Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The paddock was always loud.

Not in the literal sense – though of course it was that too, with engines roaring like war drums and generators humming like angry bees – but in the way it pulsed. An atmosphere thick with tension, timing, and the tightrope balance between glory and disaster.

Max Verstappen preferred the silence in between.

In those few minutes before he stepped into the RB20, helmet tucked under one arm, engineers swarming around like bees with radios, there was quiet. Not around him, but inside him. A stillness he had honed like a blade. He had to be still. Still was control. Still was survival.

He didn’t think about his childhood when the engine turned over.

He didn’t think about his father when the lights went out.

He didn’t think about Charles when he passed him on turn three, no matter how hard his chest tightened with the scent of Ferrari smoke in the air.

*****

Ferrari had built another beautiful failure this year.

Charles had known it by Bahrain. He'd known it by the feel of the car under his fingertips – eager, brilliant, but unfaithful in corners. She was the devil in red, and he was the fool who kept falling in love with her.

“You drive it like you’re trying to convince it to stay loyal,” Carlos had said once, leaning against the side of the garage with a tired smile.

“I always do,” Charles had replied, grinning through clenched teeth.

He knew how to perform. That was the thing with Charles. He’d been trained to charm before he knew how to lie. He smiled for the cameras, laughed on the radio, joked with the grid like they were a family and not a battleground. Only the mirror knew what he looked like when he wasn’t being Charles Leclerc.

The golden boy. The poster child. The hope of a nation and a legacy. Monaco’s crown prince.

He was exhausted.

*****

Max was in front again. P1 in qualifying. It had become so routine now that even the Sky commentators barely tried to feign surprise.

Charles wasn’t surprised either. But he still watched. From the back of the Ferrari garage, helmet still on, sweat soaking into the Nomex around his neck, he watched Max climb out of the Red Bull like it cost him nothing. Like winning was just something that happened to him.

And maybe it was.

Charles had a habit of looking too long. Not at Max – he would never admit that – but at the way Max was. Grounded. Brutal. Silent. It was like trying to understand a storm by staring at the eye of it.

They didn’t speak much, the two of them. They’d known each other since karting. Max never asked about the past, and Charles never offered it. Maybe they both preferred it that way.

*****

Dinner that night was a PR affair – Ferrari executives, a restaurant Charles hadn’t chosen, a suit he hadn’t wanted to wear. Laughter felt thin on his lips. The lights too bright. The wine too sharp.

He excused himself halfway through dessert, feigning a call from his brother.

He wandered Monaco’s old streets instead, hood up, hands in pockets, sneakers echoing against stone. He passed the track barriers, still half-disassembled, the scent of rubber and fuel still lingering like perfume on a pillow.

Charles let himself remember the first time he’d come here to watch a race. He’d been nine. Wide-eyed. Dreaming. He hadn’t known yet what price dreams would ask.

He hadn’t known yet how betrayal could wear a team polo and a mechanic’s grin.

*****

Max noticed when Charles wasn’t at breakfast the next day.

He told himself he didn’t care. But he noticed.

Max noticed everything. That was part of surviving. It had been drilled into him between karting sessions and closed doors. Watch. Learn. Don’t speak unless it’s strategy. Don't feel unless it's rage.

Jos Verstappen had raised a winner. Not a person.

But Charles... Charles had something in his eyes that made Max’s hands clench sometimes, made his jaw lock.

Like he knew. Like he saw Max.

That pissed him off.

*****

In the next race, Charles overtook Max in turn one.

It shouldn’t have been possible. Not in that car. But it happened. He dove inside like he had nothing left to lose, tires screaming, Max forced wide onto the kerb. The crowd lost its mind.

Max caught him by turn five. Passed. Didn’t look back.

But he felt it for the rest of the race.

Felt the audacity of it.

Felt something else, too – deeper and more dangerous.

After the race, in parc fermé, they stood near each other.

Neither spoke.

Max’s fingers twitched at his sides.

Charles had a smear of oil on his jaw.

The silence between them was not empty. It was full – of unsaid things, of too many years, of a thousand choices they had made to protect themselves and the aching things they refused to name.

*****

That night, Charles dreamt of karting.

Of oil-stained concrete and the sting of cold on bare legs.

He dreamt of hands that didn’t belong to him and a voice that said, “Don’t be dramatic, it’s just a game.”

He woke up in sweat, bile burning his throat.

The sun hadn’t risen yet.

He didn’t go back to sleep.

*****

In the Red Bull motorhome, Max sat alone.

The TV played footage of the race on silent loop. Commentators mouthing triumphs. Replay of Charles’s pass. His car. His face.

Max watched it over and over.

He didn’t know why.

He just did.

Chapter Text

The first practice of any weekend had always been Charles’ favourite. It was the only session that didn’t feel like war.

No tire strategy. No fuel games. Just him, the car, and an hour to remember how to breathe.

Ferrari wasn’t perfect. In fact, lately, it was mostly pain in carbon fiber form. But Charles still loved driving. It was the one thing that never touched the part of him still broken. Or maybe, it was the only thing that did, gently enough not to shatter him all over again.

He climbed in with muscle memory. Buckles, gloves, wheel. His mind quieted as the visor came down.

On the outlap, the engineer’s voice crackled in his ear.
“Two laps to push. We’ll test the new rear wing next run.”

Charles barely registered it. He wasn’t here to test. Not really. He was here to feel.

*****

Max was already in rhythm.

He always was.

He hit apexes with mathematical precision, data flowing through his mind like blood. He didn’t chase lap times anymore. He dictated them.

“Rear grip’s good. Brakes feel tighter,” he said flatly on the radio.

“Copy. Box next lap.”

He didn’t respond. Just drove.

Out of the corner of his eye, on his cooldown lap, he saw the flash of red in his mirrors – Leclerc. He recognized the style immediately. Charles’ driving wasn’t smooth. It was... musical. Like he was trying to dance with a machine that didn’t always love him back.

Max hated that it was beautiful.

*****

The media pen was a hive of vultures.

Same questions, different podium.

Charles fielded them with a smile, fingers curled into the hem of his sleeve. A journalist from Canal+ asked about his pass on Max.

“That was... gutsy,” she said, tone dripping with admiration.

“I had to try something,” he replied. “If you don’t take risks, you’re already behind.”

He didn’t mention the part where he couldn’t remember deciding to make the move. He hadn’t calculated it. Hadn’t even planned it. He’d just needed to do something that felt like control.

Later, he’d see the replay and barely recognize himself.

*****

Meanwhile, Max was saying as little as possible.

“I would’ve preferred to keep the position, of course,” he said when asked about Charles.

“But it was a fair move?”

Max stared. “It wasn’t illegal.”

It was the closest he got to a compliment.

*****

Lando found Charles in the paddock after debrief.

“Mate,” he grinned, nudging Charles’ shoulder. “That overtake? Balls. Huge ones.”

Charles laughed, genuinely. “Thank you, Lando. I’m not sure it was intelligent.”

“Who cares? It was art.”

The praise warmed something in his chest that hadn’t been warm in a long time. He clung to it longer than he meant to.

*****

Dinner that night was just pasta and quiet in Charles’ Monaco flat. Arthur had texted, asking if he wanted to come over, but Charles had lied and said he was tired.

He was tired. But not the kind rest could fix.

He ate with the TV on for noise. The commentators replayed the practice highlights, slow-motion of Max and Charles nearly side-by-side, a breath of space between them.

Something about the way Max’s eyes looked behind the visor made Charles’ stomach twist.

Not in fear.

Something else.

He turned the TV off.

*****

Max went to the simulator.

He didn’t need to, but the silence was better there than in his apartment.

He drove laps until his shoulders ached.

Lap after lap.

Corner after corner.

And when he finally pulled off the headset, Christian was there, frowning.

“You could sleep, you know,” Horner said, trying to make it sound light.

Max shrugged. “Don’t feel like it.”

Christian didn’t press. He never did anymore.

*****

On Saturday, it rained.

Lightly at first, then heavier – just enough to ruin everyone's runs.

Charles stood in the garage, watching sheets of water gloss the pitlane. Rain always made him feel like he was thirteen again. Helpless. Small. Invisible.

“Still want to go out?” Ricciardo asked from a few garages down, grinning. “You love chaos.”

Charles offered a tight smile. “I prefer winning.”

Max went out first. Cut through water like a blade. The commentators called him a “rain god.”

Charles didn’t care about gods.

He wanted peace.

*****

After FP3, Charles sat on the floor of the motorhome with his back against the wall, still in his race suit, damp hair curling into his eyes. He should’ve changed. Should’ve showered. Should’ve done anything but sit. But the weight in his chest wouldn’t let him move.

He thought he’d hidden well. Until someone knocked once and stepped in anyway.

Max.

He didn’t say anything, just looked down at Charles like he didn’t know what he was seeing.

Charles blinked. “Lost something?”

Max shrugged. “Didn’t expect you to be here.”

“You usually come to the Ferrari motorhome to take a walk?”

A pause. Then: “I saw you on the camera. You looked—” Max stopped, frowning. “You looked weird.”

Charles snorted. “Thanks.”

Max shifted, awkward. He wasn’t built for soft words. He wasn’t built for people on the floor.

“You were good in the rain,” Max said finally, tone flat but voice quieter.

“You were better.”

Another silence.

“I didn’t think you’d pull that move last race,” Max said, still not looking directly at him.

Charles tilted his head. “Why not?”

Max’s throat worked. “You’ve been... off.”

It was said without cruelty. Just observation.

Charles stared. “You watching me, Verstappen?”

Max shrugged. “We’re on the same grid.”

Charles stood slowly. Too close now. He could see the water droplets still clinging to Max’s collar.

“We all watch each other. But you – you notice everything, don’t you?”

Max’s eyes were unreadable. “Have to.”

“For survival?”

“For advantage.”

Charles nodded once. “Then maybe I should do the same.”

Max didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Charles smiled like a man who had nothing left to lose. “See you in quali.”

*****

The storm passed by the time qualifying began, but the track was still damp.

Q3 came down to two names.

Verstappen. Leclerc.

The timing screens flickered.

Max’s final lap: purple, purple, green.

Charles’ final lap: green, purple, purple.

He missed pole by two hundredths.

P2.

He exhaled like he hadn’t breathed in minutes.

On the cool-down lap, their radios overlapped.

Max: “Not perfect, but okay.”

Charles: “Merde. That was close.”

Neither of them spoke the other’s name.

But when they crossed each other in parc fermé, a nod passed between them.

It wasn’t peace.

But it wasn’t war either.

*****

Later that night, Max found himself alone in the Red Bull lounge.

The lights were dim. Everyone else had gone home or out to celebrate. He didn’t know why he was still there. Just that he couldn’t sleep.

He sat on the couch. Watched the city lights. Thought about Charles.

About the way his voice had dipped when he said, “You watching me, Verstappen?”

He wasn’t supposed to feel things.

He was supposed to win.

But somehow, it was starting to feel like Charles was the only person who saw the difference.

And that terrified him more than any corner ever could.

Chapter Text

The track smelled like rubber and adrenaline.

Sunday. Race day. The kind of morning that never started quietly, no matter how early Charles arrived at the paddock. Photographers were already lining up, crew members buzzing around like flies to electricity. Monaco was always chaos, but here – Silverstone – it felt personal. The track had teeth.

Charles tugged his fireproofs higher up his hips and closed his eyes for a beat longer than necessary. The noise blurred. Everything blurred, if he let it.

"Charles?"

He blinked. Fred Vasseur stood in front of him, arms crossed, expression sharp.

“You good?”

"Yes." It was too quick.

Fred narrowed his eyes. “You’d say that if your car was on fire.”

Charles smiled with half his mouth. “You’d expect nothing less.”

“Hmm.”

He moved on. Charles exhaled. He hadn’t meant to lie. But if he said no, what then? What help could a yes-man pit wall offer for a cracked soul?

*****

Max wasn’t nervous.

He never was. Not anymore. The nerves had burned out of him a long time ago – somewhere between karting with his father’s hand gripping his helmet and Formula 1 podiums that never meant enough.

Now it was just cold routine.

The grid, the anthem, the countdown. He listened without hearing, adjusted his gloves without thought. He climbed in.

“You’re clear,” his engineer said.

And then there was nothing but engine noise and numbers.

*****

Charles had a good launch.

Not great. Good. P2 held, for now.

The car was twitchy on mediums, rear grip off-kilter. But he could manage it. He had to manage it.

Behind him, Lando and George were scrapping already. Ahead, Max was dialled in – metronomic and lethal. Charles hated how beautiful it looked in slow motion.

He was P2 for fifteen laps.

Then P3.

Then P5 after a botched pit stop.

Charles felt his pulse spike, a dull heat rising in his chest that had nothing to do with the cockpit. He gritted his teeth. Tried to breathe. Focus. Turn in. Accelerate.

Lap 36. The clouds shifted.

Lap 37. A drizzle.

Lap 38. Charles clipped the curb at Copse just a fraction too hard.

His wrists jolted with the vibration. Car snapped wide.

“Careful on the—” his engineer started.

“I know,” Charles hissed.

Behind him, Alonso was gaining. He could feel it – like a predator behind his ribs.

He tightened his grip on the wheel.

Lap 39. He pushed too early. Rear tires bit, then gave up.

The car spun.

Once.

Twice.

Impact.

The world turned white.

*****

Max saw the crash in real time.

He was in Turn 5 when the yellow flags appeared, and by the time he hit the straight, the safety car had been deployed.

But it wasn’t until he saw the replay – Charles’ car spinning like a coin and hitting the wall sideways – that something inside him moved.

He didn’t speak. Just kept driving.

Until the radio cut in.

“Red flag. Session suspended. Charles is out. Medical car is on scene.”

Max’s hands tightened on the wheel.

“Is he okay?” he asked, voice even.

“Not sure yet. No radio response. He’s unconscious.”

Something inside Max snapped. Quietly. Cleanly. Like a bone under pressure.

He didn’t speak again for the rest of the in-lap.

*****

The paddock went still.

Not quiet. But still – that eerie hush that came when everyone remembered the danger they lived beside.

Max paced.

It wasn’t like him. He didn’t pace. But his legs wouldn’t stop.

Charles had been loaded into the ambulance unconscious. No helmet cam. No thumbs up. No movement.

None of the other drivers knew what to say to Max. They tried, a few of them – Lando, Carlos, even George. But Max barely looked at them. He just kept pacing. Kept counting every minute the race stayed suspended.

Twelve.

Twenty.

Thirty-four.

*****

In the medical centre, Charles had yet to wake up.

No head trauma, they said. No spinal injuries. Just deep bruising and a concussion-induced coma. A phrase that sounded so sterile it made Fred Vasseur’s stomach turn.

*****

When the race resumed over an hour later, Max refused to get back in the car.

Christian tried. “Max, you’re leading the championship. We can box you to hards, you’re still in position to—”

“I’m not getting back in.”

He said it like gravity.

And for once, no one argued.

*****

He stayed at the hospital that night.

Not in the room – they wouldn’t allow it – but nearby. He sat in the hallway with his hood pulled low and didn’t speak to anyone except the nurse who brought him coffee.

He stared at the closed door. At the silence.

He didn’t understand it.

He didn’t like people. Didn’t get attached. Didn’t need anyone.

Except, apparently, he did.

Because when Charles finally blinked his eyes open at four in the morning and whispered something in French, Max felt his lungs inflate for the first time in hours.

*****

They weren’t alone.

Carlos showed up mid-morning, bringing clothes and fruit and the unspoken weight of worry. Arthur called. Fred paced. The nurses buzzed in and out.

But Max stayed.

Eventually, Charles turned to him and said, quietly, “You didn’t have to come.”

Max didn’t answer.

Charles stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t remember it. The crash.”

“You spun at Copse.”

“Was it stupid?”

Max exhaled. “It was fast.”

Charles closed his eyes. “Everything always is.”

Silence fell between them again.

Then—

“I thought I saw someone,” Charles whispered.

Max frowned. “On track?”

“No. In the mirror.” His voice cracked. “But it was just me.”

Max didn’t know what to say to that. So he just sat closer.

*****

That night, Charles dreamt he was thirteen again.

It was raining. The paddock was dark. Someone’s hand was over his mouth.

He woke up gasping.

Max was asleep in the chair beside the bed. His eyes opened immediately. A reflex.

Charles couldn’t speak. Just shook.

Max didn’t ask what the dream was about. Didn’t reach for him either.

He just said: “You’re safe.”

And for the first time in a long time, Charles almost believed him.

Chapter Text

The fluorescent lights were too bright.

Charles stared at the corner of the ceiling where a water stain bloomed like a slow infection. He couldn’t sleep, not really. Not without dreaming of barriers and black gloves and the feeling of being trapped inside a car that wouldn’t stop spinning.

The nurses said he was lucky.

He felt anything but.

His body ached in a dull, constant way, like his bones were remembering every trauma all at once. Concussion. Cracked ribs. Bruising down his left side so deep it looked painted on.

Max hadn’t left.

That was the strangest part.

Charles turned his head, wincing at the pull in his neck. Max was sitting in the same chair he’d claimed the night before, a tablet in his lap, scrolling through something silently – telemetry, maybe, or the thousands of unread messages Charles knew were waiting from press and fans and worried family.

“You don’t have to be here,” Charles said hoarsely.

Max looked up. His gaze was unreadable, as always, but his voice was quieter than usual. “I know.”

That was it. No protest. No excuse. Just I know.

Charles shifted, drawing in a breath that stung all the way down to his ribs.

“Can you hand me that water?”

Max got up without a word and brought the glass over, slipping the straw between Charles’ fingers without touching him. His hands were precise. Always precise.

“I can’t tell if you’re being nice or if you just don’t trust anyone else with me,” Charles muttered.

Max tilted his head slightly, as if considering it. “Both.”

That startled a faint laugh out of Charles, rough around the edges. He took a sip.

“You were good in the race,” he said after a pause. “Before. I watched the start after qualifying. You looked…” He hesitated, then shrugged. “Untouchable.”

Max’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “I wasn’t thinking. That helps.”

Charles nodded slowly. “Yeah. Thinking ruins it.”

They sat like that for a while. Not quite silence, but not quite conversation either. Just the soft hum of the hospital at night, machines beeping in the hallway, a nurse passing by on crepe-soled shoes.

Then Charles spoke again.

“I haven’t had a crash like that in years.”

Max didn’t answer right away. “You’ve had worse?”

Charles hesitated. “Physically, no.”

Mentally? He didn’t say it. Didn’t need to.

Max was watching him. Closely. Like he could see inside Charles’ head if he just stared long enough.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Max said eventually, tone unusually gentle.

Charles looked away. “You’re not curious?”

“Of course I am,” Max said. “But I won’t ask. Not unless you want me to know.”

That – that – hit Charles harder than he expected.

Because he couldn’t remember the last time someone didn’t press. Didn’t poke. Didn’t assume.

He closed his eyes.

“I dreamt about it,” he said, voice low. “After the crash. But it wasn’t the accident.”

Max waited.

“I was a kid again,” Charles murmured. “Thirteen. Wet paddock. Night. The dream always starts the same.”

Max said nothing, but the air around him changed – tightened, like wire drawn taut.

“I never tell anyone that,” Charles added, more to himself than to Max.

“I won’t tell anyone either.”

The promise was so simple. So definite. Charles believed him.

He reached for the water again, fingers trembling slightly.

“Do you have nightmares?” he asked, not quite looking at Max.

“Yes,” Max answered without hesitation.

Charles looked up, surprised by the honesty.

“Always?”

“Since I was six,” Max said flatly. “Stopped noticing after a while.”

Charles didn’t ask why. Didn’t need to.

The shape of it was already there between them – silent and shared.

*****

By the third day, Charles was able to walk slowly down the hallway with a nurse.

Max trailed behind at a respectful distance. He didn’t hover. Didn’t fuss. But he was there, like gravity.

“Everyone thinks we hate each other,” Charles said idly as they passed a framed painting of a sailboat that looked out of place in the hospital wing.

Max glanced at him. “That’s what they like.”

“It makes the narrative easier.”

“And the wins more dramatic.”

Charles chuckled, then winced. His ribs protested.

“Have you ever hated me?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Max frowned. “No.”

“You used to glare at me like I’d kicked your dog.”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“Tragic.”

Max almost smiled. “Have you ever hated me?”

Charles paused. “I’ve been jealous of you.”

Max looked at him sideways. “You’re not the only one.”

That startled Charles. “You? Jealous of me?”

Max shrugged. “You shine, even when you’re losing.”

Charles stared at him for a beat too long.

Then said, “You’re not what I expected.”

“I’m always what people expect,” Max replied quietly. “That’s the problem.”

*****

That night, Charles read through the messages on his phone.

One from Arthur. Five from his mother. Dozens from Ferrari staff, teammates, drivers.

A voice memo from Carlos.

He didn’t open it. Not yet.

He scrolled farther and found one from Lewis – simple and kind, wishing him strength.

He read it twice.

Max hadn’t texted him, of course. Max had just… been there.

And it meant more than any words on a screen.

Charles set the phone down.

“You know,” he said into the dark room, “I used to think you hated everyone.”

Max didn’t look up from his tablet. “I do.”

“And yet you’re here.”

Max shrugged. “Maybe you’re not everyone.”

The words settled between them like ash.

Charles breathed in.

Maybe he wasn’t.

*****

Max didn’t sleep that night.

He sat beside Charles’ bed long after visiting hours ended, elbows on his knees, head down.

He thought of go-kart paddocks. Of shouting. Of engines in rain. Of things thrown and things broken.

He thought of nights when he wasn’t allowed to cry. Of fists pounding on the steering wheel. Of the first time he realized winning was the only thing that would stop the shouting.

And he thought of Charles, asleep and bruised, muttering in French under his breath.

“Je ne veux pas… je ne veux pas…”

Max didn’t understand the full sentence.

But he understood the feeling.

He reached forward – just briefly – and adjusted Charles’ blanket.

“Sleep,” he whispered.

And in the quiet, it almost felt like healing.

Chapter Text

The Monaco flat was smaller than Charles remembered it.

Or maybe he had grown.

He stepped inside gingerly, ribs aching under the compression band, and inhaled the familiar scent of sun-warmed salt and faint engine grease. The windows overlooked the marina, but the blinds were drawn. Dust sat on surfaces like a film, undisturbed.

Max had dropped him off without a word of protest, only a short nod and a “Text me if you need anything.” Then he was gone, disappearing into the glittering streets like a shadow never meant to stay.

Charles leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

The silence was unbearable.

*****

The days blurred. Physiotherapy sessions. Check-ins. Calls from Fred. Voice messages from Carlos. Endless questions from journalists, all clawing at the same headline: Will Charles Leclerc return to Ferrari this season?

The answer was yes. Of course. Always yes. He didn’t know anything else.

But even as he answered the questions with carefully measured optimism, something gnawed at the edges of him. Like a loose thread he wasn’t ready to pull.

The nightmares hadn’t stopped. Just changed shape.

Now it wasn’t the crash that haunted him – it was the moment after. The quiet.

He didn’t remember the crash, not really. Just noise, white-hot and deafening. But he remembered waking up and Max was there. Just… sitting.

He’d expected panic. Cameras. Fred’s voice. Carlos pacing.

Not Max Verstappen, silent and steady like gravity, eyes dark with something Charles hadn’t known how to name.

He still didn’t.

*****

It was Max who suggested they train together.

“You’re not cleared for the simulator yet,” he’d said over a video call, blank-faced, “but walking’s good. You need to build back your stamina.”

Charles had laughed. “You sound like my physio.”

“I’m more annoying than your physio.”

That was probably true.

So Charles said yes.

And that’s how they ended up walking side by side through the hills above Monaco every morning at 7:00 a.m.

They didn’t talk much.

That was the rule – unspoken but clear.

Max walked at Charles’ slower pace without comment. Sometimes they brought coffee, sometimes they didn’t. On some days, Charles would speak. On others, neither said a word from start to finish.

It was easy in a way Charles hadn’t expected.

He didn’t have to be anything. Didn’t have to smile or deflect or prove he was okay. He just walked, and Max walked beside him, occasionally pointing out a sea bird or a stray cat, or reminding him to drink more water.

The simplicity of it was unnerving.

No one had ever let Charles be quiet before.

*****

One morning, about two weeks after his return home, Charles sat on the kitchen floor, back pressed to the cabinets, shaking.

It had come from nowhere.

A loud knock at the door – just the mailman – but it had triggered something low and bitter in his stomach. He’d dropped the glass he was holding. Watched it shatter on the tile. Then slid down and stayed there.

His breath came in short, sharp bursts.

He didn’t cry.

He didn’t let himself.

But he pulled his phone out with a hand that wouldn’t stop trembling and texted Max two words.

Can you

That was all.

Seventeen minutes later, Max was at the door.

He didn’t ask questions.

Just walked in, took one look at Charles on the floor, and sat down beside him.

They sat in silence for a long time. Charles’ breaths were slowing. The shaking was too. Max didn’t move closer, didn’t touch him. But he was there, like a lighthouse in fog.

Finally, Charles said, “I hate this.”

“I know.”

“I thought I was past it.”

“You’re not. Neither am I.”

Charles turned his head. “You mean your father?”

Max’s mouth tightened. Not a flinch. But something closed.

“I mean a lot of things,” he said eventually.

Charles let his head fall back against the cabinet.

“I still haven’t told anyone,” he admitted.

Max said nothing.

“I was thirteen,” Charles murmured. “Karting mechanic. It happened fast. I didn’t even know it was wrong until much later. I told myself it didn’t count.”

Max was very, very still.

“You’re the first person I’ve said it to out loud,” Charles added.

Max didn’t speak right away. Then: “I won’t ask who. Or how. Unless you want me to.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.”

Silence again.

Then Charles whispered, “I thought I’d forgotten. But after the crash, it was there. Every second. Like it just happened.”

Max nodded slowly. “That’s how it works.”

Charles swallowed hard. “Do you think I’m broken?”

Max turned to look at him. Really look.

“No,” he said firmly. “But even if you were, I wouldn’t care.”

Charles blinked. “Why?”

“Because I’m broken too,” Max said. “And you don’t seem to mind.”

*****

From then on, the walks changed.

Not drastically. They still walked early. Still drank coffee. But the silence felt less like avoidance and more like shared space.

Sometimes Max would share small stories. Never the whole picture – just pieces.

“The first time I crashed, I was nine. He screamed at me for an hour. I peed myself.”

Or:

“I don’t remember what happiness felt like before F1. And I don’t know if this is happiness either. It’s just... winning.”

Charles listened.

He didn’t pity.

And Max seemed to need that most.

*****

One morning, they reached the cliff overlook before sunrise.

The sky was cracked open with gold and grey, the sea below dark as ink.

Charles stood at the railing, arms crossed against the wind.

“I miss loving racing,” he said quietly.

Max was beside him, hands in his pockets.

“I never loved it,” Max admitted. “It was just a way to survive.”

Charles nodded. “I envy you. At least it wasn’t taken from you.”

“It was never given.”

They stood in silence for a while.

Then Max asked, “Why Ferrari?”

Charles smiled faintly. “Because it was childhood. Belief. Romance. I thought I could fix it.”

Max looked at him. “You can’t.”

“I know.”

Pause.

“You could come to Mercedes,” Max said offhandedly.

Charles laughed. “And what? Be your teammate? Let the media implode?”

Max shrugged. “You’re the only driver I trust to beat me fairly.”

Charles glanced at him. “That’s dangerously close to a compliment.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

*****

That evening, Charles sent Max a photo: his kart, the old one, covered in dust but still intact in the family garage.

Max replied with a picture of his first helmet, sitting crookedly on a shelf.

No words.

Just artifacts.

Evidence.

Proof that they had been boys once. And boys become ghosts long before men are made.

Chapter Text

They kissed for the first time in an underground parking garage.

It wasn’t planned. Not in the way Charles usually planned things – on paper, with lines, with logic. And it certainly wasn’t planned the way Max operated: inevitable, slow, like weather shifting. But it happened just the same.

And afterward, neither of them spoke about it.

Not for days.

*****

It had been a long evening. A post-physio dinner. Charles insisted on paying. Max let him – for once.

They’d been walking back to their cars when it started to rain. Not much, just a soft misting, the kind that made Monaco’s lights smear and shimmer. Charles ducked into the covered garage, hands in his jacket pockets. Max followed, quiet as always.

It should have ended there.

But Charles turned. And Max stopped walking.

There was nothing in the world but static.

Charles opened his mouth – some half-baked joke, maybe, or just something to fill the space – but he never got the words out.

Max stepped forward, steady, slow, like a man approaching a wild animal.

And Charles didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t even breathe.

Max kissed him like it wasn’t the first time. Like it was returning something, not taking.

His hand barely touched Charles’ jaw. The kiss itself was soft, almost cautious. There was no desperation. Just pressure. Just presence.

Charles leaned into it before he even realized he had.

Then it was over.

Max pulled back. No questions. No explanations.

Charles looked at him, stunned silent.

And Max only said, “Goodnight.”

Then turned and left.

*****

The next morning, Max sent a photo of a seagull stealing a croissant from someone’s café table.

No comment.

Charles stared at it for a long time before replying with a single word.

Rude.

Nothing else.

That was how they began.

It wasn’t romance. Not at first.

They didn’t do romance.

There were no flowers. No candlelit dinners. No confessions whispered at dawn. Just… a shifting.

Something tilted in the way Max looked at Charles when he thought he wasn’t watching. Something softer in the way Charles brushed his shoulder when they walked side by side.

It was all quiet.

Deliberate.

Private.

*****

Carlos noticed first.

He didn’t say anything, but one day during a debrief call, he made a comment that froze Charles mid-sentence.

“So… Verstappen, huh?”

Charles blinked. “What?”

“Nothing,” Carlos said, too casually. “You just… seem calmer lately. Thought maybe someone was helping.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “Max is the least calming person on earth.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

But he didn’t push. He never did.

That was why Charles loved him.

*****

They kissed again the following week.

This time at Charles’ flat.

It was late. They’d been watching something on Netflix – neither remembered what. Charles had dozed off with his head against Max’s shoulder, waking only when the credits rolled.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, straightening.

Max shrugged. “Didn’t mind.”

And Charles turned toward him.

This time, it was Charles who leaned in.

Not with intent. Just gravity.

The kiss was quiet, again. But longer. Deeper.

And Max didn’t pull away.

Afterward, Charles rested his forehead against Max’s. “Are we doing this?”

Max’s hand slid along his neck, grounding.

“I think we already are.”

They didn’t call it dating.

Max hated labels. Charles hated expectations. They settled into something private. Sacred. Carefully walled off from the rest of their chaos.

It wasn’t always easy.

There were days Charles would flinch at sudden sounds. Or Max would disappear for hours, unreachable, buried in his own head. There were long stretches of silence that weren’t cold – but necessary.

But still, they always came back to each other.

Like the sea returning to shore.

*****

At the Dutch Grand Prix, Charles placed fourth. Max won.

Charles smiled during the press conference. He gave the usual quotes. Congratulated Max without hesitation.

But his hands shook when he returned to the motorhome.

He hated the adrenaline now. It felt too close to fear.

Max found him twenty minutes later. Closed the door quietly behind him.

“You okay?”

Charles didn’t lie. “No.”

Max walked over. Sat beside him on the small couch. Said nothing.

Eventually, Charles whispered, “I don’t know how to love this anymore.”

“You don’t have to,” Max said. “You just have to want to stay alive in it.”

Charles blinked at that. “Is that enough?”

Max looked at him. “For now.”

And somehow, it was.

*****

They never shared hotel rooms. Too risky.

But Max would find excuses to linger. To stop by late. To leave things behind. A book. A hoodie. Headphones. It became a quiet ritual.

Each thing left behind was a tether.

Charles didn’t return them.

At one race, Charles woke from a nightmare and called Max without thinking.

It was 3:17 a.m.

He didn’t say anything when Max picked up. Just breathed.

Max didn’t ask.

Didn’t speak.

Just stayed on the line.

For an hour.

Until Charles fell asleep again.

*****

They weren’t healing yet. Not fully.

They were just holding the pieces still enough to start looking at them.

Charles wasn’t ready to tell the full story. And Max didn’t push.

Max wasn’t ready to let go of the fury he kept buried, and Charles didn’t try to fix him.

But they didn’t feel alone anymore.

And that was new.

Terrifying.

But new.

*****

One night, after Suzuka, Charles turned to Max as they stood outside the paddock.

“Do you think we’ll always be hiding?”

Max considered it. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And if it gets harder?”

Max met his eyes. “Then we do it anyway.”

Charles nodded slowly.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

By the time the season rolled into Austin, they were used to the rhythm of secrecy.

Late-night texts. Shared hotel floors, not rooms. Unmarked glances across the garage. Nothing obvious. Nothing anyone could pin to a wall and say: This is real. This is them.

It worked, mostly. Until it didn’t.

*****

Max always stayed a little longer in Austin. Something about the wide roads, the space, the way people didn’t look too closely. It reminded him of being seventeen again – angry, hungry, moving. He didn’t like nostalgia, but it clung to places like this.

Charles followed without asking.

They didn’t share a flight, but Max was waiting when Charles stepped out of baggage claim. No greeting. Just the click of the passenger door unlocking.

Charles got in. Smiled.

Neither of them said why they were there. But they both knew.

They rented a house outside the city. Just for a few nights. Enough distance to breathe, to exist. The kind of quiet that didn’t come with adjoining hotel rooms and media calls.

It was the first time they slept in the same bed.

They didn’t have sex. Not then. That wasn’t what they needed.

Max was lying on his back, arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it might tell him something useful. Charles curled toward him, barely brushing his shoulder.

“You’re not tired?” Charles murmured.

“I don’t sleep much.”

Charles already knew that. Had known it since the night he woke up with a jolt, heartbeat wrecked, and found Max still awake beside him, eyes fixed to the dark.

“Does it ever stop?” he asked quietly.

Max didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

*****

The race itself was uneventful. For once.

Max won. Again. Charles finished second – not a win, but clean, and that was something.

On the podium, they didn’t look at each other.

Not really.

But later, in the privacy of a steel-walled garage, as engines cooled and champagne dried sticky on their suits, Charles turned to him and said, “You’re not good at pretending.”

Max arched an eyebrow. “I win Oscars every week, apparently.”

Charles shook his head. “No. You look like you want to drag me out of the press room by the throat.”

“I do.”

They didn’t kiss, but the air between them crackled.

*****

Carlos cornered him the next day.

“Is there something I should know?”

Charles blinked. “About what?”

“You and Max. You’ve been – different.”

Charles hesitated. “We’re just… friends.”

Carlos didn’t believe him. But he let it go.

That was worse than confrontation, somehow.

*****

They flew to Mexico separately again.

Charles hated it. The distance. The pretending. The absence of Max, even when he knew he’d see him in the paddock.

They brushed shoulders in the FIA meeting and didn’t look twice. They stood side by side in the drivers' photo and didn’t smile.

But when Charles' tire strategy went to hell mid-race and he dropped from P3 to P7, Max was the first to find him after.

“You okay?” he asked in Dutch. Quiet. For them only.

Charles nodded. “It happens.”

“You looked… wrong in the car.”

Charles gave a small, tired shrug. “I was angry.”

Max’s hand brushed his back, brief. “Good.”

That night, Charles texted him three words.

I miss you.

He got a reply minutes later.

Come over.

*****

The rented condo in Mexico City was too big for one person. Max didn’t explain why he’d chosen it. Charles didn’t ask.

They didn’t talk at first. Just lay on the sofa, legs tangled. Charles had his head on Max’s chest, listening to the heartbeat beneath his ribs. Max’s hand was stroking his hair like it was a motion he didn’t realize he was doing.

Eventually, Charles said, “Do you think this is going to explode?”

Max didn’t answer right away.

“Yes,” he said finally. “But maybe not today.”

Charles smiled without meaning to. “You’re terrible at comfort.”

“I’m not trying to comfort you.”

Charles looked up. “Then what are you doing?”

“Staying.”

*****

That night, they did sleep together.

Not just sleep.

It wasn’t rough. It wasn’t slow either.

It was searching.

Max kissed like someone learning a language he’d heard in dreams. Charles touched like he was rebuilding trust from the inside out.

Neither of them said the word love.

But it was there. In the hesitation. In the breath between movements. In the way Max stared at Charles like he was trying to memorize every scar.

Afterward, Charles buried his face in Max’s shoulder and whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.”

Max kissed his temple. “We learn.”

*****

The next day, Max left early for the track. Charles followed a few hours later.

They didn’t speak in the paddock.

The world went on.

Their quiet space remained untouched.

For now.

Chapter Text

Mexico City was always loud. Deafening in ways that didn’t come from engines.

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez pulsed with heat and rhythm. Fans screaming, speakers blaring, the atmosphere like a tangible force pressing against your chest.

Charles used to love it.

Used to.

*****

“You okay?”

Max asked the question before the race. Just once. In passing. In Dutch. Quietly, behind his sunglasses.

Charles nodded, but Max caught the hesitation. Not a stutter in movement – Charles never showed weakness with his body. But his voice dipped too low, and his eyes didn’t lift all the way to meet Max’s.

“Fine,” he said.

Lie.

Max didn’t push.

*****

Quali went badly for Charles. Traffic in Q3. A yellow flag at the worst moment. P6, behind both McLarens.

He didn’t shout. Didn’t swear.

Just sat in the car afterward, helmet on, visor down, breathing like each inhale cost something.

Max didn’t find him that night. Not physically.

But Charles sent him a voice note.

Just breathing.

Max listened to it six times before replying.

“I’m here.”

*****

Race day burned.

Charles got pushed wide on Turn 1 and spent the rest of the race dragging the car through hell to recover P4. Not a podium. Not a disaster.

Just… nothing.

The kind of result that didn’t get mentioned in highlights. The kind that made you question why you kept bleeding for something that never bled back.

After the cooldown room, he found Max in the Red Bull hospitality.

“You looked fast,” Charles said, voice too calm.

Max tilted his head. “You looked—” he stopped. Rephrased. “Not slow.”

A flicker of amusement sparked in Charles’ tired eyes. “Such a compliment.”

Max didn’t smile. “You didn’t answer my text.”

Charles shrugged. “Didn’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

But they both knew that wasn’t true.

*****

Later, Charles called his mother from his hotel room. Spoke to his brothers. Told them he was fine. Ate a half-dry protein bar. Sat on the edge of the bed and stared at nothing.

Then he got in an Uber and went to Max’s condo again without telling anyone.

Max opened the door like he’d been waiting.

Charles stepped in without a word.

This time, when Max kissed him, it was not gentle.

“You’re angry,” Max said between kisses.

Charles’s mouth was rough against his. “So what?”

“Don’t use me to escape.”

“I’m not,” Charles whispered. “I’m using you to breathe.”

Max kissed him harder after that. No more talking. Nothing delicate.

They ended up on the kitchen counter. Then the floor. Then the bed.

They were always quiet, even when it hurt.

Even when it healed.

*****

Afterward, Max sat with his back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling like he was counting cracks.

Charles rested beside him, breath slow, chest bare and marked with faint traces of fingernails.

“I feel like I’m drowning this year,” Charles said softly.

Max didn’t turn to look. “You’re not the only one.”

Charles’s eyes traced Max’s jaw. “Why don’t you ever talk about your dad?”

Max flinched. Almost imperceptibly.

“You’ve never mentioned him.”

“I don’t want to,” Max said flatly.

Charles didn’t push. But his hand reached out anyway, fingertips brushing Max’s wrist.

“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I just want to… understand.”

Max was silent for a long time.

Then, voice too quiet: “He never hit me the way people think he did. Not like that. He didn’t have to.”

Charles listened.

“He made me win. No matter what it took. Crying wasn’t allowed. Anger was encouraged. Losing was punishment.”

He finally looked at Charles. “He taught me how to drive like my life depended on it. Because it did.”

Charles’s voice cracked. “Max—”

“I don’t hate him,” Max added. “That’s the worst part.”

Charles slid closer. Their foreheads touched.

“You’re not like him.”

Max didn’t believe that. Not always. But Charles said it like it was a truth carved into stone.

So Max didn’t argue.

*****

Brazil was next.

They flew there separately again, but this time it felt colder. Like something had been exposed and hadn’t gone back into hiding properly.

Max won the sprint and the race.

Charles didn’t finish either.

A hydraulic failure in the sprint. Contact in the race. DNF. No points.

Charles threw his gloves at the wall of the garage after the retirement and didn’t stay to give interviews.

Max found him in the back lot, helmet still on, fists clenched.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore,” Charles muttered, voice shaking. “This car – it hates me.”

Max didn’t respond. Just took his helmet off and walked toward him.

Charles sagged into him before Max even touched him. The contact was raw. Chest to chest. Breaths sharp.

Max wrapped both arms around him, strong and sure.

Charles clung like he was about to fall apart.

*****

They didn’t speak in the car on the way back.

Didn’t speak in the elevator.

Didn’t speak until they were both lying in bed, staring at the ceiling fan slicing the silence.

Then Charles whispered: “I want to leave Ferrari.”

Max turned his head. “You said you’d never leave.”

“I thought I owed them something. Loyalty. History. I don’t know.”

“You still might.”

“I don’t care anymore.”

Max didn’t say anything right away. Just took Charles’s hand, intertwining their fingers.

“There’s room at Mercedes,” Max said eventually. Carefully. “If you want it.”

Charles laughed under his breath. “You make it sound like you own the place.”

“I might,” Max said. “Toto owes me a few favours.”

Charles went quiet. Then asked, “Have you talked to him?”

“Yes.”

Charles sat up slightly. “When?”

Max hesitated. “A few weeks ago.”

Charles’s eyes widened. “You planned this?”

Max didn’t flinch. “I made sure the door would be open. In case you needed it.”

Charles stared at him.

Then – quietly, almost painfully: “You knew I’d break.”

“I hoped you wouldn’t,” Max said. “But I knew Ferrari would.”

Charles covered his face with his hands. “You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes.”

“I know.”

Then Charles reached out and kissed him like it hurt.

Max didn’t pull away.

Chapter Text

They didn’t touch in Vegas.

Not at the track. Not in the paddock. Not even in glances.

Max won again, of course. His ninth win in ten races. Clinical. Impeccable. Effortless.

Charles qualified on pole and finished P5, barely holding off Oscar on worn tyres. Ferrari strategy had been a disaster again – two pit stops too early, one pit stop too late, and no one to yell at who hadn’t already stopped caring.

But he smiled through it. Waved at fans. Thanked his mechanics. Held it together like the whole structure of F1 depended on him pretending it didn’t hurt.

Max watched him from across the press pen, jaw set.

No cameras caught the way Charles’s hands trembled behind his back.

*****

Later that night, the strip glowed. A million lights, none of them real.

Max leaned against the balcony of his hotel suite, untouched champagne in hand. He wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. The noise below felt like something out of a dream – too bright, too loud, too detached.

When Charles finally knocked, it was late.

Max opened the door and said nothing.

Charles didn’t speak either. Just stepped inside, eyes tired, face washed clean of performance.

They sat in silence for nearly fifteen minutes. Charles on the couch. Max in the chair by the window.

Then Charles said: “Sometimes I think about telling someone. About what happened. Back then.”

Max didn’t turn his head, but the shift in the room was instant.

“But I don’t know how,” Charles went on. “I don’t even know if it matters anymore. It was so long ago. But it... it shaped everything.”

Max’s voice was low. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Charles blinked at the floor. “I want to.”

The air stilled.

And then he said it.

“I was thirteen. It was a mechanic from a team we weren’t racing with, just someone who helped out sometimes during the karting weekends. He was older. He knew where the cameras were. Where the adults weren’t.”

Max’s breath caught, but he didn’t interrupt.

“He cornered me in the back of the paddock one night. Said he’d help with my kart the next morning. I don’t– I don’t remember all of it. Just that he was strong. And I froze. I was so scared I’d lose everything if anyone found out. So I didn’t fight hard enough. I didn’t scream.”

Silence rang like gunfire between them.

Charles looked up. His face was blank. “I never told anyone. Not even my family.”

Max stood, slowly. Walked over. Knelt in front of him.

“I believe you,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Charles’s jaw clenched. “You should be disgusted.”

“I’m not.”

“I was a kid.”

“I know.”

Max reached out and took Charles’s hand, folding it in both of his.

“Thank you for telling me,” Max whispered. “You didn’t owe me that. You don’t owe anyone.”

Charles stared at him. “Do you ever feel like... no matter how much you win, the damage never leaves?”

Max nodded. “Every day.”

Something unspoken passed between them – heavy, aching, but tethered by understanding.

Charles leaned forward until their foreheads met.

They stayed like that until the city stopped spinning.

*****

Abu Dhabi was next.

The season ender.

There were no championships left to fight for, no records that hadn’t already been broken. Just the ghosts of a season spent burning at both ends.

Max won. Again.

Charles finished on the podium this time – third, behind Lando. But his smile was real when he looked at Max, and Max’s eyes softened when they met his.

Later, on the flight home, they didn’t speak much. Just shared a row, watched the same film, and let their shoulders touch.

Somewhere over Europe, Charles drifted off.

Max didn’t move for hours.

*****

In Monaco, they spent Christmas apart. Family obligations. PR appearances. Smiling for people who had no idea what lived behind their eyes.

But on New Year’s Eve, Charles showed up in Amsterdam, unannounced, wearing a scarf Max had left in Italy three months before.

“I didn’t want to be alone tonight,” he said.

Max just stepped back and let him in.

They rang in the new year with whisky and silence, curled on the floor in front of a dying fireplace. No declarations. No kisses. Just warmth, and the knowledge that they hadn’t let the other go.

Not yet.

*****

January blurred with training. February with pre-season simulations.

In the background, Max worked with Toto. Quietly. Discreetly.

He didn’t tell Charles yet. Not fully. Not until the contract was done. Not until he could offer it as certainty and not just hope.

But when he looked at Charles in Bahrain, across the garage divide, all he could think was: Not much longer now.

*****

The season started badly for Charles.

Ferrari promised a miracle car. Delivered a mediocre one.

Two retirements in four races.

At Imola, he crashed in qualifying, went out in Q2.

He didn’t cry. Charles hadn’t cried in years. But Max found him after, in the paddock shadows, crouched behind a tire rack, head in his hands.

“I’m done,” Charles whispered. “I’m fucking done.”

“You’re not,” Max replied.

“Then what am I supposed to be?”

“Mine,” Max said. Simple. Honest. True.

Charles looked up, eyes red.

And in that moment, the idea of leaving Ferrari stopped being unthinkable.

It started being a promise.

Chapter Text

It rained in Canada.

Not heavy. Not romantic. Just enough to soak through a fire suit, enough to turn strategy into Russian roulette and Ferrari into a farce. Again.

Charles’s race lasted thirty-three laps.

Another engine failure. Another DNF. Another smothered scream into the helmet before he stepped out, waved politely, and vanished into the garage while the cameras looked elsewhere.

Max finished second behind Lando. Grumbling about the car. Playing the game. Doing what needed to be done.

He found Charles alone in the Ferrari hospitality suite, post-race, long after the journalists had packed up and the mechanics had begun tearing the garage down.

Charles was staring at a bowl of untouched pasta like it had personally offended him.

“You should eat,” Max said softly.

Charles didn’t look up. “It’s cold.”

“I’ll get you something else.”

Charles pushed the bowl away. “Don’t bother.”

Max sat across from him, silent. Waited.

After a long moment, Charles muttered, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“I know,” Max said. And he did.

“Every time I think we’ve bottomed out, they find a new way to dig.”

Max nodded.

Charles finally looked at him then, eyes rimmed red, fury barely held behind his teeth.

“I gave everything to them,” he whispered. “Everything. And they don’t even give me a car that finishes the race.”

Max said nothing. Just held his gaze.

Then Charles asked, so quietly Max barely heard it: “Would you leave if you were me?”

Max hesitated.

Then: “Yes.”

Charles’s eyes flickered. “But it’s Ferrari.”

“So?”

“You don’t just walk away.”

Max’s voice was flat. “You do when it’s killing you.”

Charles flinched. “They made me who I am.”

“No, Charles.” Max leaned in. “You made yourself. They took the credit.”

Silence. The weight of truth between them.

Finally, Charles said, “You sound like you’ve thought about this.”

Max’s jaw worked. “I have.”

Charles stared. “What does that mean?”

Max didn’t answer. Not yet.

Instead, he reached across the table and placed his hand gently over Charles’s. Let it linger there. Anchoring. Steady.

“There’s something I want to show you,” Max said. “But not here.”

*****

They didn’t speak on the way back to the hotel. Charles didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t need to. He trusted Max more than most people he'd known his whole life.

Max swiped them into his suite and locked the door behind them. Charles stood near the window, arms crossed, gaze distant.

Max opened his laptop. Clicked into a folder labelled simply: “2026.”

He turned the screen toward Charles.

Contracts. Chassis specs. Notes from meetings with Toto. Simulator data. Technical projections.

Charles blinked. “What is this?”

“A future,” Max said.

Charles read slowly. Eyes darting, mouth slightly open.

“You’re building a car.”

Max nodded. “With Mercedes. With Toto. For me. For... us.”

Charles looked up sharply. “Us?”

Max held his gaze. “I’ve already signed. You haven’t. But this seat? It’s yours if you want it. And not just the car. The team. The support. The trust.”

Charles’s breath caught. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want to pressure you. I wanted to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“That you’d be coming because you wanted to. Not just because you were broken.”

Charles’s hands trembled.

“It’s not charity,” Max said. “It’s belief. You’re still one of the best. And you deserve more than what they’re giving you.”

Charles sat down slowly, as if the floor had dropped out beneath him.

“This is real?”

“Yes.”

“Toto agreed?”

Max’s mouth twitched. “Toto wants you. Has for a long time. He just didn’t think you’d ever leave.”

Charles laughed – a short, cracked sound. “Neither did I.”

Max sat beside him, close but not touching.

“No one would blame you,” Max said. “Not even the tifosi.”

“They’ll hate me.”

“They already pity you,” Max countered. “At least this way, you walk out with your head high.”

Charles leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “If I do this... it changes everything.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Silence again. Not uncomfortable. Just full of things unsaid.

After a long while, Charles whispered, “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.”

Max stood, gently nudging the laptop closed.

But as he walked toward the bedroom, Charles called after him, voice barely audible:

“Max?”

He paused.

Charles’s eyes were dark, solemn. “Thank you. For fighting for me when I couldn’t.”

Max didn’t smile. Didn’t soften.

He just nodded once. Like a vow.

*****

The next morning, the Ferrari comms team released a video of Charles on a yacht with Carlos, both smiling, pretending the weekend had gone fine.

Charles retweeted it. Posted a heart emoji.

And then deleted the app entirely.

Chapter Text

Toto Wolff’s office at Mercedes HQ was exactly as Charles imagined it would be.

Minimalist, clean, and quiet – the kind of space that seemed to hum with purpose even in stillness. No clutter. Just cool grey tones, a few understated trophies, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the factory courtyard. Outside, the sky threatened rain. Inside, the pressure was all internal.

Charles stood in the doorway, damp from the London drizzle, still in travel-wrinkled jeans and a hoodie, nervously twisting the hem of his sleeve.

Toto looked up from his desk, then rose, smiling.

“Charles,” he said, offering his hand. “Danke for coming. I know this wasn’t easy.”

Charles shook his hand, unsure if he should smile. He failed at it anyway. “Merci for seeing me.”

“Of course.” Toto gestured to the small seating area by the window. “Shall we?”

They sat, separated by a small, modern table with two neat glasses of water on it. For a long beat, neither spoke. Charles’s fingers tapped an anxious rhythm on his thigh. Toto observed without comment, hands clasped.

“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming,” Charles admitted. “Not even my team.”

“I assumed,” Toto replied gently. “Though I expect they’ll find out soon.”

Charles winced. “They always do.”

Toto tilted his head. “Are you worried about how it will look?”

Charles hesitated. “Yes. And no.”

Toto didn’t rush him. That was what Charles noticed first – the sheer patience of the man. It made him want to fill the silence with everything and nothing all at once.

So he did.

“They made me a driver,” he said, voice quiet. “They gave me a seat when I was still too young to understand what it would cost. They made me a hero in red. I’ve spent half my life trying to live up to that image.”

Toto’s gaze was steady. “And the other half?”

Charles exhaled shakily. “Trying not to fall apart.”

Silence again. But this one was warmer.

“I think I always believed loyalty would save me,” Charles continued. “That if I stayed, if I gave more, something would change. That they’d finally—” He stopped himself. Bit his lip.

Toto’s voice was calm, but not cold. “Did they?”

Charles’s throat worked. “No.”

Toto nodded. “You’ve been failed, Charles. Not because you weren’t good enough. But because they never protected you the way they should have. They asked everything of you and gave nothing back.”

It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even judgment. Just truth. Clean and razor-sharp.

Charles blinked back something he wouldn’t name.

“I saw Max’s data,” he said after a pause. “I saw what you’re building together.”

“It’s not just for Max,” Toto said carefully. “It’s for both of you. If you want it.”

“Why?”

Toto smiled, faint and honest. “Because you’re one of the best. And because Max asked me to.”

Charles’s head shot up.

“He asked you?”

Toto nodded. “He didn’t ask for much else. Not even about car development. But he said one thing clearly: if this car is for him, it needs to be for you too.”

Charles felt his chest tighten.

“I don’t know what we are,” he confessed. “We haven’t even said it aloud.”

Toto shrugged. “You don’t have to. I’ve been in this business long enough to know what devotion looks like. And what guilt looks like, too.”

Charles swallowed.

“You’ve carried a lot alone,” Toto continued. “More than most people know.”

A pause. Then, almost too softly: “Max told you?”

Toto shook his head. “I don’t need to know the details to recognize the shape of someone in survival mode. I’ve seen it before. In him. In others. And in you.”

Charles looked away.

“You’re not broken,” Toto said. “You’re tired. And you’ve been hurt. But you’re not broken.”

That undid something.

A slow, silent unraveling.

He’d heard countless reassurances over the years – from managers, from PR reps, from well-meaning friends. But none had sounded like this. Like belief without condition. Like the kind of safety Charles had almost forgotten existed.

He rubbed his hands over his face. “If I do this, I’ll lose a part of myself.”

“No,” Toto said gently. “You’ll reclaim it.”

Charles stared down at the table.

After a long silence, he asked: “What do I need to do?”

Toto reached into a drawer and slid over a file. Slim. Tidy.

“One signature,” he said. “After that, we’ll handle the rest. Quietly, until the season ends.”

Charles didn’t pick it up. Not yet.

He leaned back, arms crossed tightly.

“What if I’m not strong enough?”

“You are.”

Charles’s voice cracked. “How do you know?”

“Because you walked in that door.”

It felt like a turning point. Like standing on the edge of something vast, with no certainty of what lay ahead – only that going back was no longer an option.

Charles reached for the pen.

And for the first time in months, his hands didn’t shake.

*****

When he left the Mercedes HQ that evening, it was still raining.

But this time, it felt clean.

That night, in a quiet London hotel room, Charles texted Max just three words:

“I said yes.”

Max responded in under a minute.

“Good. It’s time.”

Chapter Text

Max hadn’t expected his phone to vibrate during training.

He rarely took it with him when he ran laps – distractions were inefficient – but something had felt off since the morning, an itch beneath the surface. A sort of restlessness he couldn’t run off.

When the buzz came, he slowed mid-stride, hand already at the waistband of his shorts where the old hoodie he’d tied there held his phone.

“I said yes.”

Three words.

Max stopped cold.

The track stretched out ahead of him, grey and empty, but the world inside his chest went loud. Not with noise – Max didn’t do noise – but with the thunderous pulse of something deeper, almost cellular.

He stared at the screen for a long moment, then read the message again.

And again.

And then, still not moving, he allowed himself to feel it.

He hadn’t asked for much in his life. Not really. What Jos taught him – beat into him – was to win first, feel later. Or not at all. Max had survived on suppression, on meticulous performance and iron focus, a shell built over wounds he never showed.

But Charles had slipped through the cracks in that armour from the start.

He’d always been different. Gold on the outside, and yet so fragile underneath. The kind of boy who smiled for the cameras even when he was bleeding inside. The kind of man who broke quietly.

Max didn’t know what it meant to care the way other people did. He didn’t know how to say the right things. He didn’t cry at podiums. He didn’t send flowers. But when Charles had gone silent after that crash – when the radio stayed dead and the red flag came – Max had felt his lungs seize.

He’d driven to the hospital himself.

He hadn’t even taken off his race suit.

The waiting room had been too white, too still, and the quiet there was a kind Max hated. The kind that reminded him of long childhood nights when he didn’t know if his mother would leave. Of the silence before the front door slammed. Of the way Jos used to stop speaking for days when he was angry – a punishment colder than fists.

So now, when Charles broke that silence with a message that meant everything, Max read it over one more time before typing only:

“Good. It’s time.”

Because it was.

Charles had given everything to Ferrari. More than any driver should. He’d bent himself backward trying to be what they wanted – the golden boy, the saviour, the loyal soldier. But they hadn’t protected him. Not from the pressure. Not from the scrutiny. And certainly not from the ghosts he carried.

Max had seen the signs.

The way Charles flinched when touched unexpectedly. The way he sometimes dissociated after hard races, going glassy-eyed and unreachable for hours. The way his hands shook under pressure, but never during a race – only afterward, alone, when it was quiet.

Max didn’t ask.

He didn’t push.

But he remembered. And he watched.

And then one night, when Charles had come to him looking like he hadn’t slept in days, with bruised eyes and bitten-down fingernails, Max had said just one thing.

“Come to Mercedes.”

He hadn’t made a pitch. No promises. No pressure.

But he had gone to Toto behind the scenes, laid the groundwork. Quietly. Carefully. Because this wasn’t just about racing. This was about giving Charles a way out. A way forward.

And now – finally – Charles had chosen it.

Max kept running after that. Lap after lap, with the rain starting to mist down and the track slick beneath his soles. The burn in his legs was grounding. The cold wind against his skin kept the memories from creeping too far in.

He didn’t want to think about Jos.

Or about all the times he’d been told to toughen up, to be better, to stop whining.

But he did think about the way Charles had looked that last night in Monza – face lit with anger and ache and something deeper, something Max hadn’t had words for until he’d seen it reflected in his own.

Please tell me you feel something, Charles had said.

Max had. He still did.

It was just that feeling things wasn’t safe in his world. Not when emotions could be used against you. Not when weakness was punished.

He hadn’t been raised to share.

He’d been raised to win.

But Charles made him want more.

*****

That night, back at the flat in Monaco that Charles sometimes stayed in when he couldn’t face going home, Max stood by the window nursing a bottle of water and staring out at the darkened harbour.

He didn’t need music. He didn’t need company. The silence now was bearable – because Charles had said yes.

He let the thought sit with him.

He would protect this. Whatever it was.

It didn’t matter if they never put a name on it.

Charles didn’t need to be perfect. He didn’t need to win for anyone but himself. Not for his father’s memory. Not for the tifosi. Not for the hollow promises of a team that bled him dry.

And Max – well, Max didn’t need to be the emotionless machine Jos had tried to forge.

He could be… something else.

Still sharp, still fast. But also real.

Charles had once asked him if he ever felt lonely.

Max hadn’t answered then.

But he would, someday.

He would tell Charles that loneliness was the first language he ever learned. That it was bred into his bones. That even on top of the podium, with champagne in his hands and cameras flashing, it never truly went away.

Until Charles.

*****

He texted again around midnight.

“Come over. No talking. Just sleep.”

The reply was fast.

“Already outside.”

Max smiled. A small thing. Brief. But real.

He opened the door.

Charles stepped in, hoodie soaked through, curls wet and clinging to his forehead. His eyes were tired but calmer now – like something inside had finally stilled.

Neither of them said anything.

Max reached for a towel, tossed it to him, then padded barefoot toward the bedroom.

They didn’t touch that night. Not really. Max simply let Charles curl close, head tucked into the crook of Max’s shoulder, breath slowing as sleep crept in.

Max stayed awake a while longer.

Thinking.

Planning.

Watching the way Charles’s chest rose and fell.

He didn’t know how to fix what had been broken in them. But he knew this: they didn’t have to stay broken.

And with Mercedes – with Toto – they might finally be given space to breathe.

To begin.

And maybe, just maybe, to win again.

Together.

Chapter Text

The email sat unread in his inbox for an entire day.

Charles stared at it like it might bite him.

Subject: Mercedes Contract — Confirmation and Transition Plan

It was real. Not an idea anymore. Not a whispered maybe. Not a fever dream born in hospital silence and morphine-fogged grief. A future, typed out in black and white. Ten pages of logistics and details and a quiet, unwavering promise beneath it all:

We want you. Just as you are.

He closed the laptop gently, fingers trembling just enough to make him exhale.

Ferrari’s red still surrounded him – on the walls, the framed race suits, the cabinet lined with trophies and champagne bottles never opened. The whole flat bled Scuderia history. His entire adult life encased in scarlet.

And yet… the colour had started to feel like a bruise.

He wasn’t angry at them. Not exactly. He’d loved Ferrari. Loved them with a child’s reverence, with a teenager’s dream, with a man’s stubborn devotion. He’d given them everything, even when there was nothing left to give.

But love, he’d learned, could also be a weight.

And sometimes, survival meant putting it down.

*****

The worst part was not telling anyone.

He hadn’t even told his brothers. Not yet. He wasn’t ready for the questions, the nostalgia, the aching look in Arthur’s eyes when he’d say But I thought Ferrari was everything.

It had been.

It wasn’t anymore.

He sat in the dark of his living room long past midnight, lights off, the silence wrapping around him like a second skin. The floor was cold under his bare feet. The air tasted like old wine and unspoken things.

He didn’t cry. He hadn’t, not since the coma. Something about that blank stretch of time – the in-between, the nothingness – had changed him. It had left him quieter. More deliberate. There was a stillness in him now that hadn’t existed before. Not peace, exactly, but space.

And in that space, he could admit things he’d buried.

He was tired of being brave.

Tired of smiling when he felt like breaking.

Tired of carrying a secret he’d never spoken aloud – not to anyone.

The assault during his karting years had been one of those twisted, formative things. A horror so profound it changed the direction of a life without leaving a visible scar.

He could still remember the sterile light of the garage. The smell of oil. The heat of summer air so thick it choked. And hands that shouldn't have touched him.

He hadn’t screamed.

He hadn’t known how.

Afterward, he’d scrubbed his skin raw and told himself it didn’t happen. That he’d misunderstood. That it had been a mistake. And then he’d locked it away, deep in his chest, behind walls built of speed and trophies and praise.

But trauma was a patient ghost.

It haunted in quiet moments.

In the press of someone too close. In the click of a door locking behind him. In the ache of his own skin when he was too tired to fight the memories off.

Ferrari hadn’t known.

No one had.

Only Max had ever come close to guessing.

Max, who said almost nothing but saw everything.

*****

He had seen Max’s message just before bed the night before: “Come over. No talking. Just sleep.”

And Charles had gone.

Of course he had.

Because the only place that had felt even remotely safe since the crash was wherever Max was. Not because Max coddled him. Not because he made things soft.

But because Max didn’t flinch.

He didn’t try to fix. He didn’t try to explain. He simply stayed. Solid. Present.

Max didn’t ask Charles to be anything other than exactly what he was – even when that was quiet and shattered and confused.

That night in Max’s bed, Charles had fallen asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. He didn’t know what to call what was between them. He didn’t care. He just knew he wanted to keep it.

The next morning, Charles dressed slowly.

He chose the black polo instead of the Ferrari red. No logos. No statements. Just himself, stripped back.

He had a meeting at Maranello. Nothing urgent – just routine check-ins, media prep, planning. The kind of thing he could sleepwalk through by now.

But he knew.

This was the beginning of the end.

When he arrived, the staff smiled the way they always did. Kind. Familiar. Unaware.

He smiled back. Polite. Measured. Practiced.

They didn’t know he was already halfway out the door.

Charles sat through the meetings like a ghost in his own skin. His body moved, his voice worked, but inside, something had shifted. A quiet resolve. A decision made not in anger, but in mourning.

He loved them.

But he had to leave.

*****

Toto called him that night. Just to check in.

Charles answered from the balcony, feet propped on the railing, a glass of water sweating in his hand.

“Bonjour, Toto.”

“You alright?”

It wasn’t just a greeting. It was real. Intentional.

Charles hesitated. Then nodded, forgetting for a second that Toto couldn’t see him. “Oui. Just… adjusting.”

“Still time to change your mind,” Toto said, gently teasing.

“I won’t,” Charles replied. “I can’t.”

There was a long pause. Then: “I’m glad.”

Something in Charles’s chest unknotted.

They didn’t talk business after that. Toto asked about his recovery, his family. Whether the Monaco flat still had the leaky faucet.

Charles laughed. “Yes. I’m starting to think the leak is symbolic.”

“Of what?”

“Everything,” Charles said softly.

*****

He didn’t tell the team for another week.

Not officially.

Not until the lawyers had finalised the transition.

But Fred looked at him one morning and said quietly, “You’ve made a decision.”

And Charles said nothing, because he couldn’t lie anymore.

Fred just nodded. “I’m proud of you. You deserve better than we gave you.”

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t everything. But it helped.

*****

The night before the announcement would go public, Charles went for a drive.

No destination. Just the open road, the sea, and the hum of the engine beneath him. The city lights blurred by tears he refused to blink away.

He parked on a cliffside he used to go to as a teenager. Sat on the hood of the car and looked out over the dark water.

He thought about Jules.

About his father.

About the version of himself that once thought winning would fix the hollow place inside.

And then he thought about Max.

About the way Max had said “It’s time.”

About the quiet look he gave when Charles didn’t have words. About the weight of his hand, steady and warm, on Charles’s back when the nightmares came.

Max didn’t offer safety. Max was safety.

Charles breathed in the salt air, let the wind tangle his hair, and for the first time in a long time, allowed himself to hope.

Not for wins.

Not for records.

But for peace.

Chapter Text

The first time Charles saw the car, he cried.

Not a lot. Not even visibly. But something shifted behind his ribs – a tightness, a catch of breath – and he had to turn away for a moment too long, blinking up at the fluorescent lights of the Mercedes garage ceiling.

It was beautiful.

Not just the car. The silence. The lack of pressure. The way everyone moved around him like he wasn’t just a driver but a person. He wasn’t afraid to speak. Wasn’t bracing for disappointment.

Max was already suited up, already making small adjustments to the seat settings as if he’d been born into the place.

Of course he had.

He belonged here.

Charles wasn’t so sure about himself yet.

*****

That night, Charles sat across from Max in the driver’s lounge, both of them quiet and half-drained from the first full day of sim work. There was food between them. Pasta for Max, soup for Charles. Neither had touched much of it.

“You didn’t eat all day,” Max said finally, not looking up.

Charles stirred his spoon. “Didn’t feel like it.”

Max didn’t argue. Didn’t press.

He never did.

Instead, he leaned back in his chair and said, “I used to throw up after every karting session when I was eight.”

Charles blinked. Looked up.

Max’s eyes were distant. Not cold – far away. Like he was watching the past unfold in front of him.

“My father said it made me weak. That if I could win races but not hold down a meal, I wasn’t really strong.”

Charles’s heart sank. “Max…”

“He made me sit in the corner of the paddock for an hour once. Said I couldn’t get up until I stopped crying.” Max blinked. “It was raining.”

Charles put the spoon down.

Max looked at him now, eyes sharp. Not to accuse. To offer. To open.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Max said. “But I thought – if we’re really going to do this—”

“We are,” Charles said, quickly. Too quickly.

Max’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

“Then maybe it’s time,” Max said. “To stop pretending we’re okay.”

Charles’s hands were shaking.

He hadn’t told anyone. Not even himself, for years. He’d hinted. Alluded. Avoided. But never spoken.

The words hurt.

They scraped their way out of his chest like broken glass.

“I was thirteen,” Charles said, voice low. “It was a mechanic. Someone my father trusted. Someone I… I thought was safe.”

Max didn’t move.

Didn’t interrupt.

Just listened.

“It was after lights out. Everyone else was asleep. He said he wanted to talk about my engine setup.” Charles swallowed. “But he locked the door. And…”

He couldn’t finish.

Didn’t need to.

Max’s face didn’t change. But his hand moved slowly across the table. Not to grab. Just to rest beside Charles’s.

A lifeline.

“I told myself I made it up,” Charles whispered. “That it didn’t happen. That I misunderstood.”

Max’s jaw clenched.

“I still have nightmares sometimes,” Charles admitted. “I can’t be alone in garages. I panic if the door shuts too fast. I pretend I’m okay, but—”

“You don’t have to pretend,” Max said quietly.

Charles looked at him. Really looked.

“You never told anyone about your father, did you?”

Max shook his head. “He said it would ruin everything. That weakness had no place in racing. That I’d be nothing without him.”

“But you are everything in spite of him,” Charles said.

The silence between them softened.

“I thought I had to be perfect,” Charles said. “That if I smiled enough, won enough, no one would notice I was broken.”

“I noticed,” Max said. “Even when I didn’t want to.”

Charles exhaled. “What now?”

Max hesitated. Then reached over and placed his hand over Charles’s.

“Now,” Max said, “we stop hiding from each other.”

*****

That night, Charles slept in Max’s hotel room.

Not for sex. Not for comfort.

Just to be together. To let the dark come and not be afraid.

When the nightmares came, Max was there.

When Max flinched at the sound of a phone ringing – a habit from years of sudden threats and pressure – Charles reached for his hand without hesitation.

They didn’t need to say everything at once.

But something had cracked open.

A quiet understanding. A kind of trust neither of them had known how to name before.

They had been racing from their ghosts for years.

Now, finally, they were learning how to stop running.

Chapter Text

The W15 was a thing of elegance.

Streamlined, brutal in curves and calculation – no bloat, no showmanship. It was fast before it moved, beautiful in the way a blade was beautiful, the kind of machinery that didn’t just beg to be driven – it demanded it.

Max slid into the cockpit like it was his second skin.

Next to him in the garage, Charles suited up in near silence, helmet cradled at his side. His visor was down before the cameras could catch his face. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even nerves.

It was protection.

Max understood.

They didn’t speak before the first lap. There were no joking shoulder bumps, no confident press-ready grins. Not anymore.

They weren’t pretending now.

That was the difference.

And still, the world around them demanded a show.

*****

The paddock was alive with noise.

Mercedes had posted a photo that morning: the two of them in black and silver suits, shoulder to shoulder. The caption was short – Silver begins with two. Nothing more.

It had gone viral in less than an hour.

Everyone had an opinion.

Everyone always did.

Carlos had texted Charles three flame emojis and a laughing face. Lando sent Max a meme of a knight in full armour captioned: me when I emotionally repress for speed. Lewis liked the photo without comment. Toto’s only reaction was a glance, a nod, and a murmured: “Ready?”

They were.

Even if the world didn’t know what for.

The first few laps were cautious.

Not for lack of ability – neither Max nor Charles ever drove slowly – but for calibration. For feel.

For trust.

Charles’s feedback was precise. Almost surgical. His voice in the radio lacked its usual warmth, but every instruction was gold.

Max gave nothing unnecessary. Just facts. Numbers. The subtle note of approval only Toto would recognize when he spoke of balance and rotation.

But when they pulled in at the same time, and Charles passed Max behind the pit wall, Max caught his eye.

And Charles nodded.

Just once.

It was enough.

*****

Later that afternoon, they ran race simulations.

Max sat in the garage, helmet in his lap, watching Charles’s sector times on the monitor. The telemetry glowed in shades of yellow and green, every tenth of a second humming like music only Max could read.

Charles was smooth. Sharper now. More aggressive than he’d been at Ferrari – less afraid to take up space.

It made Max ache in a way he didn’t have words for.

He remembered nights where Charles had flinched from sudden touch. Mornings where he’d smiled too brightly for someone who’d barely slept. The silence he’d worn like armour.

But now?

He was flying.

“Sector two was purple,” Max said as Charles walked back in, peeling off his gloves.

“Twice,” Charles replied, and Max heard the pride in his voice – pride that wasn’t laced with guilt or self-doubt.

It suited him.

Toto joined them moments later. There were notes, data, the usual low murmur of German-accented precision. But the way Toto looked at them – like they weren’t just assets but people – made something tighten in Max’s chest.

This was what safety looked like.

Not control.

Not silence.

Belonging.

*****

The press conference was less pleasant.

They were seated beside each other – two podium chairs, two microphones, and an ocean of expectation.

“Max, do you think you’ll dominate the field again now that you’ve got a teammate like Charles?”

Charles didn’t flinch. Neither did Max.

“I think domination is an ugly word for something that’s supposed to be a team effort,” Max replied.

“Charles, are you worried about fitting in at Mercedes? Considering your past at Ferrari—”

“I’ve had a lot of pasts,” Charles cut in smoothly. “What matters is the present.”

“And your dynamic? Are you friends, rivals…?”

Charles smiled. “We’re more than that.”

Max looked at him. Not sharply – softly.

The room went still.

Someone scribbled furiously into a notebook.

*****

They didn’t address it in the car ride home.

There was no need.

What was understood didn’t have to be repeated.

But that night, after dinner, Charles found Max sitting alone on the terrace of the hotel suite they shared, feet kicked up, eyes on the dark sky above Bahrain.

“You didn’t lie,” Charles said quietly, joining him.

“About?”

“Us. More than friends.”

Max shrugged. “We are.”

Charles leaned his head on Max’s shoulder. Just enough to touch. Just enough to feel.

“We’re not done healing,” Charles murmured.

“I know.”

“But we’re better. Together.”

Max turned his head just enough to breathe in Charles’s scent – fire-retardant suit and something lemony from his shampoo.

“You made sector two purple,” he said again.

Charles smiled.

*****

They slept close that night.

Not for warmth. Not for comfort.

But because the space between them no longer needed guarding.

There were still shadows.

Still ghosts.

But they didn’t have to face them alone.

And in the morning, when the world pressed in again with lights and questions and engines screaming to life, they met it side by side.

Max and Charles.

Silver and fire.

The beginning of something sharp and new.

Something worth fighting for.

Chapter Text

The paddock in Melbourne always smelled like eucalyptus and expectation.

It was the first race of the season, and everything felt raw – new car smells mixed with engine fumes, paint still gleaming, team kits still stiff with first wash starch. But beneath the bright branding and media grins, there was something hungrier humming between the drivers.

A need to prove.

A need to survive.

Max had always welcomed it. Pressure never broke him – it refined him. And now, with Charles in silver beside him, their names etched above matching garage doors, it didn’t just feel like a new beginning.

It felt like a test.

*****

Qualifying was brutal.

Not for them, but for the rest of the grid.

Mercedes had nailed the aero. The balance was the best Max had felt in years – a rare fusion of lightness and bite. And Charles… Charles was fast in a way that made Max’s blood fizz, like watching lightning learn how to steer.

He set a purple lap in Q2 and Max didn’t even bother being surprised.

Q3 came down to the wire.

Max took provisional pole.

Charles followed with a lap barely three hundredths behind.

They didn’t smile in parc fermé – they didn’t need to. The glance between them as they pulled off helmets said enough.

We’re here. We’re ready.

Toto cornered them in the debrief room after.

“Don’t make it personal,” he said, looking between them. “If you fight, make it clean.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “We always do.”

Max didn’t comment, just locked eyes with Charles for half a second too long.

Toto sighed, muttering something in German under his breath.

“You’re not rivals anymore,” he added. “You’re teammates. We win together or we lose stupidly.”

“‘Lose stupidly’ sounds like something Ferrari would put on a strategy board,” Charles murmured.

Max snorted.

Toto stared at them both.

“Try to behave for at least one press cycle.”

Neither promised a thing.

*****

Race day dawned hot and bright, the kind of Australian sun that turned helmets into ovens and tarmac into tacky glue.

Max rolled out of bed before the alarm and sat for five minutes at the edge, rubbing his hands together like a ritual. The gloves would come later. The helmet. The noise.

But this moment was his.

A pause.

Before fire.

Charles joined him in the breakfast suite, curls damp from the shower, wearing his race suit half-zipped with the soft navy Mercedes tee underneath. He looked calm.

But Max knew him too well by now.

“I’m not nervous,” Charles said, before Max even asked.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You were looking like I was.”

“I was looking like I know you.”

Charles smiled. “That’s worse.”

*****

The grid was chaos.

Cameras. Celebrities. Journalists foaming at the mouth for soundbites.

Max and Charles ignored them all.

When the anthem finished and they stood side by side at the front of the grid, Max leaned in slightly, just enough for Charles to hear over the roar of the crowd.

“No contact into Turn 1,” he said.

Charles smirked under his visor. “Depends how slow you are off the line.”

Max’s lips quirked. “Try me.”

*****

The lights went out.

Max launched like a bullet – perfect reaction time, zero wheelspin. But Charles had anticipated him. The Ferrari days had taught him too much about clawing for a corner.

They went side by side into Turn 1, and for a breathless heartbeat, it felt like the past. Red and black, push and pull. Ego and instinct.

But Charles lifted early.

Max took the lead.

It wasn’t surrender.

It was trust.

Lap after lap, they danced through the Albert Park circuit like they’d choreographed the whole damn race.

The W15s were untouchable. Even Red Bull couldn’t keep up – not anymore.

And when the final lap began, with Max in first and Charles breathing down his neck at DRS range, the pit wall gave no team orders.

Toto didn’t trust them.

He believed in them.

“Push,” came the call in both ears.

So they did.

Charles dived into Turn 11 with the kind of reckless precision only a driver who’d survived heartbreak could manage.

Max saw it coming. He knew Charles’s body language now – the way the car danced just a little when he was going for it.

They went wheel to wheel again.

No contact.

Just brilliance.

Max took it back on the exit of Turn 13. Held the line. Blocked just enough to stay in front.

When the chequered flag waved, they crossed the line a breath apart.

One–two.

Mercedes.

Victory.

Together.

*****

The podium was silver and champagne and sunburnt cheeks.

Charles sprayed Max directly in the face, grinning like a lunatic. Max retaliated by dumping half his bottle down Charles’s race suit.

The crowd screamed.

The journalists wrote poetry.

But later, when the cameras were off and they sat together in the cool of the hospitality tent, debrief over, media done, Max reached for Charles’s hand under the table.

Just a touch.

A private celebration.

“You could’ve passed me,” Max said, eyes fixed on the condensation dripping down his water bottle.

“I could’ve tried,” Charles replied.

“Why didn’t you?”

Charles looked at him – soft, sure.

“Because we win together now.”

*****

That night, they didn’t sleep in separate rooms.

There was no discussion about it. No coy glances or awkward hesitation.

Max left his door ajar.

Charles came in without knocking.

They curled together on the narrow bed, Charles’s nose pressed to the back of Max’s neck, breath warm and slow.

“Do you think they know?” Charles murmured.

“Probably.”

“Do you care?”

“No.”

Charles’s arms tightened around him.

Neither did he.

*****

The headlines the next morning were unbearable.

“Silver Fire: Verstappen and Leclerc Take Australia”
“From Rivals to Royalty: Max and Charles Rewrite the Rules”
“Are They More Than Teammates? Fans Think So.”

Max didn’t open a single article.

Charles made a point of liking every tweet with fan art.

When Toto walked past them on the way to the flight, he merely shook his head.

“You two are going to ruin my blood pressure.”

Charles just grinned.

“Only if we don’t win.”

Chapter Text

They returned to Monaco in the lull between races, the calendar giving them two full weeks before Saudi Arabia.

It was a strange kind of quiet. No media. No noise. Just the absence of engines and applause. The high of victory still clung to their shoulders like a ghost – but ghosts didn’t speak. They waited.

Charles didn’t know how to be still anymore.

He sat on the edge of his bed at three a.m., eyes open, throat dry. The sea outside his penthouse windows was flat, moonlight dragging silver across its surface.

He couldn’t stop hearing it.

Not the roar of the crowd.

Not the sound of Max’s voice.

Just his voice. That mechanic.

The one he’d buried.

The one he thought was long gone.

*****

Max had offered to stay in Monaco, but Charles had waved him off.

“You hate being here. Go home. Rest.”

Max had hesitated at the doorway of Charles’s apartment, duffel slung over one shoulder, hair still damp from the shower they shared.

“You’ll call if you need anything?”

Charles nodded. “You’ll be back in two days.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Charles had smiled – the one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Of course.”

Max hadn’t believed him, but left anyway.

The apartment was too quiet.

Charles cleaned the already spotless kitchen. Rearranged his fridge. Played the piano for hours without touching anything he’d actually written. Just covers. Other people’s music.

He couldn’t write when he was like this.

He couldn’t sleep.

By the third night, the nightmares were back.

He woke with sweat slicked down his chest, heart beating a staccato rhythm against his ribs. His sheets twisted around him like bindings. The phantom pressure of hands that weren’t Max’s. The breath of someone else’s laugh echoing behind his ear.

He sat in the shower for an hour, water too hot, skin turning red.

He didn’t call.

He didn’t want to be that version of himself in front of Max yet.

Not yet.

*****

But Max knew anyway.

He landed in Monaco earlier than planned. Let himself into the flat with the spare key Charles pretended not to know he’d given him.

Charles was curled on the couch, wearing a hoodie Max recognized as his own, sleeves long enough to cover his hands.

There were dark circles under his eyes.

The kind Max knew too well.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

Max toed off his shoes and walked straight to the couch, sitting down beside him without fanfare. He didn’t touch him yet. Just sat. Solid. Present.

“You were supposed to come back tomorrow,” Charles murmured.

“You weren’t supposed to lie when you said you were okay.”

Charles huffed a breath – something between a laugh and a swallow of tears.

They sat in silence again.

It wasn’t awkward.

It was necessary.

Eventually, Charles curled into him. Slowly. Like a cat deciding whether to trust a hand.

Max let him.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t ask.

He just wrapped his arms around him when Charles finally allowed it, and let the quiet stretch.

“I keep dreaming about it,” Charles whispered, voice barely a breath. “It’s not always him. Sometimes it’s no face. Just the pressure. Just knowing I can’t get away.”

Max’s jaw locked.

But his voice was soft.

“I know.”

“I thought it was gone,” Charles continued. “That I’d buried it deep enough it couldn’t breathe anymore. But now…”

He didn’t finish.

Max stroked a hand up his back, under the hoodie, fingertips tracing the subtle notch of his spine.

“You’re letting yourself feel safe,” Max said. “That’s why it’s coming back.”

Charles closed his eyes.

It made sense.

And it didn’t.

*****

They didn’t have sex that night.

They didn’t even kiss.

Max held him in bed while Charles trembled with the effort of not breaking.

“I don’t know how to talk about it,” Charles whispered into the dark.

“You don’t have to. Not now.”

Charles clutched the front of Max’s shirt.

“Will you stay?”

Max didn’t even answer.

He just wrapped both arms around him tighter and closed his eyes.

The next morning, they walked along the marina, sunglasses shielding them from the world, unspoken grief hanging between them like the tension before a storm.

Charles bought them coffees and held Max’s hand without looking.

It wasn’t a declaration.

It was a tether.

*****

Toto called mid-afternoon, a check-in disguised as logistics.

Max took the call while Charles sat at the grand piano, hands resting on keys he hadn’t touched in days.

“How’s he doing?” Toto asked. He didn’t pretend not to know what this was really about.

Max looked at Charles, who was pressing a soft chord, eyes far away.

“He’s remembering things,” Max said. “Not all of them good.”

Toto was quiet a moment.

“Let him. That’s how you heal.”

Max swallowed.

“Do you think we’re doing this right?”

“You’re doing it together,” Toto replied. “That’s the only thing that matters.”

*****

That night, Charles played something original for the first time in months.

Max sat on the floor beside the piano, back against the wall, eyes closed.

The melody was slow, minor key. Broken but deliberate.

Like a body remembering how to move.

When the final note lingered, Max looked up.

Charles met his gaze.

“I want to tell you everything,” he said.

Max nodded. “Okay.”

“Not yet. But I will.”

“I’ll be here.”

Charles came to him then.

Crawled into his lap like he didn’t know how to ask, and Max just held him again.

Two boys, broken in different ways.

Learning to rebuild.

The next morning, Charles smiled for the first time that reached all the way to his eyes.

And Max, who rarely let himself feel anything with that kind of heat, smiled back.

It didn’t fix anything.

But it meant everything.

Chapter Text

Charles hadn’t meant to do it that morning.

He hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t even rehearsed it in his head – and he’d done that before, at least a dozen times. Imagined the words. Practiced saying them into the mirror. Wondered which ones would crack his voice. Wondered if Max would still look at him the same once they were out.

But that morning, the sea was glassy, and the light was gentle through the windows, and Max had brought him coffee without being asked. He’d done it like it was just part of the rhythm of them now.

Maybe that was why.

Maybe he finally felt like there was a them.

“I was thirteen,” Charles said, without preamble.

Max didn’t flinch. He just turned, coffee in hand, expression soft and quiet.

Charles watched him.

Waited.

Max said nothing. He just set the cup down and walked over, sitting beside Charles on the edge of the couch. He didn’t reach for him.

He didn’t ask anything.

He just was.

“I was thirteen,” Charles repeated, “and there was a mechanic. He was older – not by much, maybe twenty. I was… fast. People were noticing me. I think he thought I should be grateful. For the attention. For what he did.”

He was shaking. Not visibly – not if you didn’t know him. But Max did. Max could feel it in the way his breath changed. In the way his shoulders curled slightly in on themselves.

“He waited until my father wasn’t there,” Charles continued. “After a race. I’d qualified second, and I was furious. I thought maybe he was going to give me advice. Tell me what I’d done wrong. He’d always had an opinion.”

His voice faltered. Just a little.

Max didn’t move.

Charles swallowed. “He told me I was uptight. Said I needed to relax. That I’d be faster if I just let go a little. I thought he meant the kart setup. I thought he was helping.”

Max’s hands were tight in his lap, knuckles bone-white.

But he didn’t interrupt.

Charles’s voice got smaller. “He locked the door. It wasn’t long. It never is, is it? But he – he laughed after. Said I’d thank him someday. That he was just showing me what it would be like. What it cost to be in this world.”

A breath. Sharp. Wet.

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

Another breath.

“My father probably would’ve blamed me. Said I shouldn’t have let him. You know he trusted that guy. I didn’t even cry. Not then. Just got dressed. Went home. I didn’t tell anyone, Max. Not Arthur. Not Jules. Not even Lorenzo.”

Max finally moved.

Just his hand – reaching out, slowly, like touching a wild animal.

Charles let him.

Their fingers laced together like they were meant to.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Max said softly.

Charles’s face broke.

Quietly. Elegantly.

Tears that clung to the edge of his lashes and then slipped, almost silently.

“I know that now,” he whispered. “But back then, I didn’t. I thought I’d done something wrong. That being so angry all the time made me deserve it. That I’d been too proud.”

Max turned toward him, shifting just enough to bring both their knees together.

“None of that matters. You were a kid. And he – he knew what he was doing. That wasn’t a mistake. That was a choice. And it was not your fault.”

Charles nodded, breath catching on a sob. “I kept thinking if I just won enough, it would go away. That if I was good enough, it wouldn’t matter anymore.”

Max let go of his hand only to wrap him in his arms.

Charles sank into it like the ground had given out beneath him.

He cried into Max’s shoulder – slow and terrible – the kind of grief that sounded like relief, too. The kind that came only when the silence finally broke.

Max didn’t try to fix it.

He just held him.

For minutes.

For hours.

For however long Charles needed.

*****

They didn’t leave the apartment for the rest of the day.

Charles slept, curled against Max’s chest, the tension in his body finally unspooling enough for rest.

Max stayed awake.

Watching him.

Protecting him in the only way he knew how – with presence. With stillness.

He thought of his own father.

Of silence.

Of the way pain could warp a person until they barely recognized the shape of themselves.

He thought of what Charles had survived.

And of how he’d still come out kind.

Gentle, somehow.

Despite everything.

*****

That evening, Charles made dinner.

It wasn’t fancy – just pasta, tossed with olive oil and too much garlic.

Max ate every bite without complaint.

They didn’t talk about the story again that night.

They watched a movie. Something terrible and loud. They didn’t care.

Charles kept reaching for Max’s hand during the explosions.

Max let him.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Charles said, “I want to tell Toto.”

Max looked up from the espresso machine.

“Are you sure?”

Charles nodded. “I want him to know what’s really at stake.”

Max’s throat tightened. “You think he won’t want you if he knows?”

“I think… I want him to want me because he knows.”

Max understood.

He always had.

Chapter Text

Max had never heard Charles cry like that before.

He’d seen frustration, grief, loss. Seen him bite his lip until it bled. Seen him shake from anger. Seen him blank-faced in the aftermath of races that shattered more than just strategy.

But this—

This was raw.

And it had cracked something open in Max too.

He didn’t know where the mechanic was now. Didn’t care. His hands had curled into fists that morning just thinking about it – how long Charles had carried that pain alone, how many years he’d spent patching it over with podiums and press smiles.

He hadn’t told anyone. Not even his brothers.

Max had spent the better part of his own life being prodded and remoulded by someone who said it was for his own good. He’d learned to keep everything close. Taught himself not to feel too loudly. Because any weakness, any emotion, was ammunition in the wrong hands.

But this wasn’t about him.

It was about Charles, curled up on the couch with the blanket still tugged over one shoulder, asleep now in the early haze of morning.

The light through the windows was blue and clean. Monaco's winter was mild, but Charles always said he could smell the sea best in the colder months – as if even the ocean hushed itself for him.

Max stood and made coffee. Not because Charles would ask for it, but because he always drank half of Max’s anyway.

When the machine whirred to life, Charles stirred.

He blinked blearily at Max, then smiled like it weighed a hundred kilos.

“You slept,” Max said, voice low.

“I did.” Charles sat up. His hair was a mess. Max had never seen anything more perfect. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

Charles looked at him for a long moment. Then, like it was nothing: “I want to tell Toto.”

Max’s stomach dropped.

He set the coffee cup down too hard, a soft clink on the marble counter. “You’re sure?”

Charles nodded. “I want him to know why this matters.”

Max walked over, slow and cautious, as if Charles might break again if he made the wrong move. “You don’t need to explain anything to him.”

“I do.” Charles met his eyes. “Because I want to win with you. I want to start over, and I want to do it right. With people who care.”

The words hung between them like a challenge.

Max felt something twist inside him. “You think he won’t care if he knows?”

“I think,” Charles said softly, “I’m tired of hiding. And maybe if I start with someone like Toto, I’ll stop being so afraid of everyone else.”

Max hated it.

He hated that it was so Charles – brave, brilliant, reckless in the way only someone who’d been hurt too young could be.

But mostly, he was proud.

So, so proud.

And terrified.

“If he says anything—” Max began.

“He won’t.” Charles’s voice was steel.

Max believed him.

He had to.

*****

That afternoon, while Charles wrote a long email to schedule the call, Max went for a walk along the harbour.

The water glittered. The air was sharp and salty. He passed tourists, couples, rich men with small dogs. None of it landed.

He was replaying what Charles had told him.

The way he’d told him.

How long he’d carried it, how much it must have cost to say it aloud. Max didn’t think he could’ve done the same at that age. Maybe not even now.

He thought about his own father.

The red in his vision when Jos grabbed his wrist too hard. The sting of words made to humiliate, not teach. The praise that came only when Max bled for it. How for years, he’d thought that was just how greatness was made – that you had to be forged, not raised.

Charles’s pain was different.

It came from betrayal.

From something intimate, stolen.

But they both knew what it was to be broken in places no one could see.

And maybe that was why they worked.

Two boys raised in fire, learning to put out their own flames without losing the light.

*****

When Max got back, Charles was still on the couch, phone on his chest.

“I called him,” he said without looking up.

Max’s heart skipped. “And?”

“I have a meeting with him tomorrow. Just me and him. He sounded—” Charles paused. “He sounded like he knew something was wrong. But he didn’t push.”

Max sat beside him. Not touching, but close.

“He won’t push,” he said. “He’s not like the others.”

“You trust him,” Charles said quietly.

“I do.”

Charles exhaled.

Max wanted to tell him everything.

He wanted to spill his own worst secrets – how he'd cried under hotel bathroom sinks as a teenager, how he’d flinched when teammates raised their voices, how he'd felt safest when he was alone because no one could hurt him if they weren’t close.

But he didn’t.

Not yet.

Charles wasn’t asking.

Max knew the time would come.

For now, he just had to be there.

The way Charles had always been, in every way that mattered.

*****

Later that evening, Max watched Charles clean the already-spotless kitchen.

He scrubbed a nonstick pan like it owed him money.

Max finally leaned in the doorway and said, “You don’t have to do anything tonight.”

Charles paused. “If I stop moving, I’ll think about tomorrow.”

Max understood that too well.

“Then let’s go to the simulator,” he said.

Charles blinked. “You hate the sim.”

“I hate my sim. Yours has a comfier seat.”

Charles laughed – a small, brittle sound. But it was a laugh.

And they went.

*****

Two hours later, they were still racing each other through the corners of Suzuka. Charles had spun once, Max had cut a chicane and refused to admit it.

“You cheated,” Charles said, pointing a finger dramatically.

“Prove it.”

“You didn’t lift once through the Esses.”

“I never lift.”

Charles rolled his eyes and grinned. “Max Verstappen: emotionless bastard and lying simulator demon.”

Max smiled, slow and warm. “Only for you.”

Charles didn’t say anything for a second.

Then, quietly: “You think it’ll change things?”

“With Toto?”

Charles nodded.

Max shook his head. “Not the way you’re scared it will.”

Charles looked away. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Max reached over, nudging his elbow. “And if it does… we walk. Together.”

Charles let the silence settle. Then nodded. “Okay.”

*****

That night, Charles couldn’t sleep.

Max could tell by the way he moved.

Usually, Charles shifted twice, curled up on his side, and that was it – lights out. Tonight, he twisted in the sheets like they were trying to hold him down.

Max stayed quiet.

When Charles finally gave up and padded into the living room, Max followed.

He found him sitting on the floor, legs pulled to his chest, staring at the darkened windows.

Max sank down beside him. No questions.

Charles eventually whispered, “If he doesn’t believe me…”

“He will.”

“If he does, and he still doesn’t want me?”

Max leaned his head against the wall. “Then he’s an idiot. But he won’t be.”

Charles breathed in like he was trying to memorize the shape of Max’s certainty.

“I keep waiting for you to leave,” he said.

Max blinked. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m a mess. Because I don’t know how to let people in without expecting them to hurt me. Because I’m still so angry sometimes I scare myself.”

Max reached for his hand.

It was ice-cold.

He held it anyway.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Charles didn’t cry this time.

He just leaned his head against Max’s shoulder and whispered, “Okay.”

And Max knew he meant it.

Chapter Text

The Mercedes motorhome was quiet in the late afternoon, thick with a kind of weightless calm that settled over the paddock once the press had gone and the garages started winding down. Charles lingered by the doorway, unsure whether to knock, announce himself, or turn and leave altogether.

Toto was seated inside, alone at the long table where they usually held debriefs. His glasses were perched low on his nose as he skimmed through something on his laptop, a half-finished espresso beside him. When he looked up, his expression didn’t shift much, but his voice softened.

“Charles. Come in.”

Charles stepped inside, fingers curling against his palm. “I don’t want to disturb.”

“You’re not,” Toto said, and that was that. “Sit.”

He did, sinking into the chair opposite. It was strange, maybe even silly, that after all he’d been through – podiums, crashes, secrets buried so deep in his chest they felt like bones – this was the part that scared him. Talking. The truth.

Toto closed the laptop gently. He didn’t ask what this was about. He just waited, watching Charles like he already knew it mattered.

For a moment, Charles stared at the tabletop. He could still hear the echo of Max’s voice from the night before. I don’t want to lose you.

And God, he hadn’t realized how much he didn’t want to be lost either.

“I want to talk about… something personal,” Charles started, voice low. “And not just as your driver. If that’s okay.”

Toto didn’t flinch. “I’m listening.”

Charles took a breath – shallow, sharp – and nodded. “You know, everyone always says I’m strong. That I’ve handled the pressure since I was a kid. The racing, the losses, the responsibility.”

“You have,” Toto said.

“I pretended to,” Charles corrected. “It’s easy to play a part when no one wants to look too closely.”

Toto didn’t interrupt, just leaned back slightly in his chair, giving Charles space. It made it easier, somehow.

“I think I started dying a little inside when I was thirteen,” Charles said, quieter now, like the words might come undone if he said them too loudly. “There was someone. A mechanic. Back when I was karting. He—” The words stuck. Not from shame, but from the way his throat burned. “He hurt me. Repeatedly. And I told myself that I deserved it if I wanted to succeed. That it was just another sacrifice.”

Toto’s hands folded slowly in front of him. His expression didn’t change, but his voice came low and firm. “Charles…”

“No one knows. Not even my brothers. I locked it down so deep I forgot it mattered.” Charles gave a short, bitter laugh. “But lately, I can’t stop remembering. Every time Max touches me – gently, kindly – it hurts because it reminds me how different it was. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

Silence stretched between them, not awkward or uncomfortable – just full.

Toto finally spoke. “You were a child. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. And you didn’t deserve it. Not then, not ever.”

Charles looked up. His eyes burned, but he didn’t cry. Not yet.

“I’ve spent years trying to win something that would make it go away,” he murmured. “But it never works.”

“No title will fix what someone stole from you,” Toto said gently. “But healing can begin with being seen. You’ve hidden this part of yourself for so long, and now you’ve let someone else in. That matters.”

Charles gave a slow nod. His chest ached, but it was the kind of ache that came from pressure releasing, not building.

“You’re not just a driver to me, Charles. Not just another seat to fill or a point to chase,” Toto added, voice firm. “I see you. I always have. And if there’s anything I can do – anything – to help you carry this, I will.”

That cracked something in Charles, a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He looked away, wiped his cheek before the tear could fall.

“I want to be better. For myself. For Max.” His voice cracked slightly. “But I’m scared.”

Toto leaned forward. “Then be scared. But don’t be alone.”

It was such a simple thing. So ordinary. But it undid him more than any podium or press conference ever had.

He nodded, and the silence that followed felt warmer than anything he’d known in years.

*****

Back in his hotel later that night, Charles sat beside Max on the bed, their shoulders brushing. He didn’t speak about what he’d told Toto yet. But his hand found Max’s and held it tight, not letting go.

The conversation had begun.

And that was everything.

Chapter Text

The Silverstone sky was a patchwork of steel-grey clouds, heavy with the promise of rain, but dry – for now. The air buzzed with tension, not just from the anticipation of a race on home soil for many, but from something else. Something unspoken. Max could feel it simmering beneath his skin.

He didn’t say much that morning. He rarely did, but this was different. Tighter. Quieter. Even Charles noticed, though he hadn’t pushed. Just offered him a nod in the driver room and a brief hand on the shoulder, warm and grounding.

The start was clean. For the first ten laps, Max held second behind Piastri, with Charles comfortably behind in third. Mercedes had done well on setup, but McLaren had the straight-line speed this weekend, and Max’s rear tyres were already blistering.

Still, he pushed. He always pushed.

By lap seventeen, the clouds cracked. Not with rain, but with tension.

“Box, box,” came the call over the radio. But Max was already locked in a wheel-to-wheel scrap with Piastri, and by the time he made it to the pit lane, the rain had arrived.

And the team hadn’t switched the tyres.

“No inters?” he snapped over comms as he fishtailed out of the box. The engineer’s voice was scrambled by static and urgency. A miscommunication. Too late now.

He rejoined in seventh, skating on slicks in sector two as the drizzle slicked the asphalt like ice. Ahead of him, Charles had pitted properly and was back out on inters. Logical. Lucky. Perfect.

Max gritted his teeth. He wasn’t angry at Charles. Not really. Just… everything else.

He tried to wrestle control back, but the W15 didn’t respond like it usually did. The rear end twitched. Turn nine bit back harder than usual.

Then it happened.

Lap twenty-three. High speed corner. Light rain turned sharp. A gust of wind off the Vale.

The car snapped right, then violently left. For a moment, it felt like he was flying – weightless, breathless. The car spun across the gravel and slammed into the barriers. The G-force crushed the breath from his lungs.

Then silence.

And pain.

Not the physical kind – he was okay, miraculously. The impact had looked worse than it was. But something inside him cracked with that hit.

He sat in the cockpit longer than usual, helmet still on, jaw locked.

“Max, are you okay?” The radio buzzed.

He didn’t answer right away. Because the truth was: no. No, he wasn’t.

Not for a long time.

*****

They cleared the car. The medics checked him. Everything was ‘fine’ on paper. But that night, as the paddock thinned and lights dimmed, Max didn’t move from the corner of the Mercedes hospitality suite where he’d sat since they returned.

He didn’t want to go back to the hotel. Didn’t want to face the cameras, or the press, or the replay on the TV showing the moment where he lost control.

He barely noticed Charles until he sat down beside him, quietly, respectfully.

“You scared me.”

Max didn’t respond. He stared at his water bottle like it might reveal an answer.

“You didn’t answer for almost a minute. I thought—” Charles stopped himself. “I thought it was like me. I thought I’d lost you.”

“I didn’t crash because of you.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

Max looked at him then. His eyes were dull, flat. “The team fucked up. I pushed anyway. It was stupid.”

“Max—”

“I’m tired.” Max’s voice cracked a little, and he hated that. “I’m just… tired of it. Of always pushing through like it doesn’t cost anything.”

Charles didn’t say I understand. He knew better than to lie.

So instead, he just said: “Do you want to come back with me? You don’t have to talk. Just… not be alone.”

Max hesitated.

And then he nodded.

*****

Later that night, Charles watched as Max stood by the window in his hotel room, looking out at the rain that had come too late to save his race. His shoulders were tense, his hands limp at his sides.

Charles sat on the edge of the bed, silent, waiting.

Finally, Max said, “It was never about winning. Not really. I think I just… needed to be the best so I wouldn’t be like him.”

Charles didn’t speak. Not yet.

Max turned slightly. “And today, when I lost it – when the car spun – it felt like I was six again. And my father was yelling, and I was locked in the van, and I couldn’t breathe, and I—”

He broke off. Chest rising and falling fast.

Charles stood up and walked over. Slowly, gently. He put a hand on Max’s chest, steady.

“Then let’s breathe now. Together.”

Max closed his eyes.

And for the first time in years, he let someone catch him when he fell.

Chapter Text

Max sat on the edge of the bed, still staring out of the window as the rain continued to pour outside, soaking the streets of Silverstone. His hands rested on his knees, gripping his jeans tightly as if to keep himself anchored to reality.

He hadn't spoken for a while now, the silence between him and Charles a heavy weight neither of them dared to break. But Max knew that the dam was starting to crack. The pressure he'd been holding inside for so long was finally bubbling over, and no matter how much he tried to suppress it, the truth was beginning to spill out, uninvited and overwhelming.

It was strange, sitting there. Charles, always the one to talk, the golden boy who wore his confidence like a shield, had stayed silent, letting the tension stretch between them. He hadn't pushed Max to open up, hadn't asked the questions that hung in the air, but Max could feel the weight of his concern all the same. It was like Charles knew that when Max was ready, he'd speak.

And now, with the weight of the crash still fresh in his chest and the memory of his father's voice echoing in his mind, Max felt the need to talk. Not for the first time, but for the first time in a long while, he wanted to let someone in. He wanted Charles to understand, to hear the things he’d buried so deep for so long.

“I was never good enough,” Max said, his voice soft, almost inaudible over the sound of the rain. “I thought if I was the best – if I won everything – maybe... maybe then he’d look at me like I mattered.”

Charles didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The words were all Max needed to hear. They were fragile, raw, and painful, but Charles understood. He always did. He stayed close, his presence grounding, even when Max felt like he was crumbling under the weight of it all.

Max continued, his hands clenched tighter, the words slipping from his lips like he had no control over them. “Every time I made a mistake – every time I didn’t win, didn’t perform – I could hear him. His disappointment. His anger. It’s like it’s stuck inside me, all the time. Every race. Every decision.”

Charles moved a little closer, his hand resting on the back of Max’s neck, a simple touch, but one that felt like the world itself. He didn’t speak. He just let Max talk.

“I never really understood it,” Max went on. “How he could just look at me and see nothing. I tried so hard to get his approval, and every time I fell short, it felt like a knife to my chest. I thought if I kept pushing – if I kept being the best – he’d see me, you know? But it never worked. I always felt like I was fighting for something that wasn’t mine to fight for.”

The vulnerability in his voice made Charles’s heart ache, but he didn’t interrupt. Max was finally letting the weight of all those years spill out. The guilt. The shame. The constant, never-ending need to prove himself.

Charles leaned down and placed his forehead gently against Max’s. He felt the heat of his skin, the tension that radiated off him like a live wire. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, just breathing together, grounding one another.

“You are more than enough, Max,” Charles said softly, his voice steady, reassuring. “You always were.”

Max closed his eyes, the words washing over him like a balm he hadn’t known he needed. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe he wasn’t just a reflection of someone else’s expectations, but the truth had always been harder to see. The cracks in his heart were too deep, the scars too fresh.

“I don’t know how to stop this feeling,” Max whispered, his voice trembling now. “How to stop needing to prove that I’m good enough. That I’m worth something.”

Charles moved around to sit beside him, putting his arm around Max’s shoulders and pulling him in. He didn’t say anything. There were no words that could fix this. No quick solutions or magic phrases to make the pain go away. But he could be there. He could be the person who listened. The person who understood. The person who would stay.

“I know you think you have to be perfect, but you don’t,” Charles said, his voice soft but firm. “I’ve seen you, Max. I’ve seen you at your best and your worst. And no matter what, you are more than enough. You are whole, with all your broken pieces. And that’s what makes you who you are. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

Max let the words sink in. He let the warmth of Charles’s embrace settle around him, wrapping him in a safety he hadn’t realized he needed so badly.

“I don’t know how to stop being scared,” Max admitted, his voice quiet. “Scared that one day, I won’t be good enough. That I’ll let everyone down. That I’ll let you down.”

Charles tightened his hold on Max, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, the gesture both comforting and tender. “You’ll never let me down,” he whispered. “You’ll never let anyone down. You’re allowed to be scared. But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Max turned his head to look at Charles, his face a mixture of pain and gratitude. He wanted to say something, but the words felt stuck in his throat. So instead, he simply rested his forehead against Charles’s once more, the silent promise between them hanging in the air.

Charles stayed close, holding Max as the storm outside raged on. The tension in Max’s body had softened, but the battle inside him was far from over. And yet, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like he was fighting it alone.

*****

The next day, after the media had come and gone, after the reporters had asked the usual questions and Max had given his usual answers, he found himself standing in the Mercedes garage, staring at the car in front of him. It was a welcome distraction. The car. The work. The track.

But then Charles appeared beside him, his footsteps light, and Max didn’t even have to look at him to feel the weight of his gaze.

“Max,” Charles said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, “I know you don’t want to talk about it. But… when you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

Max nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet. He wasn’t ready to fully confront it. Not yet. But the fact that Charles was there, offering a space for him to open up without pressure – that meant everything.

“I know,” Max said finally, his voice steady but soft. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. But… I’m trying. I just… need time.”

Charles didn’t ask for more. He didn’t demand answers or press for anything. He just nodded, standing beside Max, his presence solid and unwavering.

*****

In the days that followed, Max began to feel like a part of him was healing. Slowly. Piece by piece. With each moment he spent with Charles, he found himself letting go just a little bit more of the anger and the hurt he’d carried for so long.

It was a process, and it wouldn’t happen overnight. But for the first time in years, he allowed himself to believe that maybe – just maybe – he could heal.

Chapter Text

The Monaco apartment was quiet in the late evening, muted by the hush of the harbour and the soft whirr of distant scooters echoing from below. The lights had been dimmed hours ago, and still, Charles sat in the corner of the living room, the skyline glittering behind him like stars trying to break through water.

Pascale had insisted on staying the night after returning from the paddock with Arthur. They had felt it – the shift in Charles. It was subtle but unmistakable, like a taut string loosening under too much strain.

Arthur emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of chamomile tea. He handed one to their mother and settled into the chair across from Charles.

“You didn’t eat dinner,” Pascale said softly, no judgment in her voice – only concern.

Charles gave a faint shrug. “Wasn’t hungry.”

She didn’t push. Instead, she reached for his hand. Her palm was warm. Steady. Familiar.

A silence stretched between them, long and brittle.

Then: “I think I’m ready to tell you,” Charles said, his voice so quiet it nearly vanished into the night.

Pascale straightened. Arthur leaned forward.

Charles closed his eyes, just for a second. When he opened them again, they were glassy but focused.

“It happened when I was thirteen” he began. “During karting. At a circuit in Italy.”

Neither Pascale nor Arthur breathed.

“He was a mechanic on another team. Older. Not part of ours, but – he’d been around for a while. Everyone knew him. No one thought much of it when he offered to help with tire pressure or fuel calculations. He was nice. Or, at least, he seemed that way.”

He swallowed. His hands trembled slightly in his lap, but he didn’t stop.

“I was alone one afternoon. Dad and Jules were off talking strategy. And he offered to check my engine. I said okay.” His voice cracked. “He told me to help lift the kart. And when I turned around, he—”

Pascale’s hand clenched his.

“He touched me,” Charles whispered. “And I froze. I didn’t understand. I didn’t fight.”

The words shattered something in the room.

Arthur’s mouth had parted in shock, unmoving.

“I didn’t tell anyone. Not then. Not when it happened. Not after Jules died. I thought maybe it would fade, or disappear. But it didn’t. I carried it with me. Into F2. Into F1. Into everything.”

Charles looked down at his lap.

“And the worst part?” he said, voice shaking. “I thought it was my fault. For letting him. For being weak. And I hated myself for it – for not being the golden boy everyone wanted me to be.”

A beat of silence passed before Pascale leaned forward and pulled him into her arms. She didn’t cry. Not yet. But her voice was full of all the tears she wasn’t letting fall.

“You were a child,” she said fiercely, kissing his temple. “You were a boy, Charles. And none of that – none of what he did – was your fault.”

Arthur stood slowly, walked over, and sat beside them, resting his hand on Charles’s back.

“I wish I’d known,” he murmured, face pale. “I wish you hadn’t had to hold that alone for so long.”

Charles laughed faintly, bitterly. “I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.”

“You never could,” Pascale said. “Never. Not with this. Not with anything.”

The embrace lingered. The night curled around them like smoke, gentle and quiet.

It was the first time in years that Charles allowed himself to be small again. Not as a driver. Not as a star. Just as a son. As a brother. As someone broken who was finally, finally speaking the truth.

And in that silence, a piece of him began to heal.

Chapter Text

The triple-header began in Suzuka, under a sky as crisp and sharp as the tarmac below. Japan was always a favourite – technical, brutal, honest. It didn’t forgive mistakes, and neither did the championship standings.

Mercedes had arrived with quiet confidence. The new upgrades had changed everything. The car was no longer chasing scraps – it was hunting victory.

Max leaned against the garage wall, arms crossed, as Charles’s sector times flashed purple one after the other. The engineers muttered with increasing excitement. Toto’s expression remained unreadable, but Max could sense the shift in atmosphere – calm, focused, anticipatory.

When Charles crossed the finish line in qualifying with a time no one else could touch, Max allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.

On race day, Charles was untouchable. He launched clean off the line and never looked back, carving out a seven-second lead by the final lap. Max, meanwhile, had spent forty-seven laps warding off Lando Norris’s relentless attacks and finished second, exhausted but content.

At the weigh bridge, Charles waited for him, helmet already off, cheeks flushed pink with adrenaline and joy. When Max stepped down, Charles grinned and wrapped his arms around him in a hug too long to be professional.

Max didn’t pull away.

Later, when they debriefed, Charles kept glancing at him. Max didn’t need to ask what he was thinking. He felt it, too – we’re finally becoming the team we always needed.

*****

The second race – Qatar – was hell.

The heat was oppressive even after sundown. The wind kicked up sand across the circuit, and tyre degradation turned every lap into a gamble. Mercedes miscalculated the timing in Q3, and Charles got caught in traffic on his final lap, putting him P7. Max qualified third but knew the tyres wouldn’t hold unless they played it safe.

The race was chaos.

Overheating, blistering rubber, mandatory pit stops piling on unpredictability. Charles fought hard to climb up to fourth, his helmet radio filled with clipped, frustrated updates. Max, somehow, made the impossible strategy work and finished second again.

But Charles was stone-faced when he climbed out of the car. He shook hands with his engineers, nodded at the cameras, but never once smiled.

Max found him later, sitting alone in the back of the motorhome with his race suit half unzipped and a cold bottle of water clutched tightly in his hand.

“You drove well,” Max said quietly.

Charles didn’t look up. “Not enough.”

“The car was awful. No grip in Sector 2. You did better than anyone else could’ve.”

Charles shrugged. “Still not enough for a championship.”

Max sat beside him. Close enough that their shoulders touched, not quite enough for anyone watching to notice. “It’s coming. You have to trust it.”

For a moment, Max thought he wouldn’t answer. But eventually, Charles said, voice soft, “I’m scared it’ll never happen for me. I’m always almost.”

Max tilted his head, trying to catch his eyes. “You’re not almost. You’re the best driver I’ve ever seen.”

Charles blinked, throat working. “You mean that?”

Max nodded. “Yeah.”

Later, on the plane to Austin, Charles fell asleep leaning against Max’s shoulder. Max didn’t move for hours.

*****

The third race: Austin.

Sprint weekend. Chaos incarnate.

Qualifying was a mess – track limits deleted Max’s best lap, pushing him to sixth on the grid. Charles started second. The paddock was rife with tension. Constructors’ points were tight. The media fed on drama.

Max fought like hell in the sprint, clawing up to third behind Oscar Piastri and Charles, who held firm in second. But it was Sunday that changed everything.

Charles was clinical. He managed the tyres perfectly, nailed the pit window, and seized the lead on Lap 31. Behind him, Max battled brake overheating and engine cutouts, eventually limping the car home in fifth.

He barely noticed the champagne on the podium. He stood at the bottom of the steps and watched Charles raise the trophy high, red and black race suits shimmering under the golden fireworks.

It was bittersweet. Not because he wasn’t up there – but because he wanted to be. Next to him.

They met again in the quiet of the hospitality unit, long after the press had left and the guests had trickled out. Charles was still in his race suit, his hair damp with sweat and champagne, laurel wreath still draped around his neck.

“You okay?” he asked Max softly.

Max leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Car overheated. Nothing I could do.”

Charles stepped closer, eyes sharp but kind. “We’re getting closer.”

“We are.”

“Do you think we can win the Constructors?”

Max hesitated. “Yeah. If the next two go our way.”

Charles nodded, but the furrow between his brows didn’t disappear. “What about the title?”

Max looked at him – really looked. At the exhaustion, the fire, the stubborn resilience etched into every movement. “You’ll win it.”

Charles huffed a laugh. “You think?”

“I want you to win it,” Max said, voice lower now. “More than I want to win myself.”

That stopped Charles cold. His gaze flickered up to Max’s, startled, vulnerable.

“Why?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“Because you deserve it,” Max said. “And… I want to see you get everything they ever tried to take from you.”

It was the most honest thing he’d ever said.

Charles didn’t reply, just leaned in slowly and rested his forehead against Max’s for a moment, letting out a shaky breath. They stood like that, saying nothing more, until their phones started buzzing with flight updates and team calls.

The triple-header was over. Mercedes was closing in on the Constructors' title. Charles had cut the championship gap to just 12 points.

But the real shift hadn’t been on the track.

It was in the quiet places – in shoulder touches, soft glances, and whispered truths.

They were no longer just teammates.

They were becoming something far more dangerous.

And far more powerful.

Chapter Text

The Brackley HQ was unusually quiet for a post-triple-header Monday. Rain streaked the windows, tapping a steady rhythm against the glass that somehow mirrored the beat in Max's chest. He'd arrived early, hours before any meetings, ostensibly to review data – but really, he just couldn't sleep.

His conversation with Charles in Austin had shaken something loose. He'd admitted more than he'd ever planned to. And Charles had heard him – really heard him. It made the silence that followed all the more suffocating.

Max knew Toto would find him eventually. He always did.

The door creaked open around 9:00 a.m. Max didn't have to look up to know who it was.

"You're in early," Toto said, his voice calm, unreadable as ever.

Max turned from the screen. "Couldn't sleep."

Toto nodded, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He stood for a moment, arms crossed, gaze scanning the screens, the scattered notes on the table, the restless tension in Max's posture.

"You want to talk about it?"

Max hesitated.

He wasn't used to this – not the openness, not the invitation. In the past, everything was either solved on the track or shoved deep enough inside that it stopped getting in the way. But Mercedes had changed things. Toto had changed things.

Max pulled the data window closed.

"I don’t know how to do this," he admitted, finally. "Not like Charles. He talks and it sounds like he’s been waiting to say it all his life. For me it feels like... pulling teeth."

Toto smiled faintly, stepping closer. "You're not Charles. You're Max. And Max talks when he's ready."

Max let out a low breath and leaned back in the chair. The silence hung heavy between them, but Toto didn’t push. He just waited.

Finally, Max spoke.

"I never thought I'd feel comfortable again in a team. I didn't trust people. I still don’t, mostly. After everything that happened at Red Bull... I kept telling myself it was normal. That if I wanted to win, I had to put up with all of it. The manipulation. The pressure. The silence."

Toto's face remained still, but there was something softening in his eyes.

"They didn’t want me to feel anything. Just drive and win and be quiet."

Max swallowed hard. "And I let them. I let them twist everything in my head until I didn't know if I was angry or just... numb. I told myself it didn’t matter."

He paused, his voice rough now. "But then Charles happened. And he doesn’t let me get away with that."

Toto nodded slowly. "He sees you."

Max met his eyes, and there was something raw there. "I think I’ve wanted to be seen for a long time. But I didn’t think I deserved it. Not after all the things I let happen. The things I said and did."

Toto took a seat beside him, careful, quiet. "Max, you were surviving. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human."

Max exhaled through his nose. "I thought leaving Red Bull would fix everything. But I’m still... me. Still carrying all of it."

"That doesn't mean you're broken."

"Maybe not. But I feel like I’m only now starting to understand how much damage was done."

Toto didn’t answer right away. Then, carefully, he said, "Do you remember what I told you when we signed you?"

Max shook his head.

"That we wanted all of you. Not just the driver. The person too."

Max blinked quickly, looking away. His voice was lower now, almost ashamed. "I didn't believe you."

"I know. But maybe now you do."

Max looked back at him. "I want to."

There was a silence. Then:

"You don't have to rush. We're here for the long haul. Constructors, Drivers, all of it. And after that too. You and Charles... you're building something worth protecting. Let us help you do that."

Max's throat tightened.

For once, he didn’t feel like he had to speak. Just being here, being listened to, was enough.

Toto rose, placing a steady hand on Max's shoulder. "When you're ready to talk more, you know where to find me."

Max nodded, jaw clenched against the emotion threatening to break through. "Thank you."

Toto squeezed his shoulder once and left the room.

Max sat in the quiet for a long time after. But something in his chest felt lighter now.

Maybe this was what healing looked like. Not loud. Not dramatic.

Just... real.

Chapter Text

Charles had noticed it in the way Max moved that morning. Something had shifted. His posture still bore the stiffness of a man trained not to feel too much, not to let anyone in – but his shoulders weren’t quite so high, his eyes not quite so hard.

Toto had spoken with him. Charles hadn’t asked for details. He knew better. But he also knew what it took for Max to let anyone in, and it stirred something deep in him – a tenderness that felt both fierce and fragile.

They had a quiet breakfast in the Mercedes hospitality, the air between them warmer than usual. Charles reached for Max’s hand beneath the table, their fingers brushing before Max linked them together with care. Neither said a word about it, but the gesture remained.

*****

Later that day, in the calm before the next grand prix, Charles found Max in the garage, helmet in hand, half-dressed in his suit but not yet zipped up. The tension was creeping back, as it always did before a race, and Charles stepped beside him with practiced ease.

“You okay?”

Max gave a small shrug. "I will be."

Charles nodded. "You want me to leave you alone?"

A pause.

"No."

Charles offered a faint smile, leaned back against the workbench. "We’re in this together, remember?"

Max’s eyes flickered over to him. "Yeah. I remember."

Their quiet moment didn’t last long – engineers bustled around them, mechanics called out updates. But it had been enough. A small, steadying breath in the chaos.

*****

The Brazil Grand Prix was brutal. A dry heat clung to everything, making the air feel heavier than it should. Charles had barely managed to place third in qualifying after a shaky Q2, and Max was only two-tenths behind. The grid was tighter than usual, and both of them felt the squeeze.

The first few laps were madness – tire degradation was worse than predicted, and the FIA quickly enforced multiple pit stops. Max had a near miss on Turn 9 after a sudden loss of grip sent him skidding just wide of track limits. Charles held position through sheer grit, fighting off Perez with barely-there battery left.

Mid-race, a virtual safety car brought everything to a crawl. Charles' radio crackled.

"Box this lap. We'll switch to Plan C."

He followed the call. Just as he rejoined, Max was pulling alongside him on the main straight. Their eyes met for a brief heartbeat through their visors.

In tandem, they surged forward.

The final stint saw them both hunting down the front pack – Russell, Sainz, and a surprisingly aggressive Norris. Charles moved first, lunging down the inside of Sainz in Turn 1 with surgical precision. Max took Russell in Turn 4. Norris, still leading, was holding on with everything he had.

"You're faster," Charles heard in his ear.  "Max can hold him off. You take the win."

Charles hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Go, Charles."

So he did.

It was a tight fight, but by Lap 70, Charles found a gap and took it. Norris resisted, but the Ferrari-scarred fighter within him wouldn't back down. He crossed the finish line with a scream in his ears and a release of something that had been coiled tight since Monaco.

Max came in third.

They met after the podium, damp with champagne and sweat, and Charles didn't wait. He pulled Max into a hug, not caring who saw, not caring what the cameras caught.

"Thank you," he whispered against his shoulder.

Max didn’t say anything. But his grip tightened.

And that, for Charles, said more than words ever could.

*****

Later that night, Charles stood on the hotel balcony, still buzzing from the win. Max came to stand beside him, two mugs of tea in hand.

"I still hate the heat here," Max muttered, offering a mug.

Charles chuckled, taking it. "But you handled it like a pro."

"You drove better."

Charles bumped their shoulders gently. "We both did."

They watched the skyline in silence, the city lights flickering like stars.

Healing wasn’t linear. But tonight, it felt a little more possible.

Together, they were beginning to believe in it.

Chapter Text

The post-race debrief had been unusually quiet. Not in the sense of absence – far from it. The garage buzzed with the thrum of data, engineers speaking in acronyms and theory, the clatter of tools being packed away – but quiet in a more intimate, internal sense. The kind of quiet that settled inside Max as he walked beside Charles back to the motorhome. Not a heavy silence, not one weighed down by tension or expectation, but something… still. Content.

Charles, still in his race suit, peeled the top half down and let it hang around his hips. His undershirt clung to him, hair damp at the neck, eyes soft. Max had always been hyper-aware of Charles’s presence.

Early on, it was a defensive thing – knowing who was nearby, what energy they carried – but now it was different. Now it was the awareness of gravity, of being drawn into orbit with someone who knew all your edges and didn’t flinch.

They sat on the small black leather couch in the back room, water bottles sweating between their hands.

“So,” Charles said, glancing sideways with a half-smile, “that start was rough.”

Max snorted. “I had a bee in my helmet.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish.”

Charles laughed – a real one, easy and unguarded – and leaned his head back. “You looked like you were fighting for your life out there.”

“I was.” Max took a sip of water, letting the laughter linger between them. “But then I saw you coming up behind, and I figured… maybe I should look like I know what I’m doing.”

“Very convincing.”

They drifted into a comfortable hush again. The soft whir of air conditioning, the distant clamour of the paddock – Max had never realized how comforting white noise could be until Charles was sitting beside him in it.

“I like when it’s like this,” Charles said quietly. “After. When everything’s done and we’re just…” He trailed off, shrugging.

“Alive,” Max supplied.

Charles’s gaze met his. “Yeah.”

The simplicity of it hit harder than it should have.

Alive.

There had been points – recent and distant – where Max hadn’t been sure he wanted to be. Where adrenaline was the only heartbeat he trusted, and silence was the enemy. But now, this quiet, with Charles breathing next to him, felt like something worth protecting.

They didn’t speak for a long while. It wasn’t needed. The weight of the season was still on them, but now it was paired with something else: momentum. They were winning – not just in points, but in clarity. The Mercedes garage felt more like a home than any place Max had ever known. Toto didn’t hover, didn’t push, but he was always there, anchoring them.

*****

The next day, Charles returned from a long media stint with a smug look.

“What?” Max asked.

Charles flopped dramatically on the hotel bed. “You’re trending again.”

Max raised a brow. “What did I do this time?”

“You glared at a camera and refused to answer a question about me. The world thinks we’re either married or plotting world domination.”

Max’s lips twitched. “Can’t it be both?”

Charles chuckled and tugged him down onto the bed. Their legs tangled automatically, like muscle memory.

“You’re less afraid now,” Charles murmured.

“I’m not less afraid,” Max said honestly. “I just… trust you more than the fear.”

Charles pressed their foreheads together. “Good.”

*****

A week later, the penultimate Grand Prix of the season came. The energy in the paddock was electric, the tension crackling through the air as mechanics fine-tuned machines that could win them everything or take it all away.

Mercedes had been flawless. Two 1-2 finishes in the last triple-header, and now the WCC was nearly theirs. Charles was leading Max by a mere handful of points in the WDC standings. They hadn’t discussed it – not in any serious way – but it was there, a current under their calm.

Max stood behind the grid, hands on hips, helmet hanging by his side, as he stared out over the tarmac. Charles appeared beside him, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, mouth set but not tight.

“Nervous?” Charles asked.

“No,” Max said. “Ready.”

Charles reached for his hand briefly. Just a squeeze, fingers brushing before pulling away again.

“For everything?”

Max looked at him. “Everything.”

They lined up on the front row. Lights above them blinked in sequence. The roar of engines built to a crescendo.

When the lights went out, they launched forward – not just as rivals, but as two halves of the same machine, moving in tandem toward whatever came next.

The checkered flag was still races away.

But the future? Theirs.

Chapter Text

The garage lights flickered slightly under the storm outside, the rain pelting the paddock roof like an over-eager drumline.

Inside the Mercedes motorhome, though, the mood was considerably lighter. A kettle hissed in the background, and Charles was hunched over a bowl of pasta he claimed was fuel for his soul. Max was perched beside him, arms crossed, expression unreadable, but his foot kept tapping lightly against Charles' under the table.

Toto leaned back in his chair, mug in hand, watching them with a look of pure entertainment. It was like observing two very fast, very spoiled cats fight over the same sunbeam.

"So," he started casually, tilting his head, "one more race. Almost equal points. Constructors is nearly locked, drivers' title on the line. No pressure, of course."

Max didn’t even flinch. "Let Charles win."

Charles choked on a rigatoni. "Pardon?"

Toto blinked. "I... sorry, what?"

Max turned fully in his chair to face them both. "I said, let Charles win. Give him the strategy advantage."

"You can’t be serious," Charles said, still coughing. "You're leading in qualifying stats. You’ve been faster on the long runs. And you – Max Verstappen – want me to win the championship?"

"You deserve it," Max said simply, like it wasn’t the most shocking statement he’d made all year.

Toto set down his mug, trying to suppress a smile. "Is this some kind of elaborate Dutch guilt? Did you murder a mechanic I don’t know about?"

Max gave him a flat look. "No. I just don’t need the title. He does."

Charles squinted at him. "Are you dying?"

Max shrugged. "Eventually."

Charles groaned and pressed his forehead to the table. "This man drives me insane."

"But you love him," Toto added unhelpfully.

Charles raised a finger without lifting his head. "Not right now."

Toto chuckled, eyes glinting. "You do know if either of you had pulled this at Red Bull or Ferrari you’d be having this conversation through legal teams, right?"

"That’s why we’re here," Max said, with the smallest smile.

"That and the dog-friendly motorhome," Charles muttered.

Toto took a sip of his coffee, looking pleased with himself. "Well, far be it from me to deny drama at the final race. But if I agree to this, you both keep your mouths shut. No leaks, no media hints, no cute radio messages. And Charles wins fair – no manufactured spins, Max."

"That’s not my style," Max said.

"And what about you?" Charles asked, finally lifting his head, expression softer now. "Are you sure?"

"I know what it cost you to get here," Max replied. "I want to see you win it. That’s enough for me."

There was a brief pause.

"Max Verstappen," Charles said, placing a hand to his chest, "you romantic lunatic."

Toto sighed and stood. "I need more coffee if I’m going to witness this much emotional maturity before noon."

"We can still sabotage each other in karting later," Charles offered brightly.

"I insist on it," Max said.

As Toto disappeared into the kitchenette muttering something in German about "ridiculous children," Charles reached for Max’s hand under the table and gave it a quick squeeze. Max didn’t smile, but he didn’t pull away either.

They didn’t need words for what came next. They had strategy. They had speed. They had each other.

And for once, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Abu Dhabi.

The final race. The sun began to dip low on the horizon, casting long golden shadows over the Yas Marina Circuit. The desert heat was softened by the ocean breeze, and under the weight of a season that had been anything but ordinary, Mercedes stood on the edge of something historic.

Charles sat in the garage, helmet resting beside him, staring at the wall with the kind of intensity only a man with everything to lose and everything to gain could wear. Max was beside him, tying the strap of his glove with a quiet sort of calm. For once, he wasn’t biting his tongue or tapping his foot. There was peace in him – warrior’s peace, earned, not gifted.

“You okay?” Charles asked, voice low.

Max shrugged. "Yeah. You?"

Charles glanced sideways. “Nervous. But in the good way. I think.”

Max gave a crooked smirk. “Don’t crash.”

Charles laughed despite himself. “I wasn’t planning to. You?”

Max paused like he was considering it. "Maybe. If I have to clear a path."

Toto walked past, pretending not to hear. Charles groaned. “You’ve been insufferable all week.”

“That’s rich coming from Ferrari’s former golden boy.” Max stood, stretching. “You ready to win this thing?”

Charles stood, taking a deep breath. “I’ve never been more ready.”

*****

The lights went out, and everything else disappeared.

Max launched cleanly off the line, settling into second, with Charles holding pole like it was made for him. The Red Bulls threatened behind, but the Mercedes held strong – sleek, polished, hungry for domination. Toto’s gamble on them had paid off more than just in performance. It had brought them home.

Lap after lap, Charles drove with the sort of controlled ferocity that reminded everyone just why he’d always been called a natural. His lines were perfect, tire management flawless, strategy clinical. Max held station in second, never pushing past, never needing to.

The radio crackled.

Toto: "Status update: Charles is on target for WDC. Max, pace is perfect. Keep formation."

Max: "Copy. Tell him he’s annoying me with how smooth he’s driving."

Charles (over radio): "Tell Max to eat my dust."

Toto: "You two are a nightmare."

With five laps to go, the tension was palpable. But there were no mechanical failures, no tire blowouts, no rogue safety cars. Just two drivers at the peak of their abilities, controlling a race they’d earned through every brutal mile of the season.

And when the checkered flag waved, it was Charles who crossed the line first.

He let out a sound that was halfway between a sob and a yell. “We did it! We fucking did it!”

Max followed seconds later, calm, collected, proud. Mercedes clinched the Constructors’, and Charles – finally – was World Champion.

*****

The post-race celebrations blurred with champagne and team hugs, photos and interviews. But Charles barely noticed any of it until he found Max standing off to the side of the media pen, arms folded, still in his race suit, smirking.

“Got something to say?” Charles asked, a breathless grin on his face.

Max tilted his head. “Just here to witness the downfall of your humility.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “You’re just bitter.”

“I literally made sure you won.”

“Which makes you an excellent teammate,” Charles shot back. “Thank you.”

Max squinted at him. “Was that genuine?”

“Absolutely not.”

They were ushered apart by PR handlers before it could devolve into further sniping.

*****

At the press conference, the media had questions lined up like bullets, but Charles was radiant. Max sat beside him, deliberately slouched.

First question to Max.

“Max, how does it feel to be second to Charles today?”

Max blinked slowly. “I mean, he was faster. What do you want me to say? He was better. He’s annoying like that.”

The press pool burst out laughing.

Charles snorted, nudging him with his elbow. “Don’t be too generous.”

Max tilted his head toward him. “I’ll get you next time.”

Charles beamed. “I hope so.”

*****

That night, the team partied into the early hours. Max and Charles stood by the marina at some point, just the two of them, champagne flutes in hand.

“You were incredible today,” Max said quietly, no sarcasm, no smirk.

Charles looked out at the water, then back at him. “So were you. All year.”

They leaned in together, forehead to forehead, breaths slow and full of something they didn’t need to name anymore.

This was what healing looked like.

Together.

Chapter Text

Moving in together should have been chaotic. Two world champions, three cats, one dog, and an ever-growing pile of shoes (Charles's, obviously) shouldn't have fit so neatly into one modern house just on the outskirts of Monaco. And yet, like most things they did now, it felt oddly simple.

Max had driven the moving van himself – "It’s character building," he'd said, which Charles found both alarming and endearing – and spent two hours arguing with a deeply unimpressed Jimmy about who got to sit in the front seat. Charles had declared diplomatic neutrality, sipping espresso and watching the spectacle from the curb.

Sassy settled in quickly, claiming the sunniest spot in the kitchen. Leo had already made the living room rug his territory, tail thumping like a metronome of approval. Jimmy was harder to impress, but Max bribed him with smoked salmon, and that sealed the deal.

"It’s still three against one," Max said a week later, arms crossed as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

Charles raised an eyebrow, feeding Leo a strip of chicken under the table. "What is?"

"Pets. Three cats, one dog. Feels unfair."

Charles tilted his head, mock-serious. "You’re counting yourself among the cats now?"

Max smirked. "I’m just saying, if this is a democracy, the felines are winning."

"Maybe because they’re cleverer than you."

Max faked a gasp. "I’ll remember that."

*****

He did. Which is why, three days later, Charles came home from media duties to find a new feline lounging in Max's lap – cream fur, regal posture, and an impossibly judgmental stare.

"Donatello," Max said, proudly.

Charles blinked. "You got a fourth cat."

"You got three before you met Donatello. Fair’s fair."

"It’s four to one, Max."

"He balances out the dog."

Charles squinted at the cat, who squinted back, unimpressed. "He looks like a villain in a soap opera."

"He’s a rescue. He had three failed adoptions. We’ve bonded."

Charles muttered something in French that made Donatello flick his tail.

*****

Still, the house worked. Slowly, then all at once, they had a routine – mornings with espresso and toast, Max feeding the pets and Charles making the kitchen smell like home.

They trained, worked, and occasionally argued about dishwashing technique (Max's chaotic system versus Charles’s rigid one), but even that was laced with laughter.

By the time Charles’s birthday rolled around in October, Max had started to suspect he might actually enjoy domesticity. More importantly, he knew Charles did, even if the man grumbled about their cat-to-dog ratio every chance he got.

So Max did what any good partner would: he upped the dog count.

*****

Charles came downstairs to find Leo sniffing excitedly at a squirming golden fluffball in a ribbon-wrapped basket.

"Max," Charles said slowly, eyes wide.

"Happy birthday," Max said, clearly trying not to smile too hard.

Charles knelt beside the basket as the puppy rolled over, showing its belly. "You’re trying to bribe me with paws."

"Is it working?"

Charles didn’t answer, just scooped the puppy up and buried his face in its fur.

Leo barked once, Jimmy hissed from the countertop, Sassy blinked judgmentally, and Donatello seemed to accept the new chaos with imperial grace.

"What’s his name?" Charles asked.

Max shrugged. "You get to pick."

Charles grinned. "Toto."

Max choked. "You’re naming your dog after Toto Wolff?"

"Well, he did give me a championship-winning car."

They were both laughing by the time they collapsed onto the couch, surrounded by fur and sunlight. Max rested his head on Charles’s shoulder, one arm slung over his waist, and for a long moment, they just breathed.

"Do you ever think about how far we’ve come?" Charles asked softly.

Max nodded. "Every day."

There were still hard days. There would always be things to work through, pieces of themselves to gently unravel and mend again. But here, now, with laughter in their lungs and a puppy chewing on Max's sock – life felt whole.

And for the first time, it felt like theirs.