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Three years ago if you had asked Miles Edgeworth how worried he could possibly be over a defense attorney, he would have scoffed and told you he’d never be worried for a defense attorney. Of course, that was before he knew Phoenix Wright was a defense attorney.
Granted, even if you’d asked him three days ago, he would have said the most worried he’d ever get over a defense attorney was seeing Wright two days into State v. Fey, the defendant’s seat empty, because Wright was the defendant. Blood had still been drying on Wright’s face, brown-red against his upper lip, and his nose was crooked- he hadn’t even had the opportunity to bandage it. Miles never had learned where that injury had come from.
Today, sprinting through the halls of a hospital, he entertains the notion that maybe he might be a little bit more worried than he had been during that trial.
He throws wide the door to Wright’s room and skids inside, polished shoes squeaking against the floor from the friction, before remembering that maybe he should have a little more caution, a little more tact, if Wright is dying-
The room is quiet. Wright lies on the bed, breathing steadily- the first things Miles notices are an IV in one arm and a nasal cannula, but as his eyes rove over Wright’s sleeping body, he notices more details. His arm, carefully wrapped in a cast and elevated; his hands, encased in thick bandages. His face is soot-stained.
Miles swallows. He leans his suitcase against the wall, and carefully steps forward to set the back of his hand to Wright’s forehead. It’s searing- blisteringly hot- but when he moves to pull back, a larger, tanned hand traps his own slimmer one in place. Wright opens his eyes- blue and brown keep his gaze pinned.
So he is awake.
“What was it this time?” Miles breaks the silence. “A baby bird? A crying infant? You never could curb that savior complex of yours, Wright.”
Wright’s face contorts into what could resemble a smile. It looks painful. Stubble dusts his chin- it’s infuriatingly distracting. “Maya,” Wright says, and it takes Miles an unconscionably long time to realize he’s answering the question.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Miles says, removing his hand from his forehead (the heat still sings on the back of his knuckles, and he finds himself missing the contact, wanting to press his lips to that forehead-) and taking a careful seat on the chair by Wright’s bed. “That girl could get herself into trouble with a blade of grass. How were you trying to help her? An attempt at providing another spirit for her to channel?”
A weak laugh from the fallen defense attorney. It rattles in his chest, and he devolves into a coughing fit. Miles finds himself offering him the cup of ice chips that sit on his bedside; Wright tips one into his mouth gratefully. “No,” he says after a moment. “She was stuck across the bridge, I had to- she was, Edgeworth- I, she’s-”
“Maya was stuck across the bridge,” Miles repeats, trying to quell Wright’s rambles before they turn into full-on panic and he’s ushered out by a harried nurse. “Which bridge? What were you trying to-?”
“Dusky Bridge,” Wright says, which pings a distant memory at the back of Miles’s mind; he has to fish for a moment until he remembers State v. Fawles .
“Mein Gott.” Miles is starting to piece things together. “So you were trying to rescue her, but you fell off the bridge-?”
“Through the bridge,” Wright corrects. His voice is hoarse. “It- there was fire, I-”
He rubs his eyes. “So you fell through Dusky Bridge while it was- on fire? Wright, you- that bridge is forty feet tall. There are rocks at the bottom. How- how did you survive? ”
Wright shrugs with his good arm. “Larry, apparently. Maya, she-” his eyes shoot wide- “oh, Pearls- Maya, she’s stuck, I couldn’t save her, it’s freezing, she’s going to die, and Pearls is missing, Edgeworth, I-”
Maya stuck. Pearl missing. Bridge burnt. Miles catalogues them neatly in a mental file. He’s gotten better at not immediately compartmentalizing things, but in this instance, he needs to put aside his feelings. “Start from the beginning,” he urges gently.
Wright tells him all of it. The murder, Maya, Pearls. His case. Iris. As Wright mentions her, his eyes flutter shut for an instant, his voice taking on a queer quality that Miles can’t quite identify, and his stomach lurches. It’s not- it’s not, is it?
“Wright,” he says, after it’s all laid bare, every last inch of the snow and the sword and the spirit mediums. “That is- there is-”
“Yeah.” Wright makes an aborted attempt towards the ice chips on his bedstand, and Miles holds it to his lips again without thinking. Wright’s lips brush the ridge of his pointer finger, and it takes every ounce of his considerable self-restraint to stay still. “God, Edgeworth, I- I need your help,” Wright says. Miles sets the cup back on the stand.
“Anything,” Miles says. It’s a split second of pure instinct. He stops, paralyzed for a moment, and then realizes he does mean it. It is the truth. It is, somehow, more frightening than if it had been a lie.
He’s expecting a response, a verbal one. Instead, with what seems like a considerable amount of effort, Wright lunges off the bed and grabs Miles’s hand.
Miles freezes. Wright’s hands are so warm, even through the rough bandages. He never wants to let go, never wants Wright to let go. The touch- he aches, some long-forgotten feral beast in his chest coming to life at the feeling of skin against his own, which is simultaneously terrifying and so, so- pathetic. To fall to pieces at a touch.
The effect is slightly ruined by the sheer amount that Wright starts coughing.
“Sorry,” Wright says weakly between coughing. “Might- have a little- bit of- pneumonia. Agh. Fuck. Ow.”
“A little bit- ” Miles starts, aghast, but Phoenix drops something into his palms before he can start doing much else about it. “What is this,” he asks, even as he looks down. It’s a magatama, of the variety the Feys wear- smooth and warm and rounded at the edges.
“God, it’s gonna sound like such a crock of shit,” Wright croaks, apparently recovered from his minor attack.
“Try me,” Miles challenges, because at this point he’s seen people (Wright, specifically) summon spirits in courtrooms and cross-examine everything from birds to radios.
“It’s easier if I show you,” Wright says. His words have an evasive quality to them- like he’s not sure he wants to explain it outright. He takes a deep breath. “Just- ask me something you really want to know, that you think I’ve been lying about.”
Miles’s thoughts jump immediately into forbidden territory and it takes several deep breaths to coax them back into the realm of acceptable questions. He searches frantically for a question to ask.
Eventually, he fishes out, “Did you really think you could win my case?”
“Of course,” Wright says easily, and the world flickers- goes dark- Miles recoils, physically, as chains bind Wright with gaudy red lockboxes attached. There are five of them- he commits their design to memory.
So this is how, he thinks.
“They’re called psyche-locks. You can try and break them if you’d like,” Wright offers softly. “Make guesses at what I’m trying to hide. Provide evidence.”
“...isn’t it as simple as- I asked a yes or no question, Wright. Clearly the answer is just… no, isn’t it? You didn’t think you could win.”
Wright has the audacity to laugh at him from his hospital bed. “Yeah, but- why? There’s more to it than that.” Still, one of his locks snaps.
“I’ve broken one of the locks,” Miles says. “I don’t-” this is a lie- “I don’t want to break the rest.”
“Edgeworth,” Wright says. His eyes have taken on a strange green tinge, which fades as he says, “You’ve got the Magatama too close to me. I can see yours, too.”
“Oh.” He flounders. “...Does the number mean anything?”
“The more there are, the more carefully guarded the secret is. Five is the most I’ve ever seen.”
Ah. He has five… related to me?
“...I can break my own, if you’d like,” Wright says gently. “So you don’t have to pressure me. Or… or you can just leave it be.”
“You’d do that?” Miles returns, equally quiet. “You always were soft, Wright.”
Wright sighs, and props himself up further against the pillow with a god-awful groan. “I didn’t think I could win because I was worried you were so far in that you wouldn’t cooperate. You were acting so evasive around the case that… I wasn’t sure you wanted to win. I was insecure in my own abilities, because my prior defenses had been- miracles, and people had kept coming in to help me.
“And there was a point on the third day where I thought I was seriously, really, going to lose, because-” three locks are broken already, and Miles is suddenly very nervous about the fourth- “because Manfred von Karma physically attacked me, me and Maya. During my investigation. With a taser.”
“Wright, ” he manages, horrified. His hands are slick with sweat around the magatama.
“We were in the police department- I checked later, all the feeds had been wiped. For a moment, when he pulled that thing out, I didn’t think I’d make it to the trial at all. Because I would be dead.”
“Four of your locks broke,” Miles says, numbly.
“Four of-?” Wright pauses. “Oh.”
“Oh,” repeats Miles. He didn’t know. “...I- Wright…”
“You don’t have to break the last one,” Wright says, suddenly, very fast, so fast he dissolves into another series of coughs. “You- it’s fine. I don’t, we don’t really need to do this today.”
“It has to do with me,” Miles says, thinking out loud. “Something that has to do with my trial, something you don’t want me to know about… about what you think of me and about my trial. It has to be a thought you still harbor, because it’s so well-locked.”
“Edgeworth, I don’t know what this secret is. I’m not holding that many secrets from you.” Wright won’t meet his eyes. His cheeks are flushed with red, though that could be the fever.
“It’s a secret you’re embarrassed about,” Miles adds, and Wright goes pale so fast Miles worries he’ll faint.
“Oh, fuck- Edgeworth, stop. I know what this is- stop, don’t- don’t break that one. Don’t, you don’t want to break that one.”
“Is it about your trial? With Dahlia?”
“How do you know about that?” Wright asks, surprised, but he’s a little more occupied with the pain like shards of glass driving their way into his stomach. It’s somehow simultaneously hot and cold. He curls in on himself, arms crossed over his stomach, groaning in pain. Oh, god, am I- dying? Am I dying? It hurts, hurts, so badly- somewhere deeper than his bones, than his muscles- distantly, he can hear Wright calling his name, with increasing amounts of urgency.
After what feels like an eternity but must only be a couple seconds, the pain finally ebbs, and he pushes himself back upright. “What,” he manages. “What was that?”
“It hurts if you get something wrong.” Wright looks more worried about Edgeworth’s reaction than the existence of an actual spiritual artifact that can physically harm you . “Just- try not to go overboard with using it, okay? There can be some- really, really bad side effects.”
“Why,” Miles wheezes, “did you not tell me this before you handed me it?”
“Sorry,” Wright says. To his credit, he does look genuinely apologetic. “I forgot a little bit. I’m used to it.”
Miles isn’t sure he could get used to that kind of pain ever, but- he’s not going to quibble over the details with Wright right now. “I won’t pry further,” he says. “But- why did you give me this?”
“Oh, yeah!” Wright says instead of answering, and deposits another item in his hands.
It’s an attorney’s badge.
“Wright,” Miles says, before his voice fails him, and he has to try several times to get out the words: “I’m not a defense attorney. That dream was- systemically destroyed. You know this . ”
“You could, ” Wright says. His voice is tinged with the kind of desperation Miles hasn’t heard since the Engarde case. “Your father knew how. You could do it.”
Miles already knows he’s going to cave when he says, “Wright. Phoenix. I can’t- I can’t do it. I’m, I’m a prosecutor, I can’t believe in people the way you do.”
“Yes you can, ” Wright says, very seriously. His eyes feel like they’re searing into his very soul . “Come on, Edgeworth. Please, for me?”
Miles doesn’t answer. He purses his lips against the lump in his throat as he pushes the pin through the slit in his lapel and fastens it there. It sits over his jackrabbit-fast heart; he can feel the blood roaring in his ears. Carefully, he slides the magatama into the inner pocket of his jacket.
“I never broke that last psycholock,” he says, before he picks up his suitcase. “Will you tell me what it is? Eventually?”
“Yeah,” Phoenix says. “Of course.”
The locks slam back down over him.
Four days later, Miles goes to Wright’s office.
He’s let in by the attorney himself, who looks exhausted. “Sorry, I’m not taking clients,” he says automatically, before blinking a couple times and saying, “Miles?”
“Can I come in?” Miles asks, rushing the words out of his mouth lest he apologizes, turns on his heel, and drives all the way to LAX instead.
Wright lets him in wordlessly.
It’s odd, being in the office. After everything, he feels as though it ought to have changed more- like after the most harrowing case he’s ever taken, after exorcising a dead witness in court, it should be more- dramatic, the change. He feels older. Wright looks, visibly, older. The cast on his arm has been replaced with more inconspicuous bandages. Wright follows his gaze.
“The doctors said I couldn’t take the bandages off for three weeks,” he shrugs. “They also said I ought to be in a wheelchair, but I’ve had worse.”
“You ran across a burning bridge,” Miles says, because apparently any semblance of small talk has flung itself bodily out of the window and is lying broken on the pavement below. “I’m shocked you’re standing.”
“I’ve always been quick to recover. And besides, the soles of my feet weren’t burned that badly, I was wearing wet socks.”
It’s silent for another moment. The elephants in the room crowd around them. “Would you like tea?” Wright asks- a last-ditch effort to salvage the atmosphere.
“You have tea?” Miles asks. He’s certain the tea will be horrible, but-
“Got it for you,” Wright says nonchalantly, already turning to pull it out. The thoughtfulness of the idea bowls Miles over and he finds himself sitting, taking a deep breath to replace what had been knocked out of him by the concept of Wright caring for him.
“I have to fly back in a few days,” Miles says, after a spell of silence. “But I- I will be coming to Los Angeles, I had a scheduled vacation in March that I still intend to uphold. And- and after that, I…” He glances down at his hands, at the watch on his wrist. “I was thinking about moving back full time. Maybe in June, in July, I don’t know.”
“Really?” Wright’s voice is full of so much hope that Miles jerks his head up. The tea is set in front of him, and he takes a sip so he doesn’t have to look Wright in the eye.
This is a mistake- the tea is scalding, and terrible. He swallows with some trouble. “Yes,” he says. “I- Europe was never intended to be my permanent place of residence, only that there was business to be taken care of. Now that Franziska intends to take my place at the Prosecutor’s Office in Berlin, there is… really no reason I cannot return home.”
“We’ll be glad to have you,” Wright says, smiling.
“That is… not why I came, though.”
Wright’s smile doesn’t dissipate. “What is it?”
“I would like to borrow your Magatama. Just for a moment.”
“Sure,” Wright says. Easy. Mentally, Miles apologizes for his duplicity, as he takes the proffered rock and holds it tightly.
“I never broke your last psycholock,” he says.
Wright’s smile vanishes.
“I- Edgeworth, ” he says, somewhat desperately, as his smile vanishes, replaced by one red psycholock, in the center of his chest, just under his sternum. “Do we have to do this?”
“Seeing Iris- seeing Dahlia- it gave me a hunch,” Miles says. “I intend to get the truth, Wright.”
And if the truth is anything like what I hope it is, it will be… mutually beneficial.
That kind of hope isn’t characteristic of him. But just for once- he allows it.
Wright swallows.
There’s silence for a long, long moment. Miles tries to figure out how to speak.
“Edgeworth,” Wright says eventually. “If… if you’re really going through with this. I’d- I don’t want you to have to drag this out of me. Not this one. I’d rather be the one to… to say it.”
“Then say it, then,” Miles challenges.
Wright takes a deliberate, long breath, and shuts his eyes.
“I’m in love with you.”
For a beat, there’s nothing. Then the last lock shatters, and Miles sets down the magatama and gets up.
Wright tilts his head back, and from the new angle, he can see tears glittering at his lash line. “Are you happy?” Wright croaks. “You know now. You can- you can leave, if you’d like. Fuck. God. I’ve probably ruined everything.”
“Wright,” Miles says, moving around the table to stand in front of the defense attorney. His voice is equally hoarse. “Shut up. ”
He grabs Wright by the shoulders, and Wright's eyes fly open. “Edgeworth?”
“Under the circumstances, I really think you ought to be calling me Miles,” Miles says, and before Wright- Phoenix- can demonstrate this, he shocks himself by pressing a kiss, lightning-quick, to Phoenix’s hairline.
“This isn’t,” Phoenix starts, before his voice seems to fail him. “You’re not?”
“Phoenix Wright,” Miles says, because for some reason Wright’s own admission has made it infinitely easier to be brave, “you are infuriating. ”
Miles kisses him properly this time. Phoenix meets him halfway; Miles curls his hand into his hair, and is pleasantly surprised to find that it is so much softer than he had assumed. It's everything he's ever wanted. It's bliss.
“Also,” Miles says, pulling back for a brief moment, “if you make me play defense attorney one more time, I swear I will borrow Franziska’s whip.”
“Ouch,” Phoenix winces. “Okay, okay. Okay. Duly noted.”