Title: Lady in Red
Pairing/Characters: Fem!Spain/Romano, mentions of Germany/Italy
Rating: PG-13
Notes: I'm on a Fem!Spain kick, don't even worry about it. This was written simply because Antonia would totally look rocking in hospital scrubs and you know it. The only people who are genderbent are Spain, Prussia, and France, btw, and the last two aren't actually in the story much.

Lovino Vargas had to be the most unlucky person on the planet.

His stupid younger brother had gone speeding through the streets on vespas and in cars alike, going dangerously over the speed limit, ignoring traffic signs and lights galore, and he'd never so much as gotten a speeding ticket.

Lovino, on the other hand, had received more speeding and parking tickets than he cared to count. He hadn't gotten one on this particular night, though. Oh no, he'd just lost control of his vehicle and driven into a ditch, wrecking it beyond repair and landing himself in the hospital.

The hospital that his grandfather worked at, no less.

Countless tests had been done (some entirely unnecessary and only done at the request of his grandfather, no doubt), and by 1:00 am the morning after his accident, Lovino was the proud owner of a cast for right arm, antibiotics for some nasty looking scrapes, and some sort of long-winded diagnosis that basically meant he was bleeding internally, but it wasn't bad enough to require surgery, so he was just going to be monitored for a few days.

To top it all off, his doctor had a fucking stick up his ass.

"Mr Vargas, you shouldn't be out of bed, you need to rest."

Damn, caught again. "Just fuck off, what are you doing standing outside my door?"

The doctor (whose name he wasn't even going to bother to learn, mostly because it was something stupid and German and he didn't want to bother pronouncing it) gave him an unamused look and Lovino grumbled in defeat, getting back into his bed.

Lovino drifted off to into a restless sleep shortly after, uncomfortable, exhausted, and angry as all hell.

The next morning wasn't any better. He had a splitting headache, a crick in his neck, and his whole body hurt from sleeping in an odd position to avoid jostling his arm. A quick glance at the clock by his bedside told him that it wasn't even 8:00 am, far earlier than he would have liked to wake up under normal circumstances.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since earlier the previous evening, but he wasn't exactly looking forward to whatever the hospital was wanting to call food.

He was too busy sulking to notice the person peaking through the window on the door to his room, too busy stewing to notice the door creak open, but he wasn't too busy doing anything at all to notice the obnoxiously loud, ridiculously excited exclamation of, "Oh hey, I know you!"

Startled, his head shot up to look at whoever it was that had entered and if a scowl weren't permanently fixed on his face, he might have grinned a little, because hey, he may have hated hospitals and hospital food and stupid bastard doctors, but he had nothing against cute women. Maybe his luck was starting to change, just a bit.

The first thing he noticed about her was her scrubs. The other nurses he'd seen last night had all been clad in various shades of pink and maroon, the doctors in blue and green. Not her, though, she was sporting scrubs of a bright, cheerful red. A glance at the badge on her breast (and he was just looking at her badge, damnit) revealed that she was a nurse, just one who clearly had no intention of blending in with the others.

"Mr. Vargas? Lovino?"

Lovino shook his head and looked up at her. "Yes, bella?"

If she noticed the endearment, she didn't show it, and the nurse immediately launched into a long-winded story. "I was just saying that I've seen you before, at the market! I always go on Tuesdays, right after they restock their vegetables, and you do too, I see you all the time! You go for the tomatoes, right? That's why I go, they're better when they're fresh, and if you wait until the end of the week, they're just not as good because everyone already took the good ones."

Lovino blinked as she continued on and on about how she'd tried to say hi to him last week, but he'd been yelling at someone on the phone, and she'd tried the week before that too but somebody had bumped into him just then and he didn't notice and and...

Lovino rubbed at his temples. This really wasn't helping his headache at all.

"So anyway, it's so nice to finally meet you!"

"Uh... yeah. Be a lot nicer if you could get me some aspirin or something."

Her grin faded a little and she cast him a worried look. "Oh, right, what happened to you anyway?" Lovino just stared at her, his expression weary. "Right, let me just check your chart and I'll get you something, okay?"

She returned with some pills ten minutes later, but the fact that she stuck around to talk his ear off rather negated the medication.

"Look, Nurse," Lovino briefly paused to glance at her name badge again. "Fernández, I'd really just like to go back to sleep." What Lovino actually wanted to do was tell her the shut the fuck up, but she really was very pretty, and he'd probably already gone over his "fuck" quota for the day when he'd been cussing at his doctor earlier that morning.

She opened her mouth to say something, but another grumble from his stomach cut off whatever it was and she suddenly let out an, "Oh, you must be really hungry, hm?"

"Eh, not really." Lovino was, but not if what he was going to be served was one of those awful little trays of hospital slop.

She laughed and patted him on the knee. "I'll get you something good, just wait a few minutes!"

Before he could protest, she was already gone, rushing off out the door just as another nurse was coming in, bearing a tray of inedible goop.

Fortunately for both Lovino and his stomach, the food Nurse Fernández returned with looked much more appetising. "Did you rob a bakery?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as she set a large plate full of little breakfast cakes on the table next to his bed.

"Of course not, I made these! They're really good, eat as many as you want."

He cautiously picked one up with his left hand, and as soon as the cake crumbled on his tongue, he was immediately glad that this woman apparently brought baked goods with her to work.

"You like them?" she asked, laughing, after he'd practically inhaled half the plate.

"They're okay, I guess."

-

The next morning found Lovino in a much better mood than he'd been in the day before. His head felt much better, Antonia (as Nurse Fernández kept insisting he call her) had snuck a body pillow into his room so sleeping in the small bed with his broken arm wasn't quite as uncomfortable, and he might as well have been dining out, the food he'd been eating was so good.

It was odd, to say the very least, how much the nurse was doting on him, especially since the other nurses that came to check in on him didn't seem to understand why she was there either, but Lovino wasn't complaining.

Okay, he was, particularly loudly, actually, as Antonia had insisted on playing twenty questions long after Lovino would have liked to have been asleep the previous evening, but he wasn't complaining much.

The mood was dampened, however, when his doctor informed him that he'd need to stay at least one more night.

"I'm not fucking staying here another night," he grumbled.

"Mr Vargas, it's really not necessary to get so angry. It's just one more night, then you may go home as long as there are no further complications."

"Your face really isn't necessary."

"There's no need to-"

"Hey Lovi!"

Antonia was back, this time with a container full of churros. She handed it off to Lovino before going to the end of his bed to look over his chart.

Lovino's doctor cleared his throat, attempting to get her attention. "Nurse Fernández, aren't you supposed to be working in the paediatric ward?"

"Oh, hi Ludwig! Your sister was looking for you earlier," she said as soon as she noticed there was another person in the room. "And it's my day off."

"Then you should not be in uniform, that's highly inappropriate."

Antonia just laughed and reached up to knock her fist against Ludwig's shoulder. "You know what else is 'highly inappropriate'? Not saying hello to your poor sister, go do that!"

Ludwig just sighed and shook his head at her. "I should go make sure she's actually working, I suppose."

"Why are you here if it's your day off?" Lovino asked after Ludwig had exited the room.

"To see you, of course!" She sat down in a chair she'd dragged over next to his bed. "I brought cards, want to play la brisca?"

He stared at her for a moment, then looked at the deck of cards she had pulled out of her pocket. "You mean briscola?"

She looked up at him with a grin. "Hm? Is that what you call it?" She quickly removed the plastic surrounding the obviously new box of cards. "I even got a new deck!" she stated, echoing Lovino's thoughts. "New deck of cards to play with a new friend."

"You're an odd woman," he said, rolling his eyes. She just grinned at him and shuffled the cards.

"Just tell me which card you want to lay down," she instructed, dealing three to him. "It'll be easier that way."

Lovino scowled. "I'm not a fucking invalid, I can play a game of cards."

Antonia reached over and her hand hovered above his, waiting for him to tell her which card to lay down.

"Fine. Just don't peek, damnit."

-

Twenty-six card games, three delicious (and suspiciously homemade) non-hospital meals, and four more arguments with his stupid doctor (three about when he could leave, one about visiting hours being limited, even to certain non-working nurses) later, it was the next morning and Lovino was finally being discharged.

His brother was supposed to be picking him up (even though he'd insisted that he'd rather just walk, or take the bus, or spontaneously learn how to teleport), but two hours after Lovino had finished with all the discharge papers (well, after Antonia had. She insisted, he wasn't making her or anything!), his brother was nowhere to be found, despite the fact that he'd arrived at the hospital earlier that morning.

"Maybe he got lost," Antonia said thoughtfully when she noticed Lovino glaring at the door. "He did say he was going to find some snacks!"

"Well then he's a bigger idiot than I originally thought." Two more minutes, and Lovino was making a break for it. Antonia was tiny (at least he assumed so, it was kind of hard to tell when laying down in a bed, but Dr Potatohead had towered over her) and oblivious, she wouldn't be able to stop him.

"Want me to go find him?" Antonia stood up before he could answer her. "I'll be right back, okay?"

With that, she was gone, and Lovino was left alone to sulk.

"Oh, there you are!" he heard from just beyond the door. "Lovi's been waiting for you! It's time for him to go home."

"Ve~, sorry." There his stupid brother was! "I was just talking to Ludwig here, he's been taking such good care of Fratello, and I wanted to thank him!"

"I told you, Mr Vargas, it really wasn't necessary to take me to lunch..."

Lovino was up and out of his bed, and before anybody outside his room knew what was happening, he was attempting to strangle both his brother and his stupid doctor. One-handed. Thankfully, Antonia had already removed him from any and all machines he'd previously been attached to.

"Hey Lovi, your brother is here to take you home now!" Antonia grabbed him around the waist, pulling him away from the other two men and manhandling him into a wheelchair. "Standard procedure, stop struggling so much~."

"Goddamnit, as if you ever follow 'stand procedure'!" Nonetheless, he settled down into the wheelchair with a pout. Because he didn't want to jostle his arm anymore and accidentally hitting ladies while you were flailing was just rude, even if they were obnoxiously stupid ladies.

-

Lovino did not miss Antonia. Lovino was not lonely because his brother would rather go have lunch with "that really, really nice doctor" than hang around with him. Lovino was perfectly fine and not bored at all because he couldn't go do anything with his stupid broken arm.

His phone had been ringing on and off for the past ten minutes. At first he'd thought it would stop after the first couple of calls, but it didn't seem to be ceasing any time soon. With a sigh and a grumble, he snatched it up and answered just as it was about to go to voicemail once again.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Mr Vargas," an annoying familiar, overly cheerful voice greeted him from the other end of the line. "I'm calling from Hetalia International Hospital to remind you that you are scheduled for a follow up appointment to check on your arm in," she paused, as if checking up on the information. "Four weeks."

He didn't say anything for a moment, confused as to why he was being called two days after his release to be reminded of an appointment that wasn't for another month.

"Lovi?"

Then he realised who he was on the phone with.

"Urgh," he groaned. "Why are you calling me, don't you have a job to do?"

"Of course I do!" Antonia replied, laughing. "I'm calling you to remind you about your appointment."

"Do nurses normally do that sort of thing?"

"Well, no, not really. But Gil wanted to go take her lunch break early, and she had so many people to call for appointment reminders, so I thought I'd help her out!"

Lovino had no idea who Gil was, but apparently the woman was so insistent on taking her lunch break early that Antonia just had to call him the next day. And the day after that. And at least every other day for the next four weeks.

"How come you never answer the phone at first?" she asked one day during these routine calls.

"I have better things to do than chat with you whenever you feel like it." He really didn't.

"Ah, really? What've you been up to?"

Absolutely nothing. "None of your damn business."

She just laughed and replied with a, "Language, Lovi," as she always did whenever Lovino snapped at her or used words he really ought not to have been. "But really, you should get out more, the weather has been so nice lately!"

"And what am I supposed to do?" he snapped. "My vespa is wrecked and I couldn't ride it even if I wanted to, not until this damn cast comes off."

"You could take me out to dinner."

"Wha- are you aski- fuck!" he sputtered. "I don't need your damn pity!"

"Lovi, I'm not-"

"Stop fucking calling me."

He didn't exactly hang up on her, but the resounding clunk the phone made when he threw it at the wall was probably close enough.

-

Despite his outburst the previous day, Antonia's call came as usual, around lunch time.

"What do you want now, Antonia?"

"Antonia?" an unfamiliar voice questioned, sounding highly amused. "You must be her little boyfriend, hm?"

"I'm not her-"

"Anyway," the other woman cut him off. "The awesome me is calling to remind you you've got an appointment tomorrow, so you better not skip out on it."

Finally, something clicked. "You must be Gil."

"Hell yeah I am! Tonia just can't help but talk about me, I'm sure." Lovino was a little startled when she started laughing in an almost hysterical manner. "I'm really just too awesome not to talk about, can't blame her," she added when she'd calmed down some.

"Eh, yeah..."

"I'll tell her to stop using the hospital phone and just find her cell phone. Go to your appointment!"

After Gil had hung up on him, without so much as a, "Have a nice day," Lovino had to wonder what the hospital had been smoking when they'd hired her as their receptionist.

-

"Hey Lovi! I got your cell number from your brother, so I hope you don't mind that I'm calling! Did you lose it or something, though? You really should learn to answer. Unless you did lose it, then I'd understand! I lost mine too, that's why I was using the hospital phone, but then Francine found it in her underwear drawer, so I can call you whenever now! Anyway, call me back, I think your phone should have the number now? If not, it's-"

Lovino's eye twitched slightly as he listened to Antonia ramble on and on and on, even after she'd given him her number. In fact, he was pretty sure she'd been cut off, mid-kissing noise after her third goodbye. Which he was a little thankful for, quite honestly.

To avoid any further odd voicemails (and for no other reason but that!), he found Antonia's number on his missed call list and called her back.

"Diga!"

"Do you really need to leave such long messages?"

"Lovino! How'd your appointment go? I would have come seen you, but I was working."

"You, actually working? I'm not sure I believe you."

Antonia laughed. "I do work sometimes, it's really fun! It's just more fun to talk to you."

Lovino rested his mobile phone on his shoulder and poked at his cast with his now freed hand. He'd been told that the damn thing should be able to come off in about two more weeks, then he'd finally be able to start using it again...

"So, I was thinking," he started. "And I guess you're not going to stop bugging me until I take you out to dinner, and you're really fucking annoying, so when I get my cast off, I supposed I can do that."

It wasn't exactly suave or romantic or anything like that, but from the excited, "Okay!" on the other end that caused Lovino to pull the phone away from his poor, ringing ear, it was good enough for Antonia.

-

Antonia seemed to be breaching all sorts of hospital protocol and stalking his patient files, because half an hour after his cast had been removed, he received a call from her, congratulating him on his arm being free again.

"So are you going to pick me up, or should I meet you somewhere?"

"Huh?"

"You're taking me out to dinner, remember? You have a car too, right, not just the vespa you crashed?"

Lovino did indeed remember. Antonia hadn't shut up about how excited she was for the past two weeks. His brother had also found out somehow and had come over to bring him a new suit to wear on his date. Well, and to tackle him to the ground in a hug and cry about how proud he was Lovino was finally making friends. He really needed to get that boy's head checked one of these days. "I didn't realise we were going out tonight."

"Of course we are!"

That was how Lovino found himself rushing to get ready, even going so far as to wear the stupid suit Feliciano had given him, so that an hour later, he was standing outside the door to Antonia's apartment.

He let himself in after knocking three times and receiving a response of, "I'm almost ready, the door's unlocked!"

"You live a block away from the hospital?" he questioned, trying to make conversation while Antonia continued to ready herself in her room, leaving him out on her couch.

"I do! It's so nice, walking to work everyday."

That certainly explained how she'd managed to bring him homemade dishes while he was in the hospital, at the very least.

After another fifteen minutes, Antonia came rushing out of her room, and Lovino almost thought she was still wearing her scrubs when the first thing he noticed was a flash of red.

"Hola, Lovi. Ready to go?"

He stood up and stared at her, realising that she was not, in fact, wearing her red scrubs, but a red dress with an extremely indecent neckline.

"Um." Lovino continued to look at her, a blush slowly creeping up his neck. "Uh, yeah."

"Great! You look really nice, by the way."

He didn't readily return the compliment (though the way he was looking at Antonia probably told her all she needed to know), and Lovino acted put out through most of dinner, but when he took Antonia home later that night after she'd dragged him out dancing, when she rewarded him with a goodnight kiss and a promise they'd do this again soon, he realised that maybe he really wasn't the most unlucky person ever.