When I was talking about Damian calming down as a little kid, it got me thinking about the Bats and their most treasured childhood items. In my mind, they each have something that they had as a small child that gave them comfort that they still have in the house today.
Bruce’s is part of a ragged blanket he used to carry everywhere as a child, it’s really nothing more than a handful of holes held together with frayed wool threads and probably is a bio hazard. Bruce keeps it though he tells Alfred that he should throw it out but he doesn’t because it is a comfort to him. When he was little, he used to rub his cheek against the corner and it would calm him down. After his parents murder, he even carried it around the house for a months until Alfred had to take it off him to wash. He still goes to it for comfort, especially in the dark times.
Dick has a little plushie of an elephant that his mother made out of scraps of old clothes and costumes. It wasn’t like they couldn’t afford one but his mother though that if Bobo was really a circus elephant, she should have the circus in her body as the Graysons do, as Dick does. He had it with him when social services took him away from the circus, then in his hands when they told him that Bruce was taking him in, then over the years after hard patrols and fights with Bruce. He left him behind when he moved out and didn’t realise until he arrived in Metropolis. Alfred assured him that Bobo was perfectly well, still in Dick’s room for when he came back. Bobo resides only in the Manor.
Jason didn’t have a lot growing up, teddy bears are for babies he would have said but he has a little bear, maybe older than he is that he found in the apartment as a toddler. It was really only for warmth he used to tell himself but Pug - named after Henry Crawford’s dog, he would tell you now but it was really a childhood mistake since the bear looked like the pug that old neighbour had -came with him everywhere he went, he even broke back into the apartment after his mom died to get him back. Jason hid Pug in his room at the Manor, never mentioned him. Alfred found him under the bed one day when he was cleaning and out him in Jason’s pillow. Jason explained that he wasn’t a baby but Pug stayed on his bed. Alfred even fixed him up, got him a new eye, stitched that tear in his ear, even made him a tiny suit and Jason loved it. Alfred selfishly didn’t bury Pug with Jason because he wanted something to remember him by but days later he regretted it because who was keeping Jason warm and safe in… that place. Alfred kept the teddy, sometimes he even talked to him like through him he could talk to Jason. When Jason was back as Red Hood, after the Batarang incident, Alfred broke into his safehouse and left him where Jason would find him. Jason slept properly for the first time in years.
Cass was raised not to have attachments to things like toys, David Cain did not raise her as a child so when the Bats are talking about their childhood things, Cass just shrugged and said she never had anything like that. Bruce was not having that. He look her to a toy store the next day and told her to pick anything she wanted. Cass was stunned, not so much that Bruce closed the store down for her, but that she was allowed to indulge like this. She gets a Barbie. It isn’t cuddly or even one of those tricked out Barbies that are posable and come with a thousand dresses. It’s a simple Barbie. Cass is immediately calmed when she frees her from the box and smoothes down her hair, it is like looking into a mirror in a way. Cass doesn’t give her a name or anything or even has interest in changing her clothes. This Barbie is perfect and there is no need to change her.
Steph has a Raggedy Anne doll called Ada. Her dad though Steph could be an amazing mathematician like Ada Lovelace before he went down the rabbit hole of obsessing over the Riddler. Ada has been through the wringer, when Steph was five she gave her Sharpie make up with pink lips and blue eyeshadow and then when she was eight, cut her braids off and gave her a bob. The doll has been chucked against walls, flung down the stairwell in her apartment building, dangled out of windows. Steph went through a phase of depising the doll because it represented her dad’s love for her, his expectations and the breakdown of their relationship. Ada lived in a box under Steph’s bed for two years before Steph came across her again now she lives on a shelf, a reminder of the better times.
Tim was a fussy baby in my mind, colicky and prone to getting earaches and it was so bad that Janet couldn’t let him down for more than a minute or so before he started wailing his head off. Jack tried to help but all Tim wanted was his mom. Things came to head one day and they realised that as long as Tim could smell or feel his mom he was quieter so Janet tore up some blouse of hers and made Tim a little lumpy pillow-y sort of thing, almost like one of those scented pillow things. Jack and Janet used to joke that they would have got Tim any teddy tear he wanted but all he wanted was some really badly made plush made of Janet’s old flannel shirt and stuffed with one of Jack’s woollen jumpers. Tim used to take it with him when he was snapping photos of Batman and Robin, tucked under his shirt to protect him and he brought it with him when moved into the Manor. Alfred has offered to help Tim stitch up some of the loose threads but Tim says he likes it how it is.
Duke has a teddy bear his mom gave him with one of those recorded messages and Duke can’t be sure but he’s almost positive that there is some weird tech imvolved because his mom’s voice has never faded or distorted with time. Phil, the teddy bear which was weirdoy named after his favourite co worker of his mother’s, was bought for him on a day out with his mom when his dad was on a work trip and three year old Duke was so worried that his dad wouldn’t come back that his mom had to keeo assuring him that he wouldn’t come back, mommys and daddys always come back. So she splurged on a Build a Bear, a big honey coloured bear with brown eyes with a tiny Gotham Knights jersey that when pressed repeated the phrase “I love you, Duke. Mama and Dada love you.”. It is silly to hold onto something so babyish but Duke keeps Phil on his nightstand and when times are bad, he squeezes his paw to hear the message.
Damian doesn’t have anything so babyish. He disprages his siblings for being so clingy, protective and possessive of such inane items. It’s foolish. But Damian secretly as a plushie of Batman that his mother gave him after she told him who his father was. Talia meant it as a kind gesture but somebody at the LOA made a mean joke that Talia couldn’t get the realy Batman here if she begged so that plushie was all the father that Damian was ever going to get. Damian clung to the plushie throughout his last years at Nanda Parbat, but in secret sometikes even talking to it, telling it all of the things he wished to tell his dad, asking it the hard questions. Damian was actually very shy meeting Bruce when they first met even though he had practised with the plushie. Damian hid the plushie in his room in the Manor, under a floorboard under his bed and will only take it out when the house is empty or the door is locked. He fell asleep one night with Bat Dad locked under his arm and it was honestly so cute that Bruce had a full meltdown. Nobody knows about the existence of Bat Dad except Damian, Bruce, Ace and Titus who he showed so they knew that Bat Dad was not a chew toy and Alfred who is trusted to launder and dry Bat Dad and stitch him up if needed.
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