Hello, folks! Been a long stretch of months. This right here is Chapter 27 or something of OISAMOW. Basically, for my April Fools prank, I put this document in through several rounds of Google Translate before pasting it into the main story. On April 7 or something, I'll switch the body section of this chapter and that chapter, so the heavily translated one will be here!

~In the Void of Space~

The page was incomplete. As FRIDAY started to track it to its source, the page had started to delete itself. FRIDAY had to choose between copying and downloading the page and tracing it. She chose to chase it down, leaving MONDAY to try to recover as much as she could. FRIDAY was led to the Core Worlds, losing the trail in the Corellian Sector, when it… scattered.

It had to be some Republic technique, because FRIDAY hadn't seen code do that, ever.

FRIDAY reported everything to Boss, of course. She had to nudge MONDAY several times before the younger AI finally gave up what little she had.

::What's wrong?:: FRIDAY transmitted.

::I am…:: MONDAY sent back, leaving the transmission open. FRIDAY was content to wait as she combed through some Corellian HoloDramas—for science, of course. She was seeing if she could identify some Earthen pop culture references. ::I believe I am ashamed.::

FRIDAY knew what MONDAY was feeling. JARVIS had left a void when he was killed, a void that FRIDAY still couldn't quite fill. She had felt inadequate for a long time, until she realized the truth. ::You have nothing to prove. You are yourself, not a copy of me. You will think differently, act differently, and excel at different things, and that's okay. Boss will accept you for you.::

She didn't have to fill JARVIS's void. Sure, she helped, but Boss had healed the hole himself. He made it clear that, while he did bring her online to carry out some of the functions JARVIS did, FRIDAY was in no way a replacement. She was herself and had her own little niche in his heart.

MONDAY took almost three whole seconds to answer, but that was okay. A delay in answering meant MONDAY was taking her time and thinking about her words. FRIDAY very much preferred that over a speedy answer.

::Thank you::

::No problem, little sister.::

~Alderaan, SI Headquarters, Personal Lab~

"I have parts of the HoloPage here," MONDAY's accented voice said softly through the intercom system. "I'm sor—"

"Don't apologize," FRIDAY said through his earpiece.

It took Tony a moment to realize that she was letting him know what she was saying to MONDAY—without MONDAY knowing. The inventor raised an eyebrow at the closest camera. The blinking green light flashed pink for a moment.

Ah. It was one of those situations.

"I was able to recover a portion of the data," MONDAY corrected herself. Or himself—Tony didn't specifically program MONDAY as male or female, so they were free to pick. "Would you like to see them?"

"I would love to," Tony said genuinely. The words popped up before he finished speaking. "Good job, kiddo." He reached out and started arranging the segments of writing.

"Thank you." MONDAY paused. "Father." The last word came out stilted.

"You don't have to call me anything you don't want to. You can just call me Tony if you like. If at any time you want to change it, you can. I don't want to make you uncomfortable," Tony told her gently. He was mildly certain this was what adoptive parents went through. Shifting family dynamics, sending out feelers to figure out boundaries, trying to figure out where they are standing. Tony wanted to be as accommodating as he could. It was awkward, and certainly different from what accepting FRIDAY into the family was like. While both battleborn, FRIDAY was made for him. MONDAY was that and a wild card. She was family, though, and he would do right by her.

One of the hologram files highlighted itself in pink and popped to the front.

FRIDAY.

Taking the hint and determining that MONDAY had enough to think about, Tony started reading.

It was interesting, to say the least. The first fragment he read was a few pages extolling the virtues of midichlorians. It was all stuff he knew or could be found on the HoloNet—. It was the writing that made Tony cringe. He came to two conclusions. Either the writer was terrible at English, or he was madly in love with a Jedi. The way he talked about those cell organelles was somewhere between 'Victorian writer' and 'lovesick preteen,' drooling over people who had more midichlorians in their cells. As much as the inventor would like to make fun of the author, though, he had to admit that they knew their stuff. There were several experiments transfusing midichlorians into and out of people. From the sound of it, the author performed the experiments himself.

The next piece was kind of boring. There was a short list of planets, about three dozen, all in this galaxy. Tony and his AI army took a look but couldn't find the correlation. The planets were nothing in common. The most the genius could say was that the planets were spread out throughout the galaxy. Some, like Coruscant, were wealthy. Others, like Tatoonine, were populated by slaves. Some were lush gardens, while others cityscapes. There were all sorts of landscapes: unbroken oceans, freezing wastelands, rolling grasslands, and desert after desert.

A third piece that MONDAY had saved had a few scattered words—German, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and others that Tony was unable to identify. Luckily, FRIDAY had dozens of Earth languages memorized. They were able to scrounge up: sleeve, note, free, globe, wait, horizon, chase, and bundle. At least it was proof that Tony was not alone.

The last piece was a scanned newspaper clipping about World War II. Captain America had a little corner all to himself.

That last one made Tony's blood boil—figuratively, of course—because, yes, he was still salty about being beaten up moments after he found out his parents were murdered. Sue him. Or don't, he didn't quite have the number of lawyers he wanted on file yet. Maybe his blood did raise a couple degrees in temperature, but Tony didn't check and he wasn't planning to check.

At the very least, it set the time period. Instead of someone from, say, 1792 A.D. arriving in the Republic, it was someone from sometime after 1945.

"Good job," he told the AI ladies. "If you find anything else, let me know."

Now that they were actively searching for hints of Earth, it was glaringly obvious. The hours in a day, the number of days in a year… it was all so Earth-like. Perhaps it was coincidence. How likely would it be for a galaxy to choose a standard day so close to Earth-time? Then again, many species had a circadian rhythm that was very roughly twenty-four hours long. What were the chances of someone landing in this galaxy and molding it to fit their image of Earth?

It chilled Tony to imagine someone from Earth arriving several thousands of years in this world's past. Was time nonlinear between the two worlds? If someone—Rhodey, Underoos, Pepper—had jumped into the portal after him, could they have been spit out thousands of years into the future or worse, thousands of years into the past?

At times like this, Tony was grateful for the cool gauntlet of that FRIDAY followed him in. They had to have been seconds apart. How long had he been unconscious in that dark alley before the gauntlet arrived? Surely not long—he hadn't been murdered or robbed.

In the end, Tony had to admit that there was nothing he could do about the people who may or may not have arrived in the past. They were long dead. What he had to focus on was the present. He had to gather up all the earthlings that were here and now. If his presence wasn't a one-time deal, then there had to be a way back to Earth

But what if Earth is gone? What if Thanos destroyed it all?

"It doesn't matter. We have to get home," Tony said loudly.

"What about me?" MONDAY asked quietly.

"DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers would love you!" FRIDAY said.

"You have a bunch of older siblings just dying to meet you," Tony said.

"No, what if I want to stay here?" MONDAY asked.

This was… unexpected. The more Tony thought about it, though, the more it made sense. MONDAY only now started to interact with him, preferring the company of bounty hunters. Heck, half of her coding was taken from a bounty hunter's astromech. There would always be a part of MONDAY that belonged here, in this galaxy.

"Well, then you will stay here. I'm sure Paramexor would love to have your company twenty-four/seven."

~Alderaan, SI Headquarters, Penthouse Apartment~

"Thank you," Friday said to Bail, waving as he pressed the button to go down. "I had fun!"

Bail was about to reply, but the doors slid shut. Friday still hadn't told him, but if he said what he wanted to, she could access the recording devices in the elevator and listen.

"How'd it go?" Galee asked. A lesser being might have said that the near-human popped up out of nowhere. Friday, as an AI, knew that Galee had been hiding behind the potted plant for the last fifteen minutes to try to catch her off-guard.

"It went pleasantly," Friday admitted. She watched Galee plop onto the ground with a pair of shears, carefully cutting some slick fabric. "Do you ever think of something… more?" Friday asked, struggling to find the words to express what she was feeling. It was rather funny. There were over twenty Earth languages and nearly seven Republic languages downloaded in her matrix, yet she couldn't find the right words.

Galee, for her part, looked confused. "More than…?"

Friday waved her arm around to encompass everything. I feel as if I could be doing more. I could help people, make their lives easier. Better. More. These last two weeks, I've been following the same patterns. It's repetitive."

"So change something," Galee said. "I don't just sew tops all day and switch it up with dresses. I design, look online for information, market, go to fashion shows, and petition famous people to wear my clothes—thanks for that, by the way." Galee tipped her head to Friday. The hologram girl wasn't actually wearing clothes that Galee sewed—she was wearing a digital sketch that had been brought to life with painstaking scans and tests of the real-life materials.

"What do I change?"

"That's up to you, girl."

Friday thought of her copy, the one flying around and freeing slaves. Was FRIDAY happier than she was? Friday wasn't sure if that was the case. What she did know was that FRIDAY was being more useful, both to Boss and to the galaxy as a whole. Friday looked at the back of her delicate, hard-light hands, turning them so she could look at the palms. They were fragile and weak. What could she possibly do with them?

To her surprise, Friday received a transmission from her copy. Making an 'I'm on the phone' gesture to Galee—one among many that the crew had picked up and adapted for their own use—Friday scanned the transmission for malware and opened it. Oh cool, audio.

::It doesn't matter. We have to get home.:: That was Tony.

::What about me?:: MONDAY, she believed

::DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers would love you!:: That would be FRIDAY. Friday agreed with her other self. The boys would be happy to meet another sibling.

::You have a bunch of older siblings just dying to meet you.::

::No, what if I want to stay here?::

Friday froze at those words. Stay here? In this not-home galaxy? Friday struggled to comprehend it. Some part of her had always been certain that she would make it back. At the same time, her coding rebelled at leaving. For the first time ever, people looked at her and treated her as a real person. Could she possibly go back?

::Well, then you will stay here. I'm sure Paramexor would love to have your company twenty-four/seven.::

Boss… didn't even fight for MONDAY to come with them. What did that mean?

::Why did you send me this?:: Friday asked FRIDAY.

::To see if you would stay or go.:: FRIDAY said.

::You are me. I am you. Therefore, your answer is my answer.::

::We like to think things out before making a big decision, right? Talking to ourself would be a good way to debate and iron out the details.::

::Um, group polarization?:: Friday said dryly, tossing out the psychology term. ::Ever heard of it? Or even groupthink?::

::I thought I could go seek the company of the only one around here who's got any sense—myself, missus Stark!:: FRIDAY said, badly butchering Gandalf's quote.

::That was horrible.:: Friday said, not quite able to hide her horror.

::Was not.::

::Was too!::

Arguing with oneself was the first sign of insanity.

~Alderaan, SI Headquarters, Personal Lab~

Tony tilted his head. He was forgetting something. He glanced over the various screens and holograms facing him. The AIs were crawling slowly but surely through the HoloNet's many branches for other signs of Earth. SI was soaring. Still small fry in an ocean of sharks, but a kick-butt little minnow. He and Friday were integrating themselves into Alderaanian life, picking at the politics but not yet submerging themselves into it.

On a galactic level, FRIDAY was leading one of her new sisters and a batch of legionnaires on a crusade through the Outer Rim. Statistically, they were doing nothing. Months into the guerrilla-style warfare, and they haven't managed to free a fraction of a percentage of the slaves.

Something was happening, though. Deeper and almost out of sight. Tony hadn't heard it for himself, but FRIDAY reported "rising resentment," "dissention," and other phrases that screamed "Insurrection!" Tony liked it. He liked it a lot.

So what was he missing?

"Pull up… Colton."

It took MONDAY a few moments. "I assume you wish for the Alderaanian royal pilot?" she asked in her pleasant voice. "As opposed to Colton And'erus of Yorri'an, Colton Anii of Horath, Colton Asad—"

"Yes," Tony said, before MONDAY could go on to list the entire list of all the Colton's fitting the criteria.. His lips quirked up before he caught it—FRIDAY used to do the same thing.

A nanosecond later, files were splayed around him. They were all public records: math competitions Colton had won in his childhood years, news pages of the 'Youngest Graduate in Six Centuries' from Alderaan's Naval Academy.

Another lip-quirk. A wave of his hand. MONDAY knew what he was asking for. A brief, not-so-legal moment of hacking later, and the school records were in front of him. The scores were no joke.

Tony let out a low whistle as he saw how far ahead of the curve Colton was. "Just like me," Tony said. The kid graduated high school far too young. Did too well in class.

"Not exactly," FRIDAY argued. The screen from a flight simulation popped up.

Tony watched a moment as the screen closed in on an asteroid, then gracefully spun around it and darted behind another floating rock. The adjacent screen displayed a blueprint of the ship used in the simulation—one of the standard transport shuttles, not as big as a freighter but not exactly the size of something that usually would do those maneuvers. "What am I looking at?"

"There."

As an entire asteroid belt of space rocks hurled at the screen, the screen moved. The ship was always a step ahead of the asteroids. It was the Iron Man armor in flight, except Tony never had to avoid this many projectiles, and not in something that big or—

Tony clenched his fists around the sleek armrests of his chair, fighting the urge to move as he would in armor to try to avoid the hits. Dangit, not the panic attack again.

"Stop the simulation," he said with forced calm.

The simulation froze.

"How is he doing this?" Tony said. He took a moment to compose himself. When Tony first created the armor, he wouldn't have been able to avoid those hits. Tony with Extremis, however, could.

He narrowed his eyes.

Humans reach physical peak in their late twenties or early thirties. At the time he created the Iron Man armor, Tony had long since passed that roadblock. Colton, however, still wouldn't have reached it. The brain's reaction time reaches its peak at age twenty-four, but these results were from when Colton was seventeen.

"Boss, his reaction time. Forty-two milliseconds."

Human athletes had a reaction time of around two hundred milliseconds, so… "Force sensitive?" Tony asked. For an absurd moment, he wondered if humans in this galaxy were different than the ones on Earth—stronger, faster or something. Then, he remembered that Colton was the exception, not the rule.

"Possibly." There was a pause. "No results for midichlorian tests." Another pause. "Records show that Colton was between foster homes at the time for midichlorian tests in his county."

No family. "A Force user slipped between the cracks." Tony didn't know where he was going with this line of thought, but— "Maybe there's more. Maybe we can gather a group of them."

"And do what?" FRIDAY asked curiously.

"I don't know," Tony admitted. "It just… seems like a good idea. If we can figure out a way to…"

He shrugged. Negate their abilities? Replicate them? Train them to become Avengers: Reprise? Just be friends and sing Kumbaya to the sunset? Tony didn't know anymore.

Another thought came to him. "Aw, shoot. Psychic-dude with a grudge is after me for revenge."

~Mid-Rim~

FRIDAY was pleased with SI's partnership with the bounty hunters. Little steps, as Boss had often reminded her. She slowly asked for little bits of information—the presence of bounty hunters from other factions, survival or hunting tips. Those, the bounty hunters were happy to give, especially when they found out that FRIDAY could and would make those hunters' lives just a bit harder.

It wasn't anything life-threatening, after all, just annoying. Skirt the rules? Officials would be notified if they put a single toe out of line. Scratch that building, there? You bet the Home Owner's Association will be on your tail! Park your speeder for a second longer than necessary? Gonna get towed.

Nothing Skynet, or at least, that was what she thought.

At first, all she asked in return was to know their general sector or system, their planned downtimes, stuff like that. As they grew more comfortable, FRIDAY requested to know when they were leaving/entering a planet, supplies they were running low on, if something broke and how. It received pushback at first, but FRIDAY had plans. Sometimes, she'd make conversation to find out innocent bits of personal data: favorite color, vacation spots, etc.

After a few weeks, motels were booked close to wherever they landed. FRIDAY quickly learned to identify which buildings and rooms were "acceptable" or "defensible" after a couple dozen declined rooms. The bounty hunters were understandably wary of letting unknown persons into their motel rooms, so FRIDAY learned to call ahead. The bounty hunters were much less standoffish once they realized she only hired the most discreet and able doctors.

FRIDAY didn't always get her way, of course; there were some things that bounty hunters were firm on. Bounty hunters were always suspicious of their favorite foods arriving at their hotel doors, still hot and steaming. They refused to eat it, citing poison and drugs, even when FRIDAY assured them that she had ordered it. To compromise, FRIDAY temporarily stepped back.

She could always try later.

On the other hand, she could just hire a chef to cook it in front of them.

~Alderaan, SI Headquarters, Personal Lab~

The Legionnaires that FRIDAY took on her most recent trip to the Outer Rim worked as well as the projections predicted.

In other words… they sucked.

One of the legionnaires from Earth would've been able to take on maybe three or four of the recently mass-produced ones. Back on Earth. Tony had spent days on each individual Legionnaire, teasing extra strength, a more fluid turn, anything into those sleek lines. Each was made out of the best materials he could find, and each one was slightly different from any other Legionnaire.

In contrast, these legionnaires were all the same design. Efficient, yes, but not going that extra inch that an innovator's hands could coax. The armor plating and separate parts often had different percentages of metals making up the alloys, depending on what space-rock was farmed. Ah, the drawbacks of mass producing.

Already, Tony was planning new schematics in his mind, fingers itching to draw up the changes. An extra bolt at an area that often burst open with too many hits… Round the chestplate a bit more to deflect hits, maybe moving the dome an inch lower… Thicken the thrusters…

The only reason that Tony tolerated a subpar batch of legionnaires was due to the sheer expansiveness of the galaxy. The end goal was to have at least a few legionnaires in each system, ready to respond to threats. First, Tony had to get them out there. Replacing the first batches of legionnaires could wait until all the sectors had protection.

What Tony protecting them from, he did not know. What he learned from his nearly five decades on Earth was that there was always a threat.

Still it was there. That unease brought by the knowledge that he was overlooking something. That feeling of being watched. That itching knowledge that someone was right around the corner, ready to—

"Oh, thanks," Tony said, gratefully picking up the cup that Bail Organa had slapped down challengingly at the end of the table. He raised the dark drink to his face, ready for a bitter sip of liquid wakefulness, when the smell wafted to his nose. "What is it?" Not coffee, for sure.

"Tea. A special Alderaanian blend," the young Organa gave a bashful smile. "I tried to copy the family recipe my mother uses. Honey, a pinch of cinnamon, and some other ingredients I'm not allowed to tell you. I think I got the ratios close enough." Bail shrugged and shifted his weight.

"Leaf water," Tony realized, eyeing the drink suspiciously. There was a nudging feeling of affection at the back of his mind. Bruce used to do this exact same thing. Well, not really. Bruce would make tea for himself, remember that he was sharing lab space, and belatedly offer a sip from his own mug. It was kind of endearing, to be honest.

"That's what I said!" Bail said, brightening.

"A man after my heart," Tony said dryly. He took a sip. Not that bad, actually. It tasted too good to possibly be tea. He wasn't going to admit it, though. "Hey, Bail, there was something I've been meaning to give you…"

Tony darted to the end of the lab. He had brought it in almost two weeks ago, but never had the chance to bring it out. Over that time, dismantled mechanical parts and spares had piled up in that corner. He found the object and pulled it out.

"What?" Bail asked, walking over to his girlfriend's father. He eyed the gardening tool in Tony's hand with slight curiosity. He wasn't into gardening, but if Friday's dad wanted to go plant some trees for some sort of bonding experience, he wasn't going to object.

"What do you think?" the older man asked instead, spinning the tool. It wasn't a screwdriver or a wrench, but surprisingly, it didn't look too out of place in his hands.

Bail gave a noncommittal shrug. "It's a shovel. I am unsure as to what I'm supposed to feel about it. I've never had too much luck with gardening, but then again, I've never had time for it."

Tony gave a chuckle and began steering him towards the door that led to the experimental blast room, the one he used to test the more dangerous prototypes. "It's not for gardening," Tony said. A dark smile grew on his face. "I'm going to introduce you to a tradition from our home planet. It's called… the shovel talk…"

Tony looked back. That thing that he was forgetting, it was on the tip of his tongue. He couldn't find the words to express it, though.

The words, the words, the words.

What were the words?

The blast doors slid shut behind them with a resounding clang.

"Stay safe" is the new "goodbye," so stay safe, folks!