Work Text:
Ten Years Earlier
FRIDAY MORNING – Circuit of the Americas Paddock, Austin, Texas
Vi is going insane.
Maybe it’s the heat from the tarmac, invisible waves rising like a hallucination off the black pavement. That would explain it, of course – the heat’s gone straight to her head.
Austin is like that, right? It’s Texas, so there isn’t really a reprieve from the sun and the heat. Besides, it’s uncharacteristically hot for October and the mercury in its glass beaker (hung off to the side of the pit wall) tells Vi that ninety-one is the likely culprit for her dimming sensibilities. Like, shouldn’t they be doing something about climate change, or whatever?
In any case, it’s easier to blame the heat for the dull creep of sweat down the back of her neck, the breath suspended in an air pocket deep in her lungs. It’s got nothing at all to do with the girl standing in front of her and her stupid gorgeous hair falling like silk and skimming her shoulders, so black it shines blue in the light. Nothing to do with the fact that Vi wants to swipe her dumb aviators off her face and see what color her eyes are underneath and confirm what she already knows: That Caitlyn Kiramman is a teenage lesbian’s dream, and more specifically, she’s Vi’s.
It’s all Vi’s fault for asking Vander about her. He’s always said she wears her emotions too plainly on her face. When she’d elbowed him and pointed out the dark-haired girl across the paddock, he told Vi her name – Caitlyn Kiramman, some young upstart from Oxfordshire racing Formula Three, the star of this year’s Italian Grand Prix. It could’ve ended there, really. She didn’t think Vander would actually drag her over there to introduce the two girls. It’ll be good for you, he’d said, grinning, when Vi knew the opposite was true – this girl would be the death of her, probably.
“Miss Kiramman?” he asks as they reach her, voice booming across the paddock. Vi doesn’t miss the way people glance over and do a double-take at the former McLaren driver now shepherding around some little pink-haired teenager. She cringes, rubbing her upper arm self-consciously.
“Dad,” she grumbles under her breath. “She’s busy .”
“I’m not, actually.” Caitlyn Kiramman looks up from her phone and smiles, and Vi freezes in place. There’s a tiny gap in between her front teeth. “Just reviewing some tire strategy notes from my race engineer ahead of free practice. It’s Vander Warwick, right?”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Vander wrings her hand. Vi continues to pray for death. “Terrific performance at Monza. Alpine must really have their eyes on you, if they know what’s good for ‘em.”
Caitlyn’s smile widens, but all she says is, “well, we’ll see.”
“And this is my daughter Violet, by the way.” He gestures toward Vi, a nervous wreck in the shape of a girl. “She’s a Red Bull Junior. They’ve got her out here test driving today. Real honor.”
Sure, it’s an honor , but it’s nothing compared to driving for Formula 3. Vi fights against rolling her eyes. Caitlyn Kiramman has some kind of dream life. She must be a prodigy. Or a nepo baby. Maybe both.
“That’s wonderful, Violet.” Caitlyn extends her hand, and Vi takes it, heart hammering against her ribcage. She’s hated her full name forever, it’s too girly, it’s a flower for god’s sake, but she wants to hear Caitlyn say it again and again. She doesn’t correct her, just takes her hand. Caitlyn’s skin is soft and cool in the oppressive Austin heat.
Vi shrugs, fighting to appear nonchalant. “It’s a step in the right direction, at least.”
Vander chuckles. “Don’t be fooled, Caitlyn. She started yapping about how excited she was to get into a Red Bull car the minute we took off from Heathrow. Doubt she’ll sleep tonight.”
“Dad,” Vi says again, shooting him an incredulous look that he misses.
“Oh, that’s right! You’ll have been living in Milton Keynes, yeah?” Caitlyn turns her full attention to Vi, who can see her reflection in those damn sunglasses. “How are you finding it?”
“Wet,” Vi says immediately, and then coughs. “Um, like, it’s really rainy.”
“It is, that.” She laughs. Caitlyn’s accent is finishing-school polished, surprisingly deep and a little raspy. Walking away from her feels impossible, but she’s got work to do, and so does Vi, if she can ever pull herself together again.
Back in the Red Bull garage, Vi is fighting to recover when a hefty shoulder nudges against her and a blush creeps back up her cheeks. Vi panics and looks over – shit, had she been thinking out loud? She’d entirely forgotten that Vander was even there.
He doesn’t miss a beat. Just cocks a mischievous smile under his speckled beard and, oh my god, he is giving her the absolute worst, knowing stare.
She wants to die.
“What’s on your mind, kiddo?”
Vi racks her brain for anything to ask that doesn’t have to do with Caitlyn Kiramman. She could ask about their plans to collaborate with Toro Rosso, or what the team dynamic is like under Sejuani’s leadership. Is it true she’s thinking of changing teams next year because of tensions between her and Ashe?
“Is it just me, or is it a little insulting that they’re limiting the rev band?”
Vander cracks a cool smile, wiping sweat from his brow.
“They probably watch your Instagram stories and thought you were too damn noisy,” her little sister Powder calls from just outside the garage. Her hair hangs loose in two wavy pigtails and she’s getting up in some Red Bull mechanic’s face, grilling him about the car in front of him.
Vi calls back, “if they did, they would have never invited me!”
“Whoever decided you were fit for a driver’s license is beyond me.” Vander winks at her, chuckling. “Don’t worry, Vi, they’re just testing how you do under pressure, how you handle the car. Besides, it's not abnormal on test drives – I’m sure they can’t wait to unleash you on the grid like a bat out of hell one day.”
“Ew, you still listen to that Meatloaf crap?” Vi sticks her tongue out dramatically, pretending to gag.
“Hey now,” Vander pats Vi’s back, good-natured, even as she rolls her eyes. “Meatloaf was the voice of my generation.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.”
FRIDAY AFTERNOON – Red Bull Garage, Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas
After her test drive, Vi feels like she’s walking on cloud nine. The crew is all sharing excited nods, asking her endless questions about everything from steering to aerodynamics.
“Did the ERS perform as expected on the straightaways?”
“Yeah, better actually. Great kick out of turn 11.”
“How confident were you in the tires on the final sector?”
“A bit of lateral movement mid-corner, but nothing unpredictable.”
“How was handling through the esses?”
“Coulda pushed harder if someone didn’t nerf the revs.”
And so on, through bouts of laughter and serious head nods while the engineers jotted down notes. Ultimately, the Red Bull team seemed beyond pleased with the data Vi’s helped gather, and her feedback after the fact. Vander looks on proudly, Powder’s eyes are beaming with pride at her older sister, and Vi can feel herself smiling ear to ear. It feels good, she thinks, accomplishing what she came here to accomplish. One step closer to making a name for herself. One step closer to being where Caitlyn Kiramman is, with a team working her way up through the divisions. Vi’s heart races as she pictures them on a podium together.
When the team is done gathering intel, Vi thanks them for their time and the opportunity. She fist bumps and high-fives now-familiar faces and heads out of the garages feeling absolutely unstoppable. Feeling like a future racer for Team Red Bull.
Stopping outside of the garages, Vi places her helmet back over her head and snaps a quick photo, gloved hands making a small heart with her thumb and index finger.
@racerv keep your eyes on the grid – *terminator voice* i’ll be back
#TeamRedBull #RedBullRacing #COTA
After pulling her helmet back off, she slings a backpack over her shoulder and sets off through the paddock.
“Nice driving, Warwick.”
Vi spins around, nearly tripping as she makes eye contact with Caitlyn Kiramman. She’s leaning leisurely against a concrete barrier, arms crossed over her chest. Caitlyn says nothing about Vi almost eating the curb – she’s too well-mannered for that, surely – but her lips pull to the side, a confident smile searing its way into the back of Vi’s eyelids. Caitlyn’s still wearing her sunglasses, but she folds them up, placing them in her back pocket and blinks once, twice. Vi thinks of oceans, of priceless crystals, of Alpine blue.
Too stunned to speak, Vi manages a small nod.
“Keep working hard,” Caitlyn continues, eyes glittering mischievously. “I’d love to race you someday.”
Suddenly it doesn’t matter if Vi shakes hands with hundreds of people this weekend who can change her life with the swipe of a pen. As a familiar warmth creeps up her neck to her cheeks, all she can think about is Caitlyn Kiramman and her blue eyes.
SATURDAY MORNING – Circuit of the Americas Paddock, Austin, Texas
Caitlyn had heard whispered rumors about Violet Warwick – Vander’s prodigy, a shoo-in for the Red Bull junior team, if those rumors were to be believed. And they were, she decided, valid rumors. She’d made it a point to catch Violet in Free Practice, finding herself curious about the Team Red Bull test driver from Milton Keynes. If she’d been asked after seeing that session if Vi had a future in Formula One, Caitlyn would have gone on record betting that one day, a future championship would come down to the two of them.
Vi had handled the Red Bull car like it was a part of her. A bit rough around the edges, perhaps, but with obvious promise. Pure natural talent, tempered by passion and dedication. Having watched Vi on the track, Caitlyn doesn’t feel so much a stranger to her now.
She’s always felt there were two types of racers: the ones who love to drive and the ones who were driven. Driven to greatness, to challenge space and time, bend reality and fight gravity. Unstoppable.
Vi was driven. They had that in common.
Afterward, she’d found Vi in the garages, watched her talking strategy with the team, give her feedback on the car – the fire and passion palpable in her features as she nodded along focused and sure of herself. She was bulkier than most drivers their age, lean and muscular, not so tall that it puts her at a disadvantage. She’s definitely attractive, Caitlyn thinks now, before stuffing the thought back down to whatever dark corner it escaped from.
Five minutes after telling Violet she’d love to race her someday, Caitlyn had pulled out her phone and done a cursory Google search. Normal , she’d told herself – normal to want to learn about your potential rivals, normal to scope out your professional peers. What wasn’t normal, probably, was the speed at which Caitlyn had followed her Instagram, scrolled through all 1,500+ absolutely unhinged posts, and looked up everything about her stats from karting to a brief stint in rally. It’s how she learned that she goes by Vi rather than Violet (why hadn’t she told Caitlyn this earlier?), that she has a thirteen-year-old sister who follows her everywhere, that she loves ramen and cat memes and typing without proper punctuation. It’s not like Caitlyn is obsessed, and, truthfully, hyperfixation isn’t out of the norm for her anyway. She’s merely curious. Interested. Especially since Vi still hasn’t followed her back. Not that she’s paying attention to that.
It was no wonder Red Bull had scouted Vi: she was all rough edges and raw speed. A dangerous talent, a hothead and a risk taker. By comparison, Caitlyn was calculated and decisive. She executed with precision and planning – not by intuition. On paper, the two of them were complete opposites. So why, then, did Caitlyn feel so drawn to this girl she barely knew? Why was she being haunted by the feeling that their paths were meant to intersect?
Snapping back to the present, Caitlyn shakes her head to clear her thoughts as she completes the formation lap. If there’s one time that zoning out and thinking about a girl could have catastrophic consequences, it’s whipping around a racetrack at 320 km/h. Checking in with her race engineer, she dials in with a steady and measured breath and comes to a stop on the grid in pole. Caitlyn does a mental lap of the circuit.
Unfortunately, Violet Warwick exists, so things do not go well.
She’d started in pole position, lost first almost immediately at the start to P2 – who has the better starting position on COTA – and managed to defend second for a good portion of the race only to brake earlier into turn twelve than she’d meant to, giving an opening to her opponent to go around the outside for the overtake. When she’d tried to push out of the corner to make up the time, she almost made contact and was in her head the rest of the race wondering what Vi must have thought of her now.
Would she wait for Caitlyn outside of the garages as she’d done for her? Or would she realize Caitlyn was a no-talent privileged hack with a family fortune that bought her access to something Vi wanted more than anything else in the world: a spot on a junior formulae racing team?
Sure enough, Vi is nowhere to be found. When Caitlyn heads to the cooldown room, she’s in no mood to socialize, much less celebrate.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON – Alpine Pit Garages, Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas
It takes all of Vi’s courage to speak to Caitlyn again when she finds her after podiums. Caitlyn is hunched over, rummaging through a duffel and looking positively flustered. She’s nothing like the image Vi’s come to associate with her with through passing glances this weekend. Caitlyn’s been nothing if not polished and cool-tempered. Her perfectly curated Instagram (that Vi is still too nervous to follow back) is completely unlike Vi’s – who’s popular purely because fans find her specific style of chaos ‘memeable’. The notable difference of sponsors between them is unmistakeable. Now, though, Caitlyn looks more like a shaken-up mongoose.
“I’d say congrats, Kiramman, but you don’t look too thrilled.” She wants to sound sure of herself, to exude confidence like Caitlyn did back in the paddock, but then she remembers Caitlyn’s eyes and her laugh and her voice comes out wavery, almost small.
Caitlyn doesn’t look at her, but the shuffling stops instantly. Vi clicks her lips and mouths ‘okay,’ deciding to approach the now-feral girl. Caitlyn’s eyes are hidden behind her bangs, falling into her face, hair tie loose in the back. When she finally turns to watch Vi over her shoulder, Vi gulps just low enough that only she can hear it, thank god. Instead of looking surprised to see her, Caitlyn just scoffs and turns back around.
“Yes, well, P3 isn’t really doing anything for me.”
Vi frowns. “You’re pissed about a podium finish? Seriously ?”
“Would you be happy about anything less than first?” Caitlyn turns now, barely taller than Vi, and puts her hands on her hips. It’s a question, but she doesn’t give Vi the chance to respond. “If I want to move up to F2 on my own, first is my only option.”
Something tugs at the back of Vi’s throat, ragged and raw. The urge to comfort her is there, unmistakable, familiar as an old favorite sweater, because that’s what she does. She comforts, she fixes, she carries the weight of the world. The only problem is she doesn’t know Caitlyn Kiramman. Not beyond a handshake and a social media account, anyway. Before she can stop herself, Vi wonders what makes Caitlyn feel better when she’s down. A hug? A joke? A cupcake with icing and sprinkles, and marble swirl, and –
“Oh come on, cupcake, you’re a Kiramman.” Vi takes another step forward, stuffing her hands in her pockets and raising an eyebrow, false bravado summoning a chuckle from her throat. “ Pretty sure you’ll have the funds to race if you lose a couple points toward a championship.”
Caitlyn shoots her an incredulous look at the nickname. The hint of a blush creeps in and Vi’s close enough now to see the small gap in Caitlyn’s teeth and the blue sparkle of her eyes in the dim garage light and holy shit she is the most beautiful girl Vi’s ever seen. In Vi’s brain a buzzer sounds as she reaches a hand out toward Caitlyn’s shoulder: warning, warning! What the hell are you doing? You barely even know this girl.
“You don’t understand…” Caitlyn ducks away from her outstretched hand, reality crashing back down around her. Vi’s shoulders drop.
Right, you barely know her.
“All my parents want to do is control my career, trying to open up pathways before I even have the chance to earn them. Fund my races and invest in my teams so they can handpick where I go and what I do and wear and – UGH.” Caitlyn shakes her hands in the air. “You don’t know what it feels like!”
And she sure as hell doesn’t know you.
“No.” Vi bites down hard on her lip. Venom on her tongue, feeling like an idiot for thinking she could help. Thinking that she could be friends with this girl, that Caitlyn might be different from all the other prissy rich kids that dominate this sport. “I guess I wouldn’t understand because my parents are dead.”
Caitlyn’s face shifts suddenly, stunned.
“Vi, I’m sorry, I– I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you know. My parents were poor and then they died. You think losing control to parents that love you is the worst thing that could possibly happen? I’ve never once been in control of anything in my life.”
Vi eyes are wild, furious. “I’m so sick of privileged little brats always playing the victim while the rest of us just try to survive. I don’t know why I expected you to be any different from the rest of them.”
Caitlyn recoils. Vi’s lips are trembling like she’s fighting back words she really wants to say. Instead of saying any of them, Vi shakes her head and turns, making a beeline for the paddock.
“Please, wait.”
The warmth on Vi’s wrist stops her dead in her tracks.
Heat rises up her arms, turning her whole face red when she realizes it’s Caitlyn’s hand wrapped around her wrist. It’s Caitlyn touching her.
“Sometimes it…” Caitlyn starts, hesitant at first before the flood gates release. “It feels like the walls are closing in on me. Like there are so many expectations attached to my name and as much as I want to be my own person, I can’t escape that voice that tells me I’m not good enough unless I’m… perfect.”
Vi meets her eyes head-on. It’s easier to talk to her now, easier to make the words come out when Caitlyn is being so ridiculous. She’s obviously already perfect.
“That’s really stupid,” Vi scoffs.
Caitlyn’s brows shoot up in surprise, and then she laughs, full and vibrant and … British. Vi’s stomach flutters.
“I know,” Caitlyn replies, wiping tears of laughter from the corner of her eyes with her free hand. “I know it’s stupid. I just… I wanted to do better today. You know, to show you how it’s done.”
She smiles weakly, but Vi’s eyes are wide, her face unsmiling. Caitlyn can’t really mean that, right? What does Caitlyn Kiramman care whether Vi is watching her race or not?
Slowly, Vi’s eyes drift down to Caitlyn’s hand still holding her wrist. A small gasp escapes Caitlyn’s lips and she instantly drops Vi’s hand like she’d been burned, mutters “sorry,” and steps a whole three feet back as she clears her throat.
“You’re the best racer out there, Kiramman,” Vi says, because she believes it to her very core. “You know it and I know it. So stop losing your mind over third place and go bring it next time.”
“Okay,” Caitlyn nods. “I will, I promise. Thank you.”
Vi smirks. As she turns to leave the garage, she calls back over her shoulder, “you won’t be thanking me when we’re on that grid together!”
She’s almost out of the garage when she hears Caitlyn’s voice behind her – soft, smiling, probably not intended for her to hear.
“I guess we’ll see.”