Finally. The document was done. Alfred pressed the send button with a flourish, and swung himself around on his swivel chair in celebration. Finally, after what seemed like ages, he was finished. Providing there were no sudden disasters, he had no more work for the rest of the weekend. A whole two days of not worrying about filing papers and typing out Word documents. Alfred already had planned out all of the nothing he was going to do. He was going to start out tonight with a movie marathon. He hadn't even realized that the Avengers had come out on Blu-Ray yet, but he had immediately bought it when he saw it at the store earlier that day. Alfred usually stayed on top of things like movie release dates, especially movies he liked, such as the Avengers. The fact he had totally forgotten about it was a testament to the fact that he had ENTIRELY too much work.
Sometimes, Alfred wished that he still younger, that the whole world was still younger. He could remember the days when his job had been more than just sitting in an office, typing virtual letters on a glowing computer screen. Truth be told, he missed the old times. Being outdoors in the beautiful wilderness he had been given was by far superior to anything that the modern era offered, in Alfred's humble opinion.
Sure, he supposed that better medicines were great, and it was definitely fantastic to be able to talk to the people he cared about whenever he felt like it. It would have been hard to stay close with most of his friends, like Lithuania, Japan, and Korea, who lived on the other side of the planet. Even something as simple as talking to Canada had been pretty hard in the past. But still, there were few things that could beat a walk on a fall trail under the blue sky.
Smiling to himself, thinking about how awesome his weekend was going to be, the blonde pushed himself out of his chair, and headed down the hall. All he wanted to do right now was flop on the couch. Walking down the stairs, it occurred to Alfred that maybe he should call Mattie, to see if he was free and on this side of the continent. It had been a while since the two of them had hung out, and it was no fun to watch movies by yourself.
The call, however, would have to wait until later, because this was the first time in years that no one needed him for anything. Well, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it did seem like an eternity since he had had some down time. Alfred turned into the living room, only to find that Tony was taking up the entire couch. Pouting at the unfairness that Tony got to play video games while he had worked all day, Alfred decided that it wasn't time to grace the living room with his presence. Instead, he turned and headed for the kitchen.
There was someone already in there.
Alfred gave a surprised squawk upon seeing the woman bending over looking in in fridge. The woman, for her part, jerked around and chucked whatever she had in her hands at him. The American felt something strike his head, and staggered against the wall. Something was oozing down the side of his face. For one confusing moment, the blonde young man thought that he had been issued a killing blow. Then he realized that he wasn't dead, and that the substance that was saturating his hair smelled suspiciously like someone's dinner. Alfred found himself thanking his lucky stars that the woman hadn't been holding her particular favorite projectile.
"Belarus?" Alfred questioned, highly confused as to why the Eastern European was sitting in his kitchen, throwing left over chili at innocent passersby. Natalya blinked at him for a second in surprise, before her face resettled into her impenetrable mask. She brushed some of her platinum hair out of her face, and studied him stonily. Despite the fact that she was the interloper, Alfred found himself becoming uncomfortable.
"Er… Did you… need something?" America questioned. Belarus once again stared at him for an almost unbearable amount of time, before she abruptly replied. "Yes." And that was it. She gave no more explanation. "Um, well, I'm going to…" America glanced behind him, looking at the chili. The thought crossed his mind that this may be a precursor to the rest of his time off, and he mentally winced. This really was not how he had planned his weekend to go. The wall looked like a mess, but the chili on his head was more annoying, and was therefore the more pressing matter.
"Do you, uh, want chili?" Alfred hazarded nervously. In his head he was trying to figure out why Belarus had condoned to visit him, and what exactly she wanted. Sure, she had lived with him a while, but it had been quite some time since they had even talked. Although she had once told him that they were friends, Alfred was aware that nothing trumped her family. She made it quite obvious to everyone that no acts of kindness would get in the way of her undying loyalty to her big brother.
He turned around and, much to his continued surprise, Belarus had managed to get right in his face without him even hearing her. Alfred was barely able to contain a rather unmanly squeak of fear. His eyes widened behind his glasses as Belarus reach up and wiped some of the chili off of his face with her pointer finger. She pulled her hand back and licked her finger. Alfred felt like his eyes were about to fall out of his sockets, but Belarus gave no reaction to what she had just done. She simply continued to stare at him, unflinchingly. Alfred shifted nervously.
"I'm going to go, uh, rinse off my hair. You can, um, do whatever." Alfred stuttered. Nothing about Natalya changed, not her expression, or her stance. Nothing. America honestly didn't know what to do, so he took the easy way out. He fled the room. As he went up the stairs, he did take the time to lean into the living room and shoot Tony a glare.
"Thanks for warning me, man." Alfred grumbled. Tony just snickered at him, and went back to his video game. Rolling his eyes, Alfred left Tony to his couch potato ways, and continued his journey to the bathroom. He wondered some more about why Belarus had come all the way across the Atlantic for some chili, of all things. He remembered that when she had lived with him, she had seemed to enjoy it, but crossing the ocean seemed a bit extensive. Alfred shrugged it off. Arthur had always said that female minds where incomprehensible, and Alfred was in complete agreement with him on that one.
Even though his weekend was not going well so far, in the very least the shower had felt fantastic. Drying his hair, the American hopped down the stairwell. He glanced into each of the rooms, checking to make sure that Belarus hadn't moved to a different room. Tony had cleaned up the games and vanished from the living room. Alfred thought about calling out to find out where he had gone, but he decided against it. Tony wasn't big on interacting with humans. While Belarus was one of the few earthlings he condoned to speak to civilly, (Lithuania, America, and Canada making up the majority of the rest of the group,) Tony had this thing for "studying human interactions". He preferred to watch without "interfering", as he phrased it. As he passed by the mudroom on the way to the kitchen, he tossed the towel in the hamper there. Then he strolled into the kitchen, half expecting that Belarus had gotten bored and left.
She hadn't. She was still leaning against the counter, staring at the wall, but now the entire countertop was covered in ingredients. The ingredients for chili. Alfred smiled to himself. He had been right! She turned her withering glare towards her and he shrunk back a bit. (He wasn't cowering. Superpowers emdon't/em cower.) Natalya turned around and grabbed a bowl, shoving it into Alfred's hands. He smiled at her. "So, you want to stay for dinner then?" Belarus never said anything, but Alfred hadn't really meant it as a question anyway. She wasn't exactly being subtle.
America began humming happily as he started to prepare the food. "Hey, if you want to help, you can wash those tomatoes, Natalya." Belarus didn't move for a second, but then she picked up the tomatoes and headed to the sink. It may have been a trick of the light, but Alfred could have sworn that he saw her smile faintly. Alfred hardly ever saw her smile, especially now, since she had moved away. America couldn't help but grin to himself. If Natalya felt like flying herself halfway around the world to visit him, he wasn't complaining. As the two of them worked alongside in a pleasant silence, it occurred to America that maybe he wouldn't be watching that movie alone tonight.
I had posted this quite a while ago, but took it down for some reason which I don't really remember. I've decided to repost it.