They discussed it. It was difficult, of course: Face ran the gamut of heartache and fury multiple times a day, sometimes.
Face wanted to find his son. Face wanted to not believe any of it was true—what Hannibal said made sense. They team had a rule: No one was truly dead unless there was a body; it wasn't much to twist the same logic: No one had a child unless there was testing.
Face was torn.
Find him. Know him. Love him.
Stay away. Not believe. Never know.
Arguments could be made for both, and none of them could make a rational case for either. It could come down to practicality (Hannibal was the staunchest supporter of this, no surprise: "We're federal fugitives, Temp. What we have wouldn't be fair to a kid. You know that.") and emotion (B.A. was the proponent of this: "Kids need their daddy. Need to know he's no low-life, runnin' out on their mama. Need to know people love 'em.").
Murdock remained oddly quiet and reserved and didn't offer his opinion.
The pilot allowed his best friend to be however he needed to be. It was a fluid comfort: when Face was so enraged that he couldn't believe his ex-girlfriend would be so selfish, Murdock absorbed the anger. When Face was so unhappy that his son had been abandoned, had been left, Murdock consoled him with more insistence than was truly necessary.
He didn't ever, ever voice the idea he was comforting Face through the second soul-shattering rejection in his life.
Finally, though, the weight of not knowing was heavier than the rationality of leaving the past in the past.
Hannibal didn't fully agree, but let the chips fall as they may.
Face's decision opened up new cans of worms. How they would find him was easy for a team whose expertise fell in the realm of finding people and helping out those who had no other option. Charissa had said she pursued a closed adoption. A rarity, nowadays. She didn't know the birth parents' names or the state they resided.
B.A. made relatively short work of a system that was dominated by 'going paperless' and 'being green'.
What they would do when they did locate the boy was another problem entirely.
"What'll you do, Face?"
"What'll you say, Face?"
"What'll happen if you tell him—"
"What'll he think if he knows—"
Face pushed away the unending, unanswerable questioned plied to him.
"When we find him, find Devon, I'll know what to do," he answered again and again.
"There are probably statutes of limitations on punitive fathers," he was told.
"You think you can just walk into this kid's life and everything will be fine," he was told.
"He may not know he's even adopted," he was told.
"Devon should know he has a father!" Face shouted into the dark, after the relentless hounding followed him in his sleep. No one was in the room with him, and he curled over on himself, whispering with fevered insistence, "He should know he wasn't deserted, that there was someone else in his life!"
"He has someone else in his life," the same voice inside his head replied. "He has parents. Are you doing this for him, or is it just for you? Are you being as selfish as she was? Are you going to ruin his life? How can you even justify telling him you're his father—you don't know how to be a father, you don't know anything about having a family—"
"Hey Facey, you all right?"
Murdock's question stalled the internal berating, slowed the blows that made his heart feel like a punching bag.
When he didn't receive an answer, Murdock climbed onto the bed with him and pressed close. He didn't say anything about the wet he found on Face's cheeks, didn't remark on the rhythmic shakes that indicated the tiny sobs that shook him. He just lay behind him to let him know even if he felt gutted inside, he wasn't alone.