Chapter Text
A few things happen over the following weeks. The first is Bridget rocking up at their door with news that, whilst probably inevitable, still absolutely sucks to hear.
“You guys are gonna be fine.” She’s ditched the Monster, started necking Red Bull instead, which is quite possibly the subtlest and funniest middle-finger Lando could’ve manifested. “I’ll be on the end of the phone if you need me. Unfortunately, I’ve got a bunch of other cases on the other side of the pond, so not to go all ‘Mary Poppins’ on you, but— Norris, are you crying?”
“No.”
There’s not really any denying it though, and the longer Lando thinks about it, not really any reason to. They owe her so much more than the (sizeable) cheque Lando wrote out in exchange for her services, even if telling her as much makes her bristle like a waterlogged cat.
“What he’s trying to say is ‘thank you,’” Oscar puts in, after Lando’s fumbled the words ‘we’re really grateful’ at least twice with raging hormones, and a frankly egregious amount of snot. He puts his hand on Lando’s leg, squeezing gently, for all Lando latches onto the support like a lifeline. “Seriously – thanks. Where we’re at now, none of it would’ve happened without you.”
“There’s plenty of lawyers, Oscar,” Bridget says, but she can’t completely hide the look of pleasant surprise when Oscar reaches over to shake her hand. It’s got to be an ‘alpha’ thing, Lando reckons, because the gesture is followed by cleared throats on both sides— and then he’s struggling not to smirk at them as he wipes at both eyes with his sweatshirt sleeves.
“Keep me updated,” Bridget says, after she’s slapped Lando on the back one final time. “If you don’t send photos, I’m pretty sure your old man will.”
“Won’t be able to stop him,” Lando confirms. He leans into Oscar’s side a little ‘til he gets the arm around his shoulder he’s after, and something about the move makes Bridget crack a smile that transforms her face.
“Look at the little family,” she says, mock-wiping at her own eyes. “Like a goddamn Hallmark card.”
The thought sticks with Lando all day and into the next— which is when the second Thing of Note manages to make land.
He’s getting ready for bed, and attempting to pull on a favourite t-shirt… only to realise his efforts are going to end with ‘attempt.’
“Huh,” he says aloud, alerting Oscar, who grins around the toothbrush he’s got stuffed in his gob when he realises what’s going on.
He spits in the sink, and Lando hums contentedly when his boyfriend almost immediately appears to ‘assume the position’ – pulling Lando gently towards him so the bump nudges Oscar’s own belly. “That’s snuck up, hey? You’re gonna need a new wardrobe.”
Lando’s not sure if it has or hasn’t, if he’s being honest. Compared to the first time he clocked it, the bump starting to round out has been more inevitable than surprising— but then he’s had more small markers to remind him than Oscar has. Oscar’s not had to start moving the car seat backwards to make room behind the steering wheel, or picking out a bigger towel because his usual one doesn’t fit any more around his hips. The t-shirt is just another manifestation, albeit one that’s pretty much impossible to ignore.
“You might need to adjust your expectations,” Oscar comments as he roots in their drawer for one of his own shirts - a stopgap for now, or at least until Lando can fit in a shopping trip. “It’s just that I’m not sure Balenciaga do maternity clothes.”
“Wrong,” Lando says, likely smugger than he deserves to be— but then just because the executive dysfunction kicked in before he could actually order anything, that doesn’t mean he’s not looked. “Best dressed whale for miles, me. All the papers will print it.”
“If you say so,” Oscar says, then reclines pointedly in his K-Mart boxers until Lando rolls his eyes. “Bit mad though, hey? It’s like nineteen weeks went by like that.”
“‘Cause it doesn’t feel like nineteen,” Lando says, pulling on the t-shirt and joining his boyfriend in bed. “We didn’t find out ‘til five; then we were in a snit ‘til eight. Kid had gone from a poppy seed to a raspberry before we even properly talked about it.”
“How’s that app treating you?” Oscar asks, grinning as he pulls Lando into his side. “For all your baby-fruit-comparison needs…”
He’s not exactly wrong; Lando reckons that if gamifying every aspect of his pregnancy were possible, he’d be dancing over the finishing line no bother.
“It’s a grapefruit this week,” he says, patting his bump with a flourish. “Which is funny really, ‘cause the actual fruit makes me gag too.”
“Almost like they knew,” Oscar says. He swallows around a fairly visible yawn, and Lando thinks Christ, if they’re tired now— “What’s up next anyways? Milestone-wise, not fruit.”
“Sex-reveal scan. What?” Lando says, edging dangerously close to a whine when Oscar rolls his eyes. “D’you seriously not want to find out?”
“I told you already,” Oscar says, fond as he is exasperated. “If you want to find out, I’m down. I just really don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”
If anything, this is typical Oscar; he doesn’t ‘do’ excitement like normal people, most probably told his sisters to calm down whenever they were counting the days ‘til Christmas. A lot of people mistake it for him not caring enough, but Lando knows better, as does anyone who was in the McLaren garage with them in ‘25 - all the folks who saw him battle Lando for every point, never once losing his cool. They knew exactly what it meant to him, and Lando knows exactly what this means to him now— even if his way of showing it is what sets him apart.
“I do want to find out,” Lando says, decisive for once, as he pillows both hands on his belly. “I know it doesn’t matter either way— just, any shot at being better-prepared?”
“Whatever you need,” Oscar says, twisting his fingers with Lando’s and smiling slightly as they feel the shape of his bump together. “Gotta say, though - you’ve been calling them ‘Prawn’ for almost five months now. Is that really likely to stop just ‘cause we could, theoretically, start using an actual name?”
It’s not, and Lando knows it— but he also knows himself, and knows that this is about more than hating surprises, or being unable to wait. It matters to him, how they do this next part, and not least because he spent most of his first trimester actively trying to keep the pregnancy - his baby - at arm’s length. He doesn’t need Oscar to understand it… but he does need him to try.
In the end, of course, Lando needn’t have worried. They rock up for the twenty-week scan five days later, and Oscar manages to remain ambivalent— right up until the midwife beams, and says:
“Congratulations, boys - you’re having a girl!”
This time, even as Lando gawks at the screen, a smile gathering, it’s Oscar’s eyes they start filling up with tears.
The midwife’s clearly impressed by his candour; Lando can easily imagine her going back to the little office they (midwives) always seem to occupy on TV, telling her colleagues lovely, he was, that alpha, not afraid to cry—
Or at least, that’s what Lando would’ve imagined, if he had room in his skull for anything bar:
“Holy fuck, Osc. Girl Dads-!”
“Girl Dads,” Oscar echoes, eyes wide, a shocked little laugh escaping that Lando just wants to wrap up and keep. “That’s… wow, yeah. A little girl.”
He’s turned in his seat before Lando knows what’s happening, stealing his lips for a bruising, if brief, kiss. When he pulls back again, the grin on his face belongs on a fucking Aardman poster, and Lando gets it, because shit. Holy actual shit— he’s growing their daughter.
“A little girl,” the midwife confirms, and it’s probably fortunate that she does, because Lando’s confident they’d both forgotten she was even there. She shifts the doppler thingy again on his stomach, then— “Quite a little girl, from what I’m seeing. Don’t worry,” she adds, before they can panic. “We expect slightly smaller babies with hyperemesis, and she’s not underdeveloped for twenty weeks - just dainty.”
“I can cope with ‘dainty,’” Lando says, then points sideways at Oscar. “His ‘step-mum’s’ only little, and pushed out a whopper last month - 9”10.” Ignoring Oscar’s eye-roll at the phrasing, he presses on— because although Seb has told him many, many fucking horrifying stories at this point, like some sort of morbid Town Crier, there’s one prospect that’s really fucking him up, regarding childbirth - one he hopes the midwife is about to dispel with all her talk of ‘dainty’ babies.
He waits expectantly in the moments that follow. If she could just give him something - ‘no stitches; clean as a whistle’ - that would do— but instead she just laughs, and all-but pats him on the knee whilst handing over some wet wipes for the post-scan cleanup.
“The human body is an incredible machine.”
“‘The human body is an incredible machine,’” Lando scoffs later, tapping his feet relentlessly against the mat as Oscar drives them home. “Did that sound like a crock of shit to you too?”
“It sounded like she can’t guarantee any sort of outcome,” Oscar says, and Lando hates it - really, really fucking hates it - when he’s being objective, and right. “Would you do that? Promise a rookie they’re guaranteed a good, safe drive? Or just say ‘you’re gonna do fine,’ and cross your fingers?”
There’s a reason Oscar’s known as the brains of the outfit— and once they’re home, and giggling again over the fact Prawn is a girl, it feels like it matters a lot less anyway.
Lando’s excitement quickly becomes too much to share with ‘just them.’ He texts the family group chat a bunch of ‘🍼💖’ emojis, and within seconds it’s exploded.
15:32 - Flo Norris
omg are you serious??
15:32 - Flo Norris
Niece?
15:32 - Flo Norris
NIECE???
15:33 - Oli Norris
Fucking copycat. 🥂
15:36 - Ciscter Norris
Lando oh my god 💕💕
< INCOMING CALL FROM: ‘Mum’>
The call is exactly what Lando expected: his mum in tears, his dad proud— they’re both so fucking proud of him, for an accidental pregnancy as much as his many trophies, and although Lando’s not in the habit of forgetting how lucky he is to have them, it sure throws into sharp relief, the fact that there’s not been a single ‘ding’ from a Piastri Fam group chat, the whole time they’ve been busy with his own. Granted it’s the middle of the night in Melbourne, but Lando knows FOMO when he sees it… and it’s that that has him poke Oscar with a toe, and with the suggestion he text Mark.
He’s glad he did so when Oscar’s phone almost immediately bursts into life, and when Webber opens with ‘bloody ripper!’, Oscar looks so made-up that Lando doesn’t even feel tempted to take the piss.
Family, he thinks. Bridget fucking nailed it with that one.
**
When Lando lets himself in to find Oscar with his arms wrapped around a girl, his first response is:
“Um.”
“Oh— hey.” Oscar pulls away with a squeeze, then makes Lando’s hormonal, jealous ass feel like the world’s biggest moron when he says: “Have you guys even met?”
Lando has not, in fact, met Mae Piastri, though Oscar’s other sisters have been at the track enough times that he’s at least familiar. She’s familiar too, the longer Lando looks - not quite as Oscar-like as Edie, but enough that the resemblance is clear. She says her hellos and her congrats, then escapes off to the bathroom, rubbing at a pair of suspiciously red eyes.
“She ok?” Lando asks, and Oscar shrugs.
“Breakup,” he says, flipping open the fridge. “Never much liked the bloke, but I guess he decided to rubber-stamp it by abandoning her in Rome.” He shakes his head. “How’ve we ended up with fuck-all in here again?”
“Skill issue,” Landon says, then: “Does she need to stay?”
“That alright?”
“Course it is.” Lando’s unprepared for how relieved Oscar looks to hear it, but then his appraisals of his in-laws haven’t exactly been positive of late, so he decides to hammer the point home. “Seriously, Osc. She can stay as long as she needs.”
It winds up a blessing in disguise: apparently done with crying over dickhead ex-boyfriend within the hour, Mae takes herself off to Big Tesco, and although Lando’s still too nauseous to enjoy the frankly magnificent lasagna she produces in thanks for their hospitality, he appreciates the fuck out of it anyway for the way Oscar practically lights up. She also buys wine, and by the time she’s done not just rinsing her brother, but taking him to the fucking cleaners over dinner, Lando’s already decided she should stay forever, a piss-taking, pasta-cooking spectre, eternally in the room.
“I’m really happy for you guys,” she says later, once Oscar’s fully passed out upstairs, and she’s nursing the last of the two bottles they shared from the couch. “Dunno if Osc said, but I’m going to be in London the next two years. Would love to be as involved as you’re ok with.”
“Thanks,” Lando says, and means it. “He’ll be happy you’re about.” The topic’s already in his forebrain, so he decides fuck it. Mae’s the one who led him there, so he’s practically blameless for following. “Did you think I might not be ok with it? Or is that coming from a little ‘closer to home’..?”
“Oh, so you’ve met our parents?” Mae says with a snort, and Lando thinks if he didn’t like her a whole lot already, this might’ve just tipped her into S-tier. “Christ. I mean, they’re not bad. They’re actually pretty great; they just overthink it.”
“How’s that?”
“Yknow, like—“ Mae’s hand has started twitching; when Lando asks if she wants to smoke, she doesn’t deny it, and they pick up again outside the back door. “Easiest way to explain it: when Edie was getting bullied in high school, they were so concerned with her growing up empathetic that they couldn’t help but play Devil’s advocate. I don’t mean they told her she’d earned it; more like… encouraged her to try and see the bullies’ side. What made them like it, and that.”
“That’s fucked,” Lando says bluntly, and Mae just shrugs, flicking ash off her fag into a jam jar.
“I know. And now they’re struggling with Osc because they agreed to send him to the UK, and Mum cried herself to sleep every night for a year after they did it. They’re still worried about him, because as far as they’re concerned, this is the first ‘mistake’ he’s made since leaving.” She shakes her head slowly, as Lando tries desperately to reconcile with how much she resembles her brother whilst doing it. “It’s not about you, is my point. And to be clear, though I’m on Oscar’s side in all this, finding out your son got a bloke they didn’t know was his boyfriend pregnant was always going to go down a little hard.”
“I get that,” Lando says. Then: “It’s not me I’m fussed about. They can hate me if they want to; I couldn’t give less of a toss, so long as they can do better for Osc than ‘we don’t care if you’re bi.’”
“I’m sure they’ll work on it,” Mae says, deeply droll. “Why wouldn’t they, right? Not like having ‘software company’ money means you can afford a therapist.” She stubs out her cig then, and reaches over to wrap Lando’s hand up inside her own. “They’ll figure it out. Fancy a decent sister-in-law, for now?”
“A decent auntie,” Lando says, with feeling, and the smile Mae gives him in return is one he knows he’ll be telling Oscar about, the second he wakes up.