Ultimatum

It had been week since Jason visited Ba-Sing-Sei, Aaron was happy to see his brother again. He was also glad that the earth queen had finally gotten some justice, the news of her imprisoning Airbenders had spread like wildfire across the world, it caused a sort ripple effect across the city. As it turned out people didn't like their leader taking people against their will and a good portion of the population of the city had left. Aaron himself didn't consider moving for two reasons.

One, as bad as the city was under the Earth Queen it could be better than it once was. And two, Yuki didn't have any family outside the city to stay with. While he had 'family' in Republic City he knew that he couldn't just ask her to run away with him. He liked her, he really did, but he was keeping a big secret from her.

"Aaron…..hey. earth to Aaron!" the clone snapped out of his thoughts, he was at The Bean's back room mopping up a spot on the floor that was clean five minutes ago. Looking up from the floor he saw Yuki grinning at him from the doorway, "What's up you've been staring at the floor for the past five minutes. You ok?" she asked curiously as Aaron set the mop aside and nodded.

"I'm fine it's just…..with everything going on with the Earth Queen….making me wonder if I should take a little vacation until things calm down." He explained as he walked over to Yuki, the blonde girl sighed as she nodded in understanding. Aaron sucked both his lips in, "I got some family in Republic City…..if you want you could come with." He offered, making her eyes widen in surprise, "It's just a suggestion! I mean if you don't want to go then I totally get it." Aaron said, correcting himself.

Yuki processed that for a moment, "If things get bad…..then I'm in. Besides your cousin seemed nice, I wouldn't mind getting out of here….at least until they clean up the lower ring." She added with a shrug.

Aaron smirked, "If that's the case then we'll never come back to the city." He said jokingly before he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek as she giggled at the joke. As she walked out of the room, Aaron walked to the bucket and mop and carried them towards the utility closest. Setting them down inside he closed the door and made his way towards the front of the café.

The Earth Queen was technically still in power, but SHIELD had her under a microscope, every order she gave had to be signed off by Director Fury himself. Aaron even heard that they were looking for a way to officially dethrone her, and he had to admit that sounded too good to be true. But he also heard that the Queen was offering a huge bounty on the Avatar for being the cause of her problems.

Scarlet Spider too, however no one was calling in his sightings. Aaron saw this as a big win, it meant that people liked him for one thing, and that they thought the queen was off her rocker too. So the Scarlet Spider was a hero to the public's eyes. So now's about time when something bad happens. The hero thought as he went behind the counter and waited for the next customer.

Either the Orou luck is in Jason's DNA or the universe really doesn't like Spider people.

Aaron pulled his head from these thoughts and reached for the radio, turning it to the local station music started playing throughout the room, looking over across the room he saw Yuki with a tray of mugs and handing them out to the patrons. She looked over at him and smiled, he smiled back.

Honestly it was a little hard to find someone, Jason's love life consisted of Aki and no one else. So it took him a while to come to terms with the idea that he wouldn't be with Aki, but it also made him realize the saying that there were more fish in the sea wasn't all that off, it was somewhat weird being single, lonely was another word for it, but he came to realize that it wasn't all bad.

Yuki was kind, sweet, but unlike Aki she was somewhat timid, quiet, reserved. And after a few weeks of getting to know one another, he finally asked her out. Two months later and they were still together…..however it wasn't always easy. Aki knew before they dated that Jason was Spider-Man, Yuki on the other hand didn't know his secret. While he did think of telling her…there was one glaring problem.

The first bad guy he put away in Ba-Sing-Sei was her brother.

He was imprisoned and was still locked up, he was also her only family alive…..his name was Uma. And Uma had been looking out for the two of them since Yuki was a little girl, but to do that he needed to go down the less than legal route to do so. Aaron felt bad for putting her brother away but he did what he thought was right at the time, so Yuki could be mad at the Scarlet Spider, but she was happy with Aaron Orou.

Jason never had to deal with this crap. The clone thought to himself as he leaned onto the counter. His hope was that eventually Yuki would eventually like him more than she despised the Scarlet Spider and he would be able to tell her about his double life. Of course, he was also ok with her forgiving his other half, that would be even better.

He pushed those thoughts aside as a voice came over the radio, 'Attention citizens of Ba-Sing-Sei, I have a important announcement to make.' The voice began over the radio, 'Moments ago, the Earth Queen was brought down by hands of revolutionaries-' the entire café froze at that news, Aaron staring at the radio in shock. '-including myself. I'm not going to tell you my name, because my identity is not important. I'm not here to take over the Earth Kingdom, I think you've had enough of leaders telling you what to do. It's time for you to find your own path, no longer will you from tyrants, from now on you are free! I deliver back into the hands of the people!'

The ground suddenly rumbled, looking out the window of the store Aaron saw a large section of the inner wall be brought down, "Oh my god…" Yuki muttered in absolute shock as she covered her mouth with her hands. Aaron hopped over the counter as the patrons of the café ran out, walking over to Yuki he stepped in front of her.

"We need to leave, Right now." He said seriously, Yuki was frozen however, she wasn't moving a inch she was so terrified, Aaron grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, "YUKI!" he shouted, snapping her out of her trance, she stared into his eyes, "You need to get your stuff, and leave the city. Now." He repeated.

The waitress nodded, "W-What about you?" she asked.

Aaron looked out to the city, "I need to grab some stuff." He lied, feeling as though half his mask was covering his face. He turned back to Yuki, "Listen. I will find you. I promise. But you need to get somewhere safe, head to Zaofu, Republic City, Omashu, I don't care but get, somewhere, safe." He said desperately. If she was here he couldn't focus, he needed to save as many people as he could but he couldn't do that if he was worried about her every second he was out there.

Yuki was silent for a moment before closing the gap between them and kissing him on the lips longingly. Pulling away he could still feel her shaking slightly, "I love you." She stated before turning from his grasp and running out the door and towards her apartment.

Aaron let her confession sink in for but a moment before running to the back entrance.

In the back alley of The Bean, Aaron pulled his shirt off showing the black sweater with a red spider on the chest. Stripping his clothes off, he pulled his mask and gloves on before firing a webline up to the rooftops and pulling back on it, the webbing recoiled and pulled him over the top of the building to the roof. Looking around he saw a better picture of what was going on.

The wall to the inner ring had been breached and masses of people were flooding the palace and upper class district. Turning around however he saw that there was a large cloud of smoke rising from the lower ring. It made sense, that was basically the bad part of the city, but it was mostly poor with little police presence. "Hmmmm, so either go save the rich and entitled moneygrubbers who don't do a thing to help the city, or go help the poor ad underprivileged…yeah that's an easy one." He said aloud as he shot a webline and swung towards the lower ring.

Swinging above the streets, he saw most of the middle ring populous was heading for the upper ring's breach in it's wall. Aaron knew that most likely they would be looting the palace if the Earth Queen was dead, but given the Earth Queen's relationship with her people? He figured that most of what was there was the people's anyway.

Jumping off his webline to the wall, he fired two weblines up the wall and pulled himself back before shooting himself up the side of the great wall. Sticking himself back to the stone, he scurried up to the top of the wall. Running to the opposite edge, he saw just how bad the rioting had gotten, the smoke he had seen was in fact an entire building that had caught aflame. There were dozens of smaller fires spread throughout the entire lower ring, "Ohhhhh wow this is much more horrible than I first thought." He muttered to himself before taking a breath, "Ok, all right lets go!" he said to himself before diving off the side.

Aaron shot a web and swung up just above the street over a crowd of people trying to over a car, spinning a large web he dropped it over the group and pulled them off the car and tangled themselves in the web net. "Don't tip cars!" Scarlet Spider called out as he swung around the corner, maneuvering through the streets he closed in on one of the buildings that caught fire.

Swinging up to the roof, he found a water tower. Landing in front of it, he grabbed a few of the support beams and ripped them off, causing the tower to creek. "Aaaaaand?" he asked, expecting the tower to fall over and douse out the fires. However he did not expect the roof beneath the tower to collapse and the water tower to fall into the building, the water spilling out through the building. "….ok not what expected…..but still works." He said aloud with a shrug.

He felt the roof beneath his feet begin to come apart, jumping off with a flip he spun a web to swing away as the occupants of the tenement exited the building. Aaron curved up into the air before spraying another webline and rising into the air and reaching for a flag pole, spinning around it he got a look of the surrounding area. He caught sight of a airship land on top of a burning building and begin evacuating it's inhabitants, "Well at least I'm not the only one risking their necks." He said aloud before hopping off the pole and swinging towards the next crisis.

It was going to be a long day.

It took a few weeks, countless reassurances from his family and bride to be, but it was official. Jason was relaxed.

True, Kraven showing up had been an unexpected road bump but nevertheless Jason was finally starting to relax after a few weeks of no superhero duties calling his attention away from Akiko or his family. He had to admit, it was nice to finally unwind and simply enjoy himself. However he didn't think that would include a bubble bath.

"This is…..surprisingly calming." Jason said as he sunk a little deeper into the water as he shut his eyes. Felling something lay against his chest he smiled as he wrapped his arms around their waist, "I will add that I do not like the pink bubbles." He added before blowing a few bubbles off his mouth with a snort of his nose.

Akiko giggled in his lap, "Who cares? It's only you and me in here." The redhead said, turning her head around halfway to look at him with a smirk. The bathroom of their living quarters had a bathtub that sunk into the ground with a curtain for privacy, "But I gotta say, I so wish we had this bathroom. Well this bathtub more specifically." She said as she turned herself so that she was leaning her side against his chest, the water and bubbles covering her skin from just above her breast.

"I like showers." Jason admitted.

Akiko shrugged, "Me too but like you said this is relaxing." She replied before laying her head down on his shoulder and kissing the side of his chin. Jason slid his arm around her waist with his right hand resting against her naval. "Hmmmmh, looks like it relaxes you too." She purred out in a whisper.

Jason smiled as his head dipped in slight embarrassment, "Yeah…but still, showers you can actually stand up in." he pointed out, Akiko rolled her eyes at his rebuttal, "What?"

"Are you really going to debate bathtubs versus showers with you naked fiancé who is sitting in your lap?" she asked as she leaned back up, slightly exposing herself to Jason.

The hero looked over her, Akiko not showing the slightest bit of embarrassment. "…..when it's something as serious as this you bet your soapy butt I will debate it." He managed to respond, the pair locked eyes with each other. Right before they burst out in laughter, Akiko sunk back down and laid against him once again in a embrace. "I love you Aki."

"You too…..my soapy butt likes you too." She added, causing the both of them to chuckle, the artist ran her hands through her lover's hair, Jason's smile not leaving his face. "Come on, we better get out before we get pruned." She said before standing herself up and stepping out of the bath in front of Jason. Grabbing a towel she had set on the ground, she took her time drying herself off before she wrapped it around herself before looking back at Jason, who was watching her lovingly. She smirked, "You had your chance Tiger." She teased as she walked out of the bathroom, leaving Jason alone in the bath.

"…I don't care, showers are still better." He said to himself before stepping out of the tub and draining it. Drying himself off he wrapped the cloth around his waist and exited the bathroom, walking down the hall to the bedroom, he grabbed the handle, "Aki we are not done with this-" he started, he stopped when he found that Akiko had slipped the top portion of his costume on, it just barely covering her inner thighs. Akiko turned and smiled at him widely, "…you fill that costume out better than I ever could." He complemented.

Akiko rotated her arms in a circular motion, "I got to say this is more comfortable than I thought." She said as she walked across the room to her bag, kneeling down she rummaged through the bag and pulled out some pants to throw on. Hopping into the she didn't notice Jason walk up behind her. Scooping her up in his arms, she let out a yelp of surprise as they fell back onto the bed, Jason peppering her neck with small kisses, "Jason!" she squealed with laughter.

He pulled his head away and grinned at her, "I'm just showing my girl some love. That a crime?" he asked before kissing her on the lips. Akiko turned over so she was lying flat on the bed with Jason holding himself over her, Jason drew himself away and looked over Akiko, "God….what did I do to deserve you?" he asked, her hand reaching up and caressing his cheek.

She smiled up at him, "You smart, kind, a little funny, brave, compassionate…and you were what I was looking for. That answer your question?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows so she could kiss him briefly.

"Yeah….wait what do you mean kind of funny?" he asked in a mockingly hurt tone.

Akiko giggled before she noticed something out the window, "Hey Jason, are we expecting any new Airbenders?" she asked. A week ago Opal arrived at the Air Temple via personal Airship from Zaofu. Akiko and her actually hit it off very well, Aki could tell she had a soft spot for Bolin with the questions she asked about him. But Opal was so damn shy it reminded her of when she and Jason started dating. So she gave her the advice she wanted to give Jason, just go for it.

Jason quirked an eyebrow, fallowing his gaze he looked outside the window and saw the airship. Climbing off the bed he walked to the window and got a better look at the Airship. It wasn't from Zaofu, but it had an Earth Kingdom symbol on it's side. "Oh crap the Earth Queen wants her airbenders back." He said aloud, making Akiko sit up straight, he looked back at her, "Sweetie. I need my shirt back."

A few seconds later, Jason leapt out the window in full costume, grabbing the window frame and swinging himself up onto the side of the building. Climbing up the tower, he looked out towards the airship. He was on the tallest of the tower so he couldn't swing himself any closer, and there wasn't anything he could use to slingshot himself to the airship. "Ok, Aki knows that we need to get the Airbenders out of here and somewhere safe, so I just got to take care of whatever soldiers that's coming and we're good." He said with a shrug, "Yeah, easy."

His Spider Sense vibrated in his skull, "Why do I do that?" he asked himself before he jumped from the wall as a compressed shot flew towards him and blew up the wall, throwing him off course through the air and going through the corner of a tiled roof before shooting a webline to the underside and saving himself from falling, "What the hell was that?" he asked aloud as he looked at the airship.

He climbed up the strand of webbing to the underside of the roof, peeking his head out from the ledge he saw that the side of the airships' cockpit door was open, a woman was standing in the doorway. She wore red clothes, but what drew his attention was her forehead that had a tattoo of a eye in the middle, she caught sight of him and intook a deep breath. His spider sense tinged up his spine, he dropped from the roof as she let out a combustible spout of energy from her forehead, the resulting blast destroyed where he was hiding at.

"Oh come on! Alright pumpkin bombs are one thing, but shooting explosives from your forehead? That's just overkill!" he yelled as he caught himself on the wall and quickly crawled around the side of the tower so she couldn't hit him. He located a opened window, crawling inside he found himself in a spiraling stairwell, his sixth sense rag out again right before the wall beside him was blown apart, "Oh great, she's blind firing." He muttered before diving down the space the stairs circled around.

Landing on the ground floor, he leapt towards the doorway as rubble fell to the spot he landed, Spider-Man clung to the ceiling and made his way through the temple, "Alright, obviously not the Earth Queen, so I'm going to guess Red Lotus. Ok then, Korra is to blame, real shocker, and they got a bunch of special bending up their sleeves. Perfect." He said to himself as he crawled to a window and peeked out to see the Airship turning towards the side of the temple. "Alright webhead calm down, you've beaten guys bigger and tougher than these clowns before. I just need to web them up, get them on a transport of out here, and I'm golden. Yeah, I still got this." He said to himself as he dropped from the wall and ran through the temple to where the Airship was.

A few minutes later he came to a open doorway leading out to a balcony overlooking a hexagonal space between the buildings. The airbenders and others had been gathered by the Red Lotus, Jason saw Akiko near the back of the group with Tenzin and his family near the front where the Red Lotus was addressing them. "It's a pleasure to finally meet a true Airbending master." Zaheer greeted.

Tenzin glared back at him, "What is it you want from us?" the master airbender asked, standing between the leader of the group and his family.

"Nothing at all." Zaheer said, not noticing Jason crawl along the ceiling of the bacony to get behind him, "In fact, if everyone cooperates, you will all walk out of this situation unharmed." He said reassuringly, not wishing to harm the airbenders.

"Then what do you want?" Tenzin asked.

"Korra, I'm tired of chasing her, I want her to come to me." Zaheer said, planning to use the airbenders as leverage. He could spend years chasing Korra around the world and that was the last thing that he wanted to do. Spider-Man dropped onto the railing behind him, the Airbenders saw.

"Really? You do not handle rejection very well do you?" Spider-Man asked, Zaheer and the others tuned to the voice, behind the airbender could react, a gust of wind struck him in the back as Spider-Man launched from the balcony to two other benders, split kicking them as he landed on his hands, springing up into the air he sprayed webbing at the pair, Gazham having his feet trapped while Ming-Hua was blinded. The spider hero looked around at the trio as Zaheer begun to get back up, "Wow this is it? I mean don't get me wrong, I heard you guys were bad, but this? This is pathetic, I mean have you guys met the Shocker? He puts up more of a fight than you guys. It's sad, very sad." He said as he shook his head.

He heard the sound of something cracking, looking over to the Earthbender, he saw the ground beneath his feet boil to molten rock. Spider-Man's mask eyes widened, "Ok, airdender people. Run. Now. Or maybe fly since, you know, lava." He said, turning back to the airbenders, Tenzin nodded as he turned to lead the airbenders out of harm's way, Jason caught sight of Akiko looking at him with a worried glance. He gave her a thumbs up, she smiled a little before joining the airbenders in evacuation. Jason looked over to the armless Waterbender and saw water form her arms and slice through his webbing. "Man I got to start making that stuff stronger."

As Zaheer stood up he twirled his staff, "If you surrender, you will not be harmed." The airbender said, if they fought then it would be a waste of time and energy.

"Hmmm…..can you throw in something else? On second thought, nah. They'd revoke my superhero license if I let you guys hold an entire nation hostage. Zaheer flicked his staff, sending a slice of at the hero. Jason went down onto his hands and feet to dodge the attack, his spider sense blared in his head and pointed towards the ground. He jumped up into the air just in time to avoid being roasted by the lava originating from the Earthbender.

Ming-Hua whipped her arms out at the airborne hero, Jason twisted his body to avoid the water whips and spun a web at the waterbender and pulled himself over to the waterbender, planting a foot on the ground before side kicking her towards a fountain of a water on the wall. "Ok, that was a complete accident on my part." He said before he was hit with a slab of Earth in his side, he rolled across the ground onto his feet, Ok Orou think, how do I beat these guys? he asked himself internally, watching as the waterbender emerged from the water, the two water whips on fher arms becoming six. "Hey that's Doc Ock's trick! Although, got to say, you pull it off much better." He said as she froze the tips of her arms and lunged at him.

Jason dodged and weaved through the water whips, contorting his body around to doge the icy spikes, if not for his reflexes and agility he wouldn't last more than a minute. Hold up a second, this IS just like fighting Ock! He thought as h bent himself back to doge a swipe and leapt to his side with a spin to avoid a trio of ice tips coming down from above. She's keeping me at a distance so I don't land a hit on her, so I just need to get in close. He thought as he landed on his hands and sprung towards Ming-Hua as the ground turned to molten, kicking through her water arms he landed in front of her and struck her right in the face with enough force to send her flying back down a hall leading out to a balcony.

He looked over to Gahzam as he made a column rise and threw it at the hero Jason leapt over it, attaching two webs to the column as it passed under hi. "You lost this!" Jason called out as he landed and threw it back at the Earthbender. The man leapt forward and broke through the column, out from the smoke came a fist, striking him across his face before he was hit again by Spider-Man with a right cross, spinning around and kicking his foot into the Earthbender.

As he was sent into a wall, he was webbed to the wooden wall and stuck there, Spider-Man looked at Zaheer and readied himself, "Look, just give up man, half your guys are down and I clearly can take care of you guys." he boasted, Jason hopped that he could talk this guy down. Not to mention he was starting to run low on his web fluid, he had to have maybe two more capsules left, not counting the ones in his webshooters.

"Yes. There are two of us left, and while you've been dealing with the three of us, our fourth member has been dealing with the Airbenders." He said, causing Spider-Man's eyes to narrow. Jason spun around and fired a pair of weblines to the edge of the roof and pulled himself up to the roof. As he was about to land on top of the rood when he was stuck with a gust of wind, sending him across the rooftop.

Spider-Man got up and stared Zaheer down as he folded up his glider, "You don't understand, I'm trying to make the world better! I've already removed the Earth Queen and the entire world is better for it!" he exclaimed before sending a large sweep of air that Spider-Man dogged. Jason was shocked by the news, with the Earth Queen gone the entire city of Ba-Sing-Sei had to be in chaos, but with SHIELD and Aaron in the city, hopefully things could get contained.

"You talk a big game for a bunch of terrorists. What makes you any different than someone like Amon?" he asked as he tried to web the airbender up, Zaheer used his Airbending to deflect the webs away.

"No, Amon wanted to rob people of their freedom just like the Earth Queen was doing to her people." Zaheer agrued, that made Spider-Man pause, he wasn't exactly wrong about that, but still if he had murdered the Earth Queen then it was a step too far.

"SHIELD was there, they were working on putting someone else in power!" he argued.

Zaheer shook his head, "And then the people would have been forced to bend to their will?" he asked before frowning, "You simply don't understand it yet, I was given the gift of Airbending by the spirits, and I'm doing what I know is right with it."

The lenses of his mask narrowed, "Your wrong. I know that with great power there always comes a great responsibility. But your overestimating your power! It's not up to you or me how the world should work!" he shouted before lunging with his hand grabbing for Zaheer, the airbender spun around and shot a concentrated gust of wind right into Spider-Man's chest.

Jason went flying back, before he could spray a webline down to stop him, he crashed through the wall of a tower. Zaheer looked up to the airship and gestured towards the tower where the went into.

Spider-Man groggily tried to stand after going through a wall and falling down to the ground floor, his spider sense blared in his head like an alarm bell. "What? I know I'm in trouble what are you-" he started before hearing a explosion and looking up to see the twer start to crumble on top of him. He raised his hands and pressed on the studs in his palms.

Outside however, the entire structure crumbled in on itself. From the doorway leading out to the landing platform, Pema covered her mouth in horror. Before she could say anything, she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned her head to Akiko, who had a worried look but wasn't as devastated as she was. "He'll be ok…. unfortunately that's not the first time a building has fallen on Jason." She said, thinking back to when Jason told her about the time he was trapped under a huge pile of rubble. He managed to escape, and this time it wasn't tons of metal that had pinned him but stone, she was sure he'd get out.

At least that's what she's telling herself.

Meanwhile, within the rubble of the tower was a dome of webbing, inside Jason was shielded from the debris, caused by the explosion. He had used the last of his webbing to create the defensive dome, and the only source of light he had was his Spider-Signal. "Ha! Nearly crush me to death once? Shame on me, nearly crush me to death twice? Shame on you!" Jason cheered, proud that he wasn't a victim of repeat circumstance. Looking around however his situation set in on him right away. "Oh…..I'm still trapped….and out of web fluid….and low on air…crap."

AN: I know that this chapter was short and I a sorry for that, but next one will be the last two episodes of Book 3 so hopefully I can make up for it there.

And before anyone asks, I saw Homecoming. Best. Spider-Man Movie. EVER! I could gush about this movie for hours to be honest, everything from the acting, the story, the villain, the little Easter eggs, it was a perfect movie for me so much so that I went to see it twice in theatre!

Now I suppose you're wondering if we'll see some elements of homecoming in this story? Maybe, obviously it can't be the same since Jason is in College and Pete's still in highschool in the film. Well that's it for now everyone, I'll see you next chapter!