Chapter Text
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
“Last to arrive will be the designated ball collector! Everyone better be at that court at 8 on the dot!” Lando’s text warned.
The clock on the Benz read 7:30am. If George was being honest, it wasn’t Lando’s threat that had him awake before his alarm. He could also claim it was to avoid traffic, or to get a head start on warm-ups. But the truth was simpler, and quite pathetic: he needed a moment to brace himself.
He told himself things between him and Max were fine. They’d talked, cleared the air, shaken hands. They’d even shared a podium last month and had a laugh in the cooldown room.
Yet, something in him tightened at the thought of seeing him again. Not dread. Not exactly. More like… anxious anticipation. Because George knew this was different. This would be the first time they’d be forced to interact casually, away from cameras and lights. To talk face-to-face instead of behind the safe confines of a group chat. He knew it was only here that he’d actually know if things were truly ‘fine.’
He could feel his stomach doing light aerobics as he turned his car keys, passing them between his hands twice before finally opening the door.
It’s just padel, he told himself. A simple game, Lando’s idea of light cardio. With friends. Nothing serious.
His thoughts caught on the word ‘friends’. Were they? A quiet voice in his head piped.
He took a steadying breath and walked towards the court Lando had booked for them. It was an open air court, surrounded by trees and bushes. Not private, but not too exposed in that early morning. The glass was fairly spotless and the fence was green, seamlessly blending with the greenery and oh—
George’s steps halted as he noticed a head of blond bobbing about on the other side of the fence.
Max was already there. Of course he was, if George’s infinite luck was anything to go on.
As George approached the court, the scene fleshed itself out more. Each detail painting the eventual confrontation closer. It became painfully clear, George was going to go into this with no safety nets; Lando and the guys had not arrived yet, the surrounding courts were empty, and the lush comfort of the paddock’s watchful eyes and performance was long left behind in Zandvoort. George was left completely and utterly alone to enter the lion’s pen.
Accepting his fate, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Max was standing on the baseline, in a Red Bull branded training shirt and shorts. George almost snorted, remembering all the memes referencing Max’s team exclusive wardrobe.
He was knocking balls lazily back and forth to an imaginary opponent, expression focused and body relaxed. The early morning glow caught in his hair, turning the edges copper.
George hesitated for a half second at the entrance.
Then Max glanced up, spotted him, and something in his shoulders flickered — a tiny, awkward jolt before smoothing out.
“Hey,” George called, walking over, racket bag bouncing against his hip.
“Morning.” Max called back. “Glad someone got the same idea. I was starting to get bored.”
George was near the bench getting his racket out of its bag. His hands stopped moving for a fraction of a second at the statement. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
The leftover tension from Baku, from the cold clips of interviews and the too-hot words, loosened a fraction in George’s chest.
“Yeah, well I’m not chasing any balls today.” George looked at him sideways, half a smile dancing nervously on his lips. Almost testing the waters.
Max snorted, “it’ll be Lando eating his own words today.”
“Ah… I get why you’re here so early,” George said, emboldened now. “I mean, we can’t have the three-time world champion humbled by chasing a few balls, now can we?”
Max rolled his eyes and threw the ball in his hand at George, which got a surprised chuckle from him.
“Warm up?” George asked after a gentle silence engulfed them.
“Only if you agree not to aim for my face this time.”
“That was one time.”
“That was three times,” Max corrected.
George shook his head and joined him for a few easy rallies.
The first few exchanges felt stiff, mistimed — his wrist too tight, his laugh a beat too late.
Then Max shanked a ball horribly wide, cursed in Dutch, and George’s snort escaped him before he could catch it.
“There it is,” Max guffawed, pointing with his racket, amused. “You sound like a turkey!”
George barked a laugh properly then. “And your backhand’s atrocious.”
And that was it — the awkwardness evaporated faster than he could process. One rally bled into another. The tension he’d braced for never quite arrived.
What came instead was… ease. The kind he didn’t realize he’d missed. Banter returned like muscle memory, echoed from game lobby voice calls and hotel bars.
George was halfway into his serve, when the gate squeaked open.
Lando arrived, loud and obnoxious as ever.
“OI! Look at this,” he announced, dropping his bag with theatrical flair. “Early! Both of you. That’s suspicious.”
Alex and Charles trailed in behind after him.
Lando’s eyes flicked between Max and George — their slightly pink faces, the way they were already standing close, already… easy. A slow grin spread over his face.
“You two finally kissed and made up, then?” he said.
George gave a startled laugh at that. Both boys then exchanged a quick glance, mischief dancing in their eyes.
“Hmm… I don’t quite remember any kissing. But I don’t know about you, mate.” George said, leaning casually on his racket feigning innocence.
“Oh yeah?” Max shot back, an answering spark catching. “Well not that I kiss and tell, but the only late-night visit I had was from someone knocking on my hotel door in Baku. What happened after that is a bit hazy…”
George barked a laugh and lobbed the nearest ball at his chest. “Oh, piss off.”
Max dodged it cleanly. “Hey, you started it.”
He was laughing. Proper laughing — shoulders shaking, head tipped back. George was not sure when he’d seen that expression from him before, if he had.
Lando snorted. “Right. Well. That’s disturbing. I immediately regret asking.”
Everyone laughed then. Max smiled at him in a way that made George’s stomach flip.
It was stupid. It was nothing.
So why did it feel like the court had tilted a degree under his feet?
Alex and Charles shared a look — amused, knowing, but choosing not to comment. George pretended he didn’t notice.
“Okay, okay. Teams,” Lando announced, clapping his hands after greetings and hugs were exchanged. “Since you guys are getting along well, Max and George versus me and Alex. Charles, since you arrived last, you can sub in when one of them inevitably pulls something. And I hereby announce you the official ‘ball-reaper’!”
“Hold on!” Charles interjected, his hand flying upwards. “I reject the title and would like to formally raise that you were witnessed to arrive after my car had crossed the front gate.”
“Overruled! I parked and entered the court first. As my message clearly states, arrival at the court was the paramount objective and prerequisite to avoid ball-herding duties —
Not my fault you suck at reverse parking.” Lando added, eloquently.
“Fine!” Charles put his arms down, defeated. Then, turned to Max and George and pointed a finger at them, “If you lose, we’re never going to hear the end of it.”
The match started. It should’ve been frantic, but fuck — Max was annoyingly too good at padel for that. Of course he was, thought George.
He was completely blindsided by how well and quickly they fell into rhythm. How easily Max adjusted to his position, how he wordlessly shifted to cover George’s blind spots, how he seemed to know when George would lunge and when he’d hang back.
They were electric.
“Yours,” Max called panting, already sliding across the court to be there if George missed.
“I’ve got it,” George answered, breathless, catching it and sending it cleanly back down the line.
“Nice,” Max muttered, just for him. A hand landed briefly on George’s shoulder as they reset, fingers squeezing once before letting go.
It shouldn’t have meant anything. It was just sport-typical physicality between teammates.
But that didn’t stop George’s skin from humming under the touch for too long.
“Your serve’s too polite,” Max said, leaning in so the others wouldn’t hear. George could feel his breath against his ear. “Hit it like you mean it.”
“Oh, so should I just imagine your face as the ball?” George shot back quietly.
That earned him a grin — sharp, delighted — and a snort that he felt more than heard.
They continued their orbit and routine, throughout the rest of the game. A steadying hand on his waist, a clap on the back after a particularly good serve, a hand brushing in passing, quick hushed comments whispered low only for him to hear.
It was not deliberate, nothing charged. But each time, something in George jolted, small and traitorous.
At some point, as they arranged for a serve, George stepped in too close and their forearms brushed. Max didn’t move away. He leaned in instead, head tilted, lips curving.
“Ready?” he murmured.
George swallowed. “Yeah.”
He was absolutely not ready.
“Can you two quit flirting and pass the ball?” Lando called from the far side.
George lobbed the ball hard towards him as a reply. Yet, despite what he had hoped was a cool and collected demeanor, the butterflies in his stomach intensified.
During another chaotic point where George lunged too far forward and nearly collided with Max, Max steadied him with one hand at his lower back, then leaned in just enough to say:
“Mate, if you’re going to throw yourself at me, at least warn me first.”
George shoved his shoulder, laughing. “Maybe I’m trying to sabotage you.”
Max’s grin sharpened. “Oh, so that’s your flirting strategy.”
George nearly missed the next ball. Because he didn’t know if Max was joking. He sounded like he was. He looked like he was. But the smile in his eyes lingered a fraction too long.
And that fraction was enough to do indefinite damage to George’s poor heart.
Two hits later, Max missed an easy overhead because George said something under his breath and he laughed too hard.
“You put me off,” Max complained, jogging back to position.
“Oh, so now it’s my fault,” George teased. His heart wouldn’t slow down.
“Always is,” Max said lightly. There was no bite in it. Only fondness.
George would think about that later. Alone, staring at a ceiling that didn’t answer back.
For now, he just moved. Hit. Called. Laughed.
And somewhere between serves and stupid jokes, between shoulder bumps and shared looks, something unfurled quietly in his chest.
After a few successful rallies, the synchronism of the pair proved victorious and they’d won the first game. George decided he needed a break or his stomach might actually rip open, so he called Charles over to swap. But not after the disorienting and dizzying hug he got from Max, that left his knees weak and legs wobbly. He blamed it on the exhaustion as he fell on the bench. He grabbed a water bottle, tilting his head back trying to look anywhere but—
Max.
Max playing with Charles.
Max going full intensity mode.
Max smirking when he won a point, tongue poking out in concentration, hair damp from exertion.
Max having fun. Max in a good mood. A lighter Max.
George had seen him race a thousand laps, fight wheel-to-wheel for titles, drag a car to impossible places. But there was something different about this. Smaller, quieter.
It looked like what younger George had always imagined being friends with Max Verstappen might feel like.
George was staring. God help him.
And after a few rotations, when George and Max ended up on the same team again — it felt stupidly natural. Sliding back into the same dance, like they’d practiced the step all their life. And had they not been orbiting each other for years now? Who’s to say they hadn’t been practicing subconsciously.
But, it shouldn’t have felt like anything.
And yet, it did.
A flicker. A spark that hovered dangerously close to his volatile heart.
George ignored it.
And yet, it stayed.
And that was the beginning, though he didn’t understand it yet.
They were all sprawled around the court afterwards, half-dead and laughing, their rackets discarded like casualties. Lando was lying flat on the court in a starfish position like he’d been taken out by a sniper. Alex sat leaning against one of the glass walls. Charles lay on one of the benches, George on the other with his arm covering his eyes.
Max sat on the floor, his back resting against George’s bench — close enough he could feel George’s calves a touch away from the back of his neck. George, sensing someone in his orbit, lifted his head slightly, locking his eyes with Max’s and giving him a small smile. He didn’t move away.
Someone passed him a towel. Someone else groaned dramatically about sore calves. Max reached into the cooler and grabbed a water bottle, then — without really deciding to — passed it to George.
“Good game, Russell.”
George reached to take it, still breathing a little hard.
“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”
Max leaned back, his head now fully resting on George’s legs, stretching his own out in front of him. He felt good. Loose. The pleasant ache of exertion settling into his muscles.
He liked this version of things.
Not the tense, sharp-edged paddock version. Not the post-race version where everything felt like it might snap if you touched it wrong.
Just… this.
Charles and George joking about a mis-hit. Lando complaining. Alex smirking at something no one caught.
George laughing — properly laughing — not tight, not practiced.
Max watched him for a second longer than necessary. He noticed that he preferred being on George’s team, not that he’d ever admit that. He liked the rhythm of it. The ease.
Liked how George always knew where he’d be on the court without either of them saying anything.
It was fun. George was fun.
He caught himself thinking that and immediately looked away, annoyed at… nothing in particular. George glanced over right then — as if sensing something — and offered him a small, crooked smile. And that smile softened something in Max. He took a swig from his water bottle, to hide his flushing face.
“Same time next week?” He found himself asking, trying to sound casual.
George blinked for a second too long, then smiled wider. “Yeah. Sure.”
Max nodded, satisfied.
And if the blush creeping up to the tips of George’s ears crossed any of the live-wires in his head, he’d simply deny ever noticing.
Later, when George learned how to be fine without him, Max would remember this morning like a song he never finished—one he’d swear sounded different now that he was listening alone. Now that the chorus fell out of reach.
2025 Spanish Grand Prix
Saturday, 31 May 2025
Max noticed it in pieces at first.
George laughing with Charles near the Ferrari garage, one hand braced at his hip, his shoulders loose. George leaning in to hear something Lewis said, answering with that grin that crinkled his eyes. George slinging an arm around Alex as they moved through the paddock, comfortable in a way that suggested touch came easy between them. George with fans — patient, generous, unhurried — signing, posing, lingering like he had all the time in the world.
He looked settled. Content.
Not brittle. Not performing. Not bracing for an inevitable crash.
Just… fine.
There had been a time when George’s attention tilted, subtly but unmistakably, towards Max. When his laughter lingered half a beat longer in Max’s direction. When Max could always locate George in his periphery, without even looking. Max had never questioned it. It had felt certain. A baseline. Something that simply existed. A ground truth. A constant hearth he’d assumed—selfishly, without ever naming it — was his.
Now, in its absence, Max felt off-balance. Like the truth he’d built himself around had quietly been withdrawn. It left behind an empty space he didn’t know how to fill.
And now that George’s warmth had become democratically distributed, Max felt an ugly spike in his chest—something sharp and disloyal, uncomfortably tasting like entitlement and betrayal all at once.
He told himself he was imagining it. That George surely still reserved something for him, be it anger, resentment or tension. Anything.
George glanced over then, meeting Max’s gaze. Their eyes met.
And George nodded.
Just a nod. Polite. Professional. Effortless. With no hesitation and no edge. No flicker of venom or heat. As if Max were just anyone else.
Something in Max lurched.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. To shove him and kick him. To demand something. He wanted to throw up, to curl inward, to disappear. The urge was juvenile and overwhelming and impossible to contain — raw, unfiltered, and humiliating in its intensity. The kind of feeling he hadn’t known what to do with since he was a kid.
Max looked away first.
So he told himself he didn’t care.
Max Verstappen did not care about George Russell’s sudden, impeccable composure.
It was the lie that came easiest, the one he reached for first. And it did nothing to smother the simmering heat building low in his chest.
By the time he climbed into the car, Max was already seething — and he didn’t know why or at whom. Whatever this was, he told himself, he could outrun it. He had to.
The clock counting down to the start of Quali hit zero and Max was off, flying. The world blurred around him. The air over Barcelona carried the sharp scent of hot rubber and tension. Every atom of his body humming with speed. His senses angular and razor-sharp.
Lap after lap. Pushing and pushing, running and running.
As Q1 melted into Q2, it became clear this was McLaren’s moment. Oscar and Lando essentially only had each other to chase; no car came close to their times. And if they were being honest, every team knew this season was theirs from the start. Max knew it too, even if he refused to say it out loud.
Race after race, he had felt the crown slowly slipping off his head. But damn if that racing instict didn’t scream and protest at that thought. He’ll give them hell and all it’s circles before he gave up that fight. In every corner, every lap, every breath.
What was it that they called themselves last year? Gladiators.
In the dying minutes of Q3, Max realized his grief wasn’t with the McLaren’s — he was having a silent duel with George. Yeah, Oscar took pole and Lando was breathing down his neck, but what had Max’s jaw tight and shoulders tense was the black Mercedes on it’s last lap. And when its crossed that holy line, the world stopped spinning.
VER 1:11.848
RUS 1:11.848
The exact same time.
Max blood flooded his ears and his heart beats pounded in his head. Of fucking course, he thought. Because how else would fate write it?
The timing screen also delivered the second act of this shakespearean irony — Max would start ahead, on a technicality. He’d set the time first.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, something in Max’s chest flared with satisfaction. Not pride. Not joy. And not quite vicious malice either — something smaller, sharper. Something illicit.
And when he saw George’s face on the screens, frustration and disappointment coloring his features. That something twisted. Max felt victorious.
Then guilt and shame washed over him. Quickly.
And then doubt, quicker still.
Because was George even frustrated because it was him?
Or was it just that racing instinct — the one Max knew all too well — rearing its head? Would George have reacted the same if it had been Sainz, or Lawson, or anyone else, that set the time?
Or was he just frustrated because he’d lost a position, any position, to anyone at all?
The thought slid in sideways and lodged there, unwelcome.
Max frowned. He watched George talking to someone in his team, already turning away. Already moving on. Already absorbed back into his own world.
And that satisfaction suddenly curdled.
If George didn’t care who took that spot—
If it wasn’t personal anymore—
Then what, exactly, did that make Max?
Sunday, 1 June 2025
On Sunday, Max tried again. Yes, it was the same setting — a warm Mediterranean afternoon during the Drivers’ Parade — but between then and now, they’d talked in Monaco. Not enough. Not nearly enough. But it had been something. A hairline fracture in the silence.
So, Max tried again.
As the truck crawled onto the track, the engine humming beneath their feet, the crowd a blur of flags and phones and noise. Max stood with his hands braced against the railing, sunglasses on, jaw tight.
George was beside him. Close enough that Max could feel the heat off him. Close enough that it felt deliberate. That alone almost short-circuited Max’s brain under the Barcelona sun.
They were too close for strangers. Yet, too far for whatever they’d once been. He was smiling at the crowd — open, easy, practiced. He waved, pointed at a sign, laughed when someone shouted his name. He looked like a man comfortable inside his own skin.
Max was watching him from the corner of his eye. He waited for the tilt. The glance. The quiet gravity that used to pull George’s attention toward him without effort. He even waited for the flinch.
It didn’t come.
Max cleared his throat. “Bit warmer than Monaco,” he tried, aiming for casual. An opener. Neutral ground.
George nodded, still smiling at the fans. “Yeah. Summer finally showed up.”
That was it. No sideways look. No grin. No follow-up.
They were talking about the fucking weather.
Max frowned. He tried again.
“Track’s supposed to be brutal on tyres this weekend. High degradation.”
A pause. “You always liked that. What was it you called yourself last year?”
Max snapped his fingers. “The tyre whisperer!” he added, a little too loudly, answering his own question.
George turned then, just slightly. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but his mouth curved in a polite smile. “I like any track that rewards consistency.”
The word landed wrong.
Max huffed a quiet laugh. “Right. Consistency is key.”
That should’ve done it.
That quote used to earn him a scoff. A shove. Something warm and annoyed. He remembered how proud George had been when that stupid quote turned into a meme.
George chuckled — brief, contained. “Yes, exactly.”
And then he turned back to the crowd.
Max stared at him. He felt like he was talking to a version of George that had been sanded down. Smoothed. Filed into something safer. Professional.
This was worse than silence.
Max leaned closer on the railing. “You remember that parade in Silverstone? When a marshal threw the cap at Lando and he nearly dropped his phone?”
George nodded. “Yeah. That was chaos.”
“You laughed so hard you almost—”
“I almost slipped,” George finished calmly, “Yeah. I remember.”
Max blinked.
George had said it like he was recalling a fact. Not a moment.
Max’s chest tightened.
He searched for something sharper. “You nervous about quali?”
This question would’ve had him go off once.
George finally looked at him fully now. Even through the sunglasses, Max felt it — the directness, the clarity. No defensiveness. No heat.
“No,” George said simply. “Prepared.”
Prepared.
Max swallowed.
The truck slowed as they passed a section of grandstand. The noise surged. George raised his arms again, waving, smiling, soaking it in. He looked good like this. Comfortable. Centred.
Max hated it.
He leaned in, lowering his voice. “You know, you don’t have to pretend with me. I know you’re upset. You can tell me to shut up and yell at me if you’d like.”
He gave him a small, uncertain smile.
George’s didn’t falter. “I’m not pretending.”
That was the problem.
Max’s fingers curled against the railing, his smile slipping. “You’re different.”
George tilted his head a fraction. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Max said too quickly. “With me. You’re different with me. You used to—”
He stopped himself.
George waited. A pause opened between them. Small. Delicate. Dangerous.
They always seemed to end up here.
Max felt the wait of that pause — the space where George used to fill for him when he couldn’t quite find the words. Used to soften things. Used to meet him halfway.
Had George ever met him halfway, or had he always crossed the whole distance?
George didn’t step forward. He didn’t step back either. And Max found himself swaying.
He hated the waiting.
Hated that he didn’t know what George wanted him to say.
Hated that he suddenly felt like the one chasing.
The truck lurched forward again.
George turned back to the crowd. “Good luck today,” he said easily. “Should be fun.”
Fun.
Max stared at the back of his head, that slow, tidal pull of anger building in his core
He wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Ask him what the hell had happened. Ask him when, exactly, he’d lost him.
Instead, he forced a grin. No one could see behind his sunglasses anyway.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fun.”
It tasted like ash in his mouth.
As the parade rolled on, Max stood there simmering — surrounded by noise, by people, by everything he’d ever known — and felt, with sudden clarity, that George had figured out how to stand right next to him, after a season of pulling away.
And that realization followed him all the way back to the anthem.
Back to the garage.
All the way into the formation lap.
Lights out.
Like a gunshot, sharp and irreversible. Like the spring that had been tightening each second this whole weekend — during the duel that wasn’t about grid positions but something far more personal and far more unstable, and by the weight of the parade and the uncanny calm of George’s distance that settled frozen into his bones.
The McLaren’s leapt ahead, taking with them Max’s last shreds of hope of keeping his throne. Oscar Piastri snarling into the lead and Lando glued to his tail. Their acceleration was clean, ruthless. Untouchable.
Max had also surged into motion, an aggressive leap that carved his place into second place at Turn 1. Not because he needed it. Not because it mattered. But because any moment that didn’t have George in his mirrors felt like oxygen.
This was racing, he told himself. Competition. Pure and distilled.
He was a lion fighting to maintain his pride.
But even in that chaos, even in the burst of speed and tyre smoke and triumphant acceleration, Max felt a jolt in his gut — subtle, unfamiliar — whenever he saw George just off his line. A persistent awareness. A pull he couldn’t shake.
There was no spark there, no glance, no hunger; just a calm precision, like a chess piece moved without haste. George looked at the race as something to be managed, not to be possessed.
Lap after lap, Max found himself fixating. Not on Piastri, not on Norris, not even on Charles who’d been slowly gaining on the front of the pack.
Max was fixated on the silent geometry of the Mercedes — George’s position, his pace, his ease.
A quiet irritation fermented into something uglier. Something hot and gnawing and absurdly territorial.
The other Mercedes — Antonelli’s — gave up spectacularly, smoke billowing as the engine sputtered and died. This threw a safety car onto the track. The field compressed. The gaps evaporated. Everyone dove into the pits.
Everyone except Max. He stayed out on hard tyres, suddenly exposed — Charles and George tucked in behind him, fresher rubber, sharper intent. Both breathing down his neck, hungry for something. Discomfort sliding through him like cold iron.
He hated it.
When the race restarted, Max understood quickly what the gamble had cost him. The simple equation of survival and pace turned into something corrosive. Charles not missing a beat and taking every opportunity of Max’s misfortune, sniffing out every weakness. And then there was George cornering him on Turn 1, tight and intent, trying to claim the line that Max had worked for. They ran wide — elbows out, carbon fibre inches apart — and Max emerged ahead. For half a second, he thought he’d won.
Then the radio crackled.
“Max, can you let Russell through, please?”
Something inside him snapped.
He erupted — words tumbling over each other, sharp and defensive and incoherent. The command felt like theft. Like erasure. Like punishment for something he couldn’t name.
Images flashed, uninvited and relentless:
George laughing with Charles.
George smiling with Lando
George listening intently to Albon.
Some images older now — George in Jeddah, anger flashing through restraint. George on the Miami podium, jaw tight. George a year ago, in the stewards office. His words to the press. George’s birthday dinner — an empty chair. Max not there.
No. He’d never seen that. He’d only imagined it.
And finally, George’s eyes bright in Vegas, his hair a kaleidoscope under the dancing neon lights, wild in all directions stuck to his forehead. George’s hands warm and open.
Max’s vision narrowed. He didn’t brake. He saw red.
Contact. Metal kissed metal.
It was a visceral shove in his chest. It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t calculated, and it sure as hell wasn’t racing.
He could almost read the headlines now, could hear the reporters. But Max’s thoughts were now on that black Mercedes, settling into fourth place while Max took the penalty like a verdict. Guilty as charged.
Under the helmet, Max felt hollow.
Max hunched over the steering wheel as the applause and the flash of cameras washed over the podium celebrations he wasn’t part of. Noise and colour and triumph he barely registered.
He’d felt George slipping through his fingers, and Max had never learned how to hold onto something he wanted without breaking it.
His radio had gone dead. Even his own team didn’t want to touch him.
And when he was asked to talk about it in the media pen later, his voice had cracked just once before he pulled it back:
“I’d like to talk about racing.”
The admission hit him like a slap.
He knew what he’d done.
He knew it hadn’t been racing.
He knew it had been personal.
And he had just admitted that to the world.
After all the duties they had to manage after the race — the debriefs, the cameras, the suffocating circus of it — Max found himself drifting toward a place he knew only a few people ever used. Almost like the drivers’ secret spot to hide or decompress.
A narrow strip of corridor tucked behind the hospitality units. No fans. No teams. No cameras. Just concrete and shadow and a distant hum, like the world had been padded with cotton.
He nearly ran into Charles on purpose.
Max’s entire body was vibrating with something deeper than irritation. Something visceral and old. His ears were still ringing. His hands shook with leftover adrenaline and something uglier underneath it. He wanted friction. Resistance. Someone to push back so he could shove harder.
If he was honest — and he rarely was — he knew he’d find one or the other here.
Charles was leaning against the wall, freshly showered, Ferrari kit zipped halfway, scrolling through his phone like the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis. He glanced up once as Max approached, then went back to his screen.
That disinterest did it.
“What?” Max scoffed. “You here to have a go too?”
Charles didn’t look up.
“If I wanted to have a go,” he said calmly, “you’d know.”
That alone set Max’s teeth on edge.
“You drove into me and you still got the podium,” Max snapped. “Happy now?!”
Charles finally lifted his head. His expression was flat. Not angry. Not wounded. Almost bored.
“What is this, Max?” He asked, “Big bad Max Verstappen acting scary again like that ever solved anything.”
Max laughed sharply. “Oh, here we go.”
“I’m serious,” Charles said. “We’re not seventeen anymore. Coming up to me like that, looking for a fight… Don't you think this shit is getting old?”
Max stepped closer, breath uneven. “No, I think this is perfect, actually.”
Charles tilted his head slightly. “No, I think I know what this is.”
“Oh, yeah?” Max shot back. “Enlighten me.”
Charles studied him for a beat. Not judging. Assessing. Like a scientist staring at a pattern he’d seen before.
“You’re not here because of me,” Charles said.
Max’s brows drew together. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t retreat either.
“You’ve taken me out before,” Charles continued. “We’ve gone wheel-to-wheel for years. What happened out there today — that wasn’t this.”
He stepped closer now, just enough to claim the space Max had invaded.
“I think you’re lying to yourself,” Charles said evenly. “And it’s starting to cost everyone around you.”
Max’s lip curled. “This is rich coming from you.”
“Is it?” Charles replied. “I remember Baku. The way you spoke to him. And I remember thinking — that’s not how Max talks to rivals. You called him a dickhead. To his face. In front of everyone. Over something you’d laughed off with anyone else.”
Max’s pulse kicked. “He deserved it.”
“No,” Charles said simply. “He didn’t. And you know that.”
The certainty in his voice landed heavier than shouting ever could.
“You weren’t like this with me,” Charles went on. “You weren’t like this with Lewis. You weren’t like this with Lando. But when it’s him — you don’t just want to win. You want to punish.”
Max clenched his fists. “He gets in my way.”
“So did I,” Charles replied. “So did everyone.”
The words hung there, heavy and inescapable.
“You’ve always been aggressive,” Charles continued. “That’s not news. But you were never careless with people. Not off track.”
Max scoffed. “Careless.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “Careless with George.”
The name landed like a dropped plate.
Max realized, it hadn’t needed to be said aloud. He’d known who this was about from the start. Still, his stomach twisted.
“You don’t invite him in,” Charles went on, relentless now. “You don’t let him get close. You don’t acknowledge the effort he makes. You keep him hovering just far enough away that you can pretend it’s his fault he’s not closer. You act like he’s asking for something unreasonable just by existing too close to you.”
“That’s bullshit,” Max snapped.
“Is it?” Charles asked. “Because we’ve all seen it. Alex has. Lando too. I noticed it before either of them said a word.”
Max opened his mouth. Closed it again.
“You know that server we used to game on?” Charles said. “The one that was his and Alex’s and Lando’s first?”
Max didn’t answer.
“Do you want to bet who suggested adding you? It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Alex, mate.”
The silence stretched.
Each accusation striking exactly where Charles intended.
“You disappear on him,” Charles said. “You freeze him out. And then the second he stops circling you, you lose your mind.”
“That’s not—”
“You hated losing to me,” Charles cut in, sharp. “You hated me pushing you. You hated how close it got. But you never treated me like I was asking for too much just by caring.”
Max flinched, breathing hard.
“And today,” Charles said, quieter now, more dangerous, “you lunged because you were told to give a place back to him.”
Max swallowed.
“That wasn’t racing,” Charles said. “That was personal.”
Max snapped back toward him, anger flaring. “So what, you want me to apologize? Is that it?”
Max dragged a hand through his hair, his voice breaking despite himself.
“You think this is easy for me?”
His irritation had nowhere to go now, ricocheting uselessly inside him.
Charles met his gaze, unblinking.
“I think,” he said, “you’re very good at pretending you don’t want things — until the moment they walk away.”
There was no room left to dodge.
Charles turned to leave, then paused.
“You can keep calling this rivalry if you want,” he said over his shoulder. “But no one who actually knows you believes that anymore.”
Then he walked away.
Max stayed where he was, chest tight, the fight he’d wanted evaporating into something colder. Quieter. Far more terrifying.
Because Charles hadn’t attacked him. He hadn’t even raised his voice.
He’d diagnosed him. He’d flayed him and autopsied him.
The corridor stayed empty. The hum of the paddock filtered back in gradually—voices, carts rolling over concrete, the distant clatter of hospitality doors—but none of it reached him properly.
Charles’ words kept circling.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… there.
You’re very good at pretending you don’t want things—until the moment they walk away.
Max dragged a hand down his face. His skin felt too tight, like he’d been wearing something that didn’t fit for years and had only just noticed.
Eventually, he left.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stayed there, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He didn’t know how long it took before his phone was in his hands.
Max told himself he was just killing time. Just scrolling. Muscle memory more than intention. His thumb moved before his brain did—photos first, not messages. Safer somehow.
Race weekends. Podiums. Group shots. Faces blurred together by seasons and circuits.
And then—
He paused on one.
The image was sun-washed and crooked, clearly taken without care. All of them sprawled on the ground on a padel court, rackets discarded, sweat-soaked and laughing. Max’s head resting against George’s legs. He hadn’t even registered doing it at the time. It had just felt… normal.
The realization settled slow and heavy in his chest.
I didn’t know it was fragile, he thought, not for the first time.
I didn’t know it was something you could lose.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
Charles had been right about one thing, at least.
Max had always been good at racing past things. Good at surviving by momentum. At mistaking speed for control. But lying there, alone in a hotel room that smelled faintly of detergent and adrenaline, he couldn’t outrun this.
Because for the first time, the silence wasn’t empty.
It was full of everything he hadn’t said.
And somewhere, buried under the wreckage of pride and fear and years of not knowing how to reach back—
Max Verstappen was beginning to understand that staying would have been easier than fixing this.