Q!Alex is scary smart, with the fastest brain in Q branch. 007!Henry wonders how an American got wrapped up in MI6 but he leaves it alone until he can't deny anymore that he likes the roguish, handsome, with a sprinkle of nerdy bastard. Alex is charismatic, everyone likes him, and he's a deadeye shot whenever they compete in the shooting range, so why is he in Q branch instead of in the field?
"I have a family who would miss me, whether it's a death on paper or an actual coffin."
Agents aren't supposed to talk about their past lives, or current private ones, really. But now that they're becoming more and more a part of each other's private lives, Alex starts to wonder who Henry used to be.
• • •
Q!Henry would already be dubious regarding MI6 working with American agents, but it's just his luck that he gets Alex. He's everything stereotypical about America: disobedient, talkative, alarmingly good looking, and he gets even the hardest jobs done.
Alex takes to calling his Q partner the Jiminy Cricket in his ear. Henry scoffs, "You've demoted me from angel on your shoulder to an insect?"
"Without your chirping in my ear, I'm just a puppet on strings. Maybe by the end of this, I'll be a real boy again."
Cue (there's a pun here) a shameless amount of flirting over ear pieces and late night hookups because Alex isn't as cool and controls as he plays off and he's Henry's agent, damn it. So he flies to Alex's location to help him sleep during the night. Some of it, anyway.
I already have a 007!Billy x Q!Steve one shot but here’s another with a bonus layer of omegaverse ~
[ This got very long so the full is on ao3, but you can read a big chunk of it below the cut ~]
• • • • • • •
Secret agent work was surprisingly inclusive. When young, alpha Billy had first been recruited and promoted, he’d expected the place to be a sausage fest of alphas. He was gratefully wrong.
He now sat next to a pretty woman omega, and one of the most dangerous people in the world. Because of both of her genders, she often had to be the one to infiltrate corporate fraternities. The skills to do so were...unique.
Now, though, she just nibbled on a candy bar and flipped through the case file for which they had to sit in this meeting. An alpha returning to their seat in the row ahead of them reached back to hand her a cup of water. It was just an unspoken thing, how alphas were a little extra soft on the omega field agents. They had it worse, after all.
Billy was known for being, well, and asshole. Prickly to everyone in equal measure unless someone proved right in front of his eyes that they were worth his respect. The omega next to him could claim that title, but not many others.
The issue was that Billy was a wild card. He charmed a room with ease and then spit in someone’s face on just a whim.
There was another wild card in the room, however. Billy knew their superiors were eerily good at observing their colleagues behavior, because a specific person from Q branch always seemed to show up for whatever meetings Billy had to attend.
Everyone who worked in Q branch went by that letter. Q. It pissed Billy off. How did anyone address each other efficiently? The only trick he’d seen was having no more than 2 of them in a room at one time.
Billy knew this Q very well, though. Thick brown hair. Antiquity bone structure with expressive, low hanging brows, huge doe eyes, and prominent lips. His thick forest of hair grew straight out of his head before its own weight made it fall into princely, curvaceous swoops.
Someone got highlights, Billy mused to himself. They looked good. Made the tech geek seem almost sun kissed, even though those poor bastards were the office workers compared to the double zeros.
However every 00 had a Q, and whatever quiet observation the bosses were doing between this one and Billy, he wanted it to be over with.
Billy’s phone vibrated on his thigh. He read on the screen: Look alive dip shit.
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk and then his lashes swept up for Caribbean irises to meet Q’s whiskey ones. The latter held his gaze but discretely did something with the device in his hands before sliding it into his pocket. Billy looked down at his screen: Stop staring at me and pay attention.
He typed back, You washed your hair.
Q visibly sighed as he reached for his phone again. Just in time for Billy to also send, I can smell it from here.
His smile twitched again as he watched the muscle in Q’s jaw tense. He typed silently on his device, I already have eleven sexual harassment complaints written out. Don’t make me send them
Only 11?
Stop it. Pay attention.
A new message appeared on his phone, from the omega right next to him. You’re starting to smell. Chill out.
He rolled his eyes, appearing more bored than bothered as he finally turned his phone over to avoid being distracted.
Yes, he liked Q.
No, it wasn’t a secret.
It was some strange irony that no one else seemed to care so long as they got their jobs done - except Q, himself. He was Billy’s biggest obstacle.
Then again, they were both obstacles. This line of work required dedication to their jobs, and Billy placed his above all other priorities. Usually.
His eyes kept deviating to Q. The way he shoved his glasses up to rub his eyes. The way he seemed to focusing on everything but the presentation happening.
When said presentation finally ended, the room began to clear out. Billy knew the drill: get your things from Q branch and leave asap.
So, everyone left to consult their Q’s, while he strolled right up to this one, who stood at his long work table typing something important. As Billy got close, entered the aura of that fresh smell. He couldn’t help himself, leaning right in so his nose tickled those silken tresses...
“Billy.” A complaint. A warning.
He didn’t move an inch. Neither did Q. “How come you get to know my name but I don’t know yours?”
“Because you officially died when you were eighteen. I’m still something of a citizen.”
“Officially,” Billy crooned, a smirk in his voice. Not for the first time, he wondered if he liked Q so much because he was an unconventional omega. Q stood a solid inch or so taller than himself, and smelled like fresh rain and spicy-sweet like blood oranges or some other citrus. There was something else there; something Billy wanted to put a name to that wasn’t just a letter.
“What would the head bosses do if you submitted those complaints?”
“They would make it so you never see me again.”
Billy’s features flattened like Q’s tone. He did not appreciate how the man could just cut him down like that. Regardless, he placed a hand on the table and the other on his hip - to avoid touching Q’s waist. “What toys do I get this time?”
“You mean disposables?” Q sighed with a shake of his head. “The only things you care about are the cars.”
Billy peered at him. “You’re sighing a lot today.”
“It’s a human condition to be exhausted by alphas.”
A laugh huffed through Billy’s nose before his mirth caught. “Plural?”
Q exhaled heavily, “Do you want your gadgets or not?”
Billy’s brows reached for the loose curls of his dark blond hairline. “Testy. I’m all ears.”
Q reached for a small briefcase. As Billy opened it, he narrated, “Your phone, key fob, ear pieces, and secure wifi hotspot.”
Billy frowned over all of it. “This is rather domestic.”
“Weapons will be provided to you upon arrival. You’re flying economy.”
That jerked his attention right up. “I really messed up that last one, huh?”
“You crashed a plane into a children’s soccer match.”
“No one was killed.”
“Because it was the private two-seater we’d loaned you. You’re not piloting any planes for a long while. And here.”
Billy accepted the envelope and started looking through the tri-folded papers immediately. His voiced dropped into a growl, “What is this?”
“Your Q assignment.”
“I see that. Who the hell is this?”
“The person who will be taking care of you since I’m due for a vacation.” Q paused his typing to look at him. “We can’t all have espionage trips in the luxurious Mediterranean.”
Billy ground his teeth. Only his training kept him from becoming a sour air freshener. “And then what?”
“I’m sure they’ll take good care of you, so long as you try not to die. That’s usually how I describe your field report activity: miraculous death defiances sprinkled with self medication.”
Billy threw the envelope onto the table, where it landed with a loud slap. “For how long?”
Q glanced at him. “What?”
“Tell me this is temporary.”
Billy couldn’t believe that Q actually looked confused. He finally turned away from his laptop. “I don’t know if it’s temporary but I need a break.”
“From me?”
Q took his glasses off and blinked while his eyes adjusted. “In a strange turn of events, this has nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Because you’re a narcissist.”
“Because you’ve been my Q for over a year.”
“Which means you’ve had others. You’ve been 007 for longer than you’ve known me.”
Billy scoffed, “How long is this vacation you’re taking?”
“Long enough that I can finally take a break from policy blockers and fuck myself as much as I want to!” He slammed his computer shut, unplugged it, and started out of the bunker office space. “Break a leg, or whatever the hell you do.”
He left Billy standing there, thoroughly taken by surprise. But he also left him with two pieces of information: Q had civilian paperwork, and he was single.
• • •
Why wasn’t I invited?
Shut up and get on your plane.
Billy chuckled, already in his seat, which he’d paid out of pocket to have upgraded well above economy. He would have wifi for his entire flight. If Q was as good as he was supposed to be, he already knew this.
You gave me a different Q but didn’t hotwire your number out of my phone.
Don’t tempt me.
How’s your vacation starting out?
It isn’t. You have two guardian angels while your new Q gets settled in.
Well. Billy liked that a whole bunch.
How will it start out then? Paint me a picture.
You’re asking me to sext you.
You’re the one who shared that you’re due for a heat.
Sexual Harassment page #13...
Billy smiled, which got swept up by a stewardess asking him to turn his phone off for the take-off. “Sure thing,” he schmoozed, and then replied, I seem to recall you being the one who stared at me first.
It had been a while since I saw blue eyes. That’s all.
Is that the best you can do?
I’m busy.
To busy to flirt with me? I’m insulted.
Sorry I just have millions of people to keep safe. Didn’t the lady tell you to turn off your phone?
You spying on me?
The answer came in the form of Billy’s phone turning off on its own. Billy rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and watched out the window as the plane took off.
• • •
All I’m saying is that I could’ve helped with your vacation.
I’ve never seen anyone so openly eager to sleep with a colleague.
Billy paused to answer the door with his dinner delivery, but afterward responded, Don’t call me a colleague. That’s weird.
Sorry. The person who enables high profile murder.
That’s better.
He chowed down on his 5-star hotel pizza and checked the time. I g2g but I’ll be back around 3am, your time. Phone sex?
If you wake me up at 3am I’m personally murdering you myself. Text your actual Q, for once.
You are my actual Q.
I’m about to be offline.
Billy frowned. Q branch was awake when 00s were awake, regardless of timezones. Communication was only severed if necessary for the missions.
What? Why?
You have another Q. Use them. And get this job done.
Another knock on the door, this one with the delivery of a pressed suit. Billy didn’t have time to harangue his Q into being his Q.
• • •
He did get the job done. It was one of the cleaner assignments despite returning to his hotel room with a limp, torn suit, and a bleeding shoulder. Just a scratch, but it was deep enough that he’d be getting stitches once the sun was up.
He messaged his temporary Q with the details and readied the massive shower for a lengthy bathing session. While he carefully peeled off his dress shirt, he realized that a phone which he did not recognize sat on the vanity counter. A sticky-note of all things fluttered on the screen: abort prior devices.
As if someone knew he was looking at it, a message came through saying, Check email for updated return details.
It wasn’t the first time details changed, especially travel information. Billy took a sip from his tumblr of whisky and opened up his email to skim through...
MI6 Q BRANCH COMPROMISED
All agent communications have been re-encrypted.
He wasted no time in smashing the screens of his personal phone as well as the one Q had given him for the mission. He threw them into one of the sinks, plugged the drain, and let them soak.
Billy showered quickly, bandaged up his shoulder, and read through a secondary email informing him that he had a plane to catch in an hour. He sighed, because this meant that he had to stitch his knife wound himself.
For some reason, it didn’t occur to him that his Q would be in danger until he was snipping the thread off the last stitch. Q had pulled some impressive maneuvers from thousands of miles away, saving his life many times. It just didn’t seem possible that any member of Q branch would be in danger, especially if his temporary one was still working with him.
Now, though, Billy texted the temporary one, What’s happened with my Q?
You will be debriefed upon arrival.
Tell me now.
Debriefing in person.
Billy grit his teeth and carefully pushed his arms into his jacket. He much preferred his Q with personality.
• • •
He certainly got the news. Right on the tarmac when the private plane sent for him landed. A large man with a mustache, who simply went by M shook his hand. Billy knew his real name, and liked to remind him of it every so often. Like poking a muscle spasm.
Today was not that day.
“A bio-weapon was delivered and exploded in the bunker,” he informed under the noise of the little plane. “We’ve managed to detain the delivery person and they’re being questioned.”
That was a polite way of putting it.
“What happened to my Q?”
“Q Branch was conveniently evacuated a quarter of an hour before the deliverer arrived.”
“What. Happened. To mine?” Billy growled.
M rolled his lips and took a deep breath. “He figured it out. He caught the attack, but only had enough time to evacuate the bunker and put the encryptions in to protect everyone else.”
Billy stood very still, which was something of a fete given the wind out here. “Is he dead?” he asked coldly. He needed to know. To get this over with.
M shook his head. “No, he’s alive. Stable, even, but this bomb...it was meant for at least a couple dozen people. It was a concentrated heat inducer. The goal was meant to cause chaos. To turn alphas, omegas, even betas against one another. Instead he took the brunt of it alone.”
Billy absorbed that but shook his head. “What does that mean? Is that just an intense heat?”
“No, kid. That’s an overdose on a highly volatile prescription medicine, and then a whole lot more. Because he caught it in time, he was able to warn others. We got there in time to find him and the delivery man comatose, on the verge of organ failure. Now, his coma is medially induced to keep the stress off his body, but he’s fine.”
“I want to see him.”
M sighed and pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Thought you might.”
• • •
Q had a private room with a nice view. It was a rude irony that he was asleep and the bed was too far from the windows for him to appreciate it.
Billy stood by the bed, arms tightly crossed. A lot of fluid bags were hooked up to him, helping him flush out the toxins from his body while Billy otherwise listened to the finer details from the nurse.
“Because of his strictly regulated hormone blockers, he had a paper wall’s defense against the attack, but it was still better than nothing.”
Billy didn’t want to hear about the attack anymore. When M dropped him off here, he’d said casually, “Everyone else is on this assignment. You’re not allowed within fifty miles of that delivery guy.”
So instead he asked, “What will happen when his system is clear?”
“We’re not sure yet. He may fall into an intense heat and need medical assistance through it. He may not have a heat at all, but if this happens he will be tested for infertility.”
Billy couldn’t rightfully respond to that since he didn’t know if Q wanted children. For 00s, that goal was pretty much nonexistent. If he had civilian paperwork, though...
He looked up at a woman appearing in the doorway like she’d sprinted down the hallway. Her light brown hair was chopped above her shoulders, and neither the nurse, nor any security outside made any movements to stop her. Billy frowned as he watched her pant through, “Holy Jesus...I came back as soon as I could.”
“Nothing’s changed,” the nurse reassured.
“Okay,” she nodded raggedly, taking her bags off her shoulders. “Okay, okay, okay...”
“Who are you?”
She looked up at him, affronted by his tone as she pointed at the bed. “I’m his emergency contact. Who are you?”
Billy turned his head toward the windows, breathing for control. Her statement should not affect him this much. He spent more time out of the country than in it. If anything, Q was his emergency contact, not the other way around.
“Just a colleague.”
“You don’t smell like just a colleague,” she said carelessly, otherwise preoccupied with digging for a few DVD cases. She propped them on Q’s torso. “Okay, dingus, I got some of your favorites. Although, it’s my choice which ones filter through that brain fog first. How about...”
Billy didn’t care about a movie. It was hard to take his eyes off of Q in the bed, to stop watching the drip of the bags into the IV tube. The way those bags emptied remarkably fast so nurses had to pop by every so often to replace them and check all of the machinery for his vitals reports. How one side of his face had the slightest blush of inflammation, like he'd been sprayed by a chemical -
“Robin.”
Billy wasn’t sure when he sat down, but he looked up from his seat on the other side of Q’s bed. “What?”
“Robin. Since you’re going to be here a while. You have something to call me.”
You officially died when you were eighteen.
“Billy,” he provided. Not like she could do anything with it anyways.
“You’re the alpha he likes, huh?”
Billy became instantly aware of how little sleep he had. “What?”
Robin smiled a little and nodded toward Q. “If you’re the one he works with, then it’s definitely you. He talks about you.”
“That’s not allowed,” he blurted, but it sounded childish in his own ears.
She snorted. “Relax, I know. Sort of. In a...I know but don’t know, sort of way,” she winked melodramatically. It turned into a really awful blink. “It’s a perk of being an emergency contact.”
“What are you, then? His beta sister?”
She shrugged. “Close enough.”
After some silence passed, she offered, “Do you wanna know what he says about you?”
“Do you always talk during movies?”
“Yes. But neither of you are really watching it.”
Billy exhaled with a raise of his chin. “I’ll let him tell me when he wakes up.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Characters: Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - James Bond Fusion, James Bond References, Assassins & Hitmen, Ficlet, from tumblr, Car Chase, Explosions, Steven Universe Has PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mentioned Abandonment Issues, mentioned childhood trauma, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Billy Hargrove, Omega Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Domestic Fluff, Hospitals
Series: Part 6 of Harringrove Tumblr Drabbles
Summary:
[ This is a collection of two 007/Q one shots. The first: ]
Agent Hargrove aspires to be a 00 agent. They're the best of the best, and he knows he's the best - when he's not being scolded by his computer saavy partner.
When headquarters is infiltrated and compromised, it's all he can do to keep himself and his partner alive.
But his partner is more than a letter. And Hargrove must decide if he wants to be more than a number.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself @hoegrove your Bond!au is just too strong.
Based on their post here ~
I hope you like it 🥺 🌹 it’s on ao3, if that’s easier for anyone to read 🌹
• • • • • • •
013.
Fucking 013. Not 00.
Which meant he’d have to wait for whoever got the 00 status he deserved to either die or become incompetent.
“Congratulations, Hargrove. Report to HQ for briefing.”
He’d rather be headed for the private plane that would take him to some tropical location, where capitalist monsters waited for his bullet.
Hargrove stepped out of the elevator onto the spacious floor. He really wished HQ would renovate. The concrete floors, glass walls, and metal beams were urban but not chic.
He found the corresponding desk of his... “partner” of sorts. Every number had a letter. The computer and the muscle. As Hargrove removed his outer garment, though, only the computer desk was present, while the person -
“Could you not dump your nasty jacket on my work station?”
Hargrove sighed and found the loon - on a bicycle. He frowned. “What the hell are you doing on a bike inside?”
“It helps me think,” Q said, riding slow laps in between the cubicles. Granted, there weren’t many of them, and Hargrove was pretty sure he’d only ever seen Q and maybe three other people on this entire floor, unless there was a crisis.
Maybe that’s why he had yet to be promoted to 00. Too much peace.
“Take your jacket off my seat!”
“Jesus Christ,” Billy cursed. He balled up the ruined jacket and threw at the bastard’s head. To his credit, he didn’t crash into anything. “Clean freak.”
“That’s Q to you,” he barked, dumping the raggedy garment into the nearest bin.
“Sure, Steve,” he purred, knowing his partner loathed the fact that he had figured out his real name. Hargrove wouldn’t work for just anybody, after all. And he was a detective first. Hired gun second.
He didn’t actually need Q. So he told himself. But Steve sure came in handy.
“So help me god, Billy. Did you at least keep my pen intact?”
“Your what?” He landed in Steve’s spinning chair, forcing the guy to lean his bike against his cubicle and stand with his hands on his hips.
“My pen, dip shit. You know, the one that’s basically a Swiss army knife. The one sanctioned by HQ to one Asshole Hargrove - ”
“Oh, that,” he said distantly, gazing out at the city around them. “It broke.”
Not surprised, nor impressed, Steve remarked, “You realize that if some nerd civilian reverse-engineers half the shit you lose, we might be genuinely compromised, right?”
“Then make better stuff.”
“Stop losing it, and you might actually be 00 one day.”
Billy glared with all the menace a man could while having his chair rolled out of the way. Steve shoved him aside with his foot and entered his computer password before navigating to the corresponding case briefs. Billy let his head recline on the seat while Steve went through the list.
“Target?”
“Deceased.”
“Car?”
“Totaled, but returned.”
“Pen: lost in action. Suspect?”
“Null. Excellent in bed, though.”
“You’re a cliche.” Steve glared from behind his glasses.
“Stop giving me cases with attractive people, then,” Billy smirked. “Who’s my next target? Tell me they live somewhere expensive and sunny.”
“Like a desert?”
“No, like Marseilles.”
“Oh, Marseilles is nice,” Steve chirped distractedly. “If you like French people.”
Billy snorted, but it evolved into laughter. “What’s wrong with French people?”
“They’re French.”
“Wow. Picky.”
Steve giggled under his breath and said, “I’m sorry I don’t have a gig for you in France.”
“I’m sure I’ll managed,” Billy sighed. “What do you have?”
“Something more domestic.”
Billy exhaled through his nose, warranting a curious peek from Steve. “Yeah, that’s what I’m stuck with. One zero and domestic jobs.”
“You’ll get there,” Steve reassured. Softly. Which was...odd.
Billy’s head rolled over the back of the chair to stare at him. Steve quickly added, “If you stop breaking the shit I loan you.”
Billy looked toward the ceiling, pressing his lips into an impertinent line...
“Q.”
“Hm?” he asked while typing away.
“There’s a bird in here.”
Steve looked at him. “What?” and followed his gaze up to the metal rafters. A grey bird gazed right back at them. “Oh shit - ”
Billy already had his pistol out. One shot knocked the bird off its perch. It landed with a loud, metallic clatter.
Steve's body doubled over when Billy wrenched his arm in the direction away from the device, and not a second too soon. The force of the explosion knocked them both over one cubicle and roughly onto the concrete floor.
"Q," Billy growled when the guy scrambled to his feet and back to his desk. He reached underneath it, uncovering a baseball bat of all things, and swung right over his hard drive. Metal and plastic debris rained over the floor, and then he ran to the router standing on a low piece of furniture along the wall. He wrenched its cables out and smashed the thing too.
Then he looked up at Agent Hargrove. "We're compromised."
Billy was already moving toward the scattered carcass of the spy bird. They didn't have a lot of time. Already, another explosive rumble sounded beneath their feet, on another floor. Billy quickly found the piece he was looking for, and pocketed it before yanking Steve in the direction of the stairs.
"I need a car."
"You know where the garage is."
"You're coming with me. That thing heard both of our names."
Steve defended, "We both lost our original identities when we signed up for this bullshit."
"We don't know what we're dealing with yet," Billy reasoned. "Until then, you're safest with me."
"Well that's pathetic." His words might've landed better if they didn't rattle out of him while they did their best to sprint down several dozen flights of stairs.
"You're really sassing me right now? What are you gonna do with that bat?"
Steve ignored that to proclaim, "We need to get to my place. I have a backup computer connected to the system."
"And how do we know it's not compromised too?"
"Because it's mine. Not the system's."
Billy could only frown at him ever so briefly, but he pocketed that information away for another time. For now, they descended into the belly of their organization, where the garage of vehicles rested beneath the city. There, another argument awaited him.
"You're not taking the goddamn Camaro."
"I'm taking the goddamn Camaro," Billy retorted, already ripping the keys out of the cabinet Steve unlocked for him.
"It's loud as all hell!"
"So are you. Get in the car."
Another explosion shook the concrete columns of the garage. Steve ducked his head and coughed on the dust while he threw himself into the car a millisecond before Billy left tire tracks on the floor. "What are you doing?"
Steve was pressing buttons on the dash. Somewhere behind them, a mechanical part was moving in the car. "We don't know how many birds infiltrated the building. I'm rotating the license plates - egh!"
He collapsed against his seat when the car angled up to speed onto the city streets. Billy mused, "And what can you do for speed trap cameras?" and held up a middle finger to the camera angled over the four-way intersection.
"Nothing yet. We'll have to trade cars eventually."
"Not soon enough."
"What?" Steve all but screeched, and turned around to see behind them. "At least you're not the only stereotype in this business."
He got the words out a moment before the large, black SUV rammed into the back of the Camaro. "Put your seatbelt on."
"IT IS ON!"
Steve provided his own chorus of swears and exclamations while Billy navigated through the city, tossing his partner left and right in his seat, avoiding another collision with the SUV that would spin them out of control. When Steve began digging through the glove box and lowering his window, Billy bellowed, "What are you doing?"
"A PEN!" he yelled before throwing something behind them. A second later, the SUV's front lifted off the road so the whole thing fell onto its side.
It was Billy's turn to exclaim, "Those things explode?"
"YES THEY EXPLODE!"
"YOU NEVER TOLD ME THEY EXPLODE!"
"WHY DO YOU THINK I TOLD YOU NOT TO TAP THE PEN THREE TIMES?"
"YOU ARE SO GODDAMN LUCKY MY DICK HASN'T BEEN BLOWN OFF."
Steve pointed out the front windshield. "BILLY!"
Another SUV narrowly rammed them from the side, but Billy pulled on the brake and swung the car into a 180. Some civilian took the brunt of that particular attack, but Billy officially needed to get them the hell out of here. Whoever wanted their heads for trophies didn't care about national news.
Which was possibly the most dangerous piece of this mess. Arguably the most powerful component of a country was its press, and these assholes didn't care if they earned the media's or internet's attention.
It was another aspect in itself that Billy had ridden in one too many black SUV's. That would also account for someone's ability to install too many explosive birds in the building.
"Billy?" Steve piped when he drove down the stairs leading to the boardwalk along the river. Billy focused on the new car behind them. He looked across the river at the opposite riverbank, where the walls sloped up. He needed to get over there.
The car rattled as he sped up a flight of stairs to the street once more, but did a hard left onto the bridge that crossed the river.
Down the stairs again, this time slaloming over the ramped wall, keeping an eye on his rearview to see how tunnel-visioned the SUV behaved.
A hand gripped the wide bell of his forearm. "Billy," Steve rasped. There wasn't a stairwell at the end of this riverbank. Just a concrete wall.
Billy went up the ramp, and braked with a hard turn on the steering wheel. The SUV tried to brake in time, but the Camaro clipped the back tire, and it spun right over the side into the river.
Billy k-turned back in the direction of the stairs. He drove seamlessly into the midday, traffic, turning on his windshield wipers against the heavy drizzle. He glanced at Steve, who had not let go of his arm. At a stoplight, Billy's other hand overlapped his, earning a pale, ghostly stare.
"We need to get to the subway. Then your place."
Despite his shock, Steve nodded and said, "Two blocks down."
Billy found the station, lodged their car in a back alley between a Polish restaurant and a laundromat, and circled the car to help Steve out. "I'm fine," he said even as his knees gave out and he hung between his arms on the car door and roof.
"I see that," Billy replied. He nestled in close to wrap an arm around Steve's softer waist. "Put your weight on me."
He did, and Billy kicked the door shut behind them. "Do you have a metro card?"
"Do I have a metro card?" Billy snorted on their way to the entrance.
"You can't jump the turnstiles."
"I'm not leaving a paper trail. I don't know if my cards are compromised too. That bird sat right over your desk, pretty boy. Someone wanted a real close eye on you. Maybe even kill you. We can try and figure out who else was under surveillance later."
They did not earn approving looks from vaulting the turnstiles, but they made it to the train, and then forty minutes or so later, Steve's apartment. By then, his color had returned to his face, and Billy couldn't help but tease, "Do you always bring colleagues home?"
Steve sighed and didn't grace that with a response. He unlocked his door, and Billy perused the living room and its bay window. The place was nice. White walls. Light wooded floors. Colorful dish ware. A bedroom off to the right with an unmade bed, and a dining room to the left with an array of folders and a laptop on it.
Billy placed the broken bird piece beside the laptop. "I don't know how much you can get out of this. But it's a start."
Steve maneuvered around him and sank into the chair. "Help yourself to the kitchen."
Billy did exactly that, and only found a few hints at the neurosis of a tech genius: Steve's pantry was entirely filled with bags of chips and hot sauce. His apartment also wielded the same characteristic Steve used at work: cleanliness. There wasn't so much as a lingering cereal dish in the sink.
Billy went about scrambling some eggs, frying up some bacon, and heating up a box of leftover diner hash browns. He poured a bottle of white and brought the dishes to the table. He set the glass of wine in view of the laptop. "For your nerves. Try to eat something."
"Thanks," Steve murmured. He didn't touch his food, but Billy sat opposite him and plunged his fork into his eggs.
After he cleaned his plate, he started tapping the back of the laptop screen, causing whatever Steve was reading to bounce. As if tossed out of a reverie, Steve inhaled sharply and took his glasses off to scrub his face. Naturally, Billy chuckled and plucked up the glasses to see how the other half lived...
"Steve."
"Hmm?" he mumbled from inside his hands.
"Explain to me why your glasses are asking for 004 authentication?"
His hands lowered so he could see Billy wearing his glasses and the nearly invisible screens layered inside the glass. The muscles of his jaw ticked as he reached across the table. Billy let him remove the glasses, but his stare did not waver until Steve relented, "I'm not 004 anymore."
Billy blinked, hard, as he absorbed that. "When were you an agent?"
Steve pushed his fork around his plate. "Right as you joined."
"Am I really going to have to pull your teeth for this? Because someone must know who you are, or were. Knows enough to keep an eye on you. How many other 00s are retired into office work?"
"My whole team," he heaved. Surrendered. "It all happened too fast. I was elevated to 00 status and just as quickly flunked out of it. Then they gave me you."
Steve exhaled as if there was a whole lot more there. Then he added, "Consider this a mentorship."
Billy huffed and relaxed against his chair. "So my guardian angel is the one keeping me from my promotion."
It took a second, but Steve processed that and lifted his head. "What?"
"You. I don't get to be a 00 until a 00 gives me the okay."
Something shy of a grimace flitted across Steve's features. "Maybe you'd be one, if you learned how to say thank you. You're not god. I've saved your ass at least twice without even being in the same country as you."
"You're a P.T.S.D. case with a laptop. That's all."
"And you're a gun with childhood trauma and abandonment issues. Welcome to the fucking club. We have special glasses."
He stabbed his hash browns and started eating. Billy crossed his arms and brooded in silence.
Abandonment issues, my ass, he mused, but could not help but watch the man opposite him eat. He'd never actually seen Steve eat. He'd certainly always been available whenever Hargrove called, regardless of timezone or courtesy of sleep.
It's hypocritical to call him an angel and treat him as disposable...after you hauled him around like precious luggage.
Billy didn't like that thought one bit.
This job wasn't actually a business. It was a lifestyle. One that didn't grant angels or precious items. And the same voice that called Steve, Angel, kept whispering in Billy's mind.
Compromised.
Something moved in his periphery and he had his gun out before he even thought twice. "What the hell is that?"
Steve, to his credit, hadn't flinched. "The cartoons refer to it as a pussy cat. She wants your bacon."
The fluffy ginger that had jumped onto the table stared Billy down until he relinquished his last piece of bacon. "Why am I not surprised that you have a cat?"
"Considering your reaction, I'd say you were petrified."
"Shut up, Steve."
"No guns on the table."
Billy groaned and set the device on the console table behind him. "Yes, dear."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Characters: Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - James Bond Fusion, James Bond References, Assassins & Hitmen, Ficlet, from tumblr, Car Chase, Explosions, Steven Universe Has PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mentioned Abandonment Issues, mentioned childhood trauma, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington
Series: Part 6 of Harringrove Tumblr Drabbles
Summary:
Agent Hargrove aspires to be a 00 agent. They're the best of the best, and he knows he's the best - when he's not being scolded by his computer saavy partner.
When headquarters is infiltrated and compromised, it's all he can do to keep himself and his partner alive.
But his partner is more than a letter. And Hargrove must decide if he wants to be more than a number.
007!Spies AU! Newmann: Newt and Hermann are agents for MI6, sworn to secrecy and sworn to protect. Naturally they are the most capable team that the agency has, and any mission that needs an extra touch is theirs for the taking.
A request edit for @silveredplanets!! I hope I did okay ;w; I’ve never seen a single James Bond film other than a few bits and pieces of Casino Royale, so I went in blind. I did have Jude’s ( @guiltyphandiot‘s) help though! This was one interpretation of this request. I may do another in the future with the two of them in Quartermaster roles.
