America maxes out at 5'5 around the time of the Revolutionary War. Later on some of his people will smirk at the fact that his ragtag soldiers, who average at 5'8, are about three inches taller than the British. The New World would triumph over the Old in more ways than one.

Later on America will feel odd at the fact that he was only as tall as a British soldier. Perhaps he will feel ashamed to have not been the perfect representation of his country, or perhaps he will feel weak, or perhaps he will simply feel odd. But right now America is in the midst of the greatest struggle of his life; America is in what will be known to future generations as a tragedy. He is huddled in a camp in Valley Forge and he doesn't see the British or the French or anyone he's anticipating for a time. He only sees the sick and dying, and he is shorter than them but he is not sick or dying, and for that he is almost grateful. Almost.

America always has these little insecurities— about his shoulders, about his height— but he goes on with his life for about a century and a half without them having any effect on him. It's only just after World War II that he is hurt by it.

Shortly after the World Wars, life just seems so great. So perfect. The Cold War comes on fast, but it is not so obvious at first as it will be in later years. For now, America slows down and takes some time to relax.

He indulges a lot in superhero comics, sees a lot more movies. Through all of it he can't help but notice that he doesn't really look like the people in them; America shrugs it off because he supposes he doesn't have to. It would be ridiculous to compare himself to a superhero, after all, and it would be ridiculous to compare himself to every pretty boy Hollywood spits out.

America talks to a lot more people, too, and that is what ultimately drags at his confidence. His citizens, in his grocery stores and his parks and everything else, are normal. He does not look like them; his shoulders are narrower and he is significantly smaller than most other men. It is reasonable that America shouldn't aim for the perfect faces on the screens or the grotesque features of superheroes, but it isn't like he's aiming to be beautiful. All America wants is to be normal.

As all of this unfolds, America finds himself unable to enjoy movies or superhero comics quite so much. A small voice in his head says that he is never going to look like that, and it is painful because it is true.

…

In the first few years of the Cold War, America had found it relatively easy to talk to Russia. Around 1950, America starts to hate their meetings. The tension between the two is mounting and he has to be on his guard and that's bad enough, but to top it off, America is envious of Russia. Russia has what America views as the perfect body; he is tall and he has broad shoulders, and his clothes fit him well. Russia has appropriate proportions for a man. America's envy makes him want to kill himself. It wouldn't be so bad if America was just a person, but he's not just a person. On the way home he thinks to himself, Imagine the United States of America jealous of a fucking commie— Imagine!

This meeting had not been so bad, but America decides while he's driving home that he is not going to see the other nations until some surgery comes out for increased height, for increased shoulder length. America had always been careful not to think like this before, but he feels he has better reason now; he feels he is not so pathetic for being stuck on something so superficial. This is not just about Alfred; this is about how Russia towers over the United States of America in every conversation, how America must look as though he doesn't have any right to surround himself with so much bravado, how America looks pathetic and weak. This is about how America is such an awful representation of his country. This is about how America is effectively worthless.

With nations, impressions are everything. His reputation isn't all that great and his first impressions won't save him. America decides he must let his people, who are taller and stronger and better than him, make impressions. He will stay home.

So America does stay home, and actually he doesn't see any nations again for the entirety of the Cold War. He talks to his citizens, at least. He writes often and passionately and he surrounds himself with all this glory that he cannot ever come to claim. America hears about it when Russia mocks him, when Russia refers to him as a storybook prince— how else could his mystery, his apparent prestige be explained, if not that he was the quiet heir to a degenerate king? Then there are all the times Russia simply calls him a coward.

America hears it, but he doesn't really take note of it. He seethes over it and he writes about it and he writes about everything really, but there is a whole lot of time where he is not writing. There is so much time where America is just pressing out endless push-ups and pull-ups and weight repetitions, tirelessly working toward being the strong, charismatic protagonist— the prince that rescues the princess, or the hero that saves them all. Then there are the times America stares at other people, at celebrities and drawings and civilians in parking lots, as though he will become them if he just wishes hard enough.

Through it all, through his writing and his working out and his constant, crippling envy, America knows that he will not be able to fix himself. He maintains hope that one day there will be a surgery, a safer surgery, to fix him. Every day America debates just going along with it, but he cannot imagine his body failing him further; however much he wants to be tall or to have broader shoulders or just a narrower waist, America does not want to be in so much pain. He wants to have his full range of motion and to not be punished for any of it, because anything else would be a tragedy. Anything else would not make a good impression. He needs to be perfect, and perfect people can run and stretch and do everything they want to do all the time.

America has seen how cosmetic surgery has advanced over time, and he's read plenty about it too. He waits, all alone, for technology and technique to advance. At his very core he is an optimist.

…

At some point in the 1970s it all gets to be too much.

America is alright when he is all alone. The thoughts don't go away, but they don't get so unbearable either, not unless he purposefully triggers them. When he goes out, though, he is almost constantly reminded that he is hardly a real man— he watches the lives of people he cannot represent, but he lives through it all anyway.

America is starting to get lonely. He'd always been lonely, especially since the start of the Cold War, but while working out and writing he had always pretended he was a hero, and he had always ignored as much as possible that he was all alone. Now, all America wants is to see his friends again, but he cannot. He is convinced he will have to make a new first impression since he has been away so long, and he is convinced any first impression he could possibly make would be awful.

America will not see his friends again until one day, until some mythical point in time in which he can get it all fixed— and maybe his friends don't even want to see him. Chances are they're equally exasperated by how weak their chosen superpower is. But still, damn if America does not miss his friends.

His bosses always hate him, too, maybe even more than he hates himself. He can tell. There has only been one president shorter than him, and it was very long ago. Once America had stopped expressing a want to go meet with other nations, his boss at the time had stopped sending him; he has not been on any such meeting since. America's bosses, he is sure, have always despised him because he ruins the American image. America is sure they look down on him. Every time a new President comes into office and America has to meet them, America can see how dismayed they are. America doesn't even have to open his mouth.

It's not just America that thinks he's a failure; it's his bosses, too. He cannot maintain the appearance of a proud man, and he doesn't stand tall anymore when he goes out, which exacerbates the problem.

At some point in the 1970s— later America will be unsure of exactly when— he gets a letter back. He never gets letters back, as he never really says anything that begets a response. He opens the letter on his porch, and it reads:

America,

I'm glad for your letters, as they ensure me you're not dead. I do read them, even those strange rants about communism. (But really, why bother to send them to me?)

Lad; when are you going to come out of hiding? I imagine you sometimes, hunched over at night, writing all these letters no-one ever responds to— and to be honest it's quite comical, but if you must annoy us so dearly, you ought to do it in person. I would like to see you again, sometime soon. I dare say I even miss you.

Yours,

Britain

America stares at the semicolon after 'lad', the smallest error, for a long time. He imagines that Britain hurried to write it, and surprisingly this makes him feel a bit more important— Britain must have taken time out of a busy schedule just to write to America, must have had it on his mind.

America folds the letter. He decides right there that he is never going to see Britain, or anyone else, ever again.

The 1980s and 90s pass in a blur. His bosses had kept him close since the 1970s— he'd gotten too sad, went and done some things he shouldn't have done, and all of his bosses over time had considered it a necessity that he should be more involved, that he shouldn't be alone. The last thing they'd want, after all, is news of a suicide attempt actually getting out; the first had been hard enough to cover up.

The 2000s are markedly different. America's boss quickly becomes busy with other things, and nobody in the entire White House is free enough to babysit America, so America walks around listlessly for a while and then eventually he leaves. His boss forgets about him, as he'd really only known America for a few months, and he doesn't call when America stops showing up for work.

America enjoys it, really. He'd become quite tired of all the menial tasks his previous bosses gave him to do— they treated him too nicely, and it had been quite clear that they were only giving him enough work to justify his staying, to make sure he was in sight. America is tired of making endless pots of coffee and tagging along with the janitors and chefs for random shit.

More importantly America is tired of 'working' so much; he hadn't taken any time off since the 1970s because his bosses had suddenly started caring where he went. His bosses had effectively stopped him from getting any sort of cosmetic surgery— because sure, all of America's bosses definitely hated him for being the way he was, but America had been too ashamed to tell them he was trying to fix it. America had considered cosmetic surgery extensively through the 90s, but in the end he had been unwilling to look any of his bosses in the eye over it— how would he have even began that conversation? How could he have looked at the most powerful person in the world and admitted that he knew he was a failure? How could he have looked at a real, proper representation of the country— the exact opposite of himself— and say something like that?

America gets the first surgery, in which both of his legs are slightly broken and metal instruments are inserted, in an attempt to make himself taller. Recovery takes a few months, but at the end he is in fact taller— he goes to 5'8, an inch below the average height of his men and as far as he can go in one surgery.

A year after he recovers, he gets a clavicle lengthening surgery. Nothing in particular really stands out, though later America will remember his surgeon marking up his collarbone, and how it resembled a smiley face. Recovery doesn't take nearly as long. His boss still does not call him. A few weeks after he's fully recovered, it occurs to him that he still is not happy. He considers getting a second leg-lengthening surgery, this one in the tibia instead of the femur, and perhaps a second clavicle-lengthening surgery. In the end he does not have enough money, so he tells himself to just be happy.

…

He goes to his first UN meeting in sixty years in the late 2000s. Things are the same as they were for America, and that makes it difficult— while Japan and Germany aren't his adversaries and in fact put quite a lot of value on his alliance now, America has almost never talked to them and he doesn't know what to say. America, in all his aloneness, had often imagined what he would say to Japan if they ever met again; Japan is an incredibly important ally to him and he wants to be friends, but they haven't seen each other since World War II. Their countries are inextricably intertwined, but they still have so much ground to cover.

Canada hates him, too; America is sure of this. Their governments prefer to talk about how great their relations are, and as a result they don't talk very truthfully about how long the Canada-USA relationship has been good. Their governments talk as if the 1920s hadn't been filled with their plans for war— how mistrust had been rampant in those days, how they'd both planned for a fight (even if America was mostly planning for Britain, with Canada as the weak afterthought). Canada and America had only just started to make amends when America stopped meeting with other nations, and they really don't know anything about each other.

Nevertheless, Canada acts pleasantly surprised to see America. That's the one thing America remembers about Canada— that he always was so polite, that he's always been a bit passive-aggressive. Though their countries have cooperated extensively in the past eighty years or so, and though America actually remembers Canada, their conversation falls flat before it even really begins.

America doesn't know anybody he's supposed to know— his communication with most of the Asian countries and with the former Soviet satellites is almost nonexistent. He really has made an awful impression, and he doesn't even feel better. He feels just as alone and stupid as normal because he knows he looks like a dick, because he can't even explain his sixty-year disappearance. America has left himself with a lot of work to do.

The truth is, America feels just as he did right before his life was derailed— like it's all going to get worse. America's surgeries, the ones he waited so long in hiding for, did not fix all his other problems. Actually they didn't even fix what they were supposed to. Russia walks by just as he's sitting down, and America feels that he hates Russia, not even for the Cold War or his constant threatening bullshit but just because he used to envy Russia, just because he still kind of does.

A/N: this is a deeply personal vent so I really wanted to make it a happy ending, but it would just be damn irresponsible to say that anything is going to get better through surgery when that's not the case. I've never been good at happy endings, either in real life or in writing, so this story follows the same pattern as all my others.

Anyway, a review would be hella lit. Have a great day and stay safe.