Work Text:
“Maximilien,” Ramattra spoke, voice powerful enough to shake the accountant to his core “is the paperwork I assumed to you finished?” He tilted his head.
“Ah! Well…” Max looked over the papers, still much to fill out and send away.
“An answer now, Maximilien.”
“No, not yet, my apologies sir.” He shuffled the papers, a nervous habit he was sure the ravager picked up by now. He always picked them up. When he noticed Ramattra was dead silent, though, he dared to look up, he knew the lack of productivity was disappointing but Ramattra usually had a comment about those types of things.
“Is something bothering you, sir? Besides the papers, which I am sorry about-” Max began, but before he could finish, Ramattra finally had something to say.
“Why do you insist on being like this?” He criticized, lack of expression not hiding his disgust. Max stared for a moment, not sure how to reply. He guessed he would go with the usual:
“What are you talking about, sir?”
“That.” He snarled, sounding as if his teeth were clenched. “You act as if you were a human, you-” He grabbed Max’s arm, raising it. “You dress like one, it’s infuriating.”
Max thought briefly, not even sure where to start. The problem was he spoke formally? Or how he dressed? “I still don’t understand, what is the problem?”
Ramattra groaned, most likely from frustration, and dropped Max’s arm. “Everything you do is to please them, the beings who have oppressed our kind since we were created. Don’t you feel angry?” Max looked away, as if he could focus on paperwork right now with a ticked off ravager in his office. Though it seems when Ramattra didn’t get a response, he spoke again.
“Your servitude is shameful, you could be doing anything else besides bending however these humans want you to.” His hands slammed on the desk, Max flinched at the action but didn’t back away. “Do you not feel rage with this lifestyle? Being their lapdog? This is what our people fought for not to happen.”
Max just continued to look down, he was better off letting Ramattra vent his frustrations than fighting him on this. Ramattra balled his hands into fists, obviously getting more upset at the lack of emotion from the businessman. “You have nothing to say? You are just going to sit there and let me insult you?”
Max looked to the side, thinking once again, but this time for a response.
“You do not get to insult how I choose to live.” He spoke, tone even as always, calm as if his desk wasn’t being crushed under the weight of a ravager. “And I am nobody’s ‘lapdog’.” He went to remove Ramattra’s hands from his desk but was stopped by yet another sound of frustration. He finally looked up at Ramattra’s face, faceplate the same as always, but his voicebox was strained, trying to fit words where it didn’t know if they belonged.
He was furious. And Max understood exactly why, but he wouldn’t get his discussion with insults, Max didn’t work that way and he didn’t plan on changing for this.
“What do you expect from this?” Max was now the one asking questions. “Do you want me to just lose all the professionalism I have learned so you can get your own frustrations out in the open?” Ramattra stared at him, dead in the face, Max heard his desk creak from the pressure. Finally, Ramattra sighed and removed his hands from their place.
“I just… I do not understand, Maximilien.” He started “You are one of the most powerful omnics I have ever seen, the way you are able to get underneath anyone and turn it into your benefit is amazing on it’s own. But, you’re also plenty well off when it comes to money. So why live like this?” He had grabbed his staff in the middle of talking, needing something to keep his grip on.
“What do you mean by this, Ramattra? I don’t have all day for vague statements.”
“This!” He opened his arms and gestured around the spacious room. “You live your life not as an omnic, you live as someone who’s been cultivated by humans. You dress and speak like them, you let yourself abide to the things they want, you let yourself be used.” Ramattra put his arms back to his sides, Max could almost see steam coming off of him.
Max hummed for a moment, not that he needed to think of his response. “I conform to humans because it is what has kept me from being nothing.” He organized the papers on his desk, picked up the few that had fallen to the floor.
“Why be like this when you could be out fighting for your kind?” He almost sounded sympathetic, but that had to be Max’s imagination. Ramattra was the most empathetic omnic he had ever seen, but nowhere near a sympathetic one.
Max sighed, placing the papers down onto the desk, neatly lined up together to be filled out or rejected. “I was not built for fighting.” He stated, voice wavering. “If I tried doing what your group is, I would be killed in days. I wasn’t built to take hits or start fights.” Once the papers were as neat as they could be, he started adjusting the sleeves of his suit. “I was better off working my way into this system than arguing against it.”
“You are not even working, they just use you for your image of being an omnic. Everyone here- They are all human and willing to let you go if need be.”
Max looked up at Ramattra, once again looking for something in his naturally unkind expression. “You have already pointed out my intelligence, I know I am disposable, which is why I will always make myself useful. That is how someone like me gets by in a world like this.” He gestures to Ramattra “Someone like you is made for fighting in wars, something I will never have. Something I don’t wish to have. I’m a man of wits, I will keep myself as close to the top as I can until I cannot anymore.”
Then, both were silent, Max looked over the work, knowing he needs to continue what he was doing before. All this was doing was making him procrastinate and he got nowhere with that.
“Are we done here, Ramattra? May I go back to my duties?” It wasn’t tense, not to Max at least, this was something he saw coming. He knew the second he and Ramattra had first met that this omnic was going to have a problem with him, it would only be so long before he voiced it, like how he voiced everything. He always pointed at how Max dressed and spoke, Max took note of it but nothing more than that. Of course this was the issue.
Ramattra was still, unmoving, the only thing that was even making noise at that moment was the void accelerator in his staff, which idly spun in it’s levitation.
“Maximilien, you are allowed to fight back, if you want I-” Max raised his hand, making Ramattra pause.
“I do appreciate your concern, Ramattra, but here is where I am most useful, and I would prefer to keep it that way. Talon may want me for ulterior motives but right now it is my best chance at staying successful.” Max lowered his hand back down, allowing Ramattra to speak again.
“You own an entire casino, I am sure Talon isn’t your only means of power.”
“If I left, Talon could easily assassinate me as they did to… someone who was close to you. So the casino doesn’t mean much in the long run here.”
“Then why join?” Ramattra protested “If you knew this was going to trap you why join at all?” The question stirred in Maximilien’s mind for a few minutes. The answer was so quick to him, but he figured indulging in it would do no harm. But even after his fair share of pondering, nothing else came to him, it was the same answer he has told everyone who’s bothered to ask before. The unchanging mindset he’s had since day one:
“I simply believe Talon will end up on the top.”