Chapter Text
The phone rings and Miles answers, voice sharp and forbidding, jarred from a rare restful sleep.
“Do you have any idea what time it is, Wright?”
“No,” a soft, contrite, feminine voice says over the line. A young voice.
…and that is how Miles Edgeworth finds out about the disbarment.
He multitasks, listening to Trucy Wright’s childish rendition of events as he skims news headlines on his laptop. Forged evidence. Missing client. Adoption notice. A listing for P. Wright, pianist on-demand.
“Firstly, I am glad that you called me,” Miles tells her when she finishes. “But I must ask why you felt compelled to do so.”
“Because somebody had to,” Trucy says, a little impatiently. “Daddy keeps looking at your number and then putting his phone away so I thought you were important. I had to steal his cell when he went to bed, so don’t tell him I called.”
Miles swallows down a wave of guilt. When was the last time he’d called Wright? Months, clearly. Unacceptable, even aside from the circumstances.
“Thank you for reaching out,” Miles says. “I will follow up with your father. If there is anything else that I can do, please let me know.”
“Uh huh,” Trucy says, shockingly skeptical for a girl her age. Lord, she really is Wright’s daughter now, isn’t she.
“I imagine that you’ve heard such platitudes before,” Miles says. “But I think you’ll find that I mean them. You are welcome to try your luck at any time.”
“Okay,” Trucy says, unenthused.
~~
“Well, well. What a surprise, Miles Edgeworth.” Wright drawls when he answers the phone. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you free to speak?” Miles asks.
Wright snorts. “Not like you’re interrupting anything of legal import.” He’s testing the air, waiting for Miles to pounce on the opening. Perhaps it would have even worked, if not for Trucy’s warning. He spares a little warm appreciation for circumnavigating that particular argument. Which is not to say that this will not simply be another argument on another topic altogether. Miles isn’t stupid. He takes a deep breath.
“I have an egregious habit of assuming that those I care for only require my attentions when in crisis. That is to say, when I cease communications, it is under the impression that those I have left are happy, contented and well-situated. This is not an excuse, merely… an explanation. Of sorts.”
“So you think, what, we’re all living our happily ever afters when you roll credits?” Wright asks bitterly. “No need to check in unless somebody falls off a bridge or gets kidnapped or-” he stops, abruptly.
“Something like that. It was the Von Karma way. When I was in boarding school, the only missives I received involved logistics- and relatively few of those, as I spent every holiday and break at the school regardless. That was, ah, much of the appeal, I believe.”
“And you didn’t have any friends.” Wright probably means the words to be cutting, but a note of sympathy slips in regardless. It needles worst of all.
“I haven’t spoken to Franziska in six months,” Miles confesses. “Eight, if you discount a few professional emails.”
“I guess I should be flattered, it’s only been four for me.” Wright says lightly.
“It is unconscionable, unacceptable behavior from someone who is supposed to be your friend.” Miles says firmly.
“...I could have called,” Wright says reluctantly.
“You shouldn’t have to. You always called when I needed it.”
“Not like you picked up half the time,” Wright points out.
“I still needed it,” Miles murmurs.
A pause.
“Okay. So…”
“So. I would like to be a better friend, if that is agreeable.” His fingers are tight on the phone, but he’s careful to keep his voice even and pleasant.
“And if I don’t pick up?” Wright asks roughly. “Things are- they’re not… great.”
“I know,” Miles says quietly.
“Is that why you’re doing this? Cause I’m- you know. That happened.” Wright clears his throat.
“It’s why I said it now,” Miles agrees, unwilling to lie. “But I have wanted to be a better person… a better friend…to you… for some time now. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“What’s it look like?” Wright asks. “Being a better friend with Miles Edgeworth.”
“I’m not sure,” Miles admits. “But I’d like to try and see.”
“Sure,” Wright says, unenthused. “Knock yourself out.”
~~
Miles Edgeworth is an important man. He was raised to be so; he does not waste time on periphery pursuits. His opinion is valued; others seek his attention, his money, his approval. Miles has never had to try.
He tries for Phoenix Wright.
For three months straight, Miles is the one who calls. He leaves messages that go hours or days or weeks without answer. He’s a busy man himself; this pursuit does not derail the neat order of his current life, but in his idle time he pencils in reminders to reach out until it’s second nature to do so.
It’s frustrating, at first, to go so long without acknowledgement. Then… something changes. The sporadic answers; the gratifying sound of Wright’s voice on the other line when he wants to hear it... indulging in the ability to want something and to try for it, right then and there, it’s… enlightening.
Should Wright decide that Miles is not a necessary element of his life after all, he will at least have this knowledge- that he can do this. He’s capable of showing it. It’s a rare thing to notice a piece of his humanity and to feel something akin to awe instead of resigned distate.
Three months in, Wright calls first.
“Wright,” Miles says in greeting.
“You good?” Wright asks immediately. “It’s not like… three am or anything?”
“A perfectly respectable six forty-five in the morning,” Miles assures him and Wright curses. “It’s fine. I’ve been up for an hour; I fly out in the early afternoon. For now I am at your disposal.” He puts the phone on speaker while he continues to leisurely arrange his suitcase.
“Alright, well. Good.” Wright huffs. “We got your package.”
“I hope everything arrived intact.” Miles folds his sweaters efficiently, rolling and tucking them inside of the garment bag as he has done so many times before.
“Yeah it was- one hell of a package. I mean, thanks- you must have spent a fortune. Everything tastes amazing, I had to hide my half of the chocolates from Trucy under the bathroom sink to keep her from scarfing them all. And the slippers are great.”
“Delighted to hear it,” Miles says, smiling. “I had to guess the sizes for the hausschuhe."
“I gotta tell you, though- that cuckoo clock is the creepiest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Plebeian. It’s an authentic Schwarzwald.”
“Ah, a purebred ugly screaming hunk of wood. What the hell.” Wright sounds disgusted and it surprises an actual laugh out of Miles.
“I suppose that’s why I sent it. It amused me to think of your reaction. You can get rid of it, if you like.”
“No way,” Wright protests. “You sent me a gag gift? Now I gotta keep it forever.”
“Suit yourself, let the record show I attempted to absolve you.”
“Hey… Edgeworth?” Wright asks seriously. “Why’d you send it?”
Miles is quiet.
“Not that I’m complaining, it was a nice surprise. For both of us.”
“I’ve never sent a care package, or bothered buying souvenirs. It was… novel. I enjoyed myself. As to why it occurred to me to do so, well.” Miles zips up his suitcase and then sits in the armchair by the window. “I’ve begun calling Franziska weekly.”
“Yeah? How’s that going?” Wright asks, genuinely interested. It makes Miles feel flushed with affection.
“Better than expected,” Miles says frankly. “She was suspicious at first and mostly ignored me, but we’ve worked our way up to a stiff five minutes or so on a dry legal point. So. Improvements all around.”
Wright laughs. “I don’t get it, but I’m happy for you.”
“I… don’t know that I would have tried, if it weren’t for you.” Miles looks out over Berlin from his penthouse bay windows but he can’t pick out a single detail. His focus is a thousand miles away, on the other line. He wonders what expression Wright might be wearing, over there. “So… I sent a few things I thought you both would like. I hope that’s amenable. I’m still dreadful at small talk and gratitude, I suppose.”
“I don’t know,” Wright says softly. “I think you’re doing okay.”
“Thank you,” Miles says, and means it a lot of different ways.
~~
“Hello, Wright.”
“Hello, Mr. Edgeworth.”
“Miss Wright,” Miles corrects himself. “It’s rather early, isn’t it?”
“Daddy just went to sleep, he had a double.”
“So you could purloin his phone, I see.”
Trucy giggles. “Thank you for the presents.”
“You’re welcome. Did you let your father have any chocolate?”
“He thinks I don’t know about the bathroom sink, but I’m being generous.”
“Quite,” Miles says, amused.
“That sparkly cloth you sent- we made it into a cape. It’s really cool, it's all glittery when I spin.”
“I'm sure you look very nice in it.”
Trucy snorts. “Who cares when it’s so distracting! I can pull off tricks a lot better with a glitzy cape. I made ten whole dollars doing tricks in the park Saturday morning.”
“Did you?” Miles asks. Busking in a city park requires a permit. He should look into that for her, perhaps.
“Yep! And good thing too, because Daddy said the check bounced from the Borscht Bowl so we got ramen on me.” Trucy waits patiently while he turns this over in his mind a few times.
“...do you know why I sent you that cloth, Miss Wright?”
“Because it’s pretty and I’m a little girl, so I like pretty things.” Trucy says, dutiful.
“Because it was something I’d have liked to have, when I was a child. It wasn’t something I knew how to ask for, and when I did, it was something that would not have been given to me.”
It had been a lovely, soft, sparkling length of cloth- too little to make a full dress but quality. He’d shaken and scrunched it and not a bit of the sheen flaked away. The subtle pattern of flowers picked out in gold… His father, perhaps, could have understood one day, when Miles had the words to tell him, but instead-
“I hope,” Miles says abruptly, dashing away his own wretched memories, “that you know that you can ask.”
“Daddy does his best.” Trucy says.
“He does wonderfully,” Miles responds warmly.
“Those presents cost a lot of money,” Trucy says abruptly.
“I can afford it,” Miles explains. “I have disposable income.”
“Daddy doesn’t want your money.”
“I think he’d stop taking my calls, if I tried to insist.” Miles says gently.
Trucy huffs, exasperated. “Daddy’s not- not a real performer. Not like-” she stops.
“He is used to a different kind of performance,” Miles says diplomatically.
“I’m a magician. You have to please the crowd because the crowd pays money. That’s how it works. You need people to give you money.” Trucy sounds frustrated.
“That’s how I understand it, yes.”
“We need money.” Trucy says, almost aggressively. “Not all the time, but sometimes. They leave notes on the door. Sometimes the lights go out for a couple hours until Daddy makes some calls.”
“I have disposable income,” Miles says again, now that he understands. “I have money.”
“Daddy won’t take it, but I’m- I’m a magician. So. I’ll take it.” Trucy’s still belligerent and oh so brave.
God, Miles remembers this.
He remembers trading in a bow tie for a cravat, winding it around and around around his neck, suffocating for a smirk he could pretend was a smile-
He’d wanted to be a Von Karma so badly. The things he’d done.
The things Trucy would do, to stay a Wright.
But Wright is a good man. He just needs a little help, that’s all. It couldn’t be more different. Instead of feeling suffocated with horror, Miles finds himself impossibly endeared.
Trucy talks and talks- about how to wire transfer so she can cash it in, an old trick from Gramarye, and how she’ll pass it off as earnings from the park, and when the major bills are due, and-
Miles says yes and yes and yes and he’s not even talking to Trucy at all.
~~
They iron out the details over a few days. Trucy wants him to pinky promise to keep it all a secret and so Miles explains contractual obligation to an eight year old as simply as he can manage.
The terms are thus:
Miss Trucy Wright, hereto referred to as Party A, will be responsible for the calculation of required expenses and will submit formal request to Mr. Miles Edgeworth, hereto referred to as Party B. There is no limit on frequency or amount of funding though this is open to more stringent terms if deemed necessary by either party and subject to amendment. Whenever possible, Party A will make requests one week or more in advance of accounts due. Alternate procedures for emergency fund disbursement will be followed accordingly.
At no time will Party A inform Mr. Phoenix Wright, hereto referred to as Party C, of recompense; nor will Party B inform Party C of any information disclosed in confidence during transactional discussions. This nondisclosure agreement will retroactively be applied to all communications thus far between Party A and Party B.
Etcetera etcetera
Miles does not feel any particular compunction about the agreement. Wright will be incensed enough if he discovers the subterfuge, which is an unfortunately likely future outcome. Still, Miles has weighed Phoenix’s anticipated reaction with the goodwill he’s managed to win so far and has decided that it is worth the calculated risk. Wright is not a stupid man, but he does have a certain amount of pride. Even should he suspect Trucy’s contributions originate with a third party, he’s unlikely to look a gift horse in the mouth so long as the help is sporadic and sorely needed.
Nor does he worry over their secret talks. All Wright has to do is check his call log to see that Trucy has been calling him- it is likely that he already knows, even if he doesn’t suspect the contents of their conversations. If Wright notices on his own, Miles can hardly be held accountable for breach of trust.
And… it’s nice.
Trucy may be precocious but she’s still a child. She is able to accept, with childlike simplicity, that she may call Miles, rattle off a number and a date, and the money will appear without recrimination. Without guilt or suspicion or wariness, she switches to more interesting things- what she’s watched on TV, what magic trick she’s working on, what she’s doing in school. She doesn’t mention friends- Miles doesn’t think she has any.
He thinks about his silly bow tie and pressed dress shirts; his obsession with law he could barely pronounce, much less understand. He thinks about Trucy in her sparkly cape, trying card tricks again and again at the back of the room under her desk while the other kids whisper and point and stare.
Trucy asks him what he ate for dinner, if he saw any cool pigeons, what the weather is like, and how to say increasingly ridiculous phrases in the language of whatever region he might be staying. It’s charmingly low maintenance.
Months pass this way- talking to Wright, talking to Trucy- sending money and the occasional present.
He spends Christmas with Franziska; they go to dinner at a high class Michelin starred hotel and bond over the fact that it’s truly abysmal. The chateaubriand is overdone, the dauphinoise grainy. The dessert is a molecular gastronomy disaster of sour currents and frozen, watery milk.
He takes pictures of each course to send to Wright later; Franziska does not harangue him over it, though her elegantly arched eyebrow speaks volumes. It is a wonderfully pleasant evening and he staunchly does not think of elevators, earthquakes, or blood.
Miles does, however, think of Wright on the walk back to the fully furnished villa he is subletting for the next few months. It’s an unfortunate side effect of letting people into his life properly, he’s realized. There’s a constant, low level thrum of interest he cannot put aside. He may not even wish to.
He sends the pictures and the highlights of their scathing review to Wright via text.
god to drop that kind of cash on a meal i hate #goals
Wright’s response is incomprehensible, per usual- but Miles is seized with a sudden impetuous desire.
And it is Christmas.
So he calls.
“Edgeworth? You okay?” Wright asks, picking up.
“Yes, sorry. I won’t keep you long-”
“Trucy says hi,” Wright interrupts, and Miles can faintly hear her lilting voice in the background. “Keep mashing those potatoes! We’re a lump-free household.” Some shuffling sounds as Wright moves into the next room and closes the door. “What’s up?”
“Merry Christmas,” Miles says, feeling foolish.
“Oh! Merry Christmas,” Wright says, sounding pleased. “It’s been okay, then?”
“More than,” Miles assures him. “I was thinking… rather impulsively, I must admit.”
“More impulsive than hopping continents within the hour?” Wright asks wryly.
“You’d have more than an hour,” Miles says.
“Huh?”
“I mean to say- #goals.”
“Did you just… did you just say hashtag-”
“Would you like to come out to visit me?” Miles interrupts.
“I…” Wright seems at a loss. “What does that even mean? I have Trucy.”
“Yes,” Miles agrees. “I admit my experience with public schools are limited. If she is unable to give notice and receive permission, we could plan around school breaks. You would have to let me know what works best with your schedule.”
“Edgeworth, you can’t just fly us out to Europe on a whim.” Wright says, voice somewhat brittle.
“Actually, I can.” Miles says, as gently as he can manage. “And I want to. And I’m offering. But you are not obliged, just because I wish to see you.”
“You want to see me?” Wright asks, almost like he’s afraid to.
“I want to see you both,” Miles says firmly. “If it helps, I’ll almost certainly have to work at least part of the time you’d be visiting. I’d be honored to have you assist me. You can consider it a… working vacation.”
“Dunno that the billable hours for a disbarred attorney slash professional barfly are going to cut international jet setting.” Wright mutters.
“Do you want to come?” Miles asks. “Would you… would you enjoy it?”
“I… yeah. I think, I mean. Fuck, Edgeworth. Would I enjoy getting to fly across the world and see more than some shitty bars and my cluttered home office? And have my best friend meet my daughter, and- yeah. I’d enjoy it. But-”
“Then,” Miles risks cutting him off, and it pays off- Wright falls silent. “Then talk it over with Trucy. Look at your schedules, let me know what you two decide. There’s no time limit, no expiration date.”
“You’re only saying that because you know she’ll talk me into it.” Wright grumbles, though he sounds too bright to really mean it.
“Unsubstantiated objection,” Miles chides, and Wright laughs.
~~
They begin to rotate in visits, once every eight months or so when their schedules permit. Perhaps it’s foolish for Miles to feel so invested in a family he is barely peripheral to- halfway across the world, a handful of phone calls and texts can hardly substitute for being physically present. But it’s as much intimacy as he can take, being what he is.
One such visit they’re eating pizza in Rome, outside the Pantheon and Trucy hands him a napkin right before the marinara drips onto his shirtfront. Wright’s sweatsuit and scruff suit him here, where he’s meant to be resting. Miles knows that Wright always brings dress clothes in case Miles wants him to wear them, the same way that he supposes Wright must know by now that Miles won’t ask him to. Miles spends weeks before the trip consulting with Trucy for hours, sending links and suggestions and wish lists back and forth and back and forth. She always has the final say, and she always gets to be navigator. Miles looks at her now, map forgotten on the table, gathering condensation from her drink as she shares garlic knots with Wright and he’s overwhelmed, blinking away sudden moisture at the corner of his eyes. He'll blame the smog when they ask, but.
Love.
He loves them.
Perhaps he always loved Wright, a little bit. He’d been the world Miles lost when his father died; then he’d been a reminder of what Miles could have been, in a better world, on the other side of the bench. Then he’d been a savior, a paragon, a frustrating, darling, attractive, righteous man. And now he’s…
Well. Everything. And Trucy makes Miles want to be gentle and open and honest, to every day be someone he thinks she might be proud to know. Miles is a better person just soaking in their sunlight, no matter how Wright might claim he's dimmed over time. Miles is grateful. They’ve let him cling to their apron strings and feel this… momentous, wonderous thing. It must be nothing to them, but…
The law has always been his purpose, but Trucy and Wright… they’re his heart. His very soul. Miles is the picture of reserve, but that only means that his very strongest feelings stay tucked away and ember bright, for all time.
“Thank you,” he says with feeling.
“No problem! I grabbed a bunch,” Trucy grins, fanning out the extra napkins like a deck of cards.