Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: I-I now have over 200 reviews! Oh my god! Thank you all so very much, I'm so grateful to all of you!
You know, I had doubts about this fic, thinking adding kids would probably be too much, but you proved me otherwise. ^^ I'm very happy I decided to upload this fic, and I hope you and I will enjoy the rest of it as well!

A/n2: I had way too much fun writing out a very weird version of the fairytale "The Frog Prince" that'll appear in this chapter. Extra strange chapter, because of Lovi's magical storytelling skills. Huzzah!~
Also, evil cliffhanger up ahead. Yeah. Sorry for that!

A/n3: Albert Einstein is probably one of the people who's quoted the most often and most… wrongfully, no doubt. So I really have no idea if he actually said the quotation for this chapter. But I sure liked it, so… there it is! ^^;;;
Anyway, Einstein was German, but the man traveled a lot and lived at lots of places, getting lots of different citizenships. That's pretty damn confusing, so I'll just call him German-born, since he was born in Germany. Ohhh, what logic! XDDDD

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 12:

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales.
Albert Einstein
(German-born theoretical physicist)

So yeah, it was, like, past midnight when Antonio and I dumped three grubby, sleepy kids into our bathtub. The all responded totally different to this strange and unplanned happening.

For example, Dumb Kid thought it was fucking fantastic and instantly tried eating the bath foam. That kid has the strangest reflexes ever, I swear.

Creepy Kid was half asleep and his head kept almost crashing against the side of the bathtub. As I had thought, he hadn't woke up from getting peed all over, and when Antonio and I woke him up, he was all smiles, like 'cool, I'm covered in pee!', which was even more unsettling.

And, last but not least, Moody Kid. She hadn't been peed all over, but she still was kind of messy from playing (and pooping) in the garden, so we figured she might as well join her wacky brothers in bath.

Yeah.

Of course, she wanted none of that and squished herself into a corner of the bathroom, completely naked, but determined as ever to give me and Antonio a hard time.

'Oh come on, do you have to make every little thing a major problem?' I complained, sitting on my knees in front of her, all wet and soggy because the boys made enough ruckus in bath to soak both me and Antonio.

'She takes after you, after all,' I heard Antonio say in the background, 'and she sure does like to no you shouldn't eat that! No! Don't! Spit it out, kiddo! Spit it ou—no, leave the bottle alone… oh, hey, watch you head! Don't sleep in bath!'

I snorted in triumph when I saw him having trouble with Creepy Kid's antics. Ha! Serves him right. That'll teach him to blame my awesome genes for the flaws the girl had, dammit.

Too tired to start another stupid discussion with the girl, I groaned and looked at her as earnestly as I could.

'Look, I'll make another deal with you, okay?'

The girl just tilted her head to the side, but her eyes told me she was willing to listen.

'If you go into the tub with your brothers, I promise you I'll… um, I'll…'

…yes, what, Lovino? What would you promise Moody Kid? She expected something good now, and not something half-assed, so you better come up with something pretty damn interesting!

'I'll tell you a cool bedtime story,' I finally said.

Then I wanted to moan and sigh in frustration, because no way she would be interested in one of my dumb stories. Besides, if she really did take after me, she didn't give a fuck about getting a stupid bedtime story.

…still, when I looked up, I saw she wobbled towards the bathtub, tugged on Antonio's cloths just as much until he put her into the tub, and instantly turned to face me, her eyes intense, but barely hiding her internal enthusiasm. Dumb Kid gave me that same happy look, only he was much more open about it – since he was smiling and all.

'Oh?' I stupidly said.

Antonio laughed and squeezed into a sponge over the head of Creepy Kid, who now had actually fallen asleep again, his head plastered to the side of the tub.

'Looks like they think you're a good storyteller, Lovi!~'

I quickly coughed and grinned, crawling over to the tub. 'Well of course they think I'm a good storyteller, because I AM a good storyteller. No duh.'

'That's great, sweetie.' Antonio looked at me and I'll be damned if his dreamy gaze wasn't loving enough to turn all the evil on earth into cute little ladybugs. 'See? You're good at this parenting stuff. You're a wonderful dad.'

'Y-you're… you're doing a pretty good job, too, you know,' I muttered, feeling all tingly and proud because of the compliment, and grabbed a washcloth.

'That's because we have the cutest kids ever. Don't you agree?~' Antonio gave me a soft bump with his shoulder, looking at me, waiting.

Waiting for what? I was confused and wanted to ask him what the fuck the kids' cuteness had to do with our parenting skills, but then I realized we probably shouldn't focus too much on each other when we were with the kids, because that would make them feel left out.

Nothing's worse than feeling left out.

'Yes,' I responded, nodding, 'they sure are cute. Very cute!'

Dumb and Moody Kid got tiny blushes on their plump little cheeks and fuck if that wasn't the most adorable thing I had seem from them this evening.

I took a quick glimpse to the side and Antonio smiled at me.

I didn't know what else I could do except for sheepishly beam a small smile back, before giving all of my attention to the kids again.

Ahh, this ambiance. I wasn't really familiar with it, but I liked it. I liked this ambiance… yes, I liked it.

\0o0/

'Okay,' Antonio then suddenly said, carefully lifting Dumb Kid out of the tub, 'will you wash the girl, Lovi? Then I'll get the boys dressed.'

…

…

And away the happy, wonderful feeling of bliss was.

'Say what?' I stammered, looking up at him.

Antonio – now pulling Creepy Kid out of the bath a lot less carefully than Dumb Kid, I should scold him for that later – blinked his eyes, before narrowing them, smirking.

'Lovino, don't tell me you're afraid to touch her.'

'I am not afraid to touch her, dammit!' I nagged, although my red face probably told him otherwise. 'I'm just… I don't fucking know what to do! It's a girl! And she's naked!'

'And she's your daughter.' Antonio then chuckled and sounded happy and overjoyed, like he had waited ages to be able to say that. 'Ahh, just wash her, Lovi, she doesn't have cooties or something.'

'I know she doesn't have cooties!'

'Then wash her.' He started drying off the boys.

'Why don't you wash her?'

'Lovi…' Antonio sighed. Then he fired a very sad, puppy-esk look my way.

BOOM, head-shot! It's super effective!

I frowned and pursed my lips. 'Oh no, don't give me that look. Don't give me that… Ugh. Fine. Fine, I'll wash her, dammit.'

Fucking cute son of a bitch.

I stretched out my arms and mechanically pushed the washcloth against Moody Kid's face. She frowned, but allowed it begrudgingly. So I carried on washing her, and that went pretty well, I must say, and then I suddenly noticed she was doing her very best to keep her long and wavy hair out of the water. I saw she had it rough – well, it was pretty thick and heavy-looking hair – so I looked around me, to see if I could find something to help her out.

Then I saw Antonio's butt.

I mean – Antonio, who happened to be right behind me, with his back faced my way.

'Antonio, do you have some kind of… elastic or something?' I asked him, reaching out to smack his butt. 'You know, that girls use to tame their hair?'

'Hmmm?' Antonio turned around, rubbing his butt. 'Why? Are you going to play hairdresser with her? That's so cute!~'

'Wha—NO!' I snapped (although I had to admit I could work some magic on those wonderful locks of brown hair) at him. 'Look at her, dammit, she can't keep her hair out of the water! If you don't have a hairband or something, it'll get wet! And I don't want her to go to sleep with wet hair, because she could catch a cold.'

Antonio listened to me and nodded thoughtfully. 'I might have something… wait a minute.'

He opened a cabin that hang on the wall and, after rummaging about, he pulled out a long, but slightly weathered red ribbon.

'Here you go, you can use this!'

'Thanks,' I said, and bound the girl's hair into a huge bun. While the girl muffled a relieved sigh, I studied the ribbon a bit better.

'This ribbon, it was yours, wasn't it?'

'Yes, when I had still long hair, I used that ribbon all the time.' Antonio chuckled. 'It's no use going to war with your hair dancing all over the place… that's what you always said, remember?'

I blinked. An almost forgotten conversation of the past suddenly bubbled up inside of me.

'Hey, you… you bastard! Don't go fighting! Stay here! They'll kill you!'

'Ah, I'm sorry, Roma, but I have to go. I can't leave the dirty work to my people, you know? I have to fight with them!'

'B-but you'll die!'

'…ah?'

'Um… that is… if you keep your hair like that, dammit! You'll fucking die! Tie it back!'

'But I don't have anything to—'

'Use this, dammit!'

'Ah, Roma! You shouldn't tear up your clothes like that!'

'S-shut up! It's no big deal! Just sit down, asshole, I'll… I'll fucking fix it for you…'

…

I swallowed.

'Y-yes, I remember.'

\0o0/

When I was young, I remember Antonio always went to war with his unruly hair just… fluttering away. I already liked Antonio a whole lot more than I did when I had just met him – I think, in a way, you could say I was already beginning to develop some frail, vulnerable feelings of love for him that could still be confused with father-son –feelings.

I worried about Antonio a lot. I knew he had a hard time and I felt like I was losing him, bit by bit, each and every time he went out to fight… oh, colonies that had started to rebel, disgruntled Spaniards, other people that were angry with him for some reason…

I was losing him. I was losing the only person that, perhaps, could be able to really like me for the person that I was. That's because he always had this bone-chilling, insane look in his eyes when he finally came back. Sure, if you talked into him long enough right after his return, the "old" Antonio came back again, but… that didn't happen all that much. Because the servants weren't always willing to talk to him… and because I was just way too fucking scared of him whenever he had that look. I didn't dare to say anything to him, I just wanted to flee under my bed and hope he'd wake me up the next morning like nothing noteworthy had happened the day before.

Of course, this was fucking cowardly of me. I knew that, and I knew I had to think of another way to make sure Antonio never forgot his true, kinder self – so I tore the red ribbon from my dress and nagged at Antonio – when he was back in his normal state of mind – to at least tie his hair back if he went to war, because what if the enemy would tug his hair?

Antonio had laughed and, from that moment on, he'd always let me tie his hair back before leaving the House to fight some worthless war.

…

Now, I-I didn't know if it was really that helpful. But at least I had the feeling I had done my best to do something useful for him.

After most wars were fought, and lost, Antonio had no other choice but becoming more amiable and mellow. So he cut his hair. When I came visiting him every now and then, he sometimes told me how silly it actually had been, to have long hair while going to war, and I could only nod and mutter yet another mean word to him, because I fucking hated him for making me feel this weird whenever I was with him these days.

France and Prussia complained after he had cut his hair: why would he do that, it was such a waste, he had such nice hair!

Lots of nations agreed with them, but not me. Short hair suited Antonio way better.

Just like mental stability.

\0o0/

'…and you're done,' I heard myself say, and only when I had heard myself say that, I finally realized I had washed and even clothed Moody Kid, all while thinking about the past.

'You're done,' I repeated, for some stupid reason, and furrowed my brows. Dammit, I should pay more attention to dressing her – her nightgown was inside-out!

I considered correcting that, but Antonio, who had apparently seen a bit of my distant gaze during Moody Kid's bath time, gently put a hand on my shoulders and shook his head.

'She's not bothered by it, Lovino. It's okay.'

'Oh,' I said. 'And the boys?'

'They're waiting for us outside the bathroom. Shall we go?'

'Okay.'

And we went.

\0o0/

I think Antonio wanted to talk with me some more about the stuff that was said and thought in the bathroom. I thought that, because Antonio was very eager to put the kids in bed and sashay off with me: he had remade the bed the kids slept in quicker than a speed racer would race. On speed. On the moon.

…

Whatever – he just was… very, very quick! Yeah!

Anyway, of course, I was happy he had become a lot more open about his past, now that we had been together for such a long time, but come on – first things first, or so I told him, and he just needed to wait until I had told the kids a bedtime story.

'Ah, a bedtime story? You're going to tell one of them again?' His eyes became almost as big and sparkly as those of the kids and he nodded obediently. 'Okay! I'll gladly listen to that! You're such a wonderful storyteller, after all!'

'It's not for you,' I pointed out, as I watched him sit down on the chair next to the bed all happily and shit – but just went with the flow in the end anyway, because I felt kind of complimented with his willingness to observe me telling the three demon children a bedtime story.

As soon as it had become quiet in the bedroom, Moody, Creepy and Dumb Kid all looked at me in silent anticipation. Oh, and so did Antonio, who now looked more like their older brother than their parent. It was kind of cute though.

I scraped my throat and sat down on the bed, coughed a few more times – just because I could and because it would make me look like I was one hell of an awesome man, which I was – and began to tell the story.

The wonderful, magical story of the frog prince.

\0o0/

'Okay,' I started. 'Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away from here, there lived a spoiled little bitchy princess.'

Antonio's face instantly fell and he clacked his tongue warningly. 'Lovino…'

I looked at him like "well stop me if you dare", but he didn't dare, so I just continued my awesome story.

'That spoiled little bitchy princess had everything in the world. Everything she wanted – she'd get. That's because her daddy was a rich old king that didn't have anything better to do with his truckloads of gold than to spoil his egoistical little princess rotten with it. He could, you know, have used that gold to help the country he reigned over, or to give it to the poor people, but no – no, the king thought it would be much better to just give his daughter everything her annoying little heart wanted. The king also had another daughter, a sweet little doormat princess, but nobody gave a crap about her anyway, so just ignore her for now.'

The kids all stared at me like I was telling them the shortest route to the nearest candy shop and fuck, I loved it.

'One day, the bitchy princess went to her snoozing dad, woke him up and demanded a golden ball. Why she wanted a golden ball, of all things? Well, that's actually a secret, but I'll tell you anyway – the stupid girl next door had received a silver ball from her parents and just couldn't stop rubbing the thing in the bitchy princess' face. So the bitchy princess at one point just had enough of that shit and went straight to daddy, and of course, she wanted to get something better than a lousy silver ball – hence why the ball had to be golden.'

'Does the story really goes like that?' Antonio carefully asked.

'Yes it does,' I defensively answered.

Antonio frowned, but didn't say anything anymore.

'Anyway,' I continued, 'naturally, the king was more than willing to give the bitchy princess what she wanted – and so, not even ten minutes later, she was running around the big-ass back garden with a beautiful golden ball, throwing it up in the air and catching it when it came down again. You'd expect she probably had a hard time tossing that heavy thing up in the air the entire time, but fear not, for the girl apparently was super strong and could toss all she wanted with it, without getting tired.'

'Ohh,' Dumb Kid said while drooling, mesmerized.

'Yes ohh,' I nodded with a straight face, 'but of course, running around the garden and doing stupid crap with a ball like some sort of insane dipshit just asks for trouble, and then all of a sudden, Murphy's Law attacked, and the ball fell into the big pond. That's right, there was a pond, too. Hell, that king had so much gold, of course he could get himself a smelly pond. He could even get two, if he had wanted to. But he hadn't wanted to.'

I paused, just for the hell of it. It was amusing how much Antonio's face was twisting between "what a great story" and "my god, I should stop him" and "Lovi looks so criminally good, I want to suck his dick later".

…

Ahem.

'The bitchy princess stared at the pond that had just ate her ball and she focused on her hate-beams, hidden inside her eyes – but it was no use, the pond didn't give a fuck if the princess hated it or not. Then she considered crying, because maybe the pond would either feel sorry for her, or just wanted her to shut the hell up and would therefore return the ball. But she wasn't the crying kind of girl. Finally, the girl decided it would be much easier to go back to the king and demand a new golden ball, maybe an even better one, without tiny scratches on it. But then!'

Moody Kid's mouth fell open and she leaned in my direction, just like her brothers did.

'A frog came out of the pond!' I said – needlessly dramatic.

'Ohh,' Dumb Kid said again.

'The frog wasn't an ordinary frog – it could talk! But because the king frequently used the pond to dump weird, radioactive shit in it, the bitchy princess wasn't even surprised to find out it could talk to her and heard him out. Did you know what he told her?'

The three kids shook their heads.

'Please let the frog be normal, please let the frog be normal…' I heard Antonio mutter.

…

Of course not.

I smirked and returned to the story.

'The frog stood up on its rear legs and smiled at the princess all happy and princely and stuff:

"What up, lill' missy? Why the tears, yo? Can I do something for ya?"

He was a streetwise gangster frog, you know. The pond was his hood.'

...

Oh my god, Antonio's face. It was fucking priceless.

Grinning, I continued.

'And the princess was like:

"Well yeah you can do something for me, stinky ugly frog – get me my golden ball back!"

"Sure thing," the frog said, flashing his gang sign, "but ya'll need to give me somethin' in return for it."

"What do you want then?" the princess asked, cautiously. "Money? Gold? My little sister? Because you can have all of them, you know, no problem."

"Naah, ain't want all that shit," the frog said, juggling with his foul grammar. "I want completely other shit. Like, I wanna have yo friendship, girly, And maybe even yo love."

The bitchy princess was like "hell no" but of course, she didn't tell him that. She wanted her ball back, first. So she lied to the frog and repeated that he could get whatever the fuck he want from her.

"Yea?" the frog said, adjusting his little Yankee –cap. "You sure about that, lill' lady? 'Cause I'll need to, y'know, sit next to ya when you're gonna eat yo grub."

"That's fine by me," the princess snorted.

"And eat of yo plate."

"Okay."

"And drink from yo booze."

"I don't drink boo—"

"And I wanna sleep in yo bed, too."

The face of the bitchy princess went pale from disgust. "Ewww, you disgusting creep!"

"It's yo choice, sweet stuff – take it or leave it."

"OKAY THEN," the princess sighed, already regretting her decision, "fine, I'll let you do all of that – just give me my ball back!"

"Best decision of yo thug life. Be back in a flash, doll," the frog promised and winked at her – and dove back into the pond.'

'You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you,' Antonio dryly remarked, when I was thinking about how to fill in the next part of the story.

Luckily, the kids were a lot more fired up about the story. Creepy Kid and Dumb Kid just kept on grinning and chanting 'froggy, froggy!' while Moody Kid turned her head away and made a face like "hmpf like hell I'm enjoying this stupid story". But she made sure to watch me from the corner of her eyes, so she could pay attention again as soon as I'd continue.

Which I did, right now.