I'd like to know more about vampire tony if you want? Its been a while since ive read the older stuff, does it include anything about why tony won't fight for himself? Or maybe some of his history with other werewolves to explain his general avoidance of them, or encounters with other supernaturals that have shaped why he is like he is now after all these years? Why his presence is so intimidating when he is nothing but nice to everyone?
The main problem is that Tony loathes being a vampire. He didn’t have a choice about it; he was kidnapped, turned against his will, and forced to feed on people to the point he killed them whether he wanted to or not. He was held prisoner for centuries before he managed an escape, and he’s been on his own for centuries since. He had one chance at starving to death and a priest saved him instead, and if he tried to starve himself to death again he’d instead just go into a frenzy and kill people again. He hates what he is, even though he came to terms with it long ago, and somehow that’s palpable to people, even humans, and it freaks them out.
He doesn’t really have any encounters with supernatural that cause their fear of him or his fear of them. Werewolves and vampires just historically don’t get along, and when questioned about it most werewolves and vampires just mumble something along the lines of “Dracula something something, Romulus blah blah blah” and people drop it because it’s clearly become a Hatfield and McCoy thing that’s so ingrained that their hackles raise around each other no matter how well they like each other.
And it’s a basic fact that the supernatural who are ancient like Tony is, they’re ancient because they’ve done what they had to do to survive. (It’s also typically known that what they’ve “had to do” isn’t always great or glamorous, like some humans seem to think. The carnage Tony left behind when he escaped the Ten Rings was unspeakable, even if it was technically justified.)
That being said, Tony can be sweet as pie and still be terrifying, like when he dragged that human into the diner to apologize to Steve for attacking Bucky, or the fact that the only reason he hasn’t gotten Pepper to heal Steve is because Pepper keeps telling Tony no. Tony’s boundaries are fucked. He sees what he thinks is a problem and fixes it regardless of what anyone else may want, and being a vampire actually has very stringent rules. They like math and counting; they need to be invited into a place (even if it’s just someone holding a door open for them); they’re weak to silver; they can be obsessive compulsive; younger vampires have the misfortune of struggling to cross running water. Tony is kind but he’s also an apex predator, and it would be foolish for anyone to forget it.
