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It was a bright sunny day, a rarity in gloomy ol’ Gotham. As such, Gotham’s finest kindergarten thought it rather appropriate to let the kids outside to play.
And though well aware not all of their students would head outside on the playground, they fully anticipated all the craziness to happen outside of the classroom. What the teachers of room B11 did not expect was, well, whatever it was which was currently happening inside .
And so this is how one of the teachers found themselves slowly approaching one of their students. “Marinette sweetie?”
“Yes Ms. Holly?” the young little girl with midnight-colored twin tails responds. She doesn’t spare a glance away from her… contraption shall we say. Then again, neither does Ms. Holly, or the rest of the present staff for that matter. Though their stares are more of worry, as opposed to Marinette’s which is one of concentration.
Ms. Holly, a sprightly young woman with chestnut hair often done up in a ponytail asks, “What, uhh, whatcha doin’ there pumpkin?”
Marinette, who is still only half paying attention to the rest of her surroundings, makes a face at the elaborate thing she’s managed to build using various items about the classroom instead of answering. It’s only a second later, after her eyes light up with the spark of an idea, that she dignifies a response.
“I can’t reach the Goldfish,” Marinette answers simply as she tugs a pigtail free and fastens the band which was holding her hair up to her contraption instead.
This does little to ease her teacher’s worries, and so in an offer that she somehow knows will be refused, Ms. Holly asks, “Want me to get it for you?” Her suspicions are confirmed when Marinette smiles up at her and shakes her head, the part of her hair she let out of her pigtail flying in her face as she did so.
“No thank you, Ms. Holly! I got it. Oh, can I borrow that though? Thanks!” Before her teacher has any time to react, Marinette has already grabbed the pen which was in Ms. Holly’s front shirt pocket, and dropped it into a cup.
In a blur of movement, Marinette launches the pen from her contraption, which can now be seen to be a mini functional catapult . The pen hits the cabinet where the staff keeps the kids’ snacks, and it pushes the door hard enough to trigger the mechanic which allows the cabinet to swing open.
Only a split second later, a bouncy ball that Marinette had loaded into her catapult is flung into the cupboard, ricocheting off the cabinet’s back wall, and hitting the Goldfish bag from behind, causing it to fall towards the counter below.
Marinette is beaming. The staff merely watch, slack-jawed, as this 4-year-old manages to successfully jury rig a working Rube Goldberg machine. Suddenly, Marinette is scowling, and a young boy with black hair and blue eyes is sitting on the countertop, swinging his legs back and forth.
Most importantly, he is holding her Goldfish.
“Timothy,” Marinette says cooly with narrow eyes.
“Marinette,” Tim responds, still swinging his legs.
“I have a deal I’d like to make with you,” Tim says with a devilish smile.
Marinette follows suit and gives a wicked grin of her own. “Oh, do tell.”
“I think-” he says, hopping off the counter with the Goldfish in hand, “we should talk about this over a snack. Don’t you agree?” he adds, waving the bag of Goldfish in the air.
“Why yes, a snack sounds great.”
The two head off towards the toy bin, and the staff can do nothing but watch as the two kids conspire and plot together.
“Oh this,” Holly says under her breath. “This can be nothing but trouble.”
~~~
Two days later, the class is doing arts and crafts. Marinette and Tim have been suspiciously well-behaved, quiet, and giggly since The Goldfish Incident as it’s affectionately been dubbed by the staff. Right now the entire class seemed subdued. Never a good sign.
Suddenly, Marinette and Tim stand up on their chairs. Instantly, they have everyone’s attention. Together, they join hands and raised their clasp fists to the ceiling. With a battle cry fit for the heavens, Marinette cries out, “VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION!”
The room disrupts into chaos. Kids are throwing glitter and shredded construction paper everywhere. Some have added warpaint to their faces and others are using markers as swords. No one is spared.
The teachers, for all their worth, are trying their best to de-escalate the situation. No such luck. This has been a plan in the making since The Goldfish Incident. A highly anticipated one at that.
“FIGHT FOR YOUR QUEEN!” The resounding shout of Marinette’s command can be heard throughout the classroom, and those adorned in pink paint and weaponized with pink and blue glitter and markers roar in response.
Then, atop a table, Tim screams, “ARCHERS! NOW!” The next few seconds everyone is blinded by huge clouds of gold glitter thrown by a line of kids who have climbed onto tables and are pelting sparkles at anything that moves.
Not one to be deterred (or outdone) Marinette signals to another kid with a complicated hand gesture. The kid nods and screams, “PLAN SEVEN!” Suddenly, Tim and the kids standing on the tables are surrounded and having glue bottles emptied onto them.
“PHASE TWO!” someone in the masses screeches out. Entire bags of craft feathers are now being dumped on Tim and his archers, making them look like glittering Sesame Street characters.
With lightning speed, Marinette climbs onto the table Tim is standing on and puts him in a loose chokehold from behind. She has a Crayola marker to his throat, and in a powerful voice demands, “Yield.”
The fighting has paused as the two armies look to their leaders. Kids stare in awe and horror at the two, who are now locked in an unwavering staring contest, both panting.
“Never,” Tim spits out, and Marinette slowly starts drawing a blue line across his neck.
Once again, her voice seems amplified, and everyone can’t help but listen.
“Look around you, General! Your warriors are suffering. Is it not enough that you’ve left your archers to rot in glue and feathers? Is it not enough that you’ve covered your own ranks in glitter? End this fighting. Yield. Yield and bow to your queen .”
Tim inhales sharply, and suddenly, a kid, who is covered in so many feathers, glue, glitter, paint, and paper that he is beyond recognizable begs in a small voice, “Please sir. We’re running out of glitter. We can’t do this for much longer.”
Sighing in defeat, Tim lets his head fall and concedes, “I yield.”
There’s a great tidal wave of cheers from the victors and silent acceptance from the opposition. It was a battle well fought. Marinette releases Tim, and he turns to her. The two smile, and shake hands.
“I knew you were the right person to start a war with. This was fun,” Tim says as he scans the damage they’ve caused to the classroom.
“It was really fun!” Marinette agrees. Yet there’s a mischievous lilt to her voice that has Tim’s gaze snap back towards her. “Now I believe, “ she says, twirling the marker between her fingers, “that you agreed to bow for your queen.”
With a roll of his eyes, Tim kneels on one knee. And a split second later, Marinette grabbed his chin and tilted his head up so that their eyes met. With her free hand, she holds her marker. And with her marker, she bestowed upon him the earlier agreed-upon mark of defeat.
A marker mustache.
“All hail the queen!” someone praised from the audience. Once again, the symphony of triumphant cheers tore through the classroom.
“Alright class-” came the voice of reason. Though the voice of reason was not spared from the horrors and brutalities of war. (*ahem* glitter ahem*)
“Let’s settle down and get this cleaned up. Then we will be having a very long discussion. Is that understood?”
The room fell silent as the kids were finally brought back to reality. And the consequences of their actions that resided there. Ms. Holly looked very very tired. The rest of the staff who had been present were all huddled in a corner in shock, with wide-blown eyes that now seemed to hold new traumas.
There were soft and quiet murmurs throughout the students of, “Yes Ms. Holly,” before everyone started shuffling along picking up scraps of paper and plucking feathers off of people.
Afterward, they did indeed have a very long discussion.
~~~
Walking out of their bedroom and into their kitchen, Tim asks through a yawn, eyes still half screwed shut, “Love, what are you doing? It’s the asscrack of dawn.”
With a final adjustment to the catapult, Marinette sets the pen in its place. “I can’t reach the cereal.” Marinette answers simply.
“Oh. Of course,” Tim says, not missing a beat.
With a flick, Marinette sets off the catapult and launches the pen, then the bouncy ball. “You know, our cabinets are too high up,” she muses as Tim moves to catch the cereal box.
“Mm, I know this is like, your thing but I can always just, I don’t know, grab things for you?” he says, handing her the box and grabbing her a bowl.
Marinette puts a finger to her chin in faux consideration before teasing, “Nah. It’s more fun this way. Can’t have anything be boring , can we Mr. Arts and Crafts Warlord?”
As Marinette pours her cereal, Tim moves behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her head. “Hey,” he defends, “we may have got chewed out for that but none of us regretted it! Ah, kindergarten. So many years ago. Such simple times.”
Marinette laughs, and if that sound isn’t music to Tim’s ears then he’d assume he’s deaf.
“Yeah, I think our kindergarten teachers despised us, we were a lot of trouble,” she says with a fond smile on her face.
Tim places a lingering kiss on Marinette’s temple before saying, “Well we were only trouble when we were together.”
“And that’s the best way to be, I think,” Marinette says, leaning her back against Tim’s chest.
In a low sleepy whisper, Tim asks, “What way’s that?”
“Oh, you know,” Marinette says.
“Together.”