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John F. Kennedy Drive was not the sort of place Tiff planned on spending a Friday evening.
It was rundown and full of buildings that must have been there for 30 years. The only places of note to the kids of Hill Valley were the only fast-food restaurant in town, the 24/7 Burger King, and the old garage that belonged to the local mad scientist, Dr. Brown.
Dr. Brown’s garage had the worst reputation of any of the places in town and was probably the cause of the street’s bad standing. Apparently, it had once been connected to a giant mansion, which, according to local legend, had been set on fire by the scientist himself.
There were plenty of other rumors circulating about the man— that he was insane, that he was building a death ray, that he kidnapped kids to use in his experiments (though no one could actually name anyone who’d been kidnapped or even gone missing), that he was going to blow up the town…frankly, Tiff thought it was all a load of bull. If the guy were actually dangerous, someone would’ve gotten the authorities involved by now.
Regardless of whether any of it was true or not, Dr. Brown’s reputation made sure that, apart from a few pranks by the occasional idiotic group of teenagers, his home was the most avoided place in Hill Valley.
Which was exactly what Tiffany Tannen was looking for.
“TIFF!”
The teenager swore under her breath as she raced towards the intersection, taking the turn so sharply that the momentum of it nearly sent her sprawling onto the asphalt. Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me, she chanted inwardly, ducking past the neon lights of the Burger King. The chain link fence was only a few yards away, and she could scale that no problem.
At the base of the fence, she took a precious moment to wipe the blood off her face— she could not afford to slip and fall because it got in her eyes— before beginning the climb. She dropped to the ground with an almost inaudible hiss (landing on a possibly-sprained ankle was a bad idea, but getting caught would be so much worse) and scrambled towards the dilapidated building.
If I’ve played my cards right, Tiff thought, her back pressed to the wall of the garage, he won’t ever think to look for me here. Scarcely daring to breathe, she crouched in between the trash cans and listened intently. She didn’t think he’d follow her there—she had no ties to Dr. Brown, and who in their right mind would think to hide by the garage of the local crackpot? —but she couldn’t be sure. She’d traded distance for stealth, so it was still possible.
Tiff was on such high alert that the sound of a door opening nearly made her jump out of her skin. This was a possibility she hadn’t taken into account. It was late enough that she’d assumed the guy would be in bed for the night. She’d been as quiet as she could, so maybe he was just leaving?
Please just drive away…or go back inside, I don’t care, just don’t—
“Hello?”
Her blood ran cold.
“Is someone out there? Look, I—” he sighed a fed-up kind of sigh. “I don’t care who you are, but this is private property and—”
At that moment, Tiff did something very stupid. If you asked her teachers (or worse, her father), they would tell you that it was hardly the first time; that the girl was an idiot, a punk, and a ‘slacker’.
They were wrong.
Tiffany Tannen was not an idiot.
Everything she did was meticulously calculated— fail a test just enough to require mandatory after-school tutoring, but not enough to fail the class. Stay out late enough that she wasn’t there when her dad got home, but not so late that she couldn’t be up and out of the house before he woke up. Be late enough to school to be counted tardy, but not absent.
And if things went wrong —if her calculations failed her—she’d prepared for that as well. Case in point: her father had come home from the bar later than she’d expected and caught her in the kitchen, so she’d escaped out the back door (strategically left unlocked) and run somewhere he’d never think to find her.
Except Biff Tannen—even when drunk—was no idiot, either. He was hunting her down, and if he heard crazy Dr. Brown yelling about an intruder, he might put the pieces together.
So Tiff did something that was probably very stupid and definitely very impulsive and also the only thing she could think of to save her skin. With one quick lunge, she rounded the corner of the house, grabbed the scientist by the wrist, and dragged him down to her hiding position, covering his mouth with her other hand for good measure.
“Look, I’m really sorry about this,” she hissed, “but there’s someone looking for me and I need you to shut the fuck up right now.”
Surprisingly, he struggled very little apart from twisting around to see her face. She hated the way his eyes softened as he took in her injuries, but it was better than him kicking up a fuss and getting her caught. It had been a toss-up— 50/50, not her preferred odds, but if she hadn’t done anything…
Besides, while she didn’t exactly want to knock out some old guy, if it had come down to it, she probably wouldn’t have hesitated.
Since it seemed like he wasn’t going to rat her out, she let go and turned away.
“Who is it that you’re hiding from, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Tiff had to suppress an irritated sigh. At least the guy was keeping his voice down, and he was— even if unintentionally— giving her a place to hide. Probably better to answer his questions and keep him placated. “My father.”
Dr. Brown went very still at that, which almost made her laugh. It was so stereotypical it was almost boring, and yet people were still surprised when they came face-to-face with a victim of child abuse.
“I’m sorry,” he finally murmured. “My own father was…shall we say, less than ideal.”
Huh. That, while unexpected, wasn’t surprising. People with good family lives don’t usually end up living in a garage with a reputation as the town lunatic.
They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Tiff was pretty sure at this point that her father had given up— either gone home or passed out somewhere. Still, she didn’t leave. Where would she go?
“Would you like to come inside?”
She whipped her head around to stare at Dr. Brown in disbelief. He looked incredibly awkward, but didn’t take it back. “It might be a better place to hide than out here. Not to mention, I have some ice packs and a first-aid kit. You, uh, seem like you could use them.”
TIff’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?”
“You look like you picked a fight with a brick wall,” he replied frankly.
Shaking her head, she clarified, “No, I mean why are you letting me in? You don’t even know who I am. You don’t know shit about me other than that my dad’s an asshole. The first thing I did was knock you to the ground and you wanna invite me inside your house?”
That soft look was back in his eyes and god it was so much worse when she could see the pity etched all over his face. She scoffed and turned away again.
“Because you look like you need help,” he said gently, “and I am in a position to offer it.”
Tiff gave him a side-eye. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. You can stay for as long- or as short- as you want.”
Tiff wasn’t an idiot, and she certainly wasn’t naive. On the other hand, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, the guy was built like a twig. He was tall, sure, but her father was taller. She could take him down. “What the hell.”
Hauling herself to her feet (and pulling Dr. Brown to his), she headed towards the front door of the garage. Funny, she’d never been one of those kids who would dare each other to touch the fence or look through the windows or, in extreme cases, break in, but she was probably getting further than any of them ever did.
Well, except for that McFly kid.
She took a moment to survey the street and make sure her father wasn’t anywhere near. Discretely, she shifted her weight from her injured ankle to the other.
“Are you— is your leg hurt?”
Well, so much for that. “Just landed on it wrong. I, uh, hopped your fence.”
“Yes, I heard. That was what alerted me, that and— hold on.” The older man crossed in front of her to open the door— not for chivalry’s sake, she realized with a wry grin, but to intercept a large, white, fluffy dog who lunged at his owner like he hadn’t seen him in years.
“Yes, alright, Einstein, calm down. We have a guest, and I don’t want you scaring her off.”
He’ll have to try harder than that, she thought ruefully, following the man inside and trying not to flinch when the door slammed shut.
The garage was a mess. It looked like a cross between someone’s attic and an unused classroom. Boxes were piled haphazardly in every direction, folding tables stood covered with papers and machines that did god knows what, there was even a guitar amp installed on the back wall for some reason. If it weren’t for the kitchenette and the two cots (two?) tucked into a corner, Tiff would have a hard time believing that anyone actually lived there.
“I’m sorry about all the…” he waved his hand in the general direction of the, well, everything. “I don’t often have visitors.”
“No problem,” she shrugged. The middle of the room seemed the cleanest—and the safest— so she stood there awkwardly as Dr. Brown rummaged through his freezer.
“Here!” he announced triumphantly, bringing out a few bags of frozen vegetables. “You can put these on your bruises and your ankle—here’s a chair, my apologies—and we can see about that first aid kit. That, at least, is one thing I always know the location of.”
Tiff couldn’t help the crooked smile that stretched across her face at the man’s self-depricating humor.
It’s a fairly impressive first-aid kit, and if she hadn’t seen the chaos that surrounded Dr. Brown at any given moment, she might have wondered why he kept it on hand.
His expression faltered when he looked at the mess that was her hair line. “What…”
“He smashed a bottle.”
“Against your head?”
She shrugged, not wanting to meet his eyes. “I’ve had worse.”
He looked appalled by that but mercifully restrained himself and started wiping away the blood with a wet rag.
“It looks like the cuts are mostly superficial,” he said finally. “I’d like to sterilize them, and then I can bandage them for you. Is that alright, Miss…?”
“Tiff,” she replied, then decided, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Tiffany Tannen. And, uh, sure. Go ahead.”
The doctor’s hands stilled for a moment and his eyes widened as he realized the implication. “So your father…”
She nodded. Thankfully, Dr. Brown didn’t ask any more questions.
The antiseptic burned, but she’d take that over an infection any day. Dr. Brown winced and muttered apologies under his breath as he cleaned the cuts, removing shards of glass and bandaging it with several layers of gauze.
“There we are,” he finished, leaning back. “That’s the extent of my ability. How’s your ankle?”
As she removed the makeshift ice-pack, the pair winced at the swollen joint which was purpling nastily. “Looks worse than it is,” she insisted.
It was doubtful whether he believed her, judging by his raised eyebrow, but he didn’t argue. “Will you at least let me wrap it?”
It didn’t make any sense. This guy had no idea who she was— if his reaction was anything to go by, he clearly knew her father, which was never a good thing. She had nothing to offer him, but for some reason he was spending time and resources patching her up. The unfortunate reality was that he probably felt sorry for her. At least it got her somewhere relatively safe.
Dr. Brown busied himself with putting the first aid kit away. The silence that descended once he finished was awkward, but Tiff felt no inclination to fill it. She didn’t know the guy; what would they have to talk about?
“Do you…” he cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?”
Actually, she was. She hadn’t gotten the chance to steal anything from the kitchen before Biff had come home. Might as well, if he was offering. “Yeah.”
This guy seemed to be in a perpetual state of wrong-footedness. It almost made her laugh at how taken aback he was by…pretty much everything she said. “Right,” he muttered, heading over to his kitchen. “I’m sure I have something…”
“Look, you don’t have to—”
“No, no, no, no, I’ve got plenty of food, I just don’t have a lot of…meals…”
Eating cereal in the garage of the most feared man in Hill Valley was not the sort of way Tiff planned on spending a Friday evening, but, she reflected as the so-called mad scientist made her grin for the third time that evening, it could always be worse.