Chapter Text
Franco Colapinto was not supposed to be this kind of person.
He was supposed to be focused. Grounded. Ready for the whirlwind of his rookie year with both feet on the ground and zero distractions.
Instead, he was charming his way through media days with poorly timed jokes, losing track of which engineer had his telemetry, and accidentally falling headfirst into an emotional crisis over Lando Norris.
He was chaos. High-energy, late-to-every-briefing chaos. He kept forgetting his water bottle. He once called a tire compound “delicious” in front of three team principals. He was the kind of rookie people found endearing until they had to share a sim session with him and realized he talked through the whole thing.
And still, none of that prepared him for what happened in Barcelona.
Lando Norris smiled at him. That’s it. That’s the event. That’s the moment his mental OS crashed.
It had been nothing. A flash of a grin in the paddock, shared with a casual, “Nice lap, mate,” before Lando jogged off like he hadn’t just rewired someone’s central nervous system.
Franco, to his credit, managed to say “Thanks” before turning into a human error code for the next hour.
Later, alone in his hotel room, he laughed. A lot. Maybe hysterically. Maybe into a pillow. He wasn’t proud.
Lando had smiled—like he always smiled. But this one felt like something else. Like a dare. Like an inside joke he didn’t remember being told. Like maybe, just maybe, Lando saw something in him worth teasing.
Franco didn’t sleep that night. He stared at the ceiling and tried not to imagine a future where he got to see that smile again.
He failed.
He found AO3 the same way a lot of people did: by accident and with absolutely no understanding of the consequences.
The tab was still open from some late-night search for pre-season interviews. He’d Googled "lando norris interview 2024" because he had no self-control and an inflated sense of subtlety. Somewhere in the results, someone had posted a link with the caption: *"Not Lando saying 'I'd totally date a driver' and expecting us not to spiral."
Franco clicked.
The site was plain. White background. Red header. Clean text. He thought it was a blog. Then he saw the title:
"Dirty Air, Soft Hands (Lando/Franco, 6.1k, Pining, Mutual Yearning, Bed Sharing AU)"
He closed the tab. Then opened it again. Then stared at the tags until his heart stuttered.
Pining. Mutual Yearning. Bed Sharing.
He clicked. He read. He forgot to breathe.
The fic was about him.
Well—not him him. It was a fictional Franco. But somehow, also him. One who made Lando tea after late-night sim sessions. Who shared hotel rooms and racing secrets. Who blushed and teased and eventually, one rain-soaked night in Spa, got kissed breathless against a window.
The author described things no one should know: the cadence of his voice when he got nervous, the way he tugged on his race suit collar during red flags, how he bit the inside of his cheek when Lando was near.
Franco sat there in the dark, under the covers, his phone dangerously hot against his palm, and read the whole thing in one go.
When it ended—with a whispered "finally" and fingers interlaced under hotel sheets—he didn’t move for five minutes.
He was doomed.
He didn’t tell anyone.
Of course he didn’t. He had an image. Sort of. He was still building one, technically. And this wasn’t exactly what the team PR had in mind when they told him to be relatable.
Except he didn’t stop.
He searched his name. Just to see.
The results were… not zero.
Most were Lando/Oscar. A few Lando/Carlos. Daniel made frequent appearances. But scattered among the grid's chaotic love pentagons were a few stories that paired Franco with Lando . Not many. But enough.
Enough to read them all. Some twice. Enough to start noticing patterns.
In the fics, Franco was soft. Observant. The steady one. Lando was all noise and nerves and chaos barely held together by McLaren orange. And Franco—fic Franco—held him like an anchor. Or maybe a lighthouse. He didn’t save him. But he saw him.
The weird part? He started to believe it.
He wanted to believe it.
So he started writing.
It wasn’t supposed to be a big thing.
Just a scene. A maybe. A little AU where Lando and Franco were stuck in a hotel during a storm in Imola and had to share a room. Two beds. But the power cuts. And the heating fails. And the fics had taught him what came next.
He uploaded it under a fake name. No tags that would draw attention. Just a quiet little post titled: "Storm Delay"
He didn’t expect anyone to read it. Or comment. Or subscribe. But they did. Comments rolled in. Little hearts. Words like:
"You write Lando so well."
"Franco being the emotionally intelligent one? Yes please."
"The tension in the dark! The almost kiss!! I’m SCREAMING."
He read every comment twice. Some three times. He hadn’t realized how starved he was to be seen . Even if it was fake. Even if it wasn’t.
Back in real life, things didn’t slow down.
There was a press conference at Silverstone where they put him next to Lando. He almost choked on his own tongue.
Lando was kind. Casual. Too charming for someone with that much power over Franco’s nervous system.
When the moderator asked a question about pre-race rituals, Lando turned to him, grinning.
"Do you have any weird ones, Franco?"
Franco blinked. Thought of the fic where they kissed behind the hospitality tent after a dare.
"I... check my gloves three times. Always three."
Lando laughed. "That’s oddly specific."
Franco shrugged, heat creeping up his neck. "Superstition."
Lando leaned in slightly. Voice lower. "Does it work?"
Franco met his eyes. For one reckless second. "Depends what I’m hoping for."
Lando held the stare just a breath too long. And Franco knew, with horrifying clarity, that he was going to write about this later.
That night, he opened a new document. He named it "Soft Launch" .
The first line was:
Lando knows it’s a bad idea to flirt during press conferences, but Franco keeps doing that thing with his mouth.
He wrote until 3AM. He had an early call yet he didn’t care.
"You look like you haven’t slept in days," Oscar Piastri said, raising an eyebrow as Franco stumbled into the motorhome, hair askew and hoodie half-zipped.
Franco shoved a banana into his mouth and made a noise that might have been a greeting or a slow, internal scream. Hard to tell.
Oscar squinted at him. "Are you... okay?"
"I’m researching," Franco said around a mouthful of fruit.
Oscar blinked. "Researching what, exactly?"
Franco hesitated. Thought about lying. Thought about saying "tyre degradation patterns" or something equally boring.
Instead, he mumbled, "Lando."
Oscar's face did a slow, glorious evolution: confusion, followed by suspicion, followed by something dangerously close to knowing.
"I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that," he said. "Because if I ask questions, I’ll get answers, and I feel like I don’t want them."
Franco grinned. "Smart."
But the truth sat heavy in his chest. Because it wasn’t just research. It was obsession. Not in a creepy way, he hoped. Just... constant. Lando’s laugh, the way he kicked his heel against the floor when he was fidgety, how he sometimes squinted at his phone like it owed him money. It all stuck in Franco’s head like gum.
That night, he opened another document.
"Midnight Pitstop."
It started with a line: Lando can’t sleep the night before qualifying, so he calls Franco. Just to talk. Just to hear his voice.
He wrote feverishly. Dialogue spilled from his fingers. Half-flirty, half-unspoken panic. Lando pacing in his hotel room, Franco on speakerphone, the hours dragging on until dawn.
He didn’t even try to make it subtle.
When he hit "Post," he sat back, staring at the screen. He wasn’t even embarrassed anymore. If anything, he felt lighter. Like he could finally say the things he’d never say out loud. Not to Lando. Not to anyone.
The kudos started piling in within an hour. He refreshed the page five times. Then ten.
One comment read:
"This feels like someone’s real insomnia confession. In the best way. Franco is so gentle here. Lando deserves that."
Franco didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So he did both. Quietly. Into his pillow. Like an emotionally constipated raccoon.
The next day, he saw Lando in the paddock.
They weren’t even doing anything special. Just standing beside each other waiting for a media segment to finish. But Lando bumped his elbow lightly against Franco’s and said, "You always that twitchy before qualifying?"
Franco blinked. "What?"
Lando grinned. "You looked like you were going to either sprint or hurl."
"It’s part of my process," Franco said. "You know. Adrenaline."
Lando raised an eyebrow. "Want me to talk you down next time?"
Franco's brain promptly melted. He recovered—barely—and said, "Only if you bring snacks."
Lando’s laugh was all sunlight and teeth. "Noted."
That night, Franco added a scene to his next fic:
Lando shows up at Franco’s door with chocolate bars and zero boundaries.
He didn’t care how obvious it was anymore. He was too far gone.
He didn't mean for it to get this far.
Franco had written six fics in nine days. Six. He hadn't even unpacked his travel bag from the last race, but he had a whole collection of fics titled things like Turn 14 Confession and Post-Race Showers and Emotional Vulnerability.
He even started saving potential prompts in his Notes app. One just read: lando wets hair in sink. franco short-circuits.
Another said: lando calls him "mate" again. writes angst fic out of spite.
It was becoming... a thing. And it was fun. Until it suddenly wasn't.
He didn’t mean to overhear it. Honestly, he was just trying to find his charger.
He was in the McLaren garage lounge area, half-crouched behind a storage bench where he'd dropped his bag, when he heard the sound of Oscar’s voice drift around the corner.
"So wait—you’re actually reading them now? Like, for real?"
Lando's laugh followed. Low. Embarrassed. "I mean, yeah. Kind of. It started as a joke. Then Max sent me that one about Carlos and me. The spa fic. You know the one."
Oscar made a noise of recognition. "The rain locker room blowjob scene?"
"That’s the one," Lando said, with far too much fondness. "It was disturbingly accurate. Like, how do they know how Carlos sounds when he’s being—well. Never mind."
Oscar cackled. "And you read the Daniel ones too?"
"...Yeah. Those hit harder than I expected."
Franco froze.
Every part of him went still, except his heart, which immediately tried to stage a prison break through his ribs. Lando was reading fanfiction. Lando was reading those fanfictions.
And if he kept reading...
There were fics about Lando and Carlos, sure. About Daniel. Even about Max. But tucked between them, creeping up the hit counters, was a modest collection of fics about Lando and someone else.
Franco.
He nearly dropped his phone.
He waited until the footsteps faded and the voices disappeared down the hallway before he dared move. His charger could rot behind the bench. He needed air.
Outside, he paced like a man possessed. He couldn’t remember what he'd written last. Was it the one where they shared a hotel bed? No, the one where Lando got injured and Franco kissed his forehead and confessed everything in a feverish monologue. Or was it the post-race champagne one?
"I’m dead," Franco muttered. "I’m a ghost. I’m going to haunt the Woking wind tunnel."
He opened AO3 on his phone. Typed in his own username like a man searching for his criminal record.
There they were. All of them. Staring him down.
He started editing the tags. Then undoing it. Then re-tagging with increasingly vague phrases like "technically could be anyone" and "no names mentioned but you know who it is."
He closed the app. Opened it again. Closed it again.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. His brain kept looping the sound of Lando saying "disturbingly accurate." And worse—the way he’d said Daniel’s name. Soft. Almost sad.
Franco didn’t want to admit it, but the jealousy was chemical. Fast and stupid and raw. Not because Lando had a history. But because it meant someone else had written him first.
He rolled over in bed and opened a blank doc.
New title:
"What If You Read Me Too?"
He stared at the cursor.
Then, without thinking, he typed:
Lando doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he finds it in a fic he wasn’t meant to read.