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

Issue 84 - Heroes Rising Part 4

I sank.

There wasn't really any other word for it.

No up. No down. No light. No cold. No pain either, which should have terrified me more than it did. My body felt weightless, distant, like it belonged to somebody else and I'd finally been let off the hook of carrying it.

I could feel myself being dragged lower and lower into the dark, but even that didn't matter much. Nothing did. Not the blood. Not the docks. Not Abomination. Not the screaming.

It was peaceful.

That was the worst part.

Then the world blinked, and I was sitting upright in a booth.

The smell hit me first. Burnt coffee. Syrup. Fresh bread. The rich little hum of a coffee shop early in the morning. My head spun hard enough that I had to grip the edge of the table just to stay steady. My vision swam in and out, slightly blurred, and there was this constant ringing in my ears like someone had left a kettle screaming in another room.

I looked down.

A camera sat in front of me.

An old one. The sort you'd sling over your shoulder and pretend made you look cooler than you were.

Footsteps approached.

Someone slid into the booth opposite me.

Anne.

Brown hair. Sharp eyes. That same face from the glimpses, from the flashes, from the life that wasn't mine and somehow kept brushing against me anyway.

She passed me a coffee like we'd done this a hundred times before.

Then she took the camera from my hands and started flicking through the photos with practiced ease.

"You're getting better," she said, smiling faintly. "Seriously. And the whole reporter ordeal? You handled it better than I expected."

I stared at her.

She kept talking like she could hear replies I couldn't.

The ringing in my ears buried every silence between her words. She'd pause like someone had spoken. Nod like she was listening. Then answer back into the empty space between us.

She flicked through more photos. Street shots. Rooftops. A skyline. A blurry man turning at the wrong moment.

Then she found one of herself and someone else taking a selfie.

She smiled wider.

"This one's a keeper."

She turned the camera toward me for a second.

I saw her.

And him.

Eddie Brock.

The face from the gaps in my sleep. The one the internet kept swallowing whole like he'd never been real.

Anne kept going through the photos, shaking her head as she talked.

"Jamerson gives you too much shit. You should say something." She paused, listening to the nothing I couldn't hear. "No, I know. I know. But still."

Her voice softened. Not weak. Possessive.

"It's a fresh start, Eddie. Anything is better than what the association was making you do."

Association.

That word hit me like a nail tapped into wood.

She leaned back, folding her arms loosely. "You did turn down their offer, right? Fury's. You said no?"