Chapter 1: WAAAGH! I Am Grot-Man?
The blinding light. The searing pain. It was all becoming tragically familiar. Like the time he'd tried to reverse-engineer a Chitauri energy weapon.
Tony Stark coughed, expecting the taste of ash, the rhythmic thrum of his arc reactor, and maybe a snarky comment from Rhodey. Instead, he got… dirt. A mouthful of it. And a smell so aggressively foul it could strip paint off a tank.
"Ugh… Pepper's gonna kill me," he groaned, trying to sit up. The words came out garbled, like he was gargling marbles. And 'sitting up' involved a Herculean effort that strained muscles he was pretty sure didn't exist before. His limbs felt… stubby. Green. And covered in more grime than a mechanic's rag after a month-long oil spill.
He opened his eyes, and the world swam into focus.
Towering above him were… well, Orks. Not the cute, cuddly kind (if such a thing existed). These were hulking, green-skinned brutes ripped straight from a heavy metal album cover. Tusks jutted from their jaws, muscles bulged like badly-stuffed sausages, and they were armed with weapons that looked like they'd been forged in a dumpster fire by a committee of angry chimpanzees.
"Oi, lookit da runt! 'E'z awake!" one of them bellowed, his voice a rusty foghorn amplified by sheer malice. "Da Boss'll be pleased! Fresh boot-cleaner, straight outta da Warp!"
The Warp? Boot-cleaner? Okay, something is VERY wrong here.
Runt? Tony blinked, or at least, he tried to. His eyelids felt heavy, sluggish. He attempted to raise a hand to rub his eyes, but the limb that flopped into view was small, green, and undeniably not his. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the initial confusion. He scrambled backwards, which resembled a frantic frog trying to escape a blender.
"WAAAAAGH!" the Orks roared, a chorus of impending doom closing in. Tony wanted to unleash a patented Stark-brand quip, something witty and deflecting, but all that escaped his lips was a pathetic, high-pitched squeak that wouldn't intimidate a particularly aggressive houseplant.
Right. New situation. Immediate threat assessment required. I appear to be… a miniature, green-skinned goblin thing. Surrounded by bloodthirsty green giants. Apparently destined for a career in footwear sanitation. And I can't even manage a decent insult. This officially surpasses the time I accidentally gave Ultron access to my credit cards… and that's saying something.
One of the Orks, who seemed slightly less cerebrally-challenged than the others (a low bar, admittedly, given the competition), seized him by the scruff of his neck. "Dis one'z gonna be da lucky Grot! Boss needs a new boot-cleaner! And maybe a squig-feeder, if 'e'z lucky!"
Boot-cleaner? Squig-feeder? Tony's mind, the one that had designed arc reactors, outsmarted cosmic deities, and navigated Pepper's spreadsheet of doom, struggled to comprehend the sheer, unadulterated indignity of the situation. He was Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist… reduced to a glorified shoe-shiner and, potentially, monster food! The irony was almost enough to make him laugh… almost.
The Ork, reeking of stale fungus and unwashed Ork, hauled him towards a ramshackle fortress constructed from scrap metal, looted vehicles, and sheer, unadulterated belligerence. Crude Ork glyphs were daubed on every surface, proclaiming the glory of Gork (or possibly Mork – Tony wasn't entirely clear on Ork theology yet, and frankly, he doubted the Orks were either). As they approached, Tony witnessed other Grots scurrying about like terrified rodents, performing menial tasks with a depressing mixture of fear and desperation.
Okay, options. Plan A: Implausible escape involving a daring raid on their scrap heap and a daring flight in something held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. Plan B: Subtly improve their technology to the point where they accidentally conquer the galaxy, then seize control. Plan C: Figure out what the heck a 'WAAAGH!' is and whether it involves synchronized swimming. And also, acquire soap.
He glanced down at his pathetic, stubby green hands, flexing his surprisingly nimble fingers.
…This is going to require a level of ingenuity I haven't needed since… well, since I built my first arc reactor in a cave with a box of scraps.
Inside the fortress, which smelled suspiciously like a gym sock that had been left in a swamp for a decade, he was unceremoniously dumped at the feet of an Ork the size of a small armored vehicle. This was clearly the Boss. He was even more grotesquely ugly than the others, if that was physically possible, and his armor appeared to be a patchwork quilt of scavenged metal plates, bolted together with what looked like human teeth.
The Boss glared down at him, his red eyes burning with barely-contained rage. "So, dis iz da new boot-cleaner? 'E better be good, or 'e'z gonna be used as dakka for da next squig hunt!"
Tony, or rather, whatever he was now, stared back at the Ork Boss. A spark of defiance, fueled by equal parts Stark arrogance and sheer desperation, flickered in his (admittedly beady) eyes.
Alright, green me. Let's see if a Tony Stark brain, even crammed inside a Grot skull, can outsmart a walking fungus with a penchant for violence.