Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rob felt the pain as keenly as a knife to his heart. The world had stopped turning, the sun had ceased to shine, all the vibrancy the universe once had dulled into grey.

"What's wrong?" Felipe asked, blissfully ignorant of the pain he had caused his old engineer, tapping away on his phone.

"I don't believe it" Rob said faintly.

"Believe what?"

"That you have never seen a Disney film!"

"Mmmm"

"But you've been to Disney world! I don't understand how you've never seen a film!"

Felipe glanced up to shoot him a funny look before returning to his phone. "So? Is not a big thing."

Rob let out a strangled yelp, resisting the urge to thump Felipe who still looked utterly unaffected by his crisis. With one deft movement he plucked Felipe's phone out of his hands with a mumbled "Hey!" of protestation from the Brazilian slouched on the sofa.

"It is my duty as your friend and boss," Rob said as Felipe pouted a bit at that statement, "to introduce you to the magical world of Disney"

"What are you doing?" Felipe asked, sitting up a little straighter and eyeing Rob warily as rooted around frantically in a cupboard.

"We're having a movie marathon." Rob announced, throwing a handful of Frankie's DVDs at the sofa before hurrying out of the room. "Pick one of those to start with!"

Felipe poked his head around the door, watching Rob rummage around the pots and pans drawer. "What are you doing now?" he asked again.

"You can't have a movie marathon without popcorn!"

***

Rob blinked blearily, roused suddenly from his momentary lack of consciousness by a small Brazilian vibrating with glee.

"Look at the dogs, Rob! They adopted all the dogs!"

"It's called 101 Dalmatians," Rob replied, glancing at his watch: 4.38am. "What did you expect?"

Felipe didn't reply, just dug into the bowl of popcorn once more, humming tunelessly along with the credits. Rob smiled and yawned, adjusting the arm that Felipe was crushing slightly as he had it draped around his neck to try and get some blood flow back to his fingers.

"Listen, we've made a good start, we've watched Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan, Hercules, and 101 Dalmatians, I think we should call it a night and get some sleep now."

The handful of popcorn thrown at his face indicated that Felipe thought otherwise.

Chapter Text

All drivers had them. Some liked to jump in the left of the car, starting with the left foot and jump out the same way. Some carried coins in their shoes, or had a special toy or token to sit in their garage, or had special underwear. Some prayed to whatever deity that looked over them to keep them safe, and, if said deity was feeling particularly benevolent, a good launch and a Maldonado free race.

Felipe had none of these. Or none that seemed to work, anyway. He had used to wear the same pair of pants through the whole race weekend, but Raffa would be wrinkling her nose in disgust come Sunday and he still got screwed over in one way or another so he had largely abandoned the practice. God would keep him safe from harm but good luck was something he would have to seek out for himself. Frustrated, he rolled over with a huff, groping around for his phone on the bedside table, glancing blearily at the time. 2am seemed as good a time as any to scour the internet for ways to turn around his fortune.

By the time Friday morning rolled around, he had dismissed several of these options; his insides had squirmed at the thought of carrying a foot from some poor, deceased rabbit, wearing red for most of his career had done relatively little for him, despite what the Chinese may think, and he knew he didn’t have enough patience to comb through a field for a four leaf clover. It was something he might set Felipinho onto if he was really getting desperate but trying to drag his son away from Marvel superheroes would be a truly heroic feat. No, one thing had leapt out at him immediately and he bounded down to breakfast with a spring in his step that he’d scarcely felt in years.

It wouldn’t have been a surprise, Felipe joining the engineers for breakfast, if he hadn’t have all but sat in Andrew’s lap. Two tables over, Rob quirked an eyebrow but said nothing, continuing to munch on his toast. Andrew coughed awkwardly as Felipe beamed at him, practically superglued to his side, and began to shovel muesli into his mouth.

Yes, he could feel the luck of the Irish rubbing off on him already.

***

By midday, mild amusement had turned into exasperation. Andrew had been fending off a suddenly ultra-clingy Brazilian all day: they’d driven to the circuit in the same car and sat next to each other in two meetings. Twice he’d had to shoo Felipe off the pitwall and remind him he needed to be in the car, he had even found him loitering outside the toilets after he’d nipped off for a quick piss! And of course, wherever Felipe went poor Matteo had to follow, looking increasingly bemused. He was beginning to feel like the Pied Piper of Grove. At lunchtime, when Felipe had knocked his elbow while he was drinking orange juice and had made him spill it down his front, Andrew finally had enough.

“Are you alright Felipe?” he asked, dabbing ineffectually at the yellow stain spreading across his white shirt.

“Yes!” he replied brightly. “I’m great!”

“Right,” Andrew said warily, “It’s just that you’ve been a little .. clingy all day. Any reason why?”

Felipe scoffed, smiling at him conspiratorially. “Ahhh, that is obvious, no?”

Andrew felt certain it wasn’t, despite Felipe waggling his eyebrows at him. “Ummm. No?”

Felipe leaned in closer, which was quite a feat given his current proximity. “The luck of the Irish, Andrew! I am getting lucky being near you!”

“Oh.”

Felipe sat back looking triumphant, attacking his bowl of pasta with gusto that would have made the heavier drivers on the grid look on sourly. “I should go to Ireland, meet all your family and get more luck!”

“Northern Ireland.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m from Northern Ireland, Felipe.”

“Yes, we go to the north of Ireland!”

“No, Northern Ireland is separate from Ireland, they’re different countries!”

Felipe visibly deflated, looking utterly crestfallen. “You’re not from Ireland?”

“No, Northern Ireland is different from Ireland, even though they’re both on the same .. Island.” Andrew finished, lamely, as Felipe’s eyebrows knotted together at all the homophones. “But if you think it’s working, you feeling luckier around me, you can stick around; it might work with Norn Iron as well. Just .. don’t sit quite so close when I’m trying to eat, I don’t have an endless supply of clean shirts, y’know.”

Felipe sat back in his seat, feeling less and less sure about his theory. He didn’t know enough about lucky charms and Ireland/Northern Ireland to know whether the two were interchangeable or relatable in terms of luck generated. He’d have to go back to the drawing board and search his list for something else.

Andrew suppressed a chuckle at the cogs visibly turning in his driver’s head, putting on what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. “If it helps, I’ve always heard that rubbing the head of a ginger person was supposed to bring luck?”

“I could do that!” Felipe jumped out of his chair and dashed out of the motorhome, Andrew’s reminders about imminent FP2 falling on deaf ears. Matteo, who had just appeared at the table, sighed in desperation, looking longingly at his food, and then to the door his charge had just disappeared through. Andrew smiled empathetically and kicked out the chair opposite for him. He sat down gratefully, grinning sheepishly at the engineer; Felipe would make his way back eventually.

***

Felipe sat in the car grumpily, waiting to go out on track again. During his brief excursion into the paddock, he hadn’t seen a single red head. He had stopped short of poking around other motorhomes; Ferrari was the only one he could conceivably walk into without anyone asking too many questions, but the Italians were a largely homogenous bunch, all dark hair and eyes, without a lock of auburn in sight. A familiar head came into view, leaning into his cockpit to get a better look at the screen in front of him, pointing out a braking point, one long finger tracing the line across the screen.

“.. you see you’ve got Valterri here, but he’s just a bit earlier on the brakes at T10 so that’s where he’s making up time on the lap compared to you, Felipe.” Rob said, turning slightly to look at the Brazilian’s eyes, suddenly round with dawning comprehension. “Felipe?”

“Ginger!” came the muffled reply through a balaclava, one gloved finger scrubbing through his beard, before he clamped onto Rob’s head with both hands. “Is good luck, Rob, good luck!”

Rob jerked backwards out of range of Felipe’s wandering hands, glaring dourly at his friend. That was going to end up all over the internet.

“For fucks sake, get out on track where you can behave yourself,” he muttered, motioning to Andrew who seemed to be biting his cheeks, standing next to Matteo who was facing away from the action, his shoulders shaking with what he supposed was mirth. As the car shot out of the garage, he looked over to the pair of them, seeking an explanation.

Matteo and Andrew took one look at each other and burst out laughing.

***

Felipe knocked on the hotel door, feeling like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the head teacher’s office. A familiar sensation, he remembered glumly.

“Come in.”

“Sorry Rob,” he said forlornly, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t mean to grab your head, I got excited!”

Rob bit back a smile as he glanced over the top of his notes, eyebrows raised. “And why exactly were you trying to grab my head?”

“I am trying to find good luck! I didn’t want to kill a rabbit or go back to Ferrari or sit in a field so I go and stay with Andrew all day but he is the wrong Irish. But he says that the heads of ginger people are lucky and I looked around the paddock and I couldn’t see any! But you leaned over my car and you have a ginger beard, so I thought—“

“Close enough?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that made no sense whatsoever? Kill a rabbit?”

Felipe pouted, folding his arms in a huff. “I just want some good luck, Rob.”

Rob softened, putting his notes to one side and holding out an arm for Felipe to join him on the bed. He folded into his embrace, nestling comfortably into his side. “I know it’s no fun, having a good car but not getting the results. Your luck will change soon mate, I promise, you just need to keep your chin up.”

He shifted around to face Felipe, nuzzling against his face until he felt him relax into him, lips seeking each other out, chaste kisses becoming deeper, more passionate, as Felipe carded his fingers though Rob’s hair. Just in case.

“You know,” Rob breathed against Felipe’s jaw, feeling him come undone underneath him, “I’ve got something you can rub if it will make you feel better. You can always get lucky with me.”

Felipe grinned wickedly.