England hated meetings with all the heat and venom an old pirate could muster – which was rather a lot. When the meeting in question was the regular European Union gathering, he was even less happy: at least at the world meetings and the G8 and its overgrown cousin the G whatever the hell it was these days (he thought 20, but it seemed to expand every year or so) he could be reasonably sure of interacting with his former colonies rather than having to fight his old instincts and try not to start a war with the rest of Europe.
These days, there was entirely too high a chance he wouldn't win.
He scowled at France when the Frog tried to cop a feel, glared so fiercely at Spain that Italy Romano paled, and was hardly any less irritable towards any of the other nations attending. It didn't help that neither Germany nor Italy Veneziano were here – and Germany was never late. Veneziano, well... the Italies split their meeting duties often enough, and while England had no doubt Veneziano would cheerfully skip the meetings to stay with his 'dear friend', Germany would never tolerate slacking.
That was a man who ate, slept, and breathed doing things by the book.
Which made his absence even more peculiar.
France – of course – had taken advantage of the German's absence and was greeting (read: feeling up) all of the Eurozone members. Since the Frog referred to that abomination as a group marriage, he probably thought it was justified.
The door slammed open exactly as the clock on the wall ticked over to 9 am.
Like everyone else in the room, England turned to stare.
Prussia – in a suit and tie for once – paused to let everyone admire his so-called awesomeness before strolling to Germany's seat.
England wasn't the only nation to draw in a sharp breath.
Prussia's red eyes gleamed, and a hint of his obnoxious smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Good morning. My brother is unable to attend today: our Chancellor required his personal involvement." He set his attache case on the chair and extracted a laptop. "If it makes you feel better, for the purposes of this meeting, I am Germany."
France shook his head while Prussia was opening the laptop. "Non. Why would you take on another's name even for a day?"
For once, England couldn't fault the blasted frog. All of them were exquisitely sensitive to who they were, and their names were the most important part of that. Hell, Prussia himself refused to answer to anything other than his old name, even more than sixty years after Prussia had ceased to exist anywhere except in history books – and not often in those either, with the name of Germany being used instead.
Prussia raised one white eyebrow. "I'm here representing Germany."
England wondered what else Prussia was doing: this wasn't his normal manner. Usually Prussia was loud, obnoxious, and had even less ability to read the atmosphere than America – which was saying something. This rather sober, serious Prussia was something odd and it made England's skin crawl.
"I believe everyone is here?" Prussia wasn't really asking. "Belgium, you are secretary for the meeting this round, correct."
Belgium nodded, biting her lip as though she expected an insult or mockery.
She didn't get it from Prussia: Austria demanded, "What gives you the right to run this?" The unspoken addition that Prussia wasn't even a nation hung in the air.
England tensed, ready for the inevitable brawl.
Prussia only smiled, his eyes narrowing a little. "As I said, I represent Germany. If you have any problems with that I invite you to take it up with me personally after the meeting." His tone said clearly that he wouldn't hold back if anyone was foolish enough to object.
Since when has that git had that kind of charisma? England wondered. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the Teutonic twat practically glowing with controlled power, his eyes gleaming with an inner fire that England hadn't seen in, oh... years. More than a century, even.
After a short silence, Prussia said, "Let us open the meeting then. I think we can take the formal acknowledgments and so forth as read, since we're already late and we have a full agenda."
"I had no idea he knew so many long words," France murmured.
"Belt up, frog." England kept his reply soft. There was something familiar about this Prussia, but he wasn't sure what it was. The memories teased odd corners of his mind.
"Greece," Prussia said in a sharp, brisk tone. "Your report on your new boss's intentions and likely direction, if you would."
Greece started a little, and rose to his feet, eyelids drooping and a cat in his arms. "He doesn't like the terms your banks are dictating. They're too harsh. You're asking too much."
England winced at the explosion of shouting from the Eurozone nations. He'd never been so thankful he'd refused to join back when the shared currency had been created. It might be more difficult maintaining his own currency, but at least he wasn't bound to the other gits the way the Eurozone wankers were.
"ENOUGH!" Prussia's battlefield roar cut through the babble. France and Spain sank back into their seats, both wearing identical expressions of shock, expressions England saw echoed around the rest of the conference room. "Tell me, Greece, is it reasonable to expect you to support Germany's finances?"
What the...Before England could finish the thought, Greece's vehement "No!" echoed in the room.
"Then why do you demand that Germany support you?" Prussia asked in a silky voice. "Why do you demand that Germany, and France, and Belgium, and the rest of us continue to support your government's irresponsible spending habits?"
Greece blinked. Petted the cat in his arms. "You're just trying to take over through the banks."
Several of the nations with troubled economies nodded. Germany's position as the powerhouse and linchpin of the EU was one that generated a lot of resentment from the others, even those who'd been German allies in the last war.
When Germany was faced with that accusation he usually went even more stone-faced than usual and shouted a lot. Prussia laughed, mocking laughter that England never wanted turned in his direction. Then he smiled, which was arguably worse. England remembered now when he'd last seen Prussia like this: at Waterloo, badly wounded but still holding his battered army together by sheer force of will and refusing to accept anything less than victory or annihilation.
"Greece, really," Prussia said in a gentle tone. "If my brother wanted to take over, the army would have marched. He doesn't do subtle. And if I wanted to take over, you'd already be Prussian territory." He said something then, in Greek, which made Greece blanch and sit down hard enough to make his chair roll back.
Given the way Cyprus looked about to faint, Prussia had said something bad.
Not that England was going to ask. There were times when discretion was a better choice.
#
By the time the meeting adjourned to allow the various smaller groupings to gather: the Nordic Council, the Baltic Assembly, the Benelux Group, and the Visegrad Group, England was quite thankful both that he hadn't joined the Eurozone, and that he wasn't involved with any of the other groupings. He didn't need to discuss the common travel area with Ireland, and he wasn't part of any other multinational EU group – unless one counted his own union, which England didn't.
The United Kingdom did not need rest of Europe poking their sticky noses into internal matters. He might not be on the best of terms with his brothers, but they managed well enough – as witnessed by Scotland voting to stay.
During the break, England avoided the other nations: the various formal groups were getting food to take to their gatherings, while those without a meeting mostly clustered around the tables near the bar. Greece sat with Cyprus and Malta, Spain and Portugal had commandeered a table and convinced France and Italy Romano to join them, while Austria and Slovenia sat nearby and pretended they weren't part of the somewhat rowdy grouping.
The question of where Prussia had got to was answered by the man himself pulling a chair over to England's solitary table. "You look like you ate something bad."
At least it wasn't a comment about his cooking: England was beyond tired of those. He shrugged. "The meal suffices." He wasn't going to give Prussia the satisfaction of looking at him.
Prussia's odd, hissing laugh was followed by a bar of chocolate sliding over to his side of the table. Belgian chocolate, too.
England turned just enough to allow Prussia to see his raised eyebrow. "Courting, Prussia?"
He heard the chair creak as the other man leaned back – and probably looked smug, too, the git. "Me? I wouldn't know how." The sarcasm in that comment forced England to suppress a wince. "It's just a thank you for you not making this morning any more of a mess than it had to be."
Damn. Prussia won that one: England knew damn well he looked gobsmacked. "What are you on about, wanker?"
"Oh, please." Once again, Prussia spoke with uncharacteristic sarcasm. "You could have joined the argument. You didn't."
England wondered what he could possibly say in reply that wouldn't reveal anything he preferred the other not to know – which was just about everything. Annoying as the Teutonic twat might be in his usual "I am awesome" mode, it was still better than the sober, serious and far too bloody efficient for anyone's good ersatz Germany he was being today. He settled for a one-shouldered shrug and a non-committal, "I was enjoying the show."
Prussia made a sound in the back of his throat that could have been a cough and could have been a suppressed laugh. "Waiting for the rest of us to wear ourselves out so you could have the pickings, you old pirate?" He sounded amused, even indulgent.
"Why not?" England retorted. "It's a sound strategy." And whatever else he was Prussia would recognize good strategy even when he failed to practice it.
"If you've no objections to the destruction that happens along the way, yes." There was nothing in the light, almost whimsical comment to suggest whether Prussia thought what he said was a good thing or not.
England wondered at that. The Prussia he remembered from their alliances before the disasters of the twentieth century would have it thought that he didn't care what was broken in pursuit of his victories, but there'd been hints otherwise... the way he'd protected his brother even before the child was a nation of his own, the same fierce protectiveness towards his troops, always spearheading the lines, always at the center of the bloodiest fighting no matter the cost to his own body. "When it's inevitable, why not?"
Prussia didn't reply for a moment, and when he did, he said softly, "Do you really think this is all going to collapse?"
"Of course." England didn't hesitate. "Nothing is eternal."
"That's not an answer." Prussia's voice was flat, hard.
England didn't look at him. He preferred not to see whatever expressions might be passing across the other man's face. "It will fall, Prussia," he said softly. "Maybe not this year, or next, but it will fall. There are too many differences, too many old hatreds." He should have added something about bloody Germany and that madman Hitler destroying any hope Europe might have had of forging a lasting peace. He wasn't entirely sure why he didn't.
Prussia's response wasn't anything he'd expected to hear. "So I'm not the only one who sees it." His voice was barely audible, a murmur that hung beneath the general noise of the restaurant.
When England turned to stare at the other man and demand to know what he meant by that, Prussia had risen to his feet and was walking away.
#
After the various sessions with the smaller groups were done, the entire EU gathered for a final session in the main conference room. Instead of the usual atmosphere of barely undeclared war, there was a sharp tension to the air, a taste of fear that England wished he'd inspired.
Alas, his glory days were long past. He was, like most of Europe, a fading power who let his politicians make their idiotic mistakes and amused himself by stirring trouble amongst his old rivals.
Prussia was even less than that, but he could terrorize Europe without trying.
England squashed a surge of jealousy as the man himself strode in – exactly on time – getting a sharp hush which proved that the whispers England hadn't heard clearly were indeed about Prussia.
Reports from the smaller groups were first: England didn't pay much attention to those, preferring to watch as Prussia took notes, quick and precise, although why he'd take written notes rather than use the laptop was something England couldn't help wondering about.
The man's eyes sharpened, glittering a deeper, bloodier shade of red as he pointed out assumptions in the reports – Sweden and Denmark both flushed when Prussia observed that their economic plans relied on Russia's goodwill, something that was a little less secure than it had been a few years ago – and more than a few other flaws. None of them escaped that scrutiny.
If Prussia saw the resentment building he ignored it, at least until little Latvia – of all people to speak up – burst out, "Like you've got anything to say! Your government was even worse!"
Prussia pinned the smallest of the Baltics with a glare that should have caused Latvia to spontaneously combust on the spot. "I'm not representing them."
England did his best to look bored. If the damned Frog noticed his interest, he'd have to fend the wretched creature off and might miss something interesting.
"You shouldn't be criticizing us." Latvia's stout defense was made less effective by the way he was wringing his hands.
Prussia chuckled softly, not his maddening hiss-snicker-thing, but a real laugh, soft and menacing. "Latvia, I'm not one for fancy words or dancing around a topic like some here. If you object to a straightforward assessment, perhaps you should be speaking to someone else."
That had to hurt, England mused. It wasn't that Prussia was wrong, either – obviously the man had lost none of the sharpness that had taken him from a Polish vassal-state to a power to rival France and Austria within a hundred years. The question at hand was whether Prussia intended to use that edge to reclaim the land he'd once owned.
Poland certainly looked like he considered it a possibility, as did Lithuania. That or there'd been a meal of live eels that they'd mysteriously failed to notice.
It was Spain – usually clueless and cheerful to the point of inanity – who asked the obvious. "Prussia, what are you trying to prove here? You know your brother would have had no objections." The former Empire still sounded as cheerful and clueless as ever, but England doubted it was genuine. All of them had their little acts, their games they played to avoid showing their true selves to other nations.
Prussia smiled, as innocent an expression as he could produce – which wasn't very. "I'm representing my brother, of course."
"Enough with the games," Poland snapped. "Who did you plan to take first?"
The sudden hush said everything: all of them had reached the same conclusion, that Prussia was planning to reclaim his old place.
England would swear he saw a flash of pain in the former nation's expression before Prussia spread his hands and shook his head. "First? I don't plan to 'take' any of you. I've had my fill of bosses treating me like shit and thinking I'm just a pretty little soldier toy to take out for a war." The venom in that comment should have killed someone. "I'm simply helping out my awesome little brother."
With a change of mood so quick it left England wondering which mood he was faking, Prussia turned back to his notes. "Now, the final item on the agenda. Belgium, if you'd be kind enough to give the presentation on the Union finances?"
Belgium did, shooting nervous little glances Prussia's way the whole time she outlined the current assets and monetary policy of the European Union.
He simply listened and took notes, waiting until she was done before he asked, "How much reserve are the central banks maintaining?"
England hadn't realized Prussia followed finance, but his response to Belgium's startled response proved that he not only followed financial matters, he understood them better than most of the other nations. Which made a certain amount of sense, England supposed. Prussia did have a lot more free time than the rest of them. Time enough to familiarize himself with international finance and... well...
England swallowed. The European Union wasn't an empire, nor was it the kind of organization that could support a personification. There was no way Prussia could be sidling into that role unnoticed. None. It was impossible.
He hoped.
#
The remainder of the meeting did little to calm England's fears. Prussia was far, far too competent. That this was the only EU meeting he'd ever attended that hadn't collapsed into chaos didn't help. Germany tried, but as soon as someone accused him of trying to take over – or worse, called him a Nazi – the whole thing would devolve into angry shouting and nothing more would be accomplished.
Prussia just laughed at the accusation. "Me? A Nazi?" He indicated his eyes and silver-white hair. "A fucking untermensch? I'm lucky I only spent half the fucking war in fucking Mengele's tender care." He hadn't given anyone time to recover from that little shock: just went right back to the meeting agenda.
Now, as the rest of them hurried to get out of the conference room and Prussia packed his briefcase, England wondered how accurate that comment was. Prussia was far from the Nazi ideal, certainly, but he was also Prussia. Incarnation of war, lover of battle, and all that.
Before England could say anything, Prussia's phone rang – the bloody Preussenlied, of course. Git.
"Prussia." Naturally, the man answered in German – England was thankful he knew the language.
After a moment, Prussia said, "It went well enough, brother. We got through the agenda. I'll -" He winced and held the phone away from his ear.
England wasn't entirely sure, but he thought Germany was shouting something along the lines of "What do you mean, you got through the agenda? That never happens."
Prussia let the shouting trail off before he laughed that damned hissing thing of his. "You wound me, brother. Of course I'm awesome enough to handle those arseholes. I expect they'll be begging you never to let me do this again."
Since England had intended to demand that his boss send Germany's boss a strongly worded protest about Prussia – who, after all, was not a nation – leading the meeting, he had to admit Prussia was right about that.
Prussia laughed again. "Not my fault our dear Chancellor doesn't think I can handle riots without breaking heads, brother dear." He sighed in a way that England was almost certain was exaggerated. "Not that I wouldn't mind breaking a few heads."
An angry roar from the phone was followed by, "Yes, yes, I know we don't do that kind of thing anymore. Honestly, we've let our bosses turn us into pansies. Wah, wah, someone might be offended or have their feelings hurt."
England stifled a snicker. It wouldn't do to have Prussia realize he was listening and understood every word.
"Tch." Despite Germany not being able to see him, Prussia waggled a hand. "You know I'm teasing, brother. I should be home in an hour or so, depending on whether anyone wants to shout at me first."
England didn't hear what Germany said in reply to that, but after a little while, Prussia farewelled his brother and put his phone back into standby.
"You always made a lousy spy, England," Prussia said when he picked up his briefcase.
Rather than give the man any more ammunition, England just said, "I wasn't spying. I just wanted to ask you something, so I waited." It was a strain not to add any insults.
Prussia raised one white eyebrow, but all he said was, "Ask away, then."
England sighed under his breath. "What you said about the war." There was no need to specify which war, not when only one had been mentioned in the meeting. "Was it accurate?" Not 'true' – that would bring out the worst in Prussia. Accurate implied he was being basically honest but exaggerating for some purpose or other.
He didn't expect the answer he got: Prussia set the briefcase down, shed his jacket, then rolled up his left sleeve. Old, purple blue numbers marched up his left arm.
England's mouth fell open.
Prussia had his shirt sleeve buttoned again and his jacket on before England managed to collect his jaw. "I take it that's sufficient answer."
England didn't trust himself to speak: he just nodded.
There wasn't any hint of the usual bluster and nonsense in Prussia's red eyes. "I'll thank you to keep that to yourself."
Even though there was no overt threat, England could feel the chill crawling down his spine.
"I don't want anyone's fucking pity," Prussia added before turning on his heel and walking out, briefcase in hand and trademark grin on his face.
Pity? England didn't think there'd be any of that. Not that he was going to say a word. Let the other bloody tossers figure it out for themselves: he had some research to do. Whatever Prussia was up to, he wanted be the man's ally, not his enemy.
And that was not fear speaking, thank you very much.