CHAPTER 1

A/N – Yeah, I know nobody fucking reads BulRo, (or Ro or Bul for that matter) and even less review, but I don't care. As the summary says, no syrupy romance will occur in this fic, although some 'action' might. If you don't like guns, don't read this. If you think all Romania can do is sparkle and all Bulgaria can do is eat yogurt all day, don't read this. I don't own Hetalia.

Bulgaria – Tsvetan Borisov

Romania – Alin Vasile

Dark green eyes fixed the bathroom mirror intently as the young man brought up a wet hand and wiped the blood smeared onto his cheek. It had already darkened and it formed a crust he had to scrub a bit harder to clean, but a satisfied smirk formed on his lips nevertheless. Ruffled black bangs fell on his pale forehead and he shook his head, tossing them away from his eyes, as he continued to look at his reflection for another moment.

"Tsve, we have to be going now," a thick voice growled from the other side of the door, accompanied by short, loud banging.

The green-eyed brunet wiped his cheek one last time before pulling his tight black undershirt over the gun stuffed into his belt. "Coming Vanko, hold your fucking pants," he replied calmly. He eventually walked out of the restrooms and threw an indifferent glance around the thrashed restaurant. Broken glass and wood splinters crunched beneath his sneakers as he sauntered slowly, making a point in admiring the disaster and especially the bullet holes in the fine wallpaper. He didn't look at the bodies though – he knew that Vanko must have already counted them, but he for one didn't bother to keep a record. For him it was all about getting the job done and getting paid for it. They weren't too many anyway - the few customers had scurried off instantly the moment his team had burst in, so they'd only had to take care of the old man and his 'security personnel'. Seriously, the Italians thought they could put up a fight, just by themselves, with the help of some amateurs? Georgiev had checked them before all of this had started and they weren't connected, otherwise all hell would have broken loose. Not that Tsvetan would have minded if they were to start a full-out war with the Mafia or anything.

Choked sobs caught his ear as he moved towards the exit and the Bulgarian stopped, turning slightly and glancing down at the little auburn-haired boy crouched on the floor, desperately squeezing the bloodied hand of someone fallen behind the bar. Someone dead. The boy fell quiet suddenly and looked up, eyes puffy and red from crying and his face wet with tears and blood, but he did not let go. He probably knew it was pointless – if they wanted to kill him, he couldn't escape, there was nowhere to run.

"When you're done pissing your pants, spread the word, yeah? Georgiev doesn't fuck around. Your Grandpa should have paid up instead of stirring shit he couldn't handle. Bringing in the armed men, that was a stupid idea. Really bad… who the fuck-"

"Tsve, come on! The boys are waiting in the car, it's been twenty minutes!" his companion interrupted, tugging on his arm impatiently. "I can hear fucking sirens already, the police will be here any minute now!"

Tsvetan tsked, scrunching his face into a disgusted scowl. Fucking Vanko! The man was twice his size, but he crapped out too easily! And yet he still had the nerve to act like he was in charge! He'd have to talk to the boss about that. If Georgiev wanted good results he'd have to give him a better team. He walked out nonchalantly, purposely refusing to hurry as he stepped over the elegant glass door - now broken and flattened to the ground - and headed towards the black SUV.

Her head was beginning to hurt and a wave of nausea threatened to rise up as she sat hunched over the desk, doing her best to ignore the hospital smell still stuck in her nostrils. Reaching for the steaming paper cup, Elizaveta decided she'd probably seen too much of hospitals lately - first with being shot, less than a month before and now with taking that boy's statement. She could have asked someone else to do it, but she'd wanted to see for herself. Well, wasn't that how she usually got into trouble? Always wanting to see for herself, always wanting to do things her way and - if possible - alone.

Sighing deeply, the brunette pushed away a portion of the pile of papers and photos lying on her desk in complete chaos and picked up the file she'd been carefully avoiding all day. Since Chief Inspector Adnan had warned her about it the moment she'd walked in – seriously, did the man sleep at his desk or something? – Elizaveta had taken its contents seriously, or at least she'd forced herself to. But upon rapidly scanning and leafing through it, she'd tossed the folder at the far end of the desk and had made a point not to touch it again until it was absolutely necessary. And it was necessary now.

Her arm protested at the stretching movement, her shoulder still feeling pretty much stiff, and that brought a scowl on her face ahead of time. Demonstratively, the detective opened the file at the front page and, with a groan, picked up the phone.

"Yeah, it's me. Please ask officer… Vasile to come to my office. Now."

"Sure, love. He just walked in, actually."

Taking a large gulp of hot coffee and expecting some miraculous effect from the dark, bitter liquid, Elizaveta tried to compose herself and assume a pleasant-… no, a less hostile countenance. What the hell was Adnan thinking? A soft knock on the door nearly made her jump off the chair – even though she'd expected it – and only then the Hungarian realized how stressed she must have been.

"Come in," the brunette uttered in a voice which sounded disturbingly like a suffocated croak (despite the rules, Sadiq smoked like a snake in his own office and every time he opened the door thick clouds wafted out of it, polluting the whole atmosphere) and she rapidly cleared her throat, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She'd had a rose-shaped hairclip in the morning as she'd left for work, but now it was gone.

Upon her invitation, the door opened and a young man walked in cautiously. "Hello, detective Héderváry," he said in a surprisingly pleasant voice.

She nodded, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. "Officer Vasile, please have a seat."

The small black-and-white picture in the file was somewhat misleading, Elizaveta realized. Alin Vasile looked awfully young for some reason and he looked rather fragile and lanky in the full black uniform slacks and short-sleeved shirt, and the bulletproof vest he wore on top of it didn't do anything to change that impression. His strawberry blonde hair, reaching to the base of his jaw, was tucked behind his ear on one side and loosely hanging in the other. The visible ear had two piercings – one tiny, round red gem and a silver lightning bolt. How unprofessional, the Hungarian thought, until she realized he was (discreetly) observing her office. The place was a dusty, cramped mess and she hadn't bothered to tidy it up in ages. The plant by the window had withered and the air was thick and stale because said window was stuck and, now that she sniffed more carefully, she could pick up a suspicious scent of mold. Hell, it must have looked like a witch's den. Fuck.

"Well," Elizaveta began, "I suppose Chief Inspector Adnan has informed you what this is about…"

"In a few words, yes," he nodded.

Alin's gaze seemed to trail towards her injured shoulder and the Hungarian stiffened. "Anyway, ultimately he's letting me decide if we're to work together on this case," she lied (Sadiq had already made the decision and despite her protests it was final). "So… I went through your file, but I was wondering if you could tell me a few things about you," she added as casually as she could muster. The detective genuinely wondered what else there was to know about him other than that he was a Romanian bastard and that he often hung out with Gilbert Beilschmidt, a notorious dickhead who did justice to the saying 'Hell is where the police is German'.

To her momentary satisfaction, he blinked, a bit confused.

"I'd say… I am quite intuitive and I work well under pressure. And I never back off from writing long reports," he said with a small smile. Right. Of course. "Um… could I open the window a bit? It seems I've brought in some of the smoke…"

"Oh, sure," Elizaveta replied innocently, closing the file and shifting her attention towards the pile of photos. If you can… Her eyebrows shot up curiously as the Romanian stood and tried to lift it, almost enjoying the puzzled look on his face when the damned thing refused to budge.

"Ce cacat de geam! (A/N – 'What shit of a window' - Romanian)" she heard him muttering and by the use of his native language instead of English she deduced that it must have been some hardcore profanity. But Alin did not give up and, after he'd paused to study the problem more carefully, managed to open the window and let fresh air pour inside the room.

"I'm sorry, was that a test?" he asked afterwards, before sitting back down in front of her. "Is there any other task I am to complete in order to prove my worth?"

Eyes glued on the papers, Elizaveta couldn't help a small smile in return. "No, but thank you. It had been stuck for a while." Well, now that we opened the window, you could throw Sadiq out too while you're at it, she thought. "Anyway, I think we should get to work."

The Hungarian looked around the desk and dug in the mixture of prints, handwritten notes and photos, wondering where to start. And where the hell was Feliciano Vargas' statement? Ugh… she could have used a secretary.

"Chief Inspector Adnan told me you're after some Eastern Europeans. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, yeah… how much did he tell you?" God, what a fucking mess! She found the rose-shaped hairclip somewhere in the pile (not what she was looking for) and began to toy with it nervously.

Alin shrugged. "Not that much. He said you chased them on your own and that was how you got shot. As a warning to stay away, but you only got that – the warning – because they'd thought you were a journalist."

The brunette flinched, abandoning her search and instead leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms. Of course, Sadiq had probably only mentioned how she'd gotten shot and how she needed a man's protection in all this, instead of caring about her actual achievements. Bastard!

"Right," she said sternly." The object of my current investigation is Georgiev's gang. Bulgarians. Their leader's name is a certain Kiril Georgiev, but he's quite an elusive character apparently, so we don't have info about him. Anyway, they've been rather inconspicuous until very recently – they mainly collected protection tax, but since no one dared to complain… That until the owner of a small Italian restaurant, a man named Rome Vargas, decided to put up a fight and gathered his own bad boys. Upon his 'declaration of independence', yesterday around noon Georgiev's boys burst in and swept the place clean with AK 47s. The hired guards and the old man – all dead. His teenage nephew Feliciano is the only survivor and apparently they'd only let him live to spread the word."

The Romanian pursed his mouth and nodded. "Not bothering to hide then, do they?"

"Not in the least. We have the witness and we also have this as evidence," Elizaveta replied, handing him a photo of a baseball bat, old autographs and other markings partially covered by bloodstains. "The fingerprints on it match those of one of Georgiev's men, who happens to have a record." She dug out another photo – this time a standard police shot of front and profile of a bulky looking man with a shaved head and an ugly scar running down his jaw line on the left side.

"Ivan 'Vanko' Balakov – he did time for multiple charges of armed robbery a while back."

Alin frowned at the two pictures and scratched his head. "This was meant as a statement too? Leaving Vanko's baseball bat? Because otherwise I'm wondering what kind of man leaves his tools behind…"

"Could be, who knows. Anyway, Vanko is a minor character as far as I'm concerned. I'm more interested in Georgiev's 'chief of operations' so to speak. It's this guy."

A smile of satisfaction played on the Hungarian's lips as she passed him the next photo – a candid shot of a young man smoking casually, leaning onto the hood of a black Chevrolet SUV. He had jet black hair and light colored eyes – probably blue or green – and wore a simple grey hoodie and black jeans and sneakers.

"That's the chief of operations?"

"Tsvetan Borisov, twenty-six years old. No previous record, not even a speeding ticket. Crazy enough, he went to college until a couple of years ago, when he mysteriously quit. And I really mean 'mysteriously', because he'd been a brilliant student up to that point."

Alin's eyebrow shot up as he took the photo and studied it carefully. "Yeah? What'd he study?"

"Chemistry."

"Ugh…" he groaned. "So… any idea why Georgiev might have hired him? I mean he's a nerd and gangs don't usually hire nerds unless there is a clear purpose. So what could they be making – explosives, synthetic drugs? What would they use a chemist for?"

The brunette shrugged. "No indication they're making any of these. But the kid – Feliciano Vargas – declared that Borisov was in the first line of fire, so to speak. He might have been a nerd back in the day, but now he's a full-fledged thug apparently."

"Huh, that's odd…"

"How come? It says in your file that you have a degree in universal literature, yet two years after graduation you're a police rifleman, not a teacher or something. That's not odd?" To tell the truth, she'd found that part rather baffling. Along with something else, but maybe she'd ask about that later…

"Maybe… I mean I like books a lot, but children not so much. And then I really like guns," Alin offered, smiling sheepishly.

The detective rolled her eyes. "Then there's your answer, maybe he likes guns too."

"Let's hope he doesn't like bombs…"

The first time he'd eaten there he'd thought the food tasted a bit funny and now he knew why. Every time Vanko brought down the meat cleaver forcefully onto the piece he was chopping, bits of ash from his cigarette dropped down onto the meat slices. But then the man wouldn't know that, since he was currently wearing a pair of brand-new Ray Ban shades on top of everything.

When they were without other work Vanko worked as a cook in Georgiev's restaurant and out of boredom Tsvetan had followed him down to the kitchen, if only to see him bully the rest of the staff, who were just as sloppy and careless as he was. Three years ago, when he'd started with washing the dishes, Vanko had tried to bully him too. But he was as numb as an empty shell and all the shit had just bounced off him.

Helping himself with a cigarette from the man's pack lying on the table, Tsvetan lit up and decided he'd seen enough when a rubber glove flew and smacked the cheek of the boy currently doing the dishes. He walked out through the beaded curtain and made his way into the small, cozy restaurant. With an ironic snort, the dark-haired young man thought that Georgiev's place looked pretty much like the Italian's they'd just thrashed, although the furniture was a tad less classy. But fuck, no one was ever going to barge in there and start shooting anytime soon, that was for sure. He didn't know what the hell was up with the old man wanting to run a traditional Bulgarian restaurant when the club in the basement below was bringing all the bucks, but when he'd set foot in it for the first time it had nearly got him fooled that it was a decent place.

The day after his mother's funeral.

Tsvetan briefly pinched his nose and sniffed, motioning for the man at the bar to pour him a glass of rakia. Pulling an ashtray closer, he lowered the cigarette and numbly watched the smoke rise up and dissipate into the air. It was in moments like this, when he sat with nothing to do, that the Bulgarian began wondering what the fuck he was really doing here. He may not have graduated and gotten his degree, but still he was an educated man, from a decent family, while Vanko and the others had crawled out of God-knew-what shithole.

He loathed them, but at first all he'd thought of was that he wanted to find those bastards who had robbed the small pawn shop where his mother was working and had left her lying in a pool of blood. He'd needed Georgiev to send them six feet under and the old man was old-fashioned enough to want to help a young fellow Bulgarian who was ready to serve him with all the dedication of a man who'd lost everything. Not that Georgiev would have ever had a problem blowing a compatriot's brains out if they had a mind to get in his way, that was. He hailed from Sofia and had wreaked plenty of havoc there before deciding to move to the States and 'spread his wings'.

Downing his drink in one gulp, his gaze wandered beyond the large windows and into the empty street. No, wait. The street wasn't exactly empty – there was a car parked on the other side of the street - and Tsvetan thought he was having a déjà-vu. But no, it was her, that woman, the supposed journalist Stanko had shot at the other day. She was in a different car this time and wearing a pair of shades, but the long, chestnut hair was still tumbling down her shoulders in rich, soft waves. His eyes narrowed - yeah, it was her alright.

Waiting.

Tsvetan had a very distinctive gut feeling that she wasn't a journalist. Where the hell had that come from, anyway? Maybe the fucking half-assed cook he'd left back in the kitchen was hoping to make the first page of the newspapers or something! The Bulgarian scowled, unable to remember who it had been to suggest such an absurd idea. No, he was ready to bet all his savings on it – the young brunette waiting outside, in the dark brown, used-up Renault was a cop.

Elizaveta stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the hallway, seeing him standing straight and rigid in the door of his office talking to someone. Her mouth turned into a pained grimace as she was left unable to help staring, clutching her keys inanely in her hand. And he did notice, because he threw her a fleeting gaze, but his eyes behind the thin, gold-rimmed glasses were cold as ice. A discreet snort seemed to leave his thin lips as well, before he focused again on the young officer he was currently scolding.

"Good morning, detective Héderváry!" The Hungarian nearly jumped, startled by officer Gilbert Beilschmidt's loud and highly irritating voice. His wide grin only made it worse.

"Vasile is already waiting for you outside, at the car. Oh, and I'd steer clear from detective Edelschmuck today,it looks like he got up on the wrong side of the bed again," the albino warned.

Yeah, it looked like it and today was not the day she'd try to talk some sense into her ex-partner and lover, Elizaveta decided. She had other things to do. Turning around abruptly on her heels she headed towards the exit, gripping her messenger bag so tightly that her nails nearly pierced the old leather.

The strawberry blond was indeed waiting by a regular police car – did they really have to be so obvious? Apparently Sadiq thought so… – a small polite smile on his face, but it quickly fell off when seeing her expression. And she was angry, frustratingly unable to shake off the image of Roderich's stern, unfriendly look from earlier. With a brisk step, she walked straight to the car and slammed her boot viciously into one of the front tires.

"Hey, hey! Whatever it is-"

"'Whatever it is' what?!" the Hungarian snapped. "'Whatever it is we can work it out'? Is that what you were going to say?!"

Alin rolled his eyes, but otherwise remained unfazed by the undeserved outburst. "Actually I was going to say 'whatever it is, don't take it out on the car, because all it takes is a harder kick and it will probably fall apart'."

The brunette scowled, eyeing the standard squad Ford Crown critically, but now that she'd let off some steam, she felt much better. It wasn't exactly new, but… "Come on, it's not that shitty. And I'm driving."

She'd always thought Romanians talked a lot – Vasile wasn't saying a word. He wasn't asking what was wrong, or why she'd snapped at him like that, he was just… And it was odd, since for almost half a year now she'd gotten used to doing everything alone. Ever since… well. Elizaveta supposed she could, no, maybe should explain something.

"So… Alin, " the detective began, briefly clearing her throat and feeling rather awkward that they'd be better off on a first-name basis. "I guess Sadiq told you why I prefer to work alone… because of my partner… um… ex-partner, that is… right?"

Red eyes continued to stare right ahead, indifferent, while the young officer chewed on his thumbnail. "Frankly no, he didn't," he replied neutrally. "I know he got shot and it took three months until he was able to get back to work – but that's public info, I think."

Elizaveta took a sharp breath. There had been no hostility in his words, but she knew how most people felt about Roddy. And Beilschmidt – Alin's friend – had had several epic rows with the Austrian.

"You don't like him."

The rifleman shrugged. "I've never worked with the guy."

"Well, in short, the thing is that I don't want anyone to get hurt because of me," the brunette blurted out. "When he was hurt-…" she paused, gripping the wheel harder, "Well I didn't back him up fast enough and he can be quite stubborn, so…"

Fuck, that had sounded like a half-assed babbling of the worst sort! Just lame. And this compulsive need to apologize! No one, no one had blamed her for what had happened, but him. He'd fucking rushed in without back-up, without nothing, despite her asking him not to… and then… she really didn't want to think about those dreadful moments when she'd thought she'd lost him.

"Look Elizaveta, I'm just your rifleman. You don't have to explain anything. Shit happens, yeah?"

"Yep," she agreed, eyes fixed on the road and licking her dry lips. A change of subject would have been welcome and she had just the thing. "Now my question is – why are you just a rifleman? Says in your file that you refused promotion. Don't you want to be a detective? Who the hell just refuses promotion, anyway?"

The strawberry blond grinned, offering her a surprisingly sharp-toothed smile. "I'll tell you later…."

To be continued