6 Chapter 6) – Intro
With parched lips, Mara speaks for the first time since the bonding advancement, "I was expecting to feel like I had been run over several times after all that, so why do I feel the best I've ever felt other than a little dry mouth?"
Projecting a head from her shoulder so we can speak face-to-face I answer Mara's query, "I integrated with your muscles, so although one would normally feel immensely sore after such a procedure, I can relax all the tense muscles and ease the pain away like it never existed."
Still lying on the grass covered floor still in her temporary combat suit clothing, Mara grabs a bottle of water and downs it entirely before continuing to ask what is on her mind as she recovers from the mental battering she withstood. "I guess that makes sense. Does this mean I don't have to worry about cramping anymore since you can just prevent anything from contracting?"
"Correct. You no longer have to worry about limbering up before exercise or the monthly cramps you get. Although the cramps are caused by your Uterus, which is an organ, the cramping pains are due to the muscles within said organ. Muscles I have since replaced, therefore preventing any further discomfort. Anything involving your muscles will no longer be a cause for concern, they will always be kept in perfect condition."
"You know El, you're basically a woman's perfect partner, you know that? You can change into any clothing you see; you can stop us feeling those crippling monthly cramps, and you can also stop us getting fat if we eat. too.. much…"
As she trailed off the end of her sentence, getting quieter and quieter, her eyes gained an acknowledging shine to them as she bolted upright into a sitting position, from her previously prone one, as if she was struck by lightning. "EL! I can eat whatever I want now, right?! And you can give me abs as well?!"
"You can eat what you want to a certain extent. I am still not bonded to your organs, so they can gain a layer of fat too, but yes, I can remove the fat from your abdomen and any other muscle on your body. I can also increase your muscle mass while in incognito form to make you stronger, but this will naturally go away if we are split, or I change out of incognito form."
Jumping up from the ground she cheers, "Tone me up baby~! I want a 6-pack and more definition in my arms and legs, especially my thighs! You don't have to bulk me out anywhere other than my thighs, just remove the fat from the other areas and make all my muscles denser. Ah! Make sure you don't remove the fat from my ass or tits! I may want to look more athletic, but it would be a crime to women everywhere to give up these assets."
As always, I follow through with my host's request. Expunging the fat around her leg, abdominal, and arm muscles whilst also increasing their density. I only add a bit of size to her abs and thighs in order to emphasise them as she requested.
"Quick El, off with my clothes I want to check myself out!" Removing all her clothes, she feels around her stomach, tracing her chiselled, rock-solid, abs before moving down to her thighs. She tenses and twists them out, mesmerised at how they expand and contract. She plays around with them for at least 10 minutes and would undoubtedly continue to do so if I had not called out to her.
Using a tendril, I dangle a bottle of water in front of her face, "Are you just going to keep playing with them or are you going to drink some more water before you pass out, but from dehydration this time?"
"Shit, yeah, you're right, thanks babe." She proceeds to down another entire litre bottle in one go. While she was practically inhaling her water, I applied the combat suit back to her body to prevent her from getting distracted by her new thighs again. Clearly the excitement from discovering she can have whatever physique she wanted disguised her desperate need for fluid intake even after drinking an entire bottle when regaining consciousness.
"Do you want to make our way into the city now that the sun has gone down or do you want to recover for a bit more and wait until it gets even darker. Remember, we still have 6 days until the Expo so there's no rush, dear."
Thinking for a second, she quickly decides on our next step. "We'll do a mix of both. We wait for a little while longer, so I can relax and it gets a bit darker, then we move into the city. I feel like if I have a nap now, I won't wake up until it's light again so it's best if we find somewhere hidden in the city to sleep."
Instead of sitting down as I had expected her to, she starts stretching her body all over. Pre-empting my question as to why she was stretching when I had already informed her, she never needs to stretch again now that I had bonded to her muscles. "I know I don't have to stretch my body, but my brain still believes that my muscles should be sore after what they went through. I can't just get used to it instantly no matter how adaptable I am. It's similar to the underwear situation, just some psychological hardwiring I need to slowly remove."
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After half an hour of stretches, turned yoga, Mara was ready to head towards the location of the next part of our journey. "I'm ready if you are El? Let's suit up and head over to the big city."
"Sure thing, Mara." I reply as I start Mara's preferred suit up method, starting with her feet and slowly making my way up her body like a rippling water effect. Continuing to transition my clothes form into the burgundy and black suit form, before eating her head, her favourite part of the suit transformation.
[Mmmm~ I don't think I'll ever get bored of that transition babe. There's just something so comforting about the transformation into suit form, and the strength it gives us, that is so intoxicating. Don't even get me started on the head eating to finish it off, it's so intimidatingly badass!]
"As long as you are enjoying yourself Mara."
Setting off jumping, we head out of the wildlife refuge and make the short 30-mile journey into the centre of New York City. If we were to travel at the same speed we did on the cross-country journey over here, it would undoubtedly take us less than 10 minutes. However, for obvious reasons, travelling that fast in a concrete jungle like New York is a terrible idea when we are trying to keep a low profile. Therefore, we opted for a much slower pace, arriving at the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge where we decide to sleep for the night.
To keep Mara safe and have a comfortable sleep, we climb up the closest suspension tower for the bridge. We move around it so that we are on the side of the tower that faces towards the water and not the land where we could possibly be spotted. I then bring several thick tendrils out from the back of our suit form to attach us to the underside of the bridge. Spreading my form out between all of the tendrils to fill in the gaps, I remove the suit form, creating a hanging bed that, from the outside, would look like an upside-down tent attached to the bridge for the now naked Mara to sleep on.
"We're secure Mara. You can sleep now; I know you are exhausted."
Stretching and yawning, she replies, "Mhmm, goodnight darling."
"Sweet dreams, dear."
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The remaining 5 days building up to the Expo were used to thoroughly explore New York city. Mara knew what the key locations were in this universe's New York, but she had never been to NYC before and therefore didn't actually know where these locations were. On top of that, some of the locations had not even been built yet so there were only a handful of places for her to fangirl over.
When the day of the Expo finally arrived, NYC got noticeably busier around the Flushing neighbourhood. With my abilities and Mara's knowledge of the movie, there was no doubt that we would be able to get into the VIP section of the Expo, but Mara was still unsure about what to do when she got in there. Once we had collected her daily food order from the unsuspecting store, we made our way to the underside of the Northern Boulevard bridge, that starts in Flushing, to create a hanging bed for Mara to sit on and eat her fill in peace whilst planning our next steps.
Mara had previously decided to get only lightly involved in the MCU stories, but she was not sure how exactly to even enter the scene. Over the time we spent exploring NYC, she thought up several plans, but as she flushed out the details of each one, there always seemed to be a major downside that made her hesitate to settle on a specific one.
Her first plan was probably the easiest of them all according to her. With her looks and figure in mind, she initially conceived a plan to pretend to seduce Tony Stark as at this point, he was still in his playboy phase. However, just the thought of flirting and possibly kissing a man, even if it was Iron Man, was enough for her to vehemently reject this idea. "My preference may now be red and black alien slimes, but previously it was women, so doing anything intimate with a man is a no-go." She spoke.
Her next idea was to try and get hired at his company, Stark Industries. That was also quickly shot down as she did not have any of the necessary qualifications to get a job. Technically she did, but those were in the Venom universe. In this universe, she wouldn't have a birth certificate, proof of citizenship or a social security number, that she knew of, which were the very bare minimum to get ANY job, let alone one at Stark Industries.
For the third plan, she thought that she could copy the newest iteration of Spider-Man by acting like a vigilante and catch small-time criminals to get herself on Tony's radar. She then figured that not only would this not work due to Tony not having set up his own worldwide satellite system, but she would more than likely attract S.H.I.E.L.D. to us and not for the right reasons. Plus, if she was busy fighting small fries, she would miss movie events!
Her fourth plan was to follow Tony around to watch all the movie events in person. But she would seem like a stalker and possibly hunted down by him, which makes that plan a bust.
Fifth would be to somehow get in contact with Natasha Romanoff and go through her to join S.H.I.E.L.D. Unfortunately, Miss Romanoff was currently undercover working in Tony's company. Basically, doing what Mara's first plan was, pretending to seduce him to get close to him. So, if she just walked up to Natasha and asked to be introduced to Nick Fury, chances are she would just try interrogating and/or kill her for figuring out she is a spy. She could, conversely, just walk up to Tony and proclaim that she has superpowers in the hopes that he would believe her. But considering what Tony is going though at this point in time, she figured he wouldn't care about her, and she would most likely be treated as a crazy person trying to get in Tony's pants like all the other women throwing themselves at him.
Her last plan was the one she believed would have the highest chance of success, but equally as dangerous if it went wrong. Her idea was to 'save' Tony by stopping Whiplash when he attacks him at Monaco after his court proceedings in Washington D.C. This could be passed off as coincidence as she could pretend to have been at Monaco for the race and obviously had no idea Whiplash would appear to try kill Tony. This was the most dangerous as the race, and subsequent battle, were all televised meaning the whole world would be aware of her existence. This could easily be fixed though by just cutting the camera feeds and so was the most 'natural' meeting plan she could conceive to leave a good impression with everyone all at once.
"Why don't we head over to the Expo? You can take a break from all this planning, relax, and go see your first movie event in person."
"Good idea babe, let's make our way over."
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[You've made some real improvement on your British accent since I asked you to start using one. I know it's only been a week, but anyone that heard you would think you were born in the UK it's that good.]
<Of course, Mara. With your accent and the of tourists around, I managed to pick up majority what needed form a comprehensive dialect.>
As we make our way over to the VIP entrance of the Expo, Mara and I were blending into the crowd looking for the perfect target to bump into in order to 'borrow' their pass. We had previously been discussing my progress with my British accent when she suddenly got distracted.
[Oooo El, copy that lady's dress over there and that woman's heels! We need to look VIP if we're going to get in, even with a pass.]
As she points towards the woman's formal wear, she wants me to copy, I immediately begin shifting my form from her current denim jeans and T-shirt combo. The woman in question is wearing a scarlet red one-piece mini dress. It has a U-shaped plunge, revealing her cleavage, a clasp closure round the back of her neck leaving the top half of her back exposed, and is designed with ruching throughout the body. Alongside the dress, I exchange her previous converse shoes with an exact replica of the black chunky heels the second woman she pointed at was wearing. It takes me less than a few seconds to complete the transformation, changing the bright red dress to a more subtle black colour to match Mara's preferences.
[Thanks babe, perfect as ever. Now let's bump into that guy over there having a smoke and lift his pass off him]
<Ready whenever you are, as long make physical contact with him for even half a second, I should be able to pull the pass off without noticing.>
[Here goes something.]
Strutting her way towards the smoking area, Mara pretends to stumble over her heels and fall into the smoking man's shoulder knocking his cigarette out his hand. He turns to her, "Hey! Watch where you're going!"
"I'm so sorry, I'm not used to wearing these heels yet."
Quickly walking away, she checks everything went as planned, [We good El?]
<When have I ever let you down honey. Look>
Following my instruction, Mara looks down to see a VIP badge nestled perfectly between her perky mounds. Raising the dangling badge by the lanyard, up to her face, she confirms that not only have we secured a VIP access badge, but I have also used part of my body to change the details on the pass such that it is now her appearance and name on the badge.
[How did I ever function without you babe~? I don't even feel bad about stealing that guy's pass, he could have at least asked if I was okay after tripping instead of being a cunt about it.]
Now that we have easy access to all the facilities at the Expo, we made our way towards the main stage area where, according to Mara, Tony will jump out of an aeroplane and fly through fireworks to land, before giving his Expo introduction speech.
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Leaning against a banister with an unobstructed view of the stage, Mara speaks to me telepathically, [Now that we have a clear view of the stage, all we have to do is wait for the dancers to come out and the fireworks to start. He should appear shortly after that.]
<Have you decided on what plan want to go with yet? If a where need speak Mr. Stark, this is probably the best place do it.>
[I know, but I'm unsure what would be the best way forward is. I feel like joining S.H.I.E.L.D. could be fun, however, I don't want to be forced to do missions when movie events are going on. At the same time, in-between movie events I'll have nothing to do, so doing missions that have no bearing on the story would be a good way to kill time. I need to put myself in a position like Captain America did, basically between Natasha and Tony's S.H.I.E.L.D. commitments. Be independent enough to not have to do mandatory missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. but still technically a part of them so I can choose to do missions between movies and when the Avengers gets brought up I get an invite.]
Advising her as best I can with my limited human knowledge, <A show of force is probably the best way then. Let everyone know that you are strong, but on good side. Willing to help, not be bossed around like a foot soldier. The earliest time do Whiplash guy spoke about.>
Deciding to go with plan number 7, Mara moves onto her next future priority, [Agreed, looks like I need to think up some good one-liners for my breakout appearance. Meh who am I kidding, I'll just rip-off one from my first world, save the hassle.]
Just as Mara was about to dive into her own world of memorable movie one-liners from her original Earth, I noted movement on the stage ahead of us. <Before you get ahead of yourself, here come the dancers. It must be starting soon.>
[Thanks El, I would be so disappointed in myself if I was distracted and missed the one thing, we travelled all the way here for. I wonder if the music will be the same?]
Before I could ask what kind of music she was thinking about, a guitar riff comes from the surrounding speakers accompanied by the first of the fireworks being shot into the sky.
Clearly recognising the guitar notes, she mentally purrs, [Ohhh thank fuck El~ It's been so long since I've heard music like this~ Fortunately this universe and my original one seem to have the same music artists. You wouldn't believe how torturous the shite in the Venom universe was. None of the artists from my home Earth existed there. Even the ones that made music specifically for the Venom movie didn't exist there.]
Due to the sheer volume of the music, I appreciatively state, <It's a good thing we got Shriek's sonic immunity so I can enjoy the same music as you. am confident any other Klyntar would not be able to stand this level of noise.>
[Oh yeah! I can't wait to show you all my favourite songs when we actually have money and stuff to afford them. I'm sure S.H.I.E.L.D. or Tony will set us up with something when they see how valuable we are.]
As Mara hums and lightly taps her feet along to the song, which she informed me was called 'Shoot to Thrill' by ACDC, the general lighting around the stage starts to dim except for the focusing lights that all shine onto a white, circular, platform. With the sound of a missile flying through the air, and getting increasingly louder signifying it getting closer, Mara's excitement builds to a fever pitch, until *DING!* a red and gold painted suit of armour slams down onto the only brightly lit area of the stage.
[Superhero landing!! Do you see that El?! A real superhero landing! We HAVE to try it, it's so cool!!]
<Seems simple enough.>
[Yes! Now I need to calm down so I can actually listen to what he's going to say.]
