Work Text:
“Screwdriver!”
Marty didn’t even look up from where he was sitting tuning his electric guitar, he just kicked the screwdriver over to where the doc was sprawled out on the floor. The doc grabbed the screwdriver and resumed his quiet mumbling as he adjusted whatever exactly he was inventing.
Marty hadn’t paid that much attention to his frantic ramblings that morning.
His band finally gotten a gig—playing at Jennifer’s sixteenth birthday party—and he was extremely nervous, although he’d never tell anyone that.
It wasn’t that he was nervous to play at the party but the fact that he and Jennifer had only been dating for a month and he technically hadn’t met her parents yet. Well, he had met her parents, but that was only once and they hadn’t been dating yet, just flirting with each other constantly.
“Wrench!”
He kicked his foot out but there wasn’t anything nearby and he sighed, putting down his guitar and glancing at the floor around the couch. He had apparently kicked all of the doc’s tools to him but the wrench was now gone.
He got to his feet—avoiding Einstein, who was sleeping right underneath the couch—and looked around for the missing tool. The garage was messy, for sure, but usually he was able to find the tools quickly enough.
He’d been hanging out here for almost a year and a half, now, he could navigate his way through the doc’s workshop blindfolded.
Had it really been that long?
Heavy.
It was insane to think that over a year ago he had been breaking into the doc’s garage on a dare, completely unprepared for the man himself to be home. He had been even more unprepared for the doc to offer him a job instead of calling the police.
The job had originally just been walking Einstein, then he started helping the doc record his experiments, then he had asked the doc for help on math homework, and by this point he just walked Einstein before school and then hung out at the doc’s house in the evenings.
Anything to get him out of his own house.
“Marty, wrench!”
“I can’t find it!”
He shouted back, knowing that as long as the doc was sprawled out on the floor and half-underneath his project he wouldn’t be able to hear anything spoken at a normal volume. This was a grumbled muttering from the other side of the garage and Marty turned as the doc emerged into a sitting position.
He bit back a smile because the doc’s usually crazy hair was somehow even more everywhere than usual.
“You can’t find it?”
The doc said, just as confused as Marty felt.
“Nope. Where’d you leave it?”
The doc got to his feet and Marty watched as his eyes flickered over the room.
“Well…I was using it to open Einstein’s dog food—”
“Not there.”
Marty interjected and the doc nodded, spinning around so that his lab coat flapped rather dramatically.
“And then I…placed it over here.”
The doc pointed dramatically at one of the tables.
Nothing there.
“After that…aha!”
The doc sprinted across the workshop and Marty scrambled after him, leaping over the back of the couch and bouncing on the cushions to jump to the doc’s side. The doc was now digging through a pile of papers and shoved them into Marty’s arms.
He spun around and dumped the papers on the table.
“Found it!”
The doc cried, brandishing the wrench above his head like Excalibur.
“Left it by the radio.”
“The radio?”
Marty questioned.
They had broken the radio three months ago with a rather unfortunate electrical mishap.
“Yes, I was trying to fix it before you got here today.”
The doc said almost dismissively before spinning around and hurrying back towards his invention, waving the wrench as if it was a lightsaber. Marty didn’t bother to make fun of him for it, instead staring at the radio.
The doc had tried to fix it for him.
Huh.
He sat on the floor and flicked the radio on, pulling out the antenna and adjusting it, trying to see if the doc had actually fixed it.
It was always a hit or miss with the doc.
There was a loud crackling of static and he heard the telltale bang of the doc being startled and whacking his head on something. Einstein let out an almighty bark and Marty winced.
“Sorry!”
He called.
“All good!”
The doc called back and Marty grinned, adjusting the dials on the radio. There were a few more loud screeches before he finally got it to the channel he had been searching for. The radio practically hummed in his hands as he placed it on the table and flicked the volume up.
“-ight. That was Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, and you’re listening to The New—Hill Valley’s station for all the newest music.”
The radio crackled again and Marty grinned wider as a very familiar funky beat blared out of the speakers.
He heard the doc let out a groan and he laughed, spinning around as the doc emerged from his invention for the second time.
“Not this song again.”
“It’s a good song!”
He protested and the doc rolled his eyes.
Marty grinned, taking the opportunity to act like the most obnoxious teenager he could be. Normally he tried to be nice whenever he was at the doc’s house. He liked the doc and wanted to get to keep hanging out there.
Still…
“Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride, nobody gonna slow me down, oh no! I got to keep on moving!”
He slid across the room to the doc’s side as Einstein barked in excitement.
“Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride, I’m running and I won’t touch ground, oh no! I got to keep on moving!”
The doc was on his feet now and holding his hands over his ears, trying to block out the song. Marty laughed and sang the chorus louder, jumping up on the couch dramatically and posing. The doc grabbed one of the cushions and whacked him with it.
Marty doubled over laughing and fell onto the couch, grabbing the other cushion and trying to save himself from the doc’s barrage of whacks. Einstein was barking in excitement and jumping on and off the couch, his tail wagging furiously.
Marty rolled off the couch and jumped to his feet, whacking the doc with the pillow hard enough to knock the welding goggles off his head. The doc gasped in mock horror and Marty took advantage of that to yank the other pillow from the doc’s grasp.
“Ha!”
He shouted, turning and sprinting out of the doc’s reach, Einstein jumping at his legs.
He scrambled onto the table and picked up the radio, turning the volume all the way up and holding the radio high above his head.
“Oh! Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride, nobody gonna slow me down, oh no, oh no I got to keep on moving!”
He grinned down at the doc, who just stared up at him with a fond look on his face.
“Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride—” Marty stared as the doc sang the next part of the chorus, a little off-key but with all the spirit. He laughed and put the radio down before jumping off the table.
“Oh, now you like the song?”
“It grew on me.”
The doc said, ruffling his hair before the two of them finished the chorus, Einstein barking excitedly all the while.