M

For the first time since the brothers came to Germany, MA was the one who woke up first, but despite waking first, MA couldn't get out of bed because Mandara was hugging his wing like a plushie, so MA softly sighed and just waited for Mandara to wake up. It took a few minutes for Mandara to wake up, and when he did MA had closed his eyes again, so thinking that MA was still asleep, Mandara snuggled further into his brother's soft feathers. 

 "Is my wing really that huggable?" MA said teasingly, which caused Mandara to jump slightly, then grumbled in his throat at being caught. 

 MA chuckled and slowly pried his wing out of Mandara's grip, and proceeded to get out of bed and get ready for the day, followed by Mandara soon after.

L

"And finished," Wehrmacht murmured. He shut his laptop and slumped on the mattress with a groan. The alarm clock on his nightstand said it was early morning. He had about half an hour left before his usual wake-up time. The German turned his body away from the bright window, splayed out his cramped wings, and fell into a nap. 

 Iremacht, on the other hand, had woken up from the natural sunlight on his face. Refreshed, he hopped out of bed, putting on his clothes as he walked towards the door. He hopped along as he pulled up his pants and was all ready before he stepped out into the hallway. Iremacht went downstairs; the act of quickly shuffling down the steps cleared his mind and got him wide awake. 

Iremacht peered down the corridor that led to the spare bedroom. For a brief second and rapid mental calculation, he thought he had enough time to pull a prank. But since it was the Mandarians' last day, he decided to play nice and go fry some eggs in the kitchen.

M

"You must have really enjoyed cuddling my wing Trigger, because you've bent three of my feathers." MA said as he was finishing up his morning grooming.

Mandara chuckled, "Well it's not my fault your wings are so soft, and you are the one who decided to cover me with it." 

 MA scoffed, plucking the bent feathers before standing up. His eye caught sight of the paintball gun that he left on the desk and he hummed.

"I wonder if Iremacht is going to try anything before we leave." he said nodding to the gun. 

Mandara looked at it and shrugged his shoulders, "I wouldn't put it past him, but hopefully it's too early in the morning for him to pull anything" 

"Well how about we go find out." MA suggested, Mandara nodded in agreement and they both left the room, keeping an eye out for any surprises.

L

As the eggs were frying, Iremacht looked through the cupboards. A couple spices caught his eye and his urge to dump them into the eggs to ruin taste buds later resurfaced. His fingers brushed over the simplest bottle - salt. He turned it around in his hands, looking from the salt to the eggs.   

He heard footsteps coming from the spare bedroom. In a final act of restraint, Iremacht put the salt away. He wanted to ensure a peaceful morning and departure. Once the eggs took on the perfect shade of brown, he served them on a large plate. 

M

Mandara and MA walked out to the living room and spotted Iremacht in the kitchen.

"Morning Iremacht, funny seeing you out here, we were worried that you were going to pull another prank." Mandara said, earning a small chuckle from MA, who in turn eyed the eggs on the plate. 

"How about that Trigger, he made eggs and the kitchen isn't on fire, maybe he can give you some cooking lessons." 

Mandara softly smacked MA for his teasing, but said nothing further as they joined Iremacht for breakfast.

L

"I almost did play a prank," Iremacht admitted, placing the plate of eggs on the kitchen table. "I was going to dump a whole bunch of salt on these, as my parting gift. But then I decided to give you guys a break for once. For cooking lessons though, you should probably ask France for that. Or Papa Ireland since he taught me." 

Iremacht's face fell a little as he remembered the last video call they'd had with Ireland. 

M

MA and Mandara's faces also fell at the mention of Ireland, the chances of him even talking to the brothers were zero at this point. MA then tried to change the subject, "So, what did you and Wehrmacht get up to last night Trigger?"

Mandara looked up from his eggs, "Nothing really, we just flew around for a bit and when we decided to come back we had a small race." 

MA raised a brow, "You raced, how bad did Wehrmacht beat you?" 

 Mandara glared at MA, "Hey, I'll have you know that I won, just because my wings are hurt doesn't mean I'm slow."

L

At the mention of Wehrmacht, Iremacht realized his father wasn't downstairs yet. He checked the clock and saw that it was past Wehrmacht's usual wake-up time. 

 "Did you two fly around late into the night?" Iremacht asked. "He's still not up yet, which is weird. The smell of breakfast always wakes him eventually." 

Iremacht scrutinized the eggs. Maybe he should've put the extra salt for some more flavoring. 

"I'm going to go jump on his bed and wake him up," Iremacht announced, starting for the stairs. "And tease him for losing." 

M

MA and Mandara watched him go up the stairs, not at all trying to stop him. 

"Bet you five bucks Wehrmacht tries to fight him" MA said to Mandara, who flashed him a challenging smile.

"You're on" he said, fist bumping MA to lock in the bet, then went back to breakfast.

L

"DAD!" Iremacht screamed through the second story. "DAD, WAKE UP!" 

 Wehrmacht was too far into his sleep to register the noise. His subconscious reaction was to flip onto his stomach, plant his face in his Irish flag pillow, and continue his soft snores. Even when his son opened the door with a bang, he did not stir. "

I TOLD YOU NOT TO PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER!" Iremacht shouted, leaping on top of his father's sleeping figure. 

 That got Wehrmacht woken up because Iremacht landed on his wings. One wing shot out and whacked his son in the face, sending the teen tumbling onto the floor and nearly knocking the laptop off the nightstand. It took the sleepy German a few seconds to realize what he had done and scramble to the edge of the bed to check on his son. 

"Guten morgen," Iremacht grumbled, rubbing his bottom. "You're late, when did you sleep?" 

 "I didn't," Wehrmacht sighed, glancing at the alarm clock. He whined, "Half an hour is over already? Are Mandara and MA awake?" 

 "Yeah, way before you," Iremacht said. "Mandara beat you last night too. You're getting slow at everything, Dad." 

 "Shush, shush, I smell breakfast," Wehrmacht said, getting up. "I'll be down in a bit. Go tell Mandara that he now has authorization to take the Crown out of Germany." 

 Iremacht went downstairs and did just that. He explained what happened and that Wehrmacht was late because he had stayed up all night finishing procedures.

M

"Poor guy" Mandara said, "I had no idea these procedures he was talking about would take so long, he's probably just going to fall back asleep instead of coming down." 

 MA nodded in agreement, but then switched the topic to more important matters, "Trigger, hand it over." 

 Mandara frowned, "But he didn't fight Iremacht, he accidentally whacked him in the face, that's different." 

 MA raised a brow, Mandara sighed in defeat and handed him five dollars, which he happily took.

L

Iremacht watched the money exchange with interest. It looked like gambling, but Iremacht didn't want to reveal that he knew what that was because he technically wasn't at the appropriate age to know this stuff. 

 "It's usually done in a span of two days but Dad just decided to cram everything in one day so you could take the Crown home," Iremacht said. "You bought plane tickets right? When do you need to leave?" 

 Upstairs, Wehrmacht was seriously thinking about going back to bed. But, since today was the Mandarian brothers' departure day, he needed to be there to see his friends off. Wehrmacht forced himself to go into his adjacent bathroom to get himself ready before going down to the kitchen to join the others.

M

Mandara took a gold pocket watch out of his pocket and clicked it open, "In about three hours, it was going to be earlier but all the other early flights were fully booked." 

He closed the watch and set it down on the table, it was decorated with the Mandorian crest on the lid. "But hey, that just means we get to spend a bit more time with you and Wehrmacht, right Thunder." 

MA nodded "Yup, and maybe if we're lucky we can go to the gun range like we promised, after we stop by Germany's place to grab the rest of our stuff of course."

L

"Did I hear gun range?" Wehrmacht said as he walked into the kitchen, going straight for the coffee maker. "I remember MA still has a competition to finish with Iremacht. And we also have Mandara this time too." 

 "MA says Mandara's a much better shot," Iremacht said. "And I said I could totally beat them." 

"And I said, plenty of times before, that you need to stop boasting because you'll bite off more than you can chew one day," said Wehrmacht, sitting down at the kitchen table and serving himself some breakfast. Just as he was reaching for a fork, he caught sight of Mandara's gold pocket watch. 

 "Well, well," Wehrmacht hummed. "I'm not a gold addict like Spanish Empire was but I might be now. That's a fine watch."

M

Mandara looked back at his watch, "Thanks, it was a gift from Switzerland when we made a trade deal with him." He picked up the watch so Wehr could see it better. "He even engraved the Mandorian crest into it, though Thunder is jealous of it because he didn't get one." 

MA rolled his eyes, "only because you left me in charge of taking care of the country since you didn't trust the president to do it himself." 

 "It's not my fault our people were fooled by that manipulative liar." Mandara said.

L

Wehrmacht analyzed the details of the crest engraving. It truly was a carefully designed piece of work, no doubt Swissy's doing. For a brief moment, Wehrmacht thought of his brother - not his eldest, but his second one, Schutz. He always loved gold. He'd be jealous of Swissy's gift to Mandara. Wehrmacht shook the memory away and silently enjoyed the Mandarian brothers' usual bickering. Halfway through breakfast, the coffee was ready and Wehrmacht set the coffee pot in the middle of the table for anyone who fancied caffeine. 

 He noticed Iremacht was staring at the watch with a mischievous look. 

"You better put the watch away, Mandara," Wehrmacht advised. "Machty looks like he might go into thieving mode very soon."

M

"Oh is he now?" Mandara said, raising a brow at Iremacht. He did as suggested an put his watch back in his pocket. 

 "So Machty is a prankster and a thief?" MA deduced as he pored himself some coffee.

Mandara snickered before adding on, "don't forget a Tasmanian Devil as you called him the other day." 

 MA looked at him confused at first but he nodded when he did remember. He called Iremacht a Tasmanian Devil when the kid tried to attack EU, which he very much acted like one that day.

L

"He's a handful." Wehrmacht rubbed Iremacht's head playfully, to which the teen ducked away out of embarrassment. "Like I said, think twice before having kids. But when you do, you'll find there are plenty more good memories than bad with these little ones." 

 "I'm not little," Iremacht protested. "I am a teenager." 

 "Mhm, you sound just like Austria back in the day," Wehrmacht said. "You'll always be my little boy even when you 'grow up'." 

Iremacht's embarrassment intensified and he wolfed down the rest of his breakfast, eager to get away from his father's teasing. 

"I'm going to head to the shooting range," Iremacht said once he finished. 

"Hey, you're not allowed to go there without an adult!" Wehrmacht shouted but his son was already bolting out the door.

M

MA and Mandara watched him leave, with MA shaking his head, "Have you been letting him have caffeine Wehrmacht, because I think you need to restrict it, that kid is too damn hyper." 

 Mandara snorted into his coffee at MA's joke, setting it down before getting up as well. "Don't worry, I'll go follow him, see you two there." He said, then walking out to find Iremacht.