Peter found himself in the center of Greenwich Village, hustling down Bleecker Street as he persistently checked each number on the buildings he passed, searching for the Masters of the Mystic Arts' headquarters. His feet quickened down the sidewalk, dodging other pedestrians and keeping to himself to avoid any unnecessary interactions.

It was rough getting out of Brooklyn. The subways were dangerous, and he had to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan. He avoided the armored trucks, the police stations and tried to stay in big touristy groups as he traveled across the two boroughs. He stayed alert as well, checking over his shoulders and following his spidey-sense. He was super careful, constantly forming escape plans as he walked into each new area. He checked every face, ensuring no one noticed him or followed him. He was safe and it was going to stay that way.

Despite his diligence, he couldn't help but hear his aunt's sharp tone, scolding him for risking his life. It was wrong of him to lie to his aunt, telling her that he was going to meet up with Ant-Man to learn a few magic tricks. Well, only a half-lie, seeing as he was seeking magic tricks. Just not from Scott Lang. And if he told his aunt the full truth of what he planned, she would have put a stop to it. Got Nat to help her as well.

But, as Captain America told him the other night—he had to keep going and never give up on doing what's right.

Peter slowed to a stop on the sidewalk. He reached his destination: New York Sanctum. His stomach fluttered in both anticipation and hope as he bounded up the steps to the pair of heavy doors. Peter raised his fist and knocked. It boomed loud, reverberating on the other side of the doors. Someone would hear it and come. Until then, he waited.

Peter checked the perimeter, noting anything suspicious. Had to be extremely careful being out in the open. Mr. Stark's influence stretched far and wide, and Peter knew better than to underestimate him. He had his hood up, face half-shadowed as he waited at the steps of what resembled a 20th century mansion with stone columns, brick walls and unique window designs with small, iron balconies roping any intruders off.

When the door didn't open right away, Peter thought maybe he got the wrong address. He stole it from the Steve's journal, where the captain scribbled this Bleecker Street address beside the name of S. Strange, but after examining the premises, he couldn't imagine some wizard living in such an expensive three-story mansion in the center of Manhattan.

As Peter prepared to abandon the doors in disappointment, the door creaked opened and a short, Asian man stood guard. He did not greet Peter. Only stared at him.

Peter nervously swallowed. "Hi, um, I think I might be at the wrong place," he said, a bit unnerved by the Asian's intense gaze. "I'm looking for a Mister Strange? I-I mean doctor. Doctor Strange. Is he here? Or somewhere on this block?"

The Asian man stepped aside and ushered him in. "Get in before someone unwanted sees you," grumbled the man, so Peter hurried in.

Once inside, Peter's eyes lit up among the dark, gothic interior. He saw all sorts of mystical items and antiquities that appeared far older than time itself. Everything was immaculate and placed on podiums or in glass cases. Almost like a real museum! Peter gaped at it all, no longer second-guessing he was in the wrong spot.

The heavy doors closed, sealing Peter inside the Sanctum. Peter turned back to the greeter, extending his hand. "Hey! Hi! I'm Peter."

The man only briefly observed the gesture before he grunted, "Wong."

Wong brushed aside Peter's hand and toward the massive staircase, calling up. "Strange! Your kid is here."

Peter bunched his brow at the statement, but his questioning thoughts were interrupted by another man's voice. A deep, resonated voice that sounded oddly British.

"What kid?" it called out, echoing around Peter. "I don't have a kid!"

Suddenly, a man in royal blue robes strode into view on the second floor, leaning over the bannister and down upon Wong and himself. "Oh... it's you."

The man was lean and tall. He had a thin, narrowed face and penetrating, blue eyes that noticed everything. Dark hair with silver wisps on the sides were combed neatly back from his face with the exception of a small curl over his forehead. He had a goatee similar to Mr. Stark's, but less intricate in design. Yet, Peter had an inkling that this man—wizard—was equal to Mr. Stark in brains. The man radiated intelligence as he moved around the bannister toward the stairs.

"What are you doing here?" the man named Strange asked of Peter.

Peter stepped a little forward, but didn't dare to enter more than granted. "I-I, um, I came by to say thank you."

Strange got to the steps, but he didn't descend. He looked down at Peter with those studious eyes, dissecting him right where he stood. "For what?"

"Saving me," Peter answered, tentatively as he wondered if he got the right person. Strange seemed too… clinical to be a wizard. "For getting me out of the Hole—"

"Is this Rogers doing?" Dr. Strange looked crossed. "Sending you to convince me to side with him?"

"W-What?" Peter was taken aback by the wizard's bluntness. "No! I-I... he didn't send me here. I came on my own. He doesn't even know I'm here."

Strange's hard gaze lingered, deciphering if Peter was telling the truth. "Yes he does," he affirmed as a red cloak draped across his shoulders. Did that move on its own? Or did Strange put it on? "He made sure you'd come."

The wizard descended down the stairs. His movements were fluid, cascading down in one smooth transition that Peter was bizarre by the action until he realized the man's feet weren't even on the ground. He was floating inches off from the ground, his red cloak billowing from behind as it peeked around Strange to Peter almost in interest.

The wizard landed, his boots making contact against the polished wood floors. Peter shuffled backwards, taking in the tall wizard and his animated cloak. The man a brown leather belt wrapped around his waist and arm straps for his bagging Jedi-like robes. Then, nestled against his chest was an amulet of some sort, designed to resemble an eye with bars in the front to cage something within it.

As to what, Peter didn't know and suspected he would never know.

The wizard stepped forward, towering over Peter with a glare. "Tell Captain Rogers that I will not be swayed," he said, eyes aflame with irritation. "The Masters of the Mystic Arts are not nor will not ever be involved in their petty quarrel."

He brushed past Peter. Discussion over.

Peter's wide eyes trailed after him, balking at how different this Strange wizard was compared to his expectations. For a man who saved him, Strange was quite apathetic and dismissive toward him.

But Peter wasn't easily deterred. "Captain America didn't send me," he reiterated as he chased after the wizard. "I came to say thank you and... and because people need your help."

The wizard scoffed. "You mean Rogers needs my help."

"I mean the people who are unlawfully imprisoned in the Hole," Peter countered, matching the wizard's long strides to stay up with his pace. "You don't have to take sides—

The wizard vanished. Gone! In a blink of an eye. Peter slammed to a halt, head spinning as he whirled in circles to find Strange. Where did he go?

"Assisting in the release of hundreds would be considered taking sides," Strange countered, voice carrying from the opposite side of the staircase.

Peter backtracked and rushed to the other side, running passed Wong's stoic posture, to find Strange levitating up to the highest shelf, perusing through a book. The wizard didn't throw a glance at Peter's stunned face.

"I don't need Stark or Rogers breaking down my front door," Strange continued, reviewing the opened page. "I have more pressing matters."

"What's more pressing than the world spiraling out of control?" challenged Peter.

"The world's destruction."

Strange said it with a deep, resonating tone that brokered no humor, no lightness and no anger. He stated it as a fact. A certainty. No fear or hesitation. It crawled all over Peter, making his limbs tremble in slight at the threat.

"O-kay...t-that's… yeah, that's a good enough reason," Peter stutteringly conceded before he clenched his jaw in horror, "Wait… are you serious? Is that… is that a thing?" His heart hammered, sending an electric pulse through his entire body. "Is the world going to end—"

Strange snapped the book closed. "Well, if I don't do my job."

His response was direct and final. Any stumbles or faults would result in absolute destruction. Any distractions promised the decimation of the world. And to Strange, the collusion between Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers was an unnecessary distraction to whatever worried the wizard's mind.

Strange floated back to the floor. His eyes finally meeting Peter's gaze. "My main priority is to protect our reality," he told Peter. "Anything else is of no concern."

"No concern?" Peter repeated, troubled by the man's lack of empathy at the situation happening outside his door. Did he miss all the agents patrolling the city? The sudden disappearances of so many people? "People are being abducted! Forced into becoming soldiers or… or being locked up in the Hole! Forever! I mean… you can't tell me that's of no concern!"

Strange shrugged indifferently. "It's insignificant in the greater scheme of the cosmos."

Peter blinked. He really undermined Dr. Strange's empathy. He thought, that since he helped saved Peter, the wizard would help the others who were trapped in the Negative Zone, wasting away their natural lives because they refused to follow Mr. Stark. But Dr. Strange's continuous dismissal on the significance of the crisis upset Peter.

"These are people's lives!" Peter nearly screamed at the wizard. "We have a responsibility to—"

And in that second, Dr. Strange zapped out of Peter's vision. Only an empty space remained. Peter swung round, searching for where Strange apparated to next. He ran back to the front, only finding Wong, who remained at the front door, eyes trailing Peter.

"Hey, um, do you know where—" Peter began, but then Strange reappeared, zipping past Peter.

"Responsibility?" Strange mused upon the word while Peter tripped after him. "A big word for a child."

Peter did not appreciate Strange's condescending attitude. "Good thing I'm smart."

Strange spun around to face him, forcing Peter to use his super-strength to grind to a halt. Strange loomed over him, eyes in slits as he studied him. "That is still to be determined," he said to Peter. "So far, you haven't shown it. Running away, openly walking around New York with only a hood as a disguise, itching to go back into the throes of danger… indeed, all signs pointing to a wise man!"

Peter went to rebuke, but Strange snapped his fingers. Suddenly, Peter found himself alone and frustrated, tiring of the constant magical disappearing acts. "Can you just stop moving and lis—"

He fell, slipping out a yelp as his bottom landed on a cushioned chair. He gripped the armrests to death, rigid in his seat as he blindly stared straight ahead, trying to figure out what just happened. Did he apparate too?

Strange paced in front of him, up and down a series of bookcases. "Forgive me, Mr. Parker," he idly waved at him, "I admire your sense of guilt. Keeps you compassionate, but it is not your responsibility to rectify the mistakes made by proud men."

He meant Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers. Peter shuffled himself up, standing back on his feet. "I'm not trying to correct their mistakes," he said. "I'm trying to help those who have been wronged."

"Like yourself?"

Peter's chest tightened. Head pounding again. The memories flooding him, filling him, drowning him in that tormented cyclone of abuses. His face stung in remembrance of Powers' punch. The throbbing of his thumb when he broke it. The shattering of his heart when he learned the truth of it all.

Strange sighed. "Best dig two graves," he commented, "if revenge is what you seek."

"I don't want revenge."

"No, you just want to rescue all those in the Negative Zone," Strange wryly remarked. "Let them go free. Save them!" He stopped his pacing. "Tell me, Peter Parker, what do you expect will happen when you and I release all those people?"

"They go home," Peter tried to sound firm, but even he didn't have the conviction to believe it. Deep inside him, the truth bubbled and taunted him, knowing full well what would really happen.

And it appeared Strange knew as well since he gave a quick tsk at Peter. "Don't blind yourself on optimism," he warned. "You know what will happen. War. Death. Destruction."

Strange moved away, disappearing behind the rows of bookcases that dwelled in the large room. Peter hurried after him.

"So that's why you won't help?" Peter accused, searching the rows to find Strange. "You won't save innocent people because you think it will bring about a war?"

"No," Strange's voice floated in almost every direction. "I'm not getting involved because it's not my responsibility. That lays on Stark and Rogers. Not me. Not you."

Peter quickened his feet, checking everywhere to locate Strange. "Well, I think it does."

"Noted."

Peter swirled around to find Strange standing directly behind him. He twirled too fast, his feet slipping and he nearly feel if the cloak behind Strange didn't reach out and wrap a part of itself on his wrist, yanking him back to his feet. Peter stared, wide-eyed as the red cloak unwound itself.

"Is your cape alive?" asked Peter, surprise crossing his face.

"You mean the Cloak of Levitation?" Strange corrected him, before he glanced down at the fluttering cloak. "It tends to have a mind of its own."

Peter's confounded gaze lingered on the cloak. "Uh, yeah, sure... makes sense," he murmured as the cloak continued to move however it pleased. Almost like it was as intrigued with Peter as he was of it. "Cool, cool, cool, cool…"

Strange sighed deeply before he clapped his hands. Peter's stomach flipped as he found himself back down to the lower levels, seated on a long couch with filled tea in a cup in his hand. The sudden transportation made Peter fidget, spilling some tea over the rim and onto his hand. He quickly placed it down on the coffee stand as Strange sat across from him, hands tented just below his chin.

"I know it is difficult to comprehend," Strange said, sounding softer than he ever spoke. More kind and gentle. Patient even. "You feel betrayed and want to do something, but in case it hasn't gotten through your head, let me repeat—don't."

Peter burned, sick of all the adults belittling his desire to right the wrongs, dismissing his pain. "Why not?"

"Because the disagreement between the two men is between them. Not us."

"But their disagreement is affecting everyone else!" Peter argued, thinking of Hawkeye and his family, thinking about Dagger, who lost her partner, thinking about the curly-haired man named Danny, who lost all his teammates, including Luke Cage. All of them got their lives tipped upside-down because of the Accords. "It's breaking families apart! It's... bad, Dr. Strange. Real bad. I know. I was there. It's not good and... If no one stops it—"

"Then it's not your fault," Strange responded, calm and unfazed. "You are not responsible for the actions of others. Only for yourself."

"But if we have the power to fix it—"

"We don't."

"You do!" Peter shouted, his voice carrying long and deep into the Sanctum until it hushed into silence. Then, he lowered his voice back to a respectable whisper. "Sorry... I mean. You do. You're a wizard—"

"Sorcerer," Strange immediately corrected.

"Right. Sorcerer… that sounds a lot cooler than wizard actually," Peter mumbled mostly to himself before he looked right back up to Strange, determination etched right into his skin. "You have magic. You can help people like you helped me. You got me out of the Hole. Reunited me with my aunt—"

"Yes," Strange confirmed his actions in saving Peter, but his face held little interest in repeating it, "but freeing everyone from the Negative Zone won't fix anything. It will only aggravate it into something much worse. And then we will be dragged into a problem that never had anything to do with us."

Strange looked down to the necklace hanging around his neck. "Keeping me from fulfilling my own responsibilities to the world."

When Peter stared directly at eye of the necklace, the hairs on the nape of his neck stood up. His spidey-sense scratching at the back of Peter's head to take a step back. Whatever Strange wore around his neck was dangerous. Something of immense power.

The wizard/sorcerer gave a long look at Peter. "As much as you want to help, you cannot," he said. "Neither of us can. That task falls on Stark and Rogers. Anyone who gets involve simply become pawns on their chessboard."

Peter didn't want to believe it. He wasn't a pawn. And neither was anyone else who got locked away in the Hole or Negative Zone. This wasn't a game. People were getting hurt. Peter cannot ignore it. Not when he has powers to do something about it. Maybe Strange was right in that freeing those in the Negative Zone wouldn't end the tensions between Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers, but that wasn't what Peter wanted. He wanted to help people.

It must have shown on his face because he heard Strange groan in disappointment. "Look, kid," Strange said, grabbing Peter's attention. "You have a good heart. That's admirable, but it won't help what's happening out there. You can't save them all."

"I have to try."

"It will only get you killed."

Peter dropped his head and slowing shook it back and forth. "I can't ignore it, Dr. Strange," he said. "I can't… when you can do things that no one else can do, but you don't, and then the bad things happen," Peter paused, looking straight up into those mystical grey eyes, "they happen because of you."

"No—it happens because people are idiots," Strange contemptuously retorted. "Not everything is in your control, Peter. The simplest and most significant lesson of all is to know that not everything is about you. Once you realize that, then life is easier and straightforward. Your path is clear.

"Forget Stark. Forget Rogers," Strange insisted. "You don't owe either of them anything."

Peter knew that, but Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers weren't the ones on his mind. "I know I don't, but I owe it to help those who were just as trapped and helpless as I was," Peter pushed himself off the couch and for once, towered over Dr. Strange. "You can sit here with your books and drink your tea and perform your vanishing acts," he said, "but I'm going to go out there and help people because that's my responsibility! If Mr. Stark and Cap want to go at it, fine! But I won't sit by and watch others get hurt by it. I can't."

Strange was weirdly quiet. His silence almost as loud as his voice. He tilted his head to the side, studying Peter like he was an actual insect rather than a human standing before him. Then, he gave Peter a dire warning.

"If you go out to fight," Strange began, "are you ready to face the inevitable?"

His chest constricted, but Peter pressed his mouth together and gave a firm nod. "I have no choice."

Strange tsked again. "That's a poor man's mantra," he said. "We all have choices."

"Like you choosing to stay out of it?" Peter remarked, but then his brows furrowed together in awareness. "Except, you didn't because you saved me. You pulled me out of the Hole and now, Mr. Stark has men searching all over the city!

"So guess what? You're involved now whether you like it or not. You're a marked man," Peter blaringly announced at Strange. "And trust me on this, Doc, Mr. Stark won't forgive or forget you.

"But, hey, if you want to pretend that you have nothing to do with this and ignore people's suffering to keep your hands clean, then fine. Pretend," Peter said with a shrug of his own. He can play nonchalant too! "So, erm, thanks for saving me and everything… I'll find my own way out."

Peter took a step forward to find his way back to the front entrance when he slammed hard right into something huge! He winced, pulling away as he stumbled and his hand gently touching his sore nose and forehead. His stomach did an uneasy flip and his vision distorted for a bit before it registered that it was the front doors of the New York Sanctum.

They apparated again. Strange stood behind him and Wong was off to the side, still watching in silence.

"Don't assume you know the world and how it works," Strange reprimanded Peter. "You think that this universe is all there is? It's bigger and far more complex than you can possibly imagine. This universe is only one of an infinite number."

Peter didn't quite understand what he meant. He didn't have the chance to ask any clarifications as Strange stepped forward, reclaiming his height advantaged once more. "And as for my involvement of your rescue, as you like to put it, I didn't do it for Captain Rogers or to get back at Stark. I did it for your mother."

Peter's mind blanked. His mother? Strange knew his mother… or did he mean his aunt?

"You mean my aunt?" he asked for clarification.

Strange flippantly gestured. "Aunt! Mother!" he waved. "What difference does it make?"

None, Peter supposed. In his case, at least. May Parker was the only mother Peter ever knew. His memories of his birth mother were rare, barely memorable. When he thought of his mother, he pictured Aunt May, holding his hand as they waited to get ice cream. Or drawing alongside him at the kitchen table. Or cheering along with Uncle Ben at his school's math competitions. May was every bit his mother, but he always felt obligated to his birth mother to let others know she was his aunt.

Strange, however, didn't care. He stepped closer, peering down at Peter with an intense enough gaze to make Peter feel like a small, frightened child again.

"I may be arrogant, stubborn and sardonic, but I am not cold-hearted," Strange said in a measured tone as he stared right into Peter. "When May Parker came in with a battered face, blood on her clothes and hands, and crying—no, begging—someone to save her child, I did.

"There was no political strategy or secret agenda in rescuing you from the Negative Zone," Strange went on. "I simply did."

Strange held Peter's gaze a little longer, continuing in his serious tone. "Now, I shall reiterate again—I will not participate in a political hissy-fit over something mundane when there are true forces of evil threatening reality," he said to Peter, backing away toward the stairs once more. "And I highly advise you stay out of it for your own sake!"

That wasn't an option for Peter. It stopped being an option for him the moment Deadpool captured him. The moment Mr. Stark held him prisoner. The moment Captain America forbade him from leaving the tunnels. He became part of the dire situation he wanted to stop. He may have started off as a pawn, but he learned. He became stronger. He was no longer a pawn on anyone's chessboard. He was a knight now, ready to balance the board.

Peter prepared to leave when a deep rumbling moved through the Sanctum. His spider-sense prickled and rang out a loud warning in Peter's head. He searched the Sanctum, eyes roaming over the area to find the reason for the sudden, thunderous sensation. He looked back to Dr. Strange and Wong, wondering if their magical powers felt it.

Strange's forelock of hair blew gently along his forehead, waving at Peter.

"Say, um, Doc," Peter started, waving a hand in direction to the wizard's hair, "you wouldn't happen to be moving your hair, would you?"

Dr. Strange rolled his eyes up to where his curl continued to gently wave. "Not at the moment, no."

Brows scrunched together, Peter snapped his head up and saw a broken window high above the foyer. The breeze began to increase in speed, turning into a squall that showered leaves and dust right into the middle of the sanctum. Peter then heard new sounds. Voices and screams of people in the streets, car alarms blaring in warning.

Peter's heart seized in terror, but he stood his ground as he approached the front doors again. Dr. Strange strode ahead of him, but at his touch, the door crashed wide open with a wave of wind and debris going passed them.

Dozens of people dashed up the streets, fear etched in their faces as they fled for their lives from what appeared to be a tornado in the middle of the Village. Peter walked down the steps, coming to a stand on the street as Dr. Strange and Wong followed him. Dust, papers and even cars lifted and flew through the air, obstructing the normally docile street and adding to the already chaotic scene.

What the hell was going on?

A car crashed into a lamppost and a woman let out an ear-splitting scream as she was thrown from the impact. Peter rushed through the throng of stampeding people to reach the woman.

"Hey! Hey! Are you okay, lady?" Peter asked as knelt beside the fallen woman. "Come on—here! You gotta get out of here."

But then another car came hurdling right at them. The woman yelled and covered her face, not wishing to see her death coming. The car bulleted right at him, plans to crush them to death. Peter steeled himself and snatched the nose of the car easy, holding it up and away from the petrified woman.

Her green eyes rounded large at him.

Peter, with ease, dumped the car on top of the one next to them. "Here!" Peter lifted the woman to her feet. "Go! Run!"

The woman didn't need telling twice. She bolted, joining in the masses that ran away while Peter, Dr. Strange and Wong confronted the pandemonium that raged around them.

"Wong?" came Dr. Strange's deep voice to his partner.

Wong appeared at the sorcerer's side.

"We have unwanted visitors."

Peter followed Dr. Strange's gaze and stopped in his tracks as the source of the mayhem was revealed. Hovering high above the buildings around them was a ring-shaped spaceship, spinning vertically as it lowered further down to Manhattan. Peter had never seen anything like it. Not even at Mr. Stark's Compound, which meant one thing.

Trouble.