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“I don’t understand why you haven’t signed.”
Ororo lets out a low, exasperated sigh. Her eyes fall to the dark, viscous wine in her glass and studies her rippling reflection as she gathers her thoughts. She hears the smooth surface of leather cushions as clothes rub against them, and looks up to see Jean shift back in her seat, her wine glass pinched between freshly-manicured fingers as she takes a sip of the cabernet. Her eyebrow is pointedly raised, gaze expectant.
“These decisions take time,” Ororo replies evenly, but she knows offering an excuse is pointless. She watches in real time as Jean dismisses it, eyebrows furrowing and eyes narrowing.
“I’m not buying it,” Jean leans forward. “There’s something more.”
Ororo tries to deflect again, “Contracts don’t make for good dinner topics.”
“Are you kidding?” Jean peels off a slice of oven-fired margherita pizza. “In our line of work, contracts make for great dinner topics. Especially yours.” She takes a bite from the slice for emphasis.
Tucked in the back corner of an Italian restaurant that sees more local Monegasque patrons than fellow drivers, they are indulging in wine and all the carbohydrates they can handle during the summer break. These dinners always consist of a healthy serving of paddock gossip, and with the notorious silly season now beginning, that means Ororo remains one of the premiere topics. The season is winding down, and Ororo has a life-changing decision to make: sign a multi-year deal with Ferrari, or remain with Mercedes.
Being a Ferrari driver herself and her longest friend on the grid, it is only natural that Jean Grey be the one to interrogate her.
“Regulations are changing,” she mumbles around the bite of pizza. Ororo pretends not to watch her pink tongue dart out to lick away the bit of tomato sauce on her lips.
“I have no problem building up a team,” Ororo argues. Not a lie. Building a team is its own unique challenge, one that she would embrace.
“We’re not here to build teams,” Jean retorts with a dramatic huff. “We’re here to win championships.”
“What if I want to do both?”
“There’s never enough time for both.”
She opts for a generous sip of wine in lieu of a response. Loathe as she is to admit it, Jean is not wrong. How many times have drivers stayed on to build—or, in her case, rebuild—a team just to be ousted for a new driver that smells even slightly like their next champion? She likes to think—hope—that loyalty is enough, but Formula One is a business, too. Loyalty isn’t always a great business decision.
A part of her wants to laugh at the role reversal—Jean the realist, Ororo the optimist. Someone should document it.
“It’s going to be fast,” Jean reveals in a hushed tone, leaning forward conspiratorially. “The engine is…” she shakes her head and smiles, “…it’s going to be fast.”
Ororo knows the rumors—Ferrari have nailed the regulations, they say, and may finally be the team to beat. They would look even more threatening if they had not one, but two championship-winning drivers in their cars. Two championship-winning drivers who haven’t been in the fight for multiple seasons now, who have the driving needed to do it in red. It’s the perfect storyline for what could be the perfect season.
It is also the perfect storyline for what could be the perfect disaster.
“I won’t reach a decision tonight,” she finally says, firm as ever. She reaches for a slice of her own and brings it to her lips for a bite.
“Fine.” Jean’s tone is sharp and burdened with frustration, the smile dropping from her face instantaneously. Her wine sloshes in its glass when she slams it down pointedly. “But consider this: you and I have talked about winning championships together before we even made it into Formula One. That opportunity is finally here. Why wouldn’t you take it?”
Ororo stares at her half-bitten slice and decides she’s no longer hungry. She can see Jean waiting for a reaction, or even just the slightest inkling that she has nudged her in what she perceives to be the right direction. Her eyebrows raise, insistent and impatient, but Ororo remains silent. She has a point, but Ororo has no intention of hashing out her fears and hesitations in the back corner of this restaurant.
They’ve reached a stalemate—Jean’s passion, an unstoppable force coming in contact with the immovable object that is Ororo Munroe and her stubbornness.
It’s twenty-three seconds before Jean’s patience runs out, and when it does, she’s sliding out of the booth in one angry motion. Ororo inhales deeply, then follows her, though not before dropping some cash on the table.
Despite her obvious irritation, Jean is still kind enough to open the other door. It’s difficult to slam butterfly doors in the traditional sense, but damn if she doesn’t try. The car roars to life just as Ororo takes her place in the passenger seat and makes a conscious effort to shut the door carefully.
Jean is eerily silent, stewing in her growing anger, so Ororo tries to cut through the tension with a knife laced in levity. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you this upset with me since… ever.”
There’s not even a hint of a smile. Ororo sighs heavily and slumps back into the passenger seat. The sky has darkened rapidly, and the first, fat droplets of rain begin to smack the windshield. A fitting scene given the direction this evening has taken.
“I haven’t even arrived at the decision you are asking me to make,” she begins, deliberately keeping her gaze on the moving storm clouds.
“Everyone believes their car will be fastest. Everyone believes they will be champion come Abu Dhabi. Everyone believes these things regardless of how the previous season went, and everyone continues to believe it until it becomes impossible to believe.”
Her gaze shifts to Jean, whose own has remained transfixed upon the prancing horse logo in the center of her steering wheel. As calmly as she can manage, she utters:
“I cannot join a team simply because of a rumor.”
The roles shift back right then—Ororo the realist, Jean the optimist.
She watches the muscles in Jean’s jaw tighten. Even softer, Ororo murmurs, “I remember our conversations, our dreams. I do want to win with you. I just—” she pinches the bridge of her nose and swallows hard, “—this is a leap of faith, and I don’t know if I’m ready to take it just yet.”
Jean blows hot air out of her nose. Her fingers curl around the steering wheel until her knuckles are alabaster. Green eyes flutter shut as she takes a deep breath, then they are fixed upon Ororo, intense and unwavering as she says:
“When did you of all people become afraid to take a leap of faith?”
It’s like the first cold plunge after Singapore, the way her words shock Ororo’s system. She sits there, frozen, mouth partially agape as Jean’s voice echoes in her mind. When did she become afraid of such a thing? Every step she has taken to get this far has been one leap of faith after another. Why do it now? Why not?
She barely registers the car moving or the world passing by until they are pulling into the cul de sac outside of her apartment building.
“Ororo,” Jean’s voice is softer now, angry tension making way for saddened defeat. “Fear has never stopped you before. Please don’t let it stop you now.”
There’s nothing left to say, not to that or anything they’ve discussed tonight, so Ororo reaches over the center console and squeezes her hand, hoping it is comforting and apologetic in equal measure.
“Goodnight, Jean.”
She knows Jean has more to say—she can practically see the thoughts dancing behind wide green eyes—but she relents, too.
“Goodnight, ‘Ro.”
It is five-thirty in the morning, and Ororo has already done three laps, going on four, around the block and surpassed her personal best on each one. She thinks she might’ve slept two hours, maybe three, and that’s being quite generous. On the off-chance that any onlookers pass by, they will certainly think she’s gone mad to be doing such intense sprints at a time like this.
Jean’s words have been playing on a nonstop loop in her mind the moment she said them, and Ororo is powerless to think of anything else. She’s restless, filled to the brim with nervous energy, and she needs to expel it somehow. Enter: running.
She sits—flops, really—down on the nearest shaded bench and wipes a sweaty hand over the fabric of her leggings before reaching for her phone. Two taps and a scroll is all it takes for her to find the name she’s looking for. She presses it tight against her ear, and waits. It’s not until the final ring that the person picks up.
“Rather early, isn’t it?” comes the familiar yet tired voice of Charles Xavier.
“I know,” Ororo replies apologetically.
“Something on your mind?”
Ororo drums her fingers along her thigh, and basks in the orange glow of the rising sun that filters through the leaves. In the tree opposite her, she spots two birds perched upon branches, one quite larger than the other. The larger of the two (the mother, perhaps?) flaps its wings demonstratively, and chirps as if it means to encourage the little bird to do the same. The little one, the baby, chirps in response and readies its little wings. It leaps off the branch with confidence, but it immediately makes for the ground.
The bird flaps its wings frantically as it falls. Ororo nearly sprints to it, primed and ready to sacrifice her phone for the sake of this baby bird, but it never even reaches the ground. Through sheer determination it finds its balance. It hovers, then it ascends, all the while making the most joyous, triumphant chirps it can muster.
“Ororo?”
“I’m still here,” she says, a soft smile gracing her features. Ororo draws in a deep, centering breath.
“I’d like to discuss my contract.”
Championship-Winning Driver Ororo Munroe To Join Scuderia Ferrari HP For The 2026 Season.