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When Cor brought the half-child back to Insomnia, clothing him in one of his own shirts that had to be knotted at the bottom, he wasn’t sure what Regis would say. He had expected a reprimand, an order to burn the machine dressed in rubber skin and nylon hair, or maybe to turn him over to the Citadel’s underground laboratories for immediate dissection.
Instead, Regis lowered his knees and placed a gentle hand on the small thing’s shoulder. “You look to be the same age as my son. Would you like to meet him?”
When the half-child nodded his head with such silent enthusiasm, Cor forgot he had been the same one who shot half a magazine into a MT that caught the Marshal off guard, knocking him onto his back and raising its punishing axe into the air — only to have bullets drilled into its head in rapid succession. It had been jarring, really, to see a child of Noctis’ age holding an assault rifle in perfect form, despite his body and arms being far too small to carry such a massive gun. Delivering all headshots too.
“I have a firearms program installed.” Prompto had explained once they were in the all clear, using the barcode on his wrist to unlock an emergency exit. “Handguns, rifles, snipers. Bazookas too. Oh man, the bazookas are fun. ”
“I thought you were a child. I never saw an MT so —”
“Sentient? I’m still a prototype, but I’m the second AI Dr. Besithia’s created.”
“Second?”
“First one went bonkers, tried to kill everyone after ranting about humanity killing the earth. Guess his second one won’t work out either. I’m sick of this place; way too cold and no chocobos around.”
Never did Cor think he’d bring back a killing machine turned royal playmate for Noctis, but here he was. Watching two boys chase each other in the garden and dart between hedges and trees. One would think His Majesty would have at least a few qualms about letting a soulless cyborg hang around his one and only heir, child-shaped or not.
“You brought him home, Cor.” Regis looked at him with a half smile and a raised brow. “I trust your decisions. You and Clarus have kept me alive thus far, no?”
Despite the reassurance, Cor knew the intonations and inflections of his king’s tone to realize when there’s a threat laced in his words. And there it was, hidden under the layer of a friendly jab, poking death spikes through the blanket of a jolly smile and a warm hand clasped on Cor’s shoulder — which, had a very good grip.
“Dad! Dad, look at this!”
Noctis ran up to them, Prompto skipping after him, waving his phone in the air, padded thick with the strongest phone case royal currency could buy. Nevermind childish clumsiness, the boy tended to use his phone as his tether to throw and practice his warping. Cor had long lost count the trips made to repair shops and the electronics department, when the broken phone was beyond salvaging and a new one was needed.
“Shifted through some lines, took a few backdoors,” Prompto said, looking up at Regis as he took the phone and scrolled down the screen. “A mobile game’s security is a cakewalk compared to like, a government’s secret database. Did I ever mention I have a hacking thing installed? No? Oh, well now you know.”
Cor coughed into his fist, pointedly averting his eyes away from the King and his neutral hum of acknowledgment.
“How lovely. Try not to get into too much trouble though, alright?” Regis stooped down and handed Noctis his phone back, running a gentle hand in the boy’s hair and tussling the soft styling his caretakers had nitpicked over. Noctis squeaked, batting a small hand at his father’s, but smiled nonetheless.
Regis may have been looking at his son, but his words were meant for another. Both Cor and Prompto didn’t miss the glance that was shot over to the little blonde's way, and the boy only winked in response.
“C’mon, Noct, let’s get you some more five-star characters.” Prompto tugged at the hoodie of Noctis’ jacket, leading him over to the gazebo where the servants were already setting up lunch. “Are those cucumber sandwiches? Neat, I’m starving.”
Cor heard a young prince’s grumblings about vegetables grow distant as the two boys hurried away, Noctis lured into promises of high-leveled characters and Prompto into plates of little sandwiches and sweet cakes.
“Ah, using nicknames already. Charming.” Regis smiled fondly at the distant figures, but the warmth quickly faded when he turned his attention back to Cor.
Few things made his lion’s heart turn soft and meek like an abandoned kitten in the rain, and though they had spent their childhoods and now adulthoods together, Regis' ominous deeper-than-the-void smile that froze over the most heated council debates, where one look could subdue its members into silent submission, was one of those things. Sometimes, Cor caught himself wondering when exactly the petulant prince had turned into this fearsome king, had grown from a spoiled boy crying over creepy crawlies and dime-sized bruises to a man befitting his name and singlehandedly powering the magic blanketing the kingdom.
"Cor," Regis said, his light tone a thin veil over the sharp threats beneath, "I'm sure you'll be taking good care of that boy?"
In other words, "raising" Prompto to be anyone other than a machine gone haywire and murdering everyone like his failed predecessor.
Cor didn't have much parenting experience under his belt, despite all his other skills gained from years of training and survival and keeping Regis' alive through all their shenanigans together. Woe it was to be an only child, he thought, but at least he had something to work off of being with Regis and Clarus through their days of reckless youth — even if Weskham and Cid had held most of their collective brain cells and Cor had been the most brazen of them all, challenging anything with a pair of limbs to a fight.
"Of course," came the immediate response. But even without Regis' silent promise of retribution, Cor had been planning on taking Prompto under his wing, or at the very least, responsibility for him. He never considered fatherhood, but something about a boy trapped in a cold metal laboratory and surrounded by lifeless soldiers struck a chord in him, despite said boy being neither human nor boy. Prompto was an interesting amalgam of technology and organic parts spliced together through a madman's genius, speaking and breathing according to the lines of code written into his processor; his small body and innocent face that of a child's but mind a vast database of secrets and knowledge galore.
"Splendid!" Regis clapped his hands together, gone that eerie smile the very second he tossed an arm around Cor's shoulders, turning them over to the boys' trail. "Now, let's see if we can't have a few of those sandwiches ourselves before your Prompto eats them all up first."
Cor figured the sandwiches wasn't the only thing the boy would eat up. It may even cost him some sanity and a few years of his life to look after a dangerous android suddenly turned son — and that word alone filled him with an odd feeling he'd have to thoroughly inspect some other time — but he at least knew he'd rather have Prompto here in Insomnia instead of some whacked out Niff lab with some whacked out scientist.
And when they slid into the seats beside the boys, Regis to Noctis' left and Cor to Prompto's right, and he watched Noctis coo and aww over the technological magic Prompto weaved into the phone game, Cor could only make shopping plans for the newest addition to the Leonis family.