Work Text:
Gladio’s the first to bring it up, browsing a weapons truck with the Prince in some far-flung outpost.
He hefts a shield when he says it. It’s an enormous thing, easily the span of his own massive arm. It’s old, too — a dusty, aged steel alloy, with an elaborate scene of a griffin etched into its front. It matches the bird inked into his arms.
“It’s me!” he says.
But Noctis doesn’t get it. Not this time.
“Sure is,” they respond, flat. “You’re my shield.”
“You’re damn right I am,” Gladio says, and laughs. He spikes the shield into the ground, where it embeds itself enough to stand on its own.
They end up buying it, but it never really sees use in combat.
----
It is in the caldera of a volcano, the four of them riding high off a hard-won battle, that it happens again.
Gladio is looking over the corpse of the massive, four-winged bird, so freshly killed that it is practically steaming.
“This is me,” he says.
“What, dead?” Noctis retaliates, without missing a beat.
“Come on,” Gladio replies, “The Zu .” He vaguely gestures at his tattoos, which do not resemble a Zu in the slightest.
“Like the shield?” Prompto helpfully adds.
“That's it!” Gladio says, like there's been a breakthrough.
“The shield’s got a griffin on it,” Noctis replies, with a hint of sarcasm. “This Zu’s got too many wings.”
“Can’t I be both?”
Gladio takes a few steps back, meeting Ignis further away from the kill. He takes in the majesty of the thing.
“Dunno,” he says. “It’s real big, and, like… not mean , how to put it...”
“It was protecting its young,” Ignis says, looking at the massive nest above them.
“Yeah!” Gladio responds, though he looks a bit solemn. “It’s big, and it was only aggressive because it thought we were gonna hurt its family. Isn't that like me?"
“I feel real bad about it when you put it that way,” Prompto says.
“Well,” Gladio responds, with a laugh, “I figured it out when it was smacking Noct around.”
Noctis keeps quiet.
----
It is in a Haven lit by the setting sun that things start to piece together.
Gladio and Prompto are engaging in lively conversation while Ignis prepares a meal and Noctis futzes on their phone and pretends not to listen in.
“Tools have souls, right?” he says, clearly feeling right. “Like, a well-worn tool does. A tool that’s loved and taken care of takes care of you, too.”
“Yeah, you’re a tool, alright,” Noctis mutters under their breath.
“Y’wanna say that a bit louder?” Gladio growls.
“Didn’t say anything,” Noctis replies.
“Didn’t hear anything,” Gladio says, and turns back to Prompto, who was listening to him in rapt silence. He leans on the canvas arm of his chair, fist propping up his chin.
“I’m the Shield,” he says, and with his free arm he gestures to that massive shield he bought, now well polished and cared for. “The King’s Shield, no matter how the prince complains about it.”
He points at that new scar of his, cutting clean across his forehead. “And I’m an oiled one, too. Freshly sharpened.”
“That’s so cool!” Prompto exclaims. “I totally get it!”
Gladio laughs. “I’m glad somebody does.”
“Yeah! Yeah!” Prompto says. “I totally read something about this, once. Like, online.”
>
“Oh, yeah?” Gladio says, reclining back into the camp chair.
“It’s so cool. I wish I was something rad, like, like a coeurl, or the Regalia, or…”
“Who says you aren’t?”
“Whaaaaaat?” Prompto responds. “I’m not, though! If anyone’s the Regalia, it’s Ignis, ‘cause—”
“I’m not the Regalia,” Ignis says, over by the grill. Noctis snorts.
“Maybe you’ll find something,” Gladio says, sounding awfully wise. “Maybe you won’t. But it’s a feeling you’ll just have . You’ll understand if you get it.”
----
On a clear, breezy day they are driving north, around the Nebulawood. Prompto gazes wistfully at the Chocobo Post as they miss its turn, and it’s clear that his photography trigger finger is twitching.
“Lemme guess,” Noctis says, in the back of the car. “You’re a chocobo, and you wanna go home to your flock, right?”
“Oh, come on, Noct!” Prompto says, slamming the headrest of his seat like it would somehow affect them. “You’re being such a spoilsport, dude.”
Gladio turns the page in his book, dead to the world.
“I’m serious,” Noctis replies. “I totally took you for a chocobo.”
“I’m not a chocobo! Just because I like them doesn’t mean I am one! Be real for a second.” Prompto is turned around in his seat, giving this conversation the gravity it deserves.
“I mean,” Noctis says, scratching their nose. “You kind of look like one, so—”
“Wouldn’t Ignis be the chocobo, then?!” Prompto practically shouts. “He does his hair up like one every day!”
Ignis focuses on the road.
“Is that true, Specs?” Noctis asks.
Ignis is silent.
“Ignis?” Prompto asks, suddenly soft.
Ignis is very pointedly silent.
“Ignis? Ignis? Ignis?” They ask, repeatedly, alternating, becoming more exasperated as they continue to be met with silence.
Ignis is smiling, ever so slightly.
----
It is not until far, far later, and far, far too late, when Ignis opens up.
He is sitting atop a bed in the sleeper car, leaning against a window, with the first light of day warming his face.
Prompto is fast asleep. He can hear his even breathing from across the room. Gladio is grunting his way through his warmup routine.
Noctis is nowhere to be found.
“That is me,” Ignis says, softly, and though Gladio does not respond, he hears him stop moving.
“The morning,” he continues. “The sun that rises and drives away the daemons. That which guarantees safety, and warmth.”
“Iggy…?” Gladio says.
Ignis taps the glass separating them from the outdoors.
“I am the sunrise,” he says, “like you are their Shield.”
Gladio shuffles around. He is unsure exactly what he is doing.
“And…” Ignis says, after a moment. “I am the fire lit in a Haven, warming the night, as well. I will persist no matter how dark our future may seem, and I will protect them through it all.”
Gladio slaps his back, catching him entirely off guard.
“Good!” he says. “And when I knock sense back into Noct, they’ll know it too.”
----
In a sullen room lit by blinding fluorescents, the four of them take the briefest rest.
Prompto is laying back, on a bunk, looking at his hands in that awful, washed-out light. Noctis is on the bunk above him.
“I should’ve known, I guess.” Prompto says, suddenly.
Noctis rolls over to look down at him. “Known what?”
“Known that I wasn’t… haha.” Prompto laughs, weakly. The barcode on his wrist is exposed, but turned so he couldn’t look at it. “Shoulda known ages ago, because, you guys all knew who you were, and I…”
Noctis frowns. “Like, you’re suddenly less of a Lucian, ‘cause you won’t admit you’re a chocobo?”
“Oh, let up with that, will you?” Prompto snipes, but even from that he seems to be in higher spirits.
“Gladioooo,” Noctis drawls out, “use your powers of extra vision and tell Prompto he’s a chocobo.”
“Drop it, Noct,” Gladio says from another bunk. “He’s whoever he says he is.”
“Fine,” Noctis says. They roll back out of sight. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
“Eh?” Prompto says, weakly.
“Any of it. Like, you’re still Prompto. You’re still my best friend. Even if… you weren’t born like the rest of us. It doesn’t change who you are.”
Prompto is curiously silent. Noctis rolls over again to look down at him.
“Though, like, if you decided you were a MT because of this, I don’t want to be rude but that would be super weird so maybe, like...”
“Thanks, Noct.” Prompto pouts. “You said something genuinely nice and you ruined it.”
----
A decade passes before Noctis opens up.
Not by their own intention, of course. Perhaps if things had gone different it would have been weeks, and not years.
But it is after their heartfelt reunion in the Hammerhead, in the eternal, ashen midnight, after Noctis’s meek “ hey ,” and they are all together again, after so, so long.
Gladio practically wrestles them into the remaining free seat in the Pit Stop — literally carries them for some of it, commenting on how light they’ve gotten.
“Y’gotta feed them, Iggy!” he bellows. “They’re like a twig!”
“Indeed,” Ignis replies, hiding his smile with his hand.
And it is there, given a quiet berth of privacy by the Hunters going about their business, that they work on ten years of catching up.
Most of it is of Noctis listening, and of the rest talking.
They learn about their Shield polishing himself further, honing himself to the finest point on a daemonic whetstone, who stretched his wings to protect everyone.
They learn about the sunrise, seated diagonal to them, that persisted even as the sun above them ceased to shine; the fire who kept the darkness at bay, and who would flare only brighter against the darkness within himself.
And Prompto, too, had found himself during their time apart. He is a golden hound, with soft, wavy fur. He is loyal, even in those toughest moments, but so gentle when he can be; and, in these intervening years, he had become renowned for sniffing out innocents in need and protecting them until he can guarantee their safety.
“And I totally look like one,” he snarks.
When it comes Noctis’s turn, they feel like they are dancing around the subject. They talk, instead, in vague terms; about their isolation. They speak of the Draconian, and how they fit within the palm of his hand. They don’t talk about what they were told. They don’t talk about what lay ahead when they reclaim the throne.
They speak, instead, of his statuesque appearance, a mountain of metal and weaponry. They talk about the God of War’s imposing presence, the commanding way in which he spoke; they talk about those too-familiar, sorrowful eyes, looking down at them through a mask of divinity.
Gladio takes a breath, but before he can say anything, Noctis hisses, “If you say you are Bahamut, I will stab you.”
Gladio sputters and coughs at the venom in Noctis’s voice, but the coughing quickly shifts into riotous laughter.
“Wasn’t gonna,” he says, when he calms down enough to speak. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“No problem,” Noctis responds with sarcasm.
They lapse in a silence, for a bit. It is comfortable. It had been so long since the four of them were together that even just their presence is valuable.
“Though,” Gladio says, suddenly, breaking the quiet, “you were gone a while. You figure anything out during all that reflecting?”
He doesn’t say what he means, but they all know.
Noctis gazes out the window, at the dark particles lit up by spotlights.
“Yeah,” they say, finally, and it feels like the whole building goes silent but the hum of distant generators.
“If you asked me before, I would’ve said, like, Umbra,” they say. They can see him, by the camper, pretending to sleep. “A Messenger, like him. But, uh, not a good one. One that leads people to get really hurt by following it.”
“Noct,” Ignis cuts in, softly.
“I don’t feel like that anymore, though,” Noctis adds, quickly, and their voice gets slightly rougher. “I really did think about this. Promise.”
It’s a bit before they start talking again.
“I thought about, like, the sun, too, but that doesn’t really fit , either.” They watch the reflections of their partners in the glass. They are all watching them; Ignis is listening. They’re not so sure what they’re all thinking.
“And, like, beasts. I thought about all of them. I dunno. None of them are me.”
They sigh.
“Guess I’m like… Hey, Gladio. Remember the time you convinced me to get up at the crack of dawn to hook a super rare fish? And it took us, like, a week of trying, because it kept snapping my line.”
“Yeah?” Gladio says, and they’re unsure if he's following.
“Yeah. And when we finally caught it, like, it had all those lines snagged on it, right? Not just the ones I lost, but, tons. Like it ruled the water. Like it was snapping those lines so nobody else could get caught, either.”
Noctis is surprised at how hard it is to just spit it out. They feel embarrassed at what they’re saying, even though the others have been so open.
“I, um.” They clear their throat. “I’m that fish, I guess. The noble arapaima.”
Prompto grabs their shoulder suddenly. “Wait. Wait, wait. The Liege of the Lake? You’re the Liege of the Lake ?”
“Y… yeah,” Noctis says, and, damn it all, they are absolutely blushing.
“That’s so cool!” He exclaims. “I can’t believe I didn’t call it.”
They chance a look back and… everyone seems so excited. Gladio is cracking a grin, Prompto is Prompto, and even Ignis is smiling, in that slight way of his.
“That thing was a real beast of a catch,” Gladio declares. He's beaming, and his face and tone both are full of some kind of pride. “It really fits you. Royalty begets royalty.”
He reaches across the table and grabs Noctis’s other shoulder. “Glad you finally figured yourself out, Noct.”
“Yes,” Ignis says. “It’s good to have you back, Your Majesty.”
The two of them gripping their shoulder morphs into the four of them in a powerful group hug.
And, despite it all: the pain and hardship that they faced, and the trials yet to come; they are so easily able to slip into this calming banter. Perhaps, in some way, Noctis identifies with that, as well: with the way their partners are with them, no matter what. Ever at their side.