His disappointment is less acrid than usual. P7 isn’t a podium, but they’ll be playing his battle with Marc in every highlight reel for the rest of the year, and a little bit of satisfaction had sliced through him at how Marc must have felt the need to cut the way he used to with Valentino; rough and raging and completely unstoppable, win or crash.

So, at least he’s a worthy opponent. And at least, after his debrief and a shower, he can zip his suitcase up and follow Marc to his jet, to Madrid.

They meet on the tarmac. Marc has this look on his face like he’s on the edge of self-flagellating, but Bez bites it from his lips once the cabin door is sealed and finds himself staring into the endorphin-bright smile of a winner when he pulls back.

“Better,” he says, to which Marc snorts, and then laughs, and then covers his mouth with bashful fingers.

The week in Madrid melts like butter in the sun. There’s no adjustment period, no baby steps in learning how to spend this much time with each other. They spend half a day on Marc’s favourite cycling track, and Marc dutifully massages the knots from Bez’s calves and thighs the evening off, complaints endured and laughed. There is swimming, because it’s almost too warm not too, and one night where they break their diets and put a pause on the easy home cooking routine they’d fallen into.

Valentino calls the night before they’re due to split and fly in for the next race, and Bez takes it with Marc warm against his chest. The conversation isn’t anything groundbreaking: Valentino checks in, briefs him on some media duties for the weekend ahead, and, in the final thirty seconds, asks again if they’re alright — if Bez is doing okay.

The tension doesn’t drain from Marc’s shoulders when the call ends, when Valentino says, “Allora, it is late here, at least, maybe the same where you are. Sleep well, yes?”

Marc wriggles further down the couch and tips his head to peer up at Bez half-upside down.

“He cares about you all very much,” he says, and there’s enough bitterness in the words to turn Bez’s stomach. It’s difficult, managing the capacity in which he has Valentino and knowing Marc had that and more — had Valentino promising to look out for him, calling him the next best thing to anyone who’d listen.

Bez hums. Marc looks away. His voice is choked when he speaks again.

“I really would — if that stopped for you because he — found out, I would,” he cuts himself off, swallowing hard. Bez sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. He brings his hands around to find Marc’s, catching his fingers where they’re fretting at the hem of his shirt.

“But it wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”

Marc barks a dry laugh.

“You can say, but I know. It jeopardises for you — your team, and in the academy, and —”

Bez squeezes his hands.

“It’s not the same as it was when he did it to you,” he whispers. It feels cruel, saying that, but it’s true. Valentino’s Godhood status has waned in the court of public opinion, even if the man himself seems blind to the fall.

Dredging up the past ten years down the line will do that, eventually. People tire of it.

“And I have the guys,” Bez adds, “they would lose it if he tried to fuck me over.”

It eases a laugh from Marc’s chest, what must be the image of Pecco abandoning his Type A reticence in favour of giving Valentino a serve. They fall quiet again. On Marc’s TV, the protagonist saves his love interest from a bubbling vat of acid. Bez has no clue what’s happening. He’d stopped paying attention twelve minutes in.

“Are you thinking about it, then?”

He can’t stop himself from asking, mind whirling at what had sparked this line of thought in Marc’s head. Marc makes a questioning noise, and Bez blinks down at the crown of his head.

“About — them finding out. Or telling people.”

“Oh.”

“It is — I don’t expect you to want to now, or — ever, I mean, it’s—”

“No, maybe. It would be most dangerous for you, right?”

Dangerous. Dangerous like the vat of acid — like a volcano, a snake pit, a saw trap. Ten years of Valentino’s anger concentrated into a single shining moment, levelled at the pair of them like the barrel of a rifle. Bez doesn’t know how he’d react. If it’d be fire and brimstone or cold, quiet fury. If he’d wake up the next day to a broken contract in his email inbox, to news headlines about a lost seat and a scandalous affair.

He swallows a pearl-sized ball of dread, feels it land like a cement block at the pit of his stomach.

“I don’t think it would be the worst thing,” he allows. It’s Marc’s turn now to slow his nervous fingers, locking their hands together. “Not yet, maybe. It is nice now, while it’s quiet.”

Marc makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat. He pulls away suddenly, shifting till he’s beside Bez and not on him, able now to meet his eyes.

“You could tell Pecco.”

Bez blinks.

“Really?”

Marc shrugs, pulling a face.

“He seems like the most reasonable, after Luca. And then you have two people on your side, in case anything — you know.”

It’s not a bad idea. They’ve been so fucking careful, but Luca had seemed to work it out, if not completely without confirmation. The risk of something getting out before they’re ready is never zero, not when they’re creeping back and forth between motorhomes and sharing jets.

“Okay,” he says, “if you’re fine with it.”

__________

Pecco wins on Sunday by a second and a half. Bez knocks on the door of his motorhome at midnight, when he knows the Ducati celebrations have finally wound down. Pecco opens the door in a t-shirt and sweats, freshly showered and still glowing.

“When are you due?” Bez asks, grinning as he slips through the door and ducking away from the swipe Pecco aims at him. The joke isn’t enough to dull Pecco’s heat-red cheeks or to wipe the grin from his face, and within moments they’re settled on either end of Pecco’s couch with beers in hand.

“Special detour just to visit me and say congratulations?” Pecco ribs. Bez can hear the genuine question in his tone — the miniscule kernel of suspicion tucked beneath his tongue. He grins, clears his throat, licks his lips. Pecco has the air conditioner on, but Bez is sweating. It’s not that warm of a night. He’s just — nervous.

But Marc had agreed. Had called Pecco reasonable, and from the bathroom of his motorhome only half an hour ago, had said, “You’re friends, too close for this to ruin it. He will be okay, yeah?”

Pecco’s face turns serious when Bez’s hesitation stretches on too long.

“Bez?” he prods, reaching to place his beer on the coffee table. “Are you okay?”

Bez knits his fingers together. Pictures how Marc had held his hands over his stomach just four days ago. The rough scratch of his callouses.

“Yeah,” he manages, and then forces a laugh, “this is going to ruin your mood, I think. It is lucky that you won. That’s a good buffer.”

To his credit, Pecco only sits silently, sheet-white, open-mouthed, for twelve seconds.

“Marc Márquez?” he asks, as if there’s anyone else Bez could be talking about. “What about that — the girl you were—? Ah, Marco.”

Bez cringes. He’d forgotten about that.

“I know,” he says, “I know, just — Luca is aware, no — I didn’t tell him before you, he figured it out, okay.” He silences Pecco with a pointed finger. “Valentino doesn’t —”

“Obviously, he doesn’t know,” Pecco interrupts, scoffing. “Are you going to tell him?”

Not unless my life depends on it.

“Eventually, right, I have to, if this is…”

“Serious. Is it serious? Is that why you’re — telling me?”

Bez nods. Pecco sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. Bez can see him forcing the judgement back down in real time, eyes narrowed.

“Okay. Sure. Well, if you are both —”

“Ah, don’t, I hate that. Gross.”

Pecco lifts an offended eyebrow, but gives up his train of thought without a fight. They lapse into quiet while Bez counts the racing beat of his heart. That had been reasonable. Pecco was reasonable.

“You have to be careful,” he says suddenly, “if you are not going to tell him for a while. He asked me if you were — if there was something going on.”

Fear spikes sharp in his gut. Because of the interview.

“That was — I got angry. I shouldn’t have. But he’s — Marc is so — it’s. It’s hard. I can see it, what all that stuff with Vale did to him.”

He squeezes his hands into fist and takes a deep breath.

“I mean, you were there for it, right? Did you not think that — while it was happening, that it was bad?”

Pecco’s expression crumples. He looks away.

“I don’t know. I was young. Valentino didn’t talk about it to me much.”

White-hot anger replaces the sick flutter of moth wings in his stomach. Valentino hadn’t talked to them about it until he had; until he decided they were old enough to start waging the war on his behalf.