I promised @spectralarchers a James-Bond-is-Barney-Barton fic in 2014, fucking hell that’s ages ago, and I could never get it to work, so this is for her, because this idea grew out of the original one I had (don’t worry, Christine, there’s none of that pairing you’re not into in it!). Therefore it’s only vaguely related to the prompt. I mean, it’s a line from The Avengers, what did you expect me to do? Also, of course, this makes no sense with half of the canon for either franchise, but fuck it.
I couldn’t get the godamn ending to work, soooo. there isn’t really one? sorry.
The envelope had arrived the week before Thanksgiving, while he and the team were in Seattle, but Laura had saved it for when Clint got home, so that he could be the one to open it.
There’s eight postcards this time - Munich, Istanbul, Rome, Cape Town, Saint Petersburg. The Istanbul one has a cocktail recipe on it, which Clint will have to pass on to Nat or Tony or someone who will actually appreciate that shit. The rest of them have amusing little stories or dirty jokes scribbled on them, which is better than one of the ones from last year, which had had only I killed //// / people yesterday written on it. Clint hadn’t known what to make of that one.
This year Barney has picked out a postcard for each of the kids, too, and written them a little message - The Dragons in Love for Lila, who has been convinced, somehow, that Thor will bring her a dragon for a pet next time he visits; King’s Cross Railway Station for Cooper and his burgeoning Harry Potter obsession; and the Lorraine Mondial Air Balloon Rally for Nate, not that he’ll appreciate it yet. Well. He does like brightly coloured things, so maybe it’s not entirely wasted.
It’s been a while since they spoke on the phone - after 2012 and the messes they both got themselves into, they’ve tried to keep closer in contact, but it doesn’t always work out, because Barney - James now - often disappears for weeks on assignments, and changes his mobile number regularly for security. Clint still owes him a beer from the last time they ran into each other, too.
The package arrives on the 28th of December. It's addressed to Charlie Chaplin (oh, for Christ’s sake), and appears to have come from Spain, but it's just a little too battered for that – it will have been through at least three intermediaries, as per usual.
It's thicker than last year's, and when he opens it Bond sees why – as well as the regular packet of photographs and the short letter, there's a big hand-made Christmas card covered in glitter, because the kids have been given free reign this year, apparently. Shit, he's going to be finding the stuff everywhere for the next month or so.
The card is... colourful. There are six little handprints in green paint, scribbled all over to look vaguely like Christmas trees.
The handwriting inside is painfully neat, which means Cooper, and it reads:
Dear Uncle Barney (they really shouldn’t use his old name, but it’s a losing battle, because Clint will never get used to calling him James),
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lots of love,
Cooper, (in a little girl's scrawl) Lila, (in Laura's neat cursive) Nate, Clint, Natasha & Laura
Clint’s letter is in code, and begins with a heartfelt apology for the glitter. Farm's doing well, everyone says hello, etc etc. It sounds as if he’s finally found the right balance between avenging and spending time with his family. Bond will never be a family man, but he knows it makes Clint happy.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: James Bond (Craig movies), ja - Fandom, James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Q (Bond - Craig movies), James Bond, Gareth Mallory, M (James Bond), Bill Tanner
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
Series: Part 18 of MI6 Cafe Spectre Prompts, Part 22 of Into The Unknown 'verse
Summary:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Characters: James Bond, Q (Bond - Craig movies), Alec Trevelyan
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Mission Fic, Angst, Alternate Universe
Series: Part 14 of MI6 Cafe Spectre Prompts, Part 19 of Into The Unknown 'verse
Summary:
Summary: Q isn’t going to stand for Bond’s extortion. He might climb for it, though.
Notes: A huge thank you to @isthisrubble for her eagle-eyed beta-ing; among other things, Bond and Q would be positioned much more vaguely in your minds without her.
Bond breaking into his home was one thing.
Q had had Bond's DNA and retinal ID entered into the scanners after the second visit. After the third, he had started bullying Bond into sitting down at his solder-stained kitchen table to play Scrabble with him, and had watched with increasing entertainment as Bond drunkenly tried to argue for the inclusion of slang and foreign vocabulary on the board.
(For his part, Bond let himself be bullied, shared the top-shelf booze he brought with him, and got handsy as a last resort persuasive tactic.)
Bond breaking into his home and stealing his tea was something else. Apparently, the handsiness had been Bond's second-to-last resort.
Q bounced on the balls of his feet as if he had any hope of catching Bond if he decided to move. Tonight’s scotch had given him confidence. "Give me the tea, or bad things will happen," he said, narrowing his eyes. "The triple word score isn't worth this madness."
Standing behind the opposite end of the kitchen table, Bond hefted Q's Harney and Sons tea tin in his hand as if measuring its weight. In the same cool tone that he used on missions, he said, "Quidlet is a word. Admit it, and this can go back on the shelf where it belongs. Otherwise..." He caressed the crease of the lid threateningly.
Visions of tea bags flying everywhere and an under-caffeinated morning danced through Q's head. But he was sitting on a tile rack full of useless vowels, and there were only a few good consonants left in the bag. If he folded, then quidlet on the triple would be sure to give Bond the win.
If only he could get to his mobile, which he’d dropped on the kitchen counter behind Bond before the game had begun. He could make a counter-threat and they'd be back to the usual standoff.
Bond twitched to the left and grinned as Q's feet made an aborted jerk in the same direction, like a dog after a ball its owner hadn't actually thrown. "You know what you have to do if you want it," Bond said, smirking and gravel-voiced because to Bond everything was innuendo.
As if Q would just roll over for him.
Q glared. Forget the fucking mobile. "It's not a bloody word!" he said, and charged, rounding the kitchen table and leaping for the tea tin.
Bond lifted the tea tin high above his head, caught Q by the shoulder with insulting ease, and gave a sharp jerk that spun Q so his back landed against Bond’s chest. Bond even wrapped an ‘and stay there’ arm around him to keep him there.
Damn—intercepted. But not defeated!
Q ignored the arm like a safety belt around his chest. He squirmed in Bond’s hold, grabbed for Bond's outstretched, tea-thieving bicep, and clung monkey-like once his hands found it. "Death before surrender! Tea before dignity!" he cried, and wriggled harder, grunting as he tried to pull Bond’s arm—and the tea—into easier reach. It was like trying to shift an oak tree...which gave him an idea about Bond’s climbability.
Bond's laugh turned into a gasp halfway through as Q pushed his bum back against Bond’s cock. Q took advantage of the slight relaxation of an already fairly loose grip to swing up with his legs. His hold on Bond's arm provided just the leverage he needed to hoist himself up until he was clinging upside-down to Bond, his ankles and hands both wrapped like a vine around the arm holding his tea hostage.
Bond grunted and shifted as Q swung himself up, but kept his arm held high through Q’s machinations. “What are you trying to do, you silly git?” he asked. His muscles bulged with effort beneath Q’s grip, and he palmed Q’s arse with his free hand, stabilizing them.
Q glared as best as he could from his awkward angle. "You can’t hold me up forever!" he said, and inched his feet up Bond’s wrist. If he could make it to Bond’s fingers, then he might be able to kick the tea tin out of Bond’s hand.
Sure enough, it only took another moment for Bond’s arms to start shaking.
Admittedly, however, a large part of the shaking was because Bond didn’t seem able to look at Q without convulsing with laughter.
"You're cracking!" Q crowed into Bond's armpit as Bond quaked with mirth. "Admit it! Admit it's not a word! And give me my tea!"
"Oh my god," Bond said, staggering and gasping for breath between chortles, "look at you—you’re such a little—fuck, I'm about to fall over, you're too heavy!" Bond’s arm lurched under his weight, his hip knocking against the kitchen table.
“Mutually assured destruction,” Q said as Bond staggered. He squeezed Bond’s arm tighter, determined to hold on when victory was close at hand. “Drop the tea or we’ll both fall!” Daringly, he reached out with one foot and started prying Bond's fingers off the tea tin with his toes.
“Or I could do this,” Bond said, and laughed again as Q succeeded in poking his pinky finger away. “Better hold tight, now.”
With that warning, Bond withdrew his hand from Q's arse and flung out his arm—and Q with it—right over the kitchen table, using Q’s body to scatter letter tiles in all directions.
Q squeaked, held tight, and shut his eyes through the sweeping motion, only opening them again when he felt himself come to a gentle stop with the flat game board under his back. Still clinging to Bond, he felt like a turtle stuck on its shell. He peered around Bond’s arm and edged his toes forward until they were gripping the cool metal tea tin that had been the cause of all this nonsense. Bloody tea.
Bond unclenched his white-knuckled grip on the tin, slid it out of the feeble grasp of Q’s toes, transferred it to his other hand, and set it down on the table somewhere behind Q's head. "How about mutually assured seduction instead of destruction?" Bond asked, looming over him with a heated stare and a mouth that twitched upward whenever his gaze strayed from Q’s face and he caught another glimpse of Q’s limpet-like limbs.
With his tea in relative safety, there was room for other things to surge to the forefront of Q’s consciousness:
the warmth of Bond’s skin under his hands and ankles
the happy crinkles at the corners of Bond’s eyes
the proximity of his crotch to Bond’s forearm
the fact that he’d literally climbed Bond like a tree
the way he’d never once thought that Bond would drop him.
Maybe it was time to admit that there was more between them than drunken groping whenever Bond got it into his head to play an inadmissible word and Q decided to challenge it, which had been happening increasingly often lately. His mobile, and with it the online dictionary, had been left on the counter for a reason.
Q let his legs fall down over the edge of the table, but tugged on Bond's arm and had Bond pull him into a sitting position before letting go with his hands as well. He was suddenly level with Bond’s face again, and Q’s eyes darted away from Bond’s gaze only to fix on Bond’s whiskery smirk instead. The mouth on him! How many times had he whispered filth into Q’s ear, one hand stroking teasingly along the crease of his inner thigh while he attempted to use some French slang or other in a semi-convincing English sentence? Now Q would have a chance to put Bond’s persuasive mouth to another use altogether.
(Perhaps Q could even have him fumer le cigare, as Bond had once said when putting an ‘e’ on the ‘cigar’ could have opened him up for a triple letter score.)
Q's toes curled just thinking about what he and Bond could get up to if they really put their minds to it, but when Bond leaned forward to kiss him, he leaned back and pressed a warning hand against Bond's chest. "We can start after you put my Earl Grey back on its shelf," he said.
Bond frowned. "You're joking," he said, trying to lean forward again, but Q's hand on his chest held firm.
With his other hand, Q reached back until he found the tea tin they had warred over, and he pressed it back into Bond’s palm. "Don't mess with the tea," he said.
Bond put the tea back.
***
The next morning, while the post-coital sweat was still cooling on their bodies, Bond stopped sucking a tingling bruise onto Q’s hip for long enough to say, “‘Quidlet’ is definitely going on the accepted words list.”
“The hell it is!” Q said, and there ensued a brief wrestling match, which Bond let him win.
Bond liked when Q climbed on top of him, Q had discovered, liked the feeling of Q’s strong thighs surrounding him and Q’s weight holding him down. “How shall we decide, then?” Bond asked, looking up at Q with unsettling fondness.
After a moment of consideration, Q came up with what he thought was honestly one of his better ideas. “I suggest,” he said, “that the person who has the most orgasms in the next twenty-four hours gets to determine the acceptability of putting quidlet into play.” He didn’t bother hiding his evil grin as he watched a real struggle play out on Bond's face. Pleasing his lovers was a matter of pride for Bond, but he also hated to lose to Q—even at Scrabble.
But after a moment, Bond said, "Done," and from the triumphant spark in his eyes, he thought he’d figured out a loophole.
“Let’s see what you’ve got, then,” Q said, and leaned down to kiss him.
No matter who won, there would be another round, of course: another game, another challenge, another challenge accepted. Q could do worse than someone who always matched him toe to toe and brain to brain, and who never let him fall.
Notes: Written partly for the MI6Cafe prompt “Give me tea or bad things will happen,” but mostly for No Shame November; Bond and Q playing Scrabble and monkeying around is probably the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. Also, a tiny part of this is a cheeky homage to all of the times in the novels when Fleming derives drama from card game technicalities that I know nothing about.
(P.S. Q would likely have one of the fancy boards that spin around to each player and have little raised edges around the letter boxes to stop the tiles from going everywhere, but he presumably knows better than to bring anything like that out around James “Oops, did I break that?” Bond, so they’re playing on a standard cardboard one instead. :P)
@mi6-cafe prompt #9: the past has come back to haunt me
me: *rewatches skyfall*
me: oops
He stopped believing in a lot of things when he was eleven. God. Ghosts. That his parents were invincible.
Happy endings.
Life hasn’t exactly encouraged him to start believing in them again.
*
The fucking house looks exactly the same.
He hasn’t been back here since he was eighteen, but it’s still in his bones: he could still find and avoid every squeaking floorboard, blindfolded.
They say public school prepares you for prison. This fucking place was better preparation than Eton ever was. He would know, he’s been in all three places.
*
When he was eight, for about three months he had the same recurring nightmare: he was trapped in the house, and it was burning.
It was because of Hollowhead, the nearest other estate in the area. It burnt down one night, the glow and smoke visible from miles away.
He never thought that particular dream would come true.
*
The first time he fell through the ice, he was five, and his mother forbad him from ever setting foot on it again.
That didn’t last through the next winter. He liked the risk too much, even then, and Da didn’t exactly discourage him.
Maman got used to it eventually.
He only fell through once more, when he was ten and hadn’t realised that he weighed more than he had a year ago, and stepped on a thinner piece that might have held him before.
It’s even more freezing than he remembers.
*
The chapel smells like death. It’s five hundred years old. It wouldn’t be the first time.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/2
Fandom: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Characters: James Bond, Q (Bond - Craig movies), Alec Trevelyan
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Mission Fic, Angst, Alternate Universe
Series: Part 14 of MI6 Cafe Spectre Prompts, Part 19 of Into The Unknown 'verse
Summary:
Sometimes, every so often, just occasionally, Bond will step out to the corner store and pick up some milk, booze, and nail polish.
His latest find is called Paint the Town. As he walks back home through the crisp autumn air, Bond imagines that the red of his new polish matches the lingerie he’s wearing beneath his trousers. Boy briefs, maybe, for the familiar shape, but with delicate lace at the edges, scratching his thighs, and made of a soft, silky material that would rub enticingly at his cock without offering any relief.
It’s silly. There isn’t anyone Bond knows who wouldn’t prefer him naked, or suited, or just about anything but lingeried-like-a-girl. Certainly not anyone in his little black book of married women, who tend to get snippy if Bond’s actions don’t live up to the masculine promise of his body.
He could buy the panties for himself, he supposes, but what would happen when he looked in the mirror and saw a scarred old man, pushing fifty, with a wee clutch of prettiness wrapped around his sac? It would be like a strip of duct tape rolled onto a fractured wall. Really beautiful, soft-feeling duct tape over a hard, broken wall.
No, it wouldn’t do to buy the lingerie.
But he’s too old and too rebellious not to indulge himself, so he goes home and gets out his nail clippers and file, his base coat and top coat, the turquoise gel toe separators, and the polish remover in case he smudges one of his layers and has to start over. He sets up next to the bath, conscious of the need to wash his feet beforehand and the easy clean-up offered by the tiled floor in case the polish spills.
One frantic Google search for how to remove nail polish from the carpet is enough for him. His first time had been nothing but trouble: one layer of dark blue-grey, Punk Midnight, that had been the same color as his suit jacket; no base coat or top coat; lots of cursing as he wondered how something so thin could take so damn long to dry; and a wrinkled mess as he tried to cover over his smudges without removing the old layer of polish first.
Now, however, he washes his feet, separates his toes, and his mind floats to the same calm, easy place that he reaches whenever he cleans his guns.
He slides the brush over his nails, carefully avoiding the cuticles, and the red looks—nice. Like cherries, or lipstick, or Q’s tongue when it flicks out of his mouth as he thinks about a distracting problem.
When he sees the finished product, he doesn’t flashback to stepping barefoot through pools of blood. He just thinks, Look at that even application and striking color; it looks lovely.
And he does, hairy and callused though his feet are. He looks lovely. Just a little bit.
***
“I need your feet,” Q tells him the next day.
Bond looks up from the after-action report that he’s been fictionalizing into acceptability on Q’s sofa. His heart thuds even as he forces a good-humored smirk onto his face. “You can’t have them,” he says. “They’re mine, and I’m rather attached.”
“I just need to stick these under your arches,” Q says, pinching a pair of small, translucent squares between his thumbs and forefingers and holding them out for Bond to see. “Tracker prototypes. They’re less likely to be found and disabled on missions than subdermal ones that people know to scan for, and they might even escape notice in the event of your capture. But they need more testing before they can be offered to agents in the field.”
Bond looks at Q’s damnably earnest face, full of hope for an innovation that might save Bond’s life one day. He caves. “Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I could offer you a loan,” he says.
He unlaces his polished black boots and sets them to one side.
He takes off one sock, then the next, and puts them in the boots for safe-keeping.
He keeps a very firm poker-face when Q kneels down in front of him for a personal application rather than letting him put the tracking squares on himself. The unmistakable red of his nails nearly shines, bold and brassy against his lightly tanned skin.
Q’s cheeks are tinged with pink when Bond looks up from his socks, but he’s not laughing or sneering; his intent eyes are the same as they normally are, his lips pinched with the same focus that he gives to all of his inventions. Apparently, for once in his life, Q has no comment.
Bond lets out a small, quiet exhale that definitely isn’t a sigh of relief.
Silently, Q curls his hand around the heel of Bond’s foot, twists it so the bottom is in full view, and smooths the flexible little square onto Bond’s sensitive arch with firm slides of his fingers. He does the same to Bond’s right foot. After he finishes giving Bond a brief lecture about what features to look out for and how not to lose the squares down the drain, he stays kneeling.
He stays kneeling, his head bowed in front of Bond, and runs his fingers across the tops of Bond’s toes, just avoiding the polish.
Apparently, he has something to say after all. Perfect. It’ll probably be a snide little remark about—
“I like the color,” Q says, looking up at him at last. “It suits you. And the polish looks very smooth and clean; you’ve practiced. I was always too impatient to be much good at it, but these look lovely.”
Bond swallows. “…Thank you,” he manages to say, and then Q stands up, and Bond puts his socks and shoes back on. He goes back to his reports, and Q goes back to his work, and it’s as though the revelation of his little hobby has never happened.
That should be what he wants, right?
Two mornings later, Bond removes his polish before coming to work, so he can spend some time in the pool. When he visits Q’s office after his swim, he discovers a squashy, red-wrapped parcel waiting for him on his side of Q’s sofa, To: Bond From: Q, and Q himself conveniently absent. Inside the parcel, he finds a red scarf, almost the same shade as Paint the Town. Though it looks gender-neutral enough, the tag tells him that it came out of the women’s section of a high-end retailer. It’s made of pashmina, and it’s so soft that Bond spends a good half-minute just petting it, up and down, up and down, before he even thinks to put it on.
i figured i’d do my last one with a horrendous crack and here it is. I’m sorry Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Well he was surely his father's son, James thought bitterly to himself. Granted, he wasn't a history buff like his old man, but hey at least they got to spend some time together. They found where the holy grail was; yeah that grail. Like, the holy shit Jesus Christ put his blood in this grail. Going from Venice [FUCKING RATS] and Austria [FUCK THAT BULTER]. Then that bitch, Elsa, was a fucking SPECTRE bitch. “Told you,” Alec said to him even though Alec was the one that fucking slept with her. Now, they were at the end, they were at the temple in which held the grail. But of course, they were followed and of fucking course it was members of SPECTRE [assholes]. Donovan, an old friend of his father's led the members of SPECTRE to the temple and then shot his father in order to make James do what he wanted. Alec pressed his jacket to Indiana's stomach but looked at James worried. Donovan told James that he had to get through the tests to get to the grail.
Indiana tapped James's chest. “You don't know much about this...but...in here you do,” Indiana gasped out as he gave him the small moleskine notebook; the grail diary.
Fucking fuck fuck. James looked towards the entrance to the temple and continued to swear in his head. He didn't know much of the holy grail, other than what Q spoon fed him while on the plane ride over when Donovan kidnapped his father. Q looked at him and back at Alec.
“You go I go,” Q whispered to him.
James swallowed and nodded. “Let's go.”
Q read the passages aloud and James did what he did best; improvise. They went through the first challenge, save for a few hairs on the back of Q's head as the blades almost cut through them and Q swearing up a storm at James for not figuring it out sooner. “I'm trying!” The second challenge, the word of God, James knew that one from Sunday school. “Jehovah.”
“J-” James said and moved to the letter tile on the ground, which promptly gave away and caused James to almost die. “Fucking!”
“You idiot!” Q snapped as he helped James out of the hole that had spikes at the bottom of the pit. “In Latin Jehovah is spelled with an I!”
Then the leap of faith, which wasn't a leap of faith as described by Q, which was just an optical illusion or some shit. They got the room and holy shit that knight was still alive and dad was right. Surrounding the knight were different chalices of all shapes and sizes. The knight explained that they needed to choose, but choose wisely because choosing poorly would be disastrous. FUCKING.
Then that's when Donovan and Elisa decided to show up. Immediately, they began to touch, trying to find the correct grail. Q hung back and James wished he had his gun. Donovan picked one out and drank from the chalice. James put Q behind him as Donovan quickly began to age and whittled away to nothing before exploding. Ew, Donovan body parts on his jacket.
“He chose...poorly,” said the knight.
The trio worked to find the grail. They looked through hundreds before James noticed a small one, small unnoticed grail. James picked it up. James looked at Q and Elsa. James sighed. “Only one way to find out,” James muttered bitterly. James moved to the water and drank from the cup, then Q did the same. James looked over at the knight and he nodded.
“You have chosen wisely,” the knight said. “But, beware: the grail cannot pass beyond the great seal, for that is the boundary, and the price, for immortality.”
James wasted no time in running the grail full of water to his father. Alec removed the jacket and James swallowed. Please work. James poured the water over the wound and his father's wound instantly healed. James sat back and smiled. Indiana immediately hugged James and James did the same. James thought he lost his father all over again. He couldn't do that, not again.
“So this is it, huh?” Indiana asked as he looked at the grail. “Shame your grandaddy couldn't be here to see this. This was his quest in the first place, after all.”
James smiled as he held out his hand for the grail. “We need to put it back.”
“We'll be taking it now,” Elsa replied as she pointed her gun at them.
James swore. “Can you pick a bloody side already?”
“Blofeld will send his regards for you giving him the holy grail,” she stated. “Now hand it over.”
“You know it can't leave here,” Q stated. “It can't pass the great seal.”
Elsa smiled as she began to walk backward towards the exit. “I'll take my chances.”
As soon as Elsa passed the great seal, the temple began to collapse. James swore and grabbed his father while Alec helped Q. The floor split in two and Elsa fell, screaming the entire way. James slipped and Indiana caught him. Together, the four reached the exit while the temple collapsed and closed for the final time. James coughed as he stood up and stared at the now blocked cave.
“Well now what?” Alec demanded as he helped Indiana up.
James looked at Q and grinned. Q smiled back and James wrapped his arm around the young man. “Now we go the fuck home,” James answered.
Indiana grinned as he patted James on the back. “You did good, son. Real good.”
“Thanks dad,” James said and wrapped his other arm around his father.
“So, are we like immortal now?” Q asked as they began to walk away. “We did drink from the cup of Christ.”
“Uh...” James began.
“And you didn't bloody share?” Alec demanded. “You two are assholes!”
Well, maybe living forever wouldn't be so bad after all.
