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Present Day. The Verstappen-Leclerc Kitchen, 7:46 AM
There’s a half-eaten croissant dangling precariously from Oscar’s mouth as he furiously types into his laptop, every keystroke a declaration of war against time.
“Finals are a social construct,” he mutters, staring at the blinking cursor like it personally offended him.
“You’ve said that three times this morning,” Max calls from the espresso machine, still in silk pajamas, hair a gravity-defying crime scene.
The toaster explodes all of a sudden.
It isn’t the violent, cinematic kind of explosion - more like a dramatic puff of smoke and a yelp from Charles as two perfectly burnt slices of sourdough fly out like disgruntled frisbees.
“Mon Dieu!” he gasps, ducking like a man under siege. “It’s trying to kill me again.”
Oscar doesn’t look up from his laptop. “That’s the third time this week. Maybe stop pressing the hellfire setting?”
Charles glares. “Excuse me for attempting to crisp my carbs.”
Max, now sipping his espresso, scrolls casually through his emails. “I did tell you that toaster is sentient.”
“You did not,” Charles mutters, fanning the air with a French Vogue.
“I implied it.”
Charles groans into a bowl of oatmeal he has no intention of eating as he looked over at their son. “Why is academia still a thing?”
“Because we believe in rigorous intellectual development in this household,” Max replies, swirling his espresso like its vintage red wine.
Oscar points a spoon in his father’s direction. “Says the one who won married a man who won an Olympic medal before finishing high school. And who himself won an Oscar at 24 for writing a screenplay. In his boxers.”
Max grins smugly. “Boxer briefs. There’s a difference.”
Oscar resumed typing. “I swear if my code breaks one more time -”
“You could’ve done liberal arts,” Charles interrupts. “He’s literally you but with brown eyes,” he points at Max, watching his son angrily tap the keyboard like it owes him money. “Except even nerdier. Like how's that even possible? And with more self-worth.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes. “Thanks?”
Charles lifted his head slowly, squinting at his son. “Can’t you just drop out? Become an influencer? Make artisanal candles in Bali?”
“He’s doing a degree in particle physics, liefde.” Max shook his head fondly.
“Exactly. Who needs particles?”
Oscar huffed, “They form the basis of our universe, Papa.”
Max hums proudly. “My DNA.”
Charles dramatically clutches his chest. “I gave you your hair. And aesthetics. Let’s not forget the aesthetics.”
Oscar deadpans. “And the flair for spiraling during exams.”
Before Max can sip, Charles narrows his eyes. “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.”
Max grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Spiraling is, in fact, cardio. Could burn more calories than jogging. Could be a potential research topic.”
Charles shakes his head. “I hate you.”
“You married me.”
Oscar looked at his parents, expression drier than the Sahara, "Still can’t figure out if I should thank or hate you both for my high standards in love.”
Charles leaned over and pressed a kiss to Oscar’s hair. “I hope you fall in love properly someday.”
“Like you and Dad?”
Max raised an eyebrow. “That’s a dangerous aspiration.”
Charles complained to their son, “He chased me.”
Max fake-gasped. “You fell in the pool trying to impress me.”
Charles glared. “I slipped.”
THE Dinner Party - Alex’s Apartment, Eleven Years Ago
Alex had invited everyone with his usual diplomacy and a spreadsheet of allergies. It was supposed to be a casual dinner - artists and athletes, wine and charcuterie, cross-pollination of ambition.
Carlos arrived with Max. They’d been friends for years - Carlos always needed someone to edit his treatments, and Max needed someone to remind him life existed outside of screenplays.
Then they walked in. Two green-eyed brunettes.
Late. Laughing. Hair messily wet.
The curly-haired one was wearing a hoodie that said "Athletes don't cry (except during Pixar movies)."
And the one he’d arrived with? Sun-kissed. Wearing a sleek knit polo and off-white relaxed tapered trousers, a single silver neck chain that peeked from his collar.
Max froze.
Carlos, ever the observer, blinked. “You okay?”
Max only managed to stutter over his words, “Who - Who is that?”
That was when Carlos noticed the duo. “Oh. My. God. Who is he?”
Max looked at Carlos. “Who are you referring to?”
“The green-eyed one, of course.”
“Perked your interest, huh?”
Carlos sipped his champagne smugly. “He seems like a walking distraction with a driver’s license. Probably a headache for life - but the good one.”
Max laughed, exasperated, his heart clawing at the prospect that his best friend was taking an interest in the guy who caught his eye, “There’s no such thing as a good headache, Carlito.”
“Dunno man. It’s something about those lush curls.”
Max took a double turn. “What - ? Curls?”
Carlos looked at him, “Yeah. Look at those curls. Screams trouble.”
That’s when Max even noticed that somebody else had entered alongside the guy he so desperately wanted to get to know.
“Oh”, he exhaled in relief, “the one in that absurd hoodie?”
Carlos seemed to grasp at Max’s confusion now. “Yeah. Oh no – not the other one. Damn, they both have green eyes, huh?”
“You’re right about one thing though”, Max says a bit later, “They scream trouble.”
A couple of minutes later, they came to know that those two were: Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
Charles, Monaco’s golden boy – Olympian and bronze medalist, soon to participate in the 10m individual and synchronized platform diving; Lando – soon to represent Great Britain in 10m synchronized platform diving – at the upcoming Olympics.
A week after the dinner - Canberra Olympic Pool
Max had not meant to fall in love with an Olympian. That was the kind of headline Carlos warned him about over Aperol spritz.
But the moment he saw Charles Leclerc again – this time stepping out of the water - hair slicked back, eyes sharp as victory, complaining in flawless French about “shitty lane assignments” and how the chlorine was “trying to assassinate his cheekbones” -
Max knew that he was doomed.
“Was he drowning?” Max asked flatly, trying to repress the butterflies in his stomach.
Carlos, on his right, didn’t look up from his phone. “He’s not drowning. He’s being dramatic.”
Charles surfaced, spluttering and flinging his goggles at the edge of the pool. “Who the hell put conditioner on the deck?!”
“That’s called moisture, Charles,” Lando replied helpfully, stretching on the side in his Team GB tracksuit.
“I nearly died.”
“You slipped in,” Max pointed out.
Charles turned his head. “You - ! I saw you at Alex’s party. You’re the guy with the pen and the look.”
Carlos snickered. Max simply said, “That’s…one way of describing me.”
Charles, now out of the pool, dripping, and stupidly beautiful, snickered, “If you’re writing some moody piece about pain and perfection, at least get my good side.”
Max smiled, slowly. “I haven’t found it yet.”
Lando choked on his water. Carlos snorted.
“Don’t fall in love,” Lando had warned.
The First Date – Some Sushi Place Carlos Picked (and Lando immediately pretended to hate Carlos for liking sushi)
“It’s not a date,” Charles hissed, looking way too put together for it to not be a date. “We’re just being forced to have dinner because Lando and Carlos are evil.”
Max, adjusting his cufflinks now, snickered. “Totally. Not a date.”
“It’s NOT a date.”
“Then why did you wear cologne?” Max asked, already two miso soups in.
Charles narrowed his eyes. “Because I’m elegant.”
“Sure. It has nothing to do with the fact you Googled: Does Max Verstappen like lavender?”
“Lando told you, didn’t he?”
Max grinned. “Still way better than you having to google me to know who I was.”
Charles sighed, “For the thousandth time, I’m not an avid movie-watcher! I mean - I caught your blue eyes at the party and thought: Who is that?! What better option than Google?”
Max just smiled.
“Stop smiling like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re going to make me fall in love with you.”
Pause.
Max’s voice was barely above a decibel. “Would that be so bad?”
Silence.
Charles blinked, caught off guard.
Max smirked, pouring soy sauce with the precision of a scriptwriter nailing the third act.
Charles muttered into his sashimi, “I hate you. I hate how much I want to like you.”
Max leaned forward. “I already do.”
Charles blinked. “I might be terrible at this.”
Max never stopped smiling that night. “I think I’m going to marry you.”
Two Months After the Not-A-Date Date, Tokyo Hotel Room, Post-Olympic Finals
Charles had come in third. Max found him staring out at the city lights, holding a vending machine canned coffee like it was an emotional support animal.
“I’m tired of chasing golds that hate me,” Charles murmured.
Max sat beside him on the window bench, reached for his hand.
“Then stop chasing them,” he said simply. He let the silence stretch a little before answering. “You don’t have to keep chasing things that hurt you.”
Charles gave a soft exhale, not quite a laugh. “Easy to say.”
“It is,” Max agreed. “Harder to believe. Especially tonight.”
Max then added, almost like a footnote, "I just… I just want you to know that I’m here. I'll always be. If you ever feel like chasing something that stays.”
Charles turned slowly, eyes tired but no longer distant.
“Is that a metaphor,” he said, “or a confession?”
Max smiled faintly. “Both.”
There was a pause. A thousand unsaid things in the air.
“I’m in love with you,” Max finally said, like it was the most obvious line in any film.
Charles stared. "Is the confession part out of pity for me?"
Max, expression sharp, said. "I've done much worse things out of pity. Not this. Will never with you."
Charles, smiling despite himself, leaned in. “I knew from the sashimi.”
Three Months After the Tokyo Olympics - Their Apartment
Max proposed while Charles was trimming basil on the windowsill, wearing nothing but an old Team Monaco Olympics T-shirt.
“I wrote this scene for a movie,” Max said, holding out a ring made from twisted paperclip wire. “But I think it belongs to us.”
Charles snorted. “That’s the ugliest ring I’ve ever seen.”
“Symbolism,” Max said proudly.
“Of what? Poverty?”
“Of permanence.”
Charles stared at him, eyes softening. “You’re serious?”
“Like Oscar Isaac doing Shakespeare.”
Charles raised an eyebrow. “Will I get a real ring?”
“Eventually.”
“Fine. But you’re writing our vows in verse.”
“You hate verse.”
“I hate you more.”
“So… affirmative?”
Charles said yes. Obviously. Then tackled Max to the floor.
One and a Half Years Later - Johns Hopkins Hospital, New Orleans
Charles held him first. Sweaty and exhausted and crying in tandem with their newborn.
Max watched them, feeling a story being written in real time.
“We made a person,” Charles whispered. “He has your ears.”
“And your lungs apparently,” Max added as the baby wailed.
Lando popped his head in. “He’s so loud. Can we call him Charles Jr.?”
Carlos rubbed his forehead. “Absolutely not.”
Max smiled, "We'd already decided on the name."
Charles cooed the baby in his arms, "Our precious little Oscar."
Paris Olympic Games - Final Dive, Men’s 10m Platform
Charles stood tall on the edge of the 10-meter platform, his body a sculpture carved from discipline and defiance.
Below, coaches murmured. Cameras fixated. The scoreboard showed that he needs near-perfection to take gold.
In the stands, Max was clutching their son, Oscar, now two - a blur of curls and oversized noise-cancelling headphones. Oscar clapped randomly, not fully understanding, but sensing something big.
Charles breathes in, his posture impossibly still. The only movement is the quiet roll of his shoulders. No crowd roars at the top; just muffled tension and the occasional whistle of breath from a coach below.
He doesn’t think about the crowd. Not the cameras. Not the medal.
He thinks of Oscar, of the little voice that said “jump” while Max was brushing his teeth. He thinks of the sleepless nights, the long waiting periods after his wrist injury, his dad, and how Max never once told him to give it up - even when the world thought he already had.
Charles breathes in.
Exhales.
Then - he dives.
Time slows.
A triple-twist, double somersault. Every muscle honed. Every line clean.
He slices through the water like he was never human to begin with - more comet than man.
Silence.
Then - an eruption.
Announcer:
“ And it’s a perfect entry! That could be the one that wins it for Charles Leclerc!”
When Charles surfaces, he blinked hard. Not from chlorine. From something heavier.
He swam to the edge. Didn't ask for the scores. Didn't need to.
He looked at his husband who was leaning over the railing, one arm wrapped tightly around their son. Oscar kicked his little legs in Max’s arms and squealed - a chaotic little cheerleader.
Charles saw them, and then it hit. He wiped his face, half-laughing, half-broken, chest rising in huge waves.
The scoreboard flashed.
GOLD: LECLERC, CHARLES; MONACO
His name lit up like constellations.
By the time Charles stepped onto the podium, hair still damp, his medal heavy around his neck, he doesn’t look up.
He just watches Max and Oscar.
And smiles.
The Monaco flag rose. The anthem played.
Charles suddenly realized that he stood on the podium not just as an Olympian, not just a champion, but a father, a partner, a man who dared to jump and never once looked down.
Later when he was done when all the media appearances, he took Oscar is in his arms - giggling, tugging at the ribbon like it’s just another toy.
Max pressed a quiet kiss to Charles’ shoulder from the side, eyes glassy. “You know, you could’ve just won bronze and still impressed us.”
“Yeah,” Charles murmurs, eyes never leaving them, “but this was always for us.”
Eight Years Later, Verstappen-Leclerc Household
The kitchen was in complete disarray. Not the normal post-dinner kind, either. It was more like “mad scientist relocated his lab to a domestic space and then recruited LEGO as his primary funder” chaos.
On the table - or what used to be a table - stood Oscar’s newest creation: a meticulously structured, color-coded LEGO particle accelerator, spanning three cutting boards, a breadbox, and the dog's food mat.
Ten-year-old Oscar stood proudly beside it with messy hair and a peanut butter streak on his chin, wearing a T-shirt that said: “I believe in quantum snacks.”
Charles stepped into the room, barefoot, coffee in hand, eyes still puffy from the early instructor shift at the diving facility.
He doesn't see the loose LEGO micro-quark module on the floor.
He steps.
The world halts. His soul leaves his body.
A sharp, anguished sound escaped him - part scream, part Monégasque existential crisis.
Oscar’s eyes widened. “PAPA! Nooo! That was the antimatter stabilizer!”
Charles hopped in circles, clutching his foot like he’s just taken a titanium diving platform to the sole. Tears threatened the corners of his eyes - not from the pain, necessarily. More from the horror that he might have just destroyed something his son called: the antimatter stabilizer.
Max entered from the hallway, holding a laptop and chewing on a pen cap. He took one look at the scene, then turned slowly and set the laptop down.
“I was trying to write a caption,” he said flatly, “but reality is just… funnier.”
He sat, took a sip from Charles’s forgotten coffee mug, and muttered, “You broke the timeline again, Oscar.”
Just then, the doorbell rang and Carlos Sainz walked in without waiting for an answer, holding a grocery bag.
He stopped in the doorway, stares at the LEGO sprawl, then at Charles - still half-crying on one leg - and deadpanned, “Is this... parenting?”
Charles groaned from the floor. “It’s science,” he wheezes.
Carlos stepped over what looked like a LEGO synchrotron with the delicacy of someone crossing a minefield. He set the grocery bag down and pulls out - of all things - a tub of ice cream and a single avocado. “I brought emotional support."
Moments later, Lando burst in through the back door, helmet hair and enough energy to duel a toddler.
“What did I miss?”
Max pointed calmly. “Charles stepped on antimatter.”
Oscar added, gleeful, “We might implode.”
Lando grins and fist-bumps Oscar. “Legend.”
Hours later, above the kitchen table hung, in fridge-magnet letters:
DO NOT TOUCH THE ACCELERATOR.
Love, Osc.
Seven Years Later, Copenhagen International School
The school auditorium was packed, humming with the usual energy of too-tight caps, wrinkled gowns, and proud parents trying not to cry through phone cameras.
Charles was already dabbing at his eyes with a tissue he pretended not to carry. Max, ever the master of restraint, watched through narrowed eyes, holding back a smile that started to break through the corners.
Oscar had warned them not to make a scene.
And then, he walked up.
Tall. Composed. Slight curl in his dark hair. The quiet self-possession of someone who’s grown up both loved and wildly overstimulated.
He adjusts the mic. Clears his throat.
"Good evening.
I’d like to begin this valedictory address by thanking three key sources of wisdom in my life:
Stanley Kubrick, Richard Feynman... and my parents."
There was a ripple of laughter. Carlos scribbled something in a notebook, muttering about structure and third-act catharsis.
Lando, holding his phone sideways, whispered, "Tell me this doesn’t beat Tokyo..."
Oscar continues, steady but light.
"I learned chaos from my Papa - the kind that builds particle accelerators out of LEGO, wins five Olympic medals, and still forgets where he parked the car.
I learned control from my Dad - the kind of control it takes to win multiple Academy Awards - one time - for directing a screenplay that he wrote in a sleep-deprived haze while I was teething.
I don’t remember that part, but apparently it involved five languages, three coffee machines, and a deleted scene with a horse."
There was a loud snort from Lando. Charles covered his mouth and laughs through tears. Max shifts slightly but doesn’t deny any of it.
Oscar glanced up at his family, warmth cracking through the polish.
“Somewhere in between them, I became me.
I guess what I’m trying to say is… I had no choice but to be curious, loud, overly caffeinated, and in love with the idea of what a person can become.
I’m not perfect. But I’m deeply lucky. And very grateful."
He stepped back to a standing ovation, flashing his parents the smallest smile - just one corner of the mouth, the Verstappen kind.
And from the front row, Charles clutched Max’s hand without even realizing it. Max squeezed once. Doesn’t let go.
Never did.
Present Day
Oscar shuts the laptop. Done. The thesis is finished. The entire house goes silent.
Max looked up. Charles lifted his head from the kitchen counter.
“You finished?” they asked in unison.
Oscar nodded. “I think I need to sleep for three days.”
Charles walked over and kisses the top of his head. “Bienvenue to adulthood.”
Max poured him a celebratory espresso shot. “You know what this means?”
Oscar’s eyes crinkled at its edges. “That I’m free?”
Charles grinned. “That we’re enrolling you in therapy.”
Oscar groans as Max and Charles high-fived.
“I think this household has ruined me. In the best way possible.”
Charles pulls him into a hug. “Welcome to the club.”
Max adds, “We offer complimentary sarcasm and toast fatalities.”
Oscar breathes out, exhausted. And quietly, almost like a thought, “Thanks for... this. All of this. For being who you are.”
Charles squeezes his shoulder.
Max smiles, “Always.”
Just then Max’s phone buzzed from a message from Lando:
Carlos cried during Bridgerton.
Again.
Saying he’ll be a failure of a producer until he gets to cast Jonathan Bailey.
Is this what marriage is?
Oscar laughs, Max rolls his eyes, and Charles opens the champagne at 10.30 AM.