Title: Buon Compleanno, Spagna
Pairing: Spain/Romano
Rating: PG-13
Note: This was written for hetalia_ssanta over on LJ. :)

Spain's birthday was coming up. Spain's birthday was coming up soon, actually, and Romano was at a loss as to what he should get him. Not that it really mattered (it never did, and Romano definitely didn't get Spain a present every year or anything), but it was the first birthday of Spain's since he and Romano had gone through that whole... sappy feelings-admitting thing that Romano didn't like to think about (he really didn't, shut up). The stupid bastard had taken to calling Romano his boyfriend after that whole debacle, and really, what kind of boyfriend didn't get the dumbass they were dating a birthday gift?

A really horrible boyfriend, of course, and Romano was many things, but a bad boyfriend was definitely not one of them. Not that he even really liked being called that by Spain, the term "boyfriend" sounded so juvenile. Spain wasn't some dumb girl (most of the time), and...

"Ugh," Romano groaned, banging his head against Spain's kitchen table. "This is so fucking stupid."

Spain looked over from his place by the stove, startled by Romano's seemingly random and sudden need for self injury involving his furniture. "Uh, Romano? The food will be ready soon, I know you're really hungry, but..."

"Shut it." One last crack against the table, and Romano stayed where he was, forehead pressed against the cool, polished wood. "Just shut it, you're not helping at all."

Romano lifted his head only when a small plate was nudged against his arm. When he glanced up, he saw that a large cup of café con leche had also been set in front of him. "Did you fall asleep?" Spain asked, sitting down across from Romano. "I can keep your food warm if you're tired."

"I'm not tired," Romano grumbled. "You're so fucking stupid and unhelpful." Spain opened his mouth to reply, his brow wrinkling in confusion, but Romano cut him off before he could even attempt any speech. "Oh shut it."

"Romano is so grumpy in the morning." Spain thoughtfully took a bite of the small, sweet cake he'd prepared for their meal. "Maybe he needs a hug."

"Romano doesn't want a hug," Romano replied, rolling his eyes. "Stop being a weird bastard and eat your food." He glared at Spain, his gaze lingering for just a moment longer than it might normally have. He'd never stopped contemplating what to do about Spain's birthday, and was beginning to hope that maybe if he stared long enough, the perfect idea would come to him.

He could have just asked, but he didn't want to deal with Spain cuddling his face and all that other shit Spain did when Romano did something the Spaniard deemed "cute". Spain was a sick and twisted individual, and would definitely find Romano showing interest in giving him a gift absolutely adorable. Romano really just wanted to surprise Spain wanted to hold off on being squished for as long as possible.

"S'there something on my face?"

Romano flushed when he realised that he was still staring at the other man. "Usually," he replied. He didn't bother telling Spain that there wasn't actually anything on his face, not because he was being malicious, but because he really didn't want to blow his cover.

---

"Pick up, pick up." After spending the majority of the morning over thinking all the possible gifts he could purchase for Spain, Romano decided that he definitely needed some help. He'd spent another couple of hours trying to think of who he knew who might actual be helpful, and after coming up blank, he figured a call to his brother wouldn't hurt (much).

"Pronto?"

"Finally. What took you so long?" Romano asked gruffly, foregoing any proper phone etiquette. It was just Veneziano, after all, not anybody important.

"Oh, fratello!" Veneziano's voice somehow managed to brighten even more upon hearing his brother's voice. "How are you?"

"I'm fi--"

"I was just going to make some pasta, should I come bring some over to you and Spain?"

"No--"

"Or you two could come over here! We haven't all had pasta together in awhile!"

"Not toda--"

"Ve~, maybe Germany could come too! It'd be lots of fu--"

"I don't want to eat pasta with you and that stupid potato!" Romano shouted, growing fed up with how his brother wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise. "I don't know why I bothered calling you, you're obviously not going to be of any help at all."

Veneziano finally shut up for a moment. A very brief moment, as he was talking again immediately after. "Help? Ooh, what do you need help with?"

"Nothing, forget about it," Romano grumbled. "Have fun with your pasta."

"No no, tell me! I want to help."

Realising he probably just shouldn't have called his brother to begin with, in order to avoid this, Romano sighed and decided he might as well ask what he called to. "Has, uh, Spain said anything to you about what he wants for his birthday?"

"His birthday?" Veneziano paused, as if in thought, before letting out an excited, "Oh yeah!"

"Oh yeah? What'd he say?"

"Ve, I'd forgotten it was his birthday, you just reminded me! What should I get him?"

Romano immediately hung up on his brother and began pounding his head into a nearby wall. He should have known this was going to be impossible.

---

Veneziano had called back almost immediately, and been ignored, until Romano couldn't stand listening to the sound of the phone ringing anymore. After a long, drawn out conversation involving absolutely nothing to do with anything Romano found helpful at all, he finally got a, "You should go see big brother France, he'll know what to do!" before hanging up once more.

As if he was going to do that.

"Hey, Romano! Romanooo~."

Romano looked over to find Spain grinning at him. "What do you want now?"

"Want to go out for dinner on Friday?"

"Why would we--" Friday. Friday the 12th. Friday Spain's birthday. "Uh, maybe. I'll get back to you about that."

Romano ran off to make another phone call.

"Allô, oui??"

"Don't tell Spain I called you, bastard."

"Oh my, what exactly are you calling me about, mon petit Romano?"

Romano gritted his teeth in frustration. Stupid, stupid, stupid, that is what this was. "Stop being such a pervert, I just want to know what he wants for his birthday."

"Hm, well I could tell you, but it will cost you." Romano could tell through the phone that France was smirking that stupid, perverted, moronic smirk of his. "If you know what I mean."

"I should just kill you, that would be gift enough for everyone."

France just laughed, entirely unconcerned, as he knew Romano wouldn't voluntarily get anywhere near him. "Does even remember that his birthday is coming up this time?"

"I think so, he wanted to-- That's not the point! What does he want, just tell me."

"Well, what do all men want?" France asked suggestively.

Romano flushed brightly. "A real idea, you moron, stop that."

France laughed again, then went quiet for a moment of contemplation. During this lull in the conversation, Romano took the opportunity to imagine France lying dead in a ditch somewhere. "Well, all he ever really talks about is you, I'm sure you could just get anything and he'd be happy."

"You should have just said you didn't have any actual ideas." France said something else after that, but whatever it was, Romano didn't catch before he slammed his phone shut.

---

Deciding that, while third time's the charm and all that, talking to other people was clearly just a disaster waiting to happen, Romano left his their Spain's house and drove toward a local shopping centre. Something was sure to pop out at him if he spent enough time looking through shops, right?

Wrong.

Romano spent half an hour in a jewellery shop before realising Spain had no use for jewellery (he'd gotten him a watch one year, but the moron had broken it trying to figure out how to set the time). He spent another hour wandering through a book store, but that was a bust as well. He passed by store after store, looking through anything and everything that he might possibly be able to buy, but nothing was good enough.

Four hours later, and he had nothing but sore feet and a grumbling stomach for his troubles. Just as he was getting back into his car, his mobile vibrated. He opened it up to find he'd missed three calls and a had a new text message, all from Spain. Rolling his eyes, he read the message.

Where3 u in?

After staring blankly at the message for a few seconds, Romano finally realised what Spain had meant and typed back a reply.

Learn how to use your phone. I'll be home soon.

He briefly considered getting Spain Texting for Dummies, but quickly dismissed that idea as pointless before driving back to Spain's house.

Once he'd reached his destination, he gloomily slumped down on the couch, face scrunched up into a pout. What was he getting so worked up about anyway? It wasn't like Spain would appreciate any effort he put into getting him something nice. He'd probably forgotten his birthday was coming up anyway, asking Romano to dinner on a Friday night wasn't all that unusual.

"This is stupid," he grumbled. "I give up. Should've never bothered to begin with."

"Nunca digas de esta agua no beberé, Lovi." Romano jumped, not realising Spain had been around to hear him speak. "What are you giving up on?"

"None of your fucking business, that's what."

"I should wash your mouth with soup," Spain replied, laughing and ruffling Romano's hair before walking off towards the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"

Romano's stomach rumbled loudly in reply to Spain's question. He'd worry about the upcoming holiday later, for now, he just wanted to eat.

---

The next morning, Romano awoke to Spain sleepily shoving his ringing mobile in his face. He grabbed the offending object and picked it up, grumbling a, "What the fuck do you want?" into the receiver.

"I heard you were asking around for gift ideas, and you failed to call the awesome me! So, I'm fixing that for ya." Great, Prussia was calling him. At (he looked over at the clock by Spain's bed) 6:00 am.

Romano glanced over at Spain, who appeared to have fallen back asleep, before replying. "Shouldn't you be sleeping or something?"

"Pft, I'll do that later, right now I need to spread my wisdom to you southern nation-people."

"You don't have any wisdom, moron."

"Of course I do! I'm awesome. So I was thinking that, since I'm so great and all, you should just give Spain me for his birthday. It'd be the best present ever."

Romano didn't feel that even justified a response, so he just hung up, turned his phone off, and went back to sleep.

When he awoke later, at a much more decent hour, Spain was still fast asleep, and showed no sign of that changing any time soon.

Romano decided to do some snooping.

Since nothing else seemed to be working, Romano thought maybe a quick check through Spain's mobile messages, or maybe his stupid tomato patterned day planner, might give him some ideas.

Since Spain's phone was by his bedside, Romano looked through that first, though he really wasn't sure he'd be able to learn anything from Spain's failed attempts at texting coherently. The first five messages in Spain's inbox were from Romano himself, all some variation of the text he'd sent while out shopping. The next one was an obviously drunken one from Prussia. That one was followed by a picture message from France... Romano was definitely not going to look at whatever that pervert thought was appropriate to send. He pressed the down arrow on the phone's keypad to go to the next message.

Dag, Spanje! I mailed you some of my chocolate and grottenbier for your birthday, hope it gets there in time. :)

Romano didn't need to look at the name by the message to know that the text was from Belgium. Upon further reflection, he didn't know how this was supposed to give him any ideas, as getting the exact same thing as Belgium wouldn't make any sense at all, seeing as the items were especially from her house.

He could get something from his own house, though.

"Why didn't I think of that sooner?" he mumbled.

Spain was still sleeping, so after a quick shower, Romano was off to do some shopping in Naples.

---

February 12th had finally come, and Romano still felt anything but prepared. He'd purchased some new clothes for Spain (in the hopes that the other man would actually wear something nice for once), as well as a few little tomato-shaped knick-knacks he knew the older nation would find amusing. He'd also gathered up ingredients to make some cannoli siciliani for after dinner.

It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.

At least, it would have to do after he figured out where he'd put the bag he'd brought the new clothes home in. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, and would not have to do at all.

"Spain!" he called out from under Spain's bed, after rummaging through his car, the garage, the kitchen, and the living room. "Have you seen two paper bags with handles on top?"

"You mean the ones with your new clothes in them? I put the clothes in the closet for you, the bags are in there too."

Romano immediately ceased his search and pulled himself out from under the bed. "What do you mean you put them in the closet? You saw them?!"

"Uh, yeah, I did!" Spain replied with a grin. "They look very nice."

Romano ripped opened the closet door and started ruffling through his side of the closet for the clothes. "You are such a moron."

"I'm sorry?" Spain walked over to stand by Romano, a hand reaching up to rub the back of his head in confusion. "Did I wrinkle them or something? Did you want to take them to your house?"

"They're not mine, idiot Spain."

"Oooh," realisation dawned on Spain's face. "Are they for your brother?"

Romano stared at Spain as if he had two heads. "No, they're not for Veneziano... they're for..." He paused, not wanting to ruin the surprise of Spain's gift. It had already been ruined, though, so he sighed and figured he might as well just give the clothes to Spain now. "They're for you, dumbass." He shoved the clothes at Spain and stormed off out of the room.

"For me?" he heard Spain call after him. "Ooh, to wear to dinner tonight, okay!"

Romano let out an irritated sigh and went into another room to wrap the rest of Spain's gifts.

---

Since Spain was wearing part of his birthday gift to dinner, and that gift happened to be very nice clothing, Romano thought he'd better dress nicely as well. He would have preferred to just stay in and make dinner, but Spain actually managed to make reservations at a relatively decent restaurant, and it was his birthday, so Romano wasn't complaining (much).

"Ooh, Romano, look at all the nice desserts they have here." Upon being seated, Spain had immediately taken to looking through the dessert menu, as opposed to be a normal person and looking through the dinner menu. "They've got lots of different cakes, mm."

"We're here for dinner, you idiot," Romano said, reaching across the table and taking the dessert menu away from Spain.

Spain pouted. "Aw, Romano's so mean~. Maybe I want cake for dinner."

Romano gave Spain the most irritated look he could muster without actually giving himself the urge to strangle the other man. "Well, too bad. I already made you a dessert, so if you didn't want to actually have dinner, you should have just stayed home."

"Hm?" Spain blinked in confusion, before his face broke out into a grin. "Oh yeah! That's what you were making earlier."

Romano lifted up his own menu to hide behind. If he kept looking at Spain's stupid face, he was going to kill him, and killing boyfriend-type-people on their birthdays was just bad form. "Just fucking order, Spain."

"You're being so uncute, what's wrong?" Just as Romano had done with Spain's dessert menu, Spain reached over and stole Romano's own menu. "Lets just share a paella, okay? Then we can go home and eat the dessert you made."

"Yeah, whatever."

Spain ordered seafood paella for their entree, and a simple white wine to go along with it. Romano continued to pout through most of their meal, Spain all the while remaining oblivious to what had got Romano in such a foul mood (though to be fair, Romano was usually in a foul mood).

"S'the food good, Roma?" Spain asked through a mouthful of food.

"Yeah, it's fine."

"You're not even eating it, silly~."

"Yes, I am. Shut up." Romano shoved a bite into his mouth. "See?"

Spain laughed. "Aw, you're so cute. Lets just box the rest of this and go home, I want to try your cannoli."

"You sure you don't want cake?" Romano asked with a scowl. "You seemed pretty into it earlier."

"I can have cake later, I want Romano's cannoli right now~."

The waiter chose that moment to come by, giving the two of them an odd look at Spain's insistance that he "wanted Romano's cannoli", before asking if they needed anything else.

---

Spain seemed pretty content to be stuffing his face with cannoli, and even though he was getting crumbs all over the designer shirt Romano had bought for him, at least he was showing some damn appreciation.

"Oh!" Romano suddenly realised he still had that box full of various tomato-themed objects to give Spain. Honestly, it was the dumbest gift idea ever, but Spain was the dumbest person ever, so it was a match made in Heaven, really.

"Hm?" Spain asked. "Oh what?"

"Hold on a second." Romano rushed off to grab the box, returning quickly and shoving it at Spain. "There you go, happy fucking birthday."

"Who's birthday is it?"

Romano stared at Spain.

Spain stared back at Romano.

Romano's eye twitched.

Spain laughed. "I'm kidding." He gave Romano a crumbly kiss on the cheek before beginning to rip apart the wrapping on his present. "You didn't get something else just because I ruined the clothes present, did you?"

"I hate you," Romano replied. "I seriously, really, honestly hate you."

Spain ignored all this hatred in favour of pulling a tomato stress ball out of the box. "Aw, I think you need this more than I do~. I like this keychain, though, I'll put it on my keys... Oooh, what's this square thing?"

"A mouse pad."

"I don't have a mou--"

"Computer mouse. It can gather dust with the rest of the stuff in your office."

"Oh, okay!" Spain set everything back in the box and smiled at Romano. "You're really sweet, Romano, thank you."

"Pft, you better be thanking me, bastard. I didn't have to get you anything."

"Mm, you're right, you didn't have to. I've already got what I wanted anyway." He smiled again. Who was Romano kidding, Spain was always smiling.

"If you say what I think you're going to say, I will kill you."

Spain did say it ("Spending time with you is the best present I could ever hope for~."), but Romano didn't actually kill him ("I'll let you off this time, since it's your birthday, but you're dead tomorrow."). Instead, Romano found himself pulled into an overly tight embrace, and despite the fact he really, really (didn't) did hate it when Spain rubbed his cheek against his mumbling, "Romano is so, so cute," he was just going to take the gesture as a sign that he'd done a good job and leave it at that.

...Now if he could just figure out what to do about Valentine's Day.

---

Language notes:

Nunca digas de esta agua no beberé -- "Never say I will not drink from this water," a Spanish proverb similar to the phrase, "Never say never."