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

Issue 55 - It's Ya Girl!

I didn't drift into sleep so much as I fell into it.

One second I was staring at the ceiling of my room, listening to the city breathe outside the window, and the next... the world tilted. Like my mind had been picked up by the collar and dropped somewhere it didn't belong.

I was standing in the middle of a street I didn't recognise, but my feet knew where to go.

My hand was in someone else's.

A woman's hand. Warm. Firm. Pulling me forward with the kind of determination that didn't allow objections.

"Come on, come on," she said, breathless, laughing like this was the best secret in the universe. Brown hair bounced against her shoulders as she glanced back at me, eyes bright. "I've got to show you this. Trust me, you'll love it!"

Her voice felt... close. Not just physically, but emotionally. Like she'd said trust me a thousand times and every time it had been safe.

She dragged me around a corner, up a flight of stairs that looked like it belonged in a building that had stopped caring about itself years ago. The metal rail was chipped. The steps were uneven. The air smelled like dust and old paint and someone's burnt coffee.

She burst through a door, practically pulling me into the space like she couldn't wait another second.

Then she stopped dead, arms thrown wide.

"Ta-da!"

The room was empty except for a few folding chairs, a cheap desk, and a cardboard box half full of papers. The place was rundown, sure, but sunlight came in through a cracked window and lit everything up like it mattered.

On the wall, taped up slightly crooked, was a sign made with printed letters:

WEYING AND LAW

She beamed at it like it was a crown.

"I got some funds together," she said quickly, words tumbling over themselves. "Just enough to rent the place out. I graduate law in a few weeks, and I know, I know, I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but I just wanted a head start." She spun back to me, hands clasped like she was bracing for judgement. "What do you think?"

I tried to answer.

I wanted to answer.

But the sound didn't come out of my mouth.

That's when I realized it wasn't my mouth.

It wasn't my throat, my tongue, my body. I was behind the eyes. Watching. Riding along. A passenger in someone else's life.

The person I was inside of said something anyway. I couldn't hear it, like the words were swallowed by thick glass, but whatever he said made her face soften in a way that punched straight through my ribs.

She stepped in close and hugged him.

Hugged me, but not me.

"I mean it," she whispered, voice suddenly quieter, steadier. "Once we graduate, things are going to be different. Better."

She pulled back just enough to look up at him, and there was something fierce in her expression now, like she was declaring war on the universe.

"And you won't have to worry about that quirk causing you problems ever again, Eddie."

Eddie.

The room lurched.

The sign on the wall blurred. The light warped. My skin prickled, like something inside me didn't like hearing that name out loud.