who_is_she | (no subject)

"I swear, Roddie, if you get shot again I'm divorcing you," Tony says over the comms, holding up his pistol as he ducked into cover, "And I'm not just saying that like, I really mean that I love you and I care about you, I mean it like I'm going to divorce you. I have the number of a lawyer. Marian said he's very good."

Despite this whole situation being incredibly familiar as Tony had been doing the same thing for the last four years, he could never quite keep the panic out of his voice when Roddie dove into the line of fire.

They'd been tracking a ship full of thieves and bandits, who had been landing on remote colonies and terrorizing and pillaging the locals. They'd finally pinned them down when they'd landed to start another attack, and Roddie of course had been the first to run into the fight. Tony had been just behind him, wielding the pistol Roddie had taught him how to shoot, until he got pinned down by a couple of guys and was forced to take off down an adjacent corridor on the bandit's ship, and ended up losing his bearings and having no idea where Roddie was.

Now he was moving carefully down the seemingly empty corridors, past what looked like crew quarters, and the whole place seemed empty. The fact there wasn't anyone actively shooting at him just increased Tony's panic however, and it gave him ample time to complain to Roddie about it over the comms.

"I mean it! You're going to be paying me alimony for the rest of your life," Tony said as he ducked into one of the crew quarters, glancing around for any sign of life, his voice shaking faintly as he speaks.

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"Hey, shh, don't panic, it's all right, settle down," Roddie says, in a smoothe, gentle voice despite the sound of gunfire in the background. He fires a final shot, clearing out the last of the raiders in the room he was in before ducking behind a crate and pressing a finger to his ear.

"I'm fine, no bullet holes. I told you you could stay on the ship if you wanted, baby," he says, his voice still soft and placating, "You didn't have to come."

"I hate to interrupt," Zakeef's voice comes crackling over the radio, making Roddie jump slightly, "But we have a job to do here. Also, your voice is making me sick."

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Roddie says, waving his hand, "Vira, how's it coming?"

"I've cut their power, and their remaining fuel is being siphoned out into space," she replies, her voice characteristically cheery, despite the fact that they were in the middle of killing a very large ship full of slavers.

"Right," Roddie says, nodding, "How 'bout Boscha?"

"Checked their cargo," Boscha replies, "Nothing. Found no slaves on board. No need for rescue team. Many weapons, though."

"Gotcha. Grab what you can carry and let's go. Tony, where are you?"

Tony covers his comm mic to hide the sigh of relief he breathes when Roddie confirms he's not hurt, and is just summoning something suitably smart-ass-y to say when Zakeef interrupts. Roddie's voice is soothing, and Tony is able to continue his sweep of the quarters relatively panic-less.

"I'm, uh, in the crew quarters. I think," Tony says, glancing into the rooms as he passes them. Most of them are open and look lived in and messy, as if they got called to arms in the middle of rec hours, and the ones that are closed look a little tidier but still like typical crew rooms. The last one down the hall is closed, though, and when Tony tries the door it's locked. He frowns at it, and then pulls up a quick scan of inside the room.

"Hang on a sec," he says, tapping a few things on his forearm-mounted to read the scan, "I've got a locked room here. Looks like there's a life sign inside. I'm opening it." And then, in an uncharacteristic move, he rears back and kicks the lock as hard as he can. The lock breaks and the door slams open, and Tony aims his pistol forward as he surveys the room.

A scream rings out when Tony kicks down the door. A small, human child who couldn't be more than six, crouches in the corner behind a dirty cot with her head of choppy hair tucked firmly between her knees.

Roddie hears the banging and screaming on the other end of the line, and gets a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Tony? Tony, are you there, are you okay, what's going on?" he asks frantically, taking off and bolting down the stairs below deck towards the crew's quarters.

"Oh, jesus," Tony swears when he sees the child, quickly stashing away his pistol and stepping into the room with his hands held in front of him, palms out.

"It's-- It's okay, Roddie, it's a little girl," Tony says quietly, stepping carefully towards the girl.

"Hey, I'm sorry about that, are you all right?" Tony asks in a gentle voice, muting his comms and stopping halfway through the room and squatting down to be on the girl's level, "I don't want to hurt you, I'm sorry about that big bang, I had to break the lock on the door. Are you hurt?"

The girl straightens up slowly and shakes her head, avoiding Tony's eyes, then, after a moment, changes her mind and nods her head. She then raises her arm, showing Tony a small scrape on her elbow.

Roddie continues running towards the sound of Tony's voice, and when he rounds the corner he nearly plows into him, sending the girl screaming and cowering back into the corner again.

"Whoah! Sorry, sorry," Roddie says, holstering his gun and folding his mask away from his face in case the girl found it frightening.

"Hey," he says gently, "It's cool, no one's gonna hurt you, it's fine." He takes a few steps back, allowing Tony control of the situation.

Tony almost snaps at Roddie for scaring her again when she'd been trying to communicate with him, but he manages to stifle it, knowing that speaking angrily won't help anything, not to mention Roddie hadn't intended to spook her.

"It's all right," Tony says, shuffling forward a little and then turning to dig through the small supply bag strapped to his hip, "Does your arm hurt? I have some first aid supplies. I can help." He pulls out his supply of medical gel, holding it out towards the girl so she can see it clearly, "Can you show me where it hurts?"

The girl takes a slow step towards him, extending her arm cautiously towards him and pointing at the scrape.

"Right there," she says, quietly, sticking out her lip as she starts to cry.

Tony moves quickly but gently, rubbing a small amount of the gel into her scrape.

"There you go," he says, and only realizes she's starting to cry when he looks up, "Oh-- no, don't cry!" he says, starting to panic a little, "It's okay! Hey, look, I've got these bandages too, look, they're all bright colors. Which one do you want?" He pulls out his supply of minor bandages, the ones he'd gotten for Roddie after Roddie complained about the white ones being boring. He holds out a red one, a blue one, and a green one, letting her choose one and then gently pressing it to her scrape.

"Can you... tell me your name?" he asks gently after a moment, wondering if she was intended to be a slave. The whole living-in-a-bare-locked-room thing certainly doesn't bode well.

She shakes her head at first, looking away as she rubs her eyes, but after Tony puts the bandaid on she changes her mind.

"Jackie," she says quietly, sniffling and rocking back and forth on her heels.

"Hi, Jackie," Tony says, smiling sweetly, "I'm Tony. This is Roddie," he gestures to Roddie behind him, "We're here to help you. We're not..." he glances back at Roddie, not sure how to explain the situation, "We're not with the people who locked you in here. We stopped them." Tony pauses, biting his lip, unsure how to proceed. He wants to ask her if she has any family, if maybe there's another place on board where people might be hiding, but he doesn't want to scare her or make her cry.

"Do you... know where your parents are?" Tony asks finally, his voice quiet and gentle.