Some different modern AU settings from the norm coffee shop love:
– Bond is a lawyer and Q is his paralegal. They prep cases in their tiny, dingy lawfirm and occasionally eat/work in the 24-hour diner next door. Eve cameos as their assistant. Very Marvel’s Daredevil vibe.
– Bond is a detective and Q is one of his grey-area informants. Q always meets Bond wearing a hoodie and a scarf over his face, so Bond doesn’t know what he looks like. The only thing to reliably go by is his voice when he speaks.
– Bond is an alcoholic and Q is a drug addict. They meet at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting place and hit it off. They then help (or hinder) each other through their relapses and recoveries. Potential to get very dark very quickly.
– Bond is a detective (again) and Q is a professor at a university. Bond is sent to investigate a series of murders/drug ring/whatever and Q just keeps on appearing at the crime scene ‘by chance.’
(yes I know that sounds like Guardian but I swear I was not thinking of that when I thought of this.)– Bond is a long-distance truck driver and Q is a hitchhiker. When they first meet Bond mistakes Q for a truck-stop prostitute because he was chatting with some of them. They end up essentially on a road trip across America.