Community service.
Whoever came up with that idea needed to burn in hell twelve times.
Prussia was very much unhappy with his situation but, as Germany put it, he brought it on himself. Not that the awesome Prussia himself would ever admit it, of course.
So he got a little drunk one night. Okay, maybe completely drunk. As in, drunk enough to knock the neon sign off the bar he, Spain, and France were occupying and blow a hole in the wall large enough to fit their heads through. The cops were called, and Germany ended up having to bail his older brother out of prison.
The little scheiß even brought Italy with him.
He left Spain and France there, though, saying that he didn't have any responsibility over them but he would give Romano and England a call in the morning. Prussia laughed at that as he was being led out; Romano would probably start foaming at the mouth and England would laugh his ass off and hang up. He immediately stopped laughing, though, when he caught the death glare Germany sent him.
"...What's your problem?"
"Bruder..."
"What? It wasn't that bad!"
Germany turned bright red and Prussia was slightly amused until he started yelling.
"WASN't THAT BAD? YOU CAUSED HUNDREDS IN PROPERTY DAMAGE! DO YOU EXPECT ME TO PAY FOR THAT?"
"Ve~ Germany's scary!"
"ITALY—"
He cut himself off there, apparently deciding that making an Italian cry wasn't worth the headache. Germany sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. Some beer would have been fantastic right then.
"So how do you plan on taking responsibility?" he snapped at Prussia, who shrugged.
"Probably go to the big guy on top and ask to borrow some money."
"That won't work, you depleted our reserve funds last May."
"...Dammit."
xXx
So, after a lot of arguing and a lot of swearing and eye rolling at Germany's expense, Prussia was dragged to court. Fucking court. He was not happy; why would someone as awesome as him need to be subjected to that? But, in the end, they gave him the task of repairing the bar he and his compatriots (accidentally or otherwise) destroyed.
Prussia had complained vehemently. To begin with, why did he have to work on the weekend? He may be a self-admitted freeloader camping in Germany's basement, but he had stuff to do! And another thing, why the hell didn't Spain and France have to work too? His brother's explanation for this was that they weren't German and weren't subject to their laws (the real reason was that Germany didn't want to deal with the two of them as well, but he didn't say that). Prussia didn't care about that, he would have forced them both along if he had a say in anything. But he didn't. Germany's house, Germany's rules.
This led to the present, with an already-pissed Prussia standing in front of the bar with a hammer, wood, nails, and the other crap you need to fix a sign and a wall.
Germany leaned out the car window. "I'll come check on you later, so don't even think about leaving."
Prussia angrily flipped him the bird as he drove off.
"Verdammt," he huffed to himself, turning to face the wall. The owner of the place glared at him through the window. Prussia stuck his tongue out at him. Lucky for him, he had actually fixed walls before. For similar reasons (he had a history) but not quite to this extent.
Old bar needs wood. Prussia have been much happier with plaster, quick slap-n-fix, but the owner was apparently too ghetto to upgrade.
Or to actually fix his own damn bar.
Prussia took his time about it, just to piss the bastard off.
About an hour later, maybe, he was starting to get bored. A lazy person by nature, Prussia had also quit doing actual work when his country merged with Germany. Everyone assumed he became East Germany, because it was less confusing that way, but Germany himself was the one to work with their boss and do all the "nation" things. Prussia usually just played Call of Duty in the basement and went pub crawling with the few people who could actually tolerate him.
That being said, he wasn't much of a physical guy anymore. It was killing his back and shoulders to constantly be hammering nails into wood in the hot Berlin summer sun. And while Prussia typically enjoyed being in the limelight, all the pedestrians staring at him was starting to get on his nerves.
One in particular was a harassed-looking woman in a business suit, holding a baby carrier and talking rapidly into her cell phone. She irritably pushed her blond bangs out of her eyes and halted in front of the office building next to the bar. Prussia thought that was kind of convenient. He could see himself getting a job in that building just so he could go and get hammered after work. Then again, he would actually have to do work if he did that.
The woman's conversation spiked in intensity, and Prussia found himself listening in out of boredom as he hammered a few nails in.
"What do you mean it won't be ready by then? I preordered the supply and if it hasn't arrived—ugh!"
Prussia rolled his eyes sympathetically. For people like him the only job required of them was to personify their country. There were the asshole bosses who did make their countries do things like paperwork and actually help out with the state of affairs, but for the most part all the effort they put in was going to world meetings.
The woman was even more aggravated now. "You're calling a meeting? You're calling a meeting? Just who's in charge around here?" With an angry grunt, she slammed the phone shut and stuffed it in her pocket. "Fantastic, now I need to go upstairs…" She glanced down at her baby, and then her eyes moved to scan the street. They landed on Prussia, who had the misfortune of staring at her at the time.
"Hey you!" she called over. Prussia pretended to busy himself fixing the wall. It didn't work, as he discovered when she tapped his shoulder.
"Yeah?" he said, looking up. She held out the baby carrier to him.
"…what am I supposed to do with this?"
"I need you to watch him for me," she answered. "Just while I go inside for a while."
Prussia barked a laugh. "You're kidding, right lady? You don't even know me."
The woman glanced condescendingly at the half-finished wall. "I don't think you're going anywhere for a while. I won't be too long; can't you just be a good citizen or something?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Prussia insisted, gesturing to the bar. The woman ignored him, set the carrier down at his feet, and turned to walk away. "Hey! I'm doing community service, you know! I'm a convicted felon!" His voice rose considerably, but trailed off as she opened the door to the office building and stalked haughtily inside.
Prussia looked down to the baby. It looked back at him. Its dark eyes seemed to bore straight into the German's soul.
"Don't expect me to do much," he told it, then turned to continue his work. The minute he began hammering, though, the baby began bawling its head off, screeching for the entire world to hear.
"What the—"he exclaimed in shock, nearly dropping his hammer and catching it at the last second. "What the hell are you doing?" His raised voice seemed to cause the baby to scream harder and Prussia was feeling an increasing sense of panic. "Look, you need to be quiet, okay? Aw fuck, you're a baby; you don't understand a word I'm saying!"
His words were drowned out by the baby's wails, and people on the street looked at the nation accusingly, as though he had done something unbelievably wrong. He turned to the bar and knocked on the window. "Hey old man!" he called out to the owner in desperation. "I need a little help over here!"
The man pointedly ignored him and continued running his cloth over the counter methodically.
"Fuuuck," Prussia sighed, running a hand through his already-messy hair. "What do I do?" He could either try to help the damn kid or just continue what he was doing. He opted for the latter, and tried to drown out the crying with the sound of repairs. All of a sudden, the screeching stopped. Prussia looked down, concerned.
The baby had somehow managed to flip its carrier upside down and was giggling hard at the feeling of dangling.
"Hey!" Prussia exclaimed, righting the carrier. "You shouldn't do that! You could get hurt and then what will your mom do to me?"
The baby responded by crying even harder than before.
"Gah! Just shut up please!" Prussia got on his knees and began rocking the carrier back and forth. "I'm begging you here! I have no idea how to handle a baby, you gotta work with me!"
The baby lunged forward and clamped its jaws down on Prussia's hand. He hollered in pain and shock with an "Oh fuck you have teeth!" No matter what he did, though, the baby wouldn't let go and Prussia was forced to pry the kid's mouth open to free himself.
"Alright, that's it!" Prussia grabbed a blanket from underneath the baby and draped it over the carrier, blocking the little boy from view. "You just stay quiet until your mom gets back!" With that, he tried to continue working with the occasional whimper from the baby.
"What are you doing?" a familiar voice sounded from behind him. Prussia turned to see Germany there with a take-out box, looking astonished with a smiling Italy behind him.
Prussia waved his hammer around, hiding a grimace. "Community service, obviously."
"Is that a baby?" Germany asked with his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
An irritated sigh. "No, West, it's an alpaca."
Italy poked the blonde's face. "Silly Germany~"
Germany shook off the Italian and snapped, "Where did you get that?"
"The hammer?"
"The baby!"
Prussia nudged the carrier with his foot. "Oh, that."
Germany's face began turning red. "Well, where did you get it?"
Hands raised in mock surrender, Prussia defended his case with, "This crazy lady decided she had more important things to do than watch her own damn kid and left him here with me while she went into a meeting or something!"
"You?" Germany's eyebrows went up.
"Apparently I was readily available and not busy at all."
"That's nice of you Prussia!" Italy said, smiling.
"I didn't do it on purpose, you know!"
They were all interrupted by the baby beginning its catlike yowls from inside the carrier, the loudness of it causing Italy to jump and cling to Germany for defense.
"It's just a baby, Italy," Germany sighed, not fazed in the slightest. "Take the blanket off, he instructed his brother. Prussia just shrugged. "You're going to regret this, believe me."
When he removed the blanket, the baby blinked in the sudden bright light and grinned up at the trio before scrunching up his face and releasing his loudest scream yet.
"Do your thing West," Prussia laughed, clapping his brother on the shoulder. Germany sighed again and looked up at the sky, as though cursing his very existence.
"Ah…r-right." Germany leaned down to see eye-to-eye with the baby. "Hello there…" The baby glared and employed the same biting trick on Germany it had on Prussia. Germany yelped and jumped back, cursing. Prussia doubled over laughing while Italy fussed over his friend, waving a tiny white flag.
"That is not what you do!" Germany said, glaring down at the baby. "You respect your elders!"
"Yeah, because that'll get through to him," Prussia snickered.
"You're doing it wrong, Germany," Italy said with a frown. "Ve, you're supposed to be nice to little babies! They like when you do that." The redhead bent down to look the baby in the face. "Hey there, fratello! Did big mean Germany scare you?"
"What?" Germany spluttered.
"It's okay," Italy continued soothingly. "Germany's a good person, really! And his brother is most of the time too."
"Most of the time?"
Italy ignored them. "I'm Italy Veneziano, okay? Or Feliciano Vargas. Only those are both really long, so it's just Italy most of the time. You want some pasta?"
"You can't give pasta to a baby," the German brothers said in unison. However bizarre the techniques though, Italy's process seemed to be working. The baby smiled happily and sucked on his fingers, gurgling. Prussia sighed in relief. "Great Italy, you just keep doing that and maybe I can finish here and go home."
"Ve~ Okay, Prussia!"
With Italy distracting the baby, Prussia and Germany (who had offered to help) managed to patch up the manmade hole in the wall of the bar. Just as they were putting the finishing touches onto the wall, the business woman came back out of the office building looking pleased with herself. She walked up to the three nations and asked, "How was he?"
"A demon," Prussia answered immediately.
"Don't be mean!" Italy scolded, returning the baby to his mother. "He was very nice."
"That's good," the woman nodded. She turned to Prussia and said, "I'm glad you got help. He can be rather difficult at times."
Germany rubbed his eyes as Prussia responded with "You're telling me."
After thanking them all again, the woman took her child and vanished into the crowd.
"Whew," Prussia said, wiping his forehead. "I'd like to go home."
"We can do that," Germany agreed. "Italy do you need a ride?"
"Yes please! Romano will be mad if I don't show up tonight."
Germany nodded and turned to his brother. "I hope this has taught you to be more careful in the future. You need to consider repercussions."
Prussia sent him a lazy grin. "Yeah yeah, don't count on it."