Means to an End [Ace Attorney; Miles and Phoenix-centric, 3/3]
Title: Means to an End
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Character/Pairings: Focuses on Miles and Phoenix; appearances of Kristoph, Kay, Badd, Franziska, Vera, Trucy; numerous others cameo-ing or mentioned in passing. Pre-relationship, if anything.
Word Count: 4,124 for this chapter; 24,836 in total
Warnings: PG, for some violence.
Summary: “No need to be so uptight, Edgeworth.” The hood of the cloak hides most of Wright's features from Miles' trained eye, but there is no mistaking that tone of voice, so very different from before - deadly calm with just the barest hint of dark amusement. “After all, it's an easy job. Just get the information out of the target and walk away.” [Undercover Agent AU]
Status: Completed
Chapter Links: [ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Master Post ]
Author's Notes: Written for the pw_bigbang community, with much love to my very patient artists and mixer ♥. Please do check out their works: cannedebonbon's art; nenadi's art and shychloe's fanmix.
He’s back a day early, ahead of Gavin’s schedule, the negotiation going surprisingly easy. They had been impressed by him, Von Karma’s mark on him a symbol of esteem, and Miles had played that up that persona, cold and arrogant, verbally ripping many of the lesser underlings to shreds and stamping his position high on that foreign hierarchy’s pecking order without ever lifting his gun.
And now here he is, standing in front of the office building like an echo from last week, because Trucy had been waiting by the train station, a dove still perched on her shoulder like she’s been practicing magic tricks when he came through the station exit. Uncle Miles, she called him, smiling like a girl in a picture, forever happy; she pressed a note into his hands and told him to visit “as soon as you can, okay?” before skipping off.
No one answers his knocks, but the door to the office-turned-home twists easily in his hands, and although the immediate room is empty Miles still leaves his guns on a side table, so conspicuous they could be mistaken for toys among the other magic props.
Trucy had given him a grand tour of her home that one afternoon he spent there, and there’s one room she bypassed, and Miles is staring at the door of it when the voice calls from within it.
“Come on in.”
*
It’s a simple room; bare walls, no windows, a table, a single lamp, two chairs, and Wright is sitting in one of them.
Miles has never seen Wright with a gun in his hand. Not like this, not held like it’s a part of him, finger currently off the trigger but it’d be easy to rectify that; Wright’s fast, although his indifferent, lazy posture doesn’t advertise it.
“Hey Edgeworth,” Wright says, very quietly. “Let’s play a game. I’ll lay the ground rules.”
It’s quiet here, the lack of sound almost ringing in his ears. Miles closes his hands into loose fists, keeps them at his side, and takes a long step into the room, lets the door slip shut behind him.
“You went through all the effort of passing me that note so we could play a game? A game of poker, then?”
Wright almost smiles at the piece of paper Miles drops atop the spread deck of cards, on it a doddle of a magician’s top hat encased in house-shaped outline.
“No.” And Wright sets the gun down, sweeps the cards away together with the note, tucks them into a drawer under the table. “I had to do something to pass the time, after all.”
“I have another question.”
“Hmmm?” Wright hums, eyes fixed on him, sharp, and they’ll gain that extra shine in a moment, overly bright and otherworldly.
“Why did you put your gun down?”
Wright’s smile goes lazy, almost smug. “That’s for you. I figured you might leave your weapons behind again, if you thought there’s a chance Trucy’s still here.” Wright actually laughs at Miles’ expression, a thread of amusement laced through the laughter. “What, you thought we’d have to battle it out for the gun, like some twisted version of a shoot out? That’s not the game I had in mind, Miles.”
Miles takes the chair left obviously for him, the gun with its handle angled towards him lying between them, and deliberately folds his hands on the table. Watches Wright’s face for any telltale expression, Wright’s spiky hair distracting without the beanie. “Then what do you have in mind?”
Wright tucks his hands into his hoodie pocket, his gaze steady. “Ten questions each. The recipient of the question has to answer truthfully. And we each have one object, to help us along the way.”
Miles looks down at the gun, the same model as the semi-automatics he carries, glances back up again, doesn’t ask the question. “And how will either of us know if the other is lying?”
“Oh, I’ll know,” Wright says, and there it is, the shine in the interrogator’s eyes, the side of Wright Miles is finally going to see. Wright doesn’t have to say anything about himself because Wright doesn’t lie; omits the truth, reinterprets it and bends reality, yes, but never lying outright, and it’s a mix of anticipation and alertness that’s buzzing under Miles’ skin, the verbal battles just as potentially lethal as the physical ones, and he takes a breath, smirks, and makes a show of bowing, his eyes never leaving Wright’s.
Let’s play, then.
*
Let’s start with something simple, Wright says, and so they go through a few simpler questions to test the waters - Miles did really love Germany, his life and work there; his handgun was previously his father’s, one of the many secrets Miles inherited after his father’s death. Wright’s beanie is a birthday gift from Trucy and he likes keeping part of her close at all times, and yes, he does know how to use the gun, although he has never shot a person with one.
Miles turns the answers around in his heads, files them together with all the other small details he’s gathered about Wright, then turns his attention back outwards. Wright’s gazing into the far wall, watching the shadows move as the lightbulb in the lamp flickers and wavers.
“Do you respect von Karma?”
Miles’ head snaps up, and of course Wright is now watching him, probably saw the way Miles flinched slightly. It’s easy to talk about von Karma to others who only spoke about his reputation, people Miles barely knew and hardly cared about, but coming from Wright von Karma’s name is cutting.
Wielded like the weapon Wright intended it to be, of course.
“I… did.” Not something he can easily admit. Wasn’t something he came to terms with easily, either, but watching Franziska’s career had helped, and time helped with the rest. “Much of what he did was unforgivable - the forging, the manipulation of cases, the… murders, but take all that and his obsession from him and he was a great prosecutor, a good teacher. In his own way, he was dedicated to the law and to perfection and that part, that is admirable.”
“I see.” Wright says the two words like the weight of the world is on them. Miles narrows his eyes - but he doesn’t have time to think back on what he just said, and instead brushes his bangs out of his eyes as if he could brush the memories of the past from his mind.
“Have long have you been in your position?”
It’s a gamble, to ask such an open-ended question; it goes against every grain Miles ever had as a would-be prosecutor, when crafting questions to precision meant getting the answers slanted towards his case; incriminating phrases instead of neutral ones, or forced specificity instead of vagueness. But Wright goes to the other extreme, revealing plenty and leaving it up to the other party to piece the story together, to dig up the gems of truth amidst all the babble.
“Hmmm. A while.” A flippant answer, but Miles waits. “I did this on and off during university, simple questionings, just helping out with some on-campus issues. I delved around, doing some plays and a few readings, interned at the district court, but this, ah, interrogator business - that’s was a few years down the road. I met Kristoph five years ago, something like that, but only worked with him about two years later.”
The question-and-answer goes like that, and Miles keeps tracks the flex and flow of it at the back of his head, the way he would during a cross-examination. It doesn’t help that in his mental tally he’s coming out increasingly on the lower side, saying more than he normally would-
-like he’s being induced to, the same slip of control he experienced the first time he met Wright again in Gavin’s office.
And Miles has been subconsciously staring at Wright’s hands in his hoodie pockets, obscured by the table and the angle, and he asks the question he put aside earlier, when his turn came around.
“What’s your object, the one you’re holding in your pocket to ‘help you along the way’?”
Wright’s face goes blank momentarily, and then his eyes are flickering from the gun on the table to his hoodie, his pockets. Miles catches a glimpse of the smile, rueful, before it slides into something more familiar, the devilish grin, Wright meeting his gaze in a head-on challenge.
“All right. Since you asked.”
The entire room is lit up by something furiously glowing in Wright’s hands, bars of pale light escaping through the cage of his fingers. Wright opens his hand, sets on the table a curved stone, a large jade green charm.
“I’d tell you that it’s called the Magatama, but that name won’t mean much to you.” There’s an edge in Wright’s words, and Miles is up and moving away before he knows it, some instinct demanding instant action, but Wright simply continues on, his eyes now so bright they’re practically glowing, and the question stops Miles dead on his feet.
“What is your reason for joining Gavin’s operation?”
Miles stares at Wright in one long, silent moment, and then immediately: no. That is one question he’s not answering-
And then he’s flinching back, the air suddenly ringing with chains and dark crimson padlocks, crisscrossing in intricate patterns; they’re everywhere.
“What the hell-”
“Miles.” He hears Wright sigh above the rattling. “What secrets are you hiding? Five red locks in response to one question?”
Miles falls back into his seat and grabs hold of the table for physical support, biting at his lip to stop himself from answering, the compulsion to speak so strong that Miles knows immediately it’s because of those chains or that charm, what Wright called a Magatama.
“Well?” Wright says from across the table and a mesh of chains.
“I told you before.” The chains shiver, resonating in reaction to his words. “Justice.”
Wright takes a long hard look at the locks surrounding Miles. “Not a full answer, I’m afraid. The question still stands.”
So that’s it. The locks and chains have something to do with the secrets Miles doesn’t want to reveal, and Wright looks to the locks when he answers because the most honest answer would open a lock.
The truth shall set you free. Literally. Miles grounds his teeth, tries to use that fury to turn his thoughts around, to stop thinking about his status as an undercover agent. A spike of pain shoots through his head, the beginnings of a migraine and he must have paled considerably, feeling faint and slightly out of touch with reality.
Wright’s victims always did look a little worse for the wear after he’s through with them. Nothing overt, no physical injuries; just something off about the way they moved afterwards, a certain tightness in their expressions. Miles always thought they were lucky Wright wasn’t a torturer, but maybe the mental scars are something else to be reckoned with.
“It’s probably easier if you just answer, Edgeworth,” Wright says. “That Magatama’s been fully charged by three Feys.”
It’s an effort to speak at all, not with his secrets at the tip of his tongue, but Miles grits his teeth and bites out his words, one at a time. “I don’t believe in fairytales. The fey don’t exist.”
Wright reaches out, brushes his fingers against the centermost lock, the largest and most adorned of them all, and a shiver runs down Miles’ back, his hands clenching tighter around the table’s edges.
“Funny.” Wright’s voice is soft, his expression a little wondering, and with the beanie gone and the shadows obscuring the stubble he could be much younger, someone Miles could recognize his childhood friend in. “Because you can see them, can’t you? The Psychelocks.”
“That’s what you call them?” Miles gets out, and it’s getting hard to focus with Wright concentrating on those chains, the padlocks.
The lock Wright has his hands on - that’s his undercover mission, the central piece to the puzzle and a partial answer to every question Wright could ask related to Gavin and the operations and Miles’ involvement with any of them, and Miles will not; no admission will ever pass through his mouth without his intentions behind them.
The hidden dagger slides into his hand and it takes only an instant, to glide the blade over the pad of his thumb, and the sharp pain is enough to wash away the growing panic in his chest, to break his mind temporarily away from the effects of the locks.
It’s easy to see the links now. How Wright interrogates his victims and gets an answer every time; how he gets into people’s heads and unveils their vulnerabilities from inside out, willing or unwilling. How he could stand his ground beside Gavin, using his unique skills to ensure an untouchable position in Gavin’s hierarchy and defend himself against Gavin’s relentless prying.
One luminous jade charm. And all the cunning in the world to use it to his advantage.
“You know, any time you want to end the game, the gun is right there.” Wright slides the gun along until it’s practically falling off the edge of the table into Miles’ lap. “The Magatama needs someone to activate and sustain it.”
Miles glares up through the mass of chains and locks, and Wright isn’t joking, although his tone had been light.
“A head shot, right?” Wright presses a finger against his forehead, as if marking the target for Miles. “That time in the warehouse, you were quite prepared to put a bullet in my head.”
Miles grabs the gun, lifts it in one smooth movement, takes aim-
-hits the Magatama in one clean shot, the charm throwing off sparks as it flies across the room, the room going dim, the single lamp guttering as the chains and locks dissolve-
-and Miles throws the gun into the opposite corner and pivots around the table, just in time to catch Wright bursting out of his seat, tackling the interrogator right out of his chair and onto the floor. Miles presses his hands against Wright’s pockets and comes up empty in the moment Wright takes to recover his breath.
“Why don’t you ask me the same question,” Miles hisses, kicking out with one foot to send the toppling chair out of the way, “when you don’t have your fancy charm on hand?”
“Miles-”
Miles twists around and grabs at the throat of Wright’s hoodie, just as he’s always imagined doing whenever Wright went into interrogator mode, and it’s just as satisfying as he thought it would be to throw Wright against the wall; on his knees it’s easy to lean over Wright, slam one hand beside Wright’s head, cage him in, and wait for him to retaliate.
But Wright simply looks up at him, calmly serene, and reaches up slowly, unthreateningly, to rub one hand against the back of his head. “Ow.”
The world seeps slowly back into focus around the tight tunnel-vision Miles goes into when he’s on the offensive; the way his head still throbs, in rhythm with his racing heart, the cut across his thumb stinging and bleeding again. The way Wright is looking at him, naked emotion on his face, just a regular man when he isn’t playing mind games.
Miles rocks back, sinking down until he’s seated on the floor before Wright. His hidden blade slides back into his hand and Miles buries it into the floorboard beside them. A warning. A statement. Miles doesn’t know.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” Miles says, and it takes a considerable amount of willpower not to just grab the man and slam his head against the wall a few times; Miles isn’t prone to sudden fits of violence like this, but Wright’s obviously a special case.
Wright laughs, still a little out of breath, and Miles has experienced this before, when a mission turns around on itself and suddenly everyone’s left improvising; a private impromptu act between the rigidity of planned scenes. “That’s coming from someone who doesn’t take the shot, twice? If you’re not careful, Miles, I’d think you didn’t want to kill me.”
“There is something seriously wrong with your head.” Miles pins Wright with a flat stare. “You are an interrogator. You work for Kristoph Gavin. But you have a daughter you hide away from Gavin, a serious liability and a great potential for blackmail if Gavin learns of her. You don’t carry a gun although you have the knowledge of how to use one, relying instead on a single magical charm and all your own clever mouth to get you out of trouble - a stupid, foolish risk, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Wright mutters, and Miles raises his voice, speaks right over him.
“You let one of our targets go, and didn’t report it to Gavin when I allowed another escape. You don’t shy away from death and yet you take off your beanie before every interrogation, because Trucy gave it to you and you need to be able to wear it around her without the taint of the underworld clinging to it.” Miles looks away, stares down at his blade. “And you gave me a way out of that mind trap of yours, a chance to escape with my secrets intact at the expense of your life.”
And there is no bluff for that one; put a loaded gun in the same room as Miles, and he’ll find a way to take the shot.
“A thorough analysis indeed,” Wright says, and he’s sitting up now, leaning fully against the wall instead of being slumped against it. “And what’s your conclusion?”
Miles grimaces, the taste of triumphant at coming up with the perfect logical conclusion bitter in his mouth. It’s too farfetched to be true, and sometimes it really is best to expect and prepare for the worst because shattered hope - it can be enough to break a person.
“You’re a rare creature, Miles.”
“… what?”
“Like one of those tundra animals, perfectly capable of withstanding anything the elements throw at them. Blizzards. Starvation. Hunters. Loners by nature. But you know, Miles, sometimes it’s really better, to hunt in a group.”
Miles has been called a number of names over the years, but not like this, like it’s half a compliment. Wright’s eyes aren’t any easier to read when they’re not gleaming with the Magatama’s power, and it could really be an observation, or just another mind game.
Wright reaches out, slow, grabs Miles’ shoulder and pulls him closer. “And sometimes an analogy is really just an analogy, nothing more.”
They’re standing on a crossroad. And Miles takes the step, asks the question.
“Why, Wright?”
“You asked me before what my motivation was, what’s so important I would put my daughter at risk.” At this range, Wright’s smile is lopsided and very truthful - no hidden humor, no misleading expression behind them, just the way his mouth is tilted, like all their masks have broken between them. “You said it before yourself, you know. Justice. But more than that - it’s truth. I’m searching for the truth.”
Miles doesn’t have a pendant to tell him when someone is lying; just intuition and a lot of logic, and it’s a risk, for him of all people, to carelessly believe.
Wright’s hands are gentle, tangled into the short hairs at the base of his head, stroking a thumb lightly against Miles’ neck. “What is your reason for joining Gavin’s operation?” he asks again, and the Magatama is on the other side of the room, unlit, and Miles doesn’t see any chains or locks; just Wright looking back at him, and it’s feels like he’s swaying on his feet except he’s on the ground and it’s steady under him, all the chaos within his own head.
Wright always did inspire all sorts of unnecessary feelings in him. Insanity and impulsivity, to get trap in a situation like this - and more damningly, trust.
He trusts Wright. Trusting not that Wright wouldn’t betray him, but that if he did it would be for the right reasons.
“I’m an undercover agent. My mission is to infiltrate Gavin’s circle and gain his esteem, to learn the scope of his operations so we can bring it all down, the head of the snake and the rest of the body with it.”
And Miles is deadly calm, his voice and especially his hands steady, and if Wright gives any indication that he’s still on Gavin’s side he’ll have the blade in his throat within seconds, Miles still the quicker of the two.
But Wright, as usual, never does as he’s expected.
“You’ve been doing this on your own, haven’t you? There isn’t anyone else like you in Gavin’s circle.”
“No, I had backup.”
“Had,” Wright says the word like a curse. “And even then they weren’t this deep, were they? Just contacts, to pass information back to your agency.”
Miles feels the smile on his lips, and he reaches forward to wrap his fingers around the dagger’s hilt, something to focus his attention into, a grounding effect. “If you knew all this already, Wright, why did you bother asking?”
Wright stops with the stroking, Miles not even noticing that Wright had continued doing that until he stopped. “No. I didn’t know,” Wright says, and laces his fingers together behind Miles’ head, effectively holding him in place. “Just like you didn’t know I work for the Feys - famous spirit medium family? - and we’re trying to bring him down too. Like you.”
Miles’ first instinct is to duck away, put some space between him and Wright so he can think about that statement without distraction, examine it for the lie it has to be, but Wright has a surprisingly strong grip and Miles refuses to let go of the dagger to free his hand for a punch.
“On Trucy’s life,” Wright says. “I swear.”
There isn’t anything Miles can say against that, that oath more solid than gold.
“There have been strings of unexplained deaths these past few years, and the spirits the Feys call back, even they can’t really explain what happened to them. But Mia, she’s good at investigating and picking out the truth, and with enough spirits we finally got a lead, pinpointing Gavin.” Wright obviously took Miles’ silence as an opportunity to explain, and Miles lets him. It’s so rare, to have Wright forthright and chatty at the same time, that he’d enjoy the moment if the moment wasn’t so draining, one revelation after another.
“The Feys have an obligation to the dead and Mia’s determined to get Gavin, and I was the best choice, having my own motivations for the job.” Wright’s smile is sharp, full of teeth. “Gavin is the reason why Trucy’s living with me, and not with her real father.”
Miles studies Wright’s expression; reaches up and untangles Wright’s hands from his hair. “And you haven’t killed him yet.” It’s not an accusation; there’s a justification for it.
“No proof. Not yet. And there are too many layers to his web; we need to get as much as we can before we can take him out.” Wright looks down at their hands and his eyebrow jumps, smirking slightly.
Miles drops Wright’s hand immediately and goes back to the dagger, fingering the hilt. “I’ve been cut loose,” he says, and it doesn’t feel quite as damning with Wright on the same page. “Gavin has taken out all my contacts. In return, I have all my restrictions lifted, although I had very little to begin with.”
“The Feys will help. Trucy’s been under their protection all this while, they hide her from Gavin’s attention, and the Magatama - that came from them, of course.” Wright throws a glance towards the corner of the room the Magatama flew off to. “Mia will want to meet you. You’ll like her, Miles. In another life, she would have been a wonderful defense attorney.”
And I might have been a prosecutor after all. “I’d… like that. Thank you.”
Wright looks at him sideways, puts a hand back in Miles’ hair, ruffling at his bangs lightly.
“So. Partners? For real, this time?”
He should be laughing, incredulous at the way Wright’s mind works, and if the humor made it past his usual composure it would come out tinged with hysteria, so Miles simply closes his eyes, and finally, finally, he can relax, let his guard down slightly. Miles doesn’t work well with partners, but Wright is ever the exception to every single rule.
“Yes, Wright,” Miles says. “Partners.”
end.
Thank you so much for reading!
.
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Character/Pairings: Focuses on Miles and Phoenix; appearances of Kristoph, Kay, Badd, Franziska, Vera, Trucy; numerous others cameo-ing or mentioned in passing. Pre-relationship, if anything.
Word Count: 4,124 for this chapter; 24,836 in total
Warnings: PG, for some violence.
Summary: “No need to be so uptight, Edgeworth.” The hood of the cloak hides most of Wright's features from Miles' trained eye, but there is no mistaking that tone of voice, so very different from before - deadly calm with just the barest hint of dark amusement. “After all, it's an easy job. Just get the information out of the target and walk away.” [Undercover Agent AU]
Status: Completed
Chapter Links: [ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Master Post ]
Author's Notes: Written for the pw_bigbang community, with much love to my very patient artists and mixer ♥. Please do check out their works: cannedebonbon's art; nenadi's art and shychloe's fanmix.
He’s back a day early, ahead of Gavin’s schedule, the negotiation going surprisingly easy. They had been impressed by him, Von Karma’s mark on him a symbol of esteem, and Miles had played that up that persona, cold and arrogant, verbally ripping many of the lesser underlings to shreds and stamping his position high on that foreign hierarchy’s pecking order without ever lifting his gun.
And now here he is, standing in front of the office building like an echo from last week, because Trucy had been waiting by the train station, a dove still perched on her shoulder like she’s been practicing magic tricks when he came through the station exit. Uncle Miles, she called him, smiling like a girl in a picture, forever happy; she pressed a note into his hands and told him to visit “as soon as you can, okay?” before skipping off.
No one answers his knocks, but the door to the office-turned-home twists easily in his hands, and although the immediate room is empty Miles still leaves his guns on a side table, so conspicuous they could be mistaken for toys among the other magic props.
Trucy had given him a grand tour of her home that one afternoon he spent there, and there’s one room she bypassed, and Miles is staring at the door of it when the voice calls from within it.
“Come on in.”
*
It’s a simple room; bare walls, no windows, a table, a single lamp, two chairs, and Wright is sitting in one of them.
Miles has never seen Wright with a gun in his hand. Not like this, not held like it’s a part of him, finger currently off the trigger but it’d be easy to rectify that; Wright’s fast, although his indifferent, lazy posture doesn’t advertise it.
“Hey Edgeworth,” Wright says, very quietly. “Let’s play a game. I’ll lay the ground rules.”
It’s quiet here, the lack of sound almost ringing in his ears. Miles closes his hands into loose fists, keeps them at his side, and takes a long step into the room, lets the door slip shut behind him.
“You went through all the effort of passing me that note so we could play a game? A game of poker, then?”
Wright almost smiles at the piece of paper Miles drops atop the spread deck of cards, on it a doddle of a magician’s top hat encased in house-shaped outline.
“No.” And Wright sets the gun down, sweeps the cards away together with the note, tucks them into a drawer under the table. “I had to do something to pass the time, after all.”
“I have another question.”
“Hmmm?” Wright hums, eyes fixed on him, sharp, and they’ll gain that extra shine in a moment, overly bright and otherworldly.
“Why did you put your gun down?”
Wright’s smile goes lazy, almost smug. “That’s for you. I figured you might leave your weapons behind again, if you thought there’s a chance Trucy’s still here.” Wright actually laughs at Miles’ expression, a thread of amusement laced through the laughter. “What, you thought we’d have to battle it out for the gun, like some twisted version of a shoot out? That’s not the game I had in mind, Miles.”
Miles takes the chair left obviously for him, the gun with its handle angled towards him lying between them, and deliberately folds his hands on the table. Watches Wright’s face for any telltale expression, Wright’s spiky hair distracting without the beanie. “Then what do you have in mind?”
Wright tucks his hands into his hoodie pocket, his gaze steady. “Ten questions each. The recipient of the question has to answer truthfully. And we each have one object, to help us along the way.”
Miles looks down at the gun, the same model as the semi-automatics he carries, glances back up again, doesn’t ask the question. “And how will either of us know if the other is lying?”
“Oh, I’ll know,” Wright says, and there it is, the shine in the interrogator’s eyes, the side of Wright Miles is finally going to see. Wright doesn’t have to say anything about himself because Wright doesn’t lie; omits the truth, reinterprets it and bends reality, yes, but never lying outright, and it’s a mix of anticipation and alertness that’s buzzing under Miles’ skin, the verbal battles just as potentially lethal as the physical ones, and he takes a breath, smirks, and makes a show of bowing, his eyes never leaving Wright’s.
Let’s play, then.
*
Let’s start with something simple, Wright says, and so they go through a few simpler questions to test the waters - Miles did really love Germany, his life and work there; his handgun was previously his father’s, one of the many secrets Miles inherited after his father’s death. Wright’s beanie is a birthday gift from Trucy and he likes keeping part of her close at all times, and yes, he does know how to use the gun, although he has never shot a person with one.
Miles turns the answers around in his heads, files them together with all the other small details he’s gathered about Wright, then turns his attention back outwards. Wright’s gazing into the far wall, watching the shadows move as the lightbulb in the lamp flickers and wavers.
“Do you respect von Karma?”
Miles’ head snaps up, and of course Wright is now watching him, probably saw the way Miles flinched slightly. It’s easy to talk about von Karma to others who only spoke about his reputation, people Miles barely knew and hardly cared about, but coming from Wright von Karma’s name is cutting.
Wielded like the weapon Wright intended it to be, of course.
“I… did.” Not something he can easily admit. Wasn’t something he came to terms with easily, either, but watching Franziska’s career had helped, and time helped with the rest. “Much of what he did was unforgivable - the forging, the manipulation of cases, the… murders, but take all that and his obsession from him and he was a great prosecutor, a good teacher. In his own way, he was dedicated to the law and to perfection and that part, that is admirable.”
“I see.” Wright says the two words like the weight of the world is on them. Miles narrows his eyes - but he doesn’t have time to think back on what he just said, and instead brushes his bangs out of his eyes as if he could brush the memories of the past from his mind.
“Have long have you been in your position?”
It’s a gamble, to ask such an open-ended question; it goes against every grain Miles ever had as a would-be prosecutor, when crafting questions to precision meant getting the answers slanted towards his case; incriminating phrases instead of neutral ones, or forced specificity instead of vagueness. But Wright goes to the other extreme, revealing plenty and leaving it up to the other party to piece the story together, to dig up the gems of truth amidst all the babble.
“Hmmm. A while.” A flippant answer, but Miles waits. “I did this on and off during university, simple questionings, just helping out with some on-campus issues. I delved around, doing some plays and a few readings, interned at the district court, but this, ah, interrogator business - that’s was a few years down the road. I met Kristoph five years ago, something like that, but only worked with him about two years later.”
The question-and-answer goes like that, and Miles keeps tracks the flex and flow of it at the back of his head, the way he would during a cross-examination. It doesn’t help that in his mental tally he’s coming out increasingly on the lower side, saying more than he normally would-
-like he’s being induced to, the same slip of control he experienced the first time he met Wright again in Gavin’s office.
And Miles has been subconsciously staring at Wright’s hands in his hoodie pockets, obscured by the table and the angle, and he asks the question he put aside earlier, when his turn came around.
“What’s your object, the one you’re holding in your pocket to ‘help you along the way’?”
Wright’s face goes blank momentarily, and then his eyes are flickering from the gun on the table to his hoodie, his pockets. Miles catches a glimpse of the smile, rueful, before it slides into something more familiar, the devilish grin, Wright meeting his gaze in a head-on challenge.
“All right. Since you asked.”
The entire room is lit up by something furiously glowing in Wright’s hands, bars of pale light escaping through the cage of his fingers. Wright opens his hand, sets on the table a curved stone, a large jade green charm.
“I’d tell you that it’s called the Magatama, but that name won’t mean much to you.” There’s an edge in Wright’s words, and Miles is up and moving away before he knows it, some instinct demanding instant action, but Wright simply continues on, his eyes now so bright they’re practically glowing, and the question stops Miles dead on his feet.
“What is your reason for joining Gavin’s operation?”
Miles stares at Wright in one long, silent moment, and then immediately: no. That is one question he’s not answering-
And then he’s flinching back, the air suddenly ringing with chains and dark crimson padlocks, crisscrossing in intricate patterns; they’re everywhere.
“What the hell-”
“Miles.” He hears Wright sigh above the rattling. “What secrets are you hiding? Five red locks in response to one question?”
Miles falls back into his seat and grabs hold of the table for physical support, biting at his lip to stop himself from answering, the compulsion to speak so strong that Miles knows immediately it’s because of those chains or that charm, what Wright called a Magatama.
“Well?” Wright says from across the table and a mesh of chains.
“I told you before.” The chains shiver, resonating in reaction to his words. “Justice.”
Wright takes a long hard look at the locks surrounding Miles. “Not a full answer, I’m afraid. The question still stands.”
So that’s it. The locks and chains have something to do with the secrets Miles doesn’t want to reveal, and Wright looks to the locks when he answers because the most honest answer would open a lock.
The truth shall set you free. Literally. Miles grounds his teeth, tries to use that fury to turn his thoughts around, to stop thinking about his status as an undercover agent. A spike of pain shoots through his head, the beginnings of a migraine and he must have paled considerably, feeling faint and slightly out of touch with reality.
Wright’s victims always did look a little worse for the wear after he’s through with them. Nothing overt, no physical injuries; just something off about the way they moved afterwards, a certain tightness in their expressions. Miles always thought they were lucky Wright wasn’t a torturer, but maybe the mental scars are something else to be reckoned with.
“It’s probably easier if you just answer, Edgeworth,” Wright says. “That Magatama’s been fully charged by three Feys.”
It’s an effort to speak at all, not with his secrets at the tip of his tongue, but Miles grits his teeth and bites out his words, one at a time. “I don’t believe in fairytales. The fey don’t exist.”
Wright reaches out, brushes his fingers against the centermost lock, the largest and most adorned of them all, and a shiver runs down Miles’ back, his hands clenching tighter around the table’s edges.
“Funny.” Wright’s voice is soft, his expression a little wondering, and with the beanie gone and the shadows obscuring the stubble he could be much younger, someone Miles could recognize his childhood friend in. “Because you can see them, can’t you? The Psychelocks.”
“That’s what you call them?” Miles gets out, and it’s getting hard to focus with Wright concentrating on those chains, the padlocks.
The lock Wright has his hands on - that’s his undercover mission, the central piece to the puzzle and a partial answer to every question Wright could ask related to Gavin and the operations and Miles’ involvement with any of them, and Miles will not; no admission will ever pass through his mouth without his intentions behind them.
The hidden dagger slides into his hand and it takes only an instant, to glide the blade over the pad of his thumb, and the sharp pain is enough to wash away the growing panic in his chest, to break his mind temporarily away from the effects of the locks.
It’s easy to see the links now. How Wright interrogates his victims and gets an answer every time; how he gets into people’s heads and unveils their vulnerabilities from inside out, willing or unwilling. How he could stand his ground beside Gavin, using his unique skills to ensure an untouchable position in Gavin’s hierarchy and defend himself against Gavin’s relentless prying.
One luminous jade charm. And all the cunning in the world to use it to his advantage.
“You know, any time you want to end the game, the gun is right there.” Wright slides the gun along until it’s practically falling off the edge of the table into Miles’ lap. “The Magatama needs someone to activate and sustain it.”
Miles glares up through the mass of chains and locks, and Wright isn’t joking, although his tone had been light.
“A head shot, right?” Wright presses a finger against his forehead, as if marking the target for Miles. “That time in the warehouse, you were quite prepared to put a bullet in my head.”
Miles grabs the gun, lifts it in one smooth movement, takes aim-
-hits the Magatama in one clean shot, the charm throwing off sparks as it flies across the room, the room going dim, the single lamp guttering as the chains and locks dissolve-
-and Miles throws the gun into the opposite corner and pivots around the table, just in time to catch Wright bursting out of his seat, tackling the interrogator right out of his chair and onto the floor. Miles presses his hands against Wright’s pockets and comes up empty in the moment Wright takes to recover his breath.
“Why don’t you ask me the same question,” Miles hisses, kicking out with one foot to send the toppling chair out of the way, “when you don’t have your fancy charm on hand?”
“Miles-”
Miles twists around and grabs at the throat of Wright’s hoodie, just as he’s always imagined doing whenever Wright went into interrogator mode, and it’s just as satisfying as he thought it would be to throw Wright against the wall; on his knees it’s easy to lean over Wright, slam one hand beside Wright’s head, cage him in, and wait for him to retaliate.
But Wright simply looks up at him, calmly serene, and reaches up slowly, unthreateningly, to rub one hand against the back of his head. “Ow.”
The world seeps slowly back into focus around the tight tunnel-vision Miles goes into when he’s on the offensive; the way his head still throbs, in rhythm with his racing heart, the cut across his thumb stinging and bleeding again. The way Wright is looking at him, naked emotion on his face, just a regular man when he isn’t playing mind games.
Miles rocks back, sinking down until he’s seated on the floor before Wright. His hidden blade slides back into his hand and Miles buries it into the floorboard beside them. A warning. A statement. Miles doesn’t know.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” Miles says, and it takes a considerable amount of willpower not to just grab the man and slam his head against the wall a few times; Miles isn’t prone to sudden fits of violence like this, but Wright’s obviously a special case.
Wright laughs, still a little out of breath, and Miles has experienced this before, when a mission turns around on itself and suddenly everyone’s left improvising; a private impromptu act between the rigidity of planned scenes. “That’s coming from someone who doesn’t take the shot, twice? If you’re not careful, Miles, I’d think you didn’t want to kill me.”
“There is something seriously wrong with your head.” Miles pins Wright with a flat stare. “You are an interrogator. You work for Kristoph Gavin. But you have a daughter you hide away from Gavin, a serious liability and a great potential for blackmail if Gavin learns of her. You don’t carry a gun although you have the knowledge of how to use one, relying instead on a single magical charm and all your own clever mouth to get you out of trouble - a stupid, foolish risk, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Wright mutters, and Miles raises his voice, speaks right over him.
“You let one of our targets go, and didn’t report it to Gavin when I allowed another escape. You don’t shy away from death and yet you take off your beanie before every interrogation, because Trucy gave it to you and you need to be able to wear it around her without the taint of the underworld clinging to it.” Miles looks away, stares down at his blade. “And you gave me a way out of that mind trap of yours, a chance to escape with my secrets intact at the expense of your life.”
And there is no bluff for that one; put a loaded gun in the same room as Miles, and he’ll find a way to take the shot.
“A thorough analysis indeed,” Wright says, and he’s sitting up now, leaning fully against the wall instead of being slumped against it. “And what’s your conclusion?”
Miles grimaces, the taste of triumphant at coming up with the perfect logical conclusion bitter in his mouth. It’s too farfetched to be true, and sometimes it really is best to expect and prepare for the worst because shattered hope - it can be enough to break a person.
“You’re a rare creature, Miles.”
“… what?”
“Like one of those tundra animals, perfectly capable of withstanding anything the elements throw at them. Blizzards. Starvation. Hunters. Loners by nature. But you know, Miles, sometimes it’s really better, to hunt in a group.”
Miles has been called a number of names over the years, but not like this, like it’s half a compliment. Wright’s eyes aren’t any easier to read when they’re not gleaming with the Magatama’s power, and it could really be an observation, or just another mind game.
Wright reaches out, slow, grabs Miles’ shoulder and pulls him closer. “And sometimes an analogy is really just an analogy, nothing more.”
They’re standing on a crossroad. And Miles takes the step, asks the question.
“Why, Wright?”
“You asked me before what my motivation was, what’s so important I would put my daughter at risk.” At this range, Wright’s smile is lopsided and very truthful - no hidden humor, no misleading expression behind them, just the way his mouth is tilted, like all their masks have broken between them. “You said it before yourself, you know. Justice. But more than that - it’s truth. I’m searching for the truth.”
Miles doesn’t have a pendant to tell him when someone is lying; just intuition and a lot of logic, and it’s a risk, for him of all people, to carelessly believe.
Wright’s hands are gentle, tangled into the short hairs at the base of his head, stroking a thumb lightly against Miles’ neck. “What is your reason for joining Gavin’s operation?” he asks again, and the Magatama is on the other side of the room, unlit, and Miles doesn’t see any chains or locks; just Wright looking back at him, and it’s feels like he’s swaying on his feet except he’s on the ground and it’s steady under him, all the chaos within his own head.
Wright always did inspire all sorts of unnecessary feelings in him. Insanity and impulsivity, to get trap in a situation like this - and more damningly, trust.
He trusts Wright. Trusting not that Wright wouldn’t betray him, but that if he did it would be for the right reasons.
“I’m an undercover agent. My mission is to infiltrate Gavin’s circle and gain his esteem, to learn the scope of his operations so we can bring it all down, the head of the snake and the rest of the body with it.”
And Miles is deadly calm, his voice and especially his hands steady, and if Wright gives any indication that he’s still on Gavin’s side he’ll have the blade in his throat within seconds, Miles still the quicker of the two.
But Wright, as usual, never does as he’s expected.
“You’ve been doing this on your own, haven’t you? There isn’t anyone else like you in Gavin’s circle.”
“No, I had backup.”
“Had,” Wright says the word like a curse. “And even then they weren’t this deep, were they? Just contacts, to pass information back to your agency.”
Miles feels the smile on his lips, and he reaches forward to wrap his fingers around the dagger’s hilt, something to focus his attention into, a grounding effect. “If you knew all this already, Wright, why did you bother asking?”
Wright stops with the stroking, Miles not even noticing that Wright had continued doing that until he stopped. “No. I didn’t know,” Wright says, and laces his fingers together behind Miles’ head, effectively holding him in place. “Just like you didn’t know I work for the Feys - famous spirit medium family? - and we’re trying to bring him down too. Like you.”
Miles’ first instinct is to duck away, put some space between him and Wright so he can think about that statement without distraction, examine it for the lie it has to be, but Wright has a surprisingly strong grip and Miles refuses to let go of the dagger to free his hand for a punch.
“On Trucy’s life,” Wright says. “I swear.”
There isn’t anything Miles can say against that, that oath more solid than gold.
“There have been strings of unexplained deaths these past few years, and the spirits the Feys call back, even they can’t really explain what happened to them. But Mia, she’s good at investigating and picking out the truth, and with enough spirits we finally got a lead, pinpointing Gavin.” Wright obviously took Miles’ silence as an opportunity to explain, and Miles lets him. It’s so rare, to have Wright forthright and chatty at the same time, that he’d enjoy the moment if the moment wasn’t so draining, one revelation after another.
“The Feys have an obligation to the dead and Mia’s determined to get Gavin, and I was the best choice, having my own motivations for the job.” Wright’s smile is sharp, full of teeth. “Gavin is the reason why Trucy’s living with me, and not with her real father.”
Miles studies Wright’s expression; reaches up and untangles Wright’s hands from his hair. “And you haven’t killed him yet.” It’s not an accusation; there’s a justification for it.
“No proof. Not yet. And there are too many layers to his web; we need to get as much as we can before we can take him out.” Wright looks down at their hands and his eyebrow jumps, smirking slightly.
Miles drops Wright’s hand immediately and goes back to the dagger, fingering the hilt. “I’ve been cut loose,” he says, and it doesn’t feel quite as damning with Wright on the same page. “Gavin has taken out all my contacts. In return, I have all my restrictions lifted, although I had very little to begin with.”
“The Feys will help. Trucy’s been under their protection all this while, they hide her from Gavin’s attention, and the Magatama - that came from them, of course.” Wright throws a glance towards the corner of the room the Magatama flew off to. “Mia will want to meet you. You’ll like her, Miles. In another life, she would have been a wonderful defense attorney.”
And I might have been a prosecutor after all. “I’d… like that. Thank you.”
Wright looks at him sideways, puts a hand back in Miles’ hair, ruffling at his bangs lightly.
“So. Partners? For real, this time?”
He should be laughing, incredulous at the way Wright’s mind works, and if the humor made it past his usual composure it would come out tinged with hysteria, so Miles simply closes his eyes, and finally, finally, he can relax, let his guard down slightly. Miles doesn’t work well with partners, but Wright is ever the exception to every single rule.
“Yes, Wright,” Miles says. “Partners.”
end.
Thank you so much for reading!
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