This was intended to be a oneshot. Then it got a bigger plot.
A note on Mathilde and Al's family: They're half-siblings, and Alfred is younger by less than a year. Her father isn't related by blood, and Francis is her cousin on her mother's side.
Also: SO MUCH FLUFF. I kind of love it.
Finally, Russia calls Belarus Natasha, which is the diminutive of Natalya. So she's referred to as either, depending on who's talking.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
At first, Gilbert thought this would be easy. I mean, after all that, how could it not be?
And then the next day was dull and boring.
That didn't do him any good at all.
Especially since he fell asleep in World History, and then forgot his lunch money so he had to immediately start begging for food from Francis and Antonio.
Which lead to the second confrontation with Francis.
"Gilbert, I will not let you make a fool of my little Mathilde." he enunciated.
Antonio piped in, "Wait, what? Who is Mathilde?"
Gilbert sighed, "I found a way to get into Alfred's party."
"Oh! That's—"
"He's taking advantage of my cousin!"
"You have a—?"
"I am not!"
Antonio scratched the back of his head, "Well, Gil—"
"He is! He's just taking her to the party and that's it!" Francis accused.
"Well that's not very…"
"Shh! She might hear you!" Gilbert said, trying to hush then Frenchman.
"Enough."
Antonio does not like to be interrupted.
"Gilbert, why exactly are you asking Francis' cousin out?" He said slowly, and oddly menacingly.
"Because he-!" started Francis.
"Francis. Let Gil answer."
"Because… Yeah, I want to go to the party, but…"
"But…?" prompted the Spaniard.
Gilbert sat back down, "She's also really nice and… and beautiful! Why wouldn't I want to date her?"
Francis looked a bit taken aback for a moment, but then started smiling. "I see."
Antonio added, "All better?"
The "Prussian" hesitantly responded, "Yeah, I think."
"Good, now I can get back to… Look! This chip looks exactly like Miguel Cervantes!"
The next day he found that Francis and Antonio had moved to sit with the Vargas sisters. Francis was cut off from the girls by Antonio, but he likely wouldn't have tried anything with their "Nonno" as the principal. You never knew when he might just show up…
Not that it mattered, since he couldn't sit with the rest of his trio.
And then he realized what they had done, promptly learning that Mathilde sat alone at lunch.
He sat down right in front of her, similar to history except she jumped slightly more.
….and ended up with soda down her jacket.
"I'm sorry! Here, let me help with that…" He said, helping her wipe off her sleeve.
"It's fine, really. This was just a hand-me-down, and I have a sweatshirt in my locker." She insisted, slipping the jacket over her head.
"Umm… Okay, well, I just thought I'd sit here." He said.
And then he realized he had nothing to talk about.
Okay, so he knew not to mention Alfred, or any parties… "So you and Francis are close?" He tried.
This caught her attention, "Umm, yes. I stayed with him a lot when we were younger. He's a lot like a second brother… Ah, you have a brother too, right?" Had Gilbert been any more attentive, he would have noticed she was steering the conversation away from herself.
"Yeah, I used to get Ludwig into so much trouble! I didn't mean to or anything, I mean, he just ran slower."
You see, Gilbert had never been a very attentive person.
But Mathilde was smiling; listening intently as he listed off a few "adventures" he had gone on. Chasing Roderich around, being chased around by Elizaveta, and he was particularly proud of his ingenious (read: awesome) plan for stealing cookies before dinner.
They were so engrossed in the sudden familiarity, lunch was forgotten.
Which turned what would be a fascinating lecture on classical composers (and all their eccentricity) into absolute torture.
Gilbert put his chin on his desk, arms wrapped over his stomach. He was in the middle of an unintentional staring contest with a long-haired cat sitting on the table in the front of the room. The cat was winning, and, as cats often do, didn't really notice.
He glanced at Mathilde to try to give her an apologetic smile—insisting he hadn't actually planned a smile—and found that she wasn't in nearly as bad a situation.
She was eating a granola bar. She was eating a granola bar right in front of the teacher.
A granola bar.
This was one of the times Mathilde was incredibly thankful that no one noticed her.
She caught Gilbert's somewhat pitiful look, and slipped him part of the snack without a second thought. He smiled widely, munching on it gratefully when the teacher's back was turned. After class he got some more junk food to sneak during Chemistry.
Plus a protein bar, with chocolate chips in it because Mathilde couldn't possibly enjoy eating that bland (yet wonderfully satisfying) kind.
Not that he was thinking about her that much.
The next day he knew he would have to make an actual move.
He's never been one for the whole "We were friends for years and it just worked" sort of thing. Yeah, that could happen, but not everyone has to be in the friend-zone before they started going out. Plus, the party was on Tuesday and that didn't give him enough time for all that crap.
…who plans a party on a Tuesday, anyway?
And thus, it was time for some move-making.
He decided to brave the terror that was Ivan to meet her at her locker.
"Oh, hello Gilbert! You are looking slightly less like a street rat today." The Russian said with a smile.
"Yeah yeah, shut up Braginsky." Gilbert said, leaning against the locker.
"Are you here to talk to little Mathilde?" he asked, and Gilbert was pretty sure he was taking way too long getting his books.
Gilbert rolled his eyes, "No, I'm here to talk to Yekaterina." He remembered the Russians older sister had a locker around there somewhere…
"I do not recommend that." The creeper was still smiling…
"Oh yeah? And why not?"
"Because I would hate to stain little Mathilde's locker. She is quite into cleanliness, you know."
And then he walked away, leaving Gilbert wide-eyed staring at nothing.
The threats just always sounded so real.
…and he never stuck around to prove if they were or not.
"…don't look so good."
"Oh, Mathilde!" he said, a bit startled. He hadn't even noticed her walk up. "I'm fine, no big deal!"
She looked at him hesitantly before motioning to get to her locker.
"I just thought I'd grace you with my presence and come say good morning!" He tried.
She smiled, ignoring the more… obnoxious side of that sentence. "Well, good morning."
"Yeah it is!"
"Ah, I'm going to go to class now."
"Okay, well, see you later!"
He slumped against the lockers and resisted the urge to slam his head against it. Instead he just put his hands over his eyes in exasperation.
"Amigo, why you are suddenly bad with women?" Antonio's voice came from next to him.
He punched the locker and spun around to face the Spaniard, gesticulating widely. "I don't know! I just want to ask her out! How hard can that possibly be?"
"Relax, just do something romantic. She'll get the message." Antonio responded.
"Easy for you to say, dating a hot Italian."
"Try telling her any part of that sentence." Antonio said, almost bitterly. "Anyway, it's just Francis' cousin, Alfred's sister."
"No it's not!" He insisted.
"Then who is it?" Antonio asked, for once he seemed to know what was going on.
"It's Mathilde!"
At this, the Spaniard looked almost surprised. He said quietly, "Oh, that's what Francis meant."
"What?"
"Nothing, just know you have my blessing~!"
And so, he made himself ask her out that day.
It just took a while.
As in, he had to chase her down about 30 seconds before she could leave.
We'll go back a bit…
First he tried to just get it over with by asking after first period.
"Ahhh! Someone, just keep her away from me!" a voice said, followed by a long string of Russian curses.
That was never a good sign.
He thought he could dodge the siblings, and had Mathilde in his sights—she was just staying out of the way—but…
"Gilbert! Perfect, Natasha hates you!"
And then a Russian was hiding behind him.
"Hey, stupid… Let go of me!" His eyes widened as Natalya got closer.
"Nyet! Do not make me face her!" said Ivan, terrified.
"Brother, please do not make this so difficult…" Natalya didn't look sound as nice as she probably wanted to.
"Hey, hey there Natalya! You don't want this old lug, do you? I mean, you'd have to hurt the Awesome Me, and…"
"I do not care."
"…of course you don't, but I mean, look at this face."
"It is quite handsome, I know." But she wasn't looking at him…
"No, my face, not… Umm, I mean…" That was not the best thing to correct her on.
After they fled from Natalya into the nearest classroom, he somehow managed to convince Ivan to speak French and wear a sweatshirt with sunglasses for the rest of the day.
So he decided to try again at lunch.
That led to him sitting with his usual group, his head face down on the table.
"I don't know what to doooo…"
"Here's an idea, ask her out." Francis said, picking at his food with a bored look.
Antonio nodded, "Seriously amigo, you need to just get this over with."
He looked up at the Spaniard, but didn't sit up. "Okay, how did you ask Lovina out?"
"Well, one day I just decided we'd been only sort of together for way too long, so I kissed her."
"And that worked?" Gilbert's surprised look was quite justified.
"Of course!"
Francis gave him a disapproving look, "Antonio…"
"Okay, she backhanded me. And I had the scar for months~!" He smiled broadly. "She agreed to go out with me sometime between cleaning the blood off my face and… the next tomato season."
Gilbert groaned and hit his head on the table.
Francis and Antonio exchanged a look, before the Frenchman started, "I'm glad to hear my cousin means that much to you."
This startled Gilbert, "I just want…" He slammed his hands on the table, stood up, and left the lunchroom.
Francis smiled. "Do you know what that means?"
Antonio responded with a questioning look.
"He didn't say he wanted to go to the party."
Next was World History, during which he tried writing a note on a scrap of paper.
Mathilde,
Hey, do you want to go to Al's party with me?
Yeah, that would work. A little old fashioned, but it was a fairly good idea.
He drew a smiley face on it just in case.
He folded it up, hiding it in the palm of his hand. He hoped his palm wasn't sweating enough to smudge the…
No way was he worrying about this.
It was just a tiny slip of paper.
...the bell rang.
"Gilbert, I would like to be your partner for this class."
"Go away, Braginsky."
"I need to work with someone I hate so Natalya won't notice me! She has a study hall this period and I need to hide."
Thus, Gilbert spent the entire time folding and refolding the paper, eyes fixed on the Canadian while Ivan did all the work.
He almost put the note in her locker after every other class that day.
But the next thing he knew, he was grabbing her arm just before she could step off the sidewalk to Alfred's truck.
She was a tad startled, recovering only slightly when she realized who it was.
Then she met his eyes, and there wasn't any sort of spark or anything. They didn't kiss or anything.
In fact, Gilbert just kind of stared open-mouthed for a minute before he pulled her off to the side.
Why was this such a big deal?
"Mathilde, do you want to go to Alfred's party with me?"
Her eyes widened, "Umm…" And then she smiled, "Sure!"
And thus, he succeeded.
Granted, it took him all day, but he definitely succeeded.
