9. SI Rises Yet Again (Well, not really)

Leaving Kristoff waiting impatiently by the chairs, Tony all but slammed the box of rare herbs on the counter of the Bounty Hunter Guild Office. BHGO. Huh. Terrible name, really. It needed a better acronym. Like, BAIT (Bounty Associates In Training) should be taught by EHs (Expert Hunters), and they should meet up at the BLOB (Bounty Lounge and Other Buracracy).

"What do you mean I have to wait for you have to inform-" Tony checked his the data pad, "-Crissessila that they're here? I sent notification two days ago that I found the last batch of the sprouts, and then a call six hours ago to tell you that I was six hours away!"

"Had to make sure it was not a false call," the human over the counter said in a nasally voice. "Can't anger the client, you see?"

Tony grit his teeth and glared. It was his fifteenth time turning in a bounty. He always succeeded in a hunt, bringing in the target in less than a week after accepting it. By all rights, he should have good credit. Then again, bounty hunting was less of a business than banking. Tony had thought he was being smart, calling ahead of time. Apparently, it made no difference.

"Thank you for your time," Tony said stiffly. He turned and walked away. Kristoff saw the look on his face, rolled his eyes, and walked to the complementary bar off to the side. The drinks weren't complementary, of course. They were probably ridiculously overpriced.

"You new here?" asked a thankfully much-friendlier voice.

"Relatively," Tony said, reflexively deflecting to an answer that revealed as much as it didn't.

"Unless it's a high-yield bounty, they take forever to process. It's best not to leave before they finish, though; someone could claim your bounty before you get back," the apparently more experienced bounty hunter told him.

"Not my first rodeo," Tony said dryly. He had nearly had to learn that lesson first-hand. Luckily, Kristoff had been there at that time, and he wasn't nearly as trusting. The other bounty hunter mouthed the phrase curiously. "Badly translated expression from my homeworld," Tony hastened to explain.

The man shrugged. "The name's Haiyo," he said, apparently not interested in pursuing the topic of homeplanets. Tony could respect that.

"Stark, Tony Stark," he introduced himself. "Remember that name, 'cause it's going to be all over the HoloNet one day," Tony claimed with mock bravado.

"Why? Going to get brought in for public displays of indecency?" the man snarked back.

Tony was delighted at the pure snark and guts. "More like personally congratulated by the Supreme Chancellor for humanitarian efforts," Tony laughed, waving Kristoff over. "Oi, Kristeen! I found someone you'd get along with - he likes picking on me as much as you do!"

"Keep it up," Kristoff said to Haiyo, not bothering to stop as he walked past, some female bounty hunter hanging off his arm. Tony looked at her appreciatively as they exited the building. Shrugging, he turned back to the bounty hunter.

"What does she see in him?" Haiyo muttered glumly.

"Been chasing after her for long?" Tony asked sympathetically, ordering a rum from the small bar along the back for the other bounty hunter.

"Since she nearly killed me, my second hunt," the bounty hunter admitted ruefully. They both looked up as another bounty was processed, flashing on the giant screen. It didn't belong to either of them, so they returned to their conversation. "Any girl waiting for you?"

Tony thought of loyal Pepper, who stood by him, even as she disapproved of his life choices. He hoped she found someone deserving of her. "Not anymore," Tony said, raising his glass.

"I'm a free man!"

Right as the mug reached its peak, there was an explosion at the front of the BHGO. Haiyo groaned, laying his head down on the counter as the rest of the bounty hunters in the building sprang into action.

" Mark Alpha I deployed ," FRIDAY told him discreetly.

"Should I be worried?" Tony asked, bringing the rum up for a sip. He shriveled his stool around to face the brawl, a blaster bolt passing inches from his face as he turned. He glanced back at the scorched wall, then turned his eyes back to the front just in time to see a body slump to the ground in front of him, neck steaming and blackened.

"Nah, it's just Qulok's Fist," Haiyo bemoaned. "Other bounty hunting guild. Had it in for us when we stole a bounty right under their nose, though only in this guild. It's just some healthy competition, friendly rivalry."

Tony eyed the probably-dead body at his feet. "Just friendly rivalry," he echoed. He switched his gaze from his empty mug and one of the rival guild's members scrambling out from the back room with a body slung over his shoulders. It was just angles and trajectory, something Tony was intimately familiar with. Tony aimed his mug and threw it in an arc. It hit the man in the temple and he went down soundlessly. Two other members turned to him, ready to defend their fellow. "And that's my cue," Tony mused.

Standing up, Tony swung his barstool up and slammed it down on his next opponent's head. He turned to the next one, about to do the same when a blaster bolt flew from behind him to hit the man in the chest. Tony looked back at Haiyo.

"You killed him."

"You're welcome," Haiyo said.

"I prefer not to kill," Tony said pointedly.

"And I am slag at disabling," Haiyo excused his actions.

"Keep yourself out of this fight," Tony told him. "Please," he added, seeing the look on the other's face and knowing he had no authority over the other's actions. Haiyo looked at him speculatively, nodding and reaching for another bottle. Tony grabbed his watch and pulled it over his hand, transforming it into a repulsor-glove. Setting it to a more harmless power, he started blasting the rival guild members on their armored torsos, knocking them back and giving his guild more breathing room.

FRIDAY whistled in his ear, slowly raising the pitch. As it reached a C-sharp, Tony twisted his back towards the window, holding his arms slightly to the side. Mark Alpha I flew in through the broken window and folded seamlessly around him, the shiny, mostly-finished armor looking out of place among the grubby, much less armored bounty hunters. " Set to stun ,"

FRIDAY chirped.

Tony sprang into action, this time able to shoot areas with less armor. Unlike the glove, which was more minimal and more of a last resort and therefore had lethal settings, the armor had a wide range of capabilities, several of which was of a capture-not-kill variety.

FRIDAY and Tony worked in tandem, FRIDAY predicting Tony's movements almost before he made them. When one of Tony's shots nearly went wide, FRIDAY adjusted it so it merely grazed it's recipient instead of the man's face. Tony, immediately feeling the slight, nearly unnoticeable adjustment to his wrist placement, unconsciously gave a nod to his co-pilot. Just because the repulsors were set on stun didn't mean they couldn't be lethal near delicate areas, such as the eyes, portions of the face, and neck.

The fight was over within moments. The members of the Bounty Hunter's Guild stood, panting over the fallen members of Qulok's Fist. Slowly, they all turned to look at him. A low whistle and some dry, sarcastic clapping resounded from the bar. Tony raised a middle finger in that general direction.

"You're one of ours?" a younger hunter bleeding from a cut on his head asked. "Haven't seen you around."

"I'm relatively new," Tony said, feeling a light sense of deja-vu.

"That's some swell armor," another commented.

Tony was suddenly aware of all the greedy glances at his armor. He was abruptly reminded that most of these men, including himself and Haiyo, were experienced killers and was suddenly glad he only finished the torso and arms of the Alpha I. If he finished any more, he wasn't sure that his peers wouldn't try to steal the impressive armor off of his cold corpse.

Not that they would have succeeded. "Thanks," he said.

"Break it up, settle down," Kristoff said, wading through the crowd. "Who's going to claim the bounties on these guys?"

Apparently, it was the correct thing to say; there was a small squabble as some of the other bounty hunters grabbed an unconscious body or two, hoping that they had a bounty on their heads. Others weren't as easily distracted, though.

"Snatched that from a Mandalorian, have you?" one hunter muttered lowly to him.

Unsure if it was a threat or a genuine question, Tony smiled and said, "I received it with good faith." Of course, that was assuming that Kristoff didn't cheat a few extra ounces from his suppliers.

"What's the price?" some old, veteran of the trade asked Tony.

"Not for sale," Tony answered.

"Rather short for a Mandalorian, aren't 'cha?" another bounty hunter snubbed Tony as Kristoff finally reached him. Tony looked at the man critically, then at the two bounty hunters flanking him. He as obviously the leader of that group.

Kristoff grinned. "You and I are going to get along!" he announced, slinging an arm over the man's shoulders.

"Hey!" Tony said, affronted. "I'm your captain! Stop making cracks about my height!" He turned to the bounty hunter that had spoken. "Was that an insult? That sounded like an insult."

"So, not for sale?" the man asked.

"I have some other gadgets, but not this one," Tony deflected. This was a good time as any to network. Getting to know the professionals in each trade was a good way to get himself known. From there, he could change the world.

As expected, the bounty hunter went for the bait. "Excellent. I'd like to do business with you. If your devices are a third as useful as that nifty armor, it would be a boon to have." There were murmurs of agreement from his small posse.

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

With that, daily life changed yet again. Tony registered Stark Industries. It was done legally, if you overlooked FRIDAY setting the creation date of the company to several years ago.

Tony wasn't sure what the purpose of that was, seeing that he was starting from scratch, but he let FRIDAY have her fun. In any case, FRIDAY needed the experience. Coding and hacking were… different experiences than back on Earth, or even alien tech in their home universe. Tony had noticed FRIDAY's hesitate when it came to this universe's tech, and they were going to get over it together.

To sell, Tony quickly whipped up a batch of obsolete SI products, from first-generation lightweight armor to grapples. Expanding magnetic nettings and communication units were enhanced with Galactic technology and laced with superior metals. Tony even took apart a standard emergency beacon to study it, then rebuilt it smaller and more compact - same range, half the size. Everything was patented.

It was true that Tony could've done better, exceptionally so, but the principles of business was against it; people simply didn't like change. If he pushed too hard, the entire venture would collapse.

Honestly, for a society that was so advanced, they were so… primitive. The technology was amazing and widespread, yes, but it was raw, for a lack of better terms. It had potential to be more, but development had stagnated.

That was where Tony came in. Once he received enough funding, Tony was going to change the world on a galactic scale.

At the end of the week, Tony had a range of products ready for his first customer's inspection. It was, of course, Janq Paramexor, the man from the BHGO confrontation. "No weapons," he commented, looking over the wares with an experienced eye.

"Nope," Tony agreed, letting a hint of darkness into his voice to tell the other bounty hunter he didn't want to talk about it. "SI doesn't sell weapons." He passed over a some gadgets for inspection. STARK INDUSTRIES shined proudly on each of the products.

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

Alarmed, Tony looked up as someone walked into the empty storage room, looking much like he had his hand caught in the cookie jar. A hole was cut into the wall, the dock outside the Millennium Falcon visible. Tony had several buckets of brassy-colored egg-shaped contraptions surrounding him, and he was in the middle pouring the contents of one of the buckets into the space between the inner walls and the outer wall.

"What are you doing?" Suffee asked mildly.

"It's hard to explain," Tony excused.

"So would you rather explain it now, or maybe sometime after we get on our way?" Suffee offered. "Just let me know if it'll affect the amount of hyperfuel used or if I should be careful to make sure this side of the ship doesn't get hit."

Tony peered at her. "Not going to make me tell you?" Rogers had been pretty firm about what he thought of that - 'Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things.' Ha! While hiding the fact he knew of his parents' double-murder.

"I trust you," Suffee said.

And didn't that burn? It all boiled down to trust. Rogers didn't trust Tony, even going as far as to chuck his patriotic metal frisbee at Tony's head at the word of a known terrorist.

Meanwhile, there was Suffee, who had known him for a fraction of the time that Rogers did, letting him off the hook.

"Besides, you'll be on this ship too," Suffee added. "If it was a bomb or anything, you wouldn't survive either."

That… made a lot more sense, actually. Tony grasped onto that reason, eagerly defending his point. "Yeah, not a bomb. Just… emergency power. You see, if they get a good hit through the shield, our generator's compromised. We'd be floating dead. Terrible design flaw, really. I'm still working on that. Anyways, these are mini repulsors. They'll give us some mobility.

They can also be used as a last resort."

Suffee shrugged. "Okay. Just tell Kristoff. He's going to be the one flying if we get shot at."

Tony watched, confused, as he walked away. Suffee didn't care about the 'last resort,' content just to get the main function. It was nice being… trusted. Because that was what it was, trust.

Tapping at the earpiece, Tony ordered, "Friday - Kristoff."

A moment later, Kristoff's gruff voice answered, " Yeah? "

"So… I added a new invention into the walls..." Tony began.

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

After weeks of careful tracking, Tony approached the men from that BHGO fight. "Hey, are you looking to make extra money?" They looked up from their sabroc game in mild interest.

"Those gadgets I've been selling you? Think you can sell them on a more massive scale?"

"Why do it through us?" Janq Paramexor, the chosen spokesman of the group asked.

"They just been patented. We've hit a problem, though; my company isn't recognized yet. When placed next to other tools, bounty hunters choose brands they're more familiar with."

"And what makes you think we can do any better?" the man rephrased.

Tony decided to put all his cards on the table. "Because your group is a lot bigger than you pretend it is." Tony had been tracking where they brought his inventions. "You have a base on the outer rim, one in the core world, and two in the middle. My guess is that you're part of your own sub-group of bounty hunters, most likely an officer. There's roughly a hundred of you." The last part he just estimated from the size of their orders.

"Smart," the bounty hunter said, turning back to his game. From his non-reaction, Tony knew he underestimated the size of the group. More than a hundred and fifty, but not more than three hundred. "Ten thousand credits a month."

"Twenty-five percent of the profit," Tony countered. The man glanced up with a smirk.

"Smart," he grudgingly admitted once more.

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

Even with his side-business, he couldn't neglect his crewmates. They still went on missions, but this time, Tony would stay back every so often to tinker. Tony would call them teammates, maybe even friends , but he was hesitant to do so after the Civil War Incidence. He was… afraid… to let them close. Even so, he couldn't help it. They were growing on him.

Like mold, or fungus, or some sort of tumor.

He first noticed it during a mission to retrieve some blueprints that some other group stole from the inventing company. Having been the victim of several cases of industrial espionage himself, Tony was determined to do the fledgling company right by giving them back their plans, even if they couldn't offer him that much money. Credits. Whatever.

Stuff like that… led to situations like this.

They had been chasing down another starship, one that wasn't outfitted for a race, unlike the 'Falcon. Signal disruptors made sure that FRIDAY couldn't remotely hack the ship, even if their transmitters had been on. Still, Tony thought it was going to be a relatively peaceful forcibly-board-the-ship-and-steal-and-delete-the-data sort of thing, but apparently not.

Someone on that ship apparently messed up big-time on the ship's design, because NOTHING was where it was supposed to be. Tony was almost amazed that the rust-bucket could even fly.

They had to split up. Tony was now in the newly-minted 'distraction' group, drawing attention from FRIDAY and her protectors. Everything was going as well as a far as a hostile takeover could go, when Suffee hissed, dropping the blaster to clutch at his shoulder instead. A quick glance showed that the random, somewhat ambiguous machine beside him was running.

"Suffee?" Tony asked, alarmed. There wasn't any blood, but he didn't know the function of the machine. He checked the hall again - Greer was all the way at the other end, ducking occasionally around the corner to shoot of a few blaster bolts and duck back. Seeing no immediate danger, Tony slid to a stop next to Suffee, manually scanning him with his gauntlet.

"I'm fine," Suffee growled out, glaring at the strange device on the wall.

" No internal bleeding ," FRIDAY's computerized voice said, right as the machine started humming again. Tony checked his chances. He could most likely shut it down to examine it later,

but Suffee was cringing away from it. Whatever had happened could happen again.

Tony turned and blasted the machine.

"Friday, there's a machine on the wall. Get the blueprints and find out what it does. If you can't find it, go back and scan it," Tony ordered hastily, slinging Suffee's arm around his shoulder and allowing himself to be used as a crutch.

" I messed up ," Kovlo said bluntly. " We have about seven minutes before this thing blows ."

"What?!" Tony demanded.

" I told you! " Tony heard Kristoff say as Chewbacca howled in Wookie. " I kriffing told you! "

"Remind me to learn Wookie." Tony shook his head, knowing that he wouldn't be getting anything else out of the three at the moment. "Retreat. Clear out. Abandon ship. FRIDAY, get the files and get out." Now wasn't the time, anyways. He took another step and the weight against him abruptly lightened.

"I'm fine," Suffee ground out, pulling away and standing on his own. "The mission." Greer stumbled into him as he backed into him, still firing. An automated voice came over the PA system and bolts stopped flying in their direction, the ship's crew readily abandoning their vessel.

"Is not as important as the wellbeing of my team," Tony snapped out.

"Friday, the stolen files first."

"Heck no. Friday, find out what that thing does," Tony countered.

Glaring, Suffee ripped off the shoulder of his shirt. The pebbly skin where the thing blasted him was now cracked and warped in a way Tony was unfamiliar with. It was several shades darker than the rest of his arm. "Burns," Suffee said shortly. "It was most likely a forge or kiln of some sort. I am fine."

" Five minutes ," Kovlo warned.

" Boss, I don't think I can find both of the files and get out within five minutes ," FRIDAY told him absentmindedly in a way that told Tony she was submerged in the ship servors. "

Permission to stay onboard to transmit the files to the 'Falcon ? "

"No," Tony snapped without thinking.

" Boss, this isn't me," FRIDAY said, sounding exasperated. " Most of my coding is downloaded within the 'Falcon . My main matrix will be unaffected by the loss of this orb. "

Tony hesitated. It was technically true. The only thing FRIDAY would be losing was this copy of her, and the memory files recently created throughout the mission. But… Tony wasn't going to allow his girl to die a death, even a small one. Even a partial one. She was his daughter.

But Suffee… What if that thing was actually dangerous? Suffee could have been poisoned or something. What if she died, this one a complete death instead of FRIDAY's partial one?

"Friday…" Tony began.

"Friday, download what we came here for and get out of there," Suffee ordered, taking advantage of his hesitation.

"Aye-aye, captain!" FRIDAY said.

Tony open his mouth to recend those orders.

"No," Suffee said firmly. "She's your daughter, isn't she? She's alive . I'm not letting you choose between a friend and your own daughter."

Tony was stunned. Of course FRIDAY was his daughter. She thought, she loved, she lived . It was something the Ex-avengers could never grasp. How did Suffee, someone who could only claim to know him for a handful of weeks-

"Get out of there, you idiots!" Kristoff howled into their ears. " The ship's about to blow in, like, a minute. Quit the waterworks, stop acting like hormonal, teenage girly-girls, and get out of there ! Yes, we all know that you're Friday's dad! Boo-hoo, don't get exploded! "

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

"So… you know that I consider Friday my daughter?" Tony said hopefully, breathing heavily. Suffee turned his head to look incredulously at him from where he was laying, panting, on the floor next to him. The Millennium Falcon blasted away from the exploding starship. Tony could see it from the window, but despite the fantastic lightshow, there was no sound.

"Well, it's not as if you've been rubbing that in our faces every chance you got," Kristoff drawled sarcastically. Behind him, Greer nodded glumly.

"You kind of have," Galee pointed out from over by the console.

Suffee hissed as Shoragg prodded his wound. "Nasty burn," the unwounded Rodian muttered.

"So it was actually a burn?" Tony asked hopefully. He had received his fair share of burns, but it was hard to tell on another species when the burns weren't so bad. He honestly never thought of how burned scales would look. He'd never had the urge to go around burning lizards or anything like that.

"I think a medic would be a valuable addition to the crew," Suffee hinted heavily.

"Just get a medical droid," Kristoff brushed off. "You can't trust any humans these days."

"I definitely would not trust you near my internal organs," Kovlo agreed.

Amid good-natured ribbing, Tony laid his head down. He missed the feeling of belonging. With no knowledge of his previous wealth and high class, he was easily accepted into the group of ex-repairmen. Tony hoped that it would last.

- Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others -

The HoloNet was convoluted, a processor-ache for an AI of FRIDAY's caliber. A lesser AI, perhaps like the droids that were often used as paperpushers or lazy manual labor, would have happily done the job without any outward consequences, but FRIDAY wasn't accessing the information through the terminal, she was directly in the flow of data.

Unlike Earth's Internet, where everything was more or less connected to each other in a spiderweb, the Holonet was like a tangled ball of string. Instead of going almost directly to the information right away, FRIDAY had to follow a long road of data, passing terabyte after terabyte of information to get to what she needed to find.

A part of the problem lay within the size of the galaxy. Simply put, it was too big for the current transmitters available. Many sections of the galaxy had their own mini internet that was somewhat connected to a portion of the main holonet. If not, then they were attached to a nearby internet sphere, which was connected to another, which was connected to another, that was sometimes connected to the Holonet. It was frustrating.

FRIDAY tagged it as another thing to go over with her Creator, sending everything to the ship's servor. One of her side programs running the ship gave a ping. Noting that it was about Creator, FRIDAY threw everything else aside, scanning the script as she simultaneously accessed the feed of the workshop.

Creator looked up. "Yes, Friday?"

Not expecting her Creator to sense that she was watching immediately, FRIDAY was thrown for a second before her slower ship processors brought up the correct file: to reassure the crew, Creator rigged the cameras of the ship so that the green light on the side of the lens turned off and on for a quick second whenever FRIDAY personally observed through the feed.

Sluggish processors read the small notation sent by the program. FRIDAY turned her attention to the device on the counter - a first generation StarkPhone. FRIDAY was grateful to see Creator waiting patiently for her processor to discern why that ping was sent and formulate expositions. It could simply be made for profit, but that seemed too simple an idea. Unless...

"Boss… You decided to recreate phones simply because you missed people walking with their heads down and bumping into each other?" FRIDAY asked, confused.

"What? No! I would never!" Creator proclaimed. "Is it so hard to imagine that I wanted to advance technology in a different field?"

"Logically, the StarkPhones will face much pushback, with SI being an unknown organization. Major technological companies will attempt to crush the idea or steal it as their own," FRIDAY observed.

"That's where you come in, Fri! You can keep track of them for me," Creator said, with confidence in her. FRIDAY didn't want to tell him otherwise, but… now was the correct time to let him in on the problem.

"Boss? I'm afraid my processor is not strong enough to do so on such a scattered connection. The Holonet is not a unified web. It is several webs that intersect at several points. I cannot help you as I could at home..."