Work Text:
When he first lays eyes on the Borscht Bowl Club, for just a moment he feels like he’s arriving at a crime scene. It is the exact sort of seedy bar where some needless and alcohol-fueled assault would turn into murder or any number of other crimes he rather not think about right now. The windows are inexplicably frosted over despite it being October and just cool enough to justify wearing his overcoat, and it obstructs his view from the street, which means he’ll actually have to go inside the bar to scope it out. A former mobster’s haunt, precariously keeping up on codes and permits in the current day, the food apparently awful enough that there is no way that they actually turn a profit through it’s sale alone: it adds up to a place with secrets.
Which, he supposes, makes it a good place to hide.
He considers, just for a moment, actually going inside. He’d stand out, obviously, it wouldn’t take long for whatever confrontation he expects is waiting for him to happen, surrounded by the sort of people who’d voluntarily eat borscht at a restaurant kept so cold that the electricity bill is often more expensive than the rent. A part of him almost wants that, the sort of public confrontation that would force them to both stand their ground, not giving the chance for either of them to run like they keep doing. The rest of him, however, decisively does not want that, so he lingers in the alleyway instead, waiting to see if that man might come out of the side door.
Not that this is a significantly better place to have this sort of confrontation, but at least it’s somewhat private. He wastes some time pondering where he’d rather have this talk - the detention center, where that man wrenched every last painful detail about his childhood from him? His office, like when he confronted him about his resignation? The police department when he first came back? The defense lobby? Hazakura temple?
The reality is that over all of the confrontations they’ve had over the years, none of them were really perfect. So maybe this alley is less than ideal - when has things between them ever been ideal?
He isn’t really sure how long he stands outside, thankful that no one questions anything in this part of town, not even a strangely dressed man lingering just inside an alley, but his patience is eventually rewarded when the heavy side door opens and out walks the very man he’d been waiting for.
Though, if he hadn’t been looking for him, he isn’t certain he would have noticed him at all. Instead of button-up shirts and pink ties and tacky, off-the-rack blue suit jackets, he’s wearing a tattered hoodie, his hands deep in the pockets, sweatpants, and a bright blue beanie pulled over his head, hiding his most distinguishable feature. His expression is bland, an artificial sense of boredom painted over his face, one that might be convincing if he normally wasn’t so expressive he could be read like an open book.
Or used to normally be. Miles doesn’t really know what counts as normal for that man anymore.
All of the differences catch him off guard so it takes him a moment for him to notice what’s the same. He starts with those eyes - from here he can’t see the brown that rings the irises, just the blue as the man tilts his head back, staring up at the sky. No matter how bored, how placid his expression might be, he can’t hide the alertness in those eyes, the shrewd intelligence that once made him such a formidable rival. Then Miles’ eyes slide down: to that man’s sharp jaw, it’s shape accentuated by his stubble; to the strong curve of his shoulders and well-toned arms that are as badly hidden by the hoodie as the suit jacket; to his long legs, lean and muscular from regular biking.
Seeing Phoenix Wright again after so many years is almost overwhelming, hitting Miles straight in the chest and knocking the wind out of him. He’s like a man dying of thirst and for a long moment, he just stares, drinking him in.
In the time it takes for him to gather his scrambled wits, Wright pulls out a pack of cigarettes and, to his surprise, lights one. Miles isn’t particularly fond of tobacco products - nor, does he expect, any reasonable person is - but he can’t find the image to be a contradiction. Maybe his court rival didn’t smoke, but the Phoenix Wright in a tattered hoodie who works at the Borscht Club? Maybe he does smoke, and maybe, for some reason, it fits.
It occurs to Miles, suddenly, that he’s never been a particularly good conversationalist, not even when he’s familiar with someone. The idea of actually talking to Wright suddenly fills him with a nervous energy he hasn’t experienced in years, the realization that he doesn’t know what to say, or rather, has too many things to say and doesn’t know how to say any of them. He cannot pretend that they’re strangers, they’ve got too much history, but at the same time, three years have passed, and in those three years, Wright has changed in ways he cannot imagine.
He cannot pretend those three years didn’t happen, just like he couldn’t pretend the 18 years before it didn’t, he cannot pretend like he hadn’t run away from Los Angeles when it became too much like it always does, and had turned around to look for Wright on his heels like he always was, just to find no one there. There is no one in the world who knows Miles as well as Wright does, not even Franziska, and yet he feels like he knows nothing about this man.
How did Wright handle it? He chased Miles through law school with nothing but the memory of a few too-short months as a child and hadn’t let the 15 years that had stretched between them trip him up for a moment.
Perhaps that’s why three years is nothing to him, and perhaps that’s why Wright is the first one to speak here once again.
“So, are you gonna loiter in the alleyway like some sort of vampire or actually come over here?” he calls, and even his voice sounds different, dulled and graveled, sardonic undertones to every word. If he’s surprised to see Miles, he doesn’t show it, just watches him from the corner of his eye as he brings his cigarette to his mouth.
Miles steps further into the alley, until he reaches the very edge of the soft light the lantern hung above the employee exit gives off. Wright smiles at him and Miles is surprised when it seems to actually reach his eyes.
“It’s been a long time, Edgeworth,” he says, and on his exhale, a cloud of tobacco smoke shrouds him. It’s strangely fitting, to have this conversation with him obscured by smoke.
“I trust you’ve been well, Wright?” he says, because he can’t think of anything else, and Wright laughs humorlessly.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“I’ve only known three people who wear cravats like that,” he says. “One is dead and you don’t quite have Franziska’s figure.”
“Ah,” he says, because well, fair enough. Miles hadn’t thought far enough ahead to dress less distinctively, although he hadn’t really been intending to hide, so there was no real reason for him to do so. He just feels a little silly now that Wright has pointed it out.
“What brings you to LA, much less the dirty alley of the great Borscht Bowl?” Wright asks, looking back towards the stars and ashing his cigarette.
“I’d imagine the answer to that is rather obvious.”
“Maybe,” he answers with a shrug and a smirk. “Would still like to hear you say it.”
Miles was never any good at denying Wright. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You haven’t been trying very hard,” he says, and something in his expression shutters, the easy smile falling back into the bored mask he was wearing when he stepped out. It grates on Miles’s nerves, a sense of wrongness permeating everything about it, but he doesn't know how to fix it. Unaware or uncaring about Miles’s reaction, he continues with, “I live out of my old office, you know.”
Of course Miles knew that, and if he hadn’t, while Wright and Co. wasn’t written on the sign anymore, ‘Wright Talent Agency’ was telling enough. The reason he didn’t just find Wright there is simple: Miles Edgeworth is a coward. It’s something he’s been fairly cognizant of ever since the first time he ran a long time ago, setting up a pattern he keeps repeating without meaning to - every time something gets hard, he leaves. Confronting Wright here is the bravest thing he’s ever done, and it’s happening late at night in a filthy alley because walking into that office, knowing everything Wright used to be and what was taken from him, was too hard for Miles.
But, saying any of that would be too honest, so instead he asks, “When did you pick up that habit?”
“Oh, this?” Wright asks, allowing the topic change and gesturing with his cigarette. “When I started working here. They only let you have breaks if you smoke."
“That’s a labor law violation. Employees are entitled to two-ten minutes paid breaks and one -”
Wright’s laughing, so Miles stops talking. “Always the prosecutor, huh?”
Miles clears his throat, mildly embarrassed for some reason, but Wright’s smiling again and it’s real so he decides that it’s worth it. He’s still smiling when he brings the cigarette back to his lips.
“So,” he says on his next exhale. “How about you tell me why you’re really here?”
Miles frowns. “I already told you. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Why?” he asks, and for the first time that night he turns his head so both of his shrewd eyes are on him. His other hand is in his pocket and Miles wonders if he has that green rock on him, the magatama.
Just in case, he tries to think of an honest answer, and a single one. There are more than he has time to tell, some of them he isn’t sure he could actually vocalize so much as describe vague sensations, and others would leave him too bare, too vulnerable for a dirty alley behind a borscht restaurant.
So he settles for, “You stopped chasing me.”
That seems to shock a laugh out of Wright, and at first it’s almost delighted, like he enjoys the novelty of being surprised, but it’s bitter before he’s done. “All it took, huh? Wish I had known that years ago.”
Miles doesn’t bother telling him that it wouldn’t have worked before now. He takes a step closer to him.
“Wright,” he says, quietly as he struggles to find words for his next question. “Why have you been so hard to reach?”
“I’m not the man I used to be, certainly not the man who was chasing you,” Wright says, looking away. When he brings the cigarette to his lips, it seems less casual this time. “Besides, it never worked. You always left. A man can’t chase someone forever.
“I never understood why you did in the first place,” Miles says, and the corner of Wright’s lip quirks up.
“I'd imagine the answer to that is rather obvious,” he mocks.
“Not to me.”
“Why would a man continue chasing someone so determined to shake him off?” Wright asks, like it’s a riddle or a puzzle to piece out. “From the evidence, I’d say it’s pretty obvious it’s because he’s in love with them.”
“Wright,” Miles chokes out, and as if he hadn’t just shaken the foundations of his entire world, Wright just turns back to him with an empty smile, a facsimile of what he used to be.
“That’s my hypothesis, anyway,” he says with a shrug too casual for this conversation.
“Y-your hypothesis?” Miles repeats. He can’t tell if Wright is mocking him or not, if he knows and is just having fun at Miles’ expense. A small, desperate part of him hopes that he’s telling the truth, in his own enigmatic way. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t worry too hard about it, Edgeworth,” Wright says, tilting his head so that his face is shadowed. “You got my answer.”
How could he not worry about it? He makes a noise of frustration and stares at the brick wall across from Wright. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because it doesn’t matter anymore,” he says, and when Miles looks at him again in shock, he’s stubbing his cigarette out against the wall.
“It doesn't - how could you just say that, Wright?!”
“I’m a disgraced, former defense attorney and a single father who relies on his pre-teen daughter to pay the bills,” comes his answer, bitterness sneaking into his irreverent tone. “Tell me how it could matter.”
“Is that how little you think of me?” Miles asks quietly. “That I’d care about any of that?”
“How could you not?” Wright shoots back, his empty smile returning. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been ducking you for three years - you’re cut loose. This isn’t your responsibility.”
He says the next thing so quietly Miles is sure he isn’t supposed to hear it, “None of it matters anymore.”
“Wright -”
“Look, I’m just telling you now because it’s the truth, one that I felt shouldn’t be left unsaid,” he cuts in before Miles can say more, and he turns to face the restaurant, reaching a hand out for the door. “There is no point trying to change the past. I gave up.”
“Phoenix Wright has given up?” Miles says, and the words feel fundamentally wrong, like waking up to a sky of a different color. “You never give up.”
“That isn’t always a good thing,” he says, pulling the door open. “I’m just moving on. You can too, now.”
“Hold it -” When Wright tries to step into the darkened hall of the Borscht club, tries to walk away from this conversation, from him again, he panics. He surges forward, sliding into the doorway and blocking Wright’s entrance, putting them toe to toe. He can almost feel the other man’s heat from here, compared to the cold spilling out from the restaurant. The difference makes him shiver.
Wright just stares at him expectantly and Miles averts his eyes, landing on Wright’s hand on the handle.
“I don’t want to move on,” Miles says quietly, and Wright’s grip tightens until his knuckles turn white. “Not if it means losing you.”
“. . . you don’t understand,” Wright says quietly, not looking at him either. “You’ve already lost the person you thought I was, if I ever was that person. All that shit about truth and integrity and believing in people? It didn’t stop me from forging evidence.”
“You’re lying,” Miles says, dragging his eyes up Wright’s arm to his jaw. “I know you’d never do anything like that.”
“Oh yeah?” Wright challenges. His voice almost sounds desperate and when Miles looks up, their eyes meet. “How can you be so sure? They took my badge, didn’t they?”
“Because I believe in you,” Miles answers. Wright laughs humorlessly.
“Is that what this is, then?” he asks. “Some twisted sense of loyalty? I was there for you, so you have to be there for me?”
“No.”
“Then what is it about, Edgeworth?” he suddenly shouts, his free hand grabbing the lapel of Miles’s overcoat and dragging him forward. “Why are you here? ”
He can feel Wright’s breath on his face, they’re so close. Maybe it’s the tobacco smoke, or the proximity, but his heart is in his throat.
“What is it that you said?” he asks quietly, gaze dropping back to Wright’s jaw, his eyes too much to handle right now. “About chasing a man who tries to shake you off?”
The handle clicks as Wright’s hand loosens, and for the first time that night, his expression is as easy to read as it used to be. All Miles sees is complete and utter shock.
“. . . are you saying . . ?”
“Yes,” he says, barely breathing. “For longer than I can remember. I should have told you before.”
“I . . . all those times . . ?”
“I was never running from you,” he says, and Wright sucks in a breath through his teeth. “I was - I am a coward. I ran when things got hard, when I felt too much. But . . . never from you.”
Wright stares at him, wide-eyed for a long moment. When that shuttered look comes back, Miles swears he feels his heart break. He moves away when the other man lets go of the door so it can close with a dull thud behind them, then he watches Wright step away, tilting his head back to look at the stars.
“I still can’t let it matter,” he says.
“Why not?” Miles can’t help but challenge. “I’m not running anymore.”
“Maybe, but I am,” Wright says, taking his hat off so he can run his fingers through dark, messy hair. “I’m already risking my daughter every damn day. I can’t risk anyone else - especially not you.”
“What are you talking about?” Miles asks before shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter, I can handle myself.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” Wright says. “I can’t let you do this.”
“Is it not my choice?”
“But why?” Wright asks, that desperate tone returning to his voice. “Why would you choose this? You could have anybody, could be anywhere - why be shackled to this place full of nightmares? I have a kid now, one that you never agreed to be responsible for but you’d have to if this would ever work. And on top of all of that, on top of the fact that I’m a barely contained mess with more baggage than I can fit in my apartment, I have someone who is after me, someone who could come after you.”
The sudden ferocity in his voice tapers off and he looks away, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Why choose that?”
“Because I love you,” Miles says quietly. “That’s why I came here.”
Wright’s on the brink of his tears, his laughter almost hysterical when he responds, “You make it sound so easy.”
“I never said it would be easy. Nothing between us ever has been.”
“And . . . even still?”
“Even still.”
Wright drags his eyes back to him, wide and still shocked, like he’s just keeping himself from believing. When he blinks, a tear escapes from the tangle of his dark eyelashes and Miles reaches out, catching it with his thumb and cupping the other man’s cheek.
“If you’ll have me,” he murmurs. “I am yours.”
Wright tastes like charred tobacco when he kisses Miles, but also grape juice and hope and somewhere, underneath it all, like the truth. Miles wraps his arms around his waist and tugs him closer and there are hands in his hair, skating over the short hair on the nape of his neck and burying themselves in the longer strands near the top. Wright kisses with a certain desperation, like he’s trying to escape himself while also proving that he’s real, and Miles is just along for the ride. He tries to commit this all to memory: the scrape of stubble against cheek, chapped lips against his, clumsy fingers pressed close to his scalp, a warm body in his arms, defined muscles moving under his fingertips. He tries to remember the burst of light in his chest, the warmth that he isn’t certain if it’s coming from Wright or his happiness, and the way the world seems to fade away until it’s just the two of them.
He hopes he won’t have to memorize it, that he’ll have plenty of reminders in the future.
When they pull away for air, Miles is startled to realize that Wright is crying. He wipes away his tears again and watches as that man smiles, honest emotions crossing from overwhelmed to surprise to settling at a warm happiness that would keep Miles comfortable even inside the Borscht bowl.
“Is everything okay?” Miles asks.
“Everything is more than okay,” he answers with a quiet laugh. “It’s just a lot. I didn’t exactly prepare for this when I saw you.”
“I did not foresee this outcome either,” Miles admits. “But I’m glad it happened.”
“You have to actually meet my daughter now, you know,” he says, sliding his arms around Miles’ neck and hugging him close.
“Of course,” he responds, settling his hands back on Wright’s waist. “I’d be honored.”
“You’ll love her. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t,” he says, and Miles can feel his smile against his neck. “She’ll love you, too.”
“I hope she will.”
They allow themselves a quiet moment, basking in each other’s warmth and the joy of a love shared. A part of Miles argues that he doesn’t deserve this wonderful man in his arms, no matter how much Wright had acted like it was the other way around, but he silences that part of him so he can enjoy this, so he can enjoy holding the man he loves.
When Wright pulls away, he quickly brings his hands up to grab his face and pull him into another kiss, just because he can, and when they part, Wright is smiling again.
“Edgeworth . . . there is one thing though,” he says, and his smile dims slightly. “I do have someone after me. I think I know who it is but I don’t have any proof. He’s too careful.”
“I’ll help you in any capacity that I can.”
“Thank you,” Wright says with a surprised laugh. “But that isn’t what I meant.”
Miles just raises an eyebrow. The other man sighs, and reaches up to pull Miles’s hands off his face, tangling their fingers together.
“I was being serious about not risking you. I can’t even let him think I’ve realized something, or that I have any hope at all - he’s already taken my career and I don’t know why. I don’t know what else he’ll go after.”
“What are you saying?” Miles asks, and Wright squeezes his hands.
“I’m saying that I love you,” he says, then smiles sadly. “But we have to be careful about this.”
Miles' first instinct is to argue, to plead his case, but Wright’s expression makes it clear that it’s non-negotiable. If he wants this, if he wants Wright, he has to accept his terms. He sighs, and leans his head against the other man’s shoulder.
“I can’t say I’m pleased by this,” he rumbles. “But I will follow you.”
“Thank you,” Wright says, pressing a kiss against his temple. He can feel the man’s smile against his skin. “And . . . I have something to ask you about.”
“Anything,” Miles says, pulling Wright close again. “I already said.”
Wright laughs softly. “How much do you know about jurist systems?”