Chapter Text
The air in the penthouse was too thin, or perhaps it was just the altitude of Monaco-Ville pressing down on him. Oscar stood in the center of his dressing room, arms held stiffly at his sides while a royal tailor, a man who had likely been measuring Grimaldis since the fifties, pinned the hem of his blazer. On the mahogany table beside them sat a half-empty container of tim tam chocolate biscuits, transported clandestinely across six time zones, resting atop a chaotic pile of unsorted telemetry sheets, three stray socks, and an unboxed mechanical keyboard.
“Higher, please, Your Highness,” the tailor murmured while his needle hovered like a hummingbird.
Oscar obeyed like he had been trained to. His jaw tight.
“It’s warm, Monsieur. Is it necessary to have the lining so thick?”
“The summer gala requires the full regalia. We cannot have you looking like a tourist.”
“Ah, yes. God forbid a tourist breaks out in a sweat,” Oscar deadpanned, his expression utterly motionless as if he hadn’t just delivered the driest piece of sarcasm of the morning.
Oscar exhaled, a sharp, controlled sound. He wasn’t a tourist, though he felt like a ghost. He was twenty-five, born in Melbourne, raised on tim tams and suburban heat, yet here he was, being stitched into the skin of a prince. He caught his own reflection in the antique gilded mirror. To the rest of the world, Oscar Jack Piastri was the newly recalled, highly educated modern face of the Monégasque court. His lineage was a quiet, almost forgotten branch of the royal tree. His maternal grandfather had been a younger sibling of the previous ruling prince, meaning Oscar’s childhood in Melbourne suburbs had been blissfully, intentionally ordinary. He was a second-cousin-once-removed, a distant name on a family tree that nobody bothered to read. He had grown up with dirt under his fingernails, Australian mud on his shins, and the absolute freedom of obscurity.
All until three months ago.
A sudden, quiet restructuring of the palace’s public image driven by a string of PR crises and a desperate need to appeal to a younger and more global demographic had turned the palace's eyes toward their quiet Australian relatives. But they hadn’t summoned his sisters. In the eyes of the traditional, staunchly patriarchal Monégasque court, his sisters were convenient background figures, but the official titles, the presidency of the massive state-backed athletic foundations, and the military-adjacent yachting syndicates legally required a male representative to lead them. Under the old rules of the House of Grimaldi, Oscar was the only eligible male heir of his generation in their branch.
With a stroke of a pen and an official decree from the Sovereign, Oscar alone was summoned. He was given his title, His Serene Highness, and flown across the world to be installed as the new face of Monaco’s massive sporting and charitable foundations. It was a soft conscription. On paper, he had been plucked from his quiet life and dropped onto a chessboard he had never wanted to play. The Palace had originally agreed to let him breathe by insisting first on a grueling, multi-year stint in naval military training alongside his state diplomatic academy courses, which dragged out his education far past his peers. He had only just graduated from his university in Melbourne, his degree in mechanical engineering systems still freshly printed, and had barely settled into his first real job at an automotive consulting firm. He has expected a predictable career of analyzing chassis stress points and drafting suspension layouts. To leave it all behind ‘just like that’ at twenty-five for a life of silent handshakes and velvet ropes felt like a death sentence to his brain.
But Oscar hadn’t fought the summons. Instead, he had negotiated.
He had accepted the role with a quiet, calculated willingness that had taken both the palace and his mother by surprise. If he was going to be their prince, he wasn’t going to be a decorative ornament. He had struck a bargain where his engineering work would remain tied to the Principality. The Palace had essentially promoted him overnight, placing him at the helm of Monaco’s highly prestigious marine engineering committees and technical motorsport foundations. He was still an engineer, but now he possessed a royal budget and direct VIP access to the paddock, telemetry, and the teams. Accepting the crown was the ultimate trade-off. He surrendered his suburban freedom, and in exchange, the Palace handed him the keys to the fast lane.
His mother, fiercely aware of the family’s rigid boundaries, had seen the warning signs years ago. She had watched a ten-year-old Oscar stare at go-karts with a terrifying, silent hunger. She knew what happens to minor royals who try to live in the spotlight on their own terms. As a consequence, she had steered him away from the track and shoved him toward a degree in engineering. It was a safe, highly prestigious path, a compromise designed to keep his hands busy with formulas and CAD models instead of steering wheels and sequential gearboxes.
“If you cannot drive them, Oscar,” she had told him, her voice tight with the weight of their family name, “then learn how they are built. It is a respectable pursuit for a prince. Driving is for those who have nothing to lose.”
But she hadn’t understood. By forcing him to study the science of speed, she hadn’t cured his obsession. She had merely given him the tools to understand it on a cellular level. He hadn’t studied engineering to build bridges or design green energy grids. He had studied it because it was the only way he could legally hold a piece of a race car in his hands without breaking protocol. He spent his university years translating his thwarted, violent love for speed into cold, mathematical equations. He might not be on the grid, but his brain operated at 200 miles per hour. And tomorrow, his calculated bargain was finally going to pay off.
“Almost finished,” the tailor announced.
“Thank you,” Oscar said, his voice dropping into the cool, measured cadence he had spent the last three months perfecting. “I’ll try not to breathe too aggressively and ruin the seams.”
As the tailor retreated, Oscar stepped toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was Wednesday afternoon. Below, the harbor was a hive of activity as crews perfected the painted white lines on the tarmac, turning the public roads into a temporary arena.
The prestigious Monaco Grand Prix was coming.
A sharp knock at the door broke his focus. Before he could invite them in, Charles Leclerc pushed the door open, looking infuriatingly relaxed in a designer polo, his sunglasses hooked into his neckline. As a local boy who had made it to Ferrari, Charles was one of the very few who understood the heavy, suffocating pressure of Monaco’s elite. They had bonded years ago during Oscar’s brief, forbidden stint in junior karting before the Palace pulled the plug. Charles had kept his secret then, and he kept his secrets now.
“The tailor is fleeing, Your Highness,” Charles said, leaning against the doorframe with that trademark, effortless Monégasque charm. “You must have been terrifyingly stoic again. You know, you can actually breathe when they aren’t looking.”
Oscar finally relaxed his shoulders, the rigid lines of his posture softening as he turned. “I was extremely charming, actually. I only threatened him with execution twice.”
Charles stepped inside, crossing the room to pour himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table. He stopped abruptly, eyeing the state of the penthouse lounge.
“Did a tornado hit your royal quarters, or do you just refuse to let the housekeeping staffs enter?” Charles asked, raising an eyebrow.
”It’s a structured organizational system,” Oscar replied smoothly, picking up a stray square of chocolate and popping it into his mouth. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s an engineering thing.”
“You look like a man who wants to be anywhere but the Royal Box this weekend,” Charles chuckled.
“I am hosting the athlete VIP section,” Oscar said, his voice flat. “It’s a diplomatic nightmare. My mother has already given me a list of sponsors I have to shake hands with.”
“Ah, the corporate dance,” Charles smirked, walking over to the window and peering down at the harbor. “Well, at least you have a good view of the track. Though, I hear you’ve been doing more than just looking. My engineers told me someone from the royal residence requested the public telemetry logs from last year’s qualifying. Don’t tell me you’re trying to design a faster tractor for the palace gardens.”
Oscar didn’t flinch, though his pulse ticked upward. “I have a degree, Charles. It would be a waste not to use it.”
“Right. A degree,” Charles laughed, turning to face him with a glint of mischief in his dark eyes.
“And I suppose that degree is why you’ve been analyzing Lando Norris’s throttle inputs at Rascasse?”
Oscar’s hand stilled against the fabric of his trousers.
“I am a Ferrari driver, Oscar. I know when someone is studying a map,” Charles said softly, his teasing tone dropping into something more genuine. “Monaco is a small place. If you stare too hard at the McLaren garage from up here, the press will notice before the weekend even starts. Especially now that you’re officially back.”
“I am just an observer,” the prince replied, his voice a perfect, unreadable flatline. “I also analyze the safety car drivers, if you must know. Extremely thrilling data.”
“If you say so,” Charles smiled, heading back to the door. “But try to enjoy the gala tonight. And maybe try smiling at a human being instead of a data sheet. And please, clean your room before your mother arrives and sees it.”
When Charles finally left, the click of the heavy oak door felt like a latch dropping on a cage. Oscar let his breath out slowly, the silence of the penthouse rushing back to fill the void. He took his phone out of the pocket of his expensive suit. Once unlocked, his thumb swiped instinctively to a locked folder, opening a cloud drive that no royal security detail or court PR manager would ever think to audit. Inside were thousands of files. No photos of models, no typical twenty-something junk.
Just data.
And at the very bottom of the directory was a subfolder simply labeled LN04.
Oscar walked further to the balcony, his fingers scrolling through the oldest files in that folder. They dated back to 2014. He had been thirteen, sitting in his darkened bedroom in the quiet neighborhood of Melbourne, nursing the raw, hollow ache of having his go-kart confiscated by his mother’s orders. He had been told he was too important for the risqué sport. He had been told he had too much to lose.
That was the exact week he had first seen Lando Norris on a grainy YouTube stream of the CIK-FIA Karting World Championship. Lando had been a tiny, scruffy British kid with wild hair and a helmet that looked too big for his shoulders. But the moment the red lights went off, Lando didn’t drive like a boy trying to keep a clean pedigree. He drove like a feral animal. He took lines that defied physics, threw his kart into gaps that didn’t exist, and laughed in the post-race interviews like the entire world was just a private joke he was sharing with the cameras. To a young Oscar, who was already being suffocated by the rigid, calculated expectations of his lineage, Lando was everything he was forbidden to be.
Lando was loud.
Lando was free.
Lando was utterly, brilliantly reckless.
What started as envy quickly morphed into a quiet, cold obsession.
Swallowed by naval training and diplomatic courses, Oscar struggled to keep up with Lando’s rapid rise through Formula 3 and Formula 2. Yet, he followed him anyway, sneaking glances at race replays in the quiet corners of his barracks. By the time he reached university, Oscar was staying up until three in the morning just to watch Lando’s early years in Formula 1. He even managed to buy a grandstand ticket to the Melbourne Grand Prix once, watching Lando fly past from a distance while swallowed by the crowd.
He didn’t just watch as a spectator; he instead watched as an engineer. He began downloading the public telemetry logs of Lando’s junior races. He spent his nights plotting Lando’s throttle inputs on MATLAB, dissecting the Brit’s braking traces, and overlaying them with his own theoretical models. He knew, down to the millisecond, how Lando behaved when he was under pressure. He knew that when Lando’s rear tires began to overheat, his steering inputs became micro-fractured, sharp, defensive corrections that meant he was fighting the car’s balance. Gosh, he even knew that Lando had a unique, incredibly high-risk style of trailing the brakes deep into low-speed apexes, relying on his raw, instinctual reflexes to catch the car before it snapped. It was a beautiful, chaotic dance. And Oscar has spent a decade memorizing every single step of it from a dark bedroom half a world away.
Now, Oscar looked down at the harbor. The yachts were docked, their multi-million-dollar decks gleaming under the Mediterranean sun. The McLaren paddock was less than a kilometer from where he stood. For ten years, Lando Norris had been mostly a collection of pixels on a laptop screen, a string of data points on a coordinate plane, a distant ghost of the life Oscar wanted for himself. Even after Oscar’s sudden repatriation to the Principality three months ago, that distance hadn’t truly closed. On paper, they shared the same square mile of Mediterranean coastline, but Monaco in the off-season was a ghost town for its high-profile residents. Lando had spent the spring locked in the McLaren simulator in Woking, flying directly to flyaway races in Asia and the Americas, or retreating to his glass-walled flat in London whenever a rare break appeared on the calendar. He only used his Monte Carlo apartment as a secure transit lounge, merely a place to sleep off jetlag before the next flight took him away again.
And Oscar, bound by the strict, stifling transition protocols of the Palace, had spent his first ninety days being paraded through closed-door diplomatic dinners, state charity galas, and endless security briefings. He had been kept deliberately insulated, living on the high, fortified cliffs of the Rock, far removed from the trendy cafes and harbor-side gyms of Larvotto where the drivers actually lived. They had existed in parallel universes, separated by a few hundred vertical meters of limestone and a wall of royal security. But on Friday, the pit lane would open. The distant prince would have to stand in the VIP sections and play the polite diplomat, while the boy from the screen drove past him at insane speed.
Oscar turned off his screen. The reflection of his own stoic, handsome face fading into the black tempered glass. He slipped the phone back into his bespoke, pinned linen suit. His hands were still raw from where he had secretly practiced his grip on a racing simulator in the palace basement late last night. The skin of his palms was still burning, unyielding.
Lando Norris had no idea who he was, but Oscar Piastri had spent a lifetime preparing for the moment their worlds would finally collide.
***
By Thursday morning, the physical reality of the Grand Prix had completely overtaken the principality. The air smelled of tire rubber, expensive sunblock, and high-octane fuel. The quiet, ancient stones of the Rock seemed to vibrate with the collective hum of twenty thousand paddock guests. Oscar had barely slept. His sister, Eddie, had sent him three separate voice notes demanding to know if he had memorized the names of the board members for the Monaco Red Cross, and his mother had scheduled a mandatory lunch at the palace at noon. He needed to escape his own head.
He didn’t take the official palace sedan. Instead, Oscar pulled a dark, oversized grey hoodie over his head, tugging the drawstrings tight enough to shadow his face, and slipped out of the penthouse’s side entrance. He kept his head down as he descended the steep, winding stone steps of the Rampe de la Major, heading away from the high-society crowds toward the quieter streets near Larvotto.
His goal was simple, a flat white. A real, bitter, Australian-style coffee that didn’t taste like the tiny cups of burnt espresso the palace kitchens served. He is not even a coffee enjoyer normally, yet the homesickness made him crave it. And perhaps, if he was honest with himself, he wanted a legitimate excuse to consume a croissant that hadn’t been served on fine bone china. He found a small, low-key café tucked away in a side alley where its glass windows misted from the humidity. It was peaceful, mostly locals reading the Monaco-Matin and a few early-rising mechanics wearing team lanyards around their necks. Oscar stepped inside, his broad shoulders instinctively hunching to make himself look smaller, less noticeable. He joined a short queue, his eyes fixed on the menu board while at the same time his mind was still running through the royal schedule for the afternoon.
He paid for his flat white and stepped aside to wait for the drink.
Then, the bell above the door chimed.
A sudden, chaotic gust of wind and frantic energy entered the shop.
“I’m telling you, it’s fine, I have my card—wait, where is my wallet?”
The voice was raspy, breathless, and instantly recognizable. It was a voice Oscar had heard through headphones on raw, sleepless Melbourne nights, filtering through high-resolution post-race press conferences. Oscar’s entire body went rigid. His breath caught in his throat. He didn’t turn immediately. He just couldn’t. His analytical brain, usually quick to calculate trajectories and reaction times, completely seized.
“Jon, seriously, I think I left it in the gym,” the voice continued, likely talking over a call, closer now. “Just let me—oh, come on, don’t talk at me like that.”
Oscar slowly, carefully turned his head.
Standing right behind him in the queue was Lando Norris.
He was smaller in person than Oscar’s telemetry models had led him to believe, but his presence was incredibly loud. He was wearing a crumpled McLaren team polo, his curls damp and unruly from a morning workout, and he was frantically patting down the pockets of his shorts with a helpless, slightly embarrassed grin while his other hand was still holding onto the smartphone. He looked stressed, chaotic, and entirely alive.
The woman behind the counter, a local Monégasque who clearly couldn’t care less that she was looking at a multi-million-dollar athlete, stared at Lando with a look of profound, unimpressed patience.
“I can pay with my phone,” Lando muttered in rapid, broken French, tapping his phone against the card reader.
Nothing happened. The reader beeped twice. A flat, mocking error tone.
“Ah, désolée monsieur,” the woman said, gesturing to a small hand-written sign taped to the register. No wireless payment today. Chip and pin only.
Lando stared at the sign, his face falling into a tragic, dramatic pout that Oscar had seen a hundred times on TikTok edits. Long before the Palace had reclaimed him, back when he was just an ordinary engineering student living in Melbourne with grease on his knuckles, Oscar had maintained a completely anonymous account. No profile picture, zero followers, and a randomly generated string of numbers and alphabets for a username. It was a silent lurker account from his normal life, a relic from the years when he was just a teenager scrolling in the dark, watching Lando Norris make a fool of himself on the internet like everyone else.
“Are you serious? No Apple Pay? Jon is going to kill me. I promised him I’d bring the pastries back…”
He looked around the café, his eyes wide, searching for a savior.
And then, his gaze locked directly onto Oscar.
Under the deep shadow of his grey hoodie, Oscar’s pupils blew wide. For a terrifying second, he thought Lando would recognize him, that he would see the royal lineage in his jawline or the calculated stillness of his posture. But Lando didn’t see a prince. He just saw a taller, broad-shouldered guy in a plain grey hoodie who looked like he knew how to solve a problem.
“Mate,” Lando said, stepping forward, his voice dropping into a desperate, conspiratorial whisper.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a physical card on you, would you? I’m completely stranded. I’ll transfer you the money right now, I swear.”
The distance had collapsed. There were no computer screens between them. No grandstands. No royal guards. Oscar could smell the faint scent of Lando’s mint shampoo and the raw, post-exercise heat radiating from his skin. Up close, Lando was a live wire. His damp curls clinging to his temple, his breathing still quickened from his morning run, utterly unstudied and impossibly loud even in his silence. The small bakery, thick with the scent of caramelized butter and muggy sea air, suddenly felt claustrophobic. Oscar’s hand slipped into his pocket. His fingers brushed against his black titanium card, the one linked directly to his private, unmonitored royal allowance. He didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t afford to let his brain calculate the risk.
“I have it,” Oscar said. His voice was lower than Lando’s. a smooth, unbothered Australian drawl that cut right through Lando’s frantic energy.
He stepped up to the counter, reaching past Lando’s shoulder. In that split second, he was noticing with a quiet, possessive thrill how slight Lando looked beneath his shadow and slid the black card into the reader.
“For whatever he wants,” Oscar told the cashier in flawless, quiet French.
Lando’s jaw dropped slightly, a bright, stunned smile breaking across his face. “Oh, you are an absolute lifesaver. Seriously. I was about to wash dishes in the back.”
As the receipt printed, Lando leaned into Oscar’s space, entirely unaware of the administrative protocols he was breaching, entirely unaware that the man paying for his coffee and pastries had spent a decade memorizing the way his heart beat like crazy whenever he had major inconvenience during a race. For ten years, Lando Norris had existed as an abstract equation on Oscar's monitor, an unpredictable variable that refused to stay within safe parameters. Now, that equation was six inches away, filling Oscar's senses until he couldn't draw a breath that didn't feel saturated with him. The cashier then handed over the cardboard tray with Lando’s order, two iced oat lattes and a box of pain au chocolat, alongside Oscar’s single, unadorned flat white.
“Seriously, man, thank you,” Lando said, stepping to the side of the counter and effortlessly blocking Oscar’s exit path with casual, natural warmth. He was already tapping his phone screen, his brows furrowed in concentration. “What’s your handle? Let me transfer you the euros. I can’t just steal coffee like that. Or… wait, you are Australian, right? That accent was unmistakable.”
Oscar’s throat went dry.
Under the heavy cotton of his grey hoodie, his shoulders tensed. Australian. The word felt like a phantom limb. Legally, he was now a dual-citizen, a bureaucratic exception fast-tracked by a sovereign decree just three months ago. Monaco’s laws were notoriously rigid, strictly forbidding dual nationality for ordinary citizens. But when the Palace had hit a string of devastating PR disasters and decided to drag their quiet, Melbourne-raised cousin back to Monte Carlo to become the modern face of their foundations, the sovereign’s pen had moved quickly. They had bypassed the constitutional red tape, granting him Monégasque citizenship overnight so he could legally hold his title and run the state’s athletic committees. To the palace advisors, his Australian background was a convenient marketing tool, a way to make the ancient, stiff line look fresh and approachable. But to Oscar, that Australian passport in his desk drawer was the only part of his identity that didn’t feel like a costume.
“I am,” Oscar said, his voice dropping into a quiet, careful register.
Lando’s face lit up with an incredibly bright, knowing grin. “I knew it! My teammate is Daniel Ricciardo! I literally spend most of my weekends being shouted at in that exact accent. I’d know those flat vowels anywhere.”
He held his phone out toward Oscar, the bank transfer app already open and waiting. Lando wasn’t hiding a single thing. He was wearing his bright papaya McLaren team polo, his official driver’s cap, and a paddock pass dangling from his pocket. He was a famous Formula One driver in the middle of Monaco Grand Prix week, completely comfortable in his own skin, expecting the rest of the world to treat him with the same easy, open familiarity he gave them.
“Seriously, let me get your details,” Lando insisted, taking a small step even closer into Oscar’s space. “If Daniel finds out I let a fellow Australian buy my coffee because I couldn’t get my card to work, he’ll never let me hear the end of it and call me a cheap Brit for the rest of the season. Are you here to support your local hero?”
Oscar’s brain flashed a massive red warning light.
Abort. Exit. Retreat.
If he gave Lando any of his details, the illusion would shatter instantly. Lando would realize this wasn’t some random F1 tourist here to watch the Grand Prix or visiting engineer in a grey hoodie. It was the newly recalled prince who was scheduled to stand three feet away from him in the royal paddock on Sunday. And more than anything, Oscar’s internal systems were entirely overloaded. The raw, physical presence of the boy he had watched through a computer screen for ten years was simply too close. Without the glare of a broadcast camera, Lando’s eyes weren’t just hazel. They were a vivid, startling green, framed by dark and long eyelashes that caught the warm light of the café.
“Don’t worry about it,” Oscar said. He kept his voice low, dropping his chin slightly so the shadow of his hood fell directly over his eyes.
“What? No, mate, come on.” Lando laughed, his thumb hovering over his screen. “It’s like twenty euros. Just give me your tag or QR—”
“It’s fine. Really,” Oscar murmured, clearly unable to think straight anymore.
Before Lando could utter another syllable, Oscar took his flat white, turned on his heel, and pushed past the heavy glass door of the café. The bell chimed a frantic, metallic note above his head as he stepped out into the humid, coastal air.
“Hey! Wait!” Lando’s voice called out behind him, genuinely baffled. But Oscar didn’t stop. He lengthened his stride, his legs eating up the narrow stone alleyway. He turned a sharp left, then a quick right, slipping into the maze of winding pedestrian stairs that climbed back up toward the safety of the palace. Leaving a very confused McLaren driver standing on the threshold of the café with a tray of coffees and pastries.
***
The internet, of course, had absolutely no chill.
By Friday morning, before the cars had even fired up their engines for the first practice session, the Larvotto café incident had mutated into a full-scale digital obsession. Formula One fans who already possessed the investigative skills of federal agents treated the paparazzi photo like it was the Zapruder film. But it wasn’t just the racing community losing their minds. Ever since his sudden recall three month ago, the internet’s royal-watcher circles had been in a state of simmering hysteria over the hidden prince. Up until now, Oscar had been a mystery. The palace had only released a couple of stiff, highly controlled official portraits showing where he stood in sharp, bespoke suits, looking devastatingly regal and entirely unreachable. He had instantly become the internet’s favorite aristocratic obsession. The aloof, academic minor prince who didn’t have a public Instagram and looked like he would rather read a fluid dynamics textbook than look at a camera. Having this untouchable, quiet royal suddenly showed up in a blurry, real-world paparazzi photo where he was seen buying coffee for F1’s most famously unfiltered driver was like throwing a match into a powder keg. Every social media platform was thoroughly drowning in the chaos.
A single TikTok video already sitting at over two million views and climbing by the minute had cropped the grainy photo, slowed the footage down to a snail’s pace and layered a heavy, slowed-down pop synth over the background. The edit, posted by a popular fan account, opened on a high-contrast zoom of the image: Oscar‘s broad shoulders under the oversized grey hoodie, towering in the frame while a glowing red circle highlighted his left hand sliding his black card into the payment terminal, zooming in so tight on the brushed-platinum signet band turned inward against his pinky where the subtle, diamond-patterned lozenge coat of arms of the Grimaldi crest was clear as day. A heavily distorted, dramatically fast voiceover played over the slowed clip.
“Okay, but can we talk about the spatial dynamic here? Look at how the prince is leaning over Lando. He is practically shielding him from the cashier! He literally said, ‘Step back, little Brit. My black card and royal signet band have got this.’ Oh God!”
Below the video, which had already been reposted across every platform imaginable, the comment section had developed into pure, unhinged bedlam.
💬@mclarenwcc: THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE. I am actually sliding off my chair. Why is the prince built like a brick wall in a grey hoodie??
💬@monaco_royal_watcher: Prince Oscar is legitimately one of the most handsome royals in Europe and he’s out here flashing his family crest in a paddock-adjacent coffee shop. I am deceased.
💬@simp4ln4: The way Lando is looking up at him with those puppy eyes while clutching his little cardboard pastry box… I am writing a 50-chapter AO3 fic about this immediately!
💬@stuffsthatmeater: Is anyone going to talk about the fact that Prince Oscar literally fled the scene? Bro flashed a royal ring and dipped like he just committed a high-stakes heist. Why is he running?! What is he hiding?!
The fallout on X was, obviously, even more chaotic.
The real comedy, however, unfolded in the post-practice media pen on Friday afternoon. Lando stepped into the crowded media square still half-zipped in his fire suit, damp hair sticking to his forehead after sixty minutes in the car during FP2. He had barely opened his mouth to give a standard, scripted answer about the brake bias and tire degradation when the journalists completely abandoned all pretense of asking about racing. A Dictaphone was thrust directly toward his chin, held by a writer from the Daily Mail practically leaning over the barrier.
“Lando, forget the long-run pace for a second. A photo went viral online this morning of you at a café,” the journalist called out loudly, a wave of knowing smirks rippling through the surrounding press pack. “Can you confirm if that was indeed Prince Oscar who bought your pastry, and what’s the story there? Are you two close or did you just pull the most elusive prince into your morning coffee run?”
Lando’s face instantly flushed a brilliant, unmistakable shade of pink under the harsh afternoon sun. He cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably on his feet while Daniel Ricciardo, standing just a few feet down the tape answering questions for Australian TV, paused mid-sentence and let out a loud, highly theatrical snort of laughter that carried right across the pen.
“Uh,” Lando stammered, rubbing the back of his neck and staring down at the cluster of Dictaphones held over the tape. “I mean… yeah. I completely forgot my wallet and the shop didn’t take tap-to-pay. Classic me, honestly. And, uh, a very kind guy stepped in to help. I didn’t actually know who he was at the time. He just… well, he had an accent similar to Daniel, so I thought he was just a tourist visiting for Grand Prix.”
“A very noble tourist,” Daniel cut in, leaning over the low media partition from his own interview spot right next to Lando, a massive, mischievous grin spreading across his face. Daniel had personally witnessed Lando’s absolute, full-blown existential breakdown in the McLaren motorhome earlier that morning. When the photo first trended and the realization hit him, Lando had paced the floor for twenty minutes, hands clutched in his hair, groaning into a throw pillow. Watching him squirm under the glare of fifty media cameras now was purely therapeutic.
“Shut up, Daniel,” Lando muttered, his face turning an even brighter shade of red as a wave of laughter rippled through the surrounding press pack.
“I think it was very hospitable,” Charles added smoothly, pausing on his way down the line of TV crews. His eyes danced with wicked amusement as he looked straight into a broadcast camera lens, knowing full well his royal friend was likely watching the live feed. “In Monaco, we pride ourselves on making our guests feel welcome. Even the chaotic ones.”
“Did you get his number, Lando?” another journalist shouted from the crowd of reporters.
“No!” Lando said quickly, a little too defensive. “He, uh… he just paid and vanished down an alley. But, yeah. If he’s watching… thanks for the lattes and pastries, uh—Your Highness. I owe you twenty euros.”
“Or a kingdom,” Daniel stage-whispered into the nearest TV microphone.
In the quiet, air-conditioned library of the penthouse, Oscar sat completely motionless on the leather sofa. A scattered pile of prints showing Lando’s FP2 telemetry sat on the glass of coffee table. The live feed of the paddock media pen played on his television screen. He watched Lando’s flustered face, watched the way the British driver ducked his head to hide his embarrassed grin, and felt a dangerous, terrifying warmth bloom in his chest. On the desk beside him, the official court itinerary remained exactly as planned. He was still bound to host the VIP hospitality section on Saturday, followed by his official duties in the Royal Box on Sunday. Right above the starting grid, where every single camera in the paddock would be waiting to catch his inevitable face-to-face meeting with Lando Norris.
***
The laughter of the press conference on the television screen was cut short by the sharp, mechanical beep of the remote control. Oscar stood in the middle of his library, the black device still pointed at the display. The silence of the room rushed back in, heavy and suffocating. On the screen, Lando’s bright, flushed face was replaced by the cold, mirrored reflection of Oscar’s own stoic expression.
Before he could lay the remote down, the heavy, double-panel oak doors of the library clicked open. His mother, Lady Nicole, stepped into the room. She was the picture of quiet, aristocratic elegance. A woman who had spent her life maintaining a low-profile existence in Melbourne, only for her son to be suddenly recalled to the Monégasque spotlight. Behind her were his three sisters, Hattie, Edie, and Mae. Their faces had a warm, familiar blend of sisterly amusement and genuine, protective care. They had crossed hemispheres solely to support Oscar through his first grueling, official Grand Prix weekend as a prince. Normally, their presence was his grounding anchor. Today, it was the only thing keeping the room from feeling like a court tribunal.
Nicole’s eyes immediately swept the room, landing on the silver-embossed envelope resting on the mahogany desk. It bore the heavy wax seal of the Palace Protocol Office. “The Chamberlain’s office has already called, Oscar,” Nicole began, her voice soft, carrying the fierce, protective weight of a mother terrified of watching her son walk into a velvet-lined trap.
“It was a twenty-euro coffee transaction, Mum,” Oscar said, his voice wavering slightly. The flat, unbothered wall he maintained for the rest of the world instantly crumbled in the presence of his most trusted person.
Nicole softened immediately, stepping closer to place a warm, firm hand on his forearm. Her eyes, so similar to his own, were clouded with maternal worry. “In Victoria, it’s a twenty-dollar coffee transaction, love,” she corrected softly. “But here in Monte Carlo, during Grand Prix week, it’s a media circus. The Chamberlain is already drafting a brief to ignore the story entirely. A simple, detached media play about routine civic hospitality to a visiting athlete. A complete non-story.”
“Which is what I wanted it to be,” Oscar admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he let out a heavy breath he’d been holding since the live stream started.
“Except you ran away, dear brother,” Edie chimed in gently, offering him a sympathetic grin as she leaned against the mahogany desk. “If you’d just given him your name and shook his hands, it would’ve been a boring PR photo. Running away made it look like a covert operation.”
“They’re already making a bunch of TikTok compilations,” Hattie added, walking over to give his shoulder a supportive, grounding squeeze. “We know you were just trying to have five minutes of being normal. But you can’t slip on a hoodie here without the world taking notes.”
Nicole’s thumb stroked his sleeve, her eyes searching his face. She didn’t care about palace politics or political leverage. She only cared about her son’s peace. “The Palace is letting it slide because it’s easily spun,” Nicole said quietly. “But they are watching you, my love. They expect you to be the quiet, serious prince this weekend. No extra walkabouts, no off-script comments.”
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a protective, earnest whisper.
“I just don’t want them using this as an excuse to tighten their grip on you. You spent years living a normal life in Melbourne. I won’t stand by and watch this court suffocating you before you even figure out who you want to be here—or who you want to reach out to.”
Her gaze softened, a small, knowing warmth flickering in her eyes. “If you are going to let yourself getting drawn in, you have to be clever. They will turn any spark into a cage.”
“I’ll be careful, Mum,” Oscar promised softly, his voice low and entirely sincere. “I won’t give them a reason to step in.”
“You’d better,” Mae smiled, reaching out to playfully ruffle his hair and breaking the heavy royal tension. “Because if Mum has to rescue you from an F1 media circus, we’re making you wear the full ceremonial velvet cape to the paddock tomorrow.”
“And the tights,” Hattie warned with a wink.
“I will personally abdicate,” Oscar deadpanned without missing a beat.
His mother gave his arm one last, lingering pat before turning toward the door. “Get dressed, love. The court advisors are waiting downstairs for the afternoon briefing.”
As the four women left the room, the heavy oak doors clicked shut once more, leaving Oscar alone in the library. He picked up the silver-embossed envelope from the desk and opened it. Inside was his official schedule for the weekend. The Palace was keeping everything on track, sweeping the coffee incident under the rug and relying on the fast pace of the race weekend to drown out the internet gossip.
He walked out onto the balcony, the warm Mediterranean breeze rustling his hair. Down below, the harbor was a glittering, chaotic masterpiece. Team trucks lined the paddock, yachts hummed with low bass, and somewhere down there Lando Norris was probably still laughing off the questions in the media pen. Lando knew exactly who he was now. The secret was out, laid bare on live television, and yet the Brit had still played along by throwing a playful, public tease right back at him.
Oscar gripped the stone balustrade. The Palace’s strategy was simple. Pretend nothing happened, keep Oscar locked safely in his untouchable box, and let the news cycle move on. But over the next two days, Oscar wouldn't be hiding. He'd be standing in that VIP hospitality suite and stepping out into the Royal Box right above the starting grid, flanked by palace guards, carrying the full weight of his title.
He would be looking down at the McLaren garage.
And Lando Norris was going to look right back.
There would be no hoodies to hide behind, no quick exits down side alleys, and no escaping the sheer, public reality of who they were to each other. Lando knew his face now. He knew his name. And when their eyes met in front of a hundred cameras, the carefully crafted distance the palace had built would shatter.
Oscar stared into the distance toward the flash of papaya in the harbor, his eyes darkening with a quiet, dangerous resolve.
The game was finally about to begin.