Gladio has been a wreck for hours. It's a testament to how far he's come in controlling his temper, in controlling his behavior, that he hasn't shown much of it to Ravus or Prompto or Noctis. That he hasn't lashed out at them in his terror and grief, his all-but-certainty that Iggy has been sent back home. Like Nyx, like Cor, like Regis.

(All losses that bleed deep - all people he doubts wonders if he'll ever see again. With Cor, at least, Cor seems to have thought he had died or was dying in his own time, which is years away yet from Gladio's perspective...but it frightens him, all the same. Cor's not meant to die - and not because he's called the Immortal. Simply because Gladio can't imagine - doesn't want to imagine - a world without him.)

Iggy...he's not going back to his own death, wherever and whenever he's been sent back home. It's just the thought of being without him again that feels like dying.

But he holds it together, as best he can. The memory of how badly he'd fallen short the last time he grieved over Iggy is etched too firmly in his mind. This time he resolves to do better. Has to do better - he's got three people who can't hold as strong as he can. What else is a Shield for? And, to his own bittersweet relief...he acquits himself. Proves he's not the same fuck-up he used to be. Not perfect, not yet - he snaps at the others a few times when his attention lapses, knows he isn't hiding the stress and fear as well as he ought to - but no longer a disgrace.

A partner Iggy could be proud of, if he were still there.

He'd given up all hope practically from the moment he'd woken up to an empty bed, a house that was emptier than it should be. (Not empty, not with Prom and Noct, but the loss was still palpable from the first.) So Iggy's return, only a few hours later...Ravus throwing him into the Regalia hadn't knocked as much wind out of him. He's stunned nearly to silence, scarcely able to believe it's real.

And it isn't the same Iggy who left, either. An older Iggy, still not his Iggy but so much closer. An Iggy who remembers their road trip, remembers so many things...and, judging by that look he gives Gladio, an Iggy who remembers things that haven't even happened yet.

It's a guilty weight off his mind. Gladio had never known how he was supposed to tell the younger Ignis about the prophecy - about the idea that Noct would have to die to save the world. He'd shrunk from doing so; not just because it would distress Iggy, but because he'd felt that an Iggy who knew that fact while being stuck in a place where he couldn't work to try to avert Noct's fate would potentially tear himself apart. But it had never felt right keeping such important information from him, either.

Now...it seems it's not his decision to have to make anymore.

It's not surprising that Iggy gets cooking almost as soon as they get back to the cottage after fetching him. Never mind the fact that of course he'd fuss over all of them not eating properly(as though they could have, under the circumstances, as though Iggy would have eaten if any of them had vanished), but Gladio knows his partner, and he knows displacement activity when he sees it. So he follows him into the kitchen, lurking silently nearby, doing little but occasionally handing things as Iggy asks for them...until he sees what he's expecting to see. The tremors of those hands.

Then he steps up behind Ignis, pressing up against his back, his hands moving to gently bracelet Iggy's wrists. "Pushing too hard," he murmurs in his ear.