“Was it enough?”
A crackle of radio after the fastest lap in Singapore hangs in the air like a death pronouncement. One final moment in the cockpit, and it’s done. 13 years given, everything left out on the track.
“Was it enough?”
One single lap to end it all. The fastest, for one final dance.
One point taken away, from the team that took everything from him.
It’s quiet. The man who is larger than life, the brilliance of Formula One, the last of the late breakers sits in the cockpit and savours the moment for the last time.
A career that has been filled with laughter, champagne and the roar of engines ends quietly under the Marina Bay lights. Not a sound from the team that claimed to be family, not a word from the man who told him to come home only to toss him out two years later. Red Bull’s prodigal son returned home, and realized that home had changed.
Is it fair? The man who gives everything, broken bones and skin stretched over teeth too widely, has been thrown out for someone shiny and young. Not once, but twice. Kept smiling through it all, and maybe hoped that one day, it will hurt a little less.
A kid from Perth burst into the paddock with all his crooked teeth and curly hair, and instantly charmed the world with his smile. The cutthroat world of Formula One is not prepared for someone to be so kind, so genuine, so positive. He smiles, and the whole world is entranced. The personality that changes everything and the inherent goodness that runs so deep is captivating, and everyone wants more. “I’m Daniel Ricciardo, and I’m a car mechanic.” The world of motorsports stops and stares.
257 races. 8 wins. 32 podiums. It’s a career than most would dream of. Many have come, many have gone. None have changed the trajectory of this old money, uptight sport like he has. An infectious laugh that rang through the paddock week after week chipped away at the rigidity of sports media. Many racers are extraordinary, but not like this. To be known is to be loved, and there is none more beloved than Daniel Ricciardo.
“Was it enough?”
The silence rings out under the track floodlights.
Yes, the world answers. It was enough. It was everything.
Thank you, Daniel.
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LISTEN. If we get a bisexual!Buck arc, I will ACTUALLY LITERALLY CRY, I’m already emotional just thinking about it, it will literally bring me so much joy
BUT
I don’t want it at the expense of an Eddie coming out arc…
Bc listen, I read a post talking abt how the writers probably won’t give both of them a really flushed out Queer Realization Arc bc it would be redundant, which like, okay sure, yes, I can see why you wouldn’t want to have two main, male characters going through the exact same thing, so sure, whatever, BUT -
I feel like, out of Buddie, Eddie is going to be the one that really struggles with coming to terms with his sexuality.
Eddie, who had to be The Man Of The House at 10 years old. Eddie, who grew up in the Deep South. Eddie, whose family is Catholic. Eddie, who already had a strained relationship with his judgmental parents. Eddie, who had a WIFE. Eddie, who says that what he had with Shannon was magic & compares every relationship he had to her. Eddie, who was in the military, which is infamous for DADT. Eddie, whose aunt constantly pushes him at random women because he needs to not be alone. Eddie, who canonically suffers from comp-het, saying that dating women feels like putting on a performance, not that he understands why. Eddie, who dated Ana & was planning on staying with her, even though he was unhappy, for his son.
I think Buck would be way chiller with realizing he’s queer - if he doesn’t already know, which is my fav head-cannon - & I feel like he wouldn’t struggle as much bc it’s Eddie, & Eddie is his best friend, and gender wouldn’t play as big a part for him as I think it would for Eddie.
I would love for them both to have an arc where they worked through their expectations when it comes to relationships & realize that they’re queer, but idk man, I feel like Eddie is going to be the one to really struggle & he deserves to really have that flushed out.
Idk, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw that post & nobody I know watches 9-1-1 😭
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I need to you guys to stay with me and imagine Adrien Agreste experimenting with what to wear after he quits modeling but being hopelessly lost on where to start so, after much consideration, he gets the brilliant idea to mimic his friends clothing aesthetics.
So naturally one week he’s wearing a backwards cap and baggy jeans in an attempt to mimic Nino who is ecstatic and another he’s wearing a lot of flannel which makes Alya roll her eyes and another him and Marinette are practically twins much to his delight until she gently tells him he only likes it because they are matching and he should probably keep looking until he finds something that is his own.
But instead he just keeps on mimicking classmate after classmate until he runs through them all and he starts talking to Kagami who’s figuring things out herself and doesn’t provide much to go off of and he settles on wearing suits until someone mistakes him for Felix.
So then he decides to move on from people and starts to look on Pinterest at Marinette’s suggestion and he copies the outfits down to a science but why does everything STILL feel not right? He decides it’s the website so he moves on and copies what he sees in magazines and in ads and it feels a little better but he also feels a little sick when he does it and why isn’t anything right and he’s twisting the ring on his finger so much it’s leaving a mark and hes pacing around the mansion and it has so many portraits and his dad is in all of them and why is he suddenly getting the feeling nothing he puts on will ever be right and why in the world does this stupid ring feel so heavy.
And so after a month of experimenting, he gets up in the morning one day and decides to try on the outfit he always used to wear and attempts to do his grown out hair the old way and looks in the mirror and stares at himself for a while. He slips on his sneakers and then the door rings and he heads downstairs to meet Marinette for school. As they’re walking he is still trying to decipher what he feels and he suddenly realizes that his dad would like this outfit a lot. He smiles to himself and tells Marinette and she smiles weakly and says she supposes he would and then avoids his eyes.
Adrien feels that familiar twist in his stomach that tells him something isn’t right, but when he tries to reflect on why that would be he’s only met with the same fuzzy memories of his father that he can’t quite sort out. He wonders if that’s where the unease comes from but then he shakes his head because those memories must be good because his father died a hero.
And so he wears the same outfit he always wore, ignoring the fact it feels a little too tight on him and that it makes his new ring feel heavier than ever.
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ronance yearning hours
Mornings like this are becoming Nancy’s favourite thing, with the rising sun painting the room in golden light that always, always lands on Robin, who usually sleeps long past sunrise when she can. Nancy lets her; there’s nowhere for her to go anyway on this slow Saturday morning in Steve’s house, and the boys will only wake in an hour or so.
Nancy has taken to using that time to watch the picture of absolute serenity that is a sleeping Robin, with her cheek smushed into the pillow and her hair falling over her face in a way that never fails to make Nancy smile.
It also never fails to make her fingers twitch, itching to reach out and brush that hair behind her ear and see if her cheek is as smooth to the touch as it looks.
It gets stronger, this urge, with every slow Saturday morning that she wakes in the same bed as her. The journalist inside her wants to find a better word for it, a stronger one, to avoid repetition and ensure clarity. But all the words are big and carry implications for which Nancy is not yet ready.
She refuses to call it longing, this need inside her to touch and linger. She refuses to call it yearning, the way she looks forward to Friday nights at Steve’s with Robin and Eddie, or the way it fills her chest with excitement and giddiness just to think about sharing a bed and waking next to her and watching as all the things that overwhelm Robin on a daily basis are held off for at least another hour yet.
What’s in a word? she’ll scoff when it comes to interviews and articles and hours of agonising over sentence structure and synonyms.
But it’s on mornings like this that she realises that some words require bravery and tenderness rather than simple contemplation and calculation. Some words take time.
Beside her, Robin sighs quietly in her sleep, and Nancy shuffles closer. Because if she can’t be brave with words yet, not even with herself, she can at least be closer.
Using the momentum of a moment unguarded, her right hand comes up before she can stop it, finding a home on Robin’s cheek as she slowly, reverently brushes the hair out of her face and behind her ear. Her touch is light, fingertips ghosting over soft, warm skin — and feeling that softness upon her touch, she wonders if falling in love with Robin would be just as soft, just as gentle; just as warm.
Not a second later, Nancy pulls her hand away as if burned, her heart racing in her chest as if it were signalling her to run, you should be running, i’m racing like you’re running for your life before you’re caught and found out. Nancy balls her hand into a fist and scoots further back on the bed, feeling a heaviness inside her chest that has only been there for a few of these mornings. A fear. A panic.
Because terrible things happen when Nancy Wheeler wonders about love and touch and tenderness. And worse things still, because it’s not supposed to be like this. Not with Robin.
So she stays on her side of the bed, watching the sun dance along Robin’s skin, her hand still warm, the ghost touch of Robin’s soft cheek still present. And she watches, hand cradled to her chest to stop herself from reaching out again. She watches and wonders if maybe she should start using bigger words, because the pit in her chest is growing larger with every passing second and she needs something to fill it.
~*~
It happens again the next week. And the week after that. It seems like the first time broke something in Nancy, or maybe it came alive, but either way she can’t really stop reaching for Robin now. And her repertoire of words is growing with each Saturday morning, too. Longing, aching, yearning — they are classics. But there’s basking, too. Hoping, wishing, and imagining. God, does she imagine.
She imagines Robin’s lips turning up into a smile with Nancy’s hand on her cheek, she imagines her hand coming up to capture Nancy’s and just holding it. Or an image that makes her heart race again: kisses brushed to her knuckles. Or her lips.
She imagines, and she wishes, and she longs. But there’s also belonging. In fact, there’s a whole novel Nancy feels she could write in those early morning hours. A thousand pages dedicated to all the words that exist around Robin Buckley. Words that live inside Nancy; that part is important.
Four weeks have passed and the feelings have only grown stronger, developed more words that will forever remain between her and the morning sun. And Nancy can’t stop herself from trailing the back of her finger along smooth, warm skin, the touch too light to disturb the sleeping beauty.
Sleeping Beauty, who stills and stiffens minutely, but Nancy is too mesmerised to notice until it’s too late.
“You’ve gotta stop this,” Robin whispers, her voice hoarse from sleep, and Nancy’s heart leaps out of her chest in panic and embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she whispers, pulling her hand back toward her chest. She’ll explain. Robin had something on her face that Nancy brushed away, that’s all. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s—
“Or I’ll fall madly in love with you if you don’t.”
Oh. Oh?
Oh.
Nancy swallows as her thesaurus dissolves and all words escape her. She blinks. Robin’s eyes are still closed but there’s a shadow of a smile on her lips, dimpling the skin that Nancy caressed just seconds ago.
There is the chance to just ignore that this ever happened, with Robin not looking at her, not making this moment real yet, on the brink of sleep and wakefulness. All she’ll have to do is wait. It’s the best chance she’s ever going to get, to forget about all this and get over it. Over her. Over whatever she has been building inside herself under the light of the rising sun over the past weeks.
All she’d have to do is remain still and silent and wait for Robin to fall back asleep.
But there was something about big words and bravery, and even though her thesaurus has left her and the thousand pages of things to feel, to say, to do, to think around Robin have torn themselves up because they were bleak and bland and not enough, Nancy feels brave on this particular morning.
Because the world hasn’t ended yet in all those weeks that she’s been thinking about Robin. In fact, the world has stopped ending since she started seeing Robin for who she is. And in a world where bravery is not about surviving, it is always about love.
And maybe that’s what she feels, maybe that’s what she wants, what she allows herself to want when she lays her hand on Robin’s cheek to caress the softest skin and gently comb back the strands of hair that are threatening to fall back over her face again. Her beautiful face that’s pulling up into a smile now — and Nancy is not imagining it. In fact, she’s smiling, too. She’s smiling so wide that a tiny little laugh bubbles past her lips.
Robin scoots closer, eyes squinting open now, as if to make sure this is real. As if she’s feeling the same. As if she meant it, what she said just now.
Nancy swallows thickly when Robin tucks her head under her chin, her body curling into Nancy’s, finding one of her hands to hold it. She still feels too raw, too vulnerable, and she wants to ask. Wants to be sure. Wants it to be real.
“Five more minutes,” Robin says, already on her way back to a deep sleep. “And then we’ll talk about this. I’ll tell you all about this girl I like. Think she might like me back. And she’s so warm.” She buries a little deeper into her side to chase that warmth that is now filling her whole body.
And Nancy gasps out a laugh this time, a tiny one, gentle and tender and all those words that are slowly coming back to her now that Robin is curled into her side and holding her hand. Her free hand comes up to comb through Robin’s hair in steady motions to lull her back into a slumber.
“Sleep,“ she breathes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Robin hums, cuddling impossibly closer, and Nancy feels herself drifting off again, too. With a smile on her face. For the first time in years.
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