Tony stumbled and fell when he was shoved into his cell. With a strained groan, he collapsed to his side and just focussed on breathing for a few minutes. Blood was dripping from a laceration just above his eyebrow, and he didn't even want to start thinking about his back. That sick bastard had fucking whipped him.

Anyway, he had won again, although his victory felt shallow compared to the pain on his whole body. This was the eighth slave holder who had returned him. The toughest one had lasted something over two months, although he wasn't quite sure about that. It was difficult to keep track of the time when you were on a different planet.

Sold as a slave – at first he had thought it had been a joke. Especially when Obadiah had added that he was to be given to space slave traders, because seriously, what the fuck? Humanity tried for decades to find extraterrestrial life, and when Obie wanted it, there suddenly were space slave holders at his service?

But it wasn't half as funny as it sounded, because he had been sedated and when he had woken up, he had been in a plain metal cell that apparently belonged to a space ship. Which he was on. In chains. To be sold. As a slave. To aliens.

What a great joke, ha-fucking-ha.

And he had been sold, yes. But he was stubborn, he was not controlled that easily. His first 'owner' had returned him after just two weeks, and since then he was never, ever faltering in his resistance. Soon he had a reputation among the slave traders – he always ended up where he had first been sold to by Obadiah – and they started only to sell him to people who appeared to be strong enough to handle him. From then on, it got worse; he was bought with the special purpose to be broken, and sometimes even he thought that his torturers had succeeded.

But they didn't, they never managed to actually keep him down and obedient, because he was Tony Stark, he just didn't do obedience. He kept being defiant, insolent and sometimes he went for outright annoying, so in the end, he was always returned. Always.

He had sworn to himself it would stay that way. Someday, he would find a way out. The last time, he had almost did it; his 'owner', and mind the quotation marks here, had thought he had done it, had beaten his slave into shape, and had made the huge mistake to loosen his boundaries. Tony had asked for a blade to shave himself. He had gotten his blade, he had trimmed his goatee, and then he had attempted to slit the guy's throat.

Unfortunately, it hadn't quite played out the way he had imagined it, and now he lay on the floor, whipped bloody, waiting for the next auction that was sure to come. Maybe the trick with the razor would work twice, it wasn't like his 'owners' were chatting about the things their disobedient slaves had tried to escape, right? Most of the time, they weren't even from the same race and Tony was grateful that most of them looked at least remotely human. He hadn't seen a real human being in months, the last ones had been the terrorists and Obadiah.

Thinking of that people, he wasn't sure if humans were all that much better than aliens. Apparently, being an asshole wasn't limited to one race. Sometimes he wished that they had just shot him, but he always banished those thoughts quickly. No way in hell he was going to give up. No. Not him, not because of them, not because of anything. He wasn't going to break down, no matter what happened. After all, his sane mind was everything he had.

Despite the pain in his back and the racing thoughts that made his head hurt even more, Tony fell asleep.

The hissing sound of the opening door woke him up and when he shifted, he couldn't fight a pained groan. He hadn't even managed to get to the flat mattress in the corner of the small room, meaning he had slept for God-knew-how-long on the cold metal floor and the dried blood on his back caused an unpleasant pulling sensation when he moved.

"Up", the entering alien commanded (he had never quite understood why everyone he met was able to understand him and the other way around – it was fucking creepy). "Time to get washed, we're almost at the next stop." Tony sighed, he had hoped for some more time to recover. Sometimes, they were travelling for several days before there was another audition. Well, he wasn't that lucky this time.

With a routine that was frightening to him (when had he gotten so used to all of this?) he let himself be led to the rooms where the slaves were being cleaned. The traders were by far the best 'owners' he'd ever had because they kept their products all neat and tidy, well-fed and not smelling. They had to make a good impression after all, nobody bought a dirty, starved slave. Ha.

The lukewarm water burned when it came in contact with the raw skin of his back, but the engineer gritted his teeth and didn't complain. It was of no use. He might have muttered some curses and insults under his breath anyway.

When he was clean, he felt a lot better, although those whipping marks hurt like a bitch. He dried down, slipped the new clothes on and followed the other slaves – no, not the other slaves, the slaves; he wasn't a slave and he would never be – to get his food. It was some sort of mushed... something he didn't want to think closely about, tasted like nothing and was pretty filling. Nobody ever asked for seconds.

The room they ate in was plain and the tables and benches, all made of metal, were nailed down to the floor. Somewhere behind Tony, there was a turmoil. He took another spoonful of his food, not even bothering to turn around or listening to the yelling that came up. This happened every now and then and was absolutely pointless; why start a rebellion on the goddamn ship? Even if someone managed to knock the guards out temporarily, they were in the middle of space and there was no chance of escape. When they were at the market, yes. Then it made sense. But here? Just a waste of energy.

He finished, let himself be taken to his cell, and waited for their arrival. The worst part about the space ship was the boredom because the sla– the prisoners (he was nobody's damn slave) had cells on their own, no roommates or, actually, cellmates.

Anyway, this was preferable to being sold because each time seemed to be worse than the last one. Some aliens had some very sick minds, and now that he thought about that, he realized that he absolutely didn't want to spend even a minute doing that. He was tough, and if not that, then at least stubborn, and he wasn't going to – no, he wasn't scared, no matter what happened, he wasn't actually scared by anything. Nobody would manage that.

Realizing that now, instead of staying calm, he drove himself into the panic he had wanted to avoid, Tony sighed and dropped his head into his hands. No. No panicking. He was calm, he was going to find a way out of all this and return home.

Home.

Were they still searching for him? Or had they assumed that he had been blown to shreds during the assault on the track? Maybe Pepper had found out about Obadiah's intrigues? But no, not even Tony had noticed that the guy who had practically been his father was plotting against him. How should she do it, then?

Thoughtfully, he tapped the arc reactor in his chest. It had stopped feeling alien at some point (and now that he had actually met some, the term 'feeling alien' carried a much more unpleasant meaning than before) and he was just surprised none of his capturers had tried to take it out yet. They seemed to assume, having never seen a human before, that it was a part of his body which he needed to survive. He wasn't going to correct them.

The re-opening of the door interrupted his thoughts. Tony considered just staying where he was, refusing to move another step, but that would mean he would be trapped here forever, and that was just stupid. Anyway, he hesitated for too long, and suddenly he was pulled to his feet roughly.

"Jesus, guys, careful!", he snapped as his back protested at the harsh treatment. "Don't damage your most beautiful piece of cargo." There was no response to that, only cuffs fastened around his wrists and – "Oh, give me a break, you're not gonna gag me, are you? That's – mpfh...!" He struggled more than he usually did, because seriously, a muzzle?! That was new.

But of course, every protest was in vain and so he eventually let himself be led out of the ship out to the market they had stopped at this time. It was cold, the planed seemed to be made mostly of some sort of chilly deserted stone and the sand looked greyish, cold and unfriendly. A draft of air made Tony shudder. Jeez, he was really lucky to have Earth.

...Had been lucky.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he looked around at the market. It was crowded and the chatter of the... people was a constant buzzing sound in his ears. Their skin was some shade of greyish blue and they were pretty small, smaller than any human. About three feet, most of them. Like blue Hobbits.

There wasn't really much to see, so Tony lined up with the rest of the slaves and settled for some really, really boring hours of waiting. And he couldn't even annoy his guards with some rambling (although they never actually showed signs of annoyance when he did, but it's the thought that counts) so the boredom factor was increased thousandfold. Well, that could only be a good day.

He had no idea.