Sentinel

Tony has never liked being helpless but they’ve all been shuttered off to the second floor common room because there was only one window that was difficult to get through in that area and they waned all the Moroi in one spot. Easier to keep track of that way. They’re all quiet for a long time because they don’t know what to make of this attack. Schools were safe; they had wards and guardians to keep them that way. That was an unspoken fact of the Moroi world and now that was done for. Great.

“What happened?” Peter asks him after nearly a half hour passes with no news.

“I was taking a morning walk,” he lies, “when Loki came up to me but I obviously didn’t think anything of it. We’re friends so I didn’t pay much attention until… well until he nearly ate me.” he doesn’t mention anything else that happened in between because it wasn’t necessary.

“How did you live!” Peter asks, shocked. He used his strange magic but he doesn’t tell Peter that either. Instead he cuts right to the good stuff.

“Bucky saved my ass. He staked Loki,” he says softly.

Peter frowns, “but how was he so close? And how’d he sneak up in a Strigoi?” Good questions and Tony wants to smack him for it.

“Loki was talking and I was doing my best to keep him talking. Bucky was on duty and must have been quiet enough to sneak up while I was talking. He only attacked when Loki went for my throat. I didn’t pay attention to the specifics given that I was too worried about not dying.” That shuts Peter up thankfully and he gently reaches out to squeeze his arm before melting back into the crowd. By the time another half an hour passes Loki was making threats on Tony’s mortal soul while Tony gallantly called him an unnatural undead creature of the night. In their defense they weren’t exactly wrong and for once he wasn’t the Strigoi of the story so he lets people talk as much as they want.

*

Bucky has no idea how many Strigoi he’s killed, just that they kept coming and coming, crawling out of the woodwork in impressive and terrifying numbers. He just keeps going at them though, not paying attention too much else but the Strigoi around him. His body hurts but he ignores that too, suddenly grateful that Tony had healed him not long ago because if he hadn’t he’d be dead no doubt. He wouldn’t have even been able to take out Loki let alone all these other Strigoi. When he catches brief snatches of his colleagues faces it’s pretty clear they’re impressed given that they all knew he had been injured not long ago. He lets them think whatever they wanted as he presses further into the mess of Strigoi, slashing at everything that wasn’t a guardian.

Finally, finally things start to thin out and guardians were beginning to outnumber the Strigoi so Bucky takes a moment to survey the area. “You know,” a voice says from behind a tree close to Bucky, “I never would have thought you could be so deadly with only one arm. You look beautiful you know, like an angel taking revenge on those that have wronged him. You shouldn’t be so upset though, I was never wronged. I was Awakened.”

He knows the voice but he tries to deny it to himself because it can’t be true…

“Guardian rule number one, Bucky, don’t hesitate,” Steve says and he attacks. He barely has time to dodge Steve’s blow and he curses himself for it. This wasn’t Steve, this was a Strigoi. A strangely tall Strigoi but still definitely Steve Rogers. Well, was Steve Rogers.

“You’re taller,” he says without really thinking, dodging another of Steve’s blows. He’s been training.

“Some uh… experiments humans have been lovely enough to donate their time to. You should meet Zola, he’s brilliant. You’d probably hate each other,” Steve says, lashing out at him again. Bucky dodges and his brain informs him that he needs to stop being on the defensive and start taking an offensive stance. His brain also keeps telling him that Steve Rogers is standing in front of him alive and well even though that’s not true, not technically. He wasn’t alive and he sure as hell wasn’t well. He is an undead unnatural creature and Bucky had to kill him.

“All Strigoi hate each other,” Bucky says, unsure why he’d imagine himself as a Strigoi in this situation. If he met this Zola it’d be because Steve was dragging his dead corpse around.

“Not true at all, Bucky. We’re just… prickly is all,” Steve tells him and he steps back, letting his arms drop. “Don’t bother stepping forward Buck, we both know you won’t kill me. I’ve only given you about seventeen chances and you didn’t even nibble. I know it isn’t because you lack skill, I just watched you single handedly take out an army. Do you like it by the way? They’re mine. Killed the last guy who thought he should be in charge because I have a real vision and he just wanted to terrorize Moroi. Useless. I’ll only give you this opportunity once, though, so listen closely. I can Awaken you right now and you can join me on this or you can stubbornly cling to the Moroi even though not one of them appreciate you- I’ve heard what they’re planning to do to Dhampirs- so make your choice. Till the end of the line?” he asks, looking almost hopeful.

That proves to be his mistake because that was his and Steve’s line, not some line to be uttered by some disgusting twisted version of Steve. Bucky launches himself at Steve and for a second he can see the surprise there but he ignores it because he wasn’t fucking around anymore. He was aiming to kill.

*

Charles had been trying to work on healing when the commotion started. Erik, he thinks, was trying to make him feel better when he said Charles’ efforts to heal those black spots in his aura were working because Charles doesn’t notice a difference.

“You need to calm it with this,” Erik tells him eventually. “You know what happens when you use the power too much.” So he did but Erik’s aura was so dark and Charles thought knew it was because of trauma but he didn’t think it was completely trauma until Tony told him there wasn’t much else that could do that to an aura. He knew more than Charles about the subject because he has been seeing auras longer.

“But I need to learn,” Charles tells him. It’s been fascinating but neither Tony nor Charles have been able to pick each other’s tricks up no matter how hard they tried. Charles even tried to teach Tony how to enter dreams in a dream. Nothing seemed to take.

That was, of course, until the commotion started and Erik got called off to duty and Charles sat in his room for what seemed like days going through every ‘what if’ scenario his brain tortured him with. He could feel Erik’s mind of course but he knew how much Erik disliked when he touched his mind and Charles agreed that it was wrong to use that kind of power on someone. It was invasive and disturbing even if it was natural to Charles.

Its at least six hours, probably more, by the time Charles gets news that the school has officially been cleared and Charles immediately goes to the medical building. Erik had to be there if he wasn’t safe elsewhere and Charles couldn’t get a read on his mind. Probably because he was so distraught that his abilities have fizzled out. They did that sometimes, when his mind was about to get bad again. He ignores that in favor of going to find Erik.

He’s surprised to find Tony there desperately trying to explain his abilities before he eventually gives up and reaches out to… Bucky it looked like and Charles watches his wounds disappear. The doctors and nurses look confused and awed but Tony is already shushing Bucky and telling him to stay down because he was still pretty hurt, he just wasn’t in critical condition anymore. He quickly moves on to the next and Charles approaches. “Have you seen Erik?” he asks.

“Lehnsherr?” the guardian to his left croaks, “pretty sure he’s dead. Saw him go down before-” he starts coughing and Tony goes over to him next, reaching out with his magic to heal him. He can see the flare of gold in Tony’s aura, sitting around him like some kind of halo as he heals.

Charles freezes though, unable to comprehend that news as he desperately tries to find Erik’s mind privacy be damned. “He isn’t dead I don’t think, I think he’s in the next room,” some other guardian says, snapping him out of his trance. She’s less injured than a lot of others in here but Charles doesn’t stop to look too closely he just runs for the next room, ignoring that he nearly runs almost four people over.

Erik is indeed in the next room with several people around him looking grim. Even from here Charles can see all the blood. No one should be able to lose that much blood. “Erik!” he calls, rushing forward.

“Charles, it’s no use, he’s-” some doctor starts but Charles turns on him fast.

“Shut up!” he snarls, throwing as much compulsion into the command as he can. The doctor’s mouth clicks shut and Charles ignores when he hears the doctor fall to the floor, crumbling under the force of Charles’ command. “Erik!” he says again, “Erik you need to wake up!” He can feel the tears on his cheeks as he uselessly shakes at Erik, trying desperately to do something but Erik isn’t responding. “Erik!” Charles tries again, barely able to get the work out through his tears. He shakes Erik again somewhat feebly, unwilling to accept the truth even if he had no choice.

Then he feels it, that magic Tony drew upon that had led Charles to him in the first place. He could feel it and maybe, maybe if he used it on Erik he could do what Tony did and bring him back. Tony brought his best friend back Charles could bring his back too, he could. He throws the magic at Erik, trying his best to make his intentions clear and something must work because Erik wakes up sputtering.

“Charles! Stop it!” Erik tells him, trying to sit up but failing because he was weak. Charles throws himself on Erik and hugs him.

“Thank god! Thank god! I couldn’t have lived without you!” he says, sobbing into Erik’s shirt. Erik awkwardly pats his back as Charles continues to cry.

*

Rhodey was going to be pissed that Tony told everyone about his healing powers but he couldn’t just sit around when people needed help. Especially after he heard his mother had gotten herself involved. Boy had she been shocked to see him buzzing around healing people, and later she got to be shocked when he healed her.

Bucky was his main concern though so when the dust settles Tony goes back to him. He’d been pretty hurt when he got to Tony but he’d faired better than a lot of the other guardians. “How are you?” he asks. He’s been awake too long and he can feel the use of his magic weighing down on him heavily. And then there was that weird flare of magic earlier, he felt it in the other room but he was going to check that out later. Right now he needed to deal with Bucky because the man looked absolutely haunted.

“It was Steve,” he whispers, looking traumatized.

Tony frowns, “who was Steve?”

Bucky turns to look at him, “the Strigoi. Steve is behind it all. My Steve. Steve Rogers.”

That throws Tony for a loop because he hadn’t anticipated that. “Oh,” he says stupidly. He doesn’t know what else he could say though. When Bucky reaches out to him he goes, hugging Bucky close and letting him cry softly. He’d cry too if he found out Rhodey was behind several massacres, some of which targeted him specifically. “Shhh,” Tony says softly, “I’m here for you.”

“Thank you,” Bucky whispers, clinging to Tony tightly.