Chapter Text
Albert Park did not wake all at once. It unfolded.
Morning light slipped gradually over the lake, breaking against the water in long, trembling reflections before stretching across the circuit. The grandstands filled in patches. Scarlet in one section, navy in another. Helicopters traced slow circles overhead. Somewhere in the paddock, engines turned over for installation laps, their low resonance vibrating through concrete and bone with an intimacy that always startled you, no matter how many seasons you had lived inside it.
A season opener carried its own particular silence. It was not the absence of sound, because Albert Park was never quiet. It was the silence of possibility, of narrative not yet decided.
You stood just inside the Red Bull garage with your helmet resting against your hip, watching mechanics move in practiced patterns around the car. The cameras had already taken up positions near the entrance. You could feel their attention even when they were pointed elsewhere, a hovering awareness that followed you more persistently than any rival on track.
Second season.
The only woman on the grid.
The statistic had been repeated so often over the weekend that it had begun to lose its shape. It appeared in headlines, in graphics, in commentary panels, spoken with varying degrees of admiration or skepticism. Sometimes it was framed as history. Sometimes as spectacle. Occasionally as risk.
You preferred when it was not mentioned at all.
Because the statistics did not really account for the reality in the cockpit. They did not mention the bruises that bloomed like dark violets along your collarbones or the way your neck muscles felt like frayed cables after five g-force loads on every turn.
Across the pit lane, Ferrari red cut a decisive line against the muted concrete. Even from a distance, their garage felt structured. You did not look immediately for him, although the awareness was there. It had been there since pre-season testing, since the first time you had seen the scarlet car emerge with its new livery and the same unyielding driver.
Bakugo Katsuki did not occupy space quietly. He was not something you’d describe as calm. Calm implied peace.
He was about to combust, and it lived just beneath his composure.
Your engineer approached, tablet tucked against his chest. “Tire blankets come off in twenty,” he said, voice steady in the way it always was before a race. “We’ll review launch maps once more.”
You nodded, sliding your gloves on and flexing your fingers to feel the material settle. The pole position had come yesterday with a clarity that had almost startled you. The lap had flowed, unbroken, every sector building into the next with a precision that felt less like effort and more like inevitability.
For a moment after you crossed the line yesterday, you had stayed in the cockpit while the team shouted in your ears.
Pole.
You let the word exist without decoration.
Against your will, a laugh had almost broken loose. It was a small, disbelieving one, gone as quickly as it arrived.
You pressed your lips together before anyone could hear it.
Hope, in this sport, was a dangerous luxury.
Pole had quieted some of the talk.
Not all of it.
The narrative of F1 giving the diversity hire the pole on its opener was apparently such an obvious PR move.
“You’ll convert today,” one pundit had said on the broadcast panel that morning. “But let’s be honest. She has one of the fastest cars on the grid. If she does not win from Pole, we have to start asking if Red Bull is wasting a seat on a PR move.”
It was never about your late braking or your tire management. It was always about whether you were a driver or a liability.
The implication hovered in the space between words: that machinery had done what you could not.
You had won three races last season. You had stood on the podium six times. You had fought through rain in Suzuka, heat in Bahrain, and chaos in Monza. You had held your position wheel to wheel against drivers who had spent their entire lives being told they belonged here without question.
Still, the framing remained delicate.
Promising.
Impressive for—
You did not let the thought complete itself.
Movement across the lane drew your attention despite your resolve. Ferrari’s garage opened, and he stepped into view.
The suit fit him with deliberate severity, red against red, the prancing horse crest catching light as he adjusted his gloves. His expression was unreadable from this distance, but you recognized the set of his shoulders. It was the same posture he carried before a fight he intended to win.
He did not bluff in combat. He erased people with precision.
He did not look toward you.
You did not look away.
There was something restrained in the space between your garages, a current that had been forming since last season’s final round when you had crossed the line less than a second apart. It was not hostility. It was not friendship. It was recognition, measured and unspoken.
When the grid ceremony began, the air shifted.
You walked through the grid with cameras pacing backward in front of you. Microphones angled upward.
“L/N, congratulations on pole. Do you feel additional pressure representing women in the sport?”
You offered a controlled smile. “I feel pressure to drive well.”
Another voice pushed forward. “Bakugo alongside you again—thoughts on this?”
You glanced briefly toward the Ferrari at the front row. “We’ll see how the first corner goes.”
Inside the cockpit, the world narrowed in increments. Belts tightened across your shoulders and hips. The steering wheel locked into place beneath your hands. The halo framed the straight ahead, turning the grandstand into a distant blur of color.
Your heartbeat did not race in panic. It built gradually, steadily, as though syncing itself to the rhythm of the engine idling beneath you.
Over the broadcast, the commentators’ voices swelled.
“And here we are in Melbourne, season two underway! L/N on pole for Red Bull, Bakugo alongside her for Ferrari. This front row promises fireworks.”
“Let’s not forget, she was criticized last year for being too cautious in wheel-to-wheel situations. Today will answer a lot of questions.”
You inhaled slowly.
Five red lights illuminated above the track.
In that suspended moment, you became acutely aware of the car to your right. You could not see him directly without turning your head, but you felt the presence, the alignment of two machines calibrated for the same purpose.
The lights extinguished.
The launch was clean. It was neither miraculous nor dramatic, but definitely precise.
The car surged forward, rear tires biting into asphalt. You felt the acceleration compress your body into the seat, the vibration traveling through your spine. Peripheral vision narrowed as speed climbed, the braking point for Turn 1 approaching with deceptive calm.
The Ferrari remained beside you, a streak of predatory red in your peripheral vision.
Into Turn 1, Bakugo didn't just challenge; he lunged. He sent the Ferrari deep into the corner, a move so aggressive it bordered on a death wish and a blatant test of your nerve. A ‘cautious’ driver would have flinched. They would have opened the steering to avoid the contact and surrendered the line.
You didn't blink. You squeezed him just enough to be legal, your tires screaming as you held the apex. It was a game of chicken at two hundred kilometers per hour. He trusted you not to crash; you trusted him to find the limit.
On exit, you found the traction first.
“He’s cleared him,” came the broadcast call. “L/N retains the lead.”
You did not allow yourself satisfaction. The race ahead was long.
Through the opening stint, his presence settled into your mirrors with unsettling consistency. He did not lunge recklessly. He did not attempt desperate maneuvers. He remained within range, patient in a way that contradicted his reputation off the grid.
Each lap deepened the awareness between you.
Your hands made minute corrections on the wheel. Your breathing found a rhythm. Sweat gathered at your collar despite the cooling system’s steady hum. You could feel your pulse in your fingertips during heavy braking zones, and it sharpened you with each execution.
The commentators began constructing their narrative.
“Bakugo applying pressure.”
“She’s defending maturely.”
“Some critics argued last year that she lacked aggression. I think she’s disproving that today.”
Disproving.
As though your career were a rumor and today its fact-check.
The word lingered.
On lap twenty-three, you boxed.
The pit stop unfolded cleanly, the choreography of it almost beautiful in its precision. When you rejoined, the Ferrari appeared behind you once more, close enough to remind you that nothing had been settled.
The final laps carried a not-so-dramatic-but-dense particular weight. Every braking point mattered. Every apex required exactness.
When the checkered flag waved and you crossed the line ahead, the release was not explosive. It was quiet and deep, as if one were surfacing from underwater.
Your engineer’s voice trembled faintly over the radio. “That’s P1. Excellent drive.”
You allowed yourself a small exhale.
You waited for euphoria.
It didn’t come.
What came instead was the steady understanding that you would be asked to do it again next week, and the week after that, until repetition finally convinced people you had always belonged.
On the cooldown lap, the Ferrari drew alongside. You turned your head slightly. Through the visor, you saw the brief inclination of his helmet. Measured and restrained the acknowledgment was.
You mirrored it.
There would be other races.
In parc fermé, the questions returned immediately.
“Does this victory silence the doubts?”
“What does this mean for women watching at home?”
“Were you surprised Bakugo didn’t attack more aggressively?”
You answered carefully. You spoke about teamwork. About consistency. About respect between competitors.
A few feet away, Bakugo was being cornered by a reporter with a thrust-forward microphone. "Katsuki, you were incredibly aggressive into Turn 1," the man prompted, his voice eager for a headline. "Were you surprised she held the line against you? Did you expect her to yield?"
Bakugo didn't even look at the camera. He just pulled his fire hood down around his neck, his eyes fixed on your Red Bull car being rolled onto the weighing scales.
"No," he said flatly.
The reporter blinked, waiting for an elaboration that didn't come. Bakugo simply turned his back, ending the interview before it could turn into a debate. He wasn't surprised. He had expected a fight, and you had given him one.
The walk toward the podium unfolded through a corridor of noise.
Officials gestured. Team members reached for your shoulders in passing congratulations. Photographers called your name from every direction, flashes dissolving the edges of your vision. The roar from the grandstands rolled continuously over the circuit, less a cheer now and more a sustained vibration that seemed to live in the air itself.
You were aware of him before you saw him.
Ferrari red moved into your periphery as the drivers were guided toward the holding area beneath the podium. The two of you had walked this path before—separate trajectories that converged at the same narrow staircase. Close enough to acknowledge. Never close enough to linger.
This time, the space between you felt thinner.
Someone from his team was speaking to him, gesturing animatedly about tire degradation. He listened with the same intent focus he wore in the cockpit, nodding once. When the team member peeled away, he stepped forward at nearly the same moment you did.
The back of his glove brushed yours.
It was accidental in the way proximity makes accidents inevitable, but neither of you corrected immediately.
“Good fight,” he said.
The words were pitched low, almost lost beneath the continuing roar of the crowd and the commentator’s distant voice narrating the podium ceremony. If you had not been listening for him, you might have missed it.
Your pulse faltered in a way that had nothing to do with fatigue.
“You’ll have to try harder,” you replied, keeping your tone level, aware of cameras only meters away.
His mouth curved subtly. There was something unguarded in the expression, something that did not belong to press conferences or post-race interviews.
“Count on it.”
The contact between your gloves broke as officials ushered you into position. The moment dissolved outward into spectacle.
Above you, the commentator’s voice carried across the circuit:
“And there they are—the two drivers who may define this season. L/N for Red Bull, Bakugo for Ferrari. If Melbourne is any indication, we’re in for something special.”
“Generational talent on the front row,” another added. “And perhaps the beginning of a championship duel.”
The crowd seemed to swell at that suggestion.
On the podium, you took your place at the center. The trophy was placed in your hands, solid and cool against your palms. To your right, Bakugo stood with the contained stillness of someone already recalculating. He did not look disappointed. He looked resolved.
Champagne was passed forward. Cameras angled upward to frame the three of you against the Australian sky.
When you turned to spray, your eyes met his for half a second longer than necessary.
There was no hostility there. No theatrics.
Only recognition.
If this season was going to tighten into something unforgiving, it would not be because either of you wished for spectacle. It would be because neither of you knew how to yield.
Analysts on evening panels would replay the onboard footage of Turn 1 and then cut to the podium exchange, building a narrative that felt almost too neat.
“It’s respectful,” one former driver would say. “But make no mistake, they’re measuring each other.”
Standing there with champagne drying against your race suit and the weight of the trophy steady in your grip, you understood that they might not be exaggerating.
Because when you had checked your mirrors in the final laps, it had not been fear you felt.
It had been inevitability.
If this season unfolded into something relentless, something that demanded everything from you, it would begin and end with a scarlet car hovering just within reach.
And Bakugo Katsuki, you suspected, would never stop chasing.
Later, alone in your hotel room, you lay back against the pillows and opened your phone.
Notifications flooded the screen.
“She only won because Red Bull nailed strategy.”
“Bakugo was clearly faster.”
“Let’s see her do that in equal machinery.”
“This is what happens when F1 goes soft.”
“She’s talented, but the sport shouldn’t lower standards.”
You paused there.
Lower standards.
Your résumé scrolled through your mind with mechanical clarity: karting titles, Formula 3 champion, Super Formula champion, rookie podium in your first F1 season, three race victories before your twenty-third birthday.
You had spent your life out-braking men who were told they were kings before they could even drive a road car. You had fought for every millimeter of asphalt while they were handed the keys to the kingdom. You didn't just meet the standards; you were the one setting the bar they were all failing to reach.
Decorated.
Documented.
Still provisional in the eyes of many.
You locked your phone and stared at the ceiling.
The noise would not stop. It never did. It would shape itself into new forms, attach itself to new moments. Some of it would be subtle. Some of it overt. All of it would ask you to prove yourself again.
You did not resent the proving.
You resented the premise.
If this season was to be defined by anything, it would not be noise from panels or comments from anonymous accounts. It would be defined by laps, by braking zones, by the narrowing margin between red and navy.
He would come again. And one day, he would arrive without settling for second.