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“Hey, Truce, can you come here a sec?”
Phoenix watches his daughter bound over to him, blue magician’s cape flowing behind her.
“What’s up, daddy-o?”
“I’ve got a favor I need to ask of you.” He motions with his hand for her to lean in close and whispers in her ear, despite them being the only two people in the room.
Trucy pulls away with a gasp, her blue eyes wide and shining brightly. “Wait, really?! You’re actually gonna do it, Daddy?!”
“Shhhh,” Phoenix puts a finger to his lips, and Trucy quickly covers her mouth with her gloved hands. “It still needs to be a secret for now, okay?”
She nods and pulls her hands away a bit before saying in a quieter voice: “You’re really gonna do it? Like really, really?”
Phoenix nods. “Yeah, I really am, kiddo.” He smiles at the excitement he sees in his daughter’s expression, at how she bounces slightly and shakes her fists. “But I’m gonna need your help to make it happen. Think you can handle it?”
Trucy stops bouncing and her expression steels with determination. “Of course, Daddy! I’ll do whatever I can to make it absolutely perfect!”
“That’s what I like to hear. Now, here’s what I was thinking…”
“Hey, Papa?”
Miles lifts his head from the case documents he’s been reviewing to see the teenage girl in a blue silk hat standing before him, arms behind her back and a smile on her face.
“Trucy, dear.” He feels a smile come onto his own face as he takes his reading glasses off and sets the paperwork on his lap aside. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Her smile grows a bit and she pulls her arms from behind her back, holding an envelope out to him. “I came to bring you this!”
“Oh? Now, what’s this?” He puts his reading glasses back on and takes the envelope, opening it carefully and pulling out the piece of paper inside it.
“An invitation, silly! For one of my shows!”
“One of your shows?”
“Mhm!” Trucy stands up straighter with a proud smile on her face. “It’s gonna be a super exclusive event where I’ll be showing off a new trick!”
Miles looks over the hand-crafted invitation showing the details of the event, such as the when and where it’ll be held, and looks back up to the young magician in front of him.
“Well, in that case,” he says, setting the invitation off to the side, “I would be honored to attend, Trucy.”
She beams and pulls him into a quick hug. “Yay! Oh, Daddy’s gonna be so happy!”
Miles raises an eyebrow at her when she pulls away. “And what do you mean by that?”
A look of surprise briefly flashes over Trucy’s face before she collects herself and replaces it with a knowing grin. “You know a magician never reveals her secrets, Papa.”
“Of course, of course.” He sighs and shakes his head, but a smile still tugs at his lips. “Well, no matter, I will be there, Trucy. Now if you don’t mind, I do need to get back to work.”
Trucy smiles and nods. “Not a problem! I’ve gotta work on preparations for the show anyway, and I was gonna meet up with Polly to help him with an investigation.”
“Alright. You two have fun,” he says, getting one last hug from the girl before she heads off to do her own things.
Miles grabs the papers he’d set aside and gets ready to get back to work, glancing briefly at the invitation with a smile, and turns his focus back to the legal documents on his lap.
“Alright, Daddy, tonight’s the night! Are you ready?”
Phoenix takes a shaky breath as he looks at his reflection in the mirror where he’s been messing with his hair for the last ten minutes, then turns to his daughter with a smile. “Ready as I’ll ever be, kiddo.”
Trucy looks up at him with a pout, and he knows he’s busted. There’s no point in trying to hide anything from her. To say that he’s nervous would be an understatement—Phoenix is practically buzzing with anxiety right now. He sighs and moves to sit on the edge of his bed.
“It’s okay to be nervous, Daddy,” she says with a reassuring smile as she sits next to him. “This is a big thing and I’d be concerned if you weren’t nervous about it.”
“I know, Trucy, I know. It’s just,” Phoenix rubs the back of his neck and stares down at the floor. “Just what if it doesn’t work out? What if I forget what to say? What if he—”
“Daddy!”
Phoenix is startled by his daughter’s sudden exclamation and looks up to see her standing in front of him with her hands on her hips.
“Daddy, I promise you, it’s going to be perfect. We’ve practiced this a bunch of times, and even if you forget your lines, you’re a professional at making things up on the spot!”
That gets Phoenix to chuckle, a smile creeping onto his face as he feels some of the tension leave his shoulders.
“Thank you, Trucy.” He stands up and pulls his little magician into a hug. “Who taught you how to be so good at pep talks anyway?”
She pulls back and gives him a bright smile, the same smile that had helped him through so many dark times. “That would be you, Daddy-o!”
“Hmm, I guess you’re right.” Phoenix lifts her hat so that he can rustle her hair. “But still, thank you, Truce. Really.”
“Of course,” Trucy says as she readjusts her hat on her head. “Now, do you have everything?”
Phoenix pats over all his pockets until he feels what he’s looking for in his suit jacket, then nods. Just then, they hear the front door open, signaling the guest of honor’s arrival.
“Papa’s home! C’mon, Daddy, it’s showtime!”
Phoenix watches Trucy excitedly run out to the living room and faintly hears her talking with Miles, and takes one last look in the mirror. He adjusts his tie, runs his hands through his hair, and takes a deep breath before he walks out to join his daughter and partner in the living room.
It’s showtime.
When Trucy said that her show was going to be a super exclusive event, she wasn’t kidding.
As it were, it was just Miles and Phoenix in the audience, sitting on the couch, watching her perform on a stage that was really just the area of their living room that they’d cleared out for tonight. But Miles wasn’t complaining, he and Phoenix had been witness to countless private shows from Trucy over the years, whether it be her practicing, trying out new tricks before taking them to the big stage, or simply if she felt that one of them needed cheering up. It always made Miles’ chest fill with a warm fondness, and tonight was no different.
Or rather, tonight was different, in that Phoenix was clearly nervous about something.
Miles could tell something was up from how tense Phoenix was sitting next to him, at how he kept bouncing his leg up and down, but whenever Miles tried to ask him about it, all he got in response was a simple, ‘No I’m fine, I’m fine,’ which usually meant that he was not fine and that something was bothering him. Normally, Miles would try to press Phoenix about whatever it was that was bothering him, but he decided that now wasn’t the right time.
I’ll ask him about it later, Miles thinks before he turns his attention back to Trucy’s show.
As always, Trucy captivates her audience with her tricks. Card tricks that even after all these years, Miles still doesn’t understand how she does it and she still won’t tell him, pulling endless strings of scarves from seemingly impossible places, even Mr. Hat makes an appearance as the two dazzle the small but enthralled crowd.
Miles has always loved watching Trucy perform, ever since he first met the young magician, but he knows that her magic is even more special to Phoenix. As he watches Phoenix whistle and holler and applaud for his daughter, Miles can’t help but smile as he feels his heart ache with nothing but love for the man sitting next to him.
“And now, for my final trick of the evening, I have a very special guest who’ll be assisting me!” Trucy exclaims, piquing Miles’ curiosity at who this special guest could be. But he doesn’t have much time to think about it because, with a swoosh of her cape, Phoenix is suddenly standing next to her. “Daddy!”
Miles blinks and looks over to where Phoenix was just sitting next to him on the couch, only to find his spot empty. He turns to look back at the two Wrights standing in front of him.
How did they…?
“Alright, Daddy, just like we practiced, okay?” Trucy looks at her father who nods in return. “On three, now, one… two… three!”
And at that moment there’s a sudden burst of smoke that Miles really, really hopes doesn’t set the fire alarms off again. He coughs and waves his hand to try and blow it away, and when it clears Miles’ breath catches in his throat at what he sees.
Phoenix is now in front of him, down on one knee, looking up at Miles with a shaky grin and flushed cheeks.
“Phoenix…”
“Miles,” Phoenix says in the same confident and assured voice he uses in court, but still with a nervous tremble underneath it. “To say that you’ve been an important person in my life would be a huge understatement. I would not be where I am now without you here.” He takes one of Miles’ hands in both of his. “You’ve been by my side through everything, supported me when I was at my lowest and when it seemed like all the odds were stacked against me. You’re the reason I became a lawyer in the first place, and you’re the one who pushed me to take the bar again once we got Kristoph convicted. You even helped me,” Phoenix stops for a moment and turns to look back at Trucy, who’s smiling brightly as she watches her father, and turns back to face Miles with tears starting to form in his eyes, “you even helped me raise my daughter into the wonderful person she is today. I could never thank you enough for all that you’ve done for me, and I could never imagine a life where I don’t have you by my side. So, Miles Edgeworth…” Phoenix takes his hands away and reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, and opening it to reveal a shining golden ring.
“Will you marry me?”
Miles is speechless. He brings a hand up to his mouth as he takes in the scene in front of him, and feels tears of his own starting to prick at his eyes. All he can do is nod and watch as Phoenix’s face lights up. Suddenly Miles is pulled into a standing position and his partner’s—no, his fiancé’s —lips are pressed against his. He smiles into the kiss and brings a hand up to Phoenix’s cheek, thumbing away the tears that spill out from his eyes.
“Hooray!” The two of them are interrupted when they’re tackled by a teenage girl with the force of a grown man, nearly stumbling to the floor under the weight of her hug. “Now I get to have the two best daddies in the whole wide world!” Trucy beams up at them, and neither Phoenix nor Miles can hold back their laughter.
Once the giggles subside, Phoenix looks at Miles softly and takes the ring from the box to slip it onto his finger. Miles looks at the ring on his left hand, it’s a perfect fit, and he briefly wonders when Phoenix had the chance to get his ring size, but decides that it doesn’t matter. Because now Miles is engaged to the most wonderful man in the world, who he loves more than anything, and he couldn’t ask for anything better than this.
After Trucy’s ‘magic show’, the three of them go out to Eldoon’s for some celebratory noodles.
“See, Daddy! I told you it would all go perfectly!”
Phoenix chuckles and reaches under her hat to rustle her hair. “I guess you were right, kiddo.”
“So this is what you were so nervous about all night?” Miles asks him with a raised brow.
He smiles awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck. “Was it really that obvious?”
“Phoenix. I’ve known you for nearly thirty years now, did you seriously think that I would be capable of saying anything other than ‘yes’?”
“You make a good point there.”
Phoenix lets his hand fall from the back of his neck and props his chin on his fist so he can look over at his new fiancé, watch the golden band on Miles’ finger glint under the lights of the noodle stand, and feel his heart overflow with love as it sinks in that he’ll really get to spend the rest of his life with the man he loves the most. And Phoenix couldn’t be any happier than he is right now.