The weekend rolls by. Spider-man is active; he's all over Twitter and YouTube. However, he is either avoiding me or is so busy that he doesn't have time for me. Regardless, I wait on the rooftop every night, feeling like a clown every single time. My phone dies after three hours on the first night, so I have to swing by a convenience store to buy myself a new charger and snacks.

On the second night, I bring a sudoku puzzle. A sudoku puzzle! I'm a grandfather now, minus the generally bad political opinions of old people. It freaks me out that I might not be able to move properly one day, or even think properly.

Every night when it gets like that, I go home. Then, I bother Dantae, and we camp out and watch movies. Whenever I go home, he's been crying on the phone with somebody. If he doesn't ask me questions about my escapades, I shouldn't either.

When Sunday rolls around, I have to force myself to go to our brunch tradition. We haven't missed one in like, ten years, and I'm not missing now.

This time, I force myself out of bed bright and early. I'm talking like, 10:00 AM. This is magic for me.

Our Mamas alternate who pays each week, even though he's 16 and I'm only a few weeks shy. Never mind the fact that I have a job (which Mama thinks is tutoring some kids in the Upper Eastside). Still, as always, I roll up into our café.

He's already sitting down when I get there, somehow earlier than I am. With breakfast ordered, even though it's my Mama's week to pay. Before I've even shrugged off my jacket, I'm downing the coffee.

"You know, maybe the reason that you're only five feet tall is because of how much caffeine you consume.

I offer him the middle finger as I sit down in the booth. His smile doesn't quite reach his lips, because he is trying to hide it from me. Like I've said before and I'll say it again, there are no secrets between us.

At least, there weren't.

"Before you ask, I know you know that Dantae talked to me about my father," he tells me. "I've convinced him not to beat up the asshole. If he did, Dantae'd go to jail, not like he seems to care all that much."

He rolls up his sleeves and pulls up his fork. He reveals bruises, intentionally, to let me know that he isn't hiding stuff from me. It's nice, but it's not enough.

I take the fork out of his hand and force our fingers to lace together. Slowly, I nod my head. "You know that I've got to tell my Mama about what he's doing."

"Give me two weeks to find someplace to stay," he tells me.

I only grip him tighter. "He could do some serious damage to you and your Mama in that time. You should come home with us. We'll kick Damien out. Papa's been looking for an excuse anyway."

"I'm not leaving my Mama," he tells me.

So, he has no intention of finding someplace to stay. Nothing is going to change in two weeks. "Tone-"

"Oh, you Tone'd me," he slips his hand out of mine, leaning against the booth. It begins to rain, soft pitters tilting against the window.

Shit. The other day when we went to the ice cream parlour, it started raining afterwards. Another one I've lost to Dantae.

"Are you even paying attention?" Anthony snaps a finger in front of my face.

I look up at him, trying to keep myself from looking startled. "Yes."

"Anyway, my point was that he is getting deployed again in two weeks, so I'm going to just wait him out." Anthony looks at me and waits for a response. "I'm not lying."

He isn't, but that doesn't mean that I like this. In fact, I hate it. I should be doing dangerous things, not worrying about my friends doing dangerous things. Although, I can't really judge him.

"Okay," I finally breathe.

The food is getting cold, so I begin to eat it. All of it tastes like it is rotting in my mouth.

"Anyway, can you believe a stray dog got loose in school?" Anthony rolls his eyes, trying to bring the conversation back. "I bet the school is going to deal with a dozen lawsuits from the rich families."

When I look him in the eye, he raises his hands in defence.

"Don't get me wrong," he picks up his fork again, moving on to his plate. I raise an eyebrow. "Seriously, Darcy. I was trapped alone in the chem lab. I totally thought that I was a goner until I heard the barking. Still, they shouldn't sue the school. This kind of shit happens everywhere."

I shrug. "I'm not afraid of guns."

"You should be," Anthony corrects me. He pauses to put food in his mouth and chew. The boy always chews for what feels like ten years. I know the Mamas pay for brunch to try to set us up, but I find myself more turned off by Anthony every time we eat.

I shrug. "Parker isn't either."

"Peter?" Anthony asks. He pauses again to chew. "You're kidding me. I heard he was home when his Uncle Ben was shot."

"The kid ran into the hallway the second the alarm went off." Even though I don't want to tell the rest of the story, I do. It's only fair that I lay out all my cards on the table for him. My file folders are relatively open for browsing. "So, I followed after him."

"You're an idiot."

"Correct," I nod, finishing the last of the bread on my plate. "He got us into a classroom. And, he also almost asked me out."

Anthony bats his eyelashes, letting it buffer in his head over and over. He's more like a computer than a chemistry set. Really, it's disappointed that he is only mostly gifted with machines and entirely gifted when it comes to mixing chemicals. Having a computer hacker for a best friend would make my job so much easier.

"No fucking way," Anthony says. "Why didn't he?"

"Alarm ended," I tell him. I don't mention that I basically ran out of the room after that.

"You should give him a chance," Anthony pesters. I'm thankful that he managed to finish his plate. "In fact, I have an idea that would get you rather equated. You could-"

"If you mention Robotics club onemore time, I will actually kill you with my bare hands."