For those who want one: a visual aid to the italicized portion (4min vid) - I suggest reading first. (Beware the read-more)
Steve watches Tony enter the ballroom, dressed in the finest of black tailcoats. He gains immediate attention from everyone in attendance; they flock towards him like moths to his golden flame. Tall and high-collared, blonde hair artfully styled, Tony is a commanding presence, but something about it settles like a stone in Steve’s gut.
Tony grins, smirks, charms the ladies as he passes them, endears himself to their partners. Steve steps into the light, feeling small and forgotten. He hates it, hates that Tony hasn’t noticed him yet. His hands fist at his sides; they’re rougher than he’s used to, fingers calloused in the wrong places. They tremble a little.
Tony turns, and they come face-to-face, close, too close. Steve can’t breathe through the sheer force of Tony’s attention. It’s instant, electric. He looks up into Tony’s blue eyes and balks, heart stuttering as Tony looks him over, walking around him. He can’t look away from Tony, even as Tony’s attention is caught on the Queen.
Tony goes to greet her, daring and flirtatious, and Steve feels the nausea roll thickly through his system. He forces himself away, back into the shadows where he can watch Tony without the prying eyes of the other guests.
Tony moves away from the Queen’s audience and grabs a passing flute of champagne, which he downs in the same motion as a woman approaches him. She’s daring and demanding in the same way, and Tony takes the challenge.
Steve swallows at the sight of her; confusion making it difficult. He remembers her, though; she was strong and determined, tall and dark. She laughed like rich liquor and had burned just as well. Ophelia Sarkissian. She’d wanted to poison the world. Instead, she’d been left behind in the dirt.
Steve’s knees weaken as Tony spins her into motion, the orchestra all at once loud and seductive, guiding Tony through the motions of an age-old dance. Steve sits heavily, uncaring of the distress it causes the fine silks of his suit. He sits, and he watches Tony press his mouth to her jaw until another pushes Ophelia away to take her place.
Brock is short and angry, dragging Tony into the dance like he’s ready to fight. His movements, while practiced and acceptable, are forceful and meant to punish as much as please, and Steve can see Tony’s almost overwhelmed by it. He throws himself out of his seat, begins to circle the floor, and turns to face the balcony right when Brock pulls Tony to the floor. He doesn’t need to see this.
Steve knows that Brock had stained the floors; they were replaced with the polished, gray bamboo. Tony had picked them out himself.
Tony’s dance partners blur together, and each one curdles in Steve’s stomach, but when he pays attention again -too close, much too close- Tony is flowing in slow motions, swaying with a willowy figure just as blonde as he. They move like a serene river, a brook that’s sure of its path. A hand smoothing down her leg, lifting and guiding, dipping her until she comes up with a breathless smile; she shines like a diamond, like a star. Celeste.
Steve pushes forward, jealousy flooding so profoundly, but tinged in fear, because he knows now what Celeste carries, and he can’t let Tony be hurt, but Tony stills, head turning slightly to the side. He’s aware of Steve, perhaps always has been, and knows that Steve’s restraint is snapping.
And so he snaps first, throwing himself away from Celeste to move into a dance all his own. It’s frenetic and chaotic; it’s everything that Tony is, a force to be courted. Steve is shaken and shaking.
Tony’s partners confront him one by one again on the floor, pushing him through to the end of the dance, taking him along for the ride until they’re spinning and stepping and the music is swelling, and Steve can’t breathe.
All he can do is watch and wait and follow along with Tony to the end. And as the music crests and Tony’s backed into the corner, their eyes meet over the others’ heads, and Steve knows that he’ll always follow.
~~
Steve doesn’t come awake with a jerk or a gasp. He blinks up at his ceiling, the exposed beams distant and without judgement. He hums once, short, just to test his hearing, and relaxes marginally when it doesn’t sound muffled. He presses an arm over his eyes.
He knows he’s alone in his apartment again, knows that Tony had helped him to the couch then left, still just as angry. The device is probably long-since destroyed in the fireplace that’s still burning lowly to his left. The radio on the mantle is playing soft classical. That would explain the dream. Sort of.
“Fuck,” he mutters. He’s royally fucked up, and he wonders how long it will take to smooth everything over with... with Q, and with the inevitable shit show Fury is going to cause over this. He slowly, carefully sits up, feeling his stomach roll. He pauses, one hand on his knee, and draws in deep, steady breaths.
As he breathes, fragments of the dream filter through his thoughts, and he grasps at them. It’s not easy; lucidity steals away most of the dream’s crazy subtext. He looks at his hand, the familiar lines and ridges of the callouses formed from his love life with guns.
Q had had blonde hair and blue eyes, dancing with Steve’s ex lovers who had tried to kill him, most of whom Q had personally disposed of. He scoffs and buries his hands in his hairs; he’d been dreaming of himself from Tony’s point-of-view.
“I’m fucking crazy,” he decides. He already knows he’s in love with Q, has been since the first stupidly-big word out of the man’s mouth in that shitty little dive bar where he was still Tony. Steve had thrown caution to the wind and taken Tony home, to an apartment different than his current.
The sex had been incredible, hot and heavy, and yet... They’d laughed and joked and drank, fucking through the night until Steve had been the one to wake up alone not long before noon.
He thinks back to that night now, remembers how he’d talked Tony into taking the job he’d been offered, not knowing then what he’d find out that next day.
“007, meet your new Quartermaster.”
Tony is gone, and in his place, Q faces Steve with a grim resignation and a hand held out in greeting. And Steve knows then that taking that hand means erasing the previous night. At the time, it seems an easy enough decision. He shakes Q’s hand, a blithe smirk gracing his expression.
“Good to meet you, Q. I trust we aren’t keeping you up past your bedtime. I know folks your age like to watch their Jeopardy while tucked in their beds.”
With the barb came understanding, and Q had taken his hand back and shrugged slightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring the tele in next to your crib. When you want your bottle, just pitch a tantrum, and I’ll be sure to warm it up for you.”
Steve pushes to his feet, sways slightly, and scowls. He doesn’t want to think about the past right now. He’s not feeling in the mood for regret and mistakes, except for the one that had caused the headache he’s sporting. He walks steadily into the kitchen to take a few painkillers, and as he’s putting his glass in the sink, he finally notices the plate on the stove. It’s covered in foil with a note scrawled over it.
-To help with the nausea. Eat. Slow.-
Steve’s back curves forward, hunching him over the stove as he braces his hands on the counter. He closes his eyes and breathes, deep and counting. How is he supposed to play the good little agent when Q slips from his part too?
Steve knows for a fact that no other Quartermasters cook food for the agents. Just like how no other Quartermaster kills for the other agents so freely like Q does, out of jealously like Q does, feels the deep down satisfying guilt of it like Q does.
Steve takes the plate, steps out of the kitchen, and grabs a bottle of whatever liquor is closest on the bar -he notices the broken bottle is cleaned up and gone- before returning to the couch. He sits back and does as instructed, eating slow and aiding it with copious amounts of alcohol.
All of that fierce loyalty and possessiveness, bundled up and suppressed, burn like fire for Steve beneath Q’s sneering calm. Long has SHIELD accepted that Q will do as he wishes concerning Steve, and because of this, Steve knows he can get away with a great deal where other agents can only dream.
So when, a few days later, Steve is facing Fury across the evaluation desk and hears, “We’re reassigning you,” Steve doesn’t worry. He smirks.
“Yes, okay. For the five minutes it takes Q to find out? You know how this plays, Director,” Steve replies, idly tapping to fingers on the desktop. “You threaten and Q just blows the smoke away. Why are you wasting my time with this? I’m fine.”
Fury closes Steve’s folder and fold sits back. His eye patch is slightly crooked, and it’s been driving Steve just a little crazy.
“On the contrary, 007, this time, it’s at Q’s submitted request.”
Steve stares, expression unchanging, unmoving. He doesn’t breathe. “Pardon?”
Fury smirks. “You’re on suspension pending your physical eval. After that, if you’re cleared, you’ll be reporting to Quartermaster Hammer.”
There’s silence in the suite, one that settles against the exposed portions of Steve’s skin. It laps against the hollow of his throat, the pulse points in his wrists that show above the dark cuffs of his blue button-down, sweeps over his face in a caress. He shuts the door behind him, listens to the lock click into place before moving into the main living area. He drops his coat over the back of his couch, gray to offset the slate of the featured fireplace. The sleek leather of his coat makes the orange of the throw pillow stand out brightly. It’s loud in the silence, moving in the stillness.
Steve rests his hand on the leather, pausing, observing. He turns his head towards the kitchen, can tell by lack of flickering shadows through the peek-a-boo window that his candle has been extinguished. He looks to the hallway and sees his bedroom door open.
One hand still on his coat, he slides his other over a black suspender and then around to his back where a holster juts out of the waistband of his belted slacks.
His fingers fit securely around the butt of his pistol, familiar, safe. He carefully toes out of his dress shoes, preventing the click of his heels as he steps up from the sunken living area into the hallway. He moves effortlessly along the polished floors, his shoulder almost brushing whisper-soft against the wall.
There is no sound from his bedroom, no movement. That stillness is still pressing into Steve, though. It drags against him, pulling his hair in the wrong direction along his arms. His fingers flex and he pulls the gun free from the holster just a little as he nears the bedroom doorway.
He stops as he reaches it, closes his eyes briefly and listens as he turns his ear to the wall. He keeps his mouth closed to avoid the temptation for a speedier breath and opens his eyes. His free hand comes up to the door and slowly, so slowly, guides it further open until he can see in without strain.
He takes it all in instantly, eidetically cataloguing every change that’s occurred since he’d left this morning. His bed is made, the ends of his covers tucked in crisp and perfect. They’re turned down at the top, inviting a person in between the red silk sheets and the dark gray coverlet. The pillows are arranged carefully, the cases pristine and folded above where the covers invite from the left, closest to the door. A distraction.
Steve sleeps on the right.
A silhouette is outlined against the balcony door, the glass a shade off clear. It’s bulletproof, shatterproof; Steve picked it out himself. He’s fond of it. Not so fond of what this all means.
“Christ,” he announces with a put-upon sigh. “Again?” He shoves his gun back into the holster and nudges the door the final amount until the knob touches the protection disk on the wall.
“What do you expect when you pick them up in a bar?” Steve’s asked, and he rolls his eyes as he gives a lopsided grin. He happens to know that it’s the right amount of boyish and charming. He also knows that it does absolute fuck-all for the other man.
“She had killer legs,” Steve answers, strolling into his bedroom and absently flicking the covers up.
“Among other killer things. I took the liberty of showing her out.”
Steve hums. “I’m sure you enjoyed it too.” He moves around the bed in a measured, casual step. The room isn’t overly large, so in just a few seconds, Steve is at the man’s back by the balcony.
“Do you even remember her name?” The man wonders, watching Steve’s hand appear over his shoulder to splay against the door. His expression flattens, reflected in fractures back at Steve by the glass.
“Celeste,” Steve replies, drawing out the ’s’ just enough that it flutters the fine hair on the nape of the other man’s neck. “And she certainly felt heavenly, but that’s not what you really want to know, is it?”
“Hardly,” the man says dryly, turning under Steve’s arm to face him directly. As he opens his mouth to voice another question, Steve holds up a key chain. The USB hangs from his index finger, swaying a little from movement.
“Is it wrong to enjoy myself while working?” Steve wonders, gaze a lazy challenge. “Or is it simply such a foreign concept for you?”
The man snatches the USB from Steve with a barely-disguised snort before pushing past him and leaving the bedroom.
Steve closes his eyes briefly again, a curse slipping from between clenched teeth. “Q, wait!”
It’s a bad idea, and Steve knows it. He should let Q leave, open the damn door for him on the way, but he strides out after him, down the hall, and into the living area.
The door is already open with Q halfway out, and Steve grips the edge of the fireplace mantle.
“Wait for one goddamn second! Tony, please.” The demand, the plea, leaves him with a sour huff, disgruntled and cautious all in one breath.
Steve fully understands his mistake when Q -how could Steve ever let himself slip- freezes in the doorway. They are, both of them, suspended in time, and the outcome of the moment is dependent on how stretched thin Q might be feeling that day. Being the most sought-after quartermaster in SHIELD is enough to run anyone ragged.
Steve drops his hand from the mantle as Q steps back and shuts the door. He doesn’t turn around, just stares at his glove-covered hand on the doorknob. Steve’s stomach attempts to flip as he lets himself focus on that detail. Q always boasts callous-covered fingers and work-roughened palms, no stranger to hard work where his inventions are concerned; he finds no shame in showing them off.
To have them hidden now, it’s a reminder of why Q is here in the first place. Steve knows those gloves; they’re elbow-length to protect the palm print, nitrile, custom fitted to Q’s exact specifications.
“I took the liberty of showing her out.”
Steve knows he’s an asshole, has known it since the first girl’s heart he’d broken his sophomore year in high school. He’s crossed the line, a line they both established at the beginning of their working relationship. He wonders absently how many bags Celeste had been carried out in, and how many times Q had apologized as he’d worked.
Steve also knows there’s a large bottle of whiskey in Q’s future. He wants to prevent that, has always wanted to prevent Q drowning out the memories of what he’s done for Steve, things that no other quartermaster would ever get their hands dirty doing. It’s a bond only Steve can claim with Q, and he will fight for that bond until he draws that last breath.
The expression on Q’s face when he finally turns around tells Steve that his last breath might be sooner than he anticipated.
“I’m sorry,” Q says, dangerously flat. The USB is clutched tight in his fist. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. What did you call me?”
Steve is the best damn operative SHIELD has in the field. He’s not afraid of his quartermaster. He’s not trying to guess how many different things Q can kill him with just by the foyer’s side table. He is, however, trying anticipate the landmines ahead of him.
"I said 'don't go, please'," Steve replies, stepping down into the living area. He can see Q's desire to kill him written in the bitter lines around his mouth, the bags under his eyes.
Q turns his head, looks to the door in hesitation, and Steve sees the hard plastic aid nestled in his ear. It's a reminder that Q's field activity is always monitored. And Steve has slipped.
He'll need to be prepared for a psych evaluation in the coming week. Fury will want to test him, make sure he's still fit for duty. Fury might even threaten to pull Q from Steve's corner, but in the end, it will all be hot air and bluster.
Q will never allow Steve to go into the field without his personal backup. It's that fact that Steve takes advantage of, slinking forward with the grace of a prowling lioness.
"The mission is over," Q states, shoving aside the flap of his suit jacket to drop the USB into the pocket of his tweed waistcoat. He buttons the pocket shut then begins to peel the gloves off his hands.
Steve has no problem admitting that he'd like to kneel at Q's feet and free each of his fingers with his teeth. He's even asked once, receiving nothing more than a bland look, a barbed retort, and a new gun. He knows not to ask this time, watching instead as Q reaches up to pull the ear piece out. He splints it open with his thumbnail, and it parts like the skin of a grape. Steve is insanely turned on in that moment.
Q glances up at Steve and sucks his teeth briefly. "I think we're done here." He comes forward, and Steve bravely stands his ground, but Q only walks around him and casually, purposely, presses his bare finger against the power switch for the fireplace, leaving a fingerprint behind. The flames burst into life, and Steve supposes this means he'll have to burn the apartment down and find a new place to live.
A shame; he quite likes the view.
Q tosses the gloves and the earpiece into the fire and doesn't even offer them the courtesy of watching them melt. He faces Steve again and shoves his hands into his coat pockets.
"Do you know why you need me?" Q asks, and the question catches Steve off guard. He breathes in the scent of the gloves burning as he sifts through a couple of possible answers.
"Every now and then, a job requires no triggers be pulled," is what he answers.
The flames lick at the slate tiles behind Q. He's illuminated from behind, light dancing through his dark brown hair and catching on the silver coating his temples and the longer locks artfully tucked behind his ear. He doesn't look like a hidden-away special ops. Steve sees him more as the model come to life from the cover of a women's magazine.
"It's because you are a spoiled brat," Q corrects him flatly.
Steve crosses his arms and watches Q focus on the brass buckles of his suspenders. "Well, that's just unfair," Q's gaze flashes up to Steve's, "and blatantly true."
Q regards him in silence after that then looks at his own shoes. He pulls his hands free and walks towards the other end of the couch. Steve doesn't move, doesn't want to give in to the urge to match the restless pacing.
"Sabin," Q says, the word sliding from his tongue in an accent Steve's not familiar with in Q's voice.
"Excuse me?"
Q purses his mouth and shrugs. "Her brother's name. He goes to school in Tuscany, wants to be an artist. An artist, of all things, in a world like this."
Steve is tense, his fingers digging into his palms where they're hidden beneath his arms. "I didn't force her into this life."
"No, you didn't," Q concedes. "But neither would you have ever cared enough to know."
It's a wonder Steve's jaw unclenches long enough for him to retort. "I don't have the luxury or, yes, the desire to learn the history of every opposing agent that wants to be the one to take down 007."
"But, as you claim, you have the luxury of - how did you put it - enjoying yourself, of fucking any of them that catches your fancy, or your dick."
Bingo. Steve relaxes his stance and laughs a little, letting his arms unfurl as he saunters to the wet bar in front of the kitchen divide. He's sure to keep Q in his sightline, grabbing a bottle of scotch and popping the cork with a satisfying echo around the room.
"You know, Q, if you spent less time thinking about who catches my dick, I'm sure that pile of junk in your lab could be our next spec car."
He's lifting the bottle to pour when he loses hearing in his left ear, experiencing a high whine in his right. The bottle slips from his grasp, smashing against the bamboo flooring. He follows it, dropping to his knees and clasping his hands over his ears.
It feels like hours pass before the ringing stops and the pressure against his ears releases. He blinks, not remembering closing his eyes, and see Q is crouched in front of him, an expression of sad resignation adorning his features.
Steve blinks again and has to look at his hands to see if they're drenched in blood.
"Are my ears bleeding?" He knows that his mouth is moving, but it takes a few seconds for sound to register again. Too long. Dangerous. He's disoriented, and also nauseous. "Damn."
Q huffs, his breath stirring the fringe on Steve's brow. He looks down at Steve's held-out palms and then places a small device in the center of his left hand.
"A vicious little thing, innocuous, overlooked," Q informs him softly. "Do you think, Agent, that you'd still remember her name after that?"
what if WHAT IF there was an awesome action/adventure fic with Steve as James Bond and Bucky as his Bond boy OMFG WHY DOESN'T THIS ALREADY EXIST I NEED IT IN MY LIIIIIIIIIFE
I like the way you think, anon. I like it a lot. In fact, I think so much about those bond boy!Sebastian posts that it’s probably unhealthy.
Does something like this even exist? I feel like it should, and now my heart needs it, dammit.Also, in case you haven’t read it, let me rec you Heat of the Night by @thebestpersonherelovesbucky for no particular reason at all (not exactly Bond but it might help with your cravings. Read the tags carefully though!)Aaaand I’m also going to go ahead and tag @stephrc79 because I feel like if someone were to write this, it should definitely be her.
