alwaysonguard

"Sasquatch is kind of a colloquial name," Dwight said simply. "Duke used to call me that, was kind of an 'endearing' nickname he gave me years ago... and just kinda stuck," he said, giving a shrug and feigning confusion as to why.

"If ya want you can take over for a bit. Trust ya not to kill us," he chuckled. "Could use a bit of a break, thanks!"

"Sure." Miguel passed Dwight the pizza. "You hold that." He climbed into the driver's seat, then spent a minute finding the controls to make it half a foot shorter. "Not a word," he told Dwight.

Eventually he had it settled, then took another minute making sure he had all the controls down. They'd probably be fine if he didn't have to use the wipers or the cruise control. "Ready?"

Dwight watched in silence, raising his hands innocently. Yes he was judging you, just a little, Miguel "Just remember, 'up' is not an option to avoid a collision," he said teasingly.

As the SUV revved up he set the pizza box up on his side of the dashboard. Leaning back he reached down for the lever and slid the seat back as far as it would go and stretched his legs out.

"Ready, let's see where that road leads us next!"

Right, no up. Miguel gave Dwight a dirty look while privately admitting that was a good point to remember. He pulled out onto the road and got back on the highway. "Any particular place we're stopping, or just keep going and see where we end up?" he asked.

"Well in about an hour or so we will be as far as I have gone before for this area," Dwight said, pulling out the map from the glovebox and fiddling with it. "There's a nature preserve that has a few camping sites open to the public. I've been there several times, it's really nice, and I got the gear we need already in the back if we go that route. The last of the decent hotels will most likely be here in the next twenty miles or so. Once we get out of town things get a lot more sparse and spread out, so a decent hotel will be harder to come by." Dwight looked up from the map and at Miguel. "You are the one behind the wheel for now, your call."

"I'm not really into camping, but we should probably go farther than just twenty miles," Miguel said. "Let's see what we can find."

He gave Dwight an amused look. "Seriously? A map? Even in this century there are computer and phone apps for that."

"Sure - we got a few good hours of daylight left. May even make it to the next town and find something decent for you, you softie," Dwight said teasingly. As he messed with the map he glanced over at Miguel. "Yeah I know... not the greatest with all the technology and stuff. Barely even use my phone. Think I've had all of two messages that haven't been from you since I got to Fandom. And besides... These hands are not made for tiny phones and such. Trying to send a text of more than five words makes me want to throw my phone across the room! Guess I could try and figure it out though," Dwight said as he fished his phone out of his pocket for the first time so far that day.

"Voice control," Miguel said. "Oh, shock! I forgot to take pictures of our stop for Gabriel. Here." He dug his phone out, unlocked it, and handed it to Dwight. "Take some pictures of the pizza. Make them artsy; he's a holo director."

"Ha! We are just barely getting into all that voice control stuff now," Dwight said with a laugh as he took Miguel's phone and started snapping some pictures. A couple of the pizza box and the pizza, a goofy selfie, and then he turned and snapped a few of Miguel. "Gotta have proof that you were on the trip too!"

"Shock, no!" Miguel flailed. "Don't send those! Quick, write and tell him to delete them! If anybody knows it's me, they'll be after him!" Hopefully Gabriel would think to do it himself, but...well, Miguel wasn't counting on that.

"Didn't send them yet," Dwight reassured him as he pulled them up and deleted the two he had taken of Miguel. "Sorry about that, man," he said apologetically. "Forgot you gotta go incognito still," Dwight said as he handed the phone back to him. "Feel like an idiot now, sorry about that,"

Miguel took the phone with a grimace and bit back his first angry thoughts. "Nah, I should have thought about it after I took pics of you. Not that anything I send him will be normal, but he's good at plausible deniability, and random pictures from an unknown number probably won't be traced. Anything with me in it's likely to get immediately flagged on the net, though. When I said I can't go back, I really can't go back."

Dwight fell silent for a few minutes. "Probably for the best you handle the photos, so I don't fuck things up again," he said with a sigh as he looked over at Miguel again. "This is why tech and I don't usually get along - bad things happen," he said with a forced laugh. "... sorry, man."

"Huh?" Miguel gave him an incredulous look. "Take all the pictures you want; you're fine with the tech. Just don't get me in any of them and we're good."

He sighed. "Look, you know that whole 'secret identity' thing a lot of costumed people seem to do? I don't know about anybody else, but I did it because if the corps like Alchemax and Stark-Fujikawa knew who I was, they wouldn't stop until I was living out my life in their labs, and not behind the computers. Which was all good until someone pulled off my mask on international feed. That's why I can't really go home. And if they even suspected Gabe knew how to find me, they wouldn't stop putting the pressure on him until I had no choice."

"That's got to be rough. It's hard enough trying to live a normal life hiding the fact you have a Trouble or something similar. I can't imagine not being able to even show your face in certain places." Dwight shook his head as he glanced over at Miguel. "I am definitely not superhero material... regardless of what seven-year-old me thought. Not sure I would be able to handle that kind of isolation and being cut off from people. You have my respect, that is for sure, man," he said, giving Miguel a slight but sincere smile.

Miguel huffed. "Okay, look. First of all, I am seriously not the superhero type. I do my best to help, but nobody wants me as a role model. Second, it's not like I really have a choice. Third, I never really had all that many friends to begin with, which kind of ties into that first part. Between my team and Fandom, I've got more people with me now than I ever did before I left, even if I wouldn't exactly call them all friends. They might dropkick me."

One of them was Sabretooth and one was Rosa, after all.

"Then we make a fine pair," Dwight said with a somewhat smug grin. "Wasn't exactly the most popular guy to hang out with back home for...obvious reasons."

He fiddled with the settings on his phone for what was entirely far too long to pull up a GPS app. He flashed Miguel a warning look, practically feeling the scoff coming before he even said anything.

"So.... how far are you wanting to drive for?"

No scoff, but Miguel would smirk, even if it was a little strained and he was glad of the subject change. "Eh, I'm good for a while. You said you figure it's a few more hours to the next town?"

Dwight gave a slight nearly indistinguishable nod, he had been right. Subject change was definitely needed. He looked down at the phone and studied the moving display on the screen.

"I'd say about an hour to the next one and any amount of time after that till we find a decent place to crash for the night. We should be good to just keep following the main highway here...looking like it cuts right through the next town. And we are getting into more open areas out here too, so there shouldn't be a lot of traffic to deal with."

Dwight glanced out the window for a moment silently for a moment before turning back to Miguel. "And sorry if I'm a bit..." he waved his hands around his head and made a face, "you know, spazzy. Still a bit off mentally. Being a kid for the weekend was interesting and all, but that's a part of my life I don't think back on too often. And reliving it, even for that bit of a time...still got me off my game."

That was an understatement Dwight thought to himself, considering how hard he tried to keep everything in neat little emotional compartments. Yeah, it was definitely still affecting him, even now.

"Yeah, same," Miguel said. "Definitely was not fun." He tapped the steering wheel. "Maybe we should go back to music for a little while. Or what was that other game?"

"Yeah that whole ordeal was... ummm interesting, to say the least" Dwight said shaking his head. "Sorry I was a bit of a know-it -all jerk." he glanced over at Miguel. "One of my biggest weaknesses I've worked pretty hard to keep reigned in. I know we were both kids, but I think we both need this trip, in the worst kind of way."

Dwight watched Miguel for a moment before giving a slight stretch as his back cracked slightly. "I think radio might be best right now," he said as he punched the button and gave the dial a twist. "Feel free to change it whenever you want. I think I'm going to just rest my eyes for a bit. You'll be okay for a bit?'

"Oh, please, I'm fine. 'Up' isn't an option, I remember." Miguel waved a hand. "Go to sleep, you probably need it, old man."

"Oh hey watch it," Dwight huffed, shooting Miguel a look of mock offence as he opened his eyes and looked over at him. "I'm only a few years older than you, remember? Won't be long till you are in my shoes." Dwight chuckled and settled back, closing his eyes as he listened to the music as he rather quickly fell asleep.

"Probably a lot longer than you think," Miguel muttered. He had no idea what his lifespan would be with this healing factor, but...yeah. Not thinking of that. He twisted the dial on the radio until he found a station playing something utterly mindless, and left it there.

***