"How do we fix this?" Tony asked for what seemed like the millionth time. From the moment they had arrived, Dimitri had been placed under heavy interrogation. The methods that they used to derive information from him bordered the line of torture. Tony had been here for hours and nothing more than the screams of pain and the hisses of threatening teeth echoed through the prison chamber.

Dimitri now sat, cross-legged, on the floor with his head bent over. The lights of the UV lamps made him nauseous, their purple hue singeing his skin ever so lightly as the other brunette cranked up the luminosity when he wouldn't comply. He couldn't comply even if he wanted to; his voice was much too hoarse to bring anything other than a whisper out into the open.

"I don't like hurting people, Dimitri, it's not in my code of ethics. But you're not a person, I will burn you alive without a second thought if you keep silent." Tony threatened, standing against the barrier and the prisoner. He'd never been one for torture or unnecessary violence. He would have left it up to Natasha, but she was tracking down the other vampire, Steve was too attached to the case (even if he wouldn't admit it), and Hulk, Thor, and Clint were no part of this… this was too personal. So, it was left to Tony to decide how to go about the interrogation. It has been three days and he'd might as well have been sitting on his ass and twiddling his thumbs with how much progress he'd made.

The vampire looked up, his red eyes standing out against his burnt skin. Tony had gotten a bit desperate the second day and may have cranked the UV radiation to it's almost full capacity. It had been a mistake on his part, he could admit that much.

Dimitri opened his mouth to speak and then coughed, dry heaving, and almost emptying the contents of his stomach. As he coughed, speckles of blood splattered against the linoleum floor of his cell, his fangs had grown to twice their size in the time had been here and he could feel his throat ripping open with each convulsion. He laid on the floor, suddenly defeated as the thought of truly dying suddenly overcame him.

Tony had a realization then, slapping his face with how stupid he had been. No duh, he's a vampire.

The brunette exited the room, running into the kitchen where the others were watching the monitors intently, some had a camera trained on the cell while others were opened on any lore that they could use to speed the process up.

Steve stood up first, silently brooding over Tony's methods. He couldn't say he completely disagreed with them, but at the same time he felt an inexplicable kinship with the other vampire; something about being so close to another of his kind made it hard for him to think straight. He recalled the absolute betrayal in Dimitri's face when they'd made eye-contact, as if he'd known (without exchanging words) that he was being deceived by his own kin. He had to keep shaking his head of these confusing thoughts, they did nothing to help their situation.

"Taking a break?" Steve asked the genius who had a manic look to his eyes.

"I need—Bruce, where is the phlebotomy bag, I need you to draw some blood from me." Tony said looking around the kitchen for a spare cup.

"It's in the med-bay, I'll go get it." Bruce said, quickly running up the steps to the science department to reach the necessary room.

"Tony, what are you doing?" Steve asked, stilling the genius's hands. He was visibly shaken, the stress of not having slept properly in three days finally getting to him.

"He needs to feed, I'm a fucking idiot. I'm killing him softly with the UV, of course he can't speak, he's focusing all his energy on healing. Jesus man, I'm…Jesus." Tony's thoughts were all over the place, it was as if he had suddenly been gripped with a sharp fear, so strong and malicious that it made him wonder how he'd ever gone through a day without losing his mind.

"Tony, are you alright?" Steve asked, looking directly into Tony's eyes. They were clouded over with a sort of haze that made it impossible to tell if he was truly focusing on any one object. His pupils had been blown huge and his blinking had doubled in speed.

"Yeah, yeah, just need to… need to feed… need to feed him." Tony replied, shaking himself out of Steve's grip and turning to the bar stool, sitting impatiently as Bruce returned with the kit. Steve narrowed his eyes, but tried not to question it; if he thought about it from a scientific point of view it would make the most sense why Tony was offering his blood: he had the most to spare. It still didn't make him any less suspicious as to what was going on. He returned to the monitor, a small itch in the back of his head was begging to be scratched as he looked at Dimitri. The other vampire was huddled over himself, still dry-heaving, but his coughing had stopped. He rocked a couple of times, trying hard to control himself.

Steve chanced a look at Tony as Bruce punctured his arms, his fangs fought their way to descend into his mouth—a learned reflex. The crimson blood filled the bag quickly, almost obscenely so. The steady stream hypnotized Steve, almost distracting him from uncovering the mystery of that annoying itch.

Once Bruce had finished his job and was patching Tony up, the brunette grabbed one of the tubes and emptied some of the blood into the mug he'd fetched. The red liquid filled the cup like a morbidly accurate version of a Bloody-Mary. He quickly made his way back to the jail-cell, careful not to spill any of the contents he carried with him all over the floor.

Dimitri suddenly stood, mustering as much energy as he had left to do so as the brunette returned with an offering. His lips parted greedily as he saw the things in his hands.

"You… you need this." Tony said, pushing the mug into a small doorway that entered a secure tunnel and exited into the two-way cell. Dimitri wasted no time in guzzling down the contents of the mug, some of it spilling sloppily from the sides of his lips.

A second later there was blood-curdling (no pun intended) scream as Dimitri dropped the cup and threw-up in earnest. Steve ran into the room as quickly as possible, followed swiftly by the others.

"What the fuck?!" Dmitri cursed, his throat burning for entirely distinct reasons. Another screamed ripped from his chest and he heaved once more, his body rejecting whatever Tony had just given him.

The others could only stare in bewilderment at the display, very unsure of what to do.

"You're a… you're a drudge, aren't you?" Dimitri asked, his red eyes pointing accusingly at the smaller brunette. The spell he had placed had been broken as soon as the blood had touched his tongue, the acrid and acidic taste of the blood was a tell-tale sign that he could not drink this, that the blood was already claimed by another. Tony had been easy to manipulate, the lack of sleep and his willingness to get answers left him defenseless to Dimitri's hypnosis, what the vampire hadn't been expecting was for it to turn on him so quickly. He wonders for a second why he hadn't picked up on the scent earlier, was it because Steve wasn't fully a vampire? Maybe he hadn't been paying that much attention.

"How do you know that?" Steve asked angrily, surprising the rest. Tony was still trying to shake his head to clear whatever invasive thoughts had taken over his mind. He had been suddenly pulled into the crystal-clear reality after moments of hazy thoughts and orders from an unknown source. The sharpness of the present hurt him in ways he didn't think was possible, and he swayed where he stood, trying to regain his posture.

"His blood, so bitter. It's like battery acid down my throat." Dimitri replied, his voice croaking out the answer to a question he could definitely answer, more than happy to. His body still shook with the aftermath, his mouth drooled over the floor as he eliminated the final remnants of that putrid blood. "Once a human is claimed, their blood develops a unique protein to keep vampires from attacking. To you, Stevie dear, it will taste like the most orgasmic food in the world, to me and other vampires, it will be like licking the inside of a power-plant. God damn, that is the worst!" Dimitri said, suddenly vocal after days of keeping himself tightly lipped. The only upside to chugging fresh drudge blood was its healing properties, even if it burned like a bitch afterward.

"Drudge?" Clint asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"It doesn't matter, the details, just tell us how we can fix this." Steve said, taking the place of the interrogator since Tony was currently out of commission.

"I'll talk, but I need to feed first. You know that Steve, you know the feeling of going hours without a drop, that itchy sensation in the back of your throat as you down gallons of water just to make it go away, but it doesn't. It never truly does, it's always there. I'm done with this whole keeping quiet thing. For what, for Dracula? Fuck him." Dimitri said, spitting out Dracula's name on the floor for good measure. He had been staring straight into Clint's eyes as he'd spoke, trying to penetrate whatever barrier the blonde had placed as mental defenses.

"Huh uh, you can't play mind tricks on me lover-boy, I've been mind-controlled once, it's not happening again." Clint said, doubling down on his technique. After Loki, he'd taken some classes in a mountain somewhere with some of the best spies (after pulling some strings in Shield) to train against something like this.

"Is that what you were doing to Tony?!" Steve bellowed out, suddenly feral. His fists would have reached through the doubled-paneled glass and broken through to the other side to choke the ever-loving shit out of the other vampire—blood-relatives or no.

The only thing that stopped him at the moment was a singular hand on his shoulder. Steve looked down and followed the arm to its owner; it was Tony, holding the remaining bag of blood in his hand, and offering it to him like a mother offers a toy to her misbehaving son.

"Take this and go, you're too close to this." Tony said, the tone in his voice making it clear that he wanted no rebuttals.

"But-

"Steve, he already said he would talk, don't make him retract his statement." Tony said firmly, his eyes daring Steve to say something else.

The blonde sighed and exited the room, angrily sipping the rest of the contents in the bag, feeling like the kid in his analogy. He hated the fact that Dimitri knew him so personally already, that he could crawl under his skin with just a few sentences.

He started at the monitor, watching the scenes play out in real time.

Bruce had run up to the med-bay again and was retrieving another bag. "So, who's it gonna be this time?" He asked as he returned to the jail cell.

Thor suddenly looked very queasy at the idea of needles, no he was not scared, he was Thor: Prince of Asgard, Son of Odin… but those needles did look quite sharp.

"I'll do it." Clint said, already pulling up the chair and sitting down. There was a slight noise from the jail-cell at that announcement. The other three looked at Dimitri with various levels of puzzlement on their faces.

"What? AB-Negative is my favorite!" Dimitri admitted, already licking his lips.

"How do you know my blood-type, I don't even know my blood type." Clint asked, a bit surprised.

"You seriously didn't just ask a vampire that question."/ "You seriously didn't just as me that question." Dimitri, Bruce, and Tony said in a jumbled unison. Clint jumped, feeling patronized from three different angles.

"It's not like it's some innate knowledge you have as soon as you turn, is it? Don't you learn that along the way?" Clint mumbled to himself as Bruce prepped him to be punctured. This time, the bag filled at a normal rate, the slow trickle of blood mesmerizing the vampire in the cell. It was not quite as satisfying as sinking your teeth into the flesh, but it was better than anything he'd had in months. The saliva pooled embarrassingly into his mouth and out of the sides, anticipating the first taste.

"Could you… could you please stop looking at me like that?" Clint said, feeling naked in his own skin. "Jeez, now I know how a cow must feel." Clint said to himself, wrapping his arms across his torso once Bruce had finished drawing a pint.

"Sorry." Dimitri said, sounding sincere. He had developed a bit of a lisp as his fangs had pushed themselves to their full capacity. He bounced up and down like an anxious pup as the blood was slowly transported to the carrier chamber. Tony held it out of reach for just a second and looked Dimitri straight in the eye. "We give you this, and you talk. And I mean the truth, I'll burn you alive if you so much as think about double-crossing me." Tony said, his eyes taking on that manic edge that resembled that of a caged animal.

"I'll talk, but I can't promise it's what you want to hear." Dimitri said frankly.

Tony narrowed his eyes but delivered the blood anyways. The following seen was grotesque as Dimitri was eager to dig into the bag, literally chewing his way through the plastic to get to the blood faster, sinking to his knees as he squeezed the life out of the bag. The vampire panted and closed his eyes, too soon was the blood gone, he cut his lips multiple times trying to rip into the crevice's that held even the smallest drops.

"Okay, I think I'm going to be sick." Clint said, after witnessing such a display of affection(?) for his blood, he thinks he might need a break—or three. He exited the room just to find Steve on the couch sipping on his own bag of blood like a juice box. The blonde looked up apologetically; Clint tried not to think of Steve doing something similar to Tony in the time between then and now. Of course, because his brain was an ass-hole, it supplied him images of almost uncanny accuracy to what had actually transpired between the two.

Clint shuddered at the intrusive thoughts, going into his room to take a shower.

Dimitri silently lamented the loss of his food-source, he would have requested more, but he doubted the Avenger's would be that charitable to his cause.

"Now, talk." Tony said, lowering the UV to a barely-there minimum. He still didn't trust Dimitri, and a full and satisfied vampire (though more willing to cooperate) was stronger than before. He also figured that UV may act as a blocking device to whatever signal Dracula could send out, if his prior impromptu experiment on Steve had been anything to go by. "How do we change Steve back to human?" Tony continued, trying not to get irritated with how many times and iterations of the same question he had had to ask.

"If he hasn't killed a human while draining them dry, there might still be hope for him… maybe." Dimitri said, he raised an eyebrow questioningly to his slight doppelganger.

"He hasn't, I'm his first." Tony said, his cheeks burning red with the confession, it had been more revealing than he'd wanted it to be, not that Thor and Bruce knew that. Speaking of which, the scientist was fiddling with his lab-coat, feeling the awkwardness of the situation settle in his bones, and the blonde God was about ready to bolt from the room.

"You want to know how a Drudge is made, Tony?" Dimitri asked, his tongue dancing around his lips as he licked the remainder of Clint's blood from them.

"No, I want to know how to fix this." Tony reminded, feeling a bit panicked as he realized he was losing grip on the conversation.

"It's quite an intimate thing really, only one drudge per vampire, unless you're Dracula of course, then you can have as many as you please. It would be kind of nice to have that much power, that many slaves." Dimitri said, day dreaming a bit.

"Don't forget that I have the power to-

"Burn me alive? Yes, I gathered." Dimitri interrupted. Without saying a word, his eyes shifted towards the other two intruders and ushered them to leave with just a simple thought. "Lock the door and stand guard, won't you?" Dimitri asked as an afterthought.

"What are you doing?" Tony asked, trying not to let his fright get away from him.

"Requesting some privacy, don't worry, I won't try to escape or harm you in any way." Dimitri said, taking a deep breath. "Drudge's are a wonderful thing really; so compliant and eager to serve, so mindless at times. Their bodies produce so much damn blood, it's almost impossible to suck them dry." Dimitri continued.

"Tony!" Steve shouted from outside, trying to fight his way into the holding center, but finding it impossible to move the boulder that was Thor. Both Bruce and Thor had that hazy cloud over their eyes that had been in Tony's eyes earlier; Steve knew that they were being mind-controlled and didn't quite know how to break it.

Tony looked towards the sound, but was madly curious about his peculiar condition. "What else is there?" Tony asked, giving way to his curiosity.

"Oh, so many things, not any of them pleasant to the Drudge. We're basically slaves to them until they decide to turn us or eat us." Dimitri said, revealing something about himself without fulling intending do.

"We?"

"Do you know why you're a drudge Tony? Do you want to know how you became one? It's not as simple a biting another human being, that's too impersonal. This thing that you and Steve have, well damn, it's a bond thicker than blood." Dimitri said, caressing the glass as if he were cupping the side of Tony's jaw.

"You said we, why did you say that?" Tony asked desperately, trying not to get side-tracked by the mesmerizing tale that Dimitri was spinning.

"Hmm, tell me? Did you and Steve happen to swap bodily fluids prior to him turning? What about emotion, was there any sexual attraction between you two?" Dimitri asked instead, avoiding Tony's questions.

"I… why did you say we?" Tony asked again, feebly. He was losing a battle with his desire to know more about this. This perverse need for knowledge made it impossible for him to think of anything else. He wondered if it was another mind trick from Dimitri, but he couldn't feel any intrusions to prove his point.

"Because, if you must know, I was my husband's drudge for centuries. I cared for his every whim, I was his to do with as he pleased. But I suppose I was lucky; I've seen other vampires who kept their drudges in cells—discarding them every couple of months once they got bored of the same old thing." Dimitri said, some pent-up venom escaping his lips as he spoke. "Being a drudge isn't all that bad, at least you have the protection of your Vampire, you don't age as long as your vampire is alive, you get a sweet high with each feeding session. And don't even get me started on sex-

"Stop, please." Tony said, panicked. He looked around himself to make sure that they were truly alone.

"Oh, you and Steve haven't-

"No, and we won't, not until he's cured from this." Tony said, trying to regain his train of thought.

"Oh, such an innocent little Drudge, what are you afraid of?" Dimitri asked, actually looking curious enough to find out.

"That's, that's none of your business. Listen, I don't have much patience for people who beat around the bush. I need you to tell me how to fix this, so that he can stop being a vampire, and return to being the Bad-Ass Super Soldier for the Avengers!" Tony said hotly; he hated mind-tricks, of both the physical and psychological kind.

"And you can stop being a drudge." Dimitri said, satisfied with Tony's response as he floundered for the next words to say, his eyes going big and incredulous but the ultimate truth still were held in those black orbs.

"I don't-

"Don't lie Tony, admit it, you hate it. Hate having your control stripped with just a simple command, he doesn't even have to ask you to do anything, a humble suggestion will do." Dimitri said, counting off the things Tony hated about his predicament (and tried to keep to himself) with his hands. "Oh, but you hate how horny you get at the thought of his fangs cutting into your flesh."

"Tony, don't-don't listen to him. He's just messing with you." Steve begged, his voice going raw as he tried to shout over the lies that Dmitri was instilling in Tony's mind.

"Is that… is that an order Steve or just a suggestion?" Tony said loud enough for the speakers to pick up.

"There's my little drudge, taking charge." Dimitri said, his fanged smirk mirroring oddly Tony's own scared grimace. It was uncanny how close they resembled each-other, both physically and with past experiences.

"Tony what? You know I wouldn't order you to do anything you shouldn't do." Steve said, in disbelief.

"You wanna know why I know so much of what you're feeling?" Dimitri asked, his smirk lowering to a self-deprecating scowl. Tony nodded slowly, losing grip on his legs and slid down against the glass. Dimitri followed him suit. "It hurts to ignore him, doesn't it? The stronger he gets, the harder it is for you to say no, and you just gave him a pint of your blood, how much longer do you think you can keep telling him no?" Dimitri asked, he saw himself in Tony, saw that utter look of desperation in his face. Even as he had tortured him, he knew that Tony was doing it for himself more than anyone.

"Tony please-

"Shut up, Steve! Shut up!" Tony snapped, looking at the door and holding himself against the glass. "Tell me more." Tony begged, a bit shameless in the way he asked.

"I was in your position as well Tony, I went through the same emotions you did. Alexandru was Dracula's first vampire, all the other's he had simply drained dry, but there was something about Alex that he saw potential for progeny. And then my darling found me." Dimitri explained, giving a bit of an insight into the origins of Dracula and his Henchmen. "Who would miss a poor little Romanian boy, right? Not my mother, not my sisters, definitely not my father who barely made it through the door in his drunken state." Dimitri continued, a small fire starting up in his eyes every-time he remembered his past.

"You were alone." Tony filled in, being able to relate.

"Basically, you haven't seen my husband yet. He's… he can be stubborn and once he sets his mind on something it's quite difficult for him to change it, hence the reason I'm trapped in a cell. If I would have listened to him then maybe I could still be baby-sitting Dracula." Dimitri confessed, spitting out Dracula's name again. "You see, after you've been a drudge for as long as I have, you tend to hate being told what to do when you become a vampire."

"Are those really my two options, die or turn?" Tony asked, his face fell when Dimitri nodded.

"Do you want to be a drudge forever?" The vampire asked in return. Tony shook his head, rubbing his temples. His head had started pounding after he'd shouted at Steve, to be honest it had been hurting ever since Dimitri did whatever mind mojo he'd performed. "What if I change Steve back? What if we cure him?" Tony asked, finally coming full-circle and asking the question he'd been researching endlessly for the past few months.

"In order to turn a vampire back to human, they must have never killed another human being. After making sure of that, that vampire must hunt down the one that turned them. On the night of the full moon, they must decapitate the vampire and drink their blood in the light of the moon. Only then is the vampirism cured." Dimitri said as if reciting from a book, which he had been but Tony didn't need to know that.

"Why does it have to be a full moon?" Tony asked, finally, finally they had an answer.

"The full moon acts as a magnet, the flow of the dead vampire's blood is shucked out of both their skull and the body of the affected." Dimitri answered.

"How do you know this works?" Tony asked, some of his mind returning to normalcy now that the mystery was solved… oh no.

"I've seen it happen once." Dimitri admitted. He'd seen the moment Tony realized the big flaw in his plan. "I told you you might not like the answer."

"He's… Steve is a direct descendant from Dracula." Tony said, almost faint, he was glad he was already on the floor for this revelation.

"Exactly, Steve was bitten by Dracula himself. Normally, when a vampire bites their victim with intentions to turn them, they must feed said victim their blood. But Dracula, he's our daddy! —Dimitri took a second to gag at the word—he doesn't have to follow the rules; he invented them." Dimitri said, more angry venom flowing from his fangs.

"So what happens if we perform the ritual on Dracula?" Tony asked, all hope escaping his chest. Steve had stopped pounding the door outside, having heard every word of the conversation and feeling just as defeated himself.

"I don't know, it's never been done before." Dimitri almost wanted to add a 'duh' to the end of that sentence, but he couldn't bring himself to crush Tony's spirit any more than it already was.

Before Tony could ask or say anything else, a loud crash rang outside their door. Tony bolted to his feet and ran towards the door. Once he opened it he could see that Bruce and Thor were still holding guard at the door, like faithful sentinels. "Dimitri, please relinquish your hold on my friends." Tony ordered, putting on a façade of authority. Whether it worked or not didn't matter just as long as it got the job done, which it had.

"What the hell is going on out here?" Tony asked as he entered the living room, the bottom of the Avenge-Jet was crashed into the space they normally reserved for eating. At least everything was standing upright.

"I'm sorry Tony, no time to explain, I need help hauling the vampire into the next available cell." Natasha said, running out of the jet, and opening the doors to the back manually. It seemed that she had lost control of the jet's commands the angrier her captive became, she barely missed the tower altogether.

"Vampire?" Tony asked thinking she meant Dimitri, his head wasn't screwed on right just yet.

Thor helped her move the cage into the interrogation/jail room. Dimitri scrambled to his legs, looking at the bloodied and beaten vampire in the cage.

"Alexandru." Dimitri sighed against the glass.

"Wait, that's your husband?" Tony asked, looking at the other man in the cage. His head had snapped up as soon as he'd heard his name.

"There you are, I told you to stay put in the damn hotel, but you and your needs." Alexandru sighed, feeling worse for wear than he cared to admit.

"I know, but hey, at least we're back together again." Dimitri said.

"Thor, put Alex in the next holding cell." Tony ordered the blonde, feeling good about the sudden progress they'd made in a short while.

"Thank you, Dimitri, for your cooperation." Tony said, hoping that he sounded earnest in his gratitude. Dimitri shrugged, more preoccupied in fiddling with the ring on his finger than in listening to him. Many things had transpired between them, some of which he wished he had kept to himself. He'd have to scrub through the last few hours of footage and erase them from the hard-drive, there was no need for the others to see this, not if they already had their answer.

It was just an unfortunate thing that Steve had heard all of it. If Tony could erase his hard-drive he wouldn't hesitate to.


A/N: Ohhh, Secrets have been revealed! Honestly though, who knew so much BS lore could be packed into one tiny and neat chapter!