Faking it || Lando Norris LN

67

Sunday, French Grand Prix

Lando kept his head low as he exited the circuit yesterday. He'd almost ran out of the circuit after the qualifying session was over —too fidgety and impatient to get to his hotel room and watch Olivia's pole position interview and celebrations. He'd barely managed a P4. Lando's head had been too all over the place to fight for anything more than that, but maybe it had been the universe keeping him from the post-qualifying interviews, in which he would've lost his mind trying to hold back the desperation of congratulating Olivia in front of everyone.

Instead, he'd gotten out of the car, jumped out of his race suit, had a quick meeting, and headed to his car covering his face with a McLaren cap and a pair of his signature sunglasses perched over his nose. Lando hadn't even realized the one thing everyone in the McLaren garage kept whispering with amusement about.

It had been the first time he hadn't thrown a fit, or snapped at someone from the team after not getting pole position.

With time, the team had learned to warm up to Lando and his peculiarities —even if more than one crew member had angrily thrown their caps to the ground and threatened to quit after an unlucky encounter with him— but this had definitely caught all of them off guard. The few interactions they'd had with Lando this past month had softened them even more toward him. His struggle was undeniable, and even if the entire world relished staring at him with the morbid fascination of spectators waiting for a bomb to go off, Lando had yet to discover he had more than a handful of people staring at him with kindness, and wishing for him to be well.

After all, no one on the team could deny the surprise of the conclusion they'd come to realize through the eventful past months.

The hot-headed, recklessly cold, reigning Formula 1 World Champion had a heart.

Which was only more reason for everyone at their side of the garage to feel their stomach drop and their skin go cold after what followed.

The McLaren Lounge was almost empty. With the race being only a couple hours away, most of the people in orange uniforms were busy bustling in and out of their garage. Clara and Lando were sitting at one of the tables inside the almost empty McLaren Lounge when Max burst through its doors. His face was flushed red and his lungs were short of breath as he eyed the place quickly before running to their table.

"Adam's here," he rushed the words out. "Your dad's here, I-I just saw him. H-He's in the paddock, and he's coming here. I ran here as fast as I could as soon as I saw him."

Clara quickly jolted from her seat. Lando's face had gone white as a ghost's while Clara's fight mode kicked in immediately.

"Where's Zak? Let's call security. Lando you should get inside the bathroom. How far away is he—?" Her words were fast but were quickly interrupted by Lando and his unmoving body.

"Don't move," he said. His eyes were glued to the wall, but they seemed to be looking much further. "Don't call anyone. Don't say anything."

Lando took a deep breath before standing up because, even if he knew less about his own dad than he knew about any random crew member, he'd still been raised by him. His best friends knew what Adam's reason could be to show up unannounced at the paddock, but they couldn't even begin to decipher what he was here for.

And Lando knew it perfectly.

"I need you two to trust me and get out of my way for thirty seconds. No less," Lando commanded as he rose from his seat, willing the color back into his face even though his skin was still icy and cold. "No asking questions. No jumping in."

Max and Clara were now the ones whose color had drained from their faces.

"I just need you two to make sure Olivia doesn't see any of it," Lando swallowed as he unzipped his race suit. It's better if you don't either — he wanted to say as well. "Jones say anything yet?"