james cooper is helena’s legal ward. a tech and robotics genius with a knack for explosives, he’d skipped a number of grades to be in high school early and was in her honors history class. his science project about how he could build an explosive with household items attracted the attention of a local gang and he was kidnapped to build a bomb for them that they could use to leverage the release of their leader - a man helena put in jail. when she heard he was missing, she immediately took up the search. his mother, a journalist, also went door to door asking for information. unfortunately, this drew attention and the gang murdered both james’s mother and little brother to keep his kidnapping silent. helena felt horrible about it, blaming herself for not warning mrs. cooper off the case. she eventually tracked james down and rescued him with the help of the birds.

unfortunately with his mother and brother gone, james was put into foster care. he ran away a few weeks later, and a series of bombings began taking place at various hideouts the gang who kidnapped him had around the city. it drew helena’s attention as well as batman’s, and the former found him just as the latter did. after batman threatened to have james sent to lockup, helena took responsibility for him. she’d go on to hang up her cape in order to get him settled, moving out of the city briefly. she was immediately truthful with him regarding her identity as huntress and used her money and connections to hurry along the legal guardianship process.

more recently, they’ve both returned to gotham. now that she’s taken up the mantle again, james is insistent about helping her. she is adamant in her refusal. she won’t have a kid sidekick, no matter how normalized it might be. you can often find jamie hanging around the birds of prey headquarters while helena is out, playing video games or peppering barbara with a hundred tech questions or working on whatever new bot he has to tinker with. he attends gotham academy and is taking early college classes. you’ll also see him attend public events with her from time to time.