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profeyandere · 7 months

Text

𝐍𝐈𝐊𝐈 𝐋. ─── ☾ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

Masterlist || Daniel Brühl Masterlist || Wattpad

Word Count: 3.7k

Warning: Mentions of anxiety attacks, taunts, nervousness, mentions of an accident, mentions of burns, mentions of operations.

Pairing: Niki Lauda x Reader

English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistake and if you can help me improve it, I will greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy it :D

Niki was aware that he had been the most recognized driver of the season, something that he did not doubt at the beginning of the season due to his victory the previous year and his championship title. Many were going to praise him for his superb racing performance, but by 1976, he had been recognized for something other than his superb and slightly careful driving, having stood out among the other competitors for always being mindful of the risks involved each race would carry with it a certain amount of danger, or they could have even named him in various magazines over the months to talk about his rivalry with James, being a topic that was talked about a lot during conferences, or even his way of being so surly with the rest of the participants in the race, being nicknamed in different ways for this. But this time, it was for various reasons that publicists and distinct media tried to get an interview with the well-known Formula 1 driver, and it's not like you'd have to be smart enough to know why. You only had to see Niki, his physique, and the reasons why the man was now being so valued after the competition had ended was summed up by seeing his face. The Austrian knew that he had never been considered the most graceful man on the entire planet, not even in Europe or Austria, but he had enough confidence in himself not to give importance to the comments of his fans, and those who were not so much, and it did not depend in any sense on public opinion; if that had been the case, it is most likely that he would have already gone into depression due to the number of fans of the sport who insulted him for being the rival of another runner or for his very different personality compared to other pilots. The bad thing happened with that happy accident that changed his life so radically, with which he almost lost it due to the great pride that prevented him from withdrawing from the race before the catastrophe happened, merely guided by the desire to shut up James Hunt, and to those who had suggested that he was a coward for simply wanting to cancel the race due to the dire conditions in which the German track was found after the heavy rain that was suffering that first day of August. That same thing caused not only his life to have been hanging by a thread, even the fact that he could have left the good woman who had become his friend and who had accompanied him that day to encourage him in his career helpless, but also all confidence and self-esteem that he had vanished in the same way that the rain did when his car had gone up in flames. The Austrian not only had to deal with an intense recovery for five weeks while hoping to get back on the racetrack, but the shame that he would have to spend the rest of his life while people looked not at him, but at the grafts placed in some areas of his hands that were not so visible but were on his head and a large part of his face; somehow, many likened that transplanted skin to a strange meat mask, as if he were a human raccoon. It was a cruel joke, and Lauda knew that he had to get used to it as soon as possible, even if he wanted the majority of the world's population to focus more on his professional achievements or the masterful way in which he had managed to survive before on something so superficial as his new skin was or his appearance very similar to that of a bald rat; this last similarity, although it relieved the tension of many, further irritated the man in question who had suffered the accident.

He had only longed to silence the mouths of those who had always seen him as a coward, even more so after what happened, but he only received the occasional mockery, the incessant glances of the fans to see what was under his cap, the softer comments from his racing team, and the pity of those closest to him. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and in the great photo session to which he had been invited to be able to cover the latest Formula 1 book where everything that happened during the season would be mentioned, with several unpublished interviews from all the runners of the year with images of their respective cars and analysis of these and various graphics where a view of all the tracks in which they had participated would be offered with the position of each one of the participants, and various extra and curious data that could call the attention of the fans, is where the ineptitude of some of the high positions of the media was most appreciated. "Scheisse," the pilot muttered to himself as he tried to calm down, noticing how his right leg was trembling violently as a result of the nerves he was having at that precise moment, clenching his teeth to the point of thinking that if he exerted a little more pressure between them, it would end up breaking them.

If Niki's mind could already reach unimaginable speeds when he was on the race track while fighting for glory, in moments of nervousness and anxiety that very rarely reached him, it caused his mind to distort any element of reality and begin to imagine the worst possible scenarios. Niki hated with all his soul the anxiety that the accident had caused him. Many advised him to go to a mental health specialist, even if by then psychology was not classified as an exact science even though a part of it was medically and clinically oriented, but he supposed that it was unnecessary because he survived, he didn't understand what trauma the accident that hadn't already affected him could cause him, but when he began to feel his first wave of anxiety hit him after his first post-recovery race, he knew it wasn't going to be a one-shot thing time. The symptoms of the anxiety attacks returned to him suddenly with the discussion between him and the director of the magazine, the latter being the one who constantly insisted that Niki take off the red cap that always accompanied him, whether it was within the circuit of races or during interviews and even in his day to day if he was going to be seen in public. The fact that Lauda revealed his scars, his grafts, was something that everyone longed to see and, if the magazine had those very special images that everyone wanted to see, they were sure that finally someone else would want to buy it just to see because of the morbidity they caused injuries from your accident. That damned cap —Niki thought constantly— that damned accident had been what had destroyed his life, and people only wanted to have something from him because of the disgust or ridicule he could cause in others. In a moment of anger, completely irrational and driven by the stress that the situation had caused him, Niki forcefully grabbed his mythical red cap with small patches from his different sponsors and held it in his hands, being able to see in these the small scars of his operation and light skin graft due to how extreme his injuries had been in some other areas of his body. There were many emotions that he felt at once that finally caused an explosion inside him when, without even letting him think for a second about his actions, he angrily threw his cap towards the door of the small trailer that they had used to want to do some of his makeup. The already discovered areas of the grafts would impact the spectators even more, and they would be noticed as reddish or more reddish than they already were, being the place where he could also dress in what they had chosen for him, among which a suit stood out careers similar to his but not completely identical, while the other garments were rather mundane and unremarkable, darker and less conspicuous.

He saw in himself nothing more than a simple wrinkled raisin with huge teeth. If in itself he had caused laughter among the crowd due to his large incisors that made him look like a rat, being nicknamed "The Rat King" for this very reason, the fact that half of his face was covered by skin from other parts of his body and his head were still slightly wrapped on a few occasions by bandages to keep the area not so irritated by the friction of the cloth against the grafts had caused the laughter to multiply and now it was louder than ever.

"Mr. Lauda," a sweet and calm voice called him, your voice, one of the photographers who had witnessed the entire discussion with remarkable surprise while ignoring her boss's instructions to take pictures of him unsuspectingly while trying to remove his cap. Niki did not want to see anyone, much less someone belonging to the team of that moron who was in charge of that important magazine, even if you had refused to ridicule him like some of those present, "They are waiting for you on the photography set. Well, more like me, who pays me for this, in addition to the lighting equipment, costumes, and makeup." Your shaky voice caught his attention, and when he finally turned his icy blue gaze on you, he could make out how you had an awkward half-smile that might once have amused him, but now it only made him feel strange as he I could make out how you nervously drummed your fingers on the camera that you held in your little hands. He had been received in the same way by other people, making sure that the eyes of his interlocutors always moved away from his irises and focused on other areas of his face; he was embarrassing and intimidating. "Tell your boss to put the photographs where they fit. I'm going to get out of here," he indicated sternly, seeing how your body seemed to stop its involuntary movement once your eyes seemed to rest on it intensely as if you were observing something fascinating or completely out of the ordinary. "What?" Niki didn't know why you didn't answer him, and it wasn't until he noticed that his cap was a few centimeters from your shoe that he was finally able to answer that question he had asked himself a few seconds ago. You were seeing him without a cap, you were witnessing something that he too much prevented the rest of the world from seeing, and that caused a feeling of weakness to run through his body whenever it happened.

Now, the roles had been reversed: You could judge him, and he had to shut up and endure your judgment of him. You witnessed the cold, distant look of the pilot turn to a fearful one, the same one you might see in a small child who has just witnessed the worst thing he could have imagined, or perhaps as a young boy who has just been discovered by his parents having found out that he had done something terrible; in either case, the feeling that Lauda was then transmitting was one of fear.

Your heart could not help but skip a beat because not only had the previous discussion brought the underlying feelings of everyone present to the surface, but you seemed to be one of the first people to have seen the physical state in which he was the driver after the big crash that shocked all fans of the sport; Just by remembering the images that your television had broadcast, you could notice how the hairs on your arm stood on end. There were mixed feelings, and in that caravan, Niki felt cornered and ashamed of having to deal with someone else's opinion, a smirk from another fan, or a derogatory comment from someone who thought he was a class jerk.

You acted in silence. You believed that the words were not necessary because perhaps he would end up misinterpreting them due to his state of nervousness and defense. You carefully bent down to pick up his cap, still holding your big professional camera in your other hand even though it was hanging from your neck by a strap, gently shaking the garment a little to remove any traces of dirt it had caught. As it fell to the ground, you approached the pilot to return it to him, placing it gently on the table in front of him next to your work object, smiling softly and kindly before taking a seat across from him in the old chair that he loved so much you had reused it during the last season; you had already made a mental note of changing it, you even swore you had mentioned it to one of the people in charge of the photo shoots, mainly because your butt was starting to hurt, and you had just sat down, so you did not want to imagine how the Austrian must feel in front of you or any of the other guests who had accepted this little job. By this point, while you were pondering the possibility that you might lose the shape of your ass, Niki had already put her cap back on, keeping her gaze on a different point in the room other than you. "I hope you don't consider leaving us here. He's an idiot, he's like that with everyone," you mentioned, being the first of the two to speak, showing your willingness to have a quiet conversation with him to address the issue that had led him to sit there, trying to run away from the gaze of other people. "If he thinks you have a flaw or something that he might get more people to buy the magazine, he'll do whatever it takes to show it, even if it's personal or makes the celebrity he's dealing with uncomfortable. I think he even once almost hid in the closet of this trailer just to get a picture of a Motocross rider so he could show the tattoo he had of his ex-girlfriend or something similar; when the guy in question found out, he almost sued us, and it didn't surprise me at all when we found out about it." Niki remained silent, watching you now as he tried to figure out the reason why you were still with him there. At that moment you wanted to be a fortune teller to find out what he was thinking or to have the power to disappear because you didn't think you could bear the Austrian's intense gaze for much longer. "I think he also made a pass like that to a woman he modeled for us, but I don't remember exactly what sport she was in," you muttered, trying to find a suitable topic of conversation, even if your mind wasn't quite sharp enough then to choose something in particular to make the tension between them vanish. But honestly, what conversation could arise between a racing driver and a photographer? Unless each other's respective fields were discussed, it was unlikely that anything genuine would come of that encounter. "I'd even swear something similar happened with Hunt, but it was with his shirt, and he didn't have much qualms about taking it off either, honestly," you continued, turning your gaze back to him when you realized how you seemed to have gotten so involved in your world that you hadn't even noticed how you had started to ramble, finally realizing that his intense gaze was for you to shut up and leave him alone. "Sorry."

A sigh escaped from Niki's lips. You felt bad. Why would you say otherwise? You heard your boss ask him on several occasions in an amusing way to remove his cap, in a way that was too nice for what that stubborn man you worked for really was, always getting a slightly uncomfortable but negative response from the pilot as he tried to keep a bit of composure in each of the photographs for which he was modeling until finally, you could distinguish during your short break a loud voice coming from the Austrian that surprised the entire production team. His thick Austrian accent stood out among the quieter English voices engaged in various conversations across the length and breadth of the set, and soon, the two men had found themselves surrounded by all the makeup, lighting, and set equipment as they tried to understand what was happening, barely being able to make out the words of the men who were shouting at the top of their lungs. Everything happened while Niki was talking calmly with your boss, the latter being the one who begged him more and more insistently to take off his cap so he could see his bandages and burns next to his grafts while a couple of your photography colleagues were they approached on the orders of the man who paid you intending to obtain something more than the rigid body of the Austrian as a cover photo; no, your boss wanted more and was eager to get it. In short, the rest did not need to be explained. Niki got pissed off, your boss started yelling at him, and the pilot couldn't find a safer place to be than in the trailer looking for a place to calm down before he got back in his car and got the hell out of there. In an act of empathy? You didn't even know if you could call it that, you placed your hand on the fabric of the shirt that covered your shoulder, gently caressing it while you felt the soft brush of the fabric against your soft skin and lacking the orange hue of your light natural tan. You frowned gently as you tried to stop your hand, it didn't seem to respond to your commands by itself, but you gently held the collar of your shirt so you could show him the graft that you also had, the product of a freak accident that in your time you tormented for having provoked, in some way trying to show him that he was not completely alone in that fight against what others might think or simply to make him see that that situation of anxiety and nervousness, lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, had no to suffer all alone. The look full of surprise from him captivated you.

His opaque blue eyes, barely visible thanks to the bill of his cap, seemed to shine with intensity when they found that part of your shoulder that was paler than the rest, distinguishing the places where the suture had joined a certain part of your healthy skin with the transplanted from another area of his body; That image reminded him of the same marks that he had suffered from seeing every time he looked in the mirror or when he saw his own hands. "It was a few years ago, quite a few to tell the truth," you indicated, smiling softly at him while you made sure of how your image seemed to have blocked him. "I was young and crazy, and I said to myself, why not play kitchen while the beans are cooking? I put my feet up on the little low bars that surrounded the kitchen and tipped over the entire pot of burning beans. They not only affected my shoulder but also my neck and head area a bit." Niki couldn't help but gently tilt her head to the left side, watching you part your hair from the side of your head a little to show him the small skin grafts in those already healed and lightly covered areas. He didn't understand how he hadn't noticed before. "Young?" He asked, being the only word you could hear coming from between his parted lips separated by his largest incisors, watching how he licked his slightly drier upper lip.

"At eighteen years old," you answered, suddenly hearing a strange snort escape from Niki that caused your mouth to open in surprise and indignation as if you were somehow annoyed by the sound she had just emitted. "Don't laugh. I told you she was young!" You heard the snort again, causing you to cross your arms in indignation while one of your eyebrows rose slightly, waiting for him to stop. He would simply settle into his chair and gently adjust the cap on his head, leaning forward as he reached for your camera and began fiddling with it in your hands. "Yes, but I didn't expect an adult to really be as 'crazy' as you mentioned. What went through your head to do something so dangerous and stupid?" Questioned Niki while a smile, finally sincere, appeared on her face, insulting you along the way for free. But, after all, that was Niki. Sincere. "If I told you. I am a very crazy woman, Mr. Lauda. Don't push your luck with me." Soon Niki's caravan was involved in a large number of funny anecdotes and strange laughter that caught the attention of many magazine workers who were waiting impatiently for the pilot to come out.

Marlene, the Austrian pilot's best friend, had gone to the photo session to bring him the yogurts that he had asked for before leaving his house, appearing confused as she did not know where her dear friend was, encountering a strange scene that caused her heart to leap with joy because Niki was smiling and laughing in the same way he had done before the accident, and recognizing your person as the cause of those natural expressions caused a feeling of happiness. They will settle on her chest. She was happy because finally, Niki seemed to have started to love himself as he listened to all your stories about your burn and just had to see through that little round glass how his cap was now resting on the table that separated you while He was chatting animatedly with you. Marlene only hoped that the same person who was now next to the Austrian would understand that his bluish gaze full of curiosity was not just due to a few silly jokes or absurd situations, but because of a much deeper feeling that had to wait to emerge with overtime.

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profeyandere · 1 year

Text

𝐍𝐈𝐊𝐈 𝐋. ─── ☾ 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄

Masterlist || Daniel Brühl Masterlist || Wattpad

Word Count: 2.8k

Pairing: Niki Lauda x Fem!Reader

Warning: Accident mentions, injury mentions, feelings of guilt.

English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistake and if you can help me improve it, I will greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy it :D

Your recovery had been long and tortuous. There were times when you ever wished you had died in that accident, but watching television every day and observing the races you had participated in and in which you should have been, gave you that necessary push to be able to continue to improve day by day, even if there were times when your body was on the verge of collapse, and all it asked of you was a little rest.

With first-degree burns in various areas, including the face and head, with a fracture, almost broken, in one of your legs, and various wounds scattered throughout the front area of your body along with lung poisoning due to smoke, you decided to finish that recovery as soon as possible and continue the championship in which you had signed up. You had very bad days in which you simply couldn't even get out of bed, and you had other, less common days, in which you were completely prepared to continue improving and giving it all to return to racing as soon as possible. At first, it was very difficult, even the doctors doubted that you would survive, but once they verified your fighting spirit, and threatened the occasional professional, they finally decided to get down to work to make you recover as soon as possible and continue what you had left behind while you were in the hospital, and some of your rivals were still in Germany, you found yourself surrounded by love and emotional support, receiving the occasional joke and words of encouragement, but always missing the sarcastic and scathing comments from certain Austrians with whom you had such a good relationship.

Niki Lauda, known for being "The Rat" in F1 and a category jerk, was not the first to offer you his hand as a sign of friendship once you signed up for that world championship, but once he made sure of the potential you had in the races and how hard you worked even if you didn't get to the podium often, he didn't think twice about burying the hatchet with you. It was not very common to see you in the company of the other competitors, but it was a very pleasant surprise to meet Lauda one summer afternoon after one of the races of the 1975 season, both sharing a rather pleasant conversation judging by how that a subtle smile had settled on his face and your cheeks were pink from the laughter that came from you. People whispered about a friendship, maybe even a romance between the two of you judging by the looks you gave each other, but you both knew that this feeling that flourished in you had to remain hidden from the public eye and that it was not necessary to say anything to express what the other felt, you simply intuited it.

When you had that accident and regained consciousness, you expected to see Niki appear at the door of your room at some point, occasionally meeting James, Clay, and your team of technicians and mechanics while they were still in Germany, even though you were visited by some of the competitors you didn't have much of a relationship with, but Niki never went. He never visited you, and that, internally, destroyed you.

Now, that you had finally been discharged from the various operations for skin transplants and lung cleaning, you decided to continue supporting your team from the shadows. You had to take things easy. The grafts should not be exposed to the sun and, if they did, it should be for the shortest time possible you should not make great efforts to avoid hurting your lungs, in addition to taking care of the fracture in your leg so that they did not have to operate on it. Simply put, you had to take care of every little thing you did so you didn't suffer more than you had to.

"I thought you wouldn't come back to run."

That voice, slightly serious but with a joking tone made you smile. You turned your head to be able to see the tall body of the British driver, who welcomed you with the greatest of joys when he found out that you had traveled to Italy to support your team and the partner who would replace you from that moment until the end of the competition.

"And I'm not going to run," you admitted, extending your arms to reach the crutches you needed to walk, "but someone has to supervise a bit that their team is in good shape and in perfect condition to beat you."

James couldn't help but smile even more when he heard your answer, making a slight wince that went unnoticed when he saw you get up from the seat where they had forced you to be so as not to force yourself more than necessary. He was glad to see that you were still the same woman and, somehow, you didn't see the scars you had left from the accident as something to hide, but that you showed them without problems and any shame. He admired your fighting spirit and your way of making others understand that you didn't give a shit about their opinions.

"That is going to be complicated, the rat and I are leading the championship."

You couldn't help but roll your eyes before heading towards the blond, smiling in his direction again, showing him the result of your grafts for the first time. It was true that Hunt had seen your condition shortly after regaining consciousness, finding that your face was swollen and red, there were even parts that he couldn't differentiate, but now you were completely different. Your hair, if it was already short, was now completely flush and with a blackish tone very similar to coal, with areas covered by bandages that you had to change from time to time for cures. Your forehead, eye area, and part of the bridge of your nose had a more orange hue from the grafts, and while the operation didn't make you look as attractive as you did before, they were at least able to save your life and managed to rebuild an area that might have been lost.

"I know I'm beautiful, but you don't have to ogle me," you teased, snapping James out of his thoughts.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to seem rude," he muttered between his teeth, clearing his throat when he realized the mistake he had made by staring at you.

"You didn't seem like it," you denied back, shrugging. "I know I don't look good, James. I'm like a wrinkled walnut, half orange and hairless, but it is what it is, and it is what I have to get used to until everything settles down and improves."

Your tone of voice had dropped. James was able to feel in your words how you were hurt by what had happened, but he also knew that you were doing well, or at least as much as you could.

"Do you want to go for a walk? I have to rescue you from being prostrate in a chair for the rest of your life, and judging by the way your friends look at me, they're not too amused that you're standing up."

You couldn't help but laugh when you heard your friend's words, nodding your head gently before following in his footsteps to take a small tour of the room where your other rivals were.

Something that you liked about James was his spontaneous way of bringing up topics of conversation that were interesting or, failing that, that was funny enough to make you laugh a few times so you could forget about all the bad things in life. You hadn't realized how much you had missed the Brit until that moment.

You appreciated the walk with Hunt. In the background, you were able to hear the roar of various engines, and the talks of the different teams that were competing, and you could feel the fresh and soft wind from Italy blowing over part of your face that had not been affected by the burns. Once again, you felt like one more runner, for small moments you forgot the accident and everything that it entailed, but when you came back to reality, you felt a bucket of icy water fall on you, even more so when you saw the small flag of the Ferrari team just a few meters from you, also remembering the Austrian you hadn't seen in a month.

"And Niki?" You asked, drawing the blonde's attention. He didn't seem to understand what you were referring to. "I know he caused the accident, but nothing happened to him? He was good?"

James opened and closed his mouth, resembling a fish out of water.

"Yes," he said, seeing how you raised both eyebrows when you didn't understand what question he was answering to you. "I mean, nothing happened to him. No injuries, no fractures, or anything like that. The only thing he suffered was his car, and all he did was retire from that race."

"The blow was quite strong, yes," you confirmed, nodding your head gently. "But I know that he tried to help me, as did Harald, Guy, and Arturo. No one suffered from burns?"

"If they had burns, they were slight, nothing too important," he answered. "The rat was very worried about you."

"I guess," you muttered, stopping just a few steps from where Niki was supposed to meet with his team. "Why didn't he come to see me? I understand that we are not thick and thick, but I hoped to see him at some point like you or any of the others."

James' blue eyes settled on you and, with a gentle nod, he invited you into the Ferrari garage, the place you had avoided because of the man inside. You sighed and, with a quick thank you to James, walked slowly towards the entrance of the small space that the Italian team had for the improvement of their cars, then found yourself with a completely absorbed Niki who didn't seem to notice your presence.

Seeing that red jumpsuit full of stamps of the different sponsors that Ferrari advertised made you feel tickled in your stomach. Before, you hadn't paid much attention to how shiny his racing clothes were or how his tousled curls made him look even more attractive, even if his front teeth made many say otherwise; missing someone was never so clear to you until you finally had Niki Lauda before your eyes.

You must have moved instinctively, as the Austrian quickly turned to check that you were there, with him. He was just speechless seeing you, being the first person to have such an effect on him.

"Hello."

Your voice was like a breath of fresh air, and his heart began to pound so fast that he even thought that he might be suffering from a heart attack at that moment. For a moment, he imagined that his mind was doing its thing again, seeing things that weren't there or hearing voices when, in reality, it was an engine; he just couldn't imagine that he had you back, alive, in front of him.

"Hello," he answered back, scanning you.

The small smile that settled on your face caused a frown to appear on his. He didn't know exactly how to feel about your arrival and, although he had avoided meeting you as much as possible, he made sure at that moment that it was a matter of time before the dreaded reunion would take place.

"I know I'm beautiful, but you don't have to stare at me.

That joke of yours, even if you had previously used it on James to get his attention so that he wouldn't look at you too much more than necessary, it did not affect Niki because, in his mind, the only thing he was able to remember was the accident and then felt the weight of guilt fall back on his shoulders. It was as if he were going back to that happy race, remembering the same thing over and over again without getting tired, only to realize that he was to blame for what had happened to you.

It was all his damn fault.

That August morning he was afraid, it was reflected in the meeting with all the runners who were going to participate in the race, but it was his ego and his attempt to show that he was the best and not a coward that caused his mind to cloud over and he just wanted to beat James. He knew he was going too fast, and that the car might be damaged by his attempt to win, but he never expected to crash into the back of your car and set it on fire, thus taking away your chances of winning that championship and almost taking it from your life. It was the latter that weighed on him the most, seeing you engulfed in flames and not being able to save you from a mistake he made. From then on he behaved like a coward, mainly because he couldn't be able to visit you to realize what he had done to you, and now, in front of his eyes and looking not very pretty, he felt even worse than he would have imagined.

"Niki?"

Hearing his name come from your lips, it was as if a switch had been thrown in him.

"Why are you here?" He questioned, surprising you by the dark and cold tone of voice that he was using, being the first time that he addressed you in that way. "You have come to blame me too, right? Just like everyone else."

You couldn't help but frown at that accusation.

"What are you talking about?"

Lauda felt insulted.

She had seen it in the eyes of others, and you, of all the people in this world, should know it better than anyone. Everyone had looked at him and pointed to him as the culprit of everything that had happened to you, and they were right, but he didn't need to be reminded all the time what a monster he had been when he involved you in the accident. The interviewers continually asked him about the same topic, your technicians and mechanics kept looking at him sideways, and even some of the runners stayed behind him in the races so as not to suffer the same fate as you; he wasn't stupid, people were afraid of him, and they described him as the worst human being in the world, but he didn't need you to remind him with your presence.

"I know what you're planning, and I'm not going to let you trample me too," he pointed out cheekily, annoyed, taking several steps towards you so that you could hear him better, leaning slightly to be at your height and intimidate you. "I know I was wrong to let anger blind me and keep me from seeing past my nose, but I also don't need you to appear here as Jesus Christ to argue with me. I know I should have listened to you and calmed down. I know I should have thought with my head and not let my ego win. I know I should have slowed down and not sought glory to show Hunt and his friends that he was the best. But I don't need you to come to martyr me any more than I already do to myself."

The harsh words of the Austrian left you frozen, speechless.

Not only you had suffered the consequences of the accident, but Niki as well, and he was not able to mention it to anyone because everyone blamed him, including himself. As he had spoken, his face had taken on a reddish color where anger and sadness had been the main factor in him. His hazel eyes had turned bloodshot, and his shoulders were shaking, trying to hold back from falling apart. He had always shown himself as someone strong who cared little about other people's comments and, in order not to show how hurt he felt, he behaved like an idiot to drive the other person away. You made sure then that you were trying to walk away so as not to suffer more than he already had, even if then it was too selfish to think such a thing after all he had done to you.

With one step of yours, you got your bodies to be a few centimeters from touching, and slowly, you delicately let your forehead rest on his chest. The sudden contact alerted Lauda, who for a second wanted to step back so as not to injure your burns or make you suffer from the grafts that were recovering and molding, but feeling how you seemed to seek his touch more ended up relaxing him and calming the stress he was experiencing. He had subdued for the last month, allowing him to let out all the air he seemed to have been holding since the moment he saw you in his garage.

You knew Niki wasn't one to show affection for physical contact, but seeing him not pull away made you understand that he was fine. From that moment, you would show him that everything would be fine.

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