There were a lot of hypocrital things about Tim’s parents, as with most living beings. A lot of these things weren’t all that important and usually just came with out of touch rich folk, like the expensive of things and service expectations.
But one thing that really affected Tim was their opinions of material things.
His entire life growing up was filled with as ‘modern’ designs as they could find and all minimalistic. White walls, marble tiles and counters everywhere, abstract art that could be made by a two year old and most importantly, no clutter.
Except of course for all of their artefacts that just ‘didn’t count’.
Tim’s room was the same. He was allowed toys of course, but only ones that would assist his intelligence growth and hand eye coordination. If it didn’t benefit in him getting smarter and more productive quicker, it wasn’t allowed. It also had to be either white, grey or beige coloured.
Needles to say, when Tim saw his class mates with teddies and toys and all kinds of things, he was often left with a sense of imposter syndrome.
When he got his camera that went away for a while, at least until he was told he couldn’t actually print any out because they would shut he left in a box and take up space. The idea that they could be placed upon the fridge or walls just didn’t occur to them at all.
Then when he was eleven and well on his way to living a life only hearing about how smart he was for his age, he had to hide in a dumpster lest he be attacked by Two Face’s goons.
That’s where he found a teddy bear with a missing arm and gross stains all over it.
It was the beta things Tim had ever had. Despite the guck and gunk, it was soft and smooth and the most treasured thing he had touched since his camera.
He hid Watson, named after the most beloved partner to the smartest man alive, from his parents for years. He stitched up his arm, washed him three times, and stuffed a floral scented car smeller inside him.
Naturally after Watson came more, though it took him time to pluck the courage to do so.
Sabrina the white cat plush came into his home four months later, soon joined by Salam the black cat plush just a week later when he felt Sabrina was lonely.
It was never about anything more than the comfort at first, the joy of having something so innocent and childish that he never got to have, but as he got treated with kindness from friends at school and heroes and bats, it became a sort of rebellion.
By the time he lost his mother he had nineteen plushies and teddies hidden away under his bed.
When he lost his father and officially moved into the manner, he had twenty four.
When he moved out he decided he didn’t have to hide them anymore even though he knew full well that Dick had plushies and some of the others and no one cared. Something about it just felt so… personal. It wasn’t for anyone else.
So, when he gets his apartment that’s more like a penthouse, it’s easy for him to have a decoy office and a real one.
A real one that had half of its floor made up of a sunken lounge lined with soft carpet and filled to the brims and over with teddies.
It’s only logical for him to buy thirty six more to make it full after all.
He doesn’t tell anyone about them even though he had a list of all their names on the wall of the room, nor does he feel as if it’s some kind of age regression or something similar.
It’s just… a hobby that soothes some of his problems with his parents.
At least, nobody knew about it until he let his team come over and suddenly found a super boy plushies at his bedroom door.
