Chapter Text
CLANG! CLANG!
Cliff slammed against the door to the Chiefs lab. Something was wrong, very wrong.
Cliff, Larry, Rita, Victor, and Jane had heard an explosion in the Chief’s lab moments ago. The Chief was in there working with Gar. They were both stuck in there and the door wouldn’t open.
CLANG!
He slammed his shoulder into the door again, hearing it rattle loose.
CLANG!
The door flew open, and Cliff almost fell on the ground from his momentum.
The team rushed into the room, taking in the appearance of the wrecked lab. There were pieces of machinery littering the floor, some had been blocking the door and skid across the floor when Cliff threw the door open.
“Garfield? Niles?” Rita called out, almost melting as they desperately searched the room.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Cliff exclaimed as the team panned out across the lab.
Larry was silent, his glowing chest voicing his worry for him.
“Shit! I found the Chief!” Jane. She was pulling the disoriented man from the wreckage. “Where’s Gar?”
“Gar? Gar, where are you!” Cliff’s voice may be robotic, but it easily conveyed his worry.
Worry, worry, worry, the team started to panic. Gar wasn’t calling out, he wasn’t calling out. He could be hurt, hurt and not calling out. Worry, worry.
Then they heard the crying. But not the crying of a hurt teenager. They all ran towards the sound in the far corner of the lab. Cliff pulled large pieces of wreckage, and immediately stumbled backwards.
Curled up in between pieces of metal and wrapped in Gar’s favorite jacket, there was a green haired toddler.
This didn’t make any sense, and Larry’s chest was still glowing. It was obviously Gar, his shock of green hair was proof enough of that. As if the Doom Patrol hadn’t seen weirder things than a suddenly de-aged boy. The jury was still out on whether or not he was okay.
The child was softly crying, scared and sniffing into his too long jacket sleeves. The team had all instinctively taken a step back, not wanting to scare him with their appearances. Cliff remembered when Babydoll first met him. It’s so ugly, the words had stung then and devolved into a dull ache of a memory now.
Make it go away, and his chest throbbed, a phantom pain in a phantom heart. He should be standing the farthest back, they didn’t know if Gar even remembered them or not. But he had pulled the wreckage off of the now-toddler, so he stood the closest.
Gar was still crying and confused. His bleary eyes latched onto the closest, largest figure.
“Cwiff-” Gar hiccuped, throwing his arms up to be carried, tiny hands grabbing at the air.
Clifford Steele melted, and in an instant Gar was swept up in his arms and cradled against his chest.
Larry’s chest stopped glowing, and the team circled tightly around Cliff and the child. Gar had his face buried in Cliff’s chest, hands fisted in his shirt and staining it with dust and tears. He hiccuped again.
“Hey . . . hey, kiddo,” Cliff said, gently rubbing Gar’s back, “Are you hurt?”
Gar stayed silent in Cliff’s arms. Meanwhile, Victor and Rita helped the Chief into his wheelchair.
“Let's go upstairs. To the kitchen.” Larry said.
The poor baby was probably in shock, Cliff thought.
“Okay. Lets go, kid”
And so the ragtag team made their way out of the lab.