Prompt: Another character or two realizing how much Phoenix has been through and how he's so hurt inside, but he won't let anyone help him because he's convinced he's got to be the one saving everyone. Cue confrontation with said character/s getting him to come to terms with his pain and letting himself be vulnerable and taken care of.
Phoenix had always been a sensitive kid. At nine years old, he didn't really have any kind of tragic backstory, hadn't been through any serious hurt or turmoil - but to the kind of kid he was, having all his classmates and even his teacher turn their backs on him felt momentous enough. In that moment, a moment he could remember with near-perfect clarity even decades later, Miles and Larry had been his heroes.
They didn't owe him anything. They had no reason to risk getting in trouble for his sake - but they'd believed in him anyway, they'd saved him, and to nine-year-old Phoenix Wright, that meant everything.
He wanted to be able to do the same for other people someday.
When Phoenix was nine years old, only a few months after he'd made his decision to save people, his best friend's father was killed. His best friend vanished overnight.
He wrote letters for years. There was never any reply, and eventually he stopped writing.
He went to art school instead of law.
-xxx-
A few weeks into working for her, Mia tried to apologize for being so harsh with him during his trial.
"You deserved a good smack to make you see reason, don't get me wrong," she said, then sighed and crossed her arms. "But... you loved her. I'm sorry."
Phoenix had spent a week in the hospital thanks to the broken glass he'd eaten for Dahlia Hawthorne. The day after he got out, he'd tried to visit her, but she'd refused to see him.
He could remember cuddling close to her in his bed, whispering sweet words. The way she'd pressed kisses over his heart, and curled her fingers around the chain of the necklace, and asked for it back.
"Don't worry about it, Chief," he said with a bright smile, and continued shelving books. "Like you said, I needed it."
"...Phoenix," Mia said, her voice very soft and her eyes dark with something horribly like understanding, and all he could think about was poison and death and worst of all, not being able to save Dahlia.
He fully understood how wrong he'd been, now. He knew that completely, but still every day he found himself thinking I couldn't do a thing to help her and he - he hated that.
"Really, I'm good," he said strongly, and smiled as if to prove it.
Mia stared at him for a long moment before she smiled back.
"You know, you really are," she said quietly, and mercifully let the subject drop. Within five minutes, she was yelling at him about court procedure like always, and never brought Dahlia up to him again.
Not for as long as she lived.