"'Cause that's what a sunset's gotta look like," Ian finishes, waving a hand over his artwork one more time.
Tim applauds, and Sandy and Sonny do too.
"Got to," Char says, even though he's applauding as well. "You mean 'got to' look like. And actually, you probably mean 'has to' look like."
Ian pulls a discouraging face in Char's direction.
Char pretends not to notice, busy brushing imaginary dust off of his own papers onto the table.
Ian holds his discouraging expression for a few moments, but quickly grows bored and starts to look for encouragement instead.
"Is it good?" Ian asks, turning to Tim and holding up his artwork. "Sunsets look lots like this, right? It's good, right?"
Tim considers his words for a moment. On one hand, he doesn't want to crush Ian's dreams, and it is a relatively good painting for the equivalent of a four-year-old. On the other hand, it is a painting by a four-year-old, and it uses a good amount of dark green and bright purple in the sky, which is not a sunset Tim's ever really seen. Tim errs on the side of gentleness. "I think it's a good painting. Sunsets and sunrises are really hard to make in art, and you gave it your best shot, which is the best way to do it."
Ian grins and thumps his feet enthusiastically against the table leg nearest to his chair. "Good."
"What else is hard to make in art?" Sonny asks.
"Oh, yeah," Sandy says. "Tell us! Then I can make one of them, or a bunch of them, and do it really good too."
"You mean, do it really well," Char says.
Sandy waves a dismissive hand. "Tomato, potato."
"You mean, to-may-to, to-mah-to," Char corrects.
Sandy groans. "Whatever, whatever! Dad, tell us what stuff's hard to make, real quick, so Char gets off of my case."
Tim stifles a chuckle at Sandy's attitude. "Well, like I said, sunsets and sunrises are famously hard to capture. They always look less real and less beautiful than they actually are. And human faces are usually considered hard to get right."
"Uh-huh," Sonny says, tracing a finger over his painting, which was a self-portrait according to him, but what actually mostly resembled if Killer Croc were to fall in a vat of Joker Venom (not that Tim would ever say that out loud). "What else?"
Tim thinks for a moment. "Natural landscapes, especially famous ones. The Grand Canyon is the one I think of first."
"What's a Grand Canyon?" Char asks.
"It's gotta be a canyon that's grand," Sonny says wisely.
"I figured out that much. But what's a canyon?" Char asks.
Sonny pauses for a moment. "It's gotta be an onion in a can. Can-ion."
Sandy laughs at that.
"No way," Char says, dissatisfied with Sonny's attempts to explain. "That wouldn't make any sense. Dad, what's a canyon? And what makes it grand?"
"Remember when I told you about rivers?" Tim asks.
All four kids nod, even though at least Ian probably doesn't remember it.
"Well, when a river's waters run through the ground for long enough, years and years and years, the ground starts to wear away with time. The river keeps running, but it goes deeper and deeper, carving the ground around it," Tim says. "Eventually, the river cuts its way through the ground so that it's deep in the earth and there are tall walls around it. The walls going down are the canyon."
"So it's not an onion in a can?" Sonny asks tentatively.
"Nah, I guess that'd be too simple," Sandy says.
"And what's a Grand Canyon?" Char persists.
"The Grand Canyon," Tim says, emphasizing "the" as a word. "It's a specific canyon. It's on the other side of the country from Gotham and home. It's the biggest canyon in the world."
"How big is it?" Char asks.
Tim doesn't actually know. He doesn't even know for certain the Grand Canyon is the biggest in the world, to be fair. So he spreads his hands wide. "Huge!"
"Taller than here?" Sonny asks.
"Many times taller than here, and wider too," Tim promises.
Sonny's eyes go wide. "Whoa."
Tim's trying to come up with any more facts he can about the Grand Canyon when the column in the middle of the Gilded Cage starts to hum, signaling a visit is on its way. Given they just finished eating before going into show and tell, Tim's pretty sure it's not a meal coming from a lowly League of Assassins member. It's going to be Ra's. Tim holds back a sigh.
"Ah, man," Sandy says. "He's just gotta ruin everything."
"Don't tell Ra's that," Char warns, already standing up.
"I won't, I won't," Sandy grumbles.
"All right, all right, let's go," Tim says, helping Ian down from his chair. He ushers the kids over to the wall across from the column's door, making sure each kid is standing at attention in age order. "Look passive, act obedient, do all those expected things-"
"Be boring," Sandy and Sonny say as one, and Char and Ian laugh with them.
Tim is a little too tense to laugh along at that this time. Ra's had been there just a few sleeps ago, and he usually didn't come that often. Usually they had a week or so, or what Tim counted as a week with seven rotations of sleeping and waking, in between visits. Unless-
Was it time for the second phase of the "heir experiments" already? Tim dreads that the answer might be "yes." The kids are still so young. Tim doesn't know if he could handle taking care of a nine-year-old, two six-year-olds, a four-year-old, and a newborn baby, or even multiple babies.
Well, it didn't matter if he could handle it. He would just have to handle it.
Tim gives the kids one more look-over. "Okay. Let's do this."
Stepping forward, Tim positions himself in front of the column, just a few steps back from the door and many steps in front of his kids, and he braces himself.
The humming of the column grows louder.
"I don't wanna do more tests," Ian mutters from way back at the wall.
"None of us do," Char says in commiseration.
"We're prepared," Tim reminds them. "We always have to be prepared."
The humming of the column becomes louder still, and the door shakes a little.
Tim takes a deep breath and lets it all out. Almost without thinking about it, one hand rises to brush against his collar. He braces himself further.
The column goes silent. The door swings open. But Ra's does not step out.
Tim's jaw drops.
Ra's doesn't step out, because Ra's isn't there at all.
Instead…
In the doorway, walking forward, a shaky smile filled with what looks like awe spreading across his face as he pulls the cowl back and away to reveal teary eyes, it's Bruce.
AN: :)