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.