Gerard Way | Formula 1

The apartment was finally quiet.

Gerard had spent most of the evening discovering that silence could be louder than going full throttle down a straight. There were no engineers talking over one another, no radio crackling in his ear, no cameras waiting for him to say something profound about tyre degradation, or more importantly, today's race result. No paddock hustle and bustle, just the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional noise from the street below.

His shoes had been abandoned halfway across the room, thrown there after he had collapsed backwards with a theatrical groan onto the black sofa, the distant scent of the sea floating up to him through the open balcony door. This was technically home, though he was only here because of the race, and would likely leave Monte Carlo at his earliest convenience, and go back to Milan.

P2.

He kept thinking about it like the number might change.

Second place. His first Formula 1 podium.

It was ridiculous, really. He had imagined this moment for years, but every version in his head had been cleaner. A chequered flag, a champagne bottle, maybe his teammate Max beside him, everyone smiling. Instead, Monaco had been a strange, exhausting blur of walls, strategy, penalties, interruptions, questions and the constant knowledge that one tiny mistake could turn a good afternoon into carbon fibre scattered across the harbour.

And then Max had retired.

Gerard still hadn't quite worked out what he felt about that part. Relief, obviously, because losing his teammate had changed the race. Guilt, a little, because some part of him wondered whether people would reduce the whole thing to that. He could already hear the headlines. 'Gerard Way secures first F1 podium after Verstappen's retirement'. As though he'd simply wandered into second place and found a trophy waiting for him.

He knew better.

He remembered every lap, each corner burned into his memory, reappearing every time he closed his eyes.

He remembered how his hands had felt cramped around the wheel, the front end doing something he didn't entirely like after a couple passes on the uneven surface at Turn 19. The voice of his race engineer on the radio warning him of it after Stroll and Leclerc had both crashed out of the race in that very spot. The moments where the walls seemed to get closer and closer. The ridiculous concentration required to drive a car at that speed through a place where there was essentially no room to be wrong.

And, eventually, the chequered flag.

He had screamed inside the helmet. Not elegantly. Not professionally. Just a completely involuntary, "Oh my God," followed by laughter that he couldn't stop.

Now, hours later, he was still staring at the ceiling with a mug he'd forgotten to drink from on the coffee table beside him, scrolling through messages he wasn't emotionally prepared to answer. Engineers. Friends. Family. People he hadn't spoken to in years. Everyone suddenly had something to say.

Gerard turned the phone face-down.

"Okay," he murmured to the empty room. "So... that happened."

For the first time all evening, he smiled, a wide genuine, if slightly self conscious smile as he reached for his notebook. Because somewhere underneath the noise, underneath the podium and the champagne sprayed all over his face and suit, and all the thousands of people telling him what the result meant, there was still the much simpler truth. He had finally driven a Formula 1 car around Monaco and brought it home, securing himself his first ever Formula 1 podium.

And next week he'd have to figure out how to do it all over again.