Chapter Text
“Hey, come with me,” Noctis grabs at his friend's coat, holding him back by the collar. Prompto jerks to a stop, flailing a little to keep from falling on his ass. “We're going out.”
“Uhh, sure. Alright, cool. Door’s right here, dude.” Prompto points across the exodus of students. The school day is over, most of them are headed home. A parade of glossy vehicles lays waiting in the courtyard to carry them off; a certain royal escort among them. But Noctis doesn't move toward the doors. Warm daylight flashes invitingly as the others do. He tugs, a little too hard, on Prompto's jacket, making the taller boy stumble again.
“Not going that way,” he says. “Come with me.” Letting go of Prompto, Noct turns and jogs back into the school. Prompto hesitates. Glancing longingly at the front doors, he thinks on the chores waiting to get done today. The essay assigned in juniors chem. The packet from geology that weighs more like a field guide than a study aide in his book bag.
Another student pushes through to freedom. Prompto glimpses Noct's ride lingering in the courtyard, a slim figure leaning up against its gleaming hood, crownsguard greys against black gloss. He thinks on things more pressing than homework. Like how many limbs he might be allowed to keep when Gladio catches up to them… although, time with Noct, sans babysitters, might be worth a couple of limbs to him.
Possibly more.
He has to run to catch up.
“So,” Prompto brings his camera to face, inspecting his latest pics for blur, “we've made our big break for freedom. What's the occasion?”
Noctis doesn't look at him, he lifts his face to the subway cars ceiling, watching the ads roll by on the display panel. “Ditching Gladio,” he shrugs finally, dropping his eyes to look at Prompto across the aisle. His hands are folded in his lap, prim and stately. The way he sits speaks of years of discipline; a straight spine, level shoulders, knees together. In public the prince doesn't slouch like regular teens, doesn't spread out on the seat like he would at home. Funny, considering how easily the guy falls asleep in class. Even if he weren't dressed in that Lucian black uniform coat, Prompto thinks he’d pass without a doubt for a nobleman.
“You guys fighting again?” Prompto prods a little. Seems the prince always has some bone or another to pick with his tutors lately. With their final year of high school speeding closer, expectations pile higher and higher. Noctis sinks lower and lower under the stress of his new responsibilities; longer essays, more meetings, until he cracks and breaks under the weight of balancing the kingdom's needs with his own. Noctis’s eyes flick away, avoidant. “You know, with sharp words instead of pointy sticks?”
“Gladio doesn't do sharp words,” Noctis scoffs, “just loud ones.” His perfect posture slackens. “Overprotective bastard.”
Prompto laughs. “That's practically his job title, y’know?”
Noctis huffs, lips twitching. “Yeah, I guess it is.” His eyes stray to his hands again, examining his fingernails.
Prompto doesn't press anymore. The story will come if and when Noct wants to tell him. He puts his camera back to work, snapping the shutter at other passengers.
“Turn your phone off.” Noctis looks up from his screen to give Prompto a quizzical look. “I'm serious dude.” Prompto digs his own phone out of the deep pockets of his school slacks, a cheerful cartoon chocobo greets him when he wakes it up enough to shut it down. He tucks it into his school bag. When he looks up Noctis still looks lost. “It's like in that movie we saw last week, yeah? A call from the wrong person is gonna give you away. If you wanna go off the grid, you gotta do it right. Wireless phones can be tracked pretty easily nowadays.” Prompto grins, excited, watching until understanding blooms on his friends face.
Noct curses while he fumbles to press his phone's power button.
“It's just, it's hard to lay low when a seven foot brick house of man follows you around everywhere. Like, I don't hate him, he's family y'know, but I do hate being gawked at. If I could go out alone like this, no one would notice me. No one notices me now, because Gladgantio isn't here to draw eyes.” Prompto and Noctis wander together through a huge open air market Prompto never knew existed. Noctis says it's one of dozens around the inner city, but he likes this one best because its size means the merchants are always changing. “He’s more of a target than I am. I don't get why he's so uptight about it.” Prompto can think of a few reasons. He thinks of the war that's been prodding at Lucis' borders since before either of them was born. He thinks about Gladio’s scar, and the whispers and pointing fingers that follow Noctis around the school. He remembers what Ignis told him of the hoops His Majesty leapt through to get the council's permission to send his only son to a semi-public academy. And the trouble that that crownsguard Noctis warped out of a window to avoid is going to be in.
But Noct doesn't want reasons right now. Noctis knows why Gladio takes his station so seriously. He just needs to vent now, and Prompto will be his best friend and familiar shoulder to cry on, if that's what makes Noctis happy. Whatever he needs, Prompto wants to be.
The memory card in his camera fills up fast when there's something around every corner that catches his photographer's eye. The vibrant colors of the exotic produce (and the disgusted faces Noctis pulls when he sees them,) the sunlight dancing on metal trinkets (and Nocts hair as he pulls one to his face to admire the details.) He's down on one knee, framing his next shot, when he hears Noctis gasp. It's a whisper of a sound in the cacophonous space and it has Prompto whirling around abruptly. But the prince is still right behind him, head high and eyes locked onto a target Prompto can't discern through the crowd.
“Uhhh, Noct?”
“Be right back,” Noct says, already cutting through the crowd and leaving Prompto to fend his own way in his wake.
“... the conditions of your permit specify that armed guards are supposed to come directly from, and only from the gatewatch.” Prompto might not have a solid idea of what Noct thinks he's doing, but he does see that the foreign merchant does not looked the least bit pleased. A couple of guys loom behind him, one stares down his crooked nose at Noct in a way Prompto does not like. The other has a white knuckled grip on a fancy spear—its gilded seraphim hand-guard looks like its worth more than all Prompto’s valuable possessions combined. And Noctis either doesn't notice, or isn't letting these guys shake him. He stands up straight, his arms crossed over his chest. In his school clothes, Noct might be just another upstart youth to these goons. Do they know what the black coat means? Yet Noct is exuding such a solid sense of being in control. It's fascinating to see him so level tempered in the face of adversity, keeping his usual caustic sleepy sarcasm locked down.
Prompto supposes these guys are nothing compared to the massive bulk of the Prince's Shield. Noct's not letting them cow him simply because he regularly fights with someone more huge than either of these goons.
If he were to think on this moment later, he might realize that they way Noctis handles himself here is all Ignis's training, but it will be years yet before Prompto becomes familiar with Ignis's influences.
“What’s it to ya’s, if me assistants show off me products a little, kid? Get lost. Go tell the zu-flies at t’gate whatever ya want, but dont ya be tellin’ me how t’read my own contract.” It's a dismissal, and it’s cold and hard and smells like a threat, despite the brush-off tone. Noct swells with indignity, something acidic forming on his tongue.
Prompto, his skin going cold, takes his prince by the shoulders, cutting off whatever rebuttal he’d prepared and steers him away from the stall. Angry eyes bore into their backs even after the crowd swallows them up.
It's Prompto that notices they're being followed, reviewing the myriad of pictures he's taken. “Dude," he half-laughs, "this one guy is in half my pics; seriously creepy coincidence.” He forces his tone to be easy, flippant. His heart still isn't sure if it needs to settle down or jump out through his lungs, after Noct’s little showdown with the armed merchant. It sounds like a coincidental thing, anyway. In a public place crowded with people out to spend their hard-earned yen on the bounties of western Lucis—and a few countries further—paths can cross multiple times. Some faces will become familiar.
Noctis would like to think nothing of it. Would like to chalk it up to chance and forget about it. The path he had chosen to take, to make sure they passed everything and Prompto saw it all, was hardly random. The market was set up in an uneven grid; he'd simply led his friend around the perimeter and circled inward.
He wants to brush it off as a quirk. But a little nagging voice in his head says be on your guard. Ironically—annoyingly—it sounds like Gladio.
But no, was this not the same topic they so often argued? He doesn't need Gladio all the time. In a city protected by his family's own magic, separated from the war on the outside, a prince could go out alone every now and then. He can take care of himself.
He can.
“Show me?” Prompto scrolls back through his reel, pointing out less than a dozen shots. The stranger is looking at the camera in too many of them.
Noctis tries to stay cool when his heart jumps up his throat. That traitorous little voice whispers to forget being on his guard, he should have brought his guard.
“That's one of the merchants mercenaries.”
“The one you told off?” Noctis nods, and tries to think. Prompto sucks air been his teeth. “Maybe now is a good time to go home.”
The prince nearly agrees, nearly steers himself and Prompto back towards the train station to abandon this rebellious field trip, however much it feels like giving up. He feels his stubbornness rearing its head in refusal. He will not run away. He has a point to make, and this is the perfect chance to do it. “No. We need to report to the gatewatch first.”
“And the next watch posting is..?” Prompto's eyes flit nervously through the market. Surely there’d be a guard post in a place like this. He doesn't dare turn around and risk seeing, or worse, not seeing, their tagalong.
“I know where it is.” Noct takes his friend's arm and leads him away from the market.
“If that little upstart gets hisself to the guard, we're outta our good standin’ with the boss.” The reedy voice of the man from the market carries in the narrow alley. Feet scuff against the old concrete. Prompto presses deeper into his hiding spot, trying and failing to quiet the press of fear under his lungs.
The walls loom, their only exit is blocked—Noct's shortcut is a shortcut no longer, newly cut off by nine feet of shiny chain link. His heart pounds in his ears, his innards threaten mutiny.
Next to him, Noct crouches similarly, peeking warily around the flimsy molding cardboard and storage crates giving them the barest of cover. Noct, Prompto knows, could easily get away to safety. Could warp himself over the fence blocking off the road from the alley and be done with this mess.
Though it would draw eyes, the safety of the crown prince is more important than not getting gawked at. More important than them sticking together. Which is undoubtedly what Noct trying to do by not saving himself right now.
“Naww, didn't you see the colors that boy was wearin’? There's noble blood in that one, I'm sure’v it. They don't let just anyone here stuff themselves in a black that dark. We catch 'im ‘n take 'im in, we can kiss our debts goodbye fo’ sure.”
Prompto catches the wounded look that crosses Noct's face, and how he shifts through blistering anger and pensive worry. None of these things is reassuring. He's thinking, maybe trying to strategize a way to get them both out of this pickle together. His collected control from earlier is starting to unravel.
Prompto is thinking too.
Thinking about what these goons will do if they catch Noct—it's clear they don't know exactly who he is, which is worse than if they did by Prompto's estimation—and what he can do about stopping them. They don't have Gladio to intimidate them out of this pickle, no crownsguard or gatewatch to prevent a royal kidnapping. Nothing in Noct's arsenal to fight with.
It's up to Prompto.
“Give me your coat,” he hisses, tearing his arms out of his own bookbag and coat arms simultaneously. When the prince doesn't immediately respond, Prompto reaches for his sleeves; he'll take the coat off himself if he must. But Noct twitches away and shimmies out of his uniform.
They switch blue for black under Noctis's furious questioning glare, but they're out of time for explanations. He's smart though, he must see what Prompto’s plan is. Prompto shoves his arms into the bigger sleeves, and forgoes the buttons. “I’m distracting them; you get out of here. Get help.” Anxious energy chokes his voice, makes his whispers crackle, but Prompto knows what he needs to do. He jumps to his feet, puts his head down, and books it for the open mouth of the alley.
His legs are long, his stamina young and primed. He can lead them off Noct's trail long enough for the prince to get away. Except— He only makes it a few steps before he crashes headfirst into the hopeful princenappers. They were nearly on top of boys’ hiding spot—Prompto hadn't prepared for them being this close. Hadn't stopped to look like Noctis had.
What was that saying about distance and jumping into danger?
Desperate to get them away from Noct, Prompto tries to shove between them, ducking under grasping arms and around too many legs. He breaks through, flailing against the hands wrapped around his arm. He just has to get them away, lead them off, distractdistractdistract. Ripping free, he bolts. It's not his top speed; he wants to be an enticing target. The black coat really ought to be incentive enough to follow him. If these outsiders don't recognize Noct for who he is, maybe they also won't realize how un-noble Prompto's blonde hair is. How un-Lucian it is.
A weight from behind catches Prompto around the knees. The heels of his hands scrape against rough concrete, the wind goes right out of his lungs in a single heavy woosh against the concrete.
He tries to get up, to keep going, but the weight around his knees turns out to be a person. A heavy one, with a grip like a behemoths jaws. The other, the man with the broken nose, walks calmly to where Prompto writhes on the ground, telling to pry free. He sets his boot on the Prompto's arm and kneels to hold him still with a fistful of black cloth.
From where he lays, Prompto can see a shivering impression of magic hovering midair over the fence. Noct got away. Noct will be safe. He can stop running now, he thinks, letting his captors gather him up from the ground.
He struggles still, heroic pretence forgotten, but their words echo on his ears, he can't focus on what they're saying, because—he realizes; he doesn't know what comes next in this plan of his. The plan is done, over with. Switch, Bait, and Run. Check, check, and check.
Maybe he’d have been able to better think this through with more time.
The important thing is that Noct is safe.
Noctis warps as fast and far as he can without anything to throw, pushing himself further and further with each jump until his magic throbs inside his skull and the constant lurching displacement of reality threatens to turn his stomach inside out. When the magic refuses his call, he runs until he can feel it there again, settling under his skin. The gatewatch. He's just gotta get to the gatewatch and they can get the Marshall, Drautos, Clarus. Dad.
He'll even dredge up the humility to face Gladio and Ignis, if it means Prompto comes back safe. Stars, he can hear their lectures already.
How could he have been such an astral-smitten idiot? He'd only gone off alone to prove Gladio wrong, to prove the city was no danger to him. He could watch his own back. Arrogant, Gladio had called him. Now he's only proven them right, and Prompto paid the price. Under no obligation, oath, or pay grade, Prompto gave himself up for Noctis to get away.
There's a burning behind Noctis's eyes that he can't blame on the dangerous rush of magic swelling inside his skull.
The watchpost is a mess from the second he steps inside. Or barrels in, for a more accurate, if still lacking description of the frantic, violent entrance Noctis makes through the glass doors. Had the hinges allowed for it, the door might have bounced off the wall in his haste. As it, at a dramatic but steady crawl, hisses to a close, the guards jump to action.
The gatewatch is not the crownsguard, but they seem to recognize him all the same. Even glowing like a night light from his magical exertion, in a wrong colored coat too small for his shoulders, and panicking like Ifrit himself were on his heels, they see their prince under the disarray.
Two of the guards converge on him immediately, all hovering hands and hesitant concern. For him. For all he trips over his tongue to explain that they took Prompto, his friend needs help,listen, please, the guards don't hear him. Someone shushes at him and brings him a blanket. They take Promptos school bag off his arms and set it at his feet. A bottle of water appears in his hands as he’s pressed into a seat. Someone else is reporting in over the phone behind the desk.
It'd only been a few hours since he'd ditched his daily escort at the school and dragged Prompto away from a quiet—safe—afternoon of lame homework. The sun still shines over the wall, even. Had Clarus put out word about the missing prince? He'd snuck out a handful of times before this, Noctis didn't think he rated as a missing person before. He'd always gone in the front doors of the Citadel with a nod to whichever crownsguard was on duty that day and suffered through the disappointed looks and tired, repetitive lectures.
“He's out of sorts, but he's safe. Yeah. Yessir. Talking, but not makin’ much of any sense. Thinks he's been taken.” The man on the phone glances up at him, meeting his wild eyes with a frown, and Noctis thinks maybe now he'll listen, now they’ll help Prompto.
Instead, he gives the phone to Noctis.