Chapter Text
It doesn’t take Tanner long to realise two things.
First, he is more protective over Q than he thought he was.
And second, because of that, he’s in quite a bit of trouble where the quartermaster is concerned.
Two days into Q’s new regime over Q-Branch, 009 saunters into the office. Tanner frowns, glancing at Q’s diary, where he has neatly recorded every meeting he has planned for the week, including which Double-0s are due to be equipped for missions. It doesn’t say anything about 009. There’s no reason for the agent to be here, and Tanner doesn’t feel comfortable with him just walking in like that, uninvited. It undermines Q. And besides, Tanner isn’t very fond of most of the Double-0s. They may be essential, but many of them are also arrogant, entitled bastards, in his humble opinion, and he does his best to stay out of their way.
“Just thought I’d see what the fuss is about,” 009 says casually as he leans impertinently against Q’s hard-earned desk, “New quartermaster and all.”
“Good afternoon, 009,” Q says curtly as he turns to pick up a stack of folders, “Bad timing, I’m afraid. I’m just about to leave for a meeting.”
009 doesn’t seem deterred in the slightest. Tanner hates the way he looks at Q like he’s a fish supper instead of a person. His fists clench at his sides, but he stays silent and pretends that he’s occupied by an urgent text message. Q can handle the Double-0s just fine without his help.
“So the rumours are true, then,” 009 muses aloud, “You really are young, aren’t you?”
“I assure you, my relative youth won’t be an issue.”
“Fair enough,” the agent grins, “I like this better, anyway. You’re a much prettier sight than that old man.”
Q’s expression goes from disinterested to downright frigid. “Excuse me,” he says stiffly, “I’m going to be late.” As he brushes past 009, the agent reaches out to give the quartermaster’s arse a deliberate squeeze.
Q whirls around, face flushed bright red in outraged humiliation. He opens his mouth to say something - no doubt some sort of devastating insult - but Tanner moves first before he can get so much as a syllable out. He practically lunges over Q’s desk as he throws himself at 009, punching him directly in the face. The two of them crash to the ground, sending papers flying every which way.
In hindsight, Tanner doesn’t know what compelled him into thinking this was a good idea. He’s no match for a Double-0. But that doesn’t stop him from attempting to throttle the rather shocked agent anyway.
“Bill!” Q shouts, “Bill, no!” He grabs Tanner by the sleeve and tries to pull him off of 009, but Tanner will have none of it. Nobody treats Q like the way 009 had, absolutely nobody, and the thought that someone would have the nerve to try makes him furious.
“Tanner, what on earth are you doing?”
Q, 009, and Tanner all freeze at the sound of M’s voice. For such a small woman, she casts a very intimidating figure with her arms crossed and face steely. Tanner scrambles to his feet, hastily trying to straighten his tie and jacket. 009 sheepishly avoids eye contact with her like a schoolboy who’s just been caught misbehaving by the headmistress - which is not too far off of an analogy.
“It’s not his fault, ma’am,” Q starts, “He was just-”
M silences him with a frosty glare.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” she tells him loftily, “Tanner, I need to speak with you immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tanner says quickly, “Of course.” He steels himself for a lecture and possible sacking as he follows M back to her office, but she doesn’t so much as mention the scuffle. He wonders if she doesn’t consider it worthy of her concern.
“007 is back,” M announces as they sit down in her office, “He arrived in London last night.”
“007?” Tanner repeats incredulously, “Bond? But he...he’s dead, isn’t he?”
“So we thought. The details aren’t significant. But he’ll want to be put back on active duty and I need you to get him up to speed and arrange for him to be tested. Marksmanship, psych evaluations, drug tests, all of it, and I want it done as soon as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am. Is there anything else?”
He’s still expecting one hell of a bollocking, but instead, M gives him a long, scrutinising look.
“No,” she says finally, expression completely indecipherable, “That will be all. You may go.”
Tanner gets up to leave. M’s gaze is boring straight into his back. He can’t help but feel like he’s lost some of her trust thanks to his rather reckless attack on 009. That isn’t something that sits well with him, not after he’s worked for her all of these years. He feels foolish. He is MI6’s Chief of Staff, a respectable, married man with a wife and children. He shouldn’t have made a scene like that, even if it had been on Q’s behalf - he imagines that all he had managed to do was embarrass the quartermaster and make himself look like an idiot. He owes both M and Q an apology, and he supposes he'll have to apologise to 009, too.
“Ma’am, about what happened in Q-Branch...I’m sorry. I take full responsibility. It won’t happen again.”
M waves her hand dismissively.
“Don’t bore me, Tanner. You know I won’t hold that sort of thing against you. Now, you’re excused.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Tanner says. He admits to himself that that he’s relieved and grateful, and he leaves her office as quickly as he can.
Tanner’s not sure what he thinks of Gareth Mallory. The man is around much more than Tanner thinks is probably necessary. In any case, he seems to wear M’s patience thin and is constantly hounding them, asking him questions about M’s role in MI6 and how she runs things. Tanner knows that M has made her share of bad judgement calls, but she does her job well and he won’t vilify her for doing what she sees as being for the best. So he gives Mallory’s questions vague answers and tries his best to avoid him.
Tanner suspects that Mallory has his eye on M’s position - and salary - but keeps silent about it. He doesn’t know enough about him to form a fair opinion.
Meanwhile, 007 spectacularly fails nearly every single one of the tests. His marksmanship scores are abysmal, he isn’t anywhere near being in optimal physical condition, his psych eval is troubling, and Tanner is quite sure that if you cut him, he would bleed scotch.
He pities 007, he really does. He’s just as arrogant as the rest of the Double-0’s, but he’s a good man, and good men are hard to come across in the Secret Service these days. He and Bond are well-acquainted with one another and Tanner knows that even if Bond isn’t physically ready to return to the field, every fibre of his being itches for it anyway.
Besides, it’s fairly obvious that MI6 needs him.
M certainly seems to agree with this, because she disregards the test scores and clears Bond for active duty anyway. He’s to return to the field at the end of the week. Tanner arranges for Q to meet with 007 at the National Gallery to equip him for the upcoming mission in Shanghai. He’s not worried. 007 may be notorious for shagging anything that moves, but even he is smart enough to know that the quartermaster should be off-limits.
(Smarter than 009, anyway.)
It never occurs to Tanner that the meeting will ignite a spark between Q and 007. He doesn’t realise it, of course, until much later on. For the time being, as far as he is concerned, the world continues to spin on as normal, and he carries on with his work, oblivious to what is happening right under his nose.
Two days after Bond starts his mission in Shanghai, Q comes to see Tanner in his office.
“M wants me to go to Macau,” he tells him, making himself comfortable on the visitor’s couch that nobody else ever really uses.
“Oh?” Tanner says, “Why you?”
Q shrugs. “Bond’s reckons he’s onto something and M says that I’m to go support him.”
“How exciting,” Tanner replies unconvincingly. He doesn’t mention how much he dislikes the idea of Q in the field. A million things could go wrong. He’s a worrywart and always has been. It’s simply his nature. But Q seems just as uncomfortable, squirming on the couch. Tanner is instantly concerned.
“Are you all right, Q?”
“I don’t want to go,” Q blurts, “I can’t fly. I can’t.”
“What?”
“Flying. Planes. I hate them. I’d rather die than board one. Please, Bill, you’ve got to change her mind. Will you? Will you do that for me? Please?”
Tanner almost laughs. Here, he’s worried that Q will get hurt in the field, and Q’s primary concern is the bloody aeroplane. He doesn’t question it, though. Everybody has their fears, and he has never been one to judge people based off of an insignificant thing like that.
“I’ll take care of it,” he promises Q, “Don’t you worry.”
After all, he’s quite sure by now that he would do anything in the world for Q - all Q has to do was ask, and he’d go to the moon and back.
Q smiles at him.
“I knew I could count on you.”
Tanner is successful. He makes something up about Q being needed to resolve tech issues. M undoubtedly sees right through him, but she doesn’t question him, and agrees to send Miss Moneypenny to support Bond instead.
There’s a certain buzz around MI6 when 007 returns, cyber terrorist Raoul Silva in tow.
He gets something of a hero’s welcome. After all, he has tracked down and apprehended the man who was responsible for the explosion at the old HQ and the deaths of dozens of their colleagues.
As Silva is transferred to a containment unit, Bond is patched up over at medical, and Tanner accompanies Q to pay him a visit.
“Welcome back, 007,” Q says, both of them standing a respectable distance away from the cot Bond is reclining on for a well-deserved rest, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Bond grins at the quartermaster, “No major injuries. Just a few bruises here and there. I’m afraid the same can’t be said for that lovely Walther you gave me, however.”
Tanner mentally recoils, waiting for Q’s inevitable angry lecture. He is always livid when an agent fails to return their equipment in a reasonable condition, and he is sure that 007 is in for the bollocking of a lifetime - Q had spent weeks perfecting that gun and had locked himself in the lab for hours on end to complete all of the necessary adjustments to ensure that it was perfect and ready for use in the field. According to the mission report, the gun is now probably lying in the digestive tract of a Komodo dragon.
But the scolding never comes. Instead, Q gives Bond a brief smile and says, “Never mind that. It’s replaceable. All that matters is that you’re in one piece, 007.”
Tanner nearly chokes.
Then he feels an odd, unpleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach when he sees the look that Bond gives the quartermaster. It’s not quite the sort of look he’d give to an attractive woman who he wants in his bed - there’s something else in it, something uncharacteristically tender. What on earth is happening? It’s not as if Q and Bond have known each other for that long. Tanner feels quite suddenly superfluous.
At that moment, a technician pops his head through the doorway.
"Sir?” he says to Q, “You’re needed.”
“Yes, of course, right away,” Q replies, tearing his gaze away from Bond as if he’s been snapped out of a trance, and he hurriedly leaves the room without another word. Bond stares after him as he exits, an amused smile tugging at his usually stoic expression.
“Er...I should be going, too,” Tanner mutters, feeling awkward after having been left alone with Bond. “Rest up, 007.”
“Could you do me a favour, Tanner?” Bond asks as he turns to go.
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“I understand that Q was very close with Major Boothroyd. I imagine he’d want to see Silva - look the man who killed Boothroyd in the eye.”
“Well, he hasn’t said anything about it.”
“Don’t let him do it,” Bond says in a hard voice, “I don’t want that man anywhere near Q.”
“Why not?”
Bond pauses awkwardly.
“You read my report, yes?”
Tanner nods.
“Then you know the sort of things he said to me. He’s dangerous, even if he’s contained. Q’s pretty and young. Silva won’t be able to resist trying to pull the same sort of twisted psychological trick on him. I’d rather him be spared from that.”
Tanner is taken aback by Bond’s concern for Q. Why should he care whether or not Silva would make some sort of deliberately lewd remark at the quartermaster? It feels like quite a departure from the 007 that he knows - or at least, the 007 that he thinks he knows. He stares dumbly at Bond, who stares expectantly back.
“Well?”
“Yeah,” Tanner says quickly, “Yeah, of course, I...I’ll make sure that he doesn’t go down there…”
“Good,” Bond says, appearing satisfied, and Tanner makes something up about needing to go to a meeting and hastily excuses himself.
He is beyond confused.
Later on in the day, when Tanner is hiding out in Q’s office in an attempt to avoid Mallory, he summons the courage to ask Q what he thinks of 007.
“Oh, I don’t know,” is Q’s airy answer, “I think he’s rather interesting.”
“Apparently, he finds you interesting, too,” Tanner mutters under his breath.
“What was that?” Q asks, giving Tanner an odd look.
“Nothing,” Tanner replies quickly, mentally cursing Q’s sharp hearing and pretending to be absorbed with smoothing a wrinkle out of his cuff, “It’s nothing.”