First meetings
"Sir, someone matching your description of one Nick Fury has been caught on CCTV coming near the house" Jarvis notified him.
"Okay, I wasn't meaning right now... That bastard won't even give me the time to take a shower, will he?" Tony grumbled. He was tired and cranky.
"Sir? Shall we proceed?"
"Is he alone? Because if Natashalie or Agent are with... Not a fan of either's bedside manners."
"It seems so, Sir"
"Seems so?"
"There's also a feline on the same approach, at a short distance, but it could be a stray, Sir." JARVIS answered, and Tony felt a thrill of excitement. "Sir?"
"We'll proceed along what we planned, Jarv. If Nat or Agent materialize, zap them... Otherwise let Fury think he hacked you and record..." Tony thought for a moment. In his last life, on this exact date, and almost this exact hour, he was sitting on a giant doughnut, slowly losing his life and his mind. The least you could say was that the old pirate was consistent. So...
"Just in case he makes a move to have me injected with something, zap him too, Jarv. Last time, the stuff the Widow did me with was supposed to help, but that's no guarantee he hasn't decided I'm more trouble than I'm worth this time around, especially since we made life hard for him lately."
"Of course, Sir." The AI said with finality, and Tony had a small smile. It was good to associate that voice with JARVIS and not Vision again. In the end, it was a question of trust: he could trust one, and not the other.
*Well, color me surprised. Not.*, Tony thought as Fury took his leave in a great flap of leather coat like the drama queen he was. Almost word for word from their actual first meeting. Now that the billionaire could think clearly, he could really see the Director of SHIELD being as coy as a stripper with a G-string with his Avengers initiative. A bad one.
The fact that he'd fallen for it the first time around showed that heavy metal poisoning was no joke, and...
"Meow."
Tony looked down to see a somewhat familiar marmalade kitty "Sir, we have another visitor."
"So I see. Scan the house for bugs and disable them, JARVIS. Including on the cat."
Goose huffed slightly.
"Done, sir."
"How many?"
"Ten, Sir. Plus one on the collar tab of the...."
"Flerken, JARVIS. Goose is a Flerken."
Said Flerken looked highly offended, and was pawing it's collar in an irritated manner. Soon enough, there was a minute metallic sound, and a small tentacle grabbed the thing and disappeared in the cat's mouth. There was a slight crunching sound, and...
"Meow."
"Alright, Goose. Yes, I know who and what you are."
"Mreew?"
"Lived through some of the future, was shown the rest after a fashion. My best bud Colonel James Rhodes, will be happy to see Carol again. Yes, I also knew her. Now, to the point: Do you know who Thanos is?"
The Flerken hissed. Obviously, not a fan.
"He's going after the infinity stones for his little depopulation project... And we have two of those, possibly three right now on Earth. So the purple ape is going to show up sooner or later. You game?"
The cat seemed to think about things for a minute or so, and then jumped on the bar, sniffed... And extended a soft and tentative paw toward the blue light in Tony's chest. "Merh?"
"No, that's not the Tessaract. Made after my father's study of it, though. Oh, and while we're on the subject: I know Carol left you in Fury's care, but I guess you're mostly a free agent?"
All cats know how to look smug. It's sort of a feline superpower. One Goose got with the cat suit, obviously.
"I suppose you heard me tell Fury I wouldn't join his boys' band. I'm not going to change my mind; the last time was a disaster. In fact, I'm going to give my best shot at taking SHIELDRA down before they can do more damage. How attached are you to Fury? Considering the collar bugging and all that?"
Goose sort of shrugged. No tentacles, though, so Tony pressed his advantage: "Not going to kill him... Well, unless he tries it first. I just don't want to be his indentured servant. I can propose filet mignon and titanium treats? Even made synthetic vibranium, if you'd care for a taste?"
Ears and whiskers perked up, someone was interested.
"Just offering an alternative, since Fury is all good as long as you work for him without asking questions, but likely to try to kill you as soon as things are not going his way..." Goose sniffed in a disdainful manner."Or Carol. Do you really want to know how many criminals were amongst the *snacks* you had in the Raft? 12%."
The Flerken managed to look a tiny bit guilty... Then suspicious. Tony shrugged.
"Don't believe me? I guess you can go back to SHIELD and do your own investigations. I won't stop you. Just, well, my door is open if you decide to change your base of operation while waiting for Carol to come back."
"Meow."
"So, now that business is done, how about that synthetic vibranium munchie?"
Goose started to purr.