"Hey, um, Bruce?"
Bruce looks up from his paperwork, putting a gentle smile on his face. "Yes?"
Fidgeting with his fingers, Tim stares at his feet and hesitates for a moment before saying anything else.
Bruce waits patiently. Soon enough, his patience is rewarded.
Tim keeps fidgeting with his fingers, and he doesn't look up from staring at his own feet, but he says, "You know how you said you had… That there was a way to make me unJokerized permanently?"
Bruce hums an affirmative.
Peeking up at Bruce, Tim says quietly, "I think I'm ready to try it."
It's not something that can really be done in the Manor, unfortunately. The equipment they've come up with is bulky, large and heavy and hard enough to maneuver around the Cave, much less get upstairs, so it's in the Cave that they'll be working on this.
"Are you ready?" Bruce asks. He'd been waiting for Tim to speak up and say so, but it's become evident over the past ten minutes of Bruce readying things that don't really need any more readying that Tim is not going to be the one to speak first.
Tim blows out a long breath. He stares at his sock-covered toes, kicking his feet a little in the air from where they're hovering over the edge of the medical cot.
"You don't have to be ready now," Bruce says when Tim still doesn't speak.
"But I want to be," Tim says finally. He holds out an arm toward Bruce and glances sideways at him. "Okay. I'm ready."
Carefully, Bruce preps Tim's arm for the IV, sterilizing, drying, finding a good bloodstream. Then he readies the IV and warns Tim, "It'll be a pinch."
Tim bites his lower lip and nods.
As gently yet as quickly as possible, Bruce puts in the IV. Then he crosses the medical bay and checks on the rest of the equipment, turning on the unJokerizing ray that will correspond with the IV chemicals and making sure the monitor for Tim's vitals is still accurate. Then he turns back toward the cot.
Bruce's heart aches as he hurries over. "Oh, sweetheart."
"I'm fine," Tim says breathlessly, more of a whimper than a statement. His IV-prepped arm is still stuck out to one side, and it's trembling in the air. He's still biting his lip, and his eyes are clenched shut, with tears gathering beneath his eyelashes. "Really, I'm fine."
"It's okay if you need to stop," Bruce says, already reaching for a bandage in preparation for removing the IV.
"I'm fine!" Tim says, still breathless. "It's not that bad! I can do it!"
Bruce hesitates. He thinks for a moment. "Which part is bad?"
"None of it, it's fine, I'm fine," Tim insists.
"You said it's 'not that bad,' which implies at least part of it is bad," Bruce says.
Tim blows out a long, teary breath. "It… It's a little like Jokerizing."
Bruce wants to hit himself over the head. He settles for a short, sharp shake of his head instead. Why hadn't he thought of that? Of course the unJokerizing process would remind Tim of being Jokerized in the first place. "I'm sorry. We can still stop-"
Tim's eyes pop open as he protests. "No! Don't stop, I want to get better, please!"
"And you will," Bruce says firmly. "We'll do our best to make sure you'll get better. I'm not going to stop you from wanting to get better. But right now, I am going to limit this session to five minutes maximum."
"You said fifteen minute sessions to start with," Tim points out.
"That was before I realized the amount of harm it could do along with the good," Bruce says. Tim doesn't look convinced, so Bruce adds, "If you're in a mindset of Jokerizing, you won't be focused on getting better."
Tim blinks a few times, then swipes at his gathered tears with the hand of his non-IV arm. "Okay. But we have to try again."
"And we will," Bruce says. "I promise. But we'll try again in a better way."
First of all, even though the equipment is bulky and difficult to move around the Cave, that doesn't mean it's absolutely impossible to move around the Cave. Bruce enlists some assistance from Superman and Wonder Woman to move the entire set-up out of the medical bay and into one of the Cave's side storage rooms.
Then he enlists Dick, Jason, and Alfred in turn, and they really get to work.
They position the unJokerizing ray behind a mesh curtain that they hang up, not enough to block the ray from working, but just enough to block it partially from view. They position the vitals monitor much more prominently, so it's hopefully obvious how much they care about Tim's health during the process.
Alfred puts together a full cupboard of snacks that can be kept in the Cave, tailored to Tim's tastes, ranging from soft drinks to simple fruit snacks.
Jason notes down the types of books Tim has been leaning towards and compiles a pile to be situated for keeping Tim occupied during the procedure.
Dick comes up with a list of gymnastics stretches that can be done without dislodging an IV from one arm, so that Tim has plenty more to keep him occupied during the procedure.
Rather than ask for help, Dick and Jason insist on bringing down a loveseat from the Manor "using our own manpower, Bruce!" It results in a large scrape down Dick's left forearm from maneuvering around the Cave's corners and several curses in languages Bruce hadn't been certain Jason knew (almost certainly learned from Dick), but it also results in a plush loveseat being the place for Tim to unJokerize rather than a cot, so Bruce counts his blessings.
They bring in three blankets of different weights and warmths, about fifteen varied throw pillows after arguing over which might be Tim's favorites, a box of fidget toys, a coffee table…
In all, they make it as safe and comfortable and welcoming as they can.
As a last step, they bring Tim in and show him around, starting with the loveseat and ending with a laminated sheet of paper inside the drawer of the coffee table.
Tim's eyes go wide as he looks the paper over, then he looks up. He's tearing up.
"It really is what it says it is," Jason says awkwardly, glancing at Bruce, as if Bruce might know what to say (Bruce does not, in fact, know what to say). "We're not going to leave you alone when you do these procedures."
"We signed a pledge to have at least one person within cuddling distance of you at all times," Dick says solemnly.
"We will be here for you and with you," Alfred says.
Tim sniffs, then he flops back onto the loveseat and bursts into tears.
Bruce hurries to sit next to him. "We're sorry, we-"
"Don't be sorry," Tim says, scrubbing at his eyes with both hands and giving them all a wobbly but wide smile. "I think these are happy tears."