A/N: Hello, it is me again, with another one-shot! This one is dark, very dark, with Alfred having a hell of an internal war. There's discussion about his status as a superpower, about his potential, about right and wrong, good and evil, his personalities being flip-sides of a single coin. Historical memories, and a dream, imagination, speculation, whatever you want to call it. Quote is from The Dark Knight I think.
Warnings: Character (no-one important, just an OC I completely made up) death, but also implied deaths of more important characters, interrogation, deep emotions, self-hatred, suicide mentions (multiple), nuclear weapons, war,... a bunch of other stuff that I don't really know how to name. Just warnin' ya.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
He now checked for the third time in ten minutes whether or not the lock to his hotel room was indeed shut, and it was, as was the safety chain. He knew he was slipping, he knew he should calm down, he knew - but he couldn't. As much as he tried, he was slipping. He sat down on the edge of the double bed. Burying his head in his hands, the memories flooded his mind, unwanted memories, ones he had tried to lock up, stow away, but apparently failed to do so.
Failed, failed, failed - he felt that all he did these days was simply constantly failing. Whether it was failing to keep peace, failing to keep his country in check, or failing to keep his memories where they belonged, they were all still failures. And he was the biggest of them. And now, he was slipping - but he had to try, he had to, for the sake of the world, for the sake of his people - he couldn't allow himself to relapse. He had done it one too many times already.
He didn't know how long he had been locked up in his room, but so long as no-one came knocking he felt safe. He felt more sure of himself. He felt more secure, more like he would be able to control whatever it was threatening that same control. Never had he fooled himself into believing the idiotic smile he plastered on his happy-go-lucky features every meeting, every time he saw another nation, every time he was around a politician. He'd begun to notice it some time during the Civil War, when he was the most confused and afraid, when he had had urges to simply demolish the other side - whichever was losing at the moment. After the war, during which he had managed, in his insanity, to keep himself sane, he had noticed this feeling of need to grow. The need to expand, grow, strengthen, gain more territory for a growing people. But it was not the usual feeling of expansion he supposed many nations had had before - he could guess that much. It was much darker, much more powerful, much more fearsome.
But by some stroke of dumb luck, even in his youth, he had had enough sense to lock that person up, that voice, that side of him that promised death and destruction wherever it set its gaze upon. He'd managed to wall it up long enough to grow, mature himself, to strengthen the wall he had only barely built. It had been frail, but by the time the twentieth century had hit with full force, it was strong enough to last for a while. Even though that had lasted only half a century.
How simple it was, to press a single button and have a country on his knees before him, offering unconditional surrender. And as poor, weak, mangled Japan was there, in front of him, giving up his country, refusing to fight any longer against this powerful country, Alfred stood there, tall, proud, cold. His icy eyes glared at the Asian before him, he barely heard the words exchanged between the leaders of the two countries.
Alfred's hands were clasped behind him, both in a show of openness and completely false acceptance, and one of lies, still having something up his sleeve. And to be honest, he had a lot more there where this came from. This destruction, this pain, all this that had happened to the small island nation.
Yet all Alfred felt was sheer power, unadulterated pride, relief at this war having ended, having no care for the man in front of him. And all that because of a single red button.
It was frightening, simple, easy, terrifying,... thrilling.
Ever since that day, so many years ago, he had vowed once more he would never let that side of him see the light of day again. He had sworn he would keep it in check, and he had kept it so far. But he could feel the losing battle he was fighting in his head, and he was hoping to revert back to the old days, the simpler times. Back to when he used to sleep soundly and well, when he was not ridden with paranoia, when he was not doubting everything and everyone, when he was not considered the bane of the world, when he used to be scared to take up arms against another nation, when he used to mourn all loss of life and not discard those lives. When he was not yet the chess player he was today, who thought every move only in his advantage, who would gladly sacrifice a pawn to take a bishop, whose mind was twisted only around the game and the board and winning.
He knew he could sacrifice everyone and anyone, from strangers wearing his uniform to his family. He knew that if he slipped, there would be nothing holding him back from utter and complete dominance over the rest of the world. Not Matthew's soft-spoken reasoning or his harsh accusations, that he had seen on occasions. Not Arthur's scolding or insults. Not Ivan's ice-cold glares or superhuman strength. Not Yao's wisdom, not Europe's strength, not Africa's vastness nor heat, not South America's distaste of him, not Asia's hatred for invaders. If it came down to it, he knew he could be so heartless as to himself kill Matthew, destroy Arthur, obliterate Ivan, run Africa over and conquer South America and invade Asia.
But he also knew the sense of twisted sadism in him, that would drag out the suffering of those who opposed him. He would kill those who did not matter that much, but that were everything to them. He would then slowly hurt their people. And he would finally allow them to have peace when they were asking for death. Not for the sweet release of death, no. When they were begging for a gruesome and painful death, when they were so desperate as to grovel for a pathetic death.
And the fact that he knew all this only scared him much more. How had he become this shell of a man existing only to shelter the world from its impending destruction?
"I don't... I don't know how to use this..." The fearful thirteen-year-old's voice piped up. He held the weapon in his hands, completely wrong, completely useless at anything defensive.
"Oh, that's simple, let the awesome me teach you! Then you can kick that bastard's ass back over the ocean where he belongs!" Those words were anything but reassuring - he felt that there was something to them, a ring, a hidden meaning, that was only visible to he, himself, that made him uncomfortable. He doubted the Prussian had meant anything else with those words, but Alfred himself felt scared by their consequences.
The cold metal was just that - cold, unfamiliar, heavy, frightening, he felt nothing but fear towards it. He knew what it could do, and he did not want to use it for that. But, he thought as he lifted the bayonet gun like he was instructed to, he had to do this. For his people.
It all used to be about his people. He would die for his people, he would do anything to keep them safe. He would starve when they were hungry, he would bleed when they were wounded, he would stand at the front lines of any battle when his armies were standing. When had that changed so drastically? When had his people started dying for him, but not the other way around? When had he started to doubt his people so much? When had he begun blindly trusting his government, and stopped listening to his people?
It was probably sometime during the early Cold War, when he was still so young, so naïve, so gullible and trusting and fearful. That was also when he had changed himself. He had fallen into the pits of a desperate fear, one that he had taken years to dig himself out of. Years after the fall of the Union, years after the whole stand-off was over and done with, years after everything should have been safe.
How had he come to be this superpower? How had he, perhaps the most dangerous man on the planet, come to be also the most powerful? How had he achieved this position of world leader, of limitless power, ability and potential? Why had he allowed it? Why had the other nations allowed it? God, Alfred had known this would someday backfire on him, terribly. All that talk of being a hero, saving the world, of being the greatest and most awesome person to ever exist - of course the other nations would then turn to him in times of fear and panic and need. They wanted him to make good on his words, and like the good-hearted person he was, he did. He ignored the consequences, as Alfred, the caring idiot, would. He had simply thought it would help the world, and in a way, he had. He had saved the world from the "communist threat" that had everyone so shaken up. Alfred had been distracted by it. He has not noticed how all of this had only catapulted him to his film, how it had all been a catalyst to the world's doom. Hell, he had been careless back then. Too goddamn worried about Ivan, trying to distract himself from his own fighr, hoping it would make hit go away. Not to Alfred's surprise, it had not.
As McCarthyism had spread through his veins, and his people turned against each other in fear of the communist disease, that's when he'd turned on them.
"A little bird told me that you've been spying on us, against us. Were they lying?" Gun pointed at the man's head, ready to shoot. The cold glare of ice-blue eyes drove into the man in front of him, like it had done only a decade earlier into another man. Another nation. He was barely of age, half the age of the man he was interrogating, but refused to let his youth show.
"Well, seeing as you are the interrogator, you should know when someone is lying, shouldn't you? Unless you're incompetent. Tell me, how many innocent people have you had thrown to the chair just because you were convinced that they were Soviet spies? Ten? More? Because I can see it in your eyes."
Seething, he kept his voice calm. "All of those people had committed a crime against this nation, and according to the evidence I have, so have you. You were found in the possession of a lot of stuff you shouldn't have, and you've been in protests, and you've been befriending a lot of wrong people. Pretty hard evidence, or am I wrong?"
"Oh, I forgot that freedom of speech in this country was selective. See, I was under the impression that a person was free to express their opinion and political beliefs freely. I now remember that that applies only if it is what the government agrees with. My mistake."
Eyes burned. "Freedom of speech goes so far as it does not threaten the security of this country or hi - its people! And you relayed information about nuclear weapons to the Soviets, which is a capital crime, betrayal, of your country! It threatens the American people, because what happens when those bastards decide to use that knowledge!?"
"Christ, this country is more backwards than the country you claim is most so. Freedom of speech is a right of every person, but once they exert it it is taken form them on account of 'danger' or 'threat'. Liberty for all - unless your opinions are not ours. Refuge offered for those who seek it - but they are suspected from the very moment they step into the country. Hundreds of years this has gone on, but really, now it's just ridiculous to keep that damn pretense up while it's a complete farce!"
And Alfred snapped. The next thing he knew, he was laughing maniacally while tears ran down his cheeks, his arms wrestled back as he shouted obscenities at the dead man.
He remembered that time - that dangerous time, during which he was at his frailest, his resolve was weakest, his beliefs barely kept together, his thought never truly organised. It was a wonder he had not utterly snapped at that point.
He was a hero - he knew that for a fact. But while he did, none of the other nations did. They all mistook the self-proclamations of world saviour and universal hero as ridiculous over-exaggerated shows of Alfred's too inflated ego, he knew it wasn't. But the thing was, as long as the other nations did not know he was a hero, so long he would be safe - so long he would be the hero. Because if they knew what he was holding back, what he was a hero for, then that meant that the monster within him would show. And then, he'd have failed yet again.
He was scared, confused, angry, annoyed, frightened, every description in the world except happy. But in confusion he found safety, in fear he found refuge. Happiness he found to be undesirable, his anger, dangerous. As long as he was confused, it meant he was holding back, holding on to his facade of self, his weak wall of pretense. Fear meant he was still in control, because so long as he felt fear, so long he was himself. But if he were to be happy at a time like this, it meant he would be long gone. Anger would only precipitate his fall.
He knew what the - the monster, the thing he really was, was capable of. He called that side of him America - not human, unfeeling, emotionless. It was capable of taking over the world in a matter of years. Of having the world on its knees in mere months. Of scaring every country to the bone, into surrender or alliance, whichever he found more useful. He knew himself to be cold, calculating, intelligent, strategic, dangerous, violent, angry, threatening. And though these came across in his actions even now, it was never to the extent it could be. He could only imagine one of the many, many scenarios in how things might play out. And though he really wanted to keep those nightmares out of his mind, his brain sent them back to him every night to entice him to give up, admit defeat of the lost battle, to let go. He didn't want to, but he knew that someday, for a godforsaken reason he did not yet know, he would - let go, that is. Lose. Give up. His facade was tearing, the wall crumbling, and he couldn't build it back up fast enough.
He feared the world he was to create. Or end.
He watched the live feed as the last mushroom cloud evaporated into the air, the last of hundreds of nuclear weapons detonated around the world. But none, not one, had reached his own people. That last one had exploded over Moscow, a gesture which in his opinion was symbolic of quite a few things. But he had managed also to destroy every single reserve of nuclear weapons on the planet, while he himself still had a few in stock. But now, with the world's countries thrown into confusion and at loss of what to do, he no longer needed to use them. This was when the real fun would begin.
In a matter of days, his alliance with Matthew was finalised (Canada no longer existed). In a week, he had absorbed Britain (who now no longer was), and all that remained of its long-gone Empire and Commonwealth. Australia had fallen faster than expected (no such nation), barely any force had to be used. He was halfway down the American continent in two weeks (one country grew more and more). His troops had progressed far beyond Poland into the east of Europe by the end of the month (the country grew by continents now). Africa was nearly under his control in two months (half of the world). And when finally southern Asia was his, all that remained was the battered, dead territory of Russia, in which a great number of nations existed in hiding, in rebellion (one last stand).
How ironic this all was, in America's opinion. That the last country to still stand proud and resistant to his increasingly harsh and successful attempts at invasion would be Russia. That the world had not ended in Mutual Assured Destruction, because no-one had the weapons to any more. That America, the supposed hero of the world would be the one to bring a rather different end to it than had been thought.
But he knew that Russia was weak. He was growing weaker by the day, the hour, the second. Every second that passed, Alfred's armies increased their efforts, and every second, they gained land on Russia. Russia would not last through the winter that had so often saved him on previous occasions. And he knew that famine and disease and death reigned in the nearly barren land, where people held on to last desperate scraps of hope.
In America's opinion, there really was little to no reason to fight him. He knew he would come out on top in the end, he knew he would win. And honestly, all he really planned was to take over the world to finally implement peace upon it. Perhaps not the peace they had had in mind, but something that suited America's ideas. There really was no wrong done here, he had the right idea - peace. Perhaps the means were not agreeable to all, but nevertheless the trust would be the same.
He knew that those nations whose land America had taken, but whom he had not either killed or imprisoned, were living with the Russian, in a pathetic attempt to rally, to turn things against America. But they all feared him, they were all scared of the potential that had come to show in Alfred, they were all frightened to the bone. They no longer recognised the ridiculous, good-natured and kind-hearted American dreamer they had once known and taken for granted. They did not know this was who the American truly was. How the facade he had put up had fooled them all so well, so perfectly, that they had never thought about this kind of end for their nation. And Alfred had used that in his advantage, of course - the element of surprise was, still, the weapon he used most. He would divert, make unnecessary detours if it meant that he had that element. Because if he did, then they would no longer have been unnecessary.
And these days, America never failed.
"No, no, no, please, no, don't - NO!" He shouted, stumbling into the bathroom. Looking up into the mirror, he saw someone he no longer recognised, but who still seemed familiar. There were just too many things about him that had changed, yet remained the same.
His blue eyes were still tormented, but it was a cold storm raging there. It was the same face he had been looking at for a hundred years, only shallower, more sunken, more tired, but also more frigid, more strained, more taut. His frame was lean and slim underneath the clothes, but there was both conflict and strength in that tired body. The dark suit, tight and claustrophobic suit he wore - he hated it. He loathed it deeply. It made him seem formal, it made him seem important, when all he wanted to do was vanish and allow the world to breathe a sigh of relief it never would know it had held. He wanted to get away, leave it all behind, die and leave them all alone, in peace, without both the idiocy he provided and the threat he hid.
He wanted to, but despite how many times he had killed himself - tried to - it never worked. Never, never, never, never had, never would. He knew it didn't work, he would wake up in a hospital, feeling either slightly dizzy from a fall of with a mild headache from the bullet. He had tried every poison, every weapon, every way to die, even though he knew it was a lost cause. Just like the battle he fought within his head. No-one knew of these attempts except his leader, whoever it was at the time. Not a single nation had ever caught on to it.
How blind they were, with a selective sight, only seeing that which they wanted to see. How grateful he was for that, for now. But he knew that that blindness would also kill them one day, in a nearer or farther future. He did not want to find out which, but he knew he would not be so blessed as to be able to do that.
He would just have to keep it inside as long as he could, have it destroy Alfred from within, his sanity, his personality, everything he was, everything he stood for, and everything he had ever done. Including sealing up America. And then, there would be no-one to save the world from the hero who became death.