Italy stared with his jaw dropped at America. America had a faint notion of why but pushed it away. He had other things to think about. Like robots.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Italy asked, still shocked at what he found.

"Um… sorta forgot…" America grinned sheepishly, scratching his head and looking away. Was he really supposed to remember these things?

Italy sighed, facepalming, "How did you forget it all this time? How long have we been working together?"

"Over two hundred years?" America mumbled; he should really stop procrastinating. Italy always got on him about that. Swiftly he perked back up, "Oh! Wait a second! I did tell you once!"

"When?" Italy exclaimed.

"Then I accidently used to device to make you forget…"

"What?"

"Then there was that other time that showed you during a trip to France! Then made you forget…"

"Ameri-"

"And that time in aquarium! But I think I kinda erased your mind…"

"Seriously?"

"Oh! And that- no, same thing happened. How about- That didn't work out very well… And that time we were eating ice cream about a decade years ago! I didn't make you forget that time!"

"But I don't remember that."

"Yeah, you got a concussion from a flying sombrero."

"What?"

"Well, it was a rather breezy Tuesday and I wanted ice-cream so you decided to take us out to the movie theaters when we ran into traffic near Sear's- black Friday, you know?- when this shady guy in a tube top sold us some pink ice-cream when-"

"That's enough… You must tell me of these things when they happen-"

"But I-"

"And not wipe my mind afterwards!" Italy yelled.

"Oh… sorry…"

Italy grumbled, glaring at America before returning to the blue prints he had been given, "Hmm… These seem… Wait a second! America! Who gave this to you?"

"Oh, old Ben, ya know, Benjamin Franklin. He's dead now. Great guy."

"Really?" Italy mumbled off-handedly, concentrating on the paper on his hand.

"Yeah, well, if you ignore his habits of, erm, doing stuff with a lot of women and being a cheater and digging up graves and-"

"Shut up. Please."

"Shutting up."

"This… this wasn't- Franklin didn't make these plans himself did he?" Italy narrowed his eyes, trying to remember why they gave him vague feelings of recognition. He was pretty sure it wasn't from the mind wiping. He hoped.

"That's what you said at that time at the aquarium," America cocked his head to the side, pondering the old conversation, "I think you said- yeah, you said that Leonardo guy had it."

That struck a chord in Italy's mind. The years of friendship and working with the human flooded his mind. Leonardo da Vinci was one of the only humans he ever found worthwhile in his centuries of existence. The man had been a genius- and had seen right through his disguise. Of course, at first it had frightened and almost angered him, being found out by a human of all people but the anger had been quickly replaced by respect and admiration as he came to know the man. The ideas he had, ridiculous at the time, were ingenious, and Italy knew that. The man had been centuries ahead of his time and sometimes, in more recent times, Italy would read through the hidden journals he took after the man's death and wonder if he was a seer.

Part of their comradeship was because Leonardo was the only one who could even hope to rival him in intelligence and skill, and the only one ever would. Einstein, Newton, he respected the men, but they never felt like Leonardo to him. He longed for more of a challenge in his monotone life.

His eyes flicked over to the American that had become bored at Italy's internal monologue and was splayed across the swivel chair, napping with a bit of drool coming out of his mouth.

Even America could not match their intelligence- but that boy was in a class of his own. He did have his 'blond' moments, and his plans seemed impractical and ridiculous, it was true, but so were da Vinci's and all geniuses ahead of their time. One day, when the two of them could accumulate enough time and resources, resources were rapidly disappearing on Earth, he'd let the boy invent to his heart's desire. The boy was years into a future that no one could predict- and the alien,Tony, only enhanced that fact.

Then there was the fact that he gave that feeling of power and etherealness, even for a personification. That's what had first drawn Italy to the other nation. The super strength even before his country developed and the pure power it turned into after he grew up. Britain and Spain, even after those whole 'Empire on which the sun never sets' things grew powerful, but not with super strength. And Russia had been weak when he was born, and only growing into the power when his country grew stronger. None of them were like him.

Even animals could sense the potential in the blond nation. As a child, animals would flock to him until he learned to control whatever pheromone he gave off. Even then, there was that whole whale incident. How he managed to communicate with a whale was beyond the Italian man; he knew that most animals were smarter than given credit for, but America had used English, slang as well, and didn't even follow the vocal patterns found by researchers. Italy had forbidden him from ever doing something like that again in the open.

Thinking about that, it was Italy's fault for America's reputation as an incompetent brainless idiot. He didn't want anyone else to learn of the power residing inside of the childish nation. The people who knew him in his earlier years, especially France, blamed the fact that he turned out so on England, which was fine with Italy. As long as they believed that young, curious, intelligent boy was gone nobody would ever see it coming…

Screaming filled the lair as the nation centering his thoughts evidently began to have a nightmare about ghosts. Italy sighed and walked over to comfort him, patting his head. The fear of ghosts got in the way sometimes, even if Italy got the sneaking suspicion that he could actually see them…

"America… America wake up," He said, nudging the other nation out of his nightmare. He groaned silently to himself as a pair of arms locked around him in a vice like grip as the other tried to assure himself that he was fine. In attempt to distract the other he tried to carry on the conversation from before while still patting his head, "What did Benjamin Franklin tell you about the device?"

America tilted his head, shaking the fogginess out of his head, "Apparently he was given it. I can't remember all of it but Ben told me that he just fixed and modified it."

Italy looked at him and stopped patting his head, it was just like the boy to not pay attention to the important things. Everyone knew that the blond had a terrible memory and of course he'd forget something like this. And Italy just knew- that he wasn't everyone.

A hand struck out to hit the other across the face but was swiftly blocked by one of the arms that were previously wrapped around him.

"What the hell, man?" America hissed glaring straight into his eyes. He felt a brief rush of pride as his former unofficial charge so quickly reacted.

Italy looked coolly at him, ignoring the fact that the other man was much stronger than he could ever dream to be and already had him in a hold, "You liar."

"What the hell do you mean?" America growled, tightening his grip on the other, not that Italy worried, he'd never hurt him.

"You have a perfect, photographic memory, even if you are absent minded. You know what he told you," Italy said coldly, pushing away from the other, knowing that America let him go, and crossing his arms.

"I don't have to tell you anything," America said defiantly sitting back into the swivel chair and also crossing his arms, glaring back at the older nation, "You don't even have to remember any of this in a couple seconds. You forget who controls this device."

This only caused the feelings of cold anger to intensify as Italy seethed, "How many times do I have to tell you that the only reason you got this far is because of me? I taught you power and gave you people- my own people- to use it. You're nothing without me. I had the master plan for centuries, you should be glad I was considerate enough to include you as well. You never even realized your potential without me. I could have crushed you if I wanted to and I still can now and-" He broke off, and then smiled, "You followed my orders rather well."

America quickly wiped all emotions off his face and instead raised an eyebrow.

"You were just following some previous instructions I made, weren't you?" Italy laughed to himself at his own stupidity, "You were waiting for me to realize it myself. I'm sorry for overreacting- you know how I hate yelling at you."

America grinned back in return, "I don't like acting like that either, Italy. Glad you realized, I thought that I'd have to mind-wipe you again. You don't know how long I've been wanting to tell you-"

"That I'm the one who gave you the device."


We do not own Hetalia.

And so I ditched you guys for what? 3 months? You can blame me entirely. I'll tell you how this works. We, my RP partner and I don't actually RP, we just write one chapter and the other would write the other, get it? Like, technically I was supposed to RP for America but this chapter was in Italy's POV.

Ah... I'm so horrible. All my other stories haven't updated in months... I'm sorry guys... My RP partner has been yelling at me. She's Awesome Person 1234 by the way. She cooks horrible but is an AWESOME baker, just saying.

Please review! We're so happy with all the attention this is getting- 30+ review for 2 chapters? I'm crying tears of joy here.