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Rose is the one who comes to him.
Anyone else, Slade would have turned them down, no matter what sum they'd have offered to buy his services. But Rose hadn't answered his calls in years, and the last time they spoke, she'd told him in no uncertain terms that if he went near her again she'd put a sword through his heart or die trying. So when she asks him to rescue a bird in peril, Slade can't tell her no.
He tries to talk her out of it anyway.
"It's a bad idea. I'm the last person in the world he wants to come to his rescue. We ain't exactly on good terms right now."
Understatement of the century. Grayson and he, they've never really been on good terms for as long as they've known each other. Not for any significant length of time anyway, before whatever shaky alliance they might have made fell apart. And after Chemo... Well. Some things you can't go back from.
Rose knows all of that, the entire bad history. She was there for enough of it, and Grayson would happily have filled in the blanks for her. Which means the account she got may have been biased, but it's hardly been embellished. There's no way she isn't aware of the extent of Grayson's grievances, or how well-earned they are.
If Slade hoped the reminder would detract her from her plan, he's mistaken.
"Good," she says. "If he's pissed at me for getting you involved, that means he's alive. I can deal with his anger. Just get him out, okay?"
She puts on such a good act, makes it sound brisk, all business. He feels a flicker of pride at how well she conceals her fear. But regardless of their estrangement, she's still his daughter. He knows her well enough to hear the undercurrent of agitation in her tone and to spot the tells that she tries to hide. The mere fact that she came to him in the first place is a testament to how dire the situation must be. Grayson is hardly a damsel in distress, and if it was the usual kind of trouble he and his hero friends find themselves in, Rose would be perfectly capable of mounting a rescue herself.
Instead she's here, willing to put aside her grudges and her resentment, all those lofty morals and principles that Grayson infused in her, to ask her dad for a favor. If the circumstances were different, it might give Slade a sense of victory. But he's got a bad feeling about this, so he'll suspend the gloating until the job is done and the bird's safe back in his nest.
There's an ugly thought slithering in the back of his mind like a snake, venomous and sly: What if Rose is settling him with a no-win scenario? What if it's too late already, and by the time he gets there, there ain't enough left of Grayson to bring him back home? What if he's already dead? Slade's stomach churns at the idea, and he tells himself that it's only because Rose will blame him for it even when it won't be his fault.
"Fine," he bites out, because there's really no other answer. He was never going to refuse her. "Give me the details."
*
It doesn't take long to figure out who has Grayson.
All Slade's gotta do is look at who Nightwing's recently pissed off – which, you gotta give it to the kid, is an impressively long list. He's really got talent for getting on the bad side of all the shady influential businessmen and the wannabe supervillains in a 500-mile radius, so Slade can just cross-reference who's set on expanding their operations. And then he goes and asks the wrong kinds of people all the right questions.
The Bat probably tried to go down the same route, but the lowlifes of Gotham and beyond tend to be a lot more chatty with Slade than with Batman. One of the advantages of not taking half the means to get the job done out of the tool kit due to ethical reservations. You make Batman lose his temper, you wind up in Arkham with a few bruises, but you live to see another day. If Deathstroke comes knocking and you withhold information, everybody knows that being trussed up and handed over to the police isn't a likely outcome.
So he gets a name. He gets a location.
Slade's gut feeling tells him that he's not gonna like what he'll find when he arrives there. No particular reason for it, nothing but intuition, instincts he's learned to listen to and that have saved his hide countless times over the years.
He goes in quietly, his blade slicing through the guards' throats like butter. One by one, they drop like fallen pieces on a chessboard, soundlessly, before anyone can raise an alarm. The cameras will pick up what's happening, but it doesn't matter. Slade took out the two guys surveilling the monitors first. No one's gonna see him coming.
They're keeping the bird locked up in a fortified basement. A safe room, except there's nothing safe about it. Not for its sole inhabitant, anyway. It's a fucking torture chamber.
Grayson's suspended from the ceiling with his feet barely touching the ground. He's slumping in his chains, his head sagged forward, utterly motionless. If Slade's enhanced senses weren't picking up a jumpy heartbeat, he'd wonder whether the kid was even still alive.
They've stripped him off his suit and armor, his uncovered skin darkened so much with dried blood and bruises and dirt that there's barely a clean spot left. The mask is gone too, which means Slade will have to kill whoever's left that might have seen Grayson's face. Good, he thinks, his sword hand tightening around the hilt.
The kid doesn't react when Slade comes in. He doesn't look up at the sound of heavy footfalls approaching, numb and unresponsive even when Slade steps up to him, close enough to touch. Normally, he'd try to get away by now. Even with the chains holding him in place, he'd twist and glare and give Slade a piece of his mind.
Slade's gloved hand reaches out to tangle in the greasy, blood-matted hair, and there's nothing but a muted flinch. Hardly a response at all.
Disappointment churns in Slade's gut. He thought he'd get a kick out of the kid's reaction. He's been imagining it from the moment Rose asked him: that sweet moment when Grayson would see him and wouldn't know if Deathstroke was there to rescue him or to hurt him. The ability to pull the rug out from underneath him just when he decided to expect the worst of Slade.
But when Slade lifts Grayson' head and the hair falls away from his eyes, there's no recognition in those baby blues. Nothing but a glassy, unfocused haze, and Slade wants to tear the world apart.
Grayson's never looked at him like that, blank and utterly without emotion. Not when he was a teenager running around in stupid green shorts, and not once he left the Bat's side and learned to fly solo. Certainly not after Bludhaven, when he was all helpless anger and unconcealed anguish at first, and white-hot rage later, once the extent of the damage had really sunk in. Slade didn't think he'd one day miss the hatred and the resentment, but anything's better than this alien emptiness, and he can just about imagine what it took to wipe out that fierce fighting spirit. He'd bet it involved some potent cocktail of drugs.
"Always gotta bite off more than you can chew, don't you?" he mutters, but with Grayson as unresponsive as a dead man, the taunt falls flat. Slade grinds his teeth and reaches for the chains that hold the kid up. "C'mon, let's get you out of here."
When the manacles come lose, they reveal sore wrists, bruised purple and bleeding shallowly from when he must have tried to pull himself lose. Slade wonders when he stopped fighting, but he assumes it wasn't until they doped him up to his eyeballs.
That's the thing about Nightwing: He never knows when to give up until you make him, no matter how hopeless the situation is, or how much worse he's making things for himself by refusing to back down. Torture was never going to work on him. Slade could have told his captors that if they'd asked. Of course, he'd also have killed anyone who came to him with a question like that.
Grayson tumbles forward once the chains stop holding him up, like a rag doll whose strings have been cut. Slade catches his fall with his body. Grayson makes a small, pained noise when his battered torso connects with the unyielding hardness of the armor, but he doesn't even try to pull away and move into a less uncomfortable position.
There's no way he's gonna walk out of here on those wobbly legs anytime soon, and they don't have the time to wait until he gets his shit together, so Slade hoists him up and flings him over his shoulder.
He doesn't bother with stealth on his exit.
No sneaking out, no side-stepping guards, no more clean, silent kills. Everyone who gets in his way – be it by chance or out of misplaced confidence that they can stop him – they all die screaming in a spray of blood. Slade leaves severed heads, and cut-off limbs, intestines spilling out of gaping wounds, painting the walls and floors red. He wants people to know that he was there, for the bloodshed and the violence to send a message that will be heard far and wide: no one messes with Nightwing unless they are prepared to pay the price.
It's pointedly on the nose, crude in a way Slade usually isn't when he's on a contract. Not unless it's personal.
*
He should drop the kid off with his friends, or maybe leave him at the Bat's doorstep. Make him someone else's problem. Rose's, Wayne's, anyone's. Doesn't matter as long as Grayson's off Slade's hands, literally.
It's the glassy-eyed stare that stops him.
The mission has been an utter shit show from the start, and sure, he's done exactly what Rose has asked him to do, but it doesn't feel complete unless Grayson recognizes him. Slade doesn't want a thank you; he doesn't expect gratitude, but he isn't going to let the kid get away without some kind of acknowledgement.
So instead of making his way to the manor or Titans headquarters to deliver Grayson to someone who's happy to take care of him, he takes them to one of his safe houses. It's not the most well-stocked one, nor the one he'll be happiest to give up once this is over and the bird's on the hunt again. It's simply the one that's closest. Dragging a naked, half-broken, barely conscious vigilante halfway through the city is borrowing more trouble than he cares for right now; he'd rather not stay out in the open for longer than strictly necessary.
Once inside, he secures the doors. He puts up the safeguards and enables the alarms and the hidden traps until there's no way to get in or out alive without his assistance.
All the while, Grayson is all but dead weight resting on his shoulder. When Slade finally drops him off into the shower, his legs buckle and he sways forward precariously, his infamous sense of balance shot to hell. Slade ends up stepping under the warm spray of water with him, half-leaning the kid against the wall, half-holding him up as he goes to work on cleaning him up.
With the blood and the grime coming off, Grayson looks even worse, the extend of the damage that was hidden beneath all the layers of crud laid bare. Cuts and burn marks, small inflamed wounds that look days old. Deep bruises that have left the flesh swollen and discolored in all shades. One or two nasty incisions on his back that are going to need stitches. At least two of his ribs are broken, maybe three. Doesn't look like they've pierced anything, but Slade doesn't have X-ray vision. He thinks he'd notice if the kid was bleeding out on the inside, though.
On the backs of his thighs, there are bruises that look suspiciously finger-shaped. They give Slade pause, making him wonder if perhaps a severe beating wasn't really all the bird's been subjected to. The idea makes him want to take his sword and go right back, makes him want to raise the dead so he can kill them all over again, more painfully than the last time around.
It's when Slade is investigating the extend of the damage that Grayson starts struggling.
There's nothing feeble and half-hearted about it, no gradual emergence of his fight instincts. One moment he's resting limply against the tiles, the next he comes to life, kicking and shoving, trying to push Slade away. For once, his movements are all desperation and fierce aggression, no grace, and right then, he resembles a cornered, angry tiger cub more than a bird.
Even weak from days of captivity and torture, he still knows how to land a few blows, and Slade holds him down before either of them slips and cracks their head open against the tiles. Predictably, it only makes him lash out harder.
"Let me go. Slade, don't— Whatever they paid you, you can't— You don't have to—"
There it is, the fear Slade had wanted earlier. It's written all over the kid's face, his wide eyes, the voice that breaks off when he realizes he doesn't have an argument that would make Slade stop if he really did plan on hurting Grayson.
Slade tries his best to contain the increasingly desperate struggles without further aggravating any of the fresh injuries, using the weight of his body to pin Grayson to the wall until the fight slowly drains out of him. Drops of water fall down from Slade's nose and his beard, dripping onto Grayson's cheek, his shoulder, his neck where his pulse beats a frantic rhythm.
"Relax, kid," Slade says. For once, he hopes it won't come out like a threat. Offering comfort isn't part of his skillset. He keeps his tone low and steady, his mouth close to Grayson's ear so the patter from the shower won't drown him out. "It's over. They're dead. No one's gonna hurt you."
Not until the next time Grayson gets it into his head to fly right into danger, anyway.
Slade's attempts to soothe him don't make the strain bleed out of his battered body. He's taut like a bowstring under Slade's hands, trembling with tension, his labored breathing so loud that is carries over the sound of the water. Slade can feel the frantic rise and fall of Grayson's chest against his front. "Why?"
"Why what?"
Grayson breathes out an angry huff. "You destroyed a whole city and killed over a hundred thousand people just to take your revenge on me. Why save me now?"
Slade clenches his jaw.
He doesn't do remorse. No point in it. Looking back, taking out Bludhaven had been a rash, short-sighted decision fueled by vengeance and petty vindictiveness that didn't feel as satisfying as he thought it would. What's done is done, though, and in the same situation, he might make the same choice again.
"Not gonna let someone else do my dirty work for me."
It's the predictable answer, the one he knows Grayson is gonna accept without questioning. Close enough to the truth that the lie in it won't be obvious, and perfectly in line with all the worst expectations Grayson has of him.
It doesn't surprise him in the slightest when the kid's breathing eases in response and he stops straining against Slade's hold. Right now, he's the devil Grayson knows.
"Now will you stop fighting and let me patch you up?"
Grayson rests the back of his head against the tiles and gives Slade a wary look. For the first time since Slade found him in that basement strung up like a crucified saint, there's a spark lighting up the blue of his eyes.
"Maybe," he bites out, and the cockiness in his tone almost sounds like the Nightwing Slade's familiar with.
Slade snorts. Maybe's good enough for him.
*
It takes time to properly clean the wounds and dress the worst of them.
Neither of them is keen on making conversation. Usually, Nightwing's all quick-witted banter and cocksure taunts, but tonight there's little left of it. He seems to be lost in his own head, and Slade doesn't have the temper to try and draw him out. What are they gonna talk about anyway? Every honest conversation they could have is a minefield, and even though Slade normally wouldn't mind setting off a few explosions, this isn't the time and place for it.
Grayson holds himself still and silent, his jaw tense, his lips pressed together so tightly as if allowing himself to make a sound of pain might hurt him more than the burn of disinfectant or the sting of the needle. Or maybe he just doesn't want to give Slade the satisfaction of seeing him suffer.
A bit late for that, but Slade's not cruel enough to comment on it, just like he doesn't point out the way the kids' eyes are shiny with tears and his hands are clenched into fists so tight it looks as if his knuckles are going to split open. They're shaking when Slade carefully wraps the abrasions on his wrists, the white gauze of the bandage a stark contrast to the dusky bruised skin next to it. Slade's thumb brushes over his pulse point, feeling the beat stutter.
When he's done, he grabs a few painkillers and a sedative from the bathroom cabinet and hands them to Grayson along with a glass of water.
"Take these," he says, and steels himself for the inevitable argument.
It doesn't come. Grayson picks up the pills from Slade's palm with shaky fingers and swallows them dry, then downs down the water afterwards in greedy gulps.
Slade's bemusement at his easy compliance must be showing on his face because Grayson gives him a curious look, irritation lurking at the edges. "What?"
"No one ever tell you not to just swallow any crap someone hands you, kid? Those could have been anything."
Grayson scoffs. "Give me a break, Slade. If this is some kind of elaborate plan to lull me into a false sense of safety and then gloat about stabbing me in the back when I trust you, I can't do shit about it anyway. Even if that was some junk that's gonna waste me again, 'd be nice to actually take it myself instead of being shot up with it."
Fair enough. Slade assumes Grayson didn't end up in that basement because he'd been too trusting. Still. "Just telling you not to let your defenses down."
The responding laugh is a harsh, ugly sound. It sounds like it's torn out of the kid, like it's ripping his insides apart.
"Bold of you to think I've got any defenses left."
The defeatist attitude, so unlike his usual shtick, gives Slade pause. "Grayson—"
He feels wary, ill-equipped to deal with this. Pep talks aren't his thing, as Rose could probably attest. Whenever she or her brothers showed moments of doubt and weakness, Slade would snap at them and upped their training regime until they'd pull themselves together. But with Grayson looking like he's gonna fall apart any second, Slade's particular brand of tough love might not be the best attitude.
It doesn't matter. He gets cut off before he can fumble for whatever gruff encouragement he can muster up.
"Don't." The kid's tone is sharp. "Stop doing that thing where you're trying to teach me. It's annoying at the best of times, but right now I really can't take it, okay?"
Slade doesn't bother telling him that that he's wrong, that he's stopped expecting Grayson to be amenable to any kind of coaching from Slade at least half a dozen clashes and one destroyed city ago. He's happy to let Grayson believe he's still working that angle, though. Better to have him bristling with anger than wallowing in bleak resignation.
*
Perhaps it's the drugs pulling him under or the ordeal he's been through taking its toll, but Grayson's out like a light so fast as if someone had knocked him out.
Slade watches him from the doorway – the way he's sprawled out on his stomach, no cover drawn over the bandage-patchwork on his back, his face half-hidden in the pillow, one hand clenched as tightly in the pillow as if he were holding on to one of his escrima sticks instead.
It doesn't look comfortable, but considering the state he was in when Slade found him, it's a miracle he's sleeping at all.
Slade keeps his eye on him until he's satisfied that the kid's getting some rest undisturbed by nightmares before he turns to the other room and sits down on the couch. He puts his weapons on the table in front of him and starts going to work. Disassembling his guns to clean them, one by one. Wiping the blood off his sword. Sharpening the blade with short, furious strokes.
The routine is a welcome distraction. Soothing, almost, if he were the kind of guy who lets himself be soothed. Something to take his mind off the sleeping bird in his bedroom, and the empty look in his eyes when Slade found him.
*
He wakes up to find Grayson sliding on top of him, straddling him.
At first he thinks the kid's finally gonna try and kill him, but his hands are empty, no weapon in sight, the look on his face determined but not murderous. Doesn't necessarily mean anything. For all Slade knows, Grayson's so frantic that he thinks he can kill Slade with his bare hands.
When he reaches for Slade, Slade snatches up his arms, fingers closing around down the bandaged wrists with more care than he'd usually take with anyone getting this close without invitation.
"The hell are you doing?"
In the darkness on the room, there's almost no blue left in his eyes, the black of his dilated pupils swallowing any color, his stare dark and intent. He doesn't try to twist his arms out of Slade's grip.
"I want you to fuck me."
His voice is almost steady, but for the slight tremor that anyone without enhanced hearing would miss. Slade has to actively work on resisting the instinctive urge to clench his fists.
Not a situation he ever thought he's find himself in.
"No, you don't, and I'm not going to," he says, as firmly as he ever turned down any contract he knew from the start was a disaster in the making.
Grayson's mouth twists. "Come on, Slade, don't tell me you haven't wanted this since I was old enough to be a proper challenge."
Not quite. Slade's wanted him, yes. He wants him, present tense, even after everything. He doesn't want this, though.
"Kid, you're a mess. Couple of hours ago when I dragged you out of that shithole, you didn't even recognize me. Whatever you think you want right now, you don't."
The kid's face slumps forward, his hair falling over his eyes, obscuring them from Slade's view. He starts shaking, and for a moment Slade thinks that he's sobbing. It takes him a few seconds to realize that it's laughter rattling Grayson's body.
"This is where you draw the line? Really? You will wipe out an entire city full of innocent people, but you're not gonna fuck someone who's begging you for it just because they might not be thinking straight?" The chuckles ebb off as quickly as they came on, and then Grayson's looking up again, something raw in his expression, almost haunted. "I just want— I need to feel like my body's my own again. Like I'm making my own choices. And if I look back tomorrow and decide that they were shitty choices, they've still been my own. Please, Slade."
And Slade— He isn't that good a person.
Here's Dick Grayson sitting on top of him, naked, begging to be fucked with the kind of desperation in his voice that would be pitiful and unattractive coming from anyone else, and maybe his reasons are terrible or maybe they're not, but Slade's tried turning down what he's offering twice now. He's not gonna turn him down a third time. Even if the kid regrets this in the morning, it's not like he can resent Slade anymore than he already does.
Slade's hands settle on Grayson's waist, finding space between the bruises and wounds to hold on to.
"I'm not gonna ask if you're sure," he warns, offering a final out. He seeks out that dark, furious gaze and holds it.
The tense line of Grayson's shoulders softens at Slade's tacit acquiescence and the look on his face is so close to relief that it feels like the air's been punched out of Slade.
This is going to come back to haunt him. He knows that before he even pulls Grayson down into a kiss, at last tasting that sweet, smart mouth. Grayson's hands are rough, greedy – not vicious, more like he wants too much too fast, almost like he's been aching for this as long as Slade did, even though Slade knows that's not true.
In turn, Slade's more careful with him than he can remember ever being with anyone.
He used to fantasize about it: bending Nightwing over after one of their fights, pressing him down with his entire weight, littering him with bruises, marks that scream Deathstroke was here to anyone who dares to look. Making him hurt, breaking him, making him want to be broken and put back together again. Hell, he can't remember not wanting to hurt the kid one way or another since their paths first crossed. Right now, though, the idea leaves a sour taste in his mouth, like swallowing acid.
He keeps his touches measured, light, fingers brushing over bruised flesh as gentle as he can, palms exploring rather than pressing down, lips breathing soothing kisses against sore skin. Grayson clings to him like he's drowning, and when he finally sinks down on Slade's cock, a sob tears out of his throat that sounds too wet to be just pleasure.
Slade almost stops, but the kid leans in and seals their mouths together, kissing him deep and hard and desperate and kissing him and kissing him until he comes with a wretched, broken cry, shaking apart in Slade's arms.
*
"Can we start over? I'm tired of hating you."
It's a naive wish, beyond even Grayson's usual steadfast belief in seeing the best in people. There's no such thing as a clean slate. And if the kid wasn't still hurting and traumatized, he wouldn't want one.
"Doesn't work like that," Slade says, keeping his neutral, carefully impassive. "We both made our choices. Can't make them undone. Nowhere to go but forward."
It's still dark out, headlights from passing cars falling through the gaps in the security blinds at irregular intervals. Neither of them has fallen asleep again, Grayson lying half on top of Slade, his head cushioned on Slade's chest, his eyes wide open and too keen.
"You're saying you still want to kill me?" he asks. It's a leading question if there's ever been one.
They both know the answer. If Slade really wanted Grayson dead, he'd be dead. Even back when he said it and thought he meant it, he still made the deliberate choice to wait until Nightwing was out of town until he had Chemo dropped on Bludhaven. If he didn't try to kill him then, he can't imagine a situation when he would.
"Some days more, some days less," he hedges.
He can feel the kid's mouth twitching into a smile even before the smile becomes audible in his tone. "Guess I'm lucky you don't get around to tracking me down on the days you want me gone."
"Mhm. I'm a busy guy."
"Right." Grayson falls silent, for once recognizing when to stop pushing.
The quiet stretches, building up heavily until Slade knows that it's not leading anywhere he wants to go. He braces himself, because he's learned over the years that the only way to stop Grayson when he's put his mind to something is to kill him. Easier to let him have his way, especially when all that's at stake is an awkward conversation.
Grayson's voice is soft when it shatters the silence, deceptively light but unable to hide the tension. "So, no fresh start," he says. And then, because he doesn't know when to let go: "Where does that leave us?"
Where, indeed. That's the million dollar question. Except Slade has a lot more than a million dollars to his name in his offshore accounts, and he still got no idea how to answer this.
He thought he knew. After Bludhaven, before tonight, Slade thought he'd ruthlessly ripped out any kind of connection between them. The tendrils of mutual respect, the joy of fighting each other. The challenge and the excitement and the grudging, never-acknowledged fondness. The deep-rooted attraction. Slade thought it was all scorched earth, nuked to the ground along with Nightwing's city, and he wasn't sentimental enough to mourn it.
But maybe some things can't be burnt to ashes. Maybe some things always grow back, no matter how violently and thoroughly you try to uproot them.
And maybe that doesn't have to be a bad thing.
"Where we always are," Slade answers. "On opposite sites of the moral divide, occasionally meeting somewhere in the middle."
There's amusement in the way the kid huffs in response, and when Slade lightly curves an arm around his back, mindful of the canvas of injuries, the tension slowly drains from his body.
*
Slade's clothes are too big on Grayson, making him look small and fragile and young.
It's an illusion, deceptive and obvious to anyone who knows him. He's already standing taller, holding himself straighter, his steps sure and light again. His movements are still measured in a way that speaks of barely concealed aches and pains, but his eyes are clear and bright and blue, Nightwing waiting in the wings.
He insisted on Slade dropping him off a dozen of blocks away from his rendezvous point with his friends, intent on making the rest of the way on his own. But instead of rushing back home, he lingers. He puts his hands in the pockets of the oversized sweater, meeting Slade's one-eyed stare head-on.
"You should keep the house," he says, apropos of nothing.
Slade's eyebrow goes up. "So you can track me down the next time you're pissed at me? Nice try, kid, but I don't think so."
"How about so I can track you down when I'm not pissed at you?"
It sounds nice. A moment of peace in the eye of the storm. Not quite a clean slate, maybe, but a place where they drop the baggage at the door and call a truce, for as long as they're inside.
Too good to be true.
"Hard to let you do one without risking the other," Slade points out.
Grayson rolls his eyes. "Just stay away from there when you know you've pissed me off. It's not that complicated."
Before Slade can scoff at the idea that anything about this, about them, could ever be anything but complicated, Grayson's expression softens. A small smile curls his lips. It's still a world away from Nightwing's cheeky smirks, tentative and brittle, but it looks real and genuine, more than skin-deep.
"Thank you." His tone is quiet, sombre. "It was— I didn't think—" He stops himself and swallows, throat working furiously, the moving tendons accentuating the dark, ugly collar of bruises around his neck.
Slade has to fight down the urge to take him back to the safe house and keep him there, keep him safe from harm and stupid choices and putting morals over self-preservation.
He gives a single nod. Acknowledgment. A concession, maybe.
"Give Rose my regards," he says.
The kid nods and holds his gaze for a moment too long. Even when he takes a step back and then one more, he keeps looking at Slade, vivid blue eyes burning into his until Grayson finally turns around and disappears around the corner.
Slade waits a moment, and then he follows, stealthily trailing the kid until he's safe.
End.