Refuge .

⇝ refuge .

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!AFAB!Reader.

PART FOUR OF MÉNAGE.

SUMMARY: After a mission goes wrong, the 141 seek shelter in Ghost's so-called "safe house".

WARNINGS: Canon typical violence, blood, wounds, stitching of wounds, mentions of abuse, first fluff in a while.

A/N: My fingers hurt I'm actually going to pass out now goodbye <3 (PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT AND REBLOG IF YOU ENJOYED IT HELPS A LOT!!!)

WORD COUNT: 11.2k.

MASTERLIST.

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Also on Ao3!

Ghost’s hands were covered in blood. 

Although this was nothing out of the ordinary for a trained soldier like him, as he’d washed away many gallons of blood off of him in the time where he’d been on the field, this was different. 

It wasn’t the enemy’s blood that covered him, no. It wasn’t even his soldiers’ blood. 

It was civilian's. People that had been going about their day. Casualties in the mess that had erupted with a single missed bullet. 

It was his fault. 

If he hadn’t let himself grow distracted with the banter that erupted from his ear piece, if he had paid more attention to the target Laswell had given him, he would’ve been able to game end them right there and then like he had many before, instead, the bullet lodged right in his chest above the heart, enough time to stun the man but not enough to stop his other hand from clicking the detonator. 

The chaos that had followed was indescribable. He could still feel his ears ringing from the explosion that had occurred, the screams of the people he could have saved, the panicked shouts and roars from Price as he ordered them about. 

Ghost followed the order mindlessly, his body on some type of autopilot that had been turned on after the shock, taking out the other targets that had been lingering around until the bomb had gone off, his emotion-fueled mind taking out it’s anger on them by tearing them apart in the most gruesome ways possible. 

But he knew that covering himself in as much enemy blood as he could wouldn’t wash away the innocent’s. 

It wouldn’t wipe away the countless deaths he’d caused. 

But as he watched his final victim bleed out on the ground, ignoring their screams of pain and the insults that were being hurled at, Soap’s voice came through his earpiece. 

“Bastard’s gone. Cannae find him anywhere.”

Ghost’s blood boiled, combat boot slamming down onto the man’s head to finally shut him up, a last act of mercy and a way to express the anger rushing through his veins.

Even after they’d retreated back to the base they’d made theirs in the outskirts of Berlin during their mission there, Ghost couldn’t shake his disgusting feelings off his shoulders.

He’d never been the one to cause such a massacre like this. It was always some rookie or other, never a seasoned Lieutenant like him. 

Soap and Gaz’s conversation was just static to his ears, his mind spiralling as he thought about all the people around the city who had lost a family member today because of him. 

It wasn’t the first time in a mission where there’d been casualties. But never as many as this. And never had it affected him like this. 

The empathy he’d lacked almost all his life had suddenly made itself known in his mind, the little voice gnawing at the back of his head as it fed him scenarios linked to the mission they’d just failed, impossible if he were to think about them clearly, but right then, he couldn’t stop his heart from beating as fast as it could against his ribcage as he thought about the possibility of you or Tommy being involved in something like that, of having to carry the guilt that would no doubt haunt him all his life if that were to happen. 

He fucking hated it. 

He’d been deep in thought when they finally arrived at the base, the humvie’s doors opening as the other three stepped out, Price the only to take note of Ghost’s dishevelled state. 

“Lieutenant.”

…

“Ghost.”

…

“Simon!” Along with the bellow of his real name, the captain’s hand came down to slam onto one of the leather seats, finally pulling Ghost out of his stupor. “We’re here.”

“Copy.” He grunted, pushing himself out of the car and following his captain and the other two back to base mindlessly, almost like a zombie. 

It didn’t get better from there. Even as Laswell reassured him that it hadn’t been anyone's fault, that they hadn’t planned on the man wearing a gun vest, that even if he had succeeded in shooting him down, he wouldn’t be the only one with a detonator as found in one of the man’s lackey’s front pocket, that the explosion would have happened either way… He couldn’t help but still feel horrible. 

“Any idea where he is, then?” Price asked, looking through some of the files they’d been given on their runaway. 

“Probably went back home.” Gaz suggested, pointing out the address for a flat he had somewhere in the outskirts of Manchester.

“Called the airport, they told us a man with similar build and looks boarded a plane for Liverpool over two hours ago. He’s probably already out of the airport.”

Soap clicked his tongue, looking down at the address Gaz had mentioned before. “That’s his maw’s flat. Reckon he’d put ‘er in danger?”

“Doubt he’d care. He was happy to kill countless people for his cause, including his men and himself, what’s one more?” Ghost grunted, throwing the file down and leaning back in his chair, sharp gaze focused on the digital map Laswell had brought up, looking at the location of the terrorist’s house. 

“It’s not near any major buildings and isn’t close enough to the city to cause a commotion.” Laswell noted as she looked over the hills and lakes that surrounded the small house. “Good hiding place.”

“And if he’s not there?” Gaz asked, handing all the files back to Laswell, who gave him a solemn look. 

“We keep trying. Go get ready, I’ll call for a heli to take you all back to England. Try and get him, preferably alive, but be wary of any more guards or lackeys he might have brought with him. You’re all dismissed.”

Everyone was armed to their teeth by the time they’d made it back to English territory, night vision goggles pulled above their head as they had realised the trip took a bit longer than expected due to the cargo they had been asked to bring back to England in the process, the sky darkening even further with every second they spent on the helicopter. 

“Ghost, how copy?” Price shouted over the sound, elbowing Ghost in the side when he didn’t seem to hear him.

“What?!” Ghost shouted back, forcing out the pressure that clogged up his ears in order to hear properly. 

“How are you?! Never seen you this melancholic!” 

Ghost huffed out a laugh, tightening the straps of the seatbelts around his chest, as if they were the one putting pressure on his lungs. 

“Fine, captain!” He snapped, turning to look out of the small window row behind them. “Just ready to kill this fucking bugger!”

“Copy that!” Price slammed one of his burly hands onto Ghost’s shoulder, an act of encouragement the captain found himself giving to each of his members every time they went on a mission. 

After that, the helicopter went quiet, focusing on the mission ahead of them. 

Which in foresight, was expected to be relatively easy, a copy of many before them where they’d all come out victorious. 

But this one differed. 

The target wasn’t even that dangerous in itself, he was just some bloke who had had the brilliant idea to make an organisation that had somehow ended up planting bombs in almost every major city under the government and army’s radar. It hadn’t been up to now where they had finally learned who was behind it and where their next target was, but even then, they’d failed in protecting the civilians. 

Something they had spent almost a year investigating, fighting, taking down so many factions across the world to get to the top of the pyramid, the man behind it all. 

And fuck, if Ghost wasn’t going to make all the time he’d spent stressed and infuriated out of his mind on a wild goose chase for this fucking guy worth it. If he’d never fucking existed, the task force wouldn’t have gone through all that just to lose him, he wouldn’t have ruined the relationship he’d began with you, he would’ve had a proper go at being Tommy’s dad from the get-go. 

But a group of people that had afforded to build and plant so many bombs across so many countries, were to have enough money to hire bodyguards en par with the skill the 141 had. 

And that’s just what they had. 

Just like them, they were well-equipped with as many guns and weapons that the group’s money could buy, and while normally most men like these were just random guys picked off the street who had had guns shoved into their hands, these weren’t. They were trained, skilled enough to almost knock Soap’s gun out of his hands, and although that wasn’t what had happened, it had given them enough time for one of their bullets to graze his leg, not enough to fully bury itself into the flesh but enough to make him bleed and buckle to the ground. 

Ghost grabbed Soap by the scruff of his jacket, quickly disposing of the man that had shot him and pulling him up, letting the scot lean on him for balance. 

“Captain, Soap’s been hit!” Ghost roared into his radio, letting Soap lean on the wall while he grabbed some bandages they were always advised to bring and helped Soap in stopping the bleeding that the graze had caused. “Can you walk, Johnny?”

“Feckin’ adrenaline’s runnin’ through me, LT., could carry a horse if ye told me to.”

“Atta boy.” He handed him his gun so he could defend himself while they got out of the top floor. “Sir, the first floor’s clear. Taking the sergeant back to the car.”

“Roger. Be careful, fucker’s nowhere to be found down h- Fuck, Gaz!”

The sound of a gun going off and the roar from their captain made both men freeze in place, the dying grunts of someone coming through the radio before Gaz finally spoke, voice wheezy and hurt. 

“‘M fine, just- Fuck, that cunt stabbed me!” 

They made their way to the bottom of the stairs, where unfortunately, one of the men was waiting for them, stabbing their tactile knife right into Ghost’s shoulder thanks to the fact that he’d switched off his night vision goggles moments before, and wouldn't have seen them in the dark.

“Fuck, where do they keep comin’ from!?”

“Captain!”

“I see ya! Ghost, Soap, meet us outside, there’s not enough of us to take these fuckers out!” Price commanded, all of them responding with a “Roger!” before barreling their way out of the house, shooting a few more men in the process until they both shoved themselves into the car, Ghost immediately grabbing at the keys and pushing them in, getting everything ready while they waited for the other two, that quickly retreated into the back and slammed the doors shut, the captain slamming his fist into the back of GHost’s seat and ordering him to drive.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Gaz cried out as he held onto his wound, planting his feet on the floor as he realised who was driving, both him and soap squeezing their eyes shut as the blond slammed onto the accelerator, bringing the car out of the rocky driveway of the house and back out into one of the main roads. 

As the adrenaline started to fade from all of them, Price lazily raised a hand to grab at Soap’s shoulder, looking down at the bullet wound. “Still in one piece?”

“Yeah… Don’ think Lt. can say the same.” He pointed over to the stab wound in Ghost’s shoulder, that luckily had been right over his tactical gear, so it hadn’t caused as much damage as the perpetrator clearly intended. 

“‘M fine, Johnny. Worry about yourself.” He grunted, trying to ignore the pain that came with taking a turn with the steering wheel, every single time he moved his arm striking pain into the wound, the adrenaline from before having done a good job at keeping him from realising the amount of pain he had been currently in. 

“What about you, Gaz?” Soap called out, turning his head to look at the other as Price got his radio out, planning on informing Laswell on the second failure of the day. 

“Not dead.” He joked, tightening the bandage around the cut on his arm. “Gonna need stitches or something.”

Everyone went silent as Laswel’s voice came through the radio, broken and incomplete, but they could slightly understand what she was saying. 

Of course, the terrorists had also managed to hack into their servers while the task force was on their way and had made preparations for when they had inevitably barged into their house to arrest the man. 

The base back in London was almost a four hour drive away, and they doubted that their wounds would be in perfect condition after that long of a time, they needed to be disinfected and treated as soon as possible. 

“Any safe houses ‘round here that we might have access to?” Price called out, listening to what he assumed was Laswell looking through files.

“None that they don’t have access to.”

“Hospital?”

“Too far.”

All of them collectively sweared, Ghost’s grip tightening around the wheel as he took a right into one of the roads leading towards Manchester, the same road he took every time he came back from base to see you. 

You…

“Don’t you live in Manchester?” Gaz called out, kicking Ghost’s seat like a kid asking if they were there yet. 

“Not safe. If they have the locations of our safe houses, they have the locations of our own.” Price called out. “Unless one of you has a secret house off the grid or some James Bond mansion.”

Silence filled the car. 

Now, it had passed through Ghost’s head when they first started talking about safe houses, but it wasn’t really his house, after all. It was yours, Your space, your flat, your building. Not his. He was nothing but some sort of weird tennant. 

And his flat would have been the first place to take them to if it hadn’t been compromised, but now that he knew that that idea was out of the picture, he couldn’t help but continue thinking about your flat. With the safety kit he’d given you once after Tommy had gotten a scratch; with the pullout sofa he used every time he was over; with all the warmth and comfort he wished for every time he finished a mission. 

And he knew it wasn’t fair on you, it was extremely late compared to the times he came back in the night, you were probably fast asleep curled in your bed like you always where when he checked up on you; and it wasn’t fair to suddenly just shove three more men into your personal space, but as he took another turn and his shoulder throbbed, as he heard Gaz hiss whenever the car bumped a little, as he watched Soap try his best to stop the bleeding occurring from his wound, he knew that the worries Simon had couldn’t overcome the panic and danger Ghost was in. This was an emergency. 

“Know somewhere, sir.” Ghost spoke out, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been keeping the secret deep inside of him for longer than a minute. “Safe house, I mean.”

“You’re certain it’s safe?” Price questioned, Laswell going silent on the other side of the radio as well. 

“Positive.”

That’s how he found himself copying the exact route he always took to your place, passing the same pubs, the same shops, the same flats… Up until he parked a few blocks away from yours like he always made sure he did. 

“This it?” Gaz asked concerned as he gazed upon a closed Greggs, Ghost letting out a huff of amusement. 

“No, a bit further up.”

Since Ghost and Price were the only ones who were able to walk without limping, they took it upon themselves to be the ones to help the other two reach the building, Ghost’s hand inexplicably shaky as he stuck the key in like he’d done over a dozen times before, shoving them all into the elevator. 

“Quiet.” He hissed to them as Gaz let out a small pained cry, not wanting to wake up the ever-so irritable neighbours or cause you any alarm if you were still awake. 

He felt bad as he slotted the second key into the door, thinking about how scared you could be if you heard him coming, pushing it open with his healthy arm and letting it creek open. “Don’t open any doors. Find a place to sit. Don’t move, don’t make a sound, don’t interact with anything.” 

The three nodded at his warning, Gaz and Soap slumping onto the sofa as soon as they could and Price taking a seat at the island as Ghost slowly closed the door and turned on the light, dimming it down so it wouldn’t alert you nor Tommy. 

As Gaz and Soap whispered between themselves, wondering how the hell Ghost kept a house in such a tidy and pretty state (“Reminds me of my maw’s.” Soap had commented, making Gaz nod and laugh.), Simon pushed open Tommy’s door, listening in to the telltale sound of his son’s breaths to make sure that he was okay, turning around to find Price looking at a small stuffed animal sitting on the counter along with a dummy, his eyes wide in realisation as he turned to his lieutenant.

“Simon-” 

“Yeah.” He brushed past, tapping on the back of Soap’s head to catch his attention. “Up, I’ll deal with you first.”

“Oh, I’m honoured!” He said in a faux-british accent, lifting himself off the sofa with his help and leaning against one of the walls Simon had placed him against. 

“You’ve got a really nice gaf, didn’ expect this from ya.” Gaz commented as Ghost looked through some of the drawers around your flat, trying to remember where the hell he’d seen you put the medkit last. 

“Yeah, you're a classy one aren’t ya, Lt.? Place’s better than mine, I mean, have ya seen your sofa?” He chuckled, signalling towards the plush pillows Gaz was leaning against now, the cute crocheted blanket hanging on the back. 

Ghost ignored all of their remarks, slamming one of the drawers shut and pulling himself up, nodding towards your bedroom door. “Shut up. I’m going to check the bathroom. Not a word.”

Soap seemingly assumed that the door Ghost had gestured towards was the direct entrance into the bathroom, so in order to help his lieutenant out a bit, his hand moved towards the doorknob while Ghost started pulling off his combat boots, not wanting to make a sound when he went into your room. 

But, apparently, the small sounds they’d been making should have been his main priority, by the way you were almost waiting at your bedroom door with a gun raised to Soap’s forehead, ready to shoot just like he’d taught you in a situation like this one. 

“Steamin’ fuckin’-”

Ghost couldn’t rid himself of his boots fast enough before Soap’s hand was instinctively around your neck, the adrenaline that was rushing through both of your veins making it easier for him to ignore the pain shooting through his leg to defend himself and for yourself to scratch and pull at the hand around your throat. 

“Soap!” Price shouted as he pushed himself off his seat, noting the panic that had filled Ghost’s normally stoic eyes at the mere sight of you in pain, slowly putting two and two together. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” Ghost roared, abandoning his shoes as soon as he saw your eyes roll back into your skull, a telltale sign that you were about to pass out due to the scot’s strong grip on your neck, while normally it would’ve taken way longer for someone to pass out. 

The sight of your legs going limp in Soap's grasp was enough for Ghost to see red, moving like he did on the battlefield to reach Soap, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him onto the ground like a ragdoll, secretly hoping the grip he’d grabbed him with was strong enough to cause him the same pain you were undoubtedly in, arms immediately rushing towards your flailing body and pulling you into his chest, one of his gloved hands holding the back of your head as the other pulled your shaking legs up. 

He didn’t really care that he might’ve seriously hurt Soap, gaze and attention fixed on the tears running down your cheeks and the paleness to your normally warm skin, the wheezing breath leaving you as your body tried its best to regain the breath Soap had just stolen from you, your hands clinging to his tact gear instinctively as you coughed with every attempt to breathe.

Once he made sure you were definitely still awake and breathing, he brought you closer to him, the hold on you similar to some desperate attempt at the bridal style, almost like a mutt protecting its territory.

“What the fuck, were you thinking, Saergant!?” He shouted, glaring down at the man, who was rubbing at his neck looking up at you both in confusion. 

“Well, I’m sorry for protectin’ myself against someone who was armed, Lt.!” He shouted back, being helped back up by his captain, who seemed torn between who was in the right and who was in the wrong. 

“Did you even stop to think-”

“Oh, because you feckin’ warned me about the armed woman who’d be waitin’ for us!” Soap interrupted, coughing out.

Ghost clenched his jaw, turning to make eye contact with Price, who just shook his head at him, imploring him to just let go. 

“We’re all stressed. It slipped Ghost’s mind to tell us about her and you shouldn’t've had reacted like that. You’re both in the wrong.” 

Neither of them spoke, knowing that the Captain, as always, was right. 

“Go take care of her.” 

He didn’t have to tell Ghost twice. He and Soap shared one final glance, one that only they knew what meant, full of words neither of them would dare to share out loud, but they understood. 

The gun luckily hadn’t gone off during the whole kerfuffle, letting Ghost lean down and pick it up carefully, clicking on the safety before sliding it into one the spare holsters, not trusting himself enough to carry a loaded gun while you were still in his arms. 

He pushed the door open, your coughs continuing as your eyes started fluttering open, trying to drive away the flurry of tears that were still streaming down your cheeks and wetting your clothes, a broken croak of his name leaving you. 

“It’s me, don’t worry. Just me, love. Just me.” He reassured you the whole way back to the bed, propping you up onto the soft mattress and letting you fall back, kneeling onto the carpeted floor and letting his head rest against the sweet-smelling covers, lifting his head as one of your hands pawed at his mask. 

He tried ignoring you for a few moments as he took the gun back out and expelled the mag, squeezing his eyes shut as another one of your sobs reached his ears, shoving the gun and mag back into the drawer it had been in before finally turning to look at you properly.

“Simon…” You managed to get out, cringing at the sound of your voice, still slightly delirious from the lack of air in your brain. “What… It- It hurts…”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He whispered, grabbing at your hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Just breathe f’me. It’s okay. No one’s going to hurt you.”

He didn’t even know what he was saying at this point, just reacting to every single thing he usually told himself when he was in the midst of a panic attack ever since he was young.

“Who…”

Your eyes darted over to the door, where both of you could still hear the other talk, flinching as one of them spoke a bit too loud. 

“They’re with me. Soap, he was the one to… I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you before coming, we were in the middle of a mission and-”

“Oh my god, Simon!” You cried out, startling the both of you. You propped yourself up, shaking a bit due to the dizziness but grabbing onto his non-wounded shoulder all the same. “You’re bleeding!”

In the midst of everything that had just happened, he seemed to have forgotten the stab wound, his free hand coming up to touch at the now drying blood with a hiss. 

“It’s fine. Listen, you-”

“No! It’s not fine, oh my god!” You felt a bit queasy as you noticed the blood that also stained his hands and tact vest, hoping to god that it was his even though deep down you knew that it wasn’t. “What- How are you so okay with this!?”

He grabbed both of your hands before they reached to grab at his wounded shoulder, staring deep into your foggy eyes. “Don’t worry about me.”

Don’t worry about him? 

He was fucking freebleeding in the middle of your bedroom like it was a goddamn hobby! How could you not worry about him!?

“I’m fine. How’s your throat?” He let go of one of your hands to bring it up to your neck, fingers softly grazing against a few darkening spots adorning your skin, reminders of what had happened before. 

“It… It still hurts to speak. Kind of.” You closed your eyes as the tough material of his gloves brushed against you so gently, surprised that such items that had been used to rip countless people apart were capable of a touch so sweet, so soft, so caring…

You swallowed, the movement of your throat beneath his hand quickly alerting himself of what he was currently touching, holding, and making him let go, going back to search for your other abandoned hand, making it easier for him by raising it and meeting his halfway.

“I’m sorry. For not telling you we were coming.” The apology seemed to slip from his lips oh so easily, compared to when you’d first let him in to explain himself, when he’d clearly physically struggled to speak those two damned words…

“‘We’?” You repeated, feeling his hands tighten around yours. 

“Soap’s not the only one. Price and Gaz are also here.” He explained, his eyes motioning towards the door. “We were compromised, in a way. Needed somewhere to go, and I just…”

You looked away, already knowing the ending of the short recap of the night, looking down at your linked hands, gaze darting back up to the blood staining his arm. 

“It’s… Fine.”

It really wasn't. You knew you had every right to be angry with him and the three other men he’d brought along, this was your flat! Your home, your building, your living room they had no doubt made their own in the small time you’d been in the bedroom with Simon, and without even thinking about the bruises forming at the base of your neck you already had enough reasons to let your anger boil over. 

But you stayed silent as he waited for you to snap, to scream at him, to add even more salt in the wound that had formed both mentally and physically tonight; silent as he took your hands and helped you climb out of bed and cling onto him for balance as you regained the feeling in your legs (that were being invaded by the stabbing feeling of pins and needles); silent as he pushed the door open and walked out with you concealed behind him like some tactical weapon. 

You were pleasantly surprised to see that unlike your fears the men had seemingly not touched a single thing in your living room, standing next to the kitchen island despite one of them clearly having problems with standing. 

He made eye contact with you, your blood running cold as you realised that he had been the one to cause the soreness that now racked your throat, immediately moving to tear your gaze away from him but stopped as he did it first, looking down at his shoes as if ashamed, and by the way he stayed silent while the other introduced themselves, he was. 

The captain was nice enough, he clasped your hand in a firm handshake, one that you assumed he’d been practising for longer than you were alive, and he had a very kind face despite the work you knew the four men did, but you couldn’t help but feel at ease in his presence, an effect you assumed he had on everyone by the way they seemed so lax instead of freaking out over the wounds littering their bodies like you would. 

Gaz gave you a smile and a nod, not even attempting to outstretch either of his hands to you due to the tear up his arm and the other hand pressing a bloody piece of cloth to the wound in hopes of keeping himself from losing too much blood. 

“Soap.” Ghost’s voice came out low and gruff, a tone of voice you’d never heard from him, and you thanked whatever god was up there that you’d never heard it directed to you, because clearly you weren’t as strong as the Sergeant in front of you and would’ve immediately crumbled into fear.

“I’m sorry.” He immediately spoke out, his accent thick around each word as he outstretched his arm, poised out for a handshake. “I hope I didn’ hurt you t’much.”

Although the burn from his hand was still there, a constant reminder for the rest of the night of what had happened, and though it would take a bit of while for you to let go of it, you still raised your hand up to his, clasping it in a much weaker handshake than his Captain’s, but it was firm nonetheless, confirming your “acceptance” to his apology for now. 

“I would have done the same if I had your strength, don’t worry.” You tried lightening up the mood, despite the anxiety that still tugged at your mind, letting go of his hand and going back to standing next to Simon, your arm pressed right against his, hoping that his massive frame would do something to help hide you. 

A warm hand came up to your waist, the hairs on your body standing on end as Ghost’s breath hit the shell of your ear. “Go check on Tommy.”

Tommy.

Your stomach dropped at the realisation that you hadn’t even thought about your poor son in the whole time you were awake, too focused on yourself to even think about what fear he could be going through after hearing more than the two voices he was used to in the small apartment, your breath hitching as the hand slowly pushed you towards the nursery door, like you were a dog in need of direction.

“Tommy?” Gaz breathed out as Ghost led him to the kitchen sink, letting the man run his arm under the stream of cold water, washing away any of the crusty blood that stuck to the skin, while Ghost continued his search for the medkit.

The man stayed quiet, not even bothering to even think of beginning to explain Tommy, and by association you and whatever relationship you had, already having had struggled enough when deciding to open up to Price about it, not needing to do it two more times. 

“His son.” Price answered for him when he saw that Ghost was making no move to answer, the skull-faced man turning to send a quick glare in his captain’s direction before being shot down with one of the same calibre. “Don’t ask more, though. Bugger still likes keeping his secrets.”

Both Soap and Gaz turned to Ghost with matching expressions, dumbfounded by the information they had just been fed, unbelieving that the man they knew as Ghost, the Ghost that they had watched kill people with a single hand, the Ghost that seemingly felt no emotions towards any of them or anyone, the Ghost they’d worked so hard to even get a sliver of information out of him was indeed a father. An actual father, with a real son who had a mother who lived in a nice and cute-looking flat taking care of said son. 

After the confrontation between you and Soap, they had quickly assumed that Ghost harboured some type of feelings towards you, whether they were romantic or platonic was still yet to be known (though by the way he had held you so protectively against his chest, they assumed that they already knew the answer to that small conundrum), but they would’ve never guessed that you were the fucking mother of his son, a son he’d kept pretty well hidden from everyone, except Price, like many of the details of his oh-so mysterious life.

“That’s… Nice.” Gaz croaked out, throat having gone dry by the absolute shock that had filled the two Sergeants, gulping as Ghost stood back up to his full height, suddenly intimidated by the man more than usual. 

“Yeah. Stay.” Once again, not even bothering to say it in a nicer way, commanding all of them like dogs before entering the room you’d just retreated to and slamming the door closed. 

He immediately regretted it, though, by the way you snapped your head around like the girl from the ring furiously, clutching a fussing Tommy to your chest, reminiscent of the first night he’d spent in your flat.

“Sorry.” He didn’t wait for you to respond, taking a few long strides until he was at your side, gazing down at your sweet boy, who was moving around in your arms like he was actively trying to escape you. “How’s he?”

“Fussy. I mean, he’s been sleeping all day, no surprises there. Probably wants to watch some telly.”

“Can’t really do that lying down now, can he?” A gloved finger came down to tickle his tummy, causing him to move around more as he burst into a fit of giggles, seemingly not caring about his father's sudden change of appearance, hopefully assimilating in his tiny brain that all skull patterns equaled dad. 

At his response, you sucked air through your teeth, causing him to snap his head towards you in fear he’d said something wrong, taking a step back as he watched you place your hands underneath Tommy’s armpits and slowly take him to the ground, his little duck printed socks touching the floor and causing Ghost’s eyes to widen, mind racing with thoughts that your son might actually be some type of prodigy if he was standing up at this age, but let out a humoured breath as his little bum hit the floor, and instead of falling back like he always did, he instead stayed there sitting, moving his arms around in order to shake your grip off. 

“He’s sitting.”

“You don’t sound very impressed.” You said, looking up at him with a bright smile, not being able to help the immense pride you felt as your son ticked off another milestone off the list, sitting down on the carpet behind him and handing him one of the toys littered on the ground, wanting to enjoy this little moment of peace within the confusing and terrifying night you’d had, trying your best to focus simply on Tommy and not with what would come with having four military trained men in your flat. 

“No, it’s… Yeah.” You rolled his eyes at the inexpressive tone his voice took, watching him take a seat in front of you and raise his uninjured arm up to click his fingers in front of Tommy’s chubby face, like you normally did when wanting to catch his attention. “Good job, duck.”

You couldn’t help the way your smile widened as you heard him use the little nickname you’d given him, placing your hands on his chubby tummy and tickling his sides, enticing another few happy giggles. 

But through them, you heard the sharp hiss that came from Simon as he moved to put his weight onto the other arm, eyes going wide as you realised you’d completely neglected the wound you’d fussed about so much earlier, one of your hands moving to grasp his hands. 

“Why haven’t you treated it yet?” You whispered, keeping your distress to a minimum in front of Tommy, but Ghost could still feel the worry that emanated from you, shrugging (as best he could) and looking away. 

“I couldn’t find the medkit.” You raised a brow at his apprehensive words, lifting yourself off the floor along with Tommy and adjusting your hold on him. 

“It’s where it always is.” You started moving, giving him little to no time to react before he had jolted up and started following, almost crashing into you as you stopped in your tracks once you’d opened the door, seemingly forgetting about the company you’d been thinking about mere moments before. “Oh.”

“Is that him?” Soap said with a smile before anyone spoke, gesturing towards the small boy fidgeting in your arms. 

“No. Just some other random kid, Johnny.” Ghost’s hands once again found their rightful place on your hips and pushed you slightly to urge you to continue your walk, a huff leaving your lips at his impatience (although you couldn’t really blame him, you too would be impatient if there were a literal hole in your shoulder), as you made your way back in to the bedroom, feeling Ghost move around behind you as if he were shielding you from the prying eyes of his Sergeants and Captain, who simply wanted to catch a glimpse of the small boy. 

“Here.” You called out as you handed Tommy over to his father, opening up the mirror in the bathroom and pulling out the small yet quite big medkit he’d gifted you. 

Ghost tried his best to ignore the small bottles of pills he spied along the shelves of the little cupboard as you opened up the medkit, looking through all the items. 

“I… I don’t know how to use most of these.” You mumbled, taking it over to him so he could look through it. 

“Don’t worry, we do.” Tommy was handed back off to you, no doubt giving the small boy whiplash from how fast he was being moved from one parent to another like a hot potato. “Might need some help with the stitches.”

Stitches. 

You willed away the look of discomfort that would no doubt try to show on your face at the mere thought of it. 

Now, you weren’t the most horrible person at stitching clothes, you’d fixed a few items for both Tommy and you, and maybe the odd time you’d found a hole in Simon’s hoodie and couldn’t just leave it like that, but the thought of using a needle and string to stitch up a wound instead of the normal cloth made shivers rack your body. 

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” You breathed out, instead of letting out the worries that swirled about your brain. I mean, these men were dealing with blood and gore almost daily, surely you could manage to deal with a little wound, right?

“Hey. We’ve been treated by worse. Won’t be any worse than doin’ it ourselves.” He murmured, opening the door for you. 

And that filled you with some reassurance at first, but as you disinfected your hands and were given the needle and string, you couldn’t help but feel sick, turning your head over to the little playpen you’d purchased a few days ago where Soap was sitting next to looking down at Tommy play. Ghost right at his side glaring down at them, as if Tommy’s personal bodyguard. 

“You don’t have to, really. I can try and do it myself.” Gaz assured you with a smile, starting to move his arm away from you. 

“With one hand?”

“You’d be surprised what I can do with one hand, ma’am.” He grinned, getting a furious look from Ghost. 

You breathed out a laugh, shakily taking his arm into yours and bringing it back to where he had it before, angling the needle to his wound before taking one last look of reassurance up at the man, who only nodded in response. 

It wasn’t as disgusting as you had expected, but the sounds and feelings were still uncomfortable.

You finally finished the final stitch, shakily tying the knot before cutting the thread, disposing yourself of the latex gloves you’d put on. 

“Is- Is that okay?” 

“It’s perfect, love, don’t you worry. Did it better than I ever could.” Gaz encouraged, getting some bandages and helping you to wrap it around his now sanitised wound. “Could easily get a job as a nurse if you ever wanted to, eh? Think Ghost would love to have you on base.”

“That’s enough, Sergeant.” Ghost snapped, pushing himself off the wall and nodding down at Johnny. “Get a move on.”

You shared a smile with Gaz before Soap took his spot, albeit a bit more awkward, and raised his leg up to the sofa (you almost had a heart attack before you realised he’d kindly discarded his shoes before doing so). 

“Oh, do I-.” 

“No need f’stitches. I just need a bit o’help disinfecting it.” He mumbled, always the careful one when it came to cleaning. 

“Yeah, okay.” You did just as he had told you to, carefully pouring the alcohol onto the gauze before wiping away any dirt and dry blood from the graze before sticking a clean one over the wound with the help of a few bandages. 

You couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of your handiwork as you watched him get up, his limp a bit better now that he definitely knew that he hadn’t contracted any types of diseases thanks to the wound, taking back his spot back next to Gaz and Tommy, the other sergeant moving a little toy around in hopes of attracting Tommy’s attention. 

“I’ll help with this one, Lieu-” 

“No need.” Ghost interrupted the captain, sitting down on the sofa and immediately sinking it, the piece of furniture still not used to his weight even after all the time he’d been using it. “I’ll help her.”

You nodded with a smile, although it quickly flipped upside down as you realised what dealing with Ghost’s wound entailed, watching him slowly take off most of his tactical gear before leaving him in one of those damn tight shirts, moving the sleeve off the wounded shoulder and letting you see what you were dealing with in full detail. 

“Clean and stitch it up. Not that hard, lovie.” He mumbled, his words just for your ears, one warm hand landing on one of the thighs you had curled beneath you on the sofa you were kneeling on. “Just going to be a bit more difficult to heal.” 

“Okay.” You swallowed, tugging on another pair of gloves before balancing yourself with one hand on the part of his uninjured shoulder, somehow still feeling the body warmth through the latex. 

This was different from Gaz’s wound. While the other man had been looking away the whole time, you could feel Ghost’s sharp gaze on you even as you thread the needle, your body squirming beneath the uncomfortable stare. 

“C’mon.” He urged, settling himself further into the sofa to make the next part easier for you, letting yourself take a deep breath before starting without a second though, pleasantly surprised as he didn’t even move an inch with every stitch you made, although you could feel his thumb rubbing over the warm skin of your thigh with every second, your hand giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze every time you tightened a stitch, despite knowing he probably didn’t need the same reassurance you did. “It’s okay.”

It almost felt like you were the one getting stitched up, not him. 

You finished with shaky hands, dropping the gloves and needles and patching it up, jolting away when his hand grabbed at the bandages, finishing the job himself. 

“Thank you.” He mumbled, the hairs on your body standing up as you realised finally how close you’d been to him the whole time, slowly letting go of his arm and letting them fall back onto your lap. 

“It’s fine.” You watched him get up, once again not showing a single ounce of pain or discomfort despite the pain you knew a person who wasn’t desensitised to this type of wounds would be in, your eyes following him across the room until he reached the two Sergeants, who were still trying to gain Tommy’s affection.

When you saw them like that, they hardly looked like the type of men whose job consisted on fighting and killing for a living, they just looked like two blokes you’d find at the pub on a random sunday night, despite the tactical gear they still wore, having fun with watching a kid roll around with his toys. 

“Thank you.” Price rumbled from behind you, a hand landing on the headrest of the sofa. “For letting us stay. Feels like no one’s said that yet.”

You shrugged, running your hands up and down your thighs in order to cure the chill that had just run through your body. “It’s okay. I mean… Simon’s done a lot for us, guess I could just repay the favour one way or another.”

Although maybe you would’ve thought of a more traditional way of doing that, one that wasn’t stitching up his men and him in the middle of the night. 

“Hmph. Well, considering what good a job you’ve done, I’d say you’ve paid it back pretty well.”

You smiled up at him, not catching the look Ghost sent to you from the other side of the room, looking down at the small boy he was cradling and then up at the time, not having missed the eyebags that adorned your normally bright eyes. 

He called your name as he came near, his heart missing a beat as you instantly outstretched your arms out at him, stomach sinking as he quickly realised you were gesturing towards Tommy and not him, carefully bringing him down to latch onto your chest. 

“Think we’ll be leavin’ now.” He said, catching both your and Price’s attention. 

“Leaving?”

“Where else are you going to stay?” You prodded for an answer, pressing Tommy further into the jumper you’d pulled on. 

“We’ll find somewhere.” He looked up at Price for reassurance, but got a not so on board look back. 

You looked between the two, who stayed silent enough for you to make a quick inventory check in your head, looking down at the pull out sofa you were currently sitting on and thinking back to the possible inflatable mattress you had stored in your room. 

“Simon.” You said, almost like a child tugging on their parent’s sleeve to ask for something. “You can just stay for the night. I’ve got a few blankets and a small mattress along with the sofa. I don’t mind.”

You always felt like you could drown in his eyes when he looked at you like that, glassy eyes filled with concern and apprehensiveness at your words, as if he was assessing the true nature behind them only to find that you were only speaking the truth.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

And maybe, in the heat of the moment, you’d under planned a bit, since you realised mid unfolding some blankets that both the sofa and the small mattress would not fit four people, even if one decided to sleep on the floor, they’d be far from comfortable curling into some random nook or cranny of the flat. 

You fluffed up some of the pillows, listening to some parts of the conversation Gaz and Soap were having from inside the bathroom, jumping out of your skin as one of Ghost’s hands appeared on your back. 

“I'm going to let Soap and Gaz take the sofa. Price’s alright with taking the mattress.” He explained, hand continuing to rest on the small of your back even as you leaned back up, working on shoving a cushion into its cover. 

“And you?” You asked, almost dreading the answer. 

He looked away, a faraway gaze on the visible part of his face as if he wasn’t really there with you, as if you were just talking to a shell of a man who someone else was controlling. 

“I don’t need to sleep. I’m fine with staying in Tom’s room.” He responded, taking the pillow from your hands and placing it down on the inflatable mattress that lay next to the sofa. 

“What? You’re hurt, Simon, you should be resting!”

Silence. 

“You’re not fucking superhuman, you know that, right?!” You snapped, grabbing at his sleeve and forcing him to look your way. “You need rest like anyone else. Just because you cover your face and act like you don’t care about anything does not mean you’re special.”

God, shut up! Your brain was shouting at you, unbelieving that you were getting so worked up over a man you’d convinced yourself that you wouldn’t let in no matter what, but there you were, horrified that he had such little care for his well-being that he would rather stay awake all night than find somewhere else to sleep. 

“Just take my bed!”

The words were out of your mouth before you even realised it. 

And clearly, you weren’t the only one who was surprised by them. 

Simon was staring down at you with what you could only assume was a dumbfounded look, his eyes swirling with confusion. 

“Your bed?”

“My bed.” You breathed out, horrified with yourself. “It's queen sized, you know that. You’ll fit.”

Silence engulfed the room, a pattern that seemed to follow every single one of your conversations you had in this exact spot of the living room, gazes interlocked together. 

“No-”

“Yes. Get into your pyjamas and come to bed.” You said almost robotically, finishing the final cushion before pushing yourself off, quickly walking back into your room before the man could protest. You placed a hand against the wall in order to balance yourself as soon as you were out of his line of view, a shaky hand coming up to cover your mouth in shock of what you’d just asked, no, insisted him to do.

Soap and Gaz apologised for taking so long in the bathroom, letting you take their place so you could calm down a bit alone and in silence, sitting on the closed toilet with a shaking leg, biting your nails as you stared down at the white tiles. 

You were so fucking stupid. 

What was wrong with you!?

Why couldn’t you just stick to your initial feelings for him!?

Why couldn’t you just have let him do what he wanted!?

Why did you care so much about someone you’d insisted was nothing to you!?

You rested your face against the open palms of your hands, running them up and down until you rid yourself of the urge to want to cry, the opening of your bedroom door immediately catching your attention. 

Ghost knocked at the door, making you jump for what seemed like the nth time tonight, calling out your name. 

“I need to get changed.”

Your heart soared at the implication behind his hushed words. 

Now, you don’t really know what you were expecting for his pyjamas to be, but the black shirt and cargo sweatpants he sported were definitely on brand for a man like Simon.

It’d been a really long time since you’d caught a peak at his arms, since even in the warmest weather possible, Simon always insisted on wearing at least a long sleeved shirt, leaving the rest of his body up to the imagination (which, thanks to that night, you didn’t really need), but thanks to the shirt he was currently wearing, it allowed you to gaze upon his muscular arms and the tattoo that ran the whole way up one of them, remembering faintly the moment he’d let you look at them for a moment before tugging you closer into his chest. 

It also didn’t surprise you that he was still wearing the balaclava, although this one was different to the skulled one he normally wore, silver lines running over his chin, like the bottom set of teeth of the plastic skull he’d now discarded, leaving him almost naked in a way, after having gotten so used to him all covered up. 

“Are you sure?” He asked one final time, standing at the edge of the bed. 

“Yes, Simon.”

His gaze darted away from you as you called out his name, something you’d noticed he’d done the whole night every time you spoke his real name out, despite him never reacting this way when you were both alone. 

“Lie down.” He did as you said, getting into the bed and pulling some of the covers up to cover his lap, turning to watch you as you leaned over to turn off the small lamp on your nightstand, the room instantly being filled with darkness after the click. 

“You know…” Your voice came out hushed, further down than before, letting him assume that you’d just rested your face against your pillow. “Your skull mask looks silly.”

“Silly?” He whispered back, mock offended, like you’d just killed his entire family in front of him (which would be largely upsetting considering you were his family…).

“Silly.” You parroted, thinking back to the hard plastic skull. “You look like a little kid on halloween.” 

“That was the goal.” He lazily joked, moving down so he too was lying on his own pillow, staring up at the darkness that used to be the ceiling, his hair scratchy against his nape and skull due to it being pressed against the material of his balaclava. “...my brother wore a mask like that. Used to scare the shit out of me.”

You let out a huff, impossible of even imagining a little version of your Simon being scared by his brother. “Isn’t he younger than you?”

“...”

“Oh my god, Simon.”

“I was easily frightened.” He said, knowing that if there were any source of light near you, you’d instantly be able to see the blush that no doubt was dusting his pale cheeks. “I was frail as a kid.”

Why was he telling you this?

“Frail?” You mumbled, moving yourself closer to him in order to hear him clearer. 

“My dad wasn’t the nicest person.” 

He should stop. 

“You mean… He hurt you?”

“In more ways than one.”

You shouldn’t know this about him. 

“That’s… Horrible. I’m sorry, Simon…”

“It’s fine.”

It wasn’t. 

“It’s not… You don’t have to act like it is.”

“...”

“Simon.”

Your sweet voice called out to him, your hand brushing against his arm and causing a ripple effect on it, all of his hairs standing on edge at the soft touch. 

“Simon…”

“I’m sorry.” He breathed out, turning around, forcing your hand away from him in doing so, leaving you staring at his back in the dark. 

Silence engulfed the room once again, your hand frozen in place from where it had been pressed against before, clenching it closed and bringing it back, turning around yourself and snuggling into the nice-smelling covers.

You didn’t even bother trying to continue the conversation or bid him a goodnight like you wish you could, instead keeping the silence going until the inevitable grasp of Hypnos would pull you under. 

But you couldn’t seem to fall asleep, even after only having slept two hours that day, even as no sound came through the baby monitor on your bedside table, even if everything was perfectly scripted for you to close your eyes and finally get some rest…

You turned around, feeling around the cold space of the bed that laid between Simon and your sleeping bodies, squeezing your eyes closed before taking a shaking breath. 

It was cold. That was it. It was cold, and you felt bad for him.

There was no other reason for why you wrapped your arms around his chest from behind, curling into the shape of his body and pressing your face right against his warm back, feeling him tense beneath your hands. 

You stayed there, waiting for the unavoidable moment where he’d try and shake you off like you were some kind of leech, but he didn’t. 

Instead, one of his hands came up to rest over the one you had above his heart, squeezing it slightly, his way of telling you that this was okay without openly speaking out. 

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes and pulling yourself closer into his warmth, feeling his heart beat slowly grow steady beneath your palm as time went past. 

Simon hoped that the tear streaks down his balaclava wouldn’t be noticeable in the morning. 

This time, when you woke up, he wasn’t gone. 

Although a bit dishevelled compared to the normal composure he kept, he was there. 

The mask had ridden up to his cupid’s bow in the middle of the night, exposing the not very well-kept beard he’d started growing under there, along with tufts of blond hair that peaked out from around his nape.  

It was clear you’d both moved a lot across the course of the night, by the way you’d both ended in a completely different position than the one you'd started in, with you on the other side of the bed wrapped up in his arms, your face pressed into his chest instead of his back.

His warm hands were covering your lower back, brushing lightly against the elastic band of your pyjama bottoms, one leg draped over his waist while the other was between his.

You tentatively raised your hand to run your fingers against the hair at the base of his head, curling a slightly long strand around one of your fingers and letting out an amused huff at the curl that formed there. 

“Ow.” Simon rasped, although his voice was as monotonous as could be, pulling his head away from your hand. “Ticklish.”

“You’re ticklish?” You mumbled, watching him open his eyes before craning his head away from you, a pop coming from the bone as he stretched, moving onto his back and pulling you with him, letting you curl into his side. 

Not one word was spoken during the entire morning about what was going on, about your sudden change of heart (although you knew it wasn’t sudden), about what this night would mean for the two of you moving forward. 

Neither of you said a word, afraid that the conversation that would follow would be the one to ruin whatever had happened, 

You wandered out of your bedroom an hour after you’d officially woken up, wanting to indulge in the warmth Simon had provided all throughout the night, surprised and a bit shocked (you’d honestly forgotten what was waiting for you outside), Tommy fidgeting around in Soap’s arms as he held him with surprising care and ability. 

“Are you some type of expert?” You said with a careful smile, not missing the way his eyes darted down to the bruises around your neck, still feeling bad for what he had done. 

“Uh, kinda’? Got four sisters, each of ‘em with their own set of bairns.” He shrugged, the movement making Tommy let out a giggle through his dummy. “Lad was cryin’, couldn’t just leave him there.”

“It’s okay. Thank you.” You felt a bit embarrassed for not having woken up at your baby’s crying, but you were glad that he seemed perfectly happy, clearly enjoying the attention he’d been receiving the past hours. “He’s starting to teeth, that’s probably why he was crying, my poor-”

The slamming down of a mug interrupted you, staring dumbfounded at Gaz, who’d been the one to cause the noise. 

“Fuck! Sorry, sorry, ma’am, just-” He wiped away some of the spilt tea (you were even more confused as to where he’d gotten the cuppa until you noticed the captain standing next to the stove with your kettle), looking up at you with darkening cheeks. “Sorry, my arm’s still a bit fucked-”

“Clean it up.” Ghost ordered gruffly as he walked out of the bedroom, clad in most of the clothing he’d worn yesterday, hiding once again all the skin and muscles you’d ran your hands over that morning. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not a prick, man.” Gaz grumbled. 

Ghost leaned down to you, your heart skipping a beat at the sudden closeness, in front of his teammates no less, but ended up pressing a finger to Tommy's nose, your cheeks going warm out of embarrassment. 

“You made tea?” He grunted at his Captain, who shrugged, taking a sip of the warm brew. 

“I’ll pay it back.”

“Y-”

“It’s not necessary, it’s just tea.” You elbowed Ghost before he could say anything rude, placing Tommy down onto his highchair before moving to get some of his food and get yourself a cup in the meantime. 

“Can’t thank her enough.” Price grumbled to Ghost as you and the other two started a conversation, watching the masked man pour himself a cup before swigging it all down quickly like it was some type of liquor. “For letting us stay.”

“Yeah. I’m going to have to make it up for her.” Ghost answered, watching you try to coerce Tommy to open his mouth for a spoonful of baby food with Soap’s help. 

“Seems like you already did, she looks real happy.” Price nudged Ghost, like a father teasing his son for getting his first girlfriend, his moustache twitching as Ghost turned away from him, further pushing the thought that it was just like that type of scenario. 

“We should get going. I can’t risk it further.” Ghost responded instead of continuing the banter, pushing himself off the counter and turning to you, Price immediately dropping the funny act and nodding, moving to get some of their things they’d tried to place neatly in one of the corners. 

“We’re going.” He announced, heart sinking into his stomach at the disappointment that washed over your face, placing down the baby food on the table and leaning back up to your full height. 

“Now?”

“Yes. Soap, go start the car.” Ghost ordered, the scot doing just as his captain had and dropping the smile that had been previously adorning his face, getting up and taking his jacket from Price, not forgetting to say a proper goodbye to you and give you a firm handshake that he hoped transmitted the apology for everything he did, and as you received it with a small smile, he hoped it meant that you forgave him. 

“Where are you going?” You asked, watching Gaz and Price reload some of the guns from the other side of the flat. 

“Base. Hopefully, Laswell will have backup and we’ll be able to finish what we started.” He said, gloved fingers running over Tommy's soft head, messing up some of the curls that had started to form. “I’ll call you once we’ve finished.”

The look you gave him spoke a million words. 

“I promise. I’ll be back, you know that.”

You felt embarrassed at how quickly he’d managed to discern what your look had meant, but nodded nonetheless, saying goodbye to the other two (Gaz giving you a bright smile and Price clasping your hand in his once again, his presence washing away any worry you might have just like last time), leaving the three of you alone in your apartment. 

“Duck, daddy’s going now.” You whispered to your son, the small boy clearly having no idea of what you were saying, but giggling up at you as you pressed a kiss to his chubby cheek. “Say bye-bye, now.”

You moved his little hand in a goodbye motion, Ghost’s mask moving over his lips as he smiled, raising one of his hands to wave goodbye back. 

Despite having done this same song and dance for almost four months now, it still didn’t get rid of the bittersweet feeling that bloomed in Simon’s chest, already knowing the drill as you led him to the front door with a solemn look tugging at your pretty features. 

“We’ll talk once I get back, okay? I promise.” He spoke softly as he stood by the opened door, a gloved hand coming up to cup at your face and tilt you upwards so you were both making eye contact. “‘Bout everything.”

“Okay.” You whispered, fighting the urge to lean further into his touch. “I’ll be here.”

He nodded, but his hand still didn’t move. 

You waited, for what, you didn’t know. You were slowly getting lost in his eyes when his other hand came up to pull his mask up over his lips, leaning down and softly tugging you upwards until they met your forehead, the kiss short and sweet despite all the pain and darkness that you knew followed him, always a surprise when it came to how quickly he could change from the personality he showed to you and Tommy to the personality you’d witnessed him show to his teammates not long ago. 

You blinked up at him owlishly, watching him pull the mask back down and let go of your face (though his touch still lingered) before taking a step back. 

“Stay safe.” You repeated like all the other times. 

“I always do.” He replied, and like always, he disappeared down the hall. 

“No.”

“Oh, come on. He’ll like it!” 

“He won’t.” Ghost snapped, taking one last look at the small toy Gaz was waving around, like Ghost was a child to be entertained and he was just being fussy, which really wasn’t that off track. 

“How’d you know?”

“‘Cause I’m his dad!” He looked away, already regretting having brought his teammates back to your place and therefore letting them meet Tommy. Maybe he should’ve just let them bleed out back then. 

“And you’re honestly telling me that a child will not like this?” Gaz moved it around a bit more, almost tantalising his lieutenant. 

Ghost peaked back at the small teddy bear, its fur fluffy and inviting and its black button eyes adorning its little face. 

“Just take it, mate. It’ll make me really happy!”

“I don’t care about your happiness, Sergeant.” Ghost snapped, snatching the toy from his grasp and shoving it into one of his pockets, ignoring the bright smile Gaz sent him and the punch to his shoulder. 

“God, you’re the best, Ghost. Text me if he likes it, eh?”

He never did text Gaz back, but Gaz had apparently ran his mouth to Soap about Ghost’s reluctant acceptance of the gift, since the next time he saw Soap, the scot had kindly brought a little teddy bear with a tiny Scottish flag in its paw. 

And although Ghost wanted nothing more than to rip it up in front of him, he found himself passing them on to Tommy the day he came back to you, “reluctantly” sending each of the Sergeants a picture of the small boy curled up to the two bears.

Viper // Part 4 // MAX VERSTAPPEN – N.01 (N.033)

Author's Note: After a little bit of a wait after that little cliffhanger I ended the last part with, but hopefully it wasn't too bad. Once again, thank you guys for all the positive feedback, comments and reblogs. It actually makes me so happy that other people are enjoying these little stories that love to write in my spare time.

In case you missed it, you can find the previous 3 parts to this story here on my Masterlist.

Summary: Y/N fills the vacant Red Bull seat at the beginning of the 2019 season, craziness ensues.

Characters: Max Verstappen x Driver Reader, Daniel Ricciardo x Driver Reader (besties.)

Word Count: 13.3 K

Warnings: Fluff, Comfort, Drama, Angst. All the good stuff. Mentions of sex, language, etc.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

“Oh my, that’s not good.” The commentator noted, having just witnessed a crash he’d not soon forget.

Before his very eyes, he’d watched Red Bull’s Y/L/N chasing the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton through the first few corners of the opening lap, only to tap her tyres against his in an attempt to overtake the silver arrow. She’d almost immediately lost control of the Red Bull, and though she’d tried to correct her course the car veered right off the track, showing no signs of slowing down. He could almost hear the crunch as the car became airborne and  rolled through the rough gravel, rolling over multiple times as the car seemed to fall apart at the seams, until it crashed heavily into one of the track barriers, stopping upside down. The footage immediately cut away from the accident, showing the cars slowing around the track.

“Red Bull’s Y/L/N has been involved in a horrific accident, her car rolling through a gravel trap straight into the barrier. Double yellow flags have immediately been waved, though I suspect a red flag will soon be waved as we wait for news on the state of the driver. Is she… conscious?”

It was easily one of the most horrific accidents in recent years.

“I don’t think she’s moved.” His co-commentator spoke based out of what they could see through their small commentator window, horror ringing through his own voice. “The incident will surely be under investigation from the stewards… but it seems that Y/L/N was determined to gain an advantage on Hamilton and he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. Did she have the racing line, Ted? The medics and stewards are arriving on the scene… this is hard to watch.”

“Is she okay?” They heard the frazzled voice of her teammate, Max Verstappen, through his radio.

“No word yet.” His engineer answered, as the drivers started to make their way back to the pits.

Another radio message from Daniel Ricciardo was broadcasted. “Which Red Bull was that?” and once he’d received the confirmation from his engineer that it was Y/L/N, he let out a string of expletives that needed to be beeped out before asking if his friend was okay.

A heavy silence settled over the track as the medics attended to the scene. They were waiting for confirmation that the worse hadn’t happened, and with every second that passed it seemed to be less likely. Y/N’s race engineer was frantically reaching out through the radio and receiving no response. Just looking at the Red Bull car that had been torn to shreds… everyone’s hearts sank. The seconds seemed like hours, as the race was inevitably red flagged and everything came to a standstill.

Neither commentator could tear their eyes away from the scene as one of the medics carefully lowered himself next to the Red Bull car, reaching inside to assess the scene. He was under there for what seemed like ages, before pushing himself back out. The medic’s face became one of surprise, before he stood and quickly waved more people over, before giving the signal that she was alive.

“Good lord,” The first commentator exhaled, along with everyone else at the track. “The medics have given the signal that Y/L/N is still with us. Though, she does appear to remain unconscious. It’s clear that we don’t yet know the severity of the accident…”

The extraction team was quick to get to work, turning over what was left of the car as carefully as they could. Then they were quick and methodical when it came to extracting her unconscious body from car without causing any further damage. Not much was said as the medical team worked to carefully place Y/N on the stretcher and eventually lifted into the ambulance that had arrived on the scene moments ago. Procedure meant that she would be flown to the nearest hospital for a thorough examination.

The stewards got to work clearing the debris and restoring the track so that the race could resume at the first given opportunity.

“I think I speak for everyone who’s a fan of the sport when I say that we’re all hoping for the best for Y/N after that… horrific crash. We will do our best to share news as we receive it. As of right now, she seems to remain unconscious as they send her to the nearest hospital for examination.”

With that being said, the broadcast cut back to a panel who did their best to carry on with the show despite this horrible occurrence hanging over everyone’s head. It was soon announced that the race was set to resume once the track would be cleared. They cut to various drivers pacing through the pitlane, clearly thrown by the severity of what had just happened.

They could only hope that she would really be okay.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

Max felt like he was going to throw up as he stood with Y/N’s family and Daniel in the pitlane, waiting for any kind of word that she was okay. He watched as the hope slowly started draining from their faces as it turned into desperation, knowing that there was nothing they could do to help or change what had happened. She wasn’t responding to the radio messages, so their minds automatically went to the worse case scenarios.

He’d known that she wasn’t in the state of mind to race, and he’d kept his mouth shut.

This was all his fucking fault.

“What was she thinking?!” Daniel whispered, having caught a replay on one of the Red Bull pit wall screens. It was review footage, stuff that wouldn’t be aired on TV.

Max turned his attention to the screen, watching the incident in slow motion from the beginning. You’d taken a risky line to try and get past the Mercedes, out braking it but consequently meaning you would have to take a sharper turn. That sharper turn meant you caught the back end of Lewis’s car… and the rest was too horrible to watch. It had been rookie mistake, too aggressive of a move. And now…

“She shouldn’t have been racing… Not after, fucking hell…” Max muttered to himself, not expecting anyone to hear him.

But Daniel did. “What?” He asked sharply, a look Max had never seen on his face before crossing his face. It was enough to send a chill down Max’s spine.

“She had a panic attack, before the driver’s parade. It’s why she was so quiet on the trailer.”

Daniel’s brows rose so high in surprise, but he made a gesture for Max to keep talking.

“I found her in her room before the parade. Room was a mess and she was… worse. Some dickhead reporter set her off, asking questions that he shouldn’t have. It took a long time just to get her to breathe… she wasn’t in any state to race.”

Daniel’s gaze became accusatory. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

“She told me she was fine, or she would be once she was in the car. We both know there’s no stopping her from racing. But…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence, already feeling guilty enough about this.

No one spoke as the medics arrived on the scene to assess the situation. In fact, Max was pretty sure he didn’t breathe until the lead medic came out from under the flipped car to give his team the signal that Y/N was still alive, instantly flooded with relief no matter how short lived it was. You were unconscious, and there was no telling how hurt you were and if you were going to make it out of this. The guilt continued to eat away at him.

No one could tear their eyes away from the screen as they flipped the car over and eventually pulled you out, placing your limp body onto the waiting stretcher and wheeling you into the ambulance.

“I need to get to the hospital.” Your dad spoke up, looking absolutely terrified as he finally tore his eyes away from the screen.

Daniel was quick to offer up his manager to drive your dad and brothers over to the hospital. He accepted the offer, promising to share any type of news as soon as he received it. Max wanted to ask to be included in that, but kept his mouth shut. He didn’t have the right.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Daniel added, as your dad had been about to leave.

Max was unable to hide his shock at Daniel’s words. He waited until your dad left to voice his thoughts to Daniel. “We?”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Don’t bullshit me Verstappen. I know how you feel about her.” Max’s jaw dropped at the insinuation that he felt anything more towards you than he should as your teammate, but Daniel wasn’t done. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think. You literally can’t take your eyes off of her when you’re in the same room, and you smile, your real smile, whenever she says something you don’t expect. And, you let her use your simulator, something that you never let me do in the three years we were teammates.”

Daniel had to be wrong, because there was no way on earth he could have any feelings like that towards his teammate. But, he still found himself nodding to Daniel’s invitation.

He was allowed to care for his teammate, as a friend. They were being civil, after all.

So what if every once in a while he stretched a joke out longer than he probably should in the hopes of earning an extra laugh out of you. You’d developed this easy banter over the last few months, so easy that Max didn’t mind having to go through his media duties with you because you made it a lot more fun without even trying. And what did it matter if he’d gotten into the habit of keeping an eye on you in public spaces to make sure you were okay because he’d learned over time that you weren’t a fan of big crowds and tended to get anxious though you’d try your damndest to hide it. He was just looking out for you, like any decent teammate would.

Because it never affected the racing, until now.

Now he didn’t want to get back in his car without knowing that you were okay, even as they announced that the race would be resuming shortly. Were they really going to just carry on like nothing had happened? Why the fuck was he having such a hard time getting his head back in the game. He wasn’t usually this affected by incidents, knowing that it was part of the life he’d chosen for himself. But then again, this was different. You were different.

Fuck.

55 laps. That’s all he needed to get through. By then, they should know that you were okay.

And somehow, after the longest feeling 55 laps of his life, he managed to focus enough to get his job done. Regardless of the podium result, he couldn’t remember a worse race. As much as he hated to admit it, it wasn’t the same, finishing a race without you there to share that little smile you usually did when congratulating the other about their race result.

Maybe he did care a little more than he should…

He just hoped you’d be okay and back at the track sooner rather than later. He didn’t want to go through another race without seeing that smile at the end.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

By some small miracle, the team of doctors determined that there was nothing physically wrong with you. You’d been extremely lucky, as they’d seen footage of the incident in order to prepare for your treatment. Not a fractured bone or any damage that they could see through the scans they performed. You had a few bruises on your arms, probably from having let go of the wheel and hitting them against the inside of the chasis, and you would surely be sore for a few days, but otherwise you were physically intact.

The only problem was, you’d yet to wake up so they hadn’t had the opportunity to perform any cognitive checks. Your pupils were responsive and scans clean, so they had no reason to suspect a brain injury. Which made it all the more strange that you’d yet to wake up since the crash. You were fine, so you should be awake. They eventually came to the conclusion that your brain was still protecting you from the trauma of what had happened, and that it was only a matter of time until you regained consciousness. You would be under near constant observation in the intensive care unit until then.

The doctors had been quick to inform her family that she was okay, all things considered. They just had no way to tell when you would wake up. Her father nearly collapsed in relief, leaning heavily on her brothers as he processed the good news.

True to his word, Daniel and Max had been the first of the drivers to arrive at the hospital after the race. They’d sped through their media duties as quickly as possible, Max practically running off the podium as soon as he was able to. They hadn’t spoken much in the car ride over to the hospital, anticipating the worse because there had been no word in the hours that had passed since the crash. It’s safe to say they were pretty relieved as well when your brothers shared the news that you were physically okay.

“So, how long is she going to be in the hospital?” Max asked, ignoring the weird feeling in the pit of his stomach now that he knew you weren’t broken into a million pieces.

Your dad eyed Max for a long moment, taking in his concern. “They don’t know when she’s going to wake up.”

Oh. Just like that, any relief he’d felt disappeared.

So, he settled in one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs near your hospital room. He didn’t want to look inside, because it would make it even more real that things were not okay.

He didn’t move or react when other drivers from the grids start showing up and filling the other seats in the waiting room, all anxious for any type of news on your condition. Vettel had tried asking him how you were, but Max had just ignored him, too stuck in his own head. The rest of the drivers left him alone after that.

Time flew by, but he barely noticed it, too busy hoping for the best. What if you didn’t wake up? What if you were in a coma for another 9 months and then things took a turn for the worse like they had with Jules? What if you never raced again, and it was all his fault because he’d kept his mouth shut?

What if he was the reason you never got to do the thing you loved the most again?

How the fuck was he supposed to live with that?

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

To say you were confused when you first woke up would be an understatement.

The first thing you noticed was how uncomfortable your bed was, instantly realizing that you weren’t in your hotel room. Then you heard the soft beeping of machinery nearby, and the sanitary smell that had the hairs at the back of your neck instantly standing on end as you put everything together. You cracked your eyes open, taking in the small room with fluorescent overhead lighting, the chair in the corner occupied by your sleeping father, a bunch of flower bouquets scattered across the room.

You were in a hospital.

You’d crashed.

Instantly, your heart started racing as you recalled the crash. Losing control of the car, barrelling at an insane speed through the gravel as the car took off and rolled. The impact with the wall. The acceptance that you might not get out of that one as everything faded to black. You’d fucked up.

The door to the room was slowly pushed open, creaking quietly as it moved. The sound seemed to be enough to wake your father up, as none other than Sebastian Vettel poked his head into the room. “We’re ordering some food, Mr. Y/L/N. Was there anything-” he froze, gaze wandering over to you and realizing that your eyes were open. “Y/N?!”

Not having any grasp on how serious this situation was, your stomach growled at the thought of food. Better to focus on that than why you were in here anyways. “I’d go a sausage and egg McMuffin and about 5 hashbrowns from McDonalds.”

Your dad bolted up from his seat, rushing over to the side of your bed. “Y/N, honey. How are- does anything hurt?” It kind of freaked you out to see the tears welling up in his eyes, feeling a little more off put by his reaction. His gaze flickered briefly over to a still stunned German driver. “Get the doctor please, she’s finally awake.”

Seb dashed out of the room far more quickly than he’d come in.

“I still want that breakfast sandwich…” You mumbled, watching the closing door.

Your dad proceeded to ask you a bunch more questions that you couldn’t really answer because you still didn’t fully know how bad the situation was. Your body was sore, but nothing hurt more than it should. Still, for all you knew you could be on some pretty intense drugs and not feeling any of your injuries if you had them. So before you could answer any of your dad’s questions, you asked one of your own. “What happened?”

The question stopped him in his tracks, a look of concern crossing his face. “You don’t remember?”

“I do. I know that I crashed… But what happened after? And who won the race?” You added the second question as an afterthought, your father staring at your incredulously.

“You want to know about the race?”

“Yes.”

“Valtteri won. Lewis came in second, Max was third.”

“Lewis won the Championship.” As you said the words, it was almost like a weight lifted from your shoulders. People would finally stop asking you if you could do the impossible. It was official, you weren’t going to dethrone the king. The pressure dissipated completely. “Good for Lewis. And, Max must be happy about his podium.”

“No one celebrated.”

“What? Why not.”

Your dad was looking at you funny again. “Because they were all worried about you.”

What?

But before you could ask your father to clarify, a doctor made his way into the room. You dad took a step back to make sure he wouldn’t be in the doctor’s way as they came to check on you. “Y/N! Sorry to interrupt but I hear you’ve finally woken up from your extended nap. How’re you feeling?”

“Sore, but not horrible.” You said honestly, shrugging your stiff shoulders. “What’s the verdict? How long have I been out?” You found yourself asking.

The doctor pulled a small flashlight out of his lab coat pocket, coming walking over to you and getting you to follow the light as he performed a basic cognitive evaluation. He asked you to follow the light with your eyes, before asking you a few basic questions. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Judging by the accent I’m going to safely assume we’re still in Austin.”

“That’s correct. How about your last name?” You raised a brow at the stupid question, but answered it regardless. He asked you a series of simple questions, ranging from basic math equations to what she did for a living. Satisfied with her answers to that point, the doctor nodded before asking the next question. “And do you remember what happened?”

“I made a mistake during the race, and crashed.” It was an oversimplification, but it would do.

“From the footage I was shown before you arrived, it was a pretty nasty crash.” The doctor said solemnly as he checked the machines around you that were monitoring different things. “You’re quite lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Other than the bruising and soreness I’m sure you will be feeling for the next few days, you’re going to be able to walk away from that accident without any physical injury. And even with the G Forces you experienced, it hasn’t affected your brain either. You’re passing every test.

“So, what you’re saying is that I’m okay?”

The doctor smiled. “Yes.”

You didn’t know what to say to that because it was unexpected. Usually waking up in the hospital meant that it was bad. You sat up in the bed, ignoring the way that your sore muscles protested. “How soon can I get back to racing?”

“I’d take it easy for the next few days. Let your body rest and recover, because it has still been through a lot. But, I see no reason why you can’t get back to training towards the end of the week and race on the following weekend.” The smile grew on your face as your doctor continued to give his opinion.

This was the moment that your dad chose to speak up. “Are you sure about that? Two weeks is awful soon to for her to be putting herself back into a Formula 1 car. Daniel mentioned a panic attack. Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

Your stomach sank, wondering how in the hell Daniel had found out about your panic attack and subsequently told your father. The only person who could’ve told them about it was Max, because he’d caught you in the middle of it. You wanted to be angry at the Dutch driver for spilling the beans, but at the same time you could see him blaming himself for your accident. You’d told him you were okay to race when that hadn’t been the case.

The smile on your doctor’s face faded. “Panic attack? Do you often suffer panic attacks?”

You sighed, knowing that this was about to get blown way out of proportion. “Not anymore.” You let out a long breath. “I used to have them growing up…” after your mother had died “…but it got better. I hadn’t had one in years until before the race.” It was why you never thought about your mother or talked about her. Just thinking about it was enough to have chills racing down your spine, so you avoided it entirely. And it worked, until yesterday morning.

“Do you know what triggered it?”

“No.” You lied, because you didn’t want to talk about it.

“I can refer you to a sports psychologist, in case you find yourself in that situation again.”

“I’m fine.” You shrugged it off. You’d seen one before when you first started seriously competing for the odd time you’d suffer panic attacks. They’d prescribed you a drug that made you feel funny and would very likely be banned at this level of competition. The alternative was therapy, which you refused to do because talking about it only made it worse. You didn’t want to go through that again.

“Y/N…” Your dad urged you to reconsider.

You shook your head at him, before turning your gaze back towards the doctor. “When can I get out of here?”

The doctor quickly explained that you were cleared to leave whenever you felt up to it, but that the discharge procedure could take a few hours at best. But, he said that you could have visitors in your room now that you were awake again, and apparently there was a hoard of them waiting outside to see you. With a final quick reminder not to overdo it, your doctor left the room and left the door open for visitors.

Almost immediately, you found that over half of the current Formula 1 grid rushed into your room, eager to get a peek of you awake and in one piece with their own eyes. Sebastian and Charles, Lewis and Valtteri, Lando and Carlos, Romain and Kevin, Checo, Alex, Pierre and Daniel. All with matching wide eyed, tired glances as they took you in.

“You guys look like shit.” You couldn’t help yourself, making the comment to lighten the mood. 

It worked, everyone’s relief palpable.

Daniel was the first to pull you into a hug when you pushed yourself off of the bed. He was super careful, barely applying any pressure to your body. You on the other hand, wrapped your arms as tightly as you could around your best friend, feeling slightly bad for having worried him so much. “I’m not gonna break, Danny.” You reassured him.

His arms tightened around your waist. “You’re not allowed to ever scare me like that again, got it?”

You nodded into his chest. “I’m sorry.”

When Daniel finally let you go, you were immediately pulled into another hug, making your way through the group of drivers that you considered to be your friends now, reassuring each and every one of them that you were okay.

“Congrats on the championship, Lew.” You said softly to Lewis when it was his turn. “Sorry for putting a damper on the celebration.”

“Don’t worry about it, there will be plenty of time for celebrating later now that we know you’re okay.”

“The first round is on me, to make up for all the worrying.”

Even though you both knew it wasn’t necessary, a small smile made its way onto his face. “Deal.”

That breakfast sandwich that you’d requested when you’d first woken up finally arrived, along with a much more comfortable change of clothes for you and some bone crushing hugs from your brothers. You quickly escaped to the ensuite washroom to change into a match set of navy sweats, glad that you weren’t at risk of flashing everyone in your hospital gown anymore.

So, you sat and ate with everyone in the room, chatting about the rest of the race that you’d missed to pass the time. A few of them left, because they needed to catch flights, but you still had quite the group of people hanging around to help you pass the time as you waited to be discharged. You called Christian to let him know that you were okay and to discuss a statement that you’d be putting out of your social media as soon as you were discharged, your boss telling you to focus on getting back to 100% and letting you know he was glad you were okay.

Once that was handled, you talked about the most random things with the people who were left. It was nice. It was almost like you hadn’t just been through this big ordeal, spending time with your friends and family. In fact, it helped to ease that small bit of panic that was still somewhere within you, knowing that all these people cared about your wellbeing and were relieved that your crash hadn’t been as catastrophic as it had appeared.

“Did Max head back to Monaco?” You quietly asked Daniel, when the others became engrossed in conversation about an upcoming football match.

Daniel shook his head. “He’s out in the hall. Hasn’t moved or said a word since he sat down.”

You couldn’t help the way your lips turned downward into a frown. “Is he okay?”

“He’s blaming himself.”

Your frown deepened when Daniel confirmed that your earlier suspicion was correct. The last thing you wanted was for Max to blame himself after he’d been so gracious and helpful to you. You had been the one to lie and tell him you were fine. This was all on you.

“I’m going to go stretch my legs and see what’s taking so long with the discharge paperwork.” You said, a little more loudly to get everyone’s attention. You declined the three separate invitations for people to come along with you and make sure you wouldn’t randomly collapse on your own. You were almost surprised that they didn’t put up more of a fight though, jumping back into their conversations as you left the room.

It didn’t take you very long to find him, sat in the corner still dressed head to toe in the Red Bull kit. He was staring blanky ahead, not really seeing what was in front of him. He didn’t even blink as you plopped yourself down into the seat beside him, lost in his thoughts. It wasn’t until you placed your hand on your arm that he snapped out of it, quickly turning to see who had sat next to him.

“Y/N?” The surprise was clear in his voice.

You smiled softly. “Hey.”

“I… You’re really okay?”

You nodded your head slowly. “I mean I’m sore and bruised and all, but anyone would be after… that. But, I’m okay.” 

The silence between you suddenly felt charged, as you thought of a bunch of other things you wanted to say to reassure him but none of them left your mouth. Instead, all you did was look at him as his gaze scanned your body as though to make sure you were being honest before it traveled back up to meet yours.

“I should’ve sa-”

“I’m sorry for pu-”

You both spoke at the same time, stopping simultaneously too. A somewhat nervous laugh escaped you as you nodded for Max to speak up first.

So, he did. “I just keep thinking about how this could have been avoided if I would’ve said something to someone.”

You were quick to dispel that thought. “Actually Max, it would’ve made things worse. The idea that anyone else could’ve known about… my panic attack would’ve thrown me off even more. There was no avoiding what happened, I would’ve been distracted either way. At least the way it happened, it’s still contained.”

“I told Daniel, after...”

“I know. And I’m not mad about that.” You said, earning a surprised look again. “Daniel’s not going to run to the press. I don’t care if he knows or not. I trust him as much as I’m trusting you to continue to keep it to yourself.”

It was almost weird, how nonchalantly you’d revealed to Max that you trusted him, as something more than a teammate. He hadn’t held your panic attack against you and helped you through it when he didn’t have to. He’d had your back for months, even when you’d been a bitch to him and holding that crash in Germany against him. He’d helped you, no questions asked during that situation at Jimmy’z in Monaco, when you’d been at your worst. You weren’t sure when you’d started to trust him, but you knew that you did. Implicitly.

Max was a better guy that what he let people think of him, and it was becoming clearer to you the better you got to know him.

The fact that you trusted Max seemed to throw him off kilter. If fact, it took him a while to wipe that wide eyed expression on his face. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” He said lowly, turning to face you so you could see that he meant it. “But, what if it happens again?”

“It won’t.” You shrugged, shoulders sinking further when Max’s unimpressed expression made it clear that he didn’t think that would be the case. “It shouldn’t happen again. I hadn’t had one of those in years. I used to get them all the time when I was a kid, and then they tapered off as I grew up and pushed the trigger further out of my mind. Hypothetically, I should be okay for another couple of years before I have another one.”

Max’s curiosity took over, because it wasn’t often that you spent this much time having… personal conversations. “You used to have them more often?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know how to channel my anxiety and… let’s say control freak tendencies into something that wasn’t self-destructive. I was kind of a fucked up kid, after we lost my…” you didn’t say the word out loud. “We were only supposed to be in Australia for a year, but when we got there it was like this switch was flipped. A fresh start, were I didn’t have to be the weird, sad, quiet kid anymore. We ended up staying for 5 years, because it was good for everyone to be away. We figured out pretty early on that giving me something to focus on helped, so once we went to one of Daniel’s karting races, I decided that that was what I was going to do with my life. All my focus and energy went into becoming the best, and the more I focused on that the less I panicked. For the last 16 years of my life, my sole focus has been earning a seat in Formula 1 and winning the Championship. I haven’t really given myself the chance to think about much else, and it mostly worked.”

“Huh.” Max said, relaxing a little bit more into his seat. “We’re more alike than I thought.”

You coughed out a laugh, because he was right. “Yep. Two stubborn little shits with crappy coping mechanisms who’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

He cracked a smile for the first time since you’d sat down, not disagreeing with your description. “I’m glad you’re okay. The podium was weird yesterday. You were supposed to be up there with us.”

That funny warm feeling came over you again at Max’s last statement. Not thinking too much of it because you were far too exhausted for that, you shrugged your shoulder, because there was nothing you could do to change what had happened. “I’ll be up there next time. We’ll get a do-over” You promised him.

You held your fist up.

He bumped his knuckles against yours, a cheeky grin lining his face. “Deal.”

Even after the rather intense past 24 hours, you found yourself smiling as you finally made your way over to the nurses station to enquire about your discharge paperwork. You were looking forward to the next race and making up for your mistake this past weekend.

You’d gotten lucky, but you weren’t going to let that stop you.

You still had a championship to win next season, after all.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

You’d stayed in Austin for the following week with Daniel, Michael, and Blake, following the doctor’s orders and giving your body the chance to recover. It had gotten you out of a week filled with sponsorship events and meetings in the UK that you’d been dreading, though a small part of you felt bad when you realized it meant that Max would have to go to all those events on his own. For the last couple of months while things had been good between the two of you, those events were made better in knowing that your teammate was just as miserable as you the entire evening, sharing whispered jokes and exasperated looks when everyone else was too preoccupied to noticed. You didn’t doubt that Max would be bored out of his mind.

The week off had done you some good. Michael in particular had been a godsend, using his physiotherapy knowledge to help you get back to 100% as quickly as possible. It had been a pain at first, considering how sore your muscles had been because of the high G’s you’d experienced. However, you were feeling back to normal towards the end of the week, making the most of an off weekend with some of your closest friends.

You and Daniel had had a long talk on the Monday night the week after the accident, getting to the bottom of what had happened last Sunday. You’d been sitting around the fire enjoying your last night in Austin before you were supposed to head out and meet your team in Brazil, drinking too much wine out of red solo cups. Daniel had been smart about it and waited until you’d had just enough wine to take away your hesitance towards discussing the topic.  

“What happened to the deal?” He started by asking.

“What deal?” You asked in return, reaching for the bottle of wine between the two of you before refilling your empty cup. You added even more wine to your cup when Daniel clarified his question for you.

“The deal you made with all of us when you first started karting.”

Oh… that. The 24-hour deal. The one you made when you still had pretty frequent panic attacks growing up. You’d been in a similar situation before in a karting competition, where you’d had a panic attack the morning before a race. Even after insisting that you were fine, you hadn’t been able to properly focus, and you’d caused an accident. Thankfully, no one involved had been seriously injured. But, you’d promised then to never let that happen again.

Hence, the 24-hour deal. You weren’t supposed to get in the car within 24 hours of having an attack. You’d backed out of races and competitions in the past, until you’d gotten the panic under control and figured out how to channel your anxious energy into something more productive.

It had been a long time since you’d slipped up. So long that you hadn’t even thought of backing out of the race last weekend. Besides, this was Formula 1. You couldn’t just back out without it causing an even bigger mess of things.

“This is different. It’s not just a random karting race” You said quietly, even though you knew that your reasoning wouldn’t cut it.

“You’re right about it being different.” He confirmed, his signature smile nowhere to be seen. “It’s even more important now. No one should be on that grid if their head’s not in the game.”

“I know that.” You sighed. “Danny, I genuinely thought I was going to be fine once I got in the car. I’m so used to automatically tunning everything else out when I’m driving that car. Instinct always takes over, and my mind finally goes quiet, only focusing on what I need to do. I assumed it would happen again.”

“No offense, but that was kind of a stupid assumption.” He stated the obvious, clearly disappointed with the way you’d handled things. He knew all about your panic attacks and how bad they could be. He’d talked you out of them a handful of times, if he’d happened to be around. He also knew exactly how you were after one, basically just a shell of yourself until you could slowly start pulling yourself back together. You should never have been anywhere near that car…

Instead of saying anything, you grabbed your best friend’s hand and squeezed it within your own. It was a quiet reminder that you were okay, and you knew that you’d fucked up. Dan pulled you into his side, draping his arm across your shoulders. Your head fell onto his shoulder, as you continued to watch the dying fire in front of you.

It wasn’t until the fire had reduced to a pile of flickering embers that you spoke again. “I promise that won’t ever happen again.”

Daniel squeezed your shoulders, satisfied by your promise.

It was an easy promise to make, because you had no desire to go through that again. If not to protect yourself, than to protect everyone else on that track. You didn’t want to be the reason that your friends got hurt during a race. Your mistake could have impacted a lot more people… it was too dangerous to drive when your head wasn’t sorted out. If it ever happened again, you wouldn’t put them all at risk.

You’d ask for help.

You could only push your luck so far, after all.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

You flew to Sao Paolo on Tuesday with Daniel, Michael, and Blake, after a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning to make sure you were physically fit to get back to work. You passed all the tests with flying colours, the only evidence from your accident being the bruises that still coloured your chest from where the belts had kept you secure in the car. You could hide those under your race suit.

The flight itself had been a long one, even on the direct chartered flight path from Austin to Sao Paolo. You’d slept for a good chunk of it, until a bored Daniel had woken you up to play poker with the rest of the boys. He’d proceeded to spend the rest of the flight complaining every time you’d beat them, your poker face just too good for them to decipher. After you’d cleaned house, you started up a couple of harmless (though somehow just as competitive) games of Go Fish, passing the time until the plane touched down.

Red Bull had booked a different hotel from Renault, so the boys had been kind enough to drop you off first before heading over to their own hotel. It didn’t take very long to check in, however you did stop to chat with some of your mechanics who’d caught you on their way to the hotel bar for dinner with the rest of the team. You apologised for shunting the car at the last race, promising that you’d try to treat your RB15 a little more kindly this coming race weekend. They didn’t seem that fussed about having to put in extra work to repair your car, mainly happy and relieved to see you up on your feet and ready to go at it again.

After it had been suggested a couple of times, you decided to tag along with the crew for dinner, the hotel reception taking care of having your bags brought up to your room for you. You’d wound up sitting at a table with the small army of people that made it possible for you to race every other weekend, surrounded by your performance coach, media crew, mechanics, and engineers. Max’s side of the garage were also around, though the other Red Bull driver was notably absent.

You were surprised to feel a little twinge of disappointment when you realized that Max was probably the only person missing at the team dinner. You hadn’t seen or heard from him since talking to him in the hospital waiting room after your accident.

“Has Max not checked in yet?” You found yourself asking his performance coach, James, who was seated across from you.

James shook his head. “Nah, he had a dinner with his dad and the Piquets. Didn’t seem too keen on it.”

And that was that.

You enjoyed the rest of the evening, not giving your missing teammate another thought. You spent the next couple of hours enjoying some surprisingly good hotel restaurant food, and the company of your team. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood and looking forward to this upcoming race, because there were still a lot of good points up for grabs in the constructors championship. Mercedes hadn’t managed to lock it in yet, because of how well you and Max had been driving throughout the year. Red Bull wanted to take it from them, and with you and Max driving like you had all year, you had a shot. It was fun, to all be fighting towards the same goal now that the driver’s championship had officially been lost.

It wasn’t until you’d yawned three times in quick succession that you decided to call it a night, figuring that it was best to go to sleep a little bit earlier, so you’d be fully energized for your day filled with Red Bull media and sponsorship obligations tomorrow.

James stood at the same time as you, offering to walk you back to your room. You bit back a comment about being perfectly capable of walking yourself back, your media trained smile settling on your face. No need to make a fuss, you’d already put the team through enough the last couple weeks.

So, you let James lead you out of the restaurant and through the lobby, listening to him rattling on about his plans for the offseason. Something about new training plans and a recreational hockey team he had with some childhood friends. He might’ve asked you out to dinner if you happened to find yourself in London, but you weren’t really paying him much attention.

The elevator seemed to be taking forever to come to the main floor, meaning you had put up with this for that much longer.

And as luck would have it, another pair of people joined you in waiting for the elevator. You turned to face the newcomers, smile dropping for a split second once you realized that it was your missing teammate and his father.

Max’s gaze flickered between you and James as his father said hello to James, completely ignoring you. Jos Verstappen had gotten into the habit of pretending you didn’t exist after your encounter in Japan. You didn’t mind, glad that you no longer had to fake pleasantries with a man who would never respect you.

James broke the awkward silence that had settled between everyone. “How was dinner with the Piquets?”

Jos launched into a very showboaty recap of their dinner, mentioning that Nelson Piquet also thought it was only a matter of time until Max won his first of many championships. You fought the urge to roll your eyes, instead looking towards the one working elevator in the hotel that seemed to be working right now and going to every floor except this ground one.

Would it be considered rude to take the stairs to escape this awkwardness? It was only 13 odd floors…

“How was the team dinner?”

“Yeah, it was good man.” James jumped in to answer Max’s question before you could even open your mouth. “I think everyone’s happy to see Y/N back this weekend, she was the talk of the dinner.”

You felt Max’s eyes on you, even though you suddenly found the ground very interesting. “Oh yeah?”

“It was nice to catch up with the whole, well almost the whole team.” You added, feeling like you had to say something. “I think everyone has a good feeling about the race this weekend.”

“Most of them are still in there if you wanted to go say hi.” James suggested. “Y/N and I were just heading up for an early night.”

Your head snapped towards James so quickly to shoot him an unimpressed glance that you never noticed Max’s narrowed gaze on the two of you or the way that Jos’s stupid grin widened because of how that sounded. Fucking hell, James really wasn’t getting the hint that you had absolutely no interest in speaking to him outside of a work context, and now he was running his mouth.

“Careful there James, we wouldn’t want to give our friends here the wrong impression.” There was no false kindness in your voice, making it clear that you were unimpressed with his choice of words.

James had the decency to look like he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But before he could stamper out his apology, Jos’s phone started to ring loudly. He quickly excused himself to go answer the call. At the same time, the elevator dinged to signal that it had finally arrived.

You dashed into the elevator, not waiting to see if anyone had followed you. Max stepped in as well, but stopped and held the door. “Oh shoot, one of my bags is still being held by reception. Would you mind going to grab it? It’s the one with my helmet so I wouldn’t want just anyone handling it.”

“Yeah, mate. No problem.” James answered, scampering off with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

You leaned back against the back elevator wall, letting out a long breath. You could only imagine how awkward the elevator ride would’ve been with the four of you cramped into the small space.  Max seemed mildly amused, now that he realized you had absolutely no interest in his performance coach.

“So, you and James?” He teased, pressing the button for the floor that both your rooms were on.

You rolled your eyes and groaned. “Absolutely fucking not.”

Max’s smirk only grew. “The guy has been into you ever since he laid eyes on you, like most of the paddock. You don’t see it, do you?”

Huh? See what? “What?” You voiced your confusion, brow furrowing slightly.

“You have everyone wrapped around your fingers.” You went to deny his claim, but he stopped you by speaking up again. “You have since the first race. The drivers, the media, the mechanics and engineers. They’d all go to war for you. It used to annoy me, how everyone you spoke to would come out of it thinking you could do no wrong. But, I get it now.”

“I do not have everyone wrapped around my fingers.” You quickly dismissed because that seemed ridiculous to you. You chose to focus on that part of Max’s explanation because the last bit was too… you didn’t even know. And as for the going to war for her thing, she would do the same for them. If they had her back, she would have theirs.

The conversation came to an abrupt end there, because the elevator opened on your floor. You followed Max through the halls, finding that your rooms were only a couple doors down for the other’s. You tapped your key against the lock, listening for the click to indicate that it had unlocked.

“Goodnight, heerlijk.” Max called out over his shoulder as he continued down the hall to his own room.

“Night’ Max.” You called out in return, stepping into your room and closing the door behind you. You locked the door, kicked off your shoes and plopped down face first onto your bed.

Your exhaustion from the day hit you like a train, and you barely made it through your nighttime routine before you were out like a light.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 

The next couple of days passed by in a blur of media commitments, interviews, press conferences, practices and strategy meetings. You’d been part of the Driver’s conference on Thursday, answering a bunch of questions about the previous race weekend and how you’d been lucky to make it out of that one in one piece. A lot of people were surprised by the fact that you were racing this weekend, but you were quick to assure them all that you’d passed all of the physical checks required to be allowed back into your car this weekend. Red Bull had a constructors championship to win, after all.

Friday practices were a dream, and the car was performing even better than you’d expected. You and Max were trading the best lap times all day, quite a bit ahead of the Mercedes. It was almost impossible to keep the smile off of your face as you went through the motions throughout the rest of the weekend, knowing that you had the slightest advantage over your competitors. You felt good, the car felt good, and it was showing in your lap times.

Qualifying had been a lot of fun, and resulted in pole for you by couple of thousandths ahead of Max. Red Bull could see that the competition between you and Max was pushing you both the right way this weekend, motivating the both of you to get the best result possible and try to one-up the other. Headlines after qualifying were quick to praise you, going on about how you look like nothing had ever happened in Austin.

You had a genuine smile on your face all of Sunday morning, through the driver’s parade and all. You were itching for the race to get underway, because that good feeling never faded. You weren’t scared to race, like some people thought you might be after that crash. No, you were excited, the adrenaline slowly rising in your body the closer you got to lights out. Max picked up on your good mood, joking around with you through the parade about trying to overtake you right at the start and fighting you for the win today. It didn’t faze you in the slightest, throwing some friendly banter back his way.

Nothing could wipe that smile from your face, even as the lights went red one by one until they all went out and the race was underway. Sao Paulo was one of your personal favourite tracks, with high-speed corners and plenty of overtaking opportunities. You and Max were both driving on another level from the rest of the field, pushing each other to the limit and to be better than the other. Even in the first couple of laps, you exchanged first and second place a handful of times, giving the fans some very exciting racing to watch. You weren’t even annoyed when Max would pass you, because that meant you got to show off your own skills and chase him down for your own pass. It was the most fun you’d had in a long time.

The race had been fast, and a fight from start to finish. However towards the end of the race, Max found even more pace in his car that you couldn’t quite match. He had more pace, plain and simple. Your fight was then with Hamilton for second, and it was a fight that went right to the very end of the race, you crossing the finishing line only a few hundredths ahead of the Mercedes driver, making it the most exciting finish in a long time for you.

Your engineer was yelling in your ear, thrilled with the P2 result. “Amazing drive, yet again Y/N! A 1-2 for the team as well! Hope you’re ready to celebrate tonight!”

His energy was contagious, a wide smile creeping onto your face as you started your cool down lap. “Woo! Absolutely! Thanks everyone for all the hard work today. It was such a fun race, plenty of highlight worthy overtakes if I do say so myself. Definitely better than the last one.”

You pulled up behind the P2 banner in parc fermé, cutting the engine and pulling yourself out of the car. You’d barely pulled off your helmet and balaclava, before you were immediately pulled into a hug.  Your teammate clearly thrilled about the outcome of the race today, cheering along with everyone else as he spun you in a celebratory circle.

You found yourself smiling as he placed you back on the floor. “Congrats, Max.”

His smile matched yours. “Congrats to you too, Y/N. A fucking 1-2, without penalties this time!”

“Best not to leave the team hanging.” You smirked, nodding your head towards the sea of navy blue that was still waiting to celebrate with the two of you. You took off running at the same time, launching yourselves at your team. You didn’t even care that Max had finished ahead of you, happy to have this moment with your team. This feeling was what made it all worth it.

Not just that, but you’d closed the gap to Mercedes to just a couple of points now. Another good result like this during the final race and you could actually take the constructors from under their noses.

After a quick interview and chat in the cool down room, you stood proudly on the podium next to your teammate. When it came time to spray the champagne, Max didn’t hesitate to immediately douse you with most of his bottle, pouring whatever wouldn’t spray directly over your head. You made sure to return the favour, laughing as he jokingly tried to run away from you only for Hannah, the lead strategist who’d come up to accept the constructor’s trophy, to get him from his other side. The smile on your face wasn’t forced as you stood sandwiched between your teammate and strategist for the group photo.

Your smile didn’t falter through the post-race conference, or the time you were forced to spend answering repetitive questions in the media pen. After a quickest post-race debrief of the season (it seemed that everyone was just as eager to wrap it up and celebrate the 1-2), you’d rushed back to your hotel to shower and change into something that was more celebration worthy.

You took your time getting ready, indulging in a couple of glasses of champagne from the bottle that had magically appeared in your room. You’d showered and washed your hair, taking the time to dry and style it into so loose waves that flowed down your back. You chose to wear this little blue silky number that hung over your slender and toned frame perfectly. You’d even put on some more makeup than usual, having a bit of fun with a smoky eye and lipstick.

The party was already in full swing by the time you’d walked in with your performance coach and press officer. You’d caught a ride with them, bumping into them in the lobby after you’d finished getting ready. You offered to buy the first round when you spotted your two teammates, knowing that you’d be nowhere without them. You’d shared a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, before catching a cab and making your way over to the nightclub where the victory party was being held. It seemed that everyone was out celebrating this monumental victory for the team, knowing that you were one step closer to accomplishing something incredible together.

You made your way through the mess of bodies, spotting Max at one of the VIP tables towards the back of the club, the driver waving you over with a cheeky grin on his face the moment he saw you. He immediately pushed a couple shot glasses towards you and your engineers who were around, getting everyone to take a shot together in celebration.

From there, you spent the night making the most out of the open bar with you team.

You talked, danced, drank, sang your heart out, and hand the time of your life with your people. It became even more fun when some of the drivers for the others teams came to crash the party, Daniel and Charles spending most of the night alongside you and Max. Max was never too far away from you, always there with a new pair of drinks for the two of your when your last ones went dry. You two had pulled off a 1-2 today, so it was a given that everyone was going all out tonight and making it one of those parties that would never be forgotten.

You weren’t sure who suggested it first, but after a string of fantastic 2000s pop-punk throwbacks, you dragged both Daniel and Max by their wrists out onto the dancefloor in the center of the club. Neither one of them put up much of a fight, probably nearing their body weight in alcohol consumption for the night. You had them jumping along to the music along with everyone else, singing out the lyrics at the top of your lungs.

Your inebriated brain found it almost… endearing when you’d catch Max just yelling incoherently along with you when he didn’t know the songs, until there was a part or a chorus that he’d recognize and then he’d genuinely belt out the words with the widest smile on his face. It was no secret that this wasn’t exactly his type of music, but he seemed to be enjoying himself with you. Daniel seemed very entertained by the whole thing, snapping a picture of you and Max yelling the lyrics out to one another with his phone, before he’d wrapped his arms around both of your shoulders and had the three of your jumping around like crazy people together.

 Christian came around at some point in the midst of all the dancing and singing, pulling you and Max in simultaneously for a hug, rattling on about how he was sure that the two of you were the best driver pairing in the history of the team and how it was only a matter of time before you started winning your own championships. Thankfully, Daniel was drunk enough to your right that your boss’s drunken words didn’t seem to irritate him. No, instead he cheered and grabbed some more shots for everyone that one of the bottle girls had been carrying around on a tray around the dancefloor.

You toasted to your ongoing attempt to dethrone Mercedes after too many consecutive years at the top. You still had one last race to the season and felt like it was within reach. That could just be the alcohol talking, but right now you felt like you could do just about anything. The music changed to something with a little bit more of a Latin party feel, everyone on the dancefloor squashing even closer together to dance.

You broke away from the group sometime when you couldn’t deny yourself a bathroom break any longer, yelling into Daniel’s ear where you were going so he wouldn’t freak out when he lost sight of you. You promised you would return with fresh drinks for the two boys you’d been dancing with for what felt like hours now, glad for a little break to catch your breath. The line to the washroom was relatively short, considering that most of the girls in the club were trying too hard to catch the attention of the other drivers that had wandered into the party.

It hit you as you stumbled out of your stall, the thumping bass through the bathroom door pointing out just how intoxicated you were. You giggled to yourself as you washed your hands and caught the reflection of your glowing skin and wide smile in the mirror, more signs that you were having a great time. Oh yeah, you were definitely drunk. Thank fuck you had a week off before the next race.

You ran a hand along to grimy wall leading back out to the main part of the club for support, so that you hopefully wouldn’t trip over your own feet. It was working well, until a beefy body blocked your path.

You glanced up with a frown, instantly recognizing the man standing in your way. It was James, Max’s performance coach.

“Congrats on the good result, Y/N!” He pulled you into a hug, hugging you like you were the best of friends even as you stood stiff as a board, not returning the gesture. In fact, you’d actively been avoiding James since that awkward moment in the hotel lobby ahead of the start of the weekend.

“Thanks, James.” You replied politely when he let you go, smoothing out your creased dress slightly. James eyes followed your movement, before filtering back up your body and settling not so subtly on your chest. Typical man. Assuming that this interaction was finished and wanting to get back to your friends, you went to step around James. What you didn’t expect was for him to block your path, consequently sending you barreling into his chest.

He did you the kindness of grabbing your arms to make sure you wouldn’t fall over. “Bit too much to drink, Y/N?”

You pulled your arms out of his grasp and took a step back, your back now up against the gross hallway wall. “I’m fine.” You said, hoping your voice was as firm as you wanted it to be.

The growing lazy smirk on his face told you otherwise. That smirk brough back all those icky feelings you usually ignored in favour of keeping a professional front around the people you were forced to work with. Considering how much alcohol you’d consumed tonight, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be in control.

“What are you doing?” You asked, when James took another step towards you and closed more of the distance between you.

“C’mon, Y/N. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“Pretend?” The fuck was this guy going on about. You brought your hands up to his chest, the frown growing on your face when you attempt to push the much larger and heavier man away from you did absolutely nothing.

And then he was too close, reeking of whiskey, pushing in your very personal space to speak into your ear. “I’ve seen the way you look at me. Always such a fucking tease when everyone else is around.”

“You’re fucking crazy.” You decided, your brain not registering that that probably hadn’t been the smartest thing you could’ve said in this situation. Ignoring how bad this situation was, you started laughing in his face. “I’m not looking at you differently than anyone else. And, this would never happen. I have a hard-no rule when it comes to coworkers.”

“Bullshit.” James was quick to counter. “You haven’t been as sneaky as you think with Verstappen.”

You rolled your eyes, another stupid move when you got a front row look at the way James’s expression hardened. “There’s nothing to be sneaky about. We’re friends.”

“Right. Like you and Ricciardo.”

“Exactly.” You said the word slowly, half to drive your point home and half because your speech was a little slurred. “We’re had this conversation before. I’m not stupid enough to get involved with someone in our world, and you sure as shit won’t be the one to change my mind about that. Give it up, James. It’s not going to happen.”

With that being said, you ducked under his arm and started walking away, ready to forget about that and go back to having fun with your friends. But, you barely made it two steps before James grabbed onto your wrist and spun you back around to face him again. “Wasn’t done talking to you, Y/L/N. Enough with the whole hard to get thing. Why don’t we get out of here and talk somewhere a little more quiet. I’ll give you all the reasons you need to break that silly little rule.”

“Are you shitting me right now?!” This man was about two seconds away from completely ruining your buzz. “Let go of me.”

He did not, even as you tried to pull your wrist out of his grasp.

The timing of the following series of events couldn’t have been better if you’d planned it. Not in the mood to keep putting up with James’s shit, you took control of the situation and swiftly launched your knee into his groin. He crumbled to the ground in front of you, groaning in pain and clutching at his bruised, tiny ego.

Max chose that very moment to appear at your side, eyes wide and slightly unfocussed as he took in the sight of his performance coach and the scowl on your face. “What the fuck?”

You rubbed at your sore wrist, frustration boiling over. “Your asshat of a coach didn’t understand that I’m not, nor will I ever be, interested in fucking him.” You said it loudly enough for said asshat to hear you as well. “It not me playing hard to get or being a fucking tease. He could probably benefit from a lesson on the definition of the word ‘No.’”

Max nodded along slowly to your explanation, doing a very good job at hiding his anger. You wouldn’t even have been able to tell that he was upset, that is until you caught his jaw tensing the longer he watched you rubbing at your sore wrist. “Did he put a hand on you against your will?”

You didn’t have it in you to deny it. Not at that tone. So, you nodded your head once. “Just my wrist.” You confirmed, hoping that Max wouldn’t lose his shit over this. He’d already gotten into a bar fight for you once before. You didn’t want that happening again.

“Oh come on!” James complained from the floor. “Don’t go changing your fucking tune now that you have your favourite driver’s attention on you again.”

“Pardon me?” You asked incredulously, all thoughts about wanting to avoid a fight disappearing from your intoxicated mind. You were ready to fight this motherfucker yourself, even if he was more than twice your size. “Where do you get off thinking you can talk to me like that?! You’d do well to remember who the fuck I am. A driver, just like your boss. The one who’s brought home the most points this year. What gave you the impression that it would be a good idea to force yourself onto me? I don’t see you trying this shit with Max. Is it the fact that I’m a girl that yo-”

You stopped mid-sentence, when Max carefully placed his hand on your shoulder. The touch didn’t gross you out like James’s had a few minutes ago, instead it served to calm you down. You also saw in his eyes that he would let you go if you weren’t okay with this. You drew in a long, calming breath, forcing your heart rate to slow again before you completely ruined every else’s night.

Once Max seemed sure that you wouldn’t explode, he stepped closer to James who was still trying to pull himself up from the ground. He crouched down slightly, so that he was more level with his coach. “I no longer require your services. As of tonight, you will not be part of my team. Don’t worry about the last race, I’ll find someone else to fill the vacancy.”

Your eyes went wide as you realized what Max had just done.

So did James, as he scrambled to his feet. “What the fuck man?! You can’t just fire me like that.”

“I can.” Max said, tone deadly serious. “I have full control over my team. I refuse to work with someone who disrespects women and doesn’t understand the simple concept of consent. You should never fucking touch anyone without it.”

You could see from the way that Max’s hands were clenched tightly into fists that he was beyond angry. This was touching a nerve, and from what you had picked up about his childhood in the time that you’d gotten to know him, you knew exactly why. He’d grown up with a father who was like James. He didn’t want to have that kind of person around him if he didn’t have to. This wasn’t just because of the fact that James had acted this way towards you.

“Max.” You said softly, before he could snap and wind up with some assault charges. The last thing you wanted was for things to get even more out of hand. You were done with this party and done with the packed nightclub and thumping bass.

The Dutchman turned his attention back to you, gaze softening slightly.

You held out your hand. “This club’s getting a little stuffy. Fancy a walk for a bit of fresh air?”

 He didn’t hesitate to grab your hand, letting you lead him out of the overcrowded club without another word. You weren’t weirded out by how normal it was to hold his hand, feeling similar callouses on his hands to the ones on our own from years of racing and gripping onto steering wheels for dear life. It’s not like you had much time to overthink it, too focused on putting one foot in front of the other and getting out of this club. You both stumbled a little, clearly still under the effects of the alcohol you’d both consumed in celebration tonight, but your hold on each other also helped to keep you both upright.

The hot and humid nighttime air of Sao Paolo was almost like a slap in the face when you stepped outside, instinctively letting go of Max’s hand when you spotted some photographers waiting outside to take your pictures.

It’s a good thing the flashes started after you’d let go, because you could only imagine the headlines if they managed to get a picture of you two stumbling drunk out of a nightclub together. Max silently followed you into one of the waiting cabs, you having enough piece of mind to give the driver the address for the hotel as Max settled into the seat beside you. He took off, leaving the photographers and their flashing cameras behind.

You asked the cab driver to stop a couple of blocks away from the hotel, content to walk the rest of the way now that there weren’t a bunch of people around to document it. Because your dress hadn’t really allowed for you to bring your wallet, you sheepishly asked Max to cover the fare, earning a fond eyeroll from the Dutch.

It was so quiet as the cab drove away, your ears still ringing after hours of being overwhelmed by some too loud music. But, even in the silence, your mind didn’t race like it usually would. No. Instead, you walked quietly with Max Verstappen towards your hotel, trying to remain in as straight of a line as possible.

“You didn’t have to fire him.” You eventually spoke, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over the two of you.

“Yes, I did.” Max said, shrugging his shoulder. “I meant what I said. I don’t want to work with people like that.”

Instead of diving into that deep topic that the two of you were too intoxicated to properly discuss, you chose a lighter question. “What are you going to do for Abu Dhabi?”

“Your oldest brother’s a physio therapist, isn’t he? And he used to help you out when you raced as a kid. Think he’d want to fill in for a weekend until I can figure out a more permanent solution with the team?”

“Well, he does run a practice in Canada and hates last minute things… but I can shoot him a text. He won’t say no to his baby sister.” You smirked, pulling your phone out of thin air to do exactly that. He answered almost immediately, saying that he was in. “You owe me one, Verstappen. You’ve got yourself a new temporary coach.”

“I think that technically, we’re even now.” Max interjected.

“Oh yeah, how so?”

“Remember the other time I got in a bar fight for you?”

Somehow, you didn’t falter in your step at the reminder of the last time Max had saved you from a bad situation in a bar. “Hmm. I guess you’re right.” A sheepish smile crossed your face. “Maybe I should stop going out to bars… I always seem to attract the unwanted drama.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, heerlijk. I think we’ve also had our fair share of good nights out.” Max bumped his shoulder against yours, unintentionally almost sending the both of you tumbling to the ground. You giggled as you regained your balance, reaching out to steady Max again as well, before looping your arms together. Maybe leaning on each other would make the whole walking thing a bit easier.  

“We have.” You agreed with his previous statement, now that you’d started walking again. Max was right. The energy station after you’d won your first race, Japan, Mexico, and a couple more here and there after some good results. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, you’d stopped seeing Max as just a teammate, slowly transitioning into someone that you genuinely enjoyed spending time with. He’d become your friend.

“You wanna know something funny?” You asked after a few more minutes of comfortable silence had passed.

“Is this a trick question?”

You shook your head. “No. It’s just, I almost said no to taking this seat when Christian first showed me the contract. To think, I wouldn’t have 3 GP wins under my belt…”

“What?!” Max couldn’t hide his shock, his drunkenness making the reaction that much bigger.

“I thought you hated me.” You revealed. “Anytime I’d been in the paddock with Daniel for those couple of years after you took Daniil’s seat, you barely said 2 words to me. If I’d catch you in the middle of something with Danny, you’d run away at the first chance you got. I was worried things would be awkward as fuck when I took the seat.”

Max was staring at you like you’d just blown his mind. “I never hated you.”

“You don’t have to say that. It’s okay if you did. It’s in the past and we’re good now.”

Max abruptly stopped walking, meaning that you had to stop as well. “I’m being serious, Y/N. I never hated you.”

“It’s fine Max.” You insisted, suddenly regretting having brought this up.

Max wasn’t letting you sweep this under the rug. He turned so that he was fully facing you, placing both hands on your shoulders and making sure you were paying full attention to what he said next. “I thought you were a fucking badass, and knew it was only a matter of time before you were racing the rest of us. I thought it was really cool how you wouldn’t take anyone’s shit and carved a space for yourself in the racing community. I also assumed that you were Daniel’s girlfriend, because of how close you guys are. The avoiding thing was me not trying to piss off my new teammate by having him think that I was into his girl.”

Logically, you knew that Max’s explanation made perfect sense. Had you been sober, you would have let it go. However, your alcohol riddled brain latched on to one detail in his little monologue. “Did you… have a crush on me, Max Emilian Verstappen?”

He threw his head back with a pained groan, rosy embarrassed tint lighting his cheeks as he started walking again, leading you along with him. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

You threw him a line, to make it a little bit less embarrassing. “No, no. I’m not making fun of you for it. If anything, it’s kind of helping things make sense in my head now.” The awkwardness, short responses, avoidance. Now that you knew Max as well as you did, it was exactly how you’d expect him to react in that kind of situation. “You know, we could’ve been friends sooner if you’d just asked about Daniel. I would’ve easily told you that the idea of being with Daniel is enough to make me want to gauge my eyes out. I love the guy, but it’ll never be like that.”

“I know.” Max confirmed, almost sounding regretful.

You didn’t dwell on what could’ve been for much longer, because the next moment your found yourself outside of the McDonalds that was about half a block away from your hotel. You didn’t say anything, simply dragging Max into the fast food restaurant and forcing him to pay for your ridiculous middle of the night feast. You both promised not to tell anyone about the disgusting amount of calories you were about to consume.

You sat on a nearby bench for the next little while, devouring everything in the take-away bag and talking about whatever popped into your minds. The sun was starting to rise in the early hours of the morning, and the incident from earlier in the evening was completely forgotten as you enjoyed spending this time with your friend.

The food seemed to flip a switch within the both of you, triggering your exhaustion from the events of the past 24 hours. You eventually finished the journey over to the hotel, reminding each other to take some pre-emptive painkillers before heading into your own rooms and almost straight to bed.

You settled under to the covers, falling asleep almost instantly. The smile on your face wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

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Read Part 5 HERE

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lewis at the neat burger in nyc 😵‍💫

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Lewis in NYC

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Anything III (König x Reader)

Summary: A lack of information from the chain of command results in König mistaking you for an enemy sniper.

Requested by: Literally fucking everyone.

A/N: I was really fighting for my life with this chapter y'all. It's more to set up for the next coming chapters.

Category: Angst || Hurt/Comfort || Forced Proximity || Enemies to ?

Warnings: Graphic language, graphic description of PTSD, graphic violence, graphic description of gun violence, graphic description of injury.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

"That fucker needs to go." 

"He's not going anywhere, Simon."

The Lieutenant spun on his heel, reeling on Price with startling speed. He didn’t budge, though. Not when Ghost stopped only inches away and not when a finger rested on his chest- a warning. A threat. 

“Birdy’s my responsibility,” his voice was dangerously low and the Captain’s eyes narrowed. 

“And you’re all my responsibility,” Price’s words were slow and enunciated, spoken through gritted teeth. The heat rolling off his body was tangible, he was fucking furious. He was torn. “You think this was my fucking idea? I get orders from up top just like you do, Riley. They got their own plans in mind.”

Ghost inhaled sharply, dropping his hand to his side. Up top. If the rank has been anything, it’s been consistently shit. 

“When someone tears their own fuckin’ face-off, the plan needs to change,” Simon murmured, the images of the incident drifting across his vision. The man was no stranger to intrusive thoughts but these were particularly vivid, they splattered across the carefully cleaned plains of his mind- taunting him. 

“I know.” Price lit a cigar, his gaze trailing across the rooftops. “Been working on it.” 

“And?” 

“Baby steps, Simon. Baby steps.” 

_________

Inhale, exhale. Again. 

Bang 

Then again. 

Bang 

And again. 

Bang

One, two, three, the hole never widened; not even by a millimetre. The target stood strong and unwavering, and you were doused in hot anger. You’d selected the biggest one you could find, it wasn’t as tall as you wanted, but you supposed the chances of finding a nearly seven foot soldier on the battlefield were slim. 

You were grateful that the one thing that hadn’t changed over the recent horrors of your life, was your aim. You were still a sniper.

Bang 

You were still the best. 

“We got another unit comin’ in for their assessments, Birdy.” The range supervisor’s voice was loud over the speaker and you forced yourself not to jump. “You gotta clear out or pick another lane, mate.” 

Your eyes trailed over the aisles beside you. The rear of their booths were all open, designed for trainees to have an instructor standing over them. Those days of needing direction were over, as were the days of leaving your back vulnerable. 

The lane you had chosen was at the very end of the range, a locked booth designed for soldier’s shooting assessments. It was a bi-annual event, where your marksmanship was tested in order to deem you competent and qualified. No instructor, no target indications, just you in a locked booth with a rifle and a target. 

Now, it was the only place you felt safe enough to shoot. 

You heaved your body up, clearing your weapon before slinging it over your shoulder. It seemed that your time was up. 

As you stepped out of your haven and into the aisle, you tried to settle the anxiety in your chest. It was a burdensome feeling that only faded when you were looking down the sight of your rifle, plaguing your every move and every thought. It was all-consuming. 

A shot rang a few lanes ahead and you flicked your gaze up to the screen as you walked. They were half a centimetre or so off from the central aiming mark but the next shot was dead on. You snorted. 

As you moved to pass, you spared a curious glance at the shooter. 

Your body locked up. 

Right in front of you, lying on his stomach with those long legs sprawled out, was König. 

You seethed. You were suddenly overcome by a rage that, for once, did not wash over you with a flush of heat. Instead, you were cold. Ice trickled the length of your spine and your fingers went numb, pins and needles pricking at your nails. 

Your face stung at the sight of him. 

He was the reason you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror anymore, he was the reason you looked like a fucking abomination. Your face was deformed and mutilated and here this fucker lay, his back turned to the world because he was not the one that got destroyed.

König ruined you and got away unscathed. 

You waited for him to take another shot, using the cover of the resounding gunfire to put down your rifle. He had no idea that you were there, he was entirely unsuspecting. He was vulnerable.

Before you could comprehend what you were doing, your body had moved to stand over his prone figure. You could hear his breathing, see the rise and fall of his chest.

 In, bang, out. 

They had chosen this fucking imbecile to replace you? He couldn’t even breathe right, everything was wrong. His form was wrong, his breathing pattern was wrong, his shooting was wrong, and he was not built to be a sniper. He was built to destroy with his hands, with no finesse, no pinpoint accuracy- just a bludgeon. 

There was no honour in what König was. 

Again, your face stung beneath the gauze. A reminder. Encouragement. 

You reached for the Glock strapped to your belt, cold sweat trickling down your neck.  König took a breath in and you flicked open the buckle. But he didn’t take a shot as you had predicted, and he’d heard the noise from above him. 

When König turned, you let him see you, just as he’d given you that mercy. 

Then you struck. 

Unlike before, König hadn’t been given the chance to kick the weapon from your hands before you descended upon him. A startled rasp ripped from his mouth as you dropped onto his body, bringing the butt of your firearm to strike his temple. 

His head knocked back, bouncing off the mat beneath him. 

How merciful, that it was not concrete? How gracious, that you didn’t grab his head and crush it? 

König groaned, his hands flying up to defend himself, stunned by the sudden impact. You knew that his vision would be spinning, a loud buzz ringing in his ears. You knew too well. 

But it wasn’t enough. 

You pushed his hands away, bringing the gun down again. You felt his skin render from beneath the metal, a wet thud echoing through the booth as you split the skin of his cheek. The blood made your eyes widen. It wasn’t enough. 

You would give him your scars. You would peel his skin from his bone. You would shatter him until he was unrecognisable. 

This wasn’t enough. 

König’s eyes flickered open, hard and betrayed. 

You knew that the element of surprise had run out, but you were not finished. You’d just gotten started, the purple of his cheek and the red dripping down his temple only marked the beginning. But you couldn’t overpower the man below you. 

When his hands gripped your biceps and he opened his mouth to yell, you pushed the barrel of your handgun past his lips until his teeth scraped the steel.

Everything fell still, his hands frozen on your body and his eyes wide. You hoped that he could taste the gunpowder, you hoped that he could taste his death. The sound of the safety flicking off resounded in the booth and the man beneath you flinched. 

His fingers shook against your skin, his breath rattling in his chest. 

König was afraid. 

And at that realization, for the first time in over a year, a genuine smile twisted your lips. The soldier’s eyes widened, his body twitching beneath yours, groaning around the barrel in his mouth. 

“How do you like it?” You whispered, the words a snarl as you leaned down close. 

König’s emerald gaze was steady on yours and you could visibly see him attempt to calm his breathing. In, out, in, out. He was breathing wrong, everything was still just wrong, wrong, wrong. You pressed harder on the gun. 

This wasn’t enough. 

He wasn’t bruised enough, he wasn’t bleeding enough. You moved your left hand to cup his cheek and his eyes flickered. König wanted to buck you off, he wanted to disable you, maybe he even wanted to murder you. You hoped he did, you wanted to see the same hatred in his eyes that you saw that damned fucking night. 

You wanted him to look into your soul and know that you were going to ruin him. 

That you were going to kill him. 

“You feel guilty?” You hissed, your fingers slowly digging into the skin of his cheek. “You feel bad for what you did?” 

König’s eyes softened. 

Don’t want your pity. 

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. 

Finally, he hummed his affirmation around the barrel in his mouth. Your nails dug into the flesh of his face, dragging a jagged scratch inch by inch across his features. The man didn’t flinch, he didn’t move, and he didn’t make a sound- he only watched you. 

When you leaned in to brush your lips against his ear, he knew what was coming. 

Satisfaction flooded your senses, righteous anger gripping you by the throat and forcing the words that you’ve wanted to say for so long from your lips. 

“Your fight is finished.” 

König took in a sharp breath. 

You pulled the trigger. 

The sound was deafening and for a sweet, beautiful moment, you felt vindication. You’d  won. You’d bested him. The man that had ruined your life had gotten what he deserved and he needed to die, die, die. That was the only thing that would settle his debt, the only thing that would serve the justice you felt owed. 

With the simplest pull of the trigger, you had been avenged. 

Then, you realised that the blood that had sprayed aross the space between your bodies wasn’t his. It was yours. 

König was on top of you. The gun was gone, his mask was on, and your face was crushed. You couldn’t breathe you couldn’t think and the only thing you could feel was the searing pain of the knife twisting in your chest. 

No, no, no, no. 

This was wrong, this wasn’t what was meant to happen. Why were you back here? His hand was on your face before you could protest and you felt your head lift from the ground. 

“Even in victory, you are nothing.” 

Crack

“You will always be nothing.” 

Crack

You were screaming, you could hear yourself doing it but your mouth wasn’t moving. Your teeth were caved in, your jaw had collapsed, you felt as though your face had melted from the bone. Yet you could hear the shrieks, hear the wailing. 

The back of your head was wet, your skull felt like it was falling apart at the seams. The breeze tickled against your brain and your nerves were on fire. 

You were broken, broken, broken. 

“Birdy!” 

This time you could feel every crack of your head into the concrete. This time you felt your brain matter smear across the floor. 

“Wake up!” 

Wake up.

Wake up. 

You sat up with the gasp of someone who’d been drowning, clawing at your throat for air. Sweat trickled down your spine, the room was hot and the blankets were tangled between your legs but you were in your bedroom- you recognised it instantly.  

“That’s it, sweetheart,” a rough voice murmured from beside you. There was a hand pressed flat against your chest, firm and grounding. “Breathe.” 

“Simon,” you sobbed. The man hummed in response, his other hand rubbing your back with enough force to rock your body. He was trying to keep you rooted in reality, give you something physical, something tangible to hold on to.

“I’m losing my mind,” you gasped, your chest caving at the realisation. You didn’t know what was real or not, fact or fiction, tangible or imaginary- you lived on a plain of uncertainty. You were lost, you were broken and you were unreliable. 

Price was right. You had become a liability. 

“You’re late to the party,” Simon loosed a soft chuckle, pulling you close against his body. “I lost mine years ago, kid.” 

You relished in his touch as you tried to regroup. You were in your room, you were in your bed, it was the middle of the night and you’d had a nightmare. Your clothes were soaked, sticking to your skin uncomfortably; and you had the horrid realization that maybe it wasn’t all sweat. You sucked in a breath, scrambling to push the blankets from your body. 

“What-” 

You ignored anything that the Lieutenant might of said, scrubbing your hands over your limbs, neck and face. The sweat threw you off and you checked your fingers in the dim light for crimson stains. You couldn’t deal with it again, you couldn’t cope with more damage. You were already disgusting, you were already mutilated and scarred. Unloveable, untouchable, irreparable, irevevocable, irremediable-

No more, no more, no more no more no more-

Simon gripped your hands, tugging them towards his chest and jerking your body forward. You dragged in a sharp breath, eyes wide and frantic. 

“You didn’t hurt yourself,” the words were urgent and low, his gaze holding you still just as well as his grip. “You’re alright, Birdy.” 

You took in a rattling breath and his grip tightened. 

“You’re alright, kid,” Simon reinforced, that ocean gaze compelling you to calm your heart rate. He left no room for discussion with the way that he looked at you, there was no option to disobey. You pushed air into your lungs, following the pattern he’d set for you. “It was just a nightmare.” 

You frowned. “Only at the very end.” 

Not when you had been shooting, not when you’d been atop of your enemy with a gun in his mouth; that was not the nightmare. You’d felt vindicated, you’d felt insane but satisfied. During those moments in the dream, you were not afraid of König. You were not shaking, you were not whimpering or begging for your life. 

You were strong. 

Stronger than him. 

“How’d you know I was–” You cleared your throat. “How’d you get in here?” 

The silence that followed had you on edge, as Simon’s hand worked methodically across your back.  He didn’t answer for a long while and your thoughts began to sober. Why was he in your room? How had he gotten there? How did he know you were having a night terror? His quarters were nowhere near yours, he was in the hallway over, divided by thick concrete walls; he most definitely couldn’t have heard your screams.

“Someone tipped me off,” the words were spoken through clenched teeth and his minsitrations against your back faltered. Your chest tightened at the implication. “They thought I’d be better suited to come help you.”

“How-” 

“He’s down the hall, Birdy.” Simon interrupted and you could feel his fingers curl into a fist against your spine. “Everyone in this fuckin’ corridor could hear you.” 

Your breathing began to pick up and heat flushed against your skin, the blood boiling from beneath the surface.

“That doesn’t explain how you got in,” you rasped, gripping the blankets at your side. You needed to ground yourself, you needed to be calm. 

“He thought you were being attacked or somethin’ with the way you were yellin’,” Simon sighed. It wasn’t a direct answer but it was a good enough indication as to what had happened. 

You let your gaze drift to the door, sucking in a sharp breath at the sight before you. The hinges had been ripped from the wall, the frame torn straight from the brick. The door itself was missing completely, and as you slowly leaned over to get a look at the floor, your heart dropped to your stomach. 

Your bedroom door lay in pieces, the splintered remnants splayed across the floor like shattered glass. 

_

NEXT CHAPTER

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