Dinner is a stilted affair, to say the least.
Bruce, Dick, and Alfred do their best to keep a conversation going. They try to keep the topics light and to keep the verbal flow inclusive of Tim. Tim, for his part, appears to be doing his best not to respond verbally whatsoever, which does put a damper on the conversation.
Then Dick, generally the last one still eating due to his talkativeness, swallows one last bite. He taps his empty plate with his finger and looks at Tim. "Not that hungry, huh?"
Dick's tone is calm and warm.
Tim's reaction is decidedly not.
Tim goes wide-eyed, staring down at his mostly-full barely-picked-at plate. "I'm sorry!"
"Whatever for?" Alfred asks when Dick doesn't seem to know what to say.
Tim stammers for a few moments. "For, for… For making you waste the food on me!"
"It's not wasted," Alfred says slowly, trying to be cautious. "That food is meant for you, as long as you'll eat it."
Immediately, Tim scoops his sandwich up and takes an enormous bite, so large that he visibly struggles to chew it.
Alfred and Bruce trade uncertain glances. At least Tim's eating now?
"I didn't mean to be bad," Tim says as soon as he's done swallowing his bite.
"It's okay," Dick says. "You're not bad."
Tim trembles, saying shakily, "I'm bad, I know I'm bad. I didn't mean to be."
"Tim," Bruce says evenly. "You're not bad."
"If anything, your parents are the ones who are bad," Dick says, clearly trying to help.
It really doesn't seem to help.
Tim shakes his head frantically, dropping his sandwich. "I'm sorry! They were trying to help me be good, they didn't mean to break any rules, they weren't trying to do something wrong, I know they hid me being a metahuman but don't punish them, it's not their fault I'm bad, please, I'm sorry-"
"Tim," Bruce says again, much less evenly this time.
Tim clamps his mouth shut and bows his head.
"Your parents hiding that you have metahuman abilities wasn't what Dick was talking about," Bruce says.
"Yeah, no," Dick says.
Tim hunches his shoulders and bows his head lower.
"Tim? Tim, please look at us," Bruce says gently.
Tim looks up promptly.
"You are not bad," Bruce says. "We won't punish your parents for hiding that you're a metahuman. Yes, they did something wrong, but it wasn't that."
Shivering, Tim opens his mouth, then closes it again.
"You look like you have a question," Bruce says. "Go ahead. Ask it."
"What did they do wrong, then?" Tim asks, barely audible.
Alfred clenches his hands behind his back, so hopefully Tim doesn't see it. The boy has no idea what his situation truly is.
Bruce sighs. "If we're understanding you right, your parents hurt you."
Tim nods, shaky but eager. "Yes! They corrected me, they guided me, they tried to make me be better-"
"By hurting you," Bruce says. "Tim, that's abuse."
"No, it isn't. I deserved it. I'm bad," Tim says as if those words are the most obvious truth in the universe.
"Master Tim, no one could be bad enough to deserve the things you described your parents have done to you," Alfred says.
Tim pauses. "But I'm a metahuman. I deserve to be punished. And my parents loved me enough to keep me around and punish me to try to make me better."
"That is not love," Alfred says, feeling his fingernails digging harder and harder into the palms of his clenched hands.
"Well, yes," Tim says. "I don't deserve to be really loved, so of course it's not real love. But it's the closest I've ever had, the closest to love that I'll ever deserve."
"Tim," Dick says, sounding and looking absolutely broken. "How can you say that?"
"I know, I'm sorry," Tim whimpers.
"Tim, listen to us," Bruce says. "That's not what… Being abused is not what you deserve, not at all what anyone deserves."
"I deserve it," Tim says, his voice quiet and just as shaky as his hunched shoulders. He bows his head again.
"No," Bruce says firmly. "You deserve love."
Tim freezes.
"Tim, you deserve to be loved," Bruce says again.
"And part of why we're so mad at your parents is because they don't love you," Dick says. "But another part of why we're mad is because we love you."
Tim peeks up at them for a long moment. "You love me?"
"We love you," Dick says warmly, and then he adds, "And not in a 'punish you to make you better' way, because that's not love. In a real way."
Tim blinks at them.
"You deserve to be loved, and so it is a good thing you are here, because we love you as one of our own," Alfred says with finality, hoping that Tim's silence and stillness is him beginning to understand them at last.
"Oh," Tim breathes.
For a moment, Alfred thinks that's it.
Then Tim keels over and falls right out of his chair.
Dick gasps as he rushes to Tim's side, Bruce shouting with alarm right behind him.
Alfred brings up the rear, watching in shock over Dick and Bruce's heads as Tim's whole self convulses. Bruises blossom on Tim's skin everywhere that Alfred can see. Blood seeps from Tim's forehead, from Tim's knuckles, from under the collar of Tim's shirt and out of the bottom hems of Tim's pants. Brutal cracking sounds burst from Tim's body, and then…
Tim falls silent and still with a sigh.
Bruce already has one hand on Tim's wrist and the other hovering over Tim's face before Alfred can process what's happening.
"Pulse is weak but steady, breathing is the same," Bruce says.
Dick makes a wounded but relieved sound.
Alfred makes no sounds at all. He watches Bruce and Dick carefully gather Tim into Bruce's arms. Tim looks so small, so fragile, so hurt and helpless.
Bruce stands gingerly, balancing Tim in his arms.
Dick hovers beside Bruce, hands up and prepared to assist at any moment.
And Alfred follows them to the Cave.