"The whole place was torched! This is what I'm always talking about. These heroes are doing their best but they're dangerous! They could've set the whole building on fire," Himawari explained. She'd been riled up by the report of the incident last night and was obviously agitated by the whole event. As far as she was concerned, the new heroes were sticking their noses into S.H.I.E.L.D. business and were going to mess up the entire investigation. Meanwhile Gwen was doing her best to pretend she didn't have a hole in her stomach that was fighting against its stitches to reopen. Night Nurse had done everything she'd needed to ensure Gwen would be okay, but walking and talking and sitting and standing and breathing weren't her favorite activities at the moment. She hadn't expected to actually be in pain for so long. Heroes seemed to just walk off the pain of things like stab or bullet wounds after only a few minutes, and she'd expected the same to go for her. Clearly she still had to work out some of the rules of this comic run. Were the writers making things harder for her on purpose? Was there a skill she needed to learn or something? Questions for another issue.

"Hey, Himawari? Can you give us a break for a bit? We were up all night working on our literature project," Gwen pleaded, holding her stomach as she spoke. She glanced over at Andi, but her friend was off in another world, not even having touched her lunch.

"Guys, um… I'm not really that good at talking about things like this so... I'll just say it." Himawari's cheeks were on fire, her eyes avoiding her roommates entirely as she gathered herself. "If you two need the dorm for… activities… you can just let me know. We're all adults, right? And I really don't mind sleeping in the lounge for a night or two- it's totally okay with me."

"Huh?" Gwen was speechless looking back over to Andi who'd finally snapped out of her trance. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"You guys are always running off together and spending late nights working on 'projects.' You've been walking kinda funny all day, Andi's super distant like she's worried about something… I can put two and two together," Himawari popped another piece of gyoza into her mouth once she was done talking, her eyes still refusing to even glance at her roommates.

"Andi, tell her we-"

"Sorry, babe. I guess she figured it out." Andi'd been in such a bad mood all day, thinking about how her father's body had been absolutely desecrated, how Jack was still out there doing whatever it was that he did. She definitely didn't mind a good laugh at Gwen's expense. She smirked, playfully resting a hand on Gwen's. Gwen's eyes widened even further, jaw hanging open as she looked back and forth between her two roommates. "Next time we don't use the big-"'

"Lalalalala! O sugiru joho! I have a quiz in twenty minutes! I do not want that mental image to distract me the entire time," Himawari begged, pressing her hands against her ears.

It'd been three days since their fight against Jack when Gwen came skipping towards Andi in the library carrying a large blueprint with her.

"Gwen what this," Andi asked confusedly, groaning as she was forced to set her homework aside. She knew better than to try to do anything that required her focus when Gwen was around.

"I have a plan to get Jack," Gwen explained excitedly, unfurling the blueprint on top of Andi's study material.

"Nope. No thanks," Andi shook her head, not even bothering to hear Gwen out. She'd already thought up a plan to get him on her own. She didn't want to put her friend in danger for her own gain anymore. She could handle this on her own.

"What's wrong," Gwen asked confusedly.

"Gwen, you said it yourself. You almost died," Andi whispered angrily.

"Okay, I'll admit, I might have panicked- just a little- after getting shot for the first time ever in my entire life. But now that I'm not hemorrhaging blood all over my white costume, I know I was panicking. Just think about it- no one fridges female characters anymore! Fans got tired of that trope after watching Gwen Stacy die for the thirtieth time and now she's Sp- uh… a superhero," Gwen barely caught herself, still not wanting to out anyone's secret identity, even to her own partner.

"No thanks. I'll do this myself," Andi said sternly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Okay, Thanos. That's not how we're gonna do this. If Jack almost killed both of us when there were two of us, how are you gonna do any better alone," Gwen asked pointedly, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"I'll figure it out-"

"You're not! That's how. Now quit being dumb and listen to my plan," Gwen interrupted her, playfully hitting Andi on the head with a notebook. A pink BONK sound effect came from the hit and she couldn't help but chuckle. "The reason why we lost is because we don't have a tank," she explained casually, setting Andi's books down on the corners of the blueprint to keep it from rolling up again. "So we just need some help to change that."

"A S.H.I.E.L.D. installation," Andi asked curiously, cocking her head as she reviewed the layout.

"Not just any S.H.I.E.L.D. installation. This is the Raft," Gwen explained with a smile.

"Gwen, I already hate this plan," Andi groaned. The Raft? One of four of the tightest security prisons on the planet? The place where they held some of the most dangerous super criminals ever? Gwen's plan was to break into it?

"Just listen okay? I'm an amazing dps but you're also a dps. That's why we've been losing fights we obviously shouldn't have been. If we had a tank- someone who could take a few bullets without taking too much damage- we'd be able to clean house with all sorts of different kinds of bad guys." Sometimes Andi wasn't sure if Gwen thought this universe was a comic book or a video game… or both. But… maybe her friend was making some kind of sense? Neither of them were exactly bulletproof.

"So you want to free a supervillain from the Raft to join our team to help us," Andi asked incredulously.

"Not a supervillain. A friend," Gwen corrected, her smile wide on her face. She was just getting the hang of dramatic reveals, and the confused look on Andi's face would make this reveal one she'd really enjoy.

Andi waited a few moments, not wanting to give Gwen the satisfaction. But after almost a minute, it was obvious Gwen wasn't going to answer until Andi played along. "Who," she asked with a sigh.

"Mania… We're getting your symbiote back."

Andi had desperately begged Gwen to see reason. The plan was too over the top, even for them. But she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss her alien partner. The rush as the Klyntar ran over her skin, forming itself around her and giving her unbelievable power… But they hadn't exactly ended their relationship on good terms. Mania had been terrified of her while she was possessed by the Hell-Mark and they'd both exacerbated the worst aspects of each other before Lee Price had separated them. Maybe reclaiming her symbiote was a bad idea…

"But she's my partner… I should never have left her with him," she berated herself, as she suited up to follow her teammate along on her wild plan. Gwen had pulled them from their dorm in Philadelphia through a panel of what she'd claimed was a DareDevil comic, but Andi didn't see what some dive bar in the middle of Hell's Kitchen had anything to do with the superhero. Getting from Hell's Kitchen downtown seemed to take forever- Andi was suddenly really glad she didn't have to take the congested subway system every day.

"This is insane," Andi hissed, looking at the ridiculously formidable walls of the giant prison complex from the safety of Manhattan's shore for the first time. It stood imposingly tall, only a couple of miles off the coast of NYC. Helicopters and Iron Legion drones hovered above the island, and dozens of heavily armored guards ran drills along the courtyard.

"Andi, this is the only way. It's the eighth issue of our run together and you still haven't thought up a name. And I haven't been using the full range of my powers at all since we've been together, either. We get you your friend back and you'll be so powered up, I'll be able to use some of my cooler tricks without either of us overshadowing the other," she explained. Gwen's nonchalant referencing of her entire universe as a comic book still made her queasy, but she did her best to ignore those parts. "We'll probably get to fight actual bad guys like Magneto or Ultron instead of struggling with C-list villains like Jack O'Lantern and Joystick," Gwen couldn't help but be excited. Teaming up with a symbiote would definitely boost her popularity.

"Gwen… you're crazy." Andi shook her head, running her fingers through her hair. The idea seemed even more impossible with the prison in sight. Even from this far away the place looked like an impenetrable fortress.

"Call me that again and I'll tell you about Eternity," Gwen warned, getting one last glance at the place through her binoculars before tossing them back into The Gutter. "Alright, here's the plan. Breaking into the Raft is gonna be a piece of cake. They've gotta let guards and bad guys in all the time. I steal a couple uniforms and you lead me in as your prisoner."

"Gwen, I'm the one with the Hell-Mark, I'll probably be a more convincing bad guy-"

"You're also the one whose powers will be weakened by the Raft's bio-energy dampeners the second you step foot on the island, and since your powers come from magic they'll probably drug you outright just to be safe and make sure you can't ever cast a spell or something they're not prepared for." Andi cocked her head at Gwen before sighing and standing closer to her to listen to her plan. She'd never seen her friend serious about something like this before, and hearing how prepared Gwen was gave her the confidence she needed to put her complete trust in her. "Anyway, it's gotta be your job to get Mania off Price," she explained, tapping Andi's chest where her Hell-Mark usually sat.

"What about your powers," Andi asked pointedly. If there were bio-energy dampeners on the Raft there was no reason why Gwen's powers wouldn't be affected.

"I can't not know I'm in a comic book unless they try to drug me like they do with the more powerful bad guys. As long as they think I'm just some Taskmaster ripoff they won't treat me like I'm Graviton," she explained, rechecking the list of the prisoners registered in the facility. Tons of names she knew and others she didn't- most likely normal henchmen of the actual super-criminals they'd worked with. Guards probably paid the least amount of attention to those regular prisoners.

"So I bring you to a cell," Andi asked, not sure what the next step could be.

"And you go to Price's cell. I'll break out and-"

"Gwen this is the Raft, you can't just-"

"I've broken out of impenetrable cells before, Andi. I'll show you my comic some time." Again, Gwen's confidence was unsettling.

"Ugh, I'd really rather not…"

"I'll go and get the second armor set we steal, then I'll head to the control room and deactivate all the guards' armor around Price's cell and you get to work. When you're done, I'll activate Price's electrical implant and open the cell door, you use some fire and get Mania off of him, meet me in the control room and I'll slip us back to this exact location in a later panel." Gwen finished up the plan with a smile, rolling the map of the prison back up into her shark backpack.

"You make it sound so easy… why do you look nervous," Andi asked worriedly. She'd gotten to know Gwen a little better during the weeks they'd spent together. There was a waver in her voice, a depth to her eyes that Andi knew were hiding something.

"Well, I could've explained all of this during a montage while we were in the prison…"

"But," Andi pressed.

"Something's gonna go wrong… and I don't know what." Gwen's eyes were locked on the prison, tracking an Iron Legion drone as it patrolled the perimeter. A seagull had been flying closer to the island, and it intercepted the bird, making a loud noise and flashing lights that were specifically designed to get birds to fly away. Even wild animals had to be chased away from the prison- they could be a shapeshifter. "But don't worry about it, it'll probably be nothing!"