When it comes to addiction, they say it lies just as much in the action, the ritualistic practice of the habit of choice as it does from any chemicals or stimulants.
Diego has never been a huge proponent of what "they" or anyone other than himself says, but there's a lot to support this theory since the first thing he does when he walks into the office every day is load the filter and fill the reservoir to the 8-cup line. A reflex, done on autopilot that sometimes he can't even recall doing.
They also say that addiction acts as less of a wall and more of a tunnel, its owner's path going straight to one thing and one thing only: getting their fix, unable to carry on in daily life until they do.
And that's kind of true too, because he could call Marvin now, at five minutes before seven in a dimly-lit office that's silent except for a steady percolating. But his coffee is not ready yet, so neither is he.
He selects his mug, automatically going for the one he uses exclusively on trial days. The chips and cracks it wears are tiny but visible enough, medals of honor from hard-fought courtroom battles. He wonders how many it will earn today.
At one minute 'til seven, the mug in his hand is full and steaming black and smooth and he allows himself that first deep, brainfog-lifting sip before dialing up Marvin and setting his cell on the desk, on speaker.
Ringing, fingers drumming atop the small stack of file folders he swiped from Marv's desk. Old man'll spend a fortune on some chintzy bear statue for his desk, but is too cheap to bother getting that faulty lock on his door repaired.
Grossberg answers when Diego's amid another sip of his Blend #84. "Grossberg speaking." His voice is a low grumble, the dregs of a man whose sleep has been, at most, unfulfilling - if he's gotten any at all.
That makes two of them.
"Is that all of 'em, what's on your desk?" Diego comments by way of greeting, leaning closer to the phone with a slash of a grin. "Gotta say, would've thought there's more considering-"
A thick, unpleasant hack on Grossberg's end cuts him off. Diego's learned to tolerate it over the past decade-plus (just a quirk, really; everyone has them), but that doesn't make it any less unseemly. "M-My boy, what are you...where are you? You sound like you're on speaker."
"This dumpy little building on Third and Alameda. Grossberg and Associates. You might have heard of it."
"The office doesn't open for business for another two hours, Diego. Why on earth-"
"Ha...!" Diego swivels his chair to turn on his computer. "Where else would I be able to study up on our 'celebrity' client? I know just as much about this case as the rest of the public, so I'd better catch up if I'm gonna help take care of our little kitten in a few hours."
There's a telling pause from Marvin. He must've fallen back asleep, because he couldn't possibly be waiting for Diego to renege on his statement.
"Hrrngh, well, I suppose you have more experience working directly with Miss Fey." Marv's referring to Mia's internship that ended when she sat her final exams. Interns were supposed to work behind the scenes and under close supervision, but from her first day, Mia had firmly inserted herself into the role as Diego's assistant, his unofficial co-council through the fall and into the winter on a handful of cases with more flavor than the holiday spice latte he'd been sad to see leave the menu at his favorite java joint.
"It's more than a supposition, Marv. Mia's gonna need a fire lit under her today and sorry to say, but you ran out of matches a long time ago."
It isn't easy to imagine anything about Marvin Grossberg being insubstantial, but that's exactly what he's become: the lawyer equivalent of instant decaf. Diego knows there was more to it than simply age, to Marv's mind losing the definition his body never had, but it's hardly worth pursuing if his mentor-turned-boss doesn't treat it like the huge problem it really is.
"If you're sure, then..."
"Life's too short not to be sure. And I'm sure you wanna hit that snooze button. So why don't you?" Diego's computer whirs to life and he lets Marv hem and haw over his decision while standing to draw the blinds, the orangey sunrise seeping through the window.
"Diego..." Grossberg's defeated sigh sounds ghastly transferred through the speaker.
"Sweet dreams, Marv."
He ends the call, downs the rest of his cup and goes to pour himself another.
With blinders to nothing but the case (and the awareness of when he needs a refill), Diego pores through site after site. He doesn't assume Mia'smissed something – likely, she's had as sleepless a night as he and Marvin have, but two sets of eyes are better than one. Already he knows Mia's propensity to look 'outside the box' at cases; someone has to dig deep into the inside, to the very core.
It's just one more cup and just one more search, one more page of results. Maybe something new, different, helpful will pop up this time. Much like coffee, he could, could stop whenever he wanted to.
He just doesn't want to.
Since Valerie Hawthorne was an officer, most of what he comes across is reaction from the PD and her family. What piques his interest most is a statement from her father speaking about how tragedy has struck "again" and when Diego attempts Googling more, he's met with old, dead links, as is the outcome when he scours the web for information about Fawles's initial arrest and trial five years ago.
And he's certain that whatever info he and Mia can't access is readily available to the prosecutor on this case, who is apparently some disciple of the most feared prosecutor in not just Los Angeles, but possibly the whole country.
There's not much mentioned about Fawles's family; sounds like the lug didn't even have one. At least, not one who will claim him. It's all the makings of a classic sob story, one Diego's thankful he doesn't actually find. There's no room for sympathy in the legal system; it was never extended to him, and so Diego makes it a point not to extend it back, for anyone.
Somehow, it's quarter after nine and the coffee pot is empty and there's this buzzing vibration coursing through him. Not from caffeine, and definitely not nerves (not that Diego is really familiar with nerves anyway) but a restless anticipation. This itch to pull the trigger already, for this trial to start, and to more importantly, end.
It's a one-eighty from what he should feel.
On paper, he's never seen such an open-and-shut case, and Mia has lost before she's even begun.
But that's just it. On paper, they're screwed, done for. So it's a good thing trials aren't decided on paper.
That's what he – and what Mia – are there for. To tear the proverbial paper into however many pieces it needs to be torn down into to reveal the truth concealed, invisible to untrained, unbelieving eyes.
For whatever reason, she has faith in Terry Fawles and his innocence. And so he has faith in her. Faith can only be as strong as the people its put into, and he couldn't have chosen a better recipient.
Thermos and briefcase in tow, he passes Hammond's office on the way out. "Mornin' Rob. See ya later."
A few steps and he receives (uncharacteristically from Hammond) more than a cursory greeting in return.
"I didn't even know you were here. Where're you off to?"
He stops, turns, finds Robert standing in the doorway of his office, expectancy on his weathered face. Diego has other people – that von Karma lackey – to disappoint today, so he'll go easy on Rob, indulge him even. "Fey's trial. You know how it is, rookies and their first taste of this fine legal system of ours."
Rob's expression pinches up uncomfortably, telling Diego they're sharing the same memory.
His own first trial. One filled with scalding-hot friction, not between Diego and the prosecution (this bird-like, lank-haired hippie-type; Diego didn't remember his name and didn't care) but between himself and his co-council, one Robert Hammond. The result was a narrow victory, and the result of that was Rob calling out the next day, a bit indisposed from all he'd imbibed post-trial as a means of soothing the burn he'd suffered from so carelessly handling the fiery ambition stirring inside Diego.
But bygones are bygones. They can actually have civil – productive, even – conversations now. Sometimes.
"Ah. I thought Grossberg would be...there, not you."
The hint of disapproval in Hammond's voice is noted, and immediately filtered out. Approval is like sweetener, sought by those who needed life's bitterness tempered enough to suit their weak pallete.
"We talked things over. I'm pinch-hitting for him today."
Hammond's head tilts ever so slightly, curious - but not curious enough that he pries further. Instead, he gives a short, accepting nod. "Well, good luck."
Diego slowly backs down the hall. "Luck? Ha! Only amateurs rely on luck. But thanks all the same, Rob." He's not in a hurry, per se, but this exchange is over.
Even if he believed in luck, Diego wouldn't take however much Rob was offering. They don't need luck today. They need no less than a miracle.
But right now, he settles for another long, thoughtful swallow of coffee and hopes Mia arrives at the courthouse before he does.
Ladies first. That's one of his rules.
He can't wait for Mia to teach him – and everyone else – a few of her own.
The gash on his hand stings, but only because he knows it does. The unadulterated anger brewing inside him is overpowering anything he might feel otherwise, physically or emotionally.
There's EMTs and police milling around the vicinity, most of them in the courtroom working on getting Zebra Boy's corpse wheeled out. To clean up the mess Dahlia made, while Mia flounders helplessly in the center of it.
Diego is with her, in the defendant's lobby being tended to by an ungainly-looking paramedic. Stitches aren't an option, not with the location of the laceration, running down the creases of his palm. All they can do for him is a sterile cotton pad tightly wrapped with stretchy gauze, and a tiny tube of ointment to use throughout the next few days. Hopefully it will prevent any scarring.
But he already knows there'll be scars, just ones that aren't visible. He just witnessed a man kill himself, use his last breath to thank him, Diego Armando, for a cup of coffee.
This isn't about his wound, though. His is just another to add to the scratched-up canvas of his soul, and will fade into the others in time. It's about Mia.
Her wounds are deeper, more jagged, but he has no doubt that even though she's still in the process of falling, she will land on her feet like the tenacious little kitten she is. He also knows that at the moment, she doesn't see it that way, doesn't see any way except down down down, so far and so hard.
The medic leaves them, in a quiet so contradictory to the howling storm ravaging inside both of them.
Mia's slender fingers worry along the lid of the thermos in her lap. Diego recalls Fawles's own meaty fingers grasping the styrofoam cup in his final moments; the recollection is no better coming up than it was going down.
She easily unscrews his thermos and pours the last remaining splash into the metal lid.
"Here." She attempts to hand it to him, a feeble empty gesture, meant to corral their new, horrific reality back into a sort of normalcy.
She's just passing him coffee, like she has dozens of times before. This time he doesn't take it, knowing he'll throw the lid across the room if he does, he's so incredulously fucking mad right now.
"You take it." What he means in the plainest, kindest way comes out harsh, almost snide, for all his frustration. Like he doesn't need anything from her, not after today. But he does need something: for her to get that jolt, however small, from the coffee, and to open those sad hooded eyes so he can see the hope that shone so brightly from them while behind the stand.
If he was too harsh, she either brushes it off or misses it entirely, lifting the cap to her lips. She sips it slowly, like it's to be savored, but Diego knows it's because she really doesn't care for coffee, save for the liquid candy concoctions some of the chains offered.
"How is it?"
"I don't know. I can't really taste it." She tips her head back and downs the rest.
He supposes not; even the rich chocolatey notes of Blend #16 can't rinse away the stale aftertaste of her disappointment.
Another couple minutes pass, and from outside, he can hear the thin wail of the sirens of the departing ambulance. He glances at the the ticking clock, the only other noise in the room. It's been over two hours.
Terry Fawles has been dead for two hours. He's only recently been able to stop using death as a marker for time, and he knows Mia does it too, with her own mother's disappearance.
"We should probably get going," he states, not as a suggestion.
"I took the bus." She announces, glancing up at the clock too. "Another comes in twenty minutes. I think."
"I'll drive you home then," he offers instantly. He wants to make sure she gets home, not on a train back to the Kurain, or two sheets to the wind in a more unsavory locale, like he did after his first defeat.
If he didn't see Mia's lips move, he wouldn't believe her able to emit something so coarse and unemotional. "I don't need you to feel bad for me."
She's talking about more than just this trial, but there's been enough ghosts brought back from the dead today. Diego chooses to focus on the present situation. He doesn't, no – feel bad for her, that is. He just feels, a lot, and it eats more vehemently at his insides than overdrawn espresso.
What he says, though, is "You don't need to feel bad for yourself either."
And now her eyes are wide, the edges of them watery and long since smeared free of eyeliner. He didn't say the wrong thing, just what she didn't want to hear.
"Mia..." This is where he's supposed to comfort her, to soothe her with the promise it'll get better, or easier, or both. It's what Grossberg would do, Diego knows that much from personal experience.
Reason enough for him to not do it. "It's not over." He echoes his own creed, the one he told her in the courtroom, seconds after everything unraveled and his ears were ringing with her scream and his hand was sticky-warm with blood.
"It's not fair." A correction more than a reply.
"You took up this profession thinking things would be fair?" An amused smirk curls his mouth. It's hypocritical for him to be so entertained when he himself became a lawyer for exactly that reason: thinking he was powerful enough, by his willpower alone, to make things fair. But coming from Mia, who sounds so petulant about it... "Kitten, the only thing fair in your life or mine will be your face and the weather."
Mia slams the thermos down on the wooden chair beside her and rises to her feet. She leans in towards Diego, her finger inches from his face. "I didn't ever say I thought that. You have a lot of nerve, Mr. Armando, if you think you can just sit there and tell me all the whys and hows of fairness; you're not the one who just lost your first trial because your defendant killed himself."
It's somehow comforting that her anger is directed towards him, instead of herself, for the first time since the trial ended. Diego can take anything and everything she dishes out, and there's a part of him who wonders if anyone else ever has. So often, Mia's piling everyone else's burdens on herself instead of the other way around.
Another question has been drifting around in Diego's mind, and so he poses it to her.
"How do you think Miles Edgeworth feels right now?" The prodigy, putting himself on display today. Proud as a peacock but nowhere near as vibrant, so stuck on seeing and acting in black-and-white.
"Excuse me?"
He repeats himself, not entirely unsure Mia won't answer him with a slap across the face.
Her reply, in words, is just as vicious. "I don't care how Miles Edgeworth feels. I don't care, because he's a sneaky, jumped-up little-"
Diego holds up his bandaged hand to stop her rant. "Oh no, I definitely don't care either, trust me. But I can still guess how he's holding up, and here's what I'm guessing: I'm betting he's castrating himself like you are. Unable to come to grips with the prospect of losing."
She opens her mouth, presumably to argue, but the only thing that comes out is what he assumes is an indignant scoff; it's the cutest one he's ever heard, if it is.
"I assure you, Mia, Edgeworth's reeling just as much as you are right now, because he's a hundred percent damn sure that he's lost." Traces of understanding begin to etch themselves on her face, but Diego isn't satisfied with just traces. "So if he's lost - and if you've lost, as you've so generously pointed out over and over - then who's won?"
There's a deafening silence and he can feel the abhorrence. He could brew a mean cup of Blend #53 with the boiling-hot hatred radiating from her. The most acidic blend he can stomach.
"It's not a rhetorical question, who -"
"Don't! Don't...I'm not saying her name."
He doesn't press further, not with how dangerous a reaction he might be on the receiving end of, if he does. He sidesteps that obstacle with a tidbit of wisdom, paraphrased from Grossberg and molded into one of his own rules.
"It's not losing if they make you lose. " Shit, it's all so trite, now that he hears it from his own mouth. But this flimsy encouragement is all he has left, having exhausted tough love and answering-questions-with-questions. "You can – and will - win this."
Her gaze drops for a moment, then finds him again with renewed resolve. "No. No, I won't...I won't win." Her confidence is back, and this time it's sharp, inviting him to battle it at his own risk.
"Then who will?"
"Not who. What."
He already senses where she's going with this, but he wants to hear it. "Enlighten me."
"The truth. The truth will win out."
They say when it comes to addiction, it only takes one time. One time, and you're hooked. That's how it was for Diego, coffee's heavy aroma and intense bitterness curling into him when he was young, darker than the dark pit of his fractured life and stronger than the unrelenting confusion that kept him pinned there.
And he can see the same thirst reigniting in Mia's eyes. In the way she turns without a word, only a lift at the corner of her lips, and strides determinedly from the lobby, as if she's suddenly, inexplicably, over it. Moving on.
But she's not over it. On the contrary, she's in deep. After just one time, one trial, Mia Fey is hooked, and justice is her drug of choice. She won't rest until she's gotten her fix.
And Diego follows close behind, watching her beige scarf fluttering like a heroine's cape, vowing to do whatever he can to help her satisfy that craving.
I wrote this mostly as a form of practicing writing Diego's character/voice (he's a toughie) and just to get out my headcanons for him and Mia. I have so much in my mind for their backstory both together and individually and it's a bit easier writing it in these smaller oneshot chunks than in the epic format that's constantly in my brain, ha. Anyway, uhhh. That's it. Thanks for reading, and as always, feedback in any form is appreciated :)