Chapter Text
It is stupid of Nico to even give Lewis the chance to notice.
The hot water kettle is just a bit too heavy at breakfast one morning and Nico loses his grip. Lewis is next to him at the buffet table of the hotel and catches it out of reflex; Nico knows better than to think it’s kindness. He stares at where Nico’s fingers are still refusing to cooperate.
"What happened to your hand?"
"Nerves" - Nico answers with a shrug, glad for the double meaning in the English phrasing. It's up to Lewis how he wants to interpret it; Nico didn't lie.
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People’s attention is a fleeting, distracted thing. People remember Kimi eating an ice cream but not Sebastian fucking over Mark. They remember Nico fucking up Lewis’ qualy but not Lewis ignoring team orders. People look at what they want to look, remember the funny things and the drama but glide over the struggle, the pain, the heartbreak. The harsher sides of the F1 world are too painful and too dark to be entertaining, you can’t make a show out of them and that’s why Nico has gotten away this long with what he has done.
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It happens again and this time Nico has nobody to blame but himself. It’s just a few random drivers and former drivers meeting up after a promotional event, one of those that leaves them wanting to murder every journalist within a 5 miles radius. Afterwards, they go to a bar with an arcade. It's a big one, with an inside mini golf court and skating rink and if they spend too much money in it, well, they need the pick me up. Nico laughs and drinks and him and Jenson team up to do two rounds on the small go-karts. It’s fun and relaxed and it just flies out Nico's mind that there's things he can't do anymore. It's only when he tries to get out of the kart and pain shoots up his arm that he remembers. He forces himself to breath in, once, twice, then slowly he unclenches his fingers from the steering wheel.
"Ohi, Princess! You coming?"
Nico nods, gritting his teeth. His fingers are cramping, his wrist refuses to bend.
"Give an old man a hand?" He jokes and takes Jense's offered hand with his good one, finally managing to lift himself out of the kart.
“What’s wrong with your hand?”
“Wanked too much.” Nico deadpans.
Mark laughs “Didn’t have enough people warming your bed, Britney?”
Nico shrugs with a chuckle. It’s a joke. It’s just a joke. The pain in his arm is agonizing.
“I have quite high standards, let it be known.”
Jenson doesn’t seem to think it’s funny. He looks at Nico as if by glaring alone he could see through the mask.
“You are not left handed.” He says. Nico suddenly wants to be anywhere but there.
“It was just a joke, Jense.”
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There's a misconception around the entire thing, that people just do it for attention. Nico has lived his entire life getting attention because of his name, his looks, his skills.
It's dark and twisted, that this is the one secret Nico gets to keep. With time, he has grown jealous of it. Like it adds an irrefutable depth to his character.
You slept your way up and didn't care, you are flat with no personality and no ambition. You have no passion, no commitment.
Look what I did - he thinks and the voices are quiet. Nobody can say now he didn't want it enough.
There are days though, when keeping it inside is almost too heavy. Days where he feels like nothing more than a damaged shell. I did this to myself. The shame is ugly and bitter. Those days, Nico doesn't get out of bed.
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The first time it happened, it had been because of a report. A stupid chemistry report.
He is fourteen, they have been out on the karts all weekend and most of the two weeks before that. So it’s not like Nico has been doing nothing and the report is drafted. He read what he needed to on the plane coming in and then sketched it on paper while waiting for his turn during the free practices. But now it’s four in the morning and the report is due at nine. Nico’s eyes are closing, his head is spinning. He has had four coffees already, surely that’s why his hands are shaking, right? Really, he is almost done. He just needs to edit the final two paragraphs, slap on a conclusion, do the referencing and that’s it.
4,5, 6, 7,8 ...he’s got five hours. He’s got this really. He just needs to…
I can't do this.
The thought is so stark, so strong. Such a certainty that it steals his breath away, his mind blanking, crashing.
I can’t do it.
The spike of panic in his chest terrifies him. Nico’s breath catches painfully - it feels like his lungs are caving in, his ribs caging him tight. It’s not just his hands that are shaking anymore. His sight blurs but they are not tears, just the light flashing too bright, his head airy and heavy. For a moment, Nico is sure he is going to throw up.
I can’t do it.
But I need to - Nico thinks and the panic spikes again, the frantic beat of his heart stabbing knives in his chest. He stands up, his knees so wobbly he almost falls over, and stumbles out of his bedroom into the hallway.
I need to. But how?
How? - he thinks - How can he do it when he does not have enough time?
That’s when the idea comes. Bright and sharp. Extensions are granted for medical reasons. He just needs a medical reason.
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Too many people take for granted the air in their lungs. Nico knows what fear feels like, what the wall being too close feels like, what the wheels slipping on the wet tarmac feel like. But it had never taken him much to shut his mind out, to step on the fear, to lock it in a box and forget it. Holding a knife is nothing like that. His hands shake and he can’t make them stop. His breath is gone, he’s suffocating and he’s cold. For a moment, he is scared that he will not be brave enough to overcome this fear. His hands shake and he can’t do it - plunge the knife in, rip his skin open like the soft leather of an old, worn out couch. It’s not courage that wins in the end, it’s fear. The knife goes in and it doesn’t even hurt. Slowly, he slides the knife back out.
Done.
Nico sits there, with a cut on his leg, blood everywhere and finally, finally he can breathe.
The tension unwinds, his hands stop shaking, his mind clears out. It’s not relief, not per se. It’s more like the metaphorical rope that had been tightening and tightening around Nico’s neck with each passing moment has snapped free. Oxygen runs back in, blood flows out and tiredness settles like a cozy blanket over his body.
It’s one of the best feelings Nico ever experienced.
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It happens again.
Not often but it does. A scrape here, a too-hot cup of tea spilled there. It's never life threatening, never an actual injury that will keep him from performing. It's just...to buy himself time. Or distance. Or space. Or whatever. Sometimes he does not even need to go as far as to actually hurt himself - the buildup and release of tension is enough. Pointing a knife at your skin is exhausting.
Sometimes wonders afterwards if it truly was necessary. There’s no easy answer to that, he supposes. Doing it means he gets what he needs, succeeds at what he wants. No doing it? Nico would not bet on the end result. It’s a matter of priorities - he muses, trying to find a sleeping position that does not put too much pressure on his burned forearm.
A few scars are a small price to pay.
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It gets less frequent in his early 20s. Nico is proud of that. Things are moving, slowly. They are changing. Nelsinho, Nico Prost, Bruno - the people he grew up with, the people that are like him - one by one, they all rise and fall.
It frightens Nico a bit, the thought that he might be the next. That he too might not make it.
Then it’s all of a sudden 2008, it’s a podium he had always done more than simply believe in. He had known he would get it, he had known he would get there.
He jumps, he screams and throws himself into Lewis’ arms.
“Like we promised in Greece” - Lewis whispers into his hair, holding him tight
“Like we promised in Greece” - Nico answers and he doesn’t want to let go
It’s still hard. The pressure is still there. Every race is more nerve wracking than the one before but it’s also better. Faster. More exhilarating. It’s a high Nico can’t get enough of. He will make it.
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One day he will figure out what went wrong at Mercedes.
He knows it’s not just his fault but it also doesn’t matter. If he can’t give the performance, if he doesn’t get the results then it doesn’t matter. He knows how he is reacting to it is not good, he catches the looks Toto and Niki give him and he knows he is turning into a person he doesn’t want to be. He is not sure he can stop. He is not sure what the price of stopping will be.
Yes, Nico is the vicious one. It hadn't always been the case, it never did come natural to him.
Michael taught him.
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"I was lucky" - Michael had told him one day out of the blue, eyes following Lewis as he talked with the journalists - "I had Mika and Mika drives clean. It was always a fair fight."
"You tried to push him in the grass at the Spa?" Nico had pointed out, the one instance he could remember of Mika being vocally upset about Michael's driving.
Michael had smiled, genuine and a bit dreamy. "Did he end up on the grass? No. Did he promptly hand me my karma?" - he shrugged - "It's Mika. It just made things interesting."
Nico had wondered if Mika would agree but he has seen the way the two smile at each other. You don't smile like that just for the press.
"We always knew where the line was" - Michael had told him at last - "You don't mess with Mika, you don't mess with DC either. They are the kind of people who will give you the finger at 200kmph. If there's a line, you either respect it or you tick the other person off."
He had nodded in Lewis’ direction before turning back to face Nico.
"It's not the skills you lack. You better start putting up boundaries. F1 is not the environment where people have any regards for things that aren't enforced. And you better start doing it soon...the longer you wait the harder it will be."
Nico wishes he had listened.
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In the northern hemisphere, Vega is the brightest star in the sky. When people look up, it's the star they point to. Not many know its name but it's still there, undeniable.
"Which one's that?" Lewis used to ask with a laugh, amazed by Nico's knowledge of the constellations.
It had been 2008, they were drunk and so happy Nico thought his chest would burst.
"That one's you." He had answered, face hidden in the crook of Lewis' neck. His skin tasted like champagne and it was enough to make Nico's head spin. It was good.
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Once it starts again, it's a slippery slope. You start losing sleep, you snap more easily, you worry too much. You go to bed tired and you wake up tired. You get frustrated that you can't shake the exhaustion and you end up taking that frustration out on others which adds to the lack of sleep because you spend your nights worrying about what you have said or done. Nico starts putting his alarms earlier and earlier because it takes him hours to convince himself to get out of bed. This is your dream. This is what you love to do. You have to drive.
He gives up in the end, puts the alarm at the last possible moment instead. If motivational speeches don't work, he'll use the fear of deadlines and disappointment. No time to panic if you only have 10 minutes to get to the garage.
"You should take a holiday. Go on a break." - His psychologist suggests - "What you are telling me are all signs of burnout."
It's the middle of 2015. Nico fires the psychologist. He knows that already. Even the brightest stars burn out. Nico has never been Vega anyway.
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Someone, Albert Einstein maybe, once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. In the quiet of the garage, Nico stares at the car - his car . Has he quite lost his mind yet?
He looks at the car again. Can he survive another heartbreak? Can he drive the car to the finish line like he did in 2014? Does he have to drive the car to the finish line? What if something were to happen before it?
He toys with the idea for a moment, turning it around in his head. It’s not quite the same result if you are not there for it, is it?
Three times a charm, he thinks.
It’s time for 2016.
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As it turns out, there are worse things than hitting a wall. The wave of relief crashes over him and then it’s gone. The release he had sought in the spray of champagne doesn’t come. Nico’s emotions waver, swinging ever so wildly between euphoria and indifference.
He is World Champion. God. He is World Champion.
Yet, the awaited break is not there, there is no snap, no loosening. Nico is still coiled tight, so tight. He celebrates and feels himself coil even tighter.
He escapes to his room, in the early hours of the morning, and shuts the door behind himself. He still has a bottle of champagne in his hands. The tension is still there. He breathes in slowly.
Winning is not enough.
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His father hadn't come to the Abu Dhabi race but he came to the hospital. Nico had woken up to find him sitting by his side.
"How are you feeling?"
Nico had just shaken his head. "Not well, Papa"
It would have been too much to lie. His father had reached out to hold his unbandaged hand.
"I won" - Nico had confessed at last in a whisper.
His father had gripped his hand tighter. "I didn't. I could have lost you, Nico."
It’s not like Nico doesn’t understand that, it’s not like Nico doesn’t know that his father is proud of him winning but would set all of his trophies on fire if it meant Nico’s happiness and safety. Yet, he can’t really believe it. It’s easy to talk now that he has the Championship. Would his father really be this understanding if he had done this but still failed too?
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His mother had been one for motivational quotes. She had them everywhere, small pictures on the walls, post-it notes in his lunch, printed on bookmarks. There was one she always repeated when Nico was feeling down after a race, when he wasn’t sleeping, when he was pushing too hard. Your best doesn’t mean pushing yourself to your breaking point. Your best means the best you can do while being the best you. Nico had stopped being able to look at that quote all the way back in 2014. He thinks of it now, while the doctor explains the situation. His father doesn’t say anything but when they go out afterwards, he puts an arm around his shoulders. He seems relieved.
"Not how you had planned to end your career, eh?"
Actually, I had really thought about retiring. Nico thinks and finds it funny. It would have been so much easier to just do that.
The damage he did to the nerves and tendons of his hand and arm is too much. Nico will not get in a car again, not without extensive physiotherapy and rehabilitation at least. Somehow, it doesn't feel horrible. A bit sad maybe.
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He had told his father once, how he thought Lewis was Vega.
"Let him be." - His dad told him - "Don't be Vega. Be the North Star instead. Can you see it?"
Nico had looked up and the answer had been no. His dad had pointed it out to him, a tiny, shiny dot.
"Let Vega run across the sky, brighter than everyone else. Be the North Star, be useful, point to something, drive for something. You know you have it in you. It doesn't matter if you are always remembered, don't be afraid to be an afterthought. There's more behind that afterthought than there is in noticing something that is right in front of you anyway..."
The people who are looking for something, the people who are worth it, the ones who truly care, they will look up and they'll know where to find you.