Stark's Kid - Tony Stark's Daughter

42; To Lose Someone

"Tony!" A yelled woke me up and I groaned, shoving my face further into the blankets, or, what I thought were blankets.

I looked up and saw Peter laying next to me, he also had an annoyed look on his face but still had his eyes closed. I peered to the side and saw his arm around me as well, something that seems to occur every time we sleep together... not that it happens a lot. I looked up to see who the voice belonged to and saw Steve standing across the room, then Tony jogged in and looked at Peter and I with an annoyed expression.

I quickly sat up, earning a look from Peter and I pointed to Tony and Steve. Peter looked at them with nervousness and took his arm away from me.

"Hi." I smiled innocently.

"Is this going to happen every time?" Tony asked.

"Every time?" Steve raised his voice.

"Relax, we didn't... do anything." I made a face at the thought. Gross.

"I know, I know." Tony walked to a chair and sat down. "We brought breakfast, I know how much you hate hospital food."

I smiled and stood up, raising the back of Peter's bed for him. We both had pancakes, which were way better than the hospital food I remembered and I was thankful Tony and Steve had brought them.

"When can Peter leave?" I asked suddenly.

"Today as far as I know." Tony said, taking another sip of his coffee.

"I have to leave today." Peter announced, catching our attention. "How else will I make it to your play tonight?"

I smiled. After we finished eating, the nurses came in to help Peter get dressed, though his stubborn self refused to allow them to help. I decided I would go visit a friend while I waited; Emily.

I left Peter's room and began walking down the opposite hall where I remembered her room was. I'd visited her a couple of times before, but hadn't been here for over a month now so I was looking forward to seeing her again. I arrived at her room and peeked inside, expecting to see the familiar girl sitting back on to me, staring out the window. But she wasn't there. Instead, the room was completely clean, like nobody had ever lived in there before, and there were two people in there. One was making the bed and the other was taking out the trash.

"Where's Emily?" I made myself known.

The two nurse-looking people looked up at me and then at each other. "What is your name?"

"Victoria. Victoria Stark."

The lady nurse laid down the trash bag and walked across the room to a side I couldn't see from where I was standing in the doorway, then she returned and handed me a brown paper bag which was slightly wrinkled. I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked at her.

"She wanted you to have this."

I began tearing the bag open and inside was a box and a folded piece of paper. I unfolded the paper which read, 'They're no better than you. Keep your head held high, always be a good person, then you won't have any regrets in life.  -E.'  I smiled at her familiar words and opened the small black box to reveal a golden necklace in the shape of a heart. It was a locket, and when I opened it, there was a photo of Emily and I that Tony had taken the last time I'd seen her.

"Did she..." I looked up at the nurses with misty eyes and they nodded sadly at me. I let the tears flow from my eyes and felt my hands shake as I clenched the necklace and the note.

When I headed out of the room, I kept my head hung low, then peered up to see Tony, Peter and Steve walking down the hall toward the front desk. Tony looked at me and we made eye contact. He knew what had happened by the look on my face and I walked quickly over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist as he put his arms around my shaking body.

"What happened?" Steve asked, but Tony didn't say anything.

Peter was signed out of the hospital and put his arm around me as we left. I felt so empty. Emily was a good person, and a very close friend of mine, even if we'd only known each other for a couple months. We piled into the car where Happy was now waiting for us, Steve and Peter sat across from Tony and I and I kept my body leaned closely on his as he held me tight under his arm. I stared off into nothingness, just thinking, with silent tears streaming down my face.

During the drive to wherever we were going, Tony explained to Steve and Peter what had happened. I listened but didn't express any emotion to anything he was saying, I felt numb.

"I'm so sorry, Victoria." Peter said after a while.

"It's okay," I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. "She was suffering."

We arrived at the Avengers Facility and I actually asked Tony to carry me inside, something I usually never wanted him to do. But I didn't want to do anything right now, not even walk. He didn't question me and immediately picked me up, I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his torso, laying my head weakly on his shoulder.

As soon as we entered a room with sliding glass doors, lots of familiar voices began asking Peter how he was feeling and if he was okay. I recognized all of them as Nat, Clint, Bruce, and so on, but I didn't look up.

"What's wrong?" Nat asked and I felt Tony shake his head, probably not wanting to talk about the situation in front of me again.

"It's okay." I looked up, wiping my swollen eyes and moving to tell Tony know to let me down, which he did. "You can tell them."

So he did. We sat around the board room place as Tony explained everything once again. Everyone kept looking to me as I picked at a thread on my pants, and I began getting irritated so I got up and walked to the windows, sitting on the ledge and staring out over the ocean.