#wayne foundation

[why-i-love-comics]

Wayne Foundation info page

[prongspower]

“Happy Holidays, Mr. Drake”

A Tim Drake x Reader Pairing

(CEO Tim fake dating reader)

✨ Return to Story Master List ✨

Chapter One: Before…

Wayne Tower never smells like panic.

That’s the first thing you notice when the elevator opens onto the executive floor—how calm everything is. Polished stone. Filtered light. The quiet of a place designed to keep problems contained before they ever become visible.

You step out, coat buttoned, bag secure against your side.

Lucius Fox’s assistant greets you with a knowing smile.

“Conference B,” she says. “Mr. Drake will meet you there. Mr. Fox is finishing a call.”

Of course he is.

Conference B is all glass and restraint. A long table. Minimal decor. Gotham stretched beyond the windows, steel and shadow and money layered on top of itself. You set your bag down and pull out your tablet, skimming the briefing again even though you’ve already internalized it.

Wayne Foundation — Annual External Ethics & Governance Review.

High-visibility. Board-facing. Donor-adjacent.

The kind of review that doesn’t happen unless someone wants a second set of eyes—or a firewall.

Lucius’s message still sits at the top of your inbox:

I need someone who understands the politics as well as the paperwork.

That’s why you’re here.

The door opens behind you.

You turn as footsteps pause just inside the room.

“Ms. —”

Tim Drake stops himself, eyes flicking briefly to your tablet, then back to your face. He studies you for a moment longer than strictly polite—not in appraisal, but in recognition trying to find a place to land.

He repeats your last name slowly, like he’s testing the sound of it.

Then he snaps his fingers, soft and sudden.

“Wait,” he says. “I recognize you. Your family runs in the same circles as mine.”

You don’t correct him. You don’t confirm it either.

“You haven’t been at the events in a while,” he adds, more observation than question.

“That’s intentional,” you reply.

Something shifts in his expression—not judgment. Understanding.

“I’m Tim,” he says, offering his hand. “Thank you for coming in.”

You shake it. His grip is steady, warm. Grounded.

“You asked nicely,” you say. “That still works on me.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

They sit across from each other, the city watching silently through glass.

“I want to be clear about why we brought you in,” Tim says as he opens the folder in front of him. “This isn’t a reaction. It’s preventative.”

You nod. “Annual reviews are when small issues get loud if you ignore them.”

His gaze sharpens. “Exactly.”

You scroll through the materials. “You have a handful of major donors who sit on overlapping nonprofit boards. Nothing illegal. But the optics could become… complicated. Especially this close to the holidays.”

Tim leans back, exhaling through his nose. “And narratives don’t wait for facts.”

“No,” you agree. “They just need a foothold.”

That earns you his full attention.

For the next hour, the room narrows to charts and quiet strategy. You flag pressure points. He counters with operational realities. You adjust without ego. He listens without defensiveness.

At some point, you realize you’ve stopped translating your thoughts into executive-friendly language.

You’re just speaking.

And Tim Drake is just listening.

Not multitasking. Not asserting control. Fully present in a way that feels rare at this altitude.

You tap your tablet closed.

“This holds,” you say. “If you’re willing to be uncomfortable in the short term.”

“I am,” he replies without hesitation.

You study him for half a second longer than necessary.

Lucius enters then, smile easy, eyes sharp.

“I see I didn’t need to sit in,” he says. “You’ve already found your rhythm.”

“She’s thorough,” Tim says.

Lucius hums. “That’s one word for it.”

When Lucius leaves you to wrap up, the room settles into something quieter.

“Can I ask you something?” Tim says. “Off the record.”

You tilt your head. “Careful.”

“Why step away from all that?” he asks—not unkindly. “Your family. The circuit. The comfort.”

You glance out at Gotham. The city looks like it always does—brilliant and bruised.

“Because I didn’t want my life to be a series of rooms I was allowed into but never heard in,” you say. “This work lets me matter without being ornamental.”

Tim’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“And Wayne Enterprises?”

You smile faintly. “Is complicated.”

That gets a quiet laugh from him—soft, genuine.

“I’ll expect your report by morning,” he says.

“You’ll have it.”

He says your first name when he thanks you.

Not formally.

Like it steadies him.

A small smile tugs at your mouth.

“Enjoy the holiday weekend, Mr. Drake”. The professional address sets a work boundary that for some reason leaves the room charged.

The elevator doors close behind you, and the shift settles in—not dramatic, not romantic. Just the awareness of two people who understand pressure in the same way.

Thanksgiving is days away.

The holidays are coming.

And Gotham has a habit of turning proximity into necessity.

Neither of you knows that yet.

But Lucius Fox already does.

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[batgirlspain]

Starter for @batwoman-or-whatever

The Grand Ballroom of the Gotham Plaza Hotel glitter like a jewel box under the chandeliers, each crystal catching the light and scattering it across the polished marble floor. Black-tie guests swirl in practiced orbits, Gotham’s elite, philanthropists, and socialites who could afford to drop six figures on a single evening for the sake of optics. The Wayne Foundation’s annual Children’s Literacy Gala is the event of the season and Barbara Gordon, dressed in a sleek, midnight-blue sheath gown that shimmer faintly under the lights, feels both perfectly in place and utterly out of her element.

She adjusts the delicate silver cuff on her wrist and scans the room with the same precision she uses on patrol. The gala’s theme is “Words That Change Worlds” and every table centerpiece is a towering stack of rare first-edition children’s books encased in glass. Bruce Wayne, impeccable in a tailored tuxedo, is currently charming a cluster of donors near the string quartet, his smile practiced and effortless. Dick Grayson’s laughing with a group of young heiresses. And Tim Drake hovers near the auction table, pretending to study a signed copy of The Velveteen Rabbit while actually eavesdropping on a conversation about Wayne Enterprises’ latest R&D budget.

Barbara sips her sparkling water (no champagne tonight since she needs her wits sharp) and drifts toward the balcony doors. The air inside’s thick with perfume and ambition. She’s come for two reasons: one, her father’s practically begged her to represent the GCPD’s community outreach program, and two, the guest list includes several names that have popped up in her private Batgirl files. People with ties to black-market tech smuggling. If she could just get close enough to one of them…

[evilhorse]

DC toy ad (circa February 1978)

[hesztia16]

*shaky video*

Random Gothamite, panting a little as they walk: I’ve got a new drinking game idea. You go on Google maps or send out an unlucky friend to the streets of Gotham and every time you come across a building or something that has a Wayne’s name on it you take a quarter of a shot. Only a quarter because I don’t want to be responsible for murder

RG: I’m the one who volunteered for my friends because I hate the taste of booze and there’s a chance I’ll catch sight of the new daytime vigilante as I walk

RG, whispering: Signal if you see this dm me, I’m a big fan

RH: Anyways, look at that!

*Martha Wayne Retirement Home*

RG, turns a corner: oh another!

*Thomas Wayne Free Clinic*

RG: that was fas-

RG: *almost walks into a sign that says: Jason Todd-Wayne Youth Center*

RG: ….

RG: I’ve been out for three minutes

RG: this is gonna be worse than I expected

*the next day*

Reporter: Today marks a new milestone in Gotham’s history since our city’s hospitals have been filled with not victims of violent crime or perpetrators of said crimes caught by Gotham’s infamous vigilantes, but with victims of a new drinking game that got popular overnight. In ten minutes our station will also receive a statement from the Head of Wayne Foundation on their opinion of the incident. Bruce Wayne himself has already posted on his multiple social media accounts discouraging people from playing this game, quote: “If this goes on I’ll have to found another hospital and I was told that’d be counterproductive.” unquote. More at six.

[youweremadetosoar]

The true tragedy of Thomas and Martha Wayne is that they are destined to always be nothing more than a legacy.

They were doomed by the narrative from the very beginning in order to highlight the brokenness of of their city.

Their son was destined to live in their tragedy the rest of his life and maybe he never got over it but he was still able to change, and live, and become what he felt he needed to become.

Thomas and Martha didn’t get that change.

They are destined to lay forever in that alley, unmoving, unchanging, nothing more than memories that we will never see.

[vertigoartgore]

David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview #114 (1992) cover by cover artist Brian Stelfreeze. Source

[cantsayidont]

June 1964. A month into Batman's "New Look" period, Alfred the butler is dramatically killed off in DETECTIVE COMICS #328. Writer Bill Finger gives Alfred a suitably heroic demise, sacrificing his life to save Batman and Robin from the Tri-State Gang.

Ouch. This is fairly grisly for Silver Age DC, and, more significantly, obviously intended to be final. (If you're going to seemingly kill off a character with the intent of bringing them back later, "crushed to death by tons of rock right in front of their closest friends" is probably not the way to go.)

Two points of interest here: First, the Alfred Foundation, as will be explained later, is the antecedent of what later became the Wayne Foundation (whose building was redesigned in the early 1970s), which did not yet exist at this point. Second, it's awkwardly obvious here that Alfred had never been given a canonical last name. In one 1945 story, he'd used the name "Alfred Beagle," but that hadn't been mentioned again afterward. The name "Pennyworth" was first used in 1969, five years after this story.

Why did editor Julius Schwartz kill off Alfred, who'd been a staple of the Batman strip since 1943? According to Schwartz, it was to help lay to rest the insinuations that had been floating around for years (especially in the wake of Frederic Wertham's SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT a decade earlier) that the Wayne household seemed awfully gay. It should be understood that the modern conception of Alfred as a military veteran and one-time badass didn't arise until the 1980s; since his introduction in 1943, Alfred had been primarily a comic relief figure, and generally a bit of a ninny. Schwartz wanted to replace him with a "a sort of chaperoning den mother," which became Dick Grayson's Aunt Harriet, introduced at the end of this story:

Schwartz claimed that he borrowed the name "Aunt Harriet" from the lyrics of the 1929 Hoagy Carmichael standard "Rockin' Chair." Like Alfred, she didn't initially have a last name (the name "Cooper" came from the TV show, and didn't appear in the comics until DETECTIVE COMICS #373). In the comics, she was not as old or quite as matronly as Madge Blake, who played the character on TV; she was perhaps a decade older than Bruce Wayne.

I'm a little skeptical of Schwartz's assertion that his goal in killing off Alfred in favor of Aunt Harriet was to make Bruce and Dick seem less gay. If that was the plan, it wasn't terribly effective: For one, as the TV show demonstrated, her presence in the Wayne household hardly decreased the camp factor, and the principal dynamic of her comics appearances was to have her nosiness constantly threaten to "out" her nephew and his guardian! Moreover, the "New Look" period actually discarded the three recurring female characters who'd previously been positioned as romantic foils (Batwoman/Kathy Kane, Vicki Vale, and Bat-Girl/Betty Kane) — there would be new ones, but they wouldn't appear for a while, nor did Catwoman (who had been absent since 1956 and didn't return to the comics until 1966) — so Schwartz actually cemented Bruce and Dick's "confirmed bachelor" status, at least for a while.

My guess is that Schwartz, who had been given just six months to turn around BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS (whose sales were in very bad shape in 1963–1964), figured that killing Alfred would be an easy way to shake things up a bit. As with the yellow oval Carmine Infantino added to Batman's chest emblem, it was a dramatic but largely cosmetic gesture that didn't really alter the direction of the strip in any very meaningful way.