Chapter 1: the graveyard

It was a quiet Saturday morning in Avengers Tower. Most of the team was gone for the weekend, either on missions or on much deserved vacations. The only people still at the tower were Pietro, Clint, Steve, and Bucky. So the place certainly felt deserted.

Pietro and Clint were in the living room, sprawled all over the sofa (and each other), trying to put off starting the day's training as long as possible. Steve and Bucky came in and Bucky tossed a throw pillow at them.

"Good morning, lazies," he said. "Time to get off your asses."

"We were just about to go to training, I swear," said Clint.

"Not training," said Steve. "A mission."

"A possible mission," Bucky corrected.

"How can it be a 'possible' mission?" said Pietro.

"Because Steve's got cabin fever so he's making us all suffer," said Bucky.

"It's not cabin fever, Buck, this is a legitimate thing," said Steve.

"So what is it?" Clint asked, sitting up.

"There's been a string of disappearances and mysterious deaths in this little town in Georgia," said Steve. "All the disappearances have been young, attractive loners, usually between twenty and thirty. But the deaths have been pretty much anyone, and they're pretty strange. The official reports say animal attacks because they each have the same distinctive bite marks, but I did some, uh... digging..."

"He hacked it. Or, more accurately, I hacked it for him," Bucky interjected.

"Anyway," Steve continued. "I looked into the morgue records for a few of the victims, and they're pretty weird. Usually if an animal attacked a person, they'd get pretty mauled up, but these are all just one bite, like a venomous snake."

"Does Georgia have rattlesnakes? That could be all it is," said Clint.

"It's not just the bites, though," said Steve. "They didn't die from venom. They died because they were totally drained of blood."

"Okay, that's weird," said Pietro.

"Yeah, it's weird, but it also sounds like vampires, which don't exist," said Clint.

"That's what I said," said Bucky.

"But then you also had this really interesting theory," said Steve. "Tell 'em."

"Well, I was thinking maybe they weren't actually bites," Bucky said. "I mean, little puncture holes... yeah, those could look like bites, but they could just be from needles. Somebody could be stealing people's blood. Some mad doctor or something."

"That could work," said Pietro. "But what about the disappearances?"

"That's why we've got a mission," said Steve. "People are dying and vanishing down there. They need help. Whether it's an animal, a person, or even a vampire, we're Avengers and saving people is our job."

"You're always gotta pull that card, don't ya, Cap?" said Clint. "You're right, of course. But still."

Steve rolled his eyes.

"So are you guys in?" he asked.

"Of course," said Pietro.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Clint added.

"Good," said Steve. "Now pack your bags and suit up."

A few hours later, they landed the quinjet just outside town. Steve led the way into town and to the police station. The woman at the front desk looked up when they entered.

"Hi, I'd like to speak to the officer in charge of the disappearance cases," Steve said.

"Are you from the next county or something?" the woman asked.

"No, we're not police," said Steve. "We're Avengers."

The woman stared, her eyes darting between them.

"I didn't realize this was the kind of case the Avengers would be needed for," she said.

"It might not be. We just like to be sure. So can we talk to the detective?" said Steve.

"Yes, of course."

The woman picked up the phone.

"Madison, I've got some men at the front with questions about the Saint Peter's case. No, they're not reporters."

She set down the receiver and turned to Steve.

"Detective Madison will be with you in a minute," she said.

"Thank you," said Steve.

They didn't wait long before a tough-looking woman approached them.

"You must be the men Susan here was talking about. I'm Detective Madison," she said, shaking each of their hands.

"I'm Captain Rogers of the Avengers, and these are a few of my teammates. Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton, and Pietro Maximoff," said Steve. "We're here to ask you a few things about this recent string of disappearances and deaths you've had."

"Ah yeah, the Saint Peter's case," said Detective Madison. "Let's step into my office."

She led them down a hall and into her office. They sat down and she closed the door behind them.

"Can I get you boys anything? Coffee? Glass of water?" she offered.

"I'll take some coffee," Clint said.

Pietro rolled his eyes. Madison picked up a spare mug and filled it up, then handed it to Clint.

"So, Avengers, eh?" she said, sitting down across the desk from them. "Never thought I'd see the day when anything would happen in this town to draw even a few of you down here."

"Well, the case seemed fishy, we thought we'd check it out," said Bucky.

"Fishy's for damn sure," Madison said.

"Is there anything you can tell us that didn't make it into the official reports?" Steve asked. "I mean, it seemed strange enough, but I get the feeling that there's more to it."

"There certainly is," said Madison. "Now, I don't like lying to the public about what's going on in these kind of situations, but there's some things they just shouldn't know."

"Like what?" Pietro asked.

"Well, first of all, these aren't just your regular animal attacks. The victims weren't torn up or nothing, just bit. Only animals I know of that kill with just a bite are snakes, and these bites weren't nearly small enough for that," said Madison. "And that's not all. When we took the first ones in for examination, I thought we'd find some venom in their bloodstreams. Instead, we found no blood at all."

"What about the disappearances?" Clint asked.

"Well, there's a few things. You probably saw in the reports about the demographics and all that. Pretty young things getting snatched, but only the quiet ones."

"Yeah, we did," said Bucky.

"That part's a bit less weird, pretty people get kidnapped every day," said Madison. "The strange part is, the last place all these kids were seen was at Saint Peter's Cemetery on the edge of town. That's weird enough to begin with, but it gets weirder. Saint Peter's is also the place where every one of the bodies have been found."

"The people that were kidnapped, did any of them turn up dead later?" Steve asked.

"Nope. They just vanished without a trace."

"Is there anything else? Any clues, strange things people have mentioned seeing around the cemetery?" Bucky asked.

"Well, there was one thing," said Madison. "A couple nights ago, when the most recent girl went missing, an old man reported hearing screams coming from the cemetery while he was out walking his dog. He said it sounded like someone was getting tortured. But by the time we arrived on the scene, there was nothing, no sign of anybody. Next morning, the girl's parents call in saying she's gone."

"Would you mind if we took a look around the crime scene tonight?" Steve asked.

"Mind? Oh god, no, go on ahead," Madison said. "Don't let it out, but we need all the help we can get on this case. We're baffled."

"Thank you, Detective, you've been a lot of help," said Steve.

He got to his feet and shook her hand.

"My pleasure, Captain," said Madison. "Thanks for taking an interest in our case."

"Thanks for the coffee, ma'am," Clint said, setting his empty mug on the desk.

"Oh, of course. There's plenty more where that came from, so if you wanna swing by to warm up after your investigation, you're more than welcome," said Madison.

They all shook her hand again, then left the station.

"Was she hitting on you?" Pietro said once they were outside.

"Of course not, she was just inviting me to have coffee with her. At night. Alone. Good God, she was hitting on me," said Clint.

"Focus, birdbrain," said Bucky.

"Heyy..."

"So, this makes things interesting, doesn't it?" said Steve.

"It wasn't interesting before?" Pietro said.

"You know what I mean, don't be a smart ass," said Steve. "Anyway, people screaming like they're getting tortured, a cemetery... I don't like it."

"And yet we're gonna go waltzing into the creepy cemetery of doom, at night, to find the maniac who's doing it," said Pietro.

"Oh yay, we're officially in a horror movie," said Clint. "Just what I always wanted."

When night fell, they walked to Saint Peter's cemetery, armed with a flashlight and a gun each. They stopped at the gates, staring down the path at the eery rows of headstones.

"What I said before about this being like a horror movie?" said Clint. "I was a little too right. This is creepy as fuck."

"Yeah, this place just has the word 'death' written all over it," Pietro said.

"Of course it does, it's a cemetery. It's literally full of dead people," said Steve.

"You know what, Rogers?"

Steve smirked.

"Sooo," said Bucky. "Who wants to go into the creepy graveyard first?"

"We all go in on three?" Clint suggested.

"Sounds good. One, two, three."

They all took a single step through the gates. They were now officially inside the cemetery.

"Some superheroes we are, having to psych ourselves up to go into a graveyard," said Pietro.

"In our defense, it's very scary," said Clint.

"Alright, let's fan out," said Steve. "Bucky and I will go to the right, you guys go to the left. We'll meet back here in an hour."

They split up, following Steve's orders. Pietro and Clint wandered among the headstones, careful to keep each other nearby. After a while, Pietro came across a crypt with a wrought iron gate barring the entrance. He stopped and turned to get Clint's attention, but Clint was nowhere in sight. He looked around anxiously for some sign of him until finally his fear got the better of him.

"Clint?" he called, knowing full well that if there really was somebody out there, this probably wasn't the time for shouting. "Clint, where are you?"

There was no answer. Just silence and the sounds of the night. Pietro sighed in frustration.

"This is really not going well," he muttered.

He paused to shine his flashlight through the grating of the crypt, then rounded the corner. Suddenly he froze, heart hammering. He could swear he just saw something move in the shadows. He peered into the darkness, aiming his flashlight at headstones and bushes, searching for a silhouette and hoping for a raccoon. He froze again as the beam of light fell upon something that was creating a very human shadow.

"Clint?" he said nervously.

Then suddenly, the shadow pounced. A cold hand wrapped around his throat and slammed him against the mausoleum wall and Pietro found himself face to face with a pale young man with blood-red eyes. He struggled, but the man was unnaturally strong and seemed to hold him against the wall with little effort.

"Yes, you'll do nicely," he said.

There was something about the man's voice that sent a terrified chill up Pietro's spine. He continued to struggle pointlessly as the man grabbed a handful of his hair and slowly shifted the hand around Pietro's throat down to his chest. He smiled sinisterly, showing strangely sharp teeth, then lunged forward and sank his teeth into Pietro's neck. Pietro cried out in both fear and pain. The man let go, blood staining his lips, then ran off into the night. Pietro's head was spinning. His knees gave out and he slowly sank to the ground, his back still pressed against the stone wall.

"Pietro!?"

He looked up and saw Clint running toward him.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Clint gasped, dropping to his knees next to him. "What happened?"

"Clint, I saw him, I know what he is, he-"

Pietro stopped mid-sentence as an unexpected wave of pain ripped through him.

"Pietro?" Clint said.

Everything was burning. His blood was on fire and his veins were ice and his entire body was screaming. He might have been screaming too, but he couldn't tell. The pain was so all-consuming, he had lost all sense of his surroundings. He had been plunged into a nightmare. Into hell. He was dead and this was hell, that was the only explanation for this agony. It grew and grew until he was sure couldn't take anymore.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped and the world came crashing back down around him. His chest was heaving, but he didn't seem to need the air he was breathing. All the sounds of the night seemed twenty times louder than before. And there was a strangely intoxicating scent on the air that he hadn't noticed before. He opened his eyes. Everything seemed sharper than usual and the darkness wasn't quite as impenetrable as before. Clint was still kneeling next to him, eyes wide and face pale with fear.

"Holy shit, you scared the living daylights out of me," he said, sighing in relief. "What the fuck just happened?"

"I... I don't know..." said Pietro.

He turned to look at Clint, and Clint froze, looking confused and more than a little scared.

"What?"

"Y-your eyes," said Clint quietly. "They're... red. And I don't mean bloodshot, I mean... red. Like, the part that was blue... it's not anymore."

"Oh my god," Pietro said.

The whole situation was starting to make sense. Horrible, terrifying sense.

"Pietro, you said you saw someone, that you knew what he is," said Clint. "What did he do to you?"

"He bit me," said Pietro.

"He... bit you?" Clint repeated.

"Yeah..."

Pietro was feeling dizzy again, but not in the disorienting way he had been before. It was more of an intoxicated dizziness, and he was certain it was because of that smell he had first noticed when he woke up. It was rugged but sweet, and there was an oddly metallic hint to it that he couldn't quite place.

"Pietro?" Clint said. "You still with me?"

He hadn't even been aware that he'd spaced out. He stared at Clint, at those concerned grey eyes, that furrowed brow, and realized suddenly that he could hear his heart beating. Something feral inside him reared its head at the sound, and the entrancing scent seemed to grow stronger. Then it clicked. He could smell Clint's blood.

"Oh my god," he said again, starting to panic.

Clint reached out and took his hand to comfort him, then looked even more concerned than before.

"Your hand is freezing," he said.

"Clint," Pietro said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I think that man is a vampire."

"No," said Clint. "No, he couldn't be. Vampires don't exist, they're fantasy, they..."

He trailed off, staring at Pietro, who could hear just how fast his heart was beating.

"Clint, I think... when he bit me..." said Pietro. "I think I turned into a vampire too."

"No. No no no, you can't be, you can't, it's not real..."

"I can hear your heartbeat," said Pietro. "I can smell your blood."

"No, stop. Stop this," said Clint, his grip on Pietro's hand now painfully tight. "You're scaring me, Pietro. That can't be what's happening. It's... it's some sort of drug, he drugged you..."

"Steve and Bucky are coming," Pietro announced.

He could hear their approaching footsteps, smell their distinctive scents on the air. They were different from Clint's, not nearly as intoxicating, but still tantalizing and sweet with that coppery tint. A few seconds later, Steve and Bucky appeared.

"Christ, what happened to you, Maximoff?" Bucky said. "You're white as a sheet."

"The guy found him, he drugged him," said Clint.

He looked flustered, lost, grasping at his tiny strand of hope.

"I haven't been drugged," said Pietro impatiently. "The guy's a vampire. He bit me."

"A vampire?" said Steve.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up, did you just say you got bit by a vampire?" Bucky said.

Pietro nodded. He cast a glance at Clint, who looked a little like he might pass out.

"Shit..." Bucky murmured, running a hand through his hair.

"We need to get home," said Clint suddenly. "Maybe there's some way we can fix this."

"Clint, I think it's kinda permanent," said Pietro.

He felt sick even as he said it. He was stuck like this forever. And not just the hyperbolic forever. Actual eternity.

"You don't know that," Clint said. "None of us do. We'll do research. We'll call Thor, maybe he knows something, he knows things about stuff like this. We're gotta try. I can't just let this happen to you. I can't just let you become a-"

He stopped short, but Pietro knew exactly what he was about to say.

"What, a monster?" he finished. He got to his feet. "Come on. You're right. We should go home."