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Robin, since Juniper’s trial, has been nothing if not a level-headed woman. After all, the most effective Prosecutor’s Office in the state doesn’t employ hysterical nutjobs.
No, smashing pottery is a completely reasonable response to the realization she’s just come to.
Admittedly, she’s surprised it took her this long, seeing as it puts quite a bit into context— the faint blush that she can see whenever Myriam’s not covering her face with a box, her normal sass and snark that’s ever-present in groups toned down when they’re alone, and yesterday— a flustered giggle instead of the usual kahk-kahk that normally gets muffled through a layer of corrugated cardboard.
Myriam might have a thing for her, which Robin absolutely refuses to put a name to.
That isn’t to say that she’s upset. The initial realization had her so excited that she abandoned her paperwork for nearly half an hour, until a call about a witness statement reminded her that she is, in fact, a lawyer getting paid to do actual work.
So now, on her lunch break, she’s letting things out. It’s cathartic.
See, the problem is, Robin’s not sure if her feelings are reciprocated, and she doesn’t want to risk the friendship to find out— not after almost a year of coaxing Myriam out of her shell— er, box.
So, going to town on the ceramic and screeching along to hyperpop it is.
Just as she’s about to hurl a vase she’d just fired yesterday onto the floor, a shave-and-a-haircut knock taps lightly on the door. Putting the vase down and taking a deep breath, she answers the door to an expanse of bare chest and silver chains.
As she casts her eyes upward, Klavier Gavin’s smile glints as brightly as he chirps, “Hallo, Fraulein Newman!” He’s leaning over to meet her at eye level by now, and it doesn’t escape her artist’s eye that there’s a bit of concern clouding his gaze.
She gets the message.
“I take it you heard the N-O-I-S-E,” she says, sheepishly cringing.
Klavier smirks. “Ja. From my soundproofed office. You’re quite shrill. Like a certain copyright-protected M-O-U-S-E,” he quips. “I’m surprised I didn’t show up to see you getting chewed out by Herr Payne.”
“The spelling is my thing,” she grumbles, grabbing her arm. “Did you just come to complain about the noise, man?”
“Nein. I told you, I heard you from my soundproofed office. I could clearly hear what you were saying. Something about Box Girl?”
“She has a name.”
“Ach, of course,” he starts, still leaning in the doorframe. “Can I come in?” She steps aside, and he takes a seat. “So, tell me what ails you, Fraulein.”
She mumbles, “I think she likes me.”
“Ah, young love! I remember when I was your age. So, what are you doing about it?”
Robin rolls her eyes a bit— on her first few days in the office, she was warned that Klavier’s just as much a gossip as the tabloids that still insist on covering him— but she concedes, “I don’t know.”
He gawks. “W-what do you mean you don’t know? Do you like her or not?”
“I do! I do,” she says, “it’s just… maybe I’m reading into things too much. Maybe she’s just coming out of her shell. I don’t have concrete proof that she likes me, dude.”
“…Proof,” he repeats slowly, incredulously. “That she likes you.”
“Yeah!” She starts pacing the room. “You should know. You can’t just say things without proof to back it up! That’s just,” she searches for the word, “bluffing!”
“So, we’re ignoring that time you committed perjury to buy time in a trial?”
Robin freezes, her eyes widening. “Uhh…”
“Listen,” Klavier drawls, downright casual. “Why don’t you just ask her? You’ll get your verdict right away, ja?”
Something about the idea of confronting Myriam scares the ever-living daylights out of Robin. So, no.
But. But.
A verdict on whether or not Myriam likes her…
Evidence…
“I’ve got it! I’ll hold a mock trial to figure it out!”
“What?”
“I think I’ve still got my mock trial templates somewhere around here,” she says, rifling through various drawers of miscellaneous case files, records, and art supplies. “So if I just present one argument for her liking me as more than a friend and one for her just getting more comfortable around me, I’ll reach a verdict, right?”
“Er—”
“Hey, do you think you could help me with this during my lunch break tomorrow? Seeing as you helped Apollo with his mock trial re-enactment last year and all.”
He sighs. “I really do think it would be easier to just talk to her.”
“Please?” She bats her eyelashes, and just like a resigned brother, he sighs again.
“Fine. Get me a case file and I’ll do it.”
Robin gets home, and to her horror, Myriam’s apparently come over, and she’s sitting on the couch next to Hugh, rolling her eyes.
“I’m telling you, genius, I’ve been put on advice columns for three weeks straight now. I know what I’m talking about. Just tell her to stop eating the stuff you put into the fridge. She doesn’t even work there, right?”
“That doesn’t stop her from stealing my food!” Hugh groans, pinching the bridge of his glasses. “She insists it’s part of her job as a ‘consulting thief.’” As he sits up again, he catches sight of Robin at the door. “Hey. You’re home early.”
“Hi.” Her eyes dart to Myriam, who’s looking at her, for lack of a better term, doe eyed and frozen in place. “I-I’m gonna go work on a case! I’ll uh. Pass on dinner!” She darts into her room, closes and locks the door, and flops onto her bed, groaning into her pillow.
For as long as Robin’s studied and practiced law, there’s been an emphasis on proof. But she doesn’t have any— at least, nothing concrete like the band that circles her bicep day and night. She’s got a case to prepare, though, so she goes back over her evidence: her more recent interactions with Myriam, which play in her head like footage for a sports team to study. One particular outing sticks out— just a week prior, when Robin met her at a café to give a statement for an article:
“Y’know, you, uh, didn’t have to meet me this early,” Imagination Myriam points out, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, I know!” Imagination Robin chirps, spreading cream cheese on a bagel. “I just figured we could maybe hang out after you take my statement.”
Myriam never looks particularly comfortable without the privacy of her box— without a method of protecting herself from the judgement of others, Robin presumes— but right now, coffee in hand, she smiles a bit softly into her cup, her cheeks going ever-so-slightly pink. Robin could live in that shade, sneak it into every painting she’ll ever create, glaze it onto every piece of pottery—
Okay. Maybe she's getting a little off topic.
Myriam’s smile added to the prosecution’s court record.
“Oh. Th-thanksss. You’re a really good… friend.”
Myriam’s use of “friend” added to the defense’s court record.
The interview goes just fine, Robin recounting the details of her latest case (at least, those she can legally share), but once it’s over, Myriam puts the small notebook she carries into the bag she’s carrying with her, and it’s at that point that Robin notes that she’s dressed a little differently than usual— instead of a professional office look, she’s sporting a striped turtleneck that’s reminiscent of a mime tucked into a black skater skirt.
It’s enough to give Robin butterflies.
“You look super C-U-T-E today!” she remarks, trying to keep her voice up high and strictly platonic in nature.
“You really think so?” Myriam looks down bashfully, and Robin can’t help but notice that she wasn’t sassed with anything along the lines of “So I looked ugly yesterday?”— but is that really so important when her friend, feelings aside, needs reassurance?
“Yeah! C’mon, I’m serious! You’re honestly the prettiest person I know, y’know?”
Myriam flushes a little deeper. “Oh. Uh, th-thanks,” she stammers, hiding behind her latte.
Cringing back a bit, Robin immediately course-corrects. “I, uh… Never mind! That was SO out of pocket!”
Myriam, slowly setting her face back from twisted confusion, waves out her hands. “No, no! It’s okay! I guess we just… you know…”
Face-obscuring coffee cup and distaste for compliments added to the defense’s court record.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
Myriam smiles again. “It’s fine.”
Quick forgiveness added to the prosecution’s court record.
Robin realizes, thinking over it in bed and returning to the present moment, that it’s all evenly matched— she’s getting mixed signals left and right, and there’s no way to not counter every point she’s collected for her mental case files.
She can hear Myriam’s nasally voice coming from the other room, if only barely. She presses her ear up against the door to listen.
“Why don’t you just say something about it like you told me to?” Hugh asks in his enunciated tone.
“I just… I don’t want to ruin things with her. I’m perfectly happy with her right now, and the first date went alright, I think…”
Robin’s heart sinks.
She pads over to her bed, curls up, and pulls the covers up to her chin.
Myriam’s mystery girl added to the defense’s court record.
She turns up to the office the next day completely defeated. Of course, it all makes sense: Myriam, trying to hide her new flame from her closest friends, would obviously not be open to compliments of a flirty nature. Of course she would refer to anyone potentially expressing romantic interest as a friend to remind them that they’re strictly friends.
Of course she wouldn’t be interested in loud, impulsive, overly-chipper Robin. There’s no proof to suggest she would.
Klavier drops by around noon.
“Ready to rock?” He asks, beaming.
Robin just throws her brushstroke in another circle on her canvas— it’s a complete mess, just swatches of red, yellow, black, and purple.
“She doesn’t like me. She has a girlfriend,” Robin says, the word sour on her tongue.
“Oh. That explains that, then,” he says, pointing at the Bluetooth speaker that’s blasting girl-pop breakup songs. “Well, who is it?”
“I don’t know. She was just talking about some… her and a first date.”
“Achtung, Fraulein Newman, what I’m hearing is that it was a first date and nothing more,” he says, taking a few graceful strides over to take the brush out of her hand. “Getting some bad news about your case doesn’t mean you don’t show up to court. Let’s go. We can use the break room.”
Not seeing a way to win against a grinning Klavier in her disheartened state, she drags along behind him as they make their way to the break room, which smells of Payne’s Thursday tuna salad, the container for which sits in the sink, unwashed.
Jerk.
“Okay. Let’s present our opening arguments. Since this is… certainly not a normal trial, we can just keep it casual.”
“I just… I don’t think she likes me.”
“Fraulein, need I remind you that, regardless of your opinion on the matter, you are the prosecution?”
Robin smashes the plate she brought with her. “Fine! Fine, I’ll do it.” She looks at the papers she’d written up last night before her heart had been brutally crushed under the weight of a hydraulic press. “The defendant, Myriam Scuttlebutt, is in love with the prosecution. As demonstrated by her smile around me and her quick willingness to gloss over my misgivings, the case is airtight,” she drones.
“Ach, and the defense asserts the opposite. I have the evidence to prove that Myriam is not, in fact, enamored with you at all! She refers to the prosecution as a ‘friend,’ has been averse to compliments, and spoke of another special lady in her life, ja?”
Dead silence.
“We should probably have a judge,” Klavier says, cutting the despair that hangs in the stench of fish and mayo. “I’ll be right back.”
The absolute liar returns almost fifteen minutes later with a grumpy Simon Blackquill in tow, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
“I found the most blunt, honest man in this office!” he chirps, to Simon’s apparent displeasure as he huffs in irritation.
“I’m only here because you hunted me down and sent me twenty dollars for soba—”
“Anyway!” Klavier interrupts, clapping his hands. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes left of our government-mandated lunch break! The defense would like to present the prosecution and defendant’s profile as evidence that the latter is not in love. Robin Newman is an extremely empathetic person, and highly emotional and extroverted. It would serve as a great contrast to Fraulein Scuttlebutt, who is introverted and, erm, how do I put this…? …Abrasive.”
“It’s cute,” Robin grumbles under her breath, gripping her forearm.
“What was that, Prosecutor?” Simon deadpans, though there’s a glimmer of something in his eye, and from what she knows, it’s likely a condescending sort of amusement.
“This is stupid,” she says, audibly this time.
Simon laughs, from his gut, and Klavier snickers along. “The glittering twit told me this was your idea. And remember, it’s ‘This is stupid, Your Honor.’”
“Nein, nein, if you’re to be taken at your word, it’s Your Baldness.”
Simon barks another laugh. “One light patch does not a bald man make, you mop-headed—”
“HEY!” Robin screeches, and both men’s smiles drop. “Listen up! I didn’t come here so you could just crack jokes at my love life!”
“Implying it exists,” Simon wheezes, nearly breaking the table as he slaps it.
“It does!” she growls. “Even if she doesn’t like me back, I like her.”
Klavier smirks. “And where exactly is your proof for that?”
“I get butterflies thinking about her! C’mon, man, I’ve thought about owning a dog with her!”
He takes a sip from a coffee cup marked up with all sorts of modifications. “That’s not concrete, though. How can you be so sure you don’t just not not like her?”
“I don’t need proof!” she yells, and Simon’s straight face twists to match Klavier’s expression. Upon noticing, she raises an eyebrow. “What?”
Klavier pulls his papers into a neat pile, tapping them on the table with a small sigh. “Robin, you’re an excellent lawyer. And you're right. Proof is important… in a court of law.”
“But life isn’t a courtroom,” Simon adds, crossing his arms. “Sometimes, you have to just have faith in what your instincts tell you. After all, Taka here doesn’t even know the concept of proof, but he has fine intuition.” The bird in question almost downright purrs, nestling into the crook of his neck.
Robin looks down at all her notes, marked with complicated logic that’s been beaten more than a dead horse, she comes to the realization that Simon and Klavier seemingly both schemed to lead her to.
“You’re right. I should tell her,” she admits. “I just need to take a leap of faith.”
“You’ve had no qualms about running into the fray for your loved ones before,” Simon observes. “Good luck, Newman-dono.”
“So, you’re probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here,” Robin says, hands wrapped around her coffee, the warmth giving her the fortitude to level her voice. “I need to tell you something, and I know I’m overstepping some boundary by saying this, but… I really would like to go out with you sometime. I… I heard you talking to Hugh, and if you’re happier with the girl you’re seeing now, that’s totally fine. I just… needed you to know.”
Myriam blinks once, twice, thrice— her eyes go wide, and before Robin can ask the powers that be to strike her down where she sits, Myriam laughs, filling the café with hisses.
“I can’t figure out whether which one of us is denssse…” she wheezes out.
“Huh?”
“I— I thought we were already together!” She laughs some more, putting her hand over Robin’s as she collects herself. “Of course we can go out… oh my god,” she adds, her face falling to a grave stare. “Oh no. I told Hugh that our first date went well.”
“Our… our first what!?”
Myriam bursts out laughing again. “I thought we’d already gone out. We’re so denssse… I was so afraid that I’d seemed too, uh, unenthusiastic, so I wanted to say something to you but didn’t know how.”
“You called me a friend,” Robin groans, exasperated, “and I was supposed to think we were dating!?”
“I didn’t know if it was okay to call you my girlfriend yet…”
Robin smiles and laces her fingers in Myriam’s. “Tell you what, why don’t we clear this up right now? I really like you. I wanna be your girlfriend. And maybe own a dog with you one day.”
Myriam smiles. “Good. Then you’re stuck with me,” she snarks before kissing Robin’s hand in hers.
Robin smiles back, the proof she’s been waiting for in Chapstick on the back of her hand.