Gladio barely manages to get his face out of the way of that flailing fist, but he keeps his arm tight around Prompto and his body firm, not wanting him to flail out or fall off even as he hates the sound that leaves the younger man. There's always been something about Prompto, something difficult to pinpoint down, that's been different about him compared to the rest of them. It hadn't been until this road trip that Prompto had done something, something small, out in the middle of a field as they went towards a hunt, that he had finally figured it out. It had been something that immediately pulled out an old memory somewhere in the back of his mind of when Noct was young, before the attack.

Innocence. There is an innocence about Prompto that shines through and has helped them all every step of the way to keep their spirits, and their sanity, together. It's not the kind of thing you tell someone, but it's there, something Gladio has wanted to protect because he couldn't in Noct. That innocence had been long gone, but Prompto... brought it back for all of them.

"Gotta do the other one," Gladio murmurs, not quite ready to tackle the other statement. He carefully tugs Prompto up, sliding an arm behind him and in fact just shifting to sit behind him, give him a place to lean against without thinking twice. He has to be the soldier, the one who keeps them going, to keep fighting, because this mission had to succeed. It's bigger than any of them, and even if in the end they all come to hate him but they can make it happen... it's what he has to do. Defend the King, even at the cost of his own. Even from himself. From failure, as much as he can.