Work Text
Contrary to popular belief, Q is not afraid of flying. The rumor is based on that one time he travelled to Prague to help on a mission and was all kinds of sick when coming back. He may have said out loud that he hates flying and that he "would never do it again, even if hogtied" to some witnesses on Q Division, also stating that Moneypenny should be the one going to encounter Bond in Macau.***
He has an older sister and a younger brother. His sister is happily married to a nice guy and they have two adorable children. She is the go to person when he has to leave his cats with someone during missions. She has the keys and passcodes to his flat. His brother is still single and living la vida loca. He too used to have the keys and passcodes - until the night Q arrived home to find him and a friend having a private party with two really nice ladies. He is the one who sends him hipster-clothing items that cost more than Q would spend buying a couch. Some of them are not his size or style, and Q can’t by the life of him know how to match said clothing, opting for wearing them in whatever combination that comes to mind. If the famous fashion magazine his brother works for discovers how he combines them, he might not get those donations anymore. ***
Their parents live close to London. The family is in constant contact, if not personally, by phone, real time calls and messenger apps. Contrary to regular belief, the family knows where Q works, if not the details. To the rest of the world, he works for an IT company.***
Q does have photographs with family and friends - some quite silly - on his apartment. He also has a guest bedroom in case family and friends drop by. All his furniture and belongings are normal stuff bought in regular stores. Any MI6 material he has to bring home for whatever reason goes to a vault on his closet equipped with an incinerating device in case the wrong password is typed 2 times. The agency laptop he uses has a state of the art encryption program - written by him, mind you - that does the same. ***
He mismatches his socks on a regular basis. ***
So many times his colleagues joked about him having a cat called Turing that now he calls the cat Turing. ***
Contrary to popular belief, he was not a hacker who got caught by MI6 and exchanged jail time for working for the government – although he does not correct the ones believing the story for the sake of the joke. He is the son of a working class family who graduated both in Mechanical and Computer Engineering and started a Masters in Computer Science he never had the time to finish. He had regular grades and a regular academic life. He had two jobs prior MI6, but it was when he joined the agency that he truly shined. The environment made it possible for him to pursuit knowledge in areas he could never before, finally finding his place in the world developing gadgets and hacking everything possible. He is considered a genius for doing greatly what he likes doing. Creating exploding pens prior to his Q-Branch job interview may have been the reason he was hired by MI6 - he does not correct the ones believing this for the sake of the joke too.***
His name is Andrew Shaw and he does have documents with dates of birthday and admission, a credit card, recommendation letters from his superiors disguised as coming from the IT company he "works for". If some of those documents can be seen only inside MI6, that is a different story.***
He joined MI6 as a regular employee, like it happened on any regular government agency. The interviews were hard, the tests difficult. They searched all his life and some more. He did not have a meteorically career in espionage becoming Q in the blink of an eye, or was promoted because of the explosion of the previous SIS building. He was hired as a regular technician and worked for more than six years on various positions until he became R (and then Q). ***
Being Q brings a lot of perks and a good salary. Among the perks, he can use a company car outside work (that he doesn’t use), a life insurance that covers things he doesn’t even want to think about, and all-inclusive vacations on any part of the globe. He receives job offers regularly from other agencies and the biggest IT companies in the world. They offer him scandalous amounts of money and bonus that would make a regular person blush. Q thanks each of them politely and keeps methodically saving a large amount of his income for rainy days. (He also gives nice presents to his parents, siblings, niece and nephew.) ***
He was bullied during school years and in College, more of it coming from being a nerd than liking boys. He always felt like he was older than his age, all formal manners, introversion and trusting. Those may have caused a lack of popularity, but left him with really good friends, if a few. About the bullies, he always could have hacked them or made their life hell, especially on his line of work, but with time came forgiveness. Some apologized for their previous behaviors. Two of them now work in MI6, and they go together to a pub every now and then. ***
Q is a normal guy with an extraordinary and demanding job that requires lots of commitment. He can’t be bothered by petty gossip or departmental politics when he has lives of agents depending on him being a hundred percent focused on the task at hand. He cannot afford his thoughts being somewhere else when helping a 00 during a mission, or when developing a security device. His responsibilities go beyond what is expected of a regular working person, and he has fully comprehension of what some of his actions may cause on real life outside the interior of MI6.***
Some of the stories circulating MI6 corridors, nurtured on coffee breaks and missions, are true. Some are not. He smirks at many of them, he is saddened by some others. Some of the gossips about him make him question why humanity is so crazy these days. He truly feels like he is a lot older than he really is.***
He is good friends with Eve Moneypenny and Bill Tanner, something like that with James Bond. He respects Gareth Mallory and misses M and Major Boothroyd terribly. He goes from time to time to team outings with the rest of his Department, but rarely stays until the end of the night. The only nights he sees becoming mornings are in the company of Eve, Bill and, occasionally, Bond. ***
He was 32 when he was given the title of Q and a little scared of the procedures and protocols that would follow, even though he had read all information available about them prior. He was not given a cyanide capsule, something his family constantly joked about, but the tracker implanted on his neck would serve just for the same if something went terribly wrong. He tried to maintain a cool façade - and failed miserably - when he was taken to the Medical Department for the procedure, which required local anesthesia with sedation. He was grateful M was there when he woke up, even if she said nothing. The second tracker was implanted on his right wrist the next day, an old scar disguising it. He never told his family about any of them. ***
The night he became Q marked the start of being escorted home and back in an agency car with a security detail allocated to protect him when outside of MI6. It only took him a little more than a month to change the protocol and go back to driving his own car, another or so to get rid of the security detail. He likes to believe it was easy changing the protocol because of his odd working hours and his constantly sleeping over, on the couch of his private office. Truth is the security detail was then better hidden and the budget would come from another Department.***
He suffered some kidnapping attempts after becoming Q, one of them while at a hacker convention. One of the ugliest attempts left him with a pretty bad laceration on his left forearm and a purple eye. The funniest attempt was by some maniacs dressed as clowns. He still receives anonymous memes on this one.Since the last one, not so long ago, he was put back on being escorted to and from home and having a security detail accompanying him almost all times. He thinks he will be able to get his parole soon enough when the next round of quarter budget discussion begins. ***
He was once put in contention for helping Bond on a mission. He would do it again any day of the week.***
There is a kind of camaraderie with the agents he much likes. Some of them see him as a younger brother, others as a possible shag, many as a superior they can convince with good reasons. His favorites are Bond and Trevelyan, but he would go to any lengths to help any and all of them - including having ugly discussions with other Department Heads from time to time. He was almost fired a couple of times for backing up said agents behind both M's direct orders. The reasons why he stayed may be or may be not connected with both M's being acting on those matters by proxy using Q. ***
Q-Branch is now called Q Division or Q Department, depending on the memo. He and his colleagues keep calling it Q-Branch for the sake of old times.***
His colleagues at Q-Branch jokingly say they are his minions. When he first learned it he sent a memo explaining this kind of joke was not acceptable and that nobody’s anybody’s minion, they are all colleagues, etc. In a matter of minutes the little bastards had ordered online t-shirts for the whole Department with the yellow cartoon creatures of same name. Q let go and now even him calls them minions from time to time - he still believes R was behind the t-shirts being paid with budget of another less organized Department - R&D, mind you.***
He could hack online streaming services back and forth, but he pays for them like any other normal citizen should. The only "pirate" material on his laptop is related to work. ***
Once he was asked on a date by a woman, even after telling her openly he was not into it. She insisted until he agreed, and now they are good friends. He later found out his sister is friends with her too.***
He had once an awful reaction to one of the compounds he offered to test being developed by the Research and Developing Department. He was grateful Q Division is not using their biochemical weapons as much as in the past on their devices. He still believes this could be karma for the t-shirts.***
There is a poll somewhere about Bond shagging him - or not having shagged him yet.***
Q is short sighted and has to wear glasses or contacts while driving. He came to hate contacts since that one time he forgot to take them out to clean during a particularly difficult mission that last almost two and a half days. The pain was as bad as if sand was rasping his eyes, and made him vow to wear only glasses for the foreseeable future. He never cared for a surgery, and is really thankful his niece and nephew are 20/20.***
Contrary to popular belief, he is reasonably good at shooting with various weapons, designed by Q Division or not. He knows the basics of self-defense, and is not completely defenseless in a fight. He is, however, a very calm man that would resort to those technics only when absolutely necessary. ***
He did need special training after becoming Q, thanks to the new level of clearance and responsibilities attached to the position. He had to do some of the basics again because he was always behind the rest on the regular MI6 classes, but nobody seemed to mind it. The only training he could not finish yet is the one on how to deal with interrogations - torture training as his minions call it. Once he had to stop one of the sessions because 009 had an emergency on field only he could handle (directing a 00 agent through the comms with a bloody nose, an IV port still attached to his arm and a headache had *not* been one of his best days). The second time happened when he lost a family member - he had someone driving him to the ceremony held outside London, otherwise he might be arrested while driving under the influence of illegal drugs. The third time they had to stop due one of the drugs administered causing a serious allergy attack followed by a severe asthma attack. M demanded him to stay home for a week after this one, placating his failure sentiment saying he would be dead before giving any information had it been for real. He is not looking forward continuing the training, especially knowing part of it involves not knowing when it will next happen. He thinks he will be sleeping better when he has finally finished it. ***
The first time he volunteered to help outside Q-Branch he was new to the job and helped fixing some computers on Research and Development Department. He was then called back from time to time, becoming close to some of the people working there. Back then they would show him for the first time many of the drugs and venoms they were researching, and what they caused when used. That night he did not call his family and cried himself to sleep.***
He feels a little intimidated by Security Department too; their Head is a balding guy named Graham who is with the military. On budget meetings the guy rarely speaks, but when he does, nobody contradicts him. He wished he could make people respect him like that.***
His iPod has classical music and a lot of movie soundtrack songs. He can’t, by the life of him, understand kids taste in music these days. ***
His personal laptop is old and in need of a revamp. It has only above average security protocols and is mostly used for communicating with friends and family outside work. He also likes receiving memes with cats.***
He is not a religious man, but believes in the Lord. Sometimes he prays silently after he gets in contact with the worst of Humanity, seeing the evil up front. That was the case when - for the first time - one agent died on a mission he was coordinating. That happens every time since then. ***
Once the PM shook hands with him, and on another occasion he saw the Queen from pretty close on a ceremony held at the Palace. He doubts any of them knew who he was, but Eve has been making jokes about those occasions since then.***
There was that time when terrorists invaded Q-Branch while he was directing Bond's latest mission. With one hand he pushed the alarm button that warned all should leave immediately. Then he silently locked himself up in his bullet proof office and kept sending Bond directions while the terrorists shot at the special glass non-stop. In a matter of minutes they were killed or contained by Security, but Q made sure Bond was safe before he allowed Medical to tend to the bullet graze on his side. ***
He is the first civilian Q, and it awes him to no end he still outranks Bond, for example. ***
He drinks socially and discourages vehemently any alcohol consumption inside the labs, but there was that one time during a mission when his mug was refilled with vodka instead of water and whoever saw it did not mention. Some hours later, two MI6 agents, the backup party and all civilians involved on the gruesome mission had survived, all Division celebrated, M congratulated them personally - and he lost the contents of his stomach on the closest restroom shortly after.***
He sometimes cries himself to sleep, usually after a bad day at work or a mission gone wrong. When he wants to forget the political affairs, the budget meetings and other indignities of day-to-day work for some hours, he watches some TV show on a stream service until falling asleep. He used to code on these cases, but he wouldn't fall asleep until morning.***
He was locked inside the server room for close to 3 hours during a lockdown of Q-Branch caused by an ex-employee wanting to set everything on fire. The temperature being close to 0ºC, together with wearing only his shirt and cardigan, caused a pretty nasty case of hypothermia. Since then he has a heavy coat and a whistle stocked in one of the shelves close to the secondary racks.***
He still has on his backlog to check what happens in case of one of the Q Division employees being suspect of treason after the changes made by the powers-that-be on their security protocols.
***
Q is a civilian, and he believes his life would be easier if he had served, as many had on MI6. Why, he does not know exactly.***
Q loves his job and devotes his life to make people who will never know who he is safer. ***