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Marc is flying around the track. Every corner, every tilt of the bike feels good, and he knows without a doubt that the lap he’s putting together has the ability to easily put him at the top of the timing charts. It’s only FP2, but he’s never liked being anything less than first.
It’s a sweet feeling after yesterday, when he’d been struggling with the bike out of the corners. Practice had seen him in fourth, through to Q2 by a wide margin, but it’d still left a bad taste in his mouth to look up and see that he wasn’t even in the top three. He knows factually that the bike is only marginally better today, but it feels different because he’s making it feel different. That’s why this lap is so good despite him being on older tires than everyone else.
He hopes Valentino is watching.
The thought hits fast, strikes like lightning, and he wobbles ever so slightly on the bike. It’s a rule of his to not think about him when riding, if only because it never turns out well. But somehow, this one tiny thought has gotten through, like his mind is trying to tell him to acknowledge Valentino’s presence at the track, demanding that he sits up and pay attention.
He doesn’t really want to pay attention.
Maybe that’s why the corner catches him off guard.
The straight he’d been on comes to an end sooner than he’d been expecting, regardless of the fact that he knows the circuit with his eyes closed and could recite every straight distance and corner angle off of the top of his head. He turns the bike on pure instinct— here, like this, it’s like his body tells him, and he listens—but his back tire slips.
It reconnects to the track with fury, and suddenly he’s highsiding, the back wheel kicking up into the air and sending him with it, tumbling head over heels and weightless and shocked all at once, the only thought that can even form being don’t fall on your arm, not the right one, it has to be the other, otherwise—
He hits the ground hard, and everything goes black.
Álex is on an outlap when he sees it, a familiar red bike just barely skidding to a halt in the gravel beside the track. He doesn’t see the rider, not at first, doesn’t know if it’s Pecco or Marc, and can only hope that it wasn’t a bad crash.
His hopes shatter to the ground at the motionless body lying only a few meters from the bike. That’s not—it can’t be Marc. It can’t be. Marc knows to get up, to never, ever just lay there after a crash so that their parents know he’s alright. So that they don’t have to start fearing the worst.
He’s braking before he even realizes it. The bike is thrown down with no care for where it goes, himself jumping off with little regard for the fact that it’s not even fully stopped. His legs don’t move fast enough, never fast enough as he throws his gloves down and sprints towards the fallen rider, collapsing to his knees beside them.
It’s Marc.
It’s Marc, and he’s not moving even though he always gets up after a crash, always makes sure to let everyone know that he’s not…
Álex’s hands are shaking as he pulls his head into his lap, not able to hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in his ears.
The helmet.
He needs to get the helmet off.
If his hands would just stop shaking.
It’s this helmet, this stupid todo al rojo helmet that’s standing in the way of letting him know whether or not his brother is okay, and he’s never hated anything more in his entire life.
He’s pretty sure he’s crying as he finally manages to slip it off. It, like his bike and gloves, is discarded without any thought. He’s only looking at Marc, whose eyes are closed and face blank, but he’s breathing. Thank goodness, he’s breathing.
A sob shakes itself free of Álex’s chest. He’s seen Marc injured before, but to not see him move after a crash is something else entirely. It’s something else entirely when it’s another rider—images of Franky on the side of a track resurface, and he pushes them down—but especially when it’s Marc. When it’s his brother.
His hands are still shaking when he places them on either side of Marc’s head, grabbing onto him like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. Having his hands on his skin helps, almost like the warmth there is proof that he’s still with him, and it’s slow, but the world starts to come back into focus.
Marshalls are shouting for help, for a stretcher, for anything, and the grandstands just down the track are in an uproar. Out of the corner of his eye he can see several people running for the two of them, their hands full with First Aid supplies, and there’s an annoying buzzing just above his head. When he looks up, he sees that it’s a drone.
In any other circumstance, he would be absolutely furious with the invasion, fuming to know that this moment is on camera and being broadcasted to viewers everywhere. But right now, all he cares about is Marc.
Marc, who wasn’t moving. Marc, who is still breathing. Marc, whose eyelashes are fluttering like he’s trying to open his eyes.
“Come on,” Álex whispers. “Please.”
He doesn’t know who he’s asking.
The drone moves closer. The people with First Aid have almost arrived. The crowd has fallen silent as they watch the scene play out on the big screen.
Marc opens his eyes, dazed and full of pain, but at least they’re open. Something catches in Álex’s throat again.
“Hey,” he says, voice breaking, giving him a watery smile.
Marc’s eyes flutter back close. Álex isn’t sure if he’s heard or really even seen him, but he doesn’t truly mind as long as Marc is okay.
His lips move ever so slightly, so Álex bends down to try and catch what he’s said. The drone copies him, and Álex would bat it away, he really would, but Marc’s saying something, and that’s all that matters right now.
Marc’s voice is quiet, confused. He sounds smaller than he has in years.
“Valentino?” he mumbles.
There’s a slight pause, almost like the world has skipped a beat and is trying to reset, as the feed is transferred to the big screen. The crowd is dead silent as they watch drone’s camera zoom in on Marc, as what he’s just said is broadcasted for everyone to hear, and there’s another shocked pause like everyone is wondering if they heard right.
Then the gasps start.
Valentino’s standing just outside the VR46 garage, and he doesn’t know what to think. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t know how to think, everything he used to know being forgotten the second he saw Marc’s rear tire slip.
His mind is still replaying everything in broken images. The crash. Marc, motionless, on the ground. Álex’s desperate sprint to get to his brother, his shaking hands as he pulled the helmet off. Marc’s blank face and the way everyone immediately thought the absolute worst.
Marc, his eyes opening and closing haphazardly.
Marc, not even fully conscious, saying one thing and one thing only.
“Valentino!”
The reporter yells his name loudly, and despite years of having dealt with the press, Valentino flinches. He actually flinches, and there’s a flash of light to capture his exact reaction, probably a headline to go along with it, if only in the reporter’s mind for the time being.
The reporter who dared to call his name isn’t alone. He’s followed by a group of piranhas all desperate to sink their teeth into a good story, not above hurting anyone or anything in order to get hits on their articles. Vale hates them all.
Something must show on his face, because the cameras are going off again. Their light is blinding, the clicking of the shutters faster than anything that seems possible. They’re calling out questions now.
“What were you thinking when you saw Marc’s crash?” One of them thrusts a microphone into his face.
“Marc said your name, how do you feel about that?” Another shoves the first away, camera out to record it all.
“Valentino, why did Marc say your name?”
That one gets to him the most. All of the reporters’ eyes are questioning, desperate to hear a response that Valentino can’t give because he doesn’t know why.
He hasn’t done anything since 2015 that would explain why Marc would ask for him, of all people, when half-conscious on the side of a track. All he’d done since then was drag Marc’s name through the mud and spit vile insults at him, and even when he’d felt the familiar pang of regret, all he’d done was burying himself deeper in that hole. If he couldn’t truly convince himself that he hated Marc, at least he could convince the world. Because maybe if the world believed it, he would, too.
He should hate Marc. After all, he lost Vale the championship, his tenth championship, the one that would’ve meant more to him than all the others. His heart shouldn’t leap into his throat when he sees him crash, he shouldn’t feel anything about his eyes opening after Álex had taken his helmet off. He should be angry at Marc for saying his name.
The problem is, he’s not.
The problem is, the press is going to see that if he sticks around for any longer.
He turns his back on them with finality, not bothering to say a single word, and stalks back into the garage. He doesn’t know what the expression on his face is, but it must be something frightening from the way the mechanics are looking at him. He doesn’t care.
It’s only when he’s out of the sight of the reporters that he allows his mind to wander to Marc again.
Álex had stayed with him the entire time he was being given First Aid, not leaving his side as they got Marc onto the stretcher and put him into the ambulance. Marc had been dazed but awake at that point—Valentino had seen him say something to Álex—and Álex had gone with him. He doesn’t know what happened much beyond that, other than the fact that qualifying has been delayed.
He finds a corner that he can sit in, unobtrusive and almost invisible to anyone who walks by, and thinks.
Sometimes, it feels like the world revolves around Marc. At least, it feels like Valentino’s world does. In 2013 he’d been the new kid on the block, the young golden boy coming up and bound to be a star. Vale couldn’t keep his eyes off him. Marc hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off of Valentino, and soon it wasn’t just eyes but hands, too. In 2014, Marc had been even better than before, not satiated with one championship but hungry for more, always hungry, hungry to get pole and win and beat Valenitno’s lap record at his own ranch on the track that he created. In 2015 there had been growing tensions and distrustful glances and always Marc, Marcmarcmarcmarcmarc out on track, who he was constantly getting into tussles with. Argentina, Assen, Phillip Island.
Sepang.
Valencia, where he lost the championship. Where he looked around and realized he had lost a lot more than that.
2016 and 2017 had been a blur of trying to keep his cool around Marc, to forget about 2013 and 2014 and all the kisses and whispered nothings and turn that feeling in his stomach to hate. Then in 2018 Argentina came, and he almost succeeded. He’d convinced himself he’d succeeded. He’d give interviews and say things he thought he believed, even in 2019 when Marc was never standing below second on the podium when he finished a race.
2020, and Marc’s arm occupied his mind for the better part of the season. In 2021, Vale retired, desperately telling himself he wasn’t thinking about Marc when he definitely was. 2022 and 2023 were a blur of broken shards of bone and surgeries and diplopia and troubles with the bike, and Vale stopped being able to convince himself he hated Marc, so he went on record and said things, awful things, to try and fix that feeling inside himself.
2024, and Marc was at Gresini, aiming for a factory Ducati seat.
2025, and Marc was at Ducati alongside Pecco.
Now, Valentino is sitting here, doesn’t even know how long he’s been here other than the fact that his body is starting to ache, and is once again unable to get Marc out of his mind. He kind of does hate him for that, for the way in which he unknowingly refuses to leave him alone. But not even that is enough to stop him from feeling sick at the image of a lifeless Marc lying meters away from his bike.
It’s with an almost guilty feeling that Vale pulls out his phone and looks up articles about Marc’s condition. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the information when he gets it, but he just needs to know.
He’s been here for longer than he’s thought. It’s obvious from how many articles there are, but he doesn’t click on any of them. Instead, an almost hour-old post from Álex catches his eye.
It reads: “Marc is awake and responding normally, as he has only suffered minor head trauma and little damage to his body. Thankfully, he managed to avoid falling on his right arm and has not aggravated his old injury. He will need time to recover from the minimal head trauma and a sprained left wrist, but he hopes to be cleared by the hospital shortly. Finally, after careful consideration and some encouragement from Marc, I have decided to compete in the rest of the weekend. We both thank you all for your support and well-wishes ❤”
He wishes Álex’s words comforted him more than they do. It doesn’t mean a lot that Marc feels like the hospital should let him go, because it’s Marc. He tried to race only a week after his crash at Jerez in 2020. He hadn’t been good then; it was hard to believe he was genuinely feeling well now.
But.
Álex is competing in qualifying in just 45 minutes—Valentino had needed to look up when they had rescheduled qualifying for, because he’d truly had no idea—and if Vale can find him, he can ask him in person how Marc actually is, then read Álex’s expression to find out the truth when he inevitably lies to him. Maybe he can even figure out where Marc is, can find him and ask why he’d said his name.
He’s getting to his feet when he stops.
He hasn’t talked to Álex in years. Álex hates him, maybe even more than Marc does. Maybe more than anyone. He isn’t going to hear Valentino out, even if he did have a fully coherent explanation of why he needs to see Marc, of why he needs to see him awake and breathing and okay when he didn’t even try to see him in the years he was getting injured so often it seemed like every other weekend.
Well.
Valentino had called, one time, in a moment of extreme weakness. No one had picked up, probably hadn’t wanted to answer an unknown number when something else much more important was going on. Vale hadn’t tried again.
Truthfully, though, he can’t give a full answer for why his lungs are folding in on themselves with every breath he spends not going after Marc. Maybe it has something to do with the way that Marc had looked so unlike himself as he laid there, so much so that there had been an awful, Earth-shattering moment when he’d truly thought that Marc would never open his eyes, never smile that bright smile or crazy laugh ever again. That Vale would never get a chance to fix things.
Maybe it has everything to do with Marc whispering his name like a question, asking for forgiveness or an apology or for Valentino to just be there, right beside him, as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
He doesn’t care about the consequences, not anymore.
He just needs to see him, and if talking to Álex is the only way to do that, then best believe he was going to find a way.
Álex has been sitting in his motorhome for far too long, or maybe only two minutes. He can’t be sure, because time feels a little warped at the moment, almost like it’s bending around the two of them. Like it’s treating Marc, who’s sleeping in Álex’s bed, and him, sitting on the edge of the mattress, differently than it usually does.
He’s pretty sure shock will do that to you. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling. He knows what a lot of this process looks like, because how could he not after all of Marc’s crashes? He also already knows what it feels like to find someone he loves still and unmoving after he rounds a corner, an empty bike looking entirely wrong without its rider, and then feel like the world is collapsing around him.
Franky had wanted to be here for him, he knows, but he’d given him a call from the hospital already and virtually begged him to just continue with his normal routine, to give him some space to deal with all this. He’s not sure he could handle seeing both Marc and Franky in the same room right now.
He closes his eyes and sees hands, not his own, reaching out to grab a helmet, to slip it off. They aren’t shaking, not like Álex is as he sits frozen and numb and incapable of doing anything but praying that Franky isn’t dead. Marc knows what to do and just does it, calls for an ambulance and when it arrives, tells the nurses everything they need to know.
Álex just sits there.
The only thing he manages to do is grab Franky’s hand, interlacing their fingers like he’s done so many times before, and ignore the way Franky doesn’t respond, not when he’s being loaded into the ambulance and Marc is tearing him away from it all and shoving him into the passenger side of his car and pressing the pedal so hard that they reach the hospital in half the time they should.
Not that Álex would know, because time was playing its awful tricks back then, too.
He sees Franky in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires, sees himself reaching for his hand again and unable to ignore the way he doesn’t respond. He remembers his elation when Franky finally does squeeze back, if ever so slightly, and cracks his eyes open to see the world for the first time in what seems like an eternity. He remembers a teary smile stretching across his face as Franky furrows his eyebrows and says, “Álex? What are you doing here?”
He remembers opening his mouth to respond, only for Franky to continue, “You haven’t talked to me in years.”
He remembers the way the world stopped spinning. The way his throat closed up. The way Franky asked him why he was holding his hand, the way Álex dropped it as if burned.
Nurses swirled around, asking Franky what year it was. He gave the wrong answer.
Amnesia, they told Álex. Head trauma. Too many days, months, moments, all forgotten. The name of his favorite movie, gone. Names of friends, gone. Family, gone. Everything gone, gone gone gonegonegonegone.
Everything, except for Álex’s name and a few scattered moments throughout the years. That was his one bit of hope.
He was lucky, he knows, that the name’s of Franky’s parents came back to him. That he remembered his friends when they came to visit, that the time he’d lost started to become a little less blurry. That Franky remembered him, too, and everything between them, and was finally able to understand why the first thing he’d seen after waking up was Álex’s face.
Álex was foolish to hope that that would be the last time he found someone he loved lying motionless on the side of a track.
He opens his eyes but still sees images. His hands, perpetually shaking, taking Marc’s helmet off. An ambulance coming to pick Marc up, him getting in, too, relieved that Marc is awake and talking and correctly answering questions about what year it is.
An odd circumstance, the nurses tell him. Minor head trauma, nothing worse than a concussion. Just the right angle to knock Marc unconscious without doing any further damage.
Álex is so thankful it’s hard to breathe.
They let Marc go quickly, telling him to get some rest and take it easy, explicitly stating he’s not allowed to compete this weekend or at the next race. Marc tries to negotiate for both of them but only succeeds at the latter, still leaving the hospital with a smile on his face. He knows that he got lucky, too.
Álex looks at Marc, who’s always been small but looks smaller when he’s sleeping in bed. He thinks of Franky, who slept in that bed just last night, and wonders how much luck they’ve got left between them. He doesn’t want to know the answer, never wants to have to find out.
Marc shifts in his sleep. His lips twitch like he’s trying to form a sentence, or maybe a name.
Álex wonders how Marc will react once he tells him about what he said.
It’s not the first time that Marc has asked for Valentino when injured. He’s done it on medication when about to undergo surgery, when his diplopia had returned and he’d woken up confused one night about why he couldn’t see. In his sleep after yet another surgery while Álex watches over him to make sure he doesn’t roll onto his bad arm, eyebrows pinched and a frown pulling at his lips from the pain, murmuring “Valentino” over and over. Álex isn’t sure why he does it—if it’s just constantly on his mind, or if he’s come to associate pain with an Italian accent and too-blue eyes.
Either way, he hates it. Valentino shouldn’t still have that kind of claim on his brother, not after the way he treated him. Not after 2015.
A knock on his motorhome door startles him.
He gets up to answer it, frowning. He’d told Franky not to come, had thought he’d understood why even if he hadn’t said it outright. He’d figured it was pretty obvious in his voice and eyes, in what they’ve gone through together, but he thinks that maybe he should’ve been more clear as he twists the doorknob and pushes the door open.
Whatever greeting he’d planned gets stuck in his throat.
Valentino Rossi is standing outside his motorhome, his hands tucked into his pockets as he bites at his bottom lip. From how chapped it is, Álex can tell it’s not the first time he’s done it today.
“What,” Álex says flatly, “are you doing here?”
Valentino looks startled, like he somehow hadn’t truly expected Álex to even talk to him. Truthfully, Álex is a little surprised, too. Typically he’d just slam the door in Valentino’s face.
“Marc,” Valentino manages. “I need—” he coughs awkwardly, like he hadn’t meant to say that, shifts his weight. “Where is he?”
Álex eyes him. Vale’s hands might be in his pockets, but it doesn’t hide the way they’re shaking, and his lip has started to bleed. A lone tuft of hair sticks out further from the rest, almost definitely the product of a few too many worried yanks, complemented by a wrinkled shirt and a stretched-out portion of the hem. In an odd way, something about it feels familiar, somehow.
He dismisses it. Instead, he steps out of the motorhome and onto the top step, closing the door behind him. He turns back to Valentino with a question forming on his lips, one he’s not sure how to form, not sure where to start or end or what to ask in between, just knows that Valentino has to give an answer. The right one, even if Álex doesn't know what it is.
“Why?” He asks, and it means so many different things. Why do you want to know? What gives you the right? Why should I let you see him? Why now?
Valentino swallows.
“He said my name.”
He always says your name.
Álex doesn’t say it, but it’s a near miss. He wants to grab Valentino by the shoulders all of the sudden, to shake him and force him to see it, see what he’s done to his brother, punish him for the way he’s treated Marc, punish him for the fact that even though Álex didn’t know what he was asking and didn’t know what the right answer was, Valentino gave it. He gave the right answer with his wide eyes and messed-up hair and worn shirt, with his chapped lips and his shaking hands that look a lot like how Álex’s did earlier that day. He gave the right answer with the way he reminds Álex of himself, of how he’d looked in the hospital at Franky’s side, at Marc’s.
Álex hates him more for it, maybe.
“Stay here,” he says.
Valentino watches Álex disappear back into his motorhome and tries to stop the shudder that wants to wrack through his body. He’s not sure that he succeeds.
He’s confident, all of the sudden, that the hospital did let Marc leave. That he’s in Álex’s motorhome, just a thin wall away from Vale, and that Álex is talking to him right now, asking if he wants to see him.
The idea that he might be sent away now that he's so close is unbearable.
His breath catches in his throat when the door opens again. It’s Álex, looking tired and resigned but also like he understands something that Valentino can’t even place his finger on, not even if he tried.
“If you hurt him,” he warns lowly, “I will kill you.”
Valentino believes him. Álex and Marc are close in a way few siblings are, have a connection that’s hard to understand just by looking at them from the outside. He doesn’t care all that much about the threat of murder hanging over his head, though, because if Álex is threatening him, then that means…
“Go,” Álex says, then lets Valentino slip past him into the motorhome.
The door closes behind him with an unsettling amount of finality. It’s lucky he doesn’t jump.
Álex’s motorhome isn’t a mess, but it isn’t spotless, either. It’s lived-in, Valentino would say, with an opened energy drink sitting next to the sink that two plates call home, a pillow lying sideways on the small couch, and an Italian translation of Pride and Prejudice on the similarly-sized coffee table next to it. That’ll be Franky’s, then. He’s still not sure how he feels about all that, if he’s honest.
A voice calls out from somewhere in the motorhome.
“Valentino?”
It’s a sick echo of what Marc had said in Álex’s arms, barely conscious. Valentino hates the way it feels like a plunge into icy water.
He’s helpless to do anything but turn towards the sound, following it like a siren’s call through a small doorway into where the bed is, in a small and cramped and suffocating room.
In the middle of the bed lay Marc, whose eyes are open.
Who’s sitting up.
Who’s breathing.
Valentino starts breathing, too, maybe for the first time since Marc was thrown into the gravel.
They look at each other for a split second, for an eternity. Time shortens, stretches, goes backwards and slingshots forwards again. The air between them feels like a rubber band that’s about to snap.
“Marc,” Valentino says. It’s all he can remember how to say, and he would feel mad at the way Marc seems to have found an upper hand on him even now, but he’s in front of him and alive and looking at him, and that has his entire focus.
Marc's eyes are unreadable as he takes Valentino in, assesses his presence and what it means.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
Valentino doesn’t answer him, not fully.
“You crashed.” You crashed, and the world stopped spinning when you didn’t move. When I realized that everything between us might have finally reached an end, and I hated the thought more than I was ever able to make myself hate you.
Marc’s face is blank, impassive, and he blinks calmly. Calculating, even when injured.
“I crash a lot.”
“Yes. But you usually get up afterwards.”
Valentino’s response pulls him up short. He pauses, and Vale can see him weighing words behind his eyes, planning which steps to take and in what direction, always thinking thinking thinking.
“Why do you even care?” He’s defensive now. Vale can’t really blame him, not after the past decade or so.
But Valentino cares because he’s always cared. Even when he had himself convinced that he hated Marc, there was always some sort of emotion that went with seeing him crash. If there’s something he’s never felt about Marc, it’s indifference.
There’s something about the question, though, the way Marc had asked it, that makes him stop. Consider.
“Do you know everything that happened?” Vale asks, suspicious.
“I highsided,” Marc replies. It’s straight-forward and clinical like it doesn’t even matter. “It threw me into the gravel and I was knocked out. Álex found me and got my helmet off, and then I was given First Aid. I woke up when the ambulance came, went to the hospital, and now I’m here. You still haven’t actually answered any of my questions, by the way.”
Valentino shakes his head, dazed.
Marc doesn’t know. He has no idea.
No wonder he can’t figure out the reason for Valentino being here, despite him thinking so hard that his thoughts are clearly going at speeds faster than the sport they both love so much.
“You didn’t—” Vale stops, tries again when it comes out wrong. “You woke up before the ambulance came, too. Just for a second.”
Marc frowns. “Are you sure? How would you even know?”
Because everyone saw it, he wants to say. Everyone saw how Marc still thinks of Valentino all the time, even after almost dying. The thought is… certainly something, something that Valentino isn’t sure whether he wants to run at or away from, because it’s like looking in a mirror and seeing a perfect image reflected back. He always has Marc on his mind; Marc always has Valentino on his. It’s just the way things are.
“It was broadcast over the entire circuit,” he says instead.
Being around Marc is like a pure shot of adrenaline to his veins. It’s affecting him more now than it used to, making his blood run a little faster and making him think thoughts he probably shouldn’t, thoughts about parallel lines and reflections and a name spitted in hatred at the press, the contrast of that with a name whispered as a question on the side of a track. Valentino blames it entirely on the close proximity.
“Was it really?” Marc sounds a little bewildered, thrown off his feet. It only lasts long enough for him to catch sight of Vale’s expression and narrow his eyes, still too good at reading him even now. “You are not telling me everything.”
No, he’s not.
“You said my name,” Valentino murmurs. “You were barely awake, but you still said my name.”
He’s expecting disbelief, an enraged tirade, an accusation of being dishonest. For Marc to have some visceral reaction to the news that he asked for Vale when he was at his weakest, some kind of reaction that would make anyone other than Valentino flinch away and avoid eye contact.
What he is not expecting is for Marc to sigh, for his shoulders to slump, for him to raise his eyes to the ceiling like he’s resigning himself to an undeniable piece of truth.
“Of course,” he says dryly.
Vale blinks. A derisive resignation does not fit in line with the version of Marc he knows. Just about anything else would, but the non-reaction surprises him and is maybe the most frustrating thing Marc could’ve done.
“What do you mean, “of course”?”
Marc laughs, and the sound is so hollow that it rings through the motorhome like an odd echo.
“I always say your name, Valentino.”
Marc's had a weird day. He'd woken up aiming for pole, then crashed. He'd been knocked unconscious and the entire thing, it seems, had been filmed. He'd gone to the hospital, went to Álex's motorhome, had fallen asleep in order to avoid seeing memories from two different crashes flicker behind his brother's eyes, all while ignoring the pain in his head and his left wrist. A hand on his shoulder, accompanied by Álex's voice, had woken him up. He'd asked a question and Marc had replied, and now Valentino's standing at the edge of the bed and looking at him with wide eyes.
Marc would laugh at it all if he didn't want to look absolutely insane. Or maybe he should just let himself laugh; after all, Valentino's seen worse from him.
Like today, when Valentino's name slipped from his lips yet again.
"You... what?"
Marc smiles bitterly. He's not as surprised at all of this as Valentino is, too used to being informed of the slip-ups he makes when out of it.
That, he realizes, must be what Valentino's here for—to get an answer out of him, then be on his way. Marc finds himself wanting to hold his tongue, to delay the moment Valentino inevitably decides to walk out of the door.
He still wants it after all these years. For Valentino to stay, that is. Álex calls it masochism, and Marc's inclined to agree. He loves this sport even after everything it's taken from him, the hurt it's caused, so is it really surprising that he feels the same kind of sick obsession towards Valentino?
Still, there's a crucial difference between his bike and Valentino, which is that Marc's bike loves him back and, in the end, makes all of the hurt worth it.
Valentino, however... Well, there's a reason Marc's spent a decade resisting the urge to pick up the phone and call him. A decade of honing the skill of closing his eyes every time he sees Valentino's name instead of reading on, of shoving Valentino out the door instead of locking it and refusing to let him leave.
"Álex usually tells me. Afterwards, that is." He shrugs and ignores the way he has to force the words out. "I've lost count of how many times it's happened. A lot, since 2020."
Valentino's face goes through a complicated twist of emotions, a weird spasm of sorts.
"Those crashes didn't knock you out, though," he says, a question in everything but wording and tone.
Marc shakes his head—slowly, because the room will start spinning just a bit if he goes too fast. "No, but... there was anesthesia. For the surgeries. Other, stronger stuff, too. I didn't think straight. And after the surgeries, in my sleep. Among other things."
He reminds himself that the honesty is necessary to get Valentino out as soon as possible, to be done with this whole thing. He shouldn't have let Valentino into the motorhome, is the truth of it, but he did, and now he just has to deal with him leaving again.
Valentino nods, shoves his hands into his pockets awkwardly. His eyes dart to the side where the door out of the bedroom is, and Marc steels himself for what's coming next—the weak excuse and self-dismissal, followed by the sound of a door closing as he leaves.
"Do you," Valentino says, and clears his throat. His eyes latch back onto Marc's, as piercing blue as always."Why do you say it?"
The words are like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head.
Valentino was supposed to leave, to take Marc's brutal honesty and get out.
But he's still here.
Marc is no longer sure how to play this game anymore, how to walk the fine balance between doing what's necessary when it comes to Valentino—closing his eyes, not calling—and doing all the things he shouldn't. Maybe he crossed it a long time ago.
He definitely crossed it a long time ago.
"Why do you care?" It comes out too raw. He purses his lips, stops himself from uselessly trying to take it back. He changes the question. "Why are you even here, Valentino?"
Valentino meets his gaze again. His eyes are so, so blue.
"Why did you let me in the motorhome?"
Because I can't stay away from you, even if I know better.
Valentino's response isn't an answer, not really, but it is. It is.
Marc's going to be sick.
"You don't mean that."
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."
Marc opens his mouth, closes it. Tries to remember every habit he's forced himself to learn regarding Valentino in the past decade and comes up short, because Valentino is here.
Valentino is here with his blue eyes and familiar evasiveness, telling Marc that he still cares, at least in some capacity, and he's not walking out. That counts for something. That counts for a lot of somethings.
Marc opens his mouth again, convoluted emotions and painful memories and honest words all coating the back of his throat, but a phone call interrupts him before he can speak. It rings out through the small space and shatters the weird, intimate air that had come over the two of them, undoing everything in the space of a second.
Marc’s never hated anything more.
He watches as Valentino frowns and pulls his phone out of his pocket. When he sees the name on the screen, his face shutters, gets closed off. It’s too familiar.
“I have to, ah…” he says, fumbling for words.
Marc waves him off, shaking his head. Of course. Of course he has to take a phone call right when they’re finally getting somewhere. It’s so typical that he can hardly breathe, Valentino getting uncomfortable when things get too real and creating any out, taking any out available.
Valentino squints at him, maybe wondering why he’s acting the way he is, but he picks up the call anyways. He barely manages to greet whoever’s on the other line before the other person is rattling off something that’s impossible for Marc to hear, Valentino’s face growing more and more irritated as the conversation continues.
“Now?” he asks, impatient.
He makes a displeased noise at the long-winded response, opening his mouth to start speaking several times and always being forced to close it again when the other person keeps talking. Marc watches it all from his place on the bed, every micro-expression and flicker of annoyance that crosses Valentino’s face, and tries not to hate every cell phone that has ever been created.
Valentino finally gets off the call with a displeased look, pocketing the device like he’s being burned by it.
“They want me back at the garage,” he says.
Marc breaks eye contact.
“Right.”
“There’s a problem with the sponsors.” It’s offered up somewhat desperately.
Marc hadn’t asked, but he’d been given an answer, anyway, even though he doesn’t particularly care, because leaving is leaving. He was stupid to think that this little visit from Valentino could end any differently.
“Sure,” he says. It’s flat and it’s short and he’s still looking anywhere other than Valentino—the bedspread, the wall, the wood outlining the doorframe.
“I should probably go now.”
“Okay.”
Valentino’s footsteps sound most familiar when they’re walking away from him. He tries not to feel anything about it and fails miserably, so he stares at the bedspread and begins counting the lines there instead. He should probably thank Álex for having such an interesting pattern, except he doubts that Álex would be pleased to hear that yes, this is what I stared at as Valentino left without so much as a goodbye.
Abruptly, the footsteps stop.
Marc’s head jerks up.
Too fast. The room spins, and when it stops, Valentino’s has paused in the doorway that leads out to the rest of the motorhome, back to Marc as his hand rests on the doorframe. He turns around.
In his eyes is a complicated mix of emotions. Fear, like there had been in Álex’s. Regret, maybe at the past ten years. Beneath it all is something else, too, something that Marc recognizes from when he looks in the mirror some days.
“Your phone number,” Valentino says. “I don’t have it.”
No, he doesn’t. That was very deliberate on Marc’s part, one of the habits he’d forced himself to learn. Don’t allow Valentino that kind of access, it’ll only end badly. And don’t allow yourself to have that kind of access to him, because rule number one of not picking up the phone was having no number to dial if he did.
But Valentino had asked a question, yet again managing to ask without actually asking, and was waiting for a response.
Marc thinks about so many different things. About 2013, 2014. The ranch visit, how frosty Valentino had been after it, how it’d left Marc spiralling. 2015. The years after where they did nothing but hurt each other. The habits he’d ingrained into his head, how he’d cried when he’d blocked Valentino, the way Álex had been so worried. 2020 and the years after that, when he’d say Valentino’s name over and over without meaning to, always thinking of him even when he wasn’t thinking at all.
At the end of the day, though, Marc’s always been the one in control of how much contact he has with Valentino. He was the one who decided to block him. He was the one who trained himself to not call. He was the one who allowed Valentino into the motorhome.
If Valentino has his number, all of that changes. Valentino will be the one to decide when he calls Marc first. Maybe he’ll decide to never call him, this temporary and unexpected truce they’ve built between them not lasting outside of this room. Marc isn’t sure how he’d deal with that, if it happened.
Valentino must notice his hesitation.
“Please,” he says, and it sounds so unfamiliar in his mouth that Marc can do nothing but stare. “You said my name. Give me a chance to say yours.”
A chance. That’s all he’s asking for.
But it’s so much more than that. It’s a potential opening up of years of hurt, a potential to get hurt even worse than before. The potential to have to relearn how to forget Valentino, if they decide to try to fix things and it ends up going horribly wrong. But it also has the potential to be the start of something.
He’s spent so long going back and forth on Valentino, on how to think about him, how to treat him. Never calling but still letting him into the motorhome when asked, a mix of emotions resulting in mixed signals. Maybe it’s time he fully commits one way or another.
Marc makes his decision.
Hours later, Marc is sitting on the couch when the door opens.
It’s Álex, of course, because this is his motorhome, even if Marc was the primary one using it today. It’s Álex’s in the way there are touches of him all around, a Gresini-blue hat there, a black-and-white polaroid of him and Franky there. It’s his in the way he enters, a tired yet satisfactory look on his face.
“Congratulations,” Marc says, grinning. “Pole position.”
Álex smiles back, wide and happy. “Thanks.”
It had been something, watching Álex on the TV and hoping against hope that he’d be the one to secure pole. He’s never actively rooted for his main competition in a title fight before, but it’s Álex. Of course this title fight is different from all the others that have come before it.
“No problem,” he replies. “Just as long as it doesn't affect the standings too much.”
Álex rolls his eyes at the grin on his face, knowing he’s not being serious. They are competitors, fierce ones, and always aim to be the best, yet somehow don’t have it in them to be cruel to one another. Before anything else, they are brothers.
“I hate you,” Álex says. It’s in no way convincing, and Marc’s cackling as Álex collapses onto the couch beside him.
“Somehow, I don’t believe that.”
Álex just groans exhaustedly.
It’s understandable that he feels that way after the day they’ve had, so Marc stands up, knowing Álex probably just wants to stay there and do nothing else for the next hour or so.
“Do you want anything?” he asks as he wanders into the little kitchen to find a glass. He looks back over to the couch to see Álex sprawled along the length of it, like the weight of the entire day is finally hitting him.
“Water,” he mumbles, eyes closed.
Marc hums back in response, finding the cabinet with the glasses and pulling two out, avoiding using his left hand all the while. He fills the first easily, and he’s just about to fill the second when his phone rings from his pocket.
He almost drops the glass into the sink.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Álex’s curious head pop up from the couch, tilted to the side in question. Marc shakes his head at him in shocked dismissal, and he sets the glass off to the side. His hand is trembling as he sets it down.
He fishes his phone out, looks at the screen. It’s an Italian number.
He takes a deep breath in. Another. His lungs expand and constrict in his chest, slow and long, as his finger hovers over the screen.
Before he can think too much about it, he hits accept.
“Hello,” a familiar accent says. It simultaneously feels exactly and nothing like how Marc imagined it, exactly and nothing like how it’s been running through his head ever since the motorhome door closed and he’d been left alone.
“Hello,” he says back, a beat late.
“I was not sure if you would pick up.” It’s an admission, more honest than Marc is used to.
“And you still called anyway?”
“I still called anyway,” Valentino confirms. It leaves Marc breathless, because how many leaps of faith had Valentino taken today? One, in showing up at the motorhome. Two, in asking for his number. Three, in actually calling. It’s the amount of effort, of trying, that is making it hard for him to breathe. “I believe I owe you something, after all.”
Marc ignores Álex’s questioning glance, the confusion in his eyes at hearing only one end of the conversation. He’ll explain later. For now, Valentino is right. Marc still has something to collect.
“Well?” he prompts, heart jackrabbiting in his chest. “Go on. Say it.”
It’s been a long time since he’s heard Valentino say his name with anything but hate, anything but anger. Since Valentino has said his name and it hasn’t made him flinch.
But it used to be different. Before everything, before all of the misunderstandings and bad communication and mutually-drawn blood, his name had been Valentino’s favorite word, and it had shown from the way he said it. Like it was something to be treasured, protected.
Like it was something to be loved.
“Marc,” Valentino says.
The world stops spinning. Or maybe it’s just that it’s been paused in time for the past decade, ever since that fateful press conference at Sepang, and has just started spinning again, leaving Marc reeling at the sudden resumption of movement.
His name on Valentino’s tongue doesn’t sound the same. Of course it doesn’t, after all they’ve been through—it’s more filled with the echoes of regret, now, and a thousand different memories. But the fundamentals are still there. There’s still that base that he recognizes from a long time ago, and underneath it all is the same undercurrent of hope that he now feels, too.
More than that, Marc can see it for what it actually is.
A beginning.