Ultra Responsibility (My Hero Academia X Spider-Man Reader)

Issue 44 - Bump in the Night Part 1

Two weeks.

That was all it took for my life to turn into a headline people could chew on between bites of breakfast.

Two weeks since I'd walked into UA like a stray dog someone kept feeding but no one wanted to pet. Two weeks since my face got stapled to the world. Two weeks since the word Spider-Man stopped being a mask and started being a curse.

When it got too loud, when the halls felt like they were made of eyes and whispers, I came here.

Ben Parker's grave sat on a small hill like it was trying to get a better view of the city that stole him. The stone looked the same as always. Calm. Clean. Permanent.

I sat at the foot of it anyway, knees pulled in, hands shoved in my pockets like I could hide my entire life in there.

"Hey," I whispered, because saying Uncle Ben out loud still felt like it would crack something in my throat.

The cemetery was quiet in that way that isn't peaceful. Just... waiting.

"I don't know how you did it," I admitted, staring at the engraved letters until they blurred. "The interviews. The crowds. The hate. People calling you a fraud because you didn't smile enough, or because you did smile too much. People acting like they own you because you saved them once."

I swallowed.

"How did you wake up and do it again anyway?"

The wind moved through the trees. A few leaves clicked together like nervous fingers.

I laughed without humor. "I took the deal, Ben. I took it because I thought it was the only way to protect May. Peni. Everyone."

My hands clenched tighter in my pockets.

"And I put a good man in a cage to do it."

Crime was going up now. People were saying it like it was a weather report.

Violence is up. Theft is up. Fear is up.

And me?

I was in a school uniform, sitting in a classroom, being told to stay in line while the city learned how to bleed again.

I stared at the stone.

"I keep telling myself I did the responsible thing," I whispered. "But every day that passes, it feels less like responsibility and more like... cowardice dressed up in legal paperwork."

My throat tightened.

"I'm not allowed to do anything. Not really. And even thinking about being Spider-Man is enough to..."

I stopped myself, jaw clenched. Because the truth wasn't that the law scared me.

Breaking rules had never been the problem.

The problem was that I was scared I'd make everything worse again. Like I'd touch something and it would just... fall apart. Like my hands were bad luck.

A drop of rain hit my knuckle.

Then another.

The sky didn't ease into it either. It went straight to pouring, like someone upstairs had finally gotten tired of holding it in.

I bowed my head and let the rain hit my hair, my face, my shoulders.

"Do you ever wish you could take it back?" I asked the grave, voice barely there. "Not you. Me. Being Spider-Man. Starting it. Choosing it."

My eyes stung, and I told myself it was the rain.

"It doesn't matter. I can't take back the past."

I stood up. My legs felt heavy, like the ground didn't want to let me go. I brushed my wet hands on my pants, not because it helped, but because I didn't know what else to do with them.