whump, this could easily become my favorite soulmate trope. As usual, her Tony voice is perfect and his devotion to Peter hits my fragile heart every time. Kudos for the soft and hopeful ending. The series has been discontinued but the sequels are very much worth the read, if you’re up for it :)

• The Catfish Chronicles by @stfustucky (iwillpaintasongforlou) (E, 32k, completed)

Summary: Peter creates a fake profile under the name “Benjamin” trying to catch his scumbag boyfriend cheating. Tony creates a Tinder profile for "Anthony" looking for love late in life. Funny how two geniuses who fight side by side every day can only manage to fall in love after they've accidentally catfished each other. This is... gonna get awkward.

Review: My identity porn thirst might be showing but who cares, I want these two idiots pining after each other in every possible way. This was such a fun and exciting ride! The suspense had me legit freaking out and their get together was lovely and wholesome. I particularly adored how thoughtful and sweet Tony was dealing with Peter’s insecurities, that was handled really well. A treat!

• The Concept of Domesticity by @peters-tofu (E) mpreg

Summary: Tony has accomplished nearly everything he's set out to do, now he wants something different. A family of his own? Sounds easy enough. But he's far too impatient for a relationship, so surrogacy it is. Meanwhile, twenty-two year old college student Peter Parker has just volunteered to be a bearer at an agency.

Review: Can’t say I’m a big fan of this trope but since every rule has its exception, here it is! The only Starker mpreg I’ve ever read is so so good and adorable I can’t help smiling every time I think about it. I just love their dynamics, the soft domesticity, the cute bantering, and the fact that Peter has one baby daddy all wrapped around his little finger but what else is new ;)

***The Date by Neuropsyche (E, 33k, completed)

Summary: Tony has a high society gala and he needs a date.

Review: My favorite fake dating AU so far, this fic is so sweet and wholesome. Confident!Peter is my jam and it was amazing to see their sassy bantering evolving into genuine affection towards each other, not to mention the delicious hot smut with dom!Tony :D 

• The Final Heist by @starkerforlife6969 (G, 10k, completed)

Summary: Tony’s only got one more heist. He does this, he can be retired on an island in the Mediterranean in a month. All he needs is a world-class art forger. (White Collar inspired)

Review: Honestly, the amount of times I’ve mentioned SFL in this list is getting embarrassing. I must have done something really good in another life to get such a talented author writing something inspired by one of my favorite TV shows. I feel like this fic was personally crafted for me; it’s original, romantic, sexy, fun, clever and so very atmospheric. I’m a lucky hoe. 

• The Heart Benefits of Exercise by @areluctantsblog (E, 14k, completed)

Summary: Personal Trainer Tony and Gym Newbie Peter. Peter can hardly keep it together watching Tony demonstrate different exercises and lift weights. Tony is very much aware of the effect he has on his trainee, and after a session, Peter begs to be shown a whole different array of exercises.

Review: This fic was a lovely surprise, very relatable and entertaining. Love myself an adorable Peter thirsting over Tony (can’t really judge lol), especially if it comes with a good amount of pining and hot, kinky smut :D

• Tipping the Scale by JayPendragon (E, 119k, completed)

Summary: Peter has a rhythm. A system. All runs like a well-oiled machine, engineering pun intended. Every wheel of his life is churning perfectly. He doesn’t expect Tony Stark of all people to throw a wrench in it.

Review: Hooker!AUs are my kryptonite, I’m so here for the “fuck first, talk later” and the general pining + misunderstandings + h/c combo this trope provides. This amazing longfic delivers it all with a well-paced, delicious slow burn told from Peter’s POV, which is always a delight to read and makes you fall even more in love with him. If you also enjoy this trope you’re in for a treat!

•  To Catch a Spider by Thekeyandquill (E)

Summary: After the war, Peter Parker left his career as a spy behind to live a simple life in the south of France. But when someone frames him for the theft of plans for a new weapon, he must re-enter his old life and get close to the real thief's likely next target - one Tony Stark. A To Catch a Thief AU.

Review: TKAQ is so skilled their writing should be experienced like fine wine. Amazing research, top notch world building and characterization, and the loveliest atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re inside a movie. Clever, organic dialogue and a sexual tension so palpable you can almost taste it. This is a gem. Make sure to check their other works.

•  Two White, Two Black, One Pink by @starkerforlife6969 (E) poly fic: Peter/Tony, Peter/Steve, Peter/Bucky, Peter/Strange Summary: Peter has three (maybe one day: four) men in his life who mean the world to him. Review: Ugh, this fic is pure bliss. It has legit ruined me for any and all other poly fics. Words just cannot describe how gorgeous, poetic and unique SFL’s writing is, or how deeply it has affected me. So if you enjoy Mafia AUs, poly fics and soft-but-also-bamf!Peter taking care of Tony AND being taken care of by the men he loves, give this a chance and experience transcending storytelling. 

•  Uranium Heart by spqr (M, 11k, completed) Soulmate AU Summary: It’s probably better, Peter thinks, that he doesn’t know who his soulmate is. He wouldn’t want to lie to them about Spider-Man, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to tell them the truth, either.

Review: Be still my heart. This is such a gorgeous fic! Not only it combines two major tropes in a coherent 11k story, but I also appreciate how spqr explores these characters and their dynamics in a very unique and realistic way. I strongly recommend checking their other works, especially Landslide. 

•  Waiting Game by @cagestark (E, 6k, completed)

Summary: Peter hasn't seen Tony in fifteen years. Not since he had their hasty marriage annulled, graduated college, and moved across the country. Their twenty year high school reunion will find them reunited. They've both changed, but one thing hasn’t. Hint: it's their feelings for each other.

Review: This fic literally made my heart BURST WITH FEELS: the whole build up and anticipation, the slow disclosure of their past, the first uncertain moments of their reunion. I also appreciate the powerful and moving message underneath it all, that true healing comes after we overcome our demons at our own pace. A masterpiece.

•  Wooing Peter Parker by Neuropsyche (E, 62.5k, completed)

Summary: Tony and Rhodey dodge the press and sneak into the library where they meet Peter Parker - who immediately catches Tony's eye. But Peter isn't a one and done kind of guy and Tony's going to have to work for what he wants this time.

Review: This is the kind of fic that warms you all over and makes you smile non stop. It has so many elements I love in fic: cute flirting, clever banter, hot sex, soft domesticity, boys being reasonable and talking their problems out for a change. If you’re looking for something light, sweet and honest, this series is a must read!

[patrice-bergerons]

“you can’t save everyone” and “don’t make me do this” for the angsty prompts? ☺️

send me prompts!

this one veered right into very self-indulgent 00Q angst and h/c, for 'you can't save everyone.' Thank you for the prompt!

~*~

Q watches in abject disbelief as Bond’s signal slows down and then stops moving altogether on his screen.

“007, what the hell are you doing?” he all but hisses into the headset. 

To say that they don’t have time is a massive understatement:  Bond is bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound, the few operatives he hasn’t killed off are hot on his trail, and he needs to dispatch them and make it to the secure meet-up point before he loses consciousness.  Even for him, it’s a tall order.

A car door opens and shuts on the other end of the call, followed by footsteps and laboured breathing.  And yet, despite the pain that cuts through it, Bond’s voice is infuriatingly nonchalant when he speaks.

“I’m appreciating the sunset.”

Q almost lets out the most incredulous, high-pitched laugh, gripping the edge of his desk tighter in his despair.  He is appreciating the bloody sunset.

“Have you lost your mind?  Get back in the car, now.”

What lies ahead is an operation with a razor thin margin and near-impossible odds, and just because he cheated death half a dozen times before doesn't mean he will get away with it now.  His heart rate is already elevated, blood pressure inching down; Q’s own heart had been beating in his throat ever since he got shot.  God, the raw, muffled sound he’d made-

A soft thud follows a groan.  Q is going to yell tell me you did not just sit down when Bond beats him to it. 

“It’s beautiful,” Bond says breathlessly, a far away quality to his voice, and Q closes his eyes, this time gripping his desk for support. “Like something out of a painting.”

No.

M rolls into the conversation with all the grace of a WW2 era tank.  You have no idea, do you, Q thinks blood rushing in his ears and furious enough that he could punch the twat, as he says, with the the audacity to sound impatient and even a tad annoyed, “007, we hardly have the time to be prattling on about paintings-”

“Kick Mallory off the line.”

Q has never been happier to oblige.  

“Is he pissed off?”

Bond is so badly hurt that he has to pause after every other word so that the question becomes, is he- pissed- off-?

Q inhales and somehow finds his voice.  M is glaring at him with the appalled disbelief of a man who is not used to being denied what he wants, is saying “you are going to regret this.”  Q has no doubt.

“Very.”

Bond makes a noise that could be a laugh if not for how mangled it sounds—”good” he adds—and even now a smile tugs at Q’s lips for a split second, manic and wildly out of place. 

“Now please get back in the car.  There are hostile operatives headed your way.”

It can’t end like this.  He won’t let it.

But there is no shuffling on the other end of the line, no sounds of an injured, dogged man dragging himself to his feet.  Only a soft “it’s alright, Q”.

Q tries to summon the power to be upset with him, to cling onto his early outrage, the visions of himself in Muğla with Bond strangling him with his bare hands.

So you are giving up, is that it?  And I’m meant to do what—stand here and listen to you die?

“You are giving up,” he says quietly.

For a man who is always trying to retire, you are surprisingly bad at having any actual plans for your retirement, Q said, laughed, once, smiling at him over the rim of a pint glass, summer breeze playing in his hair.  He had just been ribbing Bond about the long term effects of his martinis on his liver.  Bond had shrugged, and even though no words left his mouth, they had still echoed through the still too warm night:  I will not die in bed.

“You can’t save everyone, you know that.  I had a good run.”

His voice is kind.  He wants to absolve Q as if absolution is what Q is after.  And this is the most at peace Q has heard Bond sound which makes him want to hurl his mug at the monitors mounted on the wall and scream, perhaps, for good measure until he has no voice left.  

“Is that what you think you are to me?” he replies.  Ordinarily, he goes to great pains to divorce his voice of any internal turmoil when he runs command; panic spreads like wildfire and affection can become the deadliest weapon of them all in the right hands.  None of that now.  His voice trembles.  He leans into it; lets tears cloud his vision.  If Bond is going down, if he wants to go down, he needs to know.  “Just anyone?”

Bond inhales sharply.

“Q–”

“Please.”

Hell, he isn’t even above begging.  

For a moment all he can hear is Bond’s laboured breathing, exhale after inhale after exhale, and he thinks that maybe all is lost after all, that maybe it is kinder to let him die here on his own terms rather than get mowed down on the road, to sit here and enjoy one last sunset together.  

Then he hears fabric shuffling and the sounds of Bond pulling himself to his feet.  Q exhales—a wet, giddy sound almost like laughter.  

Oh there will be no end to the insane favours Bond asks of him now.  Destroyed cars, schemes aplenty, paperwork probably ripped to shreds.  Q could not care less.  He will love it all. 

“I’ll make you an exploding pen for your next mission, how does that sound?” he asks as he hears the car door open and then shut closed, fingers already flying over the keyboard again to get Bond to safety.  

*

The first thing James becomes aware of is the clacking of a keyboard.  He smiles, even in the cold dark—there is only one person he knows who can type that fast.  When he through great difficulty cracks an eye open, there he finds him, perched on an uncomfortable looking chair, his face and curls washed in the blue-white glow.  It takes him a moment to find his voice and even then he sounds like a tortured dying beast.  Seems par for the course given how shit the rest of him feels.  And yet—he is alive.

“Thought you didn’t like flying.”

Q startles and James takes some small gleeful pride in being able to sneak up on him even now.  Laptop set aside, Q smiles at him warmly. Then he takes James' hand into his own and James thinks maybe it is worth it after all, all this pain.

“I certainly don’t do it for just anyone, 007.”

[azure7539arts]

Sword

Pairing: Q/James Bond (00Q)

Prompt(s): Fantasy + Tradesman (for the AU prompt table)

Warning: None

Summary: Once upon a time, there was a prophecy of destruction and resurrection. But that would be a story for another time.

Or: Bond sought out a blacksmith for help. A duel ensued.

A/N: this was supposed to be a drabble... And here we are. Special thanks to @10kiaoi and @solarmorrigan because you two have been hearing me whine about this for days. I’m also very grateful to everyone who has given me words of praise and encouragement throughout my writing process! I hope you all enjoy this!

-

-

“Come back in a week, and pick out your champion.” His voice was deceptively soft for the ramrod iron spine behind those words. “Should your warrior prevail, I will consider giving you help.”

Suddenly, Bond felt his blood boil. “A week? Seclusion or not, surely you must be aware of the civil war that’s raging across the country even as we speak.” 

The blacksmith hummed, that blazing fire from the forge just off to the side casting a burning glow on his person. He seemed almost indifferent yet incredibly focused at the same time, and Bond didn’t understand—

“I’m highly aware. Just as much as I’m aware that you and your men have barely scraped through that last battle by the skin of your teeth.” Bond barely swallowed back an indignant hiss, battle-wearied and tormented. The sheer exhaustion and heavy casualty they’d suffered under the hands of the enemy were bleeding his patience dry. “Raging civil war or not, you can’t tell me you don’t need time to regroup. And I’m not so cruel as to strike you when you’re down in the mud and defenceless either.”

Bond’s hand tightened around the hilt of his broken sword.

And for the first time, the blacksmith smiled.

A sudden chill descended over the sweltering furnace heat of the workshop.

“One week from now at dawn break precise, Lord Bond of Skyfall. No more, no less.”

-

The promised day arrived overcast, windswept with the phantom stench of blood in the air, and the blacksmith stood a lone figure in the meadow, a sword seemingly too heavy held in the loose grip of his hand.

Whatever it was made out of, the blade shone like a bright beacon under this angle of light, pure and unblemished like fresh fallen snow, and Bond couldn’t keep his eyes off it.

“Are you serving as your own champion?” the blacksmith asked, his voice steady and slicing right through the hissing air currents. No pretense of pleasantries.

At least Bond could appreciate that.

Alec shifted warily behind him. He’d asked to fight in Bond’s stead before, many times over the course of last week, in fact, but Bond had turned him down every time. Not least because of the still healing gash in his side. 

Bond had come here to ask for a personal weapon, and a weapon he shall get for himself—through his own damn efforts and no one else’s. The troop’s eyes were on him, and he wouldn’t fail. Not right now.

Not like this.

“Yes,” Bond replied simply.

“Good.”

The fight began in an instant, absolutely without preamble, and by the time their weapons made impact with a loud screech of metal on metal, Bond could still hear the surprised cries of his men not too far away. He gritted his teeth and retaliated using brute force to thrust the blacksmith backward, the twang of that clash just now still traveling up his arm in an uncomfortable, numbing ache.

(He’d been skeptical at first, considering the near unbearable youthfulness that had been evident before his eyes, but now, Bond understood why this blacksmith was revered to be one of the legendary masters of the realm.)

Unsurprisingly, the man landed on his feet without trouble, already springing forth by the next breath drawn, and Bond flexed Alec’s borrowed sword, charging straight ahead also, never one to let himself fall into a state of disadvantage if he could help it.

From that point on, the fight progressed in an almost surreal manner.

The blacksmith engaged with a strange leisured fervor—languid but intense, razor sharp yet unhurried. It was as though he was watching—assessing—and the realization raised Bond’s hackles for the first time. He didn’t mind being watched; he’d grown up practically in the eyes of the public, but it was a different thing altogether when he couldn’t tell what he was being watched for.

At least the stormy depths of those cryptic eyes with their ever-changing colors didn’t seem to conceal any malicious intents. And Bond would know; he’d encountered too many backstabbers not to.

“James!”

Bond barely dodged the upward swing that had been close to slitting his throat clean open. Distantly, he wondered if he really had gotten lucky there, but whatever the answer was, the tip of the sword managed to nick him anyway, fresh blood spilling bright red and hot from the veins. He clutched at his neck with a sharp hiss now, eyes narrowed and chest slightly heaving with elevated breaths.

Annoyance flared a bright solar burst underneath the rapid beating of his heart, but Bond calmed down from the sole comfort that his challenger wasn’t doing too well, either. Bond smirked, all teeth and a little predatory.

He had landed a rather vicious kick himself, and judging from how the blacksmith was somewhat hunched over right then instead of reassuming his initial firm, unwavering stance, Bond must’ve caused a bit of damage, too.

Mutual points for both parties, so it would appear. 

Bond looked down to eye at those small indents that had started to chip off from the body of Alec’s once intact sword, and lowered his sticky hand.

“Let’s finish this.”

Despite the fact that the blacksmith’s techniques were a combination of oddities that Bond hadn’t really witnessed before, he still had his real-world experiences from being in and out of active combat for the last ten years or so. Still had all his knowledge from starting out on his courses for martial training twice longer. And Bond could see, with observation and a survival instinct honed through the countless storms of his youth, where the openings of his opponent lay.

That was more than enough.

Bond swung, then, with a turn of his arm, sharply twisted the motion upward. 

Alec’s blade fractured with a resounding clang, but in that singular moment in time, Bond couldn’t find it in himself to be concerned. He reached out and snatched the blacksmith’s flung sword from midair.

It settled into his palm a perfect, balanced weight.

“Impatient bastard,” came a whispered breath.

But Bond couldn’t quite hear it. The words, much like the subsequent clamoring of his men, morphed a jumbled mess in his ears as a whiplash of energy seized up the length of his arm in a shock of lightning from where he was gripping this sword. Glowing runes began materializing along its steel, and Bond sucked in a gulp of air through his teeth.

What felt like just a flawlessly crafted weapon a second ago now bore a sheer familiarity that rendered him incredulous. The sword felt right in his hand, as though itself a newly added extension of him, and its metal rang a vibration that burrowed deep like a blood covenant woven through his very flesh and bones, a humming song of satisfaction and protection.

When Bond realized to lift his head back up again, caught up in the tail end of a dizzying spell, it was to find both himself and the blacksmith encased in a ring of fire. From the looks of things, Alec and his troops were currently trying to find a way to get past the flames, with very little to no success.

The blacksmith stood before him, unbothered by the razing chaos all around, another smile tugging at the corner of his lips while specks of amber seared gilded brands of molten iron in the pools of those eyes.

He was far too calm. Too knowing.

“I won,” Bond said, voice low and unexpectedly hoarse.

“And the sword has chosen you as its first and final master.” He nodded, amused. “It was practically trying to leap out of my hand the second it tasted your blood.”

Bond frowned, storing away the casual implication that the sword—his sword—was at least partially sentient for later inspection.

He had more important matters to investigate at the moment.

“It’s yours to keep now. You can even give it a name—”

“Did you put a curse on this?”

The other man blinked, momentarily blindsided and flustered for the first time since they’d met. “What—A curse? Why would I do that?”

“Then, what is your play here, Battlemage?” Bond ground out, nearly spitting the word. “Posturing as a simple blacksmith.”

Said Battlemage stopped now, head tilting to the side, expression sharpening into a simmering stillness and lethality that sent a shiver up Bond’s spine. While Bond maintained that he was the one spearheading this interrogation, the immense presence of that unblinking stare still made him feel stripped bare and oddly vulnerable. Not unlike a pinned up specimen trapped under a cold and merciless gaze.

(He would quickly learn, after this, that he’d be better off not having this particular side of the battlemage directed at him and his men. For obvious safety reasons.)

“I didn’t posture as anything. I create weapons for my own pleasure,” he replied slowly. “I’ve never claimed to be a blacksmith, nor have I ever called myself one.”

Bond paused, mouth twisting. He recalled their last encounter, knew this to be true. Regardless, there were still too many questions left unanswered. And in a war of this calibre, he’d rather not needlessly risk his followers’ lives and well-being. “That still doesn’t explain what you’re trying to accomplish. Why are you doing this?”

“The opposition has taken to deploying sorcerers to decimate your troops and allies because your king has deprived his people of magic for so long, it’s now become a weakness to be exploited. By one of your very own.”

Such a blatant tone of derision jarred, and Bond clenched his jaws in an involuntary response. However, at the same time, only Alec had ever spoken to him in this kind of straightforward manner, but not really quite so, even then. Not quite like this.

“But you’re not your imbecilic king—you’re a pragmatic man. You understand that this situation requires a proper measure of counterattack,” the Battlemage carried on, that lilting quality to his speech belay the ripping knives behind every word. “I can be that counterattack.”

It was Bond’s turn to stare. To say that he was startled would be an understatement. True sorcerers were already few and far between, but actual battlemages were of a different breed altogether. 

Skilled in not just the arts of war and physical combat, they were also rumored to possess great enough magical capabilities to change even the tides of battles on the precipice of imminent defeat. The appearance of a battlemage had only been recorded throughout the known history for a handful of times, all of which were critical turning points that had marked either the end or the beginning of an era.

The most important thing? 

No side with the support of a battlemage had ever lost.

“Why?” Bond swallowed. Anyone else would call him a fool for being stubborn, for keeping on pressing. One shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that. But Bond didn’t do blind trust—he refused to. “We don’t know each other. There’s no reason for you to help me.”

The Battlemage looked a hair’s breadth away from rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Let me ask you this, then: what made you decide to seek out my help?”

“Because—” Briefly, Bond considered lying, but went against it in the end. “Because your reputation precedes you.”

The answer seemed to lend the Battlemage a gratified edge. “And the same goes for yours.” A fresh gust of wind blew, and Bond realized that the unnatural fire surrounding them was finally easing down to a manageable dwindle. “Besides, my weapons have never chosen wrong.”

The Battlemage extended a hand. “So, what do you say, O’ Lord Bond of Skyfall?”

His mind went blank, but somehow, Bond already knew what to do. As though right from the start, this had always been how it was meant to go.

Bond took the offered hand and felt the promised inevitability of it rest upon him undemanding, steadfast and strong.

He understood it now.

The outcome of the product would only ever be as good as the craftsman who created it.

“How should I address you?" he asked.

And the Battlemage smiled. "You can call me Q."

[fullbattleregalia]

00Q cork

Pop!

SMASH!

Q stared reflectively at the new hole in his flat’s window and then took a moment to silence the intruder alarm on his phone that his home security system had set off.  A damp draught gusted through the air.  He glanced over at James.  James had a bottle of champagne in one hand and looked like he was seriously considering planting his face in the other – or possibly taking a fortifying swig of alcohol straight from the bottle.  Q couldn’t help himself.

“You seem to have gone off early,” he quipped.  James closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Q fancied that he heard a quiet groan.  “Find something to cover that up with before any more rain gets in.  I need to calm down my security system.”

By the time Q finished assuring his computers that he wasn’t being menaced in any way that wasn’t enthusiastically consensual, James had put a folded up bin liner and some gaffer tape to good use.  He offered Q a glass of property-damaging champagne.

“Now, where were we?” James gave him that small, impish smile that really shouldn’t be so charming.

Q accepted the proffered champagne.

“I believe you were attempting to seduce me through very thinly veiled innuendoes disguised as negotiations for an exploding pen.”  Q sat back down on the couch and took a sip of his wine.

James’ smile widened just a hair.

“Mmm, that does sound about right.”

Q reclined further into the couch cushions and raised an eyebrow with a small smile of his own,

“Do carry on.”

[melynen]

Sweet Pandemonium - 00Q

((Inspired by the prompt of LDWS week 4, and adds on to this fic.))

“Who authorised this?” Q demands as soon as he’s finished reading the mission brief. “Who, upon seeing that the mission requires two agents, in their infinite wisdom decided to give it to double-ohs bloody five and seven?”

Moneypenny, for her part, gives him a look that is a mix of virtuous innocence and smug satisfaction that is surely meant to proclaim her sterling inculpability. Q sees right through it, though, because she’s barely even trying to conceal the latter.

Bond and Shaw, the bloody double-ohs in question, give him matching hurt looks, both of which Q is perfectly capable of ignoring, having seen them far too many times due to Bond being his lover and Shaw his close friend. A very close friend with whom he’s been undercover as boyfriends, he might add, which only means that he’s even better equipped to resist the pout that’s forming on those full lips.

“I am hurt, Q,” Shaw declares when all it does is make Q roll his eyes. “Hurt, I tell you. Bond and I are the best agents for this mission, ask anyone.”

“I did, and I can think of at least five better candidates off the top of my head.”

“Should I feel insulted? I think I should feel insulted,” Bond says, making Moneypenny grin and Q feel the beginnings of a small but persistent headache forming behind his eyes.

“I’m making R your handler, just so you know,” Q tells the room at large. There’s no way he’ll touch this particular mission with a ten-foot pole, that’s for sure.

“Oh my sweet crumpet,” Shaw says, strangely cheerful, “you can’t.”

“It needs to be you. M’s orders,” Bond adds.

Q glances at Moneypenny who nods at him, sounding a touch apologetic. “They’re correct. The mission needs the best people, and you’re it, Q.”

“We’re all it,” Shaw corrects.

“Yes, fine, you’re all it. Just remember this the next time you feel like complaining about never getting any interesting missions.” Moneypenny gives both agents a pointed look, then turns back to Q. “You’ve got until the end of the week to finish the kits. Do you think it’s doable?”

Q nods. “Yes, I see no problem there,” he says, with the barest hint of a stress over the word ’there’. The problem lies squarely on Bond and Shaw, as far as he’s concerned.  

Moneypenny smiles. “Excellent. I’ll go give M the good news.” She offers Bond and Shaw a regal nod and then leaves Q’s office.

“The way I see it,” Q tells the two menaces still remaining, “there’s only one way for this mission to succeed.”

“Which is…?”

“That neither of you will call me anything other than Q while we’re on the clock. There will also be absolutely no ignoring me or accidentally losing your earpiece or any other shenanigans I’m used to seeing from you. Yes, Bond, I mean you. And yes, Shaw, I do mean the ban on all pet names. Can you both do that much for me?”

Q looks from Bond to Shaw and back and raises an eyebrow to show that he means business. Neither of them look particularly impressed, however.

“Of course, darling,” Bond is quick to assure him.

Shaw nods emphatically. “Certainly. You know us, we aim to please.”

Q snorts. “Yes, yourselves.”

“Is it just me, or does our Q have an awfully low opinion on our sincerity?” Shaw asks, ponderingly.

“He does, doesn’t he? I think we ought to do something about it,” Bond replies, taking a step closer to where Q stands.

“I agree. Perhaps you have something in mind to start with?”

“I most certainly do.”

“Bond…” Q says warningly, but to no avail. Bond still makes his way over to him and effortlessly corners him against the filing cabinet; although to be entirely honest, Q’s not exactly resisting his boyfriend’s advances. (It’s been a long day and he misses Bond’s closeness, so sue him.)

“Well, it looks like you have everything under control here,” Shaw says, sounding more amused than the situation warrants, at least if anyone asks Q. (Not that anyone does, but he’s not exactly surprised.) “So I shall take my leave. Though Q? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

With those parting words, Shaw exits the office. Q shakes his head at what has become an inside joke of sorts between the three of them, and then focuses his attention on Bond again.

“Hello, Q,” Bond says with that specific tone in his voice. Q has become intimately acquainted with it during his time as Bond’s boyfriend, and so he can easily predict just what the man is after.

“Hello to you too,” Q says, patiently looking into Bond’s eyes.

“I’ve missed you all day,” Bond murmurs and leans closer to nuzzle at Q’s neck and jawline. Q shivers at the feeling and brings up a hand to run his fingers through Bond’s hair, still feeling elated that he can.

“You’ve been here at my branch most of the day,” he feels compelled to point out. Although to be fair, he’d been too busy to really acknowledge Bond’s presence for the better part of the day, and when he did it was to give the man a gadget that needed testing, or to direct him to some of his minions that needed a helping hand.

All in all, Bond’s feelings are definitely welcome.

“That is certainly one way to put it,” Bond allows, sounding muffled but clearly amused. “Another would be that I was here but you were pretty much ignoring me.”

“I can’t help it if I’m busy while at work.”

“Neither can you blame me for wanting you in my arms.”

“You’ve got me there now,” Q says, then gasps when Bond takes it as his cue to start nipping and kissing at his skin.

”James… we’re in full view of the cameras.”

“I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t,” Q mutters, but he tilts his head obligingly when Bond nudges him with his nose and enjoys the affection.

“It’ll be fine, darling,” Bond says after a while, punctuating it with a gentle kiss at the corner of Q’s mouth.

“Will it though?” Q asks, seeking reassurance. “Will you two be able to follow the mission directive without any undue deviations, the way you especially have a habit of doing?”

“We will,” Bond says. “While we may occasionally act in ways that might suggest otherwise, we are professionals.”

“Sometimes I do beg to differ,” Q says, and gets a kiss with more than a hint of teeth in it as his punishment. Not that he considers it a punishment, really, and he retaliates by lightly scratching his fingers along Bond's scalp down to his nape.

“You really don’t have to worry about the mission,” Bond says after. “Besides, you’ll be in our ear the whole time.”

“Mm, yes, there is that.” Q says, although there’s still perhaps a hint of disbelief in his tone.

Bond tightens his hold on him in turn, but this time he keeps whatever comments he may have for himself.

Q tries his best to bury his misgivings against Bond’s chest and enjoy the feeling of being held so close. After all, it could be worse: he could be expected to physically leave Q Branch and go into the field together with both Bond and Shaw. He shudders at the mere thought of it and hopes that things will never go quite as far as that.

[heath-ur]

00Q Kinktober - Day 7

Prompt List ; Ao3  Pairing: Bond x Q  Prompt: Sixty-Nine  Warnings: Smut, No Beta

Me: I need to get faster at these. Only 100-300 words of lead-up & 500-600 words of smut. No more auxiliary characters. Go. 

Also Me: So let’s do nearly 700 words of unnecessary plot and make R lesbian.

Brain, why?   

The next afternoon, Q is still doing his best not to show his subordinates just how sore his ass is. He’s not sure how successful he’s been able to hide it from R or Moneypenny; going by their smug looks, not much, so he just eyes them smugly right back. ‘Yes, my arse is sore,’ he hopes his looks covey, ‘but it was so worth it.’ Going by their eye-rolls, he thinks they get it. 

Despite the distraction, he is able to complete 3 projects and assists 002 with breaching the security of her weapons-dealing mark. They gather enough intel that she’ll be returning to London in the next 48 hours. All-in-all, he thinks he deserves to be a little smug. 

So of course that’s when Bond walks into Q branch. Damn. Q knew he was forgetting something. 

He knows - he knows - that neither Bond or Alec consider these little liaisons as going steady. There has been no talk about exclusivity, they both still fuck during missions with or without honeypots. And that’s fine. Q isn’t one to be jealous - it’s a waste of productivity and energy. And he’s used to having multiple and infrequent partners. That’s what happens when you work with a governmental spy agency. 

However, he also knows that the two blonds are quite good friends. And also know how to kill with their thumbs. When he started this he didn't know that they would keep coming back for this long; he hadn’t realized that he would need to tell them about each other. Honestly, he’d thought that after the first successful mission each, the agents would lose interest. But of course they can’t even follow their own usual patterns. 

So this leaves Q standing at his platform station, hands planted on his sit-stand desk, as he faces a post-mission-high double-oh that wants a booty call while Q’s booty is off-the-table this time around. Q nods in Bond’s direction and cuts his eyes to the office-space he rarely uses since he prefers to stand among his subordinates. 

Bond nods back and wanders into the small, separated space. R gives Q a glance over her tablet as she swings by his desk with a new cup of tea. Q signs and takes a sip of the tea. His voice is as dry as the desert when he speaks up, “Alert security if I’m not back out in 5?”

R snorts and rolls her eyes, “And have them walk in to you being buggered? No thanks, boss. You’ve got about 30 minutes until that meeting with HR.” 

Oh, big buggering fuck. He forgot about that, too. Alec must have shorted out his brain last night. He hums and takes a bigger swing of his tea. “I suppose that’s another option.”

R sighs. Q isn’t sure how she makes it both exasperated and wistful. “If 002 ever fancies me back, you best be as understanding as I’m being right now.” 

Q nods, “If you find yourself a lady worthy of your brilliance, you can always borrow my office.” He turns and winks at her before making his way to the office. 

Inside, Bond is sitting on the futon that takes up a good third of the room while he looks at the lone Home Bargains art print on the opposing wall. He looks up and smirks as Q walks in and locks the door. “You know, not that I’m opposed to office sex, but I was planning on offering you dinner again.”

Q shrugs and crosses his arms, “I’ve 4 more hours, at least. No sense in you waiting. However, full disclosure, I’ve only 30 minutes and my arse isn’t an option at this time. I’m too sore.” 

Bond’s eyebrows slowly rise higher on his face as Q speaks, but his smile never waivers. “Oh? Well, I hope it was at least worth it. Anyone I know?” He waggles said eyebrows, gesturing with his hand for Q to step closer. 

Q steps until he’s only an arms reach away, humming. “Well, I have a type, you see. Something about blonds and muscles and men with licenses to kill.” He shrugs nonchalantly and loses the last of his nervous energy as Bond’s grin widens.

Bond lunges forward to wrap his palms gently at Q’s hips to drag him forward. “So, you’re Alec’s little kitten, hmm? He was singing your praises this morning.” 

Q slides one of his knees between Bond’s thighs to rest it on the futon’s edge, draping his arms loosely on Bond’s shoulders. “Do you two always gossip about your conquests?” 

Bond laughs and rubs his palms soothingly up Q’s back. “Only the good ones. And never enough to breach the virtues of their privacy. But, oh, the things we’re going to be talking about after this.” He suddenly reaches a hand up and grips Q’s curls in a tight grip, tugging him down enough for a kiss. 

Q can’t help his startled moan as he opens up his mouth for the kiss, letting Bond control the depth as he keeps gripping and twisting at the strands in his hand. When he’s let up, he knows his eyes must be dazed and he can feel the flush in his cheeks and down his neck. “So, no concerns, then?”

Bond confirms with another kiss, this one lasting only long enough to make Q whine as Bond pulls back and angles Q’s head to kiss down his jaw and throat to bite against the fabric of Q’s shirt. “30 minutes?” 

Q nods.

“Well, best make it worth it,” Bond winks and starks working on Q’s trouser buttons. Q gets with the program and begins to reciprocate, fighting with Bond’s buckle until it’s bested. 

Cocks freed, Bond pulls two condoms from his suit jacket pocket and rips one open to put onto his own cock. At the same time, he shifts and settles until he’s laying sideways on the futon, pants sliding off and down his legs. Q begins following him but gets stopped by a palm on his hip. “Turn around, Q, let me see Alec’s hard work.” 

Q blushes and his cock jumps as he fumbles putting the condom on. He lets his pants fall full to the ground, tripping out of his shoes to scramble onto the futon and swinging one leg to straddle Bond’s thighs, facing Bond’s feet. The man wears sock garters, the functional (non-functional) part of his brain thought as Bond’s previous words scrolled through the other half of his brain. 

Bond puts his hands back to Q’s hips and arranges the man as he sees fit, to get a better look. He hums and draws one finger around a still- tender mark of Alec’s index on the back of Q’s thigh. “Oh, these will be beautiful bruises. It really is too bad that he didn’t take pictures like he had wanted to.” 

Q’s traitorous cock jumps  again. He had to curl into himself and let his hands drop to either side of Bond’s knees. “20 minutes.” Q fails at trying to sound unaffected. 

Bond lets out an affected sad sigh. “We both best get to it, then.” And then in one motion he pulls Q’s hips closer to his head as he slides further down the futon to take Q’s cock in his mouth. It’s heat and the flutter of Bond’s tongue and the tapered rumble of his trapped laugh.

Q curses and takes a breath before he returns the favor and presses his mouth around Bond’s cock, sucking and working his tongue, trying to get his self-possession back by proving his skill. If Bond’s approving hum is any indication, he’s succeeding. Of course, that hum is accompanied by a controlled roll of Bond’s hip, making Q take more until Bond’s cock is being swallowed in the preservation of Q’s gag-reflex. 

Q sucks and rolls his own hips, smacking at Bond’s thigh in reprimand as the older man presses a thumb into one of Q’s forming bruises just to make him jump. He can’t help but squirm, even with his dick held in Bond’s mouth. The other hand gripping and fondling his bullocks doesn't help. Q would try working on Bond’s, but to be honest he needs both wobbling arms to hold himself up. 

Instead, he rises off until only Bond’s tip is still inside his mouth, takes a deep breath, and goes back down in three quick bobs, holding at the tip against just to repeat the pattern. The noises are slick and sound loud in the room. Q has a moment of concern about sound-proofing or lack thereof, but quickly forgets the concern as Bond does something with his tongue. Oh, maybe he could learn that.

The whole experience is a race to the finish-line and both parties cross nearly at the same time with matching thrusts and hot suction, faces messy and breathless. Q pulls back onto his knees and checks his watch. 

4 minutes. “Fuck.”