Birds of Prey

Legend tells of a caped crusader...

...Batman, guardian of New Gotham...

...and his one true love...

...Catwoman, the queen of the criminal underworld.

Their passion left behind something extraordinary:

A daughter, Huntress.

Half-metahuman, she has taken up her father's mantle...

...and under cover of the night, fights to protect the innocent and helpless.

Joining her in this struggle, Oracle...

...who was once Batman's protegee, Batgirl.

She was caught in the crossfire of the war between Batman and Joker.

Now she fights crime a different way:

A master of the cyberrealms and mentor and trainer to heroes.

Together, they have taken in a young runaway, Dinah.

A metahuman herself...

...with powers to open hidden doors to the mind...

...powers that she is only beginning to explore.

Together, these three are the protectors of New Gotham...

...the Birds of Prey.

My name is Alfred Pennyworth, and this is their story.

It's hard for me to come here. - Why is that, Helena?

I don't trust people.

Luckily for you, this is your last court-mandated session.

Then I must be officially sane. What a relief.

You don't have to come back, unless you want to.

I know you think you can't trust anyone...

...but I'd like to help you, if you'd let me.

Why is it so difficult for you to let people in, Helena?

After Mom was killed...

...I found out about my dad, who he was.

Well, most people would be excited to discover...

...that a billionaire philanthropist like Bruce Wayne was their father.

I only wanted one thing from him:

That he find the man that killed my mother.

And then?

And then I wanted that man dead.

We can't just go around killing people, Helena.

Yeah, that's... That's what I hear.

All I wanted from him was revenge.

If it had been the other way, Mom would've done it.

They hadn't been together in years.

She would've killed for him.

And that's when I learned what my mom always knew:

Rely on no one but yourself.

What's wrong with you people?

I'm talking about real money here.

Ooh! Real money, guys.

What's real money to you, Slick?

More than your pension cash, I'll tell you that.

I've got some years in, my pension's looking pretty sweet.

- How about you, Reese? - I need money, I hit the casino.

- Oh, that ever work for you? - Mm, not yet.

I'm not talking jackpot cash here, okay?

I'm talking lottery cash, 25 million.

Mm-hm, okay. - Split it however you want.

Okay, okay.

Thirty, okay?

Come on.

Tell you what, Slick.

I'm a simple guy...

...so I'm gonna do you a favor.

I'm gonna leave this thing at robbery, and I'm gonna forget all about...

...the generous, although misguided, attempt to bribe three good cops.

Okay?

So...

...why don't you sit tight while we get you processed, huh?

If I had a nickel for every time a perp offered me a bribe...

We'd all make real money.

If you're looking for your paycheck, forget it.

I don't reward failure.

Excuse me, beautiful, I did my job.

I got in the truck. You didn't say anything about cops.

I asked you to hijack one armored truck, a job you assured me...

...you could do in your sleep, and you got caught.

Heh, people who work for Harley Quinn don't get caught.

Oh, calm down, baby. Nobody has to lose any body parts here.

Hee-hee, don't be so sure.

I know, I've only been in New Gotham for a few months...

...and maybe this kind of pathetic screwup passes for crime in this town?

Things are gonna change.

New Gotham ran the Joker out on a rail.

Now he's locked up in a prison far away from here.

This city is gonna pay for what they did to my sweet Mr. J.

I'll have a vengeance...

...that will be spoken of in terrified whispers for generations to come.

Do you understand?

Not exactly, no.

Ah, I'm gonna take over New Gotham, you idiot.

You really ought to see someone about those mood swings.

I've decided to give you one more chance, Slick.

And I know you won't let me down.

We only have a week before you start classes.

We need to finish filling these...

- Out. - Oh, sorry.

Quite a nice throw, actually.

Excellent velocity.

Uh, this isn't the Batarang I gave you for practice.

I know, but this one has three times the range of the regular ones...

...plus all the automated stuff.

It's way cooler.

I know, I designed it.

Look, Dinah, your training is meant to prepare you in stages.

You need to learn one step before moving on to the next.

Which means mastering the basic weapons...

...before you use the ones with bells and whistles.

And, uh, target-seeking capabilities.

- Greetings, super-friends. - Hi, good morning.

How was your sweep?

Slow night: Two muggers, store robbery. Hardly worth the effort.

How can they need...

...this much information to let one girl into school?

I wanna show you something.

What do you think of this for my first-day-of-school outfit?

What?

Kind of a draft-me-for-the-chess-club thing going on.

I'll need to get your basic information:

Birth certificate, social security, that sort of thing.

There isn't any.

Sorry?

Um, information.

There isn't any.

There was a fire at the county courthouse and all the records burned.

Well, I'll at least need to get your transcripts.

Uh, they burned too.

Your transcripts would be at the school, not the courthouse.

Well, it was a really big fire.

Well, what about your parents?

They're dead. Um, I'm gonna go practice in the training room, okay?

Poor kid.

You can't mean to tell me you actually bought that.

Have a heart, Helena. I took you in at the same age.

Yeah, and I used to lie to you all the time, only I was better at it.

Uh, not that much better.

Okay, fine. I'll do a background check on her, okay?

But I'm telling you, there's no reason to panic.

Something panic-worthy always happens right after you say that.

Okay, look, she's not just a runaway, she's a metahuman like you.

Now, you know better than I do how hard the world is for kids like that.

Okay...

Hey.

- Wade, hi. - Hi.

- Hi. - How are the lesson plans coming?

Oh, you know...

School is always so much more peaceful before the kids get here.

They do kind of clutter the place up.

Maybe we should... Ha, ha. So about... Ha, ha.

- Go ahead, I'm sorry. - It's um... No, please.

Well, I was just gonna say...

...should we make plans?

- I thought you forgot. - Well, actually, I thought you forgot. Heh.

Oh, no, no, no.

Um, the other day, I was just in the midst of, well...

...kind of an emergency.

- Is everything all right? - Yeah. Yeah, yeah, everything's fine.

Yeah, it's just, um, this business I have with my friend Helena.

- What kind of business? - Gourmet baking.

Uh, custom fudge and muffin tops. We sell them online.

It's sort of a moonlighting, hobby sort of thing.

Emergencies in the baking world?

We take our culinary responsibilities very seriously.

Well, you're just gonna have to trust me with the plans.

Ah. I promise they will be silly and absolutely mindless.

So I said yes.

Good. It's about damn time.

All this crime-fighting without a social life is making you grouchy.

I'm not grouchy, I'm just realistic.

All my relationships come with an expiration date.

I mean, the moment he asks:

"So hey. Hey, why can't you just blow off this late-night baking gig?"

The muffin-top cover story?

Possibly the lamest thing you've ever come up with.

You just get to a point where you can't lie anymore.

Never been there. You'll have to tell me what it's like.

Speaking of lying, about Dinah?

- Oh, I ran a background check. - You did? What'd you find?

- Nothing. - So I guess I should be relieved...

...she's not an ax murderer.

No, I mean nothing. No records at all.

I mean, as if she didn't exist. She gave us a false name.

You're just getting around to mentioning this now?

- I thought you might overreact. - I'm not overreacting.

I'm very calmly pointing out that we have no idea who this girl is.

Actually, we do. I ran a facial-recognition autosearch...

...on yearbook photos from Missouri going back five years.

Meet Dinah Redmond of Opal, Missouri.

Population, 2541. Some truancy, she's run away a few times.

She'd been living with her foster family. Her parents gave her up.

Anyway, the point is, now we know that she really is a runaway...

...and not some criminal mastermind.

Known by other aliases as, oh, "The Truth."

- She'll tell us when she's ready. - And until then you're just gonna trust her?

With all this top-secret, super-classified intel around here?

- She could get into anything. Hey, guys.

That's my sweater!

- Well, you said I should dress better. - Not in my clothes.

Hey, time out.

There will be absolutely no use of super-powers...

...to settle domestic disagreements.

You, get changed. You, come with me.

That was my favorite sweater.