The Spectacular Spider-Man

Episode 12

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It's mid-July now, and I just stopped Marko and his partner in crime—whom I now know as O'Hirn—from stealing more jewels and left them hanging from a lamppost for the police. A week later, I find myself carrying more garbage out of the beach under All Might's supervision, courtesy of his "American Dream" plan. I feel myself growing stronger thanks to his training, although it's been only about three months. And all so I'm ready to inherit One For All.

However, right now, that's the least of my concerns. In fact, my mind is centered on what I did to the living sewage.

Was it right, what I did? I don't know. Did it feel right? To vent, yeah. Yet... it troubled me. The whole event was still engraved in my mind, and I felt the need to confess what I did. I could bottle it all up, but I can only do that for so long. Telling Mom was also an absolute negative, so I told All Might everything: his fear, his bellows, my anger, our words, my urge to... do something regrettable—everything.

His reaction, however, wasn't what I expected: he embraced me in a big hug.

"Young Midoriya... I know you're mourning your father, but that was taking it a bit far; you can't just beat the crap out of villains like that. Right then, you didn't use your power all that responsibly."

It was when All Might said this that I snapped back to my senses. Now I felt stupid for considering what I did to be right in any way. Of course it wasn't. I spared the villain, but I also could've taken his life with... my power. I didn't use it responsibly.

"I know," I began, "I'm sorry, I-I can't just get over what he did—"

"So you decided to, in your words, teach him a lesson. I can understand that much, but you can't let that could your judgement." He paused for a bit. "Look, I miss Hisashi too... but that's not an excuse to pull a rash stunt like that. You just let your emotions get the best of you, and most villains will try to get into your head because of that. It's best to be in control of your emotions."

Of course villains will try anything against a heroic figure, even if it means playing with their feelings... I could accidentally hurt someone if I couldn't keep my feelings in check. I knew All Might had made a good point there, so I agreed with him.

"I know... It's more worrisome since I don't even know the upper limit of my strength."

"You were able to lift a car, after all, now that you mention it. You can do whatev—well, mostly whatever a spider can, an animal that can lift, uh... Umm..."

Really...? It's kind of common knowledge.

"Up to 170 times their own—Ohh, I see where you're going with this!"

"What...?" asked All Might confusedly.

"Most spiders are incredibly small, so the fact that they can lift that much is impressive within itself! I already mentioned that they can lift up to 170 times their weight, so the human equivalent of that—what would that be? No doubt, it'd most certainly be a big number, but the number would also depend on the individual human itself. So in my case, then, I'd—"

"Young Midoriya, you're doing it again. The creepy mumbling."

"Wha—? Oh, sorry..."

I didn't even notice myself that I was muttering again...

Immediately halting my signature habit, I pulled out my phone to help continue the rest of my calculations; silently this time. The more numbers I typed, the more fascinated I found myself with a spider's attributes, and to think I can do at least most of those begs the following question: how much can I really lift? Moments sooner, my answer was in front of our eyes.