#paperweight

If Valentino notices his irritation, if he notices the glares directed at him from Marc’s side of the garage, he doesn’t react. Or pretends not to. 

The yellow flag graphic appears in the corner of the screens, and Luca flicks a glance towards it as he tugs his gloves off, systematic, one then the other; when he turns back, there is a Honda in the gravel.

Not his. From the silence across the box, they understand that too.

Luca doesn’t think Valentino is even breathing. “Did they replay it?” he mutters in Spanish, because Vale never truly learned to speak it. One of his mechanics shakes her head. “Shit.”

Seven years ago, this would have been nothing. Now, on the other side of hell, the whole box, paddock, circuit, holds its breath. Almost unconsciously, Vale drifts across the garage, closer to Santi, who doesn’t react at all.

“One of the Pramac bikes was near him—trying to follow, maybe.” 

It’s Marc’s father who registers Valentino, realises he’s crossed the invisible line; Luca braces for an explosion, because Álex had said something, once, something like how lucky Valentino was that he hadn’t run into Juliá Márquez on a particular day, and Luca remembers thinking that he was frightening for such a small man. But Juliá doesn’t erupt. He nods, turns back to the screen, searching for a sign of his son. 

Incident between #93 and #43 to be investigated after the session: irresponsible riding. 

Santi looks up, one hand on his headset. “He is okay. One of the guys has him on a scooter. Bike is fucked.”

Luca lets out a breath. 

When it plays on the screen, when Miller, shadowing Marc’s rear wheel, locks his brakes and takes them both out, Valentino joins the rest of the box in throwing up a frustrated hand. When the Yamaha rolls over the top of the Honda, he inhales, sharp. When Marc climbs to his feet, battered and coated in stone dust but apparently intact, Vale’s shoulders drop, just a little. 

When Marc stalks back into the box, leathers scraped to hell, helmet still on but notably scuffed, Valentino watches him. 

“Half an hour left,” someone calls. “Marini, you are doing a fuel run.” 

“Yep.”

“Anyone who is free, help with the spare 93. Still time.”

They get Marc out of the box with seven minutes to go. On his second lap, he goes fastest.

——

Luca forgets his phone, only realises on the way back to the motorhome when he reaches for it to text Marta, and turns abruptly in a way that someone will probably find hilarious and post on social media later. Whatever.

Behind the Honda garage, Álex Marquez is waiting, which means Marc hasn’t emerged yet, which could mean nothing. It could mean he’s hurt worse than he let on, as usual. He catches Luca’s eye, but thankfully doesn't attempt conversation, because Luca’s brain is only a step above boiled mush in this heat, and he wouldn’t be able to arrest the words: congratulations on the podium. By the way, does your brother still want mine? 

Luca steps inside, sighing out relief at the welcome cool once again, but halts when he catches rapid voices around the corner.

“You are lying—”

“You always think I’m lying.”

He pauses, hovers just at the back of the box. 

“Well, you usually are.” That’s Valentino, words cut through with rueful amusement. 

“I am fine,” Marc insists; less cheerful, his Italian slants with his accent now, mother-tongue familiarity slipping back in even after three years perfecting it. Pissed off, then.

“The bike hit your head, I saw—”

“That is why I wear a helmet,” Marc says, dry. “Thank you for the concern.” 

“Marc.”

There’s silence; Luca can feel the affront in it. Valentino’s concern has boiled over into frustration too many times before, so Marc has enough reason to be wary. 

“I see you more these last few years than before you retired.” It’s careful. Testing. “First Ducati. Now Honda.” Marc does not dance around things for long. The blow will fall; the anticipation of it is almost worse, Luca thinks. The waiting. The phantom sensation before the real injury. 

“Ah. Well.” Vale, on the other hand, would happily tiptoe for the rest of his life. Anything to avoid disturbing the ground beneath his feet. Anything to maintain the appearance of being careless, effortless. “My academy, you know.”

“They’re big boys,” Marc says flatly. “They don’t need you. Salucci runs your team. Why are you here?” 

More silence, careful painful silence.  

“Luca is my brother,” Valentino says eventually. “I like watching him race—all of them, as well. I miss the paddock, and I like to watch them race.” 

“No other reason?” 

“What other reason would there be?” It’s stilted. Drags like a serrated blade.

“Okay,” Marc says, something quelled in him, quietened. Luca wishes, suddenly and violently, that he could twist himself into a knot. He should leave, but he needs his fucking phone.

Because his brother can never just say what he means—what he wants—without defensively wrenching it into something incomprehensible, and so Marc has taken it as he has every right to take it: a rebuttal. Jesus. He wants to slam his own head into a wall, then both of theirs for good measure. 

Footsteps. Before Luca can react, hide, Marc marches past him, his face a perfect façade; he notices Luca, but acts as if he hadn’t, and sweeps past with a purpose that suggests he knows his brother is waiting for him. Behind him, a deep quiet.

Maybe Luca can text Marta back after lunch.

——

After Barcelona, he resigns his contract, and the team tell him they will announce it on the Thursday before Misano as if they had always intended to do so. He stayed when it was difficult, didn’t run like Joan did when a new competitor reared their head. That’s bought him some grace, at least. Axe lowered, execution stayed. 

And Luca did this, not alone, but without the crutch of his brother, without the safety net of the Valentino Rossi machine and everything that brings. Some self-satisfaction isn’t misplaced.

Marc acts as if the news is nothing: not a surprise, not a relief, not a blow. He has, Luca thinks with a little sharpness, probably already forgotten what he said to the media, now that it isn’t serving a purpose anymore. Not a lie, however, because the bike is not fast, not since the summer break. Marc’s last win was in Germany, his last podium Spielberg, and Luca had been pushed hard for fourth and fifth places. Pecco is stretching ahead, with Fermin too close on his heels for Marc to ride past the limit as he might have done even five years ago. The mistakes still come, though, and his body is not as forgiving as when he was twenty. All that to say, Marc is tetchy, which—well, it might be the bike. It might be his arm, or his shoulder. It might be what happened in Hungary, if Luca were to believe that he cared, that he wanted Valentino to be there for him. Luca cannot mind him, not when Pecco’s words ring truer every day, every session: you cannot share a space with him and not—you understand?

He understands.

Late in the Italian afternoon, when the paddock bustle has dispersed towards car parks and campsites, Luca catches them behind the garage, close, too close. They don’t spot him: incriminating in itself, their heads bent towards each other, voices low.

“I just—” Valentino breaks off. “Thank you.” 

“I never had any problem with him,” Marc murmurs. 

“You know they listen to you,” Vale says, “so thank you.” 

“It means nothing if he is not getting results,” and Marc means it. “Sometimes it is harder to be our brothers than if they were not.” Pointed, somewhat.

Vale makes a pained noise. “I know. But still—thank you. Again.” 

“If our opinions mattered, I would not have had the Ducati seat, no?”

“Honda listen to you a little more than Ducati do to Pecco—”

“I meant you.”

Silence. “Yes. Well.”  

Luca almost puts his brother out of his misery, but Marc ploughs forward, as he is prone to do.

“We cannot ride the bikes for them, in the end. I did not put it in the points, on the podium. I never fucking learned Japanese, Vale. The team make the decisions.”

Christ. He calls him Vale now, as if their little scene in the garage was nothing. This was always their problem, after all, too good at hiding the wounds until they had already festered.

Further down the paddock, a door slams. Marc blinks, slow, then again, and seems to come back to himself. The space between them balloons, conscious, unconscious. When Luca moves too close, they both startle, then stiffen like prey animals, laughably casual.

“Luca.” He will never tire of that note of pride in Vale’s voice, because it is Valentino Rossi, and it’s his brother. “All announced, yes? We’ll go to dinner.” For a wild moment, Luca thinks he’s going to invite Marc too. 

“Congratulations,” Marc says, as if he wasn’t already fully fucking aware, but behind his self-protective shield there is something sincere that warms and stings. Luca isn’t a threat to him, after all; it should hurt more keenly than it does. “Stuck with me.”

Luca laughs, easy, and swallows down his retort that he’s fine, but Marc is stuck with someone else entirely. “Thank you.” Thank you. Selfish or not, intended or not, Marc did have some leverage in this; Luca is not naive enough to believe his denials.

“See you tomorrow,” and perhaps it’s for both of them as Marc disappears towards the paddock motorhomes, not even a glance thrown over his shoulder. All might not be forgiven, certainly not forgotten.

“Dinner?” Luca prompts when Vale doesn’t move, caught in Marc’s wake. Again with the staring; he’d almost prefer their vicious back-and-forth.

“Mm, yes. It is busy in Misano, of course, so we could drive up to Rimini. Not too far. Practice in the morning, yes?”

“Sounds good.” It's a little selfish, but there are few moments he gets to have with Valentino, fewer every year, just for them. Not a god: just his brother.