Update! Not an "actual chapter" but rather an AU interlude. Next chap will be a normal chapter, for now, enjoy this small thing that ate my brain!

AU Interlude: Staircases (go down, down, down)

It wasn't like they meant it to happen. There was no grand moment where their hearts broke and turned black, no blind leap of hatred, no declaration to become what they did. If the path to hell was paved with good intentions, the path to villainy was inlaid with sloping steps that guided the disillusioned, heart-sick foot ever downward into darkness. Yet, even though it was not their intent, once they got there they simply … didn't choose to leave. The stairs were there, and the long climb was possible if difficult. But, well.

By then they trusted the monsters in the shadows more than the false idols that shown with neon lights and promised things no human could give.

.

.

For Katsuki and Deku, despite what others might have assumed, it didn't start with Deku's transformation. It didn't begin in that eternal moment of blood and screaming and pain, of All Might crashing down from on high with his smiles and power too late to actually save the day.

No. The first step down the dark staircase began with anger and kindness and eyes turned away from the things they didn't want to see.

It started when they were ten, with a walk in the park and a little girl in the river.

Deku heard it first, keen night fury ears honing in on the sounds of laughter and distress like a beacon. He ran for it with barely a word and Katsuki fell in step. They were used to driving off bullies now, though Katsuki would have thought they'd beaten it into the idiots' heads by now that this kind of cr*p was no longer tolerated in the neighborhood.

As they got closer and Katsuki heard it too, a part of his mind registered that while the cruel laughter was definitely old enough to be bullies —older than him, upper middle school or even high school?— the wails for help were definitely not.

They burst onto the grassy bank of the park river, at the only place it was actually deep enough to swim. There were four of them, high schoolers who were holding cans of beer they were too young to have. He knew who they were, had seen them around enough times to know their names and usual hangouts. They were pointing and laughing, jeering and calling like they were watching some great sport. No talk of revenge, no talk of getting even or showing someone their place, just laughter, like they were watching the funniest thing in the world.

His eyes turned to the river. There was a little girl. Maybe seven or eight, perched on a tiny rock just above the current, a wet stuffed toy under one arm and cheeks flooded with tears as she tried not to overbalance and fall in. "Please!" She sobbed as wet gossamer wings flapped weakly in an effort for balance, "I c-can't! I c-can't swim! I can't swim, p-please-!" She slipped and hit the water. Katsuki kicked off his shoes and hit the water a moment later, Never Again, Never Again spinning endlessly through his mind as he swam for the girl being swept downriver. Deku ran along the bank after them until Katsuki emerged from the water with the girl in one arm and his own limbs struggling to keep them afloat while the child cried and flailed. Katsuki's world cycled between desperate water treading and the sight of the sky as the girl screamed in his ear to clinging to his shortening breath as the water and the girl's struggles pulled them under again and again.

Deku kept running until the little footbridge that crossed the deepest part of the river, then he ran to its middle and dropped his tail over the side for Katsuki to grab onto with a white-knuckled hand. Deku jumped to the bank and dragged them to shore, where Katsuki coughed and heaved and the girl curled gratefully into Deku's space-heater scales as she sobbed.

The four teens hadn't even called the police or an ambulance. They just ambled after them, still laughing and cheerfully commenting on the successful rescue of a brat by other brats, either too drunk to realize the danger or just drunk enough —apathetic enough— to not care since nobody had died from it.

Katsuki saw red, and soaking wet or not —years younger than them or not—, his explosions were still bright and his punches still tooth-loosening. Deku never left the girl's side, just shielded her with his wings as he spat fireballs the size of a man's fist at the teens, knocking them over and cracking ribs even as their clothes smoldered with fire.

Someone heard the teens screaming. Someone called the police and ambulance then, and the only thing Katsuki really remembered of being dragged down to the station was his father and Inko apologizing for their children's behavior and a rookie police officer muttering, "Breaking arms at ten. Sheesh, those parents better be careful or they're going to have villains on their hands before those kids hit high school."

He couldn't remember anyone listening to the little girl when she tried to tell her mom that the drunk teens had thrown her stuffed toy onto the rock in the river, then laughed when she struggled to get it and ended up getting her wings too wet to fly to safety. He didn't hear of the teens getting any consequences for their "drunken prank" beyond a reprimand for underage drinking and a fine for civilian endangerment. They hadn't used their quirks after all, and the girl hadn't gotten seriously hurt, and there were real villains to deal with and process.

He spent his time being grounded brooding at his bedroom window and staring at his hands. Hands that hurt those four boys.

Hands that had saved a little girl.

Except … except nobody seemed to care about that part, did they? Because he wasn't a pro hero. Because he'd used his quirk illegally to hurt someone. So what did it matter that he'd saved a life in the process? That the people he'd hurt had almost murdered a little girl by bullying her and throwing away her toy and watching as she almost drowned?

After that, Katsuki opened his eyes and watched the world more closely. His faith in heroes had already been deeply fractured, if not broken, but now … now he looked and saw that he seemed to be the only one. That everyone else believed in heroes so deeply that it wasn't even a question of whether or not to help someone in need they saw as they passed by. They just didn't. Because a pro hero would come along and fix it, so why bother putting in the effort? Even if the effort was a phone call, or few kind words and some company. Things that didn't even need quirks to solve were left alone as the business of "professionals".

The old woman at the train station who was lost because of her memory problems. The boys who got stuck in a tree playing with their quirks. The dog walker who was almost mugged on his way home from walking the neighborhood dogs. The woman with a cat quirk who was being chased by a drunken pervert who wanted a good time. The harried store manager trying to stop an instant villain who was trying to possess ATMs for the money and was weak to bright flashes of light. Nobody seemed to notice beyond a disapproving tsk and a complaint about pro heroes being late.

Deku and Katsuki helped them all, and with each time they did and were stared at in confusion or lectured for it —don't use your quirk to hurt people, even if they were taking a knife to the dog walker's arm, don't run off the pervert who was after a woman because he had a cat fetish, don't use your quirk in public I don't care that it was just a few sparkles to scare off a villain from stealing several thousand yen—, the sense of anger in Katsuki's chest settled deeper.

People didn't care. Heroes didn't care —didn't exist beyond publicity stunts and the big villain attacks that would get them noticed—. Heroes were an excuse to turn the head and walk away —like people looked away when Deku fumbled walking on four legs, or had run and not bothered to grab Katsuki's wrist and pull him, a child, to safety away from the villain all those years ago—.

Then came the day, not long after Izuku had turned thirteen, that Katsuki and Deku intervened in a bad situation and everything went wrong. It had been drunks again, seven of them who'd surrounded a victim and started gearing up for a "good time". Deku had barreled in while Katsuki called the police before joining the fray and tried to herd the victim away. The drunks ended up in the emergency room —wasn't his fault, one of them had had a laser quirk and sucky aim and had knocked down an entire fire escape on their heads— and Katsuki and Deku ended up in the police precinct to be put into their records as juvenile villains.

It was the second time Katsuki spent the entire police visit in a stunned sort of silence, listening to his parents apologize and lecture by turns, robotically obeying the officer who took his picture and a record of his quirk and added it to their files.

"Another incident like this and they will have to be charged," warned the officer as Inko cried and Deku stayed oddly still.

"It's so sad to see kids this young becoming villains," murmured another as he took Katsuki's fingerprints and Deku's paw print.

"You should take them to counseling, it works wonders on kids with overly violent tendencies, it might save their lives," advised a kindly detective as he passed by.

"We'll be seeing them in prison sometime in the next five years, mark my words," muttered a sour typist with floppy dog ears.

"What did you expect with quirks like those," muttered another officer to the dog-eared typist, "it's a miracle the kids haven't gone into arson yet, but I doubt it'll last, just look at them, they've got villain written all over them."

Criminal. We just wanted to help someone, he tried to say. Nobody listened.

Inevitable with that quirk. I only used my quirk after one of them tried to eat me with his quirk, was the protest that got stuck in his throat.

Unstable. We were just trying to help, we couldn't just look away, he could see the plea in Deku's eyes as Inko cried and cried over her son, begged him to stop this, stop his path to being a criminal.

Violent. They were trying to rape that person, Katsuki wanted to scream, but for once, the tongue that had always blurted whatever he thought stayed immobile and heavy in his mouth.

Villain. We couldn't just stand there and let them do that, we couldn't just walk away, how does that make us evil? Burned the thoughts much later, after they had left the station and been grounded to their respective homes by angry, disappointed parents.

Should have waited for a pro hero to take care of it. Like how a pro hero saved me? Saved Deku? Katsuki screamed into his pillow, threw his school books across the room in an effort to restrain the blind fury that finally snapped free of shock's restraint. He paced his room for hours that night, seething and clenching back screams he knew would only convince his parents even further of his need for "counseling". He brooded through classes, watched as even those who he and Deku had spent years defending from bullies shied away from them like they were diseased and loudly whispered rumors that spiraled out of control —by the end of the day the school thought they'd killed someone in an unprovoked attack and there was no mention of the victim they'd saved—.

All through the day, the nasty thoughts spiraled down, the anger bubbled hotter, and the whispers of helpless outrage and "what was I supposed to f*ing do?" grew and grew. He overheard a teacher say that it was such a pity, as Katsuki and Deku could have grown up to be such good heroes and Katsuki was suspended for snapping and screaming at the woman that there was no such thing as heroes and they'd just been trying to help d*mnit.

Cue another lecture, this time with his mother —his strong, fierce, indomitable mother— holding back tears. More grounding, more promises of counseling and a muffled discussion his parents thought he didn't hear that was spent asking each other where they went wrong raising him.

You didn't, he wanted to say, there's nothing wrong with me. There's something wrong with the world. A world where you needed a license to help someone. Where you needed an agency and a fancy costume just to help a lost old woman, or boys out of a tree, or a man being mugged, or to save someone from being violated. A world where saving people made you a villain.

In another world, the situation didn't get so out of hand. In another world, Katsuki had already helped a certain secret pro hero without knowing it and thus gained an anchor, a voice of reason that looked on his reckless actions and whispered "I'm so proud of your heart, but you need restraint so people understand your intent as well as your actions". In another world, he and Izuku had already decided to become the top heroes and reform the system from the inside. In another world, Katsuki had more than one example of a selfless person. Had seen proof that there were other people in the world who cared even when they weren't in a costume or being paid to save the day, and decided that, just maybe, he could learn to be more like them rather than give in to his base instinct of "hit it till the problem goes away or repents".

But in this world there had been no fateful encounter with a bony hero in disguise, because the bony hero had chosen to move to a different neighborhood. In this world there was no Toshinori to offer an unbiased opinion mixed with praise and rebuke and advice in equal measures. In this world there was no example of selfless caring other than Deku, who was just as condemned as Katsuki was.

In this world, Katsuki paused in his pacing at midnight and rolled over one treacherous, bitter thought in his head. If heroes didn't really exist —not without being paid, not without being too late when it mattered most— and being a good citizen meant standing by and watching as others suffered and cried and children twisted in on broken bodies and pools of blood for the sake of friends…

Then maybe it was better to be a villain after all.

If saving people without a license made you a villain, then why the h*ll shouldn't he be a villain? If the choices before him were to stop and turn a blind eye, or keep going and be labeled the scum of the earth … well.

When the h*ll had he ever cared about the opinions of side characters anyway?

A conversation, broken and whispered on the school rooftop and silent, hard gazes shared between the boy who had no faith in heroes and the boy who was dragon because of the fallacy of humans. A decision made.

Tap, tap, tap, sounded the echoes of those first steps down the staircase where the darkness waited, hungry and watchful.