A/N: Somehow Russia ended up as an antagonist in If Everyone Cared and Belarus as Hungary's eternal tormenter in its sequel which I have yet to post. I find this peculiar because I don't hate them. I kinda feel sorry for both of them, actually xD And, since I have an obsession with backstory, here's my attempt. It's not meant to be historical or anything like that. Just my crazy imagination. I also meant this to have more chapters, but it wound up as more of a oneshot ^^; However, if enough people like it, then I'll go ahead and add on ;)

Standard disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. v.v If I did, why the hell would I have written this?

Rated T for future chapters ;)

She was just another little girl, in ribbons and curls and dresses, except she was also his younger sister. Perhaps that should have given her some distinction.

But it didn't. At least not when they were older. When they were little, he wasn't afraid of her touch, of her tiny hand clasping his as she dragged him off on various adventures. He had liked it then.

And it had always been so simple. It was so easy, so simple, like the children they used to be. It was just Ivan and Natalia. Two words. Two names.

Their names, actually. She always put his name first and hers second. It sounded better that way, at least in her mind. It wasn't because she worshiped him with every cell in her body or anything. That was just the way it was.

But she still loved her brother more than anything in the world. She still remembered the time when she'd gotten a new dress, blue like the midnight sky, and he'd said he thought she was so pretty in that color.

She only wore blue now.

He was her only playmate. She would grasp his hand like the only thing tying her to reality as they stepped out onto a blanket of fresh now, sometimes nearly covering her head. But he was always there to go first, to make a path for her tiny feet to travel. Then, two minutes later, he would turn around, grinning, and throw a snowball at her.

The snowballs hurt in more than just the way the cold stung or how any hidden ice rammed her body. Why would he throw them at her? Didn't he love her? It was silly, she knew, but she sometimes thought he hated her as he pelted her with hard-packed white missiles.

And when spring would come and the weather warmed and the snow melted, he would walk with her and her sister and they would sit on a hill and run through the tall grass. The girls would pick flowers, and he would laugh. She would always pick flowers for him. He would always give her a look of confusion, but then his smile would take over and he would graciously accept. He said he put them in his room, and one time asked her for another when the former bunch dried out. She, of course, had been quick to pick more.

In the summer, they would swim in the lake that they so often skated on during the winter. It was during one of these expeditions that she first knew something was wrong with her. The three siblings were racing toward the lake; he was shouting that the last one there wouldn't get any lunch. She had screamed that is was unfair, since she was carrying the picnic basket. And suddenly they were on the shore of the lake, and, without missing a stride, he tore his shirt off and dived in.

She hadn't missed a single moment of his bare chest, almost Sue-ish in its beauty. Of course, she hadn't thought like that then. She had merely thought of it as shocked at how nice her brother looked. But, as soon as she registered this thought, his head had popped out of the water and he was splashing the girls, laughing.

All she knew that her older brother was suddenly the most gorgeous creature in the world, and that it was very, very, naughty of her to think this.

The whole way home that day, she had cast sideways glances at his chest, just to make sure that what she kept seeing was real. She wanted to just touch it, to run her fingers along it, and put a feeling with the view.

He didn't notice. He was laughing with her sister, oblivious to her wonder. But suddenly, his head turned, and he saw her wondering gaze. "What you lookin' at, Nat?" he said, grinning at his rhyme.

"You," she had said, looking into his eyes with her own widened, her voice low and in all seriousness.

He had smiled and taken her hand. He hadn't minded then. He hadn't known. She hadn't known, really.

But that was Before.