Work Text:
“Phoenix, come on,” Miles says, sticking his tongue out of his mouth in concentration as he carefully, carefully, maneuvers a piece into position.
Phoenix, who’s holding up the arch, grumbles. “Why do I gotta hold it up?”
“You’re tallest,” Miles says. “And Larry isn’t helping, so we have to make it work.”
The assignment: build a huge bridge with only a set of blocks cut into quadrilaterals. The challenge: using enough teamwork to get it up there. Their teacher stands off to one side, making sure nobody gets too many blocks dropped on their heads.
Miles sets another block down and Phoenix doesn’t move fast enough. The entire half-arch he’s built already comes tumbling down on Phoenix, who stumbles and hits the ground. “Oof! Miles, why’d you do that?!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Miles protests, helping shift some of the blocks off Phoenix. “I just tried to add another block!”
“Well, you coulda told me you were gonna do that,” Phoenix grumbles. “I can’t read your mind, especially when I’m holding up a whole bunch of blocks.”
“Oh, look,” the teacher calls from across the gymnasium. “Anthony, Lucas, and Jeannie, nice work! Now, everyone go put your blocks away.” Oh, no, that was it!
“Look what you did now! We lost!” Phoenix scolds.
“Yeah, well,” Miles mumbles, guilty. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Phoenix pauses for a moment, before huffing out a sigh. “I’m sorry too. I should have seen you coming. I was distracted.”
“Phoenix! Miles! Your blocks!”
“Oops!” They scramble to shove their blocks back in the bin and follow the other kids to the next activity, where a series of knotted ropes dangle from the ceiling in front of the basketball hoop, with a thick mat at the bottom.
“Your next activity,” the teacher says, “is to get in partner pairs.” Miles glances at Phoenix, who is, fortunately, looking back. “One of you will climb up to the top of that rope, and the other will stand on the mat below. Your goal is to pass a ball up to the person at the top- without climbing the rope at all- and to get the ball into the hoop.”
“Do you want to be at the top or the bottom?” Miles asks Phoenix. “I know you have acrophobia.”
“What’s acrophobia?”
“Fear of heights,” Miles explains. Truth be told, he has acrophobia, too, but he’s willing to deal with it. He’s gotta make up for messing up with the blocks earlier.
“Yeah,” Phoenix says. “I kinda wanna be at the bottom.”
“Okay,” Miles agrees. “I’ll go up, then.”
“Okay!” the teacher shouts. “Everyone head up the ropes! You’ve done this in gym class before, so there should be no problem.”
Something’s there to catch me if I fall, Miles reminds himself, and loops a foot in the rope, starting his slow climb. His fingers clutch to the fibers- he finds himself wondering what would happen if they unwound, and he clings just a little tighter to the rope and doesn’t look down until his fingers can’t find another knot. He settles himself on the top knot and swallows, finally looking down at Phoenix. The world sways for a moment, and he has to take a deep breath. Don’t show any fear to your opponent, his father’s voice tells him.
“Okay, ready, go!” The whistle sounds, and immediately, the other kids start throwing balls up to their partners. A couple of kids take them hard to the chest and tumble down on the mat. Miles meets Phoenix’s eyes.
“Okay, you ready?” Phoenix asks. Miles concentrates on Phoenix’s hands, the ball in them. If he focuses hard enough, he tells himself, he can see the muscles in them contract.
“I’m ready,” Miles says, steeling himself and taking both hands off the rope. Phoenix gently throws the ball up, overhand, and Miles clutches it tight to his chest, wrapping one arm back around the rope, before maneuvering so he can see the basketball hoop.
It’s a little far. He glances down. “I don’t know if I can make it,” he tells Phoenix.
“Hmm,” Phoenix says. “What if I swing you?”
“Okay,” Miles says. He feels dizzy from the height, but he swallows down his nausea and clutches to the rope hard.
The rope starts swinging underneath him as Phoenix pulls it towards the basketball hoop. Miles tilts at a terrifying angle, but he’s closer to the net. If he lets go now, he’ll have to make the shot with one hand, or else risk falling.
He releases the rope, and leans forward. Phoenix has me. He won’t let me fall. Gently, he deposits the ball into the net.
“Congratulations, Phoenix and Miles! You two won! All right, everyone come on down, you can just drop your balls on the mat!”
Miles shuts his eyes. He did it.
Suddenly, the rope swings back down, and he realizes- Phoenix let go- as his grip with his legs wobbles, fails, and sends him tumbling back down. He yells in alarm- suddenly all he can feel under him is open air, with nothing supporting him. His arms pinwheel, flailing frantically for any grip on the rope, but it’s long gone.
“Miles!”
His body hits the mat. But his head hits something firmer- not the ground, but something warm. With some effort, he sits up, groaning in pain, and turns to see Phoenix sprawled on the ground, panting.
“Oh good,” Phoenix says. “I caught you.”
“You saved me,” Miles says breathlessly. The teacher, across the gym, helping shepherd balls into the ball cart, hasn’t even noticed.
“Yeah, of course!” Phoenix grins. “I’m your partner, Miles, I’m always gonna save you! Plus, it was kinda my fault.”
“Thank you,” Miles says, helping Phoenix to his feet and collecting their ball. “I would have gotten really hurt if you hadn’t been there.”
“Like I said, it was kind of my fault,” Phoenix says. He’s grinning sheepishly.
“Well, it evens out in the end,” Miles reasons.
The bell rings to mark the end of gym. Both boys glance at each other before breaking out into a sprint to get to the locker room and change- they don’t want to be late to math.
The tension in the courtroom crackles.
Miles knows his case is watertight. Wright… Wright hates him right now, but there’s no way to get around this.
Franziska is in the hospital. Gumshoe is out. The judge has no clue what’s happening, and there’s a figurative gun to Ms. Fey’s head.
Wright, Miles knows, is on his back foot. All told, they’ve only known each other for a couple of years, but… if there’s anyone Miles trusts to manage this, it’s Wright.
Bring the truth to light, but stretch the trial out as long as possible.
Edgeworth had pulled the last few strings he had to pull in order to clear the latter half of the docket today. They have the entire day. They will use all of it.
“Juan Corrida was killed by a professional assassin,” Miles announces. “And the person who hired the assassin- his client, so to speak- is Matt Engarde!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Wright’s mouth tense up into a thin line. His deceased mentor stands next to him, inhabiting the body of the younger Fey. She, too, looks determined. Angry, even. But all three lawyers know what they have to do- the miracle they have to pull off if they want Maya Fey’s life.
The trial begins.
Miles has set up traps, of course, at every corner. It’s almost unconscious, the habit, at this point, even though he hasn’t set foot in a courtroom in a year. He doesn’t like the lengths he’s going to have to go to. But he knows he’ll have to go to them. And- he knows Wright. Their synchronicity- he knows Wright knows him, too. It’s no question. They will win the day.
But it will take so much doing.
Wright, as both of them expect, runs headlong into the trap. He still maintains his habit of questioning every aspect of a testimony- he’d once found it cowardly, but now he knows better. He’s watched that habit save his life. He knows that habit will stretch the trial out- minute by tedious minute. No words of warning need to be exchanged. He watches Wright notice the argument even before Edgeworth says it- but he asks anyway about the tip money, about the payment.
But Powers is going too fast. He cuts him off at the pass, saying a mental apology to the man behind one of his favorite shows, and watches Wright do his routine again. Press, press, press. Contradict. Miles steps back in swinging, with the rest of the testimony he’d cut off. Powers seems to have forgotten about the whole affair.
For a moment, with the statue, Wright falters, pulls out a half-baked retort with the statue, but Edgeworth easily counter-ripostes. Wright looks- exhausted, really, half-sick and half-scared, and Edgeworth swallows. How had he made Wright so furious, during the early trials?
He bites out a scathing attack ad hominem, but manages to make his acquiescence look begrudging enough. During his recess, he apologizes to Ms. Andrews, and explains that if he has his way, she won’t be found guilty, but that Wright plans to fight her tooth and nail.
And fight Wright does. He looks desperate, that’s for certain, but- when Gumshoe calls, Miles catches the phone. He scrabbles for a recess, and hopes he doesn’t look as desperate as Wright does, but to be frank- the court has had a very low opinion of him for some time. What’s a little lower?
Even the recess is draining. Wright- Wright hates him, he knows, but he also slumps onto Miles’s shoulder, his eyes dark and bruised with sleeplessness, and confesses in hushed tones- “It might be my turn to say ‘Defense Attorney Phoenix Wright chooses death.’”
“Wright,” Miles says, squeezing his shoulders with his free hand. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t suit someone like you to cry useless tears.” Truth be told this is not his area of expertise, but it’s also not a lie. Wright has always been a blindingly bright force, stronger than anyone Miles knows. If anyone can do this… it’s Wright. But in order to do that, he’ll need to compartmentalize. “Whether you did your job well or not… that can only be seen after the verdict has been decided.”
The court continues.
Miles has seen long trials before. He was never his mentor, with a record time of four minutes twenty-five seconds- his trials always ran longer than he wanted them to. But usually, after a few hours, they lapse into tedium, exhaustion, and repetitiveness, and he can snatch a victory from that.
If anything, the air gets more charged as they continue. Wright and he play what Gumshoe termed once “objection tennis,” neatly set a new courtroom precedent with radio testimony, and have a rousing discussion with the judge about trust. If only he knew, Miles thinks, and a glance across the courtroom makes him certain that Phoenix is thinking the same.
When Wright almost fails, Miles catches him. He bluffs to a serial killer as if he’s done it before. He is exceedingly glad that his hands are moving so much nobody can notice how they’re trembling, how his palms are stinging and burning from hitting the bench. The excess of layers he wears hides the sweat that’s trailing its way down the back of his neck - it’s only spring, but Los Angeles is much warmer than Berlin, and the effort this trial is taking- he wouldn’t be surprised if his knees just give way afterward.
Wright is winning, Miles knows. But Miles has tricks up his sleeve, aces he can’t pull out until the very end. He’s on his back foot, backed up against the cliff. He almost falls- almost condemns Ms. Fey by dropping a bomb too strongly- and Wright catches him, objects just in time.
Together, they wear down de Killer.
But- at the end of the day-
When Wright collapses on his desk, Miles-
Miles has to save him.
Even if it means losing the case. Even if it means just… giving up. He can’t let Wright- he can’t let Phoenix down like that.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, Franziska kicks in the door, and Wright pulls a contradiction from nowhere as always, and gets Engarde his guilty verdict- sends him to jail. And-
After it’s all over, Miles sits alone in the hallway outside the Gatewater’s ballroom. Inside, he can hear the sounds of celebration, of the verdict’s success.
He leans back, rests his head heavily against the wall that separates him from the others- from the Feys, from Will Powers, from Gumshoe. From Wright.
He’d returned Franziska’s things, but…
But the story isn’t over yet, is it?
But the story isn’t over yet, because Wright and he haven’t talked. They haven’t talked. Wright’s been shooting him these incomprehensible looks, and despite all the time that’s passed… Miles Edgeworth still does not fully understand Phoenix Wright.
His memories of his youth are… fuzzy. Chalk on a sidewalk- with a drop of water, they’re gone. Distantly, though, he remembers a knotted rope. The texture of a patterned rubber ball in his fingers. The feeling of gravity, swooping sick in his chest. I’m your partner, Miles, some long-forgotten nine-year-old tells him, grinning up at him with a gap-toothed grin and a pair of wide eyes, earnest and genuine. I’m always gonna save you.
“Hey,” says a voice from next to him, snapping him from his reverie. He glances up, startled, to find Phoenix Wright, looking barely a moment away from falling over. The bruises of sleeplessness ring his entire eyes now, making him look rather like a raccoon, and his shirt is rumpled. Distantly, a part of Miles wonders if the dishevelment doesn’t make him look rather attractive. Another part reminds him that he’s always been rather attractive. “Mind if I sit?”
“Not at all,” Miles says. He moves aside to allow Wright to lean against the wall, too.
“Long day,” Wright says. It’s not a question, just a statement. It has been a long day. It has.
“Mmm,” Miles agrees.
They sit in silence for a moment. Miles does not so much as lift a finger to wrap around his right arm, no matter how much he wants to.
“So,” Wright says after a spell. “Wanna tell me what that note was about?”
Of all the people to press me on this, it would be you, wouldn’t it?
“It was…” He hesitates. Maybe he values the truth. But that doesn’t mean Wright is entitled to my secrets. “It was a metaphor, Wright. I sincerely apologize that you- and everyone else- took it… so literally.”
Maybe it’s his sleep deprivation, but Wright’s eyes- flash green, for a moment. Miles shuts his eyes, and opens them again, in what would be a blink if it didn’t take so long. He must have been imagining it.
Wright studies him. Miles, for a moment, is sure Wright can tell he’s lying.
But all Wright says is, “Even after all this time, Edgeworth, I still can’t read your mind.”
“I’m sorry,” Miles says. “I didn’t mean to make you all worry. It was…” He tucks his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around it. It’s a motion of immaturity, but he can’t bring himself to care about the Manfred von Karma in his head that roars at him to stop, not now. He’s too tired for that. “To be truly honest, Wright? I assumed nobody would care.”
“Miles,” Wright says. His voice is unreadable. Miles doesn’t try.
“Evidently I was incorrect in my assumption. I am sorry, Wright. And- and I understand that you... detest me, and if… if you never wanted to lay eyes on me again, I would not blame you in the slightest for that.” He can’t meet Wright’s eyes. He can’t even look at him. Instead, he tucks his chin between his knees and looks at the opposite wall. He feels as though he’s never been so utterly, utterly exhausted.
“...I’m sorry, too,” Wright says, after a moment, and Miles jerks his head to look at him, certain he’s misheard. “I… I didn’t mean what I said back at the precinct. I don’t hate you, Edgeworth. I think… I think I understand you a little better, now. But- listen, you ever try that again, without warning me, or telling me you’re off soul-searching, or picking up your phone? I’m gonna sic Franziska on you, I swear to God.”
“You’d be well within your rights to,” Miles says. Even so, he can feel the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Anyway,” Wright says. “I didn’t actually come out here to ream you out over that. I, uh, need your help. Again.”
“Anything.” Miles has just been through hell and back for this man, and maybe he doesn’t know what Wright needs, but… he’d do it again. He’d do it all over again for-
“Uh." Phoenix looks sheepish and rubs at the back of his neck. "Maya fell asleep in her salad, and both Gumshoe and WP are already heading out, and normally I could carry her alone but Pearls fell asleep on Maya’s lap, and I can’t just leave them there, so-”
“Oh, lord. Okay,” Miles says, standing up with some effort. “This one is going to take some teamwork, eh, Wright?”
“Teamwork,” Wright says dryly. “You run away to Europe for a year and you come back with teamwork.”
“You know very well that’s not-”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Come on, let’s wrangle these kids.”