icarus_chained (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarus_chained) wrote2012-10-26 11:26 pm
icarus_chained) wrote2012-10-26 11:26 pm
Entry tags:
- au,
- avengers,
- dark,
- fanfic,
- james rhodes,
- slash,
- tony stark
Tony/Rhodey Vampire AU?
*shrugs absently* I don't know? Three thousand odd words of random Tony/Rhodey vampire AU, because my brain is weird. *grins faintly*
Title: Blood, Dust, And Steel
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes. Tony/Rhodey
Summary: On the frontlines of the Blood Wars, two Paladin armours fall afoul of a vampiric attack, and Tony and Rhodey fight to keep each other safe, from their own history as much as anything else
Wordcount: 3329
Warnings/Notes: Alternate universe, violence, blood, battle, sacrifice, love
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Blood, Dust, And Steel
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes. Tony/Rhodey
Summary: On the frontlines of the Blood Wars, two Paladin armours fall afoul of a vampiric attack, and Tony and Rhodey fight to keep each other safe, from their own history as much as anything else
Wordcount: 3329
Warnings/Notes: Alternate universe, violence, blood, battle, sacrifice, love
Disclaimer: Not mine
Blood, Dust, And Steel
It wasn't a nest. That was the mistake, that was what killed them. The mass of vampires detected occupying the ghost of a desert town. It wasn't a nest.
It was a court.
The armour screamed warnings at him. Armour breaches, weaponry disabled, pressure differentials blaring off the charts as inhuman fingers dug into metal, trying to tear through to the flesh beneath. Warnings flashing in his eyes, in his ears, as the organised weight of them bore him down before their Master, numbers and tactics simply too overwhelming to fight.
That wasn't the problem. Tony didn't give a goddamn shit about that. The problem was, the other group were almost on Rhodey. Luring him close with Tony's distress, trying to draw him down out of the air to where they could tear into him, too. Trying to bring the other Paladin down, where they could shred him alongside Tony.
Or worse.
Tony snarled, a silent roar within the remains of the armour's confines, drowned by their chittering as they finally tore through the protective gorget around his neck, and pulled the helmet free. Tearing it from him, flinging it gleefully into the air. The alarms cut out, all signals from the armour lost, and in their place, the braying laughter as elongated teeth flashed in his face.
"TONY!" An electronic scream, as Rhodey's distance armaments cut out, afraid to use them now that Tony was partially unarmoured. Rhodey powered higher, pure instinct, Tony thought, and roared uselessly down at him, his arms coming around as though in preparation for a dive. For suicide, against this kind of enemy. Rhodey reared back, high and furious, and made as though to dive through for him.
And Tony ... Tony raised his head. Roared a desperate warning to his partner, and tore himself partially free. Enough to step forward, enough to pull himself and the three attached to him closer to the master vampire. Tony took one, staggered step forward, and raised his head to flash his own savage, lengthening smile in the Master's face.
"Fuck you," he snarled, vicious through his fangs, savage satisfaction in the face of the Master's shocked recognition, and raised a hand with vampiric strength to show his prize.
The UV grenades were one of his proudest achievements, in the Blood War arms race. A supernova in a bottle, apocalypse in a can. Vampires could survive in daylight, though weakened, provided they took exposure slowly. What they couldn't survive unshielded was dawn, dawn or sunset, the changing of the guard and the rushing onslaught of light. And the UV grenade was dawn out of nowhere, the sun rising in the middle of the night. Sudden and blinding, devouring. Apocalypse at the pulling of a pin.
And guess what Tony had left behind, on what was left of the armour's reservoir?
The sight of the innocuous black cannister shattered their organisation like it had never been, kicked the whole fucking pile over like a hive. The Master was already moving by the time the others even realised what the hell it was, bolting for the tunnel entrance behind him, but the slaved court caught on quick enough. Hands tore free from his exposed skin in arcs of his blood, barely even noticing as they screeched backwards. Somewhere above him, Tony heard Rhodey give one inarticulate, horrified roar.
He didn't care. Couldn't care, had no more time to care. The grenade left his hand with all the strength of a vampire behind it, hurtling in a high arc towards the Master's back. Like fuck Tony was letting him escape. If he was going down, he was damn well ...
And then the world burst. Then the night shattered, tore open with a silent howl that shredded consciousness as much as the light itself. The star novaed before him, somewhere at the far end of the grenade's arc, shredding open a hole in the night, and Tony slammed his eyes shut, a useless shadow trying to protect himself. Opened his jaw in a silent scream, while the apocalypse fell on top of him.
The scream went on for ... a very long time. While the world around him was stripped to bare white, and he could find nothing in it. Time dilation, he thought, in absent hysteria, the center of the maelstrom. Hell was an ending eternally postponed.
"---ony! Tony, Jesus, Tony! TONY!"
There was a voice, ringing around him over the howl of his scream, echoing like thunder. It didn't mean anything, didn't penetrate, only barely registered, but then ...
Something seized under his jaw, shoved it up out of the scream, and then something clamped over his mouth with strength enough to bruise, something hot and liquid pouring through in its wake. Flooded past his fangs, the aching, extended length of them, and Tony snapped back online, felt the noiseless howl in his head break, and reality rush back around it.
He yanked his head back, pulled it away from the grip over his mouth, and tried to turn his head to spit Rhodey's blood back out. The hand that had been under his jaw followed him, though, and clamped over his mouth, forcing him to swallow. He fought, but his body wasn't really there, yet, nothing more than a vague sensation of electricity to him, sparking distantly a limb's distance away.
His eyes worked, though. Sort of. Mostly. Through the flashes of white across his vision, he opened his eyes, and found Rhodey's unarmoured face staring down at him in terrified concern. His eyes were white and wide in his face, and his mouth was bloodied where he'd pressed it to Tony's.
Tony tugged his head in Rhodey's grasp, his throat searing around the swallowed blood, his chest coming back online with a white-hot spark as it hit his system. He shook his head, staring up in mute appeal, and Rhodey carefully, gently, released his face.
"-Rhode-Rhodey," he rasped, broken and seared. "What-?"
"What the flying fuck did you think you were doing!" Rhodey hissed, hunching closer, and Tony belatedly realised that he was pressed into the dirt, Rhodey's armoured form ranged over him. He wasn't getting much sensation through the remains of the armour, but his hips, as his system started to reawaken under the blood, informed him cheerfully that there was a great and painful weight pressing down on them.
Tony blinked, the watering from his flash-blinded eyes probably looking a lot like tears. "Rhodey, did you ...?"
"Yes, I fucking did!" Rhodey snarled, holding himself over Tony on one armoured arm, the other still hovering close to Tony's face. "Jesus, did you think I was going to let you dust yourself! You goddamn fucking idiot, Tony!"
Tony blinked, rapidly and uselessly, his vision stubbornly refusing to clear. "... Blood?" he asked. It wasn't anything close to what he needed to ask, but it was at least a pertinent question. Last he'd checked, Rhodey hadn't been injured, and the armour was designed to be difficult to remove over vulnerable arteries.
Not that that had done Tony much good, when they'd managed to get leverage into the metal, but Rhodey hadn't been low enough to be mobbed.
Rhodey snarled, huffing out a desperate breath, and shook his head. "I bit my cheek open," he snapped, as he started to shift carefully over Tony, the pale lines of stress broadening through his dark complexion as Tony's mouth snapped closed in pain. Rhodey clenched his free fist, a hard snap of grief, and rolled himself off Tony in one flurried rush of movement.
The white starburst of pain up through his chest still drew a shocked, reedy scream from Tony despite it.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Rhodey's voice was cracked, furious, as he rolled onto his knees, reaching down to lift Tony's shoulders and pull Tony back into him, drawing him close to rest Tony back against his chest. Tony mewled, breath hitching desperately, his legs waking up somewhere distant, under the rolling fire over his ribs.
"Don't," he started, panting furiously. "Shit. Rhodey. Please ... please don't do that again?"
"No," Rhodey agreed, one hand gripping tight in Tony's hair, cradling Tony's head against the breastplate of his armour. "No, not doing that again. Shit, Tony. What the hell were you ...?"
"They'd have killed you," Tony whispered, bright and desperate, his eyes rolling closed. "If you were lucky, they'd have killed you. They were ready for the armour. Fuck. They weren't a nest, and they were ready, and the second you came in range, you'd have been mobbed, and you'd have been dead."
If he was lucky. If that was all they wanted. He'd have been dead, if he was lucky.
"And that was worse than having to watch you fry yourself?" Rhodey asked, hard and savage, propping Tony into the crook of his arm as he fumbled with the armour around one arm. "Did you forget the whole vampire under the armour thing, Tony? The reason you have the armour is so you won't get fried every time we deploy anti-vamp tech, and you go slinging fucking sunflashes around with your goddamn helmet off ..."
Tony laughed. Stupidly, as Rhodey's brow drew down in thunderous reaction, cracked and stupid and helpless, but fuck. God, fuck. His chest hurt, his arms, where they'd made it through the armour, blood and cuts and probably burns, if something from the UV burst had gotten through Rhodey's shield. His face felt sunburned, flash-fried. One ear ached furiously, as though someone had tried to rip it off. Possibly someone had, though not on purpose.
He'd thought the shadow was his eyelids slamming down. It had been Rhodey. It had been the Paladin armour dropping from the sky in front of him, hands almost ripping his ear off as Rhodey slammed his head into the shelter of an armoured chest, and flung the pair of them to the ground. If Tony hadn't been a vampire, he'd probably have a hell of a concussion.
Of course, if he hadn't been a vampire ...
"You think this is funny," Rhodey bit out, his dark skin tight and paling in his fury, the motions of his arms behind Tony becoming stabbed and jerky. "If I had been a second slower, Tony! Half a second! You stupid fucking-"
"Sorry," Tony cut in, wheezing around the pain in his chest, the thousands of electric aches as his body remembered itself, and the faint burn as Rhodey's blood curled lazily through him. "Rhodey, sorry. I'm sorry." His breath hitched, staggered, and the words weren't words anymore. More cries, low and desperate, and he tried to slam his mouth shut. Tried to slip his fang through his tongue, and stop them there.
"Aw, shit," Rhodey murmured, anger draining away, and his hand came up. Bare, now, unarmoured. That was what he'd been doing, stripping his bracers behind Tony's back. His hand came up, and cupped gently under Tony's jaw. "Come on, Tony. Come on. Don't do this to me, okay? I've had a bad enough evening as it is."
Tony managed a chuckle, hitching softly. But he did manage. "Sorry," he rasped, leaning into Rhodey's touch. Carefully. Very carefully. His fangs, aching under the damage to his body, were still fully extended. "Sorry, honey bear." He shook his head, smiling carefully. "It was worth it, though," he whispered, light and stubborn in the face of Rhodey's frown. Grinning, just faintly. "Even if you hadn't been in time. It was worth it."
Rhodey sighed, heavy and tired, and shook his head. "We're gonna have to disagree on that one, then," he said, tilting his arm to roll Tony's head further up along it, curling his bared forearm up into range. "Come on. Let's get something proper into you. You're half-fried as it is, even with the armours."
Tony stopped smiling, at that. Yes, oh yes, he stopped smiling, and clamped his mouth shut instead, pressed his lips so tightly together they must have turned white. Not a good idea, with his fangs still out, sliding down to tear at his lower gums, but fuck that shit. He clamped his mouth shut, yes, like a child who didn't want to eat his dinner, but Tony'd been a damned stubborn child, and he'd only gotten worse with age.
Rhodey'd gotten the mouthful past him earlier because he'd been too busy thinking he was dying to stop him, and it was hard to argue when your mouth was opened under another's. But a mouthful from a cut cheek was a lot different from an opened vein, which was what Rhodey was proposing now, and Tony wasn't having it.
Rhodey shook him, lightly, in response. His other, still-armoured hand on Tony's shoulder, jostling him abruptly and pointedly. "Don't," he snapped, rough and furious. "Tony, do not start this shit now. I've had to watch you get mobbed and almost fried already tonight. I do NOT have the patience for this."
Tony didn't answer. Just turned the corners of his mouth up into a close-mouthed smile, something that probably looked more like a grimace, and shook his head vehemently. He couldn't open his mouth to explain, because Rhodey was a sneaky son of a bitch and would have his mouth full of forearm before he could get a word out, but he widened his eyes desperately, the closest he could come to pleading, and darted a look around them in mute appeal. Too much. Too many vampires, too close a call, too much fire and too many enemies.
Too much ... like what had happened before. All those years ago.
Realisation dawned. Tony watched it, rolling like a slow dawn over Rhodey's face, watched as Rhodey's eyes dropped closed in sudden, pained exhaustion, and his shoulders drooped, curling him down into Tony.
"... Don't," Tony whispered, taking a chance while Rhodey crumpled, tilting his head more into Rhodey's chest just in case. "Not now. We can get me a transfusion when the others clear the site. I can hang on that long. Rhodey ... don't. Please. Not like this. Not like ..."
Not like Afghanistan. Not curled under Rhodey the way he'd curled under the remains of an armour against the sunlight, crouched in a hole in the sand, baring his new and desperate teeth to the friend that found him. Flashing a new, deadly smile, to show Rhodey the legacy of his captivity.
They'd wanted him to build weapons for them. Something to stand up against the human advances in the Blood Wars. But he'd been dying, wounded fatally in the initial ambush, and they hadn't been willing to let him go that easily.
So ... they'd turned him. Brought him back from the brink of death, with a new smile, and a hunger that could only be sated if he was willing to kill his fellow prisoner, leaving him perpetually weak against them, unable to fight back. They'd killed him, and they'd brought him back, and they'd tried to force his loyalty the only way they knew how.
It hadn't worked. It hadn't worked, he hadn't let it work, he wasn't ever going to be that. Not then, not ever. He'd built an armour, like they'd asked him to, and bottled fire, like they hadn't. He'd armoured himself against them, uncaring as he grew steadily weaker, gnawed from the inside out, because he hadn't exactly planned to survive his vengeance regardless.
But he had. He had, because that fellow prisoner, Yinsen ...
He'd lived, because Yinsen wanted him to, because he'd grown too weak too fast, and Yinsen had given his life and his blood to see that the escape could still happen.
And when the daylight came and the fires had burnt out, Tony'd crouched on a sand dune, and showed his friend his new and deadly smile.
He'd wanted Rhodey to kill him. Better Rhodey than ... Vampires were killed on sight, all human armies killed them on sight. He'd wanted it to be Rhodey. Selfish, yes, but he hadn't ... he hadn't wanted a stranger to do it.
But Rhodey ... had made a different decision. And then kept making it, over and over again. All the years since, through the armours, the Paladins, through SHIELD and taking the fight to the frontlines, through standing as a vampire side by side with humans, through becoming part of the most feared frontline unit the Blood Wars had ever seen, through becoming Avengers. Rhodey had resigned his commission, chosen Tony over everything, and made that choice again at every juncture since.
And he had made it first, on that sand dune, when he'd tugged a sunblind vampire forward into his chest, wrapped his arms around him to hide him from unfriendlier eyes, and whispered soft and vehement for Tony to hold on, stay with him, and give Rhodey time to figure something the fuck out. Tucked Tony's head, his fangs, in close to his neck, and told him to keep it light and explainable like he thought Tony could do that, like he thought Tony, even as a vampire, had that much fucking control.
Tony hadn't bitten him then, either. How the fuck could he? He taken something hours later, when he had to, when he'd had no other choice, Rhodey's grimace of pain and grief above him, and never again since unless he was fucking dying then and there.
That was the choice he'd made. And the choice he was damn well going to keep making, too.
"Don't," he whispered again, into the smell of metal and ozone and blood in Rhodey's arms. "Rhodey. Please."
Rhodey made a sound. Hitched, desperate, a ragged exhalation of grief. Or maybe exasperation, Tony couldn't tell. He breathed out on a ragged sigh, and opened his eyes to look down at Tony, his still-bloodied mouth curving into a soft, wry smile while Tony blinked at him.
"One of these days," he murmured, his armoured hand drifting from Tony's shoulder to Tony's jaw, "you're actually going to figure this out, you know. One of these days, Tony."
Then he leaned down, still smiling faintly, and pressed his mouth to Tony's in something that had nothing to do with the drying blood still flecking his lips and teeth, and everything to do with the mouth underneath it, soft and warm and alive and there, brushing over Tony's aching fangs like they made not the slightest bit of difference, drowning him in warmth that had nothing to do with blood. Rhodey leaned down, tired and exasperated, and kissed him, while Tony could do nothing but stare.
"Here's how this is going to work," Rhodey murmured as he pulled back, grinning slightly as he looked down into Tony's sunstruck expression. "I'm going to give you enough to counteract the fact that you just fried yourself to save me. You, you are going to let me, like a good little vampire, and when we've more or less evened out our chances of fainting between us, we're going to stand up and see about making our way out of this hellhole. You alright with that, or do you need me to repeat it?"
Tony blinked rapidly up at him. "You kissed me," he said. Usefully, yes, but his brain was somewhat hung up on the fact. "You ... Rhodey, you ..." You love me, he wasn't going to say, because there was such a thing as tempting fate, but ...
Rhodey sighed, a long, gusty exhalation, and shook his head down at Tony. "This is going to be a long night," he decided, love and exasperation and a rather bloody smile, while he held Tony close against his armoured chest, and tried not to jostle him too badly.
And somewhere in the lazy, electric spark where his blood rested in Tony's heart, under the burns Tony'd taken for him, somewhere in Tony's chest where an ending infinitely postponed was beginning to seem a lot less like hell ... Tony thought he might be right about that.
And maybe ... a few other things besides.
It wasn't a nest. That was the mistake, that was what killed them. The mass of vampires detected occupying the ghost of a desert town. It wasn't a nest.
It was a court.
The armour screamed warnings at him. Armour breaches, weaponry disabled, pressure differentials blaring off the charts as inhuman fingers dug into metal, trying to tear through to the flesh beneath. Warnings flashing in his eyes, in his ears, as the organised weight of them bore him down before their Master, numbers and tactics simply too overwhelming to fight.
That wasn't the problem. Tony didn't give a goddamn shit about that. The problem was, the other group were almost on Rhodey. Luring him close with Tony's distress, trying to draw him down out of the air to where they could tear into him, too. Trying to bring the other Paladin down, where they could shred him alongside Tony.
Or worse.
Tony snarled, a silent roar within the remains of the armour's confines, drowned by their chittering as they finally tore through the protective gorget around his neck, and pulled the helmet free. Tearing it from him, flinging it gleefully into the air. The alarms cut out, all signals from the armour lost, and in their place, the braying laughter as elongated teeth flashed in his face.
"TONY!" An electronic scream, as Rhodey's distance armaments cut out, afraid to use them now that Tony was partially unarmoured. Rhodey powered higher, pure instinct, Tony thought, and roared uselessly down at him, his arms coming around as though in preparation for a dive. For suicide, against this kind of enemy. Rhodey reared back, high and furious, and made as though to dive through for him.
And Tony ... Tony raised his head. Roared a desperate warning to his partner, and tore himself partially free. Enough to step forward, enough to pull himself and the three attached to him closer to the master vampire. Tony took one, staggered step forward, and raised his head to flash his own savage, lengthening smile in the Master's face.
"Fuck you," he snarled, vicious through his fangs, savage satisfaction in the face of the Master's shocked recognition, and raised a hand with vampiric strength to show his prize.
The UV grenades were one of his proudest achievements, in the Blood War arms race. A supernova in a bottle, apocalypse in a can. Vampires could survive in daylight, though weakened, provided they took exposure slowly. What they couldn't survive unshielded was dawn, dawn or sunset, the changing of the guard and the rushing onslaught of light. And the UV grenade was dawn out of nowhere, the sun rising in the middle of the night. Sudden and blinding, devouring. Apocalypse at the pulling of a pin.
And guess what Tony had left behind, on what was left of the armour's reservoir?
The sight of the innocuous black cannister shattered their organisation like it had never been, kicked the whole fucking pile over like a hive. The Master was already moving by the time the others even realised what the hell it was, bolting for the tunnel entrance behind him, but the slaved court caught on quick enough. Hands tore free from his exposed skin in arcs of his blood, barely even noticing as they screeched backwards. Somewhere above him, Tony heard Rhodey give one inarticulate, horrified roar.
He didn't care. Couldn't care, had no more time to care. The grenade left his hand with all the strength of a vampire behind it, hurtling in a high arc towards the Master's back. Like fuck Tony was letting him escape. If he was going down, he was damn well ...
And then the world burst. Then the night shattered, tore open with a silent howl that shredded consciousness as much as the light itself. The star novaed before him, somewhere at the far end of the grenade's arc, shredding open a hole in the night, and Tony slammed his eyes shut, a useless shadow trying to protect himself. Opened his jaw in a silent scream, while the apocalypse fell on top of him.
The scream went on for ... a very long time. While the world around him was stripped to bare white, and he could find nothing in it. Time dilation, he thought, in absent hysteria, the center of the maelstrom. Hell was an ending eternally postponed.
"---ony! Tony, Jesus, Tony! TONY!"
There was a voice, ringing around him over the howl of his scream, echoing like thunder. It didn't mean anything, didn't penetrate, only barely registered, but then ...
Something seized under his jaw, shoved it up out of the scream, and then something clamped over his mouth with strength enough to bruise, something hot and liquid pouring through in its wake. Flooded past his fangs, the aching, extended length of them, and Tony snapped back online, felt the noiseless howl in his head break, and reality rush back around it.
He yanked his head back, pulled it away from the grip over his mouth, and tried to turn his head to spit Rhodey's blood back out. The hand that had been under his jaw followed him, though, and clamped over his mouth, forcing him to swallow. He fought, but his body wasn't really there, yet, nothing more than a vague sensation of electricity to him, sparking distantly a limb's distance away.
His eyes worked, though. Sort of. Mostly. Through the flashes of white across his vision, he opened his eyes, and found Rhodey's unarmoured face staring down at him in terrified concern. His eyes were white and wide in his face, and his mouth was bloodied where he'd pressed it to Tony's.
Tony tugged his head in Rhodey's grasp, his throat searing around the swallowed blood, his chest coming back online with a white-hot spark as it hit his system. He shook his head, staring up in mute appeal, and Rhodey carefully, gently, released his face.
"-Rhode-Rhodey," he rasped, broken and seared. "What-?"
"What the flying fuck did you think you were doing!" Rhodey hissed, hunching closer, and Tony belatedly realised that he was pressed into the dirt, Rhodey's armoured form ranged over him. He wasn't getting much sensation through the remains of the armour, but his hips, as his system started to reawaken under the blood, informed him cheerfully that there was a great and painful weight pressing down on them.
Tony blinked, the watering from his flash-blinded eyes probably looking a lot like tears. "Rhodey, did you ...?"
"Yes, I fucking did!" Rhodey snarled, holding himself over Tony on one armoured arm, the other still hovering close to Tony's face. "Jesus, did you think I was going to let you dust yourself! You goddamn fucking idiot, Tony!"
Tony blinked, rapidly and uselessly, his vision stubbornly refusing to clear. "... Blood?" he asked. It wasn't anything close to what he needed to ask, but it was at least a pertinent question. Last he'd checked, Rhodey hadn't been injured, and the armour was designed to be difficult to remove over vulnerable arteries.
Not that that had done Tony much good, when they'd managed to get leverage into the metal, but Rhodey hadn't been low enough to be mobbed.
Rhodey snarled, huffing out a desperate breath, and shook his head. "I bit my cheek open," he snapped, as he started to shift carefully over Tony, the pale lines of stress broadening through his dark complexion as Tony's mouth snapped closed in pain. Rhodey clenched his free fist, a hard snap of grief, and rolled himself off Tony in one flurried rush of movement.
The white starburst of pain up through his chest still drew a shocked, reedy scream from Tony despite it.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Rhodey's voice was cracked, furious, as he rolled onto his knees, reaching down to lift Tony's shoulders and pull Tony back into him, drawing him close to rest Tony back against his chest. Tony mewled, breath hitching desperately, his legs waking up somewhere distant, under the rolling fire over his ribs.
"Don't," he started, panting furiously. "Shit. Rhodey. Please ... please don't do that again?"
"No," Rhodey agreed, one hand gripping tight in Tony's hair, cradling Tony's head against the breastplate of his armour. "No, not doing that again. Shit, Tony. What the hell were you ...?"
"They'd have killed you," Tony whispered, bright and desperate, his eyes rolling closed. "If you were lucky, they'd have killed you. They were ready for the armour. Fuck. They weren't a nest, and they were ready, and the second you came in range, you'd have been mobbed, and you'd have been dead."
If he was lucky. If that was all they wanted. He'd have been dead, if he was lucky.
"And that was worse than having to watch you fry yourself?" Rhodey asked, hard and savage, propping Tony into the crook of his arm as he fumbled with the armour around one arm. "Did you forget the whole vampire under the armour thing, Tony? The reason you have the armour is so you won't get fried every time we deploy anti-vamp tech, and you go slinging fucking sunflashes around with your goddamn helmet off ..."
Tony laughed. Stupidly, as Rhodey's brow drew down in thunderous reaction, cracked and stupid and helpless, but fuck. God, fuck. His chest hurt, his arms, where they'd made it through the armour, blood and cuts and probably burns, if something from the UV burst had gotten through Rhodey's shield. His face felt sunburned, flash-fried. One ear ached furiously, as though someone had tried to rip it off. Possibly someone had, though not on purpose.
He'd thought the shadow was his eyelids slamming down. It had been Rhodey. It had been the Paladin armour dropping from the sky in front of him, hands almost ripping his ear off as Rhodey slammed his head into the shelter of an armoured chest, and flung the pair of them to the ground. If Tony hadn't been a vampire, he'd probably have a hell of a concussion.
Of course, if he hadn't been a vampire ...
"You think this is funny," Rhodey bit out, his dark skin tight and paling in his fury, the motions of his arms behind Tony becoming stabbed and jerky. "If I had been a second slower, Tony! Half a second! You stupid fucking-"
"Sorry," Tony cut in, wheezing around the pain in his chest, the thousands of electric aches as his body remembered itself, and the faint burn as Rhodey's blood curled lazily through him. "Rhodey, sorry. I'm sorry." His breath hitched, staggered, and the words weren't words anymore. More cries, low and desperate, and he tried to slam his mouth shut. Tried to slip his fang through his tongue, and stop them there.
"Aw, shit," Rhodey murmured, anger draining away, and his hand came up. Bare, now, unarmoured. That was what he'd been doing, stripping his bracers behind Tony's back. His hand came up, and cupped gently under Tony's jaw. "Come on, Tony. Come on. Don't do this to me, okay? I've had a bad enough evening as it is."
Tony managed a chuckle, hitching softly. But he did manage. "Sorry," he rasped, leaning into Rhodey's touch. Carefully. Very carefully. His fangs, aching under the damage to his body, were still fully extended. "Sorry, honey bear." He shook his head, smiling carefully. "It was worth it, though," he whispered, light and stubborn in the face of Rhodey's frown. Grinning, just faintly. "Even if you hadn't been in time. It was worth it."
Rhodey sighed, heavy and tired, and shook his head. "We're gonna have to disagree on that one, then," he said, tilting his arm to roll Tony's head further up along it, curling his bared forearm up into range. "Come on. Let's get something proper into you. You're half-fried as it is, even with the armours."
Tony stopped smiling, at that. Yes, oh yes, he stopped smiling, and clamped his mouth shut instead, pressed his lips so tightly together they must have turned white. Not a good idea, with his fangs still out, sliding down to tear at his lower gums, but fuck that shit. He clamped his mouth shut, yes, like a child who didn't want to eat his dinner, but Tony'd been a damned stubborn child, and he'd only gotten worse with age.
Rhodey'd gotten the mouthful past him earlier because he'd been too busy thinking he was dying to stop him, and it was hard to argue when your mouth was opened under another's. But a mouthful from a cut cheek was a lot different from an opened vein, which was what Rhodey was proposing now, and Tony wasn't having it.
Rhodey shook him, lightly, in response. His other, still-armoured hand on Tony's shoulder, jostling him abruptly and pointedly. "Don't," he snapped, rough and furious. "Tony, do not start this shit now. I've had to watch you get mobbed and almost fried already tonight. I do NOT have the patience for this."
Tony didn't answer. Just turned the corners of his mouth up into a close-mouthed smile, something that probably looked more like a grimace, and shook his head vehemently. He couldn't open his mouth to explain, because Rhodey was a sneaky son of a bitch and would have his mouth full of forearm before he could get a word out, but he widened his eyes desperately, the closest he could come to pleading, and darted a look around them in mute appeal. Too much. Too many vampires, too close a call, too much fire and too many enemies.
Too much ... like what had happened before. All those years ago.
Realisation dawned. Tony watched it, rolling like a slow dawn over Rhodey's face, watched as Rhodey's eyes dropped closed in sudden, pained exhaustion, and his shoulders drooped, curling him down into Tony.
"... Don't," Tony whispered, taking a chance while Rhodey crumpled, tilting his head more into Rhodey's chest just in case. "Not now. We can get me a transfusion when the others clear the site. I can hang on that long. Rhodey ... don't. Please. Not like this. Not like ..."
Not like Afghanistan. Not curled under Rhodey the way he'd curled under the remains of an armour against the sunlight, crouched in a hole in the sand, baring his new and desperate teeth to the friend that found him. Flashing a new, deadly smile, to show Rhodey the legacy of his captivity.
They'd wanted him to build weapons for them. Something to stand up against the human advances in the Blood Wars. But he'd been dying, wounded fatally in the initial ambush, and they hadn't been willing to let him go that easily.
So ... they'd turned him. Brought him back from the brink of death, with a new smile, and a hunger that could only be sated if he was willing to kill his fellow prisoner, leaving him perpetually weak against them, unable to fight back. They'd killed him, and they'd brought him back, and they'd tried to force his loyalty the only way they knew how.
It hadn't worked. It hadn't worked, he hadn't let it work, he wasn't ever going to be that. Not then, not ever. He'd built an armour, like they'd asked him to, and bottled fire, like they hadn't. He'd armoured himself against them, uncaring as he grew steadily weaker, gnawed from the inside out, because he hadn't exactly planned to survive his vengeance regardless.
But he had. He had, because that fellow prisoner, Yinsen ...
He'd lived, because Yinsen wanted him to, because he'd grown too weak too fast, and Yinsen had given his life and his blood to see that the escape could still happen.
And when the daylight came and the fires had burnt out, Tony'd crouched on a sand dune, and showed his friend his new and deadly smile.
He'd wanted Rhodey to kill him. Better Rhodey than ... Vampires were killed on sight, all human armies killed them on sight. He'd wanted it to be Rhodey. Selfish, yes, but he hadn't ... he hadn't wanted a stranger to do it.
But Rhodey ... had made a different decision. And then kept making it, over and over again. All the years since, through the armours, the Paladins, through SHIELD and taking the fight to the frontlines, through standing as a vampire side by side with humans, through becoming part of the most feared frontline unit the Blood Wars had ever seen, through becoming Avengers. Rhodey had resigned his commission, chosen Tony over everything, and made that choice again at every juncture since.
And he had made it first, on that sand dune, when he'd tugged a sunblind vampire forward into his chest, wrapped his arms around him to hide him from unfriendlier eyes, and whispered soft and vehement for Tony to hold on, stay with him, and give Rhodey time to figure something the fuck out. Tucked Tony's head, his fangs, in close to his neck, and told him to keep it light and explainable like he thought Tony could do that, like he thought Tony, even as a vampire, had that much fucking control.
Tony hadn't bitten him then, either. How the fuck could he? He taken something hours later, when he had to, when he'd had no other choice, Rhodey's grimace of pain and grief above him, and never again since unless he was fucking dying then and there.
That was the choice he'd made. And the choice he was damn well going to keep making, too.
"Don't," he whispered again, into the smell of metal and ozone and blood in Rhodey's arms. "Rhodey. Please."
Rhodey made a sound. Hitched, desperate, a ragged exhalation of grief. Or maybe exasperation, Tony couldn't tell. He breathed out on a ragged sigh, and opened his eyes to look down at Tony, his still-bloodied mouth curving into a soft, wry smile while Tony blinked at him.
"One of these days," he murmured, his armoured hand drifting from Tony's shoulder to Tony's jaw, "you're actually going to figure this out, you know. One of these days, Tony."
Then he leaned down, still smiling faintly, and pressed his mouth to Tony's in something that had nothing to do with the drying blood still flecking his lips and teeth, and everything to do with the mouth underneath it, soft and warm and alive and there, brushing over Tony's aching fangs like they made not the slightest bit of difference, drowning him in warmth that had nothing to do with blood. Rhodey leaned down, tired and exasperated, and kissed him, while Tony could do nothing but stare.
"Here's how this is going to work," Rhodey murmured as he pulled back, grinning slightly as he looked down into Tony's sunstruck expression. "I'm going to give you enough to counteract the fact that you just fried yourself to save me. You, you are going to let me, like a good little vampire, and when we've more or less evened out our chances of fainting between us, we're going to stand up and see about making our way out of this hellhole. You alright with that, or do you need me to repeat it?"
Tony blinked rapidly up at him. "You kissed me," he said. Usefully, yes, but his brain was somewhat hung up on the fact. "You ... Rhodey, you ..." You love me, he wasn't going to say, because there was such a thing as tempting fate, but ...
Rhodey sighed, a long, gusty exhalation, and shook his head down at Tony. "This is going to be a long night," he decided, love and exasperation and a rather bloody smile, while he held Tony close against his armoured chest, and tried not to jostle him too badly.
And somewhere in the lazy, electric spark where his blood rested in Tony's heart, under the burns Tony'd taken for him, somewhere in Tony's chest where an ending infinitely postponed was beginning to seem a lot less like hell ... Tony thought he might be right about that.
And maybe ... a few other things besides.