Ch. 6: Romano
1936, Madrid

Warnings for the Spanish Civil War. This is the flashback that explains Romano's "favorite place in Madrid".

"You're not even going to say hello to me?" I say irritably, as soon as he opens the door, to hide my shock at his condition. (Exhausted and covered in blood doesn't even begin to describe it.) "Che! For your information, it was hell getting into this goddamned city at all, let alone finding you."

"I can't believe you're here," croaks Spain, completely ignoring everything I say. I wait, but he doesn't say anything more than that, instead narrowing his eyes slightly as if looking for some kind of evidence that I'm not real. I give up on eliciting a reaction from him and step over the threshold of the battered door; instantly, he stiffens, figurative hackles rising.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I snort, shaken nonetheless by his reaction. But there's no time to be stepping around him like he's a scared rabbit; you never know whether or not it could be dangerous to be out on the streets nowadays, and I have to be back to Venice by tomorrow afternoon. I turn, surveying the shabby insides of the house, then close the door, since Spain isn't doing it for me.

"Why are you here?" he says, when he notices me looking at him. I hesitate.

"Feli was worried about you," I say, which isn't exactly a lie. "He was just too chicken to come for himself. Or maybe he just didn't want to leave me alone with Mussolini for more than a half hour." I was worried too, you damn bastard. Obviously he has more important things to be worrying about than sending word to us, but telling myself that didn't help.

Spain finally cracks a smile. "You don't trust him?"

I grunt noncommittally, tucking my hands in my pockets.

"Feliciano does," he adds, after a few awkward seconds.

"Feliciano is an idiot," I mutter, finally. "Why do you care? Mussolini's giving you aid, not that he's exactly got enough to be giving shit away, but it's not for me to question."

Spain looks at me oddly. I don't know why, but the look makes me feel blamed somehow. I scuffle around for another conversation topic, desperately wondering why I came here. Some kind of misguided attempt to comfort this dumbstruck idiot. As if we both don't know, from long, hard experience, that there's only so much comfort anybody can give a nation during a civil war.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I blurt, desperate. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, somewhere else?"

Spain laughs, but there's no humor in it. "With my government, do you mean? Or perhaps with Francisco Franco, helping to storm my own city?"

I fall silent. It was a stupid question to ask. We stand, Spain's ankle slowly leaking blood onto the floor, and I feel the aching weight of an expanding threat inside my chest. I know he feels it too. We feel, together, for a few heavy moments.

"Come with me," I beg, impulsive, hoping somehow that maybe I can smuggle him back to Venice or Rome, and hide him in our basement, and Veneziano can cook him tomato dishes and sing to him until his wounds fade like a human's would. "I hate seeing you like this. Let somebody help you-"

Spain smiles and I know that he knows that I know he doesn't even have to answer. I just wanted to say it. Wanted to tell him I'd do it if I thought it would help.

"Thank you, Lovino," he finally says, soft, "but my city is not yet so desolate that I would abandon it."

I huff, disgusted and touched and frustrated all at once. "If you haven't noticed yet, Spagna, your city fucking sucks right now. Your whole country does!" I refuse to meet his eyes, even though the tension from earlier is suddenly back, choking at the air around us. I slide my toe an inch across the rough floor.

"Then leave," Spain says, his voice suddenly steely. "Go, back to Italy, and prepare for the war we both know is coming. I won't have you hurt on my behalf."

I freeze.

Even here, even now, even in this situation, with every part of me longing for home and my own soil and Veneziano's voice, I so hate to leave him.

"I'll come back, later," I promise, impulsive, my throat full of all the wrong words. "When the war's over. And you won't be- you won't- you understand?! Fuck, I'll see you again if it kills me! God damn you!"

I'm crying.

Spain's lip trembles, and he looks for a second like the person I remember.

"You see? My country must be still worth fighting for, if you want so badly to come back here again," he teases lightly, voice rasping in his throat.

"It's not the country I want to see," I mutter into my scarf, so quiet he can't hear me. And then, louder, "Where are you going to meet me, then? And if you say heaven, I'll punch your face out."

Spain considers this for a second. "Where is your favorite place in Madrid?" he asks.

I swipe at my eyes furiously, because new tears are welling in them, threatening to push the ocean over the edges of my eyelids. "Your whole country is damned to hell! There's only one place in it that holds a person I care about!" I turn around, placing my palms squarely on Spain's chest; he flinches again, as if expecting me to push him backwards. The scary thing is that I probably could, with him in this state.

"If I come back, and that person isn't here, there wouldn't be one place I loved in this whole fucking country! I'd hate it for good!"

He comes back to me shaking and empty. I have nothing with which to fill him up. We walk barefoot, me and him, and him carrying Veneziano in his arms, from Rome to Madrid, and neither of us complains that our feet are sore, or that we want to rent a car, because both of us need to feel the ground beneath our feet.

He takes me to my favorite place in Madrid, and we sit in the dust-covered house and wait and wait and wait for Veneziano to wake up.

so i don't know very much about the spanish civil war; i did some research, but i'm not entirely sure that just a few sites online would be enough to fully/accurately encompass what transpired there. there isn't much real factual material in this chapter, but please inform me if you happen to know about this topic and see something i did wrong!

also, i realize that the whole business of shipping hetalia characters in the canon universe can get really iffy, so i just want to make this one thing clear: when spain says lovi is "the most important person to him" that means lovi is his favorite person to be with. he's not referring to south italy or anything political like that. just wanted to emphasize that.

anyway this whole chapter is really sad but spain does have a reason for picking this place! as you'll find out in the next chapter.

rani-girl, bittersweet crazy, reddblossumm, italian skunk, rikajeene, & peppermintmilktea: your support is v much appreciated! thanks so much for the support so far, your reviews make me so happy!

thanks for reading!