hey love can you write something about lando and reader having a big fight over him being away so much at the moment, what makes her very uncomfortable and even a bit jealous. He does not get her point and all and it kinda escalates. But they have to go to a family event, so they try to play cool. But even there everything he says triggers her even more, to the point where she excused herself and gets outside for fresh air, of course followed by him where she breaks down because of all that arguing with the love of her life. You can decide the ending :)
The not so silent storm
Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader(y/n)
Warnings: emotional distress, intense arguing, jealousy, breakdown, angst with a happy ending
Summary: A massive argument over Lando’s brutal schedule escalates right before a family dinner. Trying to play cool for his mother’s birthday, his dismissive comments push you to a breaking point outside in the rain, forcing him to finally see your pain.
Requested: Yes/ Anon
Word count: 3973
Author’s note: Hii, this one got super emotional to write, i really hope it hits you right in the feels!! take care xx
Masterlist
The rain had been tapping a relentless, uneven rhythm against the large glass windows of the apartment for three hours, matching the anxious, thumping beat in your chest. The flat was quiet, too quiet, filled only with the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional distant splash of a car driving through puddles on the street below. It was a beautiful space, modern and sleek, with a panoramic view of London, but lately, it felt less like a home and more like a high end waiting room. And you were always the one waiting.
Lando was supposed to be home by four. It was now past seven. Your phone sat on the kitchen island, its screen dark and unblinking. You had already changed into the dress you were supposed to wear to his mother’s birthday dinner, a soft, elegant piece that you had spent an hour choosing, wanting to look perfect for his family. But as the minutes ticked away, the fabric felt increasingly heavy, almost suffocating.
When the heavy front door finally clicked open, the sound made you jump. Lando walked in, his shoulders slumped, his hair a bit messy from the damp air outside. He was carrying his duffel bag, throwing it onto the floor by the entryway with a tired sigh. He looked up, his blue eyes meeting yours, and for a fraction of a second, a flicker of guilt crossed his face before it was replaced by sheer exhaustion.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low as he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “I am so sorry. The debrief ran incredibly long, and then traffic out of MTC was an absolute nightmare. I tried to radio through on a call, but my phone died halfway through the drive.”
You stood up from the sofa, smoothing down the front of your dress. You tried to keep your voice level, tried to be the understanding, supportive partner you always strove to be, but the emptiness of the apartment over the last three weeks had eroded your patience. “You could have charged it in the car, Lando. You always have a cable in there.”
Lando let out a sharp breath, walking past you into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. “I forgot the adapter, okay? I have had a million things on my mind. We are trying to figure out the balance issues with the car before the next triple header, and I am exhausted.”
“We have this dinner tonight, Lando,” you said, following him into the kitchen. You stood on the opposite side of the island, the marble barrier feeling symbolic of the distance between you lately. “It is your mum’s birthday. We talked about this. You promised you would be home early so we could drive down together and have a moment to breathe before we got there.”
“I am here now, aren’t I?” Lando replied, taking a long sip of water and setting the glass down with a slight thud. “I just need twenty minutes to shower and change. We will only be a little bit late. My family understands how my schedule works.”
“Your family understands, but what about me?” The words slipped out before you could stop them, raw and laced with the hurt you had been burying for a month.
Lando paused, looking at you properly for the first time since he walked through the door. His brow furrowed, a defensive edge creeping into his posture. “What is that supposed to mean, Y/N? I am working. I am doing my job. It is not like I am out partying.”
“You are never here,” you whispered, the honesty of it aching in your throat. “And when you are here, you are somewhere else. Your mind is always on data, or sims, or the next flight. I feel like a ghost in this apartment, Lando. I live here, but I am totally alone.”
“That is completely unfair,” Lando said, his voice rising a fraction. He stepped closer to the island, leaning his hands on the surface. “You knew what my life was like when we started dating. You knew the travel was insane. This is the peak of the season, and I am fighting for a championship. I need to be focused. I need you to support me, not start a fight the second I walk through the door.”
“I do support you,” you said, tears threatening to sting the corners of your eyes, though you blinked them back fiercely. “I fly to half the races, I sit in the garage for hours, I smile for the cameras, and I sit in this empty flat for weeks on end. But I need a partner, Lando. I need to feel like I matter more than a set of tyres or a simulator session. Yesterday, I saw photos of you at that sponsor event in Monaco, laughing and talking with all those influencers, and you couldn’t even send me a text to say you landed safely.”
Lando rolled his eyes, a gesture that cut straight to your core. “Oh, come on. Is this what this is about? The sponsor event? Those are obligations, Y/N. I am required to be there, I am required to talk to people. It is marketing. You are getting jealous over a PR media day?”
“It is not just the PR day,” you snapped, the anger finally overtaking the sadness. “It is the fact that you have energy for everyone else. You have energy for the sponsors, for the fans, for your engineers, for the media. You come home and you have absolutely nothing left for me. You treat me like an afterthought. I sit here wondering who you are with, what you are doing, and if you even miss me at all, because you certainly don’t act like it.”
“That is ridiculous and you know it,” Lando shouted, his face flushing red. He threw his hands up in frustration. “I am working my body into the ground for my career, for our future, and you are sitting here making me feel guilty because I have to talk to people at work? You are being incredibly clingy and insecure right now.”
The word clung to the air, sharp and poisonous. *Clingy. Insecure.*
You stared at him, feeling as though he had slapped you. The vulnerability you had just shared, the genuine loneliness that had been keeping you awake at night, had just been reduced to a character flaw.
“Insecure?” you repeated, your voice shaking. “I am uncomfortable because my boyfriend is a ghost in my life, and when he finally appears, he looks at me like I am a chore. If wanting to spend an hour of quality time with the person I love makes me clingy, then maybe I shouldn't be here at all.”
“Don’t do that,” Lando yelled, stepping around the island, his eyes dark with anger. “Don’t twist my words and make out like I am the bad guy because I am trying to win a world title. You are completely overreacting. You are making a massive drama out of nothing, and quite frankly, I don’t have the energy for this tonight. We have to go to my family dinner. My mum is expecting us. So just drop it.”
“I am not dropping it,” you said, your voice cracking as a single tear escaped down your cheek. “You don't get to just decide when a conversation is over because it is inconvenient for you. You don't get to ignore my feelings and then order me to put on a happy face for your family.”
“Well, you are going to have to,” Lando said coldly, turning on his heel and walking toward the bedroom. “Because I am going to shower, and we are leaving in fifteen minutes. Fix your face, Y/N.”
The bedroom door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the flat like a gunshot. You stood frozen in the kitchen, your hands trembling as you gripped the edge of the counter. The silence returned, heavier and more suffocating than before. You wanted to scream, you wanted to change out of the dress and leave, but the thought of upsetting his mother, who had always been nothing but kind to you, kept your feet glued to the floor. You wiped the tear from your cheek, swallowing the lump in your throat, trying to piece yourself back together before he came out.
True to his word, fifteen minutes later, Lando emerged. He was wearing a sharp, dark suit, his hair styled, looking every bit the pristine, successful athlete the world knew him to be. He didn't look at you as he grabbed his wallet and keys from the bowl by the door.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his tone flat, completely devoid of the warmth that usually defined him.
“Yes,” you whispered, grabbing your small clutch bag.
The car ride to his parents' house was an exercise in torture. The silence inside the luxury vehicle was deafening, amplified by the steady swish of the windshield wipers. Lando stared straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles were white. You looked out the passenger window, watching the streetlights blur into long lines of yellow and red through the rain. You wanted to reach out, to say something to break the tension, but the memory of him calling you clingy and insecure sat like a block of ice between you. Every time you thought about it, a fresh wave of resentment and hurt washed over you.
When the car finally pulled up the long driveway of the Norris family home, the house was glowing with warm lights. Several cars were already parked outside, indicating that the gathering was already in full swing.
Lando turned off the engine. He didn't get out immediately. He sat for a moment, staring at the dashboard, before letting out a long breath. He turned his head to look at you, his expression guarded.
“Look,” Lando said, his voice quiet. “We need to play cool inside. I don’t want my mum worrying, and I don't want my siblings asking questions. Just behave normally, please.”
*Just behave normally.* As if your heart wasn't breaking into a million pieces.
“I know how to behave, Lando,” you said, your voice dripping with a coldness you didn’t know you possessed. You opened your car door before he could move to get it for you, stepping out into the cool evening air.
By the time you reached the front door, Lando had caught up, his hand sliding to the small of your back. The touch, which used to bring you so much comfort, now felt burning and artificial. He put on a bright smile the moment the front door opened, and you forced yourself to do the same.
“Lando, Y/N, you made it,” Cisca, Lando’s mother, beamed, pulling Lando into a warm hug before immediately turning to you. “Oh, darling, you look absolutely beautiful. Come in, come in, out of the rain.”
“Happy birthday, Cisca,” you said, your voice remarkably steady as you hugged her back, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of her perfume. “You look lovely. I am so sorry we are late, traffic was quite bad.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it at all, Lando is always running on his own time zone anyway,” she laughed, ushering you both into the spacious living room.
The house was filled with chatter and laughter. Lando’s father, Adam, greeted you warmly, as did his brother Oliver and his sisters. The atmosphere was joyful, festive, and completely at odds with the storm raging inside your chest.
For the first hour, you managed to play your part perfectly. You stood by Lando’s side, letting his arm wrap around your waist, nodding and smiling as he talked to his brother about the upcoming races. To anyone looking at you, you were the picture perfect, supportive girlfriend of a racing superstar. But every time Lando’s hand tightened against your hip, or every time he laughed a bit too loudly at a joke, you felt a physical ache. It was a performance, an act designed to shield his world from the mess you were currently drowning in.
Eventually, everyone moved into the dining room for a buffet style dinner. You filled a plate with food you knew you wouldn’t be able to eat, your stomach knotted in tight anxiety. You sat at the long table, flanked by Lando on your left and his sister Flo on your right.
“So, Lando,” Oliver said from across the table, raising his glass. “The season is getting intense now. You must be feeling the pressure with the championship fight.”
Lando took a bite of his food, shaking his head with a confident smile. “Honestly, not really. I mean, the pressure is there, obviously, but I thrive on it. The team is working incredibly hard, and when you are in the zone, everything else just fades away. You just focus on the goal.”
You froze, your fork hovering inches above your plate. *Everything else just fades away.* The words felt like a direct jab, a public confirmation of exactly what you had argued about hours earlier. To him, it was a statement about his sporting focus, but to you, it was a reminder that you were part of the everything else that faded into insignificance.
“It must be exhausting, though,” Flo remarked, turning to look at you. “And for you too, Y/N. It must be hard with him being away so much. How do you cope with the constant travel and the long stretches apart?”
Before you could answer, before you could even form a polite, diplomatic response, Lando chimed in. He let out a light, airy laugh, a sound that made your skin crawl. “Oh, Y/N is fine. She gets a bit lonely sometimes, you know how she is, she gets a bit dramatic about the empty flat, but she manages. She knows it is part of the gig. She is used to it by now.”
The table offered a few sympathetic chuckles, moving the conversation along to something else, but your world ground to a complete halt.
*She gets a bit dramatic.*
He had just minimized your pain, your loneliness, and your private heartbreak in front of his entire family, turning your genuine distress into a cute, domestic quirk for dinner table conversation. He didn't even realize what he had done. He was sitting there, chewing his food, totally oblivious to the knife he had just driven into your heart.
You sat paralyzed, the noise of the dining room fading into a dull roar. The walls felt like they were closing in on you, the air in the room suddenly hot and thin. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't sit next to him for another second without screaming or crying.
Carefully, with trembling hands, you set your fork down on the edge of your plate. You forced a tight smile onto your face and turned to Flo. “I am so sorry, Flo, I just need to use the restroom quickly. Excuse me.”
“Of course, downstairs on the left, sweetie,” Flo said kindly.
You stood up, your legs feeling like lead. You didn't look at Lando, though you felt his eyes follow you for a brief second before he returned to his conversation with his father. You walked out of the dining room, your pace quickening with every step. You passed the bathroom, heading straight for the double doors at the back of the house that led out into the expansive garden.
You pushed the doors open, stepping out onto the covered stone patio. The cool night air hit you like a physical wave, and you took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to clear the suffocation from your lungs. The rain had slowed to a soft, misty drizzle, the cold droplets drifting under the patio roof and pricking at your bare shoulders.
You walked to the edge of the stone terrace, gripping the cold iron railing, staring out into the dark, expansive lawn. The tears you had been holding back for hours, for days, finally spilled over your eyelashes, hot and fast, tracing paths down your cheeks. You felt so small, so entirely disposable. You loved him with everything you had, but you were starting to realize that everything you had wasn't enough to compete with his world.
The sound of the double doors opening behind you broke the quiet of the night. You didn't turn around. You knew the footsteps.
“Y/N?” Lando’s voice called out, laced with a mixture of annoyance and confusion. “What are you doing out here? It is freezing, and you just walked out in the middle of dinner.”
You kept your back to him, wiping frantically at your face, trying to compose yourself, but the tears wouldn't stop. “I needed some air, Lando. Go back inside.”
“No, I am not going back inside,” he said, his footsteps coming closer until he was standing just a foot behind you. “What is wrong with you tonight? You are acting completely bizarre. My family is going to notice something is up. You promised you would play cool.”
The sheer insensitivity of his words snapped the final thread of your restraint. You whirled around to face him, your eyes wide and shining with tears, your chest heaving.
“Play cool?” you cried out, your voice cracking, though you kept it low enough not to carry back into the house. “How am I supposed to play cool when you sit there and humiliate me in front of your family, Lando?”
Lando blinked, genuinely startled by the intensity of your anger. He threw his hands out, his brow furrowing. “Humiliate you? What are you even talking about? I didn't say anything bad about you.”
“You laughed at me,” you sobbed, the first real sob breaking from your throat, making your shoulders shake. “You laughed and told your family that I get dramatic about you being away. You turned my loneliness, the fact that I lie awake every night wondering if you even care about me, into a joke. You told them I am used to it. I am not used to it, Lando. It hurts every single day, and you just dismissed it like it is nothing.”
Lando looked at you, the irritation on his face beginning to crack, replaced by a sudden, uncomfortable realization. “Y/N, it was just a joke. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just trying to keep the conversation light. I didn't want them worrying about us.”
“There is an us to worry about, Lando,” you screamed softly, the tears pouring down your face uncontrollably now. The weight of the past month, the fighting, the isolation, it all came crashing down on you at once. Your knees felt weak, your strength entirely evaporating. “Don’t you see that? We are breaking, and you are too busy trying to keep up appearances to notice.”
Lando stepped forward, his arms reaching out instinctively as he saw your posture crumple. “Y/N, hey, don’t say that.”
But it was too late. The dam had burst. You couldn't hold yourself up anymore. You slid down against the iron railing, sinking onto the cold stone floor of the patio, your hands flying to your face as you broke down completely. You sobbed heavily, your whole body shaking with the force of your grief, the sound muffled by your palms. You were entirely broken, undone by the agony of fighting with the person who was supposed to be your safe harbor.
“Y/N,” Lando whispered, his voice completely stripping of all anger, all defensiveness, all pride.
He dropped to his knees instantly on the wet stone beside you, heedless of his expensive suit. He reached out, his hands trembling as he gently pulled your wrists away from your face, forcing you to look at him. Seeing you like this, completely shattered on the floor, seemed to punch the breath right out of his lungs. His own eyes grew shiny, the harsh reality of what he had done finally piercing through his exhaustion and his focus.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” Lando pleaded, his voice breaking as he wrapped his arms around you, pulling your shaking body tightly against his chest. He buried his face in your hair, holding you so close you could feel the rapid, terrified beating of his heart. “I am sorry. Oh god, Y/N, I am so, so sorry.”
You didn't fight him. You couldn't. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, your tears soaking into the fabric of his collar as you gripped his jacket like a lifeline. “It hurts so much, Lando,” you choked out between sobs. “I feel like I am losing you, and I don't know how to stop it. I am so lonely.”
Lando held you tighter, his hands rubbing your back in frantic, soothing circles, his own tears finally escaping and wetting your hair. “You are not losing me. I swear to god, you are not losing me. I am an idiot, Y/N. A complete, selfish idiot.”
He pulled back just enough to look into your tear stained face, his hands cupping your cheeks, his thumbs gently wiping away the dampness. His eyes were full of a profound, agonizing regret.
“I have been so stressed, so consumed by the pressure, that I shut you out,” Lando said, his voice raw and trembling. “I took you for granted because you are the only stable, perfect thing in my life, and I thought you would just always be there. I didn't see how much I was hurting you. When I said those things inside, I wasn't trying to mock you, I was just scared. I was scared to admit to my family, and to myself, that I am failing you.”
You looked at him, your breath hitching, seeing the genuine devotion and terror in his eyes. The anger began to drain away, leaving only the profound love you had always carried for him.
“I don't need you to be perfect, Lando,” you whispered, your voice small and exhausted. “I just need you to be here. With me. Not just physically, but with your heart.”
“I am here,” Lando swore, pressing his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your skin. “I am right here. I am going to fix this, Y/N. I will talk to the team, I will change my schedule, I will do whatever it takes. I can’t lose you. Winning means absolutely nothing if I come home to an empty flat because I drove you away.”
You closed your eyes, letting the comfort of his embrace wash over you, the cold rain falling around the patio suddenly feeling far away. He held you on the stone floor for a long time, whispering apologies, holding you until your shakes subsided and your breathing slowed.
Behind you, the double doors cracked open slightly, and Cisca looked out, her expression softening with deep concern as she saw her son on his knees, holding you tightly in the dark. Lando looked up, meeting his mother’s eyes. He gave her a small, tight nod, a silent plea for time. Understanding completely, Cisca offered a gentle smile and quietly closed the door, leaving the two of you alone in the quiet rain.
Lando kissed the top of your head, his arms still securely wrapped around you. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. “I will tell them you aren't feeling well and we need to go home. I want to take care of you.”
You pulled back slightly, looking at him, and for the first time in weeks, you saw the boy you fell in love with, completely transparent and entirely yours. You managed a small, watery smile, nodding your head. “Okay. Let's go home.”
