Chapter Text
The thing about Real Madrid was that it never really stops moving.
One season gone into the next, trophies lifted, new names arriving, old ones leaving. Despite it all, the weight of the crest stays exactly the same.
Jude had learned that quicker than most.
Walking into Valdebebas had, once, felt surreal. Seeing Luka Modrić lacing up his boots a few lockers away or hearing Daniel Carvajal yelling instructions during training made him feel as if he was seventeen again, living in a dream beneath that confidence everyone assumed had been there since day one.
…as one would expect, those moments didn’t last long. Couldn’t. Not here, at Madrid, where they demanded constant adaptation, and Jude Bellingham had spent his entire career learning how to adapt.
Birmingham. Dortmund. Now, at last, Madrid.
Different teams, different cities, different expectations. But always the same lesson:
Get up and keep up.
By his second season, the training grounds had become his second home, almost.
Antonio Rüdiger, Vinícius Júnior, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde. So many names, just as many playing styles and personalities, showing up strong even in the field; laughing, bickering, scolding. It all leaves you wondering how something as wild and diverse as this could work.
Somehow, it did. They did.
Jude had found his place among that chaos, and not because someone handed it to him. But because he earned it.
He earned every chant echoing through the Bernabéu, every song played as a homage at the end of a match, every little drop of trust Carlo Ancelotti placed in him whenever the match demanded composure instead of impulse. So much that it made him one of the faces of Madrid’s future, meaning was no longer ‘the new boy’.
He was Jude Bellingham.
The one everyone looked for when the match needed speeding up. Or slowing down. Or saving. There was some sort of comfort in that, being needed, considering the club he played for. It was almost dangerous.
Because nothing at Real Madrid stayed still for long. Getting comfortable wasn’t an option, and Jude would soon become aware of that fact, whether he liked it or not.
Every transfer came with a bag full of new rumors, promising headlines, yet another storm ‘to be tamed’. In the end, most of them meant nothing and the others had learned not to pay attention.
Well, Jude most certainly hadn’t. But he did stop reading eventually; football journalists needed stories and Madrid gave them plenty, as usual, as expected.
So when phones vibrate through training on a Tuesday morning, it should be nothing to worry about. Right?
Vinícius checks his own first, and to say his eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline would be an understatement. Camavinga leans over his shoulder, an unimpressed look on his face as he catches his breath during their break.
“What?” he asks flatly, expecting it to be something else entirely.
Vini looks up, searching across the pitch for one individual in particular: Jude. Nods at him, beckoning him over. Because, of course, nothing at Real Madrid ever stays the same.
“…you might wanna see this,” Vini says once Jude approaches, turning the phone towards him. Jude frowns, running a hand over his forehead to get rid of the sweat before taking it from his hands.
The words on the screen were painfully and infuriatingly clear.
REAL MADRID REACHES AGREEMENT TO SIGN NORWAY’S ERLING HAALAND.
For a long moment, the only sounds around them was their own breathing and then Jude harshly swallowing. He hands the phone back to Vini.
“…you’re joking,” he mutters, waiting for the punchline of said joke. Anytime now, he assumed.
“Nope,” Vini exhales, pocketing his phone and stretching his arms up, looking elsewhere. Silence settles over the group as they process the news.
…someone doing it a little more intently.
“Well… good luck to whoever has to feed him,” someone else says, and whoever it was already knew. Along with all the others, apparently. Jude scoffs and looks away before anyone notices the way his jaw tightens and his breathing grows slightly erratic.
Good luck to whoever has to deal with Erling Haaland, they say.
Well, good fucking luck, Jude Bellingham.