Ashl3y!

Ivan had watched the boy from the frozen edges of awareness long before the ink on any declaration had time to dry.

Alfred was young, dangerously so for a fully formed nation, just barely stepping into the world on legs still shaky from war. Yet there was something magnetic about the way he charged into his first international diplomatic meeting, cheeks flushed pink with excitement, blue eyes blazing like the summer sky over his vast plains.

His smile was wide, determined, almost blinding. He spoke too loudly, gestured too boldly, and pushed his ideas with the raw, unfiltered enthusiasm of someone who still believed the world could be made better if only people listened. No one took him seriously.

England scoffed, face red with embarrassment. Spain offered a patronizing smile. Even France, his closest ally at the time, tilted his head with fond exasperation.

"Mon petit, you are adorable when you dream, but the world is not a tavern brawl you can win with loud words and good intentions."

After the formal talks dissolved into polite murmurs and clinking glasses, Alfred refused to retreat. He bounced from delegate to delegate, grin never quite fading, eagerly suggesting they continue negotiations over simple food somewhere outside the stuffy halls.

Rejections landed like soft slaps.

France waved him off, irritation leaking through his tone. "Perhaps another time. I have... other engagements."

England didn't even glance up. "Grow up first, boy."

The others dismissed him with polite smiles that never reached their eyes.

Ivan watched from the edges of the room, arms crossed, a faint smile playing on his lips. The poor fool. So painfully, wonderfully human in all the best and worst ways: loud, hopeful, and desperate to belong.

It was entertaining. And strangely beautiful.

Something dark and sweet uncoiled in his chest as he watched the light in those blue eyes dim, shoulders slumping just a fraction at each rejection.

When Alfred stood alone, Ivan finally stepped forward.

"You look like you could use some company, little one," he said, voice low and calm, carrying the faint accent of endless winters.

Alfred's face lit up again, that smile returning with such force it could have outshined the sun. Warmth radiated from him, bright and deadly. Ivan felt it like a spark against dry tinder. He couldn't wait to crush him. Couldn't wait to watch that radiant smile shatter into a million broken pieces beneath his hands.

But Alfred grew stronger faster than Ivan had anticipated.

Maybe it was youth. Maybe it was that ferocious need to prove he belonged among the ancient. Whatever the reason, every time their paths crossed, at conferences, border talks, or chance encounters, Alfred would spot him from across the room and beam that devastating grin.

"Ivan! Hey, big guy! Come over here!" he'd call, waving enthusiastically before launching into an endless stream of conversation about his railroads, his inventions, his dreams of freedom and opportunity for everyone.

Ivan would nod, half listening, while his mind wandered darker paths. He imagined those calloused, tanned hands pinned beneath his own, how it would feel splitting under his grip as he broke bones one by one. Picturing the way those bright blue eyes would fill with tears, that plump lower lip bitten bloody and trembling as Alfred begged for mercy he would never give.

Then Alfred would say something particularly earnest, “Don't you think the world could be better if we all just gave everyone a fair shot?"

"Da," Ivan would murmur, forcing his focus. "Your dreams are... interesting. Very American."

He almost smiled, genuinely, when news of the Civil War reached the frozen heart of his empire. Grief would suit the boy, tearing the young nation apart from the inside. It would soften those sharp edges, make him smaller, more breakable. Ivan arrived at their next quiet meeting with unusual anticipation, scarf wrapped high, snow still clinging to his boots.

Alfred looked lost.

Shoulders hitched, eyes distant and hollow, the usual boundless energy replaced by a quiet, trembling fragility that made him look unbearably human. When Alfred spotted him, he didn't wave or shout. He simply crossed the space between them and all but collapsed into Ivan's chest, arms wrapping around him in a crushing embrace. His skin was fever-warm, seeping through Ivan's thick coat like sunlight through frost.

"I thought winning meant we'd all just... get along. Why does it hurt so much?"

Ivan stood frozen for a long moment. Then, almost against his will, one large hand rose to rest on the back of Alfred's head, fingers threading gently through soft hair.

"Shh, little sunflower. Breathe. The pain passes. Even for ones like us."

Alfred clung tighter, face buried against Ivan's shoulder, and for the first time, Ivan felt something dangerously close to tenderness crack through the ice.

"Don't let go yet, okay? Just... stay."

After the second great war, everything shifted.

Alfred had seized the power he had lusted after for decades. He moved through the halls of victory with a new confidence: eyes still soft at their core, but now hardened by unimaginable loss and the weight of leadership.

He shook shake hands and signed treaties, that once bright smile turning cold and calculating when anger surfaced. There was a ruthlessness in the way Alfred climbed, fingers metaphorically crossed behind his back, ready to crush obstacles on his path to the top.

Ivan watched the transformation with an ache he refused to name. He found himself missing the innocent boy who had looked up at him with wide eyed hope and wonder, who had dared speak of a world where everyone could live and love in harmony. Stupid, impossible dreams. But they had been his dreams, voiced so boldly no one else had dared.

"You've changed," Ivan said quietly one evening during postwar talks, when they found themselves alone in a dimly lit corridor. "That boy... where did he go?"

Alfred glanced at him, smile sharp. "Had to grow up sometime, Ivan. World doesn't wait for dreamers, does it? Sometimes you take what you want. Sometimes you make sure no one can take it from you. You of all people should understand that."

Ivan said nothing. But that night, he lay awake missing the warmth that used to burn without calculation.

The Cold War swallowed them soon after.

They saw each other constantly now, two superpowers circling like wolves. They made each other bleed in proxy wars and tense standoffs. They laughed through gritted teeth as they pinned one another against brick walls, cold ground, knives pressed to throats, guns to heads, blood trickling warm between them.

“You think your bombs scare me, comrade?" Ivan would snap, pinning Alfred down, his scarf loose around his neck. "I have buried empires older than your little republic."

Alfred would grin up at him, blood on his teeth, eyes alight with something feral and bright. “Big talk from the guy who's always one step behind. Come on, Ivan, admit it. You need me to keep things interesting. Without me, you'd just sit in the snow feeling sorry for yourself."

Yet neither ever truly aimed to kill. Something always stopped them. A shared understanding of the darkness that lived inside both of them, a darkness neither would ever run from.

That old, stubborn humanity flickered back into Alfred's eyes during the space race.

When Sputnik slipped across the night sky above American soil in 1957, Ivan made sure to be there. He stood beside Alfred on a quiet rooftop, breath fogging in the cold night air, ready to brag.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Ivan said smugly. "My people reached the stars first. How does it feel, little hero, to watch your 'land of the free' playing catch up?"

Alfred didn't snap back. He only tilted his head, breath catching in quiet awe as the tiny blinking light crossed the darkness.

"It's... incredible. Really. Even if it's yours." He laughed softly, almost breathless. "We'll get there too. But damn... look at it. We're actually touching the sky."

Ivan's gaze never left Alfred's face, tracing the wonder written there like new starlight.

"Da," he murmured, softer than intended. "It is incredible."

The feelings inside Ivan festered and grew like frostbite he couldn't amputate. He clawed at his own chest in the privacy of his home some nights, desperate to tear his heart out if it would stop aching.

But nothing changed.

Not when a smile like endless summer kept haunting him. Not when eyes as warm as open skies continued to pull him back from the edge.

One bitter night, years into the endless tension, Ivan found Alfred just outside his border.

The younger nation sat on the frozen ground, back against a barren tree, face a devastating mix of regret, exhaustion, and a brokenness that should never have touched something made of so much light. A cigarette burned between his fingers, embers eating into his skin without him seeming to notice. Fresh, angry marks marred his wrists, red and raw.

Alfred looked up slowly. His voice came out rough, cracked at the edges.

"Was it even worth it, Ivan? Becoming this cruel, twisted version of myself just to grab power... only to lose everything I used to stand for? Who the hell am I anymore?" His eyes shimmered, but he refused to let tears fall. "Why can't I look in the mirror without hating the guy staring back? All those dreams, they're gone. And I helped kill them."

Ivan stood silent for a long moment, snow drifting around them. Then he reached into his coat, pulled out his lighter, and passed it over without a word. Alfred took it with trembling fingers, lit another cigarette, and they sat together in the freezing dark until the horizon began to lighten.

"Light another," Ivan said quietly. "Sometimes the burn is the only thing that feels real."

Decades of push and pull later, Alfred was beneath him.

Warm skin pressed against unrelenting ice, nothing between them but sweat and trembling breath. Ivan's hands were locked tight around that throat, tears he refused to name dripping onto Alfred's face as he demanded, voice shattered and furious:

"Why do you keep taunting me? Why do you drag me back into this burning light that feels more like hell than heaven ever could? Why won't you just let go?"

His grip tightened, thumbs pressing against the frantic pulse beneath his palms. Alfred's hands rose, not to push him away, but to gently grasp Ivan's wrists, holding on as if Ivan were the only steady thing left in the world. His face wore that soft, impossible look again. The one that should never, ever be directed at a monster like Ivan.

"It's funny," Alfred rasped, voice strained but steady, blue eyes never leaving Ivan's. "You call yourself smart... but you still haven't realized it. I've always been chasing you. Two steps behind, maybe... stumbling through the dark. But now I'm finally here. In the darkness with you. And for once, it doesn't kill me. It comforts me."

His fingers tightened around Ivan's wrists.

"You're the only thing that makes sense anymore. The only one who won't look away from what I've become. I want to keep you. All of you, even the parts that scare you."

Ivan's hands trembled violently. He realized with a sick jolt that Alfred wasn't going to fight him off. He was going to let him do it. Let him squeeze until the life went out.

A desperate, broken sound tore from Ivan's throat, before his strength collapsed. He fell forward, burying his face against the curve of Alfred's neck, hands sliding from throat to shoulders as he clutched him like a drowning man. Strong, warm arms immediately wrapped around him, pulling him impossibly closer. Alfred held him tight, one hand stroking slowly through Ivan's silver hair, the other rubbing soothing circles along his back.

He didn't whisper that it would be okay. It wasn't. It probably never would be.

But in the quiet aftermath, with Alfred's heartbeat steady beneath his ear and the distant sound of wind howling outside, Ivan felt something dangerously close to peace settle over the both of them.

Maybe that fractured, painful understanding was enough.