Soo, this takes place at some point in the early 1990s. The meeting in the beginning is not supposed to represent any actual event, I JUST HAD TO START SOMEWHERE

Also, you may want to know that pretty much all characters come across as somewhat OOC, with Alfred being more or less serious for the most part, Ivan not being a complete lunatic and the nations in general being considered with power politics quite a bit. Or I don't know, maybe I'm just imagining things. This just isn't exactly lulzy, that's probably all I'm trying to say.

Hints of Russia/America, I guess.

OH and I don't actually own Hetalia.

They have met increasingly often throughout the past few months, and the excitement of having such a large number of guests over has decidedly worn off. Alfred watches warily as the other nations begin to drop in, some cheerful and apparently with no more urgent concern in mind than to check on what kind of food is being provided (His house, his choice – seriously, will they ever stop bitching about hamburgers?), others stern and reserved, paying strong attention to formalities even when Francis and Gilbert are making inappropriate but admittedly funny noises all the way through their greeting rituals.

He is glad to see Arthur, who occasionally seems to feel a little lost nowadays amidst the others, actually-but-not-quite belonging to the European nations seated next to each other, but inexplicably unsatisfied with the overall state of affairs. Ivan is being his usual, opaquely threatening self, lurking in a corner and watching the others in what he probably deems to be a particularly stealthy manner but what is actually a downright glare. A more sensitive observer than Alfred might have felt intimidated and confused by the chaotic swirl of voices that gradually unfolds in the conference hall, but Alfred has not only grown used to tolerating it, he actually feels accustomed to watch over it. He immediately notices when Ludwig enters, the overall atmosphere growing ever so slightly more concentrated almost by default, the German acting as a kind of instant, non-verbal reminder that they have not come here to have dinner together and maybe watch a film later on.

Eventually, everyone has settled down. Alfred finds his mind wandering off almost instantly, the relatively calm debates providing a pleasant background hum to his vague daydreams. He forces himself to listen for a few moments each time someone else starts to talk, but nothing serious seems to be part of today's agenda.

"So, we all agree on the issue?" Damnit. Alfred looks around for some kind of hint as to what it is exactly that he may or may not be agreeing with, but Francis spares him the need to ask. "We have been talking about this for ages! Can we just sign that treaty already?" Treaty, treaty…there was definitely a treaty mentioned last time he had a briefing with the boss. Something he was not supposed to sign…right! That environmental thing. Oh, they are not going to like this. Alfred sighs inwardly and leans forward. "Uh, actually…we're not signing. You get that, right? I mean, it's not like there's any need for this kind of thing. You are all overestimating this climate business a LOT, at least that's what the boss says, so…yeah, just wanted to mention that. But you others, uh, go ahead!" No big deal, right? They all know that he doesn't believe in any of these ridiculous ideas that have been circling around for quite some time now, so this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Alfred slumps back in his chair and watches as the others line up to sign. Only gradually does he begin to notice the way nobody will quite meet his eye, the way they exchange glances that seem to speak volumes. Alfred can't refrain from rolling his eyes. So they're angry at him for refusing to sign, never mind, let them be angry for a few hours, let them be passive-aggressive the next few times they meet up and the issue will soon be forgotten.

Finally, blessedly, the conference comes to an end. Alfred jumps up the second Ludwig proclaims that they're done, eager to grab some food and do anything not as mind-numbingly boring as attending a meeting. He decides to wait around to see if maybe somebody wants to come along, but most of the others seem to be in a bit of a hurry, smiling faintly and giving him a brief nod as they rush past him. Just as Alfred begins to wonder if maybe he did something totally inadequate last time he had guests around, Arthur approaches him.

"Heeey man! What do you say, we go out for dinner and watch some television, there's this new show, I swear you're going to like it even though you think you're too good for-"

"Alfred, just briefly, listen. We all knew this was going to happen, so the others have decided to simply pretend it doesn't matter, but let me tell you this: That kind of attitude isn't going to make you popular, you know. I do understand that unlike the rest of us, you don't have to care for friendships and alliances and you're all too comfortable doing things your own way, because, hey, who cares for the rest of the world so long as you got television-". Arthur interrupts himself, staring vacantly for a second before taking a restrained breath. Alfred suddenly notices the other man's tense posture, the way he seems to be simultaneously very angry and very nervous and unthinkingly reaches out to touch Arthur, to do anything that might relax the situation, but he his hand goes through thin air.

"I want you to know that this kind of behavior isn't going down very well with the majority of the nations. They're reluctant to talk about it because they know there's no use in it, that what they say or do has absolutely no influence on you and – even though they would never admit this - they're afraid of your reaction, but I believe you should at least be aware of it."

"I- come on, seriously? First of all, you know I didn't decide on this, even though I'm going to have to admit that I would have done the exact same thing because this whole climate…protection…something is useless. Second, ever since when are people scared of my reaction? I'm really easy to talk to!"

Arthur shakes his head and slowly begins to walk out. Alfred stares at his back, stunned into muteness for the moment. Arthur turns around once more, to apologize, to say that this was his super-weird idea of a joke, to- "I'm not afraid of you, Alfred. You can't scare me", he says firmly, but he doesn't look up as he speaks.

Out of the corner of the eye, Alfred gratefully watches as finally, Ivan, who had been picking up some files from below the table, leaves the room as well. Slowly, he moves back to his chair and sits down, all plans for the night forgotten. Now what was that all about?

At least they aren't ignoring him. Throughout the next couple of days, he has Matthew and Francis over at his house, for business, admittedly, but the overall atmosphere seems fairly pleasant to him. Nevertheless, Alfred is having a hard time keeping the confrontation with Arthur from replaying over and over inside his head. The way he had sounded, one would think Alfred was some kind of monstrous child, too unpredictable to trust, too dense to talk sense into, to dangerous to confront directly. The more Alfred thinks about it, the more frustrated he gets. So what if he's stronger than the others, it's not like he has ever hurt anyone, especially not Arthur who behaved like Alfred had personally sent him anthrax. What a pretentious little twat.

One week later, Alfred begins to get lost in thought whenever he passes a mirror. There is no uncontrollable beast that's staring back at him, it's just him. Just the usual, good ol' Alfred. What is it that the others see in him that supposedly scares them so much?

Two weeks later, the fog outside is slowly eating up the world and Alfred is quietly going insane with boredom and an endless circle of recurring thoughts. He wants somebody to talk to, desperately so, but he has reached a point where he is no longer entirely sure who to address. If Arthur was telling the truth, if he was indeed revealing the others' unspoken resentments, nobody is going to talk freely. He sure as hell doesn't feel like calling Arthur to ask him to elaborate on his earlier reproaches and he really doesn't want to pressure Matthew, leaving him with nobody available for conversation.

Alfred is just about to get on the phone to call his boss, which is somewhat pathetic and certainly not very likely to lead to any kind of enlightenment on either one's part, when there is a hard knock on his front door. He all but flies down the stairs, thrilled to have a visitor and determined to invite whoever it is inside for a few hours minimum, pausing only briefly in order to not come across as a complete loser.

He rips the door open with far too much force, beaming happily at-

"Ivan?"

Alfred doesn't manage to hide his baffled stare. The Russian grins at him and gestures vaguely, as if to indicate that he's aware of the exceptionality of his visit.

"May I come in?"

"Uhhm…yeah, sure, I guess…". Alfred steps to the side to let his visitor inside, his previous enthusiasm replaced with confusion and a probably healthy dose of suspicion. He slowly closes the door and turns around to Ivan, whose massive form looms threateningly in the hallway.

"Just go to the left, that's my living room", Alfred mutters, momentarily unsure if the Russian has ever been to his home before. Ivan nods briefly and takes the lead.

There is an almost surreal quality to seeing Ivan placed on his gaming couch just like that, his heavy coat draped over the back in a casual manner. Feeling weirdly self-conscious, Alfred slowly takes a seat in one of his armchairs, sensing that sitting down next to him would increase the awkwardness of this encounter by the tenfold.

"Sooo…".

"I have come here to talk to you about the last meeting."

Alfred does a quick mental calculation of what things Ivan could possibly want to talk about, but he can only think of instances of megalomania like demanding to be put in charge of all future meetings or suggesting that meetings and all the tedious arguments that come with them should be replaced with a somewhat more unilateral and binding approach to making decisions. None of that would explain Ivan's appearance on his doorstep, though.

"Shoot."

"The other nations are afraid of you. They're in awe of your capabilities."

And there it goes again. He may have spent the last two weeks yearning to talk about precisely this matter, but somehow he had envisioned this talk to take place with somebody a little less…less suspicious? Less his former arch enemy?

"You heard what Arthur said to me?"

"I didn't have to hear him in order to realize that. It's very obvious."

Alfred's instinctive reaction is to tell Ivan to mind his own business, but he is too desperate to be given anything that might resemble honest reflection.

"It's not obvious to me. Nothing about me is scary."

Ivan's perpetual smile turns into a somewhat amused smirk.

"You're strong, Alfred. You're more powerful than any of us, and everyone's painfully aware of it. They used to be scared of me, because I was strong and, you might say, hostile. But now that I…now that it's just you, everyone's nervous about your behavior."

"I haven't done anything! I'm doing as I'm told, I'm taking care of what's best for America without harming anyone, just like all the others!"

"Ah, but Alfred, that might change, they fear it will change whenever you refuse to play their little games of cooperation." For a brief moment, Ivan's face takes on an almost wistful expression, a remote yearning for something left unspoken ghosting across his features. "Your potential, Alfred. They fear your potential."

Alfred still isn't sure if Ivan is telling the truth, but some of the things that he observed but never managed to link, the way some agree all too hastily to whatever stupid suggestion he comes up with throughout a meeting, their deliberately controlled reactions to his words, seem to confirm what the Russian describes.

"Why do you tell me that? Why do you want me to know?"

Ivan shrugs.

"You should know you inspire fear in others. It's a useful ability."

"Useful…? Maybe for me, if I was some kind of complete tyrant, but certainly not useful for you?"

"It's fascinating to watch you."

Completely taken aback, Alfred stays silent for a few moments. Ivan rises to his feet and puts on his coat in a quick, graceful motion that seems uncharacteristic for his huge body.

"It was nice talking to you, Alfred. We should do it more often."

Before Alfred manages to focus somewhat sufficiently to react, Ivan has rushed past him. The noise of the other man's heels clacking through the hallway and the following faint noise of the front door tear Alfred from his befuddled stupor. He slowly gets up and steps over to the window, watches Ivan disappear in the pale, twirling November fog.

The next morning, Alfred is unpleasantly woken up by the shrill sound of his telephone. It takes him almost a minute to muster the necessary energy to get up and locate the phone, cursing the inordinate persistency of his boss in the process.

"Hello", he mumbles weakly, not bothering to clear his voice from its evident mid-REM quality.

"Alfred, would you like to meet for dinner today?"

That voice, while definitely not his bosses', sounds distinctly familiar. When he stays quiet for too long, still struggling to produce a coherent thought, the person at the other end of the line speaks up again.

"I would like to continue yesterday's conversation."

Yesterday's conversation? The pizza delivery? No, it begins to dawn on Alfred, there was something else, someone…

"Ivan?"

"Yes. Would you like to meet for-"

"Why?"

It's an impolite question, and if it wasn't so ridiculously early in the morning, Alfred would probably have bothered to come up with a somewhat veiled question, even if it's just Ivan he's talking to, Ivan who undoubtedly doesn't care much for being treated politely as long as he has his way.

"I didn't say all the things I wanted to say. I forgot a few things."

"You can't just tell me now?"

"That would take too long. I would like to have your attention, but I doubt I'll be able to get it over the phone."

This, Alfred has to admit, is a fairly accurate observation of his own behavior. Already he finds himself drifting out, struggling somewhat indecisively against impending mental absence.

"Uhm…yeah, why not. Sure. Do you want to-"

"I'll be over at your house at seven", Ivan declares and hangs up immediately, not bothering to wait for any kind of response, just like old times. Back then, when Ivan and he were at permanent almost-war with each other, the Russian would always finish calls in this fashion, abruptly and as soon as possible.

Does this mean Ivan expects him to cook or at least order in, or will they be going out? Will they just go on discussing Alfred's position in the world or is there something else, some hidden plan that will reveal itself and what does Ivan want all of a sudden and this is really weird. Then again, Alfred muses dimly as he slowly pats into the kitchen, too confused and alert to go back to bed, it's also exciting, in a borderline-creepy kind of way.

Alfred is tense and impatient all day, wishing his meeting with Ivan to be over long before it begins. Grudgingly, he realizes that he's maybe a bit afraid, just a bit, not really, of what Ivan may want to say, of his simultaneously unwanted but desperately needed, brutally honest assessments. He spends some time wondering if he should maybe try to prepare a meal, but ultimately decides that Ivan is probably aware of his utter inability to produce anything food-like himself and is thus likely to expect take-out or a visit to a restaurant. He tries to determine if this could be considered a formal meeting and if he should dress accordingly, changing a few times before settling on the perfectly banal, everyday attire he put on first in the morning. Almost subconsciously, Alfred asks himself why the possible prospect of having a private talk with Ivan, about more or less private matters, holds such a fascination for him. When Ivan finally arrives, at point seven o'clock, Alfred is half-delirious with anxiety.

The Russian is dressed in what is perhaps best described as a tuxedo, or at least what might have passed as one twenty years ago, in a system thoroughly separated from the rest of the world. At the very least the idea of a tuxedo, its explicit elegance and formality, gets across, leaving Alfred feeling grossly inadequate in faded jeans and a hoodie that may have belonged to Matthew at some point.

"You should have mentioned you meant going out for dinner", Alfred says as a greeting.

"I thought it was obvious", says Ivan, hovering on the doorstep with an atypical kind of uncertainty.

"So, should I try to find something ridiculously black-tie to match your outfit or…"

"Why don't we just go somewhere simple instead, to one of these places you like."

The prospect of eating some cheap fast food together feels decidedly easier than whatever it was that Ivan must have had in mind. Alfred tells him to wait in the entry hall and rushes upstairs to retrieve a jacket. As he rummages through his closet, he wonders about Ivan's quiet acceptance of having his plans overthrown just like that. Definitely not like back in the old days. Have they both become such radically different persons, both left with no choice but to take new positions in a system no longer divided in half?

It's even colder than Alfred had anticipated. He walks quickly, wants to reach the diner as soon as possible to keep his ears from freezing off, but Ivan is clearly unfazed by the freezing temperature.

"Have you thought about what I told you?" Ivan asks, almost stopping entirely as he does so. Only when Alfred doesn't answer and instead motions him to hurry up does he slowly set back into movement, feet swaying loosely at a far too relaxed speed.

"Yes", Alfred says briefly. "Come on, I think I'm seriously risking my life over here, let's get moving."

"Are you cold?"

"Yes, are you always this dense? Jesus, I think you used to be a bit faster on the uptaking."

"When we were still enemies?"

"Yeah, I guess…or maybe I've just forgotten. It's been a while, huh?"

"It has", Ivan says, his tone carrying his pleasure at having coaxed Alfred into a conversation so easily, "but it certainly felt adequate to wait until some time has passed before pretending the Cold War never happened, didn't it?"

Alfred turns around, unable to hide his surprise at hearing Ivan address their common past so casually.

His first instinct is to simply change topics, say something like I thought we were going to talk about my incredible talent at intimidating others and how you feel it might be useful to you, but honest curiosity for where Ivan is trying to take this takes over.

"I guess it's more of a matter of remembering all too clearly that it did happen, at least for me. It feels really strange talking to you like that when a few years ago we were still this short of starting a world war." He doesn't mean it as a reprimand and Ivan doesn't seem to take it that way; all he does is nod thoughtfully, as if this was something he hadn't given much thought, a newly opened perspective offering new insights.

The neon signs alongside the road bathe their faces in fluorescence, rendering both nations simultaneously pale and brightly colorful. Ivan's hair reflects the red light of a Coca Cola ad, an image that makes Alfred smile, not condescendingly or with spite as some might expect, but in a bemused, relaxed sort of way.

"I am glad to hear that", Ivan finally says.

"Oh? How does that make you glad?"

"I am not the only one who remembers. Not alone after all with my memories of decades of struggle for power. Doesn't it ever bother you, the way the others seem to have put the last half-century behind so easily? Well, maybe it doesn't matter to you as much as it does to me. You won."

They slowly walk onto the fast food joint's parking lot. Alfred is glad to see they have arrived at their destination and feels grateful for the short distraction of deciding on what they want to eat, taking his time to consider the vast array of suspiciously similarly-tasting meals before settling on the largest. When they both slide into a booth in a dimly-lit corner of the restaurant (if that's what you want to call it), he continues where they left off in the natural fashion that seems to become their standard conversational pattern.

"I won? Do you really believe that?"

"Of course you did. Look at you." Ivan gestures vaguely with a fry in his left hand. "Look at how you emerged from the Cold War and look at me. This is your era, Alfred."

The surreal quality of discussing the aftermath of fifty years of common history for the first time in a McDonald's on a Saturday night doesn't escape Alfred, but he feels oddly comfortable with it.

"Well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't realize that, in a way. The boss and his staff are constantly talking about how this is a unique moment in time, how we need to preserve it as long as possible. Is that what you and Arthur mean about the others being afraid?"

"Yes. You see, they may have been afraid of us destroying everything around us in the past, but at least they knew exactly what they had to fear. Everything was set up so clearly, with you on the one side and me on the other. Now it's just you and everyone else is trying to determine where to position themselves in order to protect their interests."

"We used to define the structure of the whole world, huh?"

"We used to define each other", Ivan replies smoothly, with a strangely soft and honest smile that for once actually reaches his eyes. "Now it's just up to you. I wonder, Alfred, what do you want us to be?"

So this at least provides an answer to the question of what Ivan's motive for meeting up is, though there is no real hint as to what he might like to hear as an answer.

"We want you to join us, Ivan! To take part in meetings, to cooperate…the boss is spending quite a lot of money on getting you to-"

"I mean you, Alfred. What do you want? Do you want us to become closer?"

"We used to be pretty close", Alfred mutters absent-mindedly, "just on a somewhat hostile basis." He notices the Russian's expectant look and shrugs helplessly. "I don't know, Ivan. I really don't. You seem to forget that this is as new to me as it is to you. I- I wish I had someone to rely on. Someone who's not afraid."

"I'm not afraid", Ivan says in a serious tone of voice. "Never was."

"I know."

There are an awful lot of things left unsaid that night. Alfred doesn't get the advice he was hoping for with regard to how to keep the others from fearing him even as he takes on an unchallenged position in the world and Ivan doesn't get the clear answer he was hoping for. Still, they walk the way back in amicable silence and somehow, neither is very surprised when the Russian hugs Alfred as a goodbye, breathing into the smaller man's hair and bringing up one hand to the side of his face for a moment before he walks away in large, brisk steps.

Uhm. I had originally intended for this to be multi-chap, but when I'd written up to this point I felt like there was no actual need to go on. Or does this feel chopped off? IDK