Work Text:
“I have to go.”
“Edgeworth-”
And here they were yet again, a different day, a different setting, with the same wall between them. Phoenix felt his arm raise on instinct, as if his childhood friend was something he could reach out and pull back into his life. But Edgeworth’s presence had always been an ephemeral thing. He had made it so.
“I have to find Franziska,” Edgeworth continued. “She’ll hate me for it, but I can’t leave her to face this alone.”
But you can leave me?
Phoenix crushed the thought as soon as it appeared. It wasn’t anything close to the same thing. Franziska was unstable, perhaps more dependent on success and stability than she was on food and water, and she’d spent the last year having them repeatedly taken from her. Besides, Maya was safe now, and Phoenix wanted to spend time with her, make sure she was okay. He needed to be there for Pearls, too. He was the authority figure here. There wasn’t time for him to be coddled, to reconcile with a man he hadn’t dared to hope had survived.
Franziska was Edgeworth’s sister. Who the hell was he?
And so Edgeworth left, long strides carrying him as fast as he could go without appearing to hurry. Because of course that was how he left the Gatewater. They’d been embroiled in a kidnapping for days and Miles Edgeworth couldn’t even let himself feel the need for urgency. Phoenix pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. What had he been expecting? A perfect resolution? For things to go right back to the way they were?
The way they were when? Certainly not last year. Edgeworth had been so unbearably miserable that he’d-
Well, he hadn’t. But close enough.
What the hell was he doing here? Moping around reminiscing about a time that didn’t exist when there was a literal platter of lobster in front of him, all-expenses paid by a very mortified hotel manager. He made his way back to the table, unwilling to even pull out a chair. He contented himself with loitering behind Maya’s – on reflex resting a hand on her shoulder as if to reassure himself she was still there.
All those sleepless nights of panic and now it didn’t even feel real. His thoughts full of nonsense about ginger kittens and imagined returns to fourth grade.
“Ugh.” He didn’t mean for it to come out aloud, but, frankly, who cared anymore.
That stupid little thought – it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? No use in denying it – his friendship with Edgeworth had peaked when they were ten. Because of course it had. Miles Edgeworth never got the second chances he deserved, never given a moment to breathe, constantly tossed around by a cruel universe and even crueller people who inhabited it. Did he even remember what it was like to be ten? To be allowed to want things, to live life just for the sake of being?
“Geez, Nick, relax,” said Maya, rolling her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
“Sorry,” Phoenix muttered, and gently patted the spot where he’d squeezed her too tight.
“You gotta eat something,” she continued. “You stay wound up like this and you’ll never come down again.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Comforting thought.”
“C’mon, just sit down,” said Maya, swivelling in her seat. “Here try one of these- Ah, fuck.”
The chocolate-covered strawberry she had waved in his face fell from her fingers to the floor, where it promptly gathered lint from the carpet.
“I’ll get it for you!” Pearl cried and dove under the table to grab it.
“Pearly, no, it’s gross now,” said Maya.
“Don’t leave food on the floor, it makes it even more unclean!” Pearl retorted, her little voice muffled by the table cloth.
“You don’t have to clean a restaurant floor,” said Phoenix, shuffling over to where Pearl had disappeared beneath the table.
But his further protestations that matters of hygiene should be left to those with gloves and vacuums and disinfectant disappeared when Pearl returned to the surface world with something much larger than a strawberry.
“Is that a briefcase?” asked Maya, as her cousin dumped a leather object half the size of her body onto the table.
“It looks like Mr Edgeworth’s!” Pearl cried.
“Well it’s certainly too nice to be Nick’s,” said Maya.
Phoenix, however, had no energy to reply to the barb, or even recognise it. His mind was once more occupied entirely by Edgeworth.
“He must have forgotten it,” said Pearl. “He did seem to be in a rush.”
Oh, Miles. Leaving things behind wherever he went. The world’s most fastidious man had left behind his briefcase, and an entire life while he was at it.
“Mr Edgeworth must be worried.” Pearl nibbled on her thumb, and then seemed to come to some decision. “He hasn’t been gone long, I can still catch him!”
And her little arms shot out, scooping the briefcase into an awkward embrace and upsetting a few pieces of tableware along the way.
“Hey, woah,” Maya was saying, but anything more than that Phoenix didn’t notice.
There was no shortage of colour and light in the banquet hall of one of the city’s nicest hotels, but in an instant, all of it seemed to fade. Like the spotlight on a soloist, Phoenix’s gaze was drawn solely to the arc of Edgeworth’s briefcase as it slipped into Pearl’s arms, and – more importantly – to the little charm that movement revealed.
Signal Red! You are facing me, and I shall stop thee!
Phoenix jolted forward, nevermind the fact that he nearly walked into the table. His body had surrendered entirely to instinct, and the only thought driving it was Edgeworth.
He’d held onto it. The charm. The counterpart to his own, to that tacky souvenir of childhood he’d so often mocked himself for cherishing. Miles had been tossed through more turmoil and trauma than Phoenix would likely ever be able to conceive of, and he’d held onto it all the same. Tied it to his briefcase, carried it through his career – the one thing he still knew how to take pride in, the one chain he had left to the man he had once wanted to be. Phoenix licked his lips. Was it though? Was this little piece of plastic really all Miles had left?
“No,” Phoenix blurted. And when the two girls turned to stare, he fumbled for an excuse. “I’ll run the case to him – I got longer legs than you, Pearls, I can go faster. I can still catch him.”
“Hey, I can-!”
But the briefcase was already in his hands and Phoenix was already on his way to the door. No time for Edgeworth’s long, nervous strides, no time for anything but panic.
Had a single year of absence really been enough to obscure the place Edgeworth held in his heart? Had it really been able to stop Miles’ every attempt to close the gap between them?
Your hatred for me is unhealthy. Not to mention one-sided.
“I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot,” Phoenix panted to himself, racing through the halls.
Not that he was wrong to be upset at thinking Miles had killed himself last year – hell no, the fear that he’d failed him was one that would last forever. But what the hell had he been doing? Thinking Miles knew how to patch up a friendship, stupid, stupid. Nothing had ever been straightforward for them, nothing had ever been as simple as asking for help, as calling each other a friend. It was always secret clues hidden in the dark, chance meetings and loaded sentences. What the hell did that signify?
Phoenix laughed to himself, breathless and desperate as he came across the elevator lobby. He didn’t even pause. Straight to the fire escape. Down and down and down the stairs, the soles of his cheap imitation dress shoes slapping against the concrete. What did Miles’ shoes – obviously the Lamborghini of footwear, whatever they were – sound like when he’d come this way? What had it sounded like when the two of them went tromping down the stairs when the schoolbell rang? He couldn’t remember.
There was so much of grade school he didn’t remember. Of course he didn’t, he was, what, 25? Oh great, now he didn’t even remember his own age. Fuck, typical Miles. Returning in a whirlwind of legalese and heartache to leave Phoenix panting and disoriented and craving more. But this time, this time, dammit, it wasn’t going to end like before. There was no murder, no Von Karma (well, maybe one, but a much more amenable one than the senior), there was just two men and hope and a bunch of other inspirational thoughts, probably, but now Phoenix was approaching the door to the basement carpark and there was no time for thinking, only running only shoving only-
“Edgeworth!”
And there he was, honestly not that far away. Marooned in the centre of the car park, stock still among the few remaining vehicles. It was too late for there to be anyone else around, too late for anything except recovering from kidnappings and chasing your sister to the airport and, apparently, letting loose every feeling you’d bottled up since fourth grade.
He didn’t turn around. He didn’t continue walking to his car, either, which was probably a good sign. Or, at the very least, not the worst sign. Okay. Time to speak. Just as soon as he caught his breath. And figured out what to say. And how. And why. And…
“Edgeworth!”
Miles rolled his head, and the momentum seemed to be the sole force in turning his body to face Phoenix. Even from several metres away, he still looked exhausted. Phoenix probably looked no better himself, he figured.
“What now?” the prosecutor called, his voice far too loud and echoing for the intimacy Phoenix had imagined for the moment.
Close the gap, his mind told him, and his feet hurried to obey. He was holding the briefcase – not yet offering it, but clearly keeping it in plain sight – but Miles didn’t even seem to notice it. He’d fixed his eyes on Phoenix’s face as he so rarely did, except for those moments when he deigned it necessary to scrutinise his childhood friend like evidence. Moments such as these.
They were close now, only two steps separating them. And Phoenix had absolutely no idea what to say.
“You forgot your briefcase.”
“Oh. Thank you, Wright.”
Neither of them moved.
Phoenix was gripped with the need to slam his eyes shut and hyperventilate until he felt something close to stable again but if he did that, Edgeworth would no doubt be wracked with yet more irrational guilt. Sure, he was the cause of this, but not in a negative way. None of this had to be negative.
Okay. Quick breath, not too deep, but a comfort all the same. Now. Say it.
“You kept it.”
Miles’ brow furrowed slightly and his eyes twitched back and forth, seeming to read Phoenix like a book.
“The keychain,” Phoenix continued.
He wanted to look down, to pick up the little samurai charm and stare at it forever. But at the same time, the last thing he wanted to do was break Miles’ gaze. It didn’t take long, though, until Edgeworth did it for him.
But he didn’t look to the Signal Samurai for more than an instant. Instead his gaze seemed to wander, as if Miles was looking for the right thing to look at. The safest thing.
“I don’t know what you expected,” he muttered eventually. “Just how heartless do you think I am?”
Phoenix stepped into Miles’ space before he could recognise it for the bad idea it was.
“I don’t think you’re heartless, Miles, I’d thought you’d given up.”
Edgeworth scowled. “I do not give up.”
“You let me think you had, last year.” This is a bad train of thought. “You let me think you’d killed yourself-” Stop talking now. “-You let me think I’d let you die, that I failed to save you!” Stop!
But Miles’ response was somehow even worse than the grey pallor he’d taken on, worse even than the deepening scowl.
“Trust me, Wright,” he spat. “I had not intended that to be a lie.”
Phoenix felt his gut clench, the sensation of the briefcase in his hands losing all meaning and definition. He’d thought Miles had been capable of suicide for a whole year – how was it any different to face that thought again? Had his mind really been so quick to accept that everything was now somehow okay, that just because Miles was back, the trauma of the past year had just disappeared?
“What exactly are you here for?” Edgeworth asked, his voice exhausted. “There’s no need to be conflicted – I know you’re sick of me. My sentimental hanging on to some piece of plastic doesn’t have to change that.”
“I could never be sick of you.” And Phoenix stepped yet closer. Close enough to pull Miles into a hug, had he had the courage to do something so insane.
Miles just gave a bitter laugh.
“You don’t need to coddle me, Wright,” he continued. “I’m not going to hurt myself just because you’ve finally realised I let you down.”
He kept going, saying something about letting go, about moving on, about being useful only in the context of serving the law, and so much more self-sacrificing Edgeworth nonsense, but Phoenix’s attention had shifted. With the briefcase now under one arm, his free hand roamed across every last one of his pockets, pulling out useless crap and sundry. The credit card receipt, his attorney’s badge, the magatama, more evidence, his attorney’s badge again, somehow-
Oh fuck, oh fuck, now he’s doing that thing where he grabs his arm.
“Got it!”
The rest of the nonsense in his hand hastily shoved into a single pocket, Phoenix held out his palm to Edgeworth. His own samurai charm rested there, in considerably worse condition than its red counterpart, with its string gone grimy with years of being dragged around, the paint scratched and a little nick where it’d grazed the floor that time he fell down the stairs in high school. But to see Miles’ face, you’d think he’d just been presented with a diamond.
“I know you spent a lot of time alone,” Phoenix said. “And even more time feeling lonely, no matter how many people surrounded you. But just because things get difficult between us, doesn’t mean they have to end.”
“Please don’t speak to me as if I were a child, Wright.” But there was no bark in Edgeworth’s tone.
“To be honest, it’s something I haven’t been great at recognising, myself,” continued Phoenix, as if Miles hadn’t spoken. “I… I don’t know. I think, just seeing that you kept your Signal Samurai with you, through all this bullshit, it made me realise something. Even if I’m not exactly sure what.”
Miles snorted, a smile hiding in the corners of his mouth as he fixed Phoenix with one of those gazes that could only pretend to be subtle. Looking at him from the corner of his eye as if making full eye contact would shatter the moment or something.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Me neither,” said Phoenix, a smile suddenly on his own face. Fuck, every last one of Miles’ emotions were infectious. “But I think it means I trust you.”
Edgeworth blinked. And for a second, Phoenix thought he met his eyes head on. A gaze not scrutinising like before, nor hiding the way he did whenever any emotion grew too strong to ignore, just Miles’ eyes. Plain and naked and honest. But as for what they revealed, Phoenix could not tell. He never could tell a damn thing about Miles, could he? Nothing at all except for how blunt he was, how determined, how dedicated to the law and justice and the truth itself he was, how much he cared for silly children’s shows and actual children despite his fear of letting them down, how he looked when the inescapable press of evidence closed in, how he shuddered at the barest hint of an earthquake. No, the only thing he couldn’t tell about Miles was how he felt about Phoenix himself.
“Wright,” said Edgeworth, and his voice was tight again, strangled by his own buried emotions. “We’re never going to be ten again. It doesn’t matter how many relics of the past we hold onto, things have changed. We aren’t children anymore.”
Phoenix looked to the ground and tried to pretend Miles hadn’t hit the nail on the head.
“We don’t need to be kids,” he said, even if his heart wasn’t quite in it.
Edgeworth just stared, exhausted, at some point past Phoenix’s shoulder.
“I mean it,” Phoenix lied. “A life that makes sense, that shouldn’t be something you have to give up as you grow older.” And that at least, he knew to be true.
“It’s not a question of “should”,” said Miles. “This is my reality, and it’s a path I’ve travelled for more than half my life now. There’s no going back. I can only carry onwards, and, I suppose, hope the worst is behind me.”
“But you don’t have to do that alone,” said Phoenix. And, holding up his Signal Samurai charm, “Haven’t we always been better as a team?”
“Wright, please, be honest with yourself,” muttered Edgeworth. “When have I ever done anything except make things worse?”
Phoenix gaped for a moment, no idea what to do with his face or hands, much less his words.
“Literally today!” he cried after a moment of stunned silence. “There was no way I could have solved this case or saved Maya’s life without you! I know how much you love to hate yourself and trust me, I understand the impulse to blame the bad things on yourself, to act like if you had done things differently, you could have stopped – I dunno, anything. But you can’t. The world isn’t yours alone. I’m here too, y’know.”
Miles kept his eyes on the Signal Samurai charm all the while, following it even as Phoenix returned it to his pocket.
“And…” Phoenix continued, “I don’t think I can do it without you. Actually,” he laughed, “I know I can’t. Not just today but for the months when you were gone… I didn’t know what to do. I certainly wasn’t a very good lawyer.”
“I’m sorry,” said Edgeworth, as pained and reluctant as ever. Not to apologise, but to admit to anything at all. “It was childish.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Phoenix. “Didn’t we just establish that the way we live now couldn’t be more different from our lives as children?”
Phoenix couldn’t blame Miles for not wanting to reply to that.
“I guess the only thing I really know for sure is how grateful I am,” Phoenix said eventually.
And, finally, Miles met his eyes again. Still only from the corner of his gaze, still hunched over, and still Edgeworth.
“Thank you, Miles,” he said, too scared to even blink. “You saved me yet again.”
“I was only doing my job, really,” said Edgeworth, and Phoenix grinned.
“Look at how much you’ve changed,” he said, barely more than a whisper. “Or, more accurately, look at how far you’ve returned. That was what stung the most, you know. That you seemed happier to die than to become the man you once were.”
“It wasn’t that,” said Edgeworth, knotting his hands together, the tension present throughout his body. “It… I… I felt I did not deserve to be a man of virtue, not after what I’d done. I suppose I still don’t.”
“Miles,” and Phoenix couldn’t help it. He had to reach out, to hold Miles’ arm, to reaffirm for himself, at least, that his friend was not going to disappear again so soon.
“I know now what it means to be a prosecutor,” he said. “That no matter how others try, the truth will always shine through, and it is my job to aid it in doing so. Hence, I also know that I no longer deserve to be one.”
“That’s the opposite of logical, Miles,” said Phoenix. “If anything, it’s this realisation that qualifies you to be a prosecutor. Knowing how others – and, yeah, you yourself – have abused your position is what will make you so adept at navigating the court system, and individual cases, too.”
“I am afraid,” Miles said through gritted teeth. “I do not want to cause any more damage than I already have.”
“You won’t,” said Phoenix. “Seriously, look at you. Mr Perfect Record aided me in a case and was happy when it ended in a guilty verdict. You look more horrified at the idea of hurting someone to win than you ever did at the thought of losing. It seems you really did learn a lot in your time away. But, now, I think you’re ready to come back.”
Miles blinked, hunching his body. But, Phoenix noticed, he didn’t attempt to break out of the gentle hold Phoenix maintained on his upper arm. In fact, Phoenix had almost forgotten he was doing it, so fitting did it seem for the situation.
“I want to be a prosecutor again,” whispered Edgeworth.
“You never stopped being one,” replied Phoenix.
And again, Edgeworth raised his head to meet Phoenix’s gaze directly. Not looking for answers, nor attempting to hide his thoughts. Just looking, his gaze naked and unashamed. Something in Phoenix’s stomach lurched, and he had the intense sensation that there was something he had to do, but he was trapped in the instant. As if he could ever look away from Edgeworth, whose gaze was so bright it burnt Phoenix’s face.
“There’s so much I have to do,” Miles said, breaking the moment.
“I know.”
“I still have to catch up to Franziska.”
“Her whip’s in your briefcase.” And Phoenix handed it over.
“I have… appointments in Europe. People I promised I would help, so much more to learn.”
“But…” Phoenix tilted his head, and Miles allowed himself the smallest smile.
“…But I will be back,” he said. “I’m not sure when, but I will be. And then, just like now, I will be your partner.”
Typical Edgeworth. Even in situations Phoenix thought he could control, Miles would still surprise him. A swift kick to the heart that he didn’t even know he was giving, Miles was forever cutting right to the core.
And now he was walking away again. Headed to his car and then the airport and from there… where? Phoenix had no idea. But maybe he wasn’t supposed to know everything just yet. If Miles could crawl up from the grave itself to repair their relationship, then maybe it was something he’d have to trust to the long-haul. There was, undeniably, a long road ahead of them.
“Goodbye, Edgeworth.”
Miles popped the door of his car open and looked back to Phoenix.
“Until next time, Wright.”
And then he was gone, yet again. Into his car and out of the carpark. Phoenix steeled himself, finally allowing that deep inhale he’d been craving for what seemed like forever. It hurt, still, to see Edgeworth leave. It worried him, and he knew that until the next time he could see Edgeworth with his own eyes, he’d be gripped with random periods of fear. But it did not feel as bad as last time. It did not feel like the end of the world. Nor did it feel like a particularly revolutionary beginning. Perhaps all it was, all it had to be, was another step on a path that would last his whole life long.