197. The Corporate Graveyard. (Patreon)

Harry Osborn POV:

I had been in boardrooms my entire life and always felt too small and too unworthy in them.

Oscorp boardrooms were temples to ego. Polished mahogany, chrome edges, men in thousand-dollar suits who spoke like every sentence was a negotiation tactic. Voices raised, smiles sharpened and dismissiveness worn like cologne.

This wasn’t that.

The conference room at Parker Industries felt like a war council more than a executive boardroom.

At least a hundred top executives from the country’s most powerful law firms lined the sides of the table as holograms, flickering in soft blue-white light. I recognized at least twenty of them immediately. Men and women Oscorp had paid obscene amounts of money to cultivate relationships with, leaned on when things got… questionable.

They were silent.

Not bored-silent or polite-silent. It was the silence born from being in the presence of an Apex predator.

Understandable.

Parker Industries didn’t rake in millions a month. It raked in billions.

Uncle Ben sat casually at one end of the table in a simple blue shirt, black pants and flip-flops like he’d wandered into the wrong room and decided to stay anyway. Aunt May looked serene, hands folded, smiling softly like she was waiting for tea to be served instead of corporate annihilation.

Gwen… Gwen was something else entirely.

She wore a tailored suit with a pencil skirt and heels, posture straight, eyes sharp. Not Spider-Woman. Not my old friend Gwen Stacy.

Mrs. Parker. Even her eyebrow piercing somehow looked serious.

Captain Stacy sat to her right in his white officer’s uniform, solid and unreadable. The woman beside him. Vice Captain Jean DeWolff studied everything with the careful intensity of someone who already knew she was out of her depth.

Gwen set a thick pile of documents on the table with a decisive thud.

“Okay,” She said coolly, “let’s get this meeting started.”

My stomach twisted. That was my evidence. My confession. My betrayal of my own company and dad's legacy.

“Digital copies will be sent along with physical copies in fax,” She continued. “In three… two… one… now.”

Right on cue, sounds of printers whirred to life across the room from the speakers. Assistants handed tablets to lawyers. Eyes dropped to pages. Fingers scrolled.

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

Then something surreal happened.

Smiles.

The kind you see on kids when tearing open gifts on Christmas morning.

A bald man with wire-rim glasses leaned back in his chair, hands steepled. “Well, I’ll be damned. You boys have what you need to do your legal voodoo? Because I sure do.”

Gwen arched a brow. “Was that rhetorical?”

“I was expecting more of a challenge, Mrs. Parker.” Another director said, almost disappointed. “Thought we’d have to dig something up ourselves. Would’ve been good training for the new graduates. We aren't getting any younger unlike you madam.”

A woman in a red blazer snorted. “Don’t get too deflated. The Roxxon offshore rig investigation begins shortly. Especially the Nathan Bowen case. That one’s juicy.”

Gwen leaned forward, fingers interlaced. “Listen. Roxxon is clinging to the skeletons of the Black Gold era. Oil’s dead. The only thing it’s good for now is Vaseline. Whatever miracle they’re hoping to dredge up from the swamps of New Orleans is irrelevant. We made oil worthless.”

The room went quiet again.

“Parker Industries,” She continued evenly, “secretly holds sixty percent of the world’s crude oil reserves for disaster contingencies. Roxxon will be eliminated like all the others before them. Shell. BP. Sinopec. All will fall.”

She turned her gaze toward me.

“Our priority is Oscorp. They’ve already produced an enhanced by accident. That makes them an existential liability.”

I swallowed.

“Oscorp is becoming a pain in the ass for me, Peter and Harry Osborn,” Gwen said. “It’s time it took its place in the corporate graveyard. Thirty-minute recess. Then we continue.”

She stood.

So did everyone else.

I stayed seated.

I felt no discomfort, regret or guilt. I felt relief at watching Oscorp die.

Jean DeWolff POV:

Parker Industries.

The most powerful and mysterious organization on the planet.

From rockets to pacifiers, there wasn’t an industry they hadn’t touched and rewritten and somehow, I was dating the father of the woman married to the man who owned eighty percent of it.

No pressure.

I leaned toward George as he munched an apple fritter like he wasn’t sitting at the epicenter of global economic destruction.

“So,” I murmured, “what’s it like having Peter Parker as your daughter’s husband?”

George shrugged, licking sugar off his thumb. “They’re soulmates. Both couch potatoes. Strong-headed beyond reason but they listen to each other. Love being lazy together.”

That… wasn't what I expected.

“I was picturing more of a Young Master Peng of the Peng Clan situation,” I admitted. “You know. Arrogant prodigy with a god complex.”

George chewed on his doughnut thoughtfully. “Come with me.”

We boarded one of the indoor mini maglev trams because apparently Parker Industries was now the size of a small city. The ride glided through glowing corridors and vertical gardens before stopping at a sterile-looking wing.

George led me into a massive hall.

Rows upon rows of desks.

Hundreds of people.

All filling out paperwork. Endless piles of paperwork.

“Vice Captain Jean DeWolff,” George said solemnly, “welcome to the Statutory Liability for Abstract Vacuous Entries Department.”

I blinked. “The what?”

“The S.L.A.V.E. Department,” he clarified. “ 'If it doesn’t matter, it’s our priority.’ Thus department's official motto.”

My jaw dropped. “This is… paperwork hell."

“Corporate, government, Interpol, terrorists and spies who try to infiltrate Parker Industries get put here,” George said grimly. “Their job? Fill out incredibly complex, utterly pointless AI-generated tax audits, forms and documents. In triplicate.”

I spun on him. “George, this is an illegal sweatshop for paperwork!”

“A spy is handsomely paid.” He replied calmly. “Governments deny their existence. So what do you think happens to them?”

I went pale.

“There are three ways out,” George continued.

“One: your government acknowledges your existence. That gets you a mind wipe and a pardon. Two: you provide information valuable enough to Parker Industries. Three: you fill out one hundred billion pieces of paperwork in triplicate.”

“Has anyone done the third?” I asked.

“Not yet.” Replied George.

I swallowed. “Has anyone done the first?”

“Nakia. Daughter of Yaa. Wakandan War Dog. Prince T’Challa’s lover.”

“And the second?”

“Three thousand four hundred sixty-seven times.”

My knees felt weak.

“This is the evil side of Parker Industries.” George said calmly.

I turned to him, voice trembling. “What kind of secrets does Peter Parker have that this is justified?”

George didn’t hesitate.

“Does a matter–antimatter reaction formula that can be weaponized into a gigaton-level WMD the size of a briefcase count?”

“What?” I croaked out.

“That’s not even the craziest thing he has.”

I sat down hard in the nearest chair.

George handed me a cup of water. I drank it like I’d crossed a desert.

Then I stood, wrapped my arms around his massive frame and buried my face against his chest.

“You guys are crazy.” I whispered.

He hugged me back. “I know.”