"Me first, me first!" Sandy says, bouncing on her butt as she waits for Tim to join her and her siblings in their story-time circle.
"I wanna go first," Sonny says as an objection.
"Obviously I'm going first, 'cause I'm the oldest," Char says.
Even Ian, sensing an argument to be had even if he doesn't understand exactly what's being argued over, looks up at Tim pleadingly. "Me do?"
"We'll go in alphabetical order by nicknames this time," Tim says, settling into the circle.
Sandy and Sonny look at each other, clearly trying to figure out what that means. To be fair, they're only about four, so the alphabet alone is sometimes hard for them, never mind the idea of organizing by the alphabet.
Char thinks about that for a second. "So I'm first?"
"Alphabetical order means we go in the order of the alphabet," Tim says. "A, b, c-"
"So yeah, I'm first," Char says with satisfaction.
Sandy sings the alphabet under her breath rapidly and frowns when she gets to 'i.' "Wait, wait, so Ian gets to go before me and Sonny? No fair!"
"But if we always go age order and you and Sonny get to go before Ian, is that fair to Ian?" Tim asks, raising his eyebrows.
Sandy pauses. Then she admits, "I wanna say yes, but I dunno that's right."
"It's not right," Sonny whispers in a not-so-quiet voice that barely counts as a whisper.
Sandy pouts.
"Okay, Char, since you're first, what's your question?" Tim asks. "What kinds of stories do you want about the world?"
"Can we do names again?" Char asks.
Tim shrugs. "Sure. Do you want to grab the book?"
Char nods, popping up and running over to the bookshelves.
"We get to do all the names, right?" Sandy asks. "Even's Char's the one who asked?"
"Even if," Tim corrects. "And yes, we can do all of the names."
"Got it," Char announces as he plops back down into the circle and holds up the book. "I get to go first with this too, right?"
"Richard Bruce Wayne," Tim says as his way of answering.
Char grins and puts the book in the middle of the circle, opening it to the page with Dick on it. "That's me!"
"No, that's Dick," Sandy says, and she giggles.
"Richard is me," Char says.
"Richard is Dick too," Sonny points out.
"Richard Bruce Wayne is me," Char corrects himself, rolling his eyes with clear annoyance.
Tim stifles a laugh, although apparently not very well, because Char shoots him a sharp look.
"Dick is short for Richard, and he's your oldest uncle," Tim says, trying not to think that the kids will probably never meet him, or any of the others, if Tim's complete wreck of an escape attempt record has anything to say about it. Even the thought of past escape attempts sends a sharp twinge through his body from the collar, and Tim quickly redirects his thoughts away from escape. "He's Nightwing."
"And he's a gym-nas-tic," Sonny offers.
"Gym-nast," Char says in correction.
"That's what he said," Sandy says.
"No, it's not," Char says.
"Yes, it is," Sandy and Sonny say at the same time.
"Dick is into gymnastics, which makes him a gymnast," Tim says quickly. "He's really good at talking to people, and he's got a funny sense of humor."
"Funny is humor," Sandy says.
"More of funny like a little weird," Tim says. "He likes to play with words."
"Like what?" Char asks.
"Like he'll call something a disaster when it's bad, which is right, but he'll call it an aster when it's good, but that's not a word," Tim says.
"Why not?" Sonny asks.
Tim pauses. "Well. Because it's not."
Sonny hums, satisfied with that, at least for the moment. (Tim dreads the day when he has to explain prefixes and suffixes and that stuff, not in the least because he's not sure he fully understands them himself. He wasn't exactly a high school graduate before the Gilded Cage, and he wasn't even the age for graduating yet not, he thinks.)
"And what about Bruce?" Char asks, turning a few pages.
"Bruce is sometimes called B," Tim says.
"B's Grampa," Ian pipes up, poking the page.
"He's your grandfather, yes," Tim says. "He's a very clever person, and he's a lot kinder and softer than people usually think he is."
"Softer?" Sonny asks, scrunching up his face in confusion.
"Softer like nicer, not softer like not rougher," Char says, reading Sonny's expression.
"Exactly," Tim says. "He's Batman, a great detective, and he's always rescuing people."
"Rescues are good," Sandy says. "I like playing 'rescue the baby' with Sonny and Ian."
Ian frowns. "We gotta?"
"You don't have to play that right now," Tim says.
Ian slumps in relief.
"Rescues are good," Sonny agrees.
"They are," Tim says, thinking of how nice it would be if Bruce would rescue them.
Wait.
Tim thinks about that a little more. He pictures Bruce bursting through the door to the Gilded Cage, pictures the awe on the kids' faces, pictures the sweet relief that would rush through Tim himself if they were rescued.
No pain.
There's no pain whatsoever.
Tim pictures somehow breaking down a wall, maybe by shattering a currently-unused cloning chamber and digging with a shard of it, and escaping. Pain immediately courses through his body.
"Sorry, Dad," Char says. "The collar is being mean, right? That's bad."
"Uh-huh," Ian agrees. "Bad."
"Bad," Tim says distantly. He's stopped thinking of escape and is thinking of rescue again, and again, there's no pain.
Well. That's a revelation. That's a freak-out and a panicking and a re-thinking and a planning to happen later. For now, Tim turns his attention back to his kids.
"Right. So. That's Char," Tim says. "Sandy, you can go next."
Sandy cheers and reaches for the book, flipping to Cass's page. "Cassandra Stephanie Wayne, that's me!"
"I thought that's Cass," Char says, just to be annoying.
Sandy sticks her tongue out at Char.
Tim laughs, pushing the whole rescue revelation into the back of his mind to revisit later, but as soon as possible. If there's a chance that could be the key…
Well. His kids have spent more than enough time in the Gilded Cage as is.
