Chapter Text
"Quiet!" Franziska seethed. Her fist tightened around her whip. Gumshoe looked faint. "If it weren't for traitors like you-"
"'I would've won'. Is that what you want to say?"
Phoenix felt his blood run cold.
Franziska stiffened, looking past him. "Wh-who?!"
"That voice…" he said, barely above a whisper. The room temperature dropped a few degrees. His hair stood on end.
Phoenix turned around.
"E-Edgeworth?!"
He looked just as he had the last time Phoenix had seen him- serious, cold, and unbroken. There wasn't a scratch on his face. He stared on in placid detachment.
"It's been a long time… Wright."
Phoenix punched him as hard as he possibly could.
"Woah-! Break it up, fellas!"
The world was spinning, bright and unreal. He had the vague impression of someone holding him back.
"What the fuck?!" He said. This did not adequately convey the storm of emotions flooding his body. He tried again.
"What the fuck?!"
Edgeworth was on the floor, holding his reddening face. Good! He had half a mind to kick that face in!
"Asshole!" He heard himself yell. He scrambled to be free. "You can't just fucking- do that and then waltz back in like-" He made a jumbled, angry sound.
"Let me go!!! I'm going to beat your fucking ass, Miles Edgeworth-!"
-
Phoenix stared at the road ahead, eyes fixed to the horizon.
"Y'know, pal, if you're gonna punch somebody, you probably shouldn't do it in a police station. Justa word of advice," Gumshoe said.
Phoenix clicked his tongue noncommittally. Edgeworth remained silent.
After Phoenix's assault, Gumshoe had taken the liberty of stuffing them both in the back of his beat-up car so he could take them "somewhere to cool down".
Phoenix had thrown a fit up until to the point when Gumshoe was struggling to put his seatbelt on for him and he did it himself out of frustration.
Edgeworth entered the car last, holding an icepack someone had found for him to his jaw.
Neither lawyer had said a word since.
Gumshoe didn't handle silence well. He whistled and tapped the steering wheel. At one point he leaned over and turned on the radio. It came blasting on, so loud it made everyone in the car cringe. He fiddled with the settings for an unbearable forty seconds, trying to turn down the sound, accidentally turning it up even more, and finally slamming the off-button with a hounded look in his eyes.
He laughed awkwardly, and turned it into a cough halfway through when no one else joined.
"...May I ask where we are going, detective?" Edgeworth said.
The tension boiled over.
"Oh, NOW you want to talk?" Phoenix said, throwing his arms up.
"Well, you didn't let me earlier, did you?" He said, scowling.
"Sorry for not taking your faked death very well, Miles! I really should have been more courteous! Maybe we could go to lunch, and discuss how you made me think you killed yourself because you wanted a better dramatic entrance!"
"That's not why I-"
"Ohhhhh really, Edgeworth? Then why did you, huh? Was it funny? Was it just so you could see my face when the person I'd been looking for for the past fifteen years died months after I finally saw him again?!"
Edgeworth's mouth opened and closed uselessly, his eyebrows pressed together. He looked away, seemingly unable to meet his eyes.
"I didn't think- you have Miss Fey, and the others, you should have been fine-"
"Oh ho ho ho ho! Do I have some news for you!" Whatever expression he was making made Edgeworth shrink back in his seat. An ugly sense of satisfaction flared to life in his chest. "Actually, you know what? Guess! Guess where Maya is, right now!"
Edgeworth's eyes darted back and forth between Phoenix and Gumshoe. "I did notice that she wasn't with you, I thought perhaps she was at home…?"
"She's been kidnapped! She's in mortal danger, being held ransom by a mysterious person we know nothing about, and I'm not allowed to discuss the details without her probably getting killed!"
"Aren't you… talking to two members of law enforcement, right now?"
"No, I'm pretty sure I'm talking to a ghost! Which is funny, because usually I'd need Maya to do that! But instead, I've got a losing case and a piece of shit prosecutor who left me a suicide note and nothing else after I saved his goddamn life-"
"Wright-"
" I mourned you, asshole!"
The car swerved, tires squealing as it came to a sudden stop. The tension snapped. Edgeworth's icepack flew from his hand.
Phoenix blinked rapidly, trying to reconcile the change of scenery as his awareness of his surroundings suddenly returned.
"Wow, okay, we're here!" Gumshoe said, clearly relieved.
"Where are we?" Edgeworth said. Gumshoe opened the side door and ushered them out and into the parking lot.
"Is this… a Dairy Queen?"
Gumshoe nodded, smiling with all his teeth as he led them inside. "I'll order for you guys, you can go find a place to sit!"
Besides the employees, it was deserted. Edgeworth squinted at the menu over the cashier, but made no objections.
They sat down opposite each other in a boothed table.
"It is… certainly cold in here."
Phoenix huffed. "Of course. Somewhere to 'cool down'," he said. Should have known Gumshoe was being literal. He folded his arms and laid his face down on them. He didn't want to look at Edgeworth's stupid face anymore.
A couple minutes later, a Gumshoe-sounding voice came over and said, "Here ya go, pal!"
Something landed on the table.
Phoenix poked his head up and stared at his food despondently.
Fries and chicken tenders, with a milkshake on the side. Great. He ate one of the fries. It tasted like sadness.
"I'll be on the other end of the restaurant if you need me," Gumshoe said. He was met with an abject silence, and shuffled away.
Phoenix ate another sad fry.
Edgeworth squirmed, only seeming more discomforted by the presence of a tray of fast food.
"I did not mean. For you to be hurt by. My, leaving," Edgeworth said. He spoke
Phoenix glared at him. He took an obnoxiously loud sip from his drink. Edgeworth grimaced.
He put down the milkshake and looked out the window. He didn't feel like he could look at him for much longer without screaming.
"It's honestly insulting that you would think if you died like that, I'd ever be okay again," he said, using as measured a tone as he could.
Edgeworth had no response for this.
"I didn't let anyone talk about you around me. I could barely even tell Maya what happened, because it hurt so much. When Gumshoe called me, I just sat and stared at the wall for hours. I thought about calling your phone, just to hear the voicemail. I wonder if it would have gone through.
"Do you know how devastating it is, to get a phone call like that?" He covered his mouth, trying to stop himself from trembling. " 'Prosecutor Edgeworth chooses death.' It would have hurt less if you killed me, instead.
"But your death couldn't be confirmed, so there wasn't a funeral. Everybody went into work the next morning." He laughed dryly. "I should have guessed something was up when Gumshoe stopped looking around. He would have mobilized the country to look for you- though I guess you know that, because you were the one that called him off, right?"
He glanced back at Edgeworth. Bingo. His mouth was pressed into a flat line. There wasn't any color in his face.
"I'm sorry," he said, finally.
Phoenix laughed again.
"God, I wanna hate you so bad," he mumbled, pressing his face into his hands. "I kind of do."
"I really was going to go through with it," Edgeworth said reassuredly, as if it would be some comfort to him. It felt like a jolt of electricity to his spine. "But I… well, circumstances got in the way. It became complicated."
"That's worse," Phoenix said, louder than he meant to. He really was trembling, now. "You know that's worse, right?" He smiled humorlessly. "The idea that you were out there, alone, a danger to yourself-"
Edgeworth reached across the table and touched his face. His jaw snapped shut. Edgeworth's eyes widened, and he pulled his hand away.
"You're crying," he said by way of explanation.
"What?"
He was. He wiped his eyes but the tears just kept coming. He looked at his hands in mute bewilderment. He looked back at Edgeworth. A bruise was blooming on his jawline.
Edgeworth pulled out a handkerchief and gave it to Phoenix. "Here," he said.
"You're the worst," Phoenix mumbled, burying his face in it.
"I know," Edgeworth responded quietly.
"Shut up." He sniffled. He wiped his eyes, then crumpled it up and tossed it back to Edgeworth.
They didn't speak for a long time, opting to eat their meal instead.
Once he was done, Phoenix stared at the leftover trash for a while, then sighed.
"I have a trial tomorrow. I need to be getting evidence, I can't be here just- doing nothing. Maya's life is in my hands." He dragged a hand down his face. He didn't think he'd ever felt so exhausted in his life.
"You got anything else to say for yourself?" He said, addressing Edgeworth. Edgeworth's face hardened.
"This is a twisted case, Wright. You won't get through to the other side of it unless you acknowledge a certain truth," he said. He sounded a bit more sure of himself, as though he had had this part prepared.
"Sure," Phoenix said, waving him off. He checked the menu board to see if they sold coffee, then decided it wasn't worth it.
"I'm serious," Edgeworth said.
"Gumshoe, how far are we from the police station?" He called across the empty building.
"How far? Uh, about two miles, pal."
"Great," he said, giving him a thumbs up. "Bye, Edgeworth. I have to go solve the murder of a beloved children's icon."