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“How's that murder investigation coming?” Wright asks Miles when they meet up for coffee, as they do every week.
“You know I can't talk about that with you.”
“Why not? I'm not the defense. I'm not even a lawyer.”
Miles considers. “Detective Gumshoe seems to think our only suspect is hiding something, but so far all we have to go on is her facial expressions and a note that doesn't match her handwriting.”
“And you don't think that's enough.”
“Of course I don't! I didn't even see anything out of the ordinary.”
“You wouldn't,” Wright says, drinking his coffee.
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
“Come on, Edgeworth, I've known you for years and if there's one thing I know it's that you suck at anything to do with other people. Remember that time Ema asked you about her new haircut and you told her it was 'unflattering' and she cried? And then you stood there looking like you wanted to jump out the window instead of apologizing?”
“I didn't know why she was crying,” Miles argues. “She asked for my honest opinion, I gave it. Crying was an illogical response.”
“Feelings are illogical, Miles. Besides, usually when people say they want an 'honest opinion', they really mean 'flattery'.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“So are people,” Wright says, shrugging. “It's your week to pay.”
“It's always my week,” Miles grumbles.
“Yeah, but you're a bigshot prosecutor and I have a kid and a half. I think you can swing it better than I can.”
“'A kid and a half'?”
“Well, Apollo's not my kid, and he makes more money than I do, but it still seems like he is sometimes. Kid and a half.”
Miles throws some coins on the table and a venomous look at Wright.
“Hey, that actually gives me an idea.”
“What?” Miles asks, wary. It's usually not a good idea to let Wright come up with things – it works in court, but less so in real life.
“Well, you can't read people, Apollo reads people so well that it scares everyone, he should give you lessons!”
“What.”
“Yeah, come on! He'll do it, just come with me to the Agency.”
“I'm not doing that,” Apollo says when they get to the Agency. (Wright had to drag Miles by the wrist the entire way from the coffee shop.)
“Why not, Polly?” asks a voice from the couch. When they sit up, it turns out to be Wright's daughter, Trucy.
“'Polly'?” Miles asks, both curious and amused.
“Shut up, only she gets to call me that. And I'm not going to teach you how to Perceive!” He turns to Trucy. “I'm not going to teach him how to Perceive! What if I have to try a case against him? I'll have no edge.”
“I don't need to know how to do your little parlour trick,” Miles tells him. “Actually, I don't need you to teach me anything – this was your mentor's ridiculous idea.”
“Wait, if it's not about Perceiving, what do you want me to teach him?” Apollo asks Wright.
“Like, the normal version of Perceiving. Not the special kind you do, just enough to actually know what people are feeling.”
Apollo looks at Miles. “You can't do that already? It's not exactly a special skill.”
“It is for him,” Wright cuts in. “Here, look. Edgeworth, what expression is this?”
“What?”
“The look on my face. How do I feel right now?”
“I can tell you I feel like an ass,” Miles says, crossing his arms.
“Edgeworth. Come on, take a guess.”
“...Constipated?”
Wright sighs.
“Uh. Wow. Sorry to say, Mister Edgeworth, but you really do need help.”
“So you'll do it?” Wright asks.
“I guess?”
“That's my boy.”
“You're only eleven years older than me!”
“I'm here for my ...lesson,” Miles says. It's a few days later, and he's just arrived for his first session with Apollo. Apollo looks much less ready, his hair not slicked into its usual style and his red suit replaced by jeans and a t-shirt.
“Morning to you too,” he says, moving aside from the door and letting Miles in to the Wright Anything Agency's offices. “And stop giving me that look. I don't have to work today, so I'm not wearing my suit.”
“You could honestly tell I was thinking that from looking at me?”
“Yeah, it was pretty obvious. You looked me up and down and then you frowned. You were judging my appearance.”
Miles catches on. “And since I've only ever seen you dressed for work and I myself am wearing a suit, logically it would be because you're casually dressed.”
“Yep. You want some breakfast?” Apollo asks, reaching for a box of cereal.
“No, thank you. I ate before I came.”
“Then you're just going to have to suffer through me eating my breakfast, because I didn't.” He pours himself a bowl and settles down on the couch to eat it. There's no actual dining table, despite the space doubling as a house. Miles stands there awkwardly, watching Apollo eat.
“It's rude to stare,” he says, not even looking at Miles.
“Wh—I wasn't staring!”
“What else would you call it when you look in the same direction for several minutes?”
“I – it – it's just something that happens!”
“Try not to do it, people think it's weird. And I would know, 'cause I have to stare people down to Perceive.”
“Yes, I've heard you get sort of ...buggy-eyed.”
“Oh, are you talking about Polly's Perceiving face?” Trucy asks, walking in and taking up the box of cereal for herself. “Hopefully he'll do it while you're here, it's super funny.”
“It is not!”
“Yeah it is!” Trucy does an impression of it. It's unsettling, to say the least.
“Haha, she does a good job, eh, Justice?” Wright says, coming into the main area of the offices. Miles can't tell if he's in his pajamas or not, since Wright's taken to dressing like a slob at all times since losing his attorney's badge.
“Shut up,” Apollo mumbles through a mouthful of cereal, sinking into the couch.
“Okay,” he says a few minutes later, standing up and putting his empty bowl in the sink, “I'm ready to start your training.”
Miles panics internally. “Are they – are they going to stay?” He'd rather there not be witnesses to this.
“Oh. Uh, Mister Wright, are you guys staying?”
“Much as I'd love to watch you torture Edgeworth for a while, no. Truce and I are going to go out.”
“Thank you,” Miles says, relieved.
“Polly can just tell us about it later,” Trucy says with a sly grin.
“Be nice to Mister Edgeworth,” Wright says. “Only I get to make fun of him.”
Trucy finishes her breakfast, and the two of them leave, waving at Apollo and Miles. Evidently, Wright was not in his pajamas.
“Uh, okay,” Apollo says, once the door is shut again, “I thought we could just like, watch a video and talk about the expressions the actors do. I'd feel weird just sitting here pulling faces at you.”
Miles agrees, but still thinks the whole idea is foolish. He's gotten by his whole life without anyone having to teach him about what face means what. Apollo keeps pausing the movie at random intervals to ask what he thinks the actor is trying to portray, and he gets it wrong about sixty percent of the time, and the other forty percent he's mostly pulling from contextual clues, though he's not about to admit that.
“I think it's time for a break,” Apollo says when the movie is over. “Do you want some lunch? I think we've got leftovers from last night.”
He can't stand the texture of reheated food, so Miles declines. Apollo eats lunch, makes him watch another movie, and finally lets him go home.
“How was your weekend, sir?” Gumshoe asks on Monday.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
Gumshoe laughs quietly. “So you saw Mister Wright, huh?”
“What?”
“You always say something like that when you see Mister Wright.”
“Hrmph,” says Miles. “Yes, I did see Wright. And his protégé, and his daughter.”
“Wow, you must really be stuck on this case if you had to talk to all of them.”
“It wasn't about the case! Well,” he reconsiders, “it was tangentially about the case. But I still don't want to talk about it.”
“But I'm your partner! If you figured out anything about the case I have to know!”
“I was just following up on this preposterous 'facial expression' theory of yours.”
“You said that idea was stupid.”
“Yes, and I still find it asinine. But we don't have any leads, and Wright dragged me halfway across town to talk to his new apprentice about it. It only seemed polite.”
“You? Polite?”
“Excuse you, Detective, I am extremely polite.”
“Well, yeah, in the way where you always say 'please' and 'thank you', but you talk to people like a bull in a china shop.”
“What does that mean?!”
“You know, you don't have ...what's the word? Tact.”
“I have plenty of tact!”
“Remember the time you made Ema cry?”
“Why does everyone keep bringing that up?! And furthermore, why is everyone suddenly complaining about my social skills?”
“It's because you don't have any.”
“I will have your pay cut, don't think I won't.”
He has three more lessons with Apollo, and he's still getting nowhere with his investigation.
When he arrives for his next session, tapping his fingers together, the other man opens the door looking harried and tired.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
“We need to work on teaching you to say 'hello',” Apollo says. “And I'm trying to figure out this case of my own, but I've got nothing. Perceiving's not even helping.”
“Have you tried Wright's magic rock?”
Apollo snorts. “What do you think I am, some kind of wizard? Besides, he said no.”
“Really? He's let me use it.”
“Yeah, but you're like, his best friend. And he told me he gave it to you because he fell off a cliff or something.”
“It was a bridge, but yes.” He files away the “best friend” comment for later analysis. “Perhaps I can help you with your case.”
“You want to help me?”
“You're helping me with my work, at least ostensibly, and I'm not trying this case against you.”
“Yeah, I got Gavin again,” Apollo mutters. “Here, have a look.”
Apollo passes Miles the notes he's working off of, containing an autopsy report, some crime scene photos, and a wad of testimonies from the witnesses. Immediately, the wheels in Miles' head begin to spin as he pieces the case together. He taps his fingers.
“The killer isn't your client, but the best friend.”
“Huh?” Apollo says, taking the notes back from Miles. “That guy has an alibi, and we haven't found any evidence to break it.”
“Yes, an alibi. Which was that he was outside of the crime scene, gardening, rather than inside it, murdering the victim.”
“Yeah.”
“You even made sure to ask him what he was growing.”
“I think that was Trucy, but yeah.”
“He told you that he was planting 'bare-root roses', but this is a lie. Roses like that should be planted in the early months of the year in this area – it is July. Since our best friend here has a doctorate in horticulture, he would know this, making it more likely that he offered up the first plant that came to mind when Trucy asked about it.”
“He was counting on us not considering that important enough to research,” Apollo breathes, seeming rather awed by Miles' display of knowledge and logic.
Miles harrumphs, embarrassed by the admiration, and straightens his cravat. “Unfortunately for him, I have a certain interest in horticulture myself.” He always makes sure to give himself a hobby he isn't embarrassed by; it's a personal rule. And considering that his other current interest is The Steel Samurai, he's redoubled his efforts. His apartment looks like a greenhouse, or possibly a miniature jungle.
“Thanks, Mister Edgeworth,” Apollo says, sincerely. “This should break him on the stand tomorrow, or at least throw him enough for me to Perceive something.”
“Yes, well. Glad to help.”
“You're tense,” Apollo says, suddenly. “Uh, sorry, but my bracelet's reacting to you. Am I making you tense?”
Miles hestitates. “Yes, I suppose. I have ...unusual reactions to things like gratitude.”
“Then I promise not to thank you in the future,” Apollo says, grinning.
“Hey, Mister Edgeworth,” Apollo greets, days later, at their next meeting. “You were totally right about the best friend – I called him out about the roses and he broke like glass.”
“You won,” Miles says, to confirm.
“Yeah, but more importantly, we caught the real killer.” He gestures to the couch. “Sit down, I want to talk to you for a second.”
“...All right,” Miles says, wary. Apollo sits next to him.
“I don't know if I should be teaching you faces anymore,” he starts. “After the thing with the roses, I did a little research on something else that's been in the back of my head, and. I don't know if it's right to do this kind of stuff now.”
“You are going to have to clarify, Mister Justice.”
“Are you autistic, Mister Edgeworth?” he asks, then claps his hands over his mouth, as if he's said something gravely offensive.
“Ah,” says Miles, the light dawning. “Most likely. I have never been tested – that would have implied that a member of the von Karma family was less than perfect, and as an adult I don't feel it necessary – but I would be a fool not to notice a certain similarity between the diagnostic criteria and myself. Even if I would rather not admit certain parts of it or have difficulty recognizing the negative symptoms.”
“Okay, then you know why I don't think I should teach you facial expressions any more.”
Miles looks at the corner of the ceiling. “Presumably you feel that you are following in a certain abusive tradition in trying to make me 'normal'.”
Apollo nods. “I mean, if you think it's something you want to do, then I'll keep teaching you, but you seemed pretty...not into it.”
“I am not, as you say, 'into it'. On one hand, I do feel as though it may be useful for me to improve my social skills, but on the other, I am not convinced that my understanding of other people is sufficiently flawed to require this sort of work.”
“I'm sorry if Mister Wright pressured you into anything,” Apollo offers.
Miles waves a hand. “It's fine. Wright has a certain ...effect on me. I would agree to a surprising amount for him.” He stands. “If our lessons are done, then I will go.”
“You don't have to,” Apollo says. “Mister Wright has always said that you're always welcome here, and, uh, I kind of thought we were. Friends now.”
“You want me to stay?”
“Only if you want to.”
He can't remember the last time someone who wasn't Gumshoe or Wright wanted him around. Maybe his social skills are improving, after all.
“All right,” says Miles, sitting back down.