Chapter Text
Daniel has never been one for mystery films. Never fancied himself the detective, never had an eye for pulling clues nor the flexibility of belief to even hypothesise brilliant, roundabout insights nor the fanaticism to piece them together. He’s more straightforward than that: he likes action movies and comedies. They align a lot more closely with his lifestyle and personal values—doing cool shit and making people laugh, or gasp, depending on the day. That’s F1, after all, grounded in science and charisma. Weird, elusive, obtuse tasks with unclear goals aren’t Daniel’s thing; they don’t really sound like any driver’s thing.
Unfortunately, mysteries aren’t called mysteries for their habit of being precedented and foreseen.
Getting Lando into a room is a harder task than Daniel would have anticipated, before they became teammates. He was everywhere: trotting around the paddock with five orange-clad engineers in tow, in the news, further up the track than expected, his name in people’s mouths, getting jawed at by Dutch media, being the darling, beloved future of F1. (Daniel hadn’t thought about it too much. Being the darling, beloved present of F1 has been—maybe too lulling.) But Daniel’s move to McLaren has warped the distance between the two of them, like some headache-inducing optical illusion. Lando’s still everywhere, Daniel just can’t pin him down to have a little chat.
Not only is Lando slippery, evasive like a stray cat when he doesn’t want to be around, but he also seems to have this whole entourage of McLaren staff who will shuttle the team princeling from meeting to simulator to seat fitting to workout to trainer-approved lunch to his own damn car in the car park of the MTC, and sometimes the most Daniel can pin him down is through a half-second of eye contact during a debrief. Then it’s over, and Lando flits out of the room, and the whole mood changes because Daniel’s not the sparkly one anymore, anyway.
It wouldn’t matter, obviously, Daniel’s still got his little gang. It’s alright that they keep calling him Darren in the garage, because Michael and Blake still know his name. So it wouldn’t matter, except that Daniel needs to talk to Lando. Maybe not needs, maybe just wants. But there’s something going on, there’s some bit of McLaren juice that he’s missing. A piece missing, or three, or a dozen. Something Lando’s got and he hasn’t. Something that will bridge the too-large fractions of seconds between them.
So Daniel’s got a mystery in front of him. He’s got to pull on a stupid little cap and pretend he’s a stupid little detective and skulk around the hallways of the MTC in the half-dark like this is some real French noir shit, because somehow the eco-friendly green-certification motion sensors for lighting don’t always acknowledge he’s there, which is only adding insult to injury but it would be really embarrassing to tell anyone it happens. Even the building doesn’t really look at him properly.
The season obviously started off on the wrong foot, but it wasn’t until Monaco that he really locked down just how badly he’d been performing. And it should be fine, everyone’s got off days but it didn’t feel like it should have been bad, it’s not like Daniel knew what else he could have done better—and that’s what really flashes the neon sign above his head. The awful one that says this guy! this fucker! he can’t drive! But Lando can, and Daniel’s not too proud to ask for help by now. There’s something about being a whole second-per-lap slower than your teammate that sort of… bashes some humility into a man.
There’s got to be something they’re not telling him.
Andreas isn’t paying him thirty mil a year to give him a worse car. It’s not the machinery.
So he’s back at Woking after Monaco, doing some exploratory research on What The Fuck Is Wrong With Him, skulking around the dark hallways and spending hours in the simulator. They’re not telling him the numbers but he can tell from the murmurs that even in the simulator he’s underperforming.
But he does corner Lando, thumps a palm on the table in a meeting room when Lando walks in (entourage included), and he blurts out, “I need to talk to you later, man,” half-rising from his seat before he gets a half-nod in return and slumps back. He couldn’t tell you what the meeting is about, later, but Lando’s taking notes, or at least scratching things in a little notebook. Daniel can barely look away, alternates between picking at his fingernails and watching the shitty fluorescent overhead lighting tangling its white glare in Lando’s hair. Lando never looks back at him, but there’s something—something prissy in the calm profile of his face and the steady gaze he aims at the speakers, that tells Daniel that Lando knows he’s looking. That Daniel can’t look away.
Someone snags Daniel by the elbow in the moment the meeting is dismissed, and somewhere out of the corner of his eye he registers Lando practically evaporating into thin air. Fuck, he’s lost him now. He stumbles through the conversation, barely hearing himself apparently consent to recording some extra promo videos for a sponsor he doesn’t hear the name of. Whatever, they’ll drag him to wherever he needs to be and he can turn on the magic for the camera. He’s got larger concerns right now.
But Lando’s loitering in the hall as soon as Daniel steps out, the last one out of the room, and the hallway lights shut off as soon as he sets foot into it.
Lando doesn’t acknowledge the cool darkness at all, doesn’t blink in the grey light filtering down from distant windows. “Daniel,” he says. Another clipped nod.
A feeling settles in Daniel’s stomach, the sense that—this is going to be a piece of work. Lando’s going to be a piece of work. “Lando the mando,” he grins, buying time. Looking for his angle. He almost gets an eye roll in response and decides to trim off some of the bullshit, if he’s not ready to cut it yet. “I’m glad you stayed, I thought you were ditching me.”
Lando shrugs, walks past Daniel back into the meeting room and flicks the lights on. Daniel follows, lays a hand on the doorknob, tentative, then shuts the door when Lando doesn’t give any prompts.
The kid perches himself on the corner of the big meeting table. “I dunno about you, but I like to deliver what people expect from me.”
They stare at each other, and if Daniel didn’t know any better, he’d swear Lando’s lip curls a little. Maybe he doesn’t know better. He bares his teeth and tries again. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you want, Ricciardo. I’ve got to see Jon in a minute.”
“We’ll save a lot of time if you cooperate,” Daniel says, and he doesn’t say instead of needling me before you’ve barely said hello. “I just—I wanna know if there’s something you’re not saying in the debriefs, or something wrong with the way I’m looking at the data from the way you are, because I’m sure you noticed something is wrong and I’m trying to figure out what.” He wanders around the edge of the room, putting a stretch of table between himself and Lando. He leans against the edge and picks at it with his thumbnail.
“I dunno, you’re in the same meetings as I am. Don’t you think your engineers would tell you what to do better?”
“You’re the only other person driving this car. There are some things you know and they don’t.” He tries to keep his eyes wide and his gaze steady. “I just want you to come clean, man. Be honest.”
Lando lays a flat palm on the table and starts drumming his fingers. The motion doesn’t quite look idle. “There’s nothing for me to come clean about. We see all the same data. Hell, I’m the one oversharing in the debriefs—”
Because they listen to you longer, Daniel thinks—
“—and I feel like, like we all struggle sometimes, obviously, but maybe you need to like, pull your weight a little more. And if you don’t feel like you can, or you know…” Lando looks him in the eye and shrugs a shoulder. “If you’re already doing everything you can and this is your results, maybe this isn’t the right place. For you.” He starts swinging his legs. “But that’s something you have to think about, I can’t tell you what to do.”
“Jeez, Lando, I didn’t ask you to come rip my guts out,” Daniel says, and he tacks on a laugh to pretend he doesn’t mind. “I’ll overlook that for a second, but do you want to play the team game or not? I need help and you obviously—don’t, like, you can do it for McLaren if not for me.”
The look on Lando’s face is somehow worst of all. “I don’t think McLaren is unhappy with me, I think if I keep doing what I’m doing it’ll be fine.”
“You liked me last year,” Daniel says helplessly, his jaw working to contort his face into something he hopes looks non-offensive.
Lando’s not trying to hide it. “And?”
“So you’d think,” Daniel says with exasperated patience, “that this year there’s even more of a reason for us to get on. Or at least for you to try.”
“What the fuck.”
“What the fuck,” Daniel sing-songs. He can’t help the curl of his lip now. “Jesus, kid, do it for McLaren if not for me. You’re acting like you’ve cursed me. Christ.” He stops, digs his teeth into his lip to make himself stop for a moment. He’s got a—a high ground to defend. “You know people talk a lot of shit about me, right?”
Lando just stares at him.
“It’s just unbelievable that I’ve got the immature reputation when you’re right here. If we were both acting five years old, I’d be in Zak’s office a month ago telling him you don’t care about the team.”
“So go whine to daddy Zak, see if I give a shit,” retorts Lando.
Daniel would believe him, Daniel does believe him, but there’s a sliver of genuine stress in his tone that says Lando’s definitely bothered.
There’s no moment of decision, but the clench that Daniel forces from his own jaw tells him there’s no salvation left for this conversation. He releases the words he’d bitten back for weeks, pulls them out from around his white, perfect teeth, revels in the full-body relief of letting them go.
“Why are you being such a bitch?”
Lando looks like he took a punch, but it’s hardly enough. He bares his own teeth—bright, sharper than Daniel expected. “Why do you feel like everyone should hand you shit on a silver platter? Stop fucking coming for my spot.”
“Jesus, kid. I just want to stop being embarrassing, you’re the one who’s turned this into a problem. Don’t talk about silver platters when you’re the one with the silver spoon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lando hops off the edge of the table and takes a step closer. Daniel is barely conscious of moving forward as well.
“I dunno, you’re the one who knows what it feels like.”
Lando doesn’t answer, but Daniel watches him lick his lips, suddenly aware he’s looking down at him, much closer than they had started this conversation.
“I don’t think I’m asking for too much,” Daniel insists, his voice still loud, too loud, filling the room. “I’m just asking you to be fucking normal for once.”
He’s balling his fists and his fingernails are biting into his palms and he shakes them out, forces his hands to relax. He’s reaching for Lando’s shoulder, palm open and deferential, when Lando grabs his wrist in a flash too quick to follow.
“You,” Lando grits out around those sharp, bright teeth, “don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He tightens his grip, and Daniel’s face burns.