Hiya folks! BabyCharmander here with… a crossover? Haven't done that sort of fanfic in a while.

In any case, people have brought up the idea of a Portal/Five Nights at Freddy's crossover several times, and I've seen some great fanart of it. But some folks brought up the idea of Wheatley working the job in particular, and the idea sounded amusing enough to write! And surprisingly enough, I was able to fairly easily merge the two worlds. I did have to change up some of the things regarding the animatronics in order to make the crossover work, but that sort of thing's to be expected.

So uh, I guess that's it. On with the fic!

It was amazing, really, how quickly Wheatley could regret a decision.

One moment he was in space, wishing he were back "home" in the facility—where things weren't boring, where he could move, where he could get away from defective cores rambling endlessly about space…

And the next moment (or what felt like it, anyway) he was back in the facility, immediately wishing he hadn't wished that he was away from space—where gravity wasn't in effect, where he was safe, where there wasn't a murderous AI looking to enact revenge on him.

The AI in question was currently faced away from him, but that didn't make things much better. For while she studied a panel on the far side of the room, she was holding him in a claw, tossing him into the air, and catching him, repeating the cycle over and over again. After his initial panic had subsided, he soon realized that GLaDOS had no intentions of dropping him—rather, she was simply tossing him around as one would a ball while one was thinking.

Not exactly a comforting thought.

Still, he tried to talk it off, as he would anything else.

"So—um—nice—to—be—back—here—really—nice—of—you—to—rescue—me—" His vocal processor kept jumping and skipping from the constant motion, so he tried a slightly different route. "Maybeifyou—stoppedtossingme—wecouldmaybe—talkthisout?"

The claw tossed him into the air for the thousandth time before clenching around him, and immediately she whipped around, her massive yellow optic staring into his dot of a blue one. "If I had planned on talking this out with you, don't you think I would have done that by now?"

Her voice was a lot louder and scarier than he'd remembered. He barely managed a squeak in reply.

"Oh, that's right. You don't think."

With that, she began to turn around, and he squirmed in panic. "Wai—wait!" he cried, and she stopped, not staring at the opposite side of the room but not looking at him, either. "I—look, okay, I know you're planning on doing… s-something awful to me, right?"

Clap, clap, clap.

"Amazing. I wasn't aware you had a correct thought in your processor."

"Y-yeah!" If he'd been able to recognize her sarcasm, he would've been too nervous to register it anyway. "See, you uh—don't have to do that, b-because I'm… sorry?"

GLaDOS was silent for a moment or two, during which Wheatley's lower eye shield pulled up in a hopeful smile.

"If that was an actual attempt at lying, that's sadder than I can say."

The smile faded.

"L-look, please, j-just give me a second chance?" A whirring noise caught his attention, and he glanced to the side to see another claw descending several feet away. Without warning, he was suddenly tossed to the other claw, which tossed him back to the first claw, back and forth, like some kind of metal hackey sack. "Agh…!"

"You're not giving me any good reasons to do that," GLaDOS said in a bored tone of voice. "I think I may just have to introduce you to the incinerator."

"NOOO!" Wheatley howled. "Don't do that! D-don't incinerate me, I'll do anything—"

The claw held him still.

"Anything?" GLaDOS's head turned very slightly in his direction.

"Y… yeah!" Wheatley's hopeful grin quickly returned, though his optic's aperture was still contracted to a sharp pinpoint. "I-I could… um… w-work for you! Right? Ah, always good to have a bit of, um, h-help around the facility…"

"Actually, no. The facility was doing fine before you ruined it."

A couple edgeless safety cubes dropped from the ceiling as the claw tossed him into the air again. Within seconds the two claws were effortlessly juggling the assortment of metal spheres, and Wheatley was feeling dizzy. "But—but you need help with something, right?" he cried. "I-I've got experience working—working lots of jobs! Yeah, lots of 'em, I can do something, like—like work on the nanobot crew, assistant-to-the-guy-in-charge-of-the-neurotoxin-button, monitoring the humans—"

One of the claws snapped him into its grip again, holding him still until he was pelted by the neglected edgeless safety cubes. "Ow…"

"Hmmm?" GLaDOS was getting close to looking at him again. "What was that last one?"

"I said 'ow'—generally regarded as a cry of pain—oh, you mean the humans! Yeah, I monitored the humans! All the humans, all the ones in the extended relaxation center. Did that for a—uh—long time, so, loads of experience there—"

"And how well did you do your job?"

"Oh!" In spite of his fear, Wheatley still found it in his ability to shift his body in a swagger. "I was an expert human… monitor… core… thing. Best core on the job! I mean, granted, I was the only core on the job, heh—but! Really, did a stellar job, if you don't mind my saying."

"That's what I thought." And finally she swung around to face him, studying his optic carefully. "I have the perfect job for you."

Wheatley cringed in the yellow light, and his voice squeaked, partially in terror and partially in excitement. "You—you do! Hah, knew it! Great news for—for me—you—everyone involved—"

"You won't be watching humans, mind you, but I believe this job is well within your… capabilities."

"G—good! Great! Tremendous!" He wished she wouldn't lean in close like that, with her optic narrowing—creepy. "Wh… what is it?"

"This is, um. A bit different from my previous job, I have to say. Is there—is there any chance I can get a rail, of some sort, or—?"

"If you want any chance of… succeeding, I suggest you listen to me."

"R-right! Will do."

Wheatley shuffled uncomfortably on the leather seat of the stool he was precariously perched on. He imagined that it had maybe been a nice plush leather seat some decades ago, but now the leather was worn and thin and whatever fluff had been stuffed into had long since taken a hike, leaving nothing between the leather covering and the wooden base. This also meant he was in danger of rolling off and banging optic-first into the floor if he so much as twitched the wrong way.

At least, it would mean that if he didn't have a thick cable stuck into his back port. So if he rolled off, he would more likely be suspended a few inches off the ground, provided the cable didn't decide to detach itself from some machine on the back wall.

He couldn't look back at the machine—the cable limited his movement—but he could see that the room he was in was quite small. If he really thought about it—which took some effort—he imagined maybe three people could stand in this room side-by-side, maybe with an inch or so of that "personal space" stuff between. It was also dimly lit, with a single light hanging overhead that illuminated a table, upon which sat an ancient computer, a monitor, and some coffee mugs—those seemed to be everywhere around Aperture. The wallpaper was old, rotted, and peeling; the checkered floor was cracked and dusty; and the bulletin boards were plastered with old notes too faded to read.

Well, except one.

And it wasn't really a note—it was more of a poster, with… what appeared to be Science experiments gone wrong. They were human-shaped, but certainly not human. They had traits of animals on them: one of them had long-ish ears, another had shorter ears, and one had what appeared to be a beak.

Ugh, birds. Wheatley shuddered.

"You are currently placed in the security booth in an old wing of the facility, out on the earth's surface," came GLaDOS's tinny voice over an aging intercom. "It was built in the 1980s, a little before my time. According to this file, Aperture Science was still trying to work out its android robotics. They failed in the laboratories, but some brilliant scientist managed to repurpose a few of them."

"Oh! That was… that's nice of him." He twitched, eying the figures on the poster warily and shuddering. Feeling his casing beginning to tip, he forced himself to keep still.

"The result was using them for entertainment purposes for children."

Having studied the poster for a few uncomfortable moments, he began to see how these designs might possibly appeal to small children on some level. On a very low level, and possibly to very deranged children.

"They were placed in this restaurant, where they were programmed to perform musical numbers and comedy shows for the children and adults that dined there."

"Look, sounds great—but, where do I come in, here?"

"But unfortunately," GLaDOS went on, "the androids still retained some of their previous programming."

"Unfortunately? What's so unfortunate about that?" Wheatley pulled his face back indignantly. "I'm not bloody stuck onto you anymore, but I still have my previous programming."

"Unfortunately,"—the speakers sparked with the force of her voice—"the androids still retained some of their previous programming. Some of their military programming."

Wheatley blinked incomprehensively.

"They still killed people."

"…Oh." He was starting to see why GLaDOS wanted him to have this job.

"But after the first four or five incidents, their walking functions were disabled, resulting in no unwanted murders. The unfortunate side effect was that too much immobility caused all of their servos to lock up. As a solution, they were allowed to walk around at night."

"M-makes sense… But what do I—"

"Of course, they would need to be monitored closely."

"Right! Of course, can't have a bunch of murderous robots roaming around without someone to… t-to…" His voice faltered. "A-aaaahhahah…"

"Well, anyway. I've been thinking about renovating this place for some time now. It would be a good way to attract more humans. And more humans means more potential test subjects. It's an idea I've been bouncing around, but could you believe I had no volunteers to be the night shift guard? That is, until you so helpfully volunteered yourself."

She was smiling—he knew she was smiling—

"Thanks for that."

Wheatley really, really wished he were back in space.

"So I've had the nanobots bring the androids back into working order. Once midnight comes along, they'll regain their walking functions. It is your job to watch over them and make sure they stay safe."

"They stay safe?!" Wheatley sputtered.

"Oh, and, of course, you'll need to survive. Otherwise I'm going to have a very difficult time finding another volunteer for this job."

"Yes, of course!" His voice had long since abandoned its usual pitch, opting for something several octaves higher. "Th-that's incredibly easy t-to do, with, y'know, no arms, legs, mobility of any sort—"

"Your security room is equipped with electromagnetic doors, which you have access to via the cable on your back port. You also have access to all security cameras in the restaurant, which you can view in your processor."

Immediately the magnetic doors slammed down, and Wheatley frantically flipped between cameras, trying to spot the murderous robots before they found him.

"I should mention. Because that wing of the facility is so outdated and has been left alone for so long, I've been having trouble powering it. So you may want to be cautious with how much you use those doors and those cameras."

The doors shot open and Wheatley flicked his vision back to his optic. "C—can I still use my flashlight, at least?!" He turned it on, peering into the darkness through the doorways on either side of the room.

"Hm, yes, but I've also wired that directly to the wing's power."

The flashlight snapped offline, and with a desperate look, Wheatley swung his optic to the speaker in the corner. "Is there any cheering news, here?!"

"Yes. You'll only be working for six hours."

Wheatley groaned, his faceplate slumping until it clunked against the bottom of his casing. "C-couldn't you just… I don't know—wouldn't it be easier to just—y'know, de-program the murdering-ness out of the androids? Or something? Seems a lot less, um, complicated…"

"But then you'd be out of a job. And the incinerator would have a new occupant."

He was starting to think that the incinerator sounded infinitely better than this. "W-well, they're… androids, at least, right? F-fellow robots—"

"Yes, and you get along so well with those."

He flinched.

"I should also note that these androids can be a little… well, jealous of more advanced technology. If you're lucky, they may just strip you of your casing and string your wiring through one of their spare animal suits so you can work alongside them. Fancy that." Here she paused, and he thought he could hear her mechanics whirring as she turned to look at something. "Well, look at that. Midnight already. I'd better leave you to it, then. Good luck, moron."

With a muffled click, the intercom shut out, leaving Wheatley alone in the dark, barely-powered wing of the facility with nothing but several murderous robots for company.