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Chapter Text

Henry Fox understands it better than anyone on the grid that a big portion of the job as a Formula One driver is actually just doing PR, but at some point he wonders whether he really has to do a thousand silly little interviews with his new teammate Alex Claremont-Diaz. Did he really spend his entire life building himself into a career that would have him sit here in this windowless studio on a Wednesday at eight in the morning to answer Buzzfeed quizzes?

“Henry?” the interviewer asks him.

“Huh?” he says, not hearing the question. 

“Are you a coffee person or a tea person?” the interviewer asks him again. It is the standard rapid-fire question for the last five minutes of their allotted time in their desperate attempts to make the interview ‘more fun’. 

“Oh, tea, of course,” he answers nonchalantly. It takes everything in Henry not to roll his eyes. The questions aren’t even remotely creative, this is at least the eighth coffee or tea question he’s ever had since he was signed as Mercedes’ Formula One driver four years ago. Of course he’s going to answer tea, just look at him, he’s as English as it gets. 

“It’s gonna be coffee for me, I mean, I can barely function if I am not properly caffeinated,” Alex says with the enthusiasm of an over-caffeinated toddler. 

Henry turns to Alex, who’s sitting on his right side, leaning forward eagerly like the annoying hyperactive guy that he is. Henry looks at his stupid face, with those dark curls and long eyelashes blinking in quick succession. That face is so beautiful yet so insufferable Henry wants to punch that face again. 

He draws a long breath and stops himself because it was exactly what landed him to this position, languishing in hours and hours of damage control junkets instead of enjoying early summer in Majorca before the Spanish Grand Prix starts this weekend. 

It just happened that last Sunday, Henry caused the biggest Formula One incident outside of the track when he punched Alex in the face at their last race in Monaco. It was apparently something unacceptable for Mercedes even though both of them made the podium there. Henry won the race and Alex secured third position, so they delivered buttloads of points that elevated the team’s position in the championship. 

It goes without saying that Alex is a very talented driver who made it to the top three when he was still in his rookie year. Monaco was their eighth race of this season and it was Alex’s first time making it to the podium at one of the most difficult circuits in the world. Henry respected him enough for that, up to the point when Alex knocked over and stepped on Henry’s first prize trophy when they were doing the celebratory champagne shower, breaking it in three pieces. 

It would’ve been fine, Henry has collected a couple dozens of Formula One trophies in the last four seasons, but the Monaco victory was very important for him because that week was the 15-year anniversary of his father’s death. Four-time world champion Arthur Fox died on the track in a gruesome crash in Monaco in the early 2000s. So Henry’s win in Monaco was highly anticipated. People wanted him to win that week, he wanted to win that week . It was just a very sentimental time and place and he worked really hard to get that first prize, only to be ruined by this loud and clueless American. 

So when he punched Alex, both of them still soaked in the sweet, sticky sparkling wine, with the whole world watching them on the podium, he thought it was perfectly justified. 

Henry still feels it is perfectly justified. People rallied to his defence online, there are hours and hours of podcasts arguing that Henry had every right to do what he did, though there were equally a lot of people defending Alex saying that it was just an incident and he did not intentionally do it. 

The debates strayed in all directions, with people arguing that this only showed that the two of them were just not compatible, that Toto Wolff had just created another ruinous rivalry, that it would threaten Mercedes’ relatively strong position this year, and that it would be another beginning of their downfall. 

Along with all those controversies, Henry was also punished for it. The governing body of the race, the FIA, reprimanded him for assaulting his own teammate on the podium and it took everything from Mercedes to make sure he did not get disqualified for it. He was so damn close from being disqualified.

That very night in Monaco, when every other team was already packing up as they headed to the next race, Toto sat them down for three and half, nearly four hours of profanity-laced debrief and told them that he did not mind some rivalry between his drivers but he’s drawing the line on physical altercation. They had to get over with it and show their fans and their sponsors that they aren't going to kill each other over this incident. 

Henry was not making any promises. 

But here they are, talking to journalists in Madrid where they pretend to brush off what happened and repeatedly tell them that Henry has forgiven Alex. 

A new trophy was presented the Monday morning after the race–Henry was actually impressed that they could procure it less than 12 hours after the incident. They raised the new trophy high and they gave their widest smiles to the cameras, telling everyone that their fight on Sunday was just a spur of the moment thing that they’ve recovered very quickly. 

They have been doing this for three days straight now and Henry is ready to jump off the 30th floor of this building if he must repeat the same lines over and over again. Yes, it was a very important victory for him, yes his father would’ve been very proud of him, yes he wants to win this year’s championship and yes he’s working towards it. He also has to repeat the same lies over and over again, no, it was not because he could not get along with his new teammate, no, he did not think they were incompatible, and no, actually they have been great friends since their junior racing days. 

That last one is not exactly a lie, it’s just Henry does not know enough about Alex to claim that they are actually childhood friends. He knew of Alex as one of those up and coming racers with an impressive track record. Alex won F4, F3 and F2 championships back to back but Henry was a year older and he skipped F2 when he signed to their current team five years ago. He saw him several times in junior championships but never really got to know him. 

Last year Mercedes announced Alex would fill Fernando Alonso’s seat after the Spanish driver announced his retirement (no, he swore it was for real this time). It was around the time when Henry realised how hard puberty hit Alex like a freight truck. There’s something about Alex that makes Henry’s brain short circuit and that makes Henry super nervous.  

But he was excited that Alex would be his teammate, though for some reason Alex has been really cold to Henry when the cameras were not on. Something is just not clicking and Henry does not know why, but he tried not to overthink it. Things like that happen all the time so Henry is not taking it personally. They keep their working relations professional for a few months, until Monaco. 

“I spent half of my teenage years with Italian families so I’ve been taught to be quite particular about coffee, but at the end of the day I am just your average American who enjoys a simple cup of coffee with one sugar and cinnamon,” Alex tells the interviewer. 

“How about you, Henry?” the interviewer turns to him. 

“Oh I don't drink coffee,” he says, seemingly snapped out of his reverie. 

“Yes, of course, I mean your tea, how do you take it? We know Brits are very particular about their tea?” the interviewer asks him patiently. 

“Not really, no. Just a splash of milk, I guess,” the interviewer looks at him like he expected more from him but he just shrugs. 

“Right, I think we’re done here, thank you very much, guys,” a woman walks up to them from the back of the room. 

Zahra Bankston is Mercedes’ communication director who was blessed with the responsibility of cleaning up Henry and Alex’s mess. She does not look like she had a blink of sleep since the incident. She rubs her temples while herding the journalists out of the room. It was supposed to be their last interview yesterday, but they had to reschedule after yesterday’s strings of press junkets got pushed back well into the night. 

The 155 cm tall Spanish-Iranian woman comes back and stares down at the two drivers. “That was dreadful.”

Henry nods dutifully hoping that she notices how much he wants to literally do anything else other than doing any more PR activities. 

“I know both of you have not had a break since last week, but I haven’t either, so you have to suck it up a little. We have one more thing for you to do before we let you go. We’re filming a carpool karaoke using one of our sponsor’s cars. It’s a new car they’re launching this month and you’re going to drive them around,” she says. 

“Do we have to sing?” Alex asks curiously. 

“Yes, Alex, that’s how carpool karaoke works,” Zahra exasperatedly says. 

“None of us can sing, Zahra. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Henry argues. 

“That’s kinda the point. Our sponsors think it will be fun to have two young and attractive drivers act silly in their cars. It’s one of those techy, smart, futuristic EV cars and they’re targeting young consumers,” Zahra says while typing on her phone. 

“Can’t we just do it next week?” Henry pleads. “I need to train. I’ve done nothing but talking to the media over the past forty eight hours and I believe there are some rules in the FIA regulations that would find that abusive, and illegal.”

Zahra crosses her hands and pointedly ignores Henry’s best puppy eyes that he usually uses to get out of his responsibilities. It worked many times before, but this time she just rolls her eyes. “Look, you’re already here, they’ve delivered the car last night, why don’t we just get it over with, it won't take longer than an hour, an hour and half, and you’ll be free doing whatever.”

“An hour, is that a promise?” Alex is not convinced. Zahra is great at managing the team’s brand but terrible at scheduling, as shown by this morning’s unbearably early interview. 

“Well, okay, we have not set up the car with the cameras and our filming team is still on their way here–don’t roll your eyes like that, Alex, this should’ve been the only marketing hours you’re obligated to do this week, but both of you thought it was the perfect time to act a fool on Sunday,” she says. 

“Okay so half a day?” Henry guesses. 

“You can help to make it faster by taking the car out from the basement,” Zahra shrugs. 

Henry is about to argue that this should not be the top priority, they really need to start preparing for the race this weekend because it is an entirely new circuit that none of them have tried before and they are running out of time but Alex talks first. “Okay, why not? Let’s get it over with,” he says.

Henry reluctantly follows them.  

The three of them take the elevator down and when the doors open, it is really hard not to notice the bright neon pink car sitting at the dark corner of the basement. Zahra does not even look up from her phone when both Henry and Alex groan at the sight of the car. It is the tiniest most adorable boxy car they have ever seen and would be perfect for young female consumers, which is admittedly their main audience but they are both lanky 180 something centimetres tall and could not possibly sit comfortably in there. 

“Um how are we going to fit in that?” Alex asks. 

“I swear they looked bigger in the picture,” Zahra shrugs. “Shit, I got no reception here. Okay boys, I’ll see you in the lobby, our filming crews will be there in 20 minutes, and we’ll prep you when you’re ready.”

Henry and Alex look at each other as the elevator doors close on Zahra. Henry opens his mouth about to say something when Alex bolts and claims the driving seat. They instantly confirm that they are too tall for the car. Their knees bumped painfully to the dashboard and the ceiling is so low both of them have to hunch a little. They both close the doors and feel the full claustrophobic effect washed on them. 

Alex fiddles with the huge LCD screen in front of them, which shows blinking wifi signs. “Umm, I can’t turn it on.” 

“What do you mean you can’t turn it on?” 

“It just said it couldn’t connect to wifi?” 

“It’s a car, Alex, why would it need to connect to wifi?”

“I don’t know, man. There’s something wrong with this car,” he says, continuing to fiddle with the screen in front of him. 

Henry huffs and mumbles something about how Alex could not even figure out a car under his breath when he pulls the door handle to open the door and realises that it is locked. “Um, can you unlock my door?” he asks. 

“I didn’t lock it,” Alex snaps. 

“Well, it’s locked. Could you please let me out of here?”

Alex’s hand reaches for the door’s lock switch and realises that there isn’t one. “Ugh I think it’s all set up digitally?” He tries to open the door to his side and realises that it’s also locked. “Shit, why is it locked too?”

“Oh goodness, what did you do, Alex?” 

“I did not do anything, this car is just impossible.”

For a minute, both of them try to force the door open and fail desperately. “You know, for a Formula One driver you’ve been so sloppy and I am so sick of ending up in situations like this with you,” Henry says. 

“Hey that’s not fair, I did not make you come here with me,” Alex retorts. 

“Can you call Zahra or anyone to pick us up?” Henry pulls out his phone and frowns at the sign that shows he has no reception. 

Alex tries to call several people but none of them connect. “Fuck! We’re fucked, aren’t we? Can’t believe tomorrow’s news would be that two Formula One drivers die of car fumes poisoning because they accidentally locked themselves in a car.”

Henry rolls his eyes, “Alex, I am not going to die here with you. It’s an EV. It does not produce carbon monoxide.”

So they sit there and wait. The basement stays quiet for a while, they occasionally see glimpses of lights from other cars passing through but they’re too far from them. 

Henry quietly realises this is probably the first time they are actually alone in a room together. He ponders for a minute on whether he wants to open a conversation or not, until he decides it’s probably better than the tortuous silence they’re having. 

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Alex looks at him incredulously. “Hate you? I’m not the one who punched you.”

“You know why I punched you. That trophy was personal to me. But before that, I've been nothing but cordial to you and you’re just mean to me.”

“That’s not true.” 

Henry narrowed his eyes, ready to list every single instance Alex straight up insulted him, including the first time they met after Alex signed his contract at the team’s headquarters and he told an engineer that Henry looked like he had ‘the personality of a cabbage.’ Pretty daring thing to say about a more senior driver who’s been with the team for years, but Alex just never relented.  

Henry crosses his arms and sees Alex’s brow furrows, appearing hesitant whether he wants to tell him the reason. “Do you really not remember being a prick to me at the Brazilian Grand Prix?”

Henry tilts his chin, “which one?”

“Your first year in F1. I was still in F3 and I got the opportunity to visit your team at the paddock. I walked up to you to introduce myself, and you stared at me like I was the most offensive thing you had ever seen. Right after you shook my hand, you turned to your assistant and said, ‘Can you get rid of him?’” 

A pause.

“Ah,” Henry says. He clears his throat. “I didn’t realise you’d heard that.”

“I feel like you’re missing the point,” Alex says, “which is that it’s a douchey thing to say either way.”

“That’s all?” Henry asks. “Only the Brazilian Grand Prix?”

“I mean, that was the start.”

Henry pauses again. “I’m sensing an ellipsis.”

“It’s just…” Alex opens and closes his mouth several times, his forehead creases and his jawline tenses, “I don’t know. Becoming an F1 driver is an impossible job, but it’s harder for me. You have no idea how much sacrifices I have made to get to where I am and there was no guarantee that it would work out. There’s still no guarantee that all of this will work out and I could be a washed up former driver who did not even finish his rookie year. Meanwhile, you’re, you know, you, and you were born into all of this, and everyone thinks you’re the heir apparent of the Fox legacy and everything is just easier for you,”

Henry raised his eyebrows, “Alex, your stepdad is Leo Castalazzi, it’s not like you’re going to live in complete destitute.” 

Alex scoffs, “oh fuck you Henry Fox.”

Henry may not know enough about Alex but he knows that his stepfather is a renowned Italian billionaire who invented some microchip parts and owned one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Alex’s life will be fine even if Formula One doesn’t work for him. 

“My mother did not marry Leo until I turned sixteen by the way, and yes, we never have to live in complete destitute but we did not live lavishly when we moved to the Netherlands.”

“I thought you moved to Italy?”

“No, my mother got a job in the Hague, she still works there, technically, but she lives with Leo now.”

“Your mom works at the International Criminal Court?”

“She was a prosecutor of the ICC, yeah. It’s a badass job, she led investigations of war crimes in places like Myanmar and Afghanistan. But she stepped down when she married Leo. She’s a special advisor now and she still goes back and forth consulting on the Gaza conflict,” Alex says and Henry could not help but notice the glint in his eyes when he talked about his mother. 

“I thought you moved from the United States because you want to pursue racing?” 

“It was both. I did karting when we were in Austin but it wasn't as serious. My parents divorced when I was ten and then my mom got her dream job at the ICC, so she was very busy, travelled a lot, and my dad and my sister were back in the States. I found racing to be a good outlet to distract myself, keep myself busy,” Alex says, “I figured that she felt really bad whenever she missed every time I won a race. So she made the effort to attend my races. That’s how she met Leo.”

“Why didn’t you just stay with your father and sister?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I blamed him for leaving us? My parents, they were the kind of married lawyer couple who could barely order Chinese takeout without legally binding documents. They always fight. Until one day I came home from a Boy Scout camp-out to discover he moved his things out,” Alex exhales. “I just, I thought that if he gave me the chance to do something, to say something, he wouldn’t have left… like that.”

“But we’re on good terms now. I really respect the old man,” he quickly adds. “He attended the Miami Grand Prix last month with my sister.”

Henry and Alex remained quiet for a few beats, another car passed through in the corner. He sees Alex in a completely different light now. There are many reasons why someone would want to be one of the 20 people in the world who get to drive a car at over 200 km per hour, and he sees Alex’s now. 

He saw comments saying that Alex drives like he has fire under his ass for no good goddamn reason. He is fast but still reckless, he even outpaced Henry three times in the last eight races, but always faltered by the last couple of laps, and that’s something that he would have to learn with experience. 

“I don’t know if you remember but I did not have a good rookie season like you. I crashed the car every weekend, zero point to my name, and I was very close to being replaced. I mean the car was total shit but it was also people’s expectations that I should have won races as if the ghost of my father was magically driving it,” Henry says, leaning his head to the headrest and staring at the ceiling. 

“I was indeed a prick that day, but I was under enormous pressure and I was kind of a prick every weekend back then. I am sorry for that,” Henry says, pausing for a few seconds, “and I am also sorry for punching you in the face.”

Alex exhales.  

“It’s just sucked that I never get to celebrate my first podium, you know, God knows it may be my only one,” he says quietly. 

Henry has to take a few seconds about what he should say to Alex because he knows perfectly well that it is all about winning mentality in this industry and if his teammate really believes in what he said it can be very dangerous for both of them and the team. 

“Why would you say that? Bit early to be that pessimistic,” Henry carefully said. 

“It’s…” Alex starts. “Nobody in my family does what I do, you know? It was supposed to be a simple hobby, something to release the energy that I happened to always have in abundance. I should be taking AP courses, running for student body president, becoming valedictorian, going to college and taking political science or some shit,” Alex says. “Instead, I spend so much time and energy doing this, and it’s really hard to make them appreciate it. My dad still told me it’s not too late to try college the last time I met him.”

Henry was silent for a moment.

“For what it's worth, I think we should’ve been celebrating your first podium instead of doing all this damage control tour. You’ll never forget your first one and I’m sorry I ruined yours,” Henry says. 

Alex’s expression softens and as Henry was about to say more, they see the elevator doors open, Zahra and a couple of guys from their team walking hurriedly towards them. "What the fuck are you guys doing?" Zahra yells at them as she unlocks the car using her phone. 

 "We got locked in, you shouldn't have left us here," Alex answers as they step out of the tiny car. 

"Well sorry about that, I'll have someone else take the car up, both of you need to get ready," Zahra says, pressing the elevator button once again. 

As they walk to the elevator, Henry reaches out and pulls Alex's shoulder. “Alex, you know that you are objectively doing much better than I did in my first year. You’re doing much better than anyone on the grid, really. You’ll have more podiums and wins.”

“Thanks Henry, it means a lot.” 

“You know, you also don’t need to tie your self worth to the approval of people who refuse to understand,” he adds. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Alex says, visibly more relaxed, “fuck them dads for leaving, right?”

Chapter Text

It’s ridiculous. Henry is fucking ridiculous. Alex could not believe how he actually bared all of his insecurities from his deepest heart and soul to Henry in that dark corner of a basement only for him to do a complete 180 and gone back to being a fucking diva that he is. 

It was like a switch was flipped at some point inside Henry’s brain when they returned to the building’s lobby last Wednesday and he became even more distant than before, and Alex could not figure out why. 

Of course Alex can feel something was already off with Henry since the incident, but this guy straight up refused to do the carpool karaoke, yelled at Zahra for insisting, and spent the rest of his day training at the gym. Alex barely got to speak with him since then, only during strategy meetings in between free practice and qualifying, and nothing beyond business as usual.

Henry is still avoiding Alex like a plague when the race starts on Sunday. It’s warm and sunny at the circuit in Madrid, where thousands of fans came to watch one of the racers win the Spanish Grand Prix. 

Alex is standing with other racers on a low-loader truck for today’s drivers’ parade, which is held about two hours before the actual race starts. He looks on to Henry, who’s standing on the other side of the truck, waving gracefully to thousands of spectators who lined around the circuit. An air of royalty emanates from his demeanour. To the fans, Henry is the embodiment of a prince charming, all sandy hair and big blue eyes, but behind that wide, toothy smile, there’s this mysterious guy who left Alex wondering whether he was being manipulated into exposing all of his vulnerabilities that could later be used against him.

As he second-guesses everything he told Henry on Wednesday, Alex is waving too, because the novelty of becoming a celebrity who belongs in a very exclusive club of 20 people who drive the world’s fastest cars has not completely worn off on him. He turns on his All-American charm and raises his hands and waves to thousands of spectators sitting in the grandstand. There are splashes of colours among the fans, the red for Ferrari, green for Aston Martin and the orange for McLaren, as well as other team colours, but a significant majority of Spanish fans came in to support their driver Carlos Sainz, who’s driving for Williams. 

Sainz is standing there between Henry and Charles Leclerc, who drives for Ferrari, talking and nodding solemnly to each other like they belonged to the fucking tortured drivers department. Alex wonders what they are talking about. He hopes it’s not about the trophy, but he reckons Sainz already has a couple things to complain about. His qualifying results brought him to P13 today, probably his personal worst since losing the Ferrari seat, and Alex is willing to bet on everything he’d won that Sainz is blaming his car. 

Henry is starting at P3 today, Leclerc is at P4 and the McLaren boys, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are at P5 and P6. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are leading the pack, driving for Ferrari and Red Bull, respectively, and Alex is behind all of them at P7. It’s actually a much better qualifying results than he expected and all he needs to achieve today is not fuck up too much, stay in the top 10 so he can earn points, and hopefully he could finish higher than where he starts. 

While the truck is going around the circuit, presenter Laura Winter is making the rounds interviewing drivers about the race. The brunette journalist goes to Henry first, holding up a mic to him and a videographer pointed the camera to his face, which is broadcasted live in the huge screens across the grandstands. 

“Henry Fox, you made a stir when you attacked your teammate on the podium last week, have you spoken with Toto about it and did he give you an earful?” she asks. 

Henry makes his perfectly media-trained chuckle and dismisses the question. “Actually it does not bother him that much, to be honest with you. We won and earned 41 points, which was the most we’ve got so far in a single weekend. It was just an unfortunate thing that happened when we were in the heat of the moment and things become a little bit emotional–”

In truth, it bothers Toto very much, and after hours and hours of gruelling discussion with their media team, they come up with that exact line, which Alex also parroted whenever he was asked about last week’s incident. 

“You’re starting at P3 today, and Monaco was your second win after Bahrain. How optimistic are you that this year’s title will be fought in a three-way battle?” 

“For sure, we’re nearly there in our rebuilding phase and we’ve already seen serious improvements in the last year and half. This season I feel like we can finally say that we have title winning cars at our disposal. Of course Red Bull and Ferrari are still leading the race, each of them have three wins so far, and McLaren has also consistently performed really well, but we’ve gone a long way from having an entire season dominated by a single team. If we can secure another win today, this will show that we also have a serious shot at winning the championships,” Henry said.

“Great, have a good race,” Laura told Henry. The interviews at drivers' parade are never meant to dig too deep but Henry did give good quotes. 

She moves to Sainz, who, sure enough, complains about his car. She then speaks with a couple other drivers that Alex does not care enough to pay close attention to, until she talks to reigning champion Max Verstappen. 

“Max, you’re starting at P2 today, but you also did not finish your race the last time in Monaco because you crashed into a wall. Has the issue been fixed?” 

“Well, Monaco was a nightmare. We had some serious engine issues and it's quite frustrating. But that's racing, I guess. Our engineers have been busting their asses to fix the car and we're not here to dwell on the past. We're here to fix it and come back stronger,” he says. 

Laura does not linger much on Verstappen and moves to Hamilton who’s standing on the other side of the truck. He’s holding a red umbrella and wearing sunglasses, and his Ferrari shirt complementing his style perfectly.

“Lewis, how are you feeling going into today’s race, back at pole position again. How much of the latest upgrade package to your car contributed to this?”

He gives her his most radiant smile, “yeah, really pleased with how the car's performing yesterday. Big shoutout to the team and the guys at Ferrari for the recent upgrades. They've definitely given us a solid boost, and I'm feeling confident out there on track. It's all coming together nicely.”

Ferrari cars this season are the envy of the entire grid, with Hamilton and Leclerc taking first and second positions at the inaugural Australian Grand Prix by a margin of nearly half a minute ahead of the third driver. Hamilton won the next two races in Shanghai and Suzuka before Henry broke that momentum when he won Bahrain. 

Optimists believe that this year will finally be the year Hamilton gets his eighth championship, now that he has the right car that brought him consistent top positions. But Verstappen is not handing him that title easily since he still drives Red Bull’s very powerful car. Last year, he fiercely fought to defend his title from Hamilton and closely squeezed Hamilton out of his eighth championship by five points. That victory placed Verstappen in the exclusive club of champions with five consecutive titles–a record that even Hamilton does not have. 

Alex would be lying if he said he never imagined himself up there, fighting out championships with these giants, but he’s still a midfield driver in his first few races, enough to score points but not enough to contend for a podium. That only changed in Monaco, when Verstappen's crash at front caused enough chaos for him to climb five positions and reach third place. He’s not sure he’d be as lucky today. 

“Alex, how’s your nose today?” 

Laura’s question caught Alex off guard. “Huh?”

“Your teammate, Henry, hit you on the podium last week in Monaco?”

“Oh! Nah, I’m alright, Henry and I have done worse to each other when our emotions run high, but we never take it personally,” he says, trying to present his most endearing smile.

“And after achieving a podium for the first time last week, are you going to get another one today?” 

Alex laughs softly with a slight sceptical grin, “hopefully yeah, I will need to overtake quite a lot of strong racers for that but I guess it’s not impossible. It would probably help if there’s another crash.” 

Right as the words came out of his mouth Alex realised that it was a terrible response. It does not project confidence and sounded uncertain, which are the first things he learned to avoid in media training. He just sounded like a jerk. He knows he should’ve said something else to fix it but Laura nods assuringly and wishes him good luck, and he watches that window of opportunity slip through him. 

He sighs, he’s really bad at this. 

His driver’s instinct can tell that Henry’s eyes are directed at him but Alex pointedly tries not to look back. He does not want to think about what kind of picture Henry has pieced together about what he just said and immediately jumps out of the truck when they reach the end of the drivers’ parade. 

Alex sprints to their motorhome, ignoring dozens of people in his team–there are some he hasn’t learned their names yet–and goes straight to his room. They have about an hour to get ready before the race starts and that is just not enough to stop himself from spiralling. 

So Alex busies himself by getting dressed in his racing suit. His sleek black and turquoise garment fits his lean and tall body perfectly, with his driver’s number, 45, featured at the back. The number was a nod to his mother’s favourite lucky number and Alex has been using it since he started competitive racing. 

There's this picture of him winning the Dutch karting championship stuck to the mirror that he takes wherever he goes. He was thirteen at the time, he raised the trophy high, and his mom was standing there, beaming at him. She was still wearing her signature red power suit, Alex remembers she barely made it to the final race. She came straight from the airport after dressing down some African dictators about their human rights records, but at that moment nothing else mattered to her, she was just so proud of him. She cheered on him when he passed the chequered flags and stood at the forefront for the podium ceremony, telling everyone who would listen to her that the first place winner was her son. Her brilliant and talented son.

Years later Alex is still chasing that high, but winning was a lot simpler back then. Now it’s a cursed combination of not just his own performance on the track but also the car’s competitiveness, the team's strategic decisions, and sponsorships with a million different commitments attached to it. Also luck, a shit ton of luck. And that is on top making sure he is not acting like an idiot and accidentally stepped on his teammate’s apparently most prized possession. He failed spectacularly at that and it will likely follow him for the rest of his career. He’ll forever be that asshole who ruined his teammate’s victory exactly in the city where his father died 15 years ago. People will ask him that question every time and look past his achievements, and isn’t that the worst thing that ever happened when you are just starting your career in motorsport. 

“It sometimes helps if you imagine reporters as toddlers who just really like to ask questions,” Henry’s head peeks through the half-opened door. 

Alex knows that Henry’s room is right next to his but he did not hear him coming through this time, and he usually does. The walls of these motorhomes are paper thin and he can hear everything his teammate is doing. 

“Do you have nephews or nieces?” Henry makes his way into Alex’s room. 

Alex shakes his head, clearly not appreciating Henry for coming into his space without invitation. As drivers they’re afforded the luxury of having their own room in the motorhome but they’re just glorified changing rooms with a desk and small couch that they just don’t have to share with others. 

“Well I have twin nieces. They’re four and they ask a lot of questions and when I answer them, I have to explain to them slowly so they can understand. Some reporters are like that,” Henry says, crossing his arms and leaning next to the door. He's also already dressed in his racing suit. His race number, 71, is also displayed near his hip, and myriads of sponsor logos on his chest.

“Good to know,” Alex scoffs, “are you also going to tell me exactly what I did wrong this time or are you just going to treat me like I’m some worthless piece of shit?” Alex leans back on the couch in the corner. 

Henry was just about to take the chair opposite of Alex and appeared to be taken aback by what he said. He sits down anyway, “I don’t think you’re a worthless piece of shit.”

“I know I did the unforgivable thing to you last week but are you going to stonewall me forever?” 

“Alex, it’s not…” Henry exhales, “it’s not about what you did.”

“Well what is it then?”

“Okay, I shouldn’t have attacked you, I crossed the line. But it was difficult to keep control of myself there,” Henry stares at the mirror behind Alex, noticing the photos that he placed there. “My dad died there, I was there when it happened.”

Alex falls momentarily silent. Of course he knows that, everybody knows about Arthur Fox’s tragic death 15 years ago. Alex and tens of millions of people saw it on the television when it happened. He lost control of the car when he entered the tunnel. His car hit the wall at over 200 km/h inside the tunnel and burst into flames, and he was trapped inside. It took three minutes for the fire brigade to arrive and put the fire out. It took the rescue workers 25 minutes to cut him out safely from his wrecked car. Autopsy results found that Arthur suffered a torn aorta and fractures to both legs. Henry was watching all of this from the stands.

“I was the only one who’s with him that day. My mom was back home in London with my brother and sister. He promised me that when I win my first karting competition, he’ll take me to Monaco. I was barely seven at the time. He was so happy and kept telling people, ‘if you think I'm fast, just wait until you see my Henry.’” he says, a brief flicker of a smile crossed his face but it’s quickly replaced by a thoughtful frown. 

“Before the race he told me that he’s planning to retire after that year. He had been racing for more than a decade at that point and he said he was happy with four, possibly five championships. He hated that he missed out a lot of our childhood because of the travel and he wanted to be more present for us. So when the crash happened…” Henry’s lips quivered slightly, “I was just angry.”

Alex feels even more like an asshole now. “Wow, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that.”

“Well nobody knows, he never got to tell his plan to anyone else and it eventually became something that I got to keep to myself. We were making plans, there were places we wanted to go to… Sometimes I feel like I'm lost in an alternative universe where we get to be the best father-son duo in Formula One history,” Henry stares at a distance, then refocuses to Alex, “what I’m trying to say is… you just happened to push the wrong trigger that day because what my father did was the opposite of leaving.”

“Yeah, fuck, sorry. I didn’t know what I was saying,” Alex frowns. 

“It’s not your fault, it’s just… I’ve always had this trouble keeping myself together and the best thing I can do is to put a bit of distance, otherwise someone would end up with a bloody nose again.”

“You’d punch me again?” Alex says half jokingly. 

Henry chuckles bitterly, “did you know that my entire family, including my grandmother, banned me from racing after my father died? I was not allowed to go to the tracks for over a year.”

“I may have read about it,” Alex admits.

“Well, I’m sure you didn’t read how I destroyed everything in my sight until I was allowed to go back to my seat. The smallest things set me off, and I end up saying or doing things I regret almost immediately. I lashed out at my mom, my brother, my dear sister, literally everyone. Philip is four years older than me but I got him hospitalised for broken bones at some point. I am not proud of any of it. My therapist said it was a manifestation of PTSD that I get from witnessing the crash, which may be true, but she could not explain how all of these issues became sort of manageable after I was allowed to race.”

“You never strike me as someone who’s that aggressive,” Alex says.

“I’m not. I’ve done everything I have to do to keep it under control. My therapists have always come with me wherever I go. I’ve got an entire team for it. When you broke the trophy, it was the first time I let it slip in years, and definitely the first time it happened in public.

It’s just Monaco, you know. We passed the tunnel where my dad died over a hundred times throughout the race. The memories are so vivid here, sometimes I can still smell the fuel and the fire burning his skin and flesh. I’m bound to be on edge the entire time.”

“If it’s that painful, why would you put yourself through it though?”

Henry takes a few breaths before he answers that question. “Because it’s a promise,” he says firmly. 

Alex feels his heart break for Henry. 

“That you'd win Monaco?”

“That I'd be world champion,” Henry says, his steely eyes never more intimidating to Alex than in this moment.

Chapter Text

When he signed his contract last year, Alex knew that he was obligated to drive the car for twenty four weekends a year in twenty four different locations around the world. It was not until Silverstone–halfway into this season–that he realised that he basically agreed to be part of a massive travelling circus.

He gets the travelling part, his experience in Formula Two was basically half of the Formula One experience already and the more junior series also involved a bit of travelling, but it was not this many places and definitely never with this many people. 

It’s the flights after flights from one city on one side of the globe to another. It’s the short and long car rides between airports, hotels and the circuits. It’s going back to his hotel room at Sunday midnight after a race, completely knackered and having his next flight on Monday morning. It’s exchanging his friends and families at home with the seemingly random groups of people from the paddock, the engineers, the mechanics and the pit crew.  

It still feels unreal though, to actually wake up every morning and never really feel sure where he is. When his manager Rafael Luna bangs on his door this morning, it takes him a couple minutes to collect these facts: one, he’s in England, two, it’s Thursday, and three, he’s running late. 

Alex knows he would not even dream of securing a Formula One seat, let alone a Mercedes seat so early in his career without Raf. He will be forever indebted to the man. But when he barged in his room this morning while his body was still fighting the Canadian time zone, the idea of firing him never felt so tempting. 

That will never happen, though. 

Alex grew up idolising Raf, the Mexican racer who has multiple wins over his decade-long career. There weren’t that many American representations in the sport so the next natural thing was to root for the Mexican driver who consistently performed well in races. 

About a year after he retired from Red Bull, Raf recognized Alex’s talents when he won the Italian F4 championship. He took him under his wings and mentored him to be where he is right now. It was thanks to Raf’s connections and, more importantly, sense of timing, Alex could land his seat. 

But even with his vast experience in the business, Raf could not prepare Alex enough for this total physical and mental exhaustion of a Spielberg-Montreal-Silverstone triple header, where they do back-to-back travel between Europe and Northern America in the span of a month. He is yawning hard as he drives Alex’s car to the circuit where the full scale of the impending race weekend's excitement and chaos began to unfold. 

“What’s the forecast for this weekend?” Alex asks as he leans to the window, looking up at England’s perpetual grey sky. 

“There's a slight chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday, we’re hoping it’s not going to be too intense, but it’s definitely going to be a bit wet,” Raf says. 

Alex groans. 

The older man waves his hand, “you’re going to do okay. It’s not going to be the worst weather you’ve driven in.”

It’s obviously not Alex’s first time racing in Silverstone, it’s just his first in Formula One. He knows the track like the back of his hand, having raced here a couple times in junior levels as well as doing hundreds of hours in it in simulations. He knows how tricky it is, even without the unpredictability of a wet track, and this weekend he will be racing against some of the most experienced and skilled drivers in the sport. 

Alex huffs. He would have felt better about the upcoming race if he had a great time in Canada last week. He got overtaken by both McLaren cars at the last laps, leaving him in ninth position, while Henry gloriously claimed his fourth win of the season.

Raf could probably sense Alex’s frustration when he pulled to the parking lot. “Got anything on your mind, kid?”

“Do you know why they haven’t talked about my contract extension?” he muses. 

“The summer’s not over yet and you’re already worrying about that?” Raf furrows his brow.

“Look, it’s still very early to tell. Yes, there’s high expectations on you to perform better in the team but you’re not doing terribly either. They know your potential. We did not go through months of tests and negotiations only for them to immediately drop you after a bad week. You have a lot of things to learn and everybody knows you’re catching up. You just need to focus on racing and leave those things to me, okay?”

Alex shrugs. 

“And it was not even that bad,” Raf adds as he turns off the car’s engine. 

“It was bad enough,” Alex says under his breath. 

From inside his car he can see how the paddock is just like how it always is, a barely controlled madhouse, where tents and motorhomes are bustling with thousands of team personnel, FIA officials, media representatives, and fans who have paid thousands just to hang around the area like ants to honey. 

There are rows of photographers waiting for him, ready to take pictures of his first time arriving at Silverstone as an F1 driver and there are also hundreds of fans standing behind the barriers, yelling excitedly to get drivers’ signatures and selfies.

It’s part of the job. Alex perfectly understands this complex publicity ecosystem around this billion dollar industry. Not just being fast, drivers also have to be appealing and marketable. He has to maintain a good image and personality in front of the fans, because that’s how you draw sponsorship. Alex knows how to turn on the charm, both to reporters and fans, even though there are times when he feels like he’s just one of the circus animals being paraded around, sometimes scrutinised, judged and booed for things he did not do or had zero control over. 

Alex takes a deep breath before his bodyguard Cassius–Cash for short–opens his car door and lets the noises and blitz engulf him. On his other side, Amy closes in on him. She leads him to the gate and enters the paddock. 

Alex waves to the photographers who call on his name, puts on his best American smile, lets them take pictures of him, lets them exhaust every possible angle, and briefly entertains some fans who ask for signatures and selfies on the sidelines. He can tell that most of the fans today came for Henry, England's sweetheart, and they only go to him by association. A few fans hand him posters and cards of him and Henry to sign and he cheekily draws horns on Henry’s head before adding his own signature. They laugh at the gesture and tell him that they love it. It feels good to interact with those adoring fans and for a few moments he feels like it’s all worth it, until he realises that he’s really late to the team meeting and he sprints along the paddock.

Just when he’s about to reach the team’s suite, from the corner of his eyes, he sees three young women walking towards him, wearing Henry’s team gear, his racing number displayed on their chests and their lanyards showing that they’re fans with VIP paddock passes. They set their eyes straight to Alex with such intensity and he slows down, initially thinking they were asking for selfies, until one of them yells at him to “get off Henry’s back” with such contempt. 

That is unexpected, and exactly at that shocking moment he is glad for Cash and Amy who effectively put a safe distance between him and the women, and swiftly keep him moving away from them. He can hear them shouting profanities behind him and feels his ears turn red and heart pound in his chest as he pressed on the door and entered the suite.

Alex did not need bodyguards–most drivers, rookies especially, rarely need them–until the accident with Henry’s trophy. Raf insisted, at least during race days, for his security’s sake because the whole damage control tour he did with Henry only lasted a week before they’re busy for the next race and it only successfully neutralised the general opinions against them. The media thankfully stopped asking questions about the incident, but there are still loud minorities who constantly send out hate comments on social media, and today he learns that apparently some of them can purchase VIP access and say it to his face. 

The hate he received got so bad that Alex deleted all social media apps from his phone–a team of professionals manage them now and the comment sections were turned off from all of his pages. 

That’s another thing that nobody told him before he signed for F1. The extent of things passionate fans would do for the idols they have parasocial relationships with is dreadful. They are so protective of Henry and the way they talk about the incident, you’d think Alex killed Henry’s father with his own hands, even though he was six and nowhere near Monaco at the time. 

Henry has got millions of devoted fans even before he started driving in F1, hell, probably even before he got in a karting seat. He’s been surrounded by fans since he was born. Alex saw Henry’s baby face and his big blue eyes in the broadcast back in his father’s time, and he could not be older than five at the time. The fact that Henry turned out to be a carbon copy of the deeply loved Arthur Fox–with identically sculpted jawlines and soft, full smile–only makes his fanbase become more dedicated in believing that it is his destiny to repeat his father’s records. Anyone perceived to be in the way is a threat. 

Alex found himself to be the easy target, especially after the incident in Monaco. They've been calling on everyone, from their team principal Toto Wolff, Mercedes, to the freaking government of Germany, to fire Alex for breaking Henry's trophy, something that they've said millions of times was just an accident. 

He does not understand how, but for Henry’s fans, ever since he broke his trophy, Alex is just this envious teammate who is never happy for Henry’s achievements, just because he was not the first driver to congratulate him on his wins, or being visibly upset when he lost five positions in the race. 

It’s complicated. It is not like Alex is blaming Henry personally. He did not do anything that fueled the hate and tried everything he could to calm the vitriol that’s coming to Alex. Shortly after the race in Madrid, he uploaded pictures of their moments together in Monaco, the one right before the incident, with a caption that highlighted how historic it actually was for Alex to be the first American to score a podium in nearly 50 years. Because it was historic. No other American driver ever came close in this mostly European sport. It was something that should have been equally celebrated the way Henry’s Monaco win was supposed to be celebrated. 

Alex commented on Henry's post with “history, huh? Bet we could make some,” and that was literally the last comment he ever made on the internet. 

He would have been vindicated if, after making that comment, Alex did make more history. What actually happened was he barely clinging in the top ten in the last few races, while Henry continued to make podiums and win. Alex still cannot figure out how to do it. He knows he has the pace, his qualifying results often placed him in or near the top five, but he’d be lucky if he scored more than four points by the end of the race. 

That is just not enough points to get the team leading the constructors championship, and with the cars they currently have, they should, because Henry is out there fighting for top position. Halfway into the year Alex already feels he’s already overstaying his welcome. 

Being late to a team meeting is not helping his anxieties.

“Alex!” is the first thing he hears from one of at least two dozen of heads in the meeting room, and it was coming from Henry, who already sat down with his headphones on, while monitors in front of them displayed telemetry data. Everyone else is already here, people from the technical department to race strategy.

Henry waves at Alex, who is trying hard not to think about how outrageously fresh Henry looks like, with that nicely tousled sandy hair, high cheekbones and a soft, friendly mouth. It is absolutely unfair considering both of them–all of them, actually–had to endure the same triple-header nightmare, and Henry has at least three times more sponsorship commitments than Alex. 

“Sorry guys,” Alex shuffles to the room, nodding to Toto and Henry across the room. He glances at the clock and realises he’s almost half an hour late. There is this different, unpleasant adrenaline rush running through his veins after the encounter with the fans followed by dozens of annoyed eyes waiting on him to take his seat. This is not how his weekend is supposed to start. 

Toto clears his throat. “Right, I just want to start with thanking you all for the last couple of races. I know it has been a logistical nightmare for everyone involved but we’ve put in the hard work and we’ve seen the results. The upgrades have been working really well. We’re closing the gap we have with our competitors. 

“Our goal this week is to get Henry his second home race win. With all the Arthur Fox tribute we’re doing this week, it’s only natural for Henry to get the win here and I think we’re prepared to deliver it,” he says in his thick Austrian accent.

Toto is not lying when he says that. Alex's been with the team for half a year now and he's still amazed at how the entire operation works like a well-oiled machine. The drivers are just one part of a massive mission involving over a thousand people working towards a single purpose of winning races. On top of about 75 people travelling with them to races, there are hundreds others supporting them from their headquarters, and dozens of different engineering departments working on car development to figure out how to make it faster. 

“Of course, there are still a few things that we need to improve. Alex, you need to show a bit more consistency, and I believe you can do better than the last couple of races. Everyone in the team is here to help you get there,” Toto says. 

Alex slowly nods to the Austrian man and feels the heavy responsibility multiplied on his shoulders. Last year was exhausting but in a different way than this year where he actually gets to race. Back then it was a lot of convincing and manoeuvring, unbelievable hours of testing and pages and pages of negotiation documents that ultimately led to Toto’s surprising announcement of signing Alex–a rookie with no prior experience of racing in Formula One. The Mercedes team, whose motto is “the best or nothing” chose Alex because they think he’s the best. 

Now, over a year since the announcement people still question that decision, every permutation of what-ifs has clouded Alex’s moves, what if he earned his seat in a backmarker team like most drivers on the grid, what if a more experienced driver gets the seat, and all the doubts over Alex’s ability to ever deliver on the promises. This has left Alex with incredible pressure to perform. Anywhere else he would be praised for being that rookie who manages to stay in the points in every race he was in, but standing next to Henry, driving the same set of dominant cars with him, Alex should’ve achieved more. 

More than anything, Alex wants more than what he’d got and he hates the glorified participation points he’d earned so far. Silverstone will be his 12th race of the season and he felt like he should already have his first win at this point. 

Toto continues listing the things they need to discuss for the meeting, some review of last week’s race–Alex winces when they review the footage of him being overtaken at the last laps–and car updates. He then calls up a strategist to start a presentation. 

It just so happens that Nora Holleran, Alex’s favourite person in the team, walks to the front of the meeting room to present the plan for the weekend, which is forecasted to be a slight rain on all weekend. She explains their practice plans and offers a couple of new strategies for Saturday and Sunday, all of which emphasised on Henry being in the lead with Verstappen and Hamilton and Alex playing midfield. There's this uneasiness Alex feels deep in his stomach every time the team does that but he keeps it to himself. 

“It’s a little tricky to predict because of the weather, but I’d say it’s a good 77 percent chance of a second home race win for Henry. I’d personally throw it out there that there’s also a good chance of Alex getting his second podium if Leclerc crashed into Hamilton, which is 81 percent likely based on their last two races and their recent social media activities but that’s just my non-professional opinion,” she says at the end of her fifteen minute presentation. 

She gives a little wink to Alex. 

As much as Alex gravitated towards Formula One because of the extreme speed that feeds perfectly into his tactical brain, the sport is also all about advanced engineering and statistics, everything that tickled Nora’s analytical brain. Both of them grew up watching Formula One races. When Alex watched races from his home in Austin while his lawyer parents worked on weekends, Nora was rooting for Lewis Hamilton with her British-Caribbean grandparents in London. When Alex was skipping school to participate in junior competitions, she was completing her aerospace engineering degree from University of Cambridge on full scholarship. 

After graduating, however, she decided that she did not want to be stuck in drawing rooms designing car’s wings. She joined Mercedes’ strategy department a couple months before Alex signed for the team last year. Alex and Nora quickly became friends when they could easily talk strategy over some Gen Z jokes. 

“Do you think we can get a 1-2 finish if there’s safety cars?” a pit crew member asks.

Nora grins at the question, “our experience in Monaco shows that Alex is great at capitalising chaos, so I’d say it’s a 63 percent chance for that,” she says as she ends her presentation and returns to her seat. 

Toto continues the meeting by going through more contingency plans and competitors analysis as well as other technical briefings. Before Alex realises it, it is past noon and they finally wrap up. Raf was quick on Toto’s side as they walked out of the room to talk about things that Alex did not get to listen to. Everyone else also left the room to go back to do their own things.

Drivers don’t get to sit in the car until Friday and today all they have to do is just some media commitments. Alex decides to discuss his racing plans with Nora. He sits next to her and hunches over her desk to study her analysis of his performance on the simulations. She has all of Alex’s records loaded up on her computer and explains to him where his biggest weaknesses are and reminds him of all the places where he must drive in precise accuracy. 

“I think you’d comfortably get a top five position at the qualifying and a decent finish at the race. We can confirm this through your practice sessions tomorrow,” Nora says.

“How much money would you bet on that?” Alex challenges her.

It’s one of Nora’s quirks, spewing up random statistics like she’s the oracle, and no one really questioned her method. She does get it wrong from time to time, and each time she blames incomplete information. “20 quid of you qualifying top five and another 10 of you getting podium,” Nora confidently says. “But only if you follow my strategy,” she quickly adds.

Alex rolls his eyes. She’s just his biggest cheerleader in this team and it really means a lot when he’s still trying to figure out his way into the sport. But at the same time, he quietly wants her to be wrong because he does not want to get fifth place, he wants to get pole position, and he wants to win. 

“What the fuck is this?!” Alex turns his head and sees Henry walking towards him from the other side of the room. He holds his phone up showing some shaky video of what appears to be the incident with his fans this morning.

Henry’s phone is in front of his face and it’s always weird to see himself from a third person point of view, this time from someone who recorded him getting harassed by fans and sharing the video on Twitter. It looks like they’re going viral with it too, as the video has gained 100,000 views within a few hours. 

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Those girls are just jealous of me,” Alex shrugs, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. 

“They surely do,” Nora quips as she pretends to be busy on her computer. 

“No, no, it’s unacceptable. It’s embarrassing, it’s, it’s… I cannot believe they do that!” Henry looks flustered and a tense frown forms on his lips. 

“It’s fine, Henry, I’m used to it at this point. It’s Silverstone, it’s your home race, so I should’ve expected some of your crazy fans out there,” Alex says, trying really hard not to blame Henry because, well, it’s just too complicated. 

It’s been almost two months since the incident in Monaco, and what he thought to be a pretty black and white case of Henry being entitled and arrogant nepo-baby turned out to be a bit more nuanced when Henry, without warning, straight up dumped all of his trauma upon Alex’s lap literally 10 minutes before race started in Madrid. 

Alex did not know how to process that, but he did something that he never thought he'd be able to do, he stayed quiet. He did not blame Henry when he received death threats on his mail or when crowds were booing him at a fan event in Austria. He did not even say a word about the barrages of negative sentiments brought by the British media against him, just because he was not performing well and appeared to drag the team down. What is he supposed to do? Blame the guy with severe childhood trauma because his fans slightly inconvenient you?

It does not help that the disparity between Alex’s and Henry’s performance became wider and wider apart, which blurred the lines between legitimate criticism and straight up hate, and Alex, for the life of him, cannot tell the difference. Everybody knows your teammate is your main reference to assess your performance and Alex feels he hasn’t done half-decent job so far, being a rookie notwithstanding. 

The result of this is just Alex and Henry walking on eggshells around each other for weeks, and after enduring over seven hours flight last night (it was commercial, Alex passed Henry’s offer to join his private jet earlier in the day) Alex is just too exhausted to have this conversation. 

“Or maybe you can join my interview with Sky Sport this afternoon? It’s supposed to be about my father but I think we can also talk about this unacceptable fan behaviour, and set things straight for the rest of the week, you know?” 

“You don’t have to make this about me,” Alex says. 

“I think that’s a good idea!” someone says in a sing-songy tone.

Alex and Henry turn to the door where a petite young woman walks in, followed by a slightly older man behind her. Henry’s siblings, Alex thinks. He’s done his research about Henry so that he does not talk out of his ass like the last time they talked about their fathers. He knows Henry’s the youngest of three, and he’s got a sister, Beatrice and a brother, Philip. They are two and four years older than Henry but as they walk in to them, he’s apparently a few inches taller. 

“Beatrice, right?” Alex makes an exaggerated squint.  

“I go with Bea, dear,” she tells Alex, tilting her head slightly and eyeing Henry, “he’s talked a lot about you.”

“Only good things, I hope,” Alex says as he tries to assess the energy between the three siblings. Meeting them in person, Alex could see the resemblance, they have the same aristocratic brow lines and cheekbones that they inherited from their mother, but only Henry’s got their father’s generally softer features. Philip got a harsher jaw and thinner lip, and Bea got their mother’s heart-shaped face.   

Henry quickly moved to his sister’s side, giving her a half hug. “Alex, this is my sister, Bea, and my brother Pip–Philip.”  

“Of course, the Fox siblings, you’re like, the royal family of motor racing.”

“Well there’s only one of us who’s taking the crown, the rest of us are just happy to be here,” Philip crosses his arms and gives a teasing look to Henry. 

Alex knows Henry’s brother is being modest and what he said is a massive understatement. Phillip is the heir apparent to the Windsor fortune, one of England’s biggest conglomerates. Their family's sprawling enterprise currently run by their grandmother covers everything from property to media and Philip is clearly on track to be her successor as he takes up leadership roles in the firm’s automotive business. 

Meanwhile Bea’s the one who’s basically running the Arthur Fox Foundation even though their mother is the official chairwoman of the organisation. She’s actively advocated diversity and inclusion in Formula One, including supporting and developing young female drivers to progress in the sport. She’s also just such a sight to see at the paddock, Alex is pretty sure she's one of the most photographed non-driver individuals in Formula One. Unlike her brothers who dressed in mostly posh styles, Bea’s rocking leather jackets over summer dresses around the paddock, her hair always comes undone in such a stylish way that only she can pull off. 

“We’re just done filming with the Sky guys.” Bea says “I think they’re more interested in you and your race here than us.”

“They’d have to listen to me talk about what the fans are doing, then. Have you seen the video?” Henry says, the frustration is still apparent in his tone.

“It’s nasty, honestly,” Bea shakes her head, “I am so sorry you have to go through that, Alex.” 

“Who let these people in anyway? I can't believe the price for the paddock access nowadays; it should be at least ten times the amount otherwise you’re just inviting these degenerates,” Philip says in that posh accent that strangely activates Alex’s fight and flight response.

Alex looks at Nora who's sitting down on his side and trying to disappear into her own work. He sighs. “Guys, there’s literally a million better ways to deal with it. You don’t have to, like, add fuel to the fire, you know,” Alex feels like he really has to put a stop to this idea in Henry’s head that he needs to do something about the incident this morning. 

He cannot imagine sitting next to Henry who’s talking about how amazing of a father Arthur was before the camera pans on him complaining about how people are being mean to him. It will be so incongruous to this whole celebration of England’s national icon that they’ve been doing all week. 

“You’re doing a special interview to talk about your father, and what happened this morning is something that can be addressed later, maybe next week.” he says before Henry could say anything else. “Besides, I’m going for a track walk with Nora,” Alex puts her hand on Nora’s shoulder, squeezing it a little bit. 

She looks up at him with a puzzled expression. “We are?”

“Yes, it’s my first time racing here, kinda important thing to do, don’t you think?” Alex raises his eyebrows. 

“How about we film the interview while doing track walk?” 

Henry’s suggestion finally got Nora to stand up and shake her head. “Um, I think for this time Alex and I need to go without a filming crew following us around. There are several issues that we need to discuss that’s highly confidential.”

Henry did not even try to conceal his disappointment. “Alright, I would’ve joined the track walk with you guys if I don't already have these interviews to do, but I promise I’ll fix this.”

“No worries,” Alex says, “honestly, it’s not a big deal. Don’t let it ruin your day,” he taps Henry’s shoulder. 

Nora’s eyes shift back and forth between Alex and Henry, completely baffled by the whole interaction. She tilts her head to the older Fox siblings and raises her eyebrows as if she’s asking them whether they could believe what just happened, only to be disappointed by their lack of response. She packs her tablet and follows Alex who’s basically running away from the group. 

To their credit, Alex and Nora do talk about racing strategy when they walk around the Silverstone circuit. It’s a high-speed circuit and Alex must be mindful of the car’s stability through the corners. Nora reminds Alex to be careful around the Maggots and Becketts corners and shows him some of the mistakes he made in the simulations and points him where it is in real life, and how to avoid it. 

Just as they are approaching the Stowe corner, Nora stops and checks on him about the incident this morning. “How are you by the way? What happened this morning, it must be so disturbing.”

Alex takes a long breath. He could have just gone on with his usual routine of downplaying the incident, like he always has, but at this point, if he’s not going to be honest with Nora, then he’s never going to be honest with anyone. 

“It sucks,” he admits. “I knew having Henry as a teammate is going to be hard. I signed up for that. It’s a good problem to have. I have to push myself really hard to be on his level and I’ve been trying my best to reach it. And I don’t mind people saying I’m not good enough or I don’t deserve my seat. Been dealing with that my whole life. It’s just… I did not expect it to be so close and personal.

“I honestly don’t know what else I could do. I’ve deleted social media, I’ve stopped reading the news, but these comments, these… people, they always found their way to me. And all I want is to race, you know? Why can’t they leave me alone?”

“Have you talked with Henry about it?” Nora asks.

Alex shakes his head. “He’s had enough.” 

“What do you mean he’s had enough? His fans sent you those hate comments, he’s literally the only person who can stop this.”

“Yeah, and I know he has tried his best to stop it. I just don’t want to give him a hard time.”

Nora furrows her brows. “Alex, his fans send death threats to you. You really never talk to him?”

Alex sucks air through his teeth. “Of course we talk. I just don’t think we can talk about this kind of stuff.”

“Oh my god, why not? Do you not trust him?”

“It’s not about trust,” Alex rubs the bridge of his nose. 

He is still trying to come up with a good explanation about why he doesn't want to blame Henry for his PR issues when Nora quickly asks him, “do you have a crush on him?”

“What? No!” 

Nora looks at him grinning like she just won a bet. “Then why are you two acting like you're two teenagers who's having a crush on each other?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alex, he’s uploaded a lot of pictures of you two together. Literally every race since Monaco, he’s only said good things about you in interviews, literally nothing but praise it's actually too much, and he’s got this…” she gesticulates as if she’s trying to explain something so obvious, “freaking heart eyes every time he's around you.”

“No. No, that's not it. We don't even know if he's gay.”

“Alex, mate, we know. Everybody in the team knows.”

“What? Am I the only one who doesn’t know?”

“As much as it pains everyone involved, yes. Unfortunately.”

“Why hasn't anyone told me about it? Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Maybe because he’s still trying to figure you out?” 

“I…”

“Situational awareness, Alex, I heard F1 drivers are good at that,” Nora says, very close to pulling her hairs off. 

“What if he’s just trying to get inside my head?”

Nora takes a deep, frustrated breath and reaches Alex’s hands while she says, “I'm going to be real with you, because you’re my friend and you’ve told me your stories and I’ve told you mine. Henry is not different from any other rich white boy on the grid. He’s got this… you know, an air of carelessness about him. He’s had three teammates before you and never once did he care about how they are doing or what his fans are saying. Only this time he’s been so worked up with it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Alex insists. 

“I know you’ve been told that in Formula One, drivers have to care about themselves in this sport, be laser focus on winning and nothing else, which is probably why you’re not seeing this massive elephants in the room, but I think it will do you more good to actually talk with Henry about your experience. You might learn a thing or two from him.”

“What makes you think I’ve never talked to him?”

“You know what I mean,” Nora says assuringly, “just give him a chance. Even if you don’t have any feelings for him.”

Chapter Text

Henry can always tell whenever he just nailed a lap. It’s a bit like knowing that you just aced a test. It’s all about making the precisions in every corner, and knowing the exact metres and centimetres where he should be braking and accelerating to extract every millisecond off of his lap time. It never comes as a surprise to him when he hears his race engineer Shaan Shrivistava in his ears that he’d secured pole position. 

“And Alex is P2,” Shaan adds matter-of-factly.

Now that's a pleasant surprise. “Wow, that’s great, that's... That's special. Thank you guys, let’s win this,” Henry says on his radio.  

When he pulls to the parc fermé, Alex’s car is already parked next to his reserved number one sign. 

It’s Henry’s eighth pole position this year and he converted four to wins. He had a poor start in Singapore where Verstappen snatched the leading position from him, and he’s never been lucky in those Italian tracks. But he's pretty happy with that conversion rate, especially since one of those wins was a grand slam in Silverstone, another one of Arthur Fox’s records now ticked off in Henry’s list. 

But it's Mercedes’ first time this season to have a front row lockout, and for Alex to be at the front with Henry in only his 19th start, is an incredible achievement. 

Alex's been adapting so much faster than Henry's expectations–anyone's expectations, really. He's climbing up to sixth at the current championship standings, with just Verstappen, Leclerc and Piastri between them.  

Right now, it’s also just so crucial that both Henry and Alex are at the front, because the team needs every point it can get to stay in contention for the Constructors' Championship and eventually reclaim it after five years. Mercedes usually had already mathematically lost the title by the time they reached Austin, but this season their cars are competitive enough to keep that dream alive. 

Being the more senior driver, Henry contributed the bulk of the points for the team, having scored 13 podiums and winning six of them, but Alex was not half bad, he got a fair share of podiums and never really finished anywhere outside the points. 

Henry climbs out, punches the air in celebration on top of his car and quickly jumps out. Alex has just finished taking his weight and walks towards Henry while taking his helmet off. Henry catches him for a high five just as Alex takes off his balaclava, releasing his massive unruly curls to the world. 

Those majestic curls, Henry swears to God, he’d told Alex he’d do everything to make him grow out his hair. Henry playfully tousles Alex’s soft hair, his eyes glancing at the camera crews just to make sure they are there to catch the moment. 

Alex’s dimples align perfectly into the helmet lines that framed his sharp face, his long eyelashes, and his brown amber eyes. Henry exhales, he cannot take his helmet off right now because the cameras would catch him obscenely blushing. 

“Look at the gap, holy shit man,” Alex says, a little breathlessly. “I was so, so close.”

Henry unclasps his helmet, feeling the weight of it lifting off of his head and his vision widens, like the whole world is finally open up to him. He looks up at the screen, FOX is ahead of CLA by just seven of a hundredth of a second. He shakes his head like he could not believe it. He places his helmet at the designated table and takes off his balaclava, his blonde hair matted with sweat.  

“That’s very close indeed,” Henry says, suddenly feeling a burst of pride for his teammate, “but that should be expected, you're from here, you should know the track better than anyone.”

Alex takes a deep breath and smiles, the dimpled smile Henry notices he always makes, a mix of mischievousness and quiet determination. “Yeah, it’s my home race, I wouldn’t settle for anything less.”

“I mean, as an American you have three home races, you still have Las Vegas if this one does not work.”

“No, man. Fuck Las Vegas, this is the one home race for me.” 

Austin means a lot to Alex, Henry knows it well. It’s more than just his hometown, it’s almost who he is. He keeps the key to his old house, like if he had it his way, he would never leave the place. 

There’s no other place Alex is most excited for. Last week, when they were still at the factory in Brackley, Alex told him he wanted to take him to Franklin Barbecue before the race weekend started. “You have to wait in line for hours, but that’s part of the experience,” Alex had said, and Henry would love to spend hours in line to eat cow parts with Alex, but he just did not have that kind of time. Both of them did not have that kind of luxury. They arrived in Austin quite early and they still had to split various media and sponsorship responsibilities.

Henry would say that they’re doing alright at the moment. They’ve finally found their groove after the initial awkward, if not tense relationship at the beginning of the year. A big part of it was when Alex finally said yes to Henry’s offer for a ride with his private jet to Hungary for the next race after Silverstone.  

It was on a Tuesday night at 30,000 feet in the air when Alex finally admitted the pressure he’d been experiencing just by being Henry’s teammate. Not that Henry did not know it before, he was well aware, but to see Alex finally being vulnerable in front of him was definitely one of the breakthroughs in their relationship. 

So Henry promised Alex he’d do everything to make things more bearable for him, he even came up with this plan to play up their relationship in public, just to take the pressure off of him. 

This is why Henry plays with Alex’s hair earlier, or this intimate way Henry places his hand on Alex’s hip as they are taking photos for the top three qualifying drivers with Leclerc on their right. Henry gently squeezes Alex’s side and he turns to him, their faces mere centimeters apart, and they share a knowing smile as the blitz engulfs them. 

Henry knows it’s the money shot, he could picture the internet reaction to the photos captioned with something along the lines of “the Mercedes boys take Austin” and it will be full of him gazing longingly at this American boy. 

The idea was, and Henry spent almost two hours pitching this to Zahra, if the two of them could just show how close they actually are to the public, any attack towards Alex would mean an attack towards Henry. That would be the only meaningful way to stop the haters from coming Alex's way. So they did a thousand silly little interviews together. But this time, Henry loves every second of it. 

The fun really began when both of them started doubling down on their stories when they realized that people were not buying their lies about being childhood friends. So they keep dumping the weirdest lore about themselves. The more outlandish, the better. 

It started when Alex cheekily said in a random sponsored content that the two of them had once ruined someone's wedding because they tripped on a cake. “Henry pushed me!” Alex insisted and all Henry did was just roll his eyes affectionately. 

All of those reactions were perfectly captured on camera and the internet went crazy. Their social media steadily filled with people who became a little too obsessed with them being together. People shared little tidbits and observations. Like that one time Alex casually wore Henry’s light blue hoodie while Henry wore a tie with yellow roses on media day in Austin. Thousands of their images and animated GIFs, their fist bump. Shared smiles that pass for genuine. Conspiratorial glances. Hundreds, if not thousands, of comments about how handsome they are, how nice they look together. omfg, one commenter wrote, make out already .

So the next natural thing to do was to come up with more fake stories. How they had a secret trip to Paris between Monza and Baku, doing karaoke in Los Angeles during the summer break, and a night tour at the V&A museum right after Silverstone. 

Henry wishes those things really happened, when the truth was they barely had time for themselves between trackside and factory days (they almost got that museum tour though, unfortunately Henry’s connections for it bailed at last minute). Everything was about work, they barely had time to have personal time together. 

In some weird, fucked up way, those media times became the only meaningful way they could have proper time together where they’re not racing or thinking about racing. 

Henry keeps telling people close to him that he’s doing all of this fake PR stuff to help Alex. “It’s for team harmony,” he’d repeatedly said, but everyone with eyes can tell that Henry was on a mission, and that mission obviously started at some point after the trophy incident. 

Henry is still thinking and planning for new stories in their next media opportunity when Alex is being called up for the post qualifying interview after they're done with Leclerc. Henry grabs his water bottle and sips his drink while standing on the side as he waits for his turn. Alex puts his hand on his hip while F1 reporter Lawrence Barretto hands him a microphone and asks him questions in front of the live camera. 

“Alex, congrats on P2 today! It’s been a while since we’ve had a Mercedes front row lockout. How are you feeling?” the voice echoed from the loudspeakers, heard throughout the entire circuit.

“Thanks! It feels great, P2 is my best one yet, and I know the team is happy with that,” Alex pauses for half a second, “to be honest, I had hopes to take pole here in Austin because it’s my home race, I grew up here, my family and friends are here and I just want to make them proud. So yeah, it's tough when you’re so close, especially with Henry on pole. I think we both had the pace for it, but in the end, he just edged me out."

“You’re going to start with two Ferraris behind you, alongside Henry who’s in contention for the championship title. How do you see tomorrow’s race? Do you think you’d get your first win here?” 

Alex smiles with a fleeting bitterness but quickly masks it with thoughtful nods. “Of course I want to win. I want to give the fans here a reason to cheer and it would be so sweet if I get my first win at my own home race,” he smiles like he’s actually imagining that happened, “but it’s going to be a tough one. Ferrari has been really strong all season, and Leclerc is always a threat, especially here. We’re still behind Ferrari in the constructor's championship, so our main priority is to maximize the points for the team.”

There’s nothing Henry hates more than this nearly robotic “the team comes first” answer leaving out of Alex’s mouth. He lets out frustrated huffs as he chews on his drink’s straw, how can he completely forget that getting the best position for the team today would mean they’re setting themselves up for a very delicate situation tomorrow. 

It’s the only thing Henry thinks about when it’s his turn to do the post qualifying interview as the race's pole sitter. He can only grimace when Alex hands him the microphone and it’s almost impossible to decipher his expression as he walks away from the area. 

“Henry, it’s your eighth pole position this season and yet another strong performance for you. How does it feel to start at the front tomorrow, this time together with your teammate Alex?” Lawrence asks him. 

“It feels quite good. It’s a special feeling to get pole in Austin, though I know tomorrow’s race won’t be easy. But I’m very happy to share the front row with Alex, he’s incredibly talented and we've just seen what he can do in his first season,” Henry says. 

“Do you think you and Alex will be able to race freely tomorrow, or are you already thinking about how a team order might play a role in the strategy?”

Henry shakes his head firmly, “no, honestly, I think we’ll take it as it comes. I want to race my own race, but I also have to keep in mind the bigger picture when Alex is right behind me. I know he’s hungry, and I don't expect him to give an inch. If I can hold the lead, I’ll fight for the win, but I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure we both finish in a good position for the championship. The ultimate goal is to secure a 1-2 for the team.”

That was the most non-committal answer Henry could come up with at the moment. He can tell Lawrence and the media people aren’t very satisfied with it, but that’s all he got for them.

If Henry’s being honest, they haven’t really had this conversation before. Alex came in with high expectations on his shoulders, sure, but there’s still some reasonable performance gaps between the two simply due to the fact that Henry still has over three years more experience. Before this qualifying, Henry’s best lap time got at least two tenths of a second from Alex’s. Henry knew Alex would eventually catch up to him but he did not think it would come this close this year. 

After that post-quali interview, Henry and Alex still have a few more hours of media duties where they both have to literally repeat the same points to different news outlets again and again; yes it’s the first Mercedes front row of the season, yes it’s Alex’s home race and of course they’re both well aware that it’s an important race for Henry’s championship fight. 

Henry’s also repeating the same points he’s been saying in the past week, yes he managed to close his gap to Hamilton to just under 30 points at the last race and yes he knows Verstappen is breathing down his neck. Henry swears the most unspoken thing about being an F1 driver is just how repetitive it actually is.

By the time he gets back to the suite, he’s hoping he’d find Alex in his driver’s room. 

It has become Henry’s favorite time every race weekend, to sneak into Alex’s room. The first time he did it was in Madrid, he felt really bad for Alex who was clearly struggling, and he wanted to comfort him, only to realize that it was Alex who comforted him. 

Henry wasn’t planning to share his deepest, darkest trauma, the most prized secrets he’s holding on to, secrets never to be shared to anyone, not even his therapists. How traumatizing it was to race in Monaco, the pain he’s suffering from losing his father, the single promise he made that day and the only reason he never drives off of a cliff, all of it left his mouth almost instinctively. Henry barely realized it was happening. 

Alex was stunned by all of it and Henry didn't blame him. “I think you’re brave,” he said after what felt like forever. 

That was not what Henry expected to hear. He wasn't brave. He never felt brave. “You made it sound like I had a choice.”

“You absolutely did, you had every right to hate the world and you chose not to. That's courage,” Alex looked at him with his soft and reassuring gaze, it made him feel like he was indeed brave. It’s intoxicating. How can anyone blame him if he's a bit obsessed with this person? 

But Alex is not in his room when Henry gets there, and it took Henry a few minutes looking for him around the hospitality suite until he found him at one of the sitting areas with a group of familiar faces. 

Some of them are familiar faces. Henry has met Ellen a few times, they had a long chat in Zandvoort, but not the tall brown man and the young woman with long black hair next to him, which should be Alex’s father and older sister. 

The four of them make a beautiful family and Henry would have left them be, if he did not catch Alex’s gaze that’s giving a little bit of distress signal. Henry hesitantly waves at him, not entirely sure if this is a good time or the right thing to do, but Alex eagerly waves back. 

“Dad, have you met Henry?” Alex says a little bit too loudly, as if he was trying to cut through something that nobody needs to hear. 

The older man slowly turns his back to Henry, who awkwardly walks in with a creeping feeling that he’s intruding on some family affairs he’s not supposed to be in. But Oscar smiles warmly at him, “oh hey Henry, congrats on taking the pole!” 

“Thank you, Mr Diaz. Though your son did give me a run for my money there,” he tries to be as charming as possible but he can’t help to notice the tense side-eye from Alex’s sister June. 

“Alex surely did,” she chips in, “isn’t that kind of amazing thing to achieve just in his first year?” 

“For sure,” Henry says without hesitation, “I remember my first year in Austin, it was quite a miracle I managed to reach Q3.”

June nods assuringly like she’s trying to make a point. Alex only lets out a long sigh while rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ellen, great to meet you again,” Henry shakes her hands, trying to cling to the only person he actually knows in Alex’s family. “And you must be June, sorry I didn’t see you in Miami.”

“Ah that’s not a problem, Miami was too chaotic anyway, just too many celebrities,” June says.

“So Henry, how did you find this season? You were still P3 last time we spoke, and look at you now,” Ellen says. 

“Still chasing that championship,” Henry says quickly, feeling like he’s onto something here, “and Alex climbed up three places too since the last time we spoke.”

“That upgrade you had in Spa really changed things around, didn’t it,” Oscar says, “It’s too bad Alex only got the full upgrade two races later.”

“That’s just how things work around here, dad,” Alex exasperatedly says. 

“I was just saying… things like this never happened in Indycar,” Oscar says dismissively. 

“You literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ellen says, rolling her eyes. “Besides, Henry already got nearly 100 points ahead of Alex of course he’d get priority.”

The tension in the air is just something Henry’s never experienced before. Alex looks very uncomfortable and June looks like three seconds away from snapping. Oscar was about to make another rebuttal but Henry quickly says “to be fair, not every upgrade works, I was pretty much a testing dummy for those first few races.” 

“In any case,” Alex swiftly steers the conversation away, “I believe Henry’s here to remind me that there’s a debrief meeting we have to do.”

That meeting isn’t for two hours but Henry gets the hint. “Right, sorry guys, we have some, um… racing stuff to discuss. I hope you’re enjoying this weekend though.”

Alex hugs her sister and mother and gives a soft tap to his father’s shoulder as he walks away. Henry follows him from behind because clearly they’re not going to the engineering rooms this early. 

Alex moves quietly in a cat-like manner as they walk up to their driver’s rooms. Henry still follows him, not sure what’s coming next. This time, Alex pushes Henry’s door open and finally slouches on his couch, arms on his knees and lets out a long exhale, like he’s been holding his breath for way too long. 

“Thanks for that, mate,” Alex looks up at Henry, who’s crossing his arms and leaning his muscular shoulder to the door. 

They were quiet for a few beats. “Racing stuff, what do you mean racing stuff,” Alex half giggles. 

“What else am I supposed to say,” Henry asks, “sorry, Mrs Claremont, sorry, Mr Diaz, I need to rescue your son from your terrible parenting?”

Alex lets out an indignant chuckle, “you know, it wouldn't be a home race without the classic home experience, would it?”

Henry is quiet again, “did that happen a lot?” 

“For as long as I can remember,” Alex hopelessly says. 

“It must be difficult, if your father is not completely on board with F1,” Henry tentatively says.

“He… I mean I couldn't say he's not supportive of me being an F1 driver. It's just, he's a first generation Mexican who doesn't really see the point of moving away to Europe when whatever we've got going here is enough,” Alex leaned his head all the way to the back of the couch. “My dad is a brilliant man, I hate to have you have that as your first impression of him. But he's sacrificed a lot for me, too much even.”

“I don't think it's possible to get a career in this industry without significant family sacrifices,” Henry says, completely aware that his own career was backed by his grandmother, and even if she didn't, his last name would've got him enough sponsorships. Alex definitely did not have such privileges. 

“June repeatedly told me I was not the cause for the divorce but this, whatever you'd want to call it, a career choice, a dream, definitely did not make it better. My parents could've had so much more for themselves if they never had to pay for karting, for all the championship entries and the travels. 

“They are passionate people who really care about real issues, like, real-real issues, civil rights, justice reform, education, and they’re very involved in policy making. They could've used the money they had to run for offices but there I was, wanting to compete in all the championships, to run my own campaigns to be a professional racing driver,” Alex stares at the ceiling and lets out a shaky sigh, “at least my mom got to be a badass prosecutor but she could've been more, so fucking much more. She could’ve ruled the world.”

“It’s very rare to have someone who’s a complete outsider in motosport making it to the grid though,” Henry offers. 

“It got a bit easier when my mom met Leo and when I met Raf a few years ago, but those first five, six years were super tough,” Alex pauses and turns his head to Henry, his expression undeciphered, “my parents may not know much about racing but they know what it means to win.”

Chapter Text

“Yellow in sector two,” That’s all Shaan says.

Henry’s already peeling off into the pit lane before he hears the rest, “crash at Turn 9. Safety car likely. Box this lap, confirm.” And it’s already done. There is no other choice.

It’s the championship decider. Lap twenty-seven in Abu Dhabi, and Henry Fox is leading the race. But in the standings, he’s second—five points behind Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, and five ahead of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. All three arrived at Yas Marina knowing it would take just one misstep to swing the title.

Verstappen’s already out due to a hydraulics issue ten laps ago. 

Which leaves two. 

Lewis is hunting him. Just out of DRS, but inching closer with every sector. His Ferrari is good but Henry’s Mercedes is better. Has been all year. 

Henry brought the best out of the car’s package. He has to be. Because anything less than a win tonight, and it’s not just the title he loses. It’s the legacy. The promise made at a graveside. The prophecy everyone whispered the day Arthur Fox died.

So he dives into the pits. Eyes laser-locked, movements automatic.

Shaan’s voice in his ear, calm but quick, “tyre switch confirmed. Track temp steady. Clean in, clean out.”

The crew hits every mark. The stop is electric, 2.1 seconds and the world snaps back into motion as the lollipop lifts. Henry guns it down the pit lane, adrenaline thrumming in his wrists.

“You’re out ahead of Lewis,” Shaan confirms in his ear. “P2 for now. Clean out. Alex stayed out.”

Stayed out?

Henry barely registers it. Alex was third in the train, after all, he’s behind Henry in pit priority. Of course he didn’t stop now. They’d never risk a double-stack with Hamilton breathing down their necks. He’ll box next lap. Everyone will.

Henry rejoins the track under the safety car, tucks in neatly behind the other Mercedes.

The lap counter ticks forward.

Lap 28. No movement from the pit wall. No call about Alex boxing.

Lap 29. The field still snakes under yellow, tyres cooling, tension rising. Henry flexes his hands on the wheel. He’s conserving energy, focus laser-tight on the restart. Lewis is still behind him. Verstappen’s gone. It’s just the two of them now. Two laps behind the safety car, and still no call for Alex to pit.

He frowns.

“Is he staying out?” Henry asks finally, quiet but sharp.

A beat of silence.

Then Shaan answers, “He’s on Plan C.”

Henry’s stomach goes cold.

“Wait, he’s actually staying out?”

“Affirm.”

That’s it. No elaboration, no theory, no reassurance. Just confirmation.

Henry’s eyes flick to the car ahead, the flash of silver and black under the stadium lights. He can see Alex’s halo bobbing gently with the bumps of the track. Cool. Calm. Like he belongs there.

“On hards?”

“Yes. Nine laps old on the hard compound.”

A pause.

“Seriously?” 

“We gave him the choice.”

“You what? ”

Another silence. And then: “There wasn’t time for a debate. Focus on your race.”

It doesn’t make sense. Not with what they’ve seen in practice, not with the degradation rate, not with Alex . He’s barely out of his rookie season, he’s just figured out how to fight consistently at the front five races ago, and while his raw pace is undeniable, the finer points like the craft of tyre management and the composure under pressure are still catching up.

Alex has never been kind to his tyres. Every race sim, every debrief, every engineer’s note says the same thing, he’s aggressive on turn-in, harsh on traction, burns through his rubber like it’s brisket on a Texas grill. 

Henry knows, because he’s seen it, raced next to it, and tried not to let it bother him when they’ve gone wheel-to-wheel. It’s part of what makes Alex thrilling to watch. And part of what makes this strategy borderline delusional.

“He won’t make it to the end,” Henry mutters, mostly to himself.

Lap 30 now, still under safety car.

It should be fine. He tells himself that. Once the safety car ends, he just needs to hold off Lewis, who’s still within striking range, hungry in that Ferrari, and wait for Alex’s hards to fall off. Wait for the balance to go. Wait for Alex to run out of grip.

But still… they gave him the choice . In the championship decider. When he, Henry, needs this win to seal the title. And they left it up to Alex. 

He wonders, absurdly, bitterly, if the strategy team only approved it because they assumed Alex wouldn’t actually pull it off. That the tyres would fall apart, the pressure would crack him, and the lead would come back naturally.

Like it always does. Like it’s supposed to.

The restart’s coming. The delta closes. The pack compresses. But all Henry can see is that car ahead of him, his own teammate, suddenly the final wall between him and everything he’s worked for.

The message flashes on screen. Henry’s heart kicks once, hard.

He checks his mirrors. Lewis is tucked in behind him, all gleaming scarlet menace and seven-time certainty. 

And ahead, Alex , car number 45. Halo tilted, head still, red, white and blue helmet catching the stadium lights. The driver Henry has thought about, more than he should.

Henry likes to think of himself as a mentor in the team. That’s what he tells the media. What he told Toto back when Mercedes signed the kid. “I’ll look after him.”

Even though Alex is barely a year younger. Even though Henry has only four seasons under his belt. Even though the truth is, he never wanted to look after him, He wanted to watch him rise .

Because Alex fights. Fights harder than anyone Henry’s ever seen. Clawed his way from obscurity, dragged himself into F1 like it was a personal vendetta. Rookie season with the kind of learning curve that would’ve broken another driver. Hell, it almost broke him.

But Alex adapted. Sharpened. Got smarter. Hungrier.

And Henry kept watching.

Every sim session. Every quali debrief. Every time Alex took a corner slightly too deep and then figured out how to fix it two laps later. The sheer nerve of him. The fucking brilliance.

And now, here, on the most important day of Henry’s life, Alex is the one in front of him.

Not Max. Not Lewis.

Alex.

Alex doesn’t even need this. It’s not his fight, he’s been out of championship contention months ago.

He was supposed to be in the middle of the pack. That’s where Mercedes expected him to be this year, learning the car, playing the long game. Show flashes of speed, keep it clean, support when needed. Rookie points. Occasional podiums, if things lined up.

And he did all that. Exceeded expectations, really. Showed up sharp. Did the work. Kept his head down and found a rhythm halfway through the season that Henry couldn’t stop watching. He’d called it “quiet excellence” once in a press conference, because there wasn’t a better phrase for it. No drama, no headlines, just pace, consistency, and pure racing instinct.

And now?

Now he’s in front.

Leading the goddamn race.

Not by strategy. Not by team orders. Not because Henry made a mistake.

Just by choosing to stay out. 

A very tiny part of Henry, deep down, is proud. The rest of him wants to scream.

“Recharge off. Brake magic off,” Shaan says. “He’ll go early.”

Henry narrows his eyes. Of course he will. Alex always goes early.

They crest through the final chicane. The lights on the safety car wink off. The pack compresses. The engines snarl.

And Alex nails it.

Perfect restart. No wheelspin. No hesitation. Just a clean break and a half-second gap before Henry even gets the throttle down.

“Green, green. Lewis half a second,” Shaan says.

Henry’s already throwing the car through Turn 1, tyres sliding, adrenaline hitting like a drug. This is it. Twenty-eight laps to go. One shot. No room for error.

Lap 32. Henry tries to overtake Alex. He’s faster, on newer tyres, with DRS on the back straight, but there’s nowhere to go. Alex covers the inside. Brakes late. Nails the exit. Henry has to back out.

Lap 33. Same thing. Henry lines it up. Gets close. Thinks he can get alongside, but Alex shifts just enough to kill the momentum. No dirty tricks, just smart driving. Smart and stubborn.

Lap 34. Henry’s still behind. Still nowhere.

This was supposed to be his race. His season. The whole year had been building to this. Mercedes was fast again. He’d kept everything clean, no controversies, no team order drama, not like other seasons. He’d told everyone who asked that he didn’t need help, because he hadn’t.

Alex had never been faster than him. Not over one lap. Not in qualifying. Twenty-four races. Twenty-four to zero. The cleanest head-to-head on the grid.

Now Henry’s here behind Alex. Trapped. Watching his championship slip away.

“Tell him to let me through,” he says on the radio. No edge to his voice yet, just urgency.

“We’re monitoring,” Shaan says.

He grits his teeth. It’s not enough. It’s not even a real answer.

He tries again. “Just give the call. Team orders. He’s not in this fight.”

Another pause.

“We’re evaluating the situation,” Shaan repeats.

Henry hits the wheel with his palm.

He didn’t want this. Didn’t want to be the guy begging for team orders. He’d spent the entire season proving he didn’t need them. But this wasn’t a normal situation. This was the championship, the final race. And Alex wasn’t supposed to be there anyway. He wasn’t even in the title fight anymore. Eliminated eight races ago. He should be playing support. That’s how these things work.

Lap 35. Still behind.

And now Lewis is close. Really close.

The Ferrari’s coming. Hard. Clean. Relentless. And Henry knows—if he doesn’t get past Alex soon, it won’t matter. Lewis will get both of them. And that’s it. That’s the title. Gone.

He can’t believe this is happening.

The gap to Alex hovers—four tenths, five, six. Henry closes, tries to line it up into Turn 6. But Alex positions the car just right, clipping the apex, covering the inside.

Lap 36.

DRS enabled. Henry opens the wing down the back straight, gains two tenths, but Alex brakes late, holds the inside line again. They go wheel-to-wheel through Turn 9. Clean. Close. Too close.

“He’s moving in the braking zone,” Henry snaps over the radio.

“Negative,” Shaan replies. “Telemetry looks clean.”

“Then check your fucking telemetry again.”

He’s burning through his tyres. He knows it. The degradation numbers will start to drop any lap now. They have to.

This isn’t just a race for Henry. It’s everything. It's a legacy. His father, Arthur Fox, was a four-time world champion. Brilliant. Uncompromising. Immortalised in the sport’s lore. He died in Monaco when Henry was still a child. A crash that still echoes through every barrier and every corner where the ghosts like to whisper.

Now it’s Henry’s turn. His first title. The first Mercedes driver to take it since Hamilton. The return to dominance. The culmination of a prophecy written in the bone.

And yet here he is. Staring at the back of car number 45, piloted by a rookie driver who was never supposed to be in this fight.

For most of the season, they weren’t even playing the same game. Henry was chasing titles, legacy, ghosts. Alex was learning how to finish races without spinning on cold tyres. No one even called it a rivalry. There was nothing to compare. Not really.

Until there was.

Something shifted in Austin. Alex’s speed was always there, raw, dangerous, too sharp around the edges, but that weekend he looked like he belonged. P2 in qualifying. On merit. In front of the home crowd, the flags and fireworks and noise. For twenty-five laps, he held his own. Then he binned it. Classic rookie nerves. High-pressure crack.

Henry found him hours later, still in his race suit, sitting behind the hospitality unit like a kid who didn’t want to go home. Said nothing at first. Just handed him a bottle of water and sat beside him. When Alex finally spoke, it was one sentence: “I’m not ready for this.”

Henry told him that failure builds character. That pressure makes steel. That no one becomes great without falling apart first. He said all the things his dad had once told him, softened in his own voice.

And Alex listened. Quietly. Head down. That’s the thing about him, he takes everything in. Doesn’t always respond, but he remembers.

From there, something changed. A new fire. Henry saw it in every lap. The way Alex stopped blinking at apexes. The way he started to trust the rear. By Brazil, he was fighting in the top five. By Qatar, he was on the podium. Still mistake-prone, still raw, but no one could deny what he was turning into.

Lap 37.

Alex still holds him off.

“He won’t make it to the end,” Henry growls. “Tell him to let me through.”

A pause. Long enough to say no.

“We’re monitoring.”

“That’s not an answer, Shaan!”

“Focus on the drive, Henry.”

He punches the wheel. “Don’t give me that shit. I am focusing. He’s going to cost us the title.”

Still no order. Still no swap.

Lap 38.

Henry stays tight through Turn 1, trying to hang the car on the edge of grip. The fronts are starting to slide a little on entry. Not enough to panic, but enough to know they’re not fresh anymore.

He’s still behind Alex. He’s still stuck and Lewis is now in DRS range.

Lap 39.

The dread creeps in slowly, then floods all at once.

Because it’s not just Alex anymore. It’s Lewis. Lewis Hamilton. The legend. The seven-time world champion who left Mercedes a few years ago because he said, publicly, painfully, that he didn’t believe in the team’s direction anymore.

And maybe he was right. Because how the hell has it come to this?

Henry, on fresher tyres, in a faster car, in the championship fight, and trapped behind a teammate who’s not even a title contender. With Lewis behind, inching closer, smelling blood.

It makes no sense. No part of this makes sense.

He’s been perfect all his career with this team. Did everything right. He carried the car early when the updates weren’t working. He led the development path. Took the PR hits when the team needed cover. Kept things steady when the midfield got messy.

He earned this and yet he’s here. Boxed in. Helpless. Watching the legacy slip.

He wants to scream. He probably already is.

He can’t lose like this. Not like this. Not to Lewis . Not because Alex stayed out.

“Tyres are coming down a little,” Shaan says in his ear. “Lewis is now under four tenths.”

Henry doesn’t answer. He just stares at the back of Alex’s car like it might explode if he looks hard enough.

It’s lap 40 now. The window’s closing. The championship is right there, right there, and Henry can’t reach it.

The panic builds. He’s the meat in the sandwich from hell.

Alex ahead, tyres worn, pace falling off, defending like it’s his own title on the line.

Lewis behind, flashing scarlet in the mirrors, inching closer every lap, dragging the ghost of Abu Dhabi 2021 behind him like it never left.

Henry’s in the middle. And it’s suffocating.

“Rear grip’s dropping,” Shaan says. “Lewis within DRS of both of you.”

No shit.

He’s burning through everything, brakes, tyres, options. He’s screamed at the pit wall, he’s lunged at Alex twice, he’s blocked Lewis once and nearly took them both out. Nothing works. Nothing changes. Still second. Still stuck.

And the clock is ticking.

Because this is not just a race. This is the final chapter of a prophecy. The moment every Fox family dinner was leading up to. Arthur’s legacy. Mercedes' redemption. All of it.

And Henry is watching it get strangled between two people who aren't supposed to be here.

He punches the wheel. “He won’t make it to the end! Tell him to let me through! ”

Shaan doesn’t reply.

Of course he doesn’t. Because if he did, he might say it out loud— You gave him the choice. You gave it to him.

Lap 41.

Alex is sliding. Subtle, but it’s there—rear end twitching under throttle, wide through Turn 3. His tyres are gone. He’s running on threads and instinct now.

“Rear grip’s dropping,” Shaan says in his ear, voice taut. “Lewis within DRS of both of you.”

Henry doesn’t respond. He’s clenching his jaw so hard his head aches. He doesn’t need the update. He can see it. Feel it. Taste it. The whole race unraveling in slow motion, one lockup at a time.

Lap 42.

Lewis launches the first strike, dives at Henry into Turn 9. Henry holds it. Barely. Nearly runs wide. “He’s going to get both of us,” he snaps. “You’re letting this happen.”

“We’re assessing.” 

“You’re watching me lose the championship, is what you’re doing.”

Lap 43.

Alex is still ahead. Defending like a goddamn statue. Henry gets alongside him into Turn 11, thinks this is it—but Alex brakes late, swings across just enough to close the door without contact.

He can already hear what they’ll say. The pundits, the commentators, the random netizens. Brilliant defending from the rookie. What a moment for Mercedes. They won’t say his name, not first. They’ll talk about Alex. He’ll be the headline. And Henry, Henry will be the footnote. The one who couldn't pass. The one who begged for help and got none.

Lap 44.

Lewis tries again. Around the outside this time. Alex defends. Henry squeezes him. Three-wide into the hairpin and they just make it through without touching.

This isn’t racing anymore. It’s war. It’s betrayal.

Lap 45.

“He’s sliding,” Henry says. “I can see it. He’s done.”

“Confirmed graining. Gap to Lewis under half a second.”

“Then tell him—” His voice breaks. “Please. Tell him.”

Silence. 

Lap 46.

Lewis nearly makes it past both of them. Henry blocks, on instinct. Elbows out. His tyres are cooked now too. He’s using up everything, pace, strategy, pride.

Henry’s heart is pounding so hard it drowns out the engine.

He’s tried everything. Every racing line, every lunge, every calculated risk. And Alex, Alex, with his goddamn worn tyres and rookie nerves of steel, is still there. Still ahead. Still unshaken.

And Lewis, fucking Lewis, is right behind. Waiting. Watching. Smiling, maybe, behind that tinted visor. Because he doesn’t need to pass. He just needs this to stay exactly as it is.

Henry exhales, ragged, and finally, finally asks the question he’s been avoiding for the last ten laps.

“Shaan,” he says, voice hoarse. “If it finishes like this… what’s the final standing?”

A long silence.

Then, “Lewis takes it by three points.”

It doesn’t feel real. For a second, it doesn’t register.

“Three?”

“Affirm. For you finishing P2 in the race, you’d be P2 in the championship.”

And Alex, doesn’t even matter in the title fight, wins the race. Wins this race.

Henry stares at the car in front of him. The halo, the rear wing, the #45 that used to make him feel everything at once.

Now he feels nothing. Just the hollow ache of inevitability.

He grips the wheel tighter.

“Tell him to move.”

“We can’t.”

Lap 47.

“I need this,” he says, not even sure who he’s talking to anymore. “You know I need this.”

Shaan doesn’t answer.

Lap 48.

The tension is unbearable. The entire world has collapsed into the 0.3 seconds gap between Henry and Alex. Nothing else exists. Just the roar of the crowd, the red threat in his mirrors, and the #45 Mercedes ahead, wobbling, worn, and yet still not moving aside.

Lap 49.

He tries again. Desperation. Lunges down the inside of Turn 6. They touch. A tiny kiss of carbon. Alex holds firm. Henry backs out, swearing so viciously they’ll have to mute the broadcast.

Lap 50

Henry’s voice cuts through the radio, low, ragged. “What’s… what’s the other car saying?”

He doesn’t say the name. Can’t. Not now. Not after everything.

Shaan hesitates, then replies, “No radio. He’s not asking for a swap.”

Of course he’s not.

Henry swallows hard, tongue like sandpaper in his mouth. He stares at the car ahead, sleek silver, swerving through Turn 5 like it still has life in it. He hates it. He hates how familiar it is. Hates how it makes his chest twist.

Because it’s not just a teammate ahead of him. Not just another rival. It’s Alex.

Alex, who stumbled through his rookie season like a raw talent wrapped in nerves, and who, somehow, grew into something unstoppable. Alex, who wormed his way into Henry’s life, his rhythms, his rituals. Alex, who called him baby on a live stream once just to see if he’d blush. (He did.) Alex, who played up their little “fake rivalry” in interviews with a smirk and an arm around Henry’s shoulder, too casual to be fake, too fleeting to be anything else.

Alex, who made Henry believe, just for a moment, in the quiet between races, in hotel hallways, in late-night debriefs that turned into sleepover-level conversations, that it could be real.

Them. Together. The two of them, golden and sharp and stupidly young, rewriting the rules. Lovers. Teammates. Rivals. A legend in the making.

And now?

Now Henry can’t even say his name.

Lap 50. Eight to go. The championship slipping further out of reach with every turn.

And the person taking it from him is the only one he ever let close enough to matter.

Lap 51.

He doesn’t ask for updates anymore.

Not about the tyres. Not about the deltas. Not about the Ferrari behind him or the other Mercedes ahead. He doesn’t even say the name, Alex, the name that used to sound like a punchline, like a promise. The name that made his mouth go soft on slow days in the sim room. The name he once imagined whispering into hotel pillows in places no one would ever find them.

Now he just calls him the other car.

“Anything from the other car?” Henry asks, voice hoarse.

Shaan hesitates. “No complaints. He says he’s fine.”

Of course he does. Baby always says he’s fine.

Henry closes his eyes for one millisecond too long. When he opens them again, he’s still in second. Still not good enough.

Lap 52.

The ache settles somewhere in the chest, somewhere in the wrists, in the memory of every crash he’s ever seen, every failure he’s ever worn like second skin. There’s this thing people don’t get about losing: it’s not just disappointment. It’s inheritance.

He was eleven when his father died. Arthur Fox, four-time world champion, dead in a cloud of carbon and gasoline. There are nights he still dreams it frame by frame, the fireball, the silence, the way the world cracked open and no one ever filled it back up.

After that, it was always the track. That’s where Henry put all of it: the pain, the rage, the loneliness of having to grow up with ghosts for parents and a legacy too heavy for a child to carry. And it worked. It always worked.

Until now.

Lap 53.

Because this race, this championship, was supposed to be the cure.

He told himself that if he just won, if he became world champion, then it would all make sense. Then the pain would alchemize into meaning. Then his father’s death wouldn’t be a cautionary tale, but a prologue.

He’s done everything right. He’s played the long game. He’s been the perfect teammate. He's brushed off every headline, every jab about media darlings. He swallowed it all because he was building something bigger. A legacy of his own.

And now?

Now the kid who eats tyres for breakfast is outdriving him on a busted strategy. And the legend in the Ferrari is going to walk away with Henry’s title.

Lap 54.

He’s still within DRS. Still hunting. Still trying.

But the engine note sounds like a dirge. The steering wheel is heavy in his hands. The cockpit is suddenly too small for all the grief pressing in.

There’s no drama left in it, just inevitability.

“You’re doing fine,” Shaan says, as if that helps.

He wants to say, Tell him to move. For the love of god, tell him to move.

But he doesn’t. Not anymore.

Lap 55.

His tyres are shot. His chances are gone. His heart is somewhere back in lap 27, still believing in happy endings.

He stares at the back of the other car. Car #45.

Once, in the hallway of a hotel in Qatar, Alex had said, You don’t have to win to deserve it, baby.

Henry didn’t believe it then.

He still doesn’t.

Lap 56.

It’s almost quiet now. Not the engine, but something inside Henry. Something that used to burn.

He doesn’t say anything over the radio. There’s nothing left to say. No more begging. No more logic. No more strategy. The car ahead is still there and the title is still not his.

He’s never felt more alone.

Not in Bahrain, when he finished P14 with a brake failure. Not in Monaco, when the anniversary of his father’s crash hung over the paddock like a ghost. Not even when they buried Arthur Fox, and the only sound he could hear was the low click of photographers from the trees.

This is lonelier.

Because this , this is a choice. Someone chose this.

Someone he trusted.

Lap 57.

He had trusted Alex.

More than a teammate. More than whatever fake-flirtation, media-joke bullshit they’d played up all season long. It had been real. Real enough for late-night texts and sunrise coffees and post-race debriefs that bled into long walks back to the hotel. Real enough for the way Alex once told him, quietly, after Jeddah, I’m scared I’ll never be good enough. That I’m here because of politics, not pace.

And Henry had looked him in the eye and said, I wouldn’t be wasting time on someone who didn’t belong.

He meant it. Every goddamn word.

He knew about the divorce. About the guilt Alex carried, like it was something he caused. Knew how he watched his parents fall apart from two different continents and promised himself he’d never let someone down like that.

And yet—

Yet.

Here they are.

Alex didn’t pit. Didn’t yield. Didn’t look back.

It’s lap 57.

He’s alone. And he’s starting to think maybe he always was.

Lap 58, the final lap.

Henry spots it almost immediately. Alex locks up into Turn 1. Not much, but it’s visible, the rear end stepping out just slightly on corner exit. It’s the first real sign that the tyres are going, and Henry’s instincts flare.

He leans into it. Pushes harder. Gains a tenth. There’s a chance. There might actually be a chance.

Through Turn 3, Alex is still struggling. He misses the apex. It’s not drastic, but it’s enough to keep the hope alive. Henry’s closing the gap. The car’s still responding. He could do this.

Down the straight into Turn 5, Henry’s nearly within striking range. DRS open. He’s gaining. The move might be on.

Then Alex defends, early, decisive, just like always. Cuts off the inside. Henry hesitates for a second too long. He knows he could send it, but it’s a long shot. If they touch, it’s game over. And Lewis is still right behind them.

He backs out.

Turns 6 through 9 pass in a blur. Alex regains control. Whatever edge he’d lost seems to come back, just enough to stabilize the car. He’s still slow, but not slow enough.

Henry stays close. He’s not giving up. He’s waiting for another mistake, for something. Anything.

Turn 11. Still nothing. 

Turn 12. The gap isn’t growing, but it’s not shrinking either.

Henry knows it’s done before he reaches the final corner.

He crosses the line less than half a second behind Alex.

Lewis finishes third. He sealed his eighth championship.

The radio crackles. “Checkered flag. P2.”

Henry doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, eyes on the empty track ahead, breathing hard. There’s no roar in his ears. No pit wall cheering. No congratulations. Just his own breathing, hard and hollow. 

It’s over.

Chapter Text

His mother used to say the difference between a winner and a loser is commitment. Winners commit to the line, to the risk, to the version of themselves that believes they deserve to be there.

Ellen Claremont knows what she’s talking about. She ran campaigns like a five-star general, closed international deals on three hours of sleep, prosecuted war criminals in The Hague without flinching. She didn’t just know how to win, she knew how to make people believe she would, long before the votes were counted.

She once told Alex, “You don’t wait to be handed the win. You take it with both hands, and you don’t blink.”

And maybe that’s what he did in Abu Dhabi. Maybe that’s what made everything worse, because Alex didn’t blink. He committed. He held the line, stretched the tyres, defended like it was his own championship on the line, and crossed the finish line first, but nobody looked at him like a winner.

His engineer didn’t say anything on the radio other than confirming that he'd secured his first win. Toto didn’t meet his eyes. The pit wall looked like they’d just watched a funeral.

Henry… Henry didn’t speak to him at all.

What’s the point of taking it, if it meant nothing once it was yours? What’s the point of committing, if everyone sees you as the reason something beautiful fell apart?

Now he’s in Bahrain, standing in front of a Sky Sports camera with sunburn on his neck and everyone wants him to explain how it felt to win.

And he doesn’t know how to say I didn’t feel like I won anything.

So he smiles. He straightens his posture. Wears the sunglasses because the sun’s just starting to hit the pit lane, sharp and blinding. The producer counts them in, and then Craig Slater is speaking in that overly chipper broadcaster voice that always sounds like he’s about to ask something unpleasant.

“We’re here with Alex Claremont-Diaz, Mercedes driver and—” Craig glances at his notes, just enough hesitation to feel pointed, “—winner of last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi.”

Alex smiles that dimpled, all-American smile like it doesn’t bother him. “Hey. Good to see you.”

Natalie Pinkham cuts in, sweet but surgical. “Alex, thanks for joining us. I suppose we’ll get the obvious question out of the way: how does it feel being back in the paddock after such a… let’s say, dramatic end to last season?”

He takes a breath. “Good. I mean, it’s always good to be back in the car. The off-season is great until it’s not. I’ve missed this.”

Craig chuckles politely. “Sure, sure. But you must know people are still talking about Abu Dhabi. That move, staying out when everyone else boxed. Were you fully aware of what it meant at the time?”

The smile doesn’t waver. “I knew I had track position. I trusted the team, and I trusted the numbers we were seeing. That’s the job. You react in real time.”

That’s the line, the previously agreed upon script. The version that sounds smart and calm and worthy of a multi-year, multi-million contract.

The truth? There was no data that said it would work. No clean long-run sim. No model from free practice that gave him the odds. The degradation curve on the hards was always too steep by lap 20, never mind 31. Staying out was a gamble that they wouldn’t have offered to Henry, not in a million years.

They didn’t trust him to pull it off. That’s the part Alex knows by heart. The part that haunts him at night. They gave him the choice, plan C or box the next lap, but only because either way it would not matter. 

The most sensible call is to pit. But Henry had pit priority. If Alex chose to double stack immediately behind him, he’d lose time. If he waited a lap later he’d lose track position. So really, it wasn’t a choice at all. It was a gamble, handed to him in the heat of the moment, with no time to process, no confidence from the wall, and everything to lose.

And still, somehow, Alex made it work, and nobody told him he did a good job.

“But surely you knew what was on the line,” Natalie presses. “You were ahead of Henry, who was in the title fight. He needed that win.”

Alex shifts his weight slightly. “Henry was having an incredible season. And he’s… you know, he’s the best teammate I’ve ever had. He was fighting for the championship, yeah. But I was fighting too. For my seat. For my future.”

Craig raises an eyebrow. “So you’re saying it was about your contract?”

“I’m saying it was about showing what I can do when it counts,” Alex says. “I didn’t know what would happen. I knew I had to make it to the end. I didn’t expect to win. I just didn’t want to regret giving up the shot.”

The silence hangs there for a beat too long. Natalie leans in.

“But you must understand why people, especially fans of Henry, felt it was a betrayal.”

Alex’s jaw tenses for a moment before he speaks.

“I understand why it hurts. I’ve had three months to think about it. Believe me, I’ve gone through every lap in my head. Every decision. But I didn’t take anything from anyone. I earned that win.”

It’s not a shout. It’s not even defensive. It’s just firm. Steady. Like he’s clinging to the only truth he has left.

Craig glances toward the camera, almost like he’s unsure how far to push.

“And since then, of course, your contract with Mercedes has been extended for multiple years, congratulations. Some might say it came a little conveniently close to the Abu Dhabi win. Do you think the win sealed it?”

Alex gives a dry, amused exhale. “I think a lot of things sealed it. One win doesn’t define a driver. But yeah, I’d like to believe it helped.”

“And have you and Henry spoken since?” Natalie asks. “Properly?”

Alex hesitates. Too long. They can see it now. The pause says more than any headline ever could.

“We’ve had meetings. Briefings. You know. Testing prep.”

He hears his own voice and hates how flat it sounds. Like a readout. Like a line from a comms sheet. What he doesn’t say is that he’s been waiting. That he thought maybe, just maybe, in the quiet after the storm, there’d be a text. A call. A knock on his hotel door at 2 a.m. when they’re both still wide awake and pretending otherwise.

“But not a real conversation?”

Alex takes a breath that’s too careful. 

He offers a practiced half-smile. “We’re both professionals.”

That’s it. That’s all he can give without breaking down on live camera.

Craig nods, looking vaguely disappointed. “Well, we’ll let you get back to it. Thanks for your time, Alex. Good luck this season.”

“Thanks,” Alex says, already stepping back, already pulling off the mic pack with fingers just slightly too fast. Like maybe if he doesn’t walk away right now, he might actually say what he’s thinking. Say that it didn’t feel like winning. That he didn’t sleep for three days after Abu Dhabi. That maybe if he had just pitted—

No. Not here.

Alex walks off, weaving past cords and cameras and PR interns with clipboards, heading back to the garage.

It’s day one of preseason testing. Bahrain. A dry 30°C. The wind pushing fine sand across the concrete. A new season, technically. New car. New livery. But it doesn’t feel like a clean slate. Not when everyone’s still looking at him like that.

He’s on duty today, full day in the car, running the updated aero package, data collection, and high-fuel race sims. It’s supposed to be routine, low-stakes. Just shake the car down, give the engineers what they need. But everything feels sharp. Like the air’s thinner in the paddock. Like every mechanic, every engineer, every person he passes is carrying a version of it in their head.

The move and the choice he made in Abu Dhabi.

He feels it. In every half-smile, in every too-polite nod. A weird, unsettled energy around both sides of the garage. No one’s openly hostile, Mercedes people don’t do that. But there’s a tension now. Like the floor shifted just slightly beneath them.

Some of them respect him more for it. He can tell. He’s heard the whispers. Gutsy call. Kept his head. Earned that win. Others, he knows, think he stepped over a line. That he cost Henry the championship. That he should’ve moved aside. The worst thing about that is Alex thinks both sides are right. 

Nora appears beside him, holding a tablet and two coffee cups, one of which she wordlessly offers. He takes it like a lifeline.

“You slept?” she asks without looking at him.

He sips. “Define slept.”

She hums. “Four hours. Maybe three.”

“I’m fine.”

“You always say that.”

He doesn’t answer.

Nora tilts the screen toward him. “Here's the test plan. First stint is aero mapping, no heroics. It’s all for us, not you. You’re not here to prove anything.”

Alex’s about to say some clever comeback but she gives him the look that says I’ve seen you lie to the media, but I know better. “It’s testing. You’re not here to be fastest. You’re here to give us data. That’s the job.”

“I am giving you data,” Alex says. “High-speed cornering is a kind of feedback.”

“Alex.”

He shuts up.

She softens. Just a little. “The car’s good. Really good. Maybe the best we’ve had since ‘21. But we won’t know what it really is until we see it against McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari. Hell, even Aston if they’re sandbagging. So right now? Just drive the program. Don’t try to win something that isn’t winnable.”

Alex nods, then hesitates. “And Henry?”

Nora closes her laptop gently. “Henry needs results more than he needs therapy. Everyone knows that.”

Alex studies her, something unreadable passing through his expression. “Is that why everyone’s walking on eggshells?”

She pauses. “He’s not fragile, if that’s what you mean.”

“I didn’t say he was.”

“You didn’t have to.” Her voice is quieter now. “He knows how it looks. Everyone thinks he’s still angry. That he’s going to spend the year punishing you. But honestly, I think he’s just… tired. We all are.”

He looks away, jaw tight.

Nora watches him for a beat longer, then says, “You got the contract. The team backed you. That means something.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asks. “Because I don’t think you’ve believed anyone’s backing you since the moment you crossed that finish line.”

Alex doesn’t answer. Just stares down at his boots, jaw tight.

“Look,” she adds, a little softer. “I’ve known Henry longer. I know how heavy that name is for him. What he lost. What he thinks he’s owed. But I’ve also seen you. You didn’t break. Not when the sim numbers said you would. Not when half the paddock wrote you off. And not in Abu Dhabi, even if you think you did.”

She stands up, brushes her hands on her overalls. “Drive the car. Give us the data. You'll have the rest of the year to prove yourself.”

Then she walks off, leaving Alex alone in the hum of telemetry and silence.

He stays sitting for a moment after she leaves, staring blankly at the screen in front of him. There’s no one else around. Just the low whir of electronics and the distant hiss of an air compressor kicking on down the garage.

Then, like muscle memory, he moves.

The day passes in stints and resets. Run the plan, hit the lap delta, cycle the modes. He does what Nora told him, no heroics, just data. He keeps the tires in the right window, hits all the test items on the sheet. Keeps the engine maps stable. Doesn’t push when he wants to. It’s boring in a way that feels like penance.

He knows Henry’s in the garage somewhere. Not in the viewing gantry, not in the background of any photos, but he can feel his low frequency presence. The certainty that Henry’s got one ear on his telemetry and the other on the radio. Listening. Judging. Waiting.

The helmet hides everything, and thank god for that. Because under it, Alex is running hot. Every lap feels like an audition, not for the seat, he got that one sorted, but for forgiveness. 

By the time he pulls into the garage after the final run, his whole body hums with exhaustion. He peels off his gloves, feels how damp they are with sweat, how his hands shake just slightly.

The engineers swarm the car like bees. Alex climbs out slowly, nods to Nora, who gives him a small, neutral look he can’t quite interpret. Then he heads to the debrief.

The room smells faintly of coffee and ozone. The day’s final data loops on the wall screen. Charts, deltas, overlays of tire wear and aero balance. Henry is already seated at the table, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the readout like it owes him something. He doesn’t look up when Alex walks in.

Alex takes his usual spot. Julien Moreau, Mercedes’ new head of performance, stands at the front with a tablet in one hand and a pen in the other. Efficient. Calm. Clipped French precision in every word.

“Alright,” Julien says, tapping the screen. “Run six. High-fuel long stint with aero map three. Very clean on paper.”

He turns slightly toward Alex. “Talk me through Turn 11.”

Alex shifts. He’s already gone over it a dozen times in his head. The car felt unsettled, like it wanted to pivot faster than he expected. But the telemetry didn’t show a clear imbalance, and he’s never been great at explaining these things.

He frowns. “It… rotated more than I expected. I didn’t really trust the rear on throttle. It wasn’t snapping, just… jittery. Too light.”

Julien doesn’t respond. He just raises a brow. “Too light how?”

Alex searches for it. “Like, it wanted to step out, but didn’t. It just felt… wrong.”

He winces internally. That’s not how you talk in this room. Feelings don’t mean anything here unless you can prove them in numbers.

There’s a pause. Then, from across the table, Henry speaks.

“Rear was a little too reactive mid-corner,” he says, voice even. “Probably a side effect of the floor setup they’re running on that map. I felt something similar in the sim, made it twitchy on exit. You get instability, but not enough to break traction. Feels like it’s about to go, even when it’s not.”

Julien nods. “Merci. That lines up with the torque trace. We’ll tweak the balance before day two.”

No one says anything else.

Alex keeps his face neutral. Nods once. But inside, he’s folding in on himself. It was his test day. His data. His chance to show he belonged here. And Henry still had to speak for him.

The worst part isn’t even the fact that Henry knows what Alex was trying to say. It’s that he said it better. Cleaner. More precise. As if he could still read Alex’s thoughts, decode them, and translate them for the engineers.

It should’ve felt like help. It should’ve been teamwork. They’re supposed to be on the same side, after all, they shared the same car, same badge, same team. And yet, as he sits there in the quiet aftermath, every part of him is burning with the humiliating certainty that this was not kindness. This was proof that he’s still behind.

That Abu Dhabi didn’t change anything.

That maybe he didn’t deserve to be in front in the first place.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Henry Fox on Pressure, Legacy, and the Pain of Losing
Sky Sports F1 | Yas Marina reflections, two months on

Alex sees the article in the morning of day two. He is reading it while still in the hotel van on the way to the circuit, halfway through a bite of banana bread, and by the third paragraph, his stomach’s gone cold.

“That final stint felt like my whole life funneled into one car length,” Henry says, quietly. “And the car in front of me… I knew him. Not just as a driver. I knew how he thought under pressure. I knew what made him hesitate. What made him hold.”

Alex’s throat goes tight. He scrolls slower.

“We were close. I won’t pretend otherwise. And the nature of this job—it’s built to make you hurt each other eventually. We knew that. We’re in the business of breaking each other’s hearts.”

The words hit harder than they should. Because they’re his. Alex said them first.

He doesn’t remember blinking when he said that. Just remembers the way Henry looked at him. Alex was half-grinning, towel slung around his neck, sweat still glistening under the fluorescent lights in the Interlagos cooldown room.

Henry had passed him with terrifying elegance, around the outside into Turn 4, clean as a scalpel, so smooth it didn’t even feel real until the replay. There’d been nothing Alex could do to stop it. And somehow, it hadn’t felt humiliating. It had felt… beautiful. Like watching a maestro conduct a symphony.

After the race, they'd ended up side by side, slumped in plastic chairs in the corner of the room, sipping water bottles like they weren’t both vibrating from adrenaline. Henry bumped his knee against Alex’s and said, “That was clean. You didn’t make it easy.”

Alex was still catching his breath, still kind of winded from the whole thing. It was his first wheel-to-wheel fight with Henry where it actually mattered. 

He laughed, too exhausted to lie. “We’re in the business of breaking each other’s hearts.”

He’d meant it as a joke. A soft one. It wasn’t bitterness. It was awe. Gratitude, maybe. The kind of thing you say when you care enough to let someone be better than you for a day.

But Henry had gone still for a beat too long. Then he tossed his bottle into the bin and said, without looking at him, “Speak for yourself, Claremont-Diaz.”

Alex had laughed, a little breathless, thinking it was a joke. He thought it was their line.

Now he knows better.

Henry hadn’t taken it as admiration. He’d taken it as a warning.

And now here it is again. On public record. Rewritten like it had always belonged to Henry. Like whatever it had once meant between them had always been headed here.

Alex stares at the quote on his phone, thumb frozen mid-scroll.

He reads it again. Then again.

“We’re in the business of breaking each other’s hearts.”

The words blur. His jaw tightens. There's that pressure in his chest again, the one that feels like trying to breathe through a seatbelt. He rubs at his eyes like it might stop the ache behind them, like it might ground him.

It was supposed to be a throwaway comment. A line said in the warmth of shared sweat and adrenaline, when everything still felt good between them. Charged, yes, but easy. Mutual. When the closeness still belonged to both of them, before everything got so fucking complicated.

Alex remembers the smirk on Henry’s face that day in Brazil. Or maybe he thought he saw a smirk. Maybe it was already slipping away even then, and he just didn’t want to believe it.

Now it’s a headline.

Now it’s history.

He puts the phone down, screen-side down like it might bite.

The air in the paddock feels different after that. Staler. Sharper. He hears his name whispered more than once in the background as he walks the corridors of the hospitality unit. He doesn’t check the notifications flooding his phone. He doesn’t want to see what people are doing with that quote. How they’re using it to crown Henry the tragic hero, the noble nearly-man, the jilted prince of Mercedes.

He doesn’t want to think about how many people agree with it.

By the time he gets back to the garage, the sun has climbed to its highest point. Harsh light bleeds through the open shutter bays and glints off the nose of the car.

Henry’s in the car now, he’s on a long run. Lap after lap, near perfect sector times. Brake traces sharp. Steering input clean. Alex watches the traces of his own run from the morning slowly fade to the background, irrelevant now. And still. He can’t look away.

Henry’s lines are smooth. Feedback precise. Voice calm. There’s no visible edge to him, no drama. Just control. Just competence. Just Henry doing exactly what everyone expected.

And it makes Alex ache.

Because in the final two months of last season, they were closer than ever. They had inside jokes during debriefs, traded stupid memes during sim sessions. They’d drive back from the track together, late at night, windows down, music low. There were moments, dozens of them, when it felt like something real.

Like that night in Abu Dhabi after drivers’ dinner, both of them tipsy and too warm in the back of a hired SUV, laughing about something neither of them remembers now. Henry had looked at him like—

Like he meant something.

And the next day, Alex had taken it all away.

Now, he’s just another guy in the back of the garage, watching Henry chase a redemption arc that used to include him. Listening to the radio calls, the corrections, the details Henry delivers with ease, where the rear snaps under heavy load, where the balance goes neutral into Turn 7. All the ways Henry understands the car like it’s muscle memory.

And Alex sits there, drinking lukewarm electrolyte water and wishing he could go back. To the moment before they handed him the choice. To the moment before he decided to believe in himself, and in doing so, lost the one person who once looked at him like he could win.

He doesn’t remember who calls for him, whether it’s someone from comms or one of the assistants with a clipboard and a look that says you’re due . But the next thing he knows, he’s following the quiet hum of fluorescent lights down a narrow hallway, past telemetry bays and closed meeting doors, to the office in the far corner of the paddock unit.

The air feels colder here. Quieter, somehow. The kind of quiet that doesn’t invite comfort, but scrutiny.

He hesitates before he knocks.

It’s not that he’s afraid of Toto. Not exactly. But there's something about being alone in a room with a man who built empires from behind a pit wall. A man who sees the sport not just as speed and machinery, but as legacy, leverage, and war by other means.

The door swings open before Alex can knock a second time.

“Come in,” Toto says, already turning back to his desk. His voice is calm, even. The accent sharp as ever. “Close the door.”

There’s a screen on the wall with race sim overlays still running. A set of telemetry readouts frozen mid-corner. Two coffee cups—one untouched, one drained. Silence, except for the faint hum of the air conditioning.

Toto doesn’t look up right away. Just taps once on the edge of his tablet before saying, “Sit.”

Alex does. It feels like walking into a principal’s office, if the principal could buy half the grid or end your career with a phone call.

“So.” Toto finally looks up, sharp but calm. “You wanted to talk.”

Alex nods. “I… yeah.”

His mouth goes dry. There are a dozen ways he’s played this conversation in his head, and not one of them feels right now that it’s actually happening. But he powers through.

“I wanted to ask about the plan for this season. Between me and Henry.”

Toto tilts his head. “Performance plan? Testing protocol?”

Alex hesitates. “No, I mean… racing. Are you... are we doing like what you did with Lewis and Nico? Agreements about crash damage, attacking protocols, media lines. That kind of thing.”

Toto watches him for a long moment, unreadable.

“Why are you asking that?”

Alex shrugs, too quickly. “I just want to be on the same page.”

There’s a pause. Then Toto leans back, folds his hands. His voice stays even.

“You’re asking if I’m going to put handcuffs on you both.”

Alex swallows. “I’m asking if you’re expecting this to get worse.”

Toto doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he says, “I told you before Abu Dhabi. We’d talk about your contract after the season. I meant it. You earned your place here, Alex. Nobody can question that now.”

But Alex doesn’t let it go. “It was finalized in two days.”

Toto nods. “Yes. Because we wanted to get it done before the break. That wasn’t a punishment.”

“It felt like damage control.”

This time, Toto’s expression shifts. Not angry, just… calculating.

“You think I’d tie the future of this team to someone I don’t believe in?”

Alex doesn’t respond.

“Listen,” Toto says. “This isn’t 2016. You and Henry aren’t Lewis and Nico. Not yet. I’m not interested in reliving that drama just because the internet wants a gladiator ring.”

That stings. Alex winces. But Toto’s voice softens slightly.

“You made a hard call in Abu Dhabi. Some people hated it. Some admired it. What matters is what you do now.”

Alex exhales, low and shaky. “What about Henry?”

Toto sighs. “Henry is… complicated. And right now, he’s still processing. We’re giving him space.”

Alex leans forward, fingers tense around the edge of the table. “Is he staying?”

“I don’t know,” Toto says, honest for once. “He’s talking to people. But we’re not giving up. He’s still ours—until he says otherwise. He’s still under contract for the rest of this year. He’s still our lead driver.”

There it is. Lead driver. The words land heavy.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re not equal,” Toto continues. “You know I don’t do number one and number two. I’m not Horner. You don’t get team status handed to you in this garage. You earn it.”

Alex stays quiet.

Toto presses on, voice sharpening. “After Abu Dhabi, the team backed you. We stood by the decision. We finalized your contract. We didn’t ask you to explain yourself in front of the press. That should have been enough to tell you how we see you.”

Alex flinches, just barely.

“I know you were waiting for clarity before that race,” Toto says, more measured now. “And maybe I should’ve given it to you. But you wanted to prove yourself. That’s exactly what you did.”

Alex laughs, dry. “Yeah but at what cost.”

Toto exhales, long and quiet. Then he says, “You want the truth?”

Alex blinks, caught off guard by the shift in tone. “Always.”

Toto looks him in the eye. There’s no performance here. No press-face. Just the man who’s steered this team through triumph and chaos alike, sitting with the full weight of it on his shoulders.

“The truth is… we got it wrong.”

Alex doesn’t move.

“We should’ve called you in,” Toto says. “We should’ve told you to box as soon as we realized the delta. Or committed to the double stack if we believed it would work. But we hesitated. And by the time we knew it was a mistake, it was too late.”

He leans back in the chair. “We put you in an impossible position and asked you to make a championship-level decision under pressure, with incomplete information. That wasn’t fair. That was a failure on us. Not on you.”

Alex stares at him. His throat tightens around the words he wants to say, but can’t.

“You did what we asked. You made it work. You held the line. That wasn’t luck. That was composure, judgment, instinct.” Toto’s voice softens, just a little. “That was a driver doing exactly what he was hired to do.”

Alex’s fingers curl tighter against the edge of the table. “Then why did it feel like I was being punished for it?”

“You weren’t punished, Alex. You were left to carry something we should’ve held with you.” His jaw clenches. “And I regret that. I regret the whole damn setup. It was our mistake. But I will not let you rewrite it like you did something wrong.”

Alex looks away. Something behind his eyes flickers, like disbelief and relief warring in real time.

“You didn’t steal anything,” Toto adds. “You drove a car past the point it should’ve lasted. You made the call because we asked you to make it. And if Henry has a problem with that, then that’s between him and us, and not with you.”

Alex nods, but it’s shaky. “I just… I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Toto says. “You reminded us what risk looks like. You reminded me what belief looks like. We’ll fix the rest. That’s our job. Yours is to keep doing what you’ve already proven you can.”

Alex lets out a slow breath, like he’s finally allowed to.

Toto’s voice drops, quieter now. “Let us carry the mistake. You already carried the race.”

Alex doesn’t go straight back to the garage after the meeting.

He sits outside the hospitality unit for a while, in the strip of shade just behind the team trucks, sipping a bottle of water like it might wash something out of him. The air still tastes like dust and heat, but something in his chest feels… lighter. Not fixed. Not forgiven. But steadier, like the foundation stopped shifting under his feet.

He needed that.

He’s still not sure he believes all of it but he needed it.

He gets through the rest of day two without speaking to Henry. Not out of avoidance, not entirely. Just because there’s nothing left to say that wouldn’t break him again. He watches Henry’s final stints on the monitor, nods when asked for feedback, keeps his head down during media walk-ins. It’s all fine. Quiet and contained.

That night, he eats dinner alone in his hotel room and sleeps for six uninterrupted hours for the first time in weeks.

By lunchtime on day three, the paddock feels like it’s on autopilot. Sun high, routines cemented. Mechanics sprawled in folding chairs, drivers tucked into small clusters over recovery smoothies and half-finished emails. Alex sits with a paper cup of black coffee he doesn’t even like, scrolling aimlessly through a Red Bull fan edit that misquotes him twice .

He’s halfway through mentally correcting the captions when Zahra appears beside him, holding a tablet like a shield and wearing an expression somewhere between apologetic and terrified.

“Hi,” she says, smiling tightly. “Please don’t kill me.”

Alex blinks. “That’s a strong opener.”

Zahra exhales. “I need you and Henry to film something. Social team’s been on my ass. It’s just a light content shoot, a bit of review on this year’s car. Sixty seconds max.”

He raises an eyebrow. “With Henry?”

“Together, yes.”

He stares at her.

She adjusts her grip on the tablet. “Look, I’ve done what I can with graphics and race countdowns, but there’s only so much Canva and corporate vibes can carry before people start tweeting that the team’s in mourning.”

“Isn’t it?”

Zahra gives him a pointed look. “Do you want to look like the villain and the reason we’re losing the TikTok war?”

Alex sighs. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“I also need Henry to say yes, so don’t make it sound like you’re being held at gunpoint.”

“Zahra, you literally opened with ‘please don’t kill me.’”

“I meant emotionally.”

He snorts. Just barely. “Where?”

“Back of the garage. After lunch.” She looks around, lowers her voice. “And maybe—just maybe—try not to glare at each other the whole time? Or if you must, do it like you’re in love and about to kiss. Engagement’s good either way.”

She walks off before he can come up with a response.

When Alex finally sees him, Henry’s just stepped out of the car.

He’s still in his race suit, peeled halfway down to his waist with the sleeves tied loose around his hips, fireproof undershirt damp at the collar. His hair’s a little windswept from the helmet, a little too golden in the sharp Bahrain light, and his cheeks are flushed from the heat. That unbearable, high-cheekbone flush that makes him look more alive than any man has the right to be after eighty laps on a roasting track.

The sun hits him just right, like it knows who the main character is.

Alex stops walking. Just for a second. It’s not voluntary.

Because Henry looks up, blinking through the brightness, pushing sweat-slicked strands off his forehead, and that’s it. That’s the whole undoing. He’s not even smiling, and still, it knocks something loose in Alex’s chest. The kind of beauty that aches. The kind that reminds him, cruelly, of every version of Henry that once looked at him like they were a team.

Those big, unreadable eyes. That quiet, infuriating grace. Like he was carved out of sunlight and self-control.

Alex swallows hard, breath catching in a way that shouldn’t be noticeable, but it is. It always is.

He shouldn’t still feel like this. Not after everything. Not after what Henry said, what he took from that line, what he gave away in that interview. Not when they haven’t exchanged more than a few civil sentences in weeks.

But desire doesn’t follow logic. And grief doesn’t always wait for closure.

Alex straightens his posture, wipes his hands on his fireproofs, and keeps walking like the air hasn’t just gone thin around him.

Zahra meets him at the corner of the garage, eyes flitting between the two of them. “Right,” she says, overly cheerful. “You’re both here. I’m going to pretend that’s already a miracle.”

Henry doesn’t say anything. Just nods once, expression blank, polite. Corporate Henry. Media Henry.

Alex pretends it doesn’t gut him.

The camera setup is wedged awkwardly between the hospitality unit and the shaded walkway outside the garage, where the background blur can catch the Bahrain paddock but not the McLaren hospitality banner by accident. There’s a stool each, one branded backdrop, a clip-on mic, and Zahra looking like she’s suppressing the urge to scream into a cushion.

“We’ll keep it light,” she says, more to herself than them. “Short. Happy. Sponsor-friendly. This isn’t Hard Knocks, it’s not a documentary, I just need fifteen seconds of chemistry so I don’t have to deep-fake it in Premiere.”

Henry sits first. Alex follows. Not too close. Not too far. Just the precise kind of distance that suggests everything is normal when nothing is.

The cameraman gives them a thumbs-up. Zahra has a checklist in hand and a haunted look in her eyes. “Okay. Just start with something upbeat. Day three of testing, how’s it going? Look at each other, smile, pretend you’ve spoken this year.”

Alex clears his throat. “It’s been good. Productive. I think we’ve collected a lot of great data, the car’s responding well.”

Henry, flat but photogenic, nods. “Yeah. Mileage looks strong. Long runs were consistent. Still learning a few things, but overall—encouraging.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Zahra blinks. “Okay, that sounded like a funeral with carbon fibre. Try it again, but like… with serotonin.”

Alex forces a laugh. “Right. Uh—okay. Day three! Vibes are immaculate. Engine’s purring. Everyone’s hydrated.”

Henry deadpans, “He means we’re sweating buckets.”

“Speak for yourself, Fox,” Alex fires back, grinning a little too quickly. “Some of us are built for heat.”

“Some of us are built for results,” Henry says, still smiling. It’s a good line. Almost charming. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

Zahra’s pen freezes halfway across her clipboard.

“Great!” she says, a little too loudly. “That’s great. Can we get a quick bit on the goals for the season?”

Alex glances toward Henry, deferring. Henry’s voice is smooth. Practiced. “Keep improving. Get back to the front. Fight where we belong.”

“And work together,” Alex adds. It comes out too fast, like a peace offering he wasn’t supposed to say aloud.

Henry’s jaw tightens—not a flinch, just a fractional shift. “Yeah,” he says after a pause. “Work together.”

Zahra doesn’t breathe for a second, then: “Okay! That’s a wrap on that one. I’ll pull selects for the sponsor clips. Can I get a shot of you two looking at each other and laughing like you just heard the same inside joke?”

They both look at her.

She wilts. “Never mind. I’ll use B-roll.”

Alex lingers after the cameras are gone, fingers still curled around the mic pack like he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands anymore.

He watches Henry walk away, broad back framed by the heat shimmer off the asphalt. Still golden. Still impossibly composed. Still not looking back.

The words work together echo in his head, hollow and weightless. Like the script of a play they’d once been proud to perform in. Like a promise no one believed.

“You know,” Zahra says quietly next to him, not really looking at him, “you could talk to him. Off-camera. Might get more than five usable seconds that way.”

“I don’t think he wants to talk.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s waiting for you to stop acting like everything’s fine.” Zahra doesn’t smile. “Anyway. It’d save me a headache.”

She walks off before he can respond.

Alex watches her go, then looks back toward where Henry disappeared down the paddock walkway. The back of his throat burns.

When he’s on the final practice session, his focus isn’t just on the run plan or brake migration or lift-off curves.

It’s on Henry.

Because sure, everyone’s been saying it. That whatever they had is gone. That the damage is done. That he ruined it. That Henry won’t forgive him. And maybe that’s true.

But Alex was raised by a woman who closed war tribunals with a smile and told her kids that failure wasn’t fatal, just feedback. He was raised to believe that some things are worth fighting for, even if the odds are crap and the pit wall’s already turned their backs. That if you really want something you don’t just sit there and hope. You show up . You do the work.

He wants to fix this.

Not just for the team, or the media, or the sponsors. For himself. For the version of Henry who used to bump knees with him during cooldown and trade sarcastic glances across strategy meetings. For the night in the SUV when Alex thought of a maybe. Just maybe.

Fixing it starts with talking. With showing Henry that he’s not afraid of the mess they’ve made.

So he runs the session clean. Smooth. No drama. Quiet determination in every lap.

And when the day wraps up, when the engineers unplug and the garage starts winding down, Alex doesn’t go back to the hotel.

He goes looking for Henry, and he finds him in his driver’s room.

Door slightly ajar, towel around his neck, hair still damp from the shower. Henry’s standing near the mini-fridge, halfway through opening a bottle of water when he sees Alex in the doorway. He freezes.

For a second, nothing happens. Just Henry blinking at him like he can’t quite believe Alex had the audacity to show up here.

Then, just barely, his expression softens. Still wary, still guarded, but something else flickers behind it. Like maybe he’s… relieved. Like maybe some part of him was waiting for this.

“You looking for something?” Henry asks, voice low and cool.

Alex nods. “Yeah. You.”

Henry raises an eyebrow, skeptical. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, firmer now. “I wanted to talk.”

There’s a beat of silence. The room is too small for this tension.

Henry leans against the counter, arms crossed. “Then talk.”

Alex hesitates for a second, but then, he steps in. Closes the door behind him.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “For Abu Dhabi. For what happened. For the way it ended.”

Henry doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

Alex exhales slowly. “I’ve run it over in my head a hundred times. How I could’ve boxed. How I could’ve said something on the radio. How I could’ve just… done anything differently. And I know that doesn’t change what happened, but I still wish I could go back.”

Henry looks away. Jaw clenched. Eyes sharp. But his voice, when it comes, is soft.

“I would’ve done the same,” he says. “If I were in your position, I wouldn’t have moved either.”

That catches Alex off guard.

“You would?”

Henry nods. “You had a shot to win. You took it. That’s what we do.”

“Still… I hate that I ruined it. Your shot at the title. Your season. Everything.”

Henry’s eyes flicker, and for the first time, he looks a little tired. Not angry. Not proud. Just… worn out.

“You know your first podium?” he says, almost casually. “Monaco.”

Alex stares at him.

Henry shrugs one shoulder. “Didn’t expect it to start a whole media circus. That was on me.”

“You’re not the one who dropped the trophy.”

“No,” Henry says. “But I was the reason they were watching. Every move you made was compared to me from the second you walked into this team. That’s not fair.”

Alex frowns. “You’re not responsible for how people see me.”

Henry meets his eyes. “Aren’t I, though?”

That silences Alex.

Henry exhales, leans back against the wall. “My name comes with weight. With stories. With expectations I didn’t ask for but still benefit from. And I’ve seen the way it messes with you. The way it narrows everything you do. Like the only way you’re allowed to win is if I’m not in the picture.”

Alex shakes his head. “That’s not true.”

“It feels true, doesn’t it?”

Alex doesn’t respond. Because yeah. Sometimes it does.

Henry’s voice drops. “You were brilliant in Abu Dhabi. What you did, that wasn’t luck. That was brave. And no one should’ve made you question it just because it hurt me.”

There’s a pause. Something fragile sitting between them now.

“I’ve spent so long carrying this legacy,” Henry says. “Trying to outrun the name, the pressure, the idea of who I’m supposed to be. And maybe I didn’t notice what it was doing to the people around me. To you.”

Alex looks at him. Really looks.

And for the first time in months, he doesn’t feel like he’s standing in Henry’s shadow. He feels like they’re finally sharing the same light.

“I didn’t want to take anything from you,” Alex says softly. “I just wanted to prove I belonged here.”

Henry’s expression softens.

“You do.”

Chapter Text

Most people, by the time they reach their twenties, reach this sobering realization that their parents are just people, flawed, confused, winging it like everyone else. But Henry Fox must've missed that, mostly because his father is both irreversibly dead and inconveniently immortal.

The posters go up overnight.

Arthur Fox, mid-laugh in a faded racing suit, plastered across construction walls and boutique windows, with some overwrought captions like The Speed Lives On . There are banners on lampposts, digital billboards by the tunnel exit, tribute videos on loop in luxury hotel lobbies. Henry passes at least four versions of his father’s face before he hits kilometer two of his morning run.

They’re all good photos, high-angle glamour shots, full of backlit nostalgia. Monaco loves a legacy. Especially a dead one.

Henry wipes sweat from his forehead and slows to a jog at the corner of Boulevard Princesse Charlotte, where a limited-edition bottle of champagne bearing Arthur’s name is displayed in the window of a boutique liquor store. Behind it: a screen playing his final win on a loop. The caption beneath the footage reads, Still the King .

It’s not grief. It’s marketing.

The whole city smells like it, overpriced sunscreen and legacy branding. Monaco isn’t mourning Arthur Fox, it’s monetizing him.

Henry stops. Not because he’s tired. He could run this city blindfolded. He stops because it’s all so fucking cliché. The solemn tribute packaging, the softly backlit images, the surgically selected fonts. Like they all agreed on the version of his father that looked best in 4K.

He catches his breath at a crosswalk and glances up at yet another poster. This one’s newer, Arthur, backlit and golden, helmet tucked under one arm like a knight returning from battle.

By the time he gets back to the apartment, the sun’s just starting to bleed into the harbor. Pale gold light catches on the glass and the metal railings and the rail-thin outlines of superyachts that weren’t there yesterday.

Technically, it’s a good location, prime, even. Five minutes from the paddock entrance, close enough to the sea that he can hear the water at night. But none of that matters, because the apartment itself is a mess. Not in the obvious ways. Not in a way anyone passing through would notice. It’s just... tired. The kind of tired that settles into walls and floorboards and stays.

Arthur bought the place before he ever met Catherine. Before the Windsor surname was stitched onto fireproof race suits and legacy contracts. Back when he was just a young driver with an old soul and a rookie deal at a team that no longer exists.

When he died, the deed passed to Henry. No one fought it. Not Philip, not Bea, not Mary. Which probably means no one thought it was worth anything.

Henry’s lived here full-time since he signed his F1 contract. It was the obvious move, tax benefits, prestige, the illusion of independence. But really, he came back because this was the one place where no one expected anything of him. He used to escape here as a teenager whenever the London house got too heavy with legacy talk and polished shoes and family business dinners he wasn’t old enough to understand.

He never changed much. Half the wardrobe still belongs to Arthur, soft cotton shirts, a leather jacket that smells like smoke and podium champagne. The other half is Henry’s: pressed polos, crumpled hoodies, a designer suit he wore to a funeral and hasn’t touched since.

The shelf in the hallway holds trophies, but none of Henry’s. Those are at the family home in London, polished and staged in custom lighting. Here, it’s all Arthur: silver cups from a different era, helmets with scuffed visors, a championship plaque from a team no one remembers.

The kettle is the same one Arthur used. The mugs too, one of them still has a chip on the rim from when Henry knocked it off the counter in a growth spurt summer. He kept it. Couldn't explain why, even to himself.

There are photos. Just a few, not framed or displayed, but tucked into the corner of the bookshelf like bookmarks. One in particular he sees every day without meaning to: Arthur, mid-thirties, windblown and sun-drenched, crouching beside an eight-year-old Henry in an oversized team polo, both of them squinting into the sun, arms slung over each other like they’d figured it all out.

They hadn’t. But the photo doesn’t know that.

He doesn’t turn on the lights. Just toes off his shoes and walks barefoot through the familiar dimness, sweat still cooling on his back.

The apartment smells like dust and metal and old tea leaves. It always has. He doesn’t mind.

There’s a gravity to the place, not heavy, exactly, but constant. A pull. It’s in the air, the corners, the dents in the floor where a toolbox once sat for years. Henry drops onto the couch and lets it hold him, head tilted back, breathing slowly.

Arthur loved racing. Not the fame, not the cameras, not even the wins. He loved the speed. The precision. The chase.

He used to say it was the closest a human could get to flying without leaving the ground.

Henry hadn’t understood it, not really, not until Arthur put him in a go-kart for the first time.

He remembers the rush like muscle memory. The sudden, lurching launch of acceleration. The way the world tightened into a blur, and his own body became an equation: weight, balance, control. The corners felt like puzzles. The straights felt like air. For a moment, he’d felt untouchable. Like gravity had lost track of him entirely.

And then he missed an apex, ran wide, and spun.

Arthur had just laughed. Helped him pull the kart back on track. Told him, “That’s the tax you pay for chasing weightlessness.”

Not many people got it. The why of it all.

But Arthur did. And he made sure Henry did, too.

His phone buzzes on the armrest. Once. Twice. Then a third time, with the kind of insistent energy that usually means someone from his team has remembered he’s not just a grieving son in a dingy apartment, but a very expensive asset with contractual obligations and corporate partners to charm.

He glances at the screen. Someone from the comms team has sent him his full Saturday schedule.

It’s color-coded. Time-stamped to the second. Pickup, breakfast with Bea and Philip, gear prep, free practice, debrief (fifteen minutes max ), yacht meeting with Stroll, media walk, engineering briefing, qualifying.

There’s no room to breathe. Which, of course, is the point.

Henry tosses the phone onto the coffee table without responding. It lands beside a stack of old race passes and a mug that still reads Best Dad in the World in flaking blue letters.

He rests his head against the back of the couch and closes his eyes. For a second.

Then he gets up.

Because in Monaco, on qualifying day, a minute of Henry Fox’s time is worth more than most people’s monthly salary, and he’s already behind schedule.

The car is waiting outside by the time he throws on a clean shirt and slips his paddock pass into his back pocket.

He doesn’t bother styling his hair. He pulls on sunglasses, tugs a hoodie over his head despite the rising heat, and heads down the narrow stairwell that still smells like rust and cigarette smoke.

The driver greets him by name. Henry nods once and slides into the backseat, already pulling up a map of the café, even though he knows exactly where it is. It’s one of those pointless habits that help him feel like he’s in control of his own day.

By the time they reach Hôtel du Jardin the glass has fogged slightly from the air con. The terrace is already half-full—team execs, motorsport media, assorted wealthy hangers-on pretending to care about tire strategy over eggs Benedict.

Bea is already there when he arrives. Of course she is.

She’s seated at a table tucked into the far corner of the patio, shaded by a wide umbrella and half-obscured by a row of ornamental trees, like some kind of plausible-deniability foliage. She’s wearing a black leather jacket over a vintage band tee, boots laced to the ankle, sunglasses perched on her head like a crown she refuses to wear properly. Her hair’s artfully messy in the way only very expensive low-maintenance styling allows. She scrolls her phone one-handed and sips something violently green from a mason jar, the kind of smoothie that looks like it could burn through metal and still be described as “gut-friendly.”

“Nice of you to show up,” she says without looking up.

Henry slides into the seat across from her. “Didn’t want to risk being early and accidentally exposed to sincerity.”

She sighs like someone who’s had to love him for far too long.

“Still living in that crypt above the wine shop?”

“‘Living’ is generous,” Henry mutters, reaching for the menu and flipping it once before setting it down. “But yeah.”

“You know we literally own two hotels within walking distance, right?”

“I’m aware. I just prefer buildings that haven’t been staged within an inch of their life to look like they contain joy.”

Bea takes a slow sip of her smoothie. “You ever think maybe you keep the apartment because you want to feel like shit?”

Henry shrugs. “It’s working.”

Philip arrives five minutes later, crisp and glowing with that particular Windsor sheen—like he’s had six hours of sleep, three hours of meetings, and still managed to get a tailored shirt pressed on the way here.

He pulls off his sunglasses and hooks them onto the neckline of his polo as he approaches the table.

“Well, if it isn’t the rebellion,” he says, grinning as he takes the seat next to Bea. “Nice. ‘Depressed DJ on the French Riviera’ is a bold aesthetic.”

Henry doesn't even look up from stirring his hot chocolate. “Still upset I got the hairline?”

Bea hides a smile behind her glass. Philip just smirks.

“No, I’m thrilled. You’re finally making it easier for the tabloids to distinguish us. I’ve spent years fielding headlines about the ‘scandalous Windsor heir’ and clarifying that no, I wasn’t the one photographed sneaking out of that rooftop bar in Tokyo.”

“Not everything’s about you,” Henry says, flatly.

Philip raises an eyebrow, amused. “Of course not. But some things are.”

He leans back in his chair, one ankle crossing over his knee. “I have been thinking, though—about last season. About… consequences.”

Henry doesn’t bite, just watches him carefully.

Philip shrugs, all nonchalance. “Nothing dramatic. Just a few strategic nudges. Whisper campaigns. Sponsor discomfort. Let them feel a fraction of the pressure they left you under.”

Henry takes a slow sip of his drink. “That was last year. Everyone’s moved on.”

Philip’s smile is all teeth. “No one with power ever really moves on. They just wait for the right moment to remind people.”

Henry sets the cup down. “I’m focused on this season. I’m winning races. A lot of them. That’s what matters.”

“Good,” Philip says, smiling just a little too wide. “Because the faster you rack up wins, the faster all the nasty stuff in Sri Lanka drops off the first page of Google.”

Bea nearly chokes on her smoothie.

Henry stares at him. “You can’t seriously think that’s my job.”

Philip shrugs. “I think it’s convenient. And mutually beneficial.”

Henry snorts. “Right. I’m the family’s SEO strategy now.”

“You’re the only one people actually like,” Philip says, without missing a beat. “Might as well use it.”

Henry gives him a long, tired look. “Do you even hear yourself?”

Philip just takes another sip of his coffee, unapologetic.

Henry wasn’t always like this.

Last year, he’d helped coordinate every detail of Arthur’s memorial run in Monaco. Chose the suit. Approved the sponsors. Recreated the 2002 livery for a one-off demonstration lap, complete with period-accurate gloves and a helmet design that made old men cry.

He’d believed in it. The legacy. The story. The idea that maybe, if he did everything right, he could earn his place beside his father instead of just beneath him.

But a lot can happen in a year.

Abu Dhabi cracked something in him—watching his team fumble a championship, then try to dress it up in polished press releases and post-race graphics with his face in grayscale.

And then there was Alex. Always Alex. Casual, sunlit, infuriatingly grounded Alex.

It hadn’t even been a speech. Just a throwaway comment over a shared driver room table in Jeddah, flipping through a race magazine with half an eye on his hydration schedule.

“You ever think about how wild it is? Your family owns like… everything. Property, banks, half of ITV. And the sport just lets you pretend you earned it like the rest of us.”

It hadn’t been cruel. It hadn’t even been bitter.

It had just been true.

Henry had laughed at the time. Brushed it off. But something about the tone—matter-of-fact, not accusatory—stuck. Like Alex didn’t think he was evil, just absurd.

And then Henry started doing the math.

The Windsor fortune didn’t come from crown jewels or fair trade coffee. It came from land rights in Africa that were never fairly returned. From oil contracts in Venezuela. From arms logistics “consulting” in Asia. From shuttered coal mines in Northern England and hostile takeovers of local insurers during the financial crash.

Their automotive arm alone had tanked two manufacturing cities in the Midlands and funneled the savings into a dozen shell corporations scattered across Europe.

Henry had always known this—abstractly. The way you know your school uniform was probably made in a sweatshop but you wear it anyway.

But now he can’t unknow it. And he can’t stand the thought that his wins —his perfect laps, his last-lap lunges, his championship campaign—are just another line item in a sprawling PR strategy designed to make people forget what the Windsors actually are.

And the worst part?

He still hasn’t left.

Henry’s halfway through the thought—somewhere between Venezuelan oil and Sri Lankan ghost towns—when Philip says, far too brightly:

“Oh, by the way—Hamilton’s finally retiring next year.”

Henry blinks. Bea raises her eyebrows.

Philip leans in like he’s delivering state secrets. “It’s not public yet, obviously. But he told Mary over drinks in St. Moritz last month. Apparently he wants to go out on a high note. Something about legacy and his eighth title and—” he waves vaguely, “—symbolic closure.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “And Mary just happened to pass this along to you?”

“Mary passes along what’s useful,” Philip says, with a small, satisfied shrug. “And I listen. Which is why I get the phone calls and you two get the scraps.”

He says it lightly, but it lands with the weight of someone who’s been repeating it to himself for years.

Mary Windsor, grandmother, dynasty-maker, global puppeteer. She didn’t rebuild the family fortune by accident. When the crown fell out of fashion in the early 1900s, she repositioned the Windsors as global stewards of “British excellence.” That meant property. Oil. Arms. Banks. Insurance. Automotive.

By the 1960s, they were floundering. Half the family drunk on yachts, the other half tangled in scandal. Mary cut all of them out. Bought three newspapers. Took direct control of the board. Built something newer, colder, more resilient. Now, prime ministers still phone her before they’re sworn in, and Fortune 500 CEOs treat her birthday dinner like a diplomatic summit.

Catherine—her only surviving child and Henry’s mother—had been meant to inherit it all. But Arthur’s death broke something in her, and grief calcified into reclusion. These days she rarely leaves her Sussex estate, and her name only appears in press releases written by someone else.

So now it’s the grandchildren who matter.

Philip, the favored heir, is everything Mary respects: ruthlessly competent, politically pliable, and always in a suit. He’s being groomed for the top of the family holding company, Windsor Consolidated, and he acts like it’s already his.

Bea is tolerated. Her nonprofit work makes good headlines, and Mary considers women’s empowerment a "smart hedge" in the 21st-century marketplace.

And Henry?

Henry wins races. Gets photographed with world leaders. Occasionally dates supermodels. And makes a very useful smokescreen.

Sometimes Henry wonders if that’s all any of them are—roles to be filled in Mary Windsor’s dynasty. Philip, the future CEO. Bea, the PR-friendly activist. And him, the heir to Arthur’s myth.

There’s not much room for grief in a machine like that. No process. No softness. Just headlines to manage and narratives to control. After Abu Dhabi, Mary called once— once —to ask if he needed time off. When he said no, she congratulated him on “taking it like a professional.” That was the end of it.

It was Bea who showed up without asking. No media statements, no agenda. Just brought tea and sat with him on the floor of his apartment while he said nothing for hours. And Philip—god help him—did what Philip does best: made lists. Legal options. Sponsor leverage. Potential counter-narratives. He talked like a man preparing for battle, and maybe he was.

Because something did break that night. Not just his title hopes. Something older. Quieter. A piece of faith, maybe.

He just looks out at the marina, at the water glinting behind rows of yachts, and thinks—not for the first time—that everything since Abu Dhabi has felt like walking underwater. Like something burst open that night and none of them ever really came up for air.

It was bad. Not just the loss. The betrayal. The helplessness.

And in the aftermath, when the headlines moved on and the team sent flowers and Alex went back to being Alex, there were only two people who stayed.

Philip saw Henry’s collapse and immediately started working the levers—calling in favors, leaking stories, torching reputations with the kind of surgical precision that only comes from a childhood raised on succession memos and soft threats.

Bea just showed up. Sat beside him on the cold marble floor of the apartment’s mini kitchen with a box of takeaway noodles and didn’t say a word for hours. She didn’t try to fix it. Didn’t try to spin it. She just let him break.

They’d both loved him in their own way. And both of them had been right and wrong.

Henry takes a slow breath.

“You know it’s been sixteen years?” Henry says, voice low.

Philip glances at him. Bea looks down at her half-finished drink.

“Since Dad,” Henry adds, as if they need clarification. “Sixteen years, and we’re still pretending we’re not just three kids who had to figure it all out on our own.”

No one replies for a beat.

Then Bea says, softly, “I was terrible. For a while.”

“You were unbearable,” Philip says, almost fondly. “Remember when you pierced your nose with a safety pin and told Mary you were joining a Maoist commune?”

“I was fourteen and grieving,” Bea says.

“You were dramatic.”

“And you were a controlling little shit.”

Then Philip says, more gently than expected, “You were the worst of all, you know.”

Henry doesn’t flinch. He nods.

“You weren’t even a person,” Bea adds. “You were just... rage. Walking, screaming rage.”

“I didn’t know how else to be,” Henry says quietly. “They banned me from racing. Took away the only thing that made sense.”

“I still have the scar from when you threw a plate at me,” Philip says, lifting his brow.

“I broke your arm,” Henry reminds him. “You should lead with that.”

“You broke both our hearts,” Bea says, but there’s no accusation in it. Only fact.

Henry’s smile fades.

“I wasn’t proud of any of it,” he says. “I just—there was nowhere for the grief to go. And racing was the only place it didn’t destroy me.”

They’re quiet for a long moment.

Then he adds, softer, “Everyone thought racing was a bad idea. Said it would kill me too. But I kept pushing. Wouldn’t let it go.”

“Of course you did,” Philip says. “You’re stubborn. And it was the one thing they couldn’t twist into something else. Not yet.”

Henry swallows. His drink’s gone cold, but he holds the cup anyway.

“I didn’t become a person again until they let me back in a car.”

They sit with it for a moment.

Then Philip clears his throat. “I know I’m not exactly... charming about it. But I was trying to keep this thing together. The three of us.”

Bea nods. “I know.”

Henry doesn’t say anything. Just stares out at the sea, and lets himself feel, for the first time in a long time, like maybe he’s not alone in the wreckage.

They part ways without ceremony. A half-hearted hug from Bea. A clap on the shoulder from Philip that’s meant to pass for affection. Henry doesn’t say goodbye. He never does on race weekends—it feels too permanent.

The car is already waiting outside the café, tinted windows and air conditioning set to whatever temperature his assistant once guessed he liked.

By the time he reaches the paddock, the heat is rising off the asphalt in shimmering waves. The garage smells like brake dust and coffee and the quiet, humming tension of people pretending everything is fine.

Free Practice 3 starts in under an hour.

Shaan meets him at the door with a tablet and a tight smile. “We’ve finalized the setup direction from yesterday. Full rear stability package, minimal toe-out. It’s going to suit your driving style perfectly.”

Henry nods. “Alex?”

Shaan hesitates. “His side of the garage wanted a more neutral balance. But his data didn’t support the rear grip load. They’ll try it for the first stint, then probably have to pivot.”

Henry says nothing. Just takes the tablet and flicks through the telemetry with the dull disinterest of someone reading his own eulogy in advance.

They’ve been doing this for months now. Quietly favoring his setup direction. Letting him lock in the balance. Letting Alex drift further behind while the official press line still calls them “co-leads.”

It’s not overt. No team orders. No sabotage. Just… inertia. And guilt. And fear of losing him again.

Mercedes never recovered from Abu Dhabi. Not really. They issued their apologies, threw their weight behind Henry, restructured personnel. Started treating him like he was the second coming of Arthur Fox—with the same reverence, and none of the accountability.

And Henry?

He let them.

He didn’t ask them to sabotage Alex. But he didn’t stop them either.

Because part of him—the ugly part, the exhausted part—wants to win more than he wants to be fair.

He pulls on his gloves. Stares at his reflection in his helmet visor. The shape of his face doesn’t look like his father’s anymore.

But the eyes?

The eyes are starting to.

The garage is still buzzing when Henry slips out the side exit, past the thrum of hydraulic tools and half-finished debrief chatter. He nods to a few engineers, ignores the reporters hovering near the barriers, and keeps walking.

Outside, Monaco hits like a performance: sunlight bouncing off polished bodywork, champagne flutes clinking in hospitality suites, the low murmur of power disguised as casual conversation. 

His phone buzzes again. Stroll’s assistant confirming location, timing, discretion.

Henry doesn’t need the reminder.

The meeting’s been on his calendar for weeks, slotted neatly between FP3 and media rounds, like a dentist appointment or a particularly glossy form of treason. He hasn’t told Toto. He hasn’t told anyone, really. But the whole paddock will know by sunset. That’s how Monaco works.

The yacht is impossible to miss. It’s the size of a small island and parked right at the edge of Port Hercule like it owns the water, which—given Lawrence Stroll’s net worth—it might as well.

Henry doesn’t bother with subtlety. He walks up the gangway in full view of the photographers stationed on the harbor steps. 

Let them speculate.

The interior is all glass and brushed steel and glacial air conditioning. Lawrence greets him with the smooth affability of a man who’s closed half a dozen billion-euro deals before lunch.

“Henry,” he says, shaking his hand firmly. “You’re late.”

“You’re early,” Henry replies.

Lawrence laughs like he expected that.

They settle into low chairs with a view of the harbor, champagne offered and waved off. Henry accepts sparkling water. It’s too early for pretense, and he has qualifying in three hours.

“I won’t waste your time,” Lawrence says, crossing one leg over the other. “Fernando didn’t extend. You knew that. We’ve got a stopgap in the second seat and Lance, obviously, but if we want to win constructors, we need someone who can take the fight.”

“And you’re hoping I’m looking,” Henry says.

Lawrence tilts his head. “You’re not stupid. You know where Mercedes is heading.”

Henry doesn’t flinch. “I’m winning.”

“You’re winning despite them. Not because of them.” A pause. “You don’t need to be loyal to a team that hung you out to dry in Abu Dhabi. We both know what that did to you.”

Henry says nothing. The water sparkles behind Lawrence’s shoulder.

“We’ve got Newey now. Brand-new HQ. State-of-the-art wind tunnel. Everything and everyone Red Bull had and more. You’d walk into a winning machine. And you’d look good doing it.”

Lawrence leans in slightly.

“No one looks as good in green as you do. Not since Arthur.”

Henry doesn’t look away. “This isn’t about my father.”

“It’s always about your father,” Lawrence says, not unkindly. “You’re Arthur 2.0. But cleaner. Cooler. Modern. You’re James Bond with a helmet. The press loves you. The sponsors eat it up.”

Henry leans back, lets the silence stretch.

“You’re not asking me to drive a car,” he says at last. “You’re asking me to sell the fantasy.”

“I’m offering you the best seat on the grid for next year,” Lawrence replies. “Everything else is just marketing.”

Henry lets the words hang in the air. A year ago, that pitch would’ve worked. The flattery, the Arthur comparisons, the promise of legacy wrapped in leather seats and carbon fiber. He would’ve smiled, shaken hands, asked about engine modes and title bonuses.

Now?

Now it just makes his skin crawl.

The worst part is how predictable it all is. The James Bond line. The casual name-drop. The assumption that he’s still playing dress-up in his father’s shadow.

His jaw tightens. He forces his face still.

“Sounds compelling,” he says smoothly, setting his glass down with surgical care. “I’ll think about it.”

Lawrence’s smile widens. Mistaking caution for interest. “I think it’d be a good fit.”

Henry stands. Straightens his sleeves. “So do a few others.”

Lawrence’s expression shifts—just slightly. The tiniest flicker of awareness that this conversation isn’t a formality. That Henry has other options. And isn’t afraid to make them known.

He leaves without shaking hands, stepping back out onto the yacht deck with the quiet precision of someone who knows every camera on the dock is watching.

Let them watch.

Let them wonder.

Qualifying days always carry a certain static—an unspoken current that threads through the garage, invisible but unmistakable. It lives in the way engineers talk quieter, in the way every movement feels choreographed for precision, not speed. This is the part where execution matters. Where everything becomes real .

He slides into the rhythm of it without thinking. Fireproofs, boots, comms check. The ritual of becoming less person, more machine.

Alex is already suited up, sitting on the edge of a workbench, helmet in his lap. He looks up when Henry walks in and offers a nod. Not friendly. Not cold. Just... neutral.

“Nice of you to show up,” he says.

“Had to go try out some yachts,” Henry replies, deadpan. “Terrible wind resistance. Not great into Turn 1.”

Alex huffs a small laugh. Then, quieter: “You ready?”

Henry shrugs. “Car’s balanced. Long-run pace is strong. Short-run’s better. I don’t really have to be ready.”

Alex doesn’t respond right away. Just runs a finger along the edge of his helmet, watching the reflections shift on the visor.

They’re first and second in the championship, but it’s not a close fight. Henry’s got four wins to Alex’s one. The points gap isn’t insurmountable—not yet—but the trend is obvious. The team leans into Henry’s preferences. The setups shift toward his balance, his feel. Every weekend, it gets a little harder for Alex to keep up.

He finally says, “The car still doesn’t feel right.”

Henry glances at him. “What’s off?”

Alex shrugs, but it’s tight. “It’s small stuff. Just… it doesn’t rotate how I want it to. Doesn’t snap like it used to.”

The car has shifted further into Henry’s comfort zone with every weekend—stable rear, planted under braking, obedient on turn-in. Not because anyone said so. Just because inertia always favors the winner.

And Alex? Alex likes it pointier. Twitchier. A front end that bites hard and punishes hesitation. But that’s not how this car wants to drive anymore. And it’s not how Henry drives.

So Alex keeps getting 95%, maybe 96% on a good day. And in F1, that’s the difference between glory and dust.

Henry doesn’t say anything. Just leans against the wall beside him, arms crossed over his chest.

After a beat, Alex mutters, “Guess I’ll adapt. Again.”

Henry could say something. Something supportive. Or neutral. But instead he just says, “You’ve done it before.” He leans against the wall beside him. “You’re fast. You’ve adapted.”

Alex looks at him. There’s no heat in his voice when he says, “I shouldn’t have to adapt to someone else’s car to show I belong.”

Henry could say something. Could push back. Could defend the team or pretend things are fair.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he nods once. “No. You shouldn’t.”

A beat passes. Then Shaan steps in, calm and clipped.

“Five minutes.”

Alex slides off the bench. Helmet on. Visor down. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Henry says. And means it.

The outlap feels clean. Sharp, even. Monaco always does this to him—draws out his focus until everything else thins around the edges.

He gets the call from Shaan—“Window’s clear. Out now. Push lap next time around”—and lets the car slip into gear like a second skin.

He doesn’t think about pole. Or purple sectors. Or the reporters already drafting headlines.

He thinks about his father.

He always does here.

Into Sainte Devote, it’s hard on the brakes. Downshift. Clip the curb just enough to keep momentum without rattling the chassis. Arthur had taught him this corner first—not the Monaco version, but the philosophy of it. The act of trusting a car with your life at speed.

Henry had been four. Barely tall enough to see over the kart’s steering wheel. But Arthur was there, crouched beside him, grinning in that way he always did when he thought Henry was about to understand something important.

"Speed means nothing if you can’t control it," he’d said. “Anyone can go fast. Few can stay fast.”

Up through Massenet and into Casino Square, the car feels alive under him. Balanced. Sure. It should. It’s been molded around him for months—every setup shift, every development nudge. He’s not even fighting it anymore.

He remembers spinning out as a kid. How angry he’d been. How Arthur had just laughed and clapped him on the back and said, “Good. Means you found the limit. You don’t get to be fast unless you flirt with the edge.”

They never talked about feelings in his family. But Arthur had handed him a language made of lap times and tire temps and engine maps. A way of saying I love you without ever needing the words.

Down through Mirabeau and the Grand Hotel Hairpin, it’s all precision. No hesitation. Henry’s fingers work the wheel like muscle memory. He doesn’t need to think. Thinking would ruin it.

He remembers how Arthur used to watch old Monaco onboards with him in the dark, whispering through the corners like they were sacred. “This is where you slow the world down. Not for them. For you.”

It had felt like magic then.

It still does.

He floors it through the tunnel. The sound reverberates in his chest. The car is light, weightless for just a moment, the tires gripping like they’ve been engineered for this single strip of road.

For a few seconds, it feels like flying.

This is what keeps him here. Not the championship lead. Not the sponsors. Not even revenge.

This.

The sheer velocity of it. The calm inside the chaos. The way everything else—Abu Dhabi, the crashes, the betrayal, the legacy—fades into silence at 200mph.

It’s the only time he feels like his father is with him. Not as a ghost. Not as a name on a building. But as something real. Muscle memory in motion. A voice in the back of his head, quiet and certain.

He nails the Nouvelle Chicane. Tabac. The Swimming Pool. It’s all there—the line, the rhythm, the instinct.

"Don’t think," Arthur used to say. “Just feel. If you have to think, you’re already behind.”

He hasn’t thought in ten corners.

Through Rascasse, into the final corner. He opens up the throttle. Lets the car run wide onto the pit straight.

Crosses the line.

Purple.

Pole.

Shaan says something in his ear about sector times and how close Alex was. Henry barely hears it.

He just opens the visor a crack, sucks in the salt-heavy Monaco air, and keeps his hands on the wheel a few seconds longer than necessary.

This is why he comes back. Why he never walked away.

Not for the headlines. Not even for Arthur’s shadow.

But for the half-second of weightlessness where everything else disappears—and it’s just him, and the machine, and the ghost of a man who once taught him how to breathe through speed.

The sun’s started to dip by the time Henry ducks out of the paddock. He finds the quiet stretch behind hospitality, near the back stairs where no camera crews bother lurking. The harbor’s still alive with movement—yachts drifting, drinks clinking, engines growling somewhere in the background—but up here, it feels muted.

Toto finds him leaning against the railing, staring out at the sea.

He offers him a bottle of water, label already halfway peeled off, and says, “Good lap.”

Henry takes the bottle. “Thanks.”

Toto nods, then gestures vaguely toward the circuit behind them.

“Do you know we broke the Monaco qualifying lap record today?” he says, voice light. “By three tenths.”

Henry raises an eyebrow. “We?”

“You and Alex,” Toto clarifies, smug now. “P1 and P2. Separated by twenty milliseconds. That’s not a gap. That’s a warning.”

He lets it hang there for a second, then adds, almost gleeful, “fastest front row in Monaco history. And they’re both ours.”

Henry lets the water bottle dangle from one hand.

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” Toto says. “It’s supposed to remind you who’s holding the cards.”

A pause. Then, with deliberate casualness: “I heard the Stroll meeting went well.”

Henry doesn’t react. “It went.”

Toto nods. “You don’t need to justify it.”

“I’m not.”

“You also don’t need to pretend you’re not thinking about it.”

Henry lets out a low breath. “I can talk to whoever I want.”

“You can,” Toto agrees. “But they’re not offering you a seat. They’re offering you a mirror.”

Henry finally turns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Lawrence knows what works,” Toto says. “He’s not selling you on the car. He’s selling you on the version of yourself that looks best in green.”

There’s no bite in it. Just observation.

Henry looks back at the sea. “Twelve months ago, that would’ve worked.”

Toto nods. “I know.”

Silence again. Then Henry says, quieter now, “You’ve given me everything this year. The car. The setup. The trust. After what happened... you didn’t have to.”

“We owed you,” Toto says simply.

“You didn’t owe me loyalty.”

“No,” Toto agrees, “but I owed you the truth.”

That makes Henry pause.

“I raced against your father,” Toto says, glancing sideways.

Henry blinks. “What?”

“Back in Austria. Formula Ford. He was seventeen. I was nineteen. We were both idiots.”

Henry stares at him. “You never told me that.”

“You never asked.” Toto’s lips twitch into a small, nostalgic smile. “He was ridiculous. Wild on the brakes. Took every corner like he had a death wish. But fast. God, he was fast. He didn’t care about legacy or optics back then. He just wanted to win.”

“Was he good?”

“He was better than all of us. Not because he had money—though that helped—but because he loved it more. Back then, he didn’t have sponsors, he had spare parts and duct tape. He talked about gear ratios the way most people talk about football. He didn’t care about the empire, not yet.”

Henry’s quiet. He pictures it—Arthur at seventeen, no myth, no weight. Just a boy in a cheap racing suit, hungry as hell.

Toto goes on. “My career veered off into business. His took off. F2, then a test with Stewart, then the rest. You know that part. But those early years told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t race to prove anything. Not yet. He raced because it made him feel like he could fly.”

Henry swallows.

“That changed later, of course,” Toto adds. “The pressure came. The branding. Catherine. Mary. The expectations.” He gives Henry a look. “But when he was your age? He was free. And happy. He loved racing in a way I haven’t seen since.”

That catches Henry off guard. He wants to believe it. Needs to.

“Everyone always talks about him like he was perfect,” he says. “This impossible ideal.”

Toto shakes his head. “He wasn’t perfect. He was reckless. Impatient. Terrible at qualifying until he was twenty-two. And he could never remember brake bias settings. But he was real.”

Henry stares at the water for a long time.

Henry swallows, and for a moment, he can feel it again—not the weight of legacy or the pressure of pole, but that day . Monaco. The tunnel. The heat. The scream.

He doesn’t say it aloud. Doesn’t need to.

He knows Toto’s read the reports. Everyone has.

But no one else had been there. Not really.

No one else had sat frozen in the grandstand while the car burned. No one else had smelled it— the fire, the fuel, the flesh. No one else had watched it all unfold in slow motion, waiting for a rescue that came twenty-five minutes too late.

He doesn’t talk about that version of his father. The one who left him. The one he couldn’t save.

He doesn’t even talk about the version that planned to retire, to be present, to start again.

All of that is buried somewhere deep beneath the carbon fiber, the trophies, the therapy, the team.

But right now—with Monaco golden behind them, and the sea stretching wide and endless below—Henry thinks maybe he can breathe for a second. Maybe he can let this version of Arthur live in the light.

“He never told me any of that,” he says quietly.

Toto gives a small nod. “He wouldn’t have,” Toto says. “He wanted you to believe in the best version of him. Most fathers do.”

Henry exhales. Long. Tired. Not broken—just... cracked open, slightly.

He doesn’t say thank you. But he doesn’t need to.

Toto claps him once on the shoulder and says, “Go get some rest. You’ve got a job to finish tomorrow.”

Henry watches him walk away.

And for once, he doesn’t feel like he’s chasing a ghost.

He just feels like a son.

Chapter Text

June has a penchant for standing in the shadows, the same way Alex has the natural instinct to step into the spotlight. Different instincts. Same blood. And somehow, even across a crowd, they always found each other.

She’s there behind the rows of journalists and camera crews, half-hidden near a lighting rig, sipping something too hot for the summer. But Alex sees her. Just a flicker of movement, a familiar silhouette in the blur of media day chaos. One glance is enough. She lifts her coffee slightly, a quiet cheer only meant for him.

He doesn’t wave. Doesn’t smile. But the corner of his mouth tips up, just barely.

It takes him eleven years but she’s finally here. 

The moderator calls his name. He leans into the mic, turns the charm back on like a switch. 

The Thursday press conference at Zandvoort is exactly what everyone expects it to be, it’s Max’s home turf, so you see a sea of orange in every direction. Alex sits there on the couch with three Europeans like he’s the exotic flavor the FIA chooses to spice things up. 

Charles, Carlos, Max—each of them answers with their polished, continental-accented English, all effortless charm and clipped vowels. Alex sits at the end of the row, back straight, eyes bright, hands resting just a little too comfortably with the mic. Playing the part of the loud American like it’s his brand.

And then the obligatory question from a local newspaper, for the drivers in the room, something about how it feels to race here, in Max's backyard, surrounded by fans who've been loyal for over a decade.

They go down the line with the same expected answers, expected tone. Something about the crowd’s passion, the history, the atmosphere. Max says something about how Zandvoort feels like a football stadium wrapped in gravel traps and speed.

And then it's Alex’s turn.

He smiles. Innocent. Bright. A little too sharp.

“I think Zandvoort should count as my home race too.”

There’s a pause. A few raised brows. A chuckle from Carlos.

And then, in flawless Dutch Alex argues, “ik heb zes jaar in Den Haag gewoond. Mijn moeder werkte bij het Internationaal Strafhof. Dus ja, ik voel me hier wel een beetje thuis.”
(I lived in The Hague for six years. My mom worked at the International Criminal Court. So yeah, I feel kind of at home here.)

Max does a double take and laughs. Carlos stares. Charles mutters something under his breath.

Max nudges his mic. "Als hij morgen een frikandel bij de Jumbo koopt, gaat het hele publiek voor hem juichen."

(If he buys a frikandel at Jumbo tomorrow, the whole crowd’s gonna start cheering for him.)

Alex doesn’t miss a beat. “Als ik er twee koop, krijg ik dan een vlag?”
(If I buy two, do I get a flag?)

Alex’s Dutch is fluent but sounds different from Max’s. It has the crisp, confident rhythm of someone who grew up in that one specific part of The Hague where the S sounds are softer and the vowels are a little too round. The kind of accent that says I didn’t learn this for the press. I learned it in cafeterias and court hallways and municipal tram stations.

Somewhere in the back, a couple of production assistants whisper to each other, not even bothering to lower their voices. “Wait, how the hell did the American learn Dutch?”

Alex just smiles, trying to show his signature unbothered charm. Nobody needs to know it was because his mom once said—casually, no pressure—that he might need to learn the language. So he did, because for Alex, everything was a challenge. 

And then, just like that, the moment passes. The laughter fades. The moderator clears his throat and pivots to the next question, and the press conference slips into the usual rhythm of a Thursday ahead of race weekend.

Where’s the car at? What’s the team working on? How’s the track feel this year?

Everyone answers like they’ve been media trained since birth, because they kind of are.

Alex talks about momentum and how the sim felt good this week. Max grumbles about development targets and says the car’ll be fine if it decides to cooperate. Charles offers Ferrari’s usual brand of careful optimism. Carlos makes a dry joke about needing divine intervention just to reach Q3. Alex doesn’t know if he’s kidding. Judging by the haunted look on his eyes, he might not be.

And through it all, Alex sits a little straighter. Speaks a little louder. He’s not chasing credibility anymore. He’s carrying it.

Before the break, he got two consecutive wins, Spa and Hungary in a car that doesn’t always behave but finally listens to him. He’s slowly chipping away the gap to Henry at the top of the standings. Though Max is still hovering close behind, dragging that Ford-powered brick Red Bull calls a car into contention through sheer will and spite.

The title fight isn’t settled. But for the first time all season, Alex feels like he’s not just in it. He might actually be the one changing it.

After the press conference, the drivers scatter, some pulled into interviews, some off to obligations with sponsors, some simply vanishing behind tinted motorhome doors.

Alex takes the long way out. Dodges a Sky camera. Slips through a service hallway that smells like espresso and leftover panic from media interns.

And there she is.

June, leaning against a concrete wall like she’s waiting for a verdict, arms crossed and coffee in hand, watching him with that look, half amused, half what the hell did I just witness.

“Seriously,” she says, “how many languages do you speak? And how long have you been hiding them like Pokémon evolutions?”

Alex grins and takes her coffee without asking. “Los suficientes para que mamá me deje existir,” he says in Spanish.
(Enough to make mom let me exist.)

“Por favor,” she snorts, switching right with him. “Tú existirías aunque nadie lo pidiera.”
(Please. You’d exist even if no one asked you to.)

“Sí, pero es más divertido cuando me aplauden.”
(Yeah, but it’s more fun when they clap.)

She scoffs, but the moment lingers. 

Alex leans against the wall beside her, bumping her shoulder lightly. “You’re here,” he says, quieter this time.

June shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Weather’s tolerable. And I figured I shouldn’t miss any more of your wins, now that you’re on a streak.”

He huffs a laugh, but there’s something soft under it, something that says thank you, even if he doesn’t say the words.

They walk side by side through the paddock, flanked by photographers and PR staff trying not to look like security. The attention shifts almost immediately, cameras clicking, fans waving, a few bold voices calling Alex’s name.

A teenager asks for a selfie. A woman compliments June’s hair. Someone else calls her stunning, like she’s the latest A-list girlfriend on parade. She handles it like she’s dealt with it her entire life. Smoothly, with a smile that doesn’t give too much away.

June is pretty. Striking, even. Good cheekbones and eyes with that same razor-edge resolve their mother has when she’s cross-examining a diplomat. She got most of Ellen’s features and almost none of her temperament.

Alex, on the other hand, is all Diaz. He’s got their father’s mischievous lips, big brown eyes, and quiet fire wrapped in noise and swagger. The kind of stubbornness that only shows up when it counts. He inherited the political instincts too, the ability to read a room and disarm it with a smile, to charm and challenge in the same breath.

They both carry the darker undertone of their Mexican heritage, something that sets them apart just enough in every room they walk into. Together, they look like two people who belong in the spotlight, confident, composed, and unmistakably related. No wonder people stare. 

They step into the cool hush of Mercedes hospitality, the glass doors sliding shut behind them and cutting off the roar of the paddock. A hostess offers them bottled water, and Alex waves her off with a polite nod. June grabs one, twisting the cap like she’s still calibrating what version of herself to be here.

Alex throws her a glance as they walk. “So. You’re actually on vacation? Or is this some stealth networking move for the global plastic lobby?”

“Ha-ha,” June says, deadpan. “It’s a burnout recovery tour, thank you very much.” She sips her water. “I’ve been working twelve-hour days convincing oil-backed politicians that climate change is real, so yeah, needed the break.

“I’ve got COP in Rotterdam in a few weeks anyway. Figured I’d come early, recalibrate, maybe yell at some F1 sponsors while I’m here.”

Alex smiles. “And catch my races.”

June tilts her head. “That too.”

They slide into a corner booth, tucked away from the usual press haunts. It’s a quiet moment, which is rare on race weekend.

“How’s Dad?” Alex asks after a beat.

June brightens a little. “Good. Focused. He’s pushing a new gun control package through the state house in Sacramento. Said he’ll visit after the midterms, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Alex nods. Their dad’s always been like that—steady, principled, in the trenches. The kind of man who didn’t chase headlines but knew how to write the footnotes of history. Quietly pulling strings while the rest of the world burned around him.

June hesitates. Fingers tightening around her water bottle just slightly. “And Mom?”

Alex doesn’t look up. Just tilts his head, voice light. “She’s on a flight to Qatar. Something about consulting on an Israel-Palestine peace proposal. You know. Just normal mom things.”

June lets out a short breath, half scoff, half laugh. “Of course she is.”

June looks around the sleek, air-conditioned hospitality lounge like she’s trying to make sense of it. The branded espresso machines. The whispers of carbon fiber and campaign money in the air. Engineers huddled over laptops. PR staff muttering about call times.

“It’s wild,” she says quietly. “That we ended up here.”

Alex arches an eyebrow, half amused. “You? You’re here for the coffee.”

“No,” she says, still scanning the room. “You. This. All of it.”

And maybe it is a little wild.

F1 started out as the thing Alex watched on Sunday mornings while their parents buried themselves in legal drafts and campaign strategy. June would catch him sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, cereal bowl in one hand, eyes glued to the screen like the cars were speaking just to him.

Their dad thought it was a good idea to give him a go-kart for his eighth birthday, and their mom signed him up for weekend sessions at a small track outside Austin. At first, it was just a way to get him out of the house, to give his restless energy somewhere to go that wasn’t tearing through homework or talking back at school.

Somewhere along the line, they both decided it was a good outlet. A productive one. Something that kept him focused and quiet.

Alex loved every second of it, and he was too busy driving to see how everything else was falling apart.

They argued more, about bigger things. The kind that didn’t get fixed with apology dinners or weekend getaways. And Alex just raced. He looked at lap times and corner speeds and gear ratios like they were the only language that still made sense.

He remembers when their mom told them she was moving to Europe. She framed it like an adventure, a chance to do something important. 

Even at that age, Alex understood what the ICC was. He knew what it meant. But more than that, he knew where The Hague was. Europe. Where the real tracks were. Spa. Silverstone. Monza. Barcelona.

He was ten, obsessed with F1, and suddenly the sport he loved wasn’t just something on TV, it was just a train ride away. A whole continent of circuits just waiting for him. He said yes before she finished the sentence.

At no point in that transition period—between the night their dad quietly moved out of their Austin house and the moment Alex and his mom boarded a one-way flight to the Netherlands—did Alex think June would leave him behind. She had packed her suitcase. She had said goodbye to her friends. She had stood beside him in the hallway with that same unreadable look she always wore when things got too quiet.

And then she said no.

Not dramatically. Not tearfully. Just… no. She wasn’t coming with them, because, apparently, for her, staying with their dad in California was more tolerable than going to the other side of the world with him and their mom.

Alex had tried to convince her. Pleaded, bargained, promised he'd let her get the bigger room, promised she'd never have to speak Dutch, promised they'd figure it out together like they always did. But she wouldn’t budge.

She just looked at him with that same quiet certainty that made her such a pain to argue with. Like she’d already made peace with the decision and already accepted that it would hurt—and she was doing it anyway.

Alex didn’t understand it at the time. He hadn’t seen what she saw: the isolation, the pressure, the way their mother’s ambition could take up so much space there was nothing left for anyone else. He didn’t see the cost yet. He only saw racetracks.

It turns out, it’s much harder to move away without June. The Hague was cold, quiet, clinical and their mom was always busy. The flat they moved into echoed when he walked too fast. And there was no one to talk to after school, no one to translate the weight of what he was feeling.

Without June, his world tilted off its axis.

He hadn’t even raced competitively in Austin. He did not consider it as a career. Karting had been a weekend hobby. It was something to do when his parents weren’t fighting and something to escape into when they were. But once they moved to The Hague, once it was just him and his mother and an echoing flat filled with diplomatic documents and takeout containers, it became something else entirely.

Racing filled the space. He was small, sharp, and relentless. Not the fastest, not at first, but unflinching. He remembered every move his competitors made. He learned to win on strategy and pure, cold-blooded speed. Every circuit became a puzzle, and he was determined to solve it before anyone else.

His mother clapped when he won. Sometimes she even made the time to be there. That was enough.

So he asked to participate in more races. Joined bigger competitions. The ones in Belgium, in Italy, in Spain, wherever the field was stronger and the podium looked taller. He started calling his dad to pay the entry fees, buy him better karts, and hire a team of mechanics. He pitched it as development, as exposure, but really, he was playing the guilt.

It worked. Not always easily, not without a few strained calls and long silences on the other end, but it worked.

Because Alex knew how to present a case. Knew how to frame racing as opportunity, as ambition, as the one thing that made sense amid the chaos of divorce and distance and split holidays.

And every time his mom made the time to come—stepping off the plane in heels and a crisp power suit, still shaking off some classified war crimes briefing—he made sure she saw him win. Made sure she saw him on the top step. Just long enough for the flash of a camera and a proud smile.

Then she'd be gone again.

So he asked for the next race. And the next. Because if he didn’t keep winning, who was he to anyone at all?

He doesn’t say any of that out loud. He just shrugs, and June fills the silence for him.

“A Formula One driver,” June says, as if she has to explain.

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” that’s all Alex could say after a couple seconds.

“I know it wasn’t.”

They sit with it for a moment. The kind of silence that isn’t awkward, just full. The way only siblings can do.

Outside the glass, the paddock pulses with noise. Mechanics shouting over drills, cameras snapping, the low rumble of an engine firing somewhere out of view. Inside, it’s cool and still.

June studies him, her expression unreadable in that lawyer-in-training way she inherited and perfected.

“You still think that’s the only reason she cared?” she asks.

Alex presses his tongue to the back of his teeth, but he doesn’t answer.

Because maybe it wasn’t. But it sure as hell felt like it.

They’re finishing the last of their drinks when June taps her nails against the glass and says, almost casually, “so, how’s your fake bromance holding up?”

Alex doesn’t look up right away. “Which one?”

June snorts. “You know which one. The one with the guy you haven’t made eye contact with off-camera since Bahrain.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “You watched the press conference?”

“I saw the clip. The teasing. The smirking. The whole ‘we’re totally fine’ routine.” She pauses. “Are you?”

Alex exhales. “We’ve been civil. Mostly. Media’s eating it up. The team loves it when we don’t look like we’re about to stab each other in the motorhome.”

But there’s something in his posture, shoulders a touch too tight, voice a shade too light. June catches it. She always does. But she doesn’t press.

“Just don’t lose your head about it,” she says instead. “You’ve got enough pressure without making yourself crazy over someone who talks like he just wandered out of Downton Abbey.”

Alex laughs, a real one this time, “you should hear how he orders tea.”

Their moment doesn’t last. It never does. Especially here. 

Before Alex can say anything else, the glass doors glide open again and Zahra steps in like she’s already halfway through a sentence. Her blazer’s sharp, tablet tucked under one arm, earpiece glinting beneath her hair.

“Hi, June,” she says, polite but distracted, then turns straight to Alex. “You’re late.”

Alex blinks. “For what?”

Zahra levels him with a look that says she’s too tired for this. “The BBC thing. You and Henry. Joint interview. Starts in five. You’ve got thirty minutes before the lighting goes bad, so move.”

June raises her brows. “Joint interview?”

Alex groans. “You know, we’re doing a PR tour of pretending we like each other.”

Zahra taps her tablet. “Pretend faster. Let’s go.”

He pushes to his feet and gives June one last look. She offers a small, sympathetic smile and a silent good luck salute.

He’s going to need it.

Alex follows Zahra out of the lounge and up the narrow staircase that leads to the rooftop terrace, the low hum of the paddock fading behind them. 

Zandvoort stretches out below. Sunlight catching the curve of the track, waves glittering just beyond the barriers. The rooftop is glass and chrome and coastal breeze, a little too perfect for the tension sitting in Alex’s chest.

The interviewer, Jennie Gow, is already there, mic clipped and notes in hand. The camera crew’s adjusting their angles, a boom pole hovering just out of frame. And Henry—

Henry’s standing near the edge of the terrace, back to the sea, one hand braced casually on the railing, eyes half-lidded against the wind.

He’s not even doing anything. Just existing, in that absurdly effortless way of his. The sunlight hits his jaw at a ridiculous angle, catching the gold strands in his hair and turning his white team polo into something practically cinematic.

Alex feels it before he can stop himself. The rush. The ache. That familiar, traitorous lurch in his chest that’s got nothing to do with rivalry.

It’s so unfair, the way Henry looks. The way he stands there like he’s already won something.

Alex swallows it down. Straightens his shoulders. Fists his hands in the fabric of his pants for half a second too long.

“Try not to look like you want to bite him,” Zahra mutters as she brushes past, smoothing his collar before the cameras roll. “Unless it’s flirty. Then I can work with that.”

Alex doesn’t dignify her with a response. But he does take a breath. And steps onto the set.

Jennie smiles as Alex takes his seat opposite Henry. A production assistant adjusts the light diffuser overhead, trying to tame the late summer glare bouncing off the sea.

“Alright,” Jennie says, glancing between the two of them like she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Let’s start simple. Welcome back, both of you. It’s the first race weekend after the summer break. Tell us, did you miss it?”

Alex answers first, the way he always does.

“Absolutely,” he says, easy and immediate. “Three weeks felt like a year. I was in Croatia with my mom and stepdad, and it was gorgeous, like, postcard-level, but I was itching to get back in the car. I made it about six days before I started dreaming about turn-ins.”

Henry doesn’t look at him, not directly. But his mouth twitches, just barely. “That’s because you didn’t go near a simulator for three whole days. Must’ve been agony.”

“And you, Henry?” Jennie prompts. “Did you miss it?”

He nods. “I think I needed the quiet more than I realized. Spent most of the time at home, in the UK. Saw family. Caught up on sleep. Pretended not to check live weather updates from Zandvoort.”

That earns a small smile from Alex. “You were checking the radar too?”

“I said I pretended not to,” Henry replies, and the banter hovers—light, sharp, familiar.

“Fair,” Jennie says, letting the moment breathe. “Do you two talk during the break, or is it complete radio silence?”

“Team sends us updates,” Henry says, a bit too evenly.

Alex shrugs. “Yeah, I sent him a meme once. Got a thumbs-up three days later.”

“Progress,” Jennie teases, before glancing at her notes. “You both know I can’t call myself a journalist if I don’t ask this,” she says, turning to Henry first. “Abu Dhabi.”

There’s no shift in his expression, but something in his posture stills—just slightly.

Jennie doesn’t pull punches. “After everything that happened last year, how do you come back from that? How do you trust the team again, knowing they fumbled a championship that could’ve been yours?”

The air tenses, just a little.

Henry answers slowly, choosing each word with care. “It wasn’t easy. Of course not. That race...” A pause. “It’s not something I’ll ever forget. But this team still has one of the fastest cars on the grid. I’ve won races with it this season. I’ve led the championship. So no, it wasn’t simple. But I’ve been with Mercedes for most of my career. I know what they’re capable of. I know what we’re building toward.”

Alex doesn’t move, but his gaze flickers, fixed on Henry like he’s trying to read past what’s being said.

“Let’s talk about the season so far. You’ve both had a hell of a run, but the curves are interesting. Henry, you started out strong with five wins in the first half. Alex, you’ve really come alive in the last few races, just before the break. What changed?”

There’s a pause.

Alex looks toward Henry first, almost like giving him the first chance to answer.

Henry tilts his head slightly. “Development curve,” he says. “That’s the honest answer. We started strong with a car that was incredibly well-balanced. But as the team introduced upgrades between Spain and Canada, the car’s gotten... quicker, yes, but also more unpredictable.”

Alex jumps in, nodding. “It became one of those things where the faster it got, the more sensitive it became to setup, temperature, wind… just everything.”

“And Alex,” Jennie says, “you seem to thrive in that kind of chaos.”

He shrugs, grinning. “I like a car that bites back.”

That gets a quiet huff from Henry. “He’s not wrong. The more... temperamental the car becomes, the more he seems to understand it. Or wrestle it into submission, depending on the day.”

Jennie smiles. “So you’ve learned from each other?”

Henry nods without hesitation. “I have. It’s easy to forget he’s only in his second year. But there’s an instinct to how he drives, especially under pressure, that’s hard to teach.”

Alex looks like he wants to roll his eyes but doesn’t. “Don’t make it weird.”

Alex doesn’t say anything more, but he sits with it for a beat longer than usual. He can still hear his mother’s voice in his head, politics is about people, sugar. Learn how they tick, and you’ll know how to move the room before they know it’s moving.

Obviously, F1 isn’t just about driving. Nobody stayed in this industry unless they were pathologically competitive, not just the drivers, everyone, from engineers, strategists, even the guys back at the factory soldering sensor boards. They wanted to beat their Red Bull or Ferrari counterparts as badly as he wanted to beat Henry.

So Alex talked to them, like, really talked. Asked questions that sounded simple but told him everything: what they cared about, who they trusted, what they noticed when the telemetry lit up red. It started innocently. He just wanted to understand the car. But somewhere in the process, he learned how to make them believe in him.

If he could convince them he could win in what they built, they’d start building it for him too, and they did. 

Jennie lets the moment breathe. Then she shifts just slightly in her seat, tone still light but eyes a touch sharper now.

“And personally? You’ve been teammates for nearly two seasons now. Obviously, Abu Dhabi still casts a long shadow. But how do you see each other now?”

The question lands like a glass set gently but deliberately on a table. Not forceful. But impossible to ignore.

Alex is the one who answers first, gaze flicking out toward the sea for a beat before settling back on Jennie. “We’ve talked about it. Privately, I mean.” A pause. “I regretted how it played out. I still do.”

He glances at Henry, then looks away again. “But I’m not sorry for the move. I had the opportunity and I took it. That’s what we’re here to do. And I’ve spent the last few months proving it wasn’t a fluke. That I earned the seat. Earned the win.”

His voice doesn’t shake, but it doesn’t flex either. Just the facts, told with a calm that costs something.

Jennie turns to Henry. “And you?”

Henry’s smile is polite. Measured. The kind that suggests he’s had this answer prepared for a long time.

“We’re racing drivers before we’re anything else,” he says. “The job is to win. Even if it breaks your own heart. Or someone else’s.”

There’s silence after that. Real silence. The kind that no sea breeze can fill.

Jennie doesn’t push. Just nods, eyes flicking between the two of them. “Right. Well then.” She shifts her tablet slightly, tapping it back to the next prompt. “Shall we talk about Monza?”

That gets a reaction.

Both of them grin, sharp and immediate. Like they’ve just remembered the same joke at the same time.

Henry leans back slightly, arms folding across his chest. “Ah yes. Monza.”

Alex laughs under his breath. “The race where we forgot we were teammates.”

“You forgot,” Henry says, mock-stern. “I was driving a very clean, very respectful race.”

Alex tilts his head. “You squeezed me into the braking zone at Turn 1.”

“I gave you space.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You gave me a suggestion of a car’s width.”

Jennie just sits back, smiling like she’s watching a tennis match. “That race was the most replayed on F1TV for two weeks straight. Some fans say it was the best on-track scrap of the season.”

“We aim to please,” Alex says with a mock bow.

Henry tilts his head. “Speak for yourself. I was aiming to win.”

Their eyes catch for half a second longer than necessary.

And it’s nothing.

It’s everything.

Jennie smiles, sharp and knowing. “Well, whatever it was, it worked. Mercedes walked away with a one-two. Again.”

Alex shrugs, trying to play it cool. “It’s the car.”

Henry deadpans, “It’s the chaos.”

They both laugh.

They wrap the interview with another joke, something about who takes longer when getting ready and who has better Spotify playlists on long-haul flights. Laughter, handshakes, thank-yous. The crew starts to pack up.

And just like that, it’s over.

Alex lingers a second too long in his seat, watching Henry stand, casual, polite, already halfway into the version of himself that lives off-camera. The sea wind shifts. Henry smooths his hair back with one hand, nods at Jennie, then turns toward the stairwell without a word.

This is the part he never gets used to. The switch flipping back. The quiet that settles once the cameras stop rolling. They were laughing just a minute ago. Teasing each other like nothing ever happened. Like they were still friends. Like they could be.

Alex watches Henry walk away, the laughter from the interview already dissolving into something too thin to hold.

Thirty minutes of jokes, banter, the easy kind of closeness people love to screenshot and edit and ship. He’d almost let himself believe it meant something. Almost forgot that it always ends the same way, Henry slipping back behind the wall, like none of it ever touched him.

And Alex should’ve known better. Should’ve remembered the truth behind it. How the entire thing started. 

It was Henry’s idea.

Last year, when things turned radioactive after the trophy incident in Monaco, it was Henry who sat Zahra down and mapped out a plan. If they played it right, if they could convince the world they were friends or even something more, then hating Alex meant hating him, and Henry was still too beloved for anyone to risk that.

So they played nice for the cameras. They fist-bumped and laughed and swapped hoodies. Made up stories about karaoke in LA and a museum night in London that never happened. Henry even said he pushed Alex into a wedding cake once. They let the internet stitch them into something beautiful.

And Alex had loved it.

He loved how the stories grew stranger, more elaborate. He loved how the crowd started cheering for them like they were a duo. He loved watching Henry smile, really smile, mid-interview, even if it was just for show.

Because at least when they were on camera, Alex got to have this version of him.

And now, after Abu Dhabi, after everything, Henry had doubled down. Not walked away. Not thrown him to the wolves. But leaned in harder, held the line tighter. Made sure every press op, every side-eye at a press conference, every clipped answer was shaped to protect Alex first.

And that should’ve made him feel safe. But it just made him feel like a fool.

Because he still looks forward to those moments like they mean something.

He’s obsessed. He knows that. 

It’s not healthy, he can feel it in his guts every time he catches himself scanning the run sheet for the next media slot they’re both scheduled for. He knows it when he’s rehearsing lines that’ll make Henry smile, or bite, or banter back. He’s been clinging to crumbs for months, waiting for Henry to meet him halfway in public because it’s the only place he ever does anymore.

But he doesn’t know how to stop. Doesn’t know how to unlearn the muscle memory of wanting.

And Alex doesn’t know what to do with that. Doesn’t know how to hold it. Because he wants it to be real. And he knows it isn’t.

The stairwell spits him out back into hospitality, the buzz of conversation and the hum of machines clashing against the quiet still ringing in his chest. Everything feels too bright, too normal, like the world hasn’t just shifted under his feet again.

Then he spots them.

Alex finds them near the back of the hospitality suite, standing close to the espresso machine like it’s a crime scene they’re both quietly solving. Nora’s leaned in, gesturing animatedly with a spoon, while June sips her drink with the amused detachment of someone who’s already decided she’s winning this conversation. They’re smiling. Borderline flirty. Definitely in sync.

It’s the kind of effortless rhythm Alex can’t seem to find with anyone lately.

He slows his pace before they even notice him, not sure what he’s interrupting, only certain that he doesn’t belong in it.

Nora spots him first, her expression softening immediately. “Hey, there he is. Superstar of the rooftop.”

June turns too, one brow raised. “You look like you just got dumped. By someone who never dated you in the first place.”

Alex huffs a laugh, but it’s hollow. He walks over and leans against the counter like gravity’s gotten worse since he left. “That obvious?”

“Painfully,” Nora says, handing him a double shot without asking.

June eyes him for a moment, then nudges his foot with hers. “You gonna tell us what happened, or are you hoping the espresso’s strong enough to fix your whole life?”

Alex takes the cup and stares into it like it might hold an answer. “Henry happened.”

Both women exchange a glance, quick, knowing, a whole paragraph in one look.

Some part of his brain flickers with the absurdity of it: this is the first time they’ve met. He hasn’t left them alone for more than an hour, tops. But they’re standing there like old friends, like they’ve already swapped life stories and battle strategies, like they’ve mapped out the entire disaster of his emotional life on a napkin over oat lattes.

And now they’re looking at him like he’s the only one still pretending not to know how bad it is.

Nora breaks the silence first, voice light but edged with something sharper. “So. Did you make any progress today, or…?”

Alex shakes his head before she even finishes the sentence. Not dramatically—just a quiet, defeated little motion, like he’s too tired to pretend.

Nora leans back against the counter, arms loosely crossed. “Your brother’s been chasing him all year,” she says, like it’s just a casual update. “On track, off track, emotionally, spiritually.”

June hums into her coffee. “Sounds exhausting.”

“You have no idea,” Nora says, throwing Alex a sidelong glance. “Every race weekend it’s the same thing, get close, get nothing. He keeps thinking if he wins enough, performs enough, plays the media game right, Henry might… I don’t know. Come back to him?”

Alex doesn’t interrupt. He just stares at the tiles on the floor like they’re mocking him.

June finally cuts in, soft and dry all at once. “Nora, I’ve known that since the Bahrain test.”

Nora blinks. “Oh.”

“Please,” June says. “He’s been in love with the media version of his teammate all year. I just didn’t realize how much it was killing him.”

Alex lets out a breath that sounds too much like a laugh. “Yeah, well. Me neither.”

June narrows her eyes at him, her lawyer-in-training voice cool and precise. “Okay. But did you actually apologize?”

Alex sighs. “I did. In Bahrain.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “And?”

“I told him I was sorry for how it ended,” Alex says. 

June leans back a little, arms crossed. “So you apologized for the mess, not the match.”

Nora jumps in before Alex can answer, her tone dry. “Which is about as emotionally articulate as anyone in this sport gets.”

June looks at her. “Is that a technical diagnosis?”

“It’s a paddock-wide epidemic,” Nora says. “They say sorry through strategy tweaks and defending each other in the press. Nobody in that garage talks about feelings. They grunt and nod and occasionally slam a door.”

Alex mutters, “I didn’t slam a door.”

Nora doesn’t look at him. “You drove an out lap at Spa like it owed you money. Same thing.”

June scoffs. “You all need therapy.”

“We’d rather race,” Alex says, and it sounds like a joke until it isn’t.

Nora finally meets his eyes. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”

June doesn't say anything right away. Just studies him with that quiet, surgical precision she reserves for moments that actually matter. The kind that cuts deeper because it’s coming from someone who’s known you since before you even knew yourself.

“So try something real,” she says at last. Not unkind. Just steady. “Something that isn’t curated for a media strategy or buried in a pit lane joke.”

Alex looks away, jaw tightening. “I don’t know what real even looks like with him anymore.”

Nora doesn’t flinch. “Then maybe start by figuring out what it looks like for you.”

The words hang there for a second. And then June says, softer this time, “Do you even know how you show people you care?”

Alex wants to laugh, but the sound gets caught somewhere in his chest. “Apparently through performance. Results. Trying to be the best at everything.”

June nods once, as if that’s exactly the answer she expected. “Yeah. That tracks.”

He scoffs. “What, is this an intervention now?”

“No,” June says. “It’s a pattern.”

The silence between them this time isn’t sharp. It’s worn in, familiar. The shared ache of kids who grew up believing that love was something you had to chase. Something you had to earn with grades, or medals, or championship points.

June watches him for a moment longer, the corner of her mouth tugging down just slightly, like she’s weighing whether or not to say the thing that might finally split him open.

“This isn’t how you chase him, Alex,” she says, soft but certain. “Henry’s not a podium. He’s not mom.”

Alex blinks. Doesn’t look up. He swallows hard, jaw clenched like he’s trying to keep everything inside from leaking out.

“You want him to let you in,” she says, gentler now, “then you have to do the terrifying thing, and you have to trust that he won’t shut the door.”

---

June’s words don’t echo. They settle.

Alex doesn’t have a response, not one that matters. So he doesn’t say anything. Just finishes his espresso and slips out of hospitality, the noise of the paddock rushing back in like a tide he forgot was waiting.

And from that moment, something begins to shift. Not loudly. Not suddenly. But slowly, over the course of the weekend.

He starts watching Henry differently, not the way he used to, not with hunger or hurt, but with clarity. In the blur of briefings and sim feedback and strategy debriefs, in the jokes they trade when the cameras roll and the silences when they don’t, he begins to see the shape of what he’s actually been chasing.

Not a podium. Not an apology. Not even forgiveness. Just… something more.

More than the ten-minute glimpses when Henry drops the act and lets himself laugh. More than the protective wall Henry builds around him during interviews, pretending they’re still something, still solid. More than the split-second glances on track when they’re fighting like they’re the only two drivers that exist.

He wants the version of Henry that used to knock on his hotel door with stolen hotel robes and late-night ideas. The one who smiled like he knew exactly how dangerous it was and wanted it anyway. A version where it’s actually them against the world and not them against each other.

But mostly, he wants Henry without the audience. Without the armor. Without the roles they keep performing for a world that never stops watching.

He wants to know what it means to be loved by Henry when no one else is looking.

So when Sunday comes, and the lights go out and he spends most of the race chasing Henry’s fucking tail through the dunes of Zandvoort, it’s not just adrenaline in his chest. It’s longing.

The race itself isn’t electric.

No dramatic overtakes. No wild strategy gambles. Just Zandvoort in full sun, packed grandstands and orange flares, and Henry fucking Fox driving like the whole script is already written.

Alex qualifies just behind him, and that’s exactly how it ends, P1 for Henry, P2 for Alex.

For thirty laps, he chases Henry’s rear wing like it owes him something. Never close enough to make a move, never far enough to fall away. Just orbiting him. Stuck in the gravity of the thing. And maybe that’s the metaphor. Maybe that’s all it’s ever been.

The podium is champagne and confetti, the crowd roaring beneath them like it means something. Henry grins for the camera, tight, bright, practiced, and Alex plays his part too. Their helmets clink in the cooldown room like everything’s fine.

But this time it’s not enough because Henry never looks at him and Alex is done pretending he’s okay with crumbs.

The paddock’s half-packed, the celebration noise already fading. The heat of the race still hangs in the air, clinging to the walls and the silence. Alex finds him in the driver’s room.

Henry’s packing his things—gloves, balaclava, visor cloth—each item folded with that quiet, brutal precision that makes it feel like ritual. His face is calm. Closed.

Alex leans in the doorway, arms crossed.

Henry doesn’t look up. “If you’re here to say ‘good race,’ you’re late.”

Alex steps in. Lets the door slide shut behind him with a soft click. “I’m not.”

That gets Henry’s attention. A glance. Eyebrows raised, nothing more.

Alex swallows. He’s still in his race suit, sweat drying at his temples, champagne sticky on his neck.

“I wanted to say something,” he says. “Before we disappear again. Before we get on planes and pretend none of this is real.”

Henry goes back to folding. “We’re teammates, Alex. It’s not personal.”

Alex lets out a laugh—sharp, joyless. “Bullshit.”

Henry’s jaw ticks. He doesn’t answer.

Alex takes a step closer. “I’m not playing this game anymore. You act like it never happened. I act like I don’t care.”

Silence.

Then, raw and ragged: “I fucking love you, okay?”

It lands like a slap. Henry freezes.

His hands still mid-fold, breath shallow, eyes flicking up like he doesn’t know where to look.

Alex’s voice is lower now, rougher around the edges. “You don’t make it easy. But I do. I love you. And I can’t keep doing this halfway thing. The interviews. The curated banter. The fake comfort. It’s killing me.”

Henry doesn’t move.

Alex steps closer again. Close enough to feel the air shift between them.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he says. “I’m not asking for a performance. Or forgiveness. I’m not trying to earn anything.”

A breath.

“I just want you. Not the version you play for the cameras. Not the polished script. You.”

And finally, finally, Henry looks at him. Really looks. Like he’s been holding his breath for months.

Henry exhales, slow and uneven, his fingers curling unconsciously at his sternum like he’s trying to press something back in. His voice barely breaks the silence. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

Chapter Text

Alex is a better hunter than prey.

The fact that his first and most famous win came from defending for thirty laps on old tyres doesn’t actually reflect the rest of his record. Most of his wins this season came from last-lap overtakes, late dives, bold decisions that’s more instinct than reason. 

He likes it too, the thrill of chasing something is what makes him feel alive. 

Alex has said that publicly to the camera, and privately, in quieter moments, in hotel rooms between races, when the adrenaline hadn’t fully worn off yet, his fingers tracing Silverstone lines across Henry’s chest like he’s charting a whole new world of him.

The win is sweeter that way, Alex had said, but Henry thinks that’s only because, even after a year, that first win in Abu Dhabi still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and he’d spent the whole season trying to prove he can take wins by merit. 

Winning the Qatar sprint tonight, Alex might argue, is by merit too. This time, he’s taken the role of being the prey instead of the hunter for nineteen laps in the desert heat, fully defending his lead, holding Henry off until the flag. 

Alex secured the sprint pole after Henry, unexpectedly, lost the position because he messed up the final sector and settled for second. Henry rarely let him outqualify him, but he did this weekend. 

The commentators chalk it up for pressure, since the title fight between Henry and Alex is expected to carry all the way to Abu Dhabi. They’ve raced so closely for months, the point gap’s sharp enough to cut paper. Going into this weekend Henry’s ahead of Alex by just five points, but after this sprint race it’s down to four.

All eyes are now on Henry and Alex after Max Verstappen was officially out of contention when he couldn’t finish the sprint race within the top eight. 

Henry was close behind Alex the whole race, and he’d watched him defending his position like a mad man. It’s actually beautiful to see. 

Henry crosses the finish line just under half a second behind Alex. Shaan crackles through the radio, “P2, confirmed. Good job managing temps. Solid execution. Lots to learn for the main race tomorrow.”

The engine whines down as the chequered flag waves. Henry lets the throttle breathe, the adrenaline slowly cooling in his bloodstream. He exhales slowly and shifts down lazily through Turn 2.

Alex is up ahead, weaving gently. His helmet bobs with the movement like he’s still buzzing. 

Henry presses the radio. “Kudos to Alex. That was… impressive.”

Shaan is amused, “yeah, he drove like his life depended on it.”

Henry pulls into the No. 2 space in parc fermé, his car purring low and spent beneath him. He flicks the kill switch and unclasps the belts with practiced ease. A dozen cameras are already waiting. 

Up ahead, Alex takes the No. 1 board and quickly jumps out of the car. He punches the air once, hard, a whoop muffled by the helmet but no less clear in intention. The crowd responds. Mechanics clap. A Sky Sports boom mic swings toward him like it’s orbiting a sun.

Henry also jumps out of the cockpit and climbs down. Calm. Graceful. Applause greets him, too, but quieter. Henry smiles to himself. Reaches up to unclip his helmet. Keeps his breathing even.

After taking his weight, Alex pulls off his helmet and balaclava, his curls are plastered to his forehead, face flushed with heat and adrenaline. He glances over as Henry approaches and grins like there’s something real in it. Something open. Like it’s just them again. Like they’ve come through the fire and found each other still standing.

Henry meets him halfway. They don’t hug. They don’t have to.

Alex claps a hand to his shoulder. “Still not easy to keep you behind.”

Henry’s cool smile flickers. “You did alright.”

The cameras are directed at them and God , they look perfect. It looks… right . Alex with his impossibly charismatic grin and Henry, the golden haired prince. Two Mercedes drivers in black and silver racing suits, standing there shoulder to shoulder as title rivals, projecting the kind of grace and polish only they could pull off. 

It’s the kind of image that feels destined, like the sport was always building toward this. Like Prost and Senna or Lewis and Nico, a pair of drivers on the knife’s edge of domination. It’s what Formula 1 worships: teammates and rivals driving the same machinery and fighting for the same crown.

“It's been a while since I had to defend that long,” Alex says, breathless. “Not since… you know.”

Henry knows. He keeps his smile even. “You held it well.”

Alex laughs. “You made me work for it.”

Henry steps closer, leans in just enough for the cameras to catch it, hand brushing Alex’s shoulder, steady. “I always do.”

The media responsibilities after the race are a blur, just the usual circuit of microphones, flashbulbs, and broadcast lights turned up too bright. 

Alex answers questions with the same roguish grin he always gives when he’s still half-high on adrenaline. He tosses back quotes like, "Henry’s always a bastard to keep behind," and, "we’re taking it back to Abu Dhabi," and the reporters eat it up. He knows the rhythm of it by now. Knows when to smirk, when to turn the charm on, when to soften the blow of a title fight with a wink and a joke.

Henry watches it all from the other side of the pen, jaw relaxed, posture casual. He gives nothing away.

He’s asked about the race, and he says what he’s supposed to. That Alex was fast. That the team executed the race well. That it’s going to be a good battle to the end. That it’s what racing is about. He says it all in the smooth, composed tone he’s perfected over the last four years. 

They barely have a moment to themselves in times like this. Not with the qualifying for the main race looming ahead of them. Not with the world watching. There’s always someone nearby, press officers, engineers, strategists, people with clipboards and expectations.

But Henry knows the rhythm of the garage better than anyone and which route Alex always takes when he’s pacing out nerves.

So when Alex walks past him at some not-so-discreet corner of their garages, Henry grabs him by the waist and kisses him, without a word, without a warning.

It’s rougher than usual. Sharper. Like a circuit about to short. Alex doesn’t even pause. Just exhales, leans in, kisses back with the same quiet desperation.

Henry opens his eyes, just for a second and there it is, Alex, smiling into the kiss. Not smirking. Not cocky. Just… soft. Happy. Like this is everything he thought it would be.

And maybe this is exactly what he pictured when Henry asked him “do you have any idea what this means?” back in Zandvoort. He said yes with no hesitation, because of course he did. He said it like it was simple. Like they could have both.

He believed they could figure it out. That the fire between them didn’t have to burn everything down. That they could be ruthless on the track and soft behind closed doors. That once the helmets were on and the visors dropped, it could be something else entirely. Just racing. Just war. And then, after, they could go back to this.

Alex said it all in between I love yous , between stolen touches and gasping, breathless promises. And Henry—God help him—folded.

So everything changed. Alex was in Henry’s private jet that night when they left for Singapore, already half-asleep in his seat, bare feet tucked beneath him like he’d always been there. And he just… never left.

He started waking up in Henry’s hotel room. They sit next to each other in debriefs and strategy meetings. They didn’t flinch around each other in the garage. It felt almost normal. The paddock, sensing a thaw, stopped asking questions. Even Toto, who’d been cautiously monitoring their every interaction since the start of the season, let his attention drift.

“Hey,” Alex says, still catching his breath from the kiss. “We need to go.”

Henry doesn’t respond right away. He’s still standing close, still aware of the warmth lingering between them. It’s hard to pull away from something that feels like it might vanish the second you look away.

Alex grins, nudging his shoulder. “Quali waits for no one, Fox.”

Then he’s gone, already moving back toward his side of the garage, toward his engineers and routine and everything else that fills the spaces between them.

Henry turns and follows, quieter. More measured.

By the time he climbs into the cockpit and pulls his gloves on, the noise of the garage is back in full force with radio static, footfalls, torque wrenches clicking, the usual rush of a qualifying session unfolding around him. He fits into the rhythm without needing to be told. Helmet on, straps secured, visor down.

Shaan comes through on the radio, professional and calm.

"Alright, Henry. Q1 run plan is unchanged, single push, get a solid lap in early before traffic builds. Wind’s steady through Sector 3. Alex is on the same strategy."

The engine whines as he pulls out of the garage. He guides the car around the outlap, weaving through the usual rituals, warming the tires, checking the brakes, adjusting the bias just slightly.

Henry’s been doing over a hundred races now and it feels like a routine and his mind wanders somewhere else. To the kiss and the way Alex believes that they can have both, racing each other on track and be something else entirely off track. Like they’re capable of drawing a clean line between the cockpit and everything that happens outside of it. Alex believes in compartmentalization like it’s second nature. Like all it takes is closing a visor.

Henry’s not so sure. Things have a way of bleeding together. 

He crosses the line at the end of Q1. The lap is smooth. No mistakes. Good enough.

"Purple sector one. Clean through the final corner. That’s P1. Good lap. Box now."

"Copy," he says then flicks through the switch panel and guides the car back to the pits.

They’ll get through Q2 easily. They always do. It’s Q3 that will matter. It’s where everything comes to a head.

The tire blankets are peeled off in synchronized motion. Shaan gives the run plan through the radio, brisk and measured.

“You’re second car on track. Four-second gap to Alex. He’ll set the time first. We’re aiming for clear air and clean sectors. Nothing drastic.”

Henry nods in the cockpit, even though Shaan can’t see it. The adrenaline’s different now. Not sharp, not frantic. Just a steady hum beneath his skin. Familiar. Focused.

He watches Alex pull out ahead of him, sees the flash of silver down pit lane. Timing screens flicker to life in the upper corner of his HUD.

Outlap is smooth. Track is warm. Grip’s coming in.

Shaan again, quiet in his ear. “Alex is finishing now. That’s 1:20.064. Purple in Sector 2. You’re good to go.”

He crosses the line to begin his own lap. Car feels sharp. The setup’s balanced perfectly, rotation where he wants it, stability under load.

Sector 1: clean. Sector 2: faster. The delta glows green.

“You’re up one and a half tenths. Keep it tidy.”

He knows what that means. Everyone watching does.

He could take pole. But as he heads into Sector 3, he adjusts his brake point just slightly earlier. It’s not obvious. Not dramatic. A tiny adjustment in Turn 13, a slightly compromised line through 14. Barely enough to register on the data unless you’re looking for it.

The delta starts to slip. A tenth. Then just over a tenth. He carries the car across the line and eases off the throttle.

“That’s P2. Eight-three thousandths. Just behind Alex.”

Everything moves fast after qualifying.

Alex gets his Pirelli pole position trophy, signs it, takes pictures with it, then the top three take pictures together. Then another round of media obligations follows. Microphones shoved toward them. Questions about tire strategies, title pressure, how it feels to be locking out the front row again. Henry answers the way he always does: polished, composed, predictable.

Then they’re back in the garage. Still sweating. Still half-wired from the adrenaline. And straight into the debrief.

It’s tense. Henry doesn’t pretend it isn’t. It’s the penultimate race of the season. The pressure in the room is sharp enough to cut.

The engineers don’t say it outright, but he can feel it in the way they move, in the glances traded across the monitors. The last time Mercedes locked out a front row this close to a title decider, it ended in fireworks, between 2014 to 2016. Everyone’s thinking about it. Some of the older guys in the back were there for both.

Toto stands at the front of the room. Calm. Measured. The usual voice of control. He lays out the ground rules again, what’s allowed, what isn’t. The dos and don’ts of racing your teammate when the entire championship is on the line.

Henry doesn’t argue. He doesn’t even blink. He nods once, quiet and sharp, and lets the meeting move on.

By the end of the session, the engineers start packing up. People start filtering out, murmuring about strategy variations and brake wear.

Henry lingers just long enough to catch Shaan’s eye. “Send me all of Alex’s onboards,” he says, low enough not to carry. “And his telemetry data from the sprint. I want to review it tonight.”

Shaan raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask. Just nods once. “Sure. I’ll forward it.”

Research, Henry tells himself. Just research.

By Sunday morning, Mercedes hospitality has the hushed, focused atmosphere of a team with everything to lose. The engineers are already running checks, media crews sweeping through with quiet urgency. But in the corner near the espresso machine, everything feels a little slower. Calmer.

Henry set a coffee down in front of Alex, who was mid-sentence about the wind in Sector 3.

Alex looks at the cup, narrows his eyes. “Two sugars and a dash of cinnamon?”

Henry takes the seat across from him, unbothered. “You act surprised every time.”

Alex grins. “I just like knowing you care.”

“I just like knowing your caffeine threshold. Makes it easier to beat you.”

Alex makes a dramatic show of clutching his chest. “Is that a threat?”

Henry doesn’t look up. “Mildly.”

“You’re very aggressive for someone who kissed me yesterday.”

“You started it,” Henry says.

“And I finished it,” Alex says brightly, leaning back in his chair. “Like I plan to do tonight.”

Henry glances at him over the rim of the cup, expression unreadable. “We’ll see.”

The silence that followed isn’t tense, not exactly, but it holds weight. They are still racing each other today. That part never changes.

Alex breaks it with a sigh and drops his head back against the chair. “God, I’m so tired.”

Henry nods. “Vegas to here in what, two days?”

“Two days and a twelve-hour flight. I still don’t know what time zone my body’s in. I woke up at four this morning and thought it was Tuesday.”

“We’ve been racing for ten months,” Henry says. “You’re allowed to be tired.”

Alex blows out a breath. “After Abu Dhabi, I’m turning my phone off for a week.”

Henry doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t disagree.

Alex glances at him. “What are you gonna do for the break?”

“I’ve got something planned.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going on a boat.”

Alex blinked. “Like… a cruise?”

“No. A sailboat.”

“You?” Alex laughs. “You’re going to sea?”

Henry finally looks at him, calm and completely serious. “I’m already booked.”

There’s a pause. Alex watches him, trying to gauge whether this is one of Henry’s rare deadpan jokes or something else.

“You’re not joking.”

“No.”

Alex tilts his head. “Okay, wow. Alright. I mean… that’s kind of hot.”

Henry doesn’t smile, but something about the line of his mouth softened.

Alex leans forward again, elbows on the table. “Well, if you get bored of being alone with your thoughts and salt spray, I’ll be on a beach somewhere pretending I never heard the word ‘downforce.’ You could come.”

“I’ll consider it,” Henry says.

They sit in that quiet for a moment. Alex with his too-sweet coffee, Henry finishing his water without comment, just as a comms assistant pokes her head into the hospitality suite.

“Briefing in five.”

Alex groans theatrically and tips back what’s left in his cup. “Tell me again why we do this to ourselves?”

Henry stands and throws his water bottle to a bin. “Because we’re both terrible at quitting.”

The meeting room’s tucked behind the main paddock office, already humming by the time they get there. Engineers arranged in a loose horseshoe, screens alive with simulations and tire data. Henry and Alex slide into their seats without comment. The rhythm of these meetings is familiar, almost ritualistic by now.

Nora’s already up front, remote in hand. She doesn’t bother with small talk.

“Alright. Here’s the latest update,” she says, flipping to the race projection. “Tire degradation’s lining up with our FP2 modeling. One-stop is still the target with mediums to hards. The undercut is possible, but not guaranteed. Track evolution is strong, so we’ll keep both windows open.”

She points to the lap chart. “We’ll be watching for Laps 18 to 22 for the primary window. Safety car probability is higher than average in the second stint, especially around the back half of Sector 2.”

She doesn’t need to say Turn 6. Everyone in the room is already thinking it.

“We’ll maintain pit priority for the car ahead on track. If conditions shift, we reserve the right to split strategy, but that decision will come from the pit wall. Not the cockpit.”

Henry nods once. That’s always the rule, especially after last year.

Alex taps his pen against the table, once, but says nothing.

Then Toto steps forward. His voice is calm and controlled. It’s the same CEO cadence he uses for shareholder meetings and Netflix crews. “I know what today means,” he says, glancing between them. “And I want you both to hear this: I’ve never doubted either of you. Not once.”

Henry doesn’t flinch but he does look down at his tablet. Alex doesn’t bother hiding the short, skeptical exhale. Because they both remember. Last year, when Henry was left out to dry in Abu Dhabi. And at the start of this season, when Alex was treated like a mistake they were trying to correct.

Toto keeps going. “You’ve given everything this year. You’ve made us proud. Whatever happens today, you’ve both earned the right to be here.”

Then, a pause.

“And I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will. You do not crash. You do not take each other out. You race hard, but you race clean. We’re not here to repeat history.”

His gaze lingers on both of them. The room is dead silent.

Alex nods slowly, tongue caught against his cheek like he’s biting back something less polite.

Henry’s response is smooth. Neutral. “Understood.”

Toto looks at them a moment longer, then steps back. “Good. Let’s go win a championship.”

The meeting wraps. Engineers start to gather their things.

Henry stays seated for a beat, just long enough to catch Shaan on his way past.

“Send me Alex’s sprint onboards,” he says quietly. “Telemetry too. I want to look at his early-lap lines.”

Shaan tilts his head. “Anything specific you’re chasing?”

Henry’s tone is mild. “Just research.”

The rest of the pre-race ritual passes in a blur of noise and routine. The driver’s parade winds its usual route through the circuit, fans pressed against the barriers, flags waving, flashes popping like static. Henry and Alex stand on the back of the truck, sunglasses on, waving when they’re meant to. Neither says much. There’s nothing left to say that hasn’t already been said.

They suit up back in the garage, from fireproofs to race boots, all muscle memory by now. They stand for the national anthem on the grid, side by side but not touching, the desert dusk creeping in like a warning. The sky turns violet-blue above them. Every shadow feels longer than it should.

Then they’re back in the garage, climbing into their cars. Mechanics swarm. The last checks are made. The world gets quiet.

Henry straps in, locks his gloves, and closes his eyes just once, and when he opens it he’s ready to roll. 

By the time the formation lap ends, Henry pulls into his grid slot, P2, and stops the car with precision. Engine ticking over beneath him.

It’s quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that’s only happening inside Henry’s mind. 

Just before the lights begin to climb, Henry lifts one gloved hand and taps the center of his sternum. Once.

It’s not for luck. It’s not even for comfort. It’s for Arthur.

His father crashed mid-race and the impact tore his aorta before the medics could reach him. Every race since, Henry’s carried that memory in his chest, right beneath the harness.

The gesture is both remembrance and plea.

Not today. Not me.

And then the lights begin to blink on, one by one, and the world disappears.

Alex gets the perfect start. Reaction time sharp, tire grip ideal. He’s into Turn 1 cleanly, no wheelspin, no hesitation. Henry slots in right behind him, no need to challenge it off the line. Not yet.

He doesn’t fall back.

From the first lap, Henry applies pressure. Not reckless. Not dramatic. Just consistent. Every corner is measured, tucked into Alex’s mirrors, always a little closer than he needs to be.

Turn 4. Turn 5. He keeps it neat.

Then Turn 6. That's the target. 

Henry narrows the gap by just enough. Not to lunge, not to pass, but to test.

Alex covers the inside.

Interesting.

Next lap, Henry does it again. Closes earlier. Takes a slightly different entry, a tighter line through the approach. Forces Alex to adjust.

He watches the way the rear of the other car wiggles. Watches the brake lights flash just half a beat sooner. Noticed how Alex leaves a little more space this time, hesitates mid-corner.

He remembers last year, Henry thinks. He remembers what happened under pressure.

Every lap, it’s the same: steady pressure, especially into Turn 6. Henry changes the angle. The line. The braking point. Not to get by— to learn.

Alex is defending like it matters. Driving with his elbows out. Pushing hard. Too hard, maybe.

Lap 19. The pit window is open.

Shaan’s voice crackles through the radio. "Box this lap if you need it. Alex is coming in."

Up ahead, Alex peels off into the pit lane, crossing the line with surgical precision. The crew is already waiting, tires in hand. It’s clean. Fast.

Henry doesn’t follow.

"I’m staying out," he says.

"Copy," Shaan replies. No argument. No surprise.

It was always going to be this way. Alex, as the lead car, gets the first stop. Henry, by choice, not default, stays out. Not for the undercut. Not for position.

For time.

Now it’s about building the gap. The exact margin that would make or break the overcut. He doesn’t need to be perfect. Just close.

He presses. Just enough. Manages the tires, watches the deltas update on his wheel. His front-right is starting to feel heavy, but not dead yet. There’s still something there to give.

Shaan updates him as Alex exits the pits.

"Alex rejoining now, he’s in traffic. Two backmarkers ahead into Turn 7. You’ve got three laps max before the tires drop off."

"Copy," Henry says and nothing more. He's focused on the next corner. And the next.

He doesn’t need to pass Alex on track.

He just needs to make sure Alex can feel him coming.

And if he’s read everything right, every movement, every twitch, every line into Turn 6, he knows that somewhere, in all that pressure, something is going to give.

Henry stays out for five more laps.

Every one of them is deliberate. He's pushing the tire just enough to extract what’s left, never so much that he loses grip. He watches the deltas tick upward. Alex in clean air now, no more traffic. But Henry is smoother. More efficient. And he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Lap 24, Shaan comes back on the radio.

“Box this lap. Box. You’ve got the window.”

Henry brings the car in. The stop is clean, 2.4 seconds. The pit crew is perfect. He drops the clutch and peels out into the pit lane, already calculating the rejoin in his head.

As he exits, the screen on his wheel flashes.

Alex. Up ahead. Just ahead.

Henry rejoins right behind him. Exactly where he meant to.

And now— now —it’s time.

He settles into the tow. Keeps it tight. Not attacking. Just there . Close enough that Alex sees him in every mirror. Close enough that every corner feels like it could be the one.

The pressure returns. Stronger this time. More intimate. He’s not studying anymore. He’s acting . Replaying the same pattern lap after lap. Especially into Turn 6.

He knows how this ends. He knows it’s possible. Because he’s seen it before.

Austin last year, when Alex locked up defending second place. Spa in F2, when he binned it under pressure from the championship leader. Even Monaco in karts, where he clipped the barrier trying to hold the lead.

Henry has watched this version of Alex for years. The brilliant, aggressive, but fragile version. And he’s building the conditions to bring him out.

All he needs to do now… is keep the pressure on. And wait.

He remembers the nights when he planted the idea, gently, like it was admiration and nothing more. Quiet hotel rooms between races, both of them still sweating from the day. Henry running his fingers down Alex’s spine and murmuring into his skin.

“Your instinct. That’s what makes you dangerous.”

Alex had smiled at that. Rolled onto his back and grinned like he’d just been handed the world.

“You’re the Senna to my Prost,” Henry had said once, half-laughing, barely meaning to say it aloud.

Alex had loved that. Had repeated it more than once. To journalists. To friends. To himself.

But Henry had only said it to make him believe it.

To make him drive like it.

He knew Alex couldn’t help it. When the visor was down, when the gap was tight, when someone was breathing down his neck. He would always push. Would always try to be the hero.

And eventually, it would break him.

By Lap 35, Alex is visibly struggling.

The rear tires are starting to go. Small twitches on corner exit, slower throttle pickup out of Turn 10, a sharper correction through 12. Henry sees it all. 

He doesn’t go for the move.

He gets closer.

It’s not clean pressure anymore. It’s aggressive. He starts poking the inside line into corners he knows won’t yield. Pulls out just long enough to force Alex to defend, burn his tires, brake earlier. He knows what this looks like. Knows it’s setting off alarms in the garage and in Brackley. Knows it’s not the kind of racing they teach you at Mercedes.

This isn’t the Henry they’ve built. This is something else.

Lap 36, he gives Alex a look into Turn 1, late, sharp, unnecessary.

It all falls into place.

Henry realized it in Monza, really. When Alex started ahead for once, and everything about his driving got louder. Hungrier. Reckless in the way only he could be. It had been easy to write it off as pressure, or ambition, or a bad tire strategy. But Henry had seen it for what it was.

He’s worse when he’s ahead.

There had always been mistakes, even in the junior categories. Always something when the lead was his to lose. And Henry had known, eventually, one of those mistakes would come at the right time. When it mattered.

When it could count for more than just a position.

And then came Zandvoort. When Alex confessed and told him he wanted it all. The relationship. The rivalry. Said they could figure it out.

That was the part Henry still couldn’t believe. He opened the door. Willingly. So Henry stepped through. Gave him the closeness. The comfort. The softness.

And now, here they are.

Lap 37, he feints into Turn 6 with just enough lock-up to make Alex flinch.

It’s not about passing. It’s about eroding him.

He knows these moves. Has seen them done before by champions who didn’t care if the sport liked them, only that it remembered their name. And he’s been waiting for the moment when it would be acceptable to use them.

Lap 39. The mistake comes.

It starts small, just a fraction late on entry to Turn 6, the angle slightly off, the balance not quite right. Then the rear steps out. Fast.

Overcorrection. Snap. The car lurches sideways and the tires scream as the gravel traps catch it. For a heartbeat, it looks like Alex might save it.

He doesn’t.

The car slams into the barrier with a sickening thud, nose-first. Carbon fiber splinters. The front wing shears off on impact. Dust and shards fly up in a cloud of chaos.

He’s beached. Dead stop. There’s no recovery. No restart.

Yellow flags wave immediately. Marshals run from both sides of the track. The medical car is already rolling.

The replays are already playing in slow motion on the big screens before Henry even rounds the next corner.

He sees it all in flashes of gravel, impact, and debris and he doesn’t flinch.

He lifts just enough to stay clear of the wreck, coasting through as the crowd around Turn 6 falls into stunned silence.

“Alex is out,” Shaan says through the radio. His voice is flat. Grim.

Henry doesn’t respond because, truly, there’s nothing left to say. 

Only Shaan’s voice breaks in, flat and precise. “Safety car deployed. Maintain delta. Alex is out of the car. He’s okay.”

Henry nods, though no one can see it.

They trail behind the safety car for a few laps. Marshals clear the gravel. The broken front wing is still tangled in the barrier. The medics stand nearby, just in case.

Shaan updates again.

“Safety car ending in this lap. Restart on the straight. No threat behind.”

Henry doesn’t say a word.

He takes the restart cleanly. No pressure. Just a few more laps between him and the inevitable.

When he crosses the line and sees the chequered flag waving, the feeling that hits him is… strange.

Not joy. Not triumph. Something else entirely.

Like he’s watching someone else do it. Like the moment passed without him.

“You’re World Champion, Henry,” Shaan says in his ear.

Henry parks the car in parc fermé. Cuts the engine. No cheers come through the radio. No breathless congratulations. Just static, then silence.

He climbs out slowly. No urgency in his movements. No one rushes to pull him into a hug. A few mechanics clap out of habit, or because they think they’re supposed to. Someone hands him the black World Champion cap. It still has the tag tucked inside, like they weren’t sure they’d need it today. 

He looks up.

The fireworks are late. They stutter into the sky, too quiet against the dusk. There’s no roar of the crowd, just the delayed echo of applause from the main grandstand and the replay of the crash playing on a loop.

Someone unrolls the banner with his name on it. It’s creased and dusty, pulled from storage at the last minute. They hadn’t planned for this. Not here. Not yet.

Toto finds him near the back of the garage. Hugs him briefly, like it’s protocol more than celebration. He says he’s proud, but his tone is careful. Neutral. Like he’s still trying to catch up.

Shaan meets his eyes and gives a nod. It’s not victory. It’s acknowledgment.

No one knows how to react, not really. Not when it ends like this.

Henry doesn’t linger. He doesn’t stay for the cameras or the interviews or the first round of press. He steps away from all of it, the noise, the lights, the half-hearted champagne, and keeps walking until the sounds start to fade.

He ends up on the far side of the paddock, near the fence overlooking the track. It’s quieter there. Cooler.

That’s where he sees Alex.

Still in race suit. Standing beside a medic. Holding his helmet in one hand, his other pressed to the back of his neck. There’s a streak of gravel down his right leg, and his boots are coated in dust. He’s not hurt. Not physically. But he hasn’t moved in minutes.

Henry watches from a distance. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

It’s only then that he feels it. It’s not relief, not pride. Just the weight of it all.

What he did.

What it cost.

Chapter Text

She made waffles that morning. Still in her campaign shirt, hair was still frizzy from the hairspray. She was smiling in the kitchen knowing she just lost the Texas seat, so her next big priority is whether Alex and June would rather have strawberry or chocolate sauce. He was ten, and even then he could tell his mom's smile was fake.

Alex doesn’t have time for waffles, he still has one more race to go. 

The air is dry, warm, and windless, the kind of heat that settles in your lungs and doesn’t leave. He’s in the team van, being ferried from his hotel to Yas Marina. Outside, the city is dressing itself like the fight’s still happening tonight. Posters on the overpasses, every street lamp, him and Henry side by side like they're equal protagonists. As if he still belonged in the story.

It’s the last race he’d have to endure this year, and he’s starting from P12. He failed to reach Q3 yesterday, his first time this whole year. He went wide in Sector 3, lost the rear slightly, radioed an apology and never recovered the lap. 

The car was good. He just wasn’t. All weekend he was off his game. He spun and locked up during free practice sessions like he’d just learned how to brake in a Formula 1 car. It’s nothing dramatic, just clumsy enough for everyone to know his head’s somewhere else. 

Meanwhile, Henry’s starting from pole. Not because he needs it. Not because there’s anything left to prove. But because that’s what Henry does, he shows up and makes it look easy. 

The whole Abu Dhabi weekend has turned into a humiliation ritual. It’s Alex’s personal hell. 

There’s no other story anyone’s interested in—not the implosion in Red Bull, not the FIA’s quietly catastrophic new rule tweak for next year that’s already making engineers sweat, not even the latest rumors on drivers’ market, with five different seats at Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari remaining unconfirmed this late into the year. 

No. Just him. Just Alex Claremont-Diaz.

Just the way he spun out of a race he was leading like a rookie with something to prove and no brakes to prove it with. Just how spectacularly he managed to detonate the narrative everyone had lovingly prewritten for him: golden boy, comeback arc, fan-favorite rival-turned-contender. 

How dare he collapse under pressure when everyone was ready to crown him. How dare he unravel right there on track, with the world watching and money on the line, as if people hadn’t invested in his success like it was a blue-chip stock.

Every article, every broadcast, every smug paddock whisper is the same: Alex was overdriving the car when he didn’t have to.

Some say he should’ve just let Henry through. When he was charging like a demon like the car was designed to crack Alex and nothing else. That it would’ve been cleaner to accept second place, bring the car home safely so he could’ve made it up later, just take the fight to the final showdown here in Abu Dhabi. 

But it wouldn’t have been.

Any racing driver worth their salt knows that. You don’t back off when there’s still a fight to be had. You don’t relinquish the race. But that doesn’t matter now because everyone’s already decided he lost the plot.

The judgment and the consensus weren’t the worst part. The worst part is the way Henry deals with it.

He’s been saying all the right things in interviews. Calm, gracious, deflecting credit to the team. Like he’s trained for it. Like he’s been preparing for this exact narrative all along.

He’s not smug. He has every right to gloat, after everything, but he doesn’t. He’s just… steady. Like winning was the natural order of things. Like this is what he’s supposed to do. What he’s supposed to be.

Henry defended him in every interview. Said Alex is a great competitor. Said he gave his all. Called him a future champion. Said he’d have his time .

And he meant it, probably. But coming from the man who just secured the title by playing into Alex’s worst tendencies, manipulating him , and walking away from the wreck like it hadn’t cost him anything, it doesn’t feel like mercy, it doesn't feel like grace. It feels cold-blooded. 

Right after the race, Henry tried to talk to him. Straight up walked to him when Alex was still picking up the pieces of himself after the crash. He couldn’t even look at him.

Alex was still shell-shocked—barely present for the post-race interviews, answering questions with clipped phrases, blinking through the glare like he was somewhere else entirely.

He did what was required. Said the lines. Took the photos. And then he left.

Went straight to his hotel. Locked the door. Laid flat on the bed, eyes on the ceiling, and watched the crash again and again. Every corner, every correction, every second of it playing on a loop behind his eyelids.

He didn’t sleep.

Someone knocked once, quiet and hesitant. He didn’t check, didn’t need to. It was probably Henry. He didn’t move.

Monday morning Alex boarded a red-eye flight to Abu Dhabi alone. Kept his headphones in the whole way. Didn’t speak. Checked into the hotel and did it all over again, he curled up in silence with the race replay burned into his brain like a scar he couldn’t stop picking at.

It wasn’t until June got there that he finally moved.

Three days of silence. Of not sleeping. Of sitting in a hotel room that could’ve been anywhere, curtains drawn, crash footage burned into his retinas. Not speaking to the team. Ignoring his phone.

Then she showed up. Her suitcase still at the door, hair a mess from the flight, voice low but firm when she said his name.

He blinked.

And then moved. Sat up. Let her turn the lights on. Let her open the window.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hoodie pulled over his head, eyes fixed on nothing, when June says it.

“Henry called.”

He didn’t look up.

“He wanted to know if you’re okay.”

A beat.

Then, “that’s a ridiculous question,” she added, softer.

Alex closed his eyes. Of course Henry called. Of course he’d ask. It’s the kind of thing Henry does, he doesn’t feel guilt, just… duty. Damage control disguised as concern. 

“I told him you weren’t talking,” June continued, sitting across from him. “He didn’t ask if I’d tell him anything else. Just thanked me and hung up.”

Alex closed his eyes. The words echoed like static in his skull.

After that, she never left his side.

It was like she was on some kind of watch, quiet and constant. She was there when he went back to the paddock. There on Thursday, when he sat down in front of the press and tried to smile through it. There on Friday, when he locked up twice in FP1 and spun in FP2. There on Saturday, when he spectacularly failed to reach Q3.

Henry was there too.

But at a distance.

Because this time, it’s Alex with the wall up. The one who’s scared. Guarded. Shaken. Because if he let Henry through, if he opened the door even a little, he’s afraid Henry would get inside and do it again. Ambush him with kindness. With care. With whatever the hell it was that got him here.

Not now. Not after everything.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he finally understood why Henry had warned him. Why he’d tried to keep things professional. Why he wanted to keep the closeness public, the affection choreographed, like it’s something to perform for cameras, not to believe in. Why he said it wouldn’t work, not the way Alex hoped.

It made sense now. The distance. The restraint. The insistence on clean lines and closed doors.

Henry had seen this coming before Alex ever did.

And maybe he wasn’t running from the feelings. Maybe he was trying to protect them both from what those feelings could turn into. From the part where love becomes weakness. Where closeness becomes leverage.

Where one of them gets broken.

Alex had believed they could manage it. That they could love each other and race each other and survive the collision. He believed it right up until the moment he was crawling out of a gravel trap in Qatar, the title gone and everything else unraveling with it.

Now, every glance across the paddock feels radioactive. Every moment of kindness from Henry feels like a trick Alex has already fallen for once.

And he can’t afford to do it again.

June finds him by the coffee station at the team’s hospitality, halfway through his second espresso and not tasting a drop of it.

He doesn’t notice Nora until she’s right in front of him, sunglasses still on, tablet in hand, lanyard swinging off one shoulder like a badge of intent.

“You’re not out of this yet,” she says, without preamble.

Alex looks up slowly, “it’s P12, behind over half the grid, in a car that’s been unpredictable all weekend. In Abu Dhabi. Sure.”

She tilts her head, unimpressed. “You’ve won from worse.”

He scoffs, but doesn’t argue. He’s tired. Bone-deep tired. Not from the heat, or the track, or even the race. Just from carrying everything, the expectation and humiliation, the weight of Henry’s perfectly measured words. 

June leans against the table beside him, arms crossed. She’s in jeans and a sleeveless blouse, hair up like she means business, but there’s something softer in her posture. She hasn’t left his side all week.

Nora glances at her, then back at Alex. “You think the headlines about Qatar are going to be the last word on you?”

Alex shrugs. “They might be.”

“No.” Nora taps her tablet. “They won’t be. Not if you put something else out there. A statement. A drive people remember.”

He looks at her then, really looks. She means it. Not as some PR spin or morale boost, but because she still believes he can do it.

“I know what last week did to you,” Nora says, quieter. “I was there. I watched the footage like everyone else. But you’re not broken, Alex. Not unless you decide you are.”

June’s gaze flickers over to him. “You’ve done hard things before. This is just the newest version of hard.”

There’s a pause. He doesn’t respond right away. He could laugh. He could tell them both to stop wasting their breath. But he doesn’t.

Because somewhere, buried underneath the doubt and the bruises, he wants to believe them.

“Podium’s still in play,” Nora says. “A win, even, if you get aggressive.”

Alex exhales. “Right. Just drive like I’ve got something to prove.”

Nora lifts a brow. “Haven’t you always?”

He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t look away either.

Someone calls his name. One of the performance coaches or comms assistants—he can’t tell anymore. Everything's been white noise since Qatar.

“Drivers to get ready,” they say, like it’s any other Sunday. Like today isn’t his last chance to reclaim something of himself.

June touches his arm before he can move. “Good luck,” she says, quietly. Not cheerily. Not like a sibling hyping him up for some school debate. Just soft. Steady. Like she’s anchoring him again.

He nods. Doesn’t speak.

Nora’s already gone, vanished back into the maze of engineers and strategy simulations, probably arguing over tire deg or slipstreams, or how to salvage a miracle from P12. She believes he can still win. That it matters.

Alex doesn’t know if he believes it. But he’s going anyway.

He walks toward the driver’s room, steps measured. He knows the way like second nature, past catering, past media lounges, through hospitality corridors that all blur into the same glossy veneer. His suit is half-zipped, gloves in hand. Helmet still back in the garage. 

The driver’s room is cool, dim, quiet. The door hisses shut behind him and the world dulls just enough that he can breathe.

He drops onto the bench. Closes his eyes. For a second, it’s just the hum of the air con and the thump of his pulse in his ears.

And then he hears the door open.

Footsteps.

He doesn’t have to look to know who it is.

Henry.

Of course.

Of course it’s Henry.

Alex isn’t quick enough to lock the door.

Henry’s hand is already there, firm on the handle, pushing through with more force than usual. The door swings open, not violently, but with enough momentum to make Alex take half a step back.

“Don’t,” Alex says, low. “Not now.”

Henry’s already inside. “I need to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, there is.” Henry’s voice doesn’t rise, but it sharpens. “You won’t look at me. You won’t talk to me. You’re shutting me out like I did something unforgivable—”

“You did ,” Alex snaps.

The silence between them tightens.

Henry takes a breath. “I can explain.”

Alex laughs, bitter and disbelieving. “Explain what? That you spent the whole season waiting for me to break? That all of it—the kisses, the late-night talks, the coffee runs, the fucking toothpaste in my hotel sink—was just prelude to Qatar?”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Was it always the plan?” Alex says, stepping forward now, crowding the air between them. “To push me out of the race? To get in my head and wait for me to implode? Tell me, Henry. When did you decide it’s going to be at turn 6?”

Henry doesn’t answer right away.

And that silence? That’s worse than anything he could say.

“You could’ve waited,” Alex says, voice shaking. “We could’ve raced fair. Clean. All the way here.”

Henry says nothing. His silence says everything.

“You still would’ve won. You’re starting on pole today, for fuck’s sake.” Alex’s jaw clenches. “You could’ve taken the title here and it would’ve been okay. It would’ve been ideal. It would’ve proved me right.”

Henry’s brow furrows. “Proved you—?”

“That we could have both,” Alex says, too fast now, too much all at once. “That we could race and love each other and keep the two things from poisoning each other. That what I said in Zandvoort wasn’t a fucking delusion.”

Henry’s throat works. “Alex—”

“But you couldn’t do it, could you?” Alex cuts him off. “You couldn’t hold the line. Not like I did.”

Henry looks like he’s been slapped.

Alex swallows. “You said we couldn’t work because the sport wouldn’t let us. But now I think it’s you. I think you couldn’t handle it. So you made sure neither of us got to find out.”

Alex draws in a breath, steadying himself. “I just want to know one thing,” he says. “Why.”

Henry doesn’t respond. Not right away.

“You knew exactly what you were doing in Qatar. You lifted in qualifying, didn’t you? You put yourself in P2 just to sit behind me. Just to—”

He breaks off, swallows hard. “You hunted me. You waited. You studied everything I ever did and used it against me. And I’ve been trying to understand why .”

Alex’s voice tightens, bitter. “You told me I was modern day Senna. You said my instincts made me dangerous. You made me believe it. And now I can’t tell which parts of that were real. If any of it was.”

Henry’s face doesn’t move. His jaw’s clenched, but he doesn’t speak.

Alex presses on, voice low. “Was it all just some fucking game? A way to get inside my head? Was I just a… a story you could shape into something that would make it easier to win?”

The silence is unbearable. Heavy. Alex stares at him, waiting.

And Henry—Henry looks like he’s searching for the right thing to say. Like he’s looked for it for a long time. 

“It’s what happened here last year,” Henry says, barely above a whisper.

It lands like a punch.

Alex blinks, stunned. “What?”

Henry’s gaze drops. “You took my championship, for no reason. I’ve never forgotten it. It's still stuck in my mind, everything I do I still think I'm owed something. I can't forgive. Not really. Not fully. I told myself I had. I tried to. But I couldn’t let it go. What it cost me. What it turned me into. What it took from us.”

He doesn’t lift his eyes. Doesn’t try to close the distance.

“I told myself I had to win this year. No matter what it took. And I told myself… if I did it clean, if I did it right, it would be enough. But then Zandvoort happened. And you—God, you gave me an opening.”

Alex reels back, as if physically struck. “So you took it.”

Henry says nothing.

“You used me.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“But you did .” Alex laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s the worst part. You meant every word when you said it. And you meant to hurt me, too.”

Henry finally looks up. His voice cracks. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Alex shakes his head. “But you had to win.”

And Henry doesn’t deny it.

Alex’s voice is low when he finally speaks. Steady, but wrecked underneath.

“Get out.”

Henry doesn’t move.

Alex lifts his eyes, and the look he gives him is something scorched and unsalvageable. “I mean it. Get the fuck out.”

Henry opens his mouth, like there’s still something he wants to say, something to explain or fix.

“If I could,” Alex says, quieter now, almost shaking, “I’d never see you again. Not in the garage. Not on the grid. Not in my mirrors.”

That lands. You can see it hit Henry in real time.

But Alex doesn’t flinch. Not anymore.

He just turns his back, walks to the other side of the room, and doesn’t look back until the door finally clicks shut behind him.

Alex doesn’t move.

Not at first.

He stays exactly where he is, staring at the opposite wall like it might crack under the weight of everything still unsaid. His throat is dry. His chest is tight. The air feels thinner somehow, like the pressure in the room hasn’t gone down at all.

Then he looks at his hands.

They’re shaking.

He hadn’t noticed it before. He was too busy trying to stay upright, to stay cold, to stay in control. But now, with the door finally shut and Henry gone, it catches up to him. His fingers tremble against his palm. His pulse is a drumline under his skin. Every nerve ending is live wire.

It’s not fear.

It’s rage.

A hot, bright thing that leaves no room for anything else. He’s never been this angry. Not even last year. Not even when he was blamed, ignored, underestimated. This is different. This is personal. This is betrayal, carved sharp and lodged somewhere behind his ribs.

He exhales, once. A shaky breath that does nothing to steady him.

Then he stands. Rolls his shoulders. Zips up his suit the rest of the way with a sharp motion and doesn’t let himself pause.

Because he still has one thing left to do.

Drive.

He doesn’t remember the walk to the garage.

Doesn’t remember passing catering, or the warm-up rituals, or the way the engineers gathered around him like usual, saying things he must have nodded to. The next thing he knows, he’s in the car. Strapped in. Breathing behind the visor. Watching the lights on the gantry climb, red by red.

Eleven cars in front of him.

Five red lights.

Then… go!

The trance breaks like glass under pressure.

He launches. The car bites the tarmac with perfect traction. Two places by Turn 1. Another before Turn 5. He doesn’t wait. Doesn’t hesitate. He slices through the midfield like he’s been waiting all year to tear it apart.

By Lap 3, he’s in seventh.

The car dances under him, more responsive than it’s felt all weekend. Or maybe he’s just stopped thinking. Maybe that’s the trick. Don’t calculate. Don’t react. Just feel it. Just drive.

Turn 9—tight inside move on Piastri. Clean. Calculated. Unapologetic.

Turn 11—switchback on Norris. Brave. Stupid. Perfect.

Every lap, he gains something. A place. A second. A sense of control.

By Lap 30, he’s running in fourth.

By Lap 35, he can see Henry.

And the part of him that should be afraid—the part that’s still bruised from everything Henry said and didn’t say in that driver’s room—it’s gone. Burned off somewhere between Sector 2 and the back straight.

He’s not thinking anymore.

He’s just hunting.

And there’s no better version of Alex Claremont-Diaz than the one with something to hunt.

By Lap 50, he’s in second position. Henry’s still ahead.

Barely.

Two seconds. Then one-point-six. Then one-point-two. The gap closes with every lap like a trap being set.

Alex doesn’t rush it.

He knows how Henry drives. Has studied him longer than anyone. Knows the rhythm of his braking, the way he sacrifices entry speed for better exits, the way he guards the inside line on corner three like it's holy ground and uses just enough curb to stay within track limits without losing rotation.

Henry drives like a Fox. Fast. Precise. Always one step ahead. A predator that doesn’t show its teeth until it’s too late.

But Alex isn’t prey anymore.

He knows what kind of driver he has to be to beat Henry.

He has to be an eagle.

He has to strike from above, unseen until it’s too late. He has to change his line through the chicane, lift in places where he usually doesn’t, make Henry second-guess the mirror. Make him think he’s waiting. Lurking.

Lap 51, he feints into Turn 6—just like Qatar.

Henry covers it immediately. Of course he does. Textbook defense.

Alex pulls back. Tidy. Clean. Doesn’t even try.

That’s the bait.

Lap 52, he switches it.

Goes wide into Turn 5, compromises his exit just enough to make it look like he’s backed off again—but then he dives. A lunge. A perfect, late, committed move into Turn 6, from so far back it shouldn’t work.

But it does.

Henry’s caught out. Half a car’s width too slow on the defense, and Alex is already through. Door shut. Line claimed.

They’re side by side through the apex.

Alex doesn’t flinch.

Henry blinks first.

By the time they hit the back straight, it’s done. Alex is ahead.

And he doesn’t look back.

Not once.

All Alex does is pull a gap.

Every sector is just math. Push the delta, manage the tires, keep Henry out of DRS range. No celebration. No fist pumps. Just precision. Just distance.

When the chequered flag waves, he doesn’t yell. Doesn’t ask where Henry finished. He already knows.

“P1, confirmed,” his race engineer says. “That’s the win, Alex. Great drive.”

But it doesn’t change anything. Henry’s still the world champion. The points don’t shift the narrative. They just add one more footnote to a story already decided.

He takes the cooldown lap in silence. There are fireworks above the main grandstand—too loud, too bright—but he doesn’t know what they’re for. Not the win, surely. Not for him.

Maybe it’s for the sponsors. Maybe it’s for the season finally ending.

Or maybe, maybe , it’s for something else. A signal flare. A message that Alex’s still here. That he’s not broken. That his story doesn’t end in Qatar.

He parks the car. Takes a breath. The radio crackles again—cheers, someone shouting his name, the kind of noise meant to be triumphant. He barely hears it. Unhooks the harness. Peels off his gloves. His hands are still shaking, but it’s manageable now. Useful. Alive.

When he climbs out of the car, Henry’s already there. Already out, already walking through parc fermé like it’s routine. Polished. Still in control. Like nothing happened.

Alex doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t have to.

He celebrates with the team instead. With his team. The ones who’ve seen him unravel and still backed him anyway. He lets them drag him into a hug. Lets himself smile, even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Someone punches his arms lightly. Someone else ruffles his damp curls.

Nora meets him at the bottom of the podium steps. She’s got that razor-sharp glint in her eyes like she already knows what this means.

“You did it,” she says.

“You gave me the plan,” he replies.

“Yeah, but you drove it.”

They don’t say anything else. There’s no need.

When the national anthem plays, Alex stares straight ahead. When the trophy is handed to him, he lifts it one-handed. Henry doesn’t offer a handshake. Neither does he.

Then comes the champagne. Alex doesn’t even glance toward Henry. He turns to Nora instead—Nora, who’s standing there in Mercedes team gear, proudly representing the team—and lets her have it. Full stream, right in the chest. She shrieks and retaliates with equal force. They both laugh, wet and sticky with celebration.

He doesn’t look at Henry once.

—

It’s a few days later when Alex sees it, when he’s on the flight home.

He’s somewhere over the Atlantic, legs stretched out, window shade down, June asleep beside him with her head tipped toward his shoulder, when he refreshes his feed and sees it:

@hfox71
captioned beneath a grainy sunset photo of a sailboat, solitary against an open sea:
“No contract. No plan. Just wind.”

The post doesn’t say anything else. No hashtags. No mentions. Just that.

The comments are already chaos. Verified accounts, fanpages, reporters all clawing for clarity. Is he serious? Is this a joke? Is this his retirement announcement?

Within half an hour, the speculation is confirmed.

Official Statement from Fox-Rhodes Management and Windsor Enterprises:

"Effective immediately, Henry Fox will be stepping away from professional motorsport. After securing this year's Formula One World Championship title, Mr. Fox has chosen to retire from racing to pursue personal endeavors outside of the sport. He extends his deepest gratitude to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, his fellow drivers, and the fans around the world who have supported his career over the last decade. There are no future racing commitments planned at this time."

Alex reads it once, twice, then puts his phone face down on the table.

He doesn’t feel it right away. Doesn’t blink. Just stares.

He remembers, vaguely, how Nora once mentioned Toto was stressed out about it, between Qatar and Abu Dhabi, back when the team still thought everything would resolve itself after the title was secured. She’d rolled her eyes and said something like, “He’s not losing another blonde German-speaking driver with a world champion father right after winning just one championship. Not again.”

She was joking. Mostly.

But now the joke’s on all of them.

Henry’s actually doing it.

—

When the car pulls into the gravel driveway of their father’s lakehouse, the sky is already beginning to soften, gold bleeding into blue. June’s asleep in the passenger seat, her head pressed against the window, hair tangled from the drive. There’s a half-finished bag of chips in the center console and three empty coffee cups on the floor.

Alex kills the engine. Lets the silence settle.

The house is exactly the same as it’s always been. Still tucked behind rows of stubborn trees and weathered fencing, porch light flickering like it never stopped waiting for them.

His phone pings.

Just once.

He doesn’t look at it right away. Gets out of the car, stretches. The sound of cicadas thick in the air. The smell of pine and dust and memory.

When he finally checks, it’s not a notification from social or a headline or some reminder from the team.

It’s an email.

From: Henry Fox
Subject: For When You’re Ready

Alex stares at it for a moment. Doesn't open it. Just watches the sun dip behind the trees, phone heavy in his hand, heart heavier.

June stirs when he shuts the trunk, blinking groggily as she stretches out in the passenger seat. “Are we here?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, grabbing both their duffels. “Come on. You can sleep horizontal now.”

She groans but follows, barefoot by the time she steps inside.

The house creaks like it always does—floorboards giving under familiar weight, the porch swing swaying slightly in the breeze. Inside, it smells like cedar and old sunscreen, lake air seeping in through the open windows. The tall teal doors still stick if you don’t push them hard enough.

They don’t say much as they unpack. They never do here. Alex takes the bigger bedroom, the one with the heavy dresser and the view down to the dock. June claims the room across the hall and immediately changes into one of their dad’s old shirts.

“You’re lucky I didn’t book us a luxury suite in Curaçao or something,” she calls out as she tosses her toiletries into the bathroom. “You looked like you needed the ocean.”

“I did,” Alex says. “But this is fine.”

She appears in the doorway with a half-folded towel. “Familiar’s better, right?”

He nods. “Dad’s coming Friday. Raf too, I think. He said he might drive in from Dallas.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So we’ve got the place to ourselves for a few days.”

Alex shrugs. “Guess so.”

They move through the rhythms of the house like they’ve never left. Fridge half-stocked with stuff their dad left behind. Mismatched mugs in the cabinet. June insists on making tea even though it’s 30 degrees outside and they both know she won’t finish it.

It’s only when they sit out on the porch with their feet up on the rail—sun finally down, cicadas getting louder—that she brings it up.

“You gonna read the email?” she asks, quiet.

Alex exhales. “I don’t know.”

She nods, like she expected that. “He sent it, though.”

“Yeah. Subject line was ‘For When You’re Ready.’”

“That’s very him.”

He doesn’t answer right away. The breeze stirs the trees. The dock creaks faintly in the distance.

“What I’m feeling now,” Alex says eventually, “it’s not anger. Not anymore.”

June watches him carefully.

“I told him I didn’t want to see him again. I meant it, in that moment. But I didn’t think he’d actually quit. I didn’t think he’d…” He stops. Tries again. “I thought there’d be another chapter. Another fight. A rematch. Or something.”

“You didn’t think he’d disappear.”

“No.” His voice is quieter now. “I didn’t.”

June’s quiet for a beat. Then she says, “Maybe the letter’s his way of not disappearing completely.”

He doesn’t respond. Just leans back into the chair, fingers curling around the armrest like he needs to hold on to something.

“You don’t have to read it tonight,” June says, gently. “But don’t wait forever.”

Alex nods. The lake murmurs below them. Somewhere out on the water, a boat engine hums in the distance, fading into the dark.

The letter is still waiting. Inside. Sitting in his inbox like it knows it’s the last word in a story he didn’t want to end.

But not tonight.

—

It’s after dinner the next day, just before the rest of the house gets filled again.

June made something vaguely Mexican—chilaquiles with too much lime and not enough chili, but it still tasted like home. She didn’t say much while cooking, just handed Alex a beer and told him to sit down.

They ate on the porch. Not talking about the race. Not talking about the email. Just the cicadas and the hum of dusk and whatever old playlist June queued up on her phone.

Now she’s retreated to her room, a book in hand, tea on her nightstand. The house is quiet again.

Alex stands in the open doorway of the terrace, the cool air brushing his skin. The phone is in his hand. The email still unread. The subject line still staring back at him like it knows something he doesn’t.

The lake is dark now. Moonlight cutting a lazy reflection across the surface. The wooden stairs leading down to the dock are barely visible, shadows stretched long beneath the railings.

He sits on the porch steps. He’d once invited Henry to come here, he really tried to fit that into their schedule between races in Austin and Mexico. It never happens. They were too busy. Now it’s just this.

Alex opens the email.

From: Henry Fox <[email protected]>
To: Alex Claremont-Diaz <[email protected]>
Subject: For When You’re Ready

Alex,

When you're reading this, I’m probably somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with no signal and even less sense. Please don’t try to find me. That’s not what this is.

I’m writing because I don’t think I’ll be able to say any of this out loud. Not now. Maybe not ever. But you deserve to hear it. You always did.

I don’t know how to explain what happened without ruining it further, and I’m so tired of ruining things. So I’ll start with the simplest truth I have:

Yes. It was real. All of it. From Zandvoort to that morning in Lusail. The nights in Singapore, the way you curled into me like the world couldn’t touch us there. The silence in Baku, sitting on that balcony while the city buzzed below and you let yourself be still.

And everything before that, too. Every moment we were together. Every quiet hour no one else saw. Every time you reached for me without thinking.

I didn’t make any of it up. 

I wouldn’t know how.

I loved you. I still do. But I don’t think I deserved what you gave me. Not when I couldn’t give it back the way you needed. Not when I let the worst parts of myself take the wheel.

The truth is, I haven’t been okay since last year. I let the version of Abu Dhabi that lived in my head grow teeth, and instead of letting it go, I fed it. I let it tell me that the only way I could win this year was by controlling every variable. Including you. 

Especially you.

I thought if I could prove I was better, cleaner, smarter, that it would rewrite the ending we didn’t get. That I could claw back what I lost.

You asked me once if I meant what I said. About your instincts. About who you are. The truth is, I meant every word. I meant it so much I used it against you. I saw how brightly you burn and thought I could survive the fallout.

I was wrong.

I didn’t plan Qatar. Not at first. But once the opportunity was there, I took it. I told myself it was just racing. That I was doing what I had to. But I knew. I saw the moment coming, and I didn’t stop it. I watched you spin and I didn’t flinch because I wanted the title more than I wanted us.

You were right to tell me to go.

I walked away from F1 because I finally understood I can’t be both, a driver and a person. A champion and someone worthy of being loved by you. I can’t be in this sport without hurting you again. And I couldn’t stand the thought of doing it a second time.

There were a thousand ways we could’ve met, and a million more where we might’ve gotten it right. I think about them sometimes. The version of us that didn’t need to perform. The version that never had to compartmentalize. The version where I spend summers at your lakehouse and learn how to cook elotes and no one keeps score.

But we’re not in that world. We’re in this one.

And in this one, I already caused too much damage.

I don’t know if I’ll ever come back. Maybe I’ll disappear into saltwater and stay there. Or maybe, someday, you’ll see me on a dock somewhere with a bad hat and a worse tan.

And maybe, someday, we’ll talk again.

Not about racing. Not about titles.

Just about us.

I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better. I’m sorry I didn’t protect what we had.

You were never a means to an end.

You were always the end.

—H

Chapter Text

Time works differently for racing drivers.

They can stretch a tenth of a second into forever. They can make all the calculations, the adjustments, the tiniest flick of input, flashes of reaction, everything that wins or loses a race in the blink of an eye.

The opposite is, unfortunately, just as true. It’s always surprising how quickly the years disappear, how seasons shift, and before you realize it, it’s a decade’s gone.

It’s only in moments like this—on a quiet drive through the south of England—that Henry looks at his mother and feels it. How much time has passed.

The silver in Catherine’s hair. The deeper lines on her face. The veins standing out on the backs of her hands. The way her shoulders seem to carry more now, like the weight of the world is finally catching up.

They’re on their way to a wedding. Not his. A friend’s. And she’s his plus one, like she’s been for years now.

There’s nothing wrong with a man in his thirties bringing his mother as his date. Obviously. Henry’s leaned into the eternal bachelor role by now. Never cared about the way people whisper about how he never really brought a date when he could’ve had any woman he wanted, or more precisely, any man. He came out a few years ago, after Mary died, and by that point, no one really cared. It’s hardly relevant, not when you’ve done what he’s done.

His eyes were still at her, caught somewhere between then and now, when—

A flash of movement.

His hand snaps to the wheel and the muscle memory takes over. The car jerks just slightly, tires skimming the edge of the lane before he pulls it back, smooth as ever.

Catherine’s hand flies to the dash, breath caught. “Jesus, Henry—”

A fox vanishes into the hedgerow behind them.

“I saw it,” he says, calm. His pulse barely shifts. He’s already easing back to speed. 

She exhales, slow. “You’re not racing anymore. We’re not in a rush.” 

He doesn’t look at her, just lets a small smile curl at the corner of his mouth. “I am,” he murmurs. “I’m getting there as soon as I can.”

It’s not really the wedding of the century the British media is always on the hunt for, but it’s by no means unimportant.

A sitting prime minister is marrying his long-term partner, so naturally, it’s the headline-making kind. The kind of event that pretends to be private but will have carefully leaked photos by morning. Foreign dignitaries, high-level officials, business leaders, the usual aristocrats.

And Henry’s there with his mom.

The venue’s tucked somewhere idyllic in Hampshire, all sandstone arches and manicured hedges, the kind of estate people whisper about because it still technically belongs to a family who once owned land and railways and people. It’s been rebranded now, leased for events that photograph well and feel post -colonial enough for modern taste.

By the time they arrive, Henry can already see the setup from the car window.

A white marquee stretched across the lawn like something out of a countryside fairytale, all bunting and soft lights. The same kind of tent they use for Bake Off , only twice as large and ten times as expensive. 

They pull up along the gravel drive, ushered in by staff who’ve already been briefed on who’s arriving when. Catherine steps out first, composed as ever in a slate-grey jacket, her heels silent on the stone. Henry joins her a moment later, brushing a hand down the front of his suit out of habit.

He’s wearing navy linen, no tie, collar open just enough to look relaxed and not underdressed. His hair’s longer these days, pulled back with a small pin Bea gave him for Christmas. Catherine glances at him, gives the faintest nod.

They’ve done this before.

The cameras catch him within thirty seconds.

“Mr. Fox, just one question—”

“Mr. Fox, is it true Windsor Renewables is part of the new carbon credit consortium—”

“Any comment on the Fisheries Reform Bill passing second reading—?”

He pauses, turns slightly. Smiles with his teeth.

“We don’t do policy briefings in wedding venues,” he says, dry. “But off the record—” and now he drops the smile, just enough, “—if the consortium don’t shut down that shell company in Belize, they’ll lose access to every market we touch by autumn. Your headline writes itself. Enjoy the ceremony.”

Catherine doesn’t stop, but she glances back just enough to say, lightly, “You know he won’t answer that, boys.”

And then she’s gone, already halfway up the steps, leaving them to scramble.

Henry falls in beside her, the flash of cameras fading behind them.

Inside, the air shifts. Softer lighting, polished floors, the hum of conversation laced with recognition. Eyes follow them, not just curiously, but knowingly. It's the Windsors.

They’re not just old money. They’re the money. The ones whose name still opens doors, still carries weight. Practically royalty.

(They are , technically.)

Henry leans slightly toward Catherine as they walk. “You know I’ve never liked the attention.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “And yet you’re such a natural.”

He huffs a breath of dry amusement, but says nothing. Because she’s not wrong.

Most things, in the end, have a way of breaking before they settle.

Henry and Catherine weren’t always like this, the way they are so in sync and so seamless. For years, there’d been distance. Their bond was held together by duty and shared loss, but never quite strong enough to bridge the space Arthur left behind.

No one could blame her, really. Catherine could hardly bear to watch her youngest son race, let alone be close to him while he did it. Every time he stepped into a car, she saw Arthur. Saw the same risks, the same obsession, the same inevitability. Loving Henry meant watching history repeat itself, and she’d already survived it once.

She stood by, from afar, doing what she could but never letting herself feel too much. Not while he was still out there, still tempting fate.

That only changed after Henry quit.

After everything.

After the sea.

He’d spent months adrift, chasing silence, thinking distance might fill the hollow racing left behind. But the water gave him nothing. No clarity, nor peace. Just time, just the space to feel the weight of what he’d done, of what it had taken from him. From Alex. From himself.

When he finally returned, he didn’t go to London. He didn’t tell anyone. He just drove straight to Sussex, to her. No plan. No words. Just the exhausted, sinking knowledge that he had nowhere else left to go.

He showed up at her door with salt still in his hair, the sun setting behind him, and for a long moment, she didn’t move. Just looked at him—really looked —and then stepped aside.

That first night, they didn’t talk about racing, or family, or what came next. They didn’t need to. They sat in her living room, the air thick with things unsaid, the Jeddah Grand Prix played out on the TV on mute. Henry watched in silence, the sharp, bitter edge of it settling in.

He wasn’t part of that world anymore.

They didn’t talk about the result. Alex won. Henry still flinched when the cameras cut to the podium, the US national anthem playing, the champagne-soaked nothingness he used to chase.

But… between him and his mom, somewhere between the laps, something shifted.

They had an unspoken agreement, that whatever came next, however they moved through the wreckage of it all, they’d do it together.

Not as mother and son, not just. But as something more honest. Two people who’d lost the same man in different ways, who’d nearly lost each other too, and decided, quietly, not to.

Henry had always thought he’d choose the quiet life. That when it was all over, when the racing, the pressure, the eyes on him were done, he’d disappear. Maybe do what Catherine did after Arthur’s death. Retreat. Keep to the shadows. Let the world forget him.

But the silence didn’t save him. It suffocated him.

And Alex’s silence? It nearly killed him.

Alex refused to acknowledge his part in why Henry walked away. He refused to speak his name, even when pressed. As if Henry had vanished by choice, as if it hadn’t torn him apart to leave. As if all of it—everything they were—hadn’t meant enough to warrant a word, a gesture, anything .

Fine. If Alex could pretend none of it mattered, then Henry would build something bigger. He’d make himself undeniable, without him.

He had timing. He had momentum.

Windsor Enterprises was Philip’s. That much had always been clear. The company, the board, the legacy, all of it was never meant for Henry. But the years he spent with Catherine, the quiet, painstaking work of healing—hers and his—paid off in ways no one could have predicted.

When Mary died, a significant block of voting rights passed to Catherine. Power she hadn’t used for years. Power she didn’t want , until Henry.

And she used it. For him.

She didn’t ask what he planned. She didn’t need to. She saw what was left of him—what he needed to become to survive—and gave him the space to make it real.

Whatever he wanted, whatever he needed to prove, she made sure he could do it.

Now, Henry leads a division that was barely an idea a decade ago. One his grandmother would’ve called naïve, and Philip still calls risky.

Windsor Renewables started as a token project. Something to keep him busy, to give him a title without consequence. But now? It’s one of the most quietly influential environmental portfolios in Europe. Strategic. Surgical. The kind of business that doesn’t shout and doesn’t need to.

Henry’s not campaigning for change, he makes them. His signature on the grant that funded the pilot program on urban off-grid solar project in Dhaka. His push to convert dormant royal farmland in North Yorkshire into one of the largest community-owned solar farms in the UK. 

It’s not everything. It’s not redemption yet. But it’s enough. Enough to mean something.

Enough to get himself an invitation to this kind of event. His projects got himself enough access to the prime minister’s ear. Close enough that bringing Catherine to a wedding like this isn’t just familial, it’s actually symbolic.

A string quartet hums somewhere near the tent. Laughter clinks off the champagne flutes. The world around him has shifted. But he hasn’t, not really.

There’s not a single influencer holding up their phone in this wedding but there’s a former UN Secretary-General by the bar. Two EU Commissioners tucked near the arbor. The head of the World Bank and a handful of clean energy lobbyists murmuring over seed paper place cards, their conversations stitched together with numbers and names that decide futures.

It’s a room full of people who move money and rewrite laws. Today Henry walks among them like he belongs.

Catherine’s already halfway toward the seating area, pausing briefly to greet a familiar face with a tilt of her head. She’s a natural at this, at knowing who matters, at moving through these circles like she was born to. Because she was. They both were.

Henry’s angling toward the drinks table when someone steps into his path.

“Excuse me—sorry, I just—are you Henry Fox?”

He stops.

The woman’s maybe mid-thirties, polished but not stiff, the kind of guest who knows exactly how to look like she belongs. She’s holding a half-empty glass of prosecco, fingers tapping lightly on the stem, eyes bright with recognition.

“I—sorry,” she says again, already flustered. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just realized—it’s you. From, you know, everything.”

Henry raises a brow, amused. “Everything’s a lot.”

She laughs, a bit sheepish. “F1, mostly. I used to follow you. You and—well. You know.”

“I know,” he says, smiling just enough.

“And now, somehow, I’m reading your shareholder updates instead. Funny how things turn out.”

“That is a shift,” Henry says. “You have range.”

She grins. “Actually, my partner’s in climate finance. Windsor Renewables came up on a call last week. You're making waves.”

“That’s good to hear. I was worried we’d been buried under layers of bureaucracy.”

“You haven’t,” she says, and then, a bit bolder, “Honestly, I always thought you got a raw deal back then.”

Henry blinks, just once.

“I mean, between you and Alex. Everyone acted like you were the villain. But you weren’t. He just—he made it so personal.”

Henry’s smile doesn’t shift, but something behind his eyes tightens. “Did he?”

“Didn’t he?” she presses, then laughs, almost apologetic. “God, I sound like one of those fans, don’t I? Back when we all thought you two were either going to kill each other or… I don’t know. End up together.”

Henry freezes, just for a second. The kind of pause only someone watching closely would notice.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people said that,” she adds, too quickly now. “That you and Alex—well, there was just something , wasn’t there?”

He exhales, sharp, but not unkind. “There was always something .”

She winces. “I’m sorry, that’s probably out of line.”

“No,” Henry says, voice low. “It’s just not that simple.”

There’s a beat. She seems to realize she’s said too much.

“I should let you go,” she says, gesturing vaguely toward the terrace. “Big day.”

“It is,” he agrees, polite.

She hesitates. “It’s just good to see you doing well.”

Henry nods once, something softer flickering behind his eyes. “Thanks. That means something.”

He slips back through the crowd, finds Catherine already seated in the front section, the kind of spot reserved for people who don’t need place cards to know they belong. She doesn’t say anything when he joins her, just gives him a small glance, a flicker of approval, and looks ahead.

The ceremony is minutes away from starting. Strings hum softly in the background. Light filters through the marquee in that golden, curated way that makes everything feel like it belongs in a magazine spread.

There’s a wedding cake in a corner—three tiers, maybe four. Overdone in that rustic-chic way. White buttercream, fresh flowers. Delicate, but teetering. A little too perfect.

Henry thinks it’s a perfect day. The kind of day where everything feels distant, precise, managed. Where he can feel he’s done enough and the past can stay in its place.

And then he hears it. Not loud, not sharp, but recognizable. A voice, a few rows back. The familiar southern drawl, a soft, but not too careful. Something unquestionably Texas.

Alex.

Henry looks to Catherine, eyes a little wide, trying to keep his expression neutral as he shifts, just enough to glance back.

And yes, it’s him.

Talking to someone, voice low, relaxed, like he has all the time in the world. Hair a little longer, curls soft around his temples, that same infuriatingly casual posture—shoulders loose, legs stretched just slightly, like the chair was made to fit him. Skin golden and warm, like the sun never left him. His charming smile lines are deeper now, but they look earned and effortless.

Henry’s stomach flips, but it doesn’t land soft. It lands hard, sharp, like something has gone wrong.

Because of course he looks like that. Of course he shows up now just as Henry’s life has finally stopped revolving around him. Or so he thought. Maybe it never did.

Catherine doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. But when he glances at her, just for a second, she meets his eyes and there’s understanding that’s quiet and immediate.

She shifts her hand, just slightly, brushing his arm, anchoring him.

Henry breathes, slow, but it doesn’t help. He can feel it already—his grip loosening, the careful structure of the day tilting off its axis. 

It’s not like he hasn’t seen Alex in the years since. He has. The world’s small, and motorsport is even smaller. There were award shows, charity galas, that UN thing in Geneva where Henry and Alex were speaking at different panels and not a single word was exchanged.

For the first few years, it was silence and Henry knew Alex had every reason to leave it at that. He was still angry and rightfully so. Henry didn’t chase, didn’t try to explain something that’s already out there. Just stood at the edge of rooms and watched him leave them.

Later, it softened. Not from effort, just time. They’d nod. Shake hands. Once, Alex even congratulated him when Windsor Renewables passed an emissions target. Henry said thanks and that was it. That was all of it. 

But Henry’s not fool enough to think they’ve moved on.

Now, he looks back again. At the way Alex moves, easy, like this is his world too. Like none of it costs him anything.

Henry feels it, sharp under his ribs. This wasn’t part of the plan. None of it was, and before he can think, before he can breathe, before he can remind himself this isn’t even his wedding, the music shifts.

The ceremony is a blur. Vows spoken, applause rising, polite and practiced. The bride glows, the groom beams, and Henry stands there, still and silent, clapping when he should, smiling when expected.

The Windsors move through it like clockwork, shaking hands, murmuring congratulations, always perfectly placed in the photos that will make the morning news.

And then it’s done. The crowd disperses, spilling into the terrace for drinks and speeches.

Henry doesn’t. He clings to his mum’s side like a four-year-old at an event he doesn’t understand, but this time he’s allowed to drink. And he does, he downs his gin and tonics, one after another. It’s crisp and bitter, the ice clinking too loud in his glass.

There’s still Mr. Fox in there somewhere, still nodding, still smiling, still shaking hands with people he doesn’t quite register. Some ambassador from a country his gin-hazed brain forgets to place. A chairman of something—an institute? A council?—eagerly talking about the next big thing , something Henry knows he should take note of.

But he’s not really there. Catherine is.

She steers the conversation with the same elegance she’s always had. Redirects. Anchors. Fills in the silences he leaves behind. Henry just stands there, glass in hand, trying to look present. Trying not to look at him .

Catherine, of all people, knows how much Alex means to him. Knows the cost of carrying this weight for too long.

She leans in, voice low, hand brushing his arm. “You know, you could just… try talking to him.”

Henry doesn’t look at her. He just swirls the gin, the slice of lime bumping against the glass like it might say something useful.

But she’s right. She’s always right.

So he drops his drink and reluctantly peels away from her, from her secure and comfortable orbit. 

He’s walking slowly, eyes down, half-focused on getting across the tent when it happens.

It’s a shift in the crowd, a jostle too close, and his elbow clips the edge of the cake table—barely, but enough to send the towering confection lurching, just slightly, tilting forward in slow, awful motion. And before he can think, his body takes over, reflexes kicking in through the haze, the same part in his brain that's trained to calculate gaps at 200 miles an hour, the ones that don’t need permission—he’s already pivoted, already caught the weight with his left hand, balance shifting, eyes tracking the centre of gravity without even meaning to, fingers braced at the base, steady, tight, preventing the collapse—

—and then there’s another hand opposite his, just as fast, just as sure, anchoring it in place.

He doesn’t need to look. He already knows.

Alex.

They’re holding it together now—this ridiculous, fragile symbol of love and commitment—steady between their hands. 

The cake stops wobbling. A beat. Two.

The wedding hums on, oblivious.

Their eyes lock, sharp, too close, and for a moment, the cake isn’t the thing trembling.

Henry clears his throat, low. “I had it.”

Alex’s mouth shifts, something caught between a smirk and memory. “Didn’t look like it.”

Their hands still hover, unnecessary now.

“You can let go,” Henry says.

Alex doesn’t. “After you.”

Henry pulls back, slow, fingers sticky. Alex follows, a breath behind, wiping his hand on a napkin, gaze steady.

Alex glances at the cake, then at Henry, head tilted, something close to amused. “You still got the reflexes.”

Henry wipes his hands on a napkin, a crooked grin pulling at his mouth. “Didn’t need saving. I had it.”

Alex’s brow lifts, unimpressed. “I don’t think so. I think you’re quite drunk, Henry. You can’t even stand straight.”

Henry glances sideways, eyes narrowed, “I’m a little bit tipsy, not dead.”

Alex shrugs, casual. “Same difference.” He doesn’t say anything more. Just reaches past, takes a glass of water from a passing waiter, and holds it out.

Henry stares at it for a moment, then up at him. “Not drinking?” he asks, voice dry.

Alex shrugs, still holding the glass. “Got a race next week.”

Henry huffs, something between a laugh and disbelief. “Of course you do.”

Alex doesn’t rise to it. Just waits, water still offered, eyes steady.

Henry takes it—because of course he does—and the glass is cool in his hand, grounding, but it doesn’t fix anything.

He sips, eyes not leaving Alex now. Really looking at him for the first time tonight. He’s got the same brown-amber eyes, the same long lashes that always seemed too delicate for someone so sharp.

“Spa’s next, isn’t it?” Henry asks, voice quieter now.

Alex hums, a nod. “Next weekend.”

Henry glances down at the glass, then back up. “You think you’ll get a podium?”

Alex shrugs, easy. “Maybe. Depends on the car.”

Henry’s brow lifts, just slightly. “Aston’s still not a Mercedes.”

“No,” Alex agrees, not defensive, just honest. “But it’s good enough. I’ve still got podiums.”

Henry nods. “You always do.”

For a moment, it’s quiet between them, a bit too quiet now, and then the rest of the world rushes back in.

A burst of laughter from the terrace. Glasses clinking. The soft swell of strings playing something light, expensive, meant to fade into the background but suddenly loud in Henry’s ears.

Someone nearby—a woman in pale blue—glances their way, curiosity flickering before she turns back to her conversation. Another man, half-hidden behind a hedge of champagne flutes, lingers a beat longer. That woman who talked to Henry earlier, wide eyed and a bit less subtle than the rest. 

Henry shifts, feels the weight of it, the eyes that don’t know but still look. The low hum of polite society, watching without watching.

“We should—” he starts, but doesn’t finish.

Alex’s eyes flick toward the crowd, then back to him, a small nod of recognition. “Yeah.”

The music shifts again, something softer now, almost lost under the hum of voices. Henry glances toward the terrace, then back at Alex.

“Come on,” he says, not quite an order, but close.

Alex doesn’t ask where. Just follows.

They weave through the crowd, past clusters of people too important to ignore and too polite to interrupt. Out toward the edge of the garden, where the noise thins and the air feels less heavy.

They find a spot—a pair of chairs half-hidden beneath an arch of wildflowers, close enough to see the wedding unfold, far enough not to be part of it.

Henry sits first, stretches his legs out like he’s trying to settle, but doesn’t. The gin’s gone from his system now, or close enough. The edges feel sharper. The world is less blurred. He’s not sure if it’s better like this, but it’s too late to care.

Alex leans back, gaze drifting over the lawn. For a while, they don’t say anything.

Then, quietly, Henry asks, “How are you feeling about the season?”

Alex glances over, brow raised.

Henry shrugs. “You’re still in it. Still in contention.”

Alex hums, thoughtful. “Yeah. For now.”

Henry watches him. “But?”

Alex tilts his head, eyes squinting slightly at the last of the light. “They’re getting younger.”

Henry nods, slow. “Fresher.”

“Bloodthirsty,” Alex adds, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Like we were.”

Henry huffs, not quite a laugh. “We were worse.”

Alex’s smile lingers. “We were fast.”

“You still are.”

Alex looks at him, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. “Some days.”

Henry watches him, quiet for a moment, then says, “You’ve got four more championships than me.”

Alex doesn’t respond right away, just lets out a slow breath, eyes still on the horizon.

“That means something,” Henry adds, more certain now.

Alex glances at him, something flickering in his expression. “Yeah,” he says, but it’s soft, not convinced.

Henry leans back, stretching out a little, trying to catch his eye. “It does.”

Alex shakes his head, half a smile, half a wince. “Sometimes it feels like it meant more when we were still chasing.”

Henry tilts his head, considering. “You think it’s worse now?”

Alex shrugs. “Not worse. Just… different.”

“The new regs didn’t help,” Alex says, lips quirking. “F1 being net zero now… I don’t know. The cars feel tame.”

Henry huffs. “Safer.”

“Slower,” Alex mutters.

Henry looks at him, brow raised. “You think?”

Alex laughs, dry. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. The races now—they’re not what they used to be.”

Henry hums, thoughtful. “Or maybe it’s just nostalgia.”

Alex glances sideways, eyes narrowing, amused. “You don’t believe that.”

Henry shrugs, lips tugging into something that could almost be a smile. “I don’t know. I think we just didn’t know better.”

Alex leans back in his chair, staring at the sky for a moment. “Back then, it felt like we were invincible.”

“We weren’t.”

“No,” Alex agrees, voice low. “But it felt like it.”

Somewhere behind them, the hum of the reception swells, there’s applause, light and scattered. A toast, maybe. Someone laughing too loud near the tent, the clink of glasses raised in celebration.

Henry hears it all distantly, like through a pane of glass. The speeches must’ve started. He catches a few words, something about love, about timing, about forever.

He thinks about the cake they saved. Still standing, perfect, untouched.

Alex shifts beside him, leans forward, elbows on his knees, like he’s about to get up, but he doesn’t. 

“Do you ever miss it?” he asks, not quite looking at Henry. Voice too casual.

It’s the kind of question you ask someone you haven’t really spoken to in ten years. The kind that could mean anything.

Henry doesn’t answer right away. He could say no. Could shrug. Could make a joke, and Alex would never know the difference.

But he doesn’t.

He looks ahead, watches the light shift on the edge of the marquee, and says, quietly, “Yes.”

A pause.

“Yes, of course I miss it.”

Alex glances at him now, something flickering.

Henry keeps going, because why stop now. “It was simpler then. Everything was measurable. There was always a goal. You win, you lose, you fix it.”

He breathes. “And the adrenaline. Nothing replaces that. Not in boardrooms. Not in clean energy portfolios. Not even on the water.”

Alex nods, small. “I know.”

Alex leans back, glancing sideways at him. “That’s what you're doing these days, right? I see your name in the news sometimes, but I don't quite follow.”

Henry huffs a quiet laugh, not unkind. “Of course you don’t.”

“What is it really that you do?”

Henry takes a breath, runs a hand through his hair like he’s getting into gear.

“It’s mostly renewables now. We started with solar, but we’re expanding. Microgrids in Southeast Asia, retrofitting in old urban zones, pushing for sustainable infrastructure in places that never got a chance to do it right the first time. It’s a lot of policy, a lot of leverage. We don’t lobby, exactly, but we don’t really have to.”

Alex just watches him, nodding along.

Henry keeps going. “We converted some of the old royal farmland into community solar sites, it's quite big now. There’s a project in Dhaka that’s—”

And then, suddenly, he stops.

Not because Alex interrupts. But because it’s there, sharp on his tongue.

“Did you get my email?”

Alex blinks, caught off guard. “What?”

Henry looks at him, steady now, but there’s something underneath. “The one I sent after I left.”

Henry watches him, breath held like he’s not sure he wants to hear it.

Alex is quiet, eyes flickering down, then away. “Yeah. I got it.”

Henry’s throat tightens. “You didn’t say anything.”

Alex nods. “I know.”

Henry waits.

“I don’t remember why,” Alex says, his voice low. “Maybe I was still angry. Maybe I thought… whatever it was between us, it couldn’t be fixed by an email.”

Henry swallows, something sharp behind his ribs. “Do you still feel that way?”

Alex looks at him now, steady, but not hard. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t even remember what it was that made me feel like that,” Alex admits. “Why I was so hellbent on ignoring you. Maybe I just… wanted to prove something. That I could win without you. That I could… be something.”

He breathes out, slow. “First it was the championship. Then another. And by the time I looked up, whatever we had, it wasn’t something I knew how to come back to. It didn’t feel real anymore.”

Henry’s voice is barely a whisper. “It was real.”

Alex nods, but it’s small. “Yeah. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t face it.”

He is quiet for a moment, gaze distant, then he shakes his head, almost like he’s laughing at himself.

“It’s rare, what you did,” he says. “Walking away like that.”

He glances at Henry, something sharper in his eyes. “Only happened twice. Only happened to Mercedes drivers.”

A breath, low. “Most of us wouldn’t dare. We don’t know how. We don’t want to.”

His voice is steady, but it feels like he’s speaking to himself as much as Henry.

Alex leans back, runs a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on some point beyond the garden.

“I actually think about quitting sometimes,” he says, like it’s just a thought, like it’s not the thing keeping him up at night.

Henry doesn’t move, just watches him.

“I don’t know who I’d be if I did,” Alex continues. “It’s stupid, right? I’m thirty-three. I’ve won almost everything there is. But I still wake up thinking about the next lap, the next race, like it’s the only thing I know how to do.”

He glances at Henry now, eyes narrowed, something almost accusing. “You made it look easy.”

Henry exhales, sharp, like he’s been holding that breath for years. “It wasn’t.”

Alex looks away, jaw tight. “Sure felt like it.”

Henry shakes his head. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because I couldn’t stay.”

A pause.

“And you—” Henry adds, quieter now. “You didn’t try to stop me.”

Alex’s throat works, but he doesn’t speak. “I didn’t think I had any right to.”

Henry exhales, long, like something’s been sitting in his chest for too long.

“It was a hasty decision,” he says, finally. “I thought I could outrun it. Everything. The pressure, the cameras, the mess between us.”

He pauses, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the garden.

“I didn’t know how to fix it, so I ran.”

“I was wrong,” he adds, finally meeting Alex’s gaze. “About all of it.”

Alex’s brow furrows, just slightly.

Henry presses on, voice low. “We could’ve had both. The racing, the—” he stops, but Alex knows. “It didn’t have to be one or the other.”

Alex is still, watching him.

“In a different world, it would’ve worked,” Henry says. “If we were any other drivers, it would’ve worked. If we’d lived any other lives, it would've worked, beautifully.”

Alex’s eyes don’t leave his, but there’s something raw there now. Something almost apologetic .

“It wasn’t just the world,” Alex says. “It was us. Me.”

Henry watches, still.

“I loved you like it was enough to fix everything,” Alex says, voice low. “Like we could just… love harder, and it wouldn’t matter that we were trying to beat each other every Sunday. That the world was watching. That the pressure was killing us.”

He shakes his head. “It was young love. Stupid love. The kind that thinks it can defy gravity.”

“But it couldn’t. It didn’t.”

A ripple of applause pulls them from it, light, warm, threaded with laughter.

Henry glances toward the tent.

The bride and groom are at the cake now, hands clasped over the knife, grinning like they’ve already won something. Guests crowd in, cameras snapping quietly, someone cheering too loud.

The knife presses down, slow and certain, slicing through the layers they almost ruined.

Alex watches for a moment, then glances back at Henry, something flickering behind his eyes.

“We saved that,” he says, soft, but with a spark. “You know.”

Henry huffs, dry. “Barely.”

Alex’s mouth lifts, just enough. “Close enough.”

For a breath, they just look at each other, sharp edges worn down by time, by everything that’s passed.

Henry raises a brow, something wry tugging at his lips. “Still think it can’t defy gravity?”

Alex doesn’t look away. Doesn’t laugh. Just meets him there, steady.

“Maybe it can,” he says.