Chapter Text
There were a few things Wout van Aert had come to accept about life as a cyclist.
One: he would never sleep past 6:30 a.m., even in the off-season, even if his son slept in (which he never did).
Two: nutritionists would never let him eat bread without moral consequences.
Three: Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard were in love, and everyone was suffering for it.
Especially him.
He adjusted the strap on his bag, chewing the inside of his cheek as the UAE Team Emirates bus wheezed to a stop across the gravel parking lot. And when he saw the doors open, he felt it- like a sixth sense, or divine punishment.
Wout knew, without even needing to turn his head, that this day would end in emotional violence.
He was right.
Tadej came bounding off the bus like an excited puppy who’d just been told the park was open. His hair was sticking up in five different directions. His hoodie was three sizes too big. He looked, in short, like someone who had no business radiating that much joy at eight in the morning.
And he was beaming. Not just normal smiling no, this was the kind of smile that could power small villages. Directed at, of course, one Danish climber currently standing at the foot of the Visma | Lease a Bike luggage bay, holding a floor pump and looking like he'd just been hit by a bus. Emotionally.
Jonas froze.
Then - inevitably - he dropped the pump.
It bounced off his shoe and clattered to the pavement with a sad little thunk.
“Oh, for fu-” Wout muttered, under his breath, gripping his duffel just a little tighter. “Not this again.”
To be clear, Wout did not hate either of them. Individually, Tadej was tolerable. Jonas very likable, on a good day.
Tadej was a good kid. Sure, he talked too much and had the spatial awareness of a swerving scooter, but he was genuine. Friendly. The kind of guy who’d give you the gummy bears out of his snack bag and then ask if you believed in fate.
And Jonas - well. Jonas was Jonas. Nervous, precise, secret romantic Jonas, who always looked like he was expecting someone to ask him an extremely personal question without warning. Sweet, in a weird, twitchy sort of way. If you could get past the fact that he clearly had no idea how to human.
But put them within ten meters of each other?
Disaster.
“Jonas!” Tadej called across the lot, sunglasses perched in his hair like an afterthought. “I was think maybe you don’t come! But here you are!”
Wout snorted audibly. “What a sentence.”
Jonas made a noise in response - one of those quiet half-laughs that sounded like his soul trying to evacuate his body. He bent to retrieve the pump, fumbled it twice, then straightened and stood there awkwardly like he’d forgotten how to hold objects.
Tadej jogged over, backpack bouncing. “You are late,” he said brightly. “We are already arrive and you are - how do you say - slacking?”
“I- uh,” Jonas started, and Wout didn’t even bother listening to the rest.
He was too distracted by the fact that Tadej was now standing dangerously close. Unnecessarily close. The kind of close you only saw in slow-burn romance dramas on streaming platforms Wout pretended not to watch.
Tadej reached out - of course he did - and poked at Jonas’s hair, which, Wout had to admit, was doing some sort of soft, fluffy curl thing in the wind.
“Floofy,” Tadej announced, sounding absolutely delighted with himself. “It’s very cute today.”
Jonas made a sound like someone had punched him directly in the solar plexus.
“Christ alive,” Wout muttered.
Next to him, Sepp turned, blinking. “You okay?”
“No,” Wout said flatly. “Because I’m living in a psychological experiment where two emotionally stunted gazelles pretend they’re not in love and everyone else has to watch.”
Sepp squinted at him. “You think Jonas and Tadej are- ”
“Oh my god,” Wout cut in. “You don’t know? I thought you were smart.”
“I mean, I- well, I guess Tadej does talk about him a lot.”
“‘A lot’? He said Jonas looked like a 'beautiful sad cat' in an interview.”
Sepp blinked again.
Jonas, meanwhile, had not moved. Tadej was now recounting something about their last race, complete with wildly inaccurate English verb tenses and increasingly animated hand gestures. Jonas was nodding like he was being held hostage.
Wout looked skyward.
“God,” he said, to no one in particular, “if you let me survive this week, I promise I’ll do core strength training without complaining. I won’t even lie about my recovery rides. Just please.”
Of course, God was not listening. Or worse - God was listening, and found it funny.
Because Tadej was now helping Jonas put on his backpack.
“You are carrying too much,” Tadej was saying, lifting the strap over Jonas’s shoulder like this was a Nicholas Sparks movie. “You will hurt your back and then I beat you in race and you cry.”
Jonas looked like he was genuinely about to cry, though Wout suspected it wasn’t from laughter.
“I hate it here,” Wout said, out loud.
Sepp, unhelpfully, laughed.
And then - because the universe had a sense of humor - someone yelled “Group photo!” and a swarm of riders from multiple teams began drifting into the middle of the lot.
Which meant Wout was now required to stand next to these two disaster people while they breathed in each other’s air and pretended it didn’t mean anything.
He took his place on the end of the group and watched, in real time, as Jonas tried to subtly shift away from Tadej - and Tadej, with the unbothered persistence of a man who had never heard the word “boundary,” simply followed.
They stood shoulder to shoulder.
Tadej smiled.
Jonas turned bright red.
Wout closed his eyes.
“This is hell,” he said, as the photographer counted down.
He smiled for the picture anyway.
It was going to be a long week.