Chapter Text
Max Verstappen’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Wednesday
The silence in the Verstappen Holdings boardroom was the expensive kind. The kind that cost approximately three point two billion euros.
Max Verstappen sat at the head of a twentyfoot slab of polished black marble, his fingers steepled before him, not moving. Across the table, six men in suits that probably cost more than the average family car shifted in their Italian leather chairs, sweating through their shirts.
“The terms are non-negotiable,” said the lead suit, a German man with a jawline that looked like it could cut glass. “Fifty one percent control, or the deal is off.”
Max didn’t blink. He’d been staring at the same point on the wall for four minutes. The wall was blank. It was a very expensive, very blank wall. Charles had wanted to put a “splash of life” on it a massive, abstract canvas in what he’d described as “the colour of rage and pomegranates.” Max had vetoed it. Business was not about pomegranates.
His phone, face down on the marble, vibrated for the eleventh time in fifteen minutes. A soft, persistent hum. He knew without looking who it was. Only one person had the sheer, unwavering audacity to text him during a merger negotiation of this magnitude.
Buzz.
Buzz buzz.
Buzz.
“Mr. Verstappen?” the German prompted, a flicker of annoyance in his cool blue eyes.
Max’s gaze slid from the wall to the man. “No.”
A collective inhale. “I beg your pardon?”
“The deal,” Max said, his voice flat, Dutch accent clipped. “It’s off. Get out.”
The silence turned from expensive to radioactive. The German’s mouth opened, then closed. “You can’t be—”
“I am.” Max stood up. He wasn’t a tall man, but he had a presence that filled spaces, a kind of dense, gravitational intensity that made people feel smaller. “You came here thinking you had leverage because my quarterly projections were point three percent below analyst expectations. You thought I was desperate. I’m not. I’d rather burn the division to the ground than hand you the match. Now. Get out of my building.”
It took three minutes for the boardroom to empty, the suits scrambling like startled crabs. Max didn’t watch them go. He picked up his phone.
Charles (14:07): MAX. CRISIS.
Charles (14:08): It’s about the studio. The light.
Charles (14:09): The north facing wall. The painter says “Alpine Glow” but I am looking at it and it is whispering “Tuscan Dawn” to my soul.
Charles (14:10): This is a spiritual emergency.
Charles (14:11): Send help. Or an opinion. A strong one.
Charles (14:12): [Image of two nearly identical white paint swatches on a concrete wall]
Charles (14:13): See? One has warmth. A soul. The other is… a hospital.
Charles (14:14): MAX.
Charles (14:15): Are you ignoring my existential paint crisis?
Charles (14:16): I can feel you ignoring me. It hurts.
Max closed his eyes. Three point two billion euros had just evaporated into the ether. His head of security was probably having a quiet panic attack downstairs. His CFO would need to be sedated. And his husband was having a spiritual breakdown over the philosophical implications of off white.
He typed a single response.
Max (14:17): In a meeting.
He put the phone down. It buzzed once more, immediately.
Charles (14:17): Is it a meeting more important than my creative integrity?
Max decided that responding would be an act of self flagellation. He strode from the boardroom, his shoes clicking a sharp, furious rhythm on the polished floor.
---
Lando Norris’s Personal Hell, Also on a Wednesday
Three miles away, in the neon and chaos heart of Norris Innovations, Lando was having what he would later describe as “a bit of a wobble.”
His office looked like a tech startup had vomited inside a disco. LED strips pulsed softly along the ceiling, a giant screen flashed real time global social media sentiment about the company, and a half assembled prototype of a self stirring coffee mug sat on his desk, leaking brown fluid onto some very important looking papers.
“—and the share price is down four percent since the pre order numbers leaked!” a voice screeched from the speakerphone. It was Gerald from Investors. Gerald was always screeching. “The ‘Nimbus’ smart air hoodie is being called a ‘wearable sauna for idiots’ on Twitter!”
“It’s not Twitter, it’s X, Gerald, get with the times,” Lando muttered, pacing in front of his desk. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “And it’s not a sauna, it’s a personalised micro climate! The early units just had a… minor firmware overheating issue.”
“They set a man’s back hair on fire in Wisconsin, Lando!”
The door to his office opened silently. Oscar Piastri walked in, holding a tablet. He didn’t knock. He never knocked. After three years as Lando’s COO and two as his boyfriend, Oscar operated on a system of silent, efficient entry that Lando found both comforting and mildly terrifying.
Oscar’s calm was a physical presence in the room. He was wearing a simple, well fitting navy sweater and looked, as always, like he’d just stepped out of a very sensible, very quiet library. He glanced at the weeping coffee mug, placed a coaster under it without comment, and stood waiting.
Lando waved frantically at him, mouthing HELP ME.
Oscar’s lips twitched. He leaned towards the speakerphone. “Gerald. Oscar here. The thermal cut off chip has been resourced. Recalls are underway. The financial exposure is capped at fifteen million, already factored into the Q3 contingency. The media narrative is shifting to ‘brave early adopter story.’ We’re sending the Wisconsin gentleman a lifetime supply of hoodies and a charitable donation to the firefighter’s fund of his choice.”
There was a sputtering silence from the phone. “Fifteen million is not capped, it’s a disaster—”
“It’s 0.2% of our market cap,” Oscar said, his voice even, Australian accent calm. “It’s a rounding error. The new launch date for the Nimbus 2.0 is November 1st. The pre orders for that are already at 120% of projections. Email me if you need the revised deck. Goodbye, Gerald.”
He reached over and ended the call.
The sudden silence was blissful. Lando collapsed into his chair, blowing out a huge breath. “You’re a wizard. A beautiful, calm, spreadsheet wizard. I owe you my firstborn.”
“You don’t want children,” Oscar said, placing the tablet on the desk. “And you already pay me rather a lot. Now. The ‘Zephyr’ wireless earbud launch.”
Lando groaned, slumping. “Not you too. Can’t it wait? I’m emotionally bruised from Gerald.”
“It launches in nine days,” Oscar said, pulling up a timeline. “Marketing is ready. Production is ready. But the proprietary noise cancellation algorithm you insisted on using… it has a 0.07 second latency.”
Lando blinked. “So?”
“So, it’s perceptible. In testing, 30% of users reported a slight ‘disconnect’ between audio and video. It causes mild nausea in 5%.”
“Five percent is nothing! That’s… statistically friendly!”
“It’s five percent of a projected ten million unit first run,” Oscar said, looking at him directly. His gaze was steady, analytical. “That’s five hundred thousand nauseated customers, Lando. The reviews will be brutal. We need to delay, revert to the older, stable algorithm for this launch, and fix the new one for version two.”
Lando felt the ‘wobble’ threatening to become a full-on earthquake. Delay? After the hoodie fiasco? The board would skin him. His father would give him that disappointed sigh over the phone. The press would have a field day.
“No,” he said, the word coming out sharper than he intended. “We can’t show weakness. We launch. The nausea is probably psychosomatic. We’ll run an ad campaign about ‘immersive audio journeys.’ People will believe it.”
Oscar didn’t move. His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes cooled by a degree. “That’s not a strategy. That’s gambling with the company’s credibility to save face. My analysis shows—”
“Your analysis shows the safe option!” Lando snapped, pushing himself up from the chair. The stress of the day, the screeching, the burning back hair, it all curdled in his gut. “Sometimes you have to be bold, Oscar! You have to go for it! Not everything is a column on a spreadsheet!”
Oscar was silent for a long moment. He slowly closed the cover on his tablet. “I see,” he said, his voice still quiet, but the warmth had leached out of it. It was just… factual. “So my job is just to present the columns. You’ll ignore them if they’re inconvenient.”
“That’s not what I—”
“It is exactly what you said.” Oscar picked up the tablet. “I’ll inform the team we’re proceeding as per the CEO’s ‘bold’ strategy.” He turned and walked towards the door.
“Oscar, wait—”
Oscar paused, hand on the doorknob, but didn’t look back. “Is there something else, or should I leave you alone to be bold?”
The words were a trapdoor opening beneath Lando’s feet. He was tired, he was stressed, he was backed into a corner. And so he did what he always did when cornered he lashed out. “You know what? Maybe you should. Maybe you should just leave me alone right now. I don’t need another problem!”
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to claw them back from the air. He saw Oscar’s shoulders stiffen, just a fraction. A tiny, almost imperceptible movement.
Oscar didn’t reply. He simply opened the door and walked out, closing it with a soft, definitive click.
The silence in the wake of the click was infinitely worse than Gerald’s screeching. The pulsating LEDs felt suddenly manic. The leaking mug was a tragedy.
Lando stared at the door, his heart pounding a sick, frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Shit.
---
Max Verstappen’s Evening of Glacial Rage
Max’s driver took him home in silence. The car, a silent electric beast, glided through London’s evening traffic. Max’s phone buzzed again.
Charles (17:45): Fine. Be that way. I have chosen “Tuscan Dawn.” I hope you like living with a soulful wall.
Charles (17:46): Also, we are out of the good olive oil. This is a secondary crisis.
Max didn’t answer. The failure of the deal was a stone in his gut. He’d miscalculated. He’d allowed emotion disdain for the German’s arrogance to override logic. It was a beginner’s mistake. Unforgivable. The house, when he arrived, was a monument to sleek, cold perfection. A minimalist fortress. Charles’s influence showed in the single, absurdly elegant vase of orchids on the entrance table a splash of life he’d apparently been permitted.
Max went straight to his study, poured two fingers of whisky he didn’t taste, and stared at the city lights. He needed to recalibrate. To plan the counter-strike. The numbers began to arrange themselves in his mind, a clean, logical sequence. It was soothing.
The door burst open.
Charles stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. He was wearing paint splattered linen trousers and a soft blue sweater that was slipping off one shoulder. His hair was a glorious, chaotic mess. He looked like a Renaissance angel who’d fallen into a crafts store.
“You ignored my paint pocalypse,” Charles announced, his Monegasque accent thick with theatrical hurt. “I had to make a choice that will define my creative output for the next decade based on the advice of a man named Clive who smells of turpentine and regret.”
Max didn’t turn from the window. “I was working.”
“On losing three billion euros?” Charles shot back, coming into the room. He’d seen the news alert, then. Of course he had.
Max’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t lost. It was a strategic withdrawal.”
“It says ‘deal collapses’ on Bloomberg, Max. That is not a strategic withdrawal. That is a crash.” Charles threw his hands up. “And while you were having your strategic crash, I was having a crisis of light! And you sent me two words! Two!”
The stone in Max’s gut turned molten. The clean numbers in his head scattered. This. This was what he couldn’t control. This beautiful, chaotic, emotional hurricane of a man who cared more about paint names than market shares. Who demanded attention with the absolute certainty of a natural disaster.
“It’s paint, Charles,” Max said, his voice low and tight. “It’s a wall. It doesn’t have a soul. It doesn’t whisper. Pick one and live with it.”
Charles stared at him, his expressive eyes wide with disbelief. “You… you think that is what this is about? The paint?”
“What else would it be about?” Max snapped, finally turning to face him. The stress of the day, the failure, the constant, buzzing demands it all fused into a single, sharp point. “Your constant… drama. Your emergencies. The olive oil. The wall. The light. I have a company to run. I have real problems.”
The word ‘real’ hung in the air, toxic and heavy.
Charles’s face went very still. The drama evaporated, leaving behind something colder, sharper. “My concerns are not real,” he stated flatly.
“Not compared to—”
“No.” Charles held up a hand, his voice dangerously quiet. “Say it. Say what you said in your text. The thing you clearly want to say.”
Max looked at him, at his husband, standing amidst the cold, perfect geometry of the study, a splash of beautiful, inconvenient colour. And in that moment, all Max wanted was silence. The clean, logical silence of numbers. The absence of this emotional torrent.
“If you’re going to be this much drama,” Max heard himself say, each word like a chip of ice, “then just leave me the fuck alone. I don’t have time for this.”
For a second, there was nothing. No sound at all. Charles didn’t move. He just looked at Max as if seeing him for the first time, and finding a stranger standing in his husband’s skin.
Then, without a word, Charles turned and walked out.
The click of the study door was softer than Oscar’s, but it echoed just as loudly in the sudden, hollow quiet.
Max stood alone in his perfect, silent study, the city lights twinkling mockingly outside. He had gotten exactly what he’d asked for.
He had never felt more alone in his life.