The weeks following the Unidac auction shooting are spent solidifying Slade's new routine. Get back from the docks, drop Joe at school, breakfast with Oliver if they run into each other on the way in (Slade's getting better at timing the traffic so they arrive near simultaneously), before returning home to get some sleep. Four hours usually, five if he's lucky. The remaining time before he has to pick Joe up from school is spent tracking down the whereabouts of one Floyd Lawton. It's an arduous process. It doesn't matter how many contacts he calls, how many favors he cashes in, or how many people he threatens. Nobody knows what happened to the sniper after his conflict with the Hood. He has really and truly disappeared. He inevitably spends the afternoons wearing a hole in the carpet with his pacing. Once the kids are home, it's dinner and homework and bedtime stories. Maybe a few texts from Oliver here and there, or a phone call from Conner detailing the events of his after-school hours to an enthralled Joe. And once everyone is settled in for the night, he collects his weapons and uniform from the safe and heads down to the docks.

The approaching winter brings a chill that settles with the night. Where before Slade could settle somewhere high and watch the yard from his perch, the brisk weather forces him to keep moving. Leaping from crate to crate, scaling walls and fences, anything to keep the cold at bay with the added bonus of a more thorough patrol than those he had been on before. He is, however, careful to keep away from the dock's more active areas. Slade had never bothered to ask what it was that his employer had him guarding, but it doesn't take a genius to guess that a man wealthy and paranoid enough to hire someone of Deathstroke's caliber is up to something less than legal.

Since his first sighting of the Hood, business at the docks had increased dramatically. Where before he'd only had to steer clear of the maintenance or construction men that were always tinkering with something, it was now a veritable hive of activity. He'd stop to watch, on occasion, as people ran boxes this way and that in the distance. Sometimes he would hear his employer barking orders, but they made little sense to him out of context. The vigilante had been seen in the area several times, chasing his latest drug dealing or mob associated victim, but never ventured close enough to warrant interference.

It seems that tonight, though, that was about to change. He's patrolling the dock's perimeter when he sees it, a flash of movement, from the corner of his eye. Barely distinguishable from the night's deep shadow. For a moment, Slade believes he may have imagined it, so desperate for a break in the monotony that he's creating illusionary enemies to fight. But then a passing floodlight sweeps over the figure, illuminating the green-hooded vigilante for just long enough for Slade to believe that this was real. A smirk crawls its way across his face as he begins his pursuit. If the vigilante thought he could stick his nose into Slade's employer's business without facing any consequences, he was in for a surprise.

The weeks following the Unidac auction shooting are spent testing the boundaries of Oliver's new routine. Get back from the Foundry, get Conner to school, breakfast with Slade when their paths cross (Oliver is beginning to suspect the frequent coincidences are more design than fate), before grabbing a few fretful hours of sleep. The island still haunts him in his nightmares, dragging up the unpleasant memories he worked so hard to bury. When he finally can't force himself to rest any more, he heads to the club for a few hours to supervise before picking Conner up from school. Then dinner, homework, and the bedtime routine. He'd text Slade sporadically, and sometimes Conner would be able to beg him into a phone call. Then, when Conner was settled, he'd head back to the club and gear up.

Oliver isn't stupid. The nights he spends under the hood are becoming longer and longer, cutting further and further into his time with his son. The excuses for his sudden disappearances are getting weaker and weaker. Eventually, something was going to happen and the tension hanging over the Queen manor would come to a head. His only saving grace is John Diggle, who after a bit of coercion, had finally accepted Oliver's offer. When he's running late, Diggle would pick up the slack; waking Conner and beginning the morning routine for when Oliver finally arrived.

Attention is first brought to the upswing of deaths by the docks when an addict was discovered dead by supposed overdose in an alley. That, on its own, is far from suspicious. Addicts die every day in Starling. What draws Oliver to investigate is the persistence of a young, homeless girl named Sin that claimed the boy had been clean before the incident occurred. She goes so far as to convince Roy, Thea's latest love interest, and consequently his sister herself. If there really is something suspicious about the boy's death, Oliver can't have his sister or her friends getting involved.

Breaking into the police department is easy enough. Despite their various upgrades in security since the last time he helped himself to the evidence locker, they are still woefully underequipped to handle as skillfully trained an agent as Oliver. He rifles through boxes of files until he comes across the folder he wants. It's one of the thinnest in the box, unsurprising for a case believed to be open and shut. The medical examiner had ruled the boy's death suicide by overdose, and for just a moment Oliver believes that Sin may have been mistaken. That perhaps the girl's mind was so clouded by grief that she couldn't accept what had really happened. As he moves to close and replace the file, a picture of the crime scene slips from it and flutters to the floor. Oliver bends to retrieve it, only to freeze halfway bent.

Nausea crashes over him as he takes in the details. The boy, sprawled over top of a stack of crisp white trash bags, syringe in hand. Blood trickles from the boy's tear ducts, sending Oliver's heart up his throat. And suddenly, wish a rush of unpleasant memories, Oliver knows that Sin was right. That this boy's death wasn't caused by an accidental overdose. There was something going on down at the docks, right under Oliver's nose, and he needed to know what. Snatching the picture from the tile and stuffing it back in its rightful place, he slips from the evidence locker and back out of the station.