Josh wasn't really sure if a museum education would do anything for the twins at the moment, but he wasn't going to say no to a family day. So now that Izumi felt like spending time with the kids finally, he had bundled them up and brought them out on Fawkes' back to Slateport. With Lightning acting as a shepherd to make sure they didn't let go of Josh's hands and wander off, Josh would walk to the museum entrance, with one kid's hand holding one of his each.

And of course, each kid had an ice cream cone. Lightning was holding two, and Josh had the cone of one tightly tucked under his arm, balancing it delicately so as not to drop it. Once they arrived, he handed one child - the black haired boy, to Izumi before handing Izumi her ice cream. Josh took his own cone from Lightning, since Josh knew that Izumi probably wouldn't accept her own if Lightning had been holding it, and after that, each parent had an ice cream in one hand, and a kid in the other.

"Hey."

She could only cast one look at the ice cream that the kids were holding before Josh handed Zachary over to her, who was clearly enjoying a large helping of vanilla-flavored ice cream.

While there were no sprinkles or any other toppings on it, her eyebrows went up slightly as she was handed her own cone—mercifully, it was mint chocolate chip with the faintest hint of what she guessed were almond shavings? She really couldn’t tell.

“Josh. Love, how are we supposed to get into the museum if we’re eating these?” she inquired as she took a bite out of her own cone, chuckling softly before Zachary started wanting to be carried. “Zach, you’re getting heavier with each day, how can I even manage—“ she got out before the ice cream in his hand almost took a tumble.

“Whoa,” she exclaimed as she moved as quickly as she could manage to catch the ice cream—and now it was all over her hand. “Hey—hey, Zach, it’s not your fault it slipped… these things happen. I mean… would you want to try some of my ice cream?”

Ah, how to be a parent these days. It was hard, but well worth the effort. She was trying her hardest for the other not to burst out crying by quickly sacrificing her ice cream to her son.

The extra time Josh had spent with the kids lately had taught him a few lessons. But one that Izumi didn’t expect came as within seconds of the ice cream spilling over her hand, it was back where it was with perfect placement. A Meowstic had popped out of its Pokeball. Which might explain why the ice cream was also glowing. Josh hadn’t moved when the incident had happened. He had brought Meowstic for exactly this reason. Which indicated that there had probably been other instances where he had been utilizing Psychic in order to deal with things -- or kids -- falling or flying around. And with that, the blonde casually motioned to the bench nearby.

“Let’s finish them here, then head inside” he offered, having remained completely calm the entire time as he escorted their daughter over to the bench, letting her sit down first as he sat nearby. Meowstic was returned to their Pokeball, though Josh knew they would be watching. Always watching. He made sure they had been properly thanked before they were returned, of course. Helping with children was not an easy task.

She blinked—wait a second, since when did the ice cream reform into its previous shape? And why the hell was it glowing?

“I didn’t know you had a Meowstic with you,” she remarked as she joined them, Zachary very surprised to see that the ice cream cone he thought he had lost was back in perfect condition. “Here you go, it’s alright—your father has some quick moves, apparently,” she said with a wink in his direction before they too occupied the other side of the bench.

Now that she had her cone of mint chocolate ice cream back, she then began taking more nibbles out of it while looking sideways at Josh. “Look, anything that has water can surely catch a kid’s attention, right? I mean… look at the families that are going in and out of the place,” and with that she gestured with her free hand to point at the droves of families going into the Museum.

Surely it wasn’t because entrance was free now, right? She was absolutely certain there was an open space somewhere inside that had friendly Water-type Pokémon that the kids could ogle at.

“Nice save,” she praised Josh a few moments later, giving him a wink.

Izumi was stunned by the move, and he smirked lightly at her look of surprise. "This is why it's good to actually spend some quality time with your kids" he teased, shooting her a light smirk. Lyra had been too busy with her ice cream to see the display, but Zachary was enamored by the formerly glowing ice cream and had dug in double time now that it was back in his hands safely.

Once they occupied the benches, Izumi brought up the save. Josh chuckled a bit. "I decided after all the adventures trying to get used to Hoenn, I'd take the last month or so to spend some quality time with the kids while you're off doing your thing. I've learned a lot doing it, personally. Like how much things - and the kids - fall. I'm not always in the vicinity to immediately catch things, or might have my hands full. Then that's when I noticed my Meowstic had started doing it after seeing me do it enough times, started using Psychic if I couldn't make the save. We did some training when you weren't around to perfect the technique. Figured I'd start bringing them with me when we bring the kids out. They know they can let themselves out of the ball if something goes wrong, which is beneficial" he explained in earnest.

Some time passed. The ice cream was finally gone and Josh had started on clean-up once the cones were chewed through as well.

“Well, it always helps to have an extra pair of eyes on the ready just in case… wait. Joshua Dragomir, what haven’t you been telling me?” she remarked as her husband’s words took a good moment to register before sinking in.

“You’re not keeping an eye on them all the time? What if they regally…” she trailed off for a few moments, before leaning in and whispering harshly so only he could hear.

“…What if you regally fuck up and the Meowstic aren’t around to save your ass?” she ended her sentence before pulling away, allowing him a few moments to explain himself.

Clearly someone wasn’t keeping as good an eye on the kids as she had hoped, whoops.

She misunderstood. He let out an exasperated, but still very patient sigh. "I'm keeping an eye out, yes. But as you just saw there, I'm not always in immediate position to stop something. Thus, the Meowstic" he corrected curtly, looking her in the eye. His expression became deathly serious. Of course he was watching their children all the time, why wouldn't he be? The fact she would even consider the possibility that he wouldn't was almost insulting.

Brown eyes stared into hers with an underlying fierceness that made it clear she had seriously pushed a button that she should not have pushed. He took the safety of their children incredibly seriously, and after all they had been through the last few years, she should know better than to think that he would get negligent when it came to the safety of anyone, much less their own kids.

Then there was her, who couldn't stop something when she was right there.

“What, are you gonna ruin the mood?” she countered quietly, eyebrows raising up to look at him for a few moments before blinking and looking down at their children. While she hadn’t touched the mint chocolate chip-flavored ice cream much, the attempt in cooling off the cheesed jets of the blonde near her…

Was it working?

She then took another bite of the ice cream in her hands, before proceeding to demolish it as fast as she could just in case he got other ideas. She looked down at Lyra, impatiently swinging her legs.

“When’re we gonna go? I wanna see the water Pokémon!” she piped up.

Ah, crap.

“Let me just finish this, okay? Then we can go,” she remarked Lyra’s way, before giving Josh a ‘well? Are you really going to go off in front of the kids?’ look.

Completely unapologetic. It only made his brows furrow further. He didn't cease his stare. "Looking at attempts to place safeguards and jumping to conclusions that I'm not watching them. And then playing the guilt game when told otherwise instead of taking responsibility. A fine example you make" he spoke bluntly, making it clear that sort of thing was not ok. She could try and guilt him with the children being there, but that wasn't the example he wanted to show to their kids at all. Hopefully Izumi would figure out sooner or later that wasn't an example she should be wanting for her kids either.

The kids and he had finished their ice cream, so he got up and flashed a smile to the kids as he motioned to Izumi to finish eating so they could get to it. Once she was done there, he took Zack's hand. "Lead the way, Zu."

“You know they can hear you,” she muttered under her breath before she finished the rest of her ice cream. Great, count on him to subtly change the mood even while the kids were around.

Either way, she then wiped down the sides of her mouth once the cone had been downed and the kids hoisted up and off the bench, before stretching her arms above her head.

“Come ooooon, let’s goooo!” Lyra called out, impatiently pulling first at her leg, before running over to Josh and doing the exact same thing. “Dad, you look… scary. What happened? Are you okay?” she asked him, ever so curious and bright-eyed wonder.

Count on them to diffuse the situation. Hopefully, she thought as she felt her back crack after stretching out enough.

“Stay close, you two. Don’t wander off too far, okay?”

The interjection of the children made him let out a sigh. He had made it clear that this sort of behavior was not okay, especially around the kids who would pick up on those kinds of things. So there was no reason to drag it out any longer when they could handle it later. Shooting Izumi a look that told her full well that they would be discussing this later, he took a breath and settled himself. As disappointed as he was that Izumi seemed to not understand that she had acted completely horrid, the least he could do was cool down for now so the kids could enjoy themselves.

He ruffled Lyra's hair when she asked her question, and smiled softly. "I'm okay, was just doing a think" he spoke up in response, flavoring his language a little to keep the mood light. Yeah, doing a think about how someone could have just owned up and taken responsibility instead of trying to use their own kids to get out of it.

Once they were inside the museum, it didn't take long for Josh to figure out where the water Pokemon aquarium was. While he hadn't been here in a long time, when it came to what his kids were looking for? Call it parental intuition. Once they arrived, he let go of Zachary's hand, and the child let out a gasp as he rushed to place his hands on the glass and peer into the aquarium at all the water Pokemon swimming about.

That finally got a proper smile out of dad.

And of course Lyra chased after her brother, sticking her face against the glass, in an attempt to get a closer look at the Water-type Pokémon that were swimming lazily by behind the glass. It was a mess of colors and shapes, most of which she didn’t comprehend all that much yet.

So this is what she had to say about the entire thing.

“Ooh, pretty!” she exclaimed, pointing at a Horsea that sailed past the glass. “That looks nice!” she added a few moments later.

Izumi, on the other hand, didn’t want to be caught staring at Josh a little too often, so she turned her attention to some of the other exhibits that were scattered here and there. Spotting something behind a laminated piece of plastic, she went up to it and read the text on it.

Zachary had long stuck his face into the glass, watching the Pokemon swim by. "What's that one?" he cried out as he pointed to one, and then to another, and another, and another. "And that one? And that one? And that one?"

Josh decided not to look to his wife for now, deciding to just give her some space to think about what she had done and hoping that would let her see his perspective a little once there had been some cooling down to be done. Cooling down that he himself needed, as well. So instead of focusing on the rough things, he focused on the good in front of him. Namely, their children. The lights of his life. It was their future that he was most concerned with, and he'd do everything he could to secure it and help them reach whatever it was they wanted to reach. And that was making sure they learned the right lessons too. His parents hadn't been around much, and he'd needed to learn his lessons through hard work. And to add insult to injury, it had taken a lot of time to learn some of them. With his kids... He wanted to be the best he could be with them, and teach them the right way.

He walked over, but didn't interrupt their view. He was just happy to see them taking the same liking to Pokemon that he had as a child.