Chapter Text
The Abu Dhabi lights blared overhead, turning the Yas Marina Circuit into a hyper-saturated stage for the final act of a long, exhausting year. Charles sat in the cockpit, the engine vibrating through his spine, feeling the weight of every lost point and every failed strategy.
When the lights went out, he didn't just start; he launched.
He caught the slipstream of the Mercedes almost immediately. Charles dived into the inside of Turn 9, a move that was perhaps too aggressive for the first few laps, but he didn't care. He squeezed George toward the kerb, claiming the line with a cold, silent finality.
George was defensive, his positioning as precise and rehearsed as one of his PowerPoint presentations, but Charles wasn't in the mood for a chess match. Honestly, George could say whatever he wanted about his overtakes, God knows he had been doing so extensively since Zandvoort, he was through.
But this wasn't about it. What Charles wanted was simply to finish this damn season the best he could. He wanted the points for Ferrari; he wanted some small, tangible piece of hope to offer the fans who had stayed up to watch him fail, time and time again, with the stoic loyalty of a cult. He wanted to give this sport something other than a graceful defeat. He was tired of being the tragic hero in a red car; it was a role that was starting to feel less like a destiny and more like a typecast.
He drove with a frantic, beautiful desperation. He pushed the SF-25 into corners until the tyres screamed, whispering a quiet, pleading “baby, please” to the chassis as he felt the rear end begin to step out. It was a toxic relationship, really. He gave the car his soul, and in return, it gave him inconsistent downforce and a headache.
Then, he saw the papaya rear wing of Lando’s McLaren. Something in Charles twisted.
Charles was a complicated person.
Despite months of being aware that this was, yet again, not their year, Charles hated coming to this last race and watching others fight for a title that always felt just out of his reach... or very far out of his reach, depending on how badly the strategy department had hallucinated that weekend. He was burning with anger because of it.
That is not to say he didn’t enjoy racing; he loved it more than anything in life and didn’t know how or if he would ever give it up. He didn’t love winning more than he loved racing. Or rather, he didn’t hate losing more than he loved the sport itself.
You start racing because it’s fun. Because you grew up in the heart of it, with Papa talking about his time and Jules just starting, already showing the promise of greatness. You meet hundreds of kids on the grid. But hundreds become tens. The field filters out with brutal efficiency; not everyone has the money, the will, or the raw speed to survive the cut.
The odds of reaching Formula 1 were smaller than winning the lottery, yet Charles looked around the grid today and saw the same faces he’d seen when he was shorter than his mum.
It wasn't just a job; it was a claustrophobic, inescapable extended family. You grew up speaking a language only twenty other people on earth could truly understand. You knew them not just as drivers, but as the awkward teenagers they used to be. George and Alex, who he’d played video games with while their voices cracked. Lance, always floating around with his father’s checkbook but staying because he had just enough talent to justify it. Pierre and Esteban, who went from brothers to strangers before they even hit puberty.
It was a tangled, incestuous web. Everyone knew everyone. Other’s sisters were dated, girlfriends were stolen, tragedies were shared. They had buried Jules. They had buried Anthoine. They were bound together by trauma and adrenaline, a travelling circus that you couldn't leave without losing a giant part of yourself.
It was a brotherhood built on a foundation of mutual resentment and shared grief. And right now, the most annoying branch of the family tree was flapping its wings directly in front of Charles’s nose.
Lando...
Honestly, Lando was annoying in the way only a driver who desperately needs a PR muzzle can be. Charles didn't like to waste his time brooding over the privilege of others, he lived in a tax haven and drove a red supercar, after all, but there was something about the way Lando made light of the sport that rubbed him the wrong way.
Charles always wanted to laugh about the whole “it would be better if it was easier” comment in Texas. The secondhand embarrassment had been a top-tier source of entertainment for weeks. He respected Lando as a dedicated driver, but he wasn't going to sing his praises. If he had to pick a favourite in the papaya spectrum, he’d choose Oscar every time. Oscar was his "child," after all. And Charles appreciated Oscar’s racing style better, and how it didn't come with a side of self-pity.
And then, there was Max. Miraculously, here fighting for fifth title.
Max had always been the outlier. The anomaly. Even at ten years old, he was too quick, too focused, vibrating with an intensity that scared the other kids. And he came with a shadow.
Fathers in karting were always intense. Even the calmest ones, like Hervé, could be crushing. Charles remembered the silent treatment from his father after a bad race — the heavy, suffocating disappointment that hurt more than a shout. But he always knew, deep down, that Hervé was disappointed in the result, not in Charles. He knew he was safe.
Jos was different.
The violence of the Verstappen garage was an open secret that the paddock collectively chose to ignore. The adults averted their eyes; the kids were too young to understand the gravity of what they were seeing. They just knew that when Max lost, you didn't look at him. You didn't talk to him. You let him survive it.
For years, Charles had told himself he hated Max. He told himself Max was arrogant, aggressive, an unpolished brute with an ego problem.
But the older Charles got, the more he realised that was a lie.
He didn't hate Max because they were different. He hated Max because they were exactly the same. With more success.
People loved to talk about Max’s anger issues, about his "Mad Max" persona. But that was only because there were no cameras recording Charles at sixteen, throwing helmets and screaming in blinding rages when he lost. Charles had an ego just as massive, a temper just as volatile. The only difference was that Ferrari and the FDA had taken Charles and polished him. They had media-trained the rage out of him, taught him to smile through the disappointment, and conditioned him to be the charming Prince of Maranello.
Max had never been polished. Jos had taken that same fire and poured gasoline on it.
They weren't opposites attracting. They were the same creature, raised in different cages. They shared the same desperate, sick need to win, the same inability to accept second place, the same life-consuming obsession that ruined everything else around them.
Charles looked at the Norris’s rear wing. The gap was closing. ando was managing the pace, probably already mentally rehearsing his "it was a tough race" speech for the cameras. He was looking toward the podium, toward the glory. Charles, meanwhile, was just looking for an end.
They reached the high-speed chicane. It wasn't on purpose, not technically. But it was a move where Charles knew the percentages were low; a slingshot into a curve where the space was already disappearing. He didn't lift. He refused to be the one to back out of the game of chicken they had been playing since they were kids.
He lunged.
The world turned into a sharp, metallic crack. His front wing clipped Lando’s rear tyre; a millisecond of contact that sent physics spiralling out of control. The friction broke, the downforce vanished, and suddenly both cars were spinning in a synchronised, violent dance toward the Tecpro barriers.
The impact was heavy, a bone-shaking jolt that sent carbon fibre raining down like black snow.
Charles sat in the wreckage, the dust settling around the halo. He could see Lando’s car a few metres away, stalled and broken. Usually, there would be a wave of guilt, or a frantic check of the mirrors, or a desperate apology over the radio. But after this hell of a season, after the burials of friends and the suffocating disappointment of being the Prince of a kingdom that wouldn't stop crumbling, he felt nothing.
He looked at the wreckage of Lando’s title hopes and felt a cold, ironic sense of peace. If he couldn't have it, at least he could ensure the person who got it was the one who actually looked like they wanted to burn for it.
He was just numb. He stared at the steering wheel, the lights of Abu Dhabi reflecting off the carbon fibre, and waited for the marshals to arrive.
Charles didn’t wait around the paddock for the post-race debriefs or the celebratory noise of other teams. Instead, he retreated into the dim silence of his motorhome, hiding himself away while he waited for the circuit to empty enough for him to slip out unnoticed.
He sat in the dark, the blue light of his phone reflecting the chaos he had left behind. The reporters were already relentless. Their questions flashed across his screen in headlines: “Did he do it on purpose?” “How does he feel about Max’s recovery this season?” “Was it just another ‘inchident’?”
His move was being inspected under a microscope, every frame of the onboard footage analysed for a twitch of the steering wheel or a late brake application. The truth was that Charles didn't much care. Part of him expected to feel a wave of embarrassment or a flicker of guilt for the collision, but he didn't. He hadn't done it on purpose, and he hadn't done it for Max. He certainly hadn't done it specifically to spite Lando. He had just wanted a damn podium. He had wanted to feel something other than the slow rot of another wasted year.
There was a sharp, rhythmic knock on the door. Charles groaned, the sound vibrating in his chest. He was tired, drained of the energy required to perform for the cameras or appease the FIA. He stood up, his joints stiff, and unlocked the door, bracing himself for a frantic PR manager or a fuming steward.
He didn't expect to see Max.
Max stood there, the adrenaline of the championship win finally beginning to settle into a heavy kind of exhaustion. There was a moment of thick, heavy silence between them. It was the kind of tension that only exists between two people who have spent their entire lives trying to break each other.
Charles didn’t wait for him to speak. Instead, he stepped back, pulling the door wider. "You might as well come in," Charles said, his voice low. "Unless you want to be caught on camera thanking a Ferrari driver for a title."
Max hesitated for a fraction of a second before stepping into the dim, climate-controlled quiet of the motorhome. The door clicked shut, sealing out the distant roar of the post-race fireworks. In the small space, the air felt suddenly thin. Max was still in his race suit, the scent of Nomex, sweat, and champagne clinging to him: a sharp contrast to the sterile, expensive scent of Charles's sanctuary.
"So," Max started, leaning his hip against a small table, his eyes never leaving Charles. "What, no kiss for the champion?"
Charles let out a dry, breathy laugh, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Don't push your luck, Max. I’ve already sacrificed my front wing and my reputation for your comeback. I think that's enough charity for one night."
Max looked at him for a long beat, his eyes searching Charles’s face with that blunt, unsettling honesty. They stood in a silence that wasn't empty; it was heavy with years of shared history, of karting tracks in the rain and the shared weight of being the only two people who truly understood the cliff edge.
There had always been a tension between them, but it was usually sharp and loud. It was the tension of carbon fibre snapping and wheels locking up. This was different. This was quiet and heavy, a strange pull that Charles didn't have a name for yet. It felt odd to share this small room after so much noise. They were supposed to be enemies, but here in the dark, they were just two tired men who knew each other too well.
"Thanks," Max said quietly. "For the help."
Charles felt a sharp flare of irritation come back. He shrugged again, his voice cool. "Don't thank me. It wasn't for you. It would have just been too embarrassing for everyone if Lando won a title before me."
It was a half-truth, but it was a language they both understood. Max didn't smile, but the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease slightly. He knew the bite of that pride; he lived with it every day.
"Fair enough," Max replied. He stepped slightly closer, his tone shifting to something more guarded, almost shy in his curiosity. "So. How is the car looking for next season? Be honest."
It was a question drivers rarely asked across team lines. Technical secrets were the currency of the paddock, guarded more fiercely than personal lives. There was a shift in the air tonight, though. Charles thought about the meetings he had held behind closed doors in Maranello. He had laid down the law; he had told them, in no uncertain terms, that this was their last chance to keep him.
Charles hated to have hope. He really, truly hated to let that spark back into his chest, only for Ferrari to douse it with a botched strategy or a mechanical failure. But the data from the simulator had been undeniable. The wind tunnel results were terrifyingly good.
"The car is fast, Max," Charles said, his voice dropping an octave. "Actually fast."
He hated that he was saying it out loud, as if the words themselves might jinx the machinery. But looking at Max: the outlier, the anomaly, the only person who understood the gravity he was fighting against, he couldn't lie.
"Good," Max said, his competitive edge flickering back to life. "I’m getting bored of the papaya and Mercedes cars. I’d rather it be you."
Charles looked at him and realised Max meant it. They were each other’s favourite rivals because they didn't have to explain themselves to one another. Max didn't want an easy win against someone he didn't respect; he wanted to be pushed to the limit by the only other person who was as crazy as he was. It was a mutual obsession that kept them both sane.
"I’m having a party later with the team," Max said, his voice dropping into a more casual, almost cautious tone. "You’d be the guest of honour.”
Charles scrunched his nose, a flash of genuine distaste crossing his features. The idea of standing in a room full of Red Bull navy blue, listening to victory speeches and thumping bass, made his skin crawl.
Max caught the expression and let out a short, knowing huff. "Yeah, I kind of expected that. Too much blue?"
"Too much everything for me right now," Charles admitted. "I don't think I have the energy to pretend to be happy for you in front of a hundred people."
"You don't have to pretend with me," Max said.
Max pushed off the table, moving into Charles’s space. He didn't stop until he was standing close enough for Charles to feel the heat radiating off him. The air in the room shifted. For a moment, Charles thought Max might actually take that joke from before seriously. He didn't pull away; he couldn't.
Max reached out, his hand hovering near Charles’s shoulder before he leaned in. It wasn't the aggressive, sharp Max the world saw on the track. This was soft, almost tentative. He pressed a kiss to Charles’s cheek. Slow, longing, and dangerously lingering. It was the kind of touch that felt like a promise or a quiet admission of everything they never said.
"See you in Bahrain, Charlie," Max whispered against his skin.
He turned and left before Charles could find his voice. Charles remained standing in the dark, the spot on his cheek burning more than any engine heat ever could. He realised then that his season hadn’t ended with the crash, nor with the wreckage of Lando’s championship hopes. It ended here, in the quiet gravity of a shared understanding.
Charles reached a quiet, cold conclusion: he was finished with graceful defeats. He was done with the PR-friendly version of himself that accepted second-best because it was the polite thing to do. If the wind tunnel data was true, if the SF-26 was finally good, or even simply competitive, he would ensure his talent made the difference.
He didn't want a podium anymore. He wanted to be the one standing where Max had stood tonight, watching the rest of the world burn from the top step.
He touched his cheek, his jaw tightening.
Bahrain, he thought. See you in Bahrain.
VERSTAPPEN: IS CHAR- IS CHARLES CATCHING HIM OR NOT?
GP: FAIRLY EQUAL PACE MAX, BETWEEN THEM. LAST LAP WAS A COUPLE TENTHS QUICKER, BUT NOTHING DRASTIC.
GP: YELLOW FLAG, SECTOR 3. MAX, WE HAVE A COLLISION AT TURN 9. IT’S LECLERC AND NORRIS. BOTH CARS ARE IN THE WALL.
VERSTAPPEN: (PAUSE) ARE THEY OKAY?
GP: BOTH DRIVERS ARE OUT OF THE CARS, MAX. THEY LOOK TO BE FINE. VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR.
GP: (SHOUTING) MAX VERSTAPPEN! YOU ARE THE WORLD CHAMPION! YOU’VE DONE IT! THE FIVE-TIME WORLD CHAMPION! UNBELIEVABLE FINISH TO THE YEAR!
VERSTAPPEN: (SCREAMING) YES! UNBELIEVABLE! HAHA! WHAT A SEASON! THANK YOU SO MUCH, GUYS!
GP: INCREDIBLE RECOVERY, MAX. SIMPLY LOVELY. ENJOY THIS ONE.