Back to the Future
Meet the Robinsons fic by yanocchi
Standard disclaimer applies.
CHAPTER ONE: In which a normal day is interrupted.
Cornelius hesitated in front of the mirror yet again. He gave himself another look over and tried in vain to flatten his impossible hair. It was a fact that it would never, EVER, lie flat, even thirty years from now, but he tried anyway. It was his first REAL date with Franny, and he wanted it to go as smoothly as humanly possible.
He turned to walk out the bathroom door, caught his reflection out of the corner of his eye, and, with a suppressed groan of annoyance turned back to straighten his collar one last time.
Ever since his trip to the future, he'd wondered if the life he saw would ever actually be his. Cornelius wanted that perfect, blissful family, with all its quirks. He just wasn't sure if it was right for him. He (in the future) had told himself (from the present, while he was in the future...) that it was all about the choices he made. And until not so long ago, he wasn't sure if Francis Gunderson was the right choice. They had become friends after that fateful day at the science fair, and she wasn't BAD or anything. But try as he might, the recently renamed Cornelius felt no spark of attraction towards her.
It had happened all of a sudden. One day she was just Franny, the next she was FRANNY. As in Franny written over and over and over again in the margins of his lecture notes, surrounded by little elegant spirals and star bursts and sometimes hearts. It had taken him a few months to work up the courage to ask her out, even though he knew she would say yes. He just had to do it the right way. Everything had to be perfect.
Cornelius suddenly realized he was staring into space with a goofy grin plastered across his features and shook himself. If he didn't stop day dreaming he'd be late for his date with his dream girl! Giving up on his hair, he rushed down the stairs.
"Bye mom, bye dad," he called to his parents as he passed the living room where the two of them were engaged in what appeared to be some mish-mash of 3D chess, dungeons and dragons and explosion in the action figure aisle of a Toys R Us.
"Off to meet Franny for your date?" Lucille asked in a tone that positively oozed feminine bliss.
"Yeah." Cornelius hesitated just past the doorway, then turned back. "How do I look, mom?" he asked nervously. He spread his arms so she could get a good look at him. Lucille poked her head out of a forest of bristling miniatures and peered at her son.
"You look fine, honey!" she assured him. "And I love the tie!"
Cornelius fiddled nervously with the knot of his tie. He had tied it as loose as he dared, but he still felt like he was being strangled. "Really?"
"Oh sure! It looks great!" she promised. Impulsively, Cornelius went to her side and planted a kiss on his mother's cheek. Lucille gave him an encouraging smile and shooed him off.
Cornelius had to run to catch the bus that would take him out of the suburbs where he lived with his parents and into town. Sitting on the flattened, tacky upholstery of the bus seat, Cornelius's thoughts drifted and tumbled. He was so distracted he almost missed his stop. He hurried off the bus, calling a thank you back over his shoulder to the driver, and cut across a small park to catch the trolley that ran through the main city.
Cornelius rode with the other passengers, bumping and swaying with the motion of the car on its track. Being a considerate boy, Cornelius gave up his seat to an old man with a double armload of groceries. It didn't take long for the growing crowd of passengers to press in on all sides until the young inventor was squished in the middle of the car, one arm stuck awkwardly above his head in a vain effort to hold onto the strap that hung from the poles that ran the length of the trolley.
"Pearl Street and Market District," the recorded voice intoned suddenly. "Doors open on the left. Please watch your step."
"Excuse me, this is my stop!" Cornelius called vainly, trying to politely muscle is way through the tightly-packed passengers. "'Scuse me, if I could just..." But it was no use. The trolley gave a small lurch and pulled away from the substation. Cornelius made it to the glass-paneled doors just in time to see a familiar dark-haired head peering at the passengers who had just arrived on the brick platform. Hopefully Franny would understand...
Firmly installed in his new spot close to the door, Cornelius sighed and resigned himself to walking an extra few blocks to his date. Sometimes he wished he lived closer to downtown. It always took him such a long time to get anywhere. Though if he lived in a condominium like Goob or an old row house like Franny things just wouldn't be the same. For starters, he wouldn't have space for his inventions, not to mention the amazing glass dome for his roof. The image of his future workshop, as seen when Wilbur took him thirty years into the future, was imprinted into his memories. If this date with Franny went well, he was on his way to that blissful future.
"River's Gate and West Market District. Doors open on the left. Please watch your step."
His excitement and good mood abruptly restored, Cornelius fairly bounced out of the trolley. Looking back the way the trolley had come he could see the shaded street that led to the restaurant where he and Franny had promised to meet. Suddenly, Cornelius couldn't wait another minute to see her. He could FEEL it; this day would be PERFECT. He started to jog down the platform, ignored the yellow paint and jumped to street level, then took off down the wide sidewalk. He used a light post to swing around the corner. Across the street, at a diagonal, was the little restaurant with its cubby-hole windows and green wire tables outside. And there, in the window, sat Franny, watching each passing face for her date.
Cornelius raised his arm to wave and thought he saw Franny's face light up in recognition, but right at that moment things got complicated.
A strong, skinny arm caught Cornelius about the waist and his breath flew out of him in a whoosh. The momentum of the arm's owner carried him along, half-dragged, into the small park where he came to an abrupt stop at the trunk of a massive oak. Somewhere in the commotion his glasses had, unsurprisingly, come dislodged from his nose. He struggled to straighten them as he looked up at his assailant.
"Who--? Wha--?" Cornelius managed to gasp.
"All excellent questions," an oddly familiar voice said. Cornelius's mouth dropped open in shock. His trembling hands finally managed to set his glasses back in place.
Standing over him was none other than Wilbur Robinson. The boy had hardly changed in the three years since the science fair. The boyish charm had matured into a roguish charm, and his gangly limbs had fleshed out a bit, but it was indeed the same person, pompadour-cowlick and all. Cornelius blinked up at his future son in shock. Maybe he'd hit his head... But no, Wilbur reached down and bodily hauled Cornelius to his feet.
"WILBUR!"
Impulsively, Cornelius grasped his friend by the shoulders. The dark-haired boy flashed a cocky grin.
"In the flesh," he replied.
"When did you come from? What are you doing here?" Cornelius asked. Then, suddenly suspicious, he shot Wilbur a knowing glare. "Do I know you're here? I mean, does your dad know."
"Actually, yes," Wilbur replied with appropriate irony. "That's why I'm here. You've gotta come back with me."
Cornelius released his friend and drew back in surprise. "Come back?" he repeated.
"Yeah. Back to the future!"
Cornelius gaped at Wilbur. The lanky teen looked at him expectantly, as though waiting for a dramatic declaration to return to the future. As the blonde boy continued to stare, Wilbur's confident smile slipped a little at the corner.
"You're nuts," Cornelius informed Wilbur bluntly.
Wilbur's expression dropped into one of annoyance. "I'm not! I'm completely serious! You have to come back to the future with me and help me set things right!" he urged.
Cornelius held up his hands. "Is my present in danger?"
"Absolutely!"
"THIS present?" Cornelius qualified. Wilbur hesitated. "Aside from the fact that you're here, now, in a time machine, does time travel have ANYTHING to do with the problem."
Wilbur looked more uncomfortable and absently began twiddling his fingers. "Not directly, per se. Y'see, it--!"
Cornelius shoved his hand in a 'stop' gesture at Wilbur's face and the other boy fell into an awkward silence.
"So you came back in time," Cornelius began in a dangerous tone, "to find me and recruit me for some crazy plan?" Wilbur opened his mouth to reply when Cornelius paused for a deep steadying breath, but a glare stopped him from speaking. "You want to screw up my present, so that you can fix your mistake?"
This time Wilbur ignored the glare. "Okay, first? It wasn't my mistake. It wasn't anybody's mistake. And second, if we don't fix this you won't have a future worth living."
Cornelius rolled his eyes and turned to walk away. "Nice try. Save the theatrics for drama club."
Wilbur grabbed Cornelius by the shoulders and spun him around. "Lewis, I'm not messing around here," he said earnestly. Cornelius was prepared to brush him off again, but Wilbur's brown eyes were serious. Almost grave. The younger boy could feel the tension in Wilbur's grip on his arms. He noticed for the first time that Wilbur had a scrape on his chin, and it looked fresh. It finally dawned on Cornelius that something could really, seriously, be wrong thirty years in the future.
Wilbur read the comprehension on his face and flashed a nervously relieved grin. "C'mon, I'll explain on the way back to the house," he said, turning to what appeared to be an empty patch of grass.
"Wait, NOW?" Cornelius said in alarm. "Hold on, we can't go NOW!"
Wilbur turned back, finger poised above the time machine's cloaking device. "Uh, yes, now," he replied with a roll of his eyes. "We can't waste anymore time here."
"We have a time machine," Cornelius pointed out with equal scorn. Wilbur considered this while Cornelius continued. "And it's not a waste of time. I mean, do you know where I'm going right now?"
Wilbur withdrew his finger from the button and folded his arms, looking pleased with himself. "Your date with mom. At the café on Pearl Street. Your first big date," he added with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. Cornelius made a prompting motion with his hand, and Wilbur's smugness faded. "Oh."
"Obviously, this is kind of an important event, if you know about it," Cornelius pointed out with affected innocence. "I mean, I WOULD go now, but that could screw up everything. Maybe, if I miss this date, Franny will go out with, oh, I dunno, Robby."
Cornelius watched with glee as Wilbur's expression grew panicked. "Okay, okay! Just hurry, okay?"
Cornelius's amusement evaporated. Wilbur may appear flighty sometimes, but Cornelius had a strong suspicion his friend was smarter than he let on. After experiencing for himself the effects of a time stream out of whack, it was surprising that Wilbur would tell him to "hurry" through what could possibly be the event that led directly to his birth. That, more than Wilbur's dramatic announcements, made Cornelius really start to worry.
"Um, Wilbur. Is it really that bad?"
Wilbur flashed another one of his cocky grins, but Cornelius could see the tension now. "I dunno, how bad do you think it is?" Wilbur joked. Cornelius was not comforted. "Look, just get through this date with mom, okay? I'll tell you the rest later." Cornelius gave his friend one last worried glance, then, almost regretfully, turned back towards the café where Franny would be waiting. "Oh, wait!" Wilbur called abruptly.
Cornelius turned back in alarm. "Gimme that tie," Wilbur said, fumbling with the knot at Cornelius's neck.
"What?"
"You look like a rube with it on," Wilbur muttered, whipping the offending article away with a flourish.
Cornelius nervously reached for the spot where the tie had hung. "A rube?"
"Yeah, you know..." Wilbur made a motion with his hand, then stopped. "Oh wait, you don't. Never mind. Better without it." Stuffing the tie into his back pocket, Wilbur pushed Cornelius unceremoniously through the bushes that hid them from the street. With a yelp of surprise, the bespectacled teen staggered out onto the sidewalk. Ignoring the curious looks from other pedestrians, he brushed the leaves and twigs from his clothes, then hurried across the street. He heard a pigeon coo behind him.
Hidden by the bushes, Wilbur gnawed on a hangnail. 'Good luck,' he thought. 'And hurry.'
NOTES: Ooh, first Meet The Robinsons fic! I had this idea almost RIGHT after seeing the moive, but I had to work out a few details before I sat down to write it.
A "rube" is a hick, an uneducated rural person, in modern lingo. I assume that in 30 years slang will have evolved and changed so that it means something else to Wilbur. To translate, when Wilbur calls Cornelius a "rube" he's actually saying "dork" or "nerd" or any other term for "socially oblivious loser."
I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE! I never saw Back to the Future. I saw the second one and the third one, but never the first. I didn't really like either of those, too. I just picked the title because well, that's what happens, but it's not meant to be a cross over or anything. Any other similarities are coincidental.
As for timeline, Cornelius and Franny are 15, Wilbur is 16. All the other little details about the intervening three years will be dropped here and there in upcoming chapters. (For the record, Goob is 12 in this, and we'll be seeing him real soon.)
For those of you who read my Kino's and Avatar fics, I'm sorry. There's been a lot of crap going on for me lately, and in the confusion my computer was taken, along with the half-written chapters for both of those fics. Once my computer is back I'll get to work updating both the Kino's fic and the Avatar fic. Lord knows you've been enough patient with me.