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

Issue 93 - I've Got You Under My Skin

I was walking down a set of stairs before I even realized I was moving.

One step. Then another.

Concrete under my shoes. Metal rail cold beneath my fingers. A door waiting at the bottom with a long narrow mirror fixed beside it. I caught my reflection in passing and froze for half a heartbeat.

It wasn't me.

Not fully.

The shape was mine, sure. Same height. Same mess of hair. Same tired eyes. But for that one split second the face looking back was older, harder, like someone had sanded all the softness off and left behind something worn in by violence.

Then I blinked, and it was just me again.

I pushed the doors open.

Light swallowed me whole.

I stepped out into Times Square.

New York hit me all at once. Noise, heat, horns, chatter, billboard glow reflecting off glass and rain-slick streets. It was alive in that way only New York could be, loud enough to feel like its own weather. People flowed around me in every direction, tourists, workers, taxis sliding through intersections, giant screens towering overhead.

I just stood there.

My heart started to pick up.

"How the hell did I get here...?"

I took one step out into the crowd.

Then I heard it.

A gasp.

A child's voice shouting, "It's him!"

I turned just in time to see a group of kids pointing at me from beside a hot dog stand, all of them lit up with that wide-eyed excitement kids only ever get around heroes and celebrities.

"It's Agent Venom!"

Agent... what?

I blinked. "Agent who?"

They were on me in seconds, circling, pointing, talking over each other so fast I could barely catch any of it.

"Can I get a photo?"

"Did it hurt?"

"Are you stronger than Spider-Man?"

"Did the suit choose you?"

I looked from one face to the next, completely lost. "Whoa, hey, hang on, what are you talking about?"

One of them pointed upward.

All of them did.

I followed their fingers.

And froze.

My face stared back at me from a billboard the size of a building.

No.

Not my face.

Me.

In costume.

Swinging through the skyline with my name splashed beneath me in huge glowing letters.

THE PRO HERO SPIDER-MAN

I stared up at it, mouth dry, trying to process how wrong it all felt.

Then the image began to change.

Black tendrils slithered across the billboard like rot, crawling over the letters, the skyline, my image, consuming all of it in living darkness. The whole display warped and twisted until the words were gone.