Chapter Text
The Accidental Bite
2014 Round 6, Mugello
The paddock food had been bad for three days running.
Not catastrophically bad. Not send it back bad. Just... beige. Aggressively, philosophically beige, the kind of food that existed purely to fill a stomach and had given up on any ambitions beyond that. Vale had pushed the same plate of pasta around for twenty minutes before abandoning it with the quiet dignity of a man who had suffered enough.
The food was nice when they have a chance to go out eating at restaurants , but these easy-baking-processed food ?
They're making him sick.
He was now sitting in the way that Uccio called the tragic pose, chin in hand, elbow on table, staring at nothing with the expression of someone who had been personally wronged by carbohydrates.
"You look like someone cancelled your race."
Vale didn't look up. "Someone cancelled my appetite."
Marc Marquez sat down across from him, already eating. He was twenty-one years old, reigning world champion, and apparently completely unbothered by the state of paddock catering because he'd brought his own container. Something he'd clearly made himself, because it smelled immediately different from everything else in a ten-meter radius. Warmer. More complex. Like actual food made by actual hands with actual intention.
Vale's eyes moved to it before he'd consciously decided to look.
"Three days," Vale said, to no one in particular. "Three days of this, Marc. The pasta, it tastes like- "
He reached across and took a forkful.
This was just something Vale did. Everyone in the paddock knew this- teammates, rivals, mechanics, journalists who'd been around long enough. Vale Rossi stole bites. It was a fact of life, like tire degradation and Mugello weather. Marc barely had time to register the movement before it was done.
He waited for the verdict. Vale always had a verdict.. loud, immediate, delivered with the confidence of a man who considered his own opinions a public service.
Nothing happened.
Valentino had gone very still.
Fork still in hand. Not moving. A strange, slightly arrested expression on his face, like a man who had started to say something and then forgotten every word he'd ever known.
Marc waited.
"...Vale?"
"Shh."
Marc stared at him, confused smile appeared. "Did you just shush me."
"I'm processing."
"You're-" Marc looked around the table. No one nearby. Just them, and this increasingly strange moment. "It's rice, Vale."
"I know it's rice." Vale's voice was very careful. Measured in a way Vale's voice almost never was. "I can see that it's rice."
"Okay."
"The question," Vale continued, still in that odd, deliberate tone, "is what you did to it."
"I cooked it?"
Vale set the fork down. Turned to look at Marc with an expression that was, genuinely, slightly accusatory. Like Marc had done something to him specifically.
"...what the hell is this?"
"Uh." Marc glanced at his container. "Lunch?"
"No." Vale shook his head, slow and certain. "No, this is important."
"It's rice with- "
"Important, Marc."
Marc opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at this man, nine world championships, most recognizable face in motorsport, more confidence than physics should allow, staring at his tupperware like it had said something meaningful.
"Can I have my fork back."
"In a moment."
Vale took another bite. Deliberately this time. His eyes went somewhere distant, not unfocused, but inward, like he was paying attention to something that required concentration. Marc had seen that expression before, but usually it was pointed at a corner entry or a tire report. Not at rice.
"Okay," Vale said finally.
Marc waited.
"Okay, I have decided." Vale set the fork down and looked at Marc with complete seriousness. "You have been on this circuit , in this paddock - for how long?"
"You know how long."
"A whole season." Valentino held up two fingers. "Whole season, Marc, and in all this time-" he gestured at the container "you never said anything."
"About my lunch."
"About the fact that you can cook." He said it the way you might say fly or is actually an alien. A superpower, withheld. A genuine grievance. "I have been eating that-" a dismissive wave toward the abandoned pasta "for three days."
"I didn't know you were struggling."
"Well now you know!"
Marc pulled the container back across the table. Mostly reflex.
Vale watched it go. Then looked at Marc. Something was visibly reorganizing itself behind his eyes , some calculation, some new information slotting into place.
"Okay," he said, for the third time. Quieter now. Like a man making a private decision.
Marc recognized that voice. He'd heard it before races , that specific drop in register that meant Vale had decided something and was simply waiting for the world to catch up.
"Valentino-"
"Nothing." A wave of the hand. Vale leaned back, crossed his arms, conspicuously casual. "Nothing, enjoy your lunch, forget I said anything."
Marc looked at him for a long moment.
Then pushed the container back across the table without a word.
The blonde picked up the fork immediately. Had clearly been waiting. Didn't even attempt to look surprised.
The corner of Marc's mouth moved. Just slightly.
"...thank you, Marc."
"Yeah, yeah."
*
Marc didn't think about it much after that. The weekend moved on , practice, qualifying, the race, the next race. Mugello gave way to Catalunya gave way to the relentless forward motion of a championship season.
Vale went back to eating paddock food. Presumably.
Marc stopped noticing whether he did or not.
(This is what he told himself.)
What he did not tell himself, and therefore did not have to examine, was that he'd started packing slightly more than he needed most days. Not a lot. Just — more. Enough that if someone happened to be nearby. Enough that if someone happened to have pushed a plate of pasta around for twenty minutes and given up on it. Enough for two, hypothetically, if the situation arose.
The situation did not arise. Valentino was busy. They were both busy. It was a championship season and there were more important things than lunch.
And then
Three weeks later. Assen. Rain delay, which meant everyone crammed into the paddock structures with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. Vale was doing the tragic pose again , Marc recognized it from across the room, the specific angle of the chin, the particular quality of the stare.
He had, that morning, packed enough for two.
He told himself this was coincidence.
He walked over anyway.
Valentino looked up when Marc sat down. Looked at the container. Looked at Marc.
Something passed across his face quick, and almost embarrassingly transparent, and immediately suppressed behind a very studied expression of casualness.
"Oh," Vale said. "You're eating here."
"Apparently."
"Hm." A pause. "...that smells good."
Marc opened the container. Said nothing.
The older man lasted approximately forty-five seconds.
"Okay," he said. "I'm going to need you to just-" a gesture. "give me a little. Just a taste. Just to-"
"Ask properly."
"I am asking properly."
"You're narrating." Marc tilted the container toward him slightly. "Ask properly."
Valentino made a face that cycled rapidly through indignation, pride, and hunger, with hunger winning by a significant margin.
"...Marc. Can I please have some of your food."
Marc handed him a fork.
And watched Vale take a bite and go quiet again , that same stillness, that same inward expression and thought, with no particular alarm.
oh. this is going to be a thing.
He was right, as it turned out.
It was absolutely going to be a thing.