The first time Tony met the Doctor, he was eight years old and terrified of the monsters that came at night.
He had his little quirks and things, but they never helped him calm down, never did anything but distract him- slightly. His genius brain was working even then, over-thinking things and adding to his fear.
Then there was a man standing in his doorway, a halo of light shining all around him, and he was beautiful, and terrifying, and awe-inspiring.
He spun a story about far-off planets, and people who could bend reality. He told of shining spires, and creatures so old that they were a legend in itself. He told of a people who saw a time vortex as young as eight –like Tony!- and how some were inspired and went on to do great things, how some ran and have been running ever since, and how some fell into madness.
With each word the man spoke, Tony's fears left, little by little. He himself was inspired, and he promised the Doctor he'd do something to make history, proudly showing off his missing front teeth.
The Doctor left, not having noticed the little knick-knacks scattered across the room, thrown with frustration. If he had, if he'd seen the different screwdrivers (sadly not sonic) and the half-finished robots, and some buzzing things in the corner, he would have stayed a hell of a lot longer. He would have known this boy wasn't an ordinary human.
Things would have turned out different.
"Sand! Everywhere you look, there's still sand. Oh look, a freaking SAND DUNE! 'Let's have a vacation' I say! 'Somewhere peaceful but beach-y' I said! WHERE'S THE WATER?"
Rory desperately tried to calm down his freaking out wife, but nothing seemed to be working. The Doctor wandered a few feet away from the couple, idly minding his own business. Still, he winced every time the screeching reached the higher decibels.
"Listen, I DON'T KNOW!" he finally shouted. Rory and Amy both shut up and stared at him. "I don't know what's going on, okay! I tried to do what you wanted, but somehow we ended up in the middle of Afghanistan!"
I may not have always taken you to where you wanted to go, but I always took you to where you needed to go.
He remembered to words of the Tardis when she was in Idris's body. So why was he in Afghanistan? What was there for him that he needed to be near?
He walked over the top of yet another sand dune, and turned to beckon Rory and Amy, and to make sure they kept walking.
As soon as they caught up with him, Amy gasped.
"Look…." She pointed a shaking arm somewhere behind the Doctor. He turned around slowly, if for nothing but the suspense.
Crates. Lots and lots of crates, filled with explosives of every type, all bearing the same label.
Stark.
The first thing Tony saw when he opened his eyes was—well, nothing. It was completely and utterly black, and it had the unnerving effect of not having opened your eyes at all.
Dear god, am I blind? He internally joked, before realizing that might actually be true. That sobered him up almost instantly.
His eyes were beginning to adjust, though, so he clearly wasn't blind. He could make out outlines of things, but beyond that, not much. The only light in there seemed to be manufactured, no natural light flooding through windows or peeking out from the crack under the door.
Add that to the metallic-tasting humid air and the innate feeling of claustrophobia he felt, he supposed he was in a cave. Not a particularly large one, at that.
Tony took a deep breath to calm himself, and felt and odd tightening in his chest.
He jerkily looked around, and saw a guy shaving in a mirror. As he rolled over to get a better look, something tugged sharply on his chest.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
He followed the weight out to a car battery that was connected to some wires, extending from there to … his chest. He started tugging at all the bandaging, trying frantically to get it off. They were resisting, though, and he tore one of them right through the middle. Underneath was revealed a crude… thing, harshly implanted into his chest. It really wasn't a pretty sight.
Later, as Shaving-Guy was cooking- was that beans? - Tony sat there despondently. "What the hell did you do to me?" Tony rasped, despite already almost knowing himself. Car battery… fatal shrapnel… it was fairly obvious if you were as smart as Tony Stark, genius billionaire.
Despite all that, Shaving-Guy was already answering.
"What I did... What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there's a lot left, and it's headed into your atrial septum. Here, want to see? I have a souvenir. Take a look." He tossed a small glass jar to Tony, so he could see what was inside it. Lots and lots of shards of stone and metal, and whatever else generally comes from being within close proximity to an exploding missile.
Tony caught it without really looking. He held it up to the light, trying to see what was inside.
"I've seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead, because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs."
"What is this?" he muttered. Getting answers straight from the man himself might relieve some of the surrealism of the situation. He was Tony Stark. He didn't get captured.
"That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it's keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart."
Tony looked up. There, mocking him in a way, was a CCTV camera. He looked over at it again, to see if it was running. It probably was.
Shaving-Guy smiled, in a grim, twisted sort of way.
"That's right. Smile. We met once, you know, at a technical conference in Bern."
Bern. Bear. "I don't remember." Oh god, what was wrong with his voice? He sounded like batman.
"No, you wouldn't. If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits."
And what was with this guy? He was just four levels of weird, and not quite in a good way.
"Where are we?" he was hating this, just abhorring it. Hopefully, it was all just a nightmare, and it would go away soon.
"Welcome to Afghanistan." Is all Shaving-Guy managed to say, before several rough-looking fellows forced their way into the cave.