Chapter 1: The Woman Returns

Irene Adler narrowed her eyes. This man was different from all the other government spies who'd wriggled into her bed. Something about the way his hands hung so casually, so comfortably, from the leather cuffs tying his wrists to the bedposts made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

"Well, Mr. Bond," she purred, tearing her gaze away from his smirk. "Evidently, this sort of thing is far from a novelty for you."

"I'm sure you'll keep it interesting."

She quirked an eyebrow. It could have been sarcasm, or condescension, but the way he offered it made it sound like a genuine compliment. She'd positioned an array of her favorite devices on the dresser, in full view of her client, of course, and with sinister grace she picked up the cat o'nine tails, keen to gauge his reaction.

"Amusement," she read aloud from his expression.

"Anticipation," Mr. Bond corrected.

"Eager to feel it, are you?" Gently, she draped the thin leather tails of the cat across his torso, and swept them down across his skin, light and slow. Like that, the strips of leather were so silky smooth they almost felt wet.

"Yes ma'am," he muttered, and the way he said it made her realize she would have to work extra hard to ensure that her client would enjoy their session more than she did.

She played with him; he was extremely cooperative. At last she was forced to concede that his air of superiority was impenetrable. It wasn't a lack of reaction—he reacted beautifully; made plenty of delicious growly noises, nhms and mmns. But her other clients were so much more…submissive.

What bothered her most was the way he breathed, almost exclusively through his nose, no matter what she did to him. Lips kept shut as if daring her to pry them open. "Open your mouth," she reminded him, and he would obey. But a minute later she'd look back and his mouth would be closed again. Usually people in the throes of her tradecraft forgot themselves, panting and gasping. Not so with Mr. Bond.

"What's wrong?" he smirked at last, the instant her disappointment manifested itself in her expression.

"I'm just beginning to wonder why you're here," Irene replied.

Bond blinked at her. "I'd heard so much about you. You are quite infamous in the secret service."

"Not as infamous as you," Irene mused, unimpressed. "Felt your notch belonged on my bedpost, did you?"

"A dominatrix peddling government secrets. Sounds the sort of thing that would be right up my alley, doesn't it?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "Lovely phrasing, Mr. Bond. But I collected the false information that you were sent here to plant within the first five minutes you were here. Do you really suppose your enemies think so highly of me, that they'd believe I was clever enough to extract anything from you that you weren't willing to give me?"

Bond smiled, unperturbed. "It's more that they think so lowly of me."

She considered for a moment. "So you came here hoping that someone out there would believe you were reckless or arrogant enough to divulge real information to a woman who had you lashed to her mattress. That plan in itself is so reckless and arrogant, it just might work."

"It will work, if you sell it correctly," Bond suggested.

She laughed. "Are you recruiting me?"

"I'm sure we could find a place for you, if you're interested. I wouldn't mind having you 'round the office."

She studied him, thinking. "No…" she breathed. "That's not it... these games and toys of mine; they aren't doing it for you. So… really, what do you want from me?"

He relaxed back into the pillows, and finally flexed the hands that had been resting so comfortably in their restraints. "I want you to fuck me," he informed her. "I'll even say please."

She repressed a delighted laugh. "Do you have any particular object that you would prefer me to use?"

"Yes actually," Bond said, his face all smirk. "Your body."

Nodding, understanding, Irene crawled up to him on the bed and swung one long pale leg over his torso, lowering herself slowly until she brushed his hip with her inner thigh. "Oh, how I'd love to," she said breathily, leaning in to plant a kiss over his heart. "I'm sure I would spend the better part of an hour, grinding away at you, like this…"

She demonstrated, avoiding penetration by the narrowest of margins. "While you lay there and control yourself. No doubt I would grow desperate to get you off, and work myself up to climax, all while you waited, biding your time, and stalling." She sat on him, wet and hot and just out of reach. Bond hmmd and smiled and bucked up against her, trying to work his way inside. For a second he almost had her, but she shifted away just in time. "Stalling for what, though?"

Suddenly, she got off the bed, and went to the window, leaving Bond to buck comically at the air once or twice, annoyed at the loss of contact.

With two fingers she peeled back the edge of the gauzy curtain, and found her suspicions confirmed. "Ah. Stalling so that your friend in the car can finish hacking into my laptop. Of course."

She moved to her dresser, slipped her hand into a drawer, and switched off her wireless router. "There," she purred, turning her attention back to Bond. "So sorry to ruin your plan, but I already lost one large fortune to the government, and I won't let it happen again."

Gracefully, she came back to the bed and reclined beside him. "Now look at you…poor darling boy…" she rested her head on his arm, and jacked him with one strong, experienced hand. "…All stood up with nowhere to go."

M was waiting for him in her office. Q trailed along behind, still looking out of place among all the tailored suits and military haircuts.

"Bond. And Q," she greeted them coolly.

"Ma'am," Bond replied, appropriately sullen as he braced for another scathing debrief.

"I didn't know Q was accompanying you on this little…escapade. Tell me, does it cost more that way, or was there a two-for-one discount?"

Q turned lobster red. "Oh—no, I, I stayed out in the car."

"Hmp," M sniffed dismissively, as if she didn't believe a word of it. "Well I won't presume to lecture either of you about stupidity or needless risks, since you're already experts in both subjects. But I do hope at least that you have more to report than, how did you put it?" she raised her mobile phone and read the text off the screen: "the woman has beaten me."

She slammed the phone down on her desk, as suddenly Bond and Q couldn't contain their clever little grins.

"It was more of a flogging," Bond offered.

"I'll flog you myself if that intel drop doesn't make it through to Chechnya." She saw the look in his eye that said he had a cheeky comeback on the tip of his tongue, and glared him down until he reconsidered making it.

"She knows the info is fake, but she'll market it convincingly enough," Bond assured her. "It will reach our Chechen friends, and the missing armaments should surface soon after."

That seemed to calm her down a bit. "And her computer?"

Q cleared his throat. "I was able to install about half of a cracking program before she shut it down."

"So you didn't get anything?"

"No ma'am." Q hung his head, going a little too far with his display of disappointment. Both M and Bond repressed a disgusted sneer at his rookie behavior until M remembered she had a bigger fish to fry.

"And you, Bond," she spat the name like a curse. "Are you telling me that with all your training and experience you were unable to recover a single unguarded, unsecured laptop from this woman's residence?"

Bond blinked at her as if she were speaking gibberish. "...I doubt Miss Adler would be very keen to help us transfer false data to the Chechens if we were to barge into her residence and steal her private property."

M pursed her lips. "Very well. But it's not enough. After what we went through the last time with this woman, we aren't taking any chances with her. She is a threat."

"I suppose I could kill her," Bond suggested, only half joking.

"We've tried to kill her twice already. She keeps coming back." M locked eyes with Bond. "She's your kind of girl."

Bond's smile flickered. "No. Unfortunately, my kind of girl stays dead."

"Let's consider her a female version of you, then. Anyway, what's your plan?" M pressed on, ensuring there was no chance for him to rebut her comment, or to dwell on his morbid remark.

He turned on her, annoyed. "There is no plan. She'll help us with the intel drop and that's the end of it. We tried, and now it's over. Didn't you get my text?"

Making a quick decision, M picked up her desk phone and pressed just one button. Bond and Q waited in heavy silence as the phone rang on the other end.

"Mycroft," M said when the line picked up. "I saw you in the meeting earlier, are you still in the building?" She glanced up at Q, who was doing his best to not have an expression on his much too young, much too innocent face. "Good. Will you stop by my office? I think we need your help."

Mycroft arrived, looking slightly hassled and put-upon; MI6 had never been his favorite department to work with, although he'd been trying hard to improve his relationships there. "M, good to see you," he said cheerfully enough, shaking her hand. "And 007, glad to finally meet you."

They shook hands, and Bond remembered why this man's name was familiar to him. "You're the fellow who named an airplane full of dead people after me."

"Ah yes, it was a convenient little code word at the time. I never imagined it would become my single greatest failure." His eyes tightened at the painful memory, and then he turned his attention to Q. "And Q, you're looking well. It's been too long. How is everything?"

"Hello Mycroft," Q said, with obvious relief at being treated so formally. "Things are going well. I like it here."

Mycroft lit up with a genuine smile that melted years away from his constantly worried face. "You know, I don't often get the chance to say this, but, you know how proud I am of you, Q."

"What?" Bond couldn't help but ask, realizing he was out of the loop. M intervened to bring him up to speed.

"Bond, Mycroft is Q's elder brother," M explained. Mycroft, to his credit, looked surprised that Bond hadn't known that already.

Bond looked back and forth between the brothers. "Sorry, you don't look alike."

Mycroft smiled, wrinkling the corners of his mouth. "Ah, but we think alike," he revealed. Bond gave a little eyebrow-raise of acknowledgement; no further explanation required—a subtle note that Q missed, as he plowed on with the details.

"Mycroft here has the brain for strategy and politics, keeping track of who's doing what business and with whom; seeing how those networks function so he can manipulate-"

"Ah-ah," Mycroft corrected. "Communicate."

"I meant, communicate," Q continued, more carefully now, "with all key actors to ensure cooperation and success."

Mycroft beamed at him. "While our little Quartermaster here began programming at age 8 and hacked MI6 at age 12. We didn't see much of young Q for a few years after that, while he was…"

"…being educated," Q supplied with a grin. "I believe that is the approved terminology."

Bond's expression was guarded; while there was no sign of hostility between the two brothers, there was still something…off about them. Something missing.

"Well, thank goodness the both of you decided to use your gifts in the service of Queen and Country," M interjected.

"Unlike someone we know," Q couldn't resist adding.

Mycroft furrowed his brow. "Hm. Yes. Speaking of; M, this is about the ignominious return of Miss Irene Adler, is it not?"

"It is," M confirmed.

"So you do need the other Holmes. He's the only one who could have fooled me about Miss Adler's second death."

"The other Holmes?" Bond asked, trying his best to follow the conversation.

"Yes," M said gravely. "There is a third brother, the middle child. Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock Holmes," Bond repeated, and tilted his head to one side as he dredged out a reference. "Yes of course. He's some sort of detective; wears a deerstalker cap? Saw his picture plastered all over the Sun and the Daily Mail and so forth, a while back."

Mycroft and Q shared a look. "That's the one," Mycroft admitted. "Our dear brother Sherlock, wasting his life away in selfish frivolity."

"He's done some good," Q spoke up in his absent brother's defense. "Or at least, he's largely avoided doing evil, insofar as I've been able to monitor him."

"I keep a close eye on him as well," Mycroft mused. "But he just isn't living up to his potential."

Bond shook his head, scoffing. "Two of the greatest minds behind the British government, and they both spend their time spying on their delinquent brother. M, point me in the right direction. What's to do be done about Irene Adler?"

Mycroft spoke up before M had the chance. "It's not Adler; it's her contact who is really the problem. He's an expert hacker. Goes by Moriarty."

The name obviously meant something to both M and Q, who exchanged weighted glances. "Never heard of him," Bond said, impatient at being left out of the loop again. "Need me to go and kill him?"

Mycroft's eyebrows climbed. "Yes, that would be… constructive. But first you have to find him."

"I'll help," Q volunteered.

Mycroft nodded. "I'm sure you will, Q, but the key to finding Moriarty is Irene Adler's cooperation. And the key to Irene Adler is our brother Sherlock."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Bond asked, looking to M and seeking her nod of approval. "Let's go find the other Holmes."

A/N: ridiculously excited to be playing around in this niche fandom. Yay Bondlock!