Chapter 1: TUMOR NECROSIS FACTOR RECEPTOR SUPERFAMILY MEMBER 1A
Notes:
hi what is up. yeah im back on ao3. sorry i was gone for like 2 years. you know how it is
so i got back into gotham after getting 2 seasons in back in like?? man idk 2017 or something. but i picked it back up again like 6 months back and got REALLY into it this time for some reason (spoiler. it was the autism babes). i didnt even care about jerome the first time. this time though im shaking him violently in my mouth like a squeaky toy
i went looking for fanfictions and i noticed that a lot of jerome/ofc or jerome/reader or jerome/you or whatever is kinda dark and toxic? just based on the tags/summaries its definitely the vibes i got. which is like fine, but girlies and non girlies of the jury come on where is your fucking joy and whimsy!!!!!! so i decided to write my own. specifically a jerom x oc one, because the complete LACK of OCs paired with jerome on here?? absolutely wretched and rotted. no offense to reader inserts but get that shit OUT of my face. im so sorry to be a hater (no im not i love being a hater) but i really didnt like the fragile little abused reader at jeromes mercy that reader inserts seem to give you. please give me someone who can and will beat his ginger ass
SO!!! heres my fanfiction that absolutely no one but me wanted. born and fueled by the spite within me. i spent ages editing these first couple chapters and had the worse time ever because i kept REWRITING THEM from SCRATCH like a fucking FREAK. like ive literally been reworking just this chapter on and off for months. no i dont know whats wrong with me please don't ask agani
alright enjoy the first chapter. i love you (speaking directly to YOU 🫵 last 4 people still reading gotham fanfic in 2025)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Max was in Arkham Asylum, and it wasn't her fault.
Shifting on the thin, uncomfortable mattress in her cell, she glared at the grimy wall opposite her, seething. The tiny room felt suffocating, like its walls were pressing in on her. The stale, musty air of the old building did nothing to improve her sour mood.
Of all the things she'd expected, this had not been one of them—fucking admitted to Arkham. She still hadn't wrapped her head around the fact that he'd put her here. It hadn't been even a full week since the incident that had led to this—the Bromine Debacle, as she'd taken to calling it—and only a few days since Professor Strange, her mentor, motherfucker number one at Indian Hill, and Chief of Psychiatry and Director of this absolute dump, had personally woken her in the dead of night to drop the news on her.
Max grimaced at the memory.
It had been maybe three in the morning, pitch dark in her quarters, when she'd jolted awake. Her eyes had shot open, feeling a presence hovering over her bed, and she immediately spotted a dark silhouette looming over her. Max liked to think she wasn't caught off guard or frightened easily. And she wasn't. But she still yelled out in alarm and shoved herself back against the metal headboard—and if anyone asked in the future, she'd given a total battle cry because she was always ready to take motherfuckers down. The fact that it had sounded high–pitched and terrified, even in her own ears, had just been a trick of the room's acoustics.
She quickly realized it was only Strange, but before she could even utter a 'What the fuck,' the man—calm as ever—said in that cool voice of his, 'Maxwell. I'm admitting you to Arkham.' And as if to make sure her nerves were really shot, proceeded to upend a full jug of ice water over her head. Because he couldn't just be normal about things.
And here she was, locked in a dingy cell like she was some common criminal maniac.
Max really didn't feel her actions warranted such dramatic discipline. She'd only hurled five glass ampoules of elemental bromine at a wall, shattering them instantly. Who even cared.
Apparently, a lot of people cared. The evacuation of Indian Hill's upper-mid levels said as much. Sure, the wall she'd thrown them against had been next to a ventilation shaft, which had dispersed the thick vapors to several areas. And yeah, maybe that had been an oversight on her part, but she couldn't be expected to think clearly when in the middle of an episode.
It wasn't even like everyone was exposed. Only some staff members had come in contact with it, and even less had gotten a lungful of the chemical's vapors. Literally what was the big deal?
Yes, there was Dwight, a key personnel in the reanimation labs who was now out of commission for the next few weeks. But he was annoying, always hovering near her whenever she was in the reanimation labs, stuttering out hellos and good mornings like he had to muster up the courage to talk to her each time. Max was glad he ended up on a ventilator. Now he couldn't bother her. So what if he was important or whatever? The thought of him wheezing through tubes was satisfying.
What definitely wasn't satisfying though, was that Professor Strange had also been among the few exposed.
Max scowled to herself at the thought of him, slouching back in her cot. He hadn't inhaled any, and the areas of his skin that had brief contact with the vapors only suffered a mild case of crispiness. Nothing too bad. And that would've been the extent of it, if not for the fact that he had slipped on some rogue splatters and wrecked his shit on the floor in front of several evacuating staff.
She hadn't meant to laugh. But being half manic, she couldn't have stopped it if she wanted to. Besides, he'd been fine. He walked away from it with nothing more than a bruised ego.
The biohazard clean-up crew had been called in after that, and multiple areas—including the reanimation labs—had been sealed off while the mess was dealt with.
Strange had been furious. But sending her to Arkham just seemed excessive. He had never been this harsh with her. He'd taken her under his wing at a young age, given her special treatment, indulged her in ways he never would for anyone else. Being his apprentice granted her privileges no one else got. Yes he had always been a little unpredictable, and his temperament with her could be fickle if not outright volatile at times. But she had assumed that the special treatment she generally received would cushion the blow of whatever punishment he dished out. Strange had never been too harsh with her. Not usually. Whether because she was a prized asset or because he had some sort of twisted fondness for her, she didn't know or care. But she'd grown accustomed to the leniency. Expected it, even. Acting out only ever earned a slap on the wrist.
Not this time, though.
Strange was pissed. And she had a good feeling it wasn't just because of the chemical burns or his frankly impressive slip and fall. No, it was because of the delay she caused on the reanimation project.
Max frowned, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her Arkham shirt. Losing access to the reanimation labs for even two days had sent Strange into a total fit of anger. It felt almost disproportionate. If he were a less composed man, someone any less in control of his emotions, Max suspected he might have been visibly foaming at the mouth every time he saw her. But he was a composed man, and was in control of his emotions. Even when he wasn't.
Miss Peabody on the other hand—she had nearly tried to strangle Max on the spot for the setback she'd caused. More than once.
Max maybe should've expected this sort of reaction. She knew how irate Strange had grown with the stagnation of Project Pinewood. He lived and breathed that project. But the labs had been hitting dead-ends for months now, and the lack of breakthrough was wearing thin on him. Their employers only added to the pressure, insistently pushing for progress they just couldn't deliver. They had endured months of the Court breathing down their necks, demanding they produce something and make up for the project's standstill. Strange may be arrogant, even reckless at times, but nothing set him on edge like their employers did.
Max hadn't helped matters either, putting in a half-assed effort at best. She'd grown more than a little disillusioned by the endless string of failures. And only adding to her waning focus on the project was the mountain of new responsibilities she'd been handed months earlier.
She shifted again on the cot, her fingers twitching restlessly. Her thoughts were stuck in an endless, suffocating loop, cycling through every moment, every decision, that had led her here. She couldn't stop it, couldn't slow it down—just had to sit and endure as her usually bottled-up emotions crashed over her, one after another.
Disbelief. Then rage. Then poorly rationalized denial. Then detached acceptance. Then rage again.
She felt caged, trapped, with nothing to do but stew in her own thoughts. Her jaw clenched as she tried—and failed—to distract herself. But it just wasn't fair. She hadn't done anything bad, not really. It wasn't her fault she'd had an episode. They just happened sometimes.
And she was being blamed for that? Punished for it? Unbelievable.
Strange was just throwing a tantrum over Project Pinewood's shortcomings, taking it out on her. He always did.
But he had to let her out of here eventually. It wasn't like she was just anybody. Strange had invested years into her.Eleven of them. Over a decade.That had to count for something. She was too valuable to let rot away in Arkham while he worked through his little tantrum. That could take weeks—months. And if she returned to the facility in anything less than perfect condition, others would suffer for it. Who would fix Strange's abysmal CRISPR templates? Peabody? She still used Excel for gene mapping.
Max tore her gaze away from the loose thread on her sleeve she'd been staring at, glaring toward the cell door as the muffled sounds of some screaming inmate echoed down the hall.
The face of the admission orderly's tasked with wrangling her flashed in her mind. He'd come by earlier to inform her that recreation time had started for her inmate group (something she apparently had) and she was required to participate. Max rolled her eyes just thinking about it. He'd added, condescendingly, that she'd only be allowed to join after she had "settled down." Just recalling his tone made her bristle. Patronizing. Belittling. Dismissive.
He'd told her her attitude needed adjustment. That her earlier behavior—digging her heels in at every opportunity and hurling insults at anyone who got too close—had earned her "quiet time." Fucking quiet time.
She gritted her teeth tightly. She was Max Reed, apprentice to Professor Hugo Strange. A fucking prodigy geneticist and an unparalleled expert in microbiology. She didn't need "quiet time" to "settle down." She didn't need recreation time to "practice socialization skills." And she had made sure to let the orderly know it. Loudly.
Not that she could say everything, obviously. She wasn't about to announce to the world that she worked under Hugo Strange in some secret lab buried beneath the Asylum, creating monsters and trying to reanimate the dead. But she'd made the rest of it clear. Crystal clear.
The entire hall had probably heard her shouting. She'd called the orderly a low-level idiot, a nobody, an insect, a tarpit. She'd screamed so hard her voice had started cracking into a borderline shrieking cadence as she'd made it abundantly clear that she wasn't going to be pushed around like she was just another worthless inmate.
Even though, technically, that's exactly what she was now.
She'd stood there, breathing hard, face flushed, the echoes of her own shouting still ringing in her ears. The outburst had felt good—for all of five seconds. Then the orderly just looked at her. Unmoved. Unimpressed. His lips pressed into a thin, rigid smile, the kind that barely concealed how much he hated his job.
Then, through gritted teeth, he hissed, "Manage that attitude, Miss Reed."
The implication had been clear: Fucking cooperate.
He said nothing else. Just tossed a pair of laceless white sneakers onto the corner of her cell before turning on his heel and slamming the door on a fuming Max. He hadn't even given her socks, the jerk.
At some point, she'd started pacing her cramped cell. She wasn't sure when. Didn't care. Her bare feet were cold against the hard concrete as she stalked its short length, her glare flicking to the door every so often, fists clenched tight. She was alone. Had been for the past twenty minutes—maybe longer. She didn't know. It felt like hours. No orderlies, no distractions. Just the creeping static of boredom clawing at her brain and the weight of total silence pressing down on her.
Max wasn't used to this kind of isolation. She wasn't social—not even close. Never had been. If she wasn't shadowing Strange or assisting him or Peabody, she was working alone, and that suited her just fine. She liked being left alone.
But that was different. There was always something going on in the labs for her. Always something to do.
Here though? There was nothing.
She unclenched her fists, exhaling sharply as she pulled off her large wireframe glasses, wiping them absently on her striped shirt just to keep her hands occupied. The air in her cell felt thick, heavy, suffocating. The gray walls only seemed to press closer with every passing second. It set her teeth on edge.
The minutes were crawling by, slow and agonizing, like time was purposefully stretching itself out—each second scraping by with all the ease of being dragged across sandpaper.
She kept pacing. Kept moving. But it gave her no relief. Her whole body felt wired, thrumming with restless energy that had nowhere to go. She needed to do something. Anything. Her mind felt like a livewire, crackling dangerously, desperate to be plugged and channel the tension into something productive.
It hadn't even been a day and already Arkham was getting to her. The sheer lack of stimulation was unbearable. Maddening. She wasn't built for this—wasn't meant to sit idle, locked away in a cell and pacing like some starved animal. It wasn't just frustrating. It was humiliating.
She was better than this.
Being treated like something disposable—like she was nothing—was an insult to everything she had worked for.
The workload at Indian Hill had been grinding her down for months, pushing her toward a breaking point she hadn't even realized she had. But she'd take that over this any day. She'd rather be drowning in projects, juggling twenty things at once, than be stuck here with nothing. At least there, she had a purpose. There, her mind had outlets—an endless number of them. And her brain had always felt like it had just as many plugs to match.
When her apprenticeship had ramped up, becoming more demanding, she hadn't flinched—at least, not at first. It was the natural progression of it, after all. The older she got, the more intense things became. But it was how she liked it. Every new responsibility was just another proving ground, another chance to show Strange how much she'd grown and progressed.
And for what? To get tossed into Arkham the second she showed an ounce of weakness? The moment she was anything less than perfect? The setback she'd caused for Project Pinewood was not that serious.
Max glanced at the door again, her fingers tapping restlessly against the dull gold frames of her glasses. She was going to lose her fucking mind if she didn't get out of this room. Recreation time in Arkham was probably miserable, but it had to be better than this. Being around other people—insufferable as it would be—seemed miles better than the crushing nothing of her cell.
Exhaling sharply, Max ran a hand through her hair, pausing mid-pace as her reflection caught her eye in the large frames clenched tightly in her hands. She lifted them to her face, the faint, blurry image of herself sharpening into focus. Her reflection squinted back at her with dark, tired eyes. Tilting the frames away from the harsh glare of the room's single bulb, she turned her head to the side, glowering at her appearance. Her ears looked strange without their usual array of piercings—too bare. They'd been confiscated when she was admitted, leaving her feeling almost exposed, like pieces of her had been stolen away.
With a puff of air, she blew a few wild strands of hair from her face. They'd even taken her hair tie, leaving her short, dark locks to hang messily just below her chin. She felt like a stripped-down version of herself, like someone had peeled away her layers and left something raw, incomplete, and dull underneath. She hated it.
Sliding her glasses back onto her face, the small room snapped into focus around her. At least they'd let her keep them—her glasses. Strange had assured the staff she could be trusted with them, all without so much as hinting that she was anything more than his newest patient. Privately though, he'd made her swear not to fashion the wireframes into a shank or a lock pick. Like a liar, she had agreed. It was in her best interest to behave here—at least to a certain extent. But having a backup plan never hurt anyone.
The reminder of Strange only reignited her anger. Max was not going to forgive him for this. She was never letting it go. Endless punishments had been at his disposal. He could have confined her to running metagenomic analyses nonstop, or condemned her to a month of nothing but conducting flow cytometry. But this is what he had chosen.
She was going to be bored to tears in here, and Strange knew it. It hadn't even been a full day yet and she already was. This whole thing was cruel and unusual—and Geneva Convention violations aside, it was just fucking rude, too. All standard behavior from the man, sure, but not something she ever thought he'd direct at her. At least, never to this extent.
Her thoughts shifted to her intake session, where she'd been forced to sit across from Strange in his Arkham office. She'd made her fury with him crystal clear—arms crossed, glaring, and not saying a word. ("Max, I make it a point to meet all my new patients. Skipping protocol with you wouldn't be wise. This is not meant to antagonize you—please, Maxwell, spare me the rude gestures.")
A fist pounded on the thick steel door of her cell, yanking Max from her thoughts. She turned sharply, shooting a positively venomous look over her shoulder as the cell door groaned open. Exactly who she'd expected stood in the doorway—her admission orderly, this time flanked by a hulking guard.
"Well! We've given you enough time to mope and check that attitude of yours, I hope." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Max's only response was a glare.
He sighed. "Right. Let's just go join the others." With a curt two-fingered motion, he beckoned her forward.
Max disdainfully held his gaze for a beat longer before she finally budged, her steps deliberately slow as she crossed the cell to the shoes he'd given her—thrown at her—earlier. She crammed her feet into them with a grimace, the fit painfully tight.
Relief flickered faintly in the back of her mind at the prospect of leaving her cell, but she refused to let it show, making sure to drag her feet as she trudged toward the door.
The orderly smiled thinly as she passed, though it was more of a thin-lipped expression that barely masked his annoyance.
"Professor Strange has vouched for you to keep your glasses," he informed her as they entered the dimly lit corridor, like she was too stupid to remember.
Max didn't bother responding. She didn't even look at him.
"Oh, not speaking?" He tutted, stepping closer to push her glasses up her nose in a condescending gesture. Max instinctively slapped his hand away.
He jerked back, giving her a look. "Watch it. You're on thin ice already," he warned, holding out a finger like she was some bratty child.
Max wanted to grab it and twist. Just to be obnoxious. Instead she turned her head away, pointedly ignoring him.
The orderly sighed. "Alright, your majesty, off to the rec room with you," he muttered, casting a weakly apologetic glance at the guard he was about to dump Max on. Without another word, he turned and left, clearly relieved to be rid of her.
The guard didn't say a thing. He just grabbed her by the elbow and began to steer her down the corridor in the opposite direction. Max stiffened immediately at the contact, a disgruntled noise slipping from her. But she didn't fight him. There wasn't much point in being a pain in the ass right now. She felt more than a little wrung out after nearly losing it inside her cell. A simple, hassle-free trip to the rec room was preferable—even if it meant tolerating someone touching her.
Besides, while none of the orderlies had tried to restrain her, she had a feeling this guy wouldn't hesitate to slam her ass down and cuff her if she pissed him off. He looked like the type, even if his grip on her arm was loose. He probably thought her dweeby stature wasn't much of a threat to him—which, fair enough. He had a good few feet on her and looked like he could snap her in half if he wanted to.
Still, the idea of landing a couple of cheap shots on him and then hauling ass before he could catch her was a nice thought.
The trek from the female ward to the lower floors passed without incident. Max, for once, remained civil. It physically hurt to do. Every instinct screamed to stomp on his foot, wrench her arm free, bite his sausage fingers, but she swallowed the urge.
He led her to a chain-link door and swiftly unlocked it. Max, granting herself a brief moment of stubbornness, made no move to step inside voluntarily. It got her nothing but an unceremonious shove forward. She stumbled in, barely catching herself, and cast a scowl behind her, but the guard was already locking the door and walking away.
The rec room was moderately sized, with a high, arched ceiling centered on a round skylight of frosted—or just very dirty—glass. To her right, cracked stone walls were interspersed by tall chain-link partitions, with a few guards milling about on the other side. The setup made the whole place a caged-in, kennel-like feel. There wasn't much in terms of furniture, just a couple of four-person metal tables near the entrance and a few larger cafeteria-style tables near the furthest wall, all bolted down to the concrete floor.
Max squinted against the light—actual light. Not the cold, sterile glow of Indian Hill's fluorescents. Her eyes burned, struggling to adjust after her walk through the dim halls of the asylum. Arkham wasn't dark the way Indian Hill had been—at least, not here. The room was still steeped in gray, thanks to the overcast sky outside, but it was the most natural light she'd seen in a long time.
Several tall, narrow windows lined the wall to her left, iron bars secured on both the inner and outer sides. The glass was nearly opaque with filth, but still, the colorless outside light slipped through. It caught Max's attention, and she stood there for a moment, staring at it.
She'd been outside before, of course. When she was very young. But the memories felt distant, misaligned from her current self, like they belonged to someone else.
The outside wasn't something necessary. It never bothered her that she hadn't seen it in years.
And yet, her eyes remained fixed on the hazy glow seeping through the glass. She wasn't used to windows, or sunlight—not in Indian Hill, not even much during that odd in-between period when Strange had been working to reopen Pinewood; before their current employment by the Court.
For just a moment, the room felt too open. The world outside, too big.
The feeling passed quickly.
Not keen on lingering near the entrance and attracting unwanted attention, Max made her way to one of the only empty tables and sank into a cold, uncomfortable chair. She half-expected someone to approach her the moment she sat down, but no one did. In fact, aside from a few cursory glances, her arrival seemed to have gone completely unnoticed.
She was surprised. The rec room wasn't chaos like she'd expected. There were only a couple dozen inmates scattered around, and none were doing anything particularly noteworthy. Some were locked in quiet conversations, others were paired off and hunched over worn checkerboards or card games. The soft hum of their combined voices filled the otherwise empty space, creating a strangely calm atmosphere.
Max's face remained flat, but a twinge of disappointment stirred inside her. She typically preferred the quiet. Preferred calm over chaos. But that was back when she had things to focus on—projects, experiments, work. The rec room had none of that.
She would've welcomed at least some mayhem, just enough to enjoy as an observer from the sidelines. Anything to break the monotony. It'd be better than sitting at a table doing nothing, which she had a sinking feeling was all she'd be doing during recreation time today.
And the next day.
And the next.
A thought crossed her mind—maybe Strange had hand-picked a more docile group of inmates for her, some ill-conceived attempt at mercy. But she discarded the notion just as quickly. She knew him better than that. His intentions always had layers, contingencies. If anything, he'd probably arranged this to keep her as bored and miserable as possible. What an asshole.
Max's eyes flickered over to the other inmates again, scanning them as they mingled with one another in groups. She had no intention of interacting with anyone. Socializing was pointless. Max didn't need socializing. Other people didn't like her, and she didn't like them.
She slouched further in her seat, propping her chin on her hands, her heels bouncing lightly against the floor as her gaze drifted lazily over the heads of the other inmates with disinterest. Her gaze drifted over the inmates before fixing on a circular, wrought iron window near the ceiling that framed the overcast sky.
If nothing else, at least she was out of her cell.
The rec room was just enough to stave off that crawling sensation that came with understimulation, and her brain was no longer sparking dangerously. The soft murmurs of conversation, the lofty room and its windows, even the other inmates—none of it interested her, but at least it reeled her back into something more manageable.
But she was still bored.
Her eyes remained glued to the window, the room's low sounds fading into background noise as she retreated into her own head.
Thinking was all she had to work with. All she could do. So, she started mentally sorting alkylating agents by chemical structure and mechanism of action.
Alkylating agents. She nearly snorted. Her brain was really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
Still, for a few moments, it filled the space in her head. Blocked out the thick static that threatened to creep in. But she lost interest impressively fast. What she needed was something hands-on. Something tactile. Real.
She tried cycling through the conditions for synthesizing a basic mutagen, going over the reaction steps in obsessive detail.
It felt hollow.
She leafed through what she could remember of her ionizing radiation research.
It felt stale.
Max's fingers drummed idly on the table as she continued to gaze out the window, a hand still supporting her chin. Under the table, her legs bounced restlessly. Her fingers twitched, itching to be put to work. She tightened them into a fist, then stretched them out, feeling the tendons flex, before balling them up again and digging her nails into her palm. Thoughts were what she had. She had to work with that. She couldn't focus on what she didn't have.
She squeezed her fists one final time.
Then, she retreated back into her head.
Notes:
its the first chapter and i immediately sorta went backstory tangent mode. but it had to be done. the first version had it so much worse, but if this cut down version it still annoyed anyone i'll commit seppuku to atone for my sins
updates will probably be really slow because i take breaks from working on this a lot. it is, regrettably, just the kind of person i am. but im really into this fanfiction and have a lot of it planned out in my head (literally im already working out stuff in my head that i want to happen the sequel (yes there will be a sequel 👍 yes jeremiah will be in it 👍 yes it will be soo fun to write 👍) and possibly a sort of interlude story between this and the 2nd installment. but let’s survive this fic first lmao
so ok quick note: this isnt that important, but i had to mess with the timeline a bit. In this, Indian hill has been running for longer than in canon. hugo strange has been running arkham for longer too. not that much longer since arkham only reopens again in season 1 of gotham, but ive made it so there isnt a significant gap between the wayne murders and indian hill opening
alright thats it. i hope you guys like max so far shes such a bitch and i love her. im gonna wring her ass through the character development meat grinder but it'll probably be slow. from what i plan on writing the bulk over her development will be in the sequel, but that doesnt mean there wont be any in this. and maybe she’ll even have some semblance of a comprehensible character journey. who knows. not me. But whatever i have a lot of stuff planned for max that im super excited for so YIPPEEE
ok byee 💗 see u when i finish editing chapter 2 and post it 💗
Chapter 2: TNF RECEPTOR-ASSOCIATED FACTOR 2
Notes:
i feel like some of this needs more tweaking but i no longer care i just need to upload this 😭😭 like four months between posting the 1st chapter and the 2nd???? literally go to jail
this chapter was originally 8k words and i had to just cut it in half. because there’s just something about me that makes it so when i try to edit really long chapters i develop the anxiety of a prey animal. also I kept trying to edit the entire thing in one go instead of breaking it into sections because I'm fucked up and evil
even with the chapter cut down to something manageable i would still barely work on it lol. i kept getting flashbanged by my adhd and getting distracted. like i started remodding and replaying stardew valley then started remodding and replaying ME3LE. i watched all extended editions of lotr 30 minutes at a time and began making an OC for the movies then started to hyperfixate on the wargs too because their designs are so doofy and hard to pin down and now i have 2 canvases in sai I'm just drawing lotr wargs on. i have 3 people who i promised to make acrylic paintings for so i started working on those. i have 89 windows tabs open and no fucking joke 45 WIPS across multiple mediums in various states of decay
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Max hadn't moved an inch from her spot in the rec room.
She sat like a statue, staring at that same wrought-iron window for who knows how long. She couldn't tell. Time had blurred into something meaningless, and without a clock in sight there was no way to give it meaning back. So recreation dragged on. It was less suffocating than her cell, sure, but just barely. Dullness ate at her all the same.
She didn't know how much longer she would be here. A quick glance at the guards beyond the chain-link partitions told her she wasn't going anywhere soon. They looked pretty settled in. She looked away, clenching her teeth together until her jaw ached and a pressure built behind her temples in a dull throb. The sensation didn't do much to help, but it gave her something to focus on besides the urge to slam her forehead against the table.
The worst part? This would be the best part of her day. Undeniably. Group therapy? Worse. Mealtimes? Worse. Behavioral workshops? Definitely worse. Her cell? Not just worse, but a kind of torment never before recorded by scientists. Not that recreation wasn't its own curated hell. It had just been sneaky about it. Luring her in with the false promise of relief. With its big windows and the soft murmur of conversation, it had tricked her into thinking it might be manageable. Tolerable, even.
And it had been. For the first five minutes. But it didn't last. Of course it didn't. Why would it? The novelty of not being locked in a four-by-six wore off fast when there was nothing to actually do. Every attempt at distraction fizzled into the same dead end. There were only so many ways she could reorganize her thoughts before they drifted—relentlessly, stupidly—back to Indian Hill.
And thoughts of the facility, inevitably, led to Garfield.
Max swallowed. She hadn't thought about Garfield in days.
She'd been too caught up in her rage. Rage at being dumped into Arkham like she was nothing, at Strange's infuriating veneer of indifference, at her own desperate bargaining—no, groveling. It had been pathetic. She never put aside her pride, not for anyone. But she had this time. And it hadn't even worked.
And Garfield? Even before it all—before the Bromine Debacle, before everything that came after—she'd barely spared him a thought. Not in months. She'd been too buried in work, too preoccupied, too caught up in her apprenticeship picking up intensity. Garfield had hardly even been an afterthought. Or a forethought. Or any kind of thought. He'd become just an occasional flicker at the edges of her mind.
She shouldn't feel bad about it. He didn't need the attention, not really. Not originally. But deep down, she kind of did feel bad. Guilty, maybe. Just a little. Which was fucking ridiculous. Max wasn't one for sentiment, or attachment, or emotional weak points in general—but Garfield, he'd pried his way through that thick shell of hers and made himself comfortable underneath it.
Maybe it was because he wasn't just another project, but the project. Her first solo undertaking when she'd turned fifteen. Or maybe it was because he'd been hers in a way nothing else ever really was—built from the ground up, gene by gene, cell by cell. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe it was just the constancy of his presence in her life. Always there, his containment unit humming just a few floors down from her lab.
He hadn't always been Garfield. He'd started as Project GARF—Gastrointestinal Augmented Rapid Feeding. A creature designed to dispose of the facility's waste—chemical runoff, failed experiments, unwanted test subjects, the occasional uncooperative researcher. He could digest nearly anything and left behind zero trace of waste, which had been a nightmare to engineer. His GI tract and endocrine system alone had taken endless rounds of CRISPR-Cas9 edits, countless nights of epigenetic fine-tuning, and a mind-numbing amount of synthetic biological systems she'd had to hand-integrate one at a time.
Not to mention the unprecedented number of test subjects who'd melted internally.
It had been messy. It had been exhausting. And the practical testing phases had been gross. Her lab had reeked of viscera and intestinal gases for the better half of a year.
The rest of him had been easier, though no less tedious. It had taken a year and a half, but the final result was everything she'd hoped for—and then some. Project GARF turned out perfectly. Unexpectedly so. Not because she lacked faith in her own work, but because you don't just create life from scratch without encountering a single issue. She'd prepared for every problem that was a possibility: metabolic instability, epigenetic drift, anything. She'd prepared backups for her backups—stockpiling contingency vectors to deploy at the first signs of caspase activation, and archiving suppressor vectors to interrupt apoptosis if those failed.
But none of the problems she'd braced for happened. He didn't degrade, didn't die during that first critical week. His systems stabilized within hours—no genetic drift, no misfolded polypeptides, no telomere shortening. Just seamless biological convergence. His cells executed their programming with such faultless precision, it felt less like biomechanical engineering and more like eons of evolution compressed into eighteen months.
It had been too perfect. Flawless in a way that should have boosted her ego to intolerable levels. Instead, it had coiled low in her gut.
But Strange had been pleased with her. Proud, even.
Her hands curled into fists at the memory. Back then, his approval had meant more to her than she'd ever admit. More than the feeling of wrongness she'd had. It was the happiest she could remember being. Then or since.
She'd always been chasing that from him. Validation. Proof that she was worth the trouble. That she had value. His approval, his pride—they were the things that had made her feel real.
Not that it mattered now. Not that she cared. She'd outgrown it.
Max barely registered the figure approaching until they were standing over her. She blinked, dragging her eyes away from the window. A woman had parked herself at the table's edge—blonde, pretty, with collarbone-length hair hanging in lazy, unkempt waves. She was holding a worn fashion magazine in one hand, arms folded, her hip leaned casually against the table. Her face was unreadable. Watching Max with quiet focus, like she was sizing her up.
Max blinked again, waiting for her to speak. But she didn't. She just kept watching her. So Max stared back. The moment stretched. Long enough to become irritating.
Max tipped her chin forward and raised her brows, slow and deliberate—a silent, exasperated What.
The woman only tilted her head, lips pressing together like she was considering something. Still quiet.
Max exhaled sharply through her nose. Good fucking grief. "You want something, or...?"
"You're a girl," the woman said, tapping her fingers against the glossy magazine cover.
"Um... yeah. I am." Max didn't see why that was relevant.
The woman didn't flinch at her tone. Just kept looking at her, eyes half-lidded, faint amusement lurking in them. Which was weird. Most people either took the hint or got scared off by Max's aura of Do Not Fucking Speak To Me. The few who made it past that usually didn't last long after she opened her mouth.
But this one hadn't moved. Still standing there, still watching her like she was waiting for something.
Max rolled her eyes and turned back toward the window, shifting her whole body away. She planted her elbow on the table, propped her head in her palm, and crossed one leg over the other. Hopefully, that was a big enough hint.
She had no interest in conversation, no patience for pointless back-and-forth. She was not pleasant or polite, and she had no desire to be.
People were too complicated. Too unpredictable. There was no way of knowing what to expect from them, no reliable method to calculate what they might say or do. Too many variables. Too many contradictions.
Which was exactly why she had never understood, and could not possibly think any less of, Strange's obsession with the human mind. She respected him, but his fixation on behavior, psychiatric manipulation, cognition—it was laughable. How could anyone claim to study something so chaotically inconsistent? So messy and imprecise? It was guesswork. All of it.
And if something wasn't dependable, Max had no use for it. People weren't dependable. That was fine. She didn't need them to be. She could take care of things on her own.
"Barbara," the woman said suddenly.
Max didn't lift her head or shift from her slouch. "I… don't care."
That should have been enough. A blunt, unambiguous, clear rejection. Barbara would take the hint and walk off. Max could go back to stewing in her own misery in peace.
But that didn't happen. Instead, Barbara's mouth quirked up at one side.
"Hm. I like you," she said.
Max's eyes snapped to her before she could stop them, the reflex immediate. Her mental guard slipped—not fully, but just enough.
"What?" The word came out sharper than intended.
Barbara didn't answer. She didn't even acknowledge that Max had spoken. She just dropped the magazine onto the table, then slid into the seat beside her, toeing off her shoes and crossing one leg over the other. "Ditch the glasses," she said, already flipping the magazine open, not even looking at Max.
For a moment, Max didn't respond. Couldn't. There was just a blank, empty space—like her brain had thrown up a loading screen because it couldn't figure out how to process what was happening. She ran through it again: Barbara was now sitting next to her. Barbara liked her. And apparently, she should get rid of her glasses.
Eventually, confusion kicked in, dragging something vaguely irritated behind it.
Pulling herself from her temporary stall, she relaxed her expression—her unconscious frown smoothing into something more neutral as her brain caught up.
"'Lose the glasses,'" Max repeated, monotone, deciding to start there.
"Mhm."
"Why." Max's voice was so flat it could barely even be considered a question. "I need them. To see."
That finally got Barbara to look up. She tilted her head towards Max, eyes hooded, like she thought Max was being difficult on purpose.
"I know that. But would you rather see, or would you rather make things easier for yourself here?"
Max's paused. "How are those two things related?"
Barbara leaned in slightly, "You're cute," she said, slow and deliberate. It didn't sound like a compliment, more a simple observation. A neutral statement.
Max stared at her blankly. She had no idea what Barbara was getting at.
Barbara seemed to realize that after a beat. She let out a breath through her nose, clearly unimpressed.
"You don't even know what I mean, do you?"
"I do not." Max informed her simply.
Rolling her eyes, Barbara shut the magazine with a quiet thwap.
"Use your looks to twist things in your favor."
Max blinked. She stared a second longer, opened her mouth to say something—but nothing came out. So she shut it again.
Barbara didn't seem fazed by the lack of response. She was still watching Max, looking at her like some underwhelming art piece that needed a few more brushstrokes.
"I can tell that behind those glasses and that angry expression are some big eyes and a soft face," she said, making a vague motion with her hand over Max's general shape."And under those baggy Arkham rags? Probably a girlish figure too. Though—maybe not. Your bust does seem... slight."
Max looked down at herself, them back up at her.
"What the fuck?"
"Oh, relax," Barbara sighed, examining her nails. "It's not an insult. It's just true."
"You're not exactly packing much punch in that department either," Max retorted.
Barbara smirked. "Haven't had any complaints."
Max's gave her a look, lip curling. "Thank you for letting me know that."
Barbara ignored the sarcasm. "Your appearance—it's a weapon. Just as powerful as any knife or gun," she said. "And like any weapon, you should learn how to use it. How to get the most out of it."
Max had never been less interested in a conversation in her life.
"Why are you talking to me?" she asked, her voice to toneless it bordered on accusatory. Which, to be fair, it was. "What do you want?"
Barbara raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I just want to help." she said, like it was really that simple.
Max stared at her. Blank, unreadable. "Why."
Barbara sighed, uncrossing her legs and recrossing them the other way.
"Look. You don't have to listen. Don't take the advice if you don't want it. But start now, and you could be top of the food chain by the time you've grown into your looks—inside Arkham or out."
"I'm not interested," Max said. Then, after a beat, "And there's nothing to grow into. I'm eighteen."
Barbara hummed, flipping her magazine back open like Max had just confirmed something she already knew.
"Trust me, girlfriend. I was eighteen once too. There's always more to grow into." Her lips quirked as her eyes dropped to the page.
"You'll hit your full potential soon enough—you'll be a real beauty." She made it sound like a threat.
Max didn't understand the purpose of this conversation. She didn't feel in control of it, and that alone made her dislike it. Even more than that, she didn't trust whatever this was. There had to be an angle—nobody was just nice for no reason. Not anywhere. Especially not in here. And she didn't need to experience life outside of mentorship, research labs, and sterile testing rooms to know that.
"What are you trying to do here?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Girls need to stick together, don't they?" Barbara replied, giving her a look like duh. "They help each other out. And I'm helping you by giving you a tip: use what you've got."
Max wasn't buying it. Any of it. She didn't believe Barbara was being genuine, and she definitely didn't believe this was sound advice.
"And what, that's helped you survive here or something?" she asked, the bite in her voice finally slipping through.
"It will." Barbara said breezily, not a sliver of doubt in her tone.
Max squinted at her. "You haven't even taken your own advice yet?"
Barbara flicked a page, still not looking up. "I just got here. Haven't really had time. I'll get to it when I need to."
"You just got here? And you're trying to give me advice? On how to game the system or whatever?" Max scoffed. "Seriously?"
Barbara remained completely unfazed. "Men in here? They're no different than the ones out there." She nodded vaguely toward a barred window. "They're all the same. Bat your lashes, act sweet and helpless—they fold."
Max gave her a withering look.
"I'm… not doing that."
Barbara shrugged. "Alright. Suit yourself." She didn't sound disappointed. Just mildly entertained. "I tried."
Max fully expected her to take her magazine and leave now that she'd said her piece—now that it was clear her advice was unwanted. But she didn't. She just settled further into her seat, propped an elbow on the table, and kept reading like she was completely comfortable where she was.
Max shifted uncomfortably, eyes flicking away from her, then back, then away again. A grimace started forming before she could stop it.
"You're still here," she said flatly.
"Yep," Barbara agreed without looking up. "I am."
Max raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Why?"
"We're sticking together, aren't we?" Barbara flipped another page, casual as ever.
Max paused. "Why would we do that?"
Barbara let out a harsh sigh, then reached up and snapped her fingers in Max's face.
"Hello? Because we're both girls? Remember?"
Max swatted her hand away. "I'm not the only girl in here, you know." She motioned vaguely to a greasy-looking woman at a nearby table sitting at an adjacent table, book held centimeters from her nose. "Look. She seems fun. Go team up with her."
Barbara didn't even glance over.
"Sorry, already decided on you," she said, light and airy and absolutely not sorry. "You're a girl. Girls stick together."
Then she leaned in and added in a faux whisper, "especially the pretty ones."
Max had no response to that. Which Barbara seemed completely pleased with.
She sent her a little nod—smug and satisfied—then settled back into her seat, flipping a page like the conversation was over.
For a moment, Max just stared at her. Brows furrowed. Lips pressed into a flat line.
Sticking together just because of gender—offering help over something so meaningless—seemed pointless. Asinine. Gender had never meant anything to her. It was something totally intangible: a label based on a handful of secondary sex characteristics, arbitrarily assigned, then inflated with rules, roles, and expectations that shifted depending on context and convenience. All of it was extraneous.
Max was a girl—not just because that was what had been given to her, but because she allowed it. Because she didn't care enough not to be. It was the path of least resistance, even when factoring in the usual social complications. The alternatives required a level of interest she simply didn't have.
Gender was an idiotic system at its core. In Max's experience, sex chromosomes weren't to be trusted—least of all when it came to dictating how people should present or behave. Expecting a rigid binary from them just wasn't realistic. More than once, variations in a test subject's karyotype had completely derailed her gene work, all because she'd forgotten to check the file for that one crucial detail. Truly, cytogenetics could go fuck itself.
But regardless of how Max felt about it, Barbara's belief that girls stuck together (or at least the "pretty ones") wasn't up for debate. And whether Max agreed, or even fully grasped the core logic behind it, she could still recognize an advantage when she saw one. So maybe—maybe—she could work with this. With Barbara. At least for now.
Because like it or not, she needed something other than her own thoughts to keep her occupied. And Barbara was doing an… adequate job of that. Max wouldn't say she was enjoying herself, exactly, but at least she wasn't at risk of suffocating under the static that had started to trickle back into her skull.
And while there wasn't much she could do about that static in her cell, having Barbara around on the outside might give her brain something to latch onto. An outlet for a plug. Even if it was just one. Even if it was low voltage.
Besides, Barbara seemed… alright, she guessed. Not particularly annoying, not exactly. Her advice had sucked, obviously—completely unwanted and impressively unhelpful—but there didn't seem to be some hidden motive behind it. At least, none that Max could spot. Which meant Barbara had offered help just because.
The thought made something in Max's gut twist. She didn't know if she liked it. She decided not to think about it. But it had already pissed her off.
She sat there, arms resting limply in her lap, glaring at Barbara while the silence stretched—thick, uncomfortable, and prickling at her skin like static. At least to Max it felt that way. Barbara looked completely unbothered, sitting there under Max's burning gaze like she didn't even notice, flipping her magazine without so much as a blink.
Max finally tore her eyes from her, scowling over the heads of inmates toward the cracked plaster wall at the far end of the room. It looked like someone had once tried to punch through it.
She understood the urge.
Barbara had decided they were sticking together. Not asked, not suggested—decided. Which, admittedly, no longer felt like Max was being condemned to daily ambushes by some lady who had latched onto her. Because Barbara had proven she could be useful. She could be a distraction. And even a shitty distraction was better than no distraction at all.
And if that was going to work—if Max was going to squeeze some use out of this without driving it into the ground—then maybe she had to chill the fuck out a little bit. Roll it back just enough to keep Barbara around.
The silence was grating at her nerves now, needling under her skin. She knew Barbara was waiting—knew she was just sitting there, letting Max stew, because she knew Max would be the one to crack first. And worse? She was right.
"I'm… Max," she muttered begrudgingly, breaking the silence. Her voice sounded strained, even to her own ears.
Barbara glanced up from her magazine. A faint half-smile flickered across her face—smug? Pleased? Contemptuous? Max couldn't tell.
The fact that she'd have to care about that now, to hold even just a basic, neutral conversation, was already exhausting. She'd been in a constant state of pissed-the-fuck-off for nearly a week straight, and this wasn't helping.
But it was necessary. Because even if she hadn't managed to drive Barbara off yet, Max wasn't exactly trying to find the edge of her tolerance either.
This was so fucking stupid.
"Max." Barbara repeated, testing it. "Stick with me for now, Maxine. We'll make this place bearable." She flipped a page.
Max's nose scrunched in distaste. "Max. Not Maxine."
"Sure it is," Barbara said easily, eyes still on her magazine. "Max is short for Maxine, isn't it?"
"No," Max replied flatly. "It's short for Maxwell."
Barbara looked up, her upper lip curling like the name had personally offended her.
"Maxwell?" She echoed, disdain dripping from her voice. "Yeah, I'm not calling you Maxwell."
"Okay. Then don't," Max said, rolling her eyes. "I wasn't asking you to."
Barbara leaned back in her seat, giving her a slow once-over. "Look at you," she said, like Max hadn't even spoken. "You're not a Maxwell."
"Alright. I am, though," Max said, unsure why this was up for debate. "Because it's my name."
Barbara let out a dismissive scoff. "Don't like it. Too stuffy. Too… boyish."
She gave Max a pointed look. "You can't have a name like Maxwell and wear big, round nerdy glasses."
"They're octagonal," Max corrected.
Barbara waved a hand. "I don't care. You need to get rid of them."
"No," Max hissed, irritation finally flaring. "Why are you so fixated on this?"
Barbara smiled. "I'm helping."
"You're not."
Barbara flicked some hair out of her face. "Whatever. I'll get those glasses off you eventually."
"No, you won't," Max mumbled. She tipped her head back and let her gaze shift back up to the wrought-iron window. It was still overcast, but maybe the clouds would clear. She wanted to see the sky.
Barbara hummed—light, doubtful. "So sure of that?"
Max bristled, already opening her mouth to argue—no, to politely disagree—that yes actually, she was fucking sure of that. Before she could, she was cut off by the sound of slow, lazy whistling that was far too close to their table. And getting closer.
She turned, her eyes narrowing immediately on an inmate with a head of ginger hair, sauntering up with a casual swagger. His thumbs were tucked lazily into what she first mistook for a belt—until she caught sight of the unused wrist bindings dangling at his sides.
It was a leather waist restraint. She recognized it, though she was more used to seeing them made of reinforced polymers and strapped to test subjects during transport. Not this dingy leather thing, scuffed and worn and looking like it could be gnawed through with enough determination.
Obviously this guy caused enough trouble for the guards to warrant restraining him as a matter of routine. And he knew it, too—drawing focus to it in the way he walked, like it gave him some kind of status. To Max, it just screamed I'm a violent freak.
And, naturally, he was heading straight for them.
Because why fucking not. Her day clearly hadn't been going badly enough already.
Notes:
i have information. to tell you. if you watch season 2 episode 1, when you see jerome first approach Barbara he has a belt on. i think. its hard to tell but i decided i wanted it to be a waist restrain. im not sure if they only use those with jumpsuits or not (<- is fixated on unnecessary details) but whateverrrr i wanted jerome to have one. i just know that jerome was a fucking menace to the orderlies in arkham. Like there is no way he wasnt one hes such an asshole
anyway jeromes gonna get introduced finally next chapter. ladies and gentlemen and nonbinies lets fucking go