Chapter Text
Phoenix was ripped out of his dream by a bang on his door and a voice yelling: “Daddy, Daddy, you have to get up! The alarm didn’t ring. We’re going to be late for work!!!”.
As soon as the words reached his still sleep fogged brain he jumped up.
He couldn’t be late again. Mia would have his ass, if he did. She would probably tell Mr. Armando to cut his paycheck and he just couldn’t risk that.
As it turned out having to take care of a sixteen year old teenager wasn’t cheap.
Still only half awake, he stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom next doors to take a cold shower.
When he emerged from his room ten minutes later, already clad in his work cloths, Trucy smiled at him from the kitchen counter, holding out a cup of coffee for him.
She was also already completely dressed in her scrubs, paired with her favorite blue cape and put her hands on her hips to scold him.
“I told you yesterday that the batteries of the alarm had run out and that you’d need to change them. I heard Mr. Armando talk to Polly recently that he shouldn’t follow into your footsteps and make sure to always appear to work on time.”, as always his daughter was better informed about things than him.
“Did he now?”, he asked cynically, while sipping his coffee.
A look at the time on his phone told him that it was only half past five. He still had half an hour until work, but it took them around twenty minutes to even get to the hospital.
“Are you all packed?”, he asked, putting down his empty cup and writing ‘buy batteries’ onto the corner of his to do list that was hanging on the fridge, next to pictures of Trucy from her magic show at the hospital, smiling into the camera.
“Of course. I’m always prepared. And if I forgot anything I can just make it appear out of my hat. Are you sure you have everything packed?”, she retorted.
“Yes. I still don’t know how they let you keep your hat, while working though. Shouldn’t there be some rule against that?”, he wondered once again.
“I don’t know, but Dr. von Karma always carries around her whip and Mr. Armando is always wearing his weird sunglasses, so I’m not that surprised.”, she was already in the hallway, putting on her shoes.
They managed to get into the car and leave their house two minutes past the planned time and drove off towards the hospital.
Themis hospital was an old building, but the interior had only been renovated four years ago and the staff was always on the latest level of medicine. It was run by an old, bald man with a beard and honestly, Phoenix had no idea what his actual name was. Everybody just called him the judge, or even ‘your honor’.
Phoenix had been working at Themis for six years now, completing his training to becoming a paramedic at the young age of twenty-four.
He was turning thirty this year and it was nine years ago that Mia, who had by that time been a paramedic, had saved his life, making him change his career path to follow in her footsteps.
He had always liked helping people, so he didn’t regret leaving art behind a lot.
It was only four years ago that he had adopted Trucy, she had been only eleven at that time and now they were off to work together, him as a stationed paramedic and Trucy, who had decided to take her internship up at Themis hospital too.
He still wasn’t sure why she’d taken up Mia’s offer to do her internship at the hospital, instead of a circus or magic show, but she’d promised him that this was what she’d wanted to do.
When he had asked she told him that she had wanted to see how he worked, even though he could probably argue that interning as a nurse didn’t come close to working as a paramedic, but if that was what she wanted to do.
“Also, I don’t need to intern with a magician. What would he teach me? I’ve already mastered the art of magic!”, she had argued and he really didn’t know what else to say to that.
He heard, and saw, that she spent a lot of time with Pearls, Mia’s cousin, who was interning at the same time as Trucy and also happened to be the same age.
On Friday evenings Mia would allow Trucy to hold a small magic show for the patients at the hospital.
He had heard many stories about them, and it was always good to lift the patients’ spirits.
Phoenix parked his old blue car next to a flashy red (“It wasn’t red it was magenta!”, he had once heard in an argument) and they exited the car together.
The carpark for employees was as empty as always, but on the drive around the building he had seen that the parking lot in front was filled. He could already tell it was going to be a busy day.
They entered the building and Phoenix used his badge to clock in and open the door to the break room.
Trucy went off to find Pearl and start her own day, not before wishing him a good day.
He went towards his ambulance and started to stock it back up again, checking the equipment, like he did every morning.
“Phoenix!”, someone yelled from behind him and he couldn’t react fast enough before Maya bumped into him with all her power. “I thought you were gonna be late. Did you already know that we’re working shift together with Polly today?!”.
He was sure that if the fellow paramedic would hear her use that nickname he would yell about it. He already didn’t like that Trucy was using it.
“I know.”, he responded to her question, as they reentered the break room and he put down his bag to walk over to the coffee machine and get his second cup for the day. He was sure he was going to need it.
Maya kept rambling on, while he went over the reports from last Friday, checking if he had written down all the right information.
He’s been working with Maya for a few years now and he had gotten used to her talking, while he was working.
He had also come to think of her as his own little sister and he had to agree that she was an amazing paramedic, if only she would show a little less interest in gossip.
He was sure on of these days it was going to get her killed.
“Do you remember that red head, the one that believes he’s’ some kind of superhero? We brought in his girlfriend after she had a motorcycling accident.”, Phoenix nodded to show that he remembered.
“Well, apparently he bought her a massive bouquet of flowers and fainted after she kissed him on the cheek. Klavier had to get him into a bed on his own and he didn’t wake up for ten minutes and when he finally did, he wouldn’t stop talking about how cute and sweet and amazing his girlfriend was. Klavier wasn’t able to return to work because of him.”.
Phoenix chuckled at this. He quite liked the nurse from Germany, even though most of the time he couldn’t understand him, since he had a habit of switching languages in the middle of a sentence.
The man was also known around here for his big love for music and a certain paramedic, who just happened to enter the room at this exact moment.
“Good morning.”, he greeted Apollo, who looked exited to be at work as always, exited being ironical in this case.
“morning.”, he mumbled back.
“What’s wrong?”, Maya asked, immediately picking up on his bad vibes.
Apollo huffed. “I ran into Dr. von Karma on the way here. She didn’t like how I handled a case with Athena last week and decided to tell me about it in quite heavy language. I’ve never heard Klavier use words like that before, so I didn’t even know what she was saying.”.
Maya let out a sympathetic sound.
Everybody in this hospital knew not to fight with the head doctor of the ICU ward.
Franziska von Karma was a strange woman.
She was from Germany, the daughter of a renowned surgeon and, Phoenix had to admit, good at what she was doing. If only she would lay off calling everybody a ‘fool’, but anyone who was to point her out on it would get whipped, with that strange whip she was somehow allowed to carry around.
Phoenix could only think of one person who was able to speak to her normally and he didn’t really like thinking about that person.
Luckily his thoughts were interrupted by the transmitter on the table coming to life.
“Trite, you there?”, Mr. Armando’s voice filled the room.
Normally Phoenix Wright would try to correct the man, but he knew that this wasn’t the time.
He slipped into work mode as he picked up the transmitter and signaled to Maya and Apollo to get ready.
“I have a call for a woman, late twenty’s, apparently she got beat up by a gang of thugs. Police is at the scene. I’ve already put the gps in the car. You’ll be ready to go right off. Do you copy?”.
Phoenix confirmed as he entered the ambulance on the driver’s side, Maya getting into the passenger seat and Apollo in the back.
Only ten seconds later they left the hospital grounds, siren blaring and on the way to a busy day of saving lives.
*
It was a little after seven in the morning, when they returned to the hospital.
Maggey Byrde, the woman they had been called out for, sitting on the stretcher, as they rolled her into the ER.
The poor woman had somehow managed to stumble into a secret gang meeting of a group of thugs, who then immediately decided to beat her up about it.
Luckily a police officer had been close by and it only took a few minutes for him to call for backup and arrest the men.
When they appeared at the scene, someone had already handed the woman a blanket and sat her on a bench a few steps away.
“Just my luck.”, she had muttered under her breath, when Phoenix reached her and he immediately started to check her over.
He came to the conclusions that she had a broken arm and might have sprained her ankle, as well as maybe develop a concussion later, so he advised her that they would take her to the hospital.
At first she tried to decline.
“You already did so much work coming here. I told them they didn’t need to call you, but they insisted on calling an ambulance. I’m sorry for being such an inconvenience. I can drive myself to the hospital.”, she said, eyes cast downwards.
“I mean, we are already here. It won’t be much of an inconvenience to take you back with us.”, Phoenix reasoned and she seemed to understand the flaw in her logic as she agreed and got up to walk towards the ambulance with them, one hand on Phoenix´ arm, to steady herself.
Before they were able to leave a police officer came over to them and started to talk in a urgent voice.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but we’ve just now found out that the leader must have slipped our grasp. As he is still out there we are to believe that he might go after you, Ms. Byrde, since you saw his face. Of course we will send a police officer to guard you at the hospital and someone will come visit later, to make a police sketch. We would like to ask for your cooperation on this case, please.”, the police officer explained, seemingly mad that they had lost the guy.
Maggey nodded and the man turned towards Phoenix.
“We have a shortage for personal right now, so it might take an hour, before we can send someone. Could we ask of you that hospital security will watch over her until we can?”, he asked.
“Of course. She will be as save as the queens crown jewels.”, Phoenix replied, with a smirk on his face, about his own joke.
“Then I will no longer keep you. Thank you for your hard work.”, the officer said.
Phoenix repeated the same back to him and entered the ambulance.
He called through the window to Maya, who was sitting in the passenger seat again.
“Could you please tell Mr. Armando that we will be back shortly, oh and I need Gumshoe. Tell him to wait for me in the ER.”, he told her.
Maya gave him a thumbs up and he turned back around to focus on Maggey.
On the drive back he was sitting in the back, Apollo was driving since he didn’t trust Maya behind the wheel and only put her there in case of an emergency.
“By the way, I’ve been wondering what you meant by ‘just my luck’ earlier. Don’t tell me you’ve been beat up by a gang before?”, Phoenix tried to start some small talk, as he dressed some of the scratches on her face and arm.
And apparently that was all he needed to say to get her talking.
As they walked into the emergency room, he looked at her, smiling while talking to Maya. He wondered if he would ever meet someone as unlucky as her again.
From the stories she told him, he couldn’t believe the life she was living. It was just crazy what had all happened to her.
“Good morning.”, he was ripped out of his thoughts by that cheery sound and he turned to greet Kay.
The emergency room nurse was already waiting for them at the entrance, Gumshoe standing next to her.
“Morning. This is Maggey. She has a broken arm and a swollen ankle. I would also like for you to please monitor her for a bit, since she received a blow to the head and we wouldn’t want to miss any signs of a concussion.”, he handed her chart, with the rest of the information, over to Kay. “I will be leaving her in your care then.”.
“Sure thing.”, she replied, then turned around. “Mr. Gumshoe, could you please go and get me a wheelchair over here and tell the x-ray room to let them know we’ll be coming over?!”, she yelled.
Said man immediately jumped up at his name and disappeared somewhere, probably to get that wheelchair.
“”That was Mr. Gumshoe, by the way.”, Phoenix said, turning around to look at Maggey again, who was now sitting in one of the many chairs they had in the ER waiting room.
Maya and Apollo had already taken the stretcher back to the car and must be restocking it by now.
This left Phoenix with a few minutes on his own, before he had to clock back in.
“He might look a little scary, but I tell you something…”, he put a hand over his mouth, as if he was telling a secret. “ Deep down he’s a big softie. He has been working as head of security for years now. He will make sure that no harm will be done to you. Is that ok?”.
Maggey let out a laugh and Phoenix was sure that he could leave her alone with the man, without her feeling threatened by him.
The thing was, it had happened before.
There had once been a patient, female, that had panicked once she had been alone with Gumshoe.
He could understand it. Gumshoe wasn’t the smallest and he wasn’t sure how he would feel being alone with the man in a room, had he not known him for years.
Since that incident he made sure to always tell his patients that the man meant no harm and since he seemed trustworthy the incident hadn’t repeated itself.
Only a few seconds later Gumshoe returned with a wheelchair and helped Maggey to sit into it.
“You can already leave to the x-ray room, you won’t need me there anyways and I will come get you once you’re done. Ok?”, Kay said, turned towards the two.
“Sure thing.”, Gumshoe replied and Maggey gave an understanding nod.
Only a few seconds later, the two were out the ER doors.
“So..”, Kay said, turning around to face him once again. “ I hear you had a quarrel with Dr. Edgeworth again last Friday. Will you two ever stop with these childish attics?”.
The smile on her face made him believe that she didn’t really mean her words.
“Kay! I’m still working and so are you. This isn’t the time to ask me about the newest gossip.”, Phoenix replied, looking quite appealed by her words.
“Also, it wasn’t my fault he was being such an asshole again.”, he tried to defend himself, even though he knew better not to start a discussion about this topic.
The biggest topic of the Themis hospital and the main source for hospital gossip: the burning rivalry between Phoenix Wright, paramedic, and Dr. Miles Edgeworth, head doctor of the ER.
Edgeworth had already been working at Themis when Phoenix first started his job and somehow the two had clashed since the very first day.
Phoenix wasn’t even really sure why, but he just couldn’t stand the other man. Edgeworth only seemed to return his disgust, since he always found a way to pick at Phoenix in particular.
If he was always aloof and arrogant around his coworkers and staff, he somehow always found something to say about the work Phoenix had been doing.
Someday he would complain about how Phoenix hadn’t handled his case ‘professional’ enough. On other days he would pick at the way he had wrapped a bandage.
Phoenix would have liked to avoid the man altogether, but that wasn’t possible, since their work was based on them working quite close together sometimes.
He had actually heard that there was a betting pool somewhere in the hospital on what the reason for their whole rivalry was and who would resign first in the end, backing out of this fight.
“Kay, Mr. Wright. What are you doing? This is certainly not the time for small talk. We are at work!”, an obnoxious voice sounded behind him and Phoenix didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was.
Speak of the devil.
“I’m sorry Dr. Edgeworth, I was just about to return to work.”; Kay said, excusing herself and quickly disappearing into the direction Gumshoe had rolled Maggey off to. But not before saying a quick goodbye to Phoenix.
The paramedic breathed a deep sigh, before turning around to face the other man.
Miles Edgeworth stood before him, clad in his white cloth with a turtleneck underneath. Phoenix was tempted to call it pink, but if the man would hear him call it that, he would defend himself by stating at it was clearly magenta and not pink.
Edgeworth huffed and raised a hand to adjust his glasses. He was carrying a clipboard under his arm and looked more than happy to see Phoenix.
“I believed since you are older than her that you would not sink to her level and gossip during workhours. I seemed to have misjudged you. You are just as immature as her.”, Edgeworth sneered and Phoenix immediately felt the fire in his stomach burn brighter, as always when he had to speak with this selfish, arrogant man.
He wanted to retort, throwing back an insult on his own, but that would only prove Edgeworth’s point, so instead he bit his tongue.
Luckily in just this moment Sebastian, another emergency room nurse, burst into the room.
“Dr. Edgeworth, Dr. Edgeworth. We have an emergency.”, he called out.
Miles Edgeworth walked past him without a goodbye and Phoenix couldn’t hold back his last thought as the man walked away.
“Which one of us is the immature one here? He’s the one saying I am immature, but he can’t keep his thoughts to himself.”, he mumbled under his breath, as he turned away to walk back towards his ambulance.
He really had no idea what his deal was with him. Why did Miles Edgeworth seem to hate him that much? But then again Phoenix couldn’t stand him either.
The man had been raised as the adoptive son of the von Karma family, making him partly Franziska’s brother, and Phoenix knew that the family was rich.
On top of that had Edgeworth became famous for becoming a doctor at the young age of twenty and only losing very few patients in his career.
Phoenix was sure that he was the type of person that had everything just fall into his lap, without having to lift a single finger.
Exactly the person Phoenix couldn’t stand the most.
He scoffed, as he reached the garage again.
The moment he saw him, Apollo clocked them back into work, telling Mr. Armando, who was probably sitting somewhere with a headset, sipping a cup of coffee and taking in phone calls.
Only ten minutes later they got their second call of the day, a young boy who had slipped and fallen of the slide at a playground, and Phoenix stuffed the encounter into the back of his head for the rest of the day.