Three Coffees Please - Verstappen / Ricciardo

three coffees please - verstappen / ricciardo

(gif not mine @maxgovroom)

pairing: max x fem driver!reader x daniel

summary: Max, Daniel, and you. Inseparable. Their bond from childhood rivals to best friends to lovers.

themes/warnings: alcohol, no smut, domestic, fluff, some angst, hint of daniel being possessive, daniel's tattoos, no use of y/n THIS IS FICTION

wc: 1.8k

a/n: craving maxiel x reader that isn't straight up smut so enjoy this completely self indulgent fic. also trying to get back into writing so if you have request pls put them through <3

read on ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/59444749

You and Max grew up racing together in karting. Your families weren’t friends but you two gravitated towards each other after a few years of hard racing and a fair share of head butting. Your shared love of cats really began your relationship. 

You were usually the only girl at the track so you were subject to endless teasing from the other boys about many things, including your close friendship with Max. It didn’t really matter though, you or Max ran them off track eventually and the comments and snide remarks stopped. 

Your relationship with Max never grew from more than a friendship, except for that one time when you were thirteen and you shared each other’s first kiss behind a building behind a building before a race, for good luck of course. You and Max ended up sharing a 1-2. 

Max ended up joining the Red Bull Driver Academy whilst you joined the Mercedes Driver Academy. The rival academies were of no concern to either of you and had long ago figured out how to manage your relationship on and off track. 

Max ended up making his Formula 1 debut a year earlier than you. This was when he properly made Daniel’s acquaintance. 

Daniel. Charming. Loud. Handsome. Cheerful. The Australian had the motorsport world wrapped around his tattooed fingers, including Max. Many of your phone calls with Max that year involved a funny anecdote about Daniel’s antics that week. 

You joined the grid a year later, driving for Williams and wanting to prove yourself for the Mercedes seat. No one was more excited than Max, eager to have his childhood best friend and now F1 best friend in the same place for twenty something weekends a year. 

You finally met Daniel that year. He was everything you thought and more. His kindness and genuine nature surprised you, having pulled you aside for coffee and a quick chat during pre-season testing. After all, it wasn’t long ago that he was a young, nervous rookie. 

You were sucked into the shiny whirlpool of Daniel Ricciardo soon after. Hangouts with Max in his Monaco apartment on off weeks turned into the three of you spending hours on each other’s living room floors. On the days where distance separated the three of you, Facetime calls and gaming sessions were the norm. 

You and Daniel started seeing each other three years into your F1 career. At this point, you had lost the last of your baby fat and had grown into a beautiful young woman. Daniel had always thought you were beautiful, but recently, you had become something otherworldly. 

It started after someone’s birthday celebration in some Monaco nightclub. You and Daniel danced together as you always had, but Daniel’s grip on your hips was tighter and the way he leaned down on your neck was closer than he had ever been. He eyed off other men, daring them to try and take a piece, knowing he’d come out on top. 

Max was oblivious to the entire situation, too blind drunk to notice the lingering touches as you and Daniel helped him into bed at the end of the night.

A light hand on your hip, a longing glance in the dim light of the kitchen ended with you in the guest room, wrapped in Daniel’s arms as he worshiped you until the early hours of the morning. 

Daniel greeted you with a cup of coffee, an old Red Bull shirt he kept at Max’s, and a joke that you looked good in the red and dark blue. 

You two started up a breakfast in the kitchen, bringing out a hungover and bleary eyed Max from his room. Max didn’t catch the look shared between yourself and Daniel, a silent agreement to not tell Max about the night before. Max ignored the Red Bull shirt with the giant 3 on the back, chalking it up to not wanting to wear alcohol ridden clothes, rather than a sign of Daniel’s claim on you. 

You and Daniel continued seeing each other for the next year. Well, “seeing” each other in loose terms. You kept it casual, aware of the challenges of romance as an F1 driver, more so between two drivers and even more so when you’re the first female F1 driver in what felt like forever. Still, for what it’s worth, both of you never saw another person. 

Max began catching on soon enough. A flash of pink fabric behind a closing door of Daniel’s room, much too small for one of Daniel’s loud shirts. Fading bruises on your chest, only noticeable up close on yacht days in the summer. Max seeing Daniel going into your room late Saturday night and seeing you two walk into the paddock together the next morning. 

Safe to say, Max was confused. He wasn’t upset that you and Daniel were hanging out without him. It would be more weird if you two weren’t. But the nature of your relationship was confusing to him, enough for him to begin digging. 

Now, Max wasn’t one to snoop, but he’s known you long enough for you not to care. You were in the shower after some shared training which was good enough an opportunity for him. Your password remained the same, but Max scrolled past the games he’d play on your phone to your photo album. Nothing out of the ordinary, some dumb selfies and pictures from the paddock and Monaco.

Two photos caught his eye. The first, a dark room illuminated by the flash from your phone. You were lying against your sheets, hair messy on the pillow behind you. You were smiling, eyes tired, but there was an unmistakable hand with a rose tattoo around your neck - Daniel. The second, less obvious but still recognisable to Max. The morning light was streaming through your window and a man sat on the edge of your bed, his back to the camera. The defining curls were definitely Daniels and the muscles on his back were the same ones Max had been admiring for years. 

Max put the phone back where he found it. He had the confirmation he wanted but it didn’t settle the heavy pit in his stomach. Both you and Daniel were attractive people, there was no denying that. He’d even caught himself looking at you both several times throughout the years. Sometimes he was delusional enough to think the looks were reciprocated, but that would be in his wildest dreams. 

The feeling was no longer confusion. It was a strange myriad of emotions he’d only felt in fleeting moments, quickly shut down by his brain. The dam is open now. A feeling longing for his best friends, the people he loved most and could never define his relationship with. Jealousy, not directed at a single person, but perhaps at both of you in a way Max could not understand yet. Betrayal, for not being told or trusted enough with this information, when Max could tell the both of you anything. 

You could tell something was bothering Max, but you never pushed. He’d come to you when he was ready. Years of knowing Max has taught you enough of his emotional processing. Still, you brought it up to Daniel one night in bed. He assumed it was stress at Red Bull, but you thought otherwise. 

It came to a boil at Daniel’s apartment one night. The three of you organised a casual homemade dinner. You answered the door with dishevelled hair, blaming it on training earlier in the day but if anything, it was from certain activities prior to Max’s arrival. 

All three of you had a few drinks that night. Max was sober enough to know what was happening but had enough alcohol to count as liquid courage. 

Max sat on a beanbag on the floor, eyeing you and Daniel on the couch. You sat on the end with a glass of wine, Daniel right next to you, thighs touching yours despite the spacious couch. 

I know you two have been hooking up. 

Shock. Panic. Backs against a corner. Words stuck in a clogged throat. 

Apologies streamed out, from you and Daniel. Your hand ended up in Max’s hair, your other holding his hand. Daniel on Max’s other side, holding his hand and arm. Tears came from all three of you. 

Max sat there, almost numb and resigned. He was hurt, but he also hated seeing you and Daniel like this. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the heightened emotions or the unholy combination of both. 

Consequences be damned. The three of you will emerge from the aftermath later, like always. Max just needed his people. 

Max leaned in to you and cut you off mid sentence with a hard kiss. Another round of shock, then confusion from which emerged a feeling of familiarity. These were the same lips that touched yours all those years ago. This was Max, who always had your back. Your Maxie. You kissed him back and the grip he had on your hand tightened. 

Max pulled away, breathless and eyes wide. But breathing was you, and breathing was Daniel so he pulled Daniel in by the curls on the back of his head. Daniel pressed in as much as he could because this was Max. His Max, and when he had no one, he always had Max. 

They had each other that night, making up for emotions and lost time, where nothing else mattered but the three of you. 

Max lay in between you and Daniel in the sobering dawn light. You leaned on your forearm, running your fingers through Max’s hair. Daniel lay half asleep, cuddled into Max’s side. 

I need you. Both. 

Max spoke those words into the ceiling. A crossroads, that would forever change the trajectory of your lives. 

Daniel blinked sleepily at you. Another silent communication, that perhaps Max was the missing piece between the both of you; the catalyst for the next step. 

We’ll have you.

Always. 

You layed back down, tucking yourself into Max’s side. Daniel tightened his grip around Max’s waist and drifted off into sleep. 

Life became a little simpler after. You all kept your own apartments, but every night was a sleepover with your best friends. Things eventually started migrating between places; toothbrushes in mugs, each other’s hobbies and crafts and everyone’s favourite snacks having a permanent stash in each other’s apartments. 

Daniel liked to begin mornings by bringing in coffee for the three of you. He blamed the Italian in him when Max protested one early morning and tried to bury himself further into the sheets and you. 

He was an extrovert and a lover at heart, so it wasn’t a surprise when Daniel’s personal team found out about the relationship first. The public would never know, they were long ago used to seeing the three of you out and about, even when the catch ups turned into dinner dates. 

Daniel was a giver, proven to him on the night Max won his first championship. A quiet moment on the balcony of his hotel room, watching you and Max slow dance, the lights of the city reflecting on your slinky black dress. He realised he would give anything for you and Max.