Chapter 1: Breaking the Chains
Chapter Text
The hospital room felt foreign, like a prison that kept him chained to a life he no longer recognized. Steve’s body still ached from the impacts, but his soul was far more shattered. It wasn’t the physical pain that troubled him most, nor even the fame that stalked him after his endless accidents. What weighed on him was the creeping sense that he was losing control of his own life, reduced to a pawn on a board he had never chosen.
The sound of his father’s footsteps echoed at the doorway—a sound Steve had grown to dread. His figure was imposing, not because of his size, but because of the cold authority he radiated. Years had passed since Steve had ceased to be his “boy” and had instead become nothing more than a “project,” a driver who was supposed to win but never seemed good enough.
“Five accidents, Steve,” his father said, his tone more statement than question. His words fell on Steve like unbearable weight. “What did you expect? That this time would be different?”
Steve didn’t look at him. He had learned to ignore, to stay distant, as if that were the only way to protect himself. But his heart beat faster. Fear of accidents was no longer just fear of death; now it was fear of failing, of disappointing his father, of falling even lower.
“I don’t care what you think,” Steve said, jaw tightening. “I’m done with all of this.”
His father came closer, taking a seat beside the bed without waiting to be invited. There was no concern in his gestures, only a calculated calm. “You can’t walk away from this, Steve,” he continued. “You can’t just quit. This is your life, your career, everything you’ve ever known.”
The words cut deeper than Steve expected. The life his father had built for him had always been one without doubt, a life where every decision was made by someone else. And that life had begun to collapse the moment he walked away from Eddie and accepted Wayne’s dismissal as his chief mechanic.
Everything had gone downhill since then. His father had insisted Wayne be replaced by a more “competent” mechanic, but Steve knew the decision was personal, not professional. It was his father who had ordered him to leave Eddie behind, who told him he couldn’t remain a “spoiled kid” swayed by his emotions.
Now, after years of mistakes and failures, Steve realized he had never truly been free. He had blindly followed the path his father laid out. He had given up Eddie, and with him, a part of himself. He had let his father decide for him, even when, deep down, he knew it was destroying him.
A knot rose in his throat, but Steve shoved it aside. He couldn’t let frustration break him now. He looked at his father’s impassive face and did something he had never dared before: he made a choice.
“I’m going to make a deal,” Steve said, his voice firm. “Next race—if I win, nothing changes. Everything I’ve earned, everything I have, stays mine. But if the other driver you choose, besides me, beats me… then I’ll give it all up. My team, my independence, my way of competing. I’ll race under your rules, under your conditions.”
His father studied him in silence for a few seconds, his eyes calculating, weighing the offer. He was not a man who decided lightly, but something in Steve’s defiant stare made him finally nod.
“Deal,” his father answered with unsettling calm. “We’ll see if you can hold to your word.”
Steve said nothing, the words still hanging in the air. Fear of losing pressed on him, but there was something else in his chest. Not just fear of losing the race—fear of losing himself, of remaining a puppet in a game he had never chosen.
The door shut softly as his father rose to leave, abandoning him to his thoughts. The deal was struck, and now Steve had to face the only battle that truly mattered: the one against himself.
Three days later, Steve was putting his plan into motion. His final throw of the dice.
The engine roared beneath the hood, the familiar sound the only thing grounding him as he drove down the empty road leading out of the city. Night had fallen over Indianapolis, but the glow of the streetlights reflected off the wet asphalt, painting neon lines that almost seemed to guide him to his destination.
The steering wheel was cold under his hands, but the heat in his chest grew, a constant pressure keeping him alert. The road stretched endlessly before him, the landscape blurring into shadows, while in his mind the past replayed like a film he couldn’t turn off.
Every curve he took, every burst of acceleration, reminded him of the time he had spent behind a wheel. Time he no longer enjoyed. He wasn’t the boy who loved racing anymore. He didn’t feel that visceral thrill of gliding over the track, the rush of wind across his face as the car seemed to fly. Instead, there was only emptiness, a disconnection that had grown stronger since the choice that led him here.
He had stopped loving racing when he chose his father over Eddie. When he let his father’s words erase everything it had meant to be with him. His relationship with Eddie—the bond that had lit his soul—had been the spark behind his passion for cars, but all of that crumbled the moment his father ordered him to let go. To stay in his father’s “favor,” to keep the sponsors his father secured, Steve had sacrificed the one thing that gave his life meaning outside the track.
The decision to stay with his father had been logical, Steve thought. A professional survival act. Without the right sponsors, without his father’s backing, Steve knew he would have no future in F1. Sponsors like ELF or Red Bull, the ones Eddie had always dreamed of, were simply unreachable for someone without a figure like his father behind him. But in his heart, Steve knew it had all been a lie he’d told himself.
The glow of the city buildings faded as he drove farther out. The Munson garage lay on the outskirts, near an abandoned airfield, a place that felt torn from another era, where the shadows of the past always seemed to linger. The contrast between the engine’s roar and the suffocating silence of the surroundings filled him with unease, as if he were crossing a threshold into something he couldn’t quite grasp.
“What do you expect to find here?” Steve asked himself, as though the answer might reveal itself while the wheels spun over the asphalt. He knew what he wanted. He knew what he needed. But words weren’t enough to fill the emptiness gnawing at him.
He had spent years searching for solace in races that no longer mattered, in teams that never understood him, and now, as he neared the garage, he realized the only thing he had truly lost was Eddie. The one person who, for some inexplicable reason, had always understood him better than anyone else.
Nostalgia twisted together with pain, and Steve clenched his teeth, pressing harder on the accelerator as the silhouette of the abandoned airfield emerged on the horizon. The old runway lay cracked and broken, overgrown with weeds, echoing with a past that would never fade. Coming back here, seeing the Munson garage, felt like facing a truth he had ignored for years. This was where it had all begun, where the lost pieces of the puzzle seemed, slowly, to fall back into place.
The Munson garage looked desolate, a shell of what had once been a sanctuary of ingenuity and passion for cars. Steve stepped out of the car with a knot in his stomach, scanning the place as a pang of nostalgia hit him. The air carried the scent of oil, rusted metal, and the silence of what had once been a refuge. The garage didn’t just look abandoned—it felt frozen in time. Dust-covered tools, half-finished cars, piles of tires—everything seemed to whisper that time itself had stopped here.
The metal door was half open. Steve hesitated before approaching. Light streamed through the broken windows, casting a somber glow, as if the sun itself had stopped reaching this place long ago. But what caught his attention most was the figure in the corner, hands deep in grease, working as though dirt and years of decay didn’t matter.
Eddie.
Steve froze. He stood there, watching him from behind, the weight of all the years between them suddenly crushing down on him. Eddie was… different. Or rather, he was both haunting and fragile, tragically beautiful in his withered state. His eyes were sunken, his skin paler than Steve remembered, as though he had been fighting something far greater than time itself. His cheeks were hollow, his shoulders slumped, and the once wild, lively hair that used to frame his face now fell limp across his forehead, drained of all its energy.
Pain shot through Steve’s chest at the sight of him, so close to collapsing. Something was deeply wrong, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. The shadows beneath Eddie’s eyes gave the impression that he was slowly burning out from the inside. There was something about him that silently screamed “death,” as if his body could no longer bear the weight of his soul.
Eddie didn’t notice him. Not until Steve took a step forward, the sound of his shoe against the concrete echoing through the silence of the garage. It was a small noise, but it was enough. Eddie spun around sharply, surprise flashing in his eyes for a second before it darkened into fury.
In the blink of an eye, Eddie’s expression hardened, his gaze heavy with resentment and years of repressed pain. Steve had expected anger—after all, the last time they had seen each other had ended with unsaid words and broken promises. But what shocked him was how Eddie’s rage seemed to animate his broken body, as if it were the only thing keeping him upright.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Eddie growled, his voice rough and raw, like he hadn’t spoken to anyone in a long time. His eyes blazed with anger, but it wasn’t only rage. It was desperation, frustration, and something else Steve couldn’t name. Something that made it clear Eddie still held him accountable for everything that had happened.
Steve stepped back, unable to hold his gaze for long. He hadn’t come here to fight, not now, not after so many years of silence. But the words slipped out, sincere in a way that startled even him.
“I… I’m not here to fight, Eddie,” he said, his voice low, almost unsteady. “I just… I want to see Wayne. I need to talk to him.”
Eddie stared at him, the tension between them taut as a wire about to snap. Finally, Eddie let out a sigh, heavier than the air between them, and for a moment, his expression emptied. As if all the anger he’d carried for years had drained away in a single breath.
Then his lips parted, and the words that came were nothing like what Steve expected.
“Wayne’s not here anymore,” Eddie said, his voice flat, stripped of emotion. “He died a few year ago.”
The impact hit Steve like a train. His stomach twisted, his mind reeled, and for a moment the world froze around him. The image of Wayne—the man who had always been his mentor and guide, the one who had built the team with Eddie, who had stood by him through every race—shattered before his eyes as if he’d never existed.
“What…? How…?” Steve barely managed to ask, his voice broken with disbelief. It wasn’t possible. Wayne had been so strong, so alive. How could it be? How could he have died so suddenly—and Eddie…?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve whispered, the pain finally piercing through his chest.
Eddie stared at him, and although fury burned in his eyes, there was something else. Something that looked like a mix of sadness and surrender. The rage that seemed to eat him alive from the inside suddenly burned out. His shoulders sagged, his expression blurred, and the light in his eyes vanished, leaving him emptier than before. As if all the anger he had stored for years had been extinguished the very moment Steve walked in.
“I called you, Steve,” Eddie said, his voice broken but deadly calm. “Years ago, I called. But… I stopped after that. I saw you reject me, I saw you hang up because you were busy with something way more important. You never called me back, and I… I didn’t know what else to do.”
The weight of those words stopped Steve cold. Reality hit him in the face like a freight train: Eddie had tried to reach out, had tried to tell him something important, and he… had ignored him.
“I… I didn’t know…” Steve began, but the words stuck in his throat. Regret was suffocating him. “I didn’t know it was you… I was in a photoshoot, I was… distracted, I didn’t think—”
Eddie cut him off with a gesture of indifference.
He had said everything he needed to say, but his eyes, now stripped of all emotion, made it clear: nothing remained of the person Steve once knew. The spark, the chaos, the wild energy Eddie had always carried—it was gone. All that was left was a void, a shadow of who he used to be.
Fear seized Steve as he looked at Eddie, who didn’t even seem angry anymore, just utterly apathetic, as if the fight had ended for him long ago. As if everything he once cared about had evaporated, leaving him hollow.
Steve felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest. Wayne, the man who had always been their anchor, was gone. And Eddie… Eddie wasn’t the Eddie he remembered, the reckless, brilliant boy who had made everything easier, messier, more alive.
The anguish of realizing he hadn’t only lost Wayne, but Eddie too, crashed into Steve all at once. He didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. The past had caught up with him, and the truth was tearing him apart.
Steve looked at Eddie, feeling the crushing weight of the years that had stretched between them, and the darkness that now clung to his old friend. The Munson workshop was cold, silent, except for the distant rattle of some engine failing in a forgotten corner. The air was thick with the smell of rust, grease, and something dead—like time itself had stopped here, abandoned by everyone except Eddie.
A knot twisted in Steve’s stomach. How had he gotten here? How had he gone so far, only to lose himself and, in the process, lose Eddie too? He looked at the man who had once been his partner in everything—his support, his confidant, the only one who had given him everything without asking for anything in return. And still, Steve had failed him. He had left Eddie behind out of fear, out of pride, out of a stupid loyalty to his father that, in the end, had led him straight to destruction.
But now, after so many years and five near-fatal accidents, Steve knew there was no going back. He knew Eddie was his only option. The only one who could save him. And he knew that if he didn’t act now, another season would go to hell and there would be no room left for regrets. So, carrying the weight of that decision on his shoulders, he stepped closer to Eddie with the same resolve he felt when revving up the engine before a race.
“Eddie,” Steve said, his voice steady though trembling inside, “I know this isn’t easy, and I know it might sound ridiculous after everything that’s happened. But I need you to listen to me, please.”
Eddie lifted his gaze, and for a second, those empty eyes flickered with something like confusion. As if he couldn’t quite tell if Steve was serious or if life was just playing another cruel trick, pushing them apart once more.
“Listen to me carefully,” Steve continued, stepping toward him. The air between them grew heavier, as if an invisible wall rose higher to separate them. Eddie said nothing, but the look in his eyes made it clear he was waiting—waiting for Steve to say something that could make sense of all this chaos.
“I need you to be my lead mechanic, Eddie,” Steve blurted out, straight to the point. The confession fell from his lips as if it were the last chance he’d ever get to say it. And yet, his voice didn’t falter. He knew that if he said it firmly, Eddie would have to hear him.
“What?” Eddie frowned, clearly thrown off. Steve, seeing his confusion, took a step back, already rushing to explain himself.
“Eddie, I know this sounds insane, and you might not even believe me, but… after everything that’s happened, after the way everything’s gone to hell these past years—I know you’re the only one who can save me. The mechanics my father forced on me are a disaster, there’s no chemistry, nothing. I’ve lost more than I’ve won because of constant failures, and the crashes never stop. Every time I get behind the wheel, I feel like I’m going to die right there. I don’t care what the doctors say, I don’t care what my father says. I’m at my breaking point. And if I don’t change this now, my career is finished—or I’ll be dead.”
Eddie looked at him, skeptical, his face etched with the years of solitude and bitterness. The rage he’d shown earlier had vanished, leaving only a deeper emptiness. And yet, Steve’s eyes burned with intensity, as if he were ready to sacrifice everything for one last chance—for one last hope.
“You don’t have to do this, Steve,” Eddie said, his voice as soft as a summer breeze but heavy with despair. “I’m not a mechanic anymore. Not like that.”
“I don’t care,” Steve shot back instantly, louder than he thought he could be. His heart was pounding, but he was more determined than ever. “I don’t care. The only thing that matters is that you’re the best at what you do, Eddie. And I can’t go on without you. You know how to work with a car, with an engine—you know how to read the track and everything that comes with it. There’s no one else who can do it better than you… I don’t trust anyone else.”
Eddie looked lost, as if Steve’s words were a puzzle he couldn’t piece together. But Steve wasn’t about to give up that easily. He was done feeling powerless, done being his father’s puppet, done playing games and wearing masks he’d outgrown years ago. It was time for at least one part of his life to be genuine, to be real. And somehow, Eddie still embodied that.
“I’m offering you the role of lead mechanic, Eddie. No restrictions, no budget caps, no one hovering over you telling you what to do. Total freedom. Full control of the team, the car, everything. If it’s money holding you back, forget it—I’ll give you whatever you need. No questions asked.”
Steve swallowed hard, and for the first time in a very long while, he felt completely vulnerable. Stripped bare. He met Eddie’s eyes, desperate for a flicker, a spark, anything that might tell him what Eddie was thinking.
But Eddie didn’t speak. Not for a long time. And with every second of silence, Steve felt the chance to set things right slip further from his grasp, like sand falling through his fingers. The quiet roared in his ears, each moment stretching tighter and tighter, wound with unbearable tension. His heartbeat was thunder in his chest, pounding, waiting, pleading.
Finally, Eddie spoke. His voice was soft, almost like water slipping over stone.
“Why me? Why now? Why after everything that’s happened?”
There was no accusation in his tone, not exactly. Only a sorrowful edge, a distrust that cut deeper than any anger could. And Steve realized then that the chasm between them was even wider than he’d feared.
He drew in a breath, forcing himself to pause before he answered. He knew Eddie wouldn’t accept half-truths or pretty promises. Eddie needed something real—proof that this wasn’t about desperation or convenience, that Steve wasn’t simply cornered.
“Because you’re the only one who can save me, Eddie. And more than that… because without you, I have nothing. I am nothing without you.”
Eddie’s face was unreadable, expression frozen, as if the weight of those words hung suspended in the air, too heavy to fall.
Steve didn’t know what would come next, but somewhere deep inside, he felt it—that there was still something left in Eddie. Something that could be the start of a new chance. Not just for the team, but for the wreck of a relationship they had both abandoned, left to rot in silence.
And whether or not he knew how, Steve was ready to fight for it. For all of it.
He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d made the offer. It felt as if time itself had stopped between them, locking them in a limbo where nothing either of them said could break through. Eddie remained silent, motionless. It was as if he were hearing Steve from behind an invisible wall, too far away to truly reach him.
The workshop light was dim, casting the two of them in a muted glow, as though they were actors trapped in a stage play with no audience. Steve’s words lingered in the air, sharp in their clarity, raw in their honesty—yet Eddie didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. He didn’t look at Steve with the fire he once had, the fire that had carried their late-night banter until sunrise. He didn’t challenge him with that teasing spark that had always lit his eyes.
Instead, he just sat there, hunched forward, staring at the ground like it was the only safe place left. And Steve’s heart cracked at the sight of him—not the bold, unruly Eddie who could make anyone feel at home, who could conjure laughter even in the darkest corners. No. What sat in front of him now was something else entirely.
A shadow. A faded, broken remnant of the boy Steve had once known.
Eddie… Steve thought, but the word never left his mouth. The sound of it would be too hollow, too full of pain. The air between them was heavy, thick enough to choke on. For a brief, terrible moment, Steve wondered if he’d made a mistake in coming here at all. Maybe Eddie wasn’t the same. Maybe Steve himself wasn’t, either.
“Eddie?” he tried again, the word barely more than a whisper. This time, his voice carried a note of desperation that pressed hard against his ribs. He needed to believe there was still something in Eddie that could wake, something that could cut through the icy silence he’d built around himself.
And finally, Eddie lifted his gaze. Just for a second. Just long enough for Steve to see it.
The emptiness.
It wasn’t only the distance, or the years of silence, or even the abandonment. It wasn’t only Wayne’s death, though the weight of that was carved into him, too. What Steve saw in Eddie’s eyes was something far more devastating: an exhaustion that reached his bones, a distrust so complete it had hollowed him out.
And in that moment, Steve understood. Eddie hadn’t just drifted away. He had fallen.
Gone was the loud, reckless, burning soul he had once loved. What remained was a ghost.
Steve’s chest tightened with the urge to beg forgiveness, to spill the apologies he’d held back all these years, to admit he’d been wrong to leave, wrong to obey his father instead of fighting for what truly mattered. But how could he say it now? Eddie didn’t look like he wanted to hear. And maybe the words no longer mattered anyway.
“You know…” Eddie’s voice came quiet, strained, as though every syllable cost him. “I don’t get it. What do you even expect from me? Do you honestly think I can just… walk back into this? That everything can go back to how it was?”
Steve’s mouth opened, but nothing came. How could he explain that this wasn’t about convenience or a second chance at glory—that what he was offering wasn’t just professional, but personal? That it was, in a way, his last attempt to give them both a shot at healing?
“I—” Steve started, then faltered. Empty reasons would only sound hollow. Eddie deserved something more. Something real.
But Steve wasn’t sure he could give it.
Eddie watched him for a moment, almost as if he were waiting for the boy he once knew to reappear. But when he didn’t, Eddie dropped his gaze again, retreating behind the invisible walls he’d built around himself.
Steve’s throat tightened. Frustration clawed at him, threatening to consume him whole. The guilt pressed heavier, sharper—the wasted years, the missed chances, the chasm that now yawned between them like something unbridgeable.
And yet, it wasn’t just the guilt that hurt. It was the sight of Eddie himself—the way his light had burned out, leaving nothing but dim embers.
“Eddie…” Steve finally said, his voice stripped of everything but raw sincerity. The weight of exhaustion pulled on him as he leaned forward, trying to break through the barricade around Eddie’s heart.
“I need you.” The words were quiet, but sharp, cutting straight through him. “I need you on my team. But more than that… I need you.”
Eddie finally looked up, but his expression didn’t shift. There was no anger, no visible pain. Just a terrifying calm, as if nothing mattered anymore.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Steve.” His words were cold, almost apathetic, and in them Steve felt the abyss that now stretched between them. Distrust was etched into every gesture, every unsaid word. And that distrust cut deeper than any scolding, deeper than indifference itself. Eddie’s doubt was the final proof that nothing remained of the friendship they once had.
It felt like someone had torn Steve’s soul straight out of him.
For a moment, in that suffocating silence, words felt useless. The damage was already done, and the scars between them ran deeper than Steve had ever realized. And yet, giving up wasn’t an option. He knew he had come this far for a reason. He knew the love they once shared—though buried under layers of hurt and silence—was still there, waiting to be uncovered. Maybe it only needed time.
I just need him to give me a chance, Steve thought, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. Not now.
So he waited. And waiting was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Steve left the shop in silence, his heart pounding hard against his ribs, the weight of his thoughts trailing him like a shadow. He had no idea what Eddie was thinking, no clue if anything written in that contract could change his mind. All he knew was that his life, his career, his very survival depended on this. The fear of dying—of becoming nothing more than the next casualty in a string of accidents—had dragged him here. And now, he was leaving Eddie with the choice of whether or not to save him.
At the far end of the lot, his battered car sat strapped to the trailer, silent, its engine long cooled. Steve hadn’t wanted anyone else to see it, hadn’t wanted them to realize how bad things had gotten. The vehicle still bore the scars of every crash, almost unrecognizable beneath the dents, the burns, and streaks of dried blood staining the paint.
Kneeling beside it, Steve traced the marks with his eyes, absorbing every flaw, every wound of the machine with a raw intensity he hadn’t felt in years. He had been so young when he started racing—so full of energy, so alive. But all of that had changed. Now, every lap was a gamble. Every turn felt like an invitation to disaster. How much longer could he keep this up? How many crashes would it take before he finally understood he couldn’t keep going like this?
With a long breath, he stood and turned back toward the shop. Its broken windows, its flickering lights fighting against the dark, the layers of dust coating the workbenches—everything spoke of decay. And in a cruel way, that decay mirrored Eddie himself. The boy who once burned brighter than anyone, who had been nothing but spark and chaos, was now trapped here, buried in silence, like he’d been waiting for time itself to erase him.
The shop was as forgotten as Eddie. And yet Steve could still feel something inside it. Something Eddie hadn’t managed to let die completely. Because if Steve had come here—if he’d forced himself through all that fear to stand in this place—it was because some part of him still needed Eddie. Needed the fire they once shared.
From across the shop floor, he saw Eddie perched on a workbench, staring at the contract as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to read it. His posture hit Steve like a blow—Eddie was locked inside his own head, so tangled in his pain that he couldn’t even see what Steve was really offering. But Steve understood. Fear had brought them both here, and fear would decide everything.
He moved closer, slow, deliberate. He didn’t want to push. The contract had been handed over quietly, almost like a last prayer. A fragile hope that Eddie might, somehow, say yes.
“Here it is,” Steve murmured, barely raising his voice. “No budget limits. No restrictions. Just you and me. Just you and the car. If you want it, the chief mechanic’s position is yours.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up right away. But Steve noticed his hands tremble as they held the paper, saw how even a single page could shake the confidence Eddie had once carried so easily. It broke him, watching Eddie fight against his own doubt.
Steve stepped back, scanning the cluttered shop—oil stains on the floor, rusting tools, posters of long-dead sponsors peeling from the walls. Everything around him was a portrait of someone who had let the world pass them by. And the truth sank in: Eddie wasn’t just broken. He had stopped believing in himself a long time ago.
Steve thought of his own fear—the endless crashes, the haunting knowledge that one more mistake could kill him. He wasn’t there out of ambition. He wasn’t there for glory. He was there because the thought of dying under his father’s rules terrified him more than anything. And Eddie… Eddie was the only one who had ever made him feel like he could live.
At last, Eddie lifted his eyes, though he said nothing. His gaze was empty, but there was something else buried deep inside—hesitation, pain, conflict. Steve held his breath, watching him wrestle with a choice neither of them could take lightly.
He stepped closer, breaking the silence.
“I’m not here just because of the contract, Eddie. I’m here because…” He faltered, words fighting to form. “Because I’m scared. I’m scared this is my last year. That my mistakes will end me. And I’m not…” He swallowed, forcing the truth out. “I’m not tired of racing. But I’m done racing with the mechanics my father keeps forcing on me. I don’t want to die because of them.”
Eddie didn’t move, didn’t flinch. The contract remained in his hands, wrinkled under his grip. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, small—like someone confessing a secret he’d rather keep hidden.
“What if I can’t…?” He left the thought unfinished, but Steve heard the fear threaded through every syllable.
“I know.” Steve’s voice was steady, sure. “I know, Eddie. But I don’t have another choice.”
There was a long silence. Then Eddie dropped his gaze, inhaling deeply, his shoulders softening the slightest fraction.
“…Alright,” he whispered. The word was heavy, uncertain, but it was an answer. It was enough.
Relief washed over Steve—uneven, imperfect, but real. Eddie had said yes. Not with the faith Steve longed for, not with the spark he remembered, but he had said it. That was more than Steve could have asked for.
“Thank you, Eddie,” was all he managed, the words trembling with both gratitude and fear.
As the echo of his voice lingered in the hollow shop, Steve couldn’t stop the questions clawing at him. Could this be the start of mending what they’d lost? Or was it just the final thread keeping them from falling apart completely?
Hours later, as he drove away from the Munson garage, the lights of Indianapolis glimmered on the horizon, but all he saw was darkness. He had done the right thing coming here. He was sure of it. But that didn’t quiet the storm inside him. Something had shifted between them, something vital. Whether it was the first step toward healing or the last nail in the coffin of their friendship—only time would tell.
Driving back to his hotel, every mile brought him closer to the shadows he had tried to escape for years. The worst part wasn’t the fear gnawing at him now, but the bitter certainty that Eddie had been right all along to doubt him. Not only because Steve had walked away without a word, but because he had committed the most unforgivable mistake of all: ignoring Eddie’s pain—his desperate call for help—over something as shallow as convenience.
The memory of that call still hammered in his head. It was sharper now, more vivid than ever, a ghost he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. Eddie on the other end of the line, sobbing, voice broken, words stumbling between tears. Steve, trapped in a photo shoot with sponsors, ending the call in a careless swipe, like it meant nothing. I’m busy. Those two words echoed in him like knives, cutting deeper each time he remembered.
Eddie had called that night, right after Wayne’s death. Steve remembered perfectly the way he’d smirked at Eddie’s incoherent rambling before hanging up. That crack in Eddie’s voice, the raw sound of grief… and what had Steve done? He had dismissed it. Cut him off without hesitation, as though Eddie were nothing but an inconvenience. As though all that mattered were the damned photos, the spotless image, the deal his father was negotiating. A contract Steve had never really wanted, tied to a world that was never his, a world that had dragged him away from the only thing that had ever mattered.
It hit him now how stupid he had been. How blind. He had convinced himself that staying in his father’s good graces, keeping the sponsors happy, chasing fame—that was what he needed. And in doing so, he had left Eddie to fall apart alone, swallowed by grief. Eddie had never been the type to ask for help. Steve knew that better than anyone. But that night, Eddie had asked. And Steve, with the arrogance of success and the carelessness of youth, had ignored him.
The regret ate at him, hollowing him out. But what hurt the most wasn’t that he had let Eddie go—it was the selfishness of not recognizing what Eddie truly meant to him. Eddie had been his anchor, his partner, his twin flame in the chaos of racing. The only one who understood him without words, the one who could make him laugh even when everything else was falling apart. And Steve had thrown it away, not because he didn’t care, but because he wasn’t mature enough to see that in chasing his father’s dream, he had abandoned his own.
Eddie would never forgive him for that. And the truth was, Steve didn’t forgive himself either.
When he finally pulled into the hotel and turned the key in the ignition, he allowed himself a moment of stillness. With the engine silent, he stayed there, hands gripping the wheel, mind racing. But underneath the noise of guilt and fear, something else was beginning to take shape.
Steve knew he had screwed up. But he also knew this wasn’t the end. He wasn’t ready to walk away from racing—not yet. The fear of death, of burning out on a track, weighed on him like a stone, but there was something he couldn’t deny: he still loved it.
Not the money. Not the contracts. Not the sponsors. What drove him was the roar of the engine, the speed, the pure adrenaline that burned through his veins. That was the part he couldn’t let go of. Even if the crashes had pushed him to the edge, even if his team had failed him over and over, he couldn’t quit. It was the only thing he knew how to do.
What he hated—what was truly killing him—was everything around it. His father’s empty promises. The constant pressure. The endless demand to be someone he wasn’t. The perfect image he had to maintain no matter what. That was the cage. Not the racing itself. That was what had driven him away from the boy he used to be, from the reason he’d fallen in love with the sport in the first place.
But now, after all these years, there was something he could still take back. Something that might not heal everything, but could at least start to mend the cracks. Eddie. He could try, at least, to help Eddie reclaim some piece of what he had lost. And maybe—just maybe—in doing so, Steve could heal too. Maybe together they could find a way forward. Not just on the track, but in life.
Steve was determined not to let Eddie fall apart any further. Eddie might not know it yet, but Steve was there, and he wasn’t going anywhere. He had lost him once, but he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Taking care of him, helping him climb out of the dark—that was his purpose now.
With that thought, Steve lifted his gaze toward the city lights shimmering beyond the car window, as if somewhere out there he could find the answer he was searching for. Eddie wasn’t the only one who had changed. Steve had too, even if he hadn’t fully realized it until now. But he understood something at last: what truly mattered wasn’t fame or success, but the people who stood beside you—the ones you couldn’t afford to lose. And in that moment, Steve knew he would never let Eddie fade into just another shadow of his past.
He was going to bring him back.
It was the only thing that mattered.
Chapter 2: Lonely is the Word
Notes:
Lonely is the Word – Black Sabbath
Chapter Text
Eddie stayed there, in the small back room of the Munson garage, staring at the contract Steve had left behind. The paper felt like it was crumbling between his fingers, as if everything Steve was offering him was disintegrating at the mere touch of his skin. Every word on that contract meant nothing. Nothing to Eddie. Nothing to the boy he once was.
He saw him from the window—Steve. At first, he thought it was just a mirage, a trick of his tired mind. But no. There he was, standing in the very spot where Eddie had once been stuck, doing what Steve had sworn never to do: coming back. Coming back when there was nothing left to save. When everything had already been lost.
Eddie didn’t know what to feel upon seeing him. He’d followed the news, heard about him, always with that voice over the F1 broadcasts—the one he could still just barely remember. He’d seen his wins, his photos, his fame. But all of it felt distant, like Steve had become a completely different person. Another version of himself. Not the boy he had known.
And when he saw him—truly saw him—when their eyes met after all those years, Eddie felt a sharp pain in his chest. Steve looked older, broader, his face worn with exhaustion and the scars of a life that no longer resembled the one they once shared. There was something different in his eyes, a seriousness Eddie had never seen in him before. The youthful spark Steve used to carry, that gleam in his gaze Eddie used to hate—was gone. Now, Steve looked... drained. Something in him had changed for good, and Eddie didn’t know if that made him feel relieved or even more terrified.
What unsettled him most was the way Steve held himself. Not just physically, but in the way he moved. Steve seemed more grounded, as if he had learned how to carry the weight of expectations, of the pressure that had always shadowed him. But that seriousness was a mask. The same mask Eddie had seen many times before but never truly understood until now. Steve was wounded, and not just from the crashes on the track. There was something deeper—something Eddie couldn’t see, but he could feel it.
And then, looking at him, something struck him in the chest: Steve was returning to his roots, but he was no longer the Steve he used to know. This was a Steve who had changed, who had paid the price of fame, of competition, of everything that had been forced upon him.
For a moment, as Eddie watched in silence, he remembered who Steve had been in their youth. That inexperienced, vulnerable version of him, the one who still had that gleam of joy in his eyes, that easy laugh Eddie had once adored. The Steve who loved racing, but also knew how to enjoy life off the track. The Steve who had shared his time with him, who had promised they'd always stay together. But that Steve was gone.
The Steve who had walked into the Munson garage wasn’t a memory—he was a presence. A presence that stirred something in Eddie he hadn’t felt in a long time: a knot in his stomach, a twist that made him feel alive but also trapped. Trapped in the pain that came with his return.
Why had he come?
Eddie knew what Steve wanted. He had known the moment he saw the envelope, the contract, the hollow words it carried. He was offering him one last chance. And though Eddie had long since stopped believing in promises, he couldn’t help but feel there was something in that offer that hit too deep. Something he couldn’t ignore, no matter how much he wanted to.
His body, so used to the weight of pain, tensed as he watched Steve move through the garage. Every step echoed in the darkness of a place that had once been a haven for both of them. Eddie barely breathed. He didn’t want to believe Steve was really there. But the marks of his presence were unmistakable. He was real.
“I don’t want anything from you, Steve.”
Eddie’s voice came out rougher than he expected. A whisper, but laced with the weight of all the years he had spent without him.
Steve looked at him, startled, as if the words had come from another dimension. Eddie didn’t feel the urge to yell or hit him, as many might have assumed. He didn’t have the energy for that. He was exhausted—physically, emotionally. All he could do was look at him with those empty eyes, the same eyes Steve had seen on the other end of the call. The call he had so coldly ended. The one where Eddie, through choked sobs, had tried to tell him Wayne had died.
Eddie had cried, had begged for help, and all he got in return was the indifference of a Steve too busy with his sponsors and contracts. He’d let him go, and Eddie couldn’t forget that. He couldn’t forget how, in that moment, Steve had been so cold, so... distant.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you, Steve. Nothing you want to hear.”
Eddie’s words hung in the air like frost, and though Steve opened his mouth as if to speak, something stopped him. Maybe it was Eddie’s fragility, the darkness that now surrounded him, seeping into Steve. But it wasn’t just that. It was the way Eddie looked at him—so distant, so detached—that made it hard for Steve to even recognize him. Eddie was no longer the confident, outspoken kid who used to challenge him with his jokes. Now he was closed off, wary, so far away it hurt to look at him.
How had he let it come to this?
The silence between them stretched like a frayed rope trying to hold together. Eddie looked at the contract again but didn’t open it. He simply held it in his hands, as if that was all he had left. Hope—the kind that had once made him glow—was gone. Steve had killed it.
And yet, despite everything, Eddie knew he couldn’t keep falling. Not anymore. Not without something in return. And though his pain felt almost unbearable, something inside whispered that maybe—just maybe—Steve wasn’t as lost as he seemed. Maybe a part of that boy who once promised never to leave him behind still remained.
But would that be enough?
Eddie exhaled and, without lifting his gaze, slid the contract across the table. Maybe, just maybe, this was the moment to do something for himself.
And so, in absolute silence, Eddie accepted what looked like his last chance. But only because Steve had given him something he never expected: the possibility of reclaiming a piece of his life. Though deep down, he couldn’t stop wondering whether the one who had truly changed... was Steve—or himself.
Eddie kept staring at the door Steve had walked through. His figure had vanished quickly, swallowed by the sunlight still glowing outside the garage. The truth was, he didn’t know how long it had been since the sound of Steve’s footsteps had faded. All he could hear now was the echo of the quiet that had settled in the room—a stillness as thick as the air he now breathed.
A few seconds later, with a heavy sigh that escaped him almost involuntarily, Eddie walked over to Steve’s car. The engine was damaged, of course—he already knew that. It was exactly what he’d expected from a vehicle beaten by time and too many careless hands. There was irony in that. Steve’s car—the very symbol of his success—was now a broken shell. Not unlike the way Eddie felt inside.
He crouched beside the car, the metallic scent of the garage filling his lungs, as his fingers traced the edges of the engine. With each movement, something within him seemed to stir—slowly, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t the old spark he once had, not the overflowing energy from the days when he laughed at everything. But the act of working on a car, of digging into the details, of feeling the parts and gears, brought him a strange kind of calm.
He pulled out an old sheet of paper, the one he used to jot down anything important, and started writing. With each note, the list grew, while his mind drifted to memories of other times—when he and Steve used to do this together. When their hands worked in sync in the garage, with Wayne watching over them. But that was just a distant echo now. Something he couldn’t bring back.
He started with the obvious: the suspension was shot. The brake system—total mess. Engine connections—poorly done. Tires—worn to the edge. And as he kept writing, something inside him began to solidify. Steve’s car was a wreck, but it wasn’t beyond repair. Eddie could bring it back. He could make it run better than ever. He knew that. He’d done it before.
Still, every fix he noted felt less like a solution and more like a sentence. This car—this poor vehicle—wasn’t just a machine. It was a reflection of everything Steve had neglected: his career, his life, and himself. And the worst part was, Eddie knew it. He knew the damage wasn’t accidental. It was the result of someone who’d stopped caring. Someone who had started gambling with fate. Someone who had stopped listening.
He set the pen aside and left the list of repairs on the workbench. Silence wrapped around him once again, but now it didn’t feel like the same emptiness as before. It wasn’t peace, but it wasn’t despair either. It was something in between—something that had been there all along, dormant, waiting for its moment.
Eddie closed his eyes for a second, almost as if he could hear Steve—or rather, hear what he had said. Why hadn’t he called sooner? Why had he let things get to this point? He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Steve had hung up that night. The night he told him Wayne had died.
Eddie tensed at the memory of what he’d felt then—the hollow ache that had taken over him, the crushing sense that no one was there. What had happened to his best friend? How could Steve ignore him when he needed him most?
But now Steve was here, offering everything Eddie had once dreamed of, back when he thought racing and cars were all that really mattered.
He looked at Steve’s car again, now little more than an empty shell of what it had been. And as he took in everything that needed fixing, an idea began to take shape in his mind. If this was what Steve wanted—then it would have to be Eddie who brought it back to life.
He couldn’t let Steve’s car stay like this, but he wouldn’t do it for him. He’d do it for the boy he once was—for the Steve who still lived in some forgotten corner of his mind. He’d do it for the memory of what they once shared, for the promise they never said out loud but had always understood: That no matter how much time passed, they could always find their way back to trusting each other.
Eddie let out a long breath and began to work. Not for Steve. Not because of him—but for what the act of fixing represented: the healing of what had once been broken.
As his hands took control of the car’s parts again, a small sliver of hope slipped through the cracks of his fractured soul.
Maybe this was what Steve really needed.
Maybe this was what he needed, too.
And as his hands kept moving, almost mechanically, as if the pain and exhaustion of his soul could be scrubbed away by the repetition, Eddie began to realize something more:
The repairs he was about to make wouldn’t just be for the car.
The real work—the one that truly mattered—was in himself. But for now, he couldn’t face that. He could only focus on bolts, pistons, hoses. He could only focus on bringing something back to life—something that had once been his.
Everything else would have to wait.
Eddie had worked without pause, his hands stained with grease, his mind drained but locked into the rhythm of repairing the car. There was something in the routine, the repetition of movement, that anchored him to reality. He didn’t want to think, didn’t want to feel. He just needed not to think—and the metallic sounds of the work pulled him in, kept him occupied, as if somehow, he could outrun what he felt inside.
When the sun began to rise over the horizon, Eddie barely noticed. He slid into a chair in the garage, his back resting against the wall, and closed his eyes for a moment.
Exhaustion had finally caught up with him. He stayed there, in the silence broken only by the distant sound of the wind rattling the broken windows of the workshop.
The night was far too quiet for what was burning inside that room. Eddie knew it the moment he walked in—the air was heavy, distorted, as if something unseen was warning him that everything was about to break.
For months now, Steve hadn’t been the same. He’d seen it—had tried not to, but he had. He saw it in the fights that came more often, in the way Steve avoided his eyes, in the sharpness that crept in every time Eddie mentioned cars, music, or impossible plans.
Ever since Wayne had been fired by the Harringtons, Steve had changed. Eddie had noticed—he didn’t want to, but he had. His father’s shadow haunted every word he spoke. He was no longer the boy who’d get his hands greasy without complaint, who listened to wild ideas with a smile, who begged him to play guitar even if it was three in the morning.
He was someone else now. A stranger with the same face, the same gestures—but dimmer. Sharper. Hardened.
Now he was standing there, by the bed, hands buried deep in his pockets, head down as if looking at Eddie was too heavy a thing to carry.
“I can’t keep doing this, Eddie.”
The words fell like stones. Eddie blinked, disbelieving.
“What?”
Steve lifted his gaze. There was no warmth in his eyes, not a trace of the affection that had undone him so many times before. Only coldness.
“This isn’t working.”
Eddie stepped back, as if a blast of cold air had hit him.
“No, wait—what do you mean it’s not working? Of course it is, Steve. It’s us!”
A bitter, crooked smile spread across Steve’s face.
“That’s what you think. But this—whatever we are—it’s not taking me anywhere. It’s not giving me a future.”
Eddie felt the ground slide out from under his feet.
“How can you say that? After everything we… we did together, everything we dreamed of…”
“We dreamed, yeah.”
Steve spit the word like it burned his mouth.
“But I don’t live off dreams anymore. Your crazy ideas about cars, your sketches on napkins, your music that never leads anywhere—do you know what all that is to me now? Distractions. Things holding me back.”
The words were knives. Eddie froze, throat tightening.
“That’s not true…” he whispered, barely able to speak.
“Oh, it is.”
Steve stepped closer, his shadow bigger than ever.
“You think life’s a game, that we can live off fantasies. But I can’t keep carrying that. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t know what they want, who lives in out-of-tune guitars and scribbles of cars that’ll never exist.”
Each word struck like a blow. Because it was those things—his music, his chaos, his cars—that Steve had once celebrated. The things that had made Eddie believe he was worth something. And now he was throwing them back at him like they were garbage.
“You’re telling me that who I am… the parts of me I love the most… are a burden to you?” Eddie’s voice cracked, desperate, searching for even the faintest hint of doubt in Steve’s face.
But there was none.
“I need to grow up, Eddie. My dad was right. I can’t stay tied to your games. I can’t be the driver I want to be if I’m caught up in all this.” He made a sweeping gesture—toward the guitar against the wall, the notebooks full of sketches… and Eddie himself.
A knot formed in Eddie’s throat, the instinct to grab him by the shoulders, to scream that he was wrong.
“We can fix this!” he said, with more force than he felt. “You don’t have to choose. I’m with you—I’ve always been. We can make this work, Steve. You don’t have to listen to your dad—he doesn’t know what we have—”
“What we have?”
Steve laughed, dry and cruel.
“What do we have, Eddie? Wasted hours in a garage? Songs that go nowhere? Car projects that will never see a track?”
“That’s not a waste of time!”
Eddie shouted, desperate now, tears burning behind his eyes.
“That’s us, Steve! That’s what made us happy! You used to tell me it was worth it!”
For a second, he thought he saw hesitation on Steve’s face. But it vanished just as quickly.
“I was lying to myself.” His voice was sharp.
“What you do—what you are—is holding me back.” The words landed like stakes. Eddie couldn’t breathe. " You can’t say that…” His voice completely broke. “You can’t use who I am against me.”
“I can. And I am,” Steve replied, ice-cold. “Because I need to let go of all this if I want to get where I’m going.”
Eddie was speechless. The boy who had given him wings—who had made him believe his chaos was magic—was now reducing him to nothing.
“So… everything we had was a lie?” he whispered.
Steve looked at him without blinking.
“It was nice while it lasted. But it’s over.”
The silence that followed was unbearable. Eddie felt hollow, like he’d fallen from an impossible height.
When Steve walked past him, heading for the door, Eddie tried to move—to stop him, to say something else. But nothing came out. His throat was closed, his hands were shaking. The door slammed shut, and its echo left him alone with the silence.
There was no message afterward. No call. No explanation. That same week, when Eddie tried to find him—calling over and over, waiting at the places they always used to meet—the only thing he got was silence.
Silence on the phone. Silence in the empty house. Silence in the paddocks.
Until someone, with pity in their eyes, told him what he already feared: Steve had left for Chicago. Without saying a word.
And that’s when he understood it hadn’t just been the fight.
It hadn’t just been the cruel words.
It had been the abandonment.
The emptiness.
The clean break, as if Eddie had never existed.
That night shattered him. And what came after—the absence, the unanswered calls, the slow erasure of Steve’s name from his life—tore out something from him that he never got back
Eddie woke with a start. The workshop greeted him with a dull thud and the faint glow of morning light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. He had fallen asleep on the workbench, surrounded by car parts and scattered tools.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he tried to shake off the remnants of that awful dream. But it clung to him. The image of Steve, changed into that distant figure—always what his father wanted him to be—still haunted him. That was what had broken him. That was what changed everything, what turned Steve into someone almost unrecognizable.
With a heavy sigh, Eddie got up and walked toward the window. He stared out at the distant horizon, as if hoping to find some kind of answer there, in the quiet, in the emptiness that surrounded him. When had everything gone to hell? When had he lost the Steve he used to know?
The ache curled back into his chest, sharper than before. It wasn’t just the end of the relationship, or the pain of losing the person who had once meant everything to him. It was the knowledge that he would never be the same again.
His eyes found the contract Steve had left on the table. Over time, it had become a constant reminder of everything he’d lost—not just the relationship, but the connection they’d once shared. Nothing was the same anymore.
After splashing water on his face and forcing himself to drink something, Eddie returned to the workshop—just in time to hear the familiar sound of a truck approaching. That low rumble in the distance, the subtle shift in the air—it could only mean one thing. Steve.
Years had taught Eddie that Steve’s presence always shifted the room. No matter how cold or distant he was, something about him changed the atmosphere. But now, the feeling wasn’t warmth or familiarity. It was tension. It was weight. It pressed against Eddie’s chest, heavy and unwelcome.
Steve was here.
Eddie didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t want to see Steve’s face or hear his voice. But even without looking, he could feel the fog of him settling into the room. The engine went quiet, the door creaked open, and suddenly Steve was standing there—holding paper bags and a thermos like this was some normal morning.
His words floated out, light and meaningless. Something about the hotel, the breakfast. Eddie didn’t care. He didn’t want to hear about the eggs or the coffee or the fucking restaurant. He didn’t care where Steve was staying or what his life looked like now. Not here. Not like this.
“I brought you something,” Steve said, his voice just a little too casual, trying to come off natural. Why was he doing this? Eddie already knew. Steve had always been about grand gestures—trying to make everything seem okay, even when it was falling apart. But now, all of it rang hollow, like a scene in a movie that no longer made sense.
Eddie stared at the floor. He didn’t move when Steve reached into the bags. How could he? How could he take anything from Steve after everything? After the silence, after the abandonment, after the years he spent trying to scrape himself back together. The worst part wasn’t even the betrayal—it was the powerlessness. The fact that Steve was here, now, acting like he could just bring breakfast and fix something.
Steve kept talking, like the words might fill the silence between them. “The hotel’s got this amazing restaurant. You know, scrambled eggs, bacon… all the classic stuff. Real quiet, relaxed, kind of place…”
His voice drifted, trying to be light. Like they were still close. Like they hadn’t been torn apart. But all Eddie could feel was the dissonance—the yawning gap between this version of Steve and the one who had walked away.
The sound of Steve’s soft laugh when he mentioned the restaurant twisted something in Eddie’s gut. He wasn’t hungry. It didn’t matter that breakfast was there, or that Steve had brought it with some kind of good intention. He didn’t want it. Every bite would feel like betrayal—of himself, of everything he’d held onto just to survive. Because this wasn’t about eggs and bacon. It never had been.
Steve fell quiet, watching him, waiting for something—anything. But Eddie stayed silent. He just looked at him with that blank expression, his eyes distant, almost hollow, while his mind raced through everything he couldn’t say.
Why should he accept this? Why should he accept something so small, so ordinary, from someone who had left him behind like he didn’t matter? Every part of him screamed no. But beneath that—quieter, more dangerous—was the hunger. The physical need. The fatigue of years carried on his back.
With a long, steadying breath, Eddie finally lifted his gaze. Steve was still there, standing with that tentative, expectant look, like this moment meant something. Like maybe there was still a thread between them.
It felt like time had folded in on itself. Like all those years, all that pain, had been put on pause just to see if something could still be salvaged. But Eddie knew better. He knew he couldn’t go back. Couldn’t let himself fall for the illusion of what they used to be.
Steve, clearly not understanding what was going through Eddie’s mind, set the bags down gently.
“You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to,” he said, voice softer now, trying to be kind.
But Eddie didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on the floor, filled with a grief so deep it didn’t even need words. The breakfast sat there, untouched—like a symbol of something neither of them could name. How could he take that gesture and not feel like he was betraying himself?
Finally, without speaking, Eddie stood up. He didn’t look at Steve. He didn’t reach for the food. He just walked toward the far corner of the workshop, needing space, needing air. Needing to not feel.
He didn’t want to look at Steve. Didn’t want to remember what Steve meant. Didn’t want the ache of need to be the reason he accepted anything from him. All Eddie wanted—deep in his bones—was to be alone.
He didn’t raise his head when he heard Steve speak again. That voice, once so familiar, now just another ghost in the room. He stood there, saying words that meant nothing, like the years between them hadn’t happened. Like the silence hadn’t broken something neither of them could ever fully repair.
“If you need help—or if you just want me around, for anything…” Steve’s voice wavered slightly, as if he were offering more than just his presence. “I can stay, you know? If you want me to test the car, or… whatever. You just have to say it.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up. Instead, he kept working on the engine, his hands moving with automatic precision, like nothing in the world could pull him out of his bubble of silence. The sound of metal, the weight of the tools—those were the only things he could focus on. Steve kept talking, but the words felt hollow, like he was speaking to someone who no longer existed.
“The rest of the team arrives tomorrow,” Steve added, like it was something important. “They’re bringing the backup car, the full set of tools… and a good group of mechanics.”
Still, Eddie didn’t lift his gaze. He heard it all, but it barely registered. Steve was trying to explain everything he had planned, trying to talk to him—but Eddie couldn’t bring himself to really listen. He didn’t want to. He didn’t care about the team, or the support, or the logistics. He just wanted Steve to go. And though he knew that wouldn’t happen—not yet—he clung to the only form of control he had: ignoring him. Pretending none of this mattered.
“You’ll be in charge, Eddie,” Steve continued, his voice softer now. “Whatever you say, they’ll follow. I’m just… here if you need anything. Whatever you might need.”
But Eddie didn’t want to think about that. Not the team. Not the offer. Not the fact that Steve was here, talking to him like any of this could be fixed. What Steve might see as a second chance, a solution, was just another reminder of how far Eddie had drifted from everything he used to believe in—everything he used to want.
“So, if you ever decide to do something with all this…” Steve said quietly, like he was trying not to press. “You know where to find me.”
Eddie still said nothing. What could he say? He didn’t know if he could trust Steve’s words. He didn’t know if he could ever trust him again. The silence between them was thick, a quiet wall that neither of them seemed capable of climbing.
Eventually, Steve stepped back. Eddie heard the scrape of a toolbox being set down, the metallic clatter of parts shifting. Every movement from Steve felt like a deeper push into the shadows of Eddie’s mind.
“I’ll just leave this here,” Steve murmured, casting a final glance around the garage, like he was searching for something else to say. But there was nothing left. “Anyway… you know where to find me. If anything comes up.”
Still, Eddie didn’t reply. Couldn’t. He wanted Steve gone. He wanted the noise to stop, the weight of him to disappear. He couldn’t bear Steve’s nearness—not when everything he offered only reminded him of everything he had lost, of everything that would never come back.
When the door finally closed behind Steve with a soft thud, Eddie let the heavy air settle around him. Steve hadn’t listened. He hadn’t understood. Not really.
But the worst part was that he had listened. He had heard every word—every offer, every soft-spoken promise. Why now? Why offer himself like this, after everything? Did Steve really think this—contracts, teams, shared space—could erase the years of silence and abandonment? Eddie didn’t know anything for certain, except one thing: nothing Steve said could ever give back what was taken from him.
He stayed there, once again alone, caught between memories of what had been and the wreckage of all the promises left behind.
His hands still hovered over the engine, barely focusing, even as Steve’s voice lingered in his memory—steady now, more confident, still familiar. It was the same voice that had once made him laugh, that had pulled him out of the chaos of his own mind, that had soothed him like no one else ever had.
But hearing it now didn’t feel the same.
“You know, I looked over the list you gave me—tires, performance, pressure settings,” Steve had said with a quiet smile, like they were talking about just another project. “Back in F1, before all this, the engineers used to say the worst thing you could be with a car was rigid. That you needed give. Flexibility. Classic advice, right? ‘If you’re rigid, you’ll break the car.’”
For a brief moment, Eddie glanced up. Steve stood beside him, looking down at the engine with a kind of nostalgia. His smile was genuine—painfully so—and for a second, something inside Eddie stirred. A flicker of the old Eddie, the one who had laughed so easily beside him, the one who had lived for this kind of intimacy, surfaced… but it never made it out. The laughter stayed stuck in his throat, trapped behind something heavy and raw in his chest.
“And I guess,” Steve had continued, unaware of the silent punch his words carried, “I’ve learned the hard way that you can ruin a race if you don’t know how to adjust the small things. Sometimes it’s not about going big. Sometimes, it’s the little adjustments that make the difference.”
Eddie hadn’t responded. Couldn’t. Steve seemed so steady now, so sure of himself, that it was hard to remember the boy he used to be—the one riddled with doubts, afraid of never being enough, of failing to escape his father’s shadow. This version of Steve… he looked like someone who had finally figured it out. And that hurt more than Eddie wanted to admit.
Then Steve had said, like it came to him out of nowhere: “You know, Eddie… I don’t think I ever told you this, but I always felt like I was in someone else’s shadow. Like I wasn’t enough. Like I was always missing something. But working with this team, with Hopper and the others… I started to realize it’s not about being the best at everything.”
Eddie had heard that part. He couldn’t not hear it. There was something ironic in it, something bitter. Steve—the same Steve who’d once burned to prove his worth, who had been consumed by the need to be better, faster, more than his father had allowed—now stood there talking about letting go of that need.
It was strange. And yet, it made sense.
But Eddie couldn’t give him anything in return. Couldn’t meet him halfway. The faint flicker of warmth he’d felt had already died out. Steve’s words slid over him like water—passing, weightless, leaving no mark. Maybe he wasn’t capable of feeling the same anymore. The Eddie who had once laughed in Steve’s arms, who had believed in him, had disappeared long ago. Faded with time, like he had never really existed.
Still, something moved deep inside him—a flicker, a spark he couldn’t completely put out. Maybe this Steve really was different. Maybe he still had that sunlight in him. That light that always shone a little brighter when he was with Eddie. Everything else was the same, but Steve… he still tried. Clumsily, maybe. But he tried.
“I’ve watched you work for years, and I already know you’re the best at this,” Steve had said then, with a small, lopsided smile, almost as if trying to soften the air around them. “So, if you ever need anything… anything at all, you know I’m here. Whatever it is. Okay?”
Eddie clenched his jaw, staring down at the engine. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t say anything. He was stuck somewhere between the part of him that wanted to believe Steve and the part that didn’t believe in anything anymore.
That laugh Steve had mentioned, that softness, that easy relief—it felt like a memory from another life. The Eddie who had once found comfort in those words was falling apart, piece by piece, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
What now? What was he supposed to feel?
Steve didn’t wait for an answer. Maybe he already knew Eddie didn’t have the strength to give one. Maybe he understood that the silence was all he would get. And the worst part was—Eddie didn’t even know if he wanted to move forward with this. With Steve. With any of it.
Chapter 3: Fade to Black
Notes:
Fade to Black – Metallica
Chapter Text
On the way back to his hotel, Steve had dialed Hopper’s number hoping the conversation would be brief. He sat in the driver’s seat of his truck, the radio off, staring straight ahead. Anxiety gnawed at him, but after spending the day with Eddie, he felt a bit calmer. The situation with his father, however, was another story.
The heavy silence that had settled during the call after Steve read his Team Leader and Race Engineer the long list of problems Eddie had given him was broken by Hopper’s deep sigh.
“So you’re sure Eddie’s going to join the team?” Hopper’s voice came through the line, skeptical but with the familiarity Steve needed right now.
“I don’t know, Hop. But I need him. I can’t keep going with this damn team. The mechanics my father put in place are useless. And worst of all, what really pisses me off is that I can’t even trust them to keep my car in shape.” Steve took a deep breath, feeling his voice crack.
Hopper didn’t answer right away, letting the silence stretch. Steve pictured him scratching his beard, thoughtful, weighing what he’d just heard.
“Steve, you know it’s not just that. Eddie… he’s not okay. He’s not the same as before.” Hopper’s voice was steady, but tinged with concern.
“I know, Hop, I know. But… I have to try. I’m not going to let everything fall apart. I’ve already lost everything, and I’m not going to sit around while it keeps sinking or he ends up dead.”
Hopper sighed, but his tone softened.
“You know what you did wasn’t easy for Eddie. You walked away from him without a word, and Wayne… I don’t want that to be another burden on you, but you have to be aware things aren’t like they used to be.”
Steve gritted his teeth, his body tense in the truck seat.
“Don’t remind me, Hop. I’m trying to fix this. For Eddie. For me. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I have to. If there’s even the slightest chance to save my season… and whatever’s left of Eddie, I have to take it.”
“And your father?” Hopper asked, in a tone that seemed more understanding than interrogating.
Steve ran a hand over his face, feeling the fatigue settle on his shoulders.
“He’s not in charge anymore. I told him everything I needed to say. I’m not following his rules anymore. He’s not going to manipulate me.”
There was silence on the other end for a moment, before Hopper spoke quietly, choosing his words carefully.
“He still has you by the balls. You can’t do this alone, Steve. You can’t handle everything, even if you think you can. You need support. And if you’re bringing Eddie in, you’re going to have to consider his feelings more than your ambitions. I’m not sure he’s ready for that.”
“I know. But what choice do I have?” Steve’s voice was filled with frustration. “If I keep going without him, everything’s going to keep sinking. And he… he was part of my life before everything fell apart. Before I left him. If I don’t try to fix this, I’ll regret it forever.”
Hopper sighed, understanding more than Steve was willing to admit.
“Alright, Steve. If you think this is the right thing, you’ll do it. But don’t expect it to be easy. And don’t forget what you did to Eddie. Don’t forget, even if you don’t say it.”
Steve hung up after a few more words but didn’t feel better. The talk with Hopper gave him some clarity but opened more questions. It wasn’t going to be easy, and he wasn’t sure if he really wanted it, but he was too deep in now to back out.
His phone rang before he could even finish parking outside his hotel. He knew who it was. His father didn’t waste time.
“Steve,” his father’s voice thundered on the other end, as always—controlling, intolerant.
“What have you done?” The question hit Steve like a punch to the gut, but it was no surprise.
Steve tried to calm down, but the anger burning inside him didn’t subside easily.
“I fired the new mechanics, and the team you brought in to ‘replace us’ every two races. I’m not going to keep this circus going, old man. I’m tired of following your rules, and that includes what you say about my future in F1.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” His father’s voice grew harsher, like he was ready to explode. “I gave you everything! Everything you have is thanks to me, and now you talk to me like this? Why are you doing this to me?”
Steve felt the rage rise up his neck, choking his throat, but forced himself to stay calm. He couldn’t lose control—not now, not when the decisions were already made.
“Because it’s what I want. Because I’m not your damn puppet anymore. The season is a mess, and I want to fix it. My way.”
There was silence on the other end, heavy and oppressive. Steve could hear his father breathing, processing what he’d just heard.
“And what are you supposed to do now?” His father finally asked, his tone unreadable—somewhere between anger and disbelief.
“I’m in Indianapolis,” Steve said, his voice firmer than before. “I’m not in Chicago anymore. Whatever you do there doesn’t matter to me. The team is mine now, and I’m going to run it how I want. And if you don’t like it, well… screw you.”
Silence again. Then his father spoke in a much lower tone, a mix of contempt and threat: “Remember who got you this far, Steve. Don’t forget that.”
Steve felt his heart pounding in his chest, as if everything was falling apart around him. His father had been his biggest support and also his worst enemy. The weight of those words, the reminder of his past, left a hollow feeling in his stomach. But now, he couldn’t live under that shadow anymore.
“I remember. And that’s why now I do what I want.” His tone turned defiant, full of conviction that gave him strength. “See you on the track. But until then, don’t try to control what I do.”
With that, he hung up without waiting for a response. He didn’t need one. He had made his decision, and he knew the distance—both physical and emotional—between him and his father would only grow. Now, it was time to face the consequences.
Steve never thought leaving Chicago would be so easy. He had spent years convincing himself that apartment was a symbol of success: the high floor, glass walls overlooking the city, the modern furniture he never chose but his father approved with a satisfied smile. Every corner was designed for the perfect photo, for the image of a young, attractive driver living the life everyone wanted. But that morning, standing in the middle of the living room, all he saw was an empty place.
A space where he never felt at home.
He didn’t pack memories. There were no photos on the furniture, no hidden letters, no clothes that really mattered. The only thing he dragged along was a suitcase with jeans, t-shirts, and the helmet he still kept from his first podium. The rest could stay there, rusting in silence.
As he closed the door, he thought about the irony: everything he once believed defined him — the city, the fame, the magazine covers — could be abandoned in minutes. And what truly mattered, what he had lost years ago, was waiting for him in a dusty workshop next to an abandoned airfield.
On the road to Indianapolis, Steve forced himself to keep his hands steady on the wheel. His phone kept buzzing with calls from his father, but he didn’t answer any. Instead, he called the people who mattered.
First, the sponsor. The conversation was brief, dry, and Steve felt they were sizing him up more than listening to his words. But when he hung up, he knew he had gained more than an airfield: he had gained a margin of freedom.
Then, Joyce. Talking to her was always different. With Joyce, defenses dropped without him realizing it. She really listened, even when Steve spoke as if he didn’t need to be heard.
“Are you sure you want to leave it all behind?” she asked, and Steve noticed she meant it — as if there was still something worth saving in Chicago.
“It was never mine, Joyce,” he replied, his voice calmer than he felt inside. “I was just passing through.”
She was silent for a few seconds, as if observing him through the phone. Then she nodded — he knew from her tone.
“Alright. I’ll start moving things with the paperwork. I’ll let you know when the land is secured.”
When she hung up, Steve let out a long sigh. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he was breaking a chain from around his neck.
He arrived in Indianapolis at sunset, when the sky was painted in shades of orange and violet, and the city felt less like a metropolis and more like a place where things could start over. The trailer hit every bump as he drove, but Steve liked the sound. It was a constant reminder that he wasn’t here to pretend: he was here to stay.
He didn’t bother looking for a luxury hotel or booking suites. This time, he had brought his own RV — a small, practical refuge where at least he could feel every decision had been his own. He parked near the Munson workshop, on the line separating the property from the abandoned airfield. The air smelled of dry grass and old metal, but also promise.
Steve got out of the truck and stood for a few seconds looking at the workshop. The faded walls, dusty windows, the rusty sign barely standing. Everything looked like a reflection of Eddie: a place that was once full of life, now crumbling under the weight of years. But Steve saw it with different eyes. He didn’t see ruins; he saw foundations. Something that could be rebuilt.
The trailer creaked behind him, and Steve smiled a little. He wasn’t going to leave. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before — running when things got tough. This time, he’d stay, even if he had to sleep on a hard mattress and eat canned food until Eddie kicked him out.
With the sun setting behind the airfield, Steve took a deep breath and leaned against the truck, feeling for the first time in years that he was in the right place. It wasn’t Chicago, it wasn’t a penthouse overlooking city lights. It was a forgotten workshop, an abandoned airfield, and an Eddie who no longer smiled like before.
But Steve knew this was exactly where he needed to be.
Steve had never been a man of routines. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. His life had always seemed like a continuous race: flights, interviews, press conferences, training sessions, and races that drained him empty. But deep down, he had had a routine — a good, healthy one, designed for his well-being.
Wayne had been the first to teach him that. He didn’t just care for him as a mechanic, but also as someone who understood what it meant to be on the track at twenty years old, feeling like the whole world demanded you win or die. Wayne set rest schedules, training plans designed not to overstrain his body, meals that actually nourished him. And Eddie, with his ordered chaos, filled the spaces Wayne couldn’t: taking him out for early morning walks to clear his mind, convincing him to play guitar a little to release tension, making him laugh at things that felt too heavy.
It was a perfect balance. Physical, mental, professional. And Steve had let it slip away.
When Wayne and Eddie left his life, the routine turned into a caricature of what it had been. Training without rest, diets imposed by trainers who only saw a number on the scale, endless sponsor sessions who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Rest turned into insomnia, health turned into accidents, and the little stability he had crumbled. At some point, he stopped thinking of himself as a person; he was just the driver, the racing machine his father and sponsors demanded.
And now, in Indianapolis, for the first time in years, he was trying to regain something like a routine.
The trailer, which at first seemed too cramped, began to feel like a refuge. He woke up early, long before Eddie peeked out of the workshop, and went for a run around the abandoned airfield. The old asphalt creaked under his sneakers, and with every step he forced himself to remember he wasn’t running just to stay fit: he was running because he needed to clear his head, because thinking about Eddie filled his mind with a mix of hope and fear that was hard to manage sitting still.
After the run, he returned to the trailer, showered quickly, and showed up at the workshop with coffee and something to eat, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He never expected an invitation inside; he left the things on an improvised table or, if Eddie was working, brought them with a brief smile. Eddie almost never responded, and Steve didn’t push. He learned to settle for a slight nod or just Eddie accepting the coffee without refusing it.
It was minimal progress, but Steve valued it like kilometers gained on a tough track.
The rest of the day was split between calls with Hopper and Joyce, negotiations with sponsors, and the slow organization of the airfield grounds. Steve couldn’t help but smile every time he heard disbelief in their voices: nobody understood why he wanted to settle there, in such a remote place with so little infrastructure. But Steve was clear about it. He wanted Eddie to see that this wasn’t just a visit—that he wasn’t going to disappear after a few weeks as if nothing had happened.
As the sun began to set, Steve would sit on the hood of his truck and watch the workshop. He could hear the clangs of metal, the dragging footsteps, the murmur of the radio Eddie left on with old music. Those sounds became the soundtrack of his nights. Sometimes, he wished he could go inside and talk to him, tell him everything that had happened over these years, apologize in every way possible. But he held back.
He knew Eddie didn’t need promises or speeches. Eddie needed time.
Meanwhile, Steve made plans in silence. Small, almost absurd steps: learning how Eddie’s routines worked, discovering what food he liked now, whether he still used the same tools as always, if he still drew in the margins of the papers scattered around. Steve thought of all this as maps to reach a place he no longer had access to: Eddie’s trust.
He told himself he didn’t want to rush things, but inside he battled a fierce impatience. He had the urgent need to prove that he was no longer the boy who chose his father’s words over his own. That he was here, ready to stay, no matter if it took weeks, months, or however long it took.
That routine, that strange ebb and flow of distance and closeness, became his life. And although there was no certainty it would work, Steve began to feel that for the first time in a long time, he was building something real. Something his own.
Something that, hopefully, one day would include Eddie again.
The tense calm of those first days broke the moment the rest of the team arrived in Indianapolis.
Steve was leaning against the truck, arms crossed, when he heard the roar of engines approaching. First came the small vans, loaded with briefcases and boxes sealed with security labels; then the two main trucks, one painted with the team colors and the other completely white, as if hiding a secret. The noise filled the quiet air around the Munson workshop, bringing with it a different energy: the feeling that everything was about to change.
Argyle was the first to jump out of the van. The kid smiled, raising his arms like he was arriving at a festival and not a semi-derelict workshop.
“Bro!” he shouted, running toward Steve with that genuine enthusiasm that seemed never to run out. “Finally on solid ground! Chicago was stressful, man. Here… here you can actually breathe.”
Steve barely managed to pat him on the back before Argyle got distracted by Eddie, who stood near the door watching the scene without saying a word. Argyle’s smile faltered, but he quickly raised a hand to greet him as if nothing had happened. Eddie nodded curtly before turning back into the workshop.
Behind Argyle, Hopper stepped down from the main truck. He didn’t need to raise his voice to assert himself; a gesture of his hand and the way he moved were enough, with a practical authority Steve always envied. Hopper began giving quick orders—organizing unloads, assigning tasks, asking names and roles. Within minutes, the chaos of arrival turned into a display of efficiency: the Munson workshop, which until that morning seemed frozen in time, began to transform.
The old wooden shelves, wobbling under the weight of rusty tools, were reinforced with steel structures. The yellowish lamps hanging from the ceiling gave way to cold white lights that flooded every corner with surgical clarity. From the trucks, they unloaded computers, sensors, and state-of-the-art monitors; screens now hung on the bare walls, showing simulations and graphs even before being connected to the car.
It was like watching a dead organism suddenly receive a transfusion of life.
Steve watched it all with a mix of satisfaction and guilt. He knew that modernization was necessary: if they wanted to compete seriously, they couldn’t rely on a workshop that looked like it came from the ’90s. But at the same time, every time he looked at Eddie, a knot tightened in his stomach.
Eddie stood at the back, next to a concrete column, arms crossed over his chest. His expression wasn’t anger, but something much worse: resignation. As if he understood that this was going to happen with or without his permission, and he didn’t have the energy to argue. Yet Steve knew Eddie had allowed it. He had nodded, with that almost imperceptible gesture Steve had learned to read since they were teenagers: a reluctant yes, as if every fiber of his body screamed no.
Still, no one questioned him. No one interrupted the process.
Until Eddie moved.
It was when Hopper asked for Argyle’s car to be unloaded from the trailer and placed in the center of the workshop. The racecar, still bearing fresh scars from the last accident, gleamed under the new lights like a wounded animal under a microscope. Steve felt goosebumps seeing it there: vulnerable, exposed, halfway between a relic and a corpse.
Eddie approached without saying a word.
He walked slowly, but as soon as his hands touched the metal, everything changed. He leaned over the hood with the same concentration he used to study sheet music or improvised plans, as if the only thing in the world was the machine in front of him. His fingers traced the lines, the grooves, the damaged edges, and suddenly he wasn’t silent anymore.
“The angle of the wing is misaligned,” he said, his voice clear, almost sharp. “The airflow doesn’t match the simulation they’re using.”
Hopper raised an eyebrow but didn’t intervene.
“The gearbox is strained, too much wear on second and third gear,” Eddie continued, his voice gaining speed. “The rear suspension isn’t calibrated, the pressure sensors are outdated, and this braking system…” He paused, almost disdainfully. “This should be banned on a car of this level.”
The mechanics unloading boxes looked at him in surprise. Eddie didn’t raise his voice, but every word he spoke carried a weight that made all other noise fade away. Steve, motionless a few meters away, felt something stir inside him.
Because that Eddie… that Eddie he knew.
That was the boy who could talk for hours about an engine, who saw invisible patterns in what others saw as just metal and wires, who lit up explaining how a tenth of a second could be won with a tiny adjustment. That was the Eddie who had taken apart his first kart with him in the Munson garage, who argued with Wayne about carburetors as if they were philosophical theories, who didn’t need degrees or diplomas because his mind was a living map of speed and precision but still managed to graduate with honors in mechanical engineering.
Steve forced himself to hold back a smile. He didn’t want to interrupt, didn’t want Eddie to notice how his heart tightened seeing him like this, so alive. But inside, hope flared fiercely.
He’s still here. He’s not lost.
He wasn’t the chaotic, radiant Eddie from before, the one who filled rooms with laughter and spoke as much with his hands as with his mouth. That Eddie was still hidden, maybe buried under too many years of pain and neglect. But there was something: a spark, a reflection of what he’d been. And Steve, standing in that workshop that now seemed to be reborn, silently vowed not to let it die out again.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Eddie still looked at him with suspicion, still answered with monosyllables outside technical matters, still carried in his eyes the shadow of everything Steve had destroyed. But he also knew passion didn’t die that easily. Wayne used to say love for engines was like fire: you could smother it, drown it, even bury it, but sooner or later it found a crack to burn again.
And there was Eddie, burning.
The workshop noise grew as the others finished installing equipment, calibrating monitors, and reorganizing the space. For Steve, however, it all boiled down to one image: Eddie leaning over the car, frowning, talking about it as if it were a living organism, as if he understood it better than anyone.
Steve ran a hand through his hair, trying to hide the emotion washing over him.
If I can keep him here… if I can give him what he needs… maybe I can get him back. Maybe I can make him believe again. And if he believes… I can too.
For the first time in a long time, Steve stopped feeling like he was running alone.
Steve didn’t have to ask when he saw Hopper raise his chin toward the workshop exit. The gesture was enough, as recognizable as in his childhood when Wayne called him with a similar sign. He obeyed without question, following Hopper to the back of the airfield, where the rusty sheets of the old hangar creaked in the wind.
There, Hopper calmly lit a cigarette, looking at him as if he already knew everything Steve had to say. It was that look that always disarmed him: Hopper had known him since he was a kid and had been almost like a brother to Wayne. After Wayne’s death, Hopper had done his best to care for Eddie but never stopped watching over Steve too. That duality made him an unforgiving judge: he could defend him but also demand accountability like no one else.
“Alright, Harrington,” Hopper growled, holding the cigarette between his fingers. “Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re doing?”
Steve crossed his arms, uncomfortable.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Of course you do,” Hopper replied dryly. “We’re talking about Eddie. About this sudden move to send half the team packing. Changing your base to Indianapolis without blinking. All in less than a week. And I’m telling you this because I know you: you don’t make such drastic decisions without a good reason.”
The comment hit him like a low blow. Steve looked away at the cracked ground, trying to find words that didn’t sound like a cheap excuse.
“Those people weren’t here for me,” he finally said. “They were here for my father, answering to him, not to what we needed on the track. You know what they did? They caused more chaos, more accidents, more pressure. I’d had enough.”
Hopper nodded once, without taking his eyes off him.
“I get that part. But now explain the other thing. Explain Eddie.”
The name, so simple yet so heavy, forced him to look up. Hopper didn’t say it reproachfully, but with a mix of firmness and care. That made it even harder.
“Eddie is the best I’ve ever seen at this,” Steve answered, almost in a whisper. “Wayne trained him, shaped him, and he… he understands engines in a way you can’t teach. You saw him today. He barely touched the car, and it was like he woke up. Like he’d been waiting all this time to get back to it.”
Hopper blew smoke into the gray sky.
“Yeah, I saw. The kid still has it. That instinct Wayne always said you couldn’t fake. But tell me, Steve…” —he looked at him straight, no concessions— “do you want him here because he’s the best for your car, or because you’re still trying to fix what happened between you?”
Steve’s stomach clenched. That question had been chasing him since he made the decision, but hearing it from Hopper left him breathless.
He stayed silent for a few long seconds. Hopper didn’t rush him; he just waited, like he always did when he knew the answer existed, even if it was hard to say.
“I need him,” Steve finally said, his voice low but steady. “I need him because I know he can save my career. But also because… because I know I messed everything up before. I left him alone when he needed me most. And I saw him fade after Wayne died. If having him here means I win again, perfect. But even if we don’t, I want him here. Because I don’t want to see him disappear again.”
Hopper listened carefully, not interrupting. When Steve finished, he flicked the ash from his cigarette and nodded slowly.
“You’re as stubborn as Wayne,” he murmured, with a hint of affection. “But I’ll tell you something, Steve: if you’re going to do this, you have to do it right. Don’t try to bring back the Eddie you knew. That boy doesn’t exist anymore. Give him space to be who he is now. Let him find his place, without pressure.”
Steve swallowed and nodded.
“I will.”
Hopper gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, a gesture that was both a reprimand and support at the same time.
“You’d better. Because if Eddie breaks in the middle of all this, we won’t just lose him. We’ll lose you too.”
The cold air hit his face, reminding him Hopper was right. Everything was at stake: the races, the team, his future. But more than anything, Eddie. And Steve wasn’t going to fail him again.
That night, after dinner, when everyone was already at their hotels or finishing setting up their own caravans, Steve noticed there was light in the workshop, so he redirected his steps there instead of following his plan to go with Argyle for a night walk.
The workshop was tidier than Steve expected after a day of work, but despite how chaotic Eddie was, Wayne had instilled in him an almost military work ethic, so it was no surprise Eddie kept everything organized; the team’s arrival had filled the space with new tools, shiny parts, and screens that contrasted with the dusty mess Steve had found the first time. Eddie, however, seemed unaware of all these changes: hunched over the design table, surrounded by crumpled sheets and pencils, he was sketching firm strokes in a thick notebook.
Steve, on the other hand, couldn’t stay still. He paced around the bare chassis of his car, patting the body as if it were a restless horse, trying to imagine it moving.
“I was thinking about the colors,” he started, breaking the silence that had weighed for a while. “Red has always been my favorite, you know, classic, but I feel like everyone uses it. I don’t want to look like some damn Ferrari wannabe.”
Eddie didn’t respond. He ran a ruler over the paper and wrote something on the side, the graphite scraping harshly against the sheet.
Steve cleared his throat, insisting.
“Maybe matte black, with gold details… although that sounds a bit pretentious, right? Too much like ‘look at me, I’m the king of the track.’”
A hint of a smile appeared on his lips, though Eddie didn’t see it.
“Or navy blue,” he continued, circling the car like Eddie was following him with his eyes. “Dark blue with silver lines. Elegant, serious, like I actually know what I’m doing.”
Eddie let out a barely audible snort. Steve clung to that like a sign of life.
“What? You don’t like blue?” he asked, mixing nervousness with forced humor.
Eddie didn’t look up. He just changed pencils, outlining a suspension angle in his notebook. The line was precise, almost obsessive.
Steve placed his hands on the chassis, sighing. The silence grew again, each second feeling heavier than the last.
“Look, I know I’m not…” he started, voice lower. “I’m not easy to have around. Not before, not now. But I’m trying. I’m trying not to screw this up again.”
Eddie put the pencil down on the table but didn’t look at him. His jaw was tense, and the way his fingers drummed on the edge of the paper said more than any answer.
Steve swallowed, trying to lighten the mood. He tapped the body gently with his knuckles. “Still, let’s admit it: painting this beauty green would be a crime. That color brings bad luck on the tracks. You know that, right?”
Eddie exhaled, this time stronger, as if he was about to reply but held back. His eyes stayed fixed on the lines in his notebook.
The discomfort became almost unbearable. Steve watched him silently, wondering what was going through his mind. If this quiet, distant Eddie was all that remained of the boy who once made him laugh until he was out of breath.
Then, softly, barely a thread of voice, Eddie murmured:
“I thought… now that you’re choosing for yourself again, you’d pick the color of your favorite polo shirt.”
Steve jerked his head up.
“Yellow?”
The silence lasted a second, then both shuddered almost simultaneously, the same look of horror painted on their faces.
“Yellow cars…” Steve started, letting out a laugh that burst out loud and genuine, filling the workshop with a warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Eddie looked up through his curls, and for the first time Steve noticed how much they had grown. They were no longer rebellious tufts but long, clean waves falling in elegant loops almost to his waist. That sight disarmed him; Eddie had changed, but he was still himself.
The mechanic lowered his gaze to his notebook and, with an almost imperceptible shyness, said:
“You can go back to choosing Sweetheart’s colors, if you want.”
Steve blinked, stunned. The name hit his chest like a warm memory. Sweetheart, Eddie’s favorite guitar. His safe place, his treasure. Offering him that was more than Steve had ever dreamed of.
“Red, purple, and black…” Steve repeated, smiling wide, eyes shining with emotion. “Sounds perfect.”
Eddie didn’t answer immediately, but the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, like an involuntary reflex at Steve’s laughter. It was a tiny, fleeting smile, but so real that Steve’s heart raced.
For the first time in years, he felt hope.
Steve wasn’t expecting what he found. When Hopper picked him up that morning and drove him to the workshop, Steve imagined he’d see progress—maybe a sturdier frame than what he’d left in Eddie’s hands, something underway. But no. What greeted him upon entering the space lit by industrial lights wasn’t a car in progress: it was a revelation.
The car was there, finished. Gleaming. And although it had the same silhouette, it was as if it were someone else’s.
The paint was the first thing to catch his eye. The red and purple Steve had chosen flowed in almost liquid patterns, vibrant under the white light. But there was more: a network of silver lines crossing with elegance, reminding him of a design he knew, one that gave him goosebumps the moment he recognized it. The car bore the same motifs as Eddie’s BC Rich Warlock guitar. Not identical, not quite, but the nod was unmistakable.
Steve swallowed hard.
Eddie had painted his car like his guitar.
For a moment, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. His whole body tensed—an impulse swinging between gratitude and a sharp pang in his chest at what the gesture meant. Because Steve knew Eddie didn’t do anything without thinking, and even if he acted cold, never looked him in the eye, painting the car like this was... an offering. An invisible mark that Eddie still saw him, that he still recognized who Steve was beyond the years and the silence.
“You finished it,” he murmured, voice breaking with disbelief.
Eddie, hunched over a worktable with a notebook full of scribbles, didn’t lift his head. Didn’t even put down his pencil. “I adjusted what was needed,” he replied with dry calm, as if he hadn’t just spent four sleepless days rebuilding a Formula 1 car from top to bottom.
Hopper, leaning against the wall, exchanged a glance with Joyce that Steve caught out of the corner of his eye. Both crossed their arms like silent guardians, measuring each other’s reaction.
But Steve could barely think about anything other than the metallic reflection on the bodywork. He walked around the car, his fingers brushing the silver lines. Every curve, every angle seemed designed to fit him. The rear wing had a new tilt, more aggressive, more Eddie. And the steering wheel... when he took it in his hands, it fit his grip as if molded for his palms.
“God...” he whispered, smiling with a mix of disbelief and euphoria.
The first test lap was fire in his veins. The engine’s roar was different: not just power, but precision, as if every gear had aligned to obey him to the millimeter. The car didn’t lag, didn’t shake in the corners or resist on the straights; it anticipated, almost pushing him to go further.
Steve shouted inside the helmet—not out of fear, but pure excitement. Every time he pressed the accelerator, he felt the air split him in two, the track turning into a natural extension of his body. And with every clean turn, every vibration coursing through him, he felt something dormant inside wake up.
He wasn’t racing with tension in his neck or the dark premonition of another crash; he was racing with the freedom of a child. It was like going back to the first time, when Wayne had sat him in a tiny kart and said, “Feel the track, Stevie boy. Let the wheel speak first.”
It was the spark. The spark he’d lost the day Wayne and Eddie disappeared from his life.
Braking in front of the workshop, the tires screeched sharply, drawing smoke in the air. He ripped off his helmet, gasping, heart pounding. Laughter burst out of him—loud, sincere—a blast that echoed in the space and turned several heads.
“Eddie!” he yelled, still breathless. “Do you have any idea what you just did? This car is perfect!”
Argyle, who had arrived early to watch the test, let out a long whistle.
“Bro, this isn’t a car… it’s a damn dragon.”
A couple of older mechanics nodded silently, their eyes shining with a respect Steve hadn’t seen in a long time. Even Hopper, who rarely let more than a frown show, had the shadow of a smile on his face.
But Eddie... Eddie stayed still. Standing by the table, his long curls falling in soft waves down to his waist, he barely bothered to look up.
“It responds like it should,” he said at last, voice low and tired.
Steve stared at him, still breathing hard. That “like it should” was almost an insult. Because what Eddie had done went far beyond a functional tweak. That car didn’t just respond: it gave life back. It gave meaning back.
“No,” Steve corrected, stepping toward him with a bright smile he couldn’t hold back. “Not ‘like it should.’ This car made me feel alive again. And that... I hadn’t felt in years.”
There was a heavy silence. Eddie clenched the pencil between his fingers until it almost broke before looking back down at his plans. He pretended indifference, but Steve knew him too well. The slight tremor in his fingers, the way his lips pressed tighter than usual... Eddie had heard him.
And even if he didn’t smile, even if he said nothing, Steve felt that crack was enough. A hope—small, but real.
“You know?” he added with a sudden laugh. “I can’t believe you painted my car like your girlfriend.”
Eddie raised his eyes for barely a second, and for the first time Steve saw something different in them: surprise, maybe even a spark of stifled humor.
“Silver details instead of black,” Eddie muttered, almost inaudible.
Steve laughed louder, the kind of laugh that filled the whole space and that, though Eddie tried to hold back, ended up pulling a half-smile from him—brief but genuine.
Hopper ran a hand through his beard, watching the two like confirming a suspicion. Joyce beside him let out a soft sigh, a mix of relief and worry.
Steve, meanwhile, could only think that he had gained more than a car. He’d regained a piece of himself.
Because the car wasn’t just fast. It wasn’t just powerful. It was Eddie, it was Wayne, it was the kid who once fell in love with racing because someone showed him how to find balance in it. And as he leaned against the freshly painted bodywork, with that smile still lighting up his face, Steve knew it didn’t matter the coldness or the distance.
Eddie had put his soul into that car. And for the first time in years, Steve felt like he had a future again.
Chapter 4: Back for More
Notes:
Back for More – Ratt
Chapter Text
Eddie had never believed in miracles, but what Steve had done on the track that afternoon came pretty damn close. And the worst part—the part that burned deep in his gut—was that some small part of him had felt proud. Proud to hear the car roar like a living animal, a beast finely tuned note by note under his hands. Proud to watch Steve drive it like he was learning to breathe again after years of only half doing it.
Of course, he didn’t let it show. He stayed at the edge of the garage, arms crossed, face like stone, listening to Steve’s laughter and the cheers of the rest of the crew as if it were distant noise. He didn’t let himself move, didn’t smile, didn’t even unclench his jaw. Because if he did—if he let Steve notice—he might crack open a door he’d already sworn never to open again.
And yet… when Steve stepped out of the car with that radiant smile, eyes shining like he’d just fallen back in love with the world, something twisted in Eddie’s chest. A sharp pang. A cruel reminder of everything he’d lost—and how dangerously easy it would be to lose himself all over again.
During the improvised dinner Hopper brought for the team, Eddie kept to himself, eating slowly, watching Steve from the corner of his eye. He saw him chatting with Hopper, joking with Argyle, laughing at something dumb, and it hit him—something uncomfortable: Steve seemed more solid. More grown-up. There was something in him that wasn’t the same kid who used to get dragged around by his father, or the one who’d once left Eddie bleeding with knife-sharp words. And that threw him off balance.
He even caught himself noticing the way Steve looked at the freshly painted car. That mix of respect and affection… like it wasn’t just a machine, like he truly understood the effort and intention behind every screw, every painted curve. Like he’d recognized the hidden tribute in the colors Eddie had chosen.
Of course, Steve didn’t say anything. Just looked at it with those eyes that always seemed to know more than they let on, and Eddie looked away before he could read too much in them.
Later, when everyone else had gone to rest, Eddie stayed behind in the garage, pretending to go over checklists but really just reliving the day in silence. He could deny it all he wanted, but something had shifted. A tiny crack in the wall he’d spent years building.
He didn’t trust Steve. Didn’t trust that his promises would last, or that his presence wouldn’t leave another scar. Didn’t trust that this new version of Steve was real and not just another mask.
But… he could try. Not for Steve. Not for them. For himself. For the kid who still, in dreams, heard Steve’s laughter, the roar of engines, and Wayne’s gravelly voice barking orders between races. For the Eddie who didn’t want to feel completely dead inside.
So he made a silent, almost invisible decision: he’d be a little kinder. Just a little. One less sharp word. A glance that wasn’t all ice. Nothing that could be mistaken for forgiveness, nothing that would be confused with hope.
Just a small chance. A sliver of room to coexist.
The next day, when Steve showed up way too early again, coffee in one hand and a box of donuts in the other, Eddie didn’t kick him out. He didn’t ignore him either, like he’d planned. He just accepted the coffee with a barely audible “thanks” and sat nearby while Steve rambled about how fast the makeshift track at the airstrip was coming together.
Steve, as always, filled the silence with easy words. About how the paint on the car looked insane under the sun, how Hopper swore Eddie could work magic, how the press was going to lose it when they saw him win again. Eddie didn’t answer most of it, but he didn’t get up to leave either.
And when, at one point, Steve burst out laughing remembering the ridiculous idea to paint the car yellow, Eddie let a small smile slip—hidden beneath his hair. He didn’t let it linger more than a second, but it was enough.
Steve lit up like someone had handed him the world. And Eddie, sighing, realized he’d made a mistake. Because that tiny, insignificant smile had been all Steve needed to keep pushing.
But it was done. Eddie had chosen. And even though he kept telling himself it was just a quiet promise, a gesture of civility, a minimal concession… the truth was, part of him had enjoyed it. Part of him, once again, felt not quite so alone.
And that part, much as he hated it, was what kept him awake long after, staring at the garage ceiling in the dark, wondering if he could really resist the gravity Steve had always held over him.
The hum of engines still rang in his ears when he returned to the garage that night. Eddie had made a half-hearted, quiet promise to himself that the next day he’d try not to be so harsh with Steve. It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t trust. It sure as hell wasn’t surrender. It was barely a breath. He’d seen the way Steve had lit up after the test run, joy splashed across his face like a kid getting his favorite toy back. And for one second—just one—Eddie had felt the urge not to ruin that for him.
He could allow himself that.
The garage was quiet, save for the occasional creak of cooling wood and the faint whisper of wind against the windows. Eddie left his jacket draped over a chair, turned on the nearest lamp, and pulled out a notebook. Graphite on paper felt safer than words—tamer than the thoughts that swarmed him every time he closed his eyes. He sketched lines, chassis curves, wing angles, microscopic details no one would probably notice. He drew because it was the only thing holding him together.
When exhaustion finally caught up, it wasn’t because he wanted to sleep. His body just gave out without asking. He collapsed onto the old makeshift cot in the back room, hands still smudged with graphite, stomach empty for over a day. He didn’t turn on the light. Didn’t fully close the door. Sleep came in stumbles, as always.
And, as always, the nightmares followed.
Sometimes it was Wayne—walking away toward a door that never quite opened. Eddie would scream, but no sound came from his throat. Other times it was Steve: Steve disappearing into blinding lights, swallowed by a crowd, glancing back just enough to throw him that rehearsed cold stare he’d once used like a blade. He woke with a jolt, chest burning, eyes damp. Sat up for a long time, elbows on knees, face in his hands, breathing like he’d run a marathon.
He didn’t try to sleep again.
He knew better by now.
He went back down to the garage, turned on the work lamp, and buried himself in the blueprints like maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the numbers and lines he could untangle the mess in his head. Hunger was there—a distant echo he could ignore easily. He’d learned that young: how to forget to eat, forget to sleep, let a project consume him more than food ever could. The clock became meaningless; the world shrank to smudged pages and the low hum of electricity.
When the first ray of sunlight slipped through the garage door slats, Eddie had been in the same position for hours, body stiff, eyes heavy. What pulled him out of the trance was the sound of a truck approaching.
Steve.
He didn’t have to look. The engine’s hum, the rhythm of the brakes, the way the door slammed shut—every detail was etched in his memory with uncomfortable clarity. He swallowed, wiped out a sketch he no longer liked with the heel of his hand, and pretended to be completely absorbed in his work.
Steve entered with the same energy as always, carrying two coffees and a couple of breakfast bags.
“Thought you could use something hot,” he said before Eddie could say a word.
Eddie barely looked up, just enough to catch that familiar smile that somehow defied the exhaustion in Steve’s eyes. It made his stomach twist. Not because of the smile itself—but because of how damn easy it was for Steve to keep being light.
“Not hungry,” Eddie muttered, eyes back on the page. His voice came out harsher than he meant, but he didn’t correct it.
Steve didn’t push. Didn’t ask questions. Just set the coffee down on the nearest table, beside the tools, and started talking about anything and everything: the hotel he stayed at, how the pillows sucked, something pointless about the café that had opened early on the corner. He talked like Eddie’s silence didn’t bother him. Like he knew words had to fill the air until Eddie could bear them.
Eddie let him talk. Faked attention. Faked indifference. Meanwhile, the smell of coffee snuck up on him, reminding him—cruelly—that it had been over twenty-four hours since he’d eaten. His stomach growled, just faintly, but loud enough that he had to lean over the table, covering the sound with the shuffle of papers. Steve didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t say anything.
And Eddie, for the first time all night, was grateful for that kind of blindness.
Because some things were easier to hide in silence.
Eddie was never a morning person. Mornings usually caught him still awake, eyes red from staring too hard at blueprints, the guitar resting untouched in the corner of the couch. That day was no different—the light streaming through the blinds was too sharp, too alive, a cruel reminder that he’d spent another night without sleep.
There was a cold cup of coffee forgotten on the low table, and his hands were smudged with graphite. He hadn’t felt like eating. Again. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a real breakfast—something more solid than a stale cookie.
The knock at the door startled him so badly he almost dropped the notebook he was holding.
At first, he thought it might be Steve—the thought alone froze his blood and pissed him off in equal measure. But when he cracked the door open just a sliver, he found Hopper standing there. Big as a wall, brows drawn tight, a paper bag in one hand.
“What the hell...?” Eddie muttered, voice hoarse, carrying that eternal weariness that never seemed to leave him.
“Good morning to you too.”
In one hand, Hopper held a paper bag. In the other, a thermos of coffee.
Eddie wanted to shut the door in his face. Not out of anger, but because he wasn’t ready for company—especially not Hopper. Hopper knew him too well.
But Hopper leaned a shoulder against the frame and gave him that look—the kind that said he wasn’t going anywhere.
“You gonna let me in, or do you prefer we have breakfast out here on the porch?”
Eddie sighed, rolled his eyes, and stepped aside. The house smelled like dust, metal, and loneliness, and suddenly, he was embarrassed.
Hopper walked in like no time had passed. He set the bag on the table and pulled out two wrapped sandwiches. Eddie hovered nearby, unsure.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m a ballet dancer,” Hopper shot back dryly, pushing a plate toward him. “Sit.”
Eddie obeyed reluctantly, though the smell of toasted bread hit him hard—it reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had anything decent to eat.
The silence was heavy. Eddie stared at the plate, unable to handle the calm with which Hopper chewed. It was like he was just waiting for Eddie to speak first.
And in the end, he did.
“I found something of Wayne’s.”
He pulled the notebook off the couch and slid it across the table toward Hopper, not meeting his eyes.
Hopper paused, setting his sandwich down. With large, almost clumsy hands, he opened the cover and went quiet. The pages crackled under his fingers as he flipped through them.
Eddie watched from the corner of his eye as Hopper’s expression changed. His weathered face—used to swallowing grief—softened, bit by bit.
“Damn Wayne...” Hopper muttered, voice catching. “Always thinking of everyone else before himself.”
Eddie swallowed hard. Hearing the name out loud felt like a punch to the gut.
“It’s his. Was his. I didn’t... I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Why are you giving it to me?” Hopper asked, eyes still on the notebook.
Eddie clenched his hands on his knees, uneasy.
“Because it was meant for you. Even if he wrote it thinking about Steve, he knew it would end up in your hands. You’re the one who can make sure Steve hears it. Me...” —he let out a short, bitter laugh— “Steve’s not gonna listen to me. Not anymore.”
The confession lingered between them. Hopper finally looked up, and there was no judgment in his eyes. Just a grief they both carried.
“You didn’t have to carry this alone, Eddie.”
“Who else was I supposed to give it to? Steve?” he snapped, the bitterness barely hiding the wound underneath. “He already made his choice. He chose his father. He let Wayne lose his job. He chose to leave me.”
Hopper didn’t respond right away. He closed the notebook carefully and held it in his hands, as if it weighed more than it should.
“I was there,” he said at last, voice low, like he was confessing something he’d kept for a long time. “I saw how Harrington pushed him. I saw how Steve split himself in two. And I saw how the two of you drifted apart, and I couldn’t stop it.”
Eddie lowered his gaze, lips pressed tight.
“It doesn’t matter. Damage is done.”
Hopper leaned forward slightly, resting an arm on the table.
“It matters because Wayne never wanted you two to stay apart. And this notebook...” —he tapped the cover gently— “is his way of making sure we keep looking out for Steve. That the team stays a family.”
The word family hit Eddie like a bullet. Ever since Wayne was gone, everything felt shattered.
“I’m not Steve’s family. Not anymore,” he murmured, almost like a confession.
Hopper shook his head slowly.
“You don’t erase years like that, Munson. And Wayne wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
The silence returned, heavier than before. Eddie buried his face in his hands, exhausted. His heart pounded in his chest, guilt tangled with old resentment.
Hopper let him breathe. Didn’t press.
“When Wayne died, I lost a friend too,” he said after a while, voice rough and barely steady. “He wasn’t just a garage buddy or some old partner. He was my brother. And I lost my brother.”
Eddie looked up slowly, meeting Hopper’s eyes—wet, unguarded. It was strange to see him like that, without the usual armor.
“I... I don’t know how to keep going without my dad, Hop. He was my dad...” Eddie whispered, voice breaking.
“No one knows how,” Hopper said gently. “We just keep going. Even when it hurts. And we take care of the ones still here, because that’s what he would’ve done.”
The words cut deep. Eddie bit his lip to keep from falling apart in front of him.
Hopper slid the notebook toward himself with calm finality.
“I’ll keep it. And I’ll use it. Every line, every note Wayne left—it's going into that car when Steve hits the track.”
Eddie nodded, unable to say anything. Part of him felt relieved. The other part felt like he’d just handed over a piece of his heart.
Hopper picked up the sandwich again, like he needed to anchor the conversation to something more grounded.
“And now you’re gonna finish the rest. Or I’m staying here all day until you do.”
Eddie let out a broken laugh—short, bitter, and sweet all at once. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel so completely alone in his grief.
After Eddie had finished eating, Hopper had been clear—almost military—in the way he pushed him down the hallway with a voice that left no room for argument: “You’re getting in the shower now, Munson. I don’t want to hear it.”
Eddie came out wrapped in a towel, wet hair clinging to his back and skin red from the hot water. It had been so long since he’d taken a real shower—not just a quick rinse, not just out of obligation—that he almost felt like a stranger in his own body.
He figured, like always, Hopper would leave after breakfast. That the visit was just a moment of nostalgia, a fleeting reminder of Wayne. But when he stepped out and made his way toward the living room, the sound that greeted him wasn’t the usual silence of his home.
It was running water in the sink. The rustle of bags. A woman’s soft voice laughing under her breath.
He frowned, adjusting the towel more tightly around his waist.
“What the…?”
He froze in the doorway.
Joyce Byers stood at the sink, yellow gloves up to her elbows, surrounded by a bucket of soapy water and a mountain of plates that probably hadn’t been touched in months. Hopper, sleeves rolled up and brow furrowed, was rummaging through a cabinet—tossing out expired cans and stale cereal boxes into a black trash bag without mercy.
The living room—his refuge, his trench of dust and silence—was being invaded. Dismantled.
“Hey,” Eddie barked, his voice rough, defensive by instinct. “What the hell are you doing?”
Joyce was the first to look up, that warm smile of hers softening the rough edges Hopper always left behind.
“Hi, Eddie. Hopper asked me to come give him a hand.” She gestured toward the dishes. “This isn’t our first cleanup job, believe me.”
Hopper turned around then, holding up a swollen soup can like evidence.
“This expired in 2022. Munson, are you trying to give yourself botulism?”
Eddie opened his mouth—to protest, to kick them out, to remind them no one had invited them in. But all that came out was a tired sigh.
“You didn’t have to...” he mumbled, eyes falling to the floor.
“Yes, we did,” Hopper cut in, with that unmistakable firmness of his. “I’ve let you sit in this hole for too damn long. Wayne wouldn’t have wanted you like this.”
The name landed in Eddie’s chest like a hammer. He bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing the bitter reply that almost slipped. Because deep down, he knew Hopper was right.
The dust on the shelves, the clothes piled on the couch he didn’t even use anymore, Wayne’s collection of mugs still lined up like trophies—everything had become a time capsule. A trap he’d built with his own hands to keep from moving, from healing. As if staying frozen in place could preserve the last day Wayne had been alive.
Joyce stepped away from the sink and gently pressed a dry towel into his hands.
“Get dressed, sweetheart. We’ve got this for a little while.”
Eddie looked at her like he couldn’t quite understand why anyone would care about him this much. But still, he obeyed.
He went to his room in silence and pulled on the first clean clothes he could find. His house was small, and after Wayne’s death, it hadn’t taken long for it to slip into disarray—Eddie slipping along with it, nearly catatonic in his grief.
When he returned, the morning light was pouring in through open windows. The air smelled like soap and fresh breeze. Hopper was on his knees, checking under the couch. Joyce was folding clean laundry she’d rescued from a corner.
Eddie leaned against the doorway, watching them in silence. The feeling that crept over him was strange. Uncomfortable. A mix of shame… and relief.
Because in that moment, he understood: Hopper wasn’t leaving. Not like before—where he’d check in with a text or a couple of calls and then let Eddie spiral again into his routine of dust and neglect.
This time was different. Hopper had made a decision: he was dragging him out, even if it meant pulling him out by the roots.
Eddie’s heart stumbled in his chest.
He remembered that first night after Wayne died, when Hopper showed up with two beers and a silence they shared like a blanket. They’d barely spoken—Eddie hadn’t been able to—but Hopper stayed. All night. No expectations. No words. Just there.
But this… this was different. This was Hopper raising his voice. Shaking him. Hauling him back into the life Eddie had buried.
Eddie scratched the back of his neck, suddenly awkward.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he repeated, though the words sounded hollow even to his own ears.
Joyce answered with a smile full of nothing but tenderness.
“Of course we did. Everyone needs someone to take care of them, sometimes.”
And Hopper, still on the floor, grumbled:
“And you more than anyone, Munson.”
Eddie felt his throat close up. For the first time in forever, something inside him loosened. The resistance, the anger, the shell he’d built—all of it started to crack at the sight of them, cleaning among his ghosts.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t.
But he knew—knew it with a sharp, aching clarity—that Hopper was right.
That time capsule was killing him.
And maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to stay inside it forever.
At first, Eddie kept his distance from the rest of the crew. The young mechanics looked at him like some kind of fallen legend, someone Hopper spoke of with respect but who they didn’t quite understand. They were used to speed, to the pressure of the track, to living between stopwatches and metrics. Eddie, on the other hand, seemed like a man from another era, with his sketchbooks full of designs, his rushed speech, and his uncomfortable silences.
But little by little, something started to change.
The first time one of the guys — a rookie barely twenty-three, too eager and not experienced enough — approached with a timid question about adjusting the rear wing, Eddie dismissed him with a grunt. He didn’t have patience for clumsiness, not in that moment. However, later, when he saw the kid sweating under the sun trying, unsuccessfully, to adjust the piece, Eddie couldn’t help but snatch the tool from his hands and show him how it was done. The movement came naturally, like breathing. And the kid looked at him as if he’d just witnessed a magic trick.
Eddie didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning.
As the days went on, the young mechanics began to hover around him more often. They didn’t approach him directly — they knew he could be prickly — but they lingered, watching how he traced lines on paper, how he translated the roar of the engine into quick notes, how he compared the pulse of the machine to that of his own guitar. Eventually, Eddie began tolerating their presence, even accepting it.
One afternoon, while Hopper was reviewing numbers on his laptop and Steve was arguing with Argyle over tires, Eddie laid out a new notebook on the table: a revised suspension design, inspired by the notes he’d found in Wayne’s old notebook but adapted with his own obsessions. Pencil drawings, firm lines, precise measurements.
“What’s this?” one of the guys asked cautiously, leaning in.
Eddie looked up, raising an eyebrow.
“This, my friend, is what’s going to keep Harrington from breaking his ribs every two weeks.” He tapped the paper. “A more flexible suspension, capable of absorbing punishment without sacrificing speed, and it could come in handy if Harrington hits a track like Daytona.”
The guy stared at him with wide eyes.
“Can we test it?”
Eddie smiled for the first time in a long while, that crooked smile that used to disarm anyone.
“Of course we can. But not with soft hands like yours.”
The next day, the workshop felt different. Eddie had imposed a new routine: before touching the car, everyone had to go through a physical conditioning session. No more “just grabbing wrenches and calling it a day.” He made them run laps around the hangar, lift heavy tires, practice tire changes against the clock until their arms burned.
“We’re not some second-rate mechanic crew,” he told them, walking in front like an impromptu sergeant. “We’re going to be faster than any NASCAR pit crew. Faster than Formula 1. No one’s going to say Harrington’s losing because his team can’t keep up.”
At first, there were protests, uncomfortable glances, nervous laughter. But Eddie didn’t relent. Every mistake in practice was repeated over and over until it was perfect. Every movement had to be timed, every gesture sharp as a knife.
Hopper, watching from a corner with his arms crossed, didn’t intervene. He just smiled quietly. He recognized that spark in Eddie’s eyes: the same passion that had made him shine alongside Wayne and Steve years ago, before everything came crashing down. But he also recognized Eddie’s patient roughness, and that was all Wayne Munson.
Steve noticed too, although he didn’t say it out loud. From the other side of the workshop, he watched Eddie raise his voice, correct with brusqueness but also with a precision that the guys absorbed like sponges. There was a magnetism about him, a mix of chaos and discipline, that was impossible to ignore.
The new suspension design became his obsession. Eddie worked until the early hours of the morning, hair falling over the blueprints, pencil between his teeth, soft music playing in the background. The young guys started taking turns staying with him, learning from him, and Eddie — though still gruff — no longer chased them off.
The roar of the engine vibrated through his bones like a familiar thunder. Eddie stood, arms crossed, at the edge of the makeshift track on the airfield. The sun had barely crept over the horizon, but the heat was already rising from the asphalt. The young mechanics — his boys now, though he’d never admit it aloud — were lined up near the pits, with stopwatches in hand, eager.
Steve adjusted his gloves inside the car, visibly anxious but with that glint in his eyes that Eddie knew all too well. It was the same glint he’d seen the first time Wayne talked to him about that kid with small hands and a serious look who flew in karts like he was born with gasoline in his veins.
Eddie swallowed hard. The design was his. The calculations were his. Every bolt, every adjustment, every centimeter of the new suspension had passed through his hands. And though he’d rehearsed a hundred times in his head how he would react, now that Steve was going to put it to the real test, Eddie noticed his palms were sweaty, his heart racing.
The makeshift traffic light turned green.
The car shot forward with a sharp, clean roar. Eddie held his breath as he watched it take the first corner. There was no harsh bounce like before, no treacherous shake that made the tires seem to dance out of sync. The machine clung to the asphalt like it was made for that rhythm.
The mechanics started shouting and recording times. Hopper, standing beside Eddie, didn’t blink, his eyes fixed on every movement.
“Look at that,” murmured one of the guys, a kid who’d barely been in the workshop for two weeks. “It’s like a different car.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He stayed rigid, as if any movement might break the spell. But inside, something was pushing through: a mix of relief and pride that pressed against his chest until it hurt.
Steve traced the final straight, and the roar of the engine echoed off the empty hangars before it came to a screeching halt in front of them. He pulled off his helmet with shaking hands, sweat-soaked hair sticking to his forehead, and smiled. Smiled like Eddie hadn’t seen him smile in years: wide, genuine, almost childlike.
“It’s perfect!” Steve exclaimed, jumping out of the car. “Can you feel it, Hopper? Can you feel it, Munson? This is something else!”
The team erupted into applause and cheers, hands raised high, giving Steve pats on the back. Eddie stayed a step behind, frozen, watching everyone get swept up in the euphoria.
He wanted to shout. He wanted to run to the car, hug it like it was a tamed beast, tell Steve that, yes, they’d done something together again, just like the old times. But he held back. He couldn’t let himself get carried away by that hope, not yet.
Steve, however, didn’t take long to search for him with his eyes. Amidst the crowd of smiling faces, his eyes found Eddie’s, as if he couldn’t help it. And when he did, Eddie dropped his chin and shrugged.
“It could be better,” he said in a low, detached voice, though he knew it wasn’t true.
Steve laughed loud, with that chesty laugh Eddie remembered from so long ago. It was a laugh that cut through the noise, that shattered silences. For a moment, Eddie felt the air around him grow lighter. And against everything he’d promised himself, a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his lips before he wiped it away in time.
Hopper noticed it. Hopper always noticed.
“Good job, Eddie,” the engineer said, with that calm that seemed to hide pride. “Wayne would be proud.”
Eddie clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to hear that name now, not when the weight of his absence pressed against his chest. But he couldn’t deny it: Hopper was right. Wayne had always believed in Steve, always believed in him. And that mix was explosive.
As the team celebrated, Eddie stepped aside, lighting a cigarette that he didn’t even finish. He let it burn down between his fingers, watching how Steve talked to the mechanics, slapping their shoulders, smiling like he’d just lifted a weight off his chest.
Inside, Eddie knew something had changed. The car hadn’t just responded better than expected: it had given Steve back something he thought was dead. That spark in his eyes, that laugh he’d forgotten. The damn Harrington shine, resurrected with the roar of an engine.
And though Eddie wanted to keep hiding behind his coldness, though he told himself he wouldn’t get swept up again, the knot in his throat betrayed him.
The rest of the day turned into a series of minor tests and adjustments. The young guys ran back and forth, stopwatches in hand, repeating every pit stop move until they cut the seconds in half. Hopper took notes, Steve didn’t stop talking, and Eddie… Eddie allowed himself to direct in silence, correcting postures, pointing out errors with a sharp click of his tongue, until every move was as smooth as the roar of the engine on the track.
By the time evening fell, when the hangar was quiet again and the boys left, laughing and joking, Eddie stayed alone by the car. He walked around it slowly, running his fingers over the glossy paint that he’d replicated from his Warlock, those reds and purples with silver accents Steve hadn’t mentioned yet.
He leaned over the hood and closed his eyes for a second. The smell of hot metal, the echo of the engine still pulsing in the air… it all reminded him of what he’d lost, but also what he could get back.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t smile. But deep down, he knew he’d taken an irreversible step.
With every test, every improvement, every second shaved off in the pit training, Eddie felt like he was tearing a piece of himself out of that time capsule he’d been stuck in. It wasn’t easy. There were nights when he still woke up startled, heart racing from nightmares he couldn’t put into words. There were days when he forgot to eat, when Hopper or even one of the guys had to shove a plate into his hands.
But he wasn’t alone anymore.
The workshop, once silent and dusty, was now filled with laughter, bad jokes, and passionate technical debates. And Eddie, without realizing it, was starting to feel like part of something again.
The most surprising thing wasn’t that Steve was in charge, nor that Hopper trusted him like Wayne used to. The surprising thing was that Eddie, against all odds, was starting to trust again.
Chapter 5: Two Minutes to Midnight
Notes:
Two Minutes to Midnight – Iron Maiden
Chapter Text
The sun beat down relentlessly on the asphalt of Barcelona, and the track vibrated with a heat that seemed to lift everything: the grandstands, the engines, even the blood pulsing in his temples. Steve adjusted his gloves inside the cockpit, the helmet already secured. The world outside was a distant murmur: the crowd, the commentators, flags waving. Inside, there was only him and the car that Eddie had turned into a beast.
The roar when he started it was like feeling a lion stretch. Deep, powerful, electric. For the first time in years, Steve smiled inside his helmet, fearless. He was ready.
In the distance, on the pit wall, he saw Hopper adjusting his headset, with that calm of an experienced general. And closer, at his line, was Eddie.
Eddie wasn’t wearing the same blue uniform with patches like the other mechanics. He was dressed in a completely black fireproof suit, fitted to his torso with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. On the back, sewn in white, one single name: Munson. His hair, which Steve still couldn’t believe was so long, was braided intricately, firm, made that morning by Steve with trembling fingers while Eddie huffed impatiently and pretended not to care. But Steve had seen it: the way Eddie lowered his gaze and didn’t complain when the braid was tight and neat, as if he had conceded a small piece of ground he’d never voice aloud.
That detail now pierced through him. Eddie, in that distinct black uniform, with the surname in large letters, with the braid Steve had made, seemed almost unreal. Like a memory turned to flesh.
The traffic light switched on.
Red. Red. Red.
It went off.
And the world exploded.
The car leapt forward like an unleashed arrow. Steve felt the tires bite into the asphalt, the engine roar with hunger. He went from seventh on the grid to third before his heart even registered the change. The machine responded to every impulse like it had been born from his own body.
Corner after corner, the car devoured its rivals. The Ferrari that blocked his path barely resisted two laps before giving way on the straight. The Mercedes, solid, fell on the next S-curve. Steve wasn’t pushing blindly: he was dancing. The car responded with a smoothness he hadn’t felt in years.
A laugh vibrated in his chest. He, who had often felt on the verge of losing it all, was falling in love again. With the roar. With the track. With himself.
"Keep the pace" Hopper’s voice came firmly into his ear "There’s still a lot left, Stevie, but now, you need clear track."
Steve nodded even though no one could see him. And then, a brief silence, a technical pause. Until another voice came through on the radio.
That voice.
"Coming in hot."
It was as if the world bent. Eddie had said it, sure. Eddie with that slightly rough, practical cadence. But what Steve heard, what his heart understood, was something else. It was Wayne.
The same tone that had guided him since he was a kid, the same assurance that had lifted him every time he fell. For a moment, Steve swore Wayne was there, on the line, guiding him. A shiver ran through him from head to toe, and without realizing it, tears began to sting his eyes.
He couldn’t cry in the middle of a race. And yet, he did.
He entered the pits, and the scene was a perfect ballet: tires off, new tires on, quick and precise hands, all in a blink. Eddie was standing behind the yellow line, calmly signaling, the black suit gleaming under the sun. The braid swung on his back. Steve caught a glimpse of him for just an instant through the mirror. Munson. The surname shining like a reminder of who was holding all of this together.
He left the pits again with his heart racing.
The rest of the race was a symphony of pure control. The car didn’t falter. The engine sang. Steve couldn’t hold back anymore: each lap was a display of power, each straight a roar that rose above the crowd. He wasn’t racing against them. He was racing against the years he’d lost. Against the emptiness that had haunted him. And this time, he was winning.
When he crossed the finish line, the checkered flag waving, Steve was nearly a minute ahead of second place. An eternity in the world of Formula 1. The roar of the crowd was deafening, but nothing compared to the roar in his chest.
He had won.
He had returned.
On the podium, the champagne exploded in the air, and Steve raised the trophy with trembling hands. The tears flowed freely now, mixing with sweat, with the sticky foam. He lifted it to the sky, but deep down, he held it for two people: for Wayne, who was still there in every roar, and for Eddie, who had made the impossible possible.
From the podium, he scanned the crowd. Hopper was smiling at him with pride from below. The pit crew was hugging, jumping, slapping each other on the back as if they’d won the whole championship. And Eddie...
Eddie wasn’t celebrating. He stood off to the side, arms crossed, the black suit snug, the braid gleaming, the headset hanging from one side. Serious. Motionless. With that cold expression that gave away nothing.
But Steve saw him. He saw everything. The weight on his shoulders, the hidden grief, the distance he insisted on keeping. And yet, for the first time in years, Steve didn’t feel fear about what was to come. Because the roar had come back home.
The smell of sweat, burnt rubber, and champagne still hung in the air when Steve walked into the press room. The lights blinded him for a moment, but he couldn’t wipe the smile that curved his mouth. He dropped into the center chair, still with his suit half undone and the gloves hanging from his waist. Beside him, the other drivers were silent, their expressions ranging from frustration to disbelief. Steve felt different: lighter, more alive.
The questions started to rain down mercilessly:
"Steve, how does it feel to be back in first place after four years?"
"Did you expect a margin of almost a minute?"
"What changed in your team? How do you explain such dominance?"
"How did you convince Eddie Munson to come back?"
Steve took a deep breath, the half-smile playing between casualness and defiance.
"Convince isn’t the word" —he said—. "Eddie doesn’t need anyone to convince him of what he was born to do. What he did was give this team a soul. And I think today the result made that pretty clear."
Hands went up in unison. Another voice took over.
"Are you saying Munson designed the car for this race?"
Steve nodded, without blinking.
"Yes. In less than a week, with my team’s help. And I’ll say it again: a driver needs a car that matches him, and a car needs a driver that matches it. For years, I had neither because I let someone make decisions they shouldn’t have."
The murmur in the room intensified. Steve knew the tough question was coming, and he didn’t intend to dodge it.
"To be clear" he continued, with a firmness in his voice he rarely used—: "My father and I only share a last name. Nothing more. From this moment on, I’m distancing myself from everything that carries the Harrington label: businesses, sponsorships, commitments. For too long, I allowed a man who knew nothing outside of finance to decide my life and career. That ends today."
A buzz of disbelief filled the room. Journalists exchanged looks, some already typing furiously. Steve raised his hand to cut the noise.
"If you’re looking for my sponsors, you won’t find them in my father’s offices. You’ll find Red Bull, who believed in me even when I doubted myself. You’ll find TAG Heuer, who will be with me in this new beginning. You’ll find brands that understand what it means to race not for money or prestige, but because this" —he tapped the table gently, marking every word "Is who I am."
The barrage of questions grew deafening, but Steve didn’t move. Instead, he leaned toward the microphone once more, lowering his voice to force everyone to listen.
"When my father hired Wayne Munson, more than one partner told him he was making a deal with the devil. Maybe he did, and it was Wayne’s grace that got me this far. Today, I also made a deal. Not with the devil...ut to become the devil."
The silence was absolute, broken only by the snap of cameras.
Steve stood up. He left the microphone on the table with practiced calm, but inside, the adrenaline still pulsed like an engine running. He didn’t need to hear what they would say next: he had already marked the beginning of a new era.
Some journalists looked at each other, unsure if he was joking or declaring war. Steve couldn’t help but imagine the reaction in the pit. Hopper was probably rubbing his hand over his face, muttering “Oh my God, Harrington...” under his breath. Joyce, laughing quietly. And Eddie… Oh, Eddie was probably letting out that deep, condescending laugh, the one he used when Steve tried to act tougher than he was. Because Steve had never been "devilish." That was Eddie’s word, his world of black guitars, heavy metal, and fictional monsters. Steve had said it for him, because he knew it would make Eddie laugh. That maybe, in some corner of that icy armor, it would spark a glimmer of warmth.
His voice had said what needed to be said. There was no turning back: he had made the return of the Munsons to the track public, he had distanced himself from his father, and he had openly declared he was ready to be feared again.
And when the press conference ended and he stood up amidst applause mixed with desperate questions, Steve only thought of one thing: I hope Eddie laughed.
The noise of the celebration slowly faded as the night went on. Some mechanics stayed at the hotel bar, others had collapsed into their rooms. Steve, still feeling the adrenaline pulsating, couldn’t sleep. He had showered, tried to close his eyes, but his mind kept circling back to the press conference, the race, Eddie.
A sharp knock on the door snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Open up, Harrington,” Hopper’s voice, hoarse from the beers, sounded with authority.
Steve let out a tired chuckle and opened the door. Hopper entered with a serious expression and a remote control in hand.
“You need to see this.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
The TV in the room flickered and settled on a sports news channel. On the screen, Richard Harrington. Impeccably dressed, burgundy tie, perfectly combed gray hair. Behind him, the corporate logo of Harrington Capital.
Steve felt an emptiness open up in his stomach. He recognized that posture: straight shoulders, a stern gaze, the calculated expression meant to convey control.
“My son’s press conference this afternoon took me by surprise,” Richard said in a firm voice, modulated as if he were speaking at a board meeting, not about his own son. “I respect his decision to take a different path. However, I want to make one thing clear: the Harrington name represents excellence, vision, and discipline. It always has. My son has talent, no doubt, but talent without direction is nothing but noise. I regret that he has chosen to sever ties with the structure that shaped him and gave him every opportunity he now enjoys.”
Steve clenched his jaw. Hopper’s grip on the remote control cracked in his hands.
“I'm not trying to diminish his achievements. Winning a race is worthy of applause. But let’s not confuse a single victory with a legacy. Formula 1 requires consistency, strategy, and proven leadership. Steve still has much to prove. And if he wants to renounce the Harrington name in his professional life, so be it. I regret that for him, because the Harrington name is the only thing that made him relevant outside of the track.”
A murmur went through the press room. The camera zoomed in on his face. Not a flicker of emotion.
“I wish him luck. He will need it.”
The video cut to the neutral face of the news presenter. Hopper turned off the TV. The silence was thick.
Steve didn’t move. His fingers were digging into the fabric of the couch.
“The name is the only thing that made him relevant.” He repeated, as if needing to convince himself he had heard it right.
Hopper watched him, arms crossed. He didn’t try to soften the blow. He knew it would be pointless.
“You know what I heard?” He said finally, his voice grave. “That Richard Harrington never understood who you were. Not on the track, and not off it.”
Steve looked up. His eyes were wet, but he wasn’t crying. This time, anger was stronger than sadness.
“The only thing I am...” His voice trembled, but he quickly hardened it. “The only thing I am, I built with Wayne, Eddie, you, and myself. My father has no fucking clue what it means to race. He never did.”
Hopper nodded slowly.
“Exactly. And when you get back in that car, you’re going to show him. Not to him, or to the media. To yourself.”
The silence fell again, lighter this time. Steve took a deep breath. He looked at the remote, then at Hopper.
“Thanks for showing that. I needed to hear it.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Now I know I did the right thing breaking away from him.”
Hopper slapped him on the shoulder, heavy, firm.
“Let Richard Harrington play emperor in his glass tower. You have what he never had: a team that believes in you, a car that responds to you, and a heart that beats for the track. That can’t be bought.”
Steve closed his eyes, letting those words anchor him. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like an accessory hanging off the Harrington name. For the first time, he felt Steve. Just Steve. And that was enough.
The echo of the conference still vibrated in Steve’s bones. The TV screen had been black for several minutes, but his father’s words still burned like embers on his skin: the coldness, the disdain, that way of reducing everything to a number, to a nice surname to show off.
Steve collapsed back into the couch, his back sinking and his head in his hands. He could barely breathe.
“Wayne is dead…” he murmured, as if only then allowing himself to accept the words Eddie had said days earlier.
Hopper watched him from the door, arms crossed, motionless like a shadow. When he heard that phrase, he moved. He walked over to stand in front of him.
“Yeah, Steve.” His voice was firm, no frills, no evasions. “He died four years ago.”
The driver shot his head up, eyes red, shining with almost childlike pain.
“How…?” He swallowed, his voice trembling. “How did you find out?”
Hopper took a deep breath, tilting his head as if unsure whether to open his mouth. And for a moment, Steve felt fear. A different kind of fear, a fear of the void left by the truth.
“Eddie called me.” He finally said it, low, almost unbearable.
The name hit like a punch.
“What?”
“That day when…” Hopper looked him straight in the eye, not blinking. “That day when he called you first.”
Steve’s world froze. He remembered that call exactly. He had been in the middle of a photo shoot, wearing a ridiculous suit, smiling for flashes that meant nothing. He had seen the name "Eddie Munson" on the screen, and his heart had raced. He had answered, nervous, a mix of hope and childish pride. And then… he had hung up.
“I’m busy.”
He hadn’t even let him speak.
“He…” Hopper’s voice cracked barely, as if saying it ripped something from his chest. “Eddie was shattered. He could barely talk. He told me Wayne had died. He begged… no, he pleaded with me to tell you, because he couldn’t stand you hanging up on him again.”
Steve put his hands to his mouth, a muffled groan escaping his throat. Tears ran uncontrollably.
“No…” He shook his head, again and again. “No, no, no, Hopper... I... it can't be.”
“It is, kid.”
Steve dug his fingers into his hair, pulling as if he could tear the guilt out by its roots.
“I didn’t know!” He burst out, violent sobs wracking his body. “I didn’t know it was that bad! I just thought it was Eddie… that it was another fight, that he wanted to make me feel bad!”
Hopper barely shook him, a firm gesture that forced him to look up at him.
“And meanwhile, I… I kept posing for pictures, smiling like a damn idiot for magazines, like nothing mattered.” He fell back into the couch, sobbing openly, uncontrollably. “He… Wayne was more of a father to me than Richard ever dreamed of being, and I… I let him go, Hopper. I wasn’t even at his funeral.”
The lump in his throat became unbearable. Steve cried hard, his hands clutching the fabric. Hopper finally moved closer, squatting in front of him and holding him by the shoulders.
“Listen to me, Steve.” His voice was deep, direct. “Wayne loved you like a son. That was never in question. And he defended you to the last day, even when your old man kicked him out.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?!” Steve raised his voice suddenly, anger piercing through the pain. “Hopper, you were his friend! You could’ve called me, you could’ve…”
“I tried!” The response came as a roar, so hard that it shook the air. Hopper barely shook him, forcing him to look him in the eye. “I called you. I looked for you. And do you know what I got? The perfect magazine kid, busy with parties, busy with photos, busy with not listening. You became a statue, Steve, so obsessed with pleasing your father that there was no room for anyone else. Not for me. Not for Eddie. Not for Wayne.”
Steve froze, breathing heavily.
“I…” His voice cracked.
“You lost yourself, Steve.” Hopper lowered his tone a bit, though the firmness remained intact. “You became everything Richard wanted: a shiny accessory. Superficial. Deaf. Blind. That’s what hurt me the most. Not just losing Wayne… but we lost you, too.”
The silence weighed down. Steve swallowed, his face red and wet. He felt exposed, naked. Every word from Hopper pierced directly into his chest.
“I… I didn’t know how to stop.” He finally whispered, the confession drowned in tears. “I didn’t know how to choose. I was afraid of losing everything.”
Hopper looked at him for one more moment, then placed a firm hand on his neck and pulled him into his shoulder.
“I get it, kid. I really do. But listen closely: Wayne didn’t die thinking you betrayed him. He died with the hope that one day you would open your eyes. And that day… is today.”
Steve clung to Hopper’s shoulder, crying with a mix of anger and relief. He felt like years of silence, masks, and lies were being ripped away from him all at once. For the first time since Eddie had told him the truth, he cried for Wayne the way he should have.
And amidst the sobs, amidst the guilt and the rage, something else was born: a small, trembling certainty, but real. He had been lost. But he no longer wanted to stay that way.
Hopper held him, not letting go, until the crying started to subside.
“You’ve got a hard road ahead, Steve,” he said finally, almost in a whisper. “But you’re not going to walk it alone.”
Steve nodded against his shoulder, exhausted.
For the first time in years, he felt like he had a real father.
Steve wiped his face with the back of his hand, his eyes still swollen, his throat burning from all the crying. His body felt empty, exhausted, but also, for the first time in years, light. As if by releasing those tears, he had opened a door that had been sealed for too long.
"I can't change anything I did," he murmured, almost to himself. "I can't bring Wayne back. I can't get back the years I lost..." His voice trembled, but didn't completely break. "The only thing I can do is start over."
Hopper watched him in silence, his brow furrowed, though there was a flicker of respect in his gaze.
"That's the only thing Wayne would've wanted," he nodded.
Steve took a deep breath, staring at his own hands—hands that had held steering wheels, trophies, soulless contracts.
"I can make up for the professional stuff; I'm already doing it. But my life..." He stopped, biting the sentence before the name slipped out. "I don't know if Eddie wants anything to do with me, but if there's even the slightest chance, even if it's just... as colleagues, or whatever he wants, I'll take it."
A small, bitter smile twisted his lips.
"I'm not going to try to recover what I destroyed myself, by choice. Whatever has to be built now... will start from scratch."
Hopper gave him a strong pat on the shoulder.
"Then start now. Wayne taught you to fight for what you love. Eddie... well, you'll see if you can still reach him. But crying for what you lost won't change anything. Do something different with what you've got in front of you."
Hopper's words hung in the air like heavy smoke. Steve felt them embed deep in his chest, tearing through everything he'd kept repressed until then. He placed his hands over his face, the cold palms against the hot skin, still wet from crying. He took a deep breath, trembling, then slowly lowered his hands, as if releasing an invisible weight.
The white ceiling of the hotel stared back at him, empty, almost mocking. But amidst the nothingness, Steve felt something unexpected: clarity. As if, after years of running in circles, there was finally a straight path ahead of him.
"I want to start over, Hop," he said, his voice quiet at first, unsure, but growing with each word. "Not just on the track... in everything. I'm tired of contracts tainted by Richard, of sponsorships he manipulates at will. I want my own brand, my own team. Something that's mine. Something no one can use as a trophy at one of his damn business dinners."
There was a heavy silence. Hopper watched him with his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped, brow furrowed. His gaze was that of someone weighing every word before saying it.
"A team?" he repeated skeptically, as if testing the weight of the idea in his mouth. "Do you know what you're getting into?"
Steve nodded without hesitation, though he could feel the blood pounding in his temples.
"I have the money, Hop. Not just from racing..." He swallowed. "My grandparents left me an inheritance. It's not infinite, but it's enough to start. I have experience, I have contacts, and I have people I trust. And if I don't do it now, if I don't cut ties with him for good, I'll never get out of his shadow."
His voice cracked just slightly, but he forced himself to keep going.
"I want a place where you build the team without anyone sticking their nose in it. Where Eddie can design whatever he wants without some idiot filing it away because he doesn't understand the blueprints. A space for us, Hop. Not for Richard."
Silence settled again, this time longer. Hopper leaned back, ran a slow hand over his beard, letting out a sigh that was more an attempt to gather his thoughts than to challenge him. He looked at him again, and Steve knew something in him had shifted.
With a quick motion, Hopper grabbed his phone and started dialing.
"If you're serious, we need someone who thinks like you but keeps their feet firmly on the ground," he murmured.
The ringing tone echoed through the room until a warm, though tired, voice filled the speaker.
"Hopper? Everything okay?"
His grunt was almost a relief.
"Everything's fine, Joyce. But we have a crazy guy here with a new idea."
Steve leaned closer to the phone, his heart hammering like he was at the starting line.
"Joyce... I want to create my own team."
There was a brief silence, followed by a soft laugh—not one of disbelief, but understanding. A laugh Steve hadn't expected, and it loosened something inside him.
"If you're serious, Steve, you have to do it the right way," she responded, firm but with tenderness. "Start as a technical brand, with a strong core: Hopper, Eddie, you. Use the money as an investment, not as an expense. And get ready to live for this, because there's no turning back."
Steve closed his eyes for a moment, her words hitting him harder than Hopper's. And then he said it, almost in a whisper, but with the certainty of someone who had found the beginning of something new:
"I don't want to go back. I want Harrington to mean us, not Richard. I want Eddie, one day, to see that this could be his place too."
On the other side of the line, Joyce sighed. And Steve, without seeing her, knew she was smiling.
"Then do it, Steve. And do it right."
The call ended. The room fell silent again, but it wasn't the same silence as before. It didn't weigh on him. It didn't crush him. It felt like an open space, a clear horizon, a different air in his lungs.
Hopper still looked at him seriously, but there was something in his eyes that Steve hadn't seen in a long time: faith.
"Alright, Harrington," he said finally, standing up with a creak of his knees. "Looks like you're ready to stop being just a driver and start being something more."
Steve let himself fall back onto the bed, his body exhausted, but his heart beating stronger than ever. His eyes stung again, and the tears came unbidden, but they weren't the same as before. He wasn't crying for Wayne, or Eddie, or the wasted years.
He was crying because, for the first time in far too long, he saw a future. A future that still didn't have a name, nor colors, nor shape. But one that, at last, felt like his own.
Chapter 6: Rising Force
Notes:
Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen
Chapter Text
Steve barely remembered how he'd managed to get Eddie on his feet. His body felt too light against his own, an odd, alarming weight, as if life itself had thinned him out, leaving him just a shadow of what he'd once been. Steve could carry him easily, like a sleeping child; and that hit him with a force that nearly brought him to his knees.
Because Steve remembered something else. He remembered an Eddie who seemed larger than life itself: loud, chaotic, always with a theatrical gesture, always occupying every space as if the whole world was too small for him. Steve used to feel fragile next to him, the delicate one, the one who needed to be protected from the world's sharp edges. But now... now Eddie was a trembling, fragile body in his arms, and Steve didn’t know how to process it.
"Calm down, Eds... it’s over, it’s over," he murmured, his voice broken, though he knew it wasn’t true. Nothing had ended, nothing had healed, and his words weren’t enough to erase four years of pain.
He walked slowly toward the car, holding him as if afraid he'd break into pieces. The contrast tore at him: he could feel every bone under the fabric of Eddie's clothes, could sense how small he'd become after everything he'd lost. And yet, even in this state, Eddie weakly clung to his shirt, as though in his dreams he didn't want to let him go.
When they reached the Munson property, the stillness of the place hit Steve like a punch. The fresh air, the motionless trees, the untouched silence of the night… everything felt ridiculously serene compared to the storm he still saw reflected in Eddie’s exhausted face.
He gently laid him on the couch, almost reverently, and stood for a moment, breathing heavily. Eddie was here, but he wasn’t the same Eddie Steve had carved into his memory. He wasn’t the loud laugh that filled a room, or the exaggerated gestures that made Wayne smile on the worst days. That Eddie had dimmed, and all that was left was a thinner, trembling, broken man.
That’s when the tears escaped. Steve sank to the floor beside the couch and hid his face in his hands. At first, it was a soft sob, barely a murmur, but soon it became an open, trembling cry, impossible to stop.
Because now he understood. Eddie had shown him the open wound of his grief, four years of pain compressed into a single tear. And Steve hadn’t been there. He hadn’t held him. He hadn’t stopped the light from fading.
He looked up, staring at Eddie’s sleeping face, stained with dry tears, so different from the vibrant memory of a boy who used to be “larger than life.” Steve reached out with a clumsy gesture and pushed a lock of hair off Eddie’s forehead.
"I’m sorry, Eds... I’m so sorry," he whispered, his voice cracked.
The contrast killed him inside. Steve, who used to feel small beside him, was now the one carrying him. Steve, who had relied on Eddie’s warmth to feel less alone, was now the one trying to stop Eddie from falling apart. And the cruelest part was knowing that he himself had contributed to that fall.
With a lump in his throat, he made a vow he wouldn’t break: he wasn’t going to let go of him. Not again.
He ran a hand over his face, trembling, and let the silence soak into him.
Back when they were younger, Steve had always felt small next to Eddie. Eddie didn’t just speak louder, laugh louder, live louder… he made Steve feel safe. It was Eddie who had taught him to trust himself when he still doubted every step. Eddie who shamelessly held his hand in the backseat of the van, as if the whole world couldn’t touch them. Eddie who kissed him in the chaos of life, giving him that rare peace Steve had never found in his own home.
And now that Eddie wasn’t here. Or, at least, not like before.
Steve looked at Eddie’s hand resting limply on the couch, thin, with the knuckles marked. He took it slowly, holding it tight, and tears pricked his eyes once more.
"A big part of who I am now…" he murmured, barely audible, "I learned from you, Eds. The trust, the calm in the middle of fear… you gave that to me. Everything good in me comes from you."
He leaned forward, forehead resting on the edge of the couch, still holding his hand.
"And I lost you. I lost the guy who laughed so loud it hurt my ribs, the one who made me feel like nothing else mattered. And now…" he inhaled deeply, choking back a sob, "now I have to learn to know you again. This you, shy, nervous, broken… but you’re still you, Eddie. You’re still my Eddie."
His voice trembled, but for the first time in a long time, there was a still certainty underneath all the pain. Eddie was here, breathing. And even though he was different, even though the chaos had quieted, even though the warmth hid behind layers of fear, Steve wasn’t going anywhere.
He wiped his cheeks awkwardly, watching Eddie as if he could imprint every feature into his memory.
"I’m never letting you go again," he whispered, this time with firmness, with a promise that rooted itself in his chest. "Not the old you, nor this one. I’m staying."
The silence filled the room again, broken only by Eddie’s steady breathing. And Steve finally leaned back against the couch, holding Eddie’s hand, as if by squeezing it he could keep him here, with him.
Steve didn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. The last thing he knew was that his cheek was resting on the edge of the couch, Eddie’s hand trapped in his, afraid that if he let go, it would slip away. Now he woke with a crooked neck and swollen eyes, but the first thing he saw was Eddie, still asleep.
It took him a few seconds to recognize the feeling: relief. Eddie was still here, breathing, his chest rising and falling slowly.
He got up carefully, trying not to wake him. Eddie’s hair was tangled, strands falling over his face, and Steve—tenderly, painfully—reached out to move them aside. It was such a simple, intimate gesture that he froze for a moment, feeling the weight of the years they had lost.
Eddie stirred in his sleep but didn’t wake. And Steve smiled faintly, a mix of sadness and affection that had been consuming him since the night before.
He finally stood and went to the kitchen, which now looked different: Joyce had helped Eddie clean it weeks ago, and the change was evident. The air was lighter, the spaces clearer, as if they were slowly rebuilding a home. Steve opened the cabinets until he found bread, coffee, and some fruit. It wasn’t much, but he could improvise a breakfast.
As the coffee brewed, another memory flooded him. Eddie in the past, devouring food beside him, always talking with his mouth full, laughing at Steve’s horrified face, stealing fries from his plate just to annoy him. That Eddie had been impossible to ignore, impossible not to love. Now, the Eddie sleeping on the couch was so fragile that Steve feared even a miscalculated gesture would make him withdraw back into himself.
The smell of coffee was what finally woke Eddie. Steve heard movement behind him and turned just in time to see Eddie slowly sit up, tousled hair and eyes swollen from crying. Eddie blinked, confused, before rubbing his face with his hands.
"What time is it?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
"Still early." Steve handed him a steaming cup of coffee. "Here, this will do you good."
Eddie hesitated for a moment before accepting it, as if even receiving something was heavy. But when he took the first sip, his shoulders relaxed a little. Steve sat down across from him with his own cup, watching him.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, at least not for Steve. There was something almost sacred in just sharing that moment.
"You slept deeply," Steve finally commented, not sure what else to say.
Eddie made a grimace, half-smile, half-apology. "I let myself go."
Steve looked down at his hands, at Eddie’s long fingers wrapped around the cup. He noticed how thin they still were, how much Eddie had yet to recover physically. And suddenly, he remembered the difference from the night before: how easy it had been to carry him, the complete opposite of what he used to feel years ago when he was with Eddie.
Eddie looked at him, uncomfortable under his prolonged silence. "What’s up?"
Steve shook his head and smiled faintly. "Nothing. I’m just... happy you’re here."
Eddie quickly looked down, as if unsure what to do with those words. And Steve understood, again, that he had to take it slow. This Eddie—the shy, nervous, withdrawn Eddie—couldn’t handle the intensity all at once.
He decided to change the atmosphere and got up. "I’m going to make something to eat. You can’t live on coffee alone."
"You don’t have to..." Eddie started, but Steve interrupted him with a smile.
"I want to."
Eddie didn’t insist. He watched Steve move around the kitchen, cutting bread, serving fruit, setting the makeshift table. Steve didn’t stop talking, telling anecdotes about the team, keeping a light thread going so the tension didn’t choke them. Slowly, Eddie started to relax. Steve noticed when he let out a small laugh, soft, at a comment he made about Argyle. And that sound, though small, pierced his chest like a gift.
When they sat down to eat, Steve was surprised to see Eddie eat more than he expected. He wasn’t the voracious version from the past, but neither was the ghost who refused to feed. It was a step. A tiny one, but a step.
As he chewed absently, Eddie raised his gaze and caught Steve staring at him. For a moment, Steve felt like he was back with the old Eddie, because there was something familiar in that look, as if a spark of warmth had returned. But Eddie quickly averted his eyes, blushing, and Steve understood that it was too soon to expect more.
Even so, while they were picking up the plates, Steve allowed himself a gesture. He moved behind Eddie and, without saying a word, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. It was a brief touch, barely a brush, but Eddie froze. And even though he didn’t look at him, Steve could see how his hands trembled slightly.
The day was just beginning, but Steve already knew something had changed. It wasn’t a declaration, nor a return to the past, but it was the beginning of something new. A fragile ground, full of silences and fears, but also the possibility of rebuilding.
And Steve was willing to stay, to wait, to relearn how to love Eddie from scratch, if that’s what it took.
It was Eddie who stood up first from the table. He didn’t make a sound, just left the empty cup on the wood and reached for the jacket hanging on the back of the chair. He put it on with a mechanical, almost anxious movement, and nervously tucked his hair behind his ear— a gesture Steve had started to recognize as part of this new Eddie: withdrawn, cautious, as if always feeling like he was in the way. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t even look at him. He simply pushed the porch door open and walked out.
Steve hesitated for a moment, but followed him without asking permission.
The morning air was still cool, and the dampness of the grass soaked the ground. The sun barely peeked over the trees, tinting the property with golden hues. Eddie walked with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, as though he wanted to take up as little space as possible. Steve, on the other hand, walked confidently and caught up with him easily. The physical difference between them was palpable: Eddie was thin, too thin, although he had regained some weight. Steve, more solid, broader in the shoulders, sturdier. That contrast was painful because it hadn’t always been this way.
When they were younger, Steve used to feel small next to him. Eddie had been that chaotic, warm figure, “bigger than life itself,” who filled every space with laughter, ideas, and plans. Now, however, Eddie’s vitality seemed reduced to dimmed sparks, and Steve felt like he was walking beside a ghost of what Eddie had once been.
They didn’t speak at first. Only the sound of gravel beneath their shoes and the distant song of some bird. Steve, though his instinct was to fill the silence with anything, forced himself to hold back. He had learned, in these few days, that with Eddie, nothing could be forced. Every word had to come on its own, without pushing, as if waiting for an engine to finally start after several attempts.
They walked on until they reached the old wooden fence that marked the edge of the track. Eddie stopped there, resting a hand on the worn plank. His knuckles turned white from the tension, and his lips pressed into a thin line before he spoke.
“It’s strange,” he murmured, not looking at him, while kicking a stone with the tip of his sneaker. “Walking here again. It feels the same and different at the same time.”
Steve glanced at him from the corner of his eye, wanting to ask what that “different” meant, but he held back.
Eddie took a deep breath. His chest rose and fell as though carrying a weight. Then, in a soft but clear voice, he dropped the question:
“Do you know what the worst part was?”
Steve swallowed hard.
“Tell me.”
Eddie let out a dry, hollow laugh, a sound that had no joy in it.
“That I trusted you more than anyone. More than Wayne, even. And not because Wayne didn’t care for me, but because with you it was different.” His lips trembled before continuing. “You made me believe I was worth something. That my chaos, my crazy ideas, weren’t garbage. You made me think I could dream big. And then…” he took a deep breath, his eyes welling up. “Then you used all of that against me.”
The air seemed to grow heavier.
Steve tensed, a lump in his throat.
“Eddie…”
“No.” Eddie suddenly lifted his gaze, eyes red, wet, but firm. “Let me say it. I didn’t say it back then because I couldn’t.” His voice cracked slightly. “You threw the things I loved most about me in my face. Music, cars, the way I was. You made it sound like flaws, like I was the one holding you back.”
Each word was a sharp blow to Steve’s chest. He remembered that argument too well: the heat of the moment, the misplaced anger, the fear of losing what his father had promised him. He remembered spitting out cruel words, thinking they were defense when, in fact, they were daggers.
Eddie looked down, hunching his shoulders as if he wanted to disappear.
“Since then, I don’t know what about me is worth anything. If what I loved about myself could be used to… discard me, then maybe it never mattered at all.” His fingers fidgeted with the edge of his jacket, restless. “And the worst part… the worst part is that I believed you.”
Steve closed his eyes for a moment. There it was. The origin. That constant insecurity in Eddie, that broken shyness, that fear that paralyzed him… it all traced back to him. To his words, to his betrayal. And there was no fixing something like that.
“You’re right,” Steve finally said, his voice rough, almost a growl. “I said it. I used it against you. I let myself be convinced by my dad’s empty promises. I thought if I stayed away from you, I’d prove I was strong, that I could be ‘professional.’” He looked up at the sky, swallowing the lump. “But all I did was betray everything that made me love racing. Everything that made me me.”
Eddie glanced at him sideways, a mix of pain and distrust in his eyes.
“And then you disappeared.” His voice was barely a whisper, broken. “One day, you went to Chicago and you were just gone. Not a note, not a message. Nothing.”
The sting was immediate, piercing his chest. Yes, he had done that. He had run away without looking back, as if cutting it off at the root would erase the past. But it hadn’t erased it; he had left it bleeding.
“I know,” Steve said, every word a weight too heavy to bear. “And I made it worse. I fed your fear of abandonment and then confirmed it. There’s no excuse, Eddie. None.”
A thick silence settled between them. The wind stirred the branches of the trees, and Eddie rubbed his arms as though he were cold, even though the sun was warming the air. Steve took a step, instinctively wanting to put a hand on his shoulder, offer warmth, something. But he held back. Eddie was tense, like a scared animal that might flee at the slightest wrong move.
Eddie lowered his head, murmuring in a trembling voice:
“I realized it, you know? I realized you were falling into what your dad said. I saw it. I saw it all the time.” He bit his lower lip hard. “And I didn’t say anything, because I was afraid that if I did, you’d leave me.”
His breath hitched, and the last words came out as a strangled sob:
“You still left me.”
Steve’s eyes burned, but he didn’t look away.
“I left myself, too, Eddie. I didn’t just fail you. I failed myself.”
Eddie turned his gaze away, looking at the empty track. His breath still trembled, his fingers restless. Everything about him seemed withdrawn, contained, as though he was barely holding on by thin threads. Steve felt an overwhelming urge to touch him, to give him an anchor, to remind him that he wasn’t alone. But he didn’t.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” Eddie said, and though it was barely a whisper, it sounded final.
Steve nodded, swallowing with difficulty.
“I’m not asking you to.”
The silence returned, but it was different. Less sharp, more heavy, as if there was something between them that was finally being said, even though it hurt.
They walked back toward the hangar. Eddie let out a short, nervous laugh, almost a reflex to ease the dense air.
“Look at the irony… I’m still here, designing cars for you.”
Steve smiled faintly, a broken but genuine smile.
“I can’t imagine anyone else doing it.”
Eddie glanced at him sideways, his lips curling into a half-smile that almost became a real one. And that small spark was enough for Steve to know that, even though the road ahead was long and full of scars, they were starting to walk it together.
After that conversation by the fence, something changed. Not suddenly, not with fireworks or dramatic reconciliations. It was more like opening a window in a room that had been closed for years: at first, the air that entered was cold, uncomfortable, but over time it began to feel clean, necessary.
They started talking more. About small things at first—how they slept, how they had spent the last few years, random anecdotes that seemed trivial—but gradually, the words began to venture into more painful territories. Old wounds. Disappointments. Silences that had weighed too heavily.
Eddie spoke softly, as if he had to measure each syllable to make sure he didn’t go too far. Sometimes he would stop, his fingers fidgeting, his breath cut short, and Steve had learned not to press him. To wait. To give him space for the confession to come out at his own pace. Other times, however, the anger would escape him like sparks: small bursts of resentment, quick, sharp words, followed by an embarrassed silence. Steve let him say it, even when it hurt, because he knew he deserved it.
And what surprised him most was how Eddie, after those outbursts, breathed differently. As if every word spoken was one less stone to carry.
Steve watched him change, almost imperceptibly. The faded Eddie, the ghost-like Eddie, was starting to regain some of the spark in his eyes, some of the life in his voice. He wasn’t the same boy as before—that “bigger than life” kid who lit up every room—but he wasn’t just a shadow either. He was someone new, someone marked by pain and loss, yes, but slowly finding himself again.
And Steve, silently, also recognized that he had changed. He was no longer the teenager who had been dragged by his father’s approval, who sought validation in every gesture, in every word. Now he was firmer, more secure, more in control of himself. That maturity, that ability to hold on, to make decisions on his own, had become part of his identity.
With Eddie, it was a painfully clear contrast. Where Steve now exuded confidence, Eddie exuded doubt. Where Steve knew how to assert himself, Eddie shrank away. And yet, in that difference, something worked. Because Steve discovered in himself the instinct to hold him up, to be the anchor Eddie had been for him in the past.
He couldn’t erase what he had done. He couldn’t return Eddie to the way he was before, to the loud boy who believed in everything and everyone. But he could learn to love—and to care for—this new Eddie, the quieter, more insecure, more vulnerable one. And in a way, there was something deeply fair about that: that while Steve had learned to be strong thanks to Eddie, now it was his turn to be the support.
Sometimes, when Eddie fell silent after a tough confession, Steve had to clench his fists to keep from touching him. He didn’t want to scare him, didn’t want to cross a line. But there was a fierce impulse inside him: the need to remind him that he was no longer alone. That this time, Steve wasn’t going to run away.
And even if Eddie didn’t know it, even if he maybe never said it outright, Steve had already made a decision: he was willing to take whatever time it took, to hear every painful truth, to hold every awkward silence. Because it wasn’t about going back. It was about learning to know—and love—the man they had both become.
The food boxes were open on the makeshift table in the hangar: hamburgers, fries, a few sodas, and cardboard cups that no one bothered to claim as their own. There was a smell of oil and fresh metal from the car being repaired, mixed with the smoke from the hot food. It was the kind of dinner only a racing team could call “home”: messy, noisy, and full of little shared routines.
Eddie was sitting next to Hopper, back straight but shoulders tense, as if he still hadn’t fully settled into these dinners. Sometimes he contributed a brief comment, other times he just nodded. Steve watched him from the other end of the table, paying attention to every gesture. Since they’d started talking again for real, Eddie had been a little more present, but there was still something nervous about him, like a wire that never stopped vibrating.
Amid the noise, between an Argyle joke and the lead mechanic’s story about the latest race, Eddie looked up. His voice came out lower than expected, but loud enough to be heard.
"Is racing at Daytona still your dream?"
The table fell silent. A silence that seemed to grow with every passing second. Argyle, his mouth full, stopped chewing mid-bite. Two of the mechanics put their cups down at the same time. Hopper barely tilted his head, watching with interest.
Steve felt like even the hum of the old fluorescent light on the ceiling grew louder. He looked at Eddie, surprised, and found him staring at him, though he quickly lowered his gaze to the food box, as if regretting having said anything.
"What?" One of the engineers asked—. "Daytona?
"You really mean it, boss?" said another, incredulously.
Hopper was the one who broke the tension, his voice dry but full of truth.
"Yes. It’s true. He’s been saying it since he was a kid. Daytona’s always been in his head."
The murmur exploded immediately. The table filled with voices, improvised plans, and speculations. “What would we need to qualify?”, “Imagine the car there,” “It would be crazy, but amazing.” Argyle raised his hands, repeating “legendary, crazy, legendary.”
Meanwhile, Eddie seemed to shrink in his seat. His neck tucked into his jacket, his fingers crumpling a napkin in his hands. He had opened his mouth as if he had made a mistake, as if he had betrayed a secret that wasn’t his to share. He didn’t join in the others' excitement: he kept lowering his gaze more and more, nervous, swallowing, not knowing where to put his hands.
Steve saw it all. That insecurity that still gnawed at him from the inside, that fear of having exposed too much. And he felt a clear impulse, as strong as when he pressed the accelerator on the track: he wanted to show him there was nothing to fear.
He waited until the voices died down just a little, then leaned toward him, not breaking eye contact.
"Eddie..."He said, calmly, as if no one else was around "What would we need for Daytona?"
Eddie looked up, surprised by the tone. Everyone was watching him, yes, but Steve’s steady gaze was an anchor. And so was Hopper’s, who didn’t say anything but nodded slowly, as if reminding him he was there, supporting him.
Eddie took a deep breath.
"A different aerodynamic package. The same one we use for F1 won’t work" He said, initially hesitating, but then with more conviction "The suspension, stiffer. Another round of brake work. And tests... lots of tests."
The mechanics immediately started throwing ideas around. One mentioned contacts in Florida, another began to tally how many wind tunnel hours they could get. The noise grew. Eddie sank further into his seat.
Steve saw it and raised a hand, like someone directing an orchestra.
"What Eddie’s saying" He repeated, this time looking at the rest "Is that it’s not impossible. We have the pieces and the people. The only thing missing is the work."
The murmur calmed a bit. Eddie glanced at him sideways, almost confused, as if he hadn’t expected Steve to put him in the center of the table like that, but without pushing him.
Hopper cleared his throat, and his deep voice took over effortlessly:
"Listen to him. He’s the one who knows how to do it."
That validation gave Eddie a new breath. Enough for, after a pause, to let out another truth, quieter, as if speaking only to the napkin in his hands.
"If we can handle Daytona..." He stopped, biting his lip, and then went for it "We can handle Le Mans too."
The whole table went quiet. Everyone stared at him. Eddie swallowed, shrinking a little more.
And as if vertigo had pushed him, he added:
"And... Monaco."
The air filled with electricity. There was a full second of silence before someone whispered, “What?”
Steve smiled slowly, never taking his eyes off Eddie.
"The triple crown" He repeated, as if making sure the others processed it "That’s what he’s saying."
The rest erupted in voices. “You’re crazy!”, “Do you know what that means?”, “It would be historic!” Laughter, exclamations, even a whistle. The excitement was contagious but also overwhelming. Eddie lowered his head, his hair falling over his face, clearly uncomfortable.
Steve rested his elbow on the table, leaning toward him. He didn’t touch him, but spoke quietly enough for the rest not to notice.
"Do you think we’re ready?"
Eddie looked at him with wide eyes, surprised, as if he hadn’t expected the question to be serious. And there was Hopper too, watching, giving him a brief, solid nod.
Eddie swallowed and, with a trembling but clear voice, finally answered: "Probably yes."
Steve smiled. It wasn’t a perfect answer, but it was Eddie’s. And that meant everything.
The whole team then threw itself into the madness of planning. One was already saying his cousin could get cheap accommodation in Daytona. Another started doing quick budget calculations in a notebook. Argyle asked who would volunteer to handle the music for each trip. And amidst it all, Steve was collecting the energy, returning it to the center, but always giving Eddie credit.
"As Eddie says, we need tunnel hours" he corrected.
"What Eddie suggested, the suspension thing, that’s a priority" he added.
Each time he did, Eddie shrank a little less. Still nervous, still with restless hands, but more visible.
Steve watched him and thought that yes, maybe they were about to make history. But the important thing wasn’t the triple crown. The important thing was that Eddie, for the first time in a long time, was talking about the future.
Almost two months had passed since that dinner in the hangar. The Daytona project was underway: parts ordered, tests scheduled, plans upon plans. The team was living in a constant frenzy, but Steve had discovered that amidst all the noise, the moments he looked forward to the most were the ones with Eddie.
They weren’t anything official, not “dates” in the strict sense, but Steve knew they were. Going for coffee at a gas station on the outskirts, spending too much time in the second-hand movie section of a store, walking to the abandoned airfield just to sit on a rusted wing and talk about nothing. They were small moments, stolen from the agenda, but they felt like the biggest thing he had.
Over time, Steve began to understand a pattern. Eddie spoke little at first, trapped in silences that seemed endless. But if Steve found the right way to nudge him —a simple question, a shared memory, even a poorly made joke— something would change. Eddie’s shoulders would relax, his gestures would become wider, his eyes would shine. And suddenly, there he was again: that Eddie who seemed bigger than life, with laughter that filled the air.
It was like watching a lightning bolt break through dark clouds.
Steve learned not to rush him. There were times when shyness would trap him again halfway through a story, and Eddie would shrink, as if he’d said too much. Steve would simply nod, change the subject naturally, offer his own vulnerability as refuge. He never pointed it out. He never pushed him.
And little by little, Eddie started to trust.
One afternoon, after a meeting with Hopper, they ended up walking around the property, just like they had on that difficult day. Eddie kicked little stones along the dirt path, his hair falling over his face, and suddenly said something Steve never would’ve expected:
"You know what I miss the most?" he murmured, not looking at him "That you made me feel... like anything was possible."
Steve stopped. The phrase pierced his chest like an arrow. Because in his mind, it had always been Eddie who made him feel that way.
He didn’t say it. Instead, he leaned in a little closer and, in a soft voice, replied:
"It still is, Ed."
Eddie looked at him quickly, as if trust had betrayed him. But Steve held his gaze with tenderness, not looking away. And for a moment, Eddie smiled that bright smile that Steve thought he’d lost forever.
The difference was clear: back when they were teenagers, Steve had felt small next to him, protected by that chaotic whirlwind that was Eddie. Now, Eddie was slender, nervous, fragile at times, and Steve could carry him, protect him, be his refuge. The contrast hurt, but at the same time, it filled him with fierce determination.
He wanted to be Eddie’s safe place, just as Eddie had been his.
Here's the translation of the new fragment:
The “dates” kept piling up. One night, they ended up watching movies in Eddie's old room, eating microwave popcorn. Eddie laughed with a nearly adolescent awkwardness, tapping Steve’s leg every time something struck him as funny. And Steve just stayed there, watching him, thinking that yes, Eddie had matured too quickly, carried scars that no one could erase, but there was something perfect about this Eddie, who could still laugh as if nothing else mattered.
In those moments, Steve felt like life was giving him another chance. Not to go back to the past, but to build something new. Something slower, more honest, stronger.
And he was going to do it right this time.
The night was cool, damp with the scent of freshly watered grass and the distant echo of crickets. Steve and Eddie had gone for a walk with no clear destination, skirting the dirt path that surrounded the shop and the old airfield track. It was one of those rare, comfortable silences: Eddie didn’t talk much, but he didn’t seem to want Steve to fill it with words either. They just walked, shoulder to shoulder, sometimes so close that their hands brushed by accident.
Steve breathed slowly, letting the calm of the night seep through him. He liked seeing Eddie like this: with his hands in his jacket pockets, his wild hair falling over his face, eyes lost on the horizon. There was nervousness in him, yes, but also something else... as if he was allowing himself to enjoy the moment.
The sound was so faint that Steve almost didn’t hear it: a muffled meow, like a broken thread in the air. Eddie stopped abruptly, turning his head.
"Did you hear that?"
Steve squinted, following another weak meow. They ended up following the sound to a pile of rusted scrap metal, forgotten remnants of an old car that had been abandoned at the edge of the property. And there, in a crack between the pieces, they found a tiny ball of dirty fur, with enormous, teary eyes.
A kitten.
Eddie crouched down slowly, with a care that made Steve’s heart tighten. He extended his hand, holding it still until the little creature sniffed and took a trembling step toward him.
"Hey, little one..." he murmured, his voice shaking with tenderness "What are you doing here all alone?"
The cat let out a pitiful meow, and Eddie lifted it to his chest. Steve watched as he cradled it, as if it were irreplaceable. The creature purred softly, burying its head in the fabric of Eddie's jacket.
"It’s skinny" Steve commented, looking at it with a mix of concern and affection "And scared."
"Just like me, huh?" Eddie joked quietly, though there was no humor in his eyes.
Steve swallowed, feeling that hit straight to the chest. He was about to say something, but Eddie interrupted, as if the thought had just hit him.
"I’m keeping it."
Steve looked at him, surprised.
"Really?"
"Of course." Eddie stroked the little animal's head, which purred louder "You’ve got your chickens, Steve. I... I don’t have anything."
The words hung heavy in the air, like an echo of everything he’d been through, everything he’d lost. Steve looked at him in silence, wanting to hug him, wanting to tell him that it wasn’t true, that he had him, that he wasn’t alone. But he didn’t. Not yet.
Instead, he leaned in slightly and smiled.
"Well, now you’ve got a cat. And if I’m honest, I think it likes you."
Eddie lowered his gaze, his lips pressed into what looked like a contained smile. He stroked the kitten one more time, and Steve saw how his long fingers, once tense, relaxed around the tiny body. There was something in that scene — Eddie holding a fragile creature, deciding to care for it — that felt like a reflection of what was happening between them.
The walk back to the shop was in silence, but a different kind of silence. Eddie held the kitten to his chest, and Steve accompanied him, holding up his phone’s flashlight to light the way. Every now and then, the soft purring drifted between them, filling the gaps.
And Steve thought, with a certainty that ran through him from top to bottom, that he was watching Eddie begin to choose life again.
Chapter 7: Love Bites
Notes:
Love Bites – Judas Priest
Chapter Text
Eddie didn’t remember the last time he did something as simple as walking just for the sake of walking.
He used to do it with Wayne, back when they still had good days: they’d stroll through flea markets or sit watching old planes take off at the abandoned airstrip. But since Wayne died, since Steve disappeared from his life, walking for no reason lost its meaning.
Until now.
He didn’t know when he had agreed to go out. Maybe it was because Hopper had looked at him as if it was a good idea, or because Steve had extended his hand with that silent stubbornness that always defeated him. The point was, here he was, feeling too big for these narrow streets, hands in his pockets, the noise of terraces full of people speaking faster than he could follow.
Steve walked as if he had been born there. He greeted vendors, stopped to look at shop windows, smiled at the children running by with balloons in their hands. Eddie, on the other hand, walked a few steps behind, feeling the tension between his shoulders as if everyone were watching him.
Until Steve called him with a gesture toward a small ceramics shop.
“Look at this,” he said, holding up a cup between his fingers.
Eddie raised an eyebrow, confused.
“Seriously? Are we hunting souvenirs?”
Steve smiled, that dangerous smile of his that broke down all his defenses.
“Not souvenirs. A cup for Wayne. I thought… well, we could find one that represents him.”
Eddie froze, his throat tight. He had spent years avoiding even remembering Wayne's little rituals—the morning coffee, the evening cigarette, the rough laugh that filled everything. And here was Steve, holding a white cup with a blue rim and a plane drawn on the side, as if he knew exactly where to touch.
“Hop told me he liked watching planes take off,” Steve added, turning the cup. “I don’t know, sounds like him.”
Eddie smiled, barely, just enough to keep from breaking.
“Yeah… sounds like him.”
They left with the cup wrapped up, and Steve carried it under his arm like a treasure. Eddie followed him in silence, but little by little, the city stopped feeling oppressive. The air smelled of the sea, olive oil, cheap wine. Street musicians filled the squares with guitars and castanets.
And Steve kept talking. God, how he talked. They weren’t elaborate speeches or epic tales: he commented on what he saw, pointed out balconies with hanging flowers, stopped to listen to a violinist for a couple of minutes, then kept walking. Eddie only murmured every now and then, but each word seemed to light up Steve, as if they were more important than everything else around them.
That attention scared him.
When Steve brushed his hand for the first time, Eddie felt his heart leap violently. His instinct was to pull away. He couldn’t, he shouldn’t. But Steve’s fingers intertwined with his with a disconcerting naturalness, and Eddie—against all logic—didn’t pull away. He lowered his gaze, unable to hold it, but a smile escaped him, uninvited. Small, nervous, but there it was.
Steve caught it instantly, as if it were a prize.
“There you are,” he said softly, as if Eddie were a rare phenomenon that only appeared once in a while.
Eddie scoffed, trying to cover up the discomfort.
“Don’t get too excited, Harrington. It was an accident.”
But Steve didn’t let go.
They walked like that for a while, in a strange, charged silence. And it was Steve who broke the tension, pointing at a colorful mural on a wall: a huge dragon painted in green and red.
“Look at it. It has your face.”
Eddie turned his head, offended.
“My face? Are you calling me a dragon?”
“Exactly.” Steve pretended to be serious. “Big, loud, full of fire, and with a huge ego.”
Eddie’s eyes widened, and for the first time in years, a real, authentic laugh escaped him. It was rough, crooked, like it didn’t know how to come out entirely, but it was laughter, at last. Steve looked at him with an expression of shameless triumph, as if he had earned the most difficult pole position of his life.
“There’s my Eddie,” he murmured, softly, too softly, but Eddie heard it.
And that’s when his blood froze.
Because he knew, in that instant when he saw Steve’s eyes, that what was in them wasn’t just affection, nostalgia, or guilt. It was love. The same love as before, maybe stronger, more adult, but still devastating.
Eddie immediately looked away, refusing to accept it. He couldn’t trust it. Not after he had left him once. Not after years of silence.
It didn’t matter that Steve looked at him as if he were the only one in the city. It didn’t matter that he still remembered Wayne, that he spoke of him with respect, that he walked through these streets as if Eddie were his center of gravity.
It didn’t matter, because if he accepted what he saw in those eyes, if he trusted again, he knew he wouldn’t survive another fall.
So he squeezed Steve’s hand just a little harder—a minimal, contradictory gesture—and at the same time, inside, he built a wall.
He allowed himself to smile again, even to laugh when Steve stopped to imitate the ridiculous pose of a statue in the middle of the square. But when he glanced at him and saw that glowing tenderness on his face, Eddie immediately looked away, a knot in his stomach.
He couldn’t. He shouldn’t.
And yet, as they continued walking through the city, with the sound of a guitar filling the air and the box with Wayne’s cup gently hitting Steve’s arm, Eddie didn’t let go of his hand.
Because even though he didn’t trust what he saw in Steve’s eyes, a part of him—the most broken, the most tired—needed, even if just for one night, to believe that he could still belong to someone.
Eddie didn’t know when Munson’s property stopped feeling like a cemetery.
When Wayne died, the place had become a still space, as if every brick and every piece of furniture had decided to mourn with him. Eddie had lived there for four years in silence, walking on the same floorboards that creaked with the echo of absent footsteps, cooking in a kitchen that always smelled of dampness and old oil. He had shut whole rooms because he didn’t have the strength to clean, and little by little, the house shrank around him, turning into a shell.
And now, suddenly, everything felt different.
It wasn’t an immediate change, but a slow, steady drip. Eddie realized it one random morning when Steve dragged him half-asleep into the backyard.
“Come on, you have to see this.” Steve spoke like a child with an impossible secret to keep.
Eddie grumbled, still in his pajamas, convinced that what “he had to see” would be a new engine or some ridiculous training scheme. The last thing he expected was to find Steve Harrington kneeling in the dirt, hands buried up to his wrist, surrounded by tiny green sprouts.
“What the hell is this?” Eddie asked, crossing his arms as if that stance could protect him from the absurdity of the scene.
Steve looked up, his hair messy and a smear of dirt on his cheek. He smiled like he’d just won a Grand Prix.
“Tomatoes. Well, I think so. And these,” he pointed to a corner where tiny leaves were barely visible, “are supposed to be basil.”
Eddie blinked.
“You’re telling me you’re… gardening?”
“Uh-huh.” Steve shrugged, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Wayne always wanted a garden, right? You said they tried once, but the plants hated them.”
Eddie let out an incredulous laugh.
“That wasn’t an attempt. It was a vegetable genocide. Wayne swore the vegetables had us on a blacklist.”
Steve laughed too, and for a moment, Eddie was forced to look away. That smile tied a knot in his throat.
“Well, I thought we could try again.” Steve emphasized the “we,” and Eddie swallowed hard. Not “I.” Not “you.” But “we.”
A few days later, chaos arrived in the form of clucking.
Eddie was reviewing blueprints in the hangar when he heard a strange commotion in the yard. He frowned and stepped outside, only to be left speechless by the sight: an improvised chicken coop, with poorly nailed boards and recycled wire mesh, full of chickens running in circles like winged demons. In the middle, Steve was trying to give them water without losing a finger.
“Wayne would be pissing himself laughing,” Eddie murmured, bringing his hand to his face.
“Yeah? Well, mission accomplished.” Steve staggered out, a scratch on his arm and a victorious look on his face. “Who needs the supermarket when you’ve got fresh eggs?”
Eddie couldn’t help it: he bent over in laughter. A real laugh, one he hadn’t let out in years. So much so that the chickens stopped running, as if they wanted to hear it too.
Steve looked at him as though he had just witnessed a miracle.
“Shit, Munson... I missed that sound.”
Eddie lowered his gaze, feeling his ears burn. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had missed it too.
As the weeks passed, the changes multiplied. Joyce came over several weekends to help him clean the house. Between boxes that had been unopened for years and curtains that seemed to be made of dust, they transformed the closed rooms into bright, livable spaces. Joyce had infinite patience and a gift for turning a dead space into a home. Eddie still didn’t understand how she convinced him to throw out the old couches, but when he saw the cleared living room, with light pouring through the clean windows, he felt for the first time that the house could breathe.
The hangar, once forgotten, became a workshop. Hopper supervised the move of all the tools and parts, and soon the space was filled with open engines, cars in various stages of repair, and blackboards covered in calculations. The original Munson workshop was reserved for Eddie’s design projects, a creative refuge where no one touched anything without his permission. It was strange: for the first time in years, he could work without the fear that someone would file his blueprints in a dusty folder.
The old airstrip also changed. Hopper and Steve spent entire days repairing the runway, filling cracks, painting lines, setting barrels to mark curves and braking zones. What had once been a piece of dead asphalt became something like a test track. Eddie would watch from his bike, following Steve’s morning sprints, and couldn’t help but think that Wayne would be proud.
The change wasn’t just physical.
Steve, stubborn as ever, forced him to join the team for meals. At first, Eddie barely touched his plate. The anxiety closed his stomach, and he was convinced that the others were looking at him like he didn’t belong there. But little by little, Argyle’s jokes, Hopper’s dry comments, and Joyce’s natural warmth began to break down his walls. Almost without realizing it, he started eating more. And more. And one day, as he got on his bike to follow Steve on the track, he realized he had more energy, that his legs didn’t shake as much.
The team celebrated every small milestone as if it were a victory. The first time Eddie asked for seconds, Robin clapped as if he had just won an award. When they heard him laugh during a dinner, Murray raised his glass and toasted to the “Munson miracle.” Eddie would complain, grunt, and roll his eyes, but inside... inside something softened.
He was still shy, nervous, and sad most of the time. He couldn’t help it. The wound was still there, and it wasn’t healing as fast as Steve seemed to wish. But the simple fact that there were people celebrating his smiles, people who expected nothing from him except for him to exist... that disarmed him.
One afternoon, as he walked with Steve from the garden toward the house, something happened that left him frozen.
Without thinking too much, Steve placed his hand on his back, a simple gesture, almost distracted. Eddie tensed instantly, the automatic reaction of someone who had learned to protect himself. But then, slowly, he let the hand stay there.
And in that minimal gesture, Eddie understood what he had been avoiding admitting for weeks: everything had changed. The house, the hangar, the track, the team, the meals, the bike rides and races. Everything Steve had done wasn’t just for him, it was for them. For “us.”
Eddie knew what he saw in Steve’s eyes when he looked at him. He knew what those smiles meant, that determination to make him laugh, that infinite patience with his silence. But he wasn’t ready to admit that it was love. Not yet. The fear of trusting, of losing again, was too great.
Still, as they climbed the porch steps, Eddie found himself thinking about something he hadn’t allowed himself to think in a long time: maybe, just maybe, he was starting to believe that there could be a future here.
A future where Munson’s property was once again full of life. A future where their laughter wasn’t rare, where his house didn’t feel like a tomb, where Wayne’s echo wasn’t just pain. A future where, though it terrified him to admit it, Steve was once again by his side.
The hangar was filled with noise, life, and metal.
The echo of tools against steel plates reverberated in the spacious room, accompanied by the hum of a compressor and the thick smell of oil, gasoline, and burnt rubber. Once, Eddie would have owned the place with his voice, his loud jokes, and impossible theories. Now, however, it seemed to shrink down to the size of the workbench he was hunched over.
On the table, a blueprint stained with grease. His long, bony fingers tapped nervously against the edge of the paper, as if searching for a rhythm that didn’t come.
“This is stupid…” he muttered almost to himself, but Steve, from the other side of the car, heard him just the same.
He lifted his gaze and found Eddie with that look, the one Eddie still didn’t know how to handle: patient, firm, almost warm. It wasn’t the look of the driver everyone saw in the races, nor the look of the rich Harrington son. It was something else.
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Steve replied calmly, leaning his hip against the chassis. “It sounds like Munson. And Munson always means there’s something there.”
Eddie shrugged, looking back down at the paper. He would have laughed before, puffed out his chest to exaggerate his idea even more, turned Steve’s words into fuel for a twenty-minute monologue. But the Eddie now… the Eddie now barely dared to raise his voice.
“I need a part,” he muttered. “Old, rare. No sane person would use it.”
Steve smiled faintly, tilting his head.
“Then it’s perfect for you.” He set the wrench aside and walked over with firm steps. “Where do we get it?”
Eddie looked at him, surprised, almost as if he had been insulted.
“What?”
“Come on,” Steve repeated, wiping his hands on a rag. “Tell me where to look, and I’ll drive.”
“No... Steve, you don’t have to—”
“Of course I do.” The firmness in his tone knocked the air out of him. “You’re part of the team.”
The words hit him hard. Eddie felt his chest tighten, uncomfortable, as if they’d caught him in a lie. Part of the team. He wasn’t sure he deserved it, but Steve said it with such conviction that it dismantled any excuse.
Steve’s truck was old, with worn leather seats and that persistent smell of spilled coffee mixed with highway dust. Eddie settled into the passenger seat as if he were invading someone else’s territory, his hands clasped on his knees, the seatbelt too tight across his chest.
Indianapolis unfolded through the window. At first, wide streets, slow traffic, and office buildings with glass reflecting the sun. Later, the suburbs with low houses, gas stations with rusted signs, diners with flickering neon. Eddie found himself looking at everything with a painful kind of nostalgia: he had spent too much time locked in his own corner, ignoring that the city kept breathing even when he had stopped.
The silence in the cab was thick, but not uncomfortable in the traditional sense. It was expectant, full of things neither of them dared to say. Eddie drummed a rhythm on his knee, a distant echo of the drums he no longer played. Steve watched him out of the corner of his eye, as if testing how far he could push.
“Did you know Wayne always used to say a car talks?” he suddenly asked, breaking the silence with a calm voice.
Eddie blinked, surprised.
“Of course he said that.” And for the first time in weeks, a small smile escaped on his face, fleeting but sincere. “He swore my van had a bad temper.”
Steve laughed heartily.
“Because it did.”
The sound filled the truck, and something inside Eddie loosened. He looked out the window, that smile still hanging on his lips, and the feeling didn’t hurt as much as he had expected.
The junkyard was in Plainfield, on the outskirts, a vast lot where rusted car bodies piled up like skeletons. The metallic, heavy smell hit him the moment he stepped out. For others, it was a cemetery, but for Eddie… it was an amusement park.
He walked quickly down the aisles of old cars, touching doors, hoods, open engines. His fingers, darkened with grease, ran over lines, searching for details. And when he saw it — the part, half hidden under a pile of scrap — his eyes lit up with an intensity Steve hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Look at this.” He lifted it like he had found a treasure. “If we adapt it to the chassis, we can stabilize the rear end on tight corners. It’s not pretty, but it’s solid. It could work.”
The words came fast, almost rushed, his hands moving to illustrate what he was saying. For a moment, he was the Eddie of before: enthusiastic, chaotic, so full of life that it was contagious. Steve watched him, fascinated, almost with reverence.
And then Eddie noticed it. He stopped short, the part in his hand. The smile froze on his lips. He lowered his voice, lowered his shoulders, as if suddenly remembering he shouldn’t shine so brightly.
“Yeah… or maybe it’s crazy.” He tucked the part into his bag, almost hiding it.
Steve didn’t say anything. He just followed him with his gaze, as if he had just seen a spark he didn’t want to lose.
They left the junkyard with the part stowed away in the backpack and the smell of metal clinging to their clothes. Eddie thought they would head straight back to the hangar, maybe with a stop at their usual diner. He had already exhaled that strange tension of being “alone,” and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel all that bad. Steve seemed calmer too, with that half-smile of his that pierced Eddie’s chest, even if he tried not to look at it head-on.
In the parking lot, Steve lingered for a second, his hand on the door handle, as if searching for something to say but not finding it. In the end, he said it without air, barely a whisper: “Eddie… will you take me to Wayne?”
It wasn’t a question thrown into the void. It wasn’t an order. It was a rare request, heavy with something Eddie knew all too well but had tried to ignore for years: pain. He looked at him, and for a moment, he was breathless. The name made everything from the day fold inward; the sky felt lower, the light colder. He had the exact sensation of when a curve eats up the traction and the car spins out: that moment when your stomach drops and your body remembers too much.
He nodded. He didn’t trust his voice.
They got into the truck without music.
Steve started the engine and waited, letting Eddie guide with his hand — first right, then straight on the interstate, then an exit with no fancy sign, just a crooked post. Eddie spoke little, short phrases that seemed to cost him. Even so, the route stuck to his tongue with a painful familiarity. He’d driven it many times, in silence, in the early hours. Too many.
Inside the cab, the air was thick. Not uncomfortable, but full of things neither of them knew how to touch. Eddie squeezed the backpack between his legs, and when the first traffic light turned red, he realized he was biting the inside of his cheek. He loosened his jaw and rested his forehead against the glass, cold against warm.
“We don’t have to stay long,” he finally said, not looking at him. “Just… if you want to say something.”
Steve swallowed, audibly. He didn’t respond right away. The light turned green, and they moved forward. They passed a diner with flickering neon, an empty lot fenced with rusty wire, a row of low houses with lit porches. Indianapolis, at that hour, had that worn-out Midwest air that broke Eddie’s soul: the city seemed to hold itself together by habit. Like him. Like Steve. Like the car they were repairing for the umpteenth time.
“Thanks,” Steve said, suddenly.
Eddie turned his head, confused.
“For bringing me,” Steve added. “And for… not asking why now.”
Eddie made a grimace that didn’t quite turn into a smile.
“I know what it’s like to be late to everything,” he replied, and immediately wished he could swallow the words. He didn’t want to fight. Not here. Not with Wayne ahead.
The street narrowed. The streetlights became less frequent; the orange light scattered in pieces over the asphalt. Eddie felt the usual knot in his throat, the one that appeared just by thinking about the cemetery gate. He didn’t have to check the time to know it was almost the same hour as that night. His body remembered it better than his memory.
“We’ll enter through the poplar side,” he said, pointing to the left. “It’s more direct.”
Steve obeyed without asking. Since he had come back, he had that way of moving around Eddie: attentive, without intruding. As if he knew that any nudge could break something.
As they neared, Eddie felt his pulse quicken. He rolled down the window for some cold air to come in, as if that could make his chest feel lighter. The noise of the city faded behind them; the engine sounded clearer, the thudding of the seatbelt against the B pillar, the faint creaking of the dashboard plastic. Small things, almost microscopic, that he clung to when he needed not to think.
“I didn’t bring flowers,” he murmured, out of nowhere, with a thread of ridiculous shame. “I don’t have… I don’t usually…”
“They’re not necessary,” Steve said quickly, and lowered his own window a little. “Wayne would’ve insulted me for wasting money on something that doesn’t work for an engine.”
Eddie let out a minimal laugh, brief as a flutter. The comment, so spot on, loosened his shoulders a fraction.
The gate appeared after a soft curve, one of those that doesn’t require much from the wheel but still makes you adjust your grip. For a moment, he couldn’t move. He just stared at the emptiness ahead, as if the road had ended right there.
Then he felt Steve’s hand, just a touch on his forearm. A gesture so small it almost didn’t exist, but in Eddie, it triggered a jolt. He pulled his arm back reflexively and instantly hated himself for it.
“Sorry,” he said, so quietly that the engine almost swallowed his words. “No… don’t touch me by surprise. Not now.”
“It’s okay,” Steve replied, his voice pure wool. No sharp edges.
Eddie nodded and breathed again, as if he’d forgotten to do it for a full minute. Steve turned off the engine. The silence that followed was different: alive. The trees had started to murmur with the wind, and in the distance, a dog barked half-heartedly. The city was far away, and yet, the hum of its traffic seemed to slip underneath everything, like a continuous bassline that no one chose, but was still there.
“Wayne’s up ahead, by the big path,” Eddie said, getting out of the truck. “There’s a curve with a huge oak. Two rows further.”
Steve got out too and closed the door carefully, as if the sound could wake someone up. Eddie guided him with measured steps, his shoulders slightly hunched. He knew how to dodge the roots that raised the sidewalk, knew where the gravel betrayed his foot, knew where the ground sunk ever so slightly. His body had learned that map through repetition.
They passed by a noseless angel, a new gravestone with still-bright plastic flowers, a stone bench with moss at its base. Eddie avoided reading names. He’d started doing that the first time he came, and then realized it wasn’t a good idea: every name was a blow, a story he didn’t have, a possibility he would never know. Wayne had always said that life was about what you could fix, not what was already broken. Eddie tried to believe that while counting steps in a low voice.
The big path appeared like an open mouth. The high lights cut through it with that clarity that isn’t day or night, that in-between zone that made Eddie uneasy. He stopped for a moment to adjust his hood — a silly, automatic gesture — and noticed his hands were trembling. He shoved them into his pockets. He didn’t want Steve to see him like this. Or maybe he did, but he didn’t know what to do with the fact that Steve could see him.
“Do you come here often?” Steve asked, without pressure, just to not leave Eddie alone in his head.
“Sometimes,” Eddie replied. He cleared his throat. “When I can.”
He didn’t say that “when I can” meant “when my body doesn’t light up like an alarm,” or “when sleep hasn’t knocked me flat,” or “when I’m not so empty that even the air feels heavy.” He didn’t say that there had been months he hadn’t come because the guilt sat on him and didn’t let him breathe. He didn’t say that other times, in the early morning, he had come on foot, hood pulled down to his eyes, just to sit in the grass without saying a word or fall asleep on the cold concrete. Those things don’t get said out loud. Not like this. Not with the gate still in sight.
Steve walked half a step behind, respecting that strange leadership Eddie didn’t feel capable of holding but still held. And Eddie, without meaning to, started talking. Short words at first, just enough.
“The oak’s ugly,” he said, with that clumsy sincerity that saved him from his own nerves. “It looks like a cheap movie prop.”
Steve looked up. The oak, with its thick branches and leaves that the wind made collide with each other, had something of a scarecrow in a poorly lit set. Steve smiled slightly.
“Wayne would’ve liked a comment like that.”
“Wayne liked trees that gave shade,” Eddie replied. “'If they’re not good for heat, what are they good for?' he used to say.” And he managed to smile, this time for real, a tiny one.
They turned the curve. Eddie counted the rows without thinking, with that count that no longer required looking. Two more. There. He didn’t say it. He didn’t make the gesture of “we’re here.” His body told him when the air changed on his tongue: humidity, earth, that particular mix you recognize as if it were a person.
He stopped.
He didn’t look at the tombstone right away. He looked at the ground, the laces of his worn-out boots, an insect crawling slowly through the grass. He felt Steve stop beside him, at his height, without stepping ahead.
Eddie hadn’t planned on speaking. Not like this. Not with Steve by his side, standing in front of Wayne’s tombstone, hands in his pockets, the Indianapolis wind rustling the grass. But the words rose up in his throat like nausea, as if they had been waiting for years for this moment to come out.
“It wasn’t the job that killed him,” he began, his voice breaking, too low. He had to swallow and try again. “It was... someone who hit him.”
Steve turned his head slowly.
“What?”
Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, as if that might stop the images that were flashing behind his eyelids.
“He was heading to the night shift. That damn factory, that shitty job he got after your parents fired him. He was on the road, in his truck… and someone crossed his path, straight on. They found him trapped between the metal. They called me because there was no one else.”
His voice shot up suddenly, tense, filled with a rage that burned in his chest.
“I got to the hospital, and I didn’t recognize him, Steve. It wasn’t Wayne. It was... it was a broken body, hooked up to tubes, covered in bruises. And the doctors told me there was nothing they could do, that all they could do was keep him comfortable, that... he only had hours left.”
His breath broke, his hands trembling so much that he had to press them against his thighs.
“What we loved most, what brought us together...” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “Cars, speed, the road... that’s what took him from me. Do you understand? It was like the world was telling me that even the only good thing we had was poisoned.”
Steve had paled, but Eddie couldn’t stop. He was trapped in that memory, reliving it as if the hospital still smelled of disinfectant and the bright white lights were still burning his eyes.
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to breathe. I called. —He brought his hand to his face, almost hiding—. I called you, Steve.”
A brutal silence fell between them. Eddie gritted his teeth, forcing himself to continue.
“I just needed to hear you, for you to say something, anything, because I was losing my mind. I was scared to be alone with that. And you... you answered.”
Steve swallowed, his jaw tight.
“But you didn’t even listen to me.” Eddie laughed, a strangled sound that ended in a sob. “You said you were busy. You hung up. I was left there with the phone in my hand, in the hallway, with Wayne dying just a few meters away. I felt like they were ripping my lungs out.”
His breathing became erratic, disordered, and for a moment Steve thought Eddie was about to collapse right there.
“It was Hopper who came. I... I called him through tears, barely able to speak. I was having a panic attack, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. And he came, held me. I still remember it, you know? The weight of his hand on my shoulder as Wayne was slipping away. Because it was Hopper, not you.”
Eddie collapsed to his knees in front of the tombstone, his body bent like he couldn’t hold himself up.
He dropped his forehead against his knees, his arms wrapping around himself as if he had to hold himself together by force.
“You don’t know what it was, Steve...” His voice broke with each word. “Sitting there, watching the man who raised me, who gave me everything I was, fade away... and being unable to do anything. Just hearing that damn beep slowing down, becoming more spaced out, until it was gone.”
He bit his hand to contain the sound of his sob, but it was useless. A groan escaped him, rough, animalistic, as if it came from the deepest wound.
“I wanted to climb into that bed and take him out of there, take him home, I don’t know... anything but watch him die in a cold hospital, with white lights that made him look older than he was.”
His lips trembled, tears falling uncontrollably, his nose red.
“And it hurt so much, Steve.” His voice cracked into a shout. “So much, because all my life, I thought he’d at least be there when I fucked up. He’d shout at me, hit me on the head, whatever... but no. He’s the one who ended up on the road, because someone didn’t stop, because the damn world didn’t give him a break.”
He struck the damp earth with his fist, over and over, until his hand was covered in mud.
“You know what the worst part is?” He asked with a faint voice, eyes glazed over. “That at the same time I hated him, I hated him with every fiber of me for leaving me... I loved him more. It broke me in two. Because Wayne was everything. Everything, Steve! And when I lost him... I lost myself too.”
The memory drained him, word by word, and Eddie no longer seemed to be standing in front of a tombstone but back in that hospital corridor, with the lights flickering and his heart ready to break his ribs.
“After that, there was nothing left.” A rough sigh, full of emptiness. “I locked myself in the house. I saw it dark, filled with his things, like he was still waiting for me in the kitchen. I couldn’t stand the silence, couldn’t stand the echo of his boots. So I started filling it with anything... pills, alcohol, shit that would kill me slower than losing him.”
He shrugged, hopelessness weighing down every gesture.
“There was one night...” He swallowed, his gaze lost. “One night I thought I wouldn’t wake up. And for a second, Steve... for a second, I didn’t care. Because at least I’d be with him again.”
The silence that followed was unbearable, only broken by Eddie’s sobs, escaping between ragged breaths.
“But I was scared.” He admitted, barely audible. “I was scared because... Wayne wouldn’t have forgiven me. He wanted me to live, even though he didn’t know how to do it without him. And that’s when I stopped. I quit everything. No beer. No pills. Nothing. Because I was left alone, and if I went too, then everything he did for me, all the sacrifices... would’ve been for nothing.”
He brought his hands to his face, shaking, letting the dirt mix with the tears.
“But I didn’t recover, Steve. Never. I became this...” He pointed to himself with a clumsy, almost defeated gesture. “Someone broken, nervous, who doesn’t know how to let anyone in. And I swear... I swear I tried, but... every time I feel like someone cares about me, like someone looks at me the way you’re looking at me now... I just think that one day, they’re going to leave me too.”
The confession shattered him. It was like he was stripping himself from the inside out, showing not only his grief for Wayne but the scars that had defined everything he was since then.
Suddenly, his voice came out in a choked, trembling, pleading shout:
“I just wanted it to stop, Steve...” The sobs cut him off, but they kept coming. “I wanted it to stop hurting... for someone, anything, to make it stop... It’s begging everything to stop... to stop... to let me breathe... to stop the pain.”
The groan that followed was so raw that it seemed to tear his chest apart. Eddie remained curled against the earth, his fingers digging into the mud as if he needed to anchor himself to something, to anything that wasn’t the emptiness tearing him apart from the inside. His sobs were harsh, uncontrolled, with sounds that seemed to rip pieces of his chest.
Steve could no longer stay still. He moved closer, slowly, as if afraid of breaking him even more. He kneeled beside him, sinking his knees into the damp earth, and reached out with a trembling hand to his shoulder.
“Eddie...” He whispered, barely audible.
Eddie didn’t react at first. He just breathed raggedly, weakly slapping the ground with his open palm, repeating through sobs an unintelligible murmur that Steve understood as “stop, stop, stop...”
Then, Steve leaned in and wrapped both arms around him. At first, it felt like hugging a body that didn’t want to be contained: Eddie tensed, almost pushed away, his chest hard with resistance. But then, as if something inside him gave way, he collapsed into Steve.
The sound that came from Eddie at that moment wasn’t an ordinary cry; it was a choked scream, a pure breaking, the sound of a heart finally allowing itself to burst. He buried his face in Steve’s shoulder and let the sobs shake him completely.
Steve closed his eyes tightly, holding back his own tears, because seeing him like that broke his soul in two. He stroked Eddie’s tangled hair, pulling him against him as if he wanted to hold him not just now, but for all the times he hadn’t been there, for all the calls he ignored, for all the nights Eddie cried alone.
“I’m here, Eds,” he murmured, his voice broken. “I swear... I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Eddie didn’t answer. He just clung to the fabric of Steve’s shirt, his fingers clenched, like a shipwrecked man finally finding a piece of wood to float on.
And in that trembling embrace, under the reverent silence of the cemetery, Eddie let the grief he had held for four years wash over him completely.
Chapter 8: Symphony of Destruction
Notes:
Symphony of Destruction – Megadeth
Chapter Text
The roar of the engines was a living beast, vibrating in the air as if it wanted to rip the oxygen from their lungs. Eddie Munson stood next to the pit wall, hands in his team jacket pockets, headphones still hanging from his neck, waiting for the moment to put them on. He knew he'd have to, that as soon as the pre-qualifying and track checks started to intensify, that direct connection with Steve would become his umbilical cord. And yet, he kept delaying it, as if he could stretch the silence for just a few more seconds.
Four months of work, sleepless nights, calculations on napkins, and endless simulations had brought him here. Daytona. The legendary oval. Steve's dream, the one only Hopper knew about until Eddie had spoken it out loud by accident during that dinner. And now, here they were. With a whole team waiting behind them, with engineers watching him for certainty, with mechanics depending on his orders to adjust every last millimeter of the machine. Eddie, the guy who once couldn’t speak without his voice breaking, was now the head strategist in one of the most demanding races on the planet.
His hands were sweating.
He forced himself to take a deep breath, to look at the track that stretched out like a gleaming mirror under the Florida sun. It was so different from the dusty straightaway of the abandoned airstrip near Hawkins, where he'd spent entire afternoons drawing lines on the cracked asphalt so Steve could practice impossible turns. And yet, in his mind, the connection was immediate: that kid who had improvised tracks with old cones and painted cans was now measuring fuel consumption, pit stop times, tire degradation. The same Eddie, but at the same time, someone completely different.
He finally put on the headphones, being careful with the French braid Steve had made for him. Hopper’s voice came through immediately, firm, confident:
—Everything okay with the calculations, Munson?
Eddie swallowed before responding.
—Yeah… yeah. I’ve got Plan A and Plan B ready. —His voice wavered slightly, but Hopper didn’t comment.
Plan A: three stops, conservative tire management. Plan B: four stops, more aggressive, if the race got chaotic. Both were ready, written in his notebook with tight handwriting, each variable considered as if his life depended on it. And in a way, it did. Because if he got it wrong...
No. He couldn’t think like that.
A movement on the periphery pulled him out of his thoughts. Steve was walking toward the car, helmet under his arm, greeting the mechanics, wearing that calm smile that seemed from another world. As if he wasn’t about to hurl himself at 300 kilometers per hour on a track where a mistake could mean fire and metal. Eddie watched him for too long, aware of how his stomach tightened.
Steve looked… serene. Confident. There wasn’t a trace of the guy he'd found shattered after the fifth accident. And Eddie knew why: because now, Steve trusted him.
That thought hit him in the chest. Steve trusted him.
Eddie looked down, his fingers intertwining nervously. He couldn’t afford to fail. Not to Steve. Not after everything they had lost.
The start of the race was a whirlwind of colors, flags waving, engines roaring in wild harmony. Eddie hardly blinked, his eyes fixed on the monitors, on the times appearing line after line. Every turn was a dagger of anxiety and at the same time a burst of pride.
—Everything’s fine, Eddie —Steve’s voice surprised him on the private channel, calm, as if he were making small talk during a walk—. The car feels solid.
Eddie swallowed again, aware that everyone in the pit could hear, but he only managed to reply:
—Keep the line low on turns three and four, the temperature’s rising a bit. —He tried to sound professional, confident.
And Steve chuckled softly in his ear.
—There’s my star engineer.
Eddie’s cheeks burned, but he didn’t say anything. He forced himself to return to the numbers, to the telemetry that changed every second. If he got distracted, if he let the emotion sweep him away, he could make a mistake. And yet, he couldn’t help but smile just a little.
Time passed, and little by little, Eddie began to lose the fear of hearing his own voice in the headphones. His instructions became clearer, firmer. "Keep the pace." "Fuel’s in range, no need to save yet." "Tires are in good shape, you can push a bit more." It was like learning to breathe again, to the rhythm of the machine and the man who trusted him completely.
And in the gaps between turns and calculations, another certainty filled him: for the first time in years, Steve wasn’t alone.
The tension was still there, of course. Every decision Eddie made could define the race. Every miscalculated order could send everything into disaster. His fear still whispered that he wasn’t enough, that sooner or later he would fail, that Steve would open his eyes and realize he had bet on the wrong person. But then he’d hear him breathe through the channel again, calm, confident, and the whisper would quiet down a little.
Eddie surprised himself, in the chaos of the pit lane, thinking: Maybe I’m not just the nervous guy who’s afraid of messing it all up. Maybe I can be someone you can trust.
And when Hopper came over, with that look that mixed calculation and pride, Eddie realized something else: it wasn’t just Steve who had chosen him. The whole team had.
—Good job, Munson —Hopper murmured, barely audible, so no one else could hear.
Eddie nodded, not trusting himself to speak because he felt like his voice would break. He kept staring at the screens, with the numbers dancing like a secret language only he could read. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel that language isolated him, but rather connected him with everyone there, waiting for the same thing: for Steve to come off that track in one piece, fast, and proud of what they had built together.
Steve had learned to recognize the way Eddie got nervous. It wasn’t the trembling hands or the barely perceptible stutter when he spoke to the mechanics. No. What gave him away was how he twisted his curls between his fingers, tangling them until they became an electric mess that had nothing to do with the natural rebellion of his hair.
It was six in the morning, and the Florida sun was already burning through the cracks in the team’s makeshift hangar. Steve, sitting on a wooden bench, had Eddie facing away from him, head down, shoulders tense. There was so much movement around them—mechanics adjusting tools, Hopper giving instructions, the rest of the team reviewing the strategy—and yet, for Steve, the world narrowed down to those curls Eddie was trying to tame between his fingers.
—If you keep pulling like that, you’re going to be bald before thirty —he murmured, carefully separating strands.
Eddie let out a nervous laugh.
—It’d be an interesting look.
—No, it wouldn’t —Steve replied, focused as he started braiding. He did it slowly, calmly, as if each twist of hair was a reminder: I’m here. You’re not alone. Breathe with me.
Eddie stood still, and Steve knew he had gotten it right. The silence was no longer awkward; it was a truce. He finished the braid and secured it with a black elastic band he had found on the supply table.
When Eddie turned around, his eyes sparkled with that nervousness that broke Steve’s heart and awakened something fierce: the desire to protect him, even from himself.
—Now I look like a serious strategist —Eddie tried to joke, but his smile barely tugged at his lips.
Steve raised an eyebrow.
—You look like someone ready to make history with me.
Eddie blinked, surprised, and looked down. Then he pulled a small silver tag from his pocket, carefully cut, barely the size of a coin. In the center, hand-painted, were two letters: W.M.
Steve frowned, curious.
—What’s that?
Eddie swallowed and, without answering, walked over to where Steve’s matte black helmet was. He picked it up gently, as if it were fragile, and placed the tag right on the back, where the sun could catch it. The silver star gleamed for a moment like fire.
—Wayne Munson —he murmured, barely audible—. So you don’t run alone.
The air caught in Steve’s throat. He didn’t know what to say. He just stared at the simple mark that now weighed more than all the sponsor logos combined. Eddie wasn’t looking at him; he was adjusting the tag with clumsy fingers, as if he didn’t want to see Steve’s reaction.
Steve raised his hand, wanting to touch his face, to make him look at him. But he held back. He just placed the helmet on the table and said:
—Thank you. —And he said it with such certainty that Eddie had to lift his eyes at last.
For a second, the world was just the two of them.
Reality came back the moment Steve got into the car. The smell of burned rubber, the heat trapped in the suit, the weight of the helmet pressing on his head. There it was again: the stage where he had won and lost so much. Where he had bled, where he had felt the metal burn against his skin, where he had thought maybe that would be the last time.
The memory of the accidents haunted him like a ghost. The screeching of brakes that didn’t respond, the white light of medical flashlights, the voice of his father demanding more, always more. Steve gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
And then, in his earpiece, Eddie’s voice came through.
—Do you copy, Steve?
It wasn’t the trembling voice from the last few months. It wasn’t the voice of an impassive engineer either. It was a mix: firm, but still with that crack of insecurity Steve recognized all too well. And it was everything he needed.
—Copy you, Eds —Steve replied, letting the tension ease just a little.
The engine roared to life, vibrating under his chest. The track opened up ahead like a wild animal, and Steve felt the old adrenaline ignite in his veins. He could clearly remember what Wayne had told him once, when he was just a kid: It’s not just speed, Stevie. It’s trust. Trust the machine, trust the one who builds it, trust yourself.
Steve took a deep breath. Eddie was there, in his ear, tracking every data point, taking care of him. Hopper was also there, holding up the entire team. And behind all that, on the back of his helmet, shone a little star.
When the lights went out and the stampede of engines surrounded him, Steve pushed the accelerator with a certainty he hadn’t felt in years.
He wasn’t running alone.
The race surged forward in a whirlwind. The first turns were always a balance between aggression and patience. Steve felt it in every tight corner, in every shadow the other cars cast as they passed inches from him. The noise was deafening, but Eddie’s voice filtered through, clear, like a beacon in the storm.
—Fuel’s in good range, you can keep the pace.
—Keep low line on three, the rubber’s fresher there.
—Breathe, Steve. You’re good.
Each instruction was more than strategy: it was a reminder that he wasn’t repeating the mistakes of the past. It wasn’t his father yelling impossible demands at him, nor an unknown team with their own agendas. It was Eddie. His Eddie.
The roar of the engines was a constant monster, but Steve had learned to listen through the noise. The buzz of air against the helmet, the barely perceptible squeal of the tires when they touched the hottest part of the asphalt, and, above all, that voice filtering through his earpiece with measured calm.
—Keep position. Don’t force it yet —Eddie said, with a tone that tried to sound more confident than he really was.
Steve smiled inside his helmet. He knew him too well. That hidden tremor, that breath held in, that Eddie couldn’t disguise. But, unlike other years, that fragility didn’t throw him off; it anchored him. It reminded him he wasn’t a machine, that someone was looking out for him, betting on him unconditionally.
He took another lap, right behind a blue car that wouldn’t give him space. He felt the vibration of the air hitting the bodywork, an invisible struggle holding him back. He was about to try a risky pass when the track lit up with yellow flashes.
—Yellow flag, yellow flag. Slow down —Eddie’s voice came in quickly, louder than before.
Steve lifted his foot, letting the car stabilize. In his rearview mirror, he saw smoke rising a few turns behind. A brush, a spin, nothing catastrophic… but enough to halt the frenzy.
The pack bunched up, and with it, the tension. Steve felt the pressure on his neck: everyone waiting, everyone measuring each other, ready to pounce as soon as the green light came back.
—Breathe —Eddie whispered, as if he could feel the stiffness in Steve’s shoulders through the radio—. You’re good, Steve.
He was. And at the same time, he wasn’t. Every yellow flag was a cruel reminder of how quickly everything could go wrong. He remembered the smoke, the sirens, the hands that had pulled him out of a shattered chassis. He remembered the headlines talking about luck, about miracles. He remembered the cold look from his father: disappointment disguised as concern.
And yet, now, he wasn’t alone with those ghosts. There was a star on his helmet. There was a voice in his ears.
The green light flashed back on and the track roared with hunger. Steve pushed the accelerator, feeling the car respond with fury.
—Now —he heard Eddie say, with sudden conviction, as if fear had given way to instinct—. High line, use the clean air.
Steve obeyed without thinking. The car slid with precision, skirting the blue that had been holding him back. For a moment, the world shrank to that maneuver: the rubber biting the asphalt, Steve’s body pressed against the seat, his heart thumping in time with the engine.
When he passed it, Eddie let out an audible sigh over the radio.
—That was beautiful.
Steve laughed, briefly, unable to hold it in.
—Trust me, Eds. Always.
The race continued with relentless pace. Every corner was a calculation, every straight a pulse against time. But amidst the tension, Steve started to notice something: Eddie didn’t sound like he did at the beginning. His instructions grew firmer, the doubts turned into clear commands, and every word was a reminder that, even though he trembled inside, Eddie was learning to trust himself as much as Steve trusted him.
—Fuel just in range. We can stretch two more laps.
—Hold your line, don’t give them space.
—You’re fast, Steve. Let them fall behind.
There was pride in that voice. There was determination. And Steve, as he flew down the main straight, felt something inside his chest release.
He wasn’t running for his father. He wasn’t running for a contract. He was running because, in that moment, he was himself. And because Eddie saw him.
There was still a long way to go, but Steve knew: the race had already changed. It didn’t matter the outcome, it didn’t matter the stats. What was really at stake wasn’t a trophy; it was the trust they had built, lap by lap, word by word.
Steve gripped the wheel, eyes fixed on the track lit by the Daytona sun.
—We’re going to win this, Eds —he whispered to himself, even though he knew Eddie was listening.
And on the radio, after a brief silence, came the answer he needed:
—Then do it. I’m with you.
Eddie barely breathed when the red light on the main straight marked Steve's pit stop. Four hours had passed since the race started, and although the clock said otherwise, to Eddie, it felt like days. His heart had never slowed down, oscillating between the euphoria of watching Steve overtake with surgical precision and the constant terror that something— a tiny mistake, an external accident— could rip him from his hands.
The roar of the engine gradually faded as the car stopped exactly at the marked point. The mechanics jumped into action: tire change, refueling, a mechanical dance rehearsed to exhaustion. Eddie didn’t take his eyes off Steve.
He saw him remove the steering wheel with fluid motions, open the car hatch, and crawl upwards. For a moment, Steve stood still, breathing heavily beneath the helmet, as if the adrenaline had chained him to the seat. Eddie recognized that tremor— slight but constant— running through Steve's arms.
When Steve finally emerged, Eddie almost had to force himself not to run toward him like a damn idiot. He couldn’t, not in front of everyone. But he followed him with his eyes until one of the assistants helped him take off the helmet. Steve’s hair was plastered with sweat, his skin damp, his lips parted, desperately seeking fresh air. And still, he smiled.
—Good stint —Hopper said, patting him on the shoulder.
Steve nodded, still trying to slow his breathing. Eddie barely dared to speak.
—How do you feel?
Steve looked at him, and the smile softened. A little more real, less for the public.
—Like I could run twelve hours straight —he joked, although his body betrayed him with a slight tremor in his hands.
Eddie swallowed.
—Don’t be an idiot. Go rest.
Steve was about to respond, but Hopper was already gently pushing him toward the resting area. Eddie followed him with his gaze, barely blinking, until he saw him disappear through the door. A part of him wanted to be there, make sure he really rested, ensure that the tremor didn’t hide something worse. But he had a job. And Steve trusted him to do it.
He took a deep breath, turning back to the track just in time to see Argyle getting into the car. The change was quick, efficient. Within seconds, the substitute driver was adjusting straps, putting on the steering wheel, ready for the next four hours.
—Argyle, keep the pace —Eddie said over the radio, keeping his voice as stable as he could—. No risks. We're well-positioned, we don’t need miracles now.
—Relax, boss —Argyle answered, with his strange calmness, as if what lay ahead was a Sunday drive—. I promise I'll bring it back in one piece.
Eddie exhaled, making Hopper smile. But his attention immediately returned to the screen, to the numbers, to the graphs that kept updating. Race pace, temperatures, fuel, lap times. Every line of data was a harsh reminder that the race had barely begun.
And yet, beneath the tension, another emotion was growing. Pride. Pride in seeing Steve step out of the car with his eyes shining, with that smile Eddie hadn’t seen in so long, knowing that he had trusted him, his instructions, his strategy. Pride in having been part of bringing that smile back.
As Argyle took to the track and the crowd roared as the cars passed, Eddie couldn’t stop thinking about the image of Steve walking away toward the resting area. It didn’t matter what he said or what he pretended. Eddie knew him too well. And that tremor... that damn tremor was still etched in his mind.
“Sleep, Stevie,” he thought, with a mix of pleading and determination. “I’m watching.”
The hours with Argyle behind the wheel passed like a taut rope. Eddie had spent the first thirty minutes with his heart in his throat, waiting for a mistake, a too-aggressive lap, a distraction from the substitute driver that would end in disaster. But Argyle, in his strange way, kept the pace with enviable serenity.
—Consistent times —Hopper murmured beside him, reviewing the screen—. Slower than Steve, but clean.
Eddie nodded, without taking his eyes off the flashing numbers.
—That’s just what we need now. Endurance.
For the first time since the race started, Eddie felt like he could breathe a little. Like every green number anchored him to the present. Like, little by little, that persistent voice in his head telling him he was going to ruin everything started to quiet down.
He allowed himself to lean back, resting his palms on the edge of the control table. It wasn’t full relaxation, but it was a small space between paranoia and control.
Until a flicker in the corner of the screen made him tense up again.
—Shit... —he whispered, leaning forward.
The weather forecast had just updated. Rain. It wasn’t unexpected in Daytona, but what chilled him was the uncertainty: the estimated window was wide, too wide. “Sometime in the next six hours.”
Eddie felt his pulse race again, as if the nerves had been waiting for an excuse to return. There was nothing he hated more than ambiguity. He could deal with numbers, with percentages, with tire degradation curves, with fuel calculated to the millimeter. But not with something that could fall in ten minutes or in five hours.
His hand automatically went to his hair, tugging nervously at his braid, a nervous tic that Hopper immediately noticed.
—What happened?
Eddie bit the inside of his cheek before answering.
—Weather update. Rain. But no timing.
Hopper exhaled, looking at the screen.
—It might not happen.
—Or it could be in turn three, with Steve or Argyle in the car and the wrong tires —Eddie blurted out, too quickly, too loaded.
The silence that followed was heavy, as if he had revealed more than just a weather update. As if he had exposed that fear that wouldn’t let go.
Hopper watched him calmly, with that patience that sometimes drove Eddie crazy.
—Then get ready for both scenarios. Run your calculations. Don’t try to predict the future, Eddie. Have the options ready.
Eddie swallowed, trying to take it in. Part of him wanted to scream that it wasn’t that simple, that a timing error could cost them the race, that the wrong tire under the rain was practically a sentence. But another part... another part knew Hopper was right.
He breathed deeply, turning his gaze back to the screens. His hands no longer trembled. Not because the fear had gone, but because he was learning to use it as fuel.
He started running through the data, mentally simulating the scenarios. If the rain came early, they'd need a quick pit stop, intermediate tires, suspension adjustments. If it came later, they'd stretch the stint, take a little risk to avoid losing unnecessary time. Everything had to be ready, everything had to be anticipated.
And deep down, beneath the math, the logic, and the tension, something else kept beating: the image of Steve stepping out of the car with that trembling but real smile. The memory of how he had trusted him, without a single question, without hesitation.
“He didn’t doubt you,” Eddie told himself, his heart pounding. “Don’t doubt yourself either.”
He looked up at the track, where Argyle was taking a corner with his almost insulting calm. Eddie let the air fill his lungs. Yes, he was scared. Yes, the uncertainty was tearing him apart. But at the same time, he was there. Directing. Deciding. Living what Wayne had always told him he could be, even though he never fully believed it.
It wasn’t just the strategy. It was the trust of an entire team, and above all, Steve’s trust, that weighed in his hands. And for the first time in a long time, Eddie started to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was capable of holding it.
Steve woke up with the feeling that only minutes had passed since he collapsed onto the makeshift cot. The hum of the engines still vibrated in his bones, as if they kept running through him even in his dreams. He opened his eyes slowly, adjusting to the artificial light of the hangar, and the first thing he looked for—like an inevitable reflex—was Eddie.
He found him exactly where he expected: leaning over the control table, eyes fixed on the screens, and a half-finished cup of coffee in his hand. There was something in the way Eddie hunched over when he was nervous, as if he wanted to take up less space than he really did, that made Steve feel an immediate urge to straighten him up, to push him gently with his hands on the shoulders and remind him that he didn’t have to hide anymore.
He sat up, running his hands over his face and through his hair, and walked over to him.
—Time for my shift, right? —he asked, still with the raspy voice of someone waking up from a nap.
Eddie looked up suddenly, with those eyes that always seemed on the verge of apologizing for existing. And although he tried to force a half-smile, Steve caught the tension in his jaw.
—Yeah... Argyle is finishing his stint. Everything's good. —He interrupted himself for a quick, nervous glance at the data table, as if he wanted to convince himself.
Steve watched him silently for a few seconds, until he noticed the obvious: Eddie hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. The coffee cup was confirmation enough.
—Right, great —Steve said in a light tone, leaning a little toward him—. But before... you're going to eat something.
Eddie blinked, as if he had heard anything but that.
—What? No, Steve, I don’t have—
—Yes, you do —Steve interrupted, using that same tone he’d use as a kid when he refused to follow his father's orders. A mix of firmness and warmth that was hard to argue with—. The car isn’t going anywhere in the next five minutes.
Eddie frowned, uncomfortable, but couldn’t hide the blush creeping up his cheeks. It was always the same: as soon as someone took care of him, he shrunk as if he didn’t know what to do with that kind of attention. To everyone’s surprise, Eddie ended up giving in with a grimace and a shy gesture that brought a satisfied smile to Steve's face.
It didn’t go unnoticed how the younger members of the team seemed to care for him naturally: they handed him water bottles, called him over to show telemetry logs as if expecting his approval, and one had even discreetly left a jacket over Eddie’s chair when he noticed his skin was prickling.
Steve, feigning casualness, leaned toward Hopper.
—It cools off quickly —he said softly, though knowing Eddie was probably listening—. Maybe he should wear my spare fire suit sooner rather than later.
Hopper shot him a look that mixed annoyance and complicity, but said nothing. Eddie, on the other hand, lowered his head, biting his lip, a nervous gesture Steve knew all too well.
That’s when the murmurs in the pit changed. One of the engineers raised his voice, calling Eddie to the screens. The forecast had updated: green and yellow patches were advancing on the radar. Rain.
The atmosphere immediately tensed, as if everyone knew what that meant without the need for words. Eddie stood frozen in front of the monitor, arms crossed tightly, one hand pulling at the end of his braid restlessly. Steve observed him in silence for a moment before walking over, helmet in hand, gently taking Eddie’s hand and moving it away from his hair.
—So… looks like we’ll be dancing in the rain? —he said with that lightness that didn’t fool anyone but, with him, always managed to soften the tension.
Eddie didn’t answer immediately. His jaw worked as if he were trying to catch the words he didn’t want to let out.
—It could start in twenty minutes, or in three hours —he finally said, eyes still fixed on the radar—. If we switch to intermediates too early, we’ll lose time. If we wait and the rain comes suddenly, you could lose the car.
Steve placed the helmet on the table, leaning next to Eddie.
—And what does our star strategist say?
—That I hate this —Eddie confessed, running a hand through his hair again, pulling at his braid with the hand Steve hadn’t moved away—. That part of me wants to play it safe, and another part says if we don’t take risks, we’re going to fall behind.
Steve looked at him closely, noticing the almost imperceptible tremor in his hands. He handed him an energy bar like it was the most natural thing in the world, seeing that Eddie had eaten barely half of what they’d saved for him.
—First, eat. Second, I trust you.
Eddie looked at him as if he wanted to reply but ended up accepting the bar. He opened it clumsily, and Steve took the opportunity to lower his voice.
—I can handle the rain, Eds. I can handle the risk, the rivals, whatever. What I can’t handle is seeing you tearing yourself apart over every decision. You’re not alone in this.
Eddie swallowed, looking down. Around him, the team worked silently, following instructions, but Steve noticed: they were all listening to him. They respected him. They followed him.
The clock on the wall marked: sixty minutes to his shift. Outside, the sky was darker than it had been an hour ago.
Steve gave him a tap on the shoulder with the helmet.
—Soft or intermediates? You decide.
For a moment, Eddie froze. He could feel the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders. Then, he took a deep breath, looked him in the eyes, and said in a low but firm voice:
—Softs. I trust you’ll make it. And if the rain hits... I won’t hesitate to call you to the pit.
Steve smiled, that calm half-smile that was, in itself, a vote of confidence.
—Perfect. Then we’ll do it that way.
And in that instant, as if the sky had wanted to confirm his decision, a distant thunder rumbled, bringing with it an uncomfortable silence throughout the pit.
Steve had been behind the wheel for over an hour when the first raindrop hit the windshield. Just a small, quick splash, but enough for his muscles to tense in a reflex that didn’t need thought. He gripped the steering wheel hard, his gaze fixed on the curve ahead, while the roar of the engine kept him in that trance-like state he only knew in the race.
The sky over Daytona was dark, heavy with clouds like a bad omen. They had gone for soft tires; the track was still dry, and Steve knew he could push the car to its limit. But the drop had fallen, then another, and another, until a small patch of wet spots started to spread across his view.
—Steve —Eddie’s voice came through his ear, barely a contained murmur beneath the static of the radio—. It started earlier than the radar said.
Steve swallowed, gently adjusting his line. He didn’t need to see Eddie to imagine him: standing, leaning into the screens, biting his lip, his hand tugging at his braid again, a tic they were all trying to stop. He could picture it clearly as if he were sitting beside him.
—I’ve got it, Eds —he replied, calm. A low, steady tone. He’d practiced it so many times: sound unshakable, so Eddie could lean on that.
The car slid just a little on the exit of the corner, a small drift Steve corrected instantly. The vibration ran through his arm, but he didn’t lose the line.
—Keep the pace —Eddie said, and Steve could hear the other’s breath quickening over the radio—. Don’t switch yet. Not enough yet.
Steve smiled under his helmet. Hearing Eddie give that order, in a voice still nervous but clear, filled him with a strange, deep pride. As if, behind the doubt, he could hear the determination growing through blows, fear, and everything they had survived.
The track started to spit. The rivals ahead began to hesitate, some braking too soon, others taking too many risks. Steve passed them with surgical precision, taking every gap the uncertainty opened. The car shook, the soft tires started to show signs of wear, but he was comfortable in the chaos.
—Box in two laps if it gets worse —Eddie announced.
—Two laps? —Hopper asked from the line, drier, more pragmatic.
There was silence, and Steve almost imagined Eddie hesitating. But in the end, his voice came back, firm: —Two laps. I trust him... He can gain an advantage on a lap while everyone else is in the box, and they’re going to burn their tires fast by jumping ahead, it’s still too dry, Steve can gain another lap there.
Steve’s chest expanded with something that wasn’t just adrenaline. It was faith, it was pride, it was love dressed in calm.
The car slid again, and Steve corrected it with a smooth, controlled turn. Outside, the rain was beginning to make its presence known. The lights reflected off the wet asphalt, creating distorted mirrors, a constant reminder that at any moment, he could lose it all.
But he didn’t lose it. Because he wasn’t alone.
—Still with me, Eds? —he muttered under his breath, knowing that he was still there.
The radio answered with a brief silence, then with Eddie’s controlled breath, and finally, barely audible:
—Always with you.
Eddie couldn't stay still. The rain had fallen like a cold bucket of water over his already tangled nerves, and now, every time he looked at the screens, he felt his stomach twist.
The dark track was dangerous by itself. At night, with those corners that seemed to swallow the car's headlights, Steve was driving like the road had been burned into his memory. But with the rain, everything became a treacherous mirror, shiny and distorted. And Eddie knew—he knew—that the smallest mistake could mean the end.
He leaned in toward the screens, watching the car’s trajectory reflected in the sensors, listening to the growl on the radio, and his throat tightened with every passing lap. He felt like he was holding his breath along with Steve in every turn.
—Box in two laps —he repeated, as if saying it aloud would fix him in reality. Hopper shot him a side glance, serious, but didn’t contradict him. Steve entered the pits like it was nothing, calm, confident, even when the car slid a little while braking. Eddie thought he was going to collapse when the rear tire caught the slippery white line, but Steve held it, perfect, like he was dancing on ice.
Eddie’s heart kept thumping in his ribs even as the car stopped in front of them. The tire change was clean, efficient, Hopper shouting orders while the air guns screeched. Eddie heard nothing, saw nothing except for Steve sitting there, hands steady on the wheel, his dark eyes behind the visor. A brief moment when their eyes met, just a second, but enough for Eddie to think: He’s calm because he trusts me.
That thought broke him. Because what followed wasn’t simple. Because Steve would go back out on a track that was almost invisible, in a rain that kept getting worse, surrounded by idiots who would risk more than they could handle.
When the car left the pits and vanished back into the dark, wet stretch of Daytona, Eddie felt everything tighten in his chest. He walked a few steps to the side, away from the team’s gaze, and barely made it to the shadow of the hangar before vomiting violently.
The acid burned his throat, his hands trembled so badly he had to lean against the wall. He took a deep breath, one, two, three times, trying to calm himself, but all he could hear was the rain hitting the roof, the crackling radio with Hopper’s voice, the distant echo of Steve’s engine returning to the track.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up again. Nobody could see him like this. Nobody could suspect that, while Steve maintained absolute control on the track, Eddie was falling apart inside.
He leaned against the wall again, closed his eyes, and whispered, so quietly that nobody else could hear:
—Wayne... look after him, okay? Don’t let him be alone out there.
The knot in his throat almost stopped him from finishing. He swallowed, eyes watering, as if that prayer could somehow cross the rain, the track, and time. As if Wayne, somehow, was still there to watch over the boy that both he and Steve had loved so much.
He forced himself to pull himself together, straightened his shoulders, and returned to his post, still pale, but his eyes locked on the screens. The car was still running, still going. Steve had it. Eddie clenched his lips, put on his headphones with determination, and this time didn’t speak to Steve: he just let the roar of the engine be the only answer to his prayer.
Eddie returned to the control desk with a paler face than usual and his headphones askew. Hopper gave him a side glance but didn’t say anything at first, just watching as Eddie tried to focus on the screens while rubbing his wet hands against his pants, like the gesture could erase the tremor.
It didn’t take long before Hopper let out a low grunt and shoved him aside with a sharp pat on the shoulder.
—You’re soaked, Munson. What the hell, did you go swimming on the track?
Eddie tried to laugh, but it cracked in the air, barely a sound.
—Just... needed some air —he muttered, shrinking into himself.
Hopper squinted, evaluating the paleness, the cold sweat on his forehead, and the fact that Eddie wouldn’t look him in the eye. He didn’t ask more. Didn’t need to. He tossed Eddie a bag with Steve’s fireproof suit once they were in the small locker room.
—Put it on. Now.
—What? No, Hopper, I... —Eddie raised his hands like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
—Don’t argue with me —Hopper replied, his voice low and cutting, though there was a more paternal firmness behind it than authoritative—. You’re shaking like hell, and if you get sick, you won’t even be able to give me a lap time.
Eddie bit his lip, knowing he wasn’t going to win. He grabbed the suit and put it on reluctantly after stuffing his wet clothes into a plastic bag. But as soon as the fabric covered him, almost up to his knuckles and dragging over his boots, an immediate warmth enveloped him. He stood still for a moment, the sleeves hanging comically, and the zipper stuck at his chest. Hopper jerked the zipper up with a quick motion and zipped it all the way to his neck.
—There. Better. —Hopper patted his arm—. And stop worrying about how it looks. Steve doesn’t care if you look like a sack of potatoes in his clothes. What matters to him is that you don’t freeze to death.
Eddie swallowed and nodded, even though the shame burned in his ears. The suit was huge on him, loose at the shoulders, thighs, and waist. He managed to tighten it a bit using his belt, but there was little he could do about the rest, especially the sleeves. He sank into the chair in front of the control desk, gathering the sleeves in awkward folds.
The roar of Steve’s engine cut through the headphones, constant, firm, a reminder that he had to stay focused. Eddie fixed his gaze on the graphs, the times, the telemetry. Every raindrop on the camera felt like a direct punch to the chest, but he forced himself to breathe.
One hour, two hours. His fingers went numb from gripping the pen so hard against the notebook. Every lap Steve completed was a sustained heartbeat; every brake in a corner in the rain, a sharp stab in his stomach. Several times, he thought he wouldn’t make it, that he’d get up and run to vomit again. But Hopper was behind him, like a silent shadow, and it was that weight that kept him in place.
When Steve finally came into the pits, Eddie barely managed to stand before another wave of nerves hit him in the stomach: now it was Argyle who was getting into the car. It was different, because it wasn’t Steve, but it was worse, because it meant Steve would rest, sleep, be vulnerable, trusting Eddie to keep everything working.
The rain didn’t ease. Eddie hunched over the desk, hands pressed against his forehead, breathing in a pattern he was trying to control. Every call to Argyle sounded tense, cut by silences where his throat would close up. The young driver answered calmly, even cracking a couple of jokes, but Eddie couldn’t mimic him.
In a strange gesture from him, Hopper slid a glass of water in front of Eddie and left it on the desk without saying anything. Eddie looked at it like it was a rope thrown in the middle of a stormy sea, and he drank it in small sips, feeling the dizziness ease slightly.
The suit, enormous and warm, still wrapped him. It wasn’t his, but the smell was unmistakable: a mix of gasoline, something spicy but floral, and something that was purely Steve. Eddie closed his eyes for a second and let himself be held by that memory, imagining that maybe that was enough to keep the fear from swallowing him whole.
When he opened his eyes again, the screens were still there, the track was still there, the car was still running. Eddie clenched his teeth and straightened his back. There was still a long way to go. And though the fear didn’t let up, a part of him, small but firm, started to believe that maybe he could handle it.
Steve entered the pits with a screeching brake, the car vibrating as if it shared the rhythm of his heart. The smell of burnt rubber and rain hit him as soon as he stopped. As he took off the steering wheel and stumbled out of the cockpit, the cold of the wet early morning pierced his bones. Argyle was already ready, helmet under his arm, his gaze tense but steady.
What Steve didn’t expect was the sight that greeted him as soon as he crossed the line toward the pit.
Eddie.
He was standing by the control desk, large headphones still hanging around his neck, wearing Steve’s fireproof suit. It was absurdly too big for him, each inch of the suit highlighting how out of place Eddie looked. The sleeves were folded up to his elbows, the zipper loose halfway down his chest. The contrast was so stark that Steve stopped dead in his tracks, the helmet still in his hand.
He had to force himself not to smile like an idiot, or to let the nervous laugh bubbling in his chest escape. It wasn’t funny. It was devastating. Eddie looked… his. So out of place in that borrowed suit, yet so naturally part of the team that it hurt to look at him.
—What the hell…? —Steve took off his helmet and walked towards him in long strides, still sweating and panting from the race.
Eddie looked up, and upon seeing him, his face flushed red to the ears.
—Don’t start. Hopper made me. I was soaked and—
—And you were going to get sick, —Steve cut him off, raising an eyebrow. He leaned in just a little toward him, his breath still heavy from the race. —I get it.
—It’s ridiculous on me, —Eddie muttered, looking down as he adjusted the sleeves.
Steve let out a low, intimate laugh, one that he couldn’t hold back.
—It looks better on you than you think.
For a moment, the noise of the track faded. Eddie looked at him quickly, as if searching for confirmation if he was serious, and Steve had to look away before he did something he shouldn’t: take his face in his hands and kiss him right there, in front of everyone.
Instead, he gave him a soft pat on the shoulder, pretending to be casual.
—Keep that suit dry. I don’t want to hear that my star strategist ended up in bed with a fever.
Steve barely managed to pull his gaze away from Eddie, but his body was still alive with something that had nothing to do with speed or adrenaline. Sweat stuck his t-shirt to his skin, muscles still tense from holding the wheel for hours, but none of that compared to the knot in his stomach triggered by the sight of Eddie in his suit.
It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t cute. It was devastating.
That damn suit was too big for him, sure, but it made him look vulnerable, almost as if he was begging to be wrapped up, protected. Steve found himself imagining how Eddie would look wearing it on the track, how his lean, nervous body would fit against his own, how it would feel to lean in just a little more, close the tiny distance they’d had, and bury his mouth in the neck exposed by the loose zipper.
He had to bite his tongue. He had to remind himself that they were in Daytona, that the roar of the engines was relentless, that the race was still on. That it wasn’t the time.
But it was hard. Because Eddie, with flushed cheeks and averted eyes, those nervous hands playing with the zipper like he didn’t know where to put them, was disarming him much faster than any 300 km/h curve ever could.
And Steve, who had learned to hold back every impulse, every word, every gesture for years to survive his father’s expectations and the pressure of F1, now found himself holding back something else. The urge to reach for him. To show him with his hands what he couldn’t confess with his mouth yet.
He forced himself to swallow, to focus his gaze on the dashboard and then on Argyle taking the track.
—Focus, Harrington, —he muttered to himself, pressing the helmet against his hip—. Focus or you’ll ruin everything.
But even as he walked back to the pit, the image of Eddie in his suit, nervous and shrugging as if trying to hide, stayed burned into his mind. And for the first time in a long while, Steve was afraid. Not of losing the race, but of not being able to resist for much longer.
The world had been reduced to a gray, shiny line, cut by the lights of the other cars and the constant roar of the engine. Steve couldn't think of anything but keeping the car straight, precise, millimeter-perfect. Every movement was a risk. Every curve in the rain could decide not just the race, but everything he had put on the line.
He had been driving for hours. His body hurt as if every muscle was being torn apart, but his mind was awake, burning with an intensity that kept him alert. Daytona wasn't just another race: it was the race he had promised to win, the one that freed him from his father, the one that brought him closer again to what he truly wanted.
And in the middle of that concentration, in every pause between corner and corner, the image of Eddie kept coming back.
Eddie in the suit, disproportionate in every crease, the zipper crooked and the cuffs too long. Eddie with his head down, avoiding his gaze, but with trembling hands that had adjusted the silver star on his helmet that same morning.
Steve found himself gripping the steering wheel tighter, as if that memory were just another dangerous straightaway he had to get through.
—Calm down... —he whispered, though no one could hear him inside the helmet.
The hours were shortening. The sky was still raining in bursts, but the forecast showed it might clear up before the end. That didn't reassure him. Daytona with a wet track was still a hungry monster.
The radio crackled.
—Harrington, keep the pace. —It was Hopper, as steady as ever—. You're less than three seconds behind the leader. You can do it.
Steve didn't respond immediately. He knew that a "copy that" was enough, but Hopper's voice was there to hold him, just like it always had been since he took the reins of his career.
—I know —he finally said, with a faint voice, as if it were a promise.
And it was more than that. He didn’t just know it. He felt it.
He knew Eddie was watching him. He knew that at that very moment, Eddie must be standing there, arms crossed, biting his thumb's nail, foot nervously tapping the floor while he watched every second on the screens. He knew Eddie trusted him, even though the fear made him shrink, even though insecurity still gnawed at him inside.
And Steve had to honor that trust. He had to show him that it was okay to trust someone again.
The minutes stretched on forever. The car in front seemed unreachable, but Steve knew the rhythm. He had learned to wait, to breathe, to calculate. And when the track finally began to dry in some spots, he pushed. Not all at once, not with the desperation of before, but with the patient certainty of someone who knows victory is just a couple of maneuvers away.
The final laps came like a punch to the chest. The clocks marked minimal differences, barely two seconds, a blink in a straightaway. Steve felt the roar in his throat, a strangled scream that didn’t come out because the helmet stole it.
One more corner, another straight, the checkered flag waving like the very air he needed.
He crossed first. By two seconds.
The roar of the crowd didn't reach him. The only thing that filled him was the brutal relief that shook his bones and the certainty that Eddie was there, waiting, trembling just like him.
Steve didn't let go of the steering wheel immediately. He closed his eyes for a second, swallowed, and let the trembling breath flow through his chest. He had won. They had won.
And deep down, he knew the real victory wasn’t Daytona. It was what awaited him in the pits.
Chapter 9: Heaven and Hell
Notes:
Heaven and Hell – Black Sabbath
Chapter Text
Eddie couldn't remember the last time he had been on a date.
In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having one that truly counted during all those years he’d buried himself in the garage, surrounded by metal parts, cold coffee, and endless nights of insomnia. There had been attempts: one outing with someone from the bar that led nowhere, an awkward lunch with a neighbor who had mistaken his kindness for interest. But it had never been more than background noise. Nothing had gone beyond the first few sentences. Because deep down, even though he refused to admit it, he had continued to belong to Steve.
And now, almost a year after Steve had burst back into his life, he stood in his room in front of the mirror, stomach twisting, hands sweaty, preparing for a date that — according to Steve — “wasn’t anything formal, just a night picnic.”
But to Eddie, it was everything.
He had spent the afternoon in a ridiculous back-and-forth between excitement and fear. On one hand, the thought of spending a few hours alone with Steve filled him with a warmth that made him feel light. On the other hand, just the thought of that closeness exposing how much he still cared for him — more than he’d ever stopped caring — froze him.
But to Eddie, it wasn’t “just” anything. It was Steve.
It was the first time in years he allowed himself to think about dating someone, and no matter how many times he repeated to himself that everything would be fine because it was Steve — the Steve who had come back into his life, not the one who had left, but this new Steve who had learned to listen, to stay, to not let go — he couldn’t help but feel afraid.
Steve made him feel safe. He had proven it over and over again in the year they’d been sharing time and space. Steve had become his friend again before being anything else, and Eddie had clung to that like a lifeline. Because being friends with Steve was easy. It was natural. And yet, that very ease was what scared him. What pushed him to want more.
He looked at himself in the mirror, pulling at the black T-shirt that hung too loosely. All his jeans were either too loose at the waist or the thighs, and the sleeves of his shirts seemed made for someone else. He’d gained weight since the worst years, but he’d never cared to buy new clothes. He’d always found an excuse not to: saving money, not needing it, it didn’t matter. But now, standing under the yellow light, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he would look in Steve’s eyes.
Old. Out of place. Worn out.
He bit the inside of his cheek. “He’s not going to notice this,” he tried to convince himself, though the voice in his head wouldn’t quiet. Steve, with his shirts that looked like they came out of a catalog, with that ridiculous ease to look perfect even when he didn’t try. And Eddie, there, hiding in clothes that looked borrowed from a non-existent older brother.
He looked at his reflection with frustration. The same black T-shirt. The worn jeans. His hair was longer than ever, falling in rebellious waves over his shoulders down to his waist. He had half gotten used to Steve, Argyle, or Joyce braiding it every morning during their shared breakfasts. He had let it grow without thinking, as if not cutting it could somehow make up for lost time.
He ran his fingers through the dark strands, trying to see how much he could tame with his hands, but he quickly gave up. The chaos was inevitable, and maybe — just maybe — that was okay.
Then he looked down at his hands.
His nails were painted black. Clumsily, with smudges on the cuticles, as if he had forgotten how to do it after so many years. Because the truth was this: he had gone years without touching a bottle of nail polish, as if that tiny detail belonged to a version of himself that no longer had the right to exist. But that afternoon, before getting ready, he had opened an old box hidden in the closet and, almost trembling, had unscrewed the small bottle of polish.
He had painted his nails without thinking too much about it, like a silent experiment, a reminder that he was still here. That not everything had been erased. And now, as he looked at them shining under the dim light, he wondered if Steve would notice them. If Steve would look at him with that calm way of looking at him, as if nothing else mattered, and think, yes, that this Eddie was still worth it.
The thought made him smile nervously.
—You look like a teenager about to go to their first dance —he murmured to himself, rolling his eyes.
Manson, the cat, curled up on the bed, barely raised his head. Eddie shot him a glance.
—Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s no big deal, right? Just Steve and me. Like always.
But it wasn’t like always.
There was a difference, a subtext that had been growing for months, noticeable in the small things: the way Steve found any excuse to touch his hand, the way he looked at him when he thought Eddie wasn’t paying attention, the confidence with which he pushed him to come out of his shell. Steve had always been that radiant sun, that source of confidence that dragged him out of his own fear. And Eddie had been happy orbiting around him.
He had been happy… until everything had cracked.
A knot formed in his throat. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to let it go. He didn’t want to think about that. Not tonight.
He leaned over the bed, pulling out a wool sweater from beneath it that still smelled a bit like gasoline and garage dust. He hesitated for a second, then tucked it under his arm.
He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t end up trembling from nerves at some point during the night.
The sound of a familiar engine pulled him from his thoughts. Eddie peeked out the window just in time to see Steve’s car stop in front of the house. His heart did a flip, one of those that seemed ridiculous but left him breathless. He swallowed, checked his black nails one last time — still shiny, despite how badly they were painted — and fixed his hair as best as he could.
The soft knock on the door made him jump. It wasn’t the first time Steve had picked him up, not by a long shot, but there was a huge difference in knowing that this time... it was a date.
He forced himself to open.
Steve was there, casually leaning against the door frame, with that calm smile that seemed to come so easily to him. He had swapped his usual team jacket for a simple gray t-shirt and a light jacket. Nothing special. And yet, Eddie had to grip the doorframe to keep from staring at him too much.
—Hey —Steve said, his voice low, as if he were aware that anything too loud could break something.
—Hey —Eddie repeated awkwardly. He forced himself to look away, but Steve had already dropped his gaze to his hands.
—Did you paint your nails? —he asked, a mix of surprise and... tenderness.
Eddie shrugged, trying to sound casual.
—I guess so. Just felt like it.
—They look good. —Steve smiled, and said it so seriously that Eddie felt his knees go weak.
The cat meowed behind them, as if trying to interrupt the tension, and Steve laughed.
—Ready? —he asked, offering his hand, as if they were two nervous teenagers about to go out for the first time.
Eddie hesitated for just a second, then took it. And the warmth of Steve’s hand anchored him to the present.
The drive was short. Steve drove to a clearing not far from where they lived, a place surrounded by trees with an open view of the sky. The grass was fresh from the afternoon's moisture, and Steve had laid out a large blanket, a couple of lanterns, and a basket with simple food. Nothing fancy, nothing forced.
Eddie watched him set everything up as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if taking him on a night picnic was something he did every day. That calm, that ability to make everything seem safe, was what had him trapped.
—You didn’t have to… —Eddie started nervously, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets.
—I wanted to. —Steve interrupted softly, shrugging his shoulders—. It doesn’t have to be complicated, Eds. Just... us.
The way he said it, without pressure, without expectations, pulled a knot out of Eddie's chest. Eddie sat on the blanket, letting Steve open the takeout containers, and was surprised by how comfortable everything was, despite how much he had feared this outing.
They ate between low laughs, with Steve telling silly stories about their last session on the simulator, and Eddie confessing, through gritted teeth, that he had spent almost an hour deciding what to wear, even though all his clothes were too big. Steve didn’t make fun of him. Didn’t minimize it. He just listened, and when Eddie stopped talking, he gently squeezed his knee.
—I like you the way you are —he said, straightforward. And Eddie didn’t know how to respond.
When they finished eating, they turned off the lanterns and lay back on the blanket, looking at the open sky. There weren’t too many stars that night, but the few that were visible seemed to shine just for them.
Eddie took a deep breath. The night was cool and calm, and for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to let his guard down.
—I never thought I’d be here again —he murmured, almost without meaning to.
—Here... with me? —Steve asked, turning his head to look at him.
Eddie hesitated, then nodded.
—with you. And feeling... happy.
Steve didn’t say anything right away. He just reached for his hand under the blanket and held it. Firm, secure, but without squeezing too much. Eddie let out a low, trembling laugh.
—Sometimes, it scares me how much I want this. How much I still want you.
—Me too —Steve admitted, his voice hoarse—. But I still want it.
And there, under that half-cloudy sky, Eddie felt something inside him — that dim and fearful part — start to burn again.
The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he had felt that: a silence that didn’t ask for anything, that didn’t weigh down on his shoulders like a judgment. Steve was simply there, by his side, his calm breath mingling with his own.
The night air was cool, and Eddie curled up a little in his sweater. He didn’t say anything, but Steve noticed immediately. He always noticed.
—Come here —he murmured, turning the blanket to cover him too. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture, nor forced, but when the warm edge wrapped around him and Steve pulled him just a little bit closer, Eddie felt the world stop trembling.
They stayed like that, shoulder to shoulder, until Eddie laughed softly, with that shy laugh that still came out when he didn’t know how to process what he was feeling.
—What? —Steve asked, turning slightly toward him.
—It’s ridiculous. —Eddie shook his head, though he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face—. I spent all afternoon thinking I was going to stay silent, that I’d ruin this. And now I’m here, and all I want is to stay quiet because... it’s enough.
Steve looked at him as if he had just said the most important thing in the world. And for him, it probably was.
—You don’t have to talk to be with me. —Steve’s voice was low, grave, a murmur that stuck to Eddie’s skin—. You just have to be you.
Eddie’s throat closed suddenly. He turned his head to the side, meeting Steve’s eyes, which were shining in the dim light. There was a second of doubt — that moment where he could still pull away — but the warmth of Steve’s hand on his kept him there.
—I hate you —he whispered, though his lips trembled with nervous laughter.
Steve raised an eyebrow, amused.
—Oh, yeah?
—Yeah. —Eddie looked at him intently, as if trying to convince himself—. Because you’re still just as easy to love as before. And I... I don’t know if I can handle that.
The silence stretched just a heartbeat, and then Steve leaned in enough to rest his forehead against his. There was no rush, no pressure. Just that warm, steady contact that told him, without words: I’m here.
Eddie closed his eyes, letting the tremor in his chest settle. And then, just a breath later, he felt Steve’s lips brushing his. It wasn’t a desperate kiss, but a shy touch, like a question without a voice. Eddie responded by leaning forward just a little, joining their lips in a soft kiss that tasted like a promise.
When they pulled apart, Eddie still had his eyes closed and his cheeks flushed. Steve, unable to stop smiling, searched for him again, this time with a kiss that was a little more confident, a little longer, and that drew a broken sigh from Eddie’s chest.
—I swear I won’t leave again —Steve murmured, with the certainty of someone who had already lost too much.
And Eddie, swallowing the fear, nodded slightly, letting the promise sink deep into his bones.
They stayed like that, under the blanket, looking at the sky that barely showed a few stars. And though nothing else happened that night, Eddie knew it was the beginning of something new. Something that was theirs. Something that didn’t have to be perfect, just real.
The morning light entered shyly through the window of Eddie’s small room, casting golden lines on the wooden floor and tangling in his messy hair. He had slept little, still too aware of the memory of kisses beneath the stars, too overwhelmed by the tenderness with which Steve had looked at him, as if no one else in the world existed.
And now, with the sun slipping through the window, that tenderness twisted in his stomach. Because Eddie knew. It always happens. There’s always something that ruins it. He always says the wrong thing, makes the wrong move, shows too much of himself, and then... people leave him.
The mirror hanging on the wall reflected an image he hated. He ran his hand through his hair, too long, falling onto his shoulders in rebellious strands. The black nail polish, chipped after just one night, almost seemed mocking. The old t-shirt hung loosely on his arms, and his jeans were worn to the point of almost splitting at the knees. What did Steve see in this?
He let himself fall back onto the bed, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. Anxiety rose in rapid waves, dizzying him. Suddenly, he saw it all clearly: Steve had made a mistake, Steve was idealizing him because he still remembered the Eddie from before, the one who made everyone laugh, the one who jumped onto the stage without fear. This Eddie, the one now, wasn’t enough. He had nothing.
—I can’t… —he whispered, though there was no one to hear him—. I can’t do this again. I won’t survive if you leave me again, Stevie.
A soft knock on the door startled him.
—Eddie, are you awake? —Steve’s voice, warm and calm, pierced through him like a lightning bolt.
Eddie held his breath. He wanted to answer, wanted to pretend everything was fine, but his throat was closed, as if an invisible hand was squeezing it tightly.
The doorknob turned, and Steve peeked in, holding a paper bag in one hand and his running helmet hanging from his arm.
—I brought you breakfast —he announced with a smile that seemed to bring the sun with it—. Cinnamon rolls and coffee. Your favorite, right?
Eddie didn’t move. He was curled up on himself in the bed, hands tightly gripping the edge of the blanket. Steve took less than a second to notice something was wrong. His smile faded, and he set the bag on the table before approaching slowly.
—Hey —he said, his tone much lower, softer—. What’s going on?
Eddie shook his head, his breathing growing more frantic.
—I… I can’t… —the words tumbled out, trembling—. I won’t be able to do it right, Steve. I’m not the same as I was before. And you… you’re going to see it, and you’re going to get tired of me. You’re going to decide I’m not worth it.
He ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the strands with force, trying to stop the flood of thoughts crushing him. The air seemed to thicken, becoming impossible to breathe.
Steve crouched in front of him, gently taking his wrists, firm but not painful.
—Eddie. Look at me.
Eddie tried, but his eyes filled with tears before he could even raise his head.
—I’m going to ruin it —he whispered, broken—. I’m going to ruin everything with you.
—No —Steve denied, with a certainty that shook him—. You’re not going to ruin anything. Do you know why? Because there’s nothing you can do that would make me leave.
Eddie let out a bitter, incredulous laugh, but Steve didn’t blink. He held him with that steady, anchored gaze, as if he could carry the weight of the world if necessary.
—you left me before —Eddie blurted out, like a shot in the dark.
Steve closed his eyes for a second, as if those words had hurt him, and then nodded.
—Yeah. I did. And I regret it every day of my life. But I’m not going to do it again, Eddie. Not now, not ever.
His fingers slowly released Eddie’s wrists, only to weave through his fingers.
—You know what’s going on with you? —he continued, his voice low but firm—. You think you have to be perfect for someone to stay. But I don’t want a perfect Eddie. I want this one. The one who’s scared, the one who sometimes hides, the one who paints his nails and thinks no one notices, when in reality I can’t stop looking at them because they remind me that you’re trying again.
Eddie finally looked at him, lips parted and breathing trembling. Steve took the opportunity to move closer, until their foreheads touched.
—I’m not going to let you sink alone —he whispered—. Not again.
The knot in Eddie’s throat loosened just enough for a sob to escape. Steve didn’t move, holding him there, with infinite patience, until the tremor in Eddie’s chest began to calm.
When Eddie was finally able to speak, he did so in a weak murmur.
—I don’t know how to trust that you won’t leave.
Steve tightened his grip on his hands.
—Then don’t trust me yet. Trust what I do. Stay and watch. Day after day. And when you’re ready, believe me.
Eddie closed his eyes, letting that firm, calm voice filter through the cracks in his heart. He wasn’t convinced, not entirely. But for the first time in years, he felt like he didn’t have to convince himself today. That he could breathe a little, lean on Steve, and let time do the rest.
A quieter silence settled in the room. Steve, without pulling away, gave a faint smile.
—Now, are you going to let me give you the cinnamon roll, or do you want me to shove it in your face? —he joked softly, and though Eddie rolled his eyes with a mix of embarrassment and relief, the laugh that escaped his lips was real.
Steve let him eat slowly, sitting next to him, not demanding anything more. As if he knew that was enough for now: hot coffee, a bit of sugar, and a promise whispered in the quiet.
Later, when they went out into the fresh air, Eddie on his bike following Steve’s steady pace on the road, he still felt fragile. But he wasn’t alone in that fragility anymore. Steve turned his head every few minutes to check he was still there, and Eddie, against all odds, found himself smiling.
Eddie looked at himself in the bathroom mirror as if facing an enemy he didn’t quite recognize. His hair had grown longer than ever, messy in waves that tangled down to his waist, strands that once used to be bangs framing his face. A part of him felt comfortable hiding behind that dark curtain, as if he could remain invisible. But another part —the one Steve had started to awaken again, the one that still wanted to be something more than a ghost— couldn’t help but think how much the reflection seemed… neglected. Like he didn’t deserve attention.
He bit his lip, nervous.
—Don’t be a coward, Munson —he murmured, looking down at the floor before leaving the bathroom.
He found Joyce in the kitchen, folding clothes with that practical calmness that seemed to hold everyone together without asking for anything in return. For a moment, he almost regretted it. But then he remembered how Steve had looked at him on their date, as if every detail mattered, as if he mattered, and he forced himself to speak.
—Hey, Joyce… —he started, his voice quieter than he wanted—. Do you still… cut hair sometimes?
She looked up, surprised at first, but then smiled with that warmth that always made him feel safe.
—Of course. Do you want me to cut a little for you?
Eddie nodded quickly, before pulling back.
—Yeah. Just… the ends. And, uh, this weird fringe that keeps covering my eyes. —He ran his fingers over his forehead, uncomfortable—. It feels like I’ve got a curtain stuck on me all the time.
Joyce set the clothes aside as if nothing could be more important at that moment.
—Perfect. Let’s go out back, with the natural light.
Eddie followed her with sweaty hands, nervously laughing at himself. It’s just a haircut, Munson, not open-heart surgery. But as he sat in the garden chair and watched her prepare the scissors, he couldn’t ignore the tremor running through his fingers.
—You know? —he suddenly said, before losing his courage—. I was thinking… maybe… —he stopped, swallowing hard. Joyce looked at him with patience. Eddie took a deep breath—. Could you dye it a little too?
—Dye? —she repeated, surprised, although her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
Eddie shrugged, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
—Nothing crazy. Just… the bottom half. In red. Like… something that only shows if I tie my hair up.
The silence stretched for a second, and Eddie felt the heat rise to his ears.
—Forget it, it’s stupid, I—
—It’s not stupid at all —she interrupted him, firmly, and Eddie looked up to see her smiling at him with tenderness—. It’s beautiful, Eddie. And I’d love to do it.
The tension in his chest eased just enough to let her work. Joyce trimmed the ends gently, as if she understood that she wasn’t just touching hair but something much more fragile. Each lock that fell made him feel lighter, less tangled. And when she started to prepare the red dye, Eddie was surprised at himself for not pulling back.
The chemical smell mixed with the fresh breeze of the backyard as she separated his hair into sections. Eddie kept his eyes closed, breathing deeply, feeling the tingle of the gloves and the weight of the moment. It wasn’t just about the color. It was about letting himself be seen, even if just a little.
—You know what I think? —Joyce said in her calm voice as she worked—. I think this red is going to shine a lot more than you think. Just like you.
Eddie laughed, nervous, but didn’t protest. For the first time in a long time, he let someone take care of him like this without feeling like he had to hide afterward.
When the dye was ready and Joyce rinsed it out, the bathroom mirror returned an image that took his breath away: his hair was still the same long, dark mess, but now, when he pulled it into a half-ponytail, the deep red appeared like a hidden fire. It didn’t scream, it wasn’t exaggerated. But it was there. And Eddie couldn’t help but smile.
—Holy shit… —he whispered, surprised at his own reflection.
Joyce touched his shoulder affectionately.
—See? You don’t have to change who you are, Eddie. Just remember that you’re still here.
Eddie blinked, holding back the emotion. And for the first time in years, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could let himself step out of the shadows a little.
Eddie had spent the whole morning trying to convince himself that it wasn’t a big deal. It was just hair, nothing more. A couple of ends trimmed, a fringe that was now more decent than in years, and the red hidden on the lower half that Joyce had encouraged him to try. It had been fun at the time, almost liberating… until he was left alone while Joyce took a phone call.
And there it was, the fear. That knot in his stomach that tightened and told him he didn’t look any different, that he was still the same old mess with worn clothes hanging off his body. That knot that reminded him that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be enough for someone like Steve Harrington.
So when he heard footsteps approaching, his heart went to his throat. Steve came closer from the hangar, sweaty and glowing as always, with that energy that seemed to fill every corner. Eddie bent down to grab a box of spare parts to take to his workshop and felt, more than saw, the exact moment Steve noticed him.
—Holy shit… —Steve whispered, as if struck.
Eddie turned, uncomfortable, and immediately wanted to hide. He pulled a hand to his newly cut fringe, tugging at it to cover his face.
—What? —he asked, laughing nervously—. It’s stupid, I know. Joyce helped me, and I thought…
He didn’t get to finish. Steve crossed the distance in two steps and kissed him.
The whole world shrank to that: Steve’s mouth on his, his hands firmly holding his face as if he were afraid he would disappear. It was rough, desperate, and Eddie lost his breath in the first second. He wasn’t ready for it, not for that, not for that intensity that made him feel like he was falling apart inside.
He tried to pull back, instinctively, but Steve didn’t let him. He followed him, searched for him, and Eddie found himself responding because, how could he not, when he had wanted this for so long that it still hurt.
—You’re fucking beautiful —Steve murmured against his mouth, his voice broken with emotion—. Don’t ever say it’s stupid. Never.
Eddie trembled. The automatic impulse was to laugh quietly, nervously, because he didn’t know how to hold onto something so big.
—It’s just… hair —he stammered, not knowing where to look.
—No, it’s not. —Steve slid his hand down to his neck and with the other, buried his fingers in the red strand, pulling gently as if he needed to make sure it wasn’t a mirage—. It’s that you’re letting yourself be seen. And I… I can’t handle how much that kills me.
The kisses returned, slower, sweeter. Eddie closed his eyes and let himself go, gripping Steve’s damp shirt, breathing as if that kept him standing. And in some way, it did.
When Steve finally pulled away, they were both gasping. Eddie couldn’t look at him for too long without feeling like he would catch fire completely. But Steve watched him as if he had just won a trophy, with that smile that made him seem so happy in a way Eddie didn’t believe he deserved.
—God, Eddie… —Steve leaned his forehead against his, still smiling like a lovesick idiot—. I’m going to go crazy.
Eddie swallowed hard, the insecurity still circling in his mind, but there was something new too: warmth, hope, the dangerous feeling that maybe this time, it could be different. And in the end, with a courage he didn’t know where he got from, he smiled back.
—Well… get ready, Harrington. —His voice trembled, but it was firm in the end—. Because I think I’m just getting started.
Eddie was still blushing when he heard Joyce return. He had barely managed to calm the trembling of his hands after the kisses with Steve, and he hadn’t decided whether he wanted to bang his head against the wall or stay in that dangerous limbo of happiness that made him feel light.
—Eddie, ready? —Joyce’s warm voice pulled him from his thoughts.
He swallowed, shook his hair as if that could disguise anything, and there was Joyce, smiling reassuringly with a cloth bag hanging from her arm, ready to drag him to the city.
—Hey, rockstar —she greeted him, giving him a quick once-over—. Well, at least you combed your hair. That’s a step.
Eddie let out a nervous laugh, looking away.
—Yeah, well... someone told me I shouldn’t look like a mess all the time. —He didn’t need to say who. Joyce raised an eyebrow, as if she had read it on his forehead.
She let him relax as they got into the car. Eddie played with the newly dyed red strand of his hair, still unsure whether he had ruined it all or, on the contrary, if he looked… different. Not better, but at least different.
The silence was comfortable until Joyce spoke, with that gentleness she always had when she looked at him as if she could see beyond his words.
—So, are you going to tell me what happened? Because that shine on your face isn’t just from the dye.
Eddie felt his stomach tighten. He opened his mouth, closed it. He looked down at his painted nails. And finally, he let the air out, as if surrendering.
—Steve kissed me —he confessed in a small voice.
Joyce didn’t react with surprise, not even a "I knew it!" She just smiled at him, soft, patient, as if she had been waiting for him to say it.
—And how do you feel?
The question hit harder than the kiss itself. Eddie stared at his hands, the black nails shining in the sunlight streaming through the window.
—Like an idiot —he said first, because it was easier. Then the truth slipped out, broken, trembling—. Like I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life, and now that I have it... I’m scared I’ll mess it up.
The car went silent for a few seconds. Joyce extended her hand and placed it firmly on Eddie’s knee, warm.
—Eddie, listen to me. —Her tone was clear, no space for doubts—. What I see is a man who is learning to live again. And Steve... Steve isn’t here because he wants to change you. He’s here because he wants to see you be you.
Eddie swallowed, feeling his chest loosen just a little.
—It’s just… I never stopped loving him, Joyce. Not a single day. And now that I have him back, I’m so scared of losing him that sometimes it paralyzes me.
Joyce squeezed his knee before pulling her hand away.
—Then don’t lose him. Loving for real is always scary. What’s important is not letting that fear steal what you want to live.
Eddie closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The words floated in his head as the car continued to move. Maybe he didn’t have all the answers, but he did have something new: the certainty that he wanted to try, no matter how much his hands trembled.
Joyce glanced at him, a small but satisfied smile on her face.
—And now, let’s buy you some clothes that are younger than you. —She said it lightly, as if they hadn’t just talked about something so deep, and Eddie appreciated it.
He laughed softly, letting the weight on his chest ease a bit.
—Fine, but no button-up shirts that look like funeral attire.
—Deal.
For the first time in a long time, Eddie allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, he could start writing a new version of himself, and that started with new clothes.
Eddie didn’t remember the last time he had stepped into a clothing store without feeling like everything was too clean for him, too bright, too far from his world. He used to hate places like that; they made him feel awkward, clumsy, like someone could read on his forehead that he didn’t belong. But Joyce walked with the confidence of someone who already had a plan and dragged him from rack to rack like it was the most natural thing in the world.
—I don’t want anything expensive —Eddie mumbled, hands shoved in the pockets of his black jacket, as if that could protect him.
—It’s not about expensive or cheap —Joyce replied with a smile—. It’s about finding something that makes you feel good.
Eddie huffed, but let her do her thing.
At first, everything felt weird. Too colorful, too tight, too different. Eddie ran his fingers through the hangers quickly, shrinking away, until his fingers got caught on a pair of light denim shorts, frayed at the edges. He automatically wanted to pull them away: he had never worn anything like that in his life. But a tiny voice in the back of his mind —the one that had woken up since Steve came back— whispered that he could try.
—What if…? —he lifted the shorts as if holding a radioactive garment.
Joyce raised an eyebrow, amused.
—What if you try them on?
Eddie rolled his eyes, but was already carrying them on his arm when he found another piece: a black crop top with red letters, vintage, like it came from an 80s concert, but with a modern cut. He swallowed, his heart pounding.
—Definitely —Joyce said, snatching it from him so he wouldn’t back out—. This is so you.
—So me or I’m going to die from embarrassment if someone I know sees me? —Eddie tried to hide it, but was already stepping into the fitting room.
When he looked at himself in the mirror, he froze. The shorts left his legs exposed, and the crop top barely reached just below his chest. The Eddie from before would have laughed, would have come out dancing to show it off, but he would have been thinking about how practical it was for the summer, not how nice it looked. But the reflection in the mirror… the reflection wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t ridiculous. It was him, different, a little freer, as if he was recovering something he had lost.
He ran a hand through his long hair, the red dye showing with defiance at the tips. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
—So? —Joyce asked from outside.
Eddie opened the curtain halfway, unsure.
—I look… ridiculous.
Joyce looked him up and down, then shook her head.
—You look like someone who’s finally starting to stop hiding.
The lump in his throat returned, but this time, not out of fear. He nodded, looking down, and closed the curtain. He allowed himself a second more to look at himself in the mirror. Wayne would never have seen him in this outfit, but he would have encouraged him to buy it, on the contrary, he would have given him an elbow and said, "If you feel comfortable, then it’s fine."
Eddie took a deep breath and decided that yes. It was fine.
By the time Joyce decided Eddie had enough clothes for every season of the year and for any occasion, it was late afternoon, Eddie’s feet hurt inside his new Converse, and he felt exhausted but satisfied at the same time. It was very strange.
They had stopped for dessert before returning, knowing they had arrived just in time for the team dinner. Eddie walked in wearing the first of many outfits Joyce had helped him pick and put together. He had avoided wearing it immediately, but Joyce had pushed him until he gave in.
And now he was there, with his legs exposed in the light denim shorts, the crop top showing a little skin, and his black nails shining under the workshop light. His hair loose, with that red touch that seemed to light up when he moved it.
The silence was instant. Hopper was the first to whistle loudly, theatrically.
—Well, well, Munson. If you knew you could break hearts, you could’ve warned me so I could prepare for the suitors.
Eddie covered his face with his hand, laughing through his fingers, not knowing where to hide with his face as red as the new dye in his hair.
Steve, on the other hand, didn’t laugh. He stood still, looking at him as if he had just seen the sun come out on a cloudy day. His eyes softened, his mouth parted, and Eddie could see him swallow before speaking.
—Shit, Eds… —his voice came out hoarse, too honest—. You look fucking gorgeous.
Eddie wanted to die. He wanted to disappear. But he also wanted to throw himself into Steve’s arms and never let go. The heat in his cheeks was unbearable, and yet, for the first time in years, he didn’t feel the need to shrink or apologize for being seen.
The team laughed, applauded, and someone shouted, “That’s how it’s done, Munson!” and Eddie could only look at Steve, who didn’t take his eyes off him, with a pride so big it almost hurt.
Eddie didn’t know how it happened. One second, he was still nervously laughing at the team’s comments, and the next, Steve had a firm hand on his elbow, guiding him out of the workshop as if no one else in the world existed. Robin’s mocking voice faded behind them, along with the others’ laughter.
Eddie’s heart raced, but not out of fear. Not exactly. It was something else, bigger, more dangerous.
Steve didn’t let go until they were at the side, behind the workshop’s side door, where barely any light from the lamps reached. And then, without giving Eddie time to think too much, he cornered him against the wall with a smooth, careful movement, but one that left Eddie breathless.
—Steve— Eddie started, half-choked, intending to say something, anything to make him sound less vulnerable.
But Steve silenced him with a kiss.
Not a shy kiss, nor a stolen one. It was intense, determined, as if he had been holding back those feelings for too long. Eddie moaned into Steve’s mouth before he could stop himself, feeling Steve’s hands surround him, one on his waist, the other climbing up his back, pulling him closer.
He let himself get lost in it, for an infinite moment. Steve’s warmth, the taste of coffee still on his tongue, the way he kissed as if every second were golden. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so desired, so chosen.
When they finally pulled away, both of them were breathing heavily. Steve pressed his forehead against Eddie’s, his lips brushing his still, and spoke softly, clearly, without beating around the bush.
—Eddie, I’m not going to play with you. I’m not going to hide how I feel. I love you. Always have, since before everything went to shit. And I’m not letting you go again.
Eddie blinked, stunned. His first reaction was panic, the need to escape, to protect himself. Because hearing that out loud was too much. Too real.
But Steve didn’t pressure him. He didn’t rush him. He just held him there, against the wall, looking at him with those warm eyes, steady, with that infinite patience that Eddie found both unbearable and precious at the same time.
—I love you slowly, Eds —Steve continued, his voice rough, as if each word came from deep within him—. With patience. At your pace. But I need you to know this: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.
Eddie’s throat closed. He felt the pressure of tears before he could stop them. He wanted to laugh, make a joke, downplay everything, but the lump in his chest was crushing him.
—Steve… —he whispered, and his voice trembled as if he were fifteen again.
Steve kissed him again, more softly this time, as if sealing him in. Short, delicate kisses until Eddie could breathe again. Until Eddie’s hands stopped trembling against his shirt and dared to hold onto him.
It was terrifying. But it was also the first time, in years, that he didn’t feel alone in his own body.
Eddie hid his face in Steve’s neck, swallowing, and heard him laugh softly, content.
—You don’t have to say anything yet —Steve murmured, caressing his back with that calm, agonizing pace—. Just let me be here.
And Eddie, against all odds, let him.
Chapter 10: You Better Run
Notes:
You Better Run – Motörhead
Chapter Text
Steve had always thought that calm wasn’t made for him; in his world, stillness was just a brief pause before everything went up in flames again. He grew up surrounded by roaring engines, flashes blinding him, and his father's voice, so heavy and definitive that it filled every corner like an unavoidable sentence. But, against everything he had believed, he had discovered that calm could be something else: not an interval before disaster, but a refuge.
Leaning against the metal frame of the workshop, he took a deep breath. The air was saturated with oil, reheated coffee, and the hum of distant tools; to anyone else, it would be an unbearable stench, but to him, it was home. It always had been, even though it had taken years for him to accept it.
Inside, the scene unfolded like a vivid memory: Eddie hunched over the car, a grease-stained shirt, hair tied up in any way, and that frown that only appeared when he got too absorbed in his work. Steve watched him with the fascination of someone seeing something for the first time and, at the same time, with the certainty that he had been waiting for this moment his whole life. Eddie hummed just a murmur, a shapeless melody that was interrupted by brief laughs or gestures of annoyance. A minimal sound, invisible to anyone else, but to Steve, it was proof that Eddie had become a little more himself again.
The sound of a door snapped him out of his contemplation. Argyle barged in, carrying a cardboard box that smelled like freshly baked sweet bread.
"Duuudes!" he sang, dramatically placing the box on the table "Monaco is just around the corner, do you feel that? The vibe of victory, glamour, glory!"
Eddie didn’t even bother to look at him.
"The only thing I smell is that you brought donuts."
"Correction, bro" Argyle raised a solemn finger "I brought premium fuel. And if Steve wants to conquer Monaco, he's going to need sugar, caffeine, and a badass attitude."
Steve laughed, not with the carefree chuckle he usually had, but with a soft, intimate laugh, as if it only belonged to that space. From a corner, Hopper flipped through papers with a stern expression, although the arch of his eyebrows betrayed that he was listening.
"First we work, then sugar,"he grumbled, not lifting his head.
"You're a tyrant, Hopper," Argyle replied, although he was already opening the box. He placed a donut directly in Eddie's hand, who accepted it with a huff that barely hid a smile.
Steve watched them in silence. There was something comforting in that small chaos, in how they all fit together effortlessly: Hopper with his seriousness, Argyle with his chaotic energy, Eddie lost in his technical world. And him, right in the middle, not feeling the need to prove anything. Life could be that simple.
The yellowish light came through the tall windows, bathing the worn tools, the stains on the floor, and an old radio that vibrated like a persistent heartbeat. That workshop had always been both a refuge and a battlefield: he remembered running there after each fight with his father, and Wayne handing him a wrench instead of asking questions. He also remembered the day he left it all behind, convinced that by obeying, he would gain respect. And he remembered it because, in some way, that mistake had brought him here, to understand that he never needed anything his father demanded. Everything that mattered was right in front of him: Eddie's hands adjusting a screw, Hopper's dry voice, Argyle's absurd laughter.
Eddie raised his head, as if he had felt Steve’s gaze fixed on him.
"Are you going to stand there all day, Harrington, or are you going to do something useful?"
Steve raised an eyebrow.
"I’m supervising. Don’t you see that I’m making sure you work to the highest standards?"
Eddie rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lips barely curved upward.
"Very professional, yeah."
"Point for Eddie!" Argyle cheered, as if narrating a match.
Steve shook his head, but walked over to the car and ran his hand over the cold chassis. He could feel the subtle vibration of the pieces, the energy contained in something that would soon roar in Monaco. That car was not just a vehicle: it was proof that they had survived, that they had found each other again, and that together they could build something that worked.
He caressed it reverently. Before, the touch of a car had tasted like anxiety: the certainty that it could fail, drag him into another accident. Now it was different. It wasn’t naivety, but real trust. He knew Eddie was behind every piece, that Hopper had calculated every strategy, that Argyle would cover him in any contingency. And for the first time in years, he wasn’t afraid to get in.
The hum of the radio changed, and for a moment, Steve thought he recognized some old chords, a melody that carried echoes of another time. A song that had played again and again when he and Eddie were just two teenagers obsessed with going too fast and turning up the music too loud. One beat was enough for the memory to bite at his chest: Eddie hitting the steering wheel of a beat-up van to the rhythm of the drums, Wayne grumbling from the passenger seat because he was afraid the dashboard would fall apart from so much banging, and he, Steve, doubled over in laughter until his throat hurt.
The memory was so vivid that he had to swallow. He took a deep breath, trying to return to the calm of the present, but when he looked up, he found Eddie’s gaze. And no words were needed. Just holding his gaze was enough to know that Eddie remembered too.
The workshop was enveloped in that strange stillness that comes after a long day: the metallic noise of tools had faded away, turning into a comfortable silence. It was only interrupted by the occasional rustling of papers when Hopper put things into a folder, or the heavy sigh of Argyle, who after devouring three donuts had fallen asleep in a folding chair, his head tilted, with a thread of drool threatening his shirt.
Steve laughed softly, almost childishly, seeing him. He was about to make a comment, but Eddie stopped him with a look, one of those that carried more weight than a thousand words. There was something different in his eyes: a nervous, uncertain gleam, as if he was carrying a secret too big to keep anymore.
"Hey..." he started, wiping his hands with a grimy rag. He paused. Swallowed, and tried again "Got a minute?"
The tone seemed casual on the surface, but Steve knew him too well. He could read that crack in his voice, that thread of anxiety that still lingered even now, months after they had gotten back together.
"Always,"Steve replied without hesitation, dropping into one of the chairs next to the car. The gesture was simple, but it carried everything Eddie needed to hear: no rush, no judgment.
Eddie didn’t sit right away. He walked a little, with short steps, rubbing the rag between his fingers as if he could squeeze the words that wouldn’t come out. He bit his lip, stopped, started again. Finally, he let out a resigned sigh and lowered his gaze.
"There’s something I... should have told you earlier."
Steve raised an eyebrow. Not with pressure, but with patience. He had learned that with Eddie, answers didn’t get yanked out; they opened slowly, like a delicate lock.
Eddie took a deep breath.
"When... when Wayne died," he began, and the first syllable already trembled "I found a notebook. It was his."
Steve felt the air catch in his chest. For a moment, Wayne’s image returned to his mind: large, rough hands, writing on whatever surface he could find, crumpled napkins, makeshift notebooks, even the margins of bills. Always jotting something down, always noting what mattered.
Eddie lowered his gaze even further, as if afraid that looking Steve in the eye would be too much.
"At first, I couldn’t even touch it," he confessed "Just seeing it on the shelf… it was enough to… to feel like it was tearing me in two. But one day... I opened it. And I realized it wasn’t just a bunch of random notes. It was everything he knew about you. About how you race, how you think, how... how you are on the track."
Steve couldn’t stop his breath from becoming ragged. His throat felt dry.
"Did you follow it?" he asked finally, his voice low, almost incredulous.
Eddie nodded, biting the inside of his cheek.
"At first, I thought I was crazy. Like I was holding onto a notebook as if it were the Bible. But then... Hopper looked through it with me. And..." he let out a short laugh, filled with insecurity— "basically, everything we’ve done with you these past months comes from there. From Wayne."
The silence that followed was thick, almost tangible. Steve lowered his head, feeling the tears burn in his eyes, inevitable. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t try to stop them.
"Damn it, Eds..."he murmured, covering his face with one hand, trying to catch his breath.
Eddie froze, eyes wide, terrified that he had done something wrong. He took a step back, but Steve stopped him immediately with a firm gesture, shaking his head.
"No," he said, letting the tears flow "Don’t cry because I’m sad. I’m crying because… because I feel like I have him here again."
Eddie blinked, disbelieving, as if his ears couldn’t quite believe it.
"Really? I thought if I told you, you’d get mad. That you’d think I was trying to... I don’t know, replace him or use his memory or…"
Steve stood up abruptly, closing the distance between them, and placed both hands on his shoulders.
"Listen to me, Munson. No one can replace him. No one. But if there’s anyone in this world he trusted, it was you. He always did. And you know what..." his lips curled into a damp, broken but sincere smile "he was right."
Eddie trembled under his touch. Not like before, with the fragility of someone about to break, but with the weight of years of accumulated fear finally finding an outlet. His loose hair covered part of his face, and Steve, without thinking much, gently pushed it aside, as if that might make Eddie hold his gaze.
"Eddie,"he said, and his voice was the firm ground it had always promised to be "I wouldn’t be here without you. Not without Wayne. But you’re the one who brought me back. You."
The words hung there, louder than any shout.
Eddie closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing, as if he wanted to believe it but the automatic reflex of doubt still held him back. Finally, he opened them, and they showed—bright and wet.
"What if it’s not enough?" he whispered, his voice cracking at the end.
Steve didn’t hesitate for a second.
"It already is. And it always will be."
There was no space to argue. No room for fears. What came after was a different kind of silence, not uncomfortable, but full, as if the walls of the workshop had decided to keep their secret.
A little later, the notebook was open on the table: worn pages, Wayne’s tight handwriting covering every line. Steve ran his fingers over the strokes, as if he could caress Wayne through the paper. Eddie was beside him, his hands restless, fiddling with the edge of a page, too unsure to lift his gaze.
Then Steve spoke, without the need for embellishments.
"I spent half my life believing I had to prove something to my dad. Win for him. Be perfect for him. And when I did it... it was never enough. "He let out a snort, almost amused in its bitterness "I think the only thing he taught me was to be afraid."
Eddie listened without interrupting, without taking his hands off the notebook.
"But not anymore," Steve continued, firm, with that new clarity burning in his chest "I don’t race for him anymore. Or for what he wanted me to be. Now, I race for me. For you. For Wayne. For us."
The word hung in the air: us. And when Eddie heard it, he shuddered. Not as someone who doubts, but as someone receiving something too big to process all at once.
Steve intertwined his fingers with Eddie’s, right there on top of the notebook. And Eddie didn’t let go.
"So..." Eddie murmured, with a shy smile, barely formed "I guess it’s official. The Harrington-Munson partnership."
Steve laughed, with a lump in his throat that was no longer pain, but relief, a future.
"The Harrington-Munson partnership," he repeated, and for the first time, it sounded like a name that could last forever.
The night in Monaco smelled of salty sea air and old gasoline, as if even the air knew that every street in that city was made for racing. The lights multiplied across the water of the harbor, and Steve thought that if this were a movie, everything was set for a grand moment: orchestral music, distant laughter, champagne popping. But the only thing that mattered was sitting across from him, hands hidden beneath his leather jacket, his expression tense as if anything could break him.
Eddie didn’t want to be there, that much was clear. The candlelit dinner, the white tablecloths, the French conversations swirling around: it all put him on edge. He had swallowed hard too many times, barely touched his water, and kept his eyes fixed on the empty plate in front of him, as if waiting for the food made him more uncomfortable than receiving it.
Steve knew him too well. He knew it wasn’t arrogance or disdain: it was fear. The anxiety clutched his stomach until it made him nauseous, froze his hands, and turned him into a shadow of himself. Steve had seen it many times before, and even though things had gotten better in the last few months, Monaco’s closeness had dragged him back into that state.
Steve, on the other hand, was calm. Not because he didn’t feel the pressure; the race mattered, of course, but he had found something more important than any track. Eddie was on the verge of breaking in front of him, and Steve wasn’t about to leave him alone.
He extended his hand, and with a steady movement, he covered Eddie’s cold fingers that were drumming on the tablecloth.
"Hey," he said softly, almost a whisper. "Breathe."
Eddie looked up abruptly, like an animal caught in a trap.
"I am breathing."
"Not enough." Steve tightened his grip gently, not giving Eddie a chance to pull away. "You’re here with me. Only with me."
The tension in Eddie’s shoulders loosened a little. His lips pressed together, as if he wanted to argue, but in the end, he lowered his gaze again.
"I don’t know how you can be so calm," he murmured.
Steve gave him a sideways smile.
"Because I have what I need." He looked him straight in the eye, firm. "And it’s you."
Eddie flushed like always, that mix of discomfort and tenderness that made him look away and pretend the menu was the most interesting thing in the world. Steve gave him space for a moment, but kept his hand under his, a constant reminder that he wasn’t alone.
The food came, too fancy for their tastes. Steve took the first bite and realized it wasn’t bad, but Eddie watched him with suspicion, as if the lobster might leap off the plate at him.
"If I try to eat this, I’ll choke and die. And you’ll have to explain to the press that your strategist was poisoned by French butter," Eddie said quietly.
Steve chuckled softly. That spark of humor was a good sign: it meant at least he was starting to climb out of the hole.
"The press already hates us enough. Better not give them material."
Eddie wrinkled his nose and pushed the plate aside.
"I’d sell my soul for a burger right now."
Steve looked at him with understanding.
"Who needs souls when there are greasy fries?"
Eddie looked at him as if he’d just said something obscene in the middle of dinner. Then he let out a nervous laugh that made several tables turn their heads. He shrugged, red to his ears, but genuinely smiling.
"You hate me," he said, surrendering.
"No," Steve responded, leaning a little closer over the table. "I love you."
The silence that followed was thick. Eddie held his gaze for barely a couple of seconds before looking away, his breath quickening. Steve settled back into his chair, satisfied: he didn’t need a response, just for Eddie to feel it.
He paid the bill before Eddie could protest and guided him out. Eddie walked stiffly, as if the fancy suit weighed more than any armor. Steve led him through the lit streets, between tourists laughing and photographers looking for familiar faces. Eddie chewed on his lip, glancing around.
"What if someone recognizes us?" he asked finally, his voice low, dragging centuries of fear with it.
Steve didn’t let go of his hand.
"Then they recognize us." He looked at him, sure, without hesitation. "I’m not hiding anymore."
Eddie swallowed, uncomfortable, but didn’t pull away.
They walked to the harbor, where the noise faded a bit. The water reflected the lights in trembling flashes. Steve leaned against the railing and took a deep breath. He felt the warm air on his skin, but more than anything, he felt Eddie, right next to him, too close and too far at the same time.
"You know what I think?" Steve said, without taking his eyes off the sea.
"That we should’ve just ordered pizza in the hotel."
Steve laughed, leaning in to brush his shoulder against Eddie’s.
"I think I used to think Monaco was the peak. The most important race. And now I’m here, and... none of it matters. Just you."
Eddie looked at him, his eyes wide.
"Don’t say that. Not here."
"Why not?" Steve turned completely, resting his forehead against Eddie’s. "It’s the truth."
Eddie was breathing fast, tense. His hands gripped the railing, like he needed something to hold on to. Steve gently grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him.
It was a firm, decided kiss, nothing hidden. Eddie stayed rigid at first, aware of the people around them, but in an instant, he melted. His trembling hand rested on Steve’s chest, searching for an anchor, and Steve gave it to him: solid, constant.
When they pulled apart, Eddie’s eyes were bright.
"You’re an idiot," he said, his voice rough.
"I’m your idiot." Steve smiled, brushing his lips against his again with a quick kiss, barely a touch, as if he wanted to get him used to it, little by little.
Eddie sighed, defeated.
The walk back was different. They didn’t walk like two shadows trying to avoid attention: Eddie still tensed up at times, but his steps were more sure, closer to Steve’s. Halfway there, Steve leaned in and kissed him again, out of nowhere, in the middle of the brightly lit street. Eddie blushed and huffed, but didn’t pull away.
"You’re enjoying this way too much," he said, with a nervous half-smile.
"Of course. I’m with the most handsome guy in Monaco."
Eddie snorted, hiding his blush.
"That’s a lie and you know it."
"I know. But only for you." Steve looked at him so seriously that Eddie nearly tripped.
When they passed a street vendor that smelled of toasted bread and meat, Eddie stopped. The mischievous look appeared, timid but real.
"Burger?"
Steve smiled.
"Burger."
They ordered two, with extra fries, and sat on a bench looking at the sea. The grease dripped through the paper, and Eddie bit into his like it was the best delicacy in the world.
"This is Monaco," he declared, his mouth full, genuinely smiling.
Steve watched him, fascinated. There was something about seeing Eddie eat a greasy burger in the middle of the most luxurious city in the world that summed up everything he loved about him: real, imperfect, human.
He leaned in without warning and kissed him again, this time with the taste of bread, meat, and salt. Eddie moaned in surprise against his lips, almost dropping the burger, and Steve laughed into the kiss.
"You’re crazy," Eddie muttered, barely catching his breath.
"For you."
Eddie weakly shoved him in the shoulder, but didn’t pull away. He stayed close, with the burger forgotten in his hands, breathing against Steve’s neck.
Steve hugged him, resting his chin on his curly hair. He felt the slight tremor, that anxiety that never quite disappeared. But he also felt the trust, the fact that Eddie wasn’t running away but staying. And for Steve, that was everything.
When they finished, they walked back to the hotel. Eddie was exhausted, but something in his shoulders was different: less weight, less fear. He let Steve guide him to the room, and before entering, he looked at him with a strange gleam in his eyes.
"Thank you," he said, whispering.
Steve kissed him one last time, slowly, as if sealing the moment.
"Always."
The hotel suite in Monaco looked nothing like the places Steve had slept in the last years of racing. It was too luxurious, too bright, with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling as if someone wanted to show off wealth more than illuminate. Steve noticed it when they walked in, but what really mattered was Eddie: his reflection in the hallway mirror, the tense set of his shoulders, the way he swallowed hard as if still carrying the weight of all those nerves in his throat.
Dinner had been good, Eddie’s laughter had appeared several times — that laughter that always made Steve feel at home — but the anxiety was still there, lurking in the corners of his expression. Steve knew him too well to fool himself.
He closed the door behind him and left the keys on the table. Eddie was still standing in the middle of the room, hands in the pockets of his jacket, as if he didn’t know where to put himself.
"It’s too big, isn’t it?" Eddie said, trying to sound carefree.
Steve approached slowly, resting his hands on his shoulders.
"We could sleep in a tent and it would still be too big," he replied with
a smirk.
Eddie’s lips twitched into a small smile, but there was something about him that made it clear: he wasn’t done with whatever fear or thought was running through his mind. Steve didn’t push him, didn’t rush him.
"You can be whoever you want here," Steve said finally, his voice low, serious. "No one’s watching. No one’s judging."
Eddie let out a heavy sigh, turning his head as if looking for something to focus on.
"I don’t know if I know how to be someone who doesn’t..." He trailed off, not finishing the sentence, but the weight of his unspoken words was enough. It was always the same: the fear of being exposed, of being known too well.
Steve took a step closer, wrapping his arms around him, pulling Eddie in without hesitation.
"You’re not alone," he whispered into his ear.
Eddie’s hands curled into Steve’s shirt, clinging for a moment as if letting go meant losing everything. Steve kissed him lightly on the temple, soothing him with the softness of the gesture.
"Not now," Steve promised. "Not ever again."
And for the first time in a long time, Eddie allowed himself to breathe, to release the fear that had clung to him for so long. Because in that room, in that quiet moment, there was only them.
Steve opened his eyes to the sun filtering through the thick curtains. Eddie was still asleep, his slow breath against Steve's neck, his messy hair spread across his shoulder. He watched him for a few seconds, motionless, savoring the simple reality of having him there, so close. It was a luxury he didn't intend to take for granted ever again.
He woke him gently, stroking his back. Eddie stirred, murmured something unintelligible, and ended up burying his face against Steve's chest. Steve chuckled quietly.
"Come on, Munson. Breakfast with the team starts in twenty minutes. If we’re late, Hopper’s gonna give me that ‘shared responsibility’ speech."
Eddie grunted.
"Tell him it was my fault."
"I will, but he won’t believe me."
Finally, after lazy kisses and a slow drag out of the sheets, they managed to get dressed. Eddie still seemed somewhat reluctant, but there was a different spark in his eyes, as if the rest and the night before had loosened that shell of nerves just a little.
The hotel dining room was filled with the morning buzz: coffee cups, fruit plates, the murmur of guests. The team had already claimed a long table in the corner, with Argyle waving his hand as if they were newly arrived celebrities.
"The lovebirds!" he exclaimed, loud enough for half the room to look their way.
Steve rolled his eyes, but Eddie immediately shrank into himself, his ears turning red. Steve placed a hand on his back, guiding him toward the table casually.
"Relax," he whispered. "If anyone asks, we’ll just say he’s talking about me and Hopper."
Eddie huffed, but he relaxed enough to sit down. Hopper, with his black coffee in hand, barely raised an eyebrow.
"You’re late."
"I know," Steve replied, unruffled as he poured himself coffee. "And I’ll take full responsibility."
Argyle jumped in before Hopper could respond: "Let them be, boss, they were probably just… uh, meditating. You know, deep breathing, visualizing victory, all that stuff."
The laughter around the table made Eddie want to sink into the floor, but Steve passed him a slice of bread and gave him a knowing wink. The gesture worked: Eddie took the bread, avoided the looks, and at least started eating.
The conversation at the table swirled between strategies for Monaco, stories from the Le Mans race, and inside jokes only they understood. Steve kept glancing at Eddie from the corner of his eye: initially silent, but little by little, Eddie added a shy comment here and there, finally smiling genuinely when Argyle started mimicking a track marshal with an exaggerated accent.
Hopper, from the other end of the table, observed everything in silence. When the laughter died down, he spoke in his deep voice:
"This team has been through a lot in a short time. And we’re about to face one of the most demanding races on the calendar. But…" He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "Seeing you like this, together, is the best sign we could have."
Eddie lowered his head, uncomfortable with the weight of the attention. Steve squeezed his knee under the table, firm, reassuring.
"You’re right," Steve said, looking at Hopper and then the rest of the team. "Le Mans wasn’t a fluke. It was the result of us working as one unit. And what’s coming in Monaco… we’ll do it the same way."
A murmur of approval ran around the table. Eddie swallowed, and although he didn’t lift his gaze, Steve could feel the tremor in his breath as he calmed down little by little.
That was the difference: before, Eddie would have felt alone in a crowd. Now, even though he still battled with nerves, he wasn’t alone.
When they finished, Argyle insisted that everyone take a photo in front of the window overlooking the harbor, with the yachts shining in the sun. Steve tugged Eddie along, who made a protesting face but went along with it. In the photo, Argyle gave a thumbs-up, Hopper stayed serious as always, and Steve wrapped his arm around Eddie, who, although shy, offered a small but genuine smile.
In that frozen moment, Steve knew that this was what mattered: not the camera flashes or the newspaper headlines, but those moments when the team, his team, was whole.
The briefing room was lit by the harsh light of the projectors, circuit maps projected onto the wall, and screens filled with data: track temperatures, weather forecasts, strategy simulations. Steve sat in his usual spot, arms crossed with his helmet beside him, as if it were a natural extension of his body.
Eddie was in front of the screen, gripping the remote control with white knuckles. His voice trembled slightly as he began, but he cleared his throat and continued, pointing with the obsessive precision he was known for.
"Sector one is where we need to be patient. The car is responding well in the slow corners, but here..." He paused, pointing at a red spot on the screen. "Here, we're going to lose if we don’t keep the line clean. We can’t afford the slightest brush with the walls."
Steve watched him more than the screen. There was tension in Eddie’s posture, yes, but also a new conviction: Eddie was speaking with fear, but he was speaking. The Eddie
Steve had known months ago, withdrawn and apathetic, wouldn’t even have been able to step into that room.
Hopper took the floor next.
"The forecast is for light drizzle in the second half. It could change everything. We have two plans: a conservative one with safe pit stops and a more aggressive one if Steve feels comfortable on a wet track."
"I feel comfortable," Steve interrupted, without hesitation. "If the rain comes, I’ll stay out."
Hopper looked at him with an approving glint, but Eddie pressed his lips together.
"That depends on the exact conditions," he replied. "If the track is too wet, staying out could cost us everything."
"Don’t you trust me?" Steve asked softly, almost teasing.
Eddie lowered his gaze to the papers in his hands.
"I trust you," he said quietly. "I just… don’t want to lose you over a miscalculation."
The silence that followed felt more intimate than technical. Steve stretched out his hand under the table, brushing his fingers against Eddie’s. Just enough for Eddie to take a deep breath and refocus on the screen.
"Alright," Eddie continued, recovering his thread. "We’ll adjust in the moment based on tire wear. But whatever happens, remember: the key in Monaco isn’t to be the fastest, it’s to not make mistakes."
The meeting continued with exchanges of numbers, comments from Argyle lightening the tension—"Bro, if the track gets wet, I’ll bring the surfboard"—and Hopper’s unshakable calm balancing it all.
When it ended, the team scattered toward the garage. The roar of engines filled the air, the smell of gasoline and fresh rubber permeated every corner. Steve inhaled deeply: this environment was home to him.
Eddie walked beside him, a folder pressed to his chest and his brow furrowed.
"You’re too calm," he murmured.
"Is that bad?"
"It’s... strange. Before a race, you always looked like you were about to break."
Steve smiled.
"Maybe because now I have something more solid to prove. And someone waiting for me outside the track."
Eddie flushed, looking away. But Steve noticed how his stride synced with his own, how that confession loosened him just a little.
The garage was alive with noise and movement. Mechanics rushed from side to side, Hopper went over data on his tablet, and the scent of fresh rubber mixed with gasoline made the whole place feel like a ritual Steve knew by heart.
But his attention wasn’t on the perfect machine waiting for him; it was on Eddie.
Eddie wore a black suit with red details, perfectly fitted to his body, but there was something that made Steve stop dead in his tracks: on his chest, embroidered in white thread, was his own last name: Harrington.
Steve grinned sideways, unable to resist.
"You know this is totally unfair, right?" he said, stepping closer and leaning in just enough for his voice to graze Eddie’s ear. "You put your name over your heart and expect me to focus on racing."
Eddie turned bright red, looking down at his boots as if he could hide.
"It was… practical," he stammered. "Hopper said it’d make it clear that I’m part of your team, that there’s no doubt I… that I’m with you."
Steve let out a low, genuine laugh.
"Part of my team? Eddie, with that on, you look more like my promise than my strategist."
Eddie shot him a nervous glare, but Steve was too delighted by the image in front of him. And before Eddie could pull away, Steve cupped his face in both hands, leaning in to kiss him. It wasn’t a quick or hidden kiss: it was firm, bold, a "I’m here" in front of everyone.
The murmurs in the garage were immediate. A couple of mechanics whistled softly, Argyle clapped enthusiastically, and Hopper barely shook his head, though the shadow of a smile escaped him.
Eddie, as red as fire, stood frozen, his hands awkwardly at his sides. When Steve pulled away, he still had that cocky smile on his lips.
"After this, Munson…" he said, helmet under his arm and eyes gleaming, "I’m going to marry you. I’ve got more than one reason to win and get out of this one in one piece today."
Eddie’s eyes went wide, his breath catching.
"Steve…"
"Don’t say anything," Steve winked, already putting on his helmet. "Just make sure you’re in the pit when I go out to claim that victory."
The car’s engine roared, vibrating through the ground. Steve felt his pulse quicken, but not from the race—more from the image of Eddie in that suit with his name on it, that look of utter disbelief.
Yes. Now, he had everything he needed to fly. The roar of the engines in Monaco wasn’t just any sound; it was a hymn.
The vibration rose through the stands, echoed on the asphalt, and mixed with the smell of the sea and fuel. Steve felt his whole body align with that wild beat.
In front of him, the starting straight, the most iconic circuit in the world.
But it wasn’t the roar that kept him calm.
It was knowing that, just a few meters behind, in the pit, Eddie was standing there in that damn black suit embroidered with Harrington.
The memory of the public kiss was still fresh; he could still feel the texture of Eddie’s skin under his hands, the tremor in his lips when he whispered that promise. Steve didn’t regret doing it in front of the whole team, in front of anyone who cared to look.
It wasn’t about hiding anymore.
It wasn’t about pleasing anyone but himself… and Eddie.
The flag waved.
The red lights blinked.
The world shrank down to just that straightaway.
"Five… four… three… two… one..." Eddie’s voice, trembling and firm at the same time, came through his earpiece.
Green light.
The car roared forward like a freed animal, and Steve felt the force push him against the seat. The starting straight became a tunnel of wind and roars, and suddenly, he was entering Sainte Dévote, the first tight corner, dodging rivals with surgical precision.
The Monaco circuit didn’t forgive.
Narrow streets, impossible corners, walls that seemed to breathe just an inch away.
But Steve smiled inside his helmet.
It was perfect.
—You’re in fifth place, keep the pace —Hopper’s voice came through the radio.
But behind that cold instruction, Steve heard what he really needed: the nervous silence from Eddie on the line, as if he were holding his breath.
On lap five, Steve allowed himself to speak.
—Munson. You there?
There was a microsecond of hesitation, as if Eddie didn’t want to interrupt his concentration.
—Yeah. I’m always here.
Steve gripped the wheel, a cocky smile forming under his helmet.
—Good. Don’t lose sight of me.
The next few minutes were pure dance: turning the wheel into Loews, the slowest corner on the circuit, brushing the wall in the chicane by the harbor, accelerating with the sea shining to the right. Every move was exact, drilled into him until exhaustion, but now it felt different. Lighter.
He wasn’t racing to survive.
He was racing to live.
Lap fifteen, the first real threat.
A rival tried to close him in as they exited the tunnel. The space was minimal; one mistake, and they’d both crash into the barriers.
Steve took a deep breath, remembered Eddie’s hand on his helmet hours earlier, and at the last second, he turned just enough to pass through the impossible gap. The roar of the crowd was a distant echo: what mattered was that he’d made it.
—That was crazy! —Argyle’s voice exploded on the radio, followed by nervous laughter—. Dude, you almost killed me with that move.
Eddie, on the other hand, didn’t laugh.
—Don’t do that again. —His voice was fragile, vulnerable, as if his heart had stopped—. Please, Steve.
The driver swallowed hard, feeling the weight of those words.
—I promised, remember? I’ll come out of this unscathed. Trust me.
There was silence on the channel, and then a barely audible murmur:
—I trust you.
The race went on.
The tension grew.
A dark cloud began to cover the sky, and the light drizzle turned the asphalt into glass. The engineers were discussing in the pit: switch to intermediates or risk a few more laps.
—Steve, box next lap —Hopper ordered.
—Negative —Steve replied calmly.
There was stunned silence.
—You’re crazy, it’s pouring! —Hopper shouted.
But then Eddie spoke, uncertain, his voice cracked and timid:
—He… he can handle it. He’s always been better in the wet than anyone else.
Steve smiled.
—Thanks, Munson. That’s what I needed to hear.
And he pressed on.
In every corner, the car seemed to slide, but Steve kept it under control with an instinctive precision. The water splashed, reduced visibility, but his hands stayed firm. And every time he doubted, he thought of the black suit with Harrington embroidered on it, waiting for him in the pit.
Lap fifty. Final laps.
Steve was in second place, glued to the leader’s rear wing. The podium was secured, but it wasn’t enough. Not after the promise. Not after Le Mans. Not after declaring in front of everyone that he would marry Eddie.
On the final straight before the finish line, he found the gap.
A millimeter. An instant.
He floored the accelerator, the car roared, and the finish line appeared in an instant.
The roar of the crowd exploded as he crossed first.
Steve barely heard anything.
Sweat was dripping down his forehead, the adrenaline made him tremble, but all he wanted was to get out of the car. He jumped out of the seat, ripped off his helmet, and without waiting for protocol, he ran straight to the pit.
Eddie was there, eyes red from holding his breath, his body stiff.
Steve didn’t stop. He grabbed him by the waist, lifted him off the ground, and kissed him with a passion that made the entire grandstand erupt in cheers. Eddie clung to him awkwardly, as if he still didn’t understand what was happening, until Steve forced him to look at him.
—See it? —he gasped, forehead pressed against his—. Safe, unscathed… and a winner.
Eddie trembled, smiling through tears.
—Idiot…
Steve kissed him again, not caring about anything else.
—Marry me, Munson. Today. Tomorrow. Whenever you want. But I’m not waiting anymore.
And for the first time in a long time, Eddie didn’t hesitate.
—Yes.
The podium came next, the cameras, the flashes, the bottle of champagne. But for Steve, none of that mattered.
His victory wasn’t in the silver cup in his hands.
It was in the man in black, with Harrington embroidered on his chest, waiting for him at the foot of the stage with a shy smile and the brightest eyes Steve had ever seen.
Fin de la historia - The end of the story - La fin de l'histoire - Das Ende der Geschichte - La fine della storia - Fim da história - Tarina loppu