The subway system was very familiar to David Gibbons. He'd lived in the various stations for more than thirty years. He'd been in and out of jail and various mental hospitals, but upon release he always returned to the subway system. That was the one place he could call home.

The hospitals had diagnosed him with "paranoid schizophrenia", or something like that. And sometimes David did believe that he really was ill, that the voices he heard and the delusions he experienced were all in his mind. He usually felt this way when he was taking the pills. And though he wanted to get better, he wanted to believe that these pills were helping him, it was hard to keep taking pills when you're convinced the people giving them to you are also trying to kill you.

He'd been off his medication for a while, living in various subway and train stations, but he never stayed in one place too long. Otherwise they could find him. Because there were always people watching him, following him. He wasn't sure exactly who but he'd narrowed it down to the CIA, the Russian government, and certain members of the NFL. So David would periodically ride the trains during the day and then stay the night in a new station. That way they'd never know where to find him

But one day, when he was on the train, he experienced the most vivid hallucination of his life. Spider-man was there on the train and another man, a man with metal arms was also there. They seemed to be fighting. It all seemed so real. And then the train was going faster and there were people screaming. That's when Spider-man saved them all by stopping the train. David had heard about him before, but he'd never seen him. After the train stopped, there he was, on the floor of the train without his mask.

A little while afterwards, David remembered seeing firemen and cops. When he got off the train he was sure to avoid the police. He didn't trust them. In fact, he didn't really feel safe until he made his way back to another subway station. After considering what had happened, he brushed off the event as just another one of his crazy hallucinations. He may be insane but he hadn't lost all sense of reason. It was reasonable that the CIA was trying to capture him to put a chip in his brain or that the NFL players were part of an intricate plot to poison the water supply. That was all perfectly logical. But seeing Spider-man without his mask, that just wasn't possible, that just didn't make sense. As real as it had seemed, he realized it had to be a delusion.

But after that day his whole opinion of Spider-man changed. Before he was afraid of him. He was afraid of the government, afraid of the police, afraid of terrorists, afraid of the NFL, and as far as he could tell Spider-man was working for all of them in some way. But on that day, the day of that intense hallucination, he somehow gained a new respect for Spider-man. Because in his delusion Spider-man had risked his life and saved all the passengers on that train. And what was more, he didn't look like a government agent or an alien from another planet. He was surprisingly unthreatening. He was just an ordinary boy, and a young one at that. After that day, whether it was real or not, David had faith in Spider-man. Which was saying something, since David had faith in very few things.

A little more than two months after the incident with Spider-man, David was sitting in a New York subway station, holding a cup out for spare change. He was hoping to get enough to buy a warm pretzel at a nearby stand. But that's when he saw him, Spider-man, waiting for the next train just like a normal New Yorker. He knew it was him, he couldn't shake the image of his face. It had to be him. He just had to know if he was real this time. David got to his feet as fast as his old body would let him and he grabbed the man by the arm.

"It's you!" David said. "I know it's you."

"Excuse me?" the familiar looking man said as he turned toward David.

"Spider-man! You're Spider-man. Hey everyone, this guy here, this guy is Spider-man," David shouted with glee. "Can you believe it? I found Spider-man."

The man nervously replied, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're Spider-man. I saw you that day on the train. You saved us all, don't you remember? Wow, you're really him. You're real. Hey everyone, it's Spider-man. Say thank you to Spider-man," David couldn't believe it was really him but after seeing him up close, he was positive.

A crowd had started staring at David. "Shhh, please," insisted the young man, "I think you're mistaken."

A policeman who had overheard David yelling made his way through the crowd. "Is this man bothering you, young man?"

David was startled by the police officer. There usually weren't too many of them in the stations during the day. "Spider-man, don't let him take me away. The police are all part of a big conspiracy, I tell you. They want to put a chip in my brain. Protect me, Spider-man."

"No, no," replied the boy, "He wasn't bothering me. I was just about to give him some change." And the boy reached for his wallet and pulled out a five dollar bill, the one and only bill in his wallet. "Here," he said as he put the money in David's hand. "This is for you. But you gotta promise to stop telling everyone my secret." Then the boy gave a forced laugh.

"Thank you, Spider-man. You're a good guy, you know. Good to see you again," David replied and shook the man's hand. He then glared at the policeman before continuing over to the pretzel stand.

As he waited in line for his pretzel, he overheard the policeman say to the boy, "You know, you really shouldn't give them money. They just end up spending it on drugs or booze, you know. It's a waste."

"Oh, well, it's worth it if he won't tell anyone else my secret. I can't have him letting the world know I'm Spider-man," the boy smiled as he replied.

"Yeah, that's a new one," the policeman laughed. "What a crazy old…"

He was interrupted mid-sentence by a transmission from his police radio: "There's been an explosion on the corner of 37th and Franklin Street. All units report immediately."

"Hey kid, I gotta go…" but when the police officer turned around, the boy was no where in sight.

David smiled as he watched the cop look around for the boy he'd been talking to, the boy he knew to be Spider-man. David had seen him dart off through the crowd quicker than humanly possible after overhearing the radio transmission. He knew where he was headed. That policeman didn't have a clue. "Those cops might be after me, but as long as they're as dumb as this one, I think I'll be alright," David said to himself and then took a bite out of his pretzel.

Note: Ok, I really wanted to get this posted even though I wrote it in like half and hour and didn't really edit it. I hope it makes sense. This was a fun one to write. And I hope I haven't offended anyone. I understand that schizophrenia is a serious disorder and I don't mean to demean those who suffer from it anyway. I attempted to treat the issues of mental illness and homelessness with compassion and a little bit of humor and I hope no one takes it the wrong way. Thanks for all the reviews and keep letting me know what you think.