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“Okay,” Dottore muttered to himself, pacing back and forth with a notepad in the confines of his white-lit basement laboratory. “Three negative results in a row… The formula is lacking something. Two subjects experienced unusual symptoms before succumbing to the disease… Seizures, partial upper-body paralysis, abnormally high fever— What… what are you missing…”
“Who, me?”
“Celestia, what are you doing, Regrator, showing up here like this? I could’ve been in the middle of a vital experiment, you know!” Dottore yelled, turning to greet the banker who had surfaced in the doorway and stood wringing his hands impatiently. “There could be toxic fumes or biohazards in here! Mind you, I can’t guarantee I’d be able to revive you.”
Pantalone’s face was drawn so unusually taut that Dottore paused at his lack of enthusiasm. “You’re looking awfully strange today, mon cher. Need anything?”
“Do you need this?”
Ignoring any questions that had come his way, Pantalone pointed at a jar standing on the nearest shelf. Inside, a mutated insect crawled in a slimy substance Dottore had been trying to study but abandoned (or perhaps it was one of the clones?.. Pantalone could not care to recall). Before the confused scientist could even respond, he'd grabbed the jar from the shelf with his bare hands.
The creature let out a belated screech of panic. Scrambling about the interior, it watched, with two eyes of mismatched sizes, as the glass crystallized to bright yellow metal where the Regrator had laid his fingers. As if cast in a forge, waves of molten gold slid down the walls of the jar, replacing the glass. The liquid within began to condense and tinge with yellow, as the creature let out its final breath and stilled, now nothing but a statue frozen in a scream.
Pantalone threw the now-golden jar down with shattering force, not caring much whether it survived the fall. “I woke up like this today, in a golden bed, with golden sheets that I barely tore off. This must be some… some curse! The gods must really despise me after what I’ve done to upset them. No matter what I touch, I will turn it to gold.”
Dottore watched helplessly as it rolled on the stained lab floor and knocked to a halt against the leg of a shelf. “...Actually, I did need that…”
“Did you even understand what just happened?” Pantalone deadpanned, growing frustrated. He locked his hands together, keeping himself from launching something at the doctor’s face. “Do you realize how fuck— how fucking terrible this is?”
“Yes, yes, so terrible, my greatest condolences— But on the other hand, this opens up the grounds for fascinating experiments—”
Dottore threw his hand over his mouth as he circled the mess that was his desk, frantically picking up a pen and paper. “I am practically flooded with ideas right now. My dear Regrator, I simply cannot find the right words to thank you! You have just inspired a whole new branch of research that those haughty imbeciles at the Akademiya could only dream of—”
“Have you lost your mind?!” Pantalone’s abrupt shout echoed in the darkest nooks of the lab. His hands were shaking when he fisted them, trying to steady himself. “For one second, put aside your research and at least try to see this the way I do! On the one hand, this is great! This is what I’ve always desired, right? Unlimited wealth at the flick of a finger. I can surpass any damned god using the blessing of their intended curse.”
He paced around the room, wringing his hands and nearing a state of poorly controlled panic. It was strange of him, to say the least. Dottore noted that in the years they’d been close, Nine had never let this much emotion slip his condescending, sneering mask.
“On the other hand. I can’t eat, drink, or touch you without turning you to gold! Not so great, is it now? I could die in three days because— ah, what a shame that I have to remind such a renowned scholar of such a rudimentary fact— the human body can only withstand so much without water.”
“Thank you, but I happen to have researched the limits of the human body on live subjects and can do perfectly without your reminders.”
Pantalone seethed. “Stop diverting the subject or I swear to the Seven I will turn your entire lab to gold.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Then fucking turn your attention my way! No, my eyes are up here. Gods, how do I deal with you…”
“I wouldn’t worry so, mon amour,” Dottore drawled, twirling a strand of the banker’s black hair around his finger. “Perhaps fate will be kinder to you than letting you die of hunger.”
“I have been there before, what do you not understand? I nearly starved to death countless times as a child! Fate must be against me this time!”
“What do you even know of fate?” Dottore scoffed. “Celestia, what a bore you can be. Think of this as an opportunity! And I’ll help you figure out those added inconveniences, how does that sound?”
“ Inconveniences. Like the fact I can’t touch anything. A totally minor discomfort.”
“Give me some time,” Dottore leaned into his ear. “This is a unique case. But I will attempt to find a way to reverse this… curse. Ah, damn the gods, am I right?”
“You’re not being helpful,” Pantalone snapped, withdrawing from his reach. “I need some time alone before I can tell the others.”
He turned to leave without another word, his expression the angriest it’d ever been. His heels clicked soundly on the stained metal floors before he vanished out of sight in the maze that was the basement. Dottore scratched his forehead in his wake.
“Why is he even panicking— it’s not the end of the world? It’s a scientific breakthrough? Drama queen, my ass—”
His other theories now forgotten, he shut the door to the lab, making sure the heavy locks slid perfectly into place before resting his palms against the desk, utterly lost in thought.
He’d never had as little as three days to perform a perfectly functional study.
“Regrator? Darling? You still alive in there?”
Pantalone’s voice sounded cold and distant through the massive treasury doors, patterned with gold ornaments all over. “Go away.”
“No, I don’t think I will. I’ve got to check up on your curse, mon cher.” Dottore had had his own key for months, ever since they'd made things more or less official. He began turning it in its lock, jangling the keychain as loud as he could against the door. “I’m letting myself in, don’t be startled.”
The door wouldn’t budge until he gave it a kick with all his strength, forcing it open; and then even the seasoned, cruel Dottore paused in his tracks.
He had been to Pantalone’s chambers countless times. The place had always been richly embellished— the banker could afford to buy all the treasures in the world had he wished to, and still have the funds to secure his nation for a hundred years in the future. Chandeliers of elaborate designs shone like stars on the ceiling of dark ice, with waterfalls of tiny glass prisms suspended from invisible threads. Crimson and gold prevailed in the decor as if reminding visitors that the Northland Bank’s true currencies were blood and tears. The fireplace always burned bright no matter the time of day, keeping the room warm to Pantalone’s finicky taste. For someone living in a land of snow for decades, he hated the cold. But something was very off about the interior this time.
Even for the notoriously greedy banker, there was simply too much gold. The entire room seemed to be made of it: the walls, the curtains, even the mahogany bookshelves standing tall in every corner were nothing but irregular shapes of metal. It nearly blinded the unsuspecting Dottore, but what startled him most was that the light was not coming from piles of Mora and diamonds one would expect to see in the office. It came from gold-coated objects— and full-scale human statues— strewn in no particular order around the chambers.
Two Fatui agents, one frozen in a plea on his knees, the other tripping over his feet as if trying to fruitlessly escape. A servant girl, balancing a full tray in her forever lifeless hands. A Pyroslinger guard lay on the carpet, clawing for the exit with golden nails— the exact thing that had held the door back. A pool of resplendent liquid had spilled and frozen beneath him. And in the middle of this harrowing display, on a towering pile of golden pillows, books, and the ever-present Mora, sat a smiling Pantalone, tapping his foot against the floor as if nothing was wrong. The brilliance of the room made his glasses shine a sinister yellow.
“Hello,” he said flatly to the astounded Dottore. The smile on his face was unnatural. Bordering on eerie. “Still want to check up on me?”
“Wow,” the scientist said after a lengthy pause. “I see you’ve wasted no time getting used to this condition of yours. Speaking of which, I have a gift for you.”
“What could I possibly want now?” Pantalone stared at him, his eyes unblinking beneath their lenses. “I have everything I need. I could seize the very thrones of Celestia and turn them to disposable metal chairs and end these theatrics of ours. I could pull the entire world by its strings, control the heart of commerce any second now.”
“But you’re not happy.”
“Depends on your definition of happy. To an ambitious man like me, there is hardly any reason to complain.”
Pantalone stood, scaling the room towards him. He kept his hands firmly clasped behind his back, though, passing one of the agents, he slid his thumb lovingly along the side of his cool, golden cheek. Something about him was different. As if the gold had made permanent home not only at his fingertips but in his already blackened heart.
“Whatever you say. Here,” Dottore handed him a box. Simple and sleek, lacquered in black and silver, with the Fatui insignia imprinted on the lid. “For you.”
“A gift?” Pantalone raised his brows in amusement. “Finally got me something of real value, I hope? Oh, you… might need to open that for me, by the way.”
Dottore rolled his eyes, but slid the lid off, producing two black gloves from the velvet-lined box. To the untrained eye, nothing would have seemed unusual about them; most Harbingers wore gloves, either to keep warm in Snezhnaya’s frigid winds or to keep their hands clean from inevitably spilled blood.
“Gloves,” Pantalone snickered. “So I can walk around with my hands encrusted in gold. How very thoughtful.”
“Oh, but you underestimate my abilities, dear. These gloves,” Dottore waved them in front of the banker’s face, “Are produced with cutting-edge technology and threaded with gold in a way that will prevent them from succumbing to your curse. Wear them, and they will protect your surroundings; take them off whenever you want a new piece added to this… collection.”
He gestured to the kneeling agent with a sneer. Seeing Pantalone’s expression flicker with surprise, he barked out a laugh. “Try them on. Come on, hold those hands out.”
Pantalone raised a brow, unwilling to prove him right, but the smirk on Dottore's face was too sly, too knowing for him to resist. He extended both hands in front of him, watching skeptically as Dottore struggled to slide the gloves on without making direct skin contact.
“There,” he said, pleased with himself, once they were snug on Pantalone’s slender fingers as if tailored exactly to his size. “Try them out now.”
The banker chewed on his lip before reaching towards the nearest object he could locate, a quill standing in its inkwell, and carefully taking it in his hands.
Nothing happened. A perfectly liquid, black ink drop slid from the nib, splattering onto the hem of his pristine cloak. Normally, he would have cursed, torn the cloak off, and had it cleaned off the same day— he did not tolerate imperfections on his appearance. But he couldn’t care less in the moment that decided the course of the rest of his life.
Dottore watched with a shark’s grin as Pantalone threw himself from one shelf to another, taking books, papers, and glasses in his hands and muttering in relief when they retained their original form. Once the gloves had passed the test and he was satisfied with their security, he whirled on his heel. Dottore stood smugly by the window, feigning interest in one of the many checks in Pantalone’s leatherbound account tome.
“Well?” He said, raising his keen red eyes from the neatly arranged numbers. “Problem solved? You see, dear, I thought it so cruel that you had to be so afraid of accidentally touching me.”
“How in the Seven did you know this was going to work?” Pantalone demanded, glaring up at him. “You said yourself I was a unique case—”
“You forget I’m the Doctor, don’t you?” Dottore preened. Uncharacteristically gently, he took the banker’s hands in his own. Not a tingle, nothing to indicate his imminent death as a lethally beautiful golden monument. He circled his thumb over the thick leather of the glove. “There is nothing in this world I can’t do. Only cost me a few test subjects and some of your precious Mora reserves to set this project in motion, and who’s to say I can’t perfect it any further? Perhaps there will come a day when you will not need them at all.”
“Celestia, you’re crazy,” Pantalone muttered, staring distractedly at his lips. The coldness had all but faded from his features, a smile coalescing on his lips once more. The falsity and indifference would remain till the day of his death, but Dottore found he didn't mind them at all. The softness of the moment outweighed anything.
“Mayhaps. Or am I a genius? After all, I did just save you from a slow and miserable death… You still owe me a thank you, by the way.”
Pantalone snaked his hand around his neck, pulling him down until he could feel the Doctor’s minty breath against his skin. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I never hold up due payments.”