#simulated engine out

[e3khatena]

My student loans, accrued over six years at a really expensive university in a field that bled 20,000 jobs in 12 months, and all put towards a degree I never got as a result of personal trauma and a global pandemic but were never due on account of my monthly income and the SAVE act, were just put back into motion and I will have to start paying on those soon.

I am so pissed off at 17 year-old me for going with a gut-reaction major/school rn, I coulda gone to a community college and gotten an identical BFA for the price of like a year and a half.

[i2sunric]

𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐌 (s.jy)

PAIRING: nerdy!jake x reader (f)

SUMMARY: well, it’s not your fault that your boyfriend is perfect, good at school, kind enough tutor you in math and so skilled in bed chem.

WARNINGS: smut. freshman college (they’re 19), jake lives with his parents, grinding, dirty talking, pet names (baby, jakey), manhandling, overstimulation, protected sex (wrap your willies guys), missionary, doggy, lmk if more. NOT PROOFREAD.

PUBLISHED: 18th April 2025.

WC: 2.7k

TAGLIST: (permanent) TAGLIST: @stolasisyourparent @jaeyunsbimbo @jwnghyuns @bangtancultsposts @shawnyle @jooniesbears-blog @skzenhalove @ro-diaries @onlyhyunjin @xcosmi @strawberrhypen @heeheeswifey @jakeflvrz @astratlantis @tunafishyfishylike @branchrkive @insommni4 @kirinaa08 @leiclerc @nxzz-skz @laurradoesloveu @beomluvrr @heeshlove @17ericas @riribelle @cloud-lyy @enhamonsterghoul @star-hoon @slut4hee

Jake’s room smelled of books, fresh laundry, and that faint scent of cologne he always wore— clean, crisp. It smelled like home. 

His desk was cluttered but organized in a way that made sense only to him: thick textbooks stacked neatly, a cup overflowing with pens and mechanical pencils, and his laptop open to what looked like an impossibly complicated physics simulation. 

You, on the other hand, were sprawled across his bed, your maths textbook abandoned beside you as you dramatically flopped onto your stomach.  

"Jake," you groaned, voice muffled against his pillow. "I’m going to fail this test, you have to accept that."  

You thought that after high school, all you problems would be resolves. What you didn’t expect, though, was to be forced to take an extra curricular trigonometry lecture that made you want to smash your head against the wall.

Jake, who was sitting at his desk, barely looked up. "You’re not going to fail," he said. "You just need to focus."  

"I have been focusing," you argued, rolling onto your back and stretching out like a starfish. "For, like, fifteen minutes."  

"Exactly," he deadpanned, finally turning to look at you. "That’s not nearly enough."  

You pouted. "But I hate math, it’s stupid and unnecessary. When am I ever going to need to find the limit of a function in real life?"  

Jake sighed, closing his book with a quiet thump. "Math is everywhere," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose, a habit of his that you found way too attractive. "It’s in physics, engineering, technology, everything that makes the world work."  

You rolled your eyes, sitting up. "Okay, Professor Sim, but I don’t want to make the world work.” You scoffed, “i just want to pass this stupid class and never think about numbers again."  

Jake gave you a pointed look. "And I want to make sure my girlfriend doesn’t flunk out of college."  

You grinned, crawling off the bed and walking over to him. "Speaking of your genius brain," you murmured, sliding into his lap without hesitation, straddling his thighs as his chair rolled back slightly from the sudden weight. "How’s your project going?"  

Jake tensed for half a second before exhaling, hands automatically settling on your waist to steady you. 

"It’s going well," he said, though his voice was already shifting, lower, rougher. "But I’ll never finish it if you keep distracting me."  

You tilted your head, feigning innocence. "I’m just curious," you purred, looping your arms around his neck. "Tell me what you’re working on, baby."  

Jake sighed, but you could see the way his lips twitched, like he knew exactly what you were doing and was helpless against it anyway.  

"Fine," he said, adjusting his glasses again. "I’m designing a new type of microprocessor, something that can process data faster and more efficiently than the ones currently in use..."  Blah blah blah. 

You weren’t really listening, if you were being honest. 

You liked hearing him talk, loved the way his voice got all passionate when he explained something he cared about, but the actual words? They went right over your head.  

Instead, you focused on the way his hands, so warm and steady, were resting on your waist. Absentminded, like he wasn’t really paying attention, he traced slow circles against the fabric of your sweater, fingertips dipping just beneath the hem to brush against your bare skin.  

You bit your lip, shifting slightly on his lap. "Mmm, keep going."  

Jake didn’t seem to register what you were doing at first. "Right, so,  the idea is that instead of using classical bits, ones and zeroes, you use qubits—"  Again more smart words. 

You rocked against him, slow, almost imperceptible, but enough. Jake inhaled sharply, fingers digging into your skin.  

You smirked. "Go on," you teased.  

His jaw clenched. "You’re evil."  

You hummed, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his jaw. "No, I just really like hearing you talk, baby."  

His hands flexed on your waist, like he was debating something. Then, as if giving in, he exhaled a low chuckle. "You’re such a fucking brat," he muttered, and the way his voice dropped made heat pool between your thighs.s

He moved one hand up, running it along your spine, pushing your sweater up just enough to expose more of your skin to the cool air. The other hand slid lower, gripping your thigh as you ground against him again.  

"You’re not even listening, are you?" he murmured, his lips grazing your ear now.  "Not really," you admitted, breathless.  

His grip tightened, guiding your movements now, encouraging you to move against him with more purpose. "You just like teasing me, huh?"  

"Mmh," you hummed, pressing another kiss to the corner of his lips, then his jaw, then his throat. "I like how worked up you get."  

Jake let out a soft curse under his breath, his hips shifting up just slightly to meet yours. "You’re lucky I love you," he muttered, voice strained.  

You grinned. "I know."  

Then, finally, he broke. His lips crashed against yours, his hands gripping you tighter as he deepened the kiss, swallowing the little sounds you made as you melted into him. 

His glasses pressed against your cheek, cool against your flushed skin, but neither of you cared.  

"You drive me crazy," he murmured against your lips, his breath warm, his hands wandering. "Always so fucking needy."  

You whimpered, rolling your hips again, and he groaned "Jakey," you breathed.  

He exhaled shakily, then kissed you again, hungrier this time, like he couldn’t get enough. "You should be studying," he muttered between kisses, even as he ran his hands up your thighs, pushing your sweater higher.  

You smirked. "Make me."  

And, oh, he did.

Jake groaned against your lips, his grip on your waist firm as he lifted you from his lap, standing up with you in his arms. 

Your legs wrapped around his hips instinctively, and you buried your face in his neck, feeling his pulse race under your lips.  Your core pulsated with need, and he could feel it even through your shorts. 

"You’re gonna be the death of me," he muttered, his voice thick with frustration and desire as he carried you across the room.  

Jake pushed your math book on the floor, and he laid you down, his body pressing against yours as he kissed you again,, like he’d been holding back for too long. 

His hands roamed, slipping under your sweater, pushing it up over your ribs. You arched your back, helping him, and he pulled it off in one smooth motion, tossing it aside.  

"Fuck," he breathed, eyes raking over you. His glasses had slid down his nose, and he pushed them up absentmindedly before leaning down to kiss you again.  

His hands moved with practiced precision, knowing exactly where to touch, where to squeeze, how to make you shiver beneath him. 

His fingers brushed over your thighs, pushing up the fabric of your shorts before he hooked his thumbs in the waistband and dragged them down along with your panties,leaving you bare beneath him.  

"You really don’t like making things easy for me, do you?" he murmured, fingers tracing up your inner thigh. 

You smirked, breathless. "Where’s the fun in that?"  

Jake huffed a quiet laugh, but it was strained, like he was barely holding himself together. 

He sat back for a second, pulling off his sweater in one swift motion, revealing the toned muscle beneath. 

His skin was warm under your fingers as you reached up, running your hands over his stomach, his chest, feeling him tense beneath your touch.  

"Condom," he muttered, reaching into the drawer of his nightstand.  You groaned, letting your head fall back against the pillow. "You always do this."  

"Yeah," he said, tearing the foil packet open with his teeth, "because I’m not stupid."  

You pouted. "I’m on the pill."  

"And I like knowing you’re safe." He leaned down, brushing his lips against yours, his glasses sliding down again. "Quit pouting."  

You sighed dramatically but let him roll the condom on, watching as his long fingers worked quickly.  

Then he was over you again, lips on your neck, his weight pressing you into the mattress as he lined himself up.  "You have to be quiet," he murmured, his voice rough as he kissed along your jaw.  

"Or what?" you teased, just to test him.  

Jake exhaled sharply, then pushed into you in one slow, deep stroke. Your breath hitched, your fingers gripping his shoulders as your back arched off the bed.  

"Or I’ll make you," he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear.  

Your eyes fluttered shut as he started moving, slow at first, like he was savoring every inch of you, but then he set a pace that had you struggling to keep quiet. 

He knew what he was doing, exactly how to angle his hips to make your breath stutter, exactly how to roll his hips so you were gripping at his arms, trying so hard not to moan too loudly.  

His glasses fogged up from how close he was, the heat between you making them useless, but he didn’t stop to take them off. 

You did it for him, reaching up with trembling fingers and sliding them off his face, setting them aside on the nightstand.  

He thanked you with a warm smile. 

His eyes, dark and heavy-lidded with desire, met yours as he thrust deeper, harder, stealing the air from your lungs. His hand came up, covering your mouth as you let out a soft whimper, muffling the sound.  

"Shh," he murmured, his voice like gravel against your skin. "Don’t want my mother hearing how good I’m fucking you, do you?"  

You shook your head, but your body betrayed you, your nails digging into his back as he snapped his hips into you again. It was all too much.  

You clenched around him, your thighs trembling as pleasure coiled tight in your stomach. Jake cursed under his breath, feeling you squeeze around him, and his grip on your hip tightened as he sped up, chasing your release.  

"Come for me," he muttered, his lips brushing against your ear. "I wanna feel you."  

That was all it took. 

Your body tensed, pleasure hitting you like a tidal wave as you bit down on his hand to keep from crying out. Your vision blurred, your fingers digging in his skin as you came undone beneath him.  

Jake groaned, his movements faltering for half a second before he found his rhythm again, his thrusts rougher now, more desperate. 

He grabbed your leg, hooking it over his hip, pushing deeper, hitting that spot that had you gasping against his palm.  

He hadn’t slowed down. His rhythm was deep, fast, relentless. the bed creaking under both of your weight, the headboard softly hitting the wall in time with his thrusts.

You were still whimpering from your second orgasm, your thighs trembling around his waist, your nails digging red crescents into his shoulder blades. Your breath hitched, another moan slipping past your lips before you could stop it. “Jakey! oh—” 

His hand came up instantly, covering your mouth again, palm warm and firm.

“Quiet,” he hissed against your cheek. “You’re gonna get us caught.”

Your body arched off the bed beneath him, mouth smothered by his hand, eyes rolling back from the sheer pressure, the stretch, the heat. Your muffled cries only made him thrust harder.

“You like this, huh?” he breathed, watching your every twitch, every gasp, every time you tried to cry out under his hand. “You like when I fuck you like this.”

You nodded desperately, the pleasure building again even though your body felt like it couldn’t take more. Your skin burned, your thighs ached, but none of it mattered. Jake was everything— all you could feel, all you could hear, all you could take.

You released against him, hard, back arching as your whole body seized up and shuddered. Your vision blurred. You felt tears sting your lashes, your voice cracking beneath his hand as your second orgasm ripped through you.

He grunted, letting his hand slide away from your mouth only when your cries became soft gasps His lips found yours in a hungry, breathless kiss, tongue sliding into your mouth like he couldn’t stand even a second of distance.

“Shit,” he panted, pulling back just a little to brush his hair from his eyes. He kissed your jaw, your throat, sucking a mark just below your ear before whispering, “Turn over for me.”

You blinked up at him, dazed. “Jake, I can’t—” 

“You can,” he said firmly, kissing you again. “Just one more, baby, you’re doing so good.”

And because it was him uou obeyed.

You turned, limbs shaky, chest pressed to the mattress, ass in the air as you grabbed onto the pillow and buried your face into it. Jake groaned softly behind you.

“Fuck, you look so good like this,” he muttered, dragging his fingers over your lower back, down to your ass, squeezing firmly. “Messy and fucked out… all for me.”

You felt him line himself up again, the blunt head of his cock sliding through your slick folds before pushing into you in one hard thrust that had you biting into the pillow to stifle a scream.

“Oh my God… Jake.”

“Shhh,” he hushed you, hand curling around your hip to pull you back into him, setting a brutal pace that left your legs shaking, your voice broken into helpless sobs. “You have to be quiet.”

“I can’t,” you cried into the pillow, half-laughing, half-sobbing from how good it felt, how completely he wrecked you. “Jake— it’s too much—”

“You’re taking it so well,” he said, voice strained, one hand gripping your waist while the other slid up your spine, pushing between your shoulder blades to press you further into the mattress. “So fucking good for me.”

His thrusts grew rougher, deeper, dragging cries from you no matter how hard you tried to bite them back. You fisted the sheets, knuckles white, body trembling as he angled his hips just right, hitting that spot over and over again until your legs gave out.

Jake leaned down, chest against your back, his breath hot against your ear as he murmured, “You pretend to be all innocent, all shy in front of everyone… but in here? With me? You just want to be ruined.”

You moaned, louder than you meant to, and he growled, his hand flying to your mouth again, fingers pressing your cheek into the pillow.

“You don’t listen,” he hissed, thrusting harder, until the sound of skin against skin echoed through the room. “You want my mother to hear how desperate you are for my cock?”

You shook your head wildly, sobbing beneath his hand as he slammed into you again, and again, and again, until your entire body clenched and your mind blanked. One last orgasm crashed over you, white-hot and dizzying, tearing a scream from your throat that was completely muffled by his palm.

Jake groaned into your neck, biting your shoulder as he came hard, his body collapsing against yours, twitching with aftershocks as he held you tightly, his breath loud and shaky in your ear.

You both stayed like that for a moment, tangled, gasping, hearts pounding like they wanted to leap out of your chests.

Jake pulled out gently, sighing contentedly as he rolled to the side and took the condom off, tying it quickly and tossing it into the bin beside the bed.

He turned to you immediately, pulling you into his chest, wrapping his arms around your exhausted body. Your skin was damp with sweat, your legs trembling, your eyes heavy with sleep and satisfaction.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was heavy breathing, your bodies tangled together, sweat-slicked and trembling.  

Jake finally lifted his head, his dark hair sticking to his forehead, his cheeks flushed. He looked wrecked, but somehow, still devastatingly handsome.  

"You okay?" he murmured, pushing your hair out of your face.  

You nodded, still catching your breath. "Mh.. It was so good.”

Jake huffed a quiet laugh, leaning down to kiss your forehead. "You are a menace."  

You smirked. "You love it."  

"You’re exhausting," he muttered, but his arm was already tightening around you, pulling you close.  

You grinned, snuggling into his chest. "You love that too."  

Jake sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "Yeah," he admitted softly. "I really do."

[idkwhylou]

I wanna feel what love is

Summary : You're the Navy's most reserved systems specialist. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw is the loud, golden retriever pilot who can’t stop watching you work. He starts with coffee. Then conversation. Then a playlist. But you're silent, guarded… until the jukebox plays his song, and you finally speak in the loudest way you know how.

Bradley Bradshaw x f!reader/groundsystemstech!reader

Warnings : mutual pining, jealousy (brief flirtation), sunshine x quiet introvert, playlist flirting, he’s loud for both of you

Words : 5K

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

There was a certain stillness to the sim bay when you were in it—not silent, exactly, but quieter in a way that wasn't just about decibels. It was the kind of quiet that made people talk softer when they walked by you, as if your presence created a ripple of calm in the mechanical hum of monitors and diagnostic lights. You weren’t unfriendly. Just focused. Precise. A whisper in a world of voices raised too loud too often.

Bradley Bradshaw was not quiet, he was everything but quiet.

He was energy and swagger and sun-soaked charm, tall and golden, never without something to say. Usually something funny, sometimes something stupid, but always with that boyish confidence that made people laugh even when they didn’t want to.

And for some reason, lately, he kept orbiting around you.

Today, it was coffee.

You barely registered the footsteps until he was standing beside your desk, one hand curled around a cup, the other sliding the second one in front of you with practiced ease, like he’d done this before, like he’d made this part of his day.

“Hazelnut,” he said, voice low but cheerful, like you two were already in on some inside joke as he offered you the sweetest smile. “With oat milk. Thought I’d take a gamble, you look like an oat milk kind of girl.”

You paused mid-keystroke. Your eyes flicked up to his face—those soft brown eyes, wide and too curious for their own good—then down to the coffee. ‘Oat milk kind of girl’, what the hell does that mean ? Anyway, you took it without hesitation, your hand wrapping around the warm cup like it was familiar, though it wasn’t. At least not yet.

A quiet breath left your lips. “Thanks.” You murmured, voice just above the whir of the nearby fan: soft, clipped, barely there.

Then, you turned back to the screen, like the moment had never happened at all. Bradley stood there a beat too long, blinking once, then scratching the back of his neck with a sheepish kind of grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“…Cool.” He said to no one in particular, and walked off. Glancing back once to see if you looked at him again.

You didn’t.

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

By the time lunch rolled around, the mess hall was its usual mess of uniformed pilots, engineers, and stray conversations about upcoming tests and simulations. Bradley slouched into a seat beside Phoenix and Bob, stealing a chip off Bob’s tray like it belonged to him.

“She never talks,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, watching you across the room as you sat alone, quietly eating, headphones on. You were scrolling something on your tablet—a manual, probably, or flight logs. You looked like you’d be anywhere else if you could, and still, you glowed in your own strange, distant way. Like a lighthouse in fog.

Phoenix didn’t even blink. “Whisper ? That’s her whole thing.”

Bradley raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but she literally never talks. I’ve said good morning to her for like four days straight and got exactly two words in return. One of them was ‘thanks.’ The other was ‘hmm.’”

“She doesn’t waste words,” Bob offered gently. “I like that about her.”

“Yeah, but how does she communicate ? Like, with other humans ? Does she just telepathically vibe what she wants across the room ?”

Phoenix smirked. “You’re not mad she’s quiet, you’re mad she’s not talking to you.”

Bradley opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. He glanced across the cafeteria again. You were sipping the coffee he brought. Slowly. Still the only one you’d had all day. He watched the way you bit your lip, thinking intensely. How your hair fell back when you let it go, slightly hiding your face. But suddenly, a question popped in his head. “Why do we even call her whisper ?” He said still looking at you, not really waiting for an answer, more to make a statement.

“We talked once,” started Bob, cutting the brunet off from his observation. Rooster turned his head quickly, interested in what the blond had just told him. “Said she was a former pilot. Real good one too.”

His interest peaked, “Former pilot ? I thought she was a ground systems tech.”

“Well she is now.” The blond said. “But she used to fly, so people still use her call sign. Top of her class, sharp as a tack. Then she switched to ground—said she liked the quiet shadows better than the spotlight in the cockpit.”

Rooster took a slow sip of his glass of water, thinking about what his friend had just told him. “Guess I’ve got a mission then.”

Nat raised an eyebrow, “What kind of mission ?”

“To get her talking.” He answers, grinning like a kid who just found a new puzzle. 

Bob laughed. “Good luck with that one.”

But that didn’t discourage Bradley, not even a little.

The sim bay had the kind of buzz that never quite went away—humming computers, faint whirring fans, a voice or two in the background reviewing telemetry. It was comfortable in a mechanical sort of way, and you liked it that way: your space, your rhythm, your quiet corner of the world. You were back at your console, headphones on, lips parted ever so slightly in focus as you adjusted a variable in the flight response program.

Bradley Bradshaw, on the other hand, existed in full color. He lingered in the doorway, pretending to look for someone, but mostly watching you work. He moved like someone born in the sun, all wide smiles and long limbs, always cracking a joke or throwing a casual wink in someone’s direction. So, when his boots thudded up beside your desk for the second time that day, coffee in hand again, you felt him coming before you even saw him. You slipped one of your headphones off as he stopped beside your desk, and he couldn’t help but smiled at the anticipation.

“You always drink coffee after lunch,” he said, setting the cup beside your keyboard like it was already tradition. “But I figured I’d switch it up. This one has vanilla instead of hazelnut. Dangerous, I know.” He chuckled for a bit.

You paused, glanced at him, and took the cup with both hands like it might vanish if you didn’t. “Thanks,” you murmured, the word barely above a breath.

He smiled like it was a full sentence. And then, to your surprise, he didn’t leave. He leaned against the edge of your console, arms crossed. “So… do you always have your headphones in, or is that just to avoid me ?”

You blinked, looked at him—not startled, just unreadable. Then: a quiet, short answer.

“No.”

His brows lifted. “Oh ? So it’s not personal.”

“No.”

Another beat passed. He was clearly trying to decide if that was good or bad.

“What do you listen to ?”

“…Music.”

That made him grin. “Wow. The mystery deepens.”

You looked back at your monitor. You weren’t trying to be cold, you just didn’t know what to do with all that energy, all that focus pointed at you like sunlight through a magnifying glass.

Still, he stayed.

“What kind of music ?” he asked, voice dipping into something gentler.

You hesitated. “…Instrumental.”

“No lyrics ?”

You shook your head.

“Okay. So you like stuff that doesn’t talk much. That makes sense.”

There was a tiny flicker at the corner of your lips. Not quite a smile. But almost. Bradley caught it like it was gold dust.

“Are you from around here ?” he tried again, as casually as he could.

You shrugged. “Sort of.”

“That’s not an answer.”

You glanced at him. “It is.”

He chuckled, arms dropping as he leaned a little closer to your screen, trying to read what you were working on. “You calibrating the response latency on Phoenix’s sim log ?”

“Yes.”

“Wanna explain it to me like I’m five ?”

“No.”

He laughed—this full, warm thing that drew glances from two other pilots on their way out. You didn’t laugh with him, but you did nod, slow and almost amused as you went back to work. And that was something. Bradley stared at you for another second. Then, without a word, he picked up the half-empty coffee cup you’d been nursing since morning and pulled a black Sharpie from his back pocket.

He scribbled something near the rim, just above the sleeve, and set it gently back beside you. You didn’t look up. But you didn’t tell him to go, either. He turned and left with a smirk playing at his lips.

Once you were sure he was gone, you reached out, fingers curling around the cup like it was something private. You turned it, just slightly. In dark, careful handwriting, it said:

‘Don’t worry, 

I talk enough for both of us.’

You stared at it for a second. Just long enough for the smallest smile to touch your lips—the kind you’d never let him see.

Not yet.

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

The Hard Deck was buzzing, already alive by the time you stepped through the doors. Half-empty beer bottles, familiar voices crashing over each other like waves, Phoenix’s laughter echoed from the pool table and a Springsteen song rumbled from the jukebox. Bradley was already there, leaning back at the bar, flashing that easy, sun-warmed smile at anyone who passed. As usual, he was dressed in an open Hawaiian shirt with a simple white T-shirt, his aviator pair on the tip of his nose, and his stupid moustache making him looking good as ever.

You hovered at the threshold longer than you meant to—long enough to wonder why you came, short enough that no one noticed—then slipped in quietly, the familiar hum of chatter wrapping around you like a cocoon. It wasn’t nerves, not exactly. You weren’t afraid of noise, just tired of being swallowed by it. But tonight, something pulled you in. Maybe it was the ache of loneliness that crept in when the hangar emptied you. Or maybe it was just the memory of Rooster’s smile earlier that morning, when he handed you coffee just to hear your thank-you. 

“Watch this.” Bradley said to Phoenix, next to him, as he saw you cross the room.

“You're gonna make a fool of yourself.” She laughed as he stood up, walking with a determined step towards you.

You found your usual corner near the window, sliding onto a stool with your drink and earphones already tucked in your jacket pocket. Not quite ready to drown out the noise, but ready to keep some space from it. You hadn’t even settled on a stool before a shadow fell beside you.

“There she is,” Bradley drawled, smooth and pleased, sidling up beside you with his usual beer in hand. “Didn’t think this place was your scene.”

You glanced at him sideways, eyes unreadable, and shrugged. “Got bored.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, leaning one arm on the table next to you, his attention all yours. “You in a bar full of pilots ? That’s not boredom. That’s anthropology.”

You tilted your head. “Maybe I’m observing.”

He grinned wide, taking that as a win. “See ? She does talk.” He says loud enough so Nat could hear it.

You didn’t reply. Just looked at him with wide eyes and sipped your drink, letting the silence settle again.

Bradley seemed content to fill it. “You always just… listen ?” He asked, watching over the rim of his bottle.

You gave a small shrug. “Someone has to.”

His eyes softened, “I like your voice.” He said unbothered by your silence. 

That pulled something from you—the tiniest exhale of laugh, gone before fully formed. But he caught it, and his grin widened even more when he saw your cheeks getting slightly red. “There it is,” he said, mock-dramatic. “A sound. We’ve got confirmation of life.”

You rolled your eyes, but there was no heat in it.

Across the room, near the jukebox, Fanboy nudged Payback and nodded toward you both.

“Ten bucks says he won’t get her to say more than four words tonight,” Fanboy said.

Payback chuckled. “I’ll take that bet. Bradshaw’s relentless.”

Back at the corner, Bradley didn’t care. Didn’t even notice. He was too focused on you—on the way your fingers traced the rim of your glass, the way you listened like it mattered. Then, he seemed to be slowing down, leaning against the edge of your space like he might stay there all night.

“You ever drink anything stronger than water ?” He asked, nudging his empty bottle toward your glass.

“I had whiskey last week.” You murmured.

Bradley arched an eyebrow. “One whiskey ?”

You let the corner of your mouth twitch. “Two.”

He laughed, the sound full and bright, startling in the close space between you. You turned slightly toward him, just enough to give him your attention—not more, not yet.

“I think people forget you have a voice,” he said, his tone quieter now, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “I mean, I see you every day. Running diagnostics, fixing our busted egos in the sims, headphones always on. But nobody really talks to you.”

“I don’t mind,” you said, fingers tapping the base of your glass.

“Why’d you stop flying ?” He asked suddenly, not unkindly. Just… curious.

You glanced away for a beat, surprised he knew that, then shrugged. “Liked control more.”

Bradley’s smile softened, fading into something more thoughtful. “You ever miss it ?”

You paused. Then, so quiet he almost missed it: “Sometimes.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment—just looked at you, like he wanted to remember the sound of your voice exactly as it was. Then someone brushed past you on the way to the bar, a blonde woman in a sundress, tall and glowing, with a spark in her eye and a laugh that cut clean through the room. Confident in a way that glittered, she moved like she already knew who would be watching her, and her eyes locked onto Bradley.

You caught the way his eyes settled on her. Not just a glance, but a long, lingering stare, the kind that said he was interested, curious, maybe even impressed. His usual playful charm softened into something quieter, more focused, like he was seeing something worth leaning into, and for a moment, it was like you weren’t even in the room.

Anyway, he stayed with you a little longer. 

And unconsciously, you gave him more than usual tonight—a full five minutes of quiet conversation, soft answers barely audible beneath the noise, a trace of a smile when he teased you about something you just said. It was the most you’d spoken to him outside the sim bay, and for a moment, it felt like something shifted. Like maybe he saw you a little more clearly now.

Then your glass emptied. You stood slowly, nodding toward the bartender on the far end. “Be right back.” You took his empty bottle in your hand, without asking him. 

He thanked you and straightened, stretching his arms back just enough for the fabric of his shirt to pull across his broad shoulders. The movement was effortless, the kind of thing he didn’t even know he was doing. “Don’t disappear on me.” He called, half-laughing, as you stepped away, weaving through shoulders and laughter. You didn’t answer, just slipped into the crowd, quiet as ever. 

You didn’t see the blonde until you were halfway to the bar, but he saw her. She brushed past you with the kind of scent you couldn’t name but somehow noticed. And by the time you looked back, his eyes were already on her. Focused. That warm, open grin of his softened into something more curious, the kind of look he gave to things he wanted to figure out—the same look he gave you earlier that morning. When she glanced over and smile, he smiled back like it was instinct. The blonde placed a hand on his forearm, light and lingering, nails painted in a summer pink. And he didn’t move an inch away. 

He tilted his head, smiling down at her like they’d known each other longer than thirty seconds. That familiar warmth in his eyes—the one he gave you—was now entirely hers. Your grip on his bottle tightened and you turned back toward the bar, but not for the bartender anymore. Instead you set the bottle and your glass gently on a vacant corner. 

“Doesn’t need his beer anymore.” You muttered under your breath. 

“Ditching the golden boy already ?” Phoenix’s voice came from beside you, light but knowing. 

You didn’t flinch, just gave her a small shrug, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere past the jukebox. “He’s got company.” You said quietly. 

She followed your gaze. Her expression didn’t change, but you caught the way she exhaled slowly, like she wanted to say something. Instead, she offered a soft nudge to your shoulder. “Come shoot a round with me. Before Bradshaw says something stupid dumb and ruins both your nights.”

You nodded once, grateful, and let her steer you away—away from the laughter from the blonde, from the part of you that had started to hope he’s look for you first.

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

The next few days passed in a blur of drills and simulator runs, but something was off. Bradley felt it before he even saw it. A shift in the air, subtle and sharp. The way people say you can sense a storm rolling on, not by the thunder, but by how still the birds go. 

You were still there in the sim bay every morning, like clockwork. Still perched at your console with your headphones draped around your neck, fingers flying over diagnostic keys. Still responding to reports, confirming flight data, calling out corrections with crisp professionalism. 

But you weren’t there. Not like before. 

You didn’t glance over when he leaned on the edge of your desk with his usual swagger, coffee cup in hand, teasing tone ready. You’d just take the cup without eye contact, said a flat, “Thanks”, and go back to the screen like he hadn’t just offered you the sun. 

No smile. No soft voice. No quiet moment like before. Bradley stood there a second longer, watching you scroll through diagnostics. The first time, he brushed it off. Maybe you were tired or busy. The second time, it tugged a little. But the third ? It started to sting. 

“Rough morning ?” he asked that day, testing the waters. He watched you from just a few feet away, trying to catch your expression through the edge of your hair. But you didn’t even blink. Didn’t even lift your head. Just muttered, “No”, and continued typing. 

Bradley lingered awkwardly for a few seconds longer, waiting—for a smile, a glance, anything. But you never looked up. He left the coffee on the corner of your console and walked away like a door had closed behind him.

And it stuck with him. It gnawed at him all day. During simulator drills, debriefs, even lunch where he barely touched his food, through endless conversations with teammates where he found himself half-listening, distracted by the feeling of something slipping out of reach. By the time evening rolled around, he couldn’t shake it. He found Phoenix on the flight deck catwalk, where the sky was bruising purple, and the air still carried salt and heat.

“What did I do ?” He asked impatient.

She didn’t looked away from the horizon, “To who ?”

He looked at her like it was obvious and sighed, “Whisper.”

Now she looked at him, one brow lifted. “You mean besides not shutting up around her ?”

Bradley narrowed his eyes. “No, I mean lately. She’s been…” He exhaled hard. “Different. Cold.”

Phoenix tilted her head, giving him a long, pointed look. Then she asked, “You really don’t get it ?”

His expression didn’t change, but there was hesitation in his eyes. “Get what ?”

“She saw you Bradshaw.”

He blinked, “Saw me what ?”

Phoenix pushed off the railing, folding her arms. “You flirted with some random at the Hard Deck right after spending all night talking her out of her shell. And she saw you. Every second of it.”

Bradley’s mouth opened slightly. “What ? No, I wasn’t— I just talked to her for a second—”

“Bradley,” Phoenix’s voice dropped, serious now. “She was holding your damn beer to get you a new one. She wanted to come back to you.”

He stopped. Actually stopped. Like the weight of those words landed straight on his chest. “I didn’t…” He scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” He muttered.

She softened a little but didn’t let him off the hook. “Didn’t have to.” She waited a beat, then said more gently, “She’s quiet, not stupid. You think that kind of girl opens up to just anyone ?”

He didn’t answer. Because he was thinking about the bar now. About the way your eyes had briefly flicked toward him when the blonde leaned in. About how your expression had shuttered before he could even recognize the look behind it. 

Phoenix watched him closely, then nudged his shoulder. “So. Fix it. Or at least don’t make it worse.”

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

Two days went by.

Long enough for Bradley to feel every inch of it—in the clipped responses, in the polite nods, in the way you passed him in the corridor like he was another file to be sorted and ignored. 

And it was driving him insane.

Because you weren’t the kind of person to shut people out impulsively. You were calculated, quiet, deliberate in everything you did. And this coldness wasn’t sudden. It was chosen. Thought through.

Which meant it hurt.

He spent hours turning it over in his head, reliving that night at the Hard Deck, the way you’d said ‘Be right back’ like it meant something, like you were truly planning on coming back to him and not just disappear as he thought you would. And how he’d let himself be pulled into a meaningless moment with a girl he didn’t even remember the name of. He hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Not until Phoenix spelled it out for him in painfully clear words.

So now he sat with that. The guilt, the frustration, the quiet hollow ache of knowing he’d hurt someone who barely let people close to begin with. And he wanted to fix it. But with you, big gestures didn’t work. He knew that. You didn’t want spectacle, you wanted sincerity. Something simple. Something honest.

So that morning, before anyone else was in the sim bay, he left a flash drive on your console. No note. No explanation. Just slid it onto the edge of your desk beside your water bottle and walked away without a word.

You noticed it the moment you sat down.

A plain silver drive, no label. But when you hovered over the files on your screen an hour later, curiosity finally won over.

“Songs You Should Smile To — A Rooster Original”

You stared at the name for a long moment, your finger paused above the track list. You didn’t open it right away. Didn’t smile, either. Just… paused. Then clicked. The first song was soft, warm around the edges. The kind of sound that lingered like late sunshine on concrete. It played in your headphones for exactly thirty-eight seconds before you stopped it. Then closed the window. Then unplugged the drive.

You slipped it into your pocket like it was something fragile.

Later that day, while the rest of the pilots were out on deck, Bradley circled back into the sim bay. You were alone at your station, typing quietly, brows drawn together as you reviewed a diagnostic thread. He lingered by the edge of the console—not leaning in like usual, not crowding your space—just there. Treading softly.

“Hey,” he said gently, scratching at the back of his neck. “Did you, uh… open it?”

You didn’t look at him. Just nodded. “Yeah.”

That was it.

A single syllable, flat as an ocean on a windless day. You didn’t elaborate. Didn’t offer a smile. Didn’t even glance his way.

Bradley hesitated, thumb rubbing the edge of his palm. “Cool,” he said, too quickly. Then added, “Just figured… you might need a better soundtrack. Y’know. For… stuff.”

No reply. No warmth. Nothing to hold on to. You didn’t ignore him, but you didn’t give him anything, either. And that was somehow worse. He lingered for a second longer, then gave a small nod and turned away. Chest tight, mouth pressed into a thin line.

But he didn’t see the way your fingers curled slightly as he walked off. The way your eyes flicked toward the flash drive, still safe in your pocket. Or even the way you waited until the door hissed shut behind him before reaching for your headphones again.

You started the playlist over. From the beginning this time.

»» ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ««

The Hard Deck was loud that night. Louder than usual. Full of laughter, clinking bottles, half-sung choruses to half-remembered songs. Bradley was already two beers in when he dropped onto a stool by the bar, half-listening to Hangman brag about something no one cared about and trying not to look toward the door every few minutes like some hopeful idiot.

You hadn’t showed up yet. 

He told himself he wasn’t looking. That he didn’t care. That it was just a normal night, and he was just enjoying the bar like everyone else. 

But then he heard it.

The song.

Soft drums, rising gently above the noise, his heart stuttered.

“I want to know what love is” by the Foreigner.

It wasn’t one of the Hard Deck bangers, not on Penny’s usual rotation. It was his song. The first track on the playlist he gave you. One that made him grin when it came on during drives, made him think of wind in his hair and summers that never quite ended. It wasn’t loud enough to cut through pool games or Payback’s booming laugh across the room. But loud enough for him to hear it.

He blinked, turning toward the jukebox automatically.

And there you were.

Alone, standing quietly with one hand still resting lightly against the machine, like you weren’t quite sure you were allowed to touch it. Head bowed just a little, listening. You looked soft in the amber glow of the neon bar lights. 

Playing his song.

Bradley was on his feet before he could stop himself. He crossed the floor slowly, weaving through the crowd as his pulse ticking somewhere behind his ribs, watching you with a quiet disbelief. You didn’t turn until he was almost beside you. Then, finally, your eyes lifted to meet his. There was something unreadable in your expression: something brave.

He opened his mouth to say something, but you beat him to it.

“I liked this one.” You said simply, your voice barely louder than the song. 

Just that.

No buildup. No grand declaration. But your voice was warmer than it had been in days, and your eyes held a softness he hadn’t seen since before that night at the bar. And Bradley melted. A breath escaped his chest like relief and hope all tangled into one. “Yeah ?” He asked, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “I thought you might.”

You gave a tiny nod, barely there. “Had it on repeat all night.”

He smiled then. Really smiled. The kind that stretched across his face like a sunrise. His heart clenched in his chest, and for once, he couldn’t find a smooth comeback. Just stood there, quiet in front of the quietest person he knew, feeling every word like it had weight. 

 “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “For that night. I didn’t mean to— I wasn’t trying to…”

“I know.” Your eyes didn’t leave his.

And then—finally—you smiled. Bradley exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath since that night. You looked at him for a long time, longer than you ever had before. The jukebox kept playing as the music wrapped around you both like velvet.

Bradley laughed under his breath, “There it is.”

The jukebox’s glow flickered softly across your face, casting colors that shimmered like stained glass: red across your jaw, blue across your lashes. You were looking at him like he’d said something sacred. Like he hadn’t messed it all up.

Bradley’s throat tightened. His hands ached to move—to reach for you, to tuck that strand of hair behind your ear, to do something—but he didn’t. He didn’t move. Didn’t trust himself not to screw it up by rushing. So he stood there, holding his breath, watching you like he’d watch a sunrise he was afraid to blink through.

And you… you just looked at him for a moment longer. Eyes calm, unreadable, but soft. Then slowly—so slowly he almost thought he imagined it—your hand reached up. Fingers brushed lightly against the collar of his shirt, then steadied there, like an anchor. You leaned in, hesitant, but sure, eyes locked on his, not breaking even once. Bradley’s breath caught. His lips parted just slightly. He still didn’t move.

But you did.

You kissed him.

Not tentative. Not shy. Not loud, but louder than anything you’d ever said before. It was soft, but certain, the kind of kiss that said everything you never did. And Bradley melted into it. When he finally kissed you back—deeper, more grounded, hand slipping gently around your waist—it felt like exhaling after months of holding his breath. Like gravity stopped pulling and just let him float.

And in the background, Kelly Hansen sang on : 

I wanna feel what love is, I know you can show me…

[amirasainz]

The team principal reader x various is everything to me 😩 Can we get like Reader’s first day in the paddock? Like everyone’s looking at her and she’s totally oblivious to all this? And everyone’s tripping on their feet trying to make a good impression?

All Eyes on Her

The paddock had never been quieter.

Well—technically it wasn’t quiet. Reporters were still shouting, engineers were still hauling crates, team members still darted between garages like sparks of electricity. But somehow, when she walked in, the whole atmosphere paused. The sound remained, but every single soul stilled.

And the hush was caused by her.

Yn Yln.

McLaren’s brand-new, 22-year-old team principal. A figure of tabloid rumors and Twitter frenzy all winter long. Speculated, underestimated, doubted. Until now. Until this moment.

Because now she wasn’t just a press release or a blurry vacation photo from Monaco.

Now she was here.

And she was everything.

Her Louis Buitton heels clicked against the concrete like a countdown to impact. Precision. Confidence. Destruction. Her tailored navy McLaren blouse was half-tucked into high-waisted black trousers, cinched at the waist with a belt that screamed quiet luxury. In one hand, she held her iPad, glowing with race simulations and tire degradation charts. Over her eyes, her designer sunglasses reflected the shimmering desert light and the chaos around her.

And draped from her wrist like an afterthought? A matte Birkin bag the color of burnt caramel. Understated. Impossibly expensive.

Her expression was unreadable. Calculating. Focused. She didn’t spare a glance at the stunned faces gawking at her from every direction.

She just walked.

Oscar, halfway through his smoothie, choked on the straw.

“Is that—?”

“Yes,” Lando said before he could finish, voice low and reverent. “That’s her.”

Oscar’s eyes were wide. “She’s even cooler than in the Zoom meetings.”

“She’s not real,” Lando muttered. “We manifested her. There’s no way this is real.”

And then—just as Yn reached the McLaren hospitality unit—she lifted her sunglasses, saw them, and smiled.

A slow, warm, affectionate smile.

And both drivers nearly passed out on the spot.

“My drivers!” she called, voice like silk but with command woven into every syllable.

She walked up, heels sharp, bag swinging, and kissed each of them on both cheeks.

Lando was the first to fumble his words. “Uh—bonjour—hi—hey—bonjour again?”

Oscar’s brain shut off entirely.

Yn tilted her head and gave them both a fond look. “You’ve both been causing chaos without me, haven’t you?”

Lando blinked. “Only a little.”

Oscar finally found his voice. “We missed you.”

“I missed you too.” She smiled at both of them. “Let’s win something this year, yeah?”

Both of them nodded in unison like puppies. “Yes. Yes, please. Let’s win everything.”

All around the paddock, eyes followed her.

Lewis, dressed in a sleek red Ferrari polo, had paused mid-interview. “Sorry, can you repeat that?” he asked the reporter, gaze still on Yn. “Bit distracted.”

The interviewer chuckled. “You’re not the only one.”

Lewis tilted his head as he watched her greet the engineers. “McLaren’s new principal?”

“Yup.”

Lewis gave a low, appreciative whistle. “They didn’t say she was a goddess.”

Carlos, freshly transferred to Williams, leaned against the pit wall and watched her breeze past. His jaw dropped slightly, arms folded, then quickly unfolded as he straightened up and smoothed his hair back.

Next to him, Alex gave a soft laugh. “You okay, man?”

“She hasn’t even looked at me,” Carlos whispered. “I need to walk past again.”

Alex raised a brow. “Didn’t you walk past her twice already?”

“She didn’t notice. I need to be more—Spanish.”

“Carlos, you are Spanish.”

“Exactly.”

Across the garage block, Kimi watched from the Mercedes hospitality unit, sipping his water bottle. His cheeks were flushed, his ears red.

“She’s… terrifyingly beautiful,” he mumbled.

George patted him on the back. “Welcome to F1.”

Yuki, standing outside the RB motorhome, had a full plate of snacks in hand and dropped all of them when she walked by.

“Shit!” he cried as fruit tumbled to the ground. He glanced up—and Yn was already ten meters ahead, her attention fully on her tablet, oblivious to the chaos in her wake.

Behind Yuki, Liam let out a low chuckle. “You good, mate?”

“No. I need to marry her.”

Ollie, the young Haas rookie, stood completely still, eyes wide, heart thumping.

He was so stunned, he didn’t even realize he’d walked into the side of the media pen structure.

“Oh my God,” he groaned, rubbing his forehead. “I’m concussed. And in love.”

In the middle of a media scrum, Charles turned to see Yn stroll past in a flash of style and poise, her presence like gravity in human form.

He blinked.

“She’s—she’s my type.”

Pierre, standing next to him, looked mildly offended. “She’s everyone’s type.”

“I feel like I need to say something French around her,” Charles said, dreamily. “Like… baguette.”

Pierre rolled his eyes. “Just don’t embarrass us.”

Inside the McLaren garage, Yn had finally settled in front of the data screens. She’d already pointed out three flaws in the aero report and adjusted Oscar’s sim setup with a few flicks of her fingers.

Her team was completely under her spell.

And completely loyal.

One of the junior engineers whispered to another, “I’d walk barefoot through gravel if she asked.”

“Same.”

“She didn’t even look at Ferrari’s hospitality.”

“She doesn’t have to. Ferrari looked at her.”

Back on the pit lane, Lando and Oscar stood like two knights guarding a queen.

Oscar leaned toward Lando. “So how long until she realizes every driver is trying to impress her?”

“She won’t,” Lando said, eyes still following her movements. “She doesn’t see herself like that.”

“She called us her drivers,” Oscar said with a ridiculous grin.

“I know.” Lando grinned right back. “I’m never getting over that.”

That night, after the day’s chaos, she finally took off her heels and dropped onto the couch in the McLaren motorhome. Her Birkin rested beside her. Her sunglasses were off. Her feet ached. But she smiled.

“Good first day?” Lando asked, poking his head in.

She gave him a tired but genuine smile. “I didn’t fall on my face. That’s a win.”

Oscar stepped in with a smoothie. “You do know the entire paddock is obsessed with you, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Lando snorted. “No, seriously. It’s embarrassing. We saw Yuki drop his food. Carlos has walked by five times. Kimi spilled his water.”

Oscar handed her the smoothie. “Charles said ‘baguette’ at the sight of you.”

She laughed. Really laughed.

And they both fell a little harder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My requests are open for the principal reader!

[suliigwp]

HIII omg i love your writings!! got this idea while i was in the bathroom blasting alchemy by taylor swift and you were the first writer i thought of that i know would slay this! Reader is a known singer but she doesnt really write love songs which charles is completely fine about. His friends ask and tease him about it and he brushes it off then one night on one of her tours she sings alchemy for the first time while charles is watching from the crowd. His whole world stops and maybe even tears up then he just goes on for days bragging about it. HUMOUR AND FLUFFF WHATEVER U WANT THANK YOU SO MUCH

WHERES THE TROPHY?

Charles Leclerc x Singer! Reader | fluff

SULI: hiii omg you have no idea how much it means remembering me first🥹 thank you soooo much!!!!! — very cool because I actually do have a singer!readers series coming up but none of the love interests is Charles sadly— but I really love singer au's and this was so much fun to write! Thank you so much for requesting, love you, hope you enjoy🫶

I'm absolutely obsessed with this song — stream "The alchemy" now!!!

Warnings: none, short and sweet, Twitter post at the end

Charles liked to think he had you figured out.

At least, the version of you the world didn’t get to see — the quiet one, the tired one after long studio nights, the version that wore his hoodie to bed and snuck kisses onto his shoulder when you thought he was sleeping.

He liked being the silent inspiration, the person behind the curtain. You were his in private — that was more than enough.

"She doesn't write love songs."

That was the line Charles Leclerc had come to know and love. He’d heard it in interviews, read it in headlines, and smiled through every late-night talk show where someone inevitably asked, “So, do you really not write about him?”

The camera would zoom in, the crowd would laugh, and you’d flash that sly little grin. “Don't worry, if I wrote a love song,” you always said, “you’d know it.”

Charles didn’t mind. In fact, he was fine with it.

You were his.

Even if the rest of the world liked to think you belonged to them.

The fans, the cameras, the interviews — they all wanted pieces. But Charles had long made peace with being the part no one else got to hear in the songs.

Because you didn’t write love songs.

Everyone said so.

You said so.

And Charles believed it. Until the night you didn’t.

...

back, first year of dating

“You still haven’t written a song about me,” Charles teased from the couch, bare feet on the floor, one arm lazily slung around your waist. His eyes were half-lidded, lips curled into that soft smile he only gave you when the world was quiet.

You rolled your eyes, brushing your fingers through his curls. “You say that like you’re not already in every other one.”

“Yes, but I want the main character treatment,” he said, dramatically pressing a hand to his chest. “The standing ovation. The bridge that emotionally ruins people.”

You just laughed, kissed his cheek, and said, “Maybe when you win Monaco.”

He groaned. “Cruel woman.”

...

He hadn't told you he was coming.

You were in the middle of a sold-out run through Europe, and Charles was drowning in simulator sessions and car debriefs. But when he saw the gap in his schedule, he booked the ticket quietly, packed light, and told his engineers he was leaving for “something more important than tyre degradation.”

Barcelona was a quick flight from Monaco. Your show there had been sold out for months, and he knew better than to try and sneak in through backstage. So he did what no one expected:

He lined up like everyone else.

He didn’t tell you. You were always happiest on stage, and he wanted to be just another face in the crowd that night. Just a quiet, anonymous dot in a sea of lights and sweat and noise.

Hood up, cap low, a simple black tee that did nothing to hide how gorgeous he was. He bought a pit wristband from resale (triple the price, but whatever), pushed into the crowd, and waited.

His heart beat harder the closer it got to showtime.

He didn’t know why. He’d seen you perform dozens of times. Hell, he’d watched you rehearse in sweats with a tea bag hanging out of your mouth. He lived with you.

But something about tonight buzzed different.

The lights dimmed.

The crowd erupted.

And then you appeared.

...

You always had a certain way of standing still — calm, rooted, like you didn’t need fireworks to be the most magnetic person in the room. Charles felt the shift the second you stepped up to the mic.

“This one’s new,” you said softly.

The crowd stilled.

“I wasn’t planning to play it live yet, but…”

You paused, and smiled.

“He’s here tonight.”

The girls around Charles screamed.

He went still.

No.

You’re not—

The opening chords were simple, soft. A rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat.

"Shirts off, and your friends lift you up over their heads, Champagne sticking to the floor"

The lyrics felt so close, so personal, Charles swore you were staring right at him, even though you couldn’t see him through the crowd.

"Cheers chanted, cause they said, There was no chance, trying to be The greatest in the league"

And then.

Then.

“Where’s the trophy? He just comes running over to me.”

Charles’s knees nearly buckled.

The lyric struck him like a punch to the gut.

He didn’t even breathe for a second — chest tight, hands shaking, mouth parted in stunned silence.

You remembered.

Monaco.

That day.

The crowd, the flags, the win — his first home win. The one he had chased like a ghost for years.

He remembered the noise, the champagne, the cameras flashing. But more than anything, he remembered you, standing behind the barrier, tucked to the side — quiet and glowing and waiting.

He hadn’t even thought.

He just ran.

Straight to you. Through the crowd. Past everyone. Helmet barely off.

You caught him in your arms like you’d been waiting there your whole life.

“Where’s the trophy?” the reporter had asked him after.

And he’d smiled before glancing over at you.

...

By the time you hit the final chorus, Charles had completely given up pretending he was okay.

His eyes were glassy. His cheeks were damp.

A teenage girl next to him elbowed her friend and whispered, “That guy is, like, sobbing.”

He didn’t even notice.

When you sang the last line and let the guitar fall quiet, Charles couldn’t move.

The stadium exploded in sound.

You bowed.

The lights went out.

And he just stood there — one hand pressed over his heart, whispering the lyric under his breath like a prayer.

...

Backstage, everything felt like static.

You were mid-change when a tech knocked on the greenroom door.

“Uh… sorry, there’s a guy trying to come back here. He says he’s your boyfriend? Hoodie, cap, extremely beautiful—kind of panicked?”

You laughed, heart already racing.

“Let him in.”

Charles barrelled into the room like a man possessed.

“You—” he said, voice raw.

You turned, makeup still smudged, hair frizzing from sweat, and barely had time to open your arms before he was there — pulling you into him like he hadn’t seen you in years.

“Monaco?” he whispered.

You nodded against his chest.

He pulled back just slightly, hands cupping your face, eyes red-rimmed and earnest. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did.”

“You wrote about it.”

A breathless laugh. “You wrote about me.”

You shrugged playfully, nose brushing his. “Guess you’re the main character now.”

His grin cracked wide and helpless, and then he kissed you. Soft, slow, deep — the kind of kiss that says thank you and I love you and I’m never letting this go.

“You’re screwed now,” he whispered, grinning against your mouth.

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to brag about this forever.”

...

And he did.

The next morning:

And for the rest of the season, no matter how many podiums he earned, Charles had one answer to every post-race interview:

“Where’s the trophy, Charles?”

“She’s probably watching from home.”

Taglist, comment to be added;

@angstynasty @cryinghotmess @mits-vi @dramaticpiratellamas @mimisweetz @mrssaturday @chiara8104 @moonlight-girls-posts @linnygirl09 @rue-t @danielricroll @the-vex-archives @trees-are-books @blodwyn4u @yoruse @ccrickett-t @l-a-u-r-aaa @multifans-things @woderfulkawaii @azrinableuet @mayax2o07 @everyday-is-sunday365 @devilacot

Make sure you can be tagged!

[romerona]

Ethera Operation!!

You're the government’s best hacker, but that doesn’t mean you were prepared to be thrown into a fighter jet.

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Awkward!Hacker! FemReader

Part II

You knew today was going to suck the second your alarm went off and you briefly, genuinely, considered faking your own death.

Not in a dramatic, movie-worthy kind of way. No, more like… vanish-into-a-data-breach, throw-your-phone-in-the-ocean, start-a-new-life-in-Finland sort of way.

But instead, you got up.

Because apparently, national security outranks your crippling fear of flight—not that it makes the simulator any less hellish, with its cold metal, stale coffee, and that faint chemical tang of fear.

You were strapped into the rear seat of a flight simulation pod, hands locked in your lap like they might betray you at any moment and start mashing random buttons. You exhaled slowly as your eyes flicked across the control panel. So many switches. So many lights. Half of them blinked like they were mocking you. The other half were labeled with words like “altitude” and “engine throttle” and “eject.”

Great.

You adjusted your headset as the technician’s voice crackled through. “Sim will start in thirty seconds, Doctor. We’ll be monitoring vitals and control input from the tower."

You forced a nod, even though your stomach was already trying to escape through your spine. Your breath fogged the inside of the visor. You clutched the tablet tethered to your vest like it was a stuffed animal and you were six years old again.

“Try not to scream this time,” came Cyclone’s voice through the comms, calm and flat like he was asking you to pass the salt.

You offered a shaky thumbs-up that somehow felt more like a surrender flag.

The sim operator spoke next, voice crackling through your headset once again. “Doctor, your objective is to remain conscious, keep your hands away from the panel, and activate the Ethera interface when prompted. We’ll simulate turbulence, evasive maneuvers, and mild G-force changes. Ready?”

No. Never.

“...Sure.”

The sim lurched forward with a roar, and your whole body snapped back into the seat. You let out a startled “whuff!”, eyes wide, heart in your throat. The room around you—walls disguised as sky—blurred as the machine banked hard to the left.

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGOD—”

There was no gentle start. No soft acceleration to get your bearings. Just a violent jolt forward, and then you were climbing—straight up, like gravity had been turned into a weapon and pointed directly at your lungs.

Pressure slammed into your chest. The world outside the cockpit blurred. You couldn’t hear anything except your own heartbeat.

“WHY ARE WE TILTING—”

“Initiating evasive pattern,” came the tech’s voice, calm as ever.

The sim jerked again, this time into a sharp roll. The world flipped sideways. Your ears popped. Something primal in your brain screamed: This is how you die.

Your ears were ringing. Your pulse thundered against your ribs. Somewhere beneath the pressure and panic, you could hear the tech’s voice cutting in again—calm, detached, and utterly unhelpful.

“Doctor, you need to deploy the program,” he said. “Fifty seconds. Starting now.”

Oh, shit, you couldn’t even see straight.

Your breath came in short, shallow gasps as the simulated jet banked hard to the right, pressing your spine into the seat like it wanted to keep it. The G-forces made your vision tunnel, your stomach lurching somewhere around your throat.

Your hand fumbled toward the tablet mount, fingers shaking so hard they were basically useless. You tapped the corner of the screen. Missed. Tapped again. The jet jolted. The tablet shifted. Your palm slammed into the side instead of the input.

Forty seconds.

The Ethera prompt blinked up at you—green, glowing, go—but it may as well have been a mirage. You squinted through the dizziness, swore under your breath in three languages, and tried again.

Thirty-five.

The turbulence kicked again, harder. Your chest seized. The tablet slipped slightly in its latch. You tapped the input.

Too late.

“Simulation failed,” the system announced flatly. “Target missed.”

Everything halted—the motion, the noise—everything except your pulse, which pounded on like it hadn't gotten the memo.

The sim pod cracked open with a sharp hiss, releasing a rush of cool air that hit your sweat-slicked skin like a slap to the face. You didn’t move. For a second too long, you just sat there, fingers clenched around the armrests like they were the only things keeping you from unraveling completely. The silence pressed in, thick with the weight of your own embarrassment, humiliation settling low and heavy in your gut like a stone.

Your fingers fumbled at the release on your helmet, hands still trembling from the G-forces and adrenaline. The inside of your mouth tasted like copper and failure. You tugged off the headset next, wires dragging like they were reluctant to let go. Everything felt too loud and too quiet at the same time.

Your boots scraped against the cold floor as you shakily swung your legs out, and there he was, Vice Admiral Beau Simpson, standing with arms crossed, expression carved from steel.

You wanted to disappear into the floor.

He didn’t speak right away. He just looked at you. Not angry. Not even disappointed. Just… calculating. Like he was already assessing the cost of putting you on a real jet.

“I missed the mark,” you said first, because silence felt worse. “I know.”

Cyclone gave a short nod, like that much at least didn’t need explaining. “You froze.”

You exhaled slowly, willing your heart to stop trying to beat its way out of your ribs. “Yeah.”

His eyes didn’t waver. “You had a job. Not to fly. Not to fight. Just to stay calm. Deploy your program.”

“I know.”

“And you failed.”

You stood on legs that didn’t feel like they belonged to you, one hand gripping the edge of the simulator for balance, the other still clutching the edge of the tablet even though the prompt had long since vanished.

“If this had been real,” he continued, “that satellite would still be feeding your government false intelligence. That jet would’ve been intercepted. And you, Doctor, would’ve been dead, and so would've your pilot.”

You flinched. Not visibly—hopefully—but the words hit harder than they should have. You stared at the scuffed metal floor, heart thudding against your ribs.

“You’re not a soldier,” he said. “And you’re not trained for this. That’s clear.”

You opened your mouth—maybe to apologize, maybe to defend yourself—but he raised a hand, cutting you off with one sharp motion.

“That’s not an excuse,” he added, voice sharp. “It’s a reality. One you’ll have to overcome, and fast. I don’t expect perfection but I do expect progress. And I expect you to walk into that sim tomorrow knowing what you did wrong—and ready to fix it.”

You blinked hard, your pulse pounding in your ears. “Yes, sir.”

Cyclone gave you one last look—disappointed, but not hopeless—and then turned, then paused, glancing back.

“And see medical,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “You’re pale as hell.”

Then he walked away, boots echoing down the corridor, leaving you standing there with a spinning head, a shattered ego and the feeling of wanting to curl up and cry.

As you moved to make your way toward medical—because yes, apparently nausea, disorientation, and a near-death experience weren’t enough on their own— you skidded to a stop just short of slamming into a very broad chest.

Of course. Of course, it was him.

The handsome, mustached pilot. The one who’d handed you your tablet like it was a glass slipper, back in the briefing room. The one who hadn’t laughed when you dropped it, but definitely thought about it.

His hair was slightly mussed, curls pushed back from his forehead like he’d run a hand through them one too many times. He held two water bottles, one in each hand, like he wasn’t sure if he meant to stay—or if he’d just pretend this was a casual “what a surprise” moment if anyone asked.

You froze. He straightened.

“Hey,” he said, voice softer than you expected. A lot softer than earlier. Less smirk, more... sincerity.

“Uh… hi,” you said finally. Nailed it. Pure elegance.

His expression didn’t change much, maybe just a flicker of amusement at the corners of his mouth. He held out one of the bottles. “You looked like you could use this.”

You hesitated—more from surprise than anything else—then took it. You took it, fingers brushing his as you did. His skin was warm—too warm for how cold you felt. You tried not to notice.

“Thanks,” you said quietly, unscrewing the cap with hands that still trembled, ever so slightly. The water was blissfully cold against your throat, but it did nothing for the embarrassment still curdling in your stomach.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice gentler than you expected.

You hesitated, then tilted your head in a noncommittal shrug. “Define okay.”

A ghost of a smile touched his face. “Not crying, not puking, not passed out? That’s the general baseline.”

You cracked a reluctant laugh. “Oh, sure, I’m totally thriving.”

He nodded once, and the silence settled again—less awkward now, more… charged. The kind of quiet that hummed between words. The kind that made your skin feel too tight.

He looked like he might leave, but then he didn’t.

Instead, he shifted his weight, adjusting his grip on the second water bottle like it was some kind of anchor or maybe just something to do with his hands while he said, “You weren’t terrible in there.”

Your stomach jolted—sharp, unexpected. Like missing a step on the stairs. Heat bloomed beneath your collar, crawling up your throat as your fingers tightened around the plastic water bottle.

“You…” Your voice cracked a little, and you cleared your throat. “You were watching?”

God. No.

Why did you ask that? Why would you ever want confirmation?

His expression shifted—just slightly. Not quite sheepish, not quite smug. Just something in the middle.

“I was passing by,” he said, entirely too casual.

You groaned softly, dragging a hand over your face. “Fantastic. I didn’t just humiliate myself in front of the brass. I also had an audience.”

“Don’t take it personally,” he said, his voice laced with something between amusement and sincerity. “We’ve all been there.”

You raised an eyebrow. “In a classified sim seat with national security riding on your ability to not pass out?”

He grinned wider. “Well. Maybe not exactly there.”

You scoff, shaking your head as you take another sip of the water.

“You’re not supposed to get it right the first time." He said, "No one does. You think the rest of us were born knowing how to pull 7 Gs without losing our lunch?”

You didn’t answer. Not because you didn’t believe him—maybe part of you even did—but because if you opened your mouth, you weren’t sure if it would come out as a laugh or a cry.

He noticed.

“You know, most people don’t get in the backseat of a fighter jet without years of prep. You? You've got a couple of days, a tech background, and a pulse. That’s it and you still got in. That counts for something.”

You stared at him. “Why do you even care if I mess this up?”

He looked at you then, long and quiet.

“You built something that could change the world,” he said with an easy shrug. “That kind of genius doesn’t come with an eject handle. So yeah. I care.”

You looked away fast, suddenly too aware of how warm your cheeks were.

He leaned back again, casual as ever. “Besides, if I'm the one you are gonna fly into enemy territory, I’d rather know you’re not gonna scream the whole time.”

You snorted. “I’ll scream quietly. Into my elbow. Like an adult.”

He chuckles and you looked at him. Really looked at him. Still in partial uniform, flight suit unzipped to the waist, sleeves tied and hanging loose around his hips. His shirt clung to his chest, slightly sweat-damp at the collar, and that damn mustache made him look both out-of-place and weirdly grounded at the same time.

He wasn’t just handsome. He was kind of infuriatingly steady.

“Can I—” You paused, surprised by your own voice. “Can I ask your name?”

His brows lifted, just slightly, like the question had caught him off guard. But then he shifted forward and extended a hand—open, easy, completely steady in a way that you most definitely weren’t.

“Bradley Bradshaw,” he said. “But most people around here call me Rooster.”

You blinked. “Rooster?”

A grin tugged at his mouth, soft and lopsided. “My call sign. It’s a long story.”

You hesitated for a beat, then reached out and slid your hand into his.

His palm was warm—really warm—and calloused in a way that made you feel every inch of the difference between your worlds. His grip was firm but not overwhelming, grounding. Like he knew exactly how much pressure to apply without overdoing it. His fingers curled around yours with quiet confidence, like this was nothing, like it didn’t send an unexpected little jolt of awareness all the way up your arm.

Your hand was smaller than his, your skin cooler, trembling just enough that you hoped he didn’t notice—but something in the way his thumb shifted, just the tiniest bit, made you think maybe he did.

You weren’t sure how long you held on. Long enough to register the strength in his hand, the steadiness, the solidness of someone who lived in the sky but was somehow more grounded than anyone you knew.

“Y/N L/N,” you said finally, your voice softer now. "But I guess you already knew that.”

He gave a small nod, his eyes not leaving yours. "You're hard to forget,"

You didn’t let go right away.

Neither did he.

Then, as if realizing the moment was hanging just a second too long, you both released at the same time—too quickly. Like a secret exchanged and immediately tucked away.

You took a half step back, pulse thrumming in your throat, fingers still tingling from the contact.

Bradley, however, didn’t step away immediately instead, he lingered for just a second longer, watching you with a look that wasn’t teasing or cocky or smug. Just something quiet and steady, then he smiled—small, crooked, the kind that didn’t feel all that teasing but still carried that glint of mischief behind it. The kind of smile that said he saw more than he let on.

“You’ll get it,” he said, voice softer now. “Not today. Maybe not tomorrow.”

His eyes flicked to yours, and something about the way he looked at you—like he meant it, like he believed it, made your chest tighten.

“But you will.”

You opened your mouth, unsure what you were about to say—maybe thank you, maybe don’t say that unless you mean it—but the words never quite made it past your lips.

Because Bradley gave you one last look, a flick of something unreadable in his eyes, then turned down the corridor, water bottle still swinging lazily from his fingers while you stood there for a moment, then finally exhaled. “Okay,”

Days went faster than you were ready for.

You hadn’t slept much. Not from fear exactly, though there was plenty of that still hanging around like a ghost in your chest—but more from the afterglow of adrenaline. The kind that leaves your body tired but your mind racing.

You’d replayed Bradley's words a dozen times. You’ll get it. You weren’t sure if they’d stuck because you believed them… or because you wanted to.

But when you arrived at the simulator bay, you were expecting to meet with Cyclone, just like every other day, but he wasn't there waiting for you.

It was a new pilot.

She stood near the simulator controls, arms crossed loosely over her chest, already in her flight suit, her expression somewhere between mildly unimpressed and genuinely curious.

“You’re my new project, huh?” she said as you approached.

You blinked. “Um. I—guess so?”

“I’m your point of contact now,” Phoenix said, nodding toward the simulator. “Cyclone thought a different approach might help. And I volunteered.”

You tried not to look too relieved. But you were. God, you were. Cyclone, well, he was rough, for lack of better words, Rooster had been kind, yes, but his presence was a lot. Intense. Distracting.

Phoenix, on the other hand, had that kind of practical, no-nonsense confidence you could actually lean on. She didn’t feel like a storm waiting to happen. She felt like structure.

“I’m Lieutenant Natasha Trace,” she said, extending her hand. “Call sign’s Phoenix.”

You shook her hand, your grip steadier than yesterday—though your palm was still a little clammy, and you were pretty sure she noticed.

“Y/N,” you said, then added with a tired smile, “Doctor. Uh, the nervous one.”

Phoenix huffed out a short laugh, a glint of something sharp but not unkind in her eyes. “I read your file.”

She stepped back, folding her arms as she leaned one hip against the edge of the sim console. Her stance was relaxed, confident, comfortable in her own skin in the way only someone who’d already proven themselves a hundred times could be.

“I also watched your sims,” she added, voice casual.

You winced, your smile turning into a grimace. “Oof. That bad?”

She tilted her head, as if considering how honest she wanted to be. Then gave a light shrug, eyes steady on yours. “I’ve seen worse. A lot worse.”

You let out a low hum, arms crossing loosely over your chest in mock thought. “That’s… reassuring.”

“Isn’t it?” she said, with just enough of a smirk to make you feel like she was on your side. “You hadn't passed out nor puked. You followed instructions until your brain short-circuited. Classic first-timer move.”

You laughed under your breath, surprised at how easily it came.

She finally looked at you then—steady, knowing. “We’re not here to make you into a pilot, Doc. We just need you ready for the mission. The rest? We’ll cover you.”

Something in your chest loosened at that.

Support. No condescension. No sharp edges. Just a quiet kind of strength you could lean against.

“Thanks,” you said. “Really.”

Phoenix nodded once. “Let’s get you in the seat.”

Inside the simulator, everything felt smaller than you remembered.

Not physically—just heavier. Like the air had thickened, like the walls had learned your fears from yesterday and decided to lean in a little closer.

You sat in the back seat again, the tablet already secured to its mount beside your right leg. Your fingers hovered near it, not quite touching, like it might bite. You could already feel your heartbeat in your palms.

“Straps secured?” Phoenix’s voice crackled through the headset. Her tone was crisp, even, the kind that didn’t rise to meet panic—it smothered it before it started.

You exhaled and gave a tight nod, forgetting she couldn’t see it. “Y-Yeah. Good to go.”

“All right,” she said. “We’re starting slow. Just basic turbulence patterns. No evasive maneuvers, no tricks. You’re not here to impress anyone. You’re here to breathe, and press a single button when I tell you.”

You nodded again, this time speaking aloud. “Sure.”

The sim hummed to life around you, and your body tensed automatically—like it remembered what came next, even if you swore it wouldn’t be that bad.

“Relax your shoulders,” Phoenix said, as if she felt the stiffness from her end. “You’re holding tension like you’re about to punch the air.”

The screen in front of you blinked to life. The sim took you airborne, but the motion was slow this time—steady, like a calm climb on a commercial flight.

You forced yourself to breathe out slowly and unclenched your jaw, trying to follow her lead. The shaking wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous day's simulated madness. No rolls. No sharp drops. Just steady pressure. Unnerving, but survivable.

Your eyes flicked to the screen.

The prompt glowed softly. Ethera. Standing by. Timer: 02:00

“This is just a systems check,” Phoenix said. “You don’t have to engage. Just keep your eyes on it. Notice the screen, your pulse, your breath. You’ve got time."

The pod dipped gently into a banking curve. You swayed, stomach flipping. "Keep breathing, Doc."

You gripped the edge of the seat, fingers twitching. “This still counts as breathing, right?”

“As long as you’re not blue in the face, yeah.”

You smiled—barely—but it helped.

The Ethera interface activated on the mounted tablet in front of you. The same prompt, The countdown. You glanced at it and your heart gave one uneasy thud.

“Don’t rush,” Phoenix reminded you, voice even. “One thing at a time. Don’t try to win. Just try to finish.”

You nodded again, reaching out slowly—deliberately—and tapped the screen to begin the simulated deployment sequence. The code began to unfold, and the sim didn’t break into loops or chaos. It kept going. And you were still breathing.

Your hand trembled slightly, but you stayed focused, eyes on the sequence as it loaded in steady green waves. The turbulence passed. The sim steadied.

“Ten seconds,” Phoenix said. “You’ve got it. Keep it locked.”

You kept your hand on the panel. You didn’t blink. The screen counted down.

3… 2… 1…

Deployment successful.

The soft chime of success echoed in your headset.

“Target received,” the system confirmed.

You blinked, then blinked again. “I… I got it?”

“You got it,” Phoenix said, the faintest edge of pride in her voice. “Nice and clean.”

You slumped back in the seat, suddenly aware of just how hard your heart had been working. Your eyes stung—not from panic this time, but from sheer relief.

“Doctor,” Phoenix said after a beat. “That was not bad.”

You couldn’t help the grin that broke across your face, exhausted but real.

And when the pod finally powered down with a gentle thunk, and the hatch hissed open, you realized you’d done the whole thing without white-knuckling the seat.

You’d finally made it through.

Phoenix was waiting for you, arms crossed, leaning one hip against the console like she’d known all along you’d handle it.

You stepped out, legs a still stiff, but your head was clear.

“Not bad,” she said, and this time her smile wasn’t just professional. It was small, but real. “No ejections. No nausea. No hysterics.”

You let out a dry laugh, breath catching on the edge of it. “Just mild existential dread.”

She shrugged, cool as ever. “That’s standard issue.”

Then smiled—really smiled—for the first time since this whole classified, terrifying, completely-out-of-your-depth mission had begun. The kind of smile that pulled dimples you hadn’t felt in days.

“Thanks,” you said again, quieter this time. Not just for the training, but for not making you feel like a burden.

Phoenix nodded once, like she already understood all of that.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said. “We need to move faster. Real evasive sequences. Simulated pressure. Maybe even some yelling.”

“Yours or mine?”

She smirked. “We’ll see who breaks first.”

You laughed again—easier this time—and for the first time, it didn’t feel like you were pretending.

By the time the week came to an end, you and Phoenix had become friends.

Not in the polite, nod-in-the-hallway kind of way—but the real kind. The kind built through shared silence in the simulator bay, through low chuckles after a successful run, through Phoenix’s calm voice in your headset, cutting through the static and the fear. She never coddled you. Never sugarcoated anything but she never made you feel less, either.

There were moments where fear absolutely took over—where your breath hitched too high in your chest or your fingers trembled too much to find the prompt in time and there were other moments, rarer but growing, where you managed. Where you pressed the button, where you kept your head above water.

Phoenix never made a spectacle of either.

When you panicked, she talked you down, when you succeeded, she just clapped you on the shoulder, tossed you a bottle of water, and said, “Told you. You’re getting it.”

And somehow, that meant more than any standing ovation ever could.

By Friday evening, you had survived four more simulations, logged two successful Ethera deployments, and stopped referring to the ejection lever as “that red death stick.”

Progress.

“You coming to the Hard Deck tonight?” Phoenix said casually, already slinging her duffel over one shoulder as you both headed toward the lockers.

You blinked at her, caught off guard. “What?”

She paused mid-step, turning just enough to glance back at you with that crooked grin she reserved for moments like this—half dare, half invitation.

“The Hard Deck,” she repeated, now walking backward toward the hangar doors. “Bar. Pool tables. Bad decisions. You in?”

You stared for a beat too long, processing.

The Hard Deck.

You opened your mouth. Closed it. You’d heard about the place in passing—mostly through muttered comments and laughing threats. It had sounded like a local haunt. Loud. Messy. Full of people who knew exactly what they were doing and didn’t care that you didn’t.

“Wait, is that—like, is that a thing?” you asked, trailing after her. “Do people… actually go?”

Phoenix raised an eyebrow like she wasn’t sure if you were messing with her. “Only the ones worth talking to.”

You hesitated.

She paused at the doorway and tossed the final hook. “You’ve survived a week of sims, didn’t puke on anyone, and haven’t cried once. That makes you officially less pathetic than half the new guys. You’ve earned a drink... So?

Your brain, naturally, tried to stall. A bar? With actual people? And more pilots? But your mouth moved faster.

“Uh—yeah, sure,” you said quickly, the words tumbling out before your usual social panic could hit. “I could go for a drink.”

Phoenix gave a little nod, like she’d already known your answer. Like this was the inevitable next step in whatever strange, reluctant journey you’d found yourself on.

Then she jerked her chin toward the exit, already on the move.

You hesitated. “What now?”

She didn’t stop walking.

“You go back to wherever you’ve been hiding, put on something that doesn’t scream ‘high-stress lab goblin,’ and I’ll swing by in an hour.”

You blinked. “That specific, huh?”

Phoenix half-turned, walking backward again like she had a personal vendetta against stationary conversations. “It’s a bar, not a Senate hearing. No briefing, no simulations, no threat of fiery death. Just drinks. Loud music. Maybe pool. Probably bad flirting.”

And with that, she was gone—leaving you standing in the middle of the hangar, sweaty, slightly stunned, and suddenly very aware that you owned exactly one outfit that wasn’t issued or work-adjacent.

Oh no. Now you actually had to get ready.

A/N:

Heyyyyy, OMG the support for this story is wild, thank you all so so muchhh!! I honestly did not think it would get this much attention, my first draft was actually a Charlie's Angel reader lol, but I'm so happy you all enjoy this version. I did try to make it as realistic as possible, after all reader does not like to fly I can only imagine being put in her position, so she being frozen out of fear and not completing the mission feels real, at least to me.

And my apologies it took me so long to put it out. Part III is already in the works, so I think it will be out soon.

Thank you all so so much for the support and the comments and reblogs, really.

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[itsnesss]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 | max verstappen × fem!reader

summary | max has been leaving signs for you all along—hidden flowers, colors, and initials

warnings | fluff, romance, intimate moments, emotional intensity, subtle symbolism

word count | 1.2 k

🖇️ more mv1 🖇️ f1 masterlist

You don’t know exactly when it started.

Maybe it was after that race in Monaco, when you stayed late in the paddock helping him organize a few things and ended up talking for hours. Or maybe it was before, when you lent him your jacket under the rain in Spa, and he returned it with a smile that lingered with you longer than you were willing to admit.

The truth is, one day, without warning, you started noticing the little things.

The flower came first.

It was tiny. Just a brushstroke along the bottom edge of Max’s helmet, almost imperceptible. A lavender. No one else would’ve noticed it—except you. Because no one else in that paddock knew that was your favorite flower. Because you were the only one who wore lavender perfume. The only one who left dried sprigs on your desk, like a charm.

You recognized it instantly.

You didn’t say anything. You just watched him from the edge of the garage, pretending to study the tires or check data that wasn’t even your responsibility. It was easier to act like you didn’t know. Like your heart hadn’t started racing over a single gesture.

Because… how do you explain it?

How do you explain that a flower on a Formula 1 driver’s helmet can make you feel so much? How do you justify that, in the middle of roaring engines and the chaos of the paddock, something so small could cut so deep?

The first time, you thought it was a coincidence. Max had thousands of fans, and his helmet design changed from race to race. You couldn’t jump to conclusions over a tiny flower.

But then came the blue.

Not just any blue. Yours. That shade somewhere between sky and mist you wore on your nails, your favorite sweater, in the notes you left Max when he forgot things. A blue that began to show up in the details of his gloves, in a stripe on his suit collar, in the curve of a signature. Subtle. Intimate.

And that’s when you started to suspect.

Then you saw the initials.

Three letters painted inside the helmet, right beside the protective foam. Where no one would see them. Where only he could look before stepping into the car.

They were yours. Your initials.

Small, precise, etched with care and intent.

And that’s when you knew. You knew it wasn’t a coincidence. You knew he was speaking to you in another language—one without words, one of symbols and details the world ignored but you understood.

And something in you melted.

You spent weeks saying nothing.

You didn’t know how. How do you tell someone you found out they carry your essence beneath a layer of carbon fiber? How do you face a silent, hidden confession with trembling hands of "me too"?

Because you knew. You’d known for a while. That Max looked at you differently. That his tone changed when he talked to you. That his smile was softer around you. That when your eyes met amid the press chaos, there was something between you that couldn’t be explained or denied.

But he never said anything. And neither did you.

Until now.

That morning, you woke up with your heart racing. There was no race, just testing and simulations, but you knew Max would be there. Like always. Like you.

You grabbed your backpack, got ready with more care than usual, and left before you could talk yourself out of it. You couldn’t keep pretending you didn’t see what he put on his helmets. You couldn’t keep acting like you didn’t feel what you felt every time you saw him laugh, or quiet, or just being so genuinely him.

You had to face it.

And not just for him. For you.

The paddock was nearly empty when you arrived. The mechanics were focused, the air smelled of hot tires and coffee. You walked quickly, ignoring curious glances, until you reached the Red Bull box.

And there he was.

Sitting on a stool, helmet on his lap, cleaning it with those calm movements he used when he was nervous. His fingers ran a microfiber cloth over the design again and again, like he was trying to polish more than just paint.

“Max,” you called his name, firm but soft.

He looked up.

And for a second, everything stopped.

His expression shifted. From surprise to recognition, from recognition to nervousness, and from nervousness to something else. Something dangerously close to hope.

“Hey,” he said, lowering the helmet slowly. “I didn’t know you’d be here today.”

“Neither did I,” you confessed, walking toward him. “But I needed to talk to you.”

He nodded, swallowed hard. Waited.

You stopped in front of him and looked at the helmet. A new flower decorated the edge. A gentian. Your second favorite after lavender. The one you mentioned once, in Austria, while walking through the Alps.

It wasn’t a coincidence anymore.

“How many more are there?” you asked, gently touching the edge.

Max fell silent. Then he sighed.

“All of them,” he replied. “Since that time in Silverstone. When you stayed with me after the crash. Since then I started to… I don’t know. Keep you there. Carry you with me.”

Your breath caught.

“Why?”

Max looked up. His eyes were intense, but there was a tenderness that broke you inside.

“Because you make me feel stronger.

Because when I drive, when I’m going 300 kilometers an hour, you’re the only thing that calms me. And… because I want you close. Even if it’s like this. Even if you don’t notice.”

“I noticed, Max.”

He went still.

“For weeks now,” you added, with a trembling smile. “I just… didn’t know how to tell you I feel the same.”

And that’s when his eyes widened.

Like you’d activated something in him.

Like finally, the truth could come out without fear.

“Really?”

You nodded. Stepped closer. Took the helmet from his hands and set it aside. Then cupped his face with your palms, soft and slow, afraid of breaking something sacred.

“Really.”

And you kissed him.

It was slow. It was warm. It was everything he’d been waiting for, everything you’d secretly wanted for months. His hands found your waist like they’d been searching for it all along. Your fingers tangled in his hair, and for a moment, the world stopped spinning.

No cheers. No flashes. No ovations.

Just two people, and a tiny universe of silent love.

When you pulled apart, Max rested his forehead against yours, wearing a goofy smile you’d never seen on him before.

“I knew you’d see it one day,” he whispered.

“I didn’t just see it,” you said softly. “I felt it. In every race. In every hidden message. In every detail.”

He laughed, quietly.

“I guess now I’ll have to redesign the helmet. Add something bigger.”

“Like what?”

Max raised an eyebrow, that mischievous little-boy look on his face.

“I always wanted you to find out like this. Not in a press conference. Not with some big announcement. Just you and me. Here.”

“And a helmet full of secrets,” you joked gently.

He smiled, laughter shaky.

“You know me too well.”

“I watch you with my heart. What did you expect?”

He closed his eyes for a second, breathing deeply.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“I want you to come with me to the pit wall.

Be there next time I go out.

I want to race knowing you’re watching. That you know.”

You held his hand tightly.

“I always knew, Max. I just needed the courage to come say it.”

[ari-ana-bel-la]

Could you write a Dad!oscar where baby piastri insists on “driving” like her dad. Maybe she takes over his simulator at home, and he sets up a little toy car for her in the paddock. The other drivers and team members can’t stop laughing at how serious she is about it, and he’s just the proudest dad ever.

Future Champion

The paddock buzzed with the usual hum of excitement as the race weekend unfolded. Engineers scurried around, laptops in hand, as the scent of hot asphalt and motor oil filled the air. It was just another Friday, the start of practice sessions, but for Oscar, it was a bit more special.

His two-year-old daughter, Yn, was spending the weekend at the track with him.

Yn clung to his hand as they strolled through the McLaren garage, her wide eyes scanning everything with an endless curiosity only a toddler could possess. Her brown curls bounced with every step, her other hand clutching a half-eaten snack that was already crumbling against her tiny fingers.

"Daddy, what's that?" she asked, pointing at the sleek orange car parked in the garage.

"That's my car, sweetheart," Oscar said softly, crouching down to her level. "That's what I drive on the track."

Her lips parted in awe, as if she was seeing magic for the first time. "You drive that?" Her voice was filled with wonder.

He chuckled, brushing a stray curl from her face. "I do. I'm going to drive it in a bit. You want to watch me?"

Yn nodded enthusiastically, her snack momentarily forgotten. "I wanna see!"

Oscar smiled as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Alright, baby. You'll sit with Uncle Lando while I drive, okay?"

As if summoned, Lando strolled over, dressed casually in his team gear, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. "Hey, Yn," he greeted, wiggling his fingers at her. "Ready to hang out with the coolest person here?"

Yn blinked up at him with mild confusion before turning back to Oscar. "Daddy’s cooler."

Oscar let out a laugh, lifting her into his arms. "You heard her."

Lando gasped in mock offense. "Betrayed by a two-year-old!" He shook his head dramatically. "I thought we were friends, Yn."

She giggled, clinging tighter to Oscar's neck. "Daddy's best."

Oscar's heart melted at her words, and he squeezed her gently before passing her over to Lando. "Be good for him, okay? I'll be back soon."

Yn pouted for a second, but she allowed Lando to take her, nestling comfortably in his arms. "Drive fast, Daddy."

"Always," he promised with a wink before disappearing toward his car.

---

The rumble of engines filled the air as free practice one began. Yn sat perched on Lando's lap in the McLaren garage, oversized headphones protecting her little ears. Her attention was glued to the screens showing the track, her eyes scanning for any glimpse of her dad.

"He's there!" she squealed suddenly, pointing at the screen as Oscar's car zoomed through a corner.

"Yep, that's your dad," Lando confirmed, bouncing his knees slightly to entertain her. "He's pretty fast, huh?"

Yn nodded vigorously, her face lighting up with pride. "He's the best driver ever!"

Lando chuckled, adjusting her headphones when they slipped slightly. "You're his biggest fan, aren't you?"

"Yes!" she declared without hesitation, her little hands clenched into excited fists.

When the practice session ended, Oscar returned to the garage, pulling off his helmet with a relieved sigh. Before he could even process his engineers' comments, Yn wriggled out of Lando's grasp and sprinted toward him.

"Daddy!" she cried, throwing her arms up.

Oscar bent down, scooping her up in one swift motion. "Hey, sweetheart," he greeted, still catching his breath. "Did you like watching me drive?"

Her face was flushed with excitement. "I wanna drive like you!" Her words tumbled out in a mix of gibberish and enthusiasm, barely understandable.

Oscar tilted his head, frowning slightly as he tried to decipher her excitement. "You... you want to drive?"

Yn nodded, her curls bouncing again. "Yes! Like you!" Her tiny hands made a vague steering motion, as if that would clarify things.

Lando, watching the exchange with amusement, scratched his head. "Is she asking for driving lessons?"

"I think she is," Oscar murmured, his lips twitching into a smile. He shifted Yn to one hip and turned to a nearby intern. "Hey, could you grab the small McLaren car from the storage room?" he asked softly, and the intern scurried off immediately.

Yn tilted her head in curiosity. "What car?"

"You'll see, baby," he assured her, pressing another kiss to her forehead.

Minutes later, the intern returned with a sleek, kid-sized McLaren car—a perfect replica of Oscar's race car. Yn's eyes grew impossibly wide as she wiggled out of her father's arms.

"For me?" she gasped, reaching out to touch the shiny surface.

Oscar crouched down beside her. "Just for you," he confirmed, opening the tiny door. "Come on, let's get you in."

With his gentle guidance, Yn clambered into the car, her face glowing with delight. Oscar carefully closed the door, adjusting her position as she fidgeted excitedly.

"Alright, sweetheart," he said softly, pointing to the miniature steering wheel. "You hold this to steer. And if you press this button, the car will move."

Yn's fingers curled around the wheel as if it were the most precious thing she'd ever held. "Like you, Daddy?"

"Just like me," he promised, giving the car a soft push forward.

Her delighted squeal filled the pit lane as she rolled down the smooth surface, her tiny hands steering with intense concentration. She was serious—dead serious—about this.

Lando let out a low whistle. "Wow, she's already better at this than half the grid."

Oscar laughed quietly, his heart swelling with affection as he watched her. "She takes after her father."

It wasn't long before the other drivers began to notice the tiny McLaren zipping (well, crawling) around the pit lane. Max, emerging from the Red Bull garage, stopped mid-step, his brow arching as he spotted Yn.

"What is that?" Max asked, pointing toward her.

Lando leaned against a wall, grinning. "Future world champion."

Charles wandered over next, his eyes widening when he caught sight of the toddler making her slow but determined way across the lane. "Is that... Yn?"

"Yep," Oscar confirmed, not even trying to hide the pride in his voice.

"She's very focused," Charles noted, trying and failing to suppress a smile. "Maybe a little too focused."

"She's serious about this," Lando agreed. "I mean, look at her. That level of dedication at two years old? Insane."

Yn, meanwhile, was entirely unbothered by the growing audience. She tightened her grip on the wheel, her lips pressed into a little pout of concentration as she maneuvered her car in circles around the pit lane. To her, this was the most important thing in the world.

Oscar crouched down again when she rolled back toward him. "You're doing amazing, baby," he said softly. "You like your car?"

Yn beamed up at him, her cheeks flushed with excitement. "I love it!"

Lando clapped his hands together. "Alright, Oscar. When are you signing her to McLaren?"

Oscar chuckled, scooping Yn up as she reached her arms out for him. "Give her a few more years," he teased, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. "She'll be ready in no time."

Yn snuggled against his chest, sighing contentedly. "I wanna drive like you always, Daddy."

His heart melted right there on the pit lane. "And you will, sweetheart. One day, you will."

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♥︎♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Authors Note: Hope you guys enjoyed this! My requests are always open for you.

-💙🦋

[one-bravo-tango]

Simulated Engine out Failed to Land Second Attempt Tense Landing

[cressidagrey]

White Horse - Chapter 30: September 2024 - Part 1

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Isabelle Leclerc (Original Character)

Summary:

Max Verstappen is a World Champion. Isabelle Leclerc is invisible.

She watched her family give up everything for Charles’ career—Arthur’s karting, their father’s savings, even her childhood horse. She understood. She never asked for more.

But Max does. He notices the things no one else does, listens when no one else will, and puts her first in ways she never imagined. With him, she isn’t an afterthought—she’s a choice. And for the first time, she realizes she doesn’t have to be invisible.

Warnings and Notes: 

we have now moved on from Charles bashing to bashing his whole family, Discussions of toxic past relationships, talk about loosing a childhood pet, toxic families, mention of the loss of a parent.

As always big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble

Text Message: Belle Verstappen & Charles Leclerc

Belle:

I know we’re still figuring things out. But I didn’t want to let this moment pass.

You drove a perfect race today. Monza, Ferrari, the pressure — you carried all of it and made it look easy. That final stint? Surgical.

You earned every bit of that podium. And I hope, for once, you believe it too.

I’m proud of you, Charles. Really. Congratulations.

Charles:

…thank you. That means more than I know how to say.

I kept waiting for something to go wrong. For the strategy to fall apart or the engine to give up. But it didn’t. It just worked.

And hearing that from you — It kind of made it real.

Belle:

Let it be real. You deserve to keep the joy this time. Not just the pressure. And for what it’s worth — I was cheering. Loudly. The baby might be a Ferrari fan now. 

***

Instagram Stories: @/belleverstappen

***

Meanwhile on Twitter: 

@/f1girlmath:

Max lives on the grid.

Charles gets 24 hours in stories.

There’s a thesis in this. 📝

@/softforbelle:

She still posted.

Even after the birthday. After the years of silence.

She still showed up for his win.

Belle Leclerc is made of grace and titanium.

@/emotionalslipstream:

Belle Verstappen wrote a better Monza caption than Ferrari PR

and somehow still made it about him

not the noise

not the team

just Charles

@/wifemodeactivated:

Belle posting for Charles proves she’ll always be better than them.

But the feed belongs to the one who chose her first.

@/leclercfanclub:

idc what anyone says, Belle didn’t owe him a damn thing

but she still acknowledged his win

and did it in her voice

respect.

@/verstappenverse:

Charles in stories = “I’m proud of you”

Max on the grid and feed = “You’re home” 🧡

@/burnerforbelle:

“She put him in her stories, not the feed” is my new way of classifying emotional boundaries

***

The fall didn’t feel real until the pain started to bloom.

Belle hit the tile hard — first her knees, then her elbow, then her wrist. The breath fled her lungs like someone had pressed the air out of her, and for a second, she couldn’t even register the sound of the water still running above her.

She didn’t scream.

She didn’t have it in her.

Only a sharp gasp, her body curling instinctively, her left hand cradling her right wrist where it throbbed in quick, hot pulses. Her knees scraped against the tile as she tried to shift, but the ache there made her suck in another sharp breath.

It wasn’t catastrophic. It wasn’t broken. But it hurt.

The baby jumbled under her skin, like he wanted to check on her, and she reached out with her good hand, pressing it against the place where her son had just kicked her. 

Max wasn’t home. Max wasn’t even reachable. He was off somewhere in southern France, testing GT3 cars, in a no-signal zone, blissfully unaware that she was sitting alone and soaked on the bathroom floor, towel out of reach, shaking with adrenaline and trying not to cry.

Emilie was in Lisbon. 

Lando and Oscar were both in England, simulator work for McLaren. Lily was in England too, visiting family. 

Everyone she normally leaned on — gone.

Her phone had landed just outside the shower door. She crawled to it with her good hand, knees burning with every inch of movement, and once she finally grasped it, she just sat there for a moment, dripping and shivering, and stared at her contacts.

She didn't want to call anyone. She hated asking for help. Especially now, when Max wasn’t here to shield her from the vulnerability of it.

But she couldn’t drive herself.

So she texted Arthur.

Belle:

Hey. Sorry to bother you. I slipped in the shower. I think I sprained my wrist. My knees are really bruised and I can’t get up without pain. I need someone to drive me to the hospital. Are you in town?

Three dots appeared. Then vanished. Then came back.

Arthur:

Merde. Belle I’m so sorry. I’m not even in the country — I’m in Maranello. Can you call an ambulance?

Belle:

I don’t think it’s that serious. I just need help driving. It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.

Arthur:

Don’t do that. Don’t say it’s fine.

I’ll call Charles. He’s in the city. He can be there in ten. Just sit tight.

Belle stared at the screen.

Her heart sank before she could stop it.

Belle:

Please don’t. I’m fine. I’ll call a driver. Really, Arthur. It’s okay.

Arthur:

It’s not okay. You’re hurt and alone. He wants to help. Just let him. Please.

She didn’t respond right away.

She didn’t want it to be Charles. Not when she was this vulnerable. Not when the bruises hadn’t even started forming yet, but the emotional ones already ached.

But her hand was starting to shake from holding the phone too long, and her knees throbbed with every shift in position.

She closed her eyes.

Fine.

Fine.

Belle:

Okay. Just… don’t make it a big thing.

Arthur’s reply was instant.

Arthur:

Promise. He’s already on the way.

Belle let the phone drop onto the towel beside her and sat perfectly still, wrapped in silence, her wet hair clinging to her back, her wrist pulsing with each heartbeat.

It was just a fall.

Just a ride to the hospital.

But the lump in her throat said otherwise.

***

Text Messages: Arthur Leclerc & Charles Leclerc

Arthur: You in Monaco?

Charles: Yeah, why? Everything okay?

Arthur: Belle slipped in the shower. She hurt her wrist and can’t drive. I’m in Italy. She needs someone to take her to the hospital.

Charles: Wait—what?? Is she okay?? How bad?

Arthur: Sprained wrist, maybe worse. Bruised knees. She texted me because she didn’t know who else to ask.

Charles: Of course. I’ll go. Where is she?

Arthur: At their apartment. She didn’t want me to text you. I told her I would.

Charles:…Why didn’t she want me to know?

Arthur: That’s not the point right now. Just go. Be there. Don’t make it about you. Just show up.

Charles: I’m already in the car. Send me the address

Arthur: Thank you.

***

Charles didn’t know what he expected when Arthur said go to her, but it wasn’t this.

Not Belle opening the door with her wrist wrapped in gauze and her knees bruised like she’d gone twelve rounds with concrete, her bump just visible beneath the loose fall of her dress. Not the way she moved—carefully, like everything hurt. Not the way she didn’t flinch, didn’t cry, didn’t ask.

She looked pale. Shaken. Her hair still wet from the shower, curling around her cheeks. She didn’t smile when she saw him. She didn’t frown either. She just opened the door, like he was a delivery, not her brother.

And Charles… froze.

He didn’t know what he expected. Gratitude? Relief? The way she used to light up when he came home from a race? Instead, she barely looked at him.

“I’m okay,” she said, preemptively. “We’re taking my car.”

She was giving him the honor of witnessing her pain, and only under her terms.

He blinked. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me. You drive a Ferrari. I’m not climbing into a low-slung performance ego machine with two busted knees and a baby inside me.”

There was a sharp edge in her voice, and it made something twist deep in his stomach. But he didn’t argue. He just followed her down to the parking garage in stunned silence.

And then he saw it.

 A green Volvo.

Modest. Safe. The kind of car that said I care more about surviving than arriving fast. He hadn’t even known she had a Volvo. Not really. Just memories of her mentioning needing a new car after her old one had broken down. 

“This is yours?” he asked, stupidly.

Belle didn’t even look up as she unlocked it. “Second one. GP picked it.”

Charles didn’t even know where to start with that sentence. That Max Verstappen’s race engineer had apparently picked out his sister’s car or that it was the second one. 

Charles frowned. “What happened to the first?”

“It got totaled,” she said. “In the wreck earlier this year.”

She climbed into the car, leaving him standing in silence.

He swallowed. A fender-bender. That’s what he had thought it had been.

Until Lewis of all people had told him that it hadn’t been that at all. A drunk driver had ran a redlight and Belle’s car had wrapped itself around a lamppost. Still…to hear her say it like this…so simply…

He hadn’t asked if she’d been scared. Or hurt. Or alone.

She winced as she buckled her seatbelt over her belly, shifting like every motion hurt. And suddenly, all Charles could see were the bruises.

The deep purple marks on her knees. The rigid tension in her jaw. The way she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“You could’ve hit your head,” he said, too fast. “You could’ve blacked out. You’re pregnant, Belle. What if no one had picked up? What if you couldn’t get up? What if—”

“I did get up,” she said tightly, still not looking at him.

His fingers curled harder around the steering wheel. “You didn’t call me.”

“You haven’t exactly been first on my call list for a while.”

The words hit like a punch. Not cruel. Just… true. It landed heavier because she wasn’t even angry. Just tired.

“I would’ve come,” he said, his voice breaking. “If I’d known. I would’ve run.”

“I know.”

She said it so simply it wrecked him. No accusation. No pity. Just resignation.

His throat burned. He looked at her again — really looked at her. At the bump under her dress. At the bruise just visible above the knee. At the way her hand instinctively rested over her stomach, protective and automatic.

That was his little sister. Pregnant. Hurt. Alone. Because she hadn’t thought of him.

And he couldn’t even be angry about that — because he understood why.

“Your knees,” he said, voice hoarse. “They’re really bad.”

She snorted softly. “The tiles were wet. I slipped. It happens.”

But it wasn’t nothing. And Charles knew it.

“You’re pregnant, Belle.”

“Well spotted,” she said, dry as ever.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m handling it.”

She said it like she always did — like it wasn’t remarkable. Like handling it was a reflex now.

And that’s when it hit him — harder than the sight of the bruises or the bandage on her wrist. The way she sat there, composed and still, like she didn’t expect anyone to help. Like she’d stopped expecting anything at all.

“I should’ve been the one you called,” he whispered.

Belle didn’t say anything for a long time. And when she finally did, it was soft — not bitter, not sharp.

“You’ve had years to answer,” she said. “But I stopped asking.”

Charles turned his head, blinking hard, the weight of that sentence crashing down on him.

How had it gotten this bad?

“How did we get here?” he asked quietly.

Belle stared out the windshield. Then: “It didn’t get bad. You just stopped noticing when it wasn’t good anymore.”

He couldn’t breathe.

He thought about Christmases. Birthdays. The texts she’d sent during lockdown that he never answered. The way she always showed up, always made it easier, always did the work — until she didn’t.

Until she got tired of being invisible.

And now she was in pain. Carrying a child. And he hadn’t known she’d fallen until someone else told him.

He didn’t know how to fix this.

But he knew what he could do, right now.

“Let me go in with you,” he said as the hospital came into view, his voice barely steady. “Please.”

Belle looked over at him — finally. Her eyes were exhausted, but not closed off.

“…Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

And it wasn’t forgiveness. But it was something.

Charles nodded, already unclipping his seatbelt, adrenaline flooding his veins like he was pulling into the pit lane on the final lap.

He didn’t say I’m sorry. Didn’t say I’ll do better.

Not yet. Not until she believed it.

But as he got out and walked around to open her door, he said, “I’m not letting you walk into that hospital alone.”

And right now, that was all she let him give. And all he had to offer.

***

The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and old coffee.

Belle sat gingerly on the edge of the hospital chair, her knees throbbing beneath the hem of her dress, Charles’ hoodie draped over her shoulders. She wasn’t sure when he’d taken it off — only that one moment she was shivering under the air conditioning and the next, it had been gently draped around her shoulders without a word.

She didn’t thank him. He didn’t ask her to.

Charles sat next to her, one leg bouncing, hands clasped tightly between his knees. He hadn’t stopped watching her — in that quiet, wide-eyed way that made it clear he was trying not to freak out but was, in fact, absolutely freaking out.

“Does it hurt?” he asked suddenly, for the fourth time in twenty minutes.

“Yes,” Belle said dryly, “still.”

He winced. “Right. Sorry.”

She sighed, resting her head back against the wall. “I think I broke it.”

Charles looked at her wrist, wrapped in one of those temporary velcro splints the nurse had given her after triage. “I thought you said sprain?”

“I said I hoped sprain. I also said I was standing on one foot in a wet shower with a basketball where my balance used to be.” She rubbed at her forehead. “The math isn’t in my favor.”

A nurse poked her head in. “Isabelle Verstappen?”

Belle stood carefully, Charles immediately at her side.

“You can come back now. We’ll do X-rays on the wrist and an abdominal check, just to be safe.”

Charles started to follow, but hesitated at the threshold. “Should I—?”

Belle looked at him. “You’re already here. Might as well carry my purse while you’re at it.”

His shoulders dropped half an inch with relief, and he fell into step beside her like he didn’t know how to do anything else.

The X-ray was quick. The fetal monitoring took longer.

“Any dizziness? Cramping?” the nurse asked gently. 

“No,” Belle said. “Lots of movement. He kicked all the way here.”

“A boy?” Charles said suddenly, his voice hoarse. Bell turned her head towards her brother to see he him look…gutted. 

She nodded. “Your nephew.”

He blinked fast. “I didn’t think I’d find out like this.”

Belle shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t think I’d tell you in a hospital gown, but here we are.”

Charles let out a breath that sounded like it hurt. “You’re going to be such a good mom.”

She looked at him, unsure how to respond to that — the sincerity in it, the quiet awe. The grief.

So instead, she offered a small smile.

“Thanks,” she said. “I hope so. He’ll be here in before christmas. Another 15 weeks or so.”

“You’re already 25 weeks?” he asked softly.

Belle shrugged. “He’s the size of a cauliflower this week. Or a soccer ball, depending on which app you ask. Very on brand, considering the kicking.

***

Charles sat stiffly in the chair tucked into the corner of the exam room, hands clenched in his lap, elbows digging into his thighs. He hadn’t spoken much since they checked in. Not since the nurse helped Belle up onto the bed, her movements slower than usual, guarded.

And now…

Now, he couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. Or the rise and fall of Belle’s belly. Or the sound.

The sound.

It was like a bird’s wings beating in his ears. Too fast, too strong, too real.

“Is that—?” he started, but his voice cracked halfway through.

Belle nodded, eyes on the monitor. “That’s him.”

Him.

A boy.

His nephew.

There was a long, stunned silence. The doppler monitor beeped steadily in the background, like it was keeping time for a life Charles didn’t even know he’d been missing.

The nurse smiled gently as she removed the probe, wiping the slick gel from Belle’s stomach. “Heartbeat looks excellent,” she said. “Very strong. And stubborn — he kept kicking the monitor.”

Belle exhaled, half under her breath. “Gets that from his father.”

Charles looked at her then.

Really looked.

Her hair was tied back in a messy braid, frizz escaping around her temples. Her wrist was wrapped in a brace. Her knees were bruised beneath the hem of her dress. She looked tired in a way he hadn’t noticed before — not just from the fall, but from everything.

And still, she was here.

Still calm. Still composed. Still doing this alone.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I didn’t know it was a boy,” he said quietly.

Belle didn’t look at him right away. She adjusted her dress back down and sat up slowly, careful with the wrist, wincing a little as she moved.

“Well,” she said eventually, still not meeting his eyes, “now you do.”

The nurse excused herself with a warm nod, the door clicking shut behind her, and Charles was left sitting in the echo of a moment he didn’t know how to carry.

“What’s his name?” he asked, hesitating.

Belle glanced at him then — not sharply. Not warmly either. Just watching him.

“We haven’t decided yet,” she said. “There’s a list.”

He nodded. Then, after a beat:

“Can I… hear the list someday?”

Belle didn’t answer right away.

She just stared at him, unreadable, like she was trying to decide if the question cost him something or bought him something back.

And finally — finally — she said, “Maybe.”

It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t forgiveness.

But to Charles, it felt like the first green shoot breaking through a scorched field.

Hope. Tentative. Small. But there.

And for now, that was more than he’d earned.

And everything he wanted.

***

Leclerc Sibling Group Chat

(Members: Arthur, Isabelle, Charles and Lorenzo)

Charles: She’s okay. The baby’s okay too.

Arthur: God. Okay. Okay. Thanks for going with her.

Lorenzo: How bad is it?

Charles: Sprained wrist. Bruised knees. Nothing broken. They ran every test. Baby’s heartbeat is strong. Stubborn, apparently. A boy.

Arthur: Wait— She’s having a boy?

Lorenzo: ...She didn’t tell us.

Charles: No. She didn’t.

Charles: She let me come in with her. Let me hear the heartbeat. Said I could maybe see the name list.

Arthur: Maybe?

Charles: I’ll take a maybe. It’s more than I deserve.

***

Text Messages: Belle Verstappen & Raymond Vermeulen

Belle:

Hi Raymond. I know Max is in the middle of testing today and I don’t want to interrupt. Please don’t panic — everything is fine now. I slipped in the shower this morning and sprained my wrist. Got checked out at the hospital, no fracture, just bruises and a wrap. The baby is okay. He’s been kicking non-stop. We’re both fine. I know Max is testing today — no need to interrupt. Just let him know when he’s finished.

Raymond:

Belle. You fell. You’re pregnant. And you think “ We’re both fine.” is going to keep him from panicking?

Belle:

He’s testing.

He needs focus, not panic. I didn’t want to worry him while he’s working.

Raymond:

Respectfully — no. You are his wife. You are carrying his child. He would fire me if I didn’t tell him the moment I knew something happened.

You are his wife. You are carrying his child. You slipped. You got hurt. You went to the hospital. He will want to know everything.

Belle: I know.

Raymond: So when I tell him — and I will, because if I don’t, he’ll fire me— do you want me to soften it, or give it straight?

Belle:

…Softly. But honestly. Lead with “Belle and baby are okay.” Then maybe “She didn’t want to distract you mid-session, but wanted you to know.” Then the wrist.

Raymond:

Noted. He’s going to freak out anyway.

Belle:

Yeah. I know. Let me know when he’s free. I’ll call.

Raymond: He’ll be free now. Testing can wait. You don’t.

***

Text Messages: Belle Verstappen & Emilie Abadie

Emilie:

Just found the cutest little shop in Lisbon Don’t yell at me but I may have bought a tiny linen romper with embroidered lions (I blacked out, Belle, it was so small it looked like a pocket)

Belle:

Okay well now I’m crying a little so thanks for that

Emilie:

WAIT are you crying because hormones or crying because something’s wrong?? Belle?

Belle:

Don’t freak out I’m okay Just… slipped in the shower this morning

Belle:

Landed on my knees and wrist Baby kicked a few minutes after so I didn’t totally lose it I was at the hospital. Everything is fine.   Charles is with me

Emilie:

BELLE. WHAT. You slipped?! Why didn’t you call me?? Why is Charles there?? IS MAX WITH YOU?

Belle:

Max is testing GT3s today, he didn’t see my message I didn’t want to distract him while he was driving I texted Raymond — he’s going to tell him when he can And you weren’t even in the country, Em. 

Emilie:

You absolute menace I leave the country for ONE DAY and you go full final girl in your own bathroom??

Belle:

😂 That’s a dramatic way of putting it Just bruised. Wrist is sprained. Baby is fine. I promise. No bleeding. No cramps. Monitors look good.

Emilie:

Okay but also: I hate you a little right now I’m sitting in a café full of people eating pastel de nata and I just made a distressed noise loud enough to scare a baby Also I’m Googling flights Say the word and I will come home immediately

Belle:

Please don’t I’m okay I just didn’t want you to find out hours later and go full protective rage goblin on the entire continent

Emilie:

TOO LATE Also I’m keeping the lion romper Emotional compensation

Belle: Fair

Emilie: I love you. Next time you so much as trip I want a facetime. Do you understand me?

Belle:

Understood Love you too Now go eat your pastry and pretend I didn’t give you a heart attack before 10am

***

The GT3 session had been going well. Max was focused. Controlled. The way he always got once the helmet came down and the rest of the world went quiet.

The track was smooth beneath him, the car responding exactly how he wanted it to — until the pit radio crackled and Raymond’s voice came through, clipped and deliberate.

“Box this lap.”

Max blinked.

“Everything okay?” he asked, already backing off the throttle.

There was a pause.

Then: “Yeah. Just box, Max. Please.”

That please was new.

Max frowned, eased into the pit lane, and pulled into the garage with a practiced precision that didn’t match the sudden weight in his chest. The second he unbuckled and stepped out of the car, Raymond was already there — not panicked, not smiling. Still.

“Something happened,” Max said immediately.

Raymond didn’t waste time.

“Belle slipped this morning,” he said calmly. “In the shower. She’s okay. The baby’s okay. But she hurt her wrist — maybe fractured — and she bruised both her knees. She went to the hospital. She’s getting checked out now.”

Max stared at him, brain short-circuiting.

“No—what?”

“She’s fine,” Raymond said quickly, hands half-up like he was trying to keep Max from bolting. “She texted me. She didn’t want to interrupt the session. She didn’t want you to panic.”

Max didn’t move. Couldn’t.

She fell. She fell. She was alone. She got hurt and didn’t call him.

Max didn’t hear anything after “Belle slipped in the shower.”

He didn’t wait for Raymond to finish. He didn’t ask for more details. He just pulled his phone from his pocket with fingers that suddenly felt too cold, too tight, too slow.

He barely registered Raymond saying, “Max, she’s fine — they’re fine,” because his thumb was already hitting her name.

The line rang once.

Twice.

Then: “Max?”

Her voice was quiet. Soft. Tired.

“What happened?” he asked. No greeting. No preamble. Just the question that had sunk claws into his chest.

There was a beat of silence.

“Raymond told you.”

“Belle.”

“I’m okay,” she said, gentle but firm. “I slipped in the shower this morning. Bruised knees, probably sprained my wrist — maybe fractured. The baby’s fine. We got checked. Everything’s fine now.”

He sat down hard on the nearest concrete ledge, head in one hand. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“You were in the car. I didn’t want to worry you for something that wasn’t… dramatic.”

Max let out a sound — not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. “You falling while you’re pregnant is dramatic, Belle.”

“I got up. I handled it.”

“That’s not the point.”

She didn’t answer for a moment. Then: “I didn’t want you driving off a track at 200 kilometers an hour because I bruised my knees and got scared.”

He closed his eyes. “You got scared?”

Her voice cracked, just slightly. “A little. But I’m okay now. I’m home. Charles drove me back. He’s… still here.”

Max didn’t reply immediately. His hand curled tighter around the phone.

“I should have been there,” he said.

“I know,” she replied. “But it wasn’t your fault.”

He didn’t respond. Just breathed — hard and shallow — because that image was stuck in his head now. Belle, alone. Wet hair. Bruised knees. A hand clutched to her wrist. Their son, safe inside her. And Max — miles away.

“I’m coming home,” he said finally. “Now.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I need to.”

A pause. Then her voice, soft again. “Okay.”

He swallowed. “Are you in bed?”

“Couch. With ice. And a cat.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

Charles’s voice drifted faintly in the background — a low murmur, asking something — and Belle answered without pulling the phone away: “He’s on his way.”

Max stood again, the world narrowing to a single point: her.

“I love you,” he said, fierce and quiet.

“I know,” she whispered. “I love you too.”

“Give the phone to Charles.”

Belle hesitated.

“Max—”

“I’m not mad,” he said, though his voice was already fraying at the edges. “But I need to speak to him. Now.”

There was a soft shuffle, a rustle, and a reluctant, “He wants to talk to you,” followed by silence, then:

“Hello?” Charles' voice was low. Careful.

Max didn’t waste time.

“You’re still with her?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because you’re not leaving.”

Charles blinked on the other end of the line. “I wasn’t planning to—”

“No,” Max cut in, sharper now. “I mean it, Charles. You don’t leave her side until I walk through that door.”

“I—of course. I wasn’t going to—”

“You don’t let her carry groceries. You don’t let her reach for anything above shoulder height. You keep an eye on her knees, and you make sure she drinks water and eats something that’s not toast.”

Charles was silent.

“She’s going to say she’s fine,” Max said, breath catching. “She always does. She minimizes things because she’s used to being the last priority. But she’s not. Not anymore.”

Charles swallowed. “I know that now.”

“No. You start to know it now. So until I’m home — until I see her with my own eyes — you’re staying.”

“…Okay.”

Max’s voice dropped, low and fierce. “Because that’s my wife. And our son. And they’re the most important thing in the world to me. I missed the fall. I won’t miss what comes after.”

There was a long pause.

And then, quietly, Charles said, “I’ll stay. You have my word.”

Max nodded, even though no one could see him. His hand was shaking as he brought it to his face.

“Thank you.”

***

The couch was soft, and her wrist was elevated the way the doctor had told her to keep it. Ice on and off in ten-minute intervals. Max was on his way — she could feel the momentum of it like thunder approaching. He hadn’t said how far out he was. He hadn’t needed to.

Charles hovered in the kitchen, pretending to tidy up the one mug Belle had let herself leave on the counter. His movements were twitchy, like he wanted to be useful but didn’t know how to occupy the silence.

Belle lay back with a soft huff, her knees aching with every shift in position. The bump was rounded now — her belly stretching the soft cotton of the old Red Bull hoodie she was wearing. Max’s, of course.

The front door buzzed.

Charles jumped like she’d slapped him.

“It’s open,” she called.

A second later, Lorenzo appeared, windblown and pink from the autumn. Arthur followed, clutching two paper bags.

“I heard,” Lorenzo said, without preamble. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Belle said. “I just fell. That’s all. Aren’t you supposed to be in Italy, Arthur?!”

“You fell,” Arthur echoed, exasperated. “While pregnant. That’s not just anything.”

She sighed. “Please don’t turn this into a family summit.”

“You scared us,” Lorenzo added, setting one of the bags on the counter. “So we’re allowed to overreact for an afternoon.”

He pulled out a small box and held it out. “Brought cinnamon rolls. Your favorite, right?”

Belle blinked at them. Then shook her head slowly.

“I… can’t eat those. I’m allergic to cinnamon.”

The room stilled.

Arthur blinked. “Since when?”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Since always.”

Lorenzo’s brows furrowed. “But at Christmas—every year, you made cinnamon cookies. Three. Every time. One each for me, Arthur, and Charles.”

Belle smiled faintly. “I never said I ate them.”

Charles, who had been leaning against the kitchen island, suddenly looked like the floor had tilted beneath him.

“You made them every year,” he said slowly, like he was repeating a math equation he’d never properly solved. “Individually. You decorated them. You even remembered that I didn’t like the ones with the icing glaze.”

She nodded.

“But you couldn’t eat them?”

“Nope.”

“And you still made them?” His voice cracked slightly.

Belle met his eyes. Calm. Steady. “I liked the tradition. And it made you smile. That felt like enough.”

None of them spoke.

Arthur sat down heavily in the chair beside her. Lorenzo hovered near the edge of the couch, cinnamon rolls forgotten.

Charles just… stared. His mouth opened, then closed again.

Because she’d never missed a year. Not once. Every December 24th, like clockwork — cinnamon cookies. Warm from the oven. Plated and placed on the edge of the counter.

And she had never taken a bite.

“I didn’t know,” he said softly.

“I know,” Belle replied. “That’s the point.”

Belle shifted on the couch, adjusting the ice pack on her wrist as carefully as she could with one hand. Arthur had stolen the armchair like it belonged to him. Charles sat at the edge of the coffee table, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on her like she might break again if he looked away. Lorenzo had busied himself in the kitchen — not baking, not fussing, just being there. It was more than she was used to.

The box of cinnamon rolls sat unopened on the counter.

Arthur cleared his throat. “So… are we telling Maman?”

Belle didn’t even blink. “Absolutely not.”

Lorenzo let out a low, exhausted laugh from the sink. “Agreed.”

Charles looked startled. “Wait, really?”

Belle turned her head slowly. “Do you want to be responsible for the spiral?”

“She’ll call her entire prayer group,” Arthur muttered.

“She’ll show up with a duffel bag full of vitamin supplements and five volumes of prenatal food myths she found online.” Belle raised a brow. “And then she’ll refuse to leave.”

Charles leaned back slightly, frowning. “But she’d want to know.”

“Oh, she’d want to,” Belle said gently. “But we’re not talking about normal maternal concern, Charles. We’re talking DEFCON one emotional meltdown. And the second she sees a bruise, I become a cautionary tale in every conversation for the next decade.”

Arthur stretched out his legs with a sigh. “She’s been like that since Papa died. The moment one of us gets sick, she acts like it’s a prelude to a funeral.”

“It’s fear,” Lorenzo added quietly. “But it’s weaponized. Like if she controls enough of the environment, nothing bad will happen again.”

“We love her,” Belle said, softer now. “But the only thing worse than being hurt… is watching her panic about it.”

Arthur reached over and gently nudged her uninjured foot with his.

“So we’re agreed,” he said. “This doesn’t leave this room.”

“Not until the bruises fade,” Belle said.

“And Max calms down,” Lorenzo added.

Arthur looked at Charles. “You’re unusually quiet.”

Charles looked down at the floor, then back up at Belle. “I just… didn’t realize how many things you didn’t say. Because you were protecting the rest of us.”

Belle didn’t answer for a moment.

Then: “Now you do.”

And to her surprise — maybe to his too — Charles nodded.

“I won’t forget.”

***

The elevator doors opened, and Max didn’t wait for them to finish sliding apart before stepping out.

His keys were already in hand. The moment he reached the door, he didn’t bother knocking. He let himself in like it was a matter of oxygen.

The apartment was quiet — not silent, but soft with the kind of stillness that said people were there, speaking gently, keeping their voices level.

He stepped inside, heart hammering in his chest.

He saw her first.

She was curled into the corner of the couch, legs folded beneath her, one wrist wrapped and resting on a pillow, her bump rising softly under his old hoodie. Her hair was loose now, a little tangled, and she looked exhausted — but not pale. Not shaking. Just… there.

Breathing.

Safe.

His lungs unclenched for the first time in hours.

Then his eyes registered the rest of the room.

Arthur in the armchair, leaning back with his hands laced over his stomach. Lorenzo standing at the counter, cinnamon rolls on a plate he clearly hadn’t touched. And Charles — sitting on the coffee table, just a little too close to Belle, watching her with that stunned, protective expression Max hadn’t seen from him in years.

All three of them looked up the moment Max stepped inside.

The tension in the air shifted like a current.

No one said a word.

Max crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of Belle — hands hovering, unsure for the first time in a long time. His voice was barely a whisper.

“Can I touch you?”

Belle nodded.

His hands moved gently, reverently — one over her knee, the other over the swell of her bump. Then, with visible relief, he pressed his forehead to her stomach and let out a breath like it had been held since morning.

“You’re really okay?” he asked, not looking up.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “He’s okay. Just bruises.”

His hands moved up to her waist, and then he leaned in, finally cupping her face and kissing her temple — long and careful and completely unrushed.

Only then did he glance over his shoulder at her brothers.

His voice didn’t rise, but it carried.

“Thank you,” he said. “For being here.”

Arthur gave a quiet nod. Lorenzo offered a small, surprised smile.

Charles looked like he wasn’t sure whether to stay seated or stand. Max didn’t make him decide.

Instead, Max looked back at Belle.

“You should’ve called me.”

“I didn’t want you to crash a GT3 car over a bruised knee,” she murmured.

He exhaled sharply, a laugh made of panic and adoration. “You think that’s the part I care about?”

“You’re here now,” she said.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ll always be here.”

The brothers gave them space after that — drifting toward the kitchen, murmuring about tea and leftovers and whether or not Arthur remembered how to use Belle’s espresso machine.

Max didn’t move from the floor.

He just held her hand, his thumb brushing the edge of the wrap on her wrist. He hated the bandage. Hated that it was real. That she had needed anyone but him.

But she was okay.

And the baby was okay.

And for now, that was enough.

***

The apartment was quiet again.

Arthur had grumbled something about work. Lorenzo had packed the untouched cinnamon rolls with a guilty look. Charles had lingered, awkward and earnest, before Belle kissed his cheek and told him to stop looking like she was made of glass.

Now it was just her and Max.

She was back on the couch, propped up with pillows and a blanket across her lap. Max sat beside her, one leg bent on the cushion, his body angled toward hers like he was trying to physically shield her from the memory of the morning.

Neither of them had spoken much since the door clicked shut behind Charles.

Now that it was over — the hospital, the retelling, the waiting — she was finally tired. Really, truly tired in the way that settled deep into her bones. The adrenaline had faded, and with it went her deflection, her careful calm.

Max reached for her hand — her uninjured one — and pulled it gently into his lap, rubbing slow circles over her knuckles.

“You scared me,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges.

“I scared myself,” Belle admitted quietly.

He looked down at her knees, still bruised and swollen beneath the blanket. Then his eyes drifted to the wrist brace. “You’re sure nothing’s broken?”

“The scan said no fractures. Just a bad sprain. Some inflammation. The doctor said I should be good as new in a couple weeks if I rest.”

Max nodded, then tilted his head slightly. “And you’re going to rest, right? Not sneak off to your office and Studio B to ‘just review a sketch’ or organize the linen closet or…”

Belle gave him a half-smile. “You say that like I’ve ever been good at resting.”

“I’m saying it like I will hide your laptop, your phone, and maybe your entire bag if I have to.”

She laughed softly — but it faded quickly.

Max’s voice gentled. “What happened, schatje?”

Belle exhaled. “I slipped. That’s it. I wasn’t even rushing. I just… lost my balance. And it wasn’t like a movie fall, you know? It was quiet. Fast. My knees hit first. Then my wrist when I tried to catch myself.”

Max swallowed hard, his jaw twitching.

“I laid there for a while,” she added, voice barely above a whisper. “Not because I was hurt badly — but because I didn’t know who to call.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “You call me.”

“You were on track. Testing. No signal.”

“You still call me.”

Belle didn’t reply right away.

Then, softer: “I didn’t want to be the reason you lost focus. Or got hurt. Or crashed.”

Max shifted closer, cupping her face gently with one hand.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You will never be the reason I fall apart. But if you don’t tell me you’re hurting—if you ever think you have to go through something like this alone—that is what will wreck me.”

She blinked fast. “I wasn’t alone.”

“I know,” he said, brushing his thumb along her cheek. “But it should’ve been me.”

Belle leaned into his touch. “It is now.”

He kissed her forehead. Then her temple. Then the tip of her nose.

“Next time,” he murmured, “we’re putting a non-slip mat in that shower. And rubber ducks with grip soles.”

Belle let out a soft laugh, eyes fluttering closed. “So romantic.”

“Only the best for you.”

His hand slid down to her bump, and Belle covered it with her own.

“He kicked after,” she said quietly. “Right there in the hospital. Like he was saying, ‘Don’t worry, Mama, I’m still here.’”

Max didn’t speak — just rested his forehead against hers, holding their son between them with the reverence of someone who’d nearly lost everything in a heartbeat.

And in that quiet, with the fading sunlight spilling across the floor and the ache slowly retreating from her bones, Belle finally let herself feel safe again.

Because Max was here.

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

***

Text Messages: Jos Verstappen & Max Verstappen

Jos: Raymond told me what happened. Is she alright?

Max: She’s okay now. Sprained wrist. Bruised knees. Baby’s fine. I’m with her.

Jos: Good. That kind of fall could have been worse. You must have been out of your mind.

Max: Still am.

Jos: I’m glad you’re there. I know what it feels like—when they get hurt and you’re not there.

Max: I didn’t know who she’d called. It wasn’t me. That was the worst part.

Jos: She didn’t want to scare you. Women do that. Try to be strong for us even when they’re the ones bleeding.

Max: She shouldn’t have to. She’s not just strong. She’s mine.

Jos: Then protect her. Not with fists or anger. With patience. With time. With the parts of yourself I didn’t teach you how to use.

Max: I’m trying.

Jos: You’re already doing better than I ever did. Tell her I’m glad she’s okay.

Max: I will.

***

They didn’t go home right away.

After leaving Belle’s apartment, the three brothers ended up walking without saying much. First toward the marina. Then past the café Charles used to swear had the best espresso in Monaco — even though none of them had gone there in over a year.

Eventually they sat on a low bench near the water, the kind that always seemed slightly too cold, facing out toward a sky smeared in gold and soft grey.

Lorenzo leaned back, arms stretched over the back of the bench like he needed more room to think. Arthur sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees. Charles stared straight ahead.

No one said anything for a while.

Then Arthur cleared his throat. “She looked small today.”

Charles didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to.

“Not weak,” Arthur added quickly. “Just… I forgot she could get hurt like that. I forgot she was carrying someone else too now.”

Lorenzo exhaled slowly. “It’s not that I forgot. It’s that I didn’t let myself think about it.”

Charles nodded once, almost absently.

“I didn’t even remember she had a cinnamon allergy,” Lorenzo said after a pause. “And she’s been baking those cookies since we were teenagers.”

“I thought she liked doing it,” Charles said. “I thought it made her happy.”

“She made us happy,” Arthur murmured.

Silence again. Heavier this time.

“I keep thinking about the cookies,” Arthur said suddenly. “She didn’t think she was part of the tradition. She thought she was serving it.”

That landed like a rock in Charles’ chest.

He thought of the hospital earlier that day. The bruises on Belle’s knees. The way she’d looked at him when he asked why she hadn’t called. Calm. Not cold — just used to it.

He thought of Max — dropping to his knees beside her, hands trembling, forehead pressed to her stomach like it was sacred ground.

“I don’t want to be the kind of brother she has to survive around,” Charles said.

Lorenzo gave a slow nod. “Then let’s stop being that.”

“And start noticing,” Arthur added.

Charles looked out toward the water, letting the silence sit for a beat before saying, ��Do you think she’ll ever trust us again?”

Lorenzo didn’t look at him. Just said quietly, “She let us in the apartment, didn’t she?”

Arthur stood first. “That’s a start.”

And Charles — baby brother turned golden son turned witness to everything he missed — stood too.

He didn’t know how to fix it yet.

But for the first time in years, he wasn’t pretending it didn’t need fixing.

***

Text Messages: Charles Leclerc & Lewis Hamilton

Charles: I just wanted to say thank you. For being there that night. With Belle. When she had the car accident. 

Lewis:

I wasn’t going to leave her. She looked like she’d been through hell. And that car was a complete wreck. She didn’t want me to call you. When it happened. 

Charles: …what?

Lewis:

When I said I was going to call your phone, she grabbed my arm. Begged me not to.

Charles:

I didn’t… I didn’t know it was like that.

Lewis:

No. You didn’t. And I get it — families are complicated. But she didn’t trust you to see her hurt.

She didn’t believe she’d be safe if you saw her vulnerable.

Charles:

That’s not how I meant to make her feel.

Lewis:

Then change it. She didn’t need someone to fix the crash. She needed someone who wouldn’t look away from the wreckage.

Charles:

Do you think she still sees me like that?

Lewis:

I think she wants to see something else. But that’s on you. Not her.

Charles:

I’m going to fix it. I’m not going to be the person she’s scared of anymore.

Lewis:

Good. Then show up. Not just when she’s bleeding. But when she’s quiet.

That’s when she needs someone most.

***

Group Chat: HELP ME

(Members: Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz Jr., George Russell, Alex Albon, Nico Hülkenberg, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Sergio Pérez, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen, Zhou Guanyu, Logan Sargeant, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda)

Lewis: I think Charles might actually be learning. Like… real emotional growth. Apologizing. Listening. Not centering himself.

Daniel: 👏 Character 👏 Development 👏 😮‍💨 Took him fucking long enough.

Sebastian: Growth. Late, but welcome.

George: Did he cry? That’s when you know it’s real. I want misty eyes and a cracking voice.

Carlos: Crying is the bare minimum at this point. He let Belle plan his birthdays for a decade and forgot hers.

Lando: okay WHO is this Charles and what did you do with the emotionally constipated one?

Alex: Honestly though… Good for him.

Fernando: Took him long enough.

Oscar: Should we make a certificate? “Congratulations, you’re no longer a liability to your sister’s mental health.”

Logan: We should throw him a party. One he doesn’t make Belle organize.

Valtteri: I’ll bring the emotional support coffee.

David: Someone check if Charles is running a fever.

Mark: I’m just glad someone else is parenting the grid’s feelings for once.

Daniel: Progress, boys. It’s happening. Everyone hydrate and emotionally prepare.

Lewis:

He’s trying. For once, I believe him. Let’s see if he follows through.

Oscar: If he doesn’t, I vote Belle gets to slap him. On camera. For science.

Lando: I’ll bring popcorn.

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Folks talking about Game Devs dropping Unity or how it won't hurt small indie devs with under 200,000. Are missing the point.

Some of these Unity games can't change to another engine because they have years of code piled on top of each other at this point. aka POKEMON GO. They'd basically have to rebuild the game from scratch.

Not to mention Unity is mostly used by phone app games or Indie's that are lucky enough to get picked up by console. Indie games on Mobile easily pass 200,000 downloads. Temple Run 1 and 2 are in Unity, Crossy Road, Angry birds 1 and 2, and Hearthstone. All of these past 200,000 downloads years ago but aren't bringing in money now except hearthstone.

The Developers will do what happened to the first Angry birds app. They'll take it down, build it in a new engine for "HD", and add a shit ton of micro transactions. We are about to lose countless original versions of the OG pre lootbox mobile games.

We are also about to lose some of the biggest Indie games of the last decade. Among Us, Plague Inc., 7 Days to die, the original Slenderman game and it's sequel, I am Bread, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dream Daddy, Overcooked 1 & 2, Pathfinder online, Cup Head, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Oxygen Not Included, Bloons Tower Defense 6, Beat Saber, Subnautica, The Stanley Parable, Untitled Goose Game, Power Washing Simulator, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Phasmophobia

And the big one FUCKING HOLLOW KNIGHT. Silk song has already been pushed back out of this year specifically because it's being made by a team of like 3 people. It is so close to being finished and now they are being told they have to start over from scratch basically. Hollow Knight got over 200,000 downloads from being on playstation and was eventually put on Playstations subscription service. Every cent they made from hollow knight has gone back into making silk song. Which might now be delayed by multiple years and oh they are going to have to use some of that funds to pay unity now. Or find a way to get out of a contract with playstation. Because folks will keep downloading Hollow Knight for free and Unity will send the Hollow Knight team the bill.

oh and there's one more teeny tiny game made in Unity that you guys might not want to suddenly disappear. One with almost 3 years of monthly code updates, one with 139 million downloads to date, and 4.8 million monthly users.

Genshin. Guys Genshin Impact is made completely in Unity and that's not a game that can have it's code just copy and pasted to another engine.

[fanfictionismyaddiction]

Y/n vs. Lando’s Simulator Addiction

Word count: 620

Pairing: Lando Norris x reader

Summary: Y/n is tired of Lando prioritizing his sim racing over romantic dates.

________________________________________________________

Y/n leaned against the doorway of Lando’s gaming room, arms crossed, watching him with an unimpressed expression. His eyes were glued to the triple monitors, fingers effortlessly working the wheel and pedals as if his life depended on it. The sound of tires screeching and engines roaring filled the room.

This had become their routine. Lando had free time? Straight to the sim. Morning? Sim. Afternoon? Sim. Midnight? Still sim. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate his dedication—God, she loved how passionate he was—but she was starting to feel like she was competing with a machine for his attention.

“You know,” she finally spoke, making Lando flinch slightly, “I think I deserve some quality time that doesn’t involve me watching you pretend to drive a car.”

Lando barely spared her a glance. “Babe, this isn’t pretending. It’s training.”

Y/n rolled her eyes. “Training for what?”

“This is serious business,” he said, still hyper-focused. “You wouldn’t get it.”

Oh, that did it. Y/n straightened, jaw tightening. He wouldn’t get away with dismissing her like that.

“Okay, McSimBoy. Let’s make a bet,” she declared.

That finally got his attention. Lando paused the game and turned to her with a smirk. “Oh? You wanna bet me? On the sim? You’ve never even raced before.”

“Exactly,” she said, playing up her inexperience. “So, if I win, you owe me five romantic dates. I get to pick them, and no complaining.”

Lando laughed, tilting his head back. “This is the easiest bet I’ve ever made. And when I win?”

Y/n shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

He grinned. “Alright, then. You’re on.”

What Lando didn’t know was that Y/n had been training in secret for weeks—with none other than Max Verstappen as her coach.

“You know,” Max had said during their first training session, “this might be the most fun I’ve had in years.”

Y/n huffed, gripping the wheel as she tried to keep up with him on the Red Bull simulator. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or scared.”

“A bit of both,” Max smirked.

Every day, Y/n had dedicated hours to perfecting her skills, learning everything from racing lines to braking techniques. Max was relentless, but she loved every second of it. The best part? Lando had no clue.

Lando sat in his usual seat, all confidence, fingers flexing over the wheel. Y/n took her place beside him, cool and composed.

“Ready to lose, love?” he teased.

She simply smiled. “We’ll see.”

The lights went out, and the race began.

Within the first lap, Lando was concerned. By the second lap, he was nervous. And by the third? He was absolutely terrified.

Y/n was fast—not just “surprisingly good” fast, but “how the hell did you get this fast?” fast. She nailed every corner, executed flawless overtakes, and blocked him with zero hesitation.

Lando, gripping the wheel in disbelief, finally shouted, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!”

Y/n grinned. “Guess I do get it after all.”

Max, watching the whole thing from Y/n’s phone on FaceTime, burst out laughing. “Lando, mate, you’re getting cooked!”

Lando’s eyes widened. “MAX?! YOU TRAINED WITH MAX?!”

“Oops,” Y/n said playfully. “Forgot to mention that part.”

Despite his best efforts, Lando couldn’t recover. Y/n crossed the finish line first, throwing her hands up in victory.

“YES! YOU OWE ME FIVE DATES!” she cheered.

Lando sat back in defeat, running a hand down his face. “This is the most betrayed I’ve ever felt.”

Y/n leaned in, pecking his cheek. “You’ll live. Now, start planning date number one.”

And just like that, the simulator had finally lost its grip on Lando Norris.

[kxsagi]

HEYYYY I JUST CAME HERE TO SAY THAT I LOVE YOUR WORKS!! And also, are perhaps a fan of f1? If you are, can you please make a blue lock boys x f1 driver!reader? I think it’s a cool crossover and I haven’t seen a lot of them in the blue lock fandom so it would be nice to have new contents💗

“𝐯𝐚 𝐯𝐚 𝐯𝐨𝐨𝐦”

a/n: THANK YOU BABES!!!

i'm not a serious fan, but i do think that F1 is cool as hell and i would def be down to see the movie!

ft. isagi yoichi, itoshi rin, itoshi sae, nagi seishiro, mikage reo, shidou ryusei, kaiser michael, karasu tabito, and barou shoei

isagi yoichi

isagi’s already obsessed with reading plays, so the moment he saw you overtaking two cars on a rainy track at 300 km/h, he short-circuited. 

“did you see how she predicted that corner?? she didn’t even brake. she’s literally– oh my gosh i’m in love with her.” 

he’s your biggest cheerleader. he wears your merch to blue lock practice. he made his own "driver! you x isagi" twitter account and keeps replying “W” under every race win post. 

he tries to relate by talking about how football also requires good reflexes and team strategy… but you once let him sit in your simulator and he crashed in 0.4 seconds. 

“yoichi, there’s a wall, don’t–” BOOM 

refuses to let you drive him anywhere but gets incredibly flustered when you call him “slowpoke.” 

“i’m not slow! you’re just– you’re literally trained for this!!” 

when you bring him to a race for the first time, he wore noise-cancelling headphones, sunscreen, and packed three bottles of water. boy was acting like he was going to war. 

itoshi rin

rin swears he doesn’t care, but he has your race schedule memorized down to the millisecond. 

“you’re racing in monaco this week, right? i checked the weather. track’s gonna be tricky. don’t fuck it up.” 

he says that with his arms crossed, standing outside your trailer with a bag full of fresh fruit and electrolyte drinks. 

jealous of your car. not in a weird way, just bitter. “why does she talk to the car like that. i swear i heard her say ‘good girl.’” 

you offered to take him for a lap once and he glared at you like you just insulted his entire bloodline. 

secretly goes insane when he sees you in your race suit. he pretends not to look, but his eye twitches. 

if anyone tries to flirt with you on the grid, rin is immediately in silent death glare mode. 

“are they your engineer or something?” “that’s the FIA president.” “okay. and?” 

itoshi sae

sae fell for you the moment you told a reporter to “grow a pair” when they asked if racing as a woman was “too dangerous.” 

has a very dry but deeply supportive boyfriend style. posts one photo of you on his story like “podium again. cool.” 

but he’s literally watching the livestream, checking your sector times, and texting your team principal like “she needs new tires. tell her.” 

when he visits the paddock, everyone’s scared of him. it’s giving silent, rich, bored, and disgusted by most people. 

you once threw your helmet in rage after a DNF and he simply picked it up, handed you a water bottle, and said: “you’ll destroy them next week. now stop sulking.” 

secretly wants to kiss you after every race, but acts like he’s too cool for PDA. 

when you crash for the first time (even if it’s minor), he FLIES out of his seat and almost decks a camera guy on his way to the medical center. 

nagi seishiro

“woah, you drive go-karts for a living? sick.” “… it’s formula 1, sei.” 

doesn’t know what’s going on most of the time, but loves tagging along because the seats are comfy and you keep winning. 

he finds the speed kind of fun… until you take him drifting in a parking lot at night. 

“okay i’m gonna throw up. i saw my soul leave my body.” 

nags you to buy him team jackets in every color. now he’s got the full outfit: oversized jacket, hat, lanyard, and even a custom “NAGI” headset. 

he once got bored during qualifying and fell asleep in the hospitality suite. woke up when you won pole and went: “yay, good job, babe.” 

his phone background is you mid-race with your visor down. you asked him why and he went: “you look like a cool villain. i like it. run me over, next?” 

mikage reo

THE MOST SUPPORTIVE BOYFRIEND EVER. he’s literally built to be a paddock husband. 

walks around the grid with a rolex, sunglasses, and a laminated pass with “DRIVER GUEST - REO MIKAGE” like it’s the met gala. 

screams when you overtake someone. leaps up in celebration like he just won the world cup. 

“SHE’S P1! SHE’S P1, BABY, LET’S GOOOO!!!” 

once tried to bribe your race engineer to let him wear your helmet for “just one picture.” 

owns every possible merch item with your face on it. mousepads. pillows. tote bags. even a personalized coffee mug that says “#1 DRIVER GIRLFRIEND.” 

he is so down bad every time you take your gloves off. 

“how are your hands so hot when you just drove for 2 hours straight. what the hell. marry me.” 

already planning a rich people wedding at a racetrack. he’s dead serious. 

shidou ryusei

“babe. listen. let me ride on top of the car. just once. just while it’s moving. i need the rush.” 

absolute menace in the paddock. he’s not allowed to touch anything anymore after he once tried to rev the engine mid-setup. 

he finds everything about you so hot. the danger. the speed. the fact that you can do donuts in a $20 million car. 

“yo that crash was INSANE– wait, you’re okay right? good. now that crash was SICK.” 

wears your race suit around the house. nothing else. 

makes out with you after every race like it’s the end of the world. doesn’t care who’s watching. 

he yells your name from the grandstands. not even cheers. just: “I’M GONNA PROPOSE IF YOU WIN THIS!!!” 

and when you do win, he’s already climbing over fences like a madman. 

kaiser michael

he thinks you’re a goddess. 

he first saw you doing a victory burnout and now refuses to shut up about it. 

“do you know how fucking cool you are? i should be the one asking for your autograph.” 

ultra cocky boyfriend energy but he melts when you call him your “pit crew” after a long race. 

“pit crew? i’d change your tires with my teeth.” 

literally flexes you like a trophy. has you as his lockscreen, home screen, and contact photo. your name in his phone is “speed demon 🏎️❤️” 

gets super into the sport. buys your whole team dinner when you win. roasts rival drivers. 

“that guy behind you? yeah. he’s shaking. peed himself probably.” 

you let him sit in your car once and he wouldn’t get out. said “i live here now.” 

karasu tabito

okay so karasu is OBSESSED. 

he is a strategy nerd and immediately starts watching all your onboard footage, analyzing your corner exits like it's his life mission. 

“babe, you’re literally the queen of late braking. who taught you that? marry me.” 

wears a team jacket with your number embroidered on the sleeve. brags about you to everyone. 

“oh yeah my girl drives 350 km/h for a living. no biggie. she could probably drift better than you walk.” 

flirts with you while you're driving. always. 

“focus on the road,” you say. 

“oh i am, baby. especially when you’re in the driver's seat.” 

you once did donuts in a parking lot while he stood in the middle hyping you up with his phone camera. 

top commenter on all your socials: “she fast AND hot??? how is this legal???” 

barou shoei

he thought you were insane. like clinically insane. 

“why the hell would you drive that fast for that long. on purpose.” 

barou is a control freak and hates the idea of not being in charge, so the first time he sat shotgun while you were driving he nearly screamed. 

he clutched the seat. he held onto the door. he made you swear on your life not to drift again. 

“I SAID TURN LEFT, NOT LAUNCH INTO ORBIT–” 

but he deeply respects your work ethic and competitiveness. 

says stuff like “don’t let those bastards pass you” while tying your gloves for you pre-race. 

and when you win? he goes feral. 

doesn’t even celebrate, just pulls you into his arms and says “that’s my girl.” 

also the only one who glares at paparazzi until they get scared and run. 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[ice-man-goes-bwoah]

So I just saw that you want an ask about plus size reader and f1 driver👀 I'm a Lando Norris fan so can I please ask about him? Maybe plus size reader is his physical therapist and looks after him and makes him happy and he in return is so down bad that if anyone says or does sth disrespectful he is so defensive he always has her back and he shows that he loves her every single minute ❤️ I really hope you have many plus size reader asks cause as a midsize girl myself I really don't see many fics to represent us

All the ways you look at me||Lando Norris x mid size reader

Summary —Y/N lands the job as Lando Norris’s physical therapist, neither of them expects much beyond rehab sessions and recovery plans. But as shared glances turn into inside jokes and late-night conversations, a quiet friendship begins to blossom—one that tiptoes into something deeper to bad they are scared to take the fall into something more than friendship.

Word count—8k

Thank you @fuckoffbard for reading this for me!

A/n—depending on how well this does I’ll do a part two

"Come on. You can do this. It’s your first day meeting everyone; you’ve had plenty of first days, so this should be easy,” Y/n said to herself. She sat in the parking lot of the McLaren Technology Centre, where she was to meet her new team. Taking a deep breath, she let it out and opened her eyes. “Okay, I’m ready.” She opened the door to her car, stepped out, grabbed her iced coffee, badge, and bag, and walked to the building. 

The scenery was beautiful. The McLaren Technology Center was secluded from the rest of civilization in a big field hidden behind trees. There were two buildings: the factory itself and the headquarters. That's where she was going.

 Walking up the pathway, she admired the bean-shaped building with the little pond that was next to it. It was definitely something she could get used to seeing on a daily basis. Once she was up to the door, she took out her badge and put it up to the scanner to open the door. As the door opened, she was welcomed by the nice, cool air and the beautiful interior of the building. 

The lobby was filled with F1 cars and cars that McLaren had produced over the years. To the right of her was the staircase and the elevator that led to the second floor, and in front of her were the trophy cases that held all the trophies that the team had won over the years. The building was truly beautiful with its simple and futuristic design. 

“Can I help you?” A voice snapped her out of her thoughts. 

She cleared her throat and held out her hand. “Yes, hi, I’m Y/n, I’m the new physical therapist. I’m here for the team meeting. I'm supposed to meet everyone.” 

The owner of the voice shook her hand and spoke softly but friendly, “Hello y/n, I’m Sarah, I’m part of the social media team. I’m heading that way so I can help you get there.” Sarah said, shaking Y/n's hand.

“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you,” Y/n replied with a smile. 

Sarah led Y/N through a maze of corridors and open workspaces, the hum of quiet conversations and the occasional keyboard tapping following them as they walked.

“This place is like a spaceship,” Y/n murmured as she looked around.

Sarah laughed. “Right? Wait until you see the simulator room. Total sci-fi vibes.”

They stopped outside a wide conference room with frosted glass panels through the translucent windows. She could see shadows shifting and hear a few muffled voices from inside. 

“You’ll be great.” Sarah said, giving her a small nudge, “Come on.” 

Y/N took one last calming breath and stepped inside.

The room was already half full—engineers, mechanics, PR staff. A few people turned to glance at her as she entered, their expressions curious but friendly. At the far end of the table, there were two guys, one was balancing his chair on its two back legs while trying and failing to balance his pencil on his nose. The other one had an unimpressed look on his face while trying not to smile or laugh at the other’s antics. 

Y/N immediately knew who they were—Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Even without the uniforms and team gear, their energy gave them away.

She took a moment to observe them from where she stood, unnoticed for now. Lando had that easy, magnetic kind of charm—the type that could dissolve tension with a grin and a well-timed joke. He moved with confidence, expressive hands, and animated eyes, clearly the kind of person who filled a room without even trying.

Next to him, Oscar was a striking contrast. He was quieter, his posture more composed, his words more measured. While Lando spoke with his whole body, Oscar listened with stillness. His eyes were sharp and observing, like he was always a few steps ahead in his head, even when he didn’t say much.

They worked like a natural counterbalance. Lando brought the lightness, Oscar the grounding. It was a rhythm—one teased, the other gave dry comebacks; one stirred things up, and the other reined them in without needing to say much. And somehow, it worked.

“They’re like opposites, but at the same time, they work so well together.” Y/N thought, a small smile tugging at her lips. 

 Suddenly, she felt a little less nervous. Because despite their differences, there was something oddly comforting about the way they fit together. Like maybe this place wasn’t going to be so intimidating after all.

Especially if Lando kept looking at her the way he just did.

His head tilted slightly like he was trying to place her. His eyes flicked from her face to the badge clipped to her shirt and back up again. Then he smiled—lazy, crooked, and so bright it made her stomach flip.

“You must be the new Physio,” he said, “I was starting to think they were making you up.” 

Y/n blinked slightly, off guard by the friendliest tone of his voice. 

“Nope, very real. I even brought an iced coffee and everything.” She joked, holding up her iced coffee and giving it a little shake. 

A few people chuckled, the tension easing, and Lando's smile widened. 

“Then we’re going to get along just fine.” 

Zak Brown stood and clapped his hands for attention.

“Everyone, this is Y/N. She’s officially joining us this season as part of the performance and health team—working closely with you, Lando.”

“Lucky me,” Lando muttered with a grin.

Y/N rolled her eyes playfully.

“We’ll see how lucky you feel after your first deep tissue session.”

More laughter followed, and a few people around the table gave her nods of approval or polite greetings. Someone even muttered, “Bold move on day one,” with a grin.

As the meeting began and the briefing started, Lando leaned slightly toward her seat, voice low so only she could hear.

“Seriously, though. Welcome. We’re glad to have you.”

She turned her head just enough to meet his eyes.

“Thanks. I’m glad to be here.”

But her heart was racing. Because while she came here expecting professionalism and a great work performance, she hadn’t expected him.

Over the course of the few months that Y/N joined McLaren, she really had made her mark on the team. She and Sarah are quickly becoming friends, the two of you often meeting up for coffee dates and other things that friends do. 

Y/N’s office doubled as her Physio room, in the corner was her desk with her laptop and a couple of other personal items that made the space truly hers. On the other side of the room was a table where the mats, foam roller, and other supplies sat, and in the center was the padded table. 

Y/n was reviewing Landos' training notes Landos's trainer sent to her tablet when the door creaked open. 

“Morning,” came that familiar voice—soft, a little smug, a little sleepy.

She glanced up. “You’re late.”

Lando strolled in like he wasn’t, tossing his water bottle on the bench. “You’re early.” 

Y/N raised a brow unimpressed “Try that again but imagine that I haven’t heard it from every cocky athlete I’ve worked with.” 

He grinned, “touché” 

She nodded towards the mat, “Shoes off, warm-up stretches, let’s go.”

He obeyed, stretching his arms overhead and settling onto the mat with an exaggerated groan. “You’re scarier than my last physio.”

“That’s because your last physio didn’t have to deal with you constantly flirting with him.” 

“True. He didn’t look this good, either.” Lando remarked, admiring Y/N’s curves. 

God, he would give anything just to hold her—to let his hands rest on her hips, fingers curling around the softness he admired far more than he probably should. She was all curves and comfort and warmth, and it was unfair how often his mind drifted to her when he was supposed to be focused.

He swore she was made for him. It just made sense. His hands were big—meant to anchor, to hold, to fit—and when he looked at her, he couldn’t help but imagine how perfectly she’d settle against him.

His thoughts flicked back to three months ago when they’d trained together outside under the sun. She’d worn those leggings—the ones that clung just right, hugging the shape of her legs, her thighs, her hips. He remembered watching her move, muscles working under soft curves, grace and power woven together. He hadn’t meant to stare. But he did.

And the worst part?

He still remembered how she’d smiled at him afterward. She didn’t even realize the way she knocked the air out of his lungs.

Y/n didn’t even blink when she turned to face him. “Flirting won’t save you from the foam rollers.”

“Damn.” He gave her a mock-wounded look. “You are immune.”

Truthfully, she wasn’t. Not even close. But she had a job to do. 

Y/N crouched beside him, guiding his leg into position. “How’s the left quad feeling?”

He shifted slightly. “Tight. Not awful, though.”

“Alright. Let me know if anything feels off.”

Her hands moved to his thigh, fingers firm but practiced as she applied pressure, feeling for tension. He stilled a little under her touch, his gaze flickering down to her.

“Are you always this focused?” he asked quietly.

Her brows lifted. “Are you always this chatty during treatment?”

“Only when I’m trying not to think about your hands being on my leg.”

That earned him a warning look, though the corner of her mouth twitched. “Behave.”

He smiled—but it was softer this time. Not smug. Not cocky. Just…warm.

For a moment, silence settled between them, the only sound the quiet hum of the AC and the shuffle of movement. She moved around him to adjust his arm, her fingers brushing his skin.

He looked up at her. “You’re good at this.”

She paused. “Thanks. It means a lot. Especially from someone who can’t sit still for longer than a minute.”

He chuckled. “I sit still for you.”

That stopped her. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and something in his expression made her chest tighten. It wasn’t teasing. It was sincere.

Dangerous, that kind of sincerity.

Y/N cleared her throat and stepped back slightly. “Alright. Upon the table. Let’s check that shoulder mobility.”

Lando obeyed with a faint smirk. “Yes, boss.”

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks felt warm.

And he noticed. Of course, he noticed. He’d always noticed. 

Truth is, Lando loved the way her face flushed, and then she bit her bottom lip trying not to give him the satisfaction that he made her feel this way, she was never successful. 

And he found it adorable. 

Y/N stepped around the table to check the alignment of Lando’s shoulders, her fingertips pressing lightly along his upper back. “Drop your right shoulder just a bit,” she murmured.

He obeyed, head tilted slightly toward her. “You know, you’re very serious when you’re in work mode.”

“That’s because I am working,” she replied, eyes flicking up toward him.

“Yeah, but like—intensely serious. Like mission control, seriously. I bet you’d threaten to take someone’s kneecaps if they did a stretch wrong.”

She snorted. “I’ve never threatened kneecaps. Hamstrings, though? Fair game.”

Lando grinned at that, leaning back slightly on his elbows, watching her as she made a few notes on her tablet. “You must be fun at parties.”

“I’m a riot,” she said dryly, glancing up. “But only if someone needs help foam rolling their Iliotibial band.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It was.”

He laughed, and for a moment it felt easy—normal. The line between physio and friend blurred slightly in the warmth of their shared amusement.

Y/N set the tablet down and nodded toward the floor again. “Back to the mat. Let’s work on hip mobility.”

He groaned but complied, flopping onto his back dramatically. “You just like bossing me around.”

“It’s not that I like it,” she said, kneeling beside him, “It’s that you’d be hopeless without me.”

He blinked up at her with mock offense. “Hopeless? Excuse me—I am an elite athlete.”

“Who forgot how to do a proper glute bridge three weeks ago?”

“That was one time.”

“Twice.”

Lando gave her an exaggerated glare, then pointed at her. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Oh?” she teased, adjusting his knee with a light touch. “Is that why you’re being so dramatic this morning?”

“No, that’s just who I am.” He gave her a soft grin. “But seriously—I do like working with you. You’re not like the others.”

Y/N paused, hands still on his leg. “Is that a compliment or a red flag?”

“A compliment,” he said, softer this time. “Most people treat me like a brand. You treat me like… I don’t know. A human.”

For a beat, their eyes met again. It wasn’t flirtatious-not-not-not-not-not-not—not really. Just honest.

“I guess I figure you already have enough people telling you what you want to hear,” she said quietly.

His smile widened a little, less cocky now. “You’d tell me if I sucked at something, huh?”

“Absolutely. No hesitation.”

“See?” He gestured vaguely. “Hopeless without you.”

Y/N rolled her eyes but couldn’t fight the smile tugging at her lips. She pressed gently on his hip, making him flinch.

“Hey! Abuse!”

“Mobility,” she corrected.

“You enjoy this way too much.”

“Only when you whine.”

He grinned up at her again, and for a second, something warm settled between them. It was subtle. Easy. The beginning of something unspoken.

Once the session was over, Lando dropped onto the bench near the corner of Y/N’s office, sweat dampening the edges of his curls as he reached for his water bottle. Y/N tossed him a clean towel from a nearby shelf.

“Here,” she said, settling onto the floor across from him with her bottle. “Try not to collapse dramatically on my floor next time. I might not be so kind.”

He caught the towel with a grin. “You love it. Gives you an excuse to roll your eyes at me.”

She took a long sip of her water. “You give me plenty of those without nearly fainting mid-stretch.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Okay, that was one time.”

“Twice, actually, and you faked it. Both times,” she replied with a smirk.

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

He pointed at her, mock offended. “You and Oscar are going to start a club at this rate.”

“‘The Times Lando Was Wrong’ club? I think there’s already a group chat.”

Lando laughed, head tipping back slightly. “God, you do fit in here.”

She blinked at him, surprised by the softness in his voice.

“I mean it,” he added, more quietly now. “The team likes you. It’s been…lighter since you showed up.”

Y/N’s brow furrowed slightly. “Lighter?”

“Yeah. You bring this kind of energy—like, calm but still sharp, you know? It’s a good balance.”

She wasn’t used to compliments like that, especially not ones that sounded so genuine.

“Well,” she said after a beat, “someone’s got to balance your chaos.”

He smiled at that. “You calling me chaotic?”

“I’m calling you exhausting.”

He laughed again, eyes crinkling. “You’re mean.”

“Only to the ones I like.”

He looked at her for a moment—looked. And for once, he didn’t shoot back a flirty line or a joke. Just smiled.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said simply.

Her breath caught. But then she smiled too, soft and a little surprised.

“Me too.”

They sat in the quiet for a few seconds longer, sipping water, the faint hum of the building in the background. Outside the window, the sun was high, casting soft shadows on the floor.

“I’ll probably regret saying this,” Lando said after a moment, “but you can drag me through those stretches again next time if you want.”

“Oh, I will,” she promised.

“God help me,” he muttered, shaking his head—but he was still smiling.

A few days later, Y/N and Sarah sat at an outdoor café nestled on a quiet street in Woking, the warm spring air wrapping around them like a soft sweater. The table was cluttered with two half-drunk iced coffees, a slice of cake they were sharing, and the occasional gust of wind that kept threatening to blow Sarah’s napkin off the table.

“I swear,” Sarah said between bites, “if we keep meeting here, the barista is going to start calling us regulars.”

Y/N grinned, pulling her cardigan tighter around her. “We already are. The barista knows our order.I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“God, you’re right. That’s dangerous.” Sarah paused to sip her coffee, then gave Y/N a look over the rim of her cup. “Speaking of danger…”

Y/N raised a brow. “What is it?”

“Look who’s here.”

Y/N turned her head—and sure enough, Lando was walking across the street, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, curls a little messy, sunglasses perched on his head. He hadn’t spotted them yet, distracted by something on his phone.

Sarah leaned closer, conspiratorial. “He looks relaxed. Like really relaxed. Must be your influence.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, but her cheeks warmed. “Stop.”

“I’m serious! I’ve worked with him for years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this chill during a season. You’re good for him. He listens to you.”

Y/N snorted. “That’s because I threaten him with foam rollers and ice baths.”

Sarah laughed. “Maybe, but it works. You’re a good team, you know?”

Before Y/N could respond, Lando looked up and spotted them.

A wide grin immediately spread across his face, and he jogged the last few steps over to their table.

“Well, well, well,” he greeted, dropping into the empty chair beside Y/N without asking. “Didn’t expect to see you two here. Or should I say, the office dream team?”

Sarah raised her brows. “Crashing girl time? Bold move.”

He shot her a cheeky grin. “What can I say? I live on the edge.”

Y/N nudged his leg with her foot under the table. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Canceling all plans immediately,” he said, propping his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. “Unless you’re kicking me out.”

Y/N bit back a smile, and Sarah just gave her a look—the kind that said this is exactly what I meant.

They chatted for a while, laughter threading easily through the conversation. Lando didn’t even seem to notice how comfortable he looked, slouched in his chair, legs stretched out, occasionally stealing bites of their cake. It felt natural. Uncomplicated.

And when Y/N caught Sarah looking at her with a knowing smirk, she just shook her head with a laugh and looked away.

Late nights had become something of a routine for them now. It started with playful iMessage games—8 Ball, Cup Pong, Darts. A way to unwind after long days. Eventually, the games were followed by texts, then voice notes, then full-blown calls that stretched into the early hours of the morning.

Y/N had learned a lot about Lando during those calls. How he hated olives but loved olive oil. He always watched one episode too many when he promised he’d go to bed early. How silence didn’t scare him, and how his laughter sometimes sounded like relief.

They’d grown close.

So close when the new season began, and she started to notice him pulling away—she noticed.

He was Lando, still cheeky and warm and kind. But now there was a weight behind his smile. A slump in his shoulders when he thought no one was looking. Most of all, there was tension in how quiet he got when scrolling through his phone, the way his jaw would tighten, thumb hovering over a screen that never seemed to offer good news.

The race hadn’t gone as well as they’d hoped. The car was temperamental, the strategy of. The media had been brutal. And Lando… Lando was taking it personally.

It was past midnight when Y/N’s phone buzzed.

Lando: You up?

Y/N: Always. Need to talk or need to be distracted?

It took a minute before the typing bubbles appeared.

Lando: a bit of both. I'm just… tired. Of people. Of messing up. Of feeling like I’m not enough.

Y/N’s heart sank. Without thinking, she called him.

He picked up after the first ring.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Talk to me.”

There was a pause on the other end, then a shaky breath. “I know I shouldn’t let it get to me. The comments. The press. The expectations. But it’s like… I can’t shut it out this time. Everyone’s already written me off.”

“Lando…” she murmured, shifting on her bed. “You are not what those people say you are. You’ve done more in the past few years than most people ever get close to. You work your ass off. You care. You’re allowed to be disappointed—but not to forget who you are.”

He didn’t speak for a second.

“I just don’t want to let anyone down,” he said finally, voice quiet. “Especially not you.”

She blinked at the ceiling, her heart squeezing. “Hey. You couldn’t let me down even if you tried. I’m here. Always. Whether you’re on pole or P18. That doesn’t change.”

He let out a breath—this time, steadier. “I hate how you always know what to say.”

“That’s because you’re not very mysterious,” she teased gently. “Plus, I’m a genius.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Debatable.”

“Shut up. Let me hype you up.”

Lando grew quiet again, but this time it felt like peace instead of pressure.

“Thanks, Y/N,” he said after a beat. “For always answering. For always being… you.”

“Always,” she whispered. “Now get some sleep. I’ll beat your ass at 8 Ball tomorrow.”

He chuckled. “Dream on.”

But she heard the smile in his voice, and that was enough.

The paddock buzzed with media, team personnel, and the hum of anticipation. Cameras flashed, journalists circled like hawks, and mechanics moved with quiet urgency. But Y/N had learned to find her pockets of calm. She had her coffee, her notes, and her well-practiced ability to look like she was busier than she was.

She spotted Lando from across the garage.

Cap low, hoodie pulled over his race suit, jaw set.

But when his eyes found hers, something shifted. His shoulders relaxed just slightly, and his mouth twitched up at one corner.

He made his way over, slipping through the chaos like it didn’t faze him, though she knew better.

“Hey,” he said softly, voice only for her.

“Hey,” she replied, equally quiet.

“You beat me at 8 Ball,” he muttered.

She grinned. “Told you I would. Should’ve let me hype you up before the game, too.”

He laughed under his breath. It wasn’t loud, but it was real. And that felt like a win.

“You sleep okay?” she asked, watching his face.

He nodded, nudging her lightly with his elbow. “I did. You helped.”

“Good,” she said. “Now don’t let any of those trolls live rent-free in your head today. You’re here for you. For the team. And maybe a little bit for the drama.”

That pulled a wider smile from him. “You’re better at pep talks than my old sports psych.”

“Probably better looking too,” she teased, sipping her coffee.

He didn’t deny it.

They stood there a beat longer, just existing in each other’s calm before the noise swallowed them whole again.

Will called him over, and Lando straightened up.

“Time to go to work.” He said, turning away.

But before he went, Y/N called for him to come back. 

He glanced back at her. “What is it?” He asked.

Y/n bit her bottom lip in the nervous way Lando loved, but he would never admit that, and walked up to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a light peck on the cheek. 

“For good luck,” she said, flushed.

Lando smiled, and he smiled hard. So hard that it hurt, and he carried that smile out onto the grid. 

The roar of the crowd was still echoing in the paddock. Orange flags waved from the grandstands, mechanics were cheering, champagne sprayed somewhere nearby—and Lando stood on top of the world.

He’d done it.

His first win of the season. 

It didn’t hit him all at once. It came in waves—the checkered flag, his race engineer yelling in his ears, the blur of the final lap flashing back in his mind. But now, standing next to his car with confetti still drifting down like slow-motion snow, it hit.

And he smiled.

No, he beamed.

Because the first thing he saw when he turned around was her.

Y/N had pushed through the crowd just enough to stand on the edge of the garage, a breathless grin on her face and pride in her eyes.

He didn’t think. He didn’t hesitate.

He jogged straight to her, still in his suit and helmet, sitting on the first-place table stand, and before she could even say a word, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground like she was weightless. 

She let out a startled laugh, clinging to his shoulders. “Lando!”

“I did it!” he yelled, spinning her once before setting her back down, still holding her like he wasn’t ready to let go.

“I know! I watched it happen!” she said through a laugh, breath catching at how happy he looked.

He leaned his forehead against hers for a second, grinning like an idiot. “It was a kiss. I’m telling you. You kissed me and boom—podium. Easy math.”

She flushed. “I didn’t say it was that kind of good luck.”

“Too late,” he whispered. “I’m never racing without one again.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too widely to deny how much she cared. “You were brilliant out there.”

He pulled back enough to look at her properly. “You believed in me when I didn’t. I’ll never forget that.”

Her heart stuttered at the sincerity. But before she could answer, cameras started clicking furiously again, someone called his name, and he gave her one last squeeze.

“I gotta go do media stuff—but don’t leave, alright?”

“I won’t.”

He took a step back, still smiling like he’d just been handed the world—and honestly, he kind of had.

And Y/N? She just watched him walk off, her heart full and racing, a little dazed by how much that boy meant to her now.

The party had faded hours ago. The team had cheered, the champagne had flowed, and Lando had done more interviews than he could count. His face hurt from smiling, his voice was half gone, and his suit still smelled faintly of victory and engine oil.

But now… now it was quiet.

Lando stepped out on the rooftop lounge of the hotel wearing a t-shirt and some joggers. The night air was cool against his skin, the concrete still warm from the day’s sun. He wasn’t even sure why he came out here—just needed space, maybe. Air that wasn’t full of flashing lights and praise.

And there she was.

Sitting on one of the lounges, looking up at the stars, sipping from a bottle of water, like she’d been waiting. Or maybe just knew he’d show up eventually.

Y/N looked up and smiled, soft and familiar. “Hey, champ.”

He walked over and dropped down beside her, shoulder brushing hers. “You’re still awake?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” She handed him her spare bottle.

He took it, twisted the cap, and drank without question. “Can’t sleep. Still buzzing.”

“Kind of hard to crash after your first win of the season.”

He chuckled. “You make it sound cooler than I do.”

“It is cool. You were incredible, Lando. No one could’ve taken that win from you today.”

He leaned back on his palms, glancing up at the stars above. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

They sat in silence for a moment, their legs stretched out in front of them, ankles nearly touching. Somewhere down the road, a car whooshed by. People were humming in the streets down below.

“You ever wonder,” he said quietly, “if it’s ever going to be enough? Like… you do everything right, you win, you prove people wrong—but then there’s always more. More noise. More pressure.”

She looked over at him, eyes steady. “Yeah. I wonder about that a lot. Especially when I see you carry the weight of it like it’s your job, too.”

Lando didn’t respond right away. He just stared ahead, letting her words settle.

“But you don’t have to carry it alone, you know,” she added gently. “Not when I’m around.”

His gaze shifted to her, something raw and open in his eyes. “You mean that?”

“Of course I do.”

Another quiet stretch passed, filled with everything they weren’t saying out loud. And then—

“You’re kind of my favorite person right now,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

Y/N’s breath caught.

“Just right now?” she teased.

Lando smiled slowly, turning to face her fully. “Alright—maybe longer.”

She looked at him then, really looked at him, heart thudding a little too loudly in her chest. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

And they sat there, side by side, under the stars—two friends teetering on the edge of something more. Not ready to fall just yet, but both were wondering what would happen if they did.

They weren’t together. But they weren’t just friends anymore, either.

Sometimes Y/N would catch herself mid-laugh, watching the way his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy, and her stomach would twist. Not in a bad way—just that damn it kind of way. The kind that made her fingers itch to reach for him. To hold his face. To kiss him like she’d imagined one too many times in the dark.

And Lando? He was no better.

There were nights he’d finish a race and instinctively check his phone—not for the media, not even for his team—but for her. Just a little “Proud of you” text with the star emoji she always used. That’s all it took. That one sentence could undo him. He kept screenshots. He reread old messages when he couldn’t sleep. And there were moments, more than he could admit, where he caught himself imagining what it would be like to wake up to her in his bed. Not even for anything explicit—just her, warm and sleepy, stealing the covers and smiling at him through the sunrise.

They hadn’t crossed that line. Not yet.

But the tension simmered beneath the surface, unspoken but always there. It was in the way her hand lingered on his back just a second too long. The way his gaze dropped to her lips when she was mid-sentence. The way they always seemed to lean just a little too close when they laughed, like gravity was slowly pulling them together.

And when they hugged now—because they did, often—it wasn’t the quick, polite kind anymore.

It was slow. Intentional. Bodies pressed close. Hands-on waists, fingers at the nape of a neck. Heads tucked into shoulders. His heart was thundering.

Y/N wasn’t sure who would break first.

But sometimes, when he looked at her like she was the only thing tethering him to earth, she thought maybe it would be both of them.

But where it truly got complicated… was in the physio room.

There was only so much distance you could keep when your job involved touch.

Y/N was a professional. She’d worked with dozens of athletes. But none of them made her heartbeat do stupid things when she slid her hands down a tight quad or helped them through a stretch. None of them made her pause before every session and breathe, just to stay grounded.

Lando was different.

At first, it was subtle—his breath hitching when her fingers pressed into the muscle at the back of his shoulder, his eyes fluttering closed for a second longer than necessary. The way he’d hum quietly, almost to himself, whenever her hands found the spots that needed working out.

But lately, the air between them had changed.

His eyes lingered when she bent down to adjust his posture. Her fingers hesitated, not out of uncertainty, but want. His body relaxed under her touch in a way that felt like trust. Like surrender.

And sometimes… their touches lingered.

Like that morning when he came in early, hoodie tugged over his curls, voice still raspy with sleep.

She had him lying flat on the padded table, one leg bent, her hand gliding over his thigh to feel the tension. Her other hand braced his knee, her eyes locked on his body as she worked through the tightness.

“You okay?” she asked softly, fingers pausing at the sensitive spot.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Feels good.”

Too good. Too intimate.

She glanced up, and he was already looking at her—eyes soft, lips parted, breath shallow.

It would’ve been so easy. Just a little lean forward. Just one second of bravery.

But then he blinked, and the moment passed. Barely.

Another time, he sat shirtless on the edge of the table, and she stood behind him, helping him stretch out his shoulders. Her hands slid up his back, over the planes of muscle and the little freckles she was trying not to memorize. He leaned back slightly into her touch, head tilting until it nearly rested against her shoulder.

He didn’t move. Neither did she.

The air was thick with something unspoken. His hand dropped, fingers brushing against her leg.

It should’ve meant nothing. But it did.

Their sessions grew longer. Not because he needed more treatment, but because neither of them wanted to leave.

Because physio had become the one place where they could be close without questions. Without pressure. Just them. Quiet. Tense. Comfortable. Dangerous.

They weren’t together. But they weren’t just friends either.

And more and more, when Y/N found herself thinking about him—about his laugh, about his hands, about the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention—it wasn’t professional.

Not even close.

And Lando? He couldn’t even pretend anymore.

He thought about her when he fell asleep. Dreamed about her touch. Missed her even when they’d just seen each other. He lived for her voice. Her calm. Her presence. Her hands.

He was falling.

They both were.

And one day soon, one of them would break.

Lando had finished P2. A hard-fought, tooth-and-nail race that left his adrenaline spiking and his heart pounding. The kind of race where the sweat felt earned and every muscle in his body ached in the best way.

And when he climbed out of the car and saw Y/N waiting just outside the garage with that quiet smile—smile-the one she saved just for him, it was better than any champagne on the podium.

“You were unreal,” she beamed, reaching for his water bottle, like always.

He leaned in without thinking, resting his forehead against hers for a beat. He was still in his helmet, visor up, and he could feel her breath against his chin.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” he murmured.

She flushed. He loved it when she flushed.

But before they could say anything else, someone behind them cracked a joke—too loud, too thoughtless.

“…Guess Lando needs extra weight in the garage to balance the car out, huh?”

A pause.

Someone snorted. A second of awkward laughter from a couple of junior engineers nearby. They didn’t mean it maliciously. Just idiots being idiots. The kind who thought fat jokes were still funny.

Y/N didn’t even flinch. She’d learned not to. Instead, she looked away, jaw tight, the smile slipping off her face.

But Lando?

Lando snapped.

He turned so fast that his helmet nearly swung into someone.

“What the hell did you just say?” he barked.

The laughter died instantly.

The guy, the one who’d said it, froze. “I was just—just joking—”

“No. You weren’t. You were being a disrespectful prick,” Lando said, voice sharp, unwavering. “She does more for this team than you ever will. She’s the reason I’m standing here right now with a trophy in reach, and if I ever hear you talk about her like that again, I swear to God—”

“Lando,” Y/N said quietly, her hand brushing his arm. But he wasn’t done.

“I don’t care who you think you are. You want to stay on this team, you treat her with respect. She’s family.”

The word family landed heavily.

Everyone was silent.

The guy mumbled something that might’ve been an apology and disappeared fast. The others avoided eye contact, scattering like roaches.

Lando turned back to her, face still flushed with anger, chest heaving.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His eyes softened immediately. “Don’t. Don’t you ever apologize for other people being assholes.”

She looked at him, her throat tight. “I’m used to it.”

“Well, I’m not. And I won’t be.” He reached out and took her hand, just for a second. But it felt like a lifetime. “You mean too much to me.”

That part slipped out.

Neither of them moved. Not even when Will called for Lando to get to the media.

“I’ll find you after,” he said, voice quiet again. “Don’t disappear, yeah?”

She nodded, heart thudding.

And when he finally walked off, she stood there for a moment longer, hand still tingling from his touch, replaying his words.

You mean too much to me.

Maybe this wasn’t just friendship anymore.

Maybe it never had been.

The gym was quiet—unusually so. Just the soft hum of machines, the occasional thud of a dropped weight, and the low murmur of a playlist that neither of them was paying attention to.

Y/N sat on the mat, stretching out Lando’s leg, focused on his hamstring. Or at least pretending to be.

Lando was lying on his back, shirt clinging to him with sweat, one arm slung lazily over his eyes. But she could feel the way his body had gone still under her hands. Not relaxed. Not tense. Just waiting.

Waiting for something to break.

Her fingers moved gently, working the muscle. Slow, practiced, familiar. And yet it felt anything but.

“You’ve been quiet,” he said finally, voice soft and scratchy from the heat.

Y/N glanced up, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Just focusing.”

“Right,” he muttered. “Because stretching me out is so mentally taxing.”

She gave his leg a push, just enough to make him grunt. “Don’t tempt me to bend it the wrong way.”

That pulled a laugh from him, but even that sounded off.

A beat passed. Another. The air buzzed with something unsaid.

“I meant it, you know,” Lando said suddenly, lowering his arm so he could look at her. “What I said last week. About you.”

She froze, fingers stilling just above his knee.

“Lando…”

“No one’s ever stood up for you like that?” he asked, sitting up slowly. “That’s what you told me.”

She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t move away either. “People don’t usually think I need it.”

“Well, I do,” he said. “I see how you carry it all. The weight. The pressure. The way you make space for everyone else. I just—I wanted you to know someone’s got your back too.”

Their eyes locked, and everything in the room went still.

Her heart pounded in her ears. “You didn’t have to. But you did.”

“I’ll always choose to.”

That hung in the air.

And then she was moving, standing, grabbing a towel, pretending to need a break—but Lando followed and stopped her just short of the water cooler.

He stepped into her space, one hand coming up to brush a loose curl behind her ear. His fingers lingered, soft and warm against her skin.

Her breath hitched.

His eyes dropped to her lips.

“Y/N…” he said, almost like a warning. Almost like a prayer.

She leaned in just slightly, barely a fraction.

But a door slammed in the hallway, laughter echoing down from a nearby group, and they both stepped back at the same time, like the spell had been broken.

She swallowed. “We should… finish the cooldown.”

He nodded, jaw tight, eyes still locked on hers. “Yeah. Okay.”

But as they returned to the mats, neither of them could focus. Her hands still trembled faintly every time they brushed his skin, and he didn’t stop watching her like he’d never seen her before.

And maybe… just maybe… that was the beginning of the end of pretending.

Race weekends didn’t leave much room for downtime, but somehow, Lando always found time to text her.

Lando: u up?

Y/N: classic

Lando: It’s not what it looks like

Y/N: uh huh

Lando: Okay, it’s a little what it looks like

Y/N: insomnia or overthinking?

Lando: both. You?

Y/N: same. Plus hotel pillows suck and Sarah snores. 

Lando: Want to come upstairs?

She stared at the message for longer than she’d admit.

Then:

Y/N: I’ll bring the gummy worms.

Y/N smiled to herself as she climbed out of bed, scribbling a quick note for Sarah to let her know where she was going.

Ten minutes later, she was standing outside Lando’s hotel room, knocking gently. The door opened almost instantly.

Lando stood there in sweats and a hoodie, his curls a tousled mess, eyes soft in that way they only ever got when he was tired—or when she was near.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, eyeing the bag in her hand.

“I never joke about sugar,” she replied, stepping in.

“Just don’t tell Jon, he’ll flip if he finds out.” 

“Don’t worry, your secret's safe with me.” Y/n joked poking Lando lightly on his chest. 

He closed the door behind her, the air between them thick with the things they weren’t saying. The things they almost said yesterday.

They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, legs brushing, the bag of gummy worms between them.

For a while, it was easy. Familiar. Joking about the media circus, roasting each other over their old Spotify-wrapped playlists, comparing race notes with mock-serious expressions. The kind of rhythm that came with trust.

But somewhere between her laughing too hard at one of his impressions and him watching her like she hung the damn moon, the silence started to hum again.

“About yesterday,” Lando said softly.

Y/N looked over at him. He wasn’t smiling now. Just studying her like she was something he wanted to memorize.

“You don’t have to explain,” she said, voice quiet.

“I want to,” he replied. “It’s not just what they said. It’s that they thought they could say it. That they thought no one would care.”

Y/N swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight.

Lando shifted closer. Not enough to touch, but enough that she felt the heat of him. “I care.”

She met his eyes, searching. “I know. I just… I didn’t expect it. You’re kind to me, Lando. And I don’t know what to do with that sometimes.”

He reached out, hesitating only a second before taking her hand in his. His thumb brushed gently over her knuckles.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I just want you to feel safe with me.”

Their hands lingered like that—twined and quiet and warm.

Then she laughed under her breath, the sound a little breathless. “You know this is dangerously close to being a rom-com moment.”

“Is it?” he asked, smirking. “We already share gummy worms and trauma. What’s next, joint taxes?”

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t let go of his hand.

And neither of them kissed the other.

But God, it was close.

Closer than it had ever been.

And it was getting harder to pretend they didn’t want more.

The dining area was quiet, tucked into that early hour when most of the paddock was still asleep or off on their morning routines. Y/N sat at a corner table with her usual coffee, toast, and a notebook open beside her.

Lando showed up like he always did lately. No grand entrance, just that familiar presence sliding into the seat across from her, hoodie up, sleepy eyes.

“Did you even sleep?” she asked, glancing at the mess of his curls.

“Some,” he said, voice rough with morning. “You?”

“Eventually.” Her mouth quirked. “The sugar crash helped.”

His eyes softened at the memory of gummy worms and everything that nearly happened after. But he didn’t say anything about it—not directly.

Instead, he reached for a slice of toast from her plate, and she didn’t stop him. Their legs brushed under the table. Neither moved.

They talked about the day ahead, strategy notes, and the weather. All the surface-level things that kept them steady. But the air between them was still humming, still warm with the weight of almost.

She caught him watching her once, thumb brushing absently over the edge of his coffee cup. When she looked up, he didn’t look away.

“You okay?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just… glad you’re here.”

Before she could respond, someone slid into the booth beside her.

Sarah.

Y/N blinked. “You’re up early.”

Sarah grinned, setting down her plate. “Early bird gets the paddock pass upgrade.”

She looked between the two of them, and her brows lifted just slightly.

“What?” Y/N asked, trying to sound casual.

“Nothing,” Sarah said innocently. “Just… the tension in this booth could cook my eggs for me.”

Lando choked on his coffee. Y/N elbowed her.

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying,” Sarah continued, eyes dancing. “You two are acting like you didn’t almost kiss last night.”

“Sarah!”

“I knew it,” she crowed, pointing her fork at Y/N. “The way you were texting him before bed? Girl. Come on.”

Lando’s ears had gone pink. Y/N looked like she wanted to melt into the booth.

But still, neither of them denied it.

Sarah grinned, looking way too smug for someone holding a half-eaten croissant. “Well, let me know when you two do something about it. I want front-row seats. Or at least to plan the wedding playlist.”

Lando finally laughed, rubbing a hand over his face. “She’s relentless.”

Y/N gave him a sidelong glance, fighting her smile. “She’s not wrong, though.”

His eyes met hers, something quiet and serious beneath the teasing.

“No,” he said softly. “She’s not.”

The room was quiet, tucked away from the buzz of the paddock. Just padded floors, low lights, and the occasional thrum of the bass from the nearby garage.

Lando lay on the mat, one arm slung over his eyes, his race suit pulled halfway down to his waist. Y/N knelt beside him, helping him stretch through his usual pre-qualifying routine.

It should’ve been routine by now—she knew the shape of his body like muscle memory. But something about today felt different. Like they’d both woken up with the echo of what could’ve happened the night before still lingering in their skin.

“Tell me when it’s too much,” she murmured, guiding his leg into a deep hamstring stretch.

He let out a breath through his nose, shifting slightly under her touch. “You’re good.”

But his voice was rough, and she could feel the tension—not just in his body, but in the way his fingers flexed slightly every time her hands brushed his thighs, her forearm skimmed his ribs.

He didn’t pull away.

And neither did she.

When she leaned in to adjust his shoulder, her breath hit the side of his neck. He shivered.

“Cold?” she asked, low and teasing.

“No,” he said, and when he looked up at her, his eyes didn’t blink. “Not even a little.”

Y/N’s breath caught. She was straddling one leg, hovering over him, face barely inches away.

It would be so easy.

His hand came up like he might tuck her hair behind her ear or maybe just touch her cheek—he stopped himself.

Barely.

A beat passed. And another.

Then the door creaked open.

“Lando?” Will’s voice broke the spell. “Time to suit up.”

Lando blinked first. Cleared his throat. “Yeah. Be right there.”

Y/N rolled off him, trying not to look rattled. Lando stood, tugging his suit back on, eyes flicking to her once more as he paused by the door.

“You coming?” he asked softly.

She nodded, grabbing her clipboard, trying to calm the heat in her chest. “Always.”

He smiled—small, knowing, charged—and disappeared down the hall.

She exhaled hard, gripping the edge of the table.

They were right on the edge of something dangerous and wonderful.

And neither of them had quite decided if they were brave enough to fall.

[pitlanepeach]

Radio Silence | Chapter Thirty-Six

Lando Norris x Amelia Brown (OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary — Order is everything. Her habits aren’t quirks, they’re survival techniques. And only three people in the world have permission to touch her: Mom, Dad, Fernando.

Then Lando Norris happens.

One moment. One line crossed. No going back.

Warnings — Autistic!OFC, pregnancy, emetophobia warning, domestic fluff, birthdays + Christmas, some emotional instabillity.

Notes — I hope you guys love this one. It's so full of sweetness. A bit of frustration too, but mostly sweetness.

December 2023

The lights in the MTC's build bay always felt too bright. Amelia squinted up at them in annoyance, then turned her gaze back to the car.

Her car.

Not hers in any legal or possessive way — it belonged to the team, to the season, to the wind tunnel and CFD modellers.

But the final profile of the MCL38-AN was a shape that had lived in her brain before it ever existed in carbon fibre form. It had existed exclusively within spreadsheets and flow charts and headaches. Whiteboard scrawls at two in the morning. Phone calls to her dad. Arguments with aero. Hours of simulations. Hours of starting over.

And now it was real. Sitting right in front of her.

Orange and black, sleek and hungry, its chassis caught the overhead lights and glowing.

Amelia didn't move. She needed minute. She just stood beside the rear wing, arms crossed tight over her chest, soaking in the project that had consumed every spare hour of the past two years of her life.

She had half a muffin in her bag from breakfast four hours ago. She'd forgotten to eat it.

The name on the spec sheet was just technical: MCL38-AN. The suffix had started as a quiet claim — her way of signing something no one could take from her. Years ago, her father had passed off one of her ideas as his own. "AN" for Amelia Norris, scribbled on a draft after too much coffee, felt like insurance. But the department kept using it. Zak hadn't stopped them. And now it was printed on the official build list, black ink and daring her to believe it was really hers.

Her name. On a car.

"Staring at it won't make it disappear," came a voice from the other end of the garage.

Amelia didn't look over. "I'm aware," she replied flatly.

Anthony, one of the build engineers, chuckled and walked closer, wiping grease off his hands with a rag. "Just never seen you stand still this long before. Thought maybe you'd short-circuited."

"Internally," she replied. "I'm experiencing the Blue Screen of Emotion."

He laughed again. "Hell of a machine you designed."

She didn't correct him.

Instead, she stepped forward and laid one hand on the side-pod. The material was cold and smooth under her fingers. She could feel the vibration of the building, the faint hum of tools and voices and fluorescent life, echoing back through the structure.

"This was all in my head once," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "And now it's... this."

Anthony, thankfully, didn't say anything saccharine. Just gave a nod and let her stand there.

Amelia walked slowly around to the front of the car, fingers trailing against the bodywork. Her brain was already scanning for imperfections — minor details to flag, alignment to double-check, tolerances to run again. But beneath that, buried under years of ruthless professional calibration, was something quieter.

Pride.

Not loud or dramatic or showy. Just a quiet click of recognition.

This was good work. And it was hers.

"Can we run power systems later today?" She asked.

Anthony nodded. "Soon as Oscar finishes his lunch."

"Tell him I said no mayo on the telemetry."

"I don't even know what that means."

Amelia didn't clarify. She just smiled faintly to herself and stepped back, surveying the car one more time.

MCL38-AN.

Not bad for a girl who used to line up her Hot Wheels in exact weight-to-downforce order as a kid and got sent home from school for correcting her teacher's physics formulas.

She pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of the car, just for herself, then typed out a message to Lando.

iMessage — 14:33pm

Amelia (Wifey 4 lifey)

Almost ready for testing. I'm so proud it's making me nauseous.

A second later, another text.

Amelia (Wifey 4 lifey)

Or maybe that's just the pregnancy.

—

Amelia sat cross-legged across from Lando, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands despite the lingering warmth in the air. Lando was barefoot, legs stretched out, half a grin on his face as he finished the last bite of cake she'd awkwardly cut with a plastic knife.

They were on Max's boat, rocking gently in the Monaco harbour. They'd stolen it for the day.

"Bit late," he teased, licking frosting off his thumb. "Birthday was like... three weeks ago."

"You were busy," she said simply. "So was I. And also I needed time."

"Time?"

"To figure out what to give you." She said. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small, square box; plain brown kraft paper, tied neatly with black ribbon. No card. Of course there was no card. She hated cards — never knew what to write in them.

Lando raised an eyebrow as he took it. "Not socks?"

"No."

He peeled the ribbon open and lifted the lid.

Inside was a tiny frame. Minimalist. Neutral. Inside it, a single page torn from a notebook — lined paper, slightly smudged pencil. On it: a series of racing lines drawn from memory. His best qualifying lap from Silverstone. Annotated in her handwriting with tiny notes. Brake here. Open throttle earlier. Turn-in felt cleaner than expected.

He stared at it for a long moment before speaking. "This is..."

"You told me you wanted to frame that lap. I had the data sheet, but I wanted to draw it from memory," she said, eyes on the water instead of him. "That way it's both yours and mine. More special."

Lando didn't speak. Not right away. Just set the frame down carefully and crawled across the cushions to kiss her — soft, deliberate. One hand cupped her jaw; the other rested over her heart like it was helping him breathe. When he pulled back, his eyes were suspiciously glassy. "I think that might be one of the best birthday presents I've ever received," he said. "And I love it."

She gave a tiny shrug. "Good. You're really hard to shop for. You buy everything you want as soon as you decide that you want it."

He laughed, pulling her into his chest.

The boat rocked gently, and the sun sank lower, and for once there was nothing they needed to do, nowhere they needed to be. Just a belated birthday, and a perfect lap, and the girl who knew every corner of it better than anyone ever would.

—

The ultrasound room was dim, lit mostly by the soft blue glow of the monitor and the faint flicker of winter sun bleeding through the frosted windowpanes. The air smelled faintly sterile, like clean cotton and antiseptic.

Amelia lay back on the table, her t-shirt folded up over her stomach, the thin paper drape rustling every time she shifted. One hand was clenched tightly in Lando's — not out of nerves, exactly, but out of that taut, quiet focus she always wore when she didn't have full control of a situation.

She eyed the plastic bottle in the technician's hand with thinly veiled suspicion.

"What is that?" She asked flatly.

"Just ultrasound gel," the technician said, chipper and entirely unprepared.

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "What are the ingredients?"

The woman faltered, eyes darting to Lando and then back to Amelia. "Um..."

Lando looked at his wife.

Amelia didn't look at him. "I just feel like if we're going to lather something all over my body, I should know whether it contains...you know, petrochemicals or carcinogens or hormone disruptors."

The technician blinked. "It's... mostly water-based," she said finally. "And glycerin. No dyes. No perfumes."

Amelia stared a second longer, then gave a short, diplomatic nod. "Fine."

Lando leaned over and whispered, "You sure?"

"Yes," she muttered.

The technician, clearly deciding she'd earned the right to proceed, gently pressed the probe to Amelia's stomach. She flinched, not from pain, but from the cold smear of the gel, and made a disgruntled little noise in the back of her throat.

Lando squeezed her hand once, smiling.

And then the screen flickered. A faint, grainy image bloomed into view, shadow and static and light, and the whole room seemed to still.

"Ah, a very easy one. There we are," the technician said softly, her voice shifting into something gentle. "One very small someone."

Amelia blinked at the monitor. "That blob is a baby?"

The tech chuckled. "That blob is your baby."

Lando's breath caught in his throat. He shifted closer to her side, eyes locked on the flickering movement onscreen — a heartbeat, tiny and fast and impossibly loud once the audio kicked in. It sounded like wings. Like something about to take off.

Amelia didn't speak for a long time. Just stared. Her mouth parted, eyes wide. She looked stunned, like her body had already figured it out, but her brain hadn't quite caught up.

"Is that..." she finally whispered. "That flicker, is that... the heartbeat?"

The technician nodded.

Amelia's mouth wobbled. Her fingers clenched tighter around Lando's. "It's going so... fast."

"Perfectly normal at this stage."

Lando, who had been quiet until now, suddenly straightened and leaned in closer, eyes glued to the screen. "Wait—how fast? Like, beats per minute?"

The technician glanced at the monitor, tapping a few keys. "Right now, it's about 170. A bit faster than an adult's, but that's exactly what we expect this early on."

Lando's eyes widened. "One seventy? That's incredible. Is that—like—normal?"

"Yeah, perfectly normal. It usually starts slower around five weeks and then speeds up."

Amelia's voice was quiet, but steady. "How many weeks are we exactly?"

"About seven weeks from the last menstrual period," the technician replied, smiling gently.

Lando glanced at Amelia, then back to the screen. "So... when's the due date? When can we expect... I mean, when—?"

The technician switched the screen to a small calendar. "Based on measurements, your due date should fall somewhere around August 14th."

Amelia exhaled slowly, eyes still on the grainy image of that tiny flickering heartbeat. "August 14th," she repeated. "Between Spa and Zandvoort, then."

Lando grinned and squeezed her hand. "That's... just over six months away. Feels proper real now."

Amelia's lips twitched in a tired smile. "Yeah, it's a bit overwhelming."

Lando's voice softened. "Overwhelming in a good way?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

He looked at her with such tenderness that it made her throat tighten.

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Maybe," Lando said softly, "instead of letting this make us feel out of control, we need to learn how to trust that our little person is just... doing its own thing."

Amelia closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, the flickering heartbeat was still there — small but unmistakably alive. "Okay," she said quietly, "yeah. Okay."

The technician smiled again, dimming the monitor as she packed up. "You're doing wonderfully. We'll schedule your next scan in three to four weeks time, but for now, just try to enjoy this moment."

Lando squeezed Amelia's hand.

—

The Norris house was full of noise — crumpled wrapping paper on every surface, half-eaten mince pies on plates, Christmas music playing softly in the background, and the fire crackling with the kind of persistent warmth only a real log burner could offer.

Amelia sat on the arm of the couch, a mug of peppermint hot chocolate in her hands (the only thing that didn't make her nauseous that week), watching Lando and his siblings messily construct some kind of Christmas LEGO set on the floor.

It was chaos. The good kind. Lando was wearing a Santa hat and trying to boss everyone around. Cisca was curled up in the other armchair watching them fondly, and even Adam was getting involved, despite pretending he was "too old for LEGO" about twenty minutes earlier.

Amelia felt warm. Not just from the fire, or the hot chocolate. But that kind of rooted, grounded warmth she hadn't felt since childhood.

Lando glanced up at her from the rug. His cheeks were flushed, curls a little wild, still in pyjamas. He grinned that stupidly wide grin of his; the one she could never not return.

"Okay," he said suddenly, clapping his hands together. "We've got one last gift."

His siblings groaned dramatically. "You're just trying to win Christmas," Flo said, already suspicious.

"No," Lando said, glancing up at Amelia. "This one's from both of us."

He got up and walked to the tree, pulling out a small box, about the size of a mug, wrapped in deep green paper and a lopsided gold bow. He handed it to Flo, gesturing for her to open it.

She peeled it back, frowned... and then blinked.

Inside was a tiny McLaren onesie, size newborn, folded neatly next to a photo printout of the ultrasound. On the front of the onesie was a little stitched helmet — and underneath it, "Team Norris. Arriving August 2024."

There was a beat of silence.

Flo stared.

"Shut. Up."

Adam whipped around, eyes wide. "Oh my god."

"No way," Flo said, already scrambling up from the floor.

Cisca covered her mouth, eyes wide and glassy. "Are you—? Are you serious?"

Amelia nodded, quietly overwhelmed by the whole thing, but smiling anyway, caught in the centre of a hug from Lando's siblings as they collapsed into her, cheering and yelling and somehow knocking her mug over (Lando caught it just in time).

Flo kept staring at the ultrasound photo like it was a sacred relic. "I am going to be the best auntie."

Adam walked over to Lando and gave him a tight hug, a forehead kiss, and a pat on the back.

Cisca hugged Amelia gently, brushing her hair back. "I had a feeling," she whispered. "You've had that glow."

Amelia laughed. "The glow is just sweat from the constant nausea. But thanks."

Lando wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, chin on her shoulder, warm and soft and safe."Merry Christmas," he murmured.

She leaned her head back against his. "Merry Christmas."

—

January 2024

The new apartment smelled like fresh paint.

It was bigger, with big windows and tiled floors and way more space than their old place. But in that exact moment, it mostly looked like a war zone. A mess of cardboard, bubble wrap, and various limbs sticking out from behind furniture.

"Why does your wife own so many pairs of shoes?" Max asked, squinting as he pulled box after box labelled Amelia: Shoes from the back of the moving van.

"She likes having options, Max," Lando replied from inside the apartment. "You wouldn't get it."

"I've already seen three pairs of the same sneaker!"

"Sometimes she wants them to look newer, sometimes she wants them to look worn!"

Amelia stood frozen in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped tightly around a single lamp. Not because it was heavy, it was from IKEA, but because she'd very quickly reached her max input for the day.

People talking, laughing, doors slamming, someone (probably Charles) putting a Spotify playlist on the TV at full volume, Celeste asking where the boxes marked kitchen - fragile had gone (answer: behind the miscellaneous - Lando's gamer shit), and her mom trying to organise snacks that everyone had insisted they didn't need but everyone was happily eating.

It was chaos. Warm, well-meaning chaos. But chaos all the same.

"Breathe, baby," came Lando's voice, suddenly right behind her. His hand gently closed over hers, guiding the lamp to the floor. "Let go."

"I'm fine," she said quickly.

"You're vibrating."

"I'm self-regulating."

"You're about to pop like a champagne bottle on the podium."

She blinked at him. "Lando."

"It's fine," he whispered, kissing her cheek. "Go sit. I'll turn down Charles' shit music."

She nodded once and retreated to the kitchen, or, well, what would be the kitchen, once all the boxes weren't stacked like a cardboard skyline.

Her dad followed her a moment later, holding a garbage bag full of what looked like packing peanuts. "Need anything, sweetheart?"

Amelia, dazed, looked up at her dad. "A new brain."

"I meant, like, a juice box."

"Oh. Do we have any?"

"I'll ask your mom." He laughed and kissed the top of her head before disappearing to the balcony.

Celeste popped in with a stack of throw pillows and collapsed beside her. "Remind me never offer to help anyone move again."

Charles, sliding by with a box labeled guest bathroom, raised his hand. "You're all weak."

"You hired movers," Max called from the hallway.

"Because I am smart," Charles countered.

Eventually, they made enough of a dent in the chaos to pause; boxes stacked in corners, the couch unwrapped, the kitchen sort of navigable. Everyone collapsed onto furniture, floor cushions, or each other.

Lando dropped next to Amelia with a thud. "Jesus," he said. "I'm never standing up again."

Tracey passed around bottles of water.

And then, without thinking, because she was tired, overwhelmed, and slightly frantic, Amelia looked at the empty room across the hall and said aloud. "Oh, cool. I'll be able to start putting the nursery together."

The silence was instant.

Zak froze mid-sip. Tracey turned so fast she almost knocked over Celeste. Charles blinked once, then again. Celeste slowly tilted her head like a confused golden retriever.

Only Max continued scrolling on his phone. Lando looked suspiciously casual, but his eyes had gone wide.

"Sorry," Charles said slowly. "Did she just say nursery?"

"She did," said Tracey, standing like she was ready to break into dance or faint, unclear which.

Amelia, blank as ever, looked up. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

"You're pregnant?" Celeste screeched, immediately launching across the couch.

"About eight weeks," Amelia said matter-of-factly.

"Oh my gosh—"

Lando, grinning now, tugged Amelia into his side. "We were gonna wait a while. But she's obviously forgotten the whole secrecy part."

"Not forgot," Amelia said. "Just... didn't filter."

Tracey shrieked. Charles stood and clapped. Celeste immediately demanded to know every detail. Her dad was just staring at them, his jaw slightly ajar.

Max looked at Lando and deadpanned, "Told you she'd blurt it eventually."

"You knew?" Tracey barked.

"Of course I did." Max said.

Celeste swatted him. "I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

Amelia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, buried in a couch cushion, legs tucked under her, chaos all around her, but warm. Safe.

Loved.

"I'm going to have to help you build nursery furniture, aren't I?" Charles asked.

"Yes," said Lando.

—

Amelia sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter, wearing her comfort pyjamas and cupping a warm mug in both hands. Her mom was rifling through a drawer looking for teaspoons and her dad was standing far too close for someone who'd said "I'm not gonna hover."

"You're hovering," Amelia said without looking up.

"I'm not," Zak replied, absolutely hovering.

Tracey gave him a look as she passed. "Sit down, Zak."

Amelia smirked faintly.

Zak pulled a stool out beside her but didn't sit. He just sort of... rested one hand on the counter and stared at her in that way dads do. "You keeping anything down?" He asked.

"I'm eating a lot of toast," Amelia said. "And drinking ginger tea."

He looked vaguely panicked. "Should we be calling someone? We have dietitian's, or—?"

"Dad."

"What?"

"I'm pregnant. Nausea is normal."

Zak muttered something about "precautionary measures" and "just checking" and "your iron levels, you never know," and finally Tracey grabbed his sleeve and tugged him to the other side of the kitchen.

"Let her breathe," she said, soft but firm.

He sighed but relented, pouring himself a cup of tea and stealing a look at Amelia like he still couldn't believe it. Like some part of him was seeing her as a baby again in his arms; not a woman, not a race engineer, not someone capable of growing a human. Just his daughter.

"I'm going to be a granddad," he said eventually, more to himself than anyone else. He blinked a few times, then smiled like he'd just realised it wasn't a prank.

Amelia raised her eyebrows, lips twitching. "Has he only just realised that?"

Tracey chuckled. "Oh no, honey. He's already ordered some books on newborn safety."

Zak tried to look insulted. "One of us has to be prepared."

Tracey ignored him and turned her attention back to Amelia, warm eyes softening. "You know," she said gently, "that first night at dinner, when you got all worked up about Lando... I just knew."

"Knew what?"

"That this was going to be something magic," she said. "You had that look on your face. Not the 'I'm in love' one, not yet. But that one you get when you've found something you'd fight for. And I thought, ah. There it is."

Amelia blinked, caught off guard. Her mouth opened, then closed again, unsure how to respond.

Tracey smiled knowingly. "You've always been complicated. Precise. A little special in a systemised way. But with him? You were safe. Not smaller, not quieter; just... steadier."

Zak, finally sitting, looked from his wife to his daughter, then back again.

Tracey walked over and touched Amelia's hair, smoothing it back without thinking. The kind of motherly gesture that was muscle memory. "We're very proud of you," she said softly. "Not just for the baby. For the life you're building. For letting yourself build it."

Amelia didn't answer right away. Just looked down into her tea and let that sit in her chest like a warm ache. "Thanks," she said finally, quiet.

Tracey smiled. "Now come sit with us in the living room and let your dad lecture you about your fiber intake."

"Oh no."

"I made a PowerPoint," Zak added helpfully.

Amelia stared at him. "I—I eat enough fibre. I swear. I promise. Don't make me sit through one of your terribly constructed PowerPoints."

—

Five hours later, the apartment was finally quiet.

The kind of quiet that only came after the storm; post-laughter, post-chaos, post-Max dropping a full pizza box face-down on the kitchen floor and Charles chasing Celeste with bubble wrap around his head like a helmet.

Everyone was gone now.

Some boxes still weren't unpacked, the dining table was holding an array of loose screws and takeout containers, and there was one singular sock hanging off the new lighting fixture that neither of them remembered installing.

But it was quiet. And theirs.

Lando lay stretched across the couch in sweats and a hoodie, one leg propped up on a box labeled BED LINENS???. Amelia was curled on top of him like a blanket folded in half, her cheek resting against his chest, arms wrapped around his middle.

She was half-asleep, her body finally relaxing after hours of overstimulation and problem-solving and people asking where things were that she did not know. "Is it weird I don't feel like this is real yet?" She murmured.

Lando looked down at her. "The apartment?"

"All of it. The space. The nursery. The fact I told everyone because I accidentally emotionally short-circuited. I mean, who announces a pregnancy like that?"

"You," he said, brushing his fingers through her hair.

She huffed a breath that was half-laugh, half-groan. "My brain was tired. My mouth just... decided."

"Hey." He tugged gently on a loose strand of her hair until she looked up at him. "It was perfect. So you. I mean, Tracey looked like she was about to cry and throw you a baby shower in the same breath."

Amelia groaned and buried her face back into his hoodie. "She's going to buy so many pastel things. I'm not emotionally equipped for pastel."

Lando laughed. "We'll make a blacklist. No tulle. No gingham. No text that says 'Born to race' or anything cringe like that."

Amelia was quiet for a moment. "Do you think it's okay we're doing this now?"

He didn't ask what this meant. He knew.

The baby. The life. The shift. The permanence of it all.

"I think it's us," he said simply. "And I think whatever that ends up looking like is okay."

She let out a breath. "I don't know how to do any of it. Not even the parts people think I'm supposed to be good at. I couldn't find the dish towels today."

"That's what the box labels are for."

"And you?"

"I'm just here to kiss you when your brain melts and tell you you're brilliant anyway."

She finally looked up at him again. Her eyes were tired — not with sadness, just the fatigue of too much change all at once. But they were also soft. "You're annoying," she said.

"What, being emotionally intelligent and devastatingly handsome is annoying now?" He teased.

"You're a good human weighted blanket, so I won't argue with that."

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "It's a privilege, honestly."

They lay there for a while, the hum of Monaco outside their windows, the buzz of city life just distant enough to feel like background music. Inside, it was soft. Warm. Familiar.

Eventually, Amelia whispered, "We really live here now."

Lando tightened his arms around her. "Yeah, we do."

"And we're gonna have a baby here."

"Mmhm."

"I have to start nesting. Like... soon."

"Tell me what you want built. I'll blackmail Charles and make him do it."

She laughed quietly against his chest, a sound full of exhaustion and affection.

Then, softer, almost to herself, "I think I'm happy."

Lando didn't say anything right away. He just turned his head and kissed her temple again, slow and sure, before whispering into her skin, "I know."

—

The morning had not been kind.

Amelia had thrown up twice before she even made it out of bed, once more in the sink when the smell of coffee drifted through the apartment. Her stomach had settled into that weird, hovering nausea, not quite sick, but never okay, and everything around her felt a little too much.

Too bright.

Too loud.

Too far from stillness.

The apartment was still full of half-unpacked boxes. One of them had exploded into a mess of packing peanuts by the bookshelf because Lando had tripped over it while trying to carry a lamp. That had made her laugh, for a moment. But now even that memory felt distant and staticky.

She hadn't eaten anything. Her body felt too heavy and too floaty at the same time.

So she wandered into the room off the living room and stood in the doorway, barefoot and still in one of Lando's shirts, staring at the swing.

The sensory swing hung from a reinforced hook in the ceiling, an enclosed hammock-style cocoon of soft dark grey fabric.

She hadn't used it yet.

But now... now she needed to be held by something.

Amelia walked over slowly, pulled the soft stretch of the fabric down, and climbed inside like she was folding herself into a shell. It wrapped around her shoulders, her hips, her knees. A full-body compression hug.

She let herself swing gently, letting the quiet motion do what words and plans and spreadsheets couldn't. The light filtered through the gauzy curtain. The outside world muffled. The only sound was her breathing.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

Her muscles finally, finally relaxed.

And then, maybe because the relief was so sharp in contrast to how awful she'd felt all morning, or maybe because everything just hit all at once, Amelia cried.

Just soft tears slipping down the sides of her face into the swing's fabric as her body unclenched. She didn't even try to stop them. Didn't need to understand them. Her hands cradled the soft swell of her lower belly as she rocked gently in the cocoon, the comfort so complete it almost hurt.

The motion, the weightlessness, the compression; it was like someone had pressed a reset button on her nervous system.

"I love you very much," she whispered, hand on her stomach, words falling into the soft dark of the swing. "Even if you are already making me throw up five times a day." She gave a little wet laugh. Then sniffled. Then rocked some more.

Eventually, Lando peeked his head around the doorframe.

He didn't say anything. He saw her there, bundled up like a sleepy moth, puffy-eyed and peaceful, and his whole expression softened.

"You good, baby?" He asked gently.

She nodded, still sniffling, half-smiling. "It works."

He smiled back. "Good" He walked over and pressed a kiss to the fabric where her shoulder must've been, still swaying. "Want toast when you come out?"

"Only if it's with the nice jam. The apricot one we got from the market last weekend."

"Anything you want. We're celebrating the swings debut, after all."

"Dramatic." She said.

"I know," he grinned.

And then he left her to swing, warm, wrapped up, and for the first time all day — completely okay.

February 2024

Amelia woke to the smell of espresso and something sweet (cinnamon, maybe) and the distinct sound of someone failing, very quietly, not to clatter around in the kitchen.

She blinked, groggy, and rolled over to find Lando's side of the bed empty. A sliver of warm morning light streamed in through the curtains. The apartment smelled like flowers and coffee and... possibly burning toast.

By the time she made it out of bed, hair a mess, t-shirt halfway sliding off one shoulder, she found him standing in front of the kitchen island, proudly staring at a tray of slightly overdone croissants, a half-burnt omelet, and a mug that said engineers do it with precision.

He turned the second he heard her. "Don't say anything," he warned, waving a spatula at her. "This is a labour of love."

"I can see that," she said, amused. "How's the toast?"

"Charcoal adjacent."

She padded over and leaned into his side, arms looping gently around his middle. "Morning."

Lando pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Happy birthday, baby."

He guided her over to the table, where a small stack of wrapped gifts sat beside her laptop — one of them unmistakably from Oscar if the cartoon scribble on the tag was anything to go by. Another looked suspiciously like it had been wrapped by Max's girlfriend Celeste, given the glittery ribbon and note that just said DO NOT OPEN NEAR ZAK.

"Did you do all this this morning?" Amelia asked, eyeing the slightly lopsided croissants.

"Well," he said, handing her the mug, "I tried to sneak out of bed early. But then you curled up in the blankets and made that sleepy sound you make and I lost, like, twenty minutes just watching you sleep."

Amelia sipped the coffee. Ugh. Decaf. "Weirdo."

"Your weirdo."

They sat together, eating what they could salvage of the breakfast. Lando gave her a small, leather-bound notebook for scribbling car notes (with custom embossing: A. Norris, Race Strategist / Best Mummy Ever). She rolled her eyes, but she didn't stop smiling.

Later, while she was cleaning up plates, he appeared behind her with one last gift, this one small and velvet. Her breath hitched when he opened it. A pendant: a tiny silver disk with a barely-there engraving.

A heartbeat. The one they'd seen on the ultrasound.

"I wanted you to have something that was just... for you," he said quietly.

She touched the charm gently, thumb brushing the engraving. "I love it," she said, voice slightly wobbly.

He kissed her temple again, arms wrapping around her. "I love you."

The rest of the day was full of small joys; visits from friends, a video call with her mom, cupcakes delivered from a café Oscar insisted was life-changing. Max and Celeste swung by with a gift bag full of baby-safe skincare and a framed photo of the four of them.

At one point, her dad had messaged her.

Happy birthday, kiddo. Love you so much. See you soon.

To which Amelia replied.

Love you too.

That night, after the guests had left and the candles had flickered low, Amelia found herself curled up in her sensory swing by the window, legs folded up under her, pendant resting in the middle of her collarbones. Lando lay on the sofa nearby, watching her with quiet contentment.

"I think this was one of my best birthdays," she said softly.

He smiled. "Even with the burnt toast?"

She nodded. "Especially with the burnt toast." And then, after a pause, "Next year, we'll have someone else around to help us celebrate."

Lando's eyes softened. "Next year," he echoed.

—

WhatsApp Groupchat — 2024 F1 Grid

George R.

Welcome to the 2024 rookies!

Oh wait.

LOL.

Nevermind

Lando N.

Someone get this man a rookie asap

Charles L.

Bro we are all still here 💀

Alex A.

Just the same 20 people trying not to crash into each other

Esteban O.

Consistency is key 😂

Oscar P.

George is out here welcoming imaginary friends

Carlos S.

Rookie of the year is the Ferrari catering team

Lewis H.

I vote my physio as rookie of the year tbh

Yuki T.

I still feel like a rookie emotionally 😮‍💨

Fernando A.

I feel younger every season 😎

George R.

Ok ok I made one mistake

I was being polite

What if someone snuck in overnight. Like a stealth rookie

Pierre G.

Bro this isn't among us

Max V.

Let him live he tried ✋

Lando N.

He tried and failed. Spectacularly

George R.

Blocked. All of you. I'm blocking all of you.

—

The main presentation hall at the MTC was cold, the hush of anticipation a physical thing. Staff, engineers, drivers, media teams, and execs milled around in soft clumps, all eyes drawn to the shrouded figure on the platform. Silver satin draped across carbon fibre; sleek, taut, and humming with promise.

Amelia stood off to one side, arms crossed over her chest, one foot tucked behind the other like she was bracing herself against something invisible.

It was familiar, this room. She'd stood in it a dozen times. But this time was different.

This was her car.

She heard footsteps and didn't have to look to know it was Lando. He came to stand beside her, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, gaze fixed on the covered car like it might move if he blinked.

"It looks like a spaceship," he murmured.

"It's as complex as one," she said simply.

He grinned. "I'm gonna drive a spaceship."

"You're going to win in it."

Her dad walked out onto the stage, some carefully crafted speech on hand, but Amelia barely registered it. Her ears rang with something heavier; a low, surging pressure that sat in her chest and refused to settle.

She heard her name, heard Zak referencing her as lead technical design engineer on the project, and the soft ripple of polite applause. She didn't move. Didn't blink.

When the cover was pulled back and the MCL38-AN was finally exposed under the lights. Lean, mean, shimmering with graphite and papaya — the room went reverently silent.

It was beautiful. Sharp and elegant and mean in all the right places.

And hers.

Her hands trembled slightly where they were folded. Lando noticed. He reached down, laced his fingers through hers without saying anything. She didn't look at him, but she held on.

Oscar appeared at her other side, chewing a protein bar. "It looks fast," he said through his mouthful.

"It is fast," Amelia replied, deadpan.

He nodded. "Good. I hate slow cars. Bad for my numbers."

Lando snorted. "Your numbers are fine."

"I want more numbers."

Amelia ignored them both. Her eyes were fixed on the low spoiler, the curve of the side-pod, the subtle detailing near the rear suspension she'd fought tooth and nail to implement — backed up by three sleepless weeks of CFD simulations and one argument with the floor design team that she'd very nearly won with sheer stubbornness alone.

"Do you want to go look at it up close?" Lando asked, gentle.

Amelia shook her head. "Not yet."

He didn't press. Just stayed beside her as people filtered forward. Cameras clicked. Flashbulbs strobed. Somewhere, someone asked Oscar to smile more. Zak was already doing a walk-around with Sky Sports.

But Amelia stayed back, hand in Lando's, watching as her car, her beautiful, terrifying, finely-tuned monster, greeted the world for the first time.

Finally, Lando leaned in, voice low against her ear. "I'm so proud of you."

Her mouth twitched, just a little. "I know," she said.

Then, after a beat, "I'm proud of me too."

—

There were two weeks until they were due to fly out to Bahrain for testing.

The smell of carbon composite and metal dust still clung to the air. Most of the lights had been dimmed in the engineering wing of the McLaren Technology Centre, but not in Bay 2. Bay 2 was lit up like a crime scene — bright, clinical, unrelenting.

And Amelia was pacing.

"You changed the front wing flow guide without flagging it to me." Her voice was flat, but her tone cut sharp enough to peel paint. "It's not a minor tweak. It alters the pressure delta across the entire front third of the car."

Across the table, three senior aero engineers; experienced, respected, and visibly nervous, stood their ground, albeit quietly. One of them, Benji, cleared his throat.

"We didn't go behind your back," he said carefully. "It was discussed at the Friday meeting—"

"I wasn't at the Friday meeting," she snapped. "I was with Oscar for simulator calibration. You knew that."

"We had to lock a version in for pre-season aero scanning," said another engineer, trying to be the reasonable one. "You were behind schedule finalising the nose cone parameters—"

"I was behind schedule," Amelia repeated, eyebrows arching dangerously, "because I was rewriting your cooling duct schema so it wouldn't explode in Bahrain."

Silence.

Lando stood quietly just inside the doorway, arms crossed, watching. He wasn't saying anything — yet. But his eyes never left Amelia.

"You've added drag," she said after a beat. "I ran the updated airflow map through CFD myself after I saw the render. It introduces wake turbulence at high yaw, and we already struggle with straight-line pace. You've made us slower on the straights to gain — what? Four points of front downforce?"

"Four points could help balance in the high-speed corners," Benji offered.

"At the expense of the entire overtaking window!" Amelia barked. "You want Lando and Oscar to defend for twenty laps in DRS zones with a car that drags like a parachute because you like the numbers it spits out on paper?"

Someone muttered something; too low to catch. Amelia's head snapped around like a hawk.

"Say it louder," she said. "You clearly thought it was clever enough the first time."

The engineer paled slightly. "I just said... maybe you're too attached to this design."

Lando stepped in before Amelia could respond.

"No, see, here's the thing," he said, tone deceptively easy. "You don't get to say that. Because her attachment? That's why this car is visibly better than last year's. She is the reason why we had the third-fastest chassis on average post-Zandvoort last year. Because she gives a shit. And if Amelia says it's wrong? Then it's wrong."

The room froze. One of the engineers swallowed hard.

Amelia, though, didn't say anything for a full five seconds. She just stood there, arms folded, staring down the table like she was willing the numbers to change.

Then, calmly, "You're reverting to the previous design."

"We can't. Not until—"

"I'll update the approval file myself," she continued. "I want the renders sent back through me. If you're going to make changes to a car with my name on it, you'll run it by me first. Not the group chat. Not Zak. Not the test team. Me."

Stillness.

Eventually, Benji nodded, his jaw tight. "Alright."

She left the bay without another word, her footfalls even, deliberate. Lando followed a few paces behind, catching up only once they hit the corridor.

"You didn't have to jump in," she muttered.

"I know," he said. "But I wanted to."

They reached the elevator. Amelia punched the call button too hard.

"They're not wrong," she said quietly, not looking at him. "I am too attached."

Lando nodded. "Yeah. And that's why you're the only one I trust with it."

—

The hum of the wind tunnel was a low, constant growl behind the soundproof glass. Screens lined the wall of the operations room, flooded with live data — airflow vectors, pressure maps, drag coefficients, temperatures.

Amelia sat perfectly still in the front row, staring at the monitor.

The numbers were wrong.

Not wildly, not catastrophically. Just... wrong enough.

Behind her, the aero lead, one of the few who hadn't been at the shouting match in the engineering bay days before, was going over test notes in a too-cheerful voice. "And that's run twelve with the revised front-wing guide and standard rear beam. A bit of turbulence in the crosswind scenario, but nothing unmanageable."

Amelia's fingers twitched against the armrest of her chair.

Zak stepped in beside her. "They've already locked the transport containers for Bahrain," he said in a low voice. "The old spec wouldn't make it through the scans in time."

"I know," Amelia said without looking at him.

"We'll revert before Melbourne," Zak added. "That's the plan."

"I know."

She said it again, like repetition might dull the edge.

Zak hesitated. "I get it. I do. But it's one race."

"It's the first race," Amelia said quietly. "It sets the baseline. The whole development curve starts from that data. Every upgrade, every refinement — it's all going to skew unless we compensate."

Zak didn't argue. He didn't need to. They both knew she was right.

But it didn't matter.

Because the parts were packed, the plane was leaving in 48 hours, and the wrong spec was going to touch asphalt in Bahrain.

She stood abruptly. The chair creaked as it slid back.

"Amelia," Zak said. "I know this is hard for you."

She turned, her voice clipped but steady. "It's not hard. It's inefficient."

And she left the room.

—

The lights were low. Her desk lamp cast a soft amber glow across a table full of design sheets and scribbled notes, crossed-out margins, red-circled flaws, annotations that no one else in the department could read but her.

Her iPad was open to the Bahrain track layout. She wasn't crying — not even close. But her jaw was clenched hard enough to ache. Her hands flexed, restless, unable to do anything.

She hated that feeling.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Go away," she said without looking.

It opened anyway.

Lando leaned in, holding two takeaway drinks. "I come bearing peace offering. Decaf vanilla chai for my beautiful, smart wife."

She didn't move.

"I know," he said gently. "It sucks."

"I'm not angry anymore," she said.

He gave her a look. "Don't lie to me, baby."

She finally looked up, and he crossed the room to set the drink beside her keyboard.

"I spent a year making it perfect," she murmured.

Lando touched her shoulder. "And it still will be."

Amelia looked back at her notes. "I hate being forced to let something go when I know I'm right," she said. "Just because I'm one person versus an entire team — and I know that it's not fair to expect them to just blindly trust everything I say, but it makes me so mad.'

"Okay," he whispered. "Time to go home, I think."

—

"Do you need six pairs of sunglasses?" Amelia asked, holding Lando's McLaren duffel open.

Lando didn't even look up from where he was rolling socks. "Yes."

"You only have two eyes."

"It's called fashion, baby."

She rolled her eyes and shoved the sunglasses back in, making sure the soft case separated the orange-tinted pair from the purple ones, because God forbid they get scratched.

Their bedroom looked like a tornado had touched down; open suitcases, half-folded clothes, a stack of electronics chargers that Amelia had labeled with colour-coded cable ties two seasons ago and still didn't trust Lando to keep organised.

Her own packing was... slower. More deliberate. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her own suitcase, a checklist open on her iPad and a faint, lingering wave of nausea rising every few minutes like a passive-aggressive tide.

"Are you sure you're okay to fly?" Lando asked for the third time that afternoon.

Amelia clicked her Apple Pencil against her teeth. "I'm pregnant, not ill."

"Still."

"I have packed ginger chews and compression socks."

He looked up. "You hate ginger chews."

"I also hate throwing up at 30,000 feet. Sometimes compromise is necessary."

He grinned. "That's very mature of you."

Amelia waved vaguely in the direction of the ensuite. "Can you grab the skincare bag? Not the one with my regular stuff — the one with the unscented moisturiser that doesn't make me gag."

"Yes, your highness."

She threw a sock at his head.

The packing process stalled every few minutes for various reasons: Amelia needed a snack; Lando forgot where he'd put his phone; Amelia remembered she hadn't downloaded the Bahrain telemetry files onto her personal iPad; Lando insisted on reorganising his racing gloves by colour.

Eventually, Amelia sat back with a soft groan, rubbing a hand over her belly. Not that there was much to feel yet, no bump, just the persistent hum of her body shifting quietly into something new.

She felt... heavy. But not in a bad way. Just full of lists, of responsibilities, of life. Literally.

"Hey," Lando said gently, crouching in front of her. "You okay?"

She nodded, slow. "Yeah. Just... tired. Everything feels like it takes twenty-percent more effort."

"You want to skip testing?"

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "Lando."

"I'm just saying—"

"No. Don't even suggest that. I need to be there for Oscar and I want to be there for the cars first proper run. I have to see how it holds up."

He smiled softly. "Just checking. That's my job now, remember? Worrying about you."

Amelia's expression softened. "I'm fine. I'm just slower than usual. I'll sit. I'll drink plenty of water."

Lando stood and offered her a hand, helping her up off the floor with the ease of long practice. They zipped the last suitcase together, and she stared at the organised chaos around them with a long, contemplative sigh.

"Think this baby is gonna like Bahrain?" She murmured.

He shrugged. "Hot. Loud. Feels like it's already genetically predisposed that baby is not going to have a good time."

She laughed, quietly, the sound curling in her throat.

They were flying out in the morning. Testing started two days after that. And in a few more weeks, the  2024 season would roar to life; full throttle, no mercy, no brakes.

But for now, there were just bags and chargers and familiar, cluttered rhythms. And them.

Just them.

For now.