Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Dottore arrives at the remote fortress that has long served as the Harbinger's meeting ground, he is half an hour late. It cannot be helped -- with the newfound singularity of his existence, Pierro should be pleased he is making an appearance at all. 

The centuries have not touched the ice-glazed walls, but when he pushes open the double doors to the main hall he finds the interior another story. Their meetings, whether they be funerals or banquets, rarely stray from the same script, but the atmosphere of tonight's showing is unusually sombre. Signora's wineglass sits untouched in front of her empty seat. Some sentimental fool has filled it with the red of her favourite wine. 

"You're early," Columbina says when he sits down beside her, "I wasn't expecting you for another hour."

"I'm surprised you were expecting me at all."

Columbina hums.

It's quiet enough that he can hear Tartaglia showing Pulcinella a souvenir he'd acquired in Inazuma, unknowing or uncaring of the tension hanging in the air around him. Dottore bides his time. The candles burn down as the night wears on, and somewhere between dessert and the bottom of the wine bottle, Dottore spots his chance.

Clink.

A pen rolls into the Regrator's wine glass, followed by a bundle of papers. 

"What is this?"

"A request for the amendment of my budget."

Pantalone sighs. "Your budget was last increased six months ago."

"My research has been impeded by the loss of the segments," Dottore presses, "as a result, I require additional funds."

From across the table, the Knave lets out a biting laugh. "Who sacrificed the segments in the first place? You brought this upon yourself with your recklessness, and you want the Regrator to siphon funds from the rest of us so you can run from the consequences?"
 
"The amount demanded is indeed unreasonable," Pantalone adjusts his glasses as he flips through the papers, "the outline provided is vague at best-"
 
"Are you seriously considering acquiescing to his demands?" The Knave spits. "Go ahead, Regrator -- give your partner the Mora he wants. He already takes more than the rest of us put together, and for what? So he can crawl out of the ruins of his next project and beg for a few more coins?"

"It is a shame, Lady Arlecchino," Dottore responds, "that you cannot appreciate the value of my research."

"She's right," Pantalone says, quieter than usual. "Your work is valuable, yes, but you make no consideration for the costs of your experiments because you expect that when you bleed your coffers dry, I will be there to cave to your whim."

"Regrator-"

The Ninth's fingers tighten around the pen. With a stroke and a flourish, ink blooms on the page and he tosses the paper across the table. The pen clatters to the floor.

"Five hundred thousand?" 

"Is there a problem?" 

"This is an insult."

"It's more than enough to hire some qualified staff," Pantalone says, "what's the difference to you, 'Dottore?' They'll do your dirty work like the segments did, and when you get bored of them, you can kill them just the same."

Silence falls over the banquet table. Columbina's still humming. At the far end of the table, Tartaglia develops a sudden deep interest in finding patterns on the tiled floor. Capitano watches them expectantly. The Knave smirks. A second passes, then another, and Dottore realises that Pantalone is waiting for him to respond.

He must admit he is underprepared. Ever since the ink dried on their first contract, there has been a tacit understanding that Dottore will always be granted enough funding for his research to continue. He does not know -- he should not care -- what the Regrator thinks of the other projects he funds, but he knows Pantalone's interest in his research extends beyond the income it generates. It serves him well -- served him well, until tonight, sitting here with his budget proposal crumpled in his hand, watching as Pantalone drains his wine glass.

"I have a meeting in the morning, so I will take my leave now." Pantalone sets his glass down and pushes away from the table.

Dottore expects someone to stop him -- a harsh word from the Knave, a raised hand from the Jester -- but instead the thud of the closing door echoes through the hall.

"Dottore," Columbina's voice is as tranquil as it always is, "go clean up your mess."

From the head of the table, Pierro gives a curt nod.

Dottore does not object. The banquet is worthless to him without the Regrator's presence, and if Dottore can find him alone he trusts he can force another round of negotiations. When he arrives in the foyer the only trace of the Ninth's presence is a few nervous-looking guards. They flinch when Dottore approaches, but eventually manage to point him down one of the branching corridors. 

He finds Pantalone in the courtyard, sitting on the stone lip of a frozen fountain. Falling snow dusts the dark fabric draped across his shoulders. He's looking up.
 
"What," the banker doesn't look at him, "do you want?"
 
"Your entourage is on the other side of the building," Dottore answers, "are you lost, Regrator?"

Pantalone stands up, one hand still gripping the stone, and Dottore catches a glimpse of his face. His signature smile is gone, replaced with an expression of unabashed irritation. Red spreads across his face and down his neck until it meets the line of his coat. 

"Leave."

"You're drunk," Dottore observes, "and you just stormed out of the banquet in rage. That's quite unlike you, Regrator. Have you been poisoned, perhaps?"

"Leave."

A knife whistles through the air. Dottore catches it by the handle, holding it up to inspect the blade.

"Interesting material. Did 'I' design this?"

Pantalone flicks his wrist and another flash of silver appears between his fingertips.

"You can't kill me."

"I know," Pantalone mutters. "Zero, remember?"

"No."

Dottore tilts his head and the second knife lodges into the wall behind him.

"Was it the segments?" Dottore continues. "I wasn't aware you'd grown so attached."

His plan is simple. For all his gilded words, the Regrator deals with most of his problems the same as everyone else -- throwing Mora at it until the problem solves itself. Pantalone is near some breaking point, and if Dottore can push him over the edge his trip tonight may not be in vain. Dottore's fingers curl around the folded budget in his pocket.

Then Pantalone opens his eyes.

"Yes."

"What?"

"You're right. You're always right, aren't you, Dottore? Tell me," Pantalone pauses to take a breath, "do you know who 'Dottore' is?"

"Certainly. I am Dottore," he says, "should I ask you who 'Pantalone' is?"

"I didn't ask if you know who you are. I asked if you know who 'Dottore' is."

"Is that not the same question?"

"No," Pantalone answers. "I don't pretend I understand. I don't think you do, and I don't think anyone can. Still, in my mind, Dottore was always a composite. Every segment was 'Dottore,' so 'Dottore' was no less than all of you. Then you destroyed them, so what's left?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter," Pantalone repeats, and he's smiling wide enough that his face might split, palm pressed to his forehead and eyes gleaming behind his glasses. "It doesn't matter!"

Forty-eight seconds too late, Dottore realises he's miscalculated.

"That's the problem!" Pantalone continues, "I'm not you, Dottore. I'm sentimental. I've spent my life chasing after something I will never reach, and when I die trying I know I'll be alone. So it shouldn't matter that there is no one I can speak of like how Tartaglia speaks of his family. It shouldn't matter that no one will ever revere me the way her ‘children’ revere the Knave. It shouldn't matter that the closest thing I have to company is you."

Pantalone takes a breath and Dottore watches a teardrop mix with the melting snow on his face.

"How do you do it, Dottore? How do you tear through life like you are the world and the world is yours, and nothing and no one else will ever matter?"

Dottore should leave. He came tonight to deliver his budget proposal, and the Regrator's current state precludes any further negotiations. Another twenty steps and Pantalone will be left to freeze alone, stewing in his worthless self-pity. 

Instead, Dottore answers.

"There's a tower in the Akademiya," he begins, "and centuries ago, a boy would study there and watch his peers line up to throw themselves toward their deaths. He recognised its potential as an experiment, and he began to interfere. He wanted to know how far the control of human sentimentality could be extended. So he spoke to them, again and again, trial after trial, failure after failure."

"And?"

"It was a small sample size, but he never succeeded. He posited that in his pursuit of perfection, human sentimentality must be purged from his creation."

A violent laugh rips out of Pantalone's throat and Dottore remembers what he'd been told, one hundred and sixty-three years ago in the deepest corner of Haeresys:

"Don't you see it, Dottore?"

At the moment of his creation, he was told he was the conclusion of synthetic evolution. For two centuries, he believed it. Now, standing under a false sky across from the only man to share his madness, Dottore discovers the truth. He's had every opportunity to leave and yet he is still here, captivated by the disintegration of the Ninth Harbinger and the man left behind.

For a fleeting moment, he cannot stop the thoughts he should not have. He lets himself ponder how long this hidden flaw has lurked inside him. He let himself wonder, irrationally, if he is the victim of one last laugh from a destroyed segment. 

He lets himself watch the way the wind whips Pantalone's hair out of its usual neat coils, dark strands stark against his skin. Tear tracks carve paths through the blotchy red of his face, flushed from the cold and the wine he’d downed at the banquet. Moonlight glints off the lenses of his now-crooked glasses. He is coming undone before Dottore’s eyes, and it is beautiful.

"You're still here," Pantalone echoes, "you've figured it out, haven't you? How could human construction ever reach perfection?"

The words Dottore is supposed to say make it to his lips but no further. Pantalone looks at him and Dottore thinks he can see a sort of twisted joy in those irises, mocking the dismantling of Dottore's raison d'être. 

"Does it upset you? Knowing that you're just another failed experiment?"

Pantalone takes a step forward. Dottore sees the moment the ground slips out from underneath him and then the world fills with damp hair and the scent of expensive tea beneath a sheen of alcohol. There's a solid weight leaning against him and he can feel a pounding pulse. 138 BPM. Smooth silk slides under the fabric of his gloves. 

His first thought is to thank Pantalone's abysmal alcohol tolerance for ending the stream of questions he cannot answer. His second thought is the horrifying discovery that Il Dottore, the esteemed Second of the Fatui Harbingers, is currently involved in what could be described by an objective observer as a hug.

It takes an additional half second for Pantalone to arrive at the same conclusion, jerking away like he's touched an open flame. He falls into a snowbank. Dottore makes a point not to catch him. Pantalone stays still for a few seconds, lying sprawled on the ground as the snowflakes on his face melt from his body heat.

"Then again," Pantalone says, dark hair winding rivers into the white snow, "it was doomed from the start."

"What?"

"The boy in the tower," he says, "was he human?"

"Yes."

"That's the problem, isn't it? You could be perfect, or you could be Dottore."

Dottore takes a step back, tamping down unfamiliar tendrils of yawning horror. He needs the safety of cold rationality, and the last directive he still has is the crumpled paper in his pocket. 

"I could leave you here, you know," Dottore says, "they wouldn't find you until the morning."

Pantalone's tongue catches between his teeth as they chatter from the cold. "You wouldn't."

Then he smiles and Dottore can see the red rimming the edges of his teeth. A thought slithers out of his insidious subconscious, asking him how the blood would taste, its metallic tang mixed with the bitter vestiges of the Regrator's wine. He tightens his grip on the paper and shoves the thought away along with all the questions he will not ask. For now, he can still play the role of the 'Dottore' he was supposed to be. He does not know, if he asks too many of the wrong questions, how long it will last.

"I wouldn't?"

"You wouldn't," he repeats, "because you know my replacement might have the sense not to fall for your heresy-"

"There's one small project that needs urgent funding," Dottore interrupts, reaching out a hand. "Three hundred million Mora tonight, and I'll bring you inside and pretend this never happened."

Pantalone drags a hand over his face but lifts his arm anyway, and Dottore knows he has him.

Then his face is in the snowbank. 

"This is extortion," Pantalone says, folding his hands over his chest like he hasn't just yanked Dottore to the ground.

"Two hundred?"

"One," Pantalone says, "and give me your coat."

His fingers dig into Dottore's arm as they both push themselves back up to their feet. Dottore clasps his coat around Pantalone's neck, fingers brushing against a sliver of skin for a second before Pantalone twists away.

"You feel like a corpse," Pantalone complains, even as he draws the coat tighter around him and tries to dust himself off. "One hundred million Mora and not a coin more. I'll have my secretary transfer the funds by tomorrow morning."

"And any further negotiations?"

"Schedule a meeting through my office," Pantalone responds, "I might have an opening in six months."

"Six months?"

"Five, if there are cancellations," Pantalone says, "and I'm keeping the coat."

They're doing the same thing, Dottore observes -- slipping back into the roles they've played for the last few centuries, slipping back into the only roles they know how to play. 

"Do you need further assistance, Regrator? Shall I call your entourage to carry you back?"

Pantalone smiles at Dottore's barb and it's the familiar, placating mask Dottore remembers. 

"That won't be necessary," Pantalone says as he turns away, walking back towards the door. 

Then, because this is his last chance, Dottore asks:

"Do I make bad company?"

"You're the worst I've ever met," moonlight glints off Pantalone's teeth, "and you're exactly what I deserve."