Arc One. Chapter Twenty-Six. Training Daze

Gwen huffed as she counted, it wasn't fair but Peter was relentless. Not only did she have college to plan for, an internship at Oscorp to manage but now Peter was making her work out for two hours every night. It had only been a week since she moved but to her, it felt like longer.

She was enjoying the intimacy she was feeling with Peter, he stopped living in his office home and had been sleeping in the same bed as her. Then in the morning, he would make her breakfast so she could shower and get ready for work, plus the sex had been mind-blowing. The only issue so far they had was Gwen's symbiote friend. As Gwen came, so did it, and it flooded her with more pleasure than she could cope with. Her teasing Peter of toe-curling orgasms and blacking out was turning out to be true and while Peter seemed to be a boundless font of stamina she was not, at least not in the bedroom.

"One Hundred," she said, as she lifted herself up one last time, doing pull-ups from a support beam in the warehouse roof. Peter was swinging across from her, as he had been doing this for almost six months, his routine was four hundred, and he still managed to outpace her.

The routine they started together was a basic fitness course. One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten kilometre run. Peter said he read it somewhere, but as Gwen browsed the internet to find it, he had a small smirk on his face.

"Gwen, you need to control your powers and your symbiote, you're its master, not the other way round." He had scolded her, for several nights in a row he had woken to find Gwen's symbskin tendrils extended into his crotch trying to 'milk' him and after another restless night he had had enough.

Which was why she was doing physical training. Her webbing could be made into any chemical she knew but its tensile strength was abysmal, barely strong enough to hold her weight and so stretchy it was more like rubber than a rope. She had managed to make an acid web and could spray it fine enough that she had cracked and peeled the paint on her home, much to Peter's annoyance. Other webs were banned, even if she could make them they had no way of testing them without damaging the warehouse.

There was also an issue when they tried to fight. Each blow she felt her symbiote shy away, make her move to avoid the blow rather than take it, even if she knew it wouldn't hurt. This was fine. If she was trained and could avoid blows normally, but as she was a dancer and not a fighter she jerked and fell more often than not.

Not only that but her symbiote armoured skin was no better than normal skin, Gwen screeching in pain if it was cut or burned unlike Peter's normal symbskin, not even his thickened plate.

"Of course you asshole," Gwen had complained they tested the limits of the symbskin, "if my symbiote is still alive then, of course, it'll hurt if you cut me." She had still watched in fascination as the small cut healed almost instantly, she still needed to make him feel guilty of course, guilt brought kisses and kisses often led to other things.

This time though Peter was having none of it. He had put several projects on hold and hadn't been hunting all week all because right now, anyone who found him and Gwen's secret could take Gwen with no issues at all. She had the same powers as him, so why didn't she have the same control over them as he did? In fact, she should be stronger than him, if his symbiote was dead it should have no energy of its own, only relying on his. It was one of the many questions they still had about their powers and the creatures that inhabited their bodies. Poison would still speak to Gwen whereas Venom never said anything to Peter, or if it had it was lost within his own thoughts.

All he could do was make her train and train more, each ability he had was inbuilt so her symbiote with practise should be just as capable, of course, the swearing and shouts of pain, as she either fell, dropped something on herself or just missed whatever she was trying to achieve, were kinda funny if a bit painful to listen to. He'd had his share of mishaps with his powers so it made him feel a little better to know that even someone as smart and capable as Gwen could fail sometimes.

"Hey Gwen, if you can do the obstacle course by the end of the week, I'll match our last bet, and you can do whatever you want," Peter yelled at her, followed by a thump as she fell off the walkway above. She swore again but he knew that should have lit the same competitive fire in her that she lit in him, all he had to do was sit back and wait for the results. So far she had shown that while more sensitive she was a lot stronger, faster, and more agile. The enhancements to her biology were very apparent as they trained together. Poison's issues were of control and even Gwen had to admit that in a fight she would be at a huge disadvantage.

Gwen was ecstatic and her symbiote was almost vibrating under her skin, she could feel its lust for him as almost palpable compared to her own. "Really?" she shouted back as she picked herself up off the concrete, while Peter had been marking out paths and walkways they were still concrete and without her symbiote to cushion her fall she would have injured herself. Dodging and weaving, trying to leap from walkway to walkway was fine but each fall hurt and Poison just complained.

Only the running was fun, as Gwen didn't mind the peaceful quiet it brought, the laps where she and Peter just ran around the walkways at the top of the building, watching the city through the tinted windows. Of course, showering together afterwards was its own reward.

Peter looked up from the electronic device he was tinkering with, "Sure, but if you fail, then I call you Gwenom for a month and your symbiote gets its own unique punishment."

Gwen's fists unconsciously balled, she hated that name,

Poison, not Gwenom, it spoke directly into her mind again,

The rare occurrences were mainly to insult those around her or to make demands of her. She had found that once Poison started to complain about something a cookie or other sugary treat would calm her down, Gwen shook her head as she never once thought that she would have to bribe a symbiotic organism with sugar just so she could study in peace.

Peter had his problems to deal with, he knew that while Electro had probably used enough power to take down an elephant the combination of the sound, the light and the electricity had highlighted an important flaw. While it was 'dead' it was still a living part of him rather than a separate entity, anything he was vulnerable to it was as well. He had enhanced senses, so much so he could feel the air move as Gwen trained, even if he closed his eyes, her heartbeat, her scent, and the sweat as it beaded between her perfect breasts were all apparent to him. He needed a filter, something to protect him from over stimulus, at least until he learned and adapted to his powers fully.

First was a headset, he'd finished the design and it sat comfortably around his neck, he could double-tap the front and it sprang up, unfolding and covering his bottom jaw with a slick silver metal, two sound muffling earbuds, and two polarised tinted lenses. He needed to pull them up onto his face but once he extended his symbskin it fit perfectly, moulding around its features. His mask had adapted to the under armour and he wondered if his symbiote was as dead as they thought. His mask now had two white eyes that stared wide and narrowed to points, white crescents where the polarised lenses sat underneath. The white membrane thickened and thinned as he adjusted the lens, matching the polarisation of the headset. He had looked for one online but found nothing that suited his budget or his requirements unless he went for a full tactical helmet.

It took him a bit of getting used to, his hearing was muted and his voice crackled every now and again, more to do with a misplaced solder or misaligned circuit than a faulty speaker but as a working prototype, it was perfect.

Next, he worked on a grounding system, in studying kevlar and ceramic plating used in military and police body armour he practised making a second skin layer under the first. After several failed attempts he just admitted defeat, a second skin over the first then over his own was too bulky and rubbed uncomfortably, so he opted for the costumed menaces idea. One thin cloth bodysuit, pitch black and easily hidden under his clothes formed the underneath of his armour now. He carefully wove thin wire into the suit, stitching it tightly to the underside. Once he had the headset and the undersuit on and armoured up he couldn't feel any different to normal, the thin cloth and wire cushioned by the symbskin.

"Okay, hit me," he said, as Gwen hid behind a thick sheet of steel with headphones and welders goggles on. She pressed a button and smelt the thick ozone filling the warehouse. The taser discharge was bright and loud after Peter rewired and upped the amperage on it. After counting to five she shut the weapon down again.

"Pete?" She called out. "Shit, I can't hear you. Pete, I'm taking these off okay?" she was yelling but didn't know it, she hit the switch again to power the taser off completely, and after taking off the heavy and uncomfortable headgear poked her head around the plate.

Peter was smoking, and not in a good way. Steam and burned skin flaked off his body but where the electricity had touched him was charred but intact. The lenses tinted dark black. His voice clicked, strange through the tinny speaker, "I'm fine, that worked, I didn't feel it." Gwen sighed with relief, she knew they needed to train but shooting her boyfriend with a modified taser wasn't part of that plan.

After the experiments and training were over, Peter sat at the huge table with his sketchbook in front of him. He made up several designs for body armour that Poison could wear either over or under her symbskin. He had planned to make a suit for Gwen as well and armouring it seemed like a good idea, even if he could incorporate the grounding weave through it.

As the symbiotes seemed to be able to form claws as well as their massive razor-toothed mouths, he shook his head as he thought of adding a weapons system. With limited equipment and machinery, it would be too easy to make something dangerous or faulty and it was scrapped.

Gwen was just as strong as he was but had a few vulnerabilities he wasn't happy about. He was sensitive to loud noises and bright lights, whereas Poison only seemed sensitive to touch and pain. Her gleeful demands for sugar and treats were more like a child refusing to eat properly and only wanting the nicest tasting things.

The undersuit worked as expected, the headset was working, and everything was going to plan. With MJ moving in it seemed a fitting end to their time alone together. She would act, even if she didn't know it, as a restraint between them and with the way they had been spending their nights, hardly sleeping and buried between each other's legs, it was needed.