We Were Something Don’t Think You So? / Part 3
Pairing: Max Verstappen x Wolff!Reader
Summary: Six years ago Toto Wolff’s daughter disappeared from the paddock and from Max’s life. You were once inseparable, the paddock’s favourite duo. Then you vanished without warning. Now with your sudden return all eyes are on you and everyone wants to know: what really happened between you two… and why now? (Part 3/3)
17.8k words / Part 2 / Masterlist
Friday - 06:57AM
You’re awake before the alarm even dares to buzz. Heart pounding beneath your ribs, muscles tense as if you’ve just run a race in your dreams, and your mouth dry from the kind of sleep that barely skims the surface.
The window of your hotel room overlooks the circuit. From this high up, the view is misted in the cool hush of dawn, but you can still make out the faint blur of movement the track crew setting up barriers, adjusting signage, checking systems. The distant whir of generators hums beneath it all, a low mechanical heartbeat that pulses steadily through the morning stillness.
You haven’t really slept properly on race weekends in years. Not since everything changed. Not since Max became something you couldn’t look at without remembering what everything used to feel like. Not when every corner of the paddock echoes with memories you tried to bury, memories that now walk beside you in human form, with a name and a history and a grin that still curls into your thoughts like smoke under a door you can’t close.
Somehow, this morning, you know something is going to happen.
You don’t know what shape it will take whether it will come like a storm or a whisper, whether it will destroy you again or finally let you breathe. But you feel it in your gut, in your skin, in the way the air wraps around you tighter than usual.
In the hotel breakfast room, Toto watches you with a kind of quiet vigilance, as though he's bracing for a storm only he and you can see coming. His eyes linger too long, the way they did when you were fifteen and reckless and just starting to fall in love with what he thought were the wrong things. He’s not your boss today he’s your father and he looks at you like a man who’s lost his daughter once already and isn’t sure he can do it again.
You remember him pulling you into a long, fierce hug, voice low and firm against your hair as he murmured, “Don’t let him shake you.”
But it’s already too late for that. Because the shaking isn’t in your hands it’s in your core.
It only deepens when you walk into the driver’s briefing and see Max sitting there.
He’s late, but only just. Slipping into the room with the kind of casual dominance that would be insufferable if it wasn’t so earned. He doesn’t glance your way, doesn’t smirk, doesn’t speak, doesn’t offer the usual flicker of sarcasm or the teasing drawl he used to wield like a weapon only you knew how to disarm.
He simply sits, legs sprawled, arms crossed, eyes locked on the screen and the FIA representative ahead silent.
Completely, unnervingly silent.
It rattles you more than any argument, more than any scathing remark he could have thrown across the table, because silence, from Max Verstappen is never passive.
It is not absence. It is intention. It is control.
You feel the tremor of it ripple through you like a warning, like the crack of ice just before it breaks. Something is going to happen today. You don’t know what but you’ll feel it when it does.
Schiphol Airport - 2020
The terminal feels wrong, too quiet and too still. The usual buzz of rolling suitcases, announcements over the loudspeaker, the distant rush of boarding calls has been dulled to a strange hush. People move like ghosts: faces masked, eyes darting, fingers glued to phones as alerts flood in by the minute.
You stand near your Gate, a departure screen blinking overhead.
Flight Cancelled.
The blinking cursor on your own flight confirmation feels surreal. Everything feels surreal.
You shift your weight, adjusting the straps of your backpack, your knuckles white where they grip your boarding pass. A mother hurries past with a child in tow. A flight attendant shakes her head and speaks low into a walkie-talkie. Somewhere behind you, the television near the bar replays the same montage of closed borders, empty streets, headlines screaming words no one was prepared for: global pandemic. national lockdown. indefinite postponement.
You glance down at your phone.
No new messages.
Your thumb hovers over a contact that’s still pinned to the top of your chat list. Max.
You type:
Guess you get to rest for once.
A half-smile tugs at your lips. He always used to complain about the calendar, too many triple-headers, no off-season, never enough time to breathe.
You stare at the message. Backspace.
One letter at a time.
Until it’s gone.
You lock your phone and slide it back into your jacket pocket. Tell yourself it doesn’t matter he’s not expecting to hear from you, maybe he isn’t thinking about you at all.
Monaco - 2020
A different time zone. A different kind of silence.
Max stands in the middle of his apartment, one hand on the balcony door, the other wrapped around his phone. The TV plays the same loop of race cancellations, the same rising numbers, the same familiar images turned unfamiliar.
His eyes are fixed on one name at the top of the screen.
He types:
This is crazy right?
Stares at it. Then deletes it.
He turns off the screen and walks into the kitchen. Doesn’t send anything.
He doesn’t know you were just standing in an airport with the same thought. The same urge to reach out. The same ache of shared history folded into silence.
Two messages, both unsent, both invisible, cross somewhere between Amsterdam and Monaco, two digital ghosts suspended in the air like radio signals with no one left to catch them.
No proof they ever existed. Only the familiar echo of each other’s name on separate screens.
Friday - 10:13AM
Lewis catches you just outside the briefing room, one hand resting lightly on your arm as you pass.
“You good?” he asks, voice low but steady.
You pause, nod. “Yeah. Just—long week.”
His eyes hold yours for a second longer than casual conversation calls for. He’s not pressing, just checking, the way someone does when they’ve known you long enough to see through the automatic answers.
He nods once, like he’s heard what you didn’t say out loud. “Alright. Just… if you ever need to get out of the noise, or talk—or not talk—I’m around.”
You smile. “Thanks,.”
He gives your shoulder a squeeze. “Anytime. And hey don’t let George wind you up too much. He lives for it.”
You call after him, voice teasing, “I’m always here if you need to escape Ferrari gossip by the way.”
He throws you a grin over his shoulder. “Tempting offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”
You huff a laugh as he disappears around the corner. The tension in your chest eases just a little.
11:48AM – Mercedes Motorhome
You’re half-focused, fingers working on muscle memory as you snap the earpiece into place, adjust the volume dial on your comms, and tug your jacket collar flat. The familiar rhythm of prep should steady you it usually does but today your hands feel too tight, too deliberate, like they’re mimicking calm rather than living it.
Your phone buzzes once against the desk beside you.
You ignore it.
Then it buzzes again. Then again, with the sharp insistence of urgency that doesn’t ask it demands.
By the fourth buzz, you’re already bracing for it, stomach knotting, pulse skipping uneven beats beneath your skin. You pick it up with reluctant fingers, the cold edge of the device biting into your palm as you swipe down.
The first notification lights up the screen like a match in the dark:
@redflag: SOMEONE JUST SAW MAX AND JOS ARGUING BEHIND THE RED BULL GARAGE
Your breath catches before you can stop it. The next one flashes a second later.
@max4stappen: They said Max was yelling?? Jos stormed off???
The words hit like static, messy, loud, and familiar.
You keep scrolling, each line worse than the last.
Sky Sports News: “Tensions Flare in Red Bull Garage: Verstappen Senior and Junior Seen in Heated Conversation” Max left shortly after. No comment from the Verstappen camp.
@behindthevisor: Apparently Jos said something about “keeping your head on straight” and Max just… lost it?
And then…
@wolffwatchers: Did Jos mention her name? 👀
Your name.
They mean you. They always do.
You swallow hard, the motion suddenly difficult, as if the weight of it all is pressing against your throat.
The stream of reactions doesn’t stop. They keep coming, faster now speculation, secondhand reports, half-truths laced with emojis and punctuation marks that feel far too casual for something this volatile. You don’t click into them. You don’t have to.
The air around you seems to shift, like the moment before thunder cracks. The motorhome is quiet except for the low murmur of engineers and strategists in the next room, unaware or pretending not to be. The buzz of electricity hums faintly through the walls.
Max never loses it. Not like that. Not anymore. Not in front of the garage. Not with cameras nearby. Not with him.
You set the phone down, screen still alight with chaos, and try to refocus on your comms but the world has already tilted off its axis, and you feel it in your bones.
It’s already started.
11:26AM – Red Bull Garage
He knew it would happen eventually.
Maybe not today. Maybe not behind the garage with the whole paddock one overheard breath away. Maybe not in this exact way with voices raised and tempers frayed and every nerve in his body pulled taut like wire, but some part of him has been bracing for this for years.
Since Abu Dhabi 2019, he hasn’t known a moment of peace. Not really. Not when the weight of what he lost clings to every silence, every what-if he never said out loud. He’s tried to move forward. Tried to bury it beneath trophies and titles, under the pressure of performance and the grind of race after race, but grief doesn’t work like that. Neither does guilt.
Now it’s here. Boiling over in the place he swore would be the one part of his life he could still control. Jos started it as always, with something small. A throwaway comment lobbed like a spark toward gasoline.
“You’ve been distracted all weekend.”
The words hit harder than they should, maybe because they’re true, maybe because they sound too familiar, or maybe because Max is already hanging on by a thread. He turns sharply, jaw clenched, dragging his father out of sight behind the garage trying to get away from prying lenses and watching eyes.
Then he snaps.
“You think I don’t know that?” he bites out, voice pitched low but vibrating.
Jos folds his arms, unbothered. “Then focus. You let that girl derail and distract you once Max. Don’t do it again.”
There it is. That word. That fucking word again.
Distraction.
The same word that tore her apart. The same word she was never supposed to hear the one that sent her packing without a single goodbye when he didn’t even realise what he’d done until it was too late.
“Don’t talk about her,” he spits, barely managing to keep his voice from shaking with rage. “You don’t get to talk about her. Not now. Not ever.”
Jos tenses. “I’m trying to protect your career.”
Max lets out a humourless laugh. “No. You’re trying to control it. Still.” His voice rises with each word, years of buried resentment breaking through like cracks in a dam. “I’m a grown man you don’t get to decide who I care about. Who I—”
He catches himself but it’s too late. The air changes between them.
Jos glares. “She left Max she didn’t even say goodbye. That wasn’t me. That was her choice. You don’t think she’ll do it again?”
Max steps forward close enough now that Jos has to meet his eyes. “You really think she just walked away without a reason?” He scoffs. “You don’t know anything. You never have.”
Jos goes silent but Max doesn’t stop. He can’t stop. The truth is burning a hole inside his chest and if he doesn’t say it now, it’ll eat him alive.
“You don’t even know what you did,” he says, quieter now, but with more weight than anything he’s said all day. “You don’t even realise what your words do. What I let them do.”
Jos shakes his head, but Max cuts him off.
“Look maybe it was me too,” he says, voice raw. “Maybe I’m the one who stood there and said nothing while you said things about her, about how she was a distraction, how she’d ruin everything and I didn’t say a damn thing. I didn’t defend her. I didn’t stop you. I just… stayed quiet like that would somehow protect everything, if I didn’t rock the boat it would be fine. We’d be fine.”
He shakes his head, eyes flicking up to meet his father’s. “But I wasn’t fine, I let her walk away because I was scared of what you’d think if I fought for her.”
Jos doesn't reply, jaw set.
“So don’t pretend you had nothing to do with it,” Max says, low and steady. “You spent years making me doubt the one person who’s done nothing but be there for me.”
There’s a pause, Max breathes through it.
“She didn’t deserve that. Neither of us did.”
The silence between them stretches thick, bitter, final. Max turns away before his father can respond. Whatever Jos says now doesn’t matter because for the first time in years Max isn’t biting his tongue. He isn’t burying his guilt under performance data and press obligations. He’s speaking for himself.
He’s done letting anyone else write the story.
Not his father. Not the media.
He’s done letting other people speak for him.
Sky Sports Broadcast
David Croft:
"Bit of movement down at Red Bull earlier we hear some of you watching the paddock feed might’ve seen that moment between Max and Jos Verstappen behind the garage. We don’t have confirmation on what was said, but... well, you could feel it, couldn’t you?”
Naomi Schiff:
"Yeah, whatever it was, it wasn’t just a typical pre-race exchange. Max doesn’t usually get into it like that, especially not in public. He’s intense, sure, but that… that looked personal.”
Ted Kravitz:
“I was actually down there a few minutes after. The mechanics were keeping their heads down, but you could tell something had rattled the energy a bit. Jos walked off pretty fast, didn’t even look back.”
Crofty:
“There’s been a lot of chatter lately, hasn’t there? About who’s been spending time in which garage… and who’s come back to the paddock this year. Whether it’s personal or professional, it’s clearly hit a nerve. He’s been sharp all year but you can’t underestimate the emotional toll something like that takes before lights out.”
Naomi:
“If I had to guess, I’d say Max is drawing some lines. And he’s doing it in front of everyone. Which… might be the point.”
Crofty, quieter now:
“He’s grown up in this paddock, hasn’t he? But maybe this is the first time we’re watching him fully step into his own.”
The camera cuts to Max in the garage helmet on, eyes locked ahead, posture calm but coiled. Behind him, the space where Jos once stood is conspicuously empty.
Monaco - 2021
It’s the win they used to whisper about like a shared secret. Late-night simulator sessions. Strategy arguments at 2 a.m. on a flight back from Singapore. Rainy afternoons spent watching archival footage of Senna’s pole laps. Even when Max had barely broken into Formula 1 and you were still being introduced as “Wolff’s daughter” rather than a strategist in her own right, Monaco had always been the dream. The crown jewel. The one race that mattered more than any other even for those who’d pretend it didn’t.
"One day," you said, years ago, curled beside him on a hotel sofa somewhere in the middle of nowhere, "you're going to win Monaco, and when you do I’m going to be right there watching from the pit wall with your name on my wrist."
But she’s not there now, not in the garage, not in the crowd, not anywhere in his periphery. She hasn’t been for over a year.
Max steps onto the top step of the podium, drenched in champagne and sunlight and the deafening roar of a crowd that’s waited too long to see him there. His first Monaco win. The moment he once built castles around in his mind.
It doesn’t feel how he thought it would, at least not entirely, he lifts the trophy and smiles for the cameras. He enjoys himself in the moment. Does the interviews, the handshakes, the protocols. From the outside, he looks unstoppable the championship lead in hand, Monaco conquered, nothing in his way. But later when the lights have dimmed and the motorhome is quiet when the only sound is the whir of a distant generator and the faint echo of a party somewhere down the harbour, he sits on the couch phone cradled in one hand.
The champagne still feels sticky on his skin. He hasn’t changed yet. Hasn’t showered. The adrenaline’s gone now and all that’s left is the ache.
His thumb hovers over a name in his contacts:
He opens the message thread. No new texts. Just the ghost of the last conversation left hanging like so many things between them.
He types three letters:
Hey
Stares at them. Deletes them. Closes the app. Opens it again.
Did you watch?
Deletes that too. He tosses the phone onto the far end of the couch like it’s burned him.
Then he just sits there, staring at the wall, while the greatest win of his life fades quietly into the background. He doesn’t sleep that night his brain won’t stop running corners he’s already won, not on the track in life.
Across the continent in a small apartment lit only by the soft blue hue of a laptop screen, you watch the replay alone. The moment he crosses the line you don’t cheer. Your breath catches. Your heart twists and your fingers hover over your phone before you even realise what you’re doing.
You unlock it. Scroll down.
You did it.
Then delete it.
Congratulations. I always knew you would.
Delete.
You lock the phone. Drop it facedown beside you and bury yourself deeper into the couch. You remember exactly what you’d said all those years ago. You remember dreaming of this day like it was yours too. You wonder if he thought of you if he felt the silence as loudly as you did. You fall asleep to the soft hum of the post-race analysis still playing on the laptop, head resting on the arm of the couch, heart a little heavier than before.
r/formula1gossip
Posted by u/missverstappen
[DISCUSSION] Max Said Something Weird in His Post-Monaco Interview??
During the Dutch post-race segment after Monaco, Max was asked how it felt to finally win the race he’s always called “the big one.” He gave the normal answer at first special, proud of the team, surreal moment, etc.
But then he added this very random line:
“It felt… different than I thought it would.”
The interviewer asked how different, and Max sort of shrugged and said:
“Just not the way I pictured it. That’s all.”
Then he immediately changed the subject. Is this just Max being Max or… what was that?
u/tyrewizard32 Yeah I saw this too. He said it with this TONE™ like he was thinking of something super specific. u/vercedes_wifecollective okay but let’s talk about how he looked genuinely SAD for a second??? at monaco?? like the win they’ve all wanted since karting?? u/gr3yflag Right?? People acting confused like the entire paddock didn’t grow up watching those two run around together. u/veryapping For newer fans: they’re talking about Toto Wolff’s daughter. She used to be everywhere with Max from like 2015–2019. Pit wall, grid, garage, track walks, inside jokes during media days… they were basically a duo. Then she left the paddock out of nowhere and hasn't been back since. u/f1highlights There’s an old clip of them watching Monaco quali together in 2018 where she says something like “When you win this race, I’m going to be right there.” u/vercedes_wifecollective So him saying “not the way I pictured it”… Yeah. I know exactly what picture he meant. u/lando_would_never It’s not that deep… except it absolutely is. He used to talk about Monaco with her all the time. u/senna4ever Okay but if he was thinking of her, then “it felt different than I pictured it” is actually devastating. u/hardslicksforsofthearts Not to feed a fandom theory but… that’s not something you say unless the memory in your head includes another person. u/archivistofpain Max not sleeping after winning Monaco because he’s trying not to text his ex is the most human thing he’s ever done.
Friday – 6:47pm
The rain starts without warning the sky darkening just enough to feel it in your chest before the first drops fall. It isn’t heavy yet, just a slow, rhythmic tapping against the roof of the metal awning you're standing beneath. The world smells like asphalt and electricity the sharp scent of wet concrete mixing with the lingering heat from the day.
You’ve been here a while, tucked behind the garages, away from the cameras and briefing rooms and careful glances. You needed air maybe even silence but instead you got rain. You don’t mind. You always liked how it softened everything blurred the edges of what was too sharp to name.
Footsteps approach. You know them without turning.
He says nothing as he joins you beneath the awning, his hoodie already damp from the walk across the paddock. Rain clings to the ends of his hair, dripping slowly down the back of his neck, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His hands are shoved into his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t look at you right away. Just stands beside you, like that’s always been his default.
The rain picks up, a little heavier now, a little more insistent. After a moment, Max speaks, voice low.
“You used to say rain meant something.”
You glance sideways. “I did.”
He looks at you then, brows raised slightly in the way he does when he’s remembering something he never really understood at the time.
“I thought it meant change,” you say finally. “Or that something was coming, rain always felt like a signal.”
Max’s eyes don’t leave yours. “You still believe that?”
You exhale slowly, watching the droplets streak down the edge of the awning. “I don’t know. Maybe. I want to.”
A long pause stretches between you.
You glance down at your hands, thumb brushing a rain-wet line on your wrist. “Brazil. Last year,” you say quietly. “I watched that race three times. Couldn’t stop.”
He blinks, caught off guard. “You did?”
“Of course I did.”
There’s a beat of silence, deeper now.
“Just because I left,” you continue, voice steady, “doesn’t mean I stopped caring.”
Max doesn’t move, but his whole body shifts like the words are sinking into him.
“You were unstoppable that day,” you say. “I’ve never seen you drive like that. Everyone else was scrambling for grip, and you… it was like watching someone actively choose their own destiny.”
Max swallows. Looks out over the paddock, the sky pouring now.
“That was one of the only races that year I actually enjoyed,” he says eventually.
“I could tell,” you say.
His voice drops. “I just wanted to win.”
“You needed to win,” you correct. “That’s what it looked like, the rain certainly wasn’t going to stop you because when you want something you fight for it. That’s always been the difference with you Max. You never give up not when it really matters.”
His head dips slightly. He nods once.
“True,” he says. “But sometimes…” He trails off, then glances back at you. “Sometimes you don’t realise what you have until it’s already gone and then… then it’s too late to fight for.”
You don’t look away. His words land between you like something fragile and unfinished. “I’m not sure anything is ever too late.”
The rain hisses softly above, steady now, casting everything in a haze of movement and sound.
You speak again without thinking. “Did you think I was gone for good?”
Max is quiet. His fingers twitch slightly in his hoodie pocket. “I didn’t let myself think about it,” he says. “Because if I did… I would’ve had to admit that I let it happen.”
Your breath catches. “I should’ve stopped you,” he adds, softer now. “I should’ve said something… anything. But I just waited there and let you drift further and further away. Told myself it was easier than saying the wrong thing.”
“It wasn’t,” you say. “Not for me.”
“I know,” he says. “I know that now.”
Max turns slightly, shoulders squaring toward you, eyes dark and intent.
“I don’t want to do that again,” he says. “Watch you walk away.”
You hold his gaze. “You want something,” you say quietly. “Then fight for it.”
He breathes out a laugh, but there’s no humour in it. Just disbelief. He doesn’t reach for you, doesn’t close the distance. He just stands there, in the rain, looking at you like the weight of all the years between you has finally landed and he’s ready to carry it. You stay beside him, two people standing still under the same storm not running from it.
Vienna - 2023
You’re sitting in the corner of a small café just off the Ringstrasse. The TV above the counter is playing the race on mute, subtitles flickering across the bottom of the screen. The other customers glance up now and then, but no one is really watching not the way you are.
He’s on screen again. Dominant. Composed. Effortless. A man in complete control.
It’s his tenth consecutive win, a record, the commentators mouth words like historic and unbreakable, and the crowd in Monza is electric. You can see the flags, the smoke, the faces pressed against the fences. You can practically feel the noise even with the sound turned off.
You stir your coffee once. Twice. You tell yourself you don’t care anymore. That this is just muscle memory glancing up, tracking lap times, calculating gaps out of habit, not out of feeling. You’ve built a life far from this world now. A quiet one. One without flight schedules and timing sheets and press releases.
It’s a lie.
You know it before the thought can even finish forming because as soon as the camera cuts to him, that familiar shot of him climbing from the car, pulling off his gloves, face breaking into a grin that’s half disbelief, half relief, your heart stutters. The same way it always has.
You shouldn’t still know the way he smiles when he’s truly happy, the subtle difference between triumph and satisfaction, the way he glances upward first, just for a moment before facing the cameras.
Yet you do.
The champagne sprays. The anthem plays. The commentators are visibly running out of superlatives. You catch the word dominant in the captions again, repeated like gospel.
Then as he lifts the trophy the golden reflection catching light against the stormy Italian sky you see it.
Your breath stops. The thin silver wristband around his left wrist. The one you gave him in 2017.
It looks scratched now, dulled from years of wear, but unmistakable. You remember how it used to glint against the steering wheel when he’d remove it only minutes before he was due on track. You remember the night you gave it to him, sitting side by side on a hotel balcony somewhere between races, the world asleep, your laughter soft against the hum of the city below.
“It’s not expensive or anything,” you’d said, a little shy as you held it out. “But I thought it’d be kind of nice you know, matching ones. Just us.”
Max had taken it from your hand, turning the simple bracelet between his fingers and then he looked up at you.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said quietly. “Not if it’s from you.”
Then he’d smiled, that quiet, rare smile that only ever meant one thing… he wasn’t teasing. He meant it.
You thought he’d stopped wearing it. You had. After everything fell apart you tucked yours away in a drawer you never opened not because you didn’t care, but because it hurt too much to look at. It wasn’t on your wrist anymore, but you always knew exactly where it was. Bottom right corner. Next to an old photo strip from Monaco and the corner of the note he’d left you on the last day of your first trip to his hometown. You never forgot.
So when you stopped seeing his bracelet in post-race photos, when it stopped peeking out beneath the edge of his glove or the cuff of his sleeve, you told yourself he’d done the same. That he’d moved on. That he’d outgrown the thing a long time ago just like he’d outgrown you.
But there it is, gleaming faintly beneath the podium lights.
Your chest tightens. The café suddenly feels too small, too loud, even with no sound. You stand abruptly, nearly knocking over your cup. The waitress glances up, startled, but you just mumble something and push through the door into the open air.
You lean against the wall, staring down the empty road, the faint echo of the broadcast still visible through the window behind you. You can see him on the screen even from here smiling, waving, wiping champagne from his face with the bracelet still there, flashing silver for half a second under the floodlights.
You inhale sharply, try to shake it off. Tell yourself it’s nothing. Tell yourself it doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. But deep down you know it does, because if he’s still wearing it after all this time, after everything… then maybe you were never as erased as you thought.
Sunday - 4:28pm - Merced Garage Post-Race
The buzz of the paddock has dulled to a low thrum by the time you find yourself back in the debrief room. Most of the Mercedes crew has filtered out, voices still echoing in the hallway, but you’re still there your brain’s still running even though your body’s trying to crash.
You don’t even hear George enter until a protein bar lands beside your keyboard with a soft thud. He’s still in his fireproofs, hair damp, energy surprisingly light. “You’ve officially hit your 'hangry' phase.”
You blink. “What?”
“You get that look,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward your face. “Very do not approach unless bearing data or snacks.”
You huff, but your mouth pulls into a reluctant smile. “Fine. Thanks.”
He leans against the wall, arms crossed. “That double-stack call? You nailed it.”
You shrug, uncomfortable with praise. “It was a gamble.”
“Calculated,” he counters. “Smart. Got us track position we wouldn't have otherwise had.”
Bono smiles, real and tired but warm. “Good instincts. You’ve got a feel for the field not many have.”
You nod, unsure what to say. They leave after that off to physio, or media, or sleep and you sit back in your chair, finally letting yourself breathe.
Monaco Afterparty - 2017
The yacht rocks gently beneath your heels, its polished deck crowded with the usual blur of music, light, and half-recognisable faces. Drivers, PR people, and Monaco’s usual hangers-on drift between champagne flutes and sponsored photo ops.
You lean against the railing, drink in hand, eyes on the glittering water even though you can feel him at your back. Max, somewhere in the crowd. Close enough to track without trying. You can hear his laugh now and then, low and familiar, over the music. The kind of laugh he only uses when he’s trying not to look like he’s checking on you too.
He’s talking to a girl you don’t recognise, gorgeous, leggy, Monaco-polished and wearing a dress that clearly wasn’t designed to be sat in. She laughs too loudly at something he says, touches his arm once, twice. You glance over, quick and neutral.
Your date says something beside you. You don’t catch it.
“What?”
He repeats the joke, and you give him a polite smile, then sip your drink to hide it. Across the deck, Max shifts. Subtle. He’s not even looking at the girl anymore. He’s looking at you.
You raise your eyebrows slightly, as if to say What?
He tilts his head, sips his drink, and shrugs. Nothing.
Eventually, he drifts over. Not right away, not obviously. Just… eventually once your date has left to grab more drinks.
“You look like you’re ready to jump in,” he says casually, nodding toward the railing.
You roll your eyes. “Just thinking about how far I’d have to swim to escape this playlist.”
He snorts. “You’re the one who always wants to come to these things.”
“I like the free drinks,” you say, raising your glass in a mock toast, he clinks his against yours.
“So not having fun then?”
You don’t turn. “Depends on your definition.”
He leans next to you, forearms braced on the railing now too, close enough for your arms to almost brush. “Saw you talking to—what’s his name again? The guy with the blazer and too many teeth.”
You snort. “He’s my date”
“Right.” he replies, tight lipped.
You glance at his glass. “What happened to Miss Bodycon?”
Max tilts his head, feigning confusion. “Who?”
You give him a look. He smiles, lazy.
He swirls the ice in his glass. “You look good tonight,” he said, quieter now.
You blinked. “Thanks.”
His eyes flicker to your mouth and then away again, too fast to mean anything.
Or maybe it means everything.
You let the moment stretch, one beat longer than friendly.
“You’re off tomorrow?”
“Dinner at Christian’s,” he says. “Which will definitely be relaxing.”
You both snort at that.
“I’ll text you if I escape early,” he adds.
You glance at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says easily.
You nod like it’s no big deal.
The breeze picks up again, tangling your hair a little. Max reaches out like he might fix it, then stops, hand halfway up before he thinks better of it. He rubs the back of his neck instead, pretending it was never about you at all.
Someone calls his name from across the deck. He doesn’t look back.
When the party finally winds down and your shoes are dangling from one hand and your date is long gone, it’s Max who walks you back up the pier. Max who says goodnight with a quiet, “See you in the morning, breakfast?” like it’s never a question.
And you say, “Always,” like it never stopped being true.
Brackley – One Week Later
Since last week you’ve thrown yourself into work, simulation modelling, long-run strategy projections, compound wear breakdowns. Anything with numbers, anything precise. You tell yourself it’s productive, necessary even, but the truth is simpler: it’s the only thing loud enough to drown out the hallway. To quiet the memory of the way Max looked at you.
Now it’s after seven, the hotel is quiet apart from the low hum of wind outside and the occasional rush of tires on wet pavement. You’re sitting cross-legged on the edge of the sofa, surrounded by spreadsheets and open tabs with your coffee long gone cold beside you. The overhead lights are dimmed, the only glow coming from your laptop screen and the reflections of rain streaming down the window.
So when someone knocks you almost don’t hear it.
The first knock is tentative. Barely there. The kind of knock that sounds like the person behind it isn’t sure they’re welcome.
The second one is louder, more certain.
You close the laptop slowly, heart already picking up a strange rhythm as your fingers hover for a beat too long on the edge of the screen. You rise from the couch, padding across the carpet with cautious steps.
When you open the door, he’s there.
Max.
His backpack hangs low on one shoulder, and in the side mesh pocket, there’s a folded plane ticket that looks like it’s been crushed and uncrushed a few times over. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at you tired, unguarded, as though he still half-expects you to close the door before he gets a word out.
You don’t say anything either. Not yet.
“I flew here,” Max finally says, his voice rough around the edges.
You nod, arms folding instinctively across your chest. “I can see that.”
“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming.”
Your brow furrows slightly. “Why are you here?”
He swallows hard, rainwater dripping from his sleeves. “For you.”
He looks down for a second, runs a hand over his damp sleeve like it might help him think, and then he lifts his gaze again, steady this time, more sure.
“I know I don’t have a right to just show up like this,” he continues. “I’m not here expecting you to forgive me, or act like none of it happened. I just… I had to come. After what you said, after hearing the truth, finally hearing what happened that day I—”
You don’t move, but you feel something in your chest begin to shift.
“I was so scared back then,” Max says. “I thought staying quiet was the safer choice… or maybe just easier. I let other people decide what was best. I let him decide what was best. I thought we’d have time later to figure it out.”
His voice catches slightly, but he pushes on.
“But you disappeared. You were just… gone and I didn’t know why. I kept looking back, trying to piece it together, but I had no idea and now I do… and it hurts even more than before.”
You blink, heart aching, because his voice isn’t sharp it’s not defensive. It’s full of regret that’s had years to steep.
“I should’ve called,” he says, quieter now, but more certain. “I should’ve reached out, found you, done something. Six years is—” he exhales sharply, running a hand through his rain-soaked hair. “It’s too much. Too long to carry this.”
You glance away, not because you don’t want to look at him, but because it is too much because hearing him say everything you once begged for in silence feels like pressing your fingers against a bruise that never fully healed.
“I let you walk away,” he continues. “I’m not proud of that. I'm so incredibly sorry. I’ve thought about it every single day since. I let you think you were something to be erased from the equation, like the safest thing for both of us was pretending none of it mattered. Of course it mattered. You matter.”
“I should’ve told you then that I didn’t care what anyone else thought. That you were never a distraction. That you were the only thing that ever really made any of this—” he gestures vaguely, meaning the sport, the chaos, the pressure, all of it— “feel like it had a point.”
His voice dips again, not out of fear, but out of care. “I didn’t fight for you and I should have.”
He breathes in. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, I haven’t earned that, but I need you to know I’m not running away this time. I’m not pretending I’m fine without you. I’m not pretending this meant nothing when it means everything.”
“I don’t care how long it takes or how messy it gets. You’re not someone I can lose again. I won’t.”
You stand there, absorbing the weight of every word, your arms still crossed more for protection than resolve. You study the way his jaw tightens in silence, the slight tremble in his fingers, the way his shoulders still look like they’re holding the entire season, the entire past, all at once.
Then you speak, your voice quiet, but steady. “Don’t say all this if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean every word,” Max says, without hesitation. He takes one final step forward enough to feel close, but not enough to crowd you and when he speaks again, it’s softer.
“I’m here. I’ll fight for you.”
You don’t move. Don’t answer right away. You don’t close the door either.
That somehow is enough. Max seems to understand. His shoulders ease just a little, the weight hasn’t disappeared, but it’s become something he’s willing to carry out in the open now.
“I’ll wait,” he says, gentler this time. “However long it takes.”
You nod, almost imperceptibly.
“Okay.”
Belgium, Genk - Karting Circuit - 2008
The world was smaller then. Simpler in the way that only childhood makes possible.
The track at Genk stretched out like an endless ribbon of asphalt and trampled grass, coiled between tents and trailers and the low hum of early morning tension. Everything smelled like two-stroke fuel, fresh-cut grass, and the metallic tang of rain still clinging to the air. The sky overhead was a dull slab of cloud, the kind that never broke fully open but soaked everything slowly, turning the paddock into mud before midday.
Engines sputtered and revved like a swarm of mechanical bees in the distance, their whines building into a background hum that never quite faded. Somewhere near the registration tent, a loudspeaker crackled to life in clipped Dutch, mispronouncing someone’s name over the static.
You sat on the low concrete wall beside the paddock gate, legs swinging, the toes of your boots streaked with chalk from the track. A piece of cherry gum clicked between your teeth. Max sat next to you, elbows braced on his knees, gloves clutched in one hand, jaw set in a way that already mirrored his father’s.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. His focus was always quieter than the others’ less show, more steel. The kind of pressure that clung to his skin like second nature, the way some kids carried toy cars and others carried expectation.
You nudged his knee with yours. “You’ll win.”
He didn’t look up. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” you replied, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. “You’re Max Verstappen.”
It earned you the faintest quirk of his mouth not a full smile, but the closest thing he gave before a race.
Feeling victorious at the reaction, you tugged something off your wrist. A simple hair band stretched thin, the elastic slightly frayed, a pale blue thread woven through it from where you’d once braided it in during a sleepover in some hotel room. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t new, but it had survived more race weekends than most did.
“Here,” you said, holding it out. “For luck.”
He hesitated for a beat weighing superstition against logic, or maybe just taking in the fact that you were offering him something personal without making a big deal out of it then lifted his wrist. You looped the band around it, pulling it snug. He turned his hand over slowly, studying the pale blue line against his skin like it meant more than what it was.
“You think it’ll actually help?” he murmured.
You tilted your head, considering him. “Only if you keep it.”
He followed your gaze toward the grid, where other kids were already clambering into their karts, engines coughing awake, exhaust mixing with the chill of the morning fog. Something in his face shifted not fear, but a kind of seriousness that didn’t belong on someone so young, as if he understood the weight of this tiny world even then.
Then he looked back at you, something softer in his eyes. “You’ll be here after?”
“Always,” you said without hesitation.
It was the kind of thing only kids could say and truly believe. No irony. No self-consciousness.
You smiled, wide and unguarded, then held out your pinky. “Promise.” He hooked his finger through yours, tight and quick like he needed to get it done before the moment passed. “Promise.”
A second later, someone called his name Jos, probably, voice sharp through the fog and he was up, jogging backward toward his kart, fireproofs flapping at his ankles, boots slapping wet pavement. Just before turning the corner, he held up his wrist, the hair tie sitting crooked and flimsy shaking it proudly like a banner.
You waved until he disappeared into the engine noise and fog, heart buzzing with something you didn’t yet have a name for. Even then, it had always been him.
Thursday - 09:31AM
You barely make it through the doors of the Mercedes hospitality unit before the storm greets you not in rain, not in raised voices, but in sharp whispers and quick, incredulous glances that ricochet around the room like ricocheting sparks on dry tinder.
“Did you see the photos?”
“What the hell was he thinking?”
“This has to be a PR nightmare.”
“Toto’s going to lose his mind.”
The tension is unmistakable and it has nothing to do with strategy briefings, tyre compounds, or anything remotely technical. This isn’t about car performance or a pit lane scandal. It’s personal. Phones are clutched in white-knuckled grips. PR coordinators whisper in tight circles, faces pale and lips pursed, as if the very shape of this story might shift depending on how quietly they say his name. Just beyond the glass doors, the media pen hums with barely-contained glee, not over regulation changes or late-season upgrades, but because someone finally gave them something.
You already know exactly what they're talking about. You knew before you even left your hotel this morning. The moment you rolled over in bed, eyes still foggy from sleep, and saw the screen glow with a single notification his name.
@maxverstappen1
📸 A carousel of five slightly blurry, weathered printed pictures:
You on the pit wall in 2018, only half in frame, the curve of your shoulder resting near his as Max leans forward, mid-laugh, grinning at something only the two of you shared.
A karting garage, dated 2012, Max holding up a small trophy like it’s gold-plated history, but his eyes aren’t on the prize. They’re on you. You’re grinning up at him, grease-smudged and sunburned.
A beach holiday photo from 2017. You’re on his back, laughing into the crook of his neck, your hair a mess of wind and salt. His hands are braced around your thighs, mouth caught mid-sentence.
A blurry snap from a factory tour his hoodie draped over your shoulders, your back turned to the camera as he follows a step behind, he’s looking at you like you hung the stars.
The last one, FP1 2015. You’re standing just outside the garage beside his car, hair braided tight, face focused, one hand on his helmet like it belonged to you.
Caption: Always side by side.
He hadn’t asked. He didn’t clear it with anyone. You hadn’t even seen some of the photos before, candid, quiet moments buried deep in time, snapshots not taken for anyone but the two of you, blurry with motion and memory and something more tender than you remembered allowing yourself to hold on to.
Yet when you saw it still tangled in hotel sheets, heart rising in your throat it didn’t feel like a betrayal, it didn’t feel like a strategic leak or a desperate attempt to steer a narrative.
It wasn’t the start of some calculated media strategy built to reshape headlines or pacify speculation. It didn’t feel like damage control or nostalgia bait or even a way to get ahead of the next round of questions.
It felt like a decision, intentional and unpolished. Entirely his.
He was proud. Of you. Of what you had shared. Of what you meant to him then and now.
For the first time since it all fell apart he wasn’t afraid of what anyone would say. He wasn’t bracing for backlash, or adjusting the truth to make it easier to digest. He wasn’t protecting the version of himself the world expected he was protecting the truth instead.
He chose you, publicly. Unapologetically. For the first time in years you felt like something in your chest, the part that had been clenched tight since 2019 was finally starting to let go.
The reaction is instant. The internet doesn’t pause. It doesn’t wait for context or clarification. It moves, fast and feverish, like blood rushing to the heart of something it’s been waiting for without even knowing it.
Old clips once lost to the endless scroll of media day fluff and behind-the-scenes footage are suddenly everywhere. More fans than ever are digging through years of archive content with surgical precision, resurrecting every second that now reads differently, every glance, every half-smile, every instinctive touch that had been brushed off at the time as friendly or fleeting.
A video from 2018 goes viral first: Max grabbing your wrist during the chaos of a post-qualifying debrief, pulling you back just as a crowd of reporters surges forward. You glance up, startled, and he doesn’t even look at you his grip is firm but natural, like it’s muscle memory. Like he’s always known where you are without even thinking.
Then another: Media day at Spa, same year. You’re mid-banter, rolling your eyes while Max mutters something under his breath. The camera catches your grin just before you fire back. He smirks. You shove his shoulder lightly. He pretends to stumble.
A quieter clip, barely ten seconds long. Hungary, 2017. It’s hot. The paddock is buzzing. You’re distracted, flipping through a book in the background while Max finishes an interview. As he walks off, he passes you, notices the sweat on your brow and without a word offers you his water bottle. You take it like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Neither of you speaks. Neither of you needs to.
@maxwolffcanon: WHEN SHE DISAPPEARED IN 2019??? IT WAS HIM. IT WAS ALWAYS HIM.
Beneath it, fan art is already in progress rough sketches of you and Max on opposite sides of a garage barrier, eyes locked, rain streaking down glass between you.
@vettelbaby94: This is the best slow-burn to ever slow or burn.
They post a compilation of every suspiciously charged interaction between you and Max from 2015 to 2019. The video ends on a freeze frame of Max looking back at you in the background of Abu Dhabi 2019, expression unreadable, just before the paddock lost sight of you for good.
@f1dailyfeed: Is this the soft launch of the decade?
@mercedesgworl: The beach pic? The karting photo? My heart wasn’t ready.
@champagneproblems44 someone check on toto wolff because his daughter and strategist just became the lead in an f1 love story and i KNOW he’s sweating
@softtires: “Always side by side.”It’s giving childhood friends. It’s giving “I never moved on.”
@F1wagwatch: Some of y’all are just now realizing she was always there. She’s been part of his story from day one.
@vercedes: Toto after seeing Max soft launch his daughter via blurry beach pics...
@lap1loveletters the real 2025 battle is between my will to live and this max/y/n lore
@ynloremaster: max posting polaroids was him ringing the bell. she better open the damn door
@florenceandthepit lets be real this is way more interesting than this years title fight
@maxitaxi33 this is why he’s been driving like he’s haunted all season. he WAS.
@wolffwatchers imagine dating max verstappen and thinking he’s not gonna be terminally obsessed with you forever. couldn’t be me.
@wagsinwaiting i think we're allowed to be a bit parasocial over this some of us have been waiting YEARS
Racing World Digest: Soft Launch or Sentimental Glitch? Verstappen Posts Rare Throwback
In a surprising move, Max Verstappen shared a series of nostalgic photos from his early F1 days, including several featuring Y/N, once a familiar face in the paddock and daughter of Mercedes TP Toto Wolff. Fans were quick to dissect the post, which lacked context but brimmed with personal history. No official comment from either camp yet.
Sky Sports Commentary (Natalie Pinkham)
“It’s not every day we see Max open up like that online. Whatever the intent, that post was deeply personal. It struck a chord with fans who’ve followed his career since karting.”
Thursday, Midday - Hospitality Lounge
You spot them before you even round the corner a huddle of elbows and lowered voices half‑pretending to look over briefing notes but really doing a terrible job of hiding whatever’s on the glowing screen in the middle of their little circle.
“Did you see the one on the beach?” Liam asks, tapping the screen.
Ollie mutters. “My engineer was saying she used to be around all the time back in the Red Bull junior days.”
“Yeah, but this is the first time Max has ever posted something like this,” Gabi points out. “He doesn’t do this kind of thing. Ever.”
Ollie raises an eyebrow. “So what he just woke up and chose to drop a memory lane carousel out of nowhere?”
Kimi shrugs. “Maybe it’s not out of nowhere.”
“Do you think he edited the caption like fifty times?” Ollie asks.
Gabi grins. “I bet he tried emojis and deleted them.”
Then Ollie says, “That last photo though, what does it mean?”
Liam gives him a look. “You are way too invested in this.”
“I’m just saying, it’s not nothing!”
Then the door swings open. You step inside flipping through a briefing packet, clearly mid-task. You look up just once and clock them instantly. All four straighten up like students caught talking during a lecture.
“Funny,” you say, lightly amused. “I don’t remember this being part of the media briefing.”
There’s a scramble of non-responses.
“We weren’t—”
“Just checking the weather…”
“Track walk timings—”
“—Totally professional.”
You narrow your eyes, not unkindly. “Right.”
Ollie opens his mouth, closes it, then points at Liam. “He started it.”
Liam doesn’t flinch just raises his hands.
Kimi mutters, blinking like he’s still processing it. “Those photos go way back.”
“Did you see the 2012 one?” Gabi adds. “He’s not even looking at the trophy he’s looking at you.”
Kimi just shrinks into his hoodie.
You walk over, grab a can of sparkling water from the mini fridge, then glance at the phone still open on the table paused on the second photo, the karting garage from 2012. You smile, soft and private, then look back at them.
You narrow your eyes. “Do I need to remind you that I’ve seen all your junior contract photos and know exactly how to leak them to a group chat full of bored fans?”
They watch you go, slightly embarrassed, slightly impressed.
“Okay,” Gabi mutters when you’re gone. “That was terrifying.”
Kimi exhales slowly. “She’s the best.”
Liam just nods. “Max is done for.”
Thursday - 09:56am - Red Bull Hospitality
GP corners him just inside the back hallway, away from the press and the chaos, jaw tense as he throws a hand through his hair like he’s trying not to implode.
“You did what?” he hisses, eyes scanning Max’s face as though waiting for him to crack or at least look a little less calm.
Max doesn’t even blink. He simply shrugs, voice maddeningly even. “It was time.”
GP lets out a groan so deep it borders on theatrical. “Mate your social team is probably melting down back there. They’re gonna need CPR.” He laughs once, sharp and incredulous, then shakes his head. “Good luck.”
Max takes a sip from the water bottle in his hand, posture relaxed, like he didn’t just lob a grenade into the tightly wound machinery of his team’s public image strategy. “Let them ask,” he says, quiet but certain. “Let everyone ask.”
He doesn’t say what’s really happening, doesn’t mention the hundreds of messages piling up on his phone, the sudden surge of fan edits, the threads cataloging every shared look, the viral TikToks syncing their history to piano ballads.
He certainly doesn’t bring up the ones that matter most: the quiet messages, the DMs filled with Finally. With I always knew.
This was Max telling the world what he wants.
Thursday - 10:17am - Toto’s Office
The room is quiet, Toto stands near the window, the muted light from the cloudy skies casting long shadows across the glass-topped desk. One hand holds his phone, the other braced against the sill as he stares at the screen. From where you stand you already know what he’s looking at.
The now-infamous carousel.
Your breath catches somewhere in your chest, your fingers curling slightly at your sides as you wait bracing for the inevitable fallout. The lecture. The frustration. The cold reminder that you are a strategist, not a story. That you were supposed to outgrow the era of hallway glances and back-of-the-garage confessions.
He doesn’t speak right away. He just stares at the screen for a long, heavy moment, jaw tight, unreadable. Then, with the kind of patience only age and heartbreak can teach a man, he exhales slowly, sets the phone face-down on the desk, and finally turns to you.
“I’m not going to ask where all this has come from,” he says, his voice carrying that distinct, grounded Austrian calm that somehow makes everything feel heavier. “I know where it came from.”
You shift your weight every muscle stiff with restraint. Standing in front of his desk surrounded by technical briefings and whiteboards filled with data, you feel like a teenager again, young, messy, standing on the edge of a mistake you haven't even made yet. Waiting to be scolded. To be told you’re reckless, unprofessional, emotional.
Instead Toto leans back in his chair folding his hands with careful deliberation. “I saw you after that hallway,” he says, voice gentler than you expect. “After he stopped you. I saw your face when you walked back in.”
You glance away, throat tight.
“I haven’t seen you look like that since 2019,” he continues. “Not even during your best days here. You were present, yes, but… never quite whole. You’ve been sharp and focused, excellent even, but something was missing.”
He pauses. Then says, more softly: “You miss him. That much is obvious.”
The admission hits harder than you want it to because it’s true and hearing it aloud, from him, shatters the last layer of detachment you’d been clinging to. He watches you for a beat longer, eyes narrowed in that particular way that’s both assessment and care.
“If he hurts you again—” he begins.
You nod before he can finish.
“I know,” you murmur, voice quiet. “You’ll kill him.”
Toto tilts his head, almost amused. “No. I’ll make him wish I had.”
There’s a long silence between you, one that’s not quite heavy, more reflective, more personal. A silence that only exists between a father and a daughter who have been through something together.
Then, to your surprise, he lets out a short laugh.
“I can’t quite believe he did that,” he says, still shaking his head like he hasn’t quite made peace with the absurdity of it. “That boy has been media-trained since he could walk, hardened by more press briefings than most politicians and yet…”
He trails off, still baffled.
You blink, uncertain. “You’re… not angry?”
He gives a slight shrug. “A little. There are going to be questions we’ll have to answer. A lot of calls. I’m screening the PR team right now.”
Then he rises, pushing his chair back, walking around the desk until he’s standing in front of you. “But before I’m your team principal,” he says quietly, “I’m your father. That matters to me more.”
Your chest tightens. A smile tugs at your lips despite yourself.
“I trust you.” he says defiantly.
He squeezes your shoulder once, then pulls away, straightening his cuffs like the moment never happened. Already shifting back into the professional mask he wears so well.
You feel it anyway. The protection. The acceptance. You feel like you’re allowed to hope.
F1TV Reporter:
“There’s been a lot of noise around Max’s social post and his personal life recently. Any official comment?”
Gianpiero Lambiase (sighs):
“No comment on Max’s personal life, but... I will say everyone feels a little more at peace lately.”
Sky Sports – Pit Lane Walk with Martin Brundle
Martin Brundle: “Well, if it isn’t the sharpest mind in Brackley. Still running the numbers or just here to keep the boys in line?”
You: “Depends on the day. Today it’s tyre data. Tomorrow? Herding engineers.”
Martin: “Been a few interesting looks coming your way this weekend.”
You: “Nothing gets the paddock talking like a woman doing her job, Martin.”
Martin (laughs):“Fair point but come on now, we’ve all seen the photos. There’s a certain World Champion who looked very... nostalgic this week.”
You (grinning): “Ah, nostalgia. It’s a powerful tool Martin. So is a good caption.”
Martin (amused): “You’re not going to give us anything, are you? Alright then, one serious question what’s impressed you most about the current grid since your return?”
You: “The rookies are fearless. The midfield is chaotic in the best way. And some of the veterans… they’ve grown up.”
Martin: “Anyone in particular?”
You: “Now Martin, that sounds dangerously close to a personal question.”
Martin (laughing): “Fair enough. You’ve still got that media sidestep perfected. We’ll leave you to it.”
Sky Sports Broadcast - FP2
David Croft: “Max Verstappen coming through sector two looking... sharp.”
Karun Chandhok: “He’s always composed from the off, but there’s something... settled about him today.”
Crofty: “Wouldn’t have anything to do with his Instagram post this morning, would it?”
Karun: “Well,I’m not in the PR department Crofty, but let’s just say... a few things from his past seem to be resurfacing in a good way.”
Charles, Lando, and George are standing side by side, fresh from qualifying, still zipped into their suits. The heat of the day clings to their skin, but their energy is high and they've somehow ended up in the same interview.
Reporter: “So a certain post from a certain Dutch World Champion has set the internet on fire. Any thoughts?”
Lando immediately throws up his hands: “Nope. Not getting involved. I value my life.”
George, mock serious: “The best part? As long as they’re taking up headline space, no one is asking me about why I overshot Turn 6.”
Charles, faux innocent: “Or why I was late to briefing.”
Reporter (laughing): “So you’re saying it’s strategic?”
Lando: “Listen, we’re just saying… let the romantics carry the storyline. We’ll be here quietly escaping you lot in peace.”
George: “Exactly. I support them fully. For entirely selfish reasons.”
Charles adds with a dramatic sigh: “True love is a sacrifice. We thank them for theirs.”
All three dissolve into laughter, someone mutters “they’re going to kill us,” and the interview ends with a wide pan shot of the three of them walking away, still chuckling, leaving the audience to speculate just how much of it was real.
As the weeks pass it's strange how easily it becomes routine again.
Not the way it was, not the reckless closeness of childhood, not the intensity of those early paddock years but something quieter, steadier, more deliberate. Max doesn’t push. He doesn’t ask for a second chance outright. He simply begins to show up in the places where you don’t expect him, and more importantly, in the ways you care about most.
He doesn’t demand to be let in, doesn’t corner you with grand declarations or apologies that expect anything in return. He never says give me another chance. Instead he shows you what it would look like, what he looks like now, and how deeply he understands what he did wrong.
He doesn’t ask for forgiveness. Doesn’t rush you. Doesn’t try to pretend that history didn’t happen. He carries it with him visible in the softness of his tone, in the patience in his eyes, in the way he leaves space for you to come to him, always with the unspoken promise that he’ll be there when you do.
Friday - 10:05pm – Your Hotel Room
He knocks once, just like he has every night for the last three race weekends.
You open the door and he’s there, hair flattened from the cap he must’ve worn during media rounds, takeaway dinner in one hand and two drinks balanced precariously in the other. He doesn’t try to come in immediately. He waits for you to decide. You always let him in.
He drops onto the hotel-room floor without asking, unfolding the food on the low table, offering you dessert knowing that’s what you want most, while you settle on the edge of the sofa, legs crossed, laptop still glowing with colour-coded data points. He watches you work for a while not the way someone watches something confusing, but the way someone watches something they respect. You can feel it in the corners of the room, in the silence that settles comfortably between you.
“You always used to do this,” he murmurs after a while, eyes flicking toward your notes from last week. “See things no one else bothered to look for.”
You glance over at him with a light laugh. “I think it’s just pattern recognition.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head slightly. “Everyone sees patterns. You see the reason behind them.”
The compliment lands more deeply than you expect, maybe because it’s never been something he’s said before. Maybe because six years ago he was sometimes too tangled in his own chaos to notice your brilliance.
Now he notices everything. The way you narrate your strategy notes under your breath. The way your brow furrows when a graph doesn’t match your instinct. The way you tap your pen against your knee when you’re on the verge of a breakthrough.
He doesn’t interrupt. He just listens, quietly, as if learning the architecture of your thoughts is part of the work he’s set himself.
When he notices you watching, he shrugs. “Still trying to keep up with you.”
Three Weeks Earlier — Media Pen
A reporter leans against the barrier, mic in hand, wearing that half-smile he uses when he’s fishing for something he shouldn’t be.
“So, Max,” he says, glancing toward the cluster of Mercedes staff behind you, “some people are saying her return season is a PR strategy. Optics management. Human interest. You know how these things go, she's not cut out for the job over there at your rivals.”
You’re not even looking at Max you’re focused on the tablet in your hands, heat radiating off the asphalt, but you feel the shift in him like a drop in air pressure.
He straightens, expression cooling in a way you’ve only ever seen when he’s about to say something he won’t let PR fix later.
“No,” Max says, voice firm but eerily calm. “That’s not what this is.”
The reporter blinks, surprised by the tone. Max continues, stepping slightly closer to the barrier, not enough to be aggressive, but enough to make sure the cameras catch every word.
“She’s here because she’s good. Better than most people will ever give her credit for. Don’t reduce her to PR spin just because you don’t understand what she does.”
The reporter taken aback, tries to laugh it off. “Alright, alright no offence meant—”
Max shakes his head once. “If you want to talk about someone’s professionalism you should probably look at your own.”
Your heart stumbles, not just because he’s defending you but because of the way he says it. Calm. Direct. Unapologetic. With none of the tension you’d expect, none of the fear of headlines or backlash or the weight of someone else’s expectations.
He’s not doing it to be gallant. He’s doing it because he understands that silence has consequences and that this time he refuses to be silent.
When you walk past him on the way back to the paddock, he doesn’t reach for you, doesn’t stop you, doesn’t smirk in victory.
He just looks at you, eyes softening the moment you meet his gaze, a question written in the tilt of his head:
Was that okay? Did I help or did I make it worse?
You give him the smallest nod.
It’s enough to make him exhale.
Two Weeks Earlier - Hotel Lobby
You’re tucked into the corner of the hotel lobby, laptop open while other staff filter in and out, dripping water across the marble floor.
Max walks in from the far entrance, shaking rain from his hair, jacket plastered to his shoulders. He spots you immediately, like gravity, and crosses the room.
“I thought you’d be at dinner,” he says.
“I told them I’d catch up,” you reply. “Needed to finish something.”
He nods, gaze flicking to your screen. “You always did your best thinking at night.”
You can’t answer. Not right away. Because it isn’t the memory that hits you it’s the fact that he still carries it. That he kept that silly fact tucked somewhere inside him long after you thought he’d outgrown every part of you.
After a moment, he says quietly, “I can stay with you for a bit, if you want.”
Not You need help?
Not Let me fix this.
Not I’ll tell you what I think.
You nod, and he sits not too close, not crowding just there.It’s small. Almost nothing, but it’s the kind of nothing you feel for hours.
One Week Earlier - Hotel Suite
It’s late, the lighting is low and warm, the music questionable, and the poker game downright ruthless.
No cameras. Just a strange mix of drivers and insiders slouched around a table littered with empty glasses, crumpled napkins, and poker chips stacked like tiny fortresses. There’s a Bluetooth speaker hissing out a terrible club remix and someone (probably Lando) keeps changing the playlist mid-song.
You're leaned back in a chair with your legs crossed and a drink balanced lightly in your hand, surveying your modest but powerful pile of chips like a general preparing a takeover.
Pierre fans his cards out slowly, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t trust you.”
You don’t even blink. “You shouldn’t.”
George groans from across the table, already halfway through collecting his losses. “I swear she gets scarier every time we play.”
Carlos smirks. “She’s running the table tonight.”
“Monaco, 2018,” Esteban says under his breath, pointing a finger at you. “You remember? You took Ricciardo’s entire wallet.”
“I didn’t take it,” you say primly. “He wagered it. I just… won.”
“Semantics,” he deadpans, kicking his legs under the table.
Lando leans forward from where he’s folded, propping his chin on his hand with a gleeful expression. “Max used to say never play cards with her. Said she could read people. Psychic powers maybe”
The table laughs. You lift your glass, hiding the flicker of something behind the rim.
Still, you recover quickly. “Well. He should’ve learned to bluff better.” You eye Max across the table and he just smirks.
“Oh, damn,” George says, dragging out the words.
Pierre holds up his hands in surrender. “You see this? This is exactly what I mean.”
The hand ends. You win. Again. You start stacking the chips in neat, smug columns.
“I’m out,” George says, pushing back from the table. “I’ve got a debrief in the morning and if I’m slow, Toto will personally chain me to a simulator.”
“Tell him I said hi,” you say sweetly, pulling your jacket off the back of your chair.
Pierre’s grumbling in French. Esteban is dramatically counting his remaining chips. Carlos is trying to convince Alex he was cheated somehow.
Charles calls after you as you head for the door, “Don’t let Mercedes PR know we’re corrupting their strategist.”
You flash a smile over your shoulder. “Too late.”
You slip out into the hallway cooler, quieter, and empty except for the hum of distant vending machines and the soft buzz of LED exit signs. You walk slower now, jacket slung over your shoulder, the air outside lighter than it’s felt in years.
“See this is exactly why I never played poker with you.”
The voice comes from behind you familiar, amused, and unfairly warm in the quiet.
You pause, turning. Max is leaning against the wall. His hair’s a little messy and he’s watching you with that infuriating, crooked half-smile that once meant everything and still kind of does.
You arch a brow. “You always claimed you were too tired. I assumed it was just fear.”
Max pushes off the wall and walks toward you slowly. “It was respect. I know a lost cause when I see one.”
You roll your eyes, but you don’t stop smiling. “You want another round, prepared to be humiliated again?”
“I came to say goodnight,” he says easily, stepping beside you. “Any humiliation was just a bonus.”
You laugh, shaking your head.
Max’s voice softens. “Seriously, though… it was nice. Hearing you laugh like that again.”
He looks at you for a long moment, then says, quieter now, “You’re really good at this.”
“At poker?”
“At all of it.” His voice is sincere now, anchored. “The way you carry yourself. The work you do. The way you fit in any room and light it up without letting it change who you are.”
You blink, caught off guard for a second. Of all the things you expected tonight, that wasn’t it.
“And?” you ask, like it’s a challenge.
“You might have won tonight but,” he smiles, a little slower this time. “I think I’m the lucky one.”
It’s quiet again, but your pulse is loud. You wonder if he can hear it or if he feels it too.
You nudge him toward the exit. “Come on Verstappen. Walk me back.”
Max falls into step beside you, hands tucked into his pockets, your strides naturally matching like they always used to.
By the time Qatar comes around, it’s obvious, not to the paddock, not to the media, not even to your parents, but to you, that Max has been working at this.
He listens when you speak, not with impatience or distraction, but with the quiet focus of someone who finally understands what he once took for granted. He makes space for you, not just because he’s trying to win you back, but because he finally sees the shape of the space you’ve always deserved.
He protects without overshadowing.
He learns the new parts of you and slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice it happening and the distance between you begins to close.
Not with one sentimental moment but with dozens of tiny ones.
Weeks of them.
Little pieces of proof he keeps offering you, day after day, as if trying to rebuild something brick by brick, patient enough to know it can’t be rushed, determined enough not to let the foundation crack again.
He’s already chosen you and he’s not going anywhere.
Wednesday – 11:56 PM — Abu Dhabi
You scroll endlessly, letting the noise wash over you without really taking any of it in. Notifications. Mentions. Fan edits that leave your chest tight. Memes, fancams, comments in every language.
One post, buried among the noise, makes you pause.
A screenshot from an old behind-the-scenes documentary. You and Max, just teenagers, sitting side by side on the pit wall before a practice session in 2015. You’re laughing at something off-camera, and his gaze is fixed entirely on you, eyes shining.
@y/nmax4ever: He’s only ever smiled like this when he looks at her 🥹
You exhale softly, pressing the back of your hand to your mouth, blinking away the sting behind your eyes. There's a weight in your chest that hasn't quite left you in six years.
Then your phone lights up with a message.
Max:
Meet me at the track. Rooftop. You know the way.
You don’t need to ask which rooftop.
You still remember the shortcuts. The back stairwell behind the catering unit. The old service ladder wedged between the media building and the hospitality suites. The one you both used to sneak up when you were younger, when everything was still easy, before things like reputations and legacy and heartbreak made everything so complicated.
By the time you climb the final rung, the paddock below is still glowing in low orange lights quiet now, tucked into the hush of midnight. The clatter and chatter of the day has faded, replaced by the distant whirr of generators and the hum of cooling systems. It feels like you’ve stepped out of time, like the world has been muted just for this.
Max is already there.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the edge of the roof, overlooking the pit straight, the soft wind tousling his hair. In front of him, he’s laid out a soft blanket, there's two takeaway cups, a box of pretzel snacks you used to love, and a thermos. It's not grand, not staged for cameras, but it’s careful and intentional a silent gesture.
He simply shifts to the side, making room. You sit beside him, knees touching, and for a long time, neither of you speaks.
Not because there’s nothing to say but because, finally, there’s no urgency to say it. Not yet.
Down below, the track sleeps. Everything you’ve both built your lives around feels small from here. Distant. Contained. But up here, above the noise, it’s just you and him. Like it used to be.
Max breaks the silence first. His voice is soft. “They locked the fence by Turn 10, can't sneak that way anymore.”
You glance sideways. “Guess they finally caught on.”
He exhales a laugh, low and familiar. “Took them long enough.”
You both fall quiet again. For a moment it’s just the sound of your breathing, in and out, matching like it always used to. Like muscle memory.
“I think Lando’s trying to recruit me to McLaren,” you murmur, lips quirking.
Max hums, amused. “I don’t think he’ll be the only one trying to after this season.”
“He promised me papaya cupcakes.”
“I’ll bake you cupcakes.”
“You can’t bake.”
“I’ll learn.”
That earns a real smile from you the kind that doesn’t feel forced or guarded. When you glance over he’s already watching you.
“I’m still a little worried you’ll leave again,” he admits.
You shake your head slowly. “I thought about it, at the beginning.”
He nods, eyes lowering to the rooftop beneath his hands. “Do you regret it?”
You tilt your head. “Coming back?”
“Yes... but more letting me back in.”
The question hangs there, suspended between you like it’s holding its breath.
You exhale slowly, eyes drifting out toward the empty track. “I know people say you should live without regrets, but… I regretted leaving more times than I can count. I’d be sitting in some café halfway across the world, staring at my phone, trying to convince myself not to text you.” Your voice softens. “But maybe we had to go through all of it to get here, even if we missed out on a lot on the way.”
He nods, quiet. The wind shifts.
“I’ll keep showing up,” he says. “Every day. For as long as you’ll let me.”
You believe him.
You reach into your jacket pocket and slowly pull out a worn photo, the same photo he sent you the Polaroid version of months ago now. The one you kept, even when it hurt too much to look at. The photo of you both post 2016 win, laughing, joy unfiltered.
“I have a copy too. I never let go of it,” you whisper.
He takes it gently, reverently, like he’s holding a piece of his own history.
From his wallet he pulls something of his own, the Polaroid. You stare at it for a long moment, the versions of yourselves looking up at you. Two kids who had no idea what was coming. Then you turn toward him.
You seem him take a breath, brace himself. When he speaks, it’s not a grand gesture, not a dramatic monologue. It’s simple. Honest.
“I love you.”
He says it like he’s carried it for years, like it’s been sitting just behind his ribs, burning through him slowly, waiting for the moment he finally couldn’t keep it in anymore. You can’t help but gasp as cliche as it is, gasp at hearing the words you’ve waited for for six years, maybe even longer.
“I’ve loved you for longer than I knew how to explain,” he says, voice rough around the edges as if each word scrapes past a decade of silence. “I didn’t say it back then because I was scared. I didn’t know what to do with something that big, something that felt like it could change everything.”
He shakes his head slightly, eyes flickering toward the pit straight as if remembering another lifetime. “I thought that if I said it out loud, I’d mess everything up. That I’d break us or let someone else’s voice convince me it was a mistake.” He swallows, throat tight. “I thought staying quiet would keep you close.”
A soft, humourless breath leaves him.
“Instead it pushed you away and I let it.”
His voice cracks.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, the words trembling with sincerity. “For waiting so long. For saying it now when I should’ve said it years ago. For every version of you that needed to hear it and never got the chance.” He draws in a breath, steadying. “You don’t have to say it back. I just… I need you to know.”
The wind brushes over the rooftop, lifting the edge of the blanket he laid out, nudging a strand of your hair across your cheek. The world feels impossibly still, a quiet suspended between heartbeats.
You look at him, really look, and in that moment, you see it all:
The boy who wore your hairband around his wrist in a muddy karting paddock. The teenager who shared room-service fries on hotel floors. The young man who stood on podiums with your name hidden somewhere beneath his pulse. The one who lost you. The one who fought his way back. The one sitting in front of you now, open in a way you’ve never seen, asking for nothing but a chance.
You’ve held your love for him like a secret locked behind bone, tucked away, protected, guarded, buried beneath everything else you had to build to survive losing him.
But now? Now it rises in your throat too fast, too certain, too real to hold back any longer.
You shift closer, knees brushing his. “Max,” you breathe, “I’ve been trying not to say it for almost a decade.”
“I love you.”
“I loved you then,” you continue, voice steadying, “and I love you now. I love you and I don’t think I ever stopped.”
He lets out a sound half‑laugh, half‑sob, feather-light but devastating, shoulders loosening as if your words have finally allowed him to breathe. Then he leans forward, forehead resting against yours, breath unsteady with relief, disbelief, and something so tender it almost hurts.
“I love you,” he whispers again, softer this time, like it’s finally safe to say it.
You close your eyes, letting the words settle between you, warm and solid and real.
He leans in slowly, deliberately, giving you every chance to stop him, to hesitate, to turn away, but you don’t move, not even a fraction. Your breath catches but you stay exactly where you are, watching him with a kind of quiet certainty that’s been years in the making.
Finally… finally, his lips touch yours.
The kiss is soft at first. Just the barest brush, reverent, like he’s still not sure you’re real or that this moment won’t vanish if he closes his eyes.
It’s the kind of kiss that says I need you before it dares to say anything else. It glows, warm and tender and full of everything you both tried to bury.
Then like something breaks open between you the quiet dissolves because neither of you can hold back anymore.
You breathe him in and kiss him harder. He meets you with equal force, his hands sliding into your hair, tilting your face to deepen the kiss like he’s starved for it, starved for you. It’s no longer soft. It’s fierce. Years of tension unspooling in seconds. A collision, not an accident.
Your hands grip the front of his hoodie, pulling him closer, and he lets you, lets you take, lets you want, lets you have him. His thumb brushes your cheek but the rest of him is all motion: mouth, hands, heart, urgency.
He tastes like rain and memory, like the version of you that never stopped loving him.
When you finally break apart, it’s not because you want to it’s because you have to. Breathless, chests rising in tandem, lips tingling from the rush of it.
The air between you is charged. It doesn’t feel like the beginning of something new. It feels like finally returning to something that never should’ve been lost.
When you finally pull apart, foreheads pressed together, breathing shared, everything around you feels different, lighter, more real.
Max smiles, just barely. “Took me long enough.”
You whisper against his lips, “You’re here now.”
China - Max's Hotel Room - 2018
The carpet is ugly that generic hotel pattern of swirling beige and navy but it’s soft under bare feet and at this hour it’s the only place in the building that feels alive. The race ended hours ago. The celebrations are long over. Everyone else has either gone to bed or disappeared into team briefings and press obligations.
Except you and Max.
He’s still more boy than man in the way his laughter bounces off the walls. His hair is damp from a shower, curling slightly at the ends. He’s wearing an oversized team T-shirt and a pair of grey sweats, and his bare toes drum against the carpet. The two of you are sitting on the edge of the sofa a tray of room-service fries balanced between you.
“This is a terrible movie,” Max says, wiping his hand on a napkin, though he’s smiling in that easy, lopsided way that means he’s having a better time than he’ll ever admit.
“That’s the point,” you shoot back, reaching for another fry. “You’re supposed to laugh at it, not analyse it.”
He scoffs playfully. “I can’t help it. The plot makes no sense.”
“The plot is that two idiots are in love and keep messing it up.”
He turns to look at you, something flickering in his expression, amusement maybe. “It’s unrealistic.”
You throw a fry at him. It bounces off his shoulder and lands in his lap. He pretends to be offended, gasping dramatically before popping it in his mouth.
“Gross,” you groan. “That’s unsanitary.”
“I’ve eaten worse,” he says through a grin, eyes still glinting with that post-race high, that restless kind of energy that never really fades in him.
You shake your head, laughing, your shoulder brushing his. It’s an accident, probably, but neither of you moves away. The proximity feels normal by now.
He nudges you lightly with his elbow. “Promise we’ll still be doing this when we’re old and boring?”
You grin, turning toward him. “Define old.”
He thinks for a moment, lips twitching. “Like… thirty”
You snort. “That’s not old.”
He smirks.
“Fine,” you say, picking up another fry and aiming it like a dart. “Deal. We’ll sit in another overpriced hotel, eating terrible food, watching worse movies, and you’ll still complain about the plot.”
He tilts his head, studying you with an expression you can’t quite name soft around the edges, like he’s memorising this moment without meaning to.
Years later when you think of before, before everything broke, before silence and distance and growing up too fast this is what you’ll remember.
The almost pink light flickering gently above you.
And that ridiculous promise…
“When we’re old and boring.”
You’ll think about it every time you see him again.
Thursday – 7:43PM - Abu Dhabi
The paddock has quieted, the chaos of media day reduced to the occasional thud of gear cases being rolled and the low drone of generators humming through the night air. A few lights flicker inside the hospitality buildings, but the rest of the world seems to have gone still.
Max walks with his head down, hoodie pulled up, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He’s not hiding, not exactly, but he’s aware that the timing of his presence here could raise questions. He doesn’t care. Not anymore.
He’s halfway across the walkway when he hears the voice.
“Took you long enough.”
Max freezes. Not because he’s scared but because he knows that voice better than most in this paddock.
Toto.
The older man is leaning against the corner of the Mercedes unit, arms folded, suit jacket long gone, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There’s a coffee in one hand, though Max would bet anything it’s got a hint of something else in. He looks calm, but Max knows better. Calm is what Toto Wolff uses when he’s feeling everything else.
Max approaches slowly.
Toto raises a brow. “You’ve walked past our garage three times now.”
Max shrugs. “Didn’t know if I’d be welcome.”
There’s a long pause before they go inside.
Max sits, grounded in place by something heavier than fear. He’s faced world champions wheel-to-wheel at 300kph, but this conversation carries a different kind of gravity. The kind where one wrong word could undo everything.
“I’m not going to hurt her” Max says eventually.
“I know,” Toto nods once, taking a slow sip from his mug. “But knowing something and trusting it are two different things.”
Max lets out a slow breath. He expected that, honestly, he respects it.
“She’s always been the stubborn one,” Toto says after a beat, eyes drifting toward the paddock. “Even as a kid. Smart as hell. Always did what felt right, not what looked easy. I never tried to stop her just tried to make sure she didn’t get hurt.”
Max smiles faintly despite himself. “She's still stubborn.”
“She doesn’t run from things easily,” Toto continues. “Which means she didn’t leave lightly. She left because she believed no one cared enough to stop her.”
“I know,” Max admits. “I thought staying quiet was protecting her when really I was just protecting myself. She believed in me,” Max says, eyes tightening. “Before anyone else did. Before I even believed in myself. And I let her go. I let her walk away and I told myself I’d reach out later, when the time was better, when I was more sure, when I could handle it.”
“You matter to her too,” Toto says after a beat. “God help me, you always have.”
Max looks at him.
“I needed to hear you say it.” Toto straightens. “Because the last time she let herself care about you she broke and I won’t watch that happen again.”
“You won’t have to,” Max says, voice firmer now. “I’m not a kid anymore. I know what I want. And I know what I lost.”
“She’s not a girl anymore either,” Toto says. “She’s a grown woman. An important member of this team in her own right.”
“I know,” Max says softly. “I’ve been trying to learn what that means. What it looks like to show up for her now. Not just the version of her I knew back then. I don’t want to overshadow her. I want to stand beside her.
Toto nods once, the motion slow and deliberate. “If you’re going to do this, you have to do it properly, all in. Love her like she’s worth.”
Max meets his eyes. “I will.”
There’s another long pause, but the tension shifts, not quite friendship, not quite acceptance, but something adjacent to respect.
As Max turns to go, Toto calls out behind him.
“You screw this up again Verstappen. You waste this second chance?”
Max stops but doesn’t turn around.
“I’ll let you break both my arms,” he says. “But you won’t have to.”
With that he disappears into the shadows not running, but walking with purpose toward something he knows he’s ready for.
Later, when the door to your car shuts and the city lights begin to blur outside the window, you let out a shaky laugh.
“He’s getting soft,” you murmur.
Max still watching the road, doesn’t smile right away. “He’s terrifying sometimes,” he says instead then glances at you with something softer in his eyes. “But he’s not wrong.”
You look at him.
“I’m going to get this right,” he says. “You’re it for me.”
You smile and lean your head on his shoulder, and for the first time in years nothing hurts.
Sunday – 09:33am
You’re tucked near the back of the paddock hospitality unit, alone, a mug of coffee warm between your palms as the low murmur of team chatter fills the space around you. The morning's calm, filters through the occasional scrape of chair legs in the next room. You’re reviewing data on a tablet, but not really seeing it.
A shape enters your periphery. You don’t need to look to know who it is. You feel it in your spine first the familiar tension, the way time seems to slow in subtle defiance. When you do glance up Jos Verstappen is standing a few feet away, arms folded tight across his chest, jaw set in a line you’ve seen mirrored on Max more times than you can count.
“You’re here a lot lately.”
The words aren’t sharp, but they land with a precision that feels intentional.
You don’t look away. “I work here,” you say evenly, voice calm. “It’s not exactly strange for me to be in the paddock.”
Jos’s mouth presses into a thin line. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
A pause stretches between you, brittle and silent.
Then, footsteps. Max. His presence doesn’t crash into the conversation it settles, firm and quiet, like a stake driven into the ground beside you.
He steps up next to you but doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t speak. He just stands there, still, like he’s always known this moment would come and he’s ready to meet it.
Jos looks between the two of you, his expression unreadable. “This thing between you… it’s going to get complicated. Fast. You know that.”
Max doesn’t flinch. “It already is and it's worth it.”
“You’ve got everything lined up,” Jos continues. “A career most people would kill for. You’ve fought too hard to get here. You want to gamble that on—”
“On what?” Max cuts in, voice low but unwavering. “On someone who’s known me since I was a kid? On someone who stood by me long before anyone believed in me. You keep calling this a risk, but it feels like the most certain thing in my life.”
Jos’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I get that you’re trying to look out for me but I’m not seventeen anymore,” Max says, quieter now. “You don’t have to remind me what’s at stake and I’m not asking for permission. I’ve made mistakes sure but this isn’t one of them. I’m not throwing anything away. I’m choosing something.” His voice doesn’t shake, but there’s something raw underneath it.
Jos’s gaze flicks to you again.
“She’s not the problem, she’s not a distraction.” Max says. “She never was.”
Jos exhales slowly, like something in him is trying to uncoil. Then, to your surprise, he speaks not accusingly, but almost… weary.
“Maybe I didn’t handle things the best,” he says.
Max nods once. The silence that follows isn’t cold. It’s filled with the weight of years, with the kind of unspoken connection that’s never been easy to express between them. Jos shifts slightly, gaze softer now, and when he looks at you again, the edge is gone replaced by something that feels like reluctant understanding.
“You leaving again?” he asks, the words quieter, less accusatory.
You shake your head. “Not unless I have a reason to.”
It isn’t forgiveness, not yet. You know you're never going to get the apology you really want, but it’s something like a truce.
Jos nods. Once. Small. Grudging. “Alright, then.”
Max watches him leave, his shoulders tense until Jos is out of sight.
You nudge him gently. “You okay?”
Max doesn’t answer right away. He breathes out, long and quiet. “Yeah. I just hate that look he gives you.”
“I can take it,” you say, reaching for his hand. “I’ve handled worse.”
“I know,” he murmurs, his fingers sliding between yours with. “Doesn’t mean I want you to.”
You squeeze gently. “He’s still your dad.”
Max nods. “Yeah and I still want him in my life I just won't risk losing you to make that happen.”
“You won’t,” you say. “We’ll figure it out. All of us. It’ll just take time.”
He gives you a small smile, tired, but real. “You didn’t have to stand there and take that.”
“I want him to know I’m not going anywhere either.”
Max glances toward the door again, like he’s seeing something more than just his father walking away.
“I think,” he says quietly, “he finally heard us.”
You rest your head briefly on his shoulder, and Max leans into the contact. He doesn’t say thank you. He doesn’t have to.
The way he brushes your hand says enough.
Race Weekly: Six Years Later: A Familiar Walk, A New Story
Fans who’ve followed the sport since the 2010s will remember the quiet camaraderie between Max Verstappen and Y/N from their karting days to early F1 seasons. Their visible walk together through the paddock this weekend sparked speculation that some bonds, no matter how frayed, can be mended and maybe even stronger than before.
00:17AM
It drops in the night. No warning. No caption just a single heart emoji. A quiet joint post shared from both Max's and your Instagram profiles.
There are two photos. Side by side.
The first is an older one, 2014. You're both laughing, caught mid-moment, heads thrown back slightly, hands brushing as if neither of you remembered the camera was there. It's golden-hour light, soft and glowing, the kind of moment no one stages because you can't.
The second is more intimate. Max is kissing you. His hand is cupping the side of your jaw. Your eyes are closed, your fingers curled into the front of his jumper. There’s no tension in your bodies, only ease like you’ve finally arrived at the place you were always meant to return to.
The post doesn’t need to go viral. It detonates. Within minutes, it's everywhere, screenshotted, re-posted, zoomed-in, cried over, defended, dissected, loved.
@mercedesgirlies: I can finally sleep. We made it.
@wolffwatchers: I sobbed in my kitchen. My cat is concerned.
@teamlh4ever No bc I’ve never been a Max fan and even I teared up. This is cinema.
@gp_it_me: we finally got our happy ending. now leave me alone I need ten minutes of silence.
@maxiel87: this wasn’t a soft launch. this was a full, cinematic, 4k, emotionally devastating, Hall of Fame rollout.
@verstappensburner: the way this has more character development than any netflix show.
@mvwdramasept: they gave us enemies to best friends to silence to heartbreak to this. this is why I believe in long-form storytelling.
@vercedes: We were never insane.
@mv33fc1: I don’t even ship real people but Max Verstappen posting that at midnight with no caption like he hasn’t been in love for 10 years is UNREAL BEHAVIOUR.
@monacoapologist: The kiss photo?? He said I waited half my life for this woman now the internet can deal.
@wolffstappen1:: POV: you’ve been secretly in love with your best friend since karting and finally the whole world knows
@maxy/nwatch2025: the way he’s HOLDING her face like it’s sacred… Max Verstappen you are free to hurt me
@lighsout: And the other photo that's from like 2014??? They've been in love forever.
@gr33: Everyone shut up this is the greatest hard launch of all time I am shaking I am crying
@gridwitchery: six years. six YEARS.
@f1editsdaily: I need 12 hours to make the fancam this deserves. I’m calling out of work.
@undercut: YOU GUYS. HE POSTED IT. THEY POSTED IT. THIS IS THE ONE. THIS IS THE MOMENT.
@paddockchronicles: I want this carved into FIA history. I want this in the Louvre. I want this played at my wedding and my funeral.
And in the comment section beneath the post, quietly rising to the top:
@victoriaverstappen: ❤️ @charles_leclerc: Finally. @landonorris: called it. @danielricciardo: i cried. i’m not ashamed. max i’m gonna hug you and you’re gonna take it. @oscarpiastri Congrats. Also… respect for the slow-burn. @fernandoalo_oficial Some things are worth waiting for. @lando.jpg: he’s so whipped and I’m so proud. @lewishamilton Wishing you both the best. @sebastianvettel Glad you figured it out. Protect each other. That’s the whole point. @carlossainz55 Plot twist of the season. Happy for you both. @redbullracing Let’s just say… the paddock’s been waiting for this one.
Later max comments and you pin it to the top.
@maxverstappen1: For the years we missed. And the ones we won’t.
The world keeps spinning. The paddock keeps moving. Races will come and go, headlines will shift but for one night under moonlight and memory you gave the world the one thing it didn’t know it needed.
Proof that love, even in this world, can wait.
Can return.
Zandvoort - Six Months Later
There’s something about the sea air here.
Not quite salt, not quite smoke, just the kind of breeze that carries memory. You stand on the balcony of the trackside hotel, hair tangled from the wind, coffee cooling in your hands. Below, the orange haze of fans is already beginning to thicken, flags waving like fire across the dunes.
Zandvoort used to ache.
Now it just feels alive.
Max steps out behind you, barefoot, still towel-damp from the shower. He wraps his arms around your waist from behind, chin resting against your shoulder, breath warm at your neck.
“You always wake up before me,” he mumbles.
“You always sleep through your alarm,” you murmur back, leaning into him.
His laugh rumbles through his chest. He presses a kiss behind your ear.
“This is the best part of my weekend,” he says.
You hum. “What, cuddling and trapping me?”
He nods. “Exactly that.”
His arms stay around you as you watch the sun finish rising over the track, casting long shadows across the asphalt, a perfect line between past and present.
By the time you’re in the paddock, the chaos is in full swing. Someone tries to corner you for a quote, and Max swipes a croissant off a breakfast tray to sneak you between interviews. He steals your pen and signs your forearm with a heart like he’s still sixteen and thinks Sharpie skin is romantic. He lets Lando steal you for a TikTok and then pretends not to watch, except you catch him glancing over anyway.
The whispers have stopped. No one’s waiting for the fall anymore.
You make each other better, and now, the paddock sees it too.
Later you're both off to the side near the railing, two water bottles between you, your shoulder brushing his occasionally, fingers grazing but not fully laced not needing to be.
“Do you remember what Fernando said to us in Austin?” he asked.
You looked up at him, puzzled. “Austin?”
“2017,” Max clarified. “Dinner. You and I were bickering about who won the sim race the night before.”
Your eyes lit with the memory. “Oh god. And he said—”
“Just marry each other and shush,’” Max quoted, grinning now. “‘The whole paddock will appreciate it.’”
You laughed, covering your face with your hand. “He was so smug about it too. Said he’d officiate himself.”
“He might still try,” Max said, eyes dancing with something unguarded and golden.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” you mused.
He tilted his head. “Not the worst future either.”
Late at night after media and briefings and a quiet dinner where even Toto smiled more than he scowled you find Max out on the balcony when you step through the sliding doors, barefoot, hoodie sleeves rolled to his elbows he’s leaning against the railing, watching the stars come out one by one like they’ve been waiting for permission.
He hears you approach, doesn’t look away from the sky. “You remember what you said back in Genk?”
You blink.
“You gave me that hair band,” he says. “Told me I’d win.”
You nod slowly. “You did.”
He finally turns. “ I didn’t understand what you were really giving me until now.”
You step forward. “What was I giving you?”
“A reason,” he says. “Someone to believe in me before I believed in myself.”
The silence wraps around you like dusk full but calm.
“I used to think love could ruin me,” Max says. “Like I couldn’t be great and have this. Have you.”
Your voice is quiet. “And now?”
His eyes soften not just with affection, but with recognition. With clarity that had taken him years and mistakes and heartbreak to reach. “Now I know I couldn’t be half the man I am without you. I know that every good moment in my life every win, every fight, every night I pushed through something I didn’t think I could all of it traces back to you. In some way.”
Your chest pulls tight.
He steps closer, close enough that his forehead nearly touches yours, hands brushing your waist like he’s still asking permission even though he already knows the answer. “I love you,” he murmurs. “God, I love you so much. And I’m so damn grateful you came back. That you didn’t let the worst version of me be the last one you remembered.”
Your breath wavers, but it doesn’t falter. It never does with him. “I love you too,” you say back, calm and certain. “I'll love you forever.”
He exhales, not shakily, but with the kind of relief that loosens someone from the inside out.
“Every moment…” you continue softly, your fingers lifting to his jaw, “every laugh, every fight, every stupid pinky promise and every terrible decision… all of it still led us here.”
He closes his eyes briefly, overwhelming emotion tightening his grip around your waist as though the words hit somewhere deep, somewhere old. “I’m thankful for everything,” he whispers, “as long as it brought you back to me.”
You lean in first. The kiss begins soft, the kind that presses memory into skin but it doesn’t stay that way it deepens quickly, warm and hungry, tender and fierce.
When you finally break apart, your foreheads rest together as always, sharing breath, sharing something that feels older than either of you.
There’s no more waiting or wondering what-ifs. Just two hearts that finally found their way back to each other beating in time, steady and sure, in the place they were always meant to be.
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