#i'm not putting this in my ms Iggy tag because that tag is SOMEHOW more wholesome than this

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

IMMORTAL MAD SCIENTIST BATTLE!!! (Though would Max be immortal at this point, if she was doing all of the mad science on not-Fang? Maybe she's surviving that fight because she understands Iggy doesn't want to kill her.)

Assuming that Fang's death took place where it did in canon, with Dr. HGH committing manslaughter, this is where I see the flock:

The flock's split had Max, hellbent on reviving Fang at any cost; Dylan, her genetically engineered soulmate who has a very hard time saying no to her; and maybe Angel, who helped HGH commit that manslaughter. Maybe she'd want to stay to fix her mistake, because all of her mistakes have been able to be fixed and she doesn't understand why this would be any different.

Then there was Iggy, who refuses to be part of this; Gazzy, who trusts Iggy to make the right call; and Nudge, who loves Max, loves Iggy, loved Fang, but she's no longer a shiny-eyed kid that believes everything will work out fine. She's twelve, which is almost a teenager, which is almost an adult. There are things that she can understand, now, that she couldn't a few years ago. And maybe Angel, who can feel Max's single-minded obsession and realizes that it feels very similar to her own, and it scares her, what she could have become. Better to go with Iggy, whose worst instincts will only effect himself.

It takes a number of months before Dylan dies— a tragic accident that in no way could be forseen or prevented. A little longer before Angel runs, lost to the rest of the world. But that doesn't matter, because a few weeks after, Fang is back, they're back, they're back, and nothing ever has to hurt again. She just needs to get the rest of her family back and everything will go back to normal. They can be a family.

Iggy hears that Fang is alive through a grapevine. Maybe Angel, if she runs into them. Maybe if she was there the whole time with him, she'd be able to know instinctively. He wants to believe the best in Max, he does, but he also knows better. So he tinkers, he experiments, the burns on his arms stop being from fire and start being from chemicals. He stops sleeping. He stops needing to sleep. Angel grows distant, and one day, she disappears, because she's already killed one of her flock, and she doesn't want to see another kill himself.

(I think, in every version, she does not return.)

When Nudge asks, he tells her the truth. When she asks him to stop, when she tells him he's scaring her, he tells her that the world is a scary thing. When she says she'll leave, he protests, says it's to keep them safe, he did this— made bombs that killed innocents, made himself a subject of his own experiments, made himself a monster— so they wouldn't have to. So they could stay naive and innocent and safe.

She leaves anyway. Takes Gazzy with her. He does not look for them, and hopes that maybe, if he provides enough of a smokescreen, something for Max to fear— fear that he'll put Fang back in the ground, or that he'll steal her creation for himself— then she won't, either. Max, Fang, and Iggy all grew up in dog crates, and they have become contaminated land where nothing peaceful can grow. But maybe Nudge and Gazzy will get things right, this time around.

ok but what if: mad scientist max fighting against her science-based trauma so that she can learn how to resurrect/clone/etc. fang because she can't go through life without him but she sure as hell doesn't trust the whitecoats to bring him back, least of all jeb

and as @aviandaleks suggested: max looking at herself in the mirror, wearing a white coat and nitrile gloves stained in blood, and realizing she's become just like them