Chapter Text
The garage wasn’t much less intimidating in the daylight.
Tiff shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. It hadn’t been that alarming when she’d hidden there last night, but she had to admit that the idea of an isolated garage supposedly inhabited by a madman had been enough to give her pause. Not enough for a physical pause—the real, immediate threat had been way more terrifying than some rumors about a weird guy. More a…mental pause.
Now, though, she was hesitating for a different reason. Dr. Brown clearly wasn’t crazy, just a little eccentric. Though she'd spent more than 3 hours in his garage, she'd seen no illegal experiments or ‘Death Rays’- just harmless labor-saving inventions. He’d even told her she could come back any time she liked.
“If you ever want to, I don’t know, get out of the house,” he’d offered before she’d left, “I’m…usually here.”
She was pretty sure he was now. His massive truck was in his driveway (why did he have that?) and the lights were on.
So why hadn’t she knocked?
Tiff leaned against the chain-link fence and kicked at a tuft of grass.
She knew, of course, why Dr. Brown had made the offer. It was the same reason he’d let her in yesterday, and the same reason Mrs. Miller never gave her detention, no matter what she said in class, and the same reason George fucking McFly always smiled at her and asked her if she needed anything when she knew her dad had been making the man’s life hell for years.
They all knew her life sucked, and they felt bad for her.
The tuft of grass went flying. Tiff crossed her arms and dug the toe of her boot into the dirt.
She didn’t need their help. She was fine. She could get along just fine on her own. She was smart, and fierce, and as soon as she graduated she was getting out of here, and she’d never see Biff again.
The scowl on her face deepened. She didn’t need Dr. Brown or his garage or his stupid, fluffy dog. There were plenty of other places she could go on a Saturday afternoon when she didn’t want to be at home. Hill Valley, while small, wasn’t completely lacking in things to do.
Sure, she didn’t have a lot of money, but it had never stopped her before.
She didn’t need Dr. Brown’s charity.
Scowl etched so deep it was a wonder she could make any other expression, Tiff straightened up and was about to walk away when she heard a truck approaching.
Her eyes narrowed.
Nobody in Hill Valley drove past the garage unless they had a very good reason. Drivers subconsciously avoided JFK drive, even if their detours made them late. It was just an accepted fact of life— the sky is blue, the grass is green, and Dr. Brown’s home is avoided like the plague.
Which meant that this was someone from out of town (unlikely) or the scientist had visitors (even more unlikely), it couldn’t mean anything good.
“Hey! Tannen! What’re you doing hangin’ out here?”
Seriously? This guy? “What’s it to you, Douglas?”
He’d shown up two years ago and weaseled his way into a group of upperclassmen that made a habit of being assholes to anyone who wasn’t exactly like them. The majority of them had also managed to fail senior year, so Needles and his gang of 19-year-olds “ruled the school”, as they liked to claim, and terrorized the rest of their town in their stupid truck.
Case in point: there were probably 6 of them lounging in the back of said truck with a bag of badly hidden canisters of spray-paint and cartons of eggs.
“Didn’t realize you’d become desperate enough for attention to hang out with the local crackpot,” Needles jeered. “Hoping he’ll feel bad enough to let you come live with him? Conna come up with some sob story about how shitty your dad is?”
A muscle twitched in Tiff’s jaw.
“You probably wouldn’t mind his psycho experiments,” he continued in mock-thoughtfulness. “Guess anything’s better than living with a dad who beats you up all the time—”
It was almost entertaining how quickly his face drained of color. Of course, most people go pale when you hold a knife to their throat, so it was probably the fact that it was Needles’ face specifically that made it so enjoyable.
Tiff had lunged so quickly that none of the other vandals had time to react. They just sat there, stunned, as Needles let out a squeak.
“Get out,” she snapped. “Now. And if I ever see you here again— or I find out about any more pranks, and I will find out if they happen— I will do a lot worse than just make you piss your pants, Douglas.:”
“I haven’t— I didn’t—”
With a flick of her wrist, a thin, red line appeared on his throat.
“You sure about that?”
The only response was a pathetic whimper. Something told her it had had the intended effect.
Rolling her eyes, Tiff vaulted over the side of the truck and turned towards the garage—
Only to stop in her tracks at the sight of Dr. Brown standing in his doorway. Clearly, he’d seen the whole thing.
Behind her, the truck drove off with a screech. It did not break the awkward silence.
Tiff cleared her throat. “I can, uh. I can go.”
She didn’t need Dr. Brown. She didn’t need his garage. She didn’t need just one person in this town thinking she wasn’t dangerous, insane, or a screw-up.
But god, they would’ve been nice to have.
A clinking sound startled her out of her thoughts. Dr. Brown had opened the gate and was smiling at her. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, I—I thought you might…want me to? I just—well. You saw.”
“I saw you prevent a gang of hooligans from defacing my property.” He raised an eyebrow. “What about that would make me ask you to leave?”
A crooked smile worked its way across Tiff’s face as she passed through the gate.