Fic: To Life 2/2 (Gotham, teen)
Title: To Life
Fandom: Gotham
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairing: OMC/OFC, Bruce Wayne, Ivy Pepper
Summary: Gotham’s elite are expected to attend each other’s fundraisers.
Author's Note: Nina’s view of the events described in ‘ To Life - The Jardiniers Accept’, with spoilers up to 4.14. 1,662 words.
To Life
2. Nina Says: shallowness
People in Gotham asked Nina Jardinier if she was French. No, she replied, she was Romanian. They seemed surprised. She had spent a year in Paris, and then moved further south to work as a waitress, which was what she was doing when she met Simon. She saw no reason to hide those facts, and enoyed the discomfort it caused certain people.
Simon didn’t make much of a first impression on her, when he was one of a group of rich Americans, all very nice, all very interested in a group of waitresses enjoying some downtime at a bar. It didn’t matter who you paired off with, you were sure of having a good time.
But then he came to her restaurant the next day looking for her. He had white teeth, broad shoulders and a need to impress.
Nina wasn’t easily impressed. Her family had lost a castle once, she told him. It just made him want to build castles for her. She knew there was more to him than this summer version, playing cherchez la femme. He seemed confident, but he couldn’t always be that confident. Nina tried to work him out, and somewhere in the middle of that, she fell for him.
By the night he had the nightmare, she was too far in. They’d fallen asleep together, still clothed, wearing swimming costumes as underwear, after a long, tiring afternoon on a friend’s yacht. Jean-Paul was Simon’s friend, of course.
Simon woke Nina as he mumbled in his sleep, tossing and turning. Half-asleep herself, it took her a while to understand what he was saying, “Got to get out. Stay low. Get out.”
He flinched at something in his nightmare a few times. Nina watched him, not sure if she should wake him. His dream shifted and he relaxed, but Nina stayed watching over him, knowing she’d never done anything like this for anyone else before.
He invited her to America, to Gotham.
“Isn’t it ruled by the Mafia?” she’d asked. He’d laughed and said it wasn’t so bad. Later, she learned he’d thought he’d been telling her the truth then, that his family and others like them were the ones who ruled the city. She could never see it the same way.
Nina left her job and went to Gotham with him, of course. She found it dark and overcast, the buildings stone and solid - Gothic, yes, but young to Nina’s eyes. Inside, all was lavish, where Simon took her. He liked to lead, to show off in public. She knew he was showing Gotham off for her, and showing her off at the same time.
In the bedroom, he liked it when she took charge. So she did, interested in how far she could push him. As she bound him, she bound them together.
Getting engaged was both romantic and a business transaction, with other Jardiniers telling her what would be expected with the kind of detail associated with attorneys. When Nina saw the pre-nup, it both tested her English and felt weightless compared with all the expectations and obligations marrying into the Jardiniers came with. But she looked at the stone in her ring, a diamond, and remembered Simon’s face when he’d proposed. She signed the pre-nup and then she said, ‘I do’, in an echoing church.
Most of her family didn’t come because it wasn’t a Catholic wedding. Simon paid for those who did. The rest of the witnesses were from Gotham, people Nina would spend the rest of her life getting to know.
Life in Gotham was everything she’d expected and more. What women like her did was shop, and Nina learned that she’d never hit her first credit card’s limit if she carried on with her frugal ways. Simon wanted her on display. Other women commented if she wore the same outfit twice.
When they weren’t shopping, these women were showing off the outfits and accessories they’d bought in charity meetings, blind to the irony. Everyone had a charity. Not everyone in Gotham, but everyone Nina was introduced to. She made a point of being considerate of the staff, wherever she went, but knew it was a past life for her. She was on the other side now, the person being waited on.
There were clubs and there were social gatherings, but the big ones were the charity fundraisers. Balls, dinners, auctions, sometimes with masks and fancy dress, but you always had to make sure you ate some of the caviar.
One of their wedding gifts had been a pair of revolvers. Nina had stared and stared at them, while Simon had pulled out another gift, paid lessons at a shooting range, as if the firearms were as ordinary as cutlery. She had never seen a gun in Europe, except on armed police. She’d told him she had no interest in learning how to shoot. Simon hadn’t pushed the issue, because he could, although he didn’t carry a gun, but the drivers he hired did. The revolvers went into a locked box with other weapons. Nina didn’t look in the box.
Her first gala that was overrun by criminals made Nina reconsider her refusal to arm herself. It was her first real experience of gunfire. She didn’t scream. She shut down.
Afterwards, no-one seemed to want to talk about it. The Mayor’s ineptitude, yes. The latest scandal involving a tennis instructor and a young trophy wife, oh yes, and in the next breath whether you could ever wear too many diamonds. But the fact that an armed gang had shot three people and injured two others in front of their very eyes? No, it was not discussed, not at the memorial services or anywhere, beyond speeches made up of platitudes. Nina found that only Simon would talk about it, and he seemed bored, too obviously indulging her.
It wasn’t like it was a one-off. The gangs changed, got more outlandish, but there would still be fundraising events for them to crash. Nobody wanted to talk about how the Pax Penguina hadn’t really worked or lasted, or that Sofia Falcone’s cook had turned her guests into cannibals.
“Should I try to get a gown made of Kevlar?” Nina had once asked her mother-in-law. Mrs Jardinier had looked strangely at her, and pretended she didn’t understand. As if Nina’s English wasn’t flawless. She read fashion magazines, style pages, essays and biographies. She watched the news, so different here in Gotham from Europe. Her accent was becoming less distinct.
Nobody talked, but Nina thought. What made Nina determined enough to avoid going in future was that she started craving pickled food, just like her mother had when she was carrying her. After three days of it, and a furtive visit to a deli, Nina became convinced she was pregnant. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell Simon, or to take a test. It would mean doctors, it would mean the whole family descending down on them - his, not hers, although she could imagine the phone call to Romania.
It would begin with, “Mama, did you crave pickles in the first trimester?” Then there would be crying and advice. Nina had had her reasons for moving away to Paris.
Besides, this pregnancy wasn’t meant to happen until later, after a few wedding anniversaries.
Nina tried not to think about why she was doing it as she manipulated Simon with sex. He submitted to her, of course, while she exaggerated her pleasure, but not by much. She had learned about the game ‘Simon says’, not from him, but from everyone else, his teasing friends in the Med and here in Gotham. Well, it was now Nina who said ‘stay’ and Simon who stayed with her.
Until he wouldn’t and the game crashed to a halt.
That breakfast time, where she hid the fact she wasn’t eating much by opening invitations, Nina could have told Simon that she was expecting their child, that she didn’t want to endanger him - Simon wanted a son first to carry his name. Nina knew this. But something irrational kept her quiet. She barely argued with Simon, although she could have.
He wanted her to go, did he? Be seen by his friends - his friends, not hers - and his family. Never mind the high probability there’d be uninvited guests, and they’d come armed.
Her silence, her acquiescence led them to that dining hall, where a woman named Ivy caused destruction and chaos. They could have been shot dead, or worse, breathed in those seeds and become those abominations. Nina had wanted to cross herself when she saw that prone body with shoots growing out of it, but she’d been frozen, only moving because Simon pulled her, saved by him that time.
But never again, she thought, once they got out and the terror lifted a little. No matter if the event was to raise funds for orphaned children or lame and blind puppies. She was not going to RSVP with a ‘yes’. The society matrons and the preening businessmen could go be targets for the gunmen. She wasn’t a deranged Gothamite, even if she was a Jardinier now. She would write a check, and stay at home in their castle.
At home, holding the china cup that held her tisane, Nina felt a little warmth seep into her body. She’d given the kitchen the recipes that had been handed down in her family when she’d first got married.
And then her husband had made a toast to life, and she realized that Simon knew she was pregnant, and that he meant what he’d just been saying, when she had thought he was telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. There would be no more fundraisers for them. Their marriage wasn’t all about her doing what he said, coming to his city, doing what his people did just because they were his people, not any more.
She repeated his toast. “L’Chaim.”
To life.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/354554.html.
Fandom: Gotham
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairing: OMC/OFC, Bruce Wayne, Ivy Pepper
Summary: Gotham’s elite are expected to attend each other’s fundraisers.
Author's Note: Nina’s view of the events described in ‘ To Life - The Jardiniers Accept’, with spoilers up to 4.14. 1,662 words.
To Life
2. Nina Says: shallowness
People in Gotham asked Nina Jardinier if she was French. No, she replied, she was Romanian. They seemed surprised. She had spent a year in Paris, and then moved further south to work as a waitress, which was what she was doing when she met Simon. She saw no reason to hide those facts, and enoyed the discomfort it caused certain people.
Simon didn’t make much of a first impression on her, when he was one of a group of rich Americans, all very nice, all very interested in a group of waitresses enjoying some downtime at a bar. It didn’t matter who you paired off with, you were sure of having a good time.
But then he came to her restaurant the next day looking for her. He had white teeth, broad shoulders and a need to impress.
Nina wasn’t easily impressed. Her family had lost a castle once, she told him. It just made him want to build castles for her. She knew there was more to him than this summer version, playing cherchez la femme. He seemed confident, but he couldn’t always be that confident. Nina tried to work him out, and somewhere in the middle of that, she fell for him.
By the night he had the nightmare, she was too far in. They’d fallen asleep together, still clothed, wearing swimming costumes as underwear, after a long, tiring afternoon on a friend’s yacht. Jean-Paul was Simon’s friend, of course.
Simon woke Nina as he mumbled in his sleep, tossing and turning. Half-asleep herself, it took her a while to understand what he was saying, “Got to get out. Stay low. Get out.”
He flinched at something in his nightmare a few times. Nina watched him, not sure if she should wake him. His dream shifted and he relaxed, but Nina stayed watching over him, knowing she’d never done anything like this for anyone else before.
He invited her to America, to Gotham.
“Isn’t it ruled by the Mafia?” she’d asked. He’d laughed and said it wasn’t so bad. Later, she learned he’d thought he’d been telling her the truth then, that his family and others like them were the ones who ruled the city. She could never see it the same way.
Nina left her job and went to Gotham with him, of course. She found it dark and overcast, the buildings stone and solid - Gothic, yes, but young to Nina’s eyes. Inside, all was lavish, where Simon took her. He liked to lead, to show off in public. She knew he was showing Gotham off for her, and showing her off at the same time.
In the bedroom, he liked it when she took charge. So she did, interested in how far she could push him. As she bound him, she bound them together.
Getting engaged was both romantic and a business transaction, with other Jardiniers telling her what would be expected with the kind of detail associated with attorneys. When Nina saw the pre-nup, it both tested her English and felt weightless compared with all the expectations and obligations marrying into the Jardiniers came with. But she looked at the stone in her ring, a diamond, and remembered Simon’s face when he’d proposed. She signed the pre-nup and then she said, ‘I do’, in an echoing church.
Most of her family didn’t come because it wasn’t a Catholic wedding. Simon paid for those who did. The rest of the witnesses were from Gotham, people Nina would spend the rest of her life getting to know.
Life in Gotham was everything she’d expected and more. What women like her did was shop, and Nina learned that she’d never hit her first credit card’s limit if she carried on with her frugal ways. Simon wanted her on display. Other women commented if she wore the same outfit twice.
When they weren’t shopping, these women were showing off the outfits and accessories they’d bought in charity meetings, blind to the irony. Everyone had a charity. Not everyone in Gotham, but everyone Nina was introduced to. She made a point of being considerate of the staff, wherever she went, but knew it was a past life for her. She was on the other side now, the person being waited on.
There were clubs and there were social gatherings, but the big ones were the charity fundraisers. Balls, dinners, auctions, sometimes with masks and fancy dress, but you always had to make sure you ate some of the caviar.
One of their wedding gifts had been a pair of revolvers. Nina had stared and stared at them, while Simon had pulled out another gift, paid lessons at a shooting range, as if the firearms were as ordinary as cutlery. She had never seen a gun in Europe, except on armed police. She’d told him she had no interest in learning how to shoot. Simon hadn’t pushed the issue, because he could, although he didn’t carry a gun, but the drivers he hired did. The revolvers went into a locked box with other weapons. Nina didn’t look in the box.
Her first gala that was overrun by criminals made Nina reconsider her refusal to arm herself. It was her first real experience of gunfire. She didn’t scream. She shut down.
Afterwards, no-one seemed to want to talk about it. The Mayor’s ineptitude, yes. The latest scandal involving a tennis instructor and a young trophy wife, oh yes, and in the next breath whether you could ever wear too many diamonds. But the fact that an armed gang had shot three people and injured two others in front of their very eyes? No, it was not discussed, not at the memorial services or anywhere, beyond speeches made up of platitudes. Nina found that only Simon would talk about it, and he seemed bored, too obviously indulging her.
It wasn’t like it was a one-off. The gangs changed, got more outlandish, but there would still be fundraising events for them to crash. Nobody wanted to talk about how the Pax Penguina hadn’t really worked or lasted, or that Sofia Falcone’s cook had turned her guests into cannibals.
“Should I try to get a gown made of Kevlar?” Nina had once asked her mother-in-law. Mrs Jardinier had looked strangely at her, and pretended she didn’t understand. As if Nina’s English wasn’t flawless. She read fashion magazines, style pages, essays and biographies. She watched the news, so different here in Gotham from Europe. Her accent was becoming less distinct.
Nobody talked, but Nina thought. What made Nina determined enough to avoid going in future was that she started craving pickled food, just like her mother had when she was carrying her. After three days of it, and a furtive visit to a deli, Nina became convinced she was pregnant. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell Simon, or to take a test. It would mean doctors, it would mean the whole family descending down on them - his, not hers, although she could imagine the phone call to Romania.
It would begin with, “Mama, did you crave pickles in the first trimester?” Then there would be crying and advice. Nina had had her reasons for moving away to Paris.
Besides, this pregnancy wasn’t meant to happen until later, after a few wedding anniversaries.
Nina tried not to think about why she was doing it as she manipulated Simon with sex. He submitted to her, of course, while she exaggerated her pleasure, but not by much. She had learned about the game ‘Simon says’, not from him, but from everyone else, his teasing friends in the Med and here in Gotham. Well, it was now Nina who said ‘stay’ and Simon who stayed with her.
Until he wouldn’t and the game crashed to a halt.
That breakfast time, where she hid the fact she wasn’t eating much by opening invitations, Nina could have told Simon that she was expecting their child, that she didn’t want to endanger him - Simon wanted a son first to carry his name. Nina knew this. But something irrational kept her quiet. She barely argued with Simon, although she could have.
He wanted her to go, did he? Be seen by his friends - his friends, not hers - and his family. Never mind the high probability there’d be uninvited guests, and they’d come armed.
Her silence, her acquiescence led them to that dining hall, where a woman named Ivy caused destruction and chaos. They could have been shot dead, or worse, breathed in those seeds and become those abominations. Nina had wanted to cross herself when she saw that prone body with shoots growing out of it, but she’d been frozen, only moving because Simon pulled her, saved by him that time.
But never again, she thought, once they got out and the terror lifted a little. No matter if the event was to raise funds for orphaned children or lame and blind puppies. She was not going to RSVP with a ‘yes’. The society matrons and the preening businessmen could go be targets for the gunmen. She wasn’t a deranged Gothamite, even if she was a Jardinier now. She would write a check, and stay at home in their castle.
At home, holding the china cup that held her tisane, Nina felt a little warmth seep into her body. She’d given the kitchen the recipes that had been handed down in her family when she’d first got married.
And then her husband had made a toast to life, and she realized that Simon knew she was pregnant, and that he meant what he’d just been saying, when she had thought he was telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. There would be no more fundraisers for them. Their marriage wasn’t all about her doing what he said, coming to his city, doing what his people did just because they were his people, not any more.
She repeated his toast. “L’Chaim.”
To life.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/354554.html.