Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes, lifting her head from her cloud bed, staring around at her room. Something was off. It was quiet. Too quiet.
For her entire life, her sleep would usually be disturbed rather early by some loud noise or other, whether it was the housemates fighting - generally over spending time with her - something exploding, some supervillain showing up to attack the city, or just Thor trying to make coffee. Coffee makers did not agree with him for some reason, and the kitchen always wound up on fire. Which was strange, because it was literally the only piece of Earth technology these days Thor couldn't handle. He had burned his beard off three times trying to master the art of espresso.
The silence in the tower made her more wakeful than if someone had tossed a grenade in her cloud bed. She had actually slept through that once. An AIM assassin had snuck into the Tower while everyone was sleeping, Ultron was in standby mode, and JARVIS was down for defragging. He had tossed the grenade into the cloud, the grenade had gone off...and Rainbow's armor had triggered automatically, and she'd blasted the assassin out the window without even rolling over. Tony said that was proof positive she came from a warrior race. Thor had never gotten tired of that story.
Feeling rather unnerved and deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, Rainbow checked to make sure her armor belt was secure. Lifting her hoof to her chest, she whispered, "It's time to Pony Up." Her armor slid out to encase her in a sibilant whisper. Spreading her wings, she activated the new hover discs in the underside to keep herself aloft with nary a sound.
As she glided through the Tower like a silent wraith, she grew more and more unnerved. Her parents' bedroom was empty, even though Pepper had stayed over last night. There was no sign of Hulk, Thor, the Captain, or Ultron anywhere. The continuous background hum of JARVIS' circuitry had even ceased.
Panicking now, she began to fly around the Tower faster, spreading her explorations to other floors. Still she found no one.
"JARVIS?" she called desperately through the comms, hoping for a response. The signal she got back indicated that her call wasn't getting through. She could feel her breathing becoming shallower as she started to hyperventilate. "It's okay, Rainbow. Stay calm. There's bound to be some sort of logical explanation for this. People don't just up and disappear for no reason...except that I up and appeared for no reason, so it actually is a reasonable conclusion that the reverse could happen. After all, I had to have appeared from somewhere and that's not very reassuring right now!" Taking a deep breath, she let it out. "Alright, maybe if I just go over what I know I can figure out what happened."
Sitting down as she returned to her room after exploring the entire empty tower in her panic, she began to gather her thoughts. "Alright, I'm just going to go over everything I noticed. Let's see...everyone's rooms were empty, and their beds were neatly made. Not unusual in the case of Steve or Ultron, but very unusual for everyone else. The entire tower was neat, clean, and tidy, almost as though no one lived here. Even all the blinds are closed like the building was condemned or something. The only room not cleaned up like that is mine, and-" She paused, something registering. "But my blinds were closed, too. Why are all the blinds closed?"
Floating over to the main room on the top floor, she saw that the large blinds there were closed too. "Well...could be closed for protection...to hide a secret...to hide me...I'll never know unless I open them." Swallowing convulsively, she approached the blinds and pulled them gently to one side.
Her vision of the outside world was filled with a giant, pulsating magenta eye.
"Eeeyaaagh!" Rainbow screamed, throwing herself back. "What the hell?" Bracing herself for combat, she flew up and opened the blinds again.
At second glance, she realized the eye wasn't pulsating, but inflating. It was one eye on the side of a giant balloon float...of her. "Huh?" Glancing down, she zoomed in with her suit's optics and tracked the lines keeping the balloon from floating off, she saw practically the entire city of New York gathered in eerie silence. Nearby was a giant cake stacked seven stories high, each story a different color of the rainbow, covered in cyan candles, 13 to each layer. Numerous other floats were already prepared or inflated, the ones on wheels showing different stages of her growth, the balloon ones being of each of the members of her family, though smaller than the one of her.The float the cake was sitting on was hitched to Zuki, who was nearly the size of a 747 now. He was also standing perfectly still and quiet.
Zooming in on a large podium, she saw Nick Fury quietly arranging things in front of a microphone, using JARVIS holo-display to arrange a speech of some sort. Suspended above the podium was a huge banner reading, "Happy Birthday Dashie!" Held aloft by several silent SHIELD spy drones was an even larger banner - one that could be plainly read across the entire city - that read "Happy Birthday Rainbow Dash Stark!" Behind the podium was a huge pile of presents, looking like it had one from every citizen of the entire city.
Hearing footsteps approaching, she spun around, her weapons priming. At that moment, Tony came bursting in, backed by the rest of the Avengers. "Rainbow! Good, you're armored. We need to get outside right now. It's an emer-"
Rainbow disengaged her armor as she tackled her father into Hulk's chest. "I'm gonna kill you, Dad! You scared me witless for a bloody surprise party?"
Tony winced, then blinked. "How did you-"
"After flying through the entire tower in a panic over not seeing anyone, I looked out the window," Rainbow grated, catching her breath as she punched Tony on the shoulder.
Tony winced. "But why would you be scared? What about the situation was scary?"
"I woke up and everyone was missing, and it looked like the building had never been lived in!" Rainbow shouted, still calming down. "I was a geometrically terrifying monster away from thinking I'd woken up in that game I was playing last night!"
"I recognize that reference," Ultron said angrily. "We have been planning this surprise party for months. Whose bright idea was it to suggest to Rainbow she play Silent Hill last night?" He glared around angrily at everyone.
As the other Avengers began glaring at each other accusingly, Clint began whistling innocently. Natasha promptly smacked him in the back of the head.
Aside from the initial terrifying scare, the party had been a huge success. She even got answers about why it was such a huge bash, when before Tony had just thrown her private birthday parties with only the Avengers and company employees she was especially close to invited, along with Uncle Nick.
Thor had mentioned that, by Asgardian standards, at the age of 13 she would be considered having come of age as a warrior, ready to take her place alongside the other mighty warriors who fought under Odin's leadership. As such, the 13th birthday should be a huge celebration. Pepper had suggested that, since they had never given her one, they should throw Rainbow a surprise party at least once.
As the two ideas combined into a single massive surprise party, word slipped out about the plans, and before long the entire city was in on it. Everything had been prepared right under Rainbow's nose, with everyone constantly making sure that not a single detail of what they were preparing would ever be visible from the air while Rainbow was flying patrol.
In the end, once her heart stopped trying to leap out of her chest in terror, she had to admit it was the most awesome party she'd ever seen. The cake was delicious, with each story layer being a different one of her favorite flavors. Extinguishing all the candles in a single breath without damaging the cake had been a challenge to figure out, but she figured out the best way to do so was with a spiral flight around the cake layers, using her air wake to carry her breath to extinguish the flames. She was even allowed to dive into the top of the cake and try to eat her way out.
The choice of music was unusual, apparently sent by an unnamed Asgardian, and was strangely heartwarming and nostalgic to Rainbow, despite having never heard it before. Thankfully, it was only the first of many songs played during the parade celebrating her.
Most of the pile of presents were rather generic, lots of stuffed animals, candy, other sweets, and the occasional chemistry set, ceremonial weapon, or outfit. The fact that the outfits all met her measurements exactly was somewhat unnerving until she realized they were all bought from the store where she got most of her outfits custom made, meaning people probably went in saying they were buying a present for her and it was made to her measurements as according to their records. Occasionally, the stuffed animals showed a bit more imagination than others. The purple and green dragon and dopey looking tortoise ones filled her with similar feelings to what that first song had given her.
The highlight had been the presents that her closest friends and family had given her.
Tony gave her the deed to her own private lab, separate from any Stark Industries building. He told her he felt she was ready to study and experiment unsupervised, though he hoped she would still invite him to study.
Ultron and JARVIS(1) gave her an AS(2) assistant for her lab and for uplink to her armor that they had designed together. The program's name was ARMIS(3), and his holographic projection was a red and black pony with wings and horn. Rainbow told ARMIS he'd have to choose a different look if he didn't want her laughing every time she saw him. He replied that he did want her laughing.
Natasha gave her a spy suit and kit, just in case she ever got sent on a spy mission. Even if not, she could have fun with the cool toys.
Steve, Thor and Hulk had worked together - with a little assistance from Banner - for a modification to her armor suit. Attached to her left foreleg, it would unfold at a single mental command into a shield exactly like the Captain's except in coloration. It was Cyan and white, with the mark on Rainbow's flank - the rainbow lightning bolt descending from the white cloud - emblazoned in the center. The inclusion of Asgardian techniques in the forging meant that the shield - when lauched - would always return to her foreleg once it was energized with her magic, no matter how she launched it.
Pepper gave Rainbow a pair of earrings, shaped in lightning bolts with the full rainbow of diamond colors to exactly mirror the coloration of her mark. While Rainbow had never gone in for ornamentation, seeing them sparkle made her think she could start going with just a little girly stuff. Not dresses and makeup and going all frou-frou like the rest of the presents seemed to indicate...but maybe there wasn't anything bad in looking pretty every now and then.
All in all, as she curled up on her massive pile of loot - a hoard that would make a dragon green with envy from sheer volume and glitter - even the scare of the morning was just an adrenaline rush that made the rest of the day's experience all the more heightened. As she drifted off from the sugar crash, watching Zuki devour the leftovers from the cake, she could only say one thing.
"Best. Day. Ever..."
(1)Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. ...that's seriously what his name stands for, I looked it up.
(2)AS standing for Artificial Soul, a program that can completely emulate the full range of sapient thought and emotion, program itself as it learns, and grow and evolve just like a living being.
(3)A Rather More Intelligent System. ...yeah, neither JARVIS nor Ultron were ever very good at coming up with names.