Work Text:
The thing about Formula 1 drivers is that their bodies do not belong to them.
They belong to a highly coordinated, terrifyingly efficient ecosystem of trainers, physiotherapists, team principals, and FIA-mandated doctors who treat them less like human beings and more like multi-million-dollar thoroughbred horses.
Every three months, Charles Leclerc was poked, prodded, weighed, and subjected to reflex tests that involved catching falling light-up sticks.
His blood was analyzed for exact hydration levels.
His neck was measured to ensure it could withstand the lateral G-forces of Pouhon.
And yet, none of these highly paid medical professionals had realized that Charles Leclerc was, for all intents and purposes, functionally blind in his left eye.
Max Verstappen figured it out because of a box of Coco Pops.
They had been together for four years now, an official, domestic reality that still occasionally made the press corps dizzy but felt entirely inevitable to them. Honestly, it felt like they'd been together for twenty. Even during their legendary karting days—back when they were shoved onto the same podiums, red-faced and radiating pure, unadulterated hatred—there had been an intense, magnetic gravity pulling them toward each other.
Charles had spent his teenage years convinced Max was his mortal enemy. Max had spent those same years entirely aware that he had a massive, highly inconvenient crush on the stubborn Monégasque who kept trying to run him off the track.
Because they knew each other down to the molecular level, Max noticed the small things.
They were sitting in their apartment in Monaco, a rare three-day break between double-headers stretching out gloriously before them.
Max was at the kitchen island, working his way through the last of his banana smoothie, while Charles wandered around the living room in a pair of oversized grey sweatpants, squinting at the pantry.
“Max?” Charles called out, his voice carrying that soft, slightly melodic cadence it got when he was relaxed. “Where did you put the cereal?”
Max blinked, looking at the counter.
The box of Coco Pops was sitting precisely three inches to the left of the toaster. It was a bright yellow box with a cartoon monkey on it. It was practically glowing under the LED under-cabinet lighting.
“It’s on the counter,” Max said, as he finished his smoothie.
Charles turned his head.
He didn’t just look at the counter; he tilted his chin up, leaned forward slightly, and furrowed his brow, his entire face tightening into an expression of intense, agonizing concentration.
He looked like a man trying to read a fading ancient scroll by candlelight.
“Ah,” Charles said, his face smoothing out as he finally spotted the giant yellow monkey. “Perfect.”
Max frowned. Okay, he thought. Strange. But he let it go.
Until a few weeks later, in the quiet, heavy-breathing space of their bedroom, when it was just them, and the dim moonlight filtering through the blinds.
Charles had pushed Max back onto the mattress, sliding over his lap with a slow, deliberate heat that usually drove every logical thought from Max’s brain. But when Charles leaned down to deliver what was clearly meant to be a devastating, breathless kiss, he missed Max’s mouth entirely.
His lips brushed, with agonizing confidence, against the sharp edge of Max’s jawline, right beneath his ear.
Max grunted, his hands anchoring firmly on Charles’ bare, warm hips to steady him. “Charles. Target missed. I’m right here.”
Charles flushed instantly, a dark silhouette in the shadows, before fiercely correcting his trajectory and capturing Max’s lips to smother the mistake.
“I was teasing you, idiot,” Charles murmured against his mouth, his touch suddenly frantic, demanding, and thoroughly distracting.
But afterward, while Charles lay asleep with his head buried in Max’s chest, Max stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. He remembered the way Charles’ eyes had scanned his face in the dim light—tracking a fraction of an inch too slowly, relying entirely on touch, scent, and muscle memory to map the lines of Max’s body.
Holy shit, Max realized. He actually can’t see.
The definitive proof arrived two days later, back on the couch.
Max was casually scrolling through telemetry data on his iPad—because Max’s version of relaxing was looking at throttle traces—and Charles was on his phone.
But Charles wasn’t just looking at his phone.
He had the screen exactly four inches from his nose. His left eye was slightly squinted, and his head was turned at a distinct fifteen-degree angle.
“Charles,” Max said slowly.
“Oui?”
“Why are you smelling your phone?”
Charles pulled the screen back, laughing his bright, easy laugh. “I am not smelling it, idiot. I am reading a text from Jarno.”
“You look like my grandmother trying to read a restaurant menu,” Max said, setting the iPad down. “Can you actually see that?”
“Of course I can see it,” Charles scoffed, offended in principle, tossing the phone onto the cushion. “I have perfect vision. Exceptional, actually. The doctors at Ferrari, they always say, ‘Ah, Charles, your eyes, they are like a hawk.’”
Max stared at him.
He had spent his whole life analyzing micro-expressions of drivers in his rearview mirrors at two hundred miles per hour.
He knew when Charles Leclerc was being stubbornly, spectacularly delusional.
“Right,” Max said. He pointed out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows toward the harbour. “Read the name on that yacht. The big white one.”
Charles shifted. He looked out the window.
His shoulders tensed. His jaw clenched.
He blinked rapidly three times, then turned back to Max with a completely blank, serene expression.
“It says Ocean Breeze,” Charles said confidently.
“That yacht belongs to an oil tycoon, it’s named The Iron Lady, and it left the harbour yesterday morning,” Max said flatly. “That is a cruise ship, mate.”
Charles winced at the word. Max only threw out a rigid, paddock-style “mate” when he was actively trying to be an instigator.
“Maybe they changed the name before they left?”
“Get your shoes on,” Max said, standing up. “We’re going to the doctor.”
“Non!”
“Charles.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m pregnant,” Max stated, entirely deadpan, without a hint of humour.
Charles didn’t even blink. “People of the internet do say you have such healthy, child-bearing hips, chéri.”
“Yeah, and that kid’s papa is blind. Move it.”
The argument lasted forty-five minutes.
It involved Charles invoking his right as an autonomous adult, Charles claiming that Monaco’s air quality was just “dusty today,” and Charles eventually trying to distract Max by kissing him thoroughly against the kitchen counter.
It was a good strategy—highly effective under normal circumstances—but Max Verstappen possessed a terrifying, single-minded focus that had broken the spirits of entire racing syndicates.
He simply waited for Charles to run out of breath, handed him his white designer sneakers, and said, “Shoes. Now.”
Which is how they ended up in the private waiting room of Dr. Laurent, a high-end Monégasque ophthalmologist who usually dealt with aging billionaires trying to laser away their cataracts. The only people who knew they were here were the receptionists, who had been sworn to absolute, legally binding NDAs.
Charles was brooding. He sat on the leather sofa, arms crossed over his chest, pouting so hard his lower lip was practically touching his nose.
“This is ridiculous,” Charles muttered in French, then caught himself and switched to English because he knew Max hated being excluded from a good rant. “This is a waste of time. I am an F1 driver. If my eyes were bad, I would hit the walls.”
“You do hit the walls,” Max pointed out from across the room, where he was flipping through a magazine. “Baku? Monaco? Every street circuit, you treat the barriers like a suggestion.”
“That is because I am pushing the limit!” Charles cried out, outraged. “It is called qualifying, Max! You take risks! It has nothing to do with my eyes!”
“We’ll see,” Max said, utterly unbothered.
The door opened, and Dr. Laurent walked in wearing a tailored white coat. He looked between the two of them—the reigning World Champion looking like a smug detective, and Ferrari’s golden boy looking like a teenager who had just been grounded.
“Monsieur Leclerc, Monsieur Verstappen,” the doctor greeted them warmly. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“He’s blind,” Max said flatly.
“I have the vision of an eagle!” Charles corrected sharply. “Max is just paranoid because he spends too much time looking at computer screens. I came here to prove a point.”
Dr. Laurent smiled the patient, practiced smile of a man who was paid entirely too much money to argue with hyper-competitive athletes.
“Well, let us run a few quick tests to settle the debate, shall we? Charles, if you could sit right here...”
Max stood by the door, arms crossed, watching.
The first test was standard: the classic Snellen chart with rows of letters decreasing in size.
Charles sat up straight, squaring his shoulders. He looked supremely confident, like he was about to nail a pole position lap.
“Please cover your right eye, Charles, and read the fifth line down,” Dr. Laurent instructed.
Charles clapped his right hand over his eye. He stared at the chart.
The silence stretched.
One second.
Three seconds.
Five seconds.
Charles’ head began to tilt. His left eyebrow climbed up toward his hairline. A tiny, panicked sweat bead practically formed on his temple.
“D...” Charles began, his voice dropping an octave. “No. Wait. Is it an... O? Or perhaps an... 8? Are there numbers on this chart, doctor?”
“They are all letters, Charles,” Dr. Laurent said gently.
“Right! Yes. Letters,” Charles chuckled nervously, his hand sweating against his cheek. “It is a... G. Definitely a G. And next to it is... a very small horse?”
Max snorted loudly from the corner, burying his face in his hand. “Yes, Charlie, that’s the Ferrari prancing horse,” he chuckled, utterly unbothered. “Probably looking for whoever put slick tires on a wet track.”
“The lighting in here is very bad!” Charles snapped, dropping his hand and glaring at his boyfriend.
“It is a ‘B’ and an ‘E’, Charles,” Max called out. “You’re not even close.”
“Oh, just shut up, Max! The contrast is wrong!” Charles turned back to the doctor. “Let me try with both eyes. With both eyes, I am incredible.”
“Actually, let us try the machine,” Dr. Laurent said, wisely stepping in before a physical altercation broke out in his examination room.
He guided Charles to the large, specialized autorefractor device.
“Place your chin right here, please. Keep your eyes wide open. Look at the little red house at the end of the road.”
Charles pressed his chin into the plastic cup.
Max stepped closer, leaning over the doctor’s shoulder to look at the digital monitor.
On the screen, the image of a small, rustic house on a green hill came into focus. Then, the machine beeped, calculating the refraction. The numbers popped up on the bottom of the screen.
Max didn’t know much about optometry, but he knew what a minus sign meant.
Dr. Laurent let out a soft, fascinated, “Ah.”
“What?” Charles asked from inside the machine, his voice muffled. “Is it perfect? Tell Max it is perfect.”
“Charles,” Dr. Laurent said, clicking his pen. “How long have you been experiencing astigmatism and mild myopia in your left eye?”
“What? Never. I don't have those things,” Charles said, pulling his head out of the machine and blinking violently. “I have 20/20. I told you.”
“You have a -1.75 prescription in your left eye, and a -0.75 in your right,” Dr. Laurent corrected mildly. “Your brain has simply been working overtime to compensate for the imbalance, using your right eye to do most of the heavy lifting. It’s actually quite impressive you haven’t been suffering from chronic migraines.”
Charles sat frozen. His entire worldview had just collapsed. He looked at the doctor, then slowly turned his head to look at Max.
Max was grinning. It was the wide, unhinged, utterly delighted grin he usually wore when he won a race by thirty seconds.
“A minus one-point-seven-five,” Max repeated, savouring every single syllable. “You’re a hazard. You’re a literal public menace…now clinically proven. I’ve been racing wheel-to-wheel with a guy who thinks a ‘B’ is a small horse.”
“It was a very blurry B!” Charles defended himself, his face flushing crimson. “And I don’t need glasses! I have never worn glasses! How can I be an F1 driver with bad eyes? The FIA tests us!”
“The FIA test is a basic peripheral and depth perception check, Charles,” Dr. Laurent explained, trying to hide his amusement as he began printing out the prescription. “Your depth perception is excellent because your brain adapts. But your visual acuity... well, let’s just say you should definitely not be driving a car at three hundred kilometers per hour without corrective lenses.”
“Contacts,” Charles pleaded instantly, looking horrified. “Can I have contacts? I cannot wear glasses. Arthur will never let me live it down. Pierre will make a video. I cannot be seen in public like that.”
“We can certainly fit you for contact lenses for the track and daytime wear,” the doctor agreed, nodding. “But I will also write a prescription for a pair of glasses for evening wear at home, to let your eyes rest.”
Max stepped forward, tapping his fingers on the back of Charles’ chair.
“Oh, he is getting the glasses, doctor. Pick the biggest, nerdiest ones you have. He’s only wearing them inside the apartment anyway.”
Charles looked up at Max, his eyes wide with betrayal. “Do you know that I truly hate you at times?”
Max pressed a kiss right onto Charles’ unruly brown hair, the grin never leaving his face.
“Oh, I do. You make it known.”
Six days later, they were back in the apartment.
The contact lenses had arrived first, and Charles had spent an agonizing twenty minutes crying into the bathroom mirror trying to poke them into his eyes.
But once they were in, his entire demeanor changed.
He had spent an hour walking around their terrace just staring at individual leaves on the trees, muttering, “Look at the definition, Max. It’s like 4K.”
But the real entertainment arrived later in a small, sleek black box.
Max was sitting on the couch when Charles came out of the bedroom, holding the box like it contained a live explosive.
“Put them on,” Max said, putting his phone away.
Charles sighed, a deeply tragic, dramatic sound. He opened the case and pulled out the glasses.
They were thin, dark tortoiseshell frames—elegant, modern, and undeniably stylish. Because Charles was still Charles, he couldn’t help but pick a pair that looked good, even if they were strictly for the confines of their living room.
Charles slipped them over his ears and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. He blinked, looking around the room, then looked down at Max.
Max stopped breathing for a fraction of a second.
Charles looked... ridiculous.
But also, frustratingly, incredibly handsome.
The frames sharpened his jawline, drawing attention to his cheekbones and making his green eyes look massive and piercing.
He looked like an impossibly attractive university professor who was about to fail you on an exam.
Good grief.
The entire internet already loved to joke about Max’s apparent, inescapable weakness for hot, older men. But looking at Charles right now, Max realized the glasses gave him that exact same mature, intellectual, distinguished energy. It was completely ridiculous considering Charles was literally the same age as him—born a mere sixteen days later—but this look was doing things to Max’s heart rate that his trainer would definitely find alarming.
“Well?” Charles asked, crossing his arms defensively. “Do I look like a dork?”
“Absolutely,” Max lied instantly, clearing his throat and trying desperately to look unaffected. “Complete dork. You look like you’re about to explain tax law to me.”
“I hate you,” Charles said, but he walked over to the mirror in the hallway, tilting his head. “Actually... it is not so bad. I can see the dust on the picture frames. Max, did you know there is dust here?”
“Don’t start cleaning, just sit down,” Max chuckled, reaching out and pulling Charles down onto the couch beside him. Charles went easily, sinking into Max’s side, his shoulder pressed warm against Max’s chest.
But old habits die hard, and Charles’ public pride was a fortress.
The next afternoon, they decided to walk down to the harbour. Charles insisted on leaving the contacts out to “give his eyes a rest,” but adamantly refused to wear his glasses outside.
Max noticed the second they hit the pavement.
Charles was walking slightly ahead of him, designer sunglasses firmly on, even though the Monaco sky was mostly overcast.
Max caught up easily, matching his stride. “You didn’t put them on.”
“I don’t need them,” Charles said smoothly, tilting his chin up.
Max slowed his pace. “You were literally prescribed them, Charles.”
“For specific situations. Reading. Driving at night.”
“This feels like one of those situations.”
Charles paused, his posture stiffening slightly under his jacket. “It is fine, Max.”
Max stopped walking entirely. Charles took another three paces before realizing he was flying solo, turning back around with an annoyed huff. “What?”
Max gestured lightly toward the opposite side of the boulevard. “Read that sign.”
Charles looked across the road. He adjusted his sunglasses, pushing them down his nose. Then, he squinted.
Max waited, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Charles squinted harder, his entire face contorting.
Finally, he looked back at Max. “I can read it.”
Max said nothing. He just raised an eyebrow.
Charles tried again, his voice lifting into a defensive, sharp cadence. “It says… parking restrictions.”
Max nodded. “And?”
“And… something about hours. And delivery vehicles.”
Max just stood there, arms crossed. Charles looked back at the sign one more time, staring intensely for three full seconds, before throwing his hands up.
“Okay, fine, it is not important what it says!” Charles muttered, marching back over to Max.
Max smiled slightly, a fond, stupid loop in his chest. “Right.”
“This is not funny, Max.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You are internally laughing. I can feel the vibrations of your smugness.”
“I might be a little impressed, actually,” Max murmured, falling back into step beside him.
Charles bumped his shoulder lightly into Max’s. “That I can read a sign?”
“That you’re committed to being wrong in increasingly creative ways.”
“I will wear them at home,” Charles conceded, his voice dropping quieter, a tiny bit vulnerable. “I will get used to them.”
Max’s expression softened, his hand briefly brushing against Charles’ lower back as they navigated past a group of tourists. “Yeah. You will.”
A pause. Then Charles muttered, “And you will stop being insufferable about it?”
Max thought about it for a fraction of a second. “Probably not.”
Charles sighed, a long, dramatic exhale, but a small, dimpled smile broke through his feigned misery. And when they started walking again, Max didn’t push it.
He just stayed close enough that if Charles squints at the world a little too hard, Max notices before Charles has to pretend he doesn’t.
The following week, they were in Nice for a studio shoot.
Charles had a scheduled interview with GQ for their famous “10 Things I Can’t Live Without” series. Because they had a shared dinner plan right after, and because Max secretly loved watching Charles get meticulously fussed over by stylists, he came along, taking a quiet seat on a director’s chair just outside the direct glare of the studio lights.
Charles was sitting in the hot seat, looking effortlessly beautiful in a perfectly fitted, cream-colored wool knit sweater. On the table in front of him lay a carefully curated assortment of his daily essentials.
The director called, “Action,” and Charles melted instantly into his flawless, charismatic public persona.
“Hello everyone. I am Charles Leclerc, and these are ten things I can’t live without.”
Max watched from the shadows, a bottle of water in his hand, a tiny, fond smile playing on his lips.
Charles was a master at this.
Charming, fluent, making eye contact with the lens like it was his best friend.
Charles started with his sunglasses.
“For everyday use, I go for those ones,” he explained easily, turning the frames in his hands.
“They are cool, they are beautiful, they protect me from the sun.”
The camera operator nodded encouragingly.
Then Charles added, completely casually:
“I actually should wear prescription glasses, but I don’t.”
Max’s posture straightened instantly. He took a slow sip of his water, narrowing his eyes.
No way, Max thought.
He wouldn’t.
On set, Charles continued serenely.
“I've got, like, a perfect view.
I just struggle a bit more to see perfectly.
So, I might have headaches at the end of the day.”
From the darkness of the studio wings, Max let out a quiet, dangerous huff of laughter.
Charles kept his eyes locked on the camera, but his left shoulder twitched slightly—the only tell that he knew exactly where Max was sitting and heard the noise.
Max lowered the water bottle very slowly.
Perfect view.
Perfect.
View.
This man had mistaken a cruise ship for a yacht, a letter B for a horse, and spent twenty minutes crying in front of a bathroom mirror because contact lenses had defeated him in hand-to-hand combat.
Meanwhile, Charles moved smoothly on to his watch, his bracelets, Leo, his paddle racket, and his ice cream brand as if he hadn't just committed a crime against objective reality.
Max spent the next twenty minutes suffering.
Every time Charles said something charming, sincere, or remotely self-aware, Max remembered:
I’ve got, like, a perfect view.
By the time the interview wrapped, Max's face hurt from trying not to laugh.
“Cut!” the director called.
The second the cameras stopped rolling, Charles dropped his head into his hands, his ears turning a bright, telltale pink.
Max walked over, his sneakers squeaking softly on the studio floor. He stopped right beside Charles’ chair, leaning down to whisper directly into his ear.
“Perfect view?”
Max wheezed softly, his eyes tearing up from holding in the laughter.
“You are a pathological liar. A fraud. An absolute criminal.”
“Max.”
“You have corrective lenses in your eyes right now.”
“Shut up,” Charles groaned into his hands, his voice muffled and deeply mortified. “It is PR, Max! What do you want me to say to GQ? ‘Yes, hello, I am legally blind in fifty percent of my face and my boyfriend forces me to wear glasses like a nerd on the couch so I do not crash into him at Baku’?”
“Yes,” Max grinned, patting his shoulder affectionately. “That would be excellent content. Very authentic. The fans would love it.”
“Go away,” Charles groaned, though he reached out and blindly swatted at Max’s hip, a soft smile finally breaking through his fake embarrassment as he looked up through his daytime contacts.
Predictably, Charles abused his newfound visual powers within a week when the circus moved on to another race weekend.
It happened during the post-qualifying press conference.
Max had taken pole position, with Charles a mere hundredth of a second behind him in P2. They were sitting at the long FIA table, microphones in hand, answering a repetitive question about tire degradation.
Charles was adjusting his team cap, his eyes sharp and clear under the bright press room lights, thanks to his new contact lenses. He idly glanced over at Max, who was leaning back in his chair, half-listening to a journalist.
Suddenly, Charles stopped. He stared intensely at the side of Max’s neck.
Without lowering his microphone, Charles leaned slightly toward Max and whispered, loudly enough for the live audio feed to catch it.
“Max. You missed a spot shaving. Right under your left ear. There is a tiny patch of hair shaped exactly like a bean.”
The journalists in the front row blinked.
Max slowly turned his head, staring at Charles with utter disbelief. “Are you seriously criticizing my grooming during an FIA press conference?”
“I am just saying,” Charles smirked, turning a brilliant, perfectly clear gaze back to the journalists, “some of us have highly acute visual awareness. We notice the details.”
“You couldn't see a giant yellow monkey on a cereal box a week ago,” Max muttered under his breath, leaning away from his mic.
“The past is the past, mate,” Charles shot back smoothly.
Later, as Charles walked past Max in the narrow gap between the media fences where the cameras couldn’t quite catch them, he leaned in just enough for his shoulder to heavy-brush Max’s, his voice dropping to a sharp, private whisper.
“I can see your smug face perfectly now, by the way,” Charles murmured. “Every single wrinkle.”
Max chuckled, catching him by the strap of his team kit for just a split second, a quick, hidden touch of comfort amidst the madness.
“Good. Then you won’t miss the back of my car tomorrow, mate.”
“In your dreams, Verstappen,” Charles flashed him a brilliant, sharp, twenty-twenty smile. “In your dreams.”
And as they parted ways, Max watched him go, a quiet chuckle escaping him.
There was a desperate, anarchic kind of magic to their battles that he couldn’t replicate with anyone else on the grid.
Charles had been lunging down his inside at Silverstone, trading paint with him at Jeddah, and placing a three-hundred-thousand-dollar piece of machinery into microscopic gaps at two hundred miles per hour while apparently being entirely, spectacularly blind in one eye.
It was terrifying, deeply unhinged, and arguably the most impressive thing Max had ever heard of.
If Charles could do all that while basically guessing where the apex was, and if a legally cleared, hyper-observant Charles Leclerc was going to be hunting him down in his mirrors on Sunday... well.
It was going to be a hell of a lot of fun.