“Jesus, are you trying to die early?” Rainbow asked as she watched her mother down another glass of whiskey. Firefly sniffed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then slammed the other one on the bar to get the bartender’s attention- no doubt for another drink.

“Aw, don’t be a baby. I bet you get wasted with your friends all the time.” She responded, nodding at the keep as he handed her her next drink. Which was true, but Dash was a lightweight, (She damn sure wasn’t going to tell her mother that,) And could only handle maybe two or three mugs of Applejack’s hard apple cider. The girl really knew her alcohol.

“You could say that.” She grumbled, stirring her pina colada. she heaved a sigh before taking a bored sip. Some hair fell over her face, and to her surprise, her mother pushed it behind her ear.

“You know, the times we had together weren’t all bad.” Firefly mused quietly. “Especially when you were a baby. Ha. You were a handful.”

Dash’s brows furrowed. “What are you doing?” She asked, watching her mother with a quizzical look. She didn’t understand why her mother suddenly had become so nostalgic.

“You wanted to talk, so I’m talking.” She responded with a tight lipped smile. “You gotta get through the daisies before you get to the shit.”

“I think you have that backwards, Mom.” Rainbow said, chuckling a little, despite herself. She took another sip of her drink before turning back to her.

“Ah, but you knew what I meant, didn’t you?” Firefly replied, tipping her glass towards her. She then sighed, and looked up at Rainbow with a serious expression. “Now, I think you’re old enough to know this, and I think it’s about damn time I told you.”

“Told me what?” Rainbow asked, watching her mother carefully. Was she going to tell her she was adopted?! She couldn’t be! She looked exactly like her! And if that wasn’t the case, what did she have to tell her?!

“I was seventeen years old when you were born. Your father was nineteen.” Firefly began. Dash’s eyes bulged in surprise. Her mom was a teen mom? “At first I panicked, thinking you were the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. Especially since I had so much going for me with the Wonderbolts and all the endorsement deals I had. But on the day you were born, the very second the doctor handed you to me, and I saw those small, beady magenta eyes, I knew I had made something magical.”

Dash was astounded, she had never heard her mother speak of her in this way before. She almost wanted to cry. Almost. She had a sneaking feeling her mother’s cozy attitude had something to do with her being nearly drunk.

“I know, you don’t believe me.” Firefly said, noting her skeptical look. ”I fucked up. I know. I fucked up, and I turned my brazen, confident, little kid into a sexually insecure, mad at the world teenager with Daddy issues.”

“Yeah, you’re not exactly Mom Of The Year.” Dash grumbled, turning away from her. She flagged the bartender down for a beer. She was going to need it.

“Mommy?” A five year old Rainbow Dash asked her mother as they crossed the street. They had just came back from the park and Rainbow had seen something that had been bugging her the whole time they were there.

“What’s up, squirt?” Firefly responded, bending down to her level once they reached the other side of the street.

“Why do the other mommies give you bad looks?” Rainbow asked curiously. She tilted her head in wonder.

Firefly opened her mouth and closed it before she could think of anything to say. “Well...” She tried. “Uh, some mommies don’t like the fact that Mommy is a little younger than them.” She answered her as they continued walking.

“Why?”

“Because that’s just how it is, Dash.”

“Why?”

“Why all the whys?” Firefly asked amusedly, ruffling her short, scruffy hair.

“Cause, I wanna know. Fluttershy’s mommy said that you're brave.” Rainbow said, kicking a few pebbles as she held her mother’s hand.

“I’m brave?” Firefly asked, clearly confused. What did she mean by that?

“Yeah. She said you’re brave for raising me with Daddy. She said not many mommies your age can take care of kids.” Rainbow replied, swinging her arms.

Firefly chuckled. “Yeah, she’s right about that.”

“I said that?” Rainbow asked, raising a brow. She couldn’t believe she was such a nosy brat. And then she almost snorted, because her mother turned out exactly the way Fluttershy’s mom had said she wasn’t going to. Sure Dash had a roof over her head and almost everything she ever wanted, but there was no love. Her father walked out when she was ten, her mother started belittling her when she was eleven, and then everything just went downhill from there.

“Of course. You were very gutsy. You get that from me. About the only thing you got from your father was his hair.” Firefly grumbled, then ordered a bloody mary.

“I don’t think twenty bucks is gonna cover all this stuff.” Dash worried, her eyebrows creasing. She watched as the keep handed her mother the red drink.

Firefly waved her off. “Don’t worry, I have my own cash. We’re rich, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” Dash said, rolling her eyes. “How could I ever forget?”

A ten year old Rainbow Dash sat in front of the T.V. eating a bowl of popcorn as she watched an old VHS of her mother running on her high school team. She was thinking of following in her mother’s footsteps, becoming a track star and eventually moving on to the Wonderbolts. She wanted to make her mother and father proud.

The front door opened and Rainbow quickly turned off the T.V., and hastily ejected the tape, shoving it in the box and setting on back on the shelf above the entertainment center all before her father could step through the door.

She flipped to a random channel and sat upright as he walked into the living room. “Hey.” She greeted happily, digging her hand into the bowl. “How was work?”

Storm threw his jacket onto the coat rack by the door. “None of your business. Where’s your mother?” He grunted walking past her and into the kitchen.

“She’s uh, in the weight room. Why?” Dash asked, taken aback a little by her father’s negative attitude. Had he had a bad day at work? On the way home? Was she in trouble? She was pretty sure she hadn’t done anything bad in school. She got straight As and was at the top of her class.

She heard her father’s footsteps stomp angrily down the stairs into the basement of the mansion where the weight room was. Dash tip toed behind him, keeping a far enough distance that he didn’t hear her behind him. When he stepped down the last stair, she stood back, holding the banister. He opened the clear door to the weight room and found her mother blasting music while beating up a punching bag. Dash had nearly forgot her mother had started picking up kickboxing.

She half expected her mother to stop what she was doing.

But she didn’t.

Firefly saw him out the corner of her eye and kept punching the bag. “Talk.” She commanded in a bored tone, then roundhouse kicked the bag. Dash guessed that it probably weighed at least sixty pounds.

Storm turned the music off and then turned back to his wife. Firefly continued to punch the bag, saying nothing. Dash gulped. She knew something wasn’t right here.

“Firefly.” Her father stated. “Firefly!” He yelled when she continued to punch the bag still.

Firefly gave the bag one last hard punch. “WHAT?!”

Dash jumped at the volume of her mother’s voice.

“Did you take money out of Rainbow’s college fund to put into the stock market?” Storm asked his wife, not flinching one bit. He was used to her outbursts and anger issues.

“Yeah.”

“How much.”

“How much what?”

“How much did you take out?!” Her father repeated, his own voice raising now.

“Twelve thousand dollars.”

“Yeah, and you know what you just lost?” He asked, holding up a newspaper. “Twelve thousand dollars!” He threw the paper in Firefly’s direction, which she let drop to the floor.

“I didn’t care when it was your money. Because it was your money left over from your time with the Wonderbolts. But dipping into our daughter’s college fund for something as frivolous and dangerous as the stock market is careless!”

Firefly folded her arms. “Tch. It’s not like you’re the one making money for this family. I’m the one running the damn company.”

Dash could see that her father was red in the face. “You have no concept of money do you?! You’re still that superficial mindless seventeen year old you used to be! Nothing changed!”

“And who’s the fuckin’ idiot who married that seventeen year old, huh? Who’s the fuckin’ moron who knocked up that fuckin’ seventeen year old, huh?! I had so much going for me and you just had to ruin it!” Firefly punched the bag out of frustration and watched herself in the reflection of the mirrors lining the walls. Her hair was sticking to her face in wet sweaty clumps and she was red with anger.

Dash was scared. She had never seen her parents fight like this before. Did they always fight like this? Over money? Over her? Did they not fight around her because they didn’t want her to know that they were having problems?

Then, a sickeningly nauseating feeling washed over her. Her mother’s words echoed through her mind as she stared at her mother’s back. Firefly wasn’t talking to her father. Firefly was talking to her. Her reflection had showed up on the mirrored walls because she had taken a step down unknowingly. The last part of what she said was meant for her.

Her own daughter.

Firefly gasped and spun around to stare at Dash in the face. “Squirt, wait-”

Rainbow Dash ran upstairs without a second thought.

Dash didn’t remember much after that. There were a few gaps in between her memory after that. All she really remembered was her father leaving a few months later without a goodbye. She hadn’t seen him since.

Dash put her head in her hands and groaned. Her home life was so fucked up. How she didn’t turn into one of Twilight’s statistics, she didn’t know. She realized she had been crying. She really, really, hated crying.

Firefly said nothing for a moment. Then, “You uh, you remember what I said, huh?” She murmured after an awkward pause.

Dash nodded, taking a swig of her beer.

More silence.

“I’m sorry.”

“I bet you are.” Dash bit back.

Firefly slammed her hand on the table. “Goddamit Dash! What the hell is it going to take for you to forgive me?!” She shouted, drawing the attention of a few bystanders.

“You really wanna know how you can make it up to me?!” Dash asked, her voice raising an octave. She threw on her leather jacket and got up. “Stay out of my life.” She said, leaving her half of the bill on the table and walking out.

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry this became a stupid story about Dash's home life but I wanted to add some back story. I'm sorry if you guys are tired of this, I'll stop. Adventures in Babysitting will be updated on Mother's Day!