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 17]

"Sir." someone was calling through the door. "You either need to pay for another night or vacate the premises immediately."

Alfred, who'd come to on the hotel floor after the staff member had signaled their presence with a round of vigorous knocking, was too preoccupied with a mental and emotional clusterfuck to care about his impending eviction.

They'd been having a moment. A moment. A brief, wonderful moment where everything had been soft and glowy and perfect.

And then Arthur had gone Spock on his ass.

Why had Arthur gone Spock on his ass? And, after having gone Spock on his ass, why had Arthur taken the time to lay him out on the floor and prop his head up with a pillow before vanishing without so much as a by your leave? Who does that? What did that even mean? Alfred was getting some seriously conflicting signals here.

Was it him? Was it his fault? Had Arthur not liked the kiss? Did Arthur think he was a bad kisser? There had to be less enigmatic ways of telling someone they were bad a tonsil hockey.

Alfred didn't think he was a bad kisser, or at least he'd never gotten any complaints. And he'd certainly enjoyed the kiss.

Ok, that was a lie. He'd replaced that time with the storm trooper and the disco ball and set up his kiss with Arthur as the new milestone against which all future kisses were to be measured.

Whatever the problem with the kiss had been, it certainly hadn't come from Alfred's end. Which meant that it had been Arthur who'd concocted whatever nebulous reason he had to stop the kiss. And then saw fit to follow through by dropping Alfred to the floor. And he had no idea what that reason might be. He'd stopped trying to figure out the inner workings of Arthur's mind a while ago.

Alfred had never really outgrown the fantasy that he might one day acquire superpowers, but he was usually more interested in things like flight or super strength or invulnerability. Never before had he wished so hard for the ability to read thoughts. At least then he'd have a clue as to what was going on.

He was confused. So confused. And a little bit angry. And fed up with all this secret agent BS that Arthur kept pulling. They trusted each other. Arthur had said that he'd trusted Alfred. So why couldn't the man just open his mouth and talk to him like a normal person?

Alfred sat up, still at a loss and only feeling all the more frustrated because of it.

"Sir, you need to-"

"Yeah." Alfred ground out. "I hear you. Let me get my stuff."

Something in his voice, audible even through the door, must have hinted to the hotel employee that this really wasn't the time to be confrontational because they hesitated a moment and then told him he had another fifteen minutes before they retreated down the hall.

Alfred, waiting until the footsteps had vanished to haul himself upright, grimaced as his head did a passable imitation of a hangover. His first thought was to dig out some aspirin, but it turned out it was already waiting for him on the nightstand along with a glass of water and a folded piece of hotel stationary.

Arthur had left him a message. Alfred grabbed it, nearly upending the glass of water, and slowly opened the damp folds. The condensation had made the ink run, but Alfred still got the gist of it.

I can't let you come with me. The note said. It's too dangerous and I care about you too much.

So that was it then. Arthur thought that the mission had become too dangerous and had left Alfred behind for his own good.

Well, fuck Arthur.

He could keep his condescension and his paltry attempt at consolation. If he'd had even a scrap of empathy lurking behind those bushy eyebrows of his he'd understand that Alfred felt exactly the same way. But you didn't see Alfred chaining Arthur to radiators or locking him up for his own good, now did you? You didn't see Alfred dumping Arthur like deadweight when it looked like he wouldn't be useful in the near future, did you?

Alfred calmly ripped the note into infinitesimal pieces, balled his hand into a fist, and then smashed it into the wall hard enough that the lamp toppled off the nightstand onto the floor. His knuckles left indentations in the drywall.

Fine. If Arthur didn't want him around, then there was no reason for him to stay.

Alfred stowed his stuff and stormed out into the parking lot, forgoing the checkout procedure. No hotel employee tried to stop him, not wanting to deal with someone so obviously incensed. As it was, his car took a little bit more abuse, doors slammed so hard they rattled and another dent kicked into its side, before it was roaring down the highway, speed limits be damned.

Good riddance. Arthur'd been nothing but trouble anyway. He'd completely blindsided Alfred's life, left it in shambles really, and he hadn't even had the goddamned common courtesy to give him a proper goodbye. Alfred had given up his time, his car, his future prospects, and for what?

A kiss, some bruises, and a soggy excuse of a note.

People in country songs got better than that.

Well, they'd just see who was going to get the last laugh, now wouldn't they? Alfred was going to go back home. And he was going to get a job. And he was going to get a new apartment. And he was going to get a new car.

And he was going to settle down with someone who wouldn't pick up and leave and abandon him in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Someone who actually cared about his life and his interests and who wouldn't jerk him around for their own benefit. And he was going to be happy. So, so happy. And... And...

And Arthur could go and get himself killed for all he cared.

Arthur could get killed.

He took his foot off the accelerator and let his car drift to a stop on the shoulder, forehead on the steering wheel and faced scrunched in emotional turmoil.

Arthur could get killed. Arthur could get killed because he was a stupid, stupid idiot who had decided to be chivalrous and leave his only ally behind while he charged headlong into danger. Why? Because he cared too much.

Alfred wasn't going back for him. Arthur had made it very clear where he stood and Alfred wasn't going back for someone who, time and time again, had proven unwilling to commit to whatever relationship they had going for them. Alfred absolutely, positively was not going back for him.

Not even if Arthur was totally alone now. Not even if Arthur was going up against a certified lunatic who had minions. Well-armed minions. Minions who would do horrible, painful things to Arthur if they caught him. Minions who would drag him off to their boss. A boss who absolutely hated Arthur. A boss who would gleefully do even worse things to him than the minions.

Arthur was in trouble. Arthur was going to be in deep, deep trouble. Alfred could-

No, dammit. No.

He wasn't going back for him. Arthur had made his choice, and now Alfred had made his. He was going to go home, get away from this whole messed up situation. He was going to get himself a job and an apartment and a car whose sides didn't resemble that of a golf ball. He was going to go back to his normal, quiet life and never think about any of this ever again. He was going to be happy. He was going to be happy without Arthur and the crazy that came with him.

He was-

He was-

He was going back for Arthur, wasn't he?

Stupid hero complex.

Alfred had no idea where to start. Sure, he knew where Arthur'd been headed, but that only got him to Minot. What to do after that was something of a mystery.

As it turned out, there were quite a lot of missile silos in Minot. Like, over a hundred. He'd been given a map by an anti-nuke protestor, each site marked by a helpful little red dot. And somewhere in that forest of little red dots were an international terrorist, his minions, and the secret agent that Alfred happened to have feelings for.

Think. There were hundreds of missile silos, but a missile silo was just a really big tube with a rocket propelled mushroom cloud waiting to happen stored inside. Tino could go for any one of those silos, but then he'd only be in possession of one missile. If he had bigger plans, which Alfred was sure he did, Tino would go to wherever the shiny red button that controlled all of those missiles was. Tino would go for the control center.

Now all Alfred had to do was find it.

The little snag in that plan was that the gated compound housing all those little red dots covered an amount of land that wasn't insignificant and he wasn't even sure where to begin looking. What did a missile control center even look like? Something imposing and obviously military, like a bunker? Or maybe it'd been disguised as something unobtrusive, like a toolshed? Or maybe they'd just decided 'to hell with it' and made it look like a fairytale cottage.

Alfred sat parked next to the seeming endless span of chain-link fence and agonized over what to do. He could just hop the fence, wander out into the compound and hope for the best. But his luck hadn't been the best as of late, and something in his gut told him he didn't have time to go wandering aimlessly. He had to find Arthur soon. But how? How? How? How?

It wasn't like he could just ask somebody for directions to launch control.

'Sure, you hang a left at your third missile silo and keep going until you hit the bright red sign that says this is military property and trespassers will be shot on sight. Can't miss it!'

Anyone who might possibly help him find his way would just think he was insane. And odds were anyone who would believe him and offer assistance would be insane themselves.

Insane...

...

...or Hitler.

The little electronic whack job had indicated that it had targeting information for a large number of key installations, American and otherwise. Maybe one of those targets happened to be what he was looking for. All he'd have to do was boot that sucker up and scroll through until he found a match. It would take a lot less time to find Arthur this way. Then he wouldn't be facing the problem alone, so they'd probably get it done faster. That would also leave less time for Tino to do... whatever it was Tino was scheming. Which, since that scheming involved nukes, was good for all parties involved.

But, on the other hand, he'd have to deal with Hitler again, and who knew if it'd even provide accurate directions.

And there was the nature of his dilemma.

Hope to find it on his own and possibly fail thereby inviting the possibility of a group of terrorists seizing control of a nuclear launch facility and/or the death of his love interest?

Turn on Hitler?

Either way, it felt like the terrorists won.

For all Hitler's failings, they'd certainly made activating target lock quite user friendly. Alfred didn't know whether to appreciate this fact or be disturbed by it. It didn't take more than a quick search and a couple of clicks before he had a set of coordinates selected. Hopefully, it marked an actual location and wasn't just a general 'bomb here' sign.

Wild goose chase or no, Hitler certainly seemed eager to lead him off into the night.

"Turn right in one hundred yards." its warped speakers managed to enunciate.

He had directions. Was he going to follow them?

Was he really going to follow the instructions of a bastardized GPS into a classified government facility which contained not only angry military personnel but terrorist operatives, some of which he'd angered personally? And he was going to do this as it was getting dark? All for a secret agent who'd left him on the floor of a hotel room and bolted?

"Turn right in one hundred yards." Hitler reiterated.

Yes.

Apparently he was.

It'd taken a good twenty minutes of trudging, but he'd eventually made his way to his 'final destination,' as Hitler insisted on calling it. It would have been more dramatic if there'd actually been something there waiting for him.

He was sure he'd gotten the coordinates right, but right now he didn't see squat. No large and official buildings in which to house equipment that could end the world. No squat and imposing bunkers. No unobtrusive toolsheds. And, thankfully, no fairytale cottages. Which meant that Alfred was lost or he was missing something.

"If I were a launch control center, where would I be?" Alfred looked down between his feet. The missile silos were underground, why not the control center?

Alfred shuffled about in the dark, led only by the light of Hitler's screen, and eventually stumbled upon what he'd been looking for. Well, tripped over it is more like. Squatting in the field was what looked like a rectangle of cinderblocks that, on closer inspection, proved to be a vent of some kind. Its cover had been removed and placed on the ground nearby. He was simultaneously overjoyed at the thought that Arthur had been here not long before and unsettled to realize that the vent was big enough for a person to squeeze through. Which meant if Alfred wanted to follow, he'd have to go through that thing.

"Great. Just great. Dying underground was so high up on my to-do list."

Alfred leaned over and looked down into the vent. He didn't really know what he was looking for, but what stared up at him was the proverbial rabbit hole. No bottom in sight and know way of knowing where it would send him tumbling.

"Maybe this will be fun." Alfred consoled himself, already beginning to wriggle his way into the vent.

As it turned out, crawling through air ducts sucked ass. They were dirty, sticky in unexpected places, and the only thing that could possibly be more claustrophobic would be a coffin. And Alfred was trying very, very hard not to think about coffins as he performed an awkward army crawl through almost complete darkness. The silence also got to you, not because it was complete, but because every so often there'd be a bang or a creak that wasn't caused by Alfred shifting his weight or accidentally banging his knees into the sides of the air duct. It was at those times that a lifetime of slasher films and survival horror video games came back to haunt him.

Alfred had taken to talking to himself to keep himself both calm and sane, which, in retrospect, probably didn't bode well for his mental state to begin with.

"I feel no fear." He panted, pulling himself along at a constant pace. "This is me without fear. In an air duct. In an underground facility probably controlled by terrorists. With no weapon. And a top-secret government targeting system named Hitler."

He paused for a moment, then said "Fuck."

Fuck was a good all-purpose swear word. It also made for a great survival mantra, and Alfred repeated it over and over for about the next twenty feet before spotting a light off in the distance. The cover had been removed and carefully set aside in this location as well. He was sweaty and dirty and really wanted out of the vents, but kept still until he was sure he was alone until slipping out into the hallway below.

Against all odds, he managed a graceful landing.

Channeling every stealth game he'd ever played, he sunk into a crouch and began slinking down the hallway, staying close to the walls and alert of noises or movement. He made it to the end undetected and peered around a corner, reveling in his own newfound ninja skills.

Which was approximately when the vent cover fell to the ground with an ungodly clatter that probably could've been heard from space.

Alfred hugged Hitler to his chest and braced himself, back to the wall, waiting for armed men to begin pouring into the hallway. He crouched there, shoulders hunched and eyes closed, and anyone vaguely angry or guard-like failed to materialize. Anyone calm or un-guard-like also failed to materialize.

He cracked one eye open.

Nobody'd heard that?

How had nobody heard that?

Not questioning his luck, he bolted around the corner and down a new stretch of hallway, not bothering to stay as low or as quiet as he had before. If they hadn't heard the vent, they weren't going to hear him. It was more important now to keep moving. Not that he had any idea where he was moving to. He'd run into a couple of doors, but a brief jiggle of their handles had revealed they were locked and he wasn't about to waste time utilizing his nonexistent lock picking skills.

He continued like this for a while until something stopped him short.

It was an unobtrusive door, it didn't even have a plaque with 'JANITOR' or 'SUPPLY' written on it to make it more mundane, but something about it tickled awake the primal, lizard part of his brain. Get away, his instincts murmured. Don't open it. Get away.

Alfred, not bothering to question why the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, skittered around the door and continued on down the hallway. He hit a couple more locked doors and some unlocked ones opened to reveal some cramped offices before he found what he was looking for.

A door with a plaque on it. Specifically, a plaque which read 'CONTROL.'

Oh yeah. That was important.

A tap revealed that it was unlocked and Alfred slowly turned the handle and peered through the crack into the room beyond.

A giant wall of screens greeted him, covered with a series of longitude and latitude coordinates and what he guessed were clocks. Perhaps they were monitoring time zones? He thought he remembered that being important to targeting somehow. Alfred's gaze passed over all the monitors before settling on one of the corners of the room where, looking for all the world like dogs who expected to be beaten, hunched two people.

The man looked shaky, pale, and about four minutes away from losing his marbles. From the way he was dressed, fashionable eyeglasses and a sensible turtleneck tucked into khakis, halfway crazy was probably a new look for him. Behind him, looking scared but more put together than her companion, was a girl of around twelve in a pretty sundress. There was a ribbon in her hair, he noted idly.

Alfred held up his hands as the door swung the rest of the way open, demonstrating a distinct lack of any sort of armament.

"Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You- You're- You- You're not-" He had a thick accent, Alfred couldn't place it, and it was hard to tell if it was a lack of a grasp on the English language or sheer panic that had him scrambling to get the words out.

"With Tino, no."

The man blanched at the mention of Tino's name, and Alfred leaned back a little in case he lost his lunch. The girl said something in what Alfred guessed was German and tugged on the man's shirt in what he supposed was a comforting gesture.

"I- I'm sorry- I- I- It's been sort of-" he made a gesture which Alfred failed to interpret. "Horrible. Horrible lately. Very horrible. I'm Eduard. And this is Lili."

Alfred didn't comment on the sudden change in topic. If anything, introductions seemed to be calming the man down.

"Nice to meet you both, I'm Alfred. You wouldn't happen to be with, you know, would you?" In hindsight, he probably should have established if these were Tino's goons before he'd admitted to not working for the man.

"No." said Eduard. "No, no, no. We were kidnapped. Forced to work for him. He wanted us to make a program. A targeting program."

"I know about this." Alfred realized. "You're the people. The ones on Mathias' list. The ones that had all gone missing."

"Yes, well." Eduard managed a tight sort of smile. "Here we are."

"So where is everyone? Is Tino keeping them here too?" He glanced around the room, as though expecting programmers and scientists to start popping out from under the floor tiles.

"Once the program was complete and he no longer required the services of so many, he... ah, he downsized." Eduard choked out the last word.

downsized

Alfred didn't even have to ask him to clarify to know that everyone on the list, with two exceptions, was dead.

"He kept us - Lili and I - to ensure that there was someone to monitor the final phase, to fix any last bugs that may occur. I don't know why he chose us. There were others. So many others..."

"What about the staff?" he asked, trying to keep Eduard from drifting. "There had to be someone here before Tino took over."

"There were. Tino's men took them away, just down there." he jerked his arm to indicate the hallway Alfred had come from. "Then they downsized them too."

Alfred thought about the unmarked door down the hall and suddenly had to swallow hard.

Lili spoke up, saying something in soft German. Eduard started.

"Oh, yes. Lili wanted to know if you were with him. The other one. The English one."

Alfred perked up, smile spreading across his face. "Arthur? Yeah, he's with me. Or, I'm with him. He's a kick ass secret agent and he's gonna fix everything. Have you seen him?"

"Yes. So have the others. They fought. He lost." Eduard reported, stone-faced. Lili made a sad noise and offered what he guessed was conformation of her own.

"They captured him? Shit!" Alfred ran his fingers through his sweaty, dusty hair. "You two stay here. I'm gonna go get him."

"But-" Eduard immediately protested,

"No. It's- I'll figure something out. Just tell me where they took him."

"That way." Eduard gestured at a door on the other side of the room. "But you can't-"

Alfred was already storming towards the door that'd been indicated. Eduard and Lili rushed after him, trying to bar his way.

"Look. I'll be fine. I've just- I've got to get Arthur. He needs help. I need to help him." Alfred didn't exactly have a plan. He just- He couldn't see Arthur get hurt. Not if he could help. Not even if that help was just providing a distraction.

"There's no time!" Eduard pleaded, barring the door while Lili tugged futilely on Alfred's shirt.

"I know there's no time. That's why I've got to go! Now!" He grunted, trying to pry Eduard off.

"You- You don't understand. The missiles!"

"I know all about the missiles, dude. I know Tino wants to fire them off like firecrackers on the Fourth of July, but I promise you that isn't gonna happen. And just as soon as we rescue Arthur we're gonna take care of that, but for now we need to-"

"You don't understand!" the man shouted, accent thick and ladened with hysteria. "The launch sequence has already begun!"

Alfred froze, and then turned to look once more at the wall full of numbers that were counting slowly, but unceasingly, down to nothing.

[End Chapter]

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