Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pecco has always looked up to Valentino Rossi.

The man is a legend wherever he goes, and there isn’t even a time he remembers before there was that one person on TV who made everyone feel like they were more than just spectators. Like they were part of the show, the game.

More than that though, he is the best. The best rider, the funniest person, the smoothest, the most charming. He is everything Pecco wants to be even as he cringes away from the spotlight and the many cameras that turn on him as he got closer and closer to MotoGP.

When he was brought on as a student, Pecco was a mix between awed and determined. He had met Valentino before, like most of them had. The older man tended to take an interest in young riders, dazzling them and tossing out random advice whenever they met. It was always a moment that made you feel lighter than air, and he had this urge to try and soak up as much knowledge as possible in those brief few minutes, greedy for anything and everything the man would give him.

In 2011 the news that an actual student had been chosen was almost disappointing to hear. Even though who it was made sense, another star in the making with that magic dust floating around him. But still, Pecco had almost felt….. sidelined. Left in the dirt, reaching for something that should be there but had been swept away by another.

So when Alessio Salucci found him after one of his races and extended the offer, Pecco took it. Maybe for the first time in his life, he decided to be bold and grab hold of what he wanted. He met the other riders that would be in this academy and saw the same exact thing in their eyes; anticipation.

There were a lot of things he knew would happen. He expected a rigorous schedule. He expected riding to become even more entrenched in every facet of his being. He expected to be exposed to the man behind the legend, to learn not just race tactics, but how to exist and win. And he got all of those things

He also got a glimpse of how human Valentino Rossi really is. But that had nothing to do with the academy, or Pecco, or even Valentino himself. No, Pecco believes that the only reason he was able to ever see what lay behind the charm and overt friendliness was one person.

Marc Marquez.

He had known of Marquez for years even before the man had become the youngest MotoGP champion of all time, or even before he was Valentino’s chosen protege (and all the attention that came with that). He remembers getting a picture with him when he was not even in Moto3, the older boy already making waves as the new star of their world. To Pecco he was someone to admire and watch out for. They were not that far off in age, he always assumed he would race against someone like Marquez. Had been excited to, in fact.

But he never really thought too hard about the man until he was being led into a retrofitted building, shown a room that he would sleep in, and told that this was his life now. Maybe that wasn’t even the moment he had started, no maybe it was when he saw the decorations on the wall, or noticed the room that Franco Morbidelli murmured never gets used, or saw the way Valentino became something else when Marc was around.

It wasn’t weird, or strange. No, scratch that, it definitely was. But not because he hated the sight or was creeped out, simply because the weakness that seemed to appear on Valentino’s face the instant Marc was around was rather…. startling.

Only when he got to know the Spanish man did he understand.

He does not want to wax poetics, because that would be foolish to moon over the man, but there was just something magnetic. It existed in Valentino too, bright and bold, but on Marc was different than the practiced charm and showmanship. Because he really didn’t seem to be trying that much, because he pulled you in just by being.

Watching him ride for pleasure made Pecco almost feel it with him, hearing his laugh pulled an unconscious smile to the face, and the first time the man even briefly looked at him, he felt his face turn multiple different shades of red all at once. It didn’t help that Marc had the kind of face that made you stare, pretty and dramatic and dazzling. It also didn’t help that he looked at the world with the fiercest of intensities, as if every single moment was deeply important, even a quick conversation with a flustered teenager.

He wasn’t alone in this feeling, everyone else also seemed to get it on varying levels. Watching cool and collected Luca Marini stutter over his words was terribly amusing, and even Franky, who had the most exposure, looked a bit dazed sometimes. It became almost a bonding thing between them all, and more than one night was spent listening to one of the others get a little too invested in describing one of Marc’s race. And, well, other things.

But none of them matched Valentino. Not even close.

It was actually embarrassing sometimes.

It was arms wrapped like iron bands around that waist, possessive and fierce. It was nails digging into flesh, and the look of loss when Marc shifts away for even a second. It was laughter echoing down the hallway in the dead of the night, bright and personal. It was the man standing and watching for hours, face so intensely fascinated that Pecco had to look away. It was all of that and more, it was this inhuman craving that is so new and unique that perhaps there isn’t even a name for it.

And Pecco had thought he had understood at least slightly. Had watched them, saw two brilliant stars revolving around each other and believed that it made sense. They were both so magnetic, of course they would eventually come together. Destiny, written into the very fabric of time. Two gods who only see each other, two kings who know that there is no one else. He found himself quite comfortable to be a spectator to watch history get made before his eyes, and they were just….. happy. Happy in the way so few people like them are.

But then 2015 happened, and Pecco was horrified to watch both stars explode. Violence like he had never seen, viciousness, a crazed look in both of their eyes. Snarled words when anyone dared to say Marc’s name, and that obsession now twisted away from whatever form of love it had paired with and towards something like hate.

He doesn’t even know what the truth is. Has no clue who struck out first, is unaware if any of the accusations tossed out are true. He listens when Valentino speaks, he murmurs his support for his teacher in the press, but he can’t push away the look on Marc’s face at that press conference, the obvious devastation that rankled there. And every picture after showed this hollowness that Pecco did not know another human being could feel.

He pushes it away, mostly he had made his choice, and maybe Valentino was right about everything. So he holds his tongue and tries to get used to this new normal, ignoring the tightness as he goes. Tries to ignore that little sliver of guilt that protests against vilifying someone he had seen so differently. Who he knows Valentino himself had seen so differently.

It certainly is difficult.

The rest of the academy varies in their reactions. He is well aware that he leans much more toward the neutral side than anything. Luca and Franky are there with him, all three keeping their mouths shut and watching with concerned eyes. Mig and Bezz tend to join Uccio and Valentino in their little spiels. The rest hover somewhere between, believing every word that Valentino says but not feeling the poisonous rage he wants them to.

And Pecco just watches them. Eventually, once the fear dies down that Valentino will turn on him if he sees it, he also starts to watch Marc.

2016 starts up, and it is Pecco’s first Moto3 year with a decently solid bike, and so his determination grows until it feels like there is a ballon waiting to be popped in his chest. It is not his first year, nor will it be his last, but he has expectations for himself that he never really held before

What he doesn’t expect is that a large portion of his time would be spent making sure that the paddock doesn’t explode when Valentino finds out that Marc has moved on. With many many people.

He saw it during preseason testing for the first time, and thank the lord it was him and not someone with a big mouth or else the jig might have been up before wheels are on the ground. Andrea Dovizioso, the Italian rider that Valenti o seems to have some sort of grudge against, reaching a hand to grip Marc’s waist in his garage, smile bright and far too close. Intimate. Only one explanation behind that.

Then that horror grew as he watched the way Marc was so… different. Flirted with everything that moved, leaned up against one of the Repsol mechanics until the man turned red, allowed some fans to press kisses to his cheeks, laughed when one offered herself up and said maybe later. Or even worse, when Casey Stoner swung by the Honda garage, Pecco watched how Marc gravitated to his side in a second and whispered something in the retired riders ear that had eyebrows shooting up and a little smirk growing.

Yeah, Pecco is not foolish enough to not get what was happening.

He also is not foolish enough to think that this won’t blow up in literally every single person’s face.

So he finds Franky, feeling vaguely panicked, and slowly it becomes a thing to hover around Valentino and distract him as much as possible. They physically block his view of the Honda garage, they loudly talk whenever they hear any whispers in the man’s vicinity, they do everything they can to stop what is most likely an inevitable moment.

Valentino seems bemused by their hovering but allows it with an air of indulgence. He pats Pecco on the head and asks if he is nervous, and Pecco lies and says yes just to get the older man to not think too hard about anything else.

By Catalunya it becomes easy practice, the hate had seemed to wear off a bit, and blessedly it was a good day. Valentino had won, Marc had come in second, and on the podium, they had shaken hands in solidarity for a rider that passed away. The air was calm, the interactions not friendly, but not vicious. The sort of understanding that only happens when something terrible happens and makes you step out of yourself for a moment.

And so that night when Valentino grabs them all and cheerfully says they are going out tonight in celebration, Pecco enthusiastically agrees, grinning as his teacher crows, feeling a bit like finally things have settles into normalcy. Nothing could possibly make this night end poorly, not when the day had been so fantastic. Not for him, in truth he doesn’t really matter, but for the person who seems to set the mood wherever he goes. Valentino is happy, so they all are happy to. So simple it should be like this all the time.

He hadn’t even been worried when he realized that Marc was there with Alex. Okay, maybe he had been a little worried, but the club was big and loud and far too chaotic for Valentino to even realize. So he lets it go and prepares for a night that would surely be nothing but typical fun, feeling even more relieved when the older man climbs his way up to the DJ booth. At least there is no danger of accidental run-ins there.

So he puts it in the back of his mind, lets the tension roll off, and decides to act his age for once.

 The alcohol hits him fast only minutes after his first sip of some little fruity drink that Bezz had shoved in his hands and whined about. It makes his head spin, as does the second one. And the third. After cheering him on and chugging his own beverages, Bezz darts off to who knows where, loudly shouting something, and Pecco realizes he is alone. Suddenly he feels wasted, a bit unmoored, and far too open. Franky has disappeared too, so has Mig, and even Luca is nowhere to be seen.

He wanders for a bit, bumps into people and giggles about it, takes more sips from his drink until it is empty and he just drops the up on the ground. A few times he is grabbed, but he very quickly brushes them off with a scowl. He doesn’t know what he is looking for, perhaps just someone he knows. Someone he likes.

Maybe that is why when he sees Marc, standing there against wall and watching his brother dance with laughing eyes, he decides to walk right up.

“Hi.” He shouts, for lack of anything better to say, and the other man must have also drank because instead of rearing back the way he always seems to around the academy boys these days, he barely startles and then smiles.

“Pecco,” he says, “what is a baby like you doing in club?”

He feels his face turn into something that must be a pout, and a surge of disgruntlement goes through him.

“I’m nineteen,” he says, “I’m not a baby.”

That just makes Marc laugh more, and it is so much like how everything was before last year, that Pecco loses his thought and just gives in. Lets himself to pretend like he is talking to someone he is allowed to enjoy, allows the reverent admiration and fluster he usually has rise up, does not even stop his wandering eyes.

“Good race.” He says, interrupting Marc’s laughter. The other man shrugs, takes a sip of his drink with a sardonic expression, and when a small drip spills over his lips, Pecco cannot help but let his eyes trace the way it slides down that tanned neck. He feels dumb as he stares, and when he finally rips his gaze away, Marc is watching him with a raised brow.

“Thanks,” he finally says, “although it was not me who won.”

“I know.”

Then there is a bit of silence, a reminder that maybe they should not be talking appearing the moment Valentino is mentioned, even if his name was never said. Marc turns back to watching his brother, and Pecco feels a bit… disregarded.

In his drunken state, he cannot abide by that, so really he should not be blamed for stepping in, wrenching that gaze back to him.

“I had a bad race.” He says, stumbling over the words as he realizes that this close is a little too close in truth. He feels heat radiating off the older man and has to try and control the tremors in his hand.

His brain is telling him that this is a bad idea, but he is too trapped in the pull now, too drawn in. The urge to keep the attention on him is fiercely strong, and his drunken mind wonders if it is always there.

“I heard,” Marc says, looking amused and no small part baffled, “and after such good results in Mugello.”

A little blast of something he might call glee goes through him.

“You saw that?” He asks eagerly, and Marc actually does laugh at that, head tossed back and hair flopping over his forehead. Charming and handsome. Entrancing. Pecco pathetically wants to lift a hand and slide that hair back into place, just to feel the softness.

“You are talented, I always watch talented rider. Even more so because you are his student.”

He doesn’t say Valentino’s name again, and his face doesn’t shift when he says it. But Pecco sees it in his eyes this time. What ‘it’ is exactly, he doesn’t know. Far too complicated to be labelled with one thing, perhaps. Or maybe Pecco wouldn’t know because he has never been like them. It doesn’t matter, really, because Valentino is not here right now. And besides, it feels good. Like him and Marc are trapped in a little bubble with just them. Which he should not be thinking, the ridiculous crush he has had since he met the man should have been shot dead a long time ago.

But Pecco is drunk, he reasons. He can worry about all of that tomorrow. Drunk people are allowed to do stupid things and have it all be disregarded; they are allowed to go too far. So, he must be allowed to do this then.

“Are you dating Dovi?” He blurts out, lurching forward when someone bumps into him and letting his hand fly up to the wall beside Marc’s head. Definitely too close. How did he get drawn in even more than he was before?

“No,” Marc says casually, “Casey Stoner is.”

Pecco furrows a brow, and exhales heavily.

“Oh. But I thought you were….”

He doesn’t want to say ‘fucking both of them to make Valentino jealous’ but it must have read on his face because Marc gets a sly look on his face.

“You don’t need to date someone to do that. And two is better than one.” He says, and then another laugh bubbles up, loopy and giggly and Pecco realizes for the first time that maybe Marc is a little bit beyond tipsy. A hand comes up to mess with his hair and that thought fades away with how good it feels. He closes his eyes and hums, enjoying the little tugs and hoping  Marc likes his hair.

“So innocent, you should probably return to you friends before he sees. I feel like he would be angry with you, imagine you were doing something else, even if it would be unwarranted.”

Pecco has drank too much. So he can’t hold his tongue.

“It’s not unwarranted” He mumbles foolishly. It makes Marc tilt his head, and Pecco’s eyes get caught on that. On the way it exposes more of his collarbone, how…. willing it almost seems. God, his head is a mess.

“I see. I had thought you were frightened of me, Francesco.”

The switch from his nickname to his real name sends a shiver down Pecco’s spine. He like the way Marc says it, curling accent, soft and warm. Fr-ahn-cesco. Makes it sound much prettier than it is.

“I am.” He replies honestly.

Marc hums, and then that hand that had pressed into his hair earlier, which had apparently still been there, shifts down to the base of his neck. Fingers push into the skin there, and instantly Pecco loses a little feeling in his legs, strength disappearing like he has been grabbed by a bigger predator.

“How am I scary?” The older man muses, voice delicate and cloying. Pecco swallows, and lets his head drop back to presses even further into that hand.

The back of his mind screams at him that this is a terrible idea, that he is pretty much throwing himself at the person who had broken Valentino’s heart, but the front part, the in-control part, does not care much. Because Marc Marquez is touching him, and they are close, and they are both drunk, and it feels like he has God’s attention on him suddenly.

“You just are.” He stutters out.

Another hum. He is so close now that even in the dark of the club he can see the way Marc’s eyelashes flutter so prettily, almost delicate. Can feel little puffs of air hitting his cheek, smelling like tequila. Can imagine what it would be like to touch, to have plush lips pressed against his, and to not feel so horrified with himself for it.

“I am always nice,” Marc murmurs, and something in his eyes goes sad, “why do people never think that?”

“Um,” Pecco says, entranced by the little tilt to that wicked mouth, “you’re not mean. Just scary.”

“Like what?” 

The question twists Pecco’s mind as he tries to comprehend it. Like what? What is Marc like, what does he act like, what is he frightening like? All the answers in his brain are mad, drunk and too dramatic. Not what he would say sober, but it spills out before he can stop it.

“Like death.” He breathes

Everything is too much right now. The buzz he feels on his skin from being close is too intense. The air is too hot, the music is too loud, and somehow so is Marc’s breathing. Those eyes are too dark, those lips to perfect, the body he can feel ghosting under his touch too good. God, what is he doing?

“Oh…. so you are suicidal.”

He blinks.

“What?”

The hand on his neck pulls in until Pecco’s face is right next to Marc’s, until his chest is firmly pressed to another’s, until all the air in his lungs is gone. Too close, he had thought before. But that is nothing compared to this. This is like touching the surface of the sun. It burns through him and he wonders how he will ever survive

“You seem to want death.”

Then a low laugh rattles him to his core, and he is being pushed away. His head spins, his vision is somewhat faded, and when he finally refocuses his eyes, Marc is no longer looking at him. Instead, his eyes are on someone right behind, and Pecco sees the way that face changes. Becomes suddenly cruel. And there is perhaps no one else who will receive that look on this planet. Pecco is almost envious.

Valentino.

“He’s drunk,” Marc says with a fierce and unapologetic grin, “and it seems that sort of behavior while intoxicated runs in the, ah, family.”

Pecco turns around to see the other man and is rather blankly unsurprised by what he finds. Gone is the light happiness from the podium, gone is the generous cordiality that had happened when they shook hands. All that is left is the ugly, boiling anger that seems to sit on Valentino’s face these days. And he doesn’t even look at Pecco.

“Go to Bezz.” The older man spits out, and then he is forced out of the bubble, watches as Valentino moves in and takes his place, stepping close to Marc with a stormy expression as the other man smiles lazily at him.

Pecco swallows. Embarrassment course through him, and he turns to see the Bezz standing near the bar in the distance, watching with worried eyes. He raises his glass, and shakes his head, and Pecco knows that it was probably him who went to get Valentino. A little bit of betrayal, which should not exist, leaks in.

His part in this show is done, clearly. He was the drunk idiot who had crossed the line and no doubt would be scolded for it, but he has no real part in this game. Not with Valentino here, growling and burning and bright. Not with the way Marc responds to it, languidly satisfied by the effect he has. He is a side note, while they are the main story. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, and any good feel drifts away as his flight instinct kicks in.

But instead of retreating, tucking his tail between his legs and hiding, Pecco stays for reasons he does now know. Stands there so close but so far, barely feet away. He doesn’t even think they notice he is still here. The thought makes his heart pound.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Valentino hisses out, and that earns him a snicker. It is not the kind Pecco got, indulgent and amused. No this one is mean and satisfied and so personal it tears at Pecco’s skin.

“He came up to me.”

A scoff, disdainful.

“Please, you throw yourself at everyone,” Valentino says, “you know they are weak and-”

“Weak? I didn’t realize I was so powerful that I could convince someone to do something they didn’t want to. What talent.”

Anther frustrated noise.

Pecco does not turn to watch, that would feel too voyeuristic. But when he hears a back knock against the wall, and a little gasp, he can almost see it in his head. Valentino, enraged and towering. Marc with his head back, smiling up like he is not the one pinned. Like everything is a great game.

A horror show covered in the ecstatic beauty that floats around the both of them.

“You are doing this to anger me, to make me jealous. I won’t fall for a game like that.”

“I have no need to play games. And again, he came up to me. Why would I want a teenager hanging all over me exactly? If I remember clearly, that was more your thing.”

Pecco should leave. This is too intimate, this is too fierce, this is getting a glimpse into something he should not see. There has always been a part of him who saw them as more than human, and he knows deep down that he is not like that. But part of him, the part that has always wanted to be in their world, tells him to stay.

So he does.

“Don’t act like you didn’t want it. Is that what this is about, did you decide to do something just to get me pissed off and willing to fuck you in the bathroom stall?” Valentino grits out, and they are the cruelest words yet. Layered with everything that happened between them, piercing and pointed. It almost makes Pecco feel sick.  

“I don’t need that,” comes Marc’s breathless response, and he does not sound the way Pecco feels. No, he sounds excited, thrilled, so terribly ready for Valentino to tear at him with words.

 “If I wanted to get fucked I have a list to work off of now, as I am sure you are aware. You’re not on it anymore. Neither is Pecco…for now. And trust me when i say they are more than satisfactory.”

Silence. Well, not exactly silence, the pulse of the club music still fills the air, the yells and chatter of people, the thumping of feet on the ground. But in his drunken state, Pecco’s world has narrowed down to this small area, and inside of that there is silence. The kind that crackles over skin, leaving thin little scars in its wake.

“What do you mean?”

And that is… that makes Pecco gulp. That makes him tear himself away because even just hearing Valentino’s voice was too much. It was a twisted combination of raw anger, desperation, and the terrifying sound of a man on the brink of death. There was too much honesty in those words, and when Marc laughs in response, Pecco knows this is all just going to get so much worse.

He finds Bezz, who instantly attempts to question him with a furrowed brow, and just drags the other man outside. Only when cool air hits his face and the last loud sound left is his heartbeat does he relax slightly, leaning against the brick wall and breathing. It is rough against his back, vaguely sobering enough to feel nothing but regret.

“What were you thinking?” Bezz demands, and Pecco cracks his eyes open.

“We are all fucked.” He mumbles, then when he gets a frustrated noise back, he just shakes his head and turns his eyes up to the sky. Between the buildings of the city they are in the stars glitter faintly, inky blackness surrounding it. Pretty, he distantly thinks.

“Marquez, always getting in people’s heads. What an asshole.”

Pecco just hums. Not in agreement, or disagreement. He spins that interaction in his head over and over and over again. Humiliating, yet he thinks that is not what will be remembered tomorrow. No, it will be Valentino’s voice, the look in his eyes, and the terrible knowledge that perhaps nobody will ever be able to hurt Valentino Rossi the way Marc has. The man hadn’t even been angry at Pecco, he just focused that raw rage on only one person.

Marc hadn’t even done anything.

“Text everyone else, tell them to come out,” he says suddenly, interrupting the rant Bezz is on, “we will be leaving.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

“But we will be.”

The other rider sighs but complies, tapping away at his phone with an irritated look and then shooting Pecco a glare when it is sent.

“Valentino will be mad at you.” He says tightly.

“Not me. I don’t think he can be mad at anyone else but him.”

That just sends Bezz off on another rant, and it is like an echo of every bad thing Valentino has ever said. It’s sad, almost, the way things are. When the others eventually join them, they listen to the whole story with raised eyebrows. Luca gives him a pat on the back and a sympathetic look, before pulling Bezz away with Mig. Then it is Franky, watching him with clear eyes and no small amount of understanding disappointment.

“That was foolish.” He says quietly.

"I couldn’t help it.” Pecco responds, and that is true. There is something so helpless about how he felt around Marc. That feeling intensified when Valentino was there, until it choked him. Those two…… how can anyone breathe around them?

“I know but….. how did you think he would react?”

A frustrating question, because really Pecco was not thinking. All that existed was Marc Marquez looking up at him with big eyes, and the inescapable pull he seems to have. Even Valentino, who is so filled with anger, had fallen prey to it. He was sucked in close the minute Pecco was no longer there, pressing Marc against the wall. Some might say in anger, but he knows better. He doubts the older man could even control it, just like he doubts Marc is even trying.

“Valentino will be out soon,” he says dazedly, “I guess we will know then.”

He’s right. Minutes later the doors slam open, and there he is. Cheeks red, hair a mess, he sees Pecco and narrows his eyes. But he does not say anything, just starts walking, and they all follow.

Only minutes into the silent journey does Valentino speak. His voice is a little slurred, clearly still feeling the effects of the alcohol. And the effects of something else, Pecco is sure.

“You have hid things from me. I had wondered why my view of the Honda garage has been so……. disrupted.”

It is not a statement directed at anyone. And one by one heads drop as they comprehend what he means.

Franky speaks first.

“We didn’t want it to.... upset you.”

A frantic hand waving in the air.

“It would not have. I would rather know.” He says, and it sounds so dishonest Pecco cringes. That movement seems to catch Valentino’s eye, and then intense, drunken blue eyes are on him. The full focus is like being back in that club again, standing on the outside and hearing the battle.

“I do not blame you, Pecco.” He says firmly, eyes a little manic in a way that makes him gulp as he nods in response.

“I’m sorry.” He says quietly, feeling a lump form in his throat, and Valentino sighs.

“You are too young.” He murmurs like it is the reason behind everything.

They walk the rest of the way back to the hotel stiffly, intoxication fading as reality sets in, Every so often Valentino speaks, usually tossing out some random thought or curse, almost all having to do with Marc. He doesn’t seem to be trying to have a conversation, he simply just lets out, like a stream of conscious.

They watch as he staggers up the stairs, helped by Franky and Luca, and it just is…… it feels hopeless almost.  None of them really knows what goes on in that wild brain, and maybe none of them will ever understand what happens ever. But Pecco had sort of seen it, heard it, just for a split second in that club.

Valentino is still in love.

It’s….. terrifying.

“I hope Marquez crashes in Assen.” Bezz murmurs after they have left Mig at his door, and Pecco snaps his head up.

“Don’t say that,” he reproaches, “don’t ever say that.”

For his part the other rider looks scolded, even as he crosses his arms. And Pecco understands him, because if you looked at everything that happened and didn’t know that love was and still is there, it might be so simple.

But it’s not. So all Pecco sees is a tragedy being written.

“We should sleep. Early flight.” He murmurs, and Bezz grunts in agreement, tossing an arm around Pecco’s shoulder and rubbing their heads together. It’s a good touch, friendly and easy after the last hour of… something else.

He doesn’t really know what he touched today. Tomorrow he might wake up and be able to wrap his head around it. Maybe he will be able to just say it was a drunken weakness, an old crush rearing its head and his first time at a club overwhelming him. Maybe he will learn to lie to himself like so many people seem to.

It might be easier that way. He would certainly sleep better anyways.

As he closes his eyes and attempts to fall into dreams, he can’t help but see it. Those dark eyes, that curling smile. Hot skin, and a flush crawling up the neck. A hope, a wish, a desire so strong it stole his mind away.

Guilt guilt guilt.

He wonders how much that would be worth.

End Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Dovi is not particularly fond of being woken up before he is meant to be. Especially when there is no sunlight peeking in through his blinds, which means it is terribly early.

He glances at his phone real quick and groans when he sees what it says. 1 AM. Forever until he is meant to crawl out of bed and face Assen’s qualifying, and only a few hours since he laid down. But the sharp words outside of his window are impossible to ignore, and it becomes even more so when he realizes he knows one of the voices.

Valentino.

He opens his eyes wide and stares at the ceiling. Because Valentino’s motorhome is across the paddock this weekend, and the one next to his is Honda’s, which means that the other person must be-

“I’m not the one who came knocking at your door before the sun is even up.”

Marc.

He is on his feet and making his way outside before he can even think, and when he wrenches open the door, the two men don’t even notice him, too caught up in whatever thing they are hissing about now.

Dovi takes a second to observe them, see if he can attempt to pick out what is going on exactly from their body language. But they are hidden by shadows, and all he can see is the faint outline of Marc standing with his arms rolled back, as if he is going to take flight, and Valentino’s hands slicing through the air as he spits out words.

“You did it on purpose! How am I supposed to ignore it when you parade around, throwing yourself at everyone left right and center?”

A snort.

“Maybe don’t watch? Do what I do and pretend nothing ever existed in the first place? Has been working great for me.” Marc says brightly.

“Please, as if you ignore it all. You are the one who talks all nice and fake about me. What was that shit you said at the presser yesterday? ‘My door is always open’? I was just checking to see if there was any truth in that statement, or if it is just another lie.”

“And I opened the door, so wow guess I am not so much of a liar as you seem to believe.  But that does not mean I have to put up with all of this, like I am the bad guy or somthi-”

“You are the bad guy! You ruin my championship, you ruin my life, and now what, you try and ruin my students too?”

A hollow laugh.

“Oh please, I think it is me they would like to ru-”

“Marc.” Dovi interrupts, mostly because he gets the feeling he knows what Marc is going to say, and it will probably make whatever crazy switch Valentino has in his head go to 100. Which he really doesn’t think the world is ready for, probably ever.

When the younger man startles and sharply turns toward him, Dovi flinches as light makes that face clear. Because the look is…… twisted. A little frightening, in fact. No warmth, or familiarity, almost nihilistic in nature. He looks like some kind of monster, grin wide but eyes empty. A direct contrast to Valentino, who’s mouth is a flat line, but eyes on fire as he steps forward so Dovi can see him.

“I hope we did not wake you.” Marc says after a moment of tense silence. His voice is painfully polite, and he doesn’t even blink after he says it. Just stares into Dovi’s eyes with an inhuman gaze.

“I was up.” Dovi lies, and then steps closer until he can reach a hand out to gently brush Marc’s arm. The other man is still smiling, and he almost looks like he has no recognition for who Dovi is at all. From the corner of his eyes, he sees the way Valentino unconsciously shifts forward slightly, as if he wants to step in between them. Then he catches himself with a transparent scowl.

“Everything okay?” Dovi murmurs, but Marc just laughs.

“Of course, of course. He was just…. having a problem. Came to ask advice about how to handle his students better, since apparently he must control even their thoughts too.”

A hissed-out noise.

“All I asked was that you leave them alone, and that you stop rubbing all of your conquests all over everyone’s fac-”

“I can’t stop your riders from wanting to fuck me, nor anyone else, and honestly, I don’t want to.” Marc cuts in with a sharp sweetness, slowly turning to Valentino with that look still firmly in place. He lifts his hands up and shrugs performatively, shoulders going up so perfectly it must be mathematical. The casual, languid act is so disturbingly off that it sends a shudder down Dovi’s spine. As do the words, crass and up front as they are. But Marc isn’t done quite yet.

“It’s sad you know, lingering around me so much and yet pretending you hate me. Almost as pathetic as everyone in your life picturing me naked and hiding it from you.”

Dovi winces. Well, Marc certainly knows what to say to cause the most damage. Never has his absolute hatred for the other man been so clear. It is a good thing, that Marc was able to let go so easily, allow the anger to fuel him and destroy what things used to be. Better than still mooning over a guy who tries to destroy your career, but it is still frightening to hear, even for Dovi.

“You-” Valentino starts, leaning forward with an intense face. The pressure in the air almost makes Dovi’s ears pop. He shifts uncomfortably, waiting for the blow up, but is surprised when Valentino cuts himself off, letting out a frustrated noise and retreating a bit. Marc isn’t shocked though; he just stands even taller.

“Go back to your motorhome,” He orders calmly, “oh, and tell Pecco sweet dreams.”

That finally does make the Italian man throw his hands up and storm off, cursing under his breath as he goes and looking a bit like a caged tiger. Dovi watches him until he melts in the darkness, until the echoing sounds of his footsteps disappear entirely. It almost makes Dovi paranoid all of a sudden, like maybe the man turned, hid, and is spying on them right now. Wouldn’t be outside the realm of normal for such a person as Valentino Rossi.

His brain is still trying to catch up with what was going on. It was a hell of an argument, one so deeply personal that it had been a bit awkward to listen to. Beyond that he has this tension building in his spine, and not all of it is from the anger flickering in Valentino’s face. No, it’s from Marc. Wide-smiled-empty-eyed, disdainful Marc. His lack of care had been… disturbing. And not because it was inhuman, and not because it was cruel. It had been all of those things, but as Dovi turns to look at the younger man, his mind spins, because suddenly it is all gone.

That smile has fallen off. Those shoulder have dropped, and an exhaustion that Dovi rarely sees in such a healthy person settles over Marc so profoundly it almost steals his breath away. No more bravado, no more sharp words, no more glittering amusement. All gone in a blink of an eye, replaced with something human, and tired, and a bit sad.

Dovi has no idea which face is real. Maybe that was the scariest part.

“I’m, sorry we woke you.” Marc says quietly.

“I said I was already up.”

Marc gives him look, and Dovi just smiles, protective instincts rising up a bit. There is no way he can let Marc just go back to being alone after that.

“Why don’t you come in, we can try to relax before getting more sleep?” He suggests, but Marc just shakes his head.

“No, no, I-”

“Just for a little while.” Dovi cuts in, and the voice is firm enough that Marc snaps his own mouth shut, sighs, and nods.

Once they make it inside, he orders Marc to sit, conscious of the way the bags under the younger man’s eyes look especially prominent today and moves into the kitchen. He still feels a bit freaked out in truth, but he tries to push it all away.

“I’ll heat up some zabaione. My mom always used to make it when I couldn’t sleep, and she gave me some after I saw her in Catalunya.”

“I’m sleeping fine.” Marc mutters, but Dovi doesn’t believe him.

“Yes, that I why I find you arguing with someone past midnight. Because you are sleeping so well.”

Marc sighs but does not raise a voice to argue. Minutes into silence interrupted by the clinking of metal spoon against glass and the little flicker of the mini stove-top he has turning on, Marc speaks.

“I’ve never had zabaione.” He says a little inanely, and Dovi darts over a look to see him sitting there, elbow on the table and resting his chin in his palm. It is hard to picture that vicious little beast he had seen outside with this dozy, vaguely sad creature sitting in his motorhome.

Another pang of wariness.

“It’s very creamy. I usually have it with a biscuit.”

“Oh.”

Then they drift back into the quiet. When he finally sets a steaming glass in front of Marc, the air has gone thick with the smell of the drink, but also with the exhaustion of being up so late. The sort of otherworldly sense things only have when you are meant to be dreaming.

“You usually fall asleep at nine on race weekend.” Dovi says carefully after Marc has taken his first sip, pleasure flooding his face and the distinct satisfaction a warm drink give settling over his shoulder. The younger man shrugs, swirling the beverage around with his spoon.

“Alex is ill. He is staying at a hotel tonight so I don’t get sick too.” He murmurs.

Dovi furrows his brow.

“Why would that matter?”

A sigh. Eyes dropping to floor.

“I can't sleep without him there. ”

A flicker of confusion goes through Dovi's body. Why on earth would he need that now, as far as he knows Marc has been sleeping away from his brother for years by this point. This is a new thing then? Or did he sleep this poorly all the while?

“……At all?” He asks, a little bit of surprise leaking into his voice.

Marc hums the affirmative around another sip of the drunk, eyes still downcast. The air around him is coursing with nihilism, accepting of a bad situation because there is no fixing anything.

“I get…. well, I just can’t do it is all.” He says after he has swallowed, and when he leans back Dovi gets a rather inappropriate spark of amusement when he notices that the thick crème had been left over on the tip of Marc’s nose.

He reaches out without thinking. Marc does not flinch back, nor does he scowl, he just eyes Dovi carefully as he wipes with his thumb.

“I’m messy.” Marc says, and Dovi nods.

“Yeah, I know.”

He really doesn’t know what to say here. Clearly things aren’t as okay as Marc continuously keeps pretending, laughter and regular sex aside. It is hard, to see the younger man like this. Not that Dovi hasn’t seen him vulnerable before, but it always takes him by surprise. Marc always seems so strong, even after having his name dragged through the dirt.

And besides the point, the venom had been real. The sparkling hate and amusement had been real. He can tell falsehoods from reality, and he knows the viciousness that lives inside of Marc is not fake.

But this also feels real. He really doesn’t know how to reconcile that.

A new sort of helpless feeling floods him, brought on by the wish to help the man, but also the little voice in his head that such a cruel creature needs no help. Here, darkened paddock, Valentino’s presence lingering in the air, he finds he cannot know what to say. The only thing he can focus on is the concerning fact that Marc has said he cannot sleep. And those bags at least tell him that is the truth.

“Have you thought of talking to a thera-”

“Yup. Didn’t help.”

Dovi furrows a brow.

“What about taking-

“Not allowed to while racing.”

He feels frustration build.

“White noise machine?”

“Keeps me up.”

“ASMR.”

“It’s creepy.”

“A TV show?”

“I get too invested.”

The frustration builds, and he feels a growing annoyance getting bigger and bigger. A little bit for the situation, the unfairness of having someone he considers a friend struggling. Some more for himself, for his doubt and fear and lack of comprehension. Some for Valentino, and the way he can never truly seem to back down. And then even some for Marc, because how is Dovi supposed to understand a person who can go from cruelty to sadness in minutes?

For Marc though, he imagines it is probably worse, especially if both sides are real in some capacity. That all would probably make him nihilistic too. The question is, where does the hate pair into all of all of this? Does it sit on one side? Does it twine through it all? 

A small laugh makes him dart his eyes back up to Marc, and he is even more surprised to find a trace of genuine amusement on the younger man’s face.

“What?” Dovi asks, but Marc just waves him off.

“Nothing it’s just…. I think you starting to get it, just a little bit.” He says with a smile, and when he leans back he seems a bit more calm. Like just the idea that someone might sort of understand him has put his mind at ease.

“It’s a lot easier to just deal with things as they come, I just try not to think about everything much and lie to myself.”

A casual shrug.

“They always say if you pretend something enough, it eventually becomes the truth.” Then he hesitates. Reaches forward, and lightly pats Dovi on the cheek.

“I really… I really don’t care nearly as much as I did before. I enjoy the sex, I enjoy the little games even. I’ve moved on, it’s just….. a bad night for me.”

Dovi blinks.

“You mean day?” He says stupidly, and that startles a real laugh out of Marc’s mouth. He takes one last, long drag of his drink, and drops it on the table with a clink. He stands, gives Dovi an enigmatic smile.

“Tell your mom that it works perfectly. I might not sleep, but I certainly feel better.”

Then Marc is gone, disappearing out of the door of the motorhome in a flash, as if he had not been real the entire time. Dovi watches him go, even tries to see if he can make out the man through the tinted window. He can’t. And just like when Valentino left his view, that little worried feeling rises up.

There is just something about those two. Like you never want to turn your back on them. Almost like if you can’t see what they are doing, you are dead. He truly does not understand, even if Marc says he is starting too. The younger man is very clearly angry, filled with hate for Valentino, and rightfully so.

So why had he been so…. weak? Which one was the truth?

Dovi settles back into bed after a moment, head swimming, but decides to take Marc’s advice and tries not to think about it too hard.

It doesn’t work that well.

***

He finally tells Casey the story after Silverstone, laying in bed and basking in the afterglow. His first time seeing the Australian for months, busy schedules keeping them apart. And yet….. all he can worry about is one thing.

Casey reacts calmly, listening with a pensive expression and sighing once Dovi finishes.

“Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

It’s not often Casey asks such… emotional, worried questions. Dovi has always been the type to believe that deep down the other man is very soft, and it seems to be creeping up more these days. He is convinced that it has something to do with the Spaniard that weaseled his way into their life and their bed. Not that Dovi blames him, the younger man is very endearing.

“I hope so.” He responds, humming his words into Casey’s chest as they lay there, naked and sleepy.

Marc had left them just an hour ago, chattering loudly as he went with a bright grin. He does that a lot, stays for fun and pleasure, sometimes even for a very complicated shower, and then leaves. Never sleeps in the same bed, an echo Dovi has heard from one of the many others the Spanish man is ‘spending time’ with these days. He understands, really it’s just sex, and he understands even more now that he knows of the other man’s sleeping problems.

But still it just…… feels like Marc is restraining something. Holding it all back. There is something terribly distant about the man, and it only grows by day. The last time Dovi saw him even slightly vulnerable was all those months ago in Assen. Since then it seems like Marc is being more careful with revealing things, even his anger. Hiding himself away, holding people at arm’s length. Like there is some kind of secret that he refuses to even let himself see. Almost unfair.

That’s a silly thought to have of course, Marc owes them nothing. This has been and always will be sex and friendship, nothing deeper.  But still, it doesn’t feel like the healthy kind of distance.

“Winning this year will help.” Casey murmurs.

“Maybe."

More calm, thoughtful silence. It’s hard not to be that way after the younger man leaves.

Maybe that was the strangest part of the whole thing. On paper it should be this wild affair, a threesome between some of the greatest athletes in the world, mixing in explosive personalities and competitiveness and the selfish nature all riders have. But rather than that, it had been something dulling and a bit disconnected. Like sometimes when Marc was on his back, eyes pinched tight in pleasure, he was imagining it was someone else touching him, not Dovi or Casey.

It didn’t hurt. Why would it, the whole thing is not romantic in the slightest, but it….. it was a bit concerning. Because Marc never looked happy when he opened his eyes up again. He just looked lost. So difficult to understand, and it just makes Dovi want to beg for an answer.

But it is terribly hard to confront someone about something like that and sound sane. How would they even phrase it? ‘When we, a couple who you are sleeping with for fun, fuck you it feels disconnected’? Yeah, that would kind of just get them a confused look and maybe even a ‘no, duh’.

And really, that question isn't even at the top of the list in Dovi's head. He still suffers to wrap his head around the confusing behavior from that night in Assen.

“For Misano we should tell him to stay in Forli with us. The commute isn’t too bad, and I feel like….. it might be a bad idea for him to be in a motorhome at the paddock.” Casey says quietly, and Dovi nods into his chest.

“Especially after what happened in Mugello.”

A memory flickering by. A burned mannequin, Marc’s name written across its chest. A crowd holding it high, noose looped around its neck. Cheers, calls for death, the type of madness only a mob could have. It wasn’t the first time it had happen, Marc had muttered about something similar in Valencia the previous year, but it the was the first time Dovi had seen a people so…. comfortable calling for another human being’s head. He will admit, he had lost a bit of faith in humanity after that, and he had always tried so hard to be optimistic in that realm. Casey for his part just shook his head, and with tight eyes said that it was not unexpected.

Misano would probably be worse. It was Valentino’s territory, after all. And since that night in Assen, there were no holds barred.  Maybe he had gotten cocky, he had been outscoring Marc since Spielberg, even if the younger man had the lead. Or maybe he was trying to compensate for how…weak he had looked that night in Assen. Dovi would not be surprised. Valentino was always a man of pride.

So even after the press asked him what he thought about all of the hate, all the threats, all the worry for the safety of Marc’s fans in Italy, the man had just smiled peacefully and navigated away from the question, not deigning to respond.

Inhumane. Dovi felt a bit disgusted by that.

“He needs Alex to sleep. We should invite him too.” Dovi adds on after thinking for a bit. Casey lets out a little laugh.

“You are kind.” He murmurs and presses a kiss to the top of Dovi’s head. It’s nice.

But it’s still not enough to get rid of the worry.

He carries it with him until the day of the race. Marc had agreed to stay in Forli, relief flooding his face when Dovi had mentioned Alex was more than welcome. He grinned lightly, made a joke about too many Marquez’s in the house, but placed a hand firmly on Dovi’s shoulder, a little bit of gratefulness being pressed into his skin.

They were right, Misano is bad. The security guards are needed once more, the crowd howls Marc’s name with feverish hate, and Valentino shows no reaction. Like Valencia all over again.

Marc is as always, confusing. Smiles widely, ignores it all. Says nothing bad in the press about anything yet has this fire in his eyes every time someone so much as mentions Valentino’s name. Watches the older man in screen, but tears his gaze away with flinty glare. Hate tempered by…. God, Dovi doesn’t even know.

Baffling.

It is Dani who finds him after the race is over. His brow is furrowed.

“He is staying with you, yes? The team had said he would not be in the motorhome.”

Dovi nods.

“We thought it would be safer.” He says quietly.

“You were right.”

Silence, and Dovi thinks the conversation is over. But as he goes to leave, a firm hand grips his shoulder, and he turns his head to look back at Dani with a raised eyebrow.

“I would buy a lot of wine. He’ll need it, after today.”

Then the small Spanish man gives him one last look, and he is gone. Dovi watches him go. Dani is another one of those people who confuses him a little. From what he has heard the man cared for Marc from the beginning of their partnership, but also he knows the two have had…. moments throughout the year. It must be difficult, to be the teammate of a rookie and have him snatch the championship in his first year. Even more so for Dani, who has been second in so many championships over the years.

He doesn’t know why Dani always gets so involved, he doesn’t know why he always seems to know what is going on even when Marc is so withdrawn, but he does not get a bad feeling from it.

So that night he pops a cork and they sit around the TV, glasses filled and laughing at some old Italian comedy, over the top and ridiculous. He hopes they can quell Marc’s anger tonight, that they can calm the viciousness. It must become strangling after a while, even with that strange, confusing check he has on his hate.

“Did they really think this was funny?” Casey says doubtfully, narrowed eyes staring at the screen over the rim of his wine glass.

“Of course,” Dovi says sagely, “it was the best humor in 1954.”

“It is still funny.” Marc protests in a loud voice, childishly leaning over to give Casey a little scolding slap to the leg.

“No, it’s not, you’re just drunk. “

At that Marc whirls on his brother, who had been watching him with fond eyes, and goes off on a tirade in what is probably Catalan. It is far too fast for Dovi to try to discern anything, so he just laughs, leaning into Casey and feeling a little bit better.

Dani was right. Wine was a good idea.

“A language we all understand please.” Casey mutters in tired voice, a request he has made for most of the night as the tipsier they all get, the more they tend to switch to non-English languages.

“I think he said something about his brother having the brain of a fish.” Dovi stage whispers, just to earn the disgruntled looks both Marquez brother shoot him.

“You do not understand Catalan.” Alex says disdainfully, and that just makes Marc throw his head back and cackle, over the moon about his brother stepping out of his shy bubble to scold the way he might around family.

It devolves into arguments about languages, and which is better, with Casey stoutly on the side of English (no surprise) and Marc aghast at his responses. It’s funny, and eventually the movie ends without anyone really paying any attention to it at all. More wine goes down, more glasses are poured, and cheeks get pinker and pinker.

Like this Dovi can sort of understand Marc. There is none of that twisted juxtaposition here. No Valentino to despise, no sadness about what used to be choking him. Just a stupid movie, and wine, and laughter. Healing in a way, even as Dovi does not quite comprehend what is being treated.

He glances at the screen when it ends.

“Should we watch something else?” He wonders out loud. It is only ten after all, and they get to sleep in tomorrow. Why bother going to bed so early when the mood is this good?

“Marc picks.” Alex says fast, and gets a little laugh from his brother, now very clearly drunk-drunk. He leans back on the couch, eyes hazy and stares at the screen with a dazed sort of focus. Slowly the smile fades from his face as he eyes the screen. If Dovi didn’t know any better, if he wasn’t doing something as silly as deciding a movie, he would swear Marc looks sad.

“Let’s watch something bad. So we can make fun of it.” Marc says after a moment, and Alex immediately agrees, rattling off several ideas even as his brother remains quiet. Dovi watches as he slowly picks up the remote, clicks through the options, and then pauses, staring at the screen with an odd expression. Then that bizarre sadness is back.

Dovi feels a bit of drunken irritation pours in. Just when he thought he was finally starting to get the younger man, now it is all twisted again. On screen there is nothing special, some American movie. It shows a bald-headed child with what looks like tattoos on his head. Dovi doesn’t know why that particular one would strike such a chord with Marc, and it just makes everything infinitely more frustrating.

“Ah, that one’s terrible.” Casey says.

“I know.” Marc says but clicks on it anyways.

They don’t make fun of it like they said they would, and it is really quite bad. But there is something reverent in Marc’s face as they watch it, and Dovi finds himself unable to even talk. He really doesn’t even notice what is happening on screen anymore, peripherally watching the way Marc’s face shifts every so often from open sadness, to practiced emptiness. The drinks are clearly making him less in control, and all it is doing is twisting Dovi’s mind even more.

“Which power would you think is better? Like for fighting.” Alex asks suddenly in the middle of the movie. It makes Marc flinch, kicking him out of whatever trance it all had put him under, which in turns snaps them all back into consciousness.

“Air,” says Casey, “quick and easy, and it is everywhere.”

Alex makes a noise of disagreement.

“I think earth. How do you fight against a boulder?”

Dovi is the only one who notices it then, mostly because he is the only one staring at Marc like he is a puzzle to figure out.  The younger man’s face does something complicated as he listens to their discussion. A switch from dazed sadness to despair and then settling into placidity. Bizarre.

“You’re both wrong,” Marc eventually says in a quiet voice, “it would be water. We all have water in us after all, and if you could control your enemy there doesn’t even need to be a fight.”

They go quiet after that. Mostly from the tone of voice, heady and a little bit crazed. Not in the wild way, no screams or stereotypical wackiness that is in TV shows, but real madness. Weakened around the edges, crackling, and far too raw to be healthy. Another puzzle piece that makes no sense.

“Water then.” Dovi eventually says. He feels Casey’s hand squeeze his arm.

They settle back into that silence once more, and thirty minutes later, Dovi realizes that both Casey and Alex have fallen dead asleep, leaning on their arms almost in exactly the same position.

Then it is just Dovi and Marc, just like that night in Assen.

“I never thought I would see this movie again,” Marc finally says. His eyes are still on the screen, watching the movie play with a hungry gaze, as if he is seeing more than what is there.

“Why did you pick it then?” Dovi asks in a murmured voice, and Marc exhales steadily, looking as if he isn’t really speaking to Dovi at all, just answering questions because he cannot help it.

“Weakness maybe.” He muses, then he smiles.

“It is just as bad as I remember. No American Thai food this time though.”

That makes Dovi tilt his head. The younger man is talking in riddles.

“I don’t understand.”

A shrug.

“I don’t either. I almost never do actually.”

Then he smiles so peacefully, leans over toward Alex and gently rests his hand on his brother’s chest, right above his heart. Dovi watches him. It almost looks as if he is…

“I’m feeling his heartbeat. That’s what I need to sleep, sometimes I wake up half way through the night just to check.” He says casually, and shrugs like he didn’t just say the most messed up thing in the world. As if he hasn’t ticked another box that makes everything more confusing and bizarre. Anger paired with this deep sadness. Amusement that is followed by hollowness. Fear meets assurance. Hate that is tempered by….. something. Inconceivably confusing.

“That’s….. concerning.”

Another shrug.

“I know.”

Then it is Marc settling into position, shifting until his arm is pressed firmly against his brother’s and smiling at Dovi with a softness and warmth. As if none of that stuff exists, like it is something he has handled gracefully for a long time.

“Could you turn out the light? I can’t sleep with it so bright.”

He listens and then the golden light of the lamp disappears in a flash, instantly making everything feel colder. The fluorescent, white tinged glow of the TV is the only light source now. It flickers in and out, casting shadows to dance around the room. All the while, Dovi watches Marc. The light barely gives him glimpses, but it is just… it is so raw it makes Dovi want to cry.

Perhaps in the darkness Marc feels safer to show it all so clearly, Dovi doesn’t know. But there, right on his face, is a smile. Not the happy kind, there is no joy in the tilt of his lips, but something deeper. The smile of a person remembering what used to be good but no longer is, the smile people have at wakes, the smile that you carry when you murmur your love, your loss, your hope. No, not a happy one. Not at all.

A mournful one.

Then a quick movement of the lips, the briefest murmured word. Dovi does not even hear it, he only notices because he is watching so closely. Only notices because he has seen that mouth form it so many times before, watches how reverently it shapes each sound.

Valentino.

And that smile.

Then suddenly Dovi feels it slotting into place, more startling and clear than anything he has ever experienced. An understanding explodes into being, one he had briefly touched in Assen but never truly understood.

Marc is still in love.

The kind of love that rage cannot even get rid of, the kind of love that makes you watch movies from the past and still feel every little thing that used to be dancing through your body. The kind of love that allows for meetings early in the morning, and makes you look like the living dead afterward. The kind of love that makes you hold your head high and pretend pretend pretend. That makes you lie to yourself. That makes you pray that if you do that enough it will become real, that maybe one day what you make up, what you yearn for, what you cry for, will all be the truth.

Hate tempered by love.

And that….. well.

That just about break’s Dovi’s heart.

End Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Watching your teammate win is always difficult.

Dani knows that feeling well enough, has grown used to it in the past few years. Aside from 2015, it has been the rider in the matching leathers who has taken the title year after year. And it certainly burns, having the bike, the team, but just…. never being able to touch the crown. Be it due to crashes, or illness, or other mishaps, it has always felt like no matter where he went his luck was stolen in an instant, handed to whichever young star the heavens decide to choose.

It was like that with Marc from the moment Dani met him. Like the kid had this ability to take everything magical about racing and compact it into his body. Like he could swallow down every good day you could have and make it tenfold. A brilliant rookie championship, a terrifyingly dominant second year. And now a third, a vicious battle to the end that brooked no questions on who was superior

Marc is standing up there on the podium, champagne pouring over his body, sparkling like liquid diamonds. And here is Dani, collar broken before the race even started, watching from the sidelines. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Yet he can’t help the proud smile on his face.

Many people would probably think that is weird. They would be right for multiple reasons. The first is that it is almost a rule in MotoGP that you kind of hate the other guy in the box. The second is that he really is in a lot of pain, chest pulsing in a familiarity that makes his teeth clench. The third is that Marc Marquez is a menace, and frankly a terrible teammate.

Mind games, poor cooperation. A bike that slowly gets more and more unusable as the years go on, shifting to suit a style that no other rider on the grid can replicate. A style close to insanity, a lean so deep you stare, and all the while those dark eyes coolly observe back and dare you to disagree.

Yes, Marc is frightening, and often cruel. But God does Dani like him so much.

It had been almost an immediate thing. He had vaguely known who Marc was over the years, Repsol events and such dragging them together in a rather distant sort of way. He remembers hearing murmurs about how talented this Marquez was, and seeing this little spindly thing, eyes big and mouth curled up in that famous smile even then. He was friendly, often quiet, and when the conversation switched to racing there was this focus that looked a bit strange on a child’s face. But even though he spoke with clinical intelligence, the lisp from having a missing tooth took away some of that gravity.

Oh, Dani had thought, so young. I don’t need to worry about a kid that little.

 Later he learned that Marc was not nine like he had assumed, but thirteen. And maybe he had started to worry just a small bit.

But that was years before they were teammates, and then Marc was grown up and there, no slurred sounds to take away the frightening edge. He rocked up to Honda with this sureness, a wild intensity that Dani swears he had only seen in one other rider, and in the process had somehow wormed his way into his heart.

He says that like it was a challenge for the younger man, but really it wasn’t. All it took was one instance of Marc turning pink after his father described the posters up on his wall for Dani to realize that underneath all of the freakishness there was a relatively sweet kid, and then he was settled. Jorge says he is too soft hearted, but Dani knows even he has something of a gentle spot for Marc.

That was why when he saw the way Valentino Rossi stared, all he felt was worried.

Not that the Italian man was inherently insidious, no. Jorge had laughed when he described how enamored Valentino was with his newest student all the way back in 2011, and Dani had a faint sort of amusement at the idea of the attention grabber, king of MotoGP, the cult creator himself being the entranced one for a change.

Then he really met Marc, more than in passing or brief shaking of the hand, and that vague amusement had shifted.

Because, God, Marc was so young.

It wasn’t that he looked like a child. No, he was grown taller and broader, jawline sharp and baby fat gone. But there was this innocence in his eyes, especially when he looked at Valentino. As if he was still stunned his idol even knew his name, as if Valentino could do anything and Marc would allow it. And there was none of that when the older man returned that stare, just a hunger to consume.

Dani did his best over the years to keep an eye on it. Watched as they dove between multiple extremes, listened as they argued and fought, even unfortunately heard them in the hallway after a press conference one day. And through it, he just felt this…. lack of comprehension.

Not for why they were together. He got that, it was two insane people who happen to be very good looking, of course they gravitated toward one another. And beyond that, for all of their faults, both Valentino and Marc were just fascinating to be around. Valentino in a chaotic way, laughter and drinking and all the madness a night high on life brings. Marc the way a storm is, wild and thundering, intensity making your hair stand on end.

No, what he didn’t comprehend was how any of this could possibly end well.

And he was right. He tends to be right about a lot of things, and in this case that surety had tugged at his mind for years, so when it finally exploded, he almost felt relieved. That was mostly put aside by his disappointment, and the sadness that touched him when he saw how Marc reacted, and in turn the shattered look in Valentino’s eyes.

It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Dani has no idea if Marc really did interfere with the championship, he has no idea if Valentino is truly crazy or just hurt. But what he does know is that the devastation on that face was real, the cruelty shown afterward from Valentino over the line, and everything else that followed a horror show.

It’s enough to eventually pick a side, and although he holds his tongue in the press, there is no question about who he has chosen. Perhaps he had even before all it happened, maybe even the first time he cornered Valentino and demanded he be kind. A warning that was ignored, of course.

Sometimes he feels like that old Greek myth, the seeress Cassandra. All the knowledge in the world at her fingertips but cursed never to be believed. That was how he felt every time he tried to give advice, or warning, and was rebuffed by cold blue eyes or laughing brown ones. The arrogant belief from both of them that nothing could ever go poorly.

But, well, the time for warnings had passed. The cord broke, everything fell apart, and still Dani watches. Not just this podium in Motegi, but the new bubble that is slowly forming. Tension thicker than stone, and this time he is not the only one who can feel it. So at least he is not alone anymore. A small comfort.

Marc makes it back to the garage, face all but split open by his grin. He does what he always does, pulls the attention of everyone in the vicinity to his crackling energy, wraps his arms around mechanics and family members and anyone within touching distance, allows himself to be tossed from person to person, hands grasping at him.

It’s always a sight to see, the way people get absorbed in him. Really Dani has never seen anything like it before. Well, except for one other rider.

For his part, he chooses to wait. Eventually Marc will come to him, once the energy is gone and he wants something settling.

“Congratulations.” He murmurs when the younger man finally does, sliding past all others to grin widely. He nods jubilantly, but when his eyes drop to Dani’s sling, one of his brows drops down and that smile falters.

“Are you out for the season?” He asks, and Dani shrugs with his good side.

“Perhaps. They want to try for Valencia though.”

A humming noise, and then Marc presses close, eyes intense and still manic from the adrenaline rush of racing. Not a hug, but what would have been one if not for the injury. This close Dani can almost smell it, like ozone. Victory.

“I’m sorry.” Marc says quietly. His once-a-year apology, the one Dani always gets. A blanket statement that covers a season’s worth of the viciousness you must have to win in MotoGP. A kindness of sorts. Really, he doubts anyone else would get it, so at least that is nice. Jorge said it was condescending, but Dani knows Marc is too sweet for that underneath all of his wildness.

“It’s fine.” Dani whispers back, the same response every year. And then Marc grins again, looking relieved and presses a hand to Dani’s cheek.

“We will drink tonight.” He orders, slipping away with a demanding shake of the finger. A boy-king expecting to be obeyed, and rightfully so. Dani will of course listen. He doesn’t even give a response, just watches as Marc shifts that heady attention to some other poor fool who will immediately be willing.

Dani snorts. It’s funny.

Jorge says that he is whipped, too willing to indulge his mad little teammate, to fond of someone he should hate. But Dani always responds that he wasted all of his anger on Jorge himself when they were younger. No space left for it now, even when Marc does things that would make other riders explode.

Maybe he is making an excuse for it, but whatever. At this time, he is more than allowed to.

He wanders out of the garage, leaving the team to their exuberant antics and celebration, listening to the way the crowds chatter loudly, some calling his name from the stands. He waves with a small smile, laughing a bit when that earns him cheers. Not quite as large as if he was the champion, of course. That thought makes his stomach pinch a little.

Then he is near the Yamaha garage, hovering right outside as the team packs up with tired expressions. Not a good day for them, both riders crashing out in rather dramatic manners. With that any championship prayers had been crushed, even though there was no doubt in anyone’s mid that Marc would win, even way back in Brno.

He can’t go in, not with how tense things had gotten between the two teams, a sort of proxy war after the hellish destruction that was Marc and Valentino’s breakup, but he waits against the wall outside for Jorge to be done, eyeing his boyfriend, crouched over a computer and listening intently to one of the engineers. Here at least he can avoid being seen by anyone who hopes the orange they spot is Marc, the minute amount of privacy offered by the thin alleyway.

“Here to steal our secrets?” Comes a cheeky voice, and then there is Valentino, grin wide and posture casual. Still in his leathers, his hair is damp with sweat, and he looks like a dog when he shakes it out briefly. It is almost enough to make Dani laugh, but he stifles it as Valentino leans against the wall across from him and crosses his arms.

“No,” Dani replies, “we need no advice. My teammate just won the title after all.”

At that the smile dims. It doesn’t disappear, no it stays firmly in place. But it shifts into something far more hollow and human.

“Ah, yes.” Valentino says, voice clipped, mood always clear as day.

There is an awkward silence after that, and Dani just watches him for a moment. Maybe it is the frustration and the exhaustion after a bad race, maybe it was all fake, but for some reason Valentino looks…. weak right now. Like the minute Dani had even referenced Marc, all of his energy was sapped out.

“Perhaps next year.” Are the words Valentinos says next, a small murmur, like he did not mean to say it out loud, eyes staring at nothing, before he blinks and refocuses, smile renewed.

“Allora, I heard you might need another surgery. What number is that then?” He asks with a playful lilt to his voice, and Dani sighs but allows the shift.

“Just two, but they hope not. The first plate is fine, we just need to strengthen the area while the bone heals properly. “

A sage nod.

“Good, do not let them poke and prod you too much.” He comments, then narrows his eyes with a smirk.

“That’s Jorge’s job, no?”

Dani shrugs even as his lips tilt up.

“I am not ashamed of who I sleep with.” He says dryly, and the second part goes unspoken. Not like you.

 It wasn’t like Valentino pretended that him and Marc had never dated. That would be impossible, it had been an open secret since 2012 that they were far more than student and teacher. Even some of the journalists had been aware, whispering jokes during the press conference when the two men stared at each other a little too long.

But there was this air of dismissal around the topic these days that had not existed before. As if the last three years had not been serious at all, when Dani knows quite that it was probably more serious than what most people experience. Marc had done that too, brushing aside concern like a leaf on his shoulder.

More lies, from both sides. Maybe that had been their issue from the beginning; neither of them were willing to be the weak party.

Valentino laughs, but his eyes are mean and irritated.

“Slept, Dani, Slept. I am not on the very long list that that enjoys that distinction anymore.” He says, but cuts himself short, as if he hadn’t meant to make it sound like it did; forlorn, petty, jealous. No doubt he had hoped to come off amused and maybe disdainful, but it had fallen entirely flat.

In real time Dani watches as the older man rearranges his face and attempts to settle into something superior. It’s a little sad in truth. He doubts anyone has even had the balls to be honest with him about how he is behaving, or about anything really. Certainly not Uccio, his little worshiper, or any of the other adoring fans he surrounds himself with. Definitely none of those little cultish students he parades around as if they could replace his first.

An urge to just…do something fills Dani’s stomach. It’s selfish really, he has no hope to reconcile the two men, or to revenge Marc, or anything like that. But it all is becoming uncomfortable to watch, and maybe if the older man starts to act human first Marc will follow suit.

“Valentino.” Dani says quietly, then sighs, unsure how to continue his thought without sounding like a meddling auntie. But really, the older man is being terribly pathetic, a trend Dani has noticed lately.

“Valentino,” he starts again, “I feel like you should hear this, and-”

“What?” The older man cuts in, looking beyond tense but grinning to cover it up, “Please don’t tell me you have feelings for me, Jorge is, well not a friend, but it would be very awkward if-”

“I think you need to get over yourself.”

Silence. An eyebrow twitches.

“Come again?”

“I’m serious,” Dani responds, then raises a placating hand when something like outrage appears in those eyes, smile now fully gone.

“Look what happened with Marc happened, everyone knows it, everyone sees. But there has to be a point when you let things go, forget your pride and get through it. I mean, it’s been a year, right?”

A little twitch of the eyebrow.

“Eleven months.” Valentino cuts in coolly, then turns his face away to stubbornly glare at the ground, looking like he is trying his best to pretend to be calm and careless.

Dani stares at him for a second, hoping that he was maybe kidding or making a joke. But no, the man is dead serious and somehow cannot see how that highlight’s the point perfectly. All hopes for this to be a productive or sane conversation go out the window.

“Okay, sure, it’s been eleven months. Don’t you feel like it’s all getting old?”

“No,” Valentino says casually, “no not really.”

God. This is a frustrating conversation, mostly because of how much of a liar the man is. Dani can tell how exhausted he is, even as he puts on a show. He has seen those eyes trail after Marc when he thinks no one is looking, a glimmer of regret there. He has watched Valentino hold back laughs during press conferences when Marc makes a joke, pressing his lips together and looking down to hide how much of him still simply likes the younger man.

So to watch him pretend like this war is something he still wants, something that must happen, is just… disappointing.

“Look, we aren’t friends,” Dani tries again, “and you hate Jorge, who I love. But so did I at one point, so if anyone can understand….”

Valentino laughs.

“You think you and Jorge were anything like this?” He murmurs lightly, eyes blazing like just the insinuation was a horrendous insult.

“Yes.” Dani says firmly.

And really, really, they entirely were. Vicious insults thrown across the paddock, glares in passing, the burning dislike for someone who everyone seems to pit you against. He remembers watching Jorge arrive to MotoGP and feeling the echoing sound of his own inevitable end go through his head. A lot like how he felt with Marc, actually.

When he first realized he was falling in love, there had been horror. Disgust that he could care about someone who had seemed to perfectly set up to be his enemy.

But things change, and so do people, and well…. it’s a story for another day.

Maybe they were not quite as bombastic as Valentino and Marc are, maybe their rivalry was not quite so historic, but he gets it. He understands how world ending it can be to feel love and hate simultaneously, and have both emotions just be so real.

He shakes himself a little out of the memories, and Valentino is eyeing him. There is still naked disbelief on his face, but at least he looks like he is thinking.

“You hate him. I believe that,” Dani starts, “but you love him. I also believe that. Until you let go of the first part, the second will never truly go away, and you two will always be tied together.”

Then he hesitates.

“Unless you prefer it that way.”

And that finally makes Valentino flinch, facial expression splintering for a second to reveal a depth of feeling Dani knows quite well. Horrific fear. Something he really did not consider Valentino could hold, not after Sepang and the many months since. Perhaps this is not quite as clear as he had imagined.

“Ah,” he says, enlightenment suddenly flowing into his brain, “you do.”

That is…. obvious in retrospect. Because really, when he considers it in that way, all of it had stemmed from one thing hadn’t it? Valentino Rossi is afraid.

Dani remembers how the older man had been. Clingy, possessive, obsessive. As if Marc was just waiting to slide into someone else’s hands, as if the younger man didn’t care. And when they would fight and Dani would hear what it was about, somehow it would always stem from the idea of Marc leaving.

Fear. Even now Valentino is terrified of being abandoned.

What a disturbing man.

They stare at each other for a moment, Valentino looking far to exposed and uncomfortable, and like he wants to run away. But pride must keep his feet firmly in place, because he does not move. Instead he glares back, as if trying terribly hard to win some sort of standoff.

“You are a complicated person. And kind of an idiot.” Dani eventually says bluntly, and that actually shocks a laugh out of the other man’s mouth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the nice one?” He asks, and Dani shrugs.

“I suppose he has rubbed off on me.”

A forced smile.

“I bet that is not the only thing he has rubbed-”

Dani cuts him off with a raised hand before he can finish that joke, a little embarrassment coursing through him.  Not for himself, or Jorge, but for the man in front of him who thinks dirty jokes will cover up the fact that he has cornered himself, exposed too much to go back.

This is getting far too complex; he regrets every second of it. He should have just left well enough alone.

“Right… anyways, I just wanted to say that,” he begins, ready to end this conversation, “I really I have no clue what goes on between you two, all I know is that Marc loses it whenever you lash out, and then he does something stupid which makes you lash out more, and it is just this ridiculous cycle that is frankly uncomfortable to watch.”

Then Valentino jerks back like he has been slapped, an almost comically startled look appearing on his face. Dani startles too. Because what the hell kind of reaction is that?

The man is suddenly close, pushing himself of the opposite wall with a dramatic speed, energy crackling.

“What do you mean Marc loses it?” He demands, and that makes Dani roll his eyes.

“Are you stupid?” He says flatly, “all the sleeping around? The way he rides so much crazier?”

Valentino blinks.

“And that is all… because of…” He says, and then trails off, eyes going distant.

“You. Don’t tell me you were unaware, that would be ridiculous.”

Then Dani laughs, but when no second voice joins him he just stops. Opens his eyes in confusion, and then watches in vague horror as a wild grin breaks across Valentino’s face.

“It’s all because of me.” He murmurs, and a drunken satisfaction fills his eyes.

Well. Perhaps Dani had made things worse. He just about hits himself in the forehead, because really why did he even assume otherwise. A normal human being would perhaps feel a bit of guilt, or maybe the urge to change upon finding out they are affecting a person in that bad of a way. But nope, not Valentino Rossi. If anything he looks turned on.

A disgusting thought.

“Well,” Dani says, slowly wracking his brain for a way to fix this, “It’s just my guess of course, maybe it has nothing to do with-”

But Valentino waves him off, suddenly looking about ten years younger, posture straight and energy frantic.

“No, no you are right. Of course you are right, he is doing all of this to hurt me.”

Then he sighs, almost looking adoring in a twisted way.

“And I had let him. No, I see now.”

He turns to Dani with a feverish expression, and claps a hand on his good shoulder, squeezing tightly, skin almost boiling hot.

“Thank you for this…. enlightenment.” He gets out, and then in a flash Valentino is gone, and Dani is left alone in the little alleyway, gaping after where the other man had gone and feeling like he had just pushed everything even further back.

He groans.

Next time he swears he is not going to interfere.

***

So that had been a lie.

Because right now he is here, standing between Marc and Valentino, arm wrapped around his teammates waist and wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

Jorge, in the corner, is watching it all with amusement.

“Dani,” Marc whispers, looking a mix between bewildered and amused. Valentino, for his part, mostly looks angry as sin.

God. If only Dani hadn’t felt so responsible for this.

The awards ceremony for 2016 had started well. Dani was only there as Jorge’s date, fourth not earning him a place up on stage with them, and the energy had been calm. Valentino and Marc were cordial on stage, and even behind the scenes. The air was light, the mood good, and once everyone had been corralled into the ballroom, Dani had thought the evening would pass lazily, a little wine or champagne softening the edges.

But no, of course not. Because it seemed Valentino had been biding his time. And when he held out a hand to offer Marc a dance, Dani watched with a pit growing in his stomach as the younger man accepted.

The only comfort in the moment was the narrowed eyes his teammate had, face stiff even as he smiled, and posture tensed like he was going into battle.

And what a battle it was. One, two, three, four, five songs. Marc fumbling around, clearly unsure of where to put his feet, and Valentino dragging him about, the whole while with a smug look painted across his face. Dani winced as he saw Marc stumble so hard he almost slammed into a waiter, a flash of horror spreading across his face before he wiped it clean with a tense smile.

Very soon it became clear that this was no dance, if anything it was a fight for dominance. And then every eye in the room was on them, music almost getting quieter until the hiss of whatever conversation they were having was clear. Or maybe they just got louder, Dani certainly wasn’t paying attention to the orchestra. He was enraptured just like everyone else was with the vicious fight in the center of the room.

They muttered words at each other that even from this far away were coated in poison, he saw Valentino’s confidence in his control grow bigger and bigger as Marc did not improve. He heard the titters of people they passed as Valentino made a very loud joke about Marc being a danger to himself and others, a passive aggressive connection to all those articles about Marc’s riding style in the past four years.

Not that the younger man stayed down, he pulled out his own games. Took advantage when he could, let his hands dip low until Valentino’s spine straightened, whispered words that clearly had an effect, tried his best anyways.

But it was Valentino who held the higher ground, and slowly it becomes painful to watch. It was not a dance or even a battle anymore. It was a public humiliation, a show of power that had Marc gritting his teeth with anger but holding it in for the sake of this being a work event. Dignity hanging on by a thread.

Dani will give it to the Italian man, he certainly was smart on where he picked this battle. Because he must have known that Marc couldn’t dance, he must have known that the younger man would not respond as he normally did, he must have known how unused to everything he still was. A brilliant tactic; use you advantages viciously. Marc is too.... he is too soft deep down for this. Danio hates it.

“Why do I feel like this is watching someone kick a puppy?” Jorge mumbled, shaking his head and staring with unfettered confusion. Dani had sighed worriedly.

“It might be my fault.”

A small laugh.

“Of course it was. Meddler, always dipping your fingers where they don’t belong, especially when it comes to Marc. Sometimes I feel like you love him more than me.”

Dani swatted at him, and Jorge snickered.

“I might have accidentally dragged Valentino out of his mournful little shell. I told him Marc was doing it all because of him, rather than against him. He took it as an ego boost.”

“Ah,” Jorge said, “yeah that would explain this.”

Then suddenly he nudged Dani.

“Go do something then.”

And that is how Dani found himself here, having neatly snatched Marc away, cutting into the world’s most voyeuristic pseudo-battle masquerading as a dance.

“Sorry,” he says rather unapologetically, avoiding looking at Marc and steeling himself to face down the crazy man in front of him, “you can’t hog the champion.”

Valentino slowly nods, even as a steely, disdainful possessiveness snarls through his eyes. Smiles. Steps back.

“I suppose I was being…. selfish.” He says cheerfully, then laughs like it is all one big joke, as if there is no incredibly clear frustration licking up his spine and turning his knuckles white.

“Enjoy it.” He tosses over his shoulder as he retreats. But his eyes…. well they just about burn Dani’s flesh from his body. Then they slide to Marc one more time, and shift into something strange, before he snaps his head away. Dani watches a little trepidatiously as the man parts the crowd and slips out of the ballroom. A tactical retreat, perhaps. Or maybe the jealous wish to not watch another man dance with Marc.

“Dani?” Marc repeats, and that is when he finally turns to look at the younger man. He expects to find some kind of innocent confusion there, maybe a little bit of tension left over from being all but stuck to the man he has been at war with for over a year, but that is not what Dani finds.

Amusement, affection, and only the slightest bit of embarrassment. Something that maybe even looks…. looks a little disappointed. But that can’t be of course, why would Marc not want to get out of that situation?

“Ah,” Dani says, startled, “I’m sorry, I had…”

Then he sighs, frustrated as he cannot find the words for the protectiveness and responsibility that had risen up.

“Were you trying to protect me?” Marc asks after a moment of silence, and Dani nods, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“I felt like it was my fault.”

Marc laughs.

“What was? The dancing? Don’t worry, it was not so bad.”

Which was not exactly what Dani had seen. He feels something soft under his foot suddenly, and realizes he had stepped firmly on Marc's foot as he attempted to guide them. The younger man hadn't even winced. When Dani shoots him an apologetic look, he just grins.

“Really I should be leading. You are quite small, and I don’t think you are any good.” He says, and Dani nods.

“I’m used to Jorge, and I really do hate dancing.” He mumbles.

“So… what are we still doing here then?”

The question makes Dani feel foolish, and when he stops, blinking rapidly in confusion, Marc laughs before dragging him off the dance floor and back towards Jorge. The other man has been watching them, drink in hand and looking like life is a TV show. Dani scowls at him when they get closer.

“That was almost even more difficult to watch than with Valentino, Dani is usually not so bad.” He comments, and Marc shrugs.

“At least with him I didn’t have other things to think about,” he mumbles, reaching behind them to snatch a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray and gulping it down in seconds. The first show of weakness since Dani cut in. When he stops, he sighs, and pinches his eyes shut for a second, and looks almost like he is scolding himself.

“Do you feel less guilty now?” Jorge asks, and Dani sighs, still not knowing the answer to that question.

“Why did you think it was your fault anyways?” Marc asks curiously, tilting his head like a kitten, cheeks turning slightly pink as the alcohol starts to slide into his system.

“I… I was trying to help.” He starts weakly, and when Marc raises an eyebrow, he continues.

“I thought if maybe he knew how upset you still were he would lay off for a bit.” He finally admits, and Marc barks out a laugh. Shakes his head. Then grabs another thing of champagne.

“Don’t do that again.” He says, then grins like he was kidding. But Dani had seen the look in his eyes, cold and deadly serious. A shiver goes up his spine. Sometimes he forgets how killer the younger man can be, and how little he needs a protector. He forgets that a lot, actually.

“It doesn’t matter anyways, he has always known that,” Marc says after a moment, looking lost in thought, “he just likes to lie to himself.”

Then he smiles, almost wistfully.

“Just like me.”

Dani doesn’t know how to respond to that. He still feels that guilt from being the catalyst of this little public toying, and he knows that while Marc maybe be acting like it was no big deal, the humiliation is probably rolling through him even now. And no small amount of betrayal, no doubt, even after everything Valentino had done. At least…. At least it should be that way. Marc has no trace of that though. Disconcerting. Bizarre. 

The image of the that dance, the horror on Marc’s face, twists, and now it is not so clear. Had Marc really looked that lost? Or perhaps was it all in Dani’s mind. Now he can’t be sure, and in in his memory the little panicked look is replaced by something else; a mad smile. It flickers between the two until he cannot comprehend which was the real picture.

Marc had been upset.... right? It was a slaughter, not a dance. Right?

“Thanks for the rescue anyways. I need some air.”

And then Marc is gone, slipping through the crowd out one of the doors with a smooth confidence, a flurry of eyes watching him leave. Dani sees them all. Some have that greedy, hungry look of pure attraction. Some of them look awed by the champion walking near them. Others just watch to watch, maybe even not absorbing where their eyes have dropped. Marc ignores every single one of them, not even deigning to toss out pleasantries or smiles as he exits. Almost kingly in his disregard.

“Well, at least it didn’t end in disaster.” Jorge says brightly, pressing his hand into Dani’s, a small kind of comfort.

But he just shakes his head, brain boiling all of it until it melts together into the beginnings of a new conclusion.

“Not yet. It’s coming though.” He murmurs, and deep in his gut he knows that this is true, just like he knew the day he saw them that Valentino and Marc would never be something close to simple, that it would all end in tragedy. In his mind there is the shaky memory of the dance, the faint realization that after Marc switched to Dani he danced quite well actually, the little disregard for what should have been humiliating, and the confidence radiating off of the younger man as he left. It fills Dani with something like foreboding nervousness, and the new idea that perhaps he is a bigger fool than he thought. Really he should have seen this all coming. It was almost too obvious, but maybe his foresight had been clouded by the overprotective worry he has held for the younger man since the beginning.

Then finally his brain settles on one detail that he hadn’t even noticed until the image had rolled around his brain for a little while, a detail that shifts everything in its entirety towards something different, a confirmation. A new, disturbing knowledge blooms in his mind.

Marc had gone out the same door as Valentino.

Another cursed prophecy.

End Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Alessio was only a child when he met his god.

He remembers seeing him standing there, blond curls and big blue eyes, a wild grin even at a tender age. Commanding in the way six-year-olds never are, magnetic. He spoke and people listened, even their teacher. He laughed and the room went silent to hear it. And then, like a blessing from the heavens, this bright little star turned to Alessio and looked at him. Then he smiled and in a lilting voice he spoke, far too clear and intelligent for their age.

“You stare a lot.”

Alessio stuttered out some foolish reply, a stumbled apology maybe or an excuse, he does not remember, and the creature in front of him had suddenly came close, amusement dancing across his features, gap toothed grin taking up his whole face.

“You sound stupid. We should be friends.”

And Alessio fell in love.

It was almost a blur after that, a golden, swirling pile of days. Pulled around town by insistent hands until eventually they became Vale&Alessio which transitioned into Vale&Uccio after his friend crowed the nickname to the sky and refused to allow people to call him in any other way.

It was nights spent in the backyard, Valentino whispering his hopes to the sky and the stars twinkling down at them, a small pinch to his arm as his friend demanded his reverent attention. It was watching that skinny body climbing up the bell tower in town, Valentino cheering his victory from the top as the local priest cursed his name. It was the police chasing after them with shaking fists, and the giggles that poured out when they were caught and all they got was an indulgent scolding. It was the amazement he would feel every day that someone like Valentino, this child so clearly meant for greatness, had picked him out, called him by a new name and held him fast.

There were others of course, but Uccio knew he was special. The first to be called for, the first to be reached out to, the first to earn attention and affection. The rest were friends, but Valentino, even at so young an age, seemed to make it clear that Uccio was more. His first follower, perhaps. His first worshipper.

So Uccio was privy to more than anyone else might be. Allowed behind the scenes even, permitted to hear Valentino’s parents fight, or see his friend flinch at the sound of it. Shown the scrapes and cuts and told how much they had hurt with seriousness, as opposed to the light, joking way he always showed everyone else. Dreams whispered in his ear, said not with confidence but with hope. Valentino was special, but Uccio was special to him. It was almost better.

Their youth passed like that, and every day Uccio felt this feeling grow and grow and grow.                                   

And then there was racing. Oh, was there ever racing.

Little pushcarts shoved through the winding streets of Tavullia until they crashed into walls, dirt bikes on the backroads, whipping so fast they were almost arrested. Then on track eventually when they got old enough, the blasting joy of doing something that made your heart beat clear out of your chest. They all loved it, they all adored every second of speed and risk and fire.

But no one lived it quite like Valentino did. No one rode with that crackling energy, bursting past anything in his way, and when you caught him after a particularly good lap, the look in his eyes was a thing to worship. Like he had touched the edge of existence and brought some of it back with him.

Watching him took your breath away, and sometimes Uccio would not even start his own engine. He would just sit still and wait for Valentino to soar by him, and being able to get the slightest brush of that was like some kind of drug. He would stare, starry eyed, and wonder what it was like to be so tapped into something more.

But their speed didn’t matter yet, they were young and foolish, and it was a child’s game of adrenaline. They could ride and race and all you got for winning was the sweet feeling of victory, nothing more. You could crash and break things, and the only consequence was your mother’s angry eyes.

Eventually many of them stopped when the bikes became too expensive, or it became clear they were not talents, even Uccio. But not Valentino, and so he decided that if he could not be like that, if he could not go all the way to the end, he could at least follow the one who does.

He remembers watching Valentino’s first race at the championship level. He remembers waiting for the envy to curl into his bones, but it never came. Because after the race, Valentino with his wild eyes almost seemed to push his own victory into skin with a hug, a murmured voice still on edge pressing ‘we did it’ into Uccio’s ear.

 So, he decided that this is a brilliant second option. Valentino’s victories can be his too, and he allows himself to soak up the wins like a sponge. There were more than enough of them anyways, and Valentino hardly needs them when his life is one big victory anyways, so golden as he is. Uccio is not jealous, could never be jealous when they are so tied together.  Besides, it was something he had always know since the day they met, so there was no need to feel anything but thrilled. Because Valentino is just special.

(But Uccio is special to him) (And that is almost better)

Year passed, and attention grew wildly until it was almost out of control. The rest of the world very quickly got on board with what Uccio already knew, and the boy-king was born, tilted crown jauntily perched on his head as he laughed and laughed and laughed. Games on podiums started, little plays and shows that had been foreshadowed throughout their time together, and there it all was; the end goal in sight, destiny close to fulfillment.

This was what Uccio liked to call the second life. The first one was the purity of childhood, of learning and loving and becoming something new. This second one? It had all the wildness of the nighttime, the electricity of a dance floor. It was champagne being sprayed down at him, it was drunken giggles in motorhomes, it was the crowds slowly getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And Valentino, the person he had worshipped, loved, for what felt like his entire life did not forsake him. Vale&Uccio, even as the crowds of admirers shifted from a pack of kindergarteners to a mob of thousands. Even as the adrenaline rush switched from shitty bikes on cracked country roads to the shiny circuits  in Malaysia or Brazil or the US or Spain.

He was there for the entire world that bloomed out of everything. Every fall taken, he was the other one in the hospital room. Every win, he was waiting in the crowd. Every interview, he was stood behind the camera. And then every business deal had his touch in it, every meeting he was the spokesperson, every contract cut his signature was there. And then it was no longer just the deep understanding that he was needed but the actual truth of everything. The truth that everyone knew. Because he was Valentino’s oldest friend, his advisor, his business dealer, his assistant, his handler, his manager, his worshipper, his family, his… his… his…

Valentino is special.

But Uccio is special to him.

(And that is almost better)

By the 2000s thing were set in stone. Valentino was a legend the way he had always been in their small life in Tavullia, the world screamed his name, and Uccio was still there. And maybe that is when he understood that it had all been finally realized. Hopes dreams prayers. Murmured voices of two little boys staring up at the sky, scrapes and bruises, the promise of something more.

He was settled. Content. So sure of everything. His god was victorious, the history books were written, and Uccio may not be the king but he is something else that is important to the one who is.

Maybe that is where he started making his first mistakes. Perhaps he put Valentino on too high of a pedestal, started placing the legend above the man too soon. Because when Marc Marquez first came on the scene, he realized he had forgotten one thing.

Valentino is human underneath his layer of divinity. And humans are weak.

He watched as it started to slowly fall apart before his eyes, just at the flutter of thick, dark lashes. He saw obsession grow on Valentino’s face, a disgusting expression laced with something he does not dare to call love. Valentino does not worship, he is worshipped. Valentino does not adore, he is adored. Valentino does not fall in love, especially with a creature so twisted.

But still it was there, glowing and beautiful even as it was also horrifying. A twist of fate that threw everything off balance. Because how heavenly must something be for even God to want to fall to their knees? Or on the other hand, how hellish?

It crawled over Uccio’s skin the first time he saw the young rider, the first time cold brown eyes met his, the first time he took in that wide smile and glowing tan skin. Beautiful, his mind had murmured, but it was followed by a much louder scream. One that called for death, that warned of the end of times, that cried out in fear, saying in every single word or noise that this is danger incarnate. This creature in front of him is evil, pure and simple. And Uccio knows that he could destroy worlds, if given the opportunity.

It was like meeting Valentino all over again. That feeling he had last been touched by when he was a six-years-old, dumbstruck by the little boy who called him stupid. Arresting awe, glowing wonder. But this one is flavored something else this time, and there is no peace and acceptance. Because where Valentino is the holy light waking him up and pulling him in, Marc is the flames of hell licking at his feet, burning his flesh down to the bone.

He tries his best to save both of their souls. Attempts to drag Valentino out of his madness with lies, or truths, or manipulations. Uses every opportunity to keep the two apart, interrupts every second alone as best as he can. But the minute he sees Valentino pick an almost carbon copy of Marc Marquez to bring home and fuck that night in the bar, Uccio knows that is it. Men are weak, and even though he may be Uccio’s god, Valentino is certainly a man.

The whole time Marquez is like a cat that got the cream. He smirks at Uccio, snips back petty little replies and underhanded comments that simply make Valentino laugh and look enraptured. He rides like a crazy person, races until they almost kill each other, and gets praised. He fucks another man under Valentino’s roof, and yet his friend only seems more obsessed.

It's madness, it awful. But Uccio can’t look away. He can’t stop staring at the way they seem to dance between a normal friendship, an awkward stiffness, and a fiery want. They switch every other day, playing games like it would be impossible for either one to lose, like whatever the results may be, they are untouchable. Sometimes he feels this soaring envy, on he has not felt in years, as he sees them. Because Valentino is meant to be the only special one, and Uccio is meant to be the only one who is special to him.

If Marc Marquez exists… well where does that leave him? Where does that leave both of them?

The end of times feels like it is dawning before them, but all Uccio comprehend is a fervent denial. They have spent years building their empire, years taking on the world and laughing in the face of anyone who dared threaten that. Is this what will destroy it? A beautiful boy, a fiery want, a weakness so human it is an insult to everything that has ever existed. Is that what will do it?

No. Not he won’t allow that. He refuses.

It takes some time and a lot of effort. Marquez is far more difficult than he imagined, and it is an unfair battle. Because he is fighting Valentino too. And maybe even himself.

None of it is his fault, Marquez is…. he is….. he knows exactly what he is doing. Looks at people with those magnetic eyes, so big and enveloping. Curls his tongue around words like he is caressing every single syllable. And that laugh. The laugh is the worst part because it is terrifying. Loud, brilliant, melodic, and so filled with a joy that Uccio knows absolutely does not exist. Soulless devils cannot be happy, after all. They can only be greedy.

And maybe all of it is even more so because sometimes he swears he can see the traces Valentino leaves behind. Like a bit of his holiness has rubbed off, even on someone so vicious as Marquez. Or like his claim has only made the younger man seem so much more intense and magnetic. Uccio and Valentino had always shared after all, and this was something made even more rare by how Valentino seemed to adore.

Valentino has touched that. Valentino has held that. Valentino has gotten down on his knees and worshipped that. He wonders, if he knelt there too, would he be able to feel the same things? Would he finally be able to touch the edge of existence and taste its ambrosia? Would he finally come closer to his god, finally be more than what he is?

He doesn’t know. So all of it just makes Uccio stare more, want more, hate more, and the battle rages on. Inside his head and out.

The worst part of it all is that as the days pass, it becomes clear that Valentino is carving out his own life now. A third one, not the sparkling childhood or the wildness of the past years, but a life settled and strange. And Uccio…Uccio has no part in that. It is a world for two, ones that rakes its claws down his back every time it becomes glaringly obvious.

The only blessed relief is that Valentino is still at his core the same. A king with royal expectations, dominating and formidable, the master of control. And that is exactly where Uccio is able to catch hold, able to find those little fissures in the foundation and exploit them. Whispers words about how much power Marquez has, repeats little admirers words and comments on how they all star. Then he sits back and watches as that inherent competitiveness rises up in them both and turns the war inward.

But it is still not enough, because whatever hold Marquez has barely slips, and Valentino is weak weak weak. Uccio can hardly stomach it. He knows this is not love, knows it in his bones even as Valentino insists otherwise. It is a momentary fault, one that gets more embedded as the years go on, but one that can be removed eventually. A cancer, a sickness.

He almost gives up. Almost allows himself to accept that maybe this is how the wind will blow, that he will lose this war and everything he cares about will be ground to dust. But then he has a realization; it is not Valentino he needs to cage or alter or convince. It is Marquez. If he is the one in control, he is the one who must be broken, after all.

That is where the academy comes into play. Because as the years have passed, Uccio has started to understand that little Spanish bastard, and he knows how greedy and selfish he truly is. He, much like the world, wants Valentino’s eyes on him. He wants to be number one, he wants to have the attention, he wants to win.

It works almost flawlessly. Tension grows, arguments become the norm, and slowly the cracks get deeper and deeper and deeper. Valentino begins to hate the way his little student wants control, Marquez begins to hate the way is no longer the center of attention. It all festers, and when Uccio sees it for the first time he knows he will win.

Hatred. Curling across both of their faces as they stare at each other, that day on the ranch when Uccio shouted out the new track record with a blooming hope in his chest. He heard the argument from the distance, watched the way they tore at each other and felt nothing but relief.

It is beautiful. Uccio hates that it is beautiful. Valentino in his fiery anger, greedy as he always is, a tormented emperor. Eyes blazing, all the brightness of the sun on full display behind the stormy blue. Marquez is the ice, cold hearted and inhuman, ripping himself away like it is a lesson. Cheekbones even sharper, lips curled up into an even crueler smile. Terrifying.

It does not stick, because of course not, but it is a start. A start that cumulates in a lie and Sepang and all that happened there. A stunning sight, pleasure filling his body as he watched the knowledge of failure paint that beautiful face in anguish. Lovely, erotic, stunning. Better than anything that existed before. 

But none of that matters really. The beginning of the third life has been destroyed, the match has been set, and Marquez is gone. Now Uccio can almost appreciate him. He was the closest to come to it all, the closest to win the game. He failed, but he was always meant to.

Because Valentino is special.

And Uccio is special to him. (and that is... almost better)

***

“Do you think I should give up?” Comes Valentino’s musing voice behind him, and Uccio startles, accidentally spilling his water all over the keyboard. Cursing he snatches one of the random branded sweatshirts that always lays around the garage to soak it all up. He tries to comprehend the words.

“Give up? What… do you mean retire?” He asks, a little dumfounded even by the idea.

A hum.

“Sure, retire works. Move on, that sort of thing.”

Uccio fully turns to look at the man once he is assured of his computers safety and finds calm blue eyes staring back at him. Calm in a strange way though, like someone who senses that death is inevitable and is just patiently waiting. Or like a person who knows all the answers and yet cannot share them, sitting and watching as the world falls apart without their knowledge, understanding that there is nothing they can do.

It is winter break, the stretch of time between two seasons where the world feels like it stops, where days are slow and boring, and the only thing to anticipate is the first call of year. It almost feels like they are locked in a sort of stasis during that time, and it has been hours of endless training, emails, and preparation that eventually becomes monotonous. Most days are spent in the newly renovated garage, crouched over his laptop on a little desk in the lounge area, and planning planning planning. It is where they are now, the roar of the academy riders outside the typical background noise. Valentino had joined him not too long ago, claiming they hardly even need him anymore, and had been staring at the ceiling for an hour now, seemingly dazed or bored

That is the only thing he really misses about the presence of the Spanish man on the ranch. At least the little war made things interesting, at least there was always something to watch. Not nearly a big enough benefit to warrant the destructive hell everything else was, of course. So he pushes that from his mind and tries hard to think about what was just said.

Retire. Valentino had never brought up that sort of thing before, had always insisted he would ride until the end, and seemed like the type who would be able to pull results out of nowhere even as his body started to fail him. Valentino is a god, after all, and god’s do not falter. But retire, an idea brought up by the man himself first. What a heinous thought.

“What is bringing this on”’ He asks carefully, and Valentino shrugs where he lays languidly on the couch, the picture of half-asleep laziness. Or not, he must have just been thinking. The question is why.

“Doubt mostly.”

Uccio swallows, an almost defensive anger rising up.

“The bike is not so good as it should be and-”

A waved hand and bright laughter cut him off, Valentino adding his typical unserious behavior to a rather important topic. Retirement. What would become of them?

“I don’t care about that,” he says finally, “It is about what I want.”

“Do you want to stop?” Uccio asks, and Valentino smiles.

“No. But perhaps it would be better if I did.”

The air is so heavy all of a sudden, the weight of this conversation making every single word loaded. Retirement. Uccio leans back in his seat and eyes Valentino with a pensive look. His friend watches back, waiting for a verdict that will either disappoint him, or confirm whatever thought he is having

“Why would it be better?” Uccio asks quietly, feeling a bit lost as to what to say. Valentino cannot retire that would be… that would just be the end. No saving them this time, the book closes as the last page is filled up.

“It would hurt far less, I think. Maybe then I could live my life, lose a bit of the viciousness that everyone knows I have now. Move on.”

Uccio surges forward, protests sharp on his tongue at the way Valentino speaks of it all in such a morose manner. Racing is his life, why is the man behaving as if it is only a burden?

He really cannot understand. He especially cannot understand this strange feeling in his own stomach. The same feeling of danger he got whenever he made eye contact with Marquez, but tenfold. It makes him want to hurl.

“Why are you speaking like you don’t enjoy it anymore?” Uccio asks is a rush, “it is your life blood, it is your everything.”

Valentino shrugs casually.

“I do still enjoy it. I can’t help myself even if….” Then he trails off and shakes his head, eyes shifting away from Uccio to stare distantly at something that is not there.

“If what?”

A smile, and those eyes are back on him.

“Nothing. I just really do hate it sometimes.”

And that Uccio can understand. Racing has been kind, but also terribly cruel. A loving mother or a vicious father. Just in 2015 Valentino was exposed to the highest degree if, the injustice that was his tenth title being ripped away, a betrayal so keen even Uccio felt the sting. It had been a good thing ultimately, broke whatever spell that horrific siren had him under, but still. Uccio understands. How can you feel the pure love again when you have felt the sharp blade of betrayal? How do you enjoy every moment after your world seemed to turn its back on you?

“Hate it….” he murmurs under his breath, and Valentino seems to take that as some sort of cue to speak.

“I do hate it. So much I want to die sometimes, but I cannot help that, just as I cannot help anything else. I find myself unable to break away, unable to let go, even as this boiling feeling builds in me. Even as I know I can never trust it again.”

A sigh, and Uccio watches the way he runs a hand through his hair. A new worried habit, apparently, one that Valentino has been doing for a rather long time. Well, since 2015 perhaps, as far as Uccio remembers. Did he do that before then?

“It almost broke me, and yet I still… I still want more.”

He ends that sentence with a tight voice, eyes burning as he stares at nothing and Uccio feels a lurch in his stomach. He can’t do this; he can’t hear Valentino talk about what they have worked their entire lives for like it is nothing. Like there is only the pain racing gives, and none of the joy.

“But you still love it right?” He demands a bit aggressively and Valentino snaps out of his trance with a startled expression, looking almost scolded.

“I thought I didn't. But….. I am not so sure anymore.”

“Then don’t quit. If the love is still there, it can get bigger than any of the problems.”

A bright laugh, and Valentino is reaching out until a warm hand presses into Uccio’s cheek. He closes his eyes to it, basks in the tender touch of the person he has built his entire life around. No one is quite so soft as Valentino. No one is quite as kind.

“But what if everyone else hopes I do?  What if I should, what if it is time to give up? There is no going back to how things were before. Is it not sad to keep trying? What if it just hurts me more? You and I both know how cruel it can be after all, how much it can slice you open and not feel a little bit sorry.”

A beat, and Uccio sighs, blinking back open and shifting away until Valentino’s hand drops. He might have been the one to move, but suddenly his cheek feels so cold.

“But do you want to stop?”

Valentino shakes his head, eyes bright and looking a little bit amazed and horrified at the same time.

“I could never.”

“Then of course don’t.”

A snort.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if…” Then he shakes his head, cutting his words off once more in that confusing manner. But Uccio doesn’t even bother asking this time, he knows he will be deflected.

“You just have to ask yourself which is worse; the rest of time without it, or to continue as you are.” He gets out, the most rational advice he can think of. Panic is starting to build in his chest, but he refuses to let it show. It would only make Valentino look down on him.

“I…” Valentino pause, then shakes his head.

“Both sound like torture. I wish I could go back to the way things were before.”

Uccio sighs and leans forward to grip Valentino’s knee and give him a squeeze. It is always odd to see his friend so human, but this he can at least deal with. This weakness will not last long, and the right words will bolster the famous confidence.

Besides, if there is something Uccio can understand, it is missing the past. The easy days, when victory came like the rain and laughter was the rule. When games were constant and there was no new generation to worry about, or vicious little monsters to war with

Of course Valentino wants that. But that does not mean he is done.

“Me too. I would be about thirty pounds lighter.” Uccio says in a deadly serious voice, and it works instantly.

Brilliant laughter bubbles up, those morose eyes go bright, and Uccio is tugged forward until he loses balance and lands in a heap on top of Valentino, like they are kids again. It is embarrassing, mostly because he is not some spindly little boy anymore, but also because he instantly feels young. A pang of regret goes through him as the memories flicker up. Their first life had been so long ago.

“I can still do this, even if you are a little fat.” Valentino jokes, and Uccio elbows him until his friend lets out a groan, and they play fight again like children, tumbling off the couch to land in a heap.

They lay there for a second, Valentino rolling off of him until they are side by side on the dirty garage floor, staring up at the ceiling like they used to watch the night sky. If he squints he can almost imagine that the little flecks of dust are stars, twinkling down at them and promising the world.

“Until you have no more doubts, continue,” Uccio finally says, “until there is no possibility of things being better than pain, until hate is all that is left. Otherwise you will always regret and wonder.”

A dry laugh, and Valentino’s arm slips around Uccio’s shoulder, tucking under his neck and pinch him like muscle memory. The old signal to listen, to pay attention. As if Uccio could do anything else.

“You give terrible advice.” Valentino mumbles and squeezes so tight it almost hurts. But there is something in his voice that has Uccio accepting it, allowing himself to be used like some sort of stress toy. A sort of wild fear that is so rare to find in such a man.

“How is telling you ‘do what you want’ terrible advice?” He asks, annoyed at the insinuation he might ever want something bad for Valentino. That is the opposite of the truth, after all. Valentino si his king, his god, his..... everything. How could he dare to want anything less than the best?

“Because you don’t know,” Valentino murmurs, “you don’t know how much it almost killed me. Even you don’t know.”

A baffling statement, laced with something so strange Uccio feels his chest tighten. When he turns his head he finds Valentino staring into the distance, and there is this look on his face that Uccio does not recognize at all. Somewhere between thoughtful and excited and scared and sad. What that is called, he does not know.

“You confuse me.” He mutters, and Valentino turns a surprised look on him.

“After all these years?” He asks, brow furrowed but eyes amused, “I had thought you know me better than I know myself.”

“I do.” Uccio confirms, “but not this.”

Valentino lets him go at that, sits up carefully, and then shrugs. It almost looks like it brings him some kind of pain, the way his eyes go tense and bright, small smile freezing firmly in place.

“I don’t get it either. I kind of hate myself for it.”

A flash of pure despair goes across his face, a raw type that is mixed with something like rage and disbelief. It is even more confusing, even more mind melting in a way that Uccio fears he will never comprehend. But that is fine, Uccio is human after all, and Valentino is not. How could a human, even one so close as he, every truly understand something so holy?

“I know I will regret it if I don’t let go,” Valentino eventually says, “But then somehow I still can’t. I am a fool.”

Uccio slaps him on the arm, still laying there, unable to sit up and lose that old nostalgic feeling even as he knows how ridiculous he looks.

“Racing is everything,” he reminds in a disgruntled voice, “you don’t just love it, you live it.”

“And if it despises me?”

“Change its mind.”

Another laugh, and Valentino presses a hand to his forehead like he is even baffled this conversation is happening. There is still that fear there, still that despair. But underneath it all there is a glimmer of something Uccio cannot call hope. No, it is more acceptance than anything. An understanding that was already there but is slowly becoming considered.

“I have been lazy long enough,” Valentino finally says, and when he turns to Uccio there is a relief in his eyes, “The boys will be wondering where I am.”

As he stands, he turns back with a raised eyebrow.

“Do you need help up?” He asks dryly, but Uccio waves him off. He still does not want to move. Not yet. Down here he can at least pretend that maybe he is still that kid from all those years ago, with the future creeping toward him and a flawlessly infallible god to follow.

His friend laughs, mutters something about how foolish they both are, and then he is gone. The door opens, lets in a stream of sunlight into the dim garage, and when it shuts Uccio lets out a breath.

God. What a conversation.

He had always known retirement would come, but he never truly comprehended how it would feel to hear that. It was like his heart had seized up. But not yet, not now. Not when he can still feel the traces of how it used to be, not when laying and pretending can still make him hope a little. Not when he can still hold on to that second life, even if it is just with his fingertips now.

But still, Valentino is so human these days. Sometimes it terrifies him.

For now, he closes his eyes and pretends that he can feel cool grass beneath him. Pretends that a breeze is brushing against his cheek and there is a young voice whispering hopes and dreams besides him. Pretends that tomorrow they will wake with the sun, and with little arms drag their bikes to the top of a winding road and fly down it with the recklessness only youth has. Pretends that there is still a whole world for them to explore.

As he lays there though, another image flashes through his mind and he cracks his eyes open in a panic.

Brown eyes, wicked smile, tanned skin. The adrenaline rush of two people so touched by the hands of God, and then the echoing words that Valentino said as the background music for it all. Twining together until that conversation switches from one topic to another, all with the same words.

“I do still enjoy it. I can’t help myself even if….”

“Is it not sad to keep trying? What if it just hurts me more? You and I both know how cruel it can be after all, how much it can slice you open and not feel a little bit sorry.”

“You don’t know how much it almost killed me. Even you don’t know.”

“I know I will regret it if I don’t let go, but then somehow, I still can’t. I am a fool.  

It it it. Never racing, never riding, just it. As if he was talking about something else, as if he was lying, as if he was covering up, hiding, the fact that he…

But no. No, that can’t be. No, it is impossible. Valentino could not be so horrifically weak, he could not allow that which almost destroyed everything back. He learned his lesson, that weakness was expelled, that false love dismantled in every single way by the truth. He cannot be so weak. He is not allowed to be.

Because Valentino is special. And Uccio is special to him.

(And that is……)

End Chapter 4

Chapter Text

“I hate him.”

“I’ve heard this a billion times.”

“He’s so awful.”

“Yes, I know.”

“He rides so terrible, and he crashes into everyone, and-”

“Does he, I’ve never heard you say anything like that before.

“Don’t be sarcastic. I hate him.”

“Please stop.” Pecco whines but Bezz just scowls at him and turns away. He is allowed to vent, that is what friends are for. If Pecco wasn’t such a fool and didn’t have that pathetic soft spot for that Spanish asshole he might be able to see.

Bezz can see. He had seen it the first time he came to the ranch, the first time he watched his idol bend like a reed in the wind for this little creature with a joker-wide smile on his face. He had instantly made Bezz on edge, especially because when the man laughed there was a falseness behind it that no one else seemed to notice.

He knew who Marc Marquez was of course, he even vaguely remembers getting a picture with him years ago. But there is a difference between knowing of someone and seeing how dead-eyed and inhuman they can be, even faced with the full force of Valentino Rossi’s adoration and attention.

“You are a bad therapist.” Bezz says loudly and Pecco snorts, poking his head back out from where he is toying with one of the ranch’s bikes, grease covered hands reaching up to scratch an itch and leaving a swipe of black on his nose.

“I am not your therapist. You came up to me and started talking for no reason.” He comments dryly, and Bezz scowls.

“Franky and Luca won’t let me talk anymore, and Mig gets weird about it.” He says, wrinkling his eyebrows together at the thought. Mig might be on the same page when it comes to hating Marquez, but he also goes way too into detail about things like the arch of his back, or the curve of his neck, or the way he leans so far, or the look in his eyes when he gets off the bike.  Then he looks all constipated and leaves the room. Bezz really doesn’t know why.

The worst part of it all is Valentino. Valentino, who used to join in those conversations with fervor, eyes glowing as he railed against injustice. Like a superhero almost, and Bezz would just smile and keep talking to feel that attention even more intensely than before. Now he just hums out responses that could be agreement or disagreement and gets this faraway look in his eyes. It’s dissatisfying, and it seems the more Bezz tries the more the pensive the older man gets.

He knows Valentino still hates Marquez, sees it in his eyes. But he has softened  closer to something resembling a thick regret more than anything else, and it makes him prone to staring, or rewatching race footage, or those weird quiet moments where he smiles so quietly, looking like he is diving through memories. Worrying in every single way.

“Maybe you should take that as a sign to stop talking about it then. Your obsession with Marc is bizarre, you hardly even know him.” Pecco comments, eyes still stubbornly on the bike, face blank. But Bezz can hear it, the small shred of protectiveness that so many of them have for a man everyone should hate.

Uccio always says it is a weakness, sown there by Marquez so many years ago to make them falter in the face of his attacks. Bezz knows that is true, sees the way they all get frazzled and thrown off whenever Marquez comes near, or is even talked about. Pecco blushes, Mig gets weird expression, Franky goes quiet, and Valentino looks like a man returned from war. He doesn’t even want to talk about Luca because he just disappears whenever the topic is brought up or the man himself is near. Bezz has no idea where he even goes, but he knows full well that even Valentino’s brother is too kind toward Mar c Marquez.

So really it is up to Bezz to stay strong in the face of such an effective enemy. To scowl when Marquez walks by, to hiss insults out to the press even when Valentino won’t anymore, to keep the wall up that separates them all. He is saving them from what he knows is bad and wrong and evil. If Valentino won’t be the superhero, then Bezz will.

It becomes almost a point of pride. He is the only one left with the strength, the only open left who has not fallen under some sort of influence. Uccio does not count, the man is all but made of hatred and he still stares too much, so Bezz decides that he will be the one to protects them all, even if it from themselves.

Maybe that is why when he sees Marquez leave his motorhome one night when they are in Germany, he decides to follow.

It must be fate that has him peeking out of the window that night, fate that has him spotting a flash of orange darting out of a motorhome and instantly recognizing who it is. Too tall to be Pedrosa, too small to be any one of the crew members, and there was the way he walked that Bezz could recognize anywhere.

He was outside before he could even think, quietly leaving to avoid waking any of the other academy riders who had chosen to stay in the motorhome Valentino had gotten them.

At first he felt stupid. Marquez can do as he pleases in his spare time. If he wants to tire himself out on a race weekend he can go right ahead, it will only give Valentino and the other riders an advantage anyways. Maybe It will stop Marquez from winning the title, maybe it will stop him from winning any more at all. The thought brings a smile to his face, even as he finds a little bit of self-consciousness swirling through him, whispering that he is ruining his own night for nothing.

But then he sees the way Marquez looks around, ensuring no one is watching him. Then he sees the way he steps quietly and carefully, as if people knowing what he is doing would be a bad thing. Then he sees the way he ducks down as he goes past lit up windows.

Too suspicious. God, way too suspicious.

They don’t go far, Bezz trailing behind him and marveling at how Marquez really does not seem to notice him at all. And when he realizes where they are headed, he feels his chest squeeze. The garages, where everyone’s bikes are locked up. Where data is kept, where priceless information is stored to ensure its safety.

His heart skips a beat. If Marquez is……

Well, Bezz will have proof then. Proof enough to get him kicked off his team, maybe even from MotoGP for life. That brings a smile up, and the idea of never having to see that face again sounds brilliant to him. Then they would all be safe, and Bezz really would be a superhero.

When Marquez ducks into the Honda garage a flash of confusion goes through him. What could he possibly be doing to his own bike? Or maybe it’s Pedrosa’s? But the other rider is no threat this year. Besides, the information in there is readily available to him, what need would he have to sneak in so late at night?

Or maybe he is adding something on, something that the light of day cannot see, that would explain the way he rides like he is touched by the hand of God sometimes. That sends a hot feeling down Bezz’s spine, and a new anger rises up. Cheating, Marquez is cheating. He always knew the man was the type, remembers hearing about Phillips Island and feeling nothing but anger. And if Bezz can catch him here, it is all done. Marquez will be gone and Valentino can be free.

So as he slams the door open, the echo of metal hitting metal ricocheting around the room, he feels no guilt when Marquez startles like a deer, almost falling over and looking up with an irritated look, before confusion suddenly clouds over it. No guilt though. Not yet.

“Ummm, hello?” He says, tilting his head in a rather innocent manner. The juxtaposition between what Bezz knows and what he looks like is rattling, and just about pulls a snarl from his mouth.

“Is that all you have to say?” He spits out, and Marquez just gives him a confused smile. He settles back down into a comfortable position, sat on his bikes like it is a chair and not one of the most expensive pieces of machinery around. Treating it like it is nothing, like out of the two of them he is the more important one. Arrogant.

Bezz hates him.

“Well, I suppose I should tell you to get out. This is the Honda garage after all.” Marquez comments, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands with a casual air, as if Bezz has not caught him… doing…. something.

“I find you out so obviously, and you act blasé,” he scoffs, “you know, I thought you could not get any worse. Look how wrong I was.

Marquez tilts his head.

“Sorry, do we know each other?” He asks, then makes an apologetic expression when Bezz sputters, mouth opening and shutting like a fish. This has to be a game, right? Marquez knows who he is, they have slept in the same house for God’s sake. Bezz still remembers that night, Marquez tanned from the sun and hair wavy like he just got out of the ocean. Telling stories of Mallorcan beaches and lying the whole time, wrapping people even tighter around his finger, strangling them all.

“Yes.” Bezz hisses out emphatically, and the other man narrows his eyes. Then suddenly he snaps his fingers, looking like he realized something.

“Ah, one of the academy boys. Bezzemi.” He says brightly, and Bezz angles his head to the side with horrified eyes, a bit baffled and tenderly offended. Is he really so forgettable?

“It’s Bezzecchi,” he says, a little whine in his voice, then frowns, thinking “well, it’s Bezz. Well, actually it’s Marco but everyone calls me Bezz. Cause my last name.”

Marquez nods almost indulgently, a small smile on his face. His eyebrows have switched from a slightly amused furrowing to peaceful and almost… kind. It’s a strange expression, one that softens his sharp-featured face into something far more gentle. And confusing.

“So, which do you prefer?”

Bezz blinks, still feeling a bit shaken by how normal this conversation has become in a span of seconds. This not quite the fire and brimstone confrontation he had expected. If anything it feels like Marquez is being… friendly.

“I don’t know?”

Marquez laughs at that, an echoing sound that fills the whole room up and suddenly makes it feel so much brighter than it was before. And all Bezz can do is stare, just a little dazed, before he comes back to himself, remembers everything that is true and good and just, and lets the anger rise up to slice through the passive, slightly awkward, normalcy.

“That’s not the point,” he sputters out, “I caught you!”

Then he flourishes a finger and points it directly at Marquez, as if highlighting what he said. He is kind of breathing heavily, but facing down danger will do that to you. Not that Marquez looks particularly scary right now but…. but Bezz knows even the most lethal poison can be hiding under delicate beauty. That’s what Uccio always says, anyways.

“Oh,” Marquez says mildly, looking mystified, “caught me doing what?”

Bezz falters. Then he tilts his head and thinks. When he burst in Marquez had been sitting on his bike, phone in hand and looking like he was waiting for something. But he hadn’t really been actively doing anything. Huh.

“I don’t…. what are you doing?” He finally asks a little dumbly, and that just makes Marquez’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline and that grin go bright.

“Nothing really.” He says, a little flicker of humor in his eyes.

Bezz steps forward without thinking, and the closer he gets the more incensed he feels. It is almost amazing that someone can be so calm in the face of scandal looming, caught in wrongdoing and yet still looking cheerful. Not that Bezz has any… proof of that yet. But he will find some!

“Tell me.” He demands forcefully, hoping that if he projects confidence and fearlessness, then Marquez will give in. Will admit to all his wrongdoing without a fight. Maybe Bezz is a little scared, maybe he is also trying to hide that. But… even superheroes can be scared, right?

Marquez laughs, rubbing his hand over his forehead and letting out a baffled sigh. When he meets Bezz’s eyes again, there is a little look of condescending mirth that makes Bezz bristle. What is the joke? Why does he not get it? Frustration blooms in his chest, and it overrides even the justified anger. Something he refuses to call a pout slides across his face, and he crosses his arms tightly, waiting for whatever Marquez will say next to explain himself.

“It’s hard to describe in polite words. And you seem a bit… slow to the uptake, you might not get it until it happens right in front of you.”

Bezz hates that he had no idea what that means. All he really got was that apparently Marquez thinks he is stupid, and that just makes him feel like a kid. He is not a kid, he is here confronting the most vicious man in MotoGP and he is going to protect his friends. He is not a kid, how dare Marquez treat him like one?

“Show me.” He demands. The posture of the older man shifts after his words register, something sly appearing on his face. He leans back further, spread his legs slightly, and his eyelids drop. Instantly Bezz feels his cheeks go warm, though he has no real idea why. Something that feels like embarrassment crawls up his spine, and it is a conscious effort to not avert his eyes. Why would he anyway? Heroes don’t… heroes don’t get flustered, especially when they don’t even know what they are flustered about.

“Well that would be… interesting,” Marquez says in a cheeky tone, “though I suppose if you wanted to stay and watch I wouldn’t really mind. Never been my thing, and I would have to check in with the, um, other guy but…”

Bezz blinks.

“What other guy?” He asks, even more lost than he was before. There is no one else here, as far as he is aware. Is there some partner in crime he should watch out for here? A little extra fear spikes through him, and he can’t help but let his eyes dart around the garage, almost like he expects a person to be lurking in the shadows. Is this perhaps a trap of some kind?

Yet another laugh pulls his eyes back to Marquez, and he finds the man almost hunched over, clutching his stomach and face red. Pure laughter, not the slightly condescending one from before. It almost makes him look human, almost.

It also serves to make Bezz feel even more foolish. Why is Marquez happy? Why is he amused? Bezz caught him cheating, it could ruin his career. Yet still he laughs. He laughs and he talks to Bezz like he is too confused or idiotic to understand what is really going on and it is just….

Really fucking annoying.

“It’s not funny,” He spits out, stepping forward once more until the cackling man is only a yard away, “I caught you cheating.”

“Cheating,” Marquez gets out, “I would have to be in a committed relationship for this to be considered cheating. Which I’m not, anymore.”

What? What does being in a relationship have to do with this? Why is he even bringing up this nonsense? Is it some kind of mental game, is he referencing Valentino? Does he think bringing up that will make Bezz less willing to turn him in? What is his game? There has to be a game after all, Uccio and Valentino had always said that was what life was like to Marc Marquez. And they would never lie of course.

His expression must be as disgruntled and lost as he feels because Marquez lets out a sound that almost resembles a coo, gentleness coming back into his expression in such a way that it makes that bizarre embarrassment come back, and he loses his train of thought for a second.

“Ah, you are a sweet boy aren’t you?” He asks, and Bezz feels his face inexplicably warm again as he sputters. Why does that keep happening?

Then Marquez reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, and holds it up until the thing is only inches from Bezz’s face. It takes a second for his eyes to focus on it, a second to get over the fact that Marquez is so close now, but when he does he feels his mouth drop wide open, a silent gasp of something like shock and disbelief mixed together.

A condom. Bright orange wrapper, small and square, a 93 right in the middle. He can see the outline of it inside, a thin ring. Unmistakable, and so out of left field that Bezz’s mind goes a little bit empty.

“What.” He says blankly, and Marquez shakes it in front of him, giggling a little to himself and oh that was the joke then. Bezz had followed after him, sneaking as he went, jammed his way in and shouted out a bunch of nonsense, meanwhile Marquez was here simply to….

 Bezz feels his face explode, and he knows that instantly he is scarlet. Sweat is already pooling on his lower back and forehead, his ears are ringing a little, and has it always been so tight in here? Has Marquez always been so close? Have the lights always been so dim? Suddenly it is almost seductive, the air in the garage. And Bezz feels like he can’t breathe.  

“Please tell me you know what this is,” Marquez says with what must be mock seriousness, “safe sex is very important and-”

“I know what it is.” Bezz squeaks out, “Why would you even… in the garage??”

Marquez shrugs, still holding the condom out like he is amused by the way Bezz stares at it like it’s some sort of weapon.

“It can be fun, a bit of risk, you know?” he says, then shifts to the side until he is no longer being blocked by the orange square. Bezz can’t help but lock his eyes on the older man, but the strangeness of seeing a condom right next to Marquez’s face is too much. He closes his eyes, and that just makes the other laugh harder. He can’t even be mad about it anymore; he gets the joke now. It would be funny if he didn’t feel so lost and helpless.

“So sweet, so sweet,” Marquez cackles, “it will not bite Marco, here you have this one, I have plenty.”

At that Bezz opens his eyes with a gasp, waving his hand in the air without thinking and knocking the condom out of Marquez’s. They watch it slowly flutter to the ground. It’s almost funny. Like some sort of scene in one of those dramatic films they used to watch in class, little strange details that the teacher told them to find another meaning for. Bezz never did.

“Ah,” Marquez says, staring at where it landed, “You think it’s still usable?”

Then he is dropping down down down and he is still so close, and this new revelation of what exactly Marquez is doing here so late at night is swimming in Bezz’s head, and it is still so warm in here, and he feels it pour through his stomach all of a sudden. Has Marquez’s hair always looked so soft? Has he always been so small?

He watches, dazed, as the other shifts to sitting on his knees, picking up the condom delicately, long fingers holding it up with flourish.

“Should be fine, right? It was still in the plastic.”

Then he tilts his head up, blinks at Bezz and smiles. Big eyes look dark in this light, gazing up through lashes in such a way that he seems almost demure. Sweet. Young. Pretty. Not at all like what Bezz had always seen in his mind, so different from the stories of viciousness. Stories he knows are true, has seen some of them happen right in front of his eyes. But here, air dark and humid, the blanket of night and being alone together settled over them he just… he feels…

He wants to touch.

That thought has him rearing away like he has been slapped, back slamming into one of the tables in the garage, creating a cacophony of sound as the it shifts and he knocks multiple items off. A clatter so loud, no doubt the entire paddock can hear it. He feels like he has run a marathon all of a sudden, arms caught and just barely holding himself up, fingers scrabbling for purchase. He is panting, breath coming in little gasps, and when Marquez rises to his feet, he looks concerned.

“Everything okay?” He asks, and Bezz nods rapidly.

“I- yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you were- I just thought- I should leave, this was- I- this was a bad idea and- really I had no idea, I thought you were like, doing something bad, and I-I-I-”

He cuts himself off when he realizes that he is making not a single shred of sense and feels a shame so deep it destroys any other possible emotion. He had been wrong, of course he had been wrong. Even Marquez would not have the balls to cheat like that. Of course he was… was… was…

God, Bezz can’t even think it.

“You were so talkative before, what happened?” Marquez asks in a light tone, and Bezz cannot even be mad that he is being teased right now. He is just embarrassed.

“I’m sorry.” He repeats, and Marquez shrugs. Goes to lean against the bike, humor still present on his face as he settles back, the perfect picture of nonchalance. Bezz slowly pushes himself off of the table. Picks the things up that he knocked down and feels eyes on him the whole time.

Like he is being punished.

His face goes warm again and he shakes his head rapidly to clear that thought away. Another laugh, and that just brings its own set of problems, because since when has that sound made him feel so powerless?

“I’m sorry.” Bezz repeats again, wincing at the way it comes out all pathetic. But Marquez just makes a considering noise, waves a hand in the air like he is fluttering any awkwardness away from them both.

“I’m used to it.”

That gives him pause, and he forces himself to look back at Marquez, to calm his racing heart. Because the tone had been different there. Not amused or calm. More… regretful. A bit like Valentino sounds these days, like he is remembering something that brings him the unstoppable kind of pain.

“What? Used to what?” He asks, and Marquez drops his eyes away for the first time, looking down at his fingers, and picking at his nails.

“Being misunderstood.”

But as quickly as that popped up, it is gone, and that wild grin is back, dirty humor filling his face as he leans back slightly and stretches his neck. Bezz stares, a realizes that maybe this is not the first time he has been stuck on such a sight.

“The offer to watch is still on the table of course, and-” Marquez starts, interrupting his thoughts and making him blanche.

More panic. This time he avoids the table as he retreats, feeling harried and hurried and followed and cornered, even with a wide-open door behind him.

“I will leave,” he chokes out, voice high, “have a good ti- have a fun- sleep well!”

But before he can get the hell out of there a lilting voice stops him in his tracks

“Marco, don’t forget.”

He freezes instantly, turns back slowly, feels that burning grow as Marquez holds the condom out to him with a raised eyebrow. And well… it’s not Bezz’s fault that he feels so helpless right now. It’s not his fault that he slowly walks over to take it obediently, gaze locked on the other man’s unreadable eyes. It’s not his fault that when he feels a brush of those fingers against his, he lets out a rattling gasp. It’s not his fault that he feels a lot less like a superhero right now, and more like the damsel in distress, trapped in the clutches of the villain.

“Sleep well.” Marquez murmurs, repeating what Bezz himself had spewed out in a panic. He nods in staccato, slowly backs away with the growing sense that if he turns the other man will shoot him stone dead. Marquez must be able to read that, because he smiles, shaking his head.

“He’ll be here soon,” he comments lightly, “unless you really do want to-”

Those words, and the panicked bells tolling in his head, finally make Bezz rip himself out of the garage, and when the cool night air hits his face, it is barely a relief. His head is still spinning, terrifying images flashing in and out, Combinations of Marquez on his knees, and imagined pictures of a condom being unrolled, and that neck on display as he arches back and-

Bad thoughts bad thoughts, go away bad thoughts.

He races back to his motorhome with that mantra spinning through his mind, and in what feels like a blink of an eye, he is safe behind the doors. He hears Pecco and Mig’s breathing, and all of sudden he is back in his world. It just serves to make him feel more unbalanced, and when he remembers the condom is still clutched in his fist, he slowly loosens it, and looks down.

Still flimsy plastic, still a glowing orange. It stands out so brightly in the darkness, an obnoxious reminder. A reminder he should throw out immediately, what worth does a condom have for him right now? Hell, he doesn’t know, but somehow, he can’t make himself do it. This whole night has been a carnival show, almost a funny tragedy in many parts. And maybe the funniest part is that he tucks himself into bed, and still holds that little square of plastic close, it is almost warm to the touch.

 What that had been in the Honda garage, he does not know, but the only explanation was that he had been transplanted somewhere new. Because that was… that is…

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Right now that is probably what Marquez is doing. Glowing skin on display, head thrown back in pleasure, face screwed up. Maybe he is as gentle as he was with Bezz, or maybe he is as teasing. Maybe he just lets himself go, maybe he is the kind of person who falls apart easily. He had dropped to his knees so smoothly before, like it was practiced. The thoughts make him want to slam his forehead into the wall.

These are bad thoughts, bad thoughts. The hero does not want the villain, the hero is above all base instinct. But then, the villain is never so alluring so magnetic. Everything is twisted, and Bezz hardly knows what to think. All he knows for sure is that this was no valiant battle. This was a trap, the perfect one. Because now? He can feel the weakness he had been so disgusted to see in everyone else’s faces pulsing through him.

He does not sleep well that night. Every time he closes his eyes, his imagination runs wild once more and there is simply nothing he can do. A new type of curse. Maybe Marquez had done it all on purpose. Uccio had always called him a demon, one who draws you in and spits you back out. Bezz had never really understood what he meant until now, how literal it all could be.

Torture.

The next morning he crawls his way into the Yamaha hospitality, feeling five inches from death, and thanks God it is only Friday. The practices will be hell, but at least it is not quali or race day. He might have actually cried if it was. At the very least he knew he would have terrible results, and any flash of orange might have even made him crash.

The condom is tucked into the pocket of his sweatshirt and, just like he had been doing all night, he can’t help but press his fingers into it. Swirls over the little indent, rubs against the smooth plastic. Almost soothing, but the idea of anyone seeing it is so embarrassing he ducks his head as he walks by people.

Can they see it on his face? Can they feel it? Do they understand how much of a mess Bezz’s head is? Every slight glance in his direction has him feeling paranoid

When he finds Valentino plopped down at a table and spooning yogurt into his mouth, he feels nothing but surprise. His teacher is notoriously not a morning person, after all, and it is early enough that Bezz thought he could avoid seeing anyone of consequence. It almost is a shock to the system, and the guilt grows much more pointed. Here he is having thoughts about the person who had hurt his idol. How dare he? Marquez is evil, he knows that now.

But how does he reconcile last night with what he has always known?

“You are up early.” He comments dropping down to sit next to Valentino, trying to pretend like everything is normal. He groans as he hits plastic, head instantly dropping to his arms like a marionette with its strings being cut.

“As are you,” Valentino points out, sounding amused, “Marco, you look tired.”

Bezz flinches at the sound of his name. The last time he heard it was when Marquez said it last night, accent curling around the words, tone low and inviting.

Fuck.

How dare he think such thoughts? And right in front of Valentino too. He really is no hero at all.

 He tries to switch back to his normal self, shifts his head until he is staring up at the man and tries to think of what he would say if this was any other day. Valentino has his own set of dark bags hanging under his eyes, the hypocrite. Even if he seems far more cheerful than Bezz is, the lack of proper sleep is clear on his face

“So do you,” he responds tone forcefully steady, “or is your age finally showing?”

Bright laughter, and just the sound of it makes Bezz relax. Yes, he can do this. Marquez is nothing, last night was simply a failed battled, and he can become himself again.  He can do this. He can bring the hate to the top and try again tomorrow. Heroes always come back, don’t they?

“So snippy. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Bezz nods in understanding, eyes unfocusing as he sits there. Around Valentino he can get those thoughts to stop, at least a bit. It is a little easier to convince himself that none of it mattered really, the wild panic finally leaving his brain after the many hours it was there.

He yawns. The exhaustion is only growing heavier.

“I didn’t sleep at all.” He mumbles, and Valentino frowns.

“Why?”

Bezz feels a deranged humor rise up, and he lets out a loopy laugh.

“Bad thoughts.” He whispers, and Valentino eyes him like he has gone insane. Which is fair, Bezz feels like he has kind of. Because last night felt like a dream and a nightmare, but it must have been real because there are bruises all over his back from when he went into the table, and. wrinkled condom in his pocket. He wishes they weren’t there. Maybe then he could pretend like it was all just a vision.

“Why didn’t you sleep well? Is something wrong?” He asks, simply to force his mind away from that topic. Valentino will have some sort of story, he always does. And Bezz will get drawn in until he forgets about everything.

“Ehhhh, nothing wrong. Just some… business meetings.” He says with a smile, and then goes back to eating. Bezz groans. Of all times to remain concise, why now?

“What happened at the meetings?”

At that Valentino chokes on his yogurt, clearly inhaling it and it is enough to make Bezz startle, shocking him out of his half-asleep state as he watches Valentino cough so much he turns scarlet red, spilling yogurt all over the table. When he looks up his eyes are watering and his pupils are little pinpricks.

“Nothing,” he rasps out, “nothing, just… nothing.”

Then he stands abruptly.

“I need a new yogurt, and napkins.” He announces, and marches up to the counter in a rush, still semi-coughing as he goes. Bezz watches him and frowns.

What a bizarre man.

Alone now he settles his head back on his arms and closes his eyes. Once again those images rise up, but this time Bezz just lets it happen with a sort of nihilistic acceptance. It is seemingly unstoppable, and Valentino clearly is not in talkative mood, so there goes that distraction. He is at the point of tiredness that he is starting to not care that much.

It’s like he has been cursed. Like the moment Marquez looked up at him from the floor, there was an enchantment on his mind to never think about anything else. Maybe when Uccio calls him the devil, he means it literally. Maybe Marquez has some sort of power that ensnares people, makes them obsessed the way so many seem to be. Look at Valentino, the untouchable god who has been so shattered. Look at Pecco, so kind and above it all, stuttering and blushing. And now he understands why Mig always made that face. It is like no matter what, people are pulled in, tempted, enthralled. A layer of magic, a curse. A villain that is so untouchable and compelling that even superheroes have no chance.

That must be it.

Because if it is not…

Well, then Bezz is fucked.

End Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Luca has always adored his older brother.

He remembers scrambling towards him in the paddock, when Valentino looked taller than trees and always greeted him with a smile. He remembers the way he used to be whirled around, picked up by hands and brought closer, a cooing voice calling him all manner of nicknames with an indulgent sweetness.  A humor always bubbling in that voice, so happy with life and love and everything good the world could offer.

Valentino was something more than everyone else to him back then. He didn’t worship like so many others seemed to, Luca loved him far too much to give him something so distant, but there was this awareness that Valentino was more than human when he raced.

Those were the golden days, when the only thing that mattered was having his big brother laughing with him, and the way he would perch on Valentino’s shoulders and feel like he could see the world. When the air was oversaturated, shades of color so intense it almost hurt the eyes. And swirling though it all was this exuberant happiness, because his brother was the best and that must mean Luca was something close to that too.

That feeling stayed around for a while. Really the first time he stepped away from it all was when he was around twelve, the day Valentino won his ninth title. A good day, even though his feelings about the whole thing later in life were almost bittersweet.

He remembers seeing Valentino up on that podium, smile striking across his face. He remembers hearing the thousands of people scream his brother’s name, and letting pride and the almost smug understanding that this star is his family float to the surface. Valentino had won, as he always had since Luca could remember, and life was as it should be.

But then he looked out into the crowd and he saw it for the first time with the newfound intelligence all twelve-year-olds have. Thick, twining, heavy like tar and poured over every single person that he saw. Madness, wildness, the kind that only Valentino Rossi can inspire.

Faces of people who looked like they were being raptured, hands grasping for the sky. A deadness there that only comes when your mind has turned off, the kind of empty that leads mobs to tear people limb from limb. Adoration so drenched in a selfish claim that it almost swings the pendulum all the way back to hate. It had startled Luca until his own grin dropped from his face and all he could do was stare, frightened in a way he did not understand.

Later that day, Valentino still glowing with adrenaline and crowing his happiness to the sky, he had brought it up.

“They looked crazy.” He had murmured quietly after his brother asked what was wrong, eyes downcast and no small amount of fear over what he had seen creasing his face. He still didn’t quite understand.

But Valentino laughed.

“Aye, Maro, of course they did.” He said, reaching a hand to ruffle Luca’s hair, fingers digging in a little and making him flinch. Those eyes were still bright as they always were, that voice still gentle and teasing. But it was inconceivable at the time how someone could have all those faces turned on them, greed obvious, and not want to hide.

“Don’t they frighten you?” He asked in a tremulous voice, reaching a hand out to grip his brother’s shirt like he could pull him away from all those who want some small piece of who he is.

Another laugh.

“It is me they adore. They will do what I say, why should I be frightened?”

Maybe that was also around the first time that Luca realized his brother was not all happiness and jokes. That underneath all the show, there was a keen enjoyment of the way he makes people’s heads spin. That he loves the control, adores how with a wave of his hand he could get them to bow at his feet or scream his name.  

That was also when he noticed the arrogance, because Valentino truly felt no fear. He saw none of the danger that Luca did, a belief that he was untouchable so firmly implanted in his mind. And he started to see that the inhumanness didn’t just extend to racing, no it was who Valentino was. More than Luca, more than the world. Just… more.

But none of that really mattered, Valentino was his brother, and Luca loved him even if he was a no mere mortal like the rest of them. Besides, Luca knew that he was good underneath all of the fuss. Kind, understanding, sweet. The type who should be famous, who never wields the adoration for evil but just for enjoyment and fun.

He still thinks that, even after everything that has happened. Even after hearing that vicious anger for the first time in his brother’s voice, even after watching the way his eyes gleamed with cruelty. Because Luca knows him. He knows that this isn’t hate, or pure anger, or even something so simple as betrayal. It is a strange kind of heartbreak, the first of its kind for Valentino, and how would anyone so venerated feel about their own heart being broken? Or how would they react to the devestating creature that did it?

Marc Marquez is a complicated topic in many ways. Because Luca likes him. Had liked him for years. Maybe it was a silly little crush, but it was enough to make him feel a considerable softness, even now. He still remembers the way the Spanish rider used to laugh so brightly at the dinner table, filling up the whole space without even trying.

Beyond that, Marc had always felt like a symbol more than a person, much like Valentino. He knows that this is bad, to constrain someone down to one thing, or trait, or title. And there was a difference between Marc the person, who ruffled Luca’s hair and gave advice on riding, and Marc Marquez the idea. In his head, the man was the perfect representation of all that love that Valentino had always received, built to attract his eye and attention.  The worship of his name forced into one body, obsession ringing in those eyes so clear. Inhuman just like Valentino was, if perhaps to a lesser extent. The personification of the roar of a crowd or the screams of motorcycles.

And just like the crowds and the bikes, Marc loved Valentino. That had been clear from the moment Luca met him. In a multitude of ways, even. The adoration and worship of a fan, the sweet respect of a student, the calm love of a person who recognizes your soul. In comparison, Luca’s petty little crush was nothing. And Valentino had loved him back fiercely enough to have his heart broken while it all ended, even above it all as he is.

When Sepang had happened, the echo of what Valentino had said so many years ago rang out, almost like they had been a prophecy, or some sort of challenge for the universe Valentino put forward and had not even realized would eventually be answered

They will do what I say, why should I be frightened?

The universe had answered, had taken one look at the egotism surrounding every single word, and planned. Planned so well that when Valentino received even one hit, it took him down in more than one way. Crafted it so perfectly to strike at all parts, to cut his heart by taking away love, his ego by making him feel small, and his trust in that imagined betrayal, all in one fell swoop. An attack on a god that was more than just brutal, it was pointed.

Luca was the only one who seemed to see that. This was not just a fight between two people who used to love each other, this was not just revenge and silly insults. No, this was karma, a lesson that the heavens begged Valentino to learn.

And yet he didn’t. And yet Luca watched as his brother only drew himself up taller, only kept his feet planted more firmly, never one to show any pain because he is just not built that way. He answered any questions of his motivation or the truth of those terrible accusations with no inch given. Never apologized, never took them back, never seemed to let it swallow him whole. Stood strong and defensive in the face of it all, still above it all even when tasting a little more human hurt. 

Eventually, there was more than that after all. Even more conceit and madness than Luca had expected.  

The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. So when he caught the way Valentino’s eyes started to trail after Marc once more, Luca felt lost on what even to do.

He doesn’t think Marc is a bad guy, doesn’t even think what was spouted forth about Phillips Island is what really happened. But he is a lesson that Valentino cannot seem to take, and it all starts to happen again. A time loop that seems unstoppable even though it has only happened once. So far.

And maybe if it was like before, when Marc was bright-eyed and thrilled to have his idol’s attention, Luca would have just sighed and allowed it to become what it is. Back then the only one in any real danger was Marc, and Luca… it is unkind, but Valentino has always been his priority, even with how much he liked the Spanish man.

That that is not the truth of anything anymore. Because while Valentino Rossi might not have learned from everything that happened between them, Marc Marquez certainly did.

This year has been probably the worst for it all. 2015 had its own brand of terrible, of hearing growled words and blazing anger, of all the attention the world could offer, people eating up this biblical feud happening in front of them. 2016 was not that angry, but there was this trail of hopelessness that followed his brother that was entirely unenjoyable, a thickness in the air every time the topic was broached and random flares of temper on bad days.

But 2017 was a whole different battle. Not on track, no that was a clear fight between Marc and Dovizioso more than anything. But as the months peeled on, Luca watched as a new type of game was played. As Marc fluttered himself like a bird of paradise, coy and intelligent, and as Valentino chased with a naked look of amazed determination. Exposing himself in ways that only people who know him would see, insanity in the flesh.

Luca doesn’t think anyone else notices. Most people probably think things are much the same as they were before, that the tempers have cooled but the grudge remains the same. But after every interaction, every second where Valentino is in Marc’s presence for more than a second, every quiet word murmured, there is this sickly light in his brother’s eyes that sets him on edge. Like an addict that had gotten a taste after months of sobriety, who is now wondering why they ever stopped in the first place.

Valentino is not receptive when Luca tries to speak. Every time. He brushes off, lies, laughs, and in every single way proves the original point over and over and over again. Overconfidence convincing him that it will be different this time, arrogance painting his fine features and making him see Marc as the weak one, when it is quite clear who is out of control this time.

He feels it rise up in him every day, a boiling reminder that when this all goes down he does not have the experience to know what to do. But perhaps there is someone who does. Someone who will understand what it is like and maybe, just maybe, be some shred of help in this lopsided war.

Luca has never really spoken to Alex Marquez before, aside from a few tossed-out comments when Alex visited the ranch one time. But in Germany, when Marc takes yet another win, he does.

“Marquez,” he murmurs calmly as he slides in next to his fellow Moto2 rider, both of them standing in the crowd, watching the podium. Valentino is not here, fifth place only leading him back to his garage where he can stare at data and wonder why he isn’t up there too. But no doubt he is watching on one of the little monitors, eyes glued to the man on the top step.

“Hello.” The other responds, still watching his brother, a gleam of pride there. He does not seem surprised that Luca is talking to him right now. Perhaps it isn’t that odd, they have technically known each other for years, and they are almost connected through their mad siblings. So maybe it is more bizarre that they have never really had a full-length conversation before now.

“A good year so far,” Luca says, trying to sound nonchalant, “what are you two doing over summer break?”

Alex shrugs.

“Going home. Marc is going to spend a week in Ibiza though, I think maybe that is his early celebration. He is doing well, after all.”

“Ah…. Valentino has a house there.”

Another shrug.

“I know.” Alex says, but these words are said differently. A little stiff, a lot tired. And Luca knows that Alex knows, and deep in his mind he wonders how alone he has really been.

“Who do you think is the one in charge this time?” Luca asks dryly, and that is a bold enough statement to make Alex let out a snort and turn to him. It’s almost startling how little he looks like his brother, the eyes and coloring so different. There is also none of that wildness that exists in Marc’s gaze, like instead of a raging storm there is the regularity of crashing waves in the younger Marquez’s mind. Luca finds it rather comforting. Perhaps this conversation will end on a high note.

“Has either of them ever been?”

Luca tilts his head and ponders that for a second. Then he sighs.

“No, no not really. But this time feels different, more like a game than anything, and I don’t think my brother is the one who is making the rules.”

Alex furrows his brow and turns away, back to watching Marc, a new sort of defensiveness in his face. It makes him a lot less friendly looking.

“Marc has every right to-”

“I am not saying he doesn’t,” Luca soothes, “but… we both know that it is not Valentino who learned how to… handle things better after Sepang.”

“Maybe he should have.” Is the gruff reply, and he can all but see Alex closing off, protectiveness over his brother making him become unwilling to listen. Luca understands, even if his own brother is a god among men, he still gets that way. Probably a very similar feeling to what Alex is experiencing.

“I agree.”

The other rider pauses at that. Blinks rapidly, and Luca can see his mind spinning. Then he deflates all of a sudden, spine sliding back from tense to relaxed, the combativeness leaving his body the minute he listened, and there is the major difference. Marc Marquez would have kept going, but Luca had been counting on the younger brother to see what the older could not, to have the self-awareness to listen when someone extends an olive branch.

“Why are you talking to me?” Alex finally asks, more honest than whatever tiptoeing they had been doing before, and Luca decides to cut the game short. It didn’t suit either of them anyway, that was much more their older brother’s thing.

“Valentino wants him back, I think that’s a bad idea.” Luca says bluntly.

A hum.

“Why?” Alex asks.

“He has been staring a lot, and he stopped talking so poorly about Marc, and the other day-

“No,” Alex interrupts, “I know all that, I’m not blind, why do you think it is a bad idea?”

Luca falters, and blinks rapidly. Is that a joke?  The list about why that would be terrible for every single person involved is about a mile long, and that does not even include the explanations for each reason. Surely Alex is messing around.

“I think… that’s pretty self-explanatory.” He says flatly, but Alex just shrugs.

“You were right, Marc has changed. So why should I be concerned? If Valentino gets hurt, why should I care? I fact, I would rather enjoy seeing that.” He says calmly.

Then the other rider’s face has suddenly changed. Not so dramatically, perhaps it has not changed at all in truth. Maybe Luca just hadn’t seen it before, too blind and running under the assumption that he was talking to someone like him, in the middle about all of this. Why he assumed that, he doesn’t know. It was foolish.

But there, right there, swimming in his eyes and setting his jaw tight. Anger, disdain, and the barest hint of pleasure at the idea that Valentino Rossi might be in pain one day. He is not mad at Luca, but just the idea of hurting the person who has hurt Marc seemed to give him a far sharper edge than he is used to.

Perhaps the two brothers are far more alike than people give them credit for.

“You must understand I can’t just let that happen.”

Alex laughs. A little muffled, amused sound that has Luca shifting away from the other man slightly.

“Why not? What good would it be to stop it all from happening. Marc has learned his lesson, maybe this time Valentino will too.”

“I’m his brother,” Luca says lamely, but Alex waves him off.

“Yes, and I get that. Being sibling to someone so above it all is difficult, especially because you still love them. The only difference between us is that I already saw my brother shattered, and I have no intent of letting that happen ever again. So let Marc hurt him, let him take and use and play a game. Let Valentino try, let him finally be weak enough to feel the pain the way my brother did. I think it will do him a lot of good.”

“If you think he wasn’t hurt by-” Luca starts, incensed by the idea, but Alex cuts in before he can get the full statement out.

“I’m sure he was, on the surface level. But he isn’t stupid, if he really was quite so shattered as you clearly seem to think, he would have learned the way Marc did. No, it is clear that it was a temper tantrum more than anything, and now that the lashing out is over he wants his plaything back. It’s a lesson he needs. The toy has sharp edges now, and if he hasn’t learned that then let the cuts he receives teach him for once.”

Luca swallows.

“Valentino does love him.” He murmurs, and Alex finally turns to look back at him. His eyes are gentle, kind in a way that Luca did not expect after such angry words. There is something else in there as well, an understanding that is not often seen.

“I know that. But did he love him like a god would, or like a man?”

Silence for a minute as Alex waits for his answer, but Luca has none. Too poetic and true, it rings though his brain. Because Valentino had always seen himself as some sort of deity, Luca can admit he knew that the love he holds for people is unique. The question now is, what did he see Marc as? Hell, what did Luca even see him as? A human, a god, or something in-between?

“Is Marc a man?” He wonders out loud, and the laugh Alex lets out is full of surprise. Baffled in a way that would be insulting if Luca didn’t feel like it was warranted.

“People ask that a lot, but I thought you would be the type of person to see it, growing up with Valentino as you did. Maybe though you are still stuck in that state of mind, of gods and kings and being greater than mortal. Marc is far more human than the rest of us.”

Then he locks his eyes back on his brother, champagne being sprayed all over him, and sighs.

“So is Valentino. Even if he likes to pretend otherwise.”

Then Alex gives him another peaceful smile, far too intelligent and aware for someone so young, pats him on the shoulder, and pushes out of the crowd until he disappears.

Luca stares blankly after him. The conversation had gone exactly the opposite of the way he had expected it to go. Alex Marquez to him has always been a bit shy and quiet. A talented rider, but not the sharp-edged blade his brother is. That had perhaps been an incorrect assumption.

The ceremony is done before Luca even realizes it, and very soon he is left standing there, staring up at an empty podium and wondering how the hell any of this will end.

Alex seems to think that Marc is divorced enough away from it all to not be injured by everything coming back, he seems to think that the two men are human and will eventually break enough to move beyond. Luca disagrees.

But still, he seems to be the only sane one left on the planet

***

Over the summer break, Luca does his best to keep anything from happening. The week he knows Marc will be in Ibiza, be feigns a broken bone, gets Valentino worried enough to stay home at the ranch.  When his brother disappears to make phone calls that Luca knows are definitely not for business, he interrupts as much as possible.

It hardly seems to work, every day Valentino looks more and more wrapped up in his own mind, and Luca finds him coming out of that locked room in La Tana, the one they have nicknamed the graveyard, constantly. No one is allowed in or out, but he had caught Valentino quietly leaving one morning and the burning knowledge that the man was sleeping in there had made him feel like the war was being lost.

It is all even worse than the first time, there is a new vulnerability that sits on his brother’s face that makes Luca feel wrong wrong wrong. All mixed together with Alex’s words about the two men being more human than the rest of them. It makes everything so much more… real, almost, and this is no longer a fight in the heavens, war waged and swords out. No, it has come down to earth, and Luca can smell the blood that has been spilled.

Valentino loved, maybe even loves, Marc. But…  deep down, he thinks his brother sees the love from the fans and the love from Marc as one in the same. No grey area, just black and white, no equality, just him being on the top step and Marc calling up praise. Perhaps that is just how he sees the world. Adoration or loathing. All love must be the same, just as all hate must be too. But that fierce anger, the betrayal that had exploded out makes him even doubt that to. Like perhaps Valentino had begun to love Marc like a man without even realizing it. Maybe that had even been what ruined it all.

Does Valentino deserve this for everything he had done. Does he deserve Marc’s hidden game, whatever it may be? Does he deserve to be reminded of the mortality he had flouted for so many years? Luca isn’t really sure is he knows anymore. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

But who is insane here? Marc? Valentino? Alex?

Or is it Luca?

He finds Valentino early one morning in January, quietly moving around the kitchen, a small bag in his hands, and he is clearly tiptoeing. Luca watches him for a second, settles into one of the sofas in the living room, and waits for Valentino to notice him.

With these new thoughts in his head, it is easy to look at his brother and see. He watches the way he moves with a jittery feeling, sees how he inhales deeply and then winces out when the sound echoes. And when he stands still, his face becomes something full of wonder, expressive like he always is but with a rawer honesty underlaying it all when he believes no one is watching.  So human, so human. More human than the rest of us.

When eventually it becomes clear that Luca will not be seen before Valentino leaves, he speaks.

“Are you going to see him?”

Valentino startles so much he drops his bag with a dull thunk to the floor. Then he slowly turns around, face tense even as he grins, attempting to look careless and not at all like he was sneaking out of his own house.

“Ehh, Luca you scared me! I have business, didn’t want to wake anyone, I should be back soon, maybe tomorrow.” He says brightly, and then lurches forward like he is going to run, but then stops himself as if it would be too suspicious. Like Luca isn’t already well aware that he is lying.

“Valentino.” He just says, and his brother drops his head, gaze on the floor. It hits Luca in that moment that already he can see it, now that this façade of godliness has been ripped away. He can see the lines where his brother will crack, and Luca has no idea how he will ever be able to put the man back together again. He has never seen Valentino as the type to need it, after all.

“Who is him?” His brother tries, laughing, “It is just a regular meeting and….”

But when he sees the look on Luca’s face, he trails off than grimaces in a way that means he is going to be honest. So at least there is that.

“I am not going to see Marc,” He finally says, “But he will be there. A meeting between our merchandising companies, there are still some ties there that need… finagling.”

Luca swallows.

“You usually send Uccio to those.” He says quietly, and Valentino shrugs, looking helpless.

“I know, I… I just need to go.”

Luca leans back in his chair, moves his eyes to the ceiling. He had tried so hard for nothing. Valentino has set his mind to it, and there is not stopping the man once he is determined.

“So you two are back together.”

He heard Valentino move closer, two unsure steps before he pauses, and breathes for a second. So human.

“No, no not really. We have… spoken, a few times. It has given me hope.”

At that Luca surges up, rips his eyes away from their blank stare, and laughs hard. Hope, what a pretty word. Almost childish coming out of Valentino’s mouth, and when he looks at his brother, the older man flinches a little, before raising his hand up.

“It’s fine,” Valentino soothes, “this time is… this is different, Maro. We have both grown, he has apologized and-”

“He apologized.” Luca interrupts flatly.

“Yes.”

And that is… perhaps that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so to say, because in that moments Luca can hear a mixture of Alex’s words, and then sees Marc’s eyes, how angry they still are, and it layers over Valentino, bright and expectant that he will get everything that he wants.

Maybe he will never learn. But he is… he is crazy if he thinks any apology is real. Marc had never done anything wrong after all, a fact that Luca knows the Spanish man has not wavered from. A game that Valentino does not even seem to realize he is playing. Stupidly naïve where he had never been that way before. No, not naïve. Arrogant. Not the kind god’s have, but the kind that they punish.

Who is Luca to step in the way of that?

“That’s great,” he says faintly. An expression of relief explodes across his brother’s face, and he is stepping closer to pull Luca into a jubilant hug in a matter of seconds.

There is a flicker of the past that springs from that, because Luca is still sitting and so he ends up with his face pressed into Valentino’s stomach, just like when he was a kid. He feels hands push into his hair, and he has to stop the tidal wave of self-hatred from rising up. Because right now, surrounded by warmth, it is almost like he is a kid who still sees his brother as a king above all others

And Luca feels a lot like a betrayer, allowing a person he loves to walk into pain. But repeating something and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. So he just prays that this will work. Prays that Alex is right and that the humanity between the two men will ground them, that the hurt will not be too bad, or will not be unable to be healed.

His eyes sting as Valentino pulls back, pressing a hand to his cheek, looking younger all of a sudden. Luca tilts his chin up, and the light almost puts a halo above his brother’s head, jolting him a little.

“I think this time will be better,” Valentino whispers, as if it is a secret for just the two of them, “I don’t know if we will ever be what we were before but… it has been better. Less anger, and he listens now. I try to as well.”

The tears build up in Luca’s eyes, but he forces them down. This whole thing is not worth this, his brother’s madness is not worth this. He can’t even be angry at Marc for any of what will come, because none of it is his fault. If he wants his revenge, he is allowed to take it, it is a human trait after all. And who knows, maybe Marc actually wants to try again. Maybe Luca and Alex are both wrong, maybe things can work out.

Even in his head it sounds like a naïve, childish lie.

“What did Uccio say?” He asks, voice cracking, but it makes Valentino snort.

“He doesn’t know. Hide it from him for me, would you?”

And Luca nods, agrees because he always will, because having a secret with his older brother feels just as special now as it did when he was a kid. Back then it would be stupid thing like hiding how much Valentino parties, or helping him sneak someone out of the house, or lie that it was him who broke the window because their mother would be more gentle with a child than a grown man. He had always done it, so why bother changing things now?

“I have to catch the flight. I left a schedule for the boys, tell them Franky is in charge,” he says, then presses a fleeting kiss on Luca’s forehead, before pulling away. Luca reaches out for him as he goes, then quickly drops his hand, knowing that on a six-year-old it is sweet and on a nineteen-year-old it is a little sad.

His brother is gone in an instant, the door clicking shut behind him, and then it is so still in the house. Air gone stale like no one has been here for years, quiet the way it almost never is.

Marc Marquez is not a bad guy. But the question is, how much of what Valentino did made him into one? How angry is he truly, how willing to be cruel? Perhaps he should take comfort in how Alex had reacted to it all, a cold kind of acceptance, almost encouragement. Maybe Luca is on the wrong side in all of this. Maybe the humanity so recently discovered will rein it all in.

He really doesn’t know. All he does know is that his brother is walking into some sort of trap, a monster with its jaws wide open. Just like what he did to Marc in 2015, expect when the older man had bit down, he had shattered his fangs.

Marc on the other hand? Luca gets a feeling that each and every tooth in his mouth is coated in a titanium shell. So that when he finally does give in to the urge, when he finally sinks them into flesh, he will remain strong. Valentino won't, he can't pretend when that happens. Because Luca has seen the way he has exposed himself this time, even the man himself cannot deny how weak he is in the face of Marc anymore. And he will torn to pieces.

A terrifying image, yet Luca can almost feel relief.

To repeat something and expect different results is the definition of insanity. So perhaps it is all of them that are the problem, those who have laughed at Valentino antics for years, have revered him even in his cruelty. Luca is part of that, had indulged Valentino’s whims, even about Marc, so much that maybe they have made a god out of someone that is far more human than the rest. Made him into something he is not meant to be, and twisted it so hard that he cannot handle the reminders of what he really is. Marc was that reminder, clear as a tolling bell, that Valentino Rossi is no god.

Regardless, he knows this. Whatever happens next will be new. And maybe, just maybe, Valentino getting bit first will yield something special, or at the very least, something new.

Anything is better than being insane, after all.

End Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Catalunya 2016

Bezz is a good boy. The kind of boy who echoes Vale’s hate with a particular loyalty, who listens and copies the way all students should. The kind of boy who never argues back or glares, just simply bows his head. The kind of boy who comes straight to Vale when he sees something like this.

Marc standing there, leaning against the wall of the club like he is some young god. Pecco, sweet Pecco, trapped in his orbit, sweaty and looking half deranged from having someone that magnetic so close.

Vale understands the feeling, knows how irresistible it can be to give in, to lick sweat-salty skin and take until Marc moans to the sky, to let yourself be used even as you grab hold of your own pleasure. He has felt it burning through him, even after Sepang. So much that sometimes he wakes up with a start, buries his head in his hands and pretends that none of it had ever happened, that when he turns to look at the space in bed next to him, there will be Marc, lazy and warm. Waiting for Vale with bright eyes, beckoning him, and in that imagination all of it is true.

So yeah, he understands Pecco fine. That doesn’t mean he will allow this to happen.

He doesn’t hear what is said, by the time he reaches them, by the time he is close enough for words to call out above the pulsing music, Marc has pushed the young rider away. His eyes glint under the flashing lights as he looks at Vale, mouth curled up in a smile that screams arrogance above all else. Drunk, but lucid enough to hate hate hate the way he always used to hide. He has no need to now, Vale reminds himself.

“He’s drunk, it seems that sort of behavior while intoxicated runs in the, ah, family.” The Spanish man says, lazily gesturing at Pecco even as the young rider tries to go back to him. Disregards him entirely the way he seems to disregard the world, eyes locked on Vale with a spark of challenge.

Vale almost snarls at that, grips Pecco by the shoulder and orders him away with words that are barely recognizable. Presses his skin to Marc’s because he knows that if anyone gets a look right now, inviting as the man is, there will be no stopping them from being caught too. Blocks the view with his body to save them all. Yes, that is why he moves in so close. That is why.

Beautiful, angelic, perfect, his drunken mind cries out as he settles his gaze, or rather, doesn’t. Because he can’t help how his eyes trace everything, the closest they have been in months. The warmth radiating off of that body is familiar, the smell is familiar. The way Marc leans back, stretches to show off his neck so prettily, is familiar. A practiced game, one that used to make him laugh and pinch Marc’s hips, then they would tumble into bed, breathless and high on each other.

It was that way for Vale, at least.

He really doesn’t even know what he says in that moment. Spits out sentences, anger pouring from his mouth like lava. It hisses as it comes in contact with Marc’s ice, with the way his own words come out sharp and clear and distant. Pleased by how angry Vale is, but not in that warm way he used to be. No pure pleasure there, just vindication that reeks of greed.

Insults are spun into a web that surrounds them, but somehow it is Marc who seems to cut the deepest. He answers Vale’s accusations with nonchalance, as if he wasn’t flirting with Pecco just to… just to hurt. As if he wasn’t using the younger man, Vale’s student with his little crush, just to cause the most harm. Selfish bastard.

“Don’t act like you didn’t want it,” Vale eventually snarls after Marc’s denials become too chafing, temper unhinged in the dark privacy of the club, “is that what this is about, did you decide to do something just to get me pissed off and willing to fuck you in the bathroom stall?”  

And Marc sighs out a sound, lolls his head a little, and lowers his eyelids. Pure, ecstatic pleasure fills his face, the kind that means he is readying some sort of weapon. Vale almost feels like he is about to get stabbed. A possibility, considering who he is talking to.

“I don’t need that, if I wanted to get fucked I have a list to work off of now, as I am sure you are aware. You’re not on it anymore. Neither is Pecco…for now. And trust me when I say they are more than satisfactory.”

The words burn his ears once they are spoken, and he feels it travel down his neck to spread to his limbs. He wants to jerk away, he wants to pinch closer. He can’t do either though, because his strength is gone. Taken with a few phrases, with insinuations and outright honesty, with a coy voice murmuring something he had never wished to hear

 And he can’t help croaking out his next words

“What do you mean?”

He knows how it sounds, knows that it didn’t not come out strong and angry, but rather… lost. Like a child, voice so close to the edge of something tragic. And the full idea of what Marc has said hits him in that moment.

Marc has moved on. Marc has found people to hold him. Marc has done what Vale always feared he would, opened the door and allowed those who want to indulge, consume, worship, come pouring in. Has let greedy fingers grip him, and moaned in pleasure as they took and took and took. Probably laughed the whole way, madness there that stems from the knowledge that what he is doing is not just sex, but war. A shot taken right at Vale’s head.

That old image, that old fear, rises up once more. Wolves surrounding Marc, splayed out over some surface. Sharp teeth biting into perfect flesh, ripping and shredding as Marc urges them closer. Wicked pleasure paints his features, but there is something new here. When Marc grins, his teeth are coated crimson too.

Sickening. Disgusting. Wrong wrong wrong. Vale doesn’t know what to do.

“What do you mean?” He whispers again, and this one sees to get through to Marc, who had been watching him with wide eyes. He smiles softly.

“What, would you like details? I can give you a list, you know. First there was Dovi, then Casey. Elias from Pramac, a few Red Bull athletes, a retired F1 driver, and then there was a little thing with Santi, but that was more-”

Names names names, and then the wolves shift into men, who Vale knows who he has met, who he has laughed with. Men who had been waiting, planning, and howling for a chance. A chance that Marc had allowed them, and he now proudly wears their invisible kisses, pressed over skin that was once Vale’s to touch.

He surges close at that thought, lets out an inhuman hiss and for the first time maybe ever, allows himself push his anger into Marc. Sees the younger man’s back press more firmly against the wall, hears him let out a surprised grunt, watches as those eyes somehow go even more dark and foreboding. Vale can’t handle this, can’t do this, can’t hear this.

“Shut up,” he rasps, “Shut up, shut up.”

“Or what?” Marc asks, “You think you can do what you did in Sepang, and I will still love you? You think you can try to kill me, and I will be as good to you as I was to Andrea?”

Something rises up in Vale’s chest, and it is out of his mouth before he can even notice what it is. A death rattle laugh, deep from within and layered with so much madness he even sets his own hair on end. Marc does not look afraid of it though. In fact, he laughs too, and it is almost horrific the way the sounds twine together to create a kind of tragic song. Until they are skin-to-skin, sadistic humor flowing between them, matching to well, so horribly, so beautifully.

“Love,” Vale scrapes out, jolting forward to escape the possibility of those eyes trapping him once more. Pressing in, holding tight to that last shred of power that keeps him still playing, even as he wants to cower. But the way he allows his lips to linger over Marc’s ear doesn’t even make the younger man flinch. The game is starting to slip, and he knows that one more slice will end it all. That today would be his loss. So he tries one more time.

 “As if you ever loved me. As if someone like you could love.”

“Like us,” Marc corrects nonchalantly, and he is reaching up, twining his fingers into Vale’s hair, and giving one sharp tug. A pain stems from there that surges him back into reality, into the world where he just… he can’t handle this right now, can’t play anymore.

“Yes,” Vale chokes out, “like us.”

Then he rips back and stumbles away, feels laughing eyes on him as he hides once more, weakness always on display, always a pawn for the angel faced devil who he still… he still…

He still.

***

Assen 2016

Vale doesn’t know why he is here. Scratch that, he knows exactly why he is here. An answer to the challenge given in that interview, an obsession that has settled in his brain and refused to let him sleep. Enough to convince him that going to Marc’s motorhome this late was a good idea.

The last time they had really spoken was that club, and Vale feels like he has finally gathered enough strength to fight once more, to play in such a way that will not make his heart race or cause him to flee.

Besides, the one good thing that had come out of that night was the new knowledge that Marc really wanted to play now. Before it had been rage and anger, tension at press conferences and on track. But Catalunya had displayed that Marc wanted more than that and Vale felt a flush of victory when he realized this. Marc cannot ignore him. And Vale doesn't think he even wants to.

It is all worth it when Marc wrenches the door open, eyes thick with tiredness and no small amount of irritation. Worth it because for a split-second whatever façade he had created is not there, the player not prepared for the game to start. He blinks down at Vale, naked surprise clear. Face lax, jaw loose, eyes open the way he… the way he used to be. The way he used to look in bed before going to sleep, a sweet angel splayed out over sheets.

“Why are you here,” he eventually says, voice firm and calm as he closes it all up again. Pulls himself tall, uses the step height to his advantage to make himself look even more untouchable than he usually is. But there is this sheen of reservation around him, the kind that looks so wrong it is sickening. A new part of the game, one that Vale has grown to distinctly dislike, and an echo of that time many years when he closed off too. So of course it is fake.

“I thought I was invited,” Vale tosses out to see if he can reel anything in, feels humor build at the way Marc’s eyebrow twitches, the slightest little tell. A small tug on his fishing line that tells him there is potential here.

“You're not a very gracious host,” he chides, presses his hands to his hips, and tilts his head like Marc is a naughty child. Adds that stereotypical charm, as if he is talking to a crowd and not a person who hates him.

That just gets him a flat look, that just gets Marc closing the door of his motorhome behind him, descending the steps, and pushing one hand to Vale chest to make him step back a few paces. The touch makes his skin tingle.

“I have no need to be gracious,” Marc says primly, “it is too late for this, we can fight tomorrow.”

And that just… well, that just genuinely pisses Vale off.  Because what right does Marc have to dictate where very single showdown should happen? It is him who keeps… who keeps pulling Vale in, who keeps slipping into his eyesight in those disgusting ways.

Pressing a too-friendly kiss to Dovi’s cheek after a practice, sliding a hand over his engineer’s shoulder, lowering his eyes sweetly when a fan tells him he is a star. Presenting himself to the crowd, basically crying for them to look. And oh boy do they look. Vale sees it all, and he knows deep down that Marc is putting on a Gatsby-esque show just for him.

So how dare he act like Vale can’t do something about it. How dare he slap on that look like Vale is the undignified one, a little plastic politeness that makes him express sweet words in the press, and smile softly like any of it could be real. As if Marc is not just like him, as if any of this newfound ‘maturity' is anything close to real, and not part of this dark, twisting game between them.

“No, we will do this now,” Vale says, “you can’t always be the one to choose what happens. If we are going to play like that, you have to let me pick too. Or do you want this to be an unfair fight?”

A stillness, the kind that makes you feel like a predator lies in waiting, the kind that sets nails dogging into flesh. But Vale knows it quite well and he feels the beginning of a wild grin form.

“Unfair fight?” Comes a silky voice.

The shadows hide Marc’s expression as he steps forward once more, the overhead light making him look almost faceless in the dark. If Vale didn’t know any better, he would think this is a creature of myth, come to steal his soul. Maybe Marc is, actually. Maybe he was born to be a destroyer. To be Vale’s destroyer.

Marc scoffs, and then in an instant his face is revealed. Gone is the plastic, gone is the blankness. In its place is a sneering anger, ugly and mean and childish and everything bad that anger could possibly be. It twists his lovely features, makes that mouth cut like an open wound, makes nostrils flare, the beauty becoming the beast in seconds. Angel to devil in the blink of an eye.

And Vale lets that grin fully burst across his face at that sight, marvels as Marc continues, voice crueler than cruel.

“Unfair fight? Who are you to talk about unfair? Was it fair when you pulled that nonsense in Sepang? When you ambushed me at the conference, not a word said about any of it while you fucked me the night before? Was it fair when you kicked me down to the dirt, when you thought that you were so above it all that there would be no consequences? Was that fair?”

When Marc finishes, a new silence rings out. The kind that is so filled with words that it is almost as loud as the screams of a crowd, almost as heavy as the stomping of feet on a stadium floor. Marc is watching him with fire in his eyes, panting once he has fully finished.

“None of that matters,” Vale whispers in an instant, enraptured by the sight, “none of it.”

A dazed laugh.

“Oh,” Marc responds coldly once he has finished, “why is that?”

“Because you left me first.”

He doesn’t mean to say that. He means to say a perfectly put together sentence about how cruel Marc had been, a list maybe of all his crimes. But it had crawled its way up Vale’s throat, unstoppable in the face of something so arresting. It bursts out like an explosion of fireworks, ringing the pipes around them until the air sings with the aftermath of what he has said.

A pretty kind of silence, and it becomes even more lovely when Marc’s eyes go bright, a grin tearing across his face.

“How.” Marc whispers, “How. How. How could you possibly be so insane.”

“You are the insane one!” Vale all but shouts, temper shooting straight to the top at the condescension that had filled the younger man’s voice, and that earns him a another laugh, more terrifying than the last.

“I’m not the one who came knocking at your door before the sun is even up.” Marc says in thick, lofty tone, and that just sets it all off once more, blind anger thrown back and forth as they slice and bite and cut as much as they can. And Vale feels his heart beat fast, so fast, and he knows that he has felt this rhythm before.

But then it is all broken.

“Marc?”

Dovi’s voice, clear as a bell and cutting into their perfection called war. Then Marc has retreated once more behind that plastic veneer. And Vale feels this hatred rise up, not just for Marc but for the world around them. Because how dare they interrupt any of this.

The conversation with Dovi makes him want to shred, and when he finally retreats, running like a scolded dog, all those words echo through his head, the beauty of the younger man in rage, the juxtaposition of that versus the plastic mask, the madness in his laugh and the sheer sanity in his eyes.

Horrifying and beautiful. Even more so because Vale cannot bring himself to look away, weakness that he had always denied, wrapped so tightly around his throat that he cannot breathe.

But perhaps he is not the only weak one. Because the second Dovi’s voice had cut through the fog of anger, Vale saw Marc's face. And spread across it was a panic so sharp, it had nearly stolen his breath. Panic that he has felt before, the raw fear of being seen exposed, the truth coming to light.

What that means though, he isn’t really sure quite yet.

***

Awards Ceremony 2016

He knows Marc will follow him out.

Knows that the embarrassment of what occurred will spur him into action, unable to allow himself to be the loser, unable to allow himself to be so publicly off-balance. Literally, Vale thinks he almost fell over a few times.

He had sort of gambled on the assumption that Marc could not dance. He had seen him in clubs, hips swaying to music, but proper dancing? A waltz or a salsa or something like that? Yeah, he really couldn’t picture it. And when Marc, with gritted teeth and slightly panicked eyes, had accepted, a thrill had gone down his spine.

So when he pushes his way out into the hallway with those thoughts, feeling beyond pleased with the situation, he is grinning like a maniac. He doesn’t go far, simply walks a few hundred feet, then stops, and leans against the wall. No doubt Dani will not be able to keep Marc around for more than ten minutes, no matter how protective he is trying to be. Because Vale had seen it, splintering through those eyes the minute they were interrupted. Disappointment.

Marc will follow him, and Vale is determined to control this show, to come out of it the party on top. Today’s game is who can care less, and this round will be his. He unbuttons the top few buttons on his dress shirt, undoes his belt, and then he lets his muscles relax. Perfectly confident, perfectly languid. Like he is not waiting, bursting with anticipation. Like the champagne in his stomach isn’t making him feel nauseous as the minutes pass.

It still hurts even when he hears that door open and close one more time. Even when he hears the clack of dress shoes against marble, even as he gets that tingling sensation, he only experiences around one person. He feels like he is going to hurl. But God, he is so happy.

Marc doesn’t say anything, just come close until his thighs brush against Vale’s. He doesn’t really touch, instead he hovers.

“You really are quite pretty like this,” Marc muses, voice low and pensive, “when you have your eyes closed and the madness can’t be seen.”

Lovely words, a compliment wrapped in an insult and presented like a special treat. Vale still doesn’t open his eyes.

“And you are pretty when your mouth is shut.” He murmurs, and the little laugh Marc lets out is like a burst of fresh air. Because he genuinely sounds amused.

“How can you know I'm pretty, your eyes are closed?”

“I have your face memorized,” Vale breathes, “so I can imagine what you look like suffering."

Then Marc has moved away, and it is enough to make Vale finally open his eyes, a little panicked at the idea of the other man leaving. But he doesn’t, he simply steps back until he is against the opposite wall, eyes dark, seemingly a bit proud that Vale is now looking. He looks perfect, because of course he does, face carved from marble of the heavens even with that demonic mind.

The sounds of the party are muffled by the door, but it creates a sort of rumbling hum behind it all. No silence here, even when they do not speak. Comforting, in a small kind of way. Like even if they just stay here, staring at each other and thinking, they will not have to deal with the chasm that that has existed between them since Sepang.

“Over a year now,” Marc says, tilting his head, “and even longer since… well, since we were happy.”

“We were happy,” Vale insists, feeling a crease settle between his brows. 

Marc shrugs.

“I wasn’t, but that never really mattered to you. Thanks for the dance, it wasn’t fun. That is all I wanted to say.”

Then he pushes himself off the wall, mouth pressed in a semblance of a smile, like he knows something Vale doesn’t. It is infuriating as always, because today is meant to be Vale’s win, not Marc’s. And yet.

“That’s not fair,” Vale whispers as Marc turns to go, “why is it always you who leaves first? You run away like you know how perfectly it works.”

The other man pauses. But he does not turn around, hiding his face with his body, shoulders perfectly still. A string on a violin tightened up so much that the arm starts to bend.

“I am sorry…. for that.” He says in a creaky voice, sounding thrown off, and the words feel so alien tossed into the air like that. An apology. From Marc. It's enough to make the world turn upside down.

Vale can’t help it. He abandons his pretense, his show, his game, the minute everything twists. He takes three steps forward and the only thing that stops him from going further, pressing in until skin is on skin, is that voice in his head that cries out that he cannot be the first to break. But that apology keeps him close.

“Then why do you do it?” He demands.

“I don’t try to.”

A humor fuels him as he jolts one step closer, overriding that shame. Yet still he holds back.

“Liar,” he spits out, “as if you don’t know what this all is. As if you aren’t playing too.”

Marc still doesn’t turn, the sight of his back leaving a pulsing ache in Vale’s chest. The suit fist perfectly, and it is the one Marc had bought last year to replace that which he left at the ranch. Vale had sent the other one back, dropped at Dovi’s house along with part of him, and yet Marc never wore it again. Perhaps he believes it to be tainted, covered in memories of when Vale loved him and everything was better.

“I hate you.” He whispers.

And at those word, Marc does turn around. And there it is. What Vale had wanted now for what feel like years, what he had craved and begged for and gone half mad in his pursuit of, what he has imagined but never seemed to picture quite right.

Pain, blazing and forceful and real. Eyes not flinty or steely but sliced wide open. Hurt hurt hurt, so deep and true that it is almost difficult to look at. But he does, he steps even closer in an instant, pulled in by the entrancing sight, and raises a gentle hand to Marc’s cheek before he can even think. That cheek is warm and soft and it almost stings his hand. An electric shock to the system.

The younger man doesn’t flinch away from his touch. No, he pushes into it like it is all he could ever want, drops his eyes like he can’t stop himself, sighs and takes in a shaky breath. Then he blinks up with pupils blown wide, lashes fluttering a bit like he is ashamed.

“I don’t.” He rasps out, voice shredded and raw. It sends a shudder down Vale’s spine.

And Marc is gone. In one instance there, and then the next disappeared. Vale didn’t see him go. Maybe he has some secret power, the ability to turn invisible. Or maybe it was just that Vale’s mind had blanked out when Marc had turned around, latching onto the bleeding weakness in the other man’s face and words and everything. A wound that is exposed and rather than being sown tight. Marc had allowed it to be seen and felt and heard.

“Fuck,” he curses, reaching up hand to press against his face, cool fingers making his cheeks feel blazing. He stumbles back against the wall again, but this lean is not calculated in any way. It is the inability to stand without any support, it is weakness thrumming through his body.

He tilts his head back, moves his hand up to cover his eyes.

Fuck.

***

Germany 2017

It has been months of debate in his head. Uccio had been helpful, even if he had no idea what he was talking about in truth, and Vale had taken what was said to heart. Fight for what you want, don’t give up, push through the bad.

There was so much bad. But… but Marc had apologized. He had shown that it was not just Vale who was suffering, plagued by the memories of what used to be. He had exposed himself, whispered the beautiful truth that he doesn’t hate Vale, and torn himself away. And he had been avoiding Vale ever since, not in their typical way of games and coldness, but rather in panic. And Vale knows that he has stopped sleeping around, had heard one of the Honda employees complaining about how abruptly Marc cut him off when he passed by their garage one day.

That had made him feel like a child, a smile spread across his face so wide that when he got back to his own team, Jorge asked him if he had finally lost it.

He also knows that Marc is trying terribly hard to pretend that what happened at the awards ceremony was not real. He still says what he says in the press, still rides like an ass. But now there is a distinct lack of motivation in his face, and when Vale patted him on the shoulder in parc ferme, the man had gone all dazed and then jolted away with a reedy laugh.

When they are in Germany though, Vale sees something that makes his stomach drop. He watches Marc trying even harder than normal, pressing himself close to a dazed journalist, young and tall and handsome, and whispering something in his ear that has the man blushing bright red and agreeing. Vale doesn’t overhear it, but he corners someone who had and forces the information out of them like only he can.

That is how he finds himself outside of the Honda garage so late at night. The light is dim inside, and there are no sounds from within. A little angry fear sits in his stomach, fear that maybe he will open the door and find that Marc has succeeded. And he promises himself that if that is what exists there, he will end it all.

But when he finally lets the door whine open, all he sees is Marc’s back, sitting on his bike with a tired air. His arms are behind him, spread back like wings, and he doesn’t turn around when Vale walks in.

“I already said no,” The younger man says when he hears a shuffling step, “I’m sorry, I can’t. I know I invited you here, and I know you expected things, but I just… I can’t anymore.”

Relief, a beautiful feeling after so long without any, fills his body at those words, and he can feel his eyes burning hot with unshed tears.

“Why not,” Vale whispers, and his voice makes Marc’s head shoot up. When he turns around, there is a distinct fear on his face, before he covers it up with anger.

“What are you doing here? Get out.” He says lightly, voice tense and brow furrowed. But he cannot hide what Vale saw.

“Why not?” He repeats, and Marc is shaking his head, sliding off his bike and standing there with his legs firmly planted, even as his body sways. Like part of him wants to run, and the other part wants to stay right here.

“I said get out,” Marc spits, “I told you to go away, you have ruined something else for me and-“

“What did I ruin?”

Marc shakes his head again.

“I will yell, I will call out and they will find you here and the FIM will say you are cheating, and then I will finally win, and-”

Rambling, impassioned and angry and so much of an echo of what Vale has thought for so many months. Madness really, complete madness. How could he have not seen before?

“Marc, why did you send him away? Why did you say what you said last year? Why do you look at me like I broke you? Why do you not hate me?”

“Shut up, I said go away. I will do it, I will yell and it will be the only thing people remember and-”

And slowly, ever so slowly, Vale steps forward. Marc continues to spew nonsense, threatening the law and rules and regulations, ordering and begging and hissing like a cat. Wild and beautiful, just as he always is.

When Marc’s back hits the wall, and he has nowhere to run, that is when Vale stops. That is when he stills. He lets his eyes drop to Marc’s neck, throat on display and the faint circle of a bite scar obvious in such a low-cut shirt and he allows himself remember what it felt like to give that.

“Do you hate me?” He asks, and Marc breathes in deeply.

“Yes.” He whispers, and Vale smiles. A lie.

“Why did I ruin tonight for you? Why did you send that man away? Why can’t you look me in the eye? Why have you stopped playing our game? Why have you stopped letting them touch you once more?”

Questions upon questions upon questions. And Vale has no clue if they will be answered in words, but he already knows the truth by the look on Marc’s face.

“I can’t,” Marc breathes out, eyes glazed over as Vale leans in.

“I can’t I can’t I can’t.”

And Vale doesn’t kiss him. Doesn’t even let their lips come within an inch of each other, but he breathes out Marc’s name like a prayer, lets it glide over the younger man’s skin and watches as he shudders.

“Vale,” Marc responds, and in that moment it hits him that he has not heard Marc say his name in almost two years now unless there was camera trained on him. That is… God, how had Vale never noticed before?

“Say it again.” He orders, and Marc shuts his eyes tight but complies.

“Vale Vale Vale.”

And it is beautiful, so utterly heavenly. He can’t understand how he survived without it.

***

2018 Qatar

He doesn’t know what they are right now, but it is something closer to what they were before than Vale could have ever dreamed. It is stolen glances, and phone calls where they just breathe, and meetings held where they sit across the table and stare while they pretend not to. It is tossed out comments that means so much more than what is actually said, layers upon layers upon layers.

The first race of the season neither Marc nor Vale win, but they are still up there together, and when Vale winds an arm around the younger man’s waist, it feels like 2013 all over again. It feels like Marc is not yet a champion here, and Vale is his teacher once more, and they have a future that spreads so far with no end in sight.

When Marc presses by him quick after the press conference, whispers that Vale should join them in the celebrations at a local club, one meant for foreigners where the rich ones can ignore Qatar’s moral laws, how could he possibly say no.

He doesn’t see Marc when he gets there, all he sees is the crashing image of people, melded together in a hypnotic rhythm, eyes closed or wide open, bodies shifted close, a beat pulsing through it all as lights flash.

It is lovely, in a strange way. He has always enjoyed night clubs, likes how you can be the center of the room and lost in the crowd at the same time here. But right now he has one wish, one goal, one hope. And when a warm hand grips him by the wrist, he can feel it all hovering at the edge of something great.

He is slammed into the bathroom, and Marc Marc Marc, gripping him close. Their mouths crash together, slick and perfect, and he moans into it, weak to anything and everything that is happening right now.

“Vale,” Marc gasps, and it is just as lovely as the last time he heard it. It’s an enchantment, a spell he could never wish to break, and right now he refuses to even try.

“Missed this,” he gasps out, “missed you.”

The words end up pressed into Marc’s throat as the younger man pulls him in, bucking his hips up wildly, his hardness knocking into Vale’s in a way that sends electricity writing through both of their bodies. Vale presses him into the sink, revels in the little hiss that gets and allows it all to take him.

Moans fill the air as they rut against each other like animals, desperation twining through there bodies. Vale had not touched him like this in years now, had not really touched anyone like this in years. Any time he had tried, all he saw was Marc and it made him feel so sick that he immediately went soft. Humiliating at the time, but right now he is a little grateful for it. Because how could anyone else compare to this?

He is nipping at Marc’s skin, ready to suck wild hickeys there, dark and obvious. Ready to bite down on his scar, his mark, his brand. Reassert his claim that never really faded, and he knows that the moment he does, everything will finally slot back into place. 

But Marc pulls him off, stares up with manic eyes, and breathes out delicious words.

“Can I have your mouth?” He asks.

Vale hesitates. But Marc keeps going.

“Please,” he whispers, “please, please Vale. I have been- I have been dreaming about it, God I could barely sleep, I used to lay in bed and just picture it and I would-”

“Yes,” Vale interrupts, mind spinning with the imagery that has been handed to him. Marc, under covers, angry and filled with hate but unable to stop himself. Weak to the idea, weak to his fantasies, desperate and panting. Just like Vale was.

He sinks to his knees in the next breath, and then Marc is in front of him, clothes ripped down, pretty pink cock so dark it looks like it is going to burst. He looks up at the younger man, sees the awe there, and gets his mouth right there and slides down just to hear him-

A whine, earth shatteringly loud and high and so so so beautiful, so weak, and Marc bucks his hips forward. Vale gazes up at him as he goes, feels the weight on his tongue. Watches the way Marc is writhing underneath him and wonders why he used to hate doing this so much.

A power thing perhaps. But what more power could have than here, Marc’s pleasure his to ring out or stop at a moment’s notice. The younger man desperate and begging, voice untethered as Vale sinks down or pulls up, sliding his tongue of over a thick vein just to feel the younger man shake. God, it is so good. Every time he used to do this in the past, he made Marc lay down, unable to cope with being on his knees. But right now it is too good.

He himself is hard in his pants, but he still has enough pride to stop himself from grinding into the floor. He can wait, he can wait as Marc falls apart. Then, when the younger man is loose from an orgasm, soft and pretty and weak, he will take take take. The way Marc likes it, too much. Over the edge, already dazed from coming and ready to be take care of. Vale will take care of him. Vale will fuck him full, pull him close, and then they will leave together. For the first time in years he will sleep with Marc pressed up next to him and everything will be right again. He won’t have to pretend anymore, laying there surrounded by that shrine and dreaming of a better world.

He hollows his mouth just to hear Marc curse, sucks harder and harder and harder as the manic need to get there already fuels him. He will swallow Marc down and it will be like communion, a promise made that everything will be good forever. That Marc will come back to him, Marc will be his again.

“Vale,” the younger man cries out, and he is close, so close so fast. Vale has been sucking him for maybe three minutes, and yet here his with his thighs shaking, ready to burst. Marc missed him, Marc wants him, Marc still yields to him.

So perfect.

He ignores the warning tugs to his hair, presses in deeper until his nose pushes against the smooth skin of Marc’s pelvis, then he looks up one more time.

The younger man looks struck by lightning. He looks devastated almost, eyes round and wet and dark. He is mouthing something that Vale cannot understand through the daze of having his mouth filled, but it can’t matter. Probably more praise or curses, more proof of what Vale does to him.

One last tightening of the lips does it, and Marc is filling up his mouth. Vale swallows it down greedily, tastes the salty bitterness and rejoices at the beauty of it all. Like Lucifer being welcomed into heaven after a millennium in rebellion, Marc has come back to him. A fallen angel who has regained his wings, still so beautiful it only looks right.

He pulls off with a pop and watches, panting, as Marc collapses back, hand coming up to covers his eyes. Weak limbed and shaking and beautiful.

“Marc,” he rasps out, voice shredded from the cock that had been down his throat, “so pretty when you come.”

The younger man shudders aggressively, and Vale rises to his feet with a smile, his own hardness urging him along.

“Marc,” he whispers, “turn around. Let me touch, let me fill, let me take care of you. I will take you home tonight, I will have you again and everything will be good.”

Then he slides his hands to the younger man’s waist, presses in once more.  Desperation makes his fingers grip too hard, and he stumbles over himself, almost smashing his head into Marc, and laughing. It’s funny, not just the tripping part, but all of this. Giving Marc a blowjob in the bathroom and being able to find light humor in it all, a world like he never thought he could touch again.

“Marc,” he says in a pleading voice, “tatino, Marc, Marc.”

It will be so good. He can’t even imagine how it will feel, to finally have Marc again after so long without. Even better than the first time, because that had been all new. He knows what is waiting for him, he feels the rhythm of how they used to be sliding in, and that is the most beautiful part. A comfort rising along with the passion, and happiness, and lust and… and…

And love.

“Turn around, please. I want to fuck you with your face in the mirror, I want to see how you look when I slide in, I want to-”

“No.”

It takes him a moment to recognize the word, but when he does he stills. Then he laughs.

"You want to wait for the hotel?” He asks lightly. He really feels like he can’t, but then a new image of Marc spread out in the sheets, sweetly crying as Vale fills him, pops in. It is even more perfect, so perhaps he can wait.

“Okay,” he agrees in an instant, pulling back and grinning madly, “okay, we can wait. I will call a cab and-”

“No.”

This second one makes Vale fully freeze. Because this time Marc pushes him back with a calm hand, strong where Vale is suddenly weak, still wobbly from being on his knees. It’s confusing, especially because Marc’s face has changed once he refocuses his eyes. Flat and dead and empty. No pleasure left, no desperation remaining. A game powered down, a TV turned off.

“Tatino?” He asks, but the other man just turns around and starts washing his hands in the sink. Back to Vale, and through the mirror it is clear how placid he is.

Vale reaches out once more, lets his fingers graze against Marc’s shirt. But the younger man shifts a way, sending a chill through the air.

“Thanks for that, I guess,” Marc says as he shakes his hands dry. Then his gaze makes contact with Vale's through the mirror and his eyes… his eyes are completely empty.

“I have people waiting though.”

Vale blinks. Vale feels numb. Vale watches as Marc turns and leave. Watches as the door shuts behind him.

What.

What was that.

What just happened.

A burst of helpless humor floods through him. Perhaps Marc had not given up the game. A small kind of punishment, and he will be waiting outside the door with a laugh, before tugging Vale out of the club and into some car where they will touch touch touch.

But when he steps outside, there is no one there. And when he finds himself at the edge of the dance floor, there is no Marc waiting, eyes warm and teasing, a joke playing on his lips, calling Vale’s name.

He feels dizzy all of a sudden, air to thick and lights too bright, and too many people here. The club looks ominous now, like there are eyes watching him, watching this, and laughing. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, he doesn’t know what is happening. Marc was here, and now he is not. Marc had been close and beautiful, then he was suddenly cold and distanced. No care, no love, no… no anything. Months now of... of what? Of lies? Manipulation? It swirls through his mind, and feels so real that he just can't... he just can't. 

How can he exist anymore. He stands there blankly for what feels like hours. And just when he is about to turn, hide away and try to maybe comprehend what happened, he sees it. The crowd parts like the red sea, and Vale sees it. Somehow so terribly visible even with the revelry that surrounds them.

Bodies curved over another, head thrown back, gripping him close. Marc on the dance floor, eyes shut as two men grip him with hopeful fingers. Two men that Vale recognizes. Andrea Dovizioso behind, mouth pressed into Marc’s hair, chest to his back. And Casey Stoner, pulled in close in the front and looking terribly amused.

Vale stares. Stares stares stares. Really he can’t do much else.

Then icy blue eyes catch his.

Casey doesn’t smile, or scowl. He does not jerk his gaze away, looks like seeing Vale gives him no pause at all. But there is something in his eyes, a knowledge that is laced with something not quite sinister, but not quite kind. Like he has seen how this story ends, and while he does not feel bad for Vale, he has a human sort of pity for it all.

Vale jerks back, pain shooting through his chest. He takes in what feel like his first breath since Marc left him in the bathroom, painful and rattling. His mind is still in disarray, his body is still empty feeling. Denial at what he is seeing rises up, and Marc is not looking at him, and it is too loud, and his knees still hurt, and the darkness is constricting him, and the taste of cum lingers on his tongue and he can’t do this, can’t survive this, can’t take this.

The picture in front of him laughs so hard, he can hear the echo in his mind. Marc, taking his pleasure and leaving to let Dovi and Casey pulls him close. He looks lazy and free out there, reaching a hand up to tug at Dovi’s hair the way that he tugged at Vale’s, except far more gentle.

Nothing could get worse than this. Nothing else could be so heart wrenching, so life altering, so built just to tear him to little pieces.

But then Casey somehow finds it

Leans in, keeping eye contact with Vale in a way that is so perfectly cruel it must have been planned, and bites down. Hard enough to make Marc shudder, hard enough to have him laughing, hard enough that Dovi winces a little, soothing a hand down Marc’s side even as the younger man looks pleased.  And Vale knows exactly where he bit, has mapped that spot in his head so many times that he could find it blindfolded. Has dreamed of redoing it, but now now now.....

Now Casey Stoner has left his own teeth marks where Vale’s are carved, and there is no going back ever.

Marc lifts his head in an instant like he can hear those thoughts. Finds Vale’s eyes through the crowd like he knew right where he would be. Like this was all arranged, orchestrated, planned. Like he had seen Vale's heart wide open, and had decided it must be destroyed.

That blankness is still there. But suddenly it isn’t, and in its place is hell, burning and screaming. Then comes the mad realization that this was not Lucifer returning to God, head bent for a loving embrace, but rather the devil dragging his creator down with him. And it is shown perfectly there, flashing across Marc’s face.

The most angelically beautiful smile that Vale has ever seen, layered with all the fire of damnation.

End Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Marc didn’t really start planning anything until after Assen, when Valentino showed up at his motorhome and acted like he had any right. Because standing there and arguing, there is this tiredness that overwhelms him, and he is watching the wild look in the other man’s eye and wondering if this will ever end.

He hasn’t felt like a free man since 2011, when Valentino picked him and turned his world upside down in more than one way. Five years of this, five years of tears and pain and anger and sex and everything the worst of feeling could offer. Five years of feeling chained to everything that Valentino Rossi is, and most of the time enjoying that. But not anymore, not when there is too much darkness and hate to make it worth anything.

The older man refuses to let him go, even now. Even after he had tried to destroy everything that Marc was. He keeps his hold tight because Marc is his and he refuses to let go even of the thing he has mangled. Not that Marc can blame him when he himself refuses break the chain. He lets his eyes stare, he obsesses, he plays, he grins wildly when he gets one foot up. He stands in a club and flirts in a new dark way and adores how Valentino’s eyes dilate as he stares.

But Marc knows deep down that this will all only kill him. Every day it gets harder to breathe, every day he tries his best and the older man comes chasing after him. He needs to end it one way or the other, and he doesn’t have the strength to stop it, and Valentino clearly does not want to.

So he found that what he needs to do is cut off the sickness before it spreads. Make it so any traces of love are gone, make it so just the sight of him has Valentino feeling like he is being destroyed. The man has so much pride that the moment it becomes clear that there is no winning anymore, it will all end. Valentino needs to be the one to stop because Marc… Marc had thought he could. And he failed.

He hates that he still loves Valentino, hates that he is still weak to the looks, or words, or touches. Hates that he wants to play the game so fiercely that he allows himself to smile or laugh or say words that will only inflame the older man more. On top of that mountain he had thought he found some clarity, that he could finally move on. But the moment he came down, it had all come piling back on. The air thicker, the memories stronger, the weakness even more.

It is not all just that thought. It is the bitter pill he had swallowed all those years ago rising to the surface once more. The need to make Valentino hurt too, the need to make him feel like he has been taken apart. Nothing he could ever do will ever be equivalent to what Valentino did to him but he knows that this will come close. So really he is selfish more than anything. Weak and petty and vicious.

At the awards ceremony he is well aware what the older man wants, knows it the second Valentino held out his hand and proposed a dance with a smug smile. Something to latch onto, a weakness that can shape in his mind which will bloom into the ironclad belief that  once more that he is in control. That Marc is giving in, that the one to break first is not him. He will see that and it will be the only thing he can see. It will wipe his mind the way Marc has done many times before, it will work.

The first step is literally letting himself be off balance, pretending that all of his grace has disappeared so that Valentino can grow into it more and be more sure of himself. Then he follows him out, just like he knows Valentino will want, and forces himself to let the very real pain show, lets himself visibly react to the words and tell the truth. It burns him to his core to be so honest, but he watches the way Valentino’s face changes and knows that he has him.

The real nail in the coffin is the apology that he does not mean. Whispered with a turned back so Valentino cannot see the way his face pulls up in a snarl at what he is saying, a new falseness on top of a secret war. Marc had always been a very good liar, even if he kind of hates the way words slip put so easily. But all of it is necessary, the ends justifying the means. If he wants this to work, he needs to get Valentino on his back, belly exposed and believing that Marc would never cut in. He needs him genuinely weak, and he needs this to be a betrayal. You can’t have a betrayal without trust.

It all starts to build from there, little glances, lowered eyes, calculated shows of fear and weakness. It just makes Valentino look more and more intense, smugness permeating his body, delight at the way Marc bends again. It takes a lot of control for him to do all this, to hold himself down and plan plan plan. It will all be worth it, he knows, because the only thing Valentino will be able to understand when he looks back on what happens next is that he lost. And Valentino will finally… finally let him go. And Marc will be forced away too, unable to keep the hold he refuses to drop.

In Germany that moment with Bezzecchi is funny, and it puts him in an even better mood. No one was meant to be coming that night in truth, that lovely journalist had agreed to the show with a sparkle of humor that had Marc genuinely considering him, and Valentino had shown up just like Marc knew he would. Stepped into the room with a bullish air, and Marc had smiled the second he heard those steps. Pushed it down and said some foolish comment, so obviously a lie but as always accepted because it fit whatever story the older man had created.

That might have been his favorite performance, because Valentino looked enraptured. But it was also maybe his least favorite, because just for a split second he considered giving in. Valentino’s hands were so warm, and the way he reacted when Marc said his name was too good, and it would just be so easy. Falling back into bed, lowering his pride and accepting it all. He said the Valentino’s name, and there was no acting anymore. The crack in his voice real, the way he pressed into that hand real, the shaking was real.

He felt dizzy with the full-force of the older man’s attention once more, his soft touch and warm eyes and the way he didn’t even blink once just so he could drink Marc in even more. He… he missed this. He had forgotten that he missed this. Not, that’s a lie, he had always known what he craved, but having a reminder is like a stab to the chest.

But then he remembered all the years of pain, and how short the good times were, and the feeling he got when Valentino would treat him like something lesser. Then he remembers the cold fights, and snarled words, and how he had gone from having everything he ever wanted to living in a world that wants him dead in one day.

So he accepts that the path he has set out for himself will be the one he follows. Even if he knows it is not what he wants, not really. He steels his heart, and knows that perhaps he will never be happy, but at least this way he will be something like free. At least he won’t have this jittery fear coursing through every aspect of his life. At least he won’t be weak anymore.

By Qatar it had been two years of waiting and planning and forcing himself through it all,  and Marc knew that this was it. Valentino had been behaving like they used to, sparkling eyes staring across the room, phone calls where the older man would just let his mind pour out, softness, a beautiful weakness. When they were on the podium, neither one on the top step, Valentino had held him close and laughed and grinned and this was it. He whispered his invitation, ignored the in Dovi’s eyes and settled himself. He needs this more than anything.

Maybe not more than anything. Inside that bathroom, Valentino moaning his name, blinking up at him and smiling at the pleasure, he knows that he needs this too. Needs in like breathing, and it feels so good so good. Valentino rarely went to his knees, so him doing this now… well, it just shows how much Marc has him.

He could keep going. Let Valentino fuck him over the counter, crooning his name. Tumble back to a hotel room, hide his face in the older man’s neck and forget about everything. Crawl back to him, pretend any apologies had been real, and spend the rest of his life lying to try and get that little bit of happiness back. Maybe this time it would stick, maybe this time they would grow, maybe this time Valentino will be more than just an older man who loves the power.

But he knows that is not true, will never be true. And it is too late anyways.

So he pulls the rug, and lets his disdain show, and uses just like Valentino used him, and it almost breaks him. He is standing there after they are done, Valentino whispering so sweetly, calling him that terrible nickname for the first time in years, and he feels a horrific sadness building. He has to press a hand to his eyes to avoid the tears, and he can’t stop himself from mouthing apologies to the air, regret sliding up there right along with victory.        

He doesn’t know why he ever thought he could do this and escape unscathed. He was a fool, because it is Sepang all over again and a part of him is being torn apart, and this time it is all his fault.

That feeling almost threatens to destroy it all, so he shuts it off as fast as he can. Numbs himself and pretends that it is not Valentino but some nameless man he couldn’t care less about. Leaves. Finds Dovi and Casey and tells them to help him, and they must see it all in his eyes because they agree without a second thought.

It makes him feel manic, the juxtaposition of what happened in the bathroom, Valentino shakily touching him, face glowing with adoration that might be real, and the steady way they hold him here. Music pulsing like his racing heart, bodies around him that are a comfort and a hellish reminder at the same time.

He reaches up a hand into Dovi’s hair at one point, but he can’t bring himself to desperately tug and pull the way he would with Valentino. Grips it feebly, a show more than anything, and feels his body get more and more weak with each passing second. He can barely hold on.

When Casey bites him right there, right in the spot that pulses and stings more than any other part of him, he has to laugh to avoid collapsing. Has to pretend like it pleases him when all it does is make him ache. He hates Casey in that moment, is revolted by the way his mouth is pressed over that old scar, and yet is grateful at the same time. So he laughs and laughs and laughs to hide it all, voice high and reedy and on the edge of despair.

Dovi knows. Presses a hand to Marc’s side to steady him, a quiet sort of presence, questions clearly dancing in his mind, but too kind to do anything but help in any way that he can. Marc wishes he wanted him, wished he wanted either of them. But this is his curse after all, one he hates and loves in equal parts. Much like the man himself.

He opens his eyes when he feels Casey stiffen, turns his head like his gaze is being pulled by a magnet, and then there is Valentino. Parting the crowd like he is some sort of holy figure, eyes on them with a look of… of… Marc doesn’t know. He could be blank faced, he could be angry, he could be horrified, he could be destroyed. Marc can’t comprehend right now, can’t do this right now, too wrapped in fear and guilt and vindication, and success and a bone deep hatred for himself. But still, that cruel little part of him, the only part that had held any of his weakness back these past few years, lights up and he feels it show on his face. Valentino flinches, and the crowd seals back up, and it is all over.

Almost anticlimactic. No confrontation in a hallway this time, no poison spat at each other, no roar of a crowd out for his blood. Funny and tragic in equal parts, the ending landing flat and now all that exists is this pulsing hollowness.

“Is he gone?” Casey murmurs in his ear, and Marc nods, smile still shellacked onto his face, making the muscles there scream in protest for being held in the position for too long. Then he feels wetness on his cheeks, watches as Casey presses his expression into something filled with pity and loses it.  Buries his face in the older man’s shoulder, shuts off his brain, refuses to think for even a second longer.

And that is it.

***

In Argentina Marc feels like he can’t control himself. He is jittery during practice, jittery during qualifying, and really he just feels sick. Valentino is technically much the same as he was before Qatar. They hardly interact, they don’t see each other even in the paddock, and if Marc wasn’t so hyperaware, he would think the older man had disappeared off the face of the planet

Which is a good thing, of course. Qatar had been hellish victory; he has no need to see Valentino anymore. He has had some form of revenge, he won that battle, and there is nothing to hover over anymore. He is free, free from the torment of their games and his own debilitating weakness. Free from intense blue eyes that stare and the howl in the back of his head ordering hm to bend until he snaps.

Yet still he feels five seconds away from death as he sits in the Honda garage, watching the Moto2 podium up on screen. Alex had gotten fifth, so there was no need to be in the crowd, and he just didn’t have the leg strength to find his brother and give him any sort of confidence booster. He is hollow, and it just feels like maybe Valentino has won this one too. Because he should be happy, but all he feels is emptiness.

He stares at the screen with a bland sort of numbness, not really paying attention, when a casual voice startles him out of his thoughts with words he never expected coming out of that mouth.

“Thank you.”

Uccio, leaning against the wall, somehow inside the Honda garage even dressed as he is with the blue of Yamaha. He isn’t smiling or frowning, in fact he looks quite normal. Staring at Marc with flat eyes and the slight tilt to his head, as if he has more than just poison brewing in his brain, as if he isn’t there to see how much Marc is bleeding.  Which definitely isn’t the case, the man is evil, pure and simple.

“I don’t think I helped you with anything.” He responds coolly as he can, darting his eyes around to see if there is someone who can help him get rid of the man who has him cornered. But the engineers are focusing on the bikes, and Santi is not here, everyone else is in some sort of meeting that marc had opted out of. He frowns, perturbed and put off and far too scattered in the head to pull up his shields properly.

“Oh, but you did,” Uccio says, leaning in a little and a small smile lighting up on his face. Its discomforting.

“You finally got him to stop obsessing over you, finally got him to kill that weakness. You know, I can even admit that I was scared that he would go crawling back to you, but good job, you have solved that problem. So thank you, it was terribly kind.”

Then the man sighs, looking pensive and curious. There is an air of… not friendliness, but no more overt hostility. Like now that it is all over, Marc is not something to focus on. Like Marc really had done him favor, and that small shred of gratefulness has settled the other man.

“I don’t even know what you did. Will you tell me what you did?”

“Nothing nearly so bad as what he did to me.” Marc says immediately, shifting his eyes away, done with whatever this conversation is meant to be. Why can’t they leave him alone? It’s not like he hunts them down, and he has certainly never given any indication that he enjoys any of this. Why do mad men always seem to want to corner him, to see how he ticks and take him apart? Another curse, and one far less acceptable when it isn’t Valentino.

“Funny,” Uccio murmurs, “you’re probably right.”

A little blast of stunned humor goes through him at that, because he doesn’t think he has ever heard those words before from that mouth. The man is admitting he might be correct. What a world they live in. It must show on his face, because Uccio shrugs like he is answering the multiple questions that flood into his brain. Like he himself cannot believe what he just said.

“Are you on something?” Marc asks, because there can be no other explanation. Why else would the man even say something like that? Why is he even here?

“Valentino is my best friend. More than that actually, but even I know how he is. Vindictive, like all gods are.”

Marc snorts tiredly, losing any interest in what is happening. There it is, that ridiculousness that people always seem to echo about Valentino Rossi. A god, like that is any semblance of the truth. Marc knows him, even if he never wants to go near that again. He knows what the man looks like when he cries, or yells, or comes, or curses, or trips over his own feet and hits his head on the wall or feels loss so sharply he looks like he is going to be sick. No god would be so… so… so weak. His idea that Valentino is anything more than a man had disappeared many years ago.

“He is not a god,” He says lowly, “everyone always excuses the things he does because of that, but he is not. No more than I am, at least.”

“Yes. No more than you are,” Uccio agrees, “But I think that is where we differ. You seem to think you’re human.”

“I am.” Marc grits out, and Uccio laughs. The sound of it is grinding and uncomfortable, makes him feel like his skin is too tight. He hates it, hates this man with every fiber of his being. It’s not fair, not fair. How could Valentino love him, but seem to despise Marc so much? How can he indulge, and excuse, and accept everything Uccio does, but view Marc as some kind of villain to be destroyed?

How can Marc be accused of being a god, when everything seems to want him dead?

“No, no you’re not. That’s why the rules were always different for you. He can accept all other’s faults because he is indulgent. But you…. you are a threat. I am glad your reminded him of that. Maybe he will never win again, but he will go back to what he is meant to be, he will finally push down that human side that has always weakened him. As will you.”

Marc shakes his head at the insanity of it all. It reminds him of a conversation him and Uccio had years ago, of power and battles. He had talked like this then, although in different words, and it is just as ridiculous now. Just as revealing about the man in front of him and his twisted world views.

“You almost sound like you worship me.” Marc whispers, and Uccio scoffs, his first sign of dislike as he wrinkles up his nose. Almost comforting that it is still there, all the pseudo-friendliness had been unnerving.

“I can know you are a god and still hate you. Most people shake their fists at the heavens, it doesn’t mean they believe in it any less.” He says.

Then he pushes off the wall and comes to stand directly in front of Marc. Two feet away maybe, but Marc feels no warmth from him. Perhaps Uccio is cold-blooded, like a snake, or perhaps he is wrong, and he is the inhuman one. It would make the most sense, Marc has never met anyone who is so heartless before.

“So thank you.” He murmurs, and the sickest part about it is that he genuinely looks grateful.  

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.” Marc spits out, feeling a little panicked urge to reclaim even his own wrongdoings. He hurt Valentino because he wanted to, he ended it all to save himself, he played the game for so long to prepare. He destroyed it all to be reborn into something stronger and safer and maybe not happy, but also not devastated anymore.

“I know,” Uccio says slowly, “selfish, like any god.”

Then he is gone, rattling words trailing after, his game of gods left behind to fill the air and Marc’s head. It makes him pinch his eyes closed and try to steady himself. It makes him feel like he has just been dipped into hell and brought back up to earth. Madness, insanity, whatever you want to call it. Such talk will only bring pain. Such nonsense will only bring delusion.

He had held that delusion long time ago, believing he was something more than anyone else and reveling in the way Valentinos seemed to see that in him. But pain and rage and hate had taught him that to be human is much better than to be a monster.

Marc is terribly human, and he knows that. He knows that because he has his parents who ground him, his father’s laughter and the stern smile his mother gives. He has Alex, his little brother, a calm placid lake who looks Marc in the eye and shows no fear. He has the world around him, that he can touch with his hands, he has the blood that has been sliced out of him, he has the scars of the past, he has all that and more.

But it doesn’t stop him from feeling a little panicked. Because if that is how the world sees him, inhuman and viciously deific, then… then how is he supposed to act? How is he supposed to see them back? How is he supposed to hold on to all that is good and decent and human?

And… and how is he supposed to escape Valentino, the only other person who Uccio seems to think is just like him. How can you get away from singular understanding, how can you be free? If they are gods, then Marc is alone now. If they are gods, then there is no one else who could possibly understand. If they are gods, freedom does not exist.

Lining up for the race he feels like he is vibrating, and everything is too intense. The roars of the crowd sting his ears, the feeling of leather on his skin is too rough, the little details of everything around him too sharp. Locked in and far away at the same time, hyper aware of everything that there is and yet disassociated enough that he cannot comprehend anything that is said to him.

He glances at the other riders around him, something he never does, and he can’t help but feel like they are watching him. That they are waiting for him to fail, ready for the voyeuristic view of Marc losing his wins and crashing to the ground. That they don’t look at him and see a peer, but something to hunt down and kill, something more than human, something godly and beastly. And lonely, so lonely.

Maybe that is why when the race begins, he loses his grip on reality for a second. A false start, and then he makes it even worse by panicking and turning around to go back in place, cursing himself and feeling on edge. A childish move, one that may be forgiven for a six-year-old, but not a champion. It makes sense that he is slapped with a penalty for that, a drive-through one that means he will not see the front today. Means he will be the beast that prowls more than a racer.

It all tightens his chest, watching as the pack of riders are in front of him, knowing that they must be feeling some kind of glee, or maybe even fear. Right now he is the kicked monster, he is the horror behind them. Then he thinks of Alex, watching with disappointed eyes, and his father shaking his head, and Uccio, laughing at the fall of a god, and then Valentino… Valentino, smiling under his helmet as he sees Marc falter. Watching as the person who tried to hurt him is taken out by their own hand, by their own weakness.

He can’t handle any of this right now, it makes its home in his head and twines with that jitteriness to amplify everything bad.

So he kind of loses it.

He lets go of it all. His heart, his mind, his conscious, his humanity. He latches onto that feeling, the area that is so close to the edge that he feels like he is flying, and lets it take him. No longer in control, he watches in his mind as it all happens. Watches as he touches something he should never have, watches as he goes beyond.

Slicing past riders, cutting too close, disregarding safety and good sense all to… all to… he doesn’t even know. He just allows it to happen. Gives in to that beast that roars in his head to destroy every single one of them, the one he hears all the time but had always tempered.

Not today.

He pushes them wide, makes them throw themselves to the side to avoid him, clashes and cuts and scrapes and does everything that he has ever been accused of. He is aggressive and childish, he rides like a madman, and really he does not care about any of them. But something slowly builds in his as he goes, the idea that Uccio was right, that he is some unfeeling god who has no trace of human left inside. The idea that perhaps he is all that he has been accused of.

Flashes of the months of lies, pictures of Valentino’s face that night in the club. And Marc can label it now that he is no longer there, can see the devastation, the heart wrenching pain that he had caused. Such a familiar expression, one he has worn on so many occasions, but seeing it… seeing it is death. Knowing it was him who caused it is death.

He created that picture, and even if Valentino had destroyed him, he had done it back. No fear, no doubt, no soul. Cold and heartless, how the press had labelled him for so long now, how Valentino had described him that day in Sepang. Fulfilling it all and it blinds him as he rides, makes him not even notice the way they circle around him like flies, makes him almost laugh.

When he sees the burst of Yamaha blue and Rossi yellow in front of him, his heart finally starts to beat again. He comes back to himself slightly, feels a surge of something that is more than what he was feeling before and latches on to that in the only way he knows how. Needs to feel himself in pain maybe just to force down that disgusting inhumanness that had been rising ever since Uccio had spoken. And maybe it is also some sort of petty revenge that comes from the mindlessness, but that is the most human emotion of them all. So today… today Marc allows it.

He sees Sepang flashing through his head and a little vicious vengeance takes over his entire being. The club in Qatar had been a revenge, one for everything that happened outside of the track, everything that has occurred in the last seven years. But this…. this is for that day. This is for the bruises on his shoulders. This is for the lost points. This is for the fear that had flashed through him when it happened, the way his brain had struggled to understand. This is for how small he had felt walking back to his box, every camera trained him. This is for making him feel this way even now, for making him feel so divorced from all other people that one word accusing him of being something like a god has sent him spiraling.

He hopes it feels the same way for Valentino. Even as he doesn’t, even as he cries out at himself to stop. He hopes it burns.

When he feels Valentino goes down, he cannot help but reach back. Just for a split second, a spark of fear going through him, and he cannot see the other man’s face but he can feel those eyes, the heavy weight of them, and he knows. Knows that Valentino understands what he really wants here, knows that Valentino is perhaps the only person who will.

They will all see this as his recklessness. They will all see this as Marc not caring, and maybe even a select few will understand the connection to Sepang. But no one else will get how he had touched the edge of inhumanity, and that the pain he is forcing himself to feel is his cry against all of that, his denial and his desperation to be human. No one but Valentino.

But none of that matters. The older man is in the grass, and Marc keeps going. Tucks his head in and feels everything pulsing through his being. He will be even more hated for this, but… but who cares. His revenge has been completed, it is not just Valentino’s heart that has been bruised, but his body as well. And Marc feels human again, feels the searing pain of what he just did reminding him that his heart beats and there is blood pulsing through his veins.

When the race is over he goes over to the Yamaha garage, an apology on the tip of his tongue that would be a lie, but must be given just for the sake of the cameras. And Uccio yells in his face, and Valentino hides, and journalists call his name, and fans bay for his blood, and it feels like an ironic look back at the years after Sepang all over again.

Back then it was him that ended up in the dirt, and he was screamed at. Now he is the one who did the ‘kicking’ and yet he is still screamed at. It’s almost funny, and this time around he feels no fear for their hatred. The race is over, the revenge is done, humanity has been reclaimed, and Marc can move on.

But it hurts even still. Tightens his stomach as he realizes that there really is no going back this time, regret pouring in and making him duck his head. He knows that he will cry later curled up in the hotel room with his brother’s arms around it. He knows that this pain will not fade, that he will have nights where he dreams of what could have been. He knows that he will always look back on Qatar and Argentina with regret and guilt. But he welcomes it really.

Because at the very least, he is human.

End Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Casey understands too much about Valentino Rossi.

He really isn’t sure why. They are opposites in so many ways. Casey is reserved, Valentino is exuberant. Casey is blunt, Valentino spins tales. Casey is mature, Valentino has always been childish. Casey despises the spotlight, Valentino thrives in it. Casey lives life like it is, Valentino lives life like it is one big show.

Beyond that they had very much hated each other for a long time. Racing against the man had been hell, all the media games had been annoying, and the arrogance sometimes astounded him. Valentino has a god complex and Casey has never believed in any higher power, which really pissed the man off.

So they butted heads. Casey’s brutal honesty and Valentino’s slimy charm chafed against each other, created sparks that last even to this day. He refused to kowtow, refused to hold his tongue and when that tongue lashed out against Valentino, the reaction was never good. He never lied, he just told the truth and perhaps that is what pissed Valentino off the most.

It had been irritating, but he still couldn’t help but like the older man. When they rode against each other, Casey would laugh at those terrible jokes even as he was shaking his head. He would smile at the antics, even as the frustration built. There was just something you couldn’t help but admire about Valentino Rossi, even if he was stabbing you with one of his pretty little knives.

Which is why he couldn’t be pleased, or smug, or anything but filled with pity when he saw Valentino in the club. He saw the look on the older man’s face, always so expressive, and he just felt it. Felt that flicker of pity and understanding even as he knew he shouldn’t.

And then he bit down because, again, he understands too much about Valentino Rossi, and one of those things he knows is that Valentino is a possessive bastard who has a dramatic and rather canine habit of leaving marks on stuff he deems his. Like a silver bite mark on Marc’s shoulder. And like a dog, watching some other man covering up that claim would hurt him. So Casey did, and he has no regrets even as that pity spreads.

Really all of it was deserved. Casey had watched to two for years, watched as Marc bent himself into whatever position the older man wanted him in. Watched as they went back and forth, heard stories from Dovi that had him wincing just at the description. Then he had frowned his way through watching everything after Sepang because Valentino had done what he always does, decided that if he cannot be loved he will be obeyed, but made the crucial mistake of choosing Marc to try and break. As if the younger man would snap, or falter, or fall to his knees and beg.

No, Marc Marquez has teeth. And Casey quite likes that about him.

The months after Argentina the Spanish man… well, not changed. But he evolved, became something more than what Casey had seen before. Almost like he had aged multiple years in the span of a few months. He didn’t look old, or tired or anything like that, no, he looked… complete. Like whatever grip his childhood had on him was weakened enough that he could slip away, bounding after a future without any shadows following behind. Distancing himself from the past with slight smile, a keen comprehension, and an ironclad belief that everything was over.

It wasn’t the only thing he distanced himself from.

He didn’t become cold or withdrawn, no Marc was far too friendly for that. He still laughed, and it was real. He still made ridiculous jokes, and it was real. But he had this way of holding people at arm’s length now. A carefully curation of interactions so that you could assume at first glance that you are being let in, but then understand later that no such thing occurred. That Marc may smile and laugh and joke, but you will never get to see the truth of anything anymore.

It had all kind of been foreshadowed before. The younger men tended to ice up when he was upset, though usually that would melt or shatter, depending on how people (usually Valentino) responded. And beyond that he had always been distant from it all, holding himself back. But this is different, and in truth Casey doesn’t think it is a bad thing at all. Marc had been terribly vulnerable for so long, it may be better to be protected even if he is removed.

The first time Marc denied an invitation to their bed, Casey had just shrugged. That happens, sometimes you are not in the mood. But then the next time happened, and the next, and the next. Then it became terribly clear that Marc had moved beyond, that he had no desire any more to use Casey and Dovi for whatever it was he used them for before.

Saying ‘use’ almost paints Marc as some kind of villain, but that is not the case at all. When he says ‘use’ he means more like the way you use medicine to get rid of a sickness. You need it, you appreciate it, you take that pill every single night and feel gratitude and appreciation when it works. But when it is all cleared up, the pills will only do more damage. Make you weak and susceptible to a new kind of disease. Be a reminder of why you needed them in the first place. Marc is moving on, it would make sense that he would end something that only really appeared because he wanted to make Valentino jealous.

Dovi asked Marc about it only once, when Casey was not there for Spielberg. He reported back with. Sort of understanding but stumped look on his face, shook his head and said Marc probably just needs a fresh start.

So that was that. The fun went back to just the two of them, which was of course fine, and Marc went back into the strictly just a friend category. It didn’t stop him from pressing hugs to the younger man’s shoulders as they encountered each other, or from being extremely vocal in whose side he is still on, but there were changes. No more dramatic mountaintop monologues, no more shaking hands, no more watching Marc stare at the ceiling midway through sex and knowing his mind is elsewhere. Not quite the dramatic Shakespeare play it used to be.

Now Valentino? Yeah, he was a whole other story.

It wasn’t like it was before after that, but in very different way than how things changed with Marc. The younger man had moved beyond, had let go. While he may not be at peace with it all, there was nothing like the little pinch of hope that had kept him bound. He was loose, and while the freedom had taken a lot of pain to achieve, Casey knows that is exactly what the younger man is now. Free.

Valentino had let go too (or at least tried to)… in a very unique way. He did not treat anything with medicine, he did not leech out the sickness until everything was gone, no matter how hollow he felt. Instead he dug it out, sliced off the connection with a blunt knife, and with it went part of himself, the hand removed because the grip wouldn’t loosen.

Before this there had been this intense need to be near, even in his hatred. A fixation that everyone could see, an anger that paired with a refusal to ever let go. It had been a special kind of difficult to watch, one that convinced Casey that it would all be never-ending. More than that it had been concerning to a certain degree, because Valentino focused his everything on Marc. It was almost like the way he used to behave during his championship winning days; obsessive, smug, unable to let even a single thing go. But Marc was not the prize or the championship in this case, no. Instead he was racing as a whole.

But after Qatar? After Argentina? It was like the pipe was shut off. A stone wall where a man used to be, iron-fisted, sharp-tongued, and ever-critical. Not in the familiar way, not in the temper-filled, petty, childish way. No it was almost clinical. Every single quote carefully curated to try and protect himself, removed and above it all and most of all, no grey area.

What’s more, everything became more widespread. Marc didn’t just hurt or betray Valentino now, no, he was ruining MotoGP as a whole. Marc wasn’t just unfair and aggressive, no, now he was actively malicious. He wants everyone dead, he wants everyone torn apart. Not so terribly different to what was said before, but a step further. A step scarier.

The newest and most bizarre of all of this was not the bitter coldness, or the careful extravagance in the words. No, it was what bound it all together, it was that thing made Valentino act like he never had before, it was what has him going on the defensive in all ways.

Fear. The kind that chokes you, the kind that makes you paranoid, the kind that frames even the slightest movement as preparation for an attack. Valentino Rossi was afraid of Marc Marquez, and it leaked into everything that existed.

The older man didn’t cower, he had far too much pride. He didn’t shrink back, he couldn’t possibly bring himself to. Instead he acted like a city under siege. Pulled everything tight, shut off access, sealed everything firmly behind thick, immovable gates. Even his academy, ever recruiting, seemed to stop its steady growth all in the same of self-protection. Casey had heard the last new student had been in 2017, an oddity when dozens had come and gone since its founding. A closed society now where the door used to be wide open.

He was still Valentino Rossi, still everywhere all at once. He laughed with people, curled his arm around fans for pictures, did interviews, shared videos. And perhaps it was a lot like what Marc was doing, pulling back. But in the younger man’s case it stemmed from a very accurate understanding that the world would always believe him to be the villain. Why bother trying, why bother allowing people to see you when the only thing they seem to do with it is find the very worst and justify their thoughts?

From Valentino this step back was simply out of that terrible fear of one person. Fear that Marc could grab hold of his heart again, fear that his weaknesses will become clear to all others, fear that he will lose a part of his mystic, fear that it will be exploited by someone who knew him well enough to understand what would destroy him. And Valentino was clearly terrified of what it all meant.

But Casey understood. What had happened in Qatar and Argentina with Marc had shattered the picture of invulnerability, more than even what happened in Sepang. There he had run under the assumption that he was too trusting to see, that Marc had taken advantage of his kindness and tried to kill him but failed. That Marc had been manipulating him since the beginning, so how could he have possibly understood how the younger man was? If he had he would have stopped it in its tracks, because Valentino Rossi is not weak or stupid.

But this last time? Yeah, even Casey could see that any pain the man had now was all his fault.

He had let Marc in again, he had foolishly believed all was forgiven, he had been lied to and swallowed it all down with the idiocrasy of someone who could see everything that was happening and yet was willfully blind. He believed that Marc had done all manner of cruel things on purpose, had experienced the betrayal and how cruel the younger man could be.

And yet he went right back for more. because he was undeniably weak. Vulnerable. Unable to stop Marc from taking what he wanted. Dazed and confused as the person he knew was bad did exactly what bad people do, and really he couldn’t even label himself the victim because what victim watches doe-eyed as they are torn apart? And no real victim implied that it could have been stopped before the blow landed. If Valentino had been less of a fool, he could have ended this round before it even started, saved himself the pain of Marc pulling away that night and leaving him with sore knees and a bad taste in his mouth.

Yes, Casey understands well.

Mostly because a very drunk Valentino is telling him all of this.

“A vicious snake, curling its way around you and all you can be is hypnotized. You know it will bite because it is a snake and that is what they do, and yet you still allow it to happen. He’s a beast Casey, you need to escape or run from him, he will do it to you.”

Rambled words, slowed speech, fever-bright eyes and a strong grip on his shoulders. It would be funny if Casey didn’t feel so concerned. Not for Valentino, but for himself and his sense of peace. Which had been ripped away the second he saw wild blue eyes lock on him.

They are in Japan, a small event held to celebrate the championship being won. By Marc, of course, and even as the younger man was the center of everyone’s minds, he had held himself above it all, kept close to his brother and lacquered on a thick coat of politeness that was simultaneously charming and off-putting in a rather eerie way. Honestly, it was kind of impressive even as Casey was creeped out.

The only other rider who came close that wasn’t related to him was Dani, hovering at his shoulder and looking a little bit like one of those small dogs that think it is 200 pounds with sharp teeth and a vicious bark. Funny, really. Casey is well aware that out of the two of them, it was Marc who people should really be afraid of. Like the little dog is guarding a rottweiler. Or panther, Marc fits cats much better than dogs.

Dovi had gone off to speak to some sponsors for Ducati, Marc was in his odd little bubble, and as Casey hid in the corner, avoiding all of the mess that he hated so much, Valentino showing up hadn’t been that weird even if it had unfortunately disturbed his peace. They weren’t friends, but they were far from enemies these days, even after what happened in Qatar. Really, it probably doesn’t really matter that he was the one Marc was pressed up against in the moment, Valentino’s real focus that night had clearly not been on the ‘who’ but rather the ‘what’ of it all.

“You’ve said that,” Casey murmurs, sipping at his drink (non-alcoholic) and wondering why on earth he hadn’t just walked away the second he realized how drunk Valentino is. There is a fine line between being polite and being an idiot who gets stuck in conversations like this after all, and it seems he has tread far too close to that line tonight.

“I am trying to help,” The older man insists, “He is charming, he is beautiful, but underneath it all he uses people.”

Casey laughs. It feels like the biggest joke in the world to hear this all coming out of Valentino’s mouth. Of all people to complain about someone using their beauty and charm to manipulate, it is the one who very famously used both things to form what is essentially a worldwide cult.

“So he is your most successful student then?”

That startles Valentino into silence, eyes narrowing as he tries to process what Casey said, mouth pressing into a thin line. He doesn’t seem quite there yet, but he at least has enough understanding to be irritated by what was said.

“He is a great rider, even if he is dangerous,” he allows face twitching as he forces out a neutral sentiment. Well, as neutral as he can apparently get. A compliment wrapped in an insult. Honestly that is probably how most of Valentino’s thoughts around the younger man move these days. Beautiful, but evil. Fast, but dangerous. Funny, but manipulative. Charming, but cruel.

It’s funny that he thinks Case is talking about riding though. No doubt Marc has learned things from Valentino in that realm, but if anyone had met Marc before and after 2011, they would know what the real change had been.

“No,” Casey says dryly, rolling his eyes because he can’t stop himself, “I meant he learned how to handle the world. Kudos to you for that, he is a sight to behold.”

The older man is blinking rapidly, leaning against the walls and boxing Casey into the corner, taking up all the space like only someone who believes they deserve it would. Arrogant even in the depths of his drunken despair.

“What do you mean?” He eventually asks, and there is enough genuine confusion in his voice for Casey to sigh and decide to be kind. Damn his morals.

“You taught Marc how to be like that, to use people. It’s what you did to him after all.”

“No,” Valentino spits out, “no, no I didn’t. I loved him, he used me.”

Delusional. What nonsense.  But Casey supposes when people have been treating you like some kind of deity for years, you tend to lose your grip on reality.

But then it hits him that no one had probably said it yet. The public took Valentino’s side, Uccio probably only encouraged him, the academy riders would never openly disagree, and every other person in Valentino’s life seems to go along what he says and does. Marc probably didn’t even say it, too much pride to openly talk about what Casey had always seen as the biggest problem between the two of them. What had made him frown the first time he heard the whispers, what had firmly placed him in Marc’s camp even from the very beginning.

“You were his teacher, and fourteen years older. He was a teenager. How could he have possibly used you?”

Valentino gapes at him, eyes glazed over as he processes what was said with naked disbelief painted across his face. Then his brows furrow and he retreats a bit, defensiveness in full effect.

“He was nineteen,” he mutters, “he was an adult and he was the one who-”

“I don’t care,” Casey interrupts, “I said that he was a teenager who couldn’t have possibly used you. Everyone knows how much he adored you, everyone knows that the person who had all of the power was you. And you liked that, it’s why you got so angry when he tried to have more.”

“That’s not true,” comes the sputtered words, Valentino’s cheeks stained red and the disbelief of ever being spoken to like this striking across his face. Casey doesn’t know why it is unexpected, he has never been one to hold his tongue. He has said far worse to people.

“It is, and I am not your therapist, so figure all that out for yourself.”

“I didn’t come over here to whine,” Valentino insists, which is funny with how untrue it is, “I came here to warn you.”

“I need no warning,” Casey says smoothly.

“You do. He might be fun to hold, and it may feel like he wants you but-”

“You could have saved yourself the trouble,” Casey interjects, “we are not anywhere close to a romantic relationship. He is a friend, and all you are doing is pissing me off. No warning needed for something that does not exist.”

That sends the man into a bout of silence, staring at Casey like he is trying to figure out if the words are true or not. Then he runs a hand through his hair, fluffing up the curls and making himself look even more wild, and laughs.

“I saw you two in the club,” he says a little madly, “he was using you to mak-”

“And we let him. Me and Dovi were more than fine to be the props in that scenario, but Marc hasn’t… that whole thing is long over, and it is entirely fine.”

Then he slides his gaze back to across the room, where Marc is still holding court and Dani still hovers. Watches as someone shifts a little too close, as Marc gives them a bland smile and subtle rebuff. Watches as Dani steps in between them, frown on his face. So stern, which doesn’t really suit his height at all, but whatever. He looks like he is fending off the admirers, a protective chaperone hovering and ensuring that no suitors try and steal their charge’s innocence. Though, with the way he lingers with his own eyes, he could just as easily be one of the suitors too. Food for thought.

“I think he has moved on to something else,” Casey murmurs.

Valentino turns slowly to look where he is staring, and when he sees it, his back stiffens right up. But he does not seem jealous at all really, it is more like his fear has increased. Like just the sight of Marc, smiling and surrounded, has made him want to retreat. Maybe that is the real reason he had cornered Casey in such a way. So the smallest glance at Marc couldn’t make him want to run away.

“I’m sure he has, he has always drawn people’s eyes. And always enjoyed it.” Valentino murmurs and turns his body like he doesn’t care. But his eyes stay latched on, intense and fixated and very very sad. But now, hopeless in a way they were not before Qatar.

“I am saying this for your sake and not his,” Casey says after a moment, when it becomes clear that Valentino does not have the strength to look away right now, “You need to figure all of this out. You need to get over everything and move on. Marc will not come back to you anymore, and all you are doing is making everything more difficult for yourself. It’s stupid.”

“How is this for my sake?” Valentino mumbles.

Casey sighs.

“Because he has already shut it all off. But you? All you are doing is reopening that wound over and over again. You might have let go on paper, you might have cut out a piece of yourself to do it, but if you are over here ‘warning’ me then clearly you haven’t gotten it all out yet.”

He ducks under the older man’s arm, watches as Valentino doesn’t even register that he has moved. Pity rises back up. He wonders if he would react the same way if something like this happened to him and Dovi. A ridiculous hypothetical, mostly because both of them are too smart for all the nonsense, but still. He might also feel unable to control himself in that regard.

“We aren’t friends,” he continues, “but I can’t help but like you. I’m being honest when I say that when people finally understand what really happened, they will not look back on everything and see a wronged hero who had to deal with betrayal from a villain. They will see a petty old man who lashed out when the teenager they dated wanted to be their equal.”

Then he turns to walk away. But a raspy, angry voice makes him pause.

“He threw you away too. How can you be on his side after he threw you away?”

Casey doesn’t turn, too tired of all of this to look at Valentino again and feel that strike of pity. Too filled with a very human disdain for this whole situation to really care all too much right now.

“He threw away nothing, he just moved on. The difference between you and me is that I can release things. You? You held on too tight until the person who used to adore you hated you. And yet you still can’t let go, even as you pretend to. Sad.”

Then he leaves and finds a new corner to hide in, away from the sight of Marc being the center of the universe, and that new maturity weighing on him. Away from the vision of Valentino and his sad, drunk eyes. Away from the way he can feel for both of them, and the way he can hate for both of them.

This is why he avoids people. Too much nonsense that makes him care.

By the end of the night Casey has successfully avoided any more drama and watched as Valentino hovered around a bit more before leaving, pulled out by Luca and one of his boys, eyes glazed over and looking lost. Marc is still where he has been the whole time, waiting for people to be done with coming to him for his favor, like a young king. As he is wandering around looking for Dovi, he almost runs headfirst into someone he hardly even recognizes.

“Ah,” the young rider says, blushing a scarlet red, “sorry.”

Bagnaia, one of Valentino’s pseudo-children, small-faced and shy looking. Also the rider who is the favorite to win the Moto2 championship this year.  A talent, even if his mentor is crazy and stuck in a show of his own design.

“Have you seen Dovi?” He asks, not even bothering to introduce himself, and Bagnaia only looks more flustered, as if Casey talking to him is something to panic over.

“No,” he squeaks out, “I… Vale told me to watch Marc, not Dovi.”

Then he slaps a hand over his mouth like he wasn’t supposed to say that, somehow turns even redder, and retreats into himself, stepping back like he hopes that Casey will leave.

But who would leave after hearing something like that?

“Oh?” He asks, cocking his head and stepping closer, “why did he tell you to watch Marc?”

The younger rider steps back, darts his eyes around the room like he may find some kind of escape. Then he very quickly  deflates like a balloon, and Casey gets this heavy feeling that the kid in front of him is far too honest and pure for this apparent spy mission.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles, ducking his head, “he told me to stay and make sure Marc didn’t go home with anyone.”

Casey hums, and internally winces. Pathetic man, what happened to letting go?

“Valentino is very drunk, I would disregard that order,” he says bluntly, “your friends are all gone, you should probably head back to whatever hotel your team has. Me and Dovi can drive you if need be, you are a bit too young to be walking back alone.”

But Bagnaia shakes his head rapidly, looking panicked by the suggestion.

“No, no, no need. I am more than happy to stay really, and besides I thought that I would-”

But he cuts himself off again and Casey stares, watches his red ears and how his eyes dart over back to where the Spanish rider is, and the way he genuinely seems honest when he says he would rather stay here and watch Marc than leave. Like Marc is something worth watching, like he didn’t really need to be convinced to stay behind and spy, even as he is clearly uncomfortable.

Ah. It clicks into his mind, and a rush of humor blasts through him. Valentino’s little student has a crush. Isn’t that funny. A new twist in the script. If Casey thought the play was wrapping up, apparently he was terribly wrong.

“You thought that Marc might offer,” he finishes, and the choked look he gets is amusing. As if Bagnaia thought he was being anything close to subtle.  It almost reminds him of Valentino, the way the younger man lets every emotion show on his face. There is guilt there, nerves, a flustered embarrassment, and then if he stares real hard he can see it. A little bit of dazzled focus, all for the man across the room.

“No,” Bagnaia protests, “No I thought I would get a cab back. Valentino left me money.”

Casey shoots him a look of disbelief.

“Show me the money.” He orders dryly, and Bagnaia sighs, lowering his eyes to the ground.

“There is none.” He mumbles, looking a little bit pathetic as he finally gives up. But now that he has, he turns himself back to watching Marc, and this time Casey notices that he does not even bother pretending. The fascinated look on his face is quite clear.

Casey turns to watch too, takes in how Marc looks under the lights. The way he laughs, how it seems to burst out of his body. His mouth wrapped around a straw of a drink, glancing up at whoever is talking. Bagnaia swallows, and yeah Casey gets it.

“You sure chose an interesting person to be into.” He mutters, and the young rider doesn’t even move, too focused. It just… it’s a little unnerving. Once again Casey is reminded of Valentino, but it is the look in the younger man’s eyes that does it. Too much, too intense, too… fascinated.

Humorously, tragically, he wonders if Marc will ever escape from the hold he seems to have over crazy Italian men.

“What’s your name?”

“Pecco.” Is the mumbled reply, and Casey sighs to himself. Why is he even doing this? He wants to leave, he wants to find Dovi and go back to their hotel and ignore all the drama the paddock always seems to have. First it had been an inappropriate age-gap and student-teacher relationship that blew up so badly that they had the most public break up of all time. Now it is a young rider having a crush on their boss’s ex, who happens to be the student in the previous relationship. What a world.

That is why Casey likes to fish so much. No drama when you are alone on a boat, and even if the fish were having their own thing, Casey can’t understand them. So much more peaceful than what humans have to offer.

“Okay,” he says flatly, “Pecco, I will be blunt, Marc is probably going home with someone tonight, from the looks of it Dani and Jorge. If that is what Valentino wants to know, then there you have it, but I doubt you will be getting a ride, or a shot.”

The younger man’s face pinches, and the look he gives Dani is so resentful that Casey gets another flashback. Valentino’s scowl years ago when they pulled that prank, having all the riders in the paddock flirt with Marc just to watch him get jealous. Another terrible echo that immediately has his skin prickling.

He should probably stop all of this before it snowballs into something that will just make everything so much worse than it already is.

“Don’t be an idiot, Marc is pretty and interesting, but it is not worth getting on Valentino’s bad side. We will drive you and you will try to be smarter in the future.”

The frown he gets is layered with a few emotions. Irritation, disbelief, denial, and a very subtle layer of understanding that at the very least is promising.

But apparently it is not enough.

“No, no, I will stay.” He says quietly, eyes steady and intense, “I can handle myself.”

Casey sighs. Well, he tried, but this is no longer his problem. His part in the play ended when Marc decided it would, and that is that. Besides, he much prefers the easy simplicity with Dovi more than anything else.

Thankfully at that moment he spots his boyfriend across the room, appearing tired and like he wants to leave. A blessing from the heavens, and Casey feels his body relax the second Dovi looks at him, a small smile appearing on his handsome face.

“Right,” Casey says, patting Pecco on the shoulder, “good luck with that.”

Then he walks away. Away from any more of this story that clearly is not ending yet, away from whatever scenes that may arise from Bagnaia’s hungry eyes, away from the way Marc is sitting there unaware of just who is watching him, away from however Valentino will react when he finds out. And he knows Valentino will find out.

When he reaches Dovi, he tucks into his side, laces their hands together, and tugs him out. The cool night air is a contrast to the sweaty inside of the venue, and he turns his face up to the sky to see how many stars he can spot. The city lights drown them out a bit, but there are a few twinkling through. Not nearly enough. Another case of humanity ruining things.

“Why were you talking to Pecco?” Dovi asks and Casey shrugs.

“I think a new act is coming,” he mumbles, but Dovi just laughs like Casey is speaking nonsense. They walk in silence for a bit, a breeze ruffling their clothes and the quiet sounds of a city at night sleeping around them. Peaceful, even with all the people. During the day it is a different story, but Casey can appreciate their surrounding a bit with the cool calmness of night.

“We should go for a hike tomorrow.” Casey suddenly says out of the blue, “I hear the mountains in Japan are great, and we have a few days before we head to see my parents. Might be nice.”

Dovi hums his agreement, pulling Casey closer to press a kiss to his cheek, and it is just nice. The peace, the quiet, the man he loves with him, no worries deeper than what time to get up tomorrow.

He doesn’t want to think about Marc’s problems anymore, he doesn’t want to stress about Valentino, and he tries to wipe this new Pecco stuff out of his head like it was never there. This will happen as they happen, but Casey will not waste any more energy on any of it. He could care less about what is chasing him off stage as he exits.

It’s not like he'll be in the next scene.

End Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Jorge enjoys watching.

Not like that but rather he enjoys watching the games that get played between all of the riders in MotoGP. The politics, the fights. It had always been a highlight of this career, because in sports things tend to get dialed up to a hundred on everything. All love is heaven-sent, all hate is hellish, all arguments become explosions for the entire world to see. It has been years of observing it all, picking little pieces, putting his own voice in just to watch it make everything worse, and sitting back to see how everything changes depending on who has the most power. A modern game of thrones, if you will.

He loved his little tension with Dani that led to something more, he enjoyed seeing Valentino toy with Max Biaggi, he laughed when he saw the way Marc slowly took over Honda, he shook his head at every little antic he had seen. It was all amusing, even if he got the negatives of being around such things. It was all entertaining.

That was why when he first met Marc Marquez, he sat back and waited. Valentino’s obsessed eyes spelled trouble for all those involved, and as he has witnessed (and experienced) there is no type of hate so vicious as the one Valentino Rossi creates. But on the opposite side, there is no type of love more cloying than what Valentino creates too. A proper trap, one that many people have fallen into.

Did he feel bad for the young rider? Yeah, a lot. Mostly because in the beginning, he wasn’t playing any games. He was too filled with hero worship and the bubbling joy that came from having your idol want you for that, so mostly it was just sad but interesting. Then slowly it became more, and the chiquito made it clear that he was not willing to go down without a fight. So brilliant entertainment once more.

This would be the point that Dani would call him heartless, or scold him for the way he views people, but he can’t help it. The world isn’t a game really, but it is always a form of spectacle that he quite enjoys and who is he to get in the way of it all? None of it is serious anyways, things always settle, and fake or real apologies get tossed out. The show moves on, the world keeps turning, and if he can get some laughs out of all the stupidity, why bother feeling bad about any of it.

But really he had never seen anything so vicious and personal as what happened with Valentino and Marc. Truly it was painful to watch at some points, and he remembers standing there and observing it all with a small shred of horror, a feeling he is not particularly used to. Even his ever kind boyfriend looked like he was about five seconds from ripping heads off after Sepang, and for Dani to be that mad… well, that part Jorge didn’t love.

He was shocked when whispers of Valentino and Marc getting back together sprang up, especially because it seemed that it was the older man crawling back rather than the other way around. But then from what he heard it all went up in flames again, this time lit by Marc's hands, and so he kind of just shook his head and let Dani vent about it all. His boyfriend really cares about his (soon to be ex) teammate a lot, ever present and sweetly observant, always there to be the steadying hand.

That relationship is a whole other bag of worms that Jorge can’t really say he understands. Resentment paired with indulgence, overlaid by a protective instinct that had Dani playing bodyguard even before he really even knew Marc that well. When Jorge asked him about it once, curious why the younger Spanish rider seems so important, Dani had just gone quiet. Then he said something cryptic about respect. What Jorge really thinks it comes down to is that Marc had Dani’s posters on his wall as a kid and showed him a unique kind of appreciation that the older rider had not experienced in years. Dani may be kind, but he still has an ego, after all. Having a pretty young talent looking at you with big eyes and seem genuinely admiring must have been quite pleasant.

Perhaps he should not have been surprised then when Marc eventually ended up trailing behind them up to a hotel room in Motegi, looking rather satisfied with himself. Dani had been hovering around him all night, and when he shot Jorge a certain look, it had been quite clear what he wanted. So of course he had just smiled and asked if they needed any condoms.

Marc tosses a dirty smile his way as he leans in to open the door, letting a hand press to Jorge’s stomach teasingly as he slides past him to get inside. Like a cat curling its tail around your leg as it passes, a little beckoning movement.

“Thought you still had that thing with Dovi and Casey?” Jorge comments idly, curious but not caring too much, and Marc laughs.

“Ah, too many memories there. You two are a clean slate.”

Dani rolls his eyes, forces them into the room faster, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, and Jorge is amused. He must be worried about any pictures circulating, or any rumors that may arise, and had been mumbling about feeling watched since they left the party. Always vigilant and sensible, but apparently not so much when it comes to Marc. Or Jorge really, but that is beside the point.

“Yes, should be fun, I can’t argue against the benefits,” Jorge breathes out, and the grin Marc shoots him is brilliant. The younger man shifts to starts to undress, revealing tanned skin and a body that he had always know made for a pretty picture. He couldn’t stop watching if he wanted to, but maybe that has kind of always been the case for most people when it comes to Marc.

“Jorge,” Dani murmurs, shifting close as if looking for some kind of reassurance that all of this is really fine, and he immediately pulls the smaller man in to press a kiss to his cheek, eyes still on Marc.

“Have fun cari, I certainly will appreciate the view.” He assures, mostly because it is quite the truth. Jorge has always enjoyed watching (yes in that way now) and to have two such beautiful people to admire… well how could he be upset about any of it?

It had been Dani who first brought it up, a whispered confession one night pulled out of him by teasing fingers and a wicked smile. It had made him flush bright red in the moment, and Jorge had smiled and abused that knowledge viciously, just to watch the way the man he loves was so weak to the idea.

It’s not that Dani wants more. If Jorge had said no or even given a single idea that he was uncomfortable with it, the other man would have erased it from his mind.  And really, Jorge doesn’t even think the whole thing is romantic or really even that sexual. Yes, Dani is attracted to Marc, but if you get down to the core of it, the whole thing probably has more to do with protectiveness than anything. He has always had a soft spot for his young teammate, always felt responsibility, always was the first to step in the way and warn people off.  So Dani wanting to spend a soft night (or maybe more than one) touching him? Ensuring he has a good time?  Taking care of him in a place where Marc will so obviously be the one letting go? It makes sense.

He doesn’t really pay attention to the detail of it all. Mostly he just leans back in the chair, relaxes, and takes it all in. Every sound is soft, every movement lazy and languid. A pretty pretty picture, one that makes the entire hotel room feel glowing and warm and happy. More than a few times Marc calls out for him, urging him closer (and clearly used to getting his way) but Jorge just waves him off with a laugh.

This is for Dani after all. And there is no greater enjoyment than seeing the man he loves get what he wants (and probably had wanted for years now).

So Jorge watches.

Once they are done it is him who takes over, lazy boned as they are. Brings over a warm damp rag, wipes them off even as Marc complains quietly. When he presses a soft kiss to Dani’s mouth he feels gratefulness pour into him, and smiles at the sensation.

Marc leaves an hour later, muttering something about needing his brother to sleep, and that is that.

They are resting, Dani pressed into his chest, when Jorge asks.

“Was it what you wanted?”

A small hum, hands that had been trailing designs over his skin stilling as Dani thinks.  Jorge waits because that is what he has always done when it comes to the smaller man. He had spent years waiting before, what is a few seconds now?

“Yes. I’m going to miss him after all.” He finally says carefully, and Jorge laughs, pulling him even closer than he already is.

“Well I’ll have him next year, so I can make sure everything he is okay.” He assures, mostly because the little tightness of worry in that voice was a bit too pronounced for the afterglow.

Dani sighs, leaning back so he can look Jorge in the face, eyes pensive.

“He doesn’t need protection,” he murmurs, “he's an asshole. I guess I’ll miss the way he needed me more than anything.”

“What did he need?”

More silence, and Dani looks far away. Like he is all the way back in 2013, watching Casey Stoner wave goodbye and welcoming a fresh-faced kid with too much talent into his team.  Like he is still able to corner Valentino and warn him to be careful, like it isn’t already too late.

“For someone to treat him like a person.”

Jorge tilts his head, brings up a hand to curl into Dani’s hair and smiles at the way the other man presses into the touch, eyes dropping slightly.

“Most don’t.” He observes placidly, and Dani nods slightly in agreement.

“They all look at him and see… more. Like with Valentino, and then they hardly even notice what that does to a human being. They will never learn their lesson, and Marc doesn’t enjoy it.”

A raised eyebrow has Dani sighing.

“He likes the attention, he likes the show. He doesn’t like the inhumanity, and I worry that when I am gone that is all he will get.” He mutters, then flushes a little as if his thoughts are embarrassing. Very sweet, as always, and Jorge kisses his brow to assure him of that.

“Okay, you’re probably right. But then… what did you need from him?” He asks, because underneath it all there was the quiet part that Dani seemed unable to mention. The fact that while Marc Marquez might have needed him in some regard, he also had his own desires and hopes and needs that the younger man fulfilled.

A laugh, and Dani fixes him with a fond but exasperated look.

“You know me too well,” he murmurs, “…I needed him to treat me not like a person. I needed him to look at me and see more than what I am.”

Jorge sighs, pulls Dani’s head back down again and as always finds himself baffled by those two and their relationship. He doubts Marc thinks about it so much, he doubts most people even see, but it really is quite odd. For all intents and purposes Dani should hate Marc. He took his team, he destroyed him on track, he pushed more and more and more until the whole world revolved around him and Dani was shoved into the corner. Jorge would hate a teammate like that, he did hate a teammate like that. He knows he is good, but being side by side with someone like that is always bizarre. But even that isn’t the same because he beat Valentino. Dani never got that, and it should have ground him down until all that was left was echoing resentment.

But not him. No he stepped back with an acceptance most racers don’t have. He kept that respect up, and he gave Marc what he needed, now even in bed. And in turn he got what he wanted apparently, someone who did not look at him and see all of the failures and what-could-have-beens but saw one of their favorite riders whose races they used to watch with awe.

Maybe Jorge will never get that. He’s a world champion, and some days he is reminded how much Dani lost and gave all in the pursuit for something he was never able to touch. He imagines after so long feeling like that, having someone like Marc look at you and see the good must have felt a like a balm to a wound.

“You’re too kind.” He mumbles, and Dani huffs out a laugh. In the cool silence of the hotel room, world still around them, it sounds loud.

“Sometimes. Other times I am very selfish. Tonight was one of those, I think.”

***

It becomes a thing, during the rest of the season, to have Marc dip in and out of their whole situation. Not so regular that he comes to expect it, not so rare for it to be a shock. If he had to label it anything, it seemed that every time Marc Marquez needed some kind of grounding, he came beaming straight for them.

Dani, for his part, seems content with it. He doesn’t even bother asking anymore before allowing Marc in, knows that Jorge likes the whole thing probably as much as he does. Tumbles down and takes over and Jorge watches watches watches, almost as amused at the scene in front of him as he is turned on.

He still doesn’t join in. At first it had been because he simply didn’t want to, content to eat them with his eyes, but as time moved on and the sight of the two men tangled together, naked in the sheets, became normal, it was less about that and more about the knowledge that the second he touched, he might just get tugged under the waves too. It’s too late for Dani, with his attachment, but Jorge can remain above it at least.

Because Marc is perhaps worse than what he had assumed. It had always been quite clear how much the younger man had drawn people in, it was always quite clear that he was aware of the effect he had. But there was a heavy difference between the feeling you get when you watch Marc ride versus when you see him laid out, doe eyed after coming and so picturesquely vulnerable it almost makes you want to bottle it.

He sort of gets how Valentino lost his head now.

But really all of it is fine. Jorge is more than happy to have a guest in their bed, Dani is content, Marc is enjoying himself, and life is relatively settled.

In Valencia thought… in Valencia things go from fine to objectively terrible in a matter of seconds.

Because plastered over everyone’s phones are pictures from that first night.

Marc, pink cheeked and laughing, one hand pressing into Jorge’s stomach in a terribly obvious tease. Dani, peeking behind them, looking nervous but flustered. Jorge with a fascinated look on his eyes, leaning in to follow even as his hand twines with Dani’s.

Obvious, too obvious. And if it wasn’t clear, snapped pictures of Marc leaving the hotel a few hours later, ruffled and tired, a stark hickey on his neck, made it as transparent as a sparkling lake.

Jorge had been stone faced when he first found out. A call from his media team, panicked at four in the morning. Questions on if it was real or just terrible coincidence, and he couldn’t lie about any of that.

Really it is none of their business, but when he arrives at the paddock that Friday, all eyes are on him. Him, and Dani, and Marc.

It’s complete madness, questions thrown out from left and right and all Jorge can do is duck his head and keeps walking, ignoring the fact that his private life is now decidedly public. His very very private life. While they were a generally known couple, everything had always been kind of out of the way. That was how Dani liked it, after all. Private, but not secret, like so much of who he is.

In truth Jorge doesn’t care that much. People had always speculated about the romantic lives of so many of the riders, active imaginations churning out whispered rumors, cheeks pink as they imagine things. Most of the time you just ignore it, partially because it’s a little strange and partially because it really does no harm. Let people wonder, let them imagine. Acting bothered would only confirm things

But this is not speculation or imagination, this is pictures on display. This is the story of the night clear, this is the truth being dropped in front of them and hungry hands grabbing on, thrilled to have some new happening to focus their everything on.

Still, he wouldn’t really care. A far as he knows, Marc doesn’t mind either, had waved it all off with his typical cheerfulness. But neither Marc nor himself have ever been Jorge’s priority in most things, and especially in this.

Because Dani cares a lot.

“I knew we should have been more careful.” He says in a quiet voice when Jorge ducks into the Honda garage, conscious of the looks the team gives him and of Marc across the garage, looking no worse for wear but on guard. He nods when Jorge enters but goes back to whatever he was talking to his engineers about. Casual, but perhaps it could be a façade. He is quite the actor.

“We were careful,” Jorge murmurs, shifting in to sit there until their thighs are pressed together. Dani frowns, brow furrowed.

“Not enough. I felt like we were being watched and yet I still let-”

“No,” Jorge cuts in, “no you don’t get to blame yourself for this. Whatever weirdo followed us and took pictures is the problem. The hotel staff who let it happen are the problem. Never you.”

Dani just shakes his head. And Jorge hates this so much. If it had just been him, everything would be fine. If it had just been Marc, everything would be fine. But Dani cares, and so now Jorge does as well, and all of it is just… not as fun as these things usually are.

He sighs, leans back until he can survey the garage, wonders if it was anyone here who had done it. Wonders if it was anyone in the paddock. A lot of MotoGP personnel had been at that same hotel, after all. Very easily they could have snapped a picture, sold it for thousands to some shitty publication who will put aside their morals in order to get attention.

“Ducati said they might sue,” Jorge murmurs, “apparently you need permission from the owner of a hotel before you take or sell any photos of guests there, so we might have a decent case on our hands.”

“You can handle that,” Dani mumbles, “I don’t have the energy to be petty about it.”

Then he hesitates, casts a glance over at Marc like he is holding something back. And Jorge of course knows him too well, pinches him lightly on the leg to urge him along. When it becomes clear that Marc is wrapped up in whatever he is doing, Dani shifts close, and speaks in a low voice.

“Casey told me… Casey told me that Valentino had left one of his riders behind to watch Marc that night.”

Jorge blinks. Then he narrows his eyes.

“That’s… a coincidence. Which one was it?” He asks plainly, and he sees Dani cringe a bit.

“Bagnaia, in Moto2. The good one.”

Ah. The little mousy looking thing. A talented rider and had always seemed like a decent kid. Quiet, as far as he remembers, and always polite. But perhaps he has learned more than just riding from Valentino.

Like how to be a terrible person.

“I’ll talk to him.” Jorge murmurs, tone a bit icier than he intends it to be.  Dani just nods with a stormy look in his eyes, face set and accepting of whatever Jorge plans on doing.

Maybe he is more protective of Marc then he had previously thought, because the idea of all of this just coming right back to Valentino again… well, it really just pisses him off. Marc had done all he could to get away, and if this is the older man trying to reignite the fire… well, Jorge might not be so neutral this time around.

So when he spots a slight figure, loping along casually, head ducked, eyes on the ground and looking like he is talking to himself, he snatches the kid up and carts him behind of the motorhomes without even saying a word.

For his credit, Bagnaia tries to seem unfettered by it all. He had sputtered out something that sounded like ’why’ and ‘practice’ when Jorge first grabbed him, but when it became clear that there was no escaping this, he simply allowed himself to get dragged along and then stood there with arched eyebrows. Startled like a stout but trying to pretend like that is not the case at all.

“I-” Bagnaia starts, and then flusters when he seems to realize that he has nothing to say. The bravado drops a little bit, and he blinks rapidly. He looks terribly young. And terribly confused.

“Why did you do that?” He asks weakly, and Jorge sighs. The kid doesn’t seem like the type, soft as he is, but people can hide anything. He still should just ensure it.

“I heard a rumor.” Jorge says carefully, and Bagnaia blanches. Then he gets a complicated look on his face, a strange mix of resentment and denial and something terribly petty. It paints the younger man’s face into something far more vindictive than what it was before, adds an edge to Jorge’s thoughts.

“Me too,” Bagnaia says tightly, then drops his eyes, as if he is ashamed of himself, “though not so much a rumor I guess.”

Jorge hums. The distant sound of people chattering makes him dart a look over his shoulder, conscious that cornering a young rider and very clearly trying to intimidate him would not be a good look. Especially not now.

“No, not so much. And not what I was talking about.” He says sternly, jutting out his chin and feeling a bit of sadistic humor at the way Bagnaia’s eyes shutter at the confirmation. Maybe there is more to the kid then politeness after all.

“I heard that you were left behind to keep an eye on Marc that night.” Is all he says, and it takes Bagnaia a second to comprehend what exactly he is implying. He flushes at the initial words, caught so clearly, but when it sinks in, he surges back, appalled.

“What, you think I took the pictures?” He chokes out, and Jorge tilts his head in response.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “a… seventy-five chance that you did it at this point,”

“Seventy-five?” Comes the aghast exclamation, and Jorge nods, stepping closer until Bagania pushes himself back, a flicker of wariness dancing across his face. Nervous just like most people are around Jorge. Or maybe it is just the kid's natural state of being.

“You’re Valentino’s student, you were left behind to spy on Marc, and then in the same night pictures of him are taken. What would you think?”

The younger man opens his mouth. Then he shuts it. Then he deflates like a balloon.

“That I did it.” He mumbles, and Jorge sagely nods. At least he seems to have a shred of awareness, contrary to his mentor. The older rider could be found at a crime scene, blood all over him, weapon in hand, and still insist there is no evidence against him. Thankfully that trait has apparently not passed on.

“I didn’t.” Bagania says weakly, and Jorge sighs.

“You know I can’t take your word for it, right?” He says slowly, and the younger man lets out a defeated noise before nodding.

“What would make you believe me?” He asks quietly, and Jorge just holds out his hand, expectant even as Bagnaia makes a pained face. But he won’t budge on this one, not for a long shot.

Another sigh, a mumbled curse, and then a slim phone is being pressed into his hand, password murmured as he clicks it open. Jorge is aware that someone who is really that guilty would never hand their phone over so easily, and honestly he believes Bagnaia didn’t do it. But might as well take some time to snoop, information is oh so helpful after all.

Not that he thinks he will find much, the defeated kid in front of him doesn’t seem to be the type to hold secrets. But when he opens up the photo app, the first picture is Marc, wrapped around a bike with his head tilted back. Ostensibly a racing picture but rather… pornographic in a certain manner.

The look he shoots Bagnaia must be as judgy as he feels.

“I-” Bagania starts, looking like he is about five second away from a breakdown, “I am a fan, okay.”

“In what way, exactly?”

“Um,” The younger rider swallows, “many ways. Please don’t tell Vale.”

Jorge snorts. Laughs internally at himself for seeing anything foreboding in this kid’s face, and continues scrolling. Bike pictures, ranch pictures, some photos of the sun, a few of a little dog, and more of Marc. He clicks through each one, all arguably racing focused, all also with a certain… edge to it.

“You are… a little strange.” He observes, and Pecco makes a wounded sound.

“I learn from them. Lean angle, that kind of thing. It’s not… it’s not weird.”

“Sure,” Jorge mumbles, and keeps going. He checks messages clicks through little back and forth with his friends, goes through his Snapchat, searches through the DMs of all of his apps. Finds nothing there so he goes hunting through emails and the trash and any possible place he could maybe find something. He has to be sure, even if he is almost 98% certain at this point that someone so transparent could not have done it.

“This in invasive,” Bagnaia mumbles and Jorge shoots him a smile.

“That’s fine, I could go back and tell Marc that you might be the one who-”

“No,” comes a little almost yell, and Jorge smiles, continuing. It’s always easy to handle people once you figure out what they care about, after all.

Onve he is content, once he has learned anything that might be of interest, he lazily hands the phone back to Bagnaia, who snatches it away and cradles it close like some kind of wounded bird. The look on his face is flayed open, nervous, and a little angry. Though if he is angry about his phone being searched or something else, Jorge doesn’t know.

“Right, Thanks.” He says flatly, and then turns to go. But a panicked grip on his arm has him raising his eyebrows and stopping.

“That’s it?” Bagnaia sputters, and Jorge gives him a mystified smile. Should the kid not be happy to be freed? He had looked so nervous before just from Jorge looking at him.

“Do you want an apology? Fine then, I am sorry you were so suspicious and I had to do that.” He drones out after a moment, when Bagnaia says nothing and just stares at him expectantly.

“No,” the younger man responds, eyes dropping to the ground in a rather shy manner, “no, I just… is he okay?”

Jorge blinks. A laugh busts out of his chest, terribly amused by the question. But when all Bagnaia does is stare at him with a serious face, cheeks pink, he stops. Then he sort of cringes a bit, because what rom-com forbidden love bullshit is this exactly? Whatever is going on might be… interesting, but he is pretty sure that Marc has no idea he’s being so admired by one of Valentino’s students. Although, it would be funny if he found out. Hm.

“Oh, you’re serious. Yeah, he’s fine. Not his first threesome, not his first public scandal.” He says off handedly, and the mention makes Bagnaia look a bit downtrodden, lowering his head before smiling a bit sadly.

“That’s good. Vale was worried.”

Jorge’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline as he processes the words. Because really, what nonsense is that?

“Valentino… was worried. Valentino, the man who tried to commit as close to murder as he could get? That Valentino? Not a new one I haven’t met yet?”

That smile presses together a little more, clearly amused by his words, and Bagania shrugs.

“In his own way. Paced around his motor home for hours.”

“Jealous.” Jorge says flatly, but the young rider shakes his head, gets a faraway look in his eyes.

“No, not quite. More defensive I think, kept muttering about legality. You should have seen the look on Bezz’s face when he realized what Vale was saying.”

“What’s a Bezz.” Jorge says blankly, and that startles a little laugh out of the younger rider, quiet and light. When it happens, it instantly make his face brighten. He looks less like a startled rodent in that moment, and more like a handsome young man.

“He won’t like that.”

Then he hesitates eyes flickering around for a bit, before they awkwardly land back on Jorge. Stiffness crawling back in now that there is no humor to guide him toward something more natural.

“Will you… tell Marc that not all of us hate him. Some of us still remember what it was like before. Even if Vale tries to make us forget.”

“I’m not a messenger pigeon.”

Bagnaia sighs.

“I can’t exactly tell him myself. Might get put in the stocks, or something. Anyway, I hope you find out who took the pictures. It wasn’t right and trust me when I say there isn’t a single person who isn’t angry on your behalf. Even Vale.”

Then the younger man smiles once more, slips away (giving Jorge a comically wide berth) and is gone, disappearing around the building and darting off to wherever he had been going before he was cornered. Probably the Moto2 practice, which started ten minutes ago. Oops.

An enlightening conversation, though not for the reason he had expected. Valentino defensive of Marc, after everything that has happened. Though perhaps it is more of his ridiculous possessiveness, a sort of ‘I’m the only one who can hurt you’ kind of thing. Or maybe not, he seemed to have no issues before arming his fans and pointing them in Marc’s direction. It could be nothing, but still, something to think about.

Dani seems relieved when he reports back, shoulders dropping and an instant calm spreading across his face. Jorge sighs and reaches up a hand to tug a strand of his hair, and when Dani bats him away then smiles softly, he feels himself finally relax. He hates when the other man is upset

“They got the articles taken down.” He says, and Jorge shrugs.

“I thought they would. I told you Ducati’s legal team would-”

“Not Ducati,” Dani interrupts, a strange look on his face, “apparently it came from Yamaha. Some sort of support for you, if you would believe it.”

Jorge stares. Tries to comprehend, because really he knows who runs that team inside and out. And after what Bagnaia had just said….

“Well… I am certainly surprised.” He says slowly, and Dani nods in agreement.

“Yeah, opposite of what we thought before. Anyway, I’m glad it wasn’t Bagnaia.”

“Bagnaia?” Comes a voice calling across the room, and he glances up to see Marc has snapped out of whatever focused trance he has been in, face openly curious. The engineer he was chatting with gets a frustrated look and attempts to catch the riders attention once more, but when Marc stands to move away, they just throw their hands up in the air.

“Why are you talking about Francesco, did something happen at the Moto2 practice that I didn't see?” He asks.

“No, no,” Dani assures, “we were just...”

Jorge cuts in.

“He told me to tell you that they don’t all hate you. The academy riders that is.” He says inanely, echoing what Bagania had said in an effort to avoid telling Marc the truth.

“That’s kind,” Marc says wanly, but he narrows his eyes.

Dammit.

“What else though?”

Dani sighs, and when Jorge looks at him, he apparently decides that it isn’t worth it to hide what happened.

“We thought maybe he had been the one to take the pictures.”

Marc tilts his head.

“Why? Francesco is a good boy.”

Jorge laughs at the innocence of that statement. Because yes, Bagnaia seems like a good kid, but perhaps Marc wouldn’t be saying that if he knew all of the borderline sexual pictures the younger man had saved of him on his phone. Or maybe he still would, who knows how that crazy man’s brain works.

“Yes, yes very good, and it wasn’t him. But….. he was also told to spy on you by Valentino at the party in Motegi.”

At that Marc’s face storms over, smile twitching away to be replaced by something far tighter.

“Ah. I see," He says calmly, "one moment please.”

Then he abruptly marches right out of the garage, air around him intent and focused. Jorge watches him go, amused and confused. When he turns back to Dani, he finds the other man staring into the distance with a fond look.

“Where's he going?” He asks, but Dani just shakes his head.

“We will find out, I'm sure.”

And they do. An hour later, all that the journalist are chattering about it when he walks by them to return to his garage is Marc and Valentino. From what he catches, Marc had all but cornered the man in his garage, the two had a spectacle of a fight, and it was public enough for everyone to pick up on the words that were shared. Which were not exactly… pleasant. A roaring show if any of the anecdotes say anything, fire and brimstone and the works. Even more dramatic than normal.

He shakes his head when he hears it, mostly because he was quite sure that Marc had decided to remain above it all. Move on, stop caring, all of that healthy type of stuff. So much for that. Maybe he will never understand.

“I heard about the fight. Any reason you are so protective over Bagnaia?” He asks later that night when he spots Marc as they all shuffle out of the paddock, sleepy-eyed after a day of practice. A non-sequitur that had the younger man blinking at him, before breaking out in a wide smile.

“I’m not.” He says smoothly, and Jorge shakes his head. It isn’t even a lie, which makes the action even more incomprehensible.

“I don’t think I will ever understand you.” He murmurs, and Marc laughs, bright and loud and happy. It fills up the entire area, and he watches as more than a few heads snap up to catch the sound. Marc Marquez, always an attention grabber.

“You don’t need to,” he says cheerfully, “just be glad I like your boyfriend.”

Jorge snorts.

“Ouch. Not even like me? I’ve seen you naked, if you recall.”

“So have a lot of people, you aren’t special.” Marc quips back, and then he breaks away, stepping toward the Honda motorhome with a bounce to his step. Jorge doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t try to continue the conversation. He has learned when dealing with the younger Spanish man that these days he tends to do what he wants. Why bother stopping him, especially when the results are always so interesting.

Still, he can’t stop himself from being curious.

“Marc,” he calls out, getting a glance back for his trouble, “really, I had thought you were done with him. Done with the fights, and the games and all of that.”

A little stretch of quiet, and then that smile goes more thoughtful. Quieter, less brilliant, but still glowing, Jorge looks at it and for the first time understands what Dani means when he talks about Marc the person versus Marc the rider. Because undeniably in front of him right now is the former, and perhaps this is really his first time seeing it.

“I am,” Marc responds lightly, “But… they aren’t talking about you and Dani anymore.”

Then he turns around and leaves, shutting the door of the motorhome behind him with a soft click. Jorge stares after him, and he cannot help it after a moment. He just laughs.

What a person he is, and now Jorge can officially say he is in too deep, even if he doesn’t quite get why. He has never and will never understand Marc Marquez, just like he never truly understood Valentino. But he has a feeling that maybe, just maybe, he has gotten a first step towards both today. That he has sort of gotten a look at the person being both of their facades, seeing what it is that truly makes people get so attached.

Marc with his kindness, allowing himself to be tugged back in to take the spotlight off of Dani. Valentino with the worry he pretends not to have, quietly directing his team to be the first to do something, all under the guise of helping Jorge. None of it real, all little shows created to make you think otherwise, to hide the squishy heart underneath all the bravado and spectacle,

How fascinating.

Whatever else is going to happen between those two, Jorge has no doubt it will be a story for the ages. Good or bad, he doesn’t know.

But it will certainly be something.

End Chapter 10

Chapter Text

“What’s that room anyways?”

The question echoes out across the living room, slipping innocently from Cele’s lips, and the way every single person tenses up is almost comical. Franky feels it wrap around his head, the humor that such a simple thing can affect so much. A basic question really, yet it has a storm cloud rising on Bezz’s face, and Pecco is biting his lip so hard it is turning red. How much power words can have. Or, well, words that have to do with a particular Spanish rider.

But it has been that way for years now.

“Storage,” Luca says vaguely. The others mumble their agreement, avoiding eye contact with their youngest rider and pretending like the temperature of the room didn’t plummet the second it was mentioned. Pretending like they are back to watching the TV and aren’t trying to think of the best ways to avoid this topic.

“But I hear people in there sometimes at night.” Cele remarks, staring off into the distance in that spacey way he gets sometimes, clearly not realizing how heavy the air has gotten.

More tense silence, then Franky clears his throat and speaks in the most serious voice he can muster.

“It’s a ghost. Didn’t Vale tell you La Tana is haunted?”

Cele blanches, and the only sound is a hysterical little laugh that comes from Bezz, who flops back on the couch and covers his eyes like he can’t deal with this.

Honestly, Franky is doing his best to handle this. But sometimes he feels about five seconds from grabbing everyone by the shoulders and shaking them until some sense knocks around in their skulls. He would never do it, of course, but the urge is always there, and every day, his control gets thinner and thinner.

“Did someone die in there?” Cele asks in a whispered voice.

“Yes,” Luca says bluntly, then he is off the couch, retreating to his room like he always does when someone brings anything close to this topic up. Franky gets it. Luca was one of the ones like him, who was there for a while before everything fell apart. He feels how it all pulls the violin strings too tight in the same way.

But none of them are like Franky. He had been the first, he had been the one who slept in the room across from Marc, he had been the one who saw them, Valentino pressing the younger man up against the door as Franky awkwardly waited so he could return to his room. He had seen them when they were good, then great, then bad, then great, then weird, then terrible. Perhaps no one knows what he knows. Not Bezz, who hates what he doesn’t understand. Not Pecco, who is fascinated by what he doesn’t understand. Not Luca, who will always take Vale’s side, even when his brother is in the wrong, even when he hates it all.

Definitely not Cele, innocent as he is to all of this. He hasn’t even seemed to realize yet that Valentino hates Marc so much (or at least pretends to) not for racing-related reasons, but because the man broke his heart.

Maybe that is their fault, though; even the mention of the man’s name is taboo in the house. So when they find some trace of it, they hide it away or throw it out. The goal is always to never have Valentino find it. Because when he does, it is whisked away, and Franky knows it ends up right in that room.

Franky is the only one who is aware of any of that stuff. He is the closest, after all, had known even on that first night. Had heard Valentino creeping inside and woken the next morning to the door sealed shut and every trace of Marc gone. It had felt strange, like waking up in a different world. La Tana and Marc had kind of been one in the same; every trace around the building was created for one person and one person alone. Without all that, it just felt… empty,

If it had just been that, Franky could have forgotten it. If it had just been that, maybe the room wouldn’t feel so cursed or strange. Maybe they could all walk by it and not feel the chill from underneath the door, as if it is twenty degrees colder behind that door even though they are all in the same building.

But he knows that Valentino has something in there that must be an echo of memories, a whisper of the past. He knows that the older man sleeps in there sometimes, sneaking out in the morning and believing no one can catch him. He knows that after Argentina he heard the sounds of destruction, yet still heard the click of a door that night. Still felt the older man’s presence in that room until early the next morning when the click came again.

So when he tells Cele that it is haunted, he isn’t really lying.

Later that night, when the rest of the academy has padded off to sleep, tired after a day of all the preparation the 2019 season will need now that January is here, he finds Cele sitting at the kitchen counter, pensively staring into the distance.

“Go to sleep bambino,” Franky mumbles as he moves to fill up his water glass.

 “Vale will only scold you if he sees bags.”

“I will,” Cele mumbles, dropping his eyes to the ground and shifting a little, “it’s just… my room is next to that one.”

His voice kind of wavers as he speaks, and his ears tinge pink. Embarrassed at having to admit that he is afraid of ghosts a little, as all teenagers tend to be. Franky sighs, puts down his glass and blames himself for all of this. They just should have told the truth.

“There are no ghosts here, not really,” he says slowly, and when Cele’s eyes flicker to him, he tries his best to look honest and open and not like he is still skirting around a topic no one wants to broach.

“But those noises I hear…”

Franky sighs again. Pulls up a chair and decides that if no one else is going to be honest about this whole thing, he might as well be the one to do it. Cele needs to know eventually. Most of the time things are fine, everyone is happy and laughing. But those moments where the air is quiet or Valentino looks far away should be understood.

“It’s not real ghosts, and there is no storage. It’s Marc’s room.”

Cele blinks.

“Marc….o?”

“No Marc. Marc Marquez, Vale’s first student. Surely you knew that; everyone did. They still all talk about it even years after that whole thing ended.”

That’s another truth. The public doesn’t really know the more personal side of that whole thing, unaware just how deep the connection went and just how much it made both men bleed. But what they do know is that Marc was Valentino’s student, one who the older man adored. Well documented photos of hugs in parc ferme, clips of them training, articles comparing Marc’s style with Valentino and how it changed after 2011. There is even a rare slice of old footage from 2011, Valentino picking Marc out of the crowd with a glittering smile.

 To the public, it was just a betrayal of trust. It was a student turning on their teacher and beginning to surpass them. Valentino was the hurt party in that perspective, and they all just see him as this veteran who tried to help but was rebuffed by the arrogance of youth.

To the people who knew though, it was, of course, more than that. All riders, most people around the paddock, even a select few reporters. They had seen too much to not understand what it all really was. Had watched hands pressed against each other under the table, had seen them pressed up against each other at parties. And those who considered them friends (or as close as you could get in MotoGP) knew in totality that Marc and Valentino had been in love.

But, he thinks as he looks at the puzzled look on Cele’s face, they are starting to hit the generation that wouldn’t know what Marc and Valentino were. The ones who were just starting to come up when 2015 hit. Hell, Cele was probably fourteen at the time, no thoughts toward the romantic lives of the top riders. They will see what the public sees, know what the public knows and draw their conclusions from that.

He wonders how that will alter the story. He wonders if the tides will change and Marc will eventually be the innocent, and Valentino the villain. Maybe. Maybe.

“I know he was a student. I guess I am just… confused. I always thought one of us must have moved in when he left.” Cele says slowly.

Franky shakes his head, tragically amused at the idea of something normal like that happening. If Valentino had done that, perhaps things would be smoother now. As it stands, there is a ghost in the house if it is not a traditional one.

“Vale wouldn’t let anyone. Locked all of Marc’s things in there, sealed it shut. He’s the only one with a key, it’s that one with the orange tag that he carries around with him all the time.”

“But why are their sounds th-” Cele starts but cuts himself off abruptly as if he had a mad thought. Franky gets a feeling he knows what it is, a feeling that the younger rider’s brain is running a mile a minute trying to find a reason not to believe that thought. But he won’t find one, of course, and so he lets him struggle for a bit. Always better to let kids come to their own conclusions, of course. They are more content to believe it that way.

“Vale… goes in there?” He asks flatly, and shoots Franky a look like he expects the older rider to start laughing at the question. As if the idea is ridiculous, when it is in fact very, very real. Still kind of funny, though, in a rather second-hand embarrassment kind of way. Valentino is very easy to perceive. But maybe that is normal, he is not used to hiding much of himself from people.

All Franky does is nod in response.

“…Why?”

Franky leans back on the counter and slowly shifts his eyes to dart around the living room and kitchen. Everything in it, all that surrounds them, is a story to be told that the young rider could not understand. It’s the past leaking into the present, and the cause of so much silence that Cele has always seemed startled by. Unfair of them, perhaps, to hide something that twines through their lives.

He glances back at the younger man, who looks terribly lost. Then he finally shares what he sees for the first time in maybe years.

“This was built for him. The name of the building is because of a nickname Vale had for him. We have those bikes in the garage that no one touches because they were his favorites. Vale always buys loads of pineapples because it was the only fruit he liked, then he refuses to eat it when he remembers that. The walls are empty because the art was chosen for him. We have no pillows on the couches because they were orange. There is an entire section in the trophy case that everyone refuses to go near because that was where his things were. When we train at Misano, we are told to come right back home afterward because he never did. And every single morning Vale gets up at dawn because that is when he and Marc used to go riding together. He can’t help it.”

It feels nice to say that all out loud. He does not bring up any of the controversy, can’t find it in himself to spew his opinion on who hurt who and if Marc is really evil like they say. But he says what he sees, and he says the truth. And honestly, there isn’t a lot of that around Valentino these days.

He finishes and inhales, realizing that the whole time he spewed that out, he had not taken a single breath. The quiet is cut into by the sound, but he feels a little bit lighter, being able to share all of that. Cele might understand, he might not, but Franky has said what he said.

The younger man for his part is staring at Franky like he just pissed on the Pope’s mother’s grave.  His mouth has dropped slightly open, his eyes aghast. Amusing, and honestly nice to see someone showcase exactly what Franky feels most of the time. Everyone else always tries to ignore it all, tucking their opinions away to avoid any backlash (except for Bezz, of course, and maybe Mig) and so to see it all transparently laid out on Cele’s face is good in a way.

“Huh?” He says dumbly.

“I know.”

“They were…”

“Yeah.”

“And so that was…”

“Exactly.”

“And that is why Vale…  is always so…”

“Ridiculous about him? Yeah, you just have to combine every other thing with this, and you will start to really get it. It’s a lot more than what people tend to realize, and it was all even worse before 2015.”

The younger man blinks, slowly closing his mouth.  Then something in his eyes goes a bit sad, and Franky knows it’s starting to sink in, even just a little.

“…. What’s in there?” He asks abruptly, and Franky shrugs. He had always been curious, even if he sort of knew, but it was a non-starter. The room is off limits.

“I don’t know. It’s locked, and Vale would never let anyone in.”

“I can pick it.”

Now it’s Franky’s turn to be shocked, partially at the confident way the younger rider said it, partially because of the words themselves. Because spacey Cele apparently being able to pick locks is a little concerning. Makes him worry a little more than he did before about the safety of his belongings… or himself.

“Learned from a kid at school,” Cele explains, shrugging even as he has a slightly smug smile on his face. Franky furrows his brow and thinks.

They probably shouldn’t do this. This is an invasion of privacy. This is going to be something he knows will genuinely get him on Valentino’s bad side if he finds out. This will really teach them nothing at all. They already know what a mess Valentino is, and besides he is almost sure that whatever is in there will only concern him more.

Beyond upsetting Valentino, it also feels a bit like he is disrespecting Marc. It is his things in there, his bed, the ghost of his life in the walls. It almost feels like the Spanish rider will know, wake up wherever he is and narrow his eyes in the knowledge that someone has been inside his room

But Franky cannot deny that he is curious. It prickles at his skin, a mystery that is not entirely a mystery, but enough of one to make him wonder.

“…..Can you do it quietly?”

A small smile and Cele gives him a thumbs up.

“You haven’t heard the last few times I’ve done it.”

Franky stares. Decides he might need to put some extra locking measures on his door. Then he nods.

And that is how he finds himself standing over a crouched-down Cele, ears open, waiting for even a hint that someone will catch them. If it’s Bezz, he’ll go running for Valentino. If it’s Mig, he’ll just tell Bezz. If it’s Valentino… well then, they’ll be dead.

Comforting thoughts.

“Can’t you go any faster?” He hisses, and Cele shoots him a pout.

“I’m trying,” he whines, and then rolls his eyes in the most teenager way possible, and goes back to glaring at the lock, hands jingling with a metal coat hanger that they found in Franky’s closet. It’s half mangled already, and he is kind of regretting it when a small click is heard.

“Got it,” Cele whispers victoriously.

Franky stares at the door for a second. It’s not too late to just re-lock it, turn around, and avoid any possible issues that could arise from this. It’s not. And he knows somehow in his gut that Valentino will know that they have been in there. Will smell it in the air, will see it on their faces, or maybe will just sense that something is wrong and catch them in the act. Cele might be fine from all of the backlash it will no doubt cause. He is a baby essentially, and babies are allowed to do bad things with minimal consequences. But Franky… in this family unit he is the oldest son. And there are no excuses for that. No excuses, even more so when it comes to Marc Marquez.

But Cele opens the door before he can voice his thoughts out loud, and the slow creak snaps him back into the world. He is stepping into the room before he can stop himself.

Darkness is what first greets him, which makes obvious sense, and yet he still feels startled. The room is icy, just like he had assumed, in a rather strange way.  Like all the humanity has been sucked out. He brings up a hand to rub his arm and frowns. How does Valentino sleep in here? Does it not leech the warmth from his soul? Does it not make him shiver?

“Creepy,” Cele whispers, stepping by him and pulling out his phone to use as a flashlight. The minute he does, all Franky feels is sadness.

Because it is almost exactly what he suspected but worse. A perfectly made-up room, the same as it looked whenever he got glimpses of it years before. Bed covers pristine, no dust, everything where it should be. Paintings on the wall that used to be in the living room, trophies lined up in a row on the dresser. And photos, so many photos. Clustered together, ones that Franky swears had never existed in the house before, as if they had been added in after. Sacrifices left at the altar to a god that you should hate, yet you cannot keep yourself from.

A veritable crypt, a space to mourn. But that isn’t even the worst part.

Delicately placed there on one of the pillows, lined up perfectly even as it is destroyed. There was no attempt to fix it, no glue caught on the edge, no tape trying to make a broken thing whole again. It had been shattered and then picked back up, arranged carefully so you can see what it used to be so clearly while also understanding that it can never be the same.

A little statue of a fox. The one that used to sit behind the entrance door, the one they used to mock for being so hideous. Somehow beautiful now, in a tragic way.

Volpettina, Valentino used to call Marc, the nickname carved into the building before it was chipped away by angry fingers and a chisel. He wonders how much of the younger man Valentino sees in such a thing. Wonders if he stares at it sometimes and imagines how it all used to be, wonders if the day he heard smashing from the room had been Valentino throwing the fox against the wall, and then feeling the regret of a thousand men when he realized that it could not be fixed. Then he picked up the pieces, arranged it, and that was that.

The tableau all of this makes is a little scary. A room waiting, a statue destroyed, a bed that has been slept on even as it is pristine. He trails a finger over the duvet, and it feels soft, as if it has been recently laundered. The air isn’t stale, as he would have expected. It’s just cold.

“There are clothes in the dresser?” Cele murmurs in a confused voice, and when Franky turns, he finds that it is true. An open drawer, a crumpled-up sweatshirt and sweatpants. They look out of place in the immaculate room, unfolded like he would not have expected. As if someone had thrown them back out of something like fear, and they look wrinkled. Like they have been slept with. The idea makes him whine a bit in his mind, a dog watching its master in pain. That’s what this is, after all.

“I think those are Marc’s.” He responds numbly, and Cele cringes.

“That’s…..” He starts but cannot finish the sentence, voice dying down as he shakes his head slowly.  Franky understands though. Really, what do you say to all of this?

It’s actually worse than he thought.

“I thought he hated him?”

Franky hums.

He slowly moves closer to the dresser, eyes sliding over every framed picture, telling as they are. Memories flood in, and he feels a pang when he can remember the days that some of these were taken. The one on the left is from when Ducati visited, Valentino’s hand wrapped around Marc’s waist as he smiles smugly at the camera. The one behind it is from one of the hottest summer days in 2014, sweat pooling on Marc’s forehead as he grins up at the camera. They are honest and happy, and instead of the obsessive thickness that usually exists around the two men, all that is glowing from the pictures is one thing: love.

Cele is staring at them, face incomprehensible, and it hits him that this is the first time the young rider has probably seen something like that. He joined up after 2015, when all that was left was anger. He has no recollection of when Valentino and Marc loved each other. The thought is… cripplingly sad. Like a piece of history is being lost to the ages, the world moving on from something that used to make it spin.

“He looks different.” The younger rider says quietly, and Franky nods.

“Marc was a very different per-”

“No. Vale looks different.”

Franky blinks at those words, and when he lets his eyes focus back on the pictures, he sees it. Valentino looks younger, looser, happier. He hadn’t even realized how much the opposite it was these days until Cele pointed it out. Lines less pronounced in his face, posture less bent. Like breathing is easier.

Another sad thing.

“We should go.” He finally says, stiffening up as he realizes how long they have been standing there. He regrets this entirely, because he doesn’t know how he can look at Valentino tomorrow and not see the room and its truths flash in front of him. Valentino is not okay. That much is clear, and the fact that he sleeps in this place sometimes, surrounded by reminders of Marc and everything that once was is concerning. He should probably tell Luca about this. Maybe he can get his brother to… something. He doesn’t know, but it’s just not right.

“Yes, you should,” comes a clear voice, loudly ringing across the silence. Cele startles so bad he slams into the dresser, and down goes all of the trophies and photos, shattering smashing, just like the statue had. He stares as one of them, a photo of Valentino and Marc grinning brightly, cracks right down the middle, almost poetically. Horror crawls up his spine, and he feels himself slowly turn around and then freeze.

Because there is Valentino, standing in the doorway, the light of Cele’s phone painting him with stark whiteness and shadows in equal parts. For a split second his face is hidden, making him a foreboding figure, almost like he is the ghost that haunts these walls. But then light hits him there, and he just looks tired.

“Cele, go to sleep.” He murmurs, eyes on Franky, leaning over to flick on the wall light. The room is instantly flooded with the golden light of a lamp in the corner, and as Franky rapidly blinks to adjust to the brightness, he watches Cele duck his head and slowly slink out, looking like a dog who is retreating to its cage.

In the brighter light, no shadows to make the room dramatic and frightening, Franky is able to see it all a little clearly now. It looks less like a grave and more like a room. A room painted in memories, a room laced with sadness, but still.

Valentino stares at him for a second, eyes unreadable, before he steps by him, crouches down, and starts picking up all of the things that Cele knocked off the dresser quietly, fingers ignoring the glass that threatens to slice him open. There is a special reverence in the way he does it, one that makes Franky’s stomach twist uncomfortably. The older man looks weak, so different from the icy way he holds himself these days when it comes to Marc. As if just being in here has stripped that all away.

“I liked those pictures,” He murmurs after a second, “what a shame.”

“I’m sorry.” Frankly says immediately, but Valentino just waves him off.

“Accidents happen.”

He feels like he is being held here by an iron hand. The way out is open and clear, but Valentino had told Cele to go to bed, not Franky. It had been a silent command to stay where he is, and so he just watches as the man gently places everything back on the dresser, eyeing it critically before shaking his head.

Then he turns around.

“Franco, that was very wrong of you,” he says slowly, and the disappointed look on his face makes Franky wither a little bit. He shrinks back into himself and feels like he is a kid again, meeting his idol who smiles down at him with stardust in his eyes.

He hates disappointing Valentino so much; they all do, of course. On more than one occasion he has seen Bezz be near tears just from a critical word. The younger rider had grown out of that a little, but that feeling still exists, even if he hides it better. Franky had never been so emotional but… but he gets it.

It was something like a betrayal to sneak in here. Everyone (now even Cele) knows what this room is, and Franky, for his part, knew even more than the others. Out of all the children, he should have been better and not pushed their ‘father’ like this.

But he isn’t a little kid, and Valentino isn’t his dad.

“I know,” He finally says, and drags his eye back up, straightening his spine, “But Vale… you basically have a shrine to him, and I know you sleep in here sometimes. It isn’t healthy.”

At that Valentino winces, turns away to slowly sink down onto the bed, perched next to the pieces of the fox and staring at them with an impassive face. He reached out a finger to slide one back into place, a minute adjustment that tells a lot more than what he probably intends to. Fixation, focus, and obsession, all broadcasted in one little movement.

“I’m aware, thank you,” he finally says dryly, and Franky huffs out a breath.

“Then why not get rid of it all?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.”

A small laugh, not the typical one though. When Valentino usually laughs, it is bright and bold, nostalgic and contagious. This one is just hollow.

“I hate him,” is all he says finally, and there is a lick of mad humor in his voice. It feels like the truth, it feels like a lie, it feels like maybe hate doesn’t mean the same thing to Valentino as it does to anyone else.

Maybe love doesn’t either. Even back then, Franky had watched them and felt like something unique was happening. Not like any other couple he had ever seen. Softness that had sharp points, kisses that looked like fights, and a look in both of their eyes so oppressive that he always had to cut his gaze away.

“We all know that you hate him,” he says weakly, and Valentino smiles a little.

“No, no, you don’t. What do you hate Franco?” He asks in a steady voice, shifting so he is looking back at Franky now, eyes distant.

“I hate… losing. I hate unfair calls, I hate-”

“Have you ever hated a person?” Valentino interrupts.

“Yes.”

“Have you? Does it consume your every waking moment but also make you not care? Do you want to rip their skin off just to touch it? Do you spend your days imagining how to make them cry but also want to feel the dampness of tears as you wipe them away? Do you imagine a world that is just the two of you, where everything would finally feel sane again because now you have an excuse to think just of them?  Do you want them dead so you can be buried alongside them? Do you despise every word that comes out of their mouth but feel inhuman when they stop speaking? Do you hate like I do Franco, does anyone?”

Then his smile wobbles.

“Do you think he hates like that too?”

The last question is what really makes Franky hurt. The others had been horrifying in their own special way, poison dropping from every word even as it spun a web that was layered in grief and heartbreak and anger. But the childish desperation in that last one, the fear, the impossibly fever-bright look in Valentino’s eyes. It is all too much, and Frankly realizes that he will never understand this. How could anyone?

“Do you want him to?” He asks quietly, and Valentino laughs again.

“Yes.”  He says in a shredded voice. Then he shutters his expression like he realizes that he might have been too honest, as if the rest of it wasn’t more telling than that.

“I hate him, and I wish I didn’t. I'm still there.”

“Vale-”

“No,” Valentino interrupts, “no, you won’t ever understand. No one will, and it was not good of you to come in here. This is private, I thought you respected that.”

“I do-”

“But you didn’t. Go to sleep Franco, I will see you tomorrow for training.”

The sternness in his voice brooks no argument, and so Franky gives in. Lets his shoulders drop, forfeits the battle so he can live to see another day. He knows that there is a stone wall in Valentino’s brain on this, knows that if he pushes he might just hurt himself in the process. It’s not worth trying tonight, not right now.

As he walks out, Valentino stays, back to staring at the statue, posture all hunched over as if the weight of everything that exists is piled on top of him. It is a stark contrast to those pictures, a black hole where there used to be a glowing sun.  

“Close the door behind you,” he calls, and Franky does.

In the darkness of the hall, he feels like he can finally breathe, air warmer than it had been in the room, thoughts finally coming back up to speed. It is a comfort to be out of there, a comfort to be away from Valentino’s hollowly angry eyes.

He slowly pads across to his door, grateful that he has no roommate anymore, and only feels like a person again once it is shut behind him. His own room feels like an entirely different one than Marc’s, no heaviness in the air, no ghosts in the walls.

Valentino hates him, and Franky believes that. And he can’t even say that he loves him too; it is far too twisted for that. But the hate is impossible to describe, a twining mixture of anger and fear and desperation and obsession. It had painted Valentino into a corner, one he does not seem to want to escape from. He actually had looked content with it, gathering up the pieces of the shrine to Marc like it is his job, straightening the room as if he is the caretaker of memories.

Hopeless. That is the word Franky would use for all of it. Maybe that is what happened after 2018, when Marc broke his heart once more.  All he knows is that since then Valentino had been acting like someone had died, and that room is just another part of that.

There is none of those old games as much, less burning rage, but this might be worse. Because Valentino looks like a dead man walking, as if he is still there, still in that place where he has everything he wants at the tip of his fingers, still right where he felt the first sharp pinches of losing it all. And Franky has no idea how to help him. Maybe no one does.

His room is more comfortable by far. The bed is soft, the air is warm, the subtle sounds of snoring from around him soothing.

And yet he knows he will not sleep tonight.

End Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Cal doesn’t know why everyone takes things so seriously.

Well, maybe that is an overstatement. He certainly takes some things seriously. He trains hard, he tries his best, he refuses to allow the top riders (alien as they are) walk all over him. But does he take any of it personally? Does he spit on the ground when guys like Marc or Valentino or Jorge walk by? Does he take to the press, accuse them of all manner of things, or imply, or do whatever it is those game players do? No. Cause he couldn’t really give two shits.

 None of it really matters anyway. He knows he is good, but he is no beast. He knows the bike he is on is solid, but it’s no factory Honda. He knows that no matter how hard he tries, the attention will always be on the stars. So mostly he just has fun, kicks his own ass to ride, scowls a bit at his results, and then brushes it all away. Gets along well with most other riders, pretends like he doesn’t hear the undercurrents of little tiffs in their words, and lives his life.

But he has eyes. He watches it all and just kind of shakes his head. Because sometimes he feels like the only sane person on a grid full of maniacs.

The first one people talk about these days is Marc. But that makes sense; they are halfway through the season and his dominance has shown no end. Six wins by Brno, only one result below second throughout it all. None of them even come close, except for maybe Dovi, and he is still a mile off. The guy is infallible, unbreakable, impossible to shake.

It’s almost scary to watch sometimes, the way he decimates them all with that wild smile of his. Cal likes him though, so he just pinches the little freak’s cheek over his helmet and feels the kind of pride you only know when you have been in a sport and lost for so long.

The next one these days is Jorge Lorenzo, and oh boy, is that a different story entirely. The new victim of Marc’s teammate eating habits. The young champion had chewed up Pedrosa and spat him out, and now it seems like he isn’t even doing his new victim the favor of pretending anymore. Because Jorge has barely made it into the points this year while his teammate wins almost every race, and with that sharp-tongue of his, has not hid how unhappy the whole thing makes him. It was entirely unexpected to see such a prodigious rider so low in the points. And this has many people wondering what the hell is wrong with that bike. Or the rider.

Cal gets it though. Jorge is hardly washed, freakishly talented as he is, but it is that damn bike. Built for one person and one person alone, it’s a wonder Pedrosa was able to handle it for so long. The stupid machine cuts like a knife, leaves you panicked and unsure. Throws off anyone who does not seem a hundred percent confident in it, and there is only one person alive who actually is. It’s like a stallion that hates you and your friends and the sky and the birds, but almost purrs when that special person runs a hand over its flank.

He would know, of course. He gets the old bikes, and what he has noticed is that each year Marc is the standard for development, it becomes worse and worse. More wild, more untamable. He can’t really blame the guy; any rider would want their bike developed around them. But he has a teammate and multiple satellite teams, and none of them are even able to try. Crushed into the sand by the weight of Marc’s talent, which is perhaps even becoming too big for Honda itself.  So Cal sort of gets the feeling that everything will crash and burn.

The final freak that everyone seems to always focus on is, of course, Valentino. Not for really the same old reasons anymore, he thinks, more for the echo of his legend. This year has been remarkably quiet on the drama side, probably because of how dominant Marc has been, and Valentino is doing fine-ish. But he is who he is, so of course he draws the eyes. A show man if Cal has ever seen one, and usually it is quite fun. Not 2015, when the shit-show that was Sepang happened, a shit-show that even Cal couldn’t hold his tongue about. But the rest of it is pretty good, so whatever.

Those three are pretty securely the stars of their world right now. The little monster, the sharp-tongued problem, and the showman. A sweeping symphony of victory and failure, old memories and a future painted in gold. Happily, Cal is there for the ride, enjoying all of it far more than the main characters seem to because he has the superpower of not really caring that much.

He still can’t help but get a little frustrated though.

“The bike’s a piece of shit,” he says bluntly and the journalist looks a mix of panicked, surprised, and amused. They cast an eye to his press officer, who he hears let out a groan. But Cal won’t lie; it’s been a hellish year for every Honda rider who isn’t Marc Marquez. With the way HRC acts, it almost seems like that isn’t the truth, ecstatic as they are about how well Marc has been doing. But he has no plans to hold his tongue to keep up the happy family picture.

“That’s what happens when you develop the bike around a rider with too particular of a style, it becomes unrideable for anyone else. If you looked at our results, you would think we are all terrible. But Lorenzo is a champion, and I’m a race winner.”

He continues on in the least cruel way he can, mostly finding pain with the way Honda has gone a little bit too far in supporting their champion. Marc won’t take it personally anyway, he has had far worse thrown at him by far more powerful people. A few snippy comments about favoritism will probably make him laugh, maybe even make him agree.

He is hustled away the moment the journalist releases him with a little laugh, given a small lecture about ‘unity’ and supporting the champion that he ignores, so obviously that gets him another one about respect. But he just brushes them off and goes to calm down in his garage. Ha hates when they try to stop him from telling the truth. Another thing he can’t blame Marc for, but another thing that of course is in his favor.

Cal does his best not to resent that kind of thing, and he mostly doesn’t. But some days, when it smacks him in the face, it’s hard to ignore. He might not care all that much, but he is a competitor at heart, even if he has grown used to losing.

He lets his eyes wander over to the screen in the corner and sighs at what he sees. Jorge Lorenzo, on screen in the Honda garage, glaring at the bike with a poisonous hatred. It’s the first day of practice here in Silverstone, and Cal had finished his laps an hour ago, but Lorenzo had apparently only just finished his now, looking far less than pleased. When it cuts to Marc on a flying, looking smoothly in control, Cal almost winces. What a cruel show. Entertaining but cruel.

“Fucking Marquez.” One of the engineers who had been watching too mutters under their breath, and Cal snorts. Fucking Marquez indeed. What a monster.

He really does like Marc, really, regardless of his thoughts. The kid is fun, a blast at parties, and pretty as anything. Cal might be straight, and happily married, but he isn’t blind. He’d been offered, back during that time when Marc seemed to want to sleep with anything that moved and rode a bike, but he had laughed and turned him down for a multitude of reasons. The first is obviously was the whole happily married bit, the second was that he has no intention of his relationship with Valentino Rossi treading towards anything like dislike.

That whole thing is another can of worms, one Cal feels like he has a rather unique perspective on because he has seen so much. He visited the ranch, he saw how magnetic they were to each other. He watched the jealousy and possessiveness and the way Marc seemed to revel in it. He laughed as a drunken Valentino refused to let the younger man go, played into it all by positioning the game to make the older man more incensed. Then he was in the room for that nasty bite, one that had everyone averting their eyes awkwardly. Animalistic in its intentions, and if Marc hadn’t looked so pleased by it, Cal would have probably been concerned.

Maybe he should have been. Because less than a year later, Sepang happened, and Valentino basically pointed a sniper rifle right at Marc’s head, no holds barred.

But that was the past; it had been years since that, even if it still gets brought up by everyone constantly, and Marc has very clearly moved on. Valentino maybe didn’t, but in Cal’s very strong opinion he’d been the one to start some shit, so he deserved it. He does wonder sometimes if perhaps Marc is not so beyond it all as he portrays.

“Stop with the nonsense,” he scolds the engineer, even as he internally agrees, “he’s a hell of a rider.”

 They drop their head, mutter an apology, and Cal goes back to watching the screen feeling rather blasé. No doubt this weekend will go as it usually does. Marc will get a podium of some kind, his teammate is out of the picture (too injured to ride), Valentino will glare a lot, and Cal will slide right on through, maybe happily getting in the high points. Fine by him, better than it would have been last race anyways.

And that is exactly what happens two days later. Cal gets sixth, Marc gets second, Alex Rins gets first (good for him), and Valentino just misses out on the podium, glaring the whole way. Rinse and repeat, a close copy of so many of the races that have been happening this year. Almost boring with how expected the results are.  

“Solid race mate,” someone says as he walks through the paddock towards the motorhomes, a hand slapping him on the arm roughly. He grins and tosses a thank you over his shoulder, aware just like everyone else that getting that bike to handle properly enough to get high points is an achievement. A decent result at his home race, at least, and it is nice to have someone congratulate him. But as always, the attention is on the freaks, fans crowded around near ferme to stare and hope. Cal tends to make his way through quite easily compared to them.

Once he finally gets inside, he breathes a little sigh of relief. Being away from the hubbub of a post-race is a relief through and through. The cool air inside of the space, the silence that envelopes you even as the hum of people is still all around. He doesn’t hate people; on the contrary he quite enjoys them, but after a tough race when your adrenaline is fading and you start to ache, it can be good to get away.

But a phone ringing interrupts his peace and quiet.

“Yeah?” He mumbles as he clicks to answer, and the smooth sound of his Lucio, the Castrol TP, fills his ears.

“Cal, there is a dinner tonight for Honda. They want you there.”

He blinks rapidly and feels a headache slowly start to form at the words. It comes with the property of being an athlete, just usually not his property exactly.

“The factory riders go to those,” he says slowly, and Lucio sighs.

“Lorenzo is out, not even in the UK. They need a second, and Marc asked for you.”

Ah. An order from the boy-king. That explains it then. Usually the team would refuse; they know how much Cal hates schmoozing at the Honda events. It’s a part of the sport, but the dishonesty of it all is irritating. However if Marc Marquez asked for something, they will move heaven and earth to get it for him. God, he hates things like this.

But Cal unfortunately likes Marc, so he just sighs.

“I’m not wearing a tie.” He says bluntly, and the relieved noise from Lucio comes through. He must have been nervous, worried he would have to go back to HRC and deny them, as if that would do the team any good. But Cal can be good, sometimes.

“No, just… just please hold your tongue.”

Cal grins.

“I won’t be too bad.” He says cheerfully, and the groan he receives is music to his ears.

That is how he finds himself trapped in a stuffy restaurant, clothes uncomfortably stiff, parked right next to Marc on his left side. The second he got there, they guided him over to the younger rider and left him there like he was a bodyguard. The presence of Santi Hernandez on Marc’s right, who seems to consider himself one, only solidifies that point. The engineer has been hovering protectively so far as they wait for dinner to be ready like a bristly looking cloud.

“Relax,” Marc eventually says to the other man, who for the second time in the past fifteen minutes had stiffened when someone stepped a little too close to his rider, “we are here to be nice.”

“Are we?” Cal muses, “I think me and Santi are here to make sure you don’t get snatched; you are here to play nice.”

Marc smiles at him, a gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“Yes, well, I cannot help it. It’s why I asked for you.”

“Because I’m scary?”

The younger man lets out a snort, clearly finding the statement hilarious. Cal just smiles. He knows he isn’t the most frightening paddock character; that would probably go to Jorge Lorenzo, calculating as he is. Maybe not this year though, with all of his troubles and that haunted look he always carries. In fact, the scariest would probably have to be Marc. There is something unnerving about cold hard confidence backed up by flawless results. Also, that look in his eyes. Like there are no other options than beautiful victory.

“Funny, but no. It’s because you won’t hold back. I’m not allowed to be so mean off track anymore; it does more harm than good,” Marc corrects, eyebrow raised as if he expects Cal to challenge that. But he just puts his hands up in a surrender motion, fully accepting the fact that he is something of an anger translator tonight. Drama does follow Marc like a plague these days, and Honda may love him, but they don’t love that.

“Well Valentino isn’t here tonight, so I think we’ll be fine,” he stage whispers, and the little irritated look Santi shoots him is funny. Marc just laughs a bit strangely.

“Maybe,” is all the younger rider says, and they are interrupted when some sponsor approaches, sharp grin on his face and eyes hungry to talk to the champion.

Marc slides straight into the most detached charm that Cal has seen in his entire life. A smile that is pretty, laughter bubbling out, even allowing the guy to rest a hand on his arm (regardless of how much Santi glares). But it’s all bullshit, and it’s so obvious to anyone who know Marc at all. He plays the sponsor like a fiddle, and when he all but orders him away with pretty words, the man goes proudly, chest puffed up and smug that the star ‘likes’ him, as if that is true at all.

“What an asshole,” Marc mutters under his breath, and Cal stifles a laugh.

“He looked like he wanted to eat you.”

“They all do,” Marc responds lazily, casting a small smile at Santi, who blushes but looks unashamed as he nods in agreement. Which, Cal is sure there is a story there, but it is unclear how much he really wants to know.

“Come, let’s sit. Less people to come calling and everyone will take their seats when I do.”

Cal doesn’t say anything to that, just follows, conscious how every eye in the room trails after the Spanish man with an open interest. But… he can’t find it in himself to be envious. Yes, these people clearly admire Marc, yes, many of them seem to lean toward that way too. But it seems so dehumanizing to be stared at so openly, to be mooned over so obnoxiously. Cal would hate it and finds himself grateful for the reputation he has developed as a straight shooter.

“Tell me,” he murmurs to Santi as they go, “what should I expect from this?”

The engineer tilts his head and seems to take the question (and his bodyguard role) very seriously. Makes sense though, as far as Cal knows Santi has been with Marc through it all. His first year, Valentino, 2015, and all the nonsense that followed. Honestly, if Cal was any closer to Marc he might feel that level of protectiveness that he has seen in the faces of Pedrosa and the rest of the Honda team. Luckily he only feels that at a surface level, the acceptable kind that most people have for each other.

“Touching, they love to touch him,” Santi murmurs finally, irritation flashing across his face at the words.

“Too many drinks shoved in his face as well. Not all of them are awful, some are just a bit too drunk to notice the line they are crossing. Marc can handle those ones fine, but the others… well, that is what we are for.”

Cal nods sagely.

“Good thing I brought my knife,” he says seriously, and while Santi blanches, Marc lets out a cackle that rocks around the room. It draws even more attention, and Cal watches as people unconsciously shift closer just based on sound alone, looking a bit dazed.

“Ah, well, it might be needed,” Marc says, sinking down into his seat and beaming up at Cal with squinted eyes. He looks terribly young like that, and it almost makes him almost sad. The younger man was what, twenty when he came into the top class? He’s only twenty-six now. Twenty-six and already so controversial and intense. Already so watched.

He supposes that is normal for freaks like him though. Maybe Marc doesn’t even notice how strange it all is.

Dinner is a quiet affair, the clinks of metal on porcelain and polite conversation filling the dimly lit room. It’s a nice restaurant, clearly intended for events like these, but Cal finds it particularly stifling. He will never understand why teams take people who spend their lives chasing adrenaline and speed wildly, cram them into suits and tell them to be cordial and polite. The sponsors would probably get to know them more if they spent a day at a dirt track, grilling food and laughing as the bikes fly by. Not that any of them would; most are too prissy. A funny thought, and he snorts out a laugh around a bite of the salad, accidentally spitting some out in a manner that has the elegant woman across from them screwing up her face.

“Please don’t choke,” Marc comments idly, sipping on his wine and giving Cal a look.  It would sound like a scolding from anyone else, a reminder of where they are and a good manners and such, but on Marc it is too amused. He looks positively delighted that Cal doesn’t care, and he wonders if the rider ever misses the days he could do that.

“I can do mouth-to-mouth,” Santi murmurs under his breath, and Cal just laughs a bit louder.

“I’m a married man,” he says, pretending to be scandalized. It has the lovely effect of making the man next to them swallow his drink down wrong, coughing up some liquid across the table, and it’s all just hilarious. Who knew sponsor dinners could be entertaining?

“A shame,” Marc says quietly, before he goes back to piercing a piece of chicken with his fork rather savagely and smiling at some dazzled rich man across the table. The guy is rather red and sweaty. Hysterically, he runs a hand through his hair. As if he has something close to a chance and is trying to look presentable.

He sees Marc wince out of the corner of his eye and decides to test this whole thing out. Waves his hand a little until the man’s eyes drop to him, looking frustrated at what he no doubt sees as some kind of big moment being interrupted. Then, smiling, he slowly brings his thumb down to slice across his neck. That very quickly gets the rich man to turn pale and rip his eyes away, looking embarrassed.

“Did I do it right?” He asks, leaning behind Marc to whisper to Santi, and the thumbs-up he receives is a rather proud one.

“Behave,” Marc says, but there is that amusement glittering in his eyes once more.

Perhaps this will be a good night after all.

Hours later, he can happily say that he was terribly right. The moment the dinner ended and it shifted into something far more like mingling and drinking together, the nonsense had really started. And boy, was Santi right when he said they liked to touch.

Hands that reach out unconsciously to hover as Marc laughs, fingers brushing his and holding on for too long when they shake hands, eyes that stare stare stare, even one woman who leans so close her chest is all but in Marc’s face. The rider simply shifts back politely, but it takes Santi loudly telling her that her husband is waiting to get her to give up.

Cal, for his part, spends the night making jokes that seem to fly over the brainless sponsor’s heads. Quips about their appearances, or their money, or anything he can get his hands on. They simply tilt their heads, confused, but when they see Marc laughing, they do too. The best part is probably how unaware they are that the joke is them, and that charming Marc Marquez is laughing right in their faces.

He also finds it enjoyable to find new and creative ways to get the people to leave them alone. A rude comment that he grins out, pretending it is ‘British Sarcasm’. A clumsy hand sends a drink tumbling down when one of the sponsors gets too close and Marc’s face goes tight. A whole game that Cal finds himself quite enjoying.

“Ah, this if fun,” Marc says in the one minute that they are left alone, hiding in the corner. The younger man is a little closer to tipsy now, cheeks flushed as he leans against his engineer, who allows it with indulgence and a pat on the cheek.

“If Jorge was here he would just be laughing at all of this. He always likes a good show.”

Cal blinks. Because Marc genuinely sounds like he misses his teammate in this moment, and as far as he is aware, their relationship had not been any good… ever.

“I had thought you two weren’t really friends,” he says slowly, and Marc shrugs.

“Not really, but there is an interesting bond once someone has watched you get fucked by their boyfriend.”

Cal chokes on his next words and has to lean over, coughing and breathless. Because that was rather blunt and open, especially for someone who is supposedly meant to be ‘good’ at these kinds of events. Perhaps the wine has loosened his tongue a little bit too much. To be fair, he had lost track of how many times a new glass of something was shoved in the Spanish rider’s hands.

“Marc,” Santi murmurs, but he is waved off.

“We are adults, Santi, and Cal is a friend. No one is near us right now, I can be honest. Unless he plans on spilling any of my secrets.”

The younger man’s voice is casual as he speaks, but his eyes slice to Cal in such a manner, that he feels a little nervousness prickling up his spine. When he rapidly shakes his head, Marc smiles.

“See. But yes, me and Jorge are not friends, but he can be very funny. He’s always good at these sorts of things, great at putting people off. No charm in his entire body, he can get people away from me in the blink of an eye.”

“I would have thought your relationship was more strained after how this year has been going for him.”

“No,” Marc says smoothly, “he cannot blame me for his failures.”

Cal laughs.

“Be serious Marc, everyone knows the Honda bike is like that because of you. You might be the only rider on the grid who can even use it.”

“Why should I feel bad about that?” Marc asks innocently, “We are meant to adapt to the bikes, not let them destroy us. I am the most successful Honda rider; of course it is developed around me.”

Arrogance laces through his words, a slight tilt to his eyebrow that tells Cal he believes every single word out of his mouth.  There is a subtle smile there, not like his bright, loud ones. Not like his sponsor-ready one either. This one is private and proud, and has just a little bit too much teeth to be anything but unsettling. Cal likes Marc, but the younger man is such a an aggressive bastard in truth that he can’t help but feel the need to cringe away. He ignores it.

“And when it gets developed into hell? When not even you can handle it.”

Cool eyes cut to him. The younger man doesn’t blink, and Cal feels like he is being held still by a force he doesn’t understand. Struck by the look on that face, by the air crackling with electricity, by the way everyone goes a little quieter for no real reason at all

“I will find a new team, of course.”

“Marc,” Santi says sharply, and that breaks the spell. Cal takes in a breath, and Marc is smiling normally again, and the chatter is back in his ears. He shakes himself, trying to dislodge whatever feeling that was.

“Sorry, too much?” Marc asks, and Santi sighs.

“Yes, too much.”

Cal swallows, laughs.

“You’re kind of scary, you know that?”

But before Marc can answer, another sponsor appears, cloying perfume and sugary smile making Cal’s head spin. He feels kind of sick with it and wonders if perhaps the food is not agreeing with his gut.

“Forgive him,” a voice swims into his ear, and he looks up to find Santi sliding closer, evidently deciding the woman is no real threat.

“He has less of a handle on it these days. Still getting used to more regular people, far to practiced at dealing with...”

"Other freaks?" Cal asks dryly, and receives a flat look in response. Though pointedly, Santi does not disagree.

"Perhaps."

Cal forces out a laugh, leans back against the wall and makes his muscles relax. He shouldn’t be getting so unnerved by Marc, he has known the younger rider for years. He still remembers watching this little baby-faced thing grinning up on the podium, looking like a kid in the candy store. Everyone had been endeared by him until they realized what a menace he truly is. Some people still adore him, while most others hate him. An interesting juxtaposition. There is no in-between with Marc Marquez. Cal might be the closest to that middle ground, and yet he had shown up tonight simply because Marc asked. So perhaps not so middle at all.

“Is that what he learned from Valentino?” He wonders aloud, and Santi’s face storms over.

“Among other things,” he grits out, “none of them helpful. He was much happier before all of that.”

Then the engineer sighs. Turns to watch Marc work his charm with a look in his eye that Cal can’t place. A bizarre mixture of protective, animalistic, and fixated. Like how a working dog looks at their sheep.

“You must be used to all of this by now,” Cal eventually says, following the older man’s lead to go back to staring. He watches the woman titter out a laugh and toss her hair slightly but does not reach out to touch. So at least some people have a sense of decorum.

“Not really,” Santi murmurs, “I have worked with many stars, including ones like Marc. Some of them have been magnetic; some of them have drawn people in so far they lose their heads. But none do it so effortlessly like him. It’s like there is a piece of catnip in his heart, and everyone is a lion. To them, he is something more.”

He sighs again.

“Even to me.”

Then his eyes cut to Cal, who jumps a bit.

“It’s why you are a good choice of a replacement,” he says slowly, “Jorge does not want Marc like that, and neither do you. Have you ever thought of coming up to the factory team? If Marc asks, they would say yes.”

Cal blinks. A humor bubbles up inside of him, and he can’t help but laugh, even as he gets a frown in response. It is loud enough to have Marc glancing back, a little confusion in his eyes, before his attention is tugged back to the sponsor.

“No,” he responds, “thank you, but no. I don’t want to get chewed on.”

Santi at least seems to understand and acquiesces, but there is a frustrated look on his face. It was as if one solution he thought he had had now disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“A shame. You would have been perfect.”

“To help create the barrier?”

“In a way. But to help keep him grounded. Dani was great at it, Jorge is solid enough, and you would have been good too. Now the hunt must continue.”

“Who are we hunting?” Marc cuts in, appearing out of nowhere, clearly having ditched the flirty woman. He looks a little bit more strained, the first sign that this night is getting to him, and he snatches the glass out of Santi’s hand to throw back a few more swallows of wine as if trying to get the taste of that encounter out of his mouth. When he puts it back, his lips are tinted ever so slightly more red.

“The sponsors for sport,” Cal says cheerfully, smoothly cutting away from the topic and getting a grateful look from Santi.

“Ah,” Marc laughs out, “I want to get the fat one over there first. He all but grabbed my ass before.”

“What?” Santi hisses out, ripping his head around to find who Marc was talking about with narrowed eyes. The rider coos, reaching up a hand to grip Santi’s jaw and pull his attention back to them.

“Calm, calm, if you really want to help, get me more wine. The Repsol COO wants to meet with me, and he is such a bore I will need it to survive.”

The older man grumbles but marches up to the bar with a crackling irritation. Marc sighs, watches him as he goes, and settles back against the wall next to Cal.

“He is overprotective,” he says quietly.

Cal shrugs.

“You’re lucky. I am baffled how little they all seem to respect your personal space.” He mutters, but Marc waves him off with a laugh.

“Rich people are like that, especially when they sponsor you and you are winning. They think you owe them something, whether that be compliments, thanks or touch. I’m sure you know.”

“No,” Cal says bluntly, “I’m too off-putting.”

“Really?” Marc asks, genuinely seeming surprised, “I find you funny.”

“You have interesting taste.”

Another laugh.

“Yes, that is why I dated Val-”

But he cuts him off before he finishes that thought, face souring a little bit, eyes going stormy. And because Cal has always spoken his mind, he cannot stop what comes out of his mouth.

“How did you two fall apart anyways?”

That seems to actually have startled Marc into some sort of confused silence, eyes going wide as he turns to Cal. There is a little thunder left over there, but there is also a rather strange openness that most likely stems from all the wine he has consumed, and in there Cal sees something that looks like mourning.

“You know you are the first to ask me that. Most people know, and if they don’t, they hate me too much to assume it was anything but my fault.” He says slowly.

“Sorry,” Cal says hastily, aware that he maybe has crossed a line, “you don’t have to answer.”

“Good, ‘cause I don’t have one,” Marc says gruffly, but then he exhales a big sigh and sort of deflates a little bit. When Cal looks at him again, his brows are furrowed, and he looks like just thinking is bringing him some kind of pain. A disconcerting expression on someone who always seems to glow with victory.

“That’s not true,” he finally mumbles, “I have a million reasons. There was a lot of bad, from him mostly but me too. But there was a lot of good even among all that.”

He trails off. When he speaks again, it doesn’t feel like he is talking to Cal anymore. No, instead, it is almost like Marc is talking to someone else, someone that has his face glowing, someone that makes him look like he did in 2013, younger and weaker.

“I loved him, and he loved me. That was enough for a while, I think. It made everything so good, perhaps too good. I didn’t see any of it coming until it was far too late, even with all the doubts I had.”

He exhales, eyes delicately zoned out. Cal doesn’t even move an inch, spellbound by what is in front of him. he wonders if people have seen Marc like this before. Especially recently.

“I would have done anything to fix it back then. I would have gotten on my knees and begged just so we could get by all the anger and hate that we have now. I would have given everything, I would have hoped until the day I died.”

Then he seems to come back to himself, re-notices that Cal is there. A helpless grin crosses his face, armor being pulled back on with a crack that is nearly audible.

“I don’t anymore. I know it’s pointless; why bother? So I guess my answer is that it was inevitable for us to fall apart. Fate.”

Cal breathes, realizing that he has been holding it in.

“I don’t believe in fate,” he murmurs, and Marc shrugs, face flickering.

“Me neither.”

Then Santi is back, and Marc has slid into his smiles and teasing in an instant, taking the wine and sipping it while his eyes dart around the room. And Cal realizes that while all his charm and posturing with the sponsors is an act, this probably is too. The laughs and jokes, the light way he handles it all.  It was foolish of him to assume otherwise, perhaps. Foolish of all of them, just as dazed and stupid as the sponsors. Moths to a false flame, deer locked in a car’s headlights. Perhaps that is what Marc considers himself too, with the way he had been talking.

Fate, he had said, speaking of the past with a hollowness, with a lack of hope. He has moved on, that much is clear, but he refers to it all as inevitable even when he clearly doesn’t believe that fate is real.  Whatever empty, tired place he rests in now, Cal doesn’t know. He only hopes that wherever Marc ends up, he doesn’t come to regret anything. And maybe he will learn how to let it all out, even as he wears his mask.

You only live once, after all.

“I see him. Hold your breath, he always smells like cheap cigarettes,” Marc whispers suddenly, then straightens up with his skin pulled taut, and the wolves descend once more.

“Marc, how good to see you again,” comes a trilling accent as an oily-haired man in a three-piece suit (far too fancy for dinner) walks up to them, and oh yeah, that smells terribly of cigarettes. Cal doesn’t even think.

“Mint?” He offers casually, and in the corner of his eye, he sees the way both Santi and Marc have to duck their heads to avoid laughing.

“Oh, thank you,” The man says, and that just makes it worse, making the cracks appear until even the sponsor notices, a displeased look in his eyes.

He leans back after that, lets Marc do his thing and charm away the doubt with his wicked smile hidden. He feels bad for the rider really, but hovering over the past and wondering why is no good. The questions, the old scars that seem to reopen at the drop of a hat, the whispered memories…well, all if it is just too stuffy for Cal's taste. A damn shame too, for someone so entertaining to be held back by regret.

He can help with one thing though, at least.

“You should get his brother,” he leans in toward Santi to whisper as they wait, interrupting his own thoughts. The older man shoots him a surprised look, thick eyebrows raised.

“Alex?”

“Mhm,” Cal hums, “you need someone on the team to ground him who won’t fall into the trap. Why not family?”

A little stretch of silence, Santi eyeing him with a critical look. Twining the idea through his head. Then his brows slowly lower, and he leans back a little, loosening up like he just now has decided that the Brit can be trusted.

“Not a bad idea,” he hears the man murmur and smiles to himself, satisfied by it all.

He won’t do any more than this. He likes Marc, really, but he’s not about to get involved in whatever nonsense he’s got going on, his game of hidden feelings and masks. All of that sounds like far more work than Cal is willing to put in. He just hopes they stop taking it all so serious. Maybe then those freaks can finally move on.

Somehow, he doubts it.

End Chapter 12

Chapter Text

When Maverick found out he was going to be Valentino Rossi’s teammate, it was a bit of a strange feeling. Almost like waking up and realizing you don’t know where you fell asleep. Surprise, confusion, and maybe the slightest bit of fear. You stumble around dazed for a bit, but soon enough find your footing and your mind, even if it may take a while.

He had always looked up the legendary rider, hell everyone did, and had spent the first couple of weeks stumbling over his words. But as the years passed and he got more and more used to riding with someone like that, that kind of awe faded a little bit. He got accustomed to seeing the man tired, or irritated, or annoyed, or laughing so hard he snorts out his drink. It didn’t… humanize him exactly, but it made it less of a holy experience and more real. Maybe an odd perspective to have, everyone on the team still seems to marvel at Valentino, but he can’t help it. He has always been the type to not get so caught up in those things.

Perhaps that is why he can handle the little instances of anger being turned on him. It had started fast, finishing ahead of your legendary teammate the first season you are with them usually makes said legend a little bit irritated. He remembers first time Valentino blanked him, eyes a bit icier than normal, and he remembers feeling a bit shocked by it. Yet another thing that made the myth less mythical, and luckily enough he only had to deal with the lite version of Valentino’s anger. The worst of it seemed to be beamed toward only one person in the paddock, so Maverick was fine.

2018 Valentino beat him, which was also fine, if a bit of an annoyance. He knows the older man is fantastic, but… but Maverick is young; he should be able to do this. He is in his prime, and if he can’t beat Valentino, who is decidedly out of his… well, what does that say, exactly?

That is why 2019 has almost been a big sigh of relief. Not for Valentino or for the team, but because Maverick, for the first time, was sort of in the championship conversation. He was nowhere near the leader Marquez and his madness, but he could at least trail Dovizioso steadily. And really, with his teammate all the way back in 7^th or 8^th in the standings, there was no denying that Yamaha had to throw their support behind him now. A lovely feeling after being sidelined for so long. Like stepping out of from the shadow of a tall building.

It didn’t really hurt their relationship. Maverick, of course, admires the older man, and Valentino in turn seems to have a lot of frustration with himself more than anything. A cordial sort of thing hung between them, and as he sits in the golf cart Thailand, ostensibly a part of the background for Marc Marquez’s 8^th championship, he wonders if Valentino is in the garage and staring at the screen. No doubt he is, but as always, Maverick sincerely doubts it has anything to do with him.

Marquez flies into the seat, sweaty and glowing and happy, and Maverick may not be friends with him, but he can’t help but reach out a hand and murmur his congratulations. 8 championships are impressive after all, especially after the tumble he took during practice. Most had assumed the man wouldn’t even race, but that has never really been Marquez’s MO, crazy as he is.

“Ah, thank you, I saw you on the first few laps; looked like you lost your rear a bit.” Marquez says smoothly, mouth spread open in a wide grin, “if they make that bike better, you will be a force, yes? Yamaha will have a new champion soon.”

Maverick can’t help it. He ducks his head a bit, feeling embarrassed by the praise, and smiles.

“I hope so.”

“Don’t say that,” comes a laughing little scold, “just say it will happen.”

He wants to be blunt and upfront, roll his eyes and make some kind of joke about how it’s easy for Marquez to say, that he doesn’t have to race against himself so he has no idea. But he has never been one for that kind of thing, instead he just nods with a polite smile and listens as Fabio and Marquez start to chatter.

The ride to the podium is long, and when they finally make their way out, the cheers he experiences are nothing compared to the roar the crowd gives as the 8x world champion hops onto the top step like a jack rabbit, springy and energetic and bouncy. Thrilled beyond belief, but who wouldn’t be? That’s one of the things Maverick can appreciate a bit, that Marquez always looks ecstatic no matter how many he has won. So many riders look used to victory that it just makes you want to hit them sometimes.

“You think if we left they would even notice?” Fabio murmurs, leaning over slightly even as he waves at the crowd. He had a hell of a race today, and it shows in the sweat that beads across his forehead and the slight shaking of his hands. They probably all look like that, though, after tangling with the current world champion. Burnt out, a little winded, kind of shocked you are still alive.

Maverick smiles.

“Probably not,” he allows, and the way the Frenchman shakes his head is completely accurate. You never feel so unimportant as when you are next to someone like Marquez or Valentino. Like a piece of rock being compared to the moon.

Then champagne is sprayed, and Maverick cannot help but be pulled into the giddiness of it all, and by the time he has made it back to the garage, he is soaked and grinning, happy even with his third place result because how can you not join in with that contagious joy?

The team slaps him with praise, comments about tire wear and meetings and setup that are far too complicated for the adrenaline that is still thrumming through his veins, and he just waves them off. Prepares for the press conference with a smile, rips down his leathers and cringes a bit at the sticky feeling of it all. Tries to breathe, tries to cool his head so he doesn’t say something foolish to the media like so many riders have before him.

“Maverick,” A voice calls, “you did well.”

Rolling accent, and Maverick is still so well trained even after a year of beating the man that he turns automatically and deferentially, finds Valentino lounging in a chair, leathers dropped around his hips, looking ruffled and lazy. His chin rests on his hand, and he has this languidness about him that is almost funny on so old a man. But there is also a tension in his shoulders that makes Maverick think perhaps there is a little acting involved.

“Ah, thank you,” he says awkwardly, shifting a bit in his seat and taking a swig from a water bottle that gets pressed into his hand.

“Shame about the tires; you could have easily kept up with the fight. This is good though, especially for our bike.”

Maverick nods, feeling a little bit cornered. Valentino doesn’t usually debrief with him after the race; much more prone to glaring at his own data or ignoring him. Perhaps not the most friendly teammate, but… he gets it. He is barely a blip on the older man’s radar, and with how many years he has been at it, Maverick probably seems like a rookie to him in many ways.

Does it sting? A bit. Has he gotten over it? For sure. Valentino isn’t impolite just… distant. From the rumors he has heard, this is true towards anyone that is not in his circle lately. Those same rumors also give a reasoning behind this distance but… it’s a little impolite to speculate.

“We will figure it out, I’m sure,” Maverick murmurs as he leans down to work his leathers down his legs, “how do you handle it?”

Valentino laughs, still in that lazy position.

“Not well this year, obviously,” he responds, raising an eyebrow that makes Maverick drop his gaze away. He had almost forgotten how far ahead of Valentino he is in the points at this time, a reminder that the older man would not like very much. He didn’t mean to rub that in.

“Sorry, yeah, I just mean-” he starts stiffly, but a laugh cuts him off, Valentino waving a hand as if he wants Maverick to forget it all. Friendly and open, yet terribly closed.

“I didn’t mean it like that. You had all those issues and still did well, it is impressive.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Maverick says, perking up a little, “hell of a race, really, even with my tire difficulties, but only Fabio was able to get close to-”

Then he cuts himself off, realizes whose name he is about to say and feels the color drain a little bit. Him and Valentino don’t have a bad relationship, no matter how stiff he still feels around the older man, but if there is one way to set him off, it is to mention Marc Marquez.

He’s right. The older man’s eyes narrow, and a mean smile pops up on his mouth, devilish in the way of the Valentino Rossi that was on everyone’s screens for years, but with a sharp edge that didn’t used to be there.

“Marc? You can say his name you know, he’s not Voldemort.”

Then he leans back, shrugs with his arms spread, stretches. A relaxed gesture, opening himself up to show that he is not afraid, but too calculated and measured to feel genuine. In reality, Maverick thinks he is probably hiding more of himself away than before.

“Besides,” Valentino continues, “I think you like him. Looked very friendly on that golf cart.”

Right, so that is what this is about. Always about Marquez, always.

“Yeah… I congratulated him. Eight is an achievement, right?” He asks, a bit flustered by it all.  Does he feel a little bit like a kid who has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar? Absolutely yes. But really, he did nothing wrong other than congratulate a fellow rider, so it’s foolish to feel that way.

Besides, he doesn’t hate Marquez like so many riders seem to, even if he sometimes feels a burst of anger when he watches how the older rider crushes them all. He also doesn’t like the man, more… ambivalent than anything else. But even that might be too close to friendliness for Valentino’s case. He does despise Marquez after all, for a… plethora of reasons, some valid some probably not.

“Always good to congratulate people, especially when they do so well,” Valentino muses, tapping his chin, “he said something to you. What was it?”

More understanding. This is an interrogation, then. He feels uncomfortable, and when he darts his eyes around the garage, he notices that everyone else seems to be avoiding them. Maybe they too feel the immense amount of pressure in the air, maybe they have even been told to stay away. But all Maverick knows is that their press officer should be urging him along right now, and all she is doing is waiting in the corner and looking like she is avoiding eye contact. So perhaps the latter option is the real one.

Maybe if this was years ago, when Maverick was shiny and new to Yamaha, he would have crumbled and shared what was said with a bowed head, praying to get on the older man’s good side. But… he really has no idea why the man would even want to know.

“Why?” He asks bluntly, and Valentino blinks, seemingly startled by the deviation in the script.

“Sorry?”

“I asked why. It was broadcasted on TV, you probably heard a little bit of it. Why are you asking me?”

That sends the older man into a stretch of silence. For a second, the lazy posture drops as surprise renders him motionless. A funny image; it is rare to be the one to get one over on Valentino Rossi after all. But then he laughs brightly and slides back into place. A blink-and-you-miss-it type thing.

“I am just curious, of course,” he says humorously, but Maverick can see the irritation in his eyes.

“Why?”

Another laugh, but this one is more hostile. He is examining Maverick with the first open curiosity he has ever experienced from the man, but he supposes it makes sense in the context of the conversation. He has never had cause to be curious before today.

“No reason.”

A lie, a blatant one that Valentino doesn’t even bother to hide. He lifts his head as if setting a challenge, smile firmly in place. The questions he is asking are almost audible with how obvious they are. How blunt are you willing to be, how upfront? Do you care that much about my reasoning?

Maverick sighs and decides he doesn’t really. He isn’t fond of reporting back to Valentino like some kind of spy, but it had been a perfectly innocent conversation. Nothing really to hide here, and it is probably better not to make the man irritated.

“He told me I did well, said I could be the next Yamaha champion,” he finally says, dropping his eyes away to fully get his leathers off, and beginning to shimmy into his team kit for the press conference. With his head stuffed inside the shirt, it is a little easier to breathe. Like he can hide away from that intense look on the man’s face.

Valentino lets out a hissed noise, one that Maverick does not think he intended to be out loud, and when his head pops through the neck, he finds the older man staring into the distance with his nostrils flared.

“Did he,” he remarks carefully, “I suppose he is looking to the future now. Young riders like you are more of a threat than I am.”

He doesn’t sound happy about that idea, at all in fact. His eyes have gone cold and pained, not toward Maverick but toward something greater, maybe even toward the idea that he is no longer the one people would assume is the next Yamaha champion. An imagined slight, when Valentino had not even been the topic of conversation at all. But perhaps he is too removed from whatever fucked up situation those two have to comprehend that maybe it really was Marquez being nasty.  

Maverick remembers seeing clips of their battles. It had always been intense, the sort of races you rewatch and analyze to try and learn what made them so incredible. Every move was brilliant, swapping back and forth like they were dancing more than anything. Did they crash sometimes? For sure, but even those were things to study. How close to the edge do they get? How can you learn from that? The bottom line is that those two are the standard, even in how to race a rival.

They also had their fair share of controversies outside of the track, though he usually ignores those. To Valentino, he might view Marquez even still as something of a rival, trapped in the years where they trailed each other like shadows. If Maverick felt that way and then heard his rival basically declare that someone else is their focus now, he might be irritated too.

“I don’t think he meant it that way,” he says just to be polite, “he was being nice.”

“No, no, he is never nice. I know what I am; do not condescend to me.” Valentino says sharply, and then instantly pinches the bridge of his nose, as if aware that he lost control there for a second. He doesn’t look ashamed of it at all, simply frustrated.

Maverick stares. He hasn’t quite seen Valentino like this before. Ever. The man is usually… well, not cool, but at the very least collected. Always smiling, always happy, always funny, even when he is irritated. He is never bitter like this, never a remotely mean word out of his mouth. To see him crack a bit simply at the mention of Marquez… well, it’s no wonder he was resolutely beaten in every championship battle against the Spanish rider.

“Did he mention me?” Comes a murmured sentence, crackling and vulnerable in the most startling and revealing way. Maverick’s surprise must have been pretty clear because Valentino turns away and waves him off immediately, embarrassment broadcasting loud and clear in his mannerisms.

“It doesn’t matter,” the older man says before he can respond, sounding a little bit unbalanced, “I was just curious. Go to the press conference.”

And that releases whatever hold the rest of the garage was under. They are loud again, and the press officer is right there tapping her watch as if it is Maverick who is holding everything up. He blinks slightly, startled by how quiet it had gotten without him realizing it, and slowly stands.

That wasn’t fun. But as always, this is not about him. He wonders how Marquez can handle any of it really if just the smallest taste of that intensity had Maverick floundering. He also wonders if perhaps Valentino is a little less on the ‘pure hatred’ side than most of them realize.

“Right.” He says quietly and lets himself be tugged away, too tired to want to think any of this through particularly hard. But then one more thing is tossed out after him in a quiet voice, softer than a summer day. False or real, Maverick has no idea, but it is so different than the previous tone that it almost chafes once it hits his ears.

“Tell him I say congratulations.”

He does not have time to respond, does not really want to anyway. Lets himself be guided and does not really come into his brain until he is in a seat and staring at a sea of journalists, flashing lights and questions swimming in their eyes.

Very soon they are joined by Fabio, who pats him on the shoulder as he passes, and a champagne-soaked Marquez, still in his leathers and championship t-shirt. He tosses a grin and quick greeting to the both of them before sinking into the chair in the middle, energy buzzing around him.

“How does it feel to have your eighth?” Someone calls from the crowd, and Maverick leans back a little bit as everything begins. He doesn’t need to be locked in for this press conference, really. All the questions will be for the newly crowned champion, not for the two guys who trailed after him today. He forces himself to settle, shoves that odd conversation with Valentino away, and decides to use this as a nice break.

“Good, of course,” comes a jubilant voice, followed by one of those infamous laughs, “you want me to say bad? I cannot; it is good.”

“Do you expect to go for next year’s championship?”

Another laugh, and he almost rolls his eyes. What, do they want Marquez to say no? Do they want him to sit back and say, ‘you know, I am actually quite happy with eight, maybe I’ll stop trying’? These kinds of questions are always silly because there is really only one answer, the same one every time.

“Of course,” Marquez says smoothly, and Maverick sighs, sinks down in his seat a little bit. This is going to be boring.

He’s right in his thoughts, meaningless questions get tossed out left and right, a pointless waste of time. Fabio gets at least three, and Maverick gets two, but no more than that. Every decently interesting one is thrown at Marquez. How did your tires feel? What was it like in the last few races? How does it feel to know your brother might win the Moto2 title? Did you ever expect to get six premier class titles? Should we expect that much dominance next year?

So many, so foolish, so boring. Twenty minutes of nonsense, and by the time the press conference wraps up, there is only one hand left in the air. A beady eyes man, fleshy face screwed up in a smile that looks anything but friendly. Maverick recognizes him, a bit of a pot stirrer if he has ever seen one. Most journalists are in some regard, though.

“Marc,” he says slowly, as if he wants everyone to hear every word, “Is your goal to beat Valentino Rossi in title number?”

Maverick feels how the room instantly goes a little stiller, a little bit cooler.  There are a few scolding words tossed out as the journalist smugly stands there, ignoring it all, but the rest of the room mostly turns their eyes to Marquez and waits. It is one of those questions that toys with the limits a little, on the edge off too-much while still being acceptable. Maverick perks up a bit, aware that whatever comes out of this will at least be more interesting than the other answers.

That is also when he notices it. None of the journalists can see it, but under the table, out of the corner of his eyes, Maverick notices how Marquez’s hand tightens on his knee, knuckles turning white. A small flicker in his picture-perfect façade.

“Of course not,” he finally says carefully, smile still firmly in place, “Valentino is a legend, but my goal is always to get as many wins as I can in my time here. I have no set number in mind.”

Maverick cringes slightly at the way Marquez doesn’t even blink, staring down the journalist with plastic friendliness. He hopes the man takes it as the warning it is, but as he sees the mean look grow, he sincerely doubts it. People like that never learn.

“Yes, but Rossi was your teacher and rival. Do you not want to beat him? That is why you did what you did at Phillips Island after all.”

And if things were awkward before, those words instantly plunge the room into icy stillness. No one even criticizes the journalists who said it, too stunned at the bold and upfront way of asking. It had been years since people were so aggressive about the whole thing, although it still gets mentioned constantly. Been years too since anyone has accused Marquez so openly of doing exactly what Valentino said he did. Most people… well, they attempt to get around that. Not a good idea to piss off the reigning world champ after all, but apparently this particular journalist does not really care.

He turns his head and makes eye contact with Fabio behind Marquez’s head, almost drawn to try and find someone who will feel what he feels right now. The other rider just shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing slightly. It must be just as tense for him, trapped up on stage and having to deal with something neither of them are part of. He can’t even imagine what it is like to be the one who was asked such a thing, especially with how… personal he has heard it all was.

But Marquez just grins.

“No,” he finally says, “no, I do not think about rivalries of the past. Pointless, when I have young guys like Maverick and Fabio to worry about.”

And that is that, the spell is released, the journalist sits down with a disappointed look, and the press conference is over, the latter half of the forward question deftly avoided. Cameras flash, a few voices call out for more, but they are off stage before any answers can be given. Maverick follows behind Fabio and Marquez as they trail out, the Spanish man still smiling in that plastic plastic way, as if the tension in his shoulders does not take away from that falsity entirely.

“Marc,” he calls without thinking, and the man turns slightly, giving him a surprised look before waving Fabio along. Then he slows his pace until Maverick can slide in step next to him, as if they have ever done this before. He can’t think of a single time they have spoken outside of post-race podiums, and he gets that same feeling that he got with Valentino. Unsure, unsteady, cornered, even though in this case he is the one who approached first.

“I’m sorry they asked you that,” he says stupidly, mostly out of any real thing to say. He doesn’t actually know why he called Marquez back, it just felt right in the moment, and he hated the sight of that stiff back walking away from him.

“It happens,” The older man says with a shrug.

“It’s still not fair. You just won the championship and yet…”

They step out of the building’s doors, sunlight smacking Maverick in the face and making him squint. When he refocuses, Marquez is eyeing him with a pensive look, as if he is a particularly interesting reptile.

“I have won many titles,” he finally says, “over half of them have been tied to him in some way by people. I am very used to it.”

Maverick swallows. Has no response for that when he knows it is the truth. And he… sort of understands. Valentino is nothing but his teammate, yet still he feels like he is in the older man’s shadow. Every step he takes is dogged with comparisons; every result put up next to another’s. It’s how teammates are, but it is a very different feeling when it is Valentino Rossi. Less like being compared to a peer and more like being compared to your girlfriend’s ex who died, and also happened to be the love of her life. It just isn’t fair.

For Marc, it all must be worse. He was the man’s student, they had that terrible falling out, and it is quite clear that if Valentino was the king of the 2000s, Marc Marquez is the king of the 2010s. A crown passed on but laced with poison. In what happened, they are tied together forever, and everywhere the man goes he is followed by someone who is saying Valentino’s name.

It must be exhausting.

“You are an interesting person,” he finally says as they near the Yamaha garage, where Marquez will leave him and run off to his celebrations. A little bittersweet, not that he is fond of Marquez or anything, but being near greatness is always a little addicting, and while Valentino seems to disregard him, at least Marquez looks him in the eye. Almost sad how little makes him feel important.

“Am I?” Marquez asks, bemused, “that’s not what people usually say.”

“What do they usually say?”

“What a monster.”

And that makes Maverick snort out an amused sound that has a lot of people turning to stare. Understandable though, it is not often people see a Yamaha rider being friendly with Marc Marquez, far too taboo. Honestly, it’s not often people see any rider friendly with him, period. Dovi perhaps, Dani Pedrosa is retired, Jorge Lorenzo not too much these days, and… well, Maverick can’t think of anyone else outside of Tito Rabat and the Espargaros, but he isn’t even sure with those ones.

Really he shouldn’t care that much. Many riders can be isolated from others for a variety of reasons. Casey Stoner notoriously did not have many friends, mostly due to his bluntness and sharp tongue.  Same with Jorge Lorenzo. Though perhaps none have been quite so… obvious as Marquez. He is isolated for a reason that anyone who watches MotoGP knows very well indeed.

As he stands there, a little battle exists in his head. The human part of him feels a surge of uncomfortableness at the fact that the man in front of him is so alone. The other half, the Yamaha rider who had been around Valentino Rossi for years, hisses out that this is the enemy. Both sides ridiculous in their own special ways, but he isn’t sure which one to lean more towards right now.

Whatever the case, he has nothing more to say, other than a message that must be passed long.

“Congratulations.” He blurts out blankly, and Marquez laughs, head tipped back and melancholy gone in one motion. He looks younger like that, and for the first time he really thinks on the fact that this famous rider is only two years older than him. But the man doesn’t seem to notice that thought or the way it makes Maverick startle, he just looks amused.

“You already said that,” he points out.

“Not from me.” Is all Maverick responds with, feeling a little proud of how cryptic he was able to make that sound, cryptic enough to have Marquez tilting his head curiously.

They are stopped now, in front of the Yamaha garage, and Maverick can hear his team calling for him, irritated urging to get a move on so they can pack up and be ready to leave soon. He smiles at the sound, waves at them, and then turns his eyes back to Marquez, who has gone quiet once more, smile finally dropped into a much more complex expression.

It must be a strange sight for a lot of people, especially with who they all know is in that garage. And slowly, ever so slowly, Marquez turns his head, shifting his eyes to search the Yamaha garage with that complex expression, as if he knows what he is looking for, yet does not want to find it.

Maverick turns too, some force of nature guiding his gaze until it locks onto Valentino, who is decidedly not looking at him.

No, with blazing eyes he is staring at Marquez, mouth not smiling or frowning, brows not furrowed or raised. He seems like he is asleep almost, the way he doesn’t blink or move, and if Maverick could not see the way he shifts his eyes slightly, he would think that this was the case.

There is a sort of crackling energy that appears as the two men stare at each other. A cold kind that makes hair stand on end and prey animals run away. Maverick has never really seen Valentino like this and realizes in that moment that what he experienced before the press conference was really only a taste. This pressure is a thousand times heavier, the intensity in those eyes a thousand times fiercer. It doesn’t look like a standoff or an intimidation tactic either; more like hundreds of little thoughts are flowing between the two men that no one else would be able to comprehend.

And Valentino… Valentino for the smallest second, the tiniest glimpse, looks sad.

It’s too much to think about right now, so he chances a glance at Marquez and finds a perfectly blank face, cold eyes that show not a hint of any human emotion. Frightening in a small way, even as he notices the way that jaw is clenched tight. A few seconds later, the Spanish man seems to decide the moment is over and tugs his eyes back to Maverick with a detached look.

“Right,” he says blandly, “that’s nice.”

Then he pats Maverick on the shoulder and walks away carelessly as if none of that had happened at all. In the distance he hears the cheers that appear when the Honda spots their champion and smiles a little to himself. He really has no idea what any of that was, but he can at least appreciate the excitement he is hearing.

“Chatty,” says one of the engineers as they walk by him, eyebrows raised almost scoldingly, and Maverick smiles.

“Just passing a message along,” he mumbles, and makes his way back inside, ignoring the figure in the corner that is staring at the place where Marquez used to be with a dazed, childish expression. If Maverick didn’t know any better he would almost think the man looks like a creature in mourning, hollow-eyed and weak. In fact, he does know better, and yet cannot let that thought go.

He doesn’t go over and report what Marquez said, he is not one of the man’s sycophants, after all. He has passed the message along, something he wasn’t even planning on doing before, and now his role in all of this is over.

Valentino doesn’t ask this time around, just stares before retreating back into himself with a peculiar expression. Weeks later, he will hear whispers that when the older man heard what Marquez  said at the press conference, on the past and the future, his smile was too tight for days.

Maverick didn’t really notice. He has a lot more to worry about than politics and rivalries and what his teammate is doing. Marquez was right; the shadow of the past is gone, and the future is now. Sitting there and ruminating about anything like that will only make your path darken in comparison to what it could be. He could spend the rest of his career being secondary to Valentino, even if his results are better. He could line his name up with the older man’s, embody him in every single way, parallel every little thing he does in an attempt to chase glory. But he doesn’t want that, he wants a clean future, bright and layered with endless possibilities.

Besides, he has never quite enjoyed the chill of being in someone else’s shadow.

End Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Alex wins the Moto2 championship in Sepang, and for the first time in years looks around at the historical circuit, track filled with devastating memories, and only feels happiness.

It soars through him as his smile stretches his face wide open, soars through him as he stares down at the audience and sees his brothers face poking out between strangers, leather-strapped and grinning wildly, shouting something that isn’t discernable.

The winning is the best part, of course, by a long shot. He has always enjoyed victory, even if he is perhaps not quite so intense about it as other people can be. Namely Marc, but there aren’t many who match his brother in that regard. Even when they were little, people would shy away from the hyper-intelligence that made young eyes almost cynical or the competitiveness that made that little head tuck in and fight for the win. Alex had always hated the way people reacted to it, wide-eyed and filled with something like fearful awe.

But that is unimportant, right now all that matters is the crowd who is calling his name, the bright smiles that are being thrown up at him, and the knowledge that he has been able to put his name on the map once more, not just as Marc Marquez’s little brother, but as a world champion in his own right.

Not that any of the comparisons ever bother him, of course. Perhaps it used to, years ago when he was trying to carve out his own space and all he heard was his brother’s name trailing after him wherever he went. But… it was never really a frustration with Marc. No it always tended to be aimed at those people who observed with greedy eyes, watching the older Marquez in the hopes they could take some of his spark for themselves, even as they flinched away from him.

Alex can’t remember a time he didn’t despise those people. Marc, always so friendly, had never seemed to notice them when they were young. He would just grin wildly, race wildly, yell wildly and never understand that they covet him and his talent. Alex saw it though, and perhaps it is not a younger brother’s job but it always made him tighten his grip, shove his body between, or silently stare until the person balked and dropped their eyes away.

But that had kind of always been his thing, behaving older than he is. He was the levelheaded one, he was the calm one, he was the quiet one. He was the one you went to when you needed the rational Marquez, someone who would listen and understand and not see things as so one-sided. Was that an accurate assessment of who he is? No, not really. Because no one seems to comprehend that Alex will always take Marc’s side no matter what. His brother could kill a man right in front of him, and he would smile passively at the police and say he did not see a thing. He would even take the knife himself, drive it in again and again if it meant protecting his brother.

Some days he almost wishes that Marc would kill someone. Specifically one person. Specifically Valentino Rossi.

Alex had… been a fan of sorts of Rossi when they were younger. He sat next to Marc as they stared up at the screen, he shared that room that at one point that was so plastered in posters that it was almost shrine-like. He was nowhere close to his brother, of course, hero worship crystal clear even when Marc got older, but he admired the Italian rider. How could you not?

So when Marc was chosen as a student, he had felt proud more than anything. Here was a legend picking his brother out of a crowd, which just shows how special Marc really is. Alex had always known that, many people had, but this almost felt like the final stamp on it all. “Future Star” printed in bright yellow ink across Marc’s forehead, obnoxious and plain as day.

He had felt no warning signs from any of it, not like he felt toward all of those greedy people growing up. Nothing stood out to him; all he saw was this man who fell for his brother hard and fast. He watched them swirl around each other, he saw the devoted staring, he noticed how Marc’s laughs just got bolder and lighter and happier.

And it was good. Even after the moments when Marc would call him and whisper pain, there was a burst of good. A selfie received where his brother is lounging under that tree next to the ranch’s track, Rossi’s head in his lap. A video of Marc laughing brightly as Rossi does a wheelie then tumbles into the dirt. A Christmas visit where he had to hurriedly shift his parents out of the house to avoid any noises, returning to find Marc flushed and Rossi grinning.

Sometimes he kicks himself for it all, for the innocence, for the trust. Sometimes he remembers those days after Sepang and curses the world for allowing any of it to happen. Sometimes he wonders how Rossi was able to hide it so well. Sometimes he hates everyone, including himself for the cracks that grew.

He had always been protective of his mad older brother, had always known he was softhearted underneath the steel door he keeps it all behind. But after Rossi broke everything, Alex felt that instinct dial up to eleven. Marc isn’t fragile exactly, too stony and determined to ever be breakable, but he was cracked in an almost unfixable way, and Alex would be damned if he ever let something like that happen again.

But that is the past. He stands on a podium now, a hard-fought win at his feet, his brother the dominant champion, and the echoes of the years after 2015 so distant. The crowds don’t curse so much anymore, the press doesn’t crucify. The riders have become more polite, and even some old friendships are starting to perk back up again. Will he ever forgive some of them for turning their back so easily? No, never. But Marc probably will, so he contents himself to be the over-protective, grudge-holding little brother that he is.

The celebration moves on fast, Moto2 as always hiding in the shadow of MotoGP. He steps off the podium, is enveloped by his teams and the firm grasp of his brother, and then things slide right along. No fireworks for them, no that will have to be a next year thing.

Next year next year. His first year in the premier class. His first year as his brother’s teammate. His first year riding one of the best bikes the sport has to offer.

When Honda came to him, he felt multiple things. Pride in himself for being an option, nerves at the idea, worry that they only want him because he is a Marquez, and even a little flash of fear. Marc has a habit of being a frankly terrible teammate, and while Alex knows he is probably one of the few who will avoid any games, there is something to be said about the crushing weight of Marc Marquez being who you are up against.

He accepted of course, it would be stupid not to, and although the crowds don’t know about it yet, they soon will. His name will be in orange too, his body wrapped in those famous leathers. They had warned him that the bike was… difficult, to put it politely, but he just shrugged that away. He has seen Marc ride for years, he knows his brother’s style more than anyone else. How hard could it be to adapt to that?

But those are future concerns, his current one is trundling back to his tent and settling in to watch the MotoGP race. And perhaps in between, if he feels like treating himself, he can grab a cheat meal from hospitality. Or maybe he will make his engineer do it, he is a champion after all.

A fancy cake greets him at the tent once he arrives, along with streamers and a little song and all the small ways a Moto2 championship is celebrated compared to the big boys. It’s grander than in Moto3, where the most he got was a plate of cookies and some claps on the back, but really he couldn’t care less. The real happiness will come tonight, when it is him and his family and none of the nonsense other people bring. He doesn’t care if they are something like friendless in their world; none of it really matters. He has seen how sharply people can cut you and has no intention of bleeding.

“Ah you have cards,” one of the engineers calls, grinning and waving around a small stack through the air. Alex rolls his eyes. Sponsors always like to send little things like this, a way of making you feel like they care about you as a human being and not just a vessel to extract victory from. They probably also had a card prepared in case he lost, those ones with none of the little presents they usually add in when you do good.

He's right of course, but he dutifully leafs through them all and pretends to be surprised, smiling as he holds up a few for a photo. He certainly dislikes this aspect of the sport, but it is the way it is. No money, no racing.

“Who’s this from?” He asks, holding up a light blue envelope to be inspected. Unmarked, unlabeled, unremarkable. If it was from a sponsor, they would have proudly displayed their name. If it was from a fan, they would have probably made it less professional.

Shrugs are the only answer he gets back, and he sighs as he starts to rip it open. Normally he wouldn’t even bother, but on the off chance it is one of the big names that just forgot to put their name, he has to check.

His fingers hit what is inside, and his eyebrows go up. A photo, by the feel of it. How odd.

But when he finally pulls it out and comprehends what the photo is of, he just feels his eyes narrow and his back stiffen right up.

A crowd of riders, dusty Italian hills behind them. Years ago now, and he spots himself in the middle, baby-cheeked and goofy looking, surrounded by faces he knows well even if he would definitely not consider them friends.

Francesco Bagnaia on his right, Andrea Migno on his left, Franco Morbidelli next to him, and little Luca Marini standing on his tiptoes behind them all. More people too, a few scattered faces he knows but cannot put a name to, and scrawled across the bottom in black ink is the date

January 2014.

His stomach clenches as he stares down at it, knowing full well what it is from. That day at the ranch, years ago, when Marc and Rossi were still good and days were bright and Alex was innocent enough to hope he could make friends.

He’d laughed with them, rode with them, and slotted into a place that was accepted and understood. He was Marc’s little brother, so he was part of it all even if he didn’t know them well.  More than that, he was a rider too, and it was hours spent shooting out stupid jokes and laughing as someone takes a fall that sends them sprawling across dirt and grass, loose-limbed and sturdy in only the way youth can be.

A fun day. A fun day that had been tainted the second 2015 happened and all those memories became twisted. A fun day that had been sliced into by unfriendly eyes, and a coldness that didn’t exist before.

He had decided years ago to erase that memory from his mind, to pretend like he hadn’t felt a spark of camaraderie with those riders who ignore him now. Had even hid it from Marc, pretending like he didn’t care because his brother would only hurt for him, and Alex doesn’t know if he could have handled that on top of his own aching.

But this reminder is like a slap to the face.

The academy riders aren’t… rude, exactly. Well expect for the curly-haired one he had raced against in Moto2, Bezicci or something, and they mostly just treat Alex like he is nothing. Let their eyes drag over him, and act like they don’t remember curling up on the couch together, snorting at stupid movies.

The only one who had really even spoken to him since then was Luca that one day in 2017, in the crowd of the podium, warning and worry in his voice. Alex has sympathy for him, he knows full well what it is like to have a sibling who is so much. He even understands the protective instinct to shield his older brother from pain. If Alex could have done it back then, he would have a million times over.

But he couldn’t accept the stupidity of it all. Luca whispering his worry, talking as if his own brother didn’t deserve it, or didn’t need it. He had seen how pain could rewrite how a person thinks, and if there is any human being on the planet who needs their thoughts switched up, it is Valentino Rossi

When he flips the photo the back, almost hoping it is unsigned, he hisses out a sharp sound when there is a short congratulations, scrawled in messy handwriting. At the bottom, bold and large and almost as obnoxious as their owner, are the initials ‘VR’ in bright yellow sharpie.

He is up and out of his chair before he realizes what he is doing, feet carrying him to where quite possibly the only sane person on that side of the battle line is, in the VR46 Moto2 team’s tent.

When he finds Luca he wants to snatch the guy away, drag him to the back and shout his questions. But all he does is stare until the other notices, jerks his head, and marches away. The shadow of the building he ducks behind cools his mind a little, and he takes a deep breath. He needs to be calm for this one.

“Marquez?” Comes a low, confused voice.

Alex doesn’t even turn, just lifts up the picture between two fingers and glares at it spitefully.

“Tell your crazy brother to go fuck himself,” he says quietly, a rather out of character sentiment for him to say out loud, and Luca makes an offended noise. But then he creeps closer, slowly takes the photo from his hand with gentle fingers, and sighs upon seeing it.

“Ah,” he murmurs, and Alex nods.

“Yes. Ah.”

A stretch of silence as Luca examines it, and when Alex turns to look at him finally, there is a furrow between the other rider’s eyes.

Another sigh.

“That was foolish of him,” Luca says, and Alex can’t help but agree inside, if in a bit more colorful language.

“Whatever game he is playing, let him know we are not interested. I’m not even planning on telling Marc about it, so he failed in that regard.”

The other man shuffles his feet a bit, looking almost ashamed as he still silently stares at the picture and the signage on the back, flipping delicately between the two like there will be something new if he checks. Then he shakes his head and looks back at Alex.

“No game, I don’t think. He probably didn’t even think it through, maybe even thought it was kind.”

“Kind,” Alex mutters, “he can keep his false kindness.”

Luca goes to hand it back to him, but Alex just shakes his head, crossing his arms stubbornly. He has no urge to touch the thing again, no need to see his innocent face and reflect on how stupid he was, how easily he allowed his brother to get hurt. All it does is make him burn.

“I’ll give it back to him,” Luca says in a wary voice, folding the picture in half and shoving it into his pockets. Once it is out of sight, Alex feels his temper ebb a little bit, and he rubs a hand over his face.

“Sorry, it isn’t your fault,” he blurts out, feeling guilty for his somewhat out-of-character anger, “I am mad at him, not you. You have always been nice.”

He doesn’t know why he says the last part, but when the other rider smiles sadly, he gets a flash of that face five years younger, staring up at Valentino with big admiring eyes, just like how Alex looks at Marc.

“I know,” Luca says, “but I am sorry. I think he really didn’t mean anything bad by it, probably found the photo and got sentimental. He wanted you in the academy after all, before it was set as only Italian riders.”

Hm. A funny idea, and an offer Alex probably would have accepted back in the day. He imagines that world, trapped under a contract while his brother was ripped apart. Would he have taken it to court and got it dissolved? Would he have stayed and pretended he didn’t feel a boiling hate? He really has no idea, and all it does is make him want to laugh.

“Right,” is all he says, and then turns to leave, done with this conversation and his mission to get rid of the picture. Let Rossi take the returning of it as the slight that it is. Alex hopes it feels like spit in his eyes.

But a quiet voice stops him.

“We would have been friends, I think.”

Alex pauses. Tosses a searching look over his shoulder and just finds abject honesty on the other rider’s face, meshed with something that looks like regret, eyes sloping and gentle. Nothing like his older brother, no Luca Marini is far more kind.

“I know.” Is all he responds with, then keeps going.

As he makes his way back to his tent, he just feels tired. Tired from all the games and slights and little moments that seem to trail after him and Marc all these years, tired of looking over his shoulder and wondering if someone is waiting in the wings to hurt his family. It’s bone deep, and the remnants of victory once he finally gets back are barely enough to help. Even the sweetness of the cake hardly lifts his spirits.

But as his eyes jump to the screen, and he sees the camera focus on Marc is his leathers, whirling around for the warmup lap, he settles himself. Next year will be different after all, He will be in the top class, he will be a Honda ride, he will be able to stand next to his brother, not a step behind, and keep him safe. Them against the world, stronger together and Marc will finally have someone in the paddock who is on his side. His brother will laugh brighter, joke more, smile more carelessly, just like how he used to.

And nothing will ever hurt him again.

***

Jerez 2020

Alex doesn’t even see the crash until after the race. He knows Marc is out of the race, knows it because he suddenly stopped seeing his brother’s name on top of the list every time he flew by the screen, but didn’t think much of it. Marc crashes all the time, very famously, but he always gets up again. Even after all of his run-ins with diplopia, even with his shoulder in 2018, he gets back up. Grins away the pain and pretends he feels nothing, makes people think he is inhuman even though Alex has seen him cry.

But when he watches a replay on screen, his stomach clenches tight. Because it’s bad. Worse than bad, it’s painful. He watches his brother get thrown around like a rag doll, watches him slam into the ground over and over and over again. And then the worst of it.

He pulls himself into recovery position slowly, so slowly, and Alex knows he only gets that way when it really hurts. Through the screen he can feel it, pulsing and deep, and when Marc stands again, his arm looks all wrong. Gingerly held out, as if it has been partially ripped off.

“How bad is it?” He asks immediately to no one, and the quiet that fills the garage is horribly telling.

“He’s at the hospital,” someone he says, and Alex just nods.

“Take me to him.”

It’s a bit of a whirlwind after that, emotions clouding his vision until he has to be led by the arm into the hospital. Fear, denial, anger, worry. All of it swirls through his gut, the kind that is unexplainable but based in so much that is true and known that it is impossible to push away.

He knows baseline that Marc is fine. He was up, he was walking, and no one seemed too concerned about any danger to his life. But that wasn’t where all of this came from, no it was rooted in the sight of that arm. Dangling and painful, clutched by the other hand like Marc was trying to hold himself together. And those kind of injuries, the ones that leave the strongest people screwing up their faces, are never good. Few riders have come back from such a thing, and the sight had rang ominously in the air. Like the bells in town when someone has died. Like the end is near, like maybe his brother will never ride again.

To Marc, just the idea would be even worse than death. And maybe that is what Alex is so afraid of the most.

The sterile white of the hospital is jarring, especially because Alex is still in his obnoxious orange leathers, hands scuffed and dirty, hair messy and sweaty. He sees a few looks thrown his way, confusion at how much he stands out, but pays it no mind.

“A humerus fracture,” the doctor who had met him at the entrance is saying, “and possible nerve damage. The tire went right over his arm, it could have been worse.”

Numbly, Alex kind of laughs in his head. Nerve damage- as if there could be anything worse. It leaves limbs loose and useless, and you can’t ride a bike if you can’t feel.

Marc is sitting up in the bed when he finally gets there, face set and stern, eyes far away. His arm is in a sling, a nurse fussing over him to accept intravenous painkillers, but Marc sharply shakes his head no, doesn’t even look at the man.

He looks…. he looks tired. He looks angry. He looks like there is much more on his mind than a bad crash.

“Marc,” Alex murmurs, and his brother’s head snaps to the side, eyes cruel and bitter, icy as the Antarctic. He stares at Alex like he is a stranger, no twitch of the lips, nothing. Its frightening and for a second he wonders if that is how most people see the older man. And a little bit of understanding leaks in, because his whole body tenses up at the sight, hindbrain instantly sensing a predator is near.

But that expression melts away, tiredness replacing it and his big brother is back. Alex still feels very small and young as he moves closer. He really doesn’t know what to do.

“You look scared, Cuchu,” Marc says quietly, “I hate when you make that face.”

“Sorry,” Alex mumbles foolishly, but his brother just snorts.

“I am fine, sit down and tell me how the race finished.”

He obeys the first part, because of course he does, and lowers himself down gingerly to the small chair next to the hospital bed, wincing as it creaks beneath him.

He hates this so much, hates being the one upright and fine, sitting next to his brother all wrapped in bandages. If anyone should get hurt, it should be Alex, he doesn’t matter really. That’s foolish to think, and Marc would smack him for it, but honestly it is true, ina. coldly logical way. Honda wants Marc, not him. Alex could barely crawl into the points on his first race, and Marc back in 2013 had gotten a podium and then right after, a win.

And today, even after a terrible quali and months off when no racing as allowed to the pandemic, it was Marc who sprinted his way up to third, who was chasing down even better. Alex should have crashed because no one would have cared. Honda would still have their champion, Alex still would have been disappointed with himself, and life would have moved on.

But here is, healthy, and there Marc is, hurt.

“How bad is it?” He asks instead of answering anything about Jerez’s results, and Marc just frowns at him.

“Fine, tell me about the race,” he insists, and Alex swallows but gives in because out of the two of them, his brother has always been the strong one.

He blandly describes Vinales, Mir, and Dovizioso on the podium. Details his own results with a stiff air, and when Marc reaches out with his good arm to pinch him on the cheek and tell him good job, faintly wincing the whole way, Alex just nods.

“I am glad Dovi did well,” Marc finally says after he is done, “if someone had to benefit from my crash, I’m glad it was him.”

Twisted logic, the kind that makes Alex want to protest, to cry out against his older brother for being so blasé. He can see the pain lacing over his that face, so clear in a way it should not be. Marc never shows that sort of thing, and if he is doing that now… it must be like hell on Earth.

“Tell me how it really is,” Alex murmurs, and doesn’t look at Marc as he says it. Knows if he does the older man will simply lie once more, too proud to look his little brother in the eyes and say that it hurts.

Silence. Then a sigh.

“Bad.”

And that nearly ruins him. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries not to cry, and hates how childlike he feels all of a sudden. His big brother is hurt and all he can do is feel that same panic he used to get when Marc would skin a knee, crimson blood pouring down his shin. Alex would always go running for their mother, babbling in fear, and when they finally got a band aid, Marc would always refuse it. Laughingly say he wants a cool scar, declare that he is like Pedrosa or Rossi, and that no amount of injury could tear him down.

“Alex, it is fine,” Marc attempts to soothe, and that just makes him feel worse. He should be the comforting one, he should be mature and calm and steady. But as always, Marc is the strong one, even as he lays there with a useless arm.

“Have they discussed any options yet,” he says, thick voiced, and is grateful when Marc ignores it.

“They want to move me to Barcelona to reassess, and they already talk about treatments. Surgery for the bone, but if it’s a nerve and tissue issue…”

He trails off, but Alex knows what he means. Bone can be fixed, melded together by metal and screws. If it is just bone, he might even be racing by Brno or Austria. But tissue is delicate, and nerves are almost incomprehensible. Any discussion around that would have been… much less hopeful.

“Have you talked to Mare and Pare?”

Marc nods slowly, winces as the movement forces his shoulder up and down slightly. His eyes flash red-hot for a second, but he pushes it down. More pain then, even more than he is allowing to leak through. But he had turned the medicine away, bearing it with more grace than any person should have to.

“They will meet us at the hospital in Barcelona, lucky we are home, yes? Lucky they couldn’t come to this one either, not so fun to watch in person I think.”

Alex agrees quietly, feels a sense of relief that at least he doesn’t have to be the one to call, to murmur the worst of it and hear the sharp intakes of breath, the curses laced in fear, and the worry that can be felt even through the tinny sounds of a phone.

He stares at the ground, prays a little bit to the heavens even though he hasn’t in years. Begs them to turn back time, or make this all a dream, or heal his brother faster. Prays that maybe it is not what he fears, that the foreboding feeling he has is overprotectiveness or paranoia. Maybe he is wrong; maybe the heaviness of it all is the weight of his disappointment in himself on top of the crash.

A hand presses against his arm, squeezing sure and tight, and when he startles up, he finds Marc leaning closer this time. The movement must hurt, his eyes are tight with it and his hand is shaking slightly. But still he wants to be gentle, still he grasps Alex with the warmth and love only family can have.

“This is not the worst I have had,” he says quietly, but with a steady voice.

“It is only in the body. There is other pain that is far worse than this.”

“I know,” Alex responds, memories of the days after Sepang swirling through his head.

“I know.”

They get to Barcelona three hours later, a quiet ride as they had finally convinced Marc to take something, a little shot that turned him sleepy and slurry, and eventually saw him slumping back into his seat, face relaxed for the first time all day.

Alex watches him the entire time, finds himself unable to look away. As if one blink, one turned head would mean Marc will get worse or disappear or something. He knows it is ridiculous, and yet he can’t help it.

But still they hedge their bets and Marc goes under the knife only a day after the crash. Alex sits there in the waiting room, imagining a scalpel slicing into skin like butter and the slow hammering of titanium onto bone. It makes him feel sick, it makes him want to rip his hair out, but all he can do is stare at the clock and imagine every way that this could go wrong.

Hours later a doctor tells them the surgery went well, and although everyone else seems to relax finally, the worry line in his father’s forehead fading away, the little light returning to his mother’s eyes, Alex can’t feel it.

Too easy, his brain whispers, too soon. It had felt like the end of the world, and no apocalypse can be fixed by an hour-long surgery and two metal plates.

He hates that too. That he cannot feel the relief at all. They leave Marc to spend the night there, and when his father’s hand curls around his neck in a reassuring grip, Alex can’t help but feel like he is abandoning Marc there, small in the big white hospital bed, covered in bandages and weaker than Alex has ever seen him.

But Marc wakes up fine, and he moves his arm fine, and everything seems just… fine. Honda rejoices, the news all report that the surgery was a success, and everyone is thankful that the champion will return. Even Marc is steadier, less tightly wound than right after, but Alex still sees the way he moves gently. As if there is a fear that he could make it worse, snap that new metal and destroy himself once more. That doesn’t stop him, because nothing ever does, and Alex just waits for it all to come crashing down once more.

He is proven right in a way that burns like Greek fire only days later. Marc attempts to ride again, and snaps the plates clean in half, splintering the broken bone like it is made of brittle wood. The pain is worse this time, and all Alex can do is watch agony splintering in his brother’s eyes even as his face remains still as a stone. He is the one who calls their parents this time and despises himself for the way their mother’s voice chokes when he tells her.

More hospitals, more time, another surgery. This one is longer and more complicated, yet in the same place, almost like a time-loop. Alex really shouldn’t be there, should be in Brno preparing to race, but he had told the team he would travel separately and arrive Thursday morning. Really they can’t stop him, possibly no one could.

This time he cannot leave, even when the sun goes down and his parents yawningly exit. Even when the nurses urge him to leave, murmuring that they will take good care. He left Marc behind last time, and look what happened? He can’t do that again, instead he will watch and wait and when Marc wakes up again they will see how it really went and maybe this horrible feeling will finally go away.

By midnight he feels dead on his feet, and in the back of his mind he hears his trainer scolding him about his sleep habits, but he really couldn’t care less. It’s better than when he closes his eyes, the image that fills his head of young Marc, the little boy he had padded after so many years, strapped to a hospital bed and covered in stitches. Not a real memory, but an echo of a nightmare he had after the first surgery. Painful and too real. Marc still looks so small in the hospital bed.

“There is a vending machine down the hall with some cold coffee in it,” one of the nurses says when he almost falls over in exhaustion, “I could get some for you?”

Kind, very kind, but Alex just waves her off, denying until she finally sighs and leaves. He probably needs to stretch anyways, and even though he still fears Marc somehow getting himself into trouble, he supposes the chances are lower with the older man dead asleep and strapped to a hospital bed. So he reluctantly gets up, glances back at Marc as if ensuring he is still there and no one lurks in the corners to hurt him, and shuts the door behind him with a soft click.

It’s shitty coffee, the kind you find for a dollar in the very back of a gas station fridge. When he glances at the date it says it’s been expired for a year, but he just sighs and accepts his fate. Besides something tasting good right now would just make him wary.

He lingers in the hallway for a minute, stares blankly at the design on the wall and thinks. Thinks about racing, and their world, and Marc, and everything that hurts. It almost feels nice, like he can somehow understand his brother better when he aches at the same time.

It’s not comparable, mostly because Marc hurts like no one he has ever met. Not physically of course, his brother’s pain tolerance is famously high and even having his arm shredded has been controlled in some way. But it is his mind that hurts the most, his heart even, if Alex wants to be dramatic.

A lot of people think of his brother as emotionless, or untouchable, or inhuman. But Alex knows how viciously that is untrue. He sees the truth behind that stony face, behind that mask. He knows his brother still loves Rossi, even if just a little. He knows that when he stares into the distance that is probably what he is thinking about. He knows that the pain of having their world turn against him will never fade, he will just grow accustomed to it. He knows that all of it builds in him sometimes until he can’t help but tear down the field and destroy them as they destroy him day in and day out.

To be human is to be in pain, some philosopher Alex can’t remember said. That is why he has always had the firmest belief that Marc is the most human of them all.

As he wanders back in the direction of Marc’s hospital room, he watches the people he passes out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he is too tired, maybe his mind is so wrapped up in dramatics that he is seeing things that are not there but he feels the keenest connection with them all of a sudden.

The woman with brown hair’s face is filled with tension, hands digging into her arm as she listens to a doctor talk in a low voice. The man sitting against the wall outside one of the rooms looks lost, head thunked up against the wall and eyes empty. The teenager he finds pacing outside of a room, the wails of someone inside making his face screw up in a horrifying death mask, is on the edge of devastation but not quite there yet. All of it so real, all of it twining through the air, tying every single person who is waiting in the hospital together. Even Alex, as he numbly walks through the hallway is there with them, the loop of his own fears melding with theirs.

In that moment he loves them all and hates them all in equal measures. Relates to their pain but can’t stop himself from trying to divorce away from it.

He wishes it was him in that hospital room. Marc wouldn’t be out here, standing in the hallway and staring at other people’s pain. He would do something brilliant; he would know exactly what to say. He would make a stupid joke, or merely with his presence alone would lift the whole mood up. There would be none of this devastation if it was Marc out here. I

But instead it is Alex who lingers in the hospital halls, swallowed up in his aches and weaker than he has ever been.

There is almost a desire to stay here to watch all of them and allow his mind to melt away until all he is exists in the beating pulse of all the pain people can feel. Until he can hide from the personal side of it, until he forgets his brother is pale and sleeping in the hospital bed and pretend like he has no real reason to be walking down these sterile halls.

Expect that Marc is alone, and if he happens to wake up, Alex does not want him to be lonely. Not like after the first one, the surgery that had failed. Maybe that is what had ruined it. Alex knows that is a childish thought, but it echoes around in his head nonetheless.

However when he finally comes to the hall where Marc is, he finds the door open. And when he steps closer, sure that it is a doctor or nurse, he feels a pulse in his stomach when he hears Marc’s voice, slower and slurred, but very much awake.

“Why are you here Vale?”

End Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Vale doesn’t know why he is here.

The coldness of the air is painful, the sound of the monitor that tracks Marc’s heart rate is irritating, and the way he had to duck in, hiding behind corners with his hood over his head and mask slapped on his face, had been pathetic.

He really has no idea. It had been a whim more than anything, an insistent itch that had spread across his whole body the second he gained the sickening knowledge that Marc was genuinely injured.

The crash had been a bad one, but Vale had just rolled his eyes at it all. Marc crashes all the time; he’s hell on a bike, but he will bounce back. When he heard about the broken humerus, his stomach swooped, but he still felt fine. It was almost justified in a way he knows is terrible. Marc had been riding like an idiot for too long, maybe this will teach him a lesson. It’s his first major injury since 2012, when the diplopia had almost taken him out.

Vale sometimes wishes that it had. Maybe they would be a ‘them’ still. Maybe Marc wouldn’t have decided to hate so much. Maybe Vale wouldn’t have either.

But regardless, the younger man would be fine. He always is, and when the news that the surgery had gone well hit, Vale felt the itch subside a little, and he just shook his head. Vented to the academy boys about dangerous riding and waited in trepidation or anticipation for Marc to return.

But then the news hit that the surgery might not have been so perfect as they had portrayed, and that Marc was stupid and snapped the titanium plates, and it all came back tenfold. Painful enough to jump on a plane and take off in the middle of the night, ignoring the question mark text he had gotten from Luca after he pulled out of the driveway to get to the airport.

So here he stands, staring down at Marc, who is staring up at him, eyes blurry and face pale. The younger man looks… wrong in the hotel bed. It’s like he has fallen through one of those funhouse mirrors at carnivals, and everything is tilted the incorrect way. That old feeling of fear rises for a split second, the one he had gotten all those years ago when post-surgery he saw Marc ride again, but he swallows it down as best as he can.

“I don’t know,” he finally mumbles, answering the slurred question that had been hanging in the air. His throat feels dry as he speaks, and he realizes that he hasn’t really drank or ate anything in a few hours. Too focused, perhaps. To fixated.

He hates this so much.

“That’s very like you,” Marc finally says, shifting his eyes away to stare blankly at the ceiling, “you never seem to know what the hell you do.”

Vale feels his eyebrows furrow subconsciously, a weak protest crawling up his throat but failing to gain enough substance to fly from his lips. He just stares, a bit stricken by the soft tiredness in Marc’s voice. It’s like it used to be, years ago when he would wake in the morning. Slow speech, thoughtless words, the warm openness that only comes from being pressed up against each other for hours.

“What do I do?”

Marc sighs, and Vale swears he can feel it fluttering over his skin. He shuts his eyes tight for a brief second to the way it makes him feel warm, and hates hates hates.

“Am I dreaming?” The younger man says instead of answering, and Vale shifts closer as he says it. That loopy gaze is back on him, eyes tired and weak in a way they rarely are, and Marc looks beautiful. He always does, of course, but Vale hasn’t… he hasn’t really let himself stare in a while.

“Do you dream of me often?” He can’t help but ask because right now he has no control over his tongue. He sounds desperate and stupid as he does, voice wavering in the middle, a clear indicator of his inability to handle any of this. Yet he grins like it is a tease, pretends as if it is all part of the game. Marc eyes him with suspicion, like he knows this is one grand act.

“Every night.”

Vale’s heart clenches, and when his thighs bump into the side of the bed, he realizes how close he has gotten. Marc has to stare directly up at him now, face tense but loose at the same time. Vale can feel his warmth, inches away. It’s like an inferno, one that you are helpless to avoid. Like a moth to a flame.

“How many times do you kill me in those dreams?”

A small laugh, and Vale hisses in a breath when the unwrapped arm reaches out, and fingers brush lightly against his wrist. He had been clutching the railing on the side of the bed without realizing it, and the minute that skin touches his, he feels something burst in his chest. A supernova that whites out his thoughts, that makes it so he wants to cry and hide and run away and clutch closer and get on his knees and beg. For what, he doesn’t know.

“Never,” Marc says quietly, “it’s usually you who kills me.”

Vale blinks rapidly, tries to adjust to it all even as those fingers rub over his pulse point. It’s good, too good, and Marc doesn’t even seem to realize he’s doing it. Surely he wouldn’t be so casual about the whole thing if he did. Or maybe touching like this… isn’t such a big deal to him. Maybe he feels none of this madness inside, maybe it is just like feeling a stranger to him. Vale has no idea which he would prefer in truth: burning emotion or ice-cold indifference.

“How do I do it?” He chokes out, then forces another grin, “maybe it can help me plan.”

Another muffled laugh, and Marc continues to touch casually, as if it is not throwing Vale’s world into complete chaos.

“Hanging with a rope. You pull the lever with a smile and the crowd cheers.”

Vale immediately shakes his head at the image. Too impersonal, too ridiculous. He would never kill Marc like that. If he did, it would be in the quiet of their bedroom, hazy dawn light coming in through the curtains. They would be wrapped up in their sheets, warm and comfortable, and beautifully naked. He would press his finger into that gentle throat, increase the pressure until that face went a pretty shade of red. And then he would feel the life in his hands, pull it out of Marc until the younger man went limp below him, supplicant like a sculpture. Then Vale would hold him close and never move again. He would die there too, his face pressed into a dead man’s chest in twisted reverence.

But he can’t say that. He shouldn’t even be thinking that, it’s madness.

“Not enough pizzazz,” he manages, and it makes the younger man sigh.

“Sorry then, I’ll make sure to spice it up next time.”

Silence falls once more, and Marc is still touching him and the air is still too cold and the sound of that machine is still irritating. He has no idea why he hasn’t run yet, no idea why he can’t summon any of the old rage right now. It was so easy when Marc was wrapped in his leathers, unstoppable bike underneath him. But this figure on the bed, pale in the dim hospital light, is impossible to hate.

This is… they haven’t genuinely spoken in two years now. The last time was in 2018, a phone call right before the first race that had lasted for an hour, one that Vale hadn’t even known would be the last one.

There are a few voicemails on his phone left over, laughing little messages that he plays sometimes when he is being particularly pathetic and pretends that it is a real phone call. He has them memorized by now, and that makes it feel less real. But it helps, it helps to keep the fire burning in his chest. A reminder of all that they were and are and will be. It keeps him strong, keeps him from doing stupid things.

Stupid things like this. So perhaps it doesn’t work all the time.

“I hate when you look like that.”

Vale startles at the words, jerking back a little, but then those fingers tighten and keep him close. A firm grip, out of character for someone who is clearly still experiencing the drugs in the system. But maybe he should not be surprised, Marc has always been sharp as an axe head. Even dulled he could still cut you in half with one swing.

“Like what?” He whispers, and Marc’s eyes are so intense that he feels like he is getting pulled into them. Dark depths, so cold most days, but so searching now. He looks into those eyes and a thought prickles in the back of his mind.

That they look just as desperate as Vale feels.

“Like you still love me. Like you ever did.”

At those words, Marc finally drops his grip, fingers slackening until gravity makes Vale’s wrist drop away. Instantly he feels colder and has to force himself not to reach out and demand that the touch remains.

He feels shredded wide open, and he knows this is wrong. He hates Marc really, despises him for what he did. But as time goes on, he has slowly forgotten the rage of Sepang. These days all he feels is the echoing pain of Qatar and Argentina, the burning knowledge that the man in front of him never loved him and never will. Marc never cared, he has made that clear, and perhaps that has always been his real crime.

Those had been the darkest of days, the time after, even as he pretended otherwise. He smiled and kept on doing what he did. Spoke to the press with a quirked brow, refused to shake hands behind a long table, despising the stony look in those eyes. Hated hated hated, and it was real even when it hurt.

Does he still love Marc? Does he still dream of touching that dark hair? Does he still remember the sweetness that was riding with him around the track at dawn? Does he long for the quiet nights curled up on the couch and laughing stupidly at the screen? Does he sometimes close his eyes and pretend that the sound of one of the boys showering is Marc, and that he will pad out wrapped in a towel, steam floating off his skin?

He knows the answer to everything but the first question. Though perhaps it is all one in the same.

“Don’t say things like that,” he mumbles, and Marc tilts his head slightly. Presses back into the bed even further and shuts his eyes like he is trying to fall back asleep.

“I can say whatever I want right now, none of this matters.”

“Why not?”

A small laugh.

“So real,” comes the mumbled words, cryptic and painful, and Vale hates him so much and he was over this, he swears he was over this. He pretended to be, at least. Lied and claimed and even convinced Uccio that this was the truth.

It is the truth, he knows it is, it must be. Because how could he do this? How could he want this? How could he still look at Marc and have something like need in his chest. He hates Marc, he has to.

Yet here he stands, old hoodie swallowing his frame, stomach twinging with hunger, and mouth dry as a desert. His head is starting to pound, and yet all that matters right now is the man on the bed, who with his eyes closed looks like a melancholic painting. Beautiful, so beautiful. A tragedy constrained to one human being.

“My mom threw away all of the posters and replica bikes you know,” Marc says slowly,

“Perhaps not threw away though. I think she just hid them, I think even she still holds on to hope that we could be something better again, that you can be good. My dad disagrees; he says that you are evil.”

Slow breathing.

“What do you think I am?” Vale says stiffly.

“Both, always both.”

Whispery words, said with a lightness, a distance that is chasm-wide and Vale wants to be close. He wants to press in until they are melded together like they used to, he wants to hear the softness that had briefly appeared for a second, he wants it all. Dangerous thoughts to have so weak as he is right now. They rail against the hate with so much more power than they had before.

“How did the surgery go?” He asks instead of confronting all of that, and Marc smiles.

“Small talk, how odd. I don’t know actually, I have been asleep since they put me under. I do that a lot these days you know, the drugged sleep is much pleasanter than others. I don’t even need Alex here with me.”

He tries to understand what that means, twisting words and implications and the casual way that Marc says it all, but the younger man keeps talking and Vale needs to hear every word that comes out of his mouth. So he abandons his analysis to listen in rapture.

Marc just lets it all pour out. He describes the feeling of the crash, he talks about that first surgery and all the nerve fears. Paints pictures of bitter pain, doesn’t sugarcoat a thing or let it show in his voice. Almost detached, as if it isn’t his own body that he is discussing. When he talks about the feeling of the titanium plate snapping, Vale lets out a hiss, unable to cope with that.

Marc’s eyes are still closed, as if he can’t bear to look, but he tilts his face toward Vale, an almost teasing expression there.

“Squeamish in your old age? I always thought you would be.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Vale mutters, “no it’s just…”

It’s just that it’s you, he wants to finish, but that is too much. Too revealing, too open to a man that would sooner rip his heart out that hold him. Instead he just lets it sit heavy in the air, and wonders if Marc would know what he was thinking always.

“You always liked to see me floundering. Or is it only when you cause it that it is acceptable?” The younger man breathes.

“Yes,” Vale says, “only me. Don’t take that away, too.”

Marc lets out a considering hum.

“Kiss me.”

The words echo in the air suddenly, and Vale doesn’t comprehend them for a second. When he finds the strength to look at Marc, he finds those eyes on him once more and that in itself is a shock to the system, almost as shocking as the request.

“What? Why?” He whispers, and Marc gets this soft, aching look on his face. The first sign of pain that he has shown the whole time, and Vale almost wants to lean forward and ask if he should get a nurse.

“Our last kiss was Qatar. I hated that, even if it is fake I want something else.”

Vale shakes his head, feeling overwhelmed. He steps back, and Marc watches him with keen eyes, looking unsurprised by his reaction.

“You chose Qatar,” he hisses out, “you chose that, how could you hate it? You were happy, you were grinning, you let them touch you even after-”

“I know,” Marc says steadily, “I have always been selfish. So kiss me and when I wake up tomorrow I can pretend like any of this was real.”

Vale hates him so much, it tears through his chest. How will he be able to cope with this, how? But Marc is asking, and he is down on that bed, arm shattered and gaunter in the face and so weak. But really it is not him who is losing it today. No, it is Vale loud and clear. Because he still feels more for Marc, still burns for him even as he despises him in almost equal parts.

Like hell on earth, and the temperature turns up as he slowly steps close. As he leans in. As he watches Marc gently close his eyes and wait. As he lets his breath ghost over Marc’s cheeks and watches lashes flutter. As feels a nose brush against his cheek, and hears Marc murmur his name. Boiling perdition, damnation licking at his feet.

The first press of the lips is like dying and being reborn again in the same instant. Marc sighs into it, pushing up like he wants to get closer, and Vale has to choke back something that feels like tears.

It’s good, too good. Just as he remembers, soft and warm and perfect. Those lips move against his, and he feels spun off track with it.  He slides back into old habits so easily, that when he reaches out a hand to tangle into the younger man’s hair like he always used to, it doesn’t even feel that odd. The silky strands are like water, a balm to Vale’s soul. Better than he remembered maybe.

He has missed this, and that hurts maybe the most. More than the feeling even, just the knowledge that the second they kissed he felt something closer to whole than he had in years. It’s the knowledge that you are perhaps not as strong as you think you are, and he knows that he might never be right again. Especially not after this.

A shudder goes through his body, and Marc’s hand comes up to press against his, soothing almost, fingers gentle and warm. Close to reverence, the way Vale used to love. Nowadays he looks back on all of that and calls it fake, but… but he doesn’t know how to think like that right now.

It is Marc who pulls back first, a small smile on his face. When he opens his eyes they are deeper than the ocean, and filled with so much Vale doesn’t understand that it is frightening.

“Call me by my name.”

“Marc,” Vale instantly breathes, but the younger man shakes his head.

“Call me by my name,” he repeats. Only seconds later does Vale understand what he means. It is like an arrow to the heart, his skin being torn into with a purpose.

So cruel, the man in front of him is so cruel.

“Tatino,” he croaks, devastated, and Marc nods, a few wrinkles on his forehead smoothing out.

“Good, that’s good. I will remember this when I wake up.”

Then he is turning away, face tilting once more at the ceiling and those eyes are closed. Vale can’t help the way tears well up at the sight, as Marc shuts it all out once more. As he closes down, expression placid, disregarding like he always does.

Vale hates him so much as the first tear drops down his cheek, one he swipes away angrily, frustrated at himself for allowing this to happen again.

“I need to sleep. Will you come tomorrow night?”

“No,” Vale says meanly, and Marc smiles.

“That one felt really real. Goodnight Vale.”

And then the younger man is gone once more, sleep taking him instantly as if he had been fighting against it the whole while. His face smooths, mouth goes slack, and he looks so young so young. An echo of 2013 etched there, and it is like a living memory. Kisses at night and a sleeping man who had fallen asleep with Vale’s name on his lips.

Slowly he backs out of there, feeling cornered and lost and stupid and everything that is bad all at once. He slips out the door, blindly fumbling his mask back on, ducking his head down and avoiding wandering eyes. Hides away from the world as he hides away from himself.

He makes it out the doors, but when a firm hand slams down on his shoulder, he freezes.

“Never come back,” hisses an angry voice, one he recognizes well. The Spanish accent almost makes him think it is Marc, but he knows better after so many years.

“Alex,” he says warily, and when he turns around the younger rider is glaring.

“No more games, Rossi, he is finished with you. How dare you, when he is so injured. How dare you take advantage of that, thought I suppose you always did.”

Vale chokes out a noise, a mixture between a laugh and a cry, and wants to slam his head into the wall. Anger shoots through him, at himself and at the spiteful eyes of the wrong Marquez.

“Don't touch me,” he spits, “ And don't pretend like you know anything about this. I just had to, I could barely-”

Alex shakes his head, interrupting his words with a sharp wave of the hand.

“I couldn’t care less. If I see you here again, I will have you banned from the premises. He needs to heal, and you only make things worse.”

It’s true, it’s false, it’s wrong, it’s right. It’s mean to hear, but it does not echo incorrect, and yet he knows that this is not the whole story. As he sees the anger burning in those eyes that are not like Marc’s at all, a wave of guilt crashes through him. So profound that it nearly wipes his mind, the kind that had been piling in his stomach until he could barely handle a single breath anymore. The anger disappears, and all he can feel is hollow.

“I’m sorry,” he says roughly, and it falls from his lips like a prayer and a curse at the same time. Echoes through the air and makes his hair stand on end.

Alex jerks back like he has been slapped. Opens his mouth, closes it again. Then his face somehow goes even stonier.

“Leave.”

And so Vale does.

***

Months. Months and months and months, and it is November before Vale can even blink. A terrible season for him, one that left him feeling off-kilter and worrying about too many things to count once the last race is finished. There are only two that fill his mind up so completely though.

The first thing is himself, and the fact that every day it gets harder and harder to hide from the fact that he is aging. His body creaks more than it used to, the pain where old breaks were twinges often, and when he looks at his results compared to his teammate, he knows that he has officially started to lose performance.

Everyone disagrees, because they are loyal and kind and everything Vale wants them to be, but he knows the end is near. Next season will be his last, he has determined. It scrapes at his soul, but it is time. The faces are getting too young, his old friends are gone, and he knows that it will just get sad if he stays.

The second thing that fills his mind is of course Marc, because it always is even if he despises that fact.

The hospital visit had been a mistake, a moment of weakness and foolishness. Embarrassing enough that he is forever grateful no one had found out about, aware that it would have gotten him sad stares and maybe even a lecture from Uccio.

He mostly just pretends it never happened, even as he bleeds from it. In interviews, when they ask him about Marc’s injury, he shrugs and gives some bland statement. When he feels really angry, at himself and the man who is still not here, he makes it more pointed. Marc never responds, not in the press at least, and eventually it feels like shouting into the void. So he stops.

But still, months and months and months. Not a single sight of the younger man at all. He had missed Aragorn, COVID leaving him house-bound for almost two weeks, but he watched on TV. When they showed Marc in the Honda garage, his first race visit since his injury, the younger man had looked stiff, even as he smiled. There was something in his eyes, a sort of madness that… that Vale understood. The hate of having to watch and not ride, the kind of feeling he knows he will get soon enough, when he hangs up his leathers for good. He hates that he has to see it on Marc first.

He missed that chance to see the younger man there, to look in his eyes and see his reaction to the memories of that night in the hospital. He wonders if Marc obsesses over it like he does. Wonders if he lays up at night and runs the kiss through his head, presses his fingers to his lips and pretends. Wonders if he goes over the conversation, attempts to figure out how It could have gone worse or better or… different.

Madness, as always. But Vale’s gotten used to that.

“I heard he won’t make it for pre-season testing,” he hears a low voice say one day, lightly echoing around the living room. The boys are in there, lazy and curled up, after a day of training, and Vale is in the kitchen. He’s been here for hours, bent over his computer and furrowing his brow as he tries to figure out what to do with some new sponsorships, and honestly he doesn’t think they even know he is here.

He isn’t even really paying attention. Until Bezz snorts out a noise and speaks with a haughty voice.

“Good, Marquez only causes problems.”

Vale’s spine snaps to attention almost unconsciously, and he feels every cell in his body freeze. He has never heard the boys talk about Marc without him there. A small part of his mind tells him to be quiet and listen.

“Sometimes,” Pecco allows, “but it would be nice to see him riding again. You saw how bad he looked in that Instagram picture.”

They should have Marc blocked. Vale had made them do it years ago. But that thought is only faint as they keep talking.

“Yeah, I heard he still isn’t doing well, maybe even a third surgery,” Franky says carefully, and his voice sounds pained. As if he is feeling the hurt right alongside Marc. Not out of character, Franky has always been the best of them.

He hadn’t known any of this. Had hid away from information about Marc and his injury for the rest of the season, and no one dares to mention that kind of stuff around him anyways. So this is… this is kind of awful to hear. He had liked to imagine that Marc was all better now, that the second surgery that Vale had been obsessed with went well and he would be back in Sepang for testing come February. That Vale could finally see him and not get the sharp, worried feeling. He shouldn’t worry over someone he hates.

“Do you think he will retire?”

No, his mind hisses immediately. It’s impossible for Marc to retire now, he’s not even thirty. He can’t…. he can’t do that.  He’s not allowed.

Vale tries to picture that world, where both of them are no longer riding. History would mean nothing then; all of the years of hatred and pain would mean nothing. Everything ending not with a bang but with a whimper, and what right does Marc have to do that? No, Vale needs him to be there. Needs to sit behind a screen, or in a garage, after he has finished and be able to fixate his eyes on that figure and pull the anger back up. If he doesn’t have that… then how will he be able to fight away it all? How will he be able to keep down the ache and pain and horror and guilt that overtakes him every time he doesn’t see the man for a while?

“No,” Pecco says decisively, “I think he will ride until his body starts falling apart.”

“It is though. They said his arm was almost ripped off.”

And Vale has to leave at that, slides toward the back door with shaky hands, bumps into a chair on his way out and flinches when they go quiet and turn to watch him with startled expressions. He doesn’t look at them, or talk. He just slips outside, ignores the way they all seem full of pity all of a sudden, and lets the cool winter air hit him.

Breathe, he needs to breathe. But those words tumble through his mind, a tangled mesh of ‘retire’ and ‘fall apart’ and ‘ripped off’ spinning around until he feels like he might hurl.

His legs unconsciously move him toward the track, sun low in the sky, hovering over it like a light bulb. The nausea is crippling, and he presses his hand to his stomach, opens his eyes wide to take in the world around him, an attempt to center, and keeps walking.

Then he is right next to that tree, the one he found Marc lounging under on that first day. He remembers spotting him there, small and still in casual clothes, head tilted back and face to the sky. Vale had thought it was hilarious that one of his visitors had the guts to separate from the group and treat his home like their own. Has stood there and stared at Marc for a while, trying to figure out what this kid’s game was.

It was an odd feeling at the time. Maybe subconsciously he had known that this was an important moment. Maybe he could feel the future waiting, the tingle of everything that will be smiling and laughing, preparing to sink their claws in the second Vale lets them. He hadn’t known better at the time, so he leaned close, said something he barely remembers, and waited for surprise or shock or the typical panicked fanfare he usually gets

But then Marc opened his eyes and spoke, and Vale was a goner.

Many times over the years he had found the younger man out here, leaning like he had that first day. Back then he used to greet Vale with a smile when he realized why the sunlight was being blocked. He would blink up, eyes delighted, and then make some stupid joke that had Vale grinning and tumbling down in the dirt to lay next to him. They would stay there for a while, fingers almost digging into each other’s flesh, and it was good.

He wonders a lot of any of that had been real, or if it really was a game to the younger man. He hates that his mind goes back and forth on it. Some days he is sure that Marc is heartless, that everything had been fake. Other times he remembers the intensity, and the sweetness and tells himself that no one could possibly make that up.

But still he hates.

In a split-second rough wood is against his back, and he is sitting right where all those memories live. He distantly watches as the sun goes down, forcing his thoughts to quiet, and when darkness swallows the ranch, he lets it sit in his brain and bring him back to Marc.

A third surgery in one year. Marc reopened again and again as they try to fix him up, try to get him back on track so he can become a monster once more. He’ll be back in that hospital room, back to looking small and weak in a way that he never should. Rinse and repeat, and maybe this vicious cycle will continue. Marc will let them rip him apart, then it will get worse. And then he will let them do it all over again.

Vale can’t bear the thought. He hates Marc so much, he loves seeing the man off-balanced and broken and weak. But not like this, never like this. A helpless feeling floods through him, and he does the only thing he knows to do.

Uccio answers his text within minutes

‘Why, is one of the boys hurt?’

‘No, but I need their info’

‘We have plenty of doctors on call, what for exactly?’

‘One good with major breaks. Like when I had my surgeries in 2010.’

‘Okay, I’ll send their info over. What is this for Vale?’

But he doesn’t respond to that one, just closes the phone, looks back at that tree, and then ducks into the garage to wait, feeling a bit helpless to what is happening, to what he is choosing to do. But he just can’t help it.

It’s a bad idea, one that he could never explain. But he feels out of control right now, a feeling he has always despised. And maybe… maybe this can help.

Twenty minutes later he gets a notification on his phone, an email from Uccio that is testy, clearly upset at being left in the dark, but with the doctor’s information. He remembers a few of them. Two are his surgeons from 2010, the other he knows worked with Loris Baz in 2016, performed the operation on his shattered foot that meant he returned in one season.

A sense of something like purpose cradles his brain. And he gets to work, ignores his trepidation and allows instinct to guide him. Shuts off his brain so the curses he distantly hears don’t come pouring out of his mouth.

It’s finished three days later, after hours-long calls with men who are far smarter for him, and all-nighters, and learning so many nonsense words that his head spins. They had been helpful and polite, of course they should be with how much he is paying them, but it made things easier. And he kept it from everyone else, knowing full well that it would only cause more issues. Just him and the doctors, phone calls and questions and hours of work.  

“Who is this for?” One of them had asked after he spent some time describing the injury and fall and everything he knows. He just slid right by that question, ignoring it in favor of discussing nerves and tissue, things he is allowing himself to know right now. Very soon they learned to stop asking.

He could never say it is for Marc, of course. Could never tell anyone what madness he is doing right now. The others seem a bit suspicious, Uccio narrows his eyes at him when they see each other, Luca even seems confused, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t understand that he needs this, they might never understand, so he couldn’t care less about how annoyed they are with being left in the dark.

The first week of December, it is ready. A concise list of doctors, written down plans, diagrams and descriptions and multiple options. A perfect guide on how to recover, how to come back with a vengeance. Torturous proof of his own inability to ever let go.

 And that is when he realizes that he’s pretty damn stuck. Cause what does he do with it now, how does he get this to Marc, how does he make this work in a way that is not totally insane? Desperation once more grips him.

So he calls someone he never thought he would.

“Valentino?” Comes Casey Stoner’s voice through his phone, sounding tired, and when he blearily glances at the clock, he realizes that it is probably something like midnight in Australia.

“Can you do me a favor?” He asks quickly, and Casey snort.

“No, I was sleeping. I’m hanging up.”

“It’s important, please.”

Silence as Casey seems to digest what Vale said. Then he speaks with blatant surprise, and no small amount of worry in his voice.

“I have never heard you say please. Did someone die?”

“No, I just…”

Fuck it. He won’t be able to do this unless Casey knows. The man is notoriously blunt and hardheaded, he will only say yes if he genuinely believes it is a good thing. That Vale has no ulterior motives, that this will help.

“I need you to send something to Marc. It’s a list of doctors, specialists who have handled injuries like this before, and some other things. I’ve been talking to them, gave them some money to do research, and they have some good ideas. Just… I want him to be in contact with them.”

More silence.

“Send it yourself.”

“I can’t,” Vale pathetically says, and then there is a little shuffling on the phone, another long-suffering noise.

“Don’t be stupid,” Casey scolds, “if you really think this will help him, send it yourself. He might not thank you, but I don’t think that’s what you care about.”

“It’s not,” Vale responds quickly, then rubs his hand over his face.

“I can’t, and you know I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I just… I need you to send it. I need him to get this.”

“Why?”

“Because he can’t stop riding.” Is the only thing he can say that makes any shred of sense and isn’t somewhere close to insane truth. Hell, even he refuses to confront that fact, content to just let it all sweep him away and not hover too much over his reasoning.

“Hm.”

Vale hates the other man so much right now, almost as much as he hates Marc., But he also knows full well what Casey wants to hear, the sadist that he is. All justice and truthfulness, but deep down, he just likes to see people squirm. So he takes a breath, and decides that the Australian already knows he is pathetic. Why not let a little bit of the truth out if it will convince him?

“Because it will kill me if he does.”

He hates saying it out loud. But he does, and he even can smile at the words. He hates Marc so much, but right now he hates the idea of him stopping even more.

“…. Send it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it.” Casey finally says in a blank voice, and then the line goes dead.

So he does. A week later it is announced that Marc will go through with a third surgery, a bone graft this time on top of a new plate (he hears the words muttered out of Pecco’s mouth) and when he breaks and looks things up online, he feels something strange when he finds out one of the doctors is one he had talked to.

It’s not a good feeling. But for the first time since he saw Marc in that hospital room, his brain quiets down a bit. That night he lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling, picturing shredded skin and scalpels and blood and a flash of pain in dark brown eyes.  He imagines many things. Marc loopy after another surgery, Marc all healed with a determined face, Marc riding once more, this time with scar shredding down his arm. He would look beautiful, he would look dangerous. It’s an image that makes Vale’s stomach tighten.

It feels like sweet torture.

End Chapter 15

Chapter Text

If 2016 to 2019 had been the high of his career, Marc can confidently say that he is in the low.

Being off the track has been torture. Every hit that comes is torture. The pain in his arm, the many surgeries, the sensationalist articles that display his injuries for all to see. It all feels like built-up bad luck, like he sold his soul to win and now the deal is over and everything terrible is crashing down. Cosmic justice, perhaps.

If this was some sort of folk story it would have a very obvious moral. Don’t try and take what is not meant for you, don’t shoot for the moon, don’t dare to think you can outrun the world. A cautionary tale sealed with his own signature, one he wrote down all those years ago when he felt the adrenaline for the first time and knew that he was hooked. The ink is his blood, the paper his skin. And now that contact is out for all to see.

But if he wants to be less dramatic, he could say that everything hurts and he misses his job. Of course that is a simplification because the injury is not just physical, not really. It is all is just another bitter reminder of how much he lost. When he was on top of the bike, grinning and screaming, sweet victory dripping from his teeth, it was easy to forget it all. Forget how so many riders hate him, forget how so many people hate him, forget how empty the night can be when there is no one there to hold you.

And sure, he gets visits. Dovi and Casey come, as does Dani. Then there is Aleix, who he didn’t expect, and Fabio, who he also didn’t expect. But other than a few bland text messages, a call from Mick Doohan of all people, and passed along niceties from Jorge, that’s it. And so he sits there and wonders what it would be like if 2015 hadn’t happened. If he was still at the beginning, if Valentino still loved him so the world did too.

He tries not to care. Busies himself with training and preparing and planning. With visits to physical therapists and sitting in meetings chest burning as the Honda discusses him and his injury like he is broken down machinery. He sees the glazed-over look in their eyes as they stare through him, and he is reminded that to them he is a commodity, nothing more. A valuable one perhaps, but one day the problems will outweigh the benefits. He feels like they get closer and closer to that day as the weeks go on. It’s a dark thought to have.

By December it becomes clear that a third surgery is needed, and he has to pinch his eyes shut and slowly nod when they tell him that. This one will be longer and more complicated, a new titanium plate to try and hold his broken arm together, and a bone graft taken from his hip to steady it. A different perspective, one created by those doctors Casey sent his way, and one he takes out of something like early onset desperation. So it is back on the slab, back to being ripped open for all to see. Back to recovery of the flesh too, back to the hopeful looks his family gives him that he has come to despise. Back to those lonely hospital rooms.

When he is in those awful rooms, that is the worst of it all. That is where he can’t ignore a single thing, blank walls and bright lights showing every little flaw in terrible detail. It is where the scar looks starker, his skin looks paler, his eyes look tighter. It is where Alex and his parents can’t hide their fear any longer. Some days they look at him like he is dead, other days they can’t bring themselves to look at him at all, especially when his arm is out. His mother winces every time she sees it and rubs a hand over her own arm like she feels the pain with him. Marc appreciates it and hates it in perfectly equal parts.

It’s usually the nights that he is alone there that are most difficult, waiting for the morning to come and some stuffy doctor to tell him how broken he is. There he feels abnormal, there the world twists until it reflects his state of mind.

Sometimes it is bland drug-induced listlessness that numbs him until he hates himself, and everything blurs together. Sometimes it is tormenting dreams, flashes of pain and pavement rushing toward his face and a kick to the side that has the walls closing in. Those ones make him want Alex, make him feel the destroying urge to know his brother’s heartbeat and calm down, even if he hates the weakness of it all. He never can fall back asleep after those, often reaches a hand up to press into the sutured skin and feel a twinge of pain that helps wipe his brain clean.

 Only once was anything about that room nice. The night after the second surgery. When he dreamed of Valentino.

Syrupy, slow, warm. Insults and jokes tossed out like they used to, the twining dance of old. Games played with no edge of malice, a feeling in the air like touching stardust, and laughter that crawled its way up as he pretended like any of it was a possibility. The older man had almost looked holy, the light from the hallway beaming in behind him and outlining his figure. When Marc realized who it was that had appeared in his mind, he had sighed around his name and let himself smile like he used to. Let himself pretend and tease and laugh when normally he would clam up.

The whole dream was not realistic at all, of course, especially with the look in Valentino’s eyes, as if seeing Marc there was torture. But it was nice, almost, and when he woke up the next day all he did was smile at the hollow feeling in his chest and press his fingers to his lips, as if he could make something conjured at night come to life. Sometimes he pretends it was real, simply so he can avoid remembering Qatar and the real last kiss, the one that had felt so good at the time and so terrible now.

He had been foolish enough to hope that Valentino would actually visit after he got hurt. Pop up one day and maybe not apologize, but at least show that he still cared in some small way. Or maybe a small card, ‘get well’ splashed across the front, insults inside written in a scraggly hand. He would accept that, content with the knowledge that the older man thinks of him too. Maybe he could even get a call, one where Valentino sits for hours and tells him everything he did wrong, everything he is doing wrong.

 It would be good in its own strange way.

But nothing. Nothing at all.

He tries not to think about it too hard.

Once the skin heals up, and he decides that the doctors who caution him can go fuck themselves, he slides back onto the bike and trains with Alex. It’s like returning home and finding that your whole house has been rearranged until you can hardly recognize it at all. Every shift feels off, the way he subconsciously holds back is horrifying, and after his first couple laps in months now, he has to avoid eye contact with everyone. They see it, they watch the hesitance, the fear that was not there before. He had always had complete trust in his body. But it’s quite hard to return to that after being remade so many times. But he keeps trying and slowly, ever so slowly, the house goes back to something like normal.

February rolls around and it becomes clear he will not be in testing, an infection sprouting up after the third surgery like God couldn’t get any crueler, and he accepts it with his lips pressed together. The bike is no good always, he watches it on screen and can tell it is not a winner, and besides Alex isn’t even on the Honda anymore. They had booted him to a satellite during the year, as if any of their issues stemmed from him.

He blandly watches his replacement (for now) swirl around at testing and has to laugh. Years ago it was Bradl that beat him to the 2011 Moto2 championship, and wouldn’t that just be funny if he ended up replacing Marc fully? If he can never race again and the bright orange stops being his color but instead becomes the signifier of someone who has beaten him so many years before. It would be an interesting end to the story, poetic almost, lending itself to that whole cosmic justice theory.

Valentino would probably love it. It would feed into his mythos so much more if Marc ends up being the one who leaves first. Then he would have outlasted the rivals from his generation, the rivals from the second one, and the most bitter rival from a third. He would be the ultimate destroyer, able to swipe away even men fourteen years his younger with his talent. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t done or said anything. Maybe he hopes if he ignores Marc enough, the younger man will eventually disappear.

Being away from the paddock, being away from Valentino, is weird. Since 2011 the older man had just… always been there. Even after 2015 and then 2018 there was a kind of forced proximity. Legs held tight to not brush underneath press conference tables, races where they were feet away, awards ceremonies and galas where they both stoutly ignored the other’s presence. They didn’t talk, and when they did it was tight and overly polite in a way that always rang false.  But they were there, they were together even if they didn’t want to be. Not easy or simple, but expected. And now that is gone and perhaps Marc is realizing that he truly never got over a single thing.

Maybe he never will, in truth. But taking a step away from it all makes you have an interesting perspective on things that had been swimming in your head for most of your life.

He actually first got it when Aleix Espargaro came to visit. He had walked in with a sad little smile, looking at Marc like he was kicked puppy in the most irritating way possible. They had chatted as they sat there, this rider who had openly disliked Marc for many years. Who had said nasty things to the press when 2015 happened, who has always glared at him, especially when Marc beat his little brother.

But as they sat there and talked like they never really had before, Marc realized he didn’t really care about any of that. Maybe he used to, maybe he did feel a smug satisfaction about beating people like that. Maybe he used to ride a little bit harder just to watch the anger grow. But… what was the point? Holding on to grudges that are a millennium old, thinking so hard about people who never really know you was simply sad in truth.

Aleix had apologized for what he said to the press after Sepang. Had kept his eyes downcast and murmured some nonsense, but Marc didn’t listen too hard. Just laughed and told the older man that the past is the past, and the shocked little look only made him laugh harder.

He does get the feeling that such a thing with Valentino would be… infinitely more difficult.

The season officially starts and Marc is at the physical therapist every day now as they push his body to the limit to try and bring him back up there. It hurts hurts hurt, and yet he grits his teeth and bears it because every day that he isn’t out there is like a hot poker to the eye. The only blessing is the hope-light at the end of the tunnel, the promises that it wouldn’t be more than one or two races before he can start. Having a proper goal in mind, a set date and time, always makes things feel more attainable, after all.

Finally, finally, he is cleared for the season. He tests for a little bit, and in Portugal he finally races again. The second he slides out onto that track, the itch he hadn’t even consciously recognized under his skin disappears and he almost starts crying right in the middle of his practice laps. It isn’t the first time he has ridden since the accident, but damn well feels like it. Maybe it is the environment, other bikes surrounding him and the crowd cheering. Maybe it is just being in his race leathers again, on the bike he had basically birthed after years of development. He isn’t really sure, but he clings to that feeling and lets it guide him after the green lights flare to life.

He gets seventh. It’s not a podium but when he gets back to the garage Pol, who he hasn’t been close with in years and who had replaced Alex, presses a hand to his chest and congrats him with intense eyes. Marc can’t help but smile like an idiot, thanking him and it feels like they are kids again. It feels like Pol is still someone who will be happy for him below all of the competitiveness. His old rival and friend-of-sorts had rather taken Valentino’s side, after all, a fact that stung, but he is slowly learning to move past. They have too much history to let such a thing bog them down, and the small look of relief on the other man’s face when he responds with enthusiasm tells him he feels the same way.

Walking through the paddock is strange after the race. Some people don’t seem to understand how to treat him. Like the ghost of an old king, they flinch when they spot him but look almost guilty about it. Others overcompensate, professing their joy that he has returned with the sickly sweetness of people who view him as something to pity now. They despised him when he won, always fickle.

 They are certainly more polite than they were before, no more curses from even Valentino’s fans (for now) and he just smiles back, waves at everyone and thanks them, playing the part he is meant to. Another case of forgiving because holding a grudge is far more difficult. Another instance that was rather easy as well, stepping outside of himself and away from it all as he goes.

He finds it easier that way in truth. Distancing himself from it all, placing a pane of glass between him and everyone else so that he can look at them and understand. It’s good, he thinks. He keeps that distance up the whole while and wonders if it would even work with Valentino.

Maybe it’s funny then, that he runs into Valentino as he walks through the paddock almost immediately after that thought. Maybe it also isn’t so funny, because the moment he locks eyes with the older man he feels that distance shrink down to the tip of a pencil and marvels how he could have ever assumed it would be like it is with Aleix or Pol or anyone else. Valentino isn’t everyone else, after all.

Marc doesn’t say anything, finds his mouth dry and feels the hurt that had laid dormant claw at his chest. And for a split second, he finds it more painful than even his arm.

It must show on his face because Valentino scowls immediately.

“If it still hurts you should not be here,” he says curtly, and Marc shakes his head. Almost feels fondness mix into it all. Of course there would be no questions, or platitudes, or wishes for his good health. Any of that had been for the press, not him. It’s kind of nice, to be the one who gets the truth even if said truth burns.

“The doctors cleared me, I won’t cause any crashes,” Marc replies in a smooth and emotionless voice, having to hold back the slight roll of his eyes as he turns to leave. But a hissed-out noise stops him.

“I know. Um, your third surgery, was it better than the others?”

Marc pauses, feels confused. Turns around to find Valentino glaring at the ground even as he tries to force a smile, It’s a bizarre expression one that almost makes him look constipated. The thought is funny enough to make Marc reply.

“Yes, yes it was better. They did a few different things, and so far they have paid off.”

The older man nods tightly, and when he darts his gaze back up to Marc, there is almost a wariness there mixed with something that inexplicably looks like relief or maybe pride.

“I hate hospital rooms,” he says quietly.

Marc tilts his head, confused by the non-sequitur and by the intense look in Valentino’s eyes, as if he is searching for somthing.

“Okay?”

Valentino opens his mouth to say something else but a slamming door and the sounds of chatter close by makes him whip his head around. Then he is gone before Marc can even blink, and as he watches that skinny form disappear around the corner, he has to wonder if the distance gave Valentino a little perspective too.

***

In Germany Marc clinches victory and feels if soar through his chest like no other win has before. He feels like a rookie again, feels like he has spent a lifetime losing and has finally gotten what he so desperately wanted. 581 days without a win, 581 days without this feeling pouring through his chest, 581 days where the fear that this was it ate him alive.

It blinds him as he rides around the circuit, blinds them as he stops and is surrounded by marshals who are all reaching for him. He knows he is crying underneath his helmet, and all he can do once he gets off the bike and faces his grandstand is get down on his hands and knees and bow. Bow to the heavens, bow to the fans, bow to himself even. Childish in his madness, he hardly even notices the other riders. Grips his flag and jumps back on his bike, turns his face to the heavens and laughs.

He doesn’t even care that his arm is screaming in pain, that doesn’t matter at all. When he gets back to parc ferme, the team embraces him, and up on the podium the spray of champagne is like being baptized. Fabio douses him like the kind person he is, disappointment over not winning clear, but happy nonetheless. Marc loves him in that moment, loves all of them. Different than the distance that had allowed him to move beyond the past, this surge of love has him reaching fingers out even to those who have hurled abuse, and they take it. They look up at him like he is a celestial body, and he lets it make him brand new.

That feeling still lingers at the post-race press conference, and he is stuck somewhere between a wild grin and tears the entire time. His words pour out of his mouth in an unstoppable wave, and he can’t help but let out a laugh almost every other word. It’s impossible to quiet any of this right now after all, and he really doesn’t want to.

“Did you ever expect to come back to the top step?” One of the journalists calls out, and Marc smiles. Knows he cannot tell them about the piling fear, the worry, the idea that had ran through his head of this being the end. Too weak, too honest, too telling.

“Of course” he lies, “but since the first time I rode the bike in Portimao, I said ‘okay, I am far, very far from my level’. From that point it was very hard. The next races were even harder. It’s difficult but I just forget everything and focus on my personal and professional side.”

That sparks smiles from the crowd, and he gets this bizarre feeling that maybe he hasn’t gotten this many softball questions, this many grins and pleased looks, since he was a rookie. He wonders if that’s what they see when they look at him right now, if they see the ghost of the wonder kid come back to life, damaged and older, but still there. He hopes so, because he needs that kid more than ever.

“How did you handle everyone who said this was it?” Another asks and Marc laughs. They laugh with him and it feels good.

“I just listen to the people that want to help me, and I try to find something or some comments that helped me - which was a phone call from Mick Doohan. I met him in Mugello and I know that he had a similar situation in 92 and 93.”

As he describes the call with Mick, a story he knows they will love, he wonders if anyone can see how his hand shakes. How he keeps reaching up to press his fingers into his arm, a small attempt to massage away the pain that has been getting worse and worse as the adrenaline fades.

Perhaps this is the new normal. But as he sits there, he finds that it might be worth it to have more days like this. Might be worth the ache, the feeling that his arm is ripping off even more. He knows his family would hate that thought, his doctors too, but he despises the way a little fear is leaking back in more than they could ever.

None of that matters, though, he can ignore that pain forever. He has done that his whole life after all, he was always the kid who took a tumble and popped right back up, letting blood drip into the dirt and laughing. ‘It’s only pain’ he would say and he forces that perspective back into his brain. ‘it’s only pain. For victory, I can handle anything’.

By the end of the conference, he knows the other riders at least notice. Fabio keeps giving him a concerned look and Miguel Oliveira, the rider he had beat for first, even seems wary.

But one more question rings out.

“Did Valentino Rossi visit you?”

Marc feels his head jerk a little bit as he absorbs that question. Feels his smile attempt to fade as he strains to keep it up. Then he laughs.

“Ah, I think people know very well we are not friends,” is all he says, and it is confirmation enough to have the journalist who asked frown. But she must be persistently wanting a yes or no, because she continues.

“He was your teacher and friend for many years, I would expect he would check on you.”

Marc shakes his head.

“The past is the past,” he tries again, then turns to the moderator, who stands up with a slightly irritated look. Marc stands too, pain and that stupid question irritating him enough to make him want to be done with this now.

“Alright, that is the end of the-”

“Yes or no Marc, did Rossi visit you in the hospital?” The journalist insists, ignoring the moderator. The way she asks is so knowingly pointed and sharp and maybe Marc has forgotten what that feels like because a defensive sort of anger flares up, and it snaps out of his mouth before he can stop it, hurt so clear it burns.

“No,” he spits.

Then he turns and marches out of the press conference room with an ill feeling in his stomach.

The second daylight hits him, he tries to forget it all. Tries to regain the happiness, the bliss from the win, and with the cheers of the fans still echoing in the distance, it is a lot easier to do that. It’s even easier when he finds his brother and father, and he clutches them close as they murmur in his ear.

“You did well,” his dad whispers, and when he pulls back relief fills Marc at that look. The fear is gone now, and the pride he has known his entire life replaces it instead. Even Alex seems lighter than he has in months, and Marc realizes that the stress must have aged him. He looks young again, baby-faced like Marc usually teases him for, and he can’t help but pinch his brother’s cheek. Wipes away the memory of that final question and refuses to let even the thought of Valentino ruin this.

“Yes, it was good. I do need some ice though,” he laughs out after he winces when Alex pulls him into a hug.

“You will rest, and ice, and take painkillers and today we can ignore all of that and celebrate,” his father remarks, looking determined. With Alex tucked under his arm, he agrees with a wide smile and follows them toward the motorhome. Tomorrow they will pack and leave and prepare for yet another race, but for now, he is still here. He is still in Germany, he is still the king of the ring, he still hasn’t lost here since 2009. It’s a very good feeling.

So he lets his family and team drag him out to some local restaurant that serves such heavy food he feels fifteen pounds heavier after, he drinks some German beer he knows he probably shouldn’t, he laughs hard at anything and everything, and that night when they stumble back into the paddock, he lets his dad, perhaps the only sober one around, carry a very drunk Alex back to his hotel instead of sharing the motorhome with Marc like he usually does. Tonight there will have no nightmares after all. He is far too happy for that, and beside, his brother had looked green. Selfishly, he would rather their father handle any vomit.

He is humming to himself as he wanders through the paddock, waving Honda employees off as they drag themselves back to their sleeping quarters, and doing his best to remember how many lefts and rights he needs to take. That’s the good thing about being a 8x champion; you usually get given your own space. The bad part is that at times like this, you don’t have anyone to guide you back.

It takes a while. Every turn he takes he is confronted by a wall of homes that are decidedly not his, or a wall, or even the parking lot at one point. So he keeps wandering, stumbling a bit, and hopes that luck will allow him to find it.

When he slams into someone as he turns a corner, it almost feels like a joke, and he laughs a little at himself, murmuring an apology to whoever he hit and getting ready to dart off and hope they didn’t recognize him.

“Ah, Marc?” Comes a familiar voice, and he narrows his eyes and tries to focus on who it is. All he can make out is dark hair, a small chin, and a Ducati hoodie.

“Francesco?” He asks, and a nod in the darkness is what he gets in response.

Little Francesco, his mind whispers, not so little. He is taller than Marc now, still reedy though. Marc could probably snap him in half with his bare hands, which is funny imagery. He also did well today, so Marc laughs and slaps a hand down on his shoulder, a surge of his old affection bubbling to the surface. He always liked the younger rider, after all.

“Ah, you did well today. First year on a good bike, yes?”

He can’t see the younger man’s face fully, dark as it is, but he is adjusted enough to make out a little bashful smile and a head dropping down.

“I guess. Fifth is not a win though, and haven’t gotten one yet,” he mumbles.

Marc waves him off.

“Your time will come, I always did say you were a talent after all. I am rarely wrong.”

Pecco nods again, and Marc pats him one more time, too dizzy-brained to continue a proper conversation. He is no spring chicken anymore at twenty-eight; he needs his beauty sleep after a late night and copious amounts of alcohol.

“I felt bad,” Pecco says suddenly, hands gently grabbing Marc’s wrist so suddenly it tilts him off balance and he goes stumbling into the younger man with a laugh

“Bad about what?”

“I just… one of should have called to check in on you.”

Marc laughs again, and because he is too drunk to listen to the voice that hisses about personal space and boundaries, he lets himself sag into Pecco until the younger man stills with a startled sound, blinking rapidly. This close Marc can see his eyes, can see the way they are blown black due to darkness. Can even notice the way his lashes flutter so sweetly.

“You feel some kind of responsibility for me, I think,” Marc murmurs, reaching up a hand to lightly run through the other rider’s hair, “because of Valentino.”

“Do not,” he continues, “and just forget like I try to, like he has.”  

A hissed-out noise, and he sees frustration passes over the younger man’s face. The hold he has on Marc’s wrist tightens, then he drops it unceremoniously. Marc still stays close.

“You think I care because of Vale?” He asks gruffly, and Marc nods. Because obviously that is the truth, what other reason would he have to ask these things? What other reason would he have for the polite little smiles and greetings he has been giving for years now, for the way he seems to linger apologetically all the time?

Marc thinks Pecco probably believes he hasn’t noticed but he is well aware that the younger rider sees him as something to be guilty about. Does he know why? Not really, but perhaps it has something to do with the little soft spot he had for the kid all those years ago that would make him a little bit kinder than he normally is to other riders. Really he doesn’t understand, but he also doesn’t want Pecco to be so bothered by all of it, when the one who created the mess is so blasé. It’s not fair to him.

“I think you love him,” he observes in a slight rambling voice, “but I think out of all the academy riders, you have the best head.”

Pecco rears back, and even in the darkness he can see the blush that explodes across the younger man’s face.

“What?!” He squeaks, and Marc roars with laughter when he realizes how that sounded. Stumbles even more, almost dropping to the ground, and when Pecco catches him even in his flustered state, he feels his fondness grow.

“Not like that, dirty mind,” he teases, “but you see things properly. You can understand his faults and you believe I am one. So you feel guilty like all children do of their parent’s mistakes.”

“Vale isn’t my father,” Pecco says stiffly, and Marc sighs.

“A metaphor,” he points out in a dry voice, then tilts his head, “but I am very drunk so maybe not a good one.”

He grins up at the younger man.

“You are earnest and a bit too honest. I like people like that.”

Pecco flushes even more, which makes Marc laugh more, and it just becomes so ridiculous he can’t stop. Here he is, too drunk to even notice the pain in his arm, wandering around the paddock at night clinging onto one of Valentino’s students. The older man would have fit if he saw. When he voices that thought, Pecco gets a tight look on his face but ignores it.

“Where is your motorhome, I’ll help you over,” he says quietly, and Marc coos.

“Such a gentleman, such a good boy.”

Pecco chokes on whatever he was going to say next, but recovers faster than he did last time, just grumbles and hefts Marc up a little bit. Listens as Marc rambles terrible and vague directions to his motorhome, and trudges along with the air of a determined soldier. He also, hilariously, seems to be hyper-conscious of where his hands are, keeping them stiffly on the upper part of Marc’s back and good arm. It’s funny, and he just starts laughing more, which makes him stumble more, which makes Pecco have to grip him harder, which makes the younger rider seemingly even more conscious of where his hands are, and it is all just a ridiculous cycle.

“You are a difficult drunk,” Pecco points out mildly when they make it onto the row Marc knows his motorhome is on, voice long-suffering but a little bit amused.

“With all the drugs and surgeries and stuff I haven’t had a drink in almost a year, a bit weak to it perhaps. I probably shouldn’t have even done that tonight, could mix badly with the painkillers, but c’est la vie as Fabio would say.”

Then he laughs to himself at the stupid joke, even as Pecco goes quiet.

“Is your brother here?”

Marc shakes his head, pictures Pecco trying to handle both of them and finds he wants to see what that would look like.

“No, he’s even drunker than I am! Went to the hotel with Pare,” he whispers like it a secret, then snorts out a laugh.

“I am better, he is an angry drunk. If he saw you he might just project all his Valentino-feelings onto you, try and hang you or something. And I of course would watch and laugh.”

Pecco blanches.

“I thought he was the nice one,” he mumbles, but Marc shrugs.

“Sometimes, not lately though.”

He turns to look up at Pecco then, gives him what he hopes is a grateful smile. Over here, lights stronger, it is easier to see the other man. For the first time Marc notices that he has grown out his facial hair, a wispy little classic Italian situation that makes him look ever so slightly older. He reaches out to touch it before he can stop himself, and Pecco stills, eyes going wide.

“It suits you,” Marc mumbles, and the younger man lets out a shuddery breath.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, then he hesitates, before speaking as they get closer and closer to their destination. With blurry eyes, Marc can spot the shape of it a few hundred feet away. The door is around the corner on the other side, but it is at least a relief to see it.

“Do you want me to stay? Just to make sure you’re alright, you know?”

Marc waves him off as they continue walking.

“I will be fine,” he assures, “besides if Valentino notices you are missing, you could get in trouble. You are his favorite student, after all.”

Pecco gives him a look.

“Vale disappeared a few hours ago, probably out or something, he won’t even notice,” he says with a little furrow in his brow, like he is unsure but determined.

“Ah, well… I will be fine. Don’t want to ruin you night more than I already have.” Marc says slowly. He likes Pecco, he really does, but he can take care of himself. Besides, he already feels guilty over needing to be half-carried like a disgruntled toddler. He’ll be even more embarrassed when he wakes up tomorrow if the younger rider is forced to stay the night too. As they begin to round the corner and finally be able to get to the door, Pecco speaks once more.

“Really, I would prefer to stay, you need someone in case the alcohol and meds don’t mix well, and I-”

“I’ll watch him.” Interrupts a sharp voice. One that even in this state, Marc would recognize in an instant. He feels his spine stiffen and he knows what his expression probably has morphed into: sour tension.

Pecco also goes tense, his arms that have been wrapped around Marc’s shoulder to support him tightening, and a little pulse goes through him like he wants to pull back and run. So Marc makes the decision for him, and pushes the younger rider away. The look he gets is almost betrayed, which he doesn’t quite understand.

Valentino is propped up against his door, a nondescript hoodie swallowing his frame. The tips of his ears are pink, his nose too, and Marc is drunk, but not unobservant. The older man has been sitting there for a while.

“Go to bed Pecco, you are a growing boy. You need your sleep,” he says with a smile. But it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It also feels kind of mean, though for all intents and purposes it is a rather nice sentiment.

“Vale...” Pecco says slowly, like he is talking to a cornered animal, and Valentino laughs.

“I will make sure he is okay. I can do that much still.”

Marc scoffs, tries not to let his irritation show. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I don’t need to be watched, I was telling him I am fine,” he says curtly. Then he sighs, and rubs a hand over his face.

“Stop blocking my door, I want to go to bed, my arm hurts and all you do is make it hurt more.”

Valentino blinks and glances behind him like he hadn’t even realized that this is what he was doing, Slowly stands and steps away from the door with a strange air around him, purses his lips the way he does when he is upset, and scans Marc’s face.

“You are drunk.” He says in an almost fascinated voice.

“I know,” Marc groans, then moves to go by both of them. Pecco is still there, watching it all with a quietly stormy expression, and Valentino obviously is too. It feels odd, like he is in the middle of some dramatic scene from one of those soap operas his mother loves so much. It’s a funny thought, though he can’t bring himself to laugh right now.

 “Are you drunk enough to tell the truth? Or will you spin more lies like in the press conference?”

The words echo through his skull, and when he realizes what Valentino means, he can’t help but laugh. The question at the conference on if he had been worried about returning, the one he had lied in answer to. Of course the older man would have wanted Marc to be honest, to answer the question with weakness. Of course he would have wanted to hear ‘I was scared shitless, I thought maybe I would never ride again, win again’ because he is a sadist.  A sadist who loves seeing Marc falter.

And of course he is also perceptive enough to know that Marc was very much lying when he said what he said.

“Ah, lying is only okay when you do it. I understand”

Valentino snarls and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Pecco step forward as if he wants to come between them. He distantly doesn’t know why, Valentino is a lot of things but violent isn’t one of them. The only time he ever caused any amount of pain was when Marc asked him too. Though he would rather not linger on those types of thoughts in his current state.

“Did you do it just to piss me off?” Valentino hisses out, and Marc shakes his head, blown away a little bit by how self-centered it all is.

The cool night air whirls around them, the yellowy lights of the paddock painting everything into some kind of piece of art. He had a good day and a good night, but now he is stuck in this limbo, outside of his motorhome with an angry Valentino exchanging words that don’t matter and have come from nowhere. If this was a painting, it would probably be ‘The Scream’. Mostly because that is what he wants to do right now.

“Not everything is about you. It wasn’t even a big deal, you care too much.”

Valentino takes a step back like he has been forcefully shoved, and Marc watches him for second. Observes the way his eyes go still, his whole expression shutters. He doesn’t know why the older man would respond like that, but at least it means he won’t want to fight any longer. He knows full well what a Valentino who is gunning for war looks like, and what one who is about to run away looks like. This is the latter, though he has no idea what he said to cause such a hasty retreat.

“I do not need either of you to stay, I am drunk but not stupidly and I was mostly joking about the meds. I checked with my doctor, I’m not a total idiot,” he finally says.

 While both men look like they want to argue, Marc does not let them. Puts a hand on his door and narrows his eyes at Valentino until the older man drops his gaze away, looking scolded and unhappy about it. Then he turns to Pecco, who is observing it all with an unreadable expression, and tosses the younger rider a smile. Watches the way he blinks rapidly and gives him what looks like an automatic one back, before his eyes shift to Valentino once more, and that drops.

“Thank you for your help, goodnight,” Marc murmurs, and if he makes his tone purposely gentle and kind just to make Valentino flinch, that’s his business. It works, he sees it out of the corner of his eye and hates himself a little for feeling a spark of vindictive pleasure.

Then he opens his door, and enters his motorhome, closing it behind him with a click, locking it just in case even though he is well aware that neither of them will follow him. Peace of mind, perhaps. Only until he feels both men’s presence disappear does he relax a little, sigh and rub a hand over his face.

He is too drunk for any of this, his shoulder hurts and he definitely cannot take the strong meds right now with the alcohol still in his system. So he just tumbles over to his bed and hopes that he is drunk enough to fall asleep without fuss, hopes that whoever decides that sort of thing is kind to him tonight.

It’s the least he could get after all of that nonsense.

End Chapter 16

Chapter Text

In Austria Valentino announces he is retiring.

Marc doesn’t learn about it live. Doesn’t attend the special press conference the older man holds even as the back of his mind tells him to. He has to hear about is from Alex, who walks into the motorhome with a worried look on his face. When Marc asks him what is wrong, his brother hesitates before stating it rather plainly.

“Oh,” Marc responds quietly, “I had heard he might. I am surprised.”

Alex is staring at him as if searching for the truth behind the rather bland words, but Marc doesn’t give an inch. Smiles in a rather false manner, then jumps straight into discussions about tires and strategy and the bike and how Alex is doing with his one. His brother looks like he wants to say more but is polite enough to not push.

Marc shouldn’t care. There is no reason to care. Him and Valentino are nothing like friends, and now they aren’t even rivals. Not a single thing really connects them anymore, except a past and old pictures and stories that still trail behind, kicking up dust as they go. So none of it should matter at all, it should be similar to what it felt like to hear that Jorge was retiring; a bland disappointment at losing such a brilliant competitor, and nothing more. Even after everything that happened with the whole photo debacle, Marc couldn’t really find it in himself to think too hard about it. Had given the older Spanish man a vague hug and cackled when he murmured something about ‘finally escaping’ from Marc.

So he shouldn’t care about this at all.

But he fucking does.

It sticks with him throughout the next day of practice, gnaws at his mind and body until the tension he has been holding makes his arm ache. Claws its way to the forefront of everything until even his data is incomprehensible, until Santi waves him away with a furrowed brow, and tells him to ‘take some painkillers if it is bothering you so much’.

Marc doesn’t correct him. Doesn’t say that it all stems from what Valentino has done, what he has said, what he has announced. It would be too pathetic, and Santi, overprotective as a rottweiler, would only get disappointed. Give him some long-winded lecture about his future and letting go, and Marc couldn’t even be mad about it. So he just nods stiffly, presses his lips together, and pops a few aspirins like that will help anything.

The worst part is that it is all inescapable. Every corner he turns there are people singing Valentino’s name, every time he blinks, he sees some new sign or poster or tribute from mask-clad fans in the stands, wildly waving their hands and praising their god. And it’s not just the crowd, but the people. They whisper about it, reminisce until it saturates the air, until the paddock becomes so Valentino that it is difficult to breathe. It almost reminds him of Mugello or Misano, but those at least he is usually prepared for.

He doesn’t dare to go online, knows it will be even worse there. Knows that it will be a hoard of memories, knows that he will not be allowed near it. Any photos will have him cropped out, years of Valentino’s life that they pretend don’t exist because they wouldn’t ever let Marc Marquez taint their blissful ideas of who Valentino is.

It’s painful, and he wonders how they would react if he tried to join in. If he posted a compilation of all the memories he still has saved on his phone, ones the public has never seen. A shot from 2014, Valentino grinning down at him in the living room, carrying a massive bowl of pasta. A short video from 2012 of the older man riding around the track, and you can hear his younger self’s voice in the back, laughing the whole way as Valentino flips him off. Or maybe one that is more obvious, a dazy morning picture of his bare chest, a head shoved into his skin as his fingers tangle into curly hair.

He would never, of course. Hasn’t looked at any of them in years, stowed them away in some unmarked folder and pretended to forget all about them. And they would never accept it, would rather die than ever admit their god was once friends with the devil. They hadn’t even known that they were more, might even call him a liar for any of the pictures that made it terribly clear. Valentino would probably agree with them, lie with a smile to make the hurt even worse, and then Marc would just be the sad little boy who pretended that his idol loved him too.

He shouldn’t care, he told himself he was over all of it. Really he is, even if Valentino marched up to him today, dropped to his knees in front of everyone and admitted everything he had ever done wrong, Marc still wouldn’t forgive him.

So why does he feel so abandoned? Why does he feel like the hand clutching his has dropped away, figure disappearing into the crowd? Why does he feel so childish and unmoored?

And why does he feel… betrayed? Why does part of him hiss out at the fact that… that Valentino didn’t tell him?

Marc didn’t expect that of course. But maybe he did, maybe even now he thinks of himself as special, and being smacked in the face with the contrary hurts. Again, pathetic. Always.

That night he has another dream. It’s been happening a lot and when he offhandedly mentioned his propensity for nightmares, his doctor looked worried and prescribed him sleeping pills. He only ever takes them when he needs to, and it usually stops the worst of it. That night he takes three, two more than usual. They work well, sleep snatching him away the moment his head hits the pillow. But they don’t stop this dream. Perhaps nothing could.

It's a strange one, foggy and glowing. He is in a garage somewhere, but the world looks different. Classic, almost, all saturated and warm like things look in your childhood. There is a voice, laughing brightly, and when he turns, he somehow is not surprised to find Valentino.

But it isn’t his Valentino, it isn’t the one who he knows well, the one he has seen preening with pleasure and rage too. This one is the one he knew before he ever even spoke to the man. The boy-king, the star, the beginning of it all. This is Vale.

Unwrinkled face, short bleached blond hair. The Vale he grew up watching, the one he had a poster of on the wall. Pink cheeks and plump lips and a wicked look on his face, voice pouring out, every other word a tease. Aprilia leathers unzipped to the waist and the quirked eyebrow of someone who has their whole future ahead of them.

In his dream he finds none of this strange, and it takes him about two seconds to realize that he has also changed. No pain in the arm, no scars rippling over his arms from little injuries he has collected over the years. His hands are a glowing tan, younger and less harried. When he speaks, he sounds like he did in 2011 or 12, and he has no control over his words.

“I’ll beat you again, of course,” he says, and when Vale throws his head back and laughs, he grins.

“Will you?”  The other rider asks, delighted, “I can beat all the big boys, I can still beat you.”

“That is because you got here first,” Marc protests, shifting forward like he is comfortable enough in this Vale’s space to not care when their knees bump, “Who was it that took the championship two years ago?”

Vale scowls, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Waves a dramatic hand in the air, and Marc notices the loony-toons shirt he has on and can’t help but feel a bubble of something in his chest. He remembers the way the older man used to obsessively wear those things. It makes him almost fond.

He wants to say something, to ask what this is, why they are here. But he is in no control of this dream at all.

“You got lucky,” Vale says slyly, “if I had been really trying-”

“This again,” Marc interrupts with a huff, “as if you would ever give up a title, even for me.”

“Mmmm, probably not. But you are the only one I could come close to it for.”

Then Vale reaches out a hand, swipes Marc across the cheek with affectionate, eyes glittering, and Marc reacts like it is some kind of old game, slaps back until they are play fighting, the clattering of things falling off the table as they tumble to the ground creating a symphony around them. Vale is crowing something arrogant and Marc is laughing and when he finds himself on top of the other rider, he just sits. Stares down with a wild look, and Vale returns it. Their chests go up and down as they pant, and it is so good it hurts. It almost feels like their hearts are beating together.

“Never let me win,” Marc breathes, and Vale smiles.

“Never,” he responds with a grin that is all teeth “just like when we were kids. I’d sooner chew off my own arm than let you win.”

“Yet somehow I still beat you? Strange, I thought you were some kind of prodigy.”

Vale laughs again, his hands curling around Marc’s waist to pinch his sides and make him snort out a noise. The Italian rider doesn’t seem genuinely irritated by that fact, a fact Marc knows is real in this dream. Actually, he seems to glow when he is reminded how many times Marc has defeated him.

“I cannot wait to crush you in the higher class too,” Vale says conversationally, eyes glowing, “but if you let them beat you, I will be very disappointed. Can’t let my oldest rival fail so spectacularly, I have a reputation to uphold, after all.”

“What, as a mouth?” Marc says slyly, and the mock offended noise he gets leads to more tumbling, skin growing sticky with sweat, and the uncontrollable feeling of being swept along for the ride cutting through him.

An unrecognizable voice calls from the distance, scolding them and they are both laughing like children who are in trouble, scrambling up and teasing and tossing things at each other and as the dream fades out, Marc desperately clings to it. Tries to remain in that imaginary world where things look so blissful and pure and good. When he rips awake, dawn light filtering in through his blinds, he presses a hand to his forehead and feels so terribly old.

He doesn’t know what it means at all. Young Valentino, young him. A world where they are equals even in age, where they can laugh and talk about beating each other like it is something fun rather than it being world-ending.

Maybe it would be that way if they had grown up together. If they had learned to see each other as something that is the same. If he hadn’t looked at Valentino and seen a god, and Valentino hadn’t looked at him and seen his replacement, or whatever it is the older man despises about him so much.

But would they even still be them? Would Marc be who he is today without all of that, without growing up with admiration and a poster on his wall? Would Vale have been altered, a boy-king who had someone matching him from the beginning? Would they have been better, or worse?

In the dream, it felt like better. But even he is not foolish enough to think such a thing would change who they are at their core.

The race that day goes fine, eighth place expected. On-screen, as he loops through his cool-down lap, he watches Valentino end the race in thirteenth. The older man waves to the crowd like it is a win and they scream his name like it was one too. Other riders reach a hand out to pat him, press their leather-clad fingers to the old war horse’s shoulder like it is an honor. Dramatic, this isn’t even his last race.

Marc wishes he could do it too. Wishes he could ride up right next to Valentino and act like they did in that dream. Laugh and tease, lightness floating in between them. Wishes that instead of the end, this was just the beginning. Wishes he could laugh out loud and promise a lifetime of war on track that won’t end is bloody distance and press wars.

But he can’t.  So when Valentino eventually passes him, Marc keeps his head firmly facing forward and his eyes off the screen. He doesn’t want to watch Valentino ignore him here too.

The debrief with Honda goes fine, he makes his irritation with the bike just as clear as they make their belief that it is down to his injury. The same old shenanigans. He knows the team loves him; he loves them too. But sometimes the reminder creeps in that businesses will always blame their employees over themselves. Santi gives him a sympathetic look, and Marc shrugs.

The only good thing about this weekend is the realization that the next race will be here too, so the motorhomes don’t need to move, and the circus can stay put. It is almost a comfort, to return to the same place for rest. Like the in the off-season, and he snorts when he realizes how twisted his perspective is. This little patch of cement he has feels kind of like home after over a week of living on it.

That night the darkness makes him weak, and he opens up that folder of pictures as he sits on the couch, Alex dead asleep next to him, feet pressed into his thigh. Maybe it is the lateness of the hour, maybe it is the echoes of that dream, but he just… he needs to remember if the older man ever looked at him the way he did in his imagination.

He stares at them blankly for a moment. Almost sends a few to the number he had promised his brother he blocked. But then he places his phone gently down on the side table and tilts his head to stare at the ceiling. Closes his eyes, and imagines he is in that fake world, where they can laugh and be good.

It still hurts.

***

Misano is one of the decent ones. Not a podium like in Aragorn, but better than his retirement in Silverstone at least. He still returns to the garage and glares at his results. Still feels the urge to improve scratching at his back.

So he does what has become a habit, sits in the garage and stares at his data for hours. And hours and hours and hours, attempts to figure out what he can do to make the itch of his results go away and distract himself from the growing melancholy that has been crawling up as they get closer to the end of the season. Ignores the inching reality that soon Valentino will be gone and bury himself in his attempts to claw his way back to the top.

By the time the light of sunset streams through the wide-open garage door, Marc’s eyes are itching and the engineers he has forced to stay behind are getting more and more irritated, but he really doesn’t care. The minute he finds himself in the darkness of his motorhome, it will all be more difficult, after all.

“Even Pol has left, and he had worse results than you,” one of the engineers complains, and Marc grins.

“You can leave if you want to,” he says delicately, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to be a comfort. If anything the engineer sinks further down in his seat and seems to be eying Marc’s grin with a sort of wariness, like he bites. A funny thought and he imagines it would be satisfying. It must show in his eyes because the man shudders.

“Scary,” comes mumbled words, and Marc shakes his head, returns to data and rambling out his thoughts in an unending flood. It helps to quiet his brain, he finds. The numbers and charts soothingly logical in the face of so much restrained emotion.

“Ah Marc,” one of the engineers says all of a sudden, pulling him abruptly from his thoughts, an unsure look on their face, “I think some guys want to talk to you?”

Marc perks up, throws them a confused look. Very rarely does he get visitors, after all, and it is pretty late. Their garage is one of the few still lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Someone asked for me?”

The engineer hesitates.

“Um, no,” he says slowly, “but well…”

Then he gestures outside, and as Marc turns to stare, he watches as a red-clad figure slowly walks by, being tugged by someone else as they go, and peering vaguely into the garage. He quickly recognizes it as Pecco, and when the younger man realizes that Marc has spotted him, his eyes go wide, and it looks like he panics. Darts out of view rather quickly.

Marc smiles and cringes at the same time. Shakes his head a little bit. Lately he has been seeing Pecco everywhere, cutting in and out of his view like he is some sort of small animal, always looking a little unsure. He thinks the younger rider probably had taken his gratefulness for Germany to mean they were something closer to friends.  A fact he wishes could be true.

That intensified friendliness had led to little moments in the garage after races, eyes catching him in the crowd and a small smile being tossed his way. It even led to Pecco coming up to him in parc ferme after Aragorn, the younger rider’s first win, all but asking for praise even as people stared in surprise. Marc had given it to him, indulging in being kind, but perhaps it was a bad idea.

Actually. He is sure it was a bad idea if Pecco is so boldly coming to his garage like this. Valentino would not like it at all. The older man always seems to be watching him lately, as if waiting for him to corrupt the man’s young student so he can sweep in like some sort of hero to save the day from big bad Marc Marquez. It’s a new kind of staring, one that makes him bristle. Not a glare or with poison in his eyes, but narrowed consideration and wariness. Marc has no idea what it really means in truth, but he can assume.

“Francesco,” he calls, “I can see you.”

Then the younger rider slinks into view slouching like he is trying to make himself small. Behind him is another person, wild mane of curly hair and sullen eyes. Bezzecchi, the rider he had frightened in the garage all those years ago, a memory he still laughs at. One of Vale’s kids who hates him pretty well. He looks like he does not want to be there, head tucked down and staunchly refusing to look up. Somehow he also looks shy at the same time, though Marc can’t imagine why.

“Ah,” Pecco says as he approaches, pulling the other rider behind him, with an insistent hand, “I was just in the area.”

“He walked by five times,” the engineer mumbles, and Marc suppresses a smile, presses his lips together to avoid embarrassing anyone.

“You are on a big team now,” he points out lightly, “be careful of rumors you are stealing secrets. Or worse, thinking of switching teams.”

Pecco blinks, looking confused.

“I love Ducati,” he says rather seriously, and he tilts his head like he cannot comprehend something like leaving them. Innocent and a bit strange, as if he has real loyalty to the team that famously has very low lows. He also can’t seem to understand that Marc was kidding.

He stares at the younger man for a while, baffled by the steady look on his face. Briefly, he thinks perhaps Pecco is odder than he lets on, blank in the face of jokes in a rather bizarre manner. Marc is inexplicably reminded of a child trying on their parent’s shoes. There is an earnestness and seriousness there, but it is mostly just funny.

“I am sure,” he says, pressing his lips together, “congratulations on the win by the way. Now, what is it? You didn’t come by to tell me how much you enjoy your team, yes?”

“Oh,” Pecco says, like he had forgotten, stepping even closer, “I just wanted to see if you are going tonight.”

“Vale doesn’t want him there,” Bezzecchi hisses, and perhaps he thinks it was quiet enough for Marc not to hear, or perhaps he didn’t. It is unclear, but what is clear is the way his engineers, who have been observing this all, tense up. Not protectively, but they have always seemed to consider slights against Marc as slights against the team as a whole. It’s a bit annoying.

Marc doesn’t want them to hear this.

“I think I can let you go now,” he says to them carefully, turning his gaze away from Pecco, and when one of the engineers opens his mouth to protest, Marc raises an eyebrow rather pointedly. They slide to their feet with no small amount of grumbles very quickly, and Marc watches them until he is sure they are gone.

The garage is rather empty after that, and he feels a little exposed, but he forces a confident smile when he turns back to them. Leans back and makes his body relax.

“Your friend is right,” he says idly, “whatever it is you are talking about, he would not want me there.”

“My name isn’t ‘your friend’ you know,” Bezzecchi says hotly as Pecco frowns, “It’s-”

“Marco. I know.”

The younger rider stops. Then he turns a bright pink, and Marc remembers how easily he flusters. Him and Pecco are quite similar in that regard, so he understands why they seem pretty close. Like two little dogs clinging to each other. Well, Bezzecchi is a dog. Marc has always considered Pecco to be more mouse-like, or rat-like if he wants to be a bit mean.

“Bezz,” comes the weak correction, but Marc sighs. Semantics seem to catch this guy out all the time, though he looks well aware of how stupid it is to care. Marc can’t really comprehend him, and honestly doesn’t want to.

“You told me you don’t prefer either,” he points out.

“Well… yeah,” The younger man mumbles, and then he retreats a bit behind Pecco with almost a defeated air, whatever confidence that made him surge forward with indignation seemly petered out. The other rider shoots him a searching look, like he has no comprehension as to why he and Marc are somewhat familiar, but seems to shake himself out of it. He looks at Marc with big eyes, asking without saying a thing.

Marc frowns at that. This is a strange conversation, and he really doesn’t have the patience today to continue this, especially as a foreboding feeling rises up, so he sighs and rubs a hand through his hair. Knows it is better to refuse.

“Anyways, I appreciate it, but no, I will not be ‘there’ tonight.”

“It’s just in the paddock, not the ranch,” Pecco protests immediately, “Vale said all riders are invited, sort of a going away party and a celebration for my win.”

“Doubtful he meant me,” Marc says quietly in too honest of a tone, tiredness allowing a bit of his sadness to seep out, and even Bezzecchi frowns at that. He doesn’t disagree of course, because Marc is only saying the truth, but he somehow looks bothered by it. Like it is easier to stand the idea when Valentino or him is saying it, but not when Marc is. Hypocritical like his teacher is.

“It doesn’t matter,” Pecco murmurs, stepping even closer as his voice lowers, “it’s my party too. You and Alex should come, it would be fun and you can ignore Vale all night.”

“Pecco,” Bezzecchi hisses, looking affronted.

“He would not want me there,” Marc repeats. His arm is starting to ache, he feels a little bit panicked, cornered by gentle eyes and kindness. He hates this, hates the carrot being tossed at his feet, because he knows if he bites down the whole thing will be filled with poison. He likes the younger man, really he does, but he must know how badly this will end. Vale would never allow one of his students to be so friendly with Marc. An image of shy Pecco dealing with Valentino’s anger hits him, and he feels a swell of worry.

That would be no good. Only Marc should have to deal with that. (Only he is allowed to, a little jealous thing whispers)

“I don’t want to,” he says slowly.

“Liar,” Pecco says immediately, and Marc arches an eyebrow. That was familiar. Too familiar, and the younger man had read him with uncanny accuracy. An uncomfortable feeling spreads through him and he stiffens his back, slides on a mask of coldness that he knows frightens people, and locks his eyes on the younger man. He hates the way he flinches immediately, sureness sliding from his eyes.

Pecco has been too friendly lately, it is bound to end poorly. Better to end this before it becomes something more than it is, before Valentino can corner him and accuse him of some kind of manipulation. Better to be cruel before the younger rider can genuinely be hurt.

“I am grateful for Germany, you were kind that night,” he says slowly and puts a small shred of disdain in there for good measure.

 “But we are not friends. Please stop bothering me with these kinds of things.”

He watches it in real time as Pecco wilts, as his eyes go a little wounded and shocked, and he takes a step back. It is uncomfortable to watch, but Marc forces himself to. It was his decision after all, and he must reap what he has sown, even if he does not enjoy this at all.

The air is thick with it, with this new distance he has created and he almost finds it soothing. The closeness had rubbed him a little too raw, and this is better. This is what he expects, after all.

“I’m sorry for being a bother,” Pecco mumbles after a stretch of whining silence, nods sharply, and then leaves with a quick movement. Marc hates to be mean like this, but it is for both of their own goods. He needs to get rid of his soft spot for someone so close to Valentino, and Pecco needs to lose that small amount of admiration he seems to carry. Such a thing will only end in bitter cuts, and while Marc is used to it at this point, he knows the younger rider will simply bleed out.

Marc sighs and goes back to his screen, content that this is all over now. He does not need a friend, especially one so close to Valentino. He tries very hard to convince himself of that anyway.

 But then a nasty voice rings out.

“You didn’t need to be cruel,” Bezzecchi spits, and Marc turns to him, surprised the rider is still there. His eyes are burning as he glares, hands gripped in little fists by his side. He looks protectively angry, and Marc is glad for it.

“I did, actually,” he murmurs, feeling oddly like being honest, “it was the only way to get him to leave me alone.”

Bezzecchi scoffs crosses his arms over his chest and still doesn’t leave.

“This is why no one likes you, you know. Pecco is a good person, but I guess you despise that in people,” he says nastily.

“You’re allowed to think that,” Marc responds, rather done with the conversation. A curse is all he gets in response and then the rider storms away, the sticky feelings of anger carving a path for him. Marc watches for a second and then pinches his eyes shut.

It’s better this way.

The rest of the season he gets more glares from the academy riders than normal, and Pecco avoids him like a plague. But at the very least Valentino has stopped watching him with searching eyes, goes back to his content disdain which Marc has learned slowly to prefer. It’s better this way, he thinks hollowly. He clings to Alex a little more after that.

At COTA he gets his second win of the season and it is good, brilliantly good, until he realizes that he will be on the podium with the rider he so recently was mean to. But he swallows it down, laughs with Fabio and treats Pecco like he would anyone else. Sprays him with champagne but does not linger. Gives a wan smile, but nothing more. The younger man stoutly keeps his eyes down, and is just as polite but distant. It feels much like it was before, soothing in its familiarity even if there is a small bitter edge to it.

He glances into the crowd when they are spraying champagne and finds Valentino watching with what looks like some kind of a relieved expression. He turns his eyes away immediately when they make contact with Marc’s, and ducks away, disappearing behind the rows of people. Marc watches him go with a sour stomach.

Maybe he has done just what the older man wanted, but he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t have the energy for the drama that sort of friendship could cause and Pecco will get over it, he is sure of it. Marc is no more important to the younger rider than he is to most others.

He gets a back-to-back win at another race held in Misano, and it feels like maybe everything will be okay again because things have started to settle into place once more. The crowd boos him because it is Italy, but he really couldn’t care less. The worst must be over now, and even if his arm hurts terribly sometimes, he knows he can push through it. Three wins in a season on a non-competitive bike, after almost a full year of being down and out for the count. He can do this, he can come back stronger than ever. He doesn’t even care that this is going to be his worst championship result ever in MotoGP, all he cares about is that maybe this means next year he will be back.

More than that, he has had plenty of time to process Valentino leaving. Has decided it is a good thing. He had tasted the distance when he was out for the 2020 season and saw how it numbed him to it all. Permanent distance would only serve him well, and eventually, maybe even his lingering attachment can fizzle out. Perhaps in a few years he can even hear the older man’s name and not feel a surge of pain.

Yes, this is good. Everything is finally going back to how it is meant to be.

But then he crashes again. Not even during a race, but during training between the last two of the season. Another bad one, and the diplopia that had almost taken him out in 2012 is back. He sits there and feels so young and hates the understanding he gets that he was wrong. That maybe the worst has just begun. That maybe there is no going back from this at all.

It actually makes him laugh a little manically, rage boiling under his skin, because at the same time as the diplopia and the concussion that follows along with it, his arm gets even worse. Rotator cuff issues, and he just stares up to the sky, sees two suns and far too many clouds, and wonders if he is genuinely cursed. If maybe his theory that he would end his career at the same time as Valentino does is true.  That old cosmic justice that had swirled through his head in 2020, an answer to his narcissistic belief that he could move beyond.

It would make sense in truth, but he still can’t find it in himself to accept a single thing. More treatments, a refusal for surgery for either thing quite yet, and a staunch sturdiness that is starting to chip away at him. But he has to, he must. He can’t stop; he doesn’t know how.

Maybe he never will. Maybe he will throw himself on that bike until he dies. Maybe he will let doctors tear him apart until there is more metal than bone in his body. Maybe he will slam his head until his vision is permanently double. Maybe he will do it all just to avoid the thoughts in his mind and the bitter knowledge that only the torturous feeling of his body betraying him can seem to clear his thoughts of Valentino.

He doesn’t know. So he just repeats that old mantra in his head.

‘it’s only pain. For victory, I can handle anything’

It’s starting to ring hollow.

End Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Vale hates being retired.

Hates it like he has hated nothing else before; every other little displeasure and dislike pales in comparison to this stifling feeling. He watches his academy riders train and hates. He listens to them yammer about pre-season and testing once January hits, and he hates. He sees the announcements for finalized lineups and liveries and schedules and hates.

It’s disgusting how little he is able to handle any of this, and it itches under his skin in a way it should probably not. He’s busy, he has the new team that he is starting and Rally and every other little endeavor that he can do because he is almost made of money at this point, but all of it feels dull and painful and stupid. Like the color has leeched out, like he is dead and people are moving around the spectral vision of him. Youth stolen away by the hoards of young riders who are crawling their way up.

It's similar to something he has experienced before in a way that makes him feel ill. Because this tightness, this lost feeling, this boiling rage that simmers under his skin feels a lot like after Sepang in 2015. Feels a lot like after Qatar in 2018. Feels a lot like after Argentina too. And worse, it feels like after Jerez 2020, when he was filled with this growling need to dip his hands back in, the need that drove him to that hospital and eventually to late-night calls with doctors. He still cringes when he remembers any of that, but he knows that he would do it again, pathetic as he is.

It shouldn’t feel the same. Racing is his life, and he hates Marc so much it hurts. He should feel completely different things. He should be relieved to be rid of the Spanish man, relieved he will never have to worry about looking over his shoulder and seeing the little orange comet trailing after him and getting ready to take him down. But Marc has always gone hand-in-hand with racing to him in a way he would never admit out loud. The passion, the adrenaline, the all-encompassing urge to get closer and closer no matter how dangerous it may be, it is the same for both. He used to equate the feeling of sex with Marc to a perfect lap, the way it would touch something deep inside of him, and while he felt satisfied, all he wanted was more.

But he never realized how literal that analogy was until he finally lost them both. No Marc, no racing, all that is left is a hollow feeling and the sad little substitutes that feel more like putting a band-aid over a ripped-out heart.

In Valencia, during his celebration, it had kind of hit him as he sat there. The crowd was screaming his name, a panicked feeling making it a little hard to breathe. The world was painted yellow that day, the screens at the end of the race showing video clips of him from way back to the 90s, and they give speech after speech about him and the legacy he had doggedly chased for years at this point. It was all about him, all for who he was, and normally he adored that kind of thing. He still did partially, still felt the loveliness that is being adored and admired and revered. Still waved and let them touch and laughed bright as he could.

But two things had held him down, had tightened their grip around his throat until he could barely breathe. The first was that he would never be back here again, that the door was shutting behind him, and nothing could prevent it. That reminder made everything far less bright and happy, made it feel like people were laughing at a funeral.

The second was that Marc was not there and maybe never would be again. And he despised how equal those two thoughts were in his head.

Even now, months later, it is still there. He still can’t breathe right and sometimes he has to take a second to sit there, shut his eyes and try harder so he doesn’t pass out. Flashes of his life, his career, and everything he was slipping away from him, and they are carried away by Marc’s gentle hand. Smiling, laughing, eyes cold and uncaring the way they always are these days.

He can’t even go in Marc’s old room anymore, the pathetic little place he visited just to see if he could get one step closer again. The last time he had was right before Valencia, when he dropped by the ranch to sign some papers. He had waited until the house was fully empty, slipped inside and it shot him through the chest in a way it never had before. He stared at it all, the fox, the photos, the trophies, shut the door, and never went back in again.

Luca had murmured that it was a good thing, that he could finally start to move on, but Vale disagrees. Because it is all still there even if he has shut the door, it all exists in the depths of his mind and heart and home and on the track that trails outside of his window, memories layered over it. Racing gone, Marc gone, and all that is left are the reminders he created for himself. The echoes follow him around the house day in and day out. The cheers of the crowd, the roar of an engine, and bright laughter he hasn’t heard in these halls in many years.

Uccio says he is being silly, the academy riders avoid saying anything at all, and one of his mother’s friends, who is something of a psychologist, offhandedly says that Vale seems ‘gripped by melancholy’ in such a tone that he has to leave the room or risk snapping at the man. It was too accurate, too honest, and he is never honest.

Not even to himself.

2022 starts and Vale numbly watches the first race from home, sitting on his couch and holding a pillow on his lap like it is some kind of child, and when the lights go out his whole body shifts forward like some kind of muscle memory. He doesn’t move the entire time, even when Pecco crashes he barely flinches. He just stares at the screen like he is watching an old home video of someone who has passed and notes all the results in his head. Pecco obviously doesn’t finish, neither does Bezz, Franky gets 11^th, Luca gets 13^th, and…. and Marc gets 5^th.

The last thing finally makes him shut off the TV, and he stares at the black screen for a full minute before he gets up and goes outside. The warm sunrise wakes him up slightly and as he squints up at it, he blandly thinks it is the same one they raced under. If he imagines for a moment he can hear the crowd, can feel the thundering of bikes going by under his feet.

He turns his head down, eyes blankly on the track, and does not blink until his eyes are so dry that tears go down his cheeks. They drop into the sand beneath his feet and he eyes the little balls they make there, wonders where the water will go from there. Will it rise up to the sky, inhaled by the clouds and the atmosphere before pouring over all of their heads? Will is stay, meld with the dirt and leave traces of him behind in the earth even after he is gone? He isn’t sure, he doesn’t know how those kinds of things work

His skin is uncomfortably salty and damp, but he doesn’t wipe his cheeks, letting the tear tracks air dry instead. Decides he would rather have what little is left on his face stay with him instead.

A shift of a second and then the flickering light is too bright for him. So he turns and shuts himself up in the garage, tells himself it is a normal day and he is going to tweak some of the bikes. But he is filled with too much adrenaline, the kind he used to get mid-race, and his hands shake. He drops the wrenches and screws so many times that he has to give up and flops onto his back, concrete cooling his skin.

He tries to imagine that he is young again. That this is a world where he is still baby-faced and almost bald, classic leathers tugged around his shoulders, arrogance that is not yet tempered by age coiling through his body. He is free there, with no aches and pains that can hold him back or remind him that life is fleeting, and without even realizing it he has imagined someone else laying beside him too. Someone just as young, tan skin glowing and a brilliant laugh.

His eyes fly open and he surges up before he allows himself to imagine the face too, although he knows full well who it was. He hates that it goes together, that he could never want anything else other than to race again and to have Marc by his side. Even after everything that has happened, even after coldness and hatred and the bland way he had ignored Vale for all of last season. He hadn’t even reached a hand out in Austria, he hadn’t even been in Valencia. It swims in Vale’s head and he only stands up to trudge toward the house when a bit of sunset gleams in through the window. He must have been there for hours.

Uccio calls him that night, off in Qatar still with the baby VR46 team, in control of it more than Vale probably will ever be. He speaks in a tired yet energized voice, and when he lets Vale get a word in he makes something of an amusingly concerned noise.

“Did you sleep last night?” He teases, and Vale laughs. Or tries to, it must sound more like a strangled cry because Uccio sounds much more serious when he asks again.

“Yes,” Vale assures him, even though it is not true, “but I woke early to watch the race. Our boys didn’t do well.”

“No,” Uccio agrees, “stupid mistakes, but we will fix them.”

Vale hesitates.

“If you need me there I can-”

“You said you wanted to stay away,” Uccio interrupts, and Vale can hear him shift over the phone. He is probably in some hotel right now, propped up in a chair and working late into the night the way he always does. He probably has no time or energy to think about any of the things that have been swimming through the air in Tavullia.

“I miss it,” Vale says quietly, and when his friend speaks again, there is wariness in his voice.

“Miss what?”

“Racing, the travel, the practices, the teams, and-”

He cuts himself off before he can finish what he was going to say, doesn’t even get the sound of the first letter out before he stops, but Uccio as always can read him well. He breathes in sharply.

“Valentino,” he speaks slowly, “do not think about him.”

A surge of irritation goes through him, one he almost never feels for the other man. Because on what planet can he control this? None of it is his fault, and he hates Marc, he really does, but it is all impossible. It’s like the younger man but a spell on him all those years ago, one that would guarantee he always was the focus. It would make the most sense.

“I don’t try to,” he says sharply, “I can’t help it.”

“You hate him.”

“Yes! Yes I know!”

A sigh, and he can almost picture Uccio pinching the bridge of his nose. It makes him feel like they are kids again, his friend still weedy and child-faced, pressing a bandage over his arm with a scowl, scolding in a little voice even as his eyes are filled with admiration. Vale mises the simplicity of that time. Misses when they used to argue about stupid things like falling from a tree instead of more serious topics like the man Vale still thinks about when he shouldn’t.

“Don’t watch the next race,” Uccio says.

So he doesn’t. Keeps himself in bed when Indonesia happens, avoids his phone and tries to pretend like this is better. His hands still shake, his body still feels pumped with adrenaline, and he uselessly watches some stupid American show when he wakes up, letting the shiny teeth and too-old-too-be-teenager actress with her loud voice draw him into something he doesn’t really need to care about. It’s mind-numbingly boring, but at least it is mind-numbing in some way.

It sort of works, until he decides he is safe to check online, and finds out what happened during the practice sessions on Friday.

Marc crashed. Again. He got hurt. Again. He didn’t even start the race, he probably won’t start the next one, and Vale is pulled back under the waves. By the time he surfaces, he knows that the diplopia is back like last year, and that Marc has a concussion. He hates the knowledge, hates that when he throws his phone down there are fifteen tabs open to different pages discussing diplopia and the success rate of a second surgery, and the contact information of those doctors he had worked with last year.

This time he at least has the strength to not go near that.

He barely holds on by a thread.

By the time it hits Mugello, the first race Vale is allowing himself to go to, Marc is back, so he shoves it to the back of his mind. Allows himself to be pulled into the crowd that calls for him like he is some sort of long-lost son, and the riders who greet him and the fact that almost his entire academy is now racing together. That Thursday he lounges in the VR46 motorhome surrounded by all of them and imagines that this will be the rest of his life. He still feels the hollowness of not racing, but this is better than sitting at home on his couch and feeling fully empty at least.

“And then I hit the back of him, because he was going too slow, and he flips me off like I was the problem!” Bezz is all but shouting, hands flailing through the air as he leans against Pecco, who is scrolling on his phone and ignoring him.

“You did hit him though,” Franky says, and the other rider turns to him with a pout.

“It was his fault,” he insists. Vale laughs.

“Of course it was, of course,” he assures the curly-haired rider and the beseechingly pleased look he receives in return is so puppy-like he can’t help but feel a surge of fondness. Not just for Bezz, but for them all. His children in many ways, his legacy in others. He loves his boys, and he knows they love him, but that appreciation has grown since he retired, and he understands in many ways why people have babies just to take care of them when they are old.

The air is warm, the song of his own language chattering outside and Vale might be okay. He might be able to be here, to be surrounded by all that he once had, and accept that his time is over. He is getting older and riding more would have only killed him, he is well aware. Perhaps he can accept that fact and visits to the paddock will simply feel like returning to an old friend’s home to say hello. The jittery adrenaline is still very much there, he cannot control it, but he found ways to manage it.

A hissed-out noise, sharp and pained, echoes through the room, slicing through his thoughts, and he watches the way everyone perks their heads to turn to the person who made it. Pecco, who is sitting up straight now, movement jostling Bezz, who squawks until he looks up and sees the other man’s face.

Tension, the kind that only comes from one type of news. Vale has heard that noise many times, it is the one you get when you feel the hurt with another person, when you ache for them. Pecco is kind so it could be for something as small as a broken toe, but he is also reserved so it could be something huge.

“Who got hurt?” Luca asks from where he is rummaging around in the little kitchenette, and Vale winces. If someone did in fact get hurt, it will have been an off-track incident, the worst kind of injury to get. No glory in an injury that does not include a bike, it just means you were stupid.

“No one,” Pecco says slowly, and when he looks up his eyes meet Vale’s immediately. In there something familiar swims, a sort of trepidation that people only have around a certain topic with Vale. And more than that, there is the echo of something more that Pecco has always seemed to carry for only one rider. He can recognize it even if it makes him burn with something close to jealousy.

“Marc,” Vale breathes before he can stop himself and the temperature of the room drops. Eyes bang over to him and they are all waiting for some kind of reaction. Vale for his part is waiting for Pecco to continue.

The younger rider licks his lips, lets his gaze drop back to his phone.

“He is out for the rest of the season after this weekend. Another surgery to his arm.”

Silence curls around them all. Then a noise cuts through it, like the sounds of a wounded animal, low and growling but also weak. Defensive and angry but panicked. It takes a second for Vale to realize it came from him.

“I thought the third one worked,” he mutters, and Pecco shakes his head.

“It hurt him a lot last year.”

Then he drops his eyes to the ground as if he feels guilty for that knowledge. Vale hates him a little right then, echoes of memories rising to the top in companion with that feeling. The time in the club all those years ago, pink-cheeked Pecco drunk and too open. Watching the younger rider’s eyes trail after Marc, small smiles that he thought Vale would not notice. And worst of all, Germany last year when he found them outside of Marc’s motorhome, Pecco’s arms wrapped around Marc and asking if he could stay in a low voice. There had been gentle admiration in his eyes. Vale had thought it was gone.

He had also thought that this was gone. That the injury was better, that Marc was better, that he wouldn’t even have to think about that ever again. But the third surgery hadn’t worked. It echoes through his mind, weeks of planning with those doctors that he had been assured would help. He was proud when he found out he had sone something good, relieved that Marc would still race, that he would still be there and Vale would not be left with nothing, but now… another surgery. Because Vale had failed.

A tidal wave of nausea hits him and he has to swallow it down before he hurls all over the motorhome carpet. He had done nothing, helped nothing, and that old panic after Jerez returns tenfold. Because now he won’t even be on track to distract himself.

Maybe he will be stuck here forever, unable to move on from anything that he has lost. It feels like a threat from the universe.

“A shame.” Is all he can finally get out, then he turns to Bezz, who is staring at him with wide eyes.

“Finish your story,” he commands, and the rest of the room snaps out of whatever spell they were under. Noise returns and Luca is clattering around in the kitchen and Bezz listens, diving back into it with significantly less enthusiasm, though he ramps it up when Vale scowls.

In the corner of his eyes, he still sees Pecco staring at his phone.

His face is as panicked as Vale feels.

***

He sees Marc again in person in Misano. The second race that Vale attends, one he thought he would be safe at. Near home, like Mugello comforting in its familiarity. And more than that, Marc is still out with his injury. He had his surgery in the US, far enough away that Vale could pretend it wasn’t happening at all.  He thought he was safe.

But he is wrong.

It is funny how it happens. Because mostly he is thinking about how badly he has to pee in the moment, walking with quick little steps toward one of the bathrooms that is located toward the back of the paddock. The others are too full of fans, and he has had too many people try and get a look at him at urinal to feel anything close to comfortable with that.

He makes it inside, thank God, laughs at the bad wall art which features Sic, bushy-haired and smiling, and does his business. Thanks the heavens that no one else is in here.

The heavens must have a sense of humor. Or hate him.

Because the door opens behind him as he is washing his hands, quietly like it is not as huge as it eventually feels. He doesn’t even glance up, politeness calling for the avoidance of eye contact as someone whips it out, but when they freeze, he does a bit too. Darts his eyes up and then really freezes

Marc, wrapped in a hoodie.

Marc, looking small and tired.

Marc giving him a blank look of surprise

Marc in Misano.

Marc in the same bathroom as him.

The door slams shut behind him and Vale tries very hard not to flinch.

“Ah…” he says, and Marc blinks rapidly like he agrees with the sentiment. Neither of them move. The water is still pouring out of the spout, dousing Vale’s hands, and when his sleeves start to get wet, he shuts it off. Fumbles a bit for the handle and feels almost embarrassed.

He really has no idea how to react to any of this. Ironically, he does not think he has ever run into Marc in such a situation before. Somehow they have avoided being alone in small spaces like this, but maybe with neither of them racing they have lost their touch for avoiding each other.

Marc opens his mouth. Then he shuts it. Then he slowly walks by to stand at the urinal, and Vale ignores the cardinal rule that all men have in bathrooms

He turns and stares. Tries to summon any of the hate the anger, and finds he is simply bowled over with a strange kind of wonder, unable to access any of it at all.

For a minute that is all that happens. Marc stands there, Vale stares, and the air is stiff but quiet. The little drip-drip-drip of the faucet is like a beat, and it is fast enough that it ironically matches Vale’s heart.

“Um,” Marc finally says, “I do need to go.”

Vale continues to stare, not really comprehending Marc’s meaning. He’s not blocking the door at all. The younger man can leave if he wants to.

“Please stop watching me.”

He jerks back, tears his eyes away when he realizes what that actually meant, and turns until he is facing the wall, a very stupid reaction. What he should have done is dried his hands with the paper towels sitting on the sink. But now he is staring at the wall that has that painting of Sic, and he feels like his old friend is judging him severely right now. His hands are still wet.

A sigh behind him. Marc does what he needs to do, and then he feels a presence get nearer to his back as he stiffly stands there and remembers how close he is to the sink. When Marc reaches for the soap, his elbow brushes against Vale’s back, a little whisper of a touch. The first one in years.

An electric shock goes down his spine, and he whips around because he can’t control himself and Marc is right there. Close enough that when he glances up at Vale in startled surprise, he can count the younger man’s freckles.

“Why are you in Italy?’ He spits out before he can stop himself, and Marc’s eyebrow twitches. He looks perturbed but also a little amused, and he glances at Vale up and down like he is trying to assess something.

“Am I banned from the country?” He asks lightly, and it is funny. Vale hates that it is funny.

“I tried.”

A joke, one he makes unconsciously. And Marc smiles a bit, before his eyes narrow. As if he is mad that he found Vale funny, the same as he felt. It’s a small comfort, and he feels his spine relax minutely. He wipes his hands on hsi panst until they are dry.

“Somehow I don’t doubt that,” Marc murmurs, turning back to the sink and continuing to wash. Vale watches him, watches the way his hands look graceful almost underneath the riveting water. He shakes them off once he is done, dries them with some paper towels, and then turns to leave, takes a few steps before he is interrupted.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Vale says in a rush, and Marc pauses. Turns back and he is making eye contact with him once more. It makes him feel a flush down his stomach and Marc is close again. Or maybe it is Vale who shifted in, took a few steps until they are less than a foot away. Too close, he is too close.

He looks different too. More like a person and less like a monument as Vale remembers him. There is a strange air about him, slow and quiet, like he has never been before. He also looks... older, tired. Done with it all. A lot like how Vale feels, actually. 

“I am returning next race, always good to get a jump start.”

Vale nods, then he gets an urge to reach out. To touch, to make sure Marc is real and not just a mad little figment of his imagination that was created out of hope and the wild dreams he has been having since he retired.

So he does. Marc warily watches him as he reaches out, lets his fingers brush lightly against the younger man’s jaw. Feels the warmth, the smoothness interrupted only by light stubbles. Gets the wish that he could grip it just to see the skin turn pink underneath his touch. He wonders how he would react.

“How is your arm?” He asks inanely, still touching and Marc lets him. His eyes have gone darker, his mouth slightly open and he looks… soft. Soft in a way he hasn’t for years.

“Better than it was before,” Marc almost whispers, “they think this will be the last.”

It’s good to hear, a balm to his soul almost and he relaxes even further. And he is closer still and he feels almost drugged and Marc is staring up at him looking the same exact way. The air in the bathroom is warm enough to lull him into some kind of dazy, sleepy place and he makes his touch firmer, holds the way he imagined he would and watches as Marc’s lashes flutter. His skin does turn a pretty pink. Vale is enraptured.

“How is retirement?”

“I hate it,” Vale responds immediately, and Marc smiles.

“I thought you would.”

Their stomachs are almost touching now. If anyone walked in they would be hard pressed to explain why they are standing like this, and it is a memory come to life. It is how they used to be almost, electricity in the air and no anger wrapped around it. It feels good, and it wrong, and he knows he despises Marc but he can’t find that feeling right now. What makes it worse is that the younger man seems to have lost his anger as well, he is leaning in like he can’t help himself.

“Do you still hate me?” Vale asks.

“Always,” comes the sharp answer.

It’s good to hear. Settles a little fear in his heart, one of indifference. Marcs face is so close, he grips that cheek and tugs in lightly until their noses bump into each other. Breathes in the younger man’s air and almost shudders at how it makes him feel.

“I have missed you,” he breathes too honestly.

A hum and Marc is watching him, eyes lidded. He looks pleased by the sentiment.

“Do you think I missed you?”

Vale grins.

“Yes.”

Then they are kissing. It’s a fire shooting into his chest and he grips Marc closer like a dying man. It is different than the last one, different than what Marc pretends never happened in that hospital room. There is the same desperation, the same pain in his chest, but he lets it consume him this time. Lets his arms wrap around a warm body, and Marc is biting his lip, making him curse. It stings and it feels so damn good, he does the same thing back. His mouth tastes like iron all of a sudden and he realizes that he drew blood. It only makes the need stronger.

He is pressing Marc back into the sink and it is so close to what happened in Qatar that he rips back with a gasp, only now Marc surges after him, slides his mouth onto Vale’s throat and starts mouthing there, and suddenly he is in that club again, in 2018. But this time Marc stays, but this time he moans for Vale to fuck him and is the one that is so desperate. This time he doesn’t leave Vale there with aching knees and hole in his chest.

“Marc,” he gasps out, “Marc.”

He doesn’t know if he could say anything else.

He slides his fingers down to grip that waist, conscious of the shoulder that was hurt, and when he feels it for the first time in years, he bucks his hips up uncontrollably. Pinches down on one of the hipbones just to hear Marc whine and grins when he realize he still remembers how to do this. Still remembers how to please him.

Marc rips back from his throat, chest heaving.

“I am still angry,” he pants out, and Vale laughs.

“So am I.”

“I hate everything you do.”

“Me too.”

He leans in to bite at Marc’s ear, a spot he knows the younger man loves, and relishes in the hand that bunches his shirt on the back. Slots his leg in between Marc’s and finds him hard just like Vale is. Imagines watching him come and almost whites out his brain.

“Vale,” Marc hisses, and he pulls back with another laugh. He feels young again in here, like right outside the door he will pop on his leathers and go racing once more. It’s a delicious flavor after feeling dead for so long. Energy is surging through him, all of his senses coming alive after so long of being stifled.

“What?” He snaps out.

Silence.

“Fuck it.”

That mouth is back on his and he grins into it. This is a bad idea, he knows that is probably what Marc was going to say. But he doesn’t really care right now, because like this he can pretend that there is no rippling scar down Marc’s arm. He can pretend that they never hated each other. He can pretend that he hasn’t spent years shredded to pieces from it all. He can pretend like he didn’t jump off a bike almost a year ago and never crawled back on.

A whine spills into his ear as he grinds up against Marc, and he swallows it down. Wants to eat the younger man alive, wants them to come messy and hot in their pants like teenagers, wants to feel the fluttering rush of doing something he is not supposed to do. Wants to sneak back to the VR46 garage and when they ask him where he was, smile to himself and lie.

God, does it feel good. Of course it feels good, it is Marc and how can he not feel good? Vale loves him loves him loves him, if he dies here right now, he would be happy. It’s a mad thought, especially with the hate and anger and pain hovering above them, watching with curious eyes, but it exists in his head nonetheless.

“Come on,” Vale mumbles, and Marc arches up against him, responds to his movements with his own. It’s lovely friction, the kind that shouldn’t work for him at this age. He reaches one hand up and grips Marc by the hair, pulls him gently back until his neck is exposed and stares at him. Watches pleasure dancing across his face, watches as it makes him seem so much younger all of a sudden. Vale knows he probably looks the same, that his glazed eyes and lax face has probably sent him back in time.

“Pretend,” he whispers, “pretend with me.”

Marc is staring at him, mouth still open as he breathes heavily, but there is an awareness in his eyes. Like he knows exactly what Vale is hoping for.

“Vale,” He lets out, and the tone is so… so… so soft. So like it used to be, the way Marc would say his name before anything bad happened, and he knows the other man got it.

“Tatino,” he responds, and dives back in.

Erases the last seven years from his mind, erases the pain and torment. Erases the strain on his body that made him leave, pretends he still has future championships to fight for and the man he loves adoring him.  Pretends that any resentment or hate is years away, and the world still sees them as revolving stars and Marc still sleeps in his bed.

It will hurt later. But right now all he can feel is pleasure.

They have set a rhythm now, grinding into each other with a languid sort of desperation. Lips melded together, the kind of kissing that is ingrained and automatic. Little indications of old knowledge that tell far too much. A bite here at a spot that they both know will make the other groan, gentleness that slides in right after. Well-practiced as if it hasn’t been years.

He feels it all in his soul and lets himself this time. Warm skin underneath his hands, a bubble forming in his stomach. The roughness of their jeans rutting against each other is a little sharp and perfect. Underneath clothes, lovely muscles, beautiful and rippling. Addicting always. He had tried to shove the knowledge that Marc is one of the most beautiful man he knows out of his head. It hadn't worked because he maps it with his fingers and finds he remembers every single dip and curve. 

“Vale, feels good,” comes a mumble against his mouth. He tightens his grip, one hand pulling the hair until Marc attempts to buck up, the other pinning his hips down. A laugh crawling up his throat at the way the younger man lets out a frustrated groan, and he soothes it by gripping his ass, marveling at how well it still fits in his hand and pulling them even more flush together.

They have done this sort of thing a few times before, fumbled touches in semi-public places that made the heart race. Vale pretends they are there, in some hallway and he is in Yamaha polo and Marc is in his Honda one. They juts came from a conference and Vale has gripped his thigh underneath the table the whole time.

Fuck it had been good. Is good. He makes himself believe it.

Pushing together like this is perfect friction, God, so perfect he feels a moan build up and he lets it right out into Marc’s ear, feels him twitch at the sound and remembers how much Marc liked to see him wanting. Another fact he had tried to forget but cannot. There are so many of those.

He squeezes down, aggressive and rough just like the younger man likes. Groans at how it feels underneath his fingers, enamored like he always used to be at the feeling. Marc is so perfect, meant to be touched at all times. There should always be someone making him feel good, and it should always be Vale. They can stay this way forever and never have to face the truth.

The younger man hisses out a sound, digs his fingers into Vale’s back and scrabbles for a second. Desperate in his touch, and the way it hurts a little is too good.

“Please, want to…” Marc says in a slurred voice pulling back to look up, unable to finish the thought, but the staggered movement of his grinds tells what he wants. He’s close, just like Vale is starting to get. Desperation to watch Marc twitching, pants stained with pleasure, fills his head, and he reaches down to press a hand to the other man’s bulge. Admires the way it makes his eyes roll back a little and how the bucking gets even more un-tempoed. Beautiful, Marc is always so beautiful.

“Vale,” he gasps, “Vale Vale Vale.”

“Tatino, Volpettina, Marc, Marc,” he responds and that makes it worse. Makes the spasms get wilder. He is close, and Vale might not be doing what he is doing but it is the same for him. He feels it building in his stomach, warmth flowing down at an increased rate.

Too good and when Marc locks eyes with him, pupils blown wider than he has ever seen them, and lets out an earth-shattering noise, hips slamming up, Vale knows he has come. The sight of it, the sight of those eyes staring him down as the younger man tips over the edge, as his whole body spasms, as his pretty mouth opens and whines pour out, it better than anything. It makes Vale curse loudly, and then he surges down and bites. Doesn’t even consciously think of where, but the gasp in his ear tells him that it is right where it is meant to be. A claim reignited; a scar pulled to the surface. Howling victory hits him. That is what does it.

He grinds up once, twice, and then he is coming too. It feels like the first time in years, warmth flows through him and rights every wrong. Sparks fly in his vision, a tension being overrun by pleasure and he loses a bit of brain power. When he finally comes online again, his head is buried in Marc’s shoulder. His teeth are still clamped down.

Fuck. Fuck that felt good, and he inhales the other man’s smell. Like ozone, as always, so familiar. He missed it. He hates that he missed it.

A hand slaps him on the back after a moment.

“Hurts,” comes a slurred voice, and he smiles into flesh and pulls back. Watches the way Marc sags a little now that Vale isn’t holding him up, chances a glance down and breathes in shakily when he sees a wet patch in jeans. He is the same, of course, but it is hotter on Marc.

Fuck. He can’t believe that happened, fuck. But he can’t really regret it right now, not when he is still glowing and his hands are still holding the younger man tight. Not when Marc still looks so soft, a stark hickey right on the corner of his shoulder and throat covering that old scar, hair mussed and soft, cheeks red. He is blinking dazedly, staring up like he is also baffled.

They don’t say anything for a while. Look at each other passively as he orgasms fade, yet neither moves away. Marc lets himself sag into the older man and Vale only shifts his arms to adjust his grip. It feels damn good.

He could take this time to have some revenge for Argentina. Drop his arms away, let Marc stay weak and lazy and leave him there with disdain. Make some cutting comment that is not true about how sad the desperation was, but he just… can’t. Doesn’t want to in the slightest. And he knows that it will never be him who pulls away.

Which is why he is hardly surprised when Marc moves first.

The younger man sighs, pinches his eyes shut and then he is pressing a firm hand to Vale’s chest. Pushes him away until he can properly stand. Then he fixes him with a look that could mean so many things, none of them good.

Neither of them say a thing as Marc turns to look at himself in the mirror. Rights his hair, licks away the small trace of blood still on his lip, and then tugs his hoodie down with a frown to cover his crotch.

Vale hovers behind him, doesn’t even bother making himself look presentable. Just watches Marc with a quiet sort of emotion, and hardly feels when it all creeps back in again. It does not crash down like he thought it might, but like a cat it pads in silently. He only notices it is there when Marc locks eyes with him once more.

“I think we both needed that. But it won’t happen again,” he says coldly. Vale bares his teeth in response. Hate hate hate spinning his head once more.

“Maybe.”

Then Marc gives him one last searching look and is gone. With him goes all the warmth in the room, and once the door swings shut behind him, Vale all but collapses on the sink. Exhaustion fills him and he knows it shows. Feels his eyes droop and his shoulder sag like he just did a sprint race.  He tilts his head to glance at that painting of Sic, feels awkwardly like his old friend was watching the whole thing. He mouths an apology and almost can see eyes being rolled and hear a laughing voice calling him stupid.

God, he is sweaty and looks like a mess. He splashes himself with water to try and wake up.  Winces at the stain in the pants and is grateful for his baggy t-shirt. Then he prepares to return to the garage, to sit and watch the race that might have already started with lazy eyes, and when they ask him why he looks relaxed, why that jittery adrenaline he has carried since he retired is gone, he will lie.

Just like he is young again.

End Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Honestly, Marc never thought having sex with Valentino again would help so much.

When he walked into that bathroom in Misano, he had just gotten this horrible feeling of inevitability. Valentino would say something cruel, he would react, and the whole thing would start all over. Insults would be launched, and this time he really doesn’t have the strength to be above it all, to not let it get to him and keep on trucking. Too weighed down by the heaviness that surrounds his life these days.

But that hadn’t happened. No, the older man had just stared at him. Asked a few inane questions in an awkwardly polite voice, even made a joke.

More than that, he looked different. Strange, like he was searching for something, and when he locked eyes with Marc there was a peculiarly curious vulnerability there instead of the usual venom. It was what led him to allow Valentino to reach out, pressing a warm hand to his jaw. It was what led him to allow proximity until his head was swimming and he felt like a rookie again. It was what led him to tease almost, voice light. Then, finally, it was what led him to accept the kiss with a gasp.

What happened after, well… it had been something. Fumbled hands, moans, and a show that reflected the past. ‘Pretend with me’ murmured out of chapped lips, and Marc just… he needed it right then. After months off the bike, after a fourth surgery, after all the doubts and worries and fears. He needed to pretend like he was still that kid who had years of championships to go.

It had been too easy to fall back into it, to let the weakness out and show all the want. He had heard that nickname and it rewrote history until all the lines disappeared from Valentino’s face, and he was Marc’s Vale again, the one who loved more than he hated. The one who he never thought could hurt him. For his part he slid back into that old role, the softness and begging and sweetness, like it had been waiting. Bent and allowed, and when Vale bit down on him hard, all he could do was whine to the sky, wild grin on his face. Lied to himself in the afterglow that he was allowed to stay and leaned into Valentino once the pleasure had started to fade.

When he left his last words had been another lie, his denial of it ever happening again. Possibly the biggest one he had ever told himself, the biggest he had ever told Valentino, at least. Because the next race he saw the older man, Valencia, where the title that did not involve Marc would be decided, it happened again. This time in the VR46 motorhome on media day, hands scrabbling down each other’s backs as they pretend to be young again.

They don’t take off their clothes, didn’t last time either, and it is all childish movements and gasps and pressing into each other through their pants. No skin on skin other than the way they meld together with their mouths, or the little bites that Valentino keeps pressing into his throat over and over and over again. Marc perches on the older man’s lap, and Valentino is tugging him down by his hips, and it’s stupid how much better this all makes him feel. Stupid that as the pleasure rises, so does his hope for the future. Not for him and Valentino; that ship sailed a long time ago, but for himself.

“Didn’t you say ‘it won’t happen again’?” Valentino mumbles once they are finished, Marc lazing in his lap still and pretending that he is too weak to move. He has his fingers in Valentino’s hair and has been twining one of the curls around. It’s soft, just like he remembers, if a little bit thinner. But he won’t say that until he wants to be mean.

“You grabbed me,” he protests in response, and the older man hums. Trails a hand up Marc’s back, a gentle kind of touch that he always used to do. It feels good, and when he shuts his eyes he could be anywhere at any time.

“You let me though,” comes a pleased voice, smug slightly, and Marc rolls his eyes. Childish man, but he supposes that he has always known that. Even before anything, even back in 2011 when he met the older man much more officially on the ranch he had been aware what a kid Valentino is on the inside. He enjoyed it in the past, still does slightly, but he has also seen the bad side of it.

“Do you always have to win?” He complains, closing his eyes tight and inhaling because he is well aware that the time is coming to an end. Last time, he was gone less than a minute after they finished, so actually he is kind of pushing it right now.

A small laugh, and the trailing hands get some nails, the slight pain of scratches even through his t-shirt making him shudder a little. He is still hovering in the after, so it mostly just feels good, even if he is well aware that the danger is creeping in.

“Funny that you would say that,” Valentino murmurs.

Marc groans, leans back, prepares to shut it all off so he can slide back into his proper place. They are edging too close to what they actually are with this conversation, and he has no wish to fight. If he wanted that they would still be together. This is meant to be a pretense for both of them, one that soothes whatever it is that needs soothing. You cannot lie to yourself that you are young and happy when age and anger comes creeping back.

He doesn’t say anything as he stands, not even a comment on the way Valentino’s hands tighten their grip a bit before finally letting him go. The older man doesn’t move from where he sits languidly on the couch, legs spread out in a slightly erotic fashion, sweatpants dark enough that nothing shows. He just watches as Marc rights himself, going into the bathroom to make sure he doesn’t look too obvious. In the mirror Marc can see a little sliver of the living room, and he is quite sure that Valentino has no idea he can. He wouldn’t be making that face if he did, so openly pained. He wouldn’t be letting his hands rake through his hair like he is trying to find the proper words.

Marc hates the sight. Hates knowing that even if Valentino lies to himself and says that he is hurt, the truth is he is not. He is using Marc just like Marc is using him, an attempt to hold onto the old days. He is well aware that the older man had always felt young around him, and after retiring it seems he craves that even more than he hates Marc. Which really is something because the man hates him very much indeed.

Valentino also had a habit of making Marc feel young too. Years ago he hated that and how childish it made him feel. Really, he didn’t need to feel young, he was young, so he always ended up leaning towards juvenile instead. Now though his injury has accelerated to the future both mentally and physically. He needs a taste of the past more than ever, and there was maybe only one person so prevalent in his life during that time.

A stupid reason for coming back to this maybe, but a real one. He never said he was sane after all.

“I don’t know which races I will be at next year,” Valentino suddenly says after he has stepped out of the bathroom, preparing to quietly walk out and avoid eye contact.

Marc doesn’t say or do anything, just stares at him for a second and wonders what that even means. Is Valentino trying to…plan for this? Trying to end it? Really though he has no clue, all he knows is that he wants to leave.

Blue eyes dart up to meet his, then spring away just as fast.

The air is really awkward now, the kind that is stifling, and it is not helped by the way the blinds on the windows are sealed shut. It’s dark and hazy and almost dreamlike, and he is well aware that the second he steps outside, he will regret it all. But politeness holds him here, the awareness that leaving so quickly was fine when it was on neutral ground, but perhaps is a bit rude here.

A foolish thought, of course; they have a terrible relationship. Basic rudeness would be very low on their list of crimes against the other. Almost laughable that this is what worries him.

“This is a bit strange, no?” Valentino mumbles after a moment, then laughs like he has no idea what to do with himself. It’s almost endearing as much as it is annoying.

“I hope Pecco wins today,” Marc finally says instead of responding to that, “he has done well this season.”

A little nod is all he gets, though something akin to a scowl accompanies it.

“He will,” comes stiff, clipped words, “you are fond of him I think.”

Marc shakes his head immediately, both as an answer and as a reaction to the tone. Is he fond of Pecco? Sure, as much as he can be, but he doesn’t like the way Valentino says it. Like some sort of insult, and somehow he gets the feeling that if he responds affirmatively, the reaction will be overpronounced.

“He is talented, I have to watch out for the younger generation, you know,” he says blandly, and Valentino narrows his eyes. Laughs meanly.

“You are not even thirty,” he points out. Then he startles, eyes widening a bit. Marc observes it, wonders if the reminder of his age has broken any illusion of them still being in the past or if he is just surprised that Marc is not even the age he was when… when all of this started. Valentino was thirty-two in 2011, after all. And thirty-six in 2015.

Those kinds of things swirl through his head a lot more these days, the reminder that really Marc was a kid when all of this began. Eighteen and fresh and new and wowed that Valentino would even speak to him. Nineteen when they really started, but still. Sometimes he wonders how he would react if he saw that now, if he saw an older rider with a rookie that young. Would he be disgusted? Worried? Or would he just look at the kid and see a reflection of himself and understand?

He knows deep down that it wasn’t… good. That he was too young and Valentino was too old, but he is also well aware that they were probably inevitable in some way. He had said that he doesn’t believe in fate, and that is true, but if he did then he would believe that no matter what they were meant to end up here. Meant to come together just as they were meant to collide. It would have never been good, really, even if it was years later and Marc had more time to grow into himself. Because no matter what, Valentino is always the one with the power. Even now.

Valentino looks a little sick, like he is thinking the same exact things. Or perhaps he is thinking the opposite, that no matter what Marc will always have the upper hand. He is rather delusional that way.

“I’m forty-three,” he finally mumbles, staring dazedly, “you don’t know what it is like to be old yet.”

Funny. And wrong.

“I do,” Marc coolly responds. Doesn’t even enjoy it when Valentino flinches and drops his gaze away. Just swallows it all down and pushes it into the little box in his brain where he stores things he does not want to think about.

And that is it, he steps out of the motor home and goes back to his own, keeping his head down until he is a far enough distance away that he is not suspicious. Inhales the fresh air and tries to get Valentino out of his lungs. It hardly works, he still feels the man lingering even hours later as he settles down for the night.

Is all of this a terrible idea? Most likely. But he really wasn’t lying when he said how much it all helped. Not his mind or his body, really, but his perception. Because he and Valentino… at this point they have hated more than loved. Only around three years actually together, and they are headed toward eight years apart, eight years of rage and deception and stupid games.

It had been all built up in his head, really, until every interaction was laced with something sharp and evil and mean. Until he couldn’t even walk by the older man without every single cell in his body locking in, preparing for some sort of fight.

So the sex had kind of humanized it all. Yes Valentino hates him, yes he is cruel. But he also still sounds the same when he comes, and he also still likes to touch gently, and he also still makes the same face when he has no idea what to say. Comforting. Marc had forgotten the more human aspects of the man.

He finds he can’t really hate the way he used to now. There is too much to worry about with his arm and his team and every little thing that makes up who he is.  Valentino is sort of an afterthought, and their new interactions are more of a little boost and reminder of the past more than anything. He leaves most of them simply not caring, and the old anger has simmered down to a tepid degree. Still present of course, but not quite the same. He prefers it that way.

2022 ends like that, sort of bland and emotionless. He much prefers it to how it used to be though, when every emotion was so strong he could feel it almost physically ripping him apart.

Winter break he trains and does physical therapy and does not see the older man at all. Doesn’t even really think of him, locked down on the time spent with his brother and the daily emails from Honda where they relentlessly assure him that everything will be better next year. He of course doesn’t believe them, can see the writing on the walls of it all. Ducati has become the new leader of the pack, this is quite clear. From what he has heard, their new bike is even better than the last, and he is sure it will be years until Honda can compete once more.

“Would you leave them,” his father asks one night when they are all sat around the patio dinner table, sun going down in the distance and food scattered all over the table. It’s one of those warm winter evenings and had come after a quiet day. He has learned to appreciate those ones.

Marc swallows down his bite and tilts his head.

“Yes,” he says decisively and that earns him a proud nod. A look of relief too, like his father had thought Marc’s loyalty to Honda was greater than his need for victory. As if anything could be.

“Good. Do not waste your best years on them when they have taken so much away.”

He laughs and shakes his head at the bitter sound of those words, at the irony of what was said.

“My best years have long gone,” he mutters quietly as he skewers a piece of tomato.

That makes them all go a sad sort of quiet, and he curses himself for ruining the mood. He’s been doing that a lot lately but it is a little bit difficult to keep his humor up when he feels so numb all the time. He needs to try harder.

“But hey, with your move to a Ducati team, you will probably have a better year,” he says in what he hopes is an encouraging voice as he turns to Alex. His brother just gives him a little smile, looks like he is quite sure Marc is purposely changing the subject, but follows along. Launches into some full-length description of the bike and the team, joking about things more than he usually does. Marc reaches a hand over to press into his arm, grateful.

Pre-season testing begins and the bike is even worse than it was last year, and all he can do is sit in his box, stare at the screens that show how fast the top riders are, and burn for it all. Watch his times and hate and listen to the way they talk about him like he is nothing.

He wonders how long he can last like this.

***

The 2023 racing season officially begins with a crash and a bang. Literally. Another one in Portimão, a broken thumb, and no racing once more. Valentino takes to the press to call him reckless, and the next time they see each other Marc has to hold his hand away to avoid crushing his still-broken finger when he gets pressed against the side of a building, panting aggressively. It’s a risky one, almost public, and when the echo of footsteps sound near enough to cause panic, Marc comes hot and heavy with a muffled whine. Valentino rips off of him fast, and yet Marc is still the first one to walk away.

By France he is back again but crashes out of the main race. He does the same in Mugello, and after that one, after not a single race finished this year, he actually slides to his knees and lets Valentino come down his throat. The older man looks almost disgusted the entire time and asks in a creaky voice if Marc is punishing himself. He simply shrugs cause really he does not know. So what if he is, why does Valentino care? Those words get him a hollow look, and it is not him who walks away first this time. Incomprehensible, of course, but he puts it out of his mind. None of that stuff really matters anyway.

In Germany he crashes five times in the weekend. It’s hell every time, and he almost gets used to it by the fifth. Feels his body fly off the bike, slams into the ground, and feels pain pulse through him. But he just accepts it all. It’s nothing really, not compared to his arm. Not compared to the diplopia that almost took him out again. Not compared to Sepang 2015.

It does genuinely hurt though, and when the doctor tells him he has a broken rib, he just nods. Of course he does, of course the crash ended in more broken parts of him. His thumb a few weeks ago, barely healed, his arm so many times, his eyes and brain others. Now his ribs, so painful that every time he breathes or laughs, it feels like he is being stabbed. He tries to lessen the laughing, and so mostly he just feels quietly emotionless once he gets back to the circuit. It's almost as if any of his progress keeps getting ripped out from underneath his feet over and over and over again. It's hell.

He scrolls through articles about it as he sits in the Honda garage, actual race happening around him, and pretends like he doesn’t care. Out of control, dangerous, insane. That is what they call him, and he accepts it with raised eyebrows. Laughs at a little quote from Uccio of all people in there, almost takes a picture to remember it. Creative insults, as always. He can appreciate that even if he despises the wormy little man.

The humor of that barely helps, it mostly just makes him have to stifle more laughs which really hurts. He stops eventually, too sick of the pulses of pain, and then it is just him and his brain, sitting there and wondering if this will ever get better at all. Not the rib, though he does hope for that, but literally anything else.

He doesn’t even have his recent tactic for shutting it all off today; Valentino is not here, and he can’t use the older man to reverse time, can’t use pleasure to spin himself until he can pretend the world is still his. It’s almost ironic that he is all the way back to missing the older man’s presence, albeit for very different reasons this time. Alex would be very mad at him, he can almost hear the monologue he would get about it all.

Eventually the noise in his head gets so loud that by the time the race finishes, he can’t even move. Sits in a little chair quietly and watches as Honda cleans up around him with careful hands. Some of them try to talk to him, try to even ask if everything is okay, if his rib is bad and everything, but he mostly ignores them. Responds shortly or even with a slightly mean tone. Eventually, they give up and he is alone, sunset flickering in through the door and warming his skin.  He squints at it and dully thinks that he might have actually let the Valentino fuck him this time. It’s that bad.

Honestly he might let anyone if they could help right now, if they can erase the aches in his body and the knowledge that every race is worse and worse. Maybe he can call in some unsuspecting engineer, smile and seduce them into wanting to touch him. Or maybe he can find a bar, find some pretty girl or boy who is wowed by his name or job, and let them in for one night. Soak in the praise or maybe pretend they are someone else, even ask them to be mean just so it feels realistic. In them he could perhaps find it, not so well as he does with Valentino, but close enough perhaps to help.

Bad ideas, of course, and ones he will never do, but it is interesting to imagine.

“You look pensive.”

He recognizes the voice as coming from Santi immediately. Turns and actually lets it all show on his face because this is his old friend, and if he tries to hide any of it, he will be called out. Which would be really irritating. Besides, the man would never hurt him and has never had the intention of doing such a thing. He can be trusted in a way that so little people can be these days.

“Ribs hurt,” Marc says vaguely and watches those grand eyebrows drop a little, concern painting his face. He slowly sits in the chair and leans in to search Marc’s face, as if he can find something there. It’s not an uncomfortable feeling at all, and he just smiles softly and allows it.

“You will not race in Assen,” Santi finally says decisively, and when Marc goes to make some kind of protest, he is waved off.

“You look like hell, you’ve been riding like a crazy person, and if I get one more call from your mother where she almost lectures me to death, I might have to leave Honda.”

“You would never,” Marc says quickly, and the other man sighs.

“No,” he agrees, “no I would not.”

Then his eyes cut up sharply a stern understanding in his face.

“But you should.”

Marc doesn’t know how to respond to that. An almost accusatory suggestion, maybe, but said with such certainty, it does not feel mean in any way. To anyone else he would lie, smile and curl up words about how Honda is his ‘family’ and they stuck with him through the bad, so he will too. He would keep his cards close, refuse to show his hands or make them think that he is not someone who is thinking such thoughts. But he won’t keep his thoughts down, not with Santi.

“Should I?” He asks, and it is a genuine question. Of course he has been thinking about it, of course the more and more the bike seems to bite at him, the more he craves a decent one underneath him. The Honda is fucked, and it will only get worse. He remembers what Cal Crutchlow said all those years ago, asking what he will do when the bike turns on him eventually. He had confidently said he would find a new team, arrogant at the idea of it all, sure that no one could possibly refuse him. Perhaps it is time to live up to that promise, though now it will be… more difficult.

“Yes,” Santi says cleanly, “and when you want, return to us. We will still love you like we always have.”

Marc snorts.

“Speak for yourself maybe, I doubt that will be true for everyone. Many of them will probably hate me for leaving,” he says with a small laugh in his voice, and when the older man simply shakes his head, Marc feels a bit lost. He has never really known what to do when faced with such a thing, after all. Except for family, love is usually quite transactional, filled with stipulations at every corner. It was like that with Valentino, anyways. Usually the stipulation for him was blind devotion and worship. Marc often gave it to him, until he didn’t.

“What if I leave, find a better bike, and all of this still happens,” he wonders out loud before he can hold his tongue, then bites at it with how insecure he sounds. Pathetic, but Santi’s eyes just soften.

“Where has your confidence gone?” Santi teases, “I remember when you were in Moto2, and you said that no matter what you rode, you would win. What happened to that fearless kid?”

“He got old.”

A hand swipes out to scoldingly knock him on the head, and he ducks down with a snicker, surprising himself with how light his chest feels right now. After the last few weeks, he hasn’t felt this in a while.

“If you are old, what am I?” Santi mutters, looking perturbed.

“A grandpa?” Marc suggests, leaning back in his chair and laughing to the ceiling at the way Santi grumbles in response. Stares at it for a minute, stares at the whole garage actually, and wonders what it would be like to leave them. To pick a new team, new colors, new everything, and simply move on. He has no strong loyalties to Honda but… but there is something to be said about leaving the place you have been since you were a child. He was destined to be a Honda rider from a young age, but perhaps that was always meant to hold the younger version of him. Maybe he is too battered and bruised for such a cheerful color as orange. Maybe that can be okay.

“I have been thinking about it,” he allows after a stretch of silence, “for a while now. I’m just not sure where I would go from here.”

His honesty earns him a peaceful smile, the kind Santi used to give him in the early years, when he did something mature. He was so young back then, and the crew chief often guided his behavior. He wouldn’t be who he is without him, without Honda. It’s why he can’t help but feel the guilt even when his selfishness propels him forward.

“Whoever it is, make it a good team, one you can fight for titles with,” Santi says slowly, “if you leave us for someone like Yamaha, I might be very angry.”

Marc chuckles, but then sighs. He appreciates the humor, appreciates the encouragement, but it is not so easy as picking a top team and just sliding into place. They are building their future just like any good team is, and doubtlessly they have a plan that stretches far into the future. A future that does not include Marc at all.

The setting sun is still painting everything golden, and that includes Santi now. Makes his old friend look like one of those statues of an old Roman emperor, thick-bearded like Hadrian, and strong. Marc wonders what his own face looks like in that light; a champion of old, or the tired man he finds himself to be now.

He knows Santi is right though, he can’t leave Honda unless the path will 100% be better. The best is the only real option for any chance of having what he wants in his grasp once more.

“There is only one championship winning team at the moment,” he says thoughtfully, “But Ducati has their line-up and their number one, and they may want to avoid any problems that would arise. I also heard they are hoping for Jorge Martin too, once his Pramac contract ends before 2025.”

Santi gives him a look of naked disbelief.

“Bagnaia, Martin, and Bastianini are nothing. Did you forget who you are?” He asks, seemingly baffled.

A sigh goes through him. He of course still thinks like that, it’s what keeps him wary of leaving Honda. He knows he is good, even with all of the doubts and fears in his brain. He knows that if he got himself back into form and on a good bike he would do leagues better. But at least at Honda if he stays they will call it loyalty, and not think harder on the ‘why’. He couldn’t stand to go to a team that is not the best, where they will shake their heads and say that he has lost it when he gets no more titles. Then they will say that the only ones who could want him are even worse than the one he left. At least with Honda he can keep his pride, pretend like he stays for other reasons. A bizarre mixture of arrogance, selfishness, and fear keeps him where he is.

“I cannot get the Ducati seat. They would have too many questions about me and my performances.”

A humming noise, a stretch of pensive silence.

“Well,” Santi murmurs, “what can you do to answer those questions?”

That makes him tilt his head, that makes him consider. If his ultimate goal is Ducati, the team with the best bike. Well… he would need to prove he can come back. Would need to prove that he still has victory in his blood, would need to prove that he can ride what they create. He has only touched Honda bikes for years. Ducati will want to know that he can ride anything, that he can adapt. A trial period almost.

“A satellite team,” he says slowly, and Santi pats him on the leg. Leans back looking rather pleased with himself as if Marc has arrived exactly where he is meant to. He smiles almost mysteriously, the tension in his forehead having settled down.

“Choose whichever one, just make sure you are happy there. That is your problem right now; you have forgotten the fun of racing. Find it with them and you will see it all change. I promise.”

Then Santi stands up and turns to look down at him, standing in front like a knight about to kneel and swear fealty to his king. But instead of kneeling, he grips Marc by the shoulders, forces him to make eye contact that is fierce and proud and hopeful and sure. So different from what Marc has been feeling lately that his chest burns at the sight. It makes his eyes sting a little.

“You have been killing yourself since 2020. Every race is torture, I know, we all know, and it is all made worse by the color of the leathers that you wear. So join a different team, pull the pressure of the past off your shoulders and maybe that will help you heal faster.”

Then he leans in, presses a brief, gentle kiss to Marc’s forehead and begins to leave, grabbing a stack of papers that he must have come here for off of one of the tables. Marc feels a little struck quiet by the kindness, the wisdom, the everything that was said. He loves Santi like he has only ever felt for his family at that moment, loves all of Honda and knows deep down that if he can, he will return in an instant. Feels the ache of missing them already.

Just before he exits the garage, Santi calls one more thing in a casual voice.

“Fabio Di Giannantonio is apparently going to leave his team. Something to think about.”

Then he is gone.

Marc stares outside the door for a second, noticing that the sun is fully down now. The coolness of night settled around the paddock, even swallowing the Honda garage, and as he sits there, he shuts his eyes and pictures it. Pictures a world where he is not orange, where he has a bike he can trust underneath him, even if he is surrounded by strangers. He doesn’t even realize how much that thought makes him smile until he opens his eyes and catches a glimpse of himself in the shiny mirror across the way. He looks happy, and years younger, just from the thought. He wonders what the actual change will do.

Di Giannantonio. Alex’s teammate. He had shared with his brother before, back in 2020 when things went terribly wrong, and he knows that Alex is very happy with them. Like family, they adore him, and he adores them. Not a top team of course, but Ducati satellite, and small, but tight-knit. Nothing like Honda really, which has a name that everyone knows and a presence in every country in the world. Different in so many ways. So many good ways, possibly.

He grins to the sky, turns it over in his mind and the more he thinks on it, the better it sounds.

Gresini.

Perhaps it is Alex’s turn to learn how to share.

End Chapter 19

Chapter Text

In October, he finally announces it. That he will leave Honda, that next year his leathers will be painted Gresini blue and he will have a bike that can finally carry him into the future.

The cameras flash as he walks in the paddock in Indonesia, voices calling out questions that he simply ignores. Smiles at them politely, puts on the mask he always used to have back when he still won, all-knowing and smug. It’s a comfortable one to wear, his face having carved its place into it so long ago, and feels a bit like coming home.

When he is actually asked in an interview, he finds it in himself to be professional. To drone on about ‘mutually parting ways’ (as if they hadn’t been tight-jawed when he told them) and history and how grateful he is after so many years of partnership. None of it is wholly untrue; he knows how much support he got from a young age, but it is a little too simple to be the real picture. How do you say ‘we ruined each other, but only I can walk away’ without sounding too dramatic? Trick question, you can’t.

He doesn’t pay too much mind for his results for the rest of the year, too focused on the future and the little friendly smiles and brief conversations he now receives when he sees any of the Gresini employees around. Alex complains with humor in his voice regularly, but Marc just laughs and teases him back. That happy feeling follows him all the way to Valencia, where they make a big deal about his last race with Honda. It’s nice in a small way, and on media day he walks on cloud nine.

That night, as he rests in bed and prepares for the next day’s practice, he gets a text from a number he had memorized many years ago. A short thing, just one word and a period at the end like it was something deliberate

‘Congratulations.’

He doesn’t respond, deletes it from his phone just as fast as it popped up and wonders when Valentino unblocked him. After 2015 he had tried to call the older man a few times and found he couldn’t get through even once. While he hasn’t checked in some time, he had been sure he was still blocked. Apparently not.

It’s not… bothersome, really. He mostly just ignores it, chalks it up to the weird interactions they have been having and the sort-of-sex that he hasn’t gone near in a few races now. So he is fine, really.

But still, during the rest of the weekend he is off. Not in any really detrimental way, just that he feels more watched then ever and he knows Valentino is staring after him wherever he goes. In practice and quali he doesn’t hit the mark, wrong in a way that makes him grit his teeth and wonder yet again how next year will go. No excuses on a top bike after all, and he shouldn’t let someone so removed from his life influence him like this.

Right before the race starts that Sunday, he spots Valentino again. Leaning outside of the wall of the VR46 garage, lazy and sure of himself, watching with hooded eyes and a thinned mouth. He looks intense, he looks irritated, he looks like he is waiting for Marc to make some small mistake so he can latch onto it and hate more.

Marc doesn’t care, but it’s just enough to make his skin start to itch.

Maybe that is why things happen as they do

A corner being taken, a bike scraping too close, flash of yellow and the rider is down, gone from his shoulder in an instant, and for a split second, Marc reverts. He is twenty-five again, they are in Argentina, and it is Valentino who he has sent down into the dirt.  He almost expects to see it if he glances back, the sight that had made him burn with vindication and fear in equal parts.

But Valentino is not here, not on track. He is sitting in the garage of the team he owns, probably staring at the screen with angry eyes. Because that was one of his riders that just went down. His brother or his student, and Marc knows what people will say. He is well aware that no matter that he had the corner, no matter that the rider cut in too close, no matter how things have gotten better, he is who he is, so they will hate him for it.

Maybe Valentino is even relieved that finally he has something else to rage against. Maybe he is sitting in the garage and laughing.  Maybe he is pulling people over to glare at the screen with him, pointing out everything Marc did wrong.

He doesn’t care. But it’s enough to send him tumbling down a few laps later, it’s enough to make him land on his hands and knees and glare at the ground, well aware that this will make them crow out the word ‘karma’.

The whole thing feels like one massive step back. He finds a little less happiness inside of him as he marches his way back to the box, aware of eyes on him from every angle, and wonders if even Alex will be disappointed in him.

After the race he ignores it all, the way the media surges around him, calling for his answers to their many questions. Apparently it was Bezzecchi that had crashed, apparently the younger rider had some rather choice words for the press. He feels eyes on him as he stands surrounded by cameras and he doesn’t go searching, but he knows who it is, knows that this will only resurge some of that old fire that had so recently been dampened by what might be melancholy. He listens to Bezzecchi’s words later that day in his motorhome, marvels at the bitterness in the tone. As it replays, he wonders when someone who hardly know him at all came to despise him so much.

It’s nothing really, nothing at all. He doesn’t care one bit.

But a series of noisy bangs clattering his door forces him out of his thoughts, and humor bubbles in his stomach when he feels the anger pulsing through the paper-thin walls. Perhaps it is Valentino, coming to curse him out for everything he has ‘done wrong’ today. Perhaps it is Uccio, ready to scream in his face like he did in Argentina. Maybe even it is reporter who wants to invade his life again, latching onto an old story that has risen back to the top in one race. The House of Rossi clashes with The House of Marquez once more. Rinse, repeat, refresh, reveal. Old news wrapped in new paper.

“Bastardo, answer me!” Comes an angry voice when he ignores the pounding, reaching up to rub a hand over his forehead. His brain is starting to ache, even more so because he does not recognize said voice. He can assume who it is though, and the fiery emotion is familiar. Inherited, most likely

Not good press to leave the man you clashed with spitting mad outside your door.

He opens the door while Bezzecchi is still slamming his fast, abruptly in an accidentally-on-purpose kind of way, and has to stifle a laugh when the other rider trips, almost falls at Marc’s feet with a heap. He catches himself on the door frame, but it is enough to throw him off his rhythm. His cheeks turn pink as he glares up, and he opens his mouth like a fish for a second before he seems to settle back on anger.

“I do have ears,” Marc says lightly, and Bezzecchi scoffs, one hand coming up to push past him and storm in. It would be funny if it didn’t spark irritation in him. All of his interactions in the past with Bezzecchi had been hostile, but not terrible. Now though he sees the embodiment of Valentino at his worst right here, steaming mad and filled with self-justification.

“Oh, yeah, welcome,” Marc murmurs quietly, leaving the door open as an afterthought as he hopes Bezzecchi will not be staying long. He listens to the way the other man paces behind him, turns, and wonders how he can make this stupidness go away.

“You crashed me out,” comes the first accusation, and Marc crosses his arms. Tilts his head and eyes the other man critically.

“It was a racing incident,” he says in an emotionless voice, “I didn’t even see you there.”

“Bullshit,” Bezzecchi scoffs, “I felt the hit, I felt pain before I even went down. It was on purpose.”

Marc can’t help it. He laughs, goes to sit down on his couch just to help himself relax. His day had been good, the last few weeks had been good, and yet here he is, talking to someone who seems stuck in a past they were never part of. Bezzecchi picking up a war that he seems to view as holy, with Valentino as his patron saint and Marc as the devil. Amusingly ridiculous.

“Well I didn’t.”

Silence and other man looks like he is going to explode.

“Is that it?” Marc says tartly, “or do you have more delusion to spout?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. It was a little too sharp for someone who has never really crossed his radar, but he can’t help it. Just like on track, he is punched in the face with Valentino right now. Curly hair and light stubble and that swinging hoop earring. It’s made worse by the VR46 logo on his chest, obnoxiously yellow against the black background. God, this is like 2016 again, when all he got was spat-out rage from the older man, except there is no fear or worry to temper him right now. All he can be is cruel.

“Fuck you, you are the dirtiest rider in MotoGP. Wish that crash had taken you out so we wouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit,” Bezzecchi hisses, almost vibrating where he stands, stepping forward aggressively until Marc has to tilt his head up to keep eye contact.

Well there goes his conscience. He narrows his eyes, leans back and crosses his legs. Lets his veneer of politeness drop away and allows the disdain to really show. Feels it make his face ugly and mean in a way he used to let out only around one person. It twists his soul in a way he despises, but he has no control right now.

“Yes, because wishing death on another rider just proves you have the moral high ground,” he starts slowly, voice delicate.

“Because storming into my trailer to yell at me instead of dealing with your own performance issues proves you are the bigger man, because being unable to handle that something was your fault and running your mouth to the press shows how much better you are than me.”

Bezzecchi has startled away, eyes going rounded and mouth soft as if he does not know how to respond to any of it at all. Marc doesn’t know what he expected when he came. Apologetic words maybe, as if that would ever happen, as if he is important enough for that. Stupid.

“You know, you really are his student aren’t you?” Marc whispers spitefully, tugging a mean smile onto his face, “the same madness, the same inability to reason, the same undeniable stupidity that led you to think I care what you say. None of this matters to me, the race happened and I have already gotten past it and you do not matter.”

“That’s- I didn’t say you care about me!” Bezzecchi chokes out immediately, and there is a panicked look on his face that screams weakness. Marc grins at it and stands. Stalks forward until he has the younger man backed up against the wall, looking flighty and scared. Anger is still rumbling in his chest, and it is now coated in amusement. His voice comes out like knives.

“Then why bother coming here at all? Is it to please him, is it so you can go running back to his side like a stray mutt, curl up at his feet and tell him how you did it? It won’t make him proud, you know. It won’t make him love you or admire you, it will only make him think of me more.”

“Shut up,” Bezzecchi spits, “Vale doesn’t think about you at all.”

“Oh?” Marc coos out, humor bubbling in his chest, “That’s not true of course, but my life would be much better if it was. Maybe then I wouldn’t have him following me everywhere begging me to let him fuck me.”

He revels in the way Bezzecchi turns scarlet, at how his raw aggression disappears in the blink of an eye, replaced by fast blinks and a mouth dropped wide open. The hoop in his ear trembles, his hands scrabble behind him desperately, and Marc in his heart knows that it’s not this frightened man he is talking to right now. Yet still he continues, brings one hand up to press into the rider’s chest and watch the way it makes him swallow.

“You are pathetic,” he says coldly, “just like he is. I don’t give a single shit about either of you.”

A hissed-out noise from behind him makes him still, tears him away from the beam of icy anger that had been pointing him as the younger rider. He knows who it is, just like he had known whose eyes followed him after the race. Always showing up, always lingering, always there. Marc doesn’t even turn around, flashes Bezzecchi a smile and steps away to give him room.

This is not what he wants, even as a small thrill curls through him. He just wants to be left alone. The anger trembles as he pushes it down, and the only thing he allows up right now is bitter humor.

“Take your lap dog,” he says loudly, still staring at the downcast eyes in front of him, “he’s forgotten his place.”

A murmured voice orders something, and he eyes the way Bezzecchi slinks away, lets his gaze follow until the younger rider is gone. When he turns them on Valentino, the older man is staring at him with something like horror. His hair is ruffled and his face is pale, and he has one hand against the door frame, using it like a crutch almost. As if he will lose his strength if he lets go.

Silence stretches between them, the crackling kind, but Marc shuts it all off. Numbs himself and waits for Valentino to say something mean or storm out the way he always does. Will enjoy it maybe, before he slides it away from his mind and thinks about things that actually matter.

“I hate you,” The older man eventually says, but it is not spat or hissed or growled. It is said quietly, almost like a realization, and Marc shrugs.

“I know. Why, did you forget?”

A flinch. Marc rolls his eyes at the sight, then pinches the bridge of his nose. Cruel cruel cruel, that is the only way. It’s what he had to do with Pecco when the younger rider was getting too close. It was what he just had to do with Bezzecchi. Now he has to with Valentino, even if that one is more real than the others.

He doesn’t want to deal with any of this, he doesn’t care anymore. So he says what he knows will work.

“Just because I let you touch me again, does not mean I want you. You were a convenience more than anything, but I don’t need that anymore, I have no more use for you. So follow after your yapping chihuahua, tell him he is right and I am evil just like I know you will, and learn that I will never care what you say or do. I have a lot more things to worry about than you.”

He watches in real time as it sparks across Valentino’s face, as whatever deadness and horror that had struck him dumb is demolished. Watches cruel, mad, perfect rage twining up and those eyes become vicious. Familiar, and the sight of it is not pleasing or dis-pleasing. Mostly he just observes it with careful eyes, hates that he can read it all so well. Even now, even after everything, he knows the man in front of him like he knows himself.

“I hate you,” Valentino repeats, and this one is said with certainty. With fire and brimstone and rage and everything that had faded in the years since 2018. Expected, of course, but a bit startling after their relatively peaceful year. Not startling enough to make him falter though, or to make him try to calm the situation. The sporadic sort-of-sex is not worth any of that.

“Good for you,” is all Marc replies with, then goes to plop down on his couch, and waves with a lazy hand. Closes his eyes and knows that he will need some kind of painkiller to deal with this headache, knows that the stress and tension in his muscles will also make his arm ache.

“Now get out.”

And Valentino does. The door slams shut after him, and he leaves behind still-vibrating air. Marc breathes it in, feels the flavor of anger it carries begin to dance over his tongue, wonders if it is Valentino’s or Bezzecchi’s or maybe even his own.

Not that it matters. It all tastes the same anyways.

***

2024 starts out so much better than life has been for a while. The bike feels like butter, and not in the bad way, less biting than the Honda ever was. Fourth place in Qatar means that he is only one step away from a podium, and he feels the need for it all slicing through him in a very different way. When he first entered MotoGP it was the kind of need you knew would be fulfilled. Like sitting beside a crystal-clear river with an empty water bottle, very aware that the desperate thirst will soon be quenched.  After Jerez, the pain and desperation for it was like that same thirst but surrounded by sand instead. All of it only made things worse, and no oasis was in sight.

Now though it propels him forward, fills him with a need and determination that he knows will be sweeter once it is fulfilled. The river is in the distance, he can hear it, but reaching the water and taking a gulp will take a little bit more elbow grease this time.

He finds he doesn’t mind the challenge.

In Portimao though, he feels a surge of the past come up, much like it did with Bezzecchi in Valencia. Another clash on track, another rider tumbling down, this time mouse-like Francesco Bagnaia, who stares at him with a look of betrayal afterward, corners him with one of the Ducati employees and a pleading look on his face.

This conflict less than the others, though, because there was no scalding rage. None from Valentino, his absence made his hold on everything, even emotions, so much less tight. None from Bezzecchi, who was not at all part of this in any way. None from Uccio for much of the same reasons. It’s just little Pecco’s shy-faced frustration and his apparent wish to handle this cordially.

To test it out, Marc raises an eyebrow as they are talking at him, asks in a rather childish manner if they are blaming him for all of this. Panic floods wide brown eyes, hands fly up to deny that, an awkward hope to not make this worse than it is lingering in the air. Marc smiles. Revels in it. Admires the way the younger man seems to be able to hold his tongue and his mind in check, how he doesn’t let it flame out of him like so many people seem to do. Perhaps it will be easy, with a rider who seems to like him so much.

He can handle these kinds of clashes if that is true. And if he is a little bit friendlier with Francesco afterward, who cares. Valentino is not here, has really stopped coming around since Valencia, thankfully. Beyond that, if everything goes according to plan, Pecco will be his teammate. Better to be friendly.

The results start coming in after that. Second in Jerez, Second in France, third in Catalunya. It’s enough for him to go to Ducati at Mugello, it’s enough for him to stand in front of them with confident eyes and make his proposition. He carries it with him, all of the arrogance a champion should have. ‘I am Marc Marquez’ he wants to force down their throats as they are all discussing. ‘Give me the bike and I will win. Martin is nothing compared to me, and only I choose where I go. The past and the future are both mine.’

He allows that to bleed into everything, until it almost becomes amusing. He arches a brow and leans back in his seat and tries his best to dig his claws into who he once was, that forceful presence that has been restrained by pain and a shit bike for the last few years. He needs them to see the monster in his eyes, he needs them to look at him and remember the eight championships, the dominance, the arrogant smiles that led him to crush every single rider in his path. He needs them to recall the fear in people’s eyes, the way they would flinch the second he appeared in their mirror, little mistakes caused simply by the sight of him. They want a champion, they want a winner. Marc is that, will be that. He needs no other proof than who he is.

They do try to keep a handle on things, offer up the Pramac seat as if it is some conciliation prize. Murmur about one more year to assess, about conversations with Jorge Martin and a contract that is about to be signed. But Marc is well aware how to play these kinds of things. Businessmen only understand one language, after all. The language of force and violence and the bone-chilling willingness to hold fast. If he bows even a little, they will forget who it is they are dealing with. He is big enough to take on a whole team, after all.

“No,” he says bluntly with a wild grin, watching as the eyes staring at him widen, “that is not an option for me. I will get the seat, or I will not be riding a Ducati next year.”

Hardball, a gamble, but one he is sure of. They cannot afford to have him on a rival’s bike, he is too good, too marketable, too entrenched in everything MotoGP is. They will bend, they will break.

Of course he is right.

The next time he sees Jorge Martin in the paddock, the younger rider stares at him with something like a mix between frustration, and anger, and understanding. Tilts his head, conceding the battle, and Marc just smiles back.

The Thursday before Germany, the announcement finally goes out, booming past the prior days’ news of Martin joining Aprilia. Marc Marquez will be in Ducati red for 2025, he will be on the top bike with the top team.

And the world explodes.

It makes him laugh once he makes it through the crowd in Germany that day. They had flocked to him like they used to, camera’s flashing and hands shoving and voices calling out his name. If he thought the race after he announced he was leaving Honda was wild, this makes it look almost normal.

All he can do is grin, answer questions as politely and neutrally as possible. Talk about how grateful he is to Gresini, talk about how confident he is now, talk about his injury and says it hardly bothers him at all (a lie). In every way he projects just what he showed Ducati in that meeting room; the king is back, all of you were just placeholders.

He knows how it all sounds, but this is what he needs to do. The arrogance had come so naturally to him when he was young, better to over-pronounce it now, that way no one will be able to find any cracks and he can be invincible once more.

Valentino isn’t in Germany, but Marc almost wishes he was in a rather stupid and pointless way. He wonders how the older man has reacted to all of this. He does not have to wait long to find out.

The whole thing is what he expects, careful words chosen to sound neutral or thoughtful, when in reality they are all pointed. He questions Ducati’s morals, implies they chose Marc for his fame. He plays the sympathy card for Martin, even ties Pramac deciding to switch to Yamaha into it, calls it a loss that Ducati can’t handle.

None of it really cuts deep. But it is one of the last quotes that genuinely makes Marc flinch, an opinion spouted, hidden behind proper language. Twisting meanness, the kind Valentino has always done well.

“It's normal that the riders feel betrayed. From one moment to the next they no longer count, so I'm not surprised that they consider the choice of Marquez to be a joke.”

A joke. Marc is many things, and is well aware that Valentino often considers him much more than he is. But a joke. As if Marc does not matter, as if he will fail. All of the implications run sharply underneath it, and he knows that next year if he even makes one hint of a mistake, it will be latched on to. This quote will be brought up, the idea that Ducati made a stupid decision, that Marc could never possibly win again.

A joke.

It shouldn’t bother him. he had decided long ago that he couldn’t care less what Valentino Rossi says. But it’s…its almost funny how perfect it is. How well it makes him give in to that old anger until he is pacing around the Gresini garage for hours, fuming and hiding that beneath a shellacked layer of emotionlessness. The older man must have known, must be well aware that even now Marc has his pride. This was meant to affect him, and he should ignore it, but he can’t.

That night, the night before practice and quali day, he can’t sleep. Not even Alex dead to the world next to him can help. Rage is boiling under his skin and when he closes his eyes, all he sees is a sharp smirk and laughing eyes. All he can hear is the word joke over and over again.

He was over this, he was over this.

But still.

A joke.

He steps quietly out the front door, listening to make sure he doesn’t wake his little brother up. The night air is cold in Germany, almost bizarrely so for summer, and he tries to somehow bury himself deeper into his sweatshirt. Breathes in shakily and just starts to walk.

There is no real purpose or reason for doing anything, no destination in mind. But the pull to his soul must be real, because before he can even blink he is standing next to the track. Pitch black spread out before him, security guards and janitors who are cleaning all the hospitality and stands the only movement. He ducks under the fence after glancing around to make sure no one can see him, and the moment his feet touch tarmac, his whole body relaxes.

This is his real safe space. Alex is in many ways, so is home in Cervera. The ranch used to be as well, but not so much anymore.

But the track, any track, is really where he feels at home. The whine of racing is almost audible here, and he has only ever really felt completely settled with a bike underneath him. Madness, he knows, and people always ask him what he will do when he can no longer ride, when he is too old or too broken. He usually laughs, responds that this will never happen. He really does believe that. Some days he thinks he will probably die with the machine underneath him, one bad crash finally taking him out for good. A beautiful thought.

His head clears a little as he starts to walk along the circuit, and he tries to think more critically on his immediate reaction. He is still mad, still feels that petty rage sitting deep inside, one he knows will only be settled by some form of response. But he refuses to go to the press, refuses to play that game. Valentino is well aware that he does not care anymore, they hadn’t gone near each other since Valencia. He cannot break that image, or he loses. Cannot try and hurt the man so obviously, or he risks getting pulled back under the waves. Needs to keep this brilliant distance that has lent itself so well to not giving a shit.

But then how the hell could he do it? How do you bite back without ever showing your teeth? How do you win a battle while also convincing the other side you hadn’t even deigned to pick up a sword?

In the distance a flicker of light catches his eye. A garage coming to life, and he can see the color from here. Brilliant red. He is moving without thinking, gravitating toward it like a moth to the flame. Once he finally gets close enough, he squints. The Ducati garage, but who could be there so late at night?  

A slam from inside, a curse said in a curling Italian accent. He recognizes that voice, has heard it a billion times in the press, has been up on the podium with it more than a few times this year. Little Francesco, sweet and polite. They have been friendlier lately.

Then a mean idea appears in his brain. Because he knows exactly how he can strike in the worst kind of way, a way that can be so easily twisted to be entirely separate from Valentino.

He is knocking lightly on the door before he can stop himself.

The warm light inside makes him squint as he enters, and once his vision clears, he finds Pecco blinking owlishly at him, kneeling on the floor as if he was searching for something. He looks startled by Marc’s presence, he looks confused, and he looks wary. Off balance. Good, Marc needs him that way right now.

“Ah,” he says before the younger rider can ask why he is there, “I saw the light, was worried someone had left it on.”

Pecco blandly shakes his head. Slowly stands up and looks a little embarrassed when Marc raises his eyebrow.

“I left my headphones in here,” he explains, “need the quiet to sleep.”

Marc nods at that, aware that this information is offered up like some sort of olive branch. So he gives one back, wants Pecco to look at him and not see anything but a human being. No teeth right now, no arrogance.

“I get it, we all need our things. For me it is Alex, though not so much these days. Better since I left Honda.”

Calculated vulnerability, the kind that instantly makes the younger man relax. He settles back into himself as if now that Marc has shared, they are on more equal footing. It is enough for him to smile softly, to shrug almost self-deprecatingly.

“At least you know where your thing is. Still can’t find mine.”

“I will help you look,” Marc says instantly, lets himself slide to the floor in such a way that when he glances back up through his lashes Pecco is watching him with red tinged cheeks. Victory shoots through his stomach, makes him smile. He has been distantly aware for a while now that the man is attracted to him, still remembers a drunken voice saying ‘it’s not unwarranted’ with an intense expression, but there had been a slight worry when he was walking over that it might have disappeared when Marc pulled back. Thankfully not, and it must be rather strong to create such a reaction so fast. Even better.

“What do they look like?” He asks after a moment of being stared at, and Pecco coughs, rubs a hand against his neck almost unconsciously.

“They are black, pretty thin. I think they must have gotten knocked off my seat when we were in our meeting.”

“Ah,” Marc says, then goes to peer under the table. If he purposely makes it more of a show, that is between him and his sense of shame. Which has gone rather quiet right now as anticipation bubbles up. His ultimate goal may be to piss Valentino off, but that doesn’t mean Pecco in unattractive.

Guilt does appear for a split second, but he smacks it away. He will get what he wants, and he doubts Pecco will care all that much about the reasoning. This is nothing more than lust from the younger rider, and Marc is benevolent enough to help with that. So really, both of them are getting what they need tonight.

His hands touch something smooth and plastic, and he smiles to himself. Perfect.

“I found them,” he crows, as he pulls out enough to rest on his knees and hold the headphones up. He offers them out to Pecco with a winning smile, watches as the younger man swallows before he walks closer.

Marc stays down there, is well aware at what angle he will be when the other man has come close. Knows the effect it has, has seen people stumble before when he gives them those eyes.

Their fingers brush as he gently gives the headphone over, and he pretends not to notice the way the other man’s hand shakes in a small manner. Rises to his feet slowly and their faces are close enough to feel the other’s breath now.

“I think next year will be good,” he murmurs after a beat of silence. Pecco tilts his head and shrugs in a forcefully casual manner but does not step back.

“I expected Martin,” he mumbles.

Marc laughs, allows it to press him forward as he drops his hand to the younger rider’s shoulder. Squeezes down just to see if it will make Pecco loosen up a bit. It does, his head lolls and he shifts closer in a shameless manner. Obvious.

“Ah, we will have fun. I have said this before, but you are a sweet boy. I have always liked that, there will be no problems.”

Pecco nods immediately, his eyes already black as night. Marc wonders what it would take to make him snap.

The air is buzzing, the golden light from the overhead lamp paints the whole garage moody and sensual, and he internally laughs. He sincerely doubts it was all designed to read this way, but with the red that surrounds them looks erotic. He imagines being pressed over this table, or one of the bikes, and finds that an alluring image. He used to fantasize about such things after all, even if it was usually Valentino in Pecco’s place.

That had always been something the older man wanted to do. They never got around to it, too caught up in their drama, but that does not remove all the times Valentino brought it up. He hopes the location does not escape his notice when he finds out. Hopes he can read between every line, hopes that it makes him curse to the sky.

“Marc,” Pecco mumbles breaking him from his thoughts. His hand is still on the younger man’s shoulder, and he shifts it up and behind. Grips Pecco by the neck and tugs him in lightly, watches the instant that the realization as to what is going on hits him. But the rider does not jolt away or panic. Instead he shudders, drops his head a little and looks desperate.

“Yes?” Marc asks lightly.

“What is this?”

He considers the question. Ignores it.

“Do you remember that club in 2016?” He asks instead, and watches the way Pecco’s mouth drops open slightly, embarrassment coloring his features.

“Uh, yes. I do, I mean I was drunk but-”

“If I had pulled you in close, like this,” Marc interrupts, “what would you have done?’

A sharp inhalation of breath. Less than a foot away now, and he rubs his thumb against the younger man’s neck. Soft, his skin is quite soft, his entire being is soft. Marc wonders what it would take to make him go beyond that. Dark eyes that are glued to him say not much.

“I- what do you mean?”

Marc smiles. Purposely obtuse, or maybe he is genuinely too flustered to think properly right now. That would be flattering indeed.

“In the club,” he says patiently, “If I had pulled you in and told you to fuck me that night, what would you have done?”

Pecco hisses in a breath, surges back a little like he means to rip himself away, but the subtle pressure of Marc’s hand keeps him there. He doesn’t fight it, lets the gentle touch pin him in place like he hadn’t really been trying to get away at all. There is hunger there, hidden beneath a veneer of politeness or confusion or maybe even fear, and his eyes dart all around Marc’s face before they land on his lips. He licks them just to see the way the movement is eaten alive.

“I would have… I would have…”

Then Pecco turn scarlet, and he forcefully scowls. Finally does pull away slightly, and Marc lets his grip drop. They are further apart then they have been since he entered the garage, but somehow he feels closer to his goal than ever.

“Are you making fun of me?” He demands. Marc grins.

“Not at all. Do you want it?”

“Why would I want you to make fun of me?”

Marc pauses. Tilts his head a little then drops his eyelids to make his expression something languid and erotic, the way he knows people like. Sees it hit Pecco like a truck.

“Not that. Do you want to fuck me is what I meant.”

Silence and he is being stared at like he just said something completely mad. Maybe it is, maybe propositioning Valentino’s student is a very bad idea, maybe he is being very cruel in fact. But who cares, Pecco will enjoy it, and he will too. Not just the act, though he always does, but the result. He wonders how mad Valentino will go.

“What?” Comes a dazed voice.

It’s almost funny, the way Pecco has frozen. He looks struck by lightning, and it is quite the ego boost in truth that even at his age he can make a younger man looks so wild, touching almost. As is the way his eyes trail down Marc’s body, like he is thinking about it. His head jolts and he really looks like he is thinking about it when he brings a hand up to run through his curls, a move meant to soothe himself, but Marc doesn’t want him soothed.

“Do you want to fuck me Francesco?” He finally asks in a clear manner, aware that any more games might just scare the younger rider off.

Pecco does not respond, but his mouth has dropped open and he has gone stock-still. Marc blinks innocently.

“Is that a no?”

A head shakes immediately. Bingo.

“Yes then?”

A nod.

“Perfect,” he coos out, and then he jumps right in. Strips off his sweatshirt and enjoys the way the cool air caresses his heated skin. Tosses it to the side and makes a face when he knocks over a few things, but Pecco hardly seems to notice at least, to busy looking hungry as he stares at Marc’s slowly revealed body, hitching in a breath like he can hardly believe what is happening. Marc almost laughs as he toes off his shoes. This is interesting.

“How about this,” Marc says slowly, stepping forward, extending a hand to curl around Pecco’s cheek gently, “show me what you would have done that night.”

Then he reaches down with the other, undoes his belt and lets his shorts drop so he is just standing there in his underwear, stretches a little to show it all off. When that seems like not quite enough to spur Pecco into action, he laughs and shucks his underwear too, until he is naked in the middle of the Ducati garage.

What a thought.

“So?” He asks coyly, tilting his head and arching his back in the slightest manner.

A sharp inhale mixed with a wild groan, and then hands are on him in a flash. Marc laughs, delighted by the desperation, and lets himself slowly get walked back until he is against the wall. A mouth presses against his throat and he feels the rough facial hair scrape against his neck, making him hiss out a little bit. An unfamiliar experience, most of the people he slept with (other than Santi and maybe Dovi) were pretty close to clean shaven. Valentino only had something akin to a beard years ago, a scrappy little thing that Marc had teased him about. He slams those kind of thoughts away. This may be in response to an insult made by him, but it does not need to be all about the older man. Marc wants to enjoy himself.

“I thought you hated me,” Pecco hisses out in his ear, and Marc brings his hand up to pat gently at the younger man’s head, putting reassurance and desire into his touch.

“I quite like you actually,” he mumbles and tilts his head back when the words make Pecco moan.

Maybe this will be something repeated, he dazedly thinks when the younger man nips at his jawbone exactly right.

He closes his eyes after that, lets himself fall into an old habit that he always used to have. Gasps out little noises, lets Pecco touch where he wants gives and gives and gives. He can be weak right now, he can bend and allow and let himself be taken along for the ride. So he lets the younger man choose, lets him slide his hands wherever he wants, lets desire take control of everything.

It all feels good, anyway. The hands on him, the hot mouth that soon presses to his, the hips rutting into him, and something else. Something that has been building since he realized exactly what to do.

The delicious pleasure of victory.

End Chapter 20

Chapter Text

In Valencia Vale is missing something.

Racing obviously, but also the roar of the crowd, the smell of the people, the way the earth shakes when they cheer. It’s his home really, it’s where he grew up. He missed it terribly. Grinned out all of them when he got there that morning, laughed as they still treated him like something more even two years after retirement. It was meant to be a good day, a great day even. Pecco was sailing toward another championship, Bezz was holding onto a strong third in the standings, and most things were pretty okay.

He had also perhaps hoped to find Marc after the race, maybe to ask if his text had been received in a vaguely foolish manner. He had been surprised it even went through at all, surprised that the younger man hadn’t cut him off years ago. Or perhaps it was a more recent thing, caused by the gentling of anger from their shared pleasure. He doesn’t know at all, but he knows that it wasn’t just racing or the crowds that he missed, even if there was always that sharp edge to those moments with the Spanish man.

They had both been avoiding each other. Vale started after Mugello and the bitter sight of Marc dropping to his knees. He’d asked if it was a punishment after bad results, and the younger man had all but said yes with cold eyes. That had stung, stung enough to keep him away from the races for a while. Because he had assumed they were on the same page at least there, that they both got the same things out of it. But if Marc views it as punishment and Vale doesn’t, what does that make him? What does that make any of it?

However, once that indignation faded and he was back to wanting once more, it was Marc who wouldn’t go near him, sailing high on his announcement of leaving Honda and maybe a surge of hope. Vale… understood. Vaguely. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try again, that doesn’t mean the itch for the past that still crawls under his skin doesn’t propel him towards cornering the younger man and biting down hard until he hears moans in his ear.

That was the plan anyway.

Today was meant to be a good day.

So when he saw the crash and saw Bezz go down, he mostly just sighed. Especially when he heard the rant the younger man went on, a little over the top in truth. It was a racing incident; even Vale could see that. He had seen it happen live, and if he honestly wasn’t watching Bezz that is his business. From what he did notice, it was a simple case of two riders accidentally coming too close, nothing more.

Bezz’s words to the press, stern-faced and angry, make him shake his head. He scolds himself for passing his dramatics on to his student, more than he should have anyway, even as he is aware that even a year ago he might have agreed. Perhaps age has softened him, or maybe he really misses the pleasure more than he realized, because all he does is make excuses to get away from Pecco’s celebration in the nicest way possible. Attempts to find the angry young rider before he does anything rash, but when he hears that Bezz had beamed straight for the Marquez motorhome, he feels a little bit… worried.

Not for Marc, not entirely, but for Bezz. Only he knows how vicious Marc can be when cornered, only he knows the other man through and through. Bezz will be eaten alive and he won’t even know it is happening, too lost in the beauty in all the cruelty. So of course he speed-walks over to Marc’s motorhome as fast as possible, of course he prepares some sort of speech that is close enough to an apology to calm Marc down, close enough to censure to keep Bezz happy, and also retains his pride.

And then he gets there, door wide open, and he hears it all, and then any understanding or softness that had been built back up since they started… doing something again fizzles out. Because he is stabbed with the reminder that Marc hates him, has always hated him, and will always hate him.

“Oh?”

The first word he hears, said in a crooning, cold voice, meant to slice and dice in the meanest of ways. He spots Bezz over Marc’s shoulder, curly hair wild, looking pinned to the wall and terrified. Looking weak.

Vale means to do something, to step forward and stop all this, perform an awkward form of diplomacy that he never really used around Marc before. Maybe they... maybe they can go back to what they had been doing before. Maybe they can pretend together again, maybe it will be better than it was in Mugello with Marc so happy about his switch to Gresini.

But the next words stop all of those hopes in their track.

“That’s not true of course, but my life would be much better if it was. Maybe then I wouldn’t have him following me everywhere begging me to let him fuck me.”

His ears ring as he comprehends what was said, as the bitter realization that Marc is talking about him sinks in. He swallows harshly, feels the blood drain from his face.

“You are pathetic, just like he is. I don’t give a single shit about either of you.”

He loses his sense of self and existence and bearings in a split second. Ringing begins in his ear, and a wounded noise is tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop himself. Bezz’s eyes flicker to him briefly, he goes white, and then he is back to looking like a kicked animal, cowering under the pressure of vicious disdain.

The words swim through his head, and he doesn’t… he can’t… he doesn’t know what to do.

Marc does not physically respond to his presence, but Vale can feel the awareness. He can always tell when Marc is looking at him, even if it’s not with human eyes. He is scrutinized simply by thought, and it peels away layers of him until he is suddenly more lost than he has ever been. When a sharp voice talks to him, tells him what to do, he blandly listens without thinking. Orders Bezz away with soft voice and presses his hand lightly to the younger man’s shoulder as he goes. It may seem like he is trying to comfort, and he knows Bezz takes it that way, but that is not what it is at all.  The brief human touch makes him able to breathe once more, and he sucks in a shuddery breath once his student is by him.

It's cold in here, he thinks madly. Too cold for November in Spain, the kind of icy touch to his bones he only ever got in La Tana. In Marc’s old room, when his weakness led him to press his face into an old pillow and search for traces of someone who was once there.

He laughs at himself in his head for it all. For everything. It sounds pathetically like a cry.

Then it is just them. Them and the cruel words that were just said as if it was nothing at all. His body goes really weak as he begins to wrap his mind around it, and he stumbles without stepping, snapping up a hand to catch himself on the doorframe like he is too drunk to stand. Desperately clutches it as Marc turns around, as empty eyes turn to stare at him with something like distant consideration.

He looks beautiful. Eyes cloying and dark, mouth curled up even as he stares with a hard expression. His cheeks are pink, flushed from the race still, or maybe anger. Beautiful. Always, even when he is being so beastly it should show on his face. No fair, not fair that the sight makes his heart skip a beat even as he is swallowed by horror.

It’s Sepang 2015, it’s Qatar 2018, it’s Argentina 2018, it’s every other little moment since where a careless word or mean tone had sliced him wide open until everything was open for the world to see, until they could see his intestines and liver and pulsating heart.

He hadn’t even… he hadn’t even let Marc in. Hadn’t weakened himself, hadn’t trusted, hadn’t really considered the sex anything more than a comfort. Perhaps an olive branch, a tentative peace, but nothing more.

Then why does… why does it feel this way? Why do those words seem so important, why does the lack of care, the coldness, the cruelty, all of it, eat him alive? Why does it maybe even feel worse than it was before? Why is this happening?

Not fair, not fair, it’s always him who is taken apart while Marc stands above it all, blood dripping from his mouth and heart locked behind steel doors. It is always him who is hurt.

“I hate you,” he whispers on instinct, and his voice is weak weak weak. He doesn’t even know who he is talking to right now. Marc? The world? Or maybe even himself.

“I know,” Marc says calmly, eyebrow arching up delicately, “why, did you forget?”

Vale’s whole body flinches, and the younger man keeps going with a stony, unstoppable pressure. He barely picks up on most of what is said, but the worst of it screams in his mind as he stands there hollowly.

“You were a convenience.”

“I have no more use for you.”

“I will never care what you do or say.”

It’s a horror movie, it is everything he has ever thought is true, it is what he pretended he didn’t see in the most terrifying dreams. More and more and more and it hurts.

What did he do wrong this time? What did he say? Why is this all being brought up again? He thought that… he thought that… he doesn’t even know. Right now he could not possibly understand what he thought before any of this. All he knows is pain.

Marc tilts his head. He is still talking and there is a lick of something in his eyes peeking through the coldness. A thrill, an enjoyment, sadistic pleasure flickering by for a split second.

Even now Vale is still being played with.

With that realization, a new thought rises alongside a tidal wave of anger.

How dare he?

The phrase burns through his pain in a second, cutting through it all like a scythe through a bed of grain.

How dare he?

So cruel for no reason at all. Vale had come here for something good, to stop his student and make things okay-ish again, as much as they can be. Yet this is how he has been treated? This is what he receives? Heartless condescension built to cut him down.

How dare he?

It was all one big game wasn’t it? It was all a joke, all the moments of warmth as they pretended, all the gentleness of his touch. Maybe Marc would go back to his motorhome, tell Alex all about it with a wicked smile and they would snicker about pathetic Valentino Rossi, who still can’t let go. Maybe he would laugh about it on the phone with Dovi or Casey or Dani or Jorge or Santi or any number of the people he had let into his bed over years. Maybe they all know, maybe they all see.

How dare he?

It spins in his head as Marc stares at him, and the words rip out of him again. This time he distinctly knows who he is saying it to, and it is like dragon’s breath comes from his chest. It burns so madly he can barely save himself from showing it all.

“I hate you,” he spits, and Marc smiles slightly.

“Good for you.”

Then he is dismissed with the wave of that cruel hand, surges away and out because there’s nothing else left for him here but the biting edge in those eyes. As he stumbles back to the VR46 motorhome, where celebration will be under way and Bezz will be fuming and Vale cannot hide today, he feels it all light right back on fire, the old feelings he held in 2015 and 2018, the rage that kept him going and killed him all the same.

It purrs at him, and he accepts it back with loving arms, allows it to curl around his heart and prays that maybe this time it will protect him. He can only hope anyway.

The rage blinds him throughout the winter break, blinds him as he prepares for his WEC, blinds him until he cannot even miss MotoGP anymore. All he feels is the poison coursing through his veins and the need that he continuously ignores.

The 2024 season starts and he avoids it all like the plague, even as the rage demands he doesn’t. No races, no presence, no ability to let go of that pain and hate that had been tearing through his body since Valencia. But also no chance of it faltering, of him exposing his soft belly to Marc and feel claws rip him open.

A double-edged sword.

The academy riders constantly ask him when he will come. Jerez, he tells them, but finds a good excuse not to be there. Mugello he says again, but hides behind his WEC team and the many responsibilities he pretends to have.

He can’t, he just can’t. Can’t stand being around Marc right now, especially when the younger man is doing so well. He curses himself when he realizes that he is keeping track of Marc’s results in his mind, curses himself when he finds his eyes drawn to the way Gresini blue makes him look more dignified, curses himself when he wakes up hard in his pants many nights, brown eyes stuck in his head. He is too old for this, too old to still want the man who has been so cruel to him so many times. Too old to be such a fool.

He does his best to remain above it all, even in the press. Deigns to comment about Marc’s switch from Honda, barely reacts to what happened in Portimao besides a few passive aggressive words, and does not even go near the rumor mill that churns out the idea that the Spanish man could be in red next year. He refuses to even consider it, because then Marc would be on the best bike and Pecco would be his teammate, and he would crush the younger rider into chalk like only he can, and… and… and… and…

And then Vale would have to accept what he knows is true.

That while Pecco is his favorite student, Marc has always been his best.

But then he can’t ignore it when the rumor is confirmed to be true, when Ducati posts that ridiculous video of Marc grinning, winking at the camera, wrapped in red. He only rewatches it a few dozen times, and as it happens, the rage explodes out of his body for the first time since it crawled its way back.

So he talks. And talks and talks and talks. He doesn’t even really know what he says, some cutting words about Ducati’s choice, words he hardly believes at all. Because Marc is a lot of things, terrible things, but he has never been a joke. If anything, Vale seems to consider everything but him a joke, the whole world his playground and Marc the only thing that he is unable to treat in that careless way. No way of forgetting, no way of making a game of it, just brutal, bitter hate.

He doesn’t say that of course, just spins his words and burns with the need for the other man to care. For him to see what Vale has said and flinch.

It feels good, after so long of keeping it in, to let his anger explode back onto the world stage. He laughs at the comments under the article, shows them to Uccio with glee and ignores the unease hidden behind his old friend’s eyes. Ignores the way the academy boys, especially Pecco, go stiff and quiet when he talks about it anymore. They don’t need to be on his side right now, he doesn’t care. He just needs this, needs it all, needs to see if he can still make Marc falter. Needs to know if it was all true, if he really doesn’t matter at all. Needs it like water or oxygen.

Silverstone he finally attends, mostly because Monster is holding an event, but also in part due to this oily need to see the other man’s face and find out if his labors bore any fruit at all, or if he needs to kick it up a notch.

That pathetic part he keeps ignoring whispers that he needs reassurance too. He lets it melt into the anger until it is unrecognizable, a new way of coping perhaps, all in the pursuit of victory.

He doesn’t find it. Instead Marc doesn’t even look at him. He gets fourth in the race, and he walks by the VR46 garage with not even a shred of care. Vale wants to hunt him down, pin him against the wall and grip that chin. Force it up, force fathomless eyes to meet his and ask every question that has been curling through his brain since Valencia.

Why? What did I do wrong this time? Why?

Weak, ridiculous, and he despises it. He despises how even after hearing what Marc said, he still just wants to beg.

He is Valentino Rossi, he does not beg. He is Valentino Rossi, he does not go crawling back. He is Valentino Rossi, he does not love even after everything. He is Valentino Rossi, he does not search the crowd for a flash of dark hair and tanned skin, he does not strain his ears for bubbling laughter. He shouldn’t, he doesn’t.

He can’t.

***

Vale isn’t there for Aragon. He isn’t even home, no he is in a car when it is happening, aware in the back of his mind that as he goes around the track in Austin, the riders are flitting around the one in Aragon.

But he hears about it. As he sits in the garage watching his teammates do their stretches of the twenty-four hours, he hears the chatter and understands what the results must have been. Little murmured words from people in the garage, eyes darting toward him in the way that only really happens around one topic.

Marc must have done well. Maybe even won.

The knowledge strikes him, but he pushes it away. Pretends he knows nothing and doesn’t let himself think about it until the race is finished and they all stumble back to the hotel rooms, tired from lack of proper sleep and disappointed from the results.

He tells himself that he will watch tomorrow. That he will hold himself back, get the rest he needs and watch when he is prepared to handle any of it.

But he has never been great at impulse control. Flicks on the TV the minute he enters, and then it is there on screen. The beginnings of the race, a replay that still thrills him like any live one would. So he tears off his racing clothes, perches like a child on the edge of his bed, wrapped in a blanket, and watches. Watches even as his wobbly brain tells him not to.

He is sitting there, and he feels like he has travelled back in time. Marc at the front of the field, dominating them all. He took off into the wind like he always used to, every angle beautiful and terrifying in equal parts.

He is sitting there and Pecco goes down, cursing at the TV and wondering if this is how life works, if Marc having a good day means he will always have a bad one. A Marquez sends him down, a crash that rings eerily of what happened in Sepang, a championship lost (perhaps) in one race.

He is sitting there and it pounds through his skill as he watches the laps tick down until they are on the final one, until the camera goes back to Marc, the leader who has ridden faultlessly, and his brain comes online.

He is no longer sitting as Marc crosses the finish line, as he wrenches himself up, hands to the sky. He is standing a foot away from the TV listening to the announcers crow out praises in thick Italian, listening to how even those who used to hate Marc, who used to spit at his feet, are wrapped up in the victory. His first one after so long, and Vale can’t help but grin, face hurting the whole while. Can’t help but run hand through his hair and laugh even as he bursts with anger. Could never stop the way his eyes remain glued to Marc as he bows to the crowd, climbs a fence and looks like a kid again. As he grins wildly, as he surges into parc ferme with electric energy so damn beautiful that Vale is star struck. He couldn’t prevent the pulsing pride, cobweb-covered and creaking, that rises to the top.

So damn proud, he is so damn proud. He hates that he is so damn proud, should not be at all. But… but that picture, that memory of Marc in the hospital room in 2020, weak in a way he never should be, flies up. And Vale is so damn proud.

It’s ridiculous that he is, even if he knows it would be impossible to avoid the feeling. Because in his head it all still exists, every moment in time happening over and over again, inescapable always.

 He is here, in his cold hotel room grinning at the TV and the man he hates. He is in Valencia, listening to cruel words fall from a pretty mouth so hauntingly. He is in Misano, touching for the first time in years and getting a pathetic feeling of relief when Marc moans the same. He is in Barcelona, a slow voice asking for a kiss. He is in Argentina, staring as he is left behind, discarded into the dirt. He is in Qatar, knees aching as he stands there, abandoned. He is in Malaysia, despair sinking in as Marc lies to him the night before it all. He is in Cervera, watching Marc touch himself and finally feeling in control. He is in the US, the younger man pressed to his chest as they have sex for the first time, as he finally gets what he wants and feels religious worship. He is at home, leaning down with a smile to eye the young rider dozing against his tree and feeling a pulse of something indescribable deep inside.

It all is there, still there even now. Every breath he takes he feels it, the winds of the past curling in his lungs, a reminder of all that ever was and ever will be.

It’s torture.

He is standing even closer to the TV now, nose almost pressed against the screen when he comes back to himself, when he realizes how pathetic all of this really is. Alone in a hotel room, mostly naked, staring at a Marc on TV that doesn’t even exist right now, and feeling an old surge of awe that always used to strangle his heart when the man was near.

It is 1 AM in Spain. Yet still he calls because he needs something right now that is more than the way he wants to rewind and watch the whole thing again.

Pecco picks up after the fourth ring.

“Vale?” come a voice, flustered and a little too awake for so early. Vale sighs in relief. Tries to put light humor in his voice.

“Ehhh, I just watched the race. Not so good, thought maybe you would want to talk about it.”

A beat of silence, a shuffling on the other end.

“It’s 1 AM.”

“Is it? Different time zones, I had forgotten,” Vale says in a surprised voice, standing up to go make sure his facial expression matches his tone in the mirror. He always has a habit of sounding how he feels, but if he can force the expression, he can force the way he says it too.

“Can we talk tomorrow?”

Then there is another voice in the background, low and a whispered. He doesn’t recognize it, too muffled, but he can understand what it probably is.

Pecco has company.

“Ah,” he drawls, then laughs a little wildly, “you have someone there. After a race even, that is not like you.”

A curse, and then it is like the phone is dropped. He raises his eyebrow at the sound, at the way the phone must be tumbling off the bed. By the time Pecco comes back, his voice is clearer and he sounds forcefully calm. He can hear whoever it is laughing in the background, almost familiarly so.

“Yes, I um, have a friend over,” Pecco says in a jolting voice. It’s funny enough to pull Vale away from it all. To want to tease.

“A friend,” Vale repeats with a lick of humor, “who is sharing your bed at 1 AM. Sure.”

“We were awake. But, um, yes.”

It’s a complete lie obviously, but he won’t push it. Not after the results in Aragon.

“I saw the crash with the younger Marquez. A shame he rides like his brother sometimes.”

Pecco makes a little hissed-out noise, and then he is saying something to whoever he has there, a scolding sort of sound to it, and Vale shakes his head. They are probably unhappy with him right now, upset he ruined whatever they were doing that kept them up, and is holding Pecco’s ear hostage.

“Yeah, we talked though. I shouldn’t have said what I said to the media.”

Vale shakes his head, makes a tutting noise at the gentle forgiveness in his student’s voice.

“You are too kind, you need to show your teeth and-”

More scolding interrupts him, more shuffling, and when Pecco speaks again his voice is much more high pitched.

“Yeah, listen I have to go,”

He stumbles over his words a bit, then curses.

“Thank you for calling, I just need to-”

A bitten off noise, and Vale starts to laugh as it becomes clear what exactly is happening on the other end. The younger rider’s ‘friend’ must be quite the character, impatient as they are. He would probably like them by the sound of it.

“It must be someone I know, is it?” He asks in a light voice, laughs when Pecco stutters out something indiscernible. Darts his eyes up to himself and feels a pulse of relief when his grin is not fake at all. Good, he is good now.

“I, well, yes, but I really don’t want to talk about it- would you stop it?”

Vale full out laughs at that, decides that this is probably the funniest thing that has happened. Maybe he is also a little bit over-tired, but hearing his passive student huff and scold like this is very amusing. He wonders why Pecco has not told them yet, from what he hears it is a little too comfortable to be a one-night thing.

“Ah, I will let you go. Have fun,” he teases, and Pecco sighs in what sounds like relief.

“Yeah, yeah Vale, thanks, I will see you in Misano.”

“Tell you friend I say to be careful, you have a championship to win after all,” he says as one last joke. Pecco lets out a choked laugh, and then there is more of that shifting on the other side, as if someone is snatching a phone from hands. He is shaking his head when a new voice rings out.

“I will be, goodnight Vale~”

Then the line goes dead. The line goes dead and so does Vale’s brain. The line goes dead and so does any chance of him having a good night’s sleep. The line goes dead and so does any happiness or peace or joy or anything at all but denial. The line goes dead and so does his smile. He sees it fade slowly on his face in the mirror he is still standing in front of, just as he sees something tortured rise up.

Because that… because that sounded a hell of a lot like….

No, no it can’t be. No, it’s not allowed to happen. No, that isn’t how this works. No, the world is not that twisted. No, Pecco wouldn’t do that to him. No, it’s not possible.

That can’t have been, that is not allowed to be, that is…. that is… that is….

If it is true then it was… on the other end. Over the phone it was… teasing Pecco like that was…

He doesn’t sleep that night. On the plane ride back to Italy he stares out the window and prays that he was wrong. Prays that it was just his overtired mind playing tricks on him. Prays that it was just someone who sounds too similar. Prays that he won’t have to come home and feel even more pieces of him break off.

Vale has never been a religious man, but oh God, does he pray. And when the praying stops, he finds other ways to cool his head.

He films the podcast before Misano, when the denial is at its peak and he is so uncomfortable in his own skin that he feels the flushing urge to solve it like he did after Marc announced he is going to Ducati. It’s meant to be something good, a little chat with Mig where he talks about racing and life and everything that makes up who he is. The episode is meant to be about him at the very least.

Yet it is Marc whose name is said the most.

Gritted out through teeth, hands waving in the air and he feels feverish as he does it. Dives back into those years, feel anger swell up, made worse by the way they agree with him.  He goes mad with it, mad in a way he has held back for years and he is well aware that even for Mig, who has always sided with him, he is pushing the edge.

He doesn’t even know how long he talks about it, about everything, just that his mouth is bone-dry afterward and his heart is beating a million miles per hour.

It feels good though, like it always does.

Mig sends him a cut of the video a few days later with a question mark, to come out the next week, and Vale watches it twice. Watches and realizes that the entire time he talked about it all in the present tense. That Marc does something instead of did. That Marc says something instead of said.  Humiliating to realize, but he still responds with a thumbs up. Allows it because he needs to, because the images in his head of Pecco and Marc and everything have been hounding him, and nothing will quiet it down like letting the whole world see.

It's crazy, he knows it is. But he has no regrets. Not anymore

In Misano he sees Pecco for the first time. Steps into the VR46 motorhome, the one all the boys used to share before they became famous enough to have their own, and sees him on the couch. On one side is Luca, on the other is Franky. They all shift their heads up when Vale enters. Only Pecco flinches, and it is enough to make him clench his fist.

“Did someone die?” He asks, but it comes out too flat to be a joke. Luca shakes his head, stands up and presses in close, air soothing and gentle, purposely so.

“Be calm,” comes a quiet murmur, the other man pressing a hand to Vale’s shoulder as if it will help. It doesn’t, all it does is make him want to throw something. Has his own brother made his choice then? Is Pecco more than he is, even to… even to his family?

(Even to Marc?)

“About what?” He asks meanly and watches his Luca’s face fall. He steps away like there is nothing else to be done, expression tight and worried. Sits down on the couch across from Pecco and Franky carefully, then stares at Vale like he is a cornered animal.

Funny. As if Pecco is the one they should be worried for.

He settles into the sofa next to his brother, crosses his legs and stares. Stares and stares and stares until-

“Vale,” Pecco says slowly, “I heard your race was not too good.”

Was that a cutting word? A hidden insult? Usually he would think never, usually he would refuse the idea. But he doesn’t know anymore what the truth is. Even about that, even if all of their reactions only confirm what he had thought, he still tries to deny it.

“No, not so good. Mechanical failure, it happens,” he responds shortly, “just like Aragon for you. But that was your mistake.”

“Hey now-” Franky starts, but Vale waves him off.

“I am not being mean,” he clarifies lightly,” I rewatched the footage to take notes for you. It was your fault, after all. But I am sure he convinced you of that anyway, he has a way with words.”

It is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

There is fear in it all, coursing through the entire room. It salts the air, makes every breath painful and difficult. The curtains that cover the windows are suddenly stifling, the modern darkness of the walls foreboding.

Vale laughs. The guilty look on Pecco’s face finally breaks him, and he knows.

“I bet it went something like this: he found you in your motorhome, or in parc ferme, or in the garage.”

A wince when he says garage. So that is the one. How hideous, how like Marc. He probably chose the place, probably remembered all the times Vale talked about such a thing and wanted it to hurt. He hates that it does, hates that this manipulation works too well.

“The garage then. Probably at night, he is well aware how he looks in dim lighting. Beautiful, right? Ah, don’t make that face, even I can still admit he is beautiful.”

There is a crease between Pecco’s eyebrows, angry for the first time. Like he is jealous, as if he is allowed to be jealous. Vale had known that beauty far longer than him, and has every right to mention it.

“Then,” he continues, crooning a little, adding in a smile, “he came to you so nicely. Used those eyes, maybe even did something kind. Humanized himself, made you forget what he was until you were dizzy with his presence. Teased, played and you were one reacting. You were the one begging for it, and he smiled the whole time. Smug that he had the power to get you to crack first.”

He stops and realizes he is panting. Swallows down another laugh, shifts forward and rests his elbows on his knees. None of them are moving, staring enraptured. He has always been a good storyteller after all.

“That is how it happened yes? And I bet you it happens that way every single time. In Aragon, high on his win, did he show up after going out? Come to your door, tipsy and happy, pull you in and make you want more? Did you fuck him in your motorhome, did he like it?”

“Vale,” Luca says sharply. But he can’t hold it back now.

“No, I want to know. I want to know if his tastes are the same, I want to know if he leaves quickly afterward or affords you enough respect to stay. It sounded like he stayed that night, good for you. It will end of course, once he is bored, but it is nice while it lasts. I do know, after all. I know much better than you do. Would you like some advice? On how to make him feel good, I mean.”

“Shut up.”

Finally, words. Spat out, and Pecco rears back like he didn’t mean to say it at all. Looks pained, looks worried, looks scared.

And Vale…. Vale hates the sight. Shuts his eyes to it and laughs once more. Laughs hard so that when he opens his eyes up again, he can pretend like the wetness is from humor.

“I can’t,” he responds bitterly, “I can’t shut up. Can’t help any of it, just like you.”

Then he rubs a hand over his face, feels the dampness and wonders if they buy it.

Probably not.

“Vale, I didn’t… I didn’t mean for this,” Pecco says quietly. He does not respond, sits there and does his best to clutch on to some kind of control. Finds it extremely difficult, so he just keeps his eyes shut.

“It just happened, alright, and I didn’t know how to-”

“When?”

A stretch of silence.

“That isn’t important.”

“It is,” he chokes out, “when?”

“….Germany.”

“What year?”

“This one.”

Relief that shouldn’t exist floods through him. Germany, that would be after he made those comments about Marc to the press, the ones he really didn’t believe. An explanation, at least, a way to clutch on to this with both hands. A confirmation that Marc still cares, cares enough to want him to hurt. Thank God.

And more than that it was well after the last time. The last time he had Marc soft and pretty in his grasp, the last time he got what he always wants.

“Well,” he says carefully, calculated cruelty, “at least we weren’t fucking him at the same time.”

Then he pulls his hands away from his face, just to see Pecco’s expression.

Stone still, Pecco stares at him with uncomprehending eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Vale, don’t do this, come on, talk about it like a person,” Luca says in a rough voice, and Vale finally turns to him. Finds blue eyes so similar to his own begging him for something, finds his little brother staring up at him like a child even when they are right next to each other. It hurts so bad.

He ignores it, turns back to Pecco with a smile.

“I mean that up until last year, every time I was at a race I had him. Against a bathroom stall, behind a wall, on his knees in Mugello. I am just glad there is no crossover. I think that would be worse.”

There is no lie in his voice, he isn’t even putting on a show right now. All he says is the truth, and he is glad for it. Because at the very least it isn’t just him burdened with it anymore. He watches the horror in Pecco’s eyes and sees it as a reflection of everything he has been feeling since 2015.

“I thought you…” the younger man says quietly before trailing off, and Vale laughs. It shakes his whole body until every limb hurts.

“What, that it was years ago? That I haven’t gone near Marc since 2018? That we never talk? That I don’t remember it all? That it was all the past, that I have forgotten, that I am ov-”

He cuts himself off. Hisses out a breath and can’t find any more words. A hand presses to his leg and it is Luca being kind. He shows no reaction, holds his body stiff and inhales slowly, before letting it out once more. Tries to count in his head, tries to right his brain. Notices listlessly that there is a package of cookies on the table next to Franky. Almost asks for one dementedly, imagines their reactions if he did.

Funny.

“You two go,” he orders Franky and Luca. They stiffen up, and his head settles a bit more when they eventually listen. Shoot him looks, shoot Pecco ones too and then leave darting glances back the whole time. They won’t be far of course, Vale knows them. They will probably hover outside the entire time.

He stands too and then he is towering above Pecco. He needs it, the power of having big eyes staring up at him. He needs to remember that this is Pecco, this is that little boy all those years ago who had shyly introduced himself. This is the rider he had all but lifted over his head last year after he won another championship.

“Francesco,” he murmurs, “do you hate me?”

“No,” Pecco responds immediately, “no, none of this was about you. I have… you know, I have, for years now.”

He nods pointlessly, runs the past through his head with a new mind. The younger man was a watcher, and he remembers even back in 2015 the way he used to stare at Marc. He had presumed with innocent admiration, but… but no, that was naive.  Then 2016 and the club, which he had written off as drunken foolishness. Then that one time caught a glimpse of a phone, saw a flash of orange leathers and pretended not to see a thing. Then Pecco’s hungry eyes when he helped Marc back home in 2022. Then the way he stared in Silverstone, conflict on his face Vale had assumed was about nerves.

Yes. Yes he probably has known for years. Has been making excuses too. He wonders how many other people knew before he did.

“He will hurt you.”

A short laugh, pained and desperate and familiar. He wonders how the younger man will sound when it is years down the line, like with Vale. Probably worse.

“It’s just… it’s not more. I can’t be hurt if it’s not more,” he says blandly, and Vale sighs.

“Yes you can.”

Eyes drop away, and Pecco is a teenager again, age and experience slipping away with one movement. It is enough to make him reach a hand out and pat the younger man on the head, enough to force away any beginnings of hate. Because this is not fair, not fair to anyone. Out of everyone, why… why did it have to be Marc.

He answers the question in his own head.  

“I have always thought you were the least like me,” he murmurs, “so shy, so pensive, so quietly strong when the only thing I know is to be loud. But… we both are fools, I think. I won’t ever forgive you for this, I can’t. But I… I understand. I do.”

“Vale…”

“He is cruel. He only did this to upset me, do you know that?”

Pecco immediately nods.

“Of course,” he croaks, “of course I know that, knew that the second he came in. But I couldn’t say no.”

“I understand,”

A stretch of silence. A sigh.

“He didn’t stay over after Aragon, when you called. Never does, he had just arrived late that night. I was up, waiting.”

Vale nods. Shuts his eyes tight.

“I understand,” he repeats.

That is the last word said on the topic.

Marc wins Misano, a cosmic joke that he feels in his soul from the VR46 garage. This time there is no pride as he watches the younger man up on the podium, just dull hate and admiration and hopelessness. Pecco is there too, slotting into second behind Marc. It’s hell to watch the way his student bends, the way he allows his face to go soft and happy when Marc laughs with him. He looks blown away by it all, and unbidden, a memory pops up in his head. 2013 Qatar, the first race of Marc’s first year in MotoGP.

Vale had gotten second, Marc had gotten third. A feeling of perfection had bloomed around him and he hadn’t hidden a single thing, wrapping his arm around the younger man’s waist and feeling such a profound adoration it stole his mind away. He remembers the pictures from it, the ones that had made the rounds on social media, on his Twitter, on anywhere people spoke about him. He remembers them perfectly, has one framed in Marc’s old room.

As he gazes up on the podium, it’s all he sees.

End Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Marc has sort of been floating lately. Not in that old way, the one that numbed him as he walked through life. The one had him feeling like a child when he and Valentino were still together. The one that made him smile even when he felt torn to pieces, a tight little thing that people always called frightening.

No, for the first time since he stopped winning in 2020, he is floating simply off anticipation, hope, and the love for racing he thought he had lost a long time ago.

Maybe good sex on the regular also helps.

Honestly, he had not expected that when he all but cornered Pecco in the Ducati garage that night. A one-time thing, perhaps, maybe a few more if he enjoyed it enough. Pecco was… well, he had never really had a particular interest in the younger man, not like the rest of those he had allowed into his bed.

Valentino was self-explanatory, Dovi and Casey were a trip designed to help him move on, Dani was very human sex with someone who was always careful with him, Santi was a comfort from one of the few he trusts implicitly, and every other little one in between had been for some reason or another. To make jealous, or because they looked at him like he was a king and he needed an ego boost, or because they were just interesting enough to make him curious.

But Pecco… Marc had been fond of him, sure, but in reality, he had always seen the rider as a background character. Sort of a soaking wet animal, shivering while surrounded by greater predators. A talented rider but so divorced from the rest of them, so reserved and pulled back, that his winning seemed almost confusing. Like he really wasn’t thinking about it, like he was thrilled but it didn’t dig into him as it did with so many others. Like the need didn’t gnaw at his body and mind every single second of the day, didn’t threaten to eat him alive.

Marc knows that this… isn’t exactly true, though. Sex has a way of revealing things about people after all.  It tears away any possibility of lying, any ability to hide who you really are, bears your soul until you are naked inside and out.

That’s why he knows that deep down, underneath all the politeness, passivity, and gentlemanlike behavior, Pecco Bagnaia is much more than people give him credit for.

He started to know it when the younger man only got harder when he joked about being fucked over a bike. He started to know it when hands dug sharply into his hair and pulled when Marc bit him hard. He started to know it when the rider took that phone call from Valentino mid blowjob, looking guilty the whole, but still coming hot and heavy down his throat after. He started to know it even more after Misano, after Pecco stared at him with heady hunger the entire race. He knew completely when he looked in those eyes and saw a flash of something that was so terribly familiar, he had to push it away before he could understand what it was.

It’s interesting that he is able to pick up on so much from all of that. There is the basic sexual stuff, like that Pecco likes to be rhythmic, that he is not particularly vocal, that sometimes he stares at Marc in the middle of it like he is baffled any of it is even happening.  But then there are things he recognizes before he even realizes it.

Like the quietness is not from being nervous, but rather from slow, contained focus. Or that the gentleman-like behavior comes from a moral place, but also from this distinct arrogance that seems to sit on his shoulder so strangely. Almost unreadable until you see it wide open, the kind that comes from placing yourself as better than others. For Marc, he shows that all by laughing, by dancing, by letting his joy scream out into the world until no one could ignore it. Pecco displays it in the opposite, holding himself above it all. He is a gentleman simply because no one is worth it, because in his own eyes he is above it all.

Marc doesn’t quite get it, though. The sex is good, he very much enjoys the physical aspect, and Pecco certainly more interesting than he gave him credit for, but he has no real idea why he keeps coming back for more, why he allows a strange sort of relationship to continue that pushes him closer and closer to the edge every single day. The edge of what, he doesn’t know, but there is something familiar about it all, something that makes him taste a flavor that might be nostalgia.

That is all unimportant though, the whole thing with Pecco is a complete side-plot even as it scratches at his brain daily. That itch itch itch that follows him, and only intensifies as the weeks go on, as they interact more and more and he starts to learn about the younger man

In Indonesia though, it itches the most, almost painfully so. Just about digs its claws in when he is in the middle of qualifying and he spots Pecco slowing down. He slows down too, hears the younger rider shout something about fuel, and decides to be kind. They are sort of friends (with benefits?) right now, and more than that Ducati will love it. Future teammates already bonding and all that PR nonsense.

He imagines their faces if he told them how much they have been really bonding in recent months. It’d be funny, and somehow, he feels like they would actually like it. Or maybe they wouldn’t; who knows.

But that little burst of humor isn’t what makes the blood start to well up from all of that itching. No, it is the way that Pecco instantly clutches his thigh, finger insistent and high up and so damn obvious that Marc has to laugh. The cameras, of course, catch it all; maybe they even catch the way the rider’s fingers drip inappropriately close to his crotch. Maybe they even catch the way the hand grips tightly, so tightly that Marc shifts a little uncomfortably on his seat.

Crazy, completely crazy, and when he glances at Pecco, under that helmet he swears he sees raised eyebrows and a grin.

It feels like a show. It feels like a game. It feels like Pecco is daring him, like he is teasing in a way he never really did before. Out of character yet somehow not unexpected, paired with all those hidden depths that have been peeking out so often these days, paired even further with a bizarre sense of deja vu.

Itch itch itch.

He shifts the hand from his thigh to his arm after a moment, of course, even as he feels disappointment pulsing from the rider next to him. It is too obvious, too close to the truth, and he really cannot start his first year at Ducati come January with everyone knowing he is fucking his teammate. That is not exactly what he would prefer the headline to be, and besides, when he starts winning, he wants no doubt as to the reason.

Once he drops Pecco off he goes on another lap just to calm himself down, unable to bear the embarrassment of being caught half-hard after being almost groped on live TV. It’s funny, of course, hilariously entertaining, but it would do no good for his reputation and he could imagine the way people who hate him would latch onto it. Maybe even somehow make Pecco out to be a new ‘victim’ of his, as if he is the only one who gets something out of the whole situation.

 He rolls into the Gresini box with a grin when he is done, forcing himself into the mindset to make the whole thing into one big joke. It’s what they will be expecting, after all.

“You two were cozy,” one of the engineers crows the second he tears his helmet off, and Marc laughs. Leans forward on his bike to smack the man and make him snicker. It is funny, even if Marc feels a tad strange about the whole thing. He really has no clue why, but it pairs along with that itch in a confounding way.

“I guess he likes me more than I thought,” he says cheerfully, and when they all chuckle, he is almost relieved. At least they didn’t pick up on anything.

He feels a gaze on him and finds Alex watching with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

Ah. Perhaps someone picked up on something. No matter.

“Please tell me you aren’t fucking Bagnaia,” Alex eventually asks in a low, tense, voice as they are loading their plates up for lunch, only with what they are allowed, of course. People mill around them, but Marc doesn’t really care. They know to mind their own business in hospitality; it’s the one sort of safe space aside from the motorhomes.

He tilts his head, ignoring what was said until they have what they need and can find a table. He doesn’t want Alex to drop his food, after all, and somehow he gets the feeling that even if he lies, his brother will pick up on the truth in seconds.

“I’m not fucking Bagnaia,” he finally responds once they are sat down, picking up his spoon and repressing a smirk. Alex takes one look at his face and groans, one hand coming up to rub through his hair until he looks like an angry baby chick, fluffy and displeased.

“Of all people,” he stresses, “Of all people. His student, his favorite student. His favorite student who is going to be your teammate. Marc, come on.”

Marc shrugs at his brother’s dramatics, shrugs at the long-suffering look, shrugs at the whole situation. Like he said, he doesn’t get it either, but every time he tries to find a reason that itching becomes even worse than it is right now. So he stopped searching for one. Though it isn’t really helping today, for some reason he feels out of control with it. He almost wants to rip off his own skin, it itches so bad.

“The whole thing is just fun,” he dismisses with a laugh, ignores the way his brother’s face goes tight and tense like it always does when he talks about… someone else.

The itching grows sharp, and he curses his own mind.

This isn’t about him.

“Bagnaia isn’t even your type,” Alex exclaims in a petulant voice, face screwed up into something mean, stabbing a piece of lettuce with a fork frustratedly, “he is like a...sad wet rat.”

Marc munches on his quinoa and considers that. Alex is right of course, the type of people he usually lets in are nothing like Pecco. But the younger man has proven to be more interesting at least, and there is that oddness he is so curious about even as he shies away.  A mystery. Like today, he would have never expected him to do such a public thing like that. It almost felt like something he would have happened years ago, when he was younger and was terribly unafraid of what people thought. Only back then it would have not been Pecco’s hand, it would have been Val-

Nope. Nope, he does not think about those things anymore.

But here it comes, even stronger than the last.

Itch itch itch. God if he could dig into his own skin he would, needs to get a handle on this before the race tomorrow. He tries to banish it all, reaches up a hand to scratch at his forehead aggressively like that might help. It doesn’t at all, just gets him a concerned look that he waves off.

“New team, new year, new me,” he says instead of anything he is feeling, and Alex rolls his eyes.

“The new you has terrible taste. And judgement.”

He shrugs again, listens as his brother starts to go on a murmured rant about distraction, and games and not going near people who hate you as he lightly scratches at different parts of his body, hoping to find a spot that works. Of course he doesn’t and all it does is make the other people in hospitality give him curious glances. He flashes them wide smiles until they shift their eyes away.

“You like Dovi,” he points out when the whole thing starts to sound strangely biased against the entire country of Italy. Alex just glares at him.

“An exception.”

He rolls his eyes, allows it to continue with no interruption this time. Alex can rant, it’s not going to stop him from going to Pecco’s motorhome tonight. Especially not after the feeling of a hand too high up today, the little curl of arousal that went through him at the riskiness of it. Is it maybe a mistake to do stuff before a race? For sure, but sex relaxes him and he has always ridden better relaxed.

Still, as the day moves on, the whole thing that happened in quali sticks in his head in the most bizarre way, pairing with that insatiable itch. He doesn’t quite know why it is there, a lot like he doesn’t understand the twinge of the past that picks up around Pecco these days. Also like he doesn’t get why he is still doing this at all, like he has repeatedly stated.

If it was something like growing romantic feelings, he would know. But he has never been the type to catch feelings during sex, and he likes Pecco but no more than most people.

So why then?

He itches at it during a Gresini team meeting, he itches at it when he is in physical therapy, he itches at it as he eats dinner. The tension that hovers through it all, the confusion from today and every lick of amused bafflement since this whole thing started. All centered around the same question, one he has asked himself over and over and over again.

The feeling is killer by the end of the day, making him frustrated and tense. Which makes him even more want sex tonight. As he walks over to Pecco’s motorhome, ducking a bit as he goes, it just gets worse and worse and the frustration grows, and it becomes this strange cycle that pushes him there even as the itch becomes unbearable.

The taxi ride, hand on his thigh, the arrogance, and hidden depths. Snickers and hummed out words, nails pressed into his skin and gasps in his ear. A childish side that is underneath layers of pensive silence, and is rarely shown, a type of confidence that confuses him. Nostalgia and memories he can’t fathom, all tied to one person who he doesn’t even have a real past with.

An itch, an itch that makes him want to rip off his skin. An itch that has him irritated and annoyed, so when he gets inside he makes some kind of mean comment until Pecco narrows his eyes and presses him against the door. The feeling of his back hitting something hard settles it for the slightest second, a flicker of youth springing forward and a grin stretching his mouth. A hissed-out noise and teeth digging into his neck.

Much better.

So much better.

It’s the good kind of sex, the kind that he really has to pull out of the younger man. More aggressive, more fumbling, like it is the first time. He pokes and prods until he gets glares, until Pecco’s grip is so tight it will probably bruise, until the tempo becomes much more wild, until the whole thing is animalistic, perhaps canine, in nature. That comparison twines through him as the younger man bites down hard on his neck, and he almost laughs.

Echoes of the past crying for him make his head spin. He is being fucked into the bed when the itch smashes through him again out of nowhere. When a low voice whispers in his ear with a curling Italian accent, when the bite he got throbs, when fingers dig in obsessively, when he almost feels a little bit of metal dangling from an earlobe hit his cheek. Like it always used to, like he dreamt about, like… like…

Pecco doesn’t have an earring.

His mind kind of goes offline for a second when that flashes through it. As he reboots, as he tries to ignore that thought and crawl back to pleasure, he finds he can’t. A rattling noise comes from the man above him, and it is expected, but not like it should be. Familiarity that is not from months or weeks into the past, but years and years and years.

No.

No.

No, it can’t be.

He tilts his head back when the denial slices through the pleasure, chances a glance up, desperate for it to be something else, desperate for this to just be a manic idea pulled out of him by sex and the strange frustration that has been trailing him for weeks now.

Pecco pulls back to smile, brown eyes stare down at him, and for the briefest of seconds they flash a steely, sparkling blue.

Oh.

His whole body rears back once his mind clicks in place, almost like he has been hit, slamming further away from Pecco than he has been all night. His heart is pounding and it is not the man on top of him that has created that.

Because he knows why now.

The itch is gone in seconds.

It’s almost comical.

“Marc,” Pecco hisses out in protest, voice urging him back and he listens numbly, still struck stupid. Struck by what he saw, struck by the mad look on that face that he still remembers even if it has been years since they did anything like fucking in a bed. Curly hair damp, hands greedy, and when Pecco comes, the way he shoves his nose into Marc’s neck, breath hot, is familiar. The way he grips Marc’s hips to encourage him on, until he is cursing and painting his stomach white, is familiar. The way the taller body collapses down onto him, weight pressing him into the bed, is familiar. But not as it should be.

It echoes through his bones like an old shockwave that slides something into a place it has not been in years. His mouth feels slow and thick, and he licks his lips in the silence. But he can’t ignore what he saw, what he realized. The itch is gone, and he knows exactly why.

So alike.

Valentino and Pecco are so alike.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Mad humor surges through him and he presses a hand to his eyes. Holds down real laughter.

How could he not have seen it before? Scratch that; he understands why he didn’t see it before. If you had shared the idea that the two men were similar with Marc even a few months ago, he would have probably rolled his eyes. Shy Pecco? Sweet Pecco? Calm Pecco? Reserved Pecco? Like Valentino? Hardly.

But it is all still the same even if they peacock differently, he thinks with a manic comprehension as he lays there, the heat from another human body making him feel sticky and uncomfortable. So alike. So different, but so alike. No more itch because this is it, this is why he felt this urge to keep coming back for more, this is what has been tugging at his mind since he started to see what the younger man was actually like under his layers of politeness.

Sharp intensity that sits like a crown of gold on Valentino’s head, and a crown of thorn on Pecco’s. Neediness that on Valentino is physical, hands gripping and bite marks on skin, but on Pecco is more cerebral, eyes staring always. Arrogance that coats Valentino’s body, makes him put on the greatest show, but holds Pecco back, keeps him genial and kind and quiet. Alike, different, everything in between.

But then there is one thing that is exactly the same. The fixation that rings in their eyes. Because both men stare at Marc like they need him, like they want to frame him, like they want to keep him locked in a cage. Focus that he had pretended not to see, that he maybe had noticed for years in the younger rider’s eyes. Called it admiration and sweetness as an excuse.

“You know he has pictures of you on his phone?”

Jorge Lorenzo’s voice, from years back. All he had done was snort at that, pushed down the way it felt so familiar, and shook his head.

“He is a sweet boy. He is probably just curious about my riding.”

But that was never the case. Because Pecco is just like Valentino in that way, he stares at Marc like he is something to be eaten

And Marc loves it. Had adored the way Valentino would obsess over him (and still does maybe) and now enjoys the little flicker of it in someone else, someone who when he squints his eyes he can pretend about.

God. That is it. 

“You are just like him,” he chokes wildly out after a long moment, when his brain is still mush-like and he is stuck on the details and he has no way of stopping himself. The way Pecco stiffens has him wincing. He hadn’t wanted to say that out loud, but his tongue has always been loosened by pleasure. Hearing it spoken though… it just makes him want to scream. It also makes him want to curl up and laugh so hard he cannot breathe.

Silence coats the air, not the good kind, and he knows it is time for him to go.

But Pecco still doesn’t move off of him.

“In what way?” He quietly asks instead, voice raspy and juvenile and Marc laughs quietly, deflates. Lets himself go limp until the younger man is leaning slightly back, flush-cheeked and searching for his face in dim light like maybe it will have the answer to his question. Marc doesn’t want him to have the answers. It would make this all not so easy as it should be and he really can’t handle difficulty at this moment, not when everything is going so well in every other part of his life. Not when he has just had a realization that makes him feel sick.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” he finally responds as blandly as possible, pushing down the humor of it all, staring at the ceiling, “ignore it.”

“No, tell me,” Pecco orders tersely, more bitingly impolite than he usually is. Another thing that Marc has learned; he is much more willing to be short-fused when they are alone. Like in Aragon, when Marc had all but told Valentino they were fucking. There had been real anger on his face that night, and although he didn’t order Marc away, he had made it clear that it was what he wanted. Similar to Valentino in that regard too, sending messages without words.

He had every right of course. Marc should not have done that. A moment of weakness, a desire to hear a hitch in that breath, one that came from being up too late, a few glasses of wine, and the lingering high from his victory. Stupid. Almost as stupid as this.

“Francesco,” he murmurs, in a tone that usually makes the younger man blank out, but it is no use. He looks into dark eyes and sees a stoniness that makes him sigh, makes his expression melt into something like resignation. Pecco seems to understand that he will talk after that noise, because he slides off of Marc until he is sitting crisscross apple sauce, watching him with the keenest of expressions. Almost childlike if he didn’t have this focused air around him. Marc sees another glimpse of Valentino there and hates it.

“Not in a bad way,” he finally says, “you are just…. very similar.”

Especially here, he doesn’t say. Especially when you are staring at me with a small shred of frustration, especially when you are over me looking hungry, especially when you smile. Especially when you do things like today, when you make that face and grab my thigh and make me feel like I am twenty and have Valentino Rossi’s hands all over me regardless of who is watching. Especially when that familiarly makes me want more.

It's funny.

Jesus, there is something wrong with him.

“Everyone always says how different we are,” Pecco mumbles, “but you say we are the same. Is that why you…”

He hears a heavy swallow, wonders why he is letting himself get drawn into this sort of conversation. It’s just sex. Marc did his best to make that clear, because he can’t do another Andrea or another Valentino, can’t do the pain of watching things get more and more twisted as time goes on. He likes Pecco, more than just being fond now. He likes him as person and most people do not like it if when you fuck them because you see someone else in their eyes.

Even if you only just realized it now.

“…. Do you really want an answer?”

“No. Just… tell me how I am like him. Please.”

At that Marc turns his head. In the shadowy darkness of the motorhome the younger man looks strange. His face is invisible, hidden by shadows, and his curls are the only thing that are clear. If Marc squinted, if he pretended there was an earring dangling on one of those ears, if he acted like the dark colored hair was from the lack of light, he could almost pretend. He despises that thought even as he finds the joke in it all.

“You are both stubborn,” he starts in a forcefully dull voice, “though you internalize it more. He would just refuse to give in, disagree loudly with a laugh until you forget what the issue even was. You don’t do that, you just keep it inside and ignore it all.”

He pauses, hopes that it is enough, but the silence that presses against his brain and the tilted head tell him it is not. He should leave, he distantly thinks. This is a bad idea.

“You are both very touchy. He was all the time though, and you only do it when we are in here. Except today, today you did what he does.”

“Which one do you prefer?”

Marc shakes his head, finally lets out a really wild laugh and rubs a hand over his face. What the hell kind of conversation is this even? Sitting in a motorhome that is painted red, lying next to one of Valentino’s students who he just fucked, telling him all the ways they are similar. And Pecco is asking which one he likes more. If he wanted to be crass he could say they both have their benefits. That he loved Valentino’s raw intensity, but hated how stifling it was. That he appreciates Pecco’s gentler nature, but wishes there was a tad more aggression regularly. He would never though; it would make the line blur even more than it already has.

God this is funny.

“I’m not telling you that,” he snorts out, helplessly amused, “and don’t ask that kind of thing anymore.”

“Sorry.”

Stupid, this is so stupid. He is too loose from an orgasm for this, too open, naked as he is. He has certain moments when he cannot stop himself these days. Some are when he is drunk. Some are when he is so tired it dulls his mind. The others are here, light dim and body loose from old pleasure that still rings out. Those are the moments he tends to make his very worst decisions.

God. His arm is starting to hurt in a way its hasn’t in months and all he feels is vicious, uncontrollable mirth.

“This is dumb, i'm leaving,” he finally says tiredly, but a hand shooting out stops him, even though he didn’t actually move. Gentle fingers pressing into shoulder, a little pleading there even as the other man remains silent. As always, keeping it on the down low even as his body betrays him. Restrained little Pecco who wants wants wants what he definitely shouldn't.

That was a mean thought. He can’t help it. It's funny.

“No, no. I just… I won’t be upset by any of it. I know this whole thing is more about him than me, I just want to know.”

“It’s not about him,” Marc says instantly with a wide, fake smile, and internally winces at the way it sounds. It is not supposed to be anyway. Did he corner Pecco in that garage for one small form of revenge? Sure, but then he would have been done that night completely. Had his little battle, won it cleanly, and sauntered off into the distance with the keen knowledge that he bit back once more.

He didn’t know why he kept it up. Now he does. God. It's funny.

“Okay,” Pecco says slowly, diplomatically, warily, disbelievingly, “it’s not about him. I still want to know.”

“Why? It’s not like you care about any of this that much… it’s just sex.”

Another swallow, and the younger man does not speak. Marc jitteringly remembers the fixated eyes that have been watching him for years, the implication of their entire relationship. Because Marc is terrible for what he has done, for sleeping with Valentino’s student, but he was always meant to be bad.

What does that make Pecco?

He tries not to think about it, or the fact that after Misano he saw Valentino and Pecco standing close like they were okay. Like every sin was forgiven, and stupidly in that moment a petulant question had hit him, just like it always did around Uccio.

Why is he so easily forgiven? Why not me?

“Fine. I will be honest,” he says shortly, tossing the words out of his mouth in a rush and pushing away his ridiculous thoughts. Tries to make it all sound light and casual and unserious.

Then he describes all of it, all his thoughts and musings, grinning the whole way. The stubbornness he talks about again, but in more detail. References the past like it is easy, ignores the way Pecco gets more and more still the longer he speaks. Then he talks about their intensity, describing the way Valentino used to make him feel like he was pinned to the wall even without touching. Then the fire in their eyes, how on Valentino it always burned by with Pecco it was almost like the flames were cooling. Then the way they both laugh, heads tossed back so similarly. Then Valentino’s way of arching his eyebrows, then even the little earring that would dangle over him when they had sex, the one he imagines a lot of the time, no matter who he is sleeping with. Then the feeling of hands digging into his skin, the bite on his neck that twinges sometimes, the clothes in his closet he hasn’t touched in years that were bought by the older man, the mornings he wakes up and forgets where and when he is, goes through the motions like he is about to go ride. Even if he is nowhere near a track, even now. Memories flicker in and out of his mind and they come too, along for the ride in the most pathetic of ways.

He says it all interspersed with little giggles, ones he cannot stop, avoids looking over at the younger man, just stares at the ceiling and speaks. By the end of it, he realizes that he has completely even stopped mentioning Pecco. All he has done is give a twisted list, a description of who Valentino through and through, a run through of everything that ever existed.

Pecco is quiet. For a while. Marc breathes in that quiet, manically hopes that maybe the entire thing had been in his head, that he said something normal and not so… so telling. Hopes it was as funny as it felt if he did.

After a few minutes, the younger man slowly reaches over to the bedside table and turns the lamp on, the small click breaking through the silence. Warm light floods the room, makes him squint and turn his face away so Pecco can’t see how wet his eyes have gotten. He is still smiling, but somehow he feels like the younger man will know it is not from laughter.

This is so stupid. This is so funny. He hasn’t thought about such things in a while, hasn’t spoken about them even longer. He doesn’t care about Valentino, really he stopped. But he can’t help the ache in his chest every time he remembers. It’s why he tries not to do it. Ever.

“I’ve never heard it all described by anyone other than Vale,” Pecco finally mumbles, and Marc still doesn’t look at him. Couldn’t stand finding pity there, it would make him feel too cornered.

He laughs again, waves hand in the air jokingly.

“He probably made me sound heartless, yes? Probably didn’t even talk about all for the good that happened. He has selective memory that way, like you are not the sum of all your parts but rather the sum of what he decides is true. Not so accurate.”

He needs to leave. He doesn’t care about pleading eyes or being kind, he doesn’t care about the voice in the back of his head that whispers that to Pecco this is not casual and it would be cruel. He doesn’t care even about their sort-of friendship that has the ghost of a man they both love or have loved hovering above. He needs to avoid it all. It is so funny that everything is starting to hurt.

“It is getting late,” he says brightly, falsely, plasters a smile on his face, and sits up abruptly, tossing off covers. He still avoids eye contact.

“Alex will be wondering where I am. Nothing personal, you know that I-”

“Can’t sleep without him,” Pecco finishes quietly.

Marc nods in a jerky manner, even if the statement is mostly untrue these days. He stopped really needing Alex since he left Honda, although he has been using it as an excuse to not linger. Another little form of cruelty, something else that is funny.

God, he really does need his brother tonight though. Leans over the bed and scrambles for his clothes. Feels embarrassment so thick and stifling that he struggles a bit. It takes him far longer than usual and Pecco watches the whole time.

He wonders what he sees.

“Good luck for tomorrow,” he says cheerfully, hands shaking as he reaches over to the side table to grab his phone. He feels off-balance.

“Marc,” Pecco says in a rush, and he falters, but continues. Shoves his feet into sneakers and doesn’t even lean down to tie them. But he still responds with a light voice.

“Yes?”

A stretch of silence. Sheets ruffling behind him as if Pecco has shifted closer. He can almost imagine the big-eyed look he is getting, maybe even confused, maybe even angry. Who knows. Whatever it is, he probably deserves it after what he said, what he has done.

“I’ll see you in Japan, yes? After the race tomorrow I don’t expect to but….but in Japan?”

Marc stills as he stands there, and his grin drops. He feels like a bird about to take flight, arms behind him and on too-light feet. The tone… the tone cut through any laughter-fueled defenses he had built up, making shock course through him. When he glances back at Pecco, for the briefest of moments the pinned-up image of Valentino disappears.

Worried eyes, an unsure expression, nerves clearer than day and hands wringing the blanket they had been under.

Not Valentino at all. No, instead he sees someone else.

Himself.

Nineteen and wondering if he would ever get what he wants. Twenty and feeling a desperate need even as he is stifled. Twenty-one and knowing that it will all end in fire. Twenty-two and being proven right, watching helplessly as his world falls apart. Twenty-three and feeling resignation so thick, it blankets over everything else until he feels nothing at all.

Vicious self-hatred curls inside of his stomach.

“Yes, Japan,” he spits and then he is surging into the cool air outside, allowing it to take him away, guiding him to his own motorhome where he can pretend none of that happened. The sleepy voice of his brother greets him with mumbled questions he cannot comprehend. He doesn’t respond to them, just walks over and crawls into bed beside him. They don’t usually share, he has his own little room in the home, but he needs it tonight. 

Valentino and Pecco twine together in his head until they are one, and he can't stop it. So similar, so different, and Marc wants them for the same exact reasons.

God. God. It's so of funny. He has no escape. Like a carousel, he goes round and round and round and round, always coming back to the same spot. And he chooses to jump back on every single time, even as the pole he clutches to stay on slices his hands until blood pours over the shiny, spinning floor.

Laughter bubbles up once more and he ignores the way Alex groans and smacks him. God it is so damn funny. Pecco and Valentino.

Who fucking cares anyway.

This is not about Valentino he decides madly as he lays there. Pecco might be so similar, Marc might have looked up tonight and seen blue eyes, but it is not about Valentino. It is not allowed to be, he won't allow it. So next time they fuck, he will pinch his eyes shut and maybe picture Dovi or Casey or Santi or even that F1 driver, Mark Webber. Pecco isn't quite tall enough, but he can manage it. 

Because he doesn't care, stopped caring a while ago. Scratch everything he just said actually, he is allowed to see Valentino there. He has every right to picture any of it after the years that have passed. So what if he uses the older man to get off, it's his right. And he does not owe it to anyone to hold himself back. Because this is about him, this is about what he wants, and he will not feel guilty about any of it.

It's not like it means anything more. He has every right to think what he wants, to use as he wants. Valentino is nothing to him, so he will treat the man like any faceless fantasy, he will use it to satisfy himself in a way he hasn't in years. Pecco gets it now at least, he think manically, so no one can be mad at him for it. It is funny and he will laugh and everything will be okay once more.

None of it matters. He doesn't care. Really, he doesn't.

As he shuts his eyes tight, his chest begins to itch, right over where his heart beats rapidly.

He doesn't even bother scratching at it.

End Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Marc has decided that everything is okay. He has decided that this whole thing with Pecco and the memory of Valentino, or whatever twisted amalgamation of them exists in his head, will not bother him, that he won’t think about it and just find the humor like he did in Indonesia.

It all continues as it did before, repetition spinning through it all. The weekend starts, they hit media day, Marc gets fucked somewhere, quali happens, then the race, and they fly somewhere else. This trails him until the end of the season, up to the last one. He wins second that day and feels the soreness in his body from Thursday and wonders what the hell he is going to do next year, when there will be no escaping either man. Valentino had said he was going to be around the paddock more, and Pecco will be his teammate. No running from any of that, and while right now he can keep his distance from the truth of the matter, it is a lot harder to handle what it means to use Valentino when him and Pecco have sex if the man is only one motorhome away.

But the way Gresini clutches him after it all, thrilled for his P3 in the championship, shoves that from his mind. Hands of people who had brought it all back, the joy of racing, the laughter in a box, the thrill of victory, surround him and wipe his mind clean of worry or stress or the problems that seem to follow him like ducklings. He clutches them close, thrilled but also sad in some small way. Because if he could, he would stay. If he could guarantee that the Gresini bike would be the best, if he could make sure he got the championship with them, all of it, he would. He loves them, loves them as close to the way he loves Honda as he can get.

And they love him back. Maybe that was what he really needed again after so many years of dull doubt and pain and worry. He needed a group of people who would stare at him with shiny eyes and see a winner. Honda is his team, will always be his team, but all they could see for the last few years was the ghost of who he was before 2020 and the pain that came after. It made them over-protective, and stifled, and often very sad.

Alex lifts him high until he is perched on shoulders, and he towers over them all as they sing, jumping up and down like children. That silly little song about him that they had created at some point in the season rings through his ears, and he shout-sings it along with them. Revels in the feeling because maybe this will not happen again. A factory team is often more serious than a satellite, he would know. Honda was like that because they were his through and through, Gresini is like this because they are a family more than a business. But Ducati? Who knows.

They pull him down, and he laughs loudly as they refuse to let him stand. Lay him down and start carrying him through the paddock like they are transporting a very long package, cheering the whole way and calling him all manner of names, both cheerfully complimentary and teasingly insulting.

It’s madness as they transport him into the Ducati box, as they place him into Enea Bastianini’s chair like it is a throne and they are dropping him in to be the new king. The Ducati employees grin at him, the Gresini employees are still chanting their nonsense, and all Marc feels is the climbing realization that things will be better than they have been since 2019 come January. Third on a bike that is older than both the top two and the rider behind him. A fantastic sign for next year, and optimism paints his every action.

A nice feeling after so long of the opposite.

He does wrench himself out of the seat, points finger and jokes and clutches them in hugs the whole way. Pulls Nadia, the team principal, in and feels like a kid as she hugs him. Murmurs her pride in his ear and smiles at him like is mother does. It’s almost enough to make him cry, but not quite, and so he just laughs. Holds the team he has learned to love close and hopes that it will always be like this with them.

That night at dinner he feels foolish as he stands up and lets out some semblance of a speech. It’s embarrassing, never being one for very serious moments like this, but he powers through it because he can’t not. Because they have breathed new life back into him and he has no idea how he will ever pay that back.

He says that to one of his engineers as he sits down, and the man laughs. Reaches out a hand to press to his shoulder, leans in, and tells him with a grin.

“Win,” he says fiercely, “win the title, win the races, win it all. That is how you can make us smile, because you will always be a Gresini rider even after you go to them.”

That actually does make him tear up slightly, earning teasing little comments and slaps to his shoulder as he ducks his head a bit to hide his wet eyes. Alex, who is sat beside him, rubs his hair sweetly, and the feeling of being loved envelops the whole room, making everything warm and happy and golden. Drinks go down until they settle in his stomach, until they make him looser than he usually is, clutching anyone who nearby into a brutal hug as they laugh at his antics the whole way

“I love you guys,” he says slowly later that night, when he is leaning up against the wall and surrounded by other similarly tipsy Gresini employees.

“Time to get emotional,” one of them jokes, and Marc bats her away with a furrowed brow.

“I’m serious,” he mumbles, blinking slowly at all of them and their blurry faces, “You have no idea.”

They really don’t. It echoes in his head throughout the rest of the night. As he hunts down Alex in the restaurant, grabs his brother and starts to ramble in his ear. As he is passed around the room like a trophy, kind words murmured. As he leaves that night, stumbling home with one arm around Alex and the other around some person he does not recognize in the moment, but still loves.

The next morning he wakes up early with a pounding headache, curled up on the couch in his motorhome and squinting into the sunlight that streams through the blinds. His body hurts, he is far too old to have drunk that much, but in the moment he does not care. Rubs a hand over his face and laughs until his chest hurts.

“Will you shut up,” comes a mumbled voice from the bedroom, Alex sounding a little more than worse for wear, and he just laughs harder. Stumbles to his feet to grab some ibuprofen and sports drinks for the both of them. He finds his brother tucked under a bundle of covers, one hand reaching for the pain medication and wobbling the whole way. He looks like an unmoving lump with a single arm. It’s funny.

“You are young,” Marc jokes loudly just to hear a wincing sound, “yet somehow I am the one on my feet. Sad for you.”

“You aren’t fifty,” comes his brother’s scornful voice, “stop acting geriatric. I drank more.”

He laughs again but relents when a pillow gets tossed his way. Shrugs off the pain of his headache (nothing compared to his arm) and promises to get some food from hospitality to bring to Alex.

“Something greasy maybe?” He calls back, and curses follow him out the door, until he looks like a madman, walking through the paddock at 7 AM and snickering the whole while.

It’s a good kind of morning, the kind that cools flushed skin even as sunbeams stream over your face, the kind where wind rustles through trees and every breath that is taken fills your lungs up fully. The paddock is quieter, just as it always is when the race weekend is done, and although strange, it is soothing. He can walk without interruption like this, admire the fluffy clouds and the traces of night that still linger in the air, dew making every blade of grass he sees glisten.

Smiles greet him as he makes his way inside, the staff that blessedly provides them with food friendly as always. Marc adores them, especially right now when he needs some sort of sustenance to fill his burbling stomach. All that is left in there is beer and maybe some wine after all, and he has never really enjoyed that feeling, even when he was young.

He almost grabs a fried pancake, just to fuck with Alex, but decides to be kind. Loads up a takeaway container with fruit and a few light pasties, very aware of his brother’s sweet tooth, especially when hungover.

“Ah, Marc,” A voice calls right as he is about to leave, arms laden with two containers of food and a few water bottles. He has some in the motorhome of course, but he gets the feeling when he gets back there will be something like near half a dozen gone.

He turns upon hearing the greeting, spots Enea Bastianini sitting at a table, one of maybe five people here, eyes bright and smile peaceful. Marc waves back as best as he can, laughs at himself when he almost drops everything. He likes Enea, the kid is always friendly, and it certainly helps that he is one of the few Italian riders who isn’t part of Valentino’s little cult.

“Come sit,” the younger man says. Marc blinks. Shrugs. Then goes over.

“You look tired,” is the first comment he receives upon settling himself across from Enea, dropping his load on the table and sighing at the cool contact of metal on his legs. He grins.

“Are you calling me old?” He asks with a furrowed brow, and the other rider shrugs.

“Not really, but everyone heard you guys come back last night. The hangover is quite clear.”

Ah. Yes, from what he remembers they had been very loud. When Marc had eventually tugged Alex into the motorhome, he could still hear some of them chant-singing that song they always loved to use when he won races. It made him grin as he passed out, and his face still kind of hurts from how much he did that sort of thing last night.

“They are enthusiastic,” he murmurs with a fond smile, then focuses his eyes on Enea and narrows them, curiosity overriding friendliness. While they certainly have chatted in the past, he does not think what they have qualifies as friendship. So the other man calling him over is… strange.

Enea blinks innocently at him, sipping a cappuccino and looking very calm.

If Marc thought he was anything like that at all, he would assume he is getting some sort of passive-aggressive talking to or attempt at intimidation. He did replace the man at the top team which has the top bike. Enea was always meant to get the chop no matter if it was Marc or Jorge Martin, but it must sting a little to be pushed out to make room for someone else.

Marc wouldn’t know.

“Anyways,” he finally says when staring gets him noting except that placid face, “did you need to ask me something?”

“Oh,” Enea says, eyes widening, “yes, I had forgotten.”

Silence, and Marc waits. But the other rider just continues to stare at him, guileless and quiet, head tilted like an owl.

“And that was….”

A laugh and Enea is leaning back, eyes crinkling as an almost delighted look overtakes his face.

“You are funny,” he says brightly, “yes, sorry I am not a morning person.”

Marc narrows his eyes, critically stares at the cheerful disposition. He finds that statement very hard to believe indeed. If anything the younger man looks like he is some sort of incarnation of the sunrise, warm and bright and too pretty for so early.

“I just wanted to congratulate you. Not a question, I suppose.”

Oh. That’s amusing. Most people don’t congratulate their replacement, but he remembers the younger rider always being kind, and a little bit naïve. Sweet and spacey, different than many other riders in his softness. But when he races that tends to change, so Marc knows that underneath all the fluff there is a very sharp mind.

“Thank you, Ducati will be an experience,” he settles on diplomatically, not wanting to push any buttons when none of his have even been lightly brushed.

Blinking and Enea looks surprised, peels a banana and takes one big bite.

“Oh,” he says thoughtfully, “not that. Though it is good for you, bad for me I guess. But not that.”

He still doesn’t elaborate. Frustration builds in Marc’s spine, and the only thing that keeps him from being a little rude is the eager-to-please look he is getting. It’s annoying, but he really doesn’t think Enea is doing any of this cryptic avoidance on purpose. Like when a big dog sits on you; your legs are crushed, but that tail is wagging and the dog is grinning back at you innocently because it has no idea they are causing you pain. They just think everyone is having a grand old time. You can never get mad at such a thing.

“On what then?” He asks patiently.

More blinking and a little laugh as the younger man leans forward, eyes smiling, and lowers his voice into a murmur.

“Oh. On you and Pecco.”

Huh?

Marc stares at him for a second.

“Come again?”

“Yeah, when I found out you were dating I was surprised, but you have seemed happier lately so I suppose it makes sense and Gigi and Davide actually were pretty supportive, which is good, I mean at the dinner last night Pecco showed-”

Enea keeps talking, but Marc is not listening any longer.

Dating? Dating? Since when are Pecco and him dating? Since when has he made that seem at all like some sort of option? They were definitely on the same page, or so he hopes, but……. dating?

The word makes his skin crawl. Because, well, he has slept around a lot in the past few years but there are only two people he has ever dated before. One was Andrea, and although they are okay now that was… something. The other was Valentino. Applying it to anyone else, especially Pecco, is wrong. So wrong he feels anger flash through him.

He forces a smile to his face and interrupts Enea’s rambling.

“Ah, thank you, I really do have to go. Food for Alex, you know.”

“Oh, okay well have a good-”

He is gone before the sentence is even finished. Blandly walks back to his motorhome, deposits the food on the table and is out the door before Alex can even thank him. His feet carry him to Pecco’s motorhome, where he means to knock carefully or quietly or even just politely.

But he finds he can’t.

Dating? There better be a beautiful and logical explanation for any of that.

SLAM SLAM SLAM

A curse from inside, a groan, and he wonders perhaps if Pecco had been drinking last night, distantly aware that Ducati had taken him out for a kind of comforting thing. He remembers some of the Gresini engineers joking about it anyway.

He hears stumbling inside getting closer but keeps on going.

SLAM SLAM SLAM

The door is ripped open and he is faced with a disheveled Pecco, shirtless and in baggy shorts, looking ruffled and like he was still asleep seconds ago. He looks angry too, but that fades when he notices who it is.

“Marc?”

He pushes past, ignoring the questioning tone and finds himself standing in a place he has been many times before. Usually for different reasons, better reasons, and he is often not this tense and angry.

“Uh, come in I guess,” Pecco mumbles, shutting the door with a click and running his hands through his hair almost self-consciously. Marc glares at him, takes a deep breath, and then smiles.

“So we are dating now?” He says in a forcefully light voice, and Pecco freezes. Stares at him with a flabbergasted expression, before he goes bright pink.

“What?” He chokes out after a beat of very tense silence.

“Bastianini just congratulated me. On us dating,” Marc responds flatly, “and he seemed to imply that this interesting piece of news came from you.”

More silence.

“What are you talking about?” Pecco asks dully, and Marc relaxes. Oh thank everything that is good and holy, it seems like the younger man is just as unaware of how that possibly could have come about as him. He sighs, lets himself sink down into his sofa. Groans. He isn’t sure if he could have handled this if Pecco was just going around telling people they are dating out of some strange need and desperation. At least it’s not that.

“God, did you drink last night?” He asks carefully, bringing his eyes up to stare intensely at Pecco.  A quiet nod is all he receives.

“How much?”

“……I don’t remember? Kind of a bad day.”

Marc sighs loudly, then lets out something like a strangled laugh. So while he was getting drunk and telling everyone how much he loves them, Pecco was getting drunk and maybe telling everyone they were dating.

Yeah, he knows which one out of the two of them handles their alcohol better.

“I think perhaps you implied some things about you and me, and it convinced Enea we are dating.”

Pecco pinches the bridge of his nose, winces like he is in pain, and Marc realizes that if his own hangover hurts, Pecco, who was apparently blackout, must feel like he is dying. Cruelly, he doesn’t care because he has a slowly building sense of foreboding from all of this.

“I will talk to him, it was probably something stupid and he tends to jump to conclu-”

“He said Gigi and Davide know.”

Pecco freezes. Then he lets out a strange laugh, sinks down to sit next to Marc and now they are both staring into the distance. Marc has no idea what Pecco is thinking, but if it is anything similar to the words racing through his own mind, it is mostly swearing. because really, this now? Why can’t anything be simple. In truth he was planning on ending this whole thing with Pecco before next season started, so to now have the team he is switching to apparently under the assumption that they are dating? Yeah, not quite what he was aiming for.

The air is thick with something he cannot name, an awkward tightness that is laced with the out of place feeling of comradery.

“It can’t be that bad,” the younger man says weakly.

But a ding from Marc’s phone has them jumping slightly, light noise echoing through the relative quiet. He doesn’t check it at first, a strange feeling that it might make things worse stopping him. But when he feels dark eyes watching him with almost dread-filled anticipation, he glances down.

It’s an email. From Ducati.

The memo line says ‘meeting on workplace relationship guidelines’ with two exclamation points after it. When he opens it to numbly try and figure out more details, he finds Pecco cc’d and a meeting at for 9 AM. Today.

Slowly he turns the screen around for the other man to see. A sharp intake of breath is all that he gets to tell him that what was there was very clearly read and understood.

“Shit,” Pecco mumbles after a stretch of silence. Marc just nods in response.

Shit indeed.

***

The meeting goes terribly. They arrive together, still ruffled and messy-haired, which might have been their first mistake. The looks they receive when they settle down into the little white chairs in the conference room Ducati is using is embarrassing, as is the awkward way Davide starts the conversation.

“Ducati wants you to know that we are supportive, of course,” he says in a stiff voice, a smile on his face that looks forced but not displeased. Mostly it seems like he does not know how to deal with this properly, and yeah, Marc gets that.

“I just wanted to start off by saying congratulations, and that these sorts of relationships are completely allowed, but there are rules in place when employees date. It is all to protect you both and we would like to-”

“We aren’t dating,” Marc says quickly.

The look he gets is disbelieving, and Gigi, who has been sitting there with a little smile on his face, leans forward, eyes twinkling.

“We understand you might not have wanted us to find out this way, but it is nothing to be worried about. It is good that you two have an ahh…. positive relationship.”

Marc tilts his head and feels humor build up at the way they refuse to trust his words. Somehow he feels like this is how the whole conversation is going to go.

“No, really,” Pecco mumbles from where he sits, a little hunched with his arms crossed, “we aren’t.”

Davide laughs, and a little bit of humor leaks into his eyes.

“Forgive us for not believing you Pecco,” he says kindly, “but the evidence you showed at dinner was rather convincing.”

Marc squeezes his eyes shut. Then he turns narrowed eyes onto Pecco, who has somehow shrunk even further down in his seat.

Both of the older men, Marc’s future bosses who he has only just now started to get to know, are watching them, muffling laughter.

“Yes, the texts were quite something,” Gigi says lowly, and Marc face palms when it clicks to what they are referring to.

Fuck. Those texts. It had been something of a game when they were in Thailand, sending risky messages throughout media day. Pecco had been on the press conference and had multiple interviews, and by the end of the day he had been so flustered that Marc got to see him turn scarlet red in the middle of one of his interviews. He had been watching for his garage, and the way the younger man physically stumbled when he glanced at his phone had been amusing.

That night they had fucked and the redness in those cheeks had stayed, until Marc felt like he had Valentino from all those times the older man allowed him to use rope hovering over him. Back then the older man would always turn red with humiliation when Marc did it and get this little scowl on his face, like the one Pecco was sporting that night. A pretty sight, and Marc came hard and fast when he remembered that particular memory.

But to have those texts shown to people is humiliating. He glares at Pecco again.

“Do not be mad,” Davide soothes, “he was very very drunk and one of the engineers stole his phone, he just started blubbering about it. Too many emotions I think, and he kept talking about how cool you are. It was sweet, so be forgiving, he didn’t mean to.”

Somehow, Pecco sinks even further down and Marc is terribly angry at him right now, but he sighs and shifts his eyes away. God knows he has done stupid things when he is drunk, and Pecco did just lose the championship the day prior. He just wishes it hadn’t led to any of this. 

He has no explanation that could argue against their assumptions right now. How do you look your new boss in the eyes and say ‘yeah, no I am not dating your prize rider just fucking him which will certainly bode well for next year when it inevitably ends poorly too, and oh, by the way, it is mostly because he is similar to Valentino Rossi. You know, the guy who hates me? Who is like Italy’s motorsport Jesus? Yeah, this isn’t messy at all’.

Funny. You don’t say that, you can’t. Deep down he knows that if he does, there is a real risk to his standing on the team. Not his seat, that is damn well set in stone, but his respect, his friendliness, his bond. He would just be the bad guy straight from the beginning if he said any of that, and he already is pushing it by joining an Italian team. The whole country still hates him, after all, but they will hate him even more if he screws over their current golden boy after ‘screwing over’ their king so many years ago.

Fuck. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Marc has always been a good liar at least.

He sighs, lets a sheepish smile crawl onto his face. Leans over, puts his hand right on Pecco’s thigh and squeezes down until the younger man jolts, shooting him a confused look. The little one he gives back is covered in a smile, but he hopes the order is loud and clear.

Play along you idiot.

“Ah, you found us out,” he says cheerfully, laughing along with the two men, “we had been worried how everyone would react.”

“Yes,” Pecco stutters out immediately, thank God. Good enough, Marc can do a majority of the talking.

So he does. Sits there and banters back and forth with them, solemnly nods as they go over the HR policies and regular meetings they will have and fucking couple’s counseling if they need it during the season. He jokes with them, laughs with them, and when they all walk out of the room, Gigi and Davide looking pleased, he doesn’t drop the smile until he drags Pecco back to his motorhome. Alex is sitting on the couch eating popcorn when they slam their way in.

“You are stupid,” he immediately says, and Pecco reaches up a hand to grip his hair like he wants to rip it out. If Marc thought he had seen the younger man anxious before, right now he looks like one of those tormented renaissance painting, big brown Italian eyes and everything. It’s a little soothing at least that he isn’t the only one feeling that though.

“Why is he here?” Alex asks slowly. Marc ignores him.

“First of all, delete those texts and never drink again,” he orders, and Pecco nods, looking chastised. He starts doing that immediately without a word, and when it is finally done, Marc relaxes slightly. It won’t save anything, it is all far too late for that, but at least that’s one worry gone.

“Jesus, what are we going to do,” he mumbles.

“What happened?” He distantly hears from Alex, and ignores it again.

"Oh and this whole thing," Marc points between him and Pecco with feverish intensity, "is very much over."

"Yeah I expected that," Pecco mumbles even as he looks crestfallen.

He doesn't know what the younger man expected. Marc is taking absolutely no chances anymore as they deal with this, and that includes with balancing a younger rider's emotions. That is Pecco's problem to deal with now, thank you very much, and the nicest thing he can do is make his position quite clear.

"Is anyone going to answer me?"

“..Why did you lie?” Pecco asks tentatively after a moment, also ignoring Alex, and coming closer until he is standing over Marc, towering almost. When Marc cracks an eye open to look up though, he finds the younger man small-faced and young looking, so if anything it feels like he is on a higher step.

“How do you think they would react to the truth exactly? You think they would be happy that it was just sex? You think that will make them proud to work with me? You think that wouldn’t start rumors as to how I got this seat?”

Pecco frowns.

“Why do you say that like you aren’t who you are?” He asks in the strongest voice he has had all day, seemingly affronted at the thought of people thinking Marc got the seat from nothing but skill. He really does look upset.

Marc laughs.

“Please, I know what all of you think. Valentino made his opinion quite clear after the announcement was made, and the academy just echoes what he says.”

The other man flinches back before real anger slices across his expression, turning that shy-looking face fierce in an instant.

“This isn’t even about Vale,” he says, fists clenched, “why do you always bring him up when he is not involved with any of this? Why can nothing you do not have him there too?”

Christ. A good question, one that Marc wishes he knew the answer to.

“Can someone please tell me what is happening!”

Marc turns to his brother, decides to finally answer him simply to avoid Pecco’s question, and smiles extra wide.

“We are dating.”

Alex blinks, looks like he doesn't believe it at all. Then tilts his head.

“Are you trying to upset Rossi again?”

“See?” Pecco instantly says accusatorially, and Marc pinches his nose-bridge between his fingers. Dammit, now there are two of them. Alex has every right to know him too well, but as time moves on, he despises the way Pecco has begun to learn how he operates. Another reason he had been intent on ending it before January, no need for his competition to understand him so well.

“Not everything is about Valentino,” he says slowly, and Alex snorts as Pecco shakes his head.

“Sure.”  "Sure."

They both say that in unison, and look very annoyed about that fact. It's distantly amusing.

Marc glares at them both, pursing his lips in irritation.

"What I say is the truth," he says stubbornly and it only earns him a groan from the Italian rider.

“God, you two are so alike. You say me and Vale are alike, but it is you and him, and then the rest of us.” Pecco mutters to himself, and Marc snaps his gaze up.

“What does that mean?” He demands in a terse voice, leaning forward and having so much intensity in his expression that Pecco blanches and almost cowers back away from it.

Fuck, no, he doesn’t want to know. Shakes his head rapidly, dislodges the vehement curiosity. He doesn’t care about Valentino, he had decided that. None of it matters, none of it matters.

“Don’t answer,” he grits out when Pecco opens his mouth, then turns to Alex once more and decides to share it all. Seeing Enea, learning what he learned, the email from Ducati, and then that stupid meeting.

By the end of it, Alex is howling with laughter, more open than usual in another person's presence, and Pecco has settled into the seat next to the kitchen table to blankly eye them both, a small frown on his face. He looks particularly perturbed by Alex's behavior, eyeing him like he is an animal behaving incorrectly. Which would make sense to Marc, his little brother is much more reserved around anyone who isn't family.

“Only you,” Alex says with grin after he collects himself, “only you. Only you would think that it is better to lie about dating than be honest and say you two just have sex, or had sex I guess. That is a perfectly reasonable thing Marc, no one would have been upset with you.”

Then he turns on Pecco too, laughs at him like they are friends or something close. At the very least the affronted look on the Italian rider’s face is humorous enough to make Marc crack a smile, just barely.

“And you! What made you go along with it? Are you that whipped?”

Pecco flushes, his mouth opens and then shuts just as quickly. Fish-like and stupid looking.

“No, I just, he seemed sure of himself and….”

He trails off as if realizing that isn’t a good enough reason and tilts his head to glare at the ground, obviously ignoring the way it just makes Alex raise his eyebrows even higher.

“Right so you both are idiots, got it.”

Marc groans, leans back on the couch and decides he is happier staring at the ceiling. The motorhome feels too small right now with so much inside of it; the argument, the story, Alex’s amusement, Pecco’s awkward despair, and his own disbelief as to what is happening. That and their physical bodies right now, but the more abstract things seem to be taking up the most room.

He inhales and exhales, tries to settle his mind as Pecco and Alex begin to argue back and forth, traces of the two riders who did not get along well in their youth still lingering. Honestly Marc had forgotten how long they have known each other, remembers hearing his brother complain about the other often, though at the time Marc never gave it much mind. But seeing them, as they fall into snipping back and forth, the way they suddenly turn so childish before his eyes, he remembers it all like it was yesterday. Ah yes, there was a reason he held Pecco at a distance for a while there even if he didn't consciously remember; Alex hates him. For undisclosed reasons, Marc never quite got it out of him.

“You always used to do that,” Alex says in a mean voice, a wide smile on his face, almost Marc-like, “blaming things on others instead of yourself. If it’s not another rider, it’s the bike, if it’s not the bike, it’s the team, if it’s not the team, it’s another rider.”

“This is nothing like back then,” Pecco counters, eyebrow twitching and any composure left cracking in an instant, “I was drunk, I made a mistake, it happens. Just because they misinterpreted what I said does not mean this is all my fault.”

“Nothing ever is, right?”

"As if you are one to talk, in Aragon-"

"Aragon was your fault! I knew that apology was fake, culo."

"It wasn't fake!"

Round and round and round it goes, and Marc just sits there and prays to the heavens as they fight. Prays for peace and calmness and the strength to get through what might be the stupidest thing in the world. Because Alex is wrong, wrong about no one being mad at him for sleeping with Pecco. He is well aware that no matter what he does, there will always be people mad at him, always shadows waiting to tear him back down to the pit that was the years after 2020.

He can’t risk anything. Not with the happiness of finally getting back to his place so close. Not with the ability to win again in his bones. Not with the chance to prove them all wrong, to wrench back victory, to finally match Val-

Fuck, he can’t even avoid it in his own head.

“Shut up,” he eventually snaps out when the arguing becomes too much, and they both fall into sullen silence, glaring at each other. God, Marc wants them to never be in the same room again. He has not once seen either of them so inflamed, and he grew up with Alex and has fucked Pecco many times, so that really is something.

“What’s done is done, they think we are dating and that is it. So we ‘date’ and then have a very very cordial breakup eventually and things will go back to how they should be and we can forget any of this happened at all.”

Alex coughs something that sounds suspiciously like a dubious ‘yeah right’ behind his hand but Marc ignores it, turns stern eyes on Pecco, who swallows harshly, looking a bit pained, and nods his head.

“When do we ‘break up’ then?” He asks carefully, back to the careful politeness, and Marc tilts his head. Really he has no idea. Can’t be too soon, or that will cause suspicion. Can’t be toward the end of next season after he inevitably beats Pecco, because then people will say Marc used the relationship against the younger rider to win.

“Right after winter break,” he decides, “enough time for it to be a natural breakup but before everything begins. Mid-January or something, and when the next year starts, we are polite with each other and everything fades away as more interesting things appear, like the new season.”

Really it is the best option. This is going to end poorly in some way, but at least that idea minimizes damage as much as possible.

“Fine by me,” Pecco says stiffly.

“All we have to do is make sure that no one else in the paddock hears about it,” Marc continues, “talk to Enea and tell him to shut up or something. Say we want to keep it personal, make him feel bad. He seems the romantic type, create some sob story about forbidden love or whatever, he’ll hide it well if he believes that. Guilt him if you have to, he also seems susceptible to that. Most Italians are, usually works pretty well.”

Alex and Pecco stop, they stare at him with identically bemused faces, shooting each other a glance, though Pecco looks a little bit more disturbed.

“What?”

“You’re kind of evil,” Alex says proudly.

“Yes, and?” Marc asks, mystified. As if that is new information;, he doesn’t have his reputation just because of what happened with Valentino, after all. He won’t deny that his own actions and ways of dealing with people have certainly added to everything they have made him out to be.

“Scary,” Pecco mumbles, and Alex nods in agreement.

“That doesn’t matter, Call Enea,” Marc instructs.

But when Pecco grabs his phone from his pocket, and pulls it out, he instantly turns white as the screen lights up. Eyes go wide as he seems struck by something he has seen, fingers swiping fast, almost panicked. Another foreboding feeling rises up, and Marc doesn’t even bother asking. Waits because he would rather have a few more seconds of relative peace before everything crashes down once more.

God, it had been such a lovely morning. Good weather, memories of the happy night before still spinning in his head, a solid hangover breakfast, and a short break until they start doing work for Barcelona testing. Why do things always turn out like this?

“Might be too late for that,” Pecco eventually mumbles in a quiet voice, and when he turns his screen to show them, Marc feels his whole face go lax.

Texts upon texts upon texts. Ten from Luca, five from Franky, what looks like forty (and just increasing in number) from Bezzecchi. They keep piling up, multiple group chats exploding, questions marks sent, and more then just them too. Marc spots Joan Mir’s name among the list, Fabio’s too, and even a long block of text that looks like it is from Uccio, which seems to be some sort of dramatic evil-henchman monologue.

Christ. The heavens must be finding all of this terribly amusing to keep it all up in such a manner.

“That gossipy little-” Pecco hisses out, but does nothing as they stare at the certified flood that is still pouring in.

Well. Why even bother caring at this point. Marc leans back and just starts laughing. Alex joins in instantly and they are clutching each other on the couch like children, laughing laughing laughing. God, why is this his life? He is thirty-one, and yet he still has things like this happen constantly. Like his life is one big show for people to get a kick out of. It’s almost as funny as Indonesia and makes him lose it in a similar way.

He glances over at Pecco, finds him staring at them aghast, but then his lip curls up shakily, as if he is trying to hold it all in.

“Just let it out,” Marc snorts, and then another, quieter giggle joins them. A cacophony of humor flies through the room, and he clutches onto that decision he had made, to treat it all like the joke it is. If things keep going as they are, he bets he can convince Pecco to do the same. He wonders what people would think about the ever-serious rider loosening up a little bit, behaving more like Marc. He wonders how Valentino would react.

“You look less rat-like when you laugh,” Alex chokes out, and Pecco scowls at him, but can’t hide the way he is mostly amused.

“Well you look even more like a wombat when you laugh.”

God, this is also stupid. A ridiculous moment that could have been entirely avoided, and he knows by tomorrow everyone in the paddock will know. Gossip spreads like wildfire among them, and this particular news much have plenty of wood to burn. Because if riders like Mir know, it won’t be long until engineers and marshals and team principals and even journalists know.

And to think, he believed 2025 would be relatively straightforward.

“I don’t even want to check my phone,” Marc mutters after the loudness has died down, and Alex grins at him.

“I bet you Casey will be the first, or Jorge. They have been warning you about Pecco for years now.”

“Warning?” Pecco asks in an affronted manner, crinkling his nose up. Marc shrugs.

“As if you thought you were being subtle.”

Flushed cheeks and embarrassment flood the younger rider’s face, but when Alex just laughs and starts teasing, Pecco relaxes. Settles down into it, and just lets himself be baffled and amused even as he snarks back. Marc eyes them, wondering if they were like this when they were younger and around each other more. It's strange to see Pecco this way, even when they were in the bedroom there was usually this air of admiration and carefulness on the younger man's face. Now though, he finally looks his age, finally looks a bit more humanely animated. Interesting.

Anyway, it’s a nice sight for Marc in truth, simply just to see his brother vaguely getting along with another rider. That had been an unfortunate side effect of Marc’s own isolation; Alex was guilty by association. He imagines a world where nothing with Valentino ever happened, where Alex had friends everywhere and rode with people across the globe, not just those in Spain. Watching them argue again, this time with that edge of sharp playfulness that he rarely sees in Pecco, Marc finds he can handle a bit of drama if he can see his brother so open.

None of it matters anyway.

He is just about to tell them to knock it off, tackle whatever game plan they will have going forward while the mood is still light, before a ringing cuts through the silence. It’s Pecco’s phone, vibrating on the kitchen table where it had been dropped when the Italian had started laughing.

The room goes quiet, tension returning with even more pressure behind it. Alex’s spine becomes stiff, Pecco’s face goes drawn, and any pseudo-friendliness that had erupted between the two is severed in an instant. Marc just swallows.

Even upside down, he still recognizes what it says until his stomach pinches and the humor is completely annihilated.

Incoming call.

Valentino.

End Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Bezz tells him.

Like that night in 2016, when the club music pulsed around him and the younger rider had shown up at his elbow, angry-eyed and concerned, murmuring that ‘Pecco is too drunk and has Marquez cornered’ as if he was saying it for Marc’s sake instead. And in that moment, so long ago, Vale had been angry, so angry. Had stormed over like some great monsoon, slammed his way in and around and between, anywhere he could get to make it all go away.

This time it is over the phone, but his student’s voice sounds the same as it did all those years ago. Low, nervous, and young. Vale almost gets a flash of teenage Bezz in his head when he hears it, almost feels the pulsing club beat in his veins and that fiery temper gasps to life.

But he just…. he can’t anymore. Can’t find it in himself to stoke the flame until it only burns brighter. Instead he breathes it in, tastes the cinder and ash and death, and then expels it out with lurched movement. Watches it fall to the floor, eyes the way it writhes and screams and is red red red. Like the team Marc will be riding for next year, like blood on that old bite, like the feeling of sex, like the color of Pecco’s cheeks on the podium in Misano, like the sunrise early in the morning in Malaysia, almost ten years ago now. Like all the regrets that have built over the years, making him look back and fear he was wrong.

Beautiful. And terrible.

“Vale?” Bezz calls, voice crackling over the phone, and he hangs up instantly before the rattling sound of his breath can be heard. It’s rude, he is well aware, and when his mind clears a little he sends an apology text, whips up something about one of the dogs bumping into him and making his phone crash to the floor. He doesn’t think Bezz believes him, if the short response says anything, but whatever. Everyone at this point is well aware how much he lies.

The kitchen counter digs into his back as he stands there, as what was said,  what was shared, tosses back and forth with the frothing wave of his mind.

Pecco and Marc are dating.

It’s like circus music is playing in his head, clowns rampaging through with painted-on smiles, noses honking as they laugh laugh laugh at him.

Because Pecco and Marc are dating.

Officially now, not in that sad boy sleeping together way that his student seemed to carry around with him these days, head low and looking quietly pleased yet pained. Official enough for everyone to know. Bezz had mentioned people blowing up Pecco’s phone, which means that by tomorrow, the entire MotoGP world will be aware. Official enough to tell their team, official enough to warrant meeting with Ducati, apparently.

He feels a little bit hollow at that. At the proclamation-esque nature of it all. When he found out they were sleeping together, it had been private, in some hotel room in The States, and then later in the VR46 motorhome. Quiet, down low, a place he could digest and handle it, a situation that made sense.

This is not that, this is proudly showing it all off, and he feels… he feels… jealous.

Him and Marc never… they never did technically tell anyone back then. Most people assumed, or found out, or just believed what they believed. Not a secret, not hidden at all in fact, but never announced. Never shouted to the world like it was something important. They just were together and then they were not, and everyone knew. There was no mass story going out to people, no HR meetings, no words spreading like wildfire coming from their own lips. At one time Marc even wanted to hide it, wanted Vale to not even touch him in public.

This is not that.

It makes him feel wrong.

A light-headed sensation overtakes him as he numbly stares out of the kitchen, eyeing all the empty spaces on the living room walls that he never bothered to fill. The ones of Marc that used to exist in the open, instead of where they are now, holed up in that little room that he hasn’t gone in for over a year now. As he notices them, notices the way it is so obviously devoid of something he wonders if that is what people see when they look at him.

A pathetic thought, one he knows isn’t true because he is Valentino Rossi, he is the god of MotoGP, but… but… but Pecco is just Pecco. A brilliant rider, a kind man, but he is no god. Yet Marc still wanted him enough to make their relationship public, enough to throw off the memories of Vale like they had been weighing him down and stride into the beyond.

He wonders if they are in love. He wonders if they get that feeling he used to get. That bubbly, fascinated, oppressive feeling. The one that stole his sense away and made every single breath about Marc. The kind that turned his generosity and kindness into something thick and tar-like, clinging onto every single part of the younger man and refusing to let go. It was a curse on both of them. Pain and pleasure, two sides of the same coin that they kept flipping over and over again depending on who was the angriest. Back then it was usually Vale. Now? It is most often Marc, and the pleasure side has rubbed away until all that is left is a blank slate. Pain, and nothing.

Somehow he thinks it is not the same for them. From Pecco it is probably light, sweet, simple. He probably holds Marc’s hand all soft-like and whispers lovely words that are honest. Marc probably likes it, blooms like a flower under the gentleness in that perfect way he did with Vale when they forgot to be vicious with each other.

It hurts. God does it hurt. Hurts so bad that he is disarmed completely, uncontrollably so. If Marc was here right now he would lose the war in an instant, he would bend and break and end up on his knees like all of those years ago. His pride would be stolen, and he wonders what would become of him then. Because who is he without it all?

Ever since Misano, when he found out about Marc and Pecco and whatever strange thing they were then, he had felt lost. Untethered and out at sea. He didn’t go to any more races after Misano, couldn’t bring himself to. But he watched them all, stared at every interaction he could find with something he wished was hate in his heart.

Perhaps he is losing it, or perhaps he lost it years ago. That would be the only explanation. For the bizarre calm that settles over him, that pushes away all the torment and has him reaching for a phone.

He is calling before he even thinks about it. Pecco picks up on the sixth ring, too long. He must be nervous. It’s not comforting at all.

“Vale,” comes a low voice. The sound of it has him clenching his fist, has the need to be cruel he always gets when he is hurt almost choke him.

He tries to breathe through it.

“Ah, I heard,” is all he says, not even trying to pretend right now. He feels too exhausted, too slow-brained, too old.

A shifting noise.

“I am with Marc right now,” are the next words, terse and pointed, and Vale pinches his eyes shut. At least he gets a warning this time, at least he doesn’t have to hear the surprise of Marc’s voice curling through the speaker, that awful feeling from Aragon. At least.

“Oh,” he says, and tries to force his voice to un-wobble, “tell him I say hello.”

Silence.

“I will.”

He needs to sit down. Needs to get a hold of himself. Here he is, on the phone with his student who he loves like a brother, waiting desperately to see if he can hear even a breath from the man said student is dating. It’s… it’s like some sort of Shakespearean tragedy, except that he isn’t even strong enough right now to be the main character. That is Pecco, voice even and having the one thing Vale hates and wants and needs more than anything in the world. Imagine that; a story where Valentino Rossi is not the focus. Uccio would kill him for even having such a thought.

“Bezz called you?” Pecco eventually says when it becomes clear that Vale cannot form words on his tongue. He nods before remembering it is over the phone and feels embarrassment pile on top of all the other bad emotions.

“Yes,” he finally gets out, and then makes himself laugh to try and grab hold of some semblance of control, “reported like a scout a few minutes ago. I take it the boys are… reacting well.”

A dry laugh, higher pitched than normal and almost reedy.

“About as well as you are, but Vale I think we should have this conversation in per-”

“Are you happy?”

Quiet. Then Pecco speaks in a stiff voice.

“Yes I am, now-”

“I’m not talking to you.”

He is on the couch now, still staring at those empty spots. Imagining them filled up, imagining a world where none of the hell had ever happened. Where Marc never left him, where Marc loved him, where none of what made the world flip inside-out ever happened.

In that world he would have been right next to the younger man at every championship. He would have clutched him close, lifted him to the sky like he did after the first one in 2013. And he would have been there for 2020, sitting beside Marc’s hospital bed and only being worried. Alex would not have been angry at him, and Marc would have opened his eyes and asked for a kiss not because he needed to remember but because that is what they do. Then, throughout all the others, Vale would have been there to soothe, to hold, to try and make the pain go away. He wouldn’t have done what he actually did, obsess and research, and ignore the pulsing ache of it all.

In that world Marc would have been the first person he went to after he announced his retirement, he would have had the younger man hold him close and make it all go away. And then that last day, he would have reached out to grab that sturdy shoulder, stared with a smile and Marc would have looked back. Would have cheered his name and cried with him like he had done before.

A different world. Perhaps a better one.

“I want to talk to him,” he says slowly, and a hissed-out noise comes through the speaker. It sounds protective, even more so when Pecco tries to deny him. But there is a shuffle, terse words exchanged, a phone switching hands, and Vale knows instantly that it is not Pecco who is listening now. Can feel a warm tingle spread from where the black screen of his phone meets his ear, can almost feel the soft puffs of breath against his cheek.

“Valentino,” Marc murmurs, and the sound of his voice is enough to make Vale sink back, curl into his couch the way they used to when they watched movies, same spot and everything. He still fits there perfectly, although the shape is off without another person curled into him.

He shuts his eyes and decides he wants to lie to himself right now. Ignores even the reason that he called, too desperate to hear more of Marc’s voice without any anger.

“Testing soon,” he whispers like he might in that other world, “are you excited for the red?”

He hears something like a baffled laugh, and inside of his mind, he begs for Marc to let him pretend, like they did last year, pressing each other against bathroom stalls and acting like kids again.

“I am,” Marc finally says, voice blank and apparently deciding to follow along, “I am more excited to win again.”

Vale smiles. Yes, he can imagine Marc is. Much like he was back in 2013 when he finally clawed his way back on a Yamaha, or 2015 when he realized he had a chance for the title.

That last thought sours his stomach, but he represses it. Adds a bit of tease to his voice like he is allowed.

“I think it will suit you. Red was always your color, although it will be strange to not see orange. Even stranger than this year, I think.”

A snort, almost in disbelief.

“It’d be like seeing you at Honda.”

“Hey,” Vale objects instantly, “I rode for them. Won three championships with them too.”

“Ah… not my Honda though.”

He considers that. Feels how it sounds true. Marc’s Honda, the team that had curved around him in a protective shield, that had chosen him as a child and created the prophecy that led to the youngest and only rookie MotoGP champion in history. Yes, Vale rode for Honda. But he never was Honda the way Marc is. Or he supposes, used to be.

Perhaps the same thing will happen with Ducati. Vale had his own slice of hell with them, but… but Marc won’t. In his mind he sees it clearly; Marc will win so much that Ducati will become his the way Honda was. And he will become theirs in turn, wrap himself close to them until they love him like people seem to do so easily. Like Vale still…

“You’re right,” he says to avoid that thought, “imagine if we had ever been teammates.”

“We would have killed each other.”

“Would have been a good show though, no?”

Another small laugh. It helps with the pretense enough to make him smile. In this world they call like this all the time. In this world he is used to hearing the sound of humor through a phone, and he doesn’t avoid MotoGP the way he always seems to now.

It probably exists somewhere, this world. A parallel universe that is layered over top theirs, or a while different planet, light years away. He can’t help the envy that spikes through him toward that Valentino. What was the difference, he wonders. What saved it all, what made everything right? Him? Marc?

Or both of them?

“I think you will beat Pecco,” he says stupidly, and ignores the little hitched noise he hears, “I hope you don’t, but I think you will. I also hope he isn’t listening.”

“He’s not. They left when I took the phone.”

So they are alone. As alone as you can be over a phone, at least. Marc is…. maybe it is the distance, maybe it is the fact that they can’t see each other, but Marc is indulging him like he hasn’t done in years. Even Vale can hear the traces of old fondness there, and he greedily devours them like a gluttonous monster, takes every little treat Marc offers up, lets them slide down his throat to make his stomach bubble.

They are alone.

“I didn’t think he would allow that,” Vale voices.

“Why, because you wouldn’t have?”

“Exactly.”

That was a bit much, traces of that old possessiveness leaking back in over a man he hasn’t been able to call his in almost ten years now. He knows Marc picks up on it because the air somehow goes frosty even with the many miles they are apart. He wonders how cold it would be if they were standing right next to each other, if they were touching. He imagines his skin being frozen solid and has to hold back a shudder. God.

“Do you still have that bite scar?”

More than a bit much. A lot much in fact, but he doesn’t regret a thing.

“Stop it,” Marc says immediately.

Vale shifts down lower, lets his voice go deep and soft and feels it in his chest like fireworks.

“Stop what?”

“Stop pretending.”

Ah. So he understood exactly what was happening. Of course he did, he would have known from the moment Vale spoke to him like that, like he used to. He wonders why the younger man let it continue instead of stopping it in its tracks. Amusement maybe, or if he is being naïve, perhaps some small shred of nostalgic pleasure.

“You didn’t answer my question,” is all he counters with, and gets a frustrated noise in return.

“You called Pecco, not me. Why ask me that?”

“To get an answer.”

“And if I say yes?”

He pauses and thinks about that.

“I would believe you. So tell me.”

“You are annoying.”

“Are you happy?”

It rings out like a bell, almost echoes around the room somehow, even though he almost whispered it. He doesn’t know how he will react if Marc says yes in truth, even though he said he would believe it. Also doesn’t know how he would react if he says no. But to be fair, he has never behaved around Marc as he should, even now. He hates the man, yet here he is on the phone, lounging in memories and possibilities and asking if he is happy.

A laugh bubbles up from the other side, loud and unhinged and he can see it perfectly. Head thrown back, face crinkling, that mouth split wide open, Marc was always loud in his amusement, even if it was flavored with mania the way this one is.  If he was here right now it would light up the room, intensify the colors and make everything so much warmer.

“You don’t have the right to ask me that, not after everything,” Marc says meanly,  “I don’t know why I allowed this little power trip of yours, I’m hanging up.”

“Please, it’s not… it’s not a power thing. I just want to know.”

“Why is it so important to you?” Comes a bitter question, all teeth even without the visual, and Vale closes his eyes, imagining the feeling. Sharpness scraping his neck, nipping at his bottom lip, undoing him like the days of old. He can almost feel it, can almost feel blood pooling under his skin like it is waiting to be torn from his body.

He should lie. He should say something about making sure Pecco is not being toyed with, make the insinuation that Marc would do such a thing clear. Or maybe he should laugh it off, say he hopes Marc is unhappy or something equally petty. It would make the most sense, it would pair well with the hate-but-not he feels. Like red wine and cheese.

Somehow he can’t.

“I need it.”

A cruel laugh.

“I am. I am happy, happier than I have ever been. I sleep well, I eat well, I ride even better. My arm only hurts sometimes, my eye rarely, and the Ducati bike should be good. My family is good, my grandfather is dead but we have handled it, the two dogs are healthy. I’ve moved away from home, and Alex says it looks like a prison, but it is nothing like the ranch so I am happy with it. I have a new car, I have a new team, I have a future, and yet here you are continuously trying to drag me back to the past. Is that enough? Are you satisfied? Do you want more?”

Vale swallows. Gorges himself once more and still feels hungry.

“I am sorry about your grandfather,” he offers up.

“Oh, fuck you.”

And Marc hangs up.

He stares at the phone for a while, at the little connection he had to Marc now gone in a blink of an eye. He wonders if Pecco has come back in, if he is holding Marc gently, using soothing words. Or maybe Marc stopped caring the second Vale’s voice was gone, maybe he laughed and they brushed it all off. Maybe they are on a different topic. Maybe Vale doesn’t matter at all.

That maybe hurts the most. So he calls once more and it is Pecco who answers this time. Somehow, Vale gets the feeling that Marc is nowhere near the younger rider right now. It makes him feel more human.

“Please don’t do that again,” Pecco says tiredly, “it wasn’t fun.”

“Is he mad at you?”

“Not me.”

Right. That makes sense, why would he be mad at Pecco.

“Are you really…”

A sigh.

“Yes. Yeah Vale, we are. Are you…okay with it?”

He considers lying about that one, but he has already been so honest today. If he wanted to lie he would have to muscle everything back down again, and he is too old to be able to do that in an instant.

“I will never be,” he responds quietly and Pecco makes a noise like he is rather unsurprised.

“And if you have to be? I won’t… I can’t not be dating him around you. I can’t pretend like he doesn’t exist or listen to you say cruel things, or act like any of it is okay. Not like everyone else still does, not anymore.”

That’s fair. Vale can understand all of that. He sometimes hates himself as he sits there and allows the venom to drip from his tongue. Guilt eating at him, a newer emotion that has slowly built the more he aged. It had been shredded after Valencia in 2023, re-shredded during Aragon. But this time it is back, titanium strong, and he really isn’t sure how to get rid of it now.

“I don’t want you to. Just…. I won’t pretend either. To like this, when I still…”

“Hate him?”

“Sure.”

“Vale…”

He despises that tone of voice, the softness, the generosity, the delicate way people always talk about Marc around him.  It burns even more because Pecco has what he wants now more than ever. It feels like condescension, the kind that sets him on edge and makes disgust roil in his stomach. It’s not, Pecco is too sweet for that, but it rankles him all the same

“I am glad you have what you want,” he says carefully, “I just wish it wasn’t him.”

An intake of breath.

“Because you think he will hurt me? Or because you still-”

“Don’t- please don’t say that,” Vale winces out, and Pecco goes quiet.

“Okay, okay. Are you going to be mad at me forever?”

“I’m not mad at you Francesco.”

Then he repeats those same words he said in Misano, when he thought it would just be sex, that Marc would drop Pecco like he did so many other people and hurt him. He had been wrong, and that is maybe the worst part of it all. As is the fact that he says it with full honesty, the kind that strips him bare.

“I understand,” he murmurs, “I understand.”

***

He doesn’t watch the award ceremony, wouldn’t be able to handle seeing them standing where he once stood, eyes only for each other the way he and Marc used to be. It would be bitter torture, but he sees the pictures anyway. Marc looks good, better than he has since 2020 really, and he honestly doesn’t pay much attention to Pecco. What he does see is the way the younger rider’s hand has a magnet to Marc’s lower back. It’s not a fun sight.

The other academy riders seem to be waiting for things to explode, almost like they did way back in 2014 when he and Marc were fighting so much. Wary expressions, distance that grows tenser and tenser each day, and their refusal to even go near the topic of Marc anymore. Big-eyed Cele had even straight up hid behind a tree one time when he made a sound that was vaguely close to the other man’s name.

Vale isn’t actually the one who talks about it anymore, in fact he avoids even going near a single thing that reminds him of Marc. It’s mostly Uccio and sometimes Bezz, although he is also much more pensive these days. The most poison comes from the former, and he always looks startled when the others ignore him

“He is doing it again, just to get to you,” His old friend hisses one day as they are sitting in the office. Vale hadn’t even been talking about Marc, had just referenced something to do with Pecco’s ski trip with Ducati (and Marc) that he is on right now, and Uccio went off.

“When he wins the title, he will drop Pecco, just you wait.”

When, not if. Underneath all the hate, Uccio has as much faith in Marc as Vale does. It’s an interesting thought, and he turns to his old friend with a critical eye.

“You believe he will beat Pecco?”

A scoff.

“Of course, he is like you so he will win.”

Like Vale? That has always been a thought he had in the past, but… but now he isn’t sure. It doesn’t feel right to think, and it had rubbed him the wrong way when it came out of Uccio’s mouth. Like a shirt that looks right in the store but is two-sizes too small when you try it on at home.

He still tends to view it as them versus everyone else. Vale and Marc are different, Vale and Marc are strange, Vale and Marc are crazier than any other person alive. Even back when they rode together people would whisper such a thing. In 2011 when he chose Marc as his first student, he remembers the way all the other riders spoke on it at the after-party. Not surprised by his choice, laughing as they call Marc an alien, as they separate him out because he is different from them.

At the time he had assumed it was the same type of difference. Vicious, like him. Cruel, like him. Intense, like him. He had felt the connection so fierce and strong, stronger than even his one with Uccio, that he slapped a claim on Marc’s forehead with a wild grin. ‘This one is mine’ he crowed obnoxiously, ‘because he is me’.

But that isn’t…. that isn’t true. If Marc was like him, he would be in the same place; empty, hurting, and lost. He would be chasing after a championship on impossible feet, he would be slowed and old and lesser than.  He wouldn’t be like he is now, brilliantly bright, moving forward, and all set to crush the competition once more. He wouldn’t be dating Pecco, he wouldn’t have been with so many people over the years. Vale hasn’t…. Vale hasn’t slept with anyone but Marc since 2012. He tried, tried very hard, and there was no shortage of interested people.

One of his teammates from WEC a couple of years ago had put a hand on his thigh, but he politely shifted the touch away. A girl in some random club in Ibiza pressed up against him, but he had to walk away. Even some pretty looking thing, hair buzzed short and dyed pink, had fallen to their knees and he had just shut his eyes and said no.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it.

But Marc could, Marc can. The younger man has shrugged off the past with ease, and here he is again, a champion in waiting, prowling like a panther and knowing full well that victory is within his grasp.

2015 was the last time Vale had even felt close to that, that old flavor of confidence singing through him. He should have won that year, could have. But he… he wasn’t good enough.

The thought slices him open, a surprise even to himself. It’s the first time he has ever even allowed it to cross his mind

“Why did I lose in 2015?” He asks quietly instead of continuing their previous thread of conversation, and Uccio shoots him a confused look. The dimly lit office casts shadows on his face as his eyes screw up with hate, and Vale wonders when his friend started to look so mean.

“Because Marquez made you lose,” he spits like curse, and Vale sighs.

“When?”

“Phillips Island, Sepang, Valencia, the whole season.”

Vale leans back in his chair, stares at the ceiling. The same old story, but for the first time he wonders.

“Tell me how in Phillips Island.”

“Why are you asking what you already know?” Uccio questions instead of responding to Vale’s prompt. When he doesn’t answer, the other man sighs.

“He slowed down in front of you so you couldn’t get a higher position. You saw the data.”

He feels pensive look take over his  face. He had seen the data, had seen it all. There was no arguing against that, he has analyzed enough telemetry over the years to know when a rider is purposely slowing down. But for some reason he slides right past it, shoves the information to the back of his mind as if saving it for later.

“Sepang then, I got second. Marc retired, he had no effect on it.”

“He followed you the entire race, you wasted time on him,” Uccio reminds him, and Vale tilts his head down. Finds a vague panicked look on the man’s face and wonders why that is.

“I chose to answer the pressure, I chose it. Then Valencia, with the penalty.”

“Inarguably his fault!”

“I kicked him.”

Silence. Uccio is staring at him and If Vale could, he would be staring at himself. He has always denied that, even inside. Never once considered the opposite, but when it fell from his mouth, it felt like truth.

He had. He had kicked Marc down in a moment of pure, stupid anger. Anger that still flickers there, but with the new distance he has gotten, he is able to observe it. He wonders when it started to fester so much. It looks older, far older than ten years anyways.

“I got a penalty for something I did,” he says hollowly, regretfully, “I deserved it.”

The stale air of the office is starting to make breathing difficult, as is the way his old friend is leaning close, eyes cold and mean and more distant than Vale has ever seen him.

“Where is this coming from? Pecco? Will you even allow yourself to become blinded like he is? Are you that stupid?” Uccio says lowly, and it is cruel. It sounds like Vale used to be when he spoke about Marc; paranoid, bitter, sharp. It sounds ridiculous.

“This has nothing to do with Pecco,” he replies tiredly, and presses a hand to his own forehead, feels the sweat there. It isn’t even warm in the office, but he is burning up. Strange.

“I am just… I can’t look back and see it like I did. I can’t feel the fire of it all, can’t seem to despise so easily. Not when he has moved on so well, not when he is happy, not when he has… has forgotten about me.”

It hurts to say out loud, mostly because it is true. A knowledge that has pinched at him since Valencia in 2023; Marc does not care anymore. He can’t even look back at what happened with Pecco and say it is proof, because they are dating. Marc wants him, not because of Vale at all. So what does he have left?

Uccio is staring at him, a deranged look in his eye, and Vale waits. Then it comes, as expected as a medicane during October.

An incredulous laugh shakes the air, makes his hair stand on end and spins his stomach with its madness.  Uccio has shifted to stand, staring down at Vale, hunched over in the office chair as he is. He looks cold and angry and vicious, like a reflection of all that Vale has been since 2015.

“You still love him,” comes the amazed realization, and Vale flinches. The words spoken out loud are like a hundred knives to the chest.

“Please don’t say that,” he murmurs weakly, and can’t stop the way his voice cracks. His old friend looks horrified.

“He has ruined you,” Uccio declares with sternness laced through his tone, “I have tried to bring you back, to save you from it all. You’re more than this sad shell of a man, you are supposed to be more than everything!”

Vale pinches his eyes shut to it all, to the furrowed brows, to the way Uccio spewing all of this forth feels like it is coming from himself. That vicious little voice that hisses in the back of his head manifests, paranoid and cruel.

“You are a god, you are the greatest rider in MotoGP history, you are above everyone, and yet you allow this… this humanity to weaken you. You allow him to weaken you. What is wrong with you?”

God, a god. What he has believed for years, that he is more than everyone else. Laughed down at them from his throne, played his games, treated them like pawns or interesting obstacles because the world is his playground and everything is a joke. They all worship him, so why should he not?

But gods don’t feel like this. Gods don’t fear like this, gods don’t get tired and weak and done with it all, gods don’t look back on things and feel a twinge of something when they realize they had been…

That they had been wrong.

“I have watched that… that creature dig his claws into you for too long, I have seen you fall away too often. He is your weakness that you were meant to have cut out, not cling onto so pathetically. Love? Love isn’t real Vale, he never loved you and he never will again. All you are doing is chasing after something that never existed!”

“Stop,” Vale whispers, feeling sick with it all. Uccio has shifted closer, and the heat from his anger-flushed skin is radiating across Vale’s body. Stifling, poisoning, he feels it in his heart and soul, a burning ache ache ache.

“What, do you think he will come back to you? Do you think he will finally want you? Do you think he ever did? No, he just used you, he hurt you, he hates you.”

“Stop it,” Vale says a little louder, and he is trapped here. Limbs locked up, he can’t move, panic building in his chest. It’s true, it’s false, it’s real, it’s fake, it’s everything twining together to shake him. Flashes of Marc when he was younger, sweet-faced and smiling, coltish and terrifying in equal parts. Nights spent pressed together and whispering little jokes, days spent riding together until their hearts beat the same. Shattered and destroyed by Sepang and the years that came after, until it all feels fake made up by his own mind.

“You know what he is, yet you allow him to cut you down time and time again. Weakening yourself like you are doing him a favor, opening it all up for him to pour poison in once more. He is disgusted by it you know, he hates you, he always has.”

“I know,” Vale breathes.

It’s too much. These are his thoughts, his voice, this is everything they have ever said compiled into one moment. Years of bitterness condensed down to one moment and only now does he realize how it sounds. Only now does he understand how it chipped away at him, because right now Uccio has taken a sledgehammer to everything that he is.

The room is spinning, but Vale can’t move as a hand comes to rest on his shoulder, as a face moves closer. Nails dig into his skin and he wants to run away.

“You do not feel these ridiculous things,” Uccio murmurs, “you win, you ride, you destroy them all. You hold yourself above the rest even now, you treat them like subjects, you do not mourn for something that is a sickness. You do not love what almost killed you, you do not turn your back away from it all, you do not get to do this to me.”

“This is not about you,” he snaps out instinctively, and Uccio glares at him.

“Maybe not, but I have done too much work to let you ruin this. Forget him, forget what you will never have. He is Pecco’s now, not yours.”

That last bit makes him snap. ‘Pecco’s’ as if Marc is some kind of toy to be tossed around. It flares through him enough to rip him up and out of his seat, disgust roiling through his stomach. Marc is a lot of things. Good and bad, and maybe once upon a time Vale viewed him like that. But… but somewhere in all the bad, he became what he is now; the most beautiful, dangerous, hellish man that Vale knows. A person who he hates and adores and fears and craves and needs and pushes away all in one. More than anyone, but not inhuman or beastly or wrong. More than anyone to Vale.

Because Vale loves him.

“Stop it!” he barks, the anger that had stayed curled up inside, cowering from the fear, flaring to life, and he steps forward until Uccio falters back, face startled.

“Stop it, stop it, you don’t get to- I know! I know all of this, I understand, I feel it! I have for years! So stop, you are just making it worse, like you always do.”

“Me?” Uccio snarls back, “Me? I have only ever loved you, I have only ever helped you, I have only ever lifted you up so everyone else can see what I always do. I have never hurt you, I have never forsaken you, I have never done what he does.”

“He is- I don’t- stop it. Just stop it, all you are doing is making me hate you.”

He watches Uccio’s face tremble. Then he is pushing closer than ever, breath skating over Vale’s skin and eyes mean mean mean. A small smile curls across his mouth and the next words come out like a king, a command almost. Not any way he has ever heard his friend speak before. It’s like watching an avalanche and knowing you can do nothing to stop it.

“No. No you do not get to hate me. I will destroy all of this, I will cut off the illness before it spreads. You are not allowed to love him again, not after everything I did to make sure that you would hate him forever! Not after I had to lie to your fucking face to get you to even see the truth!”

In an instant it all slows down.

Panting. Heavy breathing and rage-filled eyes. The air crackles, but Vale hardly notices it.

Because his mind has slammed to a stop, his own breath going shallower as he stumbles over one phrase and one phrase alone. It makes him feel cornered by a predator, it makes his hands start to shake and only after a few seconds does Uccio seem to understand what he said. Turns white as a sheet, then steps back.

Not after I had to lie

“What does that mean?” Vale whispers, and Uccio shakes his head instantly, eyes wide and darting like he is searching for some kind of escape.

“Nothing, I just- I misspoke, I meant that I had to-”

“You said you lied.”

The other man swallows. Steps back even more and Vale is following without thinking. He feels a sound in his head that is a lot like a distant scream, and another part of him is dying right here and now. Uccio looks scared, more scared than Vale has ever seen him. It gives him no satisfaction, just a gaping terror of his own.

“I-I-I-”

Then the other man’s breath hitches as he smacks into the wall. Vale stares at him, and for the very first time, he wonders if it is actually Uccio who is most like him. If he believes he is above them all, if he spins tales, if he bullshits, if he makes up things just to convince everyone to do what he needs them to do. If he lies, if he cheats, if he forces the world into whatever state that would serve him best.

And… and if he does that to Vale too.

“Alessio, what have you lied to me about?”

End Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Marc does not yell. He curses at Valentino as he stands up, very calmly ends the call, then looks up to stare seriously at the ceiling of the motorhome. Takes a deep breath, tries to center himself, then tries to center himself, then tries to center himself, then tries to center himself, then tries to-

It doesn’t work. He opens his eyes, smiles peacefully at the wall.

Then he throws Pecco’s phone so hard against it that the screen shatters on impact.

After that he actually does begin to yell.

“FUCKER.”

From outside the motorhome he hears someone startle, hears feet scramble and both Italian and Catalan curses get thrown around. Alex is slamming inside in the next moment, Pecco behind him with saucer-wide eyes, but Marc doesn’t care. He doesn’t even know what to do with his body as he stands there, almost vibrating in anger.

“My-my phone,” Pecco mumbles in quiet distress, and Marc whips around, turns a poisonous glare on him and feels like an anaconda wrapped around a deer’s body.

“I will get it fixed,” he hisses, and the younger man’s eyes snap to him, fearful respect flashing there as he nods weakly.

“What happened?” Alex says slowly as he gingerly steps toward Marc. His hands are raised like he is attempting to calm a startled horse, and Marc wants to throw something at him too. If he could he would take the whole world and throw it away right now, he needs none of it. He doesn’t need the mess that is his life, he doesn’t need Valentino’s mind games, he doesn’t need to still be stuck in that same spot he has been nailed to for the past ten years.

“Nothing,” he pants out, holding his entire being stiff so he doesn’t lash out, “we had a lovely chat, it was great! You know, he apologized for everything that has ever happened invited me to the ranch, said we should consider marriage, the works. Fantastic conversation, I am so glad it happened.”

“Really?” Pecco asks from where he is crouched down on the floor, picking up his phone with careful fingers and a mournful expression. It comes out far too genuine and makes Marc want to laugh even as he holds back everything else.

“What do you think?’ Alex snaps at him, and then turns to Marc, expression steady and soft

“Okay, okay, he’s shit, we knew this, so how about we-”

“No,” Marc denies, stepping back from his brother’s outstretched hand and laughing, “no I’m great, this is great. None of it matters anyways, this is all bullshit, and I don’t care about any of it. Not about him, not about this, not about that stupid fucking call and-”

His voice chokes and he whips around until they can’t see his face, until they can’t see his eyes, until they can’t see the way that he-

Fuck.

“I’m great,” he repeats, squeezes his eyes tight and blinks away anything that might be there, that might be blurring his vision. Pathetic because none of this matters, he doesn’t care and-

“Take him and leave,” he finally spits out, turning to Pecco and narrowing his eyes. The younger man furrows his brow, looking unsure and childishly nervous. He has stood up now, phone clutched in his hand and hovering right behind Alex’s shoulder like he is hiding.

“But he’s not, um, here anymore.”

Marc blinks slowly. Waits.

5

4

3

2

1

*Ring Ring Ring*

Right on fucking schedule. He knows Valentino too well.

“I’m not repeating myself.”

Pecco nods, winces down at his phone and the shattered screen that somehow still works. Slinks out the door with it pressed against his ear but does not say a thing until he is gone. Marc can tell, can hear the muffled words getting fainter and fainter as Pecco walks away.

The tension does not go with him. No, it stays there gets worse almost because around other people Marc may be able to keep it up, to hold himself decently steady, to not... not…

He is sinking down to the couch after a long stretch of silence, and Alex is there, arms curled around him. He still does not let himself cry, still holds his spine stiff, but he can’t stop the way his face twists into something horrific; rage, fear, pain, sadness, all of it mixed together. A death mask almost, a person caught as they are just as their heart stops.

“What did he say?” Alex murmurs and Marc shakes his head. He has tunnel visioned on the dent he left in the wall with Pecco’s phone, staring at it and wishing it could be Valentino’s face.

“Nothing,” he gets out, “nothing important. Asked me if I am excited for next year, made a few jokes. Told me I would beat Pecco, asked if I am happy.”

God. It sounds so stupid when he says it out loud, that such a mundane and basic conversation has made his chest flare with fiery rage. Simple words, a light voice, a smile he could hear over the phone. He wonders where Valentino was. Maybe he was leaning against the fence at the ranch, confidently staring out at the rolling hills and seeing his kingdom. Maybe he was in the garage, surrounded by rows and rows of bikes and merchandise and everything he has built. Maybe he wasn’t even home, maybe he was sitting at table in the back of the café in town, the one with his face plastered over the walls, and sipping a drink. Some sort of sweet one, he always preferred the kind that tasted like candy. Childish, even with that.

Wherever he had been, it would have been planned. No vulnerability allowed, he would have picked a spot that he felt the strongest, somewhere he could be reminded of his own power. Where he could talk so casually like he did, slide into that old role of mentor and friend and something more that he used to fill so easily.

And Marc? Perched on the sofa in his motorhome and feeling just as young as he always had. He slid back until he was lounging, curled up with his feet under his thighs, as he allowed it to happen. Had let his body settle into relaxed vulnerability, had shut his eyes when the older man laughed and imagined that they were in bed or on the couch, warm and pressed so close together they couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

Fuck. Fuck.

“That doesn’t sound… too bad,” Alex mumbles, and Marc almost flinches. He had forgotten his brother was still there.

“I told you, it was nothing important.”

Silence and then Alex sighs.

“Please stop Marc, just stop lying. I can’t help you if you do, no one can.”

Marc shifts until his brother’s touch falls away. His skin feels cold after, but he lets it. Allows it to frost over his body, chill his heart until he is stone-like. Breathes it in and when he exhales, swears it comes out in a fog, like the temperature has dropped below freezing.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he says stiffly.

“I’m fine.”

And he is. He is fine when testing starts and he wears red for the first time. He is fine when the bike purrs underneath him, and he laughs through it all. Takes corners sharp and hops off into his new garage, ice-cold perfection in every single movement. He is fine when break comes around and he attends a few events, grin on his face as he greets people, as he allows Pecco’s touch to linger and sees how the team begins to adore them. It's nice. No Honda, no Gresini, no warmth enough to make him melt, but it is nice.

At the end of December Ducati tells him that he will be attending a trip. Something in the mountains at the end of January, and his stomach drops. Because how the hell are they meant to ‘break up’ mid-January if shortly after they have to spend days together, filming and skiing and interviewing and ‘team bonding’. There goes that plan.

There goes everything else too, because can Marc even do that? The coldness he has been feeling lately has made him mean beyond all comparison. Can he pretend? Can he make himself act like one half of a couple? Can he touch and laugh and share a room like they no doubt will plan for? Can he keep it up for days at a time, can he act like he used to with Valentino?

He had no clue. But he knows he needs to thaw before then. So he does something he probably should have a while ago. Him and Pecco have been ‘dating’ for months now, after all.

‘Come to Cervera’ is the text he sends, and the younger rider immediately agrees. It makes him want to die. He leaves his concrete mansion in Madrid and finds his way home because he cannot thaw in the cold, protective prison he has created. Only at home can he even possibly do this.

Pecco is set to arrive two days later, and Marc’s family is confused at it all. They had been baffled when he bluntly said it, when he told them who he was’ dating’, when he lied to them about it all as Alex watched and shook his head.

“Isn’t he… one of the academy riders?” His mother asks tactfully, not saying the very loud part, and Marc sighs. Forces a smile.

“Yes, he is a good one though. You will like him.”

They are staring at him dubiously, and he wishes he could tell them the truth. But neither of his parents have ever been good at lying, his mother too blunt, his father too transparent, and he does not want to put them in that position. What’s another piece of falsity to him anyways, it’s all he does these days.

Him and Alex pick Pecco up at the airport when the day arrives, at evening time, and the entire car ride there, he stares out the passenger seat window and does his best not to think too hard about anything. The coldness is still there, and he knows he needs to get rid of it. He also knows that he shouldn’t let one stupid conversation from months ago still haunt him the way it always does. That doesn’t stop any of it, though.

It's not fair. Not fair that over and over again he finally reaches a point that he is beyond all care, where he can hear Valentino’s name and not feel his entire being snap to attention, and it is always ruined. In 2018 it was by his need for revenge. In 2020 it was by Jerez, which weakened him body and soul. In 2023 it was the burning feeling of being lesser than.

Maybe the ones in the past were fair. Maybe they were understandable, even, but this? One stupid conversation, bland and boring and mostly unremarkable. Casual words and a few jokes and Valentino asking if he is happy in that voice, and here it goes again.

He doesn’t love the older man. Not anymore, not at all, he refuses to allow that. But he despises how much he still thinks about him.

As they drive, sunset dappling over the rows of buildings they pass, he watches it all. The streetlights, the lit-up windows from apartments and houses, the light dusting of snow over everything, the orange-pink-red color of the sky. Spain is beautiful, even in the Winter. Home, even when Marc feels so cold.

A small part of him cringes at having Pecco here. The only person he had ever brought home was Valentino. It feels pathetically like a betrayal. It also feels like a twisted version of the past. They will sit around the dinner table like he did so many years ago. They will sleep in the guest bedroom like he did so many years ago. And all the while Marc will have to pretend, will sit on the couch and let Pecco’s hand drop to his thigh, will grasp fingers on top of the table for everyone to see, will laugh, maybe even place a kiss on a stubbly cheek. Like he did with Valentino, all of it.

“Where will he sleep,” Alex mumbles as they wait in the pick-up lane, and Marc shrugs.

“I imagine with me,” he responds blandly as he looks out the window, waiting.

“We are dating after all.”

The wince get gets from that is ignored. And he continues to wait in silence.

Then Pecco is there, swamped in a hoodie but shivering, a hat pulled low over his face so no one recognizes him. He waves slightly, awkwardly almost, and Marc doesn’t get out of the car. If their whole goal is to not be seen, then it is better if he stays. When he turns to Alex, his brother groans, and hops out to help the Italian rider with his bags.

Marc leans over, presses his cheek against the window and breathes. Attempts to right himself, attempt to strip away this bad mood that has plagued him since the words ‘are you happy’ flew into his ears.

God.

“Hello,” Pecco mumbles as he crawls into the back seat, and when Marc glances back he offers up a tentative smile. It’s sweet enough to make him give one of his own in response.

“Good flight?” He asks, and Pecco shrugs.

“Not really, but I am spoiled, unused to public planes these days.”

Marc arches a brow. While he flies private often, usually for team events or things like that, big names like him tend to be a special case. And besides, Pecco had said that like he had them even for personal reasons. That’s big-time money.

“Since when have you had a private plane?” He asks in confusion, and Pecco winces.

“Ah… not mine.”

Silence rings out and when Alex finally opens the door and hops into the driver seat with a frustrated look, he instantly reads the mood. Darts his eye between them and looks so tired already that Marc feels guilty for what it will probably be like at the end of the few days Pecco is here.

“It is this bad already?” His brother mumbles lightly, and Marc turns away again to stare out the window.

God. If he is going to start to be normal again, he needs to put a lot more elbow grease in than he assumed.

“You should have just taken Valentino’s plane,” he forces out, “maybe then we wouldn’t have to pick you up during rush hour.”

Silence, then something that was probably meant to be a laugh but came out rather like a choke fills the quiet, and Marc glances up at the mirror, sees Pecco run a hand through his hair and shake his head before he speaks, eyes bitter.

“None of them know I am here. They think I drove to see my family, so…”

Great. More lies.

“Right,” he whispers.

The rest of the car ride is spent in silence.

Introductions go well, his mother gains a soft spot for the Italian rider the instant he ducks his head and refuses to call her by her first name. His father looks far warier, but he warms up eventually, asking after Pecco’s family and listening in that intense way he always does, the one Marc inherited from him.

There is none of the protectiveness that they had with Valentino, but perhaps that is expected; he was young back then and Valentino was decidedly older. His parents knew that out of the two of them, Marc was more likely to get hurt. Here though, it is so obviously Pecco that he is brought back to that night in Indonesia, when that amalgamated version of Valentino and him became who he saw the younger man as.

Another twisted thought that he pushes away as he laughs and leans against Pecco at the late dinner his parents insist they have. Alex eyes him across the table and Marc ignores it. Presses in closer and pretends that any of the warmth underneath his ‘boyfriends’ skin can be transferred over to him.

That night, belly full of wine, Marc forces himself to forget about it all. Keeps sipping down the sweet red liquid until his head is fuzzy and his laughter is real. They move to the living room, put on some TV show his parents always talk about, and he sits so close to Pecco that their thighs are shoved together, snatches the younger man’s hands up and pretends it does not make him feel like the worst person alive. Alex sits on the sofa further away, watching them with a stiff expression. When Marc catches his eyes, he smiles, but still looks tense.

Marc tries not to think about it. That yet again he is making his brother hide his mess. He calls to his father to get another glass of wine and tries his best to avoid eye contact.

Two hours later he is sweaty and even tipsier, having needed to chug even more glasses just to get through the sticky feeling of being so close to another human being. It churns in his stomach, and when his parents finally announce they are going to bed, sliding off upstairs, Marc instantly rips himself away. Sighs in relief as his whole body cools and that prickling wrong feeling finally goes away for the first time since they picked up the younger man from the airport.

“Thanks,” Pecco says flatly, and he turns to find hurt eyes staring at him with something close to anger.

“It’s not you,” he mumbles, letting his dizzy head drop back as he closes his eyes and tries to relax, “it doesn’t feel right.”

“Cause you don’t want me like that?”

“No. Because you aren’t him.”

Silence, and he feels Alex watching him once more. He will blame that on the wine if they ask, say that it was a drunken thought that comes from nowhere. He is too tired to try and argue with himself and what his subconscious mind knows, too tired to feel bad about it.

“Jesus,” Pecco finally mumbles, and Marc just nods.

They fall into silence once more. The light from the TV flashes behind his eyelids as he lays there, and he lets it pull him into a trance. The faint sounds of Alex or Pecco shifting, the distant noises of nighttime in his old home, the warmed leather underneath his legs. It all wraps him tight and warm, and for the first time in months, he feels a slight thawing sensation. He is home and maybe it is not who it should be on the couch next to him, but he can pretend like this. Like this he feels safe, like this he can make himself relax just as he used to.

His mind is hazy for a while after that, stuck in limbo where he has no idea how long he has been leaning back, eyes shut. Only when someone speaks does he come back to his body slightly, hearing words he hardly comprehends.

“Is he asleep?” Whispers Pecco, and distantly Alex sighs.

“Yeah. When we were kids he used to fall asleep just like that, sitting up straight as we watched TV.  Even back then he refused to lower his guard, and he was so afraid of missing something that he would stay awake until his eyes started to drop.”

A breathy laugh.

“Sometimes you sound like the older one, you know that?”

“I know. But I have always been protective of him.”

“Does he even need that?”

“Not physically.”

More pensive silence, and then Alex sighs again. Marc can feel some sort of anticipation build in him for some reason, and when he hears a shifting and realizes that Alex’s voice is closer, he wonders where this conversation will go.

“Don’t be mad to him for this,” Alex says quietly, “he doesn’t want to hurt you. I know that you… have feelings for him, or whatever.

A small laugh.

“I do. Or did, I really don’t know anymore. And I’m not mad at him, I think I’m starting to get it. I mean, I excused Vale and still do because I know that… well I know what he felt. I can do the same for Marc.”

Then Pecco hesitates. When he speaks again, his voice is sad.

“He still….how is that even possible?”

Marc has no idea what that means. This cryptic talk is making his head spin, and he holds back a scowl as he lays there, tipsy curiosity making him need to hear what they talk about when they think he isn’t listening.

“I don’t know,” Alex mumbles, cutting through his thoughts, “It’s his only weakness. I’m telling you that not as his competitor right now, but as his friend, or whatever it is you two are. So please just… don’t use it against him. Too many people have, including Rossi.”

“No,” Pecco says instantly, “that’s not true. Vale hasn’t done that. He thinks Marc stopped caring a long time ago.”

A vague sort of laugh, and Alex’s voice is meaner when he speaks again.

“Defending him? I suppose that makes sense, you academy riders are so-”

“I’m not defending him,” Pecco breathes, “he would kill me for even saying this, for even… implying that he… well…”

Silence.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure if I believe that.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“No? Just an idiot?”

A hissed-out noise of irritation, and Alex snickers.

“Everyone has it wrong, you are the mean one,” Pecco mumbles, “when we were little, now. Always.”

A sigh.

“You were so easy to make fun of back then,” Alex breathes “still are.”

“Sadist.”

“Masochist.”

“Gross.”

They both laugh now, and Marc relaxes. He has no real idea what this conversation is about, only understanding bits and pieces even as he is right there for everything, but it is nice to hear Alex laugh and tease and be himself. So many people have spouted that his brother is shy, and they are mostly wrong. Alex is quiet, not shy. Thoughtful, not nervous. Cool and collected, not timid. And he’s got one hell of a vindictive streak. Usually it is aimed teasingly at Marc, and it is far more amusing from the outside.

“But really, I am over it all,” Pecco finally says, “I liked Marc, kind of obsessed over him for years but… I never really knew him. Now I do.”

“That’s funny. Got to know him and immediately lost feelings.”

“It’s hard to want someone when they are… entirely unavailable.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I… understand. More than you know.”

The conversation peters out from there and after another hour of vague back and forth, banter and arguments and little jokes, plus the blurry sounds of the TV, Marc finally lets himself move. Shifts up and stretches, opens his eyes and feels better than he has in a while. When he turns toward Pecco and Alex, he finds them sitting at the other end of the couch, staring at him with expression like they have been caught.

Marc grins.

“Chatty,” is all he says.

Then he stands up.

“I’m going to bed.”

As he pads off to the guest room where they will share, he decides that he won’t let this become bad. Pecco is something like over him, he has a future at Ducati to be excited about, and the past won’t hold him back.

But that chill still clings to his body as he attempts to sleep, no matter how tightly he pulls the covers around his shoulders.

***

Getting away from Spain, after Pecco’s visit which helped settle him slightly, makes him take a step back from it all and honestly, the whole thing is pretty funny in retrospect. They get to Madonna di Campiglio in late January together, and the whole team is so obnoxiously supportive that Marc has to stifle laughs behind his hands the whole time. It’s enough humor to make him feel that surge of laughter he always used to get, enough to make him decide that it is not him versus Pecco but him and Pecco versus this nonsense they have concocted for themselves. So he laughs and teases and tries to make the whole thing as fun as it probably should be.

 It gets even worse when the handler that is assigned to lead them around proudly shows them their room, large and grand with one bed and very ‘private’ as she repeatedly assures them. If Marc poorly makes a few innuendos just to see the woman fluster and try very hard to keep her professional composure, that is his business. And Pecco’s business. The younger man watches him with a long-suffering expression, looking embarrassed but regretfully amused.

“You are annoying, just like your brother,” he mumbles after Marc makes one too many references to possibly needing new bed by the end of the week.

Marc grins back.

“I am more annoying than my brother,” he corrects, “I was just uncomfortable around you before.”

“This is you comfortable? Can I return it?”

Marc cackles.

“Too late, we are ‘dating’, remember?”

Grumbles and Marc slides his arm into Pecco’s, smiles politely at everyone they pass who are eyeing them with a mixture of expressions. None look surprised, but this is normal. Davide had told them that the whole company knew by now about their ‘relationship’ and any cell phone pictures had been completely banned.

“Ducati is very happy for you,” Gigi had said brightly several times, to the point that every time he opened his mouth, Marc expected it like some sort of punctuation.

‘Look at how beautiful the mountains are, Ducati is very happy for you.’

‘We have been improving the aero and Ducati is very happy for you.’

‘I saw my grandchildren last week, look at some photos, oh, and Ducati is very happy for you.’

It gets kind of old, and when he mutters as much to Pecco that night at the big team dinner before festivities start the next day, the younger man suppresses a smile.

“Gigi was very worried,” he murmurs, leaning close, “he thought we would fight a lot, or something. I think he doesn’t even care about the ‘dating’ part he just likes that we get along.”

Marc darts a look at the older man, who instantly catches his eyes and gives a cheerful wave. It’s funny, Gigi is funny. Marc has known the older man for years, has admired his talent and sharp mind. It had been one of his requirements with Ducati actually; that Gigi Dall’Igna stays. One of many in fact, but he did hold those back until he was sure that they wanted him more than anyone else. Not that it took long.

“What, was he afraid he would have to choose?” Marc asks as he picks at his salad, wrinkling his nose at the lack of meat. They are in northern Italy, the land of cheese and hearty meals, yet they are eating this rabbit food. Ridiculous. It’s far too cold for anything but stew.

Pecco laughs.

“Hardly. The man is obsessed with you, there would be no real choice.”

A chord of envy, even a slight hint of bitterness, and Marc shoots him a look. Pecco sighs, leans back in his chair and lowers his voice.

“I am only a bit upset about that. Sometimes it feels like the minute they signed you, I faded into the background.”

“You are their champion,” Marc frowns, “they love you.”

“I know,” Pecco says instantly, “but I am not Marc Marquez. You are possibly the only person who could sway them, and I get it. I was obsessed with you too, you saw how I reacted when… well, when you came to me in the garage.”

Ah. That. Marc can’t really look back on any of it without feeling a pulse of self-hatred anymore. It was easy, when Pecco was a shadow of Valentino, a young rider who he was fucking and nothing more. He can’t really feel that way anymore, especially because he is well aware that the younger man had felt something like ‘more’ for him.

“I never apologized for that,” he mumbles, and Pecco shoots him a surprised look.

“What?”

“That night in Germany last year. I manipulated you. I knew how you saw me and just… didn’t care. It was cruel.”

 The younger man stares at him for a second, the clinking of glasses and forks against plates serving background music. This probably isn’t the best time to have this conversation, surrounded by their coworkers who believe they are happily dating, but Marc has never really been good the whole time and place thing.

“You think I didn’t know?”

What?

“What?” Marc says dumbly, and Pecco sighs, ears turning red as he shifts closer, darting his eyes around like he is making sure no one is listening.

“I was very aware what it was. I knew you were doing it to hurt Vale, I knew you had no real feelings for me, I knew what I was getting myself into. I’m not a child Marc, and I’m not a fool, no matter what you and Vale think. To me, getting a little bit of what I had been wanting for such a long time was enough. I got it, it hurt for a while, and now I am over it. Simple.”

Oh. It sounds so easy when Pecco puts it like that. Marc has… he has never really experienced any sort of thing like that. Most of his relationships had started and ended in a big clash, or were very very sex based. To want someone, have them, and then move on is… strange to him. He has never really been good at letting go. His room was same from his childhood until the year his mother stripped it of all merch. He lived in Cervera until he was thirty. He made Alex move out with him when he finally did. He stayed on the same team for years and years after being with them since childhood. Hell, he even wears the same color underwear whenever he races; blue for quali, red for race day. Like he has done since he was little.

And then there was everything with Valentino. His biggest want perhaps, and one he still can’t… can’t let go of.

 Marc is not often jealous of people. But as he sits here and listens to Pecco talk about it all so easily, he feels it burning in his chest; envy enough to power a thousand suns. It’s a strange feeling, but he cannot find that he hates it.

“I think you should be a therapist,” he says slowly with a soft smile, and Pecco snorts, looking pleased with himself.

“With the things Vale and Bezz tells me, I basically am.”

Marc is about to say something, maybe ask what that even means, maybe greedily demand that Pecco tells his everything about Valentino like an idiot, but a voice interrupts them and he is ripped back into the world, the one where he is at a company dinner and must be friendly to everyone, not just Pecco.

“The lovebirds have been ignoring us all night,” one of the engineers Marc is sat near crows, reaching over to smack him on the shoulder, “discussing the impending marriage?”

Marc slots back into his place easily enough even as he remains pensive, turns a fake pout onto him with sparkling eyes.

“Ah, I already proposed, but our Pecco said no,” he jokes, and the way everyone laughs and turns to mockingly scold Pecco is amusing, as is the way the younger man turns all child-like and flustered, ears red and eyes wide, whining as they tease him like a little brother. In the back of his mind, paired with a little bit of grief, Marc thinks of Honda and how they used to be with him.

God. He misses them.

 But as he sits there, surrounded by laughter, he decides that this is okay for now. He can grow to love them too, he can grow to be happy with them too. It fills him with something akin to hope, and he knows that whatever may happen, he will have to find the fun.

The rest of the weekend is just that; bubbling fun. The cold is irritating, makes him wrinkle up his nose, but he finds the laughter makes it all better. Racing down the ski slopes with Pecco and being soundly beat makes him snort even as competitiveness surges up. The silly little interview they do as he shivers is amusing are a welcome diversion. Cameras are flashing and people cheering, all the typical MotoGP movement but with snow instead of tarmac, and it is interesting enough to hold his attention for hours.

On the last night they are there Marc wanders outside the hotel to the patio areas, stones under his boot covered feet heated and fire pits around to keep anyone outside toasty warm. The snow is swirling softly, lazily like it only does in the mountains, and the air is that distinct quiet that only comes in this kind of weather. Everything muffled and slow, like being under water, and when he sits in one of the chairs to breathe it all in, he finds that it is easier to think.

It really is beautiful up here, especially when the bustle and cameras are no longer around. Calmer than a city, less invasive than the beach, and less lonely than open plains. He has never been a mountain person, really only skiing a handful of times, and he despises the cold, but he finds that here, after everything he has been feeling for years, he quite enjoys the simplicity.

“Hiding from our room? People will talk.”

He glances up at that to find Pecco, tired-eyed and wrapped in a blanket, padding over to him with a gentle expression. Perhaps a slight break in the peace, but after the calm they have settled into, a relatively welcome one.

“I can just say you tired me out or something, if you want the ego boost,” Marc offers up as a response and the other man gives him a small smile.

“They wouldn’t believe it,” he mumbles, eyebrow arched, and oh yeah. Pecco very well knows how he is in bed, they have slept together many times. Sometimes he forgets that, especially because the air between them has been so different since they got to the mountain resort.

Before last year, it was a tentative distance. He didn’t really pay much attention to the younger rider, even if he did notice the admiring eyes. After Germany, it was brutal. There was no smiles or laughter, just sex that burned both of them, stolen pleasure in the dark and that night in Indonesia, when it all became worse. Then the whole fake dating thing happened, and everything became tense and he just… he couldn’t look at Pecco without seeing everything he should probably want but can’t.

Now though, after Cervera and hearing them talk on the couch, perhaps Marc has forced himself to remember that Pecco is a person, not some literary trope of a sad boy with big eyes who wants what he can’t have. Not Valentino or Marc or any combincation of them, besides a few similarities. He is mature and well-spoken, careful and kind, arrogant and competitive, level-headed and frightfully aware. A bit intimidating, in truth, and Marc is rarely ever intimidated. But there is something about a person who can look at you and see the truth that stops you dead in your tracks.

The sex had been good too, can’t forget that. And maybe now he won’t see Valentino hovering it all, with how much he knows about the younger man.

“Do you want to fuck again?” He offers quietly, just to see how Pecco will react.

The other man blinks in surprise at him, before a small smile curls over his mouth.

“No, not really.”

Marc laughs.

“Over me so fast Francesco?”

Pecco shakes his head as he sits down on the chair next to Marc’s, leaning forward to rub his thighs like he is warming them. In the hazy light, Marc could imagine what life would be like if he actually wanted the younger man like that. Lazy nights, sweet words, calm conversations and the beautiful feeling of being adored. It would be nice, it would be sweet. Too sweet. That has never been what he likes, much more attracted to the pain of spicy foods.

“Not fast, rather slowly actually. I think I began to get over you in Indonesia,” the younger man says finally, sitting up and turning his eyes on Marc, a rather wise look on his face.

“You are… well, you know what you look like. And what you are like, a great ball of the fiercest flames. But… I’ve never been fond of playing with fire, too easy to get burned. It’s not to my taste, not really, even if I wanted it to be.”

Then he smiles sadly.

“I think if we had actually been together, we would have ended up hating each other.”

Marc slowly nods, stares at the snowflakes that drift by and knows that is probably true. Many years ago someone had said to him that having two people who are made of fire in a relationship will only lead to destruction. In this case, Marc is fire and Pecco is more like wood. It would not have been so… dramatic of an ending, like him and Valentino, but the two cannot survive with each other. Either the fire destroys the wood, burns it down to ash, or the wood is too dense and the fire fades away. In both cases someone gets loses themself.

When he voices all of this, Pecco tilts his head.

“I’m not sure about that,” he says slowly, and when Marc makes a face, he raises a hand.

“Not about you and me, that much is clear. You have always been fire, and wood is… probably an accurate descriptor of who I am. I mean Vale. I have… never considered him to be like that. At all, in fact.”

Marc stares.

“What do you mean?” He asks with wary in his voice, and Pecco grins sheepishly.

“Do not take this the wrong way but… you two really aren’t that much alike. The more I have gotten to know you the more I think this is true.”

Not alike. That would be a first, whenever people talk about Valentino and Marc they usually boil it down to conflict arising from similar personalities. Brash, enthusiastic, competitive, aggressive, intelligent, relentless. All of those words have been used to describe both valV and Marc at different points. Marc knows he is fire and had always viewed Valentino as the same.

“What do you mean?”

Pecco sighs.

“Well… to borrow your metaphor, you are fire. Kind of scary, very aggressive, pretty unstoppable really. It’s always seems like whatever you touch goes up in flames, whether that is your, um, relationships, your body, your teams, all of it. And you are open about it all, open about what you destroy. You don’t hide any of it.”

“Why would I?” Marc asks, a little mystified, and Pecco grins.

“Exactly. That is not Vale, at all. He is a lot more… silent about those things, even as he pretends not to be. Like water, he pushes and pushes and pushes but you hardly notice until he has eroded it all away. People don’t think of water as destructive as fire is, but it can do even worse damage. That is Valentino. He is water, you are fire.”

Oh. That… it make sense in that oddly poetic way. He has always felt a sort of pressure around Valentino, like he is at the bottom of the ocean. There is something about the older man that just fills up his lungs, impossible to escape no matter what he does. And Valentino Rossi as a whole is just everywhere, leaking into the cracks of the entire world, encompassing them all. If MotoGP is an island, Valentino is the ocean. No running, no hiding, but you still admire the beauty of the waves.

“You are very poetic,” Marc says softly, and Pecco drops his head.

“Just borrowing what you put forward. So… I think your friend was wrong.”

Marc doesn’t ask ‘about what’. He doesn’t beg for more wisdom from those earnest eyes, he doesn’t push the topic more. It’s enough for the day, and in truth if he hears any more he might just lose any semblance of warmth he has gained since Cervera. He simply leans back in his chair, shifts his legs up to clutch closer to his body, and smiles softly at the other man.

“Ah, you are a very smart boy,” he says a little condescendingly, just to watch Pecco scowl, “now, tell me what everyone else is. I am fire, you are wood, so what is… Alex?”

“Dirt,” Pecco says bluntly, and Marc laughs.

“That’s sweet.”

Pecco tilts his head.

“How is it sweet?”

Marc smirks, and leans over to pinch the younger man’s cheek, ignores the disgruntled look he gets in return.

“Wood comes from trees, trees need dirt to grow….”

He watches in real time as Pecco turns redder than he has ever seen the younger man before, a surprise since he has seen him very red many many times. It’s amusing and he rests his head on his palm as the sputtering begins.

“That is not what I meant,” Pecco spits out, “I just… It was an insult, I didn’t even think about that and-”

The rambling continues, and Marc eyes him with surprise. He was mostly joking, so this kind of overreaction is certainly amusing. Not for the first time the strange relationship his brother has with Pecco curls through his head. Old rivalries that are still not let go, a dislike that seemed to calm down for a while but came steaming back, calm words discussed sitting close together on a couch when they believed Marc was asleep.

After a while Pecco seems to lose steam, letting his protests fade into the air until they are both staring at the sky, staring at the stars that seem to only appear when they are far from cities. They glimmer in the inky blackness, and moonlight glows from behind the mountain, blocked by towering height. It makes everything so much darker and allows the stars to be the entire focus of light. Like those pictures of the Milky Way in all its dazzling beauty.

“When should we tell them?” Marc asks, interrupting the silence with a thought that has been nipping at his heels for weeks now.

“About what?”

“About us ‘breaking up’. It was meant to be mid-January to make it seem cordial but… but we are past that now, and if we do this right before the season starts…”

A sigh. Marc still stares at the sky, and he does not feel eyes on him, so he assumes Pecco is doing the same.

“I don’t really care,” the other man admits steadily, “It’s actually pretty helpful. Bezz has stopped bugging me about going to clubs and the team is thrilled about it. Even Carola has gotten off my back about settling down, which really is a feat.”

“You didn’t tell your sister the truth?”

“No, she would just make fun of me.”

Marc snorts.

“Can’t have that,” he says dryly.

“You don’t have an older sister, you don’t get it.”

True. He just has Alex, who is his soulmate if there ever was one, and he does a majority of the teasings even if his brother does his best to keep up.

“Well… it up to you then,” Marc finally says, “I think I have caused enough problems for you. Whenever you feel it is right, whenever it starts being unhelpful, let me know. I think I owe you that much, and besides I am enjoying myself.”

“Hmm, careful, it almost sounds like you like me.”

Marc laughs through his nose, closes his eyes and feels that same pang he used to get around Andrea then Dovi. God, I wish it was you instead. But you are too sweet for me.

"I do. You are a good man Francesco, if it were any other world….”

“Yeah I get it. I do hope we can be friends though.”

Friends. A nice thought. Marc doesn’t have that many friends, especially in the paddock. Most that he had either don’t speak to him anymore or just faded away. The ones like Dovi and Dani who he genuinely enjoyed, well they left a long time ago. He’s the last one from the 2013 grid after all, and even if the younger riders are friendly and look up to him, there is still that barrier. Out of everyone riding right now the only ones who knew him decently well before he became what he is today, a grueling veteran with stacked titles under his belt, are Alex and… the academy riders. Most of them dislike him (like Bezz or Mig) or are politely distant (like Luca or Franky), but Pecco, well, he has always had a soft spot for the younger man.

To have a friend… well, that is something that might just finally thaw him completely.

“Yes. Yes, I like the sound of that.”

End Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Marc laughs when he finds out that he is in the first press conference in Buriram. Laughs even harder when he finds out it is with Pecco, an all-Ducati lineup chosen mostly because, as he has been ceaselessly reminded, all eyes are on him this year. Even more than his rookie year, even more than in 2015 and all that drama, even more than his last championship in 2019.

‘The Ducati Dream Team’ is what the press has taken to calling them, the nickname murmured when he was first signed, but exploding out when the footage from the mountain trip was released and people realized that perhaps Marc and Pecco don’t despise each other the way they had all assumed. He was almost offended on both of their behalf that people expected some sort of catfight so soon. It was like they wanted to see spitting, hissing, or at least a few sly comments here and there. He doesn’t quite understand; he has always been the type to bring issues to the track. Any ‘drama’ he might have had off of it has almost entirely been of the other rider’s design, and it’s not his fault that people tend to misinterpret or dramatize him at all times.

As for Pecco, the poor man can’t move without people reading far too into it. If he doesn’t smile too long, they say he must be miserable. If he is friendly, they say he is being manipulated. If he says he believes he will win, they say he is delusional. If he says he will lose, they say he doesn’t have the mentality to beat Marc. Veined throughout it is this undercurrent of a proxy war, the belief that Pecco will continue Valentino’s legacy. Marquez versus Rossi even still.

Half the time they twist every little quote the Italian rider has to fit that narrative. One reporter asked him if he was going to drop his ‘gentlemanly’ ways and Pecco had just shrugged it off, made some blasé statement that ended up being spun into the younger man taking some sort of ‘shot’ at Marc for his riding style, apparently.

“I didn’t even mean it like that,” Pecco mumbles in frustration after that article comes out, and Marc just grins, reaches over to ruffle fluffy curls and tries to wipe the tense look off the younger man’s face.

“They do that a lot, you know full well. We both know where we stand; it hardly matters what they all believe.”

It’s nice to be able to say that and believe it. If you had told Marc even last year that he would be able to trust that his new teammate genuinely holds no ill will for him, it would have sounded like a pipe dream. But after everything, after the sex, after hurting Pecco, after seeing himself and Valentino, after the ridiculousness of fake dating, after big eyes stared at him that night on the mountain and asked if they were friends, Marc has found that the old soft-spot he held for the younger rider is back with a vengeance.

Another reason why he thinks their choice for the first press conference is hilarious. Dorna wants drama, the whole of MotoGP wants drama, but they will not get it. Perhaps they will eventually, if the championship fight gets close. He won’t deny his own competitiveness, nor will he deny Pecco’s. It’s only human to feel that way about someone who is a threat, and he has no expectations of everything remaining as pure and fluffy as they have been since January.

But Pecco is not Valentino. There will be no press wars, no kick to the side, and no ambushes at conferences or leveraging power to attempt to destroy. More than that, they don’t have an undercurrent thread of desperation in their interactions. With Valentino he needed something, always. Love, affection, adoration, touch, respect, worship. The only thing he really wants from Pecco is… understanding, a kind of vague trust, maybe even that respect as well, although it is different from the other kind. And friendship, the final thing he had decided he can be soft enough to accept.

So at the pre-race press conference, they sit in their little swivel chairs and listen to questions. They answer neutrally or honestly, depending on what the purpose of said question is, and when Marc makes a joke, Pecco laughs. He watches a few journalists draw blank expressions of surprise at that, and they look even more startled when Pecco talks about testing and how well they worked together then. It would be irritating if it wasn’t so amusing to see them look like confused dogs with their heads tilted.

“I think they expect you to vomit whenever I talk,” he mumbles to the younger man as they leave, and Pecco smiles tiredly at him.

“I can gag next time, just to comfort people. They almost looked scared.”

Marc laughs and laughs even harder when the noise snatches people’s attention towards them, eyes widening as they see how close the two Ducati riders are walking and that they are actually talking.

“Hmm, must be all the red. A frightening color.”

The rest of the day is spent in meetings and planning and all the rush of the first weekend of racing. He breathes it all in with the same bubbling feeling, anticipation growing in his stomach. Not the kind he has been feeling since Jerez, that sharp version laced with doubt and expectation of fiery pain, but the good kind. The feeling he got before his first MotoGP race, Qatar 2013. Skin almost vibrating and a smile ever present.

He missed this, missed being able to look at the future season and hope. Gresini had been flavored with that, the relief and joy of being able to finally win again, and he is forever grateful to them. But Ducati is different, because he will not just be fighting for podiums or decent results this year, but he will be fighting for the championship.

It might sound arrogant to make such a claim before the season has even officially started, but Marc knows. The creeping kind of knowledge he always used to get right before a crash, when he was aware it was inevitable and would prepare his body for impact. Or the blazing knowledge that a victory would be his, which he would always get on the last corner, glancing behind himself to ensure it before he let his joy pour out.

Some of that surety does come from testing, of course. Him, Alex, Pecco. That is it, those are the riders who will be even close to vying for the title this year. The GP24 is too good, just as his brother is, for it to be simply a Pecco-Marc straight shoot out, so three-way title fight it is. He can’t really mind, though, because if anyone else has to win, he would prefer it to be Alex and maybe a little bit Pecco.

In the back of his mind an arrogant voice calls though even as he thinks kind thoughts, one that sounds like the him of 2019.

They aren’t even competition, it hisses.

He doesn’t ignore the voice, simply soothes it and when during the next days of practice and quali, he blows them all out of the water, he lets it curl close. Allows his smile to get an edge for it, lets his eyes go hunter-sharp as he sits in the box. Spreads his legs wide and waves at the camera cockily, even when Alex steals his P1 in the first qualifying.

He’ll get it back by the second anyway.

“It’s still not going well?” He says to Pecco after the younger man returns to the box, discouraged by his times and ruined first qualifying (ironically by one of the academy riders).

“No,” The younger man says quietly, face set in that haunted look he always grows when he does not get what he wants. Before they were friends Marc had assumed it was a lack of confidence or a self-flagellation. Now though, he is well aware that this is Pecco’s focused face. His intensity coming out, similar to that wild-eyed stare Marc gets whenever he feels his mind going faster than anyone else’s can. It just so happens to look depressed.

“I don’t understand how you do it.”

Marc shrugs in response to that. Even he can’t explain it sometimes, but he has always thought of it in one way; when he is tuned in correctly, the bike sings. And the Ducati he rides today has a melody so beautiful, it sweeps him along for the ride. Fills his head with violins and pianos and spiraling symphonies. Terribly different from his old Honda, which was almost rock ‘n’ roll, buck wild style, but he finds his ability to match pitch just as good.

“Ay, you are not dating in the box,” someone scolds, “get to your side Pecco.”

Marc grins and shrugs, a little ‘what can you do’ motion as Pecco shifts away, eyes still downcast and distracted as he thinks. That is one of the little rules Ducati had put in place; when the circus is on, when they are zipped into their leathers, there is nothing. They aren’t actually dating, of course, but the team doesn’t know that, so Marc just goes along with it all. Pretends like he was letting the younger man hover because he wanted him near, and not because he was simply curious.

They are right though, now is not the time to worry about his teammate’s results. His are the only ones that matter. As he stares at the screen, he wonders if Valentino is watching this. Wondering if he is seeing the way Marc has his student cornered, even if it is unintentional, and is seething.

The thought makes him snort. He can almost see it, Valentino leaning toward the screen, eyebrows lowered and mouth pressed into that thin sour-lemon look that he gets when things don’t go his way.

Or… or maybe he isn’t. Ever since that phone call, the calm sound of the older man’s voice had pinched at Marc’s brain continuously. It was twisted, especially because of the way Valentino had said he would beat Pecco, with not a shred of doubt. Cruel, and he had not told the younger man about it, even though those who view him as a villain would assume he would weaponize that immediately. He won’t. He knows full well what it is like to have someone you crave respect and belief from refuse you that. Funny that for both of them, it is the same man. Funny that it is Marc’s fault this time.

 As always though, it doesn’t matter. Valentino was probably trying some little manipulation, probably hoping Marc would settle on it and not be able to shift away, like he seems to be doing a little. He refuses to give the older man the satisfaction. He is here, he is confident, he will win, and there is nothing that can be done about it. The crowd screams his name, his red and Ducati’s red coats their bodies, and they crave his victory the way they did when he was a rookie. Crave beauty and music and all the brilliance their moving circus brings.

For the rest of the weekend, this is what he creates. A sweeping, sprawling symphony, gold lined beauty and throughout it all the ghost of who he once was follows, bringing thunder with him.

It is perfection, cool and sweet, on race day. Pole, a sprint win, and now a race win all in his first race with Ducati. It soars through him and underneath his helmet he is laughing wildly, young and old, pained and healed, but above all happy. Happy happy happy, even before he has officially crossed the line. He knows, he knows, and it only amplifies when he glances back and finds Alex in second, trailing behind him, staring through his helmet. Their first 1-2, his brother beside him on the podium, history being made once more and a lead for the championship for the first time in years.

He roars around the track and the crowd roars with him, on their feet and screaming for beauty beyond all compare. That is what this is, after all, and the music is so loud right now he wonders if the entire world can hear it.

It’s a drug filling his lungs and veins and every part of him. A fist punching the air, a hand running down the front of his bike like it is his lover, and perhaps tears are sliding down his cheeks, but they taste different this time. Less like the painful ones of old, more like the hope for the future pouring down his face. He wonders what they would look like under the microscope, if even they are different than all the ones he has shed in the past, created from pain of all kinds.

Riders reach for him as he laps, and he loves them the way he loves everyone when he wins. Sees them shake their heads at his peacocking as he hams it up, as he points to the crowd and acts like an idiot like he used to in the past. It is hardly rusty at all, more like sliding into an old pair of leathers that still form to his body perfectly.

He finds Alex as he roars into parc ferme, and it is like they are sharing one mind. Reaches for his brother, connects their hands like a livewire and lifts it high.  Royal, empirical, religious almost, and he can’t deny it’s what he goes for. Can’t deny that he would never trade this moment for anything else in the world.

This is it. This is what he needed, this is what he knew would happen, this is the promise he made himself after the bad years with Honda. That he would come back with a vengeance, that he would remind them who he is, that he would look them all in the eyes and confidently laugh because none of them are what he is. None of them can touch the sky, can hit the note, can fly like him.

Ducati is in raptures when he slots into place, and made all the better by Gresini being there too. He doesn’t even know how to function properly as he slows, as he finally stops the bike even as his heart continues to race. He can’t speak, flies his hands out, gestures to Alex and the sky and the team and the bike and everything that is beautiful right now.

“You fucker, using me like that” Alex says with a laughing scowl the minute he jumps off the bike, and Marc snatches him up like are five, hollering something that might be words, a strange mixture of Catalan and Spanish and Italian and perhaps even some English. His brother is taller than him, but he lifts him high to the sky, jumps around and just shows it all off. His win, his family, his everything. This is everything.

His father grips them close, hugging both him and Alex with both arms like he did when they were little, and Marc tucks himself in, feeling all the ages he has ever been in the safety and love there. Shuts his eyes and breathes it all in and wonders how he could ever come close to this again. When you have already touched ecstatic beauty, everything else pales in comparison, and that is what all his past victories feel like. Even his first, even his championship-winning ones, even Aragon the previous year. The colors fade away, and this victory in Thailand years in the making. A cumulation of all the pain and hope and fear and doubt being smashed to smithereens. Marc Marquez is back, and there is not a single thing that anyone can do about it. Not Pecco, not Alex, not any of the riders who were so far off, and not even Valentino

God, God. Valentino is watching. That thought strikes him, knowledge like no other, and he should not make this about the older man right now because it is decidedly not, but, just like Pecco said, he can’t avoid that. He feels the gaze through the TV, feels it from thousands of miles away, and it just makes everything better.

Smug, gleeful, righteous, bitter thoughts take him over as he trains his smile on a camera.

I have proven you right, I have proven you wrong, I have done everything you never could believe but also seemed to expect. Do you like it? Do you hate me even more? Have you been able to pretend like none of it matters, just like that call in Barcelona?

He doesn’t even care right now. Ducati reaches for him, screaming and cheering and worshipping like he wants, and everything is lovely. This is lovely.

“You made me work for it, but I liked it,” he says madly, pointing at his engineer as he laughs and they laugh too. If that whole tire thing had caused any actual problems he might be pissed, but he has no other emotion but joy right now. They can handle that later, and it only made everything more fun in the long run. And old game being played that he has missed so much.

He only feels the slightest bit bad for Pecco, relegated to watching from the corner with a tense look on his face, even when he smiles at the congratulations. Marc is too happy to be delicate though, so he clutches the younger man into a hug, even as warbling Italian comes out, a teasing voice accusing him of ‘playing with them’ and Marc just laughs. It reeks of Valentino, the paranoia of the statement, but the eyes that stare at him are amused, the smile is small but real, and he knows that underneath it all, underneath the competitor who hates that he succeeded, he has a friend who is happy for him. Just like with Dovi or Dani, or even Fabio is he wants to extend the definition of friendship. A relief after so long of every win only pushing people away, after only having one team and his brother and nothing else. Now he has more, now he has crowds of people who know his hear that he used to hide away, who cheer for his victory and mean nothing else but what they say.

The rest of the day is a whirlwind. Ducati, Gresini, even Honda, with Santi pulling him into a hug like he is the man’s little king again and murmuring his praise with glowing eyes. It’s like everything is dripping in that gold instead just laced with it.

He might not be a ringmaster in the same planned, scripted way that so many riders are or try to be. He might not calculate and plan his words, or print out t-shirts and play games to journalists, but he knows he can put on one hell of a show. That was what this was in Thailand, a beautiful story, a heavenly soundtrack, and he intends to continue the tale throughout the season.

God. What a show.

***

Argentina is his, COTA is his, Qatar is his, and so are all of their sprints and poles. Perfection even more thick than in Thailand coats his every movement, and he feels lighter than air as the season continues, as he keeps his record spotless, as he wins the max points every race,  as he is trailed by his brother and Pecco in a way that could never frighten him.

Dominance, they call it, much like they did in 2014, even if the season is not even a fourth of the way through. Admiration laces through the voices of even those who had once despised him, the begrudging kind that is all the sweeter because it is earned from stony refusal, pulled out like teeth until they gape at you and cannot even bite down anymore. In Argentina he remembers a journalist, an Italian one who had been against him since his Moto2 days, grabbing him by the arm. Muttering something about his new lap record, a 1:36 that smashed his long-held one out of the park, and in his eyes Marc had seen it; respect. Even more intense than the ones he would get during his dominant years, the kind that is not just about racing, but about who you are. He had felt strange about it for the rest of the day, and when he saw the man in COTA the next week, it was all still there.

Things with the team are incredible, things with Alex are as always brilliant, and any tension he may have with Pecco, who still scowls at his quali pace, seems to melt the minute they are out of their leathers, and the soft-spoken man he has begun to know crawls back out. It helps that most of his on-track tanglings have either been with his brother or exactly no one, he supposes, so he assumes it will change eventually. When he loses. If he loses.

But right now that is not the case, and it is his friend, not teammate, who comes to him after they arrive in Jerez, gingerly walking up to Marc’s side of the garage on Wednesday when he is going over some data points.

“Francesco,” Marc smiles immediately, and the younger man ducks his head, gives him a little greeting. The engineer Marc had been working with snickers and ducks away, waggling his eyebrows as he goes, within seconds. They do that a lot, presume any private conversation between the two must be romantic. It’s amusing.

The younger man comes to press against the table Marc is working on, shifting his gaze around the garage for a second before he leans in, eyes serious as he forces a smile.

“Ahh, I thought I should tell you. Valentino will be here for the race. He just texted in our group chat, so…”

Marc swallows. Oh.

 That is… interesting. Not in a terribly fascinating way, but in the way some feel about a crime scene. Vague horror, confusion, curiosity, and the slightest tinge of fear. He knew Valentino would come eventually; he had hoped it would be in Italy. But of course not. The choice of Jerez almost feels purposeful, if he was being paranoid.

“Ah, that is good for you to have him here,” he says with a manufactured calm, “and for his team, they have been… struggling.”

Pecco shifts, sinks down to the couch next to Marc and gives him a shaky smile.

“He will be in the Ducati garage.”

Bland confusion, a little bit of nasty anger, and Marc swallows it down behind that happy feeling he has been layered in from his results.

“Why?” He can’t help but ask, and Pecco frowns.

“I’m… not sure. But Franky said that he has been having issues of some kind with the team, though it is unclear what.”

Eyes lower.

“He tends to… keep things close to his chest these days, even around me.”

Oh. That’s… probably Marc’s fault. A little pang of guilt adds in, and he presses his lips together.

“Sorry,” he mumbles and Pecco waves him off with a stern face.

“No, no, he’s being strange to everyone, it seems.  Even Luca said he won’t talk about what’s going on and he tells his brother everything.”

Marc shouldn’t be concerned. He shouldn’t care if Valentino is acting bizarre, or if he is isolating himself. The older man is fine, probably in one of his dramatic moods that has him lashing out at everyone. Or maybe he is having his midlife crisis; he did turn forty-six in February. But… he has never known Valentino to hide how he feels. And while it was years ago, he is aware how much the older man loves his brother. So the concern rises up nonetheless.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he eventually says instead of everything else he is thinking. Pecco just nods.

“If he acts strange just… ignore that. He’s been doing it for a while.”

Pecco is right about the strange part. On the first day of free practice, Valentino shows up in the garage and the minute he sees Marc, he freezes like a startled stoat. As if he hadn’t known he would be there, as if he didn’t see the name splayed across the top, or his face grinning down, or his number everywhere and anywhere around his side of the garage.

He doesn’t think Valentino means to, but the older man had always been the type to let it all show. When he was upset it was clear by the arch of his brows and the set of his mouth. When he was happy, his eyes glittered and his movements became even more exaggerated. When he was embarrassed, he rubbed a hand under his nose. When he was angry his expression would turn flat and his jaw would grow tense.

And when he has no idea what to do with himself, which almost never happens, he apparently freezes.

Just like right now.

Marc staunchly ignores him as best as he can, ignores the prickly feeling of eyes on him, more pronounced now that the other man is right there, and turns to his engineer to discuss a few things, forcing his whole body to relax. Tries to act as if the ever-confident Valentino Rossi isn’t stone-still in the middle of the Ducati garage, staring at Marc like he has seen a ghost. He hopes no one catches this on camera, because really he doesn’t think he has ever seen the older man so… strange, just like Pecco said.

The whole while Marc tries to go about his business, Valentino stares, and that is only ripped away when Pecco enters the garage, sweaty and tired after his first few laps, that typical frown he had been sporting after every session clear even behind his helmet.

Marc immediately glances up, and part of him hates how Pecco understands so easily, cringing at Valentino, who is still standing too still, and calling the older man’s name until that unnerving gaze is finally gone and the man is in motion

Another mind game, he decides after a moment of reflection. Last year Valentino had said he would want to be at more races. It had been pretty clear back then why, and while something had held him back from the first couple, apparently the older man has decided the time is now. And he had figured out that the best way to throw Marc off is to act as bizarrely as he just did.

But Marc won’t let it get to him. Avoids glancing over at the other side, tunnel visions on his  practice results, where he had gone fastest (obviously), and doing his best not to remain complacent. Just because he had done so well does not mean the tides cannot change, and he refuses to allow Jerez, the site of so much pain, to be the place he falters. Especially with Valentino here. God, imagine what the press would say if he does poorly, if he loses his first race of the season? No doubt they would latch on to the Italian man’s presence, make it into another battle in their long-standing war.

Ironically in all his avoiding the older man, he didn’t think to avoid Pecco-adjacent things as well.  Didn’t consider that with Valentino’s apparent new distance from his team, he might also be avoiding the VR46 motorhome. So when he drops by Pecco’s that evening, simply to pick up one of Alex’s sweatshirts he left behind, his mind takes a second to catch up when he opens the door and Valentino is there on the couch and scrolling on his phone with a casual air. Casual until Marc walks right in, that is, the door clicks shut behind him and it feels like the period at the end of a very long paragraph. A new part starting with a new flavor.

Silence fills the small space, the heavy kind, and Valentino stares. Stares so hard it feels like his gaze is seared into Marc’s flesh, and with such proximity, with being alone, he cannot pretend it is not real right now. Cannot ignore a single thing.

“Hello,” Valentino croaks out with a wobbly sort-of-smile.

Right. Okay. He can do this.

“Hi…” Marc says slowly, then forces one of his own, “just picking something up.”

More silence, and then Valentino nods awkwardly, looking a bit childish and odd as he holds himself to the lazy position Marc has found him in, with a new edge of stiffness that is so obvious it’s almost funny.

“Right, yes- I am sure you are here all the time, you have… a key.”

Marc glances down at his hand. Right. The key. He’d asked for it, and Pecco had thrown it at him as he darted out of the garage, still pouring over his own data with single-minded focus even as it got later in the day. But no, Marc decidedly does not have his own. He won’t be saying that though.

“Of course,” he lies and Valentino laughs. Not a funny one, but a breathy and forced one, like he has swallowed something strange and the only way to dislodge it is to pretend.

This is awkward. They have never been awkward around each other before (aside from a moment after they hooked up in 2023), usually it is boiling rage or plain sexual tension. At the very least games were played, not this… stiff, juvenile feeling. He hates it even more than he hated the anger or the coldness or any of the other ways they had been over the years.

“Okay,” Valentino mumbles, and Marc moves past him like coming out of a trance, snatches the piled-up hoodie that had been thrown over one of the chairs, ignores the way Valentino stares at it, and decides here, with no cameras to watch him or people to judge, it is not cowardly at all to run. But a voice interrupts him.

“You are doing very good. Pecco not so much, but I expected that.”

Marc blinks. Feels cornered, and it bursts out of his mouth before he can stop it.

“I won’t be thrown off.”

Silence, and the older man looks baffled at his words, leaning forward slightly and not blinking. The brightness in the motorhome makes every detail of him crystal clear, from the messy curl of his hair, to the slight wrinkling around his eyes, to the little creases in his t-shirt. One of his merch ones, grinning sun and moon logo small on the top, right over his heart. He looks handsome, but… different. Smaller than usual and reserved in a way he never is. Quiet.

Like water, like the ocean. Temperamental, but it can be calm. He wonders how long that will last. He wonders if he even wants it to.

“I know you won't. I was just… saying what I believe.”

Then in an uncharacteristic show of what might be honesty, Valentino smiles self-deprecatingly as if he is aware how odd this is, spreads his hands out like showing he isn’t carrying a weapon. Marc knows better though, of course. The older man has never been the type for physical violence, all the danger is from his brain, tongue, and the hold he has over people.

“I did not expect to see you here,” Valentino says with a strangled, humor-filled voice, “I don’t know what to say.”

Marc stares even harder. Refuses to shift uncomfortably the way he wants to. It would feel a bit like showing too much, as if one single minute movement will display how off-balance he feels right now.

“Why would you need to say anything?”

A pause.

“I want to.”

Right. Always about him, even whatever this tentative attempt to be polite is. More likely than not Valentino has a strange whim to be vaguely friendly and has decided that there is no other option. The whole problem with the VR46 team is probably made up just so his presence can be explained without showing a single shred of weakness. And this ‘honesty’? Fake too, created so Marc would lower his guard.

Calculated, always calculated. He scowls and feels anger snap up.

“Right. Well I don’t, so please stop watching me so much, it’s making my team uncomfortable.”

That’s not true, they mostly haven’t noticed. Out of all of them Marc is the only one keyed into any of what Valentino does. All they had asked was if he is okay with the older man being there. He said yes and has really no idea if that is true or not, but they accepted his answer all the same.

He needs to leave. The brightness is too much, the way the light paints away some of Valentino’s age is too much, the white teeth and that smile and the look he is getting, baffled and lost, is too much. He has the sweatshirt, he should walk away and he can retreat back to his own motorhome, where Alex will find him staring at the wall and hating everything. Where he can shove it all down and latch onto the greedy, victorious feeling that has powered him this season.

But his feet remain planted.

“Ah… I did not realize I was staring,” Valentino lies, a blatant one he does not even bother to hide, unashamed as ever. He smiles like it is some sort of inside joke, and Marc wants to hit him. Probably will if this conversation continues or if the older man gets even slightly closer. Thank God he is still frozen where he sits in that awkward position. Thank God Marc is too.

“Liar,” he snaps out.

“Often.”

Another response that is making it hard to breathe, another game being played that he cannot comprehend. What is this, what is this… almost soft look? What is this way the older man isn’t rebuffing him, or scowling? What is going on? He hates it in every single way, but before he can open his mouth and make some sort of excuse to leave, something that would sound real and not weaken him, Valentino speaks.

“Ehhh… Pecco probably has not told you, but the boys have made plans to go out for a big dinner after Jerez. An academy event of sorts. I think… if you want, you should come too. I was going to tell him that when he came back, but well, you got here first.”

“….What?” Marc asks, a little dumbfounded by anything that was just said.

A shrug, and while the chin drops, those eyes remain on him, staring into his soul like Valentino wants to eat it.

“You were… technically the first academy student. My first student. Like a family reunion, yes?”

Family. What the fuck.

Marc can’t help it. He laughs. Valentino doesn’t even bother to hide the way he flinches as if slapped by the sound of it. Meanness rises up, much like in Valencia, and he greets it like an old friend.

“Why would I do that? All your little pets hate me.”

And that is the first time the cordial mask cracks. Valentino’s eyebrow twitches down, a little burst of irritation flying through his eyes as he stares at Marc hard, smile fading from his face and fingers clenching into the couch cushion. And this is the man he knows well, this is the creature he can deal with because it is predictable. They will argue, they will say something nasty, they will clash, and Marc will leave with his heart on fire, but finally content in the knowledge that nothing has changed.

He pushes it.

“I don’t want to spend a dinner surrounded by idiots who can’t think for themselves, especially when they parrot the things you say.”

Blue eyes narrow until they are barely visible, and that jaw is clenched tight as Valentino speaks.

“They are not like that. You rode with them for years, I am sure you are aware.”

The tone is unsteady, and he knows one more push will do it. Valentino will explode and that unsettled feeling he has held since the conversation over the phone will finally fall away.

He steps closer until he is towering over Valentino, who tilts his head up. Looks down past his nose, tries to make himself look as cruel as he can, as inhuman as he despises, as kingly as they call him.

The air is hot in here.

“Yes, I rode against them for years. And yet none of them were ever really good enough for me to care. No real competition; just coasting on your name and acting like it is success. How long do you think it will last for them? Your relevance is fading, after all.”

Cruel cruel cruel, untrue, and cruel.  He can’t even pretend like he doesn’t care right now. Can’t lie to himself that he is over anything when the way Valentino’s face spasms to beautifully send shivers up his spine. The other man is on his feet in an instant, an inch away from Marc and hot breath ghosts over his face. It smells like espresso.

 Valentino is panting, chest heaving as he holds himself back, and Marc grins.

A good fight is all that he needs right now. They haven’t had one since… well, years now. Valencia doesn’t count, the older man barely responded. And other than that, it has mostly been cold silence between them or passive aggression hidden. He hates that he missed it, the fire thrumming beneath his skin as a tidal wave of rage rises up in Valentino’s eyes.

They aren’t touching, Marc has no clue what would happen if they did, but it is something like a twisted embrace. Him with his head tilted up as Valentino stares down, curved around each other as they stand there. He has his shoulders back and head tilted, neck exposed automatically like he always used to do. It’s not purposeful, not at all, but the way that gaze drops to his throat gives him a rush, as does those blue eyes darkening until it’s like a storm over the sea.

But then the older man pinches his eyes shut, backs away and sinks down to the couch with his hand rubbing his forehead, and the moment is ripped away. Marc blinks rapidly, confused and more than a little irritated.

“I know what you are doing,” Valentino mumbles, “the offer still stands no matter what you say.”

Bland tone, avoidant gaze, and hunched shoulders. Real anger, not the fun kind, bubbles through Marc and he leaves without a word, bursting his way out into sunshine with a gasp.  The door cracks so hard when he slams it shut that he almost worries he breaks it. But that worry isn’t the biggest thing as he flees his way back to the garage, chucks the keys at Pecco, who startles so bad he almost falls out of his chair, and then retreats to his own motorhome.

Alex isn’t there when he enters, but it is dark and cool and soothing once he is alone. A direct contrast to Pecco’s, with its bright lights and open windows and the sharpness of Valentino, staring at him with humor and retreating behind a layer of restraint that made him feel like a fool.

Embarrassment. That is what finally takes hold of him as he stands there. He had pushed, he had pinched, he had done all he could to anger the other man in a moment of weakness, that nonchalance he had been so proud of fading away the second he was physically around the object of his… everything. It had been desperation plain and simple, the kind that rankles him and makes his hands shake.

But Valentino had denied him. Had pulled himself away and made it so terribly clear that he doesn’t care and Marc has lost. For the first time in years, he has lost.

Funny almost. Victories chase his every step as he wins again and again, perfection in every race and sprint and pole. The weekends are his, his championship lead is as good as it could possibly get, and yet he has lost. In one split second, one failure of control, one interaction, he feels knocked down three steps.

He can’t stand that, can’t stand it just like he couldn’t stand being in even second place when he was little, tiny face pulled up into a scowl before he learned how to mask it behind fake humility and appreciation of other’s talents.

It will not stand.

‘What is this I hear about a dinner?’ is what he sends to Pecco, then drops his phone and tries to rein everything in, tries to dampen his feelings and shut off the valve of everything that had come pouring out of him in that motorhome. It barely works and he feels his heart rate finally slow painfully.

Somehow that also felt like a loss.

End Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Vale is kind of having a bad time lately.

Perhaps he has been having a bad time for years actually, tracing back to a date he can’t even pinpoint. Could it have been 2012 when he decided Marc was it for him, sowing himself to the younger man greedily? Could it have been 2015 when he tried to rip himself away, almost bleeding out in the process? Could it have been 2018 when he did it all over again?

Or could it have had nothing to do with Marc, nothing at all. Could it have had more to do with the person he had trusted above all else, above even his own perspective and perception and belief. Could it have been his oldest friend, the one he has clung to since he was a child and felt too big for his body, and when the only thing that could help was the steady presence beside him and the knowledge that no matter where he went, he would have a friend, a true one. Consistent in the way his parents could never be, consistent in the way racing could never be. Always there with a supportive word and stony belief that no matter what, Vale is a star.

He doesn’t know. He hates that he doesn’t know. Hates that instead of burning rage, the kind he has pointed at so many others for so many years, all he can feel is helpless destruction. Like in Pompeii when they stood and watched their world blow up around them, felt the ash rain down until they were frozen in time, lungs filled up and forever trapped in their last moments alive.

It is different than it was with Marc, and the guilt from that eats at him. Because it was so easy to hate the younger man, so easy to see a devil in those eyes. The ability to convince himself that none of it had been real and Marc never loved him came naturally, as if it had been waiting underneath all of the happiness. And maybe Marc didn’t, maybe that is all true, he doesn’t know, but what Vale does know is that what had set the fire, the stone that cracked the surface and made the volcano explode, was Phillips Island and Sepang.

And none of it had been real. The straw that broke the camel’s back, the reason he had decided that all of it was over. Not the only one, never the only one, but it had… it had taken away any trust or belief or hope. It had made them both turn to something meaner than stone, until no traces of what they once were even lingered.

And Uccio had lied. His friend had lied, had decided something and forced it to become true.

It runs through his head as he moves through the days afterward. The white of the other man’s face, the twisted expression, fear pulsing there as everything fell apart. Using everything he could to force it out, watching shaking hands over a laptop keyboard open a folder within a folder within a folder that he had not ever noticed before. He had also never spoken to Uccio like that before, and it was like seeing a worshipper whose faith had turned their back, casting them down into the abyss. In the past he had compared Marc to Lucifer, the most beautiful angel whose God threw him out of heaven. But in that moment, office light dim in January and loss hovering above them, it had been Uccio with his wings ripped out instead. The fear and panic of a parent who knows that their child has tried to kill them growing so big he could not breathe.

Two sets of data, one real and one fake. One exaggerated, intensified, made to seem true when it was not. He had stared at it for an hour, and when he turned back to his friend, he had to blink through dispassionate tears. Watched the face crumple, turned around and walked out.

Uccio didn’t follow him. And the next day the man was gone. They haven’t spoken since.

The walls began to fall down after that, the foundation revealing itself to be salt and sand and anything but steady. The crown that had always sat on his head, even after Marc, crumbling into dust, graying his hair until all that was left was an old man sitting on a cracked throne, kingdom gone, body failing, and the only one he believed he could trust revealing themself as his poisoner.

His friend. The only person who has ever stayed with him and never turned their back once. The only person who knew him through it all, from a snotty-nosed child to a whip-thin teenager with too-big dreams, to the man he is now. Every movement was made together, every decision. And through everything that happened since 2015, it was Uccio who held him up. Kept him strong, pushed him forward, steadied him, and…and… and…

He can’t think about it. Can’t even fathom how to respond. So he turns his eyes to Marc and everything that he has ever done to the younger man, another form of torture but one at least that he can do something about. What that something is, he has no clue. Maybe he doesn’t even deserve to make it something like better. 

It wasn’t just the data and Phillips Island and Sepang that ruined them. As the years had gone on he became more and more aware that the path they had been following, even before that, had been destined for destruction. Because he loved Marc but hated him even then, jealous of the control the younger man had not over people (like he used to believe), but over himself. Over his destiny, clinging to a bike and hovering so close to the edge it should have been impossible. Young and talented and with the future stretching out before him while Vale was only writing the last few pages of his story, losing his grasp on everything he once had.

That was what the knowledge that the data had been made up helped with. Clearing his vision enough to see everything for what it was, to understand that he might have adored Marc, might have gotten a rush like no other around him, might have even been very good to him at certain times, but he never respected the younger man, not more than he respected himself. Even then the only way he felt any sort of control was when he had Marc on the back foot, doe-eyed and underneath his grasp. It was… well, the thought of it all makes him not see himself in the mirror, but instead see a demented version, eyes glittering madly and fingers digging into flesh until blood begins to pour down.

But then there still is the hurt that had crippled him, not from Sepang but from everything else.

It’s a battle in his head, all the cruelty of the things Marc had done over the years paired with that new voice that murmurs he had reason. Qatar and the ache in his knees and heart, Argentina and the way he watched Marc race away, Valencia and everything said there, Aragon and learning about him and Pecco, the purposefulness of it all. There is no mistake that Marc had hurt him, and maybe that is when he started to see the younger man as equal. Maybe that is when that part of him that needed to be on top faded away because he recognized that cruelty as his own from all those years in the past, condensed and thrown right back at him.

He watches Marc win in 2025 and it is both pride and fear that fills him. Much like the previous year, but there is no call from Pecco, no revelation to swipe away that pride. There is nothing that stops him from grinning at the TV during Thailand, when Marc sweeps them all like he did in 2014, when the old him comes back up with a laugh and the easy dominance of a king. The pride is for an old student, friend, lover. The fear is because he is also seeing his old competition, his old rival not just on track but in the world, and he can’t feel any of the hate. All he can do is be in awe, not the obsessive kind, but the humbling kind. The kind you only get when you look at someone and see them for what they really are and know that they can be even more.

He spends the first few months of the season like that, thoughts of Uccio and Marc and the past and the future swimming through everything. It is in Jerez when he sees the younger man for the first time, sitting in the garage and yes Marc is beautiful, but Vale doesn’t just see that, even as brown eyes meet his. He sees every mistake he has ever made, every wrong word and action, every bite both given and received, hope and loss, pain and pleasure, torment and heavenly love. He feels it all and it strikes him mute and still, stuck standing in the garage and staring until Pecco drags his attention forcefully away.

A mumbled warning comes out of the younger rider’s mouth once he has Vale away, and Pecco looks torn between two worlds.

“If you do anything to make him hurt, I won’t forgive you,” he says in that passive yet steady way, eyes fierce even as he looks sad. A student stepping out of the shadow, turning to look at their teacher and saying they are wrong. Vale is proud even underneath everything else.

“I won’t,” he croaks out, “I couldn’t. I don’t want to.”

That gets him a little nod, and they slide into their typical relationship, the one that perhaps had been more strained since Pecco started dating Marc, but the one he cherishes.

Then the run-in with Marc happens in the motorhome and Vale sees it so clearly in that vibrating anger. The insults provoke him, especially the ones to the academy riders, and that older anger flies up so easily, has him on his feet and pressing close. But in Marc’s eyes he sees it; anticipation, hurt, pain, a desperate need to protect himself that Vale always felt too.

They are not alike, not in the ways he had always assumed for so many years. But perhaps in one aspect they are something close to similar.

It deflates him and Marc leaves and he sits with his head in his hands until Pecco comes back, eyes stony as he shows Vale Marc’s text. It doesn’t feel like victory in the slightest, even though the younger man had given in. He just swallows down everything and knows that this will hurt no matter what happens.

That is how he finds himself here, sitting alone at a round table, feeling a bit like a general waiting in their war room for the enemy’s envoys to arrive.  The restaurant that was chosen is a smoky one; dim lights, blazing candles, and dark wood furniture that makes it seem both warm and sinister, as if Marc is going to pop out at any second. Vale had gotten there first, thirty minutes before everyone else, deigning not to stay in the paddock and leave together, lying about an errand which everyone buys because Uccio is not here (even if technically he is), so of course Vale would be busier.

Since he had gotten there, he had casually walked the whole establishment twice, pinpointed each exit, learned the names of the staff, and even found the exact distance between the table they have reserved and the bathroom. Preparation is what he calls it in his mind, but he knows what it really is. Panic.

It tunnels his vision in, has him staring around the table at the folds of the napkins and silverware already pressed into perfect position, eying them critically, and for a split-second wondering if he should tell them to remove the steak knives. A stupid thought, and instead he just rearranges his own set even more madly, switching them back in forth, trying to figure out if it is worse to move the knife far away or keep it close.  As he does it, he tries his best to find the confidence, the comfortability, the regality he always seemed to wield so easily. It’s a bit harder to grab onto these days.

He leaves the knife far away. Regrets that decision in an instant but sticks to it hopelessly.

The academy boys finally appear around eight in clumps; Luca, Mig, and Franky pop up first, then Bezz dragging wide-eyed Cele in, hand ruffling dark curls, and snickering as he leaves two seats next to Vale empty. There are only that may people missing right now, after all, and everyone would know who would be forced to fill them. They all seem strained and amused by that in equal parts.

“Marco,” he calls desperately when that happens, gesturing to the seats with an oppressive smile, and Bezz almost looks guilty. Stands up like a scolded dog ready to shuffle his way over, face tilted down and eyes sad, but Luca catches his arm before he can go far, shakes his head and sends Vale a long look, brilliant blue eyes discerning like they always are.

Don’t be a coward, it reads, you chose this positioning, commit to it.

Right. He narrows his own gaze at his brother but concedes the point with a small tilt of the lips.

“Ah, I will be lonely,” Vale jokes to cover it all up, but the look in every single one of their eyes, even Cele’s, tells him that they know exactly what his real fear is; proximity to the happy couple.

“I’m sure you will be fine,” Franky says flatly, then calls Mig’s attention and asks a question about the next episode of his podcast that has the younger man lighting up, hands flying as he tells a story that has the whole academy leaning forward, the way they used to get when they were all young. Back then they were usually in their leathers, piled all around on the side of the ranch’s track, dusty and tired. Limbs dropped everywhere, like a pack of dogs, on top of each other in that way only people who are family can be. It is displayed here in the restaurant too, albeit in a more restrained way. An arm tossed around the back of a chair, fingers pinching skin to get attention, shoulders pressed together and laughter that has hands slapping chests.

It makes him feel fond to watch as he sits there, alone with the only person next to him engaging the other boys. It makes him feel like with them here, even with the way everything with Uccio has weakened him, he can make it through this. It’s still not enough to stop how he flexes his hand as he eyes the door, or how every time it opens he feels his heart skip a beat.  But at least it’s something.

Twenty minutes later and Marc and Pecco are still not there, and this too-hot, too-loud, too-dim feeling is beginning to crawl along his skin. It makes talking calmly with any of the riders hard, it makes the pity-filled glances they keep shooting him itch. He is glancing at the door every five seconds now, feeling like if he doesn’t then Marc will arrive and be gone before he can even notice. Or that he will show up, see Vale and turn his back before he even has a chance to try. Try what? He still doesn’t know, but he was hoping his talent for improv would come in handy tonight.

“Has Pecco texted you?” He finally asks to anyone who will answer, and the mutely shaking heads make him swallow. It feels almost like he has been stood up, even if this is a group dinner and he is surrounded by those he loves. Like he is a pathetic man on a blind date waiting for someone who will never arrive.

And what would he do if that happens? Find some other way to get Marc to allow him near? Give up and resign himself to staring from a distance and feeling that guilt for the rest of his life? Could he even handle that?

Another twenty minutes go by. He awkwardly realizes they should order something before the restaurant gets angry, but Vale can’t stomach any of it. Stares at his plate full of finger food , stares at the bruschetta, and wonders if he has reached peak pathetic.

“I think I might head back,” he says with a false smile once they hit the hour mark, dropping the piece of bread he had been holding for a while now just to keep up the pretense of normality. It has the academy rider’s heads snapping up, and Bezz leans forward with a. frown.

“But we haven’t even ordered the full meal,” he whines a little, and Vale smiles. Swallows down the shakiness he feels.

“Ah, you all stay I will leave my card, just bring it back to me tomorrow. As always, get what you want.”

“You never come to races come on, the boys miss you,” Franky says in a tight voice.

Vale waves him off with a laugh, ignores the young faces that have turned toward him, whispers of the teenagers he indulged combined with the men he has seen grow. Disappointment clear, and it echoes through him just like everything else seems to these days.

“We will see each other tomorrow, my stomach hurts,” he lies.

“They haven’t said they won’t come,” Mig mutters, and he is elbowed by Cele, who is stubbornly staring at the table with a frown on his face. The mood has dropped and Vale curses himself for being the cause of it. In truth, only Bezz looks like he believes Vale’s excuse, eyes furrowed. Too sweet to think the older man might be lying, too trusting.

Vale laughs again.

“Ehhh, this is not about… about them. I am not feeling very good, I hope they still come so you can all spend time together, really,” he rambles, “I am sure they are on their way of course, but I… I don’t want to waste money on food I will not eat, is all. Have fun without me, yes?”

He is standing then, pushing back from the table and clattering to his feet. The need to excuse this fills him, the need to explain away how frantically he darts his eyes around the room. The need to escape a situation he does not understand, a situation he cannot control, a situation where he feels like the only person who was ever to stabilize him is so needed, that it burns.

“It is better I think, I am old,” he jokes, but it comes out wrong if the pinched together eyebrows say anything, “I have no taste for this rich food, and I have been up since very early. So actually it was bad idea to begin with to stay out so late, and-”

“Ah, sorry we are late.”

A voice calls from the front, and Vale snaps to attention. Stands there dumbly as Marc and Pecco seemingly materialize out of thin air, not holding hands like all the imagined scenarios had placed them, but standing close together. Pecco looks apologetic, and sheepish, a tense smile on his face as he moves toward them. Marc does not. He remains a step back as they get closer, frozen expression saying that he does not want to be there at all, even as his mouth stretches across his face in what might be an attempt at a grin.

Marc looks… he looks good. A navy t-shirt, tight around the shoulders and chest, making his tan skin glow, dark waves falling perfectly over his forehead. It is shorter than it had been even earlier today. He must have gone for a haircut, but the new look still keeps the sweetness longer length had given him. The shadow the soft waves cast over his eyes in the lighting makes him look dramatic in a captivating way, carving that face into something statuesque and intimidatingly beautiful. That intense gaze meets Vale’s and he is unable to hide from it all. Unable to avoid the way his body stills and how that panicked feeling disappears, replaced instead by something like wonder.

“Ah,” he finally says after he realizes that he has been gaping for far too long, “you are not late at all, we all only just got here.”

A cough from down the table, but no one openly disagrees. If anything Vale thinks they are just as startled as he is, as if they had settled into the idea that neither Pecco nor Marc would be here tonight. They stare silently.

He forces a smile, spreads his hands wide and channels the grand host he always likes to play. Tries his best to slide into it even as everything rubs him the wrong way.

“The only spots left are by me, one of you will have to sit next to the crazy old man,” he says lightly.

It is meant to come across as an ice breaker, making the fact that the open seats are so clearly on purpose seem lighter and less obvious. It doesn’t work, because instead he just sounds desperate. He doesn’t even know which he would prefer; Marc directly next to him, or at an angle with a person between them. In the first option he will be able to feel the heat of the younger man’s skin and hear him breathing. In the other, no matter where he looks, he will have Marc in the corner of his eye. Which one is worse? He could never know. Both their own versions of heaven and hell.

Pecco turns to stare at Marc, and now it feels like everyone in the restaurant is. Vale understands; why would you not want to? How could any living creature not feel their eyes snap to someone like Marc immediately, out of fear and awe and magnetism very few have. A dramatic thought, but it burns through when he sees the way even the waiter that sneaks by to fill Luca’s water glass looks struck dumb for a second.

Or maybe he is projecting. Who knows.

“Well, I think you have lots to catch up on with Pe-” Marc starts, smile still fixed and fake. He is going to buffer, he is going to use Pecco as a shield and spend the whole night ignoring Vale, it doesn’t even matter that in that option he will see Marc throughout it all, because it might be torture to see and not be able to talk.

Vale speaks before he thinks.

“I think Franky wanted to talk to you about something Pecco,” he says with a false calm, and wants to smash his head into the table immediately. Eyebrows fly up, and Vale is still standing, ready to run at a moment’s notice if need be. Shifts his head to look at the rider he referenced and pleads with his eyes. To his credit Franky listens to the silent request easily, smiling and leaning toward Pecco like it had been his idea.

“Yes,” he says with gentleness and a slight roll to his eyes, “What we were discussing after the press conference, you remember?”

Pecco flits his eye between Vale and Franky, and then sighs.

“Sure, yeah,” he says lightly.

When he turns to Marc, the expression he holds is distinctly apologetic. But Marc just shrugs stiffly.

“I will sit with the crazy old man then,” he murmurs. He must mean it as a joke too. It doesn’t sound like one.

Vale swallows. Slowly lowers down to his own seat. Ignores how obvious all of that was, especially after essentially asking them to make the decision then ripping it away in a panic. Manically he thinks for a second that with Marc on his left, the knife will be on the other side of the plate. A bad thought to have because all he can imagine is, in a quick flash, the younger man leaning over and sinking his teeth into Vale’s neck before he has time to react, to reach for a weapon.

The image makes his stomach heat up. He tries his best to banish it. He should have planned this better, but he was never the type to think about details like this.

“We should order,” Vale says loudly, just to get everyone to snap out of it as Pecco and Marc slowly walk over to their seats. Across the table, Bezz leans forward with a frown.

“But Vale I thought your stomach hu-”

He is yanked back in an instant by a very placid Luca, who peacefully slaps his hand over Bezz’s mouth, pressing down hard until the younger rider starts to struggle, and turns to Vale.

“The seafood pasta is very good this close to the coast,” he says in a relaxed voice.

Vale loves his brother very much.

“Yes, but we should ask the local, I think.”

And then finally Marc sits down next to him, arm so close to Vale’s he swears he can feel the slightest brush of it. Warm, solid, there. Not the wispy memories of the feeling, or imagination, but there. It instantly makes his whole body go lax, and when he locks eyes with Marc, so close this time, he feels his head go fuzzy.

“Is the… is the, um, fish good here?” He asks weakly. Marc nods.

“Of course,” he says, leaning forward to rest one elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, casual bit drawn up. Pecco drops down next to Franky, in the other seat next to Marc, and his back is turned to listen to whatever made-up nonsense Franky has concocted to keep up the story. It stupidly feels like victory; Marc is next to him, looking at him, and Pecco is not even watching. Almost like they are alone, if you ignore the way the other academy riders are still surreptitiously eying them.

Then in a moment that is like swallowing hot coals, Vale watches him slide his hand into Pecco’s under the table. Watches him grasp at it with a squeeze, notices how Pecco responds automatically, tightening his grip as he still talks to Franky, instant and without thought. Watches how Marc relaxes minutely, spine that had been so stiff bending slightly until he becomes just a bit more human,

Jesus. He has almost forgotten about that in the shock of seeing Marc here. Jesus.

“The seafood paella is my favorite,” Marc says blandly and Vale nods, swallows down the lump. Shifts his gaze away to stare at the table and tries to wipe the image from his brain.

“I know,” he says stupidly

He thinks perhaps wanting to slam his head into the table is going to become a running theme tonight. Silence forms between them like ice crystals, and with everyone else finally dissolving into conversation, even as they dart glances over every so often, it becomes even more profound.

When a waiter walks by, he reaches out a hand in a rush, desperate for something to distract himself.

“A few bottles of wine for the table,” he snaps out.

“Ah, what kind, sir?”

Vale stares. He has simply hoped alcohol would get shoved into his hands and he would be able to drink himself into some semblance of calm. Which does he prefer? Which does Marc prefer? A memory jumps to his mind; those lips stained darker by blood-red wine.

“You like red,” he says stupidly to the other man. He raises an eyebrow, reluctant amusement filling his expression and making him look even more like a person, terribly so.

“I do, but with fish? A tragedy,” he says lightly. It’s the first thing that makes Vale smile properly all night. He shifts closer minutely unable to help himself, eager to be near that briefest glimpse of softness.

“When did you get so fancy? I have seen you put ice in your wine before, and now you are complaining about red with fish?”

It’s another memory, a warm summer day when they sat on the patio after training and watched the sun go down. He remembers the clinking sound, and making fun of Marc until the younger man scowled hard at the ground, sipping it petulantly and adding ice in for the rest of the week, until he forgot why he was even doing it.

“That was because you kept the bottle outside for an hour,” Marc huffs out, “it was warm like bathwater at that point, which is arguably worse. I did what I had to do.”

“Ah,” Vale nods sagely, “so with an option, you choose to be snobby.”

A scowl much like the one of the past, and Marc has forgotten himself, leaning forward too.

“It is not snobby,” he denies with a wave of the hand, smirk pulling at his pretty pink lips, “red wine goes with red meat, white wine goes with fish. It is common decency, aren’t you Italian?”

“Very. The entire country would kill you for suggesting otherwise,” Vale points out cheerfully.

A laugh, obnoxious and loud, but Vale does not move away, drinks it down and it refreshes his soul, until he is years younger, energetic, and any aches are gone.

“They like me right now,” Marc says smugly, “I think I am safe.”

“They always have, they just listened to be too much and-”

He cuts himself off when he realizes what he is saying, what he is bringing up. Marc has gone still again like he remembered who he is talking too. Not in a frightened way, but like a stalking tiger would. Muscles coiled, eyes sharp, teeth showing in preparation. Waiting.

Vale slowly turns to the waiter, who has been patiently waiting with a fixed smile.

“Ahm, white then,” he says carefully.

Then they fall into silence once more. This time minutes pass as they sit there, even until plates of steaming food arrive, piled high and enough to share. Food Vale did not order. Glancing down the table he finds Luca watching him once more, tilting his head in a subtle little nod. ‘You’re welcome’ it says, and Vale is grateful. Especially because the one closest to Marc is a beautiful seafood paella, one that has the younger man finally moving again, eyes bright when Vale glances at him. The small pleased and surprised smile on that face makes his heart warm a little, enough to have him laughing under his breath.

“You always look like a kid when food comes,” he murmurs under his breath, and Marc shoots him a suspicious look.

“I am not a kid,” he says in a clipped voice, then turns pink, almost as if he realizes how petulant it sounded. Then he looks irritated about getting embarrassed.

Vale lowers his chin and stares at the way that blush makes Marc look so alive, ignores the little look Pecco gives him over Marc’s shoulder. He wishes he could interpret it as jealousy, maybe it would make him understand where his student’s head is at right now, but all he sees is worry and perhaps a little bit of protectiveness. If he was Pecco right now, and Marc was speaking to his ex, he would be flipping his lid. Maybe that is why Marc likes the younger man. Because he is not… he is not Vale at all.

That thought has his throat tightening up until his next words come out harsher than he intends.

“No, you have wrinkles now too.”

Eyes narrow, and Vale feels the fire burst to life in the seat next to him as the blush fades.

Shit. That was meant to be a joke.

“Oh?” Marc says delicately, “At least I still have all of my hair. What are you down to now, fifty strands? I have to say, aging does not suit you very well, Vale.”

The nickname is said meanly, voice curling and making it stand out. As if Marc is trying to force it to sound alien on his tongue, like he hasn’t said it a billion times. It is an arrow to the chest, and Vale’s temper jumps up a little. Meanness crawls up his throat just like it did back in the motorhome. This time he can’t hold it back.

“No need to be nasty tatino,” he says with purpose, reveling in the way it makes Marc flinch, “I have heard you aren’t handling being one of the oldest well, but who knew you would be so touchy?”

Marc bristles.

“I’m not touchy.”

Vale leans closer, disregards the food entirely, feeding instead on the energy thrumming between them. Laughs lowly and adores the way Marc doesn’t even shift away this time, head held high and not blinking.

“So why did you react?”

“Why did you?”

“I asked first.”

“I asked second”

“Don’t be childish.”

“I thought I was old?”

“You are old.”

“What does that make you?”

Marc smiles coldly.

“Fourteen years younger. I am not even the age you were during Sepang.”

Sepang Sepang Sepang, not even the year but everyone knows which one. That mention has heads snapping up toward them, has Pecco and Franky freezing and slowly turning around. Vale feels the word vibrate through his skull, and his eyes narrow. The academy boys are all staring now, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Luca shove his head into his hands.

“Are you really bringing this up now?” Vale spits, and Marc laughs. Leans back in his chair (away from Vale) and looks satisfied with himself.

“Why not? You said this was a ‘family dinner’ yes? What is one of those without a fight or two?”

So that’s what he wants, that is what he came for. Vale had come into this with the determination to make everything better, to make Marc at least content around him. But the younger man wants to fight. He had wondered why the invitation had been accepted.

Vale stares at him for a minute, desperately wants to give in. To snap like he used to, to allow a storm to build until the restaurant is blown away by the gales of rage that will shape Marc into a wildfire and Vale into a monsoon.

It would be so easy. And maybe for a short time, it would feel good.

“Let’s not do this,” he says tightly instead, and watches as Marc rears back in surprise, face almost comically shocked before he rights it, slaps on that plastically placid, wide-eyed subtle-smile look he gets when he wants to keep what he is feeling hidden. It always works so well.

“When did you become so weak,” he whispers cruelly, then turns away, dismissing Vale now that he can’t get what he wants. And instead of anger holding him high, Vale is instead crippled, taken down by simple words, rage transforming as hurt layers over it. His brain starts to go wobbly, thrown off by the way he is diving between emotions in the blink of an eye, and he realizes in an instant that he needs to go. Needs to hide, can’t be seen right now, especially by his boys and Marc and.. and … and…

He swallows it down, rises to his feet with shaky hands, not because he is scared but because he is holding himself so tightly in, that one bump might just set him off. Marc still has his back turned, leaning up against Pecco, and Vale tears his gaze away before it makes him lose it.

“I think I will go to the bathroom,” he mutters to no one, and vacantly walks the path he had mapped earlier that evening, not even really comprehending that he is moving until he stands in front of the sink, staring at his reflection and wondering why he thought any of this was a good idea.

His face looks drawn and rubbery, eyes bright with too many emotions, sweat pooling on his forehead. He smiles to see what it looks like but drops it in seconds when he realizes how tight it pulls his face, how crazy he looks that way. How inhuman.

God. This isn’t like him at all, he doesn’t flounder like this. He is Valentino Rossi, even if he is the version that feels more lost than ever. He smiles, he laughs, and engages the room. Even people he hates, even people who hate him, and he never… runs away. Never hides in the bathroom.

This is too much. This is too much.

He breathes, splashes water on his face until he looks like he has been in a monsoon. Attempts to grab hold of himself and finds it impossible. Thinks of the boys and fails. Thinks of his family and fails. Thinks of winning and fails. Even thinks of Uccio and fails even worse.

 Then desperately, he goes to his last resort. Marc. The cause of all of this, and… and mostly likely the cure.

He tries to remember the little details of the past, good ones only. The feeling of a lazy morning in bed. Lounging pressed against each other, curled up on a couch after the younger man got back from Mallorca, saltiness still in his hair. Dawn light through a visor, the knowledge that he is being shadowed by Marc all the while he rides, the comfort of that. A laugh from the showers as the younger man badly sings, stupid jokes and dances and fingers running through his hair. The peace of falling asleep and knowing someone will be there when you wake up.

It shouldn’t be so centering after the many years of hell. But it is.

When he glances at himself in the mirror again, he looks more like the version of himself he knows well; older, hair a little thinner (just like Marc said), eyes bright. And… and he sees the version of himself who loved Marc the best. The man who spoiled and adored, the man who cried in Marc’s arms after 2012 and Sic, the man who he thought he had destroyed, staring back at him with tired eyes and a softness he hasn't held in years. He missed him.

 It is enough to allow him to walk back to the table with a degree of strength, and when he gets there and sees Cele has stolen his seat, leaning in close and listening to Marc tell a story with wide eyes, he stands for second and watches. Watches the way Marc is so much less tense without him there, how most of the boys have stopped to listen, eyes intent as Marc laughs his way through it all. Waving fingers fly through the air and the realization that Pecco and Marc are no longer holding hands is a petty relief.

“Didn’t it hurt badly?” Cele asks in a soft, wonder-filled tone, and Marc laughs, ruffles the younger rider’s hair like he always used to do with the academy before it all fell apart.

“Only a little nano, I am a tough one,” Marc says lightly, “just like you. Pecco tells me you break lots of bones.”

Cele frowns.

“I don’t fall on purpose,” he mutters, and Marc laughs again.

“Neither do I, but the best ones always do, yes?”

A determined nod, and Vale hates himself very much as he keeps his distance. Because this could have been what he had for years. Marc, smiling and laughing, babying his academy riders and having them adore him in return. He imagines that the Spanish rider would have been the favorites of Bezz or Cele, the two biggest puppies of their little family. They would have piled on top of him and acted even more childish than they do now, and Marc would have loved it. Always the big brother, always sweet to younger riders. Vale had forgotten that.

It makes him reel as he realizes how happy Marc looks, laughing with them all. How content, how calm, how patient and loose. The way he used to imagine the younger man would be once they were older, eyes crinkling up so breathtakingly. The way he hoped he would be when they got…

It doesn’t matter. An impossibility now.

He doesn’t want to ruin this. Not anymore than he already has tonight. This was meant to be good and maybe… maybe that means he needs to remove the issue.

Himself.

“Stealing my seat Celestino,” he calls, and winces when everyone stiffens up, as Cele looks like he is going to scramble to his feet and apologize.

“No, no, keep it. I want everyone to have fun tonight,” he says loudly, ignores the look of surprise from both Marc and Pecco, swallows down his pride, shoots them a gentle smile, and crosses to fill Cele’s seat, all the way across from his old one, right next to Luca. His brother’s hand comes to lightly pinch his arm when he does, and he finds sad eyes on him.

“Tactically retreating?”

Vale smiles, drops his gaze to the table.

“Yeah.”

He draws his eyes back to Pecco and Marc, sitting so close. The fond smile on Pecco’s face, the way Marc seems so comfortable around him, the gentle air swirling through it all, making jaws relax and foreheads lose their wrinkles. It kills him, shoots him straight in the chest, and if he was being selfish he would destroy every bit of it, if he was being out of control too. Sit down so close to Marc that both men get angry, whisper about memories, ask cruel questions, dig in his nails until one of them reacts and an explosion occurs. Hold onto that old anger that still exists even if it has less fuel than normal.

It is sad how much willpower it takes not to do that, and most of him still does want to. But that guilt he has held for months now, that feeling in the bathroom, that wistfulness as he watched Marc and Cele, it all stops him. Stays his tongue and forces him to watch even as his heart twists until it feels like it has stopped beating. Because he has finally figured it out, that ‘something’ he can do to make everything better; leave the younger man alone. Even if it kills him, even if it dulls life into a colorless drudge, even if it makes every movement hellish.

Marc is winning, without him. Marc is thriving, without him. Marc is perhaps in love, without him. And maybe that is how it should be. Maybe it is better that way.

Not for him, that could never be true for him. But this is the one thing that Vale will never be able to have. A pain even worse than not getting his tenth, a weight even heavier than what has happened in the last ten years. Eternal torture. But he will have to take it this time. He will have to swallow his selfishness and arrogance and cruelty and terribleness down like he never has before.

Because he loves Marc. Perhaps more than he even did years ago.

“Less like a retreat,” he clarifies to Luca after a moment, still watching, still aching.. 

“More like… surrender.”

Then he turns to the glass of wine that had been placed in front of him by a conscientious waiter, draws a long sip of the golden liquid. Cringes at the dryness on his tongue and the citrusy flavoring. He has never liked white wine, too dull, too weak when he prefers the rich, heady flavoring of the red.

But he drinks it anyway. It’s all he has in his glass, after all.

End Chapter 27

Chapter Text

When they returned from the dinner, Marc wasn’t quite sure how to feel. Actually, he wasn’t sure how to feel during the dinner either. Before arriving, he was prepared for war. Had kept himself locked tight, except for a few moments, and kept his cruelty on the tip of his tongue, ready to lash out when Valentino decided it was the time. Allowed whatever new game of friendly conversation underlined with anticipation to happen and expected everything to eventually snap into its rightful place.

But that snap never came. The briefest moment of anger between them, the type that made his heart kick as he allowed himself to get pulled in, had felt good. Great even; it is the way he feels on a podium, laughing down at faces that worship him and the faces that despise him with the same love. The rush of it all, the kind he only ever gets when he crushes everyone else so hard they can only look on in defeat and hatred and admiration and despair.

Alex always calls him crazy for that, his parents do too. But that is Marc, that is who he is when he races and who he is around Valentino. He can be kind. He can be sweet and happy and simple. But not in this world, their world. The world of adrenaline and games and too much history, the kind that weighs you down no matter where you go or what you do.

So he had expectations for it all. Expectations that made him feel sick but also made him feel alive. They were met too, in the split second of back-and-forth, the little insults said with smiles. And it felt good. Way too fucking good, so good that he brought up things he hadn’t in years, waited to see how that would make it all so much more, reopened his own wounds to see if their blood would drip out the same way, just like it used to.

But then it was all ripped away, and just like in the motorhome Valentino pulled back. Blanked out his eyes and it was him who walked away this time. When he came back, the movement noted immediately by Marc, he stared for a second with an unreadable expression, and then marched to the other end of the table, back straight. Eyes down, he sat with his brother and Marc felt the urge to go over there and drag him back the moment it became clear that Valentino was not coming anywhere close to him, not anymore.

He forced it down, as he should, and pretended to be relieved as everyone would expect. Made himself relax, made himself lean more into Pecco like a boyfriend would, and the whole time felt something sickening crawling under his skin. A wrong feeling as the world was spun on its head by Valentino once more, as his expectations, his anticipations, were smashed against the wall into tiny little pieces.

Unfair, his mind cried, this is not how it is meant to go. Why do you always get to choose where the story leads? Why do I always have to listen?

He said none of that, of course. Allowed himself to get distracted by how the academy boys seemed so hyped by the fact that the expected war never happened. Clutched onto the fondness he was suddenly allowing to come back and stupidly promised to go out again some night, even as his stomach acid curdled.

And that was it. The season keeps going as if nothing had happened. Marc loses his first race in France, victory snatched by Pecco who had massively improved after going back to an older spec bike, and Valentino isn’t there. Another thing that is unfair, because that absence had never affected him before. Valentino hardly went to any races last year at all, he was nowhere to be seen for the first couple as well. But now suddenly it is important. Now suddenly he feels a flare of anger when he realizes the older man is not coming.

Stupid.

It becomes a running theme after that.

Silverstone he wins. Valentino is there, and the academy goes out for drinks afterward, and he is invited once more (has to attend because he promised). The distance is still there, and the older man hovers on the outskirts, perfectly pleasant and friendly and kind as Marc clutches Pecco’s hand so hard the other rider has nail marks on his skin until the next morning. He does not apologize for it, and Pecco asks for none. Instead his friend just lets him stew, and talks to Alex in a low, concerned voice when he thinks Marc isn’t paying attention.

Aragon he wins again. Valentino is also there. They go to a club instead, and he spends the night begging Pecco to distract him as he remains hyper-vigilant of the man in the VIP booth, who he swears is watching in the dim light. Feels the gaze sparking along his skin, but when he turns around to squint through the steamy air, all he finds is Valentino laughing and drinking like he does not care.

Mugello Valentino is meant to be there, but isn’t and Marc gets third, his worst performance of the season. He tries not to think of that as the reason, even as he knows. Luca murmurs to him in passing that it has to do with family business, and when Marc asks why the other rider is telling him that, he just gets slow cat-like blinks in response. The question is ignored.

The only good thing about Mugello is that it is Alex who wins, and it is enough to stop him from overthinking everything else (as much as he can). He lifts his brother high and screams out praise and wants so badly to force every single person who called Alex ‘untalented’, to come here so he can rub their face into the dirt at their feet, so he can laugh and make them see. A beautiful win, a fight between Alex and Pecco that made Marc only a little nervous (they still hiss at each other sometimes, even if it is usually when they are playing video games) but it ends well. Pecco seems happy too, pulling Marc’s brother into a hug in the middle of parc ferme. Like this, happy and spoiled even as he lost, Marc can forget about Valentino and focus his entire being on the person he perhaps loves most in the world.

It must be some form of good luck, Alex’s win. Or perhaps it helps him grab onto everything that hovers beyond himself and the issues he has with a certain Italian. Because in Assen Valentino is not there, and for the first time Marc pulls through it. Wins again even with Alex hot on his heels, but this is the kind of victory that hurts. His arm, his chest, his head. The kind he had to force out. Not like Thailand or COTA with their ease, not at all. But at least it is not a loss, at least he can take a shuddery breath and say that none of it matters, even as it doesn’t sound so true like it used to.

In Germany the older man makes a surprise appearance, unannounced and random to the point that even Luca is shocked, and for the first time since Jerez Marc takes the triple. Pole, sprint, and race. A double-edged sword if there has ever been one. It’s a relief because his lead may be grand, but it isn’t set in stone, and a pain because it only happened again when Valentino came. Then mixed into that is the smugness of having the older man in the crowd watching when it happens. Conflicting feelings, as always.

But still he is feeling good, so when Pecco asks if he is in the mood for another big dinner, just like the one in Jerez, he eagerly nods. Pathetically anticipates maybe a shred of realness from the older man, especially after such a dominant victory. Pecco hadn’t stood a chance, Alex hadn’t stood a chance, none of them had. It should burn, it should hurt, it should make Valentino spit out mean words. He expects mean eyes, a passive-aggressive comment that he can latch onto and build up until it all comes pouring out. Surely Valentino can’t even ignore this, right? Up on the podium he had hammed it up even more, arrogant smile and everything. It should work. It should work.

It doesn’t. Valentino makes a light congratulations, then parks himself on the other side of the table, also just like Jerez. Keeps his eyes calm and down, just like Jerez. Keeps his own brother close, just like Jerez.

It isn’t fish they eat this time, but a hearty meat-filled dish, rich and heavier than he usually allows when they are mid-season. He orders a white wine when he should get red, just to see if Valentino will react, and all he gets is a little laugh and a face turning away all while he sits there and seethes.

The unfairness of it all makes the food taste of death.

 And now here he stands, a little bit stumbly from that white wine he had forced down his throat (he hates white) and stomach turning. His hands are wrapped around Pecco’s arm to ground himself, the other academy boys are in a pack around them, cheery and thrilled, comfortable after so many months of friendliness. Cele, his little shadow, had been attached to him all night. Even Bezz has fully settled into the pseudo-friendship, more prone to finding Marc even in the paddock to chat a bit about whatever he is thinking. He seems almost shy most often, and the first time he made some sort of joke at Marc’s expense, he had turned bright red and looked sick until the older rider laughed.

In truth, it is all flattering. But it also… it also hurts. If things hadn’t gone to hell, he would have been close to all of them. He would have been able to sit with calm Franky and quietly discuss data without feeling guilt, he would have maybe been on Mig’s podcast, he would have known what Bezz is referencing with his pile of inside jokes he carries around with him, he would have Luca for another brother, and maybe Alex would have more friends.

Foolish thoughts, weak-brained as he is right now, and as they meander through the area where all of the motorhomes are, he only grips Pecco closer. Pretends not to be dazedly watching Valentino’s sharp-boned back as he leads the pack through the dark rows.

“This reminds me of Germany 2023,” Pecco mumbles, also tipsy but prettily so, cheeks flushed and hair mussed. Marc turns and blinks slowly up at him, feeling the need to avert his eyes from the man ahead before he becomes obvious. If he isn’t already.

“Different sort of drunk here,” he responds with care, tasting the words on his tongue, “wine drunk is no good. Makes me too slow.”

A little laugh, and he is being chuffed on the chin gently, playfully. Like Alex often does.

“Maybe I will have a chance this year if we give you wine all the time,” Pecco muses out loud, looking half like he means it, and Marc snickers, happy to be pulled out of his head by the joke.

“Not likely. I would still win.”

“Knowing you, you would somehow do even better.”

“Of course.”

“Aye, stop flirting,” Bezz, who had apparently been rambling to Cele five seconds ago, interrupts, loud and obnoxious but happy. Marc winces but smiles as the younger rider surges toward them, clearly the most drunk. He presses his forehead into Pecco’s back, who grumbles and tries to bat him away with one hand. It doesn’t work.

“I wasn’t flirting,” Marc points out with a wry smile, amused at light conversation being taken that way, “that is not how I do it.”

“No? Pecco, how does he do it?”

Shoulders go up in a shrug, and Marc shifts with them. He feels his mind return to Valentino once he is not in active conversation, and gets a snap of anger deep inside when he swears he stopped caring years ago. It is irritating that this is what happens, and he is staring once more at the older man as if his eyes have a mind of their own.

He’s still the same distance away, still angular in the dim light, still casual and languid looking. In his tipsy mind, Marc even labels him with another adjective; beautiful. Not in a way most people would assume (that posture is too terrible) but in the way he exists. Valentino is magnetic, has always been, and even when his back is turned Marc can see it.

It sucks that this is true. If he was sober he might be able to pretend it isn’t, but he can’t right now.

“I wouldn’t know,” Pecco says, “he has never flirted with me before.”

“But you are dating!”

Marc groans again as Bezz shakes the other man, detaches with annoyance, finds himself bumping into Franky, who gives him a tired but friendly smile. He is half carrying Mig, who may or may not be asleep, but doesn’t seem to displeased about it. A little pink, in fact, and Marc notes that as something to tease the other man about eventually. He bumps their shoulder together with a raised eyebrow, until Franky darts his eyes away, a little embarrassment making him look young, like he used to back when the academy started, and they slept across the hall from each other.

“He did not need to try very hard with me,” Pecco mumbles, and when Marc glances back, he is more than relieved to not find any hurt, just a little glint of teasing and a raised eyebrow. Also more than relieved to find this thread of conversation interesting enough to stop watching Valentino.

“No?” Bezz asks with a mystified look, “what did you do? Our Pecco is not so easy to impress.”

“Walked into the garage and took off my clothes,” Marc responds without thinking and when Pecco’s eyebrows go up and he hears a few chokes, wants to smack himself. Another reason he doesn’t like wine; it loosens his tongue. Even Valentino, so far away, heard that, spine going stiff and languidness disappearing.

He should not have said that. But… it is the first reaction he has gotten in months. Something more than the cool politeness that had held since Jerez, the wan friendliness and purposeful distance. In his tipsy state he latches on to that, fixates on it until his whole body demands it continue. This is embarrassing, but if he can get some sort of reaction well… right now he seems to think it is worth it. He turns a smirk on Bezz, who is gaping, and decides to push the envelope.

Marc has always been good at games, after all, and he has been moping for far too long to hold himself back from his old style of fun, the kind of dirty and needling joke he always used to love to do, which would effortlessly make people turn scarlet red. And on Valentino it always worked beautifully, especially when he aimed it at other people.

Maybe he is also a little more than tipsy.

“There is something strange about having your ass out in the Ducati garage,” he muses, tapping his chin even as Pecco shakes his head in disbelief, “very freeing. Maybe that is why I got comfortable there so fast.”

A strangled noise, and Bezz is coughing loudly. When he slyly glances up, Valentino is still stiff, and Luca is glancing back with his lips pressed together, as if holding back laughter.

“But I will say, those tables are too loud. Every movement just echoes and when you are up on one, it feels like you will fall off, especially when someone is-”

“Okay, okay, they do not need to know that,” Pecco interrupts with a hand lightly covering his mouth, and just to be gross, Marc licks his fingers, watches as the other rider cringes.

“Do you just have a garage fetish?” Bezz bursts out, voice strangled, and Marc turns to him with surprised smile before he understands what the younger man is referencing. Ah, yes, that time in… God, he forgets the year. Unclear which one right now, but the memory is there. He had embarrassed the younger rider so badly that he refused to make eye contact for maybe years. It had been the night Valentino came, when he added another layer to his revenge plan, when he almost gave in.

“I had forgotten about that, was what 2017? 2016?” He asks, leaning close with a grin, “do you still have the condom, Marco?”

And if he had thought that referencing getting fucked by Pecco in the garage would make people react, this was double so, for no real reason at all. He swears every single one of them stops in their tracks, and he doesn’t notice until he is suddenly closer to Valentino than he had been all night. The older man has whipped around (finally), face shell shocked, frozen, and Marc has to wrench himself back before he is too near. It doesn’t stop the way their eyes lock, the way he feels caught in the tractor beam. Stuck in that aghast expression, how Valentino lurches forward, the way his mouth opens like he is going to say something and… and… and…

“Ah,” Bezz squeaks and it snaps whatever spell Marc is under. He flusters, darts his eyes to the others and the way they are staring at him too, and when he looks back, Valentino has distanced himself. Five paces away, Luca hovering next to him and muttering something, and still staring but closed off once more. Eyes dark and blank, almost like some sort of baroque painting with the way the shadows alter him, tragically beautiful and so fucking unfair. He was so close. And now he is not.

Marc hates him.

“What?” He asks distractedly in response to everyone’s reaction, stuck dumb by the sight in front of him, struck even more foolish than normal by a growing feeling of…. something in his stomach. He can’t name it, but it makes his whole body feeling all floaty and weak.

Silence. Then chaos begins

Multiple voices rise at once, and they are enough to rip him away as an insistent hand grabs him. Bezz sputters and steps back like he wants to flee, Mig, who is apparently not asleep, has surged forward and is gripping the other rider with a baffled expression, even Franky has his jaw dropped. Pecco, tugging on his arm, is blinking down at him with shock.

“Bezz, you did not!”

“I didn’t!”

“Condom?”

“How did you know Marc likes garages like that?”

“When did you even go near him?”

“It’s a misunderstanding, if you would just-”

“2016! That was only a year after-”

“Jesus Vale is going to kill you”

“Pecco is going to kill him too.”

“Vale will get him first.”

“Pecco is closer.”

“No one is killing me because I didn’t do anything!’

“Not what it sounds like.”

“In a garage too?”

“Is that even sanitary?”

“It’s not.”

“Gross”

“Will any of you just listen I swear to God I-”

“Why is everyone freaking out?”

The last one is from Cele, who looks just as baffled as Marc feels, words swimming through the air that he can’t really keep up with. Something about murder and the condom and he has no clue what any of it means. But Bezz is firetruck engine red, sputtering even more as he is poked and prodded, as he is stared at by everyone.

“I didn’t-I promise that is isn’t- It was, well it was a long time ago but nothing like that even- stop staring at me like that, I swear, even if I wanted- If you would just listen and-”

Bezz is still rambling, and questions are being poured out, and while this is so clearly about him, Marc feels terribly sidelined. Valentino is still watching him in that intense way.  It is the most pressure he has felt in a while now, and he has no idea how things got so messy and loud when this was shaping up to be a pretty irritating and dull night.

He can’t find it in himself to regret a thing though. He had wanted this after all, wanted Valentino’s reaction and focus and whatever it is that he needs from the older man. It’s just… he didn’t expect it to feel so heavy. He didn’t expect the lack of anger. He didn’t expect the look in the older man’s eyes to be so… empty.

Fuck. What is even going on. There are too many things that are tossing his brain around and that stupid white wine is still sitting too heavy in his head to do anything but stare back dumbly right now as the tsunami he cannot comprehend builds and builds and builds with no crash in sight.

“Marc,” Bezz chokes, tugging his attention back, eyes wild and pleading, “please tell them that we didn’t… that we didn’t…”

It takes a second for Marc to get it as he uncomprehendingly eyes the younger man’s blusteringly embarrassed face.

His eyes dart back to Valentino. A little twitch of the nose, a hint of a snarl cutting through whatever that initial reaction had been. The same expression he made when he would get angry about Dovi back in the day, or when he found out that Marc was sleeping around a lot. And oh, that is what everyone is assuming. They all think him and Bezz had sex. Valentino thinks him and Bezz has sex. Retrospectively he understands why they would believe that based on what he said, but he would be an idiot to not capitalize on this moment.

Marc smiles and decides that he needs to see far more than a little flinch.

“What, are you ashamed about it?” He asks slyly, and watches the hope drain from Bezz’s face.

It all explodes even more, and Marc laughs, laughs very hard especially because Valentino’s face has cracked wide open. Finally, he thinks with madness, finally. There is the frustration, there is the anger, there is the pressure of a thousand gallons of water hovering over his head, but in the correct way. Valentino has stepped forward, his brother’s hand clutching his shoulder and he looks like he wants to say something and Marc needs him to desperately. Right now, drunk and loose and filled with giddy glee, that vexation that has been part of him for months is gone, that strange feeling he got when he saw the emptiness is gone, all of his fear is gone. 

Do it, he wants to shout. Yell at me, lose your temper, be mean, be cruel, say something stupid. Cut to deep, go too far, make me cry just… just do something.

He needs it in a way he cannot hide from right now. Needs it even if it will make him shred to pieces and it is funny, almost. Because for so many years it was him being cold, pulling  away, keeping distant, and it was Valentino unable to stop himself. He was chased and prodded and poked, he was followed. It was Valentino in 2016 knocking on his motorhome door, it was Valentino saying things to the press, it was Valentino surging in to kiss him for the first time in years in that bathroom in Misano.

But he can’t even handle it when the script flips. When Valentino stops caring, when he stops following. Pathetic, he doesn’t even love the older man anymore. Ridiculous, he doesn’t even want him.

Yet here he stands, waiting waiting waiting for his first hit in forever.

But then Valentino pinches his eyes shut. And horror fills Marc as he watches the older man retreat once more, face going slack and when he opens them back up again, they are as unemotional and surface level as they have been for months.

No.

Everyone else is still scrambling, still rambling, but Marc does not care. He glares with poison at the way Valentino briefly flicks his eyes up, at the way he dulls out, at how he begins to turn.

No. Not fair. Not fucking fair.

Blazing anger, and he whips his eyes away with a snarl, knowing if he keeps watching he will do something even stupid. Like walking right up to Valentino, gripping him by the jaw, and demanding something the older man clearly does not have anymore. Like gripping the older man close until his fingers bruise pale skin. Like begging.

“Damn, you really slept with anyone back then even-” Mig is saying gleefully, and Marc loses his temper at the words. It is a joke, it is Mig being an asshole, it is not serious, but he is boiling right now and he can’t help it.

“No, we didn’t sleep together,” he snaps out at all of them, now irritated beyond belief by all of their yammering, “I was messing around when I said that. The condom was a little joke when I was in my garage at night and he thought I was altering my bike. I gave it to him because he looked freaked out and it was funny. That’s it. I’m not a whore.”

He doesn’t even give them a chance to respond as they stare at him with wide eyes, suddenly looking like kids. He whirls around and storms off, feeling stupid and angry and ridiculous and like he is twenty-two years old again and has lost control of everything. Anger and embarrassment and frustration all blind him until the night is even darker than it was before. He is right next to his motorhome when he realizes there are footsteps behind him, and he knows it is Pecco following, ever concerned and polite and kind and-

“Go away, I don’t need you to play boyfriend right now,” he spits, not even turning around, “I’m too drunk to keep up the act.”

“Act?”

That’s not Pecco’s voice.

 He slowly turns and finds a blue-blue gaze, so familiar that he feels panic build. That is, until he realizes the shade is off and everything else is different.

Luca. Less lazy-eyed than normal, but still artfully ruffled. Pretty as a model, and too much like Valentino for it to not hurt, but too little for it to be a good enough excuse to avoid him. Face placid and concerned, hands shoved in his hoodie pocket. He is alone. In the distance, Marc can hear arguing.

And what he said comes back to his brain. Luca is too smart to not connect the dots, and Marc doesn’t even have the energy to try and disrupt that.

“Ignore what I said,” he creaks out blandly, “I need to be alone.”

A small shrug, and Luca tilts his head in a considering manner.

“Well, you won’t be for long if you go in there. Pecco is yelling at the boys right now, but no doubt he will come right here afterward. He has a key, yes?”

Marc mutely nods. The younger man likes to spend time in his and Alex’s motorhome, even when Marc is not there. Many times he has come back from a long data session with his side of the garage to find Alex and Pecco watching a movie or playing a card game in the late hours of the night, bickering like an old married couple. It’s usually a nice sight, but he knows that if he goes in right now so upset, both men will try and fix it like they always do. He doesn’t need a fix right now.

“Fuck,” he mutters, rubs a hand over his face.

“You can come to mine,” Luca offers, “I’m not much of a talker.”

“Why, you want to start more rumors?” Is what he comes out with, but he gets none of the pleasure of someone being hurt by his sharpness. Luca just smiles calmly and waits.

A petty part of him wants to refuse it, to turn back, lock himself in the bathroom to avoid Pecco and Alex, and forget this ever happened. The other part of him knows that Luca is being kind.

“Fine.”

In minute he is inside the Honda motorhome. A different color maybe, none of the orange that followed Repsol until they stopped sponsoring the company, but still Honda. He missed his team even if they are painted different, and it feels a little bit like coming home. A silly thought, this is a completely new motorhome that he never used. But they all look the same, really. Small, basic, a few human touches here and there. On the kitchen counter there is a bright yellow hat with ‘46’ splashed across the front. He wonders if it is Valentino’s.

“Stay as long as you like.”

Then true to his word, Luca disappears, dipping into the small room that must be where he sleeps, and shutting the door with a click.

Being alone feels like a balm to a blistering wound. That hot feeling is gone, the vague panic at his own stupidity settles, and he begins to let his emotions out slowly. Drops down to the couch and presses his hand to his cheeks, scolding himself all the while. He isn’t even upset about that whole nonsense with Bezz or the way everyone freaked out. Not at all, he could care less.

But Valentino… his desperate need to see the older man react. He has never been in this position before. Even when they were at their worst as they dated, even when he thought the older man wanted him for his body and nothing more, he never doubted that he sparked some kind of emotion in Valentino.  Did he perhaps doubt if it was care or love? Did he perhaps fear that Valentino wanted him hurting or even dead on the ground? All the time. But he knew he was important no matter what type of importance it was.

He thought that was true even now. It allowed him to numb himself, to not really care what the older man did because he would always be thinking about Marc. It made him assured, arrogant in a really strange way. 

It’s even more ridiculous because for so many years he was desperate for Valentino to stop. Stop chasing him, stop following him, stop talking to journalists, stop bringing it all up, stop poisoning everything, stop starting fights. And now, the minute Valentino chooses to do just that, he is craving it like a dehydrated man in the desert. Pathetic. Stupid.

God. Never a moment of peace, First it was Valentino and everything that happened with him. Then it was his body and the way it was destroyed. Then it was his bike and how it seemed to despise him. Now it is Valentino again but this time the conflict is all of his own creation. The unfairness of it all rends him wide open, and he can’t even blame the lack of justice on anyone else but himself.

A poisonously true thought. He stopped caring about the older man, he did. But that does not mean he stopped thinking about him.

He sits there for a while just steadying himself, breathing in, breathing out, running it all through his head. Twenty minutes pass. Then twenty more, and finally Marc starts to feel a bit more human

As if on cue to that thought, the door cracks open, and Luca peeks a head out, soft-looking in t-shirt and pajama pants.

“You want water? I know you drank a lot at dinner.”

Marc mutely nods, and Luca heads over to the little kitchenette, grabs a bottle from the fridge with a delicate hand, passes it over gently. When he curls up the edge of his lips for a split second, it is Valentino there. Warm, safe, happy, and Marc flinches.

“Ah,” Luca says instantly, “sorry, a lot of people say I look like him when I smile.”

“You do,” Marc says slowly. Takes a swig and lets the coolness of the water pouring down his throat settle him slightly.

This time Luca does not go into his bedroom. Instead he sits lightly on one of the kitchen chairs, turns and stares at Marc, as if waiting.

“Um,” Marc says after a minute feeling awkward, “congrats on your fourth place finish. Best in years on that bike, yes?”

Eyebrows raise up.

“Yes, I am happy. Not the Honda you remember, I think.”

“Not enough orange,” Marc jokes weakly, and like the kind person he is, Luca laughs, then sighs.

“I am too curious not to ask, so I am sorry,” he murmurs, “but what did you mean by act? I tried to pretend, but I cannot. Sorry.”

“I thought you weren’t a talker?” Marc saps out immediately.

“I lied.”

A funny response, one Marc can respect. And somehow even with Luca pushing the boundary of what Marc would appreciate right now, he cannot be mad. Perhaps it is the dreamy way the younger man always seems to carry himself, like an elf from Lord of the Rings. Perhaps it is how he has never been one to say a negative words about Marc even over the many bad years. Or maybe he just remembers the little thing that used to turn scarlet and sputter when he tried to adjust his form in the early days. Just like Pecco, he had a soft spot for Luca. Luchino, he would often call him, and he remembers the way him and Mig used to clash the most out of all of the boys. He wonders if it is still the same.

More than that, those eyes know too much. Blandly, he decides there is no point in lying really. And he is still too tipsy to make up a good one anyway.

“I meant what I said. Me and Pecco aren’t dating, never have been. An act.”

Silence, and he waits for Luca to react. But all he gets are those same slow cat blinks, and a passive face, as if unsurprised.

“That makes sense.”

Marc chokes out a laugh, leans back against the couch, eyes on the ceiling like perhaps he can find some sort of calm there

“Really?” He asks after a moment, and when he glances back at the other man, Luca nods solemnly.

“Yes. I was more confused when I heard you two were dating, actually. Doesn’t work, he thinks too highly of you.”

God. Marc actually understands what he means. Probably because that is what he did to Valentino; held him up on pedestal in the early parts of their relationship. Didn’t just view the man as his boyfriend, but his teacher and idol and mentor and any other thing that held the connotation of reverence. Then when he tried to move away from that, it all came tumbling down.

Pecco had treated him in a similar way too, for years. That’s probably why he never really looked at the younger man like that. Too familiar.

“Does everyone know?”

A shaking head and Marc is relieved. At least he can avoid that embarrassment. He imagines Valentino would be smug about the whole thing. Or maybe he wouldn’t with how detached he had been lately.

“Bezz is too oblivious, and so is Mig. Cele is a bit… spacey, and Franky… honestly he might, he has always been the observant type. He also holds his tongue.”

“Like you?” Marc can’t help but ask, and Luca smiles.

“Like me,” he assures.

God. Pecco might be mad at him for this, for revealing the truth of their relationship so casually. He also might get mad at Marc for storming off as he did, even though he was kind enough to ‘defend’ Marc. He didn’t need it, the only thing he was upset about was Valentino’s indifference, but it was appreciated nonetheless.

“I guess I’m just confused why you are even doing it,” Luca muses, eyes distant, “I don’t think you get any benefit from it. I know you don’t like Pecco in this way.”

“How do you know that I don’t?”

Luca levels him with an unreadable look and doesn’t say a thing. But Marc understands perfectly well what he is thinking. Has seen it in Alex’s eyes, and Pecco’s, and even his mother’s.

No way is he going anywhere near that.

“Pecco got drunk, and whatever he said convinced the team that we are dating.” he says instead of continuing with the previous trail of a conversation, “It would have been more hassle to correct that, so why not, right?”

Of course it all was a bit more complicated than that, but he doesn’t really want to dive into any of the details. Their hookups, the shame it brought him, the fear of going into his first season and anything that might ruin it. The only reason they are still ‘dating’  is because Pecco has not asked to stop. Marc gave him the option after all, and the younger man has not taken him up on it.

Really Marc has no clue why they are still keeping the façade up. But he doesn’t mind it, mostly it is just having a friend who sometimes he holds hands with when it would make sense for them too. And he has always been a very physically affectionate person. No real difference to him.

Luca is staring at him skeptically.

“Right, well. I hope you two know what you are doing, poking the sleeping bear like that. Or perhaps sleeping is not accurate.”

Cryptic words in an even more cryptic voice, said by a doubly cryptic person. He doesn’t remember Luca being quite being like this, but that was years ago. Perhaps the younger man has grown into the exact opposite of what his brother. Perhaps that is why Marc cannot understand him

“Aren’t you sober?” He asks dumbly instead of trying to figure it all out. Luca nods with an amused look on his face.

“Yes, and-”

*Ding* goes Marc’s phone.

*Ding Ding Ding*

Ah. Alex. The messages are worried, and his brother says Pecco is gone now, that he had been waiting, that he has no idea where Marc is and to at least please show that he is alive. Marc sighs. It is late, very late, and while it has been nice to find some peace in Luca’s strangeness, he has no energy to continue talking. After the night he had, he mostly just wants to sleep. Beside, he has been here for probably an hour at this point, and there is such a thing as wearing out your welcome.

“I think I am safe to go back now, thank you for being kind,” he says as brightly as he can, feeling much less tipsy yet far slower as he stands from the couch. Luca does not stand with him, watches with those eyes and a little look that is some strange mixture of sad, anticipatory, curious, and knowing.

“I am sure we will be seeing each other more,” Luca says with a smile. More crypticness.

Marc doesn’t have the energy.

“Yes, yes,” he mumbles as he edges out. It’s an odd feeling, one he doesn’t get around a lot of people. He is not frightened or intimidated, but it is what he would imagine standing in a room with the three fates from Greek mythology would feel like. They know too much, even more than you do, and you cannot possibly explain why. Like right now.

“Sleep well,” are the last words he hears before he is out of the motorhome, breathing in and out the cool night air and desperately wishing he had just borne the brunt of Pecco and Alex’s nagging and worry. Perhaps then he could have switched his mind away from Valentino. But as it stands, he just feels even more lost on how to feel or what to do even as his flaming anger has faltered, nervous about someone else knowing about him and Pecco, even more nervous because that person is Valentino’s brother. And he still thinks of the older ma. Now, only he is simply embarrassed with no anger to blind him.

Unfair. The whole thing is unfair.

He has never believed in fate. But as he keeps getting forced back onto this path, as he is pulled into that same state of mind he has hovered around since he was a teenager, he wonders if this is his destiny. If the hands of the heavens really do determine where you go or what you do or who you care about because what other reason could he have for still….still…

He does not love Valentino, he can’t.

It would be too unfair.

End Chapter 28

Chapter Text

The season was never not going to be his.

That is what everyone is saying after all. The most dominant in all of MotoGP history so far, well on track to beating his own record from 2014. With his 11^th season victory in Misano he takes the title, the earliest any rider has ever before. There was never any doubt, not in his own head or in anyone else’s. Even those who despise him, even Uccio of all people, seemed to accept that early on. They cannot deny the truth; he has destroyed every single other rider with ease.

They call him king. They call him devil. They call him the master. They call him genius. He passes the hundred victories mark in Misano, and they will say he is now hunting down Valentino’s record. They already say he will get by it. They say even two more season like this would cement him as the greatest, shooting up to the top above Agostini and Rossi just like he passed Nieto in Argentina.

It’s… it’s… if he was humble he would say it is a surprise. If he was honest, he would say he knew it was coming. To other people he plans to hover somewhere around the middle. Yes, I know how good I am, but who expects that many wins in one season? Yes, I knew I was the favorite, but who believes in that many poles? Half-truth, half-lies, but at least more palatable than what he is really thinking

Not that it matters. They all probably know that he is bullshitting, but he doesn’t really think about that much. He lies so much that people half believe and half disbelieve every single word out of his mouth. He could say the sky is yellow and they would glance up sort of expecting it to be true. Then they would just be upset at themselves for looking because of course it is blue, there is no other option.

But who cares about lying or games or the stuff he spews with a plastic smile. He has no need for that anymore, all his politeness and humility being thrown to the dogs the second the championship became his.  Not even his own issues and problems and Valentino can ruin this for him. Not even a meteor striking the earth and life ending as he knows it could do that.

 Because he has not won a title since he was in his twenties. He has not been The One for well over six years. Like his first win, it is a homecoming. But even more so because he finds his old crown prepared, his old throne and scepter too. He finds the space he always filled before, as the best, waiting with open arms and he settles into its blissful embrace, and finally feels all the pain disappear.

More than that, a beautiful reminder fills him.

Next year he will not be the hunter, but the hunted. Finally, again.

The thought makes a wicked smile curl over his face as he crosses the finish line. It feels good, everything feels so good. It’s a complete blur after that, after he points to the crowd and is taken back to 2019 in an instant. The final lap is a blur, when he slaps a massive inflatable crown on his helmet, pinned on by velcro patches, before doing his cooldown. The wheelies, the burnout where he wrote as best as he could ‘100’ right in front of his grandstand with his tires, all of it smoking the whole way, is a blur. Distantly he thinks it is an impromptu copy of Valentino’s celebration from years ago, but it is now his. Just like the ninth is his, just the tenth the older man could never get will soon be his, just like that second slot in the list of greats will be. He is not actively hunting Valentino down, but he still can’t help the frenzy he goes into when there is blood in the water.

He doesn’t even care that he will get in trouble for the burnout, by Ducati and by the FIM simply because nothing can bring him down right now.

In parc ferme he is surrounded in an instant, and somehow Alex is perfectly there even though he only achieved 5^th. He ignores all rules and latches onto Marc like he used to when they were little, rambles words in Catalan, at many points voice so thick with tears that it is hard to understand. Little ‘thank gods’ and curses and laughter fills his ears and that mixed with the rush in his brain and the roar of his team and crowd makes him feel like he has ascended.

It is all beautiful as his name is called eventually onto the podium, and somehow that silly crown has been placed on his head, paired with the matching inflatable scepter that his engineers snuck him when he dove into them. He hollers, he stomps his feet, he dances, and he knows that if anyone didn’t believe he was back before (which, how could they possibly) it is clear now. If anyone didn’t believe that he was past everything that happened, winning in Misano only miles from Valentino’s home screams that he is.

It's all even better because the older man is here. Marc had expected that, and he cannot help but search the crowd. Eyes scanning over, looking for crystal clear eyes, or that sour-lemon expression, or even the glint of an earring from the sunlight that streams down over them.

And there he is, head tilted up, curls swaying in the breeze. Valentino, staring up at him with an open expression, a small smile on his lips. Limbs held gently back, the same way you have to stand with leathers on, and in his eyes is a glint of something Marc has not seen in years.

He swallows hard. Because… because… because Valentino…

Because he looks proud. Because he has that same expression he did after Marc took the Moto2 title in 2012. The same expression from 2013 in Qatar, when they had their first podium together. The same expression from Valencia 2013, when Marc won his first MotoGP title. All the firsts really, even their first time. In Indianapolis, when Valentino hovered over him and kissed him so fiercely. He had been proud of himself that night, but back then he would make the same face for both of them as if they were one in the same. A as if Marc’s victory meant as much as Valentino’s own.

At the time that expression had made him light up inside. Better than any trophy, better than any medal, better than any other thing that existed. The winning was first place, always first, but the look on Valentino’s face when he did win stuck there in second place for years upon years. Even 2016, his first title after everything that happened he had searched for Valentino in the crowd. There had been no pride that year, none at all. Just blunt anger, cold fury and frustration that made him sick. After that he stopped looking and knew exactly what he would discover.

But here it is. There is that old pride, there is that old awe, there is the feeling he used to get when he saw it. His heart rate increases and he stares stares stares, feels everything shudder a little. Soft, warm, happy. Like Valentino used to look at him when they were together. In the bedroom, glancing up and finding blue eyes admiringly watching him. Out on the dirt track, shooting a glance to the side after he does a rather risky move and finding a fondly shaking head. Making a stupid joke in the middle of a press conference and letting his attention dart to the man next to him who ducks his head to laugh, eyes crinkling up even years after they stopped being… well, them.

He feels something soft form on his face, feels that iron band he has wrapped around his heart weaken. He hasn’t seen Valentino look like that in years, and just sight has everything else going quiet. It pierces him all the way back to the last time he felt it, in 2014 right before he broke the track record and the man’s trust in one go. Right before he reached for the heavens and had God tear out his wings for even trying. Right before everything bad about what they were boiled over the top in that inevitable way.

Because Valentino looks like he did when he was in-

Then an arm wraps around his shoulder, and he is ripped aggressively from his thoughts, a stumble making him lose his line of sight to the older man and slowing the rising tide of something deep in his chest.

“You are an incredible rider,” Luca says loudly as he tugs in close, giddier than Marc has ever seen him, teeth shining and hair darker with the sweat of the race. He looks beautifully happy, and oh. Oh, that is right. It is Luca’s first podium of the season, his first podium ever. His best results in MotoGP and he looks lighter than air right now. Floating on it almost like it is him who has won the championship today.

Oh.

It is not Marc who Valentino was looking at with that expression.

The thought thunks into his head hollowly, and stops everything in its tracks.

Then there is Pecco too, the rider who had come in second, pressing close to Marc, leaning in to kiss him square on the cheek and it makes him laugh even above the hollowness because it is funny (especially with the way a few Ducati engineers loud out loud wolf whistles) but his mind is still slowed from the realization. Still stuck in the fugue state of something like embarrassment even as he feels all of this happiness from his win.

When he glances back in the crowd, Valentino is still staring. But now Marc can see clearly enough that he knows the other man is staring at him and gone is the gentle softness he held when he watched Luca. All that is left is a tension that makes him look older, an unstoppable frown that Marc thinks is perhaps the most honest Valentino has been in recent months. But above all else, there is an emptiness. A blankness. A nothingness.

The thought should not hurt as bad as it does. And his expression falters for a split second, the briefest of times, until he forces it down. A weakness, he reminds himself. A little crack that he can’t seem to get rid of no matter what he knows to be true. Because Valentino doesn’t care, not at all.

And neither does Marc.

So he slides back into his smile, shifts away and turns it all to the max. Sprays Pecco and Luca down until they curse at him from the champagne in the eyes, peacocks to the crowd and ignores the side where Valentino is. They adore him right now, and he sinks his nails into it, refusing to let go even if for the briefest second because he just… can’t. This is not about Valentino at all, and he refuses to allow the tendrils of the past to ruin something else for him.

The crowd is a brilliant distraction, and they listen to everything he tells them to do. Moves where he points, shouts what he orders, screams when he says to, then goes quiet when he raises a hand. At this moment, Luca and Pecco watching with equally amused expressions from the side, he is in control of everything and it is just enough to make him forget Valentino’s face.

Unbidden as he watches them listen to him, the old memories of Misano comes up. The death threats, the security guards, the mannequin hanging from noose. It’s still the same people now, still those same eyes staring up at him, but now they look with adoration. Because he is the champion, and riding a Ducati he is Italy’s champion. He may be from Spain, he may be the enemy of old, despised by an entire country for cursing their king, but he is one of them splashed in red. And they love him just like he loves them.

And he will not let any of his feelings take away from that now.

“Well done, well done,” his father says in a weepy voice when he finally gets down after he stands up on the podium for almost thirty minutes longer than he should, playing with the crowd, eventually discarding his crown and scepter to them just to watch the hands scramble for it, just to watch the way the person who ends up with it in their grasp looks like they have touched heaven. Arrogant, but today of all days he is allowed.

Alex is here too, because of course he is. Had been waiting off to the side of the stage even when he was not supposed to, breaking the rules once more. He had latched into Marc the minute he could, and not let up until he dragged him to where their father was waiting, away from the madness of the crowd, a grin threatening to crack his face open in the same manner it sits on Alex’s face.

“Did you cry, Pare?” Marc teases, and his father cuffs his cheek like it is meant to be a scold, but leaves his hands there, thumb pressing into Marc’s cheek gently, carefully, wonder in those dark-dark eyes, the ones he inherited among other traits. A breeze ruffles his hair as he stands there, still in his leathers and it contrasts heavily against the soft t-shirt his father is wearing, a pale shade of blue that matches Alex’s livery almost.

“You have no idea, no idea, how scared we were,” his father begins in a tremulous voice, “seeing you lose that… that spark, that hope. You have no idea the nights we spent awake terrified we would never get you back. That racing would finally take you away from us, not in the way we had always feared but somehow worse. You are…. you are alive again fill meau, and we are alive for it. We are so proud, so proud.”

The words are sharp and loving and raw, and oh, now Marc is going to cry. This is far too public for this, only just ducked behind some building to avoid cameras and the reaching hands. He grins wildly in an attempt to cover it, and glances at Alex to look for a joke, but when he finds wet eyes staring back, he can’t help it. Slams forward into a hug in an instant and tucks into his father’s shoulder like a kid. Then he is enveloped, Alex presses in close and their father’s arms wrap around them both.

It’s a similar feeling to Buriram, where he won the race and got their first 1-2. It’s also a similar feeling to Alex’s first win, that ‘finally’ whispering through his bones and pulling him so deep into the earth that he swears when he takes another step, he will rip some up with him.

“God, Mama should be here,” he finally mumbles after they stand there holding each other for a minute in peaceful, shaky silence, and Alex laughs.

“She’d be crying the most,”

“Her nose would turn red.”

“And then she would pretend to be fine, say there is something in her eyes.”

Laugher bubbles in the air, echoing against the walls somehow even as it is decidedly not quiet.

“Enough teasing,” their father scolds lightly after he finds his words, still holding them close “I promised her we would Facetime after the press conference, so go and be done with it.”

But still he is not let go. And still Marc in turn does not let go. He can’t, he needs to stay here forever. The title is his, his place in the history books is even more cemented. Records smashed once more, a future brighter than ever. And he is safe, he is held tight but those who would love him no matter if this happened or not. When he steps into the press conference room he will be faced with love that is conditional, that follows where victory goes. The worship that depends not on who he is, but what he can do. A love he craves, but after so many years without it, he finds the hunger for that particular love has settled into something more like a vague appreciation and wariness.

Right here, standing behind an ugly brick wall that has the slightest bit of graffiti, he finds it to be the most beautiful place of them all. The air sweet, the distant noise of the crowd hummingly pretty. The love of his family, his everything, thrumming in the air.

God. If he could live here forever he would. Freeze time and stay like this. Call his mother to come actually and wait until she is here as well, and then stop the world simply to stop the feeling from leaving, so it can curl around his soul like a purring cat and keep him warm for eternity.

When they do eventually pull away it takes even longer for his father to stop reaching for him, pressing into Marc’s cheek or swiping through his hair, or curling over his shoulder or even lightly hovering over his old injury. There is worry there, but when Marc tells him he feels nothing he is honest and, well, his family are perhaps the only ones on the planet who can tell when he lies, so they believe it. He leaves with the promise to return to the motorhome soon after regardless of what the team wants. He finds himself happy to make that promise. There is nothing that sounds better anayways.

The press conference is fine, boring in the way it slows his heart rate a little bit, the typical questions thrown out. He still finds a thrill though, especially when they refer to him as a nine-times world champion.

Perhaps the journalists are feeling generous too, because not a single one mentions Valentino. Even with the man’s younger brother sitting right there on Marc’s left they refrain, and he is grateful, especially after the feeling he got on the podium. So much of his past and future has been drawn back to Valentino, but this is… this isn’t about him. Not in the slightest, not even a little.

No, this is about Marc. This is about the years of pain. This is about the falls and the surgeries and the horror of it all. This is about three years spent on a bike from hell, on barely making it into Q2, on solid points being a best-case scenario. This is about too many crashes to count, his vision being stolen away again. This is about the articles upon articles saying he was finished, this is about all those who doubted him, this is about all those who hate him, this is about his name being smeared in the mud over and over for every little thing he has done.

He does not need Valentino, even as a small part of his heart begs for some more. He has what he needs now, had it the second he crossed that finish line and took what was always going to be his. And it feels good, especially in here, a press conference room. A sight of so much grief, a place where he has been pinned down with judgement and hatred and everything bad. Now it is his court to do with as he pleases. Even more than it had been back when he was winning everything all the time.

So he will.

He lets it all air out more than he ever has, the gleeful vicious arrogance. He answers the questions more honestly than he thought he would, he bites down on the victory and imagines that it draws blood. He answers questions loftily, lazy and purring like a cat the whole time. Tilts his head as irritation flickers in the eyes of a few journalists who still cling to their old hate. Laughs with the crowd as he makes jokes at their expense, as they bluster and can’t do anything because when the current world champion decides to dig his claws in and call you out for your bull shit, you sit there and take it. Because you have to.

Ducati is of course over the moon. He fulfilled the promise after all, the one he had hidden even from his family.

Give me the bike and I will win like never before. Give me the bike and Ducati’s name will be slashed into the history books right alongside mine as I get my ninth and tenth, as I take almost every race, as I make this a year that people will remember for decades to come. They accuse you of being boring, they accuse your champions of winning solely from your bike. No one will say that with me, because I am one of the most brilliant of them all and this will be the greatest show.  

He had fulfilled his end of the bargain, just like they did theirs. But he knows who really won in this exchange because when he had jumped off the bike into their arms, when he stared down at them from the podium, when he eventually returned to the garage after the conference and was ripped into the air, he knew they were his. Just like Honda had been, just like Gresini had been.

The beauty of divine worship. But Marc is a human and so are they, and there is perhaps no greater devotion than getting onto your knees for a creature that is the same as you.

He is not Valentino. He is no god, he is no untouchable monument rising high above the clouds. He bleeds, he gets torn apart, he loses himself, he cries. He is the part of people that they despise, the cruel arrogance, the competitiveness that murders, the raw, spiteful aggression. He is the rage and the moments of cold quiet.  He is the man who settled onto a bike, snapped down his visor and burned it all down. He is the one who fell from grace and instead of reattaching his wings and trying again, chose to crawl. Slogged through years and years and years to reach the summit once more, and it is all the more beautiful for his pain.

Heaven. This is heaven. He has finally reached that place after so long, finally hitting the point where he cannot ask for anything more.

Except that he can. Because like most humans, he is insatiable. Not enough, even this is not enough. Even as he revels in it all he feels a billowing anticipation.

He laughs to the sky as he is surrounded by those he loves and everything he has worked for. He knows that is not the end.

No, this is fantastically, perfectly, beautifully, the beginning.

***

The rest of the season is good, but boring. Nothing could match the victory in Misano, after all. Motegi, Phillips Island, Sepang, and Valencia are all his by the end of it all. Fifteen wins in one season. He beats his own record from 2014 in that way, just another tick of the box, and he knows that it is officially perfection. He did not win every race, but he never left the podium once. He did not win every race, but is there any other rider alive who could do what he has done? He did it once, when he was hardly more than a rookie, and he has done it again now, when he is the most experienced rider on the grid. A generation started by him, and now he sits at the pinnacle of another one being created.

He's been forcefully not thinking about Valentino since Misano, mostly because when he does all he gets is a pain in his skull and flash of proud eyes that were not watching him. It shouldn’t matter, it doesn’t.

December he gets to pretend that MotoGP does not exist, that Valentino does not exist. Basks in his victory surrounded by his family, naps on the couch in their big cement home with the dogs curled into his lap. Rides dirt bikes with Alex and all the little Moto2 and Moto3 riders who seem to pad after him these days.

He even spends time with Pecco, inviting the younger rider to Spain for a week at one point to train. They are still pretending after all. He had not exactly asked to stop, but briefly said that they should probably end it all before next season starts. Marc agreed, and so as of right now their ‘break up’ is scheduled for mid-January, the same as it was last year. He personally hopes that no more complications ruin that date, but with how publicly friendly they have been, and with their friendship even above their relationship being part of the team, he doubts anything would happen. Besides, he is the current world champion heading into which will no doubt be another strong season. Nothing can touch him right now.

That is until he gets an email from Ducati right before Christmas. An invitation, or rather an order, for a gala in the beginning of January. A celebration of company Ducati’s 100^th year since its founding. The actual date is in July, but apparently they want to celebrate before the season ruins schedules. In the back of his mind he also thinks they probably want to borrow the hype that still surrounds the last season even months later. A Ducati won every race, after all.

It sounds like a bore. It sounds like a waste of time.

But when he finds out that Ducati riders past and present will be there, it sounds a lot more like a disaster waiting to happen. Because that list is long. Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso, Sete Gibernau, to name a few, and now Marc. Many legends on that list, but there is one name that he tacks on almost as a horrified afterthought.

Valentino Rossi.

That horror follows him up until the day of the Gala, follows him on his flight from Spain to Bologna, follows him as Pecco, who drove, picks him up from the airport in some hollow reminder of the day last year when the younger man came to visit around the same time. Funny, he wonders if Pecco was as clocked about the whole thing as Marc is.

They share a hotel room, even as Pecco mumbles that Valentino offered to let them stay with him in a friend’s house in the city. Marc had felt like he swallowed a rock the size of his heart after that, and the other rider wisely held his tongue as they got ready to go.

And so here they are. Not holding arms (have to be a public relationship for that), but shoulders pressed together as the other form of circus their world creates winds up around them. Bushels of people, either sponsors or employees or just very very wealthy, spin around the room and Marc can see them all. Dovi in one corner, tucked in next to Casey, who Marc is shocked is even here. Jorge by the bar, Dani by his side. No Sete, thought Marc didn’t expect that. He’s not one for these kinds of events, especially for a team he didn’t win a title with.

“Ah,” Pecco says, and Marc sees him where his teammate is staring. Valentino, surrounded by a pack of people and charming them, in a pressed suit the way he never is and with his hair done up nicely, wild curls contained. He looks good. Marc hates it.

“Go to him if you want,” Marc says slowly, pasting on a smile, “I want to go say hi to Dovi and Casey.”

Pecco nods slowly, then disappears into the crowd. Marc refuses to follow with his eyes, aware of where he will be ending up, And if he is caught staring down Valentino when the older man gives him not even a shred of notice, the humiliation might kill.

Fuck. He had to come to this, contractually obligated actually, but he wishes he had just lied. Pretended he had food poisening or broken a finger to avoid it all. Though knowing Ducati they would make him come anyway, parade around their star and show off how he is still the same old Marc Marquez, broken bones and all.

The second Pecco is gone though, he is swarmed. Eager faces full of shiny smiles pressing close until he has a certifiable wall surrounding him. They lean close, ask questions, greet him like an old friend and Marc slides back into that pasty, false persona like breathing. Flashes them a grin and a laugh, acts charmed or pleased, even somehow pulls a few names out of his ass that convinces them he remembers any past interactions. They flutter about it, laughing and leaning close, some even reaching out a hand to brush him just like they used to do.

This is the one thing that he didn’t miss about being The One. The way the moths come closer, the way the vultures circle, the way they seem to think the title makes you public property. He can handle it all, he has been doing so for years, but he doesn’t have to like it.

It takes almost an hour to extract himself, and when he finally ducks his way over to Dovi and Casey, the two older men look amused by his suffering.

“Still the same old thing, huh?” Dovi asks lightly, and the sound of his voice is so nice it almost makes Marc forget about the crowds that are still eyeing him like meat. It hadn’t been too long since he saw the older man, the sporadic weekend visits during the season enough to allow them time together, but he does miss the regularity of it all.

“It comes with the territory of winning,” he says lightly, and Casey snorts.

“No that’s all you. When I was champion people usually just left me alone.”

“Because you were mean to them,” Dovi says in a fond voice, and Casey shrugs.

“So?”

Marc laughs, leans against the bar counter they are parked next to and relaxes slightly. He missed the little back and forth they have; Dovi’s gentle adoration mixed with Casey’s wry bluntness. A match made in heaven, in his opinion, and if the rumors are true a match made on earth officially.

He glances down, spies a thin golden ring on both of their hands and smiles.

“You’ll beat Dani and Jorge,” he murmurs lightly, “everyone always thought it would be those two tying the knot first.”

Dovi turns red and a very real smile blooms across Casey’s face as he straightens his back, almost proudly as their engagement is pointed out. As far as Marc is aware it had not been a very public ordeal, although everyone is well aware what they are to each other. Apparently Dovi proposed though, on a boat.

“Good, I was always faster than him anyways,” The Italian man mutters, shooting a slight glare across the room, and Casey laughs. Seems pleased by his fiancé’s aggression and vague dislike for Jorge that was always there, even years later.

“And how many MotoGP titles do you have?” Marc says lightly.

“Many if not for you.”

True, but there is no guilt for that. He won to win, and Dovi could not beat him. He grins at the rolled eyes he get as if the older man is well aware what Marc is thinking.

God. He missed this. Even with how much friendlier the academy riders have been, even with his friendship with Pecco, even with Alex, there is something missing about not having riders like Dovi or Dani around. They may all be older than him and had been pretty established by the time he came in, but to him they were peers. His only peers, really.

He spends the better part of an hour hovering there, feeling like an old man as he reminisces about the old days, until he moves onto Dani and Jorge, earning himself a hug from the smaller man, and a joke from Jorge about how he must be bouncing between all the couples he slept with tonight. Marc just rolls his eyes and when he changes the subject, pointing out that Casey and Dovi were officially engaged and they had been together for a lot less longer time, Jorge had gotten a competitive look in his eye that Dani quickly shot down with a stern look.

The casual socialization after that shifts into dinner, where he is propped up at the big boy table, next to Gigi and Pecco, who both seem to be hating this event.  It’s nice at least, to be surrounded by people who also do not want to be there, especially because those two show it so clearly on their faces. Gigi’s hefty brow has dropped over his eyes and Pecco’s rat-trapped-in-a-blender look is on full display.

“Please tell me that I am not sitting next to the CFO,” he mumbles after a minute when the seat on the other side of him is not filled. Pecco laughs, but then he shoots the empty seat a considering look for a minute, as if it is suddenly fascinating.

“What?”

Pecco blinks.

“Nothing I just… wonder how much of a sense of humor they have.”

“What does that even-”

“Ah, hello.”

Oh. That’s what Pecco meant.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Marc turn around. Allows his gaze to trail over the entire room as he does as if it will reverse what he knows is happening. Eyes the rich red curtains drawn over every window, the flower-printed wallpaper, the black-clad staff flitting to and fro, the sparkling dresses all the women are wearing glinting under the yellow lights of the chandeliers.

And then there is Valentino, shoulder back and head tilted down as he eyes Marc, hands gripping the back of a chair. His face is falsely friendly, a small smile on his lips even as his eyes remain dull.

“Vale,” Pecco says quietly, “you did not tell me you are sitting at our table.”

The older man shrugs.

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Marc can hear the truth behind those words, laced into an unassuming statement.

I didn’t want either of you to have any warning.

 Fucker.

“I never did congratulate you,” Valentino says abruptly, “on your season. It was very good.”

Marc smiles poisonously. Feels Pecco tenses up at the sight, sees Gigi out of the corner of his eye glancing between them, looking startled and a bit confused. But he doesn’t really care right now.

“Yes you did, passed along your congrats to a reporter, in case you forgot. You tend to do that.”

“Forget?”

Marc stares for a second, wondering if this will make Valentino flinch.

“No, use the press to say what you want instead of doing it in person,” he breathes out and feels the entire table go a few degrees colder. There are a few other people there after all, and they had been listening while they pretended not to. But the minute Marc, in a sugar-sweet tone, had made his hostility clear, they snapped their heads up.

A beat. Then Valentino smiles.

“Yes, you are right,” is all he says, before settling into the chair next to him as if it is nothing. When their legs brush underneath the table as the older man shifts, Marc feels it zing up his spine and wants to slice off his own skin as his full attention is now squarely on the man to his left, who is tossing pleasant smiles around the table like candy.

Christ. The organizers certainly did have a sense of humor. The seats are assigned, after all. At this table there is few higher-ups for Ducati, the current technical director, and their rider lineup. On what planet did Valentino make sense? No, this was to fuck with Marc. This was to cause problems.

He won’t give them the satisfaction.

“I heard WEC went well,” he says calmly, and the look of surprise that everyone shoots him feels like it should be insulting.

“Oh,” Valentino says, “Yes. No championship, but it is better every year.”

“Fun.”

That tension continues as food gets placed in front of them, as the clinking of silverware against plates fills the room with delicate chatter. So different from his usual dinners, which are most often with family or other riders. Definitely different than the last time he ate with Valentino, in Germany.

Polite conversations trickle around the table, interrupted by Valentino’s humor making people titter loudly. Marc forces himself to laugh at a few of them and attempts to forget about the man beside him. He turns to Pecco desperately and finds wide eyes already watching him. They can’t even talk, he can’t even say anything because the table is laughing and Valentino is charming them and if Marc even says a single thing mean, even tries a single thing, he will be the bad guy here.

He wonders if this all was planned.

The bubble in his stomach builds through the first course. Then the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. By the time the fifth comes, Marc is wondering when this dinner will end. God. He takes a long sip of his drink, some fruit-flavored cocktail that had been placed in front of him.

Drinking seems to be the theme of the night at this table, so at least it is not just him who is feeling it all. He watches a sweaty man across the table that he doesn’t recognize throwing back his drink like it is going out of style, cringing as the alcohol hits his throat and Marc can definitely relate. As the night continues they are trapped through the courses that just keep coming. The conversation flickers around him, mostly between Valentino and every other person at the table

God.

By the time they get to dessert Marc is giving everything to keep his composure. Has been polite, has laughed at all the jokes, has even kept polite eye contact with Valentino when the other man turned to briefly include him in a conversation.

It’s hell, he hates it. The friendliness of all of it is chafing against his skin and the way even Gigi is eying him with concern means that he is not hiding it well. Hell, of the way Valentino himself keeps darting him looks out of the corner of his eye, he must look really terrible. He really does feel it, though probably not worse than the sweaty man, who is scarlet faced and clearly drunk as hell if the way he is swaying back and forth says anything.

“I was laughing,” Valentino is saying, “and Pecco here comes in because I woke him and it is 3 AM, and I thought he was one of the dogs because I had not slept in days. Started petting him like one, he never forgave me.”

“It was embarrassing,” Pecco huffs, and Valentino grins at him.

“For me too.”

“Why were you so tired though?” One of the table guests wonders.

Valentino shifts a bit, then smiles.

“A long night. I was visiting someone in the hospital, but he was… not in Italy.”

God. If Marc has to listen to the older man talk about how good of a friend he is he might just hurl. He takes another long sip of his drink and wonders why he isn’t feeling anything yet. If they gave him something non-alcoholic, he might genuinely get upset. He scowls at it briefly, incensed.

“It must be terrible,” the sweaty drunk man across the table says out of the blue, eyeing Marc with a small, strange smile. He blinks in response, slowly sliding on one of his smiles as the attention of the table returns to him.

“The drink? It’s fine, I just don’t think that-”

“No, needing the best bike to win.’

Silence. The sweaty man is smirking at him, eyes hazy, and Marc doesn’t even feel hurt or upset, he is mostly confused. Because as far as he is aware this is a Ducati event for Ducati employees and riders (past and present) and now suddenly this guy is talking about having the best bike like it is a bad thing.

He’ll never understand people.

“Ah, I am very lucky to have someone like Gigi on my side, yes,” he says diplomatically, darting a glance over at the engineer, whose brow is furrowed and has started to lean forward.

“No, No,” the man says, “No, no. I mean you. Winning and acting like you are so great when the machinery did it for you. I mean, Valentino left the best bike at Yamaha to try and build up a new one. You ruined the best team and left them to ruin another.”

Ah.

This man hates him.

He recognizes the emotion well, has seen it in so many eyes over the years that it is like an old friend. It’s the irrational, thick kind of hate, the one you can’t control when your tongue is loosened. The kind that has you doing and saying stupid things and always feeling justified no matter how mean you are.

The ugly kind.

“I just think it’s kind of ridiculous,” sweaty drunk man continues, “that we would even bother calling you the best when you are like that. Not even top ten with the way you ride.”

Marc chooses not to respond to any of it even as the other people at the table look peeved,, simply shoots a wan smile and shifts his eyes to someone else. There is no need to interact after all, and the man is drunk. More than that he is used to these kinds of things, it is better to just-

“I did not leave Yamaha to build a new bike better,” Valentino suddenly says, voice sharp “I left because I was being replaced. I went to Ducati, could not do it, and returned to Yamaha. So I do not think I am comparative when Marc has spent years injured and just had the greatest MotoGP season of all time. You clearly have opinions, but I would keep them to yourself. They make you sound like an idiot.”

Huh.

Huh.

…….Huh?

Marc feels his brain kind of go a little buzzy for a second when he hears that. He turns his head slowly, vision blurring out in the edges until he tunnel visions on the man next to him and what he finds there baffles him, curdled and cruel.

Anger, the first kind he has seen on the older man’s face in over a year now. The kind he remembers; mouth in a thin line, eyes dark and mean, one eyebrow darted down. The overhead light only pronounces it more, casting angles that make Valentino’s emotion even more clear.

He is poisonously mad. And not at Marc. For Marc.

“And more than that, the Honda was on a bad development path before Marc rode it and they performed well because he is that good. Only two years did they have the best bike, one of which was his rookie year which he won, and the other the second most dominant MotoGP season in history, which he also won.  The rest of the time it was him wrangling it like a bucking bull and he was still able to get five more championships with them.”

Has he been thrown into a different world? Has the rapture happened, and they are all dead? Is this hell? Is this heaven? Is this even life at all? He has no idea what to do with himself as he blankly sits there. Just stares, stares and stares as Valentino uses everything he had weaponized against Marc for so many years in his defense.

“But-What- But-You were his competitor, how would you even know th-” drunk sweaty man is sputtering, but Valentino cuts him off cleanly, leaning forward with a sharp smile.

“I was his teacher. I knew everything about his riding and his bike and I still do now. So stop acting like you know things just because you’re a walking wallet.”

Then, apparently done with his public undressing, Valentino turns around and calls to the nearest waiter, charming smile on display.

“I think this gentleman has had a few too many, perhaps he should be… given some water,” he says carefully but with a regal insistence. Seconds later drunk man is being gently led out, looking even redder than before somehow. Marc watches him go with very little sympathy and through the dull probably-shock he feels a little bit of vindictive pleasure rise up. The man looks near catatonic.

Understandable thought. The entire table is like that actually, all of them staring as Valentino gives a satisfied looking, smile toward it all, seeming content with his vicious takedown that had what was probably a very powerful Ducati employee all but kicked out. He is breathing heavily in a way that Marc had not noticed, and he watches fists unclench. He hadn’t even realized Valentino was clenching them.

Jesus. What is even going on. He chances a glance at Pecco to see if perhaps the younger rider can comprehend it. But all he finds is a slightly dropped jaw furrowed brows and a tilted head. But Pecco does not look shocked or confused like so many of the others. Instead he looks….. tired, and long-suffering.

No help there then. Marc turns back slowly just in time to catch Valentino looking away from him with a complicated expression, as if cursing himself, and reaching with his fork to take a slow bite of the fruit bowl that they had all gotten as dessert. His eyes go inexplicably softer as he chews, head dipping low in that way he always does when he feels like he has done something bad.

“Ah… pineapple,” the older man mumbles

Then he turns to Marc in a shift of movement that has his breath catching in his throat. Blue eyes meet his and he feels swallowed by them.

“Your favorite.”

Marc blinks at him. Robotically turns to his own plate, spears a piece of the yellow fruit and gently places it in his mouth. Feels the sour-sweetness explodes across his tongue and swallows it down.

“It’s good,” he says quietly.

Because how the hell is he supposed to respond to any of that.

End Chapter 29

Chapter Text

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

That has lately been the script running through Vale’s head. It’s what he felt all throughout the 2025 season, watching, always watching, the way Marc clean sweeps them all. Watching him at sporadic dinners with the boys, smiley and pressed close to Pecco. Watching him in that one club they went to, memories of every other time he had seen the younger man under flashing lights spinning his head as he stared stared stared.

He had promised himself that he would stop showing up to so many races, even if the boys begged him to. But he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t stay away even if he was simply hovering at a distance. He couldn’t say no when they asked for dinners or clubs or anything that might bring him closer to Marc. And it was so stupid, so idiotic, but he knew that and couldn’t do a single thing it all.

During the podium in Misano he had been the most stupid. Had let his eyes cling to Marc, beautiful and bold and brilliant, up there on the podium. Had pretended just for a split second that he was allowed to still feel the pride that bowls him over, the relief, the awe, the affection, the love. But his heart snapped as Marc stared back, then turned away to receive a kiss from Pecco with a grin. As he ignored, moved forward, as the new story of his life (one without Vale) officially finished its first chapter.

So stupid, because he really had promised himself to leave it alone. Because the hate is still there, a sharp edge underneath the guilt and love and hope and patheticness that makes up what he is these days. And he knows if he gets close it will come out. They can’t even be friends, because one weak moment, one drink too many, one edge of comfortability and he would snap, that old hurt tucking him in, and everything would start again.

But he misses it. Even the rage. He misses feeling alive when they sniped at each other, he misses the little sharp-toned comments, he misses seeing fire blaze in those dark-dark eyes instead of the careless dull look he tends to get nowadays. He even selfishly misses how he used to be, when his ego allowed him to ignore the truth of it all. When he was the God of MotoGP and could look down at Marc and feel above it all, even if he was decidedly not.

The worst part is that he sometimes thinks Marc misses it too, at least the whole ‘alive

 Aspect of it all. It must be why he… why he is doing these things. Pushing buttons so much that Vale feels his self-control hanging on by a thread. In Germany, when they had dinner and afterward they were walking, Vale had almost lost it at the joke that flew out of Marc’s mouth. The little comments in a sly voice about him and Pecco, Spanish accent curling around the words ‘took off my clothes’ and his entire being had snapped to attention, well more than it already was. And then the reference to Bezz, the idea that maybe Marc had hated him enough to do something like that even back then… he felt that old jealousy, pulsing and mean, fill him and he had to turn around.

There he found cool eyes watching him, and in the back of his head he assured himself that Marc was doing that to mess with him, that he was tipsy and did not remember his sober mind doesn’t care that much. It stung so badly as the boys freaked, Bezz sputtered and Marc just observed him with a cool sort of anticipation.

It took the dull memory of the words in Valencia two years ago now and Luca’s presence beside him to turn away, to stop the way his hands shook and when Marc stormed off he wondered if this was his victory or loss.

It’s the same at the Ducati gala come January, after the season had finished and he had time to vaguely reset himself. Marc kept testing him, though eventually behind a veneer of politeness, and he was about to vibrate out of his skin the entire time, even as they were nowhere near each other. The younger man looked good, hair prettily falling over his forehead and cheeks lightly flushed from the warmth in the room. And what’s worse is that he didn’t trail around with Pecco, so all Vale saw was him, laughing and happy, glowing like the star on top of a Christmas tree.

Stupid stupid stupid, he thought as he stared unabashed, hungry and praying that watching alone would be enough to satiate himself. It wouldn’t be, but he still tried to hope.

It was almost a relief when that stupid man said what he said because Vale could finally let some part of it out. The rage that took over him as the creature in front of them made snide comments, comments that perhaps Vale might have made years ago but would have known were lies, flickered something in him. And it sprung forth from his mouth before he could stop himself, along with the feeling of ‘oh well’ a nihilistic sort of knowledge that he was doing far too much. He just… he couldn’t stand the way Marc’s face went all dull, the way he accepted it and didn’t say a single word to his own defense.  How he took the bitter words on the chin like he was used to it.

Your fault, the back of Vale’s mind whispered, and it tangled with the anger until he overreacted enough to get the man subtly kicked out.

He ate the pineapple after he was done, satisfied and sharply aware of the eyes that were on him, and wished with every part of himself that he could do what he used to do; pile all of the yellow fruit on Marc’s plate because it would make the younger man look pleased. He wonders how Marc would react. Nothing good comes to mind, so he doesn’t.

The rest of January is spent hiding from it all once more, the embarrassment at his obviousness at the gala forcing him to be a hermit, even turning away the academy boys with nonsense excuses. But when Pecco’s pipes in his apartment burst, he has to allow the younger man over. It is two weeks before preseason testing. He avoids the younger man as much as he can, but it is hard not to see him and feel a flash of everything with Marc from the past ten years.

That week is the first time he hears Pecco and Marc fight. It is over the phone and Vale is not supposed to even be listening. He had only gone into La Tana to grab some spare toilet paper, as he was too lazy to call one of the staff to run to the store. But when he heard a curse and then Marc’s name loud and clear through the door he couldn’t help but perk up his ears.

“You are being an idiot, Marc.”

The name has him flinching. Stops him in his tracks right in front of Pecco’s door. It was said angrily. He never hears Pecco angry.

“No I know, it’s just… you were the one talking about ending it in January. And now you want to keep going? For what?”

Vale sucks in a little bit of air. Because from what little he just heard, it sounds like… it sounds like Marc and Pecco are going to break up.

Panic shoots through his chest at the thought, the kind he does not want to analyze, but he forces it down and strains to hear.

“I know.”

A shifting inside, the sound of springs and Pecco has clearly dropped down to his bed. Vale can almost picture it, him with his hands in his hair, arguing with Marc, who is always impossible to discuss anything with. He can almost imagine the words the Spanish man is putting forth, something curling and pretty and convincing. Always convincing.

“Don’t say that, I didn’t mean it like that. You were the one who-”

Silence as Pecco is cut off. Then when his voice comes back, it is lower, gentler.

“I know. I know. And you know that I would be more than willing to keep going but …”

So it is not Pecco who wants to end things. It is Marc, and now he is backtracking. He wonders what made him want to stop, he wonders what made him want to continue. He wonders a lot in that moment, but all he can do is lean even closer to the door and hope he can get the full picture

“You chose January, why extend it now? I mean I don’t care, you know I don’t care, I like you too much to be upset, but you were pretty firm in that.”

A snort.

“No, I don’t have anyone else, you know that, I just… this is about Valentino isn’t it.”

He feels his heart skip a beat when Pecco says his name. It skips another when he just barely picks up on a tinny laugh that must come from Marc, loud even through a phone and a door. He is laughing. As if it all is one big joke.

“Yes it is, don’t lie to me. Don’t make everything worse just because you are freaked over what he thinks, for my sake or yours. I’ll be fine, and so will you. He doesn’t need to be part of any of this at all, even if he wants to be.”

Fuck. Double fuck. This is about him then. Marc wants to end things with Pecco because of him. Because he is so aware how much of a mess Vale is that it pisses him off enough to destroy something he so clearly loves. Perhaps foolish to think that he is the core of everything but… but its feels like truth.

A guilty little thought curls in his head. That he can’t be the one to ruin something for Marc again.

“Well you won’t listen to me when I say that he is still in-”

Vale stumbles at those words, panic shooting through him and accidentally slams his head into the wall loud enough for it to echo around the house. He curses loudly without thinking then immediately freezes. Freezes even more when he realizes that the call has gone quiet, neither Pecco nor Marc saying anything right now.

Fuck fuck fuck, he is so stupid. Fuck, why was Pecco telling Marc that? Why does it sound like he has said it before? Why was Vale even listening? Why was he stupid enough to make his presence so known? Why was-

Then the door is torn open, and he has no time to run and there is Pecco, face stern and disappointed as he stares Vale down. The silence is tense, and he swears he can hear Marc’s breathing over the phone. Part of him wants to press closer, simply to be able to hear it clearly, the other part knows he might even be hit if he tries.

“Ah…. What did you want for dinner?” He asks awkwardly instead of any of that, and Pecco pinches his eyes shut like he wants to block it all out.

Marc hangs up. Vale watches the way the picture of the other man (in his red red racing leathers) disappear and he feels his chest tighten at the realization that the second Marc heard his voice, he wanted out of the conversation.

“Pasta.”

Then the door is shut in his face, and he all but runs to his side of the building

Dinner that night is a tense affair, later than he intended because he keeps walking into the kitchen, begins to boil water, and then gets so tense that he has to return to his room and take a few deep breaths. Stupid, this is his house, but when Pecco eventually does come over, face blank, he flinches so hard the younger man rolls his eyes.

They eat in silence. Shadows of night make the kitchen feel like some kind of limbo, trapped in one time, as if the moon isn’t darting across the sky and pulling them closer to the morning. Maybe it is also how familiar it feels that makes this limbo. Back in the day, if he woke up in the night and Marc wasn’t there, he would find him at the kitchen table thinking in that quiet way he only ever does when he believes no one is watching. A soft memory, one of the many he reflects on when he is alone, wandering through his own home like it is haunted.

But Pecco is not Marc. The shape of the body eating is different, the brown eyes that meet his gaze too light, the curls too long, the face too pale and drawn, the energy too calm where Marc’s is always wild.

Vale hates it.

“Are you excited for the season?” He asks lightly when the heaviness of the quiet becomes too much to bear, and Pecco shrugs.

“I have another long one ahead of me. Marc is strong.”

Right. He had avoided thinking about that. Scratch that, he has definitely been thinking about it, but he cannot lie and say he remembered to include Pecco in those musings.  Last year the younger Italian rider was crushed, plain and simple. Even though him and Marc are… are dating, he would still want to be the one to do the crushing in the future, unlikely as it is.

In the back of his mind there are two voices. One he has which has whispered reverently about Marc for years, the kind that insists he is unstoppable. The other loves Pecco and knows how brilliant the younger man can be. Those two voices battle for dominance regularly, especially in recent months, but he understands Pecco only needs encouragement right now, not realism.

“You liked the GP26 better so far, it suits your style. Marc will have to adapt to that,” he says diplomatically, not an insult toward the Spanish man (well aware that would only earn him ire) but also positive toward Pecco’s chances.

The younger man nods, then hesitates.

“I know you heard the phone call.”

Silence. Vale swallows, then laughs tensely.

“Ahh, yes. All couples fight, it will be fine.

“We were going to break up,” Pecco says with a shrug, though his eyes remain focused and intense. Vale inhales sharply.

Christ. So they really are having this conversation. Maybe this is his fault for making it so clear he was listening in, maybe Pecco has been holding himself back. But right now the younger man does not need Marc’s jealous ex who is still obsessed with him. He needs Vale; his mentor since he was a kid. He can’t control how he feels, but he can at least give Pecco that.

“Why?” He asks instead of the litany of other things sitting on his tongue.

A sigh.

“I have been thinking,” is all Pecco responds with, and Vale can’t help but shift closer to see if maybe proximity would allow him to understand his student better. Because how can he say something like ‘break up’ so casually? How can he even reference ending things with Marc with a shrug, as if it doesn’t matter? When Vale did the same thing, it had been torture. Even when he believed that… that Marc betrayed him, it had taken ripping out a part of himself to end it all.

“Is this because of last season?”

“No. We would have broken up months ago if it was.”

He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to feel. All he is aware of is that his chest is getting tighter and tighter, just like it did when he realized what they were discussing. And horrifically, it is only for selfish reasons.

Because if Pecco and Marc break up…. what excuse would Vale have to hover so close? What excuse would he have to stare so often? What excuse would he have for dinners and nights out where he can watch from a distance and pretend it’s enough to fill the void?

What he has right now is hell. The politeness, the distance, the silence, the absence of care. But the only thing that would perhaps be worse than that is nothingness.  A lack of Marc in all aspects except from the distant proximity on race day. The other man dating Pecco is… it scalds his skin, but at least it is something. At least he can get even slightly close, close enough to just barely scratch the itch.

“I don’t know why you would,” he says numbly, “you two are happy together.”

Pecco sighs, gives him a look full of pity and swallows down a bite of pasta.

“You don’t have to lie to me. I know how much it still kills you, our relationship. I would prefer if you just told me what you think.”

Vale forces a laugh.

“This is not true,” he gets out, leaning forward to rest his elbows against the counter in a way he hopes is casual.

“I am-I am happy for you two.”

Another look in the same way, and he has to break eye contact.  Drops his gaze to the floor and scrutinizes the little divots in the stone, the paths that have been trodden over the years. Sometimes he wonders if pressed into the ground are imprints in the shape of Marc’s feet, if he has left a permanent mark there as well, not just in the rest of the house and Vale’s heart.

“I don’t think that’s true Vale.”

He hates how perceptive Pecco is, hates how perceptive all of them are these days, especially when it comes to Marc. Or maybe he is just transparent, maybe every single person is aware how he is. The guilt that chokes him, the anger that still exists, the memories of pain and self-righteousness, the lies that he was told. Christ, if Uccio was watching this he would scoff and go on some long-winded, dramatic rant. But he’s not here, Vale still hasn’t spoken to him outside of work-related things in… in a year now. The longest time ever. He tries not to think about that often.

“It doesn’t have to be true,” he finally says, “it is what I decided.”

He darts his eyes back up, and watches as Pecco slowly nods. As his eyes narrow down into two little slits, as if considering something dangerous and contrasting it with the right choice in his head. He must be… must be debating it still. The decision. The relationship.

Vale is floundering a little, even as he holds his body steady. Those selfish thoughts run rampant through his head. How can he stop this, not for Pecco’s sake, but for his? How can he grab hold of what little he has left? It’s stupid, just like most of his ideas, but he cannot let this one go. Not when he feels the little feathering touch he has clutched into so fiercely, the only things keeping him sane, slipping away.

“I can’t continue to watch you like this,” Pecco starts slowly, looking determined, “you need to know that me and Marc-”

“Invite him to the ranch,” Vale spits out, interrupting whatever it is the younger man was going to say with fervor. Pecco stops. Blinks at him in a stunned sort of manner and Vale laughs a bit manically at the startled expression.

“Yes,” he keeps going, incensed, “the season will be tough, and he loves the track. Time around the boys, time around him and everything will go back to normal, you will see, you will be happy again. I- It will be good, I… don’t want to make you feel like you have to break up with him just because I…”

He doesn’t finish that last part. Can’t say out loud to the boyfriend of the man he loves that he will never be able to let Marc go. That for the rest of his life he will be stuck drowning in his own mistakes. That he hates and loves and everything else a human being can feel for the man.  It would be too much.

“Vale…” Pecco murmurs, as if to protest, but he waves the younger man off.

“No, no, it will be good. There will be no fights, no cameras, nothing. I won’t even ride, it can be just Marc and the boys, and it will be good. I promise I will be good, it will be good.”

He said good too many times. Fuck.

“Why do you want that?”

Vale shrugs, laughs again as if it is unimportant even as his jittery hands give him away.

“It would be nice, for you two, for the boys, for MotoGP as a whole. Things like me and Marc… they are the past, it is over and I am… over it. He is too, I know that, and it is time to finally take that first step.”

A flat expression greets his words. Vale swallows.

“I… you two are good together,” he grits out, trying again, “and if he knows that I am okay with everyone, it will be better, no?”

Another critical look, and Vale cannot say what he is really thinking, it’s too weak, and so he just smiles as innocently as he can and hopes it does not look as mad as he feels.

“I just want to,” he finally says, as close to the truth as he will get

A sigh, and Pecco shakes his head.

“It's a bad idea.”

Vale leans forward, reaches out like to grab Pecco’s arm, but cannot do it.

“No I…”

Then he feels that panic take over, and it is out of his mouth before he can stop himself, sad and low and too real.

“Please.”

Pecco is staring at him, jaw slack. His eyes dart all across Vale’s face, analyzing everything and he allows it. Lets it happen, lets his face show what he won’t say, and the other man deflates.

“I’ll ask him.”

Valentino feels relief fly into his brain as he pinches his eyes shut, takes in a shuddery breath.

“Great,” he says weakly as images of Pecco and Marc swim through his head. Them together riding, leaning up against one another and smiling. Them sitting by that tree next to the track, talking in low voices. Them in Pecco’s room, curled up around each other as they sleep. Everywhere that Vale had been, Pecco is his replacement there. On the couch in La Tana, laughing at bad movies. Sitting at the kitchen table, eating and quietly watching each other.

God.

“When were you thinking?”

Vale blinks dumbly at the question. Tries to figure out if it would be better to rip the band-aid off now or give himself time to get comfortable with those terrible thoughts.

“Whenever he-you want.”

“Summer break maybe,” Pecco murmurs, “Just for a few days I think.”

Summer break. A long time away, enough time for him to get himself together and shore up his defenses. Summer break when it is thick-aired outside, so blazingly hot in Italy that it makes soil crack up. When they all ride dirty and disgusting, when sweat makes hair daker than it is. The last time Marc was here for summer break was 2015, when he came back from Mallorca. Riding with him in the summertime was always a drug, especially because afterward when they showered Vale could dip down and taste the salty sweat and adrenaline still hovering over skin. The heat always built up so much it made his head spin.

Pecco is right. This is a bad idea.

But right now it is so cold in here, he craves the heat. An unnatural cold actually, Vale notices as he nods in agreement. It is winter so that makes sense, but it’s not the same kind. It’s the chill he used to get in Marc’s old room in La Tana, the icy grips of the past turning breath fogged and making him shake.

Marc’s room.

“He will stay with you, yes?”

It comes out in a rush, and Pecco, eyes deep and all-knowing, just stares at him. Mouth tugged up in a smile.

“My bed is a twin, too small. I was thinking he could sleep in his old roo-”

“No,” Vale cuts in instantly, “No that’s not happening. The room is locked, I lost the key, just…. he will be fine on a twin with you. He has done it-”

He stops those words. A reference to the past, when he would sometimes come over to Marc room on nights when the younger man was too irritated to sleep with him, before he got a big enough bed for two. Marc never locked the door, so sometimes Vale would just slip in while the younger man was sleeping, slide under the covers and revel in the way Marc’s whole body relaxed the minute they touched. They would spend the night pressed so close he would sometimes wake up not knowing where he started and Marc began.

The thought of the younger man being like that with Pecco makes him feel sick. But the only other options would be to clean out Marc’s old room (unacceptable) or have him stay in a guest room. On Vale’s side. Just them.

Also unacceptable.

“He will be fine,” he repeats.

“….Right.” Is all Pecco responds with, then he stands up from the chair he has been delicately sitting in with a strange sort of grace. In that moment Vale realizes how different they must look. Pecco soft in his sweatshirt but put together. Hair curling over his forehead, eyes bright and awake, face relatively placid. Set shoulders, firm hands, a way of moving that is uncomplex and clear.

Vale, on the other hand, must look a wreck. Hair crazily tangled from the way he ran his hands through it as he cooked, face pale, eyes wild. He is a mess, and Pecco is not, and that is probably why Marc likes him.

“I don’t know why you would want to torture yourself with this,” Pecco murmurs as he finally moves to walk by, pressing a gentle hand to Vale’s shoulder. He forces a smile, shrugs.

“You are funny,” he says in a creaky voice, “I do not do things I would hate. It will be good to have Marc here- for you and the boys, I mean. He is a talented rider and training with him for a short time even would make it better, and I think that-”

“Okay, okay,” comes an interrupting voice as Pecco cringes, “okay. I get it, you won’t be honest. Just… I hope you know what you are doing.”

He smiles again and heads off to the other building, back straight and head tilted down like he is thinking. Vale watches him go and wonders if Pecco feels it too. The weight of the past hovering over them here. Wonders if he can find traces of Marc everywhere just like Vale can. Every fight, every argument, every tear, every soft word, every kiss, still swirling in the air even years later. He wonders if maybe it is just him who knows that when Marc comes here again, because he will come, the pressure will increase, memories will intensify, moments he had forgotten about will slip back, and Vale also knows it will be torture. But… but at least it is better than never seeing the younger man again.

The old him would be seething over how pathetic he is. The current him, the one who accepted a long time ago how human he is, just sighs.

Pecco opens the door to slip through creaks down the hallway and it makes Vale flinch a little when it shuts, even if the click is so quiet. Once he is gone, he feels any strength leave his body, and his head drops to the table as he winces.

Stupid. God he is so stupid.

***

Marc will be there for three days, next week. That is what Pecco tells them all once summer break officially arrives, once the season had passed in a blur of victories for Marc and Pecco that make it closer than last year by a mile, even if Marc still has a hefty lead.

He says it the morning after they all get to the ranch, eyes clear and even over the breakfast table as the other heads of the academy riders shoot up. It’s not Marc that is the issue, Vale is well aware that many of his boys have only grown fonder of the Spanish rider, but him. The way they dart glances his way only cements that idea.

“Really? Why?” Franky asks with raised eyebrows, and instead of looking at Pecco while he asks, he is leaning toward Vale, face beseeching and confused, but also worried.

“Ask Pecco,” he says slowly in response, and Franky narrows his eyes, doesn’t turn to look at the referenced man and just stares as if he will find out the truth with his eyes. Which he will not, Vale bites down on his croissant with a sort of sternness and avoids eye contact as well as he can.

“It will be good for us,” Is all Pecco says, and the croissant gets stuck in Vale throat. He feels his eyes start to water but he refuses to cough or even make it clear that he has been disrupted in any way. Luca’s hand comes to smack him on the back, so it must not have worked, but whatever.

“Will he ride?” Cele asks lightly, eyes excited.

“Yes.”

“Will he ride... with Vale?”

That one comes from Bezz, who is curled up with his blanket still, curly head poking out and looking like a child. He asks it hesitantly, the kind of worry that only comes from knowing things will most likely end poorly, and Vale feels a little sick with the tone. It’s how he used to sound, when he was little and didn’t want his parents to fight so much. ‘Will Graziano be there?’ He would always ask with smile, but that’s same exact voice, preparing himself for a night of laughter that covered up narrowed eyes and mean words.

“No,” Vale says immediately, “I am… tired from WEC lately. You all will ride and I will…”

He doesn’t know actually what he will do. He could watch, but that would be its own form of hell. He could avoid it all, but it would be too obvious. Even if he has a good cause, Marc knows his habits, he was his student after all. He knows Vale needs to be there while the boys ride, needs to watch and write down notes so he can be what he is; a teacher. He would see right through any excuses, then he would know how much power he still has, and Vale would… well, he would somehow lose once more. Even as he tries to avoid the war as much as possible.

“Do work,” he finishes lamely, and Pecco gives him a look.

“I have lots of work without Uccio,” he defends, and that just makes them frown more at the name. They have never quite understood what happened there, and Vale still avoids thinking about it, even a year later. They have spoken, but the coldness he pulls around him when his old friend is near works well enough to keep everything in the back.

He does… he does miss Uccio. He has grown used to being alone more these days, and it makes him feel even older, but… he isn’t quite there to even thinking about discussing what happened.

A few times he almost called. Usually when he felt the shittiest. One of them was after Misano. Another was after the gala. Yet another was the night he proposed Marc should visit. Every single time he opened the contact, clicked on it, and almost pressed down. He knows if he does Uccio will pick up on the first ring. He also knows that he will help, no questions asked.

But the idea of doing it makes him feel too constrained. Because he had been lied to for years. The only person he trusted above all else took advantage of that trust.

“It will be good,” Vale declares, shaking himself out of his thoughts, “he is a good rider. It would be good for all for you to train with him.”

That is the final word he gives on the subject, and he makes that clear by turning to Cele and asking how his first year in MotoGP is feeling, a topic that has been constant since the season began. It is enough to distract them even as he feels eyes watching him, and so he breathes deeply, and tries to pretend like next week is forever away and everything will be okay. He will act normal about it all.

So of course, he panics until the day arrives.

Rearranges both sides of the house twice. Steals away the couch cushions for cleaning, gets the carpets steamed, sends out the laundry of everything that can be washed everywhere multiple times over until Luca has to firmly stop him after Cele has to run naked to his room for a lack of towels.

So he switches to the garage. Gets every bike tuned up, calls in so many mechanics that they come in faster than he can learn their names, has the walls repainted twice until the soothing green color makes it easier to breath, has the entire shower room gutted out and replaced with new hardware, installs fresh tables into the lunch room that was built and pretends like he doesn’t stare for a full hour making sure they are angled exactly right. But then that too gets him in trouble, Franky literally barring him entry until he calms down.

He switches again. This time it is the landscaping. New trees get brought in, the bushes are trimmed to perfection, the grass is tended to until it almost begins to glow green even in the Italian heat. He fixes every wrong; the little cracks in the paved area, the way the dust makes the side of the house look a little dull, the dirt that is tracked almost into the floor at the entry of the house. He even has that tree, the one that hangs over the edge of the track worked on until the boughs that had grown out in the time since it was planted are trimmed down to what it looked like years ago.

None of it is enough. Every day as they creep closer he finds something else that he needs to fix. The faucet in the kitchen drips, so he guts the whole thing. The furniture in the guest rooms is all outdated, so he replaces them just in case they are used. The track has a little dip, so he calls in a digger to come flatten it out. The roof of La Tana is a bit worn, so he gets them to rip it up and put in a new one.

Madness, of course, stupid, of course, but he can’t help it. Feels this need to control every little facet of life before Marc gets there, so when he does he can find nothing wrong. Nothing that can make him leave, other than Vale himself, of course. The only place he does not touch is Marc’s old room. In fact he just double-checks multiple times that the door is still firmly locked, hides the key (which he did not lose) in the pocket of an old coat, and pretends like it’s not dusty and creepy and horrifying in there. Continues his wild overhaul of everything and makes each day filled with something to do.

That’s the good thing about money, at least, because in one week he gets it all done. In one week, he is able to make every single corner of the ranch look brand new, even better than when Marc used to live there.

They all think he is crazy of course, and he doesn’t even want to think about how Pecco is feeling. Because… this is more than defending Marc at a dinner. This is more than watching in the distance. This is even more than hiring doctors and spending a week unable to sleep. It’s madness, its obsession, it’s the way Marc has always been able to control every part of who he is.  He is held hostage by himself and how every single thought revolves around Marc Marquez. He is controlled even when the younger man does not do a thing.

The day Marc finally gets there is the worst. The work is all done, he can’t change anything without it being too late to finish, and he wakes up at 3 AM. Lays there staring at the ceiling for hours. Then when he knew he needed to move, he walks out to the track. Feels the dirt under his shoes, stares at his surroundings and wonders how the hell he is going to do this. He doesn’t know what to do now. The hollow sort of helplessness that he cannot find some way to control, even worse than anything has ever been before.

There is only one person he ever calls when he doesn’t know what to do.

Uccio picks up instantly.

“What is wrong?” He snaps out, and Vale smiles at the urgent tone, allows himself to pretend for a second that they are okay. Begins to wander off track toward the exit, just following where his feet take him.

“There needs to be something wrong for me to call?”

A sigh. Uccio will not let him pretend clearly, not today, and the smile fades.

“Yes, Vale, yes. So tell me.”

God. The man knows him too well. He hates that so much, especially after what happened, but he needs it more than anything right now. Someone who understands him through and through even if it got twisted over the years.

“Marc is coming. Here. To visit and ride,,” he says quietly, and it feels momentous for some reason

The sun is too bright as he decides to settle under the tree like a child, as he tries to make that nervous, twisting feeling in his stomach fade. Uccio breathes for a second, and when he speaks his voice is a lot less tense than what Vale expected.

“What do you want out of it?”

Vale blinks. Hates that he knows and doesn’t at the same time. Leans back against the tree and feels a little sting as the rough park presses into his thin t-shirt.

“It’s too stupid to say out loud,” he murmurs.

“When have I ever judged you.”

“About him? Always.”

“Right, I…. I won’t right now. I won’t.”

God. He hopes that is true. Closes his eyes as if not seeing the world will make his honesty much less real, as if when he opens them all the issues will fade away finally and he can go back to being what he was before.

“I just want him near. I just want to see him. He and Pecco might break up and the thought… it kills me even as them being together kills me. It’s stupid.”

“No, it not,” Uccio says calmly, “you are in love with him.”

And for the first time Vale does not hear any snideness or anger or disdain when Uccio says it. It just comes out like words, like anything else. A truth that everyone should expect as if the whole thing is simple.

It’s never that simple.

“Pecco is-”

“Pecco doesn’t matter. I think deep down you know that, even if you are hiding from it.”

Vale frowns. Opens his eyes to glare at the sky and feels a bit of anger surge into his body. Because Pecco does matter, he matters to Marc. They are dating. They love each other, and it is Vale who has no purpose here. It is Vale who is an outsider desperately trying to claw his way in.

“What does that mean?” He snips, and Uccio makes an irritated noise, just like he did when they were little and Vale said or did something even the smaller boy could not abide by.

“You’ll figure it out.” he says dryly, “this is not about Marc and Pecco, this is about you and Marc. Always has been. And if you really want to keep him near… you need to talk to him about everything. And Vale, I don’t mean fight, I mean talk.”

A beat.  He is in a little disbelief as he blinks owlishly at his surroundings. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, from perhaps hundreds of people (thousands if you count people on Twitter…or X is it now? He is too old to remember).

But from Uccio… it is so strange it strikes him in the chest.

“When did you get so mature?”

A little laugh.

“I’m not. It’s killing me to say this, but it’s the truth. Ever since… well, you know, I have been learning something.”

“What?”

“Most of the time the truth will piss you off. But that doesn’t make it any less real.”

Huh.

“What brought that on?”

“Losing a friend,” Uccio says carefully, “realized that I didn’t miss Valentino Rossi, I just missed you.”

That makes Vale smile. That makes his eyes sting a little, and he is talking to his Uccio again. The one who held his hand while his parents fought, the one who bandaged his cuts after he fell and scraped his knee, the one who used to give him a little smack on the head when he did something too outlandish. It’s been a while since he heard that Uccio. Years maybe. He hadn’t even noticed until everything fell apart that he was missing.

“Philosophic,” he quips instead of saying any of that, voice thick

“Call me Socrates. Or maybe just thank my... my therapist.”

Vale laughs at that. Even at the references to a therapist, because he just can’t picture it. Uccio actually sounded an interesting mixture of embarrassed and proud when he tacked that on, and it’s… nice. It curls through his chest and he presses a hand to his forehead, hears Uccio laugh too. His body has calmed down, his brain has settled, and for the first time all week, he feels something like peaceful.

“I never thought you would be the person telling me this,” he says tiredly, “you hate him.”

“Yeah. Still do probably. But you love him.”

“But I love him,” Vale agrees, almost sadly.

Silence.

“Will you ever forgive me?” Uccio finally asks after a moment, voice low and tight, like he has been waiting to pop that question since he picked up.

Vale swallows. Ruminates on that. Thinks of the pain of the betrayal, of the look in Uccio’s eyes that day, the cruelty there. Thinks of how over the years he had clung to his old friend, and perhaps in the process twisted them both. Valentino Rossi, the man the myth the legend, was what they built together, in truth. The god Uccio had created, the mantle Vale had taken on. He wonders if he could ever forgive the other man for that. If he could ever forgive himself. Or even if it would be better if he does not.

“I don’t know.”

A breath, and Uccio sounds unsurprised when he speaks.

“Okay. Okay. I… good luck Vale. I think you will need it.”

Then the call ends as if it never happened in the first place. And Vale lets his hand drop to his lap. Leans even further back and faces the sky with closed eyes, allows the morning sunlight to flicker across his face and tries to breathe it all in, tries to taste the peace that everyone else seems to carry so easily. In the distance he hears a car coming up the road, and knows that is Pecco, returning from the airport with Marc in the passenger seat.

Was this what Marc felt that day, the first day on the track as he lounged under this same tree? Did he understand what was to come? Did he feel the light on his face, feel Vale approaching? Did he get that queasy feeling?

He wonders.

It’s all stupid, what he is trying to do. A fruitless pursuit that will probably end in more pain as they bite down on each other once more. He doesn’t expect Marc to want to talk about any of it. Too stupid of an idea to even consider that.

But he’s kind of always been an idiot.

End Chapter 30

Chapter Text

Why is he here?

No seriously. He has no idea. When Pecco asked him months ago, after he all but begged the man to keep up the whole ‘dating’ thing, he had said yes immediately. It had flown from his tongue so fast that the other man had been startled, eyes going wide as they sat in the garage for testing before he just slowly nodded.

“Give it some more thought,” he said solemnly after a moment, and Marc had. Obsessed about it for every waking moment as the season progressed, as he kept winning but had to handle a little more competition than last year. As Valentino didn’t show up for a single race and he had to handle that too.

The Ranch. La Tana. The dusty roads he has walked for years as Valentino’s student then friend then lover. The dirt track he had adored, that made him feel alive after his 2011 championship loss, that even now he could ride with his eyes closed. The one he used to circle around every morning as the sun rose, painting the world gold-orange-red like the way he feels when he flies. Memories coat the place like honey, the good kind, even the bad kind. He had fallen in love with the ranch just as he fell in love with Valentino.

And he grew to despise it like he despises the older man as well. In that same twisted way of longing and pain and a sick feeling he labels hate when really he has no idea at all what it is. Has no idea why he even said yes so fast to Pecco’s question. He shouldn’t have, there, is no benefit to the visit.

But… but the idea of being at the ranch again gnawed at his mind. Filled his dreams with the softness that had reared its lovely head after the gala in January, when Valentino said what he said, and Marc only heard the past in that tone. The old way the man would speak, intense and sure but also so loving. The voice he had forced away from his memories, that he cannot escape now.

It's bullshit. It must be on purpose. Valentino had failed in his endeavor to unseat Marc with rage and temper and press manipulation, and he found exactly where to hit. He found the perfect chink in the armor to deal damage and Marc… Marc couldn’t handle that. He can’t handle false gentleness, he can’t handle those eyes that turned on him afterward, so cooling and soft and so full of… of something. He can’t name it.

So he is actually glad Valentino is not there for the races. He is actually glad he has months to steel himself for the visit to the ranch, to prepare for every eventuality. If Valentino puts on that false kindness Marc will return it tenfold. If he holds none of his old rage back, Marc has insults and cruelty prepared. If he just ignores, then Marc will do that too. He can handle it if he knows what to expect, and Valentino is completely predictable.

He still can’t stop himself from feeling panicked. And as they pull up the winding dirty road, as they greet the security guard (the same one from years ago, older now, who gives Marc a cheerful smile and asks how he has been) he pinches his arm and tells himself that this is closure of some kind. He will visit, it will go as it goes, then he will leave. The last time ever, the last time he allows himself to give in and be weak and curious, the last time he will even speak to Valentino.

This is it. That thought hurts like no other.

“You’re pale,” Pecco mumbles as they pull up, and Marc laughs.

“Planes make me peaky,” he lies in response, and the other man does not believe him, but he does not say a word against it. Nods in that quiet way he has been doing lately, though he glances over with searching eyes.

Him and Pecco, that is a whole other thing. The January date he had sternly set was passed, and it was his choice. He was the one who called to ask to continue, who had no other reason beyond ‘I just want to’ which is weak and pathetic. Pecco had disagreed, gave him a litany of reasons but Marc pretended not to hear them. Especially… especially the final one Pecco had given. It had slapped him in the face even as he denied it.

In reality what happened at the Gala had convinced him to keep going, made him so jittery that he could hardly sit still. So sure that if his defenses dropped for even one second, Valentino would be able to rip his heart out again. Pecco is a shield, a willing one, but a shield, nonetheless. As always, it fills Marc with guilt.

“I promise we will end it after this,” he mumbles, and Pecco nods.

“You keep saying.”

“I’m sorry.

“You keep saying that too. I don’t understand why, I’m not mad at you. Whatever happens… we are friends. Even if we stop ‘dating’ and I won’t let the boys give you shit.”

Pecco smiles, turns to him as they finally stop.

“Not that they would. They love you.”

Marc grins at that even if he doesn’t really believe it. The grin is also to cover up the little pain that shoots through his chest. Because through the window he sees it all stretch out before him and he is twenty years old again. He is just barely an adult, he lives here still, and the man who owns it all is waiting for him somewhere. Back then it was with a smile, a gentle hand and maybe some little bites. Now? He can almost guarantee it is with a flat mouth and furrowed brow.

“If you want to leave I can make some exc-”

“No, no,” Marc interrupts, then laughs again, “I am good, it has been a long time. I was just surprised how little it has changed.

It’s true. The bones are the same. Large house with Italian style architecture. Wide open entrance area where he has seen dozens of riders mill around before. Looming building in the distance, the garage that has been expanded to include what Marc knows is the showers and café and lounge area. The dirt track winding in the hills, tempting and lovely even as he barely sees it. He can also glimpse the edge of La Tana on the other side, though he tries his best to avoid it right now.

It looks beautiful, more beautiful than he remembers honestly. Picture perfect, in a freaky way. The grass too green, the house too clean, the roofs a little too fresh. As if someone built the ranch from his memories only moments ago. A mirage in the desert that tempts you but is ever so slightly off.

Unnerving.

“The boys are probably all in bed still, no early days during summer break for them. But I think Vale is awake.”

Marc is still staring blankly at it all.

“Why do you think that?’

Hesitation. He turns to Pecco and finds a flash of something like worry or guilt, but the younger man just sighs.

“He’s always up by dawn. Either riding or walking the track. Today he got up even earlier, so I saw him as I left.”

Oh. Another memory. Sunrises on a bike.

Valentino still….

The thought makes his jaw tighten, and he drags his eyes away from Pecco, choosing to stare stubbornly at the dashboard instead. It’s nothing. Old dog, new tricks, kind of thing. Valentino was used to the routine, so he continued it. Nothing more.

“Well,” is all he says, then he is snapping the door open, out of the car and breathing it all in. He steps out, feels the dirt beneath his feet, hears the trees swaying in the wind, listens to the birds. Like a song for your childhood back again. So familiar it weakens his body. God, everything is going to be like this, isn’t it? Every moment, every sight, every sound, every smell. It will all throw him into the past once more. How he could have possibly thought he would be prepared for any of it?

“Let me carry your stuff, we can go inside and-”

“I got it, I want to see the track,” Marc mumbles. Grabs his one bag (for a quick escape) and clutches it like a lifeline. His legs carry him away fast before Pecco can respond, and he feels the anticipation grow. The track was his love more than any other he had ridden on. It almost sang for him, and back then there was not a single part of his body that felt the tiredness when he wound around its dusty paths. After 2020 when he was in physical therapy and every time he hopped on a bike his arm cursed him, he used to imagine that he wouldn’t get that feeling here. That it would welcome him home, that he would fly like he used to regardless of his body failing him.

The closer he gets the more his vision narrows. The more his steps grow lighter, the more a subtle smile on his face. The sky is stretching blue before him, the buzz of racing is in the air, and just like when he visits his parents, a part of him settles.  It’s all he sees, wide open air and the corners he fell into, dirty flying up round him and laughing the whole way. He wonders if there are still traces of him there, even years later.

It's silly, to be so obsessed with the track, just like his first day here. That old tightness crawling up his spine the second he gets closer, the second he presses into the fence, that anticipation that made him disregard what Valentino had called out and force himself on that bike. He got near the track record on his first attempt, and then crushed it in 2014 with the same electricity.  It thrums under his skin once more, and he needs to ride. Needs it like breathing, needs it like water, needs it like-

“You look the same.”

The words cut through the silence, and Marc snaps his head around. He doesn’t even consciously think the name before his body knows who it is. Underneath the tree, staring up at him with an odd expression, lazy-looking and still in what looks like his pajamas. Years older, but in an instant the man Marc had found there so many times in the past. The man he remembers leaning close on that first day as he sat in that exact spot, whose voice made his eyes fly open and filled him with fear.

It is not really fear though that fills him right now. Instead his whole body goes warm and still. Settled even more. Like he should absolutely not be/

“What?” Marc asks without thinking. Valentino smiles.

“Your expression, the first day you were here you had that same one. Like you wanted to devour everything.”

The wind makes his hair flutter and he has no clue what to say, so he just stares. Stares down at blue eyes and wild curls. At the casual set of those shoulder and the way the white t-shirt is stark against the brown bark. At the little bend to the knee and how Valentino allows it all, head tilted back and eyes lidded. The way his face is strange, so relaxed and peaceful that the old features come out. Cheeks rounded out, lips so much plumper, eyebrows once thicker and more arched. Age gone in an instant, as sunlight paints him young once more. Valentino. Vale.

He looks… he looks…

Marc doesn’t want to think about it.

“It’s a good track,” he says lamely, and the older man nods.

“Yes. We added a few different things, but it remains mostly the same.”

“Oh? What changed.”

Valentino laughs, and then he is standing, and stepping closer. Marc has to hold himself back from retreating, especially because all the older man does is walk near and lean against the fence, using one hand to gesture out. He follows it with his eyes, feels the way Valentino is close, how it makes his hair stand on end. They don’t touch and he isn’t even close enough to get any warmth, but Marc feels him.

“Turn 7 we widened just a little bit, so you get more speed coming into the straight after. And then once you hit turn 14…do you remember the way it wobbled?”

Marc mutely nods, and Valentino’s lips quirk up a little, but he continues. Describing things the way he always does, expressive and funny. A little waved hand, pantomiming almost as if painting a picture or conducting a symphony.

“Ehhh well, the boys complained so I fixed that, even if it was a fun wobble. Then turn 7 got sharper, but not by much so you only really notice when you race.”

It’s true. Marc can’t see the whole track from where he stands, a little too far, but he can get just a feeling about it all. Not so perfectly the same as he thought at first, there is a distinct change there and there and there. The old track, still his track, but different.

“I guess my record doesn’t stand then,” he says without thinking, then steels his face immediately. Snaps his eyes to Valentino prepared to see a flash of rage or disappointment or irritation or something. But the older man just shrugs, leaning forward once, eyes still tracing the track.

“We all still count it,” he says calmly, “no one has beaten it yet. Would feel…cheap to take that away even if has changed. Not an actual win.”

Then he nods as if adding a period to the end of that thought, and his eyes flicker up to Marc’s delicately.  He licks his lip and smiles awkwardly and it is… sweet. Not sickly, not strangely, just…. the subtle kind, like melon-flavored ice cream in Japan. Almost real tasting.

Oh. Okay. That is…..

An act. Must be. The softness in that gaze, the way he runs a finger up and down the fence, as if nervous. The quietness, the willingness to overlook Marc’s reference. If it was any other human being, he might call it an olive branch. If it were any other rider he might call it moving on.

But this is Valentino Rossi. He knows exactly what to do to make you lower your guard.

Marc stiffens his spine and turns away, stubbornly refusing to give in to the urge to lean close or smile or do anything he really wants to right now. Because, terribly, he still responds even when he knows it is all bullshit. Still feels his stomach swirl, still feels his heart stutter, still feels a flush crawl up his neck.

“Interesting,” he forces out blandly, then pushes away from the fence, and goes to return back to Pecco, even as his blood still sings to ride. He spots the younger man watching in the distance, and even from here Marc knows what his expression is. Because this all is completely… stupid. The fact that he even allowed himself to melt into it is madness.

“Ah, do you need help with luggage,” Valentino calls behind him, a laugh circling his voice in an odd way. Marc does not even glance back as he all but retreats, aware that it will just make him stop in his tracks again, maybe even agree dumbly.

“No, this is it,” he says stiffly, taking quick little determined steps. He hears no footsteps behind him, but an odd feeling of being chased makes his hindbrain light up, panic in his chest and he is almost to Pecco and he swears that he will tell the younger man they need to leave and-

His bag is snatched away. The hindbrain goes quiet, and immediate indignation replaces it.

“Hey,” he spits, out, whirling around to find Valentino casually throwing it over his shoulder as if he does things like his every day. Pecco approaches and now Marc is standing between them feeling a bit unmoored, and the older man’s eyes are crinkling up in amusement, mouth wobbling like he is holding back a smirk.

“Can’t let a guest carry their own bag, Pecco I am disappointed,” he says lightly, and there is a small snort.

“As if he would let me.”

“Too much of a gentleman that you have circled back to ungentlemanlike behavior.”

Marc has no clue what to do as he stands there dumbly. Valentino is holding his bag like he is meant to, is laughing with Pecco like there is nothing strange, is shifting closer as if they have always done it and-

“I can carry my own things,” he says flatly, and Valentino shrugs.

“I know.”

But he doesn’t hand it back. Starts to walk toward the house with a determined stride, and Marc, against his better judgment, gives chase. Pecco follows behind with a little amazed laugh.

“Give it to me,” he demands once he finally gets close, too skittish to reach out and rip the bag away, selecting to sort of hover and hold out a hand awkwardly as he matches the older man’s pace.

“If you look over at the garage you can see that there is another side added,” Valentino says cheerfully, “it is very nice. The showers are all new and the boys like to use them after racing, less mud in the inside ones you know. They do like to shower together, so… maybe avoid that.”

Then he frowns as if considering the idea and shakes his head.

Marc is being ignored. He came here expecting a fight or a war, or tense silence at the very least. But Valentino is smiling, and chatting, and he has stolen Marc’s bag and is just as ridiculously presumptuous and stubborn as always.

It’s not even the fake friendliness, no this is teasing. He is being teased, Valentino is teasing him.

It’s been…..it’s been years since anything like that happened. The little snipes, little insults don’t count, this is all said with twinkle in the eye and a smile and he knows what Valentino sounds like when he is making fun.

He won’t call it nice. He refuses to. But it is… something. Something that makes his stomach bubble up with anticipation and that curiosity that made him in no small part decide to come here.

“And then a few years ago we added a barbecue pit area, just because we kept having that yearly race and so many people showed up it just made, sense you know?”

They are nearing La Tana and the protests die on Marc’s tongue as they get closer because that whole memory thing is back and how many times has he marched through that doorway? How many times did he get pressed against the wood? How many times did he stumble over the threshold and laugh, or stomp over it, blazingly angry? The ranch was his home in some small way, but La Tana was his escape when it all got bad. Named for him, created for him. A reminder of everything that Valentino had given him and everything he had taken away.

Fuck. He really can’t handle this.

“Can we have one this week?” Pecco asks, and Vale snaps at him, a grin on his face.

“Yes, very good idea Francesco, a barbecue… tomorrow, we can do some night racing. I will pull out the big lights and it will be fun.”

Marc’s head is spinning between so many feelings. Fear, at being here again. Confusion, at the way Valentino is acting. A small bit of anger, at how Pecco has seemed to accept all of this so fast. And awe. Stupid awe. The urge to join in, to poke fun and laugh and remember all the good.

“Is it the same inside?” He asks numbly so he doesn’t have to think, and Vale shrugs.

“The boys have… it is a lot like them. Very mishmashed but…. but it is the same. I think you will like it.”

Marc scoffs at the presumption, knits his eyebrows down as he smiles a little meanly.

“Why? Do you know me that well?”

Vale turns to him.

“Yes.”

Liar, his brain hisses, but Valentino does not notice so he forces it away. Shakes his head and tries to forget that bit and his eyes wander up the door frame as Valentino continues to ramble. In the back of his mind he expects to see it carved into stone at the top, ‘La Tana Della Volpettina’ like so many years ago, expects to feel his stomach drop as he reads the first ever nickname the older man gave him and-

Gone.

It’s gone. Carved away, struck off, gone. Stone turned ragged and purposely destroyed, parts ripped away as if someone took a hammer and tried to smash it all to pieces. The only thing there is the weak and clearly left behind ‘La Tana’. Erased. His nickname scraped off of it, much like Marc was scraped from Valentino’s history, and he feels it settle in his gut. He has stopped, no longer following.  Pecco and Valentino are ahead now, and all he can do is stare at the doorframe and wonder when it happened.

After 2015? After 2018? Later? Did Valentino do it himself, clawing at the words until he erased as much of Marc as possible? Or did he hire someone to, someone who wouldn’t understand what it was they were getting rid of. Someone who chipped away Marc’s name and felt nothing as it fell to the ground pointlessly. A perfect representation really. A good reminder.

“Marc what are you- oh.”

Valentino’s voice suddenly goes quiet. The air gets colder, the sunlight gets dimmer and he must realize what it is Marc is staring at. And for the first time so far this morning Marc, when he turns his eyes away from the doorframe and toward the other man, sees the Valentino he knows so well. Tension and cold uncomfortableness, and the furiousness of panic that always seemed to color their interactions.

A relief, at least.

“That is… “

The older man does not finish that thought, just stands there, and Marc feels a bit of his self-control return. Right, this is enemy territory. This is not the time nor place to get so wrong-footed. Of course Valentino got rid of that, why would he not. It makes sense. Because they hate each other. The teasing is a whim or a game or a trick. Nothing more.

“Must have taken a while,” he says smoothly, and shifts close to grab Pecco by the arm. Revels in the way Valentino’s eyes dart down and his face somehow goes even more stiff.

“It will be interesting to see how much else has been destroyed.”

Then he tugs the man he is clutching inside, hears him sigh as if he expected it all, and leaves Valentinos standing there blankly. It’s funny, almost, the way his heart kicks as they walk over the threshold, and his eyes dart right to the corner. No fox. Another thing gone. La Volpettina taken out of La Tana years ago.

Funny.

“It looks different,” he observes as they enter the living room. Valentino is right; it is a mishmash. The walls are the same color as the day it was painted, the couch is just as leathery and huge, the trophy case is where it should be. But the art is different, odd mixtures of pretty watercolors and pop art and some black and white photographs. There is a big screen against the wall that seems to run the MotoGP championships standing constantly. Blankets are thrown everywhere in the living room, tangled together. One scarlet red, one neon yellow, and one so large it swathes over almost the entire couch. The kitchen is updated, the carpet on the floor is multicolored and new. Distinctly he realizes that there is not one shred of orange. And it feels a lot less like him and more like… them. This is their place after all, not Marc’s.

Even if it was his first.

“Marc,” Pecco murmurs, and when he turns to the younger man, there is a furrow between those brows. Valentino has finally come in, face blank, and all that wild energy is gone. Replaced instead by the dullness he has been getting since last year.

“What? I am ready to put my stuff away, where is my old room?”

Pecco cringes, opens his mouth, but Valentino beats him to the punch.

“Unusable,” he says quietly, “you share with… with Pecco.”

Marc blinks. Stomach pinches. They must have given his old room away, to someone new or someone old. Maybe Franky moved in, wanting the bigger bed. Maybe Cele, who came after he left. He hates the thought, but he doesn’t focus on that right now. There are more imminent issues.

Because this wasn’t how he had it in his mind. He can’t…. he doesn’t like to share beds with others, really. The only two people he could ever fall asleep right next to are Alex and… Valentino. Even when him and Pecco have shared hotel rooms, one of them always went to the couch. Funny, considering they have had sex many times, but it just didn’t feel right. Even worse these days. He’s finally gotten over needing Alex to sleep, after all, and found his peace in the silence. He will find none of that with Pecco there.

“I….” he starts, but Pecco interrupts him with a guilty smile.

“Ah, I forgot to tell you Vale, Marc said that the bed would be too small. I thought he could use one of the guest bedrooms.”

Marc snaps his mouth shut, glares at him. Ignores the little shrug he gets back when Valentino turns away to glance down the hall briefly and decides that Pecco is being stupid. He has no idea why the younger man decided to pull one over on clearly both of them, but it is annoying. As is the way Valentino is forcing a smile.

“Oh,” he says with a breathy laugh, “I… the guest rooms can be used, but I didn’t put out fresh sheets and-”

“I did, lets go.”

Then Pecco is all but frog-marching Marc down the hallway, a quiet Valentino trailing behind, and they are out of La Tana, surging into the main building, Valentino’s side. The air is instantly different, from the cheerful, odd energy of La Tana to the chill that smacks them. Like the AC is on way too high, sharp in his lungs as he inhales even though he is pretty sure Valentino does not have that here. Most Italian homes don’t anyway. He still remembers the muggy days, when they would lounge half-naked on the couch and press ice cubes to each other skin, laughing the whole way.

Other than the cold, it is exactly the same as he remembers, down to every last thing. The bathroom down the hallway is the one he used on the first day, and the sign on the door is the same one. The long piece of artwork that takes up much of the wall is one he remembers well, an artistic piece of Tavullia. The glimpse he gets of the living room far away tells him that every piece of furniture is where it should be. A time capsule

He even knows exactly where Valentino’s room is, his eyes beam to it instantly.  Third on the right. The door is cracked open as it always is, and he sees that M1 briefly, a little flash of metallic blue. How many times was he on that bike, in how many situations? Too many to count. Too difficult to think about. It makes his stomach dip as he eyes it.

“Right here,” Pecco announces, and Marc just about strangles him the minute he sees where they have stopped. Because the room Pecco has so clearly picked out is right across the hall from Valentino’s. Obnoxiously so, when there are about five other guest rooms, including ones right across the house.

“Really.” Marc says flatly, and Pecco nods.

“The other rooms are under construction,” he says, a bald-faced lie that he is unashamed of. Valentino, who is now stone-still and rather intense looking, slowly nods.

“Yes… construction,” he echoes, then forces a strange smile, as if trying to convince himself.

Marc narrows his eyes. Well, if this is the game that they want to play, why the hell not.

“I snore, and I won’t apologize for that,” he says loudly and shoots Valentino a challenging look. A laugh burst out of the older man’s lips at his words, rips from his chest and makes him cough a bit.

“No, you don’t.”

“How do you know?”

Both eyebrows shoot up, and even Pecco screws up his face at the purposely obtuse statement.

“Are you kidding?” Valentino says, unimpressed, but Marc refuses to back down.

“It’s been over ten years since we shared a bed. You don’t know everything,” he says bluntly, and Valentino hisses out a breath. Pinches his eyes shut, but then smiles.

“I know you don’t snore.”

“I could.”

“You don’t.”

“Things change with age.”

“Not you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what I said.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

“I’m not”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you ar-”

“Jesus Christ, both of you are irritating,” Pecco cuts in, and Marc snaps out of it, realizes that he is so close to Valentino that he can see the faint lines around the older man’s eyes, can feel his breath caressing skin.

“Sorry,” Valentinos asks, retreating a bit, though he is still grinning, and Marc wants to hit him very much right now. He doesn’t, Pecco would be mad, but he wants to. That must count for something.

Not even a half hour here and Marc already feels like this. God, how will he survive.

“Show me the room,” he says delicately, turning to Pecco with a smile, and the younger man sighs. Sighs even more when Marc reaches for him, grabs his wrist with a little too much strength, like a ‘hey we are dating, don’t fail me now’. From the corner of his eye he sees Valentino’s grin drop. So that’s something.

“I will wake the boys,” The older man says abruptly, and then is through the door and back in La Tana io an instant.

The air instantly gets calmer, and Marc drops Pecco. Winces as the younger man scowls and rubs his wrist, like the grip hurt.

“You need to relax.”

Marc sighs.

“Just help me unpack.”

***

The boys are at least nice to see. They come tumbling over shortly after Valentino retrieves them, and although they are a bit nervous-seeming, when Marc flashes them a wide smile they instantly relax. Cele sidles up to him like a cat that does not want you to think they like you, and Luca give him a small smile, and even wary Bezz mumbles something about It being nice to see him, cheeks red.

It is nice, if he ignores the presence hovering behind them all. If he ignores the way Valentino seems to hold himself back, waiting for something as he stares. At Marc mostly, and as the day progresses it becomes a running theme.

As he sits on the couch, hands curling into the fur of one of the dogs, Valentino stares. As he explains something to Franky who is listening with solemn nods, Valentino stares. As he fills up a glass of water, opening the exact right cabinet on the first try, Valentino stares. When he laughs at a joke Bezz makes, loud and ringing, Valentino stares.

Unnerving, just like his glimpse of the ranch for the first time in years. Because he is used to the older man watching him, but not like this. Like he sees a ghost, like he wants to say something but can’t. Valentino is the antithesis of that… hesitation. He is brutal cruelty, he is a spine made of titanium, he is every bad thought spoken aloud and accepted because it is laced with charm.

So he elects to ignore it. Keeps up happy conversation with everyone, sits close to Pecco, tosses the dogs a few bites of the lunch with a laugh, adoring the way they look at him with big eyes, and ignores the homing beacon he apparently has on his forehead. Pushes down his own urge to corner the man and figure out what any of this is, because that is ridiculous and he doesn’t care.

It's probably nothing new, must be another part of whatever game the older man is playing. He refuses to let it faze him.

They don’t ride that day, something about the earth still needing to settle on the track (whatever that means) and so the time slips by in lazy lounging. In jokes, in the persistence of those eyes on him, in some Italian dating show that the boys seem a little too invested in. By dinner time his skin is itching even more than normal, and perhaps if he had ridden it would have faded, but he didn’t so it doesn’t. Instead he is stuck on that couch, almost cornered, listening to the chatter and watching Valentino switch between sprinting into the kitchen and staring as the sun starts to go down.

Sitting around the dinner table only makes it worse. The same one from years ago, which means it is definitely not large enough to hold all of them. Legs bump under the table, he is squeezed right between Pecco and Luca, and it is nice, like family, but the cornered feeling twists it all.

“What are we eating,” he asks a little tightly to keep his mind off how they all are, how if he kicked out his foot would touch everyone, how they would be able to feel every reaction he has. Even Valentino, who is the kitchen. He pictures that, pictures the zing that would go up his spine the second they made contact. Hates it.

“I’m not sure,” Franky says with tilted head, “whatever it is has been cooking for hours. Usually we have a chef do it but…”

The table goes a little quiet. Bezz snickers, and they are all so close he feels Pecco’s leg fly out to kick him.

“Vale wanted to cook tonight,” Pecco says quietly, and when Marc turns to him, he is smiling, “our chef is on holiday.”

“But I saw her last-”

Another kick. He kind of feels bad for Bezz, who looks like he is about to cry before he is silenced by an elbow to the gut from Mig. He has no idea why they have all have decided to abuse the poor man so much, but he feels a little worried. He shoots the younger rider a little supportive smile, and all he gets back is a weak one.

A curse from the kitchen and they all snap their heads up.

“Can he even make anything more than pasta?” Marc asks out loud. In all the years he lived here, that tended to be the go-to. Anything more complex and they hired someone or catered. Valentino may be Italian, but he is also a rich man-child. They don’t often cook well.

“Yes?” Someone says in an unsure tone, and Marc inhales then exhales. Tries to settle his brain.

This is weird. This is nice. This is wrong. That is basically what he has been feeling for a while now. Because he likes them all. He likes the way they laugh. He likes the fluffy dogs. He likes the big couch that holds so many memories, he likes being back here. And he hates that he likes it very much. Hates that when Valentino was watching him the whole time, he was irritated with it but also… pleased.

He should have never come here. He had forgotten how much this place twists his head around, how easy it is to fall under the spell of it all.

His thoughts are interrupted Valentino is carrying out a big pot with a satisfied look. Heavily filled, if the way he is carrying it says anything. Intense concentration, like there is gold underneath the lid. The same face he would make studying data, or in training. Familiar just like everything else around here is.

“It’s a bit warm for a soup, no?” Bezz says, and he is smacked by Franky, who looks peaceful and thoughtful as he does it, even as the other man squawks.

"I did not make it all,” Valentinos says in a cheerful voice that seems a bit strained by nerves he sets it down, “the boys were being nice, lying for me like that. Our chef put it together last night but… but I think it is good.”

Then he takes off the lid with flourish. And Marc stares. Stares as he recognizes the bubbling pot of meat and potatoes and vegetables before him.

Ofegat de la Segarra. A stew from Spain. A stew from his hometown. He used to eat it during the winter with his family. They have it at Christmas time. They had it at Christmas time, when… when Valentino was there to visit. He remembers sitting around the table, clutching the older man’s hand and watching for his reaction. Grinning when Valentino’s eyes lit up on his first bite. And now as he slowly turns his eyes to the older man, he finds that gaze on him once more, staring like he has done all day. Waiting.  Small smile pulling at lips.

Only one thought goes through Marc’s mind as his temper snaps.

You have got to be joking.

He laughs out loud, leans back in his chair and is angrier than he has been since he got here. It makes everyone jump, it makes all their eyes fly to him, and they are all watching him with bewildered expressions, Bezz laughs a bit too but when Marc’s become slightly deranged, he stops.

“Funny,” he spits out poisonously once he is done. Enjoys the way any anticipation dies, as Valentino becomes stone-faced, as that smile drops. Then he forces his way up, internally cursing as he struggles because all of the people crammed around the stupidly small table. The scream of his chair against the ground makes Cele wince, and Valentino has gone perfectly still, and Pecco is standing up too, and Marc just wants to be left alone. Turns. Marches outside. Rips the door open and slams it behind him with a loud *BANG*.

He is seething. He is lost. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He wants to leave.

What kind of bullshit was that? What is Valentino doing? Creating the meal his own mother cooked, which she slaved over on the stove for a full day. She doesn’t even usually do a the cooking, but she loves making it so much. Only at Christmas. When things are good. 

 Was he making fun of it? Rubbing it in Marc’s face that he has a cook and can replicate the same memories whenever he wants? Is the man trying to make some kind of point? Though hell if he knows what it is. All he does know is that it was on purpose. Those eyes had waited for his reaction. The whole thing was a game.

And it was fucking working.

The cool night air is not a balm of any kind as he stands on the front step. He is breathing heavily, and what he should do right now is go inside, grab his things and tell Pecco he wants to go. That is what he should do. That is what he will do, that is what-

“No good?”

Valentino. Of all the people to follow him out, it is Valentino. The older man must have some kind of degenerative brain disease if he thinks Marc will respond well.

He doesn’t respond at all. Stands there stiffly, stares out at the darkness that swallows the ranch and hates it all. Hates the track, hates the trees, hates the birds that are asleep in their branches. Hates the rolling hills, hates the stars in the sky, hates the way it all tastes on his tongue. Hates hates hates.

“It… I did try to make it authentic,” the older man says with a bubbling laugh, “did it look bad? My chef has family in Lleida when I asked her about it she said that-”

“My mother made that for you. And then a year later she couldn’t even say your name without crying.”

The words die on Valentino’s tongue. Marc turns around. Feels his chest tighten at the way the older man looks, the moonlight making his face glow, making his eyes look almost silver. Beautiful. And cruel. How is it fair that someone so… so like that in every single way can hate Marc so much.

 “I don’t know what you are doing. With this false kindness, with the teasing, with the staring, with this… this meal. I don’t know, but I know very well that none of it is good. I don’t have the energy to play games anymore. So tell me; what do you want?”

In the distance the wind makes a howling noise and shakes the trees, and then it hits them. Stronger than the breeze that ruffled his hair lightly earlier in the day, this makes his whole body shake. This makes Valentino duck his head slightly, and Marc shuts his eyes to it. Feels it pour into his bones and fill up his lungs. Finally cools his burning skin, and he is tired, so tired. Tired and angry and a fool. He should have never come.

“I want... I want to give you a good meal. I want you to have fun with the boys. And I want to… talk.”

Marc keeps his eyes shut. Humor bubbles up and he smiles viciously.

“Why would I want to talk to you?”

A sharp inhale, and when Valentino speaks again. He sounds lost.

“I just… I don’t know. I want to.”

“So this is about you,” Marc says calmly, “some mid-life crisis then. I guess I should remind you why you hate me so much because it appears you’ve forgotten.”

When he opens his eyes again, Valentino is watching him warily.  

He steps forward. Steps close until he can see the older man’s eyes dilate, until he has to tilt his head up and they stand like they have done so many times in the past. An inch closer and he would be sinking into the older man. An inch closer and they would be touching for the first time since 2023. An inch closer and he knows all of his defenses would crumble.

God. It makes his head spin, but he uses the rage to force it down.

“I don’t care about you. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to know how you are, or what you are thinking. I don’t want you nearby. I don’t want to see you smile. I don’t want to forgive or forget. I don’t want this to go well. I don’t want to leave here on better terms. I don’t want to let the past be the past. I don’t want to eat your stupid food. I don’t want to sit on the couch and pet your stupid dogs. I don’t want to sit crammed at that little table with all of your students. I don’t want any of it. I am here for one thing only, and it has nothing to do with you.”

Lies lies lies, so many pretty little lies. He can’t even name which ones either, because it all came out of him like torrential rain. Half of them perhaps, all of them? He has no idea. He just waits, waits for cold anger, for rage. For everything to be as it should be, because Valentino must be daring to play some new game, bored as he apparently is. He must be earning points, probably frightened by his legacy being under even more threat as Marc continues to win. He must be… there has to be some reason behind the way he has been acting even before Marc got here.

The older man is staring at him, brows up and body still, and Marc is inhaling his air and expelling it right out, but Valentino does not blink. Darts his eyes across Marc’s face, and he sucks in air too, until they are in sync. Until they move like one creature, and it is horrifying and beautiful and Marc hates him so much right now, it makes his heart clench, but that is not true and he really wishes it was because-

“You’re lying,” Valentino breathes. Marc blinks.

What.

“What?” He snaps out, feeling ripped out of the story. The genre has changed, the scene has sped up to the end, the twist has come out of nowhere. He tries to step back, but a hand on his waist is stopping him and they are touching now and it feels just like Marc expects. Electric down his spine and he has to hold back the heat that instantly fills his stomach. Valentino moves closer, eyes wild, until they are pressed firmly together, until if Marc even shifts forward slightly too much, they will be...

Fuck.

A laugh, the older man is grinning now and one of his hands comes up to curl around Marc's cheek. His hands are so warm, beautiful warm.

“It only took me fifteen years,” he says manically, “but you are lying. I can tell, I can see it. I can finally see it.”

“No,” Marc says sharply, “no I meant it all, I don’t want to-”

“You meant some of it,” Valentino corrects, hands squeezing down gently, and Marc presses his lips together to muffle any sounds. Tries to wrench his anger back as it gets dulled by that familiar dizzy feeling, as he is as sensitive as he was when he was twenty years old. Christ, he is in his thirties, a little touch shouldn’t… shouldn’t do this.

“All of it is true, I hate you,”

“Another lie. You really are very good, but… but I’ve figured it out.”

Another squeeze, and Marc actually wants to hide right now. But his hands are on Valentino’s chest, fingers digging in, and he is not pushing away and this is too close, this is far too close.

“You… you… let go.”

“Why?”

Marc feels his jaw drop, and Valentino is only holding him more firmly, a small smile on his face and this is not fair, He wants to slice the older man’s throat open right now, he wants to see the blood pour out, he wants to lean forward and taste it and be able to leave a mark just like the one that was left on-

No. No.

“Because I am dating Pecco and this is inappropriate,” he forces out. And Valentino furrows his brow, tilts his head. His face jumps between multiple emotions; confusion, doubt, amazement, worry, then it settles on thoughtful.

“Say that again,” he demands.

Marc breathes in, breathes out. Tries to get his head on straight as they are still so close, and he can barely feel anything but the warm hand on his waist and the body pressed into him and-

“This is inappropriate.”

“The other thing.”

“…I’m dating Pecco.”

Silence. Then Valentino is pulling away and Marc almost chases. Almost pathetically orders the man to come back, so he can feel that blissful pleasure again, and so his head can go fuzzy and quiet and so the dread that is seeping back in will go away.

“Okay,” the older man says with an odd look on his face. Turns around and walks up to the door, before hesitating. Shifts his head and gives Marc a look, brows down and face… sad and confused. Not dramatically so, just in the tilt to his mouth the droop in his eyes. Real. If Marc was being… being hopeful.

“I didn’t make the meal to mock you, or Roser. I’m… I never wanted to make her cry. Even if that counts for nothing.”

Then he smiles softly.

“I’ll leave a bowl out. Just… eat it. Please. You’ll have energy to ride tomorrow if you do.”

Then he is backing up, and disappearing into the house and Marc can only stand there feeling pulled in every direction. The anger at it all still tugs on one side. On another is the dizzy feeling that he desperately wants. On another is the panicked feeling that he has lost something. On yet another is the curiosity about where any of this will go. And on the final one is a feeling he will not go anywhere near.

He stays outside for another hour. Sits down on the front step until he hears the inside go quiet, until the lights in La Tana are turned on then off again and he knows they are all asleep. Until he knows he cannot be seen.

That is when he goes back inside. That is when he walks into the kitchen. That is when he finds the bowl, covered with little piece of foil on it. Somehow still steamingly hot as he pulls the cover off and finds a spoon where it always used to be.

He takes a bite. Pinches his eyes to the flavor and feeling. Leans forward and presses his forehead into the counter.

It’s good.

End Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Marc wakes up at dawn.

It’s not even on purpose. It’s not even because of anything. No sunlight hits his face. No loudness startles him up. No alarm set on his phone rips him from his sleep. He is just… awake. And before he can even check his phone, he knows what time it is. Can recognize the level of brightness from outside, comprehends it from the exact angle of the shadows. Knows it from the many mornings that he crawled out of their bed onto a bike, to spend time in the quiet with Valentino and the sky and nothing else.

The worst part of it all is that if what Pecco says is right, Valentino is up too. Blinking awake in that slow way he always used to do, stretching and grumbling the whole way. His hair is probably a big old mess, wild the way Marc used to laugh at back in the day. As they readied in the morning he would tug on strands here and there, teasing not in words but in gestures, as the older man slipped into his day clothes. Even at their worst, it was a routine, an expectation. Even when the silence between them was as wide as a chasm, they always had the dawn.

He lies there staring at the ceiling in a room he never stayed in before, which twists the scene of old. Because years ago this was his home, so Valentino’s room was his and so was the one in La Tana. But now he is a guest, now he is relegated to a space he has never existed in before. Like a pane of glass is between the memories that make up the ranch and him. He will never be able to slot back into his original place, not really. It’s a knife to the chest that he somehow craves.

Like last night. Like the whole of yesterday, really. A mixture between amazement, wonder relief, horror, confusion, anger, and desperation. He was exhausted when he crawled into bed last night, exhausted enough to not think too much about it all or not try to hear Valentino’s breath from across the hallway. He had fallen asleep with a full stomach and a flavor on his tongue that had made him feel safe even as he knew how dangerous his position really was.

But he is well rested now. Stupidly well rested. And so it is all that is on his mind.

The touch that had made him shake, the dinner that sent him flying into anger, the soft eyes watching him, the little laugh-filled voice that picked him apart so well.

You’re lying

Valentino had never been able to tell when he lied before. No, that’s not true, before it all went completely terrible he could tell a little. He was able to pick up on when Marc was hiding things from him at least. Like all the way back in 2012, when he put up a stone wall to blunt his feelings and Valentino had torn it down so easily, with a sharp smile and a little wave of the hand and his accent curling around each word.  Last night was like that, except worse because now Marc lies all the time, and how does he hide from any of it if the older man can see? How can he even lie to himself if he has that voice that always catches his ear calling out the reality of it all?

It's like some sort of prank is being played on him. The moment he decides to come here, the moment he decides that this is going to be his closure, that he will end everything once and for all, the older man finally can see. And he had pressed in close, had touched because Marc wanted him to. Had tightened his grip right where he always used to and when he was told to let go, the older man hadn’t because he could tell. He could see that Marc was begging him to come closer, he could feel the way he pressed into that touch, he could probably even sense the pleasure swirling through miles of veins. Marc had enjoyed that too. Enjoyed it enough to make it impossible to breathe.

Unfair. He is the one who is supposed to understand how this goes, not Valentino. He is the one who hides his emotions, not Valentino. He is the one who can see right through, not Valentino. Because it had been so easy back when he could spit out poison and the older man would believe it to be true, would react in rage until it all became reality anyway. Like that time in Valencia.

But now? What will he have now? The script has flipped in an instant, and all he can do is try his best to search for some new angle to take this all from

The current angle, flat on his back and feeling dizzier by the second, is not helping though. So he slowly sits up, rubs the sleep from his eyes and glances at the door warily. Wonders if it will be crazy to sneak out to ride. Wonders if Valentino will catch him. Wonders of the older man is standing in the hallway right now, listening to see if Marc still does what he used to.

A flash of irritation goes through his stomach and he slams his face into a scowl.

Let him, he thinks nastily. Let Valentino play his games, let him do what he does. Marc is letting it all get to him far too much. He is letting how real last night felt swallow him whole already and it is only the second day. Thank God though that he said he would stay for three. He thinks any more than that and he would give in completely.

No, he will remain steady. And damn what Valentino thinks about him waking with the sun like he used to. He will go out and ride too, because it is his right. This may not be his place anymore, but who cares. He knows everything it is in his bones, and no one can be mad at him for this. Especially not after last night. He has no key to the door, he knows, but he will find a way in. He must.

He wrenches himself out of bed with a burst of energy, the need to ride reaching a crescendo now that he has decided to give into it. It makes his hands shake as he slips out of sleep clothes and into the set of leathers that he has packed, jumping around in that foolish way it takes to slide into them. It makes him grin so hard his face strains.

Still, after he is done, he hesitates at the door. Worried for a second that when he wrenches it open, the older man will be standing there with a knowing smile on his face, arms crossed and eyes bright. And Marc will be seen once more.

But when he does open it in a burst of bluster, the hallway is empty. Valentino’s door is firmly shut. The air is quiet and morning-cool, and he doesn’t even hear the dogs shifting around. No movement from the room opposite him either, so the older man must still be sleep. Perfectly still, as if there isn’t even a person inside.

So Pecco was wrong.

Anger flashes through him and settles his nerves a little. He smiles.

Good.

He doesn’t grab breakfast as he slips out the front door, even though he knows Valentino keeps a stock of those cheap plastic-wrapped croissants he loves much in the cabinet to the right. He doubts it was moved; the older man is consistent like that. Afraid of change with even the smallest things. It’s why he had moved so easily around last night, it’s why it feels like he is wandering through memories now that he is alone here.

Outside it is even more intense, because the hazy dawn light and the mist that hovers in the air paints his surroundings dreamy and otherworldly. It softens the edges, makes the too-green grass fade into a lighter pastel color. The sky glows, and the distant hills look like the strokes of a paintbrush. But it is his ranch, it is his place. It is a morning he has experienced before. Sometimes, when he was being very weak, he would lay in bed and remember the times like these. It always looked the same in in mind. Beautiful, so beautiful.

He hated it all last night, the penetrating darkness making every shadow foreboding, sweetness disappearing as he felt the world close in. But right now there is only love.

His feet carry him toward the garage without thought, and he swears he feels the path they made years ago in the soil. Every step feels exact, every shift precise, every shiver of a tree like a greeting from an old friend. When he brushes the door handle with his fingers, he finds it unlocked with raised eyebrows. Strange. He brushes it off.

The air in the garage is dim and dusty, the typical feel of industrialist wildness that the garage always had in the past, the one he remembers well. Rows and rows of bikes, a mechanics dream as walls and boxes are loaded with every tool imaginable. He remembers sitting on the floor, right over where there is a bench now, with grease smeared all over his face. He remembers pressing against one of the tables as Valentino devoured him. He remembers listening to the older man talk and talk and talk for hours as he leaned close and inhaled it all because back then it tasted good.

His eyes trail around the room and they stop as a flash of orange catches his eye.

Oh. He also remembers that bike. The one that is almost perfectly in the middle of the room, helmet perched on the seat like it is waiting. His bike. One of the ones that was his favorite years ago. Painted orange still, just like Valentino did one day with spray paint as he laughed that Marc rode it so much, it might as well be painted his colors.

It looks clean. It looks well-oiled, even the gleaming seat. It looks ready to ride, and it is almost calling his name. If he forgot about everything this could be any old day. Bike settled here right where he left it, the dazy morning around him. Back then Valentino would be grabbing his own now too, but the older man is not here. No, he is in bed still, dead to the world and not even aware that Marc is standing in the garage, doused in memories.

It doesn’t matter.  He doesn’t care. He moves close, zips his leathers to his neck, slides the helmet on, rolls the bike over to the large garage door, and wrenches it up. Breathes in the fresh air that pours in. Then he slides onto it with a flash of unstoppable need, and it feels just as it did years ago between his thighs. He grins at the spark that travels up his spine, and starts the engine.

The loud, echoing roar around the garage is musical almost, making the closest table shake with the power. And he revs it just to hear it cry out louder, just to sadistically hope the sound rips Valentino from his dreams. He slowly gives it enough power to get out of the garage, and it glides him out like a caress. The sunrise is in front of him, a great ball of fire that makes the world look filtered through some lens of childhood, saturated and warm, and he is behind a helmet, but it touches every part of him down to his soul.

The purr of an engine. Italian hills before him. Racing in the air. Blue-blue sky stretching for miles. The track he has dreamt of for so many years. Anticipation is roiling in his gut and he snaps down his visor, leans forward, narrows his eyes and lets go. Drops his worries, and fears, and everything to taste the same feeling eh got the first time he ever rode this track like a dream.

Then he is gone.

And his mind spins into empty.

And he has finished one lap without even realizing it.

And his skin buzzes.

And the dust is getting kicked up the faster he paces.

And so he lets it take him.

And he has finished a seventeenth lap now.

And his brain kicks a little once he realizes that he isn’t even riding consciously.

And he hasn’t felt this good in years.

And he swears he sees someone watching him on this lap.

And the fear of coming around again and finding no one fills him.

And he closes his eyes without thinking to avoid it all, even if he knows it was untrue.

And he rides.

And there is no worry because it only took him a few laps to know even the changes.

And it is madness.

And he feels like he is flying.

And he pretends like Valentino is right there.

And he is touching the limit like he always does.

And he ignores it this time.

And he is not thrown into the dust.

And he instead slides into a space he only ever gets when he is invincible.

And it feels good.

So good.  

Beautifully good.  

Just like the first time here.

Just like the first time in Indianapolis.

Just like the first time he heard Valentino says that he loves him.

Five laps later he opens his eyes once more as he slows by the entrance. As he inhales and realizes that he is panting, and that the sun has fully risen, and that he must have been here for an hour at least. That feeling of invincibility still lives in his chest. Even as it gets quieter, and it makes him want to go again. Makes him need it, even as he knows that this will not be his last drink from the cup. That will come tomorrow when he… when he leaves.

Valentino still isn’t here. Maybe it is pathetic that he hoped the noise would rouse the older man, that he would come out and watch. Perhaps he would be angry. Perhaps he would smile like he did yesterday. Perhaps he would just sit there and stare, and they could have their quiet mornings like they did so long ago. Marc would be able to handle it, he thinks, with the way he feels right now. However the older man reacted, he would have an answer better than the panicked weakness he had last night.

But Valentino’s not here.

Marc stares at the house accusingly, like he will find the older man observing him from a distance. In vain of course, not even that exists right now.

He comes back to himself, away from that untouchable-ness he had reached riding with his eyes closed. He has never done that before, even here. Even at tracks he loves, even at the dirt ones near Cervera that he grew up on. Too dangerous, too wild, and if he crashed… while, if you crash and have no idea what is coming, you can rip yourself apart.

But he had wanted to, had needed to, and his whole chest hurts as he realizes that he was pacing faster than ever when he could not see. Pacing faster as the idea that perhaps when he opened his eyes Valentino would be standing, waiting, like he used to. Just like the trend of these past few years, better when the older man is there, even if just in his imagination.

What that means he has no idea.

***

When everyone finally joins him in the garage after breakfast, Marc sees Valentino for the first time since last night. And it swallows him whole immediately the minute blue eyes lock with him, almost taking him down down down. Intensity cutting through the air like a sword.

But then it is shattered.

Because Valentino walks into the garage with a bright smile takes one look as Marc, turns, and slams face-first into the wall, loud bang echoing around the garage. And after staring for a startled second as the older man curses, stumbles back, and rubs his forehead, Marc bursts into laughter.

“Christ Vale,” Bezz says loudly, “are you okay?”

God. God, that was so stupid. Marc can’t help it, and the others are laughing too but he is cackling, Curling over where he sits on one of the tables, hands around his stomach because wow did that knock it all away. Wow did that immediately make him loosen up and he laughs like he hasn’t in years around any of them.

“Yes, yes, just tired,” the older man responds to Bezz in a strangled voice as he winces and rubs his forehead. Then he turns a little sheepish smile on Marc, the kind he used to give when he did something distinctly stupid (another pretty little memory), and it is enough to have Marc grin wildly back, shoulders still shaking as he almost forgets any of the anger he held last night or any of his hollowness from this morning.

“Maybe you should not have woken up so early to ride,” Franky mumbles, shaking his head.

“That was me,” Marc gets out through his thick amusement, “sorry, was I loud?”

And now they are all staring at him, faces startled. And he has no idea why. His amusement dies as they continue to stare, and he glances over to see that Valentino has cringed a little bit.

“What?”

A shift, and Pecco is pilling his attention, eyebrows rising high high high, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Vale gave you a key to the garage?”

A sucked in breath from the man behind him, and Marc furrows his brows at Pecco’s words. Darts his gaze around to find a variety of expressions. Mig and Bezz confused, Franky nodding slowly, Luca, with his lips pressed together and eyes amused.

“No,” Marc says slowly, “it was unlocked.”

Another beat.

“It is never unlocked. That’s one of the rules.”

Little nods around the room, and he turns his eyes on Valentino, whose forehead is still red from slamming into the wall, and is standing there, a wide, strained smile on his face

“Ehhh, I was up early,” he says, then laughs, a tight sort of noise, “I thought, um, someone might want to ride, so I unlocked everything.”

A beat. Marc zeroes in on that unsure expression, the way the older man is avoiding eye contact. Strange. As if he has done something wrong when all he did was-

Oh. The door open. The bike waiting for him. The person he swears he saw leaning against the fence before he closed his eyes.

“You were watching,” Marc says quietly.

A head dips down, Valentino tries to slide back into his casual, humorous bravado, but fails. So instead he just reluctantly nods.

“Ah, well, yes.”

That is…. you would think it wouldn’t matter. Because Marc has been stared at by so many people over the years, Valentino included. He has made more eyes on him than most people experience in life, and it never gets to him, not really

But being watched this morning? Having Valentino quietly observing from the distance? Knowing he set it up so Marc could ride like he used to? Knowing that the older man really was awake the whole time, that he had been waiting in truth? That he wasn’t crazy for hoping the older man was there because he was?

God, he hates that it feels good. Hate that the angry part of his heart is quelled in an instant, and his sharpness softens. He swallows and when he speaks again, it comes out strange and quiet.

“Well… thank you for unlocking it. Was nice to ride the track again.”

Valentino nods, and leans slightly close, eyes intense. Steps forward almost unconsciously until he is not far from where Marc sits, eyes blazing, and the rest of the garage slowly fades away.

“You were pacing very well. I didn’t time it, but it was rapid,” he says in a low tone, eyes bright, and Marc nods.

“Yes,” he says “it was good. I felt good.”

A small nod, almost a relieved expression, and Marc licks his lips. Mouth suddenly dry. The older man follows the movement briefly, as if not even realizing he is doing it.

“Toward the end you got even faster. How?” Valentino asks almost dazedly, eyebrows slightly furrowing.

He grins. Shifts so he is tilting upward, arrogance painted over his face in a way that makes the man narrows his eyes playfully but seems pleased.

“I closed my eyes,” Marc says cheerfully, and Valentino immediately laughs.

“No you didn’t.”

“I did.”

Quick blinks, and the older rider shakes his head in amazement, and he is closer still. He believes it clearly, but he looks baffled. He looks filled with wonder.

“You… how did you not crash? You haven’t ridden here for years.”

Marc shrugs.

“I dream of it,” he admits before he can stop himself, then doesn’t regret it at all.

Valentino’s face goes soft.

“Do you?” 

“Oh Jesus Christ, I forgot what this was like,” a loud voice that sounds like Mig interrupts and Marc jumps out of his skin, rears back slightly and finds everyone still staring at them, little cringed looks of horror and disgust on their faces. And oh, yeah, this is…

This is stupid. This is not supposed to be happening. This is…. he needs to fix this. The boys are all exchanging looks like Marc is being so obvious and he needs to stop this in its tracks before it picks up any steam.

“Ah sorry, I am- how did you sleep last night?” He asks in rush, turning to Pecco with a wide smile, and reaching out awkwardly to grab his hand when he remembers that they are meant to be dating. The younger man allows it with amusement, well aware that Marc is trying to hide right now and tilts his head.

“Fine fine, you didn’t even wake me up this morning. So that’s good.”

“Ah yes,” Marc says, feeling jittery and careless, “you are a night owl. Good thing then we weren’t sharing a room.”

“What?” Bezz asks, “Pecco is not a night owl he goes to sleep by-”

A smack from Luca, and the younger rider shuts up, a growing theme that apparently happens regularly if what he has seen over the years says anything. Marc cringes a bit, curses in his mind. He messed up. Every time him and Pecco had shared a hotel room, the younger man had stayed up late. He had assumed it meant that is what he preferred. Fuck.

In the corner of his vision, he sees Valentino tilt his head.

“Ah,” he laughs, “Guess I am more tired than I thought.”

Blessedly none of them respond to his slightly manic tone, electing to slide into their leathers and swiftly change the subject. As he zips up for the second time that day, Marc meets Pecco’s eyes and gets the flattest look he has ever received in his life. He winces and shrugs.

“You two have been dating for a while now,” Franky says conversationally with a grin that looks oddly sharp as they all continue to get dressed.

“Have you hit two years yet?”

“No.”     “Yes.”

Fuck. Again. Marc forces a smile as Pecco sighs, and everyone eyes them. He does his best not to look over at Valentino as he elaborates.

“There are some disagreements on when that is. I say June, he says October.”

“Right...” Franky drawls. He receives a glare from Luca, who looks angrier than Marc has ever seen him, and when he darts his eyes around the room, the rest of the boys are watching with what look like knowing looks. Except for Bezz, who is still rubbing the spot Luca hit with a scowl.

This is… this suspiciously feels like he is being cornered.

He hates being cornered.

“Right well, it is getting late in the morning and hotter by the second, who says we start?” He spits out in a forcefully happy tone before he screws up anything more than he already has.

The others mumble their agreement, but when he glances back at Valentino, the older man is still eyeing him with that considering look.

For the next few hours they ride. And in between riding sessions, Marc is interrogated,

Mig asks what he got from Pecco for their first year anniversary. He makes up some bull crap about a homemade cookies, but cringes when he finds out his ‘boyfriend’ notoriously can’t bake a thing.

Franky, the king of questions, asks a few, and only once does Marc genuinely mess it up. When he is asked about Pecco’s birthday and finds he doesn’t even know. Which, baseline they are friends. He really should. Stupid.

Even Cele mumbles out something as if he is being forced, and when Marc gives his answer (their first date was in a motorhome) The younger man tilts his head and replies that Pecco said it was the beach.

So yeah, Not great. At least Luca, who seems tense on his behalf, tugs the boys away regularly. So there’s that.

After a few hours of this tension, it hits lunch time and they all pile back into the house. Marc goes off to shower (he had refused the communal, which they all seem to enjoy a bit too much) and when everyone comes back together out on the patio, lounging in the shade with a spread that apparently Valentino had gotten delivered Marc decides now is probably good time to do some PT. It’s damn hot outside, but the patio is relatively cool, and since they will be riding more later once the sun goes down, he sincerely doubts he will have any other time. More than that, after the stress they are putting him through, he really needs some quiet time to calm himself down.

Thankfully there is a yoga mat, Luca’s that rarely gets used apparently, and while everyone else lounges in chairs, rambling about racing or the season or that weird show they all watched yesterday, Marc stretches out a short distance away. Grins as the sun fully hits him and tosses off his shirt to take advantage of the rays. He always did look best when he was the most roasted, and the heat will help relax him even more.

Then he begins the rounds of pseudo-yoga and stretching, a routine his PT had drilled into him after all of his injuries. He leans up, rolls his shoulders back, and pinches his eyes shut at the blissful feeling. The patio is warm, the air is calm, the chatter lazy and soothing,  and in recent years he had learned to love this part of the process. Unwinding, releasing, taking care of his body like he always refused to do in the past. It helps the way riding does; centers his mind and brings him back into himself.

On the worst days this kind of thing felt like torture. He would roll onto his back like he is doing right now, stretch his arm across his chest and curse right out loud. Now it is heaven. Or he would snatch thigh up, stretch it across the other to twist his back, and barely even be able to handle the feeling. Now though, he settles into the position, shorts hiking up until the crease between his thigh and ass gets sunlight, and he just muffles a groan at the sensation. It feels good.

But…but… but…

He feels eyes on him. And when he glances toward the others, just to see if someone needs something, his gaze locks with Valentino, And the look on that face cuts through Marc’s mind and peace in seconds. Furrowed brow, head tilted down, eyes darkened. Leaning forward slightly, and hand coming down to grip the armrest of the chair he is in. Body tense, but not in an angry way or an upset way. More like a lion about to pounce.

He looks… he looks…

Hungry.

Valentino stares like he does everything; intensely, demandingly, obsessively. And Marc can see it all. Eyes tracking over Marc’s skin, his spine, his tossled hair. Mouth a firm line not from anger but because he is…

And Marc realizes what he must look like. Laying out in the sun, fairly close to half naked, stretching his limbs in… well, in rather interesting ways. He knows what people say about the videos he posts of his PT online. Erotic, enticing, entirely sexual. He used to laugh at them but now… now he really doesn’t want to laugh. Now he mostly feels like he has swallowed his tongue.

And then, because he is a complete idiot, he simply glances at the others. Ensures that no one else is watching him. Then goes back to what he is doing. Sits up slowly, turns over and slides one of his legs up to stretch out his hip flexor. Tilts his head back until his neck is beautifully on display, and his skin prickles with heat as Valentino traces the length of him with his lust-dark eyes. Now that he is aware, he is aware. He can feel every single little look, every way Valentino eats him with his gaze.

It feels damn good. Because regardless of everything that had happened, regardless of games being played or the strange softness that they had before riding, what he can depend on is the simplicity that Valentino wants him. He wants to fuck him, touch him, fill him. He wants to claim him, even in that twisted vicious way he got in the past few years. Valentino is obsessed with Marc, even if he also hates him. Dependable, even now.

He keeps going. Not too sensual or obscene really, just cycling through his stretches as time goes on and Valentino keeps watching him. The boys eventually trail inside, calling for him, but he waves them off, says it is too nice to not take advantage. Bezz turns red at his shirtlessness, so he teases the younger man for being easily flustered until they all laugh themselves away. Normal. Calm. Regular. Pecco gives him a look that knows too much, and Marc swallows but waves him away with a little scowl.

Then everyone else is gone. And Valentino is still in the chair, having shaken his head when the others left and said he wanted to finish his drink with a smile.

They are alone. And the older man shifts his eyes back, and Marc is staring now too, unmoving. But then Valentino leans back with purposefulness, eyes searching, and waits, fingers white knuckling on his chair.

Right. That’s how this is going.

Marc laughs. The older man tilts his head at the sound and stays there. Stock still, and only a few yards away really. Close enough to see the hunger in his face, close enough to know that his breath is raspier. It is quiet now that everyone is gone after all. Quiet enough to hear every little shift and breath and movement.

He turns his eyes away, lets a small smile pull on his lips and keeps going. Shifts between stretches and positions fluidly, lingering on the ones that seem to make Valentino react the most. He wonders if the older man wants to touch himself. It explodes like fireworks in his mind and then it is all he can think about. The older man sitting there, palming an erection as Marc stretches out before him.

God. God. Arousal bursts through his stomach at the idea. Because he is showing himself off right now, tempting really, and Valentino is giving in. He is staying right there to watch, his eyes are dark, and when Marc chances another glance back, there is a smile situated on the older man’s face. Not the smug kind, not the irritating kind, but the kind that stems from amazement.

He had forgotten what it was like to be admired by the older man. Electrifying, just like last night’s touch. And it makes him even worse, makes him loll his head back and lock their gazes once more. Penetrating eyes slowly blink, as if he drugged, and Valentino shakes his head. But not like he is telling Marc something. Like he is trying to stop himself. Like he is using all of his self-control to avoid giving in to what he wants most in the world.

Marc wishes he wouldn’t. Wishes he would give in to whatever it is he wants to do, because… God, then Marc could too. Then he would feel less like an idiot sliding a hand down down down and bucking his hips into his own touch with a gasp. He’s already half hard in his little shorts, and he turns over on his stomach with a groan to hide it. Hears how it makes Valentino breathe out a sharp noise, and smiles. The older man always did like his from behind. He shifts to his knees, tucks his head between his arms and goes into downward dog. That gets him another breath as he flexes all his muscles spreads his legs a little and it becomes too much. Too much to deny anything that he is doing, too much to pretend like this is innocent.

He wonders how it would feel to have Valentino down here with him. Would the older man cross the barrier? Would he touch, would he come even closer and let his fingers slide over skin as Marc keeps shifting into different, more intense positions? Would he decide that he doesn’t care about Pecco or Marc hating him? Would he lose himself the way he always used to, eyes wild and hands demanding as he pushes Marc into the ground, as he grinds down, as he makes the younger man cry out and begins to take take take the way he always used to? Would he groan Marc’s name would he feel the same as he always used to, would he fill him up so beautifully and perfectly that-

“What are you doing?”

A whisper, and when he turns hazy eyes back to Valentino the older man looks close to the edge. He is half out of his seat, eyes penetrating, and his face is screwed up like common sense has come back and he is torturing himself with it.

“I am…” Marc says slowly, trying to think around the feeling, “I am stretching.”

“What am I doing?”

“Watching.”

A curse, and Valentino rubs a hand over his face. Widens his legs a little and Marc darts his eyes down. The older man is hard. He is. Marc had gotten him like that just simply by stretching in front of him.

God.

“God,” Valentino says like he can read his mind, and Marc laughs a bit. Laughs when the older man curses. Laughs when he stands up. Laughs when he walks close. Laughs when he reaches hand down like he is going to touch, but doesn’t, it’s the only thing that stops Marc from doing something pathetic. Like whining.

“Why did Pecco leave?” Valentino asks quietly, eyes intense and sharp. Marc blinks dumbly up at him.

“Wha-”

But the older man is not done.

“Why do you barely touch each other?”

“Why do you sleep in separate beds?”

“Why did you not know Pecco can’t cook?”

“Why do you not know when he falls asleep?”

“Why did you not know your anniversary?”

“Why did you say different things for your first date?”

“Why does he never get upset when we get close?”

“Why did he shoot you that look when he walked away just now?’

“Why do you not know his birthday?”

“Why is he never jealous, even now? Even when I am five seconds away from...”

One after the other, no time for answering and Marc feels his brain try and comprehend it all. What it means, what the answers are. His head spins, he is sitting there on the ground, Valentino standing above him and so close that he could just bite down on the man’s hip if he leaned forward. That idea only makes his head spin more, as does his last words, as if he wants to fuck Marc right here.

How is Marc going to resist any of this? How will he survive? 

The older man exhales harshly, face twisted into something like desperation.

“And why,” he whispers, “when you said you were dating him last night, did it sound like a lie.”

Marc stares. Comprehends what all of this means as the arousal fades away and terrible knowledge settles in. Then suddenly feels tired and has no idea why he even bothers. Why is he hiding from this? Why should he even put in the effort? The older man knows, he clearly knows. And perhaps that is what all the gentleness from before had been; to throw Marc off so that he would be more transparent. A game, just like he had always thought.

He slowly stands, powering through the weakness in his knees, until they are as close as they were last night. Holds his emotions tight to his chest as that panicked feeling strangles him, as he wants to run and lie. He has lost, he thinks dully. Valentino figured it out. Hell, that’s probably why the academy boys were asking so many questions before. The older man probably told them to so he could fit more pieces of the puzzle together. A king moving his pawns around so perfectly that the other side didn’t even see them. Marc had forgotten this was a chess match. To lost in the memories to see the present.

None of it matters anyways. There is no winning anymore.

“Because it is a lie,” he finally says in a flat voice, eyes fixing one a spot behind the older man to avoid losing anything else today, “because we never dated. It was an assumption that we ran with. Nothing more. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Valentino’s face goes startled, mouth dropping open slightly. And it is so stupid-looking that the whole story comes out. Pecco drunk, the team misunderstanding, the HR meeting, the panic. Then the months, years now, of it where they pretended. He doesn’t tell the truth of why he went through with it all, that would be a step too pathetic. But anyone with a brain can read between the lines. And say what you will about Valentino, he has never been called unintelligent

Silence. Then a burst of laughter, ringing and loud and amused, so amused, cuts through the fog that filled his head.

Marc narrows his eyes and anger blinds him a little as the older man laughs, running a hand through his hair. He snaps his eyes back to Valentino, finds pink cheeks and bright eyes, and he hates him very much right now. Gone is the soft appreciation from this morning, gone is the desperate arousal from a few minutes ago. No, he very simply wants to leave, simply wants to cut his losses and escape before he is humiliated even more.

“You won, yay,” he says sharply, “you were right, it was all bullshit, now I need to go tell Pecco that I am leaving and-”

But his words are cut off as a hand slides around his cheek, as another goes to his back, as he is tugged in and warmth presses into his mouth. As the world explodes technicolor in his head and that taste he has been craving for years now is on his tongue. Lemony-sweet, like all these childish drinks Valentino adores. And the smell; ozone and waterfalls and the sky. It fills his nose. The buzzing under his skin quiets completely, just like it does when he rides. And it is nothing like 2023, all desperation and fumbles in the bathroom. And it is nothing like 2018, when he had been so filled with cold anger and terror that he felt it in every brush of the lips. It’s not even like what he dreamt of in 2020, delicate and shuddering and sad. It is nothing like his memories, even the good ones. It is better.

Because Valentino is holding him firmly. Because Valentino is even closer than last night. Because Valentino’s hand is trailing up his back, touching him gently and firmly at the same time.  Because Valentino has pressed as close as another human being can be in an instant, energy thrumming around him.

Because Valentino is kissing him. And Marc?

He kisses back.

Chapter Text

This is everything.

That is really all Vale can muster in his mind as he holds Marc close. As he slides his hands down to wrap around a slim waist. As he presses in in in until they are flush together, as he devours the younger man, and Marc responds in turn. Lets out a humming noise, leans into the touch and they are kissing. They are kissing. They are kissing.

It’s addictive, the way their mouths slide together. It is orgasmic, the way Marc cants his hips up automatically, half hard already through those tiny little shorts that had made Vale want to rip them off. He had been obsessing over them since Marc walked out onto the patio, shirt off, legs bare, miles of skin on display and shorts lightly digging into his stomach in a way that had a bit of skin slightly pushing over the top, a little tease. Erotic, and Vale had stared. Had wanted, even surrounded as he was by the boys and Pecco, who should hate him for his thoughts. Had obsessed over limbs stretching out and that face screwing up in pain-pleasure and everything that he was seeing, helplessly struck dumb.

But then everyone had left. But then they had given him those looks of knowing and spun his head just like everything else has since Marc got here. But then the younger man had made his teasing, his tempting, so clear that Vale had been flipped around by it all, weak and wanting as he clutched the arms of his chair, unable to tear his eyes away even when common decency screamed at him to.

And finally, then Marc had said what he said, eyes defensive as he spat that everything with Pecco was fake. Vale had lost all sense of control. Hadn’t even realized until that split second he had reached for the younger man that it was really the only thing stopping him from doing this. From taking, touching, holding. From everything he always wants to do, from everything that had been growing since he looked up from where he sat under the tree yesterday morning and saw his Marc staring out at the track with that same expression from years ago.

Beautiful. Always beautiful. But more than that, more than pretty pink lips or sharp cheekbones or glowing skin. Because it was not the younger man’s face he fell in love with. It was the electricity when he rides, it was the bright laughter, it was the sharp mind that can calculate even at 300 km per hour, it was the little ways he would wiggle when he got excited, it was the terrible jokes that always made Vale laugh, it was the intensity, like wildfire, that scalds and attracts everyone around him. It was and is so much more than anything Vale has ever said, and all of it rises to the top at that moment until every touch feels like the world ending and being remade in the same second.

Marc’s hands are on his chest, gripping, and every single time he digs in a little bit harder, Vale feels a burst of pleasure shoot into his stomach. It makes him grip tighter, pull closer, and he wonders if it would be impossible to meld their skin together until he doesn’t have to experience a single second without this.

“Marc,” he murmurs against that damn mouth, and the responding moan he gets is heavenly, like the music from an angel’s harp.

“Marc.”

The patio feels like heaven right now. The sunlight still streaming down on them, the rough stone beneath their feet, the light breeze. And he knows in his gut that they are in full view of anyone in the house, knows that perhaps Pecco will see, or any of the others, knows that this will probably cause trouble, but he doesn’t care. Pinches down on those hipbones like he always used to just to hear the younger man whine, just to feel those hands slide up around the back of his neck and Marc is insistently tugging Vale’s mouth to the hollow of his throat, tilting back so it is on display and Vale can eat him alive.

The whole world doesn’t matter really. Nothing else matters but this.

He nips at the skin there, loves the way fingers tangle in his hair and tug until heat roils through him like lava, and he is now fully hard, now feeling electric as they grind together like teenagers, like the way they did when they pretended in 2023; desperate, and thoughtless, and without any care for the consequences. Vale needs to have him right here, needs to press him against the side of the house and watch him fall apart, damn anyone else seeing. Needs to fill Marc up, and bite down right where he left that scar, and this time be able to hold him in the afterglow, pressing soft kisses all over his body as the younger man half dozes and watches him with satisfied eyes. Needs to hear him laugh and eat breakfast together and smile and finally feel human again.

He needs to do all of that.

But none of it can exist without something happening first.

It’s pure torture to rip away, pure torture to pull his mouth off Marc and ignore the way the younger man lets out a frustrated noise and surges after him. But that hollow need that still exists deep inside, the one that did not just miss sex or touches or everything physical, is still calling out and he wants to know what it would be like to experience all of this with that emptiness filled.

“Marc we need to-”

“What?” Comes a snapped reply immediately, and the younger man is frustrated. His eyes are almost black, his face intense and crackling, his skin glowing, and his hands still tug insistently at Vale’s hair, skin, clothes. Fingers rattling and jittery the way Vale always feels around him. A relief, almost. Another assurance that he had not been wrong about what he heard in the younger man’s voice that night, that he does still care.

“I-Mother of God,”

Marc has leaned forward before Vale could finish talking, has latched onto his jaw and started sucking and Vale stumbles back far, feels his legs hit something (a chair, his mind whispers) and he is down, down down, guided by forceful touch until Marc crawls into his lap, until he is blinded by the feeling, the heavy pressure of the man he has not touched like this really in forever pinning him in place in more than one way.

It's traveling through his body and mind, every nerve ending lit up in pleasure at it all, hands automatically sliding down to grip Marc’s ass and feeling the younger man grind down into him in response, those shorts (curse them, bless them) riding up until he can feel thigh, smooth and plush and perfect. His fingers tease there unconsciously, feeling the softness and strength, and Marc laughs into his skin.

“We need to talk,” Vale croaks out, and the younger man laughs again.

“About what? This is what you want, yes? You were staring at me like you were hungry. So eat.”

“Yes but-”

“But what?”

The younger man leans back, perches on Vale’s lap like a king. The sunlight is behind him now, turning the waves on his head into a warm, glowing, halo. It makes his face look dreamlike; it makes the whole experience feel like beautiful torment. Because Marc may be smiling, may be touching, may be angelic in this light.

But his eyes are like steel.

Vale swallows, entranced even by the bitterness that exists there, allows his gaze to roam over everything dazedly, fearfully.

“But we can’t just jump right into sex,” he says in an unsteady voice, watches the younger man tilt his head then smile sweetly.

“Why not? What else is there for us?”

That voice, the voice Vale hates, detached and thoughtless, the way Marc always used to answer questions about him in the past. It sounds so real, he hopes it’s not. He prays it’s not, because he knows Marc still cares but… but he still has no clue in what way. Does he care like a distant memory of old, still there but out of reach? Does he care like curiosity, flitting in close just for a second until it is satisfied? Does he care like torture, disturbingly close and bitingly painful?

Or does he care like Vale does? Does he care like the future, does he care like obsession, does he care like a worshipper at a shrine, does he care like a man in love does? Does he care like Vale?

He has no idea. And fear strikes through him, bringing up that old petulance and frustration and defensiveness that always made him the worst version of himself.

“Don’t be like that,” Vale mumbles in a raw voice, “you came here, you let me touch, you told me the truth. Don’t act like it is nothing.”

Another laugh. That sound is becoming more awful as each second passes. Marc trails a hand down his chest, and he is shirtless still, so Vale can see everything from the little brown nipples, to the way his stomach clenches. He is tense, but languid. Juxtaposing things. Soft touch, but his tone is dry and inhuman. He stares down at Vale with that same pleasure from before, but he is allowing out a cruelty that is so terribly familiar. It makes him want to hide and pull closer in equal parts.

“Why should I not? What else can you give me?’

“Marc-”

“No, I want to know how you thought this would go. If you thought that just because me and Pecco are not together, I would fall right into your lap, like a pathetic dog returning to its master.”

Vale huffs out a breath, lightly trails his hands up the younger man’s back and tries to ignore how tense it still is. Tries to regain some semblance of control. It had been going…. He had thought things were being good. Marc was pleased looking, he had teased, he had watched Vale with fathomless eyes, he had revealed the truth. And all day today he had been softer, sweeter, like he was… was waiting. And now it has flipped on its head in an instant.

Why does it feel like every time he takes one step forward, the other man takes ten back? Why is he sitting here with Marc in his lap hard in his pants and feeling an erection pressed against him, but also feeling like the distance has only grown in the minutes since they started kissing.

“I didn’t think that,” he counters frustrated, then can’t help the little smug smirk he gets.

 “But you are in my lap.”

The wrong thing to say. He didn’t mean it like that, he was mostly smug in that way he always got when he touched Marc in the past; arrogant that he has been chosen above all else, that no other man or women would be able to get this now. But it’s very clearly not taken that way.

A scoff.

“I am. Now fuck me so we can end all of this.”

Vale’s hands shake, he digs in his fingers desperately, and it makes Marc choke out a little sound that is pretty and pleasure-filled. But it only has his stomach flipping in response, only has nausea and panic rising up. ‘End this’ echoes in his head, and that roaring, patheticness that twisted him so hard in the past comes back to life. The kind that refuses that notion, the kind he had during 2016 and 2017, the need to have Marc close and near and focused on him in every single way.

“No,” he all but whines, “now we need to talk.”

Marc shakes his head, and leans in until their lips are brushing, until the feeling fogs Vale’s mind slightly and he is loosening up automatically, frustration flickering away as the younger man is close once more. Intoxicating, inviting, enthralling. So good, even the slightest little touch, and he is tugging the younger man closer in response,

“Okay fine,” Marc says coolly, “you ruined me in every single way. What is your response.”

Vale blinks, sighs at the ghost of a touch.

“I could never ruin you,” he says dumbly, “you are too…”

He doesn’t know how to finish that. Too…. something. Too much? Too incredible? Too strong? Too forceful? Too magnetic? Too talented? Too intelligent? None of it sounds right, even if in theory it sounds real. Too something that Vale cannot name but knows is true.

Fingers tug on his hair, and he hisses out at the feeling.

“That’s not true. You won’t even take responsibility for that? You have no idea Vale, no idea. No idea what you have made me into.”

Vale Vale Vale. He hasn’t heard that in years. It makes him buck up his hips and groan as Marc smiles cruelly at him.

“I used to be kind before you. I used to temper my selfishness off track, I used to hold my rage in check, I used to think about more than just how to hurt you. And I loved you so sweetly, I loved you so purely. But this is what you have turned me into, like you. I'm your best student. Are you proud of yourself?”

Another hiss, Vale is terrified of everything that is happening, but obsessed too. He can’t look away, wavers there on the edge of desperation and panic as Marc slowly begins to grind down on him.

“You are nothing like me,” he breathes, hitching halfway through as the younger man gives another vicious tug.

You are strong. You are smart. You are able to let go of it all. You are good. 

Marc’s face twists in anger, and he kisses Vales again. This one is different, not the desperate need, the glow of ‘finally’ finally through his head. No, this is bitter and mean and angry and just like everything they have been for the last few years. Marc bites down on his lip, and Vale tightens his grip, and he should stop this, they need to talk, but he can’t. He can’t he can’t he can’t.

God. Will anything ever be good? Will they ever have more than this? Will Marc ever let him?

Despair twines around the pleasure, and he is desperately scrabbling his hands up and down Marc’s back. Feels the carved muscles there, feels the soft skin. Digs his fingers right underneath the waistband and grins painfully when Marc curses, encouragement and censure in equal parts tied into that tone. He lets one hand trail up to that shoulder, slides it to the front and feels the ridged edges of that older scar, the one he got in 2020. The minute he brushes it, Marc lets out a hiss noise, throws back his head and Vale shifts his mouth to that throat, pressing in right over where he knows his old bite mark is. Feels the younger man shudder.

It's too much. He wrenches his head back. Watches Marc panting with a sick little smile, and then drops his eyes to that throat. Finds the spot, and there it is. Faint now, a small silver area that you wouldn’t be able to find if you didn’t know about it. His older claim, the bite he did in a fit of jealousy and anger and desperation to hold onto what he had left.

Just like right now.

“Do you want another?” He asks stupidly, and Marc laughs.

“Yes.”

A lie. That was a lie.

“Why do you do that?” Vale whispers, every part of his being shattering the more this goes on.

“Why do you lie to me so much, but refuse to listen to any truths?”

Marc is watching him lazily, eyes narrowed and viciously amused. He is waiting clearly, waiting for Vale to snap, to take and take and take. Fill him up so the younger man can rip himself away. It would hurt more than anything perhaps. Vale won’t let it happen.

“We need to talk,” he repeats. Marc scoffs.

“I talked, you refused to answer to take any responsibility, just denied it and expected me to accept that. It’s what you do. How could we possibly talk?”

“You aren’t ruined,” Vale counters, “I have never met anyone less ruined. How could I destroy you when you are stronger than ever, when you have wins and titles and are going to blow me out of the water? When all you do is make me weak every single day while you seem so strong. How could you say I ruined you? I just ruined myself.”

Two hands slide to his cheeks, cupping his face, as he talks. Marc tightens his spine, somehow growing taller, and Vale’s chin is lifted up until his head is tilted back like perdition. Marc in his lap, upright and steady. Vale underneath him, pressing as close as he can, begging for something, anything. Hands wound around Marc’s waist, but so clearly weak it must be funny

“And that is why,” Marc says slowly, “that is why I hate you so much. Because you refuse to take any responsibility even now. You don’t want me. You want to fuck me, you want to touch me, you want to be the one to have me, but you don’t want me.”

“That’s not true,” Vale gasps, “that’s not true.”

“Really? Tell me then. Convince me.”

Silence. The air is still, Marc is still, and there is no sound. Not even a single movement can be hurt, as if they are trapped at the bottom of the ocean. The pressure weighs on his body and he doesn’t know how to give Marc that. How does he begin to describe to someone all the years of what he has felt and thought and done? How does he release everything he has kept inside? How does he stay sane in the process?

It's an impossibility. There is too much, so even if he tore out the plug, the pressure is so high that it all stays right where he has stored it for years and years and years. He has no idea how to put it all into words. No idea how to make Marc see any of it when it is all so twisted and base and devastating. He loves Marc in such a way that he couldn’t possibly say it. Can’t even think of it in a poetic or beautiful way, because it just is. A part of him like every other experience and trait and breath and cell that makes him up. And how do you explain that? How do you look someone in the eye and describe a love so consuming so crippling, so mad, that it has haunted you for fifteen years and will do so for the rest of your life?

An impossibility. There is no answer to any of that. Because you can’t. And so Vale says nothing, just stares and feels it all and loves the man in front of him and always will, but can’t explain a single thing.

“I do,” Is all he says, and it is weak. Pathetic. Not enough and never will be.

 A small laugh, Marc’s face is colder than it has ever been, and then he is pulling back, so slowly it is like seeing a person rip their skin off. He watches in real time as the younger man draws himself back up, as he prepares to leave, and Vale cries out in his mind. Feels panic fill his chest, gets that shaky, stingy feeling behind his eyes and reaches out. His hands are ignored.

“See,” Marc says lowly, “You can’t convince me because it doesn’t exist.”

He swallows harshly, coldness wavering for a second, and Vale needs to follow, needs to chase, needs to pull him back and whisper truth into his skin, even if Marc won’t believe him, even if he can’t say all of it properly, even if he feels like he is going to explode.

“Marc-”

“I have to go apologize to Pecco. I shouldn’t have done that, even if we aren’t actually together.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“No, you know what’s not fair? All of the stupid games you have been playing just to try and get me right where you wanted me.”

“I’m not-”

“Congrats, you won again. Me and Pecco were bullshit, I still give in to you, I still care. Yay for you, mazel tov. Throw a party or something, make it a big production like you always do.”

Vale is on his feet, chasing as Marc turns to go back into the house. In the distance, he swears he sees faces watching the window, but he ignores it. Ignores it because he can’t stand this anymore, can’t have a turned back, can’t have everything he is saying and doing misunderstood in such an ugly way, not when he-

“I love you.”

Marc freezes. Vale pants, stands there and feels something even worse than fear and embarrassment cutting him open, but holds steady. Screws up his face and waits for Marc to say anything, anything at all. He shouldn’t have said that, he is glad he did. It’s too early, it’s too late. They have just touched for the first time in years, and yet all he can thing about is his prayers for the future, is Marc in his bed every morning forever.

The younger man still doesn’t turn around.

“No you don’t.”

Then he is gone.

And Vale is left there, still hard, still desperate, but now with his heart somehow already twisting even more than it has in the past fifteen years of this. He didn’t even know that was possible. It almost makes him laugh.

He doesn’t think as he sits there. Doesn’t close his eyes or calm himself down or anything healthy like that. No, he just stares at where Marc once was and breathes.

When Vale comes back inside almost an hour later, Marc is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Pecco, but the boys are all there, on the couch. Backs upright, the tension in the air so thick that Vale can almost choke on it, and the minute he enters, heads snap toward him.

No one says a word. He wonders how much they know. Wonders what they had all seen. Wonders if they will look at him and see a man who just went after Pecco’s boyfriend. He won’t even defend from that if they aren’t aware of the truth. He needs their hate right now.

“Vale,” Luca says softly, and a part of him crumbles. It must show on his face because his brother is up in a flash, arms around him, and Vale does not cry. He cannot cry. Just stands there stonily staring into the distance and wondering if the shaking is just in his mind or in his body too.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Pecco told us,” Luca murmurs, “though most of us already knew. Only Bezz was surprised that they weren’t actually together.”

Vale nods.

“Did he…”

Leave? Run away? Tear off into the distance where Vale won’t even be able to see him, smell, him, hear him, anything him?

“No,” Luca says slowly, “No they are in La Tana right now. Marc was angry.”

At you. That goes unsaid, but it is clear with how everyone shifts uncomfortably, and Vale allows himself to be guided to the couch. His boys stare at him the whole while, big-eyed with drawn-up faces, and he is thrown into the past, when they were all teenagers and those big eyes held admiration and respect and hope for the future. Now as they look at him, all he sees a delicate pity and worry. It burns his skin like dry ice.

“I… do you all still want a barbecue tonight?”

Eyebrows furrow, and it is Franky who speaks, voice tinged with disbelief.

“Are you kidding?”

Vale pinches his eyes shut.

“What else should I say?” He responds weakly, “You all know what happened, I saw you watching. What do I add on to that? Do you want me to put it on display? Should I tell you word for word for word what was said?”

A few frustrated shakes of the head, and he needs to go to his room right now. He needs to lock himself in there, needs to crawl under his blankets like he is not a grown man, needs to hide away until Marc is gone and he takes the whole world with him. Then here he will stay. He will race, he will spend time with his family and friends, he will travel even, but he will always be here. Always be out on that patio where he got his last brush of Marc forever, where he was allowed one single shred of hope and pleasure and everything he needs before he destroyed it all. Always under that tree looking up and seeing the most beautiful being in existence. Always out on that track chasing an orange or red blur (it switches these days). Always in their bedroom, hands trailing down the back of a man who will never be there again.

A click of the door down the hall, and Vale feels every sense light up. His eyes fly over, waiting waiting waiting, and it is Pecco, face drawn up and shoulders tense as he makes his way over. When his eyes land on Vale, his face goes stormy and mean. He walks over with clean, measured steps.

“I don’t know what you said,” he murmurs once he is standing in the middle of all of them, right in front of Vale with a straight back and a cold expression.

“But good job, you somehow made it all worse.”

“I said I love him,” Vale croaks out immediately. They all go still, and Pecco’s anger drops, and he is just staring at Vale with a dumbstruck expression.

Then Luca laughs.

It echoes around the room, not the funny kind of laughter, but another version, one he has actually never heard from his brother before. Vale doesn’t even turn to watch him, aware that it would just make him angrier or more scared or something, he really had no idea. He just pathetically stares up at Pecco, whose eyes have gone sad and knowing.

“Vale, you didn’t,” he murmurs.

“I did.”

Luca’s laughter dies, down, and he grabs a hold of Vale’s shoulder. When he turns to look at his brother, blue eyes (just like his) are staring penetratingly at him, those delicate feature pulled into something helpless and pitying and pained.

“Are you stupid?” Luca asks sharply, and it is perhaps the meanest thing he has ever said to him, but Vale can’t even get mad. Just forces out a reedy laugh of his own, one that grinds like metal on metal in a way that makes everyone wince, and nods.

“I am,” he says manically, “I am. I love him and he hates me and that is it. I am stupid.”

“God Vale,” Frankly says, rubbing a hand over his forehead, and the others don’t say anything but their faces carry the same sentiment.

He knows. He knows he knows he knows. He wonders if this is finally breaking down their image of him, or if it all fell apart a long time ago. To so many others, he is the same as he always was; Valentino Rossi, funny and charming, the God of MotoGP.  And Valentino Rossi does not shake, does not cry. He hates Marc Marquez and proudly says it, he makes disdainful comments to the press, he uses his riders in the proxy war that is never-ending. The public might have caught onto his obsession with Marc, but do they realize how deep in runs? Do they understand everything?

He doubts it. But anyone who knows him around Marc, who knows how he really is, should be well aware that he has been, and always is, a mess. That he has been torn apart over and over and over again for the last fifteen years by dark eyes and a wide smile and a man who can outride the heavens. By himself too.

Pecco sighs. Then he walks even closer until Vale has to tilt his head to look up at the younger man. It’s an echo of Misano in 2024, when he talked to the younger man in the VR46 motorhome about Marc. When he stood up there and said they were both fools, but he had been wrong. Because Pecco is strong, he is over his feelings, him and Marc are close even when they had a past. It is Vale who is still there, pathetic and waiting for something that won’t arrive, clinging onto what once was and what never will be.

“Enough,” the younger rider says firmly, brown eyes serious, “enough of the pity party. Enough of making yourself the victim when we all know what you did to him. Enough of trying to force him to be on the same path as you when you throw him back years behind you with every single thing you do. Enough of assuming it is you who was the most hurt, enough of pushing and pushing and pushing so much that you ruin everything for both of you. Enough of twisting him until he does exactly what you taught him.”

Vale swallows, opens his mouth to speak, but Pecco cuts him off.

“If I was him, I would despise you. I would despise you for what happened in the relationship, for the power you had over him but pretended not to. I would despise you for Sepang, where you tried to ruin his life and career in one go. I would despise you for all the years after, when people tore him apart, when they attacked his family, when they sent him death threats, and you said nothing. I would despise you for every word to the press that always made it worse. I would despise you for it all.”

Pecco is panting once he has finished and Vale is staring up at him, as is everyone else in the room, and there is this ringing in his head that is making his chest hurt more and more.

It’s all true. He knows it is all true. Had really avoided thinking too much about it in that selfish way he always had.

He knew about it all. About how fucked up their relationship was. About how bad Sepang was. About the years of attacks Marc went through. And back then, he believed it justified. Because Marc wounded him beyond repair, because Marc left him. Even after he found out about Uccio’s lie, he had still felt… he had still felt like he must have been the most hurt. Because Marc stopped loving him years ago. Because he taught the younger man to hate in such a vicious way, then cried out when it was turned on him.

This is. This hurts. Maybe even more than Marc walking away, maybe even more than all the years of the past. The knowledge of what he has really done to the both of them settling into his gut. It doesn’t feel unfamiliar. It feels like an old friend who he is only just now recognizing. Perhaps he has always known.

Marc is… Marc had always been something more to him. More than any other rider, more than any other person really. He had known it from the second they met, and when those eyes turned on him, big and admiring, it had made him feel good again. So good after two years of uncompetitiveness that he became greedy. Latched onto Marc, saw the past and future constrained in one body. Then he fell in love and it made it all worse. Then he fell in hate and it twisted everything until it became what it is now; a dark, pulsating obsession that follows him wherever he goes.

But… but what must it have been like for Marc? To have all of that placed on him when he was so young. He was… nineteen when they started. Nineteen and Vale already felt like he would destroy words to keep Marc by his side. And it only lasted until the younger man was twenty-two, when Vale had turned on him like a vengeful God, ripped and attacked in the selfish way he always does, simply because he stuck to his original thought. That if he couldn’t have Marc, if the younger man was going to leave him, then he would destroy the world. Marc’s world.

A monster. Only a monster does that. Vale is a monster. And in this story he had always assumed Marc was one too. But… but he’s not. He’s not. And Vale hurt him for his own pathetic, unreal, delusional, obsessive reasons.

Pecco isn’t done. Pecco is going to keeps talking, and Vale closes his eyes to it. Aware that what will come out is more reality, more witnessing of how Marc actually feels about him. He hates you, Pecco will whisper, and there will be so much truth in his words that Vale won’t be able to pretend. He won’t be able to latch onto a thread of dishonesty like he had with Marc and presumed that every word was false after that. Because he knows it is true, because even if he had cried with hope when he heard the dishonesty in the younger man’s words on that first night, that was wrong, he was wrong and Marc hates him so much that-

“But he doesn’t”

Vale’s eyes fly open. Pecco keeps going, voice tight and disbelieving and grinding, as if he doesn’t want to say this, but must.

“He doesn’t despise you. He spent years in others bed to get away from the memory of you. He started with me to hurt you. His every thought is centered around you. He came here for you, he pretended to date me to hide from you. I’ve said this to him a billion times, but everything he does has to do with you. Because he loves you even after everything you have done. Against all logic or reasoning or humanity, he loves you.”

Vale blinks incomprehensibly. Feels joy surge throughout his body, and denial meets it in a bloody clash, twisting until they are one in the same, where even if it is true that the other man loves him, he will still feel dead. Because if Marc loves him, loves like Vale does, then that means he also hates enough to rip himself away. And Vale was never able to do that, never hit the point where he could forget or move on or take it all away, because even when he was at his most angry he loved Marc so much more than he hated him.

“No he doesn’t,” he rasps out, “if he did, then he wouldn’t have left. If he did then he would have heard me say that and said it back. If he did he wouldn’t be able to remove himself so well, because I… I can’t. And I know I love him.”

A look of pity. The other boys are quieter than they ever have been, and Pecco is still standing over him like some sort of martyr, as if he is protecting Marc just with his presence. Vale wishes they really had been together. He wishes that none of it had been fake. He wishes that he had never said a thing, that he had never even asked for Marc to come here. These are all lies, of course. But he feels like lying right now.

“Why would he believe you after everything that has happened,” Pecco says quietly, “why would he think one tossed-out phrase is proof of anything? Vale, he doesn’t trust you, doesn't trust anything. He's your star student, even learning all of your damn issues too.”

That is…. it is true. He can hear the honesty ringing around it all, and he knows it in his gut, Settles into him the way everything about Marc always does, and then the image snaps into place. The picture clear, the story finally complete. He swallows.

Helpless. That is entirely what he feels as he sits there. Helpless to what he has done, helpless to the past, helpless to himself.  He can’t go back and change any of it. Can’t remove the cancer that is his own self-righteous anger, can’t fix the poisonous words, can’t erase what has been done and said.

He pinches his eyes shut, takes in a shuddering breath.

“What would you have me do?” He whispers, and Pecco sighs.

“I would have you do nothing. Let him go, let him move on, let him heal,”

Then he hesitates, as if debating in his head. Vale drops his eyes to the floor, digests the words and even as his soul rings hollow, he would force himself to do it. Let go finally, not move on himself, but let Marc do it. In a real way too. Remove himself from the younger man’s like entirely until he hears all news from secondary sources and has to smile at pictures instead of real life. Avoid like he didn’t have the strength to do before, not even let himself go to a single race.

It would be hell. But Pecco knows Marc best out of all of them, painfully even more than Vale does. He would know what would help even slightly. And if he is saying this, then-

“But that is not what I will tell you.”

Vale’s head snaps up. His eyes lock on Pecco and the whole world focuses in.

“What do you mean?” He whispers.

The air is vibrating. It’s gone all hazy in here, and he doesn’t even care about the multiple sets of eyes of his students watching him. He doesn’t care that he is begging for something like a person in confessional. He doesn’t care.

“Marc hates you in no small part,” the younger rider says, face absolute, “he is angry, he is hurt more than you understand. But what hurts him the most I think is the fact that he believes you don’t love him.”

Vale feels his eyes grow hot. He does love Marc. The idea of even not loving him is laughable. The idea of Marc not seeing it is laughable. But Pecco would know, Pecco has been let in more than most other people are. And Marc had said it, voice raw even in his anger.

‘No you don’t’

A truth. Marc does not believe that Vale loves him. And it is hurting him. he knows that much, had seen the hate the anger the rage, but had also seen the flashes of pain, and the red eyes, the way Marc drew up his walks so tight in an instant. A self-protection, one he had always known about but wrote off as coldness. Another lie he told himself.

There is no hope anymore for them, no hope for happiness or peace or anything like that. And he will forever regret, forever, despise himself for it all, but… but he can’t let Marc hurt over something untrue. He can’t let the younger man think that it was all lies, that Vale never cared, never adored, never obsessed. Because everything bad he has done is real. Every mean word he said was real. But he thinks it would kill him the most if Marc didn’t understand that he loves him with everything. It won’t lead anywhere. The younger man will never forgive him. but he needs to know.

Vale does not want his forgiveness. No that’s not true, he does, he just does not deserve it. But… but Marc should not be hurt any longer. He should be able to go into the future without a shingle shred of Vale holding him back. He should be able to shake off the pain and past, find someone who will love him in a good way, and move on. And if this is holding him back then….

“I do love him,” Vale says firmly, feeling his face set and his body straighten up. The boys are still staring at him, Luca still is still next to him, the air is still tense. But when he glances up at Pecco, there is a sharp, grim, satisfaction in those eyes.

“Then prove it.”

End Chapter 33

Chapter Text

The rain is what stops Marc from leaving that night, storming down from the sky until you can barely even make out the trees. It pounds against the roof an hour after he slams his way inside, and a crack of thunder has him laughing a little wildly to himself. Comical almost. It had been a beautiful day; sunny, blue skies, a lovely breeze that cooled the Italian heat. And now it is like there is an angry god in the clouds, commanding the sky to unload all of its havoc on the world below. Odd for this time of the year. It’s usually dry.

Pecco is also part of the not leaving thing as well. Sad-eyed Pecco, who grabs him by the arm as he is manic in La Tana, who mumbles something about ‘not letting Vale win’ and when he comes back from talking to the boys and maybe Valentino, has a grim look of determination while Marc glares at the wall and imagines it is a certain blue-eyed man’s face.

“Tomorrow,” he insists with steel in his voice, “tomorrow.”

Marc only agrees because the sad-eyes and also the rain and maybe also because leaving now would feel a bit like running away. He hides away in Pecco’s room and accepts the dinner that is brought to the door by Cele with as much delicate pride as he can portray, and when the younger man mumbles an apology and slinks away, he all but smashes the plate against the wall, food and all. Listens to the drumming on the roof and hopes that wind and lightning and destruction will blow everything to pieces. That tomorrow he can leave a path of destruction behind him, the world responding to his rage finally. And then it will be Valentino who has to pick up the pieces this time.

This ending couldn’t even be peaceful like he had hoped. He wanted…closure perhaps. A visit, Valentino and him saying goodbye at the door, and then everything ending. A cordial relationship with the academy, and nothing less or more than that. The page turned finally after he has been lingering for far too long. The knowledge that the older man does not care for him sealing the deal, wrapping a bow up on everything he has been going through for the last fifteen years. Pain in every single way, but with any shred of hope gone it can all be ripped out. Wounds close up after all. You can’t fix everything if the problem is still in there and that is what he has had since 2015. A knife in his gut and a world telling him to heal around it. Impossible.

But of course even that tragic hope could not happen. Of course Valentino would never let him have that. It had to be white-hot pleasure, and the need for so much more, and then the pain of knowing what it all really is, and then those cursed words falling from the older man’s lips.

‘I love you’

A lie lie lie lie lie. The most painful one too, because Valentino perhaps had never loved him. Not really. He is not like Marc, who always has the man’s name hovering in the back of his mind. He is not like Marc, who feels his entire being pull when they are near. He is not like Marc, who had a shrine in his room that only got torn down years after they began. No, he possibly can’t even love. He is obsessed, sure. He is attracted, sure. But nothing else. Nothing more.

If he did love all of it would have been different. The older man would be proud of his accomplishments, not angered. He would have cared when Marc fell in Jerez, not went radio silent. He would have visited when he was laying in those awful hospital beds, not pretended Marc never existed. He would have shared that he was going to retire, or at least greeted him with the respect of a long-time competitor when he left. He would have not spent the last many years saying every bad word he could think in the press, eyes bitter and uncaring. He would have been there instead of so far away that Marc could only get a single glimpse when the older man wanted him to.

So no. Valentino does not love him. He knows it in his cold cold heart just like he knows the sky is blue when there are no clouds, and rain falls when it goes gray.

It didn’t stop it from shredding him, even as he sat in the older man’s lap. It didn’t stop the way he had almost just given in, melted into the touch like he used to so long ago. It didn’t stop the way his cold cruelty that he pushed to the top held on by barely a thread. It didn’t stop anything, that terrible knowledge. Nothing ever will in truth.

He falls asleep in Pecco’s bed to the sounds of the rain, soothing in its loudness. The younger man is on the floor on cushions (after his own insistence) and Marc has nightmares all night. Just like the ones he would get during the worst years, after both Sepang and his injury. He can’t even comprehend them once he has slipped from their grasp, they were some kind of twisted combination of every terrible moment that ever happened and every beautiful moment. Victories melt into losses. Pain melts into pleasure. A happy laugh becoming vicious, and cruel anger softening into a sweet caress.

The morning light is dim when he wakes up, to the point that it feels like it is well before dawn. But he hears movement in the halls, and Pecco is not here and he knows today he probably slept in. Rain drums down on the roof still, making his brain buzz a little quieter than normal, and he slowly sits up, feeling old and young and smart and stupid.

When he slides into his clothes (the last clean pair he has) it is stiffly, and there is a dull pain echoing in his arm. He rubs at it with a wince, glaring out the window at the sky. It always acts up on him when it rains for too long, he’d hoped the storm would pass by now. Every wet weekend, every summer storm that lasts days, every thundercrack across the sky, makes his bones rattle in such a wrong way that he almost feels like it is the bad years again.

“Marc, are you awake?” A voice calls through the door.

Luca. He ignores it as he stands there staring at himself, forcing a smile so that when he finally does go out there he can pretend. He can laugh away the concern they no doubt carry in their eyes, he can show his teeth and assure them that he is Marc Marquez and has been dealing with the heartbreak of being in love with Valentino Rossi for years. That he can handle this, that he has been handling it.

“Marc?”

Then the doorknob is turning, and Luca is peeking his head inside, face soft and gentle just like it always is. Valentino’s eyes, but none of the magnetism. Valentino’s bone structure, but none of the sharp edges. Valentino’s accent, but none of the fiercely curled intelligence. And Marc doesn’t love him. There’s also that which makes him much less of a threat.

“Morning,” Marc says brightly, and the younger man smiles back warily.

“Pecco said you slept like a stone. I had hoped you would join us for breakfast. Vale is busy.”

That last part is tacked on like an afterthought, as if Luca had realized exactly what his first denial would be rooted in. But he doesn’t seem pushy, if anything he is hopeful. Head tilted down as if he knows that Marc will give in if he asked in the right way. Just like Alex did when he was little, grinning after when Marc would laugh and spoil him. God, he misses his brother very much right now.

“I could eat,” Marc responds neutrally, and Luca nods once, face settling, before he slips away. He leaves the door open probably on purpose, and the sound of everyone in the living room trickles in. Bezz is laughing loudly as Mig tells some story and he feels a surge of loss for this too. The academy riders are not his friends, not really, but he knows after this that they will be less than what they are now. Not the disdain he received from many of them for years, not the drunken laughter and friendliness he often got more recently, but something in between. Appreciation that cannot be really shown.

Franky is at the stove when he eventually forces himself out. A jaunty little apron on him, a bikini-clad woman’s body as the picture which makes it look like he is the one, with his scowled-up face, who is showing it all off.

“Cele,” he is saying in a little scolding voice, “if you dip your fingers in one more time, I swear I will change the locks on everyone’s room.”

“Do it,” Cele challenges in a monotone, confident voice, “I’ll just learn them as well.”

“You shouldn’t even be able to pick ours,” Pecco, who is leaning against the counter and watching them, complains.

“It’s creepy.”

“It’s a skill,” Cele corrects, “and besides all of you should just do what Franky does if you want me not to snoop. Having one lock is basically an invitation.”

Ah. So that is why when he passed Franky’s room he had noticed an absurdly complicated locking system, with multiple things that looked like padlocks dangling there. It’s funny enough information to learn that Marc feels a real smile cross his face, a relief after he was forcing it since he stepped out of the room.

“What other skills are you hiding?” He asks lightly as he enters the kitchen and slides into a seat by the counter, leaning over to ruffle the young rider’s hair.  He feels the entire attention in the room snap to him, and he just bears it.

Silence.

Marc grins and does not say a single thing. Lets them stare, lets them attempt to gauge his mood, and does not allow even the briefest hint of everything that happened yesterday show.

“I can also diffuse a bomb,” Cele eventually mumbles, sounding a bit lost, and darting his eyes around as if he is making sure he is not reacting in an incorrect manner.

“Right,” Marc says thoughtfully, “you are a very strange boy.”

“I know.”

The little snort he lets out seems to snap them out of it finally, and he watches Cele smile quietly at him, and Franky’s back relax. Over on the couch Mig and Bezz’s conversation resumes and the tension alleviates at least a bit.

“Do you like pancakes?”

Marc gives a noncommittal shrug to Franky’s question.

“I don’t have them often. Very American.”

“Bezz and Cele picked up a taste for them after a few races in The States. Now they ask for it on days like his, when training will be muddy and wild.”

Marc tilts his head, leaning against the counter and resting his chin on his hands.

“You still train in these conditions?”

“Not always,” Luca says as he passes to go curl up on the loveseat next to the couch, “mostly we just mess around. You will join, yes?”

Marc darts him a look. Darts the entire room a look and feels eyes on him once more, even as everyone moves around in their business.

“Ah, probably not,” he says, “I have my flight at three and no more clean clothes. Can’t go home naked.”

A scattering laughter.

“Imagine the articles?

It would certainly be amusing. Perhaps they would think he has finally cracked. Or they would look at right where he came from and draw interesting conclusions. He imagines the rumors he would start. That Valentino stole his clothes, that he did it on purpose for attention, or maybe that they were burned when the older man lost his temper. He wonders if they would believe any of that. Some might. Others might not. A funny thought, though.

“A few might like it!” He gets out and laughs even harder when multiple riders go red and duck their heads. Bezz he expects, Pecco even he expects. But he is shocked to see Luca turn a shade of pink as he laughs in embarrassment. The unflappable man well flapped.

“Many would like it,” Mig says in a funny tone, and Marc grins at him. Winks and laughs even harder when the younger man just smirks back, unbothered when years ago he would have blushed too. He has grown up. Though perhaps that has more to do with Franky, who is giving him a teasing little scowl, than anything. He has his suspicions about those two.

Breakfast is spent like that. Light laughter, and stupid jokes. The pancakes are delicious, fluffy and sweet, and he wonders if it would be like this always if him and Valentino didn’t have such problems. He can almost see it actually, a perfect image that makes his chest tighten.

The older man would laugh. He loves to laugh as much as he loves to make people laugh. He would pour too much syrup over his pancakes until they drowned, sickeningly sweet like he likes most things. He would frown a little when Marc teased him for it and only drop it when a kiss was pressed to his cheek. He would finish and then toss his legs over Marc’s lap, leaning over to explain something in that way he always does to anyone who will listen, hands flying through the air.

Marc would watch him when he wasn’t himself talking, and he would snicker as the older man fed a piece of meat to one of the dogs under the table. Maybe even scold him just like he scolds Alex for doing the same thing with Stitch and Shira. Sip on a coffee and clutch the older man’s ankle, pinch down to see him jump and whine as the academy boys laugh around them like they are doing right now. Alex would be there too, arguing with Pecco or in a quiet conversation with Luca. He always thought those two would be friends.

A pretty world. And even after everything that happened, even after he was reminded that Valentino has no love for him, not really, he still wants it. Wants Valentino here like a dying man wants the cure to all his ailments. He hates that he wants.

“You really should ride with us,” Luca says as they are all cleaning up, the cook lounging in the living room as they form a system of washing-drying-putting-away that starts with Marc and ends with Cele, who has already shattered one plate.

Marc smiles.

“Should I?” He asks delicately. This morning has softened him.

“But I don’t want to ruin my leathers, they won’t dry in time. And like I said before, I have only one set of clothes left.”

A shrug from the younger man.

“Borrow someone’s leathers. Borrow someone’s clothes. We are all friends, even with what happened.”

Probably the closest Marc will get to talking about that with them. Especially with Luca. He furrows his brow.

“Only an hour,” Luca tacks on, “we’ll be finished by noon, you will have plenty of time. They will miss you.”

Little brothers. They always know what to say to get you.

“Fine,” he says lightly, then starts cackling when he gets a few ‘whoops’ from the boys, who must have been listening.

“But when I crush you all,” he adds on, passing a plate to Luca with flourish, “no one is allowed to be mad.”

***

He does crush them all. Even in the heinous conditions, he roars around that track like some kind of monster. Obviously not so fast as normal, even with the rain lightening up slightly, but it is fun. Fun and wild, and more than one time he ends up down in the mud, roaring with laughter as he gets more and more messy.

In truth he is absolutely caked in mud. It is under his hair, it is in the creases of his elbows and thighs, it has pressed beyond his leathers and soaked him down to his bones. He refuses the communal shower (for much of the same previous reasons he had done so) but he is laughing as they stumble into La Tana, laughing at the picture he makes. The boys are clean, he had stayed out and rode a few more laps than them, and he is beautifully filthy. He knew they would be the last, and even in the mud he adored it more than anything. Like he has a part of the track he loves which he will never ride again shellacked on his skin.

He is not laughing when startled blue eyes meet his the second he is past the entrance hall.

Valentino. Standing startled in the middle of the kitchen in La Tana, hunched over something that he swipes behind his back in an instant.

Marc stares at him. Feels the boys freeze behind him and wonders what the older man sees. Is it just another one of his students, pink-cheeked and laughing? Is it an enemy of old, playing games and tricks? Is it a stranger, borrowed leathers not properly fitting and wild-eyed? Is it who he used to be, doe-eyed and willing in the older man’s bed?

Or is it someone he hates, spreading mud all over his house?

“You’ve got something on your… everything,” the older man says blandly.

“I know.”

Valentino joltingly nods. Shuffles his feet a little, and Marc wants to throw something, Curse at him, tell him to get out. But he just grins and pushes it all down.

“I need to shower,” he announces, then turns to Pecco, who is watching it all with a strange expression.

“You have clothes I can borrow?”

A nod. Then Marc marches right down the hallway, uncaring of the little splotches of mud he leaves behind him, or the eyes that trail his figure, or the way he dirties the bathroom door handle, or the slam that probably made them all flinch. He hopes it made them flinch. He hopes it made Valentino flinch.

He doesn’t even take off his clothes. Turns on the shower head and ducks underneath it with desperation. Feels the warmth fill in the coldness that racing in this weather brings, the ache in his bad arm that he is beginning to feel again as adrenaline fades. Watches the water turn brown then clear and breathes. Ignores the fact that taking off wet leathers is a nightmare and it is already chafing his skin. Also ignores that the rocks mixed into the dirt are clumping right over the drain, so much that it is filling in slightly, a little puddle of water and dirt that he stares down at. Slides his foot over it until the mess vaguely clears up and drains once more. He hopes it all goes down the pipes. He hopes that it clogs them. He hopes Valentino has to call someone to fix it.

It'd be funny.

A mad little laugh escapes his mouth. And he rips off his leathers with too much energy. Panting as they stay shellacked on his skin, struggling and struggling until he is crouched down, half-naked, material still clinging to his thighs and wondering if he will ever be able to remove it completely.

A knock on the door.

“Marc, I have the clothes.”

“Leave them on the toilet seat.”

Pecco does. Opens the door with a click, allows in a little puff of cool, non-humid air in, and Marc shivers at the sensation. Waits until the younger man is gone before he begins to tear at his leathers once more.

It takes what feels like hours, panting the whole way. Water is pelting him, going from steamy-hot to lukewarm in the time, and when he finally gets around to washing himself for real, he is so tired and regretting so much. Coming here, for one. Letting Valentino hurt him again, for second. Racing in the mud too, climbing in the shower with leathers on, spoiling his last pair of decent clothes so he owes Pecco even more. Still loving someone who will never love him back. That’s a big one.

He shuts off the water once he is able to breathe again, steps onto the mat and scowls when he realizes it is all clean. Mud gone. Pecco must have wiped it up in the brief minute he was in here, probably along with all the mess he scattered as he came inside. For some reason it annoys him that it was erased. For some reason he had hoped it would linger, that they would find it dried down even weeks after he is gone and remember him.

The clothes that sit on the toilet are soft-looking and well-worn. And when Marc picks up the sweatshirt, he immediately furrows his brow. Because it feels damn familiar upon first touch.

The front catches his breath once he flips it over, and his eyes begin to burn. A Repsol Honda sweatshirt, the old kind. Black with the orange logo on the top right, a little ninety-three on the sleeve. Merch if he was not looking deeper, but his fingers catch one of the sleeves, finds a little hole there where he knew it would be. This is one of his. One he had lost years ago. A favorite.

His stomach twists. Pecco would not have this.

The shorts are the same, though less obvious. He only knows because the waistband has been replaced with a bright yellow shoelace, one he had snatched from one of the ranch’s drawers with a laugh after the original tie broke years ago. Had crowed out that he can’t wear Valentino’s colors so obviously, but he could carry the yellow around his hips, where no one would really see it. It had made the older man smile. He had lost these too. He thought. He never even considered that Valentino would keep them.

Pecco is waiting outside of the door when he eventually steps out, and his eyes drag over Marc’s form with an odd look.

“Strange,” he says vaguely, and it is nonsense that Marc ignores. Just like he ignores the tingling thought in the back of his mind that he has fallen into some sort of trap.

“How long until we have to leave?” He asks lightly, and Pecco purses his lips, eyes shifty.

“An hour. I checked, your flight is still happening even with the weather. Most others are canceled it is… lucky.”

Marc nods in response. Grins. Lucky indeed.

“I should pack then.”

Another nod. But Pecco does not move. Stares at him with that strange expression, leaning against the wall, curls falling a little bit into his eyes.

“You never asked who sleeps in your old room.”

Marc swallows. He should ignore that. He should shrug, say he doesn’t really care. It’s probably unimportant or painful anyway. He never checked. Never watched as the boys went off to sleep, too afraid to watch one of them duck into that room that holds so many memories, too unprepared to see another instance of how little Valentino cares.

“Who sleeps in there?” He asks instead. Pecco smiles.

“None of us.”

Marc blinks slowly.

“It’s empty?”

“No. Not at all.”

Then a fist comes toward him. Marc watches it with a disturbing fascination, like a horror movie. Pecco loosens his fingers and there it sits in his palm. A little silver key, worn down now as if someone had worried it with their fingers. But Marc can spot them still; little flecks of orange paint left over. The key he’d carried for years. His key.

He takes it without thinking, and it is burning hot to the touch.

Pecco sighs.

“You might have a few things left in there,” he says casually, “you should check.”

Then he leans forward, presses a hand to Marc’s shoulder and squeezes down firmly. And Marc knows that if he pinched his face closed, if he handed it back with a firm decisiveness, Pecco would accept that. Would shrug, then help him pack. Drive him to the airport, wave goodbye at the drop-off line and it would never be spoken of again. An out. One he should take.

He doesn’t.

The younger man walks away once that is clear and Marc is left staring down at the little key in his hand, his heart beating out of his chest.

Then he is in front of the door. And the air is strange that comes through the bottom. Boiling hot, as if there is a fire roaring inside. When he touches the door handles just to test if it will burn, he is shocked it doesn’t. But it is warm. As if someone had been holding it delicately for hours and only just let go seconds before he got there.

Key slides in. A little click.  Then it opens. A wave of warmth spreads over his face. And Marc steps inside.

He doesn’t comprehend what he sees at first. Blinks into the dim light at vague shapes that look familiar. It’s dark, mostly due to the rain that still pours outside, that has gotten a lot worse since they all came in. But his hands find the switch automatically. It glows the bulb to life, honey-gold light filling the room, and then he really does see it.

First he spots the bed. Same covers and sheets that he slept in for years. Clean looking perfectly placed. One corner folded over as if waiting for someone to crawl right under. It makes him feel a bit sick immediately.  It looks just like he left it.

Then he sees the paintings on the walls. Cervera, so beautiful, replicas of some of the ones at home that Valentino had been so proud of.  He remembers the day he was shown them for the first time. How the older man had hugged him close and asked if it was good in that voice. The voice he would use when he was being sweet. Warm, lovely, slow.

All of it is… all of it is a lot. The idea that nothing was broken or burned, that Valentino had left it right where it was meant to be. That he had removed Marc from the living room, from the rest of the house, but stored him here. Back then he had pictured destruction, a bonfire with his effigy tied to a pole. This is not that.

But then as he shifts in further, he sees something that was not here before. Clustered on top of the dresser, so numerous that they push the trophies he had left behind back until they were almost falling off, a little madness in their number.

It’s him. Photos upon photos of him. Grinning up from where he sits in the dirt, leathers around his hips. Leaning on Valentino at a restaurant, laughing. Up on the podium mid-dance. Bent over his bike to fix something and raising an eyebrow at the camera. Asleep on the couch mouth open, Valentino’s finger poking him on the cheek. But more than that even. Shots of him on track, painted Ducati red. A low image from the podium in Misano, where he took his ninth. He looks like a holy figure in it, the sun shining right by his head. And it is not an official one. This is vaguely grainy and taken from the angle of the crowd. He swallows at the sight, as he realizes that these are not just pictures from the good times, but even from the bad.

There are a few of them on track. One from 2014, hands clutching each other as they both grin behind their helmets.  Another from that time he overtook the older man at the corkscrew in Laguna Seca. And even one of Argentina 2018, Valentino going down, himself reaching back.

And in the middle is one he knows well, one that makes his chest tighten. Him and Valentino from 2013. Sitting on bikes on the very edge of the ranch track, leaning against each other. The older man’s hand is on his thigh and he is watching him with a little smile. The Marc in the picture is flushed and happy, a little spark in his eyes that glints in the sunlight as he smirks at the camera. He had kept this photo on his bedside for years, the only decoration in his room at the time. A reminder when it got bad, because he could not deny what was on the older man’s face even when he felt like the world was crashing down.

Marc feels pain tear him apart and he is gasping. His face is burning and it is so hot in here, so hot. He can’t breathe, it is so hot. He can’t think, it is so hot. All he knows is that this is his room, even still. He knows it in his gut, and Valentino…. Valentino made it something more. Dozens of pictures, everything meticulously taken care of. It’s too much, he doesn’t know what to think. All he can see is the past flickering in the air, and the way the room switches. The blank walls of before, the filled spaces of the present. Him on the bed with the older man curled around him, the emptiness it now has. Closet filled with clothes, hangers bare today.

And then there is more. A brief image of a room that is hundreds of miles away, a room taken apart by his mother, empty shelves and walls now that everything has been pulled down and stowed in some cardboard box where he is not meant to look. Back then he had called his posters and books and merch a shrine, disparagingly in his mind even when he showed Valentino as they were falling apart. He had been embarrassed. Ashamed to have his worship so clearly on display.

But none of it felt like this does. None of it had the same power in the air. A child’s game back then, and now he has found a real one, religion slowly drip drip dripping over everything. He feels it thrum in the air and knows that this room has not been left alone. The older man has been in here. He has made it into this place of power and done so for years. And he decided to show it all. Had given the key to Pecco and knew what the younger man would do with it. Knew what Marc would do with it.

Everything he had possibly left is on display. And even things stolen must have part of this tableau; the sweatshirt and shorts do not smell musty, like they have been balled up for years. They are clean. Everything is clean. A well-maintained shrine.

He pictures it. Pictures Valentino carefully taking the photos down and dusting, then rearranging them in the delicate way they are placed. Pictures him removing the sheets, unused, for a wash. Picture him tossing the old shorts and sweatshirt in with his own load. Wonders if they would twist with the older man’s clothes, until he had to carefully pick them back out, fold them, and push them into the drawers. Why had he kept them? Why had he kept any of this? Why had he added to it until it became this… this display?

It's too much. The pictures and the room and the story it all tells is too much. The sweet warmth in the air is too much. The whispers in his head about it all are too much. That this was all waiting for him to find it. And he recognizes that warm feeling. A breathy whisper. Finally. It sounds a lot like Valentino.

He stumbles back towards the bed in a daze, bumps into something and almost topples completely. When he glances down, he stares in a blank manner. A box, sitting innocuously there that he had not noticed before. One he had not left behind all those years ago, one that clearly stores none of his old things that are so proudly shown. His hands shake as he leans down to pick it up. Shake as he gently places it down on the bed. Shake as he peels open the lid.

On top sits a note, and below it, medical textbooks. Worn and old, he sees tabs throughout, and they are stacked up carefully. Slowly he removes each one, then turns to the note. It’s Valentino’s handwriting.

‘I was happy when I found out the third surgery went well. When I saw you in the hospital, it had hurt. Not because you didn’t love me anymore, not because we kissed, but because you were in pain. I wanted to help’

Marc feels his body shudder. He swallows at the words and the madness, at the mention of a hospital visit he had…had dreamed. He thought he had dreamed. No he had dreamed. But Valentino had known about the kiss. How could he have known about a kiss Marc made up in his mind? It’s too much. All of this is too much. But he can’t stop his hunger for more. Can’t stop the way his mind is diving back to that night, the lazy way he had reached for Valentino, the naked desperation and weakness in the older man’s eyes. Had it truly been real?

 He turns to the books, unable to handle that right now.

‘Textbook of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery’

‘Fundamentals of Arm Therapy’

‘Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitation’

He opens the first one on a whim, the heftiest and with the most wear on it. Flips to a tabbed page. And feels his mouth tremble at the notes that scrawl everywhere. Valentino’s handwriting once more. Diagrams dissected, numbers written down. Words rambling and odd in their manic intelligence. He flips to another tabbed page. The same things. Musings written in the margins, little sticky notes

‘Doctor Mueller says the removal of skin should come from area C’

‘The other doctors speak positively on electrode pain management’

‘Called Doctor R, he’s a dick Marc would hate him. He’s out.’

His name is everywhere. Undeniable that all of this is about him. Little wonderings about his pain, about his mind. Worries scrawled in jittery hand. A small receipt tucked in between the page with a hurried note about a zoom call written across it, and it has a date clear across the top. November 20^th, 2020.

The last page is the worst. It is simple, a large sheet tucked into the very back. Words outline everything in precise detail, handwriting calmer as if everything before was the panic and this is the solution. A perfect picture of his third surgery, the one that had worked the best out of all of them. At the bottom it says a doctor’s name. One of his actual surgeons. Then next to it, in bold letters ‘call Casey’.

He swallows. It was Casey who had recommended that doctor to him. The doctor who had come in, guns blazing with a plan that came from nowhere. A miracle, a miracle. He had thanked God at the time, especially when he woke up and could already feel that he was headed toward something a little better. He had never questioned any of it.

Another layer. Another note. A big strip of leathers, torn and shredded and covered in black. Marc knows it immediately as part of one of his old sets, from when he crashed in 2012. The bad one that led to his first round of diplopia. It had almost ended his career.

‘You scared me. You still do. Just like the months after that crash, I still feel my heart catch when you ride some days. When I watched you fall last year I couldn’t sit down for hours. It’s not about your riding. It’s about you’ 

Another layer. Another note. This one is a pair of tickets, dated to 2013, wrapped up in a little flag. One that has the words ‘INDYCAR’ stretching across it in bright green font. Valentino had bought it for him when they were in Ohio for that race all those years ago.

‘I barely watched IndyCar. Before the trip I had to look things up so you would have answers when you asked. I was very happy to sit there and talk to you the entire time. I don’t even remember who won, just the way you laughed’ 

Charlie Kimball, his mind answers quietly. He remembers watching him roar across the finish line and having Valentino pressed against his side, and feeling like he could never be happier.

Another layer. Another note. An ugly Christmas sweater, one he had bought for the man as a joke in 2011. They were barely anything but student and teacher then, and Valentino had laughed obnoxiously before donning it with a grin. Marc had been thrilled about it all.

‘I still wear this on Christmas Eve. Luca once asked where I got it. I lied. I’m sorry about that. I'm sorry about a lot’  

It's soft. Well worn. He brushes his hand over it and sighs before placing it to the side.

Another layer. Another note. This one is scrawled across a large packet.

‘I found out too late that it wasn’t true. It doesn’t make it okay’

‘Phillips Island 2015’ it reads at the top when he opens, and his heart flinches when he realizes what it is. Data, his data. Ride speed, velocity, tire life, all the information that the engineers can see, that they all study. Only this one is altered to be made worse than the truth. He remembers his own data from that day perfectly, had obsessed over it for years. This is not it.

He wonders what that means for it all.

Another layer. Another note. A chisel, worn and old.

‘I tore your name off half-asleep before the sun came fully up. It took me hours and I dropped the thing every other second. Kept having to climb up and down over and over again, and I was proud when I finished. I’m not proud anymore’

He can picture it. Wild-eyed Valentino, probably only days or weeks after Sepang. Anger roiling and turning into scrambled frustration as he chips and chips and chips away. He wonders if the older man ever accidentally scraped himself. He wonders if he bled.

Another layer. Another note. A pillowcase, plain white as if from a hotel. Marc does not recognize it.

'This is weird. I was almost too ashamed to put it in. I stole this from the hotel in Indianapolis, after we had sex for the first time. It smelled like you and I grabbed it without thinking. It still does’

He leans forward and presses his nose into it. Vanilla. Cotton. Smokiness. And the same taste of ozone the older man carries. Is this what Valentino thinks he smells like?

When Marc turns back to the box he realizes that he has hit the bottom. And he finds the final thing.

 A small something wrapped up in a white and green towel, that had been hiding underneath it all, as if the rest of the memories were there only to peel away and to reveal this. Valentino had taken care with it. The edges are tucked into each other, and it almost looks like a wrapped present.

Paper is the first thing that falls out. Another note that Marc picks up with delicate fingers and uncurls in trepidation, fingers shaking.

‘I tried to fix it but I never could.  Shame after I spent so much time making it. I never told you that. I never told you a lot’

That is all the note says. And then Marc fully unwraps it.

The ugly fox statue. Or what is left of it. Shattered little pieces carefully rolled together. That hideous little face, the oddly shaped limbs, the reddish-brownish-orangish color. His fox. La Volpettina. Not removed from La Tana… just hiding. Broken in a cardboard box, wrapped in blankets like a child, stored away perhaps because the sight was too painful. Or perhaps because it needed to be protected, saved. It wasn’t thought. Broken as Marc’s heart had been.

He lets his fingers remove each piece with care. Places them gently down on the bedspread, arranges them until they almost look like they are about to be sealed together. His fox. The little thing that has seen so much, that Valentino had apparently made. By hand clearly, its ugliness had been a running joke for years. He wonders why the older man never got upset. He used to simply laugh when everyone would start ridiculing the thing. But it must have hurt, to have hard work treated so carelessly.

His heart is shattering over and over again in his chest as he slowly sits down on the bed. As he numbly stares at the notes and the little pieces of their past that had been placed so carefully, so desperately inside of the box for him to find. A final gift, like one might give a person on their death bed. No begging, no pleading, just rawness, just everything laid bare. Jittery embarrassment laced through every note, each word. Written with a shaky hand.

‘Convince me’ he had hissed out yesterday, full of pain and hurt and rage. And now he doesn’t know what to do. Because it should feel like a show. It should feel like another part of the game. It should feel like Valentino is lying, or guilting, or something. But then the raw intensity in Pecco’s eyes when he handed over the key. But then the way Valentino had looked terrified when Marc walked into La Tana, as if he had been caught. But then some things begin to make sense. Like how odd it was for Casey of all people to recommend an Italian doctor. Like how Alex had looked so angry after that night he had dreamed, or rather didn’t, of Valentino. Like the little fingerprints he always saw on the fox’s clay pelt. Like the smug little expression on Uccio Salucci’s face after Sepang that had looked too proud. Like the little glimpse of Valentino in that sweater he had seen in the back of one of Luca’s photos and had brushed off as impossible.

The world has stopped. He can’t think of his flight, or his anger, or the steel walls he has up that have crumbled into dust. He can’t think much of anything except running it all through his head like a list. The room, the shrine, the photos, the box. Everything twining together until they build a cord that is years thick, that he cannot ignore even with all the bad that surrounds it. Even with the years of cruelty and anger and everything awful the older man had done.

‘Convince me’

He packs the box back up.

He places the thing right where he tripped over it.

He turns off the light.

He shuts the door behind him.

He slowly walks out of the room and heads for the kitchen.

 Only Pecco is there, leaning against the counter with an air of casual nonchalance. When he glances up there is no surprise in his face, but there is an expression of wariness.

Marc’s voice cracks when he talks.

“When do we need to leave to catch the flight?” He murmurs, and it comes out pained. He hates asking, but… but he has too much pride, even now. Too much pride to murmur to the younger man that he does not want to leave. Not right now,

A small tilt of the head. The air is much cooler out here, and he wants to return to that room immediately. Wants to take it all apart, wants to go over each word until he can hear Valentino’s voice saying it all. Wants to go through every single picture, remember where they were taken and when and why. Wants to push his face into the pillow and breathe in the past. Wants to press his fingers to the fox and find every single print and match them up with his.

This is not a fix. This is not a new beginning. But Marc has not felt this in years. And the greed that fills him is like the one of old, the one that had him chasing every championship he could ever fight for with an incessant drive and rage and fire. The one that brought him back from the brink of losing it all straight up to the top again. The one that had him wanting the most famous man in their world, the one that still does.

It must show on his face.

“It was canceled last night,” Pecco finally says, expression clearing.

Marc blinks. His eyes grow hot as the younger man smiles at him, eyes knowing far too much. Pecco is kind, his mind blurrily thinks. Pecco understands me too well. Pecco knows that if I had been aware, I would have never even left his room. I would have hidden away from it all until a new one could be booked, I would have refused the damn key.

“Oh,” Is all he says though, then he slowly turns and walks back. Reenters the room and pretends it is for the first time again. Lets his eyes drag over the bed and the walls, the dresser and the pictures. Lets his hands unpack the box and read every note.

Over and over and over. Unable to help himself, pain and beauty ripping through him as each second passes. Tears and smiles slicing his face in two. An ache so beautiful he can hardly think.

Like falling in love.

End Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Marc finally leaves the room as the wind still howls and the rain still pours. A monsoon almost, and he can feel the building shake as he pads out into the hall. Sees flashes of lightning that light up La Tana, making everything stark and intense and too much.

The world is strange. Everything is strange. As it all flickers into view when lightning crackles across the sky, he sees the past. Traces of memories everywhere he looks. They had been there before, when he first came back here and fell into it all. But he accepts it this time. Allows his eyes to linger, allows his mind to melt into what once was with the kind of acceptance that only comes from wanting it.

No one else is around. Marc has no idea where the boys have gone. It’s not late, around five, and he wonders if they are hiding away in their rooms until the storm passes. Or perhaps from him, and the way that room must have leaked heat and desperation and rebirth. He’d gone in there cold, ice around his heart and arching pain in his body. He came out not thawed or melted but exploded. Too much heat too fast, until the slightest crack makes the whole thing destroy itself.

But it’s the good kind of destruction. Like the ashes a pyrausta rises from.  Or a forest after a wildfire, new growth fighting through. Or a caterpillar dissolving its body to erupt from its cocoon with beautiful wings.

Valentino loves him. Valentino also hurt him. Both things sit inside of his chest as he stares out the window at the storm. They dance together, flirting back and forth, one side vicious one side soft. But both are real, and they both smile up at him. Pain and pleasure not fighting each other this time but settled together in an embrace. The truth. That is what it is. So different from the fluttering belief he used to have that the older man would never harm him. Also so different from the heavy idea that Valentino could do nothing but that, the kind that weighed on him for years now.

 It's not entirely what was in the room either. Yes of course it was, in a major way. The devotion laced through everything, the proof that the older man never stopped caring. Obsession and love, worry so thick it was clear in every single scratch of the pen. Misunderstandings banished by the reality sweeping in. All of it remade him, all of it.

But there was one other part. The idea that Valentino knew what it all was. That he understood the way he was ripping back his own skin, and still did it. Offered up the key, wrote those notes, made everything undeniable and clear. Put himself on display in the way he hates because he needed it to be known more than he needed to save his pride.

It’s similar to what Marc did years ago. When they were at their worst and he brought the older man home. When he showed his old room, his little piece of the world that made his adoration and worship far too clear. It had been embarrassing, it had been difficult, it had felt like he was giving the other man even more power. But he had needed the older man to see the truth, to see the truth of him at the core of it all. To see his love.

 And now Valentino has done the same only more. Years of the kind of worship you don’t give to a stranger, the personal kind, and in that so much more. If Marc was cruel he would feel smug at it all. If he wasn’t in love, he could take pictures and sell them and make everyone know that the pathetic one is Valentino Rossi, not him.

But he can’t do that. He would never. All he felt when he realized what everything was, what it meant, was the bloom of something ancient and warm in his chest. Was the need to stay there forever, so he can taste the fruit of the gods as much as he pleases.

What all of this means for them, he has no idea. But it sits in his throat, the need to make all he is clear too. But then it is still tempered by fear, by doubt, by his own tight pride, by everything that had held him back in the past. Because Valentino has borne his soul. But Marc isn’t sure if he would even be able to do the same, not anymore. He wants to find Valentino. He wants to hunt him down and pin him to the wall and spit out everything he has felt for years. He wants it all. But he has no idea if he can.

A shattering of thunder breaks him from his thoughts. His eyes pass over the room once more, unease growing as the feeling of being alone overtakes his musings. The air is crackling with electricity, the storm-made darkness putting everything into a sense of limbo. He feels trapped between two worlds almost, and it is an uncomfortable feeling, enough to get him moving. The bedroom doors are all open, no bodies or voices inside.

He crosses over to Valentino’s side in seconds and finds it just as dark and empty and cold as La Tana. Except that the front door is wide open, wind howling and rain whipping inside in a way that makes him stare, that makes it all feel even more like a different world. Rain in the living room, thunder cracking as if is right behind him. Limbo, purgatory, the in-between.

 Then a body shoots through the door, ripping him out of his trance, a raincoat down to the knees completely soaked, and a scowl on the little part of the face that shows. Big curls pop out when the hood is ripped off in frustration.

“Bezz,” he calls in a raspy voice, and the younger man jumps. Whips toward him with wide eyes, lightning sparks across the window, and the younger man creases his face up into what looks like a wince and frown.

“Where is everyone?”

Hesitation. Then Bezz sighs, flicks on the light in a tired manner, and his face is drawn when he turns around.

“The dogs got scared from the storm, ran off. We don’t usually get this intense weather around here. Everyone has been looking for almost an hour now.”

The dogs. The sweet creatures that had licked Marc with enthusiasm when he first got there, and he had laughed as he twined his fingers through their soft golden fur. Pretty dogs, gentle and obedient. The kind of creatures meant for playing in the yard or laying on the couch, not thunderstorms in the Italian hills. Valentino loves them.

He swallows.

“I… give me your coat. Your face is red, have you been outside the whole time?”

Bezz nods, sinks into one of the kitchen chairs and rubs a hand over his face, looking distressed.

“Pecco, Franky and Luca took their cars, Mig and Cele went with them. Vale is on foot, I was too. It’s… it’s bad weather, it’s bad. You can barely see a thing.”

“Give me your coat,” Marc repeats.

“No, I need to go back out, they are good dogs. They must be scared, my Rubiks gets so nervous when it thunders, he only calms down when I hold him. I need to find them, I need to-”

“You help nothing shaking like this,” Marc interrupts firmly, “I will go, stay inside, get warm, call the others and find out if they have found anything.”

Bezz looks like he is going to argue. But he is shaking, wide-eyed and cold, and wet even through his raincoat. Marc doesn’t have one, so the soaked thing the other man is wearing will have to do. Better than nothing. Another insistent look and Bezz is handing it over.

“Where did you not check?”

“The hills in the south. It was really bad over there, but it might be where they went. There are a few abandoned houses and no roads.”

Marc sharply nods. Then he is zipping up and out of the door, and it all slams into him.

Wind roaring, rain pouring. It’s the cold kind, strange for Summer, so that when it hits in the face it is like icicles to the skin. So different from the one they had rode in earlier, which was balmy compared to this.

Bezz is right, it is impossible to see. But he pushes on, thoughts of Valentino alone in this terrible rain swimming in his head.  He jogs as best as he can while holding one hand up to block it all out, scowls as he almost falls over several times but keeps going. Makes it to the edge of the property, squints into the distance and sees nothing but swirling grey. Inhales sharply, chokes on the rain that is buffeting him in the face and just walks.

Walks and walks and walks and walks and walks until he grows numb to the feeling, until he has to drop the hand as his fingers begin to turn purple. Until the world is just sheets of rain and nothing else. Vision minute, coat entirely unhelpful, eye pinched as he is slammed with it all again and again and again. After what feels like twenty minutes he turns around and he can’t even spot the house anymore, massive as it is. And he is alone. Like he was when he walked out of his room in La Tana. Limbo, trapped forever with his thoughts and what he now knows and the past chasing him down. Every way he turns blank and unclear, the possibility of danger or hope on all sides.

They don’t get storms like this here. But he remembers one similar, twelve years ago now. He remembers the older man laughing as they curled up in front of the TV as Marc scowled at the window.

‘Funny that you are called thunder and hate it so much’ he had teased, then wrapped his arms around the younger man gently.

In truth Marc is very much not afraid of the rain, or the storms, or the thunder. But Valentino had looked proud of himself, and he had allowed it to sit in the air. This was during one of their bad times, when happy days came less often and he grabbed on as hard as he could to the ones that did. So he pretended to be afraid of thunder, and let himself be teased, and fell asleep like that.

A good memory. He’s been having a lot of good memories since he came out of that room. Since he stepped into the limbo where he knows whatever he decides next will finish it all off or rebuild upon what is still there.

It’s funny that he is thinking all of this while he carves his way through the middle of a storm. Funny that the world reflects exactly how he feels. Funny that he had gone from the peaceful warmth of that room and that box and everything he had seen and is now in the middle of ice-cold madness. Fitting. Fitting too that it almost gave him excuse for his cowardice, for his inability to face the older man even after he knows he is loved. Like the tight way he held himself back, like the people flitting in and out of his bed, like every moment where he wrapped himself in titanium and pretended not to care.

He really has no idea what he is going to do. Has no idea how to respond to any of it. Because he loves Valentino so much it destroys him. And the other man does too. But is that even enough? There is so much poison, so much venom, so much hate. They have both hurt each other. Valentino with his careless cruelty, Marc with his responding freeze-fire, with the revenge he dug into over and over and over again just to see the older man bleed, with the way he made himself into a beast just so he could bite back.

How do you come back from that? Can you?

He has no idea. All he knows is that he can’t go to Valentino right now, even as worry and fear pulsed when he heard the older man was out in this madness. But he can help. He needs to help.

It all mangled his mind as he pushes forward, as he narrows his eyes at the distant shapes and hopes that it is those abandoned houses Bezz talked about. Not just for the dog’s sake but for his own, he’s starting to shake just like the younger man was.

It is them. Foreboding looking in this weather, roof half caved in, but the door is cracked open, just large enough for a person or animal to fit though, and he gets this feeling in his chest that it is exactly where he needs to be right then.

He finds one of them inside. Soaked to the bone, pretty golden fur turned brown with the rain, shaking as it is ducked under a wooden beam, and the whale-eyed look it shoots Marc when he stills upon entrance is heartbreaking. The storm quiets only slightly once he is inside, and the air is damp and musty.

“Hey,” he says softly, and the dog pushes further against the walls.

Christ, what are Valentino’s dog’s names. He really doesn’t know. He had tried not to know in truth, had avoided the Instagram pictures and references because he knew it would only make it all hurt more.

Something not in the Italian language, he thinks. Something Spanish? As if. Maybe English, American? Very likely. But he feels like it is probably something dramatic. Valentino may be corny, a bit cringy, but he loves his stories. Likes to paint a picture, likes to tell little pieces of himself in subtle ways. It had not been Italian. But it had been akin, just more… ancient.

Roman? Greek?

Both feel right. And he remembers a flicker of something, the older man reading a book out loud one day, laughing at a scene with a cyclops and sheep and a man named Nobody. Marc had barely paid attention, tired after a long training session and sluggish from the hand that ran through his hair. He’d listened hazily, mostly just happy to hear that voice, warm and curling. He remembers a name.

“Ulisses?” He calls and the dog shifts but does not move close or loosen up or turn to look at him. That feels right though, so this must be the other, this must be-

“Penelope?”

That golden head snaps to him at the name, and Marc sinks to the ground in relief. Seconds later he has a lap full of soaking wet fur and shaking body, and he tucks Penelope as close as he can get her, unzipping his coat to allow his body heat to reach her even though it completely drenches his sweatshirt in the process.

Yes, he remembers. Penelope. Ulisses wife, who he had spent decades fighting to get back to, who he had never purposely abandoned and eventually came home to even after decades. Valentino has never liked being left. It’s almost silly in its revealing nature. But also painful. Enduring love, enduring hope, enduring reverence. He wonders which character the older man saw himself as.

“It’s okay,” he is murmuring foolishly, “It’s okay.”

God. Thank God. He doesn’t know where Ulisses is. He doesn’t think the dog is here but thank God he has one. Thank God he will be able to return back to the house with some small shred of hope, thank God the next time he sees Valentino it does not have to start out with sadness or horror or anything terrible.

He sits there until Penelope relaxes a little, until she feels warmer against his skin, until his own racing heart has settled, until she has warmed him up too. And then they are stone still there, terrified for very different reasons. Him for what will happen when they go back. Her for the fact that they are still there.

It’s a fitting environment actually, for his state of mind. The panic and fear from the storm he feels in the dog in his lap is comparable to his own panic and fear. That denial of vulnerability, that voice hissing that it has only made him bleed before, that refusal to be weak once more.

Valentino had shown him. Valentino had made it so clear that he loved Marc completely, had left zero room for doubt. The lack of doubt rearranged things in his mind, until cruelty spun into pain and anger spun into fear and every emotion the older man has ever shown became tinged with something desperate and true. And Marc… Marc is still angry. Marc is still hurt.

But he wants to show the exact same thing.

He needs to get Penelope home and safe.

The wind still roars outside, especially bad in this stone-and-wood structure that offers only the slightest bit of shelter. He feels the fist of rain still from the collapsed roof, and when he feels the whole building shudder, when he eyes the roof and sees the way it buckles slightly, he knows they need to move. They need to move now or the whole thing will collapse down on both of them.

But how the hell does he get a 30 kg dog back, a frightened one at that, in this horrific weather? How does he manage the trek that felt like well over a mile when it was so difficult just for him? When he almost slipped in the mud multiple times, when he would either have to carry her in his arms or coax her to walk. Glancing down at the way she is collapsed onto him, he sincerely doubts that walking is on the table.

So carrying it is. Thank God he has kept up his muscle mass over the years. But this will wreak havoc on his arm, he knows this well. Knows and accepts it, and when he wraps his arms more firmly around her, he prays that maybe it won’t be bad. Maybe he will be able to power through and handle it, maybe all his strength training will hold it up and make it so that he will be okay.

He's wrong. It’s not okay. Pain arches through his arms and tears sting his eyes as he stands up, as he struggles slightly, and he gasps out a noise like a plea. Penelope must understand. Because she quickly stills in his arms, only slightly shaking like a leaf, and then Marc has her up.

God, he is panting. But he steps outside, braces himself for then wind and the rain and the way the dog struggles once more for a second. Then he inhales sharply and keeps moving forward.

Its far worse this time, especially because he can see even less this time, face all but buried in her fur as he walks. Blindness, but his feet move automatically.  Only minutes after he began, he hears a crash behind him, and when he glances back as best as he can, in the dim light he sees that the abandoned house has collapsed more. Roof falling even further, door smashed to pieces, and he wonders what would have happened if he did not leave when he did.

Not a fun thought. Actually, no thoughts are fun right now. So he shuts off his brain as well as he can, and walks. One foot in front of the other, clutching Penelope, trying to not let the pain and the tiredness and the cold and the roar of the storm in his ears make him falter. She is more frightened than he is, after all. And Valentino. He must be so scared. He loves his dogs, the spoiled way they live shows that. And when Valentino loves it is all consuming. Marc would know. He knew that’s part of what made him run out of the house automatically, what made him keep going even as everything seeped into his bones. He is in shorts after all, and right now he really can’t feel his legs.

It had been the idea of the older man searching out there alone. It had been the panicking knowledge that Valentino would be devastated if anything happened. It had been this need to do something, to help something, to make the older man happy in some way, to finally fix a wrong after so many years of nothing he was doing making a single thing better in anyway. Like a response to that room, a response to all that he had learned and seen and felt when he was in there.  I see, he wants to scream out, I see, do you? Do you see everything I have felt in the last few years? Do you understand?

He doesn’t have a room to show. He doesn’t have a box of memories with little notes to make it clear. He had thrown it all away in truth, the only thing surviving the purge being a little replica rally car he had kept for the sake of the memory it was from. Before Valentino Rossi had become Vale, and it felt pure enough to keep.

Selfishly he hopes the older man will get it. That he will understand what Marc is trying to say, do, explain. Because he has never been so good with words, not like Valentino is. He has also never been so good with gestures. The only thing he can do is love the way he knows how, giving every single part of himself. The older man doesn’t deserve it, not really. But Marc wants him to see it. Wants him to understand. No not want. Needs.

He has no idea how far he is from the house. Has no idea how far he has even walked from where he found Penelope. All he knows is rain and thunder, is the smell of wet dog clinging to his skin, is the little gasping breathes he takes, is the slippery mud beneath his feet. Distantly he realizes that he is covered once more. Funny. He just took a shower.

He wonders if this is how the storied Ulisses felt. He wonders if he is being dramatic. Then he quiets his wonderings and keeps going. 

The wind is howling so loudly it almost sounds like it calls his name. It makes him laugh a little, makes him stumble slightly and readjust with a pained noise, arm protesting even more as he attempts to lift her higher. This was a bad idea. But the roof would have killed her if he had not come, would have killed them both. And then Valentino would be sad.

Marc, the wind cries.

Marc, it shrieks.

Marc, it howls.

Marc

Marc

Marc

“MARC!”

All at once he realizes that it is not the wind. And he stumbles forward, lowers Penelope as best as he can to see, and there are people. Shapes running toward him and only when they are close does he realize who they are.

Franky. Mig. Cele. Eyes wide, wet but not soaked, and Marc smiles.

“Hey,” he croaks out.

Then Penelope is pulled from his arms into Franky’s, who coos at here and whose grip much stronger, and Marc sighs. Feels the ache in his arm relax and his body sag forward and it is Cele who comes to him, hands clutching onto his shoulder, and shaking him slightly.

“Christ where did you find her?” Cele shouts, and Marc laughs.

“That way,” he gestures with his head, “she was in an abandoned house, hiding.”

“… That’s two miles away. You carried her for two miles?’

Marc shrugs.

“I didn’t want him to cry,” he mumbles stupidly, and Cele says nothing, just begins to cart him back to the house with insistent hands and legs and everything. Marc hopes he is not making the younger man feel a chill with his drenched coat and icy fingers.

He can still walk, they are acting terribly dramatic, but he allows it simply because it feels good. Watches as Franky makes it through the door first and breathes a sigh of relief when Penelope instantly settles upon getting inside. She still shivers, she still has her tail down, but as Bezz and Luca descend on her with towels and what look like treats, the worst of it stops.

“Where’s Valentino?” He asks immediately as he finally tears off the soaking wet raincoat and lets it splotch onto the floor, as he stands there shivering, red-nosed and arm in pain and tired and-

He is enveloped before he can blink. He didn’t need to ask the question because Valentino is here. He is wet too, and Marc dimly spots Ulisses on the couch, perking up upon spotting Penelope and bounding over to sniff her. Both dog’s tails go up immediately, and it is almost like nothing happened. A nice image, probably simpler than their book counterparts.

But doesn’t want to think about stories right now. Because Marc feels all the bad fade away the second he is hit with Valentino’s ozone smell and the vibration of that voice in his chest, rumbling and pacifying.

The older man is rambling something, but Marc just slowly raises up his hands to hold him close, breathes in that smell and that warmth even under the wet, and relaxes. Feels the chill instantly depart his limbs, feels his chest lighten, feels the pain in his arm blank out because Valentino is holding him. And it’s not sexual, not like on the patio yesterday. It’s a hug of relief, it’s the touch of gentle adoration, it the way the older man used to clutch him close on lazy mornings, when they didn’t feel the need to fuck or fight, but just be there, breathe each other in.

And he knows in that instant. That he has no pride left. A blissful feeling.

“You are a fool, God, thank God, you found her thank God. What do you want?” Valentino is saying, voice jittery, pulling back and running his hands all over Marc like he is checking.

 “Soup? Coffee? I will even make you a cappuccino even though it is after noon. Do you want a cappuccino? I make a good cappuccino, and it is very warm and-”

Marc pulls him back, makes those arms wrap around him once more. Feels the older man shudder, feels eyes on them, but doesn’t care. This is worth his pride, he savagely thinks. This is worth so much.

“I want to talk.” Marc says into his shoulder, and Valentino freezes. But Marc pays it no mind. He just buries his nose into that chest and refuses to allow even a single shred of distance appear between them as the contact warms his soul.

“Okay,” Valentino whispers, tone soft. His hand soothes up and down Marc’s back, and like magic it makes the pain fade away.

“Okay.”

***

Marc showers first. He kind of has to, his lips were a little blue, and when Valentino had spotted that he got this panicked look in his eyes and pretty much forced him into the bathroom. Valentino’s bathroom, actually. The ones in La Tana were being used by the boys, the guest ones were currently occupied with two very muddy dogs, and so it was the only option. When he steps inside and sees the same exact conditioner and shampoo that him and the older man shared years ago, he just smiles. Lathers his hair up and feels the soothing memory fill his nose.

The warmth in the shower finally turns his limbs normal colored at least. It also soothes the pain in his arm even more than the older man’s touch had, which he is resolutely hiding from everyone, though the little narrow-eyed look Pecco shot him says it won’t stay secret for long. He’ll still try, but no doubt Valentino will hear. He almost anticipates it.

A nondescript hoodie and sweatpants wait for him on top of the counter when he steps out, and it feels so much like a repeat of only a few hours ago, that he has to laugh. Rinse and repeat, except this time he is not stepping out of the door with the thick feeling of the end upon his shoulder.

The hall is quiet once he makes it out. The storm still goes on, but the air is warm and content. He is waiting to talk to the man he has been in love with for years now and Marc finds no worry or foreboding feelings from the water that drums down on the roof or the little flashes of lightning. It’s just a distant song, one he can almost find beauty in even after that whole ordeal.

He pads his way into the kitchen, finds Valentino standing over the stove and staring intensely at a pot. He doesn’t seem to notice Marc’s presence, mumbling under his breath as he glares and so he takes the time to watch. To observe and see more and less than just tragedy and history. Just to see the man.

Curls messily falling over his forehead, dark-dark blond with hints of grey. Thin eyebrows that soften his face dramatically from what it was in his youth. Those same elven features;  little nose, small chin, delicate cheekbones. Pale lips, chapped and worried. Thin shoulders, shoulder blades that jut out, terrible posture. A normal man for all intents and purposes.

But even now he could never consider Valentino just that. So he sees beauty in the simplicity, in the normal. In the wrinkles around the eyes, and those silver hairs, and the way he stands like what all the Italian riders call an ‘Umarell’. An old man who watches and waits.

“What are you making?” Marc asks, and Valentino jumps a little.

“Oh, ah,” he turns around and shoots a sheepish grin,“pasta, some vegetables too.”

Then he laughs.

“It won’t be bad this time. The strainer is made of metal.”

Marc’s eyebrows shoot up. He knows what the older man is referencing. His first night here, when dinner was being prepared. Valentino had dropped the glass strainer in the sink, shattered it into pasta. They tried to eat some leftovers, but it was so bad that they ended up ordering in. Funny.

“Clumsy,” he says instead of all of that, and Valentino shrugs. Returns to his cooking..

“No, no. Not clumsy, jealous.”

“….Of what?”

“Andrea.”

Marc snorts, and Valentino shoot him a wry look.

“You did date him. You were texting him, inviting him to the ranch, and I already hated him very much. You said his name and I just lost my grip. Jealous.”

“Even then?”

“Always.”

Valentino doesn’t turn around when he says that. But Marc can almost see his exact expression. Eyes downcast and far away, a little subtle smile on his face. Maybe he is embarrassed, maybe he is well past that after what he showed with the room.

“I only invited him to train cause I couldn’t handle you alone. You overwhelmed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not like that. I wanted to jump your bones.”

Valentino chokes, and collapses forward a little bit, and Marc grins. When the older man glances back, his cheeks are pink.

“I… you can’t say things like that,” he says in a strained voice. Marc snickers under his breath and leans forward on the counter.

“It is true. You overwhelmed me completely back then. Picture it in reverse. If eighteen-year-old Valentino met me now, had to live only doors down, how would he have reacted?”

 A considering tilt to the head.

“I would have tried to sleep with you the first night,” Valentino concludes, and Marc nods.

“So actually I was very self-controlled. I lost that self-control when I realized you didn’t just want to fuck me by the way.”

The pot is starting to bubble, but the older man doesn’t even turn to watch. Stares at Marc with an aghast expression.

“What are you talking about?”

Marc shrugs.

“Until around halfway through 2013 I thought it was all just sex to you. I didn’t even realize until after we had that fight about the academy.”

More silence. The pot is beginning to boil over now, and Marc smoothly steps in. Takes the spoon from Valentino, who has gone quiet, and stirs it. Lowers the heat a little, allows his arms to brush against the older man’s and shivers at the contact.

“So in my head we only really dated for a year before everything started to go really bad,” he tacks on.

“A year,” Valentino mumbles.

“Yup.”

“How did I not notice?”

Marc sighs. Stirs it one more time, and then places the spoon gently down on the counter.

“You didn’t notice a lot. You had a habit of only listening when it was what you wanted to hear. Like when I asked to get out of the contract or when I tried to bring any of our issues up. You just… tuned me out. It hurt.”

A shuddering sigh, and when he glances up Valentino’s eyes are burning. Sadness, anger, a little desperation.

“I… you're right,” he mumbles, “tell me then and I will listen. I promise.”

Marc stares at him.  Feels a war in his head. The part that knows Valentino loves him believes it. The part that he has carried for years and years and years screams that it is a lie. That he has talked, he has told, and he has been ignored every time. That this will only make him more vulnerable to the inevitable knife to the back.

He knows which one is probably smarter. He knows which one is probably saner. But he has kind of always been a little insane. And stupid.

So he turns and goes to sit at the table, right in front of where the older man had placed a plate.

“Eat first,” Marc says quietly “I have a lot to say.”

The foot is steaming as it appears in front of him. Pasta cooked perfectly, vegetables roasted in the oven that are fragrant, and it tastes good. Especially good because his stomach has been howling since he returned from his treacherous journey, and the warmth of homemade food soothes his soul. He has always wondered what that first meal would have tasted like.

They finish quietly. And then Marc talks.

It flows out without stopping. Everything. The first day, the first week, the first year, Andrea and how that started. The pain of believing he would never have what he wanted and then the dullness of what he did to his friend in the process. Then Indianapolis, the way he felt almost trapped but he loved it. Then their relationship, which he thought was built of sex and control. Then the months and years after, as Marc slowly felt his grip over himself, his situation, his life, his story, his image, his career, slipping away. How much he loved Valentino, but how caged he felt. How silenced. 2014 and the track record and how he needed to break it, needed to escape that contract and the barrier it created, and how much of an arrow to the heart Valentino’s reaction had been. Perhaps the beginning of the end, even when it had started for Marc a long time before that.

Then Sepang. Then the revenge plot he created in the years after. Then 2018 and what he did in Qatar and Argentina. Then his perspective on his winning years, the sex he used to fill the void, and his losing years. The pain of injury paired with the pain of the older man leaving him behind. Twined together, spinning a woven tale that Valentino stays quiet for most of. He only speaks when Marc brings up the visit he thought was a dream.

“You… you didn’t think it was real?” He asks in a shaky voice, and Marc nods. Smiles a little.

“It felt too good to be true. To have you there, to have you looking at me like that. I wanted to return to that dream again and again but I never could. An interesting form of torture.”

Valentino swallows.

“I thought you were just pretending it never happened.”

“I thought you didn’t care enough to visit. I think we both assume a lot.”

A small laugh is forced out of the older man’s mouth and he leans back in his seat. Rubs a hand over his face, and he looks tired, Tired and weak and not like Valentino Rossi at all, but like his Vale. Older, a little weaker, but his.

“Tell me more,” He asks quietly, “please.”

Marc inhales, then tilts his head.

“There isn’t much more to tell in truth. You get the gist. Everything cruel I have ever done has come from all of that I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”

The older man nods. Then he smiles a little bitterly.

“Me too. All of it, me too. Almost exactly the same, although mine was far less justified.”

A small laugh bursts from Marc's chest and he scooches his chair close to the table to rest his chin on his hands, stares up at the older man with the best smirk he can manage as delicate as he is feeling.

“The same, huh? How many did you sleep with to forget about me then? I could give you my list, we can see who won.”

A breathy laugh.

“You won.”

Marc furrows his brows.

“We won’t know unless we compare numbers, and you were always the type to-”

“Zero.”

What.

The words echoes through the air and when Marc looks back at Valentino, he is placidly staring back.

“Did I hear you right?” He asks carefully, and the older man nods.

“Yes. Zero.”

“That’s…. not possible.”

“It’s very possible, when you just don’t sleep with anyone.”

“…..Explain.”

Valentino presses his lips together, lets his gaze wander off into the distance as if trying to think.

“Well,” he says slowly, “long answer or short one.”

“Both,” Marc says immediately, ravenously, and the older man smiles.

“Short answer I couldn’t do it. Tried, failed, gave up.”

Then he hesitates, before he deflates, and Marc watches in real time as any pride Valentino was holding onto flees his body in an instant.

“There is not a single human being on this planet that makes me want to touch other than you,” he says in a low voice, “and not just because you are beautiful. It’s just… everything else is grey. I was disgusted by all of them, I could barely even get a single brush of a finger in without wanting to find you and rub it away. I couldn’t have anyone else because all I want is you. How could I ever? How could I ever even feel pleasure again if it doesn’t come from you?”

Oh. Oh. That’s just as bad as the room is, worse maybe because he is hearing it spoken out loud. And as it drops from Valentino’s tongue it holds the same power as the room, the shrine. Devotion, worship, but not the kind you give God. The kind you give a person who you love more than anything.

A lump grows in Marc’s throat. He wonders if this is how the Penelope of the story felt when her husband finally returned after years of doubt and fear and anger. He wonders if she was as ripped apart as he is right now.

“Well now you’re making me feel bad about all the people I was with,” he jokes weakly to hide the way his eyes have grown hot. Feels his chest seize up in that same way it did when he realized what everything meant.

Valentino shakes his head immediately.

“Don’t. If it’s what you needed, it’s what you needed. We weren’t together, I had no say in any of it. Even if I did want to kill them all.”

“Even Pecco?”

“Especially Pecco.”

God. This whole conversation is crazy. The fact that he is sitting across from Valentino, fifteen years between them of hate and anger and love and sex and torment and everything the world has to offer. The fact that the older man genuinely is listening, genuinely is apologizing, genuinely isn’t judging. It feels like a dream.

Selfishly he is glad Valentino never slept with anyone else. Selfishly he is happy that he is the only person in fourteen years now who has touched the older man. It sits thick in his chest, spikes him with arousal even in the midst of this very serious conversation. Because he has always been the jealous type, even when he didn’t have much to be jealous of. He’s lucky he supposed, that the man he fell in love with has eyes for no one else. He wonders how Valentino copes.

In truth he wonders how he will cope with any of this. With the first calm conversation in years, the first shred of honesty tearing out of both of them. Valentino looks tense, even as he watches with soft eyes. The air is crackling even as it is warm. He loves Valentino, and Valentino loves him, but is it enough?

“You scare me,” the older man whispers.

“Do I?”

“Always,” he says carefully eye downcast, “like today, going out in the rain to find Penelope. When they told me you hadn’t been back in two hours, I was terrified. Then you came stumbling in, and you… I think I realized it wasn’t just me at that moment, even after people have been telling me for years, even after you told me for years. And then I realized even more what I have done. To both of us.”

A hand reaches out, twines with Marc’s fingers, and it is so blissfully good, he allows it to show. Allows the ecstasy to make him shudder, allows the pleasure to be clear on his face just from the small touch. And when he opens his eyes up again, Valentino is greedily drinking it all up.

“I won’t ask you to forgive me.”

“Okay,” Marc whispers.

“I won’t tell you to stay, or listen, or give me a chance.”

“Okay.”

“But….”

Then the older man’s voice peters off, his eyelashes flutter, and Marc loves him.

Will this be enough? Does he have it in himself to forgive for all that was done? Does Valentino have it in himself too?

He has no idea. No idea. It’s terrifying, and he has no idea at all.

But the room. The warmth there. The soft touch of the older man’s hand. The way his chest had burst open when he was pulled in for a hug. The striking joy he had felt when he knew that the older man loves him. The desperate need to bring Penelope back and make sure Valentino wouldn’t cry. The forceful desire to have his love seen too, to have it understood, and then the choking relief when it is.

It’s impossible to ignore.

“But.” Marc echoes firmly, and watches as a beautiful something breaks across the older man’s face. As he breathes in a shuddering breath, as he lifts their joined hands and presses a chaste kiss to the back of Marc’s palm, lips warm and gentle and reverent. Like a promise, but also like a prayer was answered. Ulisses finally come home, Penelope finally being returned to.

They say no more after that. The wind howls outside, and there are questions in the air, but they say no more. Just press their touch into each other, breathe until they are in sync and let the past and future and possibilities swirl around them.

And in the quiet Marc feels it. Like the clearing of clouds, like the first sunlight after a long winter, like the breaking of dawn, like a green leaf in the spring, like the cry of a child being born, like a taste of water after years without a single drop.

Outside the storm begins to quiet.

End Chapter 35

Chapter Text

Marc stays for the rest of Summer break. He sleeps in the guest room still, right across the hall. Vale hears him some nights, the quiet murmurs of dreams, the little mindless shifts and aches to be next to him. But the younger man just being there is more than anything he had hoped for. Because even after all of the bad, even after everything he had done, even after the pain, Marc had enough in his heart to stay. Like a blessing from the heavens after so long of feeling cursed.

He doesn’t deserve it. He knows this is true, especially as each day passes and the younger man shares more and more. Not so much as that night, the night after the storm, but little bits and pieces. Some of them make him cry. Some of them make him laugh. Some of them make him want to clutch the younger man close and never let go, to bury his fingers into silky hair and stay there for eternity. Regardless of how it makes him feel though, he inhales it all. Because it is Marc at its core, the good and the bad, and after so long of being without the younger man he can’t imagine ever losing this again. All of that thick pride that controlled him for so long fled his body the second he saw the truth of it all.

It's not perfect. They never will be most likely. He still has that curling ache from all the years of cruelty that tries to make him mean, even if he understands where it came from now, even when he knows it was justified.  And Marc sometimes still looks like he expects the worst. But it’s something. It’s something.  It’s something more than silence, or ignorance, or anger, or poison. And really what else could he ask for? What else could he demand?

Mostly he leaves it up to Marc. So much of their relationship when they started had been him. He had been the one who pushed, he had been the one who made the first step. Always insisting, always declaring, always in control. At the time he hadn’t seen it that way at all. Really he had felt like Marc had a handle on everything, that Vale was the rudderless ship. Not true, of course. Not true. So now it is out of his hands, now he waits and will take whatever he is given, even if it is nothing.

He tells the other man that just so he is not misunderstood. Because he really does want it all again. He wants to hold, touch, feel. He wants to press kisses into bare skin in the shower, or ride around track together at dawn, or laugh at the kitchen table, or fuck in the bed he still and always has considered theirs, not his. He wants the world just like he has had a habit of doing, but now it is more like the world is Marc so he simply wants him in every single way.

The younger man laughed when he said that, made a joke of it the way he tends to do  but his eyes had been warm. And that night as they watch some terrible realty TV show, the boys scattered around them, he feels feet slide into his lap, and it is Marc pressing closer than he has in forever. He doesn’t really react. Just feels the joy in his chest, drops his hand down to one of the man’s ankles and lets it sit there for the rest of the night, fingers tracing the words that he has said and will say as much as is humanly possible for the rest of his life.

They don’t ride. For Vale, because somehow he feels he is not ready for that yet, and for Marc because the pain in his arm had resurged after carrying Penelope so far. It had made Vale feel helpless, but all Marc did was laugh and say that he knew it would happen. That he can handle it, he has handled worse for years. Then he said something about hoping Vale isn’t too dense to not understand, and all he can do is swallow and nod. Because he had got it, the minute Marc walked through that front door. Tired, cold, drenched, and the first thing he had done was ask where Vale was. He had got it so perfectly in that moment because he knows he would do the exact same thing.

But he doesn’t really have the opportunity to walk through a monsoon carrying one of Marc’s dogs, mostly because they are tiny and also because he doubts they are as big of crybabies as Penelope and Ulisses. Instead he tries to show his love even more in other ways. That tends to manifest in fussing, much like he did years ago when Marc crashed in 2012 and got diplopia. Vale helps him with his stretches, and massages when he is allowed, and keeps a pad hot in the oven for the younger man to use whenever he feels like it. Marc accepts it all, the hovering and nannying and such, with a strange sort of look. When Vale asks him about it, he murmurs that it is exactly what he used to imagine. It makes him feel that pulsing guilt all over again as he stares at the ground, but then the younger man pinches his arm hard, tells Vale to get over himself and fetch him another hot pack. So he does.

Penelope for her part seems to have taken to being a pseudo therapy dog, popping herself into Marc’s lap whenever the opportunity arises. And ever since the storm she has lingered outside of the guest bedroom door in the mornings. Usually Vale opens it to allow her to bound inside and wake up the younger man, who grins and accepts it every time without fail, and then he leans against the doorframe and watches as Marc cackles when Penelope licks him in the face in excitement. Always he turns and greets Vale with another smile, one that is soft and tentative and hopeful. A beautiful one. It soothes something in his chest. That terrible fear that he would never be able to get to see such a thing.

The boys leave four days after the storm in the evening, back to their lives and homes, but they seem content with it all. Quiet, relaxed. Not the manic puppy-like energy of their youth, not the heaviness of the first two days Marc was here. Something… settled. Or maybe they are just responding to his energy, to the way his own chest feels calm and right for the first time in many many years.

Marc waves goodbye from the dusty driveway, hands on his hips and grin bright. And then they are alone, for real this time, not just separated from people by a house. The two of them, alone at the ranch just like it used to be. It’s a beautiful thought, if a little worrying.

“It’s kind of scarier without them here,” he says finally, and Vale nods. It really is. Like now they have shrunk down to the world they had created in 2011 and lived in for years. The world that had been so beautiful and so destructive every single time.

“Do you want to walk tomorrow?” Vale offers up quietly, “I wake with the sun, and I usually ride or walk the dogs around the track at that time. Do you want to join me?”

Marc laughs, and when he turns the blazing evening sun paints him golden and perfect. Makes his dark-dark eyes turn the liquid sort of pretty, lights up his hair and makes the delicate waves shine.

“Why don’t we ride?” He teases and Vale scowls.

“Because riding again after straining your arm is a bad idea and-” he starts, but Marc cuts him off with a wave. Steps closer and presses his hand to Vale’s cheek in a soothing manner that sends warmth sinking into his bones.

“Yes yes, I was only teasing. But I do want to ride before the break ends. Only one more week. Promise me?”

Vale covers that hand in his own, stays where he is and closes his eyes.

“Promise.”

The next morning they do walk, and the sunrise is especially lovely. When he pulls two packs of chocolate croissants out of his pocket that he brought along as an early breakfast, the younger man laughs. Teases him about habits and the stash he keeps in his pantry, and Vale delights in it all.

They don’t talk much as they walk. A few tossed-out comments, a memory mentioned as they follow the turns and corners, jokes here and there. And that becomes a thing again; quiet mornings where they are safe to just exist around each other with no pressure to discuss or explain or anything. Some days they lounge by the pool Vale put in years ago and he unabashedly stares. Marc seems to enjoy that a lot, stretches out on a lounge chair and grins to the sky, pretending not to notice but making it so clear that he does. Other times they work, side by side. Marc calling with Ducati and his team, Vale working on some things with the academy. He even goes on call with Uccio, who gives a rather awkward-sounding apology that has Marc cackling even as his eyes are narrowed. He accepts it though, and when his old friend hangs up his voice sounds lighter and Marc seems calm.

The week slides by like that. Warm mornings, and the lightest brushes of fingers, and sitting at the kitchen table quietly. Waking up and knowing the older man is there, swapping stories good and bad, and the beautiful freshness like the first breath of spring. They even go into the room together one time, and Vale sits on the floor and explains it all in more words now that he can handle that. Laughs at himself for his mania around that third surgery, makes a few jokes about the pillowcase and how strange it is. Marc laughs too, tosses out a few of his own memories until the shrine-like, religious feeling fades away a little and the room just becomes a place of memories, good and bad. A museum to them even. Not ice-cold like it had been for years, not boiling hot like Marc said it felt like, but calm and cool and there.

On the last day they ride. And Vale feels electricity arching through his stomach as he sits there waiting to start, back straight and watching as Marc pulls out. That orange bike is almost fluorescent. Vale trails it and the figure on top with his eyes, always watching, always. It’s nice to see Marc ride. It’s nice to see that the pain had faded after his rest period and all of the fussing. And it’s nice when he glances behind him at Vale, eyes crinkling under his helmet, and dips his head like a challenge.

Coming?

Vale loses his breath a little, then nods. And they are riding.

It doesn’t throw him back into the past like he expects. Instead it is the future he had dreamed of that he sees. He stays a distance away just to watch it all. The dirt flying up, the knife-sharp way Marc cuts corners and drops and speeds up, the little teases he does; a foot flying out, a jaunty wave, a tilted head. It’s fun, it’s a game, it’s what he used to picture they would do in the future back when they were still dating. He always imagined in that world they would have been together for years and years, and that Marc and him would know each other like the blood in their own veins.

It's not the perfect picture of that. The past still exists, and he really is just slowly growing to remember who Marc is, just as the younger man is relearning him. But it is almost more beautiful because of it. So he rides, and laughs through is helmet. They swirl around and around and around together, and it is simple fun. No competition, even though he can see the itch for it under Marc’s skin, but just doing what they love together.

By the end of the session Vale is right behind like they used to do. So close he could touch, so close he can almost feel the shifting of muscles, almost think their hearts beat as one. That magnetic connection he always got back in the day, frayed but still there.  Maybe it was with him the whole time, maybe half of what he was feeling was the pain that Marc had. Maybe he couldn’t handle that and this is why he destroyed as much as he possibly could. Because he was afraid. Because he was a coward.

And they pull to a stop near the entrance and Vale has to duck his head to hide the way he begins to cry as it all smashes into him. It’s sticky and disgusting underneath his helmet- he has never been a pretty crier- and that pride that had disappeared comes up enough to feel pure embarrassment at it all.

“Vale?” Marc says when he notices and he just shakes his head. Keeps hiding behind his helmet, even as tentative fingers press into shoulders. Because he is ashamed of not just his tears but everything. He is ashamed of what he has done in the name of his own ego, his own temper, his own stupidity. This is what he could have had; slow mornings, and softness, and his dogs piling on top of the younger man, and laughter, and riding together every day. Eleven years that he has lost, that he has given away. And Marc is no angel, he had done his fair share of damage, but at the core of it was Vale and his pride, his unwavering belief that even those he loves were beneath him. How wrong he was. How wrong he was to them all. How wrong he was to Marc.

“I’m sorry,” he gets out eventually, weakly, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Silence. Then a breath. A hand gently removes his helmet, and then he is revealed to the world. Humiliation, but he accepts it with a wobbly smile.

Marc doesn’t respond to any of it with words. Does not cry as well or answer his apologies or anything. He just soothes a hand up and down Vale’s back and breathes with him, love in his touch and softness in his voice as he says only one thing.

“I know.”

They spend that last night closer than ever, curled up under the same blanket, dogs piled on them, on the couch and they don’t watch a terrible American movie but they do watch a terrible Spanish one. Vale doesn’t get all the jokes, but he just stares at the way Marc cackles and finds he doesn’t need to.

The younger man leaves the next morning, taking the rental that Pecco left behind. He tosses his single bag in the car, and he does not bring home that old sweatshirt and shorts. Instead he folded them gently and placed them back in the drawers in his old room. Vale watched while he did it and that hope only grew thicker.

“Will you come to Austria?” Marc asks as they stand there staring at each other. Vale smiles.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“So I will.”

The younger man drops his eyes to the ground. Then he reaches forward and tugs Vale in by the hand. Presses a gentle kiss to his mouth, soft as a butterflies winf, and almost looks shy when he steps away. Vale feels his face flush, feels his brain melt a little. Because that is their first kiss since the patio, which really he does not count. And it is all the more better for the hope it carries and the raw look on the younger man’s face.

“What was that for?” He whispers, and Marc grins.

“Motivation to come to every race.”

“Okay,” he says immediately, eagerly.

A cackle is the last thing he hears and then Marc is leaving, dust cloud chasing him down the driveway. Vale watches until even the barest hint of it has disappeared.

He presses his hands to his lips once he turns to go back inside.

They’re still warm.

***

He watches Marc win his tenth title in Motegi. Physically there too, standing in the VR46 garage but with his eyes only on one person. He grins as the younger man cross the finish line, and he is out of the garage even as people squawk around him. Running toward parc ferme even though he never runs, waiting and waiting, and allowing it to sweep him away. Allowing all that repressed pride to come back to the top. So many missed championships, so many lost memories. He has every intention of making up for it.

So when Marc comes roaring in, he stares with bated breath as he is tackled by his team, his brother, his father. Watches and waits, and then when Marc turns to him, he grins.

“Ten,” he crows over the roars of the crowd, not even noticing how every single camera is trained on him, “ten. I always said you would surpass me tatino, and I never lie.”

Marc throws his head back and laughs, and then Vale has him. Grips him over the barrier and pulls him up and lifts him high like he did for the ones he was there for, like he is in 2012 and 2013 and 2014. Like he wanted to do at every other one, even when he hated the younger man. Presses his love in with his hands, clutching Marc as close as he is allowed. Presses in his love with his lips, grinning against the leather-clad stomach. Presses his love in with his eyes, as he lowers Marc and stares and feels that old bubble burst in his stomach.

“I think you have frightened then,” Marc says, voice high and excited, filled with that electric energy he always carries after he wins.  Terrifying, beautiful, intense. Vale loves him.

“I don’t care,” he breathes out, then pinches Marc’s helmet like it is his cheek, and drops a kiss there as the younger man laughs. Cameras flash but he ignores it all. This is not for them, this is for Marc and love and the past that he ruined and the future that he has been blessed with. This is for everything.

They all know how he feels anyways, he had not hidden any of it from them. Had given one interview after Summer break, had displayed the real data to the world and cleared the younger man’s name of any lingering doubt. Had even called up Uccio and talked to him in a terse voice until his old friend had given one as well where he explained it all better than Vale could. But this is not about that.

As he clutches Marc close, he feels eyes on him and he knows they are well aware that the look on his face is not excitement for a newly reformed friendship; it is love. Plain and simple. He has no wish to hide any of that, and even if in their eyes he has gone from zero to one hundred, they have no need to know his heart or the fact that they have been something far more complicated than enemies for years. Only if Marc wants him to will he put it on display. Because none of this is for them.

The younger man’s eyes are delighted when he pulls back, glittering behind his helmet.

“You are obvious, they will think you are crazy.”

“They will think that I have finally regained my sanity, or they will simply see confirmation of what they already knew,” Vale corrects, “now go to your podium. I want to see you up there and dancing. It’s sexy.”

Marc snorts, chuffs Vale on the cheek, and he is gone, ripped away from their bubble by everything else, by the victory that can only coat the air when Marc Marquez wins. The crowd is frenzied by it all.

“Are you back to what you were before?” One of the journalists says in a teasing voice, and Vale turns to him, feels that ecstatic joy crawling into his chest, and grins.

“No,” he breathes too honestly, “we are better. I am better.”

It is truth as he stands below the podium. It is truth as he stares at the champagne arching over Marc’s head. It is truth the same way every thought about the younger man has been beautifully honest since he realized how he felt and what he had done.

Truth is painful, a lot like love actually. It carves you open, and you despise it, deny it even. But it is what is real, it is what is needed. Also like love in that way.

He sings with the crowd and laughs at Marc’s antic. Feels Julia Marquez staring at him warily and accepts it. In the months since Summer break Marc’s family had made it very clear; they don’t trust him one bit. Roser he hasn’t seen, but Alex and Julia watch him constantly at all the races, faces tense and waiting especially when he goes near Marc. In truth he doubts they will ever stop, even as years pass. But it’s a good thing.

It's not like he has shellacked himself onto Marc though. For all intents and purposes they are tentative friends. They chat in the paddock, they message sometimes. But it is Marc who is the guiding hand of it all, and when he wants to take a step they will take a step. So now Vale waits and hopes and waits some more.

That night he goes out with the Ducati team to celebrate. Invited technically by Pecco, who got a solid second in the championship and looks more motivated than ever, but it is Marc he stays by the entire time. Obviously so, and Gigi Dall’Igna seems to put some things together when he catches Vale playing with Marc’s hand under the table, eyes narrowing at the sight.  Pecco has to talk him down before he gets too irritated, explaining things with a tired look, but the engineer still looks disgruntled for the rest of the night, muttering under his breath about Ducati-themed weddings and what could have been.

 They walk back from the restaurant very late, and Marc is in a terribly good mood so he presses close. Shoulders his way under Vale’s arm like he used to years ago, sticks his tongue out at Alex who looks like he swallowed a rock, and seems very pleased with himself. When Vale tries to separate, to return to his own hotel, a firm hand stops him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Marc says, and Vale flushes at the look he receives, all heady eyes and a wicked smile. Everyone else groans and leaves them pretty quickly after that, so when he is dazedly pulled up to Marc’s hotel room, they are alone. Alone as the younger man slides inside and then turns around, backing Vale up against the door. His hands drop to the younger man’s waist automatically, and awe makes his eyes go round.

“I won,” Marc says with a grin. Vale nods.

“You did. I am very proud.”

A little tilt to the head, and Marc is making that face he always used to make when he wanted something and he was damn well going to get it. Greedy and sure and so so so beautiful.

“Do I get a prize?”

“You can have whatever you want,” Vale answers honestly, and then a laugh bursts around the room and he is being dragged further in all but thrown down on the bed. In a blink of an eye Marc is on him, touch slow and deep, not frantic but so hungry it makes him shudder.

He is just a man. And while Marc the person has been first and foremost what he missed, he won’t deny that this feels like coming home. To give into pleasure, to touch, to feel and also not have an undercurrent of hate or anger. This is covered in joy, this is brushes of the finger that are meant simply to please. This is a hungry mouth on his as desperation haunts him.

The younger man hisses when he slides a hand up underneath that shirt, dragging his nails over skin in a way he knows Marc likes. He arches his back, pressing forward almost lewdly, face shuddering in pleasure, then he brackets Vale in, and his head is spinning the world around him so hard that all his strength has run away.

“I want to ride you,” Marc mumbles and Vale immediately nods as that image fills his head. Marc, tanned thighs trembling, head thrown back, and hands gripping tight. He always looked pretty on top.

Clothes fall away like water and Marc slowly strips more and more from both of them. Vale just lets himself get moved through it all, listening to every order and demand and plea. Then is pushed back until he is leaning against the headboard, naked as the day he was born, and waits.

God. It’s religious watching Marc slide off his underwear finally, and he stands there for a moment, stretching, putting on a lovely little show for Vale and Vale alone. It makes his stomach clench and his jaw slacken a little bit. He reaches over and turns the lamp on distantly, needing to see more, needing to see every strip of skin he is allowed. The little pleased look he gets is perfect.

Marc is painfully beautiful. Always beautiful, and sometimes it feels like it only becomes more intense every day.  Even during the bad years the only thing Vale could be when he saw Marc was struck dumb. And he hasn’t really seen the younger man like this in years.  

Hasn’t seen anyone like this in years. He almost feels like a fumbling virgin as Marc steps closer, the light cutting him into some creature of dreams and pleasure and ecstasy. Fully on display, skin glowing and beautiful, hair curling over his forehead messily, cheeks flushed. Moles scattered across his chest that are more tempting than anything.  And he knows, that is perhaps the best part. He sees the way Vale is staring at him, enraptured, and knows.

Vale wants to bite those little nipples until they are too sensitive. He wants to press bruises into those thighs. He wants to leave bite marks all over that throat, wants to surround the old scar and then beg to remake it. Wants Marc to bite him too, wants it to make him bleed. He needs it all like water.

“Marc,” he rasps out, and the younger man laughs, steps closer to the side of the bed until he is within touching distance, then stares down at Vale. His eyes are blown so wide in pleasure that you can’t even tell pupil from iris, and he keeps flicking them up and down Vale’s body every couple seconds. Flattering, of course, that Marc still wants him even with how old he has gotten. It makes his veins hum.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tease,” he murmurs, frustrated, and reaches out a hand like he will grab and yank closer, but doesn’t. Hovers it right above and the addiction he had missed smacks him like a crashing wave, until his fingers shake. A hit after years without it, the most beautiful kind of ache.

“I won’t,” Marc breathes, “touch as you would like.”

Vale doesn’t need any more permission than that. He grips Marc in an instant, marveling at the way his fingers sink into that pretty waist, and tugs into his lap until the younger man’s mouth crashes down on his once more, until he feels thighs bracket him into the bed and weight on his lap and the perfect line of Marc’s heavy cock pressing into his stomach. Just the feeling of it has a rattling noise push out from his lips and Marc swallows it down with a laugh, digging his fingers into Vale’s hair and tugging sharply.

God it is good, it is so good. Nothing like those fumbling moments in the bathroom, that offered pleasure but none of the connection. This is skin on skin, not a single barrier between them. This is mumbling praise into Marc’s skin when he pulls back and trying to force their bodies so close that they become one.

“Vale,” Marc breathes, “Vale, come on.”

“What do you want?” He asks dizzily, and the younger man snorts.

“Come on,” he repeats, then guides Vale’s hand down until he is gripping both of them, until he is cursing, gritted teeth creaking and a zing of ecstasy whiting out his brain for a second.

He listens, because how could he not, and then that is his world. The slick feeling of taking both of their cocks in hand, the slide of Marc’s against his. The younger man’s head throw back as he whines, and the bucking of hips. He begins to pepper little kisses so he doesn’t go mad, from the strong collarbone to the shell of Marc’s ear, licking and biting and tasting that flavor. Like sweat, and salt, and wine, and the universe.

Marc sounds so perfect too. Hitched little noises that come out high-strung and loud, as if he is close to the edge already, as he is just like Vale and every single brush of the skin is ecstasy. His nails dig into Vale’s shoulders then slide up and down and he thrills over the scratch marks that will be left behind. In the past he used to sometimes just admire them the morning after an intense night. He will do the same this time as well, though it will be with all the weight of everything behind it now.

Precome has made it into a sloppy mess, they are both leaking so much it almost feels like one of them has already come. The sound is obscene, thick squelching and panting and moaning, the creak of the bed as Marc rocks into him again and again and again. Electricity over his skin, and shaking fingers and the way he fumbles his grip sometimes, sliding his thumb over the head of Marc’s erection just to feel him shudder.

“Lube,” Vale gasps out, “we need to prep you and-”

“Side table,” Marc gets out, leaning forward to bite at his earlobe, “but there is no need to prep.”

Vale swallows. Then asks even though he gets the feeling that whatever the answer is will make him lose it.

“Why?”

Marc smirks into his throat, then reaches back. Grabs the hand that has been clutching his waist and slowly pushes it down down down, over the curve of his ass (which Vale takes second to go a little mad over) until it reaches the cleft of the cheeks and Vale presses to that spot without thinking and-

Oh. There is… there is something there. It strangles him and he must make a sound like a dying man because he looks up and finds Marc lazily watching him, looking so terribly pleased with himself.

“Marc?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that… are you… how long have…”

A butt plug. Marc has a plug in his ass, snug and jeweled, and when Vale unconsciously presses it in a little, the younger man hisses.

“Since after the podium,” he gasps out, “decided it when you picked me up. I wanted to let you fuck me right there in front of everyone. Kind of gave up the patience game after that.”

Oh. So during the post-race press conference he was… and during dinner, when he clutched Vale’s hand under the table he was….

An image flashes in his head. Marc in some bathroom opening himself up with his fingers and the plug, sliding it in and loosening himself up.  So that he could get fucked by Vale tonight. Did he come? Did he stop himself? Vale has no idea which is better, the idea of Marc coming fast, whining in a bathroom staff, just to the idea of it all, or Marc not letting himself come until he is filled up and seated on Vale’s cock.

God.

“Can I…”

Marc leans forward, gives him a sharp nip to the jaw.

“Stop being so unsure,” he scolds, “I’m on top tonight, but fuck me how I like it. I know you know and I deserve to get what I want tonight.”

Demanding, ordering, and begging all wrapped into one. It feeds into every aspect of Vale’s brain, the kind that has always adored giving giving giving, and the kind that loves to see Marc shake with want and need, wet-eyed and pleading. Perfection.

He drops both of their cocks, hisses at the loss but barely gives it that much mind. Reaches over and snatches the lube out of the drawer, coats his fingers with no finesse, and tugs the butt plug out. Marc lets out a frustrated noise once it is gone, shooting Vale an irritated look until his skin sizzles. Then he immediately plunges two fingers in and revels at the way the younger man’s body goes tight like a bowstring, breath coming in pretty little pants immedietly.

Warm. Tight, perfectly so even after presumably hours with the plug in. But soft, beautifully soft and Vale can’t help but tease a little. Jolts his fingers in and out slowly, marvels at the feel and the way it makes Marc surge forward until their cocks just messily rub against one another. He arches his spine, presses his ass back more insistently against Vale’s fingers, and curses in his ear.

“I said I’m ready,” he complains, but his voice is high pitched and he hasn’t made an order yet, so Vale keeps going. In and out in and out, feeling those walls, relearning those spots. Taking the time to recall where each bump and curve is, to recall where that perfect spot is and tease around it. Like playing the piano flawlessly after years without touching a single ivory key, he remembers. Remembers how fast, how slow, remembers the exact way Marc likes it and only minutes later the younger man is whining these little desperate noises in his ear, having slumped forward and buried his head into Vale’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he is mumbling, “come on, come on.”

“Tell me what to do,” Vale breathes, on the brink himself, “tell me what to do.”

The younger man rips back, grips Vale’s hair and tugs his head until his throat is bared, until he stares up at Marc with lazy eyes and desperation. The look on Marc’s face is regal, needy, and soft all at once. So beautiful.

“Fuck me,” he snaps out and Vale feels the smile curve over his face, warm and far too gentle for what they are doing. But so terribly real.

“I love you.”

Then he pulls his fingers out, shifts Marc up, and slowly begins to slide in.

The first brush of his cock against Marc’s entrance is like hell. Pulsing, warm, viciously tight, and made all the worse by how Marc encourages it on, trying to sink down hard and fast and aggressive. Vale curses when he drops an inch down quickly, tightening his grip on those hips and over the fucking moon about how Marc moans at the feeling.

Fireworks explode behind his eyelids as perfect heat envelopes him, as the younger man shudders on his lap. He hasn’t had this in years, and it is not like coming home or pleasure or any other weak way of putting it. It is everything, it is being reborn over and over again into a more and more perfect world every single time. It is Marc taking his cock, it is the knowledge that he is allowed this, it is the years of dreams and wishes and little touches that were never enough built up and up and up.

When Marc is fully seated, thighs flush to Vale’s and trembling, he gasps out something that is barely words, and stills the younger man as best as he can. He is about to come, he is about to come right now. Stands on the edge of the cliff, no actually dangles on the edge of a cliff by a pinkie, and he is well aware that if he doesn’t pull himself together he will fill the younger man up and that will be the end for him. He is not young anymore, after all. Once is all he could probably do. And he knows what Marc likes best; coming filled up and still being fucked, the overstimulation that does not let his ecstasy rest.

“It’s good,” Marc mumbles, speech slurred, “no one else is as good. I had so many people Vale and no one else. I used to lay there and pretend it was you with all of them, but it didn’t work because they didn’t make me feel like this. Too good. Need it.”

“You need it?” Vale echoes through gritted teeth because really those words are not helping but the urge to hear more overtakes that.

“Need it,” Marc reaffirms, “like you do. You’re shaking.”

Vale nods roughly, swallows.

“I’m about to come," he admits, “I need to… I need a second.”

“… That fast?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck,” Marc spits, and he is smashing their lips together, and Vale is blessedly distracted by that, but the plush lips against his, by the sweetness of that mouth, by the way Marc mumbles words he cannot understand and he eats them all up. Fucking Marc is like a revelation, but kissing Marc is like tasting the nectar of the gods. It steals his mind away every time.

“Love you,” he is mumbling, “love you Marc, love you. Tatino, bambino, amore, I love you.”

“Yes,” Marc responds to it all, “yes yes yes.”

Then like the little devil he is, he grins against Vale’s mouth and rocks himself up and down once.

Hellfire flares through his veins as he collapses down into Marc’s chest, feels him laugh and press kisses to the crown of his head, and wonders how he can handle this. How is he going to last when every single movement brings him to the edge of orgasm?

“You will,” Marc says slowly, as if he hears Vale’s thoughts. Or maybe he said that part out loud, he has no idea.

“You will fuck me long and hard, you will come once I am done because it is what I want. This is my prize mongeta, and I have won. Now control yourself.”

Then he begins. And all Vale can do is strain to keep his body in check, is press his hands to hips and thighs and ass, touches blearily as Marc takes him over and over and over again, as the younger man whines out his name to the ceiling, head thrown back and pretty nipples on display. It’s torture, the perfect kind. The pace is perfect, the results of years of training allowing Marc to fully control of everything. To distract himself he leans forward wildly, takes one of those nipples between his teeth and takes it all out on the little brown numb. Bites and sucks and licks, alternating between the two as Marc curses his name, tugs him closer to his chest and orders him to keep going. He licks over the moles scattered there, greets them like old friends and when the younger man laughs midway through a moan, memorizes the sound.

He's always been sensitive here, Vale thinks as the tightness around his cock twists his mind into the great beyond, as the sweet smell of the younger man fills his nostrils and makes him feel like he is floating.

Nothing in his memory could have compared. Nothing in his imagination either. It is the world crashing down on him all at once, as he has Marc again, as he has sex again, as he touches that feeling that has been aching in his chest since Sepang and maybe even before. Because they have fucked, they have fucked many times. But he can probably count on one hand how many times they made love. He has been too selfish at the time, too petty, too angry. But he is not, and he will never be again, and so he worships. So he reverently slides his hands up and down and gives Marc everything.

The younger man is magnetic as he fucks himself up and down over and over again. He is picturesque. Vale would say like a wet dream, but it’s if the wet dream was cocaine-fueled or if the wet dream was some sort of ritual to the heavens. Marc’s tanned skin sheens with sweat, his face is screwed up in that focused way he gets right before a race. When he blinks down at Vale and grins, it is an arrow of ecstasy straight to the chest. The sex of course, the way Marc is riding him, of course, but it is that damn smile. It has him clenching his hands down and gasping out a choked noise, and Marc must know because he laughs breathlessly, leans forward and kisses him gently on the cheek.

“Talk to me.” He orders, and as what seems to be the running theme, Vale can’t help but comply.

“Tatino, so pretty so good so perfect,” he chokes and Marc relaxes into it, keeps up his brutal pace but lolls his head to the side like the sound of the older man’s voice is a drug. He watches through heavily lidded eyes and grins back in that wild way, stomach muscles rippling and Vale feels it too, feels the strength under his fingers. So different from his own skinny frame, especially now. Marc is like one of those statues, carved from marble and perfectly beautiful. Still a young god even after thirteen years at the highest level of their sport.

“You take my cock so well, born for it. If you want I will give it to you always, whatever you want. You can be filled with me every day, I would give it all to you.”

A choked noise, and Marc’s rhythm stutters for the first time.

“Missed you,” Vale babbles, “missed you and missed this. I dreamt about it so many nights, but this is better. You feel so good amore, I love you. You feel so good taking me.”

“Vale,” Marc whines out, and it is the tone he recognizes well. Marc is close, and he will explode like he always does, and Vale will fuck into his pleasure-stricken body and push him even more over the edge and Marc will go boneless in his arms and it will be perfect.

“Come tatino, come amore, come for me. And I will fuck you as you like and make you feel so good, and you won’t leave this bed for days, and I will give you what you need whenever you want. Always, forever, let me give you forever.”

Marc whines again, but he does not come. Instead, panting and writhing like pleasure is all he knows, he grips Vale by the face and pulls him close, until their mouths barely brush against each other, a tease Vale almost chases before the younger man stops him with a. vicious grin.

“Bite me,” he hisses, “Bite me where you once did. Bite me again and promise. This is it. This is forever.”

God. It pours like lava through his veins, comes out as a moan into those lips and he is cursing, surging down to sink his teeth into Marc’s neck right where that bite mark is, and he tastes blood. Marc lets out a sound, wrecked and wild and animalistic, and he is shaking as he comes, spasms around Vale’s cock making him see stars as the younger man cries out. He clutches Marc as close as he can, keeps his teeth locked in and waits for the intensity to pass. Waits because he wants Marc coherent before he wrecks him again.

It takes the younger man a while to come down from it. His limbs are still shaking, and there are tears that Vale feels sliding down his face. Beautiful, and he pulls back from the bite with a gasp, reaches a hand up to Marc’s face and admires that expression, ignoring his own needs. Red eyes, hazy expression, lips bitten red from pleasure. He wipes away the tears with his thumb and lifts it up to taste. Salty and somehow sweet.

“Marc?” He asks slowly, and the younger man nods dazedly.

“I promise.”

Then he shifts his hands down to that arched waist and gives in to himself. Snaps his cock up deep into Marc, feels him cry out and takes. Takes and takes and takes, presses Marc into his chest and lets that beast that has been prowling inside of his chest forever take over. Fucks hard and fast and deep, and his hindbrain calls this a claim even though he knows it is not. Because this is not up to him, whatever Marc wants him to be is what he will be. But still, he knows what the younger man likes to hear.

“Mine,” he growls into the bared throat, and the responding whine he gets is reedy. Marc is overstimulated just the way he likes it, and when Vale slips a hand between them to feel Marc’s cock, he finds it soft and covered in cum. Yet still the other man bucks forward like he is chasing an orgasm, yet still he arches into each thrust as if it’s still not enough.

Vale doesn’t last that way very long. He had been holding himself back for basically the entire time, after all, so it really only takes minutes of fucking into Marc, of hearing that whining voice telling him to cum, to pump him full, to fuck him so hard he can’t walk and he is rearing forward, changing their position until the younger man is splayed out of the bed, head toward the end, lazily looking up with a satisfied smile as Vale loses any semblance of humanity. As he fucks in, as he stares into Marc’s eyes and babbles his love and worship and everything.

He comes hard and fast, pressing as deep into Marc as he can and the younger man is grinning the whole way. He is whining still, he is scrabbling his hands still, he is spasming till, but that face is pure satisfaction. Because Vale has given him what he needs. And as the orgasm rocks through him, as he feels Marc get warmer and wetter on the inside, he wonders how heaven could ever even compare to something like this. Pleasing Marc is more than that place could possibly be.

The orgasm cripples him and he loses all strength in seconds, collapses down and keeps twitching in, vision going and mind going and everything being constrained to the body he touches and fills, and the little noises the younger man makes. The pleasure long dormant awakening inside of him, lighting up that part that was last touched years ago when he had Marc like this.

He kind of blacks out for a little bit, bound so tight in the ecstasy of having Marc again and making the younger man come so beautifully. But when he does finally crawl back into his own brain, there are hands tracing shapes over his back and the warmth that hits him is even better somehow than the orgasm.

“Marc,” he whispers, and the younger man hums. When he speaks, his voice is beautifully wrecked.

“What is it?”

“I meant it.”

“Meant what?”

“Forever.”

He pulls back from where he has collapsed onto Marc’s chest, stays inside of the younger man even as he softens just because the feeling is second to none, and stares down at him, determined to make it all clear even as he is still weak and wobbly. The younger man blinks up at him with tired eyes.

“Whatever you want, forever. No matter what. If you ask me to go, I will go. If you ask me to stay, I will stay. If you ask me to fuck you I will. If you ask me never to touch you again I won’t. Forever, you have me forever no matter what.”

The younger man blinks up at him slowly. Pleasure still lingers on his face, but the wetness, he realizes, is not just from that anymore. Marc grins at him, eyes sparking in the lamplight, and his eyes are blazing.

“I will hold you to that.”

Then he tugs Vale back down and neither of them even mention the stickiness, of the way they are both covered in sweat, or how neither of them are under covers, or any of the other billion things that make this a little uncomfortable. Vale just presses his lips into Marc’s neck, breathes him in and thanks everything.

There are still wonderings. Wonderings about if they truly will be good again, wonderings about how long it might last if not, wonderings if he should allow himself any bliss after what he has done, wonderings if this is all just dream. It’s not, he knows that well. If anything it is that he has finally woken up after years of being trapped in a nightmare of his own creation. The cruel Marc of his imagination does not exist. The Marc underneath him does. Complicated, and competitive, and brutal. Arrogant often, and a brilliant liar, and a brilliant game player. Kind and happy, a perfect laugh and a sharp mind, tenacity like no other, a drive so beautiful everyone is drawn in. Sweetness and protectiveness and a heart that makes everyone want not just him but his love. Marc Marquez. His rival, his student, his enemy, his love. Even throughout all of it, always his love.

He decides in that moment that it does not matter if he deserves it or not. Because Marc has decided to give it to him. And he can’t change the past, can’t change anything he has done or said. But he can make the future into what Marc needs it to be. He can make that world he has craved and begged for and needed and obsessed over for years. And he will. He promises to both him and Marc that he will.

Hands continue to trace his back as he thinks. As he lays there, the past still around but not hovering anymore, he finds it’s not just shapes that Marc is painting this time over his skin. And he feels his eyes sting as he realizes what the younger man is writing over and over and over again. Just about hears his heart stutter and he only begins to cry harder when he makes out the three words.

‘I forgive you’

Then Marc shifts his head, and teeth press into Vale's neck. A small sharp pain smacks though him, but when he realizes what happened, he can only laugh. Because Marc bit him. A mirror image to the younger man's own old and new marks. 

It feels like forever.

End of Main Story

Chapter Text

Roser remembers hearing Valentino Rossi’s name for the first time. It was over the grainy TV in her living room, audio so staticky words got scrambled together. Julia was in the kitchen cooking and she was sat on the couch, reading as her sons were glued to the images that flashed by, almost with their noses pressed against the screen. They used to do that all the time back then. Marc was riding at that age, dirt tracks only, and was so small that it was funny. He already had that gleam in his eye, a little bit disturbing on his cherubic face, but Roser just smiled even as people gave wary looks. He ate every shred of racing he could get, and when he wasn’t riding or reading those magazines, he was there in the living room staring at his future flash out before his eyes.

“Do you think he will win?” Little Alex had asked, looking toward his brother like he always did, waiting for whatever was said because it would become truth to him. Marc cackled loudly, laugh too big for his body even then.

“Of course,” he said proudly, “it’s Valentino Rossi!”

For a while that is all the older man was. A face on the wall, a rider on the screen, a voice over the radio. He was what Marc was chasing in truth, eyes always watching the older riders, learning and longing. Then he was the man Marc had met, who had complimented him and given support, and even Julia had smiled at the memory and said what a nice person Valentino was.

But 2011 was when things changed. Marc came back from that visit to the ranch with this look in his eyes, intense and fixated and smoldering, and Roser knew that her son was already there. Could see it glimmering in his eyes, the same look he got the first time he ever rode a motorbike. And just like back then she knew that nothing would stop him from getting what he wanted, that even the possibility of pain could not hold her son back. And furthermore that she could do nothing too, because Marc had so much fire in his belly it was far easier to allow him to burn than to try and stifle the flame.

So she watched from a distance as he fell deeper and deeper every day. She listened to his rambling words over the phone, heard the older man’s voice in the background, teasing and close,  and knew it wasn’t just Marc simply from that tone. She took in stories shared with laughter, listened as Valentino became Vale, and the little snippets she heard became so much more telling and just smiled like she did when Marc was young and people looked at him like he was a beast. Felt this tingling awareness that there was a danger undercutting it all, but was helpless against it.

Alex told her things too, reporting dutifully back the way he always did just like when they were little and Marc was doing something dangerous. In truth that’s what it was after all. Tangling with a powerful man and powerful feelings in equal parts. But Roser left it, even as she knew it was beginning to tumble. Because Marc was in love and her son has never been the type to let those things go unless it was his decision. Or maybe because somehow she got the feeling that she would have no real effect on any of it. That the fall was inevitable in a multitude of ways.

When they visited at Christmas Roser knew it would end soon. Not them per se, as she watched them at the dinner table somehow she doubted they would ever, but whatever phase they were in at that moment. The intensity between them was too much, the way they stared at each other with a mixture of love and fear was too much. She saw it coming a mile away, but as always she waited.

She was right of course, she tended to be, and everything came crashing down. Marc came back home at the end of the 2015 season with a dull ache in his eyes, and she simply held him close, went into that room when he was out riding one day and removed all of those memories with a sense of solemn grief. Every reminder of Valentino Rossi off of the walls because she couldn’t stand that look anymore, couldn’t stand the face Marc made every time he caught a glimpse and was reminded of what had hurt him.

Julia said that she should throw it away. When he was in a bad mood, he said burn it. But she simply packed it tight, stowed it away in a dry spot in the cellar and waited. Because she heard the things Valentino Rossi said in the press, she knew what he had done, but somehow she had this feeling. That it wasn’t hate in the man’s heart, but pain. Saw it whenever she watched clips from the press conferences throughout those years. Felt it in the way he still looked at her son, heard it in the way Alex would hiss about some thing or the other he did, even was able to trace it in Marc’s expression. The connection still thrummed there, and although she knew this well, knew that it was all alive even then, Roser was selfish. So she did her best to make her son forget about everything, hoping maybe this was enough to help him this time around. It didn’t work, nothing probably would.

She really didn’t know the details after that. Valentino was Marc’s business, not hers. So she did what she was meant to do; loved and supported and held when needed. She stayed by his side through the injury years, she didn’t ask questions when he would get quiet and stare into the distance, and she waited. Cried sometimes, especially when the press was bad, or cruel people said cruel things, or she watched the light dim further, but still she bided her time. Marc may have been sure the story had finished, but there was this sense of incompleteness around it all that made here think, ‘not yet’.

The happiness of watching him crawl his way to the top again was like no other. The life returned to her son’s eyes the minute he won his first race again in 2024, coming back from years of torment and pain. And Roser won’t pretend she didn’t get a little satisfaction imagining what Valentino Rossi’s face looked like, even as she felt pulsing sympathy for him. Because kind as she is, he had hurt her son. She may not hate him, but she doesn’t like him very much in truth.

But that incompleteness lingered, and she waited and waited for some shift to happen that would finally propel those two onto the next step, whatever it may be. Because Marc always seemed so fake whenever he said he was over it, and every quote or clip she had seen of Valentino Rossi talking about her son was coated in such a thick layer of longing that it was almost awkward to see.

Pecco Bagnaia had been a surprise. Marc had said they were dating with this odd look on his face, and well, Roser had always known when her son lied. Perhaps some of it had to do also with the way Alex looked like he swallowed a bad lemon the whole time, no poker face on him, at least around family. But she just smiled, asked how long he would be staying for and when he arrived, treated him like she would any other person that Marc brought home. Shook her head at his quietness, at how he was even more obvious than Marc with fumbling attempts to make it all seem normal, and asked no real questions

They were really bad at faking it though. So different from when Valentino had been there, so unnatural and practiced. The way the two men had revolved around each other had been so terribly clear, the way Valentino had obsessed over her son had been obvious. And while she could tell there was fondness between Marc and Pecco, on both sides really, she just didn’t get the same feeling.

But again, none of it was part of her job. So still she waited through two years of whatever that was, asked after Pecco (sweet boy that he was) the way she was meant to and kept an eye on Valentino as much as she could.

It was Alex who told her that Marc was visiting the man’s ranch, face frustrated and temper high. He’d looked regretful the minute he said it, and Roser got the feeling it was meant to be some kind of secret. But when she pressed, the full story came out. Not surprising that the whole relationship was fake in truth, and to ease her youngest son’s guilt she just said she already knew. Listened as he rambled on about all the years he had hid things, about what he had seen and dealt with in more detail than he had ever shared before.

Those first few days Marc was gone Alex stayed with them. It almost looked like he was just waiting for a call so he could fly to Italy and do something. He had always been protective of his older brother, which was in truth a little funny. Still had that reverence and admiration all younger siblings must carry, but paired it with a vaguely nagging insistence that only came from having Marc as a sibling. Sweet, even now. Perhaps it had been exacerbated by the bad years too, but Roser just settled him as much as she could.

Julia had been on Alex’s side, spending many long conversations cursing the name Valentino Rossi and cursing Marc’s bad decision-making skills. But when her eldest son called to say he would be staying at the ranch for the rest of summer break, Roser was unsurprised as were they all. Even Alex just grumbled and called it inevitable, eating that dinner that night with a bubbling frustration in the air. He calls Marc for an hour once they were done, holed up in that old room they used to share, and when he came back out his face was still irritated, but he seemed far more thoughtful.

She sees Marc again when they are racing in Barcelona, although she does not attend. He came through the doors of the house after the weekend is finished, and she showers him with love and worry the way a mother is supposed to. In his eyes she sees it once more.  Like the first flower popping through the soil come spring, like a glimmer of light in the darkness,  she feels the waiting come to an end.

That night he talks to her, voice low in the kitchen as Alex and Julia are grilling on the patio.

“Mama, are you terribly disappointed in me?” He asks out of the blue, voice wry and not specifying what about. But Roser knows, just as Marc knows that she knows.

“Never,” she soothes, chopping the cucumbers quietly, a small smile on her face.

“The first time he visited I knew that neither of you would ever be able to leave it all alone. “

Marc laughs, leans forward to rest his head on his elbows, looking so much like a child that it makes her want to cry. Her boys are grown up, beginning to get wrinkles around their eyes, but they are her babies and always will be. So she just reaches a hand over to pat his cheek like she used to, and smiles when he closes his eyes.

“I wish you had told me that. Might have saved me a lot of time,” he teases slightly, lips curled up, but when he blinks his eyes open, they are a little wistful.

“No, I don’t think It would have, I think you only do things that you believe,” she corrects him, raising an eyebrow when he scowls a little, looking like he is about five seconds away from arguing.

Roser laughs.

“You think I am wrong? Here you are with this man against all advice, against your father’s wishes and your brother’s and probably your own better judgement, and you think you would have listened to me?”

Marc represses a smile, reaches past her to pick up a square of cucumber and pops it into his mouth in that cheeky manner he perfected when he was a precocious five -year-old. Roser gives him a little smack for his trouble and the little scolded face he gives is childish.

“I would have heard you,” he allows, “I always waited for you to hate him, or curse his name. But you never did, not like Pare or Alex.”

“How could I?” Roser responds immediately, “How could I hate someone who loves my child?”

A bit of quiet, and she finishes chopping the cucumber, tossing it into a bowl with the onions and tomato she had diced earlier. Ceviche is good for the soul, and necessary to cut through the richness of the fish they are grilling outside, in her grand opinion. It also is easy, and her husband has always been more of a cook than she is.

“When did you know?” Marc finally asks after a stretch of silence, voice delicate and hopeful and childishly curious.

“What? That he loved you? That you loved him? Or that it was forever?”

A strangled sort of laugh as she delicately pours the olive oil into a little bowl, to make the marinade. The air is cool in the kitchen, a fresh breeze wafting the smell of grilling fish in through the open door and the sound of night in Spain following it. Peaceful.

“All.”

“Grab the shrimp,” she orders instead of giving an answer, sending her son to the fridge to snatch it from where it had been chilling as she slices the parsley and cilantro, dropping into the olive oil with care. Vinegar comes next, then salt and pepper, and when Marc gently places the bowl of chopped shrimp next to her, she smiles and decides to answer his questions as she combines it all.

“For you I knew when you came home from that visit in 2011. You walked in the door and shared your news, and I saw excitement but something more. You were always the type to go from zero to a hundred.”

“Hasty,” Marc mumbles as he stands there watching, and Roser shakes her head.

“No, just sure. Then for him it was a few months later. You called to talk about training and he said your name in the background and I knew. Just from the tone of voice I knew. I didn’t even need to see him to understand that he was as lost on you as you were on him.”

“You knew before I did then,” Marc mumbles.

“Not so surprising. You were dating that Italian man at the time, though I forget his name.”

A suppressed smile.

“Andrea. I still feel bad about that.”

“I’m sure. And then when you visited for Christmas years later I knew it would be forever for you two. Could feel it in the air even though I think you were fighting at the time.”

“How?” Marc asks immediately, and Roser ignores the question for now.

She combines it all together with care, letting the fresh smell fill her nose. Squeezes lime over it all to give it that edge, darts a look at the clove of garlic waiting to be crushed and decides against it. She scoops up some and holds out the spoon to Marc.

“Try.”

He dutifully takes a bite, then raises an eyebrow.

“It’s missing something.”

“What?” She says patiently, and her son tilts his head.

“Garlic?”

“How did you know? It’s not the strongest flavor in the dish, barely one clove for the whole thing.”

“I just know.”

Roser nods a little bit, satisfied with his answer, then turns back to chop up the garlic with a smile on her face.

“Because it is not complete without it,” she says carefully, “you know what ceviche should taste like, so even one little thing missing is enough to tell you that it is unfinished.”

Marc laughs.

“You are trying to tell me something I assume?”

“Yes,” Roser says as she stirs in the garlic, “I am trying to tell you how I knew. Because even when you two were at your worst, even when you seemed so sure it was the end, it always tasted unfinished. A story in waiting, a tale not yet done. It’s why I kept all of those things you know, all of those memories. I was waiting.”

Marc takes another bite when she holds out the spoon once more, expression clearing and a soft look on his face. She covers the finished ceviche with cling film after he gives a careful nod, and once she puts it into the fridge, turns to Marc, who looks pensive.

“I have never liked garlic alone,” she says in a serious voice, “too strong for my tastes, but when it is mixed in it completes a dish. I have no idea what you two are right now. But I have heard enough to know it is something closer to the finished product than perhaps you have ever been. Alex is angry, Julia too, but I think it will be fine.”

“You do?”

And it is not a grown man asking that right now. It is not the multi world champion, it’s not the world-weary thirty-three-year-old, it’s not the wise veteran. It is her baby, big eyed and unsure when usually he seems so connected to the future. It’s the twenty-two year old who came home with a crumpled expression and mumbled into her shoulder that nothing would ever be good again.

“Yes,” Roser murmurs, “Yes. I have these feelings about things, you know. And usually I am right.”

A little noise, and Marc is hiding his tears behind a grin the way he always does when he gets embarrassed, ducking his head down and avoiding the soft look his mother is giving him.

“You and Alex are too alike,” he mumbles, “you both seem to know me better than I know myself. Though he leans more toward anger than anything about Valentino.”

“Yes, but he has always taken over what you refuse to do. When you are angry, he is gentle. When you are forgiving, he is stony. And when it is the opposite, he takes the soft side. He is just trying to protect you. And besides, I think Valentino deserves to sweat a little.”

Marc cackles at that, head thrown back and eyes still damp but fluttering glee in his expression.

“I very much agree. Every time he has been at the races since break I make sure he runs into Pare and Alex multiple times just to see him trying. It’s funny, he has no idea what to do so mostly he just flounders.”

Roser shakes her head at her son’s sadistic streak, though she observes the warmth in his eyes with relief. It’s been a while since she saw that in truth, and even after everything she would take that over the dullness of the last ten years. Has she really forgiven Valentino for what he has done? Not really. But she cannot hate him, and she cannot ignore that this is what Marc wants. Besides, she has waited for so long.

“Good.”

Hesitation, and her son’s face is serious again when she turns to him and waits.

“Do you think I am an idiot?” he asks softly, eyes open and waiting, “for forgiving him. For allowing him back in again when he has hurt me so badly in the past?”

A question she had expected. One for the longest time she was unsure of the answer too, but she knows now. The second she saw that light back in her son’s eyes when he came back from summer break, she knew.

“No,” she says firmly, “I think you are human.”

A shaking breath, and they sit there in the quiet for a little bit. The creases in Marc’s forehead are settled and he is staring off into the distance with a gentle look on his face, eyes far away the way he always gets these days when he thinks about Valentino.

Love. A funny thing. Never logical in anyway, and in truth if she looked at it all from a cerebral perspective, she might just say it is foolish. But Marc has never been like that, not inhuman or beastly no matter what people whisper. Just like Alex says, her eldest son might just be the most human out of all of them. Valentino too, perhaps. Maybe that is why they seemed to cling to each other so desperately once they had finally connected. Maybe that is why even though all the hate, that connection still tied so much of their lives together.

Who knows in truth. All Roser can do is enjoy the happiness in her son’s eyes, and work on her forgiveness for his sake. After the many years she had had to wait and hope and pray, she finds that to be a far easier task.

“Mama,” Marc says after a moment, voice thoughtful, “where did you hide all of those things anyway?”

“The cellar. Why?”

“Nothing I just… I think I know a good place to put them now.”

***

2030

“Mama, what do you think?”

Roser laughs at her son, almost forty years old, and the eager way that he grins as he guides her out of the car, hands steady like she is some kind of old bag. She swats at him for his worry and he snickers as he ducks away.

“I am not so old yet,” she scolds lightly, “I can stand on my own.”

“Yes, Yes,” he assures with a grin, “but what do you think?”

Ah. Always eager. She allows her eyes to dart around the ranch so she is able to answer, laughing internally at the nervous way Marc is watching her and how Valentino hovers in the distance, explaining something to Julia with wildly waving hands.

When they invited the whole family to Valentino’s ranch, Roser had been surprised. Marc and him had been… something for four-ish years now, and not once had she come to this fabled place. They remained distant from it, in truth, aside from Alex. The Italian man coming to them for visits instead of vice versa, arriving in Cervera with his usual cheer underlined by an endearing eagerness.

But then the invite came and they could hardly say no as they were finally welcomed to the stage where her son and Valentino’s relationship began, evolved, fell apart, and reignited.  She wondered before they got here if she would be able to sense it in the air. Also wondered a bit if Marc had never asked them to come simply because he knew full well what they would pull from it all. Also maybe if Valentino was too worried at first. She wondered a lot in truth.

In the years since Marc and him came together again, Roser had watched like she always does, though this time with a lot more hope in truth. She couldn’t one hundred percent confirm what she believed to be true until she saw the older man again. When he pulled her aside on his second day of that first visit back in Cervera and apologized with a bowed head, pain painted across his face and honesty so sharp it almost cut, it had been a relief. Roser had smiled, smacked him on the head like she did so often to her sons, and called him a fool. Then she told him that she never despised him and watched the man light up like a star. It was nice, and that first Christmas together was one that only made her feel more sure of the way the world was turning.

She knows Valentino loves her son, that had been so clear. And even now as she stands in the dusty driveway, the man revolves around Marc like a planet, sliding between all of them but casting glances as if making sure he is doing it all right. Puppy-like, and normally would be strange on a grown man’s face, but it is only sweet in its sincerity.

“It’s beautiful,” she finally says, not just talking about the rolling hills, “just as I imagined it. How is training going? David’s mother told me he loves it here.”

Marc grins, looking relieved and young, eyes crinkling as he reaches down to squeeze her hand.

“Very well, and he is. But it is a lot, I am glad we added on another building and track, with the riders doubled it was almost completely necessary.”

He laughs, hauling her bags out of the car and guiding her toward the house, though his free hand gestures to it all.

“You will all stay in the guest bedrooms, but I can give a tour of the tracks and the dorms when we have time. Not many of the boys are here now, too close to Christmas, but seeing all the bikes lined up will really help you understand how many of them there are. Vale scolds me for taking on too many, but I don’t care.”

In truth Roser doesn’t know much about what Marc does here. It’s not an academy in the way The VR46 one is, that she knows well, but the number of Spanish riders that pile into Italy for weeklong training sessions apparently is so high that they needed to construct a new sprawling complex and a tarmac track that curls around in the distance to accommodate them.

The way it had been explained to her by Valentino, pride tinging his tone, was that Marc has an open invitation for any rider to come and train with him and had for a few years now. Is the wait list a mile long? Apparently yes, the older man had said with glee, but Marc had never been the type to make something like being a teacher so official. So the VR46 riders have a rotating cast of pseudo-siblings, Spanish accents rolling around Italian hills and Marc is followed by a flock constantly.

Valentino had said that last part to her one week when he was visiting with frustration, but Marc had pressed a kiss to his hand and he seemed to forget his disgruntlement rather fast.  Roser watched it all with warmth, because really who doesn’t enjoy seeing their child so adored?

“And you can handle watching them all prepare for the season without you?” She teases as she is guided inside, eyes darting around the warm space and appreciating the homeyness of it all. So much better than Marc’s big grey compound that he had finally sold a two years ago, which felt so prison-like that she abhorred visiting. And the walls are covered in pictures, so many of Marc that she has to crack a smile. It feels rather complete in here.

He laughs.

“Retirement stings even though it has only been a few months,” he says lightly, “but it was time, twelve championships later and everything, and I am glad I finished with Honda. Besides, Vale is trying to convince me to go into endurance racing, and I am thinking about it.”

“Teammates?”

“Never.”

Then he throws his head back and cackles, and the way it echoes around the house makes Roser feel like the walls are used to the sound.

The rest of the day is spent on the rather extensive tour. It really is beautiful, that same electricity in the air that racetracks have, and Roser can see how much of Marc is everywhere. Not just in those photos on the wall, but in everything. Blankets thrown over the couch which she recognizes, food in the pantry that can only be from Spain. Inside of the garage she sees a wall of bikes she recognizes well, and in the cafeteria area there is an entire trophy case dedicated to Marc’s achievements. It’s the most central one, even bigger than Valentino’s, and the smug expression Marc gets when she says that is amusing.

“I do have more trophies,” he says brightly, turning to the older man, who joined them halfway through, with a satisfied look.

“Only in MotoGP tatino,” Valentino says with an arched brow, “If you would join endurance we could make it in general but-”

“Yes yes, stop nagging, I said I would think about it.”

“I want to race against you again.”

“I didn’t say no.”

“But If you keep putting it off the empty seat will be filled and we would have to wait a full year.”

“I am looking at other series also,” Marc reminds him, voice amused as he raises one hand to press into Valentino’s cheek, “and if I take a year off from any racing, it might be a good thing.”

The older man furrows his brow.

“I don’t want to wait that long and what if I need to retire from it earlier, and what it-”

“Don’t be needy,” Marc interrupts with a grin.

Roser wanders away from them at that point, aware that when they get going, there is only tunnel vision. It can be for anything really; she has seen them argue over which is better, pineapple or mango, for an entire hour before. Their faces are always so delighted by it all though, and it is impossible to even make yourself noticed once they are stuck in whatever feedback loop entrances them. That is love though, and perhaps it is worse for two people who are so obsessive and fixated by nature.

“How different is it from when Marc was a student?” She asks Alex, who is sitting at one of the tables with Julia and Valentino’s brother, Luca. A sweet boy she remembers from Alex’s time in the lower series, tall and gentle, and he had greeted them that morning with a quiet geniality, contrasting sharply against his older brother’s boundless energy. It’s him who answers.

“Well there was more added, if that is what you mean,” he says calmly, “but I think you are talking about something more.”

Roser suppresses a smile. An intelligent boy too.

“Yes.”

“Well then I would say that before it was all Vale and now it is a mixture of them. Not more one or the other in truth, more….equal.”

“Is that so…”

A nod, sure and steady and in his eyes Roser sees something familiar; satisfaction after such extensive effort. So perhaps it was not just her who had been waiting for so long. Amusing on one so young.

“Have you seen the room?”

She shakes her head no, and Luca turns a smile to Alex, who gives him a dry and long-suffering look

“Ask Vale to show it to you, he’s very proud.”

An hour later, when they are all back at the main house and gathered in the kitchen to eat a big lunch spread that the cook had prepared, she pulls the Italian man aside and does just that.

He grins at her words, eagerness filling his eyes.

“I am surprised Marc has never told you about it,” he says, voice flutteringly happy, “he always gets very smug when he talks about it.”

When she does see it, all Roser can do is laugh. She sort of gets the look that Alex and Luca exchanged now, as she stares at the little museum that is tucked away in the corner of what they all call La Tana.

Photos everywhere, walls covered, and she spots those old things that Marc had taken back from the cellar up too. It’s like some sort of fan room almost, magazine covers with both men on them framed together, pictures spreading across the years everywhere. And it’s clearly been added onto, everything traced from all the way back to 2011 to today. If she thought the living room and all of Marc plastered there was a lot, this is so much more. But it suits them and their obsessiveness in a strange way, and the air feels calm and cool. It's also deeply personal. Every picture she looks at makes her feel a bit like she is intruding with how much love is coated in them all. One in the middle, an older one from what looks like 2013, sticks out to her the most. The joy in it is blinding, and she wonders if either man ever expected themselves to be so sentimental.

“I used to sleep in here, when Marc and I were bad,” Valentino suddenly says in an odd voice, “back then it was just him everywhere. His old room, his old sheets, his old pictures and trophies everywhere. Now it is us. I prefer it that way.”

“It’s sweet,” she says slowly, then laughs.

“In kind of a strange way.”

“Yeah that’s what everyone says,” Valentino responds with a shrug, “but I am not ashamed of any of it.”

Roser hums, guides her eyes around and then laughs at a little statue of a fox that is sitting on the side table of the bed, a but ugly in its misshapenness, and very clearly homemade.

“What is that?”

“Oh,” Vale says, voice soft, “La Volpettina. Years ago I made Marc a little statue of a fox because of one of his nicknames. But I broke it when I was mad. That’s the new one, we made it together. Local pottery place. Alex said we are cringy, but it was a good day.”

Roser shifts her eyes to him, keeps her voice light.

“And the ring?”

Valentino grins again, and she watches as he moves toward the table and picks up the little box that sits next to the fox with almost reverent hands. He stares down at it with his eyes squinted and happy. Among the black velvet is a solid gold band, gleaming and pretty, which he traces his thumb over.

“I bought the ring two years ago, and he knows. I just leave it here, because it’s all up to him really. The second he shows any acceptance or desire, I will be down on my knees before too long.”

He refocuses his eyes on Roser looking a little sheepish.

“I probably should have told you all about this.”

She shakes her head, amused. It’s very them in truth, to have an engagement ring waiting in plain sight. No doubt Marc enjoys it greatly, the assurance so clear that the next step is waiting for him whenever he wants to take it.  She is more surprised he hasn’t taken it yet more than anything, but she also knows her son well. When he picks his moment it will be the right one, and no doubt he is planning something. He likes things like that, big moments that have been waiting for years.

“You don’t need our approval, Marc will do whatever he pleases,” she says finally, heart soft, “but at this point even Alex has settled down to what you are now, and he likes you underneath the bluster he keeps up. Don’t tell him I said that.”

Valentino laughs, runs a hand through his hair and the other like it is all a joke, but looks terribly relieved.

“Yes, he still sometimes looks like he wants to kill me, but I am glad for it. I should not forget what I have done.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Is all Roser quietly says, and then she reaches forward to pat the man’s cheek, a sort of assurance.

“Now, you said your mother and her husband are joining us this year, yes?” She asks brightly, “you must tell me what she likes to eat, I will have Julia cook her up whatever she wants.”

Valentino laughs, leans his head briefly into her touch, and that is that. Another lovely memory to add to the stack of what she learns about them each year. The stack that makes every worry she had held settle as each day passes.

That night they sit in the living room, all piled onto the massive couches. Alex on the loveseat with Luca, talking in a low voice about something to do with the next season, Julia right next to her and across the couch, Marc and Valentino. Pressed close, not obscenely so, hands touching so much it seems like second nature.

She watches them for a minute. The way they seem to have magnets to their limbs. Marc pushes his fingers into Valentino’s thigh every time he wants his attention, the older man’s head is tilted close and eyes flickering between the screen and Marc like he can’t help it.  The tone they use when they talk to just each other, almost a different language with how it sounds. Then when they fully settle back to watch whatever movie is chosen, the head that lands in Marc lap eventually, the way his fingers immediately tangle with curly hair and how Valentino falls asleep like that in an instant. It’s sweet. It’s exactly what she expected them to be like.

She leans close to talk to her son once she is sure Valentino will not hear.

“I am surprised you haven’t said yes yet,” she murmurs, and the look Marc shoots her is surprised, and then wry. In the darkness, dim light from the TV flashing across his face, he looks soft and warm and happy.

“Ah, you saw the ring? He shows it to everyone. I keep telling him to stop, especially with the young ones, but well…”

Roser shakes her head. She sincerely doubts Marc actually has tried to stop him, if the little pleased look he is carrying says anything.

“Anyway,” he continues, “he knows what my answer is even if I haven’t given it yet. But I might as well make him suffer a bit, no? For years he always lauded himself as ‘not the marrying type’, so it is almost irony to keep him asking.”

His grin is wicked, and Roser has to laugh. Especially because she swears she sees Valentino smile vaguely at the words in his sleep, before he shifts a bit and presses his face into her son’s stomach with a mumble. Marc’s hand immediately begins soothing through his hair once more.

“You are a bit evil,” is all she says in an unsurprised voice, and Marc nods.

“Yes. But he likes it.”

And as they all sit there together, he family around her, her son happy and in love, Roser knows full well that this is exactly what she was waiting for. All the pieces slotting into place, and the ceviche is finished.

Her son will probably never have a simple love story, even now. But she knows for sure that this is their forever, can feel it in the walls and the air and the lamplight that flickers across the room. She imagines that future; Marc and Valentino forever here, training the next generation of riders until the end, in their own ways. She imagines holidays spent at the ranch or in Cervera. She imagines her son growing old surrounded by rolling hills and the roar of engines. She imagines the life he will build here now that he has left the world he lived in for so many years behind. She imagines that sharp vein of adrenaline chasing them everywhere they turn. Imperfect, always. Wild, always. Fiercely loving, always.

But in truth? She could have never pictured it in any other way.

The End.