Sentinel

The last thing Tony expects to for his mother to wake him up by pounding on his door. He glares at her, hoping it would make her disappear but unfortunately it doesn’t work. “Get dressed, we’re going to the Court,” she tells him bluntly, looking very determined.

“I’d rather die,” Tony says and he goes to go back to him bed but Maria catches his arm. The Moroi Court was where pretty much anything important happened and he was not in the presence of mind to actually deal with politics. Or people.

“Anthony Edward Stark you will get yourself into the shower right now and you will make yourself look presentable because we are going to the Court. That is final. Besides, they’re all debating what to do considering the recent attacks and the most popular decision is to push Dhampirs through school faster. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that for Rhodey,” she says, hitting him where it hurt. People liked to think Howard was the underhanded sneaky one but that was never true. He just bullied people until he got what he wanted, it was Maria who had all the finesse and it was her Tony learned from.

But now it was being used against him and he didn’t like it. “You can sleep on the plane,” she tells him and he finally heaves out a sigh and goes to shower. He’s tired, annoyed, and not at all pleased with the proceedings of the morning but he loved Rhodey and he was already aware that life for Dhampirs was more than unfair. No one should essentially be forced to protect a race of people that, in Tony’s experience, were hardly grateful for it. He’s heard the whispers of what Royals in particular thought they should do, how Dhampirs should respond to the recent atrocities. Strangely not one argument put forth by Royals at least involved them actually doing something to protect themselves. Non-Royals, they had ideas and some have even gotten vocal or started learning new ways to use their magic like Pepper had. But that was because they had far less access to guardians than Royals did. He wondered how their approach would differ if they weren’t left to fend for themselves.

Still, he had no desire to see people like Rhodey forced into a position they should never have to be in. They were already getting the shit end of the stick, even if Bucky and Rhodey would tell him- have told him- that they didn’t mind. Tony didn’t think it mattered if the people who were being served an unjust position cared if it was unjust- if it’s wrong it should change. Period. So he goes even though he knows no one will listen to him or Maria, not after what Howard did and especially not so soon. Anyone with an immediate relation to them was treated like they were Strigoi too even though not one of them had anything to do with Howard’s actions. The man was like a disease, ruining everything around him. Tony has always hated him for that.

He’s surprised when he’s met by Peggy, Bucky, and Rhodey though. Yeah, guardians generally accompanied kids when they left the school but he had, for some reason, assumed he’d be in the same position he usually was. Unprotected, at least by people with training. “They’re bringing you? No offense,” he says to Rhodey. He was just surprised and thankfully due to the bond Rhodey knew that.

Rhodey nods, “yeah, something about this being a training exercise to prepare me for the real world and all that. No idea why I’d be doing that at the Court given that it’s more protected than the school having the Queen in it and all of that but alright.” Tony can tell that this annoys him and he laughs, earning a dirty look from Rhodey.

“You’ll still have to be on guard on the way to and from the Court,” Peggy points out. “Now stop whining and get in your proper position.” She doesn’t tell him what position that is or give him any other instructions but apparently Rhodey knows what she means because he goes to stand beside Bucky. They set off and Tony doesn’t think much more about positions of guardians because this was above his knowledge base. Of course he’s read up on the subject but Bucky had a point when he told him theory and practice were two different things. Rhodey had all that practical knowledge that Tony was missing.

“You look fancy,” Rhodey tells him when they’re in the car headed to the airport. This was an absurdly long trip for a debate but Tony figured it much be important if his mother was dragging him to it. Not that he had any idea why she bothered given that Howard ruined any chance they had at being taken seriously.

“Mom told me to look dapper,” he says, “not that it’ll help.”

“Sure it will, just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. I’ve been doing a good job distancing us from Howard and this is a good way for us to get back into the fray,” she says, eyes shrewd. Obviously she had some kind of plan but what that was he wasn’t privy to, at least not yet.

“Depends on what side everyone else is on. Clearly you’re not on board with pushing Dhampirs through school faster and if that’s the more popular opinion, well. We’re double fucked,” Tony points out. Royal politics was a popularity contest and if you didn’t agree with popular opinions you were generally froze out. Tony had been lucky his rather… liberal views hadn’t gotten him froze out earlier in his life but he was charismatic and good at arguing when he wanted to be. It meant that, at least in the school’s sheltered environment, he had won the popularity contest. There was no way they’d win an opinion at all now even if they were on the same side as the more popular Royals.

“They want to what?” Rhodey snaps. “That’s insane, they can’t do that!” he all but yells.

“Control yourself,” Peggy snaps at him and Rhodey goes back to that impassive face he and all the rest of the guardians had mastered long ago. Tony though, because he knew Peggy and Bucky well, could see that they agreed. Their auras reflected approval at Rhodey’s outrage too.

“The opinions are pretty much deadlocked. If I can manage to sway them back in the right direction so we don’t send children into battle then I’ll have both done the right thing and insinuated myself back into Court life,” Maria says. Smart, Tony thinks, except he had no idea why she’d even bother with the politics. He’s never been fond even if he was good at it. When he says as much to Maria she sighs, “you have no idea how useful being in this position can be for you Tony. I wouldn’t bother with it if I it wasn’t for you, you shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of Howard’s actions and this is the easiest way to ensure you get what’s fair.”

Tony had no idea what that meant but they had reached the airport so he ignores that in favor of trying to sleep on the damn plane. Of course it doesn’t work because he’s never slept well, but especially after he’s been up for awhile even if he was pretty tired. Thankfully the plane ride wasn’t very long- a few hours, and they land at the Court relatively safe minus Rhodey’s plane sickness. He didn’t like flying, never had, and Tony gently reaches out with his magic to quell his stomach. Rhodey glares at him for it but he shrugs. He wouldn’t want to feel sick all day if he had to guard some Moroi so he figured he’d touch Rhodey a little with the magic and solve his problem.

Maria informs him that they’re apparently staying the night, which causes him to groan in annoyance because he didn’t bring clothes and also because he was going to miss two of those lessons with Charles now. He said he found some promising things and Tony was excited about it even if his guardian freaked him out. Of course Maria had anticipated this visit being longer than what she told Tony so she had packed him a bag while he was in the damn shower. Of course. So they went off to drop their things in their rooms before they were expected to show up to this debate thing.

Rhodey shadows Tony as they move around, which was both weird and cool given how in sync they were. They were usually like this when they were in school so Tony had to wonder if Rhodey made an effort to be in sync with Tony or to avoid being in sync with Tony. He guessed the second one. “You know I’m not about to die here, right?” Tony asks as he drops his bag in his room. Peggy and Maria took the room across the hall and thankfully Tony, Bucky, and Rhodey had been given their own rooms. He wondered why Peggy would be in a room with his mom but he figured they might be talking strategy with Peggy’s insider guardian knowledge. It would be smart to do so considering he doubted any Moroi consulted guardians or Dhampirs about their own fate.

“I also know this is a test and I’m not about to fail it. You know Peggy’s word goes a long way in getting us jobs,” he says. Yeah, he did, which was half why he wanted Rhodey to fail it. No one in their right mind was going to give someone as good as Rhodey to Tony. He’d be off guarding the Queen or some other Royal politician or lawyer. Tony doesn’t respond to Rhodey as they crossed the hall so Rhodey could drop off his own bag. Apparently he got to know about their overnight trip but Tony didn’t.

“Are you alright?” Rhodey asks as he drops his bag on his bed. He looks concerned but Tony doesn’t see why he needed to. He was fine and he tells Rhodey so. “I don’t know man, you seem more irritated than normal. You aren’t feeling like… well you know,” he says eventually, waving a hand around a little helplessly.

Tony sighs, “I’m fine Rhodey, really. So, want to go watch me probably butcher all my mom’s careful work in securing my future playing Royal games when I go tell all those twats that they’re a bunch of fucking idiots if they lower the legal guardian age?”

Rhodey laughs and shakes his head, “eloquent, Stark. You know you could always leave your mom’s work in tact and actually argue like a normal person, right? You’re good at it and you have a natural charisma. People would listen.”

He sounds like he really believes that but he forgets that he’s probably one of five people in the Moroi world that don’t think he’s about to turn Strigoi at any moment. And his father cursed him with his looks so not only did he have to live with his father’s stigma but he also had to look just like him too. Fucking prick. Okay, maybe Rhodey had a point about him being touchier than usual but still. He doesn’t bother to argue with Rhodey though and they go when Bucky pokes his head in to draw them out.

To Tony’s surprise they don’t go to the usual meeting places around the Court, they go straight to the Council Chambers. This did not bode well. Usually they talked issues out and then the Council- people representing each Royal family and the reigning monarch- would vote on the issue at hand. Clearly people were in much more of a panic outside of school than they were in it if this was going almost straight to the Council. The guardians flit to the side of the room like they always did in moments like this and Maria and Tony head to the audience section. People whisper but neither of them responds to it. They’ve both heard it all anyways so they move to a spot in the front and ignore the way people avoided sitting near them. Poor Maria looked stressed but Tony didn’t care.

Wanda- the current Queen and not someone Tony was fond of- stands eventually and calls for people to stop speaking. The room quiets and they present the issue- Moroi being picked off at an alarming rate- and what guardians were supposed to do about it. Tony makes note of the arguments and who was representing each Royal family. He had a lot of dirt on a lot of people and he was unafraid to air it just to be a dick. Give people something else to talk about before they off and ruined some Dhampir lives. Rhodey was probably the only one who had any idea what was about to happen, which would make it all the more amusing. This was at least the kind of proceeding that the audience got a way in so Tony wasn’t about to look like a fool when he told them they were all a bunch of assholes.

The arguments, thus far, were pushing Dhampirs through school faster but they had no evidence that that would be affective. Ineffective guardians weren’t what anyone wanted so that argument had a major flaw in it. The next most popular argument was forcing Dhampir women into service and that must of hit some kind of cord with Bucky because his aura blazes red so hard and fast that it almost eclipses Rhodey, who was standing beside him and also quite disgusted. The last argument was some ludicrous nutball who suggested using compulsion on Dhampirs to force them to serve. At that Tony stands up, shaking off his mother when she tries to drag him back down. Rhodey tenses, knowing what was about to come and Tony can thank his lucky stars that Rhodey’s own emotions were probably running high enough that he had a good chance of not slipping into Tony’s head by accident.

“Are you people fucking insane?” he asks, drawing attention very quickly. He’s surprised when a lot of people flinch and collectively the fear in the room shoots up from everyone minus Wanda. Points to her. “Your arguments here, to sum them up, are to send children into battle, force people who don’t want to be guardians to be guardians, and use compulsion on people to get them to do what you want? You have got to be kidding me.”

Wanda watches him with shrewd eyes and stands as well; drawing even more attention to his words because it was obvious she was taking him seriously. Um, what? “And what are your solutions, Tony? Do enlighten us on what insight a seventeen year old could possibly add to this situation,” she says. Ah, so her tactic here was to delegitimize him and remind him of his youth. Bad move on her part.

“Oh, so sixteen year old Dhampirs can give their lives for us but I, someone who is a year older than that, can’t have opinions? I see how it is. You know I find it astounding that not one person here brought up an obvious solution- we fight back. With magic,” he adds so no one could misunderstand him. All hell breaks loose at that point and Tony sees the approval shining bright on Rhodey’s face and in his aura for just a moment before he schools his features back into that guardian calm. Then worry spikes in the colors of his aura as he realizes Moroi fighting back meant Tony fighting back.

Wanda looks irritated but her aura indicates that he’s sent her into a rage and he was more than prepared to use that against her. She was the idiot who brought age up. Other people in the room, whether they agreed with that solution or not, were forced to take Tony’s side on the age argument at least. They didn’t need to agree with his solution to see the extreme hypocrisy in how Wanda had treated him versus how she was apparently prepared to treat Dhampirs.

“We can’t fight back, we’ll die!” one of the Council members shouts. Vankov. Tony isn’t surprised, they were all a bunch of lily livered jackasses minus Ivan Vankov, who was at least willing to try and settle his matters with Tony himself even if Rhodey made sure that didn’t go as planned.

“We’re already dying in case you haven’t noticed,” Tony shoots back. “We’ve tried doing nothing and we’ve tried guardians, neither have worked. Pushing guardians out faster only ensures that we’re ruining the lives of children and Dhampirs only get eighteen years of life to themselves as it is. You can’t take more away from them than you already have. Using compulsion should be out for obvious and extremely immoral reasons, and the same with forcing women into service. We have magic, we should use it.”

Beside him Maria actually looks impressed. “That would never work!” someone else- Xavier- shouts.

“It did for me,” Maria says, throwing her opinion in looking determined. “The guardians are being forced to do all the work by themselves when they don’t need to. Tony is right, if we use magic we can buy them valuable seconds they need to kill Strigoi. That was how Peggy killed Howard.” It was a good tactic, Tony thinks, because people were both uncomfortable and forced to admit that she was right. It did work.

“That’s one case,” Xavier shoots back and Tony snorts.

“Better than the no cases you have for pushing Dhampirs through school faster and you best not show up with a single example of a Dhampir who proves themselves capable of killing Strigoi that young. One example isn’t enough by your own estimations,” Tony says and Xavier turns bright red and Tony grins maliciously. So he guessed his plan right and now he had it unraveled before it even formed. Ha.

“We don’t use our magic like that, in case you forgot we’re the peaceful vampires,” a new voice throws in. Stark. Well this ought to make things interesting now that Tony was arguing with a distant relative. He could see the relation though so maybe not too distant.

“We use magic to charm stakes and those kill Strigoi. That isn’t far off from what I’m suggesting,” he points out. “Are you telling me it’s okay to use magic explicitly for violent ends but only when it’s convenient for Moroi?”

“That’s hardly the same,” she sputters out and she’s right, but she isn’t confident in her statement. Confidence was key in things like this and thankfully Tony had it in spades.

“Isn’t it? I mean we hardly charm stakes with each element to tickle Strigoi; we do it to kill them. There is no other purpose for that magic except blatant murder, necessary murder. If we can use magic to kill via stakes we can learn how to use our magic to the benefit of guardians so they can kill Strigoi more efficiently. They would also have less to worry about given that we would be proactive instead of sitting there uselessly like a bunch of tits on logs.” Not exactly eloquent but it did the trick.

“That’s suicide!” Xavier throws out, joining the argument again.

“So is sitting around, which you’re suggesting we continue. What’s the difference?” he asks bluntly. Beside him Maria lets out a small ‘oooo’. “Plus mom already said it best- using magic worked and bought her enough time for Peggy to show up and kill Howard. She saved three lives that day by actually getting off her Royal ass and doing something. Your method has already gotten several families slaughtered. Please explain to me why you think I’m the one advocating suicide here.”

Xavier turns red and starts sputtering again because he had no argument when Tony put it like that. It was clear most of the room thought he was nuts but his argument held more water than the others so they were stuck. They didn’t want to agree, but he’s smacked away disagreements easily enough that they couldn’t really disagree either. Not when their objections were all the same as the ones he’s out and out dismissed with a surprising amount of efficiency.

“Maria lashed out with magic in an emotional time, Moroi aren’t naturally built to use their magic that way,” Wanda says calmly. Damn, that he didn’t have an argument for and she knew it given her smug look.

Except it turned out his mom was a secret badass because she laughs. “Like hell we aren’t,” she says and suddenly the papers in front of the Queen burst into flame and the room descends into true chaos.

*

“I could kiss you,” Bucky says to Tony after he finds him and his mom. They had been promptly dragged out after Maria lit the Queen’s stuff on fire so Tony made sure to shout all the way out about how they were all a bunch of cowards forcing everyone else to fight their battles for them. It probably didn’t help his argument but it was true.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Tony says, grinning and getting elbowed by his mom. “What? Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to kiss Bucky, he’s hot.” That was hardly his fault; it was just a simple fact.

“How did things go after we left?” Maria asks. She looks focused and determined so Tony guessed that she’s jumped on his argument and was choosing to ride it out. He supposed he understood why given that Tony’s argument actually did hold true for her.

Bucky laughs, “it was chaos. Tony, you sold a good argument because people were actually considering it. Not many and from what I saw most of them weren’t Royal but some sorry sucker brought up unequal distribution of guardians and pointed out that if Royals were going to continue running the Moroi world only to benefit them then non-Royal Moroi had a right to learn how to use magic to defend themselves. That was a good punch but probably not to Royals given that the punch was aimed at them. It was convincing enough to the non-Royals in the room though. Still, your argument got enough people to be loud enough to stave off any law changes, which is what Dhampirs need right now.”

He looks genuinely impressed and his aura reflects that, shining bright with approval and something else Tony doesn’t recognize. “Well, I wasn’t about to stand by when Moroi were about to throw children into a war that really isn’t theirs. Strigoi prefer Moroi blood, its mostly us that they’re after and Dhampirs are gracious enough to allow Moroi to brainwash them into protecting us. No offense, but that’s what Dhampir socialization is.” Maria considers it and then nods, not really unable to argue that. Bucky looks like he wants to but he also knows there’s a kernel of truth to Tony’s argument even if he can see in Bucky’s aura that he rejects that statement.

“Do you think Tony’s arguments will extend beyond the Court?” Maria asks.

Bucky nods, “almost certainly if for no other reason than how absolutely insane it is. People aren’t happy about how easily he argued his point. Those that will be convinced will listen and those that don’t are sure to talk about it.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “those that are against it will reiterate the same tired ‘that’s suicide’, ‘we don’t use our magic like that’, and ‘that’s not what tradition tells us to do’ arguments instead of coming up with real, tangible arguments. Besides, if we really wanted to follow tradition we’d out ourselves to humans, comingle with them again, and start using our magic to help them grow crops and stuff like we used to. And there was a time when Moroi used magic to aid guardians, but maybe that’s too traditional for traditionalists,” he says snidely. Traditions were useless if they were outdated.

Maria’s eyebrows shoot up, “do you have actual evidence of Moroi using magic to aid guardians?” she asks. Tony gives her the names of the books he found the information in and she makes note of them. “That is a genuinely good argument, as is the one on tradition. It shows that traditions are only as useful as the times they find themselves in. They’re subject to change when times do, just like everything else. You should think about being a politician,” Maria says and Tony laughs.

“Hell no. I was planning on disappearing into the human world and learning how to build cool things with all their tech. Have you seen the things they can do?” He has and he was interested. His plan seems to disappoint his mom but he was used to disappointing his parents so he didn’t really care about that.