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

Issue 135 - Old Bridges

Otto had been permitted visitors for nearly two weeks.

Peni had already gone three times.

I had found an excuse not to go every time she mentioned it.

The first visit clashed with training. The second happened while my shoulder was still being treated. By the third, I had stopped offering reasons and simply told her I wasn't ready.

That had been true.

It was also easier than admitting I didn't know what I would say when I saw him.

Otto had lied to us.

Used us.

Hurt people while convincing himself that being the smartest person in the room made him the only person allowed to decide what was right.

Then, during the Faceless raid, he had saved Peni's life.

He had carried her from the building when everyone else believed she was dead. Whatever else Otto had done, Peni had survived because he refused to leave her behind.

That didn't erase his crimes.

It made hating him less simple.

The juvenile detention centre stood behind several layers of reinforced fencing. Quirk sensors followed every visitor from the entrance to the secure wing.

I surrendered my phone, belt and the replacement web-shooter I had only half-finished repairing.

The guard looked at the sling around my arm.

"Medical support?"

"Shoulder injury."

"Any equipment inside it?"

"Bandages."

He scanned it twice anyway.

A second officer escorted me into the visiting room. A thick table divided the space. Metal rings had been fixed to the floor beneath both chairs, and reinforced glass covered the narrow window.

I sat alone for several minutes.

Then the opposite door opened.

Otto entered wearing a plain grey uniform. Suppression cuffs covered both wrists, connected by a short chain.

He looked thinner.

Not weak.

Just tired in a way that made him seem younger than I remembered.

The guard removed the chain from his waist but left the cuffs in place. Otto sat across from me and waited until the door closed.

"Peni didn't tell me you were coming."

"She didn't know."

His expression shifted slightly.

"Does she know you're here now?"

"No."

"Because she would have tried to stop you?"

"Because this isn't about her."

Otto looked at my sling. "Most things between us are about her."

"That's part of the problem."

He leaned back.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

The last time we had been this close, the world had been collapsing around us. There had been alarms, blood and smoke. Otto had been trying to keep Peni alive while I tried to decide whether I wanted to hit him or help him.