Archive of Our Own ^beta

For the time being, the Robinsons consisted of three filled spots at the dinner table. Given Bud and Lucille’s new home was a former observatory it gave them a lot of space. Maybe too much space. The table was leftover from possibly lunch breaks or parties for scientists or school field trips, so it was long. Each night all three sat at the end of it to look at each other while talking, but it still left a lot of empty space at the rest of the table.

While it was proven by this point that Lewis “Cornelius” Robinson was a genius, he still kept his habit of missing obvious facts around him. He was a Robinson now, and so logically speaking he should at some point officially have to “meet” the Robinsons for the first time. But when he did, they turned out to be different Robinsons from the ones he had spent a small amount of time with. This should have made perfect sense, seeing as there was a thirty year difference between the then and the now. And yet it was still something he had to wrap his brain around.

It’s still strange getting used to calling Bud and Lucille “Mom” and “Dad”, or any of the variations thereof. In the first year of the adoption they seem to be okay with him calling them by their first names after stumbling with his words. “Cornelius” isn’t Lewis’s legal name yet. For now it’s technically speaking a nickname. When he informed his teachers, they framed going through a name change as going through a new phase in life. His classmates responded with the usual apathy, but still went along with calling him the name he asked to be called. So Cornelius practiced writing his name again and again and again, right along with the blueprints with the projects that would soon come to be. 

Of course, the people who had the least amount of trouble with his new name were the ones getting to know this new self he was creating. 

“Hey Cornelius!” Franny called out while passing him in the crowded hallway, “Don’t forget our after-school plans!”

Cornelius wasn’t aware of any after-school plans, but waved back anyway. 

Franny Framagucci wasn’t in any of his classes. She was one year behind him. That didn’t stop her from chatting him up whenever she had the chance. Cornelius didn’t mind, he was beginning to enjoy listening to her, but he was worried about the future. He didn’t want to treat this new friendship like some boardgame he had to strategize to get to the goal he wanted. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Before deciding if he liked her, he at the very least wanted to know her first. 

When after-school arrived, Cornelius was grabbed by the arm by Franny practically the moment he stepped out of the classroom. She dragged him down to the science lab. When she released his arm to throw the door open, he saw that there was a ukulele and maracas lying next to the eye-washers. While Franny began talking to the frogs in the tank in the back of the room, Cornelius took out his phone to call Lucille to let her know he didn’t need a ride. He had to remind himself to call Lucille and not Mildred. 

When he returned to Franny, she now had the ukulele in her hands and was strumming it. Cornelius sat down and shook the maracas at random, hoping to land on any sort of beat.   Maybe by then he would find the words to talk to her. It was even more awkward when Franny was staring at the reactions from the frogs rather than looking at or talking to him. 

Frankie and the other frogs were not responding to the music. Cornelius doubted this was the exact Frankie he would meet in the future, but he didn’t want to dwell long the possibility that his future self prolonged the life of a frog just yet. He had enough on his mind. 

Once he had the maracas in his hands for a good while he noticed the school’s name on it. Perhaps all of Franny’s instruments were ones she was borrowing. Even the frogs belonged to the school. 

“My parents are musicians.” Franny finally said, “They want me to like music too. But they’re always trying to ‘make it’. It’s something they worry about a lot, cause there are so many other good musicians that they have to stand out.” Franny continued to look at the motionless frogs. “But if I do something different, something that no one has ever done before, then ‘standing out’ is something I don’t have to worry about.”

“Like teaching frogs music?” Cornelius asked. 

Franny looked at Cornelius, grinning. 

“Exactly,” she said, “Or maybe, y’know, inventing something that doesn’t exist.”

Ever since he won the science fair and officially patented his Memory Scanner, he was now “ahead” and “gifted” compared to the other students. At least, according to the adults. Until he accidentally harmed Goob, he was so focused on succeeding he never noticed the possibility of affecting others. 

“Well, there are already inventors in the world,” Cornelius said, “Not as many as there used to be, but they’re still there.” He shrugged, “If you become the world’s first frog musician, you’ll be better than an inventor. You’ll be an innovator.”

Franny’s grin grew into a smile as she looked away from Cornelius. As she did, he could have sworn she was blushing. He didn’t know how to feel about that. He hoped every moment like this wasn’t going to be some push forward or away from the time stream. He hoped they would just be moments on their own.

Once the after-school clubs had ended and they had to leave school, Franny and Cornelius packed up their things. 

“My big brother can give you a ride, if you need one.” Franny said. That made Cornelius stop in his tracks. He considered telling her no, but instead he found himself mere minutes later in front of the school, and once again calling his mother to inform her he was getting a ride. He supposed he had to meet them sooner or later. 

A Pizza Planet truck pulled up and stopped right in front of where Franny was standing. The driver looked like a high schooler and was wearing a cap that matched the truck. Even before the window was rolled down Cornelius could tell his hair was styled beneath the cap.

“This better be quick, Franny,” the driver said, “I’m still on shift, so your friend’s house better be clo- Oh, hi there!” 

The driver’s face suddenly lit up as he waved at Cornelius. Cornelius gave a weak smile and slight wave back. Franny rolled her eyes. 

“Please don’t intimidate my new friend.” Franny said.

She opened the door, and there was another kid in the backseat of the truck. By way of logic, Cornelius could deduce that it was Franny’s other brother, Gaston. But he also recognized him as someone he somewhat knew before his time travel adventure. He knew him as the kid who was covered in band-aids. Gaston was older than him, but he was in the same grade as Cornelius due to being held back. Cornelius knew that didn’t stop him from being behind the year-end pranks at the high school. He knew him as his nickname Fritz and wasn’t even aware that wasn’t his actual first name.

“Oooooooooh,” said Gaston, “Is this the boooooooy you were talking about?”

Franny dug a pencil case out of her backpack and threw it at her brother. 

“Ignore him.” Franny said, entering the car. Despite the fact Gaston was rubbing his arm from his sister’s direct hit, Franny still sat right next to him. Cornelius climbed in and sat beside Franny. Once he closed the door, he realized how snug he was to the siblings given the lack of room. Even his feet had nowhere to sit but on top of an empty pizza box. 

“Art, Franny hit me!” Gaston yelled.

“How many times do I have to tell you two to not hit each other in the back of the car?!” Art called. 

“It wasn’t with my hand this time!” Franny said.

Art pressed his forehead on the steering wheel. Cornelius wondered if their parents were too busy to pick them up, and how many times Art had to do favors like this for his younger siblings. 

“So Lewis,” Art said, picking his head up and pulling the car away from the school, “That was pretty cool, winning that science fair.”

“Yeah, it was. And it’s Cornelius now, but the way. Cornelius Robinson.”

“He went through a name chance cause he got adopted.” said Franny. 

“But yeah, I got a patent and everything,” Cornelius continued, “But all things considered, it’s not that big of a deal.” 

Cornelius could tell that Art was trying to show he was paying attention by looking through the rearview mirror. At the same time, he could feel Gaston eying him over his sister’s shoulder. Especially since the only thing getting in the way of Cornelius and Franny’s arms touching was a seatbelt (something Gaston seemed to refuse to wear). Cornelius felt a similar feeling to the ones he would get during his interviews with families judging him. 

“His invention was so cool!” Franny said, “He made something that could see memories! And he saw his new mom’s wedding, it was so romantic!” 

“Wasn’t that the science fair you were trying to win?” Gaston asked, “Y’know, for your frogs?”

Franny tensed up. Then she elbowed her brother.

“Winning isn’t the most important thing!” Franny yelled.

“Art, Franny hit me again!”

“Franny!”

“It wasn’t with my hand this time either!”

After that, when Art dropped Cornelius off at his house, Art leaned out the window and motioned to say something to Cornelius. 

“I swear, we’re not always like this…” Art said.

Once Cornelius ran up his front lawn, he waved to Bud, who was playing with their new dog, and rushed up to his room. His favorite part of the day was now coming home. His second-favorite was being in his room and working on projects. Being twelve-and-a-half, he required experience before becoming an official inventor. For now he was Lucille’s “little helper” with her own inventions. They made a good team, since they both had a bad habit of throwing themselves too hard into projects, they tethered each other. 

He sat himself at his desk, when his cell phone buzzed. It was a text from a blocked number. 

W: I may be very very grounded to the point where it may legally be considered house arrest

Cornelius rolled his eyes.

C: im gessing this is wilbur

W: Why are you texting like a grandpa?

C: how r u texting so fast

W: Holy guacamole are you texting on a flip phone???

C: do u need a remindr im from the past

W: Yeah about that. My dad (current, actual dad) was looking over time travel theory.

C: yeah?

W: Well, the time travel machine changed time in very different ways. See, when Doris changed the timeline, it overlapped and unravelled things from existence, like me. 

C: yeah about that, u good after that?

W: Don’t worry, being erased from history was only a minor setback to my Master Plan

C: if u say so…

W: But when you said you wouldn’t invent Doris, that also overlapped. And yet, Dad has no memory of our time travel adventure, so it didn’t all overlap. So are these Back to the Future rules where there are two separate dimensions, Homestuck rules where it deletes the previous dimension all together, or Terminator rules where they overlap each other

C: whats homestuck?

W: …something that doesn’t exist. ANYWAY so I what I’m saying is may be more grounded than I was before for possibly making a parallel dimension. 

C: wilbur!

W: Like, he’s not even certain! These are unfair grounds for a grounding, if you ask me. You should really work on your disciplinary skills while you have the chance. 

C: wilbur do u think txting me this fixes the problem?! 

W: I wanted to let you know you shouldn’t worry about messing up the timeline or anything. But please don’t. The world without me in it would be a disappointing one. 

W: So I’ll be waiting here! Very grounded! Awaiting my family to toss my poisoned body off the cliffside!

C: Wilbur we both know our family would never do that

As weird as that conversation was, it did make him feel kind of better. Now that it wasn’t set in stone that he was required to keep the time stream stable, at least for now, he could make whatever decision he wanted. 

At present Cornelius has a handful of uncles, aunts, and even a few grandparents. Bud was the first out of his brothers to be raising a child, so they would visit to meet Cornelius. Uncle Fritz came to visit once, and it turned out Petunia was an actual person. She also turned out to be an awful one. It would have been interesting for Cornelius to piece together the similarities and differences between her current husband’s reenactment of her years later if it didn’t have to happen right in front of him. He feels a pit in his stomach when he remembers Talulah and Laszlo haven’t been born yet, and probably won’t be for the next five-to-ten years. She’s also technically speaking his only aunt from his dad’s side, since Joe and Billie aren’t married yet. For now she’s just his girlfriend who accompanies him to dinner. 

Cornelius didn’t think that the term “you can choose your friends but not your family” applied to his situation, but he felt that at times like these. Lucille also had relatives who wasn’t at the who he hadn’t met and wasn’t living at the Robison household when he visited in the future, like Pete, Judlow, Nimbus, and numerous others. Still, it was a lot. 

Days later, while Cornelius was sitting in the stands for one of Goob’s robotics matches (once the high of the baseball win crashed down, Goob got bored with baseball and described it as a “thing of the past”) Franny caught up to Cornelius again.

“Art has a late shift so I’m coming for dinner tonight gottagoBYE!”

And then she ran off before he could answer. Cornelius suspected that if her hair wasn’t short and tied up it would end up caught in something from all the places she ran off to. 

Lucille and Bud were exited for Cornelius to have his “little friends” over. Lucille was eager to show off her latest inventions and Bud was more than prepared for his “backwards gag”. Cornelius had watched Lucille buttoning up a sweater vest on his back minutes before Franny was due to arrive. 

Franny hadn’t mentioned she would be arriving at the house with Gaston. Gaston looked as bored and uninterested as Franny looked ecstatic to be there. Everyone at school was aware by now that Cornelius lived in an observatory-turned-house, but had never been inside of it. The two wandered about in awe. 

“Hiya!” Bud called, leaning back to show the face at the back of his head. “Betcha it looked like my head done spun around, didn’t it?”

“I’ve had worse injuries.” Gaston said. Franny rolled her eyes. “Wanna hear the stories?”

“No one does.” Franny said.

“This one? Fell off a gate. This one? Tried to jump over a ditch at a construction site. This one? Car accident.”

“Running your bike into Art’s car doesn’t count as a car accident!” Franny called.

“Oh, well, I’m working on some patches for that!” Lucille said. 

It seemed that when Gaston talked to his parents he was animated and smiling, but when he glanced at Cornelius he didn’t seem to like him. 

“So Cornelius!” Franny said, clearly calling for his attention, “Why don’t you show me your new room?”

They went up the stairs together. At first, Cornelius gave the basic tour of the place the same way he would to whoever else had visited. They were now alone and Franny wasn’t rushing from one place to the next anymore. There was a lot of room in the observatory, but Cornelius noticed that when Franny was standing near him, he couldn’t feel that space anymore. 

“Oh, you’re so smart!” Franny said. “Way smarter than me.” 

“That’s not true. You don’t need to know everything to be intelligent. There are some things I don’t know. 

“Well, I’m not smart when it comes to emotions either. You see, I don’t have a lot of friends. They all think I’m…weird.”

“I only have a handful of friends. And one of them is you.”

Franny gasped. Cornelius hadn’t realized that was significant; to him it was just a fact. Cornelius patiently waited for Franny to say something, but it looked like they were both having trouble on that front. 

“Where did you get this train set from?!” Gaston called. It was as if he suddenly appeared at the other side of the room. 

Franny made a little squeak noise. It may have been from being interrupted or wanting to scream. 

“Couldn’t you have knocked first?!” Franny finally said, “You’re so annoying!” Then she actually saw the train set on the floor. It was on the floor of far side of the room, so she must not have seen it when she came in. “Is that hand-made?”

“Yep.” Cornelius said, “My aunt gave it to me.”

At the dinners Billie didn’t speak much English yet. Because of this, she was a little bit more quiet. That was, until Cornelius attempted to talk to her about trains. Then her eyes lit up and, while she still had trouble communicating, she became more animated. After that, Billie mailed Cornelius a train set. Billie was still not married to Joe, but to Cornelius she was his favorite aunt. 

“Your aunt sounds like the coolest person in the world!” Gaston said. 

“You can play with it if you want, Gaston.” Cornelius hadn’t realized his mistake until the name had left his mouth. He wasn’t supposed to know Gaston’s first name. 

“Kids! Dinner’s ready!” Lucille called from downstairs. 

No one answered at first. It shouldn’t be that suspicious. Franny could have gotten Gaston’s name from Franny, right? But, Franny was right next to him, so what was Franny thinking? He tried not to think about that for now. It wasn’t just that no one from school had called Gaston by his first name. No one had thought to. 

“We’re coming!” Cornelius said, then moved past both of them to rush down the stairs. 

Later, Art showed up through the door. He was immediately welcomed at the table, as well as bringing in any spare pizza’s for later. As the dinner went on, Gaston playfully flicked a piece of meat at Cornelius. Cornelius felt Franny’s foot nudge at his leg, and he chose not to stop her. 

As the light shone through the windows in the ceiling, and Cornelius the all interacting, he could feel them all being knit together into a new family. There were now six seats filled at the Robinson table. Many of the seats were still empty, but that just meant there was room for more.