I'm Not England

Ch.12

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

"I really appreciate this."

That was the first thing that Arthur said when Tohru and her husband arrived at his house with the child's bed.

The brown haired blue eyed unit had just smiled upon hearing his words and said "Oh, don't worry about it. We needed to get rid of the bed anyway."

"Yeah, if anything you are doing us a favor." Tohru's husband added as he slowly carried the bed up the steps.

Gilbert stood at the bottom of the steps and watched the man slowly climb the steps for a few seconds before he asked "Are you sure you don't want help?"

"I got it don't worry." Jacob, Tohru's husband, replied.

Tohru just sighed at her husband's answer, but the affectionate look that she gave him never left her face. Gilbert just shot Arthur a look that said 'well, I offered to help' while Ivan stood next to the white haired unit and watched the man carefully go up the steps with the bed. Feliciano stood beside Arthur staring up at Tohru in curiosity. Tohru smiled kindly at the child and Feliciano quickly returned gesture with a smile of his own. Tohru looked over at Ivan and the child only gave her a small shy smile before he returned his gaze back to the stairs.

Her gaze shifted over to Gilbert and stayed there for a few seconds before she looked over at Arthur.

"Where are the rest of your units?"

"At work." Arthur answered.

Tohru's gaze slowly drifted over to Gilbert, and the white haired man just smiled before he said "I work at night."

The brown haired woman nodded in understanding, and her eyes quickly drifted back to Arthur when she heard the man ask "So where is your son?"

"Oh, we dropped David off at a birthday party that's also a slumber party."

"I feel sorry for the parents that have to watch five boys all for a day and a half." Jacob said as he reappeared at the top of the steps.

Tohru shrugged before she said "They think they can handle it."

"Sure they can." Jacob said with obvious sarcasm.

Tohru shrugged yet again in reply.

"Well, I bet you guys enjoy having one day to yourselves." Arthur said with a smile.

"Yeah, we were going to catch a movie go out for a fancy dinner tonight." Jacob said.

"Taking advantage of the situation?" Gilbert asked.

"You know it." Jacob said with a grin.

"Speaking of which we should leave if we want to make it to the movies on time." Tohru said as she glanced down at her watch.

"Thanks again for the bed." Arthur told her.

"No problem." Tohru said with a smile. "Anything to help a friend."

With that said the couple was out the door and walking toward their car.

Gilbert waited until he could hear their car pulling out of the driveway to ask "Now what?"

"We need to get some groceries and some bed sheets for Feliciano, and we need to get some groceries." Arthur said.

A thoughtful look crossed Arthur's face as he said "We should probably get car seats for the kids too."

Ivan didn't look too happy about that.

Arthur saw the look on the child's face and said "Hey, you guys are small enough that you need car seats. I don't want anything bad to happen to you if we end up in an accident."

Ivan let out an annoyed huff, but he didn't bother arguing with Arthur.

"So we are going shopping?" Gilbert asked.

Edward nodded before he said "We are going shopping."

He picked Feliciano up and said "And by going shopping I mean we are going right now."

As Arthur started to walk toward the front door he heard Gilbert mutter "Gee, thanks for the sudden heads up."

"Oh, like I'm running any sudden plans that you had." Arthur said as he opened the door.

"You don't know that you aren't running plans. I had very awesome plans for today thank you very much."

"Yes, your awesome plans that consisted of drinking soda and watching action movies for the whole day." Arthur said as he rolled his eyes.

He opened the back doors of his car and placed Feliciano in and buckled him up. Ivan crawled into the car soon afterwards and took his place next Feliciano.

"Buckle up Ivan." Arthur told the boy when the child made no move for the buckle.

The boy sighed, but he did as he was asked.

"You don't know that I would spend my whole day watching movies." Gilbert grumbled near the front of the car which told the blond haired man that he had already parked himself in the passenger's seat.

"I don't hear you exactly denying it." Arthur pointed out.

A long period of silence was the only answer that Arthur got in return which told him that he was probably right about how Gilbert was going to spend the day. You closed the car door and climbed into the driver's seat.

As he slid the keys into the ignition he heard Gilbert grumble "They were going to play Die Hard in an hour."

"I'm sure we have it on DVD somewhere." Arthur told him as he started to pull out of the driveway.

"We don't." Gilbert informed him.

Arthur just rolled his eyes as he said "Then we can buy it on DVD."

"I'm holding you to that." Gilbert said. Arthur just rolled his eyes yet again as he focused on driving…

They reached the store rather quickly and after a bit of searching they found the cart that could seat both children. Getting groceries had actually went rather well. Feliciano had been a little picky about what sort of pasta and pasta sauce that they should get, but he wasn't nearly as bad as Matthew could get when it came to maple syrup so Arthur didn't mind. Ivan didn't seem to care what they got, and Gilbert would eat whatever the heck was put in front of him so he wasn't picky. It went rather well, and Arthur actually had some small hope that this trip to the store would be fast and go by without incident.

Of course that tiny hope died a quiet death once they went looking for some car seats for the boys. There was a whole aisle filled with car seats, and most of them were expensive. The cheapest was around thirty dollars while the most expensive one that he saw was around one hundred and fifty bucks. Arthur stared at the seats with wide eyes.

"You guys are trying to put me into debt." Arthur muttered.

"Well, they say kids can be expensive." Gilbert muttered as he stared at a car seat that was around hundred dollars.

Evidently Gilbert was a little surprised by how expensive some of the seats were.

"Are you including yourself in the kid department?" Arthur asked. "Because I was talking about all of you when I mentioned the debt thing."

Gilbert just flipped him off when the kids weren't looking in response. The grin on his face showed that Gilbert wasn't really insulted, and Arthur just playfully shoved Gilbert.

"Be nice Gilbert we have children." Arthur said.

"Did Gilbert say something bad?" Ivan asked.

"Don't worry about it sunflower." Arthur said as he ruffled Ivan's hair.

Ivan started to smile upon hearing the nickname. Ivan's obsession with sunflowers was still floating around in Arthur's mind so he decided to use it to hopefully distract Ivan. He didn't want Ivan asking too many questions about what Gilbert did. Feliciano was humming some song that Arthur could not identify.

"Which one do we want anyway?" Gilbert asked.

"Heck if I know." Arthur said with a sigh.

"If I would have known that it was going to be this difficult I would have asked Tohru about it."

"Aren't you supposed to be an expert on kid stuff?" Gilbert asked and he squatted down to look at the booster seats that were on the bottom shelf.

"I teach children that doesn't make me an expert on everything kid related."

Gilbert sighed as he ran his hand through his hair.

"You think the most expensive ones are the safest?" The red eyed man asked.

"God, I hope not." Arthur said.

"New to parenthood?"

Gilbert jumped and almost fell flat on his ass when he heard s strange voice suddenly say that while Arthur's quickly turned toward the voice. Standing there at the entrance of the aisle was a woman with a cart. She was a pretty blond haired woman with an eight year old sitting in the cart who looked like she was more interested in whatever game she was playing on her mother's cellphone then what was going on around her.

"Is it that obvious?" Arthur asked with a slight smile.

She chuckled before she said "We have all been there."

She pushed her cart further into the aisle.

"Have you had the kids long?" She asked.

"No, we got them rather recently."

"Ah, well let me help you out a bit." She said.

She reached out and grabbed one of the boxes and showed it to England.

"This booster seat did pretty well in car tests. It can also be used right up until your kid is old enough that they don't need the seat anymore."

"That works for me." Gilbert said as he took the box from her and dumped it into the cart.

The woman chuckled as she said "I'm happy to help out new parents."

"We aren't new parents." Gilbert said. "Or at least I'm not. I guess you could say that Arthur is."

Arthur sighed before he shrugged. In a way he was a new parent so what Gilbert said wasn't exactly untrue.

"Are you his friend then?" The woman asked.

Gilbert nodded before he said "I'm his unit."

The woman's smile faltered before she looked over at Ivan and Feliciano. Feliciano wasn't humming anymore and he gave the woman a bright smile. However, her staring caused Feliciano's smile to quickly fade away only to be replaced by a look that said that the Italian unit wasn't sure what to do about the strange looks that he was getting. A small frown had already made its way to Ivan's face, and the boy was eyeing the woman like he was just waiting for the woman to start attacking them or something.

"Oh, so you are not a parent then." She said.

Arthur just blinked a few times upon hearing that. Did she mean to say that out loud? Was Arthur supposed to hear that? What the heck did she mean by that? Ivan and Feliciano were under his care and they were his kids so that would gain Arthur the label of parent. Sure, they didn't call him dad and they were units but they were still children.

"What do you mean by that?" Arthur asked with a slight frown.

"Well, they are just units. They are not real children." She said as if she was just stating the obvious.

"What the heck does that have to do with anything? They are still children and I want them to be safe and comfortable." Arthur snapped.

The woman's friendly smile was gone now, and Arthur knew right then and there that he probably wouldn't be seeing it again anytime soon.

"They are robots." The woman said slowly as if she was talking to a child who couldn't understand a simple concept. "They are highly advanced robots, but they are still robots."

"They might be units, but they are still capable of feeling pain and they do have feelings. As far as I'm concerned they are as real as you or I." Arthur hissed back.

"You are delusional if you think units are even close to being as important as humans." The woman said with a slight glare.

"Is she saying we are not important?" Feliciano cried.

The boy looked a little distressed upon hearing that. Arthur frowned as he looked around. Their argument was starting to attract a crowed, and the woman's own child had looked up from the phone to watch the fight. Arthur had never gotten into an argument before with someone over units and their status as living things, and this sure as heck wasn't the place or time to be having this fight.

"Lady you are a jerk." Gilbert said as he grabbed another booster seat and deposited it into their cart.

"Are you going to let your unit speak to me like that?" The woman asked.

"My unit has a mind of his own, and he is his own person. If you have a problem with how a grown adult acts then you can take it up with said adult." Arthur snapped. "Also, I agree with him you are a jerk."

"Be happy that you get off with just being called a jerk. If there were not any kids around I would have used stronger language." Gilbert said.

The face the woman made upon hearing that was priceless, and while Arthur wasn't looking forward to listening to her explosion of anger he had to admit that the look that she gave Gilbert right then and there definitely made it worth it.

However, before she could explode in anger they both heard "Can I please ask you not to fight in the middle of the store."

Arthur turned to see that an employee had come to investigate the commotion. The man looked a little nervous like he didn't expect his asking for them to stop would do much good. To be honest Arthur had no desire to get into a shouting match in the middle of a store, and he also had no desire to suffer this woman's company any longer.

"Right, I'm sorry for causing a scene." Arthur told the employee.

He then turned to look toward the woman as he said "Thank you for helping us choose a booster seat. Although, I suggest that you keep your opinions about units to yourself next time you decide to help someone. If you did you would sound less like an ass."

The woman's jaw dropped, but before she could say anything Arthur grabbed Gilbert's hand and dragged him and the cart out of the aisle and quickly raced off toward the bed supplies.

"So much for keeping it PG. If I had known you were going to curse at her I wouldn't have bothered keeping my language clean." Gilbert said with a slight grin.

"You sound like you don't approve of what I said." Arthur said with a slight grin of his own.

"Oh, trust me I approve. I approve very much."

Arthur was about to respond, but he fell silent when he heard Feliciano quietly ask "Do we really not matter?"

"Oh, Feliciano don't listen to her. She's just a mean woman who doesn't know what she's talking about." Arthur told him.

Ivan nodded before he said "Yeah, she's an ass."

Gilbert couldn't help it he laughed upon hearing that.

"She is, but Ivan never say that word again." Arthur told him.

Ivan just gave him a confused look before he said "You said it."

"This is one of those do as I do not as I say moments." Arthur said.

"Let it be known now that you were the one who started corrupting the children first." Gilbert said with a smirk. "I tried to keep my language clean, but Arthur went and ruined my efforts."

Arthur just playfully shoved Gilbert, and Ivan still looked confused but he didn't say anything. The mood had been slightly improved, but the woman's words still lingered in all of their minds. What she said didn't deserve the headspace that it occupied, but it was there and it wouldn't go away anytime soon. They found the blankets and Feliciano chose some dark blue bed sheets covered in stars and crescent moons. Arthur wanted to let Ivan grab some blankets, but he didn't want to do that until Ivan got an actual bed.

Once that was done they pulled up to a register and Arthur started to put their stuff up to get scanned. As he did this he immediately remembered something.

"Hey, do you want to go and see if you can find that DVD of Die Hard?" He asked Gilbert.

Gilbert just gave him a blank look and Arthur just smirked as he said "Really, you were the one who said that he would me to my promise of getting you your movie and you don't even remember it?"

"Oh yeah!" Gilbert said as he turned and started to race away. "I'll be back!"

Arthur rolled his eyes as he continued to put stuff up for the cashier.

"Your boyfriend rather forgetful?" The cashier asked with a slight smile.

Arthur blushed a little as he said "Oh, we aren't dating."

The cashier looked at Arthur for a few seconds before he looked at the kids. The children just smiled at him and the cashier looked back at Arthur and asked "This might be a strange question, but were you the guy who got in the fight with the unit hating lady?"

Arthur wasn't sure what to say at first, but eventually he was able to say a nervous "Yes?"

The boy gave Arthur a comforting smile as he said "I'm sorry you had to deal with her. She left already if that makes you feel any better."

It did make Arthur feel a bit better to know that he wouldn't run into her again.

"She was ranting about units while she was checking out. Not a pleasant thing to listen to."

"Listening to her say that units didn't matter while they were right there next to me wasn't pleasant." Arthur muttered.

"Trust me, I know how that feels." The casher said. "My dad is a unit and we have had a few run ins with people who told my mother that her child deserved to have a real human parent and not a robot."

Arthur cringed at the very idea of someone doing that and said "I'm sorry that happened."

The casher shrugged as he said "It's alright. My dad would always get a little bummed when he heard stuff like that, but as my mom said they don't matter. We will probably never see those people again, and as long as we are happy and not hurting anyone who cares what they think?"

"Wise words." Arthur said with a slight smile. "If you don't mind me asking what unit is your dad?"

The boy smiled as he said "My dad is Edward Nigma."

"The Riddler?" Arthur said.

"Yep." The cashier said his smile never disappearing. "Having the Prince of puzzles as a dad is pretty great to have when you get stuck on a puzzle in a video game."

Arthur chuckled upon hearing that, but and the boy said "Seriously though don't let what the lady said get to you. It sucks to listen to their rants, but at the end of the day what they say doesn't matter."

"I'll try to keep that in mind. Arthur told him.

Soon after he said that Gilbert finally returned with his DVD, and Arthur noticed that he had something in hand.

"Hey, I found this while I was getting my DVD and I thought Ivan would like it."

Once Gilbert was standing near Arthur he was that what Gilbert had was a pack of sunflower wall decorations that would be stuck onto the walls.

Ivan's eyes lit up upon seeing it and asked "You got that for me?"

"Yeah, I figured that you would like it." Gilbert said.

The smile that Ivan gave Gilbert upon hearing that was one of the brightest smiles that Arthur had seen Ivan give a person. It was at that moment that Arthur was really glad that he brought Gilbert along with him. His first grocery trip was a bit of a disaster, but this time Gilbert was a huge help. Arthur made a mental note to take Gilbert along with him whenever he goes out shopping with the kids.

Soon after Gilbert returned the casher finished scanning all for their things. Arthur paid for their stuff, and soon they were out the door and making their way to their car. It took a while to get the car seats set up, but they got it done. The car ride was pretty quiet, but the silence was broken when they drove by the park with a rather extensive playground.

"Oh, a park! Can we go to the park?" Feliciano asked.

Ivan seemed to perk up a bit upon hearing that and said "I want to go to the park."

After what they had to deal with that woman in the store Arthur was totally fine with letting the kids run around in the park and just be kids.

"Yeah, we can go to the park. We have to drop the groceries off first, but after we do that we can go to the park." Arthur said.

The children grew excited and started chatter about what they would do first when we got to the park.

"Are you going to want to come with us, or do you want to stay home to watch the movie?" Arthur asked.

"I'll come with you guys. I got the DVD of the movie now so I can watch it whenever I want." Gilbert said.

Arthur nodded, but didn't say anything else. They got home and put the groceries away, dropped off the bed sheets in Feliciano's room, and went back to the car to go to the park. Upon reaching the park Ivan immediately shot off toward the slides while Feliciano went toward the monkey bars. Arthur had found an empty bench that was next to a bench that a mother was sitting at. She smiled at Arthur as he sat down, and he smiled back before he started to look around the park. Gilbert had started to play around with his phone, but he was looking up periodically to check on the kids.

Arthur was checking on the kids just as frequently, but for the most part he was just noticing the rather large amount of units that were there at the park. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe Arthur was just now noticing how widespread units were. Honestly it was probably a mixture of the two. All he knew was that he was quickly picking out the units one after another.

Sitting on a nearby bench listening intently as a red haired woman cheerfully chattered to him while holding a fussing toddler was Castiel from the TV show Supernatural. Drawling on the sidewalk with chalk along with few kids was Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Sitting on a bench across from him eating ice cream and chattering happily with a cheery looking woman was Steve Rogers looking like he just hoped out of the pages of a Captain America comic.

All around him were different characters from every type of media known to man walking with friends, playing games, and eating ice cream with their loved ones. They had always been there living their lives, but today Arthur just felt really aware of them today. Maybe the lady at the grocery store had made him more sensitive to them or something. Well, whatever the reason all Arthur knew was the he couldn't understand how anyone could say that they didn't matter.

"Gilbert!"

Arthur was snapped out of his thoughts as he looked up and saw that Ivan had been the one to call out the white haired man's name. Ivan was sitting on a swing with his hands tightly gripping onto the swing's chains.

"Come push me!" Ivan called out.

Gilbert slid his phone into his pocket as he yelled out "Alright!"

He looked over at Arthur and smirked as he said "If you'll excuse me Ivan wants the cool dad to come help him."

Arthur playfully rolled his eyes before he asked "Why are you the cool dad?"

"I'm the cool dad because I'm awesome." He said as he stood up and started walking toward Ivan.

"That's not a good answer!" Arthur yelled.

"Yes it is!" Gilbert yelled back.

Arthur rolled his eyes again, but watched with a slight smile as Gilbert started pushing Ivan. Ivan's grin was huge as he sailed through the air his pink scarf bellowing out behind him like a cape. Feliciano quickly bounded up toward them and plopped himself down in the empty swing that was next to Ivan. Gilbert started pushing Feliciano too, and Arthur could see that both of the kids were having fun.

"Your boyfriend is really good with kids." The woman complimented.

"Yeah, he is." Arthur said only to quickly realize that the woman had called Gilbert his boyfriend.

"Oh, he's n-" Arthur started to say only to be cut off by the sound of a child's yell for their mother.

Arthur looked toward the yelling child only to see a black haired girl that looked a lot like the woman holding a red ribbon in hand.

"Mom, my ribbon fell out! Can you put it back in my hair?"

"Duty calls." The woman said as she stood up and started walking toward her daughter.

Arthur watched her for a moment before he looked back over at Gilbert. They were getting mistaken for a couple a lot today. The weird part was the fact that Arthur wasn't really bothered by that. Gilbert was a little full of himself sometimes, but he could be very kind. He was very handsome, and he was great with children. Of course as Arthur got lost in his thoughts about Gilbert his thoughts sort of came to a screeching halt when he realized that he was just mentally showering Gilbert with compliments, and when he got right down to it he actually sort of liked the idea of dating Gilbert.

'Oh my god I think I have a small crush on Gilbert.' Arthur thought.

Gilbert looked over at Arthur and smiled, and Arthur immediately smiled back without even thinking about it. However, once Gilbert was no longer looking at him his smile quickly disappeared. Oh yeah, Arthur had a small crush on Gilbert and he didn't have a freaking clue about what he should do about it….

So that's chapter 12. I'll try and have the next chapter up as soon as I can so please review and don't flame.