fanficition cove

Originally written/posted: November 2023
Fandom: Ace Attorney (2010)
Pairing: Wright/Edgeworth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,024 words
Notes: This was originally from a zine, so it’s actually from about two years before the listed date. 2023 is when I posted it to AO3, though, so that’s what I’m going with for here. I’ve always said when I finished more of the games I would write more Wrightworth, so lets hope that happens once I actually, you know, do that.

It’s a day like any other, really, and because this is true, Phoenix, like he would on a day like any other, finds himself in line at the coffee shop down the street from the courthouse. It has become his routine on court days, and the familiarity of it helps settle the first tease of anxiety that tries to trickle in.

The first round of witness testimonies starts for their case today, and if there’s anything he’s learned in his — admittedly short — time in being a lawyer, it is that testimony days bring out the very worst in people. 

Himself included, probably.

Not everything about the day is immediately ruined, though, and the reminder brings a small smile to his face. Courthouse days also mean grabbing lunch with Miles, which is just about the only thing that makes these same days anything approaching bearable. For all that Phoenix loves being a lawyer, he still feels like he’s winging it all the time. Maybe because he is. 

Lately, though, a shift has begun, and their lunches have begun to feel different. 

A good different.

The kind of different you take notice of in bed just as you’re about to fall asleep. So quiet in its approach that it doesn’t sneak up on you as much as it makes it that much easier for you to finally close your eyes. The things you find yourself thinking about in line at the store. If asked to pinpoint the exact moment their lunches started to change, Phoenix is not sure he would be able to. 

If he’s being honest with himself, the difference likely started long before they even reconnected. 

But blaming the lunches is easier, more comfortable, maybe, then examining what this really means underneath. 

So he doesn’t. Instead, he thinks about how lunch will be great like it always is, and the anticipation he’s been feeling all morning melts into a deep-seated contentment only Edgeworth can coax out of him. 

But, again. Not examining. 

“Sir? You said you wanted two coffees to go, right?” 

Phoenix visibly starts, feeling an instinctual blush start to bleed onto his cheeks. 

“Ah, yes, please, that would be great. Thank you so much.” 

He’s never been asked who the second drink is for, which is good. 

There are only so many ways to deny they’re for Miles.

————

Maya, predictably, is waiting for him when he arrives at the courthouse. 

He greets her with the cup of tea he had to go back to the coffee shop for once he realized he’d forgotten it and an unsteady but genuine smile. 

“You’re looking chipper this morning, Nick,” she says, her smile a little too knowing for his liking. “You do know it’s another day of unreliable witnesses, right?” 

Phoenix laughs, rolling his eyes fondly as they walk through the courthouse. They have roughly thirty more minutes before they need to be anywhere important, and he intends to use every last moment of it doing as little as he can get away with. 

First, though. 

“Have you seen Edgeworth?”

Maya’s expression turns mischievous. “You bought him coffee again?” 

“I always buy him coffee on courthouse days,” Phoenix says, leaving out the convenient truth that sometimes he sneaks in an extra coffee or two if he so happens to be in the area as well. “He insists on paying me back every time. To the penny.” 

She breathes a sigh of amusement, like this little tidbit of information does nothing to actually deter her. “Mhm,” she hums. “Well, you should probably go find him, then. So he can pay you back. To the penny.” 

Phoenix refuses to acknowledge that with a response. Instead, he turns on his heel to head towards Miles’ office. Perhaps he should think of this as conspiring with the enemy, being a defense attorney and all, but it doesn’t feel like that, not really. The healthy competition is probably good for him. 

Miles has always had a special way of challenging him.

————

Phoenix wonders if today feels as different for Miles as it does for him, or maybe if the anticipation building beneath his skin is exclusive to him. 

That’s the assumption he operates on as he knocks once, twice on Miles’ office door. He doesn’t wait for the other man to invite him in; there’s no way he doesn’t already know who came to see him. People aren’t exactly lining up to interrupt Miles Edgeworth this early in the morning. 

“Hey,” Phoenix greets, once the door is open and he can slide the coffee cup across the desk to him. “For you.” 

Edgeworth doesn’t smile, but Phoenix swears he can feel it anyway. 

“I thought I told you to stop doing this,” Edgeworth says, even as he curls a hand around the cup. 

Phoenix laughs. “You told me it wasn’t necessary, not to stop doing it.” 

Miles’ mouth twitches. “Is there a difference?” 

An eyebrow raise is all Phoenix answers with for a long moment. “I think we both know the answer to that but just in case, remind me to answer during lunch.” 

Though he’d stay until the last moment that he could if Miles would let him, Phoenix isn’t a fool. He knows better than that, so he starts to take his leave.

“Wright,” Miles says, tapping on the desk. He pushes a few notes his way, the cash no doubt as meticulously counted as it was yesterday. “Nice try.” 

Phoenix grudgingly grabs the money without further fuss, glancing over his shoulder once more as he takes his leave. 

The anticipation increases, and he truly has no further recollection of how the rest of his morning goes.

————

The testimonies, as usual, are quite the adventure to sit through, and by the time the courtroom finds everyone dismissed for lunch, the adrenaline-laced expectation that’s clouded his entire judgment today isn’t as loud as it was in the morning. He’s still looking forward to seeing Edgeworth, and the food, and conversation, and it’s this that propels him forward to meet Miles outside the diner they agreed on. 

Miles is already waiting for him, and despite the cloistering heat outside the man looks as if he hasn’t even started to break out into a sweat. Phoenix can feel the pools of condensation beneath his own suit jacket, and not for the first time, curses Miles Edgeworth for being so unflinching in his cool and collected exterior. 

“I don’t know about you,” Phoenix starts as soon as he’s in earshot. “But after sitting through that, I could really go for the biggest milkshake they have right about now.” 

The diner they stop in front of, at first glance, hardly seems like the kind of place a man like Edgeworth would spend his time in. But, that’s only true if you take him at face value. And if there is anything about Miles Edgeworth that was taught to Phoenix, maybe even one of the first things, it is that there is nothing ever so simple as that when it comes to him.

“I could use something to drown the headache of the last several hours,” Miles quips back. 

Phoenix laughs, almost delighted, maybe even deliriously so, and they step into the diner together. 

“Then we’ve come to the right place,” he says. 

They’re regular enough that the waitress on staff doesn’t bother to greet them other than a big smile and a wave, which is what he had expected. Their usual booth sticks to their slacks like always, the menus laying unopened on the — their — table as they’ve had their orders memorized from the second time they came here. He runs his fingers along the edges of it anyway, eyes glancing up at Miles’ before he can even think to censor himself. 

Miles is already looking back at him. 

Phoenix fumbles, the edge of the menu slicing his index finger uncomfortably in his haste to push it away. He doesn’t know what to do when the full force of Miles’ attention is on him, at least not outside of the courtroom. It’s easy, there, to face Miles, to poke and prod until they arrive at the truth. That’s what he’s always liked about the work they do opposite of each other; Miles is competitive, sure; they both are and he’s not denying that. But above all else, they’re both after truth above glory and aside from Phoenix’s feelings for the man, it is one of the simple facts about Edgeworth that makes being on opposite sides feel not so different from working together sometimes. 

The conversation flows easily, but that’s not a surprise either. Conversation always does, when they’re allowed the space and time to have them. And they’ve flourished underneath the cover of these lunches they take with each other. They don’t have case numbers or exuberant assistants to hide behind here. 

“Did you ever think you would be here, in some random diner, with me, after…” 

After you were forced to move away.

After we went so long without seeing each other again. 

After you never responded to any of the letters I sent. 

Edgeworth doesn’t flinch from the hard questions. 

The thing about Miles is that he’s the steady one, always has been. Even when they were kids, in their little triad, Edgeworth was the one who insisted on sticking to the plan, abiding by the rules, talking about things other than how different dirt tastes depending where it is or whatever else Larry had wanted to spew on any particular day.

“Does it matter?” Edgeworth asks, raising an eyebrow at him over their plates. 

Phoenix can’t remember when the waitress had dropped them off, truthfully doesn’t even remember ordering, either. That doesn’t stop him from taking a bite so he doesn’t have to answer immediately. 

Phoenix doesn’t flinch from the hard questions either. 

But they do make him pause. 

He’d like to say that of course it matters, because everything matters to Phoenix when it comes to Edgeworth, but the words don’t quite fall into place on his tongue. So it matters. Of course it matters. But it’s hard for Phoenix to think about anything with the way Miles is still looking at him. 

“I guess not,” Phoenix replies. “I’d still like to know, though.” 

“Lately, it’s hard to imagine I ever entertained the idea of doing anything else.” 

Of all the things Phoenix expects him to say, that was perhaps at the bottom of the list. It sends his heart fluttering, racing towards the inevitable, hopeful finish line. The finish line that Phoenix himself has been subtly trying to push them towards since they met. 

He takes a bite of his burger, and then another, glancing up at Miles once more just in time to see the very same feeling reflected back at him, for just a moment. It’s gone, a flash later, buried under the collective mask he’s worn for decades. 

But it was there. 

Phoenix is sure of it. 

————

The bill gets dropped off once their plates are mostly cleared. 

Phoenix is warm, and his belly is full of good food, so he isn’t fast enough to stop Miles from reaching for the check this time. It’s hard to feel all that bothered when hardly a second passes and his other hand is sliding across the table to inch toward Phoenix’s own. 

“I would’ve covered this,” Phoenix says, heart stuttering but his words steady. His fingers instinctively wish to curl around the weight of Miles’ and it’s hardly two breaths later he caves. 

“You got coffee,” Miles says, like that’s not what he’s done for the past several months in the first place or been relentlessly paid back for them. “I thought it was only proper that I return the favor for our first date.” 

“I don’t believe I remember you asking me out on a date,” Phoenix teases, mainly so he can stop feeling so breathless. 

“No,” Miles agrees, and he squeezes Phoenix’s hand. “But, I believe it’s time. Don’t you?” 

“Yeah,” Phoenix says, and the grin on his face stretches his cheeks so wide it almost hurts. “I was just thinking the same thing.”