Friday, November 16th, 2018- Luton, England, United Kingdom
London Luton Airport
Max did suppose that, at the very least, this could always be going much, much worse than it actually is. That was... something, not enough to do anything with still, it was better than the nothing he'd been kicking it with a second prior. He'd take it, he wasn't exactly in any position to be getting picky about the quality of a silver lining in this shitty fucking day when, at present, he was getting dog walked by a three-year-old menace to society in the middle of the airport.
He'd seen it coming from a mile away because Kaia was a Verstappen and she never hesitated to exploit the first sign of weakness in an opponent, which he very clearly was in her eyes just now. Max knew how he'd gotten himself here, he really did, but how his daughter knew that he was the reason why her Lovie was gone was beyond him.
Like for fucks sake, he'd at least thought he'd have a couple years before his toddler was reading him with efficiency that you were capable of but unsurprisingly, the universe hadn't done him any favors in that department. No, the powers that be had just thrown him to the lions. And Max didn't blame them.
So, there he was, being yanked through the crowded thoroughfare by Kaia, whose single-minded determination to achieve whatever the hell it was she'd set her little mind to had evidently lent her a strength that he hadn't ever expected a three-year-old to be capable of. And the longer Max let her tow him forward to wherever it was they were going, simply bobbing along behind her like he wasn't a grown ass man and her father to boot, the more certain he became that there was a reason toddlers weren't always this strong and that was because it was fucking terrifying.
"Vlinder, where are we going?"
He knew Kaia could hear him perfectly well right now and she merely pretending like she hadn't heard him because- well, who the hell really knew why, there was so rarely rhyme or reason for half the shit she did anyway that he'd learned to stop worrying so much about the why and focus on the how, since he could often glean more answers from her mannerisms, her expressions and her emotions than he could from anything else.
"I take it you come here often," Max says dryly, knowing that while sarcasm wasn't likely to salvage the situation, it would make him feel marginally better, "because you really seem to know your way around the place, even though I don't really recall signing up for a grand tour of the entire airport."
But still, not even the taunting tone of his voice was enough to bait Kaia into acknowledging him as it was sometimes want to do.
Instead, all his remark earned him was a scowl and a disapproving glare from a rather matronly looking passerby, who put him both unhelpfully and quite immediately in mind of Red Bull employee who had walked in on... whatever it had been happening between you and him in that stairwell, the mere memory of which left a sour taste in his mouth and settled a new, leaden weight in the pit of his stomach.
Steeling himself to not fall victim to anything so pathetic as the lamentable, heartrending emotion he didn't dare to give a second thought, let alone a name to lest it properly sink its claws into him and truly take hold, Max directed the wealth of his attention away from the peril it had been previously fixated on, stubbornly unashamed by the show of force it then took him to cajole his mind away from the ruin that thoughts of you would assuredly bring to him.
Max shot the woman a fleeting, wry smile as if to say 'kids, they make you do the damndest things, you know how it can be' before he hung his head in a mockery of shame. Selling the false act of a man repentant required very little from him beyond remaining in the same position with his chin to his chest and face downturned, keeping his eyes trained on the ground.
