Chapter Text
Pantalone sat in the quiet luxury of his office, carefully spearing a neatly cut slice of apple with a delicate silver toothpick. He chewed slowly, savouring the crisp, sweet flavour. He had skipped his breakfast due to a sudden influx of paperwork from the Northland Bank, and his nervous secretary had slipped the plate onto his desk only moments prior.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away, he thought to himself with a small, amused smirk, taking comfort in the old proverb. In his line of work, keeping the mad scientist of the Fatui out of his hair was a victory in itself.
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors banged open.
“Damn you, Pantalone!” Sandrone stormed into the Regrator’s office, her usual trusty mechanical companion nowhere in sight. “For what reason are you rejecting my funding proposal this time, huh?”
Pantalone didn’t even look up from his mountain of paperwork at first, deliberately taking another bite of his fruit. He was not expecting any guests today, and this abrupt deviation from his schedule irked him deeply. Slowly, he swallowed, setting the silver toothpick down against the porcelain plate, resting his chin on laced fingers.
“Ah, Lady Sandrone. As presumptuous as always,” he smooth-talked, tone dripping with mock pleasantry. “Surely you did not think I had time to indulge a tantrum over such an immature project? Perhaps a little tea party in the gardens suits you better, little Lady?”
If a look could kill, the 9th Harbinger would have been a dead man on the spot.
“How dare a mere mortal like you act so arrogantly?” Sandrone hissed, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Calling my project immature, when you yourself lack the wisdom and creativity to achieve even a sliver of what I create.”
Purple orbs bored into the Marionette’s blue, a sharp sneer finally marring his tired face. “Such wisdom and creativity held no candle to the wealth I command, my Lady. Is that not the reason why you are here to begin with?”
Sandrone’s jaw tightened, an explosive retort right on the tip of her tongue. Before she could snap, a firm knock echoed from the other side of the office door.
Pantalone sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Enter.”
The heavy oak door creaked open, but instead of his panicked secretary, a small figure stepped into the room. It was Dottore’s segment, specifically his eight-year-old segment. In his small hands, the boy gripped a thick, neatly bound stack of papers. The young doctor looked between the furious Sandrone and the deeply irritated Pantalone, completely unbothered by the suffocating tension in the room. He marched right up to the massive desk, stood on his tiptoes, and slammed the papers down onto the mahogany surface.
“Thirty-Five’s funding request for his lab,” the child segment demanded, his voice high-pitched but carrying the unmistakable, eerie arrogance of the Second Harbinger.
He crossed his arms tightly, defensively hugging his small stature as a shiver ran through him. “It’s all your fault that I had to walk through the snow just to give you this,” he added, his reddening nose proving that he spoke no lie. He glared up at the banker. “Sign it now, Regrator.”
Pantalone stared at the shivering boy, his cold, calculated expression melting into something dangerously close to a sigh of pity, seemingly aware of his Sumerian colleague’s intolerance with Snezhnaya’s harsh winter. He picked up the proposal and skimmed through the messy, adult handwriting.
That bastard. The grown segment didn’t want to face the Regrator’s wrath after his last budget deficit, so he had sent a freezing eight-year-old out into the Snezhnayan blizzard as an adorable shield. And the worst part? It was working. Pantalone did have a soft spot for the youngest segment, a weakness which did not escape Thirty-Five’s ruthless observation.
“That utterly shameless reptile,” Pantalone muttered under his breath. He reached into his desk drawer, pulling out a plush, luxurious winter scarf and draped it around the boy’s neck. “He sent you out in the storm without a proper coat just to bypass my schedule? Unbelievable.”
Sandrone looked like she was about to combust. Her jaw dropped as she watched the notoriously ruthless banker, the man who had just called her brilliant work ‘immature’, meticulously adjusting a scarf around a child.
“Are you kidding me?!” Sandrone shrieked, slamming her fist onto the desk.
“You rejected my autonomous engineering prototypes, but you’re going to fund a madman who uses child labour to deliver his mail?”
The little segment didn’t pay Sandrone any mind. He snuggled slightly into the warm scarf, though he kept his chin held high, maintaining his tiny, arrogant glare.
“Are you going to sign it or not, Regrator? My nose is numb.”
Pantalone didn’t let the chaos in his office faze him. With absolute composure, he pulled the heavy stack of papers closer to his side of the mahogany desk, giving them a single, professional tap against the wood to align the edges.
“I am taking the paperwork,” Pantalone told the boy, his voice returning to its smooth, unreadable cadence. “But I will read them through first. Thirty-Five does not get a blank check just because he used a tiny mail boy.”
The eight-year-old segment huffed, adjusting the plush scarf around his neck, but seemed satisfied enough that the burden was out of his hands now.
Before Sandrone could open her mouth to demand her own funding again, Pantalone stood up, straightening his immaculate lapels. The hospitable smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes.
“And now, I must ask both of my esteemed, uninvited colleagues to vacate my office. My schedule has been thoroughly butchered for the afternoon, and I have a Northland Bank crisis to manage.” He gestured smoothly toward the heavy oak doors. “Lady Sandrone, do enjoy your tea party. Little Doctor, go find a fireplace before you freeze solid.”
“Pantalone, you arrogant, penniless excuse for a-” Sandrone’s screech was cut short as the office doors magically began to swing shut, driven by the sheer finality of the banker’s dismissal.
With a heavy sigh, Pantalone sank back into his leather chair. The silence of his office was finally restored. He looked at the two proposals sitting on his desk, the Marionette’s autonomous prototype and whatever madness the Doctor is writing this time. Pantalone pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes resting on the unfinished plate of sliced apples.
So much for keeping the Doctor away.