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anitalianfrie · 19 minutes

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deus ex machina : rosquez cyborg au (5) / 2.8k words (pt.4)

Marc is radio silent in the break. Valentino knows because he checks his Instagram compulsively. Once in the morning, with his cappuccino. Once at night, with the sick curiosity that’s gnawed at him all day. He twists the events of the French GP in his head a hundred different ways, watches it from twenty perspectives till he’s run it into the ground and he can’t be certain it even happened at all.

He almost doesn’t go to Mugello, which is ridiculous. The thought only occurs to him for a second, but it’s long enough for him to scoff at himself. Get a grip. It’s Marc, and he’s just walking around being fucking crazy, and how is that any different to usual? Why’s it fucking him up so bad?

You know why.

He grinds his teeth so hard his jaw creaks with the force. Valentino doesn’t know what to do with it — with what he learned in France, in the dark outside Marc’s motorhome. He can’t not think about it, every waking moment completely infected with pictures of Marc over the years, every conversation they’ve had, every fight, every moment on track. All the while with Valentino’s card inside him. All the while with Marc thinking Valentino wanted him in the gravel.

All of 2015. All of 2016. It must have burned him like fire.

The hurt — the guilt — is immeasurable. Valentino isn’t used to it.

It’s hot around the track. The crowd is awash in neon yellow, and that at least settles the nervy rhythm of his heart. He manages to skate around Thursday and Friday without looking Marc in the eye. The lights go out for Q2 while he’s resting in the shade of the pit box. He finds Marc on the broadcast without meaning to, and he doesn’t even have an excuse for that anymore. Marc idles in the middle for the first ten minutes, before splitting away and setting a blistering 1:44:993. Pecco laps seven-hundredths of a second faster only moments later, and Valentino exhales a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

After lunch, reason loses out to pure magnetism, and Valentino’s short walk to keep his food down finds him at the door of Marc’s motorhome with no explanation. There’s a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other — both asking what the hell he thinks he’s doing. He knocks, because the feeling between them right now is tenuous and river-fast, and the bright silver burn of Marc’s plating is imprinted on his retina. Again, no excuses. Marc doesn’t answer, but something clatters inside, and Valentino’s a bastard so he tries the door. It opens without protest. He sticks his head in silently, giving himself the option to retreat if there’s something happening in here that he really shouldn’t be seeing.

And there is, of course. What the fuck, he thinks, and then steps in, closing the door behind him. Marc is bent like a contortionist, twisted in on himself in front of a mirror on the floor. His neck is craned at such an angle to peer over his shoulder into the mirror — at an open panel to the right of his spine. The crooked bend of his arm, his face twisted in pain and concentration, teeth grit against the position — or against the scrape of pliers fighting to slip a part into the gap between cables.

Fear tugs like a hook in Valentino’s gut. There’s not even three hours till the sprint, till Marc is going to be flat out, relying on God and the mess of wires and shit beneath his skin pulling together like one extremely functional computer — and he’s fucking with it. Valentino wants to scream. He shifts his weight, hesitant, before taking enough of a step to put him at Marc’s back. He can see the spot he’s reaching for. There’s a card that’s popped up, and it’s pushing a braided chunk of cable right over the divot that Marc’s trying to get at.

“The card has come out. Push it down,” he mutters, vision lasered to the shake of Marc’s hand. Marc catches his eye in the mirror, something unreadable in the slant of his expression. He straightens, unentangling himself slowly, fingers feeling for the misplaced card. In this new position, Valentino can see Marc’s eyes focused on the carpet, forehead creased in concentration. There’s a gentle chk as the card clicks back into place.

When Marc doesn’t move, a light flashes on in Valentino’s head. Something like trust infiltrates the space between them, filtering into the gap like morning sun through lace curtains. Valentino lowers himself gingerly to the couch. Marc keeps his eyes on the floor. The tension on his face isn’t fraught with anger, but caution. Like there’s something fragile balancing on his brow.

“Get a finger over the cable braid. Pull it left.”

Marc does what he’s told. Valentino tries not to let the thrill rocket up his spine.

“Further.” The divot appears. A dark slot — more like a screw hole than anything. Vale thinks he can see thread winding up the inside of it. He doesn’t even know what fucking part this is. “Good. I think there’s — you will need an angle. Just a little.” Marc’s wrist bends to accommodate. It takes a moment, but he must get it, as the little silver part in the grip of his pliers starts to slide. It stops short, and Valentino realises he was right about the thread.

“No tool, now. Use your fingers — you have to twist it in.” Marc’s back expands in a deep breath — shoulders opening like wings. Valentino bites his tongue. He tries to get a grip on the small head of the part, tries to turn it like Valentino said. The angle his arm is at — the smooth surface of the piece. Nothing happens. His fingers slip off, too much force and not enough purchase. He rolls his neck, tries again. Valentino can imagine the cramp starting to burn in his arms, the taut draw of his spine like a bow.

After another failed attempt, Marc makes a sharp noise under his breath. He drops his hands, and when Valentino looks up, they make eye contact in the mirror.

“Do you know how to do it?”

Absolutely not.

But he doesn’t say that. He slides to the floor, folds his knees underneath him and moves just close enough to get his thumb and forefinger around the part. Marc shudders, body shifting in a sharp, shallow breath. Valentino's brain short-circuits, because Marc can feel this. He says a prayer and tries to focus on what he's doing.

The angle is awkward, even from back here, and he can’t see from where he’s sitting. When he shifts closer, the inside of his bent knee coming to press against the outer curve of Marc’s thigh, Marc goes totally still. Not rigid, not like a gun locking up — still like a paused moment in time . Still beating, still warm — but still. Whatever is happening right now is too much. But Valentino can see what he’s doing now, and he can’t tear this apart in his head just yet, can’t get his claws and teeth into it like a carcass, not when it’s still happening around him, happening to him.

He twists, and the piece falls into place. Marc’s looking at him in the mirror, dark and raw. The rise and fall of his chest is making Valentino feel sick.

“There’s a part lock,” Marc whispers, eyes darting away. His voice crackles with static. Valentino finds the little switch and hovers a finger over it. “Slide it down.” He slides it. “Hold for three seconds. It will bounce back.” He holds it, and when he releases, it flings back to its original position. “Is there a blue light?”

“Yeah.” He watches the light flash like a crystal. This is generation eight stuff, at minimum. Valentino had seen it in his boys a year or two back.

“You can close the panel,” Marc says, voice low. Valentino presses the panel closed, listens to the hiss of it sealing to Marc’s skin. He keeps the weight of his palm against it for a beat longer than he should, revelling in the warmth of it. Sick at the thought of Marc’s tech, organs, tissue, just below his hand.

There’s a noise outside, and Valentino splits away like a spark, standing and bolting for the door with all the grace of a startled horse. Marc says “thanks,” quiet, and Vale’s hand is stuck on the doorknob. He just looks at Marc; the slope of his nose, the wet gloss of his eyes. On his knees on the carpet, shirt off, skin blotchy and red up his neck and face, post-quali hair stuck up in every direction — and isn’t that a vision. He leaves without a word.

His fingers find the pressure valve in the divot of his collarbone the second the door closes between them. He flicks it wide open and lets out a ragged breath at the sudden burst of dizziness. Fucking Christ.

The motion sickness keeps all the way to lights out before the sprint. Uccio can tell something’s up, eyes on him whenever Valentino looks in his direction, and it’s making his skin crawl. He crosses his arms over himself. Marc reacts faster than Pecco. Keeps his line tight, closes the door with practised ease. There’s a gap a few corners later. Valentino spots the moment Pecco sees it, slides up the outside of Marc and leans in. Marc throws a look over his shoulder and relents — and the space he gives stops Pecco’s wheel from scraping along Marc’s fairing. Valentino shakes his head. He’d been there with Marc, years ago. And Marc had held on when he’d had no right to, when Valentino had swept up the outside just like that, rushing to claim the line. And Marc had just held it, as if to say, “I’ll go down before I give that to you.”

Marc gets it back three laps later. Something jumps on Pecco’s bike, rear wheel popping up and spitting like a mad cat. It pushes him way out, puts him several seconds away from Marc as he wrangles to get everything together. Valentino watches safe, soft breaking. The unexpected expanse of space between Marc’s shoulder and the ground. The Ducati is fast and controlled underneath him, all logic and reason. His Honda had demanded blood. Demanded instinct and fight. But Marc had been like that, so it made sense, and —

“It is not like I — I don’t want you to get hurt.”

His own voice rings in his ears. On the screen, Marc tucks himself through the final corner, cleaner than he’s ever been. Valentino’s not taking ownership for this. He can’t — he doesn’t want it.

He follows the team out to the sprint podium. Bez pulls up first, and Valentino kisses the side of his helmet before relinquishing him to the crowd. When Marc rolls his bike to a stop, Valentino can’t stop himself from craning to catch him pulling his helmet off. Red only in the flush of his cheeks, the rims of his eyes. No blood. Marc catches his gaze, and they’re locked together by the talons, spiralling in free fall. And then someone moves between them, cuts Vale’s view with the broad of a Gresini blue back and sends every little feeling sprinting back where they came from. He ducks his head.

Once the champagne has been poured, once Marc has come down from the top step, sticky and sparkling in the afternoon sun, eyes anywhere but Valentino, a reporter sidles up to him with a hand on his elbow. Valentino recognises her, smiles tight on instinct when she moves a microphone towards his face. Marc’s waving his hands wildly in Valentino’s peripheral, and his mind is anywhere but here.

“Vale, I have been trying to catch you since Spain!”

He laughs politely. Lena, maybe. Or Vera. Something like that. Her cameraman appears before them out of thin air, camera hefted over his shoulder and levelled right at Valentino.

“Curious to know your thoughts on Márquez’s new riding style? He seems to have found a rhythm with the Ducati, but it is so different from the past, yes?”

Marc’s laugh bubbles over in the distance, loud and bright. He blinks, trying to pull a sentence together.

“Ah, yes, well it has certainly changed. I think — we are, not from just looking at the data but from looking at his riding, you can see the pull back, a little. Whether it is part limitations or adapting to the bike. But I do not complain, see, because of how much safer it looks now. Maybe he realise how dangerous it was, no?”

Bez and Marc are standing together now, Marc explaining something with a serious look on his face. Valentino’s skin itches to listen.

“We saw a while back that he is using one of your instinct cards, so tell me about that.”

Valentino’s still got his own copy of the card draped over the planes of his chest. He jolts, remembering it, too used to the feeling.

“It — yes, well — it is Márquez, so at the end of the day, what impact does that have, really? He is too firm in how he rides. You could pull him apart and replace him with all my parts and he still ride the way he does — aggressive, on the limit. More than tech, it is in his blood.” He bites down on the inside of his cheek. He’s too fucking distracted, he shouldn’t be giving this interview right now. Vera is looking at him like she’s just won a million dollars.

“So he is still the same dangerous rider, then?” Ah. Marc’s looking in his direction now, face blank. He hikes his shoulders up. “We know he had that clash with Di Giannantonio, and —”

The same dangerous rider.

“— what about the comments he made in Spain? It’s a little selfish, no? Being willing to put himself through that pain, even when the lengths he goes to hurt other people?”

Valentino racks his brain trying to remember what the fuck Vera’s talking about.

“The level of hurt doesn’t make any difference. It’s nothing new for me to get used to because everything will have pain anyway. So, if I’m not capitalising and going beyond it, then I am just wasting my tolerance, I think.”

He almost sinks his teeth through his lip.

“Sorry, I am — think I — Bez is going, so I will go. Thanks,” he bites, ducking out of her reach. Bez isn’t going, so Valentino catches his eyes and jerks his head as if to say, “move it.”

Everything he just said catches up to him the second he steps foot back in the pit box, where the interview is playing on the TV. Vera had been reaching for something sparking — some sort of kindling for a headline. Valentino had played safe enough. There’s no fuel in truth; Marc is who he is, undeniably, through to the core. And his riding had changed, and that’s all Valentino had said. And that shit about selfishness, Jesus, even in 2015 Valentino would’ve asked what the fuck she was talking about.

Later, once the track is packing up and things are finally quiet, Valentino starts his trek to the car park. He’s passing the motorhomes when there’s movement ahead, two dark figures backlit against the setting sun.

He squints against the glare, and the silhouettes bleed into colour: Marc and Álex walking towards him with their leathers around their waists. His eyes find the ground. He doesn’t intend to stop, even when his brain screams for it, when he feels the pressure of an incoming lightning strike shift the air. Marc does. Blatant, unabashed, heels dug in like a bull as Valentino passes him. Álex stops beside him, face dark. The world tilts a little. Something’s happened that Valentino isn’t privy to. It feels like there’s a sword levelled at his throat, so he keeps walking.

“Why did you say that?” Marc calls after Valentino. The words hit like arrows in his back. He knows Marc is watching him. Staring at him with one flickering iris, brain ticking over every interaction they’ve had in the last few race weekends. Pulling apart the bones of before, in the motorhome. Valentino’s hand on the small of his back. Valentino jolts, because hadn’t that been fine? Hadn’t he kept it light, kept it true? Or had it had come easy, and he just hadn’t realised — old habits dying hard, his tongue sharp and comfortable as Marc’s harshest critic? Cold spits down his neck. That delicate thing between them before the sprint, that ball of spun glass and filament.

Had he shattered it without even meaning to?

He doesn't turn around. Marc’s voice slices through the quiet in his wake.

“I am sick of being taken for a ride. I don’t understand it.” He mutters it to Álex, but the track is too quiet and Valentino is too close. Tension threads up his spine. The card burns like a star on his front.

#For once vale hasn't said anything bad and marc still thinks takes it as a critic ugh.... They're the worst

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