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

Issue 74 - Incursion

The alarms didn't ring so much as they screeched, a rising, spiraling warning that crawled into bone and brain alike.

INCURSION.
INCURSION.
INCURSION.

Red lights strobed through the corridor like a dying heartbeat. Somewhere deeper in the complex, something structural groaned, metal complaining under a weight it was never meant to carry. The kind of sound that made even brave people stop pretending.

Doctor Strange stood in the center of the chamber like he could argue physics back into obedience. Cloak settled on his shoulders, fingers flexing once, twice, as if reminding himself they still belonged to him.

He didn't look at the monitors. He didn't need to.

The darkness beyond the shattered entrance breathed in, and the room seemed to hold its breath with it.

A flicker of red, like a candle behind fog.

Then the rock came first.

It wasn't thrown in anger. It was thrown with purpose, like a punctuation mark. It smashed through what remained of the doorway and skidded across the floor, leaving a line of powdered stone behind it.

And after it, something heavier followed.

The remains of the Thing slammed down across the tiles with a wet, final thud.

Orange stone. Cracked. Broken. A hero reduced to a message.

Strange's jaw tightened, but he didn't flinch. The air around him sharpened, the faint glow of spellwork crawling like ink beneath his skin.

Footsteps.

Slow. Uneven.

A figure limped into view.

Wanda.

Not the Wanda they had tried to save. Not the Wanda they had pleaded with. This one moved like she'd been dragged through a war and decided to keep walking out of spite. Her body was crooked, blood on her hands, blood on her face, blood soaking into fabric like the universe itself had tried to erase her and failed.

Her eyes were the worst part.

Not because they were red, though the witchlight flared behind them like a storm trapped in glass.

Because they were focused.

Because there was no "maybe" in them anymore.

Strange lifted his chin, voice calm in the way a blade can be calm.

"Release this woman," he ordered. "Dreamwalking across universes has already put everything at risk."

Wanda's lips barely moved.

"Give up what I want," she said, "and this can all be over."

Strange's gaze narrowed.

"He isn't here," he replied. "Nor will you find the boy across the multiverse that we can be assured of."

A fraction of a pause.

Wanda's head tilted. "We?"

Metal whispered.

The sound was small, almost polite, like someone unsheathing a knife in a quiet room.

Claws flashed.

Wanda snapped her hand up, and the attack hit an invisible wall. The air buckled. The claws screeched against her magic as Wolverine skidded across the floor, boots carving lines into tile. He caught himself with his blades stabbed into the ground, shoulders heaving once.