Thank you to RebekahTPE for requesting the numbers and for the genre that she requested!
It had been on a whim when Holy Roman Empire shown up on North American shores, but finding a small child there did manage to stop him in his tracks: the kid was smaller than Holy Rome ever remembered being.
The child was all starry eyes and laughter, and Holy Rome wondered if that was okay, whether it was okay to take a step away from anywhere that he should be, to step up and be the kind of parent that the kid needed.
Holy Rome wasn't quite old enough to be a parent, not even sixteen years of age if you looked at him closely, but nations never needed to be perfect, just a touch of something almost fantastical.
He reached out to pull the child into his arms without stopping to consider that parenthood meant changing diapers, balancing long distances, and somehow cooking a decent meal when usually Hungary or Austria cooked back home; Italy loved to step into the kitchen and cook though it nearly gave him a heart attack whenever he saw her small hands flittering about over the stove.
Parenthood wasn't going to be easy, but Holy Rome figured that it wouldn't be that big of a deal to be a parent now, "Just call me, Vater Holy Rome." His smile could have charmed the hearts of mothers everywhere, making them feel like cooing over how adorable of a child he was, even though Holy Rome was attempting to become a proper parent.
"America, down, away from the stove now!" Holy Rome couldn't help that his voice rose as high as Austria's did whenever he caught someone else messing with his piano.
"But, I'm hungry, and I cook all the time when you're not home." Alfred pouting, small two year old like body radiating childhood innocence, "And I wanted to cook the food that you cook the way you do."
"Okay, okay." Holy Rome blamed Italy for why he stepped forward to teach America some traditional, old recipes that Holy Rome was just learning how to make properly, "Just don't scare me like that, alright?"
"I didn't know that you were home, Vater Holy Rome," America glanced up at him with a gentle smile, and Holy Rome realized not for the first time that the child kind of looked like him though the shade of blond hair was off, just a bit darker than Holy Rome's, and he had the same kind of blue eyes set into a small, adorable face.
"May be we'll work on something a little easier to say, a little more casual." Holy Rome spoke easily enough, eager to teach the kid something more, especially as he worried about the wave of Protestantism that was currently running through his country, trying to weaken the hold of the past on his life. "How about Vati Holy Rome?" It was a say of how much this child affected him that he actually was looking forward to the more casual name that he'd suggested.
"Vati Holy Rome, can you show me how to that thing you do like this?" America attempted a wild looking gesture, and Holy Rome bit back the beginning of a laugh, both feeling too young and perhaps too old in a single moment.
"Here." He leaned over to help his 'son,' a boy that he considered his own, figure out how to cook; may be some day, he'll teach him the pastas that Feli can't stop cooking.