Work Text:
Phoenix is dressed sharply when he exits his office, which is perhaps why Trucy looks up and says, “Ooh, Daddy, you look good! Where are you going?”
Truth falls from his lips before he can think to stop and consider whether that’s wise. “I have a date.”
He’s expecting a ruckus, and is surprised when he doesn’t get one. Surprised and a little put out, actually.
“Really? No one cares that I have a date?”
No one looks up. “You go out with the Chief Prosecutor like twice a week, Mr. Wright,” Apollo says, not looking up from the file he’s going over.
Phoenix flounders. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s hardly news, Boss.” This is Athena, who is currently peeking over Apollo’s shoulder.
Phoenix studies his gaggle of children and says, again, “What?” Then he says, “It’s not—I don’t go out on dates with Edgeworth. This is an actual date. With a woman.”
This gets the attention of everyone. Three heads snap up in unison. “Wha?” Apollo says.
Trucy says, “What do you mean?”
Athena says, “A woman?”
Phoenix blinks at them and comes to the realization that there has been a very large misunderstanding. “Hang on, do you all think I’m dating Edgeworth?”
“You’re not?”
“No! Of course not! He’s my best friend!”
“Yeah, but you guys are just so…” Trucy casts around for the words and comes up empty. She eventually gives up, hopping up to kiss Phoenix on the cheek. “Never mind. Have a good date, Daddy.”
Phoenix walks out of his office, amused, and digs out his phone to call Miles.
He picks up on the second ring. “Wright,” he says, his customary greeting.
“Guess what,” Phoenix says.
“I couldn’t even begin to start.”
“You won’t get it anyway. The kids all think we’re dating.”
He’s expecting—well, maybe not a laugh, given Edgeworth, but an amused huff, maybe. What he gets is silence; dead silence, actually.
“Edgeworth?”
“Yes, I heard you. I thought my silence was a perfectly adequate response.” His voice is strange though; it doesn’t seem nearly as detached as he seems to be trying.
“I mean, some response would have been nice.”
“Consider this a response, then,” Miles says dryly. “How did this even come up?”
“I told the kids I was going on a date and they were all flabbergasted.”
Silence again, and then— “A date?”
“I know,” Phoenix says. “I haven’t dated in—God, I don’t know how long. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I figure it’s worth a shot. We met—”
“Ah, apologies, Wright,” Miles interrupts. “Something urgent has just come up. I have to go.”
“Oh,” Phoenix says, disappointed. “Okay. Hey, give me a call later when you—”
The line goes dead.
Phoenix pulls his phone away from his ear and looks at it, as if it might provide some answers. Miles was often interrupted when they were on the phone, but he never hung up that abruptly, and he always said goodbye. Phoenix finds himself worried. He’ll have to check in later to make sure everything is okay.
For now, though, he has a date to get to.
Her name is Cindy Pepper, and she’s a kindergarten teacher. They’d met at the grocery store, a good old fashioned meet-cute in a world full of dating apps. She was the one who had asked him out; Phoenix had always appreciated a strong woman who knew what she wanted.
They’re meeting at a restaurant that she had highly recommended. It was a little out of Phoenix’s price range, but he didn’t want her to know right off the bat that he subsisted mostly on noodles and burgers. Besides, if you can’t splurge on a first date, when can you?
She’s waiting for him when he arrives, something that makes him feel immediately bad. He apologizes for making her wait as he settles into the chair opposite her.
She waves this off. “Don’t even worry. I’m cursed to be five minutes early no matter what I do.”
Phoenix grins at this. “Well, there are worse curses to have.”
“Do you have any curses, Phoenix Wright?”
“Well, you could say I’m a bit of a magnet for trouble.” He tells her about his temporary amnesia, about falling off a bridge, about getting hit by a car. He spares her the story about eating the necklace; it’s not his proudest moment, and he doesn’t think his murderous ex-girlfriend is an appropriate topic for a first date.
She looks adequately concerned about his tales. “A bridge! What happened?”
“Well, I have a friend. He flew in from Europe and helped me for a few days.”
“From Europe, huh. Must be some friend.”
“Uh—yeah. Yeah, he really is.”
And he is, isn’t he? Which is what made his behaviour so strange today. Miles has never cut him off like that. Not outside of court, at least.
Still, Phoenix shouldn’t be thinking about that now. He’s on a date with a beautiful lady. Miles should be the last thing on his mind.
Except he’s not.
The problem is Miles keeps coming up. For instance, Cindy had backpacked across Europe when she was younger, and together they talk about Germany, all the fancy places Miles had insisted on dragging Phoenix to, desperate to impart some semblance of culture onto him. They talk about what drove them to their current careers, and Phoenix mentions the class trial. Cindy smiles at Miles’ name being brought up again.
“He must be a very good friend, to come up so much in conversation.”
And he is. The best friend Phoenix has ever had. And the more he thinks about it, the more he wishes he were having dinner with Miles instead.
Don’t get him wrong, she’s a perfectly lovely lady. It’s not a bad date by any means. But if he thinks about what comes after dating—holding hands, kissing, sex—he’s not sure he can really imagine that with her. And without that, it’s really just two friends getting dinner and talking—and he’d rather do that with Miles.
Oh God.
Perhaps she catches wind of his epiphany, because the date fizzles out after that. They split the check and say goodbye and don’t offer to call each other, and Phoenix goes home.
Trucy is waiting up for him, of course. She lets him take off his shoes and coat before she bounds up to him and asks, “So how did it go?”
If there was anyone to ask, if would be Trucy.
“Truce. Am I dating Edgeworth?”
Trucy sighs and pats him on the arm. “Oh, Daddy.”
He collapses onto the couch and she follows after him, still holding onto his arm. “How did I not know this?” he asks.
“I don’t know. We all thought you did.”
“Does everyone know? Does—does Edgeworth know?”
“I don’t think so. Everyone else does, though.”
Phoenix groans. “Great. Just great.”
“Why are you upset, Daddy? It’s not a bad thing. You love Uncle Miles.”
He opens his mouth to refute that and finds he doesn’t quite have a leg to stand on. He does love Miles. But is he in love with him?
He leans forward and buries his head in his hands. “Oh my God, Trucy, I’m in love with Edgeworth.”
Trucy pats him on the back. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“What am I going to do?”
“You have to talk to him. Get this sorted out. See if he feels the same.”
That’s a terrifying thought—both the idea that Miles felt the same and the idea that he didn’t. Anyway you swing it, Phoenix is scared.
“I just don’t want to ruin things,” he says quietly.
Trucy lays her head on his shoulder. “You won’t. I know you won’t.”
Phoenix rests his head on top of hers. “You’re very wise beyond your years, you know that right?”
“I know!” she says cheerfully. “Lucky for you!”
Lucky for him indeed.
So, okay. He has to talk to Miles. The next day he sets out for the prosecutor’s office and makes his way up to the top. Miles’ secretary smiles at him and waves him in. He never has to wait; it’s always an open invitation. Does that mean something?
Shit. It definitely means something.
Miles is looking over some files when Phoenix enters. His office as Chief Prosecutor is much the same as it used to be, just bigger. Phoenix looks at the chess set and wonders how he never quite realized it was red against blue.
Miles looks up when the door closes and his face does something complicated when he sees it’s Phoenix.
“Wright,” is all he says.
There’s a lot of different ways Phoenix could go about this. He chooses perhaps the worst one.
“Why didn’t you tell me we were dating?”
Miles gapes at him. “I beg your pardon?” he asks, voice a couple octaves higher than usual.
“We’re dating, Miles.”
“We most assuredly are not.”
“Are you sure?”
Miles breaks eye contact. “I will admit I had thought that maybe… but then you told me about your date, and I realized I was wrong.”
“My date,” Phoenix says dismissively, “was a write off, because I realized I’d rather have been on it with you.”
This shocks Miles into silence. He stares at Phoenix for quite a while before he says weakly, “Oh.”
“Oh? Is that all you have to say?”
“What else would you like me to say?”
“I don’t know. Do you think about me in that way too?”
Miles looks uncomfortable for a moment before he sighs and nods. “If you must know, yes.”
“What do you mean, if I must know? I think it’s pretty important information! How long have you felt like this?”
“That’s not important.”
“I beg to differ.”
Miles has a pinched look on his face. “Going on… oh, I don’t know. Over ten years, now?”
Now it’s Phoenix’s turn to be stunned into silence.
“A decade?” he says, when he gets his voice back. “You’ve felt like this for over a decade, and you never said anything?”
“I didn’t think I had to,” Miles says. “I was content with the relationship we had.”
“But we weren’t anything—”
“Weren’t we?”
Phoenix, who had been standing up until this point, crosses over to Miles’ desk and takes a seat in one of the chairs across from him.
He says, “Ten years, Miles.”
“More, if we want to be pedantic.”
Phoenix looks back at everything Miles has done for him over the past ten years. From chartering that private jet to all the times he flew Phoenix out to Europe, each action has new light shined on it.
Phoenix swallows around a sudden lump in his throat. “So what do we do now?”
“Well…” Miles says. “Either we keep going the way we were, as if we never had this conversation.”
Phoenix looks him in the eye. “Or?”
And never let it be said that Miles Edgeworth isn’t brave. He straightens up and looks Phoenix dead in the face and says, “Or you can kiss me, and we can cross that line.”
Phoenix nods. “Right. Okay.” He stands up. Miles’ face is carefully blank. “Definitely the second option, then.”
Miles meets him halfway.
Kissing Miles Edgeworth feels as natural as arguing with him does. It feels like facing off against him in court. It feels like something they were always supposed to be doing. Miles’ lips are smooth, which makes sense given Phoenix is well aware of both his car chapstick and his office chapstick. His hair, when Phoenix runs a hand through it, is soft, and his body beneath his suit is jacked in a way that comes from taking the stairs everywhere. Phoenix can feel the hard line of muscles when he pulls Miles against him.
The kiss is both chaste yet deep, a first kiss born from ten years of tension simmering beneath the surface.
They pull away. Phoenix feels surprisingly out of breath, like he’d been riding his bike. Miles adjusts his cravat, trying to pretend like he’s not red in the face. It’s cute.
“Right,” Miles says, clearing his throat. “Consider that line crossed, then.”
“So,” Phoenix says. “Are we dating, now?”
“Er. I suppose signs point to yes, don’t they?” Miles says, like he’s a fucking magic eight ball. Phoenix laughs breathlessly.
“Absolutely no one will be surprised.”
“No one but us.”
Phoenix laughs again. He feels giddy. Like he’s high on Miles’ kiss.
He leans in again.
When they separate Miles is somehow even redder. “Wright. I do have work to do, you know. I can’t afford to stand around in my office making out like some sort of teenager.”
“I don’t think teenagers generally have offices.”
“Phoenix.”
Phoenix raises his hands and steps away from Miles’ warm body. “Okay, okay, I get it. But hey, dinner tonight?”
“Most assuredly,” Miles says. “I will pick you up at six-thirty.”
Phoenix can’t wait.
This time when Phoenix leaves his office he announces to the room at large, “Well, I’m going on a date.”
Three heads pop up.
“Another one?” Trucy asks.
“With the same woman?” From Athena.
“Nope,” Phoenix says proudly. “With Edgeworth.”
Three heads drop back down.
“Oh. Is that all?”
“Did you finally figure things out?” Trucy asks.
“Wait. So you are dating the Chief Prosecutor?” Apollo asks.
"Wouldn't you like to know,” Phoenix says smugly.
“Not really,” Apollo says, effectively harshing Phoenix’s buzz. “It’s just if you are, I owe Prosecutor Gavin twenty dollars.”
“You’re betting on me?” Phoenix asks, vaguely scandalized.
“Without me?” Trucy asks, thoroughly scandalized.
“You’re too young to gamble,” Apollo points out. Trucy pouts briefly before turning back to Phoenix.
“I’m glad you figured it out, Daddy.”
“Me too,” he says. “Don’t stay up too late!”
“Same goes for you, Boss!” Athena shouts.
Phoenix heads out the door with a spring in his step. He’s definitely staying up late.