So if I was looking to extend the metaphor/ layer some plot™️ onto the fencing au [very slight non-con warning, along the lines of the silva scene in Skyfall]
maybe Bond somehow, by the skin of his teeth, manages to qualify for some big international competition (we're doing handwaving sports au gubbins) either someone else drops out or has an injury. Bond's own injury is... well... let's just say man is haggard. While he's preparing he's like to Q "How come you're not competing?" and Q's like "Oh I don't compete internationally, too much hassle and I've got nothing to prove." *stares pointedly at bond*
Anyway Mansfield sends him off with Moneypenny because she's got more promising (younger) athletes to coach herself and she thinks it'll be good experience for Eve. Bond is happy enough with her but mentions that he doesn't understand why someone as good as Q wouldn't be coming (absolutely not pining). Eve laughs and rolls her eyes "It's because he's afraid of flying! He absolutely does compete internationally and is extremely competitive about it. He simply insists on only signing up to competitions he can reach by train. I've taken the eurostar with him once — to Switzerland — it was quite nice actually." (real q humans aren't supposed to be that high up in the air!!)
Anyway they land in Macau and Bond is getting on quite well, he dopes well in his pooles (and breaks a blade, which he knows Q is going to give him an earful about when he gets back. Maybe he cheekily texts him a picture and gets left on read) not quite enough to get a bye into the later stages of the direct elimination. His shoulder's giving him a bit of bother but he's James Bond so he ignores it and plows on. In the Semis he's up against a guy called Silva and when they're kitting up and testing weapons he's weirdly friendly in a slightly unnerving way, Bond doesn't recognise him, but he also doesn't think anything of it, even though it's been a while he's still quite well known. Probably they've competed against each other before. When the fight starts it becomes abundantly clear that they have definitely fought before. He seems to know all of Bond's tricks and strategies. He wins, rather embarrassingly for Bond, and when he goes for the handshake he grips Bond's hand very tightly and whispers something like "Mummy will be so disappointed."
In the changing room after it plays out very similarly to meeting scene in Skyfall. Bond finally recognises "Raoul Silva" as the man he knew as "Tiago Rodrigues" from his fencing club, though when Bond knew him he also had a facial difference (maybe that's why he took up fencing in the first place, less judgement under the mask). He was M's favourite before Bond, the golden boy, set to do great things for team GB. But he'd gotten an injury and Bond had been picked for the team over him, giving him his big break and all his later success.
Bond thinks Silva's holding a grudge against him specifically for this, but not so. Turns out the injury that had put him out had been due to extreme overtraining which he blames on M working him too hard and pulling him under her influence to the point where he would do anything to please her (maybe there's even the suggestion that there was some highly unethical coach-athlete relationship going on). And he perceives that she abandoned him, and it nearly cost him his whole career. But he did recover, and when he did he changed his name to use his middle and mother's names, and paid a lot of money for more intense facial reconstructive surgery to stop people from connecting him to M and crediting her training with his wins. He sees Bond as also having been brought low by M's harsh methods, suggesting that though Moneypenny caused his injury it was M who inspired them to go so hard in a training bout. (homoerotic injury touching is occurring while he says this) Maybe when Bond says he doesn't see it that way, it's just bad luck, Silva kind of goes for if you won't join me I can hurt M by breaking Bond by doing a little of what she did to me.
Bond drops the "What makes you think it's my first time?" line but is sort of shitting himself inside because this is actually so messed up he's just an old washed up former olympian working nights as a bouncer or something and this guy is clearly right off his rocker about something that happened 20 years ago. Anyway they are still just in the changing rooms of this big competition so someone walks in on them and Silva backs off, for now. (I would then give Bond a bi crisis but that's just for me. as a treat.)
I have no idea how this would resolve itself, he's out to destroy M's name and legacy, but it's not like he can shoot her and burn down the club ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but I don't need an answer because... I'm not actually writing the fic!!!
While all this is happening back at the club M and Mallory are in some kind of extremely tense but faintly ridiculous disagreement over some detail of the club constitution and Tanner is having a terrible time trying to prevent it coming to blows (at least off the piste). Q is having an absolutely normal one and is not spending all his time thinking about the way Bond's arse looks in breeches.
