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You paced up and down, nails drumming against the little box that you held in your hands. The town square was lonely at that late hour, and only the lights of the posts kept you company in your anguish.
Trying to distract yourself while you waited, you stared at the box in your hands. It was somewhat small, as it only occupied a little more than both of your hands put together as you cradled it in them. It was made of small metal planks reinforced with oak wood, hiding a complex unit of wires connected to the core of electricity. On one side there was a small screen with a keypad filled with numbers. At the top of it was a round red button, shining and enticing. The outside of the box was covered by a thin layer of black rubber.
Knowing every centimeter of the box by heart, you impatiently clicked your tongue. Where was he? He was always late. For someone that had time traveled several times, Marty had no actual sense of time. You were pretty sure that his watches always broke too.
When you heard the sound of skateboard wheels gracing the pavement, you turned around and sighed in relief. It was hard to contain the nerves that upset your stomach, but they subsided slightly at the sight of your best friend.
“Y/N” Marty said, kicking down on his skateboard to stop it and throw it up in the air, where he easily caught it with one hand. You rolled your eyes with a smile at the cool movement.
“I bought you a new watch, McFly” You only replied, to which he grinned in response.
“What’s going on?” He asked you, walking closer. “You sure have your uncle’s sense of mystery”
The nerves stirred in your stomach again when you remembered that time your uncle Emmett gathered you and Marty for the great reveal of his time machine. The DeLorean was the most incredible thing you had ever seen, and it only became greater during your time travels. The thought of it made you jittery again.
“Um…” You shook your head, trying to focus on the reason why you called him. “See this little box?”
Marty nodded, holding his hand out to take it, but you protectively moved it away from him. He frowned at the gesture, but you explained before he could complain.
“You need to be careful!” You warned him. “This right here is my first invention: a time machine”
You proudly grinned at him, but he only squinted in confusion. It took Marty several seconds to say anything else as you stood there before him, beaming at your reveal.
“Wait a minute… wait a minute, Y/N” He fidgeted, wildly gesticulating with his hands. “Are you telling me you build a time machine from that tiny box?”
“Yes! You see…” You started pointing to the different parts that made the box. “It carries a circuit of electricity in it that shocks the mechanism, giving it enough force to make time travel possible”
“Is that like Doc’s flux capacitor?”
“In a way”
“That’s heavy…” Marty uttered, fixing his blue eyes on the box that you so gingerly held in your hands. “Does Doc know?”
“No, I haven’t told him yet”
“Why didn’t ask him to help you?”
“Because he would!” You exclaimed anxiously. “I wanted to do this myself”
Marty fondly smiled at you, nodding his head in understanding.
Much like your uncle Emmett, you had grown fascinated by science. You studied and learned to idolize great people like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton and Thomas Edison. It had always been something you shared with your uncle, which reinforced your bond as he was the only family you had left. This connection only grew after he introduced you to the DeLorean and you joined him and Marty on their time travel shenanigans. Even now that he had a family of his own, him and Clara as well as your cousins Jules and Verne welcomed you and often invited you for dinner.
“Well, let’s go back” Marty said after a moment of silence, taking your wrist. “Let’s show Doc what you invented, he’ll be so happy!”
“Not yet, that’s why I called you” You bashfully averted your gaze, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I wanted to try it first… and I didn’t want to do it alone”
He paused, and his fingers loosened their grip around your wrist. Returning to that fond smile, Marty nodded again, this time in determination.
“Great, let’s do it!” He clapped in anticipation. “How does it work?”
Your face lit up in excitement as you held the box up to demonstrate.
“You see this big red button at the top?” He hummed in affirmation, and so you continued. “You press this to activate the circuits and introduce the digits on the counter”
“Is that it?” Marty gawked at you in astonishment.
“Yup! Then you only point it at whoever is going to travel and voila!”
“Wow… that’s really heavy, Y/N” You recognized the pride in his eyes as he looked at you, impressed that you had done it on your own. “It’s so simple too!”
“Thanks” You nudged him with a smile, which he gladly reciprocated.
“So where are we…?” He interrupted himself, grinning. “When are we going?”
“I think we should go one minute back in time…” Trying to get over the nerves in your stomach, you took a deep breath. “Do we concur?”
“Right on” Marty leaned a hand over the big red button and stared at you.
Before doing anything else, you inserted the digits that should allow you to travel one back in time. Then, you proceeded. Shaking from head to toe, you hesitantly lay your hand over Marty’s. Between the two, you pressed down and pushed the button. With the device pointed at both of you, it was only a matter of time until you confirmed if it worked or not. As you waited, you shut your eyes tight in nervous anticipation.
A strange magical force seemed to surround you, but you didn’t dare to open your eyes yet. Marty’s arm wrapped around you, protectively and uneasy. Only when you heard him gasp, did you dare to open your eyes.
At first glance, you didn’t notice any changes. You were still at the Hill Valley square, and it was night still. Before you celebrated your success, however, you needed to confirm it. A quick glance at your wrist watch told you that the hour hadn’t changed.
“There’s something different…” Marty whispered, letting go of you.
Internally agreeing with him, you took a quick look around you. The streets seemed different. There was something strange about Hill Valley all of a sudden.
Just as your friend was about to take a step, you held on to him in realization.
“Marty!” You tugged at his jean jacket. “Is this…?”
“1955…” He completed, looking around him. After all, he had spent enough time on that year to realize it was so.
The untouched ledge of the clock tower was clue enough, but so were the closed shops that surrounded you and even the old-fashioned cars parked in the streets.
Disappointed, you peered down to the device in your hands. You had miscalculated. There was a big mistake somewhere in your invention, a great margin of error. How could you have traveled so far back in time when you had only set it for one minute?
“Well…” Marty piped up, noticing your mood. “It worked!”
“No, it didn’t…” You sighed, repressing the urge to hurl the device at the floor. “We’re in 1955, not one minute back in 1985”
“Don’t you see, Y/N?” Marty gently took you by the shoulders. “You still invented a time machine, Doc would be proud!”
You showed a sad smile, partly agreeing with him. Your uncle Emmett would be proud, and he would offer to help you fix the problems. If only you could show him a perfect time machine that didn’t have such a big margin of error.
“Now, let’s go back” Your friend patted your shoulder before letting go of you.
Once again, his hand leaned against the button. Yours hovered above it as a terrible hunch reached your gut. If it had thrown you so far back in time, who was to say that you would be returned to 1985 safe and sound? Nonetheless, you pressed your hand over Marty’s and pushed the button together again.
“Uh… Y/N?” He uttered, looking into your eyes. “Nothing happened”
He was right. As you feared, that magical force didn’t surround you this time. You felt absolutely nothing, and so you urgently pressed the button again. It was for naught.
“Marty…” You stared at him with pleading eyes, feeling utterly helpless and miserable. “I’m sorry”
“No… no way…” He nervously passed his hands through his hair. “Not again, Y/N…”
Why was Marty McFly cursed to get stuck in a time away from his own? Was it his friendship with the Brown family that condemned him to such a fate? Just when his adventures with your uncle seemed over, you walked in. Y/N Brown, failed scientist and crappy time traveler.
“I’m a failure…” You hung your head low as tears arrived to your eyes.
“Hey, no” Marty tenderly took your hands in his. “It’s okay, Y/N, we can fix it”
“How?” You exclaimed, quivering with sobs as you forced yourself to look up into his kind blue eyes. “We have no resources here, and even if we did there are no guarantees that I would be able to fix this stupid device!”
Marty frowned. His eyes grew sad as he saw you start crying. Not knowing what to do to comfort you, since he was feeling just as lost, he only rubbed his thumbs against the back of your hands and squeezed your palms.
“There’s gotta be a way” He tried, shrugging to lessen the tension. “We got stuck here once, maybe we can…”
You sniffed through your nose, attentive to his words. However, when he stopped talking, you watched him in alarm. Marty had grown distant, absently letting go of you and taking a few hesitant steps back.
“Marty?” You muttered, not losing sight of him. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a DeLorean here” Marty was about to start walking, but you pulled at his jacket again.
“You’re right!” A spark of hope ignited in your chest, although it vanished soon. “But need I remind you our other selves are here too?”
“Alright, but…” He licked his lips, and you could almost see the wheels in his head turning. “What if we take the DeLorean when we… they… are not looking?”
“They won’t leave the car…” You objected, biting your lip. “Besides, if we took it from our other selves it would cause an abysmal paradox!”
“There must be something we can do!” Marty threw his arms into the air.
“Yes, let’s think for a moment…” You paced up and down, going over all your scientific knowledge. Your time traveling device worked in a similar way to your uncle’s DeLorean. There had to be a way.
You mentally sought inspiration, going over what you did with Marty in 1955. It took your uncle Emmett some time to figure out how to send you back to the future without plutonium, but…
“Eureka!” You exclaimed, startling Marty a little. “The thunderstorm!”
His eyes went from the night sky to the little box you clung on to. When they returned to yours, his expression lightened up at the sight of your recovered excitement. On the 12th November you could harness the storm’s electricity to power your time traveling device.
“That isn’t until…” Given that his watch still didn’t work, he took your wrist to look at yours and see the date. “Next Saturday”
“Well, we can hang out for a bit, it’ll be fine…” You sighed in exhaustion, already knowing you had to go through that all over again. “I’ll be easy, we just need to be careful not to…”
“Not to run into our other selves and disrupt the space time-continuum?” Marty completed for you.
His sarcasm suddenly made you feel even more tired. Of course you wouldn’t be that easy. Not only did you had to avoid running into the other Y/N and Marty, you also had to make sure not to get in the way of Marty’s parents falling in love as well as Marty’s successful travel back to 1985 the other time.
Exhausted, you hid your face in his shoulder. When he kindly wrapped his arms around you, at least you were glad you hadn’t done it alone.
_
You had discussed your plan many times. Unfortunately, you couldn’t talk to your uncle as he was already dealing with the other Marty and Y/N from the other timeline. Likewise, you couldn’t let any of them see you or disrupt their endeavor if you wanted to guarantee your own wellbeing.
Given that thunderstorms were unpredictable and the only spot where you knew a lightning would certainly strike was occupied, it was hard to tell what to do. Although reluctantly, you had admitted that your best chance was catching a lightning that would power your device and send you back to your time. Chances were slim, and you felt at the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Even as you walked, your eyes were glued to the clock tower, minutes away from being destroyed. Hill Valley citizens were completely oblivious to the thunderstorm, as well as they were oblivious to the activities that were taking place. There were two time travels to happen that night: one had already been successful, the other… well, it was yet to see.
“Y/N” Marty stopped walking to put your hands on your upper arms. “Don’t worry, it will be alright”
“But what if I’m wrong?” You averted your gaze, fiddling with your thumbs. “What if it doesn’t work and we’re stuck here forever? Or… or…”
“You’re just as smart as Doc is” He reassured you, showcasing absolute determination in his expression. “I believe in you, you’ll get us back”
“I just…” Instead of looking at him, you glanced at the other Marty in the distance. “I’m scared”
“I’m a bit scared too…” Marty pushed you against him in a much needed hug. “But I know you’re right, this will work”
His warmth embrace comforted you in the chilly night, as your hair moved with the breeze just like his was. His bangs tickled your cheeks, but you didn’t move.
“Breathe” He playfully told you, making you realize your shoulders were tense and you were definitely holding your breath. “We’ve done this before, we can do it again”
You let out a shaky exhale, nuzzling his shoulder. While you still felt bad that you had gotten him into that mess, it was a relief that he was by your side. Marty made everything feel alright. Just as you started to calm down, you noticed something and grew tense once more.
“No… Marty, what are you doing?”
“What?”
“No, not you… him” You pointed at the other Marty, who was stepping away from your uncle’s younger version. “I don’t remember you doing that…”
“That’s why” Your Marty lifted his arm, pointing a finger at a figure that walked your way and that had gathered the other Marty’s attention.
Biff headed your way, no doubt enticed by your feminine figure. You rolled your eyes at him even as he approached. Marty, on the other hand, stiffened and refused to move an inch.
“I don’t think he recognized us”
“Do you think he confused me with Lorraine?”
“Maybe… although you don’t have to be my mum to have that pig’s attention” You caught a hint of jealous protectiveness in his voice, but ignored it.
Biff was walking closer, and with that so was the other Marty, alarmed by Biff’s presence. You had time traveled so many times that all those different events were overlapping.
“We have to do something before he sees us!” You urged your friend. “And before my uncle and the other you walk over here!”
“Hey!” The other Marty called, leaving the DeLorean for a moment.
“Quick, Y/N, what do we-?” You cut Marty’s words as you moved on an instinct.
There was only one way you could think of that would have everyone’s attentions off you. You took Marty by the lapels of his jean jacket and pushed him against the streetlight behind him. Immediately after, you smashed your lips against his. That way, the intimate nature of the moment would drive them away as well as hide your faces for them to recognize.
Frozen by shock, Marty held his hands up in the air. When he realized that he was supposed to sell the moment, he cautiously put them on your hips. It was surprisingly comforting and pleasant given the stressful situation.
Without breaking the kiss, you opened your eyes to glance at them. Biff had faced his back to you, waving his hand in the air in annoyance. Luckily, he didn’t bother the other Marty as he returned with your uncle and the other you.
The kissing sound seemed to echo on the streets as you and Marty separated. Your faces remained close, mere inches away from each other, so close in fact that your noses touched. For a moment, the two of you could only stare into each other’s eyes as you breathed heavily. That had been… interesting.
“That was close…” Marty gulped as he glanced from your lips to your eyes.
“Sorry…” You gasped, letting go of him and taking a step back. It took his hands a second to lift off your hips and let you move. “It’s the first thing that came to mind”
“I mean… it worked” He chuckled, which distracted you a little from the blush on his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry…” You felt terrible, having embarrassed him and made him uncomfortable.
Marty was your best friend and you hoped he didn’t take this the wrong way. You had only done it to save yourselves, to… to avoid a catastrophic and earth-shattering paradox! You told yourself that, but found it hard to ignore how it had sent tingles down your spine and how you had been glad to have an excuse to do it.
“No, it’s fine…” Marty reassured you, distracting you from your thoughts. “It’s fine…”
His voice broke, and you knew that was a sign that he was nervous. You had definitely made him uncomfortable. Trying to forget about it all, you distanced yourself from him with the pretense that it was best to walk away from Biff, the other Marty and your uncle.
“Um…” You forced yourself to steer your thoughts back to the task at hand. “We need to…”
“Right” Marty nodded and awkwardly cleared his throat. “Yeah, the uh… the lightning”
Mortified by what just happened, you continued walking as you were before it. You had to find a place where you wouldn’t be seen, as that Marty, Y/N and Doc were still in the town square and there was another version of them at the entrance of Lyon States before it was built.
Just when you were distancing yourself from the town and reaching a more isolated spot, the storm broke out. Your stomach churned in anticipation, knowing this was your only chance to go back to the future.
Then all of a sudden, you knew. Call it destiny, or call it a stupid and irrational hunch. Whatever the case, you could feel it in your bones as you peered up at the dark night sky: a lightning bolt was about to strike. You had to catch it, and so you ran for it.
“Y/N!” Marty shouted when he realized what you were doing, and followed after you.
You prayed to all those scientists your uncle taught you about and that you had grown to admire as much as he did, nearly as much as you admired your uncle Emmett. Shutting your eyes tight, you hoped that the lightning bolt hit exactly the box and not you, and that you could turn the gadget in time to point it at Marty.
The lightning struck, making you flinch and cringe in anticipation. Just as it touched the box and the powerful electric force vibrated against your hands, you felt Marty hold on to it and tilt it up. Then everything happened very fast, as the familiar sound of your device surrounded you.
The force of Marty’s movement, however, had thrown you back. You felt yourself falling backwards albeit with one of his arms wrapped around you. There was a commotion of yelps and groans between the two of you as you landed on your backs, holding on to each other.
As the magical force that surrounded you faded away, reality settled back in. The night was cold and the air was humid. You didn’t know if it was the cold or the wet pavement underneath you, but you felt yourself shaking.
The box buzzed in your hands before dying down. When it did, you weakly glanced around you. Everything seemed in order, just like you remembered it. It seemed like you were at home in 1985.
“Y/N!” Marty, who had landed next to you, rushed to kneel by your side. “You okay?”
Out of breath, you found it impossible to respond. You only looked at him, struggling to breathe. Everything hurt, and it was hard to talk and even moved. For the time being, you focused on calming your accelerated breath and racing heart.
“Hey, talk to me” Carelessly throwing the time traveling device away to keep your hands free, he held them in concern. “How are you feeling?”
“Like…” You gulped, slowly recovering the ability to speak. “Like I was just struck by lightning”
Marty laughed, dropping his head forward in relief. Without dropping your hands, he tugged at them to pull you to your feet. Your brain felt slow and foggy, and you swayed as soon as you had to hold your own weight. Luckily, Marty realized your weakness and tightly held on to you, letting you lean against him.
You took a deep breath, trying to settle your dizziness. Honestly, you just were glad you had been cautious enough to cover the outsides of the box with rubber… it might have saved your life.
“Hey” Marty gently folded a finger under your chin, slowly lifting it up so you looked at him. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah…” You smiled, although you clung on to his shoulders for support. “Now I know why Uncle Emmett always says time travel is dangerous”
You expected Marty to laugh again, but he didn’t. Trying to focus your eyes, you peered up at him. He was staring at you. As you stared back at him, you knew. Somehow, even though neither of you said a word, you knew. You knew that something had struck you along with that lightning: a realization. You were struck with the realization that the kiss had been more than just pretend. So much more than that.
Finally, Marty laughed. You did too, letting out a chuckle of happiness and relief. At least your little adventure wasn’t in vain.. it made you realize Marty was much more than just your best friend.
“Uh… we better get back” He said, lovingly rubbing your arm. “Before anything else happens”
“Yeah, we’ve got plenty of time” You grinned at him. “Now, in the present”
Marty smiled and slowly separated from you, as though he was as willing as leaving that endearing closeness as you were. Sneaking playful yet timid glances at each other, the two of you started walking.
Your hands brushed together with how close you were again as you headed back home. A smile had taken over your features, and it only grew when Marty’s fingers gently tugged at yours. Without losing another precious second, you took his hand too.
“We have one hell of a story to tell Doc” Marty muttered, smiling as much as you were.
“Yeah, I don’t know what will surprise him more” You held your intertwined hands up, making Marty laugh.
Not only had you invented a working time machine that, while flawed, had successfully sent you back in time. You had also returned safely to your year without your uncle’s intervention and while avoiding several of your other selves without getting in their way. As well as that, you had realized you had fallen in love with your best friend, and it had been shocking an unexpected. Just like being struck by lightning.