#matilda webber | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vettelsvee · 1 month

Text

JUST LIKE YOU | Oscar Piastri Prologue

<- PREVIOUS PART | JUST LIKE YOU MASTERLIST | NEXT PART ->

warnings: curse words, my very much created version of the vettel family (seb is married to diana vettel, his former race engineer), claire's parents being trash. christmas time! english not being my first language so sorry in advance for any mistake <3

taglist: just tell me in the comments if you wanna be tagged in the following parts!

a/n: would you like me to post Sebastian and Diana's fanfiction, History?

2022 December 20th Switzerland

Claire

If there was one thing I was sure of, it was that there was no way in hell I should be here, on the other side of the world, getting off a plane after nearly 25 hours of flight and a layover, and just two days shy of turning twenty-one.

Or maybe there was.

I don't know.

My parents were not at all pleased that their only daughter preferred to go with a woman, a mother and married to my uncle's arch-rival for a decade now, to try to solve the little existential crisis I was having now that I had only about five months left of university.

My uncle's wife thought the same, but since I had never liked her, if my parents' opinion didn't matter to me at all, hers mattered even less.

Mark was the only one who encouraged me to go to Switzerland to see Sebastian and Diana Vettel. I'm sure that more than the conversation he had with the engineer, seeing me crying and with smudged makeup after the three and a half hours of video call with the woman, was what convinced him in the end. Obviously, we didn't achieve my goal either: figuring out what the hell to do with my life once I finished the damn studies.

Seb must be in the arrivals area. Emily wanted to go with him. I'm sorry I couldn't go, someone had to stay with Charlie and Matilda.

After seeing Diana's message and answering her not to worry about anything, I hurried out of Zurich Airport as quickly as I could in search of the father and daughter so as not to keep them waiting much longer, all while controlling my nerves about meeting them again.

We were in the midst of the Christmas season, and that was possibly the main reason why even the last nook of the airport was crowded. Also, why my fear for crowded spaces was growing.

I tried to stay calm, focusing on the noise my suitcase wheels and my sneakers made against the pavement. I breathed in and out several times until I felt the anxiety decreasing, while at the same time I had to force myself to keep moving among the crowd when I could barely pass through, ignoring the curious stares of those around me, and the occasional stupid comments about how today's youngsters didn't have manners.

Every time someone passed near me, I tried to recognize one of the two faces I was expecting to see, but it seemed that the mission of finding the Vettels was going to end up being much more difficult.

"Clare, Clare!"

A childish voice shouting my name made me stop in the middle of the road and turn in the direction of the sound, trying to figure out where it was coming from. In the distance, apart from the crowd, next to a pearly white Tesla and a girl with curly, completely blonde hair, I spotted a tall figure with long hair, a headband misplaced on the forehead, and sunglasses.

Sebastian had his hand raised in a greeting gesture, telling me to head towards them.

"Clare, it's great to see you again!"

The blonde wrapped me around his arms, and all I could do was laugh at the mere thought of telling my ten-year-old self that I would feel so comfortable with the person I once hated the most in the world.

"I would say the same, but I'm really tired and not in the mood to talk," I lied, although partly it was true. What I didn't want was to face that conversation, at least not yet. "I missed you. Well, I missed you all," I admitted.

"We've been apart for a month, Webber. Both you and I, and Di, and your uncle, thought it was going to be longer."

"Thank my mental breakdown for that then, and also that your wife is my personal Tony Stark," I laughed.

"Again with the Marvel references?" he raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "I won't judge: Di is my particular MJ, or my Gwen except she isn't dead."

I didn't have time to answer or to calm my laughter because Emily, with the typical energy of an eight-year-old, approached me bouncing around. The eldest of the Vettels reached a little below my chin, and I realized she was no longer the baby that Seb and Di used to take to the paddock every race weekend and with whom I used to play. I assumed it was the same for Charlotte and Matilda.

"Look what I drew for you!" the blonde said proudly as she handed me a paper.

I took it and admired it tenderly, carefully observing the childlike strokes that seemed to represent her parents and her sisters, with me as a special guest, as if I were one more in the family. Obviously, there couldn't be missing a Christmas tree to our right, filled with presents.

"It's very beautiful, Emily! Thank you very much," I responded as cheerfully as I could given my weariness. "Do you want us to show it to Mark when we get home and I talk to mom?"

"Yes!"

The German looked at us after putting my belongings in the car's trunk and intervened again:

"Emily has been counting the days for your arrival," he revealed, leaving me a little surprised.

"And Charlie and Matilda too. Matilda speaks baby language, and we don't understand her, but she claps every time when we talk about you," the girl added. "Since mom told us you were coming to spend a few days with us at Christmas, we asked Santa in our letters to bring you a present."

"Well, Di and I were also looking forward to your arrival," the retired driver blushed, scratching his head shyly.

I didn't know what to say, and Vettel seemed to realize it. He tried to say something else, but he ended up just telling us to get into the car because there were still about forty-five minutes to go to the family house.

I sat in the back of the car at Emily's request, and as I chatted with her and her father about how the family was doing after retiring from Formula 1, how they felt about the upcoming filming of History, the documentary where they would talk about their lives and uncover things that hadn't been made public before, and especially about the topic that worried me the most, where I could do my internships for the last semester of university, I let the whirl of thoughts invade me gradually.

After all, it wasn't every day that you set aside your own family to spend the most family-oriented time of the year with another family member less, going to the other side of the world.

Unfortunately, I didn't think that the people who created me, especially my father, would say that all this confusion I had been carrying for longer than I'd like to admit, and that I had kept silent for so long, was just an excuse to continue living off the cuff or because, simply, I didn't feel like continuing to study.

"Are you okay, Claire?"

The concern in Sebastian's voice brought me back to earth. I saw his eyes staring at me through the rearview mirror, quickly diverting his gaze from the road.

"Yes, of course. I'm just tired from the trip, as I told you before," I lied. The forced smile and tension in my voice showed the opposite.

"Are you going to be with us for all Christmas holidays?"

The girl's question, so simple and innocent, made all my pent-up doubts increase. I knew there was a remote possibility that I hadn't made the right decision, and after hearing that, I was becoming more and more sure.

Diana reassured me more times than I'd like that they didn't mind having me there as part of the family because I already was. My parents told me to do whatever I wanted, that I was old enough to make my own decisions, and that if it wasn't now, it was only a matter of time before I left for any little thing.

The disdain and arrogance with which they gave me their response made me pack my bags and call Mark to pick me up as soon as he could.

"Yes, Emily. Claire will be with us for all Christmas holidays" the German replied for me.

"Why aren't you going to spend the holidays with your mom and dad?"

I felt the knot that was already in my throat tightening more and more. I looked at Seb, begging him to help me while I tried to find an answer to the innocence of the girl without being rude or revealing to her that maybe I didn't have as cool parents as hers.

"Emily, sweetheart, that's not something you ask," Sebastian immediately reprimanded his daughter as calmly as he could, stroking her leg from his seat.

"Sorry..." the little one said with a melodic voice. I thanked him with my eyes, to which he responded with a simple tilt of his head.

"It's okay!" I hastened to say to avoid saddening her, wrapping my left arm around her. "Sometimes, parents and kids... argue, but in the end, they always make up and recognize their mistakes. Does that happen to you with mom and dad?"

"Yes!" she responded immediately. "I also argue sometimes with my sisters over toys or food, and mom scolds us, although dad almost never gets mad at us."

The conversation continued without any further altercation or mention of anything I didn't want to hear. I greatly appreciated it because time ended up passing faster than I thought, and in the blink of an eye, I could already see the dark wooden structure with white tones where I assumed the family lived.

When I spotted Diana, with Matilda in her arms, greeting us as if her life depended on it, and Charlie playing with Clifford, the family dog, I knew I had arrived at one of my second homes.

"Home sweet home, girls!"

Before the blonde even had a chance to turn off the engine and say anything else, his daughter and I were already running down to go towards his wife.

Emily, without even greeting her mother beyond a slight wave, went to play with her middle sister and with the Great Pyrenees. Diana shook her head, laughing at her daughter's attitude. She put little Matilda on the ground and, to my surprise, she started running through the grass trying to catch up with her sisters and the dog.

"Has she learned to walk already?" I pointed to the little one while the redhead gave me a hug.

"I thought you were coming so we could talk about you and your future, not so you could see the not really important progress of my family in the month we've been apart."

"I can see you didn't have sex with Seb tonight, huh? What a mood," I whispered sarcastically in her ear. She burst out laughing and started hitting my arm.

"Don't be silly! Come on, let's go inside. It's cold and we have a lot to talk about. I don't want you to catch a cold."

Calling her daughters next, who initially resigned themselves to go back home, I finally headed inside with Diana. Seb approached us shyly, as if he didn't want to bother us. Seeing him out of the corner of my eye, and out of respect, I let him pass in front of me and slowed my pace a bit, falling a little behind the couple, but that didn't stop me from seeing how the German took his wife by the waist and gave her a short kiss on the lips, showing the affection and complicity that I already knew they both had.

I wish I had something like that in the future but, as my parents must have known, who would want me with my shitty attitude?

"Claire, sweetheart, make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back."

Diana disappeared, and her daughters and husband followed her. I decided to listen to her and sat on the couch, taking a blanket that was on it to wrap myself up. After a few minutes, I spotted her again, now approaching Seb to exchange a few words in a low voice while sharing quite a few caresses for my taste and, once again, another kiss.

In a matter of seconds, the engineer disappeared and reappeared with a tray in her hands that had a couple of glasses, several beverage cans, and a colorful variety of snacks that I didn't recognize.

However, some of them were typical Australian ones. The ones from my home. My home.

I hated that Diana Vettel was one of the most amazing and humble people I had ever met because each time she made me feel more like I wanted her to adopt me, regardless me being 21 already.

"Damn, it's like you bought the whole supermarket," I commented under my breath as a defense mechanism to avoid bursting into tears.

"For you whatever it takes, darling," she answered, sitting next to me and taking a bit of the blanket to wrap herself with it too.

I stayed silent, moved by her words. Since I didn't know how to start our conversation, nor did I know if it was the right time to have it, I just looked at Sebastian, who was now in some kind of greenhouse with his daughters, teaching them what seemed to be how to plant some kind of vegetable or who knows what.

"I know it was hard for him, but he's happy," the redhead suddenly spoke, pointing to her husband. "I tried to convince him not to retire yet, and he tried everything to get me to accept the offer to be Mick's engineer at Williams," she explained. Did Diana turn down the offer to be Schumacher's engineer this upcoming season? "But I guess it was time for us to be a normal family."

"You've always been a normal family in my eyes," in a strange way, yes. They had lived from Emily's birth in 2014 until just a month ago more in any other country in the world than in this house. I would swear that it would even feel strange for them to be here for so long. "And you, how are you?"

The woman seemed surprised by the question. I knew her well, but not as much as I would like, and I knew that this was one of her typical reactions. I also knew about some difficult things for her thanks to my uncle, and others because they became public, like the alleged leaked porn video starring her and Sebastian.

However, all the negativity didn't detract from the fact that my admiration for her was maximal since I met her in 2012.

"I know you're in charge of the F1 Academy with Susie," I continued, seeing that she was still in her trance, "but I guess it's not the same as being on the pit wall directing your husband and trying to make the sport a little more inclusive in all aspects."

"You said it, it's not the same. I miss and, at the same time, don't miss being in Formula 1," she finally confessed. "Feeling so undervalued when you're trying to give so much more than your maximum... it's tough. It's hard to feel like you're enough and that you're worth something, not to mention the constant thought of whether you really deserve what you've achieved."

"For me, and probably for Seb and many others, you're more than enough, Diana. I told you when I was ten, and I still think the same: I want to be like you when I grow up."

"And I told you that you don't have to be like me, but your own version," she added. "No matter what happens, you always have to be yourself, Claire, not trying to be someone you admire."

She lowered her head, shaking it, and then raised it again to look directly at me. I saw how the greenish tone of her eyes was covered by tears that, in a way, made me feel bad for her because it wasn't my intention to make her feel bad.

"You'll become like me if you want then, darling," she continued, her voice almost breaking. "I'm more than convinced, and I'll help you as much as I can to make it happen. After all, that's why you're here, right?"

Damn, the topic I just didn't want to talk about had finally come up, but I knew I had to address it.

I didn't know if I preferred to face my uncertain future or my partially dysfunctional family.

"Yeah. That my family sucks is another reason why I'm here," I grumbled.

"What happened, darling?" she took my hands and pulled me closer to her. I rested my head on her shoulder, and she started stroking my hair, as she had often seen herself do with her daughters. "We can leave the conversation about that extensive work world for another day, but not about your parents. I know it's affecting you no matter how much you try to show otherwise with that armor you put on."

The sigh that escaped my lips was heavy, as if I needed it to start slowly unloading the heavy burden I had on me.

"I don't know why my parents don't understand me," I started, my voice directly charged with frustration and, let's not say it, sadness. "I don't know what the hell to do with my life," I heard Diana scolding me for the curse word, but I didn't care, "and it bothers me that they can't put themselves in my shoes when, look, they've already been in my shoes."

"Claire..."

"Damn it, Diana, I'm their only daughter. If they don't want to support me, they could just refrain from giving it to me, not tell me that all this is an excuse to keep studying or... I don't know, not to start working or whatever bullshit they come up with."

The woman looked at me with compassion, nodding her head. She didn't know it, but something inside me was sure that she did understand me, and it hurt that it was just a person who hardly belonged in my life and not those who had given it to me.

"It's normal for you to feel this way, in the work field I mean," thanks for changing the subject, Mrs. Vettel. "I went through it in early 2011 when I saw that my graduation was getting closer and, therefore, the end of my contract as a trainee," she replied. I knew she wasn't the only one, I knew it. "If ninety percent of me sensed that they wouldn't renew me, the remaining ten percent thought I wouldn't even continue working in Formula 1. Obviously, with too much luck and thanks to a lot of Seb's influence, it was the opposite."

She took a sip of water, put a small Reese's in her mouth and, putting her hand in front of her mouth, continued:

"They say that choosing what you want to dedicate yourself to, supposedly, for the rest of your life is the worst part, but no one warns you that the end of the journey is the worst part of it," she said honestly. For God's sake, was this woman good at everything? "I know how hard it must be for you to feel this way, especially when you expect support and being understood from those who should give it to you the most. Luckily, you have your uncle and your aunt, just like I had my uncle and my aunt."

"Eloise is my uncle's wife, that doesn't make her my aunt. Not to mention the shitty behaviors she has towards me," I corrected her coldly.

"I've also been a victim of that snake, and I ended up blaming it on your uncle, so don't worry."

"The thing is, it's frustrating, you know?" I continued, ignoring the last thing she had said. "Knowing that you can't be honest and you have to constantly pretend to be the perfect daughter."

"Nobody's perfect, Claire, and as long as you're here, with us, these days, I won't allow you to be," the redhead assured me. "You can be honest about anything without fear of being judged by us, because it won't happen."

I looked up at her and was surprised. It was the first time someone, besides Mark, had taken my side and understood me.

"You're not going to take my parents' side?"

"I don't have to excuse them when I think they're not right," she revealed. "Being a parent is... difficult, and when you're all born, you don't come with a manual on how we should educate and raise you under your arm, and they don't give it to us later either, right? But there is something in which I understand your parents.

"In what?"

Diana Vettel directed her gaze towards where her daughters and husband still were. She chuckled softly and glanced back at me, giving my thigh a little tap.

"You'll understand someday if you ever become a mother, or care about someone so much that you always want them by your side."

Before I could even respond, she got up from the couch, swiftly tossing off the blanket, which ended up falling on my face. Her bare feet thudded heavily on the floor as she moved quickly, heading towards the stairs, forcing me to run to catch up with her.

"Where the hell are you going?" I shouted, breathless, gripping the staircase railing to catch my breath.

She didn't respond beyond telling me to watch my language, as the girls might hear us. I admired her as a mother, but sometimes she was so good at it that it exhausted me. The only consolation was knowing that Seb often let out curses in front of their daughters and prayed to whoever was with them not to tell Di, as he fondly called her.

"Diana, I would truly appreciate it if you could let me know in advance if you're planning any outings. I've been on a plane and in an airport all day, and there's nothing I want more right now than to crawl into bed and pray that jet lag doesn't hit me."

"Shush," she immediately responded as she sat down in front of the computer on the desk in what seemed to be her office. "I've been thinking about something for a few days now, and we need your uncle's help."

My uncle? How was Mark going to help me with my existential crisis, to shelter me in his house?

No way. I'd have to endure his wife, and I'd pay all the money in the world not to see his face.

"Mark isn't going to help us, I'm telling you," I replied, getting a bit annoyed by the uncertainty. "Who do you think he is, Cinderella's fairy godmother or something?"

"No," she said, scrolling through her FaceTime contacts until she found one labeled M. Webber, just below another one labeled Lara, followed by a bunch of heart emojis and weird faces, "but he might be able to help you land an internship."

"Mark already has a lot on his plate," I began to say as the redhead pressed the call button. "Dealing with Eloise, for example, takes a lot of work, and..."

"Hello, Mark!"

My uncle's smiling face and raised hand filled the screen. I knew his smile was a bit forced because he had heard the comment I made about his wife, but as always, he turned a deaf ear.

"Well, well, what's going on over there, ladies?"

"You must be kidding..." I muttered, earning a smack on the arm from Diana. "Fine, Mark, fine," I finished, shooting them both a disgruntled look.

"The thing is, putting aside formalities, after your niece more or less told me about the little problem she has with your brother and sister-in-law, and after I've been mulling over what we talked about the other day, I've come up with something," the engineer explained.

Mark furrowed his brow slightly, a bit confused and apparently a bit worried by the words of his former teammate's wife.

"Go ahead, it's all yours."

"Claire is a bit confused about what to do with her future," I stifled a laugh. I wished it was just a bit, and all this didn't feel like it was making me want to tear my hair out, "and she also has to do her final year internship. I thought that, if possible, we could help her do it in a Formula 1 team."

My eyes widened in surprise, and I shouted "what" louder than I had ever said anything in my life. My heart started pounding at the mere thought of me, Claire Webber, in a team of the sport I loved most in the world. I even started to feel dizzy with the idea.

"Are you kidding me, right?" was all I could say to Vettel.

"Do you want Claire to be Diana Vettel 2.0?" my uncle asked with a hint of sarcasm. "Are you planning to create a pilot project and then implement it with your daughters?"

"Neither one thing nor the other," the woman replied, quite agitated, crossing her arms. "Your niece doesn't need to be the second version of anyone. She's already her own version."

My uncle fell silent, realizing he had screwed up royally. Diana, on the other hand, tried not to make a big deal out of it, although she knew it might have affected him. She asked me to take the chair from what used to be Seb's desk and sit next to her, and so I did.

"According to the Teaching Plan of the University of Melbourne, Claire should start her internship period next January. The season doesn't start until March, but she could try to request some kind of leave," Diana explained in detail. I was pleasantly surprised that she had informed herself so much, and especially that she offered to help me.

"Don't worry, Diana. I can look for another place to..."

"As I told you before, I haven't forgotten that since we met in 2012, you've been telling me that you wanted to be like me," she interrupted. "Every time we've had the chance to spend time together, you've emphasized your dream of wanting to be part of this world, so if you not only have the chance but also the talent to make it happen, that's how I'm going to try to do it."

I nodded, accepting her proposal and everything that came with it. If this was my chance to pursue my biggest dream, and I could do it hand in hand with my own Tony Stark, then I had to make the most of it.

"So I should go starting from early March, right?" my uncle wanted to know, seemingly agreeing with everything.

"Yes, but I think it would be even better if she went to the preseason tests," the redhead asserted, getting closer and closer to the screen. "Maybe that way she can make herself seen and, perhaps, do something to get noticed by a team..."

I stopped paying attention to the conversation they were having because my eyes drifted to the back of the image emanating from my uncle. I saw as the door behind him slowly opened, revealing the figure of a guy I had never seen in my life.

His light brown hair fell slightly over his forehead. The color of his eyes was also brown, though a bit darker, and they stood out quite a bit against his fair skin. His shoulders slumped downwards, his gaze was almost downcast, and he seemed to move with such calmness that I didn't know if it was because he was tired or because he was just naturally laid-back.

"Mark," he began to say, "am I interrupting or...?"

"No, no, no worries! Come in and make yourself comfortable, Oscar!" my uncle replied. "I'm talking to Diana Vettel, who you surely already know," he greeted her with a wave and asked how she was, "and this is my niece, Claire."

"She's the one you've talked to me so much about, right? The one who's my age, studies Aerospace Engineering, and is almost as passionate about Formula 1 as I am."

Who the hell was Oscar, what the hell was he doing at my uncle's house at seven-thirty in the evening, and why did he know so much about my existence?

58 notes · View notes

liightsout · 3 months

Text

the blue - part one

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

✯ summary: introducting mattie and adam!! both have some news to share, one being better than the other. no danny ric content in this one, but it's coming, i promise! ✯

✯ pairing: daniel ricciardo x fem!oc

✯ content warnings: none rlly, light swearing ✯

✯ now playing: you're on your own kid - taylor swift ✯

✯ masterlist ✯

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

May 2020

“Mattie, are you even listening to me?”

Looking up from her phone at her friend she frowned. She hadn’t been listening. Not even a little. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in what her friend had been saying, it was just that she had a lot on her mind.

She sighed softly “I wasn’t Adam, I’m sorry, what were you saying? Something about a new driver on the team?”

Matilda and Adam had been friends since childhood, the pair had met on the first day of junior school. She had just moved to the small town over the summer and was starting school a complete stranger amongst all her peers.

Her mum had reassured her she’d make friends quickly, but she wasn’t so sure. Looking around the playground she could see that almost everyone already knew one another. She spent the first few hours of school that day on her own, carefully shying away from drawing too much attention to herself.

Then came lunch break. She remembers it like it was yesterday, Adam came bounding over to her, scruffy uniform and beaming smile with a few teeth missing. He asked her if she wanted to play race cars with him. She explained nervously that she didn’t know anything about racing and he should probably ask someone else. Adam had scoffed at the idea and said that he didn’t want to play with the other kids.

Adam spent the rest of the hour lunch break explaining everything he knew about racing and telling her about his favourite driver ‘Michael Shooomacker’ and the red car he drove.

Their friendship had lasted throughout their schooling days, all their awkward teenage phases and early adult years. It was a no brainer for the both of them to decide to move in with each other when they both found themselves in need of a home.

Rent in and around London was expensive, and there was no one on Earth either of them would rather live with. Which had proven to be a blessing when 2020 had rolled around and Covid had hit. The pair of them agreed that they would have lost their minds had they spent so many days locked inside with anyone else but each other.

Adam had gone to University when they turned 18 and earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering, hoping to further his dream of being an engineer for one of the top Formula 1 teams when he was older. It wasn’t long before he had achieved said dream and found himself a spot on the engineering team at Mclaren.

“At least you’re honest! I said I got a call this morning from my boss,he confirmed the driver that’s going to be replacing Carlos next year. It’s Daniel Ricciardo” explained Adam, with a beaming smile.

Mattie paused trying to put a name to a face. “Which one is he?” Adam laughed “as if you don’t remember! He’s the Aussie you think is fit, the one who used to drive for Red Bull.”

“I thought that was Mark Webber?” the girl questioned, pulling out her phone getting ready to Google the new driver her friend would be working with for the next season. Adam’s laugh got even louder “close, but not quite” he said.

Mattie rolled her eyes and continued her Google image search. Yep, she remembered who Daniel Ricciardo was now. Adam was right; she did think he was fit. More than that, she thought he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen.

She looked up from her phone to the knowing eyes of her best friend “yeah I remember who he is, but anyway, irrelevant, is this a good thing for you? Are you happy?”.

Adam nodded enthusiastically “oh definitely, he’s one of my favourite drivers, getting to work with him is huge. I reckon him and Lando will be a great pairing as well, roll on 2021 as far as I’m concerned”.

Adam had always been obsessed with Formula 1. Even from the age of 10 he had been so sure that it was the career path for him. He had spent countless hours as a teenager working in his dad’s garage and learning everything he could about cars, engines and the mechanics behind them.

This was something Mattie had always been jealous of. Not that she had also wanted to be a mechanic, definitely not that. She had been jealous of his ability to decide exactly what it was that he had wanted to do with his life, seemingly from the minute he had learnt what Formula 1 was.

Mattie did not have the same luxury. Growing up she had toyed with many ideas about what life would have in store for her, but none that ever had really seemed to fit.

When she was 13 she had wanted to be a famous pop singer; the dream was soon crushed when a music teacher told her she could barely hold a note.

Then came fashion. She had spent a whole summer reading through every copy of Vogue she could get her hands on. Drawing up rough designs of different clothes and garments she would try and craft herself. This dream ended with a high school textiles teacher telling her that she was terrible at stitching and would never pass the class.

The list was endless, dream after dream quietly crushed by being told she would never be quite good enough.

For a while she thought that maybe she had set her expectations too high. She wanted too much, dreamt too big. She wanted extraordinary, but needed to settle for ordinary.

Until she had realised at the age of 17 that it had been staring her in the face her whole life. From the moment Mattie had learnt to read she had her nose in a book. She had become infatuated with literature and everything about it.

She loved that no matter what was going on around her, she could always find solace in a good book for a few hours. She loved reading about different characters who could live every life she had ever dreamt for herself. It was at the age of 17 that she decided she would study English Literature at University.

She quickly found a job after leaving University, working for a small independent publisher. She loved her job and although she was disappointed she would never be a famous pop star, at the age of 24 she knew that it was probably for the best.

“Well, I’m happy that you’re happy and hopefully this will be a good thing for Mclaren as well. It’d be nice to see you guys moving up in the constructors championships!” Mattie smiled at her friend who was practically buzzing with excitement at the prospect.

“Enough about me, we’ve been talking about me all afternoon. Did you find out from your boss anymore about your job?” Mattie sighed, admittedly she had been avoiding the subject, but such was Adam that he would bring it up eventually.

She had received a call from her boss around a week ago explaining to her that due to the financial pressures Covid had placed upon the small company she worked for, that it was likely they would be liquidating the business before the month was up.

Mattie had been blissfully ignoring the issue, escaping to the dreamland in her head where everything was fine and her employment wasn’t in jeopardy. That dreamland had come crashing down around an hour prior when she had gotten an email from the CEO explaining that they were all being let go effective immediately.

“Yeah, so, Glenn sent an email about an hour ago confirming it… bit shitty of him to do it over email, but yeah, I’m unemployed” breathing deeply Mattie held back the tears she knew were threatening to escape from her eyes.

“Oh fuck, Mattie, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe you’ve just let me sit here and tell you about all this when you’ve got this bottled inside you, why didn’t you say anything sooner? Are you ok? Do you want a hug? Or is this one of those times where if I hug you it’ll make it worse and you’ll start ugly crying? Do you want me to beat up Glenn? I’ll do it-”

“Adam stop. I’m fine. Honestly, it sucks, and yeah I’m upset but we knew it was coming. It’s fine, I’ve got some money saved up so I’ll be alright for a little bit and I’ll start sending out CV’s to some companies and I’ve got connections now. I’ll find something, it’s just, yeah, it’s just shit” Mattie said, cutting off Adam from his rambling.

Adam was great, she knew that no matter what she could rely on him to have her back, but he did have a tendency to panic when he thought that his friend was sad.

That’s just how he was, over protective and ready to punch her boss in the face if she asked him to.

Adam nodded, checking for signs of tears on the girls cheeks. Once he was satisfied she wasn’t going to start crying he stood up and headed for the fridge, opening the door and pulling out a bottle of rose wine he knew Mattie kept there for emergencies.

“Well, in that case, I’ll order us a pizza and what do you say we get drunk and watch a movie? I’ll even let you watch Tangled seeing as I’m such a good best friend”. Mattie grinned looking at him from the sofa. She was so glad he decided to play racing cars with her when they were kids.

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

✯ authors note: hey guys! it's been a bit of a crazy couple days... as a a ferrari gal i'm still a little bit in shock and processing the news tbh. anyways, i've got like 6 days off work so i'm hoping i'll be able to post a couple updates if anyone's interested and reading. still finding my feet a bit with writing/editing again so if anyone has any (helpful) suggestions or feedback pls let me know. asks are always open and would love to chat with some of you :) ✯

#daniel ricciardo #dr3 #danny ric #dr3 imagine #daniel ricciardo fanfic #daniel ricciardo fanfiction #formula 1 #formula 1 fanfic #f1 fanfic

35 notes · View notes