Chapter Text
4pm: pre-event press conference
Valentino stares at the time inked into the paper, his schedule for today stapled on top of his schedule for the next few days, the stack of papers tacked helpfully onto the door of his motorhome when he arrived yesterday in Malaysia, a little jet-lagged but not entirely worse for wear, not when the fire was still burning in his loins from Phillip Island. He stares at the time, then checks his watch. There's just a little under a half hour to go, which means that his time alone is almost up and soon someone will come fetch him to show him the way to the media center in the main paddock area like he's never been there before.
He sticks the papers back to the door, pressing hard on the little bit of poster tack. It doesn't stick, of course, but Valentino doesn't bother with trying again. Instead, he tosses them onto the kitchenette and heads for the couch.
Normally he sucked the hospitality up, sometimes even enjoyed it, but not today. Today, his nerves are shot, and in his stomach is a ball of anger that's been growing bigger and bigger every weekend and it's rearing its head, demanding to be acknowledged. Today, he is a dangerous man—he is a man on a mission.
Despite this, however, his morning was average. Always the early riser, Valentino rose with the sun, its warm rays streaming through his paltry blinds, and paced about his motorhome thinking about his next steps before he would be whisked away to the morning team meeting and then the training session straight afterwards.
Uccio was always going on about his next steps, about the right words to say and when, and about the image he carefully curated and polished for publishing to the media to come across with just the right amount of cool nonchalance and bravado balanced with a serious attitude about winning the championship. According to Uccio, he needed to win this media fight almost as much as he needed to win the actual title. With a little luck, his trainer had been late to their later afternoon session, and he spent the extra time drawing up scenarios for how he imagined the press conference would go.
He didn't want to argue with Uccio, knowing his friend had his best interests at heart, and usually deferred to his judgment. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it either—he had thought about it and he always came to the same conclusion, which was that Uccio was right and the best course of action was confrontation.
He checks his watch again. Barely a minute has passed but the pounding in his ears has gotten louder and his palms, cold and clammy, have started to sweat. He wants to crack open a window but he can't move from where he is, sitting hunched over on the couch like a man facing purgatory, fingers laced tightly together, arms braced on his thighs. He can hear the fans outside, milling around, waiting for any sign of life from within to reinvigorate their enthusiasm at seeing proof of his existence in person so that they may spread the good word that the great Valentino Rossi lolls around in his motorhome in silence with neither music nor company to accompany him, even at the climax of the season.
Cracking his knuckles, he forces himself to move, staying away from the windows for now, needing just some more time to himself before giving it away to the world. There isn't much to do in his trailer—he has a book with him, the same one he's been cracking open and reading a page of at every airport all season, and some knick knacks with which to pass his time, but none of it is enough to distract his mind from what he's about to do.
The good thing is, though, the more he thinks about it, the more he feels it needed to be done. There is nothing left that could change his mind, not a shred of doubt leftover in his mind, that everything that has transpired this season has been leading to this all along—that his claim to title victory had been sabotaged, and that if they wanted to play dirty, Valentino would show them dirt they couldn't even dream of.
This is the fight before the fight. A chance for him to knock the Spaniards down a few pegs, or more, before the real thing. He would be a fool to not grab this chance by the lapels and shake it for all its worth.
There's honking in the distance and the sound of the crowd registers belatedly as they get progressively louder. He feels, rather than hears, the footsteps going up his stairs and there's a brief pause before the knock on his door finally comes. Before he goes, he wanders idly by his window and peers down at the people below. Everyone's holding something, a camera, a cap, a notepad, and they all want a piece of him. Who doesn't?
He arrives late to the press conference, having spent the better part of his slow walk over to the building signing various paraphenalia and being pulled in every direction. It put him at ease and reminded him once again of how welcomed and popular he still was, that he still has people in his corner even if they're all strangers. It felt natural to be his usual charming self, smiling and posing for pictures with the patience of a practiced saint, all the while hiding the ball of fire within, just about ready to explode.
The reporters are already seated when he enters the room, the room so full that some have to stand along the walls, Uccio among their ranks, but they're expectant and predatory all the same. Valentino flashes them a smile as he climbs onto the stage. He's about to give them the best story of their careers and they don't even know it.
He walks past Cal and Dovi, pointedly ignores the glare from his scowling teammate, and takes his seat in the center, sandwiched between him and Marc. He doesn't know how much of the seating plan is due to Uccio's incessant planning and influence behind the scenes or the press knowing how to stir the pot, but it doesn't matter because he is exactly where he wants to be. He saves his very best smile for last, for Marc, who already looks a bit like a deer caught in headlights. Excellent.
The questions start off mildly but Valentino makes it clear with some of his more contentious responses that he's willing to answer the difficult questions, willing to lay it all bare, and to expose Marc's nastiness for all to see. As a result, the questions become more and more pointed until a reporter finally asks about his thoughts on last week's race.
Yes. This is what he's been waiting for, and now that it's here, he doesn't hold back. He lets it all out, everything that's been sitting in him for weeks. He revels in it, the rapt attention they're paying him, the flashing of the cameras, the slack jaws. He rants about Phillip Island, about the way Marc undersold himself, just to push at the very end—and why would a rider ever do that unless it was to sabotage the leading champion by helping his rival?
As he speaks, Valentino can see Maverick, on Marc's other side, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He reaches for his water without looking and misses, twice, and if Valentino weren't so laser focused on ruining Marc's reputation before all their peers, he might even laugh. But he's got everyone's attention now and he's doesn't want to give that up. The more the reporters nod, the more vindicated he feels. See? It's not all just in his head.
When Marc obviously and predictably attempts to refute his accusations, Valentino waves him off with a flick of his hand. Away from the microphone, he says in Italian, "Don't insult my intelligence," knowing Marc will understand anyway, his tone low with warning. Marc clenches his jaw and looks away, and he doesn't look back for the rest of the conference, not even when Valentino knows he hits a sore spot by bringing up the childhood hero worship, or perhaps, lack thereof.
He feels fantastic, his belly emptying of the monster that'd been caged there, let out for all to see. It's impossible to tell what Marc is thinking, though he's sitting right next to him, but it's painfully clear that he'd been caught by surprise, which had been precisely the plan. The anger has left him now, leaving behind a giant void with nothing to fill it. There is satisfaction, of course, but even that isn't enough. Valentino only half pays attention to the rest of the questions, knowing when to bow out gracefully once the spotlight had moved on.
As they shuffle off the stage, the last question answered succinctly by Dovi who seemed ready to leave from the moment Valentino opened his mouth, Valentino waits behind his chair to let Marc and Maverick by first before pushing up close behind Marc.
It's the lightest he's felt in ages, like a huge burden has just been lifted off his shoulders, and he feels like a teenager again. He's not in danger of losing his title because of his bike or his performance—no, no it's all because of Marc, the scheming Spaniard who thought no one would ever catch on, only Valentino had and now the world knows it too.
He sidles up behind Marc where he knows the cameras can't see, and delivers the final blow. He knows it's vitriolic hate not suitable for the public, but he can't let Marc leave without having the final word, the cherry on top to an already successful press conference. "Watch your back out there," he murmurs, bending down to make sure Marc can hear him. "Dirty cheats always get what's coming for them."
Marc barely spares him a glance, walking on as if he hasn't heard a thing at all, and Valentino almost believes him until he notices the clenched fist by his side. Valentino follows without thinking. "You can drop the act now," he says, loud and clear when they're alone outside on the private access road. Marc continues to ignore him but Valentino doesn't miss the telltale shake of his shoulders this time—the unmistakable shake of barely concealed rage.
It's in part satisfying but also in part irritating that Marc is angry. If anything, he should be feeling sorry because Valentino deserves an apology. Yes, that's right. An apology is what he wants, and it's why he's following Marc. His mind instantly grabs onto the thought and doesn't let go. "Aren't you sorry at all?"
Marc pauses in his steps, rooted to the spot. "Sorry?" he echoes, like he can't quite believe what Valentino's just said.
"You heard me. You'll have hell to pay if I don't win." The laugh that rips out of Marc is the ugliest thing Valentino's ever heard come from his mouth. It's so long-winding that he has to take a moment just to recover.
"Yeah, fuck you," Marc finally says, straightening up. "And fuck your title. You're a real fucking loser and I'm sorry I was ever a fan." Marc is calm when he says this but he may as well have spat at Valentino's feet.
Valentino recoils from the hatred that rolls off of him in waves, and when Marc sets off again, he doesn't bother following, watching instead as Marc rounds the corner bend alone, his stomach tying in uncomfortable knots for reasons he can't yet articulate. He feels caught out, like there's something big that he's missing, but he doesn't know what.
Uccio finds him soon after, his friend never too far behind in every sense of the word, alone and despondent, and distracts him with clips of articles the press have already written and uploaded. The shock and speculation from everyone is just enough to bring a smile back onto his face, and despite the troubling confrontation with Marc, he sleeps like a baby that night, dreaming of nothing but lifting the Tower of Champions once again.
Valentino wakes with the sun on his face. He can feel that it's going to be a good day. Most days you can't really tell—most days you have to look at the weather outside or remember the last task on your mind from the night before to help you decide if it'll be a good day—but some days, you just know. Today's one of those days.
But again, maybe it's just the sun streaming in that tells him this, or the vague memory of seeing his name freshly etched onto the tower, but something in his loins tells him that he can be certain of this serendipity.
It's with this same attitude, and with the smile of a man ready to face the day, that he checks his schedule, which he knows he left on the table yesterday afternoon, only it isn't there. He finds it tacked to his door, sure and strong the way he'd found it when he first took the papers off yesterday. It's weird, but stranger things have happened.
Just look at what happened to Cal that one time he got stuck reliving the day of his crash because his wife couldn't handle it—now that's weird, and surely counted as cruel and unusual punishment.
Unrestrained emotions of the dangerous variety, regardless of the form it takes—grief, anger, mistrust, or even extreme joy—are reigned in by the universe to maintain earthly balance, and it often does so by looping the event on end until that emotion is neutralized and the risk of harm or danger is reduced, either by an eventual acceptance by the party or countered by a stronger, opposite emotion. Valentino doesn't pretend to understand the machinations behind it all—just like it's easier to not know why certain stars shine red at night, and others blue during the day—some things just are.
And right now, Valentino isn't going to put any weight on anything as silly as misplacing his papers. Besides, that kind of thing hasn't happened to him since he was a kid and cried like hell when the local pet dog died. He really isn't keen for a repeat of that experience and the feeling in his gut, thankfully, tells him he has nothing to worry about.
He flips to the second page and checks his schedule for Friday, because it's Friday the twenty-third and not Thursday the twenty-second, and is content to see that his morning is meeting-free, meaning he can spend the time poring over the timesheets and telemetry data by himself, in peace, before free practice in a few hours. He knows he's being willfully obstinate when he refuses to check his phone for the date, even when it pings with the first notifications of the day, but he wants the serendiptious feeling to last just a little while longer.
Valentino gets all of but twenty minutes more of this wishful thinking until Uccio shows up with the same breakfast roll as he did yesterday, plain for Valentino and sugared for himself, with the same notes on the same clipboard, and it's all so irritating that Valentino wants to shake the stupid glasses off Uccio's head just to see something different happen.
He almost does, but instead lets out a long-suffering sigh and tries to look as pitiful as he can until Uccio takes the bait. "What's wrong?" Uccio finally asks, in the middle of explaining the profiles of the shareholders that'll be present at the meeting that totally already happened yesterday.
"It's happening."
"What?"
"The thing."
"What thing?"
"You know, the Romeo thing."
It takes Uccio but a second to remember the time Valentino got stuck for six days as a seven-year-old because the neighborhood dog died, and when he does, his eyes widen as far as they can go, bugging out behind his stupid glasses.
"Stop that."
"What?"
"Just close your eyes, I can't look at you with them bugging like that."
"Then stop making them bug, asshole."
"They're your eyes," Valentino shoots back. "At least take your damn glasses off."
Uccio gives him an offended look but does as he's told, moving them atop his head. Valentino shoots him a grateful look. "Prove it," Uccio says, not quite convinced, looking unsure of himself without his spectacles.
Valentino sighs. "I can't, not yet, but Ivan will be late to afternoon training because of- " he stops because he realizes he doesn't really know why, " -reasons, but he'll be late."
"Ivan's always late."
Valentino makes a frustrated noise. "Fine, fine," Uccio quickly acquesices. "Just tell me what happens today, or I guess yesterday," he amends, frowning. Valentino dutifully recounts the day, and describes the interaction with Marc after the press conference with painstaking detail, down to the way Marc had stomped off alone, though he brushes over the internal turmoil he'd briefly felt afterwards.
Uccio listens with a thoughtful look on his face through it all. At the end of it, Valentino props an elbow on the table and rests his chin in his hand. "So," he says. "Now what?"
As it turns out, Uccio's brilliant plan involves Marc, because of course it does. "Listen," Uccio says, eyes back to their normal size once he's gotten used to the idea and started thinking it through. "It's obviously Marc. He triggered it."
Valentino nods along, happy to blame anyone but himself—he had learned to have strong control of his own emotions so it made sense that it was the rookie who'd released too much negativity at once and triggered the loop for Valentino. That's what'd happened to Cal a few years ago: he'd crashed really badly and his wife lost it, her emotions flying all over the place.
It took him nearly a month's time in that alternate timeline, him stuck in that day while time stood still for everyone else, his wife forgetting everything every twenty-four hours as the clock reset every night, to figure out how to get out and then actually do it. It was nightmarish, Cal had said, but it made him more emotionally receptive and a better communicator, which his wife heartily appreciated once the universe had decided its work was done and released him from its clutches.
Hearing that made Valentino glad he was a rather facetious child, the death of dear Romeo bothering him deeply for all of but a week before he was deemed ready to move on. In the real world, time had passed normally, of course, and Valentino continued where he'd left off, nobody taking much note of Valentino's hysterical breakdown nor of Romeo's passing, to the consternation of even a rehabilitated Valentino. But Valentino remembered, and so did Uccio, because Uccio was the first person Valentino blabbered everything to, after his parents, and he'd done so with such detail and intrigue that Uccio remembered every last word of the story.
Uccio had never triggered the loop, not for himself or for anyone else, and neither did anyone for him. He was fascinated by the magic and was sometimes even envious of others for being able to live out stretches of time while time passed normally for him in the real world, so when Valentino came to him, seven years old and bright-eyed with a tale of his own, he latched on immediately and hasn't let go since.
The story, as far as loop stories went, was quite mundane, but it'd happened to somebody Uccio knew personally, and even called a friend, and he held out hope for years that maybe the magic hadn't skipped over him, that it was just waiting for the right moment. Valentino never understood his obsession—he'd always said that it was traumatic as a kid and that he'd wished it'd never happened at all, but Uccio always vehemently disagreed.
If Uccio had all the time in the world—well, there was no telling what he wouldn't do. There was so much he could do that his current life couldn't afford him, like waking up past noon or spending just one day without having to talk shop. But Valentino had different priorities.
"I want to know how to get out of this."
"Well, it's gotta be Marc," Uccio points out, again.
"Right, but how do we get him to stop-" Valentino waves a hand in the air, "I don't know, being so angry or whatever." Uccio's eyes narrow, focused and sharp, deep in thought, before they widen again, minutely.
"Oh, it's obvious, Vale, it's so obvious."
"What is?"
"I know how you're going to get out, but you're not going to like it."
"Try me." Valentino isn't thrilled that Marc is involved in any way, nor that Marc had been the cause of it all, but his desire to leave the loop and continue his championship campaign trumps all else.
"Love," Uccio says simply. "It's like all those stories—the opposite has to happen to balance it out. Like how you got over Romeo because seeing the frogs at the ditch made you genuinely laugh. If you want the loop to end, you have to convince the universe, and you have to convince Marc, that he doesn't hate you," Uccio continues like he didn't just drop an absolute doo-doo of an idea on him. "You have to make him fall in love with you."
Seeing Valentino's incredulous expression, Uccio pats him gently on the shoulder. "I gotta say, I don't envy you brother, I don't. But it must be done. Think of what's waiting for you in the real world."
And Valentino does. He thinks of his parents, his friends, his fans, and his team. But most of all, he thinks of the Tower of Champions, and he makes his choice.