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Gabriel Reyes was tired. Tired as all hell . Don't get him wrong, despite having to work in the shadows and do all the dirty job for Overwatch, he still got to help make the world a better place, so not everything was terrible, but God it was exhausting. The kind of tired that you can feel deep in your bones and if he was getting sentimental, he could feel it in his soul.
It was tiring when he had to drop his team in the middle of a hostage situation. It was tiring when they thought they could save people from trafficking, and he got there a second too late. It was tiring when they had to include “collateral damage” in the reports. Blackwatch in general was...exhausting.
Like right now. They had just finished a raid on what they thought was a professionally run gang, one that was handled by adults . But no, turns out the founders were a bunch of kids causing a ruckus. They had arrested them, brought them in for questioning after almost 2 hours of a shoot out through the creeks and peaks of the Deadlock George. Only two down on Blackwatch's side, but a lot of injuries. This pseudo gangsters might have been just kids, but they could shoot like it was nobody's business.
It was his business though.
He took one last look at the tablet in his hands, it contained the file of one of the big bosses in the gang, some scrawny thing way too young to be in this much hot shit, before opening the door to the interrogation room and stepping in. Their prisoners had been in their little cramped cells for little under 8 hours, with the vague chlorine smell that permeated in the rooms, and the harsh white lights that brightly light the room, it was prime time for them to be easy to crack.
"Evening" he said, closing the door behind him "I'm commander Reyes" he sat down on the metal chair across from them, sparing a quick look at their hands, cuffed to the table with military grade electromagnetic cuffs, and folded, showing off a pristine manicure.
Red eyes raised to meet his own, a look of feigned innocence that made Gabe hesitate for a second. Did she really think she could make him think she was innocent? He saw her shoot at him with her rifle and heard her call him a " little baby bitch ".
"Elizabeth Caledonia "Calamity" Ashe. Co-founder of the Deadlock gang, is that right?"
She was quiet, looking around and biting the inside of her cheek. Was she doing for the “I have the right to remain silent” route?
"Alright. Twenty seven charges, that's impressive. And you're only nineteen. You're pretty young to be-"
There was a quick, hard, knock on the door before it opened suddenly, interrupting the interrogation and -even if he wouldn't admit it- throwing Gabriel off.
"Commander Reyes" the door opened and Gabriel had to hide his shock at seeing Jack Morrison walk in with that stupid blue coat of his, his shoulders straight in a forced way, something that told Gabriel this was not going to be good.
Jack was always standing straight, it was natural for him after almost 20 years in the army, but now he was forcing it, his head standing too tall, his shoulders thrown back like he was pushing his chest out. The group of men -lawyers, noted Gabriel by the briefcases and the gaudy cufflinks one of them sported, a pair of golden balances- that walked in behind him were also a surprise.
"...Commander Morrison...to...to what do I owe the pleasure?" He stood up, coming up close and face to face with an extremely bothered and exhausted looking Jack, the bags under his eyes barely hidden by poorly applied concealer and the scowl on his lips was so pronounced it aged the man an easy 10 years. Looking so stressed did not fit the Golden Boy picture that the U.N. had propagated.
"Commander Reyes, Miss Elizabeth” Jack nodded his head, his eyes going around the room in a way Gabe had only seen him do when he felt guilty. “After much discussion with Mister Ashe, and his lawyers, we have come to the conclusion that Miss Elizabeth, is free to go home, with her father" Jack couldn't even look him in the eye as he said this. She was going where?
"Excuse me, what?" One of the men of the bunch took a step forward, offering Gabriel a smile that made his jaw clench. He was tall and had a healthy tan, from living in a hot state, -guessed Gabriel- his light brown hair had a white streak starting on his forehead, prematurely gray? With a daughter like his, who could blame him. And he held himself with the confidence of someone who had trained for years to talk to big fish like Gabriel, without feeling nervous.
"Good evening Commander, I'm Cornelious Ashe," he thrust out a perfectly manicured hand, holding a pristine little business card between two fingers; when the card went untouched, the man took back his hand "and that's my little girl, Lizzy," the man, who talked with a smooth, contained southern accent, explained "and you see Commander Reyes, she's just a victim of circumstances."
Gabriel probably looked as unimpressed as he felt because the man kept rattling on without pause "She's only nineteen, a young girl still, and Commander, I'm saddened to say that me and my wife, we don't spend as much time home as we wished we did, and my poor little girl was...tricked into all this mess by that McCree boy, he's always been a menace I tell you, he's the real criminal here, my ba-"
"Hold up. So you're trying to tell me that this was all a case of wrong place at the wrong time, but just for your daughter?" Gabriel couldn't believe this. Why was this man even here? They didn't usually ask for the opinions of the criminal's parents. This was not how they did things. Blackwatch didn't even offer lawyers.
" Exactly! If I could take her home, I promise she'll be reprimanded, and my lawyers can deal with whatever questions you have. This is all just a big mistake. Isn't that right, Commander Morrison?" Jack sighed and, avoiding Gabe's eyes, placed his hand on top of the fingerprint recognition panel at the wall, which released the cuffs and allowed the chair to be pushed back so that the white haired woman could stand.
"She will have to point to this...McCree boy" said Jack, a resigned edge to his voice that Gabriel simply couldn't believe.
"Of course." As the little swarm of lawyers started vacating the room, and Mister Ashe pulled his daughter out, Gabriel took hold of Jack's arm, pulling him close.
"Jack. Please tell me this is your sad little idea of a joke"
"Gabe, I'm so sorry. Mister Ashe has friends inside the U.N., big chairs, I tried to stop this whole mess but there was nothing I could-" Jack tried explaining.
"Bull fucking shit. She's guilty as hell Jack! And what? Now she's gonna stick it all on that other dumbass?" Gabriel didn't like this. Not one bit.
"Look." He took a deep breath "Yes, she goes home but at least the rest of the gang stays. You stopped them, Gabe" Jack reached out to place his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, but quickly changed his mind and pulled back, sure that if he had done it, Gabriel would have bitten his arm off.
"Let's hope that other little shit, doesn't have rich parents too"
"No. Everything about this one screams money. All of her clothes? Designer, even the hat is made from good leather. That Mc... the other kid, the other founder, looks like he was dragged out of a dumpster" Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose, certain that this little event would bother him forever.
What did it even matter that her clothes were designer? Gabriel had taken down richer assholes than her and it had never mattered if they wore Channel.
Tiring work. Tiring for the body, tiring for the soul.
He walked along Jack down the long hallway, leading their "guests" to the interrogation room that held the poor son of a bitch that was about to get the backstabbing of a lifetime.
"Clearly, the U.N. values the hard work that we do" said Gabe as he pressed his hand to the scanner, seeing Morrison cringe slightly out of the corner of his eye. "Is this him?" The door opened with a soft woosh , revealing a lanky thing, all pointy elbows and bruised knees, with a sad excuse for a soul patch right under a split lip, that was dripping from a bloody nose and a black eye. His head hanging low but raising up quickly at the sound of voices, a fake smirk quickly plastered on his face.
"It's him, Commander Reyes, he tricked me into all this mess" the girl's voice didn't hold an ounce of true, and as the young punk's good eye widened, Gabriel knew that he knew, that she was throwing him under the bus and directly into prison.
"Ashe…" the cowboy's facade quickly broke, the smirk disappearing to be replaced by a frown and a twisted lip.
"I'm telling you Commander, that boy has always been a criminal, my poor girl barely knew what she was doing" Mister Ashe placed his arm around his daughter's shoulder.
"He's the one that started the Deadlocks, I thought we were just playing" she looked directly at the kid cuffed to the table, telling him with her eyes, You're fucked.
Gabriel Reyes was tired. Tired because he knew that everybody knew the girl was lying. Where was her cocky pose right before she shot at him? Where was that dragged out accent in which she screamed at her fellow outlaws to " Shoot at 'em! They ain't nothing' but pigs for the killin'!"
She was obviously clever, she clearly knew from the beginning that she had a bed made of money to fall on if things went south. And now she was allowed to run around terrorizing New Mexico just because she had status? Sticking all her crimes on some down-on-his-luck dumbass?
She was a gangster, one sponsored by her parents, but still a gangster. She shot at his men like they owed her money, and now they wanted to sell him the idea that she was actually a goody two shoes? Gabriel hated that she was gonna get away with it because of her rich dad.
"Ashe...YOU RAT! YOU BASTARD! YOU DIRTY FUCKING TRAITOR! I'M GONNA FIND YOU AND HANG YOU FROM THE TRAIN TRA-" Gabriel took his hand from the panel, only seeing the boy trash in his chair for a second before the door closed, muffling his screams.
"We should be going" one of the nameless lawyers said to their boss after a long silence of trying to ignore every threat that was being shouted, and the man nodded.
"It was a pleasure, Commander Morrison, Commander Reyes" they were given a slight nod of the head and the man turned around, ready to walk out of the building and let his daughter face exactly zero consequences back at home.
"You know" Gabriel said before he could stop himself "That kid could talk," he felt Jack place a quick, strong holded, hand on his shoulder, a silent Shut up. "He could say some really incriminating things about your daughter"
Mister Ashe stopped, turning around on the heel of his three thousand dollars shoes, and giving Gabriel a forced smile.
"I'm sure he could, as a matter of fact, I know he will. But do tell, Commander Reyes, who's going to believe him? His parents don't even know where he is. And even if they did, that boy has nothing . He is nothing more than a criminal, a low life" The man fixed the lapels of his suit, wiping away dust that wasn't there. "Remember what moves the world, Mister Reyes" and just like that they turned a corner, out of sight but definitely not out of mind.
"Gabriel, what-"
"Jack, what the fuck. What the actual, honest, fuck!" Gabriel turned to face the blond, and took a step away from the man "Are we letting every criminal with money walk away now? Should I have contacted the parents of that human trafficker last month? Is that what we do now?!" He couldn't help but raise his voice. Jack had made him mad before, furious even. The blond could be all bravery no brains, and it had put them in more than one sticky situation during the war. But this was a different kind of mad; this was an anger born out of impotence and of a feeling of injustice.
But under that idea; Gabriel was forced to wonder. Injustice for who? For Blackwatch? For the teams who did all the work, only to have it undone by some idiots in monkey suits at the U.N.? Or was it an injustice for the kid? He wasn't innocent, not by far, but he had been sold out, betrayed, by the one that was supposed to ride or die with him, and now? He was going to pay for the simple fact that he hadn't been born into money.
Gabriel was exhausted.
"God, no! Gabriel look, it's different here, she's just nineteen"
"Yeah and this kid, who just got the short end of the stick, is…" Gabriel quickly swiped files on his tablet until he got to the one he was looking for "Jesse Vicente McCree… he's seventeen, look, he's not even old enough to vote" Jack sighed and dropped his head pinching his nose and breathing deep.
"Look. We can't win all of them-"
"We had already won this! You pull this shit again, with my team, Jack, y yo no respondo" Gabriel slammed his hand on the panel, letting the door open and stepping in, wishing that the doors weren't so damn technological so that he could slam it about a hundred times.
"Dirty fucking bastard. She would've shot me right in the dick if I pulled this shit" Gabriel heard the kid mutter behind him, probably to himself mostly.
The file on McCree didn't say much, he wasn't from a prominent family like the Caledonia girl so it didn't even mention any relations. The list of charges against him was already long, and Gabe wanted to break the tablet in two when, right in front of his eyes, the list got longer, charges adding from what they had charged "Calamity" with and she had brushed off. This was fucked up.
"I'm Commander Reyes" Gabriel sighed as he sat down, running his hand through his beard. "And you're Jesse McCree, founder of the Deadlock Gang, gunslinger, and you took down two of my men"
That, coupled with the charges pressed against him, could've been enough to send him to max security for the rest of his natural life. Hell, probably more than one life sentence if the judge was ruthless with this kid. That's all that Gabriel had needed to know about him to put him away for life.
But what he saw of the kid told him a different story. He was clearly angry, red in the face and still shocked at having been betrayed by who he thought was his partner in crime. Gabriel also saw the too big hat, the poorly fitting leather jacket, the callous hands and the poorly concealed tears. God. Gabriel Reyes was tired.
"I…" with a sigh, the wannabe cowboy let his head hang, taking a deep breath before blowing it out of his nose.
"Look...kid, you're in deep shit, according to this" he waved with the tablet "You have over 60 different charges, different felonies...you're going to jail"
"Yeah?" Apparently the wannabe cowboy had pulled himself together, biting his lip as he raised his head "And what's it to you?" Gabriel sighed. He knew that this kid would take the fall. The other gang members weren't as important, and even tho some were older, none of them had such a long list of crimes.
"What is to me is… you're a real good shot. You killed who you wanted to kill, you only harmed who you only wanted to harm. You've got serious skills with that toy gun of yours"
Clearly Jesse hadn't expected that, his eye widening and his frown dropping. And for a moment Gabriel wondered. How had this kid ended here?
This would make Jack furious. He would go beet red and scream until he was hoarse, he would probably try to stop Gabriel, and most likely he would say Gabriel was being stupid.
Gabriel hoped this made Jack furious.
"I have a deal for you."