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"I'm dead." That's the first thing his very much alive little brother tells him when he shows up unannounced at the door of their cabin in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
"What," Dabi deadpans. Shouto ignores him and steps inside, taking off his heavy snowboots. The green-haired boy — Pro Hero Deku, Dabi recognizes distantly — clambers in after him, apologizing for the intrusion.
"Just temporarily!" Deku explains for the both of them. "We’re running a sting op and we think the best way for the neo-League to lower their guard is to think they actually got us in their ambush. So me and Shouto are laying low, for now." Dabi doesn’t really think that’s the smartest call, but what’s a retired villain-turned-vigilante supposed to advise the Number One and Four Heroes respectively?
"Takes you being dead to visit your brother, huh," Dabi shoots at Shouto, who continues to stand in the entrance. It seems even 10 years away from home still hasn't taught his kid brother any social skills.
Shouto shrugs, but meets his eyes to deliver the burn. "I learn from the best, Touya-nii."
Midoriya claps a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. Dabi sighs.
"Make yourself at home, I guess."
--
It starts with Alaska.
Or more accurately, it starts with targeted ads of Alaskian cruises for retired couples on Hawk's laptop. Why is he getting ads for a place he's never heard of before? In hindsight, there's really only one answer, seeing as only one other person has access to this laptop and this flat.
He searches up the flying conditions for Alaska and what the rental landscape looks like, and on a whim ends up looking at Greenland listings instead. Despite its name it's still cold as heck, but at least the rental properties look more inviting there. He leaves his tabs open.
PEI seasonal rentals are tacked to the fridge.
Dabi retaliates with PEI properties for sale.
'Oh," Hawks thinks. Then, " oh, " Hawks realizes.
He guesses one-way flights are cheaper, after all.
--
"I'm dead," Shouto explains again, to Hawks, when Hawks returns from his joy flight a few hours later.
Hawks doesn't miss a beat. "Again? How awful."
Shouto nods gravely, "I know, right."
--
"What about Wyoming?"
It's the first time one of them have acknowledge their growing Google Search history aloud. Dabi finishes heating up the water for his chicken-flavored Mr Noodles (with a kettle, his useless flames would just evaporate the water instantly), and pours it into the Styrofoam cup. He clips the lid closed with chopsticks before making eye contact with his partner. His gaze says, are we actually talking about this now. Obstinately, he drawls: “What about Wyoming?”
Hawks doesn't meet his gaze, feasting on fried chicken and scrolling on his phone. Instead he says, "I dropped a pin on Google Earth and it landed there, so. Seems like a square."
There’s a pause where Hawks presumes Dabi has searched it on his maps. “Sure is,” Dabi says after a while.
His tone is ambivalent, but it’s more than Hawks has expected. Despite himself, his heart quickens. They go back to their meals in silence.
--
Alaska is peaceful. They don't really keep up with current news, aside from things the housewives tells Hawks down at the market, like: ' Oh Mr. Jeckens has set up the bear traps, so be careful in the woods, sweetie' and ' Have you gone fishing for Rainbow Trout recently? My son says he had a huge catch yesterday' and ' Try this pumpkin soup recipe, it's a MUST, dear' .
The signal is bad; their level of caring is worse. Hawks is tired but he's left the world in good hands, with Shouto and Midoriya and the blasty boy and their generation. Endeavour's dead, a matyr in the final battle, and frankly Dabi's pissed but he's made his peace with it. The battle's over. They're both done.
They have family dinner with the boys and say goodbye. Shouto had brought Fuyumi’s soup (“You’re ‘dead’, but you had time to drop by Yumi’s.” “Yes. She’s mad you didn’t, when you were.”) that they heat up and Shoto leaves with new hand-knitted hats for the family. In return, Touya gets a copy of WSJ from Natsuo, who includes a ‘Happy Retirement!’ card in the folds of Sakamoto Days.
--
"You keep picking cold places," Hawks whines.
"That's the whole point. They're so cold no one goes there."
"Yeah, but I’ll get cold."
“Good thing you have me,” Dabi drawls, and expects the feathers in his mouth as a response.
--
It's not the first time Dabi has slept over, but it's the first time Dabi has slept over without sleeping with Hawks first. It’d been a startling epiphany, to pile on the bed, to pull off clothes, only to stop when their eyes met.
Dabi’s eyes tentatively asked, world-weary, lacking their usual maniac fire.
Wouldn’t it be enough, Hawks’ eyes try to convey, molten gold in the leaking streetlamps.
In the end, Dabi saves Hawks from having to swallow his pride and beg. It’s dumb because he would’ve done it, he realizes in a shock of sobriety. Would’ve said: stay?
He doesn’t have to ask because Dabi does. Pauses, slides onto his side of the bed. Hawks sleeps with just his boxers but Dabi pulls his Henley back on. It’s not long before Dabi’s breaths start evening out in sleep.
"Wouldn't it be nice," Hawks says, to the body of a villain next to him, "to just leave everything behind? Live in the middle of nowhere. Do what we want?"
He doesn't expect an answer. He doesn't get one.