I'm was reading a short story published in 1933, and found a double "Oh" moment.
We writers are holding hands with the writers of the past, and keeping the classics alive.

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I'm was reading a short story published in 1933, and found a double "Oh" moment.
We writers are holding hands with the writers of the past, and keeping the classics alive.
☀ / meme / accepting / @livevl
❝WOULD you want to get married?❞
Send ‘SPIT IT OUT!’ and I’ll randomly generate a number. Whatever number it is, my muse will blur it out to you! / accepting / @fovrbu / Jay for Calista
“Would you like to go on a date?”
What if Q has to go undercover and runs into a DoubleOh who accidentally blows his cover and Q has to save them both? Maybe James gets shouty with the other DoubleOh when he finds out about the snafu? – alovelyocean
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I love BAMF!Q… Jen.
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Q was gliding about under the name of Henry Walker – a suitably anonymous name that he rather liked wearing, on occasion – and networking gloriously. There were four separate and distinct drugs rings working the floor, grasping at information, forging new connections.
Naturally, Q was insinuating himself with the background players, those with money and a dash more influence than the lackeys. At present, he was standing with a particularly excellent gentleman whom Q knew to be trafficking more than heroin over the borders.
008 was not in Q’s remit. 008 was working an entirely separate job, being managed by one of Q’s juniors who – in a supposedly quiet mission – should have probably clocked already that Q would be in attendance.
It happened almost instantly. 008 walked up to them with a glass of champagne and, in a moment of crass stupidity, uttered a single letter.
“Excuse me?” Q asked lightly, feigning confusion.
The mark glanced between the two of them, his features darkening. “You are fucking kidding me,” he hissed. “I knew you looked familiar.”
Q looked at 008 with bored irritation. “Well then,” he said dangerously. “That’s that scuppered. Bear with me, this will be unpleasant.”
With that, Q shot the mark through the centre of his forehead.
Naturally, all hell broke loose. In the instant pandemonium, Q was able to duck out of immediate sight, grabbing onto 008 and pulling him backwards with a cry of supposed shock.
It was actually rather impressive. Everybody looked at the body, those around, and either reached for their own guns or panicked outright. Q’s gun – or whatever the hell he’d used – didn’t seem visible which 008 just found extremely confusing as he grabbed his own out.
They ran for it while panic reigned. It was a surprisingly clean get-out under the circumstances.
“You,” Q panted, as they slid into Q’s car, “are a fucking idiot.”
“Drive.”
Q spared a moment for an eye roll. “No shit,” he muttered, and reversed the car directly into the men who were beginning to chase; there was a colossal noise as flesh and bone hit metal, and then Q floored the accelerator.
008 could see why 007 was quite so fond. The Quartermaster was impressive.
008 was going to be in deep shit for a very long time.
Q used to be the youngest double oh ever (he was a double oh before Bond was). He "died" while saving Bond on their first mission together. After a couple years, Q come back as 'Q' and Bond reacts. (could be angst or fluff, it doesn't matter) – anon
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Yessss! Jen.
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“Double-oh eight?!”
Q froze.
This was not going to be good.
“… double-oh seven,” Q greeted, with a strangely awkward thing that ought to have been a smile but managed not to be; he turned his attention back to the painting in front of him, wondering – with a touch of hysteria – whether he still had the option of pretending to be somebody else.
“You’re dead.”
“Not quite.”
Bond sat down heavily, tension riddling his body. Q couldn’t really blame him. The last time Bond had seen him, Q had been carted off the medical evac, never to be seen again and officially recorded as dead. Bond’s very first mission.
(They had slept together on that mission. More than once. Q blushed most of the way to his toes at the recollection).
“I thought you were dead.”
“Yes, that’s more accurate,” Q nodded. “I don’t have much I can say, on this front. It was necessary at the time, for a number of reasons. I apologise unreservedly for any distress…”
“… any distress,” Bond hissed, a shade too loud for a public gallery. “You were dead. I was responsible for you.”
Q arched an eyebrow. “I was your superior officer, I think you’ll find that I was responsible for both of us,” he returned primly. “As it happened, the way to ensure our safety was the feigned-death incident. Not what I had intended, I would like to add, but necessary all the same.”
“You could have contacted me afterwards.”
Bond looked genuinely upset. Not just petulant or angry, but genuinely upset, as though Q truly had managed to do damage. “I considered getting in touch once the smoke had cleared,” Q mused, “but it seemed increasingly unlikely that it never would. Hence I am no longer on field work, and it would have been foolish to contact you. Now, onto the mission at hand…”
“… and you’re now Quartermaster.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re…”
“Finish that sentence, and I will kill you.”
Bond didn’t doubt it. He still had vivid memories of the man in action; Q was one of the few agents Bond remembered with nothing but respect. He had been brilliant.
And now, his Quartermaster.
Such a strange world.
“All of us die once in a while,” Q reminded him quietly, wryly. “Necessary sacrifices. New beginnings.”
Bond looked at him. Truly looked.
“Let me buy you a drink?”
Q hesitated, his assessment transparent, the thoughts flicking. It was probably a bad idea, if he was being honest; Bond was a loose cannon, Q was juggling identities and a very demanding job, both had histories of destroying people they loved.
“Alright,” Q nodded, blithely ignoring all better judgement. “Drinks.”
B-branch is where the newer agents are before they become double oh agents.
Umm, hi. I really like your work... I was wondering if you could maybe write something where the double-os abuse/threaten Q to get what they want from him... Then James finds out or sees it happen and goes bamf on them? – anon
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I enjoyed this. Jen, with Lex-related assistance.
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Q shook his head, despairing over 001’s seemingly infinite stupidity. “I’m not giving you anything more – you don’t need it and it will simply get damaged,” Q told her, the agent glaring.
“I’m afraid that just isn’t good enough Quartermaster,” 001 told him, toying with the gun in her hand.
“Excuse me?” Q froze, something very much off. “Run that by me again?”
001 raised an eyebrow. “Your job is to outfit me with what I need for missions.”
Q stared steadily at her, everything feeling abruptly very loud. “I am very aware of that – your point being?” he asked slowly. “I have equipped you with everything you need, 001, and I frankly don’t care for your petulance if it is not what you like.”
001 leaned in closer.
Q was not a short man, and he was not weak. However, to have a very tall and unbelievably strong double-oh agent leaning over him was more than intimidating, and enough to make Q’s pulse jump erratically in his throat.
“001, I will ask you only once to move back.”
The agent stared at him, her sharp eyes burning. “And I will only ask you once to give me the equipment I – as an experienced professional – require for this mission.”
Sharply, Q sat straighter; it had no effect on 001, but certainly made him feel better. “I suppose you’ve been speaking to 009 too?” he asked dryly; 009 had been inches from physically dangerous, let along threatening, until Q had thrown him out with shocking difficulty. “I don’t know quite why you are both arrogant enough, and indeed moronic enough, to genuinely believe I will give you whatever you like through throwing a tantrum,” he told her. “Get out of my office.”
“Yes, get out of his office.”
Both Q and 001 twisted almost comically towards the door. Q took the opportunity to hit 001 with a mini-taser, which was entirely for Q’s benefit and he regretted absolutely nothing. “Good afternoon, 007,” Q greeted politely. “How was Greece?”
“They have excellent dips,” Bond replied drily, stepping comfortably over 001’s unconscious body. “She was being…”
“Unpleasant. They all are. I must admit I’m not quite certain as to why, but I’ve come to accept it as an occupational irritation of my life at present.”
Bond raised an eyebrow. “I’ll keep an eye out. I’m happy to dispatch anybody who’s being problematic if you’ll agree to do the paperwork.”
Q smirked despite himself. “You truly will do anything to avoid paperwork, won’t you?”
Bond took a further step forward, inches from Q with 001’s body sprawled over the floor, twitching. “Yep,” he replied gently, and kissed Q very gently, leaving in time to hear 001 groan expansively.
Could you do a hurt Q - maybe he had been kidnapped and tortured for a while - and all the double ohs are raging about it (especially Bond) and comforting because they're all secretly really protective of Q. Your writing is wonderful :) – anon
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Hooray for battered!Q. I really shouldn’t enjoy this so much… Jen.
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Q had been shattered into fragments, now left scattered across the floor of the room he had been kept in for the past several weeks, left to bleed out and sob and wait for death to swallow him whole.
“You took your bloody time,” he rasped – tried to rasp – when Alec’s face swam into view, and promptly passed out once again.
Now, the double-ohs had pitched up outside medical, and were intending to stay there for the foreseeable future. “He shouldn’t be working on missions where he’s at that sort of risk,” 001 was ranting, her hair falling into her eyes, and they all flashed glares of absolute murder at M whenever he passed because it was his fault, he should never have allowed the Quartermaster out where he was at risk.
Except that Q had been working on a mission while based in the UK, and had been abducted while going home from work. Nobody had anticipated it, and nobody could truly have stopped it.
Now, he was a wreck, had not woken up for three days, and the double-oh agents were just getting more aggressive by the hour. They needed a scapegoat for Q’s harm, and they found it wherever they were able.
Q was rather smug about the whole affair; after all, he had a host of double-oh agents all vying for his attention and caring for him utterly, and that was definitely a gratifying feeling.
Bond was, of course, the most constant. “You arse, now you decide you like me?” Q mumbled at him, high on a delightful amount of painkillers and smirking madly as Bond leant in and kissed him senseless.
Until the moment Q’s heartbeat apparently triggered a kaleidoscope of pain across his ribs, which was definitely less good. 001 nearly killed him for upsetting Q, and Q just lay there feeling rather spacey and wondering if painkillers had hallucinogenic effects.
Apparently they didn’t, given that Q was weaned off them, he found that the entire double-oh collective hadn’t left for days. “Don’t you all have jobs to do?”
003 was the one to answer. “We’re supposed to protect national security. You’re the most important aspect of national security. We’re doing our jobs perfectly.”
Q raised an eyebrow. “Inaccurate, but certainly flattering. I’m quite alright, boys and girls, so all of you need to go back to various international missions. 008 is…?”
“Deep cover, I’ve contacted him,” 009 replied easily, waving a phone.
They were all ridiculous.
“Thank you,” Q said gently, and let all of them look after him.
After all, don’t look gift horses in the mouth.