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Chapter Text

2010

Munich, Germany

The dark-haired man pushed his thick glasses up his slightly sore nose and scowled fiercely at the two black-clad men who sat on either side of him in the cramped back seat of the car.

“Would you be so kind as to tell me who you are and why you’ve kidnapped me?” he asked in a voice that dripped with sarcasm and didn’t waver at all despite the gun in his ribs. He repeated the question in German.

The overly-muscled goon on his left gave him a glare through an eye that was already starting to swell. The slender man surveyed it with a small smirk of satisfaction. He had put up quite a fight, but all three kidnappers (two in the back and one driving) had definitely had formal martial arts training (and tasers too!) and had overwhelmed their target, despite his own training.

“Nothing? Playing dumb , are we?” The prisoner made certain that the double meaning of the word was abundantly clear. His head ached from where a brisk knock from behind had momentarily dazed him enough for them to take him down.

The men didn’t rise to the bait, nor did they engage in any of the snide quips and disparaging remarks their captive directed at them as they drove up to an empty warehouse and escorted him to a table and chair lit by a single lamp.

“I’m starting to think you’ve got the wrong man, but I suppose all Asians look the same to you,” the prisoner said upon being ‘helped’ none-too-gently into his seat. “Not your fault, really. It’s a social issue.”

Another man — not one of the three who’d kidnapped him, but one in a suit — walked into view and stopped in front of him, looking down his long nose at his prisoner. 

Only the table separated the two men, one of whom hid a gulp and tried to ignore the nervous sweat sliding down his back.

“Dr. Kazuya Huojin Ishida, born in Glasgow, 12 June 1978 to immigrants. Japanese father, cardiologist, deceased. Chinese mother, accountant, living. One sister, oncologist. Fettes College, high marks. Studied Electrical Engineering, Automation and Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, first class honors. Doctorate earned 2003 at King’s College, Cambridge, Computer Engineering and Robotics—”

“Alright, so you have got the right Asian,” Kaz cut in with a lazy scoff, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. “What do ye want?”

“You’ve come to our attention. You have a highly specialized set of knowledge and skills. Put plainly, we want you to work for us.”

“I’ve already got a job,” Kaz pointed out. “A cushy one at that, too, even if everyone’s a fool. Anyway, you already know that because that’s where you picked me up. An’ ye still haven’t told me who you are. Aside from being English.”

“MI6.”

Kaz’s eyebrows rose. “Alrigh’ then.”

“You’ll cooperate?”

Kaz pursed his lips and leaned far back in his chair, tipping it back onto two legs. “Nah,” he said with a slow blink and hoped he wasn’t about to get punched. “Don’t fancy it.”

“We’ll offer you a competitive salary.”

“Nah.”

“Your country, Dr. Ishida—”

Kaz interrupted belligerently. “You’re absolute shit at this. Did you know that?”

“What are your terms?”

“I don’t want to work with absolute idiots,” Kaz drawled, “which means I don’t want to work with the likes o’ ye.”

The other man’s face twitched and his hand went to his earpiece, which had one of those spiral wires that disappeared down the collar of his shirt. He scowled.

A buzzing sound filled the silence, only to be cut off as suddenly as it started. 

“That your phone?” Kaz asked. “Sounds like they decided they didn’t want to hear your ugly voice after all.”

“Blaze, stop being an asshole to the idiot and say ‘yes.’”

The man in the suit started and dug frantically in his pocket for his mobile, which had seemingly picked up the call and put the caller on speaker without its owner laying hands on it.

Both men stared at the device, which was definitely showing a live call.

“Just say 'yes,' Blaze,” the disembodied voice ordered again. It was young, authoritative, and impatient.

Kaz blinked. There was only one person in the entire world who called him that. 

“Freddie?” he asked incredulously. He hadn’t heard from the kid in years. He’d disappeared into the ether and Kaz had simply assumed that like many an uber-talented genius before him, he’d gone to work for some highly secretive employer like…

Oh.

“Say ‘yes’ and come work with me.”

The chair thunked back onto four legs. “Yes.”

“Good,” the voice of the boy Kaz knew as Freddie Lyon said (though he’d long had doubts that that was his real name), sounding pleased. “I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t be late.”

Kaz recovered enough from his shock to say, “You know I’m never on time, Freddie.”

He could almost see the annoyed expression on the kid’s face, even though it had been years since he’d seen him. “Do not be late and make me look bad, Ishida.” Kaz could hear the threat in his voice and he knew from painful experience that it was not an idle one.

“Aye-aye, captain,” he smirked, saluting the phone lazily.

“Not a captain,” Freddie said, and his eyes were definitely rolling on the other end of the line, “I am a doctor now, though, several times over. Please make sure you call me ‘R’ from now on. I’m not Freddie anymore.”

“R, eh? Can I have a letter, too?” Kaz half teased, “How about K? Is that taken yet? I? B?”

“As you Scots like to say, ‘Wheesht.’”

Kaz laughed, remembering the first time he’d told the scrawny twelve-year-old to shut up in that manner. The boy’s eyes had opened wide in surprise and indignation, but it had succeeded in stopping the flood of chattering…for a time.

“Mr. Smith, please deliver Dr. Ishida to his residence, preferably without any more violence, if at all possible.”

You could cut the condescension in his voice with a knife. Kaz winced on Smith’s behalf.

“Your name’s really Smith?” he asked, snickering. “Are the others Jones, Taylor, and Brown?”

Smith ignored him. “Copy that,” he replied to ‘R’ through gritted teeth. “Sir,” he tacked on after a beat.

“And please try not to bollocks this up.”

“Now who’s being an asshole to the idiot?”

“Good night, Kaz.”

Smith the Government Goon ended the call with a more violent jab than necessary.

. . . . .

When Kaz Ishida was seven, he wanted to be Indiana Jones. When he was ten, he wanted to be Bruce Lee. When he was fourteen, Isaac Asimov was his hero. 

This last was the reason he decided to study robotics at uni and go on to do graduate work in the field.

Kaz was twenty-four when he met someone who changed his life forever.

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

The first time he saw him, he thought the kid was someone’s younger brother, helping with the moving-in process. That happened a lot; the whole family would come and haul up boxes to the dormitory and unpack them, chattering and bickering all the while. 

Usually, the mother would be tearful, asking if her precious baby was absolutely certain he had everything he needed. The father—if he came at all—would be stoically checking the door hinges for sturdiness and the windows to see if they could be opened from without. Younger siblings would either be running about the place like mad little whirlwinds or huffing sullenly because they weren’t the center of attention. The student himself would be a tight knot of anticipation and excitement at starting a new chapter of his life.

Of course, all this usually happened at the undergraduate housing buildings, rather than the graduate rooms. By the time students got to the post-baccalaureate stage, their families were blasé about helping them move in and out, and it was usually friends who helped with the heavy lifting instead.

He overheard the kid—he looked all of ten years old—chattering about ‘my room’ and finally realized that this must be that wunderkind the whole college had been all in a flutter about.

They’d been informed—everyone rooming in the graduate housing complex, that is—that there would be a child genius of some sort joining them that year. Every resident had been sent a letter and an email about it, warning them to behave themselves around the young, impressionable mind.

The reason this twelve-year-old would be living with them rather than with his fellow undergraduates was because they were older and thus more mature…in theory. Some of them even had kids of their own, but those families usually lived in flats or houses separate from university housing.

They’d all been told to make the child feel at home and look after him because he was one of those Great Minds who only came along once in a century and they wanted him to stay at Cambridge and do his Great Things there and bring them prestige.

Kaz planned on staying out of the kid’s way. After all, he was terrible with children, and logically, he wouldn’t be able to be a bad influence on the kid if he didn’t interact with him, right?

He did watch the family with a bit of curiosity from his room a few doors down the hall. It was only natural; it wasn’t every day that someone that young started at uni.

He wasn’t the only one watching. Some even went and offered to help, but one of the men with the boy thanked them and refused, saying they had enough hands on the job.

There were four men and one woman with the boy. Kaz initially thought that the woman was the mother, but the boy referred to her as ‘Aunt Tory.’ Two of the men were called ‘uncle’ and one was ‘dad,’ which left one who was called only ‘Sam.’

He wondered if Sam was the kid’s other father. Or maybe he was just a friend.

Well, Kaz reasoned and closed his door, it didn’t matter to him in the least if the parents were gay. It wasn’t any of his business, was it?

. . . 

It was just his luck that the boy was a student in one of the classes Kaz was assigned to teach.

Kaz, running late as usual, had rushed in and started setting up his PowerPoint slides on the projector screen without really looking at his students. He’d been doing this for a while, and could basically run through the lecture without thinking much about it. If that made him a bad teacher, he didn’t much care; he was more of a researcher anyway, and was on the last leg of writing his dissertation. He’d defend it at the end of the academic year, and then he’d be off with a ‘Dr.’ in front of his name. He already had several job offers waiting for him to finish his studies.

He noticed a quarter of the way through the slides that none of his students were paying attention to him. Their focus seemed to be centered on a corner of the room. Closer examination showed that there was a student with a laptop computer on the desk—they weren’t as common yet as they later would become—and the student was none other than the boy wonder. 

Well. He remembered now that he’d received an email about the boy—Frederick Lyon or something—being in his class and had promptly forgotten about it. If he really belonged here, then he’d be able to keep up. If he didn’t, then it wasn’t really Kaz’s problem, was it? The kid could wait a few more years before trying uni again.

Kaz shrugged off the observation and continued his lecture.

At the end of class, the students crowded around the boy, questioning him. Kaz noticed him starting to get defensive after a while and, sighing (‘I hate this job,’ he thought), gathered up what authority he could muster and marched into the rabble. His lanky six foot five figure made it easy to scatter students left and right.

“Alright, break it up. Yes, he’s young. Yes, he’s probably smarter than the rest of you put together. But he’s here to learn, same as you. I’m sure he has classes to get to, same as you. So go on and get to them.”

He stuck around like a guard dog waiting for everyone to file out and felt that he had been very responsible and had done his duty.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He looked down at the boy. “Don’t need my bosses saying I should’ve been more welcoming or some shite.”

The boy, pale and rather small for his age with glasses and dark hair that looked like it could use a comb, met his eyes and grinned a little.

Kaz was astounded by the sheer intelligence behind those green eyes. It was practically leaking out of the kid’s pores like it couldn’t all be contained in his head. Bloody hell.

“Lyon, isn’t it? Frederick? Or do you go by Fred or Freddie? Fritz?”

The remarkably sharp eyes brightened. “Freddie,” the boy said, sounding like even the act of introducing himself was a novelty. What was he, some sort of alien?

“Right then, Freddie. Where’re you headed? I can walk you there.” If he was going to be responsible, he was going to do it all the way, damn it.

“I memorized the campus, thanks. I’ve already calculated the most efficient routes to each location, adjusting for factors such as weather and crowd density peak times.”

Bloody hell.

“Right, then. If you need anything, we’re sort of neighbors,” Kaz said. “I’m in 229.” 

“Yes. I know.”

Right.

And because they were both socially awkward, they stood there for a few moments trying to gauge if the conversation was over or not.

“I’d better get to the lab,” Kaz finally said. “I’m probably running late.”

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m usually running late,” Kaz shrugged, not particularly bothered about it. “I generally assume I’m behind and no harm done if I’m not.”

The boy was looking at him as though he didn’t understand the meaning of late, what with his accelerated education. 

“Well, have fun in your classes, lad.”

“Thanks.”

. . . 

A couple of weeks later, Kaz was tinkering in the lab when he realized with a start that he was not alone.

“How did you get in here?” he angrily asked the boy, who was poking at some of the equipment. “You’re not authorized to be here. This lab is locked unless you have the key.” 

So maybe he was a little harsh and accusatory, but he tended to be a bit protective of his research. He wasn’t alone in this—most people were.

Freddie snorted softly, not looking up from his examination of the tangle of wires Kaz had pulled out of prototype version 12.5. “A key, sure, or a set of lock picks,” he said with a shrug as if he hadn’t just broken into Kaz’s bloody lab, “You need better security. What are you doing?”

He came over to where Kaz was doing a bit of programming.

Kaz eyed him doubtfully. His work was extremely advanced, and he didn’t need to add babysitting to his list of tasks, thank you. 

He needn’t have worried. The quick green eyes scanned the lines of code like they were written in plain English.

“Why did you do it that way?” Freddie asked, pointing at a part that had given Kaz quite a bit of trouble. “Wouldn’t it be cleaner to…”

And that was the start of their first collaboration.

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

He was waiting for him, arms crossed and lips pursed in what was evidently supposed to be a look of disapproval, although his excitement at seeing Kaz again after all these years was obvious. 

Kaz suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t bothered to keep in touch with the kid, but communication and people relations weren’t exactly his strong points. 

The kid – no longer a child – looked pretty much the same, but taller and lankier and sharper, and his outfit was business-casual (if one considered maroon plaid trousers and a goldenrod jumper to be business-casual instead of an eyesore) rather than the hoodie and jeans Kas was accustomed to seeing on twelve-year-old Freddie. He was all grown up, and that made Kaz feel old. 

“I told you not to be late, Kaz.” 

“Nice to see you, too. Still as scrawny as ever, kid.”

“Not a kid.” Freddie — or rather, R — smirked triumphantly. “I’m twenty now.”

“Nah, you’ll always be a little shit of a twelve-year-old to me.”

And because he missed his twerp of a sidekick, Kaz gave him a big hug that was returned enthusiastically.

“You’re doing alright for yourself, then, lad?”

“See for yourself,” R said with a smug smile and led the way.

. . . . .

Chapter Text

2002

Cambridge University, England

After Freddie had shown that he’d definitely earned his place at one of the most elite universities in the world despite not even having reached his teen years yet, Kaz suggested to his advisor that adding him to the team would benefit them all. The man didn’t need much convincing once he saw what the kid could do.

“They weren’t kidding when they said you were a child genius,” commented Kaz to Freddie one day over rice balls. 

Kaz wasn’t much of a cook, but even his nearly nonexistent older brotherly instincts had been triggered by the skinniness of the boy and he made it a point to pack two bento lunches every time he made himself one.

Freddie wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like that term, generally. It implies abnormality.”

“Means you’re smarter than the rest of us mere mortals.”

“I know you don’t mean it badly, but to others, it’s my only defining characteristic.”

“I can see that.” Kaz chewed, swallowed. “Arseholes, the lot of ‘em,” he declared.

Freddie laughed. 

“How are you liking it here so far?”

The kid immediately deflated a little. “It’s…not what I expected.”

“No? How so?”

Freddie pushed his glasses back up his nose and was quiet for a moment. “I thought I’d finally fit in.” There was a note of yearning in his voice that made Kaz inexplicably want to give him a big hug, despite being far from the cuddly sort of chap.

“Well.” He shrugged awkwardly. “If you want to hang out with a bunch of nerds, you’ll fit right in with us.”

Freddie breathed a frustrated huff through his nose. “But I don’t. They resent me. Even the faculty. They don’t quite like me. I can tell. They like my work, but not me. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, though.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re a little arsehole know-it-all,” Kaz said without any animosity. “People don’t like being shown up by a pipsqueak like you, especially since you’re the opposite of humble about what you can do. Nor should you be, but it gets on people’s nerves. Bruises their pride.”

“Does it get on your nerves?” The kid honestly looked a little scared at what his answer might be, and maybe a little hurt.

“Nah. I like honesty. You know you’re smart, so why should you pretend to be any different? You might wanna learn to tone down the condescension a tad though, ye ken?”

He’d found by accident that falling back into his natural Scottish brogue made harsh suggestions sound softer to the boy for some reason. Whatever worked, right? It wasn’t like he was really able to curb his default brashness that much either. Thinking of nicer ways to say what he really thought took too much effort, so this was an easier solution. 

Hypocritical? Maybe, but he knew from experience that not being modest about one’s brilliance could bring on problems of its own from social peers, and even family, as evidenced by the number of times he’d been told to stop being so boastful by his very Asian parents and his sister, who regularly called him a disagreeable asshole.

“Yes,” Freddie sighed despondently, “My dad is always saying that I need to curb my ego.”

Kaz gave an approving nod. “Makes sense. Hubris gets the best of us.”

“I guess so.”

“I know so. Live a little longer and you’ll see.”

This drew a laugh and rolled eyes from the kid. “Because you’re so old.”

“Double your age, I am.” Kaz speared a bit of teriyaki chicken with his chopsticks for emphasis.

“Speaking like Yoda, why are you?”

“Oi, respect your elders, young man!” 

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

“Alright, I’ll bite.”

“Hm?”

Kaz fixed Freddie with a look. “Everyone’s calling you ‘sir.’ What does ‘R’ really mean?”

“Assistant Quartermaster.” The kid’s smug expression hadn’t changed a bit. 

“Because that has so many Rs in it.”

R rolled his eyes. “Quartermaster is Q. R, as the next letter in the alphabet, is the Assistant Quartermaster. I’m your direct supervisor, by the way.”

“Right,” Kaz nodded, sounding unimpressed. “So you’re the one who signs off on things when I want days off and shite like that?”

R’s eye muscles were getting in a lot of exercise that day. “Yes.”

“Good to know.” Kaz surveyed the workstation nearest him, hands in his pockets and slouching. “Is there an S, T, so on, Agent R?”

“No.”

“So you’re twenty and in almost the top position in the department? How’d everyone take it?”

“In the department, very well. Outside the department, it took a couple of years for Q’s request to be approved. M finally managed to get it through.”

“M’s the boss man, right?”

“Woman.”

“Cool.” He digested that morsel of information and turned to another point. “A couple of years ago, you were still at Cambridge.”

“Yes.”

“They wanted to make a brand new eighteen-year-old recruit the assistant quartermaster? Don’t get me wrong, you’re brilliant, but not everyone knows that.”

Honestly, Kaz was enjoying seeing his young friend’s new confidence and the way his colleagues obviously respected him. No longer was he the tiny bespectacled preteen with the enormous ego everyone secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) hated for being smarter than them. 

Reserved green eyes blinked at him from behind glasses that were a tad more stylish than the coke-bottles he used to wear. “It’s not that outlandish. The previous quartermaster wanted me as his replacement when I was nine.”

Kaz stopped in his tracks, still not yet reacclimated to the super-accelerated pace of the man who was once Freddie Lyon. “Bloody hell. This place is insane.”

R chuckled and moved on with his tour, shrugging. “You’ll get used to it. Oh yes, by the way, a word of warning: Most people from outside the branch are assholes, the agents especially. They like to come in and terrorize the techs when they’re bored. Don’t mind them; they’re harmless.”

Behind him, a woman looked up and shook her head in an amused, fond sort of way. “Only to you, R. They know better than to bully you, but the rest of us are fair game when you’re not around.”

The young man looked positively displeased. “I’ll have a word with them.”

“Sounds like fun,” Kaz grinned. 

The woman looked at him as though 1) he had only half his wits, and 2) as though she already pitied him. “They’re trained assassins licensed to kill,” she explained slowly.

R laughed, and god, had Kaz missed that impish, mischievous expression. “On a scale of one to ten, one being an earthworm and ten being a venomous snake, how dangerous does Dr. Ishida look, Dr. Saunders?”

She eyed him: Tall and weedy like a stretched-out piece of taffy and slightly stoop-shouldered due to his height. Meek expression behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Unstyled, spiky hair – spiky not out of fashion but because that was how it grew when it was that length. The very epitome of stereotypical nerdiness. 

“Something tells me that three is on the wrong end of the scale.”

The two men shared a smile.

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

Kaz groaned and carefully removed his glasses. He prodded at his sore eye and gingerly fingered the bridge of his swollen nose.

“Owowow.”

“What happened to you? Bar fight?”

He’d long become accustomed to the little shrimp of a boy sneaking up on him unnoticed. 

“Mixed martial arts tournament,” Kaz muttered, slowly sliding his glasses back on so they wouldn’t bump against his sore face.

The kid eyed his bruises skeptically. “Did you accidentally walk in on them and insult them or something? You’re good at insulting people without meaning to, you know.”

Kaz glared at him. “Ha ha. I won my section, thank you vurry much.” He huffed. “And I don’t need to be accused of accidental insults from you of all people, little boy.”

“See? There you go again.”

“That was very intentional, midget.”

“Where do you practice?” the boy asked next.

“Why? So you can critique my technique like you critique everything else?”

“You’re very ill-tempered today, did you know? I mean, you’re usually surly, bored, or concentrating, but you’re especially irate today.”

Kaz wanted to knock the kid’s coke-bottle glasses right through his face and out the back of his skull. The only reason he desisted was that his knuckles were already sore.

“Who do you practice with? The same people all the time, or do you like to mix it up?”

“Why the hell do you want to know?!” The volume of his own voice made his head ache and he groaned again.

“Goodness. You don’t have to yell.” The kid made that face again, that thing he did when he wanted to fidget nervously but was too stubborn and prideful to do it. “I only…I only thought maybe I could spar with you?” It wasn’t a statement, but a question.

“You?” Kaz couldn’t help it. He laughed, sore head and bruised ribs and all. “I don’t want to be arrested for beating up a minor or some bloody shite.”

The kid’s face turned to stone. 

“Sorry, sorry, that was mean,” Kaz apologized. Damn. He hadn’t meant to make fun of him. It had just come out. “I could teach you some time.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The kid’s eyes were flinty chips of sharp jade.

“Freddie,” Kaz said, “I really am sorry for laughing. I’m an arse. You know that. I shouldn't have laughed. I’m sorry.”

Freddie pursed his lips, deliberating. “When?” he asked at last.

“How about tonight?” Kaz was relieved that he hadn’t lost the kid’s…what, respect? Friendship? Whatever.

“You’re still hurt,” Freddie stated the obvious. “How about next week? Your ribs should be better by then.”

Kaz hadn’t mentioned his ribs, but the kid had probably guessed by the way he’d held his torso while laughing.

“Sure.”

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

Kaz really should’ve known that something was up when R gave him a sly sideways glance before he tapped his ID card on a panel, pressed his hand on the flat surface of a scanner that slid out of the wall with a metallic shct sound, and stood in front of a retina reader. 

The door slid open, and–

Kaz gasped, staring at the very expensive, very rare, very state-of-the-art one-of-a-kind equipment in the very secure room in front of him. 

“Is that a —?”

“It is. Tweaked it a bit from my last design.”

Kaz’s awed “Bloody hell!” was breathless and slightly squeaky. “You could’ve told me you had this and I would’ve been knocking on your door.”

The kid sounded smug, and rightfully so. “Exactly what I told them, but it’s top-secret, so they said we can’t tell people left and right, which is bollocks because it’s my invention.”

Kaz crept closer to the machine, practically tiptoeing in his reverence. He’d seen the articles, but he’d thought that it was more of an intellectual exercise than anything in reality. 

“People left and right would sign up in a minute if they knew what this was and that MI6 had it, and that they could work with the man who thought it up.”

“Exactly what I said!” Kaz wasn’t looking, but he knew that the kid was definitely rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Instead,” he continued, “they keep going with their tried and true method of scaring the living daylights out of poor scientists who are generally already anxiety-prone and neurotic to begin with, even when they’re not overly-caffeinated.”

Kaz pulled his gaze off of the beauty in front of him with a bit of effort to see that his friend looked exactly as he’d expected: indignant and disgusted and stroppy all in one. “That’s bureaucracy for you, mate.”

R made a disgruntled noise. “Things around here are going to change. Starting with the rate of return on equipment sent into the field.”

“What, like guns and such? Low return rate?”

R’s sniff eloquently conveyed his thoughts on the matter. “More like nonexistent when it comes to some agents. And they’re the ones assigned the good stuff. The custom-designed vehicles, guns tailored specifically to them, weapons that have never seen the light of day. And they lose them! And when they don’t lose them, they come back in pieces!”

Kaz might have backed away if he had a more timid nature. “You sound a little…tense. Things tend to explode when you’re tense. You alright?” He recalled very vividly The Incident back in ‘02.

“I’ve grown out of that tendency. Mostly.”

“Huh. Have you got a plan in mind for improving the equipment return rate?”

Obviously, the kid did – he always had a plan for everything – but Kaz was curious. He wanted to know if the kid had lost any of that over-dramatic flair he’d had back then, or if it had been a symptom of adolescence. 

He wasn’t disappointed. 

Green eyes sparkled. “Tracking on all equipment to facilitate retrieval, especially on tech that we don’t want in enemy hands. The number of brand new designs we’ve had stolen just because some dumbarse decided to throw his gun after he was out of bullets!” he moaned. “And of course, the higher-ups are too stupid to see that it would be more cost-efficient to send someone to retrieve discarded tech—so we can see what went wrong, for one thing! —instead of sending the agents back out with tech that might not work right in the field!”

Kaz hid his smile. Ah. Freddie was just the same, and that’s how Kaz liked it. “How’s your blood pressure, mate?”

“My blood pressure is fine, thank you.”

“Alright,” Kaz chuckled. “Let me know if you want to spar and let loose some steam. I’ll feel better about getting my arse kicked now that you’re my size. I want to try out that gym the HR lady was telling me about.”

R put his scowl away and replaced it with a wide smile. “Thanks. The exercise facilities here are actually very nice. Remind me to show you.”

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

Kaz prided himself on keeping himself in good shape. He prided himself on his skills in boxing and aikido, despite his tall and slim build, which had earned him the nickname gobō from his sister. Gobō was Japanese for burdock, an extraordinarily long and thin root vegetable that, in Kaz’s opinion, tasted fabulous shredded and doused with mountains of sesame seeds and red chili pepper – enough to make him gasp and his eyes water. 

Speaking of gasping for breath and watering eyes, Kaz really, truly did not know how he’d ended up flat on his back on the mat with the wind knocked out of him in less than two seconds. 

“Whit th' bloody feck wis that?!” he demanded when he’d gotten his breath back, not willing to move his sore body just yet. 

He gingerly turned his head to look at the kid, whose green eyes were dancing with suppressed glee and triumph—and quite a lot of unsuppressed smugness.

“What the hell, kid!”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Freddie said primly. “My dad taught me how to defend myself.”

Kaz rolled to his side and slowly got to his knees, then his feet. “What is he, a black belt in everything or something?” he wheezed.

“Or something.”

Come to think of it, Freddie’s father, who visited every weekend at the very least, did look a bit military. Definitely athletic and kept himself fit. 

“Do you compete?” Kaz asked. Trust the kid to be some kind of world champion or some shite. Would be just the sort of thing he’d do. 

Freddie shook his head. “Nah. I’m not really into competitions and such. Publicity isn’t my style. I lost my taste for them after a couple of incidents back home.”

Kaz raised an eyebrow at him, seeing that details were not forthcoming. “That’s not mysterious and vague at all.”

Freddie grinned. “I’m a man of mystery.”

“You’re a mere bairn, not a man.”

The kid made a face at him, proving Kaz’s point.

“Alright, seriously this time,” Kaz said, getting back into position. “Go easy on an old man, eh?”

“Oh my god, my dad’s old. You’re twenty-four, for goodness’ sake!...Gah! Put me down, Kaz!”

“Say uncle!”

“Never give up! Never surrender!”

. . . . .

Chapter Text

2002

Cambridge University, England

The lad was babbling again. He tended to do that when he got excited, barely even stopping for breath before questions and comments and answers poured out of him again. 

“Wheesht, laddie!” Kaz had said once. 

The little polymath had been startled into silence. “What?”

Kaz had told him exactly what it meant, which was ‘Shut up, kid.’ That had resulted in an extremely offended twelve-year-old.

“If ye'r aff tae ask questions,” Kaz had clarified, overexaggerating his Scottish burr, “ye'v git tae hauld yer horses fur th' answers, dinnae ye think?”

The boy had blushed and looked chagrined, much to Kaz’s amusement.

Well, he was at it again. 

“—At least, according to Nash.” 

The kid would have kept going on that topic, but Kaz pulled up short, looking away from his computer screen where his dissertation was (very) slowly shaping itself into something that wasn’t absolute garbage. “Where did he say that? I don’t think I read that paper.”

“Oh, in an email,” Freddie shrugged. “We’ve been corresponding since I was a kid.”

“You’re still a kid. Also, we’re talking about the same Nash, yeah? Game theory, Nash Equilibrium, Nobel Prize, A Beautiful Bloody Mind John Nash?”

In other words, a Very Big Name.

“Hm? Yeah.” Freddie continued to fiddle with his…whatever it was he was working on. Some kind of gadget. A key ring? (Why…? Never mind.)

“Bloody hell.”

“He asked me to go to Princeton but I’ve always had my heart absolutely set on Cambridge.”

Kaz was never going to finish his dissertation if the pipsqueak kept invading his dormitory and coming out with surprises like this. “John Bloody Nash personally invited you to Princeton but you turned him down?”

The kid had the bloody gall to shrug. 

“Berners-Lee wanted me at Oxford or MIT — whichever I preferred — Diaconis and Knuth wanted me at Stanford, and Hawking wanted me to study theoretical physics with him here but I wanted to do mathematics and computer science first. I might go into physics later though.”

Kaz sputtered. “ You- you- you turned down Stephen Bloody Hawking? Are you daft?”

“Obviously not.” And the kid bloody rolled his bloody eyes behind his thick bloody glasses. 

“Besides, he’s been very understanding about it and it’s not like I’ve stopped writing to everyone. I even had dinner with Stephen and Elaine the other night.”

Kaz felt faint. “You’re on first name terms with The Stephen Hawking, and he and his wife had you over for dinner?”

“Well I wasn’t about to make them come to me in my little room. That would have been ridiculous.”

Because that was the ridiculous part of all this.

“Bloody feckin’ hell.”

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

Kaz had really thought that he’d already dealt with all the surprises the kid had in store for him years ago.

As always, when it came to Freddie Lyon or R or whatever else he answered to now, he was wrong.

They were talking about Smith and his ham-fisted methods of recruitment.

“I told them they were going about it the wrong way, you know,” Freddie-R was saying, “You’re an adrenaline junkie and you’re a stubborn bastard on top of that. They’ve got an idea that treating scientists like that would make them join up but—”

“They’re stupid assholes?”

“Exactly!” Green eyes rolled. “At least when Q’s around for the interview, he can sort of persuade them to tone down the intimidation. More or less. Tanner’s better at getting them to be nice, but he’s not usually around for interviews.”

“What’s he like, this Q?” Kaz hadn’t met his new boss yet, and he was curious.

“Oh he’s great!” R gushed. “Brilliant scientist. Mechanical engineer, you know. Been here ages. He used to tell me all about cars when I’d drop in on Q-Branch as a kid. He’s in meetings all day today or he would’ve been here to meet you.”

“Come again? Why were you here as a kid? Aside from being a candidate for the top position when you were nine. And you still haven’t explained how that happened…if you were absolutely serious about that.”

The younger man paused, considering. “Well. I don’t mind you knowing. You know how I work. I earned this position.”

“I know you did. What was it that might make someone else think different? Family member in Parliament or sommat, posh boy? You really a lord?” Kaz teased. 

In all seriousness though, he wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be true. Freddie had always had an air of privileged upbringing that wasn’t forced in the least.

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Fettes and Cambridge man. Anyway, my godfather was the Q before this one, and my father was a double-oh before I was born.”

“A double what?”

“A special class of agents. Elite operatives. The ones with two noughts before their numbers, like 007, are licensed to kill. Most of them love to act like assholes.”

“So your dad was an assassin.” 

Right. Kaz could totally wrap his mind around that. Definitely could reconcile the loving father with a cold-hearted killer. He could totally imagine an assassin coming out to check on his son every weekend without fail, with a hamper full of Tupperwares and the family dog, like Mr. Lyon used to.

“Yes.”

Kaz let out a slow breath. “Bloody hell. I guess I’m glad he didn’t think I was a threat to you back then.”

“He thoroughly investigated you, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, to continue, I showed promise early.”

Kaz snorted. “Understatement.”

“I used to visit my godfather at work, and he thought I’d be good as his replacement when he retired.”

“When you were nine years of age.” What? He had to confirm that barmy bit of news.

“Yes.”

“No one thought that was…weird? Insane?”

R shrugged as though he didn’t think so. “Oh, plenty of people. Obviously. That’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t named quartermaster back then. The current Q certainly didn’t want the position. He keeps trying to pass it off onto other people in the department, but no one else wants it either.”

“Why not? Head man of the department sounds like a cushy job.”

Unless there were other strings attached. Kaz tried to imagine what the head of the MI6 tech division would have to deal with that the equivalent in a private company wouldn’t. Maybe more weapons? Assassination attempts? 

“Most scientists want to work on their research, rather than deal with bureaucracy, and the government breeds the worst sorts of bureaucrats. The paperwork alone is enough to drive anyone mad.”

All good points, Kaz thought. “Makes sense. D’you want the job?”

R smiled dreamily. “As far back as I can remember. Q says he wants to step down as soon as they’ll let him pass it on to me. He wants to go back to his labs and not have to deal with people. Machines are so much easier.”

Kaz could relate. 

“What about the paperwork?”

“I work fast and can multitask extensively. And most of the forms can be automated.”

“What about the bureaucrats?”

Freddie’s answer was matter-of-fact. “I’d deal with them as they deserve.”

“Och!” Kaz laughed, and Freddie joined him a moment later.

. . . 

Q made it back to Q-Branch before the end of Kaz’s first day of work looking frazzled and muttering about useless meetings. 

Dr. Montgomery, as he introduced himself, was an affable and absent-minded older gentleman with silver-gray hair and a mustache of the same hue.

“Ishida? Oh, yes, brilliant work with nanorobotics. Glad you’ve joined the team, eh? Settling in alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“R’s shown you around? Good, good. Carry on, then.”

Then he shuffled off, having left a file folder of papers on Kaz’s desk. R handed them back to him before he could get too far. 

“Oh, did it again, did I?” the old man said, casting a grateful smile at R. “What would I do without you, lad? This place would fall apart without you.”

R preened at the praise, small as it was. Kaz, watching, was glad for his young friend. It looked like he’d finally found a place where he belonged.

. . .

They decided to head to the pub after work to catch up, which Kaz was glad for; the first day of work in any new place was exhausting. 

“Can you hold your liquor now, Freddie?” Kaz teased.

The younger man rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Victoria still casts a gimlet eye on me when I imbibe alcohol in her presence.”

Kaz snorted. “She’s entitled to it, in my opinion.”

“Yes. She is. My dad still doesn’t know the details of that little misadventure. He has his suspicions, but he hasn’t heard a whisper of it from her.”

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

Kaz tried to ignore the scene playing out in front of him. After all, the lad was only trying to make friends. Who was Kaz to tell him that they were the wrong sort? 

Besides, from what he already knew of the boy, he was proud, independent, desperately stubborn, and did whatever he wanted. Granted, he was pretty responsible and mature for a twelve-year-old (Kaz could remember what he was like at that age), but he was still inexperienced in the real world.

“It’s at my place,” the star player on the rugby team told Freddie with a lazy smirk. He rattled off an address in an area known to be the rowdy part of the college town. 

“Yeah, okay,” the boy replied eagerly. “I’ll be there.”

Kaz could well understand the draw of the invitation. The other student, Johnny Stephens, was older and cooler and alluringly popular, and Freddie, by his own admission, desperately wanted to fit in. 

Kaz wanted to intervene, but Stephens wasn’t doing anything wrong (and in fact looked to be doing the kind and charitable thing by inviting the small misfit). As the instructor for the class, he couldn’t really step in otherwise, could he?

But he had a bad feeling about this. The rugby team’s parties were known to be rowdy, and he didn’t want the kid getting hurt, in more ways than one. 

Bernie Stanton, another of the rugby crowd, slung an arm around Freddie’s skinny little shoulders and gave him a noogie with the knuckles of his other hand. 

“We can go in my car,” he was saying, “I’ll pick you up in front of your place. Eight alright, or is that past your bedtime?”

It was a sign of just how much Freddie wanted to be friends with them that he ignored the indignity and merely smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, and Kaz gritted his teeth.

‘Don’t blow up, don’t blow up.’ He repeated the internal mantra, knowing well his fiery temper when he got riled. He’d gotten into enough trouble in the past because of it, hadn’t he?

They were making their way out of the lecture hall while Kaz pretended to be busy packing his notes up. Freddie looked so small next to the large, hulking figures. 

“Mr. Lyon,” Kaz found himself saying, “a word?”

“Ooohhh,” the others ragged. “You’re in trouble now.”

Rolling his eyes, Freddie walked back to the front of the room where Kaz was trying to formulate how to say what he had to say.

“Mr. Ishida?” he said with exaggerated, mocking respect.

“Don’t go to that party, Freddie,” Kaz said at last. 

The kid looked taken aback. “Why not? What, you don’t want me to make friends?”

“They’re a bad sort, Freddie,” Kaz warned. “You don’t want to be friends with the likes of them.”

“I’ll choose my own friends, thanks.” As predicted, Freddie’s tone was positively arctic. “Have a good afternoon, sir.”

Kaz watched the haughty little figure depart, and cursed.

Damn, he’d done it again, hadn’t he?

. . . 

Eight o’clock came and went, and Kaz resolutely kept his nose out of the kid’s business.

He had, of course, heard Stanton’s vehicle arrive (late, he noted hypocritically); the whole neighborhood had heard the obnoxious honking of the bright tangerine Ferrari. He’d taken a quick peek out of the window in time to see the tiny boy climb into the back seat with what looked like a carful of other young men squeezed inside.

He’d sighed, shaken his head, and tried to concentrate on his dissertation.

By nine-thirty, he’d known that he would get no work done until the boy was home safe and sound, so he’d gotten up and stretched.

Maybe he’d take a walk around the block. It was a nice, mild night.

As he stepped out into the hall, he saw the elegant figure of Freddie’s aunt knocking on the door of room number 221.

“He’s out,” Kaz told her.

She fixed her icy blue gaze on him, and he shivered, not quite knowing why.

“Lab?” she asked. She was even more attractive up close than she had seemed when he’d observed her before with the rest of Freddie’s family. She wasn’t young, but she had an air of…allure? Sexiness? That intangible, ineffable It. 

Kaz’s mouth went inexplicably dry. “Party,” he croaked. 

A pale brow arched, asking a silent question. 

“Other students in his class invited him,” Kaz offered.

She examined him for a moment while he shifted uneasily. 

“You don’t approve.”

How she’d arrived at that conclusion, Kaz wasn’t sure, but he suddenly felt the need to confide to her his worries about the kid.

“They’re known to have some pretty wild parties,” he said hesitantly. He didn’t want to snitch on the kid, after all, but dammit, he was worried. “Drinking, drugs sometimes. I told him not to go, but he’s stubborn.”

The red lips pursed. “Do you know where?”

“Yeah, sure.” He told her the address, relieved. Then he hesitated. “You won’t be too harsh on him?” he asked, worried. He had no idea what kind of discipline Freddie’s family used. “He only wanted to make friends. You know how it is at that age. Well, maybe not you. Nerds like me though. We have a tough time making friends.”

Her face softened imperceptibly, though not a muscle moved that Kaz could see. “You can come along to make sure, if you like,” she offered.

Kaz, surprised, stammered his acquiescence, and then they were off.

“This is a really gorgeous car,” he ventured to say. It really was. The Aston Martin was definitely the fanciest vehicle he had ever been in.

“Freddie helped me pick it,” the boy’s aunt said quietly.

“He knows his cars inside and out,” Kaz agreed. “And then some. In my opinion, he doesn’t really need to be in classes. My class, anyway. It’s too elementary for him.”

“You like him.”

“He’s a good kid. Brilliant mind. Absolutely brilliant. I can’t help respecting a brain like that.”

“You’re not envious?” 

“Like the dickens,” Kaz snorted. “If I had a brain like that…I dunno what I’d be doing, but I certainly wouldn’t be struggling to finish my stupid dissertation that I absolutely hate with a passion right now. The kid churns out papers and reports like— whoa!”

The car had swung to an abrupt stop in front of a well-lit house with a short squeal of tires. The bass of the loud music inside thudded and made the car’s windows rattle.

“Sounds like a fun party,” Kaz said in a low voice. 

His companion’s lips were pressed into a tight line as she led the way to the wide-open door, leaving the sports car double-parked and blocking the street. Apparently, traffic laws didn’t apply to people like her.

They picked their way past necking couples and stumbling, laughing dancers who were definitely inebriated at the very least. The air was hazy with smoke. 

Kaz found himself glancing into corners and behind furniture – the kid was so tiny he could easily get lost in this dark, ear-shattering environment. Then he scolded himself; the boy wasn’t that small…but he was, compared to Kaz’s admittedly abnormal height of nearly six and a half feet. But he was young, and the young were easily led astray by those who didn’t have their best interests in mind…like Pinocchio. 

‘Och, fur feck’s sake, Kaz,’ he grumbled to himself, ‘Git a haud o’ yersel’.’

Suddenly, Kaz sensed a change in Freddie’s aunt’s bearing, and she glided – stalked – her way toward a group of laughing lads. 

“Here, give ‘im more!” Stephens was crowing, and Stanton ceremoniously poured more liquid into the plastic cup held in a wobbly hand. 

“Frederick Lyon,’ the boy’s aunt hissed, and Kaz didn’t know how they all heard it over the pounding music, but everyone froze. 

Ruddy-cheeked, glasses askew, with his hair messier than ever, the boy blinked unfocused eyes up at them. “Who?” he finally said after a few moments too long. 

“You,” the woman ground out, and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pushing him toward Kaz, who caught the stumbling boy. The plastic cup and its contents were lost somewhere along the way.

“Ohhhh, tha’ss righ’!” Freddie slurred happily, still oblivious to his aunt’s frosty anger. “Feddy Line, tha’ss mee!”

“Take him to the car,” his aunt snapped at Kaz, and then she turned to the older boys, who looked completely unaffected by the scene, the assholes. 

“It was only a bit of fun,” Stephens laughed. “Get the whole experience of Cambridge life. It’s a rite of passage.”

Stanton backed his friend up. “Yeah, it’s no big deal.” 

“No big deal?” Freddie’s aunt said, and another shiver went down Kaz’s spine, although the others seemed not to notice the danger wafting off of the woman. “A bit of fun? He’s twelve years old.”

“Ann’ Tory?” the boy said, suddenly a little more alert, “You won’ hurt them?”

The lads laughed. Kaz did not, nor did the woman. Only a titter went around the rest of the room, as they had more sense than the two young men at the center of her ire. 

“Go to the car,” she ordered.

Kaz ushered the boy away, past the young men and women who had been dancing and laughing not minutes before but were now still and silent. 

Freddie tried to pull out of his grasp and linger, but Kaz tugged at him to keep moving. He wasn’t about to disobey that woman. She was terrifying for some reason he couldn’t fathom. 

Outside the house the boy suddenly decided to let loose and vomit. Luckily, he just barely missed Kaz’s shoes, but it was a close call. 

Kaz never found out what went on inside that house – the stories that went around in the weeks after were much too wild to have actually happened, and any authorities who tried to investigate found themselves presented with deliriously ludicrous stories that they had to discount. All Kaz knew was that the woman came out of the house several minutes later with not a hair out of place in her perfect coiffure, and the lads decided not to return to Cambridge the following Monday…or ever. 

“Get in,” Freddie’s aunt told them tersely, and they drove off in silence. 

They had to stop once so the boy could vomit again, but they soon made it back to Freddie’s room. He was snoring away, so Kaz carried him up. He was so small and light, and the guilt churned in Kaz’s stomach. If he hadn’t been so clumsy in trying to stop him…

Once they’d put him to bed, carefully positioning him on his side, Kaz stood back and shifted nervously from foot to foot. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself now that the boy was home. Well, the aunt was here, wasn’t she? So he should probably…

“I’ve got it from here,” she told him. 

“Right.” He shifted again. “I’ll just…er…I’m down the hall. 229. If you need anything.”

“Thank you for your assistance,” she said, and her voice sounded a little softer, gentler, “Good night, Mr. Ishida.”

“Good night,” he answered, and it was only days later that he realized that she’d used his surname, which he hadn’t told her. Maybe the kid had.

. . . 

The following morning, after a sleepless night, he went out to the bakery down the street and brought back breakfast: an assortment of pastries and tea (one English Breakfast for her, one Earl Grey for the midget, and one gunpowder green for himself). On an afterthought, he picked up a packet of plain crackers and a bottle of aspirin with a wry smirk. 

Freddie’s Aunt Tory raised a brow at him when she answered the door, but thanked him graciously. 

“He’s still dead to the world,” she remarked drolly. 

“Right,” Kaz said. He held up his backpack, which held a stack of lab reports and exams. “Do you mind if I stay and get some grading done?”

He wondered belatedly if it was rude to invite himself into someone’s room, especially when the owner of said room was in a drunken slumber. 

“Suit yourself.”

It was close to noon when Freddie woke up, and boy, did he wake up with a bang. 

He groaned, moaned, and proceeded to empty his stomach into the conveniently-placed receptacle held in front of his face by his grim-faced aunt. 

“Please kill me. I want to die,” he sobbed between retches. 

Looking very slightly amused, Aunt Tory put her hand on the back of her nephew’s sweaty neck and squeezed a little. “Are you sure about that?” she drawled. “I’d be happy to oblige.”

The boy spit a final mouthful of bile into the trash can and curled into a miserable ball of suffering amid his damp sheets. “You’re bluffing because you know I’m being overly dramatic and you’re sadistic.”

“How am I sadistic?” 

“You’re enjoying my suffering. Schadenfreude.”

The woman didn’t deny the accusation and only tugged at the boy to get him upright enough to drink a bottle of water and down some aspirin. Then she forced him to nibble exactly two and a half crackers before she let him lie back down.

“Oh, god, I’m dying.”

“Go back to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.” Kaz had the feeling that she was not usually given to gentleness, but she said it comfortingly enough, and she accompanied it with soft caresses on the aching head.

“I’m not going to wake up. I tell you I’m dying. There’s a rotting skunk carcass in my mouth and a googolplex of jackhammers in my head.”

“Hush and go to sleep, dear.”

. . .

Kaz had finished his grading and had moved on to catching up on his reading by the time late afternoon rolled around. There was a stack of academic journals that he’d been putting off reading, and now seemed like a good time to do it. 

Was he loitering and dawdling?

Of course not! He definitely needed to get this reading done. Lots of cutting-edge technology within these pages, and there could be an article amid the dross that could set off the spark of inspiration for a whole new project. It was always that hope of hidden treasure that spurred him on. 

Inevitably, however, the dry language of academia put him to sleep. 

‘...Actuated by pneumatic processes…’ faded into the sounds of muffled crying.

“I want to go home.” 

“Oh, darling,” came the whispered reply, “it can’t be that bad.”

“I don’t belong here. I want to go home.”

“It’s not like you to give up, Danny.”

The slightly alert part of Kaz’s brain raised its head. The kid’s name was Freddie, wasn’t it? Weird. Oh well. Maybe ‘Danny’ was a nickname or some such, he rationalized, and settled back to half-sleep.

“It’s too hard. I can’t do it.” It was accompanied by a loud sniffle. 

Aw, kid. 

“The schoolwork?”

“No! That’s easy. It’s always easy. Books. Theories.” Kaz could imagine the expression on the lad’s face: proud and disdainful. “I could do it all with my eyes closed. But I don’t know how to act around these people. I can’t be normal.”

“You’re not like the others, luv. You’re completely unique, and that’s perfectly fine. But give these people another chance. Perhaps not those bastards from last night, but others. Kaz. Other classmates. Isn’t there anyone else who’s not an arse?”

Kaz mentally agreed with the woman. There were definitely lots of people around who weren’t absolute bastards like those two.

“I’m the asshole, Aunt Victoria. I don’t know how not to be.”

Aw, lad. Well, not exactly untrue, but he was young. Kids tended to be brats at that age.

“That’s something you can work on, luv.”

“Don’t tell my dad? I won’t do it again.”

“I told your father you’d be fine on your own.” Uh oh. Kaz winced. That was the ‘responsible adult’ voice people did. 

“I know. I know you vouched for me. I swear. I won’t do it again. Ever. I thought it would be fun. And they said they’d look after me. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have trusted them.”

A sigh. “You wanted to fit in.”

“I’ll never fit in anywhere. I’ll simply have to accept that.” Another sniffle.

“You’ll find a place where you do belong.” 

Kaz cracked an eyelid open and saw the blurry outline of the kid’s aunt perched on the side of the bed, stroking his head and back soothingly. The kid was a miserable little ball swamped in the bedclothes.

“I won’t. But it’s okay. I don’t need friends anyway.” It was said with bravado, but a waver cracked the young voice. 

“What about him? He’s not your friend?” Kaz imagined that Aunt Tory – Victoria, obviously – glanced over at him as she said it. 

“He’s…he’s my instructor. Wouldn’t be right to call him a friend, would it?” The kid’s voice was sort of pleading for her to contradict him. 

“I think you can be friends with anyone you want, darling.” Internally, Kaz agreed with her wholeheartedly, but he gave no outward sign that he was awake. At least, he hoped he didn’t. 

“Then I guess he’s my friend. If he wants to be. What kind of adult would want to be friends with a kid, anyway?” There was a rustling of bedsheets as the kid in question shifted. 

“Depends on the adult. Depends on the kid. I don’t think he’s very good at making friends, either. Besides, don’t you have a dozen correspondences going on with scientists across the world? They’re not friends?”

There was the sound of something between a sniff and a huff. “I’m sure they don’t think of me as a friend. Maybe as someone to mentor and cultivate, but not a friend.”

“Perhaps.”

“So are you going to tell Dad?” Insistent. 

Understandable. Kaz would want to know, too, in his position. 

“No, I won’t tell him, if only because he would be horrified that you were drinking that awful potato vodka.”

Freddie (Danny?) giggled. “He would probably disown me, wouldn’t he?”

“Very likely. That man is such a snob.”

“I didn’t like it anyway,” the kid confided, and that was the end of the conversation.

Victoria gave Kaz a knowing look when he feigned waking up soon after, muttering about boring articles and stretching his long limbs until his joints popped.

“Oh hey. You’re still alive, midget,” he said carelessly and maybe a little louder than necessary. He didn’t bother to stifle his amusement at the absolute wretchedness the boy was exuding. “I’m starving. How about you? I could go for a curry.”

The kid immediately turned green and grabbed the trash can. “Go to hell, Kaz,” he muttered once he’d overcome the sudden surge of bile. 

“Och! Nice way to thank me for looking out for you.”

“Sod off.”

. . . . .

Chapter Text

2002

Cambridge University, England

The kid spent the week after the party avoiding Kaz. 

He’d emerged from the terrible, awful hangover rather embarrassed and not a little upset. 

Embarrassed that Kaz had seen him in that state. 

Upset at the two lads who’d taken advantage of his youth to have a bit of fun at his expense. Upset at himself for falling prey to them. Upset at his aunt for treating him like a child by pulling him out of the party in front of everyone. And ultimately, upset at Kaz for tattling on him to his aunt. 

Probably. At least that was what Kaz imagined was going through the lad’s mind, anyway. That was what he’d be feeling in that situation. Of course, he wasn’t a twelve-year-old polymath, so what did he know, anyway? But, he thought, that’s what the kid was feeling and was the reason he’d suddenly stopped coming to his room and the robotics lab.

Catesby from the chemistry department, who’d obviously thought that he could use the boy to make a name for himself – (Kaz had thoughts about that, but it wasn’t really his business, was it?) – had granted Freddie-Danny-whatever some space in his lab to play, so he spent most of his time that week in the chemistry building…until The Incident. 

Kaz would be the first to say that being in a bad mood around explosives tends to result in…explosions. 

The kid, it seemed, was no exception, and made a particularly impressive blow-up that resulted in the fire department being called and the building being evacuated and, of course, for his father to be summoned. 

Kaz had glimpsed the two of them in the hallway of their living quarters after the furor had died down, and he had never seen a man look so exasperated as Mr. Lyon did at that moment. 

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Danny,” he was saying, rubbing a hand over his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. “This place is not equipped to handle accidents of your magnitude. We’ve talked about this.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” the lad had said, shoulders hunched and head hanging, and definitely avoiding Kaz’s concerned gaze as they passed by each other. He smelled like chemical smoke.

Well, Kaz had reasoned, at least Victoria hadn’t told Freddie’s father about the drinking, else he probably would have stopped Kaz for a chat. Kaz was glad for that, actually, since he had no idea what he’d say if the fact that he hadn’t taken proper care of Cambridge’s precious new jewel got out to the higher-ups. Probably some kind of write-up. Definitely a talking-to. He was too close to the end of his studies to risk anything.

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

“Remember the time you blew up Catesby’s lab?” 

“Oh god, no,” Freddie groaned, “Why did you have to bring that up? He hated me after that. Absolutely despised me.”

Kaz snorted. “And then there was–”

“Noo.” The lad was hiding his face in his hands, red-tipped ears sticking out from behind them. 

“Basically everyone there, eh?” Kaz laughed. “Burned bridges all around, except for me. Literal fire in some cases.”

“Not everyone,” Freddie huffed and drank his beer, of which he was carefully taking only small sips to make it last. Evidently, he had learned his lesson. “I was there for years after you left, you know. I managed to figure out how to get along with people, more or less.”

“Average, ordinary, unremarkable people, you mean?” Kaz teased. 

“Yes, people like you,” Freddie huffed, his nose in the air. Then he glanced over at Kaz and dissolved into giggles, just like he used to. “God, I was such a pretentious little brat.”

“Still are, in my opinion,” Kaz snorted through a mouthful of vindaloo curry. Extra spicy, just the way he liked it.

“You’ve been back on British soil how long? I’ve changed, thanks.”

“Ach, speaking of being back, I haven’t had a proper curry since I left,” Kaz moaned, scraping the last bit of spicy manna from heaven off of his plate. “Germans don’t do it right. I want another.” He hailed the waitress like one would a cab and was rewarded with an annoyed look. Ah, London.

“Came back just for the curry, then?” Freddie shook his head, amused, and ate his own dinner at a more sedate pace. 

“Of course. What else?”

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

After another week of the kid very definitely avoiding him, even going so far as to skip his class, Kaz decided to be an adult and fix things. He was an engineer, wasn’t he? He could fix things just as well as he could break them. 

So he pounded on the door of 221 when he knew for certain that the boy was in, until it finally opened to reveal a sour-faced preteen glaring up at him. 

“It’s two in the morning. What do you want?”

“Wanna kick my ass?” Kaz offered without preamble. 

Freddie stared sullenly for a moment. “Let me get changed.”

The walk over to the campus gym was a silent one, but Kaz didn’t mind. He was too busy cursing his awkwardness and dreading what would come out of his mouth next. He wasn’t exactly known for his tact.

He needn’t have worried, as the next hour was taken up first with picking the lock of the dark and empty gym, then with strikes, grapples, and blocks, which occupied their minds too much to deal with conversation. 

“Ah, shit!” With another curse, he was on his ass…again. “Alright, I’m done,” he groaned and gingerly picked himself up. “You’ve battered my pride enough for today, bairn, and it’s only three in the bloody morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Kaz said, and rubbed his sore hip.

“I mean–” the boy started awkwardly, then seemed to steel himself. “I shouldn’t have been angry at you these past couple of weeks. It was immature of me to avoid you.”

“Were you avoiding me?” Kaz said, pretending not to have noticed. He took a swig of his water. “I thought you were busy blowing things up in places not my lab. Considerate of you, I thought.”

Freddie grimaced. “I suppose it was serendipitous that I wasn’t in your lab when it happened. If it had to be anywhere, I’m glad that it was in Catesby’s.”

Kaz guffawed. “Aye, right! He’s right famous for bein’ an arse. You’re everyone’s hero,” he proclaimed, drawing a giggle from his companion. 

“I meant,” Freddie started again, sobering. “What I meant was that I’m grateful to you for looking out for me and telling me not to go, even though I did, and I was very rude to you, and thank you for telling my aunt where I’d gone because I suppose it was a good thing that you guys came when you did before I could make even more of a fool of myself–” he said all in one breath.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Okay?”

“Aye.”

“Okay.”

They sat there a little awkwardly.

Kaz cleared his throat. “Your father. He wouldn’t hurt you if he found out?” 

There were plenty of parents who pushed their kids to be the best, especially among the higher echelons of talent and ability. Sometimes, the way and amount they pushed went beyond the limits of acceptable. He certainly knew all about it: Asian, tiger parents, ‘why aren’t you studying to be a real doctor like your father and sister?’ and all the rest.

“No! He would never hurt me.”

“Good.” He paused. “There’s ways of hurting with words, too, not only slapping your kid around. And other stuff.” Och, awkward, awkward, awkward.

“Yes. I’ve read about physical, emotional, and verbal abuse. I would be fine, if he ever found out. But I’d rather not risk the lecture that I would get. He really knows how to make lessons stick.” Freddie wrinkled his nose. “Not in an abusive way. Just knows exactly what to say to make you feel like an arse.”

“Alright, then. Glad we cleared that up. Let's set stuff on fire.”

“Here?”

“No, midget. Somewhere we can’t do any damage. Obviously.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

They caught each other’s eyes and burst out laughing. 

. . . . .

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

Kaz settled into his new life at MI-bloody-6 soon enough. It was…not as interesting as one might think, actually. Sure, he was now officially involved in espionage, but he wasn’t actually doing any bloody spying, was he? Lab work was lab work.

Anyway, he did his job and then he visited the gorgeous on-site gym, where he was sometimes joined by Freddie, who never failed to put him on his ass, the little pipsqueak. At least it wasn’t as humiliating as it used to be. 

He and Freddie were having a good, refreshing spar when a man walked in and started watching them. Kaz didn’t have time to pay much attention to him, as he was busy trying not to die, but he was definitely feeling a little judged by the time the round was over. The man was, without a doubt, giving off ‘I’m watching you’ vibes.

Freddie gave Kaz a hand up, then turned to their observer with a wide grin. “Hey! You’re back!”

The man, who wore a scarred leather jacket that looked like it had seen some action and was just as cool and badass as the man himself, glared at Kaz and sized him up, arms crossed. 

“Who’s this?”

What, was the man jealous or something? Either way, he was exuding surly cockiness and so much badassery that it ruffled Kaz’s feathers a bit. A lot. He would, despite his fiery nickname, never be as cool as this guy obviously was, just standing there. A chap could definitely develop a complex being in the same room as this uber-masculine specimen of a man for too long. 

Freddie didn’t notice. Or maybe this was what the man was always like. “This is Dr. Kazuya Ishida, our new robotics lead,” he said, “Kaz, this is 006, Alec Trevelyan.”

“Oh, you’re one of the charming assholes everyone’s been warning me about.” Actually, what Padma had said was that Trevelyan was the most charming asshole he’d ever meet, with the exception of James Bond. “I’m supposed to keep out of your way.” 

Kaz made sure that the guy knew that he wasn’t backing down. Whatever weird alpha-dog claim this Trevelyan thought he had on Freddie, Kaz had been here first. 

Trevelyan gave him another slow look-over, then snorted, dropping the tense posturing. “Oh god, now there’s two of you!” he exclaimed, shaking his head as though in dismay. “Is this how they make boffins now? Snarky, skinny, and can throw a punch? What do you even need me for?”

“Kaz is shit at seducing women,” Freddie explained, the little bastard.

“Hey!”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Arsehole. Just because he might have witnessed a couple of clumsy encounters when Kaz was still Mr. Ishida rather than Dr. didn’t mean that he was that bad at talking to women. 

“So are you,” he immediately shot back. He didn’t know this for certain, but there was no way the awkward little pipsqueak was better at it than he was. 

“I’m gay, Kaz. Of course I don’t seduce women.” And then he rolled his eyes as though he'd given a proper answer. 

Trevelyan’s gaze bounced between the two of them, looking increasingly amused the longer he stood there. “He’s shit at seducing men,” he offered, and waited for Freddie’s reaction. 

“I- You-” he sputtered. “When have you ever seen me trying to seduce a man?”

“Ooh,” Kaz commented. “Defensive. You must’ve hit a sore spot.”

He thoroughly enjoyed the way Freddie was acting angry without actually being upset. Trevelyan, he now understood, was a friend , a real friend. Catching the other man’s eye, he saw that there was a mutual understanding of that fact; Kaz was Freddie’s friend , too. 

Freddie wrinkled his nose and pushed his glasses back up its bridge. “You…you two are going to gang up on me now, aren’t you?” he huffed, putting his hands on his skinny hips. 

Gray-green eyes opened wide. “Who, us?” Trevelyan asked with much too much innocence in his voice to sound sincere in any way. 

Kaz shrugged, equally virtuous. “No idea what you’re talking about, lad.”

“I hate you. I hate you both.”

He didn’t, not really.

“So they told you to stay away from us double-ohs?” Trevelyan asked Kaz conversationally, “For my health or yours?”

“Mine, yours, his…Who knows?”

Trevelyan feigned thinking about it for a moment before he nodded. “Probably all of the above.”

“Oh my god,” Freddie exclaimed like the dramatic little shit he was, “I need to punch something. Alec, come here.”

. . . . .

2002

Cambridge University, England

Kaz wanted to borrow his neighbor’s car so he could take the kid out somewhere they couldn’t do a lot of damage. 

But of course, it being past three in the morning, the selfish bastard only told them to scram, so Freddie suggested hotwiring the car instead. 

Brilliant little kid, he was. 

So they loaded the boot up with everything they’d need to make a spectacular (controlled) fire and then put it out safely, and they were off. 

And what a gorgeous bonfire they’d made. It was beautiful. 

So were the homemade fireworks Freddie had insisted on concocting on the spot. Such a fantastic, brilliant little lad, that Freddie. 

They were lying on their backs watching the gradual lightening of the sky when the kid spoke up. 

“Kaz?” His name had never been uttered with such a combination of nervousness and momentousness. 

“Aye, lad?” Kaz yawned. He was used to staying up all hours of the night, just like the kid, but lying back like this made him sleepy. 

“Are you—Are we friends?”

Kaz let him stew a bit. Just a bit. 

“What do you think? You think I let just anyone tell me how to blow things up when I’ve been setting things on fire for twenty years?” 

The kid had taken charge of the setting-fire process from the start. Kaz had let him, seeing how happy he looked. Operation Cheer the Kid Up was turning out to be a success. 

Freddie giggled and rolled over onto an elbow to look at him. “I’ve got to hear that story.”

“Well, the first time, I only wanted to see what would happen. The second time I wanted to make sure.”

“Very scientific of you.”

“The third time was for the hell of it.”

Freddie gave a jaw-cracking yawn of his own and flopped back onto the grass. “Same here.”

“Yeah? Tell me yours.”

Freddie stretched. “My dad tells it better than I do, but here goes. When I was two years old, I made a bomb out of a toaster.”

“Sounds about right.”

“No shock? No protestations of disbelief?”

Kaz didn’t check, but he was sure the kid was looking at him with an incredulous expression. 

“Lad, if you told me you’d invented a way to teleport at the age of seven, I’d believe you.” He would. 

Freddie snorted. “If I’d done that, people would be using it by now.”

“The government would want to cover it up and keep it for themselves, wouldn’t they?”

“Kaz? Are you a conspiracy theorist?”

Kaz rolled over towards the kid who looked very amused. “I don’t like labels.” He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper and widened his eyes for maximum effect. He was sure he looked absolutely mad in the flickering light of the fire. “It’s only a way for them to find you and control you.” 

“Oh my god, Kaz,” the kid laughed, which was what Kaz was going for. “You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s Almost Dr. Kaz to you, midget.”

“Like I said. Utterly ridiculous.”

“You were telling me about this toaster bomb.”

“Bombs. Plural.”

“Of course there was more than one. Go on, then. Tell me about the toaster bombs. And while you’re at it, let’s set up the next firework,” Kaz said, sitting up and rubbing his hands eagerly.

“You’re so weird, Kaz.”

“What, you don’t like setting things on fire?” Kaz honestly couldn’t imagine anyone not having a bit of pyromania, especially someone with a healthy bit of curiosity like Freddie. 

“I do, but your enthusiasm for it is something special,” Freddie grinned, not budging to help him, the lazy little arse. “You know what? I hereby dub thee ‘Blaze.’”

“Blaze?” Kaz sat back on his heels, rolling the name over on his tongue. “Blaze. Alright, I guess that’s cool enough for me.” 

Kaz was well aware that he did not come off as a cool kind of guy in any way whatsoever, despite his hobbies of setting things on fire, martial arts, and rock climbing, among others. Oh, and he made robots. But he didn’t look cool, nor did he have a cool aura. 

But now he had a cool nickname.

Blaze.

“Thanks, kid. And I hereby dub thee ‘Midget.’”

“Kaaaz!”

. . . . .

Chapter Text

2010

MI6 HQ, London, UK

“...and Dr. Ishida, please have the report in my inbox by 15:00 today.”

Kaz, slumped far down in his seat, saluted him lazily with the pen he was using to doodle on the margin of a notepad. A flock of origami cranes was lined up in front of him. “Aye, right, midget.”

R shook his head at him and brought the meeting to a close with an annoyed huff. 

Kaz unfolded himself from his chair limb by long limb and stretched. Bloody boring meetings. Waste of time, most of them. This one was with the heads of all the departments in Q-Branch, but Q hadn’t been able to make it due to some other meeting or something. That meant that R got to preside instead of it being canceled or postponed. This place really loved their meetings, and they didn’t even have the grace to provide them with comfortable chairs to make up for them. Probably didn’t want people sleeping through them or something, even though Kaz was very talented and could sleep anywhere. The only reason he was awake for this one was out of deference to his friend.  

One of the other men (Michaels, Michaelson, or something…head of computers or IT, wasn’t it?) stopped him as he was about to leave the conference room. 

“Why are you so disrespectful to R?” he asked with a disapproving frown. “He’s young, but he is our superior.”

The other heads – R had already left – hung back to listen, nodding their agreement with Michaels or Michaelson or whatever his name was.

Kaz looked around at them, and decided, why not? It wasn’t like they didn’t know that the kid was a genius. That was hardly a state secret, was it? 

“I’m an equal opportunity asshole, actually. I’m disrespectful to everyone, but specifically, I went to school with him,” he shrugged, “He was even one of my students in his first year of uni. We were mates before we came here. He knows any disrespect I show him is because I like him. Besides, I stayed awake for this one, didn’t I?”

A woman – she’d mentioned something about ducks at the meeting, so she must be, what, head of biotech? – leaned in curiously. “You were his teacher? What was that like?”

Kaz snorted. “Have you ever met anyone who has no remorse about making you feel like a special kind of idiot in a lecture room full of people you’re meant to be teaching?” he asked, deadpan. 

There were winces and cringes all around. While they had not experienced it for themselves for the most part, they knew exactly what their Assistant Quartermaster could be like when he got going. 

“Yeah,” Kaz said, “Exactly. And that was before he installed a filter on his brain. Glad to find out he’s grown out of doing it to his friends. Now I get to make it up to him by calling him names in front of the people he works with. Terms of endearment, of course. But some of them are pretty embarrassing.”

“You’re not scared he’ll retaliate?” Michaelson (right, that was his name!) asked, a little tentatively. “He’s not really the type to back down or take slights without paying them back.”

“He knew exactly what he was getting himself into when he hired me,” Kaz pointed out. “It’s not like I’ve become less of an asshole over the years. Besides, any resentment he’s got, he can take it out on me in the gym.”

With that, he walked out, leaving his colleagues wondering if he knew exactly what he had gotten himself into. After all, they had witnessed R putting more than one double-oh on his ass when they underestimated him, and he in no way limited himself to physical means of revenge.

“Should we tell him?”

. . . . .

2011

It was one year into his employment at MI6 when Kaz was interrupted in his very important, but rather repetitive work. 

“Dr. Ishida.”

Kaz glanced up at his visitor from the screen where he was observing the action of his Smart Blood nanobot prototype version 3.3. “Hey, Dr. Whatever-you’re-calling-yourself-today.”

Freddie huffed and crossed his arms. “Still R, Kaz.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s occurred to me lately that you seem a little…bored.” R sounded a little guilty, probably because he was the one who’d brought Kaz to MI6. Which was ridiculous. 

Kaz shrugged and returned to his work. “It’s alright. Get to the point, pipsqueak.” He waved a hand at him. “Busy man.”

“I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening,” Kaz said while making some corrections to the coding. “Might not look it, but I can multitask.”

“How would you like to be Indiana Jones?” R said in that voice he used when he was smirking and looking smug and excited all at once. 

Alright. That had Kaz’s attention, one hundred percent. He fixed his gaze on his friend and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “See, you’re better at this than that idiot Smith.”

“Oh, you got Smith, too?” Another tech, Whatsherface – the annoying one…Padma – broke in because scientists on the whole tended to be nosy and curious and liked to eavesdrop, which would make them pretty good spies if not for the dearth of common sense. “She was terrible.”

“I got a he Smith,” Kaz told her. 

R rolled his eyes and heaved an impatient sigh. “They’re all called Smith. Anyway—”

“Who’d you get, pipsqueak?” What? Kaz wanted to know, and he wasn’t the only one, judging by the number of heads that popped up from their work like a gang of eager meerkats.

R sighed again, knowing he’d get nowhere unless he answered the question. (He knew Kaz so well.) “006, M, Q, and Tanner.”

“Ooh, Mr. Big Shot,” Padma teased.

Kaz snorted. “I’m surprised they didn’t get the queen down to do it, or the PM at least. This lad had Hawking, Nash, and all the rest drooling to get him to study with them, and turned them all down.”

“Still on that, Kaz?” R said over the rush of excited whispers that this new revelation brought from the minions. 

“Always. Stephen Bloody Hawking, lad. Anyway, what’s this about Indiana Jones?”

“Oh, you’re finally interested in hearing about it, are you?” R sniffed, feigning pique like the little shit he was.

“Alright, alright. I’m listening. My complete attention is on you. No commentary to distract from your monumental purpose.” Kaz sat and folded his hands in front of him like a good little schoolboy. 

“Thank you. As you know,” R began in full lecture mode, “on the whole, the biggest financial and labor drain on our division is from the loss of equipment in the field. Financial loss obviously comes from the technology being lost and often even repurposed by enemies of the state. Additionally, the labor that goes into the equipment is wasted for the same reasons. Waste of labor leads to waste of finances in the form of wages, which comes from taxpayer money. Loss of technology also leads to waste of materials, some of which are incredibly rare—Kaz, you’re zoning out.”

Kaz looked at his friend, who had his hands on his hips, just like Kaz’s mum did when she was scolding him and his sister (but more him than the goody-two-shoes). 

“Are you practicing for a presentation to beg for more money?”

R let out a slow breath through his nose like he was battling a headache and telling himself to be patient. “Maybe. In any case, this concerns you, so please pay attention, Blaze.”

“Me? And how?”

“I want you to head the proposed Equipment Retrieval Unit.”

“Come again?”

Padma, never slow on the uptake, clapped her hands. “Oh, that sounds amazing! A team to get our stuff back!”

“Why me? I’m a scientist, not a golden retriever!”

“A scientist with an adrenaline addiction who’s been bored since…what, the first time I met you? Save for the times when you’re doing something that risks your life or mimics it.” 

Okay, Kaz had to give him that. His last vacation had included skydiving, which was something he was definitely trying again. 

R gave him a satisfied nod, knowing exactly what Kaz was thinking. “In fact,” he continued, “I’ve a suspicion that you’d be a brilliant field agent with a bit of training, save for the fact that you’re absolute shit with people.”

Really? That was both flattering and insulting at the same time. 

“You say that like you’re not the same.”

“Yes or no, Kaz?”

Kaz shrugged. “Fine. Sounds fun. Who else is on the team?”

R rewarded him with a pleased look that made him feel slightly squishy inside, damn the kid. “I want a mix of scientists who score high on field tests and agents with a strong scientific background. They’re the most likely to come back with both themselves and the equipment in as intact a state as possible. I’ve chosen a selection of candidates. You can have your pick of them.” 

He set a tablet on the table in front of Kaz. Padma tried to peer over his shoulder, but he shooed her away, the nosy bint. She made a face at him that told him he’d be in for a pestering once R was gone. 

R glanced between the two of them, looking amused for some mysterious reason. “Rotating team of six, not including you. Scientists joined MI6 to do cutting-edge research, and I assume field agents don’t want to spend all of their time treasure hunting. They’ll work in the unit on a part-time basis, except for you, who’ll manage them. I’m thinking a dozen total.”

Kaz leaned back in his seat, turning it all over in his mind, for once serious. (He could be serious when he needed to.) “Have you got funding for it yet?”

“Not yet, but we will.”

“That confident?”

R finally got rid of that cool, collected exterior and let his excitement show. “I’ve got Q’s support already,” he said, nearly bouncing on his toes. “All I have to do is to convince M. You know how Tanner calls her the Queen of Numbers. If I show her how much we’d save, she’ll get on board, and with her backing, it’ll pass.”

Kaz groaned and shook his head. “Yer head's floating in th' clouds, lad. This is the real world. I know I’m fairly new here, but money people are the same all over. They don’t spend it on things people want, only stupid expensive useless things.”

“Just you watch me, Ishida.”

“Ten quid, laddie.”

“That’s ten pounds you could have spent on vindaloo.”

. . . . .

Several weeks later…

“Dr. Ishida.”

“Dr. Shrimpy.”

Behind him, Dr. ‘My Name is Not Padmé Amidala for the Hundredth Time You Asshole’ let out a high-pitched snort. Kaz would never admit to anyone, ever, that he might have continued with his name-calling just for the amusement of his fellow minions. He’d found his home here, just like Freddie and the others, and he could be entirely himself and no one batted an eye…after the first few months of confusion.

This time, R was not to be deterred from his triumphant announcement. “You owe me ten quid.”

“Aye, right!” Kaz said in disbelief while the other minions whooped and squealed in excitement around him. “You got funding?”

“I did, Team Leader.”

“Bloody hell,” Kaz said, a little dazed.

R suddenly looked uncertain. “Are you…alright with this, Kaz?” he asked quietly, “You don’t have to do it if you—”

“Haud yer wheesht, laddie!” Kaz demanded. “I’m doing it! You can call me Dr. Jones from now on.”

“Alright, Dr. Jones,” R said, giving him a brilliant crinkle-eyed smile. He held out a tablet. “Sign here, please.”

. . . . .

The next day…

Kaz clattered into the main room of Q-Branch, where the missions were run. He gave a quick look around to see that he wasn’t interrupting some major action scene or whatever (he wasn’t) before he sauntered over to where R was standing at his station. 

R’s face was unreadable as he took in Kaz’s outrageous outfit. 

“What are you wearing?”

“My disguise,” Kaz said, adjusting his visor and removing his large sunglasses, replacing them with his usual black-framed glasses. “I’m a silly Asian tourist. Busloads of us everywhere, and we all look pretty much interchangeable.”

He was very satisfied with his costume: the tucked-in t-shirt (decorated with nonsense English) paired with cargo shorts and white socks, and a backpack pulled snugly against his back. He’d had a bit of trouble that morning with security, but it was worth the look on Freddie’s face. The selfie stick and large camera, Kaz thought, were an excellent final touch. 

“Kaz,” Freddie groaned, “you can’t say stuff like that. You’ve done the HR trainings.”

“Aye, right,” Kaz waved aside his manager’s concerns. “Click click, watch the stupid video, click, done. Besides, I’m a minority; I can be racist if I want. Anyway. What do you think, for the ERU thing? I’m half Chinese, half Japanese. Might as well use the stereotype. I’ll blend right in and pretend not to understand when they catch me wandering somewhere I shouldn’t be. ‘You speak-a Chinese-a?’” he demonstrated with the accent he’d picked up from his mum. 

R collapsed into the chair that a helpful – yet giggling – minion had pushed into place behind him. He gave a groan into his hands that was almost a frustrated sob. “Why me?” Kaz thought he heard him mutter. 

R gave another shoulder-heaving sigh and straightened, fixing Kaz and his bizarre outfit with a resigned look. “Okay, maybe it’s not a terrible idea. I’ll run it by Q and Tanner.”

“And,” Kaz added, “I thought I could do ‘harmless Japanese businessman,’ too. What do you think?”

R’s face twitched. The minions tittered around them. “Don’t overdo it.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Kaz said, waving the selfie stick at him. “I went out like this and no one gave me a second glance. Asked a nice policeman for directions to Big Ben even though it was right there and I could see just how much he hated his life while he did it. And then I asked him to take a picture of me and I did the peace sign…backwards. Didn’t suspect a thing. Look.” 

He leaned forward and showed a drooping R the picture on his camera. Minions around them craned to get a glimpse of the tiny screen. “And here’s the picture he took with me. A real Ingrish po-rees-man, how exciting.”

The pained look on the poor policeman’s face was in stark contrast to the overly-excited expression on Kaz’s. 

R closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m adding disguise and deception to your very long list of training,” he finally said. 

“What training?”

“How to tell the wrong end of a gun from the right end, for example. And now, how not to overdo a disguise.”

“Wicked!”

“I’ve got a headache,” R muttered, rubbing his temples. 

“You should take Xiao Yao Wan,” Kaz informed him in his Asian Tourist persona, “Xiao Yao Wan cure ebbrysing. Bery good for headache. All natulal.”

. . . . .

2013

Bond entered Q-Branch, glancing around the place and taking in any threats without dropping his seemingly nonchalant attitude. 

No threats, at least beyond the usual Q-Branch activity, which often included impromptu – but controlled – explosions. 

Put somewhat at ease (but never, ever completely), he continued to his intended destination.

There was another man — one of the techs, judging by the lab coat — loitering around Q’s desk, which didn’t pose a problem in the least. Most people scarpered as soon as they noticed a double-oh heading their way. 

This one, however, didn’t budge from where he was leaning against the desk, chatting companionably with his young quartermaster. 

Q – this Q – had taken some getting used to for Bond, who was accustomed to somewhat older people in positions of authority. The extreme youth of the new quartermaster, whom Bond had met immediately after his return from the dead, had initially thrown him for a loop, but the young man had proven his worth soon enough. 

More than. 

He was good, very good. 

Q, seeing him heading his way, gave him a quick assessing glance that, Bond knew from experience, took in not only his external appearance, but also whatever injuries he thought he might be able to hide from the sharp green eyes. 

It had become a game of sorts to see if he could hide his injuries from his quartermaster, a game he never failed to lose. 

Satisfied with what he saw, Q nodded at him. “007,” he said primly, “I hope you’ve brought your equipment back in as good a condition as you’ve brought yourself.”

Bond unholstered his gun and laid it on the table. He noticed the other man, who remained unknown to him, give it a glare like it had done him a serious offense. Then the man turned his flaming ire on him. 

On James Bond. 

Double-oh-bloody-seven, as so many of his colleagues liked to call him. 

“Ye'r th' numpty wha fed th' gun tae th' komodo dragon?” the man exploded. 

Bond merely raised an eyebrow at him, perplexed. That had been…a while ago. His first mission back from the dead.

Did this man know who he was? 

“Don’t kill him,” Q sighed. He laid a hand on the closest weapon within reach of all three of them, the gun Bond had just returned, and pointedly slid it toward himself. 

Bond thought that the quartermaster was talking to him until he said more firmly, “Blaze. Did you hear me?”

The man – Blaze – snarled and threw his hands up in a belligerent gesture that matched his name. “Ah wasn't aff tae. He's nae worth th' trauble.”

It had been a while since Bond had heard a Scottish accent as strong as that. He filed that away along with the point that Q thought that this string bean of a man could kill Bond.

“Blaze.” Q had his ‘commanding quartermaster’ voice on (never mind that it was the same one he used on his cats). “Go cool down in the gym. You know your accent gets thick when you’re upset and you sound so Scottish right now you’ve practically sprouted a kilt and a bagpipe. Go on.”

After another growl at Bond, Blaze stomped off with a strangled yell. 

Bond watched him leave, bemused. “Who was that?”

Q picked up the gun and checked it over with efficient movements. “Head of the ERUdite team.” The parts in his quick hands clicked and the gun was whole again like it hadn’t been in pieces a moment before. 

“The what?”

The clever hands paused in their work as Q looked at him with surprise. “Equipment Retrieval Unit? You seriously haven’t heard of it? It’s been up and running for over a year and you’ve never heard of the people who clean up your messes and literally pick up the pieces after you’re gone? Did you not read the memo?”

Huh. Bond thought about it for a moment. “No, I can’t say I have. He’s janitorial staff then?”

“You really are the ‘ass’ in ‘assassin,’ aren’t you, Bond?”

James Bond smiled. He lived for the times when he could put that tired, pinched, resigned, frustrated look on his quartermaster’s face. 

And that Blaze…seemed rather interesting, for a boffin.

. . . . .