Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: I really love the fact that Europe and all of its countries and (capital) cities are unique, thanks to all the different cultures and the people that live in it. Amsterdam is nothing like Madrid. Rome and Copenhagen are two worlds apart. London and Paris only seem to share the fact that both capital cities are insanely expensive for tourists. And even two cities of one country, let's say, Brussels and Antwerp from Belgium, are surprisingly different from one another (for example, there are more Flemish-speaking people in Antwerp than in Brussels, were the majority of the city speaks French).
There are more things I like about living in a continent like Europe, but this probably is the best reason I can think of.
But please, don't assume that I claim to live in the best continent in the world – I'm not, because there's no such thing as a "best" continent. Europe deals with tons of illogical shit every day and you bet it would be a lot more peaceful here if we all stopped whining about every little thing and worked together as a team.
But oh well… I suppose it could have been much worse.

A/n2: Oh! Maybe this is a bit early, but I won't be able to upload a new chapter on May 24. This is because I have a wedding the day before – not mine, haha, you're so funny – and I'm the Maid of Honor (in the Netherlands, we'd say I'm one of the bride's witnesses – getuigen – since we don't really have the same marriage system as they have in countries like England or America).
I do think that being called a Maid of Honor sounds a lot more awesome than being called a witness, though! I mean, witness? That sounds like I've seen things. XDDDDDDD
One problem, though: I've never attended a wedding before, nor have I ever been a Maid of Honor.
…i-is it difficult? ^^;;;

A/n3: Also, on May 10, I have a bachelorette party (never been on one of those before either, I hope it's fun). I'm not sure yet if I can make it to upload a new chapter on that day, so I'll keep you informed about that.

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 45:

I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child.
E.M. Forster
(English novelist, essayist and librettist)

Antonio enthusiastically explained how much fun it would be to go visit Italian and Spanish cities with the kids, and how good it would be for their basic cognitive development (whatever the fuck that was) and their common sense as nations-to-be.

I listened to him and felt something like pride and relief warming me up from the inside.

Well!

It looked like Antonio finally decided to believe my theory about the kids becoming immortal personifications in our place. Because, well, he now was actively doing his very best to find a way to help the children become three responsible, well-informed and full-fledged personifications of our two respectable nations.

I guess my explanation of Hernández and Delgado's minor but important roles into all of this madness did the trick, and I should totally pat myself on the back for that later.

'So anyway, Lovi,' Antonio interrupted my thoughts by practically shoving his face against my own, still grinning ecstatically, like he had found the Flying Dutchman's hidden treasure or something, 'like I asked you before – what kind of city do you have in mind?'

I couldn't help but notice the fact he had totally italic-ed the word "you", so I looked at him, questioning.

'What, so it's up to me to decide which cities we're going to visit? I thought you had worked all of this out, dammit.'

He laughed. 'Of course not, Lovino, I'm not good at organizing and I barely know what cities would be good to visit, since I just don't care!~ But you – you love telling long, impressive stories about cities, and I know you secretly enjoy guiding people around on historical sites. Also, I think it's cute when you're swooning over a building. It reminds me how much you actually know about our countries and talents, and you shouldn't hide that knowledge.'

…

Stroking my ego like a boss, wasn't he.

…

Well it worked.

I coughed a bit, a slight blush on my face as I turned to the kids – just so you know, we were all still having breakfast-lunch – and sternly put my hand on my chin, as if I was thinking very carefully about what we could do. Which I was.

'Hm,' I started, and simultaneously pulled all the knives away from Alejo as a butterfly that had foolishly fluttered through the window caught his eye, 'well, first of all, I think we should visit Madrid. I don't think I've ever decently observed that city before, even though I think it's one of the most awesome cities in Europe. Also we live in Madrid – even though it's a very small, unknown area somewhere in the outskirts of the capital city – so were obliged to visit Madrid.'

'I wanna go to the shea,' Matteo said while destroying his slice of bread with his fork. 'I wreally liek the shea. It's greeny and tastes liek fish, ehehehehehe!'

I thought about it. 'Sure, we could also visit the sea… but we'll do that after sightseeing the cities we need to visit. Is that okay?'

'I think I maked it daed,' Matteo mumbled, frowning as he stared at his plate that was splattered with the horrible remains of his bread, and I decided to conclude that he totally agreed with me, aww, what a fine boy he was.

'Madrid, okay, that's a nice one for starters,' Antonio also beamed, not even blinking when Luisa accidentally tipped over her glass of milk. 'And what's next? Rome?'

I pursed my lips and shook my head. 'Nah, I've already talked about Rome last time.'

'What do you mean, last tim—'

'No, I'm suggesting Venice.'

'Venice!' Antonio's eyed widened. 'I've heard about Venice! Apparently, it's one of the most beautiful cities of Italy!'

'Of the goddamn WORLD, you mean,' I corrected him. 'Shit, Antonio, don't you dare look down on Venice. The entire city is listed as a World Heritage Site, for fuck's sake, so it's definitely worth a whole lot more than each and every single city on this and every other planet.'

Antonio smiled nervously. 'Lovi, I unconditionally love all of you, you know that, but you get disturbingly dark and scary when you're ranting about Italian places.'

'And it's way better than Bruges, too!' I simply continued. 'Fucking Bruges. Okay, it's nice and pretty, but calling it the "Venice of the North"? That's pushing it way too far! Venice of the North my ass!'

Alejo looked at me worriedly. 'Papa, you're butt's a city?'

'Butt-city,' Matteo gaped. 'Ohhhhh…'

'No! You can't have a city for a butt!' Luisa instantly protested. 'It's stinky!'

'Okay okay, Venice it is. I'd like to go there with you and the kids, too,' Antonio quickly said in a desperate attempt to keep the children from visualizing more bad shit (literally), 'and let's see after visiting Venice what city we'll go see next, alright?'

I shrugged. 'Fine by me, I have enough Spanish and Italian cities on my bucket list I'd like to see.'

Antonio didn't like me saying "bucket list" and shot me this half angry, half confused look, so I rapidly babbled on.

'But… but you're right, Antonio – let's just start with Madrid and Venice, then we'll see.'

'R-right,' Antonio murmured, casting his eyes down, 'so, uhm… when should we go? And with what kind of vehicles?'

'Good point.' I nodded and gave the three kids a thoughtful look.

'Hm… I guess we should visit Madrid this week, first. Next week, we could visit Venice. I think it's best if we took the plane to Italy, since I don't feel like driving the whole way with three hysterical minions of Satan ruining our sanity on the backseat. However, if we're going to visit the inner city of Madrid, we should think of other ways of transportation… something creative… something cute… something like… like…'

\0o0/

Like a freight bicycle, or so the vehicle I was trying to think of was called.

…

Okay, let me explain.

A freight bicycle's a bicycle that's especially designed and constructed for transporting all kinds of cargo – like heavy mail packages, loads of groceries, or, well, say, kids. It's a huge, long bike with an open box that's commonly placed between the wheels (well, the steer and the front wheel – that area right there). They apparently come in all kinds of sizes and flashy colors and up to three small children could be transported with these vehicles, and my oh my, what do you know, we happened to have three tiny twerps.

'You see,' I attempted to tell Antonio as I was looking at one of these rentable bicycles online, 'Madrid is a very busy, bumbling city. We live too far from the centre to go there by foot, and I refuse to take the bus while it's this nice weather. And going by car is not-done either, last time we went to Madrid by car it cost us hours to find a decent parking spot, dammit.'

'Hm-hm,' Antonio simply said, frowning heavily.

'You don't like it?' I paused from scrolling through the many options to give Antonio the chance to speak up his mind. I mean, if he really didn't like the idea, he should say so. I'm not one of those bastards that says "my way or the highway" (even though I had automatically started searching for a freight bicycle after I had explained to Antonio what it was).

Antonio scratched his head. 'Oh no, I don't dislike the idea… and it's pretty cool that such a bike comes with seatbelts for the kids and everything… but I just wonder, Lovi – how comes you know about such kid-carrying vehicles? Did someone tell you about them?'

'Well… do you remember that one night in Turkey? When we and the other nations sat around that campfire on the beach and started bragging about all the good things about our countries?'

'How could I possibly forget,' Antonio chuckled, 'at one point we could all hear America yell "FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!" from the bushes – even though he had already fled when we looked. Good thing didn't leave without placing an American flag with his autograph written on it behind, otherwise I'd say we were all hallucinating from doing nothing whole day long.'

I snickered. 'Yes – that's the night alright. Anyway, when we went back to talk about ourselves like the chauvinistic assholes we all could be, the Netherlands—'

'I knew it, I just knew it.'

'Shut up.' I lightly smacked his leg. 'The Netherlands said there wasn't a single country that used bicycles so passionately as his own. Then he claimed there were more than 100 trillion different bikes in use in his country, which is ridiculous and - possibly - total bullshit, and then he mentioned the freight bicycle and how much he was looking forward to drive Liechtenstein and Bas around with that thing. I actually looked it up when we got back from Turkey, and guess what, it actually exists, too.'

'I suppose it's a good transportation vehicle for kids,' Antonio admitted, shrugging. 'Alright then – you can order one. If you think it's safe and fun for the kids, I guess there's no harm in renting one…'

'Exactly,' I grinned, swiftly clicking on a bicycle with a blue frame and white box, 'and it's a good work-out for you, too.'

'…for me?'

'Yes, for you.'

'So I'm going to flail that thing around?'

'Of course – Spaniards are one of the best cyclists on the road when it's about bicycle racing! It's only natural you do it,' I reasoned.

'I didn't know you wanted me to race the kids around,' Antonio dryly remarked. 'and besides, Italians are pretty good at bicycle racing, too.'

'Yes, but Spaniards still won the Tour de France a few more times than Italians, so stop whining and accept your fate, Antonio! Grow some fucking muscles on those… those matchsticks you call legs!'

Antonio firstly wanted to object, but when he noticed I was clutching my fists and gritting my teeth, he closed his half-opened mouth and waited.

'I-I just think it's good for your health,' I grumbled, embarrassed. 'Is… is it wrong of me to want you to take care of your body a bit better, dammit?'

'Okay.' Antonio sighed. 'Okay, Lovi, okay. I get it. I'll do it – I'll drive that… box-thing. But I expect you to take over when it's needed. And you'll ride that thing on the way back, because your skinny spiderlegs could use some exercise as well.'

I laughed and we jokingly shook hands.

'Alright, it's a deal!'

\0o0/

Within a few days, everything that needed to be taken care of for our Awesome Weekend Full Of Madrid had been taken care of, the freight bicycle had arrived and the kids, that never had visited a noteworthy place in Spain before, were jumping through the roof because of the excitement that this weekend was going to bring.

And with excitement, I meant eating icecream – Alejo, Matteo and Luisa thought that visiting cities was equal to eating icecream, partly because that's how Antonio bribed them into making them promise they'd behave themselves.

Anyway.

We packed our belongings and on Saturday morning, we started the day by getting dressed very neatly and tourist-y, and you bet I had the fucking time of my life as I put the kids in the trendiest, sunniest Summer-outfits they had.

I put Matteo and Alejo in cute, short denim overalls with a red and a green T-shirt underneath it, and I gave them a red and a green cap. They looked incredibly cute and fierce at the same time, and I was very happy with the results…

…until Antonio came walking into the room with some laundry and left the room afterwards again while humming a suspiscious theme song.

'Swing your arms, from side to side... come on, it's time to go, do the Mari-!'

…

So the clothes were quickly discarded again and now, I just made the boys wear cool, sporty blue shorts with a funny t-shirt on top of it (Matteo wore a white shirt with a motherfucking princess on it, Alejo wore a red shirt with a cartoony, creepily grinning smiley on it). They didn't want to wear sandals nor caps, so I settled with simple sneakers, which were indeed more comfortable for them.

I had to say they both looked incredibly adorable, especially when they put their sunglasses on as well and Matteo's kept falling off because noses aren't built to wear two pairs of glasses.

'It's okay, you can switch every now and then,' I reassured Matteo, kneeling before him when the poor thing almost started crying when his sunglasses fell off yet again. 'Why don't you wear one pair on your nose, like you're supposed to do, and the other one on your head?'

Matteo's somewhat swollen, sad little face brightened up a bit. 'I can do twhat?'

'Of course you can, kid.' I grinned and gently pinched his cheek. 'You can do whatever you want – as long as you have fun.'

'Hoo'ah!' Matteo instantly was convinced this world was meant to be inhabited by silly, happy creatures like himself, that wore glasses on their heads, and I think that if all people were so simple-minded and honest with themselves, this world indeed would be a world inhabited by silly, happy creatures.

Oh. Ohhhh.

Shit, I should write that one down. That was some philosophical deepness right there.

Anyway, now that Matteo and Alejo had put on nice and durable clothes, I sent them away – 'Go bug your Papa Toni, my thunderous Brat-Brigade!' – I could keep myself busy with Luisa, and the clothes she was going to wear.

Now, I could force Luisa into one of those cute little pink, blue or purple sleeveless, frilly, lace dresses I had bought for her, but I knew that if Luisa didn't want to wear them, she would rain doom and hate on me or so help me God. Luisa wasn't like Matteo and Alejo, after all: the twins took after their Spanish father – they couldn't care less about what they wore.

But Luisa? Luisa actually had an opinion about fashion and the like, and I kept that in the back of my mind as I placed Luisa in front of her cutesy wardrobe.

'Right,' I started as I opened the doors and stood back again, 'we have a mission today, Luisa.'

Luisa looked from the wardrobe to me, and the bored expression she had plastered on her face suddenly changed into a more curious one. I had discovered that the only thing you could do when you wanted something from Luisa, was challenge her. Poke her mind. Wake up her hidden interests. Things like that. So I did.

'You see,' I told her, 'as you know, we're going on a weekend trip to Madrid today. We're going by bike – sort of – and it's going to be perfectly beautiful and untarnished weather the following days. Now is our mission… to find you some clothes you could wear.'

'Uh-huh,' Luisa said, frowning deeply.

'You're free to put on whatever you like, Luisa – but be aware of the fact that we'll be outside a lot today. You should wear something that isn't too hot or bothersome, for it will be annoying. And sweaty.'

'Hmmmmm,' Luisa nodded. I loved the fact she now was actually looking at her clothes like she was a detective searching for clues or something.

'I do have a few suggestions, if I may say so,' I slyly informed her, and I talked like a goddamn butler. Now why did I talk like a goddamn butler?

'Okay,' Luisa said, taking the bait, 'what do you think I should wear, papa?'

I smiled humbly and resisted the urge to moonwalk through the room in celebration. No, instead, I reached for a cute dress in the wardrobe and pulled it out.

'Welll-l-l-l-l-lll… what about this?'

\0o0/

Naturally, because I thought I had won already, dressing Luisa still turned out to be pretty fucking hard.

Luisa didn't like the red dress ('I don't wanna look like Little Red Spaceship-Flying Hood, dammit!' – sorry, I blame my story-telling technique).

Luisa hated the pink-with-white-bubble-patron shirt ('Not always, but I hate it now, dammit!')

Luisa absolutely didn't want to wear the yellow skirt ('Too yellow, dammit!').

Luisa loathed the elegant white one-piece ('Ew – just like Desi!')

And Luisa literally trampled the blue pants with the butterflies stitched onto it ('NO-PANTS-I-DON'T-WANNA-WEAR-PANTS!')

At one point, I got so angry and sick and tired of this, that I wanted to pick the damn wardrobe up and toss it down the stairs – but for starters, I'm not that strong, nor am I that destructive. Also, I'd have to clean up the mess afterwards and that just wasn't my thing.

So I thanked God on my knees that Luisa, eventually, finally, seemed to be content with a soft-green, romantic-styled dress, a pink little vest and a straw hat with a pink ribbon tied onto it. Oh, and silver Mary Janes!

She looked absolutely adorable as she giggled and hopped around in front of the mirror, not at all like the miniature-sized witch that had just rampaged through her entire wardrobe, and when she came standing in front of my headache-troubled person again, she smiled broadly.

'I'll wear this, Papa Lovi!'

'An emotional moment,' I sarcastically said. 'You want me to hang out the flag?'

Luisa didn't catch that and kept grinning. 'Naaah, I'm good. I'm gonna show Papa Toni!'

'Alright. Let's go downstairs.' I got up from the floor and tried to avoid looking at the multicolored mess around us.

Luisa's grin shrunk a bit as she stretched out her arms at me. 'C-carry me, papa.'

I stared at her, her flushed face and her lively green eyes, and I laughed, endeared, before picking her up and pulling her close.

'You're a spoilt little tyke, you know that?'

Luisa huffed, moving her shoulders up and down again and bashfully allowed me to hug her, which made me smile even more.

She was moving forward – she might still be a pain in the ass and she might have a long road ahead of her, but Luisa was steadily moving forward, and she already had made a lot more progress than I could even have made when I was her age.

'I'm proud of you,' I heard myself chuckle. 'You know that?'

Luisa just frowned and blushed.

\0o0/

'Alright – can I get everybody's attention!'

I clapped my hands and gave Alejo, Matteo and Luisa stern looks, what thankfully resulted into them stopping wiggling around in the freight bicycle. Meanwhile, I heard Antonio lock the door of our House behind us, which meant he was going to come this way, meaning he was going to hear my explanation as well if I timed well, so I waited for a bit.

'Right,' I continued as soon as Antonio came standing next to the bicycle-monstrosity with a big, over-excited grin on his face, 'so today, this is what we're going to do: we're going to visit Madrid, a very big, very bustling and very inspirational city. We're not that far away from the touristic spots, but I guess we'll still need to cycle for at least an hour before we'll reach Spain Square – a square in the center of Madrid, where we'll start our cultural adventure. Now I warn you, it's going to be a bumpy ride, because the roads around central Madrid aren't exactly made for bicycles – but screw that, as soon as we're really in Madrid, there are several safe cycling routes we could follow.'

'We'll just cycle slowly, it's perfectly good weather anyway. There's no rush,' Antonio said, smiling even happier as the rays of the warm sun hit his face. 'We'll be fine.'

I nodded, happy to hear he was totally behind me with all of this.

'Now, while Papa Toni rides with you three, I'll cycle next to you. I'll be carrying the luggage and stuff – seriously, just look at my bike, it's bucking already because of all the stupid weight on the rear rack – so I really hope you three will behave.'

Matteo picked his nose, Alejo grinned and Luisa raised an eyebrow.

…

Not very soothing.

'Maybe,' Antonio said, as we took our heavy-loaded vehicles and pushed them to the road further up ahead, 'you should tell them a Madrid-related story while we're making our way!'

Luisa gasped. 'A STORY! YES! Something with KNIGHTS!'

'I hope it's a story with lots of badass fighting!' Alejo said.

'No! GRANDPA'S!' Matteo spoke up his weird mind as well.

'Why not all of that?' I suggested as Antonio and I climbed – yes, climbed – on our bicycles. 'Have I ever told you three about the ingenious gentleman, the one and only… Don Quixote of La Mancha?'