It was a fair Monday afternoon in March. The misty haze that had that very morning blanketed London in a grey dampness had finally lifted, allowing feeble rays of light of sunlight to warm shivering pedestrians on the pavement below. Amongst the bustle of bodies, business men and women wove expertly though the dawdling crowd and shot past buskers – juggling and dancing on street corners – without a second glance. A constant back and forth of commuters and tourists passed on the steps to Tube stations; those who made way for hurrying workers were thanked with a brief tilt of the hat or a curt nod. It was an average day in the busy city and – just as everything was normal outside – things were shaping up as usual inside as well.

"I've told you already, frog," hissed a man with unnaturally large eyebrows, "that our usual meeting place is undergoing essential maintenance and is unavailable for use at this time!"

"You misunderstood my question, Angleterre," replied another man with a chin of stubble and wavy blond hair, "I was curious only as to why you chose the American embassy of all places?"

"Are you trying to insinuate something?"

"Non, non, of course not," chuckled the Frenchman, unable to hide a sly smirk, "I was just curious as to why it even needed to be an embassy at all. And it did need to be one, why not the French one? The Italian embassy is right across the square too, oui?"

"And the Canadian High Commission eh?" came a small voice. Everyone ignored it.

Arthur huffed and furrowed his aforementioned eyebrows. Thinking about it, there wasn't any particular reason why he'd chosen this venue over the others. It was the first one he thought of, that's all. It didn't help that he'd just got off the phone with that over-excitable pup of an American, Alfred, just as his boss contacting him to inform him of the sudden change of venue. It was irrelevant anyway; the American did owe him one after that – quite frankly – disastrous horror movie marathon they'd had last week. He could feel his cheeks heating up at the thought.

He was about to offer a classy and watertight retort ("Bugger off wanker!") to shut the Frenchy up, when the doors practically flew off their hinges as they were slammed open with a deafening bang. All conversations stopped and heads swivelled towards the door.

"Ve~! Ludwig, your brother's here," chirped Feli cheerfully over the silence.

It was indeed Gilbert; the albino man stood panting in the doorway, snow white hair ruffled and windswept. In fact, his overall appearance was far more ragged than usual; he had thrown a black coat haphazardly over an unbuttoned grey polo shirt and had left it unzipped, allowing it to slip off one shoulder. His trousers, though well-fitting, were sagging slightly and had tears across the knees. Thin trickles of blood stood out starkly against pale flesh, falling from grazes on his hands and knee caps, grit and dirt caked the cuts – injuries not at all surprising considering the trails of shoelace from his untied trainers. Perhaps what were most noticeable were his eyes. Usually narrowed in narcissistic smugness, they were now wide and manic with crimson murder. The Italian's cheerful outburst dwindled into a frightened whimper as those scarlet orbs began to drill into him.

"Gilbert, mon ami?" came Francis' questioning tones. Gilbert's eyes snapped away from Feli to bore into Francis' azure irises instead. Unperturbed, he continued, "what exactly are you doing 'ere? And where is ton petit oiseau j-" Francis' accented voice was cut off as Gilbert released a feral snarl and launched himself at the Frenchman's throat. This violent development was accepted with varying degrees of alarm; the least came from Arthur – who actually looked rather amused – and the largest, unsurprisingly, from Francis himself.

"Non, NON! NOT THE FACE!" he shrieked, though he needn't have worried as Gilbert seemed more focused on throttling him than clawing off his facial features.

Feli had dug his face into Ludwig's arm and was wailing at him to "save big brother", which in turn lead to Lovino screaming at Ludwig for being far too close to his twin. Ludwig himself looked somewhat overwhelmed between the Vargas twins clinging to him and yelling for attention; his older brother was running wild and trying to kill Francis; Arthur was discretely chuckling to himself in the corner and taking pictures on his mobile and... was Vash pulling a pistol out of his pocket? Were those things even legal here?

Ludwig could fell his pulse quicken as he sensed some sort of imminent apocalypse. He didn't know who to deal with first: his savage psychopath of a brother or that gun-toting maniac of a Swiss. He figured that since Gilbert was only endangering Francis and Vash was waving his gun around like a lunatic that he should probably deal with the latter first. Anyway, Antonio should stop cooing over his 'cute little Italian tomato' in time to stop Francis asphyxiating. Probably.

Arthur, meanwhile, had decided that the situation really wasn't that humorous at all. He was the host after all and there was a lot of paperwork involved in another country dying under your care. He wouldn't even get the satisfaction of killing the git himself!

He shuffled warily over to the wrestling duo; Francis was still screaming bloody murder and Gilbert was cursing and snarling like a rapid dog. Didn't half give you a bloody headache.

"All right Gilbert, you've had your fun," sighed Arthur and – almost reluctantly – ordered, "let go of the frog before he croaks."

At the sound of mocking laughter from behind him, he grabbed a binder from the table, spun on his heel and lobbed it toward the very American head it was issuing from, "SHUT UP YANK, LIKE YOU COULD DO BETTER!" Turning to face the brawling nations again, he noticed that Francis was now gasping for air on the floor – looking more like a particular amphibian than usual, Arthur noted – and Gilbert's flushed face right up close to his.

"Fun?" Gilbert spat angrily, "you think I was doing this for fun?"

Arthur reached up slowly to wipe some flecks of spittle off his face before answering, "Well I assumed so, I thought you were the type who might find that sort of this amus-"

"DUMMKOPF! Nein, this lying bastard here betrayed me! ME!" Gilbert looked aghast at the thought. Arthur glanced down to notice Francis' expression, which pretty much mirrored his own – pretty damn confused.

"Mon ami," Francis wheezed, voice hoarse, "I do not understand."

"Don't screw with me Francis! You know full well what you did!" he screeched and aimed a sharp kick at the fallen man's ribs.

Ludwig took this opportunity to return from Vash, still with a petrified Italian latched to his arm. He placed a firm hand on his brother's shoulder and pulled him back from the Frenchman. Arthur glanced toward the German and rolled his eyes, exasperated, before hoisting froggy to his feet by the back of his suit jacket.

"Merci, Angleterre. I knew you loved me really," the man cooed quietly.

"You're already been strangled once today Francis," warned the Brit.

"Bruder, explain yourself," ordered Ludwig sternly. Gilbert pouted

"Don't need t' explain myself t-"

"NOW, Gilbert!"

He let out a stubborn 'hmph', blowing at the ruffled strands of fringe that were poking him in the eye. He murmured something incomprehensible.

"Was?"

"I said he stole Gilbird, okay?" he blurted, glaring at Francis. There was a dramatic gasp.

"You thieving bastard!"

"Angleterre!"

"Well, if the glove fits, Frenchy."

Francis lowered his voice to a level and reasonable tone, "You know as well as I do, mon cher, that this is just ridiculous."

Arthur scoffed. Ludwig frowned.

"He's right Bruder, why would Francis of all people do that? You're good friends, are you not?"

Gilbert squirmed uncomfortably in Ludwig's grasp. All eyes in the room were trained on the five nations and Gilbert let out a shuddering breath to calm himself.

"Well, it wasn't technically theft. But you knew this would happen, didn't you? Knew he would run away like that because of what you did!"

Francis' eyes widened in sudden realisation.

"Mon ami, you don't mean that-"

"Gilbird fell in love," Gilbert practically sobbed, "with that damn Pierre!"