A/N: First I just want to say thank you for the great reviews! I started this fic not really expecting too much, and have been pleasantly surprised with the response. :) I apologize that it took a few days to get this chapter up; I am loving where this story is going and I want to update as frequently as I can, but this chapter was one of those that took me a minute to figure out. I promise I'll get more chapters up soon.

Disclaimer: I seriously don't own Meet the Robinsons

Enjoy!

Chapter 5: Blast from the Future

June 2020

Cornelius Robinson was a brilliant man; he had won countless awards for his ingenious inventions, owned his own company, and had even written a few physics and science textbooks for universities. He was by not means stupid, but for the life of him he could not figure out why Franny's pregnancy was bothering him so. He had started staying up deep into the night (a habit he had promised Franny he would quit once they got married), pacing the lab floor until exhaustion would overtake him and he would collapse into his desk chair.

He wasn't upset that Franny was pregnant, after all maybe Wilbur was just one of those things that just happened when they happened. It was a possibility, but Cornelius had a feeling in his gut that something was not right. Wilbur had visited him several times after the science fair ordeal, always the same mischievous thirteen-year-old through and through, even if years had gone by between the years.

Cornelius sighed, rubbing his tired eyes under his glasses, the lamplight softly illuminating his face. He felt guilty; he had left Franny sleeping peacefully even though he sworn he wouldn't start up this awful habit again. But he couldn't help it. Not when something like this unsolvable conundrum hung over his head like a storm cloud.

A hand came down and picked up a pen, the other drawing a piece of scratch paper near and began scribbling unintelligible notes across it. His brow furrowed as the equation he was writing out began making no sense and scratched it out, starting a new one. Just as he was about to crack some unknown code, Cornelius was startled out of his thoughts as a "CLACK" hit the window in the lab.

"What the?" Cornelius mumbled to himself, turning his head to look out the window, not able to make anything out in the darkness outside. He exhaled and turned back to the paper.

"CLACK."

Cornelius' back stiffened.

"CLACK."

Cornelius stood, causing the chair to slide backwards, and threw his pen down. He turned and shuffled to the window, opening a panel just a crack.

"Coo coo."

Cornelius felt his mouth drop. "What are you doing here? In the middle of the night?" he said, glancing at his watch.

The boy chuckled as he pushed the panel open more and jumped through. "That is an excellent question. And it's nice to see you, too, dad," Wilbur smirked. "You know, you look more and more like yourself every time I see you."

Cornelius shook his head and laughed. "I should've known."

"Yeah, you should've," Wilbur agreed, leaning back on the desk Cornelius was just sitting at. Cornelius rolled his eyes and closed the window. "What can I say, I must take after you."

"Oh, really?" Cornelius asked sarcastically. "Gee, I couldn't tell. It is three in the morning, after all."

"Hey, it's the middle of summer vacation. I don't have school tomorrow and, I don't know. I just felt like stopping by."

"Okay, but is there a reason?"

"Is there ever one?"

"Actually, yeah. Usually there is. There was that time with the science fair, the time you forced me to come with you to see Albert Einstein…I could go on all night."

Wilbur half smiled. "Okay, but I didn't hear you complaining when Al explained his theory of relativity in person." Cornelius shot Wilbur a pointed look. "Okay, okay. Point taken. But really, this time I did just feel like stopping by." He looked down at his fingernails as he picked at them, a motion he usually only did when he was worried (which Cornelius would eventually figure out, of course).

After a moment of silence, Cornelius said, "Really? You just wanted to stop by and visit? For absolutely not ulterior motives?"

Wilbur lifted his hand like he was about to say something witty but stopped and instead rubbed the back of his neck. He sighed. "Okay, that's not entirely true."

"Mmhmm."

"You told me to come."

Cornelius stared at Wilbur, his tired eyes now attentive. "I did? Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. You just said it was very important I come and visit you today and to not come back until…um, I actually don't remember. I stopped listening after you told me to take the time machine."

Cornelius huffed, crossing his arms. "Wilbur, if you came to pester me, you've succeeded."

"Hey, I take offense to that."

"I don't have time for this," Cornelius said, yanking the chair back to the desk and going right back to his equations.

Wilbur hesitated to say anything; even in the future his dad was an extremely patient man, only ever getting angry with Wilbur for breaking something or attempting to sneak out (he was a teenager after all). After a moment, he reached out to touch his dad's shoulder, which only made Cornelius jerk and scoot his chair away. "Dad?"

"What?!" Cornelius snapped.

Wilbur took a frightened step away. "Whoa, I didn't mean to upset you-"

"Well, right now you're in my way," he said, standing up and guiding Wilbur back to the window.

"What did I do?" Wilbur argued.

Cornelius stopped at the window panel, shoulders tense. He looked at Wilbur, eyes wide and afraid-of him, no less-and balled his hands into fists. Wilbur was there, the exact same thirteen-year-old boy from the year 2037. He reached up and grabbed his hair, all the while cursing to himself about "Why can't I figure this out?" and "I'm going mad."

Wilbur could do nothing but stare up at his father, terrified for the sanity of the man in front of him. It took everything in him not to jump out the window and back into the time machine, but he knew for his father's sake he couldn't leave him like this. Squaring his shoulders, Wilbur reached out both arms and grabbed Cornelius' wrists. "Dad!" he said, effectively forcing the man back into reality and out of his breakdown. "What's wrong?"

Cornelius met Wilbur's gaze for a moment, eyes beginning to water, then looked at the floor. He gently pulled his hands out of Wilbur's grasp and turned his back to him. He took a deep breath and said, "I'll be right back. You can stay. For a little bit," then walked out.

Wilbur reclined in the desk chair, his feet propped up on the desk chair and his hands behind his head. He started whistling to himself, looking around the room; everything was so…unfinished. He glimpsed a few black tubes connected to the ceiling in the far corner, what he could only presume was a prototype of the travel tubes. Close to that sat a rather large, rough looking ray of some sort. Wilbur squinted at it, trying to figure out what it was, but eventually gave up when he heard footsteps outside the door.

He was a smart kid; he had hung out with his old man enough times to know that sometimes he just needed to walk away from the situation to properly analyze and comprehend. He had witnessed his young father have meltdowns many times, but it had never gotten this bad; Wilbur had never seen his Cornelius flustered and frustrated to the point of ripping his own hair out. But there, a few feet away by the window, lay a small clump of blond hair. Wilbur shook his head and looked toward the entrance to the lab when he heard the door click.

Cornelius calmly made his way up the stairs, a coffee cup in each hand. When he reached the desk, he sat a cup down in front of Wilbur. "Thirsty?" he grunted.

Wilbur looked up at Cornelius, confusion written all over his young complexion. "You're giving me coffee?"

"Should I not be?" his dad asked, turning and sitting on the couch that had recently been brought in-for those nights when Cornelius would work until he could barely move and ended up crashing on it, which seemed to be happening a lot lately.

Deciding against explaining to his now adult father how people don't usually give a kid his age coffee, especially in the middle of the night, Wilbur tentatively reached his hand out. A smile threatened to break out on his face. "That is an excellent question," he said, grabbing the cup and bringing it to his lips. He sniffed it first, making sure it was to his liking, and took a sip. "Mm. This is good. Thanks, dad."

"Mhm," Cornelius mumbled, taking a sip himself.

Wilbur bit his bottom lip, setting the cup back down. He twisted the chair around to face his father. "Dad?"

Cornelius sighed. "Wilbur, this is going to sound very strange and somewhat random, but…I don't know how to ask this," he said, rubbing the side of his face.

Wilbur cocked his head. "What?"

Cornelius exhaled, biting the inside of his lip. "Never mind."

"Okay?" Wilbur asked, gulping down the beverage.

Feeling frustration coming on again, Cornelius balled his free hand into a fist, then released it. He dropped his head into his hand for a moment, collecting his thoughts, then looked up at the young man in front of him. "You look so much like Franny," he muttered.

Wilbur chuckled. "I came all the way back here for you to tell me I look like my mom?"

The smile that was forming on Cornelius' face suddenly dropped, a question coming to the forefront of his mind. "Wilbur, why don't you have any siblings?"

Wilbur opened his mouth, then closed it, not knowing how to answer. He lifted his hand again as if to say something witty, but thought better of it, seeing how pitiful his father looked right now. Instead he rubbed the back of his neck, bringing his feet to the floor. "To tell you the truth, I honestly don't know. You and mom never really talk about having more kids and I," he cut himself off. Cornelius lifted an eyebrow. "I never really asked."

"Oh," Cornelius said, his heart falling in disappointment. He guessed he had been hoping Wilbur would be able to solve the problem eating away at him.

"I mean, I think I asked for a little brother when I was like, four, but I don't really remember much after." He shrugged. "I gave up asking after that."

Cornelius set his coffee cup down on the ground next to his feet, then intertwined his hands, bringing them up to his mouth. "Oh," he said again.

"Yeeeah," Wilbur said, stretching as he stood up. "Well, this has been a stimulating conversation, but you told me to only stay to give you a message."

"Wait, you're leaving? Already?" Cornelius said, feeling panic rising in his chest. What if this was it? What if this was the last time he would ever see Wilbur like this? Was he overreacting? Why couldn't he figure out the damn space time continuum?!

"Whoa, calm down," Wilbur said, seeing the fear on etched on his dad's face. He walked over to Cornelius, placing a hand on each shoulder. Cornelius stood, realizing for the first time since Wilbur arrived just how small the young boy was. Sadness replaced fear as Cornelius gently wrapped his arms around Wilbur, who immediately froze. "Dad? Is everything okay?"

"Wilbur," Cornelius said quietly, one last question nagging him to be answered. "How old are you?"

Instead of trying to get away, Wilbur slowly wrapped his arms around Cornelius' waist, partly because he was afraid that if he left his father would literally shatter into a thousand pieces, and partly because he genuinely missed his father's love and attention. Older Cornelius was so busy in the future with work, work, and more work that he hardly seemed to have time for his own son anymore. Wilbur sighed. "Still thirteen," he said into his dad's sweater vest. He smiled slightly; after all these years, he still hadn't outgrown the fashion faux pas.

Wilbur felt Cornelius stiffen, his grip subconsciously tightening around him. "I thought so. And…what year are you going back to?"

"2037. Like I always do."

"Oh." For a man with incomparable intelligence, Cornelius was not very eloquent now. "And…you said you had a message for me?"

Wilbur let his arms drop and took a step back, Cornelius' hands still on his upper arms. "Yeah. You told me to tell you 'It'll all make sense soon.'" He shrugged. "Whatever that means."

Cornelius frowned. "You came all the way back here to tell me that?"

"Yeah. Kinda cryptic, but that's what you told me to say."

The older man yanked his hands away from the boy's arms, taking a step back to look at him. His eyes, Wilbur noted, were sunken in with the beginnings of deep purple bags underneath. Cornelius groaned and started rubbing his face again. "Great. Apparently, this bugs me all the way into the year 2037," he said, slowly sinking back into the couch. He sighed and dropped his hands. "Well, I suppose you should be going now, considering you've done what you came here for." He didn't truly want Wilbur to leave, but right now he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. His infuriating thoughts.

Wilbur nodded and yawned. "Yeah. It's getting pretty late." He turned and started toward the window, then paused to look back over his shoulder at Cornelius. "Hey, dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll see you around." He shot Cornelius a quick smile before he hopped out the window.

Cornelius lifted the corner of his mouth halfheartedly at Wilbur, then stood and walked over to the desk. He grabbed a scratch sheet of paper and scribbled down the date, then stuffed it in the desk drawer before going back to the couch and drifting into dreamless sleep.