Chapter Text
They said he could see racing lines the way others saw colour, and that when the lights went out, he was already gone. Tracks whispered his name and circuits bent subtly to his will. Every apex, every chicane, and every straight was mapped in a mind so precise it bordered on prophecy. He did not race, but commanded the machine beneath him as if it were an extension of his own body, and the world could only watch in awe.
Even in victory there was something untouchable, almost forbidding, about him. A boy raised beneath the iron shadow of his father, where friendship was scorned as weakness and laughter forbidden as frivolity, he had grown into a man whose dominion over speed was absolute but so was his solitary. Four World Drivers’ Championships gleamed in his trophy cabinet like a sequence of crown jewels, proof that mastery was his alone, yet behind the cold precision of his grin and the calm of his helmeted stare, a hollowness stirred, a quiet hunger no victory could satiate.
Legends are born of awe, but only truth reveals the cost. Max had learned that in every perfect lap, in every flawless overtake, there was a thinning of the self. Gentleness was a forgotten luxury, human warmth, a liability. And yet, the world adored him. They saw only the brilliance, the beauty, the terror of speed made flesh. Few dared glimpse the man beneath the legend and fewer still knew how little of him was left.
Tonight, in the fading glow of floodlights, with the scent of burnt rubber still clinging to him, that man stood apart. Applause and champagne rippled through the gala, a cascade of light and sound, but he barely noticed. He had won again and yet already, he was elsewhere. Somewhere faster. Somewhere sharper. Somewhere no one could follow.
______________________
The championship gala was immaculate. Every light, every polished surface, every whisper of fabric and glass had been choreographed to perfection. Even the air itself seemed to hum with expectation, with soft music drifting through open doors and laughter spilling like champagne. The castle - all terracotta spires, palm trees, and deliberate coastal beauty - had been designed to impress, and it did. Perched high above the coast, it ruled its cliffside like an aging monarch, the last echo of an empire that refused to die.
Its walls, pale stone kissed by centuries of salt wind, breathed light. Chandeliers trembled under their own brilliance, and mirrored panels caught and multiplied the shimmer of champagne, of sequins, of movement. Gold and silver gleamed on every surface, until even the shadows seemed expensive. Beyond the balustrades stretched the Côte d’Azur, an expanse of deep blue velvet under the last of the sun. From this height, the world looked ornamental, with yachts pricking the horizon like scattered pins of silver, the distant murmur of traffic reduced to the faintest hum, and the sea breaking gently below, unseen but always heard. The view was the kind that silenced a room, the kind that made people whisper about fortune and legacy.
And yet, for all its grandeur, there was a stillness threaded through the splendour. A sense that the castle, for all its beauty, was watching rather than welcoming. Its high windows held reflections of the sea instead of light, and its gardens were too quiet, their fountains whispering into empty space. The laughter of the guests rose and broke against those stone walls like waves against a cliff ... beautiful, fleeting, gone too soon.
Inside, laughter scattered like coins on marble. Someone had hired a string quartet, but their music barely rose above the hum of conversation and the slow pop of champagne corks. Perfume mingled with salt air and the faint sweetness of night, and from every direction came the flutter of conversation - names, laughter, speculation - the soft, controlled chaos of people pretending they were not hoping to be watched.
The château glowed as though it belonged to another century, a monument to beauty built on solitude. Its walls threw the light back into the night, defiant and dazzling, but inside the man it celebrated stood apart, the silence between victories louder than the music itself.
Max Verstappen stood near one of the great windows, his posture immaculate and tie knotted just so. The suit, midnight blue not Red Bull blue, had been chosen by his stylist, who had insisted that simplicity was power. Max had not argued. It was easier that way. Easier to wear the armour someone else selected, easier to let the fabric speak than to explain what he no longer felt.
The glass before him reflected the room like a dream; gold lights, slow smiles, and the kind of laughter that only ever sounded sincere in champagne air. He watched the world move behind his own reflection, like a double exposure of elegance and exhaustion. He had been here before, in different suits and different cities, but the rooms always looked the same and the people even more so.
People drifted toward him now and then, with their hands extended and smiles rehearsed. Congratulations, champion. Another season conquered. Another record fallen. He shook hands, nodded, said the words expected of him, and each time the conversation dissolved, he felt the same faint relief, like surf receding from his ankles. The season was over, and as such there was nothing cruel in him tonight, no temper. Only distance. A gentler kind of armour.
Behind him, a burst of laughter from the terrace spilled through the open doors - Daniel’s voice unmistakable, bright and messy and alive. Seb’s low chuckle followed, and then Nico’s dry tone trying, without conviction, to restore order. The sound reached him like sunlight through glass, a warmth he was unable to touch.
From where he stood, he could see them out there. The closest thing he had to friends (or acquaintances, depending on how charitable he was feeling), half-dressed in tuxedo shirts and loosened ties, laughing too loudly for the hour.
Daniel had long since abandoned his shoes, one foot propped on the low wall, gesturing wildly with a glass of something amber that sloshed dangerously close to the rim every time he made a point. Whatever story he was telling, and it was always a story, seemed to require a full reenactment. His laughter showcased the kind of bright, reckless joy that Max had forgotten how to feel.
Sebastian stood nearby, his tie gone and his collar undone, animated as ever. He was attempting to argue the moral philosophy of overtaking ethics, hands moving with the same precision he’d once reserved for pit-wall briefings. Max could almost hear him even through the glass; that particular German cadence, the clipped doch, the sarcastic natürliiiich, the way he punctuated sincerity with a grin. And of course, because he couldn’t help himself, Seb was flirting. Brazenly. With Nico, despite Lewis lurking somewhere in the grounds.
Rosberg had his arms crossed and his chin tilted with calculated disdain, but the glint in his eyes gave him away. He looked infuriatingly polished, as though his tuxedo had been starched directly onto him and his blonde hair was styled perfectly. Every so often, he interrupted Seb’s speech with a quiet correction. “That’s not ethics, that’s ego,” Max imagined him saying. Only to have Seb counter with something maddeningly sentimental like, “Ego is just passion without forgiveness Nico Schatzi." Nico would roll his eyes, mutter something about hopeless romantics, and turn back to his drink, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him. There it was, that reluctant smirk, the one that said he’d already lost the argument and didn’t entirely mind.
Max watched them for a while - that small constellation of light and noise - and tried to decide whether he envied them or pitied them. Perhaps both. Since retirement, they were free in a way he no longer remembered how to be. Their joy as reflexive as breathing. The easy camaraderie, the shared history, the harmless chaos should have comforted him, yet it only underscored the distance. They had stepped off the carousel, before he had even known he was on it.
Further down, near the edge of the pool, Antonelli and his gaggle of friends were sprawled across deck chairs, drinks in hand. Bearman and Hadjar were attempting (and failing at) card tricks, whilst Bortoleto, Doohan and Lawson watched on in quiet amusement. The lights from the terrace danced across the surface of the water, turning their reflections to liquid gold. Every ripple caught laughter and threw it back, multiplying it until the whole night seemed to shimmer with it.
George Russell was doing his best to corral them into civility not yet mastered at their age, with his sleeves rolled and his voice pitched halfway between stern and indulgent, though he was clearly fighting a losing battle. There was an authority in him that might have cowed lesser spirits, but not this crowd. Every time he straightened to deliver some half-hearted reprimand, Lando immediately undermined it with laughter, collapsing against him and giggling into the crook of his arm like someone too tipsy to care for consequence. The sound of it rang light and bright across the water - a sound without weight, a sound that forgave everything.
Oscar lounged nearby, his expression composed, but his amusement betrayed by the faint smile in his eyes. Every now and then, he added a quiet remark that sent the younger boys into hysterics, his voice the calm at the centre of their chaos. Around him, the other boys traded playful insults and sipped from flutes they were far too young to appreciate. Their laughter wasn’t sharp or self-conscious, just alive, the kind of sound that belonged to people who believed the night had no end.
It carried easily across the water, that noise, and for a moment it seemed to Max that it didn’t just echo, but breathed. It wove itself into the hush of the sea, into the soft pulse of the evening air, until the line between music and laughter blurred. From where he stood, they looked like figures in a painting; sunlit in a world that no longer needed sunlight. No concept of the notion that youth was gilded and fleeting.
Max watched them for a long moment - the glow of camaraderie, of warmth, of the simple pleasure of existing without consequence. He could read their ease in every gesture. Lando tipping his head back against Oscar's shoulder now, Kimi gesturing animatedly with his glass, Liam’s steady amusement never breaking stride. They were of the world, still tethered to it by noise and laughter and the softness of happiness.
He, on the other hand, was just the quiet shadow in the window. A spectator of his own creation. He had built this place for peace, for silence, for control. For the absence of distraction. The marble floors, the glass, the symmetry of the rooms was designed to contain, to still, to tame, and yet tonight it all felt suffocating. The air was too heavy and the perfection too precise. Every sound outside seemed to press harder against the terracotta walls, reminding him of everything he had deliberately excluded.
The glass in front of him reflected the scene like a cruel mirror. His own face, distant and untouchable, floated above the faint image of the pool, and the living world beyond. For a brief, treacherous instant, he wondered what it might feel like to step through it. To be among them, not above them. To sit barefoot on the stone, to drink something too sweet, to say something foolish and be forgiven for it.
But the thought passed quickly, like a wave recoiling from shore. He straightened his tie, adjusted his cuff, and let the reflection settle back into place. The glass gave nothing away, and neither did he.
He turned away from the window, his expression schooled back into calm. The guests were still laughing, still praising him, still repeating the same words they always did. “Genius, domination, history”. As though saying them enough times could make him feel anything at all.
And yet, even amidst the laughter, the glinting glasses, the gilded ease of youth, a fissure had appeared - subtle and almost imperceptible, like a front wing starting to flex under the downforce. Barely noticeable at first, but enough that the tiniest misjudgment could send everything spiraling.
A faint murmur swept through the room, nothing more than the soft rustle that follows the arrival of someone unexpected. It began at the doors and travelled like static, too subtle to be alarm, but just enough to tilt every conversation half an inch off its balance. Max turned his head slightly, not out of curiosity but habit, the instincts of someone who had spent a lifetime responding to motion.
And there he was.
Fernando Alonso did not so much enter as arrive, perfectly at ease, as if this were his living room and not a chandelier-strangled gala. The doorman hesitated to announce him, unsure if he should, and so the name arrived unspoken, carried instead in the subtle widening of eyes and the hush that moved through the room like a tide. He was dressed simply - black suit and yellow pocket square - nothing showy, nothing loud. His smile was soft, almost affectionate, as though amused by the pageantry.
Alonso reached the centre of the ballroom and stopped beneath the chandelier. He didn’t speak immediately, but when he finally did his voice carried easily, calm and conversational, but weighted with something that felt ancient.
“A fine party,” he said, almost to himself. “Though I’ve seen enough of these to know how quickly they end.”
It was the kind of remark people were supposed to laugh at - but no one did.
Max’s pulse quickened in quiet protest. He wasn’t sure why. He told himself it was just a mistimed joke, that Alonso’s words weren’t meant for him. And yet, when the older man turned and their eyes met through the crowd, all the warmth felt drained from the room.
There was no malice in that look. If anything, there was the thing Max detested most, pity. But beneath it, a strange and heavy certainty that whatever had bound them once was not yet finished.
Alonso inclined his head slightly towards the terrace, as though greeting an equal, or perhaps a student who had disappointed him. Then, with that same calm, he stepped past the guests and out into the night air.
The glass doors closed behind him with the softest sound and for a long moment, Max remained by the window, watching the reflection of the sea swallow the light, before following after the older man.
The terrace was quieter now the young rookies had left, likely to cause mischief elsewhere. From inside, the music continued, softer and diluted by the glass doors, but to Max it felt as though it was being played from another world in which he was no longer welcome. The night had taken on that sort of strange and lucid clarity which only comes just before a storm.
Alonso stood at the balustrade, hands resting lightly on the stone, gaze fixed on the horizon. The salt air moved through his hair, which had gotten too long in retirement, carrying the faint scent of rain that hadn’t yet fallen. He didn’t turn when Max approached. But he didn’t need to.
“Still hiding from your own party?” Alonso’s voice was low, unhurried. It was a voice that could cut through engine noise without raising a decibel.
Max stopped a few paces away. “You made it sound like I invited you.”
That earned the smallest smile. “You didn’t. But then again, you never did.”
The wind shifted, brushing cool against the back of Max’s neck. He can’t remember when it got so cold. He wanted to look anywhere but at the older man beside him, and yet his eyes kept being pulled there - to the calm, to the quiet certainty of someone who had seen too much to ever be impressed again.
Alonso took a slow sip from his glass. “You’ve built quite the fortress here,” he said, glancing up at the towers. “Beautiful. Cold. Immaculate. Like you.”
Max gave a short breath of laughter. One filled with not quite amusement, but not quite derision. “I like silence.”
“No,” Alonso said gently. “You like control. Silence is just the shape it takes.”
Max frowned but said nothing, and in doing so proved Alonso's point. The air between them tightened, not hostile but heavy. The starting lights were blinking and turn one would be make or break. The glow from the chandelier spilled across the terrace, catching on the edge of Alonso’s profile, turning him half real, half reflection.
“Do you ever tire of it?” Alonso asked after a moment.
“Tire of what?”
“This endless victory. The noise, the praise, the isolation that follows.”
He tilted his head, watching Max the way a teacher might watch a student struggle with a simple question. “You win, Verstappen, because you cannot do anything else. And yet, when the winning stops - ”
“It won’t,” Max interrupted, his tone steady. Not boastful, but absolute. “Not until I want it to.”
Alonso studied him, the faintest trace of sadness touching his expression. “It always stops, niño. You just don’t feel the crash until you’re already spinning out.”
The words landed with quiet precision. Max looked away, jaw tightening. He didn’t know what irritated him more - the condescension, or the fact that Alonso’s voice still carried that same calm authority that had once made him listen. Back when he was just the seventeen year old kid Toro Rosso had decided to take a chance on, and not Max Verstappen, four times World Driver Champion.
“What do you want?” Max asked finally.
“To remind you.” Alonso set his glass down on the stone ledge, the sound impossibly small. “That there are lessons you cannot outdrive. That there is always a cost to speed. You forget that even light slows when it reaches the sea.”
Max almost laughed. “Is that what this is? Another riddle?”
“Call it a warning.” Alonso’s tone softened, the edges almost kind. “The world has given you everything you asked for. Be careful it doesn’t start taking back what you didn’t offer in return.”
Max laughed. A short, humourless sound that cracked the night open. “You think you know me.”
“I know what happens to men who mistake talent for mercy.”
And that hit somewhere raw. Max’s hand tightened on the railing, the veins in his wrist standing sharp under the light. “You don’t know a damn thing about me. You left me before you could.”
Alonso’s eyes glimmered faintly, neither offended nor surprised. “I left Formula 1 because I’d already seen the ending.”
“The ending?” Max’s voice rose, a jagged edge breaking through his composure. “You talk like a priest at a funeral. There is no ending, Alonso. Not for me. I built this - ” he gestured toward the castle, toward the gold and glass and impossible symmetry of it all. “Every inch of it. Every victory, every lap, every sleepless night. You think I got here by luck? By waiting for some moral balance to correct itself?”
“No,” Alonso said quietly. “You got here because you couldn’t stop.”
Max turned on him fully now, anger flaring bright and beautiful - the kind that came from conviction, not cruelty. “And why should I? Why should anyone stop when they’re finally ahead? You all talk about humility as if it’s a prize. You say control like it’s a sin. I earned this. I haven’t asked for forgiveness because I haven't done anything wrong.”
Alonso’s expression didn’t change. His stillness was infuriating, the kind that made rage feel childish. “You confuse victory with virtue Max,” he said softly.
Max stepped closer, shadows cutting sharp across his face. “And you confuse age with wisdom.”
For the first time, something flickered in Alonso’s eyes - a faint, sorrowful anger. A sliver of who he used to be. “You really believe that the world bends only for your will.”
“It already has, old man,” Max said. “Look around you.”
“I am,” Alonso murmured, gaze sweeping over the marble, the chandeliers, the impossible perfection. “And what I see is a boy who built a cathedral to himself and mistook it for peace.”
Max’s jaw clenched, his voice lowering into something colder and more deliberate. Closer to the Mad Max the media wished him to be, than the Max he was. “If you came here to lecture me, you’ve wasted your time. I don’t need saving. Not from you, not from anyone.”
Alonso’s head tilted slightly, that faint, knowing smile returning, although this time it held no humour at all. “You don’t need saving,” he repeated. “No. I came because you are approaching a crossroads, and the road you’re choosing is the one that ends with you alone in a castle just like this.”
Max stilled.
Alonso continued, tone almost tender.
“You confuse victory with safety. Control with peace. Solitude with strength.”
“Still playing prophet?” he said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s pathetic. You were great once. Now you stand at parties trying to sound like a warning siren.”
For a heartbeat, neither spoke.
Then Alonso exhaled, slow and steady, not in anger, not even in disappointment. It was almost tender. “Yes Max, I was great once,” he said. “And I lost everything I loved learning why.”
He turned to leave. The air rippled faintly as he passed, the candle flames on the tables bowing inward as though to him.
Max’s anger flared again, quick and bright. “You think you can scare me with old children's stories? I don’t believe in curses.”
Alonso paused in the doorway. Without looking back, he said quietly, “I hope you like the trophy Max. I think you will spend a lot of time looking at it soon.”
And then he was gone - absorbed into the golden hum of the ballroom, his figure swallowed by light and glass.
Max stood alone on the terrace, chest rising too fast. The night had gone still, unnaturally so. The sea below looked darker, its surface smooth and unbroken. Somewhere far off, thunder murmured, though the sky was clear. He tried to shake it off, to swallow the unease, but the taste of it lingered.
Inside, laughter resumed and music swelled, but the air felt heavier - the walls too close, the chandeliers burning a little too bright.
He straightened his cufflinks, forcing calm back into his movements, refusing to look toward the horizon again. Whatever Alonso had meant, it didn’t matter to him. He would simply keep winning.
He was still Max Verstappen.
He was still the best.
He still had it all.
And yet, the champagne in his hand had gone flat.
______________________
By the time the last guest departed, the castle had fallen into an uneasy quiet. The staff moved through the wreckage of celebration like ghosts - clearing glasses, gathering crumpled napkins, the final detritus of luxury. Outside, the terrace still glowed with scattered candlelight, their wicks bent low from the wind. The sea was a sheet of ink.
Max stood at the window again. The reflection met him instantly; the composed figure in the dark suit, the unreadable expression. The perfect man in the perfect castle. The image pleased him and repulsed him all at once. His father would be proud.
Behind him, someone laughed faintly - the tail end of Daniel’s voice, slipping through the last open door. Then silence. The kind that wasn’t peace but absence. The kind that pressed.
He exhaled. The night had stretched longer than he’d expected, and for the first time in his life the exhaustion wasn’t physical. It lived somewhere lower, dull and stubborn. He loosened his tie, the gesture strangely human amid all that marble.
The sky outside had clouded over, faintly luminous with the reflection of the coast. Monaco glittered in the distance, a necklace of lights curved around the sea which offered a constant reminder of Formula 1 and the history and perfection of which it commanded. He thought of Alonso’s words, ‘be careful it doesn’t start taking back what you didn’t offer,’ and felt his irritation rise again. It was ridiculous, the sort of pseudo-mystical nonsense retired men said to disguise regret. He’d even heard it from Sebastian occasionally.
He poured himself another drink. The glass trembled slightly as he set it down, though he told himself it was only the wind. The chandeliers swayed, just enough to make their light flicker, and for a brief second the entire ballroom seemed to hold its breath.
He turned, half expecting to see someone there. But there was nothing. Only the soft echo of the sea against the cliffs.
The clock above the mantel ticked once, twice - then stopped. Max didn’t notice at first, but the world had gone utterly still. Not quiet, that would be normal for his fortress above the hills, but still. The sea no longer moved, its surface had frozen into a mirror, and the air was colder now, though no storm brewed. The horizon glowed faintly silver despite the early morning hour, like light refracted through glass.
He looked down at the pool, also perfectly still, and his own reflection stared back at him, flawless and fixed. When he moved, it didn’t.
Something in his chest tightened. The unease was small but precise, like a needle rather than a knife. He straightened, forcing his breath even. It was only exhaustion. Too much champagne. The lingering weight of Alonso’s nonsense.
Inside, one of the lights flickered again. Just once, but when it steadied, the shadows had shifted. The room seemed … changed, though he couldn’t have said how. He felt it more than he saw it; the sense of something vast folding inward, the world drawing its first quiet breath before the long exhale of consequence.
He set his glass down, left the terrace, and closed the doors behind him.
In the garden below, the wind moved through the palms once, then stopped. The sea held its silence.
And far away, beneath the stone foundations of the château, something ancient and unseen turned its face toward him.
Max did not feel it. He only felt the stillness and mistook it, as he always had, for control.