"Being a Mayor?"
Norman blinked.
He honestly hadn't expected Ben to ask that question.
But after thinking about it carefully, he was actually a little tempted.
On one hand, he had worked tirelessly to develop Osborn to its current state, and further development was already difficult.
He had, in a sense, reached the pinnacle of the business world. Now, with the help of Ben and Primus, rebuilding was much easier than he had imagined.
But he hadn't experienced the world of politics yet.
Actually, Ben had originally wanted to be like Big Bro Ben and try to be the leader of Earth.
But later, he felt it was too much trouble.
However, he then thought that if he couldn't be the leader of Earth, he could certainly be the Mayor of New York. He himself wasn't interested, but he knew Norman Osborn definitely would be.
In the Marvel comics, quite a few people had served as the Mayor of New York.
For example, Kingpin, Daredevil…
If those two could be mayor, then Norman Osborn certainly could be, not just mayor, but even president!
Coincidentally, both the Osborn Corporation and Primus Technology could support his bid.
Norman Osborn had made so many sacrifices for Primus; from this point alone, Ben already considered him one of his own.
Moreover, this would also be beneficial for the future development of both companies.
However, the two didn't dwell on the matter, understanding each other with just a look.
At this moment, the major battle outside had concluded.
The moment Natasha activated the Signal Shielding Device, everything had been settled.
As for Ivan Vanko, it would be laughable if Tony couldn't handle him.
Therefore, Ben didn't even stay until the end, leaving early with Mary Jane and Felicia to go watch a movie.
By the time they walked out of the cinema, the farce of the exhibition attack had completely ended. Justin Hammer was imprisoned, and the evidence was ironclad, leaving no possibility of him escaping.
Tony called him, but Eunice intercepted it.
Helpless, he could only leave a message.
Judging by his tone, he was very angry about Ben rejecting his call, but overall, Tony's mood was good. He mentioned that he had already spoken with Pepper and would help Primus acquire Hammer Technology.
But Ben didn't need to worry about any of this.
Norman took all these matters upon himself.
In Ben's opinion, that old guy quite enjoyed this kind of power struggle.
Compared to the calm Ben, the impact of this attack was enormous.
Putting aside the mundane companies, the American Military had made a huge fool of themselves because of this.
They had spent a large amount of funds to have weapons giants like Hammer Industries manufacture battle armor. At the time, that guy had confidently assured them there would be no problem, but what was the result?
Hammer Industries had no battle armor technology whatsoever. Ivan Vanko's arrest was enough to prove that Hammer Industries' robots were nothing but empty shells.
In the end, they only worked because of the Arc Reactor's energy.
Even so, once activated, they were just oversized pieces of junk.
While one rejoiced, another grieved. The military was in trouble, but S.H.I.E.L.D. was happy.
Nick Fury perked up upon hearing that military funding was to be cut, as if his psychological trauma from returning from Primus had been cured. He became cheerful again.
"Actually, the military didn't gain nothing. At least they recovered hundreds of tons of scrap metal. I heard Captain say those robots weren't even as powerful as tanks?"
Feeling that life was beautiful again, Nick Fury said this while playing Tank Battle on the Helicarrier.
At this moment, Natasha added, "All the scrap metal was bought back by Primus at the price of tanks."
"That high?" Nick was surprised.
Then Natasha added, "The recycling price of scrapped tanks from World War II."
"Ah, never mind then."
Nick leaned back, so happy he felt like rapping.
But honestly, the only thing the military gained from this incident was probably a Mark 3.
However, that thing was almost exclusively left by Tony for Rhodey.
Rather than being given to the military, it was more like it was given to Rhodey.
As long as this War Machine was around, the military couldn't do anything to Rhodey. Of course, it was unavoidable that the battle armor's technology would be studied.
Fortunately, Tony developed battle armor faster than Apple released new iPhones. By the time the military spent over a decade dissecting the Mark 3, he would have already developed Nano Battle Suits and even time machines, so he wouldn't care about that little bit of copyright.
From this, it could be seen that the military's development model was not good.
In terms of funding, the military's budget was far greater than that of S.H.I.E.L.D.
But few of those grunt soldiers were researchers. Most of the money they received had to be spent on other companies, and those companies were more unreliable than the last.
Hammer Industries aside, even Osborn in the past had made very slow progress on human enhancers. They finally managed to create a Lizard Serum, but it had side effects and nearly turned all of New York into the prehistoric era.
"In the 21st century, talent is the most important thing," Nick Fury sighed, increasingly convinced that his Avengers Initiative was the right move.
The only pity was that, so far, the Avengers had very few members.
Currently under consideration were: Ben, Tony, and two Spider-Men.
To this day, Nick Fury still didn't know Spider-Man's true identity.
Tony knew Peter's identity because after encountering XLR8, Tony became overly sensitive to information about Dinosaur Man.
At that time, he had discovered Spider-Man, who had appeared on the Williamsburg Bridge, and had casually investigated his identity.
Afterward, especially after Ben used Jarvis's underlying code to develop Eunice, he had implemented strict controls over Peter's identity.
"That kid is quite good."
When Nick mentioned Spider-Man, Captain America immediately thought of the young man he met at the exhibition: "He's very capable, stronger than me in all aspects. More importantly, he respects his elders."
This last remark was a joke, but it also represented Captain America's approval of the young Spider-Man.
He said, "I even suspect he could lift Thor's Hammer."
"Really?" Nick raised an eyebrow.
"If he can lift it too, then who can't lift the hammer?"
No one answered, but a single answer spontaneously appeared in everyone's mind.
After a few seconds of silence, Coulson asked:
"Speaking of Thor..."
"I didn't say it was Thor."
Nick joked, "Coulson, you're finished. You're disrespecting a god."
"I don't think throwing him into a construction site to move cement is a sign of respect for a god, Boss?" Coulson said helplessly.
That's right.
After Thor stayed on Earth, he didn't get the cushy, all-expenses-paid life of S.H.I.E.L.D. To save money, Nick absolutely wouldn't allow someone who looked like they had a huge appetite and liked smashing plates to join S.H.I.E.L.D. just to freeload.
So, under the guise of testing a god, Nick Fury drifted Thor into a construction site to work.
"He's strong and healthy, earning three days' worth of pay in one day. Isn't he naturally gifted at moving bricks? Besides, it's already pretty good. When I was a kid, I picked cotton for free," Nick said.
Everyone rolled their eyes at him.
Then Nick mentioned Tony again.
"Is that kid okay?"
Since Ivan Vanko's arrest, Nick, in an effort to improve his standing, had told Tony about Howard's past, including the history of Howard and Ivan Vanko's father jointly developing the Arc Reactor.
In a sense, Vanko wasn't wrong to call him a thief.
Natasha shrugged: "He doesn't care. He told Vanko, 'Only fools stagnate on past achievements. You're still hung up on this, while others have discovered new elements and completely changed the reactor's equation.'"
"It seems this didn't hit him as hard as Ben Parker's new element," Nick said, then his face showed a look of regret. "Why won't he cooperate with us?"
After a moment, he seemed to remember something and suddenly stood up, pinching his chin:
"Wait, Ben Parker... Parker?"
Half a month later.
Ben sat with his legs crossed on the top floor of the former Hammer Industries building, now the Primus Technology building, looking down at the small houses in Queens.
This feeling of standing at the pinnacle was wonderful, as if everything was under his control.
He was the ruler of this world!
"Sir, in addition to this building, a total of ninety Iron Soldiers have been recovered," Eunice reported.
Because Ben had tampered with those machines, all parties believed that most of the machines produced by Hammer were essentially useless scrap metal.
As soon as they heard that Primus was willing to pay for their recovery, the military's jaws practically split with joy.
Without hesitation, they bundled up all the wreckage and sent it to Ben, as if afraid he would change his mind.
But in reality, even Hammer's Iron Warriors, however inferior, were not worse than old-fashioned tanks and planes.
It was just that Ben had tampered with them, limiting the rotational speed of the core reactors in these machines.
In addition to these, hundreds of production lines originally belonging to Hammer Industries now also belonged to Primus.
Connors was also very happy.
Because starting today, he no longer had to squeeze into a tiny cubicle, staring at the few small reptiles crawling around in a glass enclosure.
Now Ben had specially cleared out two floors for him to cultivate mutant animals and conduct research.
This kind of treatment was something he wouldn't have even dared to dream of at Osborn.
But seeing Connors's cheap display, Ben couldn't help but roll his eyes.
This is just the beginning.
Later, I'll buy a few small islands and build a Jurassic Park myself.
"But I seem to remember that dinosaurs already exist in the Marvel world?" Ben wasn't entirely sure.
The only thing he was sure of was the school's reopening date.
After everything that had happened, school was finally about to start again.
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