Chapter Text
Leo didn’t tell anyone.
Not his parents, not his teammates, not his few non-football friends.
He could have.
There were so many times after a well-meaning someone asked, “are you okay?” that he could have responded honestly.
But he didn’t.
There was too much to say and no right way to say it. “I got a girl pregnant” is too stiff, but “I’m desperately in love with Sofia but we’re seventeen years old and she has university and I have football and I’m afraid I could never be a good father” is far too intimate.
So he keeps quiet, rubs Sofia’s back as she cries, and listens impassively as she plans and plans and plans a life which is on track, a life never diverted by a tiny, precious pile of blankets which he will only get to hold once.
And when Sofia tells him that she can’t keep their child, but she can’t force herself to abort it, he just says, “I’ll support you in whatever you choose.” Because he can’t say, “I want you to keep it, I want to support you and our child with a Barca B salary and I want to be a father and I want to be the father of this child who is our child.”
And when she tells him that she’s putting their child up for adoption, that his first son won’t carry his surname, won’t even know them, but they can pick the given name if they want to, he just says “I’ve always liked the name Pablo,” because he can’t say “I wanted to name him after my grandfather,” because Leo’s grandfather won’t be this child’s great-grandfather. Leo’s grandfather will never even know this child exists.
And when she tells him that she’s leaving for university in Germany, where he can’t follow, and she doesn’t want him to, he just says, “okay.” And there’s nothing else he wants to say, because he can’t be in love with Sofia when all of his love is somewhere in Spain, in Madrid or in Valencia or in Bilbao and he’ll never know where, and he’ll never know the person it belongs to.
********
Leo doesn’t want to know how Barca is doing.
He doesn’t want to watch their matches, doesn’t want to read about them on the news, doesn’t want to see his former teammates, his closest friends, playing on without him.
So he doesn’t see the articles about a young, short footballer with pale skin and fluffy, wavy hair. He doesn’t learn his birthday—the same as Leo’s son’s, the date tattooed on Leo’s hip in neat, tiny lines, low and to the side where no one can see it. He doesn’t learn his name—the same as Leo’s son’s, the name he could have given to Thiago or Mateo or Ciro as well but just didn’t.
Until he does.
********
It's a humid day in Qatar when the round of 16 bracket has just been finalized and Leo and Kun are huddled in Kun’s hotel room, obsessively searching the internet for every scrap of knowledge they can glean, any semblance of an advantage they can leverage.
“Spain’s big thing this year is their midfield. Two teenagers from Barca. They’re good, from what I can remember,” says Kun, reading off his laptop.
Leo’s chest twinges at the mention of his former home.
“Who are they?”
Kun tilts the laptop towards Leo. It's a Wikipedia article about one of the players.
Leo smiles. “That’s Pedri,” he explains, pointing to the midfielder's smiling photo. “We played together too, back at Barca. I’m glad he’s doing well on their national team.”
Kun clicks to the other tab, and Leo leans in closer to read the unfamiliar details.
Pablo Martin Paez Gavira. Born 5 August 2004.
Leo’s hand instinctively goes to his hip.
Dazed, he scrolls through the page. The article is short, mostly just a list of goals, appearances, and clubs. Leo soaks up at every word, desperate for something that he can’t quite explain.
Gavi joined Barca's first team right after Leo left, which explains why they’ve never met. He’s known for his dribbling. He’s an inch taller than Leo. He scored against Costa Rica in the Group Stage.
The page is wholly bereft of any personal details. Not on a word about his family, his childhood, or anything in his life that isn’t football.
It makes sense. Gavi is too young for his life to have fully furled out on camera, but Leo is so used to the internet knowing every fact about him (except for one) that Gavi’s sparse page comes as a surprise. Leo can't be the only one desperate to know about Gavi.
“Leo? You okay?” Kun is frowning at him.
Leo nods, the movement jerky, “What can you tell me about Gavi?”
The question is overly direct, but Kun is used to Leo, so he just answers.
“He’s a fun kid. Aggressive as hell, he’s definitely gonna break some yellow card record eventually. Has an unfortunate habit of picking fights with guys who are twice his size and old enough to be his father, but that’s always interesting to watch at least.” He shrugs. “We weren't very close personally, but I know he and Pedri are friends. Why’d you ask?”
Old enough to be his father.
Why did Kun have to phrase it that way?
Leo closes his eyes. He can almost feel the August sunshine on his face, see the Sagrada Família looming over him, criticizing his life choices. Even the aggressive Qatari air conditioning reminds him of a long-lost Barcelona summer.
“Leo?” Kun sounds concerned.
“Can we finish this later? I’m exhausted.” This is a lie. He's practically vibrating with energy, but he can't stay here. If he stays, Kun will try to interrogate him, and he can't deal with that right now. He’s not ready to let Kun see.
His friend looks at him, clearly aware something is up, but Leo ignores him and makes to leave before Kun can question him.
Kun grabs his wrist before he makes it to the door. “Leo, I know you’re stressed, but I’m here for you, yeah?”
Instantly, Leo feels burningly guilty for having withheld the truth from Kun for so long, but it’s too late for that now. He nods. “Yeah, I know.”
Back in his own room, Leo paces, silently cursing the sterile hotel environment, which somehow feels oppressive in its blankness. How can it be so calm when Leo is anything but?
He stares at his laptop, commanding himself not to open it, not to let this happen now, but it’s a losing battle. Within minutes he’s staring at a Google search page with the name ‘Pablo Gavi’ typed in at the top.
Leo scrolls through dozens of articles, each restating the same things, each filled with pictures of a face that is strangely familiar.
Pablo Gavi played for years for Barca’s youth teams. Pablo Gavi is just a teenager, but he has enormous potential, he and Pedri could be the next Xavi and Iniesta. Pablo Gavi is aggressive on the pitch, physically and verbally, in the way Leo secretly wants to be. Pablo Gavi is a bit uncomfortable in interviews and at events, still shy, in just the way Leo is.
He learns so much, and yet nothing at all. Gavi is notoriously private, especially about the things Leo so desperately wants to know. He doesn't care about Gavi’s xG or jump height. Instead, he wants to know the personal details: does he like coffee, does he think it's bad luck to put on both socks before putting on his shoes, does he enjoy listening to music while he exercises? Until now, Leo has never understood why people have asked him these sorts of questions, but now he desperately wishes someone had asked Gavi.
He learns more and more about this boy, and realizes the depressing fact that they are, of course, complete strangers. They’ve never even met. But now Leo knows a string of random, impersonal factoids and statistic about Gavi’s life, so at least there’s that.
Leo is just about to give up the increasingly fruitless scrolling and give in to his impending breakdown when an article catches his eye. It’s titled in block capitals, screaming at him, “BARCA STARLET GAVI SPILLS DETAILS OF PERSONAL LIFE.”
He clicks on the article.
“Pablo Gavi, age 18, shares his family history for the first time! The talented young Barca player was actually adopted as a child, and he has NO IDEA who his biological family is!”
The article is accompanied by a video, an interview in which Gavi is staring nervously at the camera, his eyes wide.
“Well, tell us a bit about yourself!
Gavi frowns at the reporter. “What do you want to know?” His voice is so hesitant; it makes him seem even younger than he is.
“Anything! Your family, your hobbies, your romantic relationships. Your fans want to know more about the boy behind the ball!”
Gavi pauses, then answers. “I have a little brother.”
The reporter seems thrilled to have gotten Gavi to reveal anything. “Does your little brother have the footballing genes too? Is there another Gavi talent in our future?”
Gavi shakes his head. “I’m adopted, actually. So my brother doesn’t share any ‘footballing genes,’ and in any case, he prefers painting to sports.”
“Adopted? How interesting! Can you tell us more about that?”
Gavi looks distinctly uncomfortable now, as if he’s regretting having said anything. “There’s not much to tell. I was adopted when I was a baby, and I don’t know much about my biological family.”
The interviewer grins. "Maybe you get the footballing genes from them!"
Leo slams his laptop shut. He can’t do this. Can’t take it anymore.
He’s missing his family, that must be why he’s acting so strangely. He’s stressed, lonely, scared, hopeful, dreamwalking. Projecting a lifetime of hope, disappointment, and guilt onto the next wonderkid.
On some horrible, masochistic impulse, Leo reaches into his suitcase, opens up the secure compartment, and tugs out the tiny piece of paper hidden in the corner which contains the one and only picture Leo has of his first son.
He flattens the paper, running his fingers over his baby’s tiny face, and can’t help but glance back at the computer screen, where Pablo Gavi is telling a reporter that he’s never met his biological family.
There must be craziness in the air in Qatar, or maybe it’s the magic of so many peoples’ dreams. There’s something, certainly, that makes Leo open his laptop again and type in a new Google search: “Pablo Gavi baby pictures.”
The first result, taken from a video on Barca’s YouTube channel, is a picture of Gavi as an infant, eyes closed in peaceful sleep.
Leo presses his son’s picture against the one on the screen, and his professional eye for detail briefly fixates on the sharp contrast between the crisp pixels and the smudged, wrinkled photo clutched desperately in his palm.
But then he looks at the pictures as a whole. At the pouting lips and smooth baby face. At that boy.
He already knows, somehow, has recognized himself in Gavi’s face, in his eyes, in his posture and mannerisms and talent, but something breaks inside of him to see it finally confirmed.
The pictures are identical.
Pablo Gavi is the boy from the picture which Leo has been carrying for eighteen years.
Pablo Gavi is his son.
Leo weeps.