Tears ran down her face as she sat in a chair in the hospital, head in her hands. Emilia Rose Anderson sat just outside her mother's room or what was once her room, as only an hour ago, Scarlett Anderson had been pronounced dead.

Cancer was an evil thing, taking endless lives away from their families every day. Emilia wanted to scream. She felt like grabbing a baseball bat and smashing the windows, the walls, anything to get rid of the rage and grief she has right now.

Not that Emilia believed in god but if she did, she would ask him why. Why would he take her best friend away from her? The only person she had left. Her last living relative. Most teenagers would get embarrassed if their parents would try to act like their best friend instead of their parent, but Emilia and Scarlett were different.

She closes her eyes as she thinks back to the last conversation she would ever have with her mother.

"Damon or Stefan?" Emilia asks her mother.

"Stefan obviously, because he's the nicer one"

Emilia crinkles her nose shaking her head. This was Emilia's way of coping trying to ignore the fact that her mother lay there dying. Bonding over their favorite show to watch together. "No way, Damon all the way, he's hotter,"

"I have to admit, it scares me that you would pick the hot, bad boys over the nice boys, because believe me when I say this, nice boys trump hot all the time,"

She scoffs "you can't talk, when you were younger, weren't you like, a magnet for bad boys?"

"Exactly, I have learned my lesson and I'm passing it on to you,"

"Shouldn't I learn the lesson for myself?" she asks.

"Sure, but I'm trying to be a good mom for the time I have left and protect you from a broken heart,"

The room is dead silent as Emilia frowns at her mother, anger building up.

"Stop," she demands, voice cracking as tears well up in her eyes. For once they were joking around and for a moment Emilia forgot where they were, trying to ignore the fact that her mother's eyes were sunken in with dark rings around them and her skin was an unusual pale color, and that she struggled with every word that came out of her mouth, and now her mom had to go and ruin it, by reminding her. "stop talking as if you're not gonna be around much longer, you are going to be okay,"

"Bub, you heard what the doctor said, he said it could be any day n-," Scarlett says before being cut off by Emilia.

"I don't care what the doctor said, he's wrong," she says in denial. "you're going to be okay, you are going to get better," she says trying to reassure herself.

Tears start to fall from Scarlett's eyes. She has tried to be strong; she has tried to keep it together for the past two years when they first found out, not wanting to look weak in front of Emilia, but she couldn't do it anymore.

"Come here," she says as she pats the bed beside her as she struggles to move over to make room for Emilia.

Emilia climbs onto the bed and lays down next to her mother, cuddling into her as her mom holds her tight.

"I don't want you to go," she sobs "I don't know what I'm going to do without you, you're all I have and I don't want to be alone, I'm scared," she admits.

"At some point, everyone loses their mother, you're just going to lose me sooner than most people, but its going to be okay because you are so strong, my baby girl and you won't always be alone, I promise," she coughs before she continues. "one day you are going to meet a nice boy, you are going to fall in love and you will marry him, then you will have a family of your own and you won't be alone anymore, and even though you won't be able to see me, I will be there the whole time, okay?"

"Okay," she croaks out as she falls asleep in her mother's arms.

An hour later is when her mother took her last breath.

Emilia is brought out of her thoughts by a commotion down the hall in another room, when the door slams open, a boy around her age with brown curly hair and brown eyes with tears streaming down them starts sprinting down the hallway. Her hair blows around her face as he runs past her and her eyes follow him. She looks back when an older woman jogs halfway down the hall after him calling his name.

"Peter!" she cries. "Please come back!"

But he ignores her as he keeps running towards the exit until they couldn't see him anymore. The woman's hand covers her mouth as she shakes her head before turning back around and walking back into the room.

Emilia hates hospitals.

She sits there for another five minutes. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know where to go, she had no one.

A nurse walks up to Emilia and gives her a small, sad smile. "How are you doing, Hun?"

Emilia doesn't answer.

The nurse lifts her hand and shows her an envelope "This is from your mother, she asked me to give it to you,".

Emilia takes the letter from the nurse as she walks away leaving her alone. She looks down at it contemplating whether she should read it now or later. Does she even have the strength to read it now? Should she? She decides to do it anyway as she rips the envelope open and unfolds the letter.

My dearest Emilia,

I know our time together was cut short, but I

believe things always happen for a reason.

The last fourteen years of my life have been

the best and I owe that all to you.

I know you're scared, believe me I am too,

but you're going to be okay.

Like I said before I believe things happen for a

reason, and that reason is so I can finally tell

You the truth about your father. A truth that

I couldn't find the courage to tell you in person and

For that I am sorry. I have tried so many times to

come up with the words to say, but I just couldn't.

I know I told you your father died, but that is

far from the truth in fact he is very much

Alive and well. The only thing is, he doesn't

know you exist. I know you're scared to be alone,

but maybe you don't have to be. Now, I only want

you to do this if you want to, because all I want for

you is to be happy, but you can meet your father,

and maybe even stay with him. I know he would

help you. But that is all up to you, I know

how you feel about the man. And yes, you

know who he is although you have never met him.

Baby, your father is Tony Stark.

I'm sorry I didn't tell you and if you ever meet him.

Can you tell him I'm sorry?

I love you.

Love mom xxx

Tears drip on to the page as she finishes reading. She stares down at the page as she can't seem to stop herself from rereading over that one little line, over and over again. Your father is Tony Stark. Is this some sort of joke? She knows her mom would never joke about something like this but she just can't wrap her head around it. A man that she grew up watching on the news, that she wasn't the biggest fan of, was her father?

There were still so many questions she had that she didn't know if she would ever get the answers to. Like why didn't she tell her? Why didn't she tell him? Did he leave her while she was pregnant? Or was it just a one-night stand? She knew about his reputation with women which is one of the reasons she doesn't like him, along with the fact he's arrogant and conceited. And she just knows he's in the superhero business for the fame.

Before she can have any more thoughts on it, a woman walks up to Emilia and kneels down beside her. "Hi Emilia, how are you?"

She swears if one more person asks if she was okay, she would punch them in the face. What do they expect her to say? She thought about saying something sarcastic back but she doesn't have the energy to.

When the woman doesn't get an answer she continues, "My name's Amanda, I'm a social worker, I'm here to take you to a new home"

"A new home?" she questions.

"yes, you will be going into the foster care system,"

"Are there any other options?" she asks her.

"no, I'm sorry sweety," she says with a sad smile. "since you don't have any other family members, this is the last resort,"

Emilia nods.

Amanda stands back up, "stay here okay, ill be right back, I'm going to go talk to a nurse," she says as she walks away.

Emilia thinks for a moment, she knows she does have one other choice, Tony Stark. She wonders if she should tell Amanda about him. But then again, she doesn't know what's worse, the foster care system or Tony Stark? She'd rather neither.

It was at this moment she made an impulsive decision. She looked up towards the way Amanda had disappeared down and saw no sign of her. This was her chance.

She got up and calmly walked down the hall, as to not raise any suspicion. As she walked towards the exit, she gave one more quick look over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her. When she saw no one, she walked through the door and began to run.

The sun had just gone down making it a little dark, but not too dark where she couldn't see. She ran past people on the sidewalk who would glare at her or even scolded her when she would almost bump into them, but she didn't care, she just kept running.

She turns down an alleyway to make a short cut, not realizing the same teenage boy who had run from the hospital earlier was crouched down leaning on the wall as he looked up at her and watched her run past him.

She didn't exactly know where she was going, but she knew where she wasn't. Screw the foster care system.

And screw Tony Stark.