Chapter 2797 - Marvel 45

After they had lunch, Susan took an hour-long nap while Apex checked her vitals and noted things down. Once she was up, they resumed their training.

"So what are we going to do now?" Susan asked after getting out of bed.

"Let's start with your thoughts," he said. "What do you think this power entails?"

"I think I can release a burst of force. Forming a rudimentary force field that pushes things back."

"Okay, let's start simple. Try to make a forcefield, but make it stationary. Like a shield."

She nodded, and a faint distortion appeared in the space between her and Apex as everything turned back to normal. "Done."

He nodded and raised his palm before pressing it on the force field. "Do you want to test the limit that this can handle now or later? I believe too much might result in a small backlash."

"I think it's pretty resilient," she said confidently. "Use your full power to punch it."

Apex chuckled at her words. "My full force punch can break a planet in half, Sue," he said. "You don't want me to do that here."

"You're exaggerating, I don't believe it," she scoffed. "You're a slime. How can you possibly generate such unrealistic strength?"

He didn't say a word and started slowly pushing her force field. Within seconds, a slightly strained look appeared on her face as his smile widened.

"Okay, okay. I give," she suddenly made the construct disappear. "I felt like I was being crushed from all sides. This is crazy."

"This means that these force fields are limited by your physical ability," he said. "We will add an hour of physical training to our daily roster now."

She gave him a dirty look and sat down on the bed. "What training are you going to have me do for the force fields?"

"As I understand it, these are limited to your imagination. If, instead of making a rigid wall, you made something stretchable, I wouldn't have it so easy to break through. Plus, a high-momentum projectile could also be more easily blocked by such a construct. You get my point?"

"Imagination…I got it," she nodded.

"I don't think you got it," he said. "If you have fine control over this, you can project a force field inside someone's body and give them an embolism. Hell, if you can control shapes, you can just stab someone with an invisible spike. And that's just the basic stuff. At a higher level, you can interfere with any frequency spectrum because your force fields originate from hyperspace. You could turn someone else invisible, block electromagnetic waves, and tons of more stuff."

"Easy there, Apex," she said teasingly. "Let's take things slow at first, okay? I can't even imagine how all that stuff would work right now."

"Though what's all this about hyperspace?" She asked. "You've mentioned it a couple of times."

"If you think of our reality as a two-dimensional plane comprising space and time, Hyperspace can be visualized like another plane overlaying on top of ours. It is a different dimension where the laws of physics are all different. There, you can surpass the speed of light without the side effect of travelling through time. But that's not important. What is important is that Hyperspace is the true source of almost all your powers. Both your physique and your psionic construct creation are dependent on Hyperspace. The only variable here is your ability to control ambient cosmic energy. That has nothing to do with Hyperspace and was all because of that cosmic storm."

"Is there anything you don't know about?" She asked.

"Lots of things. For example, I don't know what you want to have for dinner today."

"Very funny," she said. "I'm going to start hurling shapes at you now. This room won't get destroyed, will it?"

"Even if you exert yourself to unconsciousness, this room still wouldn't get a single scratch," he said before walking back and sitting down on the couch. "You can go all out."

"The sheer disrespect," she scoffed at him. "I'll make you regret underestimating me."

"For the time being, we are in completely different leagues, Sue. Until your powers develop to the level of interfering with metaphysical forces, you can't trouble me."

With an angry snort, she waved her arm at him. Alex simply raised a finger and tapped it in the air, releasing a sheet of black that shot forward and wrapped itself around the square that Sue had created, stopping it in its path and making her grunt uncomfortably.

"Imprecise," he said. "Look at the edges, the corners. It all needs to be well-defined to have any real integrity. How will you hone your control if you half-ass your constructs? Again."

With a grunt, she shot another projectile at him. As he tapped his finger and blocked, she immediately released another, and another. She kept going as Apex calmly blocked every single one of her attacks. If that wasn't bad enough, he was commenting on every single projectile that he blocked.

"Bad, bad, bad, are you trying to throw a piece of clay at me? Put some thought into the shapes that you create. It won't take me much effort to crush one of them, and then the backlash will probably leave you with a headache and a bleeding nose."

"Ugh!" She angrily hurled a massive force field at him, making him raise a brow as he stopped it directly with his finger.

"Not too bad…now we just need to teach you to have that kind of an output without pushing your heart rate above one-sixty," he said with a glance at the heart monitor.

"You're being purposefully infuriating," she said.

"Because you said your powers were triggered by anger. I'm trying to play into those emotions and make you push your powers even further," he said. "Would you like another demonstration of just how far you can take your force fields?"

"After that stunt you pulled this morning, no chance in hell," she snapped at him. "Help me make the objects more precise if you're going to do anything. I'm not letting you take control over my powers just yet."

"At least there is a chance in the future. Let's continue."

They spent the next few hours training until Susan was too exhausted to do anything, at which point she went to sleep for a bit while Alex left her alone to get dinner.

…

Once dinner was over, Apex left Susan with two bookshelves filled with books from all sorts of genres and whatever else she could have wanted, which included a larger armchair than the one he'd made before and a second blanket that was made to custom size.

She was focused on browsing the books on the shelf, even as he left, giving him a half-hearted good night.

'Okay, it seems that he didn't notice…' She thought to herself as she grabbed one of the books that she'd requested he bring her from her personal collection. From the cover, it was a psychology book delving into the psyche of the human mind when processing grief, but opening it, the name was completely different behind the hard cover.

"All right, no turning invisible with this around. Don't want to accidentally set the pages on fire," she held the book under her arm and grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator, which she had to do some pleading to get him to install. It was nothing more than an icebox filled with enough ice to last a few days, but it did the job, keeping her drinks cool.

With all that done, she discarded the hospital gown, throwing it on the bed before getting into the chair and covering herself up with the blanket. One of her hands slipped under the blanket while with the other she opened the book to a previously bookmarked page. Considering the ease with which she was handling the book with a single hand, she seemed to have quite a lot of experience doing exactly this.

She seemed to make a point to not make enough sounds, which made Alex inside her crackle up all the more. He was enjoying every attempt of hers as she tried to suppress her reactions to touching herself while reading the erotic, smutty story that seemingly had quite a heavy domination and bondage theme. Or at least the scene that she was reading seemed to have that purpose.

'I'm sure there were lots of lonely nights after being with workaholics like Reed and Doom, but no longer. I'll help you live through all of these bondage and domination stories that you seem to find guilty pleasure in reading.'

He didn't stop her or even tease her about it, and let her freely do her thing. There would be time for that later, when he reminded her that the chair she was sitting on and the blanket she was using to cover herself were all made of his body, allowing him to know exactly what she was doing while sitting on it. Naturally, he made sure that whatever release she brought herself to would be unsatisfactory and leave her craving more so that she would do this every night.

-x-X-x-

In the meantime, as Alex was slowly making his way closer to getting inside Susan Storm's metaphorical pants, there was a significant event about to occur on Earth-Z.

Almost a year had passed in what remained of North America since Alex brought the widows to the planet. The reason it was limited to North America had to do with both the limits of the fragmented Time Stone and the limits that Alex had in channeling its power. Unlike simpler planets like Farm and Research Earths, there were true cosmic horrors on Earth-Z—some of whom Alex still wasn't sure he could take care of without tapping into Wanda's Source of Chaos and his Infinity Stones. That was why he limited the influence of the time dilation to the North American continent, where the Widows primarily operated. The dilation factor was also not as insane as that of the two Gaia planets, limited to one day outside being equivalent to a month inside. The biggest reason for that limitation was the ‹Eldritch Class› abomination of North America. The huge eye abomination that held an eerie resemblance to the eye demons in the previous Chaos Dimension was the most problematic. Which was understandable. It had instantly repelled Jane and would have killed her if not for Alex, despite the powers that she held.

In the year that had passed on the continent, the number of Alex's Black Widows had grown to a staggering five hundred members. Though four hundred of those were still young trainees, with most of them being ten years old, and fifty of them were practically infants. They had since stopped taking new applicants because training any more wasn't feasible with their experienced personnel being limited to merely a hundred.

While the widows had limited their expansion due to focusing on quality over quantity, their settlement was the complete opposite. The Prime Bastion, as Alex liked to call it, had aggressively expanded over the past year under the protective umbrella of the widows and the floating island of The Sanctuary. With a virtually impenetrable line of defence and an endless supply of resources from multiple planets, they had undoubtedly flourished immensely. The Widows had already cleared most of the surrounding areas of abominations, making sure that none of them came anywhere close to their settlement. That meant the widows were free to focus on training the new recruits while slowly being corrupted by the tentacle monster that pretended to be their suits. While that had reduced Alex's continued flow of EP, he wasn't too heartbroken about that. Earth-Z was never going to be a sustainable source of EP for him. That honor went to the special prison on Farm Earth. Of course, there was the occasional assassination or kidnapping operation that he had the Widows run for him in Gaia when he wanted something done and didn't want to do it himself. These things kept the women sufficiently occupied.

However, that didn't mean that the presence of the Widows had disappeared from the settlement. There was now a dedicated exploration team of the settlement separate from the Widows that was focused on locating new settlements and migrating their population into The Prime Bastion. That was where the Widows showed up. Such a migration always attracted a large number of abominations that were mostly dealt with by them. It both established their prestige in the eyes of the newcomers and made sure that the migration went smoothly without any accidents. After all, the exploratory team neither had combatants on the level of the Widows, nor did they have the benefit of Alex helping them from behind the scenes.

Over time, despite having some reservations, Yelena had come to love her job as the leader of the widows. Not only that, she was very good at it. But after spending a year in a desolate wasteland, some of them were getting jumpy and agitated. After all, Alex wasn't completely brainwashing them and was simply giving them some bonus comforts in life. That led to a significant number of them asking for a small vacation from all this stuff. They wanted to go home.

In the main control room of the flying fortress now dubbed The Sanctuary, Alex and Yelena sat on opposite ends of her desk. She wore her usual skin-tight black combat suit with prominent glowing red lines all over it like a circuit— the five prominent lines on the choker around her neck and the cuffs of her suit representing her status as the Deputy Commander. Her hair was loosely hanging from her shoulders as she looked over the applications of over thirty-five widows who wanted a break from all this and wanted to splurge some of the money that had been promised to them for going on this mission in the first place.

"Oh my god, this is such a pain," she suddenly groaned and leaned back with her hands tightly covering her face. "How am I supposed to let thirty-five widows walk away for a month. Who is going to take care of their responsibilities? We have four hundred children to take care of, and barely a hundred nannies."

"That's what you're reducing the widows to? Glorified nannies?" Alex asked her as he stood up and approached her.

"I kept telling you to stop after we crossed two hundred recruits, but you kept pushing for expansion. Of course, it's a problem."

"If I'd stopped, I would've never found Irene. Do you have any idea how useful her powers can be if cultivated correctly?"

"That is, if there is someone present to cultivate those powers. You're nothing more than a voice in her head, and don't even show up in front of the widows. I'm the one dealing with all that."

"As much as I would like to help you, I can't be fully hands-on with everything," he said, holding her hand and making her stand up. "We've spent a year developing an appropriate authority hierarchy for the widows. I don't want to ruin all that by actively involving myself with the day-to-day administration stuff."

"Can't you at least do some of the nanny work for the kids? Even just the basic stuff like giving them modifiable clothes."

"Nope," he refused while wrapping her arm around her waist and holding her tightly to himself. "My only physical connection to them is going to be limited to the choker until they turn eighteen. Personal rule. You know how my outfit creation works. That is a hard limit for me. Plus, if the widows are the ones raising them, they will make sure that the girls are more than just brainwashed soldiers. That's the whole reason we added all those amenities to make sure that they get to have a fulfilling childhood."

"You're right… I would hate myself if these girls had to go through what we went through as widows," she nodded, putting her forehead on Alex's shoulder and lightly rubbing her nose on his neck. "But that still doesn't change the fact that I cannot have the widows leave like this. Once I approve these applications, there will be more of them to come. I think it's time to start rolling out those incentives that you were talking about."

"Yeah, I guess we can officially roll out the Gaia Credit system for them," Alex nodded while leading her forward. He sat down in Yelena's seat and had her sit on his lap.

"I think you should release Gaia for them as well," she said, snuggling closer to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Her system is pretty robust already. It shouldn't be any issue. Plus, they get to have an AI to help them handle things that they don't understand about having you as a suit."

"No, Gaia's not ready for supernatural stuff just yet," he said, putting his hand in her hair and lightly massaging her scalp. "I'm considering an update for her before I make her more widespread among my forces."

"Just don't lose control of your AI..." Yelena felt pleasure from his scalp massage and moaned lightly. "I've seen enough Terminator movies to know how that ends."

"You barely need to watch ten minutes of the first movie to get that idea."

"You get my point."

"I know, don't worry about it," he said as his other hand made its way to her butt. "Now, announce a meeting for all widows. I'll explain the system to you while they gather."

"Can you explain things while we have sex real quick?" She asked with an aroused expression. "It's been a few hours since we've done it."

"You're becoming more and more of a nymphomaniac, you know that?" He teased her. "I'll have a lot of fun one day when you fuck up and I put you in a cage to deny you any pleasure for a few weeks."

"One, it's your fault for making me addicted to all this pleasure. And two, never gonna happen," she said. "If you try to unfairly treat me like that, I will complain to my sister."

"Always the Nat card…" Alex sighed with amusement as he turned Yelena around and pushed against the desk as her uniform retracted into her collar. He grabbed her ponytail in a rough grip and pulled her head back before pushing himself into her, making her moan loudly.

-x-X-x-

An hour later, the hundred official Widows and almost two hundred trainees who were older than ten years were all gathered in the main atrium at the heart of The Sanctuary, which was built after remodelling the old fortress to resemble a somewhat more open compound that would make things seem a little less mechanical and soulless. Of course, the structural integrity had no compromises despite the slight renovations, and the fortress could still comfortably fly in the stratosphere.

Yelena stood atop the stage to address the three hundred something widows.

"We have spent almost a year on this planet now. I understand that some of you undoubtedly wish to go back home, as is your right. But naturally, I can't just send you all back instantly and leave The Sanctuary understaffed. Which is why I am now going to introduce our new currency system for you all. Gaia Credits are the currency that is widely used by all planets that join the Gaia Federation. You are already aware that the entity that backs us is the leader of the Gaia Federation. He has decided that we will be incorporated into that system as well from now on. While others require special devices to interface with that system, your chokers have it built into them. The number should appear in the corner of your vision and become clear if you try to focus on it, similar to how your progress bars used to appear when we had daily abomination quotas."

As she paused, the crowd started murmuring; it was mostly the kids responsible for that, but the widows were also sharing silent looks after focusing on their numbers.

"The experienced among you already have some credits allocated to you. These are indicative of everything that you have done while on this planet. Killing abominations, going on escorting missions, training the new recruits, and more. Everything has a certain number of credits that are given to you after you successfully complete your task. These credits can be exchanged for money, perks, special things, and more. Just for reference, a single credit has a value of ten thousand US dollars. Every credit is very valuable. I will share the exchange list with you all soon, but I will be telling you about some of the prominent things beforehand. Any questions for now?"

"Will I have to pay with my credits if I want to go home?" One of the women asked with a frown. She was one of the ones who were lobbying the hardest for a vacation.

"No, as long as your credits cross a certain threshold, you may return home, but that return quota will be limited to those who have the highest credits among the applicants. I can't afford any more than ten widows to leave at a time. Of course, if you are really desperate, you can pay to be able to exceed the quota, but don't get your hopes up for that; the number is higher than any of your current Gaia Credits. Finally, you will temporarily lose the privileges of your suit if you choose to return. It will serve as a simple black choker at that time, just like it does for the girls. Anything else?"

"Is this like a cryptocurrency? How does this work?"

"It's a central currency used all over the two primary planets in Gaia. The dollar value comparison I gave you is dependent on its buying power there."

"How would I get my credits converted to dollars if I choose?"

"Some select banks will have representatives from Gaia who can access their system. They will be able to help you convert your credits to dollars if you choose to return. Though I will discourage doing that unless you need to. Credits have a lot more value than just ten thousand dollars for us."

"Is there some kind of reward chart that tells me how many credits I get for what tasks? What about a statement of transactions?"

"The payment chart will be shared with you alongside the full exchange list. The credits are added automatically by the rudimentary onboard AI that your chokers possess."

"For how long can I go home on my quota?"

"For one month every year, regardless of how many points you possess."

There were a few more similar questions that Yelena patiently answered before moving on.

"Since no one has any more questions. I will introduce the first special item that you can exchange for credits. The Revital serum. A single dose can pause your biological clock for one year."

"What?!" One of the Widows lost her composure and exclaimed. With her, the murmurs resumed—much more prominent. The widows were the ones who were excitedly discussing with each other.

"Calm down, I haven't introduced the price yet. Its production costs are astronomical, so we can't just give it away for free. So, if you do want it, you will have to pay with twenty-five thousand Gaia Credits. Plus, for now, there will be a limited quota of fifty doses for this year to be divided among almost a hundred of you. The kids have no need for this stuff just yet. Another thing, this hasn't yet been released to the public in Gaia, but when it does, it will be priced at at least a million credits, equivalent to ten billion dollars. Even the richest of the rich will have to sacrifice a limb if they want this serum."

"That's more than what I made in the past year, Miss Yelena," one of the widows said. "But if I choose to buy it, then what about my return quota? Will I still be able to go back?"

"If you fall below twenty thousand credits, your eligibility to go home is revoked," she said. "Of course, you can buy the serum after coming back. I won't stop you."

"Is this serum reusable?" One of the Widows asked.

"Yes," Yelena nodded. "Virtually, as long as Gaia has the resources to keep making this serum, we could indefinitely pause aging for every single one of you."

"Currently, we have cleared out most of the abominations in the surrounding areas. Logically, they should be the highest sources of these Gaia Credits for us," another widow said. "Without them as our enemies, how are we supposed to earn enough to sustain such consumption?"

"Glad you asked," Yelena smiled, making the widow shuffle. "One of the ways to earn points is hands-on mentoring. Instead of taking turns teaching everyone generally, every single one of you will randomly be assigned four of the new recruits. Those girls, whether infants, adolescents, or anything in between, will be your responsibility. Every month, they will go through a comprehensive evaluation. Their physical stats, their personalities, their happiness and satisfaction, everything will be evaluated and rated by the onboard AI on the chokers. Based on that evaluation, you will be given a generous number of credits. You will all share a reference document of dos and don'ts to teach and train your wards. If the evaluation of your trainees is satisfactory, then you will have enough points to buy the serum when the next lot comes in. Below satisfactory, you won't be able to afford it. Exceptional, and you will be able to afford both the serums and everything else in the special items tab in the exchange list."

"What if we get a mission? Do we have to take the kids with us?" Another widow asked.

"That's up to you, but keep in mind that it will impact your rating. If you take your ward or wards, your rating might increase or decrease depending on whether they are ready to witness such an experience or not. At the same time, if you choose to leave them here, your rating will also be impacted, depending on whether you've made appropriate arrangements for them. Your rating will also factor in your intent. You have to genuinely care about the well-being of your wards if you wish to receive a good rating at the end of each month.

"Can we choose our own wards? What if we are attached to one of the girls?"

"That will be taken into consideration when the girls are all assigned. We want to give everyone a fair chance at getting a satisfactory or above rating. That means a mix of the problem children and the smart ones. If any of you have a genuine issue with the wards you get assigned, you can appeal to me."

"Can we take our wards to Earth? Our…Earth."

"Yes, you can. But you will be the one having to explain to them why they can't stay there forever when you come back."

Once Yelena answered a few more questions, everyone, including her, was assigned their respective trainee widows. With how deeply Alex observed everyone connected to him—even his tertiary hosts like the widows—and the huge amount of processing power he possessed, it was child's play for him to assign the best possible wards for every widow. At the same time, Yelena was assigned some of the extras who held more importance than trainees, but also weren't official widows. Kamala, Laura, and Irene. These three were going to have Yelena take care of them.

-x-X-x-

Yelena was now back in her office with Alex nowhere to be seen, and three young girls aside from her.

"I don't get it. Why do we need a handler?" Kamala asked with her arms crossed as she stood in front of Yelena. She was still tethered to Laura, who silently stood at her side with her arms crossed as well.

As for Irene, she was sitting on Yelena's comfortable leather chair while licking a lollipop. The past six months since she'd joined the widows had been the best months of her life, and she had gone from the timid, confused, and scared twelve-year-old girl to a carefree thirteen-year-old who, while appreciating what she had, knew what she was worth. Of course, such a transformation couldn't happen in six months without the voice of Apex in her head, encouraging her all the time. And even now, there were hints of her old, timid self in her when she was forced to confront someone—even if they were her own age.

"Because you are still trainees," Yelena said to Kamala. "You have not completed your training yet and are still trainees. Hence, you need someone to take care of you."

"But we're already adults. We don't need someone to babysit us," Kamala said.

"I won't be babysitting you. I don't have that kind of time, while I do everything else. The only one I'm going to babysit is Irene. You two will have the freedom and privacy to do whatever you wish as long as you completely follow my training regimen."

"Are you going to send Laura and Kamala away?" Irene suddenly asked, making Yelena stumble over her words.

"We are going to need to work on you speaking your mind without thinking, Irene," Yelena said. "Your precognition can be dangerous."

"But if I didn't tell you about it, I would've forgotten about it," she said.

"What do you mean by that?" Yelena frowned.

"I'll tell you in a little bit," she said cryptically.

Yelena looked slightly confused and slightly creeped out before turning back to Laura and Kamala, who were looking at her with doubts.

"Yes, I'm sending you away for a bit. You will be going back to your Earth," she said. "Apex's last communication with me included information about what was to be done about you both. For the time being, you will be going back to your planet. Since Hydra has been wiped out, they are still working on rebuilding things there. Your presence there will have a significant impact."

"We get to go home?" Kamala said with disbelief. "I thought that we would never get the chance. Laura! We're going to go home!" She exclaimed before hugging her closest friend in the world.

"What about Apex?" Laura asked with a slight smile on her face as she patted Kamala's back. "You said that the suits will be temporarily decommissioned if we go to another planet."

"You won't lose the suit," Yelena said. "Both the suit and the tether stay along with all of your abilities. Not to mention, you will return to us at some point, so there shouldn't be any problems with that."

"That's good," Laura seemed to calm down.

"So, you two can go back to your rooms and pack the stuff that you want to take back home."

"Okay!" Kamala nodded excitedly before dragging Laura out of the room.

Yelena now turned back to Irene. "Are you going to tell me now?" She asked Irene.

"What?" the girl asked, confusedly.

"You said that you would tell me about something in a bit. What were you going to tell me about?"

"I don't remember…" she frowned before her expression shifted as if she was listening to a voice in her head. "Oh! That. I got it. I forget whatever visions I get after thirty seconds."

"Does that have to do with your power…?" Yelena asked confusedly.

"No, Mr. Apex says that the mind is like a computer, and memories are like a storage drive. If I kept all my visions in my mind, I would eventually forget my real memories and lose my sense of self— whatever that means. So whenever I get a vision or a dream, he removes it from my mind after thirty seconds to make sure that it doesn't impact me in the long run."

"That seems unhealthy and dangerous."

[It's not. Her visions come spontaneously and are like dreams. All I do is make sure that she forgets those visions like one does for their dreams. Precognition is a very dangerous power for one's mind. Eventually, they won't remember the difference between reality and their visions. Leading to their memories being a different reality. I don't want Irene to go through any of that. Plus, if she wants to eventually learn how to manually look into a certain person's future, she needs to have a robust and powerful consciousness.]

"Mr. Apex told you, right?" Irene asked Yelena. "That's why he removes the memories."

"Since he knows what he's doing, I won't contest it," she nodded. "Are you—"

"Something very large is going to happen soon," Irene suddenly interrupted Yelena. "A war… Against a Bastion."

Yelena frowned. "Are you talking about the Bastion on the other side of the country?"

[Seriously, Irene. You have got to stop spoiling my surprises like this. You are supposed to predict stuff that might surprise me. Not stuff that I'm about to do.]

"I can't help it, Mr. Apex," she said. "I just speak what I see."

"A war? Yelena said to the air. "What's going on?"

[Irene, you can go back to your room for now and have fun with your friends. We won't be doing any training today. I need to have a serious talk with Miss Yelena that has to do with the upcoming conflict.]

"Are people going to get hurt?" she asked while standing up from Yelena's chair and putting her lollipop inside her mouth.

[Some of them might, yes. But you can rest assured that nothing bad will happen.]

"Okay…" She nodded and took small steps out of the room. As she left, Alex materialized in front of Yelena.

"A war?" She asked him, crossing her arms.

"First off, let me tell you a little story, okay?" Alex said. "A story about a woman named Laura Kinney."

"The kid that you're sending back home?"

"Another version. Older. The Laura Kinney of this reality. At one point in her life, she was kidnapped and imprisoned. Her wardens were sadistic guards who treated her like a dangerous feral animal, using catchpoles clamped around her neck. Do you know why they did that? Because they were extracting her bone marrow. Every single moment for years, her bone marrow was constantly being extracted as her healing factor regenerated it. She couldn't even kill herself and was forced to live with the constant and endless inhumane pain of having her bone marrow extracted without any sedatives. All for what? A healing medicine that had the power to barely hold back the infection of the abominations."

"Was it…"

"The Bastion," Alex nodded. "I was the one who broke her out. And she is coming here to destroy every single one of the people responsible for her misery. My Black Widows will stand beside her." He cupped her cheek and stepped closer to her. "You will stand beside her. You are all my valkyries, an unstoppable sword that will bring ruin to all my enemies. Killing abominations was never your purpose. You are the valkyries of the Apex Empire, and I will not have you falter in front of a measly Bastion."

"Apex Empire?" Yelena said as a faint smile appeared on her face, but there was a different emotion in her eyes. A budding fury that demanded an explanation. "You love the Apex theme for everything, don't you?"

"The Gaia Federation was always going to be a temporary thing. Gaia will be the central AI that governs my Empire, and that's all. What I've shown the world is merely a public beta version."

"What about your currency? You gonna call them Apex credits after a while?"

"Probably not. I want something that sounds more capitalist and less dystopian. Apex credits or dollars are a little unimaginative. I'll come up with something later," he said. "My point is. Are you in, Yelena? You are the sole general of the Widows right now. Once Irene matures and grows up sufficiently, you two can be co-generals. With her precognition and your strategizing, the Widows will be my unstoppable sword."

"I'll have to brush up on The Art of War…" She said before a threatening expression appeared on her face. "But if you think you are going to treat us like weapons… so help me god."

"You very well know that I won't be doing that," he said. "The widows will have a life. They will have the honor of being the most prestigious force of my empire."

"You know… every single widow's initial demand was for the fighting to stop… For them to be something more than just weapons in a war," Yelena said. "But now… after a year working for you. I'm pretty sure that most of them are going to change their minds."

"That's because, unlike the Red Room…unlike Hydra…I don't treat them like objects."

"You've treated me like an object on more than one occasion," she quipped.

"That's different," he said as a smile appeared on his face. "And a lot of your soldiers enjoy being treated like objects in that way. As long as it is temporary and limited to role-play. Just like you. You've gone on missions on Gaia. You've seen both planets with your eyes. You've seen the difference that your actions have made, even more than the other widows. Look into my eyes and tell me truthfully that you are against my true plan for the Widows."

"I can't, okay?" She said, suddenly getting agitated. "I know almost all of them are hollow and empty women without any sense of purpose in life. Being your Black Widows gives them purpose. It gives them confidence and a reason to continue living. To…not give in to the void that their experiences in the Red Room left in their hearts. I know all of that. I know all of that intimately because I'm the same way. You give me purpose, Apex."

"And that terrifies you," he completed for her. "Why is that?"

"Because I'm scared of being abandoned," she suddenly shouted with a cracking voice. "Of being discarded like a disposable weapon by an immortal alien emperor with too big an ambition for his own good. I don't care about doing good or bad. That was beaten out of me when I was five. I care about my purpose."

"And I will be your purpose until the end of time, my Yelena," Alex said, hugging her as she buried her teary face in his shoulder. "I am immortal. Period. My empire will last for eternity, and my valkyries, my Black Widows, will be by my side for all of that eternity."

"You promise?" She looked up and asked with a cracking nasal voice. "I'll do all the bad things you want me to do, but you can never abandon me."

"Abandon you?" Alex smiled, cupping her cheek and wiping her tears away with his thumb. "Yelena, I may be willing to let a couple of the widows go after they give enough back to me, but unlike them, you are permanently stuck with me. You can try escaping me, betraying me, or whatever else. I will never abandon you. I may, however, send you to my special prison if you do something like that. You know, just for a couple of years to help you clear your rebellious thoughts out of your mind."

"Should I consider this a proposal?" She asked. "Now that you've finally revealed things."

"Now? You were mine the day I fucked you in all your holes in the name of healing you," he said before pulling her face close and kissing her roughly.

When he separated from her, there was a glint of desire in Alex's eyes as he looked at Yelena as if she were someone whom he wanted to devour. He stepped back from her and placed his hands on her shoulders to create some distance between them. Before she voiced her complaints, he tightened his grip on her left shoulder and pulled her clothes off. It all got absorbed into his hand, leaving her naked aside from black high heels and a black choker that had five red lines going through it alongside two identical pairs of cuffs for her wrists and ankles that also had the same five glowing red lines on them. He took in her glorious naked form with an appreciative expression as his hand moved up and cupped her perky breast, teasing her nipple with his finger and thumb as she showed an impatient expression but otherwise kept her arms on her sides.

"Good girl," he praised her while toying with her breasts degradingly. "You're mine, right, Yelena?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Hm?" A sharp look crossed Alex's eyes that made the blonde spy shiver.

"Yes, sir. I am yours."

"And you know how much I like obedience, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's my girl," he said, letting go of her breast and cupping her cheek, rubbing his thumb along her lips. "Now, I want you to go to your room and kneel by the door while waiting for me."

"But the—" A single raised finger from Alex made her stop her words immediately.

"My Yelena only speaks when given permission," he said. "Did I give you permission to speak?"

"No, sir," she said with a trembling voice.

"Exactly. Now, you are to walk through this hall naked and go to your room to wait for me. Understood?"

"Yes, sir…" She wanted to resist, but the words were stuck in her throat.

"Let me add a little challenge to it," his eyes took a sadistic look that gave Yelena an ominous feeling in her chest. It came true moments later as Alex formed two nipple clamps on his hands. If that wasn't enough, both clamps had bells attached to them. As he picked one of the clamps up, the bell's chime rang through the otherwise silent room. She didn't say anything until he grasped one of her already erect nipples and attached the clamp as it continued chiming. She hissed and lightly wiggled as the tight clamp pinched her nipple painfully, only for the sensations to amplify as Alex did the same for her other nipple. "Give me a twirl, honey."

She bit her lower lip as her juices dripped from her pussy before raising her hands slowly higher and emphasizing her figure. She gave him a seductive look before slowly turning on her heel, giving Alex a beautiful view of her inviting body.

"That's my most obedient Widow," Alex smiled and cupped her cheek before giving her a brief kiss on her lips. Now go. And try not to let others hear the chiming of the bells. It would be embarrassing to explain if one of the kids saw you like this, wouldn't it?"

Yelena gave him a knowing smile. After a year together, she was well aware of Alex's system of making her feel like she was taking a risk of exposing herself while there was zero risk of anything of the sort happening. Though this understanding had never been verbalized and stayed implicit. With a nod, Yelena stepped past Alex while invitingly swaying her naked hips and ass as she left the room, letting the door automatically close behind her.

…

Alex came into Yelena's bedroom hours later and was pleased by what he saw. His blonde spy was still obediently kneeling on the floor, with her legs spread apart just enough to give a glimpse of her wet entrance, and her hands placed flatly on top of her thighs as she looked down without any movements, even as he came up. Even if she was mad about being left hanging for hours, she didn't show any of it outwardly. The presence of the clamps on her nipples, along with the choker on her neck and the cuffs on her wrists and ankles, only amplified the satisfaction that Alex felt after seeing her there.

"You've been good, Yelena," he praised while stepping close enough until he was standing directly in front of her. "Look up at me."

The blonde woman looked up with a submissive expression that clearly conveyed her desires to Alex. She wanted him to own her.

"Since you are in such a submissive mood today, I'm going to test the limits of your obedience." he put his hand on her head and rubbed her hair as one would do for a pet. At the same time, two parts of him separated from his hands and gathered her hair into pigtails. "As our usual sessions go, there will be no safewords, no grunts to convey refusal, and no speech. You will have to trust that I know how far you can be pushed. Now open your mouth."

She nodded and slowly opened her mouth, yet making sure to convey that it wasn't out of hesitation, but instead excitement. Alex smiled and put his finger into her mouth to tease her tongue. Copious amounts of her drool spilled all over her chin and continued downward, covering her breasts in a slightly shiny sheen. Once he was satisfied with teasing her tongue, Yelena felt something wrap around her tongue and hold it in place outside her mouth. At the same time, the item expanded into her mouth, forcing her to open her mouth even wider as it nestled itself behind her teeth, going all the way back into her mouth and keeping it open. Nothing wrapped around her head to hold the gag in place, yet it was impossible for her to push it out, no matter how much she tried. She doubted that she would be able to remove it even if her hands were free.

"I had this strapless invisible ring gag in mind for a while," Alex said as he ran his fingernail along Yelena's tongue that had been forcefully extended out of her mouth by the gag. "It looks much hotter when your mouth is forced open for seemingly no reason at all."

She responded with a grunt and wiggled her tongue at him, trying to convey her needy emotions with her eyes.

"First, I want you to drink this," he said with a glint in his eyes as he pushed his finger into her mouth. She felt a liquid being released from his finger that tasted identical to orange juice, making her confused.

She grunted at him in confusion as the liquid directly went down her throat and into her belly while intermittently stopping to let her breathe.

"Just to make sure that you're sufficiently hydrated," he said with a harmless and disarming smile that had the opposite effect on Yelena, making her more on guard. The orange juice only stopped pouring down her throat once she felt that the liquid was sloshing all around her belly.

She just looked at him with confusion shining in her eyes as he pulled his finger out of her mouth.

"You'll know soon enough," he said. "For now, let me introduce the bindings we will use today. If they can even be called that."

"Hu?" She looked up at him with confusion and saw him produce sheets of paper out of nowhere, along with a stapler. It only made her further confused as all sorts of thoughts ran through her head.

"I will use these flimsy pieces of paper to bind you," he said. "I want to test your resolve today, my Yelena. I want to see if you can truly give yourself into the mindset of being completely submissive to me. I will frustrate you, embarrass you, and deny you, but when you finally achieve release, it's going to be special."

Yelena's eyes were full of skepticism, but it wasn't like she had a choice as Alex gestured for her to stand up. She obeyed and slowly stood up while looking straight into his eyes for the entire time.

"Step back," Alex placed his palm on her abdomen and made her take two steps back. The bells attached to her nipple clamps chimed as she found herself flush against a pole that went parallel to her spine. As she tried to turn her head to see the pole, Alex held her face and made her continue looking at him. "Keep it in mind. If any of the papers break, this session is over. Nod if you understand."

She nodded as Alex kissed her nose before moving to her lips and gently nibbling at her tongue with his teeth. She didn't notice his hands moving, but as his teeth distracted her, he slipped a blindfold over her eyes that immediately robbed her of all vision. As usual, it extended down to her ears and entered them to form a snug set of earplugs, robbing her of her hearing as well.

Suddenly, everything became much more vivid in her mind. The feeling of Alex's breath on her skin. The occasional sensation of her saliva dripping down her chin to her chest, as it continued trailing down her belly. The numbness in her nipples that had only become more prominent after spending hours with those clamps on her. Countless thoughts started going through her head about Alex's next actions, and the anticipation made her impatient and even more aroused.

Suddenly, she felt Alex taking hold of her wrists and bringing them together. She felt him wrapping the paper sheet around her bare skin and felt a sudden jolt of pleasure assault her abdomen and chest. The thought of having to prove her submissiveness to him turned her on more than she had realized. Once he wrapped the piece of paper around both her wrists, she vaguely sensed him stapling them together. As she tried to move her arms away from each other, she felt a flimsy resistance that she knew she could break through instantly. But she didn't.

He then pushed her wrists up above her head, holding them up against the pole. He seemed to step even closer to her, such that his breath was directly caressing her face, leaving a faintly ticklish sensation. As he let go of her wrists, she felt a very flimsy resistance when she tried to move her wrists, as if it would break with the slightest sign of struggle.

Within seconds, she felt the sensation of struggle in keeping her wrists above her head while they were tied to such flimsy restraints. She was used to firm, unbreakable restraints that Alex created. Dealing with such a restraint was a whole new experience for her.

As Alex placed his hands on her waist, she suddenly trembled and jerked, dangerously straining the paper restraints holding her wrists together.

'This might be harder than I'd thought it would be…'

-x-X-x-

Yelena stood flush against a pole with her hands tied together and held to it by flimsy pieces of paper stapled together. It was already hard for her not to strain the restraints, but with Alex so close to her, she was dying with the anticipation of his next move, which left her impatient and made it significantly harder for her to keep her arms above her head. The addition of the blindfold that robbed her of her sight and hearing only made things even more difficult.

Alex's hands trailed along her sides and approached her breasts as she gently cupped them with both hands and squeezed. He continued playing with them for the next few minutes, making Yelena groan and whine impatiently. She wanted to feel him inside her, but he seemed content to tease her for now. Every time he lightly messed with the clamps, the jolts of pleasure rushing through her body became much more difficult to handle.

Soon, he pulled off the clamps from her perky pink nipples and discarded them on the floor. Immediately, he grasped both of her nipples and twisted them while pulling.

"Uuh!" She screamed in pain, raising her legs to push her chest closer to him and dangerously straining the paper restraints that held her arms above her head. The sudden resumption of blood flow to them had made her nipples far more sensitive than usual, and Alex had fully capitalized on the moment to tease her nipples. After twisting them, he rolled them between his fingers before lowering his head and grasping one of them between his lips. Yelena's helpless and loud moans continued to reverberate through the room as he sucked both her nipples with an occasional painful bite, making sure to torture her sensitive nubs until their pink color had started turning redder.

Soon, her breasts were covered in reddened marks from his rough mauling and sucking, making him smile with satisfaction at the artistic feeling of such a creation. Seeing Yelena's arms still held up to the pole without any damage to the papers made him smile as he gave her gagged mouth a kiss, pushing his tongue inside as she helplessly moaned while copious amounts of drool fell down her chin.

He was still teasing her chest and nipples with one hand as she repeatedly whined into his mouth to convey her impatience. He moved his other hand lower and put some slight pressure on her abdomen, making her widen her eyes behind the blindfold. Her impatient whining stopped, and she could swear that Alex had smiled amusedly while kissing her. He teased her nipple, forcing her to moan through the slight internal panic. After all, she was feeling a sensation that she had practically forgotten ever since she had fallen into the slime known as Apex. As he slowly put pressure on her abdomen, it forced her to come to terms with the situation as she groaned in resistance.

Yet her groans were ignored as he continued kissing her sloppily. He spent a few minutes continuing to massage her abdomen, making her both embarrassed and unwilling to see what he had planned for the later parts of their session.

To her relief, he soon moved his hand lower and his two fingers entered her, making her moan loudly into his mouth. The sudden penetration had almost made her reach a small orgasm after the abdominal massage that she had just experienced. His thumb almost instantly found her clit and started rubbing gentle circles around it. As she moaned, reaching ever closer to her orgasm, Alex stopped kissing her and stepped back after a last nibble on her tongue that had been forced out of her mouth by the invisible gag.

Her moans soon increased in frequency and volume, but before she could climax, Alex pulled his fingers out of her. Her body shook, especially her abdomen, as her liquids trailed down her thighs. She groaned at him angrily and was full of frustration after having her orgasm ruined, but he simply gave her ass a slap before squeezing it and stepping away from her for a few seconds.

In her aroused state, with most of her senses deprived, she couldn't help but panic and call out his name with distorted sounds. Not even five seconds had passed before she started panicking and calling out to him. Though another spank on her ass did the job of shutting her up very well. Especially as it forced her to move slightly forward and strain the paper cuffs that held her arms to the pole.

Feeling the sensation of paper on her ankle made her realize the reason for the pause and made her feel even more trepidation as she realized that she wouldn't be able to move her legs freely anymore. As the paper strips were wrapped and stapled above her ankle cuffs, she felt Alex grab her foot and move it closer to the pole. A few more brushes of the stapler against her skin had sealed her fate.

Somehow, such flimsy and simplistic bindings had become even greater restraints than when Alex used leather or ropes with her. With them, she had the freedom to struggle and let herself go, but with such weak symbolic restraints, she had to truly be restrained in spirit. Somehow, this was far more intense than what she had expected when Alex mentioned the paper restraints.

Once he was done restraining her feet to the pole, she realized that she had very little leeway left and had to be at her master's mercy.

She wasn't sure where he was standing, but she once again felt his hand on her ass, and this time it went further as he pushed two fingers inside her puckered hole. The sudden penetration made her squeal as she struggled to keep her limbs in place. He continued thrusting his fingers in and out of her ass, loosening her up as she moaned with every thrust as he hit a particularly sensitive spot. He was intimately familiar with every single erogenous zone of her body to easily make her cum just by fingering her ass. But he wasn't. The fact that he knew what he was doing allowed him to make sure that he kept the pleasure limited to a certain threshold. As her aroused moans started to grow frustrated, she felt a familiar appendage putting pressure on her pussy. Immediately and instinctively, she tried to move her hips forward to get him to penetrate her, but it wasn't enough. Her bindings made it impossible.

He started teasing her, moving his cock along her entrance. She continued trying to get him to penetrate her, dangerously straining the cuffs, yet she kept herself limited. The paper cuffs were like iron shackles in her mind, impossible for her to get free from.

Soon, he gave her what she wanted and pushed his cock deep inside her. She moaned from the sudden pleasure, but it was cut short as he immediately pulled out of her. She practically screamed at him as the frustration made her feral, yet the bindings held. He wanted to push her to the limits of her obedience and repeated it a few more times while continuing to finger her ass, making her increasingly frustrated. Unable to speak, see, or hear only made things worse for her. Still, in an amazing display of her submission to him, even after half an hour of such torturous pushing of her limits, she hadn't broken through the bindings.

Finally, he was satisfied with how much he had teased her, so he pulled his fingers out of her ass and instead left a large butt plug inside that made her feel full. At the same time, he pushed his cock fully inside her. As he pulled back, she prematurely released a tired and frustrated whine, yet when he roughly thrust himself into her, that whine immediately turned into a loud squeal of pleasure.

As Alex finally gave her what she wanted, Yelena was left incoherently moaning as Alex slowly brought her closer and closer to her peak. She had pushed her willpower to the utmost by obeying Alex's restraints and deserved to experience the relentless pleasure that she had earned after all that effort.

Every single one of Alex's rough thrusts shook Yelena's entire body, straining the restraints in her arms and feet. Her moans slowly grew slurred as she got closer and closer to her orgasm. Alex leaned forward and brought his lips to her neck, uncaring of her drool that fell on him due to her gag. The moment he started sucking her neck, her moans grew by an octave as she got closer and closer. Still, no matter how delirious from the pleasure she felt, her arms and legs were rooted in their place, unwilling to break through the bonds.

Such a determined display of submission was unprecedentedly arousing for Alex, and he felt himself also getting closer to his peak despite fucking her for barely a few minutes.

Soon enough, her pussy tightened around his cock, signaling her imminent climax. As her body shook, Alex couldn't hold himself back and came inside her, filling her up completely as her body continued shaking.

He stopped sucking her neck and leaned his head on her shoulder while giving gentle licks to the hickeys that he'd given her while he held her tenderly in his arms. She seemed limp, yet the paper cuffs on her wrists were still perfectly fine. She was unwilling to free herself.

"Come on, honey." Alex lowered his hands from her hips and held her thighs, gesturing to her to wrap her legs around him. She suddenly groaned with resistance, planting her feet on the ground, unwilling to break through the paper restraints. As Alex put more force into his arms, she doubled down on her resistance and angrily groaned at him.

He had a helpless smile on his face and pulled the blindfold from her face, freeing her sight and hearing as she looked at him with a sense of confusion. He looked back at her tear-stained face with a sense of gentleness in his eyes.

"You were very good, my Yelena," Alex praised her. "We aren't done, but I have no use for those restraints for you anymore. Get up and wrap your legs around my waist. We have the whole day ahead of us."

She nodded hesitantly as he grabbed her thighs again and helped her up. She finally raised her legs and broke through the paper shackles. The sensation made her moan at him as she closed her eyes and brought her face forward for a sloppy kiss with her master. As he stepped away from the pole, the same thing happened to the paper shackles on her wrists as she broke through them and wrapped her arms around his neck.

-x-X-x-

Alex and Yelena spent the rest of the day and most of the night entangled in a passionate embrace as another one of Alex's bodies took over Yelena's duties and handled the things for the day. When they finally woke up the next morning, it was time to make some plans for their assault against the bastion.

"So, how do you want this to work?" Yelena asked. "You've already sent four of the widows back home with the trainees that were assigned to them. Do you want to wait for them to come back or do it behind their backs?"

"Those four are the most resistant ones to both me and my future plans for the widows," Alex said. "This operation will get every participant enough credits to buy both the age serum and go back. I don't plan to give them that option. They can either choose to halt their aging and come closer to my true vision for the widows, or they can enjoy their lives with my blessing."

"So…we're not waiting… right? You weren't very clear," she said, hiding her snark behind an innocent tone.

"Yes, we aren't waiting for them to come back. I will bring Laura here in another day or two. By them, I want the Widows to have implicit control over most of the Bastion. She won't be stopping to care about the casualties that her actions cause. That's going to be up to the widows to take care of."

"Since when have you been concerned about casualties?" Yelena asked. "Don't misunderstand me. I'm glad you care about them, but you aren't the kind of person who would mobilize so many resources just to prevent casualties."

"I care because the Bastion is the only significant source of humanity left in North America," he said. "I have scoured this continent over the past year, and we have taken in almost all of the settlements of humans. Even then, we barely have thirty thousand able adults. The Bastion holds a solid population of a million people at the very least. We have to integrate them into our fold if we want to reestablish the human race on this continent."

"Again… I get all that," Yelena said understandingly. "And I appreciate you caring about all this, don't get me wrong. But I can't help but ask. Why do you want that? We have stopped increasing our numbers until our current trainees mature, so it's definitely not to increase our numbers. Why else would you want to reestablish the human race on this continent?"

"Fine…you want the dark truth of my scheme?" Alex said flatly. "This planet is going to be a breeding ground for Abominations. Eventually, I will kill the continent-level ‹Eldritch Leader Class› abominations and establish four Prime Bastions of humanity. One for North America, one for South America, one for Africa, and one for Asia and Europe combined. Every one of my Prime Bastions will have all the resources necessary to constantly drive away the abominations, but with significant losses, hence bolstering the numbers of their enemies. Once I am satisfied with the number of abominations, this planet will become a part of the Gaia cluster and work as an existential threat to every other planet in Gaia. Then, I will come in and establish my Apex Empire while also getting rid of the abomination threat once and for all."

"Hm," she looked impressed. "As I'd expected. You wouldn't try so hard to revitalize humanity without something to gain for yourself."

"Moving back to the matter at hand," Alex said. "The Widows. We will be mobilizing all of them for this operation. The Bastion has protections against magic, which means that I can't simply portal you all inside. Even if I try to brute force it with Chaos Magic, they will detect it. The only way for me to get you all in is by sneaking a part of myself in and then teleporting you through my dimensional ‹Inventory›. But, there is an issue with that. There are special detectors everywhere that prevent me from getting into important places without triggering some sort of alarm. That means all I can do is get you all inside the walls."

"Do you have a blueprint of the place?" She asked. "A map?"

"I do. I once infiltrated quite deeply into their systems, which gave me access to a significant amount of their information," he said. "I will share with everyone both the blueprints and the map of the place, with everyone's targets. What you all need to do is to subdue all of the systems that are not automated and under the control of an AI. Anything that has to do with humans should be under your control by the time Laura breaks into the Bastion."

"You told me that this Bastion is built and managed by Tony Stark, right?" She asked. "That means there will be practically nothing that is managed by humans, Alex."

"I know that," he said. "But the humans are managed by humans. What you will be doing is to subdue the population of the Bastion so that when Laura breaks through the walls, people don't get affected by the irradiated air that enters their protective bubble and die immediately. While Laura keeps the Bastion and its subsequent systems busy, the Widows will work to get the citizens out into a secure passage that I will create."

"So we are ultimately a glorified evacuation crew?" She asked dryly. "I thought the widows were here to make a difference."

"You do. When it comes to special operations related to the common people. The ones who fight existential threats and dangers are my primary hosts. The widows were never going to be the strongest card in my forces. You are the ones who will help me make things work after the brutes who are my primary hosts are done with their work."

"Way to make me feel valued," Yelena mumbled. "Is my sister the same? Can she also destroy planets?"

"Nat, huh…" Alex had a thoughtful expression on his face. "Honestly? Not really. Not by herself at the very least. Without considering the significantly greater enhancement that my bond gives her, she's pretty much the same as you in terms of power. But that's not why she's one of my primary hosts."

"Then why is she?" Yelena asked.

"I'm not sure how I would explain it," Alex said. "She has a certain…way in which she makes me feel fulfilled. I've spent many years with her and Xialing now. And in all that time, we've lived a relatively normal…suburban life. Playing parents for a traumatized girl who lost her mom and was neglected by her actual father. Ever since I woke up… Even before I bonded with my first host, I never imagined that I would have it in me to live such a life. Normalcy…always seemed like such a bore to me. Unfulfilling… But with her…it's easy, enjoyable even."

"You're making me feel jealous, Alex," Yelena giggled, not looking jealous at all. "What would you do if I asked you for such a life as well?"

"I'd call bullshit," he said. "You don't have the stomach to settle down like that. That's why you are managing the widows while Natasha is living a simple, boring suburban Mom's life."

"But it's an escape, isn't it?" She said. "A safe space."

"I guess it is," Alex nodded. "It's a part of me that doesn't have to worry about the next world-ending threat. Living with her…I'm not worried about what will happen when cosmic threats come knocking on my door… Knull…the celestials…even beings like Doom or Kang… I always have these things on my mind. But with her, I get to just live without worrying about my…our survival."

"I think I'd like to hear all of the stories about how you and Natasha are living the suburban life," Yelena said. "And tell her that I'm happy for her."

"When it's time to move on from that life, you will be the first one Natasha comes to meet. She misses you a lot."

"You could always bring her here for a little while."

"Then it would break the bubble, wouldn't it?" He said. "It took a lot of courage for her to simply leave everything behind and move to another planet with me. Neither of us wants that illusion of normalcy to break."

"Hey…" Yelena asked him. "What would you do if I asked for the same thing? If I seriously asked you to fix my womb and do all those things that you're doing with Natasha with me. Would you agree?"

"Are you asking me that?" Alex asked.

"Don't you already know?" She said. "You can read my mind after all."

"I want to hear it from you."

"…No," Yelena refused. "But I still want to know what you would do if I asked."

"If you asked me this six months ago, I would've probably refused and punished you with such mind-melting sex that you forgot about everything entirely," Alex said.

"What about now? I'll tell you, I don't think I have it in me to endure another mind-melting session with my sanity intact after last night. Seriously…you fucked my ass in front of a mirror and forced me to wet myself. I still see that image in my mind when I close my eyes. So embarrassing."

"But it was hot, wasn't it?"

"We're diverting from the topic. What would you say to it now?" She asked him with narrowed eyes.

"I'd agree," Alex said. "I may be a ruthless murderer and dictator, but I'm not heartless. I've come to care for you after a whole year with you. You're pretty amazing, Yelena."

"Thank you," she smiled. "I know I just said I don't have it in me to have mind-melting sex. But I'm really wet right now."

"Come here," Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She yelped and gladly followed his lead as he pressed her up against a wall.

-x-X-x-

Back on Earth-121698B, a week had passed since Alex started his arrangement with Susan and sent the two of the Fantastic Four to another world, while the third—Susan's brother—was out doing his own thing, occasionally checking up on his sister remotely. He hadn't yet been allowed to come meet with her, but they had talked on the phone.

In that time, Alex had completely solidified his control over the world by capitalizing on the resources and connections of Victor Von Doom. He hadn't outright stolen the man's identity and had instead chosen to establish his original self by using the connections and resources of Victor Von Doom. Within another week, he would be in control of the White House, and by the time Susan was discharged from her special isolation room, he would have implanted the shield generator at the core of the planet. At least that was his plan. Whether it came to fruition at the same timeline or earlier was dependent on some other factors, the main one being Susan herself.

As for the lady in question, she had grown to enjoy Alex's company quite a lot. They ate all three meals together and spent eight hours training Susan's powers while also hanging out casually as they watched a movie or something together. All in all, they were spending at least twelve of the twenty-four hours of every day together. While it may seem like a lot, eight of those twelve hours were spent in training, leaving four hours of casual leisure time.

For the rest of the duration, while she spent six to eight hours asleep, that still left her with four hours of alone time. That was the time she spent trying to satisfy herself. And it was slowly increasing. It had come up to the point that she both started and finished the day by touching herself, and even tried to get some in the time that Alex went to get her a meal or something else. The woman was having it bad, and unfortunately for her, while she was successful in bringing herself to a climax, it was completely unsatisfactory and only left her wanting more.

Still, until now, she'd made sure to keep her growing habit hidden from Alex, at least as far as she believed, by making sure that he didn't take the reading for her heart monitor, or any of her vitals. Unfortunately for her, there were only so many excuses that she could use to delay him from checking the pattern of her heart's beats, and she was going to run out of them sooner or later.

As usual, he came by at around nine with their breakfast. Susan was in bed while browsing the news when he entered the room. She immediately turned to look at him and tossed the remote to the side.

"Did you get it?" She asked.

"Yeah," he nodded while glancing at her damp hair that fell down her shoulders. "Need me to brush your hair for you as well?"

"No, just getting me the dryer is enough," she said with a sly smile and got out of bed. "Give it."

He handed her a box, which she quickly took to the bathroom.

"You can set up breakfast. I'll be out in just two minutes," she told him. He heard a loud tearing sound, followed by the sound of a hair dryer running, and shook his head.

"Nice try, sucker," he spoke as the loud sound of the hair dryer drowned out his words. "Cardio comes first."

He walked over to their dining table slash coffee table and placed the bags that held their breakfast on it before sitting down.

The woman came out of the bathroom after almost ten minutes, making Alex raise a brow.

"You're early. Usually, it takes you…" He trailed off as he saw the broken brush handle in her hand. "…twenty minutes. Broke your brush?"

"No shit," she said. "What now? My hair could probably house squirrels right now."

"What are you talking about?" Alex laughed. "Your head could, at best, house a few crows in that nest situation you have going for you."

She threw the handle of the broken hairbrush at him, and he caught it. "You got me a thousand-dollar hair dryer, but you couldn't get me something better than a dollar store hair brush?"

"Whoa, entitled much?" He asked. "For all you know, this could have been an important heirloom in someone's family. I got it from a pawn shop, after all."

"You mean it wasn't new…" Susan's eyes narrowed scathingly. "You're telling me that I've been using someone else's brush for the past week?"

"I'm kidding," Alex said. "Why would I go through the trouble to get this from a pawn shop, huh? Anyway…" He held the handle before a black slime extended from his hand and wrapped around it, and reformed the broken part of the brush. "See? Good as new. Now come here. I'll brush your hair before we move on to stretching and cardio."

"Can't we skip it?" She asked. "You always push me until failure. What kind of sadistic trainer pushes someone to failure when doing cardio?"

"Do you want me to brush your hair or do you want to do it yourself?" He asked again with emphasis.

"Don't try to peek at my body," she pointed at him before sitting down on the floor between his legs, facing away from him.

"I have better ways to see you naked," he teased her before gently stroking the brush through her hair.

"You know, Apex…" Susan said with a comfortable tone as he repeated the movement of the brush for a few strokes. "Are any of your other hosts like me? Needy, slightly childish, and a little unreasonable at times?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you encourage that kind of behaviour," Susan said as she leaned back and rested her elbow on his thigh. "This kind of princess treatment is instinctively bringing out the side of me that wants to be pampered by you. You shouldn't do this too much."

"But I like pampering those I care about," he said. "There shouldn't be anything wrong with that."

"It's not a sustainable frame of mind," she said. "In the past week, you've practically babied me. Everything I asked for, you got for me without complaints. You went above and beyond to make sure that my time here is even more comfortable than when I'm home. As a temporary attitude, it's understandable. But if you keep it up all the time, you'll get exhausted, you know? Relationships require reciprocation."

"I'm not a human, remember?" Alex reminded her and ran his fingers through her hair to fix it in place. "I can pamper my hosts all the time. As for the reciprocation that you are talking about, I'm simply satisfied when you accept my princess treatment with a smile. Maybe a little reward here and there, but that's all I want from my hosts."

"Sounds too perfect to be true," she said. "Are you sure you aren't hiding a deep, dark secret from me? Something that will make me run as far away from you as possible?"

"I'm pretty kinky when it comes to intimacy," he said. "I regularly push my hosts to their sexual limits and slowly go beyond them. When in the bedroom, I expect a level of obedience that not everyone is comfortable with."

"I knew it," she said. "So there is a caveat. You are a sadist."

"You can say that," Alex said. "But I'm not particularly into the kind of sadism that is dependent on physical pain. What I want is submission…trust. For you to put your trust in me. That I accurately know what is best for you, even more than you. To give up control. To give yourself to me fully, both in mind and in body. That's the thing that's going to either turn you on or make you run away."

"Well, I'm not turned on by your words, that's for sure," Susan said. "That stuff sounds fun in fantasies, but reality? No thanks."

"Yet, you aren't running away from me," he said teasingly.

"I need my hair brushed, don't I?" She said. "I wouldn't feel good walking around with a crow's nest on my head."

"Fair enough," he said.

In another minute or so, Alex was done brushing her golden locks as she comfortably leaned against his knee. "Can you do this every day for me?" She asked.

"I'd love to," he agreed without much thought. "Hell, once I bond with you, you won't have to do anything and can put all your focus on more important things."

"I still haven't agreed to it, Apex," she said. "Don't get mad at me if I end up refusing to bond with you later."

"I'm confident in my ability to charm you," he said. "Plus, I can always cheat and slow down your training, extending this isolation by a few more months."

Susan clicked her tongue before standing up. "Come on, I'm getting hungry. Let's get that damn cardio over with."

Alex stood up as Susan went into the bathroom.

"You know, you could always train in the hospital gown, I don't mind," Alex said.

"Yeah, of course you wouldn't," she said through the door. "But I mind doing anything more than basic walking in this thing. I'd rather have these wires coming out through my neckline."

"Fair enough," Alex nodded. "Speaking of wires, you haven't let me get any of your readings in days. You can change up while I transfer them over."

"No!" Susan practically screamed through the door.

"Don't worry, I'll be done before you come out. You won't have to wait."

"You can't!" She shouted, and the door to the bathroom suddenly opened, making Alex look at Susan with slight surprise as she barely pulled her sports bra down, giving him a momentary glimpse of the lower half of her boobs. "I'm here. Let's start stretching."

"What's the hurry? It's barely been a minute," Alex frowned.

"It doesn't matter, you can get my readings later. Let's train now."

"It's going to take barely a minute. You can start with the stretches I taught you before. I'll help you once it's transferred."

"No, I'm not an acrobat. I need you to help me do those complex stretches that you taught me. Come on," she grabbed his hand and pulled him.

"All right, it's done, anyway," Alex put his free arm behind one of the monitors and opened its casing to pull out a USB drive and closed it back. "Let's go, I'll help you stretch."

He put the drive in his pocket and moved forward with her. Suddenly, she turned invisible before becoming visible again.

"Sorry…" She mumbled, looking guilty. "That drive was probably important, right?"

"What? No, it's fine. I've already sent the drive to one of my other bodies. I told you before, right? I can seamlessly transfer anything between my bodies. Even people."

"You did tell me that…" She said, biting her lip with a stressed expression on her face. "So the data is all transferred over? You are checking it out, right now?"

"What's the big deal, Sue?" He stepped closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "You've been keeping me from checking your vitals for the entire week. I won't ask you why, but you have to understand that it's dangerous. The whole reason that I am constantly monitoring your vitals is that I want to make sure that you don't have any problems."

"Yeah… Come on, let's start training," she said distractedly as they stepped into an empty part of the room with ample space for training. Alex created a decently sized mat under her such that there was enough space for her to move around freely.

"You forgot your shoes," Alex said.

"Oh, yeah…" Susan was about to start walking, but Alex simply pointed his finger at her feet, and shoes formed over her bare feet.

"Don't worry about it. You can start the simple stretches."

"'Kay…"

Susan distractedly started doing the things that she could do by herself, like stretching her arms and shoulders, rotating her neck, and the like. When it came to stretching her lower half, specifically getting the blood flowing through her calves, thighs, glutes, and more, she needed some support from her very hands-on trainer.

He got real close to her and first made her lie down on the floor on her back. He grabbed one of her legs and pushed it higher, engaging her thighs and glutes in a single stretch. Her knee folded as Alex leaned forward until she groaned due to her hips being stretched to the limit. He put his hand on her thigh and slowly freed her leg, allowing her to straighten it before repeating the same process with her other leg. They did the set a total of five times before Alex had Susan turn around.

"Fold your leg back," he held her leg and pulled it backward as if wanting to make her toes touch her back. Soon, she groaned in discomfort, making Alex pause about seventy percent of the way there. He put his hand on the side of her hip and lightly rubbed the area while slowly letting her leg straighten up. He repeated the process for her other leg before doing the same set five times.

"Do you want to try another stretch?" He asked her as she continued with some easier dynamic movements like lunges and jumping jacks.

"Maybe some other time…" She said with a teasing smile and a healthy blush on her face after being practically groped by Alex for two minutes. "I think you've put enough hands on me for this session."

"Well, that's just not true. I will never be done putting my hands on you."

"Usually, I roll with some of the dumb stuff you say, but what's that even supposed to mean?" She asked, confusedly, while shifting her position to another stretch.

"I don't know, it just came to my mind," Alex shrugged with a goofy smile.

She broke out in a disbelieving laugh at his words. "Our multi-planetary leader here, everyone," she said mockingly. "I'm not sure if you're the best person to be handling such a massive responsibility."

"Let's focus on the responsibility that is Susan Storm first, shall we?"

"If by focus, you mean ogling at my chest and ass while I jump around in these tight leggings and sports bra, I'd rather that you don't."

"How else am I going to find the mistakes in your form?" He said. "I need a reason to put my hands on you after all, and fixing your bad form gives me the perfect reason. The only thing that you do correctly is running."

"I'm a scientist, Apex. I don't work out beyond running regularly to keep myself healthy. I tried going to a gym near my place for a few months, but it got boring quickly."

"I'll make sure that it's far from boring," Alex said. "If anything, you'll come to love working out every day once I get you used to it."

"You saying that from experience?" She said. "After all, from what I've understood, you have a few hosts whom you train like this, right? Do you have any male hosts, or is it all women?"

"Since you're done stretching, let's move to the cardio," Alex said dryly.

"I knew you were a pervert from the first day that I met you," she said while stably planting her feet on the ground.

"Burpees, sixty seconds. Go," Alex said sharply, and Susan immediately started moving and crouched before thrusting her legs backward and lying flat on the ground. She immediately pushed herself up and jumped with her arms high up in the air. "Good form, don't forget to breathe. Again and try to go faster this time. We're aiming for thirty today."

She groaned and repeated the movement without pausing for a moment. As she continued repeating the exercise, Alex stood up while closely observing her movements.

"You're slipping, Sue," he said. "Lower your body. Down to the ground. I want your stomach flat against it every time. And focus on your elbows, don't flail your arms," he said, making her groan as she lowered herself all the way while keeping heavy control over her limbs and body.

Soon, the minute had passed as Susan completed twenty-six burpees in total.

"Good work, one more than yesterday. We'll keep going until I can push you to one a second," he said. "Now, do mountain climbers for sixty seconds. Come on, move!"

She nodded with a difficult expression and got down on the ground while holding herself up on her hands and toes. Immediately, she raised her leg close to her chin before bringing it back and immediately repeating it with her other leg. She quickly alternated between her legs and followed the movements as fast as she could.

"Lower your hips." Alex put his palm on her waist and pushed her down. "Not as high. Don't thrust your ass out with every movement. Control it."

A few seconds later, her hips started rising again, so Alex kept his palm on her lower back to correct her form.

Once she was done, it was time for jumping squats, for which she needed even more guidance, such that he stood directly behind her as she did the movements with occasional support from him.

"Hands together," he held her hips as she squatted and made her get lower. "You are swaying. Control your movements." His hands stayed on her hips as she straightened up and jumped before crouching again, at which point he again made her go lower than she was going to. As she repeated it a few times, the tired groans grew more prominent, so Alex started helping her straighten up as well. He would lower her hips more than her legs allowed and then help her up as well.

After that was done, he made her do a round of push-ups with alternating knee tucks. It also had the issue of her raising her ass higher than necessary with each movement, making Alex put his hand on her lower back and making her maintain the right form.

"Okay, thirty seconds of rest, then we repeat," Alex said as he stepped away from her while she lost the strength in her legs and sat down in exhaustion.

"If you want me to go again, I'm going to need you to be a bit more hands-on with your support," she said. "I don't think I can go again."

"Sure. It gives me even more of a reason to grope you," Alex said, receiving a narrow-eyed look from her.