Prussia knocked on Spain's door at 7:14. Spain opened the door promptly, a cheerful smile on his face and an enormous, freshly polished battle axe hoisted on one shoulder. "Hi, Prussia."

Prussia glanced past Spain. "I'm here to pick up Romano. He said he was here."

Spain continued smiling. "Hold on just one moment, Prussia. Why don't you take a seat?"

"What is this, 'To Catch Predator'?" Prussia demanded. "That's a little ironic coming from you, don't you think, Spain?"

Spain ignored him, shifting his grip on his axe and still smiling. "You're here for Romano," Spain stated.

"Well, yeah," Prussia said, as if it were obvious, which it completely was since he'd already said that.

There was something different about Spain's smile, Prussia was beginning to notice. Something just a little bit off and a little bit familiar at the same time. "What are your intentions towards Romano?"

"Man, Romano doesn't tell you anything, does he?" Prussia asked, laughing. "It's not like that, Spain."

"Romano didn't have to tell me anything," Spain said, his fixed smile curling into more of a rueful grin. "In fact, he usually doesn't and when he does, he's almost always lying."

"I noticed that," Prussia said grinning.

"I figured you had, but you haven't really thought about it, have you?" Spain asked. "It's okay. I can be kind of dumb like that too."

Prussia drew himself up. "What?" he demanded. "I'm the awesome Prussia!"

"Oh, I know that!" Spain said, moving to set his axe down. He paused. "Just one thing. If you hurt him, you won't survive to regret it."

"Whatever happened to bros before hos?" Prussia demanded indignantly.

Prussia suddenly had Spain's massive axe whipping towards his face. It stopped suddenly and hovered, the blade pressed against the bridge of Prussia's nose. Spain smiled. "Watch your language," he said before setting the axe down on the ground as Prussia nodded and laughed nervously.

"Great!" Spain said, pulling Prussia into a massive hug. "I'm glad we got that unpleasantness done with! It's so great to see you!"

"Yeah!" Prussia said, trying not to show any discomfort at Spain's threats. "Always awesome to see you, Spain. So is Romano here?"

"He's upstairs sulking," Spain explained. "I'm pretty sure he thinks you forgot about him."

"Thanks," Prussia said, heading towards the stairs.

"And Prussia?" Spain said cheerily. Prussia glanced back. "I meant it, okay?"

Prussia shot him a thumbs up and finished heading up the stairs. "Hey, Romano? You up here?"

"Is that you, Prussia?" Romano asked from behind one of the closed doors.

"Yeah!" Prussia said. "You ready to go? I got the pigeons and--"

The door flung open, revealing a furious looking Romano (was there any other kind?) with red-rimmed eyes. "Go away."

"What?" Prussia asked. "Is this because I was late?"

"No," Romano snapped, crossing his arms defensively. "I didn't care that you were late! Just because you promised you'd be on time and you didn't even call..."

"Jeeze," Prussia said. "You act like we're really dating or something."

Romano grabbed the first thing within reach, an overstuffed pillow, and threw it with all of his less than considerable might at Prussia's face. Prussia caught it and stared at it in confusion as Romano slammed the door. Prussia stared blankly at the door. What had just...

The door flew open and Romano stormed out, snatched the pillow out of Prussia's hands, and stormed back into his room, slamming the door all over again.

"Romano?" Prussia asked, trying the handle. It was locked. He looked around and spotted eighteen and a half things that he could use to pick the lock, but for once, he wasn't sure that bursting in and demanding answers would be the most awesome course of action.

"Go 'way." Romano mumbled.

"Come on, Romano," Prussia whined. "Just tell me what I did!"

"You're so dumb! I should have never missed you!" Romano yelled.

"You missed me?" Prussia asked, surprised until his ego took hold and he laughed loudly. "Of course you missed the awesome me!"

"Shut up! I hate you!" Romano said, and there was the thud and crash of something breakable being thrown at the door.

"Damnit," Prussia said. "Come on! Just tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it."

"It's not you, idiot. It's me." came a quiet, miserable voice on the other side of the door. Prussia wasn't sure he was even supposed to hear it, but instead of pity, all he felt was anger.

"Hell no! You are not ditching me with that trite line!" Prussia yelled. No one dumped -- fake dumped -- dumped -- whatever. No one did that to Prussia.

Something else breakable hit the door with a loud crash. Prussia sighed loudly. "Can you just explain to me what's going on? Without using lame break-up lines?"

"How can I break up with you if we aren't really going out?" Romano demanded furiously.

"Oh," Prussia said, voice dawning in realization. "Oh! You wanted to be going out, didn't you? I mean, seriously, how could you resist someone as awesome as me?"

CRASH.

Was that that the bed he had just thrown at the door?

"Look," Prussia amended. "I didn't know you wanted to really be dating. I kind of knew you liked me because the even when I drove you crazy with pulling your hair curl and teasing you about being a porn star, you still hung out with me. I didn't think it was, you know, like-like, though. I thought it was more of a like-to-hate-me sort of thing? Except, you know, cause I'm all awesome... Fuck. That made no freaking sense. You make no freaking sense."

There were no crashes from the other side of the door. Prussia took that as a good sign.

"You know... If you wanted to date. For real. I." Prussia didn't understand why his throat was so tight. He was Prussia, though. He wasn't about to let a constricting throat stop him and those stupid butterflies fluttering in his stomach didn't even stand a chance against his awesomeness. "Well, I wouldn't be... We make a really awesome team, you know?"

There was a click and a pair of hazel eyes peeked through the door. "Is this your dumbass way of asking me out?"

"Only if you're accepting," Prussia said. "If you're about to reject me then I'm going to go back to the pigeons in my car and this never happened."

The eyes narrowed and stared him down assessingly. "Huh. I guess I accept. Just don't expect me to be nice to you or to remember your birthday or anything like that."

"It's not like I'm going to remember yours, either," Prussia snorted. March seventeenth. Hell yeah, he was already an awesome boyfriend.

The door cracked open a bit farther and Prussia was able to see the pink blush on Romano's cheeks. It was adorable. Prussia grabbed his hand and pulled him through the doorway. "Awesome. Come on."

"Where are we going?" Romano demanded.

Prussia raised his eyebrows. "To go make out on Germany's couch."

Romano glared suspiciously at him. "Is this all just to get Veneziano and your brother back to--" He didn't finish his thought because Prussia's lips were suddenly on his. This wasn't like their earlier kisses at all. The kisses they'd shared against the wall after the water balloon incident had been showy and messy. This was...

Romano refused to call it sweet.

It was a chaste kiss at first, Prussia's lips soft and dry on Romano's. Prussia's hand snuck around to the back of Romano's head and ran through the soft hair at the base of Romano's neck. Romano grew impatient, opening his mouth against Prussia's. Prussia smirked into the kiss and moved his hand upwards to that one particular hair--

Romano yanked himself away from the kiss, blushing furiously. "I -- I get it. Whatever. Let's go make out on Germany's couch."

"And I have pigeons if all goes well," Prussia said proudly.

"Shut up," Romano said, kissing Prussia on the mouth briefly, just because he could. "If those pigeons crap on me, I'm breaking up with you."

"You wouldn't," Prussia said confidently. "But by the way, Fritzie Pigeon has shotgun."

"What?" Romano demanded. "I'm your new boyfriend, idiot. I have automatic shotgun."

"Fritzie called it first," Prussia said unapologetically.

"She's a pigeon," Romano snapped.

Spain watched them leave. That had gone better than even he'd hoped. They seemed happy together, in an angry, bickering way. They made a good pair.

Spain still meant what he'd said about the battle axe, though.

* * *

It didn't take much, in the end, to get Germany and Veneziano back together. They made out on Germany's couch for all of thirty seconds before Romano got creeped out by the idea of making out on Germany's couch, then completely freaked out upon realizing that not only had been making out on Germany's couch, but that Germany had been standing there in boxers and a wife beater, ice cream in hand, just staring at them in a vaguely wistful manner for that entire thirty seconds of make-out action.

Within the hour, Germany was dressed in his best, begging Veneziano to take him back. An hour later, the pigeons attacked.

"We're an awesome team," Prussia said as they drove their getaway vehicle, also known as Prussia's beat-up convertible.

Romano rolled his eyes. "That sucked. Your brother is a voyeur, I was tainted by his potato couch, my brother has been re-tainted by his potato-y I-don't-want-to-think-about-it, and a pigeon bit me."

"Fritzie didn't mean anything by it," Prussia assured him. "She's just a little jealous, since she knows I like you better."

"So why does she get shotgun?" Romano demanded from the backseat.

"Well, she called it..." Seeing that this tactic wasn't going to fly with Romano, Prussia switched gears. "So that I can stare at your cute smiling face in my rearview mirror!"

Romano scowled at him in the mirror. "I hate you, you stupid, perverted cabbage."

"Love you too, püppchen," Prussia said cheekily, resisting the urge to turn around in his seat to kiss Romano.

Oh, what the hell. He could steer with his feet and Romano would tell him if he was about to run into anyone. Thank god for cruise control.

And they lived happily ever after.

The oncoming traffic did so as well, for the most part at least.

*

Author's Note: And that's a rap! Before I forget, all chapter titles were taken from the lyrics of "Heartbeat" by Scouting For Girls, which I listened to religiously while writing this fic. I hope you guys enjoyed the story. Please leave a review!