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Tim had walked into his fair share of totally weird and unreal scenes since he moved in with Bruce, all those years ago. But walking in the living room to see his fiancée talking with an unresponsive Scarecrow, both sitting on the couch together, was downright the worst one. And the most alarming!
“—and I don’t think that would drive the point home, you understand, Monsieur l’Épouvantail?” Marinette was saying, not looking up from her sketchbook. “I need something that say ‘fuck you for insulting me’, you see. Because the twink dared underestimating me and I can’t—”
“Mari?” He whispered softly, afraid to break the apparent peace if he talked too loudly.
“Huh?” Marinette looked up, lighting up when she saw him. Tim forgot that a rogue was in his living room for all of a second when he saw her smile at him like that, before reality smacked him in the face to make him focus. “Hey, chéri, how was your day?”
“Mari. Mari, babe, why is Scarecrow here?” Tim said slowly, his panic clearly noticeable in his tone. He was walking slowly toward her, keeping his eyes on Scarecrow. Who hadn’t moved since Tim got here. Something was wrong.
“He is my new friend!” She told him excitedly with a smile, putting her sketchbook aside and passing an arm around Scarecrow’s shoulders.
“Wait, don’t—” Tim whisper-shouted, taking a couple of steps toward her, arms outstretched.
“Are you okay, Tim?” She asked with her tilting slightly in confusion. In confusion! “Do you have the phobia of scarecrows? Hey, how do you call the phob—”
“Marinette,” he started, only slightly hysterical. “Marinette. Scarecrow. In Bruce’s living room.”
“Um, yeah? I know, I brought him here? Why— Oh, are you afraid he is going to make a mess? Don’t worry, he isn’t going anywhere,” she said laughing like she just made a hilarious joke. She stopped suddenly, letting go of Scarecrow’s shoulders with a frown. “I really need to stop hanging out around Adrien so much, his sense of humour is rubbing off on me.”
“Marinette… Is he,” Tim started slowly, looking at Scarecrow who still hadn’t moved. “Is he dead.”
“Well, obviously,” she said with a frown, oblivious of Tim’s internal panic. “Though, I think it really depends on the definition you give to ‘dead’. Are you dead when you lack life? Or do you need to have been alive for being dead? Technically, is paper a dead tree?”
“Marinette,” Tim whimpered, at the edge of his sanity. “Did you kill the Scarecrow? Before bringing him here, in Bruce’s house?”
“Of course not! I didn’t kill him, I mean. Scarecrow can’t be killed, you dummy.” She told him with a look, standing up from the couch. “But I did bring him there, Kon is going to look for him at our place first, Bruce’s was the best place to hide.”
“Scarecrow can’t— Oh my god, Mari, what?” Tim whispered desperately, putting his hand in his hair, before the second part registered. “Wait, Kon is in on that? What the hell happened between you?!”
“He said I couldn’t steal him! I’m going to make that little twink eat his words,” she told him fiercely, taping her fist in her hand.
“You stole him?! Did you— Oh my god, Mari, did you break into Arkham to steal Scarecrow?” He screeched, already creating plans, and back up plans, to try and keep the backlash of that away from Marinette.
They would need to get rid of the body first, and before Bruce found it. Alfred could probably help. And Jason too, he would help, he loved Mari. Jason probably knew the best place for that. And who to frame for the murder too. Someone awful, so they could knock two birds with one stone. They would need—
“Seigneur, Tim, what the hell are you talking about?!” Marinette exclaimed, cutting through his planning spiral, and looking at him like he was crazy.
“What am I talking about? You just brought a Rogue’s corpse in Bru—”
“Oh mon dieu,” she interrupted, putting a hand on her eyes. “Putain de merde, I forgot they had one like that,” she muttered in french under her breath. “Tim, chéri, do your scarecrow themed supervillain look exactly like that,” she told him slowly, pointing her hand toward Scarecrow.
“Of course he does! It’s his corpse!” Tim screeched, feeling like his head was going to explode.
“Yeah, no honey, it’s not. As it turns out, Martha Kent has a very twisted sense of humour,” she said, looking back at the scarecrow still sitting innocently on the couch.
“Martha Kent— What are you,” Tim muttered, looking at the scarecrow more closely. He was a bit lost as to what Mrs Kent had to do with this situation.
“It’s hers. It’s not the Scarecrow, chéri, it’s a scarecrow. Kon told me that Martha was very protective of her scarecrow, I could see why now. I would too, if I had something that funny in my backyard,” she said with a nod and a contemplative expression. “Anyway, I said that for twenty dollars, I would steal it. And the twink dared to say, in my face, that there was no way I could pull that off.”
“So… you stole it,” he said softly, letting himself fall beside the offending scarecrow on the couch. It was a really good imitation.
“I didn’t just steal it! I used Trixx to make Martha see Kon stealing it,” she said with a smug smirk, and the only thing Tim could think was how attractive that made her. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously. “Wait, you thought I killed a supervillain and brought his corpse here? Oh my god, Tim, who do you take me for?!”
“Well,” he started, the panic that was finally starting to recede making his way back through him. “I mean—”
“I’m not stupid, Timbers,” she talked over him, ignoring his whimpered ‘don’t call me Timbers, please’. “If I killed someone I wouldn’t bring the corpse here, Jason would be hundreds times more useful than any of you for that sort of crime.”
“Oh my god, do you often think about which one of us would be better to help in your potential criminal activities?”
“Because you don’t?” She asked, an eyebrow raised as if he was an idiot.
“Alright, fair. But—” The violent opening of the door cut through his retort and they both turned around to see a fuming Kon furiously walking toward them. He stopped a couple of steps before Mari, looking at her like he wanted nothing more than to burn her with his eyes only. Which, well, he could.
“Do you know, by any chance, why my grandmother called me to chew me out for stealing her precious scarecrow, when I know for a fact that you are the one who did it?” He told her through clenched teeth. “I had to listen to her lecture for thirty minutes, Marinette. Thirty minutes! She threatened to stop feeding me her pecan pie!”
Marinette blinked at him for a second, before looking at Tim, who was innocently sitting beside said scarecrow.
They both burst in laughter, ignoring Kon’s angry stammering.