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Chapter Text

Piper Hastings isn't sure what she expected when she took the McLaren media admin job, but it definitely wasn't this.

She thought there'd be paperwork. Maybe a few TikToks. Some guy with a clipboard breathing down her neck about brand guidelines. What she didn't expect was walking into the Woking factory on her first day and getting immediately adopted by Lando fucking Norris.

"Hastings, right?" he says, all dimples and curls and the kind of energy that makes Piper's fight-or-flight instincts kick in. He sticks out a hand like he's been waiting to meet her his whole life.

"Piper," she corrects, shaking his hand. His palm is warm, fingers calloused. She ignores that part.

"Lando. Welcome to the papaya cult."

Piper glances around like there might be a hidden camera crew waiting to jump out. "Thanks... I think?"

"You'll love it. Free hoodies. Terrible coffee. Everyone's a little bit in love with Oscar."

That makes her snort before she can stop herself. Mistake number one — Lando's grin goes sharp, like he's already clocked her as someone who will let him get away with murder. Piper makes a mental note not to laugh at any of his jokes ever again.

"Guess I'll be seeing a lot of you," she says, shifting her bag higher on her shoulder.

Lando's grin widens. "More than you'd like, probably."

It takes her three days to figure out exactly how this dynamic works.

Lando's the golden retriever — loud, attention-seeking, absolutely convinced everyone loves him. Oscar's the cat — aloof, self-contained, probably plotting everyone's death. And somewhere in between them... is her.

The first time she sees Oscar, he's tucked away in the sim room, headphones on, hyper-focused. Piper hovers in the doorway for a second too long, not wanting to interrupt.

"Don't bother," Lando says from behind her, voice low like they're sharing a secret. "He'll be in there for hours. Bit of a robot, that one."

Oscar must hear them because he glances over his shoulder — quick flick of brown eyes, one eyebrow barely twitching before he turns back to the screen.

"Hi." Flat. Barely even a smile.

Piper clears her throat. "Nice to meet you too."

Lando snorts. "Charming, isn't he?"

Oscar doesn't react, and Piper files that away — Lando talks enough for two people, and Oscar barely talks at all. She's not sure which one of them is going to drive her insane first.

But the more time she spends in the garage, the more she starts to notice things. How Lando always seems to end up in her orbit without trying. How he finds little excuses to wander into the media office — a phone charger, a water bottle he definitely doesn't need, some bullshit request for the McLaren TikTok account password. How he texts her random memes at midnight like they're already friends.

At first, Piper keeps him at arm's length. She's not here to get tangled up with drivers — definitely not the one with a smile like a warning sign and too much charm for his own good. But Lando's the kind of person who wears you down without you even noticing.

It starts with inside jokes — little digs at the papaya merch or the way Zak Brown insists on saying content strategy like it's a military operation. Then there are the coffee runs — Lando insisting the media office coffee is a war crime and dragging Piper to the tiny café down the street because, according to him, she's part of the team now.

By the end of the week, he's sending her TikToks in the middle of the night and flipping her off behind Oscar's back during debriefs.

Piper never wanted to be anyone's favorite. But Lando's made up his mind about her before she even realized there was a decision to make.

Oscar, though — Oscar's a whole different problem.

He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it's quick, clipped, and usually a little sarcastic if you know how to listen for it. He doesn't avoid her exactly — just keeps his distance, watching from the edges like he's not sure if she's worth figuring out yet.

The first time they end up alone together, it's purely by accident — Piper tucked into the media room editing clips from a race weekend, Oscar wandering in looking for something he forgot. He freezes when he sees her, like he genuinely didn't expect anyone to be here.

"Uh... I'll come back."

Piper glances up from her laptop. "You can stay. I'm just—"

Oscar's already halfway out the door when Lando's voice echoes from the hallway. "Piastri! Come on, mate, don't be shy!"

Oscar visibly tenses, muttering something under his breath that Piper's pretty sure is I'm going to kill him.

Still, he stays — hovering near the door for a second too long before finally sinking into the chair across from her. Piper pretends not to notice how stiff he is, like sitting still might actually kill him.

They sit in silence for five minutes before he clears his throat. "You're new."

Piper doesn't look up from her screen. "Figured that out all by yourself, huh?"

There's a beat of quiet — then, unexpectedly, the corner of Oscar's mouth twitches. It's barely anything, but Piper clocks it like a win.

He doesn't talk again. But he stays.

By the time they get to Barcelona for testing, the entire grid knows who Piper is.

George Russell starts sending her suspiciously knowing looks in the paddock. Pierre Gasly makes a comment at dinner about McLaren's new favorite girl. Max Verstappen starts calling her the third McLaren driver just to piss off Lando.

Carlos Sainz — poor, long-suffering Carlos — watches all of this unfold with the air of someone bracing for disaster.

"They're going to ruin your life," he tells her one night over drinks, his Spanish accent going extra dry. "You know that, right?"

Piper sips her gin and tonic. "I'm a big girl."

Carlos just snorts. "Sure, princesa. Keep telling yourself that."

The funniest part is how little effort she's making. She's not flirting. She's not trying to worm her way into anyone's inner circle. She's just... there.

But that's how it always starts, isn't it?

Nothing's happening.

But everyone's already watching.

And the worst part?

Piper thinks she likes it.

Chapter Text

If there's one thing Piper learns quickly, it's that nothing in the paddock stays secret for long.

By the time pre-season testing is halfway through, she's got half the grid following her on Instagram, the McLaren social team posting suspiciously candid photos of her flanked by Lando and Oscar, and Max Verstappen has somehow added her to the Driver Group Chat™️ — a chaotic, barely functioning corner of WhatsApp where memes, passive-aggressive insults, and actual race strategy live side by side.

She doesn't even know how Max got her number.

Carlos claims to be the unofficial moderator, but mostly he's the lone voice of reason trying (and failing) to keep everyone from setting the whole thing on fire. Piper’s still not entirely sure why she's in it — she's just a media admin, not a driver — but no one’s kicked her out yet. Occasionally Pierre sends her heart emojis, and Alex Albon tags her in cat memes. George keeps sending photos of himself with random McLaren merch captioned Hastings Fan Club President.

The whole grid's watching, even if nothing's happening.

Yet.

Piper’s got a whole routine going by the second week of testing — early mornings at the track, afternoons buried in editing footage, and late nights lingering at the hotel bar where the drivers all seem to orbit around each other like they're not actually best friends but also kind of can't exist without each other.

Oscar's always the first to disappear — early nights, early mornings, all self-discipline and quiet focus. Lando's the last to leave — nursing one beer for three hours, bouncing between conversations like the whole paddock belongs to him.

Piper floats somewhere in the middle.

"You don't have to hang out with them, you know," Carlos mutters one night, watching Lando drape himself dramatically across Oscar's chair while Oscar tries to pretend he doesn't exist.

"They keep finding me," Piper says, sipping her gin and tonic.

Carlos gives her a long, knowing look — the kind only someone who's been on the grid long enough to see every mess unfold can manage. "They’re trying to impress you."

Piper snorts. "They're barely even nice to each other half the time."

Carlos shrugs. "Love makes people stupid."

The next day, Lando follows her around the paddock like a particularly annoying shadow. He shows up in the media room three separate times with absolutely zero reason to be there. He texts her coffee? like she's his personal barista. He drags her into stupid TikToks she doesn't even realize are happening until someone sends them to her two hours later.

Oscar pretends not to care, but Piper catches him watching more than once — quick flicks of brown eyes that linger half a second too long before snapping away.

The problem is that none of it feels intentional. If they're trying to impress her, they're doing it the way boys who've known each other too long always do — half by accident, half just to piss each other off.

One afternoon, they're waiting for media duties, and Lando leans against the wall next to her, arms crossed, smirking like he knows exactly what he's doing.

"You know Oscar can solve a Rubik's cube in like thirty seconds?" he says, loud enough that Oscar — sitting two seats away — definitely hears.

Piper raises an eyebrow. "Impressive."

Oscar doesn't look up from his phone. "Forty-five seconds, actually."

Lando grins wider. "He's got a whole drawer full of them in his hotel room. Freak behavior, honestly."

Oscar flicks him an unimpressed glance. "You have a whole drawer full of hair products. We all have our vices."

Piper bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Lando looks personally offended. George sends the whole exchange to the group chat with the caption Piastri 1 - Norris 0.

The first time the McLaren social team posts a candid shot of the three of them together, the fans lose their collective minds.

It’s nothing special — just Piper squished between Lando and Oscar in the garage, both boys looking at something on her laptop like they actually care about the content calendar. But the comments come flooding in within minutes.

the mclaren throuple is real

who's gonna tell them they have two boyfriends now

piastri/norris/hastings confirmed 2024 driver lineup

Piper shows it to Lando at lunch, half-expecting him to brush it off.

Instead, he grins like the cat that got the cream. "They're onto us, Hastings."

Oscar barely glances up from his plate. "Don't encourage him."

Piper's not trying to encourage anything. But later that night, she gets a notification that Lando's tagged her in an Instagram story — a blurry selfie of the three of them at the hotel bar, captioned third McLaren driver pending approval.

Oscar's in the background, flipping him off.

By the end of the second week, they've fallen into some kind of rhythm.

Lando drags her into his chaos. Oscar hovers at the edges, grumbling but never actually leaving. Piper keeps her head down, trying not to get sucked into whatever weird push-pull dynamic is happening between them.

It’s not a love triangle. It’s not anything.

But sometimes — late at night, with Lando pressed close to her side cracking jokes and Oscar watching her like he's still figuring her out — it kind of feels like something.

Piper’s not stupid. She knows exactly how these stories go.

Nothing's happening.

But everyone's already watching.

Chapter Text

It’s not the big things — the car launches, the press conferences, the endless streams of social media posts. It’s the little things. The way Lando and Oscar always seem to end up on either side of her like they're flanking her on purpose. The way her phone lights up at random times with notifications from Paddock Chaos™️ — the nickname George has christened the group chat — dissecting every photo, every accidental brush of hands, every too-long glance.

George keeps calling her McLaren Yoko Ono.

"I’m not breaking anyone up," she grumbles to Carlos one night, huddled next to him at the hotel bar while the boys are off playing pool.

Carlos sips his beer like he’s seen this exact movie before. "No, but you're making them worse."

"They're already worse."

Carlos tilts his head, considering. "Fair point."

The weirdest part is how fast they've all fallen into each other’s orbit.

It’s Lando who makes it happen — dragging Piper into the middle of things with zero shame or subtlety. Oscar follows reluctantly, like he's only there because someone needs to keep Lando from setting the whole garage on fire.

But once they're in the same space, they move like planets around each other — constant, inevitable.

Piper starts keeping score without meaning to.

Times Lando buys her coffee: 7
Times Oscar quietly hands her his hoodie without saying anything: 3
Times they bicker in front of her like she's not even there: literally every goddamn day

There’s a routine now — early mornings at the track, late nights at the hotel, Lando dragging both of them into whatever half-baked plan he’s cooked up to entertain himself. It should be exhausting. It is exhausting.

But it’s also kind of addictive.

One night, George sends a voice note to the group chat that just says, "When are they gonna kiss?"

"Which ones?" Pierre replies immediately.

George sends back four crying emojis and a link to the latest McLaren Instagram post — a behind-the-scenes carousel with Piper sandwiched between the boys, grinning like she has no idea what she’s doing.

She definitely has some idea what she's doing.

There are whole days where Piper forgets what the hell she’s even supposed to be doing here. She's got a job — she's supposed to be capturing content, cutting clips, managing social media strategies. Not third-wheeling two barely-functional golden retrievers in race suits.

But then Lando will catch her eye from across the garage and grin, or Oscar will quietly mutter "thank you" when she hands him a coffee without asking, and suddenly she’s not quite sure where the lines are anymore.

The problem is that they're both trying to impress her — in completely different ways.

Lando's all grand gestures — bad jokes, dumb TikToks, dramatic flourishes. He goes big because that's who he is. He fills up a room just by existing.

Oscar's quieter about it. He helps her carry equipment without being asked. He walks her back to her hotel room after late nights at the bar, hands shoved deep in his pockets, not saying much but always there.

Piper's not sure which one gets to her more — the loud or the quiet.

Maybe both.

The grid's catching on.

Max starts sending cryptic texts to the group chat — Is it happening or are they just stupid?

Pierre replies with nothing but the side-eye emoji.

Alex sends a screenshot of some unhinged Twitter thread with the caption McLaren Throuple AU CONFIRMED.

Carlos — who’s been watching this whole mess unfold with the resigned patience of someone who’s seen it all before — just sends, Make it stop.

The sim session happens late one night, long after most of the paddock’s cleared out. Piper's half-asleep at her laptop in the corner of the sim room, trying to cut together a TikTok edit without losing her mind.

Lando's in the seat first, headset on, jaw sharp under the dim lighting. He’s fast, obviously — throwing the car into corners like the laws of physics don’t apply to him.

Oscar leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching. He doesn’t say much, but Piper's learned by now that Oscar watching is its own kind of performance — half judgement, half quiet fascination.

"You think you could do better, Piastri?" Lando taunts, pulling off the headset with a cocky grin.

Oscar pushes off the wall, stepping in slow. "Absolutely."

Piper's pulse kicks for no reason she wants to examine. She's seen them like this before — circling each other, pushing each other's buttons just to see what happens. They like each other more than either of them will ever admit, but they still can't resist poking at the edges.

Oscar takes the seat, fingers steady on the wheel, face blank in that way that means he's locked in. Lando leans against the rig, arms folded, smirking down at him.

"You're gonna crash."

"You're gonna shut up."

Piper bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

Oscar goes faster.

Lando watches closer.

The whole room feels weirdly hot all of a sudden, like the air’s too thick with something none of them are ready to name.

When Oscar finally finishes the lap — a full two-tenths quicker than Lando's best — he pulls off the headset and looks right at Piper.

"What's the verdict?"

She opens her mouth, fully prepared to lie through her teeth — play neutral, keep the peace.

But Lando's already leaning in, too close, voice low and teasing. "Be honest, Hastings. Who's your favorite?"

It's a joke. It’s definitely a joke.

But Oscar's eyes flick between them, dark and unreadable.

Piper's heart thuds traitorously against her ribs.

"Neither of you," she says breezily, gathering up her laptop like she’s not running for her life.

She can still feel both of them watching her all the way out the door.

By the end of the third week, the Instagram comments are a full-on battleground.

Hastings is ruining Landoscar 😭

girlboss infiltrating the paddock and making it everyone’s problem

if they make her the third driver i’m actually gonna pass away

shut up she’s literally just holding the camera let her COOK

Piper doesn’t know whether to laugh or hide under the nearest table.

Nothing's happening.

But everyone's already watching.

Chapter Text

Piper wakes up to McLaren Throuple AU trending on Twitter, and that's how she knows the universe officially hates her.

She scrolls through the thread under her duvet, half-asleep and regretting every life decision that brought her to this point. The photos are mostly harmless — paddock shots of her sandwiched between Lando and Oscar, a few blurry snaps from the sim session last night where they're both crowding her space like guard dogs who barely tolerate each other.

Why is Oscar looking at her like that.

Lando's in his menacing little slut era and Piper is just letting him cook???

Something's happening and I want front-row seats.

Piper groans into her pillow.

By the time she makes it down to breakfast, the grid is fully briefed on the situation.

"How's our little Yoko Ono this morning?" George sing-songs, sliding into the seat across from her.

Piper slaps a slice of toast onto her plate with more force than necessary. "I'm going to block you."

Alex appears at her elbow, holding out his phone. The entire group chat is losing its collective mind — Pierre with the 👀 emoji, George stirring the pot, Charles trying to convince everyone it's platonic friends having platonic vibes and getting absolutely ratioed.

Max just sent lesbians when one of them is a man.gif with no explanation.

Oscar and Lando aren't even awake yet, which feels like the only mercy the universe has granted her.

The thing is — Piper doesn't think they're doing anything that weird.

Okay, maybe the sim session got a little... heated. And maybe Lando's been turning the charm up to eleven lately, all bad jokes and lingering looks. And maybe Oscar's started leaning a little too close when he mutters dry comments in her ear, his voice low and warm enough to make her whole brain short-circuit.

But that's just... them.

They needle at each other constantly — golden retriever baiting grumpy black cat, both of them showing off in their own ways, always circling like they can't quite figure out if they want to fight or fuck or just... orbit.

Piper's just caught in the middle. Literally.

Carlos is the first to break.

"They like you," he announces one night in the hotel bar, halfway through his whiskey sour.

Piper stares at him, fork frozen halfway to her mouth. "What?"

"They like you," Carlos repeats slowly, like she's an idiot. "Both of them."

"No, they—"

Carlos just raises his eyebrows and sips his drink like he's seen this exact disaster play out ten times before.

"You're the worst," Piper mutters, stabbing at her pasta.

"I'm the only one being honest with you."

The weirdest part is that the grid... kind of adopts her.

It starts with Alex inviting her to the group chat — the unofficial, unhinged one where the drivers, a handful of engineers, and the rare PR or media person with a strong enough stomach get to witness the grid's collective brain rot in real-time.

Paddock Chaos™️ is exactly what it says on the tin — memes, conspiracy theories, Pierre posting selfies like he's an Instagram model, George stirring shit just for sport.

Piper barely types five messages before someone renames the chat to Landoscar + Pipsqueak Cinematic Universe.

The first cracks show during media day.

It’s harmless at first — Lando leaning into her space between interviews, making dumb jokes to try and get her to crack on camera. Oscar hovers just behind them, quiet but always watching.

"You're not funny," Piper mutters when Lando makes some awful pun about tire degradation.

"I'm so funny," Lando grins, dimples out in full force.

Behind them, Oscar snorts. "You're objectively not."

Lando twists to face him, eyes narrowing. "Don't start."

Oscar shrugs, deadpan. "Just saying."

Piper's half-expecting Lando to launch into one of their usual bickering matches, but something flickers under the surface — sharper, more pointed.

Lando smirks, leaning into Oscar's space. "You jealous, Piastri?"

It's a joke.

Definitely a joke.

But Oscar's jaw tightens just the slightest bit, and Piper feels the air shift.

By the time they get to the track walk that afternoon, the tension's thick enough to cut with a knife.

They're flanking her again — Lando on one side, Oscar on the other — like they've both subconsciously decided she's theirs to orbit.

Every time Lando cracks a joke, Oscar rolls his eyes. Every time Oscar mutters something dry under his breath, Lando needles him harder.

Piper feels like she's accidentally stepped into some weird animal kingdom mating ritual and no one has had the decency to warn her.

The fans are eating it up.

McLaren posts a photo of the three of them on the pit wall — Lando grinning at the camera, Oscar scowling like he's two seconds from quitting his job, Piper caught in the middle with a coffee cup halfway to her lips.

The comments are immediate chaos.

This girl walked into the paddock and turned Landoscar into a whole Netflix original series.

Piastri is the grumpy cat, Norris is the golden retriever, and Hastings is the exhausted cat sitter trying to keep them from killing each other.

Max Verstappen is executive producing this shit and Carlos Sainz is the exasperated dad waiting for them to just fuck already.

Piper sends the screenshot to the group chat.

Carlos replies, Where is the lie?

By the end of the fourth week, something's definitely happening.

Lando's jokes are starting to sound a little too pointed. Oscar's silences are stretching a little too long. Piper's heart is spending entirely too much time lodged in her throat.

And the whole grid is watching.

People are hating it. People are loving it. People are middle-grounding, popcorn in hand, waiting to see where this is going.

Piper thinks she might be losing her goddamn mind.

Chapter Text

The paddock party is already two drinks deep by the time Pierre Gasly decides to ruin Piper's entire life.

They're sprawled across some rooftop bar in Baku, half the grid scattered between the balcony and the dance floor. The music's low, the lights hazy — the kind of night where everyone pretends they aren't professional athletes with curfews and 6AM debriefs.

Piper’s tucked in at the bar, sipping something fruity and pretending not to notice the way Lando and Oscar have bracketed her on either side again — Lando leaning lazy against the counter, Oscar standing a little too close without even trying.

She’s in the middle of trying to figure out if they’re doing it on purpose or if the universe is just fucking with her when Pierre sidles up, grinning like he’s been waiting all night to stir shit.

"What’s up, Challengers?"

Piper freezes mid-sip.

Lando snorts into his beer. Oscar — who has, up until this point, been perfectly content to stare moodily into his whiskey glass like some kind of brooding Victorian hero — just blinks.

"Sorry, what?" Piper manages.

Pierre’s grin goes full wolfish. "Oh, you haven’t seen the tweets? You three —" he gestures vaguely at the three of them, somehow managing to make it both insulting and weirdly affectionate, "— the whole internet thinks you’re doing a little… love triangle thing."

Piper opens her mouth to protest, but Lando cuts in first.

"It’s not a love triangle," he says breezily, like they’ve actually talked about this.

Oscar sips his drink. "It’s barely a line."

Piper nearly chokes on her cocktail.

Pierre cackles, absolutely delighted with himself.

Somewhere across the room, George clocks the interaction and immediately starts typing into the group chat. The whole night’s about to become content.

"I hate all of you," Piper mutters into her glass.

"You love us," Lando grins, bumping her shoulder.

Oscar just hums, low and amused. "No comment."

The thing that throws Piper off is how chill they are about it.

She was half-expecting Lando to start hamming it up for the cameras — playing into the whole mess like he always does when the internet latches onto something stupid. She was definitely expecting Oscar to get weird and awkward and disappear into the walls like a ghost.

But they're both... weirdly fine.

Too fine.

It’s almost worse.

By midnight, the jokes are flying thick and fast — Pierre holding court on the balcony, making increasingly outrageous Challengers AU headcanons while Alex and George egg him on.

"Obviously Piper’s the Zendaya," Pierre declares, like this is some kind of sacred paddock canon.

"Obviously," George nods solemnly.

"Lando’s the Josh O'Connor character — dramatic, annoying, always talking."

Lando flips him off without even looking up from his drink.

Pierre grins. "And Oscar’s the Mike Faist — quiet, freakishly talented, probably plotting everyone's downfall in secret."

Oscar doesn't blink. "Thank you."

Piper genuinely thinks she might be having an out-of-body experience.

The grid is clocking it. The fans are clocking it. Her entire life is turning into some bizarre slow-burn fanfic trope in real time.

And the absolute worst part is — she’s starting to think they both know exactly what they're doing.

Oscar was... winning.

It was subtle, but Piper could see it in the way he leaned against the bar, letting Pierre’s joke roll off his back without a flicker of embarrassment. The rare grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. The easy way he spoke to people — no longer just the quiet rookie with a quick wit hidden behind deadpan delivery. He was charming. Confident.

Piper caught glimpses of it in stolen moments. Oscar leaning close to her to refill her glass, fingers brushing hers. Oscar making her laugh with some dry, offhand comment that Lando couldn’t even hear from where he stood. Oscar’s arm casually resting on the back of her chair when they sat down — not touching her, but close enough to make her hyper-aware of every breath she took.

And Lando was... spiraling.

He was trying not to show it, but Piper knew him well enough by now. The way his eyes flicked across the room, always tracking where she and Oscar were. The way he kept interrupting conversations to crack jokes that didn’t quite land, his laugh a little too loud. The way his fingers tapped relentlessly against his glass, knuckles whitening.

It was all a little too obvious — at least to her.

By the time they found themselves back on the terrace, the grid scattered in clusters beneath the string lights, Piper could practically feel the tension radiating off Lando. He kept trying to pull her into conversations, but every time he turned his head, Oscar was already there — cutting in with some wry comment or offering Piper his jacket without a second thought when the night got colder.

She wasn’t sure Oscar was even doing it on purpose.

But Lando was losing. And he knew it.

When they posed for a group photo at the end of the night — the whole grid and their teams crowding into the frame — Lando instinctively slung an arm around Piper’s waist. A territorial move. Oscar stood on her other side, hands in his pockets, eyes flicking to where Lando’s fingers rested against the fabric of her dress.

For the first time, something flickered behind the cool mask. Just for a second.

Piper felt the crackling tension between them like static electricity — waiting for something, anything, to spark.

The next morning, the photo was plastered across Instagram. The comments were a mess.

the way lando is holding her waist like he’s losing the plot rn 💀💀💀

oscar is so unserious why is he just standing there like he doesn’t know he’s winning

CHALLENGERS IRL CONFIRMED HELLOOOOO

piper hastings is living the wattpad dream

lando’s grip + oscar’s stare + piper in the middle = i need to lie down

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time the grid spills back out into the night, half-drunk and sticky with summer heat, Challengers AU is trending on Twitter again.

The group chat is an absolute wasteland.

GEORGE: gasly really said slow burn throuple canon and they just WENT WITH IT

PIERRE: method acting

ALEX: Zendaya wishes she had this much pull in the paddock

MAX: i will pay 1000 euros to see them actually fight in the mclaren hospitality

CARLOS: please. end this.

Piper's phone buzzes with a fresh notification from Instagram — a tagged story from the McLaren account. It’s just a blurry shot of her, Lando, and Oscar at the bar with the caption: three's a crowd.

The comments are already going feral.

THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND I RESPECT IT.

Lando is losing the fanfic war and Oscar is winning simply by existing.

i would simply let all three of them ruin my life but that's just me.

Piper stares at the screen for a long moment.

Something's happening.

Everyone’s watching.

People were hating it. People were loving it.

And she’s starting to think she doesn't really want it to stop.

And Piper couldn’t shake the feeling that the game was only just beginning.

Chapter Text

Silverstone was supposed to be business as usual.

Piper had been with McLaren long enough to know that the home race was chaos — media everywhere, sponsors crawling out of the woodwork, and half the British grid with their egos turned up to eleven. What she hadn't expected was how easily the dynamic had settled into its weird little equilibrium.

Oscar was... open now. Not entirely — he was still Oscar, still dry and sharp and a little hard to read — but he carried himself differently. There was a quiet sort of confidence that lingered in the way he spoke to her, in the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention. He was winning, and he knew it.

Lando was still licking his wounds.

He covered it well — loud and cocky, all forced jokes and exaggerated antics — but Piper could feel it. Could see it in the way his eyes flicked to Oscar whenever the other driver got too close. The way his teasing had sharpened around the edges when he threw his little jabs about Oscar liking her. He was still the golden retriever, but one that had been kicked a little too hard.

The grid had clocked it a long time ago.

"Are they sharing you now?" Pierre grinned over breakfast on media day, stirring sugar into his coffee. "Very progressive. I respect it."

George choked on his toast and started laughing.

Piper shot them both a warning glare. "You're both insufferable."

"Oh, come on." Pierre leaned in, eyes dancing. "It's a beautiful love triangle. Very European. Very... artistic."

George wiped tears from his eyes. "Challengers 2. But British. With worse weather."

Piper flipped them both off and tried not to think about the way Lando and Oscar were sitting at separate tables across the room — their eyes on her, even if they were pretending otherwise.

It all started to unravel during the Thursday fan events.

Some random Alpine junior — tall, French, pretty in that forgettable kind of way — started hovering around her during the autograph sessions. Nothing special. A few harmless jokes. A compliment about her eyes. The kind of low-effort flirtation that would have rolled right off her back if not for the way both Lando and Oscar suddenly... stopped.

Piper caught the flicker of recognition between them the first time it happened. A glance. Barely a second long, but enough to spark something between them — something wordless and unspoken and absolutely not in the spirit of their ongoing cold war.

By the third session of the day, they were moving in tandem.

Oscar stayed closer. Lando made louder jokes. One of them always seemed to be lingering just behind her shoulder, cutting into conversations before they could drift too far. It was seamless. Uncoordinated, but perfectly in sync — a silent, begrudging solidarity against any third-party contender.

Piper was half annoyed, half flattered — and wholly entertained.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time the paddock had wound down for the day, Piper was barely holding on. Her body ached, her head pounded, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed. But instead, she found herself cornered by some Alpine junior engineer at the hospitality bar, his name already forgotten.

He was... fine. Nice, even. And she wasn't exactly encouraging him, but she wasn't shutting him down either. Because what was the harm? It was harmless.

Except it clearly wasn't — not to the two drivers who had been circling her all weekend like wolves around a campfire.

From across the room, Oscar's deadpan gaze flicked toward them, his mouth pressed into a flat line. Lando was less subtle — fingers curled white-knuckled around his glass, jaw set tight.

Neither of them moved. Neither of them said anything.

But the silent, simmering rage was palpable.

Eventually, the Alpine junior wandered off, none the wiser. Piper didn't miss the way both Lando and Oscar relaxed the second he was gone — or the way they immediately found excuses to hover near her for the rest of the night.

Later, when the grid had scattered and the evening was winding down, she caught the two of them standing out on the balcony — backs against the railing, low voices carrying just enough for her to pick out the edges of their conversation.

"He wasn't even that funny," Lando muttered, nursing what was probably his third beer.

Oscar didn't look away from the horizon. "You laughed more at his jokes than Piper did."

Lando shot him a glare. "Shut up."

A beat of silence stretched between them. The tension from earlier still crackled under the surface, but neither of them acknowledged it directly. They never did.

"He's not her type," Oscar finally said, soft and almost thoughtful. "Too... eager."

Lando snorted. "And you know her type, do you?"

Oscar's lips twitched, just barely. "I know it's not him."

Another pause.

Lando's fingers drummed restlessly against the railing. He glanced sideways at Oscar, voice quieter now — more uncertain.

"We don't talk about this."

Oscar's eyes flicked toward him — sharp, perceptive, always seeing more than he let on.

"What's there to talk about?"

Lando's throat bobbed. He looked away again.

"Nothing."

They stood there for a long moment — the unspoken understanding settling heavy between them.

Eventually, Oscar pushed off the railing, brushing past Lando without another word. But just before he disappeared back inside, he paused — voice low and even.

"We should keep an eye on her."

Lando's gaze snapped toward him.

Oscar's mouth curved into the faintest smirk.

"Just in case."

And then he was gone, leaving Lando alone on the balcony — scowling into his drink like the human embodiment of a golden retriever guarding its favorite toy.

Piper had no idea what the hell was happening anymore.

But one thing was becoming increasingly clear: there was no universe in which either of them would let anyone else get close enough to find out.

The tipping point came at the paddock party on Saturday night.

It was the first time in weeks where everything felt balanced again — the three of them orbiting each other in that strange, electric little bubble that had become their norm. Lando was relaxed for once, Piper tucked comfortably between him and Oscar at the makeshift McLaren booth. The grid was buzzing around them, the music was just loud enough to drown out the noise in her head, and everything felt... easy.

Until Alpine Junior showed up.

Piper barely even noticed him at first — just another face in the crowd. But then he was at her elbow, offering her a drink, leaning in a little too close as he asked if she was free after the race tomorrow.

Lando's laughter died mid-sentence.

Oscar's glass paused halfway to his lips.

Piper glanced between them, waiting — half-expecting some snarky comment or eye-roll. But neither of them said a word.

They didn't need to.

Instead, Lando shifted closer — his arm brushing against hers, fingers curling around the back of her chair. Not possessive, but there. Oscar leaned in from the other side, his voice low and lazy as he cut into the conversation with some casual quip that Piper couldn't even register because she was suddenly very aware of how they had boxed her in — a silent, coordinated blockade.

Alpine Junior didn't stand a fucking chance.

By the time the night wound down, the grid chat was in shambles.

gridchaos: THE UNITED FRONT???
gridchaos: enemies to lovers pipeline complete
gridchaos: girl is fighting for her life out here
pierregasly: piper hastings is the most powerful woman in motorsport
georgerussell63: The McLaren Throuple Documentary WHEN?

Piper buried her face in her pillow and muted the chat.

Something was definitely happening now.

And the boys? They were finally starting to realize it too.

Chapter Text

It started with the same simmering tension that had been brewing since Silverstone — the kind that lingered in the air, thick and suffocating, without anyone ever daring to name it.

Lando and Oscar were... circling each other. That was the only way Piper could describe it. The usual digs and teasing remarks had sharpened into something more pointed — like they were both trying to needle each other without fully understanding why. It wasn't hatred. Far from it. But something was shifting beneath the surface.

Piper noticed it in the small things. The way Oscar would deliberately stretch out in the McLaren hospitality lounge, taking up more space than necessary when Lando walked in — always forcing him to find another seat. The way Lando would snatch the last bottle of water from the fridge just as Oscar was reaching for it, flashing him a shit-eating grin as he cracked it open. The way their conversations always danced around some unspoken edge, never quite spilling over.

They were trying to get under each other's skin — but there was something about the way they went about it that felt... protective.

"You're a menace," Piper muttered to Oscar one afternoon when he snatched Lando's cap off the table and wore it backwards just to piss him off.

Oscar barely glanced at her, deadpan as always. "He deserves it."

Lando had nearly combusted when he saw Oscar wearing his own hat, muttering something about little brothers and no respect. But he'd snatched it back with a flick to Oscar's ear — quick, familiar, like the whole exchange had been rehearsed a hundred times before.

Piper filed the moment away in the growing folder in her mind labeled What the Fuck is Happening Between Them. The folder was getting alarmingly full.

But they were both still looking at her. They always were.

She pretended not to notice.

It was Oscar who broke first.

It happened in Austria, late at night after another long day at the track. The McLaren motorhome was quiet, most of the staff having retreated to their hotels. Piper had stayed late to finish editing some social media clips, headphones in, head down — but she caught glimpses of Oscar moving around in the background. Restless.

When she finally peeled her headphones off, Oscar was sitting across from her, flipping through his phone. The silence stretched out between them.

"You're working too hard," he said suddenly.

Piper blinked at him. "You're one to talk."

He huffed a soft laugh through his nose. "Fair. Still true, though."

She opened her mouth to fire back, but then Oscar reached into his pocket and slid something across the table — a small chocolate bar from the McLaren snack stash, half melted from sitting in his hoodie all day.

Piper stared at it. Then at him.

"What is this?"

Oscar's ears were pink. "Bribery. For going to bed before two."

Piper should've laughed. She should've teased him or rolled her eyes. Instead, something warm and confusing twisted low in her stomach.

She took the chocolate without another word.

Lando started leaving her little things too — but his were always louder, more deliberate.

A Red Bull can balanced precariously on top of her laptop. A box of orange Tic Tacs left on her chair with Hastings scrawled on the front in black Sharpie. A stupid keychain with a tiny golden retriever dangling from it, tucked into the pocket of her McLaren jacket.

He never said anything when she found them — just shot her a cocky grin like he was daring her to call him out.

She never did.

         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lando and Oscar had spent the entire day winding each other up, sniping and snapping in that way only they could — just shy of outright hostility, but far too familiar to be anything other than personal. Piper watched it all unfold from the sidelines, pretending not to notice the way their eyes flicked towards her every time one of them landed a particularly sharp jab.

They were trying to get under each other’s skin. And it was working.

By the time the team dinner wrapped up, the whole grid had caught on. Pierre was leaning against the bar with George and Alex, whispering with the kind of glee usually reserved for race weekends.

“They’re gonna break any second now.”

George smirked, swirling the ice in his glass. “Ten bucks says they accidentally confess by the end of the week.”

“Twenty says they fight it out first.”

“Thirty says they do both.”

In the middle of it all, Piper was trying to keep her head down. She threw herself into work — editing media reels, coordinating with PR, doing whatever she could to ignore the fact that both boys were circling her like wolves.

But even she wasn’t immune to the little things.

It was subtle, at first.

Until it wasn’t.

By the end of the week, they’d started leaving things for each other too. A spare pair of gloves tucked into Oscar’s locker. A protein bar balanced on the edge of Lando’s laptop. Notes scrawled on scrap paper, just barely teasing — nice lap, Norris. Almost caught up.

They never talked about it. They never even acknowledged it. But Piper saw it — the way Oscar’s ears flushed pink when he found one of Lando’s notes, the way Lando always tried to hide his smile behind his hand.

They were driving each other insane.

Everyone else was loving every second of it.

By the time they made it to Budapest, the whole grid was watching.

Max started the betting pool in the Red Bull garage — When Will the Polycule Finally Crack? — and from there, it spread like wildfire.

"I'm saying summer break," George announced one evening in the paddock, arms crossed like he was presenting a dissertation. "Too much tension. Someone's going to snap."

"Oscar's going to kiss Lando first," Pierre declared smugly. "The quiet ones always do."

Piper's ears went red.

Carlos leaned against the wall with the weary patience of a man who had seen too much. "They'll all get together when I have a full head of white hair from dealing with their bullshit."

"So next week, then?" Alex deadpanned.

Piper wanted to crawl into a hole. Instead, she buried her face in her laptop and pretended she couldn't hear any of it.

“And when they do, I hope they’re happy. But I will be dead by then.” Carlos muttered shaking his head

                 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time the betting pool officially opened, half the grid was in on it. Max appointed himself unofficial bookie, collecting bets during drivers’ briefings and slipping odds into group chats. The McLaren media team had started keeping a spreadsheet of fan theories — ranking everything from secret throuple confirmed to Piper’s actually dating Carlos and this is just an elaborate smokescreen.

The best part? None of them had any idea.

Piper had always known she was in deep — but now, she wasn’t so sure she was the only one drowning.

The comments online were even worse.

this is the slowest burn in the history of slow burns and i'm living for every second of it
why is the entire grid acting like they're living inside a fanfic rn what is happening
landoscar is one thing but the piper x landoscar triangle is actually killing me help
carlos just sighing in interviews when asked abt the polycule like he's the only sane man left is sending me

Something was happening.

Everyone was watching.

Everyone was waiting.

Even Piper.

Chapter Text

The race weekend in Spa was supposed to be straightforward — wet weather, strategic calls, a McLaren one-two if the stars aligned. What nobody had accounted for was how much hung in the balance between Lando and Oscar by the time Sunday rolled around.

They qualified P2 and P3, locked out on the grid behind Max. From the moment the lights went out, they were each other’s shadows — cutting through the spray, matching each other lap for lap. Neither willing to give an inch.

By the time they reached the final stint, Max was long gone out back, and the only battle left was the one everyone wanted to see.

Lando vs. Oscar. Orange vs. Orange.

Piper could barely breathe, eyes locked on the timing screens in the McLaren garage as the delta between them flickered — two-tenths, one-tenth, half a second — closing, closing, closing.

Then it happened.

Lando and Oscar had been dancing around each other for weeks — circling, sniping, leaving little offerings like feral cats trying to out-gift each other. Piper had been pretending not to notice, but it was getting harder every day. Especially when they both kept looking at her like they were waiting for something — like if one of them made a move, the whole delicate balance would come crashing down.

But Spa had a way of cracking things open.

The first hint of disaster came on lap 23.

Lando had been holding off Lewis in P1, Oscar tucked just behind him in P2. They'd been running a perfect formation all race — McLaren’s golden boys, playing nice. But something shifted in the final stint. Maybe it was the rain starting to drizzle over the Kemmel Straight, or maybe it was just the pressure simmering beneath the surface for too long.

Either way, Oscar went for the overtake.

“What the fuck is he doing?”

“Keep it clean, Lando,” came the calm reply from the pit wall.

Oscar didn’t say anything. Just tucked in behind Lando’s rear wing like a goddamn magnet, eyes narrowed behind his visor.

It wasn’t reckless. Not really. But it was bold — a little too close, a little too aggressive. Lando squeezed him wide, and for half a second, it looked like they were both about to end up in the wall.

They didn’t — but the bump was enough to send Oscar skidding onto the runoff, clipping his front wing. He rejoined behind Lando, still P2, but by the time the checkered flag fell, everyone could feel the tension radiating off both cars.

The McLaren garage was dead silent as they pulled in — the kind of silence that only comes when everyone is trying very hard not to make eye contact.

They finished P1 and P2 in the end — Lando across the line first, Oscar right behind him. The perfect result. The celebration should’ve been euphoric.

It wasn’t.

By the time they rolled into parc fermé, the tension was suffocating. Lando still vibrating with adrenaline, helmet clutched tight in one hand — but his eyes kept flicking towards Oscar, who was slower to move, pulling himself out of the cockpit with a tight grimace.

Piper saw it before anyone else did. The way Oscar’s left hand hovered protectively over his ribs as he peeled off his gloves. The stiffness in his movements. The little flicker of pain he tried to bury beneath the exhaustion.

The team was too busy celebrating to notice.

But Lando did.

He was on Oscar in an instant, voice low and urgent. “Are you hurt?”

Oscar’s jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

Piper watched from a distance, heart lodged somewhere in her throat as Lando’s fingers closed around Oscar’s wrist — firm but careful. He was crowding him without even realising it, eyes dark with something that wasn’t quite anger.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Oscar finally looked up, something sharp flickering behind the exhaustion. “Because it’s not a big deal.”

“You could’ve—”

“Could’ve what?” Oscar cut him off, voice low and even. “Beaten you?”

The silence that followed crackled like static.

Piper’s stomach clenched.

They were always circling each other, always dancing on the edge — but this felt different. More dangerous. More inevitable.

By the time the media rounds were done and the celebrations had died down, Oscar was back in the motorhome, shirt off, wincing as Piper dabbed antiseptic over the angry red bruise blooming along his ribs.

“You’re an idiot,” she muttered, trying to sound annoyed and not... whatever the hell was happening in her chest.

Oscar’s lips twitched. “Takes one to know one.”

Her fingers froze against his skin. For a second, neither of them moved — the only sound the faint hum of the air conditioning and the distant murmur of the paddock outside.

“Don’t scare me like that again,” she said quietly.

Oscar’s throat bobbed. His eyes flicked down to where her fingers still rested against his ribs — warm and steady. He looked like he wanted to say something.

He didn’t.

Instead, Lando knocked against the doorframe — hesitant in a way that made Piper’s heart clench all over again.

Oscar’s eyes flicked to him, wary.

Lando shifted on his feet, mouth opening, then closing again — like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be here or not.

In the end, he just crossed the room in two quick strides, snatching the antiseptic from Piper’s hand without a word and kneeling down in front of Oscar.

His fingers brushed over the bruise, touch feather-light.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Oscar’s breath caught. Piper saw it — the tiny hitch, the way his eyes flicked away like he couldn’t quite hold Lando’s gaze.

“S’fine,” he mumbled.

Lando’s fingers lingered.

It was the closest either of them had come to touching that wire stretched between them — the one they both pretended didn’t exist.

Piper swallowed hard, heart hammering against her ribs.

Oh, they were so fucked.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Jesus Christ,” Max muttered under his breath from the Red Bull garage, eyes flicking between the screens. “They’re going to kill each other.”

“Or fuck,” Pierre added casually, earning a half-hearted shove from Charles.

George sipped his water bottle like he was watching a soap opera. “I still have summer break in the pool.”

“I'm telling you,” Alex said, smirking. “Monza.”

Carlos, standing off to the side, crossed his arms and muttered, “They will all get together when I am bald.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time Piper made it back to the McLaren motorhome, Oscar was already in the physio room — sitting on the edge of the table, cradling his bruised shoulder  and ribs while the team doctor wrapped him up.

Lando hovered in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot like he couldn’t decide whether to apologize or bolt.

Piper set her camera bag down with a sigh. “You’re both fucking idiots.”

Oscar winced as the physio prodded at his shoulder. “Noted.”

Lando’s mouth twitched. “Still finished one-two, though.”

Piper shot him a glare sharp enough to slice through carbon fiber. “Barely.”

The room went quiet after that — just the rustle of bandages and the steady drip of rain against the window. Piper could feel both of them watching her, like they were waiting for her to pick a side.

She refused.

Instead, she stepped between them — snatching the ice pack off the counter and pressing it firmly to Oscar’s shoulder. He hissed through his teeth, glaring at her like she’d personally caused the injury.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered. “You did this to yourself.”

Oscar’s eyes flicked past her — straight to Lando, who was still shifting in the doorway like a kicked puppy.

“Wasn’t his fault.”

Lando's head snapped up, startled — like he'd been expecting Oscar to throw him under the bus. Piper saw the flicker of relief in his eyes before he smothered it beneath a cocky grin.

“Course it wasn’t.”

Oscar rolled his eyes, but there was something softer lurking underneath — something Piper couldn’t quite place. And for the first time all weekend, they both stopped looking at her.

They looked at each other.

The tweets doubled overnight.

did anyone else see the way lando was looking at oscar in parc fermé because WHAT THE FUCK

piper tending to oscar’s wounds like the heroine of a 500k slow burn fic, we are so back

landoscar enemies to lovers to throuple is my roman empire

when will carlos sainz be free from the shackles of these three idiots

The betting pool was in flames.

“Monza,” Alex repeated smugly in the drivers’ group chat.

“Summer break,” George insisted.

“Next week,” Pierre typed, followed by seven heart emojis.

Max was practically vibrating the next morning, waving a fresh spreadsheet around the Red Bull garage.

“I’m giving them two races, max.”

George squinted at the screen. “Wait, are we including accidental hand touches as part of the timeline now?”

“Absolutely.”

Pierre leaned over Max’s shoulder, smirking. “Put me down for Monza. High tension, low inhibitions.”

Carlos, nursing his coffee like it was the only thing tethering him to sanity, muttered darkly, “They’ll get together when I’m dead.”

“They’ll get together when you have white hair,” Alex corrected.

Carlos just sipped his coffee harder.

Piper found Oscar alone in the motorhome later that night, still icing his shoulder. He didn’t look up when she walked in — just kept scrolling through his phone, thumb flicking over tweet after tweet.

“They’re going insane about you two.”

Oscar snorted softly. “They always are.”

“Yeah, well... now they’re writing fanfiction.”

He finally glanced up, eyebrows raised. “About what?”

Piper’s mouth went dry. She should not have said that.

“Nothing.”

Oscar’s eyes narrowed, suspicious — but then his phone buzzed with another message, and Piper caught the name at the top of the screen.

MAX VERSTAPPEN: Monza or bust.

Oscar groaned and tossed the phone onto the couch. “I hate all of you.”

But Piper saw it — the little flicker of something behind his eyes when he glanced at Lando’s empty chair across the room. The way his fingers twitched like he was thinking about the protein bars and notes and all the little offerings they’d been leaving each other without ever saying why.

That was the moment it hit him.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

He was in love with both of them.

And the worst part?

Everyone else had figured it out before he did.

It was happening. Everyone could see it.

Everyone but them.

Chapter Text

Monza weekends were always wild — but that night, the whole grid seemed hell-bent on making sure it would go down in the unofficial F1 history books.

Oscar had taken his well deserved win, Lando had followed him home in P2, and with Ferrari nowhere near the podium, the Tifosi’s heartbreak had fueled the kind of chaotic, slightly mean-spirited celebrations that only F1 drivers could pull off.

Piper had taken the weekend off, citing exhaustion — though both Lando and Oscar had grumbled about it like she'd personally betrayed them. Without her around, the boys were left to their own devices — which meant tequila shots and bad decisions were a guarantee.

It started with bar games.

Pierre had wrangled everyone into a crowded little club on the outskirts of Milan, music thumping, neon lights flashing. Lando and Oscar found themselves at the center of everything — the two podium finishers pressed shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar while the grid circled like vultures.

“Right,” George announced, already three drinks deep and exuding the exact kind of chaotic energy that made Toto’s blood pressure spike. “Pool table. Lando and Oscar versus me and Alex. Losers buy the next round.”

“You’re going down,” Lando grinned, slamming back his drink.

Oscar’s lips twitched. “We just beat you on track. You sure you want to lose twice in one day?”

Pierre cackled from the sidelines. “The tension, mon dieu. I feel like I’m interrupting something.”

“You are,” George deadpanned. “They’ve been eye-fucking each other all night, I’m just trying to get my free drinks first.”

Oscar nearly choked on his beer. Lando flicked a lime wedge at George’s head.

The game started — and predictably devolved into chaos within ten minutes. Alex kept “accidentally” elbowing Oscar during shots, Lando kept leaning in too close to talk shit in Oscar’s ear, and Pierre kept making not-so-subtle comments about how they looked like they were auditioning for a Calvin Klein ad.

By the time Oscar and Lando scraped out a narrow win, everyone was well on their way to drunk — the atmosphere warm and loose and just a little bit dangerous.

It only got worse from there.

The drinking games started next — shots lined up on the bar, drivers egging each other on. Lando won at flip cup. Oscar smoked everyone at beer pong. George got so competitive during Never Have I Ever that Alex had to physically drag him away before he started listing everyone’s exes.

Lando was the first to challenge Oscar to a solo round of beer pong again. They squared off at the back of the club, half the grid gathering to watch, bets already circulating. Pierre and George were the loudest instigators, leaning over the table and heckling both sides.

"You choke under pressure, Piastri — we all know it," Lando taunted, lining up his shot.

Oscar’s smirk was razor sharp. "Not tonight, Norris."

He sank the ball in Lando's cup without breaking eye contact. The whole table erupted, Pierre banging his fist on the wood like he was officiating a title fight.

The night unraveled from there — rounds of shots, increasingly ridiculous drinking games, and the kind of shit-talking that only years of shared paddocks could breed. Somewhere between the second and third round of shots, the teasing turned pointed.

"Alright, alright," George slurred, looping an arm around Alex's shoulders. "Question of the night — who's Piper going to end up with first?"

The group howled, immediately devolving into shouted bets. Pierre leaned forward like a vulture, waving his drink at Lando and Oscar.

"I think the little Aussie’s been putting in the work lately, no?"

Oscar's ears went red, but he didn't deny it.

Lando’s grin twitched. "Don't count me out yet, mate."

"Oh, please," Oscar fired back. "She likes the quiet ones."

"Bullshit." Lando's brow arched. "She likes confidence."

"She likes brains."

"She likes banter."

"She likes not having to babysit a full-grown golden retriever every day of the week."

That one earned a collective "ooooohhh" from the peanut gallery, Max nearly choking on his drink from laughter. But Lando's grin didn't falter — if anything, it sharpened.

"Well, she hasn't picked you either, has she?"

Oscar's smirk flickered, something darker flashing beneath the surface. The tension shifted — still playful, but with an edge now. Lando leaned in across the table, close enough that Oscar's breath caught.

"Maybe she's waiting for someone who could handle both of us."

Oscar's fingers clenched around his drink. The whole table went dead quiet — even Pierre shut up for once. Neither of them looked away.

It would've been easy to brush it off as a drunken joke — but something was crackling beneath the surface, something neither of them seemed quite ready to name.

The night blurred after that. Shots turned into half-slurred conversations, the crowd thinning as the hours ticked on. By the time they stumbled back to the hotel, only a few stragglers were left — George, Pierre, Max, and the two of them.

Through it all, Lando and Oscar stayed orbiting each other — close enough that their elbows brushed, their shoulders knocked. The usual teasing was still there, but it had shifted — softer somehow, less sharp edges and more lingering touches.

Piper wasn’t there to play buffer.

No one was there to keep them from tipping over whatever line they’d been toeing for months.

By the time the night started winding down, the grid had splintered — some heading back to hotels, others disappearing into dark corners of the club. Lando found Oscar slumped in a booth nursing a glass of whiskey, his curls damp with sweat, eyes half-lidded.

“C’mon,” Lando mumbled, grabbing Oscar’s sleeve. “Back to the hotel.”

Oscar let him — not without a little eye roll, but he didn’t pull away.

They stumbled through the lobby half-drunk and laughing, bumping into walls and shushing each other like schoolboys sneaking out past curfew. Somehow, they ended up in Oscar’s room — Lando kicking off his shoes, Oscar collapsing onto the bed with a heavy sigh.

The silence stretched — warm, sleepy, fragile.

“I wish Piper was here,” Oscar murmured, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Lando flopped down beside him, arms folded behind his head. “Yeah.”

They both stared at the ceiling for a long beat.

“I think she likes you,” Lando said suddenly, voice quiet.

Oscar’s heart thudded against his ribs. “I think she likes you more.”

Lando huffed a laugh — but there wasn’t any bite to it.

“She’s... hard not to like,” Oscar admitted.

“Yeah.”

Another stretch of silence. The whole room felt like it was holding its breath.

"What if she liked both of us?" Lando whispered

“I like you,” Lando continued — so soft it almost got lost in the hush.

Oscar's throat bobbed. He didn't know how to answer that — didn't know if he was even supposed to. His heart was pounding hard enough that he was sure Lando could hear it.

He risked a glance sideways — and found Lando already looking at him, eyes heavy-lidded and dark.

Fuck.

The space between them thinned, almost imperceptible. Neither of them moved — but neither of them pulled away either.

Lando's fingers twitched against his thigh.

Oscar's breath caught.

It would've been so easy to close the gap — just a tilt of the head, a half-dazed mistake they could both blame on the alcohol later.

“Lando—”

“Shh,” Lando whispered — and then his hand was on Oscar’s jaw, thumb brushing just beneath his ear.

It would've happened. It was right there — the almost inevitable gravity between them, months of circling finally ready to snap. But at the last second, Lando blinked — like he'd just realized what he was doing — and lurched back.

“Fuck,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet. “I— Fuck. I need to sleep.”

Oscar didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

The door clicked shut behind Lando, leaving Oscar alone with the taste of whiskey on his tongue and his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. Leaving behind nothing but silence and the ghost of something neither of them could name.

He was so fucked.

The next morning was a goddamn nightmare.

Both of them acted completely normal. Too normal.

Piper was back in the paddock — chipper and oblivious, holding out her phone so they could record a little podium debrief for the McLaren socials. Lando grinned through it, Oscar mumbled something sarcastic, and neither of them looked at each other for longer than three seconds.

The comments online were already spiraling.

did anyone else notice the tension in that interview or am i hallucinating

landoscar breakup era???

Piper’s the only thing holding the entire McLaren dynamic together and she doesn’t even know it

Lando’s smile looks so forced I’m scared

The whole grid was watching.

Max’s betting pool was up to nearly €5,000.

And Piper... Piper was starting to suspect something had shifted — but neither of the boys were talking.

Oscar glanced at Lando across the garage — and Lando glanced back — and for one brief second, everything they weren’t saying hovered in the air between them.

Piper caught it — just barely — but before she could ask, George walked by muttering, “They’re fucking by Abu Dhabi.”

Carlos sighed from the corner. “I hope they’re happy. But I will be dead by then.”

Chapter Text

Piper Hastings was not the kind of woman to let the world write her story.

If the entire grid — if the entire goddamn F1 fandom — wanted a polycule, well... she was going to give them a polycule. On her own fucking terms.

It had been building for months. The stolen glances, the inside jokes, the magnetic push-and-pull that everyone seemed to notice except for the three of them. She’d been keeping her head down, trying to maintain some illusion of professionalism — but Monza had shattered that.

She liked both of them.

No — she wanted both of them.

And the best part? They were both too busy trying to one-up each other to realize she was just as deep in it as they were.

It started small — a game of her own design.

Piper began shifting the dynamics. If they were going to make her the prize in their little rivalry, then she'd make damn sure she was the one holding the puppet strings.

First came the compliments — subtle at first, then sharper, more pointed. She praised Oscar's racecraft a little too sweetly during media debriefs. She lingered behind Lando at the garage, fingers brushing his shoulder just long enough to make him glance back with wide, startled eyes.

Neither of them stood a chance.

By Singapore, they'd stopped trying to hide how flustered they were. Oscar's ears turned red whenever she so much as smirked in his direction. Lando stammered through interviews if she looked at him for too long. The grid noticed — of course they did. George and Pierre were merciless. Max just watched the whole thing like a man observing the downfall of society with popcorn in hand.

But the true fun came in the little gifts.

A spare headset for Lando, left on his desk with his favorite snacks tucked beside it.

A lucky charm for Oscar's car, slipped into his glove compartment before FP1.

Neither of them ever asked if she'd been the one to leave them. Neither of them ever returned the favors.

But by the end of the weekend, Piper would always find little trinkets waiting at her workstation — Lando’s favorite chocolate bar, Oscar’s coffee order, a pair of noise-canceling headphones that she knew for a fact Lando had bought himself two days earlier.

She was driving them absolutely insane.

The fans ate it up. Twitter (or whatever the fuck it was called now) was one conspiracy thread away from exploding. Someone had made a whole timeline infographic titled The Papaya Polycule Slow Burn Theory — PROOF . Half of the grid had secretly joined Max’s betting pool. Pierre started wearing sunglasses indoors just so he could lower them dramatically whenever he caught the three of them standing too close together.

And still — neither Lando nor Oscar cracked first.

They orbited her like binary stars, pushing and pulling and never quite colliding. If she teased Oscar, Lando would find some excuse to insert himself into the conversation. If she smiled too long at Lando, Oscar would suddenly remember something very important he needed to ask her.

They didn’t even realize they were starting to orbit each other, too.

That was the funniest part — watching them try to ignore the gravitational pull between them, even as they left each other little offerings behind the scenes.

Oscar started keeping Lando’s favorite snacks stocked in the McLaren fridge. Lando started carrying around Oscar’s lucky charm like it was his own. They bickered like an old married couple, but every time one of them got too close to snapping, Piper would slide in between them — voice sweet, eyes sharp — and suddenly the tension would melt into something softer.

It was so fucking easy to play them.

She almost felt bad about it.

Almost.

The turning point came in Japan.

Oscar had out-qualified Lando by two-tenths. Piper found him in the media pen afterward — cheeks flushed, curls damp with sweat, radiating quiet smugness.

“Nice job out there,” she murmured, low enough that only he could hear.

Oscar’s smirk flickered — the tiniest crack in his armor. “Thanks.”

Piper leaned in — close enough that her breath brushed his ear. “Maybe confidence does look good on you, Piastri.”

He froze. Lando, standing just a few feet away, visibly bristled.

Checkmate.

By the time they got back to the hotel, both boys were vibrating out of their skin — sniping at each other under their breath, flinching every time she so much as glanced their way. It was delicious.

She was going to break them.

She just had to decide when.

She swapped out the usual plain McLaren team shirts for ones that fit just a little tighter. She started wearing lip gloss again — the shiny kind that made her mouth look distractingly kissable. She leaned in close when she talked, touched their arms more often, let her fingers linger when she passed them something.

Oscar was the first to crack.

They were in the garage, prepping for the next race weekend, when Piper bent down beside him to grab something off the floor. He glanced over — and immediately turned the same color as his race suit.

“Problem, Piastri?” she asked, not even looking up.

Oscar cleared his throat. Loudly. “Nope.”

Lando nearly choked on his water bottle behind them.

The second time, it was Lando — caught completely off guard in the motorhome when Piper walked in wearing one of Oscar's spare McLaren hoodies, the hem skimming just below her hips.

“Is that... is that mine?” Lando asked, blinking like his brain had short-circuited.

Piper looked down at herself, perfectly innocent. “Nope.”

Oscar smirked from the couch. “It’s mine.”

Lando's eye twitched. Piper just smiled sweetly and walked out — hips swaying just enough to be noticed.

By the end of the week, the boys were wrecks.

They followed her around like puppies, constantly flustered and quietly suffering. The grid was eating it up — especially once the subtle shift made its way onto social media.

The F1 gossip machine was in overdrive. Every little glance, every lingering touch, every offhand comment — dissected, theorized, meme-ified.

this is no longer a love triangle this is a social experiment and we are all the test subjects

they’re doing a slow burn in real life wtf how am I supposed to survive this

piper is the puppet master and we are all at her mercy

By the third race weekend, the grid had officially lost their minds.

The McLaren trio became everyone's favorite soap opera. George was taking notes like he was writing a thesis. Pierre was fully narrating events like David Attenborough. Max's betting pool was getting so large it was probably violating several FIA regulations.

The only person who hadn't weighed in yet... was Piper.

Until the Thursday press conference.

It was one of those media pen interviews — lighthearted, filler content. The reporter was young, female, and definitely on F1 TikTok, judging by the mischievous glint in her eye when she asked,

“So... the whole internet is speculating about this McLaren polycule situation. Do you have any... comment?”

Both Lando and Oscar immediately froze like someone had just detonated a grenade under the table.

Piper, to her eternal credit, didn’t even blink. She leaned forward slightly — eyes glinting under the lights.

“I think it’s nice that people are... invested.”

The entire media pen collectively lost their shit.

Lando visibly short-circuited. Oscar made a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a strangled laugh. The reporter's mouth fell open.

“Wait— wait, is that a confirmation?”

Piper's smile sharpened — just enough to be dangerous.

“I’m just saying... three’s a nice number.”

The internet exploded. The grid exploded. Max Verstappen nearly fainted from sheer gossip-induced euphoria.

George immediately upped the betting pool to €10,000.

Carlos Sainz sighed heavily into his hands and muttered, “I’m going to die before Abu Dhabi.”

Meanwhile, back in the garage, Lando and Oscar were staring at Piper like she’d just personally rearranged their entire fucking brain chemistry.

The whole grid was watching now.

Fans were compiling spreadsheets. Betting odds fluctuated daily. Someone on TikTok made a three-minute video breaking down the exact distance the boys stood from each other in every press photo.

Carlos looked three years older every time someone brought it up.

“I give it two more races,” George declared in the paddock hospitality one evening, flicking through a spreadsheet on his phone. “They’re going to snap by Qatar.”

“They’re going to die before they confess anything,” Pierre muttered, scrolling through the TikTok comments like they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. “‘Just kiss already’ — wow, groundbreaking analysis.”

Carlos sighed from the corner. “I give it until my hair turns gray.”

Piper just sipped her coffee and smiled.

It was so easy.

By Austin, they'd stopped pretending altogether.

Oscar offered her his spare jacket when the temperatures dropped during night sessions — but Lando was the one who fetched her tea without her having to ask. Lando made her laugh loudest in the media pen — but Oscar was the one who stood just a little too close whenever they reviewed lap data together.

She could see the exact moment they realized what was happening — the flickers of panic behind their eyes every time they caught themselves looking at each other for a little too long.

They were both falling.

Neither of them knew how to hit the brakes.

And Piper?

Piper had never felt more powerful in her entire life.

Chapter Text

The games were officially on.

It started with Lando first — fumbling his way through a half-mumbled invitation to dinner as they wrapped up media duties on Thursday. The whole thing was pitched under the thin veil of friendly — a casual little evening out, just the two of them, no pressure. He suggested a small, hole-in-the-wall pasta place he’d found on TikTok, trying to play it off like he wasn’t absolutely sweating through the collar of his McLaren polo.

Piper had smiled and said she’d think about it, then immediately walked straight into Oscar in the hallway outside the hospitality unit — who stammered through an almost identical invitation for Saturday. His plan involved a canal walk and gelato, followed by drinks at a rooftop bar he'd heard about from Pierre. The whole thing sounded suspiciously romantic for someone allegedly not trying to impress her.

Pierre, who had been lingering in the doorway behind them, made a sound like he'd just witnessed a car crash in slow motion.

“Friendly, huh?” he muttered, loud enough for both Lando and Oscar to hear as they disappeared in opposite directions. The eye roll that followed could’ve powered the entire paddock.

Piper only clocked what was happening later that night when she was seated across from Carlos in the Ferrari motorhome, both of them nursing lukewarm coffees and trading gossip. She recounted both invitations with a bemused smile — not quite sure if she was imagining things.

Carlos, God bless him, actually choked on his drink.

“Oh, no.”

“What?” Piper blinked. “What?”

Carlos scrubbed a hand down his face, visibly aging five years in real-time. “They’re trying to... court you.”

Piper's snort was immediate. “Court me? What is this, Bridgerton?”

Carlos didn’t dignify that with a response — just fixed her with one of those long-suffering, older-brother looks that made her feel about three inches tall.

“Okay,” she conceded, stirring her coffee. “Maybe they’re... trying to impress me a little. So what?”

Carlos leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “They asked you out separately?”

Piper nodded.

“Same weekend?”

Another nod.

Carlos’ head thunked against the table like he'd officially reached the end of his tether. “They’re morons.”

Piper’s smile sharpened — slow, wicked, puppet-master gears clicking into place.

“Not necessarily.”

By the time Friday rolled around, she’d made her decision. When Lando and Oscar each tentatively followed up on their respective offers — awkwardly cornering her at different points in the paddock — she hit them both with the exact same response.

“Actually... what if we did both? Together?”

Oscar’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again — like someone had just unplugged him mid-sentence.

Lando blinked three times in rapid succession before managing a strangled, “Yeah. Sure. Cool. Why not?”

Pierre nearly dislocated his jaw from rolling his eyes so hard.

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, the entire grid was in full surveillance mode.

Alex and George had taken things to the next level — tailing the trio through the streets of Monza in absolutely terrible disguises. George was wearing a fake mustache that kept sliding off his lip, while Alex had inexplicably chosen to wear sunglasses and a hoodie — at night — like he was auditioning for a budget Netflix crime drama.

Piper spotted them immediately, obviously — but didn’t say a word.

Instead, she made a show of leaning in a little closer between Lando and Oscar as they strolled through the cobbled streets, pretending not to notice the hushed, frantic updates happening on Twitter.

IS THAT ALEX AND GEORGE IN DISGUISE???????

They’re not even trying anymore I’m crying

this is just like the episode of iCarly where Spencer followed Carly on her date for evidence i need George to carry a giant plant

The dinner was exactly what Piper had anticipated — both boys trying way too hard in different ways. Lando couldn’t shut up. Oscar barely spoke. They were both doing mental gymnastics trying to out-charm each other without making it obvious.

Piper played them like a violin.

She brushed her hand over Lando’s arm when she laughed at one of his bad jokes, then turned and caught Oscar watching with that dark, contemplative little stare of his. When the check arrived, she let them stumble through the whole split it? no, I'll get it—no, I insist routine just to see how long they’d keep up the farce before she cut in and paid the whole bill herself.

After dinner, they walked down to the canal for gelato. Lando managed to drip his all over his hands within five minutes, Oscar snarked something under his breath, and Piper made a great show of licking her own cone with perfect, infuriating precision — purely to watch them both short-circuit.

By the time they ended up at the rooftop bar, the tension was still there — crackling beneath the surface — but they were starting to let go. They made fun of each other’s drink choices. Lando teased Oscar about his weirdly specific Spotify playlists. Oscar hit back with some cutting remark about Lando’s TikTok addiction that made Piper laugh so hard she nearly spilled her drink.

It was... nice.

Not perfect. Not the three of them wrapped up in some tidy little bow. But something easier — something that felt like them.

By the time they ended up sprawled across Piper’s hotel balcony with half-melted ice creams and aching cheeks from laughing too hard, whatever weirdness had been hanging over them had started to dissolve. The night stretched long and lazy around them — summer heat still clinging to the air, the city lights flickering below.

George and Alex made one final attempt at surveillance from behind a potted plant by the pool — only to get absolutely roasted by Lando on Instagram the next morning.

The whole grid watched the aftermath like it was the season finale of their favorite show.

THEY DID BOTH DATES TOGETHER I AM GOING TO COLLAPSE

when will my life have this kind of enemies to lovers to polycule slow burn arc

alex and george trailing them all night in shitty disguises is the unsung comedy of this whole saga

But the real chaos didn’t hit until the next morning, when one particularly brave fan asked Piper about the rumors during an impromptu autograph session.

“Are you... entertaining both of them?”

Piper didn’t blink.

“Wouldn’t you?”

The whole paddock watched the clip approximately seven million times.

George actually dropped his coffee.

Pierre looked like he was considering the priesthood.

Max’s betting pool cracked €10,000 overnight.

Carlos — wise, exhausted Carlos — simply sighed and muttered, “I need a cigarette.”

Everyone was watching.

The puppet strings were officially in Piper’s hands now.

And she was ready to play.

Chapter Text

The invitation had gone out in secret.

Technically, there was no official reason why the entire grid had ended up crammed into Pierre’s hotel suite on a Thursday night — blinds drawn, phones in airplane mode, and three separate betting pools pinned to the wall behind the minibar.

Officially, this was just a casual little get-together.

Unofficially, George Russell had organized a full-blown PowerPoint night to address what he had been referring to (in increasingly frantic tones) as the Papaya Polycule Situation™.

“Alright, everyone shut up,” George announced, clapping his hands together at the front of the room. “Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Papaya Polycule Conspiracy Summit.”

“Jesus Christ.” Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have officially lived too long.”

“Is there a dress code?” Alex piped up from the sofa, wearing a bucket hat and holding a beer with a little paper umbrella in it. “Because I feel like there should be a dress code.”

George ignored him, clicking a slide onto the TV screen. The title card read:

THE PAPAYA POLYCULE: A CASE STUDY IN SLOW-BURN DEGENRACY

Oscar’s cutthroat mentality – Lando’s newfound maturity – The Puppet Master Emerges

Pierre snorted so hard he nearly spilled his wine.

“Okay.” George steepled his fingers under his chin, suddenly very serious. “We are gathered here tonight to discuss what I believe to be the most poorly concealed love triangle in the history of Formula One. Over the past six months, we have witnessed a series of suspicious interactions, unexplained social media activity, and deeply unhinged fan speculation — all of which point to one inescapable conclusion: they’re all in love with each other and making it everyone’s problem.”

“I feel like there’s supposed to be a disclaimer before this presentation,” Oliver muttered from the floor, flipping through a battered notebook labeled Papaya Polycule Theories — Vol. 2.

George clicked to the next slide, which was just a picture of Piper sandwiched between Lando and Oscar at Silverstone, all three of them squinting suspiciously at something off-camera.

“Exhibit A: The Body Language.”

“George.” Carlos’s eye was twitching. “Have you considered... minding your business?”

“Absolutely not.” George clicked again.

Exhibit B: Monza Double Date Gate™

A grainy screenshot of Alex’s Twitter thread documenting the entire night — including several blurry photos of himself and George in their terrible disguises.

“I still cannot believe you wore a mustache,” Pierre muttered, shaking his head. “You look like a Victorian child trying to sneak into a saloon.”

“I committed to the bit,” George sniffed.

Max, who had been quietly nursing a beer in the corner, finally looked up. “Has anyone... asked them?”

The entire room turned to stare at him like he’d just suggested they stage a coup against the FIA.

“Ask them?” Charles repeated, scandalized. “What is the point of that?”

“That’s not how this works,” Yuki added, horrified. “We don’t ask. We speculate wildly and create drama out of thin air.”

“Exactly.” George nodded. “Thank you, Yuki.”

Next slide.

Exhibit C: The Fans Know Everything

George clicked through a dizzying array of Twitter screenshots — fan threads meticulously analyzing every glance, every touch, every slightly-too-long look exchanged between the three of them.

POV: you’re a piece of furniture in the McLaren motorhome and have to witness Lando and Oscar trying to flirt with the same girl for six months straight

it’s not even a love triangle anymore it’s a tragicomedy where they’re all clowns but the hottest clowns you’ve ever seen

the slowest burn in history and I am happily rotting in the trenches for it

The room dissolved into laughter.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Alex wheezed. “Go back to that one.”

George flipped back.

Piper Hastings is out here orchestrating her own Enemies to Lovers to Polycule arc like she’s the fucking director of Challengers (2024)

Pierre made a choked noise somewhere between a snort and a full-blown cackle.

“Okay, that one’s fair.”

“I respect the vision,” Charles nodded solemnly.

“I hate all of you.” Carlos looked like he was considering walking into the sea.

By the time the third round of PowerPoints rolled around — including Alex’s 14-slide breakdown of Who Would Be the Big Spoon in the Polycule (Evidence-Based Edition) — the room was fully unhinged.

Max had started running odds out of the minibar.

Pierre was in the corner arguing heatedly with Charles about whether or not Piper had been deliberately leading them on the entire time.

Yuki had gone full tinfoil hat, scribbling frantically in Oliver’s conspiracy notebook.

George presented The McLaren Throuple™ Timeline with three separate shipping eras broken down by race weekends, meme formats, and subtle Instagram interactions.

Alex gave a TED Talk titled Enemies to Lovers to Polycule: How One Woman Single-Handedly Brought Bisexual Chaos to the Grid.

Oliver unveiled a red-string corkboard he had been secretly working on for three months.

By the time the meeting wrapped up — several hours, two empty wine bottles, and approximately twelve separate fan threads later — the official consensus was as follows:

1. Piper absolutely knows what she’s doing.

2. Lando and Oscar are in way over their heads.

3. This whole thing is either going to end in a beautiful, chaotic polycule... or someone setting the McLaren motorhome on fire.

“Honestly,” Pierre drawled, stretching out on the sofa, “I think they’re all going to crack by the end of the season.”

Carlos stared into the middle distance like a man who had seen too much. “I think I need a vacation.”

George clicked to the final slide.

CONCLUSION: THEY’RE ALL IN LOVE AND IT’S MAKING US ALL SICK.

The room erupted in applause.

Max’s betting pool cracked €15,000 overnight.

Yuki started drafting a fanfic.

Oliver opened a Google Doc titled Papaya Polycule: A Critical Analysis.

And somewhere in the distance — completely unaware that half the grid had just held a full-scale conspiracy summit about her love life — Piper Hastings was probably sipping a coffee and plotting her next move.

Chapter Text

There were moments that belonged to them — quiet, fragile things tucked away from prying eyes and gossiping mouths. No fan threads or conspiracy PowerPoints. No cameras lingering too long. No grid-wide betting pools.

Just them.

—

Lando fell asleep on the McLaren motorhome sofa more often than he probably should. Piper teased him for it mercilessly, but she always tucked a blanket over him anyway. Oscar had started doing the same without really thinking about it. One time, they both went for the blanket at the same time, their hands bumping against each other.

Lando had blinked sleepily between them, face half-buried in a cushion. “You guys fighting over who gets to tuck me in?”

“Shut up,” Piper had muttered, cheeks pink.

Oscar had shoved the blanket at Lando’s chest and walked off like his ears weren’t burning.

None of them ever talked about it.

—

Piper kept snacks in her bag — protein bars, little packets of gummy candy, electrolyte tablets. It had started out as a habit from working long race weekends, but now it was just... a thing. Lando would sidle up to her during media days and rummage through her tote without even asking. Oscar wasn’t as bold, but sometimes she’d feel him hovering nearby, waiting for her to just offer.

They were both insufferable.

“You guys are like stray cats,” she grumbled once, handing Oscar a pack of sour candies without even looking up from her laptop.

“Yeah, but we’re your stray cats,” Lando said, already halfway through a granola bar.

She threw an empty wrapper at his head.

—

Oscar wasn’t a big talker, but he had this quiet, steady presence that both of them had learned to orbit around. Piper found herself gravitating towards him when she was feeling overwhelmed — not because he always knew what to say, but because he didn’t expect her to say anything at all. He’d just sit next to her, flipping through some technical briefing or scrolling on his phone, letting the silence stretch out.

Lando, on the other hand, could fill any silence with chatter — half of it nonsense, the other half surprisingly thoughtful. He’d talk until the tension in her chest unraveled, until whatever weight she was carrying didn’t feel quite so heavy.

Somehow, between the two of them, they always managed to balance her out.

—

There was a night in Singapore when the humidity clung to their skin and the whole city felt half-asleep. Piper had found a little rooftop terrace tucked away behind the hotel, half-hidden behind vines and potted plants. She didn’t think anyone else knew about it.

But then Lando showed up with two beers in hand, and five minutes later Oscar wandered in like he’d been following some invisible thread that always led him back to them.

They sat there for hours — shoulders brushing, the air heavy and still, the whole world quiet below them.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Piper murmured, tipping her head against Lando’s shoulder.

“Not sleeping,” Lando mumbled, eyes already half-closed.

Oscar didn’t say anything — just stretched his legs out in front of him and tilted his head back against the wall, eyes flickering shut.

She never told anyone, but that might have been her favorite night of the whole season.

—

Lando’s hoodies kept disappearing.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize where they were going. He caught Piper in one of them first — sleeves rolled up to her elbows, headphones over her ears as she worked on some last-minute graphics before FP3. She looked up like she’d been caught committing a crime.

“Is that... mine?”

“No.”

“Piper.”

“Okay, maybe.”

He let it slide because she looked too cute to scold.

But then a week later, Oscar showed up to the airport in one of his McLaren zip-ups, the collar pulled high like he was trying to disappear into it.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Oscar turned pink and muttered something about it being laundry day.

Lando filed the betrayal away for future retaliation.

—

They got used to occupying the same spaces without needing to fill them.

Oscar reading with his feet tucked under Piper’s legs on the sofa.

Lando lying on the floor with his head in her lap while she scrolled through her laptop, absentmindedly carding her fingers through his hair.

Piper leaning against Oscar’s shoulder during long layovers, pretending not to notice when he adjusted his arm to make her more comfortable.

None of it ever felt like a big deal in the moment.

But then Lando would catch Oscar watching Piper with something soft and helpless in his eyes — or Piper would glance up to find Lando already looking at her like he wanted to memorize every inch of her face — or Oscar would feel Lando’s fingers brush against his wrist and swallow hard like the touch had set something on fire inside him.

And suddenly it all felt like everything.

—

Piper had a scar on her wrist — a thin, pale line that curved just below the bone. Neither of them ever asked how she got it, but sometimes Lando would trace it with his thumb absentmindedly when they were sitting close. Oscar noticed it once during a rain delay, the three of them crammed onto a sofa in the hospitality lounge.

He reached out without thinking — just brushed the pad of his finger over the scar like he was mapping something out.

Piper’s breath caught, but she didn’t pull away.

Neither of them ever mentioned it.

—

It wasn’t always soft.

There were sharp edges too — bad races, shitty days, long silences where none of them knew what to say. Oscar snapping at Lando after a tense debrief. Piper biting out something cold and cutting when she was overtired and fraying at the edges. Lando’s face crumpling in that way he never let the cameras see.

But somehow, they always found their way back to each other.

Always.

—

Nobody else ever saw these moments.

They were theirs.

They didn’t know what they were building — didn’t know if it would crack apart or stretch wider to hold all of them.

All they knew was that none of them could quite seem to let go.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Chapter Text

It started, as most catastrophes did, with Pierre Gasly and a PowerPoint presentation.

“I’m just saying,” Pierre leaned forward conspiratorially, brandishing a clicker like a cigarette between his fingers. “If you ever wanted to make them... suffer a little bit — clear some of that emotional constipation — I could provide a very reasonable solution.”

Piper stared at him from across the café table, halfway through her second iced coffee of the afternoon, eyes narrowed. “You’ve been talking for ten minutes and I still have no idea where this is going.”

Pierre’s grin went full Cheshire Cat. “One date. With me.”

Piper’s face did something complicated — a flicker of amusement, exasperation, and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from spending far too much time around Formula One drivers. “Pierre—”

“Not because I’m in love with you,” Pierre added quickly, clicking to the next slide of his homemade PowerPoint deck. Why This Will Emotionally Wreck Your Two Idiots and Ultimately Lead to a Thriving Polycule: A Case Study.

Piper pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh my god.”

“Hear me out,” Pierre continued, absolutely undeterred. “It’s a scientific experiment. We create jealousy. We unlock their deepest, most repressed desires. And —” he leaned in for dramatic effect — “you get a nice dinner out of it.”

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “You just want to fuck with them.”

Pierre’s grin went razor sharp. “Absolutely.”

For a second, she almost shot him down. But then she thought about the months of pining, the near-misses, the unbearable slow burn that had been driving both her and everyone around them clinically insane.

And, well.

What was one little date if it pushed things along?

“Fine,” Piper sighed, leaning back in her chair. “One date.”

Pierre’s whole face lit up.

“On one condition,” she added, pointing a warning finger at him. “If this somehow ends with me being chased through the paddock by two rabid McLaren drivers, I’m blaming you.”

The group chat found out thirty minutes later.

Papaya Polycule (3)
Piper: going out with Pierre tonight, don’t wait up x

Lando: What.
Oscar: What.
Lando: WHAT.
Oscar: Where.
Lando: When.
Oscar: Why.
Lando: WHO ALLOWED THIS.

Piper muted the chat and went about her afternoon.

By the time Pierre picked her up that evening — obnoxiously on time, dressed like he’d walked straight out of a Riviera postcard — Lando and Oscar were already deep into Espionage Mode™.

They stalked them from the hotel lobby.

They followed at a not-so-safe distance through the streets of Monaco, huddled in a black SUV with tinted windows.

Oscar, to his eternal shame, was wearing the mustache disguise George had left behind after the Monza debacle.

“They’re laughing,” Lando hissed from behind the steering wheel, knuckles white. “Why are they laughing?”

“Because normal people enjoy each other’s company, Lando.”

“Shut up.”

“They’re just friends.”

“Shut up.”

Pierre, meanwhile, was having the time of his life.

He ordered wine. He leaned in close when Piper talked. He threw an arm around the back of her chair with the kind of casual ease that was absolutely calculated for maximum psychological damage.

Piper, to her own shock, was... having fun.

Not in a romantic way — Pierre was a menace, but he wasn’t her menace — but in a light, easy way that made her chest feel loose for the first time in months. There was no tension thrumming under the surface. No sharp edges. Just two friends sharing a meal and trading barbs without the weight of something unsaid hanging between them.

It was... nice.

And maybe that was the most dangerous part of all.

“They’re smiling.”

“They’re allowed to smile, Lando.”

“But why does she look... happy?”

Oscar glanced at him, incredulous. “You don’t want her to be happy?”

“Not with him.”

Oscar opened his mouth, then slowly closed it again. His heart was beating somewhere high in his throat — uncomfortable and tight — but he couldn’t quite bring himself to examine why.

Instead, he pulled out his phone.

McLaren Espionage Unit
Oscar: he just tucked her hair behind her ear

George: OH MY GOD.
Alex: YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.
Yuki: kill him.
Carlos: I hate all of you.

Lando snatched the phone out of his hands. “Traitor.”

“They’re just friends.”

“They’re just friends,” Lando mimicked, scowling. “He’s trying to emotionally manipulate her into realizing she’s in love with us.”

Oscar stared at him.

Lando’s eyes widened.

“Not us,” he corrected quickly. “Me. Me. Definitely just me.”

Oscar said nothing.

The silence stretched.

Lando’s ears were turning pink.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Shut. Up.”

The date ended without incident.

Pierre kissed Piper on the cheek at her hotel door — entirely for the benefit of the hidden cameras, the bastard — and whistled his way back down the hall.

Piper leaned against the doorframe, trying to figure out why she suddenly felt... off.

It had been a perfectly nice evening. No tension. No pressure. No constant ache under her ribs.

Maybe that was the problem.

She liked the ache.

She liked them.

And she was absolutely, undeniably fucked.

By morning, a blurry fan video of Lando and Oscar hunting Pierre through the streets of Monaco like feral dogs was making the rounds on Twitter.

The grid group chat was in flames.

The fans were in shambles.

Pierre had added the entire PowerPoint deck to his Instagram stories.

Carlos booked a hair transplant consultation.

And somewhere in the distance — probably locked in a McLaren motorhome, screaming at each other — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were finally starting to understand that whatever was happening between the three of them wasn’t just a slow burn anymore.

It was a full-blown inferno.

Chapter Text

Monaco felt like a fever dream.

It was late summer, hot and sticky with salt in the air and the distant sound of waves breaking against the marina. Piper walked through the sunlit streets half-aware of herself, the heat making everything feel suspended — stretched thin and shimmering at the edges.

She'd been stuck in her own head all day, chewing at the edges of thoughts she couldn't quite articulate. The game — the constant push and pull between the three of them — had been fun for a while. It still was, mostly.

But lately... it was starting to ache.

She didn't know when the tension had turned from thrilling to exhausting — when every glance, every fleeting touch, had started to feel like a weight pressing down on her ribs. She could feel the whole thing balancing on a knife's edge, all three of them circling something they refused to name.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to push them over or pull back before they all went crashing down together.

Piper was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't even realize where she was walking — not until she heard voices filtering through a half-open door.

“—Because you always fucking do this, Lando!”

She froze.

Oscar.

It wasn't like they didn't fight. They bickered constantly — sniping and teasing and winding each other up — but this sounded... different.

Raw.

“Do what?” Lando snapped back. His voice was sharp, breathless. “What the fuck do I always do?”

“You act like you're the only one who feels like this.”

Piper's heart lurched into her throat.

Her brain screamed at her to walk away. But her feet stayed rooted to the floor, pulse hammering in her ears.

“You think this is easy for me?” Lando's voice cracked on the last word. “You think I don't fucking lie awake at night losing my mind over both of you?”

Both of you.

The words crashed over her like a tidal wave — a confirmation she'd known deep down for months but had never heard out loud.

There was a long silence — the kind that stretched and pulled until it hurt.

When Oscar finally spoke, his voice was low and unsteady.

“You never fucking say it.”

Piper's breath caught in her chest.

Neither of them had seen her yet. She should leave. She should. But she couldn't move — couldn't look away — caught somewhere between horror and something sharp and electric clawing under her skin.

“What do you want me to say?” Lando shot back, too loud, too defensive. “That I want you? That I want her? That I don't know how to fucking deal with any of this without wrecking everything?”

“YES.”

Oscar's voice cracked like a whip.

“Jesus, Lando — I just want you to say it. For once. I'm so fucking tired of pretending this isn't happening.”

Piper felt like the ground was tilting under her feet.

Every breath was tight and shallow — the world narrowing down to the heat in her chest and the jagged edge of their voices echoing off the walls.

She didn't even realize she'd stepped forward until the door creaked open beneath her hand.

Both of them whipped around — wide-eyed, flushed, breathing hard.

“Piper?”

Lando's voice was barely a whisper.

Piper's mouth opened — then snapped shut again.

For one excruciating second, none of them moved.

Then Lando took a half-step forward, reaching for her — and Piper panicked.

“Don't.”

It came out sharper than she meant it — cutting through the thick, humid air like a knife.

Lando froze.

Oscar's face went pale.

“Pipes—” Lando tried again, softer this time. “It's not—”

“Don't you fucking dare tell me it's not what it looks like.” Her voice was shaking. “I'm not stupid.”

Neither of them said anything.

The silence stretched out between them — brittle and suffocating — until something inside Piper snapped.

“You two are so fucking selfish.”

Lando flinched like she'd slapped him.

Oscar's eyes went glassy.

“You think you're the only ones who feel like you're going insane?” Her voice was rising, breaking at the edges. “You think I haven't been walking around for months trying to keep this whole fucked-up mess from swallowing me whole? Trying to hold both of you together without falling apart myself?”

Lando's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

Oscar just stood there, silent and shell-shocked.

“You want me to say it?” Piper's heart was hammering in her chest, breath coming too fast. “Fine. I'll fucking say it. I want both of you. I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life — and it's killing me.”

Her vision blurred at the edges.

She could feel the panic rising in her throat — the dizzy, clawing need to get out.

Neither of them tried to stop her when she turned on her heel and bolted.

She didn't know where she was going — only that she needed to run before the walls closed in completely.

She barely registered the sound of her name echoing down the hall behind her.

Lando's voice — hoarse and desperate.

Oscar's footsteps — heavy and uneven.

But she didn't stop.

She didn't look back.

She didn't see the way Lando's knees buckled against the doorframe — or the way Oscar pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes like he was trying to hold himself together by sheer force of will.

She just ran — out into the warm Monaco night — gasping for air and trying to outrun the way her heart was breaking clean down the middle.

When the fan video surfaced the next morning — grainy footage of two shirtless McLaren drivers screaming at each other on a hotel balcony at 3AM — the entire internet lost its mind.

Lando and Oscar having a lovers' quarrel in Monaco at 3AM while Piper is nowhere to be seen??? Do NOT talk to me right now.

the papaya polycule is going down in flames and I'm thriving

Piper walked out on them and they immediately went full Roman Empire meltdown I can't do this anymore

...is anyone going to check if Carlos Sainz is still alive or is he just in his hotel room chain-smoking and stress-aging five years per day?

The grid's group chat was a disaster zone.

Carlos absolutely not Carlos: i am REFUSING to get involved in whatever the fuck is happening

Alex: what if we set up a couples therapy GoFundMe

Pierre: what if we just... let nature take its course and see who survives

George: i have so many questions and also a new powerpoint ready to go

Yuki: im writing the fanfic

Somewhere out in the city, Piper was sitting on a rooftop with a cigarette she didn't actually know how to smoke — knees pulled to her chest, head tipped back to stare at the stars — trying to figure out what the hell she'd just done.

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to scream or cry or laugh hysterically until she couldn't breathe.

Maybe all three at once.

God help them all.

Chapter Text

The hotel room was quiet — the kind of quiet that felt heavier than silence.

Oscar lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes, arms crossed over his chest like he was trying to hold himself together from the outside in. Lando sat at the edge of the bed, head in his hands, elbows digging into his knees. The space between them felt cavernous — a breath away but miles apart.

Neither of them had spoken since Piper left.

The echo of the door slamming shut still rang somewhere in the hollow of Oscar’s chest.

“She’s right,” Lando finally muttered, voice barely above a whisper.

Oscar’s eyes flicked sideways but he didn’t move otherwise. His throat felt tight, like something was stuck there. He wasn’t sure if it was a sob or the words he’d been biting back for months.

“I know,” Oscar said eventually, so quiet Lando almost didn’t hear him.

The weight of the admission pressed down harder on both of them. The room smelled faintly of leftover cologne, sweat, and something sharp — regret, maybe.

Lando scrubbed a hand through his curls, messing them up worse than they already were. “We fucked this up so bad, mate.”

Oscar let out a flat, humorless breath through his nose. “Yeah.”

The knot in Lando’s chest twisted tighter. He leaned forward, squeezing the back of his neck like he could force himself to think clearer. Everything felt hazy — too much alcohol, too little sleep, too many feelings he didn’t know what to do with.

“Do you—” Lando’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Do you think she’s gonna come back?”

Oscar’s heart clenched so hard it hurt. He closed his eyes, wishing he had an answer that didn’t taste like rust in his mouth.

“I don’t know.”

Lando’s breath caught. He pressed his palms harder into his eyes like he could stop himself from feeling anything if he just pushed hard enough.

“I don’t want to lose her,” Lando whispered, raw and broken in a way Oscar had never heard before.

Oscar’s chest squeezed tighter. It felt like something was splitting down the middle inside him — jagged and slow. He didn’t know if he wanted to reach for Lando or push him away.

“You think I do?” Oscar’s voice was sharper than he meant it to be, but he was too fucking tired to reel it back. “You think this doesn’t scare the shit out of me too?”

Lando’s head snapped up, blue eyes bloodshot and shining in the dim light. For a second, neither of them breathed.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Lando admitted, voice breaking right down the middle. “I just— I love her. And I love you. And I don’t know how to stop.”

The words hung heavy between them.

Oscar’s heart clenched so painfully he thought it might crack wide open right there. He squeezed his eyes shut, teeth digging into his bottom lip. He could feel the truth lodged somewhere between his ribs — buried deep for so long it had started to ache.

“I love you too,” Oscar said, barely more than a breath. “I think I’ve loved you for a while.”

The room went deathly still.

Lando’s breath hitched. His hands fell from his face, fingers curling into the sheets like they were the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

Oscar forced himself to look at him — really look at him. The freckles scattered across his nose, the curl of his lashes, the way his lips parted like he wasn’t quite sure how to breathe.

They’d been orbiting each other for months — years maybe — circling closer and closer until they both got caught in the same gravitational pull.

But now... now they were crashing.

“What do we do?” Lando asked, voice breaking on the last word.

Oscar’s chest ached. He wished he had an answer — something that would fix this whole mess and stitch them back together. But all he had were too many feelings and not enough words.

“I don’t know.”

Lando’s face crumpled — something fragile and heartbreaking. He looked away, shoulders curling inward like he was trying to make himself smaller.

Oscar’s fingers twitched against the mattress. He wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly they were closer — knees brushing, breath mingling in the too-warm air.

They both froze.

Lando’s eyes flicked down to Oscar’s mouth, then back up — quick, nervous, unsure.

Oscar’s heart slammed against his ribs. He could feel Lando’s breath on his lips — shaky, warm, right there.

This is a mistake, some distant part of him thought.

But then Lando leaned in, just barely — the softest brush of his lips against Oscar’s, fleeting and fragile and heartbreakingly careful.

Oscar’s breath caught.

It wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t some grand, earth-shattering moment.

It was quiet.

Tender.

Sad.

They lingered — barely touching, sharing the same breath — before Lando pulled back, eyes wide and searching.

Oscar’s heart ached.

“It’s not the same without her,” Lando whispered, voice splintering at the edges.

Oscar’s chest squeezed so tight he couldn’t breathe.

“I know.”

They sat there in the heavy, hollow silence — two halves of something broken, trying to fit together without the piece that made them whole.

Neither of them moved.

Neither of them spoke.

They just sat there — close enough to touch, but still so painfully far apart.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged them both down. Lando curled into Oscar’s side without a word, face buried in his shoulder. Oscar’s arms came around him automatically — muscle memory more than anything — fingers tangling in messy curls.

They didn’t kiss again.

They didn’t talk.

They just held on — two boys tangled up in something too big for either of them to carry alone.

It wasn’t enough.

But for tonight, it would have to be.

The night stretched on in heavy silence, the clock ticking somewhere distant. They drifted between sleep and wakefulness, clinging to each other without ever quite breaking the surface. When the sun started bleeding through the curtains, neither of them had moved. They just held on — fragile, frayed, and waiting for something to crack open.

Waiting for her to come back.

Chapter Text

Lando woke up with the taste of regret thick on his tongue. The hotel room was still heavy with the remnants of the night before — stale air, crumpled sheets, and the echo of things they couldn’t take back. Oscar was still half-asleep, curled into himself on the other bed, face pressed into the pillow like he could block out the whole world.

They’d kissed.

They’d kissed, and it hadn’t fixed anything.

Piper was still gone.

Lando sat up slowly, wincing as the sunlight sliced through the blinds. His head throbbed. His chest ached worse.

“Come on,” he muttered, voice scratchy. “We need to find her.”

Oscar grumbled something into his pillow that sounded suspiciously like fuck off, but Lando wasn’t having it. He grabbed the nearest pillow and lobbed it straight at Oscar’s head.

“Get up, mate. She’s out there somewhere probably plotting our demise.”

Oscar cracked one bleary eye open, face smushed against the pillow. He looked like shit. Lando was pretty sure he did too.

“Where the hell are we supposed to start?” Oscar croaked, voice rough from sleep.

Lando’s phone buzzed on the nightstand — the group chat lighting up with unread messages.

George Russell: WHERE IS THE POLYCOOL. REPORT YOUR LOCATION.

Alex Albon: I have the people, I have the technology, I can find her if you give me 15 minutes and a laptop.

Pierre Gasly: Have you considered she doesn’t want to be found?

Carlos Sainz: Shut up, Pierre.

George Russell: We’re calling this OPERATION PAPAYACULE: MISSION FIND THE GIRL.

Lando Norris: Why the fuck are you like this.

George Russell: Because someone has to be. Now get moving, papaya peasants.

Lando groaned, tossing his phone onto the bed. “They’re absolutely no help.”

Oscar sighed, dragging himself upright with all the enthusiasm of a man facing his own execution. “They’re idiots.”

“They’re our idiots.”

Oscar scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick up in every direction. He looked wrecked — pale and exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. But when he glanced at Lando, something flickered there — something tired and determined.

“She’s gotta be leaving a trail.”

Lando nodded slowly. Piper was too smart to just vanish without a trace. If she didn’t want to be found, they never would. But she was angry — not cruel. She wanted them to work for it.

The hunt was on.

They started with the fans.

Big mistake.

@f1lovesmess: OKAY WAIT SO PIPER HASTINGS WAS SPOTTED AT A COFFEE SHOP IN MONACO THIS MORNING... ALONE??? IS SHE FINALLY FREE FROM THE PAPAYA LOVE TRIANGLE???

@landooscarstanaccount: Shut up shut up shut up she’s not running she’s making them chase her. Girl is playing chess in a game of checkers.

@padikkararetumblr: Confirmed sighting at a bookstore??? Is she buying self-help books to recover from being in a situationship with two emotionally constipated caucasian men???

“Okay, they’re actually kind of helpful,” Lando muttered, scrolling through the endless stream of fan theories.

Oscar leaned over his shoulder, squinting at the screen. “Are they making memes out of us again?”

“Constantly.”

They followed the breadcrumb trail through Instagram stories, blurry Twitter videos, and TikToks where fans half-whispered theories like they were solving a true crime case.

It was bizarre — watching the whole internet try to piece together the mess they’d made.

The first dead end was the coffee shop.

Oscar’s hood was pulled low over his face, sunglasses perched on his nose like that would make him any less recognizable. Lando kept checking over his shoulder like he expected a mob of teenage girls to jump out from behind the pastry counter.

“Excuse me,” Lando said to the barista, flashing his best boyish smile. “Did you see a girl come through here earlier? About this tall, brown hair, smart mouth?”

The barista blinked. “You mean Piper?”

Oscar’s heart kicked against his ribs.

“You know her?” Lando asked, voice rising.

“She ordered a cortado and told me I deserved a raise.”

“That’s her.”

Oscar leaned forward. “When was she here?”

The barista glanced at the clock. “Couple hours ago.”

Lando groaned. “Did she say where she was going?”

The barista shrugged. “Something about needing fresh air.”

“Fuck.”

They chased ghosts through Monaco — parks, waterfronts, little boutiques that looked exactly like the kind of places Piper would wander into just to smell candles she had no intention of buying.

Every time they thought they were close, she slipped further away.

It was maddening — like trying to catch smoke with bare hands.

By sunset, they were back at square one, sweaty and exhausted, leaning against a graffiti-covered wall in some alleyway.

“This is fucking impossible,” Lando muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.

Oscar kicked at a loose stone. His heart felt like it was cracking open a little more with every hour she stayed gone.

“What if she doesn’t want to be found?”

Lando’s stomach twisted. The thought had been gnawing at him all day — the idea that maybe they were too late. Maybe she was already gone.

He glanced at Oscar, who was staring down at his shoes like they held all the answers.

“I think she does.”

Oscar’s head snapped up, eyes sharp. “How do you know?”

Lando’s mouth quirked into something tired and sad. “Because if she wanted to disappear, she’d be long gone by now.”

They both fell silent.

The grid chat was still going off in their phones — a constant stream of memes, bad theories, and George’s increasingly unhinged voice memos.

Neither of them replied.

Eventually, Oscar sighed and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the pavement.

“Maybe she’s waiting for us to give up.”

Lando’s chest ached.

“Then we don’t.”

By the time they dragged themselves back to the hotel, the sun had dipped below the horizon and the whole city was glowing gold and pink.

They didn’t find her.

They barely even came close.

Lando collapsed onto the bed, burying his face in the pillow. Oscar sat on the edge, elbows on his knees, staring at the wall like it might give him answers if he glared hard enough.

The silence stretched out heavy between them.

“We’re losing her,” Oscar said quietly, like he was afraid saying it too loud would make it true.

Lando squeezed his eyes shut. His chest felt hollow — like something was missing.

“We’ll find her,” he said, voice rough. “We have to.”

Oscar didn’t answer.

Neither of them slept that night.

Out there somewhere, Piper was waiting.

And they were still one step behind.

Chapter Text

Piper found them exactly where she thought they’d be—alone, exhausted, and drowning in the weight of everything that had been left unsaid.

The rooftop of the hotel was quiet at this time of night. The wind bit against her skin, but she barely felt it, too focused on the two figures slumped against the railing. Lando had his arms crossed over the edge, head bowed between them, and Oscar leaned against the metal, staring out at the water, eyes glazed over. They looked wrecked.

Piper’s heart clenched painfully. They deserved to be. So did she.

She stepped forward, careful, hesitant. “Hey.”

Their heads snapped up in unison, identical expressions of shock and something raw flashing across their faces. Lando’s eyes were wide, already glassy with unshed emotions, and Oscar straightened instantly, tension flooding his shoulders. Neither of them spoke.

Piper exhaled sharply. “I need to talk to you.”

Lando swallowed, hard. “Pipes—”

“I need answers.”

She didn’t let them interrupt, didn’t let them derail this moment because she’d spent too long running, too long refusing to face what was right in front of her. She was tired of pretending she wasn’t in love with them, that every moment of the last year hadn’t been leading to this inevitable, painful, beautiful mess.

Oscar, always the calm one, finally broke the silence. “Okay.”

Piper took a steadying breath, then let it all spill out. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be this, to navigate whatever the hell we’ve turned into. But I know what I feel. I know how much I love you both, how much it fucking hurts to love you both. And I need to know if—”

“We kissed.”

Lando’s voice shattered the air, blunt and desperate.

Piper blinked, her breath catching. “What?”

Oscar sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. “Lando.”

“What?” Lando huffed, looking between them. “She asked for answers.”

Piper stared at them, something hot and sharp twisting in her stomach. “You—when?”

Lando’s gaze flickered away. Oscar, looking like he had already prepared himself for this moment, exhaled. “Last night. We talked, really talked, for the first time in months. And we admitted things we should have said a long time ago.”

Piper clenched her jaw, bracing herself. “Like?”

“That we love you.” Oscar’s voice was steady, but there was an undercurrent of exhaustion. “That we’ve been in love with you. That we were both too fucking proud to talk to each other about it.”

Lando nodded, biting his lip. “And… that we might love each other too.”

Piper inhaled sharply, her brain short-circuiting for a moment.

Oscar’s fingers tapped against the railing, his version of nervousness. “It’s not that we were lying to ourselves about it, but—”

“We were scared,” Lando finished for him. “Scared that if we admitted it, we’d lose you. Or each other.”

Piper’s throat felt tight. It was too much. It was everything.

“So where does that leave us?” Her voice came out more fragile than she wanted, but she didn’t care. This was it. This was their moment.

Silence. Then Oscar looked at her, really looked at her, and said, “That depends on you.”

Piper’s breath stuttered. She glanced at Lando, who nodded, his expression open and nervous and so, so hopeful.

She let out a slow, measured breath. “You two are so stupid.”

Lando let out a choked laugh, wiping a hand over his face. “Yeah. We know.”

Oscar shook his head, lips twitching upward despite himself. “Not our best moment, no.”

Piper crossed her arms, tilting her head as she regarded them. “So let me get this straight—you both were pining for me, but also each other, and instead of dealing with that like normal people, you decided to make it everyone’s problem?”

Lando rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean… yeah.”

Oscar sighed. “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“It is bad,” Piper shot back, but there was no bite to her words, only tired affection. “You two are idiots.”

“We’re your idiots, though,” Lando muttered.

Piper rolled her eyes, but her heart ached in the best way. They were a mess. They had always been a mess. But for the first time, they were finally on the same page.

A slow, wicked smile curled at the edges of her lips. “Well, then. Since we’re all finally being honest…” She took a step closer, looking between them. “Why don’t we go upstairs and celebrate properly?”

Lando blinked, face immediately turning red. “Wait—”

Oscar, ever the pragmatist, narrowed his eyes. “You mean—?”

Piper tilted her head, expression teasing. “What do you think I mean?”

Lando made a soft, strangled noise in the back of his throat. Oscar, still analyzing, seemed to decide that questioning her was not a battle worth fighting.

“Well.” Lando cleared his throat. “Guess we should, uh—”

“Follow her,” Oscar finished for him, already moving.

Piper turned, glancing over her shoulder, watching as they hurried after her.

Finally.

They were done running.

Chapter Text

The hotel room was dimly lit, warm, and filled with a silence that felt thick with something unspoken. Piper sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the bed, idly rolling the cold bottle of beer between her hands. Lando and Oscar flanked her on either side, their shoulders brushing against hers as they watched her—watched every move she made with an intensity that was borderline ridiculous.

She raised the bottle to her lips, took a slow sip, and let the alcohol burn down her throat. Her expression was unreadable, eyes flicking between them with a teasing edge that neither Lando nor Oscar could fully grasp. The way she carried herself—calm, self-assured, just slightly detached—made them feel like they were always one step behind. It was infuriating.

“You’re enjoying this,” Lando muttered, leaning in just slightly, his voice low.

Piper glanced at him, smirked, and said nothing.

Oscar exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head. “She’s fucking with us.”

“Oh, obviously.”

Piper just hummed, finishing the rest of the beer in a few easy gulps before getting to her feet. She stretched, long and slow, then plopped down onto the bed with a heavy sigh. Looking at them, she patted the empty space beside her. “Come here.”

Lando blinked, already halfway into his question. “Who—?”

Before he could finish, Oscar was already moving, scrambling forward with the kind of urgency that made Lando react just as quickly. The mattress dipped under their weight as they landed on either side of Piper, tension coiling thick between them.

Piper tilted her head, gaze flicking between them, and then she leaned toward Lando.

For half a second, he thought she was going to kiss him. His breath caught. But at the last moment, she turned sharply and crashed her lips against Oscar’s instead.

Lando watched, wide-eyed, as Oscar let out a muffled sound of surprise before quickly melting into the kiss. Piper’s fingers threaded into Oscar’s hair, tugging just slightly as she deepened it. A flush crept up Lando’s neck as he sat there, watching, feeling heat rise in his chest like a slow burn.

And then Piper pulled away from Oscar and turned to Lando. His breath barely had time to hitch before her lips were on his, warm and insistent, and he swore he felt the whole damn world tilt on its axis.

Oscar stared, feeling something rush through him—hot, sharp, and overwhelming. He barely had a moment to process before Piper pulled back again, her lips now slightly swollen, her breath uneven.

She reached up, pushed her hair away from her neck, and the unspoken invitation hung thick in the air. No hesitation this time. Lando and Oscar moved in sync, leaning in, mouths brushing against the smooth skin of her throat.

Piper let her eyes flutter shut, her hands tangling into the bedsheets as their lips traced slow, lazy paths along her neck. She could feel the warmth of their breaths, the way their movements mirrored each other—Lando on one side, Oscar on the other. Every touch, every press of their lips, sent shivers rolling down her spine.

Slowly, they worked their way back up, kissing their way towards her jaw, her cheek, until the three of them collided again. It was messy, all clashing tongues and gasped breaths, but it felt right in a way that defied logic. They were caught in this tangled, breathless moment, a mix of heat and urgency that made time itself feel irrelevant.

Somewhere in the chaos, Piper slowly withdrew, slipping out of their grasp as she leaned back against the pillows, watching them with hooded eyes.

Lando and Oscar, still caught in the haze of the moment, barely noticed her movement. Their lips met again, this time without hesitation, and the air in the room turned thick with something electric.

Piper smirked. She let them have their moment, watching as they kissed with a kind of desperation that neither of them had the space to acknowledge until now. It was intoxicating to witness.

But then, just as suddenly, she broke the moment. “It’s late,” she murmured, stretching her arms above her head lazily. “I’m going to bed.”

Lando and Oscar barely had time to register what she said before she was already sliding off the bed and making her way toward the door. They stared after her, dazed, confused.

Lando frowned. “Wait, what?”

Oscar blinked. “That’s it?”

She didn’t respond. She just grabbed her phone and walked out, leaving them sitting there, trying to make sense of what just happened.

A few seconds later, their phones vibrated.

Piper had sent a message in the group chat.

don’t ask questions. just know it’s happening.

The reaction was immediate. The group chat exploded with messages, notifications flooding their screens at an alarming rate.

Max: what the FUCK does that mean?!??!?!?!?!??!

Carlos: Piper. Explain. Right now.

Alex: SOMEONE TELL ME SHE DID NOT JUST—

George: Is this what I think it is????

Charles: you have 10 seconds to clarify before I spiral

Pierre: no no no I’m calling you, you don’t get to just drop that and leave

Piper smirked at her screen. She didn’t clarify. She didn’t need to.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

And she didn’t care.

It was happening, after all.

And everyone was watching.

Chapter Text

The moment the news unofficially broke, chaos reigned supreme. The grid had been operating on speculation and conspiracy theories for months, and now, the long-awaited confirmation (or at least what they thought was confirmation) sent every single driver into a full-blown frenzy.

The FIA, naturally, had no idea what was going on. Their Twitter/X account was blowing up with demands for an official statement, but the only response they had was a confused,

"We do not regulate driver relationships, but congratulations (?) to all parties involved."

That did absolutely nothing to stop the insanity.

THE GRID HANGOUT: OPERATION CELEBRATION

The drivers, already a rowdy bunch on a normal day, had decided to make an event out of it. Alex had been the one to suggest an emergency meeting, George seconded it, and Pierre took it upon himself to book out an entire club for what he dramatically called “The Papaya Polycule Proclamation Party.” Max arrived in joggers and a hoodie, completely out of place among the suits and chaotic outfits, muttering something about “not knowing why he was here but wanting to see the drama unfold.”

The highlight of the night? Carlos Sainz.

Carlos, typically the most rational of them all (and usually the one preventing this level of chaos), walked in wearing a bald cap and sunglasses, looking like a dollar-store Pitbull impersonator.

“Por qué?” Charles asked, genuinely concerned for his best friend’s sanity.

Carlos just smirked. “Because I felt like it.”

Then, the music started.

With no warning, Carlos Sainz launched into a full-fledged dance performance, moonwalking across the floor before breaking into the most aggressive version of "Single Ladies" the world had ever seen.

The crowd went wild.

George and Alex, never ones to let a moment of stupidity go to waste, joined in halfway through. George, wearing what could only be described as a truly hideous shirt, threw on a neon feather boa and started doing high kicks, while Alex twirled dramatically like he was in Swan Lake.

At some point, Lando, Oscar, and Piper finally arrived—only to be greeted by Carlos spinning on the floor while George and Alex flanked him like backup dancers from an early 2000s boyband.

Piper, deadpan, turned to Lando and Oscar. “See, this is what happens when you keep people waiting too long.”

Oscar squinted. “Why is Carlos wearing a bald cap?”

“I don’t know,” Lando muttered, eyes locked on George’s inexplicably sparkly blazer. “Why does George look like a rejected Vegas showman?”

They didn’t get answers. Instead, the moment they stepped in, they were swarmed.

Max, who had previously sworn he didn’t care about the drama, clapped Lando on the back so hard he nearly knocked him over. “So, you finally did it? I was starting to think I’d be 40 before you three figured your shit out.”

Charles, grinning, pulled Piper aside. “You do realize you’ve doomed the rest of us, right?”

Piper raised an eyebrow. “How?”

He waved a vague hand. “Now everyone expects the rest of us to be this entertaining. Do you know how exhausting that is?”

Meanwhile, Yuki had climbed onto a table and was aggressively live-tweeting everything happening, including a very blurry photo of Pierre dramatically fake-crying into Esteban’s shoulder. The caption? THE GRID HAS FALLEN, LOVE HAS WON.

The second that blurry image dropped, the fans lost their minds.

Between the threads analyzing the body language of Lando, Oscar, and Piper in every past interview, the sudden spike in people posting “I KNEW IT!!!” memes, and the ones just screaming into the void, the internet was in shambles.

The theories ranged from logical to completely unhinged:

“They have to be dating, the tension has been there for months.”

“They’re just trolling us, right? RIGHT???”

“If this isn’t real, then why does Carlos look like a divorced dad going through his midlife crisis?”

“Guys, George’s shirt alone confirms this, you don’t wear that unless it’s a special occasion.”

Then, of course, came the edits. A 30-second clip of Carlos’ dance routine, overlaid with dramatic music, was already making the rounds. Another was a slowed-down edit of Lando, Oscar, and Piper walking into the party like a royal entrance.

And then, the final blow:

Piper, in all her chaotic glory, finally posted something.

It was just a single message in the group chat, but Yuki (still on the table, still aggressively live-tweeting) screenshot it and threw it online.

The message simply read: anyway, let the people talk.

The grid? Screaming.

The fans? Absolutely losing their minds.

The FIA? Considering blocking all the drivers to preserve their own sanity.

Lando, Oscar, and Piper? Just watching the madness unfold with amused smiles, because at the end of the day, this was exactly what they had expected.

Carlos, meanwhile, was still dancing.

Chapter Text

The honeymoon phase of any relationship is meant to be sweet, intoxicating, and full of laughter—and for Lando, Oscar, and Piper, it was all that and more. The three of them had spent the past week in their own little world, wrapped up in each other, making the most of every free moment they had. Whether it was stealing kisses in the McLaren garage, curling up together in hotel rooms, or holding hands under tables during team meetings, they were obnoxiously happy.

Andrea, on the other hand, was losing his mind.

“You guys are ridiculous,” he groaned, rubbing his temples as he watched Lando dramatically dip Piper in the middle of the paddock walkway while Oscar, instead of stopping them, simply pulled out his phone to take a picture. “You do realize we have work to do? This is still an F1 team, not a romance reality show.”

“Oh, lighten up, Andrea,” Piper grinned as Lando twirled her back upright, her hand still in his. “You should be happy for us.”

Andrea fixed her with a pointed look. “I will be happy when you three stop acting like you’re filming a rom-com in front of my very eyes.”

Piper batted her eyelashes at him, feigning innocence, while Lando and Oscar high-fived behind her.

The chaos wasn’t limited to just the paddock either. Social media had been a mess ever since the three of them started, very subtly, making it clear that something was going on. Subtly, of course, was relative when you had three people with no real sense of self-preservation in a relationship. Between Piper posting a blurry photo of Lando and Oscar looking way too cozy, Lando’s caption that just said “:3,” and Oscar’s complete refusal to comment, fans were spiraling.

Meanwhile, the grid was eating it up.

“Piper, I just want you to know, I respect you deeply,” Alex Albon said as he clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done something I never thought possible. You’ve domesticated them.”

Piper smirked, sipping her drink. “Oh, please. They were halfway there already. I just gave them a little push.”

George Russell leaned in, an evil glint in his eye. “Sooo… who do you like more?”

Piper just blinked at him, then looked at the camera she knew was rolling. “I plead the fifth.”

Lando gasped dramatically from across the room. “You can’t just say that!”

Oscar crossed his arms, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Yeah, that’s a very sus answer.”

Piper shrugged. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

But despite the fun, there was an underlying issue that none of them had fully addressed. Loving each other was easy—it was the logistics that were harder. Dating two F1 drivers was bound to come with challenges, and Piper wasn’t naïve enough to think otherwise.

It wasn’t just the fact that they had to deal with the public eye, the press, and the constant speculation. It was deeper than that.

Lando and Oscar had money, fame, and a level of influence Piper simply didn’t. They existed in a world of luxury, private jets, and five-star hotels, while Piper was used to navigating life like a normal person. And while they had never once made her feel like she didn’t belong, she couldn’t ignore the fact that, objectively, they had different experiences of the world.

It came to a head when they were planning their next getaway. Lando, without hesitation, suggested a week at a private island resort. Oscar had nodded along, already checking for dates that lined up with their schedules.

Piper, on the other hand, had hesitated.

She liked luxury, sure. But she wasn’t used to having it constantly. There was a difference between being spoiled occasionally and living like this full-time. And more than that, she hated feeling like she was being absorbed into their lives rather than them meeting her halfway.

She didn’t want to just exist in their world—she wanted to create a world together. One where they all felt equal.

So she took a deep breath and said, “Hey, can we talk about this?”

Lando and Oscar immediately turned to her, both of them looking concerned. “What’s up?” Lando asked, his hand instinctively reaching for hers.

She squeezed his fingers. “I just… I feel like we need to figure out some ground rules. Boundaries, expectations. I don’t want to be a passenger in your lives. I want us to be equals.”

Oscar’s brow furrowed. “You are our equal.”

“I know you see me that way,” she said gently. “But the world doesn’t. And I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I’ve lost myself in all of this.”

Lando and Oscar exchanged a look before Lando sighed and nodded. “You’re right. We need to talk about this properly.”

Oscar reached for her other hand, determination in his eyes. “Then let’s do that. No distractions. Just us.”

Piper smiled, relief washing over her. Because as much as she loved the honeymoon phase, she wanted something real. And real meant putting in the work to make this last.

And based on the way Lando and Oscar were looking at her, she knew they were willing to fight for this just as much as she was.

But then again, there was the mess of their social circles. Dating two millionaire drivers had its perks, sure—private jets, penthouse suites, endless access to things Piper wouldn’t have dreamed of before—but there was an unspoken imbalance, too. They moved in circles she could only blend into but never truly belong to. She felt it, that subtle difference, the way people looked at her sometimes, questioning, evaluating.

She hadn’t voiced it. Not yet.

But it lingered.

Because at the end of the day, they were Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri—Formula 1 drivers, public figures, powerhouses in their own right. And she was just… Piper.

And if she ever walked away from this, she wasn’t sure if she’d be the one making that choice.

Chapter Text

The first crack in the foundation came when Piper realized just how replaceable she was.

It wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t even obvious at first. But the incident—that horrible, gut-wrenching moment—made it undeniable.

It happened at an event. Some charity gala that neither Lando nor Oscar had given her many details about. It wasn’t uncommon for them to attend things she wasn’t invited to—she wasn’t their PR team, after all, and her presence at events wasn’t always necessary. But this time, she had been invited. By the organizers. Not by them.

It had been a McLaren-affiliated event, filled with sponsors and partners, with people who lived in their world. Piper had done her best to fit in, to play the role expected of her, to not feel like an imposter standing beside them. And for a while, it worked.

Until it didn’t.

It was a subtle thing. The way people looked past her when they spoke. The way the event coordinator had introduced her as “Lando Norris’s plus one” and then, moments later, “Oscar Piastri’s plus one,” as if she was interchangeable, just an accessory on their arms.

She had laughed it off at first. But then came the moment that sealed it.

A journalist—one of those smarmy ones who thrived on speculation and gossip—had cornered her near the bar. “Must be overwhelming,” they had said, a pleasant enough smile masking the edge to their words. “Dating them both. I suppose it helps that they’re the stars of the show. Makes things easier when people don’t expect much from you.”

It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did. But when Piper turned, looking for Lando or Oscar, neither of them were looking back.

And in that moment, she felt it. That awful, sinking realization.

She didn’t belong here.

She was a guest in their world, a visitor who could be discarded at any moment. And worse—nobody would notice.

The fight that followed was inevitable.

It started when they got back to the hotel room. Piper hadn’t spoken much on the way there, her hands curled into fists in her lap, jaw tight. Lando had been oblivious. Oscar had been cautious. But as soon as the door shut behind them, it exploded.

“You didn’t even notice,” Piper snapped, voice sharp, cutting, unrelenting. “You didn’t even see how they talked about me like I wasn’t even a person. Like I was just some—some accessory you bring around when it’s convenient.”

Lando blinked. “Pipes, what are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about?” Her laugh was humorless. “I’m talking about the fact that I was invited as a goddamn plus one, not as myself. That people don’t even think I matter outside of you two. And you just let it happen.”

Oscar shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not fair. We can’t control how other people see things.”

“Can’t you?” Piper turned on him, eyes blazing. “You control everything else. You make decisions without me. You pull me into your world but never fully let me in. Do you even know what it feels like to constantly feel like the outsider in your own relationship?”

“That’s not—” Lando started, but she cut him off.

“Do you know how it feels to know that if I left, the world would keep spinning for you? That nothing would change?”

Oscar’s breath hitched. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

The silence was deafening.

And then, in the worst possible moment, Lando scoffed.

It was small, barely even a sound, but it was enough.

Piper turned to him, eyes wide with betrayal. “You think this is funny?”

Lando ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.”

Oscar’s breath hitched. “Lando—”

“No, because what do you want us to do, Piper?” Lando snapped, voice rising. “We can’t change the way the world sees us overnight. You’re dating two F1 drivers, for fuck’s sake. What did you expect?”

Piper felt the air leave her lungs. “What did I expect?”

Lando shook his head. “You knew what this was going to be.”

She let out a sharp, broken laugh. “Right. So, this is my fault?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it.”

Oscar had been silent too long, eyes darting between them, body rigid with tension. Piper turned to him, desperate. “Do you think I’m overreacting?”

Oscar hesitated. Too long.

And that’s when she knew.

Lando sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ.”

Oscar swallowed. “Pipes, we—”

“Don’t,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Just don’t.”

Lando muttered something under his breath, then turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The sound echoed, rattling something deep in her chest.

And then it was just her and Oscar.

Oscar, whose eyes were glassy, whose hands trembled at his sides. “Piper, I—”

“Don’t,” she said again, softer this time. “Please.”

He made a choked sound and turned away, pressing his fingers to his temple like he was holding himself together with sheer force.

Piper took a step back, then another.

She was suffocating.

She needed air.

She needed space.

She needed—

She wasn’t sure how she ended up alone, curled up on the hotel balcony with a bottle of beer and her headphones in, Phoebe Bridgers playing low in her ears.

“If you’re a work of art, I’m standing too close.”

She closed her eyes.

Breathed in.

Breathed out.

And let herself break.

Chapter Text

The grid had seen Oscar cry before. Once or twice. Maybe when he won his first karting championship. Maybe when he got his McLaren seat. But this? This was different.

Oscar Piastri was sitting on the couch in Max Verstappen’s hotel room, face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking. It was the kind of crying that wasn’t loud but still managed to silence an entire room. A kind of heartbreak that made even Pierre—who usually thrived on chaos—pause before opening his mouth.

“What the fuck happened?” Pierre finally demanded, breaking the silence.

Carlos, arms crossed, looked like he was physically restraining himself from storming off to find Lando and Piper himself. “They had a fight,” he muttered, staring at Oscar like he’d personally failed him. “A bad one.”

Max frowned, arms crossed. “How bad?”

Oscar wiped at his face, shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted hoarsely. “Lando walked out. Piper—” His voice broke. “Piper looked at me like I wasn’t enough.”

Carlos made a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream, pacing the room. “I hate this. I hate this so much.”

“You are in all seven stages of grief at once,” Alex pointed out from where he sat on the armrest of the couch.

“I AM!” Carlos yelled, throwing his hands up. “I thought we were past this! I thought they figured their shit out! WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS?”

George, sitting next to Pierre, sighed. “Okay, so what do we do?”

Pierre scoffed. “Why is that even a question? We get them back together.”

Carlos pointed a finger at him. “WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO. THEY ARE GROWN ADULTS. THEY SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THIS OUT MONTHS AGO.”

Max hummed. “Maybe they should’ve, but they didn’t. So.”

Pierre smirked. “So we fix it.”

Carlos groaned again, dragging his hands down his face like a man truly at his wit’s end. “We shouldn’t have to handle them like they’re toddlers.”

“But they are,” Yuki said dryly, sprawled across the bed. “Emotionally.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Logan, quiet for most of the conversation, said, “We split up.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

Logan blinked. “What? It makes sense.”

“No, you’re right,” Pierre said, sitting up straighter. “We split up. Two people per target.”

Carlos rubbed his face. “I hate that we have to call them ‘targets.’”

“Alright,” Pierre continued, ignoring him. “Oscar is already here, so Max and Charles, you take him.”

Max blinked. “Why us?”

“Because Charles is emotionally soft and Max is emotionally unavailable. Balance.”

Max looked mildly offended but didn’t argue.

Pierre continued, pointing at Alex and George. “You two handle Lando. Alex, you’re the voice of reason, and George, you have the patience of a kindergarten teacher.”

Carlos groaned but nodded. “Fine.”

“And Piper?” Logan asked.

Pierre smirked. “Me and Carlos.”

Alex gave him a look. “Why?”

“Because she knows we’ll annoy her until she gives in.”

Yuki snickered. “True.”

Carlos groaned, running a hand down his face. “I swear to god, if they don’t sort this out, I’m actually going to lose my mind.”

Pierre patted his shoulder. “Buddy, you already have.”

“OH MY GOD,” Carlos groaned, throwing himself onto the couch like a man defeated. “I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM SPENDING MY FREE TIME FIXING THESE THREE DISASTERS.”

“They’re our disasters,” Charles said helpfully.

“I DON’T WANT THEM,” Carlos shot back, muffled into a pillow.

“Oh please,” Pierre rolled his eyes. “You love them.”

Carlos lifted his head just enough to glare. “NO. I TOLERATE THEM.”

Max snorted. “You tolerate them so much that you are actively losing your mind over them.”

Carlos pointed at him. “SHUT. UP.”

Pierre clapped his hands together. “Alright, ladies and gentlemen and Yuki, let’s get this shitshow sorted.”

“Or die trying,” Alex added.

Carlos groaned. “God, we are so stupid.”

“Yeah,” George said, standing up and clapping his hands. “But we’re committed.”

There was a beat of silence before Carlos exhaled dramatically. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

And with that, the grid’s most chaotic intervention began.

Chapter Text

Oscar Piastri had never cried this much in his life.

Okay, maybe once. When he got his first big karting win. Or when he got his McLaren contract. But that was different—those were happy tears. This? This was something else entirely. This was his entire world cracking into jagged pieces, and he had no clue how to put them back together.

And now, Max and Charles were here.

Which was already a problem in itself.

“Mon dieu, he looks awful,” Charles whispered loudly to Max, not even attempting to be subtle.

Oscar groaned, burying his face further into his hands. “Thanks, mate. Really helping.”

“Charles,” Max sighed, elbowing him. “That is not helpful.”

“I am just saying! He looks like someone ran over his cat.”

“I don’t have a cat,” Oscar mumbled into his hands.

“Exactly,” Charles said dramatically. “So imagine how much worse it is!”

Max pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he was seriously regretting being here. “We are here to help, not make it worse.”

“Oh, so you admit I am making it worse?” Charles grinned.

Oscar groaned again. “This is a nightmare.”

“Alright, alright,” Max clapped his hands together, switching to his serious tone. “Enough joking. Oscar, you need to talk to us. What happened?”

Oscar finally lifted his head, bloodshot eyes staring at them both. “We fought. It was bad. Lando left. Piper—” He hesitated, swallowing. “Piper looked at me like I was nothing.”

Max exhaled, his face unreadable. Charles, however, looked like he had been personally stabbed in the heart.

“What? Non, impossible,” Charles insisted, shaking his head. “Piper adores you.”

Oscar let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, she didn’t seem like it.”

Max and Charles exchanged a glance. A silent conversation happened in the span of two seconds, and then Max turned back to Oscar with a sigh.

“You are making this worse in your head,” Max said, crossing his arms. “You are stuck here, thinking of all the bad things, and it’s clouding your judgment.”

“Oh, so now I’m just imagining things?” Oscar snapped, irritation flaring.

Max didn’t even blink. “Yes.”

Oscar scowled. Charles, sensing a real fight incoming, quickly jumped in. “Oscar, listen. It is okay to be upset. But you are not thinking clearly. You love them, non?”

Oscar hesitated, before nodding. “Of course I do.”

“And they love you,” Charles continued, voice softer. “You know they do.”

“Then why did Lando walk out?”

Max sighed. “Because Lando is an idiot.”

Oscar gave him a deadpan look. “That doesn’t really help.”

“Okay, fine. Lando is an idiot in love,” Max amended. “He runs when things get hard because he doesn’t know how to handle feelings. And Piper—Piper is a strategist, yes? She holds everything inside until she thinks it is too late to fix anything. So now you are all sitting in different corners, thinking the worst.”

Oscar stared at him. “When did you become a relationship expert?”

“I am not,” Max admitted. “But I know how stupid people in love act.”

Charles snickered. “That is because you are stupid and in love.”

Max shot him a glare. “Not the point.”

Oscar sighed, rubbing his face. “So what do I do?”

Charles grinned, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “You fix it, of course.”

Oscar snorted. “Oh, just like that?”

Max nodded. “Yes. You are not the only one hurting. Go find them.”

Oscar stared at them for a long moment, before finally standing up. “Fine. One last time.”

Charles patted his shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

As he turned to leave, Oscar glanced back at them. “By the way, you two suck at this.”

Max and Charles exchanged a look, before Max shrugged. “Maybe. But it worked, didn’t it?”

Oscar sighed, rolling his eyes before walking out the door.

Max and Charles sat in silence for a moment. Then Charles exhaled, shaking his head. “You know, we really do suck at this.”

Max leaned back. “Yeah.”

Charles hummed. “But we are still better than Carlos.”

Max snorted. “Absolutely.”

“Maybe we should have done a PowerPoint,” Charles mused suddenly.

Max blinked. “What?”

“You know, like a relationship intervention slideshow. With graphs and statistics.”

Max stared at him. “You are actually insane.”

Charles grinned. “Maybe. But imagine the impact.”

Max shook his head. “I am never letting you talk to Oscar alone.”

Charles gasped dramatically. “How dare you!”

Max ignored him, pulling out his phone. “Do you think Carlos has already started his own breakdown?”

Charles snorted. “Absolutely. He is probably on stage five of grief by now.”

Max hummed, already typing a text. “We should check on him.”

Charles leaned over, glancing at Max’s screen. “You are just texting Pierre, aren’t you?”

Max smirked. “Yes.”

Charles shook his head, laughing. “Mon dieu, we really are bad at this.”

Max shrugged. “Eh. At least Oscar is trying now.”

Charles nodded. “Yeah. That is what matters.”

And with that, they sat back, waiting for the next disaster to unfold.

Chapter Text

Lando Norris did not want to talk about his feelings.

Which was unfortunate, because George Russell and Alex Albon were determined to make him do exactly that.

The second they spotted him sulking outside the hotel, hood pulled low over his face like some dramatic indie movie protagonist, they knew they had a mission. And they took their missions very seriously.

“There he is,” George muttered, peering around the corner like they were on some top-secret spy mission.

“I still think we should just tackle him,” Alex whispered back.

George rolled his eyes. “We are not tackling him.”

Alex huffed. “Fine. Plan B, then.”

“What’s Plan B?”

Alex didn’t answer. Instead, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Lando! Mate! Your McLaren contract has been revoked!”

Lando’s head snapped up so fast they could hear the crack. “WHAT—”

And then, like the complete idiot he was, he sprinted in their direction.

“RUN!” George yelled, and the chase was on.

The chase took them through the hotel, down several flights of stairs, out into the streets, and somehow—Lando still had no idea how—straight into a goddamn petting zoo.

“Why is there a zebra?!” Lando shouted as he narrowly avoided getting trampled.

“WHY ISN’T THERE A ZEBRA?!” Alex countered, which was not an answer.

George, who was incredibly done with both of them, grabbed Lando’s hoodie and yanked him back just before he ran straight into an alpaca. “Would you STOP RUNNING?”

“NOT UNTIL YOU STOP CHASING ME!”

“Lando,” George said, taking a deep breath, “we are trying to help you.”

Lando, now tangled in his own hoodie, glared at them. “Help me with what? Ruining everything? Losing the two people I love most?”

Alex and George exchanged a look. “Okay,” Alex admitted, “we could’ve gone about this better.”

“No shit, mate.”

“We’re just saying,” George said, sidestepping a very disgruntled goat, “that maybe you’re letting your fear make the decision for you.”

Lando huffed, kicking at the dirt. “Yeah, well, maybe my fear is right.”

Alex scoffed. “Mate, if we let fear win, none of us would ever get into an F1 car.”

Lando opened his mouth to argue, but damn it, he hated when Alex was right.

“Look, dude,” Alex continued, waving his arms for emphasis. “You love them. They love you. Just go talk to them before this gets worse.”

Lando clenched his jaw. “And what if they don’t want me back?”

George sighed. “Then at least you’ll know you tried.”

Lando hesitated. “What if it’s already too late?”

“It’s not,” Alex said firmly. “Piper and Oscar love you. They’re probably just as miserable as you are.”

Lando exhaled. “I don’t know if I can face them.”

George patted his shoulder. “Then don’t face them alone.”

Lando blinked. “What?”

And then, as if the universe itself had impeccable comedic timing, he stepped directly into the street—

—and got hit by a bus.

Not in a life-threatening way, luckily. More in a ‘lightly tossed into the air and landing in a dramatic heap on the sidewalk’ way.

“Oh my GOD,” Alex wheezed, doubling over. “Did you just get Mean Girls’d?!”

George covered his mouth to muffle his laughter. “Are you okay?”

Lando groaned from the pavement. “No.”

“You’re fine,” Alex assured him, offering a hand. “Come on, drama queen.”

Lando reluctantly let them pull him up. His entire body ached, but weirdly, he felt… lighter. Like maybe, just maybe, he could fix this.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll try.”

George clapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

Alex grinned. “And hey, at least you have a cool injury story now.”

Lando glared. “Shut up.”

As he limped back towards the hotel, one thought ran through his mind:

This was going to be a disaster.

But he was going to try anyway.

Back at the hotel, George and Alex followed him inside, exchanging smug looks like they had personally orchestrated the entire universe to make this happen.

“You know,” George said, looking entirely too pleased with himself, “this could’ve been way harder.”

Lando shot him a glare. “I got hit by a bus.”

Alex snorted. “Details.”

George patted Lando’s back again, ignoring his wince. “Just go find them, yeah?”

Lando sighed, looking towards the elevators. Somewhere in this building were the two people he loved most in the world, and he was about to go throw himself at their mercy.

“Yeah,” he said, straightening his hoodie. “I’m going.”

He turned on his heel, took one step—and immediately tripped over the hotel carpet.

George and Alex simultaneously burst into laughter.

“Shut up,” Lando grumbled, pushing himself up.

But despite it all, he was smiling.

Because for the first time in days, he actually felt like he had a chance to fix this.

Chapter Text

Piper was not in the mood for an intervention.

Unfortunately, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly didn’t give a single shit about what she was in the mood for.

“You are being ridiculous,” Pierre declared, arms crossed as he paced in front of her like a very exasperated teacher dealing with an unruly student.

Piper huffed, slumping further into the couch. “No, I’m being realistic.”

Carlos made a strangled noise from where he sat beside her, hands in his hair as if he was actively trying to pull the stress out of his skull. “I can’t do this,” he muttered. “I can’t. First, Oscar crying like a pathetic little—”

“Hey!” Pierre interrupted. “He is our pathetic little idiot.”

Carlos threw his hands up. “And now you!” He gestured wildly at Piper, who merely raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Angsty, brooding—what is this, a teen drama?”

“I mean,” Piper mused, picking at her nails, “it kind of is.”

Carlos let out a very high-pitched scream.

Pierre pinched the bridge of his nose. “Carlos. Focus.”

Carlos took a deep breath, then turned back to Piper. “Listen. You are in love. They are in love. You are all making each other miserable for no reason.”

“There is a reason,” Piper countered. “And it’s a valid one.”

Pierre sighed. “Pipes, we understand.”

“Do you?” she snapped, arms crossing. “Do you actually? Because I don’t think you get what it feels like to date two insanely rich and famous men who, despite being lovely and wonderful and the actual loves of my life, have more power in their pinkies than I will ever have in my entire existence.”

Carlos paused. “Okay. That is fair.”

Piper scoffed. “Gee, thanks.”

Pierre ignored her sarcasm. “We are not saying it is not a concern,” he said, voice softer now. “But shutting them out and running away does not fix anything.”

Piper didn’t respond, her jaw tightening.

Carlos sat up straighter. “You think they don’t feel that imbalance too?” he asked. “You think Lando doesn’t lie awake at night wondering if you’ll leave because he doesn’t know how to make you feel equal? You think Oscar isn’t sitting somewhere right now, probably crying again, feeling completely useless because he doesn’t know how to fix it?”

Piper swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry.

Pierre leaned forward, nudging her knee. “The solution isn’t leaving. It’s figuring out how to fix it together.”

Piper let out a sharp breath, head tilting back against the couch. “You guys are annoying.”

“We know,” Carlos said immediately.

There was a beat of silence.

Then—

“I hope one of you gets almost trampled by a zebra today,” Piper muttered.

Pierre blinked. “What?”

Carlos, however, nodded solemnly. “I hope Lando gets run over by a bus.”

Pierre stared at them both, face blank with horror. “What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

Piper and Carlos simply shrugged in perfect unison.

Pierre shook his head, rubbing his temples. “I hate you both.”

“No, you don’t,” Piper said, smirking slightly.

Carlos leaned in. “You love us.”

Pierre groaned. “Unfortunately.”

The conversation grew quieter after that, Piper finally starting to listen as Pierre and Carlos took turns offering actual solutions. They talked through what boundaries could be set, how they could communicate better, and what Piper needed to feel like an equal in the relationship.

Eventually, she sat up properly, a contemplative expression settling on her face. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll try.”

Carlos let out a long, exaggerated sigh of relief, flopping back dramatically. “Finally.”

Pierre smirked. “About time.”

Piper rolled her eyes, but there was a small, genuine smile there now. One that felt like hope.

Chapter Text

Lando, Oscar, and Piper sat in the middle of their hotel room, exhaustion settling into their bones. The air was thick with tension, but also something heavier—something fragile, like glass teetering on the edge of a shelf, waiting for the slightest push to send it crashing down.

Oscar had his arms crossed, staring at Lando with something between concern and disbelief. “So, just to clarify—you got hit by a bus?”

Lando, sprawled dramatically on the hotel bed, groaned. “Technically, I hit the bus.”

Piper let out a deep sigh. “That’s not better.”

Lando sat up, rubbing his shoulder. “Look, I’m fine. The bus barely tapped me.”

Oscar’s eyes narrowed. “Lando, you FLEW.”

Lando waved him off. “That’s not the point. We’re here to talk about us.”

And just like that, the mood shifted. Piper tensed, her hands gripping the hem of her hoodie. “Right.”

Oscar exhaled slowly. “We need to figure out how to fix this. Because we love each other. And we don’t want this to end.”

Lando nodded. “We don’t want you to feel powerless, Piper.”

Piper glanced between them. “And what, you magically have a way to fix that?”

Oscar hesitated, but Lando leaned forward, determined. “We’ve been thinking. And maybe we haven’t been considering your perspective enough.”

Piper blinked. “You think?”

Lando winced. “Fair.”

Oscar took over. “We know the imbalance exists. We’re two rich drivers with media teams, brand deals, and ridiculous amounts of influence. We can do things you can’t. And that’s not fair.”

Piper swallowed. “Yeah. It’s not.”

Lando sighed. “So, what if we changed that?”

Piper frowned. “Changed how?”

Oscar straightened. “We make sure you have control over your own career. Your own path. You should have an exit strategy that isn’t just ‘I stay with them or I’m screwed.’”

Lando nodded. “We help you get the best opportunities—ones that are independent of us. We make sure you have security that isn’t tied to dating us.”

Piper bit her lip. “And if I need space?”

Oscar hesitated before nodding. “Then we respect that.”

Piper exhaled sharply, eyes flickering between them. It all sounded... logical. Like they had actually thought about it. But logic wasn’t always reality. And the reality was, power imbalances didn’t just go away because you wanted them to.

“I just... I don’t know if it’ll actually work,” she admitted. “I don’t know if things will ever feel equal.”

Silence stretched between them.

And then Piper, voice barely above a whisper, said, “Maybe we should end this.”

The words had barely left her mouth before the hotel door SLAMMED open.

Carlos Sainz stood in the doorway like the physical embodiment of rage and chaos. His eyes were wide, his hair was a mess, and he looked like he had fought security to get in. “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?”

Behind him, the rest of the grid stood, decked out in what could only be described as exorcism gear—ropes, chains, a giant wooden cross (courtesy of Pierre), and Alex holding a literal spray bottle like Carlos was a misbehaving cat.

“Carlos, NO,” George yelled.

Carlos did not care. He stormed into the room, eyes locked on Piper. “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BREAK UP? AFTER EVERYTHING? AFTER I HAD TO WATCH OSCAR CRY LIKE A DAMN SOAP OPERA ACTOR? AFTER LANDO GOT HIT BY A BUS?!”

Piper blinked. “Wait, you saw that?”

“EVERYONE SAW THAT!” Carlos screamed. “AND NOW YOU WANT TO THROW IT ALL AWAY?”

Pierre sprinted forward, trying to wrap the chains around Carlos’ waist. “Carlos, we talked about this.”

Carlos shoved him off with inhuman strength. “NO. I REFUSE.”

Lando, Oscar, and Piper stared in pure horror as Carlos took another step forward, eyes wild. “YOU THREE LOVE EACH OTHER. STOP BEING IDIOTS. FIX IT.”

“Carlos,” Max said, attempting reason. “Maybe we—”

“NO,” Carlos barked. “I AM DONE.” He turned back to the trio. “IF YOU BREAK UP, I BREAK YOU.”

“Okay, that’s not how that works,” Oscar muttered.

Alex, looking deeply uncomfortable, decided to take action. He raised the spray bottle and squirted Carlos directly in the face. “NO. BAD CARLOS.”

Carlos sputtered, glaring at him. “Did you just—”

Alex squirted him again.

Pierre took the opportunity to loop the chains around Carlos’ torso. “Alright, that’s enough insanity for today.”

Carlos continued thrashing as the grid physically dragged him out of the room, his screams of “FIX IT OR ELSE” echoing down the hallway.

The three of them sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

Finally, Piper sighed. “That was a lot.”

Lando wiped a hand down his face. “Yeah.”

Oscar adjusted his hoodie. “Do we... actually want to fix this?”

Piper hesitated, then looked at them—at the two idiots who had managed to burrow into her heart despite all logic.

“…Yeah,” she admitted. “I think we do.”

Piper let out a slow breath, hands twisting together. “But, I just—I don’t know if this will ever feel balanced. Even if you try, there will always be that gap. You’re—you’re both so used to this world. And I’m just—”

“Not?” Lando offered gently.

She nodded. “Not.”

Oscar reached for her hand. “Then we figure out how to make you ‘are.’”

She blinked at him. “That’s not a real sentence.”

He huffed. “You know what I mean. We figure out ways to make this equal. Transparency with money, complete openness in decisions, making sure you never feel like you’re being overshadowed or controlled.”

Lando nodded. “We can set actual boundaries about this. We don’t just say we’ll fix it, we put things in place to make sure we do.”

Piper looked between them, hesitant. “And if it still doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t work,” Oscar said, squeezing her fingers, “then we talk about it again. And again. And again. Until we make it work.”

Lando smiled. “Because we’re not losing you over this. That’s not an option.”

For the first time in days, something in Piper eased. “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s try.”

Lando exhaled. “Then let’s figure it out. For real this time.”

Oscar nodded. “For real.”

Piper cracked a small smile. “Alright. Let’s give this polycule another shot.”

And this time, they were going to get it right.

Chapter Text

The sun hung lazily in the sky, casting golden hues over the pristine waters of their tropical hideaway. Soft waves lapped against the shore, the scent of salt and sunscreen filling the air. Lando, Oscar, and Piper lay sprawled out on sun loungers, eyes closed, bodies melting into the warmth of the sun.

For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no tension, no arguments, no existential crises about power dynamics. Just peace.

“Alright,” Lando mumbled, tilting his head toward Piper. “Not to jinx it, but I think we finally have our shit together.”

Oscar peeked out from under his sunglasses. “Bold of you to assume that.”

Piper snorted. “Yeah, that’s definitely a jinx.”

Lando sighed dramatically. “At least let me have this moment before the next disaster.”

Oscar smirked. “Fine. You have ten seconds.”

Lando huffed, but before he could argue, the sound of a loud cackle rang through the air.

They turned their heads toward the cabana, where Carlos Sainz sat, reclined in a lounge chair, looking more relaxed than he had in months. He was sipping a margarita, a wide-brimmed sun hat perched atop his head. The only issue? He was also strapped into a straitjacket.

Piper arched an eyebrow. “You good there, Sainz?”

Carlos took a long, slow sip of his drink before replying, “For the first time in WEEKS, I feel at peace.”

Lando narrowed his eyes. “You’re literally tied up.”

Carlos smiled serenely. “Yes. And?”

Pierre, sitting beside him with a pineapple drink, patted Carlos’ arm. “It was the only way to get him to actually relax. This was a group effort.”

From the other side of the resort, George waved. “We even consulted a professional.”

“Like... a therapist?” Piper asked.

“No,” Pierre said. “A zookeeper.”

Oscar nearly choked on his drink. “Why?”

Alex, walking by, smirked. “Apparently, handling Carlos is similar to handling a particularly enraged chimpanzee.”

Carlos simply sipped his margarita. “And yet, I am unbothered.”

The group shared a look before collectively deciding not to question it any further. Instead, they settled into the vacation mindset, letting the tension from the past weeks melt away.

At some point, the conversation turned to their future—what came next after everything they had been through.

Piper stretched out on her chair. “So, how are we actually going to make this work long-term?”

Oscar leaned forward, expression serious. “We keep doing what we promised. Transparency, open communication, making sure you’re never left in the dark.”

Lando nodded. “And if something feels off, we talk about it immediately. No bottling things up, no avoidance.”

Piper sighed contentedly. “I like that. A real partnership.”

Oscar smirked. “Exactly.”

Just as the mood had settled into something soft and meaningful, a notification on Piper’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it and immediately burst into laughter.

“What?” Lando asked, peering over her shoulder.

Piper turned the phone around, revealing a Twitter thread.

The top tweet read: “Can someone PLEASE explain why Lando got hit by a bus? And where the hell did the zebra come from???”

The replies were even better:

@f1conspiracytheorist: “I SWEAR the zebra is a metaphor.”

@lando_norris_updates: “Guys, I think it was Carlos’ doing.”

@carlos4president: “No. Carlos would never. (But also, yes, absolutely.)”

@PierreGasly: “I WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED. THE ZEBRA IS REAL.”

Then, right at the bottom, a tweet from Carlos himself:

@Carlossainz55: “Don’t cite the lore to me, witch. I was there when it was written.”

Piper, Lando, and Oscar dissolved into laughter, shaking their heads.

Piper wiped a tear from her eye. “This is the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever been a part of.”

Oscar grinned. “And yet, here we are.”

Lando stretched, leaning back into his chair. “I think this is exactly where we’re supposed to be.”

As the sun dipped lower, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange, the three of them clinked their drinks together, ready to face whatever came next.

For once, the future didn’t feel scary. It felt like an adventure—one they were taking on together.

And, for better or worse, they were going to make it work.