Sentinel

The evidence suggested human involvement but that was about as much as Tony could get as a student. He was tempted to steal some guardian records again but Fury would eat his ass so he doesn’t. Instead he sneaks out of his dorm, something that was easy to do in the daylight given that no one would expect a Moroi to go wandering in the sun, to hopefully go find Bucky. Tony figured he could probably sweet talk the guardian into talking and worst come to worst if things were really good and he wasn’t talking he could always use compulsion. Rhodey would beat his ass for it but he wanted information more than Tony did and the one thing they had was from Peggy slipping him private information. Pepper hadn’t been able to gather anything either, but she wasn’t Royal so that was hardly surprising.

If she had been, or if people weren’t so suspicious of Tony these days, then they probably would have had information faster but Tony didn’t feel like socializing to get murder details. At least not yet. “I’m starting to wonder if you’re following me around,” someone says from behind him and Tony jumps, head spinning just a bit as he turned too fast. Fucking sun, why couldn’t he enjoy daylight? It would make the insomnia much easier. And the sunlight didn’t even tire him out like he wanted it to.

“Given that you seem to stumble upon me more than the opposite I think you’re the stalker,” Tony says, grinning and leaning against a tree. Ugh, the affects of the sun were kicking in faster than usual today. Lovely.

“You should probably not wander around in the sun,” Bucky tells him, clearly looking him over for any adverse affects. Tony didn’t need to see his face to know he was more pale than usual but he was also standing in a sunny spot so he moves to a shadier area and leans against a tree there.

“Better? Besides, these days daylight is safer than nighttime anyways. Maybe we should switch to a diurnal schedule,” he says.

Bucky catches on to his ruse right away and sighs, “well you’re the most creative, I’ll give you that. Most of your classmates just asked for all the details. But daylight isn’t safe either; you just won’t see Strigoi walking around. Doesn’t mean you won’t run into any guardians or Moroi that will give you trouble,” Bucky says.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “guardians or Moroi that’ll give you trouble? Is this a hint?” he asks, smiling again.

Bucky looks suddenly tired and he rubs his temples, “no, that’s just from personal experience with a guy who really knew how to piss off a crowd. You’ll like Rhodey’s class Monday if you show up to that instead of that elemental class you’re supposed to be in,” Bucky tells him.

Hmm. Tony wasn’t entirely sure if Bucky was telling the truth or not but he leaves it be. “No sense in going to the elemental class, I haven’t specialized anyways. There’s nothing there for me to learn.” He could work magic fine, but it seemed he had no connection to an element and that was unheard of. Well, there were people who didn’t specialize but they had low control over all four elements, he had something else entirely. There were no elements that allowed a person to bring the dead back to life, to see auras, or use compulsion in ridiculously high amounts. Tony suspected he had other abilities but he didn’t know what he was supposed to research to find out what those abilities were.

His words seem to spark something in Bucky though and he watches as Bucky considers his options. “I’ll make you a deal, you give me something that I want I’ll give you something that you want. How does that sound?” Bucky asks.

Dangerous, but Tony has always been a risk taker. “Why not?” he says with a grin. Besides, he’s a student, what could he have that Bucky would want?

Bucky looks like he just won something, which should have been Tony’s first clue that he screwed up but he was too caught up in getting the information that he wanted to care. “The other day, when I asked you about being marked for death you didn’t know what I was talking about but you did react to me asking about you looking at the air around me. What was that?” he asks.

Aw shit. He thinks about it for a moment and he can tell that Bucky was pleased with himself but… but he hasn’t said anything about Tony’s habits so far. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything about this either… “I um… have… abilities but they aren’t connected to an element. What I was looking at was your aura.”

This confuses Bucky, understandably, “all Moroi magic is connected to an element,” he says.

“I haven’t specialized,” Tony says, “so it can’t be connected to an element. And I’ve done my research, there isn’t anything to suggest one of the four elements would give me the ability to see auras.” Or heal dead things back to life. That in particular was some serious magic. Not that he’d tell Bucky about that because he already knew too much and Rhodey was going to kick his ass as it was.

“And use compulsion they way you do,” Bucky adds. Shit, Tony forgot that he knew about that.

“Well I mean some Moroi are good at that,” Tony mumbles, knowing the excuse was ridiculous because no they couldn’t. Moroi could use compulsion on humans, not other Moroi and Dhampirs. When they tried the attempts were usually embarrassing and futile and not at all like the kind of compulsion Tony could work.

“Not like you. I’ve seen you use it in teachers who should be resilient if for no other reason than at least one student trying to use compulsion to get out of handing in homework every class let alone age, experience, and natural resilience. When did you figure out you could do that?” Bucky asks, head tilted to the side.

When Howard was about to kick his ass one time but he wasn’t going to tell Bucky that he managed to talk him down and have him turn away. He thought it was a fluke, that it worked because Howard was drunk at the time. But when he tried it again when Howard was sober it worked just as well. “I tried to get out of handing in homework. It worked,” Tony lies flippantly. It was believable but Bucky snorts and shakes his head.

“No, you didn’t. You’re a great student; I know that because I hear people talk about you. It’s always something along the lines of how brilliant you are quickly followed by their annoyance that you’re intent of throwing that all away by acting the way you do. Except I’m not totally sure all of that is stuff you’re intending to do,” Bucky says, frowning at him.

Tony laughs, “oh I intend for all of it to happen,” he says in a confident tone. No, he didn’t, but sometimes he just couldn’t stop the moods from taking over and it was hard to stop himself from saying things he shouldn’t. Somewhere in there he knew he shouldn’t be such an asshole but stuff just happened and he couldn’t fix something once it was out. Then he had to just roll with it so now he had a reputation as an arrogant asshole that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with but he didn’t have much of a choice but to keep.

Bucky examines him for a few seconds, “no, you don’t. There’s too much about you that suggests it isn’t purposeful,” he says.

“Wishful thinking,” Tony quips lightly, “usually I only get that from my dates but hey, I’ll take it.” Teachers lost hope in him ages ago and probably only put up with him at all because he was genuinely brilliant. That, and Rhodey would probably leave the school like an idiot if they kicked Tony out and they needed their star Dhampir.

“More like experience with people who aren’t what they seem. Speaking of- what’s with Peggy giving you so much leeway? She doesn’t let student skip class let alone skip class to go to her class,” he says.

Tony shrugs, “guess that’s what happens when she feels bad for killing your father right in front of you. You can tell her that she shouldn’t fell so bad, that was the best day of my life,” he says. Bucky, he can tell, believes what his words because he looks shocked at Tony’s admission. Most did but they all should have paid attention to how much he hated his father before it was trendy. It wouldn’t have come as a surprise for anyone who was paying attention.

*

Rhodey gives Tony a look, “you told him what?” he hisses. He looks like he really wants to smack Tony but he’s but a sensitive Moroi so he doesn’t. Pepper just lets out a long sigh because she expected nothing less from Tony. Unlike Rhodey she didn’t really expect him to do better than what he’s shown himself capable and honestly Tony wasn’t sure what was worse. Rhodey having high expectations for him only to fail those expectations consistently or have a track record so bad Pepper gave up on holding him to standards.

“Did you want the info or not?” he asks defensively.

“Of course I did, but not if it was going to put you in danger!” Rhodey snaps.

“He told Barnes that he saw auras, that’s hardly selling his soul to the guy,” Pepper points out. Bless her for being the voice of reason. It was useful seems how Tony’s stupid mind couldn’t keep his guilt in his own damn brain, it had to off and broadcast it to Rhodey too. If he had managed to keep it to himself then Rhodey wouldn’t have gleaned how Tony got his information and he would have gotten away with his brilliant plan.

“So what if it isn’t, you have no idea what he’ll do with that information!” Rhodey tells her. Tony does his best to try and keep the rest of the guilt he was feeling to himself too… “Why do you feel guilty still? And why are you trying not to think about it?” Rhodey asks him. Pepper leans forward in interest, smiling pleasantly because she found these encounters amusing. Traitor.

He just needed to keep those few times he ran into Bucky all weird to himself, and all those conversations and…

“Tony! Stop talking to him!” Rhodey says and Tony makes an annoyed noise.

“Can’t you stay out of my damn head for once?” he snaps. He could feel the edges of one of those dark moods coming on but he tries to keep it away. He didn’t need this right now, or ever really but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that those moods would disappear anytime soon. They’ve only gotten worse since Howard off and ruined his life and brought shame on his entire family. Before that people actually liked Starks and now they were all potential Strigoi because he had to off and kill someone while drinking their blood. Selfish fucker.

“What did you find out though, about the attack?” Pepper asks, distracting both him and Rhodey efficiently enough. Rhodey doesn’t look ready to let this go but he does look at Tony expectantly, waiting to see what he had to say.

Rhodey wasn’t going to like this, Tony knew, because Bucky was an asshole that totally played Tony for information but he at least got a few good details. “Well I didn’t find out much more to be honest,” he says, glaring right back at Rhodey when Rhodey glares at him, “but there were more Strigoi this time. And they suspect that some of those guardians were backup because a couple of the Moroi killed weren’t Royals and didn’t have guardians. So the Strigoi would have had to stick around to take them out purposefully. And there was a message there,” he says. “Oh, and broken wards,” he adds.

Pepper and Rhodey consider this information and Rhodey eventually sighs, “what did the message say?” he asks. Tony shrugs, Bucky hadn’t told him. “You didn’t ask?” Rhodey asks, looking offended at this.

“Of course I asked, I just didn’t get an answer,” Tony says, offended that Rhodey would be offended at his sleuthing skills. Excuse him; he was the one who had got suspended for a week because he went and dug up Bucky’s guardian record. Clearly he was a sleuthing genius.

“Something about Royal families maybe?” Rhodey asks and Tony shrugs again. Bucky hadn’t given anything away.

“I hope so, that’ll mean I’m safe,” Pepper says, drawing a horrified look from Rhodey and Tony. “What? You Royals always get guardians; I’m the one who’s left defenseless, sue me if I hope that the targets are the ones who have a fighting chance thanks to their guardians.”

“I probably won’t get one,” Tony points out, “maybe the Strigoi will think I’ve gone Strigoi too and they’ll leave me alone.”

Rhodey looks upset for a moment at Tony’s words, “of course you’ll get a guardian, I’m your guardian.”

“No,” Pepper says, “you aren’t. Not after Howard’s Strigoi stunt made the Stark family fall out of favor. Maria isn’t the only Stark without a guardian and you’re good. There’s no way they’re going to waste you on Tony. No offense,” she adds to Tony.

Tony shrugs, not at all bothered. The statement was true, that wasn’t her fault.

“The hell that’ll happen! I won’t accept any other assignment,” Rhodey says in a determined tone.

“Then you’re an idiot, why would you waste time on Stark anyways? You’re only going to have to stake him when he goes Strigoi,” Justin Hammer says, sneering at Tony as he interrupts their conversation like a jackass.

“Keep it up and you’ll be the one I drip dry, asshole,” Tony shoots back without missing a beat. Pepper and Rhodey burst out laughing and Hammer pales a little, obviously taking the threat seriously.

“You’d never do it but if you did, I’d appreciate you going evil by doing the world a favor and killing Hammer off,” Rhodey says, snickering. Hammer looks deeply offended that Rhodey would say this but Tony also felt it would be a public service to kill Hammer off.

“Don’t be absurd, he doesn’t need to go Strigoi to kill him and it’s a public service all the same,” Pepper says.

“Good point Pep, I could just stab him in the neck,” Tony says lightly.

“Who are you stabbing in the neck?” Bucky asks, appearing somewhat suddenly to Tony and Pepper but Rhodey doesn’t look surprised so he figured Rhodey’s super guardian senses and all that helped him spot Bucky before he scared them all.

“He threated to kill me to turn Strigoi!” Hammer blurts, ratting Tony out right away.

Bucky opens his mouth to respond and then shuts it, clearly thinking better of whatever he was about to say. “Tony, I’d rather you didn’t,” he says, “also I’ve been instructed to make sure you get back to your dorm because you’ve been slipping detention.”

“He’s probably stalking me and waiting for his moment to kill me and turn Strigoi!” Hammer says.

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “if Tony, who is six and a half inches and fifty pounds lighter than you with no combat training whatsoever manages to get the jump on you and kill you without you managing to throw him off and keep him down you deserve to die,” he says in a flat, annoyed tone. Bucky coughs, which Tony knows is him covering his amusement because he can see the proper colors swirling in his aura.

“You wish I spent that much time looking in your direction, Hammer,” Tony tells him, nose in the air.

“Yeah, yeah, Tony’s using his father going Strigoi to scare you off, I wouldn’t fall for it. Especially because Rhodey is right, he’d probably pick an easier target. Now get up so I can drop you off at your dorm,” Bucky tells Tony, hand on his hips. Tony grumbles a little but picks himself up so he can go.

*

Bucky watches Tony, trying to determine if he could even imagine him as Strigoi. He couldn’t but that was likely due to his unshakable faith that no one decent would ever turn Strigoi by choice and Tony, while a bit odd, was a good person. “I wouldn’t actually go Strigoi, I just don’t like Hammer,” he says.

“Figured. Why though? Hammer, why don’t you like him?” Bucky adds when he realizes his question is a bit vague.

“He made a racist comment to Rhodey once. And he stole my crackers in kindergarten,” Tony says. It takes a few seconds for Bucky to realize the second bit of that was serious and then he starts laughing. “What?” Tony asks, looking affronted, “racism isn’t funny!”

“Of course it isn’t, but you hate the guy because he stole you’re crackers?” he asks.

“They were Ritz! I love Ritz crackers!” Tony says in his own defense.

Bucky shakes his head, still smiling. “You are something else, you know that?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Tony quips in that trademark snarky tone of his. They walk in silence for a bit- the Mori dorm was a little out of the way from the cafeteria due to the feeder building being in between the cafeteria and the dorm. Feeders were humans that gave their blood willingly to Moroi, addicted to their bites thanks to the endorphins in it.

“Are you alright?” Bucky asks when they get to the dorm.

Tony looks caught off guard by the question but he recovers quickly, “of course I am. What makes you think I’m not?” he asks, apparently deciding to ignore every habit he had.

“Well gee, I don’t know, could be the day drinking, the amount of time you insist on spending in the sunlight despite feeling sick when you’re in it, the weird way your moods seem to work, your odd friendship with Rhodey, your ability to work strange magic despite having no connection to an element, I could go on. Do you want me to or are you prepared to be honest now?” Steve had prepared him to deal with this kind of stubbornness, but not anything else Tony came with not that Bucky was unwilling to figure things out anyways. Something about Tony drew him in, maybe because he was reminded of Steve thanks to his stubbornness and general attitude, or maybe it was something else. Who knew?

Tony sighs, “look, I have no idea okay? Sometimes I’m fine and things are going well and then everything changes and it’s like… like…” he trails off, not sure how to word it.

“Like a black cloud following you everywhere metaphorically raining on you and no matter how hard you try it always seems to eclipse the sun,” Bucky says, familiar with the feeling.

“Yeah, and people just don’t get it. They think I should be able to pull myself out of it or something and that’s just now how it works. I can’t make the darkness get out of my brain,” Tony murmurs, looking off into the distance with a haunted expression on his face.

Bucky knew that look too, sort of. He’s spent a fair amount of time with it on his face and he knew lots of Dhampirs who were damaged by their jobs enough to look haunted like that too. “People have a hard time understanding things they’ve never been through,” Bucky tells him, “but you’ll get through whatever is happening. You’re tough.” He could see that strength in a lot of things Tony did, but sitting in class with the woman who killed your father? That was a kind of strength Bucky didn’t know anyone had. He had debated a few times on relaying Tony’s statement about his father’s death being the best thing that ever happened to him to Peggy but he had decided against it. He’d have to explain how he knew that and then all the other things about Tony he wasn’t reporting when he should.

But unlike most Bucky had experience in this area and he damn well knew that someone in Tony’s situation wasn’t going to do anything about it until they were good and ready, and they’d only manage to skirt around anyone’s efforts to help them before that time. He spent a lot of his own youth day drinking and acting strange, minus the magic, and when Steve had done his best to force him into changing his behavior he just got good at hiding it. Steve should have known better given that he couldn’t be forced to do anything he didn’t want to as well.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Tony says softly.

*

“Strigoi sightings have gone up drastically,” Peggy says, pinching her nose.

“This attack could have drawn others out of the woodwork, you know these things tend to do that. It’s too early to draw conclusions,” Bucky says.

“That’s what the guardians who reported on the scene of the last mass murder said. I figured you of all people would know better,” someone else, a blond female guardian with her hair in a harsh blonde bun, says. Something about her looks vaguely familiar but Bucky can’t put his finger on it.

“I’m not saying mass murders aren’t a pattern- I’d say it’s safe to assume that these attacks aren’t completely unrelated. But the sightings, those are trickier.” Sometimes Strigoi got emboldened when one of their own got away with something they shouldn’t have and they all tried to kill a few Moroi for themselves. It didn’t usually work out well and the reports were showing that pattern hadn’t broken at least, and the sightings didn’t come with any other unusual aspects like the two mass murders had. There were no broken wards, no humans, and no signs of activity during the day.

“He’s right, Sharon,” Peggy tells the blonde when she goes to open her mouth to protest. She shuts her mouth and looks away as people so often did when Peggy disagreed with them. Bucky, if he was lucky, would get half of the respect Peggy would by the time he was her age. “Now I think we should keep an eye on the possible situations that could arise out of the rise of Strigoi sightings. Advise anyone that reports them to give you as much detail as possible so we can determine with more certainty whether or not these sightings are unusual,” Peggy tells them all.

They all make notes minus Bucky, who had a hard time writing with only one arm not that it mattered. He was with Peggy most of the time, or some other guardian, so someone else could record the details. “Now onto a somewhat more pressing matter. What are we going to do about the uh… note left behind at the last scene? And was there anything at the first scene?”

She had set a few people to read the reports, and Bucky’s testimony, from that day but the guardians reported no messages left behind. A little digging revealed that this latest attack was more organized too though having done this before that might not be overly important. Experience made you better, Bucky knew, and this was an unfortunate reflection of experience improving Strigoi skill.

But that still didn’t sit right with Bucky, not entirely. “Is it… is it possible that this was a different group of Strigoi?” he asks, everyone’s head swiveling to him in shock.

“Absolutely not,” one of the other school guardians, Bucky couldn’t remember his name, says.

Peggy considers his words though and Bucky can feel the tension in the room rise as she does. Peggy was easily the most respected guardian here- she was the one with the most experience and in more than one kind of guardian job unlike most of the rest of them, she had more kills than almost anyone on record, and her assessments were rarely wrong. If she was considering Bucky’s words it was because his thoughts had crossed her mind already. “What makes you think this is a different group?” she asks eventually.

Shit. Bucky always hated this part because he sucked at putting gut feelings into words and Peggy knew it. This was an exercise in learning. “The last attack felt less… structured I guess. The goal near as I can tell was to kill a crap ton of people and drink a bunch of Moroi blood. I mean yes, it was obviously organized by someone who thought things through but it was chaos even with the planning. The Strigoi almost bit off more than they could chew from what I could see, like they hadn’t anticipated Dhampir training to be so good. This attack was smaller but far more organized. Routes out were secured, wards were broken in more than one place in case stakes were knocked loose or that’s what’s I’d guess, and the evidence suggests the Strigoi were prepared for Dhampir training. More than prepared, they designed the attacks around what we’re taught in Academies. And then there was the message. The goal here was a lot more organized.”

And their message was not only heard loud and clear, but so far they were successful at targeting the Royals they have now labeled their explicit targets at the last attack. Bucky shuddered just looking at the note that was left at the scene. It had taken a moment to realize what the message meant, but it was the first letter of each of the Royal families last names. The letters were organized in order of family size with ‘R’ at the top for Rogers and there were tally marks beside the name of the family that was killed. It had been gruesome.

The other guardians shift uncomfortably as Bucky lays it all out like that and he knows he’s onto something then. “But a lot was the same. The extra stake could have been a fluke on the part of humans; they are rather fickle creatures sometimes. The message could have been something they had before but chose not to broadcast,” Peggy says, playing the Devil’s advocate he supposed.

“The first venue could have been some kind of a test run,” Sharon throws in.

“No,” Bucky says immediately, “that doesn’t fit. That was a larger space with more people- more could go wrong there than in a home. It wouldn’t have been the test run, an attack in a home would have been. And Peggy, what you said about the message doesn’t fit either. This group wants us to know they have a plan; they’re taunting us and the Moroi. This isn’t the kind of group that would stay quiet if they had an agenda from the beginning.”

Peggy nods, approving of where he went with that. Sharon’s head snaps up and Bucky can see that something has occurred to her so Peggy turns her attention to her. Everyone else does too; mostly out of respect for Peggy. “I don’t think this is a new group- Strigoi rarely gather in groups so the chances of this happening twice in less than a year is extremely unlikely. But the changes would make sense if there was someone else in charge of the original group,” she says.

Bucky’s eyebrows go up because he hadn’t thought of that and Sharon was right, Strigoi have only ever teamed up in groups of two or three in all of history pretty much. It made more sense than the original group had a new leader, not that there was a new group all together. “Very good,” Peggy says, “I’ll be informing the guardians at the scene of this and spreading the news. I had my suspicions that this was happening but I wanted to see if anyone else picked up on the differences.”

“With all due respect, Carter, this isn’t the time to teach students. This is a time to take action,” Jack Thompson, a man Bucky knew well because he was probably the only person in the world that hated Peggy, says. His tone suggested that there was no respect there at all and his body language all but confirmed it.

Peggy’s head tips up, “well Jack, we are old. We all know what happens to old guardians- we die. I am doing my dues to make sure that the next generation is better prepared to deal with Strigoi than we were, perhaps you should follow my lead lest more of your students end up dead,” she says harshly. Thompson, for all his trying, never had compared to Peggy in anything though it wasn’t without trying. Bucky suspected he was pissed that a woman was better than him, not that Peggy was better than him.

“My students do fine in the field,” he says stiffly.

“Really? Because every student you taught that was in the field died in the last two attacks. Mine survived,” she points out.

“Technically that was a fluke,” Bucky says because it’s true.

Thompson throws up his hands, “I didn’t say it.”

“Give yourself credit, Bucky. Your toxicology report showed that you drank the least amount of that drug you ingested, you managed to go through quite a few Strigoi, and I suspect the only reason you faltered was because of Steve. You were easily the most prepared person there,” she tells him.

He tries to take the compliment with grace but he can’t help but smile. Peggy didn’t hand out compliments often, if ever. “So Jack, now that you’re done proving why your students keep failing you I’d like to go back to challenging mine. Bucky, Sharon, look over the Strigoi sightings and see if there’s anything to link them. And look into any strange activity in human cities, a large group of Strigoi wouldn’t go unnoticed.”

They nod and head off immediately, walking down to the guardian-specific building to do their research. That’s about when he realizes why Sharon looked kind of familiar, “are you related to Peggy?” he asks, causing her to jump.

She frowns, “how’d you know that? No one ever realizes,” she says.

“You don’t tell people?” he asks.

Sharon snorts, “would you tell people Peggy Carter is your aunt?” she asks.

“Fair point, that’s a lot to live up to,” he says.

Sharon picks up speed, “oh you have no idea.”