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No one had warned the new Sky Sports intern about the paddock's unspoken rules. She was fresh faced, overly caffeinated on a drink she had called a flat white, and she had apparently missed the memo about which questions were appropriate to ask a four time world champion at nine thirty in the morning.
Max had not missed the memo about anything. He had been standing near the Red Bull hospitality unit, listening to GP explain something about tire degradation curves, when he turned his head for no reason anyone else could discern.
The intern noticed.
She also noticed Charles Leclerc walking past thirty meters away, heading toward Ferrari with his trainer Andrea. Charles did not look at Max. Charles was looking at his phone. He was wearing a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned, and his race suit was tied around his waist, and his brown curls were still damp from a shower.
Max turned back to GP.
That was when the intern struck.
"Max, sorry, quick question," she said, thrusting a microphone toward his face. "I noticed you just turned around and Charles wasn't even close yet. How did you know he was there?"
GP stopped talking. The Red Bull press officer, standing nearby, did not stop the question. Perhaps she was also curious. Perhaps everyone was.
Max looked at the intern. He looked at the microphone. He looked like a man who had been asked to explain why water was wet.
"His footsteps," Max said.
"I'm sorry?"
"His footsteps. They are different."
The intern blinked. "Different how?"
Max shrugged. The gesture was not dismissive so much as definitive. It said: I have given you the answer. There is no more answer to give.
"He walks different from other people," Max said. "I know what he sounds like."
The interview ended shortly after. The clip went viral before lunch.
Charles found out.
He was sitting in the Ferrari motorhome, eating a margherita pizza that had gone cold twenty minutes ago because he kept getting distracted by Lewis asking him questions about the Ferrari power unit mapping. Lewis had been at Ferrari for four months and still asked questions like he was taking notes for an exam. Charles respected this. He also wished Lewis would let him eat his pizza.
His phone buzzed. It was Pierre.
The text was a link to the clip. The follow up text was seventeen skull emojis.
Charles watched the clip.
He watched it again.
He watched it a third time with the volume higher, as if Max's voice might have said something different on a fourth listen. It had not. Max had said "his footsteps are different" in the exact same flat tone he used to say "the car felt good today" and "I am hungry."
Charles set his phone down.
"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," he announced to no one in particular.
Lewis looked up from his notes. "What is?"
"Nothing," Charles said. "It is nothing. I am going to kill him."
"All right," Lewis said, and went back to his notes.
Charles did not go kill Max. He had qualifying in three hours. He had a job to do. But he filed the information away in the part of his brain that kept track of Max Verstappen related grievances, a part that had started accumulating data when he was twelve years old and now required considerable storage space.
His footsteps were different. What did that even mean? Did Max think he walked like a gazelle? Did Max think he walked like a baby deer learning to use its legs? There was no flattering interpretation. Charles had spent the past fifteen minutes analyzing his own gait and had concluded that he walked completely normally, thank you very much, and Max was just being weird.
The clip had two million views by dinner.
The first attempt happened on Saturday morning.
Charles had spent the previous evening planning. Planning was perhaps a strong word for what he had done, which was lie in his hotel bed with Leo curled up on his chest and mentally rehearse how satisfying it would be to prove Max Verstappen wrong.
The plan was simple. He would approach Max from behind. He would do it silently. Max would not notice. Charles would then say something devastating like "I thought my footsteps were different" and Max would have to admit he had been exaggerating for the cameras, and Charles would have won.
Winning was important. Charles had not won a world championship yet. He took his victories where he could find them.
The paddock was quiet at eight in the morning. Most teams were still setting up. The air had that temporary calm that existed before the chaos of race day descended, a calm Charles usually appreciated but was currently too focused to notice.
He spotted Max near the FIA garage, talking to Christian Horner. Max's back was to him. This was perfect. This was ideal. This was going to be so easy.
Charles rose onto the balls of his feet.
He moved carefully. The Ferrari sneakers he wore had soft soles. He kept his weight balanced. He had spent his childhood learning precision control of vehicles traveling at hundreds of kilometers per hour; surely he could control his own feet.
He got within three meters.
Two meters.
One meter.
Max did not turn around. Charles felt a surge of triumph. He was going to do it. He was going to win. He opened his mouth to deliver his devastating line.
"You are walking like a cartoon burglar," Max said without turning around. "It is very strange. Are you injured?"
Christian Horner looked over Max's shoulder. His expression was politely confused. "Charles. Good morning. Are you all right?"
Charles dropped back onto his heels. His face felt hot. "I am fine."
Max finally turned. His blue eyes did the thing they always did when he looked at Charles, which was a slow sweep from head to toe, checking for damage. Charles had seen Max do this after crashes. He had seen Max do this after hard races. He had seen Max do this when Charles sneezed too hard once. The check was thorough and clinical and completely infuriating.
"You are fine," Max confirmed, apparently satisfied by his inspection. "Why were you walking like that?"
"I was not walking like anything."
"You were on your toes."
"I was stretching my calves."
"Both calves at the same time. While moving toward me."
"Yes."
Max considered this. "Okay," he said, in a tone that clearly meant I do not believe you but I have decided this is not worth arguing about. He turned back to Christian.
Charles stood there for three more seconds. Then he walked away. He walked normally. He walked with his full foot flat on the ground like a regular human person, and he did not look back, and he definitely did not hear Max say something quiet to Christian that made Christian laugh.
He was going to have to try harder.
The second attempt happened two hours later.
Charles had done reconnaissance. He had identified that Max was sitting in one of the paddock's open areas, drinking a can of Red Bull and looking at his phone. Max was alone. Max had his back to a wall. This eliminated the possibility of sneaking up behind him but also meant Max had no reason to be looking in Charles's direction.
The new plan was to approach from the side. Charles would walk normally. He would not creep. He would simply walk past Max the way anyone else would walk past Max, and Max would not notice, because Charles's footsteps were not actually different and Max had made the whole thing up.
Charles started walking.
He kept his stride natural. He kept his eyes forward. He was just a Ferrari driver walking through the paddock, minding his own business, not thinking about his boyfriend at all.
"Your left shoelace is untied," Max said when Charles was four meters away. Max had not looked up from his phone.
Charles stopped. He looked down. His left shoelace was untied.
He bent down to tie it. His ears were burning. This was worse than the first attempt. At least the first attempt had involved him acting suspiciously. This time he had been completely normal and Max had still known it was him, had identified him from four meters away without even raising his eyes.
"You are muttering in French," Max added. He still had not looked up from his phone. "I cannot understand you when you mutter in French."
"I am not muttering."
"You are muttering. You are muttering about how much you hate me. I do not need to speak French to know what 'je te déteste' means. You taught me that when we were fourteen."
Charles finished tying his shoe. He stood up. He walked over to Max's table and sat down across from him.
"I was walking completely normally," Charles said.
Max put his phone down. "Yes."
"You did not even look up."
"No."
"So how did you know it was me?"
Max picked up his Red Bull can. He took a drink. He seemed to be thinking about the question, which was interesting because Max rarely thought about questions. He usually just answered them immediately and brutally and then moved on.
"Your footsteps are different," Max said finally. "I already told the reporter this. I do not understand why everyone is confused."
"Different how?"
Max's brow furrowed. The expression was the same one he wore when journalists asked him to explain his driving technique. Charles recognized it. It was the face of a man being asked to verbalize something he had never needed to verbalize before.
"You walk faster than most people," Max said. "But your steps are shorter. Your left foot lands a little harder than your right. You pause for half a second when you change direction. You do not drag your feet but you do not lift them very high. It is like you are always ready to run."
Charles stared at him.
"What?" Max said.
"You have analyzed my walking."
"I have not analyzed anything. I have just paid attention."
"For how long?"
Max looked at him like the question was incomprehensible. "Charles. We have known each other since we were twelve. I have had twelve years to learn what you sound like."
Charles opened his mouth. He closed it. He realized he did not have a response to this. Max had not said it as a romantic declaration. Max had said it the way he said everything: factual, straightforward, entirely devoid of pretense. This somehow made it worse. If Max had tried to be smooth about it, Charles could have deflected. But Max had simply stated a truth, and the truth was that Max Verstappen had spent twelve years cataloging the sound of Charles Leclerc walking, and he had not considered this unusual enough to mention until a reporter asked.
"Okay," Charles said. His voice came out a little strange. "Okay. Fine. Maybe my footsteps are different."
"Yes," Max said. "I know."
"But I could still surprise you. There must be something you cannot notice."
Max tilted his head. The gesture was curious rather than challenging. "Do you want to keep trying?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I will be in the Red Bull hospitality later. You can try again."
"I will succeed."
"You will not," Max said, and went back to his phone.
Charles spent the afternoon considering his options.
Footsteps were out. Max had apparently spent more than a decade memorizing Charles's gait, which was either deeply flattering or deeply creepy depending on how Charles chose to look at it, and he had not yet decided which interpretation he preferred.
He could not disguise his appearance. The paddock was not large enough for him to approach from an unexpected angle. Max had apparently developed some kind of sixth sense specifically calibrated to Charles Leclerc.
But there was one variable Charles had not yet controlled for.
Scent.
He was an Omega. He had scent glands on his wrists and his neck, same as every other Omega in the paddock. He wore scent blocking patches during race weekends because the FIA had rules about that sort of thing, and because walking around smelling like an unbonded Omega in a paddock full of Alphas was not something Charles particularly enjoyed. The patches were medical grade. They were supposed to be impenetrable.
But Max was an Alpha. Max's nose was good. Charles had learned this the hard way during their first year together, when Max had identified every single time Charles had been stressed or sad or angry without Charles having to say a word. It was inconvenient. It made hiding things impossible. Charles had accepted this as the cost of dating someone whose primary love language was noticing things.
The patches worked. They had to work. Charles had put fresh ones on this morning.
He went to find Max.
Max was in the Red Bull hospitality unit. Or rather, Max was outside the Red Bull hospitality unit, sitting at one of the outdoor tables with GP and a laptop between them. The sliding glass door was open. Charles could see the interior of the hospitality area, the Red Bull logos on every surface, the energy drink fridges humming quietly against the walls.
Charles could not enter. He knew this. Everyone knew this. The rules about team spaces were strict and enforced, and Charles had no desire to cause an incident over something so stupid.
He stood at the edge of the Red Bull area, where the ground changed from neutral paddock to Red Bull territory. The boundary was invisible but absolute, a line Charles had learned not to cross when he was twelve years old and trying to steal Max's cap as a prank.
Max had his back to him. Again. The man had terrible spatial awareness for someone with allegedly superhuman senses.
Charles checked his wrist patches. Intact. He checked his neck patches. Also intact. He had showered this morning with unscented soap. He was wearing clean clothes. He had not been near anything that could give him away.
He started walking.
He did not try to be quiet this time. The point was not silence. The point was whether Max could identify him without hearing his footsteps, which meant Charles needed to walk like someone else. He tried to mimic Lando's bouncy stride, the way the McLaren driver practically skipped when he walked. It felt ridiculous. It probably looked ridiculous. But Charles was committed.
He got within five meters.
Four meters.
Three.
Max held up one hand without turning around. The gesture was lazy, almost bored. It was the hand signal equivalent of a goalkeeper catching a ball with one glove while checking his phone with the other.
"Charles," Max said. "You smell like Charles."
GP looked up from the laptop. He squinted at Charles, then at Max, then back at Charles. "He's wearing patches. I can't smell anything."
Max did not turn around. "He always wears patches. It does not matter."
Charles stopped walking. "I am wearing fresh patches. I put them on an hour ago. There is no way you can smell me."
"Not through the patches," Max said. He still had not turned around. "Around them. The patches cover your glands. They do not cover your skin. You have been walking around the paddock all day. Your scent is in your clothes and your hair and everything you have touched. It is not strong. It is very faint. But I know what you smell like."
GP was looking at Max with the expression of a man who had worked with someone for nine years and was still discovering new reasons to be concerned about them. "Mate," GP said. "That's a bit intense."
Max shrugged. "She asked."
"She?" Charles said.
"The reporter. She asked how I knew. I told her. Now you are asking. I am telling you. I do not understand why this is a big discussion."
Charles walked the remaining three meters and sat down at the table. He had not been invited. He did not care. GP looked at the boundary line on the ground, looked at Charles sitting firmly in Red Bull territory, and apparently decided this was above his pay grade because he closed the laptop and stood up.
"I'm going to go check the data," GP said. "Charles. Good luck with whatever this is."
"Thank you," Charles said.
GP left. Charles and Max were alone, or as alone as two people could be in a paddock where several hundred journalists and team personnel and cameras were circulating within shouting distance.
"You can smell me from three meters away," Charles said. "Through scent blockers."
"Yes."
"That is not normal."
Max finally turned around. His expression was calm. It was the same calm he had worn during the interview, during the first confrontation, during the second. Max Verstappen did not get flustered. Max Verstappen stated facts and waited for the rest of the world to catch up.
"I am an Alpha," Max said. "You are my Omega. I have been paying attention to you for twelve years. Why would I not know what you smell like?"
Charles opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
The word "my" was doing something complicated to his chest. Max had said it casually, like an obvious fact, like saying the sky was blue or the RB21 had understeer. My Omega. Not possessive in the way that people warned Omegas about. Just certain. Just sure. Just twelve years of attention compressed into two words.
"You are doing it again," Max said.
"Doing what?"
"Overthinking. I can see it on your face. You are trying to decide if you should be offended that I called you my Omega or if you should be flattered that I can smell you through scent blockers. You do not need to decide either of these things. It is just true. You are my Omega. I can smell you. These are facts."
"Facts do not make people's chests feel weird," Charles said.
Max's expression flickered. It was the briefest shift, a crack in the calm surface. "Your chest feels weird?"
"In a good way. I think. I am still deciding."
"Okay," Max said. He reached out and took Charles's wrist, the one with the scent patch. His thumb pressed against the edge of the patch, not peeling it back, just touching the skin beside it. "You do not need to test me, Charles. I will always know it is you."
Charles looked at Max's hand on his wrist. Max's hands were broader than his, the fingers thicker, the grip precise. Racer's hands. Hands that had been steering karts when they were children, when Charles had hated Max Verstappen with the pure burning fire of a twelve year old who kept coming second.
"I did not hate you," Max said.
Charles blinked. "What?"
"When we were young. You said once that we really hated each other. I did not hate you."
Charles remembered saying that. It had been in an interview years ago, some documentary about their karting rivalry. He had said it lightly, the way people always talked about old grudges that no longer mattered. He had not thought Max was paying attention. Max was always paying attention.
"You beat me in the world championship," Charles said. "I was fifteen. I cried. My father had to carry me back to the hotel."
"I know," Max said. "I saw."
"You saw me cry?"
"I saw your father carrying you. You had your face hidden in his shoulder. I wanted to say something but I did not know what to say. I was fifteen also. I was not good at talking."
Charles tried to picture this. Fifteen year old Max Verstappen, world champion, watching his rival be carried away in tears. Max's face in Charles's memory had always been triumphant. Now he wondered if he had remembered wrong.
"I did not hate you either," Charles said quietly. "I was just angry. You were better than me. I did not like it."
"You are still angry when I am better than you."
"That is different. Now I love you. Then I did not."
Max's thumb moved against Charles's wrist, a slow back and forth motion. "Now you love me," he repeated. "So the anger is different."
"Yes."
"How is it different?"
Charles thought about it. He thought about crossing finish lines behind Max, the specific frustration of seeing that blue car ahead of him, the knowledge that the person beating him was also the person who would find him after the race and check him for injuries and ask if he wanted to get dinner.
"It is warmer," Charles said. "It does not feel like losing. It feels like we are both winning and you just won first."
Max was quiet for a moment. The paddock continued around them, people walking past, engines starting in the distance for some support series practice session. No one looked at them. No one noticed the Alpha holding his Omega's wrist in the open air.
"That is a good way to say it," Max said. "We are both winning."
"I still wish I won more."
"I know. You will."
Charles looked up. Max was watching him with that steady blue gaze, the one that had not changed since they were children. Max had always looked at him like this, Charles realized. Even when they were supposed to be enemies. Even when Charles was crying in his father's arms. Max had been watching, and paying attention, and filing information away for twelve years.
"You are very strange," Charles said.
"Yes," Max said. "You have told me this many times."
"Because it is true. You have spent twelve years memorizing my footsteps and my scent and you did not think to mention this until a reporter asked."
"It did not seem important to mention. It is just something I know."
Charles laughed. The sound surprised him. It surprised Max too, from the way his eyes widened slightly.
"You are laughing," Max said.
"Yes. Because I tried to sneak up on you three times and I failed every time and I have just realized I was never going to succeed because you have turned me into a science experiment."
"A science experiment."
"You have studied me. I am a subject in the Max Verstappen Institute of Charles Leclerc Research."
Max's mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. "That is a very long name for an institute."
"I am workshopping it."
"You do not need to workshop it. I will always know it is you. That is the whole point."
Charles turned his hand over in Max's grip, lacing their fingers together. The paddock could see them now. Charles did not care. The paddock had seen them do worse things. The paddock had seen Pierre walk into a glass door last year. Nothing could embarrass Charles more than that.
"If I shaved my head," Charles said, "and wore different shoes, and walked backward, and doused myself in Lando's terrible cologne, would you still know?"
Max considered this. "Probably. Lando's cologne is very strong. You would smell terrible."
"I would smell like Lando."
"That is what I said."
Charles grinned. He felt light. He felt strange. He had spent an entire day trying to prove his boyfriend was wrong about something and instead he had proven that his boyfriend had been paying attention to him for over a decade in ways Charles had never even noticed.
"I give up," Charles said. "You win. You will always know it is me."
"Yes," Max said. "I have been trying to tell you this."
"You could try telling me things more often. Instead of just knowing them silently."
Max tilted his head. The gesture was thoughtful. Charles could see him processing the request, filing it away, adding it to the collection of information about Charles Leclerc that he had been building since childhood.
"Okay," Max said. "I will try."
"That is all I ask."
"I know," Max said. "I pay attention."
Charles squeezed his hand. "I know you do. That is also the whole point."
Max looked at their joined hands. He looked at Charles's face. He did the checking thing again, the head to toe sweep, but this time it was slower. This time it was not looking for damage.
"You are happy," Max said. "Right now. I can tell."
"How can you tell?"
"Your scent changed. Even through the patches. It is sweeter when you are happy."
Charles felt his face grow warm. "You are going to make me put on more patches."
"You can put on as many patches as you want. I will still know."
"The journalists are going to ask more questions. After they see this."
Max shrugged. The gesture was the same one he had used in the interview, definitive and complete. "Let them ask. I will give them the same answer."
"That my footsteps are different."
"That I have been paying attention for twelve years. That I know what you sound like and what you smell like. That you are my Omega. Those are the facts."
Charles looked at him. Max looked back. Around them the paddock kept moving, drivers walking to briefings, engineers running last minute checks, the machinery of a Formula One weekend grinding forward as it always did. Charles was sitting in Red Bull territory holding hands with a four time world champion. He had qualifying in two hours. He had a championship to fight for.
He did not want to move.
"If I tried to sneak up on you again next week," Charles said, "would it work?"
"No."
"Next month?"
"No."
"Next year?"
"Charles," Max said, and now the smile was real, small but unmistakable, the smile that only Charles ever got to see. "It will never work. I will always know it is you."
"That is very romantic but also very inconvenient for me."
"I know," Max said. "That is why I like it."