Chapter Text
2008
Marc is fifteen when he meets Valentino Rossi for the first time, properly, with photo evidence and a written signature to prove it. Valentino shakes his hand and gives him a sturdy pat on the back—a gesture of honor that Marc will wear with pride for the coming weeks. Afterwards, when the cameras turn away and the small crowd loses their interest, Valentino moves in a little closer.
“Marc, right? How old are you? Nine, ten?” Valentino guesses, bending down briefly to hear Marc’s response over the din of the paddock.
“Fifteen,” Marc says, cheeks instantly turning a furious red, waiting for Valentino to make fun of how short he is for his age like everyone else.
If Valentino is surprised, his face doesn’t show it.
“Guess I’ll see you around pretty soon then.” His smile is genuine and when he winks, Marc swears he can see twinkling in his blue eyes.
"Yes," Marc says fiercely, though he doesn't know for sure. Nobody can know for sure—a million things have to go the right way for it to happen—but right here, right now, with Valentino, there is no other answer.
Valentino grins. "Tell you what, kid. Making it is just the first step. Now winning it," he pauses, tapping his temple with his index finger. "Winning it is something else entirely."
Marc sucks in a breath, imagining it now, raising the tower in his hands, the strain of his arms after an exhausting race, an exhausting season, the cheers, the pounding in his chest, an older Valentino besides him, near him, because of course he would be, where else would he be?
Then someone wearing a headset comes up to Valentino, breaking Marc's reverie, and puts a hand on Valentino's shoulder, whispering something in his ear. Valentino nods, listening. Then he gives Marc an apologetic smile and a small wave, stepping away. Their time together is up and Valentino has to go.
At school, Marc talks about meeting Valentino Rossi to anyone who’ll listen, though he keeps the second part of it to himself—it was just a few words but they’d meant so much, too much, that Marc can’t bear to share them, fearing that sharing them would diminish their value, that the more people who know, the less it would mean and the less it would come true—but he talks about the rest of it so often that his brother has taken to sticking his fingers in his ears and blabbering nonsense whenever Marc’s about to get started again.
Still riding the high of having seen and touched Valentino in the flesh, skin to skin even, having shared a few words too, the theatrics from Alex hardly bothers Marc, and neither does the teasing from his classmates who accuse him of being a boy lover, and a faggot for those less well-mannered.
It hurt for a while, to know that maybe he really was different, in a bad way, but then he’d remember that Valentino Rossi was Valentino Rossi, boy or girl, so that was that.
The boys continue to make obscene gestures and suggestive comments behind his back and the girls hover less than they did before, though some make sure to make their sympathies known despite drifting further away, and Marc can do little more than laugh along, all the while holding Alex back from jumping into fights on his behalf because all of this schoolyard nonsense and politicking is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Marc has a plan, and his plan is beyond them, the teasing, beyond his school walls, and beyond the city limits and the people within, all nine thousand of them.
His plan is the greatest thing he’d ever dreamed: he’s going to reach the top of the world, the pinnacle of motorsport. He’s going to go premier.
He’s going to go to MotoGP.
And then, he's going to win it.
It’ll take a few more years of hard work but that wouldn’t be anything new. He likes the work, likes having structure and discipline in his life. As long as he keeps winning, he knows he can do it. He knows his dream will come true, and that one day, he’ll share more than just a few words with Valentino Rossi, but also seasons and podiums and maybe even the same team.
Every night before bed, he closes his eyes in quick prayer in front of his magazine cutouts of Valentino, all taped to his wall in a neat collage. He has to be quick because Alex caught him once and that had already been one too many times. His reverence for Valentino isn’t a secret at home but he really doesn’t need the extra teasing from his family too after school.
Valentino’s eyes appraise him carefully like a monk appraising a new disciple at the temple, judging him for all he’s worth without saying a single word.
Wait for me. I'm coming.
—
2013
Marc wins in Austin at his second MotoGP race ever, and it’s everything he dreamed it’d be.
The celebrations are loud and noisy, and he loses his head after chugging the champagne he has no business drinking like water.
Somebody at some point tells him to watch himself, that he’d regret it later, most likely referring to the relentless way he downs every shot and drink thrust in his way, and Marc pays them no heed because he’s just won his first MotoGP race and none of his wins so far have even begun to scratch the surface of the joy of this one—because this time has something different all the others lacked, which is that Valentino saw it all.
He’d done it in front of Valentino, standing next to Valentino, like he’d done just last week, only this time he stood on the higher step. Valentino had to turn to look up at him, and Marc would be lying if he said that having to tilt his head down to meet Valentino’s eyes and warm congratulations hadn’t sent a shiver down his spine.
When Valentino comes by the Honda garage in Jerez two weeks later, Marc smiles to himself and pretends to be engrossed in his notes for the weekend, head down, and patiently waits for Valentino to walk over with an easy smile on his face and a hand out ready to shake, only he doesn’t—Marc looks up and spots Valentino conversing with Dani instead, on Dani’s side of the garage, with their backs to Marc, and his cheeks burn with embarrassment.
Of course.
Why had he expected any differently? It makes sense that a rider like Valentino would seek out a rider like Dani, both of a similar caliber and status. Why spare any attention to the runt of the litter, the smallest one with the most to prove?
He stamps down his disappointment and buries himself in his notes, really reading them this time, determined to prove them all wrong—to show them that Austin wasn’t just a fluke and that he didn’t just have beginner’s luck. He’s just getting into it when he hears a throat clear above him.
Valentino’s looking down at him, with a smile on his face like Marc had predicted. He looks like he just got done with training, his hair slightly wet and sticking to his forehead.
“What are you reading?”
“Oh,” Marc says, slamming his notebook shut, embarrassed that his obsessive tendencies were revealed so soon. He always got shit for it in the junior series, the other kids mocking him as he jotted down times and positions. He doesn’t need Valentino to laugh at him too.
Undeterred, Valentino laughs, but not in the same way Marc had grown used to. “I’m guessing that helped you win in Austin?”
“Maybe,” Marc mutters, still unsure of whether or not he should be defensive. Valentino narrows his eyes, studying him. Marc squirms under his gaze.
Then Valentino brightens and says, “Keep it up, kid. That was a hell of race, and you’re only what,”
“Twenty,” Marc helpfully supplies.
“Twenty,” Valentino repeats, slightly breathless like he’s just lost his train of thought. “Right, of course. You’re the youngest race winner in MotoGP and all that.”
Marc blushes at the reminder, pleased that Valentino remembered. Valentino gives him a thoughtful look.
“I’d wish you luck this weekend but it'd be insincere when we all know we only want the best for ourselves.” Valentino pushes off the wall he’d been leaning on. “May the fastest rider win,” he says with a wink.
And just like that, it all comes crashing back down around Marc.
It should be impossible how badly he wants this man. Illogical and dangerous and wanton, with the wide stretching expanse of fourteen years lived and unlived between them, an insurmountable barrier in and of itself without even considering the social implications of such a relationship—yet something in him says, it screams, that there is something here, that there is a reason he can’t let go.
In the back of his mind, he’s always known this, had known since he was young, like he’d known the sky was blue and the oceans vast, which is to say that it had become such an inexplicable matter of life that it hardly fazes him at all now, that his heartbeat quickens when Valentino nears or that his palms start sweating whenever he’s subject to Valentino’s close and piercing gaze.
The only difference between now and then, for Marc, is that he knows exactly why, and what that feeling is. What started as an infatuation had gradually matured to sexual attraction the older Marc got and the surer he became in his own skin, no longer a kid, but a man of his own, his thoughts no longer completely innocent.
He thinks of the heat that pools deep in his belly during sleepless nights as he imagines Valentino in his leathers lining up next to him on the grid, helmet on, visor down, out of sight but still so so present in Marc’s mind, and the pull that he feels whenever Valentino’s near, like a tether that tugs him around, only he goes with it, willingly.
Desire. Lust. Want. Need.
It rips through Marc the closer he gets, his breath hitching whenever Valentino touches him in passing, on the shoulder, his waist, his hip, the small of his back—each and every unassuming touch lights Marc on fire and he is electric with his need to get his hands on Valentino likewise, but with intention and without fear, only he knows what society expects of him, of men, and what they do to them when they deviate from the blueprint, and so he bites his lip to keep from smiling too hard at Valentino for fear that he gives himself away, averts his eyes so his cheeks don’t burn when Valentino meets his gaze, and keeps to himself, keeps his ruinous crush a secret, and funnels every last bit of keyed up sexual frustration into his racecraft instead, determined to come out of his first season with something to show for it if he can't have Valentino, not in the way he wants.
Valentino is polite as always, but Marc can’t shake the feeling that this is all he’ll ever be. Good for small talk, to laugh at a joke once in a while, a friendly face around the paddock, but always a kid in his eyes.
The years that lie in wait between them make it impossible for Marc to appear as anything else on Valentino’s radar, and he resents that fact, just as he resents the fact that the same doesn't seem to apply to women. He wonders if Valentino’s noticed, and if that’s why he keeps his distance: not too far away as to run the risk of being impolite, but not close either, enough for it to be obvious to Marc.
But there’s nothing he can do to be more of a man. Or less of one.
Stuck in between, he does his best to ignore every flutter of hope and twinge of hurt Valentino brings him, intentionally or unintentionally, and focuses diligently on the season.
Jorge Lorenzo wins the final race in Valencia and Marc finishes third, but it’s enough for him to win the title by four points, becoming the youngest MotoGP champion in history.
The incredulity of it all knocks the wind out of Marc and he spends the next few hours in a daze, being passed from person to person, shaking hands, smiling for pictures, and congratulated with enthusiastic hugs and pounds on his back.
Everybody wants a piece of him and it's loud and overwhelming, but still so good—so good that for some time he forgets to search for Valentino's tall figure amongst the rabble, forgets about their first meeting and what Valentino had said, forgets that he's tethered to the one person in the world who doesn't want him back.
When a knock sounds on his door sometime in the early morning, when Marc's still delirious from joy and hopelessly drunk (he really should've listened the first time around), he almost doesn't answer it because where he's laying on the floor in this particular spot in this particular position is far too comfortable to jeopardize losing once he gets up. But drunk as he may be, his mother did not raise him without manners, and it's her voice he hears in his head when he eventually drags himself up to get the door.
He opens the door expecting- he's not sure what he was expecting, but it definitely isn't the nine-time MotoGP champion standing there, smiling.
He blinks. Once. Twice.
It really is him.
What the hell?
Valentino Rossi holds out a sports drink like it's a peace offering, smile soft. "Room for one more?"
Marc can feel his pulse quicken. It's instantaneous and sobering as always, his reaction to Valentino. He swallows hard, all of a sudden self-conscious about the way he looks. God, he hasn't thrown up on himself, has he? Ignoring the urge to look down and straighten himself out, he takes a careful step back and lets Valentino in.