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

Issue 51 - Return of the Symbol

The engine's rumble bled through the floor, steady as a heartbeat that didn't care who was sitting above it.

Wilson Fisk sat on the bench with his hands cuffed in front of him, shoulders too broad for the cramped space, suit wrinkled in all the wrong places. One cheek had already started to swell. His mouth was split. But his eyes were calm, focused somewhere far past the wire-mesh window and the city lights sliding by.

He didn't look like a man who'd lost.

He looked like a man who'd filed the loss away as paperwork.

He exhaled, long and measured, then spoke like he was addressing an invisible crowd, or maybe just the part of himself that needed to hear it out loud.

"I'm not a religious man," Fisk said quietly. "But I've read bits and pieces over the years. Curiosity more than faith."

The guard opposite him shifted, gun resting across his lap, eyes narrowed like he was waiting for a trick.

"But this one story..." Fisk's voice softened, almost thoughtful. "There was a man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was set upon by men of ill intent. They stripped him of his clothes, they beat him... and they left him bleeding in the dirt."

The truck hit a bump. Chains rattled. Fisk didn't flinch.

"A priest happened by," he continued. "Saw the traveller... and moved to the other side of the road. Continued on. Then a Levite, a religious functionary. He came, saw the dying traveller... and he also moved to the other side. Passed him by."

The guard's grip tightened on the gun, annoyance creeping in. "What are you on about?"

Fisk ignored him like he hadn't spoken.

"But then," Fisk said, "came a man from Samaria. A Samaritan. A good man. He saw the traveller bleeding in the road and he stopped to aid him without thinking of the circumstance or the difficulty it might bring."

Fisk's eyes drifted down to his cuffed hands.

"The Samaritan tended the traveller's wounds. Applied oil and wine. Carried him to an inn, gave the innkeeper all the money he had to care for the traveller... and continued on his journey."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Fisk's mouth, humourless.

"He did it simply because the traveller was his neighbour," Fisk said. "He loved his city, and all the people in it."

The guard stared at him like he was trying to find the punchline with a torch.

"I always thought I was the Samaritan," Fisk murmured. "It's funny, isn't it? How even the best of men can be deceived by their true nature."

The guard leaned forward. "What the hell does that mean?"

Fisk turned his head slowly, meeting the guard's eyes through the dim interior light.

"It means," Fisk said, voice low, "that I'm not the Samaritan. I'm not the priest, or the Levite."

He looked back down again, almost reverent.

"I am the ill intent," Fisk finished. "The one who set upon the traveller... on a road he should not have been on."

For a second, there was only the engine and the rain ticking against steel.

Then the world ended sideways.

A force like a giant hand slapped the truck. Metal screamed. The whole vehicle lurched, tipped, and rolled hard enough that the guard's gun clattered away and bodies slammed into walls.