1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
"And what if I am resentful?"

"W-well, then, I—"

"Not of him," America goes on breathlessly. "Not of who he was. Not of what he did. Of both of those things, I mean. He wasn't like us, England. They called him a Super-Soldier when they pumped all those chemicals into him but he still wasn't like us. You and I and Russia and Germany and Japan... We can't die. He could."

He turns towards England finally, his eyes wet, his young face helpless.

"So he wasn't like us – and he wasn't like me. He was right, you know, when he said that I was just America. I'm everything, the good and the bad, everything dirty and ugly and undesirable that comes with a country. We're greedy and hateful towards each other and so we start wars, as you said, in our own names, for our own grandeur. That's why I'm down here. I realised that I'm where I belong – in the mud with all my men. This is where I deserve to be, and where you deserve to be, England, and where Germany deserves to be. But he wasn't like that, even though it was what he wanted. Instead they gathered up all the little scraps of goodness left, anything they could salvage from my Old Glory, and clothed him in it. They made him be different. He was created without corruption. He was supposed to save me."