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Phoenix was sitting on the couch at the courthouse lobby, waiting for Edgeworth to arrive. It was already several minutes past their scheduled meeting time, but Phoenix wasn’t in any rush. They hadn't made dinner reservations for precisely this reason—trials could go unpredictably long, and Chief Prosecutorial duties had a tendency of getting in the way of personal appointments.
After a few more minutes of waiting, the courtroom doors opened to a stream of people exiting the gallery. Edgeworth came out last, with the source of his holdup in tow. He and Klavier had their heads bent over some case notes, likely debriefing how Klavier's trial had gone, when Klavier spotted Phoenix. He must have made some comment to Edgeworth, who looked up and offered a brief, warm smile.
"Ah, good afternoon, Herr Wright!" said Klavier. "I hope your day has been well so far?"
"Eh, you know. Not so bad as far as Mondays go."
Klavier smiled. “How true. And your weekend? I heard the Sprocket wedding was lovely,” he added, smile turning wistful. “You and Herr Edgeworth went together, isn’t that right?”
"Yep," said Phoenix, ignoring the expectant gleam in Klavier's eyes. "Beautiful venue for sure, as long as you don't look over the edge."
Klavier laughed. "Do you think the power of love could save you, as it did for our newly wedded friend?"
“Are you still going on about this, Prosecutor Gavin?” Edgeworth interrupted. “Power of love or not, it was an incredibly foolhardy thing to do. Mr. Sprocket is lucky he managed to survive the attempt.”
Phoenix knew what Edgeworth was doing here, trying to change the subject as soon as possible. He'd had no leg to stand on ever since Phoenix had so thoroughly proven that a man could, in fact, climb along the outside wall of an airship through nothing but adrenaline fueled by the sheer force of love for his partner. Any continuation of this conversation would only leave Edgeworth open to the defense’s rightful gloating. Phoenix smirked at him; he pretended not to have seen it.
“Ach, but it is so romantic, is it not? Risking life and limb for someone you love…"
“Hmph. And if he had fallen? Even if the ship was moored, it would still be a nasty fall. He could have been grievously injured—or worse—and who would that have helped then? I see nothing romantic about it at all."
“Don’t be fooled,” said Phoenix to Klavier. “This guy can be surprisingly romantic when he wants to be. He admitted the flying chapel was a romantic venue without any prompting on my end.”
Edgeworth scowled. “That’s—”
“Ah, is that so?” Klavier looked delighted. “So when can we expect your own flying chapel wedding, then, Herr Edgeworth?”
Edgeworth stiffened. Phoenix braced himself.
“Never,” he said coldly.
“I—Ah, never?” Klavier cast a furtive glance in Phoenix’s direction, who raised an eyebrow at him in response. Klavier flinched and hastily averted his eyes, much to Phoenix’s satisfaction. “N-Not even—”
Edgeworth cut him off with a vicious glare.
“I am not getting married.”
Phoenix rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Way to set him off... again.
“And besides, this line of questioning is inappropriate and irrelevant. I am your boss, Prosecutor Gavin, even if I hold you in high regard as a colleague.”
Klavier took a step back, the smile disappearing off his face for a brief second. “A-Ah, apologies, Herr Edgeworth.”
“I trust you won’t make the same mistake again,” Edgeworth continued, and Phoenix felt some measure of sympathy for the kid. He didn’t seem to know what he’d walked into.
"Of course, of course," Klavier said, laughing nervously. He made some polite farewells and escaped out the lobby.
“Not going to threaten him with a pay cut this time?” Phoenix asked, once Klavier was gone.
Edgeworth grumbled in response to that, which Phoenix took as a cue that he was still upset.
“Here.” Phoenix plucked a stack of papers out of Edgeworth’s hands. “I’ll hold onto these for you. Go grab your car around.”
He nudged Edgeworth through the courthouse doors and waited on the steps, watching Edgeworth’s coat swish dramatically as he stomped off.
A small exclamation of surprise came from behind, and Phoenix turned to find the judge stepping out of the doors after them.
“Ah! Mr. Wright!” he said. “What a surprise to see you here!”
Is it? Phoenix thought, but said, “Always a pleasure to see you too, Your Honor.”
“Congratulations again on the Sprocket trial. True love like that really sets the heart aflutter, doesn’t it?”
“Hah, sure does.”
“A shame we couldn’t convince Mr. Edgeworth,” the judge said with a sigh. “Quite a stubborn man, isn't he? I was so sure he was just putting on airs, but…"
The judge clucked his tongue and shook his head.
“Yeah it’s...not really his thing."
“Ah well. There’s still hope for you, isn’t there, Mr. Wright?” The judge laughed heartily and clapped him on the shoulder, causing him to stumble a bit. “I expect an invitation to your future wedding, of course! Ohoho…”
“I’m not getting married either, Your Honor,” Phoenix said, a little more curtly than was probably wise, and spotted his getaway ride pull up just in time to abscond from the conversation.
Phoenix took a sip of his lukewarm afternoon coffee, then checked the clock. 5:45 already. It was going to be another late evening.
Apollo stretched and cast his own glance toward the clock. Beside him, Athena yawned and leaned closer to her desk.
“The two of you can go home, you know,” he told them. “And Apollo, don’t you get enough of this in Khura’in?”
“It’s fine, Mr. Wright,” Apollo replied, shrugging. “I love working on this stuff anyways.”
Apollo was back in town for the week, and had somehow decided that his time was best spent volunteering on cases with his old colleagues. Phoenix had told Apollo that he shouldn’t feel obligated to help them out during his time off, but Apollo insisted, and there were a few cases that had come up that could use another pair of eyes. Especially eyes as sharp as Apollo’s. Phoenix did feel a bit bad for taking advantage of his goodwill like this, which is why he felt the need to remind both Apollo and Athena to take breaks when they could.
“Even if you love it, that doesn’t mean you have to work on it all the time,” Phoenix said, and under his breath added, “Unlike someone else I know.”
“Uh oh,” said Athena, without looking up from her computer. “What’d he do this time, Boss?”
“What did who do?” he asked innocently.
She rolled her eyes. “Uh, Mr. Edgeworth? That was in your ‘I’m talking about Mr. Edgeworth’ voice.”
Huh. Phoenix didn’t realize he had a particular intonation for that. That was concerning.
“Nothing. He’s just a workaholic, is all. I’m trying to save you both from turning out like him.”
“Ha! What an image, huh?” Athena said. She turned to Apollo, grinning. “Sounds like we’re halfway there already, just maybe up the stuffiness and perfectionism a bit.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Apollo said, a tad defensively.
“I dunno, are you sure, Apollo?” said Phoenix. "That guy can't even say the ‘L’ word without having a conniption.”
Athena laughed. Apollo looked confused.
“The ‘L’ word?” he repeated. “Does he have something against lesbians...?”
Athena sputtered and laughed even harder at that, slamming her desk with both hands and sending pens rolling onto the floor.
“Love, Apollo!” she finally wheezed out. “Not—not lesbians!”
“Oh....right…”
“You should’ve seen him in court,” Phoenix went on. “Sulked about the judge agreeing with me about the power of love. Called me a pop-culture junkie. Him. Calling me the pop-culture junkie.” He snickered at the memory of it.
Apollo wasn’t nearly as amused. “I’m glad I missed it, then.”
“Yeesh, Mr. Wright,” Athena said, laughter dying down into manageable breaths. She sat back up and wiped her eyes. “You really do act like an old married couple!”
Phoenix snorted. “Oh please. We’re hardly like that.” He took a sip of his drink and muttered, “We’re not even official, technically.”
“What was that, Boss?”
“Nothing!” he said sunnily.
“But—”
“I said.” He set his jaw, accentuating the words with a dead-eyed stare. “Nothing.” And then he was back to smiling again.
“S-sorry,” she squeaked, looking contrite. Apollo, unfazed, said, “Didn’t he go to Trucy’s parent-teacher conference tonight?”
“Apollo! ” Athena hissed.
“I mean…” Apollo shrugged and flicked his thumb in Phoenix’s direction. “Isn’t that why Mr. Wright’s still here? I don’t know what other ‘daddy’ Trucy could be—”
Athena stomped his foot; he sucked in a breath and mouthed a wordless ow.
Phoenix frowned. This was getting annoying. Maybe Edgeworth had been onto something with the paycut threats after all.
“That’s between me and my family,” he said coolly, leveling them both with his nastiest glare, “not my employees.”
They flinched, Athena gulping and Apollo wincing, and ducked their heads back over their paperwork.
After several terse minutes of silence, Apollo mumbled something along the lines of hypocritical and workaholic and marriage thing, and Phoenix eyed him over another long sip of his drink.
“Inside voice, Apollo,” Phoenix chastised, and very quickly after that the two of them finally took his advice and wrapped up for the day.
It was just Apollo and Athena. And Klavier and the judge. And whoever else thought they could get away with pitying glances and invasive questions. Phoenix really shouldn’t be as bothered by this as he was, several days later, because none of anyone’s opinions on his relationship with Miles mattered. Miles had never been one for labels, and Phoenix had never had a problem with that before. But something about all this talk of marriage was making him feel agitated, and it was only a matter of time before he had his own Miles Edgeworth-style public snit about it.
Okay. Maybe he should take a step back here. Was marriage something that Phoenix even wanted? He tried to imagine himself standing with Miles in front of some officiant (why did they look like the judge??), reciting deeply personal vows before all of their family and friends, politely smiling through dinner and a no-doubt horribly embarrassing speech from Larry, who would likely be raging drunk by that point anyway—and shivered. Eugh.
But that was a wedding, which didn’t have to predicate marriage, necessarily. And that’s where Phoenix was getting a little lost, because if marriage was really just a commitment to spend the rest of your life with someone else, then how was that much different than their current arrangement, aside from being actually official and legally binding? Besides, Phoenix was almost positive there were tax benefits, or something. Weren’t there? Hm. Maybe he’d look into that. If anything, at the very least Miles could appreciate a well-researched argument.
“That eggplant insult you or something, Daddy?” said Trucy.
“Hm?” He looked up from his plate of stirfry.
“Well, whatever it did, it can’t hurt you anymore, I’m pretty sure of that.“ She took another bite and then paused, chewing thoughtfully. “Although...I guess it could give you food poisoning, huh? But then we’d both be in trouble, so.”
He laughed. “Alright, I get it. No more frowning at the food.”
She swallowed and then beamed at him. “Good. Because if I did get food poisoning I’d have to rat you out to Daddy again, and I don’t want it to come to that.”
“As if he’s any better at cooking,” Phoenix muttered, then said to her, “And Truce, honey, I thought we agreed that the quiche wasn’t my fault because of the spinach recall.”
“Yeah, but Daddy’s always looking for evidence that he’s better than you. You know how he is.”
“I do indeed,” he grumbled, prodding at the eggplant again.
Trucy gave him a long, piercing look that reminded him uncomfortably of Apollo, then turned back to her stirfry. Nonchalantly, she said, “Did he do something to upset you?”
Her tone was even and her fork steady as she swallowed down another bite. She was a master at hiding her tells, but Phoenix had the advantage of knowing her since she was seven and still perfecting her masking technique, and a father’s intuition besides. She was worried, he realized, about the possibility of losing another person who was close to her.
“He hasn’t done anything, Truce,” Phoenix assured her, voice soft. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help adding: And that’s the problem, isn’t it.
But she’d always been too perceptive for her own good, despite his own masking efforts, and she sighed. “It’s about the marriage thing, isn’t it.”
Ugh. And he couldn’t even deflect in the same way he had with Apollo and Athena, because it did concern her, and she had the right to know about any potential instability within her own family.
“Daddy,” she said, sighing again at his silence. “I don’t understand how you’ve both gotten this far without talking to each other about anything.”
“We talk about stuff!”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean, Daddy. Nothing important.”
Like tag teaming Trucy’s school events, or suddenly opening a joint bank account to avoid debates over the dinner check, or how Trucy had decided to start calling Miles “Daddy” one day, to mild confusion on both of their parts. Phoenix hadn’t even found out about Miles’ views on marriage until their chat about flying chapels prior to the Sprocket trial, which he supposed proved Trucy’s point. He sighed.
“So…” Trucy prompted.
“Alright,” Phoenix said, quashing the uncomfortable squirming in his stomach at the thought of it. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Miles. Dearheart. Light of my life,” Phoenix announced, upon unlocking the door to Miles’ apartment. The man himself was sitting in an armchair, a book half-open on his lap.
Miles looked up with a vaguely disgusted look on his face. “Dearheart,” he repeated. “That’s new.”
“I’m trying it out. Looks like a resounding success so far.”
Miles’ scowl deepened. Definitely a success, then.
“What is it this time, Phoenix?” he asked with a sigh. He’d graduated past vocal hatred of Phoenix’s lovingly-crafted petnames to pointedly ignoring them instead, in the hopes that Phoenix would stop looking for a reaction. Too bad Phoenix was in this for the long-con.
“I just wanted to, ah…” Phoenix grimaced, the high of his recent success deflating under the pressure of what he had to say next. “I was hoping we could...talk.”
Miles turned back to his book, unconcerned by Phoenix’s floundering. “About what?”
“About…” Ugh. “...us.”
Miles glanced back up then, eyes peering over his glasses. “What is there to talk about?”
Phoenix swallowed down a knee-jerk irritation in response to that. A lot of things, if that’s your response.
“It’s just, we’ve never really talked about it, you know?” Phoenix said. “About... this.” He waved his hand somewhere in the general vicinity of the floor between them. Miles stared at his hand, then up at him.
“My rug?” he said blankly. Then his eyes narrowed. “Is this about your opinion of my ‘aesthetic sense’, Wright?” Oh my god. This was a disaster.
“That’s—” A conversation for another time — “No, that’s not—Miles.” Phoenix was pacing now, tracking short circuits across Miles’ apparently beloved pink rug. Maybe if he couldn’t see Miles’ face this would be easier. “I’m talking about our…” You can do it, Phoenix. “...relationship.”
Miles was silent for a long, nerve-wracking moment, and Phoenix hazarded a glance back in his direction. He looked somewhere halfway between confused and concerned. Phoenix sighed.
“Or rather, the lack of clarity in our relationship,” he added.
“Are you not—” Miles paused and cleared his throat. “Are you not, ah, satisfied with the current state of affairs?”
Miles was the one glancing away now, shoulders tensed and mouth set in a firm line.
“No, Miles, I am, it’s just—” Phoenix made a small, frustrated noise. “I mean, I guess it’d just be nice if we had something a little more...official.”
“Like...what,” said Miles, a little warily.
“Like…” Phoenix fidgeted, putting off saying it as long as he could. “I dunno. Dating?”
He cringed. They were in their thirties, and meanwhile here he was saying something that felt like it landed him back in high school.
Miles blinked. “Are we not dating already?”
“Wh—” Of all possible responses, Phoenix had not been expecting this one. “Are we?!”
“I—Was that not obvious?”
“Miles. In what possible way was that obvious?!”
“The dinners?” Miles said, as if that was any sort of decisive evidence. “Trucy’s magic shows? Phoenix, you took me to the Sprocket wedding as your plus-one."
“Okay, but,” said Phoenix, completely and utterly astounded, “have you ever actually asked me if we were dating?”
Miles looked confused. “Shouldn’t both parties just naturally know?”
“God, Miles.” Phoenix couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of this entire situation. “That’s not—That’s not how this works. ”
“What brought this up, in any case?” Miles asked, frowning slightly. “Is this about the marriage thing.”
“Why is everyone asking if it’s about the marriage thing,” Phoenix muttered.
“I’ve told you my feelings on marriage before,” Miles said, shifting in the chair. Closing in on himself slightly. “And I would like to be clear that they haven’t changed.”
Phoenix opened his mouth, annoyance threatening to add a bite to whatever came out next, but instead took a deep breath to center himself. Neither of them had ever been good about sharing their feelings, clearly, and snapping at Miles could only stand to make the issue worse. But letting it slide wasn’t an option, either; they had to start somewhere with this honest conversation thing, and now was as good a time as any to practice.
“That’s the thing, though, Miles. You haven’t told me. It’s only ever come up in public, which isn’t really the right kind of place for these sorts of conversations. And I guess, since we’re dating, apparently, we owe it to each other to be on the same page—and I mean fully, verbally on the same page—about certain aspects of our relationship without it having to be dragged out in court.”
“I—” Miles looked distinctly uncomfortable now, eyes flicking back and forth between Phoenix’s feet and the far wall. “Well—Yes. Alright.”
“So,” Phoenix prompted.
Miles sighed and set his book aside, standing up to face Phoenix on equal footing.
“Marriage as an institution is an outdated concept that adds nothing of substantial value to the individuals involved, aside from supposed social status benefits that are not in any way appealing to me. A legal contract through marriage doesn't necessitate actual commitments to the relationship, and does nothing to prevent infidelity or disagreements or divorce. Besides, it is a heteronormative concept that I have absolutely no desire to participate in.”
Phoenix nodded—he couldn’t say he was surprised, really, to hear Miles lay it all out like this, but he felt a strong tug of disappointment anyway.
“But that’s not to say...that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Miles went on, voice turning soft. “Or that I wouldn't mind formalizing some sort of commitment agreement between the both of us, if that's what you would prefer.”
“Oh my god,” Phoenix said, the implications slowly sinking in. “Miles Edgeworth, are you proposing to me?”
The exasperated look Miles shot him made this entire conversation worth the hassle. “Phoenix we just talked about this—”
“I know, I know. Outdated institutions and all that.” Phoenix felt light-headed. He couldn't stop grinning. “But you’re still definitely proposing to me. To be my life partner.”
“And?” Miles demanded. “Your answer, then?”
“We co-parent our daughter, Miles. We have a joint bank account and you’re asking me my answer—”
“Phoenix.”
“Yes,” Phoenix said. “Obviously it’s yes.”
“There,” said Miles, stepping in towards Phoenix, and it was in that moment that he realized how close they'd gotten. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Says the guy who can’t even say the ‘L’ word—”
“Is that a challenge?” Miles scoffed. “You’re losing your touch, Phoenix. Making your tricks too obvious.”
“Well then, prove me wrong, Mr. Edgeworth,” Phoenix replied. “Unless you’re taking a page out of my book this time—”
“How’s this for love, then, Phoenix Wright,” Miles interrupted, and smirked when he saw the blatant surprise cross Phoenix’s face. “I can’t say that I care for labels, or romance, or frivolous ceremonies. But I do believe in the comfort of companionship, and I want you to know that—” Their foreheads were touching, now, Miles’ bangs tickling against Phoenix’s cheeks. “—that I can't imagine a future where our lives aren't entangled in some way, and for lack of a more appropriate phrase that fully encapsulates my feelings for you, ‘I love you’ will have to do.”
“Miles…” Phoenix murmured, their noses bumping against each other. “That’s the most romantic shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Mmm. Better than your ‘power of love’ nonsense, at least.”
Phoenix laughed and pulled away slightly. “Are you still mad about that? You’re such a sore loser.”
“I am not,” said Miles, indignantly. “I’m merely baffled as to how anyone thinks those sorts of overblown gestures are romantic.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Phoenix said, and leaned back in, warmly noting how Miles relaxed into the movement with that small, contented smile on his face. “I love you too.”