"I guess it's a Venom thing…" Gwen commented to a speechless Alex and shrugged her shoulders. She didn't mind the color change.
She jumped out of her window and switched places with Alex's clone that was fighting The Rhino.
She shot her web at two buildings on opposite sides of the street and boosted herself forward, both her feet landing on the chest of the Rhino's armor. Immediately, the armor that wasn't being affected by Alex's weakened punches was broken through and was sent flying as it crashed into a wall, breaking through the concrete.
[How much is my strength boosted?] Gwen asked.
[5 times your base strength.] Alex told her.
[Oh…] Gwen went silent. She hadn't expected things to be over so soon.
ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm "You still alive?" She walked into the rubble and grabbed around the remains of the huge bulky suit that was now in tatters. Eventually, she pulled out the man piloting the Rhino.
[Any other fights going on somewhere, Alex?] Gwen asked as she was completely underwhelmed after practically one-shotting one of her most annoying foes.
[Well, there is a big fight that might be happening in a few days, but I'm not sure whether you want to involve yourself in that fight…] He told her. [I've been monitoring a few people who might be able to help out with Stacy Industries and Tony Stark is one of the best options. We could help him out with his situation and he could help out with establishing Stacy Industries.]
Although he could've just mind-controlled Tony, he didn't know if the billionaire had installed some self-defense mechanism against mind control. Charles was a very popular Omega-level mutant in this version of the Earth and Alex wouldn't put it behind Tony to develop some contingencies against mind manipulation.
[Can I die?] Gwen asked. [Not that I'm scared, but I just want to know the degree of danger.] She clarified.
[With me around? It's impossible for you to die no matter what happens. Even if your entire body is destroyed, I can still put you back together.] He told her with confidence. And he wasn't lying. With Laura's healing factor surpassing Low Cosmic and hitting the actual Cosmic level, he'd been able to understand its working mechanism and how her X-gene stores her genetic record and memories to recreate her entire body perfectly.
After merging with Gwen's skin, he was already able to manipulate Gwen's body to generate an artificial record of her entire existence and that record would bring her back from even having most of her body vaporized. It even surpassed Wolvorine's weakness where at least a tiny piece of flesh was necessary to regenerate. With Alex keeping the recording gene safe within himself, Gwen's or any of his hosts' deaths were essentially impossible without killing Alex first.
It wasn't perfect yet as the recovery effects weren't as good as Laura's healing factor, but it was only for use in case of a worst-case scenario. It was very unlikely that Gwen's entire body would be destroyed under any circumstances, especially after Alex's latest enhancements that made him a nigh impenetrable armor that always covered Gwen's whole body.
[Perfect, let's do it then.] She said excitedly as she wrapped up the Russian prisoner who had been using The Rhino suit to wreak havoc and left him hanging. She swung back to her apartment.
The next few days, Gwen slowly got back to her regular Spider-Woman routine.
She didn't even realize that she was naturally going back to her Spider-Woman ways without feeling any of the pressure that used to come with the job back then. She had never cared about the negative press that she had, but it still stung her a bit. But now, even that minor sting was completely gone.
This break was necessary, but ultimately, it was a temporary thing and she was going to get back to being Spider-Woman eventually. That was just how her psyche worked.
…
A few days later.
"This was a horrible idea!" Gwen screamed as she swung away with missiles chasing after her. With each web that she shot at the buildings, she had to use so much force to propel herself forward that it broke the outer glass of those skyscrapers. [I hate you, Alex!] She screamed mentally too.
[Don't blame me. How was I supposed to know that you're already on his enemy radar? I didn't even know he had an enemy radar…] He said.
[I've got a warrant out for my arrest, Alex! Of course, I'm on his automated hit list.] Gwen realized that the missiles were gaining on her and that just swinging wasn't going to work. So she had to get creative, [Help me aim, Alex…] She aimed her arm behind her and shot the web at one of the missiles. Her aim was way off, but she had an aimbot with the processing power of multiple Quantum supercomputers helping her.
[Hacker…] Alex commented as he made sure that the web struck one of the 4 missiles.
With that, Gwen pulled her arm that was connected to the missile and propelled herself toward it. This action changed her direction and within moments, the three missiles zoomed past her as the one she was connected to was pulled off track due to her swinging over it.
As Gwen noticed the heat-seeking missiles making a turn to start chasing her again, she promptly shot a large number of webs that covered the surface of each of the missiles, disabling them.
Just as she turned around, she noticed that an Iron Man armor was flying toward her, "Fuck…" She realized that Tony Stark had probably come in person.
[It's not him, it's externally manned by his AI butler. As you said, it's an automated hit list. Avoid it and disappear, I'll deal with the aftermath. He can't track my clone back to us.] Alex told her.
"Yeah…" Gwen followed along with Alex's words and maneuvered through some extremely tight spots that were practically impossible for the suit to get through. She fully leveraged her smaller frame and flexibility to ditch the pursuing suit.
"Haah…" She huffed as she was lying on the roof of a random skyscraper while looking upward. She pulled off her mask and spread her arms out while looking at the sky, "That was a horrible idea, Alex."
"Yeah…" She heard him say out loud and turned her head, only to see him lying beside her. His arm snaked under her head and allowed her to use it as her pillow. Gwen moved a little closer to him so that she could comfortably rest her head on his bicep.
"What now?" She said, not really expecting an answer.
"Do you want to try and get to one of the other Earths?" Alex asked her abruptly.
"What?" Her eyes widened as she sat up and looked at him with surprise.
"Yeah, why not?" He looked at her nonchalantly, "We could explore some different places and have some fun, just the two of us."
"I guess, but how would we even get there? I don't think Stacy Industries is successful enough to get its own aerospace division just yet." Gwen said with a little chuckle.
"You can leave that to me." Alex said before continuing, "The question is whether or not you want to go…"
Gwen hesitated, "I guess… I mean, I have so much to deal with here. Just going to another Earth feels like I would be running from my responsibilities."
"You say that like you haven't already been running away from your responsibilities." Alex pointed out with a laugh.
Gwen pouted angrily, "You know what I mean."
"Then take care of things here before we leave. We can always come back." Alex shrugged, "And it's not like I can take you there right now, I need to make some preparations for that anyway."
"Oh…" Gwen said, her tone feeling almost disappointed which made Alex chuckle, "Come on, let's enjoy the view for a bit. We still have to sneak in to meet with Tony."
Gwen lay back on the ground and made herself comfortable, using Alex's arm as her pillow before saying, "Can't we ditch him? He's an alcoholic asshole." Gwen clearly had some distaste toward Tony Stark.
"Sure. It's not really a big deal. It was just a random idea to get a good fight." Alex said nonchalantly.
"I think I'm somewhat getting you…" Gwen said with a melodious chuckle that made Alex look at her side profile in a daze.
"Yeah?" He asked her.
"Yeah…" She trailed off before saying, "How about we take care of my lawyer problem before taking that trip that you were talking about?"
"Sounds like a plan." Alex smiled as he curled his arm, making Gwen's face get smushed into his chest.
She struggled, "Hey!" He didn't relent and hugged her tightly while putting her on top of himself. A while later, Gwen spread her knees and attached them to the ground, straddling him and getting some control over her position.
Suddenly, before she even realized it, Alex had flipped the both of them around and put her under him. As she looked at his face that was hovering less than an inch in front of her face with a teasing smirk, Gwen couldn't help but smile a little, "Hi…" She said.
"Hi…" Alex smiled as he leaned in for a kiss.
Just as his lips touched hers, Gwen's legs tensed and she suddenly flipped both of them around, getting back on top of him.
As she pulled back from his face, she smiled teasingly and said, "Hi…"
"We're going to play it like that, are we?" Alex said with an excited smile as he flipped the two of them over again.
What followed was them both rolling around all over the ground of the roof as they both tried to get a dominant position over the other. Usually, Gwen just accepted Alex controlling the situation, but she was feeling frisky today.
"I win," Alex said as he pinned Gwen under him. He held her arms above her head while his knees were spreading apart her legs, making sure that she couldn't generate any leverage.
"Oh yeah?" Suddenly, Gwen shot a web at a wall on the side and used that as leverage to pull herself just enough that she could get the leverage to flip them over again.
"Now what?" She smiled teasingly as her face hovered above Alex's.
"You're playing a dangerous game, babe…" Alex smiled before flipping them both over again. This time, when Gwen tried to shoot her webs, she wasn't able to. Her eyes widened as she realized that Alex had covered her hands and wrists, making sure that she wasn't able to shoot any webs. Its working was similar to what they both had put on Cindy's hands when they first kidnapped her.
"Hey! No fair…" Gwen pouted.
"You're the one who used your powers first," Alex said as his free hand cupped Gwen's cheek. She wasn't able to reply as he pulled her into a deep kiss.
***
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