Tony saves Rhodey because he can’t stand racists mostly, but also because he doesn’t have much of a taste for violence. Ironic, for a vampire, but there it is. The problem is that being a sire has its benefits, if you ask people who are power hungry, and drawbacks for people who dislike all-powerful control over others. When you make a new vampire they are indebted to you- how exactly this happens is unknown but Tony doesn’t buy the being bound by the soul argument currently circulating- and thus you have complete control over them. Tony doesn’t want to control Rhodey; he wants to ensure he lives.
So when he wakes up and sputters awake under a tree covered in his own blood- his previously human blood- Tony quickly works to calm him. “Hey, relax, you’re okay,” Tony tells him when Rhodey immediately goes to skitter away. Unsurprising considering his situation before Tony showed up. He’d back away from the white guy when he was just surrounded by them too. But he doesn’t like the way Rhodey drops limp and he can see that Rhodey doesn’t care for it either.
“Look, I’ll cut to the chase. You’re a vampire, I’m your sire- the one who made you- and that gives me total control over you,” he says. The resentment on Rhodey’s face shows immediately but he continues following Tony’s instructions to relax. A battle of mind over body that he’s obviously not enjoying. He likes that about as much as Rhodey does and he sighs. “I don’t want that control, I’m just explaining why you reacted the way you did to my command. Which I didn’t mean to be a command but I’ve never done this before so. Anyways- as your sire I um, release you from my control?” he asks more than states but Rhodey flies into action immediately so his words work.
Granted Rhodey’s attempts to overpower him are sad and would probably be amusing if not for the horrific circumstances from earlier. “Jesus Christ, can you not?” Tony asks as he wrangles Rhodey somewhat under control. He’s still struggling but that’s futile against a vampire as old as Tony is. Rhodey is, at the moment, not too much stronger than a human though he’s a lot more durable. But he’s no match at all for a vampire that’s both old and at full power.
“Why the hell did you do this to me?” Rhodey wheezes out.
Tony lets him go. “Because I couldn’t just let you die. Not like that anyways.” Obviously he doesn’t have much against murder, would be a little hypocritical if he did even if he doesn’t tend to kill his meals nowadays, but even a vampire has limits.
“And what happened to them? They guys that jumped me?” he asks. “Are they dead?”
He shakes his head, “that’s gift two to you. They weren’t mine to kill.” They’d make a good first meal and Tony kind of likes the irony of people who believe in racial purity ending up with their blood inside a black man. He’s not so sure Rhodey would find that to be a tasteful meal but he just might be vengeful enough not to care. Tony certainly wouldn’t.
“You don’t care if I murder those men?” he asks, squinting.
Tony snorts, “you’re talking to a vampire, sweet cheeks, we don’t treat murder or humans the same way humans do. So no, I don’t care if you kill those men and if you don’t I just might for you. I have no love lost for racists.”
That makes Rhodey frown, “why not? Not like they’d hate you much,” he says, giving his pale skin a pointed look. He used to have a more olive tone to his skin thanks to his Italian heritage, but that’s no longer there on account of him being undead. Rhodey’s skin tone will mostly hide his vampirism though he will look perpetually like he’s got the flu or something. Most will be unlikely to notice the chalky undertone to his skin though. A nice, natural defense against prying human eyes. And isn’t that a change, his skin tone being more benefit than not being a vampire.
Though Tony doesn’t get questions much anymore- most humans no longer believe in things that go bump in the night. So maybe Rhodey’s natural defense against humans won’t matter much anyways. Shame, Tony could have used that a few hundred years ago in Europe when people kept trying to fucking stake him.
But Rhodey has asked a question and its only fair that he answers it. He did technically kill Rhodey after all. “I came here on a slave ship. Bad choice in retrospect, I snuck on, but you don’t go through something like that and develop pity for the people that did that shit. And I have no pity for the people who perpetuate it either. Its vile and that’s coming from a vampire. Trust me I have done some truly unspeakable things myself.” Howard comes to mind, but Tony maintains that he deserved that and then some. Tony made sure his death was as painful as he could make it at the time and he still deserved more than that. He doesn’t believe in hell, but if there is one he hopes Howard is there burning.
“How old are you?” Rhodey asks, frowning.
“Old enough that I’ve forgotten my age. Stops being important after awhile, and years go by faster as you age. I’ve had whole decades go by without me noticing.” There’s a lot he remembers, but there’s plenty he doesn’t either. It’s amazing how much history he’s lived and how little of it he remembers.
Rhodey shakes his head, “I can’t even imagine that,” he murmurs.
“You will. Also be aware of vampire hunters, they still exist though thankfully in much smaller numbers than… I don’t know, not that long ago to me but probably ages ago to you. Actually you probably weren’t born yet. Anyways, they exist; don’t get staked by one, I’ll know because technically you’re still bound to me and you dying would suck for me also. Avoid the sun, you won’t burn but it’s not pleasant. That shit about garlic is fake; avoid eating a lot of human foods because your system will eventually purge it. Religious spaces are fine for vampires I don’t know why humans think Jesus will save them, silver doesn’t hurt literally any supernatural creature but being staked will kill you no matter the material. So uh, enjoy your new everlasting life,” Tony tells him, walking off.
“Hey wait, what the hell! You can’t just leave me here!” Rhodey calls after him.
Tony sighs, “if you need me you’ll be able to find me. It’s a sire thing,” he says. And with that he makes his way back to his own sire.
“I don’t even know your name!” Rhodey calls after him.
He grins, “its Tony,” he calls back.
*
It’s an awful thing to do, Rhodey knows, but he doesn’t have much love lost for racists either and its not like these people didn’t earn what they got. He was a lot more merciful to them than they were willing to be to him. He spares Hank Pym a glance and figures that will probably complicate things with Hope, or they would if he was planning to stick around.
It would be smartest to disappear- his blood is all over that tree, people can draw their own almost correct opinions on it. A bunch of dead white men will gather attention- especially Pym- but they can’t link murder to a dead man. He might not want to move on but its best to so that’s what he’ll do. The problem is that he doesn’t know where to go and after taking the most minimal things from his apartment- just enough to survive on because he doesn’t want anyone to notice his stuff missing on account of him being dead now- he has no idea what’s next.
When he makes his way out into the night with not too much time to spare before daylight he just decides to walk. Not like he’s about to die any time soon and he’s literally got all the time in the world. By the time he knocks on the door of what he can only describe as a creepy castle he has no idea where he is or how he got there. And when a stunning redhead answers the door he has no idea what to say, but she seems to sense something she doesn’t like immediately because she looks pissed. It’s about then that he belatedly remembers that he’s black and she isn’t. He blames it on the vampire thing but the redhead turns away before he can say anything. “Tony, what the hell is at my door!” she yells.
Tony, Rhodey’s Tony, comes down the stairs and Rhodey only knows that because he can hear it, not because he can see it. “What the hell are you- Rhodey? Why are you here? I gave you free will, go like… do stuff,” he says, making a shooing motion at him.
The redhead looks extra pissed, “Tony, what the hell is this?” she asks, flinging a hand in Rhodey’s direction.
“A vampire, apparently,” Rhodey deadpans.
“I can see that,” she snaps at him. “Why is he a vampire?” she asks Tony.
Tony looks a little sheepish and Rhodey gets the impression that’s not his normal. “They were going to kill him, I couldn’t just leave him there,” he says.
“Bleeding heart,” the redhead accuses. “You should have left him to die.”
“Hey, I personally think he should not have done that,” Rhodey says in his own defense. The redhead rolls her eyes at him and says nothing, she just glares at Tony.
“I wasn’t going to leave him to die, Nat. All he did was love someone; he didn’t deserve to get murdered over that. I don’t get why you’re here though,” Tony says to him.
Rhodey rolls his eyes, “what was I supposed to do? I had nowhere to go, a pile of dead bodies, and a bunch of my blood on a tree. Made sense for people to think I was murdered, I wouldn’t be linked to murders that happened after I died, and no one will look for me. Not much beyond that tree anyways. What was I supposed to do after that? Also I don’t why I’m here either, I just started walking.”
Nat rolls her eyes. “Because you were drawn to your sire because you needed help. Something I’m guessing Tony didn’t tell you would happen. Or something you didn’t know would happen because you made a stupid snap decision because I wasn’t around to hold your damn hand!”
“Not all of us are heartless, Natasha,” Tony snaps at her, irritated with her attitude, he guesses. For a moment they share a look, a glare really, before Natasha takes a graceful step forward. Rhodey isn’t sure how she makes the action so threatening but she manages and he takes an unconscious step back. Tony stands his ground though, glaring back at Natasha with no fear.
“You’d do well to remember who saved you,” she hisses at him, an accent coloring her tone that Rhodey doesn’t quite recognize. It sounds almost Russian, but something is off about it.
Tony doesn’t seem to take her comment well though because anger flares on his features for a moment. “And you’d do well to remember that what you did isn’t something for me to be grateful for. You did what was right- I don’t owe you anything for that,” he says back in his own low warning tone. His accent has shifted too and it also sounds… odd to Rhodey’s ears, but he recognizes it as Italian nonetheless.
Natasha continues to glare at Tony for a few more moments before she walks off, not making a single sound as she does. Rhodey finds that impressive when he can hear birds wings flapping outside as they wake up for the day. Tony relaxes a little as she goes and turns to Rhodey, “you might as well stay here for awhile. People don’t pay too much attention around here so you should be safe.”
*
He doesn’t expect Rhodey to track him down but he does, sitting softly beside Tony. He has more grace than most fresh vampires, which leaves Tony curious about his past, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead Rhodey asks about his past. “What was that all about?” he asks. They both know he means Natasha.
Tony sighs, debates on whether or not he wants to tell Rhodey, and then figures why not? It’s so long ago his memories have started to fade though he knows the fear he lived in will never leave his system. “My father. He was… for lack of a better way to put it he was abusive, far worse than most things that happen now. I’m sure you can imagine what more primitive humans are capable of,” he says and Rhodey snorts.
“I live with more primitive humans now,” he points out. Tony nods, unable to argue with that.
But he answers what’s left hanging anyways. “Natasha found me one night next to dead and turned me. ‘Course the first thing I did was disappear to kill my father. He deserved everything he got and then some,” he says in a dark, angry tone.
Rhodey frowns, “what about that sire thing, having control over you?” he asks.
Tony half smiles, “small caveat- you have to be within earshot to make a command. Most people who want the control immediately make a command to stay by their side but even if Natasha wanted that I moved too fast for her to catch me. Took off like a bat out of hell.” He’d been laying there for hours thinking about what he’d do to Howard if he lived and then Natasha came along and fed him a little of her blood.
“Well clearly she found you,” Rhodey says, asking without asking how that happened.
He smiles a little, “I was uh… somewhat famous in my village. Used to be an alchemist, a talented one, and it got me accused of witchcraft a few times. It didn’t take her long to find me once she located where, exactly, I was from.”
“And then what? Obviously she doesn’t control you,” Rhodey says.
“No, but I don’t technically have free will either. She thinks I shouldn’t be in charge of my own life and in her defense she’s not wrong,” he says. Rhodey looks immediately affronted though, not entirely surprising considering his circumstances. “Relax, I mostly have control over my own actions but I have some limits on how far away I can go and, to a lesser extent, what I can do.” Mostly he’s not allowed to do anything that would expose either of them as vampires but he’s also forbidden from relationships with humans in any meaningful way. Other than that he’s mostly free to do what he wants. Or free enough that he doesn’t usually notice his restrictions.
“I still don’t like that,” Rhodey says. “Would you stay with her if you could go?”
He thinks about it, seriously thinks about it for long enough that Rhodey obviously loses hope in an answer before he answers. “I don’t know,” he murmurs softly. There are drawbacks of being with Natasha but they’ve been together a long, long time. Not having her constant presence in his life would be strange and not entirely welcome. But full freedom isn’t entirely unwelcome either.
They sit in silence for a few more long moments before Rhodey speaks again. “Can you take it back? Free will?” he asks.
Tony shakes his head, “once your sire grants you a gift- usually some measure of freedom- they can’t take it back. We don’t know scientifically who or why it works like that. It’s why sires usually make their wording very specific to a situation if they want a tight or loose control on freedoms. I granted you full freedom and even if I could take that back I wouldn’t.” He has no desire to control someone, even in the relatively non-invasive way Natasha does with him.
“Thank you,” Rhodey says in a low voice that’s almost too low to hear.
“Don’t. I don’t deserve thanks for freedom, Rhodey. That should be a given.”
*
Its funny to Rhodey that Tony doesn’t think he should be grateful for freedom and yet he accepts his own restrictions even if there aren’t many. It still rubs him the wrong way even if he does eventually grow a small appreciation for Natasha. He doesn’t quite like her, he can’t like someone who intentionally restricts someone’s freedom to function, but he doesn’t actively dislike her either. She’s methodical in explaining how to be a vampire basically even if she has a clear dislike for Tony’s decision. He also learns there’s a weird chain of ownership with vampires- sires tend to like to take responsibility for their spawned vampires creations too- which explains why Natasha cares at all. He decides he doesn’t much care for vampires even if they’re clearly more social than he’d take them for.
The next month and a half is information overload and blood bags- Tony assures him he will have no self control with an actual human and he doesn’t really like the idea of having to clean up Rhodey’s messes. So he goes and collects blood elsewhere and Rhodey doesn’t ask. He does learn that the ‘vampires can control human minds’ thing is true, but its distasteful to use it more than necessary. Tony tells him this is remnants from a time where overstaying your welcome around humans would get you noticed and, potentially, killed. So vampires tend to avoid humans, using them only for food and releasing them after muddling their minds. He doesn’t like it but he understands the necessity of it too.
“So how long do I have to live on these things?” he asks and also wonders how the hell Tony thought he’d live without Tony if he’d have no self control over his bloodlust. Which really only enforces Natasha’s distain over what was obviously an impulsive decision though he still thinks Tony’s mistakes are his to make, not hers to restrict.
Tony sighs, “I don’t know, probably fifty years or so?” he says and Rhodey lets out a loud noise of disbelief.
“Are you shitting me?” he asks. “That is a stupidly long time!”
His comment causes Tony to squint, obviously not believing him on that being a long period of time before he sighs. “Nat, how long does he have to eat from the bags?” he asks, voice barely above a normal volume.
Despite being three floors up she hears easily. Rhodey dislikes his heightened hearing abilities but Tony is fond of his, or maybe just used to it enough to not care anymore. “Not fifty fucking years, dumbass. More like another two years or so give or take. Test him out in another couple months,” she says, probably also at a normal human volume but Rhodey hears it relatively clearly.
Tony considers this, frowns, and then shakes his head. “Its your job to remember when you were turned because I’ll never remember that. Then remind me to not feed you from bags,” he says and Rhodey rolls his eyes.
“You’re a pretty shitty sire,” he says but he smiles. So he’s bad at this- Rhodey likes him anyways. He’s actually pleasant to be around and he’s funny, Rhodey appreciates the traits even if Tony is impulsive and forgetful.
“This is why I don’t let him stray far,” Natasha says. “I give him a little freedom and he makes another fucking vampire.”
He raises an eyebrow at Tony, who sighs. “My distance limits weren’t that high- a few miles. She gave me a little freedom to roam and I was testing my bounds when I found you and, well, you lived the rest. Like I said, in her defense I really shouldn’t be allowed to make executive decisions.” The comment continues to rub Rhodey the wrong way but he leaves it for now, unwilling to get into it at the moment.
*
Usually someone thinks to fill Rhodey in on what the hell is going on to Rhodey even if its usually Natasha, but neither of them think to prepare him for the upcoming vampire event. They don’t really happen often but a few times every couple years- Tony really has no idea, he only goes because Natasha literally forces him to- they all get together to discuss current events. Its useful to figure out where hunters are and if they’ve improved in methods but Tony would never go if Natasha didn’t make him. All it takes is a reminder of when the event is happening and that he’s going for him to go whether or not he actually wants to.
Of course Natasha had probably been concerned with reminding Tony to go to the event and Tony was too busy with her command playing over and over in his head to remember to tell Rhodey that vampires truly do not give a shit about most human standards. Most have been alive too long to care and those that haven’t learn fast that their human ways of thinking are unwelcome. But they don’t tell him that so when his eyes all but bug out of his head when two women kiss Tony can’t say he blames him. “Not really a thing people care about here,” Tony says fast, hoping like hell that Rhodey is more advanced than his current human contemporaries though the odds aren’t good. You would think being treated badly for something you can’t help would make you more willing to accept other people being born in ways they can’t help but that doesn’t seem to translate. Though most vampires try new things be it sex partners or drugs at some point in their life even if Rhodey is far too young to have reached the boredom stage.
Neither are experienced the same way humans experience them. Heightened senses make sex better and an inability to develop a physical addiction leave drugs mostly lacking though that didn’t stop Tony much. That resulted in a strict restriction from Natasha- no consuming anything that is addictive. Sometimes she has to update that list of things when humans discover new addictive substances but he just avoids anything people use at parties. Her command there was probably for the best even if Tony was damn cranky about it. Obviously his addiction was purely mental, but still. It’s a logical restriction even if he knows Rhodey wouldn’t like it. He doesn’t say it but disapproval over Natasha’s restrictions always show clear on his face.
“That’s… acceptable?” he asks softly, almost too soft to hear. Impressive for a new vampire to manage.
“Yeah. You get bored when you’re ancient and contrary to your beliefs the sky does not fall when same sex couples happen. Shit, there were plenty of people who did it all the time before it fell out of fashion.” Tony’s own era, the one he was born in, was one of those times so it had been an odd transition to that falling out of favor and in some cases falling back into favor depending on where he lived.
Rhodey remains mostly quiet, observing things while Natasha and Tony interact with those around them. Everyone seems to assume that Rhodey is another of Natasha’s vampires, something he obviously takes offense to but doesn’t say anything about. Natasha mostly writes him off as Tony’s stupid mistake, which seems to offend Rhodey more but he continues to remain silent. They learn that there are less hunters- thank fuck, that a few people got staked, a couple people opted to just die because they were done with life, and that was basically it. Boring- which is exactly why Tony would never go to these things given the chance, but Natasha says its important to keep up with information. Tony thinks she’s paranoid.
He’s hiding out on the roof of the house they’re in when Rhodey finds him, crawling out the window fast. “Sorry,” he says, “this is kind of…” he trails off and Tony smiles.
“Bit of a culture shock?” he asks. Rhodey frowns and he laughs, “it means that when you come to a new place with new ideas and ways of doing things you get confused and surprised because that’s not your normal. We- vampires- get used to it after awhile. We move around a lot on account of not aging.”
Rhodey considers this for a moment before nodding, “yeah, basically. People are… surprisingly fine with your creepy sire dynamic. And weirdly blunt.”
Tony laughs again because he forgot about that. Humans have all these social rules and vampires maintain some, but they lose a lot of them too. One of them is that stipulation on honesty that means actually just telling people what they want to hear. It’s obviously left Rhodey surprised though its not really a bad thing. Its good to know how other vampires function. Rhodey makes his way over to Tony and perches beside him, “vampires are… free, for a group that’s probably too okay with control over people.”
He shrugs, “every group has their flaws, that’s ours. People view sires as… well, similar to how humans view parents. Their restrictions are seen as necessary, good for their… underlings, for a lack of a better way to put it. People abuse it of course, but they’re considered a minority.”
“Still don’t like it. Don’t see why you defend it when you don’t like it either,” he points out.
He sighs, “I get why people have the opinion that they have,” he says.
“But in the same place you wouldn’t do what they do,” Rhodey says.
“You don’t really know that,” Tony says.
Rhodey snorts, “yeah, I do. The first thing you did after telling me to relax was free me from your control. I saw the look on your face when I went limp too, you didn’t think I’d react like that and you didn’t like it either. So why defend something you obviously don’t agree with?” he asks.
Tony presses his fingers to his temples. “I’ve grown with this idea a long time, literally had no choice in running far from it. You get used to it.”
“Not enough that you’d reproduce it. That makes me curious,” Rhodey says. “But then a lot of things about you make me curious.”
*
When Rhodey gets bored enough to go spend his time doing whatever else it is he does Natasha doesn’t like it but Tony doesn’t really care- both about her opinion and about what Rhodey does. Rhodey’s actions are his own problem and if they cause problems for him and Nat, well, then they deal with it. But Nat’s acting like restrictions on Rhodey’s freedom would prevent disaster means she hasn’t been paying much attention to literally anything he’s done in the last- well, his entire life and death. She and Howard have put plenty of restrictions on what he can and can’t do, though Natasha’s ability to tell him to do things is more absolute than his father’s had been, and it hasn’t resulted in sunshine and rainbows.
So he lets her stew and when Rhodey comes back, and he always comes back eventually, he asks questions. Mostly Rhodey uses his time to travel to places, work odd jobs, occasionally meet other vampires, nothing sinister really. Its nice to see that he’s adjusted well and the world around them is shifting, though not much for the better. Again. Tony really does wonder if humans ever tire from war but another seemingly mass scale war on the horizon so soon after the last massive war that happened still surprises him. Humans already thought the last war was something so large they’d never seen anything like it and they aren’t exactly wrong. Most wars Tony has witnessed on similar scales could be more accurately described as missions to conquer land, not a fight just to fight. And even then he could feel something off about what’s coming too.
It shouldn’t surprise him that Natasha decides to move somewhere she deems safe all things considered but it does mostly because they don’t have Rhodey in tow. He’s off doing something and Tony doesn’t feel confortable just leaving him behind. “He can feel where you are, dumbass, not stop being so stubborn and lets go,” she tells him, hands on her hips.
“We can afford to wait it out. Its not like bombs do much more than piss us off,” he points out.
“Something tells me that will change soon. Humans are getting better at inventing things to kill,” she murmurs. “So get your bag and lets go.” He refuses to move and finally she rolls her eyes, “either move or I’ll just go and you’ll have no choice but to follow anyways once I’m far enough away. Choice is yours,” she tells him.
Choice, funny way to put that, but he doesn’t say anything. “Fine. I’ll wait around as long as I can to see if Rhodey turns up,” he says.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “You never should have turned him let alone gave him permission to do whatever he wants, for all you know he’s in the middle of the upcoming war.” The implication is that he could have, should have, avoided this by doing what Natasha did and limiting how far Rhodey can roam but Tony thinks that Rhodey can make his own decisions. If he’s in the middle of the war then fine, that’s his choice. Natasha leaves and Tony sighs, hoping Rhodey returns soon.
*
Its probably a bad time to be in France, Rhodey thinks, but hindsight is twenty twenty and he’s always wanted to learn how to fly. Guess this is his chance though he can’t say he much likes the military. The only benefit is that food isn’t hard to come across, not with so many bodies around.
*
Tony knows Rhodey isn’t dead- he’d feel it if Rhodey died- but he also hasn’t seen him in some time. Natasha tells him not to worry but he does anyways, at least until Rhodey shows up with the most hideous hair cut Tony has ever had the misfortune of witnessing. “Please tell me you’re getting rid of that? It so doesn’t suit you,” he says, eyeing Rhodey’s overgrown hair.
Rhodey reaches up and touches the tight curls, “excuse you, I think its fun. I can’t believe you don’t see me for two years and then insult my hair.”
He shrugs, “not my fault its horrible. Seriously, you need to visit a barber or something to deal with that.”
“So do you, what the hell is even happening up there?” Rhodey asks, pointing at Tony’s, yes, overgrown hair but also rude.
“I have been avoiding war, thanks, what’s your excuse?” he asks, nose in the air.
Rhodey grins, “fighting in it. What, don’t look at me like that? Food was good.” Yeah alright Tony would give him that but also.
“How about you never do that again because I was worried and actually paid attention to time once and shit it crawls by so slow when you’re actually looking at the days pass by. Half the time I sleep for a week or two and wake up thinking it’s the sixteen hundreds again and I’ve been accused of witchcraft. Also again.” Rhodey’s eyebrows shoot up and his eyes bug a little.
“We can sleep?” he asks.
Tony winces, “did we forget to tell you that? Yeah, we can sleep. Most of us only do it because we get bored since we don’t need sleep, but yeah you can do that.” Rhodey looks annoyed and Tony cant say he blames him. He’d be annoyed if his idiot sire forgot to give him that tidbit too.
Rhodey sighs, “you are literally the worst sire ever. I’ve talked to people and they agree.”
He snorts, “who exactly did you talk to?” he asks. Even if he doesn’t get a name there’s a good chance Tony can figure it out anyways. The vampire community is small.
Rhodey shrugs, “some French people,” he says and Tony rolls his eyes.
“The French, of course. Pretentious pricks,” he mumbles under his breath. Rhodey laughs at his generalization and launches into a story from across the sea. Tony settles in to listen, curious about what he’s missing from the actual news in the papers and Rhodey happily fills him in. Natasha comes back eventually, giving Rhodey an irritated look before she walks away to do something else.
*
Rhodey is stretched out across a couch that’s too nice to be cheap. A far cry from being stuck in trenches or uncomfortably cramped plane cockpits. “I don’t get it, doesn’t that bother you?” he asks when Tony fills him in on what he’s spent his time doing. The answer is pretty much nothing thanks to Natasha. They’re to far away from anything for Tony to get himself into trouble- probably a deliberate choice on Natasha’s part to intentionally keep Tony close.
Tony shrugs, “I mean the distance thing limits her as much as me you know. She strays too far and I have to follow. In a way she’s almost more stuck than I am,” he points out but Rhodey so doesn’t buy that shit.
“Tony, she can release you at any time, you have no choice. That’s not even close to the same. Plus this house is in the middle of nowhere, how are you eating?” he asks. Tony looks more pale than Rhodey remembers him but he’s not sure if that’s true of if his imagination is playing tricks on him.
“We go into town every once and awhile. I don’t need nearly as much blood as you do- technically I could go years without it but it’d be unpleasant.” Looks like its unpleasant now but he knows Tony will brush that off so he doesn’t bother to say anything. It irritates him that Tony brushes his indentured servitude off but there’s not much he can do about it realistically.
So he changes the subject back to planes and Tony takes an immediate interest, asking how they work and making surprising leaps in knowledge for someone so old. Rhodey would have thought he’d have to explain the mechanics more- he knew more than anyone else he worked with and found it amusing that most of the people he worked with resented that- but Tony has a natural talent for engines. He answers Tony’s questions, which spawn more questions, and then that leads into the theoretical and that’s about when Natasha shows up to shoo Tony off. Rhodey goes to follow but she holds him back, small hand holding a surprising amount of power in it.
“I would appreciate it if you kept knowledge of technology to yourself,” Natasha says in a low tone that’s almost impossible for him to hear. He pulls his arm from her grasp, something he can only do because she allows him to.
“No,” he tells her flat out. “I’m not participating in this stupid culture of control- I refuse to help you with that.”
Natasha lets out a soft sigh. “Rhodey I know you have your issues with how vampires do things, but we do things this way for a reason. I’m trying to do what’s best for Tony, what will keep him safe.”
He shakes his head, “safety is an illusion. No one is safe all of the time in every area of the world. And safety isn’t control.” He’d know perhaps better than most that safety comes and goes fast and depends entirely on your circumstances. In a room full of black people he usually feels relatively safe. That feeling tends to disappear if everyone in the room is white. The same with vampires- he doesn’t tend to care for the species but he likes them a lot better than humans, who may lash out if they know what he is. He suspects Natasha and Tony would both relate to that last one more than he would- they’ve both lived through times where being a vampire meant you were hunted in a far more serious fashion than what happens now.
“I don’t control Tony I just… restrict him some,” Natasha says, like this excuses her actions.
Rhodey rolls his eyes. “He has to be within a certain distance from you at all times. That’s control and there’s no excuse for that.” He’d give her a restriction from drugs, barely, but even then if Tony decides on addiction than it should be up to him to quit, not her.
“And what does safety look like to you, hmm? What would you do better that I haven’t?” her tone more than implies that she doesn’t think he can do better but she’s wrong.
“I’d give up on the assumption that anything I do can keep him safe. You can glue him to your hip but if a talented enough hunter comes along you’re both dead because safety is fleeting. What you should have aimed for was an understanding of the world, of the consequences of your actions, and of other’s. The best anyone can do is give others the information that they need and let them make their own choices.” Let them be their own safety net, but he knows already that Natasha will never do that.
“You don’t know him like I do,” she says and Rhodey rolls his eyes again.
“He’s not exactly difficult to read, Natasha. He’s stubborn, impulsive, forgetful, probably got too much hubris- I get that these traits added up don’t usually lead to good decisions. But that’s not your problem.” Tony can deal with the fallout of his own decisions without Natasha trying to interfere or clean up his messes. If she thinks he’s unequipped to deal with life she’s only got herself to blame. If she really cared she’d let him fall on his ass so he could learn a thing or two, he can’t do that if he never gets the opportunity to.
“It is my problem, he’s my responsibility,” she hisses at him.
“Then actually teach him something,” he snaps. “You don’t get to act like he needs you to control his actions when it should have been your responsibility to teach him to be a proper vampire, if that was ever your goal.”
“Of course that was my goal! He just kept doing stupid things and risking exposure,” she says.
“Then you should have let him get staked. That’d teach him a thing or two.” Not that he thinks that any hunter would be successful in taking Tony down. He’s seen the way Tony’s mind works- his thought process is fast and resourceful. He’d probably manage an escape, but he’d learn his lesson too.
“That would have gotten him killed.”
“Then that’s his problem, not yours. You don’t want him doing stupid things stop handling him with kid gloves and let him deal with the fallout of his stupid decisions instead of trying to clean his messes and control his actions.” Hell, she even did that with him when he showed up at her doorstep. Its not like Tony had to deal with his fresh new vampire Natasha did that for him. Funny thing is that Tony is perfectly capable of doing things on his own, Rhodey knows it, but instead of being able to do that Natasha holds him close out of fear. She’s probably lucky he actually seems to like her because from what he’s seen Tony doesn’t usually like people who abuse their authority.
“You have your methods, I have mine. They’ve worked so far,” she says.
Rhodey snorts, “you give him an inch of freedom and the first thing he does is make a stupid decision-” he starts and she cuts him off.
“Exactly why I do things the way I do,” she points out.
“Well if you didn’t want him to do that than maybe you should have let him learn his lessons from making stupid decisions sooner and he’d stop fucking making them.” But no, she doesn’t and now she thinks Tony can’t handle his own freedom instead of acknowledging that she did a bad job preparing him. And Rhodey knows enough that no one else in his life ever taught him anything either. But Tony should be his own damn responsibility, not Natasha’s- at least beyond giving him enough information that he shouldn’t make stupid decisions. If he does after that then that’s no longer her problem, its his.
“In her defense I’m not very good at making decisions,” Tony says from upstairs.
“See, even he agrees,” Natasha says.
It’s a familiar argument from Tony but Rhodey has had enough of that. “Then get off your ass and learn to do better,” he tells Tony. “You can’t keep letting Natasha deal with your problems, they’re supposed to be your responsibility, not hers.”
“I think you underestimate how shitty I am at life,” Tony tells him, words drifting down the stairs.
“I think you underestimate how much I don’t care about that. You know you have problems so fix them instead of letting Natasha do it and claiming your bad at life. You aren’t bad at anything, you’re just too damn lazy to learn not to be a leech,” he tells Tony.
“Hey, that’s rude,” Tony mumbles at him.
“Not my fault its true. You shouldn’t control him,” he says to Natasha, “and Tony, you should control yourself.”
*
Natasha pets his hair the way he likes but Rhodey’s words still play in his head. “Tony he barely understands vampire culture, stop letting it bother you,” she says, obviously sensing his thought process.
Yeah, and who’s fault is that? Not Rhodey’s, he didn’t exactly ask for Tony to save him, he just did. Then he did a shit job of actually teaching him stuff. “He makes a point, you know.” About him mostly, not Natasha. He should deal with his own life, his own actions, instead of letting Natasha do it for him.
“We’ve survived like this for a long time,” Natasha points out.
“We almost got hung in England, burnt alive in Germany, drowned in Portugal, staked in Canada, shot in Mexico, and more all because of me. That’s not exactly a good track record.” Not that a few of those things would kill him- being shot, drowned, or hung is mostly just unpleasant.
“So what makes you think he’d be right to let you get into more trouble?” Natasha asks, finally looking down at him, fingers paused in his hair.
“Because I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to screw us both over to begin with. He’s right, my stupid decisions shouldn’t be your problem.” He’s only been alive to watch the rise and fall of several different countries and cultures, he should be able to figure out how not to be a dumbass by now.
“Your stupid decisions will always be my problem,” Natasha murmurs, resuming her petting. Tony lets himself relax, but the nagging feeling at the back of his mind doesn’t go away.
*
He’s out with Rhodey enjoying the night when he feels it. At first he frowns, unsure what the hell the feeling was, but then the pain in his chest builds and Rhodey notices his pain too. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks as Tony doubles over.
The best he can manage is a shake of his head. “Hunters,” he manages to gasp out as his vision starts to fuzz a little. Rhodey freezes, obviously confused about what the hell is happening now. “We have to go,” he tells Rhodey, forcing the words out through his pain.
“Go where, you can’t go anywhere without Natasha,” Rhodey points out.
“She’s dead so yeah, I… no, we need to stay,” he says after a moment and Rhodey frowns at him, feeling his forehead in a way that hasn’t happened since he was a small child.
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” he says. Tony shakes his head to clear it a little but that doesn’t help. They’re at the far end of the island though, which means they have time and advantage. He stumbles his way through the forest, uncovering the trap door in the middle of it and almost falling in though Rhodey thankfully prevents his fall into the hole in the ground. He can hear people moving through the tunnel at a distance, which means they have time but not much. Just enough to stage a good distraction.
He allows Rhodey to steady him for a moment before he moves his ass, making his way to the boat in a haphazard line, Rhodey on his heels. “What the hell are you-” Rhodey starts but Tony kicks the boat into the water with enough force that it’ll go a good distance before it slows.
“Get in that tree,” Tony tells him, stumbling his way over to it as the pain in his chest thankfully recedes. By the time he and Rhodey make their way to the top of the tree the hunters have found their way to the boat, or what little they can see of it. They assume he’s made an escape like Tony thought they would and, surprisingly, they don’t seem to know about Rhodey. It means they’ve got outdated information and Tony figures between that and the accents they got the information from someone he and Natasha both knew in Europe. He has a few names and he hopes they don’t care for their lives because if whoever got Natasha killed is still alive they won’t be when he finds them.
*
“I hope you know I am not babying your pasty ass,” Rhodey tells him when they get to the main land. Its strange to not feel that tug to return to the island, to Natasha, and that just makes his heart hurt. Which is stupid since it hasn’t been a functioning organ in centuries.
“Thanks for the comfort,” he mumbles at him.
Rhodey looks a touch more sympathetic then and he sighs, “look, I’m sorry you lost someone important. But you also lost literally all of your impulse control and I’m not replacing her.”
“I’m sure I can manage,” he says.
“Really? Then what stupid impulse decision are you working on now? I assume revenge,” Rhodey says. Something on his face must give it away because Rhodey lets out a small snort. “Predictable. But something tells me Natasha wouldn’t bother to avenge your death, she’d just move on.” The way he says it is like he thinks she was cold and aside from physical temperature that’s not true. She was always caring, somewhere in there, its just that she showed it differently than most. But he is right that Natasha wouldn’t bother avenging him- you don’t live as long as she did making stupid impulse decisions like Tony.
“We’re going to Europe,” he tells Rhodey before pausing. “Well, I am, I don’t know what you’re doing,” he adds, remembering that Rhodey has no obligation to stay by his side. For the first time since he turned Rhodey he regrets giving him free will. Its selfish, profoundly so, but he’s never claimed not to be.
“You might want to avoid Germany,” is all Rhodey says.
Fifty Years Later
Rhodey looks down at the magazine in his hands and smiles. The glossy picture on the front is of Tony with an earth seemingly floating over his palm looking into the camera with a smirk on his face with a headline that reads ‘Tony Stark Wants to Save The World’. “I know you don’t like talking about her but you do know Natasha would kick your ass for this, right?” he asks.
Tony considers it for a moment then nods, “she’s been pissed at me for attracting a lot less attention than international fame so yeah. But she was ninety five percent of my impulse control and, I think this is key, I just wasn’t meant to live life like her. Its been fifty years- if I’ve learned anything its that curbing my natural tendency to do stupid things doesn’t amount to much. Might we well roll with it instead.”
Pragmatic, as usual. Rhodey had been concerned he’d become Tony’s new keeper and in a way he supposes he is, but unlike Natasha Rhodey lets him to sit in it when he shits the bed. He hadn’t liked it much but as predicted he learned and now he’s still ridiculously impulsive, but he’s mostly not stupid about it. He reaches out to Tony and he goes over to him, sitting in his lap like he belongs there- hell, maybe he does- and he pulls the magazine from Rhodey’s hands. “To be fair you make an interesting public figure,” Rhodey says.
Tony snorts, “that’s an understatement. An inventor way ahead of his time with a company that turned into a multimillion dollar venture in just shy of three years who’s openly bisexual and dating a black guy? That would have got us killed not long ago. Shit, this might be the only time period where we won’t get killed for some part of our relationship or another and that’s mostly because money buys good security. And so does vampire skin.” Not that anyone knew that about Tony though his nightlife has become legendary. Sometimes, when reporters didn’t just barely tolerate their relationship, they’ll ask Rhodey if he ever gets jealous and he always says no even though it’s a lie. But he has learned from time with other vampires that human ideas regarding relationships aren’t how they do things. So yeah, maybe Tony shamelessly flirts and he’s maybe too willing to be the center of attention but it makes more sense to analyze his behavior form his point of view, not Rhodey’s. For vampires that’s mostly normal minus being an attention whore, that’s just Tony.
“So how are you going to deal with the lack of aging thing?” he asks, knowing Tony has an answer. Probably did before he started the company but especially after it took off in such a big way. He even has a whole section of tech devoted entirely to supernatural creatures using them. Most assumptions around supernatural creatures and tech are wrong- vampires do show up on camera- but tech doesn’t quite work around them like it does around humans. Tony mitigates the affects and despite that obviously not being a known section of Stark Industries to the public it is one of his more profitable sections of the company. It helps fund the green energy projects Tony has taken a rather keen interest in recently.
He grins, “we’ll ‘have’ a kid soon, he’ll look a lot like me but the public won’t see much of him- we’re protective parents- and then we’ll fade off the map for a little while. When our fake kid reaches a reasonable age I’ll resurface under a new name as said kid and continue the family tradition or whatever. As far as you go, you’ll die and eventually resurface with me, but a few years after. Pepper will probably have to take over at some point to throw off suspicion, but she’s been vying for a chance to run the company anyways and she’s probably the only person I trust to do it. The good news is that both of you attract a lot less attention than me.”
Making them easier to ‘kill’ and bring back, he means. People make jokes now about certain celebrities being vampires due to resemblances to old paintings and pictures and sometimes they’re right, but Tony probably doesn’t want to be one of those caught out vampires. The fact that he avoids being targeted by remaining vampire hunters now is impressive. Others wonder how he does it; Rhodey knows its all sheer bravado. Tony told him once that hunters expect vampires to hide, so finding one so plastered all over the public isn’t something they’d think to check. So far he isn’t wrong and it’s been plenty long enough to figure him out. The good news is that Tony might get jokes about only being out in the night like a vampire but Rhodey doesn’t. Vampires are pale and he is decidedly not pale. Tony told him it’d be a natural protection and he hadn’t expected it to be true. Hell, he’s heard from other black vampires that hunters straight up overlook them because of vampires supposedly being pale. He’ll take it.
“As usual you continue to impress me,” Rhodey tells him, pressing his face to Tony’s shoulder. Its an intimate action, something small that used to make Tony want to run since he isn’t Natasha, but he’s learned to accept affection from people who aren’t his sire. When he asked Tony said it was easier to trust someone who was as tied to you as you were to them- wherever Natasha went he had to go and vice versa. He doesn’t have that with anyone else and his long history of mistreatment has made him naturally suspicious. That and Rhodey suspects someone as curious as Tony is naturally skeptical anyways. Sometimes it makes things difficult but Rhodey thinks its worth it in the end, even if he never predicted his life would end up here.
There are things about himself he didn’t think the world would ever accept, and there are things he never thought he’d ever admit to himself let alone accept. His miniscule, but present, attraction to men is one of those things. And of course there’s more acceptance for difference races. Neither are in any way accepted without question but they’re at least tolerated in some way and Rhodey will take that over what he’s lived. Tony has told him many times that the lack of acceptance for same sex couples in particular has always thrown him because in his youth that was mostly fine- depending on where you were anyways. Apparently people have mostly always disliked people from other nations though, which Rhodey thinks is a shame.
He thinks that it helps that Tony has never believed in a higher power, which happens to be used as an argument for subjugation frequently, and that’s likely why Tony doesn’t buy into a lot of it. Apparently he’s nearly been killed for that a few times too, not believing in god. Rhodey would think Tony has exaggerated his tales from ancient to modern Europe if not for other vampires corroborating some of his stories with more of the same of their own. His only experience was war so its not like he has better tales about the continent either though he likes to hope that Europe has grown as a continent. They did learn to wash their asses so that’s a good start. Rhodey’s heard tales of the stench and frankly he is pleased to not have memories of that himself.
“You impress me too,” Tony tells him, “which is why I’d like to make you the head of the R&D department at SI,” he says like this is a normal thing to drop on someone.
His eyebrows shoot up, “over Bruce? And what am I supposed to do about my night schedule- most people don’t follow that and your sort of expected to show up during the day,” he points out.
Tony snorts, “I never do. Besides, you can do most of the job at night anyways. Just stay in the building at night when you need to show up for things in the morning. Everywhere either one of us or Pepper frequents has no windows,” he points out.
“You sure about this?” he asks and Tony laughs.
“Yeah, this has been the plan from the beginning. I just didn’t want to attach you to my pet project in the event that it failed. But you’re almost as smart as I am and you’re good at asking useful questions. Plus you, me, and Pepper are basically unstoppable,” he says, pouting a little at Rhodey.
He smiles, “yeah, alright Stark. But I want an office.”
Tony grins, “you already have one next to Pepper’s.”