14. Drawing Lines (I Hate Me Too)

The group of slaves huddled at the back of their cavern as Tony slowly bent the bars out. "I mean you no harm. I am trying to free you," Tony felt the need to repeat again in Basic. Seeing no reaction, he requested FRIDAY to translate it to the second most commonly used language on Ryloth. Twi'leki, also confusingly known as both Rylothean and Ryl, played loudly from the Iron Man speakers and Tony memorized it.

The only response he received was a baby somewhere in the group whimpering before quickly being shushed. Tony stood aside after creating a hole large enough for a Wookie to pass through, not that there was one in the group. None of them stepped forward.

"Um, you can go now? Promise I won't blast you!" Tony winced and glanced at the unconscious guard slumped against the wall. Probably was a bad idea to knock him out in front of the slaves. "He's just unconscious, I swear! The dude's definitely breathing." His accent warped slightly at the Basic word for 'dude.' Technically, it didn't mean 'dude' the way Tony was used to, more of a rough equivalent to 'acquaintance I'm unfamiliarly familiar with' on an minor space hub. He belatedly realized that using that word choice was a bad idea too.

The slaves looked at each other, muttering lowly. Tilting his head, Tony flicked his fingers, nonverbally signalling FRIDAY to boost the microphones. The voices became louder, but they were just as cluttered as before. Tony had FRIDAY translate it to Basic, but he could still only pick out fragments, FRIDAY unable to decide which conversation to pick from.

"-telling the truth."

"-a trick?"

"My baby!"

"-t we cannot-"

"But it's not-"

"-think we should tell him?"

A little hand grasped a groove along his wrist to tug on his gauntlet. "Mister?" a high, reedy voice asked. "Mister, if we step outta this, they gonna 'splode us!"

"'Splode' as in explode?" Tony asked, feeling nauseous. He received a rapid nod. "Friday, call the nearest droid shop. We're going to need their best medical droid. Money is no-"

"It's ready for pickup."

"Huh. Now that's service," Tony said, nodding in approval. He disengaged the armor and stepped out. "Mind being the Uber driver for me?"

"Boss, are you sure you'll be alright?"

"I'll be fine, Fri," Tony reassure her. "Go get our new friend."

"Well, that's not an Uber driver does, anyways!" FRIDAY declared. The armor sealed itself, spun on its heel, and took off.

"Wait, then what does an Uber driver do?" Tony yelled after the red streak, having admittedly never Uber-ed before. "Don't worry, help is on the way," he said, realizing that yelling might've startled the slaves. No answer. He turned to see the kid being hustled back into the crowd. The adults gathered around in a huddle and Tony had no doubt that the children and the elderly were safely nestled in the very center of it.

Feeling naked in enemy territory without his armor on or at least a tailored suit, Tony held up his hands in surrender and stepped through the gap he made. He slowly put his hand into his pocket, telegraphing his movements so they could see him withdraw a jar of bacta. "Bacta," he explained. Kneeling down, he slid it over to the group.

A particularly brave Twi'lek snatched and opened it, dipping a finger in. His head-tentacles waved in a way that looked affirmative, and then everyone seemed to be trying to snag a bit on their fingers. At first, Tony thought it was a free-for-all, but quickly realized that there was some system that he wasn't privy to. All the majorly injured beings had bacta applied to their wounds before the minor scrapes were taken care of.

As their wariness wore off, some of the people started drifting closer. At first, Tony thought it was a display of trust, but as a couple of the bigger guys in the cavern started looking at Tony speculatively and Tony started to think that walking unarmed into a cave of angry people was a bad idea. He wasn't in any danger, of course, but physically restraining an attacker could have a bad effect on how friendly they perceived him as. "Friday, how much longer?" he asked, once again moving so he wasn't about to be cornered or surrounded, a harder task than expected.

"Two seconds," FRIDAY reported.

"What?" Tony looked up, face-to-face with the Iron Man armor. Well, not really. It was actually quite a bit taller than him, so he was more like eyeing its neck, at first. His eyes fell on the slightly conical droid with a rounded head, baffled. "Oh. Ask the droid to start removing the 'sploders. Er, explosives. Wait, we have anesthetic, right?"

"Already ahead of you, boss!" FRIDAY answered cheerfully as she righted the droid. Tony appreciated the fact that she was speaking out loud; at least he didn't look crazy, like he was talking to air. He wasn't sure how common earpieces were. "Meet FX-8! His series model, not serial number."

"Hi… Fix-eight? I'll call you Fixit, okay? Fex?" The band that went a complete 380 around its head glowed an ominous red and it swiveled around, away from him, though it no doubt could already see what was behind it. Tony figured he was being dismissed or given the cold shoulder. "Er, I'm guessing he doesn't like his name?"

"Actually, he just doesn't like you," FRIDAY corrected.

"Blasphemy!" Tony declared. "Everyone likes me! Right, Fix-y?"

'Fix-y' turned his body slowly, so that he was fully facing Tony. What seemed like all of his - its? - panels opened and the different arms and tools he had unfolded, wreathing him in a menacing halo of medical tools. It whirred and advanced on him threateningly.

"See? He wants to fix me and make sure I'm healthy!" Tony said, taking a firm step back. "I'm alright, little guy. Just make sure all of the trackers are out, okay?"

Fixit tucked away most of his veritable armory of tools and turned to the closest Twi'lek, who quickly scrambled out of reach.

"Actually, keep an eye on him. I don't trust him," Tony told FRIDAY. He found the brave Twi'lek from before, coaxing him to the med droid by offering him two knives, one given before the operation and one to be given after.

The work was done quickly. The droid located the tracker, sliced open the skin, deactivated and removed the device, applied bacta, and tightly wrapped the wound. The slaves quickly realized what was happening and lined up, allowing Tony to clean the area after it was scanned and FRIDAY to take over the bacta and wrapping. It was only after the fourteenth patient - a little half-Twi'lek girl - that something interesting happened.

The Twi'lek that must have been the kid's mother fell to her knees. "Arni'soyacho," she said reverently, reaching for Tony. "Arni'soyacho." It was the extreme form of 'thank you' for their language, if Tony was correct. So what was 'you're welcome,' again?

"Koahiko?" Tony tried.

The Twi'leks hushed and even the humans glanced up curiously. "Nawara," they said to each other with surprise. Speaker.

The alcoholic wipes were tugged from his fingers, the Twi'leks bowing and taking over the job for him. As far as Tony could tell, it wasn't done out of malice or distrust - the slaves, no matter the species - all cast him deferential looks from time to time. From what he could extrapolate from this, it was probably because they respected him too much to let him do such a humble job.

"What's up with the crew?" Tony asked, feeling awkward just standing there.

"Kristoff has decided to spend the night out with a lady-friend he made, Galee and Charell went shopping-"

"Alone?" Tony asked, alarmed. There could be slavers just waiting for a pretty face like Galee's, and Charell was no pushover in that area either.

"-with Greer," FRIDAY continued, making her displeasure at his interruption clear, "Gis and Hoviv are picking on the locals..." After a little more cajoling, FRIDAY gave him a quick summary of exactly what they were doing to the locals before finishing off with what the others in the crew were doing. Tony was a little worried about the Aleenas - they were a naturally curious folk and could be easily taken advantage of by the more malicious folk. Tony didn't like that Kristoff had left them for a date, but FRIDAY was quick to assure him that Kristoff had called the cousins over before he left.

"Wait, what about Suff'?" Tony asked, realizing that someone was missing from the group.

"Doing some experiments with me," FRIDAY said blithely.

"Friday," Tony said sternly.

"Boss."

"Baby girl…"

"Dad."

"...Okay, you win this round. I'll find out, sooner or later, though."

"As long as 'sooner' means 'not now,' I think we'll be fine," FRIDAY told him cheekily. Tony hummed absentmindedly, waving the huddle of freed slaves clustered near the hole at his approval, most of them filed out and scattered. A few of them hovered at the edges, probably waiting for their friends or relatives to have their devices removed.

Sensing rather than hearing someone approach, Tony saw a human approaching. "Alema," he said, clasping his hands together and bowing his head. He was gone before Tony could answer, but in his place was a pink Twi'lek.

"Allesh," she murmured with a small nod. She walked out the cavern without a backwards glance. Tony stared after them. He recognized the words to run along the lines of 'protector' and 'safety,' but was completely lost on how to reply to that. Every so often, someone - somebeing? - would approach him and give him a title or compliment, something of that sort. The room slowly emptied until he was only left with a pair of Twi'lek girls.

He followed them out, FRIDAY behind him, holding Fixit. They gently took ahold of his wrists and led him away from the store. Tony quickly conversed nonverbally with FRIDAY, but neither of them could puzzle out what the two wanted. "Friday, set the charges. I want this place blown sky-high," Tony said, deciding to follow them in case they needed help.

"Not a chance, boss. This could be a trap."

Unable to convince FRIDAY otherwise, they traveled in a strange group through the silent craigs. Tony could see lights from the closest town somewhere in the distance, though none of the buildings. They reached an abandoned hut, after a mile or two.

"Taw'janii, " one of the Twi'leks murmured. Honored guest. Not as flashy as some of the other things he had been called over the last couple of hours, but still pretty nice. Then, she fluttered her eyelashes and tugged him closer, leaning in.

Oh. The 'guest' thing made a lot more sense. Wait... Oh.

Tony quickly detached himself. "Yeah, okay. I'm not… You don't have to repay me for anything. You don't deserve-" Tony faltered at the incomprehension and hurt on her face. "Friday, tell them that… Tell them that they're free and they don't have to do that anymore."

With one last look at the two, Tony grabbed the charges from FRIDAY and jogged back in the direction of the cells. He didn't look back, not wanting to see what happened.

-Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up-

"Tony! Get back to the ship," Suffee ordered as Tony dodged another shot. He was in the middle of his third raid on this planet. Ryloth was certainly wising up to his attacks.

"Kinda in the middle of something," Tony grunted as he dodged some sort of high-energy particle beam. At least, that was what it looked like to Tony. He honestly didn't have much working knowledge of the more obscure weapons in this galaxy, despite taking apart enough blasters to give a shopkeeper a nervous breakdown.

"You have to get back, now. We're leaving," Suffee said with a hint of anxiety.

"What? But we just got here!" Tony protested.

"I'll buy your ryl and whatever else you want to experiment with, but we have to leave. Now." The stress in Suffee's voice had Tony hesitating as he sliced off the cuffs of some chains with some focused lazors.

"Suffee, I'm in the middle of something delicate, right now," he said, slowing down so he wouldn't burn the skin. "Could you please explain to me the situation so we can talk about it once I get back on the ship?"

"There's a rogue droid going around Ryloth, maybe more than one. I'm not too clear on that ," Suffee reported. Tony choked and had to deactivate his lazer so he could turn away and cough. " We have to get away before it injures someone. We have data suggesting it's on _. Greer and Galee are just ten minutes away from the site it's currently attacking. What if they were actually there and gotten injured? This droid is on a rampage, and I won't have any of our teammates hurt because of it! " Suffee declared strongly.

Tony made an inarticulate sound that was somewhere between a whine and a groan. Maybe he should have focused more on Iron Man's PR than just strictly freeing slaves. "Suffee," Tony said, voice strained, "the droid hasn't killed anyone. I-"

"Yet."

"What?"

"It hasn't killed anyone yet. Who knows? Maybe it's just residue programming and the thing will suddenly go berserk "

"It's freeing slaves," Tony argued. "It's a hero."

"Freeing slaves? " Suffee repeated, uncertain.

That gave Tony pause. "Exactly what have you been reading about the droid?" he asked warily.

"Well, it's a kriffin' awesome thing! " Kristoff's voice rang out clearly.

"Gah! How long've you been here?" Tony yelped.

"Came on at 'freeing slaves.' Is that what the droid's been doing? That's flippin' awesome! " Kristoff said enthusiastically. " vote that we capture it and make a ca-zillion of copies and send them on a rampage through the Outer Rim." Tony had an image of Kristoff blasting him from the sky, cutting through the armor and peeling it back, leaving Tony vulnerable on the ground before the shield came crashing down andSuffee's ringing voice cut him out from that destructive spiral, telling him that no, they didn't know he was Iron Man, and they wouldn't do that if they knew. "No, you're not going to-"

"Huh, that idea has some merit," Tony mused, catching up to what Kristoff had said. Reactivate the Iron Legion and send them across the galaxy, liberating people who desperately needed to be heard. He cut the last girl's chains and blasted overhead as she ran out the door and disappeared into the night. Tony switched to thermal vision and looked around. Carefully looking for any hiding slaves or workers, he set the now-unoccupied slave shop on fire. He walked out of the shop as everything usable started to melt or turn to ash.

He tuned into Suffee strongly advocating against Kristoff's idea. "I… No! You're not going to set some highly-armed droids on a warpath through the galaxy! What kind of idiotic idea is that? Do you know what the Hutts would do? Kriff, that whole idea is illegal. The Republic will be down on you harder than-"

"Suff', you're brilliant and all, but maybe you should go to sleep and we can think about this in the morning," Kristoff cajolled him.

"Afternoon," Suffee said.

"What?"

"Evening. I am going to go drink a whole bottle of Corellian whiskey and bemoan the fact that our third-in-command is an idiot, the logistics of building a droid army, and that we have to stay on this forsaken planet for any longer than we have to," Suffee groaned.

"Um… You realize that by setting the meeting in the afternoon, we're delaying on leaving the planet?" Tony pointed out. Suffee huffed and turned off his earpiece with an audible click.

"Sheesh. Don't listen to him, man. That's a kriffing awesome idea. In fact, can I have my own little legion of droids?"

As he listened to Kristoff, Tony's suspicions returned. What was Kristoff planning on doing with that many droids? "I'll think about it," Tony said shortly.

Not seeing the camera pointed at him, he turned on the thrusters. Iron Man rose and disappeared into the inky blackness.

- Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up -

Suffee stormed into the bridge, causing everyone to look at him. He carefully tossed the datapad onto the main console, where Tony and Kristoff had been sitting across from each other and having an impromptu staring contest. It slid across the surface, tapping on Kristoff's thermos and stopping. They both glanced down at it at the same time.

"You know, that probably would've been more effective if you just slammed it down," Tony commented.

"I-! That's not-" Suffee spluttered before the scales around his eyes discreetly darkened in a way that was similar to a human blushing. "It's an expensive datapad!"

"An expensive datapad that you nearly spilled soup on," Tony pointed out, indicating the opened thermos with a grin. Tony hooked a finger around the datapad and dragged it closer to himself when he saw Kristoff craning his head to look at it. Suffee slowed his pacing as he suddenly felt the tension that had been rising in the bridge for the last half-hour. It was petty, yes, but Tony felt he had the right to his pettiness. After a moment, Kristoff rolled his eyes and leaned back, putting his feet on the terminal. Most of the tension drained out, though there was still a strained undercurrent flowing throughout the room.

Tony gave him a dirty look, which Kristoff promptly ignored.

"Boss, maybe you should just ask him what's going on? " FRIDAY advised him privately. "I don't want another family to fight," she said, sounding like she was actually the three-year-old she technically was. Tony tensed, angling away from Suffee and Kristoff to mouth at the camera behind him, 'Don't mistake 'team' for 'family.' Because a family didn't hide secrets like that from each other. A family didn't betray each other. She was his mother and Rogers justDetecting another impending panic attack, FRIDAY played a sound clip of the one (and only) time Tony had let Gis pilot the ship. 'No, I don't want to die!' Hoviv yelled amidst Tony guffaws and Gis's whoops. Tony snorted, shaking himself. He was with a different team, now, and it wouldn't do any good to compare the two. He looked up to see Suffee, Galee, and Kristoff all watching him worriedly. Kristoff had circled around the terminal and his hand was inches from Tony's shoulder.

"What's wrong? You okay?"

"Nothing, just my kid being awesome." Tony waved them off, spinning around in his chair. He caught a live feed on one of the screens facing him, at an angle so that none of the others could see it. FRIDAY was streaming Kristoff's concerned face from a camera, his hand still outreached. He let his hand drop after another moment. It looked genuine, but… But then again, Tony was gullible and he wasn't about to go down that same path again. He had been made a fool by Obadiah and had trusted Rogers, of all people.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice... Tony looked away, down at the datapad in his hand.

On the screen was a dramatic picture of Iron Man strolling towards the camera, backlit by the burning store. The flames licked the armor in a way that made it look demonic. With the fire behind him, Iron Man was colored black. Other than the blood-red paint that could be seen on some of the edges on the right side, the smothering yellow-orange of his eyes was the only color on him. With the difficulties finding a material close to what he used back on Earth, he ended up with a different primary color than his usual blue. It could've been worse, though. Red eyes would've blended too much with the already-red

suit and clash.

Hesitating, Tony had the entire article translated to Basic. "Rogue Droid Destroys Innocent Shopkeeper's Livelihood!" the title screamed at him. It went on to tell with great detail what difficulty the owner, his brother, and his elderly parents would face.

"You know this is a load of bantha s***, right?" Tony asked. "That man was a slaver. He sold over fifty slaves in the last month. He most likely has thousands and thousands of credits tucked away somewhere. What I destroyed probably isn't even a twentieth of his property, at least what is listed online. He has three more shops like this one down in the south, only bigger."

"That was a slave store?" Suffee questioned. Tony nodded, finishing his skim over the entire article. He looked up to see Suffee and Kristoff seated at the other side of the terminal, Kristoff with his feet back up. Galee was facing her own station, but Tony knew she was listening in on them.

"Good riddance," Kristoff agreed with a smirk.

"And the Rogue Droid only targets slavers?" Suffee asked, ignoring Kristoff.

"Not that it would be a big loss," Kristoff added. Apparently realizing that simply ignoring him wouldn't work, Suffee turned and gave a death-stare. At Suffee's look, Kristoff shrugged and said, "Slavers are scum. Space the lot of them, I say." Suffee started, aghast at the display of vindictiveness, before turning his back on the ex-smuggler and looking at Tony, reverting back to his earlier tactic of simply ignoring Kristoff.

"Not a single innocent casualty. No deaths on the side of the slavers either," Tony confirmed proudly.

Suffee eyed him suspiciously. "I still don't like this. Droids are programmable. If someone gets their hands on the Rogue Droid-"

"Iron Man," FRIDAY cut in, voice flowing smoothly from a speaker attached to the terminal.

"What?" Suffee asked. Kristoff discreetly took his foot off the terminal, as if only now remembering that it was FRIDAY's 'home,' for lack of another term.

"The being that you have designated 'Rogue Droid' is called Iron Man," FRIDAY said simply.

"Iron Man," Suffee repeated with distaste.

"Hey, don't you dare-" Kristoff started.

Suffee only raised his voice in response. "Impossible! Iron could not possibly withstand such heat and force, not to mention the weight would not be conductive to-"

"Oh," Kristoff said, sitting back. "Okay, yeah. No objections to that."

"It is what he has been dubbed on StarkNet," FRIDAY volunteered. Tony choked and glared at the nearest camera. He had an idea who was behind that name. He was planning on calling himself something more awesome, like 'Supreme Man' or 'Man of Phrik.' Didn't have the same ring as 'Iron,' but still… Or maybe he could take a leaf out of the Guardians and call himself the Guardian of the Galaxy? Nah, they'd probably shorten it to Double-G or something lame.

"He," Suffee said flatly, having spotted that pronoun. "Are you saying that there's a person inside the droid?" he interrogated.

"Are you saying that just because I don't have a body, I can't be called a 'she?'" FRIDAY countered.

"Oooh, burn!" Tony crackled.

"Are you assuming genders now?" Suffee asked, having received a stronger grasp on the concept of 'sexism' from FRIDAY. "For all you know, your 'Iron Man' could be a she."

"'He' is the default term," Tony claimed. It was true, after all.

"You know, I'd just give up now," Kristoff advised Suffee. "Tony doesn't lose." With that, he shot a sly smirk at Tony. Not knowing how to respond to what sounded strangely like a threat, Tony just frowned aback. Kristoff merely raised an eyebrow, smirk still intact.

"Back to the topic," Suffee said exasperatedly. "We should leave. Even if the droid isn't killing people, accidents happen. I don't want the Red Droid-"

"Iron Man," FRIDAY corrected.

"-'s algorithm or something spotting Senn or Borr and cataloging them as 'rodent' and deciding they're acceptable casualties."

"The Red-" Kristoff glanced at the terminal, "Iron Man wouldn't do that!"

"When I was a child, the newest med droid came out. My father was a bounty hunter and carried lots of weapons. He got injured taking in a wanted felon and had to go to the hospital. The droid saw the shade of his scales, recognized the type of weapons he had on, and determined him 'Trandoshan.' It pulled up Trandoshan scans and performed a surgery meant for Trandoshans on a Rodian. My father did not survive. I'm not saying this for pity," Suffee said, locking eyes with Kristoff. "Droids aren't people." He nodded at the main terminal. "They aren't even like your AI. They can't think and learn the way we can."

"But-" Tony began, the fact that he was Iron Man on the tip of his tongue.

"What if it was Gis?" Suffee turned his eyes on him and Tony found himself unable to speak. Dragging Gis into this was a low blow, and Suffee knew it. But...what if it was Gis? Interpreting his silence as agreement, Suffee finished, "Accidents happen. Gis could be walking down the alley next door when the Droid burns another shop. What if an engine explodes, sending fragments of a ripped pipe flying at hundreds of miles per hour? What if one of them nicks a major artery? It may not be the Droid's fault, but accidents happen and people die."

"Now hold on," Kristoff said, raising a hand. "Are you saying that Red Droid should be stopped? Sorry, Iron Man," he corrected himself. "It's doing a good thing. Freeing slaves, casting down evil slavers, that's a good thing!"

"I'm not denying that it's helping people," Suffee said, crossing his arms. "I'm saying that someone could get injured."

"So make sure Gis isn't wandering around slaveholders and we'll be fine," Kristoff said, rolling his eyes. "I don't see what's so hard about that."

"Leave Gis out of this," Tony said, barely keeping himself from snarling. He couldn't help it - with Kristoff's increasingly contestable loyalties and his callousness to Gis's wellbeing, Tony was starting to think-

"Fine, make sure Hoviv isn't out there trying to pickpocket another slaver," Kristoff said sarcastically. "That better?"

"Excuse me?" Tony glared, standing up. Kristoff rose to his full height, several inches taller than Tony. For his part, Tony couldn't help but feel as if he was standing up to Captain America again, Rogers using his height to try to intimidate him. Well, that wasn't going to work.

"Sit down," Suffee demanded. Tony eyed Kristoff, refusing to sit down first. Showing weakness to Rogers was how it all started, back on Earth. It wasn't going to happen again. "Come on, work with me. This isn't about Gis or Hoviv. This is about everyone on the crew. It could be anyone, not just the kids," Suffee said in rapidfire.

"Like they're the only ones that matter," Kristoff scoffed. "This is bigger than any of us! What about the slaves? There's millions of them on the planet, billions in the sector, trillions in the galaxy! And here you're just making it all about this one little-bitty Trandoshan," Kristoff mocked.

"I said, leave him out of this," Tony said dangerously.

"Eeep!" Galee squeaked, rushing out of the room and leaving the stations completely unattended. Even though FRIDAY was technically manning all the stations, it was a bad habit that had to be broken. Tony resolved to remind the entire crew about that in their next ship meeting even as he and Kristoff slowly advanced on each other.

"Look at the bigger picture!" Kristoff said, lifting his arms up. And how didn't Tony see this before? Tall, buff, and hazel-eyed, Kristoff could've been Roger's cousin. Not to mention his tendency to talk with actions, his fists-

"The big picture is that the two of you are having some prehistoric caveman ritual. Step back- Just stand down until we can think clearly like civilized-" Suffee started loudly, tipping the scales to Tony's fight-or-flight mechanism.

"Are you saying you don't care if Gis gets hurt?" Tony asked lowly.

"He's just one life in the galaxy, and if he's stupid or bloodthirsty enough to walk towards an obvious fight-"

"Hey!" Suffee shouted, slamming his hands on the terminal.

"What's your problem?" Tony asked, balling his hands, only narrowly stopping himself from reaching over and shoving the taller man. Rogers was the type of leader to resort to his fists, but Tony wasn't like that. He could talk things out, fight with words. He wasn't like that.

"My problem is that you'd let a hundred people die to save one person!" In other words, like Rogers, not caring that a bridge was collapsing around him, only focused on his dear Bucky. Tony knew that he could do morally questionable things, at times, but he would never hurt an innocent. "Sometimes, I think that you're just like them, like those monsters that-"

Tony saw red. He drew his fist back and let if fly. At the same time, Kristoff, snatched his thermos off the console and brought it down on Tony with both hands, like a hammer… or a shield.

Suffee was between them in an instant, shoving them both away before either of them could land a hit but stumbling back due to the force needed to perform such an action. Hot soup spilled over the lip of the container and poured a maroon trail over Suffee's shoulder and onto the floor. Tony didn't see what happened, but there was a muffled crack. "Oh!" Suffee gasped out.

Hearing the pain in the Rodian's voice and seeing him draw his hand close to his chest, Tony jerked back, turning away from Kristoff. "Are you okay? Suff'?"

At the same time, Kristoff asked, "What's wrong?"

"Kriffing-!" Suffee bit out, closing his eyes. "What did I hit?" He looked down, twisting his hand experimentally. Almost immediately, he hissed and flinched.

"Suffee?" Tony asked, taking a step forward. Suffee drew away.

"Sorry," Kristoff muttered, hunching slightly. He dug his pockets and pulled out a crumpled napkin that he offered to Suffee.

Unsuprisingly, Suffee did not reach for it. "I need to get to the med bay," Suffee said shortly, cradling his hand closer to himself, inadvertently hiding it from view.

"Suff'?" Tony asked quietly. "Suff', I'm sorry. I-"

"Tony, go order your supplies. Everything you came to Ryloth to get, just get it now," Suffee ordered, not meeting his eyes. "Kristoff, just… just go."

"I-"

"None of us are in a good state of mind to be talking to each other, so let's just not. We are going to cool down. We will leave the planet and talk things through like adults, okay?"

"How bad is it?" Tony asked. "I heard something break. I-"

Suffee closed his eyes again, turning his face away. "Enough. It's just…" Suffee shook his head. "I am very disappointed in the two of you. We will have a talk about this later. All of us." He pinned Kristoff with a look, then spun on his heel and left.

From the hallway, Galee, Greer, and Kovlo glanced between the two humans and the departing Rodian but declined to go into the room, slowly scattering. Kristoff left without a backwards glance, leaving Tony alone in the darkened room.