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Phoenix feels amazing when he exits the courtroom. To say that it had been a long time coming would be something of an understatement. He'd earned his badge back over many years of grueling work, clearing his name, retaking the bar, and now he's here, finished with his first case as a newly-remade lawyer. It may have been an unorthodox first case to take, but heaven knows that nothing about his career has ever been orthodox.
Outside the courtroom, a knot of people are waiting to see him. There's Trucy, of course, who launches herself at him and catches him in a hug that nearly knocks him off his feet, telling him quietly that she's so proud of him in a voice that makes him feel like his heart is going to burst. Apollo is there, looking pleased and proud and maybe a little embarrassed; Athena has followed him out of the courtroom and is there too, lit up with happiness. Everyone offers congratulations and Phoenix takes it all in, the feeling of being back in court again, of winning in court again, of being here, surrounded by his friends and loved ones, this little ragtag group that almost feels like family.
They can hear from outside the noise of what must be a throng of journalists waiting for him to emerge--people love a comeback story, after all--and the noise only gets louder when the door opens and in stride two people Phoenix really hadn't expected to see today.
"Hey, pal!" Detective Gumshoe says, a broad grin on his face. "Congratulations!" He claps Phoenix on the shoulder, hard enough to knock him slightly forward.
Behind Gumshoe, Edgeworth stands a ways away, looking for all the world like he's trying to hide a smile. "An orca, Wright? Really?"
(Phoenix is pretty sure that he hears Athena whisper slightly-too-loudly to Apollo, "Is that the chief prosecutor?")
"I'm working my way through the different classes of animal," Phoenix replies, forcing his expression into something approaching seriousness. "Got birds with my last badge, mammals this time--I'm thinking of cross-examining a crocodile with the badge after this one."
The smile that had been threatening Edgeworth blossoms into a smirk. He looks down, then up again at Phoenix. "It's good to have you back."
Detective Gumshoe nods. "Sure is, pal. Hasn't been the same without you." He glances over at the other lawyers from the Wright Anything Agency and says, quickly, "No offense." Before any of them has time to take offense, he continues, "We should have a party, to celebrate! Seems like there's been little enough to celebrate recently, so we ought to make the most of it."
There is a pause, as everyone thinks on how true that is.
"A party, hmm?" Phoenix says. He likes the sound of that. They can have it at the Agency, like their annual Christmas party, have everybody over, have drinks, games, that kind of thing--
"Leave it to me, pal!" Gumshoe says, and before Phoenix can wonder what that might mean on Gumshoe's salary, Trucy suggests they go for celebratory noodles at Eldoon's. They go out to face the crowd and this brand new day, and Phoenix doesn't think about it again until the invitation arrives, a cheerful slip of paper in a bright blue envelope tucked into the pile of today's mail. The invitation says BBQ AND POOL PARTY in big block letters at the top. In slightly smaller block letters underneath, it says, TO CELEBRATE PHOENIX WRIGHT GETTING HIS BADGE BACK.
"Can we go?" Trucy asks. Phoenix hasn't shown her the invitation yet, and suddenly the time she's spent sneaking around on the phone this last week makes a lot more sense.
"After all the hard work you've put into it, of course!" Phoenix loves when he can surprise Trucy. She squeaks and grins and tries her best to look innocent. When this fails, she snatches what's left of the mail out of his hands, extracting two more identical-looking blue envelopes from the pile and giving one each to Apollo and Athena, who both rip into them almost immediately. Athena is excited and Apollo needs some badgering from Trucy, but they both agree to go.
"It says we get a plus-one?" Apollo says to Trucy, which isn't quite a question and sounds surprisingly defensive.
"I don't recognize this address," Phoenix says, turning the invitation over to see if there's something on it he'd missed. "Is it a public pool?"
"I'm sure Detective Gumshoe has it under control," Trucy says cheerily. "Don't worry about it!"
Phoenix does worry, though, when they get to the address that weekend. He and Trucy had decided that rather than risk public transit, they were going to splurge on a ride-share to get them to and from the party, and Trucy suggested that they ask Apollo and Athena if they needed rides too. Apollo was happy to take his bike, but Athena had still needed transportation, and so the three of them had met up at the Agency that morning and loaded all their things into the car. Trucy had her swimsuit and several pool floaties, Athena had a 12-pack of some fancy European soda, and Phoenix had a case of less-fancy American soda and another of beer, plus some emergency barbecue food in case Gumshoe actually tried to serve them instant noodles. The driver had entered the address into the car's GPS, and it had directed them to an incredibly nice part of town and told them you've arrived at your destination as they pulled up outside what can only be described as a mansion.
"I thought you said this guy was broke all the time?" Athena says, pulling her sunglasses down to stare at the house.
Phoenix can only shrug helplessly. He knows this isn't Edgeworth's place, and he's not sure who else they know who might have a house like this. Gavin, maybe? But Phoenix would expect that, given Gavin's tastes, they'd be able to tell if this was his place without needing to guess at it. His best theory is that there's a dead body somewhere in a secluded corner of the house and that Gumshoe is going to have to corral them all in the backyard to keep them from contaminating the crime scene.
They buzz in at the front gate as their car pulls away, and they make their way to the front door. Phoenix pauses with his hand poised to knock, still unsure about this whole thing, but Trucy rings the doorbell excitedly before he can make up his mind one way or the other.
The door swings open and there is Gumshoe. "The guest of honor is here!" he announces, ushering them into the house. He takes the drinks and things they'd brought and heads away with them, leaving his guests to take in the house. The inside is just as spectacular as the outside--hardwood floors, massive bay windows letting in a ridiculous amount of natural light, and on one wall, an authentic-looking piece of art that Phoenix knows he ought to recognize from his college studies. The foyer where they're standing is larger than his first apartment.
Gumshoe returns with empty hands and offers them all two options: they can head right out the backyard, where the pool and the grill are waiting, or they can get "the grand tour". Phoenix isn't surprised when the girls head out back; he opts for the tour, hoping to make some kind of sense of this whole thing. Gumshoe takes him through a spacious living room with oversized plush sofas and a giant TV; a den with several gaming systems set up; a play room with an indoor jungle gym; a kitchen with a massive island, several stove tops, and multiple ovens; a dining room with a heavy-looking oak table and matching chairs; and several bedrooms, one of which has an elaborate set of bunk beds. Phoenix peers into the rooms as Gumshoe proudly tells him about each one, trying to be surreptitious but obviously not quite succeeding. Gumshoe stops and stares at him. "What's wrong?" he asks.
Phoenix takes a second to try to formulate a polite way to say what he's thinking. "Gumshoe, I know it's been a while, but...weren't you living paycheck to paycheck and subsisting on instant noodles?"
Gumshoe blinks at him in confusion for a moment and then bursts out laughing. "Let me guess. You thought that this was, what? A crime scene?" Phoenix doesn't answer, which is answer enough. "So Mr. Edgeworth didn't tell you? No, I guess he wouldn't. Might've been weird."
"Weirder than this?" Phoenix gestures vaguely around himself, indicating the entire house. Gumshoe shrugs uncomfortably. "So what happened?"
"Okay, so you know the Blue Badger?"
"Not personally, but yes." It's been hard to avoid the Blue Badger, really. It's everywhere at the police station, it's been licensed to multiple other police departments worldwide, it's got its own theme park, and for a couple of years while the Gavinners were popular, you couldn't go more than two blocks without running into somebody with some kind of Blue Badger-related merch on.
"You remember how I helped put together the first prototype? You know the one that danced kind of like..." Here, Gumshoe flails his arms in an approximation of the deranged dance that Phoenix still remembers that first wooden Blue Badger doing. Phoenix nods, hoping that Gumshoe will stop. "Well, when I was working on that, the Chief had me sign this contract that said, basically, any money the police force made on the Blue Badger, he'd get ten percent of the profit. For my help, I'd get a percent and a half--I think he threw that in to keep me from coming back later unsatisfied, although I'll be honest, I didn't know any better."
"But I knew you then," Phoenix protests. "You were still eating instant noodles."
Gumshoe nods. "Apparently, the department never thought that the Blue Badger would get this popular, so once it did, they had to do some creative accounting. For a long time, any money they made on Blue Badger merchandise went directly into the department instead of being treated as 'profit'. The Chief spent a while in court over this point--and so did my lawyer, I had my very own lawyer, a guy Mr. Edgeworth knows--and it looked like they were going to win, until the Gavinners. The department couldn't argue that Blue Badgers sold in support of the Gavinners were directly police-related like they could with all the ones before, and so..." He trails off, gesturing at the house.
Phoenix boggles at him.
Gumshoe leans forward and says, conspiratorially, "You wanna know a secret, pal?"
Phoenix nods.
"One and a half percent of a lot of money is still an awful lot of money."
"So why would it have been weird to tell me all this?" Phoenix asks.
Gumshoe rubs at his neck and looks away. "Well," he begins, "It's just--you had just lost your badge, and it seemed like it was a pretty rough time for you. Who likes to hear about somebody else's stroke of good luck when they're having a hard time themselves? And then Mr. Edgeworth said you weren't really accepting charity, which didn't help. Once or twice we got Trucy some nice magic things for her birthday or Christmas, because every kid deserves that and it was literally the least we could do, but mostly we didn't say anything until you got back on your feet." Gumshoe looks sheepish, and Phoenix has absolutely no idea how to respond. Everything Gumshoe had just said is spot-on. He remembers how angry he'd been at first, even with Trucy around; he's not sure what he would have done if he'd known that Gumshoe, the one person (he thought) he could count on to always be poorer than him, was moving into a house like this at the same time as he was scrounging for change and relying on his daughter to bring in the money they needed for rent. And those expensive magic acts Trucy had gotten--he'd always assumed they were from Edgeworth, but now…
He looks up and Gumshoe is staring at him. "You gonna be okay, pal?" he asks, and before Phoenix can answer, Gumshoe laughs. "Of course you are! You've got your badge back now! Nothing can stop you."
Phoenix really hopes he's right.
They head out to the backyard to join the now-ongoing festivities. Maggey is at the grill--"You remember Maggey, right?" Gumshoe says, as though Phoenix could forget her two murder trials--and Gumshoe points out the kids playing in the massive, custom-made treehouse across the yard: three of them, all under the age of five, all Maggey and Gumshoe's. Gumshoe is practically beaming as he looks at them, an impulse Phoenix understands.
It's a big yard. There's a patio, a swing set, the aforementioned treehouse, a giant pool, and a grill and a bunch of chairs and tables set up around it. There's also a surprising number of people milling around the yard, more than Phoenix had expected. This is his party. He ought to go say hello.
Apollo is closest to the door; he's standing on the edge of a conversation that Athena is having with Trucy and looking a little uncomfortable. Phoenix gives him thoughtful look and says, "Weren't you bringing a plus-one? I'd been looking forward to meeting somebody you hung out with outside of work."
"Something came up at his job and he couldn't get away," Apollo grumbles. "He's got some big stuff coming up later this year." He stops; he must have fully processed what Phoenix had said, because he looks properly offended now. "And, hey! I have friends!"
"Ooh, were we supposed to meet this new friend of yours?" Athena asks, abandoning her own conversation for this obviously more interesting one.
"He's not a new friend!" Apollo fumes. "We've been friends since junior high!"
"Then why is this the first time we're hearing about him, Polly?" Trucy asks. Apollo throws up his hands in annoyance. Phoenix leaves Apollo to that conversation and probably ought to feel bad about it, but honestly, why would he start feeling bad about subjecting Apollo to crap now? The kid can take it.
Past the Agency crew he sees Larry Butz, who is seated at a table poolside, deep in conversation with Pearl Fey and an unreasonably-attractive woman in a bikini top and short shorts that Phoenix isn't sure he's met before. When Larry spots Phoenix coming, he jumps to his feet and runs over to greet him; in his haste, he shoves the woman in the bikini out of his way, into the pool. She splashes and splutters, and Pearl does her best to pull her out while Larry looks unconcerned and offers Phoenix a handshake.
"Congratulations!" Larry says, a smug grin on his face.
Phoenix shouldn't be surprised. He moves past Larry's outstretched hand and helps the woman out of the pool.
"Oh, you've met Joanna!" Larry says, oblivious. "Joanna, this is Nick, he's the one who's a lawyer again now--"
Joanna, to her credit, does not immediately push Larry into the pool. Still, there is some angry gesturing and some yelling and, well, it is his party, so Phoenix ignores the lovebirds and talks to Pearl instead.
She beams at him. "Surprise, Mister Nick! We threw you a party!"
"You don't usually send people invitations to their own surprise parties, Pearls," Phoenix says kindly, and Pearl looks a little confused.
"The party wasn't supposed to be the surprise!" she says, and when Phoenix turns to see what she's looking at, he is intercepted in a leaping hug.
"Nick!" the person says, and--no, it can't be!--when Phoenix manages to pull away, he sees that he's been tackled by Maya Fey.
"What are you doing here?!" he asks her, pulling her into his own hug this time. It feels weirdly appropriate to see her again now that he's back in court, but he'd never expected her to be here.
"Pearly invited me! And you think I would miss this?" She grins at him. "Do you know how often the Master of Kurain gets invited to a barbecue? Burgers, Nick! Burgers."
Phoenix laughs.
"Oh, and I guess it's good that you got your badge back, that's cool too." She elbows him, and Phoenix realizes that he doesn't see her nearly enough these days. They visit a little (and Pearl looks so pleased) but eventually she leaves him for the burgers currently cooking on the grill, and Phoenix cannot argue with that.
Ema Skye is around the other side of the pool, standing with several people Phoenix doesn't recognize. She shouts her congratulations to him when she spots him, and he makes his way over to her and ruffles her hair, because he knows it will annoy her. Sure enough, she ducks away from him and shoots him a withering look before moving out of his reach, around the small circle of people to place herself between the man and woman Phoenix hasn't been introduced to yet.
"I'm Kay," the woman says, offering him a handshake. "And this is Sebastian."
"I work at the prosecutor's office," Sebastian says, his expression a little smug, as Phoenix shakes each of their hands. "And Kay's a private investigator."
"Phoenix Wright, and I'm a lawyer," Phoenix says, and he can't help but grin. It feels even better than he'd expected to finally be able to say that and have it be true.
"It's so nice to finally meet that man," Kay says, putting a weird amount of emphasis on the phrase.
Ema's eyes go big. "Wait, Mr. Wright is 'that man'?"
"What man?"
"Kay," Sebastian says, sounding worried, "You said you wouldn't."
"I said I'd behave myself, that's different--"
"You're blowing my mind, Kay, you mean to tell me that Mr. Wright--"
"What man?" Phoenix repeats, louder this time.
Across the yard, Phoenix would swear he sees Edgeworth go bright pink.
When nobody answers him, he sighs and asks, "So how do you guys all know each other?" They laugh and talk over each other at a mile a minute and he doesn't actually manage to get a real answer to his question. From what he can tell, it involves Edgeworth? His first impulse is to go over and tease Edgeworth about it, the collection of competent young adults he's managed to collect while Phoenix wasn't looking, but one glance over at the kids from the Agency and he is shut up before he can even start.
"Oh, thank goodness," Sebastian says, interrupting the other two to wave at someone over Phoenix's shoulder, "He said he was coming, but he's fashionably late, as always--" and Phoenix turns around to find himself face to face with Klavier Gavin.
Phoenix is probably imagining it, but it feels like the party goes quiet around him, waiting to see what will happen. Pretty much everyone here knows what role Klavier played in the events that led to them even needing to have this party. Phoenix had spent a chunk of his non-lawyer years hating Klavier--how could he not, this cocky young upstart who'd swaggered in and overturned his life--but to be realistic about it, the way that Klavier's own life has fallen apart over the last year is more punishment than Phoenix could have imagined in those first, angriest months.
He hasn't ever-- Phoenix shouldn't have to apologize, he doesn't have anything to apologize for, and--
The silence, Phoenix realizes, has gone on for several moments too long. It is probably a testament to how excellent a performer Klavier is that Phoenix can only barely see the panic reaching his eyes. Phoenix forces himself to smile, and offers Klavier a handshake.
"I'm glad you're here," Phoenix says, and he finds that he means it. As he and Apollo had dug into it, it had turned out that the cocky young upstart had become--or had always been, maybe--a good kid more concerned with the truth than his own reputation, and in this Dark Age of the Law, they can always use more of those. They're never going to be friends, but he is, he's glad Klavier's here.
Joy and relief crinkle the corners of Klavier's eyes. "That is good to hear. I am glad that you are here too," Klavier says, and Phoenix gets the feeling that it's just as complex when Klavier says it.
The tension broken, Klavier moves past Phoenix to embrace Sebastian and Kay and give Ema a respectful nod, which she snorts at. Phoenix excuses himself and heads towards the drinks cooler, where he grabs a beer and downs most of it in one go.
"Pace yourself, Wright," Edgeworth says dryly from somewhere behind him. "You've got all afternoon."
"Yeah, but I also don't have to drive myself home." He turns to face Edgeworth, who is dressed down but somehow still overdressed in a button-down shirt and khakis. Edgeworth is holding a glass full of white wine; Phoenix is curious if Gumshoe had provided it or if Edgeworth had brought it himself. "And besides, it's my party."
Edgeworth gives him an inscrutable look. "It is indeed your party. Congratulations, by the way, on the return of your badge. I know what a relief that can be."
"You congratulated me at the courthouse, Edgeworth."
"No, I said that it was good to have you back."
Phoenix doesn't have time to wonder at what the semantic difference there might be, because Gumshoe announces that the burgers are ready and that everybody should come get something to eat. Once everybody has food and a drink, Gumshoe clears his throat loudly and says: "Thanks, everybody, for coming! I'll let you get to your food in a minute, but first, I wanted to acknowledge the reason we're all here today." Gumshoe raises his beer, and the assembled guests do the same with their drinks. "To Mr. Wright!"
Shouts go up from around the yard: "To Nick!" "To Daddy!" "To Phoenix Wright!"
Phoenix looks around at the people gathered here, old friends and new friends and family all alike, and raises his own glass and smiles. "To the legal system, and to all of us. May we always seek the truth, and may we always find it."
Everybody toasts to that, and then the party really starts.