Fifteen minutes of speaking with the doctor about specifics and making mental notes to make arrangements for Helena's funeral and burial later, Tony returned to the waiting room were Toriana slept on, oblivious to the world around her. The dark haired man wasn't sure how long he stood just inside the door before he moved to the seat he had been waiting in and slumping into it. He well and truly didn't know how to go about waking Toriana to tell her that her mother, the only parent she had ever known, wasn't coming home again. How did you tell an eight year old that? Hell, how did you tell anyone that? He could remember being in his lab surrounded by projects, Dum-E, You and Butterfingers whirling around making a nuisance of themselves when Obadiah Stane coming in and shutting down his music. He can still hear Obadiah's speech about loss and grief that he gave that he finished with "I'm sorry, your parents were killed in an accident." It didn't take much more than the memory of running away and hiding for four months after that to convince Tony that he couldn't take that approach.
It was a while later before Tony silently made his way to the bench and knelt down beside Toriana's head and softly brushed the hair on her face behind her ear. He had always been a bit fascinated with Toriana's long blonde curls. They were so unlike her mother's pin-straight black hair that he just couldn't understand how she happened. And that was before you took note of her eyes. Green is the dominate gene, so her blue eyes should have been impossible. Whoever her father was, he sure had strong genes to have obliterated Helena's so well.
Minutes ticked past without consequence as Tony sat running his fingers through his own hair, and her curls while Toriana slept on. The nearly thirty year old man didn't know how long he sat there, watching the little girl he had come to love, so much more strongly than he'd every expected to love anyone, sleep before she shifted slightly and woke. Bleary blue eyes stared unfocused at Tony for a moment before the young girl sat up and stretched before running her fingers through her sleep mused hair. It took a minute for Toriana to wake enough for her eyes to focus properly on Tony enough to truly see him and take in the visible grief on his face.
His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot, his hair a mess from running his fingers through it a time or two too many, and his mouth was set into a grim line that left no room to doubt the news he had to tell her.
Neither spoke, but no words were needed; both knew without speaking what had transpired. Moments went by before Tony's eyes slid closed and his face dipped to the floor, unable to continue to look into the dull blue eyes that were normally so bright. Toriana's slight frame began to quake in her spot. Her body tensing and releasing in such quick succession that she shook the entire bench beneath her with each movement, despite it being bolted to the floor. Suddenly Toriana froze, she didn't breathe or blink or anything for a heartbeat.
Tony, who had reopened his eyes and looked at the girl who was trembling fiercely, sucked in a large breath preparing himself to be deafened by Toriana's cry, or thrown off balance by her weight slamming into him in his prone position.
Neither happened, but nothing would have prepared him for what did happen.
As Toriana relaxed and let out a loud pained cry, small bolts of electricity arched across the air around her, hitting the sockets in the walls and the lights overhead. The power crackled and sparked in the air around Toriana for no more than a breath before it faded into nothing as her cry died on her lips. The whole hospital seemed to be still for a moment before everything went dark. No lights in the hall ways, or beeping of heart monitors down the hall.
Stunned into a state of immobility, Tony stared at the little girl until the emergency generator kicked in and Toriana began to sob in earnest. Shaking himself, Tony reached forwards and gathered the girl into his arms and began rocking her while murmuring soothing words into her hair. He knew for a fact that nothing he could say to do would truly make her feel any better in that moment, but just being there would do at least a bit he hoped, so he held her in silence. Toriana clung to Tony as if her life depended on it as she sobbed uncontrollably into his normally pristine designer white shirt, soaking the material with the tears that streamed from her eyes.
Tears leaked their way from Tony's clenched eyes and dropped onto Toriana's blonde head as he held her. Slowly her sobs quieted and turned to sniffles before Toriana fell into a fitful sleep.
With a heavy sigh Tony carefully arranged the sleeping girl back onto the cushioned bench and stood. Tony began gathering the few things the pair had with them and prepared to leave the hospital. Once he was ready, he carefully picked up Toriana from the bench and arranged her to rest her head on his shoulder so she could continue to sleep on the walk to the car and, if he was lucky, the ride home as well.
Just as Tony turned to the door just as it opened to reveal a slightly plump middle aged woman with poorly dyed auburn hair and an ill-fitting, clearly cheap navy blue pant suit. The woman stood in the door way holding a clip board and a pen, with a purse strung over her shoulder, and an I.D. badge hanging around her neck proclaiming her to be Margaret Adler, a social worker from Child Protective Services. Tony stared at the woman unable to speak, how the hell could they be here already? Helena couldn't have been gone for an hour, yet here she was, with a Holier-Than-Thou smirk on her face as she stared right back at Tony.
"Mister Stark?" The woman asked, but she didn't wait for the aforementioned man to respond before announcing, "My name is Margaret Adler, I'm the worker assigned to Toriana Meijer's case. I'm here to take her to a girls' home until we can find her a foster home. If you could be so kind as to wake her, we will be out of your hair and you won't have to worry about this anymore."
"Yeah, I don't think so." Tony told her and tried to walk around her.
"You don't have a choice, Mr. Stark." Margaret told him snidely. "Ms. Meijer had no living relatives, so her daughter is now a ward of the state until such a time as a Will is produced or she comes of age."
Tony scowled at the woman before shifting his grip on Toriana and retrieving his cell phone from the pocket of his pants. He sent a second dirty look at the social worker who was still blocking the doorway with an unimpressed look on her face. Tony turned his back on the woman and brought the phone to his ear, speed dialing number three already ringing.
A brief conversation that consisted of Tony only uttering one sentence that baffled Margaret. Tony didn't acknowledge the woman in the door, simply stuffed his phone back in his pocket and wrapping his once again free arm around Toriana's body and burying his nose in her hair. Twenty minutes passed silently, Tony shifted from foot to foot slowly rocking from side to side.
A throat cleared from the hall, Margaret hadn't moved out of the doorway. The noise drew both of the rooms wakeful occupants attention to a man approximately fifty years old, greying hair and keen brown eyes that watched Tony shift his relaxed stance into one of forced nonchalance and Margaret pulled herself up into a stiff straight backed stance. The man entered the room, rested a briefcase on one of the small side tables available and opened it. Inside were the expected things, a yellow paged lined legal pad, pens, a few file folders, one of which he extracted from the rest, opened and handed the contents to the woman who was scowling at both men.
"This is Helena Meijer's Last Will and Testament. If you flip to page three you will see that it lists those who Ms. Meijer elected to gain guardianship of her daughter. You will note that Mr. Stark is the first on the list." The man, Willard Scott had been Howard Starks' family lawyer for years before his death, and Tony had kept him on after as his own, so when Helena needed to write her will, he had sent her to Willard. "Now, that is a copy, so you are more than welcome to keep it and go over it in detail later, but at this time, I believe that Mr. Stark should take the young Miss Meijer home."
The man reached into the inside breast pocket of his sports coat and retrieved a business card. He stepped forwards once again and gave the card to Margaret. "If you have any questions, you can contact me at my office."
The lawyer closed and locked his briefcase and led Tony past Margaret who was flicking her eyes from the Will to the business card and back with a sour look.
The next few days were hectic for Tony and Pepper. Two other employees were killed in the accident, six people were hospitalized with major injuries, four more had been taken to hospital and released that day, and five people had injuries from being trampled in the rush to escape the building and all needed various things that needed to be done, and that wasn't including press coverage and conferences, planning a funeral and burial, all that needed to be done while watching over an eight year old who just lost her mom.
Pepper handled as much as she could without Tony's presence so that he could focus on planning a funeral and watching Toriana, but they traded places when Tony needed to address the masses as the CEO of Stark Industries.
He barely made it through the first press conference when one of the journalists present asked for the names of those who had been killed as a result of the accident. With a shuttered breath Tony had been able to force out the three names. Doctor Karen James, the lead on the project and her primary assistant, Carson Lock, a twenty four year old with a master's degree were the two other deaths, both names were hard to say, but when he had to announce Helena's name he stuttered over her first name.
Especially bad was when the journalists pushed on the subject, and about the fact that Tony stuttered over Helena. More than one person made unsavory remarks about her in their questions, all basically asking if she was one of his one night stands. His fierce defense of Helena's character shocked everyone present into silence. He closed the conference quickly after that, saying that all three lost would be sorely missed by their loved ones and by Stark Industries, and that a combined memorial service for the trio would be held later that week.
Five days after the accident Tony, Toriana and Happy flew from LAX to the Philadelphia International Airport. Helena's parents had settled in a town just outside Philadelphia when they came to the US from the Netherlands and were buried in a local cemetery. Helena's Will stated her wish to be interred with her parents.
The day before there had been an open memorial service for the three lost at Stark Industries. Toriana had attended with Tony, she stayed almost glued to his side for the whole event except when he went to the podium to give a speech about the dead and the impact the incident would have on Stark Industries as a company. There had been speakers from the families of both James and Lock, as well as coworkers that knew at least one of the three. After an announcement that Stark Industries would be donating money to help those effected.
The Glenwood Memorial Gardens Cemetery was a large place, though the years between the death of Helena's parents and her own demise made finding a plot close by difficult. In the end, Helena was laid to rest two rows away from her parents beneath a small tree. There wasn't a headstone there yet, though Tony had thrown enough money at the man hired to make the headstone that it would be installed within the week.
There was a small burial ceremony at the grave site, Tony and Toriana taking turns placing flowers on the casket before it was lowered into the ground.