Disclaimer: I do not have in my possession the rights to Hetalia nor the deeds of any large masses of land.
Work Text:
It would be worse, Russia almost thought, if he wasn't already used to this. Almost, because nothing could possibly be worse than the pointless dance he continues to allow himself to be drawn into. So very pointless.
He had built a house once, more of a palace really. It was large and lofty and comfortable and he personally worked with the architects who assured him that the angels depicted on the domed ceiling of the front hall would echo a clear and crystal song if, of course, anyone were to ever sing within its walls.
It was a palace not for Russia, but for the entire world. That was why it took so long to build in the first place. He had to have a room for each and every country. So they would be happy. Happy here with him. And then there would be peace and joy and maybe, just maybe, he could hear the silent angels sing.
Russia burned the house down one day because it was a house, not a home, never a home, and built a prison of ice instead. He lived there and his guests stayed as long as he willed it. His will was strong then and he believed he could hold them until the end of time itself.
Look! He spread his arms wide.
I am Russia. I have built a nation stronger than all others.
Look! He swept a large gesture that encompassed all his lands, his cities, and his tundra—that which no one else wanted; he would take it and hold fast until he faded into history, something that was unthinkable.
I have succeeded where all else have failed. See what I have done?
Look at me! A silent scream that came from his heart, long before he ripped it out in a fit of despair and it never did fit back in quite right.
Only no one ever did. No one looked and saw him. His guests stared at him with fear and revulsion and barely disguised hatred. Russia had taken the hatred willingly, had beaten the defiance until fear took its place, had pressed and pressed and pressed until finally he got submission but that was never what he really wanted. They wouldn't come to him, not come and stay.
It was something about him, something deep and primal that made his guests flinch away from his touch, shun his presence when at all possible. He was Russia and though he didn't want the reactions he naturally provoked, he also didn't know how to be anything else.
Even among the other nations, no one willingly approached him for anything other than official business and even then, they moved away as quickly as possible. France, who shared warmth and wine with a generosity that bordered on insanity, who had once been Russia's ally (he still was, but it was different now), didn't dare to touch him.
England, the puny island with a navy strong enough to be the holy terror of the seas, to rule the world from its oceans, eyed him with loathing and made sure to sit far away when meetings dictated they share a table.
Germany, who had initiated both World Wars, fighting bitterly to the very end all alone, whose might needed no explanation, shrank in stature when Russia walked into the room, which may or may not have had something to do with the three hundred thousand German soldiers who lay down their arms and surrendered in Stalingrad (and the fact that not a single one of them made it back to Germany). Kol.
Russia has had cause to regret many things, not to say that he did feel bad about all of them, scarcely any in fact but a select few he can recall with crystal clarity. Nexus moments in time that, if handled correctly, would have strengthened his country beyond all imagining. Those instances, those he did feel regret for. When he was too shortsighted or arrogant to realize the opportunities before him and passively allowed them to slip through his fingers and drift forever beyond his reach.
One such occasion was, when Russia made a brief sojourn to the land across the ocean in the wake of England, France, and Spain and he found a small child, a boy, the fledgling of a country. The boy was small, the very tip of the curls of his hair just barely cleared Russia's knee. He had the makings of beauty, golden hair, sky blue eyes, a shy voice and a hesitant smile, despite his plain dress that helped him blend into the woods.
Russia was ancient. He had seen scores of children like this, some so infantile they could not yet walk or speak. Some died in the dirt like humans, some simply ceased to exist, and some—not many, but some—Russia had crushed underfoot himself. It was too easy. They were too weak. There would be no place for weakness in his world.
The child crawled out of the dense woods and quietly told Russia that he was speaking with the New World. Such an impressive name for such a pathetic icon, Russia could crush him now with barely an effort if he so chose. He felt like smiling and he knew which smile it would be, the one that promised cruelty and pain because that was what he did best, but he restrained himself.
Without a word Russia turned away from the child and walked on, dismissing the New World as he would an insignificant mote of dust in the air. There was a rustle behind him and he confirmed with a backwards glance that the child had vanished. Good, that was for the best. So few fledglings managed to spread their wings and this one would be no different.
Russia didn't ever want to roam his halls again, looking fruitlessly for one of his budding flowers, growing more distraught and colder inside each time a door was opened and the room behind it was empty, fighting off the realization that all of the rooms were going to be empty. That he, Russia, had taken in children and with his affection, quietly killed them and made them a part of himself without his even noticing it because they were so weak and he was so strong.
Thus Russia put his back to the beautiful child; secure in his knowledge that the New World would wither and fade soon enough, it would be all the better if he remained uninvolved. Russia, in his own opinion, wasn't often in the wrong, but when he was…oh, when he was it was the kind of mistake that followed him for the rest of his long existence, smacking him in the face every day, a constant reminder of his failure.
And so it was that Russia met the New World before he became America, before the child became a force strong enough to move the world to his whims, and didn't yet have a care for the dance that they would be caught fast in. Though that day, in the wilderness, the conductor of the orchestra of fate tapped his wand against the podium to set the rhythm, raised his arm high and held it for all to see waiting, waiting to bring it down and begin the music.
Russia lay on the remnants of a battlefield wondering how long it would take for him to heal enough to regain motor function and cursing German soldiers and their senseless mutilation of his people. If he ever got his hands on them or their ilk he would give them an up close and personal lesson on Russian brutality, one they would never forget. It would be the stuff of legend, whispered in the dark of night to frighten children; his rage would be food for a generation of nightmares.
If, his mind whispered insidiously, if you can catch them, if you can last, if your people can survive this war, if they don't turn against you again, if you manage to drag your useless carcass out of this place, if you don't die here.
"Nyet!" Russia snarled and thrashed furiously, ignoring the human pain riddling his body. This was nothing. He had taken so much worse; he could take so much more. Russia would never fall—he would not allow it.
Allow? the traitorous voice snickered, What does it matter what you allow? Look at yourself! You can't even stand.
It was true. Despite his curses (Russian was a truly excellent language to curse with) he could not force himself to his feet. It was looking more and more likely that one of the artillery shells that had hit him had severed his spine. The roaring fire that had subsided to the pins and needles sensation in his lower abdomen suggested that it was probably for the best that Russia couldn't turn his head far enough to assess the damage.
Nations didn't exactly die per say when confronted with the human limits and weaknesses of their smaller form so much as black out, wake to varying levels of excruciating pain, and eventually recover. Usually, these instances occurred within one's own border which was marginally safer as it decreased the possibility of being captured by the enemy and tortured for several consecutive decades, the probability of just such an occasion rising every second he was exposed and defenseless in the middle of a fucking slaughter.
Russia couldn't be taken, not now with the people ready to revolt again, a thorn digging constantly in his side, driving him mad until eventually he would lose reason and strike blindly to exterminate the source, hoping, praying, for relief but it wasn't quite that bad, not yet, but soon it would be, he knew.
Footsteps on the silent field of battle, the silence of the dead broken again by the living, and judging by the tread, the clank of heavy standard equipment, a soldier too. Come to hurry along those with breath just barely rattling in and out of blood splattered lips? To claim first pickings from the fallen who could no longer protest?
Fine, let them come. Russia's left arm twitched and with the small movement came a rush of vicious satisfaction. Let them come, he would show them, even in such a pitiful state, what Russia was capable of. He went still, let his eyes shut out visions of gray skies and his fallen, bloody men, and waited for the unassuming prey to come within range.
The clanking stopped perhaps a foot from him, a shadow blotting out what little sun fell upon his face, and the crunch of gravel under combat boots shifted ever so slightly. Russia's muscles tensed, almost…almost…now—
"Hey, commie," the voice was inappropriately cheerful as if the owner were on the verge of breaking into uplifting patriotic song. At this precise moment Russia fervently hoped that he was wrong and it was, in fact, a looter or a deserter from the German army.
Russia opened his eyes and blinked up at the fair faced soldier in camouflage leaning over him, wholly unaware of how close he'd come to having his Achilles tendon snapped, windpipe crushed, and asphyxiating. Not that it really would have mattered in the end.
The fading sunlight turned the soldier's golden hair into a halo, his aura very much angelic—a painted fresco flashed before Russia's eyes, watching over him at his worst, in his times of need—Russia snapped back to his senses and the idea vanished as utterly frivolous notions tended to do.
A dazzling smile was aimed in his direction, "Need a hand?"
Russia sighed and slid the smile across his face that he used with dealing politically and personally with other nations, the one he knew full well was unnerving.
"Amerika," he said.
A gloved hand gripped his—he felt, with resigned and weary surprise, the birth of the uncompromising strength of an industrial superpower—and then Russia found that, with help, he could stand after all.