A/N - I know, I know, there's no excuse for this chapter to have taken 19 months. I've had approximately half of it finished for ages now, but I kept going back, deleting and re-writing it over and over again and then I just did nothing with it for about a year. There's no excuse for it and I'm sorry. I'm way more active over on Tumblr and AO3 now, (radioactivedelorean on both sites) so chances are I won't be active around here much longer.

Marty sat on his bed and tossed a ball against his bedroom wall absentmindedly, catching it every time it bounced back to him. The argument with Doc echoed in his head over and over again.

"If you had even half the amount of brain power as a normal person maybe none of that would have happened!"

Marty growled and threw the ball at the wall again, knocking down a photo. He got up to pick the photo up and cringed when he saw it was of him and Doc, standing next to the clock back in 1885. The glass frame was cracked, but luckily the photo inside was intact.

The teenager groaned and flopped back onto his bed, the photo in one hand. He stared up at the ceiling and sighed. He felt awful for that argument, now. Sure, Doc had stepped over the line with what he'd said, but that didn't make Marty feel any less guilty for punching him. He didn't blame Doc for what he said - it was true. He really was an idiot.

Marty's eyes drifted over to his phone. Should I call Doc and apologise? Would he even want to speak to me after what he said?

Shaking his head, he stared back up at the ceiling.

00000

Doc was sitting at his desk, rolling a pencil between his fingers. He couldn't find the motivation to do anything, not after his fight with Marty. The semi-demolished time circuits sat in the corner of the lab.

A small crackle of static emitted from the trunk of the DeLorean, before a meek British voice called out. "Uh, I don't wanna cause any problems but… where am I?"

Doc practically leapt out of his skin. The desk chair fell backwards and clattered on the floor. Doc paid it no mind as he rushed over to the DeLorean and threw the trunk open. Sitting there, in the deepest part of the storage compartment, was a small, slightly dented blue-eyed core.

Wheatley immediately shrunk back in terror as he recognised who it was who had opened the trunk. "Oh god oh god! N-no mate, it's alright! Just leave me here, it's fine! It's actually comfy! No need to get me out, oh no! You don't need to pick me up or anything, or y'know, hurt me!"

Doc clenched his jaw, picking up the nearby hammer and holding it threateningly above the robot. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't smash you right now."

Wheatley's optic shrunk back and he shifted in such a way that looked like he was trying to dissolve into the trunk of the DeLorean. "I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking! I never meant for you or Marty to get hurt!"

"That's bullshit and you know it," Doc raised the hammer higher.

"NO! Okay, I was trying to kill you and I'm sorry! All you did was help me and I repaid you by stabbing you in the back!" Wheatley blurted out. "I was a moron! I am a moron! All I do is hurt people!"

The small core was emitting sounds that were similar to sobs, and Doc couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy towards him. He was programmed to literally be a moron, it was only natural he'd be overwhelmed by his newfound power and go crazy.

Letting out a long sigh, Doc lowered the hammer and placed it back on the table. He gently grabbed the core (Wheatley flinched a bit at first, thinking he was going to hurt him) and lifted him out of the trunk before placing him on the desk. He picked his chair up and sat back at the desk.

"So, uh… where's Marty?" Wheatley asked after a moment. His optic widened in sudden horror. "Oh God, he's not dead is he?! Did I kill him?!"

"Relax," Doc put a hand on the core's upper handle. "He's fine. We had a bit of a fight and he ran off home, but he's fine,"

"Is that how you got that?" Wheatley gestured with his handle to Doc's black eye.

"Yeah, the kid's stronger than he looks," Doc sighed. "It was my own fault. I told him he was an idiot for getting us stuck in a dystopian version of our own universe,"

"What happened? How's that happen?" The core asked.

Doc took a deep breath, explaining the whole event to him, from arriving in 2015 to Marty using the train to get back to 1985. He left out a few details (Wheatley didn't need to know about his life with Clara during the 1880s). It took almost a half-hour to recall everything that had happened. When he'd finished, he sat back in the chair and let Wheatley process everything.

Eventually, the core seemed to frown, and looked up at Doc. "Well, from what you've told me, it doesn't seem like Marty's an idiot at all."

"I know," Doc ran a hand over his face. "I should never have said that."

"Well, you seemed sorta stressed. If I'd been in your position, I'd have flipped out too."

"That doesn't really help," Doc sighed, running a hand through his hair. "There's only one thing left for me to do."

"What's that?" Wheatley asked.

"I need to phone Marty and apologise right away." With that, Doc rose from the chair and moved to leave the lab.

"Hey! You're not just gonna leave me sat here, are you? I don't see any management rails,"

"I won't be long," Doc called over his shoulder. He pulled open the lab doors and strode out across the grass towards the house. He figured she shouldn't really leave Wheatley where he could be easily seen, but he wasn't prepared to drag him across the lawn into the house. He pushed the front door open and headed towards the phone in the hallway. With Marty's number memorised, he dialled the teenager and waited for a response.

Marty groaned and rolled over on the bed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He looked at the phone. No doubt that was Doc calling him. He reached over and put the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

"Marty? It's me." Doc's voice responded.

Marty couldn't stifle the groan that escaped him. "What do you want?"

Doc frowned. "Marty, listen. I'm sorry for what I said. Honestly, I am. I never meant to say those things."

Marty flopped onto his back and scoffed. "Thing is, Doc, if you really didn't think I was an idiot, then you wouldn't have said that, regardless if whether you were angry or not."

Doc ran a hand through his hair and leant against the wall. "Marty please. Honestly, I swear I didn't mean it. Would you please come over here so we can discuss this in person?"

Marty sighed. "Fine, give me fifteen minutes."

"Thank you," Doc replied. "See you soon."

"Yeah, see ya," Marty put the phone down. He pushed himself off the bed and got up, grabbing his backpack. He pulled his shoes onto his feet and took his skateboard, heading for the front door. Setting his board down on the road once he was outside, he pushed off with one foot and headed towards Doc's place.

True to his word, Marty arrived fifteen minutes later. He jumped off his skateboard and kicked the board up into his hands before walking up the pathway to the front door of Doc's house. Before he got to the door, the scientist flung the door open and strode across the grass towards him. "Marty!"

Marty raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, hello to you too, Doc,"

Doc frowned as he stopped in front of his friend. He scratched the back of his head agitatedly. He took a deep breath. "I never meant to say any of those things. You are by no means an idiot. I let my temper get the better of me and you ended up paying the price."

Marty let out a shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair, his skateboard dropping to the ground by his side. "It's… it's alright, Doc." His gaze flickered to the ground beneath his feet. "I'm sorry for punching you. I just… I guess I sort of lost it. I mean you're so damn intelligent and good at everything and I'm not. I still don't know why you bother putting up with me."

"Marty," Doc put a hand on the teenager's shoulder. "I don't 'put up' with you. I enjoy your company. You're the only person in this whole damn town who didn't see me as an utter nutcase. Before I met Clara, you were the only person I could talk to without having to worry whether I'd be ostracised or not. I'm sorry I made you feel this way."

Marty shook his head and stood taller, wrapping his arms around Doc's neck. "It's not your fault. It's okay, seriously."

Doc returned the hug, his arms sliding around Marty's back. "I still feel awful about what I said."

"Don't." Marty smiled. "It's okay. I'm not mad, I promise."

"Alright," Doc stepped away from the teenager and grinned. "Now, if you would follow me to the lab, I have something rather important to discuss with you."

Marty raised an eyebrow with an inquisitive smirk. "Oh really? What would that be?"

Doc scratched the back of his neck. "It's difficult to explain. It's best if I show you."

"You're the doc," Marty shrugged, picking up his skateboard. "Lead the way."

Doc led Marty across the grass to his lab. As they approached, Wheatley looked towards the door from his position on the desk. He froze in place, not sure who was approaching. Doc pushed the door open and held it open for Marty. Once Marty spotted what was sitting on the desk - or, more specifically, who - he froze and dropped his skateboard. The board clattered to the floor.

Wheatley's optic shrunk to a pinprick. He simulated a gulp. "Oh, uh, h-hey!"

Marty's shock turned to rage in an instant and he stormed forwards, grabbing the wrench off Doc's workbench and holding it high above the robot. Doc launched himself forward and grabbed Marty's wrist before the teen could swing down with the wrench. Marty glared furiously at the robot. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

Wheatley looked at the desk, his handles retracted close to his body. "Uuh, um s-She put me in the trunk of the car. I d-don't know why. It wasn't my idea, I swear! She m-must have done it while you weren't looking!"

"You mean when I was unconscious?!" Marty snarled. "After you set up those bombs and tried to kill me?!"

Wheatley flinched away, his optic shields slamming closed. "I-I'm sorry! I n-never really wanted to kill you!"

"That's bullshit!" Marty tore his arm out of Doc's grasp and moved to swing the wrench again.

"Marty!" Doc grabbed the boy's wrist again and pulled the wrench out of his hand. "Beating him up will not solve this!"

"How do you expect me to just stand here while the guy who nearly killed us just sits here and grins?!" Marty snapped. "He nearly killed me, Doc!"

"Yes, I know," Doc shot Wheatley an accusatory glance, before turning back to look at Marty. "But unfortunately we can't exactly just throw him in the trash. We have to do something."

"Like what?"

Doc ran a hand through his hair. "I suppose we have no choice but to send him back to Aperture."

"You're kidding me?" Marty balked. "You mean we have to go back to that place and dump him there?"

"He'll cause serious time paradoxes if we keep him here any longer," Doc sighed, sitting down on the edge of the workbench. "Aperture Science has already been established by this point in time, but chances are they already have one of ...whatever you are," he gestured vaguely to Wheatley.

"Personality constructs!" Wheatley supplied rather unhelpfully. "Oh there's loads of 'em! There's the Fact Sphere, Adventure Sphere, Space Sphere, there's also the Oracle Sphere and the Management Sphere and the -"

"Alright alright I get the point," Doc waved a hand around, getting Wheatley to shut up. "So there's a lot of different robots, I get it. Which one are you?"

"The er… I think I'm the Intelligence something-or-other sphere?"

"Intelligence sphere?" Marty asked with a raised brow, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Doc had to bite back a laugh.

"Intelligence Dampening Sphere!" Wheatley proclaimed cheerily. "Just checked the ol' database!"

"That makes more sense," Marty muttered under his breath.

"So what's gonna happen to me?" Wheatley asked, his handles curling around his body a little bit and his optic shrinking a little. "You're not gonna throw me in a trash compactor, are ya?"

"No, it'd ruin the whole machine," Doc shook his head. "We need to get you sent back to where you came from and not a minute sooner. Having two of you around will only cause a serious paradox, and if the two of you were to meet...well …"

"It'd wipe out time both forward and backward," Marty finished off, leaning against the workbench beside Doc.

"So we'd all die?"

"And you know, the universe will collapse in on itself, ending the lives of every living organism in existence and there would be nothing but a black void, so yes, we'd all die," Doc said.

Marty sighed, kicking at the ground with his feet. "So what now? We rebuild that device and then head back to Aperture, dump Wheatley there and come home again?"

"Sounds like the only viable plan to me," Doc nodded. He pushed himself up off the workbench and went to grab the broken device from where it lay on the floor. Marty jumped up and helped to pick up the stray pieces.

Wheatley watched the pair in mild curiosity. "What's that?"

"It's the device that got us landed at Aperture in the first place," Doc replied. "It lets us use that," he pointed to where the DeLorean was parked in the corner of the lab, "to travel far further in time than what the car could originally."

"Oh, right of course," Wheatley nodded his chassis a little bit, but Doc and Marty both knew that he had no idea what Doc was talking about. As they gathered up the pieces of the device, Marty moved Wheatley off the table and they began to reconstruct the device.

After nearly two hours of hard work and a couple of burns from the soldering iron each, the pair had rebuilt the device and had reattached it to the time circuits in the DeLorean. Marty sat in the driver's seat as Doc made the final adjustments. "Alright, Marty, give it some gas."

Marty started the engine, making sure the car wasn't going to shoot forwards, before he pressed his foot down lightly on the accelerator and turned the time circuits on. The flux capacitor started to glow and sparkle by his right shoulder and Marty gave Doc a thumbs up. "All good, Doc."

Doc clapped Marty on the shoulder with a grin as the teen released his foot from the accelerator and turned the car off. "Now that that's all done, all we have to do is to get it out on the road and get that core back to Aperture."

"I have a name!" Wheatley huffed.

Doc fixed him with a glare. "Don't think that we're helping you," he spat. "We're preventing the universe from being destroyed, not helping you specifically. Don't you dare think that you've gotten away with what you did to Marty, myself and GLaDOS."

Wheatley shrunk under Doc's glare, his gaze flickering to the floor. "Oh… I … I know…"

Doc huffed and grabbed the sphere, opening the trunk of the DeLorean and throwing Wheatley inside, before slamming the trunk down again. Wheatley's protests were muffled by the lid slamming closed.

Marty sighed, sitting on the workbench again and wiping some oil off his hands with a rag. He swung his legs a little, staring at the floor.

"Marty?" Doc asked softly, perching beside the teen.

"... why the hell did he do that to us, Doc…? After we helped him, a-after we did so much for him, he just… betrayed us…"

"I know, kiddo," Doc wrapped his arms around Marty, drawing him in close. "I know, but we're going to get rid of him, okay…?"

Marty buried his face into the crook of Doc's neck and sighed. "Okay…"

Doc gave him a reassuring smile and rubbed his back. "It'll work out, Marty, I promise."

"I sure hope so, Doc."