Goose
1990
Tony returned to the PEGASUS base to handle the aftermath.
Since Tony was the second in command, he was assigned to take control of the project. He could have declined and the project would have been scrapped but he decided not to. The project still had enough funding to maintain it. He even released a successful test flight using SCRamjet engines to quiet down the politicians in the higher ups who wanted to scrap the project.
AN: Scramjets were supposed to have 1st successful test flight in Soviet Union 1991
Tony knew, from his AI's, that the ones who wanted the project scrapped were corrupt politicians so he did not plan to let them "repurpose" the funds. Since the funding would have been rendered useless, he considered it the funds as free money. And who wouldn't accept free money?
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Tony spend the research money to build a plane of his own.
Tony did have private jet given to him by his father as his graduation gift. He also had some more private jets across the world to act as his other personas' modes of transport. But he did not really use those jets other than to impress some ladies he fancied.
The private jets were just too slow. The flight time is approriate to indoctrinate the ladies to the mile-high club. But for everything else like resting and relaxing, he could go to his home or Antartica. Those places have better facilities for relaxation.
He was also planning to stop using magic for some time now. Though it was convenient to just teleport to places, the world still moves too slow. Sure he got to some place early, but he still needs to spend some time waiting.
And the most important reason for taking a break with using magic.
It is too boring.
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Tony never got the thrill anymore.
Sure the magic weapons are handy. But there are rarely any enemies to fight that gave him the challenge. Since the Ancient One is enough of a deterrent to stop foreign invaders, most of the time, the enemies are fellow humans. And they were usually the cannon fodder who are not aware of Kamartaj.
The Ten-Rings are focusing on the material world and not touching the mystical world much. Even the Hand is restricting its fights with K'un-Lun (AN:Iron Fist's HQ) and the Chaste (Elektra's HQ). Since the mystical side of Earth is relatively stable, Kamartaj became a sort of monastery. It is not something Tony wants to be in.
The portals also means he got easy access to food. It helped him develop his chakra capacity as well as his Symbiote body's capability.
Tony wanted to get hungry or feel the danger. His life is not as entertaining as much as it did before he started learning about magic. Other than for important events, he would try to avoid using magic as much.
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A month went by
Tony has prepared the design and is now ready to send it to Stark Industries for manufacturing. He can't just leave it to any other company to create after all.
The plane is designed to look like SR-71 BlackBird(Non Black Phoenix X-men plane). This plane was intended to known to public so he did not want to use a more advanced design. It is also going to be equipped the SCRamjet engine. The other countries would not be as alarmed if the fastest plane ever built, on record, is still the only plane that could beat its own record.
But those are only for its outside appearance, inside however is a different story. Other than the SCRamjet engine, it is also equipped with 2 light-speed engines that are miniaturised for storage. The two engines are still useless since the power core is not charged. But Tony patched it up to use arc reactors for now. It won't be able to fly at light-speed but it could still surpass the maximum speed of the SCRamjets.
The plane is also secretly equipped with the gravitonium powered Gravity Field Generators. The devices are spread around the plane complete with sector separated power sources. Since it only uses electricity to keep the plane floating, it can keep the plane hovering silently and also create artificial gravity at the same time.
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Still 1990
Tony was currently at Antartica base.
He brought Goose along since the Flerken had no one else to take car of it now.
The first day in its new home, Goose was introduced to the other wildlife. He brought it to the penguin habitat but it almost turned into a disaster. The Flerken did not recognize the penguins so the first thing it did was to try and eat one.
Tony saw the Flerken open its mouth and release its tentacles but was able to reprimand it in time. "NO. That is our pet penguins, pets, not food."
Meow
Goose looked at Tony with a look as if asking him why are they not food. They looked so fat and juicy.
T:"No, If you eat one of them, you won't be getting any steak for the next 2 weeks."
Goose understood Tony and immediately stopped its advances with the penguins. It also jumped near his shoulder and started rubbing its face with Tony's. Tony just petted it and went to other places with Goose on his shoulder.
Using his nanites, he secretly ordered JARVIS to lock down the penguin room. He knew that cats are smart enough to sneak behind his back, much less an alien that looked like one.
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After the tour, Tony introduced Goose to his Symbiote body. He did not want to surprise Goose so he let his body out as its slime form.
The cat did not care about the slime and just continued going at its nap. This was not what Tony wanted to he tried something else. He controlled his symbiote body to extend a tentacle and let his sybiote body partially bond with him.
Using the slime part as a weight, he tried to whip it back and forth in front of Goose. He trying to use it like a cat toy trying to Goose familiar with it.
It worked, Goose chased it around like any cat would do. Tony did this a few more times just to make sure Goose is comfortable with the Symbiote. Tony then let his symbiote body bond with Goose.
The cat did not react much enabling Tony to complete the bond. After it was finished, the first thing Tony did was check its gender.
All this time Tony was scared of checking out if Goose was a girl or a boy. He knew that he could use his clones to check but was afraid of Goose carrying a grude. Goose was smart enough to recognise people so he is not willing to risk it. He will interact with Goose using his human body and might get scratched if the cat decided to attack him.
Since it was an alien body, Tony controlled his symbiote body to do a full body scan. It was a slow process. Flerkens had Pocket Dimensions so he did not want to risk his body getting trapped there.
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Tony: "Finally finished"
Tony was exhausted focusing all his attention on his Symbiote body. It took longer that he imagined since Goose's tentacles were longer than he estimated. He was not able to estimate the size of the pocket dimension be he did have a few discoveries.
1. Goose has a bigger body that Tony's Symbiote body. He was not able to bond with all the cat's tentacles
2. Tony got an idea on how on the other abilities of symbiotes.
Currently, he can only use his symbiote body to enhance his body's performance or as a conduit to use the gravitonium to manipulate gravity. When he bonded with Goose, he felt as if its pocket dimension expanded. He still had to do tests to make sure but at least he got some leads to the other abilities of his symbiote body.
3 And MOST importantly, he finally determined that Goose is female. "Finally sure what your gender is"
Tony then looked at the cat seriously and said
"Goose, can I ask you for something?"
Nyaa?
Goose looked at Tony since she felt that Tony sounded serious.
"Can you please not go learning about Earth's sexual orientation. It would make things way too confusing if you suddenly identify yourself as something like, I don't actually even know, like Japanese Tentacle Monster"
Goose just tilted her head to the side
It did not understand what he was talking about.