Don't own. Just my OC's.

The curtains rippled in the light breeze coming thought the window. Said window lacked its pane which was lying scattered to thousands of pieces on the rug.

The office' furniture was destroyed. Loose papers, files and thick folders were sprawled everywhere, ripped out or having stepped on by someone who apparently cared little for the annoyances a normal office worker had to go through until he or she had finished so far as the documents in the Russian President's office were normally.

'Ivan?'

The Russian President hesitantly knocked on the massive wooden cabinet standing against the west wall of the room. There was no answer, only a faint sniffle.

'Ivan, you can come out now. She-.' The cabinet flinched, somewhat. 'Err, we're alone, I mean.' The man corrected himself, lamely.

No answer.

'Ivan?' He tried again. 'Davay, you're in there for a whole hour already. The security has locked the building up. It's safe. Please.'

'Mr. President?' Behind him the door had opened, his secretary entered with what looked like a report in hand. From the cabinet came a quiet snivel. He sighed.

'It's only Kovákov, Ivan.'

Still, the embodiment of his state refused to leave his refuge. He shrugged at the man who only handed him the document, ignoring any of the scene's oddities with a placidness that told from past experience.

'Ivan, please this is getting ridiculous.'

There was a moment of silence and just when he wanted to open his mouth to try again, the cabinet door opened with a faint creak, nothing more than a small gap and he could see one of Ivan's eyes scan him and then the room for any threats. After another long moment, it opened fully and Ivan looked at him, dejected and somewhat tired.

'...Vocation.' He whispered hoarsely, eventually, after giving the room and him a long, solemn glance.

'What?' He said blankly and more than a bit worried about his dishelmed state.

'I'm going on a vocation.' Ivan repeated, still in that low tone. 'I've got enough. This whole thing's not gonna work anyway, tell 'em that.'

And he could only watch numbly as Russia limped past him, sporting a horribly gash on the side from when he again refused to comply with his little sister's 'affections'. He sighed.

What was he deceiving himself, the other was right. Maybe it really was for the best. And what could another couple of square kilometers of dense forest bring them, in the end? They had more than enough of that already.

'OMG FINALLY!'

The window rattled but he couldn't care less, they were gone. Away. Not here anymore.

'Gone, gone, gone∼' he chanted happily, relishing in the wisdom of having a whole month of sweet pest-free freedom.

Yay.

After a little joy-dance he flopped down on the sofa, beat-dead. Finally, the last of the bunch had boarded their planes and went home. HOME.

The door opened, making him freeze for a second until Tony peeked his grey head in.

'...'

He rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, I took my pills.'

'...'

'No, they're strong enough, Tony, really. Why don't you go and clone me some more targe- err, kittens, mhm?' He let his head drop back onto the couch pillows with a sigh. 'Just le'me sleep...'

Well, now he was here. The Windy City. Grey, big, loud. He looked around, scanning the bustling streets, not sure in which direction he should go. But, did it matter that much, he asked himself absently, he would find the train station, eventually. And until then, why not looking around for a bit? He had only been one time to Chicago before, after all.

Strange that he didn't feel out of place here, like everywhere outside of his borders, he thought while watching the cars drive past the group of passers-by he stood with, waiting for the traffic to change to green so they could cross the street and go on with their lives. His messenger bag was a bit heavy now, after half an hour walking from the airport buss' last stop to the tourist information, then back to the station to find he'd have to use the underground would he want to reach his hotel any time soon.

The people around him started to move so he did too, across the black asphalt to the other side and then… He needed to round that corner - there was a zoo - and the following highway down until the second crossroad and then across the square. There would be that antique Iron Gate, and passing it there would be a set of stairs that would lead him down into the underground, to the station he had searched for.

He blinked, a bit disordered.

Why did he know this? He'd never gone that way before, never walked these streets. But it wasn't just that route, the entire city laid before him, every corner, every house, tree, human…

He stopped dead, barely registering the startled out-cry from the person which had walked behind him. The woman stomped past him, cursing. He didn't even hear her for he'd realized in that very moment it wasn't just Chicago he'd found in his outer-mind, it was…

What did his boss do?

'Is Russia here?'

'What?' He echoed, bewildered.

'Russia. Has he arrived at your place?' His President repeated; the voice squeaky through the receiver.

'At my place.' He said, with growing foreboding. 'No. Why are you asking me that?' He heard his boss exhaling, that kind of exhale someone usually used to flay for time before saying something like 'Your son has been confirmed KIA'.

'Well, Alfred...' His boss cleared his throat. It was worse than he'd thought. 'Apparently, Russia has arrived at the General Mitchel airport yesterday and...'

'And why did he arrive at Mitchel Field, boss?' He interrupted toneless. Somewhere was a loud and snapping noise but at the moment he couldn't care less. It hadn't even been a week.

'He's on the ru- err, vocation. Right. He's on a 'vocation', Alfred.'

'Vocation.' He brought out, while trying to hold the helpless giggle at by. It was too much. 'Can you wait there a sec', boss? I'll be right back.' Without waiting for a reply he hid the end-button. He stared ahead at the wall. His limps felt as if they'd weight tons. The house was so... dreary all of sudden.

Where did the sun go? Where was his sunshine? The joy in his life?

A quiet sniffle escaped him. It just wasn't fair. After all that crazy shit during the last days and now, he couldn't even have a single week in peace.

A pair of three-toed feet tapped through his grey vision of despair and Tony padded him on the back where he rolled up on the corridor's floor. That was it.

'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO∼'

10 Minutes and a corridor's worth of furniture later...

'Boss?'

'Yeah, Alfred?'

'Why is Russia on the run?'

There was a pregnant pause. And he braced himself for the worst. 'There was an incident...at the Bely dome, my colleague didn't elaborate that topic but-' His boss interrupted himself, searching for words. 'It had something to do with ...her.' The room was chilly all of sudden.

'And that means essential what?' He said, doing his very best to hold his voice even while he spoke.

'The Russian President requested asylum until the problem is taken care of.'

Did he remembered to lock the doors when he'd come back from the grocery's before, a part of his mind wondered. The rest was busy producing an adequate response that didn't involve hysterical screaming.

'How long is 'until the problem is taken care of'?'

'That's not decided as for yet.'

Translation: His suffering would last until doomsday. 'Aha. And what did you say?'

'...I can't just say 'no', Alfred.' His boss replied, exasperated. 'They allowed you to stay out the radar after that whole JFK fiasco, remember?'

'That wasn't my idea! I sure as fuck didn't want to make 'vocation' in Siberia!' He replied hotly. He should've known that issue would stab him in the back one day.

'Regardless, they did us a favor back then.' His boss said. 'We ought to return it anyway.' He opened the mouth, closed it again when he didn't found a sufficient counter argument to argue against that fact.

'Alfred?'

'Yeah?' He groaned. It was over.

His break.

was.

over.

Over and out.

'Is there any special reason why you're so against it?' He paused, not sure what to answer, either with a truthful 'I'M DOOMED' or a merry 'no reasons, boss'. However, something stirred at the back of his mind and shoved that decision as far away as Madagascar. Asylum.

...

WAIT.

JUST A SECOND THERE.

For a moment he couldn't progress the conclusion which that word implied. He didn't want to believe what he'd just heard from his boss' mouth. No, it had to be a mistake. All just his imagination.

'Boss?' He asked, carefully. 'Did you really grant Russia asylum? Here, on US ground? Not just a figure of speech? You really want to say he's here, not in his embassy?'

'I said that, Yeah. Why?'

'And the formalities are already finished?'

'Yeah?'

The nervous twitch under his left eye had started again. He exhaled before speaking his next sentence.

'You granted Russia asylum. Asylum, boss.' There was a moment of silence. 'Please tell me it isn't like I thing it is.' He could nearly hear the infamous click when it finally registered.

'Oh God.'

And then there was only the beep* in the line since the President had peppered the receiver on the hook, probably to rush to the constitution to look up the exact wording of that particular law. Or maybe, if he dared hope, did the right thing and phoned the USCIC to safe what could still be rescued. And he, here in the solitude of his home, slowly sunk down to the floor.

'...'

'You're right, Tony. Of course, you'd know best.' He muttered, closing his hands around the new and improved calmative the embodiment of his Immigrants from outer space passed him. 'They weren't strong enough.'

The phone rung into the prodding silence of his home. He looked up from his bottle, slowly. Tony perched above him on the arm chair he was leaning against and was reading a book about the botanic of the Easter isles. He never fully registered how shrill the sound was to the ears - he should change that someday. It rung again and it really went on his nerves so he reached up to the chest of drawers, feeling blindly for the receiver. Tony craned his neck after the display, mildly interested.

'...'

So his boss had eventually decided to inform him of the end of his live in freedom. Just peachy. He picked the thing up, treading the following conversation as much as he did the next Conference.

'It's over, right?'

'That dependents on how you see it.' His boss said, cautiously.

'And how do I see it?'

A disheartened sigh was heard from the other end. 'Only five years from now on. And pray that nobody gets wind of it.'

'It's over.' He deadpanned. Where was the Whiskey?

America was lying on the floor, leaned against the wall in a very good impression of a potato sack and didn't look up when he entered. The front door had been locked, heavily, as were the rest of the house's security measurements. But it possessed no problem for him, as 'finding' the man in whole US had been.

(The Thing.)

He sighed. A mere thought, and he was where he wanted to be, everywhere within his borders. And now here, too.

'America.' His voice echoed in the corridor. Weird, it didn't appear as if it was built to allow voices to carry. The form on the floor didn't stir. 'America?'

He stepped near, carefully; it did not seem such a nice* place to fall asleep to him, he thought a tad amused. Slowly, the other raised his head and he let out a sigh, at least the man wasn't in some sort of coma, but then he found America's eyes to be kind of glassy, and unfocused. He wasn't even looking at him, but trough him, he realized. And then the stench hid him. Whiskey.

'America?' He tried again, leaning down to touch the man's shoulder. America blinked owlishly at him as if just realizing that he was in fact standing in front of him and he for his part realized with a start – the man was totally pissed.

'… …Russha?'

'Da?'

'Thre's 'phone.' America waved tiredly at the chest of drawers standing on the side. 'Guess yer'now your' boss 'umber.' And with that, the other struggled to his feet and staggered past him.

Brushing him off.

'Where are you going?' He heard himself ask the swaying form stumbling down the corridor.

'Bed; I wanna sleep.' America slurred back to him before somehow managing to round the corner without falling flat on his nose. He stood there a moment longer, unmoving, and listened to the sounds the other made on his quest towards his bed room. Then he picked the receiver up.

He found the house abandoned when he woke the next morning.

Seeing as America had effectively knocked himself out, he'd took that as an invitation to the guest room for the night. Without thinking about what he found out during the phone call before. It was a bit much to progress, he'd thought. But now, upon seeing the vacant rooms he stood in now that he'd had nothing to distract himself it crashed down on him.

Enough that he sat here, at the table in America's kitchen, with several empty bottles standing in front of him. His President had literally revoked his citizenship. And the worst path, it wasn't even intentional.

It wasn't a surprise that America made a run for it. Still, what was he supposed to do now - go back home? Certainly the easiest way - if it wasn't for the fact that embodiments couldn't just leave. At least not for long.

And sure as hell not for a whole year straight.

He took another gulp, barely registering the taste of his favorite poison. Well, there wasn't really anything he could do, he decided. He would simply wait. With that in mind he made his way to the living room, only to find - why was there a hole in the floor? Another point America would have to explain to him - but maybe he should apologize. There really was an alien living here.

'...'

And it really could speak. Sort of. 'Err, America called you Tony, was it?' He said, hesitantly. 'привет.'

'...' Tony nodded to him before vanishing deeper into the house.

'...What's Canada?' He asked himself, wondering if maybe the alien was a bit weird and that's why America never introduced them in person. Driveling about Countries which didn't even exist, honestly. He shook his head.

But apropos America; where was the man anyway? Somehow he didn't get the feeling he would be able to find him at the moment. Was he outside of his borders?

Hours later, it was still the same picture. So he waited. One day, another one. The house sadly fell victim to his boredom, as did the yard around it. But that wasn't his fault, he thought sullen. And it wasn't as if he'd break anything.

He just cleaned it that was all.

But after another day, he had enough. What was he doing here anyway, sitting around and watching the news - doing nothing in the end? He stood up from the couch. Right, now that he thought about it; why not paying a certain someone a visit?

Well ...