Marvel: I'm a Symbiote-Symbiote 0340: Value

“I still think it would’ve been better for you to have formed a secondary bond with them like the one you have with Felicia,” Laura spoke as she jumped from one rooftop to the next, enjoying the night breeze hitting her face as she moved swiftly.

“Do you think so? I thought that would interfere with their relationship. Their situation is pretty much the same as that of your variant, who’s part of the Widows. Laura and Kamala have a thriving relationship with each other without much intervention from me. They’re doing their own thing, being badass widows, while also satisfying each other emotionally and physically. My presence only makes it so that they keep going.” Alex was moving with her, albeit under a camouflage that only Laura could see through.

“Your presence, Alex, is the only thing keeping those two together.”

“Early on, maybe. But now? They aren’t dependent on me for their emotional needs. If I talked to them regularly, they would form a crutch to rely on me. I can only emotionally invest myself with so many women, you know …”

“I still think a secondary bond would be worthwhile. If I look at it from your pragmatic viewpoint, Laura and Kamala don’t have enough value for you to form a secondary bond with. Agreed. But both Yana and Kitty have enough powers and capabilities that they should be able to benefit you if you form a secondary bond with them. If you give them enough power, they could manage this planet for you. That’s your plan behind secondary bonds, right? Felicia will manage her Earth. That alien woman, Ayesha, is going to manage her planets, Yelena will manage the Widows, and more. These two can manage this planet for you.”

“Why do you want me to be involved with them so badly?” Alex asked. “You’re selling their value to me. Why?”

“…” Laura paused. “I think they’re fun and want to keep in touch with them. If you demote them to a tertiary bond, then they are going to be irrelevant, and I won’t have any reason to meet them once I leave this planet.”

“You can meet whoever you want, Laura.”

“Yeah, but a gap would exist, right? Eventually, that divide would leave them behind, in irrelevance.”

“Fine …” Alex agreed. “It’s not like I wasn’t already considering it. Magic and Kitty are both valuable enough for me to give them more priority. I’ll show up tomorrow when I join Magik. Letting them both enjoy the night of their lives.”

“Thanks, you’re the best.”

“I’ll see if I can convince them to let you join in as well. We can have a nice steamy foursome at that point.”

“Sure … But don’t ruin their relationship …”

“What kind of monster do you take me for?” Alex asked her. “While I’m possessive, I have no plans of putting myself between their relationship. I’m just going to make Kitty more open to Illyana’s idea of opening up their relationship and add myself into the mix while also keeping them together.”

“She did say she wasn’t interested in adding a third party into the mix. Brace yourself,” she said.

Alex grabbed Laura’s arm and jumped up, propelling himself forward with lightning and pulling Laura along with him.

The duo landed on top of the tallest building in the city, the ICC.

“Woah …” Laura balanced herself and blinked at the view she saw, filled with liveliness and lights littering the streets under her.

“Come on, let’s take a seat.” Alex pulled Laura to the edge, and they sat down with their legs dangling over the edge of the building. “Let us continue where we left off.”

“Yeah …” Laura recovered quickly, not completely lost in such views because she was used to seeing them while in Gaia. “Where was I? Yana … She’s interested in adding a third party into the mix while Kitty is the one against it.”

“That means I’ve already won half the game,” Alex said. “With one of them already agreeable to it, as long as I play my cards right, we can get it done, no problem.”

“Good,” Laura nodded. “I’ve already passed the torch to you, now, don’t fuck this up.”

“Although,” Alex said, “I’m a little surprised that you chose this Earth’s Magik and Kitty instead of your Earth’s versions.”

“That’s because they’re dead to me,” Laura said flatly. “All of them are, Alex. The multiverse gives me a new start and other options. My current feelings toward all of them are sheer indifference. That’s more so after meeting that version of Logan on the Hydra-dominated Earth. That guy loves his daughter — the one you’ve kidnapped and sent to fight in a war. That’s why I’m so friendly with Kitty and Yana here. Because I know they’re different yet also the same.”

“They might have some valid reasoning, you know.”

“Maybe. But I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is that they abandoned me. End of story. Their reasons, explanations, and whatever sob story they come up with, they can keep to themselves. I don’t care anymore.”

“You almost sound like you received multiple months’ worth of therapy to get your emotions on track,” Alex said.

Laura turned to look at him with a sly smile. “Let’s go back. She’s probably asleep by now.”

“Let’s give her a few more minutes. She’s currently masturbating violently on her bed, right beside Magik. This is going to be the only time she gets to do that, after all. Once I take control, there’s going to be little autonomy either of them will possess over their bodies. I’ll be making sure any masturbation they do is in each other’s presence.”

“Just don’t fuck things up,” Laura said, shaking her head. “I thought you’d grown out of this orgasm control kink by now.”

“Nah, at this point, I know it’s an unhealthy fetish of mine, wanting to control what pleasure my hosts receive. It’s not going away anytime soon. Of course, I’ve come to terms with it and act with some moderation now compared to how bad I was before when I’d just met you.”

“So, a kink,” Laura said.

“No. Not exactly, at least. A kink is much less … consuming,” Alex said. “I’ll take Felicia’s example. She feels good with pet play. It satisfies her and brings her a sense of calm because of the unconditional love it affords her. She gets to let loose every once in a while and feels that no matter what she does, she will be loved and cared for…like a pet. That’s a kink. A fetish is what I do, keeping her from ever pleasuring or even directly touching her own skin. She has grown to accommodate my fetish and even enjoys the feelings associated with the submission that comes with it. It consumes her life and takes things to the extreme. That is what a fetish is.”

“Control freak …” Laura shook her head.

“That’s just the way I am. Maybe I’ll change in a couple of centuries … Who knows?”

“Well, lucky for you, you keep maintaining that moderation with me. And I like the level of control you maintain over me.”

“You must be burning up inside,” Alex said, pulling Laura closer as his hand slipped closer to her chest. “We haven’t done anything since this morning. Going from two sessions of multiple rounds every day to nothing for the whole day must’ve left you starved.”

“I can manage …” Laura said. “I’m more interested in that date that you promised me.”

“I see.” Alex nodded, regretfully pulling his hand back to rest it on her shoulder. “Tomorrow it is then. While those two have their date, we’ll have our own date.”

“Good boy,” Laura smiled, pleased with herself as she patted his head.

Alex dryly shook his head before standing up, “Let’s go back, she’s already out like a light.”

“Say …” Laura said as she grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled herself up to her feet. “Do you think Kitty can get rid of you by phasing herself? Like, she could try to focus on you and phase herself out of you to get rid of you?”

“Nope,” Alex said. “For one, this Kitty’s powers are magical in nature, having nothing to do with the X-gene and instead relying on her bloodline. That means I can easily interfere and manipulate her magic to make sure I always stay attached to her, even if she tries to get rid of me by phasing herself. Two, even if she had the real X-gene, she wouldn’t be able to phase me away because I am effectively equivalent to her skin. She can’t phase herself through her own skin, right? It’s the same principle.”

“I’m pretty sure that if she really wanted to, she would be able to phase out of her skin. And die moments later.”

“I don’t plan to make her that desperate. In the worst-case scenario, I can use a failsafe and disable her X-gene entirely, turning her into a normal human.”

“You can do that?” Laura looked shocked.

“I am the Apex biological creature, woman. As long as something stems from a person’s biology, I can control it. Why do you think I never bothered to copy your X-gene’s ability? My ‹Biological Manipulation› covers that and much more. I simply needed to understand how it healed you, and boom! I can now heal anyone I want with even greater efficiency than your X-gene.”

“And to think you’ve been terrified of Charles for so long when you could’ve just whizzed into him and disabled his mind powers permanently,” Laura mumbled.

“Well, it’s not that simple,” Alex told her. “While I can disable the gene, I don’t know if I can reactivate it. I’m going to look for a valid test subject at some point, but I would like to not use that ability unless I plan to simply kill the person whose gene I’ve disabled. Not only that, but the process is also complicated. I need to have deep contact with the person to do that. If I wanted to do that to someone without forming at least a tertiary bond with them, I would have to shove myself in through their mouth and then take a couple of minutes to apply the genetic modification to their entire body. In that time, someone like Xavier could not only enter my mind, but he could completely wipe me of my memories if I didn’t have the right defenses.”

“Dangerous …” Laura said. “But you have a failsafe now, right?”

“Yeah. At this point, it’s just a matter of time before I get the blueprints for Magik’s psionic immunity. Then, I’ll do my own rendition of ‘No more telepaths.’ It’s going to be the best …”

“Man, you do you. Just make sure you don’t lose yourself in all these conquests.”

“Of course,” Alex said. “The more time I spend, the more I’m terrified of some cosmic entity just warping everything I care about away from me. That’s my drive. If I don’t have anything to care about, then my drive doesn’t really exist, right?”

“Hm,” Laura nodded faintly before entering Katherine’s apartment through the window as Alex merged into her body.

(A/N: So, there was no mention of this ability to disable the X-gene when Alex was dealing with Emma Frost in the Shang-Chi arc, which, according to the timeline, comes after these events. He didn’t mention it because there was no need to. And he didn’t want to depower Emma Frost just before the battle against Shang Chi.)