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It was standard procedure, that Noctis and his father be separated during important political events such as the signing of the peace treaty happening in a few short minutes. From day one of his crown’s guard training, Gladio had known this rule. There was a twisting in his gut as he looked down from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the suite they currently occupied. His father and the marshal made sure he was aware of every single security measure in place. He and Ignis were to accompany Noctis and Lady Lunafreya inside the suite, while Prompto and a glaive - Nyx, he thinks his name is - stood watch on either side of the door outside. He couldn’t see anyone inside of the lower levels of the citadel, maybe that was for the best, tinted windows protected those inside the room from the harsh rays of the sun above.
He heard the faint tapping of Ignis’s shoes against the marble tile floor, pacing back and forth in front of the door. He had no doubt that this whole event made him more stressed than he needed to be, while Gladio’s duty was just simply to protect Noctis, Ignis had the job description of literally everything else. Gladio turned away from the window to face the room. Noctis was showing Luna a picture of something on his phone, his smile a radiant beam of light as he rambles to her. Gladio hasn’t seen him smile that brightly in quite some time. Luna returns his smile, paying attention to every little detail and comment Noct is bumbling to her about. Gladio fixes his attention on Ignis, walking up to the man(still pacing), and begins to attempt to calm his nerves.
“Iggy.” Gladio’s voice is deep, yet doesn’t break the calm ambient quiet of the room.
“Gladiolus.” Ignis nods in response, continuing to pace right around him.
“Iggy,” Gladio puts his hand on Ignis’s shoulder as he walks past. “You only ever call me by my full name when you’re stressed out of your fucking mind.”
Ignis takes a deep breath, straightening himself out and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Weren’t you also nervous, when you graduated your training?” He asks, mostly rhetorical. “As you should expect me to be nervous. This is the most important day of my career thus far.”
He knows he has the right to be nervous, and he’s not trying to invalidate that. “Iggy, you’re right. This is stressful as fuck for me, I can’t imagine how fucked it is for you.”
Ignis’s shoulders slump, not visible to anyone else but someone classically trained in the art of Ignis's body language. “C’mon. When we finally get some free time together I’ll buy you those fancy cigars from Tennebrae you like and we’ll chill on the roof and smoke ‘em.”
-
During their adolescence, Gladio had been the first to pick up the habit. The stress of training in addition to the stress of trying to put up with a particularly bratty Noctis, and the convenience of the kingsglaive and their taste for Galahdian tobacco, had led to his downfall.
He was on a walk from the citadel to the Amicitia manor, passing by Noct’s apartment building on his way. Ignis droved past him(likely returning to the citadel for late-night paperwork) before Gladio had the time to hide his cigarette and feign innocence. He laughs, remembering how Ignis had pulled over immediately, not even turning off the car (crown-issued vehicle, probably not the best decision), and stormed over to Gladio to rip the cigarette right from his hand, stomping it furiously into the pavement below them. After a quick Ignis-issued reprimand and a promise of keeping this secret from his father and the marshal, the issue seemed to resolve itself.
Several months later he stumbled across Ignis crying furiously outside of Noctis’s apartment. They walked together, way too far and way too long of a walk in the dark evening hours of the city. Ignis had turned to him,
“You still carry them with you, right? The Galahdian cigarettes?” His voice was quiet, raw from crying even though his eyes had been dry for an hour or so.
“Think I’ve got a couple left.” Gladio furrowed his brows, reaching into his bag and fishing the crumpled package out from the bottom.
They sat on a bench in a park. Taking turns smoking the same cigarette until it was down to the filter. Gladio extinguished it out on the ground beneath them. From that point on it was only a social vice for them both, commiserating in the stress that Noctis unintentionally put on them. There was a hesitant intimacy to the act, the faint glow of the cigarette highlighting the years of unresolved tension between them both. Lips touching only through the filter. Mocking that they freely touched their lips together only a few years earlier in life.
-
“Thank you, Gladio.” Ignis seems to have broken through the majority of his stress. “I shall look forward to sharing that evening with you. No matter how long it may be til we both have an evening of freedom.”
Gladio opens his mouth, ready to give Ignis more calm words of encouragement when a strong blast shakes the citadel. His heart seems to stop. All of his years of training had prepared him for situations just like this, he had so much time to prepare for this exact event. He dashes to the window, a small explosion pluming up from the center of the building, and upwards he watches as the wall strengthens itself. He’s fucked.
The gears in his mind start turning, adrenaline fueling every action, as he runs back scooping Noctis up by his middle and sprinting out the door. He doesn’t have time to think about what anyone else is doing, no time to question the safety of others. His job is to protect Noctis, no one else. Noctis thrashes and squirms in his hold, not that he’d be too thrilled about being carried over the shoulder of Gladio in any other situation, but especially not when everything the both of them knew was potentially at risk. He kicks open the door to the designated safe room, turning in and promptly locking the series of locks that line the entire interior of the door.
“The fuck!” Noctis screams. “What the fuck is going on? Gladio! We have to figure out what's going on!”
Gladio has been screamed at by Noctis for most of his life, but only at this moment being capable of not returning the screams being thrown at him. “Noctis. I am doing my job.”
“No, no, no!” He thrashes, fists pounding against Gladio’s abdomen. “What about Luna? What about dad? Ignis? Prompto?”
“Noctis. This is my job.” Gladio doesn’t flinch, although the force behind Noct’s punches is enough to hurt. “My job is to protect you. I wasn’t born to protect anyone else.”
The walls of the magic-stabilized room shake. Another explosion. Noctis draws two daggers from the armiger and holds them hesitantly, willing but not wishing to use them on his shield.
“Noctis. You know I have to do this. You know what I’m willing to do for your safety.” He doesn’t have to draw attention to the vertical scar on his face. He knows Noctis sees it.
“You bastard! You fucker!” Noctis yells, the hilt of his daggers now adding additional force to the blows he strikes against Gladio’s chest. “They’re all in danger.”
Gladio winces at every hit. He wants to fight back, at least enough to subdue Noctis, but he can’t seem to find the strength. Ignis is out there, Prompto is too, Lunafreya, King Regis, his dad, everything that has ever mattered in his life. He closes his eyes, trying to find some sort of inner peace in this turmoil, but all he can see is Iris looking back at him. Her expression is pained and confused. She holds Talcott close, even though she’s as scared as he is. In the panic room of the manor, Jared is the only adult at the manor to protect them. He has to do something .
“Fuck!” Gladio yells, snapping Noctis out of his own rage. He leans down into Noct’s face and points an accusatory finger at him. “We are leaving. Just to get everyone safe and together .”
When Noctis looks at him, he can only see the same scared little boy he once knew looking back at him.
---
Prompto was happy to just be included in something this big of a deal, even if his position was only guard duty. He had tried having a conversation with the glaive he was stationed with, he had only tried to ask him his name. When he got no response he rocked back on his heels, trying to not let the creeping feeling that he wasn’t cut out for this take his mind off the job at hand. Looking to his left he saw several crowns guard walk down the adjacent hall, off to do whatever it was they were stationed to do. Looking to his right he saw no one besides the glaive he was with. He vaguely recognized the facial tattoos as a tradition of Galahad. He’d have to keep introductions and asking what they symbolized for a later conversation with the man.
He kept his wrist in his hand behind his back, just like the glaive, although the glaive's stature was way more big-macho-military-man than his own laid-back stance. Rocking back and forward on his heels, he tried not to let the boredom or the self-deprecating thoughts consume his mind. It didn’t take too much work, as the ground and walls around them began to shake violently. It took him a second to figure out just exactly what was going on (and that this wasn’t just some elaborate indoor firework show malfunction). By the time he realized what was going on the glaive had already entered the suite and was ushering Lady Lunafreya to safety. Gladio had Noctis up on his shoulder and was already halfway down the hall.
He had to do something, he had to snap himself out of this fog, he had to help. He was fully convinced of Gladio’s capability to keep Noctis safe. Ignis was frozen by the window, overlooking whatever commotion was going on down below. His legs moved without any input from his mind, following the glaive and Luna down the hall, in the opposite direction Gladio had taken Noct. He tried to stop himself, turn back and get Ignis somewhere that they could both be safe. Maybe Ignis knew where the glaive and Luna were headed? Safety was always in numbers.
He couldn’t, though. He couldn’t stop his feet underneath him. Luna and the glaive argued with each other as they ran in front of him. She was saying something about having to go help, aid the king, and fulfill her duty as the oracle. The glaive wasn’t putting up with it, no matter how true they all knew her words to be. Luna stopped, the full force of her strength and willpower on display as she removed herself from the grasp of the glaive.
“Listen, princess,” The glaive tried to reason.
“I will not listen any further.” Her tone was strong, her accent calmed Prompto in the same way that Ignis’s did. “We will find the king and we will offer our assistance.”
The glaive bit his lip, caught between his duty to protect her and knowing in his heart what he must do.
“Luna!” Prompto’s voice squeaked out of his throat. “I’ll go with you!”
Luna smiled at him, a deep understanding hidden behind her blue eyes. “We shall go then, Prompto.”
He didn’t realize that she knew his name and his heart skipped around in his chest. They had met, albeit very briefly, only two people passing each other in the hall when she had reunited with Noctis several days ago. He couldn’t stop the smile from forming, his cheeks pressing up into his eyes and his dimples proudly on display. The glaive hissed an expletive, two against one. They all ran together down the halls, towards the commotion at the center of the citadel. As they turned a corner out into a larger hallway that connected to the throne room, shots rang out around them. The glaive pushed Lunafreya back into the hall and grabbed Prompto’s wrist to haul him back into relative safety.
“Fuck!” He muttered under his breath, tapping his earpiece and trying to gain any more information he could about the situation.
In a rare occurrence of quick thinking, Prompto spotted one of the air vents directly overhead. He had to undergo rather intensive training on the inner ductwork of the citadel before he graduated from the crown's guard. The marshal had demanded that he learn the ventilation system simply because he was physically small enough to make it through even the smallest of channels. Cor’s words rang through his head: “You never know when you might need it, kid.” He grinned and pulled a decorative table from further in the hall, pushing it til it was underneath the vent. Luna let this distract her from whatever the Glaive was saying. He pulled a small knife out of the armiger and pried the vent off of the ceiling.
“Can you fit?” Prompto asked the glaive, well aware that if he himself could fit through, Luna could fit as well.
The glaive looked up at Prompto, standing tall - high on the rush of a good idea - on the table before him. The glaive smiled and laughed before climbing up onto the table and climbing up into the ductwork. Luna smiled and accepted the hand Prompto had outstretched to help her up onto the table. She grabbed the glaive’s hand and hoisted herself up with her other gripping the edge of the vent. Prompto smiled and waved at them from below.
“You’re not coming?” Luna asked.
Prompto shook his head. “If you both keep going straight ahead, turn right at the dead end and you’ll see a vent down. Right into the throne room. Good luck.”
They both thanked him and continued their journey through the vents. Prompto managed to affix the vent cover back onto the duct, at least well enough to keep their route hidden for an hour or so. He hopped off the table and dragged it back towards the wall it was originally against. He let out a shaky breath, doing his best to keep the tears he knew that he’d shed eventually down for as long as he could. He shook out his hands, summoning his pistol and retreating back towards the suite he was supposed to guard..
“Ignis?” His voice was louder than he wanted it to be, but thankfully there was no one in the room when he returned.
There was no blood and no sign of a struggle, he sighed and assumed that Ignis had been able to get somewhere safe. Letting his arms relax at his sides as he moved towards the exit. His blood ran cold, in the few days that the empire had settled down in insomnia for the signing of the peace treaty, he hadn’t gotten accustomed to the heavy metallic footsteps of MTs approaching. Brandishing his gun in a more defensive stance, he backed further into the room, cursing himself that he’d forgotten there was only one entrance to the suite.
When the cold red eyes of the troopers spotted him, he fired. Shots rang out and pierced his ears as metal did not quite yield to his assault. He came to terms with his fate at this very moment, accepting that he would die here. He would die here for Noctis. For Insomnia. For Lucis. For his home. The swift strike of cold gunmetal to the side of his head was a terrifying relief he didn’t know he had craved.
---
Ignis’s footsteps were well practiced. From the time he began work as the royal advisor to the prince, to this very moment, to his final breath. Light footfalls on the well-polished tile flooring, silent except for only the click of his heels. He always walked, never tarnishing the history of these pristine floors with a hastened pace. This time he allowed himself to run. To sprint through the hallways he had committed to memory oh so long ago. He felt sweat bead at his brow and he allowed himself to let out a distressed wail. This was his life, his entire existence, and it was crumbling right before him.
He knew that Gladio was not allowed to let anyone into the saferoom, not until an “all clear” rang through their earpieces. He still had to try, he still had to know that Noctis was safe. When he had the door in sight he didn’t expect it to slowly creak open, Gladio looking down both sides of the hall until he spotted Ignis and cursed. Ignis’s run slowed to a jog and then back to a running pace when he saw Noctis shove past Gladio and run in the opposite direction.
“Noct!” Gladio yelled, on his own course to follow after him.
“I’m going to kill you dead!” Ignis spat at Gladio. Effortlessly sprinting ahead of him, catching up with Noctis and grabbing him by the collar of his shirt.
“Let me go! Ignis!” Noctis turned around and tried to claw and scratch his way free.
After adjusting his hold on Noctis for a more secure grip, Ignis began his lecture:
“Noctis. In this life, we are only in control of ourselves. You cannot stop anyone from dying. It is fate, it is written in stone from the moment someone is born. Your fate does not end here. You cannot throw yourself away like this.” He turns to glare at Gladio. “No matter what your shield may let you get away with. I will not permit it.”
“Fine you fucking deal with it then. You try to contain him, you suffer with that.” Gladio yells, throwing his hands up in defeat. They all know it’s just an act, and that he’ll stay by their side til the very end.
“I intend on dealing with it.” Ignis hisses back, words dripping with malice. “What do you think I’ve been doing for my entire life.”
Noctis had grown quiet and stopped struggling, his usual response to the very few times he had witnessed Gladio and Ignis fight in front of him like this. The uncomfortable tension flooding the hall and all of their senses. Ignis pauses, he’s made Noctis uncomfortable like this before and it had always felt necessary in some way, shape, or form. he takes a step back and releases Noctis from his hold. Realizing that nothing from here on out will ever be like the life they knew before. Realizing that for the first time in his life, he’s not in control. He doesn’t have a plan. Ignis is scared.
---
Noctis was not a stranger to Gladio and Ignis fighting. He had lived with it for as long as he’d known Ignis. He can so clearly recall his life when it was just Ignis and himself, where Gladio was simply a name he had heard occasionally and not a face that he could recognize. Ignis would attend to him, rolling up his sleeves to prevent ink from staining the fabric of his shirt as he explained the proper way to structure an argumentative essay. When Noctis had first seen the stray bruises that dotted themselves across Ignis’s arms, he questioned how Ignis had received them. When Noctis got bruises they were from falling while climbing the trees in the arboretum, or from playing too hard with Pryna and Umbra when they visited him. His tiny brain couldn’t fathom that Ignis - even though he was just one year older than him - was capable of play, let alone roughhousing.
Ignis explained: “I was sparring with Gladiolus, he is to be your shield one day.”
Noctis knew what a shield was, his father would refer to uncle Clarus as his shield in formal settings. Any other time he was just “Uncle Clarus” though. He also knew what a Gladiolus was, it wasn’t his favorite flower but if he had to give it a rank it would still be pretty high up on the list. The words coming out of Ignis’s mouth didn’t quite make sense. His brain shifting meaning from flower to person , and from shield to absolute monster that would hurt Ignis . When young Noctis had his first proper introduction to Gladio, rage overtook his tiny body and swiftly delivered a quick kick to both of Gladio’s shins.
From then on he understood most of the fighting that took place between the two men. Purely physical, in order to strengthen themselves and each other. Any other fights tended to cause a rift between them all, leaving Noctis with an uncomfortable feeling that his life was getting ripped in two. He knew Ignis and Gladio dated briefly, or maybe not dating but definitely something . He had peered into the training room one day when he was 11 years old, praying to the Gods that Gladio wasn’t waiting for him inside with a wooden sword in both of his hands. Instead, he saw Ignis and Gladio wrestling on the mats together. If Noctis had been raised in a more “normal” setting he would’ve realized that they were kissing and left them alone to go wander awkwardly around the citadel. That was unfortunately not how Noctis was raised.
“What are you guys doing?” He asked as he slowly walked into the room.
Ignis had yelped from underneath Gladio, and Gladio had stared up at Noctis with dark red cheeks and wide eyes.
When he had told his dad at dinner that he had seen Gladio and Ignis wrestling very closely with their mouths earlier that day, things were quickly put to rest. Noctis wasn’t aware of the specifics but he knew that whatever took place between them was quickly extinguished, they walked out of their meeting with the marshal with their heads down, taking different paths to different exits of the citadel. Things quickly became some form of normal again, even if it wasn’t exactly the same as their relationship had been prior to the incident. Unfortunately, this “new normal” Noctis had to live with involved a lot of silent conversations(ex: Ignis furrowing his eyebrows a certain way if Gladio stood in a certain stance.) Sometimes the conversations were not exactly silent, like hushed words - laced with anger and hatred - behind a closed door.
This was a new type of fighting. They weren’t bickering with each other about the proper way to raise a kid - even though in any normal life they wouldn’t have been expected to raise a child only 1-2 years younger than them - they were arguing about life and death. They were arguing about matters that none of them had control over, that no one could ever possibly predict the outcome of. He froze when he realized that they were arguing about how to keep him
alive
. He let silent tears wash down his face.