Work Text:
Oscar couldn’t believe what he had done. He thought that this might be the dumbest thing he had ever done. And he had done a lot of dumb things in his short life. But this, this took the cake. Why did he agree to hyphenate his last name! Getting married, that was a great decision. He was excited to spend the rest of his life with his husband, the love of his life. But how was he going to explain to McLaren, the FIA, the media (he thought he might scream at the thought, which, for Oscar, was a big thing) his new last name. Why did he ever agree to hyphenate his last name?!?!
Oscar Piastri walked in to City Hall, Oscar Piastri-Leclerc walked out.
“Oscar, are you okay?” His new husband turned to look at him. He knew Oscar was a quiet guy, but this felt different.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking.” Oscar smiled up at him. He could see Fred and Logan walking ahead of them, they were heading toward the restaurant for their post-nuptials dinner. The Prema gang was back together again. Oscar looked around, trying to find the other Leclerc, but he seemed to have disappeared somewhere between the chapel and the street, but he was sure he would catch up to them.
“What are you thinking about?”
“About how I am going to explain my new last name? How am I supposed to announce this to the world?” Oscar was shaking his head.
“I don’t know, maybe my brother will help us out. Is there a way we could make it look like a joke? You are known for you funny tweets. Maybe we could announce it on X and make it look like a joke. Once it has been announced and everyone has thought it was a joke, it might make it easier on us when they find out that it isn’t.”
“You are a genius!” Oscar gushed. “I will talk to him about it after dinner!”
***
The dinner was delicious, and everyone had a great time, before they all disbursed off to their various hotels and residences around Monaco.
Oscar, Arthur, and Charles all went back to Charles’ apartment, where they were staying while they were in town for the wedding, and with the Grand Prix coming up on the weekend, there weren’t many hotel rooms available, so it saved them all a big headache of trying to find hotel rooms.
“So, about my name change,” Oscar started. He had the full attention of the Leclerc brothers now. “We were talking about it on the way to the restaurant from City Hall, how to make this name change feel less like a shocking revelation about my marital status and my, well, our sexuality, and more of a joke. At least at first. But we are going to need you help. Here is my plan…” Oscar went on to detail the plan that he had come up with to release the news on X, but to make it less shocking.
Everyone agreed with his plan, and they decided to set it in action in the next day or two.
***
It was two days later when Oscar put the plan in to action. He posted his first tweet:
Oscar Piastri: Searching my family tree to find any trace of Monegasque roots
And then his new brother-in-law came in with his part of the plan, replying to Oscar's tweet:
Charles Leclerc: I can adopt you if neede
Oscar couldn’t believe they were actually doing this! Him and Arthur were going to have to admit to their relationship, and the fact that they were now married. Why had Oscar ever agreed to this. And then he looked to his side, and saw Arthur relaxing in bed next to him, and he remembered why he thought this was a good idea. He leaned over to give Arthur a peck on the cheek. Before settling back on the bed, while Arthur looked over at him and smiled with a soft smile that Oscar didn’t think he would ever tire of. Oscar had one more tweet to post, and then he had plans for the rest of his evening, that involved staying in his bed with his new husband.
Oscar Piastri: (replying to Charles Leclerc) Call me Oscar Jack Piastri-Leclerc *thumbs up emoji* Want to meet my new brother Leo on Thursday if he can pop to McLaren
(Nobody needed to know that Oscar and Leo were already best friends, or that Leo's favourite toy was the koala stuffy Oscar had bought him, that was bigger than little Leo.) (Nobody needed to know that Oscar and Leo were already best friends, or that Leo's favourite toy was the koala stuffy Oscar had bought him, that was bigger than little Leo.)
***
The next morning Oscar had one final tweet to post, everyone else thought it was still part of the joke that him and Charles had been doing on X, but it wasn’t and nobody thought to question who was behind the camera. Oscar and Arthur had found a flat in Monaco and were going to be moving in during the summer break, by which time the real truth would be known across the whole world. GULP!
Oscar Piastri: Exploring the new home *Monaco flag emoji* *Two pictures of Oscar standing on some rocks above Monaco*
***
The Monaco Grand Prix was amazing for the Leclerc family. Charles qualified on pole, and Oscar in second, and that was also the order in which they crossed the finish line. Oscar couldn’t be happier for his brother-in-law, and no matter how much he wanted to win his first race, Oscar was so happy for Charles to have finally won a race in the town he was born and raised in. As much as Oscar enjoyed joking about it, he knew there was something special about winning your childhood hometown race. Oscar hoped to be able to win the Australian GP next year, to prove to himself and the rest of the world that he was as good as people were saying he was.
Oscar was happy to see the way the world reacted to the F1 graphics listing him as Oscar Piastri-Leclerc, they all thought it was sweet and adorable. He was hoping they would think the same when the truth was admitted.
The race in Monaco was a great win for Charles, and Oscar was happy to be standing on the second step next to his brother-in-law, and he could see Arthur standing below the podium with tears in his eyes. He knew the tears were mostly for his brother, Oscar knew how much this win meant to both of them, but he also hoped that some of the pride on Arthur’s face was for his second place finish.
***
Oscar knew he need to talk to Zak, and other management at McLaren about his name change, but he really didn’t know how to mention it. He hadn’t told anyone that he was dating, he hadn’t told anyone when Arthur proposed, and he definitely hadn’t ever told anyone that he was bisexual. Even Oscar’s cool and calm personality was struggling to keep up with the amount of inner turmoil he was experiencing, but he knew he had to do it. He couldn’t wait. His new passport had been ordered and the team would need to know for flight tickets, if nothing else. He did not want to have to explain himself at an airport check-in desk.
“Zak, can I talk to you for a minute?” Oscar’s inner dialogue had kept him distracted all the way to Zak’s office, where the open door was an invitation for staff to come in to talk to him.
Zak looked up from his desk, surprised to hear the uncertainty in Oscar’s voice. This was not the driver he was used to hearing that tone from, so he assumed that whatever Oscar wanted to talk to him about must be serious. “Of course, Oscar. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Well,” Oscar began “you know how Charles was joking on Twitter about adopting me. The reason we decided he should do that is that I am changing my name to Oscar Piastri-Leclerc, and we wanted to see how people reacted before we told the team and released a media statement, hopefully with the help of McLaren.”
Zak couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was not what he had expected when he had come in to work this morning. In fact, he never would have expected anything like this, especially from Oscar. “Ok, McLaren will definitely help with a media release, but, why exactly are you changing your name? Tell me you haven’t married Charles Leclerc!”
“No, I haven’t married Charles.” Oscar said, a small smirk gracing his lips.
Zak started to chuckle, but stopped as soon as he finished processing what it was the Oscar had said. He didn’t say ‘I haven’t gotten married’. No, he said ‘I haven’t married Charles’. That meant… Zak thought his heart might have just skipped a beat. There were no female Leclerc siblings, so that meant… Oscar started full on laughing at the look on Zak’s face. He knew the moment Zak figured it out.
Lando was walking down the hallway of the MTC by Zak’s office when he heard a very strange noise. He thought he had heard Oscar and Zak talking, but now there was laughing coming from Zak’s office, and it was not Zak’s laugh, so he decided to stick his head in to see what was going on. What he saw made him wonder if he had woken up in an alternate reality this morning. Oscar Piastri, Mr. Unflappable, was laughing. And Zak looked like he was frozen. Lando didn’t know what they had been discussing, but he was curious enough that he decided to try to joing the conversation.
“Hey Oscar. What’s going on?” Lando asked the still laughing Oscar.
“Oh, Zak was just trying to figure out how to congratulate me on my recent nuptials.” Oscar stated, the mirth in his voice still evident, but thankfully the strange laughing had stopped.
Lando suddenly understood why Zak looked like he did. “Your recent WHAT?” Lando half asked, half yelled. And then he saw Oscar’s left hand, and the slim gold band on his ring finger, and he sunk into the chair next to Oscar, his face mirroring the expression on Zak’s.
“Which one?” Zak finally managed to ask. “Which one is it then?”
“Arthur.” Oscar stated, not adding any further details for the now VERY confused Lando sitting next to him.
“Okay.” Zak said while nodding his head, but Oscar wasn’t sure that his brain had actually caught up yet. “Okay.” Zak said again. “I will talk to the legal team and PR and we will start working on everything. I think we can get it all done before we head off to Canada. Is the name change legal yet? Do we need to make changes to your travel reservations?”
“Yes, I have filed the paper’s for the name change and my new passport should be delivered before we leave for Canada.” Oscar responded. He could feel his teammates eyes on him, but he wasn’t really interested in telling him anything more than he had to. He was having fun playing with Lando like this.
“Okay,” Zak said again, “I will call the legal and PR teams and get this started. I don’t need anything more from you right now Oscar, so you can go back to whatever else you need to do today, and if we have any questions for you, which I’m sure we will, I will let you know.”
Oscar stood up and left Zak’s office, and once Lando’s brain started operating again, he was running after Oscar, trying to get him to wait for him so that he could interrogate him further about what Oscar and Zak were talking about, but Oscar had pulled out his phone and was talking to someone, and then he disappeared around a corner, and Lando couldn’t find him.
Oscar did an amazing job of avoiding Lando for the next few days, Lando wasn’t able to pin him down until a meeting had been scheduled with Zak, Lando, Oscar, Andrea, and a lot of other senior members of the team. Oscar and Zak were talking, and Lando had a feeling that whatever this meeting was about, it was the same thing that Oscar and Zak had been discussing in the CEO’s office a few days earlier. Once everyone was settled in their chairs, Zak cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.
“Hello everyone, I know this meeting was scheduled on rather short notice, but thank you for making the time to be here. There is going to be a press announcement later today, but we wanted to make an internal announcement before the public one was made. Ok, well, now I will pass the floor to Oscar, since this is really his news to share.” Zak turned his chair to look at Oscar, giving him an encouraging smile and a fatherly hand on his shoulder.
“Right,” Oscar started, and then stopped, not seeming to know how to go on. “So,” he tried again “As a few of you know, I got married recently.” Oscar couldn’t stop himself from fiddling with his wedding ring, which he still hadn’t got completely accustomed to wearing. “But what you won’t know, and this is the real reason for this meeting and for the press release that is going to be going out later today, is who I married. We had been dating for four years before we decided to get married, but we decided it was time.”
Lando was struggling to understand why Oscar was having so much trouble telling people he had gotten married. He was in his 20’s, which was a little young to be married these days, but nothing too outrageous, so why was he… but then Oscar started talking again. “The person I married, we got married in Monaco, since that is where they live, and…” again, Oscar was clearly trying to avoid saying something, and, as Lando was considering what Oscar had said, why was he using gender-neutral terms for everything. And suddenly things were falling in to place for Lando.
“So, what I am trying to say,” Oscar continues “Is that I got married to… and have hyphenated my last name with…”
“Tell me it wasn’t Charles” Lando cut him off, finally able to make something come out of his mouth.
“No,” said Oscar, “It wasn’t Charles.” And then the conversation that Lando had walked in on a few days earlier suddenly made sense. “It was Arthur.”
Silence. There was complete silence in the board room. Oscar didn’t think he had ever heard it this quiet in a room with so many people. But he was relieved that it was over now. The truth was out there. “I married Arthur Leclerc, and I have changed my name to Oscar Piastri-Leclerc.” And then Oscar fled the room. He couldn’t deal with the stares anymore, he had to hide. He knew the public release would be coming out later in the day, and he had worked with the PR staff at McLaren to create a schedule post for his social media and they had created one for Arthur, but Oscar had already uninstalled all his social media apps from his phone and gotten his PR manager to change his passwords so that he wouldn’t be tempted to go online and see all the hate that was going to be spewed his way. He knew that people were not going to be happy about this, but he didn’t care. He knew they needed to see it all the way through. And he couldn’t wait to see his new name on the official list in Montreal.
***
Oscar hadn’t managed to make it back to Monaco before it was time to leave for Canada, but Arthur had come to England for a short visit, and they thoroughly enjoyed their time together, before Oscar was off with the team to Canada. Nobody on the team seemed to be treating him any differently, which he was very happy about, but he figured it would be a different story when press day started tomorrow.
Oscar woke up on Thursday morning absolutely dreading what was going to be coming for him that day. He got up, did his usually workout, had a shower, spent way to long styling is hair (he knew he was avoiding what had to be done, but could you blame him) and then he was ready to face the music.
He arrived at the press corral, and was not immediately hounded with questions, much to his surprise! And when he entered the group press conference, nothing odd was asked of him, only the usual questions about how he thought this weekend was going to go and how the McLaren’s were going to fare. One reporter did congratulate him on his recent marriage, but that was the only mention of it.
To say Oscar was shocked would be an understatement. He was floored. He had spent an hour on the phone last night with Arthur stressing about how terrible of a day he was going to have today, and now, nothing. Nobody was saying anything.
All of the other driver’s had congratulated him on his marriage, a few made jokes about getting married so young, but again, nobody was being weird with him. He felt like he spent all day waiting for the other shoe to drop, but then he started to think that maybe he had just been overthinking it all and it was going to be okay. Maybe he didn’t need to be so worried about being the first openly queer F1 driver. Lots of other sports had queer people in them these days, and maybe the world was finally used to it enough that it was no longer news. Oscar really hoped that was the case.
The whole weekend progressed in the same manner, and Oscar was happy when he finished the race in fourth on Sunday, and there it was: Oscar Piastri-Leclerc. He had never been happier. And now he got to fly home to Monaco to see his husband and settle in for their very short honeymoon. The proper one was going to have to wait until after the season was over, but he was willing to wait. He knew it would be worth it.