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magicalrocketships · 1 month ago

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Rivers of Light || Max/Daniel || part 12 ||

(reminder that this in its entirety contains mpreg, reference to giving birth, Max Verstappen's bad dad, past abuse, and on-track accidents.) If you know anything about lawyering and sports management then I would ask you to please just suspend your disbelief.

All previous parts can be found in the masterpost here. This chapter is on AO3 here.

Part 12

The phone call with Daniel's lawyer ends up being an introductory meeting. Émeric takes Max's personal details, schedules in a follow-up call the next morning, and once he finds out that Max is a single parent without established childcare, suggests negotiating for that on any days Max will be working with Renault.

Max doesn't have a manager. He doesn't have anyone negotiating on his behalf. He can barely even rely on himself right now, because he's working so hard just to keep things ticking over so that Bastiaan is okay and he manages to eat every few hours. Everything else he's barely holding on to. For his entire future—and Bastiaan's too—he's just got these few hours with Daniel's lawyer, who presumably works alongside Daniel's team to get the contractual side of things sorted and doesn't do it all by himself. And Max is just too tired. For the first time in his life, he's too tired to fight.

"I can't leave him behind," Max says. He hadn't even— he swallows. He knows he can't put hours in on a sim with Bastiaan in a carrycot next to him, but he hasn't got anywhere else for Bastiaan to be. And Bastiaan is only safe when he's with Max; his dad has tried to hurt Bastiaan once and almost succeeded when he pushed Max down the stairs. Max won't let him try again.

"We can add in travel and family accommodation too," Émeric suggests. Daniel has Bastiaan. They're sitting on Max's bed together, with Daniel making very silly faces at Max's baby, sticking his tongue out until Bastiaan, very slowly, sticks his tongue out back. Daniel looks at Max in sheer fucking delight.

Max wants to cry so much he has to pretend it's a bitten-off sneeze instead of a sob. He turns around so that Daniel can't see.

"Yes," he says, to Émeric. "My baby will be with me, so I will need that."

Émeric has other meetings. He'd just wanted to introduce himself and lay out next steps. He says goodbye, and for a moment after he hangs up, Max keeps holding the phone to his ear, facing away from Daniel and his baby. He blinks his eyes tight shut. Breathes in and out. "Bye," he says finally and puts the phone down on the table.

Daniel's still watching him, Bastiaan sitting in his lap. They're sharing Sophie la girafe between them, Daniel holding most of its weight and Bastiaan with his little hand around Sophie's neck.

"Okay?" Daniel asks.

Max nods. "We are talking again in the morning. You'll have to let me know what I owe you for his time." He can't afford it now but he will be able to. Probably.

"Like I said," Daniel says. "It's fine." He nods towards the takeaway box on the table. "You should eat the rest of your breakfast."

"In a minute," Max says. "Are you okay with him for a little bit?"

"Sure, we've got a lot to discuss, me and this little one. Haven't we, Bastiaan?"

Max doesn't wait around for an answer. He goes into the bathroom and locks the door. He leans over the sink and looks at himself in the mirror.

Get it together, he tells himself. Get it the fuck together.

He splashes water on his face. Brushes his teeth. Shoves his things and Bastiaan's back into the bags they came out of. Sits on the toilet for a minute and breathes in and out.

Nothing's changed when he comes back out. He holds his hands out for his baby and kisses the top of his head when Daniel hands him over.

He doesn't meet Daniel's eyes.

&&&

Bastiaan falls asleep less than five minutes into their drive south, and Max, relieved and exhausted, cups Bastiaan's little socked foot and lets his eyes close too. He's not going to fall asleep, but it saves him from having to meet Daniel's gaze in the rear view mirror.

He wakes up to Daniel pulling over in a petrol station car park.

"Need to piss," Daniel says apologetically. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"I didn't mean to sleep," Max says. He stretches.

"I'll go and then you can go." Daniel quietly opens the car door.

Max nods. He rests his cheek against the seat back. Bastiaan is still sleeping, Max's lovely little baby. Everything he's seen and everywhere he's been has been new to him. His first hotel. His first friend that isn't Celine. His first dinner out and his first hotel breakfast and his first long car journey. He's managed to half lose his sock despite sitting in a car seat since they left the hotel.

"Good at everything, aren't you, my baby? Even losing your little socks." He doesn't dare pull it back up in case he wakes him up. Asleep, Bastiaan's lashes are very long. Max thinks he has Max's mouth. He doesn't know about the nose. Maybe it's his other daddy's. "I'll be enough for two, okay, baby? You won't know that you're missing anyone. I'll be enough. I promise."

He doesn't know how, though. It feels like he's starting to crack apart at the edges.

&&&

Bastiaan sleeps for another twenty minutes, then he wakes up crying and won't stop. Max stroking his cheeks and his forehead and telling him he's a very lovely baby who's had a very nice sleep doesn't help either, because Bastiaan keeps on crying. When he starts to chew on his fist, Max looks desperately at Daniel.

"I need to feed him," he says, and Daniel nods.

"I'm already looking for somewhere to pull over," he says, but it's another five minutes before he can.

Bastiaan's cries are piteous now, like nobody has ever fed him or loved him and he's the saddest little baby that's ever lived. Max's chest hurts.

"I know, my Bastiaan, you are very unhappy." He waits until Daniel's pulled off the road and into a market car park, and into a parking space away from the main entrance. "You have been very brave, little baby, and I know you're hungry and want a hug. We can have one soon, okay? We're just waiting for Daniel to park the car."

Bastiaan, red faced and trying futilely to wriggle out from under his 5-point car seat harness, doesn't seem to agree he's been brave. He cries louder, even as Daniel's killing the engine and Max is unclipping Bastiaan's buckle.

"My baby," he says, scooping Bastiaan out of his seat and into his arms. He's forgotten to undo his own seatbelt and Bastiaan weeps as Max has to try and get himself out while still trying to comfort him. Clumsily freed, he hugs Bastiaan close and kisses the top of his head. "I know you couldn't get out. The straps have to keep you safe. Are you hungry?" The changing bag is in the footwell behind Bastiaan's seat and inside there's the little muslin blanket that Max uses to cover himself up when he's feeding. He can't reach it and Bastiaan is still crying, and his hoodie's still zipped up and he needs to pull his t-shirt up and try to undo the painful compression top he's wearing underneath to catch any leaks. It's enough to make him cry too.

"What can I do?" Daniel asks, and Max doesn't know what else to do other than to bundle Bastiaan through the gap between the seats and into Daniel's waiting hands.

Bastiaan has never been sadder, removed from his daddy when he's only just got his required cuddle, but Max moves quickly, shedding his hoodie and pulling his t-shirt up to his neck and disentangling himself from the sleeves so he can undo the compression top and take that off too. He should have got the blanket first, and he can't reach around the car seat to get to the changing bag.

Daniel gives Bastiaan back. "Let me," he says, and waits until Max has got a certain hold of his baby before he reaches down and back to get the bag.

Max cradles Bastiaan to him, helping him latch on, and there's half a second of Bastiaan's desperate little wail before it cuts off and he goes quiet around Max's tit, sucking. Max lets out a ragged, desperate breath of his own, wincing a little because his chest feels raw. He cups Bastiaan's face in his hand, stroking his cheek.

"Is that better, little one? Were you hungry? That's right, little baby. You can stop crying now. It's all right."

"What do you need?" Daniel asks. He's holding the open bag.

"There's a blanket," Max says, and he watches as Daniel holds out the muslin with the little faded ducks on, passed over from one of Celine's old ladies. Max nods, holding his hand out. He tries to cover Bastiaan with it, cover himself, but when he looks back up, Daniel's looking at his face and not at Max's tits.

"You don't have to cover up," Daniel says, after a moment. He turns back around. Doesn't look in the rear view mirror. "Not like that if you don't want to. I won't look. Not if you don't want me to."

Max has had to do all of this alone. He's been alone for months and months. He'd been alone before that too, for almost every day since his accident in Austria. Just him and his angry, disappointed, let-down dad. The only time he'd not been alone had been Ibiza, and Martijn had been so busy working most of the time and hadn't spoken to him since, so other than getting pregnant with Bastiaan, that weekend barely counted either. He didn't even know why he'd been invited, given that Martijn literally pulled up outside his house one morning when his dad was out, said, get in loser, we're going to Ibiza, and had waited for Max to get his passport and pack his bag and they'd flown out on a private jet two hours later. Max's dad had been so furious that he'd booked Max an earlier commercial flight back and Max had had to slip out of the villa on the Monday morning, three hours after Martijn's set had finished, and fly back alone. Max hadn't had a chance to ask why Martijn hadn't bothered getting in contact after his accident, and they hadn't talked since, so.

He's used to being alone now. He's done so much of it alone he hadn't realised he'd brought his dad's shame along for the ride, that his dad's disgust at parents feeding their babies in public had seeped into Max's soul too.

"Okay," Max says, but he doesn't take the muslin off completely. It falls off one of his shoulders. He doesn't pull it back up. He can't put his dad's shame down so easily as all that.

Daniel doesn't look back. He keeps on looking forward, through the window. "What's that thing you're wearing? Under your t-shirt. It looks like it hurts to wear."

"Oh," Max says. He goes red. "I leak sometimes. Milk. I had the vest from training. It soaks up sweat. It works for milk too."

"Right," Daniel says. There's a pause. "Does it hurt to wear it?"

"It's okay," Max lies. "It doesn't matter. It is of course bad to leak through your shirt when you are trying to make a good impression at work. And the baby does not go hungry so it is fine."

There's another long pause. Max looks down at his baby. His lovely little baby. He is hungry and he is being fed. He has Max, and Max will be enough.

"You don't have to make a good impression on me," Daniel says finally. "You don't have to put it back on if it hurts."

"I will maybe leak," Max says doubtfully.

"It doesn't matter," Daniel says. He sounds like he's going to sneeze. His voice sounds funny. He doesn't look back at him so Max can't tell what Daniel's face is doing, and sometimes he doesn't understand that either. "You can leak as much as you like so long as it doesn't hurt you."

Max strokes Bastiaan's cheek. His baby is being very hungry.

"Okay," he says finally. "If it is okay with you."

"It's okay with me," Daniel says. He still sounds funny. He looks out the window and not back at them. "Take as long as you need. You're good."

You're good, Max thinks. It seeps beneath his skin. Maybe it will find its way under Bastiaan's too, so he'll know how good he is. How loved. Max's lovely little baby.

"You're good," he whispers, looking down at Bastiaan. He pulls up Bastiaan's falling-down sock, and cradles him close. You're good.

#my fic #rivers of light #maxiel #max/daniel #the mpreg train is leaving the station #(again)#the most self indulgent lonely max with a baby fic is back again

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