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July 3, 1898
Caribbean Sea
The sea was a churn of turquoise and blood, a graveyard of charred Spanish oak and American metal. Spain stood on the deck of the Infanta María Teresa, but he wasn't standing as a man. He was standing as the end of an era, and he could feel his own foundations rotting from the waterline up.
He was wounded; his dark navy tunic was torn at the shoulder. Every explosion echoing in the bay felt like a heartbeat skipping, a literal tearing of his skin. Beneath Spain’s boots, the deck groaned—the sound of ancient and stubborn wood splintering under the clinical precision of modern steel.
Through the haze, a small, sleek command boat cut through the waves. Standing at the prow was the United States. He looked agonizingly young, his eyes hungry with unshakeable confidence. As the he stepped onto the scorched wood of the Spanish deck, his boots clanked heavily.
Spain didn't move. He couldn't. The weight of the empire stilled pinned him to the spot.
"The world is changing, Spain. You’re just... stuck. It’s my turn to take the lead now." The United States said, as he adjusted his glasses, the sunlight glinting off the lenses.
"The lead?" Spain let out a ragged, bitter laugh that turned into a wet cough. "I gave you gunpowder when you were crying for it! I stood behind you against England when you were nothing but a shivering collection of colonies! I helped you buy your freedom, chico... and now you use that same freedom to kill me?"
The United States’ expression settled into a look of somber righteousness.
"You started this when you blew up my ship."
Spain’s face contorted. He stepped right into the United States’ space, the heat from the burning oak singeing his hair.
"I didn't even sink that ship and you know it!" Spain hissed, his voice cracking. "But still you splashed my face across every paper like I was some kind of monster. You lied, Alfred. You lied just so you could have an excuse to take what’s mine."
The United States didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned in, his shadow falling over Spain, cold and absolute. He reached out, his hand closing around Spain’s throat with a strength that felt like the crushing weight of a factory press.
"It doesn't matter what I know or what I’ve told my citizens. What matters is that the era of Europe playing in my backyard is finished. America is for the Americans. All of it."
The United States didn't use a sword like an old soldier would. He used the raw, unrefined power of his youth to choke the life out of the decaying empire. Spain gasped, his hands clawing at the United States’ iron grip as he was forced back against the burning railing. The heat of the fire and the cold of the rising tide met at his spine.
"You... may have won today," Spain wheezed, his vision blurring as the oxygen left him, his fingers going limp against the United States’ sleeves. He looked at the younger nation one last time.
"But listen to me, Alfred. Right now you think you are the hero... but one day, you will grow so loud, so large, and so hungry that the world will stop cheering for your liberty and start fearing it. They will look at you exactly how you look at me now. The ruler of a dark age that needs to be erased. And God willing... God willing, I keep on living until then. Because when that day comes, I won’t help you. I will watch as the silence takes you."
The United States didn't answer. With a final, decisive shove, he sent the older nation over the side. Spain hit the water not as a man, but as a falling sun, the cold Caribbean depths rushing into his lungs to extinguish the last of his imperial fire.
December 11, 1898
Madrid
The sun was setting over Madrid, but it didn't feel like the end of a day; it felt like the end of a long, exhausting era. Spain was alone in his study, a room that had once been the nerve center for a world that moved at his command.
He was hunched over his desk. Scraps of telegrams from Paris lay scattered like confetti, each one a fresh puncture wound to his pride. His fingers, stained with ink and the grit of nervous habit, traced the edges of a stack of foreign newspapers—the New York Journal and World.
His understanding of English wasn’t the best, but the illustrations told him everything. He stared at a grotesque, animalistic caricature of himself where he looked primitive and bloodthirsty. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the stubble and the hollows under his eyes, wondering if that was all the world saw now: a monster that needed to be put down.
He had spent the last hour staring at a globe in the corner. For centuries, he had looked at it and seen himself everywhere. Now, his eyes kept darting to the gaps. At the places where his name was being scrubbed away in real time.
A soft knock at the heavy oak door broke the silence. Spain’s head snapped up, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn’t want to answer it; he didn’t want to see a single soul. He stared at the brass handle, his breath hitching in the quiet room.
"Adelante," he finally whispered, his voice sounding like dry leaves.
The door creaked open, admitting a sliver of hallway light. When the figure stepped inside, Spain’s eyes widened. He had expected a servant or a politician. But this the silhouette was too familiar. A shape etched into his memory throughout centuries.
"Jo—" he breathed, the surprise momentarily stripping the exhaustion from his face.
But as quickly as the shock came, it was swallowed by a sudden bitterness that surged in his chest.
"How kind of you to make the trip, Portugal," he spat, his voice trembling. "I suppose whatever I tell you will make for good gossip over tea with your oldest ally. Did England toast to it? Did he tell you how much easier the Atlantic will be to navigate now that I've been cleared out of the way?"
Portugal stood there, his coat damp from a light evening mist, his usual dry wit stripped away. He stepped further into the dim room and closed the door, shutting out the rest of the palace.
"I didn't come to gloat," João said quietly.
"Then why come at all?" Antonio snapped. "You didn't send ships. You didn't send a single word of protest when the Americans were manufacturing lies about The Maine. You stayed behind your border, just like the rest of them, watching the has-been get picked apart by a brat who doesn't know the first thing about the weight of a crown. You were just as silent as the Germans. More silent, because you're the one who’s supposed to know what it feels like to have my blood."
"There was nothing I could do," Portugal whispered, the words sounding like they were being dragged over gravel. He walked toward the desk until he was standing in the fading light beside Spain. "You think I wanted to watch? After his ultimatum, I have nothing left to give, Antonio. Arthur has his foot on my neck. I am a prisoner in my own house."
Antonio closed his eyes, his breath faltering. The resentment towards the other Iberian was a wall, but it was starting to crack under his sheer exhaustion.
"I received a cable from Romano in New York," Spain said, his voice suddenly dropping, the anger replaced by a ringing ache. He gestured to a thin strip of telegraph paper curled near his inkwell. "He said the Americans were dancing in the streets. He described the fireworks—how the city was glowing with the light of my humiliation. Reading his words... it felt like those explosions were in my own chest.”
He paused for a moment. His throat felt tight, as if it was a dam that was about to break.
“I felt as if I was dying,” he finally continued. “And no one in Europe even blinked. Except maybe France,” he laughed bitterly “and that’s only because I still owe him money."
"I'm sorry," Portugal said. The words were simple. There was nothing else he could offer. "I am so sorry, Antonio. Not just for the islands. I’m sorry for being silent."
Spain’s shoulders slumped as he leaned back into his heavy chair. The fight went out of him all at once, leaving him a hollow shell against the mahogany desk. For a moment, he wasn't a kingdom or an empire; he was just the boy who had sat in the dust of a fallen Rome, watching the grand pillars crumble with his brother. They had seen the end of the world before. This was just the latest version of it.
"I’ve always feared the silence," Antonio whispered, his voice cracking as he stared at the stack of newspapers on his desk. "But somehow... the noise is worse."
He reached out, his trembling fingers hovering over a piece of paper. Once again, he focused on that one political cartoon from an American paper. The one that depicted him as a grotesque monster—a dark-skinned brute with a dagger, drenched in blood and hulking over the graves of the Maine sailors. ‘The Spanish Brute’ it was called.
"The United States... they’ve filled the streets with these drawings. Romano described it all," Antonio continued, his breath hitching. "They call me a butcher. They say I’m a backward relic of a dark age. But that’s not the worst part for me. It’s the way the rest of Europe looks at me when they read it. They don’t defend me. They just nod. Like they’ve been waiting for a reason to finally agree that I never belonged in their civilized continent at all."
Spain didn't look up. Instead, his trembling hand slid a folded copy of newspaper across the mahogany toward Portugal. He pinned it down with a finger, pointing to a bold, jagged headline: ‘Why Spaniards Are Cruel’.
"Read it," Spain whispered, his voice thick with a sudden, raw shame. "They say I was doomed from the start. That Carthaginians and Phoenicians dirtied my blood. That I’m a distillation of the worst parts of history. And about Rome..." his voice cracked as he traced a line of text that spoke of the Roman occupation. "They say I’m evil because of how he trained me. They are telling the world that I’m not deserving of pity because my very ancestry is a map of murder."
He let out a dry, hollow laugh that sounded more like a sob.
"I read these articles and I start to wonder if they’re right. Am I just a brute? Is it true that all I’ve ever been is a violent, fanatical savage? England is in India, Belgium is doing God-knows-what in Congo and France is all over Africa... but somehow I'm the only barbarian in this continent."
Portugal didn't offer an immediate answer. He stepped closer, his eyes scanning the text before his hand eventually came to rest heavy and steady on Spain’s shoulder.
"I know," he finally whispered.
"I feel like I'm shrinking, João," Spain murmured, his forehead leaning against the desk. "Like I'm becoming the caricature they drew. Just a shadow in an empty palace."
"You are not a drawing, Antonio," Portugal said, his voice low and fiercely grounded. His thumb brushed the heavy fabric of Spain’s coat in a slow, rhythmic gesture of grounding. "And you are not alone. I am right here."
Spain closed his eyes, the tears finally slipping past his lashes. For the first time since the war began, the crushing isolation of the dying nation felt a little less absolute, simply because there was someone standing in the room who remembered his true face.
Spain let out a long, shaky breath and finally straightened up, wiping his face with the back of his ink-stained hand. He looked up at Portugal, really seeing him for the first time since he’d entered—the damp coat, the weary lines around his eyes. A flash of guilt touched him.
"I... forgive me," Spain spoke, his voice soft. "I’ve forgotten my manners. You’ve come all this way and I’ve done nothing but bark at you. Please, João. Sit."
He gestured toward the heavy leather armchair positioned across from the desk. As Portugal moved to take the seat, Antonio gripped the arms of his own chair, dragging it around with a heavy scuff against the floorboards. He positioned himself so he was no longer facing the globe or the stack of hateful newspapers, but only the other Iberian.
"So, you and England?" Spain asked softly. There was no venom left in the question, only a tired curiosity. "Is it still... the way it used to be? I remember how you looked at him. Like he was the only one who truly understood where you wanted to go."
Portugal didn't answer immediately. He sank into the leather chair, the material groaning under his weight as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"It isn't a partnership anymore," he declared. "I think, deep down, I always knew he was using me as a gatekeeper for the Atlantic. But after what happened in Africa... after he stood there and threatened to break me if I didn't step back from my own maps..."
He trailed off, the weight of the ultimatum hanging heavy between them. "I realized he doesn't love me. He hasn't for a long time. I’m just a strategic necessity he’s grown tired of maintaining."
Spain felt a cold chill. To hear Portugal—the one who had always been so meticulously composed, so certain of his "special" alliance—sound so discarded was almost worse than his own defeat.
"He used to look at us with such envy," Spain sighed. "Back when we were the only ones who knew what lay across the water. Now he looks at us like we’re cluttering up his hallway."
"We’re the old furniture, Toninho," João replied with a grim, hollow lightness. "When I had to retract the Pink Map, I saw men in my own government break who would rather take their own lives than look at a map that had been mutilated by an ally. It wasn't just a political defeat. It was the realization that all these centuries together meant nothing to him."
"I helped a child grow into a giant and he crushed me," Spain murmured. "You gave your heart to a lion and he ate it. We really are a pair of fools, aren't we?"
"The dumbest fools in Europe," Portugal declared finally.
Portugal reached across the small divide between their chairs, his hand resting palm-up on the edge of Spain’s knee—a silent, vulnerable invitation. Spain didn't hesitate; he leaned forward, covering Portugal’s hand with his own and threading their fingers together. He squeezed tight, his thumb pressing into the back of Portugal’s knuckles, clinging to the only person left who didn't see him as the brute in those newspapers. For a long moment, neither of them moved, anchored to one another as the shadows in the room grew long enough to hide the globe and the headlines.
Spain finally leaned his head back against the tall chair, his hand still locked in Portugal’s. He didn't want to talk about empires anymore or the "bad blood" the newspapers claimed they shared.
"How was the weather in Lisbon?" Spain asked, his voice barely a breath.
"It was raining," Portugal said softly, his fingers tightening their hold as he refused to let go. "A cold, gray rain. But it’ll pass, Antonio. It always does."