Growing Up (Falling Down) Chapter 3 by 6-String Samurai

T-Minus: 3 Days

Chaos

Anarchy

Bedlam

Beast Boy

All four words, at this very moment, may as well be part of the same dictionary entry as the four titans finally made their way back into their tower and into their living room.

Only moments earlier Robin, Raven, Starfire and Cyborg were privy to some interesting facts about their green towermate and learned that he had some very interesting friends that were now apparently dead. One of these friends was not dead and to Robin's dismay, roughhousing with Beast Boy and causing a swath of destruction in their wake.

Four pairs of eyes, well 3 and a half, scanned the room and watched as their green friend, who's upcoming birthday would set him one step closer on the road to maturity, was now in the form of what looked like a orangutan and was biting the metal chromed noggin of his old friend Cliff Stele AKA Robot Man of Doom Patrol fame. Beast boy wasn't having much success at biting through the metal skull, but he was causing much trepidation for Cliff as he drooled all over him.

"For the love of…stop getting your monkey germs all over me you dirty stinking ape!" Hollered the metal man as he continued with little success to dislodge his young friend from his perch. The green ball of fur on his back distracted him enough that the pair toppled over the sickle shaped couch and caused it to roll on its back causing it to rock back and forth in the middle of the room.

The other four Titans sat in silence as they continued to stare in a state of confusion and horror. They had only seen the giant bronzed robot give their friend a wicked wedgie and nipple twister minutes ago before Beast Boy chased after him into the tower; they couldn't fathom how so much could have happened in such a short time.

It wasn't even that they had broken anything important like the TV, which was a miracle in its own right; they had toppled couches, knocked over plants, broken plates, pots and pans that were sitting peacefully in cupboards were now strewn around the common room, a bag of flour was laying on top of a stereo speaker and thankfully unopened.

In relative silence over the cacophony of robotic servos firing, various animals screeching, and general chaos, the four made their way to the kitchen counter, now covered with remnants of an exploded bag of cheetos, to sit, calm down, and let their minds catch up to what was going on around them.

It was Robin who was first to break the silence with pure exasperation, "Can anybody…please tell me what is going on?" he was using two fingers to massage the bridge of his nose to alleviate the pain that was blossoming behind his now tightly closed eyes.

Cliff stomped around frantically in the background as a green lion had latched its teeth around his whole head.

Cyborg looked around frantically as the chaotic duo managed to, as of yet, not break a single electronic item in the whole room and then answered, "I can't answer now Rob…my brain is still trying to catch up with the whole scene," he went quiet for a moment and also massaged the bridge of his nose, "I didn't even know I could still have a migraine."

Starfire chimed in with her usual positive attitude next as she looked on with fascination and an urge to join in on the fun, "Well on my home planet, it was common for my brother and I to pass the time by training and play fighting," doubt crept into her voice as she saw Cliff trying to remove a 20 foot long green python that had coiled around his body by using his only free hand to smack it with a newspaper, "Although we don't usually go to such…extremes."

Robin made a mental note to decline any visits from her siblings in the near future at least until he had asked Cyborg to "child proof" the whole tower. He turned to Raven hoping for an answer, "Raven?"

"…"

"er…Raven, you still there?"

It was quite common for the teens to see Raven meditating, but it was very unusual to see her with her eyes open and her staring into space and not chanting her usual mantra.

When Starfire finally gave Raven a poke in the ribs to "wake" her, she was shocked back into reality with an "ack!" then upon realizing that her friends must have asked her a question replied in her typical aggravated tone as if she had just been disturbed by Beast Boy, "Oh…Did you say something? I've been trying to mentally block out any external stimuli after walking into the room."

Sighing quite loudly as he heard what sounded like a woodpecker hammering away at Cliff's metal chassis, "Well can you at least put a stop to whatever the hell they're doing?"

With a snort of distaste, she directed her gaze toward the metal robot and the green komodo dragon roughhousing around the living room, "Azarath, metrion, zinthos"

Silence, normalcy and order were restored to the room as the two old friends were pulled apart by pulsating black energy and were held floating in the air.

Peace was restored as the two were quickly brought up in the air and then slammed into the common room floor. Beast Boy was jolted back into his human form on impact.

There was a collective sigh of relief from the kitchen island as peace was restored. There still wasn't much noise from Beast Boy and Cliff except a shared groan.

Robin put on his sternest glare that he usually reserved for Cyborg and BB when being inadvertently pulled into a game of stank ball, "Beast Boy, you've got some major explaining AND cleaning to..."

"Dude, that was AWESOME!" Hollered Beast Boy as he clanked his fist against his friend's arm. The pair, still sitting up on the ground and panting for air, completely ignored Robin's reprimand; a large vein that seemed to be getting a major workout in the past half hour was once again threatening to burst.

Robin took in a deep breath in preparation to release a deafening tirade to get the pair to clean up their mess but was cut short as the two stood up in unison and began quickly cleaning and rearranging the room into something resembling normalcy. Broken plates were thrown away, pots put away, foodstuffs eaten or trashed, the toppled circular couch was righted, and other miscellaneous spots of chaos were cleaned almost as quickly as they were made.

This tornado of order managed to leave Beast Boy's roommates speechless. In the few years they had known him, almost three and a half years, they had never seen him clean anything; at least not to their standards.

The four silent teens, especially Raven, realized that perhaps they knew much less about their roommate then they thought. Perhaps he really was the random factor in their extraordinary lives, the bit of surprise and comedy that kept them from letting the daily grind get them down.

They also realized, that as much as they told him to stop with the corny jokes, to stop making such a mess, to get off his ass and grow up, maybe they shouldn't have complained. The little show that Cliff and Garfield put on proved that maybe they should have been thanking the powers that be that he had mellowed out…so to speak.

Cliff rested against a spot of countertop as Beast Boy went to retrieve the last article of their tussle, which was a bag of all purpose flour that had landed intact on the speaker. He continued on his course to a cabinet next to the oven until a bronzed foot shot out causing him to lose his balance and his grip on the flour.

In slow motion the bag arced up in the air and all eyes watched as it impacted smack dab in the middle of the kitchen island and exploded creating a mini-mushroom cloud that coated all the casualties in a layer of white powder.

Garfield's four friends sat calmly as if a whole bag of flour hadn't just exploded in their faces.

Raven was first to make a noise by coughing to clear her lungs which shot a poof of flour out of her mouth. In her typical sarcastic drawl, "Well, I think we all should have seen that one coming."

Cliff's began laughing as hard as robotically possible.

A uncharacteristically white Beast Boy glared at a ghost white, and now laughing, Cliff Steel and then looked to see that his four roommates were all looking at him with murder in his eyes. Waving his hands in front of him in a open-handed sign of apology, "Listen, I'll have this cleaned up in a…"

All four ghastly looking teens stopped cleaning themselves off and shouted as loud as they could, "GET…OUT!"

Looking scared for his life, and speaking rather quickly, Beast Boy looked at his friend, "Hey Cliff, why don't I give you the grand tour?"

Making an effort to conceal his laugh, and doing a piss-poor job of it, "I don't know, this looks way more interesting." With a glare from the changeling and realizing that maybe he had overdone it, he went along as the changeling ushered him out of the common room and into the hallway.

His friends were still sitting, covered in flour, and not making an effort to clean themselves off. Hopefully, being his birthday this week, they'd let him get away without retribution. Oh, who did he think Robin and Cyborg were, saints? If anything, because it was his birthday they'd get him back ten-fold.

Oh, and lest he not forget Raven. Sure maybe she wouldn't prank him, but she'd do something. He was so screwed; at least he could take solace in the fact that Starfire wouldn't try to get even; who knew what sort of strange Tameranian pranks she'd come up with?

Fate conspired against him as at the very moment he was processing that thought, a still white Cyborg and Robin convinced Starfire that pulling pranks was the way of showing you cared for a person on their birthday.

Beast Boy looked a bit dejected at the thought of impending doom, and mumbled to himself, "rassum frassum…crap…crap…"

Dusting himself off in the process, Cliff decided that enough time had passed and that rubbing some salt in the wound was appropriate, "What's wrong kid?"

"What's wrong! What's wrong!" Beast boy gave a very ineffective shove before continuing to get more and more irate and smacked himself in the forehead which dusted up some flour, "I just coated my friends in flour AFTER destroying the common room…they are so gonna get me for this."

Cliff released another scary synthesized cackle before speaking, "Awww, the poor baby…" pausing to ruffle Gar's hair, "Come on, knowing you, this isn't the first time you pissed em off and it won't be the last, stop crying about it."

"Yeah…whatever."

"So why don't you show me around this swank pad you got here."

Beast Boy's face brightened slightly as he quickly forgot about his impending doom and focused on showing off his new team and home to his old friend. Their first stop was to Beast Boy's room. On their way they passed by his fellow Titan's rooms. Any other day he might have chanced breaking and entering and showing what their rooms looked like; but seeing how he already was treading on thin ice, and this was his friend Cliff, that would have been a bad idea.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Cliff; it was that Beast Boy just knew better. Cliff would have his hand in diaries and personal information and would only help to dig him an even deeper grave.

Finally arriving at his room, he punched in the code on the keypad and the metal doors opened suddenly with a hiss of compressed air.

Beast Boy stepped aside and with a show of his hands that would make Vanna White proud, "Welcome…to casa de Beast Boy!"

Cliff's heavy footfalls carried him into the darkened room and before his eyes adjusted to the light, his nose picked up the smell of something ripe, "Oh…my God," Reaching over to turn the light on, "I don't even have a real nose anymore…and I can tell this stinks"

He gaped as the lights revealed piles of trash and dirty clothes around the pea soup colored room along with toppled piles of Gamestation discs and comics.

Still staring at the cesspool that was Beast Boy's room, Cliff said in his most serious voice, "Kid…as God as my witness, you will clean this room before I leave"

"Oh come on dude, I don't think it's THAT bad…"

Making a cut motion with his hand, "I can't imagine how this is livable…and I've lived in some dives man," looking around his room, "What would Rita…"

"HEY!" Shouted Gar, "That…is a low blow…don't bring that up now…and remember you still got a lot of explaining to do."

"Yeah, yeah," Cliff waved his hands in mock surrender, "But first we're cleaning this room, there ain't no way I'm crashing in this room looking like this."

Beast Boy paused in the middle of shoving clothes into a laundry bag that looked that it would burst with just another sock, "Huh? You're sleeping here?"

Turning his head to the side as he hefted a packed trash bag on his shoulder that looked like it could crush a mortal man, "Where else would I be sleeping jolly green midget?"

"Weelllll, I just thought you'd want your own room or something…it's not like we don't have a buncha guest rooms."

"Nah, you know me, I'd rather pass out here than in some guest room," Cliff then took a glance at the bunk bed that everyone wondered why Beast Boy even needed, "You got a bunk bed anyway…and as disgusting as this room is, it does have character"

Gumbling to himself, "yeah yeah, enough with my garbage dump of the room."

After a few more piles of clothes were consolidated in bags and more piles of trash were taken outside, the room looked only slightly disgusting now.

"Alright kid, show me the rest of the tower and while we're at it we can throw all this junk out."

"Sure, we'll continue the tour," pausing and giving his metal friend an annoyed glare, "Lets just not make a habit of cleaning each room or this might take a while."

Cliff replied by flicking him in the arm with his finger.

Holding his arm with a grimace and swatting at the offending metal hand, "DUDE, that's gonna bruise!"

The odd pair eventually made their way down to the tower's laundry room, for which Garfield introduced with a lackluster, "This…is the laundry room."

It was a very standard laundry room that looked a bit out of place compared to the rest of the high tech tower. There were a trio of dryers and washers lined up against a wall that Beast Boy, with Cliff's help, managed to cram all his dirty laundry into.

As they made their way out of the laundry room, the passed what looked like a medium sized metal panel on the wall. Beast Boy pulled on the handle revealing it to be a garbage chute; a garbage chute that looked 10 times too small for the gigantic sack of garbage Cliff was hefting like Santa Claus. After a few moments of shifting their gaze between the bag and the chute, Cliff and Beast boy decided that getting a running start with the bag would be the best idea.

The author leaves it to the imagination of the readers to picture the calamity that ensued.

By the time they were done cleaning up what would be referred to as the "dumpster incident" Beast boy began regaling his adventures with the Titans as he continued to show Cliff the tower. In typical Beast Boy fashion, he told his stories with enthusiasm and even began acting out his stories (sound effects included).

Garfield told Cliff about the team's encounters with masked psychopaths, near alien abductions, horror movie nights gone wrong, scary old British men with bad teeth, encounters with the Hive, moth men, cursed spell books, space tofu, a nerd who was a bigger TV junkie than he was, run ins with scary beasts, and fighting dark demons with the intent for world domination.

Cliff noticed Gar's storytelling seemed to get more intense and in-depth when it came to a certain purple haired sorceress. Raven was it? Cliff made a note to bring it up later when he felt he could cause the most trouble and embarrassment for his teen friend.

They made their way into the evidence room. Hitting a wall switch and illuminating all the various memorabilia from various crimes they had solved, Cliff was only able to produce a uncharacteristic and subdued, "Wow…"

Beast Boy smiled at the reaction he got from his friend, "Isn't it great? This is all the crap we've gotten over the years from all the wierdos we've taken down."

Cliff made his way around the room and took a closer look at some of the weapons. He laughed at the giant, almost possessed looking, remote control.

"Hey Cliff, why didn't we ever have a trophy room back in the old days?"

"That's a good question," Cliff took a moment to think, "Oh, that's right, we never left anything behind."

"Oh yeah…I forgot."

They then left and made their way to another important room in the tower: the infirmary.

"This is where we all get patched up after we get messed up."

Clearly impressed by all the high tech medical equipment, "Wow, this is some swank digs you got here kid. Who pays for it?"

With a shrug Beast Boy replied, "Hrm…you know I've never thought about it actually."

With an electronic sigh, "you're hopeless kid"

"What'd I say?"

The tour resumed as they left the infirmary and eventually arrived at the workout room. Cliff was visibly surprised again; this was probably one of the largest rooms in the tower he'd seen yet. It had a high ceiling with a large skylight to let in natural light. A set of free weights rested on a rack against the wall. There were also a few exercise machines, treadmills, various punching bags and a large matted area for sparring. The workout room looked like any other room in a gym except for some of the odder elements that it contained: the dumbbells went from very light 5 pound weights to extremely heavy 300 pound weights. There was also what looked like a truck bed that had been modified for the purpose of heavy-duty weight lifting.

At Cliff continued to stare at the odd additions to the weight room and made his way around to poke and prod at them, Beast Boy finally decided to fill him in on their purpose, "Oh, all that stuff is for Star and Cyborg. There's no way either of them could use normal weights or punching bags. Cy had to come up with some creative solutions to the problem," he pointed at the labeled punching bag, "That there is filled with cast iron pellets."

Cliff looked back surprised, "No shit? The orange skinned girl can pack that much of wallop? Cy I can understand being a robot myself, but her?"

"She isn't exactly from around these parts…you should see what she can do with just her eyes!" Said Beast Boy as he mimed "binoculars" over his eyes with his thumbs and forefingers.

"Hrm…seems you've found a pretty cool bunch of misfits to tag along with."

Joked Cliff with a tinge of seriousness in his voice. He was glad that his green friend had found such good friends after they parted ways.

Laughing a bit at the misfit comment, Gar added, "and don't even get me STARTED on Raven."

Smiling to himself at the comment BB made about his dark roommate, "Yes, funny that…" he trailed off before looking to a pair of oversized padded mitts set in the corner of the sparring area, "Hey kid you interested in a little workout?"

Seeing that Cliff was starring at the padded portion of the gym, an area that Beast boy seldom used, he turned back to his friend, "On the matts? Come on man I haven't used those in ages."

With a stern glare at his green friend and dropping into his drill sergeant persona back from his military days, Cliff fired back quickly, "I noticed. I saw you on TV when I first got here in Frisco. You are dragging ass boy; I know I taught you better than that!"

Beast Boy put on his most apologetic face that he used whenever he got a speech like this from Robin whenever he had poor performance in the field, "Come on man, that was ages ago! That was only cuz back then I couldn't change into too many animals back then," to prove his point he morphed into a velociraptor and snapped his jaws several times before changing back, "I just practice actually changing into all my forms on the fly."

With a condescending tone and increased volume Cliff added, "And how exactly is that working for you? From what I saw, you needed your teammates to bale your sorry ass out!"

Noticing that his friend was getting more riled up by the minute, BB tried to explain himself, "So I screwed up a few times, I don't see how that…"

Cliff didn't give him the time to reply, "Enough with the bullshit, ass to the mats NOW!"

Beast Boy was struck with a familiar sense of déjà vu as he remembered the many times he had been forced to participate in combat practice with Cliff Steve and Larry. Shaking the feeling of nostalgia, and never being a fan of getting dressed down by a metal monstrosity, he quickly made his way over to the dark blue foam mats.

A significant area of the gym had been covered with the mats for sparring exercises. It was mostly used by Robin and occasionally Raven, Star and Cy when Robin felt the need to provide some instruction. Robin figured that it was necessary they know a few basic techniques in the event their powers failed them. Raven and Star benefited most since Cyborg relied heavily on his strength, size and technology in fights.

Beast Boy tried, but he could never pick up the "basic" techniques that Robin managed to teach the female members of the team with ease. He had a slightly easier time with the bit of boxing and wrestling that Cliff taught him when he was but a young boy in the Doom Patrol. By the time he had met up with the Titans after he was separated from the Doom Patrol, he decided to stick only to transformations.

Gar's revelry was cut short as he felt a foam padded mitt smack him in back of the head. Turning around he saw that Cliff had two padded mitts on his hands; the type that were used for punching exercises. They managed to fit around his large hands since they were fit for Cyborg when Cy ended up helping Robin warm up for combat practice.

"Come on kid, show me what you got!" he punctuated his statement with another roundhouse swat at Beast Boy's head which the green boy ducked, "Well well…seems the jolly green midget didn't forget everything I taught him."

Ignoring the jab at his height, Beast Boy fell into Cliff's punching exercise and gave a few short jabs that hit with a clap on the foam pads. The punches were a bit sloppy at first but cleaned up quickly as Gar began to remember his lessons.

The pair continued in silence for a few minutes until Cliff started making small talk: asking Gar if he was still in school, if he'd talked to X-miscellaneous friend from their DP days, what sorta music he was into nowadays, what comics he needed to check out. Beast Boy's answers were only broken up by the repeated claps as Beast Boy continued striking the pad.

Cliff then switched from the hand mitts to a larger foam rectangle and instructed the changeling to do some kicking drills. Cliff resumed his small talk and was asking about Gar's teammates.

Garfield went into the few personal moments he shared with each team member, the good times, the bad, the amusing and the flat out hilarious. He also went into the many pranks he'd managed to pull off against Cyborg.

By this time Gar had developed a decent sweat and was beginning to show fatigue. Cliff noticed that BB's answers about his teammates were pretty straight forward…until he got on the topic of the scary Goth girl. Deciding that his young friends continued absentminded lingering on any topics that involved Raven, Cliff decided to have a little fun at his expense as well as confirm his suspicions about how close the two were.

Beast Boy continued to mindlessly kick the pad and was only half listening when Cliff asked, "So have you asked Raven out on a date yet?"

If Gar had realized he'd been asked such a left field question, he certainly hadn't shown any signs of understanding, "Well I haven't quite gotten around to it yet but I intend…"

Realizing that he was tricked and had let some highly confidential information leak out Beast Boy stopped kicking and glowered at his metal friend, "Dude that was totally messed up."

Beast Boy was still in a state of shock and trying to come up with an excuse when a he noticed the foam pad he was kicking was flying toward him rather quickly. He was bowled over and knocked on his rear and Cliff had done a shoulder ram with the pad and began cackling loudly.

"HA! I knew you were sweet on her!"

"Dude keep it down, the walls have ears!"

Cliff ignored him and in a sing song voice began chanting, "Garfield and Raven sitting in a tree…"

A green silverback gorilla tackled Cliff's gold/bronze colored metallic hide onto the mat. The two tumbled and tussled on the mat, appearing to continue playing out their earlier common room hijinks. Using his wrestling background from his high school days, Cliff managed to wrestle the green gorilla face down into the matt in a full nelson after much difficulty.

After a few moments of struggling, Beast boy changed back and flopped over to lay flat on his back as Cliff sat Indian style next to him to also catch his breath.

"That wasn't half bad; you had me working for a few minutes. I knew you didn't forget everything I taught you." Said Cliff as he gave the Beast Boy an affectionate, albeit painful, slap on the chest.

Beast Boy's only response was to give him the middle finger and to continue gasping on the ground. Five minutes passed and his breathing slowed but he continued to stare out the skylight of the gym.

"Hey kid, everything ok? Don't be such a wuss." Cliff punctuated his inquiry with a few pokes to the ribs of Beast Boy.

"Cut it out dude," his voice didn't contain any hints of anger, but was rather quiet and subdued for just being poked at with a metal digit. Cliff continued to sit in silence as he knew his friend would talk eventually.

Beast Boy sat up and kept himself sitting upright with his arms behind his back, "Hey Cliff?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me what happened."

Cliff's mechanical lungs sucked in a large breath of air which he exhaled loudly a few seconds later before answering. He was hoping he could put off the inevitable conversation a bit longer, "Sure kid…you need to know."

T-Minus: 1473 days

Location: Undetermined Location in Pacific Ocean

Claxons fire and echo against the metal panels lining the corridor as three figures limp towards an undetermined destination. The only lighting is from the spinning red emergency lights that line the hallway every hundred feet.

A soothing voice, obviously recorded, was heard from the various intercoms located in the facility. It was not good news, "ALL PERSONEL PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY," the recorded announcement seemed to pause to let the dire news sink in, "SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED," Another pause, "T-MINUS 5 MINUTES REMAINING."

The same recorded message replayed over and over as the three forms made their way down the hallway. Eventually the sugar sweet voice of whatever woman hired to read that message was too much for the metal form of Cliff Steele to take and his remaining left fist smashed into a passing intercom as he screamed, "SHUT THE HELL UP!"

The other intact intercoms ignored the robot.

"Cliff, don't waste the energy, we must get to those escape pods now!" Yelled an injured and irate Steve Dayton. On his arm he supported the weight of his wife of only several months Rita Farr Dayton. Both their black and purple uniforms showed signs of small-arms fire. Minor scrapes and lacerations covered the exposed areas of skin. Rita's calf had a bullet lodged in it causing her to limp with the assistance of her husband. Steve's helmet had been damaged by stray fire and had been discarded. Sweat and blood mingled with his hair and matted it to his skull.

On the other side of the corridor limped Cliff Steele. Even his robotic chassis had sustained too much damage from the uncountable numbers of General Immortus's robot army making walking difficult. Slung over his shoulder like dead weight was Garfield Logan. He had taken a rifle butt to the back of the skull, and probably had a concussion.

The other member of the team, the enigmatic Larry Trainor was absent.

Rita finally spoke up as she hobbled along with Steve's assistance, "But Larry, he's still back there…!"

Turning to his wife with a look of remorse in his eyes, "Rita…you saw what we all saw too…there's nothing we can do now."

Rita's eyes turned toward the ground as she allowed several tears to escape as she mourned for her long-time friend and teammate. Cliff grunted and silently trudged down the hall.

The plan had looked simple on paper, with the Chief's intelligence; the Doom Patrol had obtained schematics for the hidden base of the Brotherhood of Evil. The base itself was located on the ocean floor, hidden from prying eyes.

The Doom Patrol had come to settle the score and end things once and for all. They should have expected that the wily general Immortus would have a dead-man's switch implanted in his heart; once his heart had stopped it triggered the release of hundreds and hundreds of robotic soldiers as well as the destruction of the base.

The numbers of Immortus's troops were overwhelming and forced the Doom Patrol to fallback as they saw the remaining members of the Brotherhood retreat and escape.

With no choice, the battered and injured team decided to find the escape pods that were located in the facility. The four adults and one green unconscious boy hid behind computer consoles as thousands of rounds impacted around them as the metal army continued their barrage. They had to make their way to an exit hatch that would lead them to safety.

It had been hard to see through his bandaged face, but Larry smiled, his face had a look of serenity and peace his team had never seen before. His last words were short and to the point, "Move! I'll hold them off," when he saw the worried looks on his friends' faces he added, "I'll be fine, I'll catch up!"

They all knew otherwise, but Steve responded the only way he knew thought appropriate, "Of course…we'll wait up for you."

Larry concentrated and his black astral form shot out and began to rocket around the room and destroy as many of the robots as he could. The rest of the team made their way over to the door and with one last look behind them, they saw him return to his body and try to follow them.

A volley of bullets struck him in the back causing his body to spasm several times before falling dead.

Rita's screams and her attempts to break out of Steve's grasp were obscured as the heavy blast door was closed.

They had been running since.

A damaged robot, a now incapacitated psyker, and a limping elastic woman, shambled their way down the corridor in silence with Garfield in tow. The only sounds were the continuing countdown by the soothing recorded voice over the intercom.

2 minutes left

With a large mechanized grunt, Cliff plunged his hand through a blast door leading to the escape pods. There would be enough pods for the four of them. They would rocket out of the base and shoot them to the surface where they would be safely picked up by the Chief. They'd have their injuries treated, Cliff would be fixed up and they'd resume their crusade against the Brotherhood of Evil.

The three adults could almost feel their blood freeze and their skin go numb as they walked into the escape pod bay.

One…there was only one pod left. Perhaps the many minions maintaining the base had evacuated…it didn't matter now. Steve let his wife slip from his grasp as she dropped to her knees and sat back stiffly on her injured legs. She didn't notice.

Steve's gaze shifted from each empty launch pad hoping that his eyes were deceiving him. It wasn't supposed to end this way. He dropped to his knees and dropped his forehead to the cold and unforgiving floor, "No…"

Cliff remained silent as the announcer came on once again

"SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED…ONE MINUTE REMAINING."

Cliff looked at his two teammates experiencing every feeling of horror and fear that he himself was experiencing. He then looked down in his hands to see young Garfield appear to almost be sleeping in his arms. He had no idea what was happening. "You always did have a knack for falling asleep at the wrong time."

He looked up and gazed at the last pod. It would fit only one of them; the choice was simple.

"Steve…Rita…I got an idea."

The couple brought their heads up to see Cliff make his way to the torpedo shaped pod. Cliff thought that it looked like a coffin. They knew his plan; there was no need for explanations. Garfield was young…impossibly young for the line of work he had fallen into. He was their son. It would have been a month today that they were officially a family. Fate was cruel to the young and innocent. They'd never get the chance to pass on the knowledge they'd accumulated over the years, never see him grow into a great superhero. It was goodbye.

"SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED…30 SECONDS REMAINING."

Steve and Rita were freely crying now. It was too sad. They closed the hatch and looked at their sleeping foster son through a thick later of Plexiglas. Rita pressed her fingers to her lips and then touched them to the glass barrier. She could have swore she saw an eye lid crack open slightly behind the door.

They stepped back as they watched the pod rocket toward the surface.

"SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED…20 SECONDS REMAINING"

Steve and Rita continued to weep in each other's arms as they embraced for the last time. Cliff stood behind them and appeared to stare into nothingness; too shocked to say anything.

Steve looked up into Cliff's eyes as he held his wife to his chest, "Cliff…you might make it out…please, for us….for Larry…look after our boy."

"10 SECONDS REMAINING"

As the final seconds ticked down, Cliff looked down at Steve. The look the two exchanged said everything that needed to be said. Words would have ruined the moment.

Never saying goodbye meant you'd always see your friends again someday.

Cliff's eyes registered a blinding flash of light that overloaded his visual circuits. He didn't know what happened next.

To this day Garfield sees an image of Rita pressing a kiss to a pane of glass in his dreams. He cries every time he wakes up.

He can't figure out why.

AN:

Holy CRAP…I'm not dead. Sorry for the craptastic wait, I've been in a crummy mood that was not conducive to writing. I broke the block eventually and put out what you see here. I may or may not change anything…depends on what glaring errors I find after I post it.

Thanks again for all the encouraging reviews…you guys are the life blood of any writer on fanfiction dot net. Granted I'm having a lot of fun writing this and won't quit anytime soon, but I'm always glad to see I'm not the only one enjoying this story.

I know I'm a fan of detailed imagery, so that's why my writing is the way it is. I hope it's not boring too you the reader and is keeping you interested. The real problem is that I suck at dialogue. Anyway, lets hope I eventually get the hang of it…I'm sure it's going to be important eventually.