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kingofthecotas · 2 months ago

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find tomorrow with you

5 times valentino suggests they get married and 1 time marc does | 2.4k words

5+1 is a fun and whimsical format that we should use more often

–––

It’s not the first time Marc has been to Tavullia since Valentino decided his life was infinitely better when they spoke—and, indeed, fucked—but today is the first time he truly seems comfortable.

Pecco being here is helping, helping soothe the agitation that is all Bez’s, helping to be a friendly face—and Luca, if he weren’t finding it all so funny, would be helping as well. Marc is smiling, talking, laughing—and he isn’t dragging his feet as they all get ready to ride. That’s the crux of it, the load-bearing pillar that crumbled their first time around.

Not this time. They won’t let it.

(Not ever again, Valentino won’t let that happen ever again. He won’t do that to Marc ever again.)

It’s never polite when they race at the ranch. It’s animalistic, all friendship abandoned at the archway that marks the start of the track, screeching under helmets as they tear around corners and dive into the side of opponents. No quarter. No prisoners.

Naturally, Marc, now he’s comfortable, is perfectly suited to this kind of all-out warfare.

(He’s terrifying. Valentino is entranced. He loves him.)

It happens after about an hour, all of them hot and tired but no one willing to throw a white flag. Marc goes for the lead, throws it up the inside of Bez, and outbrakes himself. He skids to the edge of the track, where his front tyre finally surrenders, and he’s sliding through dirt, one leg dragged with the bike.

Even over the growl of two-stroke engines, Valentino can hear Bez’s, “Oh shit.”

He pulls to the side of the track, kicks the peg-stand down with a practiced ease that covers his panic, because Marc is staggering away from under his bike, is collapsing on his back, shoulders shaking, and what if he’s hurt—?

“Marc?”

Marc is cackling like a maniac, leathers dusted white, one hand over the part of his helmet where his forehead would be—even Bez can’t stop himself laughing in return.

Valentino kneels beside him, pushes his visor up. Then he pushes Marc’s open, too.

“You idiot,” he says, slow and deliberate, yet without sting.

Marc laughs harder. “That was fun!”

Valentino leans down, helmets almost touching. “I am going to divorce you.”

Bez chokes on his giggle.

Marc doesn’t miss a beat, eyes still smiling at Vale through his visor. “You have to marry me to do that.”

“I will marry you,” Valentino agrees, “and then I will divorce you.”

Marc laughs again.

——

ii.

Valentino’s phone alarm goes off at 5:45, fifteen minutes to spare before lights out, and he stifles a groan, rolls away from Marc. Marc does not appreciate being woken up before seven on a Sunday.

(He knows that. He loves that he knows that.)

Qualifying had been hairy, drizzling but not completely wet. It should be a dry race, though, and he settles himself on the sofa downstairs just in time for the broadcast to start scrolling through the starting grid. Kimi had done well, and he smiles.

There’s a noise in the doorway: Marc, a hoodie thrown over his bare chest, eyes heavy.

“Good morning,” Valentino says, raspy. “Did I wake you up?”

“Who has a race at this time?” Marc grumbles.

“They are in Japan,” Valentino says, and lets Marc crawl into the space next to him, tired and clumsy with it. “Now you know what it is like when I am watching you in Japan, or Malaysia, or Australia.”

Marc groans in the back of his throat.

“You could go back to bed.”

“You’re not there.” Unfocused eyes peering over the top of his hoodie, Marc glares at the screen, seemingly unaware that he’s just curled something warm and tender around Valentino’s ribs. “Who are we cheering for?”

“Ah, your friend Carlos managed only twelfth. It is Piastri and Verstappen at the front—Kimi is there in fourth, you see? And the Ferraris in fifth and sixth—always we want them to do well. Lando had a penalty, so he is seventh, but the McLaren should be fast here.”

They’re pulling away for the formation lap, weaving to warm their tyres. Marc watches, focused as ever, until he yawns. Valentino shushes him.

“They are not even racing,”

“They are explaining the strategy.”

Lights out. Clean start. Marc is watching more intently now, undivided attention, check pressed against Valentino’s arm.

Ten laps in, Gasly dives down the inside of Ocon, and they’re both spinning off into grass and gravel; embarrassing but harmless, enough to bring out the safety car. Valentino pulls himself free and goes to make coffee.

Marc is barely visible beneath the throw when he returns, dark eyes glaring balefully at the television like it’s offended him personally, but he softens when Valentino hands him a mug.

“You are the best,” he mumbles, then, “At making coffee.”

Valentino laughs—once, he might have bristled at the harmless joke—and slides back into his spot between Marc and the sofa arm. Marc thumps his head down, somehow burying himself even deeper in his swaddling of blanket and hoodie and Valentino.

It’s—it’s something they never would have imagined, even two years ago. It’s gentle, early Sunday mornings wrapped around each other; the kind of softness that shouldn’t be possible after years of tearing each other apart, digging in fingers and pulling until they drew blood.

Valentino doesn’t ever want to go there again. He doesn’t ever want to lose this.

Marc is breathing softly against his arm, still, quiet, perfect.

“I want to marry you,” he murmurs.

Silence. His stomach drops.

Marc’s inhale catches in the back of his throat, halfway to a snore, and Valentino laughs, gentle so he doesn’t wake him. He plucks the coffee cup, dangling precariously, from slack fingers, and places it on the side table.

——

iii.

They’ve created a routine over the past few months.

(Valentino’s stomach jumps every time he thinks about it, thinks about how they’re falling into habits, into familiarity. Every time, he smiles.)

It’s their last day together for a while: Marc is leaving later, and Valentino flies early in the morning to get to his GT race. But the routine doesn’t change. He’s making lunch for them. Marc is upstairs—his phone had rung, insistent, and he’d groaned but pulled away, leaving Valentino to chop the rest of their salad.

Marc emerges after nearly twenty-five minutes, eyebrows pinched together, but accepts the plate Valentino slides towards him with a distracted smile.

“Everything okay?” Valentino asks.

“Ah, my accountant.” Marc scowls. “Apparently I am spending too much time in Italy.”

Valentino can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of his chest.

“It’s not funny,” Marc says, almost whines. “It’s a tax thing. Between all the time I spend here, and time at the factory—not enough in Spain, apparently.”

Shrugging, Valentino taps one finger on the table. “We could get married.”

Marc snorts. “Would that help?”

“I don’t know. I am very bad to ask about tax advice, remember?”

“Me too.” Marc stabs a piece of his salad—viciously, in Valentino’s opinion.

“Don’t frown. It will be okay.”

“I can hide here. It is difficult for you to be in Madrid.”

“It will be okay,” Valentino repeats. “And remember, we can always get married.”

He thinks he deserves it when Marc throws a slice of bread at him.

——

iv.

Clouds hang heavy on the mountains in Spielberg, threatening rain but holding off for now. Valentino leaves Luca with a last pat on the shoulder, weaving his way up the grid towards Franky’s starting spot.

It’s slow going, stopped every few steps, shaking hands with people he recognises, people he doesn’t.

“Valentino—Valentino!”

It’s Laverty, and Valentino doesn’t mind that because he doesn’t tend to ask stupid questions. He indulges the interview, long past acceptance of the fact that he built his own mythos and will never be left alone for the rest of his life. Yes, he’s doing well, thank you. Yes, it’s nice to be on the grid. Yes, he’s proud of his boys. Yes, he’s still enjoying racing with BMW.

“And a final question,” Michael says. “You seem like you and Marc Márquez have finally buried the hatchet. Is everything put to bed? How did you manage it?”

Maybe Michael Laverty does ask stupid questions.

Perhaps he should have been expecting it, because clasping hands before a race, sharing a smile under the podium—people notice. Especially when the norm used to be nothing at all, or worse.

“Ah, you know.” He has plenty of shields for the media, and it’s no problem to pull out an old favourite. “We talked. Dinner with candles. It is all going very well. Maybe soon we get married.”

Michael laughs, loud and boisterous, like Vale hasn’t just wrapped up the truth in a pretty package and presented it as a joke. He smiles, camera-easy, and returns Michael’s ciao.

It’s only when he turns around that he realises Álex and Bez, lined up side-by-side on the grid, are staring at him.

——

Misano is hot, sweltering August-end heat. Valentino is sweating under his cap and sunglasses, pressed in a red throng of Ducati engineers. One-two. Red on red.

It’s Marc who’d won, victorious in the battle of weaving-turning-diving along long straights and through heavy-brake corners. Pecco had given him a good fight, an Italian classic of a race; he’s smiling at Marc, learning to enjoy the scrappy thrill of battle as well as the ease of a flawless win.

Marc’s shining, beaming at his team, smiling down the cameras, alive under the sun. Valentino swallows down the urge to kiss him, if only because their comms officers would kill them both.

The podium has never seemed so long. Media obligations have never seemed so long. It’s an age before they’re alone, motorhome door locked, and Valentino has Marc, to himself, finally.

He used to think Marc was too much for him, in danger of eclipsing him, their implosion inevitable as two brilliant stars orbited closer, closer, too close. Too much light for the world to handle.

If he met that version of himself now, Valentino thinks he would shake him.

Marc glows, yes, but there’s a brightness that only Valentino gets to see, one that erupts out in starbursts of ecstasy when they’re together, when Valentino is pushing inside him, when Marc is staring up at him like there’s nothing else in the world.

Valentino stops, earning a petulant glare; even that’s breathtaking. How—how—he can’t find the words.

“I think,” Valentino forces out, elbows taking his weight, “I want to marry you.”

Marc blinks, face suddenly cutting, incredulous. “You are telling me this now?” He’s a livewire, crackling with sparks, hot with triumph, shooting static through Valentino’s skin. He’s beautiful. Valentino wants to see this for the rest of his life, so yeah, he’s saying it now.

He tilts his hips, and the disbelief is gone, washed away as Marc gasps. It’s something like reverence now—but not how it used to be. Nothing that Valentino could shatter this time, even though he still wants to hold it close.

Contrary as always, Marc winds fingers through his hair, pulls him down for a breathless kiss—and Valentino smiles into it, because he can do this, he can have this effect on Marc, still. Still.

“Vale—”

He’s helpless when it’s Marc. Still. Always.

When they’re finished, when they’re lying curled into each other, Valentino breathing heavy into Marc’s hair, Marc looks up, eyes narrowed.

“You did well today,” Valentino tells him softly, and the hard expression is gone once again, replaced with a different kind of wonder.

“Did you mean it?”

He knows what Marc means. “Yes.”

Marc nods. “Ask me again. Another time.”

It’s—Valentino smiles again. “That was not a no.”

——

It’s not a bad crash—it’s not, not by the metrics of this sport, not compared to what it could have been, what it has been in the past.

It’s not bad, but it could have been: Marc, bumped wide by Acosta, unable to save it, sliding helplessly through the corner apex—and Bez, unsighted, trying to avoid the recovering KTM, sailing past his braking point towards Marc, and almost—almost.

It’s not bad, but it was close, and when Marc is back in the paddock, when he’s speaking to cameras, when he’s with his engineers, there’s something wild about him, something faraway sitting behind his eyes, and Valentino knows. He knows.

(He still dreams, sometimes, of Austria; not of the crash, but the feeling of it, the prickle at the back of his skull, the cold finger-brush of something not right. The almost that he didn’t see coming.)

So he waits. Marc is settled enough, trusts him enough, to reach for him when he needs him. Valentino trusts Marc enough to let him.

The knock on his motorhome door comes long after the chequered flag has fallen. Valentino doesn’t get up, knows Marc will let himself in.

“Sorry. Pedro wanted to talk—I am not angry, but good he apologised.”

“That’s okay,” Valentino says, gentle.

Marc drifts, loose, unmoored, towards the sofa, folds his legs underneath him, presses into Valentino’s space. Valentino lets him, waits for him to speak.

Marc is shaking. Not a lot, just enough for Valentino to notice when he takes his hand.

“Okay?”

He’s not, of course he’s not, but it’s a door nudged ajar, an opening if Marc wants to take it.

“That was—close.”

“Yeah.”

“I was—watching the bike.” Marc swallows. “Just—that was all I could do. Watch it coming towards me.”

Valentino pulls their joined hands up, presses a kiss to the back of Marc’s.

Marc’s next exhale trembles in the space between them.

“You’re okay.”

“If Bez didn’t turn—”

If. Almost. “You’re okay,” Valentino says again, because he needs to hear it himself. Marc’s fingers clench in his. “Okay? Look, you are holding my hand. You’re okay.”

It won’t be long before Marc is through this, before he’s smiling, before he’s raring to climb on his bike again. Not yet, though. Valentino knows—he knows.

“We should get married,” Marc says abruptly.

“I have been saying—”

“Seriously.”

Valentino takes him in: pinched eyebrows; hair flattened from his Ducati cap; pursed lips. “I think I am offended, that you only ask me after today.”

Marc pulls his hand away, the laugh jolting out of him. “Valentino—”

“And you are asking me in a motorhome—really, I would have taken my hoodie off at least—”

“Vale,” Marc groans, but he’s there, he’s smiling, he’s back.

He can’t stop a smile twitching the corners of his lips in return. “Yes?”

“That was not a no.”

Valentino takes his hand again.

#quite possibly the most self indulgent thing i've ever written #offering it up to you like the lion king baby #domestic fluff! they think they're funny!#motogp rpf #rosquez #marc marquez #valentino rossi #academy boys as background characters #cara.fic #motogp fic #ftwy

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