Part of what's going on in my head canon is that vampires don't necessarily get stronger, but they get more used to shrugging things off. For example, when it comes to bullets, Tony would dodge, because he still hasn't become accustomed to the fact that nothing short of taking off his head will kill him. For punches, he pulls the blows a little, because while he can hit hard enough to crack his own bones (for that matter, he can run that fast too), subconscious instinct keeps him from doing it. Older vampires have realized that and gotten past it; thus, Celicia fighting even with multiple broken bones. (You could call it Wolverine Syndrome.)
\o/ Gushing!
The Steve-was-infected thing is a big complicated, in a Comic Book Science Which Needs More Research sort of way. According to my notes (I have notes; I'm insane), vampirism works partly by re-writing the DNA of the infected person postmortem, when there's none of those pesky biological functions to hold it in check. It survives dormant in the bloodstream until then, when it takes over and gets with the rewriting. (So Tony is literally related to Ezrabet, though only in the vampire-adjusted parts of him.) For Steve's case, his adjusted biology will reject the dormant infection, just like it would reject a flu or a cold. Unfortunately, because it's not a normal illness, the virus itself could kill him, with even odds on whether or not he'd come back as a vampire. The choices are either going to be strengthen Steve via fresh infusions of the Super Soldier Serum which has never been recreated or strengthen the virus so it can overcome his adjusted biology (which is to say, Steve would lose the effects of the serum, but when he dies he'd react normally for a human infected with vampirism). Further complications arise with the DNA—it has to be from the same "family". Bringing in a second line would probably just kill him.
At least, that's a subplot. (collapses in exhaustion) I'd forgotten how many notes I had on this that were put aside and left alone lol. Thank you for letting me ramble!
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Date: 2010-01-26 03:55 pm (UTC)\o/ Gushing!
The Steve-was-infected thing is a big complicated, in a Comic Book Science Which Needs More Research sort of way. According to my notes (I have notes; I'm insane), vampirism works partly by re-writing the DNA of the infected person postmortem, when there's none of those pesky biological functions to hold it in check. It survives dormant in the bloodstream until then, when it takes over and gets with the rewriting. (So Tony is literally related to Ezrabet, though only in the vampire-adjusted parts of him.) For Steve's case, his adjusted biology will reject the dormant infection, just like it would reject a flu or a cold. Unfortunately, because it's not a normal illness, the virus itself could kill him, with even odds on whether or not he'd come back as a vampire. The choices are either going to be strengthen Steve via fresh infusions of the Super Soldier Serum which has never been recreated or strengthen the virus so it can overcome his adjusted biology (which is to say, Steve would lose the effects of the serum, but when he dies he'd react normally for a human infected with vampirism). Further complications arise with the DNA—it has to be from the same "family". Bringing in a second line would probably just kill him.
At least, that's a subplot. (collapses in exhaustion) I'd forgotten how many notes I had on this that were put aside and left alone lol. Thank you for letting me ramble!