Sentinel

Rhodey looks pissed so Tony glares at the table and waits for the lecture. “God damnit, Tony. You can’t keep doing this shit. First you use compulsion on a trained guardian and then you get busted day drinking by the same guardian. What is with you lately?” Rhodey asks.

“Shouldn’t you know, you’re the one who can read my mind,” he snaps in a tone he barely recognized. Rhodey looks hurt for a moment and Tony feels instantly terrible but there was no use in apologizing when he knew it would happen again. It just happened more now and he didn’t know why…

“Tony,” Rhodey says in a softer tone, “are you alright?” Tony doesn’t need access to his mind to know that Rhodey was worried about him and for a moment he’s glad for it but it doesn’t last long.

Why did Rhodey insist on butting into Tony’s life like this? Wasn’t it enough that he could read his fucking mind, but now he had to get more information? Why couldn’t he just leave Tony the hell alone? He didn’t need anyone’s help or pity or whatever the hell Rhodey was trying to do with him. After a moment he tries to shake the thoughts but they don’t go, not entirely anyways. They never did.

“I’m fine,” he lies. But it was the best he could do right now. He had no idea what was wrong and he didn’t know if Rhodey would even understand anyways, mind link and all. Putting his thoughts into words was becoming increasingly difficult. Rhodey can tell he’s lying but he leaves it be, probably in the false hopes that Tony would confide in him later.

*

Rhodey is distracted by Tony’s emotions all day but even that doesn’t make him as easy of a target as his classmates. They were all good yes, but they weren’t anywhere near prepared to deal with Strigoi. They all thought they were more than prepared but they had no idea what the hell they were dealing with. He remembered Howard, too well sometimes- he remembered how graceful he was, how easily he tossed Rhodey aside. He would have never been able to do that when he was a Moroi, Rhodey knew for certain because he threatened the man once and he hadn’t had much strength to his struggle. Not compared to Rhodey’s natural Dhampir strength anyways. Tony thought he didn’t know about the abuse but he did and he had been intent on protecting his friend though he never would have assumed the threat was another Moroi at the time.

And then Howard went Strigoi; likely intent on taking his son down with him and Rhodey knew right away what he was. Tony didn’t notice, not until the man was almost right in front of him, but Rhodey knew Howard Stark couldn’t have moved with that kind of grace otherwise from experience and general knowledge of Strigoi. So he had done what he had been trained to do almost since birth: he attacked. It hadn’t gone well for him, Howard tossed him aside easily and he had cracked his head pretty good but thankfully Tony had some weird healing abilities and he avoided the concussion. He did, unfortunately, miss most of the ensuing fight that apparently resulted between Maria and Howard before Peggy showed up and staked his ass.

He would have loved to see Maria Stark light her piece of shit husband on fire even if he had zero idea how she knew how to do that. Maria was a nice woman, and she loved her son more than anything, she deserve better than Howard and Rhodey would have felt strangely vindicated if he had witnessed the woman lighting Howard on fire. Maybe it was because he knew how Howard was with Tony and he’s always been protective over his best friend. Most people saw his snarky attitude and inability to cooperate and thought he ended there- that he was an arrogant bastard. He wasn’t, not really. Tony was just… guarded and he knew how to push people away and draw them in in equal parts. People rarely made it past the walls he put up, he saw to that, but Rhodey had managed. And later Pepper did too.

Plenty of people wondered why he and Pepper liked him before Howard but afterwards Tony had had to save his reputation through consistent use of compulsion. Pepper hadn’t approved of his methods at all but that was unsurprising considering Moroi were taught that using compulsion on people was wrong and a terrible thing to do. Tony never has cared for social rules though and he cared for living in his father’s shadow even less. Rhodey knew better than to say something to him because Tony didn’t listen to pretty much anything unless he was good and ready too. The pitfalls of trying to deal with someone with a ridiculously strong will. Rhodey managed though, sometimes barely, and Tony almost always came around to what Rhodey was saying anyways.

Peggy notices his distraction but Rhodey suspected she knew about the bond he and Tony had. There were stories of guardians having special bonds, psychic bonds, to their Moroi but there was no definitive proof. At least until now- now Rhodey knew all those myths were true. Peggy knew something was up between him and Tony but she had no real proof outside of Rhodey’s off days like today. Rhodey was sure Tony thought there was some kind of misunderstanding about how he felt, which was kind of true- Rhodey has never experienced the swirling darkness he sensed in Tony’s mind- but he could feel that it was there. Tony never talked about the darkness, about how it sometimes clouded his thoughts or at least that’s how Rhodey felt it. Maybe Tony perceived it differently than he did, being able to read Tony’s emotions didn’t necessarily mean knowing how he interpreted everything he felt. Unless he got sucked into Tony’s head, which was never fun.

With the amount of turmoil in Tony’s head Rhodey was surprised that he didn’t get pulled in but he was grateful for it. As much as he loved his best friend he had no desire to live life through his eyes. Once it happened when Rhodey was across the room and he watched himself face plant on the ground. Thankfully the pain pulled him out of Tony’s head, but he was teased about it for weeks and the weird look he got on his face was… well something he intended to keep to himself. Since then he’s learned to try and gauge Tony’s emotions to try and avoid slipping into his head in public lest someone find out about the bond. God even knew what would happen with Tony then and he didn’t need the trouble.

Pepper disapproved of that too, citing several reasons why their instructors should know about the bond and she wasn’t wrong. Some of them were decent safety reasons on Rhodey’s end- slipping into Tony’s head in the middle of a training class could land him seriously hurt- but thankfully Tony was just as stubborn as he was on the subject and Pepper wasn’t an ass. She would never rat them out to anyone even if she gave them looks when she knew something was up. They both ignored her though, even when she was right, because Tony had no desire to tell any of his secrets and Rhodey wasn’t happy with the potential damage it might cause to Tony to have his secrets exposed. He was already fragile; he didn’t need a bunch of people breathing down his neck to make it worse.

“Rhodey,” Peggy calls out after class ends, a slight British accent to her voice.

He turns and walks over to her, “yeah?” he asks.

Peggy frowns at him, “are you alright? You seemed distracted in class,” she says.

He shrugs it off, “just didn’t get much sleep, nothing to worry about,” he lies easily. Peggy doesn’t look totally convinced but she lets him go. The first thing he does is try to find Tony to see if he could sooth his anxiety.

*

Tony disliked the sun on principal but he rarely slept. That was probably all kinds of bad for his health but no one ever noticed that he didn’t sleep more than a couple times a week aside from Rhodey and sometimes Pepper. He kind of resents that the sun made him feel like crap because it was probably warm and pleasant to people who didn’t get start to feel like they were coming down with a nasty case of the flu when they were exposed to it. Rhodey said he liked beaches once but he rarely got to go to them, and even more rarely did he go during the day. Tony felt kind of bad about that, being part of the reason why Rhodey held back on doing things he liked. Logically he knew that Rhodey wouldn’t be able to do the things he liked anyways because Dhampirs were raised to protect Moroi, to give their lives to do so. There was no point that Rhodey would have had his own life ever, but Tony can’t help but continue to feel responsible.

He makes his way through the forest that surrounded the school, headed for small retreat from the sun he built for himself that was far enough away from any guardian outposts and routes that it went unnoticed. He liked to sit there and drink sometimes, or whatever else he felt like doing. Sometimes that was homework but he was usually ahead in all his classes thanks to his genius. It wasn’t difficult to get ahead in work that was so absolutely boring to him. Most of his free time was spent fiddling with various technologies from the human world. Some things made their way to the vampire world too, like cars and electricity, but there were certain things that didn’t. Like cell phones for example, guardians had them but only for communication purposes though that might be for the best.

Human phones had cameras on them and the last thing they all needed was some twat posting a video of vampires to the Internet and having a bunch of humans lose their shit. Well… Tony supposed there were some humans that knew about them already after that attack over in California… Humans working with Strigoi was unprecedented so that particular attack, especially at some Royal gathering, sent shock waves through the Moroi community. Things were less tense how that a few months have passed with no news of those Strigoi or the humans working with them but there were plenty of people who were still on edge. That said Tony still totally wanted a cell phone instead of his god damn bond with only Rhodey that only worked one way. He’s gotten his hands on human tech, it was cool and he had ideas. He’d write them down but given that vampires didn’t use tech the same way humans did it was somewhat useless.

He considers way to integrate technology into the vampire world as he walked through the forest, especially in regards to feeders. He’d rather not bite people because they got addicted to the bites and also biting people was weird even if it was also sort of in his nature as a vampire. The forest was quiet as he made his way through it and he switches his thoughts from feeders back to phones. He ponders how he might engineer a way for Moroi to have access to the Internet and cell phones and such without humans stumbling across them when he noticed someone standing by his small fort. He would have turned around and walked away if the damn guardian hadn’t already turned and seen him. Bucky. Of course Tony thinks to himself. Obviously it had to be him instead of literally any other guardian.

Bucky frowns at him, “Tony? What are you doing out during the day?” he asks, again hanging heavy in the air between them.

“I like the sunlight,” he lies, nose in the air.

Bucky snorts, “sure you do,” he says sarcastically.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Tony snaps back. True, but it was a bit of an overreaction on his part. That was… well nothing new even if he figured he should be worried about his mood swings.

“No,” Bucky says after pondering his response for a moment, “but I do know that no Moroi could possibly enjoy the sunlight for biological ‘I-feel-like-I’m-going-to-throw-up’ reasons. So what draws you out here?” he asks. The question implies that this isn’t just a couple of one off incidents and given that Tony happened across him looking over his small structure looking confused Tony couldn’t blame him for the conclusion he drew.

“Told you, I like the sun,” he says, stomping over to his structure boldly, moving around Bucky and sitting under the branches. It had taken forever to find a way to keep the damn branches up in a way that didn’t cave in on him- sometimes literally- in the weather. It was also purposefully built away from the usual guardian patrol areas to avoid detection but apparently Bucky didn’t give a shit about his usual route. He was proud of his little twig house and he was annoyed that Bucky found the damn thing.

Bucky examines him for a long moment, clearly trying to figure out how to proceed. Tony stares back at him, all but defiantly telling him to go tell his guardian friends about this. Finally Bucky sighs, “how many times a week do you sleep?” he asks, throwing Tony for a loop for a moment.

“Enough,” he says evasively.

“Tony,” Bucky says, his tone soft and caring and… and Tony could feel something in his chest twang and damnit why did he have to be like this right now?

“Couple times, sometimes more if I’m really exhausted,” he admits quietly, looking at the ground.

Bucky swears under his breath, “I take it no one knows about this?” Bucky asks. Tony shakes his head, still looking away. Well, Rhodey did but he didn’t know just how bad it was because Tony did his best to keep it from him. Being able to read his moods was invasive enough; he didn’t need to disrupt Rhodey’s life more even if he knew Rhodey would insist it was fine. But he’s a guardian in training; it’s what they’re supposed to do. “How often do you drink?” Bucky asks after a few moments of silence.

“None of your business,” Tony mumbles with no real fire behind the statement even though he wanted it to be there. “Just keep this to yourself,” he tells Bucky, glaring up at him.

To his surprise Bucky was clearly considering it. Bucky sighs after a few long moments, “alright, but I’m keeping an eye on you,” he says.

Tony works to keep his mouth shut because what? “Seriously?” he asks, shocked.

“I… have experience in dealing with stubborn Moroi who dislike doctors. You won’t do anything I tell you to and forcing you to do what I want will only ensure that you find better ways to avoid me and everyone else who might notice your behavior. You’ve done a sufficient job of avoiding Rhodey and I swear that kid can read your mind. So no, I’m not going to say anything. For now,” he adds.

He looks away because Bucky’s comment about Rhodey reading his mind was maybe a little too close to home. So he suspected something too, not just Peggy. Well, shit.

*

Bucky keeps tabs on Tony easily, used to watching everything and nothing at the same time came in handy when you wanted to keep an eye on a high risk teen without him or his best friend noticing what you were doing. Rhodey, if he was looking, would have recognized his techniques from his classes but he was more concerned with Tony and for good reason. During the course of two weeks he spent watching Tony he found him to be an emotional roller coaster and even Tony knew it. Rhodey handled him well, and so did his other close friend Pepper but most others seemed to avoid Tony unless he outright spoke to them.

And when Tony was social he was social. If it wasn’t Pepper or Rhodey he was talking to he had a habit of drawing a crowd and at least in those moments people loved him. Tony flipped from being antisocial and generally pissed off to outgoing, happy, and sociable and it made no sense. Talking to Peggy- keeping his questions subtle of course- he learned that this was normal for him, hence why no one seemed to find this worrying. Bucky had no idea why no one paid attention to the odd behavior anyways, people didn’t generally flip between very antisocial to very social with no rhyme or reason but he supposed people got used to people being a certain way and expected them to continue acting that way.

By week three he figured out how Tony managed to keep people off his back in regards to his odd behavior and for a few days he had no idea what to do with that knowledge. “You can use compulsion on Dhampirs. And Moroi,” Bucky tells Tony the next time he sees him.

Tony looks surprised and then annoyed, “what’s it to you?” he snaps, apparently in one of his moods today.

“Moroi can’t use compulsion on other Moroi or on Dhampirs so how can you?” he asks, frowning. The best they could do, usually, was muddle another person’s mind a little and that’s if they were good.

“Don’t know, I’ve always been able to do that,” Tony mumbles.

“You use it a lot,” Bucky points out. “Must be exhausting.” Steve used to use a little bit of compulsion sometimes, mostly to get Bucky out of trouble back when they were in school, and it always weakened him. But that didn’t fit Tony, not with the extreme insomnia. What the hell was going on with him?

“Sometimes,” Tony admits.

They remain silent for a long time while Bucky contemplates how Tony was able to handle so much sunlight on a regular basis. Even being in the shade exhausted Moroi- unless… “Do you come out during the day to try and tire yourself out?” he asks after some time of silence.

Tony’s head snaps up, shocked. “How did you know that?” he asks, eyes wide. Clearly he wasn’t used to people figuring out what was going on in his head.

“Sunlight exhausts Moroi when they’re in it and you have severe insomnia. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together,” he says, shrugging.

“I’d give yourself more credit than that, you’re the first to have ever figured that out,” he says. The first implied that at least one other person knew about his lack of sleep and Bucky would guess Rhodey and maybe even Pepper. Rhodey was more in tune with Tony than Pepper was though, so much so that Bucky was genuinely wondering if he actually could read Tony’s mind somehow.

They lapse back into silence for some time before Bucky speaks up again, wanting to know what was going on before he went back to his neglected guardian duties. “What did you mean, the first time I found you out here, when you told me I was marked by death?” he asks.

Tony looks confused, “what?” he asks. The reaction is genuine, he can tell. You got good at reading people when you had to decide in two seconds or less if they’re a threat.

“When I took your alcohol you told me I was marked by death, that I barely escaped it,” Bucky says, “what did you mean by that?”

Tony’s brows draw together as he considers this for a long moment, “I… I don’t remember that. Maybe I was more drunk than I thought…”

“You were looking at the air around me,” Bucky says, trying to jog his memory, “why?”

He can tell that this triggers something for Tony but he just shakes his head, “I don’t remember that,” he repeats.

Bucky believes that- Tony genuinely seemed confused about Bucky’s question about being marked by death, but he definitely knew why he was looking at the air around Bucky instead of looking at Bucky. And he was going to figure out what was going on.