[Shimada was more than a family name and business, and more than some playboy brat playing off of it all that most likely saw him as. McCree was more than what Deadlock made him, some low life criminal who would only die or live the rest of his life rotting away. Both had their own reason and right to be angry at their situations, what was done to them- and the betrayal that one had been dealt by his own brother.

Even if it had taken so much more for them both to see that, even if one had left still more broken he'd gotten the help he'd needed. There was a special kind of strength it took to pull out of it all, and having a hand didn't mean another weakness.

Blackwatch did what had to be done, needed to be done, red-tape and all be damned. It was still doing good, even if some viewed them, once it was out there, as no better than the people they went after.

What was he now?] At least someone does.

[Hell if he didn't know what lines he had crossed, what he'd let himself become because he felt he had to- but that wasn't-

Gabriel's tone was light, almost quiet. Sorting things in a spot for later mentally. Not the time.

Fingers ran back through short curls again, for lack of his beanie to curl fingers into and adjust.]

I have a tendency to withdraw emotionally and physically if I run into some problem until I can understand it. Work out how to deal with it- it got worse during and after the Crisis of course. [But it was still how he dealt with things when he was younger, and there was a small gesture with the words.] They took my doing that the wrong way, and hell I don't blame them.

Can guess how it played out.