Disclaimer: I do not own Meet The Robinsons, that's property of Disney.
AN: Lol. Helloooo! *Possible echo since everybody's left. I'm back. Yup, yup. I NEVER abandon a piece : DDD I just sometimes take an eternity to complete it. Think of me like Odysseus...I'm always trying to get back home but GAH! Life.
So, we made it through the pandemic, folks! Granted, everything else in the world is still kinda : / hrmmm…but!
Thank you so much for your supportive reviews. I've been reading and re-reading them and translating some and going..."Yeah, yeah, I definitely need to work on this one for all of you and TA DA!" Here's another chapter. I hope you enjoy! :D Guess we'll see who comes back. X_X
Chapter 7
Cornelius slammed the front door behind him and stormed to the kitchen. After Gaston's graduation took a turn for the worse, he did his best to be a supportive bystander.
Cornelius stood awkwardly to the side as Franny and her mother took the task of haphazardly passing cake out to their shocked guests.
When he volunteered to help them a few ladies giggled, so apparently that was a faux pas there.
Thwarted for the moment, he sat down on a bench beside a pregnant woman who introduced herself as Marcella. They chatted about weather until a toddler arrived that wanted up onto her lap at which point she started making baby-kiddie talk with her. Then another toddler appeared and she abruptly handed the first toddler off to Cornelius so she could entertain the second one.
Which was all shades of awkward because...Cornelius didn't really...interact with kids.
And that sent a jolt of worry through him—he wasn't going to be a hands-off, satellite parent to his future son? Was he?
Determined to avoid that bad-future scenario, he gave it a shot and tried talking to the little girl, but...the kid just stared...and drooled.
Until another woman nearby told him, rather coldly, that the words he was using were far too complicated.
He'd lingered long enough to be put to work in helping to clean things up, which wouldn't have been so bad except Franny was embarrassed to see him recruited for trash duty and told him to "...just...just leave...please...I-I'm sorry this whole...I'm sorry."
And she'd sped away before he could tell her that he didn't care about any of this. He just...wanted to be...around...her…and help.
When he'd started to follow, Art blocked his way and pointed for him to go.
Trying to salvage his afternoon or at least distract himself by doing something productive, he stopped by InventCo.'s labs to work on a pet research project of his.
Then he got stuck in traffic because there was some sort of accident and his parents were out of town, so there'd be no one at home to console him over the disaster of human social interactions and-Gah!
He angrily set out the ingredients for a smoothie. He had to take the edge off then he could work on an essay about particulate matter and biological impacts from pollution that was due next week.
Cornelius turned the blender on.
C4RL lightly rapped his metal hand on the far wall as a means of knocking.
Neil straightened up and turned the blender off. He gave a weary, "Hey C4RL."
"Sooo, we have a little situation." The bot wrung his hands fretfully. "Looks like you did a number on that blue button up."
Cornelius glanced down.
Yeah, he'd spilled staining fluid while preparing microscope slides for a viewing. He'd been worrying about Franny. She hadn't left him any messages following the graduation party.
"The DVD/VCR unit is malfunctioning, several bills came in the mail, I made the grocery store clerks very uncomfortable. Oh, and we have an intruder."
Cornelius choked. "What?!"
He hastily grabbed a stainless steel mixing bowl as a makeshift weapon.
"Hi Lewis!" Wilbur greeted as he walked between bot and human to help himself to the fridge. He grabbed a soda and popped the tab. He looked at the bowl Neil was holding curiously. "You...baking?"
Neil almost dropped it as he shoved it back onto the counter. "H-hey there, Wilbur."
He definitely needed to tweak his robot's processors on how he prioritized things.
"This is...Wilbur, C4RL. He's…"
They both turned to him expectantly.
Did he dare explain Wilbur's origins? Could a bot take on concepts of time travel without its wires short-circuiting?
He erred on the side of caution.
"...My friend."
Wilbur frowned. "You hesitated."
"No!"
The robot's eye receptors slitted for a moment as they examined him before seconding, "You did hesitate." He turned to Wilbur. "Ouch, that was rough to witness. I'm sorry, little buddy."
"I know, right? It was kinda hurtful."
Cornelius's jaw dropped a bit as he watched them establish the rapport he'd witnessed in his trip to the future.
As well as the realization that he...had very little to do with it besides...well being technically the creator of...them…
Mechanically and biologically speaking…
Wowee, that was a weird commonality.
Wilbur took a gulp of his drink and then said, "We were playing Candyland in your room. Carl's stuck with you in the Friendzone."
Neil felt his face heat up in mortification. Could the day get worse? Your future son stumbling across your plan for wooing your future wife and his mother? Which...sort of...ensured his...being?
Awkward. Awkward. Awkward.
And then there was the fact that something was terribly off in Carl's programming.
Neil decided to address that first. "C4RL? You...thought he was an intruder and you didn't...call anyone or do anything besides...play boardgames with him?"
"Well," the robot paused. "He didn't really seem like a threat. Yes, he did come through a window, but he took his shoes off. Aaaaand he did the dishes."
Cornelius glanced at the sink which was...empty now. "Uh, thanks."
"You're welcome." Wilbur beamed. "Though…ya know, I was kinda wondering…cuz he had tons of chores before we could play…" Wilbur chewed at his lip.
Cornelius blinked. Franny did that, too.
Wilbur then ran a hand through his hair.
Neil did that. He barely fought a smile off as he asked kindly, "What is it, Wilbur?"
"I mean, yeah, Carl likes to cook and he doesn't mind laundry-"
"I DO like to cook, I'm still learning though. Sometimes I lose connection to the wifi and the recipe...suffers but-"
"He's not a servant, dude!" Wilbur scolded.
Cornelius blinked.
Right.
To Wilbur he was…family, friend, and…nannybot?
"I'll...try to make the workload more manageable," he promised and then raised an eyebrow at He C4RL. "I wish you would've just told me if you had complaints."
The robot's expression cringed. "Please don't put me in the middle."
"Assert your robot rights!" Wilbur interjected.
They both stared at him.
"What!? Robots have rights, too."
Well, that put things in a new perspective.
"I'm sorry C4-"
"Carl," Wilbur stressed it as a name.
"Carl," Cornelius confirmed. "...So you two...played...Candyland."
"Yeah, I write notes like that, too," Wilbur confided.
"Y-you do?"
Wilbur was already dating!? Yeah, he was technically just a year younger than Franny, but girls and boys matured at different rates for the most part. And guys usually matured at a slower rate and…well… Wilbur just...Wilbur seemed like such a young thirteen.
And now that Cornelius was older...it made him seem even younger.
"Yup. Whenever I have to give a big presentation, I try to write down all that stuff and tape it to the back of the poster board. Keep eye contact. Smile. Speak coherently. Cuz it's hard when you're standing in front of the class and…"
Wilbur broke off in remembrance.
Cue a thousand yard stare.
Wilbur sighed twice in dejection at an adjacent wall.
Neil immediately felt a rush of concern and murmured reassuringly, "It's the number one fear of the public."
Wilbur's head tilted in confusion.
"Public speaking," Neil followed up.
"Huh? Nah, I'm not afraid of speaking in front of other kids. It's the stupid teacher...always marking me down." Wilbur frowned. "They always find something to nitpick me on."
Neil's eyebrows furrowed; if a teacher was going out of their way to give Wilbur a hard time, he was sure his future self would want to know.
He set a hand on Wilbur's shoulder. He'd meant it as a 'I-feel-you' consoling gesture, but...he realized the moment he did it this time, that it changed their dynamic. Wilbur's shoulder felt small under his hand.
Thirteen...
It made him feel even more protective of Wilbur than he usually did.
He gave the thin shoulder a squeeze, and tried to work some authority into his voice, "If you're having trouble with a teacher, you should...you should tell your…dad and report it."
Wilbur nodded vacantly without making eye contact.
"Here, I...I know you've got a soda there, but I'm making smoothies, if you want one-"
"You didn't use the milk, did you?" Carl was peering into the blender.
"Well, yeah-"
"It's expired. I was going to tell you, I've compiled a list-" A receipt buzzed out from the printer in his mouth. "-of groceries that need to be purchased. Meant to give it to you this morning. Tried to go myself. Uncomfortable store workers. I left without purchasing. Sorry."
Cornelius sighed.
Wilbur offered him a sip from his can.
Which was...ew.
He waved it away. "I'll grab my own."
Wilbur stared at him a bit perplexed and then at the can, like he didn't know what was wrong with it.
In the weeks following Gaston's vanishing act, Franny found herself being worked to the bone.
Being put to work in her own house and then loaned out to other relatives' houses while they all organized efforts throughout the community to track her brother down.
"They're helping us, Francesca. We help them back. We all have to do our part."
Except HER part was menial, physical, domestic-styled labor.
When she pointed out that Art wasn't being called on to do these things, they argued that he had a job!
When she debated back that school was her job and this was impacting her studies, they dismissed her with a "you're smart, you'll do well enough. You always do."
What hurt the most was when she didn't let it go, her mother grew exasperated.
"Franny, you focus too much on the school and the science-y classes. These things that you're helping the family with? Household things? They will help you more. Husbands don't care about grades. It's nice that you want good ones and it'll help when your bambinos need direction with homework. But what husbands really want is a clean, well-run house and good cooking."
It made her blood run cold.
College…
Which was something they'd always stressed the importance of to her brothers…
Wasn't even on the table for her.
After long days, she spent late nights on her computer messaging Cornelius because he never seemed to doubt she was smart enough…important enough for higher education.
And when she started to hint that she didn't know how she'd make it happen for herself…
He…freaked out.
It made her giggle even as her eyes blurred at the pain of it. Her screen was soon filled with walls of scholarship links punctuated with questions about whether or not she wanted to take the high school exit exams early or do some AP studies.
What did she want?
Sometimes it felt like Neil was the only one who cared on that front.
The worst part was, her suspicions that her parents were trying to sabotage her and Neil before they could even BE anything were confirmed when she overheard them in their room.
"We don't know him, Alfonso. The family doesn't know him. You saw them together. He lets her have weird ideas. And he's so…He's a Medigan."
It made her so angry, she almost stormed out of the house except Art was entering the kitchen door.
And when he looked at her and asked with complete seriousness what was wrong and where was she going?
Rather than hissing the long list swirling through her brain, she burst into tears.
It was stupid and nonsensical and a lot like cheesy dialogue from low-budget chick-flicks, but she stuttered out:
That the one boy that really liked her for who she was and who she liked back…she wasn't allowed to be with.
And how Mama and Papa wanted to ruin her life by deciding it for her.
And how NOBODY wanted her to be happy.
"That's not true, Franny," Art said at last. "I want you to be happy."
And he gave her a cool-down hug that smelled like garlic bread and calzones and that helped convince her to not run off herself, yet.
Though how she was supposed to deal with all of this until she was eighteen…
Then, on her birthday, the one day that was supposed to be hers…a moment of respite in the eye of the storm in all of this familial drama…
Dad had to pull an emergency double shift at a construction site, Mama was down at the station to see if there'd been any updates about Gaston, and Art had been called in because most of the restaurant's crew had come down with bronchitis.
She was alone.
No cake. Two unwrapped presents she didn't like and a generic birthday card the whole family had signed whose manufactured description of a beloved, girly daughter didn't fit her at all.
Art offered her a free pizza during his shift as compensation and a roll of quarters for the arcade...which as the day stretched on seemed more and more appealing.
Though unfortunately, Lizzie was grounded for allowing a severe ant invasion in her house by removing poison traps from strategic spots.
Franny flopped onto her bed with the house's only cordless phone (taken from her parents' room).
"Cornelius is trying to help us track Gaston down, he contacted several cities nearby. Says he's developing more state-of-the-art face recognizing software for cameras. Isn't that sweet? Ya know I'm...I'm thinking...of calling him up and seeing if he wants to-to do something tonight. Get…pizza?"
Lizzie gave a deadpan, "Hooray, you're learning to assert yourself. Use your newfound agency."
"Thanks, Lizzie."
"Happy Birthday, Franny. You've survived to this point. It's a feat. Go celebrate."
Cornelius surreptitiously wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and tried not to fidget in the pizza parlor's booth. The cushion squeaked with every movement, so he tried to minimize it.
Franny looked beautiful in a plaid skater skirt and black tank top.
It wasn't how he planned their first date to unfold, but…he wasn't complaining.
No way. Not when she'd called it a "date" from the get-go.
She was welcome to initiate some…romance herself.
It actually felt really good! It was proof that this wasn't all one-sided—that she "liked him, liked him" back. And he definitely wasn't in the friend-zone anymore! Huzzah!
Cornelius usually prided himself on not being superstitious, but it was hard not to take Wilbur's visit a few weeks back as a good omen.
Maybe his…their? Future was getting on track?
"One pepperoni pizza for the birthday girl!" Art announced as he set the food down. "And it's on the house."
Fran smiled.
Neil's jaw dropped. "It's your birthday?!"
How did he not factor that into his calculations?!
"Yeah." She fingered a dangly earring she was wearing. "Sooo...I'm really glad you...could make it."
"Of course, if I'd known I could have-could have-"
Made the day as special as she deserved it to be.
"Taken me out somewhere fancy schmancy?" Franny laughed lightly as she pulled an extremely cheesy slice. "No way, not when Art promised me a free pizza. Besides, look at his face right now."
There at the counter, brown eyes were watching Neil unblinkingly. Yeah, he looked...less than enthused about who was sharing Franny's pizza with her.
Yet, he also seemed oddly determined not to intervene.
On realizing they were both staring right back at him, Art tried to preoccupy himself with vigorous activity—kneading and tossing dough with an unmatchable intensity.
The meal was great.
They chewed cheesy goodness and drank down slightly over carbonated soda together.
The conversation was even better.
She had ideas about harmonic vibrations and how they stimulated the brain.
"People can communicate. Dolphins. Whales. Most organisms can. Visual cues, auditory sounds, chemical reactions, pheromones-"
He felt his ears go warm at that one.
"It's a code that just needs to be cracked. Once it's interpreted and repackaged, we'll be able to understand all kinds of creatures in every level of the taxonomic hierarchy."
It sounded so exciting coming from her and he felt his own enthusiasm spike.
"Sorry, I keep talking about stuff like this. I probably sound like a broken record. If you want to change the subject, I totally get it."
He stared.
"What do you mean? You're finally really talking about your passion. We just get kept skimming the niceties of biology and music before now. Why wouldn't I find this cool? We suspect that musical vibrations impact plant growth."
She nodded.
"We're also establishing musical therapy for a variety of medical conditions," he offered. "So the applications are numerous!"
"Yes! Music can stimulate the nucleus accumbens in human brains. It can then lower cortisol production. Did you know that in pain management, it can even persuade the brain to reinterpret pain signals. Isn't that fascinating?"
"Yes. It is."
Then, they started chatting over gray matter. No flinching of "eww gross, Neil, I'm eating" or "let's take a break from the textbook talk, shall we?"
Just unabashed interest as they swapped data they'd learned from documentaries or peer-reviewed articles and books.
She leaned in. He leaned in.
The edges of their hands were touching.
His heart fluttered.
It was so…
He could hardly describe it.
Having someone he could really talk to, who understood him…who wasn't ancient.
And…
From some of the comments she was making…
It was the same for her.
Only, she kept apologizing for being smart and amazing and wonderful.
Like she was used to having to hide her intellect—having to put her head down instead of speaking up.
And that just…hurt him and roused his protective feelings like crazy.
Who on Earth would put her down?
Why wouldn't everyone who knew her want her scientific ventures to succeed?
She was going to make the world a better place!
The…the same way he'd always wanted to…
This…
This was why they got married. Wasn't it?
That sent all sorts of heady, swoosh-y feelings through him.
That they really would be happy together because they were on the same wavelength.
"I have a lot of notes and studies on the brain and contacts," he mentioned.
Filing cabinet amounts that kept growing as new information came to light.
Franny laughed. "I bet! Your memory scanner had to interpret all kinds of neat data. I can only imagine how tricky it was isolating specifically for signals mainly dealing with the hippocampus—"
"Would you..would you like them as supplementary notes for your research?"
"O Neil, could I!?"
Her whole face lit up.
He set his hand over hers and it fit in his so perfectly. "Of course!"
He'd probably give her anything she wanted.
He loved her.
"Button mash harder, Neil!"
They both burst into laughter as the game advanced to higher and more chaotic levels.
Shoulders and hips bumping as they tried to assist each other on the one-user-intended arcade machine.
The way her eyes shone as she talked to him now.
They'd had a meeting of the minds.
It kept bouncing triumphantly through his skull.
And their minds were compatible!
He'd always been a little afraid that his predisposition towards science talk would bore her.
Wilbur called it Nerd-speak.
Which always discouraged him from talking too deeply about a subject with him.
Though, if Neil thought hard enough over their interactions and his time in the future (where Wilbur had known the exact tools Lewis had needed to fix the time machines and had understood how to arrange the schematics) it seemed a little fishy.
Perhaps Wilbur, by pure virtue of being stuck under the same roof as his dad, was more fluent than he ever wanted to be in Nerd-speak?
It was one thing to understand concepts, another thing entirely to enjoy them.
And again, he told himself that Wilbur could be whatever he wanted to be as a grownup.
He looked over at Franny whose hair gleamed under the clashing neon lights.
Franny would champion that.
He would support it, too.
It was weird, though not unpleasant, to think about that stuff.
It was natural to want to be a good Dad someday, right?
It stemmed from first wanting to be a good person.
If he wanted people to understand and respect his life's goals then he needed to reciprocate; he needed to want that for his…future son!
His future wife!
His…
She turned towards him and struggled to be heard over the gaming noises.
His current…almost…girlfriend?
"Hey Fran!" Art boomed out as he edged closer. "Can you take a call right now?"
Neil's heart sank. It was a conspiracy, wasn't it? Her family was actively trying to foil his romantic schemes.
"Huh? Oh, sure. I swear, if it's Mama. I left her a note."
"It's not Mama," her brother assured.
The game they'd been playing made a sound of defeat as their avatar was defeated.
Cornelius waited on a nearby bench with a little trepidation, distractedly watching a kid fight with a ticket dispenser that wanted to eat half of his last ticket stub.
Before he could move to help, Franny reappeared, her eyes teary.
"Franny?" He asked in alarm.
She shook her head, blinked hard, and gave him a wobbly smile.
"He…he called here to tell me...Happy Birthday. I think, he meant to just relay it to Art and than Art told him I was here."
Gaston!
"Oh!" He tried to feel positive about it. Really. He tried. He gestured to a nearby exit door. "You...you wanna take a walk? Get some air."
She swallowed. "Yeah."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, where you heading?" Art crossed to block their route.
"Art!" She hissed. "Stop embarrassing me!"
"Franny! The sun's down and it's getting late."
"It's the weekend!"
Cornelius blinked; he had nothing to hide. "I want us to look at some of the shops along the street and then I plan to treat her to some ice cream."
They both stared at him.
"That is my plan," he stated outright.
Art seemed relieved. "That's...it? Uh...well...okay. But, uh, don't you…you know, not follow-"
"Deviate?"
"Yeah. And come back here when you're done."
"Understood."
Franny pushed Art's arm down from where it was melodramatically barring them from using the crash-barred door.
She gave an 'after you' gesture to Cornelius and closed the door firmly behind them. She gave Art a hard stare through the glass and then they were on their way.
They talked as they wound their way through boutiques. They came close a few times but never quite landed on the topic of abandonment. It was too…central and raw and intense for a first date.
It was tearing her current world apart. His had been permanently reshaped in the aftermath of it. He couldn't really talk about his life without acknowledging it.
He'd been…abandoned at the start of his life.
She'd been abandoned now. Granted, there was a difference between parents and siblings, but it was interesting, in a painful sort of way, to observe similar trauma.
Except, he didn't know how to discuss it.
Didn't know how he'd feel if a relative called him up out of the blue after running off.
The circumstances were different.
The distress still seemed familiar.
She was handling it with composure though. That seemed familiar, too.
And even as he knew that lined up their experiences and would ultimately grant them more insight and empathy towards each other…he wished he could take it away for her.
When he'd offered to take her home or wherever she wanted to be, or that he could tell Art, or that they could reschedule if she needed alone time—she was quick to tell him that, no, she'd rather be with him.
So, he offered her his arm and she linked hers through it and they toured around.
It took about an hour for the mood to lift and improve. Franny was resilient that way.
It was getting easier to see who Wilbur had inherited that from.
"Lewis" could sulk for weeks. Neil liked to think he'd improved and it was just a matter of days or hours now.
"Look at that," Franny breathed as she admired a scarf.
Her one arm was still linked with his and sometimes she'd use her free hand to touch his bicep when she wanted his attention or for him to pause.
He liked it. A lot.
He turned to better see the item that had caught her attention.
Even though there was still some time before autumn accessories would be needed, it seemed a practical purchase.
Running the fingers of her free hand along the emerald fabric, she murmured, "Mama never lets me wear what I want."
He made a mental note to return for it; it would make for a good gift.
Too soon, they were in line at Cherry On Top Ice Cream Parlor.
"Just vanilla?" The attendant echoed back in disbelief.
Cornelius's eyebrow twitched. "I like vanilla."
Franny shook her head and stifled a giggle before gazing down at all the different flavors. "Ooooh."
Her ability to find excitement even in little things like this just...it made his insides expand like a balloon with helium...and he felt light and….happy.
He paid, despite her insistence that she had some money.
"It's your birthday, so it's my treat!"
When she left to grab more napkins for them, a man who was wiping down the counter as Cornelius walked by gave a, "Psst."
He looked over.
"Run, kid. You'll never make it with her. She's outta your league."
He ate methodically down to the cone and ground it between his teeth before grabbing a napkin from the small mountain of them Franny had grabbed for them.
"What's wrong, Neil?"
He shrugged a tense shoulder. "Nothing."
"Neil? Come on. I'm all ears. I've been telling you all my drama for weeks, even the scales between us. Please."
"Just something he...said...it doesn't..."
Franny waited.
He fidgeted, looked all around, and then blurted out, "You...do you like h-hanging out? Together? With me?"
She blushed. "I-I think you already know the answer to that."
Ah! Deflection!
He hoped he did, or he was about to make a fool of himself in a very grand and public way.
It was probably too soon to spring this but…
The way they'd talked with each other earlier…
"I know but...I mean, like...no, er not just...I tried to tell you a while back that I…"
She nodded.
There came a great risk of ruining everything by pushing ahead so hard like this but, "I really, really like you, Franny."
Something dimmed in her eyes.
Oh no. Too soon. He sucked in a breath.
"But?" She murmured softly.
"Huh? But what?"
"You like me, but…I'm too...what?"
Probably too good for me, he thought despairingly.
"I'm too young? I'm way behind scholastically-"
"I didn't say 'but.'"
"Then, what are you saying?"
"W-well."
She balled up her napkin. "Just say what you have to say, I'm not a sissy. I can take it."
"I'mtryingtoaskyouout." He sucked in another breath and blurted out, "Doyawannagosteadywithme?"
Why did he phrase it like that?! Like some 1950's cliché dialogue at warp speed!
Franny stared.
Yeah, none of that was coherent or, at least, that was what he thought until she kissed him.
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