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“You’re insane,” was the first thing Alex said when Marc picked up his phone.
“I know.”
There was a pause as his dear brother considered his answer.
“Is it all true?”
“The truest it’s been in twenty years.”
“Jesus, Marc. What the fuck,” his brother cursed in Catalan. Marc could hear the betrayal bleeding through but he couldn’t find it in him to care.
What had happened happened twenty years ago. And the person it’d affected most was not his brother Alex. It was Valentino Rossi. That was the only reaction he cared to hear right now.
“That’s fucked up.”
“Sure.”
“You fucking psychopath.”
“Yep.”
“You can’t hide from Ma.”
“Wasn’t going to.”
“Bye.”
Marc grunted in response and the line went dead. He pocketed his phone and found his way to the gate. If Valentino Rossi wasn’t going to come to him, he didn’t mind paying him a visit. It was the least he owed him.
Vale sat alone in the ranch farmhouse, sipping a hot coffee in the ridiculous Italian winter. It had never gotten this cold before.
He sat alone because he’d turned everybody away. Francesca, Uccio, his PR specialists, his friends. He needed to be alone. He was never alone these days. Everybody wanted something to do with him, especially after Marc Marquez’s insane TV appearance last week.
Tavullia teemed with activity. Reporters came by in droves, lifelong fans and supporters, and even some new fans, all came by the ranch, swarming the tracks, hoping to get a look at him, all wanting to ask him the same question: “How does it feel to be the hero? How does it feel to finally be the good guy?”
Vale had one answer and one answer only: “Fuck off.”
It didn’t fucking matter that Marc cleared his name. The shit he’d gone through, the shit they’d both gone through at the hands of the media and their fans was undoable. In fact, he’d watched the whole interview in horror.
Because all it did was dredge up memories of the past, memories of Vale insisting he was right, and being believed, until one day the narrative had suddenly flipped and Marc was the innocent one. Salt in the wound was Vale having to retire with only nine titles to his name while Marc was able to continue his career post-injury and beat him out eventually with eleven total.
Not that records mattered into their retirement. Legacy did.
At least Vale had invested into his academy. After being painted as the indisputable manipulator of the whole ordeal, he had nothing else but his academy, and he’d poured his everything into it. All his time, effort, and money went into keeping the academy running while promoting and training talented Italian riders with potential.
He kept as low of a profile as he could after he realized no amount of convincing he did in interviews would bring him back to public grace. After all, Marc was just a kid. What the fuck was he doing bullying a fucking kid?
Except Marc wasn’t. He was sharp as hell and it was a shame no one saw the truth besides Vale. Only he knew the cunning bastard behind it all.
So fuck everyone else. And fuck Marquez especially for bringing it up again when he’d finally gotten over it. When the world had already moved on.
The farmhouse seemed so large with just him in it. Most weekends, it was packed with young riders, filled with joy and cheer and indestructible optimism. Now, it was just Vale. He hasn’t felt this small in a while.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He usually left it unlocked. Thinking it was Francesca or Uccio coming back to get something they’d forgotten, he yelled, “Come in.”
The door opened.
Marc didn’t know what he would say to Vale. He ran over multiple scenarios in his head on the car ride to the ranch, rehearsing lines and predicting responses. In the end, he forgot it all and decided to wing it.
He knocked on the door to the house he hasn’t visited in longer than the last time he’d seen Vale and pushed it open when he heard him say ‘come in.’
Vale was alone. This was good. Better than he’d thought. Vale looked surprised to see it was him but didn’t comment.
Marc moved to sit across the table from Vale, keeping him within his sights. He looked older and wearier, like age had rounded him out. Marc probably looked the same, now in his mid-forties.
“Fuck you,” Vale said tiredly with no real heat, like he was just saying it to say it.
“I deserved that. Anything else you want to say to me?”
Vale stayed silent in protest that this man had come to his ranch, his home, his town, and invaded his senses once again.
“Fine, my turn,” Marc said easily. “Yes, everything I said was true, this time at least,” he said, answering the question Vale did not ask. “I deliberately fucked your last real chance for the title after Argentina. But it wasn’t because Lorenzo was Spanish. I just hated your guts.”
Vale snorted. So this was the uncensored version. Marc had kept it clean for the TV interview. What a treat.
“Now tell me. Did you kick me in Sepang?”
“What would change if I said yes?”
“Nothing,” Marc acquiesced. “But it’d sure as hell make me feel less guilty.”
Vale smirked. “In your dreams, Marquez. I guess you’ll never find out. It’s a pity you came all this way for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Marc hedged.
Vale raised his eyebrows, the wrinkles on his forehead more prominent than ever. Marc slid off the bench and walked over to Vale, motioning for him to stand up too. Vale did so carefully, after setting his coffee down the table.
“Wha-”
Marc’s hands found the sides of Vale’s face instinctively. He looked up, cursing his height, and found Vale’s clear blue eyes, having not dulled a single day since the last time he looked at them in real life and not through a screen or old photographs, although the rest of him had. Deeper eye bags, thick crow’s nest wrinkles, and thinning hair belied his true age.
“I came here for this,” Marc whispered before bridging the distance. He closed his eyes, trusting muscle memory to bring them together like it had a thousand times before.
Vale was stiff when Marc met his lips, his arms by his side. But slowly, as if trying to remember the way it was before, he rearranged them around Marc, settling his hands on his waist, thumbs brushing over the thick jacket material.
And then he kissed Marc back.
It was like no time had passed at all. It was just them, in the farmhouse, like the way they were twenty years ago. Young and full of ego. Full of hate. Full of jealousy. But also full of passion. Passion that rose like fire within them both, reminding them of what they thought they’d lost.
Because in the midst of the press disaster, of Lorenzo leading the championship, of rumors that Marc slowed Vale down in races intentionally, of fans spitting at Vale’s feet, of fans burning effigies of Marc, of Vale losing his last shot at the title, there had always been one constant: Each other.
How silly Vale was to think he could’ve moved on from it all. From this.
This was what he was hiding from. This was what he’d wanted to keep hidden. He was mourning this—the end of a book he’d thought had closed the moment Marc appeared on TV. The end of their bitter and famed rivalry. The end of them.
But Marc was here and he could hardly believe it. His fingers were tangled in his hair, close to his scalp, and it hurt a little bit, but the pain was good. It was the only thing that told him this was real and that Marc was really here—that it wasn't just another one of his daydreams.
“I hear you’re a hero now,” Marc murmured against Vale’s lips between kisses.
“No,” Vale whispered back, shaking his head. “Not heroes. Just us.”