Chapter Text
Bond was in Malta. Quite how he managed to always avoid freezing climates these days Q didn’t know. He was glad of it though. And maybe suspected Mallory, M, as the main culprit.
What was it the man had once said?
‘Half of my job is split dealing with national security and soothing ruffled ministers… The other half is spent keeping my best assets happy.’
Apparently Q was one of those ‘best assets’, and Bond, whether appropriately considered one before or not, certainly became high priority as soon as he mated the quartermaster.
It had taken a year, after Skyfall. Q truly hadn’t noticed Bond’s scent much beyond ‘alpha’ in their first mission together, although he had felt a certain affection for the man, he was dually distracted with re-floating the sunken ship that was Q Branch and recovering from the rather nasty explosion. It had been half a year before he’d regained any libido or interest in the more dominant sex. As soon as he’d begun feeling once again like a battered omega rather than a drug-dulled beta, Bond had been right there and as shiny as the new R&D lab he got to play in.
They’d started with longer talks on missions. Surprisingly Q had been the one to get possessive over the right to guide James through far away cities and provide him personally with equipment… A favour he’d had to expand to 006 since, and often enough for the other secret agents.
Bond was, of course, the main instigator however. Q quite found his unruly courtship as hilarious as he did endearing… The hot air balloon rid aside, that is. But the occasional gifts, the provision of sorely needed meals, the forced back rubs onto work-tense shoulders, it had all worked a certain magic that Q had been attempting to avoid.
He was, of course, on suppressants as were all omegas deemed valuable enough to not be allowed statutory Heat Leave. They hadn’t held when half way through 007’s six week long mission to India Q had gone into full heat smack bang in the middle of the day and was swiftly locked down in medical for two weeks whilst it ravaged his system.
Unbearable. Q had never experienced ‘mate call’ before, a specific heat that occurred in omegas when an ‘ideal’ mate was found, designed to indicate receptiveness to a specific individual. Fortunately, no other alphas had been attracted too much to such a specific call… unfortunately Bond was continents away and blissfully unaware whilst Q writhed in excruciating agony, loosing his mind and illogically feeling rejection subconsciously.
It hadn’t taken long after that for them to get serious, although once again Q wasn’t up to much for a while, barely able to make it through a day at work without a nap whilst his body recovered from the ordeal.
Finally, a year after their first meeting, Q struck up a second mate-call, nearly scaring himself to death at the fear of ‘rejection’ again that he’d tried to be so blasé about after the first time, but James had been there…
That had been that.
Since then they’d had a year and a half together, and it was now, again half way through a mission for Bond, when Q started waking at obscene hours of the night to throw up, and became nauseous at all times of the day. It was utterly useless and infuriating and downright exhausting… And more often than not made Q whimper for James before he could squash the response with sensibility and reasoning. He’d managed sicknesses plenty of times before, this time it was just particularly getting him annoyed. When he sometimes couldn’t leave his desk swiftly enough to reach a toilet and had had to resort to vomiting into a waste bin, it was hardly something that made him feel like the head of Q Branch that he was.
“Oooh, how far along are you?” Q looked up from where he’d been spitting out the remaining bile into the bin beside his desk and half glared at his youngest minion. A sweet girl, but a bit doomed towards the secretarial pool if he was being honest.
“Far along with what?” He questioned, frustration leaking into his voice as he racked his brains for anything he was working on that she might be the slightest bit privy to. Especially something so important she felt the need to bring it up whilst he was vomiting under his own desk. He was fed up, and hated getting sick, even if he was prone to it. Half his mind was already thinking to call security on her; James may have rubbed some paranoia off on him slightly. Mindy beamed at him at if she’d seen the latest Apple product.
“Well, with the pup of course!” She added as if Q was being a silly little thing. Q just stared up at her, making rare eye contact where he usually darted his gaze about too fast for deep connection. Upon seeing her boss’ blank expression, her eyes turned comically wide.
“Oh! Oh, oh I’m… I’m mistaken! I’m, I’ll… I’ll just go!” Q stared at where she’d been for long after the poor girl had dashed out.
Pup sickness. It would explain a lot… well, everything. Quick as a flash Q stood and dialled for Moneypenny.
“I’m leaving early. Medical emergency, or something.” And dropped it without another word. Q Branch looked on, astonished, as their usually die-hard-working boss pushed things erratically into his messenger bag and hurried out of the premises without much coordination.
On the way home he stopped by every Boots, Superdrug and supermarket he passed. You could never be too careful when testing a theory, better to have a range to properly assess the hypothesis.
Home was much more a sanctuary now that James lived in it than it had ever been for Q on his own, and he started going through his usual post work routine without even realising.
Except that soon he found himself wearing one of his alpha’s shirts and nothing else except boxers and staring at the line up of pregnancy tests sitting on the bathroom counter, wondering if James would have a problem with him pissing on sticks whilst wearing the other’s clothes…
He hoped not. Whilst James was away Q found himself hard pressed to change into his own clothes for work, let alone decease from wearing his alpha’s within the house.
Should he call James first? That was usually reserved for emergencies though, did this count? Should he even take a test before James returned?
They’d been trying for a while now… or rather not trying to prevent pregnancy. Q had to say, he’d been nervous about children. He wasn’t even thirty, though he was considered nearly old for a childless omega. But… he had James, and the alpha may not have said outright that he’d desired pups, but Q could see something in him when he looked at families, had sensed the change in him since they’d mated… James wanted a family. Q didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew that if he ever wanted one, it would be with James.
Their conception chances were pretty slim anyway. James had to take pills to neutralise his sperm for missions, lest he rampantly pregnate half the populace of other nations whilst on her Majesty’s clock. The medicine took a while to clear his system each time. There had been the chance that his fertility was damaged permanently or low as a result, and Q hadn’t exactly been a beacon of Omega Health magazine. What with the low sunlight, mad working hours, thin physique and a tendency towards frailty in heat or cold, there had been the chance that he wasn’t capable of conceiving… or if he managed that, carrying anything to term considering the chemicals he’d worked with.
Nerves washed over him and Q snatched up one of the packets, ripping it open frantically and feeling itchy at the excess packaging. He had to know. If this was a false alarm or just a winter-approaching illness or some pseudo-pregnancy because Rachel and Rupert in code analysis had announced their looming pregnancy five months ago, he needed to know now before getting James’ hopes up.
Once the wrapping had been thoroughly defeated and tossed carelessly aside, Q found himself having a slight nerves-related performance issue. Apparently peeing on command was harder than it looked.
Several cups of calming tea should cure that… Could he even drink tea? Alcohol was off. Should he follow his nose, or was it too soon for that fabled omega ‘baby knows best’ sense?
Too many questions!
Q left the bathroom and settled for water, unable to distract himself with his laptop he settled for the TV.
Even after three cups he didn’t need to pee. But at some point he did need to go dry retch over the toilet. He couldn’t tell if that was from nausea though or simply nerves.
Q skirted off a call from Tanner, possibly the only man more prone to neuroses than Q could be, and claimed migraine, he was allowed to clock off at 3 once every year or so if he wanted. Though if he was pregnant he’d have to tell them soon enough. Not before James though.
If he kept throwing up in bins however, it may become either obvious or a matter of national security that he be moved back to medical. Q shuddered at the very thought.
If he drank too much water would it dilute the test too much into a false negative?
“Oh for God’s sake. Pull yourself together.” Q scolded himself, and went to go turn a tap on to encourage his bladder. James would understand the higher water bill; it was in aid of science. Or at least Q’s mental respite.
It took five hours, and five different types of test, leaving a further thirteen behind, before Q was staring at the variously marked little symbols that unanimously indicated positive.
Q didn’t know if he felt elated or sick. Was it always good to have an anomaly, or was it better to have no variation? With no variation, the tests felt fixed. Q analysed the components of the tests he’d used (each box usually contained three, so he took a ‘control’ from each brand). He also spent far too much time taking one completely apart, attempting to rebuild it, and carefully researching online about how the tests worked.
By three in the morning Q was surrounded by thirteen positives, one from each brand he’d acquired, a spreadsheet of his symptoms and the different tests, and several mounds of printed research from scientific papers to gossip magazines on pregnancy symptoms.
By five, when he was measuring his stomach against what would be expected of an omega his sex, age, weight and height during multiple stages of a pregnancy, Q thought that he had maybe gone overboard.
Too geared up to sleep, especially since worrying about a lack of said rest potentially killing off anything he and James had cultivated in his belly, Q headed into work at 6 am. The omega deadlocked all baby related documents, whilst surreptitiously using occasional tea breaks to look up doctors, make calendars and track when James was due back.
Operations suggested a week. Q tried scanning through his information. If he was already experiencing morning sickness, he had to be about four or five weeks along at least, more likely five with the urine pregnancy tests working… Maybe Q should get a blood test taken? No. Overboard again. Maybe when James was back.
Researching what had happened so far by even as few (or many, for someone normally so organised) as five weeks made Q a little put out that he hadn’t been paying attention earlier to realise what he was trying to produce inside. Potentially. Although he was still slightly doubtful, the other half of his mind was desperately clinging to logic and attempting to treat his body as an ongoing science experiment to avoid from panicking at the thought that they actually were having a baby.
Apparently right now he might be the proud parent of a blastocyst, a name he was sure James would appreciate as much as he did. A cluster of ever-dividing cells about the size of an apple or orange seed growing within him… The thought made him feel slightly wriggly.
Q had to stop himself from checking his always-flat stomach for changes once an hour. He also had to stop himself from whining whenever he opened his mouth as if James might mysteriously hear him and appear.
He was head of Q Branch; he wasn’t about to start whimpering for his alpha in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal working day.
Five weeks… maybe four, six by the time James returned.
Q threw himself into the most complex security reinforcements and coding that he had on his plate to avoid the fear creeping up his spine.
By 7 pm he was still at work and had moved onto dissecting the blueprints and prototypes for a waterproof gun that had been the pet project and bane of Q Branch for centuries.
By 11 Q shook himself out of the zone, experiencing some light-headedness, and cursed himself for behaving rashly.
Could lack of sleep kill a blastocyst? Certainly the air of R&D wouldn’t be good for one. Q wondered if he could get away with HAZMAT gear or if he’d have to give up that aspect of his job for the duration. The thought was a little saddening.
Upon arriving home, Q took three more tests, and forced down an appallingly healthy sandwich. Apparently he was still pregnant. Which was good, and somewhat of a mixed relief… How soon would it take a test to show him if he’d stopped being pregnant? Was it instant? Would he notice? He hadn’t noticed even becoming pregnant… Could he have already lost their little blastocyst out of carelessness and only find out in a few days?
At least he’d know he was capable of pregnancy… unless the loss of a pup or the cause of that loss affected him permanently.
Maybe he wouldn’t even show as un-pregnated until James had returned and he’d shared the news with him…
Q forced himself to go to bed for a restless night, hiding any and all sleeping pills that he and James reserved for some of the omega’s worst nights in the coding zone in order to avoid the temptation.
-00Q00-
Q was so set in his worked-up motion that he took every attack of pup sickness both as a sign of their blastocyst’s continued health and also something that might cause it to die. The paranoia was reaching new heights even for Q.
He’d also taken to worrying that worry could kill the small ball of dividing parts inside him.
Calls from agents in the field were a relishing balm to the tumult of his mind. The adrenaline of the unknown help he needed to provide, along with the tension of an agents’ distress focused him so completely that he managed to forget about little Blasty for a while.
The rather surprising security breach that had come from the Shazam app on someone’s Smartphone of all things was a thoroughly pleasant distraction, especially when all of Q branch had surrounded the offending article and given it a thorough beat down and burial. Really, even HR should know better.
The tension, delving into projects and potential-pregnancy combined however to make Q unpleasantly tired half the damn time. Which was ridiculous. He could make a machine gun within a day if asked and corrupt half the world’s banking systems in two, yet he was getting exhausted from incubating something no bigger than a quarter inch at most, by his calculations.
On the day Bond was scheduled to return, Q begged off early leave once again, and was permitted due to the absence and pending arrival of his mate. The last thing he wanted was to blurt out a potential pregnancy to the whole of MI6 the instant James walked through the door, even sitting at home and going stir crazy with worry was preferential.
So at quarter to four Q packed up his debris, instructed R to see James back in and de-equip him and wandered off. He wandered home, picking up some more tests from the only stores he hadn’t visited on the way. He’d been religiously testing himself every night after work, and had run out yesterday. Q told himself that this next batch of ten was just for James, but he wasn’t fooling himself.
The thought flashed through his head, as it so often did, that this was a dangerous world for a child, especially with their lives. That Q was too young to have a pup, that it would ruin his burgeoning career. That he might not even carry it to term. That they would have to spend all their lives looking after another living thing without reprise… That he would have to tell his family… his rather eccentric, abnormal family…
Q stopped dead at the thought with a repressed shudder, imagining Sherlock holding James Bond’s child upside down with that questioning inspection on his face lasting a mere second before 007 shot him with a gun that Q had designed.
Swiftly the omega forced himself to hurry on, hoping that all his worrying was more due to James’ absence than his own descent into insanity.
James took exactly 2h33 minutes from landing to arriving back at the flat, getting through all the MI6 necessities in between.
Q chewed his finger nervously and shifted on the sofa. It was one of the few things he had kept after they’d moved in together, other than enough cushions and blankets to curb his somewhat ridiculous nesting-drive and ensure that it didn’t get out of control. It was dark leather, corner seated and covered in ridiculous tropical coloured cushions he’d picked up around the place, knowing he’d never visit such locations. Personally, he thought it went well with the brick walls of the flat.
James had wanted to furnish the bedroom, unsurprisingly, and Q had to admit he’d never slept better than on the huge sprawl-worthy bed of his alpha. It had taken the omega some time to get used to the lower than previous, middle-of-the-room bed that James had unashamedly installed in front of the floor to ceiling windows, they acted like a mirror at night if the curtains remained open. Together they’d tackled the simple kitchen and the bathroom, where James had been rather pleased to find a sunken bath with a showerhead piped up the wall.
Q fought with himself not to leap up when the door clicked and his mate entered, but in the end the overwhelming scent of James sent him shooting up and going a bit weak at the knees. The alpha took a deep inhale and grinned when he saw Q, who thought his returning smile might be rather dopey.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding. R said you’d left already.” Q clung on when James, wonderfully uninjured James, pulled him close for a kiss. Q thought he could be excused from trying to climb up his mate slightly with enthusiasm. Just having James’ hands on him, steady and coiled with lethal, contained strength, washed away some of his tension.
“Hello.” Q replied, a bit dreamily, and proceeded to smoosh face with James in a rather ineffective nuzzle before nipping his mate’s lips for another kiss. The alpha chuckled as he complied, taking away some of his mate’s restlessness by licking into Q’s mouth hungrily.
For a while they stayed that way, scents dancing through desperate to want to welcome as they reunited. James’ large hands rubbed up and down Q’s sides before he pulled back. Q licked his lips contentedly and then bit them as his mate frowned, sniffing first the air and fixing the slighter man with a hard stare.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” His voice was sharp and Q held up his hands placatingly as he stepped backwards.
“Don’t get too excited.” He demanded first, sending James’ frown from daggers to questioning.
“Excited? Q-“
“I may or may not be pregnant.” The pause hung in the air whilst James’ demeanour switched from confusion to surprise back to bemused.
“You may or may not be?” He confirmed, starting to smirk a little, feigning humour to cover the insecure hope Q could just read behind his eyes.
“Well,” Q dropped his hands, feeling the shaky worry of dealing with his own insecurity for a week come back over him. “The tests all say positive… and I’ve been taking three a night all week, and I’ve been sick, but it could be the flu, and the fatigue could be anything, and its not a real blood test but I didn’t want to go to medical but I hope… I think…” As Q rambled through his tumbled thoughts and concerns, a smile grew on James’ face, turning up into a slow grinning beam, eyes lighting up.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Like I say, the tests-“ Q was halted by James bursting into laughter and grabbing Q close, kissing him soundly once on the lips.
“You’ve been taking three tests a night, and you’re not sure?” James teased with a smile so bright Q thought he might get lost in it. He fought for words for a moment.
“I wanted to be absolute… I even brought some more today in case you didn’t believe me or wanted to see for yourself.” He answered, a little petulantly. The alpha’s face switched to a bit more intense.
“You have more?” Q nodded with confusion and gestured to the bathroom vaguely.
“I’m afraid I may look like I have a habit to the local shops.” Q couldn’t continue as he was spun around and walked to the bathroom by his mate.
“You’re showing me.” James said decisively, and Q fought down a little flutter of excitement as one hand sneaked round under his shirt and cardigan to rest on his stomach, teasing oh so gently with fingers as if to suss out his belly.
“You’re not watching me pee on a stick.” Q managed, calmly but firmly, James just chuckled and turned to kiss under his ear with a little lick as they came to stand before the bathroom mirror.
“Try and stop me, I dare you.”
“Bond-“
“I’m not missing one moment of this Quartermaster, now…” James grabbed and unwrapped one of the sticks, still grinning, “which end do I need to hold?”
“Oh God.”