Fic: To Life 1/2 (Gotham, teen)
Oct. 20th, 2018 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessTitle: 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: Set during 4.14, with mild spoilers for 4.19. 2,456 words.
To Life
1. The Jardiniers Accept: shallowness
He grew up with the mail separated out for the members of the family on a silver tray. When he was a child, Simon was excited about receiving anything. They were either from relatives, a pen-pal from Singapore for a couple of years, or party invitations. Of course, there wasn’t much mail these days, but he still recognized invitations.
“Can you make a fundraiser on the fourteenth of next month?” his wife asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
“That was quick. Are you sure?”
He stopped and thought – even if he wasn’t, he’d cancel the other event, but as far as he knew, his calendar was free.
“Yes.” His voice was firm, and Nina looked at him properly. He was dressed for work, she was en dishabille. Pinned under her gaze, Simon thought, for a second, about armor.
“You haven’t asked what it’s raising money for or who’s inviting us,” she said, amused.
He met her gaze. Her eyes were the kind of blue that’s almost gray, and he didn’t see amusement there.
“I don’t care,” Simon said deliberately. “Accept, and we’ll go.”
“Sure,” she said lightly. “It’s for the Wayne Foundation, by the way.”
“Okay,” he replied, not thinking that she’d capitulated, knowing there was more that had to be said and that it was better to say it now. “You must realize we have to attend. People have noticed that we’re been accepting invitations, and then failing to turn up. They’re starting to talk. Ask questions.”
She almost pouted. “They got their checks for their charities, didn’t they?”
“Nina,” he said on a sigh, though he was relieved that she wasn’t denying anything, “that’s not the point.”
The first time, when she had a clothing crisis five minutes before they were due to leave home, standing in their bedroom in her underwear, Simon hadn’t suspected a thing. He’d just seen that his wife was upset, told her it didn’t matter what she picked, she’d look beautiful. Her response had made him lose track of time. Naked and sated, he’d remembered the fundraiser only when it was way too late to go and at that point, he didn’t really care.
The second time, she’d used a stocking to tie him to the bed, laughing. Simon hadn’t been able to think of anything but Nina and what she was doing to him. After the third time, though, he’d realized that nothing seemed to turn his wife on as much as avoiding attending a fundraiser among Gotham’s elite.
Simon Jardinier didn’t belong to one of the six families, but his family had been rich enough for long enough in the city to count as one of that elite. He was brought up knowing that that came with certain obligations. A beautiful wife he’d picked up while vacationing in Europe was tolerated, spending a lot of time with her in bed was understood, but not failing to turn up to these events. He was here in Gotham, not on a honeymoon cruise. A couple of old friends had given him a chilly reception recently. And friends were business associates. Simon wasn’t used to having to leave messages with secretaries.
When his godfather had dropped a sizeable hint that they were missed at the Haverstock auction, Simon had listened, realizing that the next person to say something would be a relative, probably using the expression ‘dereliction of duty’ with an air of disappointment.
“All right,” Nina conceded. “I have been avoiding going, but do you blame me? These fundraisers are magnets for crazy people with guns or some kind of weapons.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” he said reflexively.
She just gave him a look, sitting there with a blue silk kimono draped over her gorgeous body. It was that self-confidence not to say anything that had attracted him to Nina, goaded him into trying to win her over. Her body and the knowing way she used it were bonuses. Simon Jardinier hadn’t needed anyone’s congratulations to know how lucky he was.
“We stick together,” he said, “people like us. We support each other’s good causes. We turn up, we’re seen.”
He looked at her calmly, using her own trick against her. He’d started borrowing it in the boardroom too. So far, marrying Nina had been good for business.
“Fine, I will accept on our behalf,“ Nina picked up the invitation, speaking in a clipped, displeased voice.
“And nothing will come up to stop us going,” he said, wanting his terms to be clear.
“We will go. We will be seen.”
He nodded at her words, wiped his hands with a napkin and got up to kiss Nina on the forehead. He knew that she had understood that marrying into the Jardinier family had obligations. She might not like all of them, but she’d put up with them. He hoped there wouldn’t be too much simmering resentment. Still, if there was, perhaps he could help her channel her anger in the bedroom. His eyes fell on the silk belt tied around her waist – she had yet to use that on him.
That was the image he kept with him as he left for work. As for her claim that these types of events attracted danger, like all Gothamites, he put it out of his mind.
On the night of the fourteenth, Nina was ready before her husband, immaculately dressed in a figure-hugging black gown with silver accents. Simon knew better than to mention the clothing crisis, but he realized that Nina had taken just as much care in selecting the lingerie she’d worn that night she’d seduced him to stay at home as she had picking what to grace this event in. He didn’t compliment her now, just kissed her hand and thanked her in her mother tongue. Nina always liked it when he did that, even if she criticized his pronunciation.
They arrived a little early at the event, Simon could see, as someone from the Wayne Foundation discreetly tapped at a screen, presumably crossing their names off a list. But the idea was for them to be noticed. And they were.
People he had known all his life nodded at them. Like him, Nina nodded and smiled back, her eyes glinting as much as the jewels she wore. Of course, everyone was really waiting for Bruce Wayne, the host of this shindig, since they’d all heard the rumors about the drinking, the partying and the auctions, but the Jardiniers’ presence was noted.
A string quartette cycled through the same tasteful repertoire that you always heard at events like this. A flash went off as a cameraman took a candid of the Jardiniers mingling. Simon showed his teeth. Another flash. They might make it to the society pages. Nina looked good enough. Perhaps he could make a few calls.
They were seated at the same table as Mrs Haverstock, whose charity auction they had skipped recently. Nina dealt with her passive-aggressive comments with grace. Simon thought she relished it from the way she became more and more polite and honeyed. He started hoping that, by the end of the night, she’d be in a good mood.
Simon’s godfather came to talk to him, patting him on the shoulder, complimenting Nina and then making himself scarce as it became clear the official business of the evening was beginning.
When he saw Bruce Wayne coming to the lectern, Simon thought of himself at that age, having grown to his current height, but not filled out. But however hard he’d partied, there had always been envelopes addressed to other names as well as his own on the silver tray at home. His own father had once mixed him a hangover ‘cure’.
The kid hesitated, so long that it became awkward. Then he began to speak about his dead parents. Of course, they’d been the reason he’d set up this foundation. Simon’s eyes wandered over to Nina, who cared more about the charities than he did. He saw her hand curve around her stomach, and stopped listening to Wayne. The gesture made him think of one thing, one thing they hadn’t talked about since the engagement. They’d agreed they wanted kids someday, but for now she used birth control. It shouldn’t be possible, despite all the sex they’d been having.
It wasn’t possible, Simon decided; it was just Wayne’s words, ‘protector’ and ‘father,’ making her think of creating more Jardiniers. Which they would, in due course. Children with his name, his and Nina’s features and determination, and Simon would bring them up knowing what was expected of them.
He joined in the applause automatically. Nina, who was clapping with both hands just like everyone else, looked at him quizzically, but it was a time for small talk, leading to deals, perhaps. Explanations in conversation with his wife could wait until the drive home. Like most people in the ballroom, Simon turned to his neighbor.
And then Ivy Pepper picked up the microphone, having taken Wayne’s place at the lectern, and what Simon had said couldn’t happen did. Every word that Ivy Pepper said became increasingly terrifying, People started to rise from their seats, crying out, but there were goons with guns by the exits and rattles of chains around the door handles, forcing everyone to sit back down heavily. Simon was sure they all felt the same dread cementing in their stomachs as he did.
She was a grotesque mistress of ceremonies with her deadly plants, her deadly purposes. Simon wasn’t near enough to see what happened to the first body, but it was clear there would be other victims.
When gunfire erupted, Simon grabbed for Nina in the chaos, following the instinct that screamed at him to stay low and get out quickly. The fewer people who were left as targets, the greater the chances they’d get hit.
They passed the dead man lying on the floor, pale but with a greenish tint to his face. Simon could see the shoots coming out of his body. He didn’t gag, he didn’t breathe, he just followed someone who looked like they knew where they were going, pulling Nina along with him. The shooting continued around them, loud and bringing back memories of trying to get away from danger in other suits. How could he have suppressed all those memories? Why had he pretended that this wasn’t like a routine drill by this point?
They got out of the dining hall unscathed, still holding hands. Nina looked wrecked, her perfect hair mussed up, her dress ripped. Her eyes had never looked like this before.
They were both breathing hard, surrounded by other survivors, pouring outside, fewer of them than had been seated around the dining tables.
Simon saw Ivor Bainbridge pull out a phone, calling for transport or maybe a bodyguard, but his own attention was pulled back to his wife.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “you were right.”
“Magnet for crazies.” Nina whispered, leaning on his shoulder, suddenly drained of adrenaline. “Did you hear her? Did you see what she did? And the guns – so loud. My ears are ringing.”
“I think some of them were cops,” he said, inanely, inadequately, waiting for Nina to say ‘I told you so.’
But she never did. She fell quiet, almost withdrawing from him, and Simon knew then that one of the reasons she’d made him stay with her in their bed was because she was carrying his child.
Cops appeared, directing everyone outside of the building.
Simon gave their names to a uniformed officer, who said the GCPD might be in touch later. Simon draped his jacket around Nina, leading her into their waiting car. After he told the driver to get them home as quickly as possible, there was silence. It allowed Simon to replay his chaotic impressions of the last few hours, and start the internal recriminations. He wasn’t used to such self-examination, but for once it was unavoidable.
When they arrived, he got out of the car quickly and opened the door for Nina, nodding at the driver he’d pre-empted. Simon walked Nina into the living room, where she sank into the nearest chair with none of her usual elegance. Simon thought about offering her a drink, and then wondered if he should. He badly wanted one, but the first thing he said was.
“Next time, we decline the invitation. We send a check.”
The Nina who looked at him was a wan version of his vibrant wife. In shock, maybe. If he couldn’t give her anything alcoholic to drink, maybe something warm would be a good idea.
“There’ll be a next time?” she asked.
He nodded.
“’We won’t let them stop us,’” he quoted. Even as he said it, Simon felt distanced from the ‘we’ and the ‘us’. All the people he’d gone to school with, grown up with, made deals with, drank and made small talk with —for all the dollars in their accounts, like him, they’d run screaming that night, terrorized by the fast-acting, unnatural death that woman and her plants had unleashed.
For him, ‘we’ and ‘us’ was Nina and him now, and the child she was carrying.
“That’s their attitude,” he said, coming to kneel before his wife, wanting to make her understand that he got it now. He understood her fear, her entirely rational terror. He was on her side.
“I’ve heard it before,” he admitted.
“I think I’ll never understand this city,” Nina said, shaking her head.
Simon’s heart sank. He was Gotham through and through, and even though he’d seen it at its worst tonight, the cops had come, the danger was over for now. In the next few weeks, there’d be funerals. There might even be more talk of the crazed eco-terrorist who’d got away. Maybe she’d get caught and sent to Arkham, for all the good that did.
Simon wasn’t going to put himself or his wife in harm’s way anymore, but he hadn’t been planning on leaving the city either. He’d brought Nina here, where he wanted to bring up his child.
“You’ll have to keep on explaining Gotham to me,” Nina said, making an effort to lean forward and kiss him on the forehead. He let out a small huff of relief at her words and actions. “Can you ask someone to make me a tisane?”
He nodded and called for a maid, and then poured himself a brandy, but left it untouched. He waited for Nina’s tisane to come, then, when Phuong had left, he lifted his glass.
“L’Chaim,” he said, even though neither of them was Jewish. Nina locked eyes with him.
He nodded, confirming that he knew she was pregnant and that that was why everything had changed for him.
2. Nina Says
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: Set during 4.14, with mild spoilers for 4.19. 2,456 words.
1. The Jardiniers Accept: shallowness
He grew up with the mail separated out for the members of the family on a silver tray. When he was a child, Simon was excited about receiving anything. They were either from relatives, a pen-pal from Singapore for a couple of years, or party invitations. Of course, there wasn’t much mail these days, but he still recognized invitations.
“Can you make a fundraiser on the fourteenth of next month?” his wife asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
“That was quick. Are you sure?”
He stopped and thought – even if he wasn’t, he’d cancel the other event, but as far as he knew, his calendar was free.
“Yes.” His voice was firm, and Nina looked at him properly. He was dressed for work, she was en dishabille. Pinned under her gaze, Simon thought, for a second, about armor.
“You haven’t asked what it’s raising money for or who’s inviting us,” she said, amused.
He met her gaze. Her eyes were the kind of blue that’s almost gray, and he didn’t see amusement there.
“I don’t care,” Simon said deliberately. “Accept, and we’ll go.”
“Sure,” she said lightly. “It’s for the Wayne Foundation, by the way.”
“Okay,” he replied, not thinking that she’d capitulated, knowing there was more that had to be said and that it was better to say it now. “You must realize we have to attend. People have noticed that we’re been accepting invitations, and then failing to turn up. They’re starting to talk. Ask questions.”
She almost pouted. “They got their checks for their charities, didn’t they?”
“Nina,” he said on a sigh, though he was relieved that she wasn’t denying anything, “that’s not the point.”
The first time, when she had a clothing crisis five minutes before they were due to leave home, standing in their bedroom in her underwear, Simon hadn’t suspected a thing. He’d just seen that his wife was upset, told her it didn’t matter what she picked, she’d look beautiful. Her response had made him lose track of time. Naked and sated, he’d remembered the fundraiser only when it was way too late to go and at that point, he didn’t really care.
The second time, she’d used a stocking to tie him to the bed, laughing. Simon hadn’t been able to think of anything but Nina and what she was doing to him. After the third time, though, he’d realized that nothing seemed to turn his wife on as much as avoiding attending a fundraiser among Gotham’s elite.
Simon Jardinier didn’t belong to one of the six families, but his family had been rich enough for long enough in the city to count as one of that elite. He was brought up knowing that that came with certain obligations. A beautiful wife he’d picked up while vacationing in Europe was tolerated, spending a lot of time with her in bed was understood, but not failing to turn up to these events. He was here in Gotham, not on a honeymoon cruise. A couple of old friends had given him a chilly reception recently. And friends were business associates. Simon wasn’t used to having to leave messages with secretaries.
When his godfather had dropped a sizeable hint that they were missed at the Haverstock auction, Simon had listened, realizing that the next person to say something would be a relative, probably using the expression ‘dereliction of duty’ with an air of disappointment.
“All right,” Nina conceded. “I have been avoiding going, but do you blame me? These fundraisers are magnets for crazy people with guns or some kind of weapons.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” he said reflexively.
She just gave him a look, sitting there with a blue silk kimono draped over her gorgeous body. It was that self-confidence not to say anything that had attracted him to Nina, goaded him into trying to win her over. Her body and the knowing way she used it were bonuses. Simon Jardinier hadn’t needed anyone’s congratulations to know how lucky he was.
“We stick together,” he said, “people like us. We support each other’s good causes. We turn up, we’re seen.”
He looked at her calmly, using her own trick against her. He’d started borrowing it in the boardroom too. So far, marrying Nina had been good for business.
“Fine, I will accept on our behalf,“ Nina picked up the invitation, speaking in a clipped, displeased voice.
“And nothing will come up to stop us going,” he said, wanting his terms to be clear.
“We will go. We will be seen.”
He nodded at her words, wiped his hands with a napkin and got up to kiss Nina on the forehead. He knew that she had understood that marrying into the Jardinier family had obligations. She might not like all of them, but she’d put up with them. He hoped there wouldn’t be too much simmering resentment. Still, if there was, perhaps he could help her channel her anger in the bedroom. His eyes fell on the silk belt tied around her waist – she had yet to use that on him.
That was the image he kept with him as he left for work. As for her claim that these types of events attracted danger, like all Gothamites, he put it out of his mind.
On the night of the fourteenth, Nina was ready before her husband, immaculately dressed in a figure-hugging black gown with silver accents. Simon knew better than to mention the clothing crisis, but he realized that Nina had taken just as much care in selecting the lingerie she’d worn that night she’d seduced him to stay at home as she had picking what to grace this event in. He didn’t compliment her now, just kissed her hand and thanked her in her mother tongue. Nina always liked it when he did that, even if she criticized his pronunciation.
They arrived a little early at the event, Simon could see, as someone from the Wayne Foundation discreetly tapped at a screen, presumably crossing their names off a list. But the idea was for them to be noticed. And they were.
People he had known all his life nodded at them. Like him, Nina nodded and smiled back, her eyes glinting as much as the jewels she wore. Of course, everyone was really waiting for Bruce Wayne, the host of this shindig, since they’d all heard the rumors about the drinking, the partying and the auctions, but the Jardiniers’ presence was noted.
A string quartette cycled through the same tasteful repertoire that you always heard at events like this. A flash went off as a cameraman took a candid of the Jardiniers mingling. Simon showed his teeth. Another flash. They might make it to the society pages. Nina looked good enough. Perhaps he could make a few calls.
They were seated at the same table as Mrs Haverstock, whose charity auction they had skipped recently. Nina dealt with her passive-aggressive comments with grace. Simon thought she relished it from the way she became more and more polite and honeyed. He started hoping that, by the end of the night, she’d be in a good mood.
Simon’s godfather came to talk to him, patting him on the shoulder, complimenting Nina and then making himself scarce as it became clear the official business of the evening was beginning.
When he saw Bruce Wayne coming to the lectern, Simon thought of himself at that age, having grown to his current height, but not filled out. But however hard he’d partied, there had always been envelopes addressed to other names as well as his own on the silver tray at home. His own father had once mixed him a hangover ‘cure’.
The kid hesitated, so long that it became awkward. Then he began to speak about his dead parents. Of course, they’d been the reason he’d set up this foundation. Simon’s eyes wandered over to Nina, who cared more about the charities than he did. He saw her hand curve around her stomach, and stopped listening to Wayne. The gesture made him think of one thing, one thing they hadn’t talked about since the engagement. They’d agreed they wanted kids someday, but for now she used birth control. It shouldn’t be possible, despite all the sex they’d been having.
It wasn’t possible, Simon decided; it was just Wayne’s words, ‘protector’ and ‘father,’ making her think of creating more Jardiniers. Which they would, in due course. Children with his name, his and Nina’s features and determination, and Simon would bring them up knowing what was expected of them.
He joined in the applause automatically. Nina, who was clapping with both hands just like everyone else, looked at him quizzically, but it was a time for small talk, leading to deals, perhaps. Explanations in conversation with his wife could wait until the drive home. Like most people in the ballroom, Simon turned to his neighbor.
And then Ivy Pepper picked up the microphone, having taken Wayne’s place at the lectern, and what Simon had said couldn’t happen did. Every word that Ivy Pepper said became increasingly terrifying, People started to rise from their seats, crying out, but there were goons with guns by the exits and rattles of chains around the door handles, forcing everyone to sit back down heavily. Simon was sure they all felt the same dread cementing in their stomachs as he did.
She was a grotesque mistress of ceremonies with her deadly plants, her deadly purposes. Simon wasn’t near enough to see what happened to the first body, but it was clear there would be other victims.
When gunfire erupted, Simon grabbed for Nina in the chaos, following the instinct that screamed at him to stay low and get out quickly. The fewer people who were left as targets, the greater the chances they’d get hit.
They passed the dead man lying on the floor, pale but with a greenish tint to his face. Simon could see the shoots coming out of his body. He didn’t gag, he didn’t breathe, he just followed someone who looked like they knew where they were going, pulling Nina along with him. The shooting continued around them, loud and bringing back memories of trying to get away from danger in other suits. How could he have suppressed all those memories? Why had he pretended that this wasn’t like a routine drill by this point?
They got out of the dining hall unscathed, still holding hands. Nina looked wrecked, her perfect hair mussed up, her dress ripped. Her eyes had never looked like this before.
They were both breathing hard, surrounded by other survivors, pouring outside, fewer of them than had been seated around the dining tables.
Simon saw Ivor Bainbridge pull out a phone, calling for transport or maybe a bodyguard, but his own attention was pulled back to his wife.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “you were right.”
“Magnet for crazies.” Nina whispered, leaning on his shoulder, suddenly drained of adrenaline. “Did you hear her? Did you see what she did? And the guns – so loud. My ears are ringing.”
“I think some of them were cops,” he said, inanely, inadequately, waiting for Nina to say ‘I told you so.’
But she never did. She fell quiet, almost withdrawing from him, and Simon knew then that one of the reasons she’d made him stay with her in their bed was because she was carrying his child.
Cops appeared, directing everyone outside of the building.
Simon gave their names to a uniformed officer, who said the GCPD might be in touch later. Simon draped his jacket around Nina, leading her into their waiting car. After he told the driver to get them home as quickly as possible, there was silence. It allowed Simon to replay his chaotic impressions of the last few hours, and start the internal recriminations. He wasn’t used to such self-examination, but for once it was unavoidable.
When they arrived, he got out of the car quickly and opened the door for Nina, nodding at the driver he’d pre-empted. Simon walked Nina into the living room, where she sank into the nearest chair with none of her usual elegance. Simon thought about offering her a drink, and then wondered if he should. He badly wanted one, but the first thing he said was.
“Next time, we decline the invitation. We send a check.”
The Nina who looked at him was a wan version of his vibrant wife. In shock, maybe. If he couldn’t give her anything alcoholic to drink, maybe something warm would be a good idea.
“There’ll be a next time?” she asked.
He nodded.
“’We won’t let them stop us,’” he quoted. Even as he said it, Simon felt distanced from the ‘we’ and the ‘us’. All the people he’d gone to school with, grown up with, made deals with, drank and made small talk with —for all the dollars in their accounts, like him, they’d run screaming that night, terrorized by the fast-acting, unnatural death that woman and her plants had unleashed.
For him, ‘we’ and ‘us’ was Nina and him now, and the child she was carrying.
“That’s their attitude,” he said, coming to kneel before his wife, wanting to make her understand that he got it now. He understood her fear, her entirely rational terror. He was on her side.
“I’ve heard it before,” he admitted.
“I think I’ll never understand this city,” Nina said, shaking her head.
Simon’s heart sank. He was Gotham through and through, and even though he’d seen it at its worst tonight, the cops had come, the danger was over for now. In the next few weeks, there’d be funerals. There might even be more talk of the crazed eco-terrorist who’d got away. Maybe she’d get caught and sent to Arkham, for all the good that did.
Simon wasn’t going to put himself or his wife in harm’s way anymore, but he hadn’t been planning on leaving the city either. He’d brought Nina here, where he wanted to bring up his child.
“You’ll have to keep on explaining Gotham to me,” Nina said, making an effort to lean forward and kiss him on the forehead. He let out a small huff of relief at her words and actions. “Can you ask someone to make me a tisane?”
He nodded and called for a maid, and then poured himself a brandy, but left it untouched. He waited for Nina’s tisane to come, then, when Phuong had left, he lifted his glass.
“L’Chaim,” he said, even though neither of them was Jewish. Nina locked eyes with him.
He nodded, confirming that he knew she was pregnant and that that was why everything had changed for him.
2. Nina Says
