Chapter Text
The first time Charles Leclerc truly, truly laid eyes on his newest housekeeper — really looked at him, not just in passing glances or through the detached approval of a well-checked resume — it was through the blurred prism of a half-empty crystal tumbler and the slow, honey-thick glow of firelight licking up the dark corners of his living room. His body was loose with the familiar warmth of his favorite whiskey, his mind swimming somewhere between sharp awareness and the heavy haze that only deep stress and good alcohol could conjure. News of Ferrari’s latest breakthrough had started to seep out through the cracks like blood from a wound, spilling into rival organizations and making its way into the wrong mouths. It was only a matter of time — of course it was — before the inevitable rumors and desperate actions followed: spies slipping between his men like shadows, warehouses ransacked, old alliances tested and strained.
He knew better than to panic — the formula was safe, tucked away inside a vault of trust that only a handful of his most loyal could access — but still, the endless gnawing pressure clawed at him, whispering that even if the secret itself was safe, his empire’s walls were never entirely bulletproof.
And so, a night to himself, a good drink, and the comforting crackle of the fireplace at his side, was not just permitted — it was necessary . A rare indulgence in a world where letting your guard down often came at the sharp edge of a knife.
It was during this rare pocket of solitude that his gaze, idly sweeping over the polished expanse of his too-large house, landed — and lingered — on him .
The new housekeeper.
Max.
Charles had, admittedly, left the hiring process to his assistant, overwhelmed by the logistics of maintaining an estate this sprawling while balancing the demands of an empire constantly under siege. A new cleaner, a private chef, two gardeners — all thoroughly vetted, all seemingly clean. Seemingly being the operative word.
He had learned, quickly, that appearances were worth less than ash in his line of work.
The first gardener — Lando, if memory served — had cracked like cheap porcelain under the pressure of discovery, his betrayal evident in the tiny listening devices he had so clumsily installed behind potted plants and in light fixtures. The message Ferrari sent back to McLaren, once they were done with their little spy, was brutal and unambiguous: stop snooping.
The cleaner after that had fared little better, a would-be mole dispatched by Mercedes, trembling and begging when Charles confronted him with the evidence. Charles had been in a generous mood then — the latest round of clinical trials for the drug had come back promising — so he'd let him live. Barely.
He hadn't bothered to replace the gardener. There was no need, one would suffice. But the housekeeper — that was a role he couldn’t simply leave empty.
And so Max had arrived.
And now — now, through the golden haze of his drink, Charles wondered if maybe, just maybe, they had finally gotten it right.
Maybe it was the alcohol blurring the edges of his usually razor-sharp instincts, or maybe it was the quiet euphoria of another successful step forward, but when Charles looked at Max — saw him bent slightly over the kitchen counter, showing off his assets and methodically wiping down the marble with smooth, efficient motions — he could swear the man glowed .
There had been nothing suspicious in Max’s file. If anything, he had seemed too perfect: fluent in English, Dutch, and passable French, thanks to his tangled Belgian-Dutch heritage — but crucially, not Italian, meaning he wouldn’t pick up on sensitive conversations passed in hushed tones. An ex-karter, oddly enough, meaning casual conversation would come naturally between them. A beta, too, which was ideal — no suffocating alpha scent to invade his home, no unpredictable heats to manage like with an omega.
Perfect.
And yet… Charles found himself wishing — traitorously, hungrily — that Max wasn’t a beta at all.
That he was something softer, something more claimable .
Max, as if sensing Charles’s gaze, looked up and caught him staring. A soft, bashful smile curved his lips, and for a moment — a split, electrifying second — Charles could have sworn he saw the faintest flush bloom high on his cheeks.
Maybe, Charles thought, swirling the amber liquid in his glass, maybe I’ve found the perfect test subject for our little miracle.
He would be patient. He had waited this long, after all. He could afford to wait a little longer.
He would get to know his Max a little better first.
When Christian Horner had first summoned Max into his office, laying out the contours of the mission with sharp-edged words and grim expectations, Max hadn't known quite how to feel. Excited, maybe. Apprehensive. Caged, definitely.
His task was simple in theory: infiltrate Charles Leclerc’s household, gain his trust, and uncover the secret Ferrari was so desperate to protect before they could unleash it on the market.
Easy.
Or it should have been.
Except Red Bull’s preliminary intelligence was troubling — two operatives already dispatched and returned barely clinging to life, brutalized for their failures. Another two, from rival gangs, who had already managed to worm their way into Charles’s home were met with the same fate.
Max wasn’t like them, though. He was better. Smarter. Patient enough to play the long game, weaving himself into the very fabric of Charles’s life until the man would never think to suspect him. He would become indispensable , invisible.
No mistakes.
He was ready.
At least, that’s what he told himself — until he actually met Charles Leclerc.
Because holy fuck .
The moment those deep-green eyes pinned him in place across the polished marble of the entryway, Max forgot everything — his mission, his training, even his own name for a heartbeat.
All he wanted, for one delirious moment, was to fall into the arms of the man he was meant to betray.
He shook it off — he had to — but the ache lodged itself stubbornly in his chest, a quiet, treacherous longing he couldn’t fully extinguish.
In the beginning, Charles barely paid him any mind, which was exactly what Max needed. He moved quietly through the house, careful to avoid suspicion, feigning clumsy ignorance of the forbidden areas. Particularly the first floor — off-limits by explicit instruction, and undoubtedly where the secrets he sought were buried.
He would be careful. He would be patient.
He was not going to end up like the others.
When the chef disappeared under mysterious circumstances — a fate Max didn’t dare inquire too closely into — he stepped up without complaint, slicing vegetables and scrubbing dishes with quiet competence. No clumsy, reckless transmitter placements for him. Max hid his device behind a section of the laundry room wall, tucked out of sight where the cameras never reached.
After the second month of working under Charles's watchful eye, they have grown quite close. The walls fell, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first — in long conversations about karting and Formula One, in shared jokes and easy silences. Charles’s laughter became a familiar sound, something Max found himself craving without even meaning to.
He wasn’t sure when the mission blurred into something more.
One evening, when he was packing to go to the staff house for the night (because of course there was a special house for the staff, Charles was filthy rich and this was an over 200 years old French château) he heard someone coming up behind him. He pretended that he didn’t notice when suddenly there were two strong hands on his waist and a low, teasing voice in his ear.
"Boo."
Max knew it was coming — he knew — but the gasp that escaped him was still real, still too honest, a visceral reaction to the way Charles’s touch fit him so perfectly, like a lock clicking into place. He wished those hands could stay there forever.
"Oh my god, Mr. Leclerc! You scared me half to death," he laughed, breathless, falling into the easy, practiced rhythm of play-acting.
Charles chuckled, the sound rich and affectionate. "Max, mon cœur , how many times do I have to tell you to call me Charles? We're past the formalities, non ?"
He spoke with that attractive French accent which Max simply couldn’t get enough of and with cheeks burning hotter than he dared admit, barely managed a nod.
And when Charles — grinning, hopeful, so damn charming — asked him to stay a bit longer, to watch the Monaco Grand Prix with him, Max couldn’t have said no even if his life had depended on it.
Later, sprawled side-by-side on the couch, a gin and tonic in his hand and Charles’s whiskey glass clinking softly against his own, Max realized he was in deeper than he had ever intended to be.
He had forgotten how good it felt to laugh like this — really laugh — to lose himself in the roar of engines and the heat of someone else’s presence. Forgotten how dangerous it was to want like this.
And when the night dragged on, when the alcohol loosened Charles’s tongue and he spoke — in quiet, yearning tones — about dreams of escaping, of settling down, of starting a family someday... Max felt something inside him splinter.
Because he wanted that too.
Not with just anyone.
With Charles.
But he could never have it. Not with the blood on his hands. Not with the lies sitting heavy between them. And certainly not when Charles, someday, would want pups of his own — something Max, a beta, could never give.
So he listened, nodding at the right moments, letting Charles pour all his secret hopes into the space between them.
Pretending it didn’t hurt.
Pretending he wasn’t already hopelessly, irredeemably lost.
But there was nothing to do about it. He could never be with Charles anyway, he was an enemy and Max could not betray Redbull.
Somewhere along the way, Charles disappeared briefly, murmuring something about grabbing another bottle. Max, left to his own devices and still a little too buzzed, checked his phone for updates — a habit he couldn’t quite shake. He logged into his secure account but there was nothing urgent from Horner. As he scanned through the mails a football update popped up. He smiled faintly and let his mind drift, heavy with drink and affection he didn’t dare name.
At some point, he must have fallen asleep, because the next time Max drifted awake, it was slow, the kind of waking that felt like rising through warm water, reluctant and heavy, as if the universe itself was trying to coax him back into the safety of sleep. His body ached pleasantly from the alcohol, from the couch digging into his side, from something he couldn’t quite name.
For a long, long moment, he didn’t move.
He just lay there, bundled under the too-soft blanket someone — Charles — had laid over him. The fabric smelled faintly of the house, of wood polish and faint spices, and somewhere underneath all of that, something distinctly Charles — warm and salty, a scent that was all too easy to bury his face into if he let himself.
Stupid, he thought, but the word lacked heat.
Outside the tall windows, the sky was shifting — that slow, aching color between night and morning, when the world was quiet and raw and honest.
He should get up. He should find his phone, check for updates, slip out before Charles came back and caught him sprawled out like a cat in the sun.
He should be thinking about the mission, about his purpose, about how dangerously close he was flying to the flame.
Instead, he lay there and breathed.
The blanket was heavy over his chest, grounding him, and the gentle ticking of the ancient grandfather clock in the hallway was the only sound that accompanied his heartbeat — loud in his ears, too loud.
He shifted slightly, the motion sending a dull pulse through his head, and that’s when he noticed it — the faint sting on his arm. He turned it lazily, squinting, and caught sight of the tiny red dot near the inside of his elbow.
Insect bite, maybe.
Nothing worth worrying about.
The rational part of him — the part still sober enough to think — flagged it immediately as suspicious. He wasn’t stupid. In this house, even the smallest thing could be the harbinger of something worse.
But the rest of him — the exhausted, half-drunk, dangerously sentimental part — didn’t care.
Not right now.
He let himself fall back into sleep, the faint scent of Charles — whiskey, leather, something warm and sharp and utterly him — wrapping around him like a second blanket.
Not as a spy. Not as a soldier. Not as a pawn in someone else's game.
Just Max.
Just Charles’s Max.
He imagined Charles finding him still curled up here in the morning, crouching down, brushing the hair off his forehead with those warm, capable hands. Whispering something soft in French, something he couldn’t understand but would want to.
He imagined staying for breakfast. Sitting at that ridiculous sprawling table, nursing a headache and a coffee while Charles read the paper across from him, shooting him sleepy little smiles.
He imagined belonging here.
Max squeezed his eyes shut, hating himself for it — for the want, the hope, the helpless, aching need threading itself tighter around his ribs every single day he spent in this house.
You can’t have this, he reminded himself viciously. You’re a fucking spy. You’re a traitor.
Worst of all you’re a beta, you’ll never satisfy Charles.
But it was so easy, here, under the blanket the Monegasque had tucked around him, to forget.
The ticking clock counted out the seconds, slow and merciless.
Max pulled the blanket up over his head like a shield and let himself sink back into sleep, clinging to the dream for just a little longer.