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2000
Marc is seven years old when he hears the name Valentino Rossi for the first time.
He had been riding for three years at that point, and it was already his life. He loved that bike more than he loved most things, and his mom always shook her head when he would dart out the door after school. She knew where he was headed. The other kids at school didn’t really understand why Marc seemed to prefer the company of machines over them, but it didn’t matter. He could fly, and they could not.
Marc knew what professional riding was, and remembered staring in awe at his tv screen as the riders whipped around the track at speeds he could barely comprehend. As they bent their bodies until they got so close to the gravel it made breath quicken and eyes bulge. Roberts was his favorite. He always loved the ones who win. Why wouldn’t he? It meant they were the best. Marc would be the best one day. He had sworn it to himself as he’d fallen asleep one night, with dreams of championships and trophies dancing in his head.
Perhaps if he knew what would come to pass, he would have paid more attention to the new rookie that year. Perhaps he would have glued his eyes to that whip-thin figure and categorized everything he did and said. Perhaps he would have planned everything ahead of time, and crushed the adoration that would grow from watching the future legend race. Probably not. Marc was just a kid, after all. And Valentino Rossi was a hero.
2007
Marc is fourteen now and he’s good. He’s so good that Honda has taken him under their wing. He’s so good that he will be competing in the 125cc championship next year, one of their youngest riders ever. A future champion they call him. He knows what people say about him, how he races. Intense, too intense. Already they whisper about how dangerous he is. Already people are unsettled by the look in his eye when he is on the bike. But little Marc brushes it off because he is winning, and they are not. That’s all that matters, after all.
This is when he first meets Valentino Rossi.
He’s clutching a replica rally car in his hand and feels like a child in his too-big polo. And there is Valentino Rossi. Tall, young, strong, and glorious. Marc knows who he is at this point. God, everyone does. Valentino Rossi is a star, and it floats in the air around him. His smile is confident, easy. When he looks down at Marc, there is a slight amusement in his gaze but also, an understanding.
And it’s amazing. Valentino Rossi leans close and listens when Marc talks. He nods at the right time, and compliments Marc on his riding. He says that he is excited to see Marc in the professional categories. Marc can barely get over that his hero has seen him ride. It’s like a dream, having those intense blue eyes look at him and see.
The conversation doesn’t last long. They snap a picture, and he chats with Marc a little bit more, and then he is gone. That holy aura has dissipated and Marc is back to being a small kid in a too-big polo. But the memory of it is enough to make him grin ear-to-ear.
Sometimes Marc wonders if Valentino had recognized what Marc would become that day. Did he look at Marc and see a future champion? Did he see what they would do to each other? Maybe all he saw was a dazzled kid with his replica rally cars, staring up at him like he was God. Maybe that was all there was to see at the time.
2013
Marc is twenty now and he is racing against Valentino Rossi. It feels like a dream. Valentino looks at him with more than the bemusement he maintained when Marc was little. Now he slaps Marc on the shoulder with a grin when Marc wins. Now he laughs with him during press conferences, and whispers inside jokes in his ear. It makes Marc glow, to have a legend turn their eyes on him and see something of an equal. It makes Marc feel like maybe he could be there too. Above it all, that is.
‘Babychamp’ Vale (not Valentino anymore) calls him when it becomes clear that Marc will win the championship that year. He lifts Marc off his feet in parc ferme and laughs like it is Vale who has won. Winning feels good, but there is nothing like having Vale on his side, murmuring his praises. Marc tries to pretend he doesn’t blush when this happens. Tries to pretend that he doesn’t see the all-knowing look in Vale’s eyes.
When Marc eventually does win the title that year, the youngest in MotoGP history, Vale shouts his praises into the sky like a prayer. It feels a little religious, Marc thinks. Except the religion is Vale and the way he grins when Marc lifts the trophy above his head.
Perhaps if Marc knew what would happen, he would have ripped his eyes away sooner. Perhaps if Vale had, he would have stayed his tongue and started the whispers earlier. Marc will never know. 2013 was a dream. Really, a dream. The dream right before the nightmare.
2015
It is 2015 and Marc is twenty-two and Vale, no Valentino, is sitting in a press conference and he tells the world that Marc is bad and the world believes him. Marc is staring at him in disbelief. Marc is feeling a lot more than disbelief.
Valentino sounds a little crazed. He is saying that Marc is dangerous, that he ripped his tenth away. He is saying that it is a collusion, and a betrayal. Marc watches as the journalists eat it up. He watches as the other riders stiffen up and shoot him looks. Already he can feel the barriers being built up. The only one who even remotely understands is Lorenzo, who is trying to catch Marc’s eye with a look of shock on his face. But Marc is staring at Vale, at the rage in his eyes. He wonders when it became this way.
Marc doesn’t really blame the media or the other riders for believing Valentino. He would have too, had it been about someone else. He might say he wouldn’t, but deep-down Marc knows it isn’t true. Because if Valentino told him to hate someone, he would have done it with no questions. Because Marc is weak.
Later, lying on his couch with his mom running a hand through his hair, all Marc will do is blame himself. He will wonder what he did to make Valentino so mad. Was it the ranch? Was it his driving? But Valentino could not possibly think Marc would do any of it on purpose. Maybe someone had whispered poison into his ear. Maybe all Marc has to do is talk to him, to explain. Maybe Valentino will listen.
He doesn’t.
It turns into anger then. And all it does is make things worse.
2020
Marc is twenty-seven and he almost tears his arm off his body in a crash and somehow it is still not quite as painful as 2014 and all the years after. He wishes that wasn’t true.
He grits his teeth in the appointments with the doctors, grits them after the surgeries, grits them when he must give up on the season. Because this is nothing. Because this is just his shoulder, and he has felt pain that has hurt his soul. So yeah, he’s fine.
When he is all looped up on medication after, lying in the bed and feeling like a child, he wonders if Valentino knows what happened. No, Marc knows he knows. They are so tied together in the press now. Valentino with his nine, Marc with his eight, Valentino with his rage, Marc with his sadness. Someone probably told him, and he probably laughed, or maybe he smiled that smile he has whenever he wins. Or maybe he just shrugged, like it didn’t matter. Marc thinks that would be worse.
That night he dreams Valentino is there. He dreams that he’s standing in the hospital room, staring down at Marc. It’s not the Valentino Rossi of his childhood, or the Vale of his early time in MotoGP he imagines. It’s Valentino, with his wrinkles and white t-shirts and stony eyes. He stares at him as he lies in the hospital bed with a complicated expression and when Marc wakes up he shoves the dream to the back of his mind. He cannot help but ask the nurse if he got a visitor last night, however. She looks confused, and so he drops the subject.
It isn’t the first time he has dreamed of Valentino. It won’t be the last. But something had felt so real.
2021
Marc is twenty-eight and Valentino is leaving.
He doesn’t know how to feel. So, he shuts down.
That’s all.
2025
Marc is thirty-two and he has finally won his ninth title. He’s splashed in Ducati red and the team that is hugging him isn’t Honda, but it’s okay because he won. Alex, who has jumped off his bike and ran across parc ferme, is screaming nonsense in his ear. Marc feels something rise up in him, and then he is crying. He clutches onto his team, clutches onto his brother. And he knows they think it’s tears of joy. But it isn’t.
Because this is it, isn’t it. This is the last thing gone. No more connection, no more fight. Perhaps that connection has always been gone, but while chasing that ninth (chasing the ghost of Valentino) Marc could almost pretend it was still there.
The press asked him how he felt about matching his rival (Marc almost laughs. He was never Valentino’s rival) and he shrugs and lies. Like always. He plays the careless winner. He says that it was never his intention to match him, just to win. He shellacs on a wide smile and avoids all questions about Valentino because it is the only way to really win. He’s good at it, sort of. Most people buy the carelessness. Those who know him well don’t.
Valentino is there, somewhere. Probably with a VR46 boy, probably Pecco. No doubt Marc will see his reaction later. He pretends not think too hard about it, but he knows he will analyze every video later. Valentino is much more expressive about how he feels than Marc is. He makes his emotions obvious, as if the world could never hate him for them. Marc does the opposite, because he knows the world will hate him for them.
Marc is up on the podium when he sees him. He is a monument in the crowd. They almost circle around him, as if they are too nervous to touch a legend. His face is blank. It makes Marc want to scream because Valentino is never blank. Not about Marc. At least, he’s not supposed to be. He’s supposed to glare, or furrow his brow, or scoff. That’s what he has always done. It was Marc who had won by being unflappable (it feels like a lie).
Marc tears his eyes away, smiles hard at the sky and tries to pretend it is 2013 and he is happy. It’s difficult.
2025
Marc is still thirty-two and he still has nine championships. And Valentino still hates him. He just wants to make that clear.
Which is why this is so confusing.
Outside of his motorhome, leaning against the wall and barely discernable in the dark, is Valentino. He looks casual, white t-shirt and earring glinting off the split seconds of light. Marc can’t really see his face and that makes it so much worse.
The podium was hours ago. Marc won his ninth hours ago. Perhaps he is here to threaten him into retiring before he gets a tenth, Marc thinks bitterly. A warm breeze ruffles Marc’s hair and it makes him feel a little sick.
“Congratulations, Marc. You drove good.” Vale says when Marc refuses to move.
Marc hates him (a lie). He wants to throw something.
“I know.” He says instead, hoping casual arrogance would spark some of that old rage in Valentino’s face. It doesn’t. Instead, he just laughs like he knows what Marc is doing.
They both say nothing for a while, and Marc just wants to go into his motorhome and pretend he never saw him, but Valentino is blocking the door. For a wild moment, Marc considers climbing in through the window, just to make a point.
But Valentino is looking at him with a complicated expression and it’s so familiar that it sparks something in the back of Marc’s brain. Loopy feelings and shoulder pain and hospital beds. An image of Valentino flashes through his mind, swallowed with darkness and staring down at him.
“Well, I just-” Valentino starts, but Marc blurts out the words swirling through his brain before he can help it.
“Did you visit, after my first surgery?” he says and Valentino freezes, which is answer enough.
There is silence once again, and this time it is Valentino who is so clearly uncomfortable. That smile he always has is a tad too forced, and he shuffles a little. Marc has never seen him awkward. Happy? Often. Charming? Always. Angry? Of course. But never unsure.
“You remember that, eh?” Vale eventually says with a breathy laugh, like it's funny.
Marc goes and climbs through the window.
2025
Marc is still-still thirty-two. He wishes crazy things stopped happening so much this year. Crazy things like winning his ninth. Crazy things like Valentino showing up outside his motor home. Crazy things like what is happening now.
Because Valentino is being nice. In the press. And that might be the craziest thing yet.
He rewatches the video again for maybe the tenth time. He analyzes every word.
“He is very strong, I think.”
“I have always been a little too hard on him, maybe.”
“No, no I don’t blame him”
“I see him race and I am amazed. He’s one of the greats.”
“I hope he can forgive me.”
Alex had sent it to him with a bunch of question marks and Marc has not responded yet. He isn’t quite sure how to. He can see how baffled the interviewer is too. Why wouldn’t she be? The last time Valentino spoke about Marc publicly, he had just reiterated everything he ever said. That Marc was ruining the sport. That he ruined Valentino’s career. That he was the embodiment of all evil. This was…….insanity.
Marc didn’t respond to Alex. But he did click on the number he had sworn up and down he deleted years ago. Valentino picks up on the second ring.
“Marc?” he says, sounding a little breathless.
“Are you dying?” Marc demands. He actually is genuinely worried.
Valentino laughs, a chattering thing. Marc almost hangs up.
“No.” He finally responds, sounding amused. Marc can almost picture him leaning against the wall, with that loping, slow smile spreading across his face. The image makes his chest burn, and Marc has a strange urge to try and copy the imagined body language.
“Blackmail?” Marc tries.
“Ah, so you saw the interview?”
“Is someone holding Uccio for ransom?”
“No, actually it was quite the opposite. He tried to pay me not to do that interview. Funny, no?”
Marc is silent. Then he hangs up.
Valentino tried to call back immediately. Marc blocks him. He can’t deal with this. He can’t deal with how weird Valentino is acting. It’s too much. It sparks the long-dampened flame in his chest. The one that hoped for reconciliation and love once more. The one that Marc had always thought of as weak.
Five minutes later, he gets a text from Alex. Then a call. Marc happily picks up his, at least.
“Why did Valentino Rossi just text me to tell you to unblock him?”
2026
Thank God, Marc is no longer thirty-two.
Thirty-three has been just as strange, though.
Because Valentino is here. Here, as in Marc’s house. Here as in sitting on Marc’s sofa. Here as in smiling and laughing and joking with Marc’s brother, who keeps shooting Marc looks of amazement.
Alex had been hesitant when Marc told him Valentino was coming over. He knows how much it hurt, what had happened. He was one of the few that really knows how much it had hurt. He had heard Marc’s whispered confessions at night. He knew what Marc dreamed about. So when Marc had told him, he had frowned and asked if it was a good idea.
Marc said no. Valentino still came over.
Marc blocking Valentino did not last long. He forgot how persistent the older man could be, and when even Dovi texted telling him to unblock Valentino, Marc sighed and listened. After that Valentino texted him every day. Nothing deep or serious. Mostly life updates, a picture here and there. Marc never responded, but he checked every single one. He would not admit this out loud, but he had a few of the pictures saved in his phone. The ones of dogs of course, not of Valentino. Just to be clear.
So now Valentino is sitting in his house. He is talking with Alex, but his eyes keep darting over to Marc as if he is making sure he’s paying attention. Marc isn’t sure if Valentino knows that he literally could not pay attention to anything else.
Alex gets up to leave eventually, making a lame excuse about having to run to the store. It’s bull shit, Marc knows, and when Alex shoots him a look as he exits, Marc sighs.
“Your brother is much nicer than I remember.” Valentino says eventually, running a hand through his hair. He is leaning toward Marc the way he does when he talks to people but looks really stupid because Marc has sat so far away.
“He has more reason to be, now.” Marc says simply. Valentino accepts that answer with a nod. There isn’t much more to say, in truth.
“You don’t answer my texts.” He says instead of continuing the previous line of conversation. A non sequitur. It must have been bothering him.
Marc considers Valentino where he sits and decides to be honest. It hadn’t worked before, of course, but they are both older now. His mom always said repeating something and expecting different results was the definition of insanity, but Marc has always been a little crazy.
“I really don’t know what you want from me. It scares me.” Marc says and tries not to sound like a child when he does. He doesn’t think it really works, because Valentino gets this look in his eyes like Marc is fragile and he needs to be delicate. Marc hates it.
“Ah…..I want you to answer my texts.” He says, like it’s that simple.
Marc cannot believe he actually thinks it is that simple. He almost throws his phone at him, and a little rage bubbles up. Of course Valentino would waltz in here and expect everything would be fine after all these years. As if he didn’t cause all of this. As if he hadn't strung Marc up on a cross and let the eagles tear at his liver. As if he hadn't destroyed him.
“You hate me.” Marc says.
Valentino shrugs.
“Not so much anymore.”
Marc actually does throw his phone at him this time.
2030
Marc is thirty-six and Vale is fifty-one when Marc decides that they might actually be okay now.
It had taken a while, and a lot of effort. Marc had almost killed Vale for how casually he tried to make things right. He had to shove it into Vale’s brain how much he had hurt during their time apart. He had to tear open his wounds to make him understand and gave it all to him in excruciating details. It was the first time he had seen the older man cry. Not the last. They do that a lot these days.
They had hated each other, and they had loved each other, and Marc thinks they might be hovering somewhere around the middle now, but it leans more towards love these days so he think’s everything will be fine.
Discussing Sepang and Phillips Island and 2014 had been the worst of it. Vale had been honest; he still believes that Marc is a dangerous rider. Marc was honest too; he still thinks Vale is awful for what he said and did. But forgiveness isn’t meant to be easy, it’s an accepting of someone’s faults. It’s saying ‘I know you were wrong, and I know you think I was wrong too, but that doesn’t matter because I care about you’.
Truly, the ones who took the longest to come around were the public. When they were spotted together as friends for the first time, jaws had dropped. They had dropped even further two years later when they told the world about them. Marc had laughed at the articles saying he must have seduced Vale, but Vale said it was a little true. Said that even when he had hated Marc the most, he couldn’t help but think about him and his eyes never strayed.
Marc rolled his eyes after those words, but pressed a kiss onto his mouth that he hoped conveyed the same sentiment. They did like to talk more with their bodies than their mouths, he learned.
He doesn’t know what the future holds. One day they could fall back into the hate again, maybe. But really, it doesn’t matter too much to Marc. Because for years he had built his life around Valentino Rossi, and now he finally gets to build his life with him.
So yeah. Not too bad.
The End.