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Chapter Text

         As the sole heir of his parents, Bilbo Baggins did not, technically, have to work. The sprawling estate of Bag End made enough money to keep itself afloat, thanks to the Gamgee family that had been working for the Baggins line since there was a Baggins line. Bilbo was supposed to do all the claptrap that sons of his station were to do; go to the Good School, get a Degree – but never in something like a trade, on no, but something artistic you see – putter around the continent for a gap year and then come home, marry a good lass from an appropriate family and continue the same cycle yet again.

        Bilbo, however, was not a good son. Sadly. Or not so sadly, if one was talking to his mother in the last days of her life. She, above all others, had told Bilbo to live large, to live loud, to follow his dreams, for he never knew when or if something would come along to trip his world up in ways he never expected.

        Finding out that his father was possibly some sort of secret spy – as was his mother – and that their longtime friend Gandalf Grey, who was Bilbo's godfather , was also a spy of some sort, and who was also holding onto a device that could not fall into enemy hands. At all. Ever. And that Gandalf Grey would one day come barreling into Bilbo's life like a hurricane and give him said dangerous device and tell him to run. Well.

        It seemed rather far fetched, is all Bilbo's saying. Very far fetched. The bullets whizzing over his head at the moment, however, were very much not far fetched, in fact they were far too close and Bilbo did not like any of this at all whatsoever thank you and good morning.

         Alas this was his life at the moment and there was little he could do about it. So soldier on his must. If he lived.

         “Bilbo!”

        Oh, yes. And then there was Thorin . Thorin and his stupid blue eyes. Thorin and his stupid frown and pursed lips. Thorin and his dark hair speckled with grey at the temples. And along with Thorin came Dwalin, with his stupid tattoos and stupid muscles that did things to Bilbo's knees. They were quite the problem. Possibly even more than the stupid bullets flying over Bilbo's head at the moment.

        See, Bilbo had never meant to go out and get a secretarial job. That came about quite by accident. He and his dear friend Erestor, whom he had roomed with at Uni, had been at one of the many job fairs that Erestor had been going to after they had graduated. Bilbo had wanted to poach Erestor for a job at the Bag End Estate but Erestor wouldn't hear of it. The libraries there were quite famous in some circles and Erestor had wanted to earn his career as an archivist, which Bilbo respected but had put a quiet word in with the current head of the estate management, his cousin Lobelia, that should Erestor ever apply to snatch him up right quick. Lobelia had chased him out of his own estate with her umbrella for even thinking that she hadn't had Erestor's resume tagged six ways from Sunday for years, which was just rude . How was Bilbo to know Lobelia could even work a computer? And alas that statement was why Bilbo was even in Tirion, sleeping on Erestor's couch and going with his friend to these job fairs.

         Anyway.

        Bilbo had gone with Erestor to this job fair – a very strange job fair, now that Bilbo was looking back on it – but there had been an abundant amount of secretarial jobs listed in the paper for said fair. Now, as an archivist, Erestor really should have been applying to museums or universities or libraries about the world for conservation jobs but after six months of searching (and with Bilbo not-so-secretly paying for Erestor's rent and a weekly grocery delivery) not a single job opening had appeared in said circles. So his dear friend had then started going to these job fairs to find something he could put on his resume in the meantime.

        Said job fair had a great many tall and sturdy fellows about their booths. Bilbo hadn't minded at all following Erestor into the hall. As fate would have it – and the Baggins genes running true – Bilbo was a rather...vertically challenged fellow, thin boned like his mother and with the curly mop of golden hair that every Baggins had ever had since the first northern raiders had come down to marry into the local population. Bilbo had never been sporty – he, along with others of his station (and by his father's demand) had eschewed physical exertion as much as he could. The most of a workout Bilbo got was on his back and that's how he liked it – only with partners who looked much like the sturdy fellows clustered about these tables dressed in dark colors from head to foot.

        So, while Erestor was soon sucked into a conversation with a group of fellows that made Erestor look remarkably petite (which Bilbo knew his friend hated with a passion, that was prime teasing material right there) Bilbo had wandered the hall, looking for his own...fellow to chat up.

        Then he'd come across a pair of blue eyes that had all but stopped Bilbo in his tracks. Said blue eyes were talking to a very tall fellow with the type of muscles that made Bilbo's mouth run dry. Bilbo had drifted up to that pair, wanting nothing more than to give them both his number and perhaps just invite them to the nearest hotel room...but then the strangest thing had happened.

         “And I'm telling you, Thorin, that's going to get us in trouble! You have to keep a copy of that!”

         “I did!”

         “I saw you throw away the carbon copy myself. So help me if Balin finds out...”

         That was when Bilbo had entered their little sphere and both of them had turned to stare at him. Bilbo tried his best to paste on a charming smile, clasping his hands behind his back, and rather hoped he wasn't going to get punched in the face for propositioning them.

         Except that wasn't what happened.

         “Ah, hello,” Bilbo said, beaming up at them. “I was just wondering –”

         “You,” said Muscles. “Do you...know how to file paperwork?”

         Which. What? “Yes?” Bilbo had blinked a bit, rather taken aback. Of course he knew how to file paperwork. No one seemed to understand just how much paperwork an estate created.

         “And taxes? D'ya know how to prepare tax files?”

         This was by far the strangest pick up conversation Bilbo had ever had. “What kind of tax files?” The gods only knew there were seventeen and half thousand different kinds of brackets and subsections and whatnot that went along with all that. “Are you an LLC? Non-profit? For-profit? Small business versus big business and do you have government subsidies? Are you part of the government or are you run by investments and if so, are they foreign or domestic?”

         “You,” said Blue Eyes. Muscles didn't look like he could even speak. “You're hired.”

         “I'm what now?”

        And that was how Bilbo was somehow hired by Blue Eyes – one Thorin Oakenshield, who ran DL INC, and was installed as a secretary the very next Monday. Erestor, Bilbo later found out, had also been hired on the spot by one Glorfindel Flowers, who ran Gondolin INC. Both of them were secretaries. Even better the two different businesses had offices in the same section of town. Bilbo had not meant to take said position – he'd really been after a different position if you take his meaning – but Thorin and Muscles – who turned out to be one Dwalin – were so earnest with their hiring pitch. They'd even bumped his salary up by a hundred dollars a week! How sweet! How could he turn such gentlemen down?

        And, as it turned out, since Lobelia was still on the warpath, it was probably a good thing Bilbo spent more time in Tirion than at the estate. Sam had taken over for his father the year before and he and Rosie and Frodo had quite the handle on things. It was a good thing for Bilbo to get his foot out into the waters of a big city and live it up. Erestor didn't mind Bilbo moving them into a different apartment, since neither of them wanted to live alone, not in the part of town where their jobs were located. They'd both heard things about that neighborhood.

        Bilbo did feel a little bad about making it seem like he needed more money though. Poor things had seemed so desperate to hire anyone who understood paperwork and tax forms. The Valar knew Bilbo could file those things in his sleep. Lobelia had refused to do such tasks for the estate and since his father had passed at a far too early an age and his mother had been unable to look after things, Bilbo had been fighting the good fight against government bureaucracy since he was a teen. In fact the first month Bilbo was hired he had untangled DL INC from a number of sticky tax issues (the foreign tax forms were a menace ) and had gotten several penalties levied against the company waived when he filed the appropriate forms on time. Thorin and Dwalin had taken him out to eat at a lovely restaurant for that alone! And Bilbo had meant to make other propositions towards the two, but they had been so earnest about 'respecting his position' and 'not taking advantage of his place in the company' and other such things. All the while holding Bilbo's hand and whisking him about the city like Bilbo had never been to a five star Michelin restaurant before!

        It was quite the pickle and Bilbo hadn't known how to get out of it without bursting their strange idea that Bilbo was some sort of struggling post-grad. And, a smaller part of him that he didn't acknowledge very much, didn't really want them to know about Bag End and his family and all of it. For the first time since Erestor Bilbo had found people who liked him for him and not what his money could do for them. It was...nice. Rather lovely really. And he'd heard enough grumbling from a number of Thorin's Company to know that those people of Bilbo's... station were not liked, nor respected, nor even tolerated by them. Bilbo didn't want to give that camaraderie up. So mum he stayed.

         Until one Gandalf Grey had come barreling into his life and turned it upside down.

        Bilbo had been taking tea in their apartment's kitchen, enjoying his Sunday afternoon with a cuppa and a crossword when his godfather had come in through the kitchen window . Bilbo could do little more than gape at the man – all spindly arms and legs and white hair and beard – who had flattened himself against the ground and then stayed there for a minute straight. Bilbo hadn't been able to say a word. What did one say to something like that? But, when that minute was up his godfather had gotten to his feet, had taken Bilbo by the arm and hustled them both into the bedroom and shut the door with a firm click.

         “I need your help,” said his godfather.

         “Do I...need to ring the police?” Bilbo didn't know what else to say.

         “No. You need to take this.” A box was pushed into his hand. It had a golden circle engraved on the top. “Keep it secret. Keep it safe. I will come for it again, but tell no one! Not even your friend. No one must know you have it.”

        “All...right? But really, Gandalf, what are you even – Gandalf! Gandalf wait!”

         But there had been no stopping him. As fast as his godfather appeared he was gone, right out the same window like a grey-haired ninja in some sort of very strange action movie.

         Bilbo had no idea what was going on.

        But, to be true to his word, Bilbo had not said a word about the mysterious box to Erestor, nor to Thorin or Dwalin, who had been getting...touchier as the months moved on. More dinners with the two of them alone. More long conversations in their offices about everything and nothing. And – Bilbo would like to point out – he was not slacking at his job. He had been hired to fulfill a need and by the gods he was going to do it to his very best ability. As it turned out, he himself seemed to be a bit of a ninja, albeit a paperwork ninja, who had been able to clear DL INC out of several thousand dollars of tax debt and gotten their paperwork system set up so that it was an automatic filing whenever anyone of the company scanned in their receipts after a job. What those said jobs actually were Bilbo still had no idea since no one would explain it, not even Ori, who seemed to be a researcher of some kind.

         Erestor, Bilbo had learned, had much the same problem, only where Bilbo had two suitors Erestor couldn't seem to figure out if it was just Glorfindel who was interested or Glorfindel and Ecthelion or all six of his bosses together. Bilbo had clapped his friend on the back and wished him luck with that. Bilbo had only ever taken four at once and that had been after a rager at uni and several keg stands with Thranduil's bootleg swill. Six was far beyond his measure. Besides Bilbo had a feeling that Thorin and Dwalin were both handfuls on their own. Erestor had smeared whip cream all over Bilbo's hair for that but the resulting cheese string fight more than made up for that, along with all the laughing.

         So life had gone on as it always did until one Monday morning after Erestor had gone to work and Bilbo had been late due to an untimely accident with a teapot and his best blue shirt. Then Gandalf had appeared, bleeding and half dead, smearing blood all over Bilbo's already ruined shirt and gasping as he asked, “Is it safe?”

         “Is what – the box? Yes, yes, but Gandalf!”

        “You must go. Take it.” His godfather had looked so pained. Bilbo didn't know what to do. “You must run, my boy. I am so sorry. I had no where else to hide it. I am so very sorry.”

        “Run – run where? What are you talking about! Let me call the police –”

         “No!” Gandalf had snatched Bilbo's phone from his hand and crushed it under a heavy boot. Bilbo had been able to do little more than gape at him. “You must not contact the police! Contact no one! You must destroy it, my boy, for I am not going to be able to do so.”

        “Destroy what? Any why? What are you – what is going on –”

         And so the whole sordid story came out. How Bilbo's father had been a spy, an officer in the ranks of some secret organization that Gandalf refused to name, how Bungo had gotten involved in some sort of mission that had been what caused his mother's long sickness. How the box contained some sort of weapon that would ruin the world ten times over if it was ever released. How there was but one lab in the world where Bilbo could safely destroy it, where he would have to take it, now, before the agents of several different governments and other organizations realized Bilbo even had it.

         How Bilbo alone was the one being in the world immune to it.

         “You mother was poisoned with it. We tried, I promise we tried to keep her out of it but Belladonna would not hear of it,” Gandalf told him as he lay bleeding out on Bilbo's couch. “We didn't know she was pregnant, not until we were back in Tirion. She refused treatment, preferring to give birth to you, instead. You were her joy, Bilbo, her and Bungo. They did not mean to leave you so soon. I am sorry, my boy. I have been trying to destroy it since you were born but the lab was too guarded and they all know me on sight. You alone can do it. No one knows your name or face. To the world at large you are little more than a spoiled noble playing at work. Who would think to suspect you?”

        “Gandalf, I'm just – I'm a secretary ! A spoiled noble's son with an art degree! I can't – I'm not – not some ninja or burglar or anything! I'm just me! I can't destroy this! I have no idea how!”

         “The lab is in Mordor, in the town of Orodruin,” Gandalf rasped. There was blood on his lips. “You must go now, my boy. Do not look back. And do not ask for help with those mercenaries you work for. They serve the same masters as the agents who want that box for their own.”

         “Mercenaries – what mercenaries?”

         Which led to another revealing conversation that DL INC stood for Durin's Line Incorporated, a privately run black ops company that had been passed down from father to son through King Durin's line of the destroyed nation Khazad-dûm – a victim in the wars waged over this little box and who had been searching for it just as long as anyone else.

         It turned out not just Bilbo was hiding a secret identity. The thought rather burned the back of his throat now, though.

        Thorin, Gandalf told him, would want the box for his own. Bilbo could not trust him. Bilbo could trust no one. Bilbo had to run, run now, and get away before the agents on Gandalf's trail found his apartment and Gandalf inside.

         “But this – this is mad, Gandalf. I'm not – this is just – this can't be –”

        “It will kill millions,” Gandalf took his hand and Bilbo felt all his protests die in his chest. “If let loose on the world, such death and destruction will rain down as never seen before. No one understands that. All they see is a weapon to force others to bow to their command. You alone can destroy it, Bilbo. I am sorry. I am so very sorry to task you with this. But please. You must go. No one else can.”

        What else could he do? Bilbo had left then, to grab his little pack, the one he'd bought with Erestor to go hiking in the hills with. He'd thrown all sorts of nonsense into it, not even thinking – what does one bring on such a Quest as this, anyway? – and had the box secured in the little money pouch that Erestor had bought when they'd gone to Rohan once on holiday. All he had to do was go. Go and leave the last link he had with his parents to die on his couch or worse be captured by the very forces his godfather so feared.

         Then Erestor had opened the door, looking harried and muddy and had promptly frozen at the tableau. Bilbo had no words. He didn't even know where to begin. He did, however, take Gandalf's gun from him and put it in his own pocket when his godfather tried to take aim at Bilbo's best friend.

         “What. The fuck.”

         “I can explain.”

         “Do it quickly,” said Erestor. But there had been no time. Gandalf had risen, then, sweeping them both to the door and pushed them both out, telling them, “Fly, you fools!” How or why the old coot knew what was about to happen Bilbo did not know but they were but halfway down the hall when their apartment blew up.

         They had been on the run ever since.

         “Bilbo, please!”

         “Erestor!”

         Bilbo winced as he put pressure on the graze against his side. Erestor was looking little better, sporting black eyes from a beating he'd barely gotten away from and a nasty split lip. They'd run from Tirion, not knowing what else to do. It had been on the first train that they'd realized they'd been followed. A gangly little fellow who kept coughing in a strange way had attempted to strangle Bilbo to death in the bathroom. Erestor had come in just in time to knock the fellow out and – during an inspired, if stupid, stunt – they had jumped from the train when the cars had slowed to go around a sharp curve in the track.

         Which led them to here, at the border of Aman, with no way to cross the waters to the continent, with Thorin's Company on one side and Glorfindel's on the other and several teams of government goons shooting at them. Bilbo was rather sure there were a few other agents about too, but Thorin and Glorfindel were the closest to their position. The sea wall had seemed like a good place at first to duck behind but now they were trapped and there was no way out.

         “Well, this isn't promising,” Bilbo told Erestor.

         “Save your breath.”

         “Oh it's just a scratch.”

         “You're bleeding through the gauze. Shut up, Bilbo.”

        “You know Lobelia is going to have a field day with this,” Bilbo muttered, squinting at the sky. “She's going to have enact Plan O and she'll be furious about it.”

         “Plan O?”

         “Plan O, or Plan Otho. She's going to trap him into marriage and have the next heir if I die without issue. She's been threatening me with it for years.”

        “Oh, that plan. She hates him.”

         “Yes, rather. I imagine she'll bury him under the roses once she gets what she needs from Otho.”

         “That's...something.”

         “She always was the most blood thirsty of us.”

        A particularly close bullet chipped the cement wall they were hiding behind, showering them with dust. Erestor flinched back, knocking into Bilbo's side. He thought he could hear movement. Perhaps Thorin or Dwalin were attempting to make it to their hiding place? What then? Bilbo didn't know what to do. Should he throw himself into the sea? Throw himself upon their mercy? But he'd seen Dwalin line up the shot. He'd seen the man who had blushed when Bilbo had made even the tiniest innuendo take aim at Bilbo's own heart and had seen that blank look of a man who was obeying orders. There was nothing of his sweet Dwalin in that gaze. What mercy could he expect now, even with the both of them crying out his name? Surely it was just a sham. A trick. A way for him to lower his guard and let them take the weapon from his cold, dead hands.

         But there was no way out. It looked like this was the end.

         Then, “BILBO BAGGINS SO HELP ME.”

         Bilbo's head jerked up to see Lobelia in a speed boat, with a rocket launcher braced against her shoulder. Bilbo had no idea who was driving said boat. Then he had to duck and cover as that rocket went launching into the chaos beyond their wall and all he could then hear was –

         “GET UP RIGHT NOW BILBO AND GET ON THIS BOAT I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE.”

         There was quite a bit of flailing as he and Erestor threw themselves into the sea and got onto the boat. Hands hauled them up and inside. Bilbo flattened Erestor and their helper as shots started to ring out over the water, stuttering against their boat, even as people on shore were roaring furiously at each other. Then the boat was moving, skipping across the water like a rock from Bilbo's hand on a pond.

         “Sorry 'bout that,” he told the fellow he'd flattened. Erestor was picking his way out of the pile to kneel at Bilbo's side, a first aid kit already in hand. “Bilbo Baggins, at your service. Who are you?”

         “Faramir,” the fellow said from where he was laid out flat on his back. “I think you broke my rib.”

         “Sorry,” Bilbo repeated, wincing as Erestor attacked his side. “Better a broken rib that a bullet hole, I suppose?”

         “That's one way to look at it.”

        “Do get up,” Lobelia snapped at them, doing...something with a rather terrifying array of firepower that Bilbo was absolutely not going to ask about. “You, mister, are in so much trouble.”

        “I'm in trouble,” Bilbo echoed as Erestor helped him sit up. “Me. I'm in – you know what, no. Absolutely not. This is bullshit,” he pointed a finger in Lobelia's face, not even caring that she was more likely to bite it off than deal with his shouting. “I have been almost killed more times in the last three days than I would like to think about! I was almost strangled by some creepy fellow I don't even know! What the hell is going on and why do you have a rocket launcher!”

         “Why wouldn't I have a rocket launcher? Do you have any idea how Bag End makes ends meet?”

        “Do not tell me we are arms dealers.” Bilbo squinted at her. His finger was strangely intact. “Lobelia. Tell me –”

         “Be that as it may –”

        “Be that as it may – Lobelia what the fuck –”

         “You were never supposed to know!” She shouted back at him. Bilbo gaped at her. “You were their pride and joy and we all knew that there wasn't going to be another Baggins from Bungo! Otho and his lot were salivating at taking over the estate and your mother was going to poison them all but she died before she could pull it off! We've been making sure that entire side of the family hasn't killed you since you were a teen! And you have the balls to yell at me? How dare you!”

         “I have no idea what is going on,” Bilbo lowered his finger and feeling strangely like he was about to cry. Perhaps it was the shock. “Has everything been a lie?”

        “Bilbo, no,” Lobelia slapped a hand over face and muttered something he couldn't make out. “Don't you dare cry. Bilbo. Bilbo, no . Stop that. I don't – I've always been your friend – Bilbo, please don't cry!”

         A rather lot of crying and frantic apologies and protestations that Lobelia was and always had been his friend and that things really weren't so dire later Bilbo was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Erestor in the back of the boat as they made their way across the water to Arda's far shores. Their driver, a fellow by the name of Elrond, who had the kind of crazy eyes that made Bilbo's shoulders itch, but this Elrond's stare was mostly aimed at Erestor, not him. Things made absolutely no sense and he had made sure everyone knew that.

         “It will be okay,” Lobelia told him from his other side. She had not let go of his hand. “We'll get you to Mordor. I promise. I've got a plan.”

         “How did you even know about all this? Gandalf made it seem like no one else knew at all?”

         “That disturber of the peace,” Lobelia sniffed, even as her fingers tightened around his. “No one does, I don't think. Just me and a few others. I found out when I took on the estate manager role. There are so many records at Bag End, Bilbo. I found out a lot more than I was supposed to. I've been making plans ever since.”

         “And the estate?”

         “If you think Sam, Rosie, and Frodo are going to let anyone onto the estate then you're far stupider than I thought.”

         “No,” Bilbo said faintly. “I don't suppose they would. Are Pippin and Merry in on all this?”

         “They know to keep the family estate safe. Bag End will come to no harm. I promise you that.”

         “Right,” Bilbo breathed out. Then, “Where are we going, anyway?”

         “We'll land in Sirion, for now. Elrond's got connections with the port master there. No one will know we've docked. Most will assume we're off to Gondor or even further south.”

         “And then?”

         “One thing at a time. I know this has been a lot,” he heard her take in a shaky breath. “There's a lot going on that I don't think even Gandalf knew. That's what Elrond says.”

         “And you trust this Elrond?”

         “Yes,” she said and that was enough for Bilbo.

         “Okay.” He let his head thunk back against the hull of the boat. “Okay.” Then, as the events over the last few days started to settle in he couldn't help the lump that formed in his throat. “Did you...did you know about Thorin and Dwalin and my job and...”

         Her grip went tight about his hand. “Like I said, there's a lot going on. I'll tell you more when we land and you get looked at. Elrond was a medic in the army. He'll get you patched up.”

         “Lobelia. Tell me.”

         “Bilbo...”

         “Please.”

         He heard her sigh. “That thing, what you've got,” she leaned her shoulder into his. “People have been fighting over it for a long time. Some years back some of the NZGL agents found a way to...to mind control people. They applied it to a lot of noble family lines, your Thorin's included. It's some sort of sickness connected to the weapon. Destroy the weapon and you destroy their control. That's about what I know.”

        Bilbo closed his eyes against the burn of more tears. There was so much to understand. To discover. Lies to uncover and histories rewritten. To think that he'd been tripping through life in such ignorance. What a farce. And the people...his Thorin and Dwalin...they too were trapped up in this, pawns like he was, but even worse, subject to some strange mind control they couldn't even fight?

         Bilbo forced open his eyes and blinked away the tears. Alright. Fine. Someone wanted to hurt his – to hurt Thorin and Dwalin? Over his cold dead body. To Mordor it was, to the lab, to whatever ends he needed to go to protect them all.

         “Right,” he croaked out, squeezing Lobelia's hand back. “Let's hear this plan. Then we can tell you where you're wrong and fix it.”

        “You little shit, how dare you!”

        Bilbo grinned up at the sky, even as Lobelia's voice spiraled up to a shout. He felt Erestor take his other hand, all of them linked together. If Thorin and Dwalin were infected then it was a pretty good guess that Erestor's Glorfindel and others were too. Bilbo could do this. He would walk into Mordor if he had to. This stupid weapon was going to be destroyed, thank you and good morning.

         He just had to find his way there, first. And he had a feeling that he wouldn't be going there alone.

Chapter Text

         Despite what a number of idiots thought at the prestigious Tirion University, Erestor was not naive. When he had been paired with one Bilbo Baggins he hadn't thought much of it. A quick search on the internet told him that Baggins was a rather common name in the western part of the country and while there was a chance said roommate could be the sole heir of the enormously wealthy Baggins line the odds were slim at best. So Erestor hadn't thought much of the slim young man who had taken the right side of their dorm room, nor had he thought much about the way this Bilbo had offered to take him out to dinner on their first night, so they might get to know one another.

         Seeing the black ArdEx card put down for the four hundred dollar check had been a clue far too huge to miss. The restaurant they were at didn't even have a front door! Perhaps that should have been another clue. So, when they'd gotten back to their shared dorm that night, Erestor had sat this Bilbo down and quizzed him on exactly who he was and what he wanted from Erestor in return.

        The answers rather broke Erestor's heart. This Bilbo was a gentle soul, very earnest and a bit bumbling at times, but it seemed, more than anything else, that this Bilbo wanted a friend . And, in the resulting weeks at university, surrounded by the other sons of noble lines, by the wealthy scions of various houses, with the posh clothes and the inflated egos and the way they all seemed to want something from Bilbo...

         Erestor was starting to understand just why Bilbo had wanted Erestor as a friend. Why Bilbo had not said anything about paying. Why Bilbo had tried to keep Erestor from looking at the check. Why Bilbo seemed to play down any mention of his wealth or his name or anything at all, really. Bilbo, as it turned out, was a sweet soul who was more comfortable doing the absolute minimum in life while also somehow being terrifying in his own way and not even realizing it.

         The first time Erestor saw Bilbo organize an entire debate team's notes, color code them, and then come up with a way for them to better prepare for their next tournament, Erestor was almost certain at least one of the debaters was going to take a knee for Bilbo right then and there. Bilbo had had no idea. Bilbo could write papers at a drop of the hat – had, in fact, written Erestor's final on some boring topic in one of his general education classes that he'd quite forgotten about and then gotten too sick to write and had gone to bed fearing that he would be kicked out of school the next semester. Then he'd woken to Bilbo standing over him with a tray full of medicines that made it somewhat bearable to stand and a paper ready to go. Erestor hadn't wanted to take it. Bilbo had threatened to pay for his living situation for life if he didn't. So take it Erestor did.

        They had stayed roommates for their entire time at university. Bilbo would pay for anything and everything he could get his hands on, much to Erestor's initial dismay...but it hadn't taken long to realize that Bilbo feared people leaving him behind and once he'd latched onto Erestor – who really didn't give a single damn about his net worth – there was no way Bilbo was letting go. So Erestor put up a good front of grumbling when it came to Bilbo paying for everything and let it go. He did put his foot down from time to time – Erestor did not need an entire new wardrobe thank you – but trips and holidays on the continent, especially when Bilbo got that wild look in his eyes, those Erestor accepted with minimal fuss.

        Erestor still put his foot down at taking the job as the lead librarian at Bag End Estate. Bag End had been standing for over a thousand years. Bag End was one of the premiere noble households in the Shire. Bilbo was the Thain's grandson . If the Shire had positions such as prince and princesses, Bilbo would be Prince Bilbo and the fuss about him living in a roomshare with Erestor would be even worse. Bag End was also where two noble lines of the Shire had come together to create Bilbo, for the Took line had their own papers and artifacts in Bag End's library and museums, but the Baggins line, being older by some historians notes, had an even larger cache of relics, ancient books, and other odds and ends that would make most antiquities professors salivate over.

        And Bilbo had grown up there. Bag End was not open to the public, it was a private house with great swaths of fields and little towns that were connected to it. As Erestor understood most of the population of Hobbiton had been working for or on the estate for literal centuries. Bilbo's distant cousins helped run the place – and, during one rather memorable night at a party, Bilbo explained how the other half of the Baggins line had been planning on stealing the whole estate out from under him since he was a teen.

        Erestor had written an email to Lobelia, then, just to find out how bad it had been. And the answer had been bad , but Lobelia had sworn him to secrecy and Erestor was more afraid of her than he was of Bilbo's Sad Eyes. So Erestor had put the matter aside, knowing Bilbo's cousins had things in hand and had focused on finishing his degree and then going about with Bilbo while they went from museum to museum on the continent, finding this ancient site or that on their long walks and generally enjoying the gap year Bilbo had wanted to take along with him.

         Then, once they'd gotten back to Tirion, it had been time to Find A Respectable Job. Erestor hadn't thought in capital letters before Bilbo and yet now he did. Erestor had found an apartment after they'd graduated – he still suspected Bilbo had something to do with the scandalously low rent – and with the hope and optimism of every newly graduated student he had applied to dozens and dozens and dozens of jobs.

         Not one had written back.

         Erestor had gotten so frantic to even start applying to the unpaid internships that were thick on the ground, but even they didn't return his calls. Things were getting Very Tight. Erestor was existing on old bread and butter he snitched from the local pub. Then Bilbo had breezed back into his life, (there had been some sort of paperwork debacle at Bag End that had taken months to sort out), taken one look at Erestor's kitchen – and the lack of food within it – and out came the credit card and Bilbo not taking no for an answer.

        (There had also been another sales pitch about taking the Bag End librarian job, but Erestor knew academia. If he took that job now, at his tender age, not one person in the field would listen to him and he'd be laughed right out of any conferences he wanted to attend and publish papers at and – and...it would have been a right mess. No, he needed at least two jobs of decent caliber before he was ringing Bilbo up with a Hire Me Now speech. Erestor had a plan .)

        So. After that – and Bilbo crashing on his couch with a single muttered Lobelia – Erestor had started going to job fairs about town. The first two had been promising, and he'd even got a few call backs and interviews, but the process was slow. There was no harm in going to more and getting his foot in the door with other businesses. Erestor knew paperwork, had lived with Bilbo long enough – and helped him during tax time long enough – to know his way around an Excel spreadsheet and the government websites. Erestor could do this. He could . And once he got a job, an actual paying job with references, he could start applying to the places he really wanted to work at. He had a Plan. He liked his Plan. It was going swimmingly.

         And then he'd decided to go to one last job fair. Just for fun. Just to see what he might find. Some of the salary ranges had been very promising. Bilbo had come along for a laugh and to get out of the apartment for an afternoon. They'd decided on getting curry after, for a treat.

        Erestor had never in his life expected this .

         “And here, you see, you'll have a set petty cash allowance,” said the handsome, golden haired god who had taken one look at Erestor's resume and promptly had Erestor back behind the desk and looking through his hiring handbook. “We'll match any contributions you make to your 401k.”

         “I'd get a 401k?” Erestor felt rather faint.

        The dark haired one – also gorgeous and ridiculous and where did they even come from what was his life – made a pained sound and reached into Erestor's lap, where the hiring book was laid out, to flip through a number of pages and then pointed. “There, see? Full medical, dental, and vision, on top of what we get through the local government, just in case you need to see specialists. Do you?”

         “Do I what?”

         “Have any health concerns? You look rather pale – not that that's a bad thing! I didn't mean –”

         “Food has been interesting lately, that's all,” Erestor said, not really thinking about it. “Otherwise I'm fine. What's the base hourly rate again?”

         “It's a salary position,” the golden haired one said. “Seventy thousand a year to start, with bonuses to be available on a yearly basis.”

         Erestor blinked a few times. “I'm sorry, what.”

        The pair looked at each other, communicating in some way that Erestor could not understand. “We thought...we thought that seventy thousand was a good starting point, but I see now that it isn't,” the golden haired one – Erestor still didn't even know his name – said. “How about eighty?”

         “We could go up to ninety.”

         “Yes, you're right Ecthelion, how about ninety?”

        “That's...fine?” Erestor thought he might be having heart palpitations. Or a rather vivid dream. But the paperwork laid out in front of him was no dream, nor was the way the pair of them hustled Erestor through the odd scanner thing that took his fingerprints and some strange map of his right eye. Why did they even need that? But at ninety grand a year Erestor didn't much care. As long as he didn't have to dispose of any bodies – at least on his own – they could scan his entire body for all he cared.

         The golden haired one turned out to be Glorfindel Flowers. The other was Ecthelion Fountain. They ran a company called Gondolin INC. All Erestor had to do was file papers, make sure the appointment book was up to date, take calls, and, if he was feeling charitable, make coffee.

         Erestor had zero clue as to why the position hadn't been snatched up in a heartbeat. There had been a distinct lack of people in the job fair hall, as he recalled. Still, afterwards, holding his employment paperwork and with the promise of starting on that very next Monday, Erestor had met Bilbo on the sidewalk outside with a strange ringing still going on in his head.

         “I,” said his dear friend. “Have had the strangest thing happen to me.”

         “I got hired,” Erestor told Bilbo, still blinking and clutching the papers to his chest.

         “Oh how strange, me too!”

        Their resulting giggle-fest might have been a tad hysterical but who cared. Erestor was going to get paid ninety thousand dollars a year to answer phones . Things were looking distinctly up.

         Work, as it turned out (or, as he'd feared, thinking it was some sort of scam in the middle of the night after anxiety dreams kept waking him up sweating and with his heart racing) was rather...lovely? He had an abbreviated tour of the building, being told by one Rog Hammerwrath that they had some sort of labs that required security clearances and that they did some sort of governmental work – something about sensors? Erestor had no idea. He'd leave that to the to people that understood such things. Anyway, all Erestor could access were the outer areas, the front desk, and a few conference rooms. Everything else would be, as it were, above his pay grade.

        No wonder they could afford to hire Erestor at ninety grand a year. He'd heard enough from Bilbo about how some government contracts could pay very well. It was an ongoing argument between Bilbo and some of his more distant cousins, who had wanted to use Bag End and its properties for such contracts. Bilbo always told them no.

         Everything to do with, and to schedule, and to deal with for Gondolin INC was in acronyms, and most of them Erestor was not allowed to know the meaning of. Some he had recognized, as being a person with a brain thank you very much, but others were just gibberish to him. The first time he had seen the acronyms for Aman's homeland security cross the datebook Erestor had been shocked. The first time a few men in ill fitting suits had come to the office looking for Glorfindel or Ecthelion or Galdor or Egalmoth or Rog or Duilin, Erestor had almost had a heart attack. Especially with the way those men would glare at him or give him the cold shoulder. It was very odd. Erestor didn't like being around them at all. And neither, from the glares and the foul moods that happened after every time such men came about, did his bosses.

        (Erestor took to keeping what he called his Jerk Snacks in a locked cabinet after that. Rog especially seemed to like to lurk about Erestor's desk after the one time he'd brought in cookies for his bosses after a foul afternoon dealing with the alphabet agency jerks. None of Erestor's bosses had thought to look in the payroll file cabinet for them, though, and since those files were always locked up Erestor had plenty of reason to keep his treats under lock and key. Setting out little treats for his grumpy bosses after dealing with those particular assholes had gotten Erestor his very first dance-about-the-office with Ecthelion, much to his mortification. And delight. A very, very hidden delight.)

        And that was another thing. Erestor wasn't sure, exactly, but he had Suspicions that all of his bosses were in some sort of very strange relationship with each other. Erestor had clocked all of them wearing the exact same tie – and no, it hadn't been a duplicate because that same damn tie had the exact same coffee stain near the tip – at one point or the other. More obvious were the hickies. And the one time Erestor was rather certain he'd walked in on Glorfindel and Egalmoth making out at Glorfindel's desk. That had been mortifying. There had been far too many rumpled clothes for them to just be talking . Added to the fact that they all lived in the same building – and it wasn't an apartment building, Erestor had snooped enough on ArdaEarth to know that much – Erestor had Suspicions. Many Suspicions. But none of those Suspicions somehow led to them all, each and every one of them, acting like they were wooing him in some strange way.

         Erestor had to take a sick day after realizing that no, it wasn't his imagination that both Ecthelion and Duilin had been watching him work at his desk for half the afternoon, both of them doodling on drawing pads. Nor had he imagined the way Glorfindel's smile would change, his blue eyes growing warm and bright when he stepped just a little too close to Erestor's side. Nor the way Rog would just have to lean over Erestor's shoulder to show him some new update he'd put into the computer. Or the way Egalmoth knew Erestor's favorite coffee drinks and snacks. Or how Galdor kept up a supply of Erestor's favorite hard candies though Erestor had yet to have an actual conversation with him.

         Erestor had four missed calls by nine o'clock on that morning, which Bilbo had returned with a prompt - “We're both ill. Terrible thing. Much vomiting. Got to go!” Erestor had thanked his dearest friend by getting snot all over Bilbo's shirt. The resulting panic attack wasn't pretty. At all. But Bilbo, bless him, had been rather sanguine about the whole thing and had just told Erestor to go for it. What's the worst that could happen? And if Erestor got his heart broken then Bilbo would gleefully turn Lobelia on them and that would be that.

         As unhinged as it was the little speech did make Erestor feel better. Having a friend like Bilbo was like winning the lotto back to back for a decade straight. Erestor owed so much to him.

        Which was why, when a bloody geriatric old man tried to point a gun at his head Erestor didn't flinch. When they had both been pushed out of their apartment by said geriatric old man – and then said apartment blew up – Erestor didn't flinch. Even when he was beaten badly by one of the asshole brigade, when he had to save his best friend from a murder attempt, when he jumped off a moving train, Erestor didn't flinch.

         But when he saw Ecthelion standing with Duilin, both of them in tactical gear with rifles over their shoulders...that's when Erestor had flinched. He'd learned, a little, from Bilbo about how his own work, DL INC, had been a front for a mercenary group. As it turned out so was Gondolin INC. Erestor had expected some sort of government connection but not this. Had this all been some strange long game? A way to trick them both? But that hadn't made sense. Bilbo had no idea about what Gandalf had been hiding and Erestor was a nobody. Why hire him at such a rate, why – why court him in such a lovely way, make him smile, bring him coffee from the fancy shop halfway across town, why flirt with him with such warmth in their eyes? No, none of it made sense and it broke his heart to see them standing there, armed to the teeth, staring at Erestor with no expression on their faces.

         Erestor had run then, despite their cries for him to stop. He'd grabbed Bilbo and booked it, stealing a car from a local pub to get them to the sea. That had not been the best of plans, but it was what he had to work with.

         Then Lobelia came and the whole world no longer made any sense.

         “What,” Erestor leaned in, staring into this Elrond's eyes. “The fuck?”

         “You're the son of Prince Caranthir of Formenos,” this Elrond said. “I was hired to extract you from this situation.”

         “Oh, now this is an interesting turn of events,” said Bilbo.

         “Do shut up,” he told his friend. Then, to Elrond, “Bullshit.”

         “I can prove it.”

         “More bullshit.”

         “There's blood work.”

         “Easily forged.”

         “DNA.”

         “More forgeries.”

         “Just. Look.” Then Elrond held up a picture and it was...well. It was something. Erestor's hand had shook taking it from Elrond's fingers. A man who could be his twin scowled up at him, holding a small baby in his arms. Erestor knew that stuffed animal. He'd had it until a boy in the orphanage had ripped it to pieces when he was six.

         “They hired you? Why?”

         “Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.”

         “Explain.”

         “...We're technically cousins. Of a sort.”

         Erestor blinked and blinked again, looking up from the picture at last. “Come again?”

         “I was adopted,” Elrond shrugged. “But no one really knows, since it was all hush-hush. That's why I could come here and help Lobelia and Faramir.”

         Erestor shared a look with Bilbo and turned to the last member of their little boat. They were at anchor near some rocks, away from the port, waiting for nightfall. “And are we somehow related to you too?”

         Faramir made a face and shook his head. “No. But my father and brother are both under that thing's influence.” A shadow passed over his face. “I'll do anything to get them free of it.”

         Then Bilbo snapped his fingers and pointed at Elrond, making them all jump. “You're the son of that Eärendil fellow. Big news some years back. Something about a boat.”

         Elrond made a low sound, coughing into his hand. “Yes. Something like that.”

        “Do tell, did he steal those crown jewels from Formenos or was that just a made up story?”

         The look on Elrond's face was rather pained. “It's far more complicated than that.”

         “Oh that's what they all say.”

        “ Bilbo .”

         Anyway.

        So there they were, sneaking into Sirion's port under the watchful eye of one Círdan the port master. A car met them at the gates, driven by a young lady by the name of Lúthien, who Erestor was rather certain was the missing and presumed dead princess of Doriath. Which also made no sense. She was supposedly lost at sea when her husband Beren had taken them out on a pleasure jaunt for the day. As it turned out it had been a murder attempt and then Beren had taken her grieving parents and turned them into puppets with the spread of that terrible virus mind control thing that Bilbo kept close to his chest at all times.

         Absolutely none of it made any sense. Erestor refused to leave Bilbo's side. He'd help his friend get to Mordor. He'd help Bilbo destroy that box if it was the very last thing he did. Family he might have found, late and in the strangest of places, but Bilbo had been his family first, when they were nothing but Erestor and Bilbo at university, facing the strange wide world together on their own terms.

         Erestor had made a promise to himself, long ago, that should Bilbo ever need his help Bilbo would have it. And this, he figured, was the biggest help he could ever give his friend.

         It was time to get to work.

Chapter Text

         Thorin was absolutely against putting his company through one of these ridiculous 'job fairs'. Yes, their tax situation was dire but there was no reason why they had to hire some outsider to help them fix it. Ori had done well enough on the phones but even Thorin had quailed at Dori's thunderous scowl and threat of quitting if Ori wasn't allowed to go back to his true love of research. Nori had flatly refused to even look at the documents and Glóin was hip deep in the politics of their people and the intricate tithing situation that still wasn't ironed out. Bombur had offered to help but his specialty was in mixing explosives, not taking phone calls or filing. Bofur might have had a better chance at it but he was their lead arms trafficker in the stickier parts of the world and couldn't be spared. Balin had flatly refused after Thorin's debacle with the taxes. Thorin didn't dare put his nephews to the task, since he wasn't even sure if they knew what taxes were.

         It was a mess. An absolute mess. But surely they could figure it out on their own. Right?

        According to Balin, absolutely not. So to this job fair they had gone.

        Lower Tirion was not exactly the most secure place to have such fairs, but since a number of their particular... companies had all come together to put on such a job fair, where they ended up holding it shouldn't have been a problem. DL INC had a long and storied history, even before the ruin of Khazad-dûm. Their people had long been mercenaries for hire all about the world. Once they had been the premiere dragon and wurm killing teams that countries vied for. But ever since the rise of Sauron and his underground NZGL empire things had changed. Khazad-dûm and many other countries had fallen, both to 'internal strife' and outward pressures. Gondolin had fallen, their isolationist practices being used against them from the agents of Sauron on the inside. Many had suspected that Maeglin had been one of the first targeted by the Ring virus but there was no way to check since Maeglin had supposedly thrown himself from the walls of the city as it burned.

         There were many theories, many conspiracies, and Thorin didn't know what to believe. What he did know was that he and most of his company were all infected with it, since all of them were connected to the royal lines in some way.

         Some more than others.

         Óin all but lived in his lab, trying day and night to find some way of combating it. They'd seen it in action only once, at Azanulbizar, when their people had been forced to go up against the Uruk-hai people despite knowing that they had been badly outnumbered and sure to fail. That they had been able to win the day – if at a staggering cost – had been a surprise. A surprise it seemed that Sauron did not like, since right after that battle Thorin's father and grandfather had killed themselves in very public and messy ways. The only saving grace there was that due to their people's culture, Thorin's own birth and relation to the king's line was unknown. That was probably the only thing that had saved his life.

        Thorin put all thoughts of the Ring virus and Sauron to the side. They were looking for – Mahal save them – a secretary. A secretary . Someone who could answer phones, someone who knew what taxes were, who knew how to file said taxes and maybe even help them extricate themselves from the current mess their Aman financial situation was in.

         Perhaps they had hoped too high.

         Even with the generous salary posted they saw little to no foot traffic into their fair hall. There were at least fifty booths, not all of them like DL INC but more than a few dotted here and there. Thorin picked out at least two undercover agents from Ilmarin and Valimar in the first fifteen minutes. There was a both from Rohan as well, but they seemed to be focused on their horse breeding projects. There was a large booth from Gondor that seemed to be gathering the most interest from the few people who came in. The Guard was always hiring and from the slick ads on TV more than one person had fallen for the sales pitch.

         None of that helped their particular situation.

         “Are you sure you have it?”

         “Yes,” Thorin said for what felt like the fiftieth time that day.

         “I don't see it.”

         “It's in the folder.”

         “It is not.”

         Thorin rolled his eyes and turned back to their booth. “It's right there.”

         “No. It is not.”

         “Yes, it...” Thorin frowned down at the empty folder. “It was right there.”

         “Thorin.”

         “I'm telling you I put it right there!”

         “And I'm telling you, Thorin, that's going to get us in trouble! You have to keep a copy of that!”

         “I did!”

         “I saw you throw away the carbon copy myself. So help me if Balin finds out...”

        Thorin glanced up to see Dwalin staring at something. He turned, following his line of sight and rephrased that. Dwalin was staring at someone . A very, very attractive someone. Curly golden hair fell over a pale face, with hazel eyes more green than blue due to his bright emerald vest and wine colored jacket. The fellow was short, far shorter than they were, coming up perhaps to Thorin's jaw if he were lucky.

         He was exactly Thorin and Dwalin's type. So much so that it looked as though he had walked out of one of their dreams.

         “Ah, hello,” said the stranger. His smile could have lit up the room. “I was just wondering –”

         “You,” said Dwalin. Thorin kicked him in the ankle. Dwalin kicked his back. “Do you...know how to file paperwork?”

         Handsome Stranger blinked at them, rocking back a bit. “Yes?” The way he scrunched up his nose was ridiculous.

         “And taxes? D'ya know how to prepare tax files?”

         Oh, Dwalin was bring out the accent. Thorin wanted to kick him again.

         Those beautiful eyes blinked again. Then, “What kind of tax files? Are you an LLC? Non-profit? For-profit? Small business versus big business and do you have government subsidies? Are you part of the government or are you run by investments and if so, are they foreign or domestic?”

         It felt like a thunderbolt coming from a clear sky. “You,” Thorin said, not caring if his voice was a touch rough and raspy. Could he be blamed for that? “You're hired.”

         “I'm what now?”

        Which was how they met one Bilbo Baggins. An art major from Tirion University, visiting the job fair with his friend – Thorin had glanced over exactly once to see Fountain glaring at him from where the great bat was hovering over Bilbo's friend and apparently Flowers and Fountain's' new employee – and that they had only decided to visit this job fair on a whim.

        Thorin thanked Mahal a thousand times in his heart and bent to making sure this Bilbo Baggins was hired within the hour .

        Bilbo seemed to hesitate at the salary. They didn't have much to offer – five hundred dollars a week was what they were starting with – but Thorin did a bit of mental math and wanted to wince. Even with a roommate their – this Bilbo was surely paying at least two thousand a month in rent for even a halfway decent apartment in Lower Tirion. And since their offices – and from the looks of things, Bilbo's friend would be working with Gondolin INC so they'd be headed in the same direction – the areas beyond the walls were in a rougher neighborhood, there might be a chance the rent was cheaper but not by much.

         “Six hundred a week,” Thorin decided on a whim. Dwalin gaped at him from over Bilbo's shoulder but a sharp look had his lover falling in line.

        “Oh, well, if you put it that way,” their – this Bilbo said and that seemed to be that. What kind of dire monetary situation was he in if that was his deciding factor? Thorin stifled the urge to growl and made sure to get Bilbo to sign all the necessary paperwork on the spot.

         Telling the rest of the company about their new secretary had been...interesting. Dori had not been amused, wanting all the details and the video surveillance from the fair hall. Glóin was furious about the increased salary, but when they all heard about Bilbo's ease with the tax forms...

         Well. No one argued too much more after that.

         And oh, what a blessing their Bilbo turned out to be. Within the first week he had all of the tax forms filed out, an extension put in for the worst of the lot, and all of the filing fees waived due to some obscure rule none of them knew about. Thorin had wanted to kiss Bilbo right there and then. Dwalin, too, seemed to be on the cusp.

        They took him out to dinner, instead. The Barrel and Cork was an upscale pub on the edges of Lower Tirion, nothing too fancy, there was no need to put their Bilbo on edge by taking him to a formal restaurant off the bat. Thorin held out Bilbo's chair for him to sit – an honor he'd gotten by beating Dwalin to it – and the way Bilbo had beamed at them both...it did things to Thorin's chest. Things he didn't know if he liked. Things he and Dwalin worked out in the bedroom after said dinner and both of them had come in the next day beaming and conspicuously ignoring Fíli and Kíli's gagging noises as they did so.

        Things were going swimmingly. Their tax issues were tackled one by one and by the end of the first month even Glóin was singing Bilbo's praises, calling him their Burglar in their native tongue, since Glóin hated the tax bureau of Aman the most. The name soon caught on but none of them used it in Bilbo's hearing. All of them were pretty sure the translation did not mean something, well, good in Aman's native language and none of them wanted to upset Bilbo in any way. Not after Bilbo had single-handedly gotten two of Ori's research tomes out of the Custom's prison where they had been languishing for almost a year.

        Ori had been almost feral over Bilbo's time after that. No one bothered their Bilbo when he was at work. Not even Thorin and Dwalin. Not unless they had a Very Good Reason. It was adorable. And terrifying. Dori was beaming for weeks over it.

        And so things had gone on, with Thorin and Dwalin sweeping Bilbo off to more and more expensive restaurants as the months passed, enjoying the way their Bilbo seemed to settle into their lifestyle bit by bit. He was still living with his friend, this Erestor, even after Nori had done some digging and found out that Flowers and Fountain were paying their new secretary ninety thousand a year . Who did that? Rich bastards from Gondolin, apparently. DL INC was still struggling to get most of their financial issues rectified – Bilbo's side of things were just fine, it was the tithing and all the issues with the scattered refugees of their nation that were the problem. Still Thorin and Dwalin were able to show Bilbo a lovely time, and their Bilbo seemed to enjoy it as well.

        (The talking to they'd gotten from Balin about respecting Bilbo's boundaries and his position at work had been epic. Dori had been standing behind Balin's shoulder the entire time, arms crossed and a glare firmly in place. Thorin had no idea when Bofur had popped up, but when Thorin and Dwalin had left their conference room their arms trafficker had taken one look at them, smiled in that way and informed them that should they so much as bruise Bilbo's heart he'd find a sniper's perch and take them out piece by piece. Thorin could only nod his acceptance. Their people's loyalty, once given, was unshakable.)

        There was just one flaw in this courtship. Neither Thorin nor Dwalin could seem to find a way to explain their current circumstances. How did one start that conversation? By their people's accounts Thorin was their King and Dwalin was his Consort. They had never had a formal betrothing but they had been with each other for over a decade and had braided their hair together. In the eyes of their people that was as good as a wedding. A royal side-consort was rare but not unheard of. Thorin and Dwalin would have to make the appropriate gestures for their people and coach Bilbo on how to respond...should he want to. But who would? The nation of Khazad-dûm had a terrible reputation and their satellite refugee camps were often in the news for brawls and riots and any number of other bad publicity. Their people were often hounded in their new countries and even in Aman their company had found more than a few people had thought the worst of them right off the bat, just for being who they were. Not Bilbo, though. Bilbo had taken all their particularities in stride, had not even blinked at some of the reserve shown to him by Nori and a few others of their company. Bilbo had accepted them all as they were and didn't even seem to notice when people would cross the street to get away from them.

         Meeting one Bilbo Baggins was their blessing from Mahal for sure.

        But then. But then . It had been a regular Monday morning when Thorin felt the Ring virus take control. All of them had. Thorin fought it as best he could, with Óin's new potions helping give them a greater resistance to the virus' hold. They all had put on their tactical gear. They all had their weapons primed and ready. What was Bilbo going to think? It was only by Mahal's grace that their Bilbo had called in saying he would be late, that he'd had some sort of altercation with the kettle and that he would be in as soon as he could. But then...but then the orders had come. The orders for them to deploy to a particular neighborhood. That Gandalf Grey had been sighted, that this old spy had to be eliminated.

        That this Gandalf Grey was holed up in their Bilbo's apartment, was apparently Bilbo's godfather , and that they were to use all weapons on hand to eliminate the threat.

         This could not be. But even as their bodies moved without their control, even as Azog, Sauron's commander and Thorin's bane, grinned at him with sharpened teeth and wild eyes, they marched on their Bilbo's apartment, ready to lay waste to the one that Thorin and Dwalin wanted to marry, wanted to court and cherish and keep safe.

        Finding out that their Bilbo was the Baggins of Bag End had been a shock. Not enough to shake the virus' hold on them, though. Thorin knew they all had fought against it, even as Bofur wept as he aimed the rocket launcher and pulled the trigger. Even as they chased their Bilbo to the coast. Even as Dwalin took his rifle and had Bilbo in his sites. They fought and fought and fought until blood ran from their noses and their fingers were scraped and bleeding. Still the virus held on strong, forcing them to chase, forcing them to fire, forcing them to try and kill the love of their lives.

        It did not help to see Flowers and Fountain's crew in the same position. There were far too many agents of all kinds hot on their Bilbo's heels, all of them trying to kill or capture their Burglar, their Bilbo. And then, just as they thought Bilbo was trapped, along with his friend Erestor, when Thorin had hoped that perhaps, just perhaps, they could get Bilbo to surrender into their custody – surely Azog would allow them to keep Bilbo close, once they turned over that damn box – when they thought that perhaps they would not have to kill the one they loved...

         A boat appeared, skipping along the shallow waters like a rock across a pond. The slight woman with the rocket launcher had been a surprise. The strange multi-pronged tiny missiles were even more so. The lady had the very best and bleeding edge technology at her fingertips.

         And then their Bilbo, their Burglar, had thrown himself into the sea, thrown himself into that boat with that woman, and all hopes of bringing Bilbo in safely were gone.

Chapter Text

         Glorfindel flicked his finger, scanning down the page on his tablet as the hours ticked by. Ecthelion was playing some sort of game on his phone, his feet kicked up on the cooler they'd hid under their display table. They'd lost the intense game of rock/paper/scissors with their lovers over who would attend this particular job fair, but so far it wasn't so bad. Glorfindel was making a dent in his backlog of trashy romance web-novels and if Ecthelion's little grin was any indication he had beat Egalmoth's high score in whatever game those two played together.

         Gondolin INC had terrible luck with secretaries. Glorfindel wasn't sure why, exactly. They paid very well, asked little beyond the basics, and he thought they were all generally rather pleasant to be around. However, over the last year, they'd gone through five secretaries, one of which had quit on the same day they'd started. They had yelled something about all of them being psychopaths and fled the building. Rather rude, if you asked Glorfindel, but no one had. He still didn't know why that particular secretary, a man named Lotho, had become so flustered. Yes, he might have walked in on Glorfindel kissing Ecthelion and Egalmoth but Glorfindel was in his own office! It was Lotho's problem for not knocking.

         Obviously.

        Still, they needed someone to cover the phones and deal with the mail and greet the inevitable assholes who darkened their doorsteps from time to time. Glorfindel frowned down at his tablet. They had built Gondolin INC from the ground up after the destruction of their country. Their military had been disbanded by the Council of Orodruin, who had so kindly stepped in to 'help' what remained of their nation. Glorfindel had snapped up everyone he could, along with Ecthelion, as they made their way out of their country. They had just been Glorfindel-and-Ecthelion then, back when Gondolin still stood as a proud nation apart. It had been in the aftermath that things got...complicated.

         Glorfindel and Ecthelion had never been exclusive in their relationship. They had loved each other since they were children and knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together...but each of them had different interests and sometimes different needs that they could not meet for each other. So they had always been open with their love, knowing that they two would always hold true to each other in their hearts.

        Then came Egalmoth and his sad eyes and small smile and Glorfindel and Ecthelion had fallen head first for him in the week they'd had together. But the issue became that with Egalmoth came Duilin, who Glorfindel and Ecthelion did not know. It had been an awkward few weeks until Duilin had looked between Glorfindel and Ecthelion, rolled his eyes and then kissed them both. Then he'd turned and shoved a shocked Egalmoth into their arms with a muttered, “Take pics or video but I need to get that project finished by tonight.” Then he'd left.

        And that, it seemed, had been that. Except. Except . Then they'd met Galdor.

         Galdor had been one of the remote scouts in Gondolin, used to fighting on his own and going on solo missions behind enemy lines. Galdor was the most tactically proficient of them all, terrifyingly so, and had often been used as a sniper in projects that were absolutely above Glorfindel's pay grade. Galdor was a solemn, quiet fellow who rarely smiled, who kept his head down, and if Duilin hadn't known of Galdor's old squad and had gone looking for what remained of them, no one really knew what would have happened to Galdor. Duilin had dragged Galdor back to the shabby warehouse that had been their home base in Tirion at first and nursed Galdor back to health, mostly on his own.

        Apparently at some point Galdor had become fond of Duilin and somehow thought that Egalmoth was cheating on Duilin with Glorfindel. The subsequent tackle and very pointed interrogation had been one of the best Glorfindel had ever suffered through. He had rather wanted to wrestle Galdor to the ground, get his mouth on certain parts of the man, and do his own interrogation of Galdor in turn. Duilin had broken them up, had made a rather bungled explanation of things, and had kissed Galdor at the end of his rambling speech. Galdor, however, had retreated before either Glorfindel or Duilin could catch him and it had taken three weeks of stalking him through Aman and then greater Arda to convinced him to come home. That's how they ended up with Galdor.

         And then there was Rog.

         Rog was a prodigy in the programming field. He had been seduced from the university computer science program and into some black site lab that Rog still couldn't talk about. At first they had recruited him for his technical knowledge. Having a cyber security expert of any kind was an absolute necessity in their day and age. Galdor had been the one to reach out to him. None of the others knew the exact details of the lab that Galdor had pulled Rog out of, other than it had gone up in literal flames and that Rog had some nasty burns from escaping it. Rog had kept his head down for an entire year, not even looking Glorfindel in the face for the first three months he'd worked with them. Then Rog had walked in on Glorfindel going down on Galdor and...well...Glorfindel's credit score had almost gone negative by lunch and half his possessions were about to be repossessed before Galdor got a hold of Rog to explain that they were all in a relationship, that they all cared for each other, and that absolutely no cheating was going on.

         Rog hadn't spoken to any of them for weeks after.

        Glorfindel had feared they were going to lose him. Rog would all but sleep in his office, since he had originally taken a room in the no longer shabby warehouse they'd bought when they'd first moved to Tirion. Where Rog went Glorfindel still didn't know and wasn't sure if even Galdor knew, since their resident sniper would get a rather constipated look on his face whenever any of them had brought the topic up. Then one day, surprising them all, Rog had stalked into what had become their living room with a sheaf of papers, dragging along a whiteboard – where he'd gotten it, they still didn't know – and demanded answers .

         The resulting conversation had taken about six hours, eight pizzas, four bottles of liquor and more beer than Glorfindel wanted to think about. They'd all woken up in Glorfindel and Ecthelion's ridiculous bed, built big enough for five full grown men to sleep on it, arms and legs and bodies tangled in a way that was rather telling. That five person bed became six, although such nights were rare between them all. If one of them wasn't on a job, another was in the lab, or behind their computer, or doing something else with this company they were building up bit by bit. And it worked. Glorfindel loved his partners, every single one of them. He valued them all for their own uniqueness, for the joy and happiness they all brought into his life. Things weren't always rosy – they were far too hardened by the burdens life had thrown at them to be soft for each other in the ways they sometimes needed – but they made do. There had been some talk, every now and then, about finding another partner, one who would fit into the parts and pieces of their lives, who would give them that softness that they needed, but none of them knew how to even go about something like that. Relationships such as theirs were rare beyond measure in their world. How could they find someone to fit them, who could be happy with them, who would want to join into the insanity that was their lives?

         So that conversation stayed merely that. Conversation. But they did dream about it. Sometimes.

        Glorfindel felt his foot being nudged and looked up. Ecthelion still had his phone up, but his gaze was sharp and on something in the aisles. Glorfindel followed his gaze, thinking his lover had spied one of the NZGL agents or another mole of the various agencies that now ruled over the ruined Gondolin that would come about from time to time, trying to lure them back. As if there could be any going back with that thing still in their blood and minds. But all Glorfindel saw was a thin body paused at the table next to theirs, his dark hair tucked back behind his ears as he studied the pamphlet that had been tossed at him – literally tossed what was wrong with Orthanc Inc? – before giving the older man behind the table a bland smile before moving on.

         Towards them.

         Glorfindel felt his foot be nudged again and nudged back. He powered off his tablet and threw it into a bag, getting to his feet just as that slim body came to a stop in front of their own table. “Hello,” he said, hearing Ecthelion getting to his feet behind him. “We're Gondolin INC. Are you looking for a secretarial position?”

         “I am, yes,” dark eyes were framed with the most ridiculously long eyelashes Glorfindel had ever seen. “Do you have any –”

        “I have our full offer, here for you to look over,” Ecthelion said, stepping up to the young man's side and ushering him back behind the table with a smile Glorfindel knew . “Here, take a seat. Would you like some water?”

         “No...thank you? What exactly are you looking for and do you want to see my resume?”

         “We would love to see your resume,” Glorfindel took the file and glanced over it. He felt his eyebrow tick up and knew from the glance Ecthelion shot him that his lover had noticed it. This fellow – Erestor Brothers was his name – was a university graduate in archival studies. He had worked at the university's library and done other small internships while at school. It seemed as though he was now in the process of trying to find an actual paying job in the real world.

         Interesting.

         It was, however, seeing one Professor Námo Fëanturi on this Erestor's resume – complete with a letter of recommendation – that sealed Glorfindel's desire to hire this Erestor as soon as possible. Professor Fëanturi had been a notorious stickler for records and records keeping, so much so that Gondolin had sent their own students out to whichever university that Professor Fëanturi was at, just to get the experience he could teach. That this Erestor seemed to be a favored student of his? Glorfindel was sold.

         And then that Erestor had looked up at Ecthelion and pushed the water bottle Ecthelion had in his hands back towards Ecthelion and said, “I think you might need it more. I'm fine, really.”

        Oh. Oh no . This Erestor was sweet. This Erestor was kind . This Erestor was also absolutely their type. He didn't seem to mind Ecthelion's fretting. He didn't seem to mind Glorfindel's looming. He was calm as he went through their questions – Glorfindel had tried to hide his glee at finding a student with Professor Fëanturi's stamp of approval but Ecthelion saw right through him – but then they'd come to the money part.

         Glorfindel knew they paid a lot for the position, in comparison with the others in the hall. A few quick signs between himself and Ecthelion – along with a rather rapid series of texts with Egalmoth who ran their finances – Glorfindel got a cap of a hundred thousand a year and a threat that if Glorfindel did not bring this Erestor home then Rog was liable to revolt and figure out some less than savory ways to entice this Erestor into working for them.

         (Rog's adoration for Professor Fëanturi was legendary.)

        Ecthelion was in the middle of explaining their benefits when this Erestor looked up at them, with such eyes that Glorfindel wanted to pick him up and run with him that instant , and said, “I'd get a 401k?”

        They were so screwed. Ecthelion made the same sound he made when Galdor was working him over and said, “There, see?” Then Ecthelion – that cheater – reached into Erestor's lap to flip through the binder that contained their offer. “Full medical, dental, and vision, on top of what we get through the local government, just in case you need to see specialists. Do you?”

         “Do I what?”

         “Have any health concerns? You look rather pale – not that that's a bad thing! I didn't mean –”

         Glorfindel made cutting motions at his throat. Small lines appeared in the corners of Ecthelion's mouth and eyes.

         “Food has been interesting lately, that's all,” Erestor said, still staring down at the binder. “Otherwise I'm fine. What's the base hourly rate again?”

         “It's a salary position,” Glorfindel said. What exactly did food has been interesting mean? “Seventy thousand a year to start, with bonuses to be available on a yearly basis.” He ignored the look Ecthelion gave him. Yes they had a hundred thousand as a cap but Egalmoth was scary when he was forced to balance the budget when their spending got out of hand.

         Erestor blinked a few times and then looked up at them. Those eyes. “I'm sorry, what.”

         Glorfindel looked at Ecthelion. Ecthelion looked like he was trying not to gloat. Glorfindel was absolutely tripping Ecthelion into a closet at their earliest opportunity “We thought...we thought that seventy thousand was a good starting point, but I see now that it isn't,” Glorfindel said. “How about eighty?”

         “We could go up to ninety.” Glorfindel was going to make Ecthelion deal with Egalmoth if they went over the cap.

         "Yes, you're right Ecthelion, how about ninety?” They shared smiles that were more teeth than pleasantry. Perhaps they'd just go rent the closest hotel room.

        “That's...fine?” The lost note to Erestor's voice brought Glorfindel back to the moment faster than the whine of a weapons lock alarm. “Are you – are you sure you're just looking for a secretary?”

         Glorfindel saw Ecthelion fold like wet cardboard from the corner of his eye. “We need someone to deal with our computer system – it's a bit finicky so you'll be working with Rog on that – keep our files in order – don't ask what Ecthelion did to them the last time he tried to fill in – and keep our schedules organized and other things like that.”

         “At ninety thousand a year,” Erestor repeated.

         “Yes.”

         “And when...would this position begin?”

         “Monday,” Ecthelion said. “We can walk you through the preliminary security measures now so you'll have access to our lobby.”

         “O...kay?”

         By the time Ecthelion had Erestor's eye scan and palm print loading into their system Glorfindel had updated his lovers on their hiring of one Erestor Brothers and – from the look of the glare sent their way by DL INC, this Erestor had a friend in the hall who was getting hired as well. Erestor's particulars were sent Rog's way – who pinged the university and got Erestor's full transcripts (Glorfindel wasn't going to ask how) – and Rog's enthusiasm for this new hire grew to sending lines of exclamation points in their group text and that was all. Clearly he liked what he saw.

         They saw Erestor out – who was still clutching his hiring binder in his arms, how cute – and then Ecthelion turned to him and said. “Hotel. Right now.”

         “Yes,” Glorfindel agreed. He didn't know how they managed to pack in the time that they did, but they did miss Erestor and his friend leaving the area by the time they emerged from the hiring hall. Ecthelion pulled him into a Hotel 7 and Glorfindel hit the bed on his back with a groan he'd been holding in since Erestor had bit his lower lip and blushed when Ecthelion helped him up from the chair.

         The resulting workout did much to relax them both.

         After, Glorfindel lay on his back and stared up at the pock-marked ceiling. “He might not be interested in...” Glorfindel made a vague, sweeping gesture. Ecthelion was curled up against his chest, tracing patterns against his skin. “He is five years younger than us.”

         “He's twenty-five. He's not a barely-legal baby.”

         Glorfindel swallowed, feeling Ecthelion smooth a palm over his chest. “He seems kind.”

         “Galdor is going to lose his mind when he sees him.”

         “Do you think...”

         “I think we take it one day at a time. We hired him for a job we needed filled. If he is open to more than that...” Ecthelion sighed. “We take it one day at a time.”

        One day at a time was good to say but that Monday Glorfindel saw Rog haunting the hallway that led to their lobby a full hour before Erestor was supposed to be there. It turned out that not only was Erestor a favored student of Professor Fëanturi but that Professor Fëanturi had been warning off shady academic prospects that had been sniffing after Erestor since he graduated. The Professor also seemed to have been a bit too forceful, since after Professor Fëanturi had told off the shady Dushgoi Institute, most every other academic posting had backed off their Erestor, not wanting to risk the Professor's ire.

         What was someone else's loss was their definite gain. Rog had showed them files on how Erestor had been doing the type of archival studies that would have made even the isolationist Gondolin forces sit up and take notice. Erestor had an eye for detail, an almost perfect recall, and an ability to organize things in his sleep. Rog had threatened them all with more and more dire consequences if he wasn't allowed to give Erestor the tour of the building and get him settled in. They all still managed to wander by Rog and Erestor's initial meeting. Glorfindel had given Ecthelion a smug look when Galdor had taken one look at Erestor and disappeared into the rafters. It would take hours to get him down but it was worth seeing that poleaxed look on Galdor's face.

         Then time, as it always did, moved on. Erestor settled into their lives as though he had always been there. He was never scared of them, not even when he walked into the break room when Rog had his shirt off – there had been a toner incident – and was shown the worst of Rog's scars all at once. And Erestor...Erestor had just – just handed Rog a towel and taken his shirt from him, clicking his tongue as he looked it over.

         “I'm afraid this might never be the same,” Erestor had said. He didn't even seem to see the way Rog was staring at him.

         “Oh?”

         “You spilled coffee on this, right?”

         “Yeah?”

         “Then it's just made it worse. It looks like you tried to scrub at it too.”

         “I did.”

         “Yeah, it's pretty much ruined, sorry.”

         “I don't...mind? Do you?”

         Erestor had looked at Rog, blinking a bit in that way he got when he was rather confused about the situation but trying not to show it. “Mind what?”

        Rog had just stared. Glorfindel had swept in at that point before Rog could tackle Erestor to the ground – the tackling thing Rog got from Galdor, Glorfindel swore – and scare their poor Erestor off before they could even start their wooing of him.

        Ah, yes. The wooing . Glorfindel felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He looked up and sure enough Galdor had been in the rafters, watching them.

         Galdor had been the one to lay down that particular bit of law. They were to be respectful. They were to be gentlemen. They were to treat Erestor with kindness and honor. If any one of them so much as made Erestor remotely uncomfortable Galdor would find them and the lessons he'd learned in his survival training would be imparted to them. Repeatedly.

        Galdor, hilariously, still had yet to actually speak to Erestor. Every time he tried he clammed up and vanished before Erestor could even see him.

        As for their company, Erestor fit in like a piece they had been missing this entire time. Even when the NZGL agents showed up, or when other agencies' moles came to bother them, Erestor handled them with an ease and a grace that a full bird colonel would envy. Their files were never out of place. Erestor handled their schedules with a deft hand and an iron will, even when other agencies tried to screw with them. Erestor even made coffee for them and how he managed to make the swill that Egalmoth bought taste like the best Rh û n brew, Glorfindel had no idea. Erestor never flinched, even when Glorfindel was too far into his head and snapped at him. Erestor just stood there, calm as could be, when Ecthelion was a tense line from head to foot and Glorfindel knew his lover had snapped people's arms in that mood before. Erestor did not fear them. Erestor brought them snacks when the NZGL agents came by just to taunt them with possible missions they could not refuse. Erestor braved their snarling and their snappy moods with a courage that put others to shame.

        So when the call came that they were to deploy, when the Ring virus was triggered in their systems, when they had to gear up and move out, to find out that they were to move against Erestor ? Glorfindel had gone to his knees trying to fight that damn virus. He'd almost passed out. Galdor and Rog had been forced to haul him upright when the NZGL agent Dwimmerlaik had commanded them to move out. Ecthelion and Duilin were already on the hunt, the virus in complete control as they hunted their Erestor to the edge of Aman.

        They'd cornered him there, along with their main target, this Bilbo Baggins, Erestor's friend and roommate. Baggins had something, had been given something, that the NZGL agents and many more wanted. Glorfindel had been forced to fire on friends he'd known for over a decade, all in the name of getting a hold of this precious object their masters wanted. What Glorfindel wanted was to throw down his weapons and gather Erestor up and never let him go. What he wanted was to get them all behind their walls and lock it all down, to find a way to rid themselves of this bloody virus that forced them to do despicable acts. But all he could do was call Erestor's name and hope – pray – that Erestor knew that they did not want his death, just his safety. Just him with them, forever and always.

         Then Erestor threw himself into the sea and Glorfindel had passed out screaming his name.

Chapter Text

         Bilbo slid into the center seat of the car with Erestor on one side and Lobelia on the other. Faramir was staying with the boat but would rendezvous with them somewhere else. Bilbo hadn't caught just where. Something about the downs? But that made no sense. Elrond took the front passenger seat with his medic's bag sitting on his lap.

         The driver of their car was a petite woman Bilbo would have known anywhere. Princess Lúthien of Doriath's disappearance, search, and later funeral had been all the press could talk about for months. Her grieving parents had secluded themselves inside their country and no one had seen them for months. Her husband, once Prince-Consort Beren, now just Prince (and some said was now considered the Crown Prince which didn't make any sense to Bilbo since titles and lineages didn't work like that, but Doriath was Doriath so perhaps things were different there) was still very much out in the public eye, wearing traditional mourning colors and bleating about his dead wife anytime someone stuck a camera or a microphone anywhere near him.

         Bilbo squinted at the woman driving their car. There was no doubt it was Princess Lúthien. There had been some talk of sending a representative from the Shire to her funeral and wake but Bilbo had wiggled out of that duty by being conspicuously sick for the entire week that rigmarole took place. “I'm rather certain you're supposed to be dead,” he told their driver.

         “That's what they all say,” the woman flashed them a smile from the rear view mirror. “Lúthien, daughter of Queen Melian and King Elu Thingol, at your service.”

         Bilbo heard Erestor utter a groan. “Bilbo Baggins, at yours,” he said back. “So are you a vampire?”

         That got a giggle out of her. Bilbo tried not to look at the way she was driving. Erestor had a white-knuckled grip on the arm rest next to him. “Of course not!”

         “Then your mysterious fall from a boat and report of death is...?”

         That made her smile vanish. “It's a long story,” she warned.

         “Is it a long drive?” Bilbo risked a glance out the windshield and regretted it.

         “Long for some,” she said with a shrug. “Long enough for a story too, I suppose.”

         “Then if you would, kind lady.”

        “You're adorable,” her smile returned as she focused back on the road. “And yes, I did fall off a boat while out with my – with him ,” her upper lip curled. “But what the report doesn't say is that it was not an accident, but rather the former love of my life pushing me from said boat after hitting me over the head with a spear fishing gun.”

         Bilbo felt his mouth drop open. “Excuse me what?”

        “I think he was going to try to shoot me with it when we were snorkeling but I wasn't feeling up to it so I wanted to stay on the boat. All the stories he's spun claims that I must have hit my head after drinking too much ,” her snarl was back. “That he left me alone after raging at him after several bottles of liquor and that was when I must have slipped and fallen from the boat.”

         “Painting you out to be a drunk then,” Lobelia said. She had one arm folded over her stomach and a finger tapping her lips. “Making him out to be the saintly husband who was suffering in a marriage with an unstable wife who would have made an unstable monarch but now that you're gone he can step into those shoes and win the hearts of the people with his bullshit lies.”

         “Yes,” Lúthien's smile turned a touch wild. “I like you. What is your name, dear lady?”

         “Lobelia Bracegirdle, cousin to this one,” she jerked her thumb towards Bilbo. “And keeper of keys at Bag End.”

        “Oh, you're that Bilbo Baggins.”

        “Why does everyone say it like that,” Bilbo sighed out. That caused Erestor and Lobelia to start giggling, which infected Bilbo too. Soon enough they were wiping tears of mirth – or perhaps hysteria – from their eyes as the car sped onward, weaving in and out of traffic in ways Bilbo tried not to pay too much attention to.

         “Sorry,” he said after they had regained the ability to breath. “Terribly sorry about that.”

         “It's good to hear someone laughing at least,” Lúthien shook her head. “Not much more to my story at least. I was rescued by this one's brother,” she pointed at Elrond. “And they got me into a safe house where I could heal up and decide what I wanted to do.”

         “A safe house?” Bilbo looked between them.

         Elrond shifted in his seat until he could look back at them. “I was made to understand that you know Gandalf Grey?”

         Bilbo felt his smile falter and die. “Knew,” he corrected, blinking fast. “I'm afraid he was terribly injured when he came to me last and then saved our lives by pushing us out of the building before it...before it was blown up.”

         “...I see,” Elrond bowed his head with a sigh. “He will be missed.”

         “He told me,” Bilbo continued after a moment. “He told me that my parents were some sort of spies and were caught up in all this,” he waved a hand at them, himself, at all of it. “Can you tell me more? He didn't have much time to be specific.”

         Elrond shared a look with Lúthien, who gave him a nod. Then Elrond turned back to them. “The Ring system was built in Mordor, some say by Sauron himself, in the Orodruin lab there. It was built to infect the leaders of Arda to keep them under Sauron's total control. And, to a degree, his plan worked. The Ring virus went out and it was slipped into every royal house, every congress, every council of lords, anyone and everyone who would have been in a seat of power was infected by it and in turn so was their families. For the most part.”

         Bilbo felt Lobelia take his hand.

         “The Shire was more difficult to infiltrate. As far as we know the line of the Thain is still free of its influence. Had the Ring system stayed in Sauron's hands he would have turned all the rulers of Arda into automatons to his will.”

         Bilbo put his free hand over the box that was still strapped to his chest under his shirt. “But?”

         “But Isildur, the son of King Elendil of Gondor, found out about it. No one is exactly sure how –”

         “Well,” said Lúthien.

         “The rumors that Isildur and Sauron were lovers has no basis in fact or reality,” Elrond snapped. “I refuse to believe it.”

         “Just because you don't want to think about your cousin knocking boots with –”

         “Lúthien, please .”

         “Fine, fine.”

         Bilbo pressed a knuckle to his lips, stifling his snickers.

        “Anyways,” Elrond sent Lúthien a sharp look. She shrugged at him. “Isildur found out about it and stole it from Sauron's lab. Where it went after that no one knows. Officially. What we know is that somehow Isildur knew Gandalf and Gandalf knew your parents and it was handed off to them at some point.”

         “But then how did my mother become infected with it?”

         The question seemed to suck all the air out from the car.

         “What,” said Elrond. “Are you talking about?”

         Bilbo opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, “Gandalf told me. He said...he said Mother got infected by the virus somehow but was already pregnant with me at the time. That...that because she...fought it off? Did something? He wasn't very clear about what happened but due to whatever she did or was done to her, I am now...immune to the virus? But,” a thought came to him. “Gandalf also said that if the virus got out it would kill people, not control them. Are we...are we talking about the same thing?”

         Elrond shared another long look with Lúthien. “The virus has a way to kill the people infected with it. And yes, I think Sauron's plan was to unleash it on the world so that every single creature could be under his absolute control.”

         “But then how did I become immune to it? Isn't it in you?” Bilbo looked to Lúthien. “You are the Princess of Doriath and your parent's only child. Shouldn't you be controlled by this thing?”

         But it was Elrond who answered. “Only the current leaders of the nations of Arda were infected in the first round. Our organization stepped in before the children could be targeted.”

         "Your organization?”

         “Isildur started it,” Elrond nodded. “My parents were both part of it. It is led by the White Council. We are doing our best to fight back against Sauron with any means necessary. We are not tied to any one kingdom or nation, so Sauron cannot cause any one leader to root us out and put an end to our plans to destroy the Ring.”

         “But if the virus is already in these rulers, then why does he need...” Bilbo pressed his hand tighter to the box.

         Elrond sighed. “What you have is the control system. The virus can be used to take over the infected person's free will...but only for a short time. The longer a subject is under the virus' active control the weaker that hold becomes. Even repeated short term activation will only hold for so long. But it is long enough to cause the infected to do things that would be contrary to their will and desire. Long enough to turn them into war criminals or murderers or any number of things.”

         Bilbo thought back to the way both Thorin and Dwalin's faces had been slack and emotionless. How sweet Ori had been firing a gun without a flinch when before if something so much as a book dropped the poor thing would have jumped a foot in the air. “I see,” Bilbo murmured. “I see.”

         “What you have is the original control unit. We were told it was fashioned to look like a ring, so that Sauron could wear it at all times and keep total control of the people of the world. Isildur taking it meant that Sauron's plans were stopped for a time, but as long as the Ring that can control the virus still exists then the free will and lives of all the people of Arda are in jeopardy.”

         “No pressure or anything,” Bilbo muttered. He heard Erestor let out a snort. “And no one thought to, I don't know, put this thing through an industrial press? Drop it in acid? Put it in a blast furnace?”

         “We did,” Elrond said to Bilbo's shock. “It did not so much as chip.”

         Bilbo let out a flat laugh. “Then how in the world am I supposed to destroy the thing?”

         “In Mordor, in the lab that created it, are the deactivation codes. You have to crack its code before you put it into the furnaces there.”

         “It's a program?”

         “Yes.”

        “...An actual program? Like a computer program?”

         “Yes.”

         “So the Ring itself, the physical thing I am carrying...”

         “Holds the only known compete copy of the virus inside of it. Sauron made the container out of some synthetic metal that is somehow interacting with the code itself. No one knows how. Nothing we've thrown at it can break it. We've tried.”

         Bilbo blew out a slow breath. “I see,” he said. “I see. I fear I have to warn you that I am pants at computers. Terribly so. I barely know how to use one.”

         “That's a lie,” Lobelia cut in. “I've seen you use one plenty.”

         “That's for games! Not – not some secret spy nonsense!”

         “As far as we understand all you have to do is find the station where it was created and plug it in,” Elrond told them. “Lindir, our computer expert, will run you through everything you need to know.”

         That had Erestor sitting up. “Wait. Lindir? Lindir Woodson? He went to Tirion University?”

         “Yes. I'm glad to see that you remember him.”

         “Yes,” Erestor said with a blink. “We both do.”

         “We do?” Bilbo looked at him.

         “He's the one you saved from being drugged at that frat party.”

        “ That's Lindir?”

         “Yes.”

         “Oh,” Bilbo drew out the word. “He was a few years older than us, as I recall?”

         “A senior to our freshman, yes.”

         “Ah.”

         “Lindir was hired by myself and my brother,” Elrond told them. “He's looking forward to seeing you both again.”

         “What about Glorfindel and...and the others,” Erestor asked after a moment. Bilbo leaned into his shoulder and felt his friend lean back. “Are they infected too?”

         “I'm afraid so,” Elrond said. “Gondolin was one of the first nations Sauron took out. Maeglin said –”

        “ What ?” said Bilbo, Erestor, and Lobelia together.

         “Ah. Yes. He's alive too.”

         “I thought he was a traitor?” Lobelia said.

         Elrond made a face. “He was infected with the Ring virus. We'll have to keep you away from him, Bilbo,” Elrond shrugged. “But Maeglin has been one of best informants on just what happens when the virus is activated and how it controls a body. Maeglin said that all the realms of Beleriand were Sauron's first priority. Maeglin did what he could to fight against it, allowing Idril and my parents to flee with us. Then he threw himself from the walls, thinking he would kill himself before he allowed the virus to have control anymore. He was found by Gandalf and nursed back to health and he has been a part of this organization ever since. Maeglin has said that all the military forces of Beleriand were infected to some degree, though exactly how far spread we do not know.”

         “So they – Glorfindel and the others – they didn't...this wasn't...it wasn't a lie, who they – they were or said they were or...”

         Elrond's expression turned so sad for a moment that it made Bilbo's heart hurt. “The virus can turn anyone into a monster. My father fell to it. That jewelry heist you referenced, Bilbo?” He nodded with a wince. “We don't know how Eärendil became infected, only that he did. My mother as well. They almost exposed the entire organization but he...” Elrond turned back around. “Eärendil took the gems from Formenos and then sank his ship with my mother on it. We have yet to find the wreckage. I was adopted by Maedhros and Maglor – your uncles, Erestor – after that.”

         “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

         “My brother and I were very young when it happened,” Elrond had turned his face away. “We barely remember them.” Then he sat up and cleared his throat. “We'll get you all to a safe house first and then I can get a better look at that wound on your side, Bilbo. Then we'll go over what we have about the lab in Mordor and what your possible routes there can be.”

         “Where's this safe house, then?”

         “It's the house of Tom Bombadil,” Elrond said. “No one will find us there.”