Work Text:
“Maya?”
The girl hummed, clearly only half listening to Phoenix
“What are you doing with the broom?”
“Nothin’.” Maya said not at all convincingly, spinning said dust broom around herself in a sloppy arch.
Phoenix sighed heavily, eyes casting towards the piles of paperwork that he still had to finish. He had the feeling that his partner was no longer going to help him. “Just, please don’t hurt yourself.” He muttered.
“I won’t! I’m the steal samurai! Nothin’ hurts me!” She cheered, running around the office space once more. “Ka-chow! Bam! Waaahh!” She voiced out the sound effects she was making as she fought off against an unseen enemy with her broom turned samurai sword.
Phoenix watched for a moment with amusement, turning back to his work shortly after. He highly doubted that the teen would stop even if he told her she was being distracting. Which was fine. She needed a break anyways. It was getting close to noon now. If he could just get through a couple more pages he’d stop and ask the girl if she wanted to go anywhere special for lunch. Until then…
"Phoeeeeeeeniiiiiiiixxxxx"
"Huh?"
Maya flopped dramatically over his desk.
“I thought you were just playing.” He looked up towards the clock on the wall. It hadn’t even been 15 minutes.
"I'm boooooored!”
"You and me both kiddo."
"Then come play with me! We can find you a sword as well!"
"I don't think it would be wise if we both started swinging around brooms." he frowned. "In fact, you really shouldn't be doing that either, you're going to get hurt and you're going to blame me."
“I wouldn’t do that!”
He gives her a look, one that Maya pointedly avoids. "You would to and we both know it. Go find something safer to play with."
Maya huffed. "You're just boring, and mean!"
He had been working on filling out paper work for the past 2 and a half hours. It was no doubt that Maya started to get bored. But Phoenix couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy at just how easy the girl was able to entertain herself. He eyed the seemingly never-ending pile of paper work. He scribbled his signature on the page he was working on before setting it to the side. He couldn’t in good measure leave his little one on her own while he was stuck working on paper work. What would Maya’s sister say to him if he continued to let her run around unsupervised?
“Fine. Fine. You win.”
"Gonna play?!"
"Yup, taking a break for the day." He got into a mock battle stance. "Show me your worst."
"Rawr!" Maya ran at him, ditching the broom at the last second to instead tackle the mentally older.
Her caregiver just barely managed to catch her and stay upright all at once. “A little warning next time would be nice.” Phoenix muttered.
Maya only giggled.
“Careful there, or you’re going to end up killing the poor guy.” Came a voice from the doorway.
"Edgeworth!" Maya exclaimed, bolting up to the man. Edgeworth grabbed ahold of the regressor, using her own momentum to swing her around in a half ark.
"Again! Again!" Maya cheered.
"Hello to you as well." Edgeworth deadpanned.
"Looks like you have your hands full." He commented, this time towards Phoenix.
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"I don't envy you in the slightest."
"Hey!" Maya pouted. "I'm da bestest! Never did nof’ing wrong ever."
"Really?"
"Uh huh!"
"You hit me with a broom just a couple minutes ago!" Phoenix protested.
"Nu uh! You can't prove nothin!" the regressor exclaimed, sticking her tongue out at her caregiver.
"I-"
"If there was no witness, I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with the defendant, she has clearly, in her own words, ‘done nothing wrong ever.’"
Maya giggled. If Miles was trying to get in her good graces it was clearly working.
"Please don't feed into her. She’ll never let me hear the end of it."
“Oh you’ll live.” Miles said, rolling his eyes.
“Why are you here again?”
“I came here to make you take a break and go get lunch before one or both of you dropped dead of overworking."
Before Pheonix could respond that they were in fact just fine, there was no need for the other to be concerned, or whatever it was that was going on here, Maya piped up. "Yes! Been sooooo boring! I wan’ ice cream!"
"You can't have just ice cream for lunch."
"Yes I can." The regressor pouted.
“Yes she can.” The other male added, unhelpfully.
Pheonix glared at him. “Really? You’re not helping here.”
“I’m not trying to.” Edgeworth smirked, before grabbing Maya’s hand giving her a soft smile. “It shall be my treat.”
The regressor cheered.