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Phoenix was sorting through his paperwork, headache slowly building, when there was a knock on his office door.
“It’s open,” he called, putting his signature on yet ANOTHER fucking line, feeling dizzier than ever. The granularity of each of these lengthy forms made him think longingly about going to the dentist, the DMV, and even the bookshelf behind him.
Maybe that’s why Mia read all of those law books. Maybe she was just looking for literally anything else to do besides sort through paperwork all day every day-
“Ahem.”
Phoenix nearly jumped out of his skin, looking up to see Miles Edgeworth in his office.
“Wright,” he said, standing...formally.
“Oh, hello, Edgeworth,” Phoenix stuttered out, in greeting, “Do you...uh, do you need something?”
Miles blinked.
“I have come to deliver payment, for services rendered,” he said, words as formal as his stance.
He straightened the check in his hand.
“Services rendered?” Phoenix echoed.
“Yes, erm, services rendered,” Miles said again, awkwardly, “For the...case. That you won. On my behalf.”
“O-oh,” Phoenix said, feeling a bit stupid, “Uhm. You don’t have to pay me for that, Edgeworth, I didn’t-I kind of thrust myself into being your defense against your will-”
Miles interrupted him by laying the check down on Phoenix’s desk carefully, sliding it forward, aligning it to be parallel with the desk’s edge.
“I must insist.”
Phew, I’m glad he didn’t take me up on that…
Phoenix reached out, and accepted the check.
With his delivery finished, Miles nodded once, straightened his coat, and turned to leave.
“Y’know, I do consider winning that case its own repayment,” Phoenix said, to his retreating back, “It’s the least I could do, after...y’know. What you did, during the class trial.”
Miles froze, halfway out of Phoenix’s door.
Phoenix suddenly felt insecure.
“I know, it might seem silly, we were what, nine?” he said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck, “But, y’know, it really meant a lot to me, that you would-”
“Phoenix Wright, I have HAD it,” came Edgeworth’s prosecutorial voice, growling with finality.
Phoenix’s smile dropped.
“Excuse me?”
Miles Edgeworth spun back around, fire in his eyes.
He was angry .
“It is beyond me, why you are doing this,” Miles fumed, approaching the desk once again, “Just to torment me? To ingratiate yourself into my life for some bizarre, parasocial reason?”
“P-parasocial??” Phoenix stuttered, trying and failing to make sense of what he was saying, “I-I don’t-”
“Perhaps I have to spell it out for you, in a way that will finally break the delusion in your mind,” Miles said, clearing his throat.
“WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS!” he shouted.
Phoenix blinked in confusion. He had no idea how to even parse this denial.
He had half a mind to call Larry to the stand.
“W-we were ,” Phoenix insisted, carefully but stubbornly, “I-I don’t even know what to say here, I-I was there. And so were you! We definitely used to talk, y’know, and hang out , and-and your defense in the class trial was kind of the-”
Miles slammed his hand down on the desk, jolting Phoenix backwards.
“That blasted class trial you so flagrantly speak of,” he seethed, “centered one of my dearest friends…”
He took a deep breath, not to calm himself, but to increase the venom in his voice.
“Now deceased, ” he spat.
Phoenix’s brain completely stopped.
Fucking what??
“I visit her grave,” Miles said, still icy cold with anger, “And I do so every year. She was one of the only friends that I had in Los Angeles."
He stared off, past Phoenix, looking into the past.
"She meant a lot to me, at that time."
Snap. He was back in the present, staring down Phoenix with the passion of a thousand suns.
"Do not defile her memory, Wright, by inserting yourself where you do not belong!”
His voice BOOMED as he towered over him, nostrils flaring with furious breaths.
Phoenix felt the urge to bite back, to rile him up, to make it worse, but the beginnings of an idea, a theory, tugged at his mind instead.
“The...friend you had,” Phoenix said carefully, “The one that...the one that passed away.”
“Be careful what your next words are,” warned Miles.
“What...what was her name, again?”
Miles, put slightly at ease, shifted his weight...and told him.
Phoenix would have fallen over if he wasn’t sitting down.
He hadn’t heard his own deadname come from another person’s mouth in many a year.
He put a hand to his brow, massaging his temples, as his mind whirled. If there was a grave, one in a place that Miles visits, with a date of death on it, there was no WAY there wasn’t an official death certificate. There was probably a funeral, even. That must have been why all communication to his deadname suddenly ceased at once, that’s why when he met Miles again, he never acknowledged-
“I can’t believe I never considered,” Phoenix said, slowly, “That you didn’t know.”
“Know. What,” Miles asked evenly.
“That girl...is me,” Phoenix said, pushing past his reluctance to admit it, “I transitioned years ago.”
Miles’ eyes widened in shock, and he even stumbled backwards a step.
Quickly as the shock graced his features, they snapped right back into a much more guarded, skeptical look.
Waiting for some evidence. Proof, even.
Waiting for Phoenix Wright to defend his case.
“It was...a few years after you left,” he began, “I...some stuff happened.”
He felt the oppressive weight of the Prosecutor Edgeworth gaze, and relented.
“Fine. I ran away from home, as a teen,” Phoenix said, “I had a, uh. Gender moment. Cut off all my hair. And my parents weren’t...happy.”
Of all the possible ways you could have worded that...
Miles pursed his lips into a thin line.
“Before you even ask, they knew where I was,” Phoenix sighed, “I called. I even asked to come back home. They just...kept pretending I was a missing person, while keeping occasional contact. Until one day, when I was almost eighteen...it stopped.”
Miles’ face was unreadable.
“But from what you’re saying,” Phoenix said slowly, “My parents must have declared me dead .”
Miles just crossed his arms. He didn’t speak, but he also didn’t look like he was buying it.
“How else could I know all this information from our childhood?” Phoenix threw out desperately, “How else am I supposed to know that you used to love Signal Samurai? Or that you cried the day that our teacher brought in her pet spiders? Or that your dad used to have one of those braided rugs in the living room in front of the TV?”
Miles kept his stony glare. Immovable object.
“I don’t know how to prove it to you, Miles,” Phoenix said, exhausted, “I’m not asking you to do an investigation on my behalf. But everything I’ve been saying to you is the truth . You gotta believe me. Just because I’m not wearing my stupid denim skirts anymore, doesn’t mean I’m not the same person .”
Miles finally looked him right in the eyes.
Phoenix fought the urge to look away. He stared right back.
Miles’ eyebrows shot up into his hairline.
“Excuse me,” Miles said, and left the room quickly.
-
Phoenix didn’t see Miles at all until a few days later, when he strode into his office without warning and shut the door.
“Wha-”
Miles slammed a folder of papers down onto his desk, prompting Phoenix to jump up in surprise.
“What the hell-” Phoenix started, but before he could say anything else, Miles strode around the desk and threw his fucking arms around him.
Phoenix stilled with shock. The surreality of Miles Edgeworth embracing him, so tightly, and with such warmth, kept him completely silent.
“Thank you,” Miles whispered fiercely into his ear, “You were one of the only true friends I had in my childhood, and the loyalty you showed me, even as young as we were, had a lasting effect on me as a person. Additionally, my father-”
The breath on the side of his face stuttered.
“My father always worried for me socially,” Miles continued, sounding choked up, “But in his last few months, he was overjoyed that I had friends for the first time, and he told me once that you...you were the type of friend that could be lifelong.”
He abruptly ran out of steam, and laid his head on Phoenix’s shoulder, breathing rather raggedly.
Phoenix, coming out of the shock, finally lifted his arms and laid them gently on the back of the man in front of him.
“Upon the news of your death, I was devastated ,” Miles continued, “No one told me any details, and so I assumed...that you took your own life.”
Phoenix felt an ugly feeling raise its head in his chest. He tightened his grip.
Miles took a few breaths, then continued, his frantic speaking giving way to a lower, but no less emotional, tone.
“The guilt I felt, for disappearing, when you needed me most...I always thought, if only I could speak to her, one last time, if only I could tell her what my father said, if only we had kept in touch-”
He choked on what sounded like a sob.
“I mourned you,” Miles confessed, “I still am mourning you.”
His breath caught again, and he pulled back, hands on Phoenix’s shoulders. His eyes glistened with tears.
“But you are alive and well,” he said, his voice breaking through a genuine, toothy smile that looked out of place on this prosecutor’s face.
But perfectly in line with the ten year old he remembered.
Phoenix felt himself tearing up.
Miles sniffled suddenly and turned away, yanking his embossed handkerchief from his pocket with an embarrassed quickness. Phoenix took the moment to wipe his own eyes.
“My deepest apologies, additionally,” Miles said, formality leaking back into his demeanor, “For how I...acted, without the full context of the situation.”
Phoenix swallowed a few times before he spoke.
“I don’t blame you,” he said, clearing his voice through a waver, “I don’t blame you. I probably would have thought the same thing in your position.”
He chuckled a bit, despite himself.
“Man,” he sighed, “I may be dead to them after running away, but I never would have guessed that my parents would go and declare me legally dead. That is crazy .”
Miles drew himself up, his face turning stormy.
“Yes, well, about that,” he said, all professionalism once again, picking up the folder that he himself had slammed down onto the desk, “This, is the results of my investigation.”
Phoenix blinked. “Your what?”
Miles handed it over, and Phoenix numbly took it, leafing through it on reflex.
“It is documentation of your fraudulent death certificate, and evidence that connects you to your old name, and to your parents. There are...several contradictions. It is enough to press charges, if you wish.”
Phoenix caught sight of a photo of himself and his parents, paperclipped to an official certificate of death, and he closed the folder with a wave of nausea.
“I’m not sure, Edgeworth,” he sighed, “A case as high-profile as this...I don’t know if I want all that attention.”
Miles nodded.
“Understandable,” he said, moving towards the door, “The statute of limitations for this particular case is up in five years’ time. Think about it.”
With that, he left the office, striding down the hallway as if nothing had happened, leaving Phoenix clutching his own death certificate in his hands.