THE DECISION

Back in the battle, Spidey still sits in a crouched position and though he was confused about looking up and seeing Atlas and Mach IV desperately looking around as if they were searching for something, but through the corner of his left eye, he spots and is surprised to see the 'triple threat' blade fight between the Black Panther, Citizen V, and the Taskmaster. "Well, duty calls!" thought the Web-Head as was just about to rush over and assist until his spider-sense kicked in. The cause of which was revealed to be that of one of the Spot's small portals appearing both behind and near the Wall-Crawler's legs. Moments later, the polka dotted teleporter's right leg popped out and surprised Spidey by kicking him in the back of his right knee, causing the Web-Head to tumble backward. After rolling back up on his feet, Spidey looks straight ahead and sees the small portal grow larger, and within moments, the Spot himself emerged. "Oh yeah, almost forgot about you," said Spidey in a cocky tone as he got in a defensive stance.

The Spot, on the other hand, could only smirk in defiance to Spidey's statement. "Really?" said the villain, then waved his hands and causes thousands of smaller portals to appear and surround the Wall-Crawler. "Not a very smart thing to do when dealing with people like me. "Afterwards, the Spot took his left fist and darted into the spot on his left side.

Fortunately for Spidey, he once again felt his spider-sense tingle, which prompted him to duck and successfully dodge the Spot's incoming punch that came out of one of the small portals. "Yeah, and can you blame me?" asked the Web-Head, who once again felt his spider-sense kick on, and thus flipped backward to avoid the Spot's foot that came out of the portal just underneath his feet. "I mean, the Spot? Really? You'd expect anybody to take you seriously with that name, let alone remember you...?" While in the middle of wise-cracking, the Web-Head leaned back sideways to the left to dodge another punch from one of the portals. "Geez, I once fought a guy called Frog-Man, and he's 'Masters of Evil' caliber compared to you!"

Suddenly, Atlas heard Spidey's banter, causing him to look down to see the Web-Head and the Spot going head to head. "Found him!"

While in the air, Mach IV heard Atlas' words and looked down to see the showdown between Spidey and the Spot for himself, and with the villain in his sights, he held up his right arm and pressed a button to make a small missile launcher to come up. "I got him!" called the winged Thunderbolt and then fired his missile with the Spot being his target.

The Spot, however, saw this coming and quickly created another portal over his head, causing the missile to fly into it. A split second later, another portal appeared just on the other side of the roof where he and Spidey were fighting and appeared to be just about to hit a billboard with a large picture of a soda drink...with more innocent people at the bottom."

Something that greatly horrified the wide-eyed Spidey. "NO!" he exclaimed and wasted no time by running and leaping into the air, then shooting two web-lines which hit and stick to the missile and pulling upward, An action which resulted in the missile going straight up into the air, where it detonated within ten seconds and causing a huge explosion. After dealing with the weapon, as well as fuming with how the Spot just endangered the civilians down below, the angry Spidey turned his attention back to the polka-dotted villain. "Okay pal, quippish is officially done! You're going down!"

Another one wanting to put an end to this chaos was Atlas, who was just about to use his left hand to try and literally squash the Spot once again. However, the large Thunderbolt is stopped when Yellowjacket comes flying in and uses his belt to grow to the same gigantic size as Atlas was and puts him in a reverse chin lock. "Hey there!" said Yellowjacket, struggling to keep a tight grip on Atlas' neck, seeing that the Thunderbolt was stronger then he looked.

In the air, Mach IV saw that his teammate was in danger and soon took at Yellowjacket with his gantlet and fired another missile at the Avenger's eye.

However, Yellowjacket saw this and while maintaining his grip on Atlas with his right arm, he held up his now massive left hand to block the missile, which for someone his size, felt like nothing more than a small itch. Afterward, Yellowjacket used his left-hand reach over to Mach IV, with the tip of his index finger behind his thumb, and simply flicked the winged Thunderbolt away like a small mosquito, sending him flying backward and crashing into a billboard showcasing the Roxxon Corporation. After dealing with Mack IV, Yellowjacket turns his attention back to Atlas. "Now then, where were we?"

Suddenly, Atlas used his right arm to give Yellowjacket an elbow to the abdomen, forcing the brash Avenger to release his grip. Once free, Atlas turned around and delivered right legged back-kick to his chest, which caused the Avenger to stumble backward into another building, thus allowing Atlas to step in and pin Yellowjacket up against it. "I think it was the part where I pound the crap out of you for getting in my way!" Atlas barked, then wound his left fist back and threw a mean hook.

Yellowjacket, however, manages to stop the punch by using his left hand to quickly catch Atlas' fist, then responded by throwing a right upward elbow strike to the chin, knocking Atlas loopy enough for him to stagger backward aimlessly. Now back on the offensive, Yellowjacket tried a new tactic by shrinking down to human size and flew towards the dazed Atlas' midsection, more specifically, the 'A' shaped belt buckle. "Now, if this thing really is based on the earlier design of my growth belt, then the size manipulator should be right here!" At that moment, Yellowjacket fired his 'sting' blast from out of his hands and hits the belt buckle, causing Atlas himself to begin shrinking down to human size and ending up in the streets below.

"No...NO!" said the horrified Atlas, but just before he could press the size-altering buckle again, he received another surprise.

That surprise being Yellowjacket, who lowered and landed right in front of the puzzled Thunderbolt, and not looking the least bit pleased with him for wearing 'his' property. "Peek-a-boo!" said the size-altering Avenger in a cocky tone, then threw a right hook, nailing Atlas in the jaw and sending him down to the ground.

Back on the rooftops, Spidey is still busy dodging the Spot's attacks, which were popping in and out of thousands of small portals. However, after blocking one of the Spot's incoming punches, the Web-Head luck finally runs out when one of the portals in front of Spidey's mid-section shoots out the Spot's right fist, which nailed the Web-Head's abdomen. With the wind knocked out of him, Spidey is forced into a bent over position, and thus left himself open for an the Spot's right foot to come out of the portal next to Spidey's left side and nailing him in the head, knocking the Web-Slinger sill and sending him down to the roof floor.

With Spidey now down, one of the small portals grew and the Spot himself walks out of it and stands over the Web-Head with a cocky smile. "So much for the 'Spectacular' Spider-Man," said the Spot, taking enjoyment in seeing Spidey suffer. However, the spotted villain's glory did not last, for out of nowhere, the Wasp soon zoomed in and fired a sting blast right between the Spot's eyes, forcing him to grab his face in pain and makes the portals disappear. "Since we're on the subject, I can think of a lot of 'spectacular' jokes to give you. "I mean, who are you supposed to be? Captain Dalmatian?"

As Spidey recovered, he saw that the Wasp had arrived and thus joined her in joking around. "Worse," he said as he held up both hands and shot two web-lines, which in turn made a direct hon on both of the Spot's ankles. "He calls himself 'the Spot'!" With that wise-crack, Spidey yanked hard on his end of the lines, and in the process, pulled the Spot right off of his feet spine first onto the roof floor.

"The Spot?!" The Wasp asked with a laugh, then looked down at the incapacitated villain himself. "Oh man, you're practically BEGGING to be made fun of!"

Spidey then hopped back up on his feet, with his hands still in a web-shooting fashion and pointing them at the fallen Spot. "My thoughts exactly."

With a frustrated grunt, the Spot made a small holding on top of the webbing wrapped around his ankles together, and passes his feet right through it, freeing his legs. Moments later, he creates another portal and sinks into it, and in the process, created more small portals once again, but this time, surrounding both Spidey and Wasp.

It was a sign that made the Wasp herself charged her hands with sting energy, and nervously waited for the Spot to appear. "Okay, the weird-o levels just skyrocketed on this guy!"

Spidey remained battle ready, hands still in 'web-shooting mode'. "Yeah, well, this is pretty much what I'd expect on a Tuesday," he told the Wasp as they both waited for the polka dotted villain to show himself, Spidey decided to wait for the one thing that's been helping him in this fight so far: his spider-sense. Sure enough, the Web-Head felt it finally tingle, which prompted him to make his right hand into a fist, then turn and throw a hard jab into a small portal on his left side. This action caused the Spot himself to come falling out of the portal just above and lands dead center on the rooftop, holding his face in pain after receiving the Web-Head's punch.

Needless to say, the Spot held his face in pain, but nothing was hurt him more than the shock and humiliation on as to how Spidey was able to figure out his attack. And upon getting a glimpse of the Web-Head himself, it wasn't long before his embarrassment turned into anger. "Oh, you little...!" said the now furious Spot, then began to force himself back to his feet. However, he is not given the change to fight back, for out of nowhere, the Wasp flew in, grew back to human size in mid-air, and delivered a hard right legged round-kick, knocking the Spot down to the roof floor and unconscious.

Something in which greatly impressed Spidey. "Whoa...nice!"

Upon landing on her feet, the Wasp turns to Spidey with a raised eyebrow and with her hands on her hips. "Well, you're not so bad yourself, bug boy."

"Yeah well, it's a talent," Spidey replied, trying to act somewhat professional in front of the spunky female Avenger, but instead comes off as awkward, earning him a small giggle from her.

Meanwhile, on the other rooftop, the Black Panther had just deflected a blade thrust from the Taskmaster via the claws on his right hand when he noticed the Wasp conversing with Spidey, as well as the now human-sized Yellowjacket flying to the same rooftop the Wakandan King to meet him, with the unconscious Atlas flung over his shoulder, then drops him down to the roof floor. Though he smiled to see that his friends have succeeded in their own fights, the Panther quickly regained focus when through the corner of his eye, he spotted the Taskmaster going to try and take his head off with a horizontal sword slash, causing the Panther to duck and avoid it.

After missing the Panther, Taskmaster remains vigilant as he uses his shield to block incoming slash attack from Citizen V, then pushes away the blade and dashed over to the right to create space between him and the two heroes.

The Panther, with vibranium claws still drawn, takes one step forward. "I strongly suggest you surrender, Taskmaster. My friends are still here and you no longer have any."

"Those jerks were never my friends, to begin with!" the Taskmaster retorted. "Which makes it all the more easy for me to leave them to YOU losers! reaching behind his belt, the skull-faced villain pulled out small capsules, then threw them on the roof floor, causing gas to spew everywhere.

Just as the Panther was just about to turn on his inferred vision in the built-in lenses in his mask, he stopped when he heard the horrifying sound of a man yelping as if he was getting punched in the stomach, or even worse...stabbed. Nevertheless, this causes him to turn on his lenses anyway to see what made that noise and sees the body heat of two human figures, with bending forward and the other in a thrusting stance, most notably that which was normally seen in fencing. Finally, the smoke cleared, which caused the Panther turned off his inferred vision and saw something that confirmed his fears. Namely that of the Citizen V thrusting the tip of his sword into Taskmaster's solar plexus. "NO!" yelled the Wakandan king as he watched Citizen V to pull his sword out of the Taskmaster's belly, and thus allowing the skull masked mercenary to fall to the roof floor back first.

Luckily though, the Panther's raised voice was enough to get Spidey and Wasp's attention and was shocked to see the stabbed Taskmaster lying on the floor. However, it is the stunned Spidey to say what he and Wasp were thinking. "Oh my god!" he exclaimed, then shot two web-lines and zipped to the roof where the Panther, Citizen V, and Yellowjacket were, with the now shrunken flying over there as well. Once he arrived at the rooftop, Spidey saw the Panther already kneeling down next to fallen Taskmaster, placing his right hand over the stab wound and applied pressure to keep him from bleeding to death. "Panther, what happened?!"

The Panther did not look up to the Web-Head, as he was still busy in preventing him from dying. But he still nevertheless answered the young man. "Citizen V happened! He stabbed this man!"

The Wasp heard the Wakandan King's words just as she arrived, and couldn't believe what she just heard. "WHAT?!" she yelled in shock, and at the same time, feeling more disgusted with the supposed 'newer and better' heroes on how they would use such methods.

Citizen V, however, remains eerily calm as he tried to defend himself. "It was an accident. I held up my blade in an attempt to scare him into giving up, but the fool ran right into me."

This poor excuse is more than enough to anger the normally emotionally reserved Black Panther. "How could he...?" The Panther's anger filled argument to the sword-wielding hero is cut short when he hears the painful groaning of the Taskmaster. "Nevermind that now! The Taskmaster requires medical attention!"

Spidey agreed with the Panther's statement and once he looked at the Wakandan King's hand over the Taskmaster's wound, it gave him an idea. "Right, Wasp, called Iron Man and tell him what's going on! T'Challa..." said the Web-Head as he walked over and knelt down next to him, with his right hand in a web-shooting fashion. "On the count of three, remove your hand!"

"What?! exclaimed the shocked Panther, as well as everyone else on the roof.

Spidey, however, remained steadfast in saving another man's life, no matter if he is good or bad. "Trust me!"

Upon listening to the Web-Head's determined tone, the Panther let out a sigh as he decided to take the gamble by trusting and believing in this young man and giving him a nod. "Very well, Spider-Man."

Wasp, despite feeling that this plan was completely nuts, knew that there was no use in arguing and thus pulled out her I.D. card to let Iron Man know the situation. As for Yellowjacket, he just stood there with his arms crossed and watched all that was unfolding out of sheer curiosity.

As for Spidey, he stood ready and poised to shoot his webbing. "One...two...THREE!" With that said, the Panther quickly removed his hand, thus allowing Spidey to shoot a thick spray of webbing, which was enough to completely cover Taskmaster's wound and stop the bleed. "There, that should keep his insides...well, 'inside' until we get him to a hospital." Moments later, Spidey soon realized something that made him let out a sad sigh. "But I'm don't think my web-slinging is fast enough to get him to one in time."

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the Vision hovers down from out of nowhere and landed right behind Spidey himself. "Fear not, Spider-Man," he told the Web-Head, getting his attention. "Calculations dictate that I can deliver him to the nearest medical facility in precisely two minutes."

Spidey, delighted to hear this news, quickly took that Taskmaster out of the Panther's arms and as he stood up, presented the wounded mercenary to the Vision as if giving him a present. "Well, don't let us stop you!" he told the android, who then took the Taskmaster out of the Wall Crawler's grasp.

With the dying mercenary in his arms, not to mention his life literally in his lands, the Vision hovered up in the air and zoomed towards the nearest hospital with the skull-faced villain in tow.

With the Taskmaster now taken care of, Spidey spun around and faced Citizen V, not looking the least bit pleased. "And pal, I don't know if anyone's told you, but killing is NOT in the superhero rule book!"

The Wasp, just as angry at the Citizen V's methods, flies up to Spidey and aids him in chastising the Thunderbolt. "No matter how slimy they are!"

"As I stated before, it was an accident!" Citizen V retorted, with irritation slowly growing in his voice. "But regardless, you naivete amuses me. After all, how many villains continue to wreak havoc all because you refused to deal with them?"

Spidey was now enraged by how callous Citizen V was on how his little 'accident' nearly killed the Taskmaster. "THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"

At this point, the Panther soon stepped in and held Spidey's shoulder to try and hold him back from the caped Thunderbolt. "Spider-Man is correct," said the brave king. "The man objective of superheroes is to use their powers and skills to help save lives, not end them!"

After taking a few moments to calm down, Spidey spoke up to further support the Panther's statement. "And if we are forced to fight villains and pound them into next week, we do so by using our powers and skills responsibly and hopefully knock some sense into them. Thus making what you did the EXACT OPPOSITE of what a superhero should be!"

From them on, Yellowjacket came in and confronted Citizen V himself. "And stealing other peoples gadget doesn't exactly help your image either. And I'm not talking about Stark's tech either!"

Suddenly, the sound of jet engines filled the scene, and as everybody looked up, they saw the Avengers' Quinjet, as well as that of Iron Man, Ms. Marvel and Thor flying overhead. And it was here that Iron Man spoke up while looking down at Citizen V with a very displeased look behind his faceplate. "Glad to see that somebody sees it my way!"

Once Citizen V looked up to see Iron Man, he let out a sigh of annoyance. "Brilliant."

Moments later, the two remaining and clearly battered Thunderbolts, Mach IV and Atlas, arrive on the scene, with Mach IV helping the dazed Atlas walk after he regained consciousness. It was a sight to which made a disgusted Yellowjacket say this. "Yeah, brilliant," said the brash Avenger with a sneer, then pointed his thumb at Atlas. "Something I can't call this joker wearing one of my earlier size altering belts."

Once Atlas regained his senses, he heard Yellowjacket's insult, and quickly pulled himself off of Mach IV and walked over to the Avenger himself with the intent of punching him into next week. However, before he could get the chance, Atlas is stopped when Iron Man landed right between him and Yellowjacket, stopping another skirmish before it could even begin.

"So," said Iron Man as he then walked up to Citizen V, while remembering the damage that Atlas caused when he was in giant form while on his way over here. "It wasn't enough for you to steal MY tech, but then you had to go and take Pym's and use it to create more collateral damage and put New York's populace in harm's way? Something that Hill and the Iron Wannabe said we did too much of in the first place? Wow, I'm just blown away from this amazing logic!"

At this point, Spidey decided to step in and bring in the most careless act regarding the Taskmaster. "Yeah, and I guess stabbing a man in the stomach is just as logical!"

With an anger filled sigh, Citizen V sheaths his sword and addresses the heroes looking down on him. "I...along with my teammates, don't need to explain anything to any of you!" he said defiantly. "Especially since you should be thanking us! Considering that we were trying to prevent the assassination attempt of the King of Wakanda, and YOUR teammate, the Black Panther!"

The Black Panther only answered this by crossing his arms and shaking his head. "Well, for what it is worth, I do appreciate you coming to my aid. But if you are allied with S.H.I.E.L.D., then the file they have on me would show that I hardly need protection. Much less protection from people like you!"

As Iron Man smiled behind his faceplate on how the Panther was setting the volatile Citizen V straight, he soon received a message from J.A.R.V.I.S. inside his helmet. "Sir," said the A.I., "I've just intercepted a message from S.H.I.E.L.D. and the helocarrier is on its way to this location."

This news did not surprise Iron Man in the very least. "Of course they are, and late as always," he muttered, but then stepped into the face of Citizen V himself. "We'll let you and S.H.I.E.L.D. take these jokes for villains, pal. But tell Hill and the Iron Patriot that we thought about their proposition to be of your little group, and I can some up our answer in two words. Hell and no. And if they have a problem with that, they know where to find me. Let's go, Avengers." With that order, Iron Man soon flew up to the Quinjet, with Thor, Wasp, and the rest of the Avengers following him.

Spidey, on the other hand, merely walked to the ledge, shot a web-line and swung off into the night, admiring Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers even more with how he just told off Citizen V.

As for the angry Citizen V himself, he only sneered at the Avengers as watched them boarded the jet, then turned his attention back to both Atlas and Mach IV. "You two! Let's round up these idiots before the helocarrier gets here."

As the Avengers were entering the jet, Iron Man just remembered about Black Panther, and soon used his helmet to contact him via his I.D. Card. "Hey T'Challa, you want us to give you a ride back to..." As he looked down, he saw that the Wakandan King himself was now gone, no doubt running from roof to roof back to the embassy as if it were a nightly stroll. Something that made Iron Man sigh, remembering that when it came to the Black Panther, you had to expect the unexpected. "Right, silly me," he said to himself, then joined his teammates inside the jet, allowing the cargo door to close.

Inside the cockpit of the Quinjet, both Cap and Hawkeye look down at Citizen V and his Thunderbolts gathering the fallen villains, with Hawkeye looking a bit disappointed. "Not gonna lie, old man," said the archer. "I was hoping to see some action."

Cap, however, remained silent as he gave Hawkeye a nod, but at the same time, he felt weary. Ever since his days in World War II, whenever he and his troops finished an assignment, Cap always had a sinking feeling that another more dangerous fight was just on the horizon. And here, in the present day, that 'battle sense' still remained. Feeling that the sight of these new 'Thunderbolts' was a sign of an even bigger battle was coming.