Gladio recoils slightly, before his eyes narrow slowly. His mouth opens to reply, though whether it’s to defend himself or return fire is unclear, as he closes his mouth again, grinding his teeth in the back on one side.
They can have this conversation later. For the moment, Ignis is still huddled in Presta’s lap, shuddering and making a noise that can only be called pitiful.
Gladio crouches and scoops him up, bringing her jacket with him as he straightens back up. He shifts Ignis carefully, so his face is tipped against the crook of Gladio’s neck, still pressed into the fabric of the jacket.
“You’ll need to cover us,” he states tersely, adjusting his hold on Ignis. He does’t even look at Presta as he says it, instead scoping out the best path to start on. “I don’t have a hand to fight with now.”
The world feels like it’s dissolving at the edges and part of Ignis’s mind argues placidly that he could just fall asleep and worry about it later. But–no. That’s a bad idea, though he can’t quite recall why just now.
Gladio and Presta are talking and he can hear them but the words don’t quite fit, tinny and distant and echoing as if they’re being whispered from the far end of a tunnel. He can place the tone of their displeasure but he can’t pinpoint why.
(Not that he doesn’t have a few guesses.)
Maybe it doesn’t matter just now. Gladio is on the move, and with each step the jacket’s fabric feels like it’s going to peel his skin from his face.
Presta holds her pistols tightly, and she knows she has to stop crying because she has to have sharp focus, she has to be able to stop any oncoming attacks. Any threats that might make it harder for her to get him to safety. Her fault. She can’t blame Gladio. She was there. She was the one that should’ve stopped it. She was the one that had been there.
She’s to blame.
And she knows she is, and she’s sorry that she’s said the things she’s said, because she knows just how much Gladio’s strength is to him. What is he if he isn’t strong enough to protect Noctis? She knew his outlook, they all did. He went off to do some dumb test because he believed he’d come out of it stronger.
He’d come out of it hurt.
Her shots ring out as she takes down two MTs, with direct shots to their head, no preamble no thought, just an automatic, almost robotic response. She should be the one hurt. She deserves it.
She doesn’t bring herself to speak again, until their to safety, and a medic has been found. And still, she hovers at his bedside and she still can’t make herself speak, not loudly enough for her words to be heard in the hoarseness of her tone.
Lucky. That’s what the doctor had said, just a few minutes later and he’d have been gone. It isn’t until he opens his eyes that she finds the strength inside her to whisper out a soft “I’m so sorry.”
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