"Look! Hero Princey is here to save us!"

Roman smirks under his mask, a Mardi-Gras esque one that covered the majority of his face.

"That's right! Have no fear, citizens!" he announces.

"The hostages are on the fifth floor. Deceit is suspected to be guarding them. Be careful, Princey," a cop briefs him. This must be one of the rare times the police actually worked with Roman willingly.

Roman smirks as he enters the building, dashing up the stairs, ready to rescue.

He dashes up the stairs, his knife drawn. He regrets not grabbing his sword, especially if he runs into Deceit.

Oddly enough though, he doesn't. He makes it all the way to the fifth floor with no issues. He gets a little suspicious but still enters the room with the hostages.

"He's here! We're saved!" a relieves cry comes from the crowd.

"You are! Now please, if half of you would come with me we can get out quicker. The most injured please come first," Roman instructs.

They can move faster and more discreetly in a smaller group. Surely these people can figure that out too, can't they?

"What?! Why can't you take all of us?"

"No! He should take me first, I'm the most important!"

"I have a super bad cut on my leggg! I'm going to faint!"

"No, you're not, Nancy."

"Would everyone please stop bickering? The more injured half of you come with me first," Roman states sternly. He's sixteen and practically babysitting a bunch of grown adults.

Grumbling, the half with minor injuries, things like scrapes, cuts, and bruises, get up and go with Roman. But they only get down one floor, with Roman staying in the back to make sure nobody gets left behind when the complaining begins again.

"Really? You're being so rough. Can't you be gentler?" the man he helped up says.

"I'm- I'm barely touching-" Roman stammers.

"And you stink too!" someone else adds.

"Can't you be more polite? You are rescuing us, after all!"

"I thought you were a hero, but you're lame up close."

Roman throws his hands down in frustration.

"Look! Your lives are in danger currently, and I'm saving you! So quit your whining and get out the door before Deceit gets back!" he shouts.

"Geez, you'd think someone so noble would actually be decent in person."

"He's probably just getting paid to do it."

"Asshole."

Roman gets to the entrance with the group and the ambulances and doctors take them in. He then goes back to the building, but once he reaches the second floor he collapses onto the ground.

Those words. All the things everyone has said. He's the only one. But why? He better be perfect. But he's only human. And again and again, all those insults. He tears off his mask and lets his tears fall to the ground.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" a voice asks.

Roman's head whips up in shock. It's Deceit himself. But the crime lord nearly does a double-take when he sees Roman, maskless.

"Princey? Is- please tell me you just have a babyface. I- I mean, you've fallen right into my trap, you foolish hero. I still have the other half of the hostages, and nothing is stopping me from doing with them what I please." he quickly recovers from his shock and puts up his sly mask.

Roman just looks up at him, eyes no longer full of life and hope.

"Keep them," he says.

Deceit blinks.

"A hero? Not wanting to save civilians?" he asks.

"I don't care. I'm not a hero. All of the first group said that themselves. Just how much of a rude, entitled ass I am."

Janus looks down at the poor boy in pity. He had no clue the hero he had been fighting had probably just gotten his driver's license.

Slowly, Roman stands up and steadies himself.

"I still have to fight. They need me too," he says, mostly to himself.

He throws a punch at his nemesis, only for him to quickly dodge and slam him to the ground.

Their fight was over as quickly as it started, if not faster. Roman feels tears and bruises welling up inside of him.

"You couldn't have defeated me, it's only natural. Society puts too much pressure on the young ones to turn out just like they do in media. But you can't. You'll never be able to." Janus gets off of Roman and they face each other.

Roman looks up at him, tears staining his cheeks as he remembers those words from his nightmares. Is this fate?

Deceit crouches down to him and wipes his tears.

"It's okay. You're only a boy. You still have a whole life to live. Tell me, what made you go into heroism?" he asks gently, so different from the evil villain Roman thought of him as.

Roman looks at him and sniffles.

"M- my dad. He got killed during a robbery. He tried to protect the store owner. I was hidden in the bathroom but I heard the gunshot. The- the other people didn't let me see the scene but I knew he was dead."

Janus nods.

"How old were you?" he asks.

"Thirteen."

Janus hugs Roman lightly as a new wave of tears spills down his face.

"Do you want to know why I became a villain?" he asks.

Roman pauses for a moment then nods. He wanted to know his suddenly extremely kind rival's backstory.

"To be honest, we started the same way. Only my father died when a very rich company CEO fired him. But my old man had been at that company so long and knew every little thing about it. So just one week later, he 'mysteriously' died in a car accident. Only we didn't have a car and neither did anyone near us." he reveals.

"That's- horrible..." Roman sniffles a little, unsure as to whether he should comfort the man currently comforting him.

"We didn't have the money to fight back. So that's why I'm a villain. Those people I kidnapped? Half are greedy and corrupt business people and the other half are paid actors. The destruction I cause? Always in an easy-to-fix area where the closest construction company needs a job."

Roman looks up at his rival. Has he really been fighting someone with such good, pure intentions?

He collapses on himself again, feeling more and more tears come. Is he the villain? The bad guy? Has he been awful all along?

"Hey, hey. Look at me. I won't pretend I have been entirely good. But you can join me, balance me out. We can work together to fix this city. When it's all over, I'll give back my stolen money to the people in need. Does that sound good?" Janus asks.

Roman nods eagerly. Janus, of course, had no intention of putting Roman back out on the streets fighting crime. No, he was going to get this boy a job and help him fix the system from the inside out. He silently curses the forces that caused this high school boy, this child, to risk his life nearly every night in the name of 'justice'.

"Let's go get some hot cocoa and we can relax tonight. I'll free the business people, I've made my threats anyway."

Roman nods and Janus helps him up, giving him a tissue to wipe the snot and tears away. They both put on a hoodie to hide their costumes and they leave, having become less of rivals and more of partners. Two sides to justice. Two forces of good, each in their own way.

Here's part two! I hope this accurate to your request, alyarose2006! Requests are open, peace out my peeps!