Title: Equipoise
Pairing/Characters: Romano/Fem!Romano/Spain/Fem!Spain, Fem!France
Rating: PG


Francine had always had a love of people watching, especially of couple watching, because she loved to watch how people worked around one another, with one another, against one another. She watched for years as Antonia and Romano danced around one another, starting as just neighbours and becoming friends and then eventually much, much more than friends.

She watched the instant chemistry between Antonio and Antonia when she introduced them for the first time, watched the slump in Romano's shoulders whenever Antonia talked about him. Watched the blush on his face when Antonio talked to him, and the way Antonio's eyes always lingered on him a little too long. She saw all of Antonio's smiles, and how he lit right up when talking to Antonia, but also when talking to Romano, but most of all when he was with them both.

Francine hadn't been around much when they first met Lovina, but even a few short meetings were enough to see how well she fit with the other three. Nobody would have been able to tell she hadn't known this small group her entire life, save the glances exchanged between her and Antonio whenever some reference to Antonia and Romano's teenage years was made.

She'd heard all the whispers, of course, heard the angry conversations Lovina had on the phone, trying to explain that no, she wasn't just going to pick one of them and get married like a "normal girl", the questions from their school friends wondering when Antonia and Romano were going to stop this little faze they were in and just get married like everyone thought they should. But Francine knew, because of everything she saw, that while yes, they all hadn't known one another as long, and sometimes they all did things in pairs instead of all together, that there really was no way to cleanly split them up, because what Antonia had with Romano was just as important as what she had with Lovina and Antonio, what Antonio had with Romano and Lovina, what Lovina had with Romano.

Theirs was by no means a normal relationship, but taking any one of them out of it or trying to pair off for the sake of being socially acceptable would throw things off entirely. Francine saw that clear as day.