A hand burst through the surface of the tar-like water and scrambled to locate the land. It found solid ground and its nails, stained black, scraped the dirt looking for something to hold.

It found a rock and soon a second hand joined before the owner of said hands pulled her head above the surface of the Ocean of Immortality.

She couldn't breath, the tar was still in her lungs. She tried to cough up the slimy substance, all the while moving forward.

Amora the Enchantress pulled her chest onto the land, and reached an arm ahead to pull herself forward.

The ocean's 'water' clung to her legs like the tentacle of an octopus. Suddenly the black substance tightened and yanked her backwards. She was pulled back until she was waist deep again. The witch clutched onto the rock she'd found as if her life depended on it - it did, in a way. Still choking, Amora was sure that just like every other time, she was going to be pulled back to the bottom of the ocean - eternally drowning, eternally tortured by the pressure of the ocean against her body, eternally imprisoned.

But Odin's suppressant on her magic had weakened almost completely. Although it had taken her months to even reach the surface of the ocean, her magic was with her the entire time. For once, she had a weapon against this motherfucker.

She took one hand off the rock, immediately being pulled a little deeper as she did, and let the free hand glow green as she whispered her commands to the universe and a prayer to the Norns.

A ray of green light shot out of her hand, the water's hold on her loosening as it hit.

She quickly pulled herself onto solid ground and crawled forward, limbs weak and tired, until she collapsed.

She coughed up as much of the thick black water as she could, though she could still feel it coating her lungs.

Chest aching and utterly exhausted, she laughed. She laughed until she couldn't anymore.

She was free.

And she was pissed.

----------•----------

Nick Fury's beeper was still transmitting its location to Carol Danvers' own, so it was easy enough to find him sitting alone in a pub called 'the luck o' the Irish'. He certainly didn't look very lucky.

Carol was glad she had decided to wear normal - if outdated - earth clothing instead of her suit. The other patrons of the pub didn't look like they were SHIELD.

She sat down on the bar stool beside him. "You called?"

"Six months ago." He downed the rest of his whisky before he turned to her. "Where were you, Carol? I thought you were dead."

"There was a time dilation field separating us." She explained. "I only got your signal yesterday."

"Half of Earth was wiped out." He replied, still half accusatory. Carol knew he wasn't actually blaming her though, it just meant some real shit was going down.

"Fuck. How did that even-"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore. The threat was taken care of, everyone was brought back. Wasn't fun dying though."

Carol's heart twinged at that mention of death but figured he'd rather focus on the matter at hand. "Your beeper's still broadcasting an emergency signal."

His face tightened. "We have a new problem. One with a more difficult solution." He sighed. "I found a Skrull in the UN."

"I thought there weren't any left here?"

"Clearly we were wrong." He snapped, before the anger washed out from his voice almost immediately. "Maybe they just arrived recently. I don't particularly care which. Ross was in charge of a UN subcommittee which could all be skrull right now. That subcommittee has been to private meetings with several world leaders and is in charge of the official Avengers. The short version: we have no one we can trust and we might just be fucked this time."

"How do you know I'm not a skrull?" Carol asked.

"Luck of the Irish." Nick said with a hint of amusement. "SHIELD was mostly destroyed and I don't want to take too many risks with those that are still there. The only people with any knowledge about this is you, me, Agent Fitzgerald-" he pointed to the red head behind the bar, "- Agent Hill and occasionally, Agent Coulson."

"What's your plan of action?" Carol asked.

"Right now?" Nick asked, waving Agent Fitzgerald over. "Drinking. It could be the end of the world after all."

Carol smiled. "I'll always drink to that."

----------•----------

"You want me to what?" Peter exclaimed, barely able to contain the volume of his voice with his shock.

"Look, kid. The subcommittee has started coming down hard with the Accord's regulations lately. If they catch you vigilante-ing around the city, they can detain you indefinitely without trial."

"They can do that?!"

Tony sighed. "All you need to do is sign and reveal your identity to the subcommittee. It's that or having said subcommittee after your ass 24/7. You're an easier target than Steve and his gang of merry men."

"But what if the subcommittee is evil? I mean, detaining someone indefinitely with trial? That sounds like a big human rights violation! They've got to be evil if they haven't rectified that yet, right?! That probably goes against the UN's own laws! They'd know that they could kidnap Aunt May to control me!"

"They're not evil." Tony reassured.

"But what if they are! SHIELD seemed pretty cool but its director was Hydra! Even if they aren't evil, what if they decide I can't be Spider-man because I'm a seventeen! I can't sign, Mr Stark."

Tony's shoulders tensed up. "If you don't sign this, they're going to be looking for you. Ross never stopped looking for Bruce before the Avengers formed."

"I know." Peter replied.

"Just lay low for a little. Alright, kid? Keep your nose in the books and don't be taking down dangerous mob bosses."

"But Doctor Strange is out of the city and he asked me to keep an eye on a dormant power source!" He pulled out the map of New York Strange had lent him. "If the power is used I can track it down."

Tony looked at the map sceptically. "If this power source is activated, find a way to contact me and don't interact. I just want to keep you out of trouble."

"I'll be safe." Peter said confidently.

"But you can't come here either." Tony continued. "If they find out I'm letting someone opposing the accords into my house, it would make you a bigger target and might give them a reason to want to lock me up."

"Lock you up?" Peter asked.

"If I break the Accords, they can arrest me without a trial, put me on the raft."

"That one is definitely a human rights violation."

"I know," Tony agreed, "I've been trying to negotiate that and the indefinite detention without trial since I signed. I thought if I signed as soon as I could, it would be seen as an act of cooperation and I would get some sort of special treatment. Then I could rectify the errors of the Accords. We need oversight, but treating a group of people as less than human is where I draw the line. The subcommittee has never listened though."

"How did they even get elected?"

Tony shrugged. "Beats me. You should go though. Your 'Stark internship' has been cut first so that the subcommittee can't make the connection between you and Spider-man but I'll wait a few weeks to officially kick you off the big team."

"You'll call me if you negotiate off some of the terms?"

"Yeah," Tony said, "I'll call you."

The goodbye was stiff and awkward, but Peter still felt a little emotional.

On the way back to his apartment, his spidey sense went off like an annoying alarm clock that he couldn't shut off. Peter immediately looked around for danger in time to see a kid turning away and shoving something into their coat.

Peter felt down his pockets and noticed his wallet was missing.

"Hey!" Peter called after the kid.

The kid looked back at him along with everyone else nearby. Once they noticed that Peter was looking right at them, they made a run for it.

Peter sprinted after them. He had longer legs, sure, but the kid was more nimble. They led Peter down multiple different alleyways and went through a hole in fence that was too small for him to fit through. Peter climbed over the fence and ran forward, only to find a dead end.

There was only place the kid could be: underneath the pile of soggy cardboard on the ground. It was that that got Peter to catch himself before he moved forward.

There was only, what, ten dollars in his wallet? If the kid was going through this much trouble to keep such little money, he obviously needed it a lot more than Peter did. Especially now that he had his own sugar bestie.

He sighed. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking. You can keep it."

Peter turned around and hoisted himself up over the fence.

After he got home and said a quick hi to Shuri, Peter took out his phone and facetimed MJ to talk about the accords. Her preference for video calls came only from the chance that he would make an expression fit for her sketchbook while they made them.

"Yeah the raft is super sketchy," MJ said, "Public information on how it's ran is pretty much non-existent, which raises some serious red flags. But going by what I do know? An underwater prison means no sunlight or fresh air, and no visitation is definitely illegal and breaks some of the UN's own rules. The accords themselves are pretty bad for human rights too. Even if someone wasn't carrying out acts of vigilantism, if the subcommittee thinks they have strong enough powers they can track and extract dna samples from them. And if they're using their powers to commit a crime, then they can be detained indefinitely - which is also illegal. I'm worried that at some point people are going to be detained indefinitely for committing a minor crime just because they have powers. I mean, imagine how many people could be charged with indefinite detention because the person arresting just doesn't like powered people, or you know, non-white people even if you get caught by some racist cop."

"So... this is Hydra right?" Peter asked. "They invaded SHIELD, they could've done the same to the UN."

"Maybe," she replied, "but hiding human right violating regulations on a minority the government hates and portraying it as a means of keeping everyone safe? Sounds like normal governmental activities to me."

Shuri butted in, leaning over Peter's shoulder. "Oof that moment when you can't tell the difference between a peacekeeping organisation and literal nazis? Big yikes."

MJ nodded solemnly. "Big yikes," she replied, "I'm MJ."

"Oh, this is MJ?" Shuri said, "I'm Shuri."

"Hey," MJ greeted before she looked at Peter, "So, ignoring the friend you have over to talk to me? Should I be honoured or offended on her behalf?"

"Oh no, Shuri's only in New York for a while, so I'm staying with her for a couple of weeks while she's here.

"Your aunt let you do that?"

"May trusts me," Shuri smiled, "her mistake. We don't even have bedtimes in this apartment."

Amusement tugged at MJ's lips and she raised an eyebrow. "Dang, someone better call the police on you two."

"Shuri, is that a police? I'm calling the weed." Peter said.

"420, whatcha smoking?" Shuri finished without hesitation.

MJ looked between the two of them. "Now I see why you two are friends."

Shuri laughed. "True. Memes are the bonds that hold us together. Anyway, I gotta go set the table, takeout should be here any minute." She waved at MJ. "See you."

MJ raised a hand lazily. "Bye." After Shuri left she continued. "If you're going to eat, I can just send you some stuff I have about the accords? The Raft will be impossible to get any information about unless you can somehow get in contact with the old Avengers."

"That'd be great, thanks MJ." Peter replied, leaving out that he could easily contact a certain member of the old Avengers without a problem.

"No problem, loser." She replied, ending the call without saying anything further.

Shuri was answering the door as he walked past to the sitting room where she had set out places for the two of them on the small coffee table.

Peter turned on the tv and began flicking through some of the shows on Netflix, but after Shuri had entered the room and set the takeout down, she grabbed the remote from his hand and put on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It was a Halloween episode, which seeing as they had already watched all of those half a million times together online, probably meant she wanted to talk about something.

Peter reached for the egg-fried rice and spooned a heap onto his plate.

"What's got you so interested in the accords all of a sudden?" Shuri asked after Peter had already made himself a duck pancake and taken half a million prawn crackers.

"I was talking to Mr Stark today and he wanted me to sign... If I don't, they'll be after me for committing vigilantism with powers, but if I do, I'll have to reveal my secret identity to people that might be... I don't know, hydra or something."

"Oof," was all she said for a moment, "maybe you should quit being Spider-Man for a while. They're focusing pretty intensely on the New York vigilantes lately."

"I'd feel bad not being Spider-Man."

"Is it worse to not be Spider-Man or get put in the Raft?" Shuri shrugged.

"I guess you're right... I'll just lay off unless I pick up Strange's weird magic thing." He shoved a spoonful of rice into his mouth and took the magicked map from his pocket to show her like it was a presentation.

The map was suddenly scorching hot in his hand and Peter dropped it onto the table. He quickly swallowed his food before he looked down at the magic item. "Oh damn."

"What?" Shuri said.

"The magic source literally just activated. I didn't... really expect it to be so soon?"

Shuri smiled. "Well go put on your suit, Spider-Man."

"Yeah, right, good idea." Peter nodded before sprinting to his bedroom and throwing himself into his suit. By the time he was back in the sitting room again, Shuri was dug into the episode and the map had cooled.

He brought the map a little closer to his face, unsure how far away it could hear him. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Apparently not so engrossed in the episode that she couldn't hear him, Shuri snorted. "Seriously?"

Peter shrugged. "Mr Strange wanted a password."

A orange dot appeared on the map, and was moving rather quickly. Someone running, probably. Either the person themselves had powers or they were running with an active magical object.

"I'm going to go after the current source of power," Peter said, "but text me if you find out if there was a big incident that could've been caused by this? ... or for this, I guess."

"Sure," she nodded, "stay safe, Peter."

There was a lot of genuine concern in her voice, and Peter smiled. "I'll be fine. I'll probably just try and see who's using this, snap a photo of something."

It didn't take long to catch up to the power source. With his webs, Peter was able to get ahead of the moving dot so that he could catch a look at it as it ran past. He needn't have bothered though, the dot had stopped in an alleyway.

Peter walked along the rooftop bordering the alley and looked down. He heard it before he saw it: a small child crying. The kid he spotted wasn't just any kid either. Going from the messy black hair and too-big green hoodie, this was the kid that had pickpocketed him earlier.

Damn, this night was just a whole big vat of deja vu.

Peter managed to get to the ground without the kid even looking up from where their head was buried in their knees and took a step forward.

Maybe he should've called Mr Stark first like he said he would... but it was just a kid.

"Hey," Peter greeted as softly as he could.

The kid jumped, a sob catching in their breath as they did. They looked at Peter with red-rimmed green eyes.

"You probably know me, right? Spider-man? I'm just making sure you're okay."

The kid looked paralysed for a solid moment, before they disappeared completely in a flash of bright green.

Well... huh.