Harriet Cooper

Harriet Cooper

## Biography

Harriet Grayson was born to the family of Graysons, a well-known entertainment family in Gotham City. The Graysons lived just on the fringes of Gotham’s upper class, getting by with their connections and hustling attitude. In her youth, Harriet was often left to care for her younger brother John while her parents were out entertaining.

While they were all expected to join in the family’s entertainment business, whether it be a vaudeville act, singing, or acrobatics, Harriet discovered that she had a real knack for nursing. Despite the family’s insistence, she pursued medical school and became a licensed traveling nurse.

While on her travels, she met Walt Cooper in a bar one night, and the two became absolutely smitten with one another. Despite both being from Gotham, they had never met before. Walt convinced her to marry him and the two returned to Gotham, where she began working at the local hospital, where she became friends with Doctor Thomas Wayne.

Doctor Wayne and Harriet grew very close to the point where she and Walt were often invited to the Waynes’ penthouse for dinners and were ecstatic when they learned that Martha was pregnant. During this, Harriet wanted to settle down and become a mother. But, after numerous doctor appointments, she learned that she was infertile. This sent her into a spiral of depression, leading her to quit her job.

Detecting their friend’s sadness, after the birth of their son, Bruce, they asked Harriet to become his Godmother. She agreed, and when Martha’s politics and Thomas’ medical duties proved too strenuous, she agreed to become their housekeeper, where she began working very closely with Alfred Pennyworth. She noticed Bruce’s knack for puzzles and problem solving and suggested he be enrolled at Brentwood Academy.

When Bruce was young, his parents were murdered. On the same night, Walt died in a car accident due to the riots incited by Arthur Fleck. Per the instructions of the Waynes’ will, Alfred Pennyworth was left as the boy’s adoptive father. Harriet, in her grief, was unable to return to her apartment, and moved into a spare room in the Wayne’s Penthouse. Shortly after this, both of her parents died, reuniting her with her brother, who was keeping the family business alive with a traveling circus act “the Flying Graysons”, revealing he had married the beautiful Mary Loyd.

Bruce has come to believe that during this point in his childhood, Harriet and Alfred started having an affair, although neither will confirm that suspicion. Harriet and Alfred served Bruce dutifully. When he decided to leave high school at a young age to travel the world, Harriet decided it was time she moved on from this chapter in her life, and left Gotham City.

The Waynes’ wages were enough for her to live off of, and so she moved to a small cabin for herself, where she spent most of her days peacefully. Eventually, she heard word that her brother and his wife had been killed, and so she helped arrange paperwork for Bruce to take on their surviving son as his adoptive son. This move prompted her to move back to Gotham City part-time to help take care of the child, who often begged to be taken out of the home out of pure boredom. Harriet began helping Bruce further restore Wayne Manor to its original glory.

She has since become an honorary member of the board of Wayne Enterprises but has since moved out of Gotham City to Keystone City, to live out a quiet retired life in peace.