Work Text:
Once again, Franziska found herself working well past midnight. One or two nights was a trifling mistake; four in a row, however, was a shameful, reckless habit. Her past self would have scoffed at such foolish antics. Only foolish fools would sacrifice precious sleep for the truth.
Then again, even imbeciles would have followed their darling little brothers to the ends of the Earth in search of that same truth and justice. Or perhaps, they would have followed said little brother Miles Edgeworth until he hired enough prosecutors to lighten the load.
The Dark Age of the Law had finally ended with Simon Blackquill’s exoneration, but so too had the deep-seated corruption en-rooted in the state prosecutor’s office– namely, by the firing of nearly 80% of state prosecutors within the Attorney’s office. Last Franziska heard, half of them were charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing, not to mention conspiracy, embezzlement, and on at least two unsavory occasions, sedition.
(“You didn’t waste any time, Miles Edgeworth,” she had laughed into the phone, with an almost fond tone in her voice– “Or I suppose I should say, you whipped the place into shape.”
For the first time in a long, long time, his rich, genuine laugh rang loud and clear.)
Still, someone had to carry those charges to court and bring them to justice. Her brother was too busy running around as Chief Prosecutor – and the few prosecutors that remained had their hands full with their current caseload. So Franziska had snatched those manila folders right out of her brother’s hands and taken over the reins.
“You would think he would’ve moved the evidence logs online like everyone else,” she murmured, glancing at her computer screen. A few strokes of her keyboard, and her entire file had been transcribed into a neat Excel spreadsheet. “It’s the 21st century, Miles Edgeworth. Enter the future with the rest of us.”
While paper copies were impossible to hack, they were far more fragile and easier to lose. Given the chaos that regularly passed for ‘law and order,’ she wasn’t particularly surprised that Los Angeles continued to dawdle in the past. Irritated, sure, but never surprised. That ship had long since left the harbor.
Her makeshift office wasn’t much better, either. While Franziska was still a licensed attorney in the state of California, she hadn’t officially worked for the Prosecutor’s Office in several years– and she sure wasn’t in a hurry to claim one of those newly free offices, either. Her career was far too precious to remain here.
For the time being, she commandeered the safest spot in the building: Miles Edgeworth’s office. More precisely, his coffee table and giant fuchsia sofa in the corner. Neither were ideal, but their imperfections were a glaring reminder of her inpermanence. Once the state had approved Miles Edgeworth’s budget, she would once again join Interpol. Nothing more, nothing less. Or so she kept telling herself.
Most nights, Miles stayed with her. If he didn’t have his own massive backlog of work, he had a novel or two at his side– and he only left whenever she decided to call it quits for the night. Such a whim hadn’t been fulfilled since childhood.
Back when they were younger, she burst through Miles’ bedroom door and piled her homework high on his desk. Even at six or seven years old, she puffed up her chest and demanded that she assisted him with his homework, because they were both von Karmas now, and von Karmas had to be perfect.
(In reality, her own work needed his eagle eye. Not that she needed to broadcast that sorry fact to anyone within earshot, much less her newly adopted brother.)
The first time, Miles had given her a bewildered stare before grabbing a pen and examining her own printouts. The second, he had slumped his shoulders in quiet resignation–before grabbing his pen and examining her work anyway. His own work was forgotten as it sat beside her own.
They must’ve spent hours pouring over algebraic equations and Shakespeare, with him eliciting her thought process and poking holes in any ill-formed logic. Just like she was currently spending hours over transcripts and evidence, and hoping that her reasoning was airtight when it would be presented before turnabout attorneys and their unpredictable cross-examinations.
At this rate, however, she would settle for good. ‘Good’ merited sleep, and sleep would be highly preferable to working until sunrise. Again.
“Was every prosecutor on this floor involved in the same scheme?” She had to wonder out loud, scrunching up her face in disgust. “Imbeciles. Good riddance to them all.”
She grimaced, reaching for a cup of cold coffee by her laptop. Just one more case, and she could shuffle off to her hotel room and get a good nap in before her next trial. The truth may never sleep, but Franziska von Karma was running precariously low on fuel and energy. Even the midnight oil couldn’t save her for much longer–
“How many cups of coffee does that make?” Her brother’s voice cut in from the door.
“Not enough.”
He actually snorted, turning towards his desk. “I’ll be surprised if you actually manage to fall asleep before your next trial.”
Franziska glanced up from her work– “Justice never sleeps, Miles Edgeworth.”
“No, but sometimes it drools all over my sofa at 1:13 in the morning.”
She fought the temptation to raise her middle finger at him– she was still a von Karma, after all, and von Karmas didn’t display such vulgarities even to their closest relatives and former homework tutors. They did, however, slosh their coffee in their paper mug and return the grimace right back at their significantly annoying little brother.
“Justice is classy. Justice burns both ends of the midnight oil to get the job done, even when they’re severely understaffed and underfunded.”
A smirk crossed that stupid, foolish man’s face. “Is that why Justice is on her seventh coffee cup of the night?”
“Seven? You’ll need evidence to back up that sorry claim of yours,” she said, gulping down the last of her mug. It was her fifth, thank you very much! “Which, by the way, I can’t say you possess, with all those errands you’ve had to run tonight.”
He sat down beside her, rolling up his sleeves and grabbing a ballpoint pen from his pockets. “Your right cheek. You always spill a few drops when you finish off your drink.”
Franziska snorted. “That’s your foolproof evidence?”
“Should I take a picture and send it to your phone?”
She hesitated, brushing her fingertips against her right cheek. They were wet– no doubt from her drink of choice and those haphazard gulps when the world started to weigh upon her shoulders.
“Of course not!” She huffed, forcing some disgruntlement in her voice– “Your evidence supports your argument.”
Miles’ smirk was insufferable. Such an arrogant expression didn’t suit his foolish face, let alone the atmosphere of this stuffy, ornate office. Who let him decorate the place himself, anyway? A truly foolish fool?
He leaned forward, skimming through her files with his pen. This time, he highlighted nothing. His pen didn’t even graze the page.
“Your argument is airtight,” he admitted, tapping his pen against her papers. “It should hold up in court tomorrow, unless Attorney Shields manages an eleventh hour victory.”
“Of course it’ll hold up.” Franziska fought back a laugh. “This isn’t child’s play, Miles Edgeworth.”
“I know. Your homework was almost dripping in red ink.”
Franziska kicked him in the shins. His painful yowl could have woken the dead – or more realistically, a sleeping prosecutor downstairs.
His glare almost burned through her soul. “What was that for?”
“Odd. I could’ve sworn I was aiming for the chair…”
Miles sighed, rubbing the spot where her heel had pressed into his trousers. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“On the contrary, I’ve changed quite a bit. You, on the other hand…”
“I beg your pardon?” Miles actually looked up from her files. “I’m not the same person I used to be, either.”
“Your glasses aren’t new,” she insisted, leaning back in his extra leather armchair and letting it swivel. “You’ve had them since college, I think. Our older sister told me so.”
“Well, if dear Sis says so, it must absolutely be correct and not, say, a false memory of her own concoction?”
Franziska grimaced. How dare Miles Edgeworth besmirch the name of an innocent von Karma– the one older sister who had managed to shy away from the legal spotlight altogether? “She’s never wrong.”
“She was wrong about Phoenix the dog being a golden retriever when he was actually a mutt.”
“She was wrong once!” Franziska wagged her finger in the air. “A grand total of once!”
Miles’s laugh was rich and genuine, and his shoulders even shook in disbelief as he dared to meet Franziska’s eye– “This pair is new. Less than six months, to be exact. I’ve got the evidence right here in my wallet.”
“Objection!”
“Overruled,” Miles teased, adjusting his glasses with his fingertips. “Memory is faulty, and sometimes far more persuasive than logic dictates.”
Yet that same memory had led her into working in his office in the middle of the night, when even the janitors had long since left the building. The work may never end, and the cups of coffee were eternally overflowing with caffeine, but Miles Edgeworth was always sitting by her side with snark, banter, and a small pinch of wisdom. Small, because his foolish brain latched onto some peculiar sentiments every now and then.
“I wish to cross-examine the witness,” Franziska declared instead, rising to her feet and placing one heel forward on the edge of the table.
Her old self wouldn’t have been capable of such a joke, let alone ignoring her work to deliver such a statement. Jokes and feelings were overly sentimental, and neither of them foolish enough to express such weaknesses. Perhaps the stress of their paperwork had finally eaten at their brains, or–
Or Miles was looking at her as if he were seeing something new for the first time. His expression softened as he too rose to his feet and gave her a generous bow.
“Permission granted. However, I don’t think you’ll find the truth you’re seeking.”
“We don’t know just yet.” Franziska dug her foot deeper into the table, sliding some papers towards the floor. “Besides, this won’t last long. I still need to organize the evidence log for KMJ-9. Which you still keep on paper, for reasons far beyond my comprehension.”
“Paper’s easier to flip through.” Miles paused, folding his arms. “Since when did you move into the 21st century?”
“2000, like everyone else with half a brain?”
Miles clicked his tongue in disgust, though whether it was aimed at him or Franziska, she wasn’t sure– “I walked right into that one.”
Franziska snickered, “That you did, little brother.”
“So… the cross-examination?”
She hummed, pretending to give it a considerable amount of thought– “Withdrawn. Unless Miles Edgeworth was wrong after all, and his prescription glasses are a new part of his ensemble.”
Miles almost choked on his own breath– “You drove me to the ophthalmologist, and you still think I’m lying?”
Franziska clicked her tongue at him, leaning forward to break his personal space bubble. “Those were for contacts! Which you insisted upon, because - and I quote – ‘A perfect prosecutor has no weakness’!”
“Ngooh!” He recoiled, almost pressing his back against the desk and spilling what remained of their giant pile of paperwork. “I was eighteen, Franziska!”
“So? I was perfect when I was eighteen.”
A rich, hearty laugh escaped his lips. “I would rethink that statement if I were you.”
He was right, of course. No one was perfect when they were eighteen. Only the folly of youth, and an underdeveloped frontal lobe, would incline someone to think that they were far smarter and wiser than those who walked before them– and even more stupidity would lead one to pretend that they possessed no flaws or weaknesses.
Then again, Papa was pretty stupid to raise them both with such a mindset. His shadow no longer loomed over Miles, or Franziska for that matter, if they could joke about imperfections as one might joke about the weather– but just when had that very shadow begun to retreat into nothingness?
She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t begin to pretend that she was perfect, let alone that her older brother was right about something to begin with. So she reached for the spilled papers and stacked them into their old, proper places.
“Doesn’t everyone think they’re perfect, at that age?” She chose to ask instead, returning that smirk right back at him. “You can’t blame me for the same choice, Miles Edgeworth.”
“Was I blaming you?”
She clicked her tongue in disapproval. “There you go again, changing the subject…”
He knelt down to pick up what remained of his own mess. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t blaming you, just thinking about how we both thought we were invincible back then.”
Then Phoenix Wright had shattered their perfect records and forced them to reconcile fantasy with reality– and rethink the corrupt system that had once stood for truth and justice. At the time, Franziska couldn’t stand the blithe fool, let alone how he always rose from the ashes and turned a case on its very premise to uncover the truth.
She was also pretty foolish, just like Papa and Miles. Figures that it would’ve taken a stain on her perfect record to figure out that she was just as imperfect – and that her older brother really wasn’t much better.
“We were…” She took a breath, trying to find a kinder word than the word on the edge of her tongue–
“Fools,” Miles finished for her as he rose to his feet and returned the last of the papers on top of her stack, with a soft, kind expression that he almost never showed the world. “It’s okay. You can say it here.”
Sometimes, his patience was absolutely insufferable. Franziska clicked her tongue, turning on her heels to avoid looking him in the eye–
“Maybe.” She allowed herself to admit. “Maybe we were fools, for letting ourselves be so blind to our own imperfections.”
“Well, this fool needs some help organizing the evidence log,” Miles began, reaching for her computer and logging into her account. “Online, I might add. Since I need to enter the 21st century once and for all?”
He was baiting her. Absolutely, positively baiting her, and yet–
“Well, of course.” Franziska swerved to sit beside him, pushing herself into the seat and forcing the two of them to fit together– just like when they were kids, hunched over Miles' desk and pouring over old homework and algebra problems. “Someone’s gotta teach you the ropes, right?”
As she grabbed the remaining papers and transcribed them into Excel, she caught his smile in the corner of the laptop’s reflection - but she must’ve been seeing things. Miles Edgeworth wasn’t growing soft on her; she wasn’t growing old and tired; and more importantly, they weren’t going to keep burning the midnight oil on both ends like this–
“They absolutely do,” Miles’ voice echoed in her ears. “Might as well let you take the initiative, right?”