Chapter Text
If there is one thing that can unite every driver, it's the hatred of media days. Fernando particularly hates them when both him and Mark are working media because there's very limited time for them to both look after the girls. On a few unfortunate occasions, both Mark and Fernando have been called away and unable to look after the girls. The first time this happened was stupidly stressful for Fernando.
"This is Mark. Sorry I can pick up right now but leave a message."
That was the third time Fernando called and the third time Mark had failed to pick up.
"Come on Mark where are you?" Fernando mumbled to himself. He had an hour and a half worth of interviews that he had to get done before he could get back to his girls, who he was trying to prevent from running around the garage and disturbing the mechanics. Everyone absolutely adored Eliana and Arabella but sometimes they could be a bit much like all small children and it was difficult to work on the car whilst they were around asking several different questions at once.
"Fernando," his PR manager called to him. "We have to go."
"Give me a second," he replied. Mark still hadn't picked up and all his messages were left on read. God Mark was going to be in a world of trouble when Fernando found him. Then his two unlikely saviours walked past.
Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.
They made sense for a logically choice. Eliana adored Red Bull and always said it was her Dad's team, even though he never won a championship but Arabella always had a Ferrari preference, her first ever helmet was red like a Ferrari and she'd fallen in love with the team when her fathers had shown her a clip of Fernando winning a race with Ferrari.
"Charles! Max!" The Spaniard called, catching their attention almost immediately. He shoved his phone in his pocket and used his spare hand to beckon them over before immediately grabbing Eliana's hand again before she could run off. "What are you two doing right now?"
"Nothing," Charles replied with slight confusion. "I'm done for today."
God Fernando wished he was that lucky.
"I'm the same as Charles," added Max. "I've got an interview in two hours but other than that I've got nothing to do."
"I now give you a responsibility," Fernando announced and gestured to his daughters. "Mark wont pick up and I've got things to do for an hour and a half. Congratulations of the babysitting."
Before either of the younger drivers could respond, Fernando handed them a backpack each.
He pointed to the bright red Ferrari backpack that Charles had been handed.
"That's for Arabella," he stated and passed her hand to Charles but began to speak again before he could protest. "In there is a horse toy called Enzo, colouring books, spare clothes and some snacks. She doesn't have any allergies but she's afraid of insects."
The father then picked up Eliana and placed her in Max's arms before he could say anything. "In that backpack is a bull toy called Torro, colouring books and snacks. Eliana isn't afraid of anything but she doesn't like strangers, crowds or loud noises. Eliana prefers Red Bull but Arabella prefers Ferrari. Don't separate them whilst they aren't around me or Mark because Arabella is very protective and will throw a tantrum until she's back with Eliana. If you need anything or there's an emergency call me or Mark."
Before Charles or Max could say anything, Fernando was speaking to the girls in Spanish, placed a kiss on both their foreheads and walked off with his PR manager with a wave goodbye to his daughters.
The two drivers stood there in stunned silence before a member of the Aston Martin team shooed them away in case of spying. They walked to the front of their garages and Max finally broke their silence.
"I guess we're babysitting."
"I guess we are," replied Charles. "Where do we take them? I can't go into Red Bull and you can't go to Ferrari and we can't separate them."
"We could go to the motor homes," Max offered. The motor homes definitely weren't the immediate ideas to babysit but they were quiet and devoid of strangers and insects were very easily avoidable.
Charles sighed. "I suppose so."
"Quiero a mi papá!" The small girl in Max's arms said and began to kick around.
"What's she saying?" Max asked in a hushed whisper. "I don't speak Spanish."
"I don't speak Spanish," Charles said in an equally hushed whisper.
"Why are you whispering?" Arabela asked loudly. "She wants Papá."
Charles and Max shared a look, there was nothing she could do about that. They could possibly substitute with other drivers from the different teams, preferably Carlos since he speaks Spanish.
After using a speech to text function on Google translate for Eliana, Max finally managed to translate a message to Eliana.
"¿Quieres que vayamos a buscar a los otros pilotos de Ferrari y RedBull??"
"¡Sí! ¡Sí! ¡Sí!" The girls yelled and began to jump around or fidget in Max's arms.
"I'll call Checo and you call Carlos," Max said and began to scroll through his contacts for his teammate. Thank God for Spanish speaking teammates.
A few minutes passed and the two girls had found a comfortable place on the pit wall to play with their colouring books. Carlos was the first to arrive and neither Max nor Charles had been happier to see him.
"Carlos!" Charles called and waved the confused looking Ferrari driver over. "Over here!"
Carlos walked over to the small group. "Is this something we should create a new group chat for?" He joked.
"Hola," he added, immediately recognising the girls to be Mark and Fernando's child. "¿Que haces?"
"Estamos dibujando," Arabella replied but didn't take her eyes off of the colourful paper until she caught sight of the bright red racing suit that hung around Carlos' waist. "¿Conduces para Ferrari??"
Carlos nodded and didn't have the time to process the rapid fire questions that were being asked of him by the small girl. Even thought it was in his native language, he struggled to keep up with the questions but eventually the pair fell into a rhythm of asking and answering by the time Checo arrived.
"Hey Max you alright? You sounded stressed?" Checo asked then caught sight of the two children. "Ah you're babysitting Mark and Fernando's children and you don't know what you're doing?"
"It's not that," Max attempted to defended but Charles cut him off.
"That's it. They speak Spanish and we don't. Arabella can speak English but doesn't like to and Eliana struggles with English. We don't know what we're doing."
"We know what we're doing," Max defended.
"No you don't," Carlos interrupted. "Arabella's saying you've been clueless."
Arabella stuck her tongue out which Max reciprocated and she said something in Spanish that made Carlos and Checo laugh.
"What'd she say?" Max asked.
Checo just chuckled and shook his head. "I'll tell you some other time."
"¿Eres piloto de RedBull??" Eliana asked quietly but shuffled behind Max slightly when Checo's gaze fell upon her.
"Si."
"¿¿Eras el antiguo compañero de mi Dadda??"
Carlos laughed at that one and Max and Charles both have him a confused look.
“No, se fue antes de que me uniera a Red Bull,” Checo replied with a small smile to try and make the girl feel a little more comfortable.
“Oh, porque las personas que eran compañeros de equipo de Dada son todas viejas,” she replied.
That made both Spanish speakers almost cry for laughter at the thought of Seb’s reaction to being called old by Mark and Fernando’s daughter.
Eliana may be adopted but she definitely had Fernando’s unfiltered words and snark even if she was only four and most four year olds do have that unfiltered snark. But with Fernando as a Papá to the girl that would undoubtedly stay.
The minutes passed by quickly and it felt like a few minutes for the four drivers when Mark showed up after what had in reality been half an hour.
“Dada!” Arabella yelled, startling the four drivers and sending them into a split second panic when she jumped down from the table she was sat on.
Mark immediately crouched down with open arms to welcome his eldest daughter, who jumped into his arms without hesitation. The Aussie pressed a kiss to her forehead and picked her up before walking over to accompany the other drivers.
“Thank you so much for this,” he greeted. “Hope these two weren’t too much trouble,” he added and picked up Eliana from her seat, who wasted no time in copying her sister and hugging Mark.
“Not at all,” Charles said quickly, having deeply enjoyed having the two girls around and also loving the sight of Max playing with kids. “Once we hired Checo and Carlos to help out with the language barrier it became pretty easy.”
Carlos and Checo both have a small wave to Mark but instead got an enthusiastic wave from Arabella.
“Their español es muy mal,” Eliana whispered loudly into Mark’s ear. “Ellos son muy stupid.”
Carlos and Checo snickered at Mark’s attempt to stifle his laughter. “That’s mean, Ellie. Not everyone can speak Spanish. I had to learn.”
“Sí but tu español es mal,” she complained at which Mark looked mildly offended that his almost twenty years of effort was being called bad by his own daughter.
But it sent Carlos and Checo into a fit of laughter between the two of them. There was definitely some influence from Fernando in Eliana’s attitude and Mark was going to have a long few years during their teenage years because of it.
“She’s right Dada,” Arabella interrupted. “Your Spanish isn’t as good as Papá says it is.”
“I think I’ve been ganged up on here,” Mark sighed, knowing there was a lot of that for the coming years, and put his oldest daughter down then took the two backpacks off of Charles and Max. “Again thanks so much for doing this.”
“It’s no problem, really,” Max assured. “We’d be happy to do it again.”
“Yeah,” Charles agreed. “We just have to sort out our Spanish first.”
“I like them Dada,” Arabella said and took her backpack from Mark. “They’re funny.”
“I know, sunshine,” Mark said then turned to Carlos and Checo. “Thanks for translating.”
“No problem. They got me out of interviews. It’s then I should be thanking,” Carlos replied. “Any way they could do that more often?”
“As long as I’m not working I don’t think so but I think Fernando might just put my Spanish to the test,” Mark said. “He talks really fast when he’s annoyed.”
“Papá está muy enfadado,” Eliana said.
“Yeah he wasn’t happy with you,” Arabela added.
Mark just sighed. “I’m going to go see if I can find my husband,” he said and took Arabella’s hand to prevent her from running off. “See you guys later. Say goodbye girls.”
Arabella gave an enthusiastic wave with her free hand whereas Eliana just waved shyly from her place on Mark’s hip. The four active drivers waved back with a smile on each of their faces.
“I’m going back to my hotel room,” Carlos said. “I’m free and I’m not wasting it.”
“I’m going too,” Checo announced. “That’s made me miss my own kids.”
“We’ll see you guys later,” Max said and waved them off as they began walking back to the main paddock whilst speaking to each other in Spanish. Max wrapped his arm around Charles’ shoulders and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “That was nice.”
“I want kids,” Charles said bluntly.
Max choked on his own spit. “What?”
Charles looked at him. “I want to have kids. With you.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I’ve always wanted kids but seeing you with Arabella and Eliana made me realise I want to see you do that with our own,” Charles explained. “I’ve always figured I wanted to have a life with you since our first date. Now I’m certain and I want kids to be a part of that. If you’re comfortable with it.”
Max paused and thought for a moment. His life after racing was never something that he’d thought a lot about. He’d never had the time to do that with his incessant training from his father, who had made him feel like the genetic inability to be a good parent may affect him. But then he thought of Charles and watching Charles with his nephews and the girls that they’d just babysat. He thought of Charles absolute fascination with the two girls and everything that they’d done. He thought of the way Charles would never let him become like his father because Charles bought out the best in him.
“Yeah. I’d like that,” Max said quietly and pressed a kiss to Charles forehead again. “Just let me put a ring on your finger first.”
Charles grabbed Max’s chin gently to pull his face closer and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that since I pushed you into that stupid puddle.”
“How romantic of you.”