Chapter Text
The garage never slept.
Even when the rest of Monte Carlo drowned in champagne and moonlight, the narrow alley behind Rue Grimaldi still breathed with the faint hum of engines. A single bulb swung from the ceiling, slicing light over metal and dust. Somewhere deep in the back, a radio murmured an old song half-eaten by static.
The garage sat wedged between two forgotten buildings in the lower quarter of Monte Carlo, where the glamour bled away and the salt from the harbor ate at every metal hinge. On maps it did not exist; on nights like this it felt more like a secret lung for the city, drawing in oil and smoke, exhaling the faint heartbeat of engines that refused to die.
Inside, light pooled only where a single bulb swayed from the rafters. Beneath it, Oscar Piastri bent over the skeleton of a car, his hands gloved in shadow and grease. The small metallic clicks of his tools were metronomic, a language older than speech. He worked without music, without hurry, with that still intensity that had once made him a phenomenon on the circuit; precision disguised as calm. Every motion was deliberate, every breath accounted for.
The air smelled of fuel and rain. Outside, the city was celebrating something. There was always something to celebrate in Monte Carlo, but the sound reached the alley only as a dull pulse. Oscar liked it that way. Life at a distance, blurred by the walls he had built since the collapse.
Then, a shift. Not grand enough to turn his head, yet not subtle enough for him to not notice.
Lando Norris appeared the way he always did, sudden and casual, carrying too much brightness for the room. He leaned in the doorway, hoodie damp from drizzle, curls pressed to his forehead, two paper cups of espresso balanced in one hand like a magician’s trick. The gesture was effortless, practiced, a reminder that he had once performed for crowds of thousands without a tremor.
He did not announce himself, he simply waited until Oscar felt his presence, the way you notice the shift in temperature when the sun sneaks past a cloud.
And Oscar always noticed.
“You’ve been at it for hours,” he said finally, voice light, trying to fold warmth into the space.
Oscar didn’t look up at first. He finished tightening a bolt, wiped the back of his wrist across his cheek, and murmured, “couldn’t sleep.”
Lando stepped further inside, setting the cups down on a bench cluttered with half-assembled dreams; screws in matchboxes, a faded schematic for a McLaren chassis, a cracked helmet visor that neither had the heart to throw away.
“That makes two of us,” he said. “Except I decided to fix my insomnia with caffeine and bad decisions. You went for the more productive route.”
The corner of Oscar’s mouth twitched, but never formed a smile.
He was a man made of quiet surfaces. The few who knew him learned to read the currents underneath. Lando had become fluent. He could tell when a silence meant concentration and when it meant memory.
He watched Oscar’s hands for a moment; steady, scarred, methodical—and thought about how those same hands had once gripped a steering wheel at three hundred kilometers per hour, about the footage that used to play on giant screens while crowds chanted their names.
It was impossible to reconcile that man with this one who lived in the dark, rebuilding broken machines for strangers who paid in cash and secrets. Yet, in a way, it made sense. Oscar had always been about control; this was the only form of it left.
Lando’s own control had always been illusion. He talked, he joked, he filled silence with noise so it wouldn’t swallow him whole. It worked most days. On others, the echoes of sirens from that night in Monaco slipped through, and he’d remember fire blooming at the end of the tunnel, the way Oscar’s voice had cracked through the comms. “Run, Lando. Don't look back.”
He had looked back anyway.
“Did you tighten the fuel line?”
Lando's voice floated again, soft but teasing, carrying a grin that Oscar knew bloomed in his face, even without looking.
“I did,” Oscar said.
“You sure? You nearly blew us up last time.”
“That was you,” Oscar replied.
Lando scoffed. “Semantics.” He walked over, perched himself beside the half-built engine. Leaning towards Oscar with a cup of coffee, offering one. “You’ve missed the party downtown.”
Oscar finally glanced up. His eyes, usually distant, softened just a little. “You could’ve gone without me.”
“Yeah,” Lando said, “but the party’s boring without the antisocial one.”
Another twitch. Maybe a smile, just a bit.
Reminded Lando of those smiles he once had a lot before. Now he looked at Oscar, at the faint line of a scar running behind his ear, at the exhaustion worn smooth by repetition, and felt the familiar ache of gratitude and guilt braided together.
“Do you ever think,” Lando began, tracing a circle on the bench with one fingertip, “that we could’ve stayed? If we’d just waited a few seconds longer, taken a different turn... maybe none of it would’ve burned the way it did.”
Oscar set the wrench down carefully. “Every day,” he said. His voice was low, measured, almost detached. “But we didn’t. And this is what’s left.”
Lando wanted to argue, to throw humor at the truth until it cracked, but the words stayed behind his teeth. Instead, he crossed the room, picked up one of the espresso cups, and raised it. “Then here’s to what’s left.”
Oscar raised it without a smile, tossing the cup towards Lando's, their fingers brushing briefly, a spark of warmth against the metal-cold air.
They drank in silence. Outside, thunder moved across the sea.
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Their life followed a rhythm that was both exile and routine. Mornings were for errands, supply runs. Lando would flirt with the barista at the corner café just long enough to get free croissants. Oscar would pay anyway, muttering about ethics and bills. Lando would weave through the markets, trading charm for discounts, while Oscar handled suppliers with the quiet efficiency of someone who preferred machines to people.
Afternoons belonged to the customers. Ex-racers needing untraceable mods, smugglers with bruised vehicles and worse stories. “You didn’t hear this from me,” they’d say. “But I need a car that can vanish off radar.”
Nights were theirs alone. The garage door rolled down, the world muted, and they would work until exhaustion blurred the edges between thought and motion.
Lando loved the nights here. The hiss of welding sparks, the scent of oil, the way Oscar furrowed his brow in concentration. There was a steadiness to him, a kind of quiet that made Lando feel safe, even when the world outside was chaos.
Sometimes he’d find excuses to talk. Anything, really, just to hear Oscar’s voice again. Oscar rarely responded with more than a sentence, but every so often a faint amusement would ghost across his face, and Lando would treat it like victory.
“You know,” Lando said, sipping his espresso, “normal people fix cars for fun. We do it because we can’t sleep.”
Oscar didn’t look up. As always. “You talk a lot when you’re tired.”
“I talk a lot when you’re quiet,” Lando corrected.
A pause. Then, a ghost of a smile. “That’s all the time.”
It was small, but it felt like sunlight through a crack. It worked. It wasn’t happiness, but it was something like peace.
But there were nights when Oscar woke to the sound of engines that no longer existed, when he’d climb from his narrow cot, pad barefoot to the workshop, and stand before the charred race suit hanging at the back wall. The fabric was framed like a relic, blackened and fragile, smelling faintly of smoke even after all this time.
Lando had asked once whose it had been. Oscar hadn’t answered. The look in his eyes had been enough.
Lando had his own hauntings. Flashes of light, the scream of metal, the unbearable silence after the comms went dead. He covered them with laughter, with bad music and endless chatter, the way one throws confetti at a funeral.
If Oscar noticed, he never said. Their understanding didn’t require confession; it was carved from the same wreckage.
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Despite it all, there were moments that almost felt normal.
One rare night, when the rain had finally cleared and the harbor lights shimmered like a spilled necklace across the water, Lando managed to coax Oscar out for a drive. He promised no errands, no jobs, just asphalt and air. Oscar protested out of habit but relented, because Lando’s stubbornness was a force of nature.
They took one of the rebuilt cars, a low, dark creature purring like a restrained animal—and climbed the coastal road that twisted above the Mediterranean. Wind pressed against the windows, carrying the salt of the sea and the faint scent of blooming citrus from the cliffs.
Lando reclined in the passenger seat, feet on the dash, humming tunelessly. Oscar drove with both hands, eyes fixed ahead, as if the horizon were a line he could cross into peace.
For a while they said nothing. The tires hissed over wet pavement, and the world unfurled in streaks of silver.
Oscar’s expression didn’t change, but his grip on the wheel eased slightly. “Give it five minutes.”
Lando laughed, and the sound felt almost alive again. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
And when, minutes later, a patrol car appeared in the mirror, lights flaring lazily, Lando’s laughter turned to exhilaration. Oscar’s foot pressed down, the engine’s roar swallowing the night.
The pursuit lasted only moments, enough to awaken muscle memory, enough to remind them both who they used to be. When they finally lost the tail and coasted to a stop near a lookout, the city glittered below like a wound stitched with gold.
Lando leaned against the hood, wind tangling his hair, and looked at Oscar silhouetted against the sky. “If we ever stop running,” he said softly, “I think I’d still stay.”
Oscar turned, confusion flickering across his features. “Stay where?”
“Here. With you. Doesn’t matter where ‘here’ is.”
For a heartbeat, neither spoke. Then Oscar looked away, toward the dark line of the sea. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “I’m not good at keeping people safe.”
Lando smiled, small and genuine. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not looking for safe.”
The silence that followed was gentler than before.
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Time passed in indistinguishable fragments.
Days melted into one another until it felt less like living and more like existing. And yet, beneath the monotony, something tentative was rebuilding itself. Trust, maybe, or whatever fragile alloy their connection had always been made of.
That was when the storm came.
It began just after midnight. Thunder rolling off the water, rain hammering the corrugated roof until the entire building trembled. The power flickered once, twice, then steadied on a weaker pulse of light.
Lando had fallen asleep on the couch upstairs, a half-read magazine covering his face, when the sound came. Three deliberate knocks against the steel door below. Not the frantic rhythm of a stranger seeking shelter, but the measured code of someone who already knew them.
He sat up, heartbeat sharp. Within seconds Oscar appeared at the foot of the stairs, barefoot, gun in hand, eyes already narrowed.
“You expecting anyone?” Lando whispered.
Oscar shook his head once.
The knocks came again. Slow. Certain.
They moved together. Oscar leading, Lando a step behind, weapon replaced by the first heavy wrench within reach. The rain surged louder as Oscar reached for the latch. For a moment he simply listened, so carefully as if trying to expect what's coming.
Then he pulled the door open.
Two almost identical gasps emerged, as if they were seeing a ghost.
“Evening, chicos,” a voice, smooth and deliberate.
Maybe it is a ghost after all.
Carlos Sainz stood in the frame, untouched by the weather, trench coat immaculate, hair slicked neatly back. He looked like someone who had walked through the years untouched, except for the tiredness around his eyes.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Lando’s mind stuttered over the image. Carlos, here, alive. The last time he’d seen him, the man had been swallowed by smoke on the trackside of Monaco, screaming for them to go.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Lando managed.
Carlos smiled, a slow, rueful curve. “Supposed to be,” he said, stepping inside. His gaze traveled across the room, pausing on the half-built car, the tools, the ghosts. “You kept busy.”
Oscar hadn’t lowered the gun. “What do you want?”
Carlos didn’t answer immediately. He walked to the nearest worktable, set down a leather briefcase, and clicked it open. Inside, lay a folded blueprint and a small black drive no bigger than a matchbox. The object seemed to pulse with quiet significance.
“It’s called the Apex Protocol,” Carlos said. “And it’s going to expose everything that destroyed Monaco.”
The words hung between them, heavier than the storm.
Lando felt the old gravity return, the tug of adrenaline, fear, purpose. He looked from Carlos to Oscar, seeing the calculation already flicker behind those calm eyes.
“You want us to pull another job,” Lando said.
Carlos’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I want you to finish the one we never got to start.”
Oscar’s breath left him in a slow, controlled exhale. The thunder outside answered for him.
In that sound, Lando heard the beginning of movement, the kind that changes the course of everything.
The storm pressed against the windows, the city below drowned in reflections. The briefcase remained open on the hood of the unfinished car, the black drive catching the tremor of light.
Oscar stared at it like a mirror; Lando stared at Oscar.
Somewhere in the distance, an engine turned over, echoing through the hills.
The ghosts of Monaco were awake again.