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1.
It had been a long week. Wright and Edgeworth both had their fair share of exhausting cases, so it was only natural that they both trudged into the courtroom looking less than stellar. Even the judge was tired.
“Well...let’s begin the trial. Will the prosecution please give its opening statement?”
Edgeworth nodded at this. He opened his briefcase to check his notes, then stopped. He gave a low groan, then shot Wright a glare.
“...Erm, Prosecutor Edgeworth?”
The judge went ignored. Edgeworth instead very calmly closed his briefcase, and then threw it across the courtroom right into Wright’s face.
“Adjfew- what the heck, Edgeworth?!” Wright yelped.
“We switched briefcases this morning. I’d like mine back now, please,” Edgeworth responded as way of explanation.
It took a few minutes for Wright to quit fumbling around and for him to figure out which briefcase was his, but eventually the two lawyers got everything sorted out (despite everybody else being quite confused).
“Sorry about that, Your Honour, we may now continue,” Edgeworth said smoothly, and proceeded to give his opening statement as if nothing had happened.
After the trial, the two could be seen together outside of the courthouse muttering as they walked side by side.
“Well if you hadn’t left your notes on the coffee table-”
“If you actually paid attention to where you put things-”
“You didn’t have to throw a briefcase at my face in court!”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
Eavesdropping bailiffs and guards claimed that they bickered like an old married couple, but nobody for the life of them could figure out why.
2.
Athena Cykes was completely fine. There were no problems at all. It wasn’t like she had to defend a client with literally nobody to help her against the Chief Prosecutor himself. Why was he even prosecuting anymore? Didn’t he have boring managerial work to do? Apparently no, he still had time to make her life miserable.
She had not been this nervous ten minutes ago, before she got the call from her boss.
“Hey, Athena...I’m really sick...so you’re going to have to defend our client alone. Sorry, but I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Her boss hung up on her right then and there, possibly because he was about to have a coughing fit judging by his voice. As much as she couldn’t blame her boss for catching a cold, she still dearly wanted to punch him for bailing on her so suddenly.
“The trial will start soon,” a bailiff called out. Athena took a deep breath. Guess it was do or die at this point.
---
“The trial will now begin,” the judge declared as everybody in the gallery sat down. He glanced at the defense, and his eyes lit up in surprise.
“Ah...I thought Mr. Wright was going to be taking the defense today?”
Before Athena could answer him, Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth interrupted her.
“He’s sick at home with the flu. He wanted to come to court today but considering it was even worse than when he fell into a river I convinced him to stay home. Do not worry, Your Honor, I’m sure his replacement will be more than capable.”
With that last sentence, he turned to Athena with a slightly menacing smirk, almost reminding her of Simon.
“...I see. Well, we may as well get on with things. Prosecution, your opening statement please…”
As the trial went on, Athena realized that she totally forgot to ask why Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth knew why her boss was sick.
3.
It had been a stressful week at the Wright Anything Agency. It was one of those peak times, where the agency was drowning in case after befuddling case. Athena seriously needed a break from it all, especially with it only being her and the boss. Actually, it was just her, since the boss had gotten the flu of all things and called in sick. Again. Apollo was still in Khura'in, and only laughed when she complained to him over the phone.
“I have 200 clients right now, Athena, you honestly don’t have a leg to stand on here,” he said with pained laughter and hung up on her.
That meant Athena expected to be alone for a while in the agency, a stressful and daunting thought. Maybe she could convince Trucy to help out with stuff, but then that’d probably mean promising to help her with magic tricks later, which was exactly where Athena would cross the line.
She certainly didn’t expect the Los Angeles Chief Prosecutor to be sitting on the couch sipping tea. Said Chief Prosecutor turned to her and smiled.
“Hello, Ms. Cykes. Don’t mind me, I’m just waiting for Wright to show up.”
“He’s sick,” Athena responded automatically, before dimly recalling that the man already knew that.
“I know, that’s why I’m waiting for him. Somebody needs to herd him back to the house whenever he escapes.” He checked his watch. “I do believe your boss will be here in three, two, one…”
The door creaked open. Athena turned and saw her boss sneaking in, looking rather feverish.
“Athena! How are you?” Mr. Wright asked with a cheery grin. “Hey, weird question, but if you see Edgeworth, can you tell him I’m called in sick? He gets really fussy sometimes.”
“Do I?”
Mr. Wright paled. “Fiddlesticks.”
The Chief Prosecutor got up from the couch, and sipped his tea menacingly, all the while giving Mr. Wright a glare from across his teacup.
“You should be at home,” he said, then grabbed Mr. Wright’s arm and dragged him out the door. He did stop briefly to give a polite nod to Athena, before soundly closing the door and leaving her alone.
Athena was pretty sure that she just stood there for a solid ten minutes, not doing anything, until Trucy bounced in.
“Hey, Athena!”
That knocked her out of her daze. “Trucy, shouldn’t you be with your dad?”
Trucy shrugged, looking rather nonchalant. “Maybe, but Uncle Miles is with him anyways, so it doesn’t really matter. Daddy can take care of himself! And if he can’t, then Uncle Miles will!”
Uncle….Miles. Sure. Guess the Chief Prosecutor was closer to the Wrights than Athena thought, though that’d make sense. She supposed it really was fate for courtroom rivals to generally grow quite close.
4.
Apollo Justice was tired. Nahyuta and Datz had teamed up to kidnap Apollo and shove him onto a plane to the States. Literally. He woke up and Datz was carrying him potato-sack style while Nahyuta was wheeling luggage in the airport. Upon realizing he was awake, Datz put him down and declared that he better get going, because the private jet was waiting for him, and don’t worry ‘cause everybody in the States already knew and would be there to pick him up.
One impromptu day-long flight later, and Apollo found himself standing in the Los Angeles airport of Japanifornia, not having the slightest clue where to go.
“Somebody from the Wright Anything Agency will pick you up,” Nahyuta and Datz had promised, yet they failed to stipulate a particular time. Apollo tried calling the members of the WAA, but nobody was picking up.
He’d just about given up and prepared to sit down for a good long while when he walked into the Chief Prosecutor.
“Hello, Mr. Justice,” the Chief Prosecutor said with a smile tugging at his lips.
“Ch-Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth?!” Apollo yelled far too loudly, attracting the attention of local passerbys.
“We should get going, I believe the others are waiting in the car.” He then proceeded to walk away, with the expectation that Apollo would be following him.
A short and rather awkward walk later, Apollo found himself face to face with the most garish sports car he’d ever seen, jam packed with the rest of the WAA.
“Apollo! It’s been ages!” Athena cheered. Trucy bounced right out of the car and hugged him, while Mr. Wright leaned back from his shotgun seat and gave him a grin.
“Nice to see you guys too,” Apollo managed to say after Trucy let him go.
“We had Edgeworth drive as you can see, mainly because nobody else had a car,” Mr. Wright said.
“I could’ve driven!” Athena interjected.
“Ok, nobody else had a car and could drive reasonably,” Mr. Wright corrected himself. “I’m sorry, Athena, but you drive like the Devil’s coming after you.”
Athena snickered at this. “Well, maybe not the Devil, but I know Simon was pretty upset the last time he saw me drive.”
“Look, the banter is lovely, really, but can I please just go somewhere and sleep? I didn’t even know I’d be in this country until fifteen hours ago,” Apollo moaned.
“Of course, Mr. Justice,” the Chief Prosecutor said as he stepped into the driver’s side. “Get back in, everyone.”
As promised, Apollo was dropped off at his old apartment, which was miraculously fairly clean (Trucy and Athena apparently took it upon themselves to clean it for his return). His first order of business, naturally, was to collapse onto his bed and sleep, any other thoughts could wait for later.
For example, wondering how his boss convinced the Chief Prosecutor of Los Angeles to give the agency a free car ride.
5.
Apollo would be back for a week, and Trucy had decided that he’d be her assistant the whole time. This eventually led to him and Mr. Wright painting props for Trucy on a Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m pretty sure I should be doing actual lawyer work right now,” Apollo grumbled.
“Eh, Athena’s at the office and she’ll tell us if a client comes,” Mr. Wright responded with a yawn. “Also last I checked, you’re on vacation.”
“An unwilling vacation, but yes,” Apollo muttered. He was making a unicorn this time for Trucy, a project which he was given carte blanche in terms of design and colour as long as it vaguely resembled the mythical animal.
If it ended up looking just a bit like a really prissy and vain Nahyuta, well….
Mr. Wright seemed to notice Apollo’s rather creative design choices, featuring the unicorn’s mane and tail in a braid and a gold-white horn.
“Is that supposed to be Prosecutor Sahdmadhi?” Mr. Wright asked with a snicker.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Well, the green eyes and braided hair were rather telling.”
“He’ll never know.”
“Unless he watches TV. Plus, Trucy will know.”
“But will she really care?”
That question was put to the test when Trucy chose that moments to bounce over.
“Wow, nice unicorn, Polly! It looks kinda like Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, now that I think about it. Neat!” With that, she bounced off again. Apollo turned to Mr. Wright with a smirk.
“Told you.”
“I mean, I never outright stated it’d be a problem.”
Suddenly, Trucy bounced back. “I just remembered! Polly, you can make the unicorn nice but not too nice because I need to saw it in half later!”
Apollo gaped. “Wait, what?!”
“It’s for the show. Don’t question it!”
Apollo paused, imagining his brother as a unicorn being sawed in half on national television, then briefly wondered if Nahyuta would actually care. He was about to ask Mr. Wright’s opinion when the ground suddenly started to shake.
“Wah! Earthquake!” Trucy cried. Apollo and Mr. Wright flailed briefly before grabbing onto the nearby curtains. Within seconds, the earthquake was over again.
“Everybody alright?” Mr. Wright called.
“Yep!”
“Pretty much.”
“Good! Because I need to go check up on Miles. Bye!” Mr. Wright said all of that quite quickly before getting up and sprinting out the door.
Trucy watched her dad run out, like she was used to it.
“Um, Trucy? What was that just now?”
“Oh, my Uncle Miles gets pretty scared whenever there’s earthquakes, and that one was pretty bad, so I guess Daddy wants to check up on him. It’s pretty sweet, but the Prosecutor’s Office is an awfully long walk from here,” Trucy commented thoughtfully.
“Uncle Miles? As in, Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth?” Apollo asked.
“The very same!” Trucy confirmed.
“Not to be rude, by why would Mr. Wright be so concerned about him? I mean, I knew they were friends since Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth brought you guys to the airport to meet me and all but still…”
“Don’t be silly, Polly, they’re better than friends!” Trucy chirped.
“...Like, best friends then?”
Trucy just shook her head and sighed in defeat. “For someone so good at perceiving things, you sure are oblivious, Polly,” she said and wandered off backstage.
Apollo still didn’t get it.
+1.
It was Friday, and Apollo was scheduled to fly back on Saturday, so the WAA planned a big going away party for him, since they couldn’t throw one the first time around. Unfortunately, the WAA had to take on a case rather unexpectedly, so they would have to be in court Friday morning, but they hoped to get the trial wrapped up in time for celebrations.
Thursday night saw Mr. Wright leaving the WAA and telling Trucy that he’d be out with Edgeworth for a while. Apollo still hadn’t figured out how the Chief Prosecutor managed to find so much time to spend with the defense attorney, but he supposed it wasn’t really any of his business. Besides, Apollo wanted to prepare for the case a little more before leaving. He was helping out the agency, naturally, even if he was supposed to be on vacation.
Friday morning saw Apollo and Athena hanging out in the defense lobby alongside a fairly distressed client, waiting rather impatiently for Mr. Wright.
“Where is he?” Athena cried. “He should’ve been here ten minutes ago! The trial will start anytime now!”
“Maybe he’s still talking to Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth? He stayed over at his house if I recall,” Apollo said. “Plus, I’m pretty sure the Chief Prosecutor’s on this case anyways...as long as they’re both late, the judge can’t exactly start the trial.”
“That’s no excuse!” Athena snapped, and their client cowered.
“Be nice, Athena. You’re scaring our client,” Apollo deadpanned.
Before she could come up with a response to that, Mr. Wright walked into the defense lobby right next to Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth, and he was whistling.
“Hi Athena! Hi Apollo!” He called with a cheerful wave. Athena instantly ran up to him and demanded to know why he was late, but Apollo was rather distracted with the glint that he noticed on Mr. Wright’s hand.
“Mr. Wright...is that a ring on your finger?” he asked. Athena stared, and Mr. Wright split into a wide grin.
“Yeah! As of last night, consider me a permanently taken man,” he said with a far off look in his eyes. Behind him, the Chief Prosecutor turned bright red.
“This really isn’t the time, Wright,” he muttered. “The trial’s going to start soon.”
“But Miles!”
“Hush. Do you want to keep the judge waiting?”
Still cherry red, the Chief Prosecutor walked off, presumably towards the prosecutor’s lobby.
“So...congratulations on the engagement I guess?” Apollo offered after a beat of silence.
“When’s the wedding?” Athena demanded.
In the corner, their client stood their confused and a forgotten.
“Um..well, Edgeworth and I weren’t really planning on having a ceremony or anything per se, but we were probably going to go in and sign some papers next week?” Mr. Wright responded sheepishly.
Athena gaped, and was about to angrily lecture him on how unromantic that was when the bailiff interrupted them.
“The trial’s going to start soon,” they called out. Athena closed her mouth and made a harrumph.
“We’re going to talk about this later,” she threatened.
As the lawyers passed through the doors, the bailiff added, “Congratulations, Mr. Wright. It only took a decade.”
Now it was Mr. Wright’s turn to blush. “Um,” he responded eloquently. Apollo facepalmed.
“Romantic talk later. Trial now,” he declared and pushed Mr. Wright through the door before any more awkward sputtering could occur.
---
The trial couldn’t have been more awkward, with fiancés facing off, co-counsel #1 who was clearly dying to gossip about it, and co-counsel #2 who was trying so hard to keep everybody professional and failing miserably.
It didn’t help that Mr. Wright and the Chief Prosecutor inevitably fell back into their nostalgic banter halfway through the case.
“There’s no way my client would have killed Mr. Nem- not when my client was about to propose to him!”
“Objection! How do you know for certain that Ms. Grayson was about to propose? She stated in a public interview that she had no romantic relationships and no intention of getting married!”
“Objection! Then why the rings? They were gold bands- classic engagement rings! In a velvet box, too! Plus, my client has stated that they were planning on going to a restaurant later, a restaurant which is known for its romantic atmosphere!”
“That could’ve been for business! They were both rich actors, and were both in the same movie! Perhaps they were discussing a scene, or blocking in a particular portion! Besides, statements like ‘romantic atmosphere’ are hardly admissible in court!”
“Objection! It’s totally admissible in court! The restaurant states clearly on its website that it considers itself ‘the garden of flourishing romance’, and as cheesy as it sounds, it still stands! Admit it, Edgeworth, Ms. Grayson was trying to have a romantic proposal!”
The Chief Prosecutor recoiled. “Urgh! Stupid romance. There’s too much talk of love in this courtroom,” he muttered.
“Aw, I’m hurt,” Mr. Wright said with a pout as he very conspicuously fiddled with his ring.
Nobody could miss the prosecutor’s blush and sputtering at this. “I-ngh-The point is, even if they were getting together, that doesn’t prove that Ms. Grayson wasn’t the killer! In fact, it just proves how close she was to the victim, making the victim more susceptible to attack from her!” he yelled as a desperate distraction.
“Mmhm,” Mr. Wright made a very unimpressed noise. “So naturally my client bought multi-thousand dollar rings before planning her fiancé-to-be’s murder.”
“W-well…”
Mr. Wright leaned forward, and gave a smirk as he flashed his ring. “Tell me, Miles, are you planning my murder right now?”
This was seriously getting out of hand. The entire courtroom erupted into murmurs.
“Wait, are they married?!”
“About time! They’ve been doing this for years!”
“Isn’t this a conflict of interest?”
“Oh my goodness look at that lawyer’s co-counsels! They’re expressions are hilarious! Do you think they knew?”
“Definitely. The one in red’s got that ‘not this again’ face.”
The judge banged his gavel and called for order. “Well...I suppose I should say congratulations to you both, but would you mind keeping your personal lives out of this case?”
“Of course, Your Honour,” Mr. Wright said cheerily.
“That’s what I was doing in the first place,” Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth muttered, still unable to hide his blush.
“Moving on, I believe we have rather clearly shown how our client could not be the murderer.” Apollo declared a little too loudly to distract from the second hand embarrassment he was drowning in.
Athena seemed to get the idea, and jumped in. “Of course, that does leave us with the question of who the real murderer was.” The three lawyers then turned and discussed something in hushed whispers. Mr. Wright turned out to face the prosecution once more.
“The defense indicts Ms. Rena Carlson as the murderer!”
From there, the rest of the case proceeded rather smoothly. The defense was correct as to the identity of the true murderer, as per usual with the WAA. After the confession and the not guilty verdict, the confetti rained from the ceiling and the gallery cheered. The Chief Prosecutor had a neutral expression, but the more observant could see he had a small smile on his face.
---
The minute the lawyer trio exited the courtroom after their client had given tearful thank-you’s, Athena pounced on Wright.
“Did you propose or did Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth? Details! Details!” she demanded.
“You know you can just call him Mr. Edgeworth, saying Chief Prosecutor all the time is a mouthful,” Wright deflected.
“Don’t ignore the question!”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter. The point is, we’re probably going to sign the papers soon because it’s more financially stable to get married, but there probably won’t be a ceremony.”
“Why not?!”
“Well, Miles doesn’t want to make it into a huge deal, and I’m cool with that. We don’t need to shout our love out to the world, we can just keep it between ourselves.”
“Mr. Wright, that was incredibly sappy,” Apollo commented dryly.
Wright chuckled. “Well, we might have a small reception just because Maya and Larry would probably murder us if we didn’t have at least a small party...and Franziska probably wants to plan something out for us, too.”
“Prosecutor Von Karma? Why’d she want to plan your wedding?”
“She’s basically Miles’ big sister, despite being younger. She’ll probably want to give her little brother the ‘perfect’ event, because angry whippings aside, I’m pretty sure she does care about him.”
“Yes, she does, though I can’t say the same for you, Phoenix.”
The lawyers whipped their heads around as Edgeworth approached. “You really couldn’t keep quiet about it for twelve hours, could you?”
“Of course I couldn’t! Also, speaking of Franziska, have you told her yet?”
Edgeworth shook his head. “She’s coming back soon after Mr. Justice leaves. I plan to tell her then, since she’ll likely appreciate being informed in person.”
“Fair enough,” Wright agreed.
Athena decided to choose that moment to invade on the conversation again. “Mr. Edgeworth! Can you pay this month’s rent for the agency?”
“Athena! Don’t just ask him for money!”
Edgeworth turned, looking slightly puzzled. “Your agency has had money problems?”
“Well, no, not exactly...it’s just that we’ve taken a lot of pro bono cases lately, so it has run a tad low but we’re still doing just fine!” Wright said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously.
Edgeworth adjusted his glasses and heaved a sigh. “You are far too nice for your own good, Phoenix.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Did you want me to leave our clients out in the cold?”
“Don’t make your clients sound like abandoned puppies.”
“That’s not the point!”
As the bickering ensued once more, Wright and Edgeworth, unbeknownst to each other, thought of the same thing at the same time:
This again.
Yet, neither minded it in the least.