Peter was broke. By the time he'd paid taxes, realtor fees, and a whole bunch of things he never even knew existed for buying a warehouse, he had less than $20,000 left of the money he'd gotten from Osborn. While that might have sounded like a lot to anyone else, by the time he paid for materials and supplies to finish the warehouse and the workshops, he would be completely broke.
As soon as he started to buy even the bare minimum of the tools he needed to clean the warehouse up, he realized that getting $50,000 knocked off the price had been a con, and that the inside would need that in maintenance just to make it clean let alone livable.
He needed a job, it didn't have to pay well but it had to pay. Peter had meant to venture around the area his new home was in for a while now but he'd never gotten round to it, or at least not properly. Swinging his way out and back never gave him the street level view he needed, and after walking for about 10 minutes he came across what he had spied earlier.
The area was clean, saying a lot of a semi-industrial warehouse district. There were plenty of truckers and conveniences for them as well as a good amount of hookers, but that wasn't what Peter was looking for. A lot of places like this needed temp workers. A large haul coming in needed an extra pair of hands paid in cash and then forgotten. He could make a few hundred a week just hauling boxes or sweeping floors. If he got desperate or an emergency came up he could look for something temporary, but what he really needed was a steady income. It was in the window of a 7-11 near the warehouse that he spotted an advert for a full-time position.
It wasn't going to be perfect but it suited what he wanted. Good pay, flexible hours and guessing that a junkyard in the middle of Brooklyn wouldn't be completely legit, a good way to score some maybe less than legal electronics or scrapped computer components.
The junkyard was massive, piles of scrap cars had been made into a maze of sorts but from the ground, it was even more imposing. Clutching the advert in hand he made his way through the entrance, under the large yellow and black sign, "Alexsi's Auto and Mechanical Scrap" written across it, the undersign of "we buy any used or broken items" had caught Peter's eye. He was now here not just to try and find a job, but to scout out any useful machinery for his starter company.
As he made his way to the office he saw a fat bearded man about to start prying open what looked like a server rack on the top of a huge steel workbench, raising his eyebrows in alarm.
Peter shouted "hey, hey you, wait, stop, no," while running towards him.
The thick heavy sound headphones the man was wearing must have either blocked out all the noise or he just ignored what to him was a kid, but Peter grabbed the crowbar out of his hands. "Hey wait," and as the man reached back for a lump hammer, Peter raised his hands in defence.
"Whatn the fuck'r you doin?" the man drawled as he waved the hammer at Peter, he moved the headphones down and yelled, "Hey boss, we gots a thief."
"Hey no, no. You're about to make a huge mistake, I can explain." Holding up the crowbar, Peter had backed away far enough that if the man swung not only would he miss but Peter would get a clean swipe at his neck. Of course, with the crowbar in hand, Peter was ready to make sure he never got the chance to even swing, and as he tensed he felt the other man coming out of the porta office.
A short but well built and heavily balding man came out of the office, wiping his hands on an already dirty rag. "Oh come on Bens, it's a kid. Hey, what you doin huh? Bens get back to work, and you, you can fuck off." The man had little patience after being disturbed,
"Wait, sir, the server case. Your uh, the employee was about to crack it with a crowbar"
The bald guy shrugged, "So?"
"Well, it's an Oscorp Azura server shell, those have anti-theft devices inside. If the case is cracked or damaged they send out a signal and then destroy the drives so they can't be used again," Peter said. "Even a scrapped one has a small backup power cell, in case, uh, they get stolen."
The man frowned, "Is that so?"
"Uh yeah, I did some work on a broken one before, plus the specs of the case were leaked online a few years ago, that's why Oscorp ditched them. The mark 2 is bolted to Oscorps server room," Peter began to explain but the older man interrupted him,
"Yeah, kid I don't care. Can you fix it?" He waved the rag at the advert in Peter's hand and realising he was giving Peter a chance to prove himself, he nodded.
Peter crumpled the job application in his hand "yeah, yeah I can but uh, can you not you know, hit me with the hammer as I do?"
"Yeah, Bennie here is only interested in the case, you musta just uh, startled him is all". Bennie nodded and put his headphones back on, "so Mr uh,"
"Parker, Peter Parker." Peter offered out his hand but the man just looked at it, his own hands greasy.
"Alexsi, Alexsi Sytsevich, Owner. So Parker, get to it, you need anything for this?",
"uh", looking at the workbench he spotted the screwdriver he needed, "no, as long as Mr Bennie doesn't mind me using his tools I'm fine",
"Mr Bennie?" Alexsi laughed, "Nah, it's just Bennie and sure, go ahead."
Peter grabbed the flat head screwdriver and running his fingers along the bottom of the case found the screw latch he was looking for, angling the screwdriver's head he inserted it into the tab and pushed upwards. There was a clunk and on the side of the case a panel had slid out.
Looking for a box knife, Peter extended the blade and slid it between the panel and the server housing, gently pulling them apart until it sprang free on a thin wire. "Uh, do you have any? Oh never mind," Peter grabbed a pair of snips with one hand and while holding the panel with the other, reached into the open case and after three snips put the panel back. At the front of the server case, he slid open the first panel and pulled out the server blade.
"All done," he said as he passed the hard drive to Bennie, who slipped it into an antistatic bag. "Uh, once the case is empty you can unscrew the top and bottom of the sides and get the transmitters out, they've got no power right now but are still good to use."
Peter wasn't dumb, he'd just committed a felony in front of someone who apparently didn't care too much about that side of things, even owning a scrapped Oscorp server case was illegal. They fell under military spec hardware and you needed a massive amount of licenses and other paperwork to handle them. If a junkyard in Brooklyn had something like that, he was the reincarnation of Jesus.
Alexsi nodded, "Bennie, take care of it while me and Pete here have a little chat, my office is a bit more private for these kinda things." Alexsi ushered Peter into a cramped and cluttered office space, it was more like a holding pen for possibly repairable items and paperwork than a meeting area, but after lifting an old engine block off a seat Alexsi motioned for Peter to sit while he got into a large leather chair behind his desk.
"So, you want the job, 'cause it's yours. No set hours, no set pay. You get 10% of the selling price of whatever you fix once they sell, and you keep your mouth shut about what you're fixin. If that is acceptable, then start when you can and I'll pay you when things move."
From the look on his face, this was non-negotiable. No wonder no one wanted this job, it was fine if he could repair a big-ticket item but toasters and other junk would make him nickels and dimes. The advert was obviously a scam to get a few free hours of work from someone desperate enough, and while Peter was, even 10% wasn't enough.
"20% if I take it in trade, I'm looking for a few things for my company." He hoped Alexsi would see the value of his skills.
"Oh yeah, whatcha makin?"
"I dunno yet but uh, I own the warehouse on 1st and Brooke,"
Alexsi snorted, "The methdeath place huh? Hope you didn't pay much for that, we did the clean up on it and boy that place's a mess."
Peter had to agree, mainly on the state it was in and definitely not on the man's definition of 'clean'. "Yeah, but it's fine, I'll just want small things, I saw you got some portable offices still flat-packed, how about those for the server case?"
Alexsi snorted, "you know Pete those are uh about 5 grand new, and I got 5, that's a lot of missing work you're talking about."
"Umm, Mr Alexsi, boss sir, no, those drives are Oscorp military spec, valued at 50 thousand dollars each, the tracking I just disabled would have the feds and a whole bunch of cops here if they'd been set off, and there's what 10 drives in that case, so half a million, even 20% of that is"
"Is that so?" and Alexsi paused and then waved his hand, "yeah yeah okay, I get it, okay, take em. You're killin me here, killin me. You need em delivered?" Peter looked a little guilty and nodded, "fine fine, but you better be worth it. Hey Bennie, get the flatpack offices for the kid, there's five in the back."
"Four," Bennie shouted back,
"uh it seems one's being used, so four okay?" Peter nodded. "Fine now get outta here, come in tomorrow and we'll get you started. I got a few small things you can work on to try you out, and you know, speak a little more kid, we don't bite here," and Alexsi laughed, "but here," and Alexi slid open a drawer and pulled out a wad of notes, counting out 10 bills, tapping them on the desk he passed them over to Peter who stared at the man handing him $1000. "An advance, cause you know, one's missin, but you better be here tomorrow, or uh," and he gave Peter a look.
Peter smiled and nodded, and Alexsi raised an eyebrow "uh sorry, yes, thanks, uh boss," and Alexsi just shook his head. Peter was over the moon as they worked out the deal. He'd just scored four offices he could turn into not just a home for himself but workshops, and a thousand bucks. It was a start and once he managed to get the warehouse cleaned up, he could get a few tenants in. It was his backup plan in case his business failed and would give him income while he got it off the ground.
Checking out plans for his own home had given him the idea. He had four shipping containers with some minor bullet damage and an office. The extra offices would give him space to work in while he rented out the others. Students would be best, he thought to himself. They were less fussy and he could charge a decent amount for what would basically be a room with amenities. Less hassle to build but still earn him a decent amount each month, he just needed to get it to work and to make it appealing to rent.
Alexsi watched as Peter Parker, his latest employee, wandered through the piles of junk, stopping every now and again to check something that must have some value to him. Thinking back to what the kid had said, Alexsi reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a large survival knife, hiding it under some paperwork.
"Hey Bennie, come here a moment wouldja?"
He needed answers.