"You suggested we go to the Hall of Records so you could research your father, didn't you?" demanded Crane. "So much for this date."

"You didn't wanna go on one anyway," retorted Ivy, pulling out records from a filing cabinet. "And you academic types love researching dry, boring stuff. At least this way I'm asserting my independence as a woman, and doing something worthwhile at the same time."

"You're implying that asserting your independence as a woman isn't worthwhile?" asked Crane.

"I'm just multi-tasking," retorted Ivy. "It's something women are good at. Now get searching," she snapped, shoving the files at him.

"We're looking for what, the record of your birth?" asked Crane, scanning the files. "Would your mother even have put him down as your father if he abandoned her? It's entirely possible that the reason she never told you who he was was that she didn't know herself."

"What are you implying about my mother?" demanded Ivy.

"Nothing," said Crane. "Just that the apple might not fall far from the tree," he muttered under his breath.

"No, she knew," said Ivy, ignoring him. "And anyway, it's not hugely important who he is exactly, just as long as he's not J. I've got a lab doing a DNA test as we speak. Harley had to get me a sample of J's DNA – I told her a blood or semen sample, just as long as she never told me how she got it, and as long as she dropped it off at the lab so I never had to know. But I thought as long as we're waiting, why not try things the old-fashioned way? See if we can get a name, and find out his history, and see if he's dead, and go kill him if he's not."

"I said I wasn't comfortable with any sex or violence on this date, and I meant it," retorted Crane. "I'll have no part in murdering your father – he didn't do anything to me."

"He might have bullied you," retorted Ivy. "He's probably around your age – you might have gone to school with him for all I know."

"I suppose anything's possible," agreed Crane, nodding. "But it would seem very unlikely, and almost unbelievably coincidental."

"After the day I've had, I'd believe anything at this point," said Ivy. "Your hat friend talks a lotta crap, but I'm starting to come round to his way of thinking about believing in impossible things. Which is why I'm starting to actually get paranoid that J might be my father. I just don't know how I'd cope. The thought that we might have anything in common makes me feel physically ill, and the thought that I could have come from him is just too horrible to think about. But I guess it would follow a pattern in my life – awful men seem to make me into the woman I am today. Which I suppose makes Harvey right – I do seem to give men power over my life just by trying to assert my independence from them."

"Well, even if Joker did somehow technically create you, the fact that he wasn't in your life means he didn't have anything to do with the woman you are today," retorted Crane. "So take some consolation from that."

"Mostly I just have to believe that my mother wasn't that crazy," said Ivy. "She was a smart, sensible, confident woman who could have done a lot better."

"Yes, well, women do seem to fawn over that monster, for some reason," sniffed Crane. "Especially beautiful, smart, sweet, sensitive, kind, caring women who could do so much better…"

"Please stop," interrupted Ivy. "I don't want to hear anymore about your pathetic crush on Harley. That is something that's never gonna happen, so you should just get over it."

"Easier said than done," retorted Crane. "Obviously you've never cared very deeply for someone you couldn't be with."

"Oh, sure I have," said Ivy. "It sucks, but we all have to move on eventually. No point in moping and whining about it and prolonging the misery – it just makes you feel bad about yourself, trying to find reasons why the person doesn't want to be with you. And in Harley's case, there's no point in trying to rationalize that relationship. She and J are not something that anyone can explain, because it's completely insane. I'm not sure even they understand it."

"Harley would say that's love," sighed Crane. "Complete insanity. And she'd be right – as you say, it's crazy to pine over someone you can't have. But no one has ever accused me of being sane before."

"Less talking, more reading," retorted Ivy.

"I suppose in many ways that is my ideal date," agreed Crane, returning his attention to the files.

Ivy's phone rang suddenly, and she answered it instantly. "Hello? Yes, speaking. Yes. Yes, I'm aware my DNA is corrupted by chlorophyll, but you can still get the results, right? No, it's a condition I've had for some time, and it's perfectly fine. Yeah, I don't know what exactly is in his, but he's aware of that too – he's also lived with the condition for some time, and he's fine. Well, not fine, but used to it, I guess. Ok. Ok, thank you," she said, hanging up the phone and breathing a sigh of relief.

"It's negative," she said, beaming at Crane. "J is not my dad, thank God. We share no genetic similarities whatsoever. Well, except the fact that our DNA has been mutated, but that's because of completely different circumstances."

"Congratulations," said Crane. "Your worst fear has not come to pass. Are you still interested in finding out who your father is?"

"I guess," said Ivy, shrugging. "It might be useful to know, or at least have a name…"

She paused, noticing that Crane had fallen silent and pale staring at the open folder in front of him. "What is it?" she asked.

"I have a name," he murmured.

"What is it?" demanded Ivy.

"James Rosenberg," murmured Crane.

"Who the hell is that?" she demanded

"Your father, apparently," he replied, handing her the file. "Also the lawyer on retainer by Gotham University to handle all their legal difficulties."

"My dad was a lawyer?" asked Ivy. "Well, that makes sense – those people are always a little slimy. Harvey excepted, of course."

"James Rosenberg was more than slimy," muttered Crane. "He was vindictive. He was the one who encouraged the University to fire me to save themselves any legal backlash and embarrassment from my experiments on students. Students who volunteered to be experimented on, let me add. He was by far the loudest voice of condemnation at my hearing, even louder than that idiot Dr. Long, telling me what I had done was completely unethical, monstrous, and insane. He said the students would have every right to sue me for their trauma, and that he would encourage them to do so, even though the risks were clearly outlined in the contracts I had everyone sign. He was a self-important, self-assured, holier-than-thou, morally superior creep, which infuriates me now that I know he abandoned his wife and child. How dare he preach to me about ethics and morality?"

"I'm not surprised by the hypocrisy of humans anymore, and you shouldn't be either," retorted Ivy. "You're older than me, after all. Old enough to be prosecuted by my dad."

"Yes, thank you," snapped Crane. "You don't need to remind of that fact. Anyway, you don't resemble him at all physically, although I suppose he was considered an attractive man. The students who testified against me were mostly female, clearly besotted, and encouraged by him to play up the crying routine, which they gladly did. He certainly played up the nice guy persona for the cameras, the no-nonsense, zero tolerance for any kind of bad behavior attitude. Clearly he was fairly two-faced, which is another trait of most lawyers, Harvey included."

"Ironically, Harvey isn't actually two-faced anymore," said Ivy. "I mean, he is literally, but not figuratively."

"You've correctly used both those terms – you're becoming more attractive to me by the second, my dear," replied Crane, dryly.

"The feeling's not mutual," retorted Ivy, heading over to the computer. "You don't know if he's still at the University, do you? He's probably retired by now."

"I have no clue – I really had tried to block him from my mind until I was unpleasantly reminded of him," said Crane. "I was sort of hoping I'd killed him in my first fear gas attack on the University, but knowing the cockroach that he is, he survived somehow. He might not even have been at the event I attacked - I don't recall all the faces there."

"We should find out," said Ivy. "And make him pay for what he did to both of us."

"How are we going to do that?" asked Crane. "These records are unlikely to provide us with his career path or current whereabouts…"

"That's what computers are for, grandpa," retorted Ivy, opening a search engine. "If he's a lawyer, he's gonna have a website, or some record of his career – those people make a living from advertising and publicity. See, here he is," she said, opening a link. "Wow, he is pretty good-looking," she agreed, seeing a picture of a handsome, older man with streaks of black in his otherwise silver hair. "I can see why Mom went for that – quite the silver fox."

"Yes. Never mind he has the personality of a snake, as long as he's good-looking, women want to be with him," sighed Crane, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, I still hate him, but it's comforting to know that Mom wasn't crazy," said Ivy. "At least my insanity isn't hereditary. Looks like he did leave the University and went into private practice. His office isn't too far from here."

"What are the chances he'd be working this late?" asked Crane, glancing at his watch.

"We can just go see, and if he's not there, we can just have my plants break into his office and destroy his property," said Ivy. "Come on, it'll be fun. You've tried to kill him before, and you can't say he didn't do anything to you now."

Crane sighed heavily. "Well, I do enjoy taking vengeance upon those who've wronged me," he sighed, reaching into his pocket and removing some vials of fear toxin.

"You brought fear gas on our date?" asked Ivy.

"Yes, I thought I might need it to make a quick getaway in case things got awkward," said Crane. "I usually take it with me everywhere as a precaution. As a wanted, fairly recognizable supercriminal, one can't be too careful, and one never knows when one will need a distraction. Especially after the heist Jervis and I perpetrated earlier."

"What heist?" asked Ivy. "It better not be the Gotham Mint – I was gonna hit that later this week."

"No, it wasn't in Gotham," said Crane, vaguely. "It was just some technical items Jervis wanted – he was fairly bitter about Superman taking away his technology, so he stole some things to make himself feel better."

"I guess that's fair," said Ivy. "I've done some burglary therapy myself when I've been down before. Just as long as they're not dangerous alien things. The last thing I want is the little runt doing anything like what he did today."

"Yes, they're not…dangerous alien things," said Crane, slowly, as he followed her out of the Hall of Records. "For the most part," he muttered under his breath.