Chapter Eight – Stage Three – The Punk Perspective
Italy, Romano and England had gone back to England's flat after paying for the tattoo. Satisfied with a hard day of work they had settled onto the sofa under some blankets and put a film on. Unfortunately, the only DVDs that England owned were Carry On Camping, David Attenborough's Blue Planet and Monty Python's Flying Circus*. Watching whales and fish seemed the most appropriate somehow and the trio curled up with popcorn to learn about the creatures of the ocean.
Three episodes later and Italy and Romano were curled up together and sound asleep. Romano had wrapped a protective arm around his little brother. Somehow, the pair looked very sweet and innocent in their sleep; relaxed and without a care in the world. England could not help but smile, reminded of some of his colonies in their youth. Even little America had looked that sweet once upon a time.
Turning off the DVD, England took the time to make sure they were firmly settled underneath a blanket before he slipped off to his bedroom and settled in his bed. The pair simply looked too adorable to disturb and he was not such a bad host to wake them when they were that soundly asleep. England settled into his bed and was soon asleep, dreaming of dolphins, shoals of fish and penguins.
-Hetalia-
Romano awoke to another tray of sausage sandwiches, tea for three and a small, pink rose in a vase. He was a little stiff from his time on the sofa, but he felt well rested. Carefully, he nudged his brother awake before taking the tray off of England.
"Thanks, Tea Bastard." He mumbled gruffly, eyeing England as the man poured a cup of tea for each of them. Grabbing a cup and a sandwich, England moved to the armchair and took a seat.
"Ve…ve…ve…ve…" Italy mumbled as he slowly awoke, beaming his characteristic smile to the pair.
Soon, all three were tucking into the slightly overdone sausage sandwiches and were sipping at their tea. Romano had to admit that tea was not too bad when England made it. It was just a shame that their host did not have that magic touch with his cooking.
"So today, we have to instigate stage three of my plan." England explained between mouthfuls of sausage. "I have booked a flight for us this evening. That will give us time to stop off at Spain's house to pick up your kitten before staying at Italy and Romano's house tonight. I am afraid I have taken a liberty in inviting myself to yours, but the last thing I want is to get the other nations on my back if they spot me around the hotel." England explained, blushing a little.
"Ve…it is the least we could do! We can have pasta! Pasta, pasta! I'll make you pasta!" Italy exclaimed loudly.
"How will we present Italy with his new look?" Romano asked.
"I have an idea for that. But first, we need to teach Italy a little bit in punk manners." England grinned with a glint in his eye.
"You do know my brother is a coward?" Romano spoke slowly, forgoing to mention that he is also easily put in the coward bracket.
"I haven't forgotten. We only need to keep up appearances for a few days at most. Or long enough to give that damned Kraut a run for his money anyway." England finished his sandwich and sipped at his cup of tea.
It was not long before they had finished their breakfast and England was standing in front of his flip chart. The words Stage Three – Get Some Attitude were printed neatly on the centre of the page and were circled neatly.
"Right then…let's get down to business, to defeat the Hun." England blushed and coughed when he realised he had just referenced a Disney film, "Flipping Nora, I spend too much time around America…" He trailed off sadly, failing to adequately clarify who Nora was to the bemused Italians. "Let's start with some basics. Italy, what makes you scared of Germany?"
"Ve…well…sometimes Germany doesn't have pasta and then I'm sad. Sometimes he shouts at me but I know he does it as a friend and not as a bad guy but it's still very scary. Sometimes I find dirty magazines about dogs under his bed…"
Romano and England exchanged a confused look.
"What were you doing looking under that Potato Bastard's bed? I swear if he was doing anything to you I'll whip out the moustache again…" Romano grumbled.
"Sometimes, I'm scared he will leave me forever and run away with Russia and be friends with him instead. But he made me a pinky promise so it must be okay right?" Italy looked up at them sadly.
"Yes, I dare say that damned Kraut is not one to break promises easily." England replied thoughtfully, "What else makes you scared Italy?"
"Ve…ve…ve…" Italy blinked before replying, "Sometimes I don't have any pasta and that's very scary. Very scary." The Italian emphasised the point.
"What makes you feel brave?"
"Grandpa Roma makes me feel brave, ve!" Italy said, perking up at the mention of his grandparent.
"Hmm…I think I have an idea then…" England spoke thoughtfully.
-Hetalia-
A few tube rides later found the trio in a recording studio in south London. England had apparently pulled a few favours and booked the place out for the sole use of the unlikely group. Both Italy and Romano were terribly confused about why they were here but decided not to question the ex-pirate's methods.
"Do you remember when we were attacking the Axis Powers on that island and Rome appeared in the sky and started singing?" England finally decided to explain.
"Grandpa Roma always sings so nice!" Italy exclaimed happily.
"Well we are going to recreate that song. Or namely, the two of you are while I record it." England said.
"Why are we doing that? Tea Bastard's off his nut." Romano grumbled, although his curiosity was clearly piqued.
"If this is the thing that makes Italy brave, then this is what we need when he feels cowardly." England replied, a smirk of triumph on his lips, clearly quite chuffed with his idea, "That and several emergency boxes of pasta which we will all be armed with."
The idea finally seemed to make sense to them and both Romano and Italy looked quite pleased.
"Ve…England I think you might be right! That's a brilliant idea. It's a shame we couldn't have the help of Austria though. He would have been good to help us musically." Italy rambled.
"Piano Bastard hasn't got our talent. Let's get warming up."
-Hetalia-
Soon, the lyrics drifted around the recording studio as the duo of Italians sang. Their voices were good and they were even able to harmonize somewhat. England sat behind the recording desk, twiddling dials and knobs with the expertise that practice can bring, although goodness knows when or where he learnt that skill.
"On Earth Hell can be like this:
The cooks are British,
The police are German,
The mechanics are Swiss,
And the bankers are Italian.
On Earth Heaven can be like this:
The cooks are French,
The police are British,
The mechanics are German,
The bankers are swiss,
And the lovers are Italian."
There was only a minor incident when England questioned the validity of the song. It turns out the Brit got ever so offended when someone questioned his cooking. Even if they were the words of an undead ex-nation, sung during a World War Two battlefield for no reason whatsoever.
After an hour or so of recording, they had a successful piece of music, with a light acoustic guitar accompaniment provided by England. It turned out the Brit had a lot of talent for the guitar. They uploaded the track to Italy's phone and popped to the shop to buy him skin coloured, wireless headphones. They reasoned that blending them into the background would be the best way forward.
-Hetalia-
England then took them on the tube to their next destination. They soon found themselves standing outside a large gym. Paying for their entrance, they made their way inside and headed to the workout area. It was a wide-open space, with large windows to let in the soft, summer light. The floor was made of polished wood and the walls were whitewashed with cream paint. A panel of mirrors made up one of the walls. Various types of gym equipment littered the floor: from treadmills, to rowing machines, to cross-trainers, to punchbags – this gym had the lot. It was to a punchbag that England led the unusual trio.
"I'm aware that Germany has done a lot of training with you, but my training is not about getting fit." England said, glancing between the two uncomfortable looking Italians who clearly did not spend much time in gyms. "Italy, I want you to release some anger. Get some angst in you and get a bit of attitude. You need to go into that conference room tomorrow and bloody rebel. Show that damned Kraut who is boss." England fist pumped as he spoke, getting a little too into his motivational speech.
"Ve…ve…ve…ve…ve…" Italy replied, smiling inanely.
"We could try throwing grenades at him? I did that once; damned Potato Bastard didn't know what hit him." Romano of course failed to mention that he got the pin and the grenade the wrong way around…
England rolled his eyes at them both before picking up a pair of boxing gloves and giving them to Italy. "Here, put these on – mind that tattoo though!"
Italy pulled the red gloves on and struck a pose before giggling a little, "This is such fun! Big brother Romano, you should have a go!"
"It's not meant to be fun." England sighed. He recalled that time he had spied on Italy, Japan and Germany in a training session and for once felt something akin to sympathy to Germany. "Right, punch that bag as hard as you can."
Italy skipped around for a few minutes, flailing inanely in what he deemed a threatening manner. Unfortunately, everyone else with a brain cell thought the Italian looked like a Morris dancer** crossed with a boxer who had just spent forty minutes spinning in circles and then entered the ring. After a long period of flailing, the Italian connected fist to punchbag with a very pathetic, slight thump sound. He then turned and beamed proudly at England, pleased with his levels of (not) aggression.
"Okay, well that's a good start." England replied sarcastically, trying to keep the patronisation out of his tones. "Now, I want you to close your eyes."
Italy, dutifully obeyed – or did he just have his eyes closed anyway?
"I want you to imagine that you are in a room. There's a large buffet table on one side of the room. You move closer to the table. You are very happy, there are dishes of pasta, tomatoes and gelato. You pick up a dish of pasta and are just about to dig in when Germany comes over and takes the pasta off you. He then drags you out of the room and locks the door. You cannot have any pasta! He stole it from you." England's tones were soothing, his story telling enough to ignite the Italian's imagination. "Now, punch that bag as though it is the door to your pasta. Nothing will get in between Italy and your pasta!"
Italy opened his eyes and furrowed his brows, resembling Romano's scowl. Turning, he put one foot forward and leant his weight onto this foot as his arm came crashing forwards, smashing into the punchbag with some force.
"PASTA!" He screamed, the battle cry appropriate as the punchbag wobbled from the force of his blow. Italy breathed heavily, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"Jolly good show!" England exclaimed, clapping his hands together.
"Punch the Potato Bastard like that and I will make you more pasta than you can ever eat!" Romano exclaimed, pride radiating from his soft, brown eyes.
"Romano, the goal is not to physically hurt Germany." England admonished, "We simply want to give him a little…surprise!" A wicked smirk lit up his features. "Now, Italy. I want you to take that feeling of anger and use it. Pretend everything that anyone says to you is the same as them taking away your pasta."
"I don't like being angry much…" The Italian mournfully said.
"You don't have to be angry, just rebellious. So, if I ask you to go run around the gym for seven laps. You don't try it, you simply say: 'Bugger off wanker, you run around the gym for seven laps.'" England explained, "Let's try it!"
Italy nodded keenly to the suggestion, eager to please his newfound friend.
"Italy, go run around the gym!" England spoke in a commanding tone, standing up to his full height and pulling his thick eyebrows into a devilish frown.
"Wah! I don't want to!" Italy began shaking his head frantically, his fingers twitching as they instinctively tried to find the nearest white flag.
Menacingly, the Englishman took a threatening step towards Italy. "What do you mean you don't want to? Do it!" He commanded in a voice that would definitely have France running for the hills.
"Ve…ve…ve…ve…" Italy trailed off. He felt under pressure, conflicted. Mostly he wanted to run away in terror, or to waft a white flag around, but he knew he had to be rebellious. He could not disappoint England after he had shown him so much kindness. He really did want to show Germany a thing or two as well. Prove that he was not as weak as the German thought he was. Thoughts whirled around his head, until one stood out: imagine England has stolen your pasta. A scowl suddenly flicked across the brunette's brows and his instinctively squared up to England and deepened his voice. "You go run a lap around the gym!" He cried, flitting into the role as sudden anger overtook him. "Go run around the gym and then bite my Italian arse and give me back my PASTA!" Italy almost screamed the last word.
He stole my pasta…
And then Italy sent a gloved fist to England's face with the same force that he used on the punchbag...
England could not tell whether he felt pride of Italy's rebellion or anger and embarrassment at being floored by the weakest Nation he had ever met. He crumpled to the ground in a dazed heap, mumbling something about the goal not being to hurt Germany.
Little Italy's chased bowls of pasta in circles around his head…
-Hetalia-
After nearly knocking England out, the Englishman was given an icepack before they were escorted firmly from the premises with the threat of police action if they were seen there again.
They were soon back at England's flat. Romano had not stopped laughing since the incident (after a brief thirty seconds of checking that England was alive and was not going to beat the two Italian's to smithereens). Italy had not stopped apologising despite being told multiple times not to say sorry and to be proud of his actions. England was slightly confused about the day of the week and kept telling Italy not to apologise.
England decided shortly after to go for a little lie down to let his headache go away, leaving Romano strict instructions to make some pasta for the journey back to Rome and to teach his brother as much bad language as he could in the meantime.
-Hetalia-
A nap, a quick session of packing, a taxi ride, a flight to Rome and a brief call to Spain to pick up a well-fed kitten. The day was a long one and flew by without much incident after that. Romano had spent a good deal of time teaching Italy all sorts of choice language, all the way to Rome – much to the chagrin of one or two parents on the flight back. England slept the first half of the flight and spent the second half coaching and drilling the two about the World Conference plan. After all this effort they were not going to let it fail now.
They finally found themselves back in Italy's house. Exhausted from their day they sat around eating pizza. Tomato the kitten was being cuddled by a possessive Romano. England was going through the final drill for tomorrow and Italy was nodding along keenly.
"So, remember, follow my strict instructions. Use everything we have taught you. If you need emergency pasta then the codeword is pasta. If you need an emergency cowardice moment then the codeword is pizza. If you want me and Romano to intervene then the codeword is tomato. Got it?"
"Ve…ve…I think so England!" The Italian looked a little nervous as he nodded.
"Good…tomorrow should be an excellent conference then…"
A/N: I don't own Hetalia.
Sorry if the ending seemed a little rushed, but we are getting close to the climax of the story. Still a good few chapters to go though. Thank you for reading and reviewing. Don't worry about the tattoo – all will become clear soon! Please let me know if I have accidentally included any cultural references that need further clarification.
*Carry on films are classic British comedy films with a lot of innuendo; Monty Python are a classic British comedy group who did various sketches and films; David Attenborough is a BBC narrator/presenter who has done a lot of documentaries about wildlife/nature etc. I recommend any of them.
**For anyone who wants to know what a Morris dancer is – it's a traditional English dance – probably best to google/YouTube it.