🌸 Spring — The Beginning (Toro Rosso Days)
Where it all started: a sunshine boy meets a storm in the making.
Max Verstappen stepped into the Toro Rosso garage like he had something to prove.
Seventeen. Barely. Sharp tongue. Sharper talent. People whispered about him in corners, called him a prodigy, a hazard, a wild card. He ignored them. He had his eye on one thing: the track.
That’s when he happened.
Carlos Sainz Jr. The other rookie. His teammate. His shadow. His mirror.
Only Carlos was nothing like Max expected.
He smiled too easily. Talked to everyone, from mechanics to journalists to the old Italian woman who sold sandwiches across the paddock. He laughed at dumb jokes. He brought coffees to team meetings without being asked. He called Max "chico" in this affectionate way that made Max’s stomach do strange things.
At first, Max hated it.
It wasn’t personal. He just didn’t trust people who smiled that much.
But Carlos? Carlos was sunshine in racing boots. He was charm and fire and so much heart that it leaked into everything he did.
The engineers adored him. The fans loved him. Max wanted to bite him.
Or kiss him. Max wasn't quite sure which.
The Day That Changed Everything
It was a Thursday before the race in Bahrain. Max was brooding in the corner of the motorhome, earbuds in, jaw clenched, analyzing telemetry with the intensity of a sniper. Carlos slid into the seat beside him, grinning like they were about to watch a movie together.
"You're going to get wrinkles," Carlos teased, tapping Max's furrowed brow. “Relax a little.”
Max glared at him. "I don't care about wrinkles."
Carlos just smiled. "You should. You're too pretty to be angry all the time."
Max choked. “I’m not—”
“I’m just saying,” Carlos winked, nudging a smoothie toward him. “Vitamin C. It’s good for stress. And you look like you’re ready to punch a cloud.”
Max took it without thinking. Sipped it in silence. It was mango and something else—sweet. It annoyed him how good it tasted.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know,” Carlos interrupted, still smiling. “I wanted to.”
And then he left. Just like that. Leaving Max with a smoothie and a confused heartbeat.
Carlos started sitting next to Max during briefings. Always leaning in close to share a joke or a comment. Max never laughed—but his lips twitched sometimes. That was progress.
Carlos dragged him to team dinners. Made him dance once. Badly. Max nearly set fire to the dance floor with how stiff he was. Carlos laughed so hard, Max had to hide his smile in his drink.
When Max snapped at a journalist during a particularly awful media day, Carlos waited for him after, handed him a soda, and said, “You’re more than the headlines, you know.”
Max looked at him, blinked, and said the only honest thing he could manage.
“I don’t know why you’re so nice to me.”
Carlos shrugged. “Because someone has to be.”
Max didn’t reply. He couldn’t. His throat felt too tight.
It was in Melbourne. Carlos had qualified P8. Max had messed up and was down in P14. He expected Carlos to gloat. Or avoid him.
Instead, Carlos found him in the back of the hospitality, knee bouncing, chewing a straw.
Carlos sat across from him and said softly, “You were pushing too hard in Sector 2. You don’t have to drive angry, Max. You’re already fast.”
Max froze.
No one had ever said that to him. No coach. No engineer. No one.
Carlos just... saw him.
And in that moment, Max saw Carlos too. Really saw him.
Not just as a teammate.
Not just as competition.
But as something warm. Something rare. Something that made the air easier to breathe.
The paddock bloomed with flowers that season. And for the first time, Max noticed them.
Carlos taught him how to be human in a world of machines.
He offered Max peace in a world of speed. Smiles in the middle of pressure. And kindness when Max didn’t think he deserved it.
He was too good. Too kind. Too bright.
And Max? Max was falling.
He didn’t say it. Of course not. He barely even understood it. But he started looking for Carlos in every room, every track walk, every morning.
He didn’t believe in fate.
But he was starting to believe in Carlos Sainz Jr.
🍂 Autumn — The Turning Point
The colors were still warm, but the wind had changed.
They Were Not Teammates Anymore
Carlos had moved to McLaren. Max stayed in Red Bull.
It wasn’t like they could hang around each other much anymore. Different garages. Different motorhomes. Different energy altogether.
And yet, Max found himself looking.
On track walks. In paddock lounges. Across the chaos of media scrums. His eyes always sought Carlos out like they were tethered.
Carlos had cut his hair. Wore different colors. Smiled the same, though. Laughed at jokes Max couldn’t hear. Hugged people Max didn’t know.
And Max—he hated that he noticed.
He hated even more that Carlos didn’t seem to.
Autumn Was Orange and Jealousy
Max had never been the jealous type. Not really. But that changed the day he saw Carlos with another driver—laughing, leaning into conversation, hand casually brushing against a shoulder that wasn’t his.
Max felt it in his gut.
Burning.
Carlos had always been warm. He gave pieces of himself to everyone. But Max had convinced himself that his piece was bigger. Special.
Apparently not.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have the right to.
But that didn’t stop him from cold-shouldering Carlos the entire weekend in Singapore.
Carlos noticed.
He always noticed.
But he said nothing either.
So they drifted.
And the wind got colder.
It wasn’t a fight. Not officially. Just cold words, clipped replies, and tension thick enough to stall engines.
Max found Carlos waiting outside the Red Bull garage with two coffees.
Like old times.
Max didn’t take it.
“I don’t need charity.”
Carlos blinked, taken aback. “It’s coffee.”
“I’m not your pity project anymore, Carlos.”
That hurt Carlos in ways Max didn’t see.
“I never pitied you, Max.”
But Max had already walked away.
The coffee went cold in Carlos’ hands.
So did something inside his chest.
Autumn brought colder evenings, but the paddock party in Austin tried to fight it with music, alcohol, and artificial warmth.
Carlos looked ethereal under fairy lights. Max watched from the bar, jaw clenched, hands buried in his pockets.
Carlos danced with someone. Laughed. Tipped his head back and laughed so freely, Max felt it in his bones.
Max got drunk.
Very drunk.
Enough to corner Carlos in a quiet hallway and slur, “You forget about me so easily.”
Carlos didn’t laugh.
“I never forgot about you,” he whispered, voice rough. “You just stopped letting me see you.”
Max leaned in—desperate, hurt, wanting to say everything.
Carlos pulled away.
“You don’t get to kiss me when you’ve spent the last six months pretending I don’t exist.”
And with that, he walked away.
Max punched the wall.
After that night, Max stopped looking.
Or tried to.
But his eyes had already memorized the shape of Carlos' back. His laugh haunted the quieter hotel evenings. His cologne was embedded in the hoodie Max never wore but never packed away.
Autumn came with dying light and heavy hearts.
And Max was finally starting to realize:
He was in love.
Not with the idea of Carlos.
With Carlos.
But he’d let too many leaves fall. Said too little. Too late.
The air between them was brittle.
And Winter was coming.
❄️ Winter — The Avalanche
Max always thought he was good at driving in the cold. Turns out, he had no idea how to survive it.
The season changed, and with it, Carlos.
His smiles on TV stayed bright, his media answers still sweet and funny. But there was something different now. He was harder to reach, even through a screen. No more glancing across the paddock to find Max. No more texts after the race. Just... frost.
Max hated it.
More than that—he missed him.
Missed him in the way you miss oxygen when you’re drowning.
Max won in Bahrain.
He stood on the top step, champagne bottle in hand, confetti sticking to his fireproof suit.
And all he could think was: Carlos isn’t here.
Not in the crowd. Not in the garage beside his. Not even a text.
Lando sprayed him with champagne. Charles clapped him on the back. Max smiled for the cameras, but his eyes scanned the pit wall like a fucking idiot.
When he got back to his room that night, his phone was empty.
No Congrats.
No Proud of you.
Nothing.
He hadn’t realized how much those words had meant when Carlos used to say them after every race, even when he didn’t win.
Now? The silence screamed louder than any engine.
It was raining. The race was messy. So was Max’s brain.
Carlos had a DNF. Max had another podium.
He should’ve been thrilled.
Instead, he watched Carlos storm out of the car, rip his gloves off and disappear behind the screens.
Max followed him.
Didn’t even think.
He cornered him near the back hallway, helmet still in hand, chest heaving.
Carlos was soaked, pissed, beautiful in his fury.
“You okay?” Max asked, tentative.
Carlos scoffed. “Now you care?”
Max flinched. “I always cared.”
Carlos looked at him, really looked.
And then he laughed. Bitter, broken. “No, Max. You cared when it was easy. When I was cheering you on. When I brought you coffee. You cared until I needed you to do the same.”
Max swallowed the guilt like broken glass.
“I didn’t know how,” he said quietly.
Carlos turned to leave.
“I love you,” Max blurted.
Carlos stopped.
Silence.
Max stepped closer, voice cracking. “I’m in love with you. I think I have been since Toro Rosso. I just— I didn’t know what to do with it. I ruined everything.”
Carlos didn’t turn back. “You did.”
And walked away.
After that, Max spiraled.
He wasn’t angry.
He was empty.
His team noticed. His engineers noticed. The whole fucking grid noticed. He was driving like he wanted to crash.
Daniel pulled him aside during one of the driver briefings.
“You’re in love, and it’s eating you alive.”
Max didn’t deny it.
“So do something,” Daniel said. “Fix it. Before you lose him forever.”
Max didn’t sleep that night.
Didn’t race well in Monaco either.
But the moment the checkered flag fell, he didn’t go to the podium.
He went to the McLaren garage.
Carlos was standing there with Lando, going over data.
Max didn’t care who was watching.
He walked right up, pulled Carlos away by the sleeve and kissed him.
Hard.
Carlos pushed him back, wide-eyed.
Max didn’t care.
“I’m done running,” he said, chest rising and falling. “You’re it for me. I’ll say sorry every day for the rest of my life if I have to. I just need you to give me the chance.”
The paddock was dead silent.
Carlos blinked.
“You’re an idiot.”
Max nodded. “Yeah. But I’m your idiot if you’ll let me be.”
Carlos stared at him.
And then—he smiled.
Not the TV smile. Not the fake one.
The real one. The one Max had fallen in love with.
He tugged Max down by the collar and kissed him back.
Right there. In the cold.
🌸Spring Again — Love, Promised.
The day Max marries Carlos Sainz begins with silence.
Not the nervous kind. Not the anxious kind. But the soft, warm hush of dawn light through linen curtains, and birds chirping somewhere beyond the French countryside windows. It’s spring in Spain, technically. But they chose this vineyard, tucked on a hill in Mallorca, because it looked like where a fairytale might end—or begin.
Max wakes up first.
He doesn’t move at first. Just watches Carlos, whose mouth is slightly open as he breathes slow and deep, lashes soft against his cheeks, hair a little messy from the night before.
The ring box sits on the nightstand. Empty now.
Max had slipped it on Carlos’ finger when they were half-asleep the night before, after kissing his forehead and whispering, “Tomorrow, you’re mine. Officially.”
Carlos had whispered back, “I’ve always been yours.”
The Ceremony
There’s no grand audience. Only close family, friends, and a paddock of racers who never thought they'd cry over Max Verstappen in a tux, gripping the hands of a grinning Carlos Sainz like he might never let go.
Charles wipes his eyes behind his sunglasses.
Lando is already openly sobbing.
Daniel mutters, “Holy shit, it’s actually happening,” and passes tissues around.
Carlos walks down the short flower-lined aisle with his father, whose face is somewhere between pride and heartbreak. This was his baby boy, after all. Now someone else’s to take care of.
Max looks wrecked.
Not in a bad way. But in the I’m-so-in-love-I-might-explode way.
Carlos is glowing. In white. Light catching the subtle gold embroidery that Max had insisted on when they designed it together. The breeze carries the faint scent of orange blossoms and gardenias.
When they meet at the altar, neither one of them says anything for a moment.
Then Carlos, ever the soft one, whispers first.
“You’re not crying, are you?”
Max bites his cheek. “You’re blinding me.”
The officiant tries to speak, but Carlos and Max only have eyes for each other. Every word exchanged—I do, Always, Forever—feels like a secret only they can hear.
When they kiss, it’s not a dramatic dip or performative gesture.
It’s Max cradling Carlos’ face with both hands and holding him like he’s precious. It’s Carlos pulling him closer, whispering against his lips, “I knew it’d always be you.”
The Reception
It's not extravagant.
But it’s loud. Joyous. Messy in the best way.
Carlos dances with his sisters, spins Lando around until they’re both dizzy. Max clinks glasses with Sebastian Vettel, hugs his mum for a little too long, gets tackled by Daniel after the third glass of champagne.
Everyone’s tipsy on love.
Especially Max—who doesn’t let go of Carlos for more than ten minutes at a time.
They sneak away at some point. To a vineyard path lined with lanterns.
Carlos leans into Max’s side, drink in one hand, the other tucked into Max’s arm.
“Did you ever think we’d make it here?” he asks.
Max hums. “I didn’t think I’d deserve it.”
Carlos stops walking, turning to face him.
“You do. Every bit.”
They kiss under the moonlight. Max laughs into it, because he can feel Carlos’ wedding band against his cheek.
It’s real.
The Night
Later that night, the tux comes off slowly. Carefully.
Max kisses each fingertip as he undresses Carlos. Each shoulder. Each scar from racing, each freckle.
Carlos undresses him too, but with a grin, cheeks flushed.
“You’re not crying, are you?”
Max rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”
“Make me,” Carlos challenges.
Max does.
With hands and lips and whispered sweet nothings between kisses.
With a reverence like worship.
With all the softness he used to be too afraid to show.
And later, when Carlos is asleep on his chest, Max looks down at the man he now calls husband.
He brushes back a strand of hair and whispers,
“I love you in every season.
But I love you best in spring.”
.......
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