okay, I’m gonna swerve out of my lane here and fuck with James Bond/Q for a minute.
Obvs I’m not dick deep in the canon, lore, or even fic on this one, but it would Seem to Me that something like a Florence Nightingale effect would be common among agents toward their handlers. Like, if the voice in their ears is a constant source of life saving information, that gratitude could be easily conflated with feelings of love.
As far as I can remember, it’s a Thing that Bond disregards communication with headquarters right? He deliberately loses his earpiece and shit. And yeah, I’m sure part of the reason behind it is that he’s a rebel and a loose cannon who gets the job done, but what if the other part is that he’s thinking to himself, “Okay Jimmy, you’ve fallen in love with the last three handlers and you’re not gonna fucking do it again this time. Pull it together lad.” But then the voice in his ear saves his life again and does it while making a pithy joke about dictators, and James says lol nope and chucks the earpiece away because he’s absolutely not going to give his brain the opportunity to tell him that the voice is his soulmate.
And on the other end of the dead line Q is sitting there, thinking, “Well I suppose phallic humor isn’t for everyone,” but overall he’s not super worried because Bond has a track record better than the Cat who Came Back The Very Next Day.
But then Q gets promoted and becomes Q™ and they actually meet and things happen and shit gets real and all the sudden Bond, like, matters to Q? And Bond finds out that the voice in his ear is basically a Botticelli painting who likes dick jokes? They’re both on the fast track to Crush Town.
Q starts making an actual concerted effort to get Bond to stay in touch with him, and Bond slowly stops resisting Q’s attempts to maintain communication, because he realizes it’s too late anyway. He’s gone and fallen in love with the fourth.
He’s still convinced it’s just one sided tho. Q, who at this point is probably making pointed comments like, “You’re my favorite agent,” and “We should go to dinner after you’re done assassinating that man,” and “Sue from accounting asked me out but I said no because I thought I might be busy shagging you,” is starting to go spare.
James morosely thinks that it’s a shame he knows his own mind so well, because otherwise he might be able to convince himself that their relationship isn’t just a fabrication of intense, highly emotional circumstances that have resulted in an impression of having the Quartermaster’s affection.
Q doesn’t have time for this.
Anyway, it would probably end with Q sitting James down in a very serious professional setting, and James thinking that he’s about to get a Talking To about his obvious crush, but instead Q is just like, “I’ve taken sodium thiopental, otherwise known as truth serum, so will you please listen when I say I Have Feelings For You And Would Like To Date You Please.”
It’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for James in his life.
