Warnings: Blood, historical AU where Tony is a vampire king shh just go with it happy halloween fellow sinners 💕
The guards come for him the dawn after the full moon. They only tell him that he’s being summoned to the kingscourt, and ignoring May’s screaming, they drag him up the hill to the black castle. Peter turns and tries to tell her it’ll be okay, but he can’t form words past the lump in his throat. He knows he’ll be dead within the hour.
They haul him up the black stone steps, and as they progress deeper into the castle’s yawning, bleak halls, Peter can feel the very air around him growing thinner and colder. When they come to a set of crimson double-doors with wrought iron bars, he’s shivering and gooseflesh prickles his skin.
The two guards creak the doors open and drag Peter inside the kingscourt, throwing him to the stone floor. Peter stumbles to his knees, trembling and blue-lipped, and he raises his head, eyes wide in terror.
Deathly silence falls over the great hall as everyone stares at him. Flanking the dais, the King’s Council gaze sternly at him. The walls are lined with servants, a mixture of pity and scorn on their wan faces, and the Kingsguard and the nobles who’ve come to petition Stark avoid his eyes entirely.
The King himself is seated at his black throne at the center of the dais, a blinding splash of color in the otherwise dreary hall. He’s draped in deep red cloaks and his hand is lazily wrapped around a polished gold scepter, the end of which has been filed to a fine, knife-like point. His skin is darker, more flushed than Peter’s heard him described, and his sharp trimmed black goatee accentuates his strong jaw and full lips. Tony Stark is handsome, Peter thinks deliriously, and he realizes he’s been staring for far too long and quickly ducks his head, bowing deep from his position on the frozen stone floor.
“Bring him to me,” Tony drawls.
The two guards grab Peter under his arms and manhandle him to the front of the kingscourt, and a noblewoman who must have been mid-petition quickly gathers her skirts and makes way for them. They throw Peter down in front of the dais, and he quickly ducks his head.
He hears quiet footsteps, only audible for the stifling hush that’s fallen over the court as Tony stands and makes his way down the dais, stopping just in front of him. “You’re Peter Parker?” He asks, his low velvet voice suddenly much closer.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Peter says, blinking at his knees. He sees the point of the gold scepter enter his periphery, and the King raises it slowly, nudging the sharp edge at its end against the column of Peter’s throat. Barely daring to breathe, Peter raises his head as the scepter pushes his chin up until he feels the sharp prick of it resting at the top of his throat, and he’s staring into Tony’s coal black eyes.
“You’re the one who released my dinner,” he says, his voice low and almost bored.
Peter feels tears welling in his eyes and he angrily blinks them away. “Yes, Your Grace,” he says again. The point of the scepter pushes against his throat and Peter inhales sharply.
“Why?
“Your Grace, she wasn’t guilty of the crimes she’d been accused of,” Peter rasps. “It wouldn’t have been just to sentence her to die.”
“So you decided to take justice into your own hands?” Tony asks, a dangerous edge to his words. “You think you can alter the sentences I’ve passed down?”
“Your Grace, please,” Peter says, his voice breaking. He feels the point of the scepter break his skin and he sobs as a trickle of blood rolls down the column of his throat, warm and sluggish.
“We have a system of order in place for a reason, Peter Parker.” Tony pulls the scepter back and raises the end to his lips, licking Peter’s blood from it as his inky eyes flutter shut. “Virgin’s blood,” he notes with interest. He returns to his throne and lounges on it, crossing his legs like he’s at the theatre. “Strip him,” he orders the guards.
Peter yelps as an armored hand comes down on his shoulder and the guards yank at his shirt. When he protests and tries to push them off, he gets the flat of a sword sharp across his back and he cries out, falling silent as they tear his shirt to ribbons.
“And the trousers,” Tony says lazily.
“Please, Your Grace,” Peter tries again, sobbing as he gets the flat of a sword again to the backs of his thighs. When the guards are finished with him, he’s hunched in on himself, shaking and shivering as he tries to cover himself as best as possible, his clothes lying in tatters around him. He can hear the nobles and servants tittering among themselves, and despite how cold it is in the kingscourt, he feels like he’s boiling alive with the shame and humiliation.
“You’ll be happy to know,” Tony starts, “your friend is long gone.” Peter looks up, but the King isn’t in his throne anymore. Black smoke swirls in a thick coil around him like the debris of a hurricane, and Tony’s voice comes again, disembodied and surrounding him all at once: “So whether she did commit the crime, fortunately for her we have no way of gathering further evidence to the contrary.”
He suddenly feels his presence directly behind him, Tony’s cloaked frame materializing to cast a menacing shadow over Peter. He bites back a whimper and ducks his head again.
“Now, unfortunately for you, Peter Parker, I have no intention of wasting my men’s time hunting down a scrap of a meal. Which means the consequences fall to you.” Tony circles Peter’s hunched, naked body slowly, a predator surveying his next kill. “You understand, of course,” he says in a syrupy mocking tone. “What would the people think if I let a farm boy decide if my rulings were just or not?”
Cold fingers coil in his hair and Peter gasps in pain as he’s dragged to his feet, tears stinging his eyes. He’s excruciatingly aware of his nudity and he tries curling in on himself, but Tony yanks his hair hard until he’s whimpering and stretched on the tips of his toes, fully exposed for the entire kingscourt to laugh at.
But the King doesn’t seem to be laughing at him. The sclera of his eyes have turned black as his irises, drinking in the sight of him, and Peter shudders under his horrible gaze. “Divine,” Tony breathes. He tilts Peter’s head back, baring the long line of his throat and tracking the slow trickle of blood from where he’d pricked him with the scepter. He tugs Peter into his chest and as he lowers his mouth to his skin, Peter’s eyes roll back in his head and he clutches at Tony’s shoulders, overcome by a heady feeling like he’s drunk and half-euphoric all at once. The world shrinks down to the space between Tony’s arms wound tight around him, and all he can focus on is the cold, slick feeling of his tongue as it laps the drying blood from his skin in lazy swipes.
He forgets that he’s naked as his nameday in front of the entire court to see, can’t even register the soft moans that come unbidden from his mouth, can only think about how desperately he wants Tony to bleed him dry and use him--
“No!” Peter hears himself screaming. He convulses suddenly, coming back to himself. Still half out of his mind, he shoves hard against Tony’s firm chest, throwing himself backwards to the floor. When he blinks and sees the King’s glittering black eyes trained on him, hungry and intent, he scrambles to his feet.
Two sets of armored hands seize him around the shoulders again and he screams, kicking and flailing against the guards. Around him, the court averts their eyes, many of them shuffling away at the prospect of a feeding about to go violently wrong. Peter can’t bring himself to care though, all he sees is Tony standing over him, his pointed teeth gleaming in the low lamplight.
“There’s no need for that,” Tony says patiently, licking blood from the corner of his lips. He takes Peter from the guards and grips him by the throat, and almost immediately that same heady calm falls over Peter again. He struggles feebly against his hold, but this time Tony’s ready. He forces Peter’s head back and sinks his fangs into the soft skin of his throat, and Peter moans weakly, going boneless in his arms. Peter breathes shallowly as cold lips latch around the puncture site and Tony drinks long and deep from his throat, and all he can do is twitch his fingers around the King’s forearms as a pleasant haziness swallows his mind.
He feels a warm fur cloak being wrapped around his shoulders and then, all too soon, Tony is pulling back and licking red lips in satisfaction. Peter whines at the loss of contact, and he clutches at the King’s shirtfront, dizzy and confused as to why he’d stopped.
Tony looks almost fondly down at Peter with his human-like eyes again. “Take him to my chambers. And Peter? Don’t stray,” he warns, his words honey-sweet and dangerous.
Peter nods dazedly, letting the guards march him out of the kingscourt. He can’t imagine why he’d ever want to leave Tony’s side again.
