Chapter 4 - Parker Industries

The next morning, after a short sleep, Peter got up and, grudgingly, dressed nice-ish, with a blue semi-formal dress shirt, nice pants, and tennis shoes. He didn't know how Octavius tended to dress to these things, but based on the leagues and scores of suits and ties, it was obvious. He messed with his hair a bit and left his office/bedroom and went to where the meeting with the Fantastic Four was happening.

He left a little early, taking a quick glance around each floor, ignoring the people who seemed to be a little scared of him, and nodded to himself, going back to the 5th floor, the middle floor of the building, where conferences and such took place. He sat down in a room and waited for about a minute and a half before an obviously angry Fantastic Four barged in. They immediately stopped however, confused, because the Peter Parker they'd recently known had a bodyguard detail and always dressed high and mighty. The way he was dressed now...took them back a bit to the old Peter they knew.

Peter backed up in his chair with his hands up. "What did I do?!" This was both a sort of joke, but also he did indeed need to know what he did. Or rather, what Octavius did.

Reed snarled a little. "You cut all our funding, you've started manufacturing weapons on an Oscorp scale, and you provided DOCTOR DOOM with tech!" A stretchy fist almost punched him in the face before his blue arms came from behind him and shielded him from the fist.

"I'M SORRY!" Following the apology and relentless pleading for them to calm down, he detailed the same things he told Felicia and MJ.

"Dude, how can expect us to believe that shit? Just cus you don't sound as arrogant as you used to, doesn't mean you've changed!" Johnny burst out. The former best superhero friend of Peter, he practically hated him now.

Peter shook his head. "This is the absolute truth." He glanced at buŧŧons on his desk and buffered for a second before hitting a buŧŧon with a speaker on it. A voice crackled a little.

"Yes, Mr. Parker? What projects would you like to start today?" Peter shook his head to himself. "I'm starting a few projects on non-lethal self-defence, and if you would, cancel any and all manufacturing of our guns, missiles, power suits, and whatever the hell else we've put into the weapons industry. And give the Fantastic Four their money back!" He hung up before the guy on the other end could respond.

The Parker who started the company was a stubborn ȧsshole, he would never cancel this stuff just on a whim. This had to be the Parker they knew. With a little twist, they ȧssumed, given how much more confident he seemed. He stood up, nano-tech that he set to develop while he slept covering his body in his suit from the night before, with his blue arms out to the sides. "Peter Parker is back, and better than ever!"

~~~~~~~~

Following that meeting, he went back to his office to design things. He did as he said he would, creating roughly 16 different stun-based self-defence devices, plus several devices for environmental protection. An IQ over 250 will do that.

A soft knock respounded on his office door. "Come in!" He yelled over the Motley Crüe he was blasting. In came MJ, Aunt May, Tony Stark and the rest of the Avengers who knew Peter, Harry Osborn, and...Gwen Stacy? Hm. Guess she isn't dead. MJ was better though. He moved his eyes back to his current project. "Go ahead and sit! I'll be done in a second!" He made a couple tweaks to the webshooters on his table, making a type of web fluid that could solidify to a type of tightrope, and turned off his music. He glanced around his lab. Dear god it was messy. A stark contrast to the tediously and obsessively neat and organized Peter who started the company. He put his tank top back on and turned off the lights to his lab. He turned to his guests and smiled. "Hey! Happy you guys could make it." The instant each and every one of them walked in, they knew he was back, at least a little bit back. Octavius had a thing for classical and Jazz, Peter had a thing for soft rock, bordering on Pop. Whoever this new Peter was, he was more disorganized, more productive, apparently more confident, less awkward, and was a bit of a metalhead.

Aunt May only cared that he was a bit more like her nephew, surging forward and hugging him like her life depended on it. "Peter! You're...you're back!" She wailed happily between sobs.

Peter just smiled. "Yeah. I'm back. I'm back to stay." He let her go and turned to the Avengers. The first one to move was Tony, who punched him hard in the gut.

"That's for taking so long to get out of your own head, literally." He then stomped on his foot. "That's for halting all your weapons stuff and leaving a hole." Then he bro-hugged him. "And that's for bringing our good friend back."

Peter coughed a bit and hopped on one foot for a second, cursing like a sailor, unheard of from him, and stood normally again. "Ow. But I think I deserved that. A little."

One by one they all had interactions similar to that, until it was just Carol and Natasha. They seemed to be discussing through eyes who was going first. MJ, off to the side, glared daggers, knowing all too well why. The Peter they loved was back. At least a little bit back, maybe even better. It came to the most childish thing ever: Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Natasha lost, surprisingly, and walked up to Peter. Her charm, given that she was THE Black Widow, prevented her from being awkward, but her straightforwardness had a few affects on this exchange. First, she slapped the shit out of him, and then aggressively made out with him. In response he fell on his ȧss. MJ and Natasha had a little hissyfit off to the side, as Carol came up to him. "Well, while they're distracted." She kissed him on the cheek. "Welcome back, Peter." She patted his back and returned to standing with the others. Natasha stood smirking, MJ looked ready to kill someone, and Carol just looked happy.

AN// Notice, no interaction really important between him and Gwen. I'll get into that next chappie. But she won't be in the harem.