Chapter Text
In 1945, at the end of World War II, Steve Rogers, sickly scrawny boy turned burly werewolf, thinking his best friend and potential mate Bucky Barnes had died falling from a train, sacrificed himself to stop Hydra from using their science-given Mage powers to take over the world. This, in effect, ended the war.
No one expected the vampires.
Lord Loki, originally of the Jotun cabal overthrew the last Master of the Night (whose name is now forbidden) and swooped in on an unsuspecting Europe. No one knew where he'd gotten his numbers from, but they were enough to completely wipe out the European werewolves and seriously lower the numbers of American ones still there from the war. He made a serious dent in the Avid (those with bird features that arise at the end of puberty) and Felid (those with feline characteristics) populations as well.
The Insectoids survived, but mostly by pure chance. Europe had always had a smaller population of them than the States, and most had fled during the war.
It only took Lord Loki twenty years to take control of the entire Eurasian continent and to turn his sights to the Americas. (Once Eurasia fell, Africa surrendered. They had too much to lose if Lord Loki attempted a takeover. And Australia... They have werecrocodiles. No one likes Australia much.) He managed the American takeover within forty years, too.
Humans currently live in guarded camps. They have regular jobs, though the day starts and ends later. They're forced to donate a pint of blood once a week from the time they turn sixteen. Twice a year, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, there are culls. People with blood diseases, or who have tried to escape, or show signs of magic or Avid or Felid or 'Sectoid features are pulled into pens and auctioned off to the highest bidder.
While there are many vampires now, most feed off of bagged blood. Owning a sheep is a status symbol.
But there is a small group of organized resistance, headed up originally by Steve Rogers's other potential mate Peggy Carter. They called themselves Shield, because they would aim to be that for the human populace, those who made it out. They smuggled people out of auction houses when they could, tried to rescue as many kids as possible from the life of a vampire sheep. And just after the turn of the century, something happened that shifted the status quo out of their holding pattern.
They found Steve Rogers.
He was frozen solid, but Shield was able to revive him. He got back in action just in time to team up with a berserker (an ancient breed of shapeshifter, who could turn into a bear) named Thor, a human inventor who could create machines that even tech-Mages had issues with named Stark (son of one of the men who helped Steve through his first wolf change), another wolf who had been experimented on and turned into a raging, hulking beast named Dr. Banner, and an Avid with wings and spectacular eyesight and aim named Barton. Together they managed to wrest control of New York from Loki's invading vampires.
They had help on that mission, not that they knew it, from a vampire turned traitor to Loki's cause. Loki's right-hand man.
Or rather, right hand woman.
A year and a half later found the entire northeastern area of what had once been the United States under Shield protection and had Steve working with Shield. When he went to fight a seemingly minor cabal called Red Room (much fallen from their former glory due to an incident involving an explosion sixty-odd years previously) he discovered that he wasn't alone out of time anymore. Red Room had a rabid werewolf that they called the Winter Soldier under their control. Steve discovered that this werewolf was actually his old packmate Bucky Barnes.
He hadn't been a werewolf before Steve had gone under. He'd also had both arms. Now one of his was mechanical, and managed the shift with him from human to wolf.
With help from the rest of the Avengers (Stark gave them the name, don't blame Steve) he managed to break Red Room's control of Bucky and bring him back into Steve's pack; an odd pack that eighty years ago would never have been allowed, though Steve had tried to get something similar with The Howling Commandos going. It included Avids and Mages and humans and many others; wolves needed a pack and werewolves were in short supply.
Steve's pack contains all of the leaders of the resistance. Non-wolf members can't add to the pack, but they can all feel the bonds that tie them together.
If someone dies, they feel it. The closer you are to someone, the more it hurts.
Now with his mates by his side, Steve runs the resistance with the rest of the Avengers. Tony Stark is in charge of their Mage division, human though he is. Thor and his berserker friends (who have all taken Loki's betrayal seriously. They were raised together, before Loki was turned.) manage home base security. Dr. Bruce Banner runs the science and practical divisions of things. He makes sure that everyone has enough food for missions and develops new ways to fight vampires. Steve and Bucky are in charge of the whole campaign. Nominally Fury, the head of Shield now that Peggy is semi-retired, is in charge, but he follows Steve's decisions. Clint Barton is head of new acquisitions; if you manage to escape a vamp camp or you start showing your animal side right around 19 or 20, he'll find you if you head northeast long enough.
This story takes place roughly two years after Steve and Bucky have reunited for the first time. Clint is heading up a mission to give some of his newbies a feel for danger. There shouldn't have been any real enemies close enough to do damage, but as Clint and his assistant kinetic-Mage Remy find out, sometimes the enemy has surprises for you…