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Bad cold-business-woman mom, Janet Drake
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Good history-nerd-and-archeologist-mom, Janet Drake
✨️BESPOKE✨️
Good archeologist-and history-nerd-ready-for-any-adventure-because-her-grandad-is-indiana-jones mom, Janet Drake
A bit of a cute baby Tim Drake idea:
Imagine Drake Industries has a meeting with Wayne Industries. Janet, who is actually a good mom (sue me, she is!) takes baby!Tim with her because she couldn't find anyone to babysit her 1 year old.
During the meeting, Tim gets fussy. But before she can politely step out to calm him down, Bruce smiles (a real one, because Bruce Wayne has a soft spot for babies) goes "here, let me help you." He helps calm down Tim, to the Drake pairs utter surprise.
During the rest of the meeting, Tim, now back in Janets arms, just stares at Bruce intensely. Like most babies do when they try to familiarize a face.
Tim doesn't remember this.
But Bruce certainly does.
(He even has pictures.)
Hmmmnnnnrgh
Lookity look, I am an avid fan of what some may call “comic books.” I am also a fan of fanfiction.
I like to read the comics that inspire people to write! Comic books inspire writers inspire artists inspire comics inspire writers and on and on! It’s beautiful. The way the world is meant to be.
Anyway, that isn’t important. What is important is the blatant misunderstanding of Tim Drake’s parents.
Now look, I am with you one hundred percent if you want to make a story where Tim’s parent(s) is decent. That’s fun, I love those stories. But, at the same time, you have to understand that those are AU.
I haven’t read every single comic that Tim Drake has ever featured in, nor have I read every single comic either Jack or Janet Drake has featured in. What I have read, is quite a bit, so I will try my best to explain.
There’s a certain page going around from 90’s Young Justice where Tim is talking to his dad while his dad tries to make coffee. The whole scene is played as a joke, but also, it shows an important difference between Tim and the other members of Young Justice.
I don’t know if this will make sense, but we see a lot of parents in Young Justice. Cissie’s mom is trying to be better, while Cissie is making her work for her forgiveness. Cassie’s mom is pretty cool, she’s worried about her daughter but lets Cassie be a superhero because Cassie is brave and it makes her happy (and Cassie would’ve snuck out to do it if she wasn’t given permission).
Bart’s parents are in the future, but we see him hang out with Max a lot, and they have some realy touching moments of old man vs ADHD child. Kon hangs out with Superman, even though Superman is super uncomfortable around Kon, but we see Superman really try to make an effort to spend time with Kon and understand him.
Tim is a more difficult case.
We see Tim’s dad in the aforementioned page. That’s about it. Any other time family is brought up, Nightwing is his go-to for big bro and Batman is his parental figure. We get a reference to Tim’s dad when Bart says something about getting Tim in trouble with his dad and Tim thinks he’s talking about Jack before realizing he meant Batman.
But more than that, Jack doesn’t have any parental scenes with Tim. Bruce gets all of those. Bruce learns to ease up from being an overbearing parent, Bruce tells Tim he’s proud of him, Bruce spends hours at a computer trying to figure out what happened to Tim. Bruce gets the parental moments.
The panels with Jack in them make me uncomfortable, as someone who stays home to care for my mom. The whole scene is sort of like a joke, where Tim acts more like a father and Jack acts more like a son. That’s why you have the narrative positioning of Tim seated at the table, reading the newspaper, rambling about current events, not even having to look up to warn Jack that he’s about to drink rat poison. Jack is supposed to take the role of tired teenager, slow thinking, not really paying attention, wandering the kitchen. It’s a reversal of the typical father-son role you would see in movies or tv.
It’s making fun of Jack for being less grown up than his fifteen-year-old son.
It makes me uncomfortable because Tim acts as the caretaker in that scene. And, it’s hard to be your parent’s caretaker. It’s hard to see your parent act weird or childish. When Cissie’s mom acts self-destructive and childish, Cissie gets taken away by Child Protective Services. When Tim’s dad almost accidentally drinks rat poison, Tim is in charge of making sure he doesn’t. Do you get it? It’s hard to explain, I don’t know how to explain it… it just makes me feel uneasy.
Then, there’s the scene where Jack tears Tim’s tv off the wall and breaks it. That just is abuse. There’s no debate.
But there are subtle things in the comics. Tim becomes Robin and his parents don’t find out until after Janet has been dead for a few years. And it isn’t like Cassie and her mom, where her mom accepted that Cassie was going to fight crime, there isn’t much she can do to stop her, and so she would rather let her daughter go, because then Cassie trusts her enough to talk to her. She deems it more important for Cassie to trust her, and she knows Cassie is a reckless teenager, and she wants to keep that line open. So she lets Cassie go as long as Cassie tells her what’s happening. And we see how it affects Cassie’s mom, how scared she gets, how worried she is, how relieved she is when Cassie comes home because that means she’s safe.
Tim’s dad makes him give up Robin. He doesn’t think about Tim, he thinks about his idea of Tim. The Tim in his mind is a well-mannered young boy who studies and has a handful of friends. It doesn’t jibe with the reality that Tim is a well-mannered young boy who kicks criminals in the face and finds himself falling from tall heights worryingly often. Tim’s dad doesn’t understand why Tim wants to be Robin, and Tim has to push and push and push to be Robin again.
There’s little things. Tim was capable of jumping on the first flight to Hawaii with Alfred in World’s Finest Three, presumably he was gone for at least a day, and nobody was too concerned about it. Tim was turned into an adult in that age swap arc with the Young Justice, but we only ever see how he speaks with Bruce. Everyone else has a scene of them either confronting a loved one in their aged up or down form (Bart, Wally, Cassie) or has Superboy pretend to be him to talk to Lois (Superman). In fact, we see a scene like that where Bruce (Robin) makes Tim (Batman) talk to Commissioner Gordon. But, we never see Tim even think about confronting his dad like that.
Tim apparently has all the free time in the world to fight bad guys and almost die every other day, and people think his parents weren’t neglectful. When Tim’s dad does die, Tim gets adopted by Bruce, and sure, he says it hurt when Jack died, but he even said that he felt kind of empty about it. Then Bruce died, and he felt completely different, despite viewing them both as his fathers.
This is long and rambling, and I’m sorry, but I need you to understand that when people say Tim’s parents are abusive, they aren’t pulling it out of nowhere. Neglect is abuse. A kid having to take care of their parent with no one to take care of them is neglectful. Yelling and screaming and throwing things is abuse. Maybe Tim’s parents don’t leave physical scars, but they don’t treat him well. They aren’t good parents.
It's not quite the fact that Tim is smart what makes him their favorite. I mean, Bruce loves them all the same, and while Janet will always love her little boy the most, it's not by much, she loves the others. But Ollie and Lex? It's one thing the kids that one of their best friends adopted, and sure, they're smart and charming and don't get me wrong, they adore them. But Tim is in a whole other level, not so much because of his own personality but because they've loved him since before he was born.
See, Janet in this AU had a difficult pregnancy, but she always wanted to be a mother, and Jack only married her because of the social ladder and agreed to a child because it's expected of them and because she insisted. But he doesn't love her. And he didn't stay by her side during the hard pregnancy— you know who did? Lex, Ollie and Bruce. They watched Tim grow inside Janet's belly, they were there for the ultrasounds, they helped her pick out a name, and they waited in the hospital for Tim to be born. They held him in their arms and they watched as he fought and clung to life. They visited him every day in the NICU and read/talked to him. They did everything in their power (read: threw money at the best doctors and build their own NICU and tech) for him to just make it to his first few months. His first birthday may as well have been the biggest achievement.
They changed his diapers and raised him from scratch, the four of them (plus the occasional involvement of Jack). They taught him how to Person. They were there for his first words, fists steps, first everything. For four whole years he was the center of their little universe. For four full years, it was just four best friends and the little guy.
And then Dick came along, more than twice Tim's age (tim's 4, Dick's 10 because I want him a little older) and raised by his own parents, with his own ideals and personality and temper. His own little person, impressionable as he may be.
Now, Dick is Bruce's everything, his son, his whole damn world. He adores Dick. Everyone does! Ollie and Lex love the little guy, too, that's their nephew. Janet adores him, she's so glad that Tim is not the only kid anymore and that he gets along with Dick. Dick is charming and brilliant, and so kind and yet so fiery and fierce and angry. They love the little shit.
But this is their nephew, as opposed to their pretty much co-parented by all of them child. The only Firsts they get from Dick are his first day of school and first gala. Bruce of course isn't included in this, he loved Dick just as much as Tim and Dick's his baby, and he got his first fight and first weapon and first night as Robin, but none of the others know this. Janet isn't included either because no matter how much she loves Bruce's kids, they don't compare to her own son (yet, at least)
Then Jason comes along. Snarky, skittish, sarcastic little fucker, they love him. He's the happy one of the brothers (Dick and Jason, Tim's not included yet). But again, he's not a baby they get to raise from scratch (tim's 6, Jason's 10, Dick's 12). This doesn't prevent them from loving the two little shits like family, they ARE family, but they're their nephew, Tim's their kid. I repeat, they took turns raising the gremlin, he's their collective co-parented son more than a nephew, while they don't get to raise Jason and Dick, partly because Bruce doesn't go away half as much as Janet does, and when he does they either come with or stay with Alfred.
Also, they know Oliver is Green Arrow but he doesn't know they know, and he doesn't know they're the Robins.
My point is, they don't go stay with Lex or Ollie almost at all, while Tim has a room in each of their homes.
Let me clarify that this is not a biological vs adopted thing.
When Damian comes along, he's raised by both Janet and Bruce (already together) but not by Lex or Ollie. Again, he's their nephew, but not on Tim's level despite being Bruce's bio son, because they didn't get to raise him either. He's on Dick and Jason's level, which is pretty high up. It's like the difference between your siblings and your best friend. You'd kill for either, but you probably love one of them just a little more fiercely.
Also, Tim literally changed the course of Lex's life by just existing. He's a lot less evil just so Janet won't take him away, and if you asked him who his favorite person in the whole universe is, he'd answer Tim without hesitation— not his family, not Bruce, Ollie or Janet, but Tim. He would burn down the world (literally) for him.
Ollie would answer Roy, but Tim is a close second, and the rest of his nephews, then his best friends (good dad Ollie here)
Think about it like Tim being Lex's almost-kid. The rest of the friend group each has at least one child, but he has enough with Tim, up until he makes Kon and learns to love him, but Kon wouldn't be his child if it weren't for Tim convincing him to raise him like a kid and not a weapon.
Ok, hear me out. An AU where Janet Drake is best friends with Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen.
They met in school, and she's a high society girl, not expected or allowed to be much more than a pretty face, but there's this trio of smart idiots (they did all sorts of stupid stuff at school, but they are overall very, very smart), and they're in all sorts of cool classes and extracurriculars, and she wants to learn
So, she snakes her way into the group with well-timed looks and blushes. They eventually include her in all their activities, and so she learns all sort of stuff that she usually wouldn't be allowed to learn, because they help her keep it in the down low. No, she's not taking classes with them, she's being a proper lady and cheering her smart friends on through the oh-so-hard classes.
At some point or another, they all develop a crush on her, fleeting as it may be (they're hormonal teens and they're required to flirt, it was bound to happen)
They flirt publicly, as it keeps the media from pressuring them into relationships— or so they thought. It backfires when they're adults, the media is demanding Janet settle down and stops leading all three of them on. But there would be a scandal if she picked any of them, so she picks Jack, someone who doesn't love her or she loves, but someone desperate enough to climb the social ladder to care if he loves his wife.
When he's not allowed to flirt anymore, that's where Bruce realizes that he actually liked her.
When Tim comes along, and Janet has to go on trips, she leaves him with her trusted friends. So, Tim learns a lot from his Uncle Lex, learns to shoot a bow from his Uncle Ollie, and loves staying with his Uncle Bruce and his children. He figures him out far too easily and does become Robin when Jason figures he's ready to pass on the mantle to his little brother (because they're brothers. Tim spends a lot of time in their house)
Bruce adores Tim, he really does. It just kinda hurts, that he's Janet's kid, but not his.
Eventually, Janet divorces Jack, and she gets to spend a lot more time in Gotham. But by now Tim is as much Bruce's as he is Janet's, so they co-parent the gremlin that is her son, which leads to a lot of time with Bruce.
Bruce treats her better than Jack ever did, and she trusts him far more. They have the memories of years together. Eventually, Bruce tells her the truth— that he never truly moved on from his best friend.
When they marry, sure it's a media circus, but also not a surprise.
She's also a good mom, to Tim as much as to Dick or Jason.
When Jason finds out Catherine is not his mom, sure he gets curious, but he has a mom already, he's happy. He does want to meet his bio mom, but he agrees to do so safely, not go alone. Fine, B, you can come with.
Joker never happens. Jason is disappointed when he finds his mom is not at all what he expected, and he has a much better one at home.
Eventually, when Damian comes into the picture, he's snappy with Janet. "you will never be my mother, you harlot!" but Janet simply puts a hand on his shoulder and speaks calmly, yet sharp as the blade he threatens her with
"You will not speak to me like that, boy. No, I am not your mother. But I am married to your father, and I hold the authority as such, so you will go up to your room, you will cool down, and you will never threaten or insult me again, or you will be grounded."
"You can't do that!"
"She can. She has my full permission to discipline my kids, Damian. In this house, she holds as much authority as I do." Bruce interjects
Damian, begrudgingly, learns to respect Janet, and eventually he does see her as a second mom
The amount of times Oliver or Lex visit the Wayne-Drake household is absurd, but sue them, they like their friends. This leads to a lot of chaos, because every time Oliver visits so does Roy, and Roy hangs out with Dick and Jason, while Damian sticks to glaring at everyone.
Meanwhile, they dote on Tim, because they sure as hell have a favourite nephew, and it's the one they watched grow inside the belly of one of their best friends, the one they all changed the diapers of, the one they've taught a lot of skills to, the one they helped raise in a way they never helped raise any of the other Wayne boys. They don't even try to hide their preference. Now, of course they like all their nephews, but it's always hilarious because when Tim is around his uncle Lex, he's ten times the evil mastermind he generally is, and Oliver encourages it, simply for the chaos, and so does Janet, while Bruce is downright terrified of the idea of Tim as a villain (everyone is)
Ok, hear me out. An AU where Janet Drake is best friends with Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen.
They met in school, and she's a high society girl, not expected or allowed to be much more than a pretty face, but there's this trio of smart idiots (they did all sorts of stupid stuff at school, but they are overall very, very smart), and they're in all sorts of cool classes and extracurriculars, and she wants to learn
So, she snakes her way into the group with well-timed looks and blushes. They eventually include her in all their activities, and so she learns all sort of stuff that she usually wouldn't be allowed to learn, because they help her keep it in the down low. No, she's not taking classes with them, she's being a proper lady and cheering her smart friends on through the oh-so-hard classes.
At some point or another, they all develop a crush on her, fleeting as it may be (they're hormonal teens and they're required to flirt, it was bound to happen)
They flirt publicly, as it keeps the media from pressuring them into relationships— or so they thought. It backfires when they're adults, the media is demanding Janet settle down and stops leading all three of them on. But there would be a scandal if she picked any of them, so she picks Jack, someone who doesn't love her or she loves, but someone desperate enough to climb the social ladder to care if he loves his wife.
When he's not allowed to flirt anymore, that's where Bruce realizes that he actually liked her.
When Tim comes along, and Janet has to go on trips, she leaves him with her trusted friends. So, Tim learns a lot from his Uncle Lex, learns to shoot a bow from his Uncle Ollie, and loves staying with his Uncle Bruce and his children. He figures him out far too easily and does become Robin when Jason figures he's ready to pass on the mantle to his little brother (because they're brothers. Tim spends a lot of time in their house)
Bruce adores Tim, he really does. It just kinda hurts, that he's Janet's kid, but not his.
Eventually, Janet divorces Jack, and she gets to spend a lot more time in Gotham. But by now Tim is as much Bruce's as he is Janet's, so they co-parent the gremlin that is her son, which leads to a lot of time with Bruce.
Bruce treats her better than Jack ever did, and she trusts him far more. They have the memories of years together. Eventually, Bruce tells her the truth— that he never truly moved on from his best friend.
When they marry, sure it's a media circus, but also not a surprise.
She's also a good mom, to Tim as much as to Dick or Jason.
When Jason finds out Catherine is not his mom, sure he gets curious, but he has a mom already, he's happy. He does want to meet his bio mom, but he agrees to do so safely, not go alone. Fine, B, you can come with.
Joker never happens. Jason is disappointed when he finds his mom is not at all what he expected, and he has a much better one at home.
Eventually, when Damian comes into the picture, he's snappy with Janet. "you will never be my mother, you harlot!" but Janet simply puts a hand on his shoulder and speaks calmly, yet sharp as the blade he threatens her with
"You will not speak to me like that, boy. No, I am not your mother. But I am married to your father, and I hold the authority as such, so you will go up to your room, you will cool down, and you will never threaten or insult me again, or you will be grounded."
"You can't do that!"
"She can. She has my full permission to discipline my kids, Damian. In this house, she holds as much authority as I do." Bruce interjects
Damian, begrudgingly, learns to respect Janet, and eventually he does see her as a second mom
The amount of times Oliver or Lex visit the Wayne-Drake household is absurd, but sue them, they like their friends. This leads to a lot of chaos, because every time Oliver visits so does Roy, and Roy hangs out with Dick and Jason, while Damian sticks to glaring at everyone.
Meanwhile, they dote on Tim, because they sure as hell have a favourite nephew, and it's the one they watched grow inside the belly of one of their best friends, the one they all changed the diapers of, the one they've taught a lot of skills to, the one they helped raise in a way they never helped raise any of the other Wayne boys. They don't even try to hide their preference. Now, of course they like all their nephews, but it's always hilarious because when Tim is around his uncle Lex, he's ten times the evil mastermind he generally is, and Oliver encourages it, simply for the chaos, and so does Janet, while Bruce is downright terrified of the idea of Tim as a villain (everyone is)