Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

Warnings: Slash, AU, swearing, sub-par writing, wonky plots, appallingly slow updates, and Hitler jokes.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Unbeta'd.

[Chapter 16]

Alfred didn't know what time of the morning it was. At the moment he didn't really care. He was too busy staring dumbfounded at his jury rigged combination of the laptop and Hitler's remains. All he'd wanted to do was cobble together something that would let him take a peek at whatever code might have been swimming about in Hitler's black box. He just wanted to get some idea of what it was supposed to do. He hadn't intended this.

Intentional or not, the end result could not be denied. Alfred appeared to have a working satellite targeting system perched on his bedspread inquiring as to whether he would like to input his own coordinates or search through a list of previously entered targeting information.

In the back of his mind Alfred supposed that some coding must have corrupted because there was no way someone should just be able to plug Hitler into a laptop and have immediate access to such impressive military hardware. That kind of stuff should at least be password protected.

The remainder of his dumbfounded mind, the part that wasn't disappointed at the apparent failure of military cyber security, was trying to put two and two together and the only sum it could come up with was "Holy Fuck."

Holy fuck. If he had access codes to missile launch sites he could blow up the whole goddamned world right now.

Holy fuck. His GPS had been a piece of military hardware this whole time.

Holy fuck. Hitler really did exist for the sole purpose of destroying the free world.

Alfred lethargically closed the laptop lid and then opened it again, hoping beyond hope that the entry screen would simply not be there when he did. Sadly, the unassuming question remained, waiting for him to select a location to rain devastation upon. If this was a hallucination, it was a persistent one.

A moment's pause, then the bizarre game of peek-a-boo was repeated. Nope. Still there.

Holy fuck.

Alfred closed the laptop again, dropped his face into his hands, and tried to remember how to breathe. He was more than a little out of his depth right now. If being kidnapped by a wrongfully accused British secret agent had been out of his comfort zone, then this way, way, way beyond him. This was... This was... This was...

Holy fuck.

Was Arthur kidnapping him even a coincidence? A top secret targeting system goes missing and the person responsible for its disappearance just happens to wind up in the same car as the unlucky sod who'd bought it in an online auction? Not even gambling addicts would take those odds. But surely if Arthur had known he would have said something or tried to take it from Alfred?

At the very least, if Arthur had known this whole time he wouldn't have shot the darn thing. Alfred was sketchy on standard spec ops procedures, but he was fairly certain that you couldn't just shoot government property, especially government property with the price tag that he suspected Hitler had, just because it annoyed you.

Or maybe they could. He had to admit, at this point that theory seemed more likely than their whole adventure together being one big cosmic coincidence.

Holy fuck. There was not enough caffeine in his system for him to deal with this right now. Was drowning yourself in coffee the appropriate response to discovering you possessed something that would bump you up about a million places on the FBI's most wanted list?

Holy fuck. Would the government even believe him if he tried to return it?

'No, I'm not a terrorist. My GPS -who I named Hitler by the way, funny story- just happened to be a possible weapon of mass destruction. So, can I mail it back to you for a refund, or what?'

Yeah, that would totally go over well.

Freak out having reached new heights, Alfred heaved himself off the bed and began a regimen of furious pacing interspersed with moves from some forgotten native dance.

Ok, so, going straight to the government was a Bad Idea and the police would just think he was crazy. Which left Arthur. Arthur would know what to do, Arthur always seemed to know what to do. Arthur could most definitely fix the crazy.

Unless Arthur had known about this all along. In which case, why hadn't he done anything about it before now?

And now he was just thinking himself in circles.

Warning. Thought processes have no terminating condition. Infinite loop likely. Abort. Abort.

Ok, Alfred, deep breaths.

Step one: Calm down. There's nothing you can do about the program short of deleting it, and that would make the hypothetical shadowy government agents even angrier with you. Take a chill pill. Don't do anything rash.

Step two: Get Arthur. If he already knows about this, confront him. If he doesn't, this wasn't a development that could afford to escape his notice.

Step three: ?

Ok, so his plan consisted of foisting the crisis onto Arthur, but it wasn't like he was ditching him or anything. Alfred would help in any capacity he could and would do his darnedest even if it was beyond him. He was just letting Arthur make the executive decisions.

And he'd sounded so much less like a dithering housewife in his head...

The door blew open with a distinct lack of the knock Arthur and he had taken to using as of late, and Alfred's newfound survival instincts kicked in and he was on the floor on his stomach with his arms wrapped around his head before he could really process anything. As it turned out, he needn't have worried. Arthur was back and, if the excited gleam in his eyes was anything to go by, something serious had gone down while he was out. Alfred allowed himself one moment to feel self-conscious about how he looked sprawled on the floor with wrinkled clothes, ruffled hair, and eyes baggy and bloodshot with lack of sleep. Then it was time for righteous indignation.

"Dude! Knock! We both agreed the knocking is very important-"

"I found him."

Him? Him who? Wait, Arthur didn't mean...! Alfred peeled his arms from the panicked death grip they'd had on his skull and sat bolt upright.

"Tino? You know where he is?"

Arthur faltered for a moment and shook his head. "No, but I know where he will be. He's headed towards North Dakota."

"So he's trying to cross the border into Canada?"

Shit. If Tino made it over the border, they wouldn't be able to follow. At least, not legally. Alfred didn't really want to get in trouble with the authorities of two separate countries, but if illegally crossing the border would keep Tino from enacting whatever plans he had brewing he supposed it was worth it. He was already in possession of stolen government property, what was a run in with border patrol?

"Canada has nothing to do with this." Arthur corrected, completely derailing Alfred's train of thought. "He's going to North Dakota."

"Why would he want to go there?" Fleeing across the border was something Alfred could understand. Fleeing to North Dakota didn't make much sense unless Tino was trying to throw them off the trail and, although Alfred's interactions with the man had been understandably limited, that didn't seem to be what Tino wanted. If anything, their foolhardy pursuit of the criminal only seemed to make it easier for him to try and kill them.

"Think. What's in North Dakota that an international terrorist would want?"

Alfred thought long and hard and failed to come up with anything. As far as he was concerned, North Dakota was like a vestigial limb. It was there, but it didn't seem to serve any purpose but to be very cold and keep the number of states at an even fifty. At least this all seemed to be making sense to Arthur.

"I've got nothing." he admitted after a time.

"Missile silos, Alfred. North Dakota has missile silos."

"That's bad." There wasn't much more you could say to that. What could you say when you learned a terrorist was going for the big guns? At least things couldn't get much worse.

"Nuclear missile silos." Arthur continued, and he really had no right to say something which filled Alfred with such dread in such a cheerful tone.

"And that's really bad. Please tell me you're joking." Alfred stood corrected on the bad news front.

"I wouldn't joke. Not about something like this. Not when it's the first bit of good news we've had in a while."

"In what world is that good news?"

"It's good news because now we know exactly where he's going." Arthur took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it about half a dozen times to reveal a map which he spread across the bedspread. Alfred stood up to take a look. Near the upper edge of the state, a name had been circled. Arthur jabbed at the spot with something like triumph.

"Minot, North Dakota, and its surrounding areas are home to a large quantity of silos housing intercontinental ballistic missiles. And I have it on good authority that Minot is exactly where Tino is headed. Alfred, do you know what this means?"

"We're gonna head him off at the pass." Alfred answered with utmost surety.

Arthur actually laughed, made giddy by the first glimmer of hope they'd had in a while. For so long they'd been blindly chasing and being chased, and now, suddenly, they had a destination. Arthur seemed more alive than he had in weeks and, in one impulsive movement, he grabbed Alfred's hands and began to swing them round in circles.

"Yes." he crowed as they spun. "We're going to head him off at the pass. And then we're going to... we're going to..."

"Hog tie him and drag him back to face justice." Alfred joined in, smile growing on his face. Arthur's sudden cheer was proving to be infectious.

"And then we'll celebrate. I think this calls for alcohol. Lots of it."

Alfred laughed as well. "As long as you're buying."

"After what we've been through, I'll buy out the whole bar. We deserve it." Arthur's expression softened. "You deserve it."

The spinning stopped and Alfred was dizzy for entirely unrelated reasons. They were still holding hands and Arthur was so close and so warm and Alfred just wanted to pull him close and drink in the happiness that was rolling off him. He wanted Arthur to always be this happy. Wanted Arthur to always have that small smile and those eyes lit up greener than grass on a summer afternoon and the slight blush that bloomed across his cheeks.

He didn't want to stop this moment for anything. Not for food. Not for sleep.

Not for a laptop that was currently targeting system.

Darn it.

He'd forgotten about that.

"I need to tell you something." Alfred breathed, every part of him wanting to keep quiet but knowing he needed to speak up.

"I need to tell you something, too." Arthur breathed back.

"Umm... I don't really know how to begin. You even have moments where something happens and at the time you just don't even give it a second thought, but then you look back on it and suddenly everything changes? Well, while you were gone, I was looking over some things and I didn't know then, but I've realized something, and- I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"Alfred, I- I know what you mean." Arthur whispered and it seemed hard for him to meet Alfred's eyes.

"You knew, all this time?"

So, Arthur had known about Hitler. But why hadn't he done anything? Why hadn't he said anything?

"It took me a while to realize, and I almost didn't want to believe it at first, -it just seemed so unlikely- but I eventually realized that ignoring it wasn't going to make it go away. I wanted to say something sooner, but there was never any good way to bring it up."

"I know how you feel." Alfred had thought hard about it before Arthur came back, but there really weren't any good segues into 'Hey, my GPS is a targeting system.'

"I guess I might as well tell you everything now." he drew a deep breath. "I- I-"

Alfred gently squeezed the hand still in his grasp to let Arthur know that he wasn't mad at him for keeping this a secret. It was ok. Arthur kept a lot of secrets, it was part of his job, and Alfred was just glad that Arthur trusted him enough to tell him things. Even if he didn't tell him right away.

"I-" Arthur shut his eyes and forced himself to continue. "I find you incredibly attractive."

...

...

...

Oh.

Well.

That wasn't where Alfred had been going with this at all. Not that he necessarily had a problem with this recent development, but-

"And I realize" Arthur continued "that this probably isn't the best time to be doing this, but I just- I couldn't not say anything. Not now. Not after all we've been through. Not when-" That blush was so bright it could be seen from space. "Not when I know you like me back."

Arthur's face tilted up and Alfred leaned down and this really couldn't be happening. Alfred hovered there, just beyond the touch of Arthur's nose, and waited for something, anything, to go wrong. Tino's goons to bust through the door. The police to show up. An alien invasion. Somebody yelling 'fire.' An escaped gorilla. Anything.

"Alfred-" Arthur murmured.

Tino could have set off all those missiles right then and Alfred wouldn't have given a damn.

Nothing mattered anymore besides the feel of Arthur's lips pressed against his own.

Alfred wanted to stay like this, with Arthur pressed close to him and their arms wrapped around each other and the euphoric crush of their mouths slowly giving way to something deeper. Alfred wanted to stay cocooned in the moment forever, but Arthur was gently pushing him back, breaking the connection between them.

Alfred figured he should say something, but there didn't seem to be words for this moment. He settled for grinning like an idiot.

Arthur smiled back but it was heartbreakingly sad, especially compared to how he'd smiled just a moment ago.

"I'm sorry." he lamented.

Alfred wanted to ask for what, because Arthur had just rocked his world and he didn't see any reason to apologize for that. He never got the chance, because just then the hand resting on his shoulder performed the real world equivalent of the Vulcan Neck Pinch.

He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

[End Chapter]

Sigh. Arthur, I didn't make Alfred more emotionally aware just so you could become constipated in the romance department.

I'd say 'surprise' about the Hitler reveal, but you guys had it pegged from about the third chapter on. I need to be more subtle with my McGuffins.

Also, I feel like I should apologize to anyone living in North Dakota. Sorry for slandering your state.

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