Chapter Text
The drive back to the shop happened in absolute silence, but it wasn’t the comfortable kind of silence from motorcycle rides or vinyl listening nights. It was thick, heavy, charged with adrenaline slowly fading and giving way to an uncomfortable exhaustion.
Nico didn’t let go of Gabriel’s hand on the gear shift for a single second. He drove with one hand, fingers tightly intertwined with the boy’s, gripping so hard his knuckles had gone white. It was like he needed that constant physical contact to make sure Gabriel was still there, whole, alive, beside him.
When the iron gate closed behind them, cutting them off from the outside world — the club, Felipe, the colored lights — Gabriel let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.
They got out of the car. The workshop was dark, smelling of oil and dust, the safest smell in the world. Nico didn’t say a word. He just guided Gabriel by the waist, leading him into the house and locking the door behind them with two turns of the key, a final, decisive gesture.
"Shower," Nico murmured, the first word he’d spoken in thirty minutes. "Now."
They went to the bathroom. The yellow light revealed the state they were both in. Gabriel’s blue shirt had a bloodstain on the sleeve, and Nico’s shirt was wrinkled and stretched. But it was Nico’s hands that held Gabriel’s attention, the knuckles were scraped raw, skin split from hitting Drugovich’s teeth, dried blood darkening his skin.
Nico turned on the shower, letting the steam fog up the chipped mirror. Without ceremony, he started undressing Gabriel. There was nothing sexual about it, just an urgent need to cleanse. He unbuttoned the dirty shirt and tossed it into the corner with disgust, like the fabric itself was contaminated. Pants, shoes, socks followed.
When Gabriel stood there naked, lightly trembling from the cold and the leftover shock, Nico stripped quickly too. They stepped into the shower. The hot water hit Nico’s back first, and he pulled Gabriel under the stream, wrapping his arms around him.
Gabriel rested his forehead against Nico’s wet chest, eyes closed as the hot water ran through his hair, washing away the club’s cigarette smell and the memory of someone else’s hands.
Nico grabbed the soap. With slow, methodical movements, he lathered Gabriel’s shoulders, down his arms, scrubbing firmly but carefully. He looked like he was trying to erase every trace, every touch that hadn’t been his.
"He’s never getting near you again," Nico said quietly, his voice competing with the sound of the water. He scrubbed Gabriel’s neck, washing the spot where Felipe had tried to grab him. "I’ll kill him before that."
Gabriel lifted his face, water dripping from his lashes. He took Nico’s hands — those injured hands — and brought them to his lips, kissing the broken skin over the knuckles, ignoring the metallic taste that might still linger.
"Thanks..." Gabriel whispered against the wounded skin. "Thank you for always helping me."
Nico didn’t answer, but the tension in his shoulders eased. He rested his forehead against Gabriel’s, eyes closed, letting the water wash the blood from his hands and the fury from his soul. They stayed there for a long time, just breathing the same steam.
When they stepped out and dried off, the cold air made Gabriel shiver. Nico reacted immediately. He went to the drawer and pulled out one of his black shirt, the same soft, worn one Gabriel loved.
"Put it on," Nico said gently, pulling it over Gabriel’s head.
The fabric slid down, swallowing Gabriel’s slim body, hitting mid thigh. The scent of fabric softener and Nico wrapped around him like a shield. Better than any armor. He felt protected, and endlessly grateful.
Nico put on only a pair of sweatpants and turned off the light, leaving just the moonlight spilling through the gap in the curtain.
They lay down. The bed creaked under their combined weight, a familiar, comforting sound. Gabriel immediately curled into Nico, fitting his head into the curve of his neck, draping a leg over Nico’s thighs, searching for as much contact as possible.
Nico wrapped an arm around him, pulling him so close not even air could pass between them. He began stroking Gabriel’s back in a slow, rhythmic motion, hand moving up and down over the fabric of the shirt.
"Sleep, kid," Nico whispered in the dark. "It’s over. You’re home."
The emotional exhaustion won over any insomnia. Safe in Nico’s arms, listening to his heartbeat pounding in his ear, Gabriel’s eyelids grew heavy. The fear from the club felt distant now, like something from another life. Here, nothing could touch him. Within minutes, his breathing turned deep and steady, his body fully relaxing against Nico’s.
Nico stayed awake.
He listened to the soft sound of air moving in and out of Gabriel’s lungs. He felt the warm weight of the boy on top of him, the trusting fragility of a body that, just hours earlier, had been under threat.
Nico looked at Gabriel’s sleeping face in the dim light. Long lashes resting on his cheeks, lips slightly parted, an expression of absolute peace. He looked like an angel who’d fallen into the wrong place, and somehow, by some stupid miracle, had chosen to land right in the devil’s lap.
Nico brought his injured hand to Gabriel’s face, tracing the line of his jaw with his thumb, with a reverence he would never show in daylight.
"You’re a problem, Bortoleto," Nico whispered to the empty room, so quietly it was almost a thought. "A hell of a problem."
He brushed his nose into Gabriel’s soft hair, breathing in the clean scent now mixed with his own.
Nico closed his eyes, feeling a tightness in his chest he recognized, but had been fighting for weeks. It wasn’t just desire. It wasn’t just protection. It was something with roots, growing through the hard concrete of his life like a stubborn, beautiful weed.
"My God, Gabriel…" Nico continued his silent confession, lips brushing the younger boy’s forehead. "You broke me. I thought my walls were high, kid. But you didn’t even have to climb them. You just… walked right in."
He tightened his hold, overwhelmed by the need to keep him there, in that bed, far away from Felipes, investors, international flights, and glass boxes.
"I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you," Nico admitted, his voice cracking under the weight of the truth. "I’m old, I’m messed up, I’m full of flaws. But… God help me, I can’t let you go. You’re mine. The same way I’m yours. And that scares the shit out of me."
Gabriel stirred in his sleep, mumbling something unintelligible and gripping Nico’s shirt in his fist. Nico smiled sadly in the dark, kissing the boy’s hand.
"Sleep, baby," he whispered, sealing the promise in the darkness. "As long as I’m breathing, nothing will ever hurt you."
Gabriel woke up slowly, wrapped in that delicious laziness of someone whose body had been worn out in the best possible way. He stretched his arm, feeling around the bed for Nico’s warmth, but found only cold, wrinkled sheets.
He opened his eyes, blinking against the light slipping through the gaps in the curtain. The spot beside him was empty, but on the bidet — or what Nico used as a bidet, which was really just a sanded wooden crate — there was a torn piece of paper from a spiral notebook.
Gabriel picked it up, smiling when he recognized the handwriting. It was awful. Rushed scribbles, uppercase mixed with lowercase, slanted to the right like the pen was trying to escape the paper.
"Went to the market to buy bacon and coffee grounds. The fridge is empty. Be right back, princess. – N"
Gabriel chuckled softly, kissing the note before putting it back. Princess. Even in writing, Nico was an adorable idiot.
He stretched again, feeling a lingering soreness in his hips that made him bite his lip, remembering Nico’s hands holding him down against the mattress. He felt… complete. Safe. For the first time, there was no rush, no fear of the future, no shadow hanging over him.
He got up and walked barefoot toward the kitchen, thinking about what to do while he waited.
That was when he heard it.
It wasn’t the sound of Nico’s car engine. It was a hard, insistent—almost violent—knock on the front door, the one that led straight to the yard, not the workshop.
Gabriel stopped in the hallway, frowning.
"Nico?" he called, confused. Maybe he’d forgotten his keys.
But before Gabriel could take another step, the door burst open. Apparently it hadn’t been locked, or whoever came in had a key.
"Nicolas! I know you’re here! Kevin told me!"
The voice was female. Sharp, irritated, and loaded with a familiarity that made Gabriel’s stomach instantly knot.
Gabriel froze in the middle of the living room. The morning sunlight lit up the dust dancing in the air, creating an almost theatrical backdrop for the woman who had just stormed into the house like a hurricane.
She was tall, beautiful in a severe way. Brown hair pulled back into a practical ponytail, wearing jeans and a thick knit sweater. A large bag hung from one shoulder, and in her other hand she dragged a small pink rolling suitcase.
She stopped in the middle of the room, scanning the place impatiently until her brown eyes landed on Gabriel.
The silence that followed was deafening.
She looked him up and down. Bare feet. Bed messy hair. The oversized black shirt that clearly belonged to Nico, and the smell clinging to him. Her expression shifted from anger to disdain.
"Oh…" she said, dripping with sarcasm. "Great. Of course. Why am I not surprised?"
Gabriel opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He felt exposed, an intruder inside his own bubble of happiness.
"Who… who are you?" he managed, his voice cracking.
"The better question is who are you, kid," she shot back, tossing her bag onto Nico’s couch with a possessive familiarity. "But honestly? I don’t care. Where’s Nico?"
"He… he went to the market," Gabriel answered automatically, taking a step back.
She scoffed, rolling her eyes and rubbing her forehead, exhausted.
"The market. Typical. He’s never where he should be when I need him."
That was when Gabriel noticed movement behind her legs. Something small, hidden by the rolling suitcase.
"Come on, sweetheart. Daddy’s not here, but we’ll wait," the woman said, her tone softening as she gently pulled someone forward by the hand.
A little girl stepped out from behind her mother.
Gabriel’s world stopped. The floor beneath his feet seemed to vanish, dropping him into a bottomless void.
She couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. She wore a blue dress and held a worn teddy bear by the ear. Her hair was a messy, fine golden blond, exactly like Nico’s when he woke up.
But it was her eyes that knocked the air from Gabriel’s lungs. They were blue. That same electric, intense, unmistakable blue. The shape of her face, the little upturned nose, even the way she frowned at Gabriel suspiciously, it was a perfect copy. A miniature Nico Hülkenberg.
There was no doubt. No need for proof. Biology screamed inside that room.
"Mommy… where’s daddy?" the girl asked, her tiny voice wrapped in a childish accent.
The woman sighed, crouching to fix her daughter’s dress.
"He’ll be right back, honey. He went to buy food. Go sit on the couch and play with your bear, okay?"
She stood up and looked at Gabriel again, impatience cutting sharp.
"You still here? Look, I don’t know your name or how long you’ve been sleeping with my ex-husband, but I don’t have time for this. I have a job interview in another city on Monday, and Nicolas knew this was his weekend with Noemi."
Ex-husband. His weekend. Noemi.
The words hit Gabriel like stones, each one opening a new hole in his chest.
Nico had an ex-wife. Nico had a daughter. And Gabriel — the boy who thought he was living something intense and honest, the boy who thought Nico saw him like no one else ever had — had no idea.
He looked at the girl, Noemi, who was now trying to climb onto the couch where he and Nico had started everything. She had the same eyes that had looked at him with devotion and protection the night before.
A violent nausea rose in Gabriel’s throat. He felt dirty. Stupid. A spoiled little playboy playing house without realizing the house was already occupied.
"He never told me," Gabriel whispered, his voice breaking as shock turned into a sharp, icy pain.
The woman paused, looking at him with a trace of cruel pity.
"Oh, he didn’t?" She let out a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah, Nico’s great at leaving out the inconvenient parts of his life. He prefers playing the lonely, mysterious mechanic. It’s more charming, right? I thought so too."
She crossed her arms, shifting her weight onto one leg.
"Well, now you know. This is Noemi. The 'complicated part' he forgot to mention."
Gabriel looked toward the kitchen door, hoping Nico would walk in laughing, saying it was all a mistake, that the child was his niece, anything. But he looked at Noemi again. The resemblance was a verdict.
He was wearing the shirt of a man he didn’t know. The sound of tires on gravel outside announced the car’s arrival.
"Oh, finally," the woman said, turning toward the door.
Gabriel’s heart pounded so hard it hurt, like it might tear him apart. He took another step back, his shoulders hitting the hallway wall, wanting to disappear, wanting to go back in time, wanting to never have stepped foot in that workshop.
The door opened.
"I forgot my keys, can you believe it? Had to jump the damn gate—" Nico walked in carrying two paper bags, smiling.
The smile died instantly. His ex-wife standing in the middle of the room, hand on her hip. Little Noemi sitting on the couch with her bear. And Gabriel, pale as a ghost, pressed against the wall, eyes full of tears and devastation.
The bags slipped from Nico’s hands and hit the floor. A glass jar of olives shattered, the sound of breaking glass echoing through the deadly silence.
"Gabriel…" Nico whispered, real panic flashing in his eyes for the first time.
But Gabriel couldn’t hear him. The ringing in his ears was too loud. The castle had collapsed.
The sharp smell of vinegar and olives filled the air, mixing with the suffocating tension as the liquid spread across the wooden floor, soaking Nico’s boots.
No one moved. It was a frozen frame of a disaster long overdue.
Nico was pale. All color had drained from his face, leaving only wide blue eyes locked on Gabriel. There was panic, yes, but something worse too. Guilt. Heavy, old guilt. The kind that knew this moment would come and cowardly prayed the universe would delay it forever.
"Daddy!" Noemi’s happy shout shattered the spell.
She dropped the teddy bear and ran toward Nico on her short legs, ignoring the glass, ignoring the tension, seeing only the hero who had come home.
Nico reacted on instinct. He stepped forward, intercepting her before she could step on the glass, and scooped her up. The movement was natural, practiced. She wrapped her arms around his neck immediately, burying her face into the curve of his shoulder.
The sight was the final blow.
Seeing Nico hold that child — his child — so easily, seeing how they fit together, how they were made of the same substance… it destroyed Gabriel from the inside. The nausea surged again, bile burning his throat.
"Nico, for God’s sake, watch the glass!" the ex-wife snapped, kicking a shard aside with her boot. She glanced at Gabriel with tired disdain. "Are you all gonna keep staring at each other all day, or is someone gonna clean this mess?"
Nico looked split in half. He held his daughter tight against his chest, but his eyes never left Gabriel, silently begging.
"Gabriel…" Nico tried, his voice hoarse. "Wait. Let me—"
"No," Gabriel whispered. The word came out like a painful breath.
He pushed off the wall, his legs shaking so badly he thought he might fall. He needed to get out. Out of that house that hours ago had felt like home, and now felt like a stage where he’d walked into the wrong play.
He looked down at the black shirt he was wearing. Nico’s shirt. The fabric suddenly felt like sandpaper, burning his skin, weighing tons. He felt like a thief. An impostor wearing the wolf’s skin.
"I’m gonna… I’m gonna get my stuff," Gabriel said, his voice breaking, eyes fixed on the floor so he wouldn’t have to look at the girl again. So he wouldn’t have to see Nico’s eyes on someone else’s face.
"Gabriel, don’t do this!" Nico stepped toward him, but Noemi whined in his arms, demanding attention, holding him in place.
Gabriel didn’t wait. He spun on his heels and ran down the hallway, into the bedroom where they had slept, where they had loved each other so many times, where Nico had promised to protect him.
The room still smelled like them. The bed was a mess, tangled sheets bearing witness to a couple’s sleep. Now it all looked obscene. Dirty.
Gabriel yanked the shirt off in frantic motions, nearly ripping the collar. He threw it away like it was on fire. He stood naked in the middle of the room, shaking from cold and shock, tears finally spilling, hot and silent.
He grabbed his clothes — the tailored pants, the blue shirt stained with dried blood from the night before — that lay folded on the chair. Getting dressed was torture. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate. He buttoned the shirt wrong, undid it, buttoned it again, sobbing quietly, an ugly broken sound he tried to swallow.
"Gabriel. Please."
Nico stood in the doorway. He wasn’t holding the child anymore. He was breathing hard, like he’d sprinted the entire hallway.
Gabriel didn’t turn. He shoved the shirt into his pants, grabbing his belt.
"Don’t come near me," Gabriel warned, his voice shaking but edged with pure defense.
"Let me explain," Nico begged, stepping inside and closing the door, muffling the woman’s voice in the living room. "Please, listen to me."
Gabriel turned, eyes red, face wet.
"Explain what, Nico?" Gabriel shouted, the pain in his voice making Nico flinch. "That you have a daughter? That you have an ex-wife who has a key to your house? That you lived an entire life you just forgot to mention while we were happening?"
"I didn’t forget!" Nico snapped, dragging his hands through his hair, desperate. "I didn’t know how to tell you! At first you were just… a kid I helped. And then… then it became this. And every day it got harder to say it, because I knew it would ruin everything. I knew you’d look at me like that!"
"Like what?" Gabriel asked, tears streaming. "Like I don’t know you? Because that’s exactly how I feel. I’m looking at you and I don’t know who you are."
"It’s me, Gabriel. I’m the same guy," Nico tried, reaching out. "Noemi lives in another city with her mom. I barely see her. It’s complicated. My life is a mess— I told you it was a mess!"
"You said it was a mess, not a lie!" Gabriel snapped, backing into the wardrobe. "You lied to me! All these days… every time you said I was the only good thing, that I was yours— you had a daughter, Nico. A daughter!"
The word was heavy. A daughter meant a permanent bond. A love bigger than any summer romance. It meant Gabriel — with his twenty-one years and internship drama — was a footnote in Nico Hülkenberg’s biography.
"She doesn’t change how I feel about you," Nico said firmly, desperation burning in his eyes.
"She changes everything," Gabriel whispered, grabbing his shoes and slipping them on without tying the laces. "She changes who you are. And who I am in this story. I’m the little secret, right? The lover you hid among the grease because I didn’t fit into your dad life."
"No! That’s not true!"
Gabriel grabbed his car keys and phone from the nightstand, right next to the sweet note that now felt like a cruel joke.
"I need to leave," Gabriel said, walking toward the door, dodging Nico like he was contagious.
Nico grabbed his arm. The touch — once electric — made Gabriel flinch.
"Don’t leave like this. Not this way. Look at me… we can fix this. I fix things. You know I do."
Gabriel looked down at Nico’s hand on his arm, then up into the blue eyes he loved so much.
"Some things can’t be fixed, Nico," Gabriel said flatly. "Sometimes the part comes broken."
Nico let go like he’d been slapped. Gabriel opened the door and left.
Crossing the living room was the longest walk of his life. The ex-wife was in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets, complaining about the lack of decent food. Little Noemi sat on the rug, playing with her bear.
As Gabriel passed, the girl looked up. Those identical blue eyes watched him with innocent curiosity.
"Bye-bye," she said, waving her chubby little hand.
It felt like someone drove a knife into Gabriel’s stomach and twisted it. He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He opened the front door and stepped into the morning sun, which felt too bright, too happy for the funeral happening inside him.
He got into the car, hands shaking so badly it took three tries to hit the ignition.
When the engine finally started, he saw Nico standing in the doorway. The mechanic didn’t follow him. He couldn’t. There was a child inside. Nico was trapped in his reality, and Gabriel was being expelled from it like a foreign body.
Gabriel hit the gas, tires screaming against the gravel, and left the workshop without looking back.
As he drove toward the city, tears blurred his vision. He thought of his apartment. For the first time, loneliness didn’t feel like peace. It felt like the only place left for him. He had shattered the glass to reach the real world, and the real world had cut him to pieces.