Her name was Alyssa.
Peter scans the lines of her obituary again. He knows reading it again isn't going to change anything, he isn't stupid, but it's only fair. It's his fault she's dead. Is he trying to give himself some sort of punishment? A penance for not being persuasive enough, not quick enough, not observant enough? No. Maybe. He doesn't know.
Alyssa Margaret Montgomery, the header reads, 2003-2017.
She was younger than me, Peter thinks.
Alyssa Margaret Montgomery, born August 5th, 2003, passed on Saturday, December 9th, at the age of fourteen after a lengthy battle with mental illness.
Peter supposes that "swallowed two hundred pills and jumped off of the roof of her apartment complex" would have been too graphic. There's a photo of Alyssa, he guesses it's a school portrait, where she's dressed in a cheerleader's uniform with her brunette hair slicked back into a tight ponytail. There's a toothy grin on her face, but Peter's more focused on the way her eyes look cloudy, unfocused. Like she was already planning on doing what she had done.
Alyssa is survived by her paternal grandmother, Margaret Montgomery, her parents, Serena and David Montgomery, sister Quinn, brother Elijah, as well as a large circle of aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.
Peter had not only been pouring over her obituary since it was published the day after her death, but he'd been frequenting her social media, her parents, her siblings, even the instagram page she'd set up for her pomeranian. He saw photos of her growing up, their family vacations, her and her siblings at a banquet for their father where he'd been promoted. He saw a photo put up by her mother just a day before she died, a picture of Alyssa in a homemade ugly Christmas sweater with a blue Santa Claus hat on top of her head. She looked empty. Smiley and joyous, but empty.
He even found his way through the firewall of St. Alban's Medical Center to the private notes taken by her doctor. How many scars they found on her arms. How many pills were dissolving in her stomach. How long she was conscious after the fall, which, thankfully, they suspected to be maybe a few miliseconds.
Alyssa was a member of most of the clubs her school had to offer, including cheerleading, softball, social justice club, and the freshman band, while also being involved in tutoring and the student council as the respresentative of the freshman class. She spent much of her free time volunteering with her church's youth group, spending time with her family, and annoying her mother with how many friends she brought in the house to raid the cabinets.
Visitation will be taking place on Monday, December 11th and Tuesday, December 12th, from 3-7pm. A memorial service will take place at St. Stephen's Catholic Church on Wednesday, December 13th, at 2pm, with a burial following shortly after at St. Stephen's Cemetery. Refreshments will be proided. In lieu of flowers, the Montgomery family asks that mourners pay tribute to Alyssa through a donation to any of the mental health charities listed below.
Doing this to himself will not bring her back, but he deserves it.
he wonders how the situation must have played out, in Alyssa's mind. When Spider-man swung over to where she stood, looking down over the side of her building to the pavement ten storeys below. He remembers how ratty and unkempt she looked, wearing pyjama bottoms and an oversized hoodie, mascara running down her cheeks. How was he supposed to know the damage had already been done? How was he supposed to know that talking her down wouldn't have saved her anyway?
"You alright?" He asked, keeping a safe distance from the girl in front of him. She scoffed, rolling her eyes and turned her attention away from the street below to look at Peter.
"Leave me alone." Her voice was raspy. "You don't need to see this."
Peter had done this a million times before. Even though it was risky, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that this girl would be walking down the stairwell with him soon enough.
"I'm Spider-Man," He extended his hand. "What's your name?"
Silence.
"I don't know what's going on, but-"
Splat.
He took his eyes off of her for a second. Just one second.
She didn't even hesitate.
The rest of that evening was a blur. He called 911 to report a suicide, took his mask off, and just... let his brain go numb. He doesn't remember anything from that moment onward, until he woke up in his bed at the tower the next morning to the news that a fourteen year old girl had taken her own life just a few blocks away. No, no, not that she'd taken her own life- the news that she had been let down by someone who was supposed to help.
"Something on your mind, Pete?" Mr. Stark's voice startles him, and he scrambles to slam his laptop shut before Tony can catch a glimpse of the obituary on the screen. Maybe that was a little bit suspicious, but it doesn't seem like Mr. Stark noticed anyway.
"Homework trouble." Peter blurts out. "Just, um... talking to Ned about it."
"Oh? You don't mind me taking a look, do you?"
Before Peter has a chance to stop him, Tony sets the laptop on his legs and isn't greeted with the string of numbers and equations that he thought he would see.
"The girl from the news?"
Peter knows the jig is up. Tony's going to find out that Peter's the reason she's dead, and he's going to tell May, and they'll disown him, and-
"You knew her? God, Pete, why didn't you tell me? You can't keep this kind of stuff to yourself, it isn't healthy." Tony's eyes are sorrowful, and he's got a hand on Peter's shoulder that he just wants to shrug off because he failed and he's disgusting and revolting and a menace, but instead he just sits and bears it. "She go to your school? Were you close?"
He swallows the lump in his throat. "I didn't know her."
Tony seems surprised, but doesn't shift from his serious demeanor. "Oh?"
"I was on patrol that night, and I saw her, and," is he crying? "and I tried to talk her down, but she just- she jumped before I had the chance, and I was trying to call 911, and I could've caught her, but-"
"Pete, calm down," Tony swiftly moves the laptop aside and invites Peter into his arms, stroking soothing circles into his back and shushing him into a quiet whimper. Peter's not sure how long they stay like that, but when he finally pulls away, he sees that Tony's shirt is absolutely soaked through with his tears and snot. He can hardly hear Mr. Stark speaking through the ringing in his ears.
"And all of this stuff... notes? About Alyssa?"
Peter nods, watching his mentor skip through the report from Alyssa's doctor. "She overdosed before you even got there, Pete. You couldn't have saved her."
"I could've brought her to the hospital, I could've tried something."
Tony shuts the laptop to give Peter his full attention. "The pills were already working against her. She was hyperthermic, she was drenched in sweat, she was rigid, she was already experiencing full on serotonin syndrome. All they would have been able to do for her at the hospital would be to make her comfortable until she died from the overdose. There was nothing you could do to help her."
He knows it's true. Alyssa would have died regardless of whether or not he had talked her down off of that roof.
"I know you feel like you could've done more. You think that you need to punish yourself by learning about her, by forcing yourself to see pictures of her and her friends and family so you can truly feel the weight of what you've done. I'm all for paying respects, but I know you. You know there's no one to blame, so you're trying to make it your fault so at least you have someone to be angry with, right? Being angry at the person who couldn't save her is better than being angry with her for being depressed. You're not used to situations where there's no real bad guy."
It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He's not the bad guy. Neither are Alyssa's parents, or her siblings, or her friends, or even herself.
"I'm not a killer."
"No, not a killer. Just a kid who saw another kid jump off a building, and we will be talking about that later."
"Understood, Mr. Stark."
"Do not call me Mr. Stark!" Tony scoffs, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. "Mr. Stark is my father. Way to make a man feel old."
Peter thinks that maybe everything will be alright after all.