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He’s thrown inside a cell and the heavy metal door echoes as it closes. Tony swears and hurries to sit with his back to one of the corners of the room. It’s dark inside, but that’s good. He prefers the darkness around him that gives him a sense of security at being hidden from the eyes of his captors. He squints at his palms to check and, yeah, they’re bloody and raw in places from stopping a rather bad fall. He has no doubt his knees are in very similar condition, even with the negligible protection offered by his dress pants. His trusty jeans would have been a better option, but he can’t go to public functions wearing his favorite work clothes, no matter how much he’d like to. If nothing else, Pepper would skin him alive.
He sighs and combs his hair back away from his forehead with just the tip of his fingers. It’s a mess. He’s a mess, and he’s pretty sure there’s blood on his face. He wasn’t hurt, not really, but that’s just normal MO for abductions. They want the good money at the end of it all, and they can’t get it if they damage the goods too badly.
Fuck, he’s so, so tired of this.
Whatever. They didn’t check very thoroughly, content with taking away his phone, watch, glasses and shoes plus the content of his pockets and his suit jacket. They never bothered with his tie or his underwear or even his goddamn ring, and so he still has three trackers working on feeding info to JARVIS and Rhodey and Pepper.
He’ll be found within the next three hours.
He tips his head back and closes his eyes.
Whatever.
The metallic sound of the door opening startles him awake and he groans. His neck aches from falling asleep in such an awkward position.
“Eat. You have ten minutes,” his warden says, then closes the door.
Tony blinks, frowns. There’s no light in the room, so it’s difficult to judge, but he’s pretty sure that more than three hours have passed. They took him after lunch, during the break between meetings, so it doesn’t make sense for them to feed him so soon. It must be around five or six. That’s—a bit longer than he’d have thought it’d take them to find him, but not enough to worry him.
His stomach rumbles, but he’s not about to touch that food. He’s gonna be out of here soon enough and have JARVIS pick up something good.
After what he assumes must have been ten minutes, the warden opens the door and takes the food away. He doesn’t say anything to Tony.
He didn’t even look his way.
Hours pass.
“Eat. Ten minutes,” his warden says, and it’s another one.
“So, hey, I’ve gotta pee. Mind taking me to the bathroom?”
The man doesn’t answer verbally, pointing instead to the other side of the tiny room. Tony looks and, yeah, that’s a medium-sized hole right there. He’d seen it before, but he hadn’t thought…
“Man, really? That’s so unhygienic, you know? Not to mention utterly disgusting. C’mon, just a trip to the bathroom—”
“Eat. Seven minutes.”
The door closes behind him. Tony scowls at it, then down at the tray with the supposed food. He’s too hungry now and he’s betting on the fact that he’s too valuable to kill via poison so he—very reluctantly, mind you—stands and takes the thing. It looks kind of goopy and disgusting, and it’s barely warm. He eats it quickly and tries not to gag, then drinks all of the water in the plastic cup. He leaves the tray and goes back to his corner. Less than a minute later, the warden takes the tray away.
Tony waits fifteen more minutes before going to the hole in the other side of the room.
Two more feedings pass.
The cell smells disgusting.
There’s nothing to do but walk in circles inside.
The warden never says anything else apart from “Eat. Ten minutes.”
He should have been found long before this.
Three more feedings pass.
Where are they?
Where are they?
Where are they?
“Hey, hey, do you have a name? I’m kinda tired of calling you ‘the warden’ in my head.”
“Eat.”
“Ten minutes, blablabla, I know. But, you know, you—”
Clang.
“Damn, rude.”
Where are they?!
Where are they it’s been too long why haven’t they found me where am I who is this why haven’t they tried anything yet what is happening what—
“Sooo, the ransom? How high is it? I’m curious, you know, seen as I’m being kept here for I don’t know how many days on end, or is it weeks? Hey, could you tell me? That’d be great, buddy.”
The door closes. Again.
Again.
It’s always the same.
The only voice he’s heard for who knows how long already is his own. The warden doesn’t even say his customary catchphrase anymore, and Tony’s going to explode.
(He needs voices he needs interaction he needs—
He needs his friends his bots his people.
He needs to get the fuck out of here.)
The door slams open and Tony wouldn’t even bother to lift his head if it wasn’t for the completely unexpected but utterly welcome exclamation of “Tony!”
Tony jumps to his feet, startled and weak and dirty and he can’t help but gape at the form of his best friend rushing through that damn door.
“Rhodey bear!”
“Fuck, Tones, I’m sorry it took so long!” Rhodey says, and completely ignores the filth and the smell and hugs Tony close.
It feels so incredibly weird and alien after so long without touch, without interaction, but so fucking good. Tony can’t help the tears that spring to his eyes as he clutches the back of Rhodey’s bulletproof vest.
(He’s going home.)