AN: Written for Meimi on an exchange. Same plot, two different takes. Here's mine, short and slightly-cracky as it is. I don't own anything from the Ace Attorney series! Thanks for reading!

Crushed

It was strange to face anyone other than Forehead in court, Klavier Gavin reflected. He had grown rather accustomed to seeing the short man in red on the other side of the courtroom, and he usually looked forward to it. It meant court would be interesting, and that he would have good opposition.

But sadly, Apollo Justice had taken a bad spill from his bicycle. It was nothing too serious, but he had been told to stay home for a couple days' worth of bed rest. According to Trucy Wright, "Polly is a really unhappy camper right now."

The young man he faced today was good, albeit a bit green, but he had been unable to poke any holes at all in the prosecution's case. The defendant had been pronounced guilty, and that was the end of it. Case closed, no problem. All in all, a good day's work—especially considering how difficult the investigation of that case had been.

Bravo to Detective Skye. He would have to tease her later.

Klavier left the courtroom with every intention of going back to his office and enjoying the company of his guitar for a while, provided there was no more work to be done. But to his surprise, there was someone waiting for him outside—namely, Trucy, who was sitting on a bench, playing with a deck of cards. She was shuffling them like a pro in a casino, in various patterns.

He stood for a moment, watching her, and when she paused he clapped a few times in lieu of applause. "Bravo, Fraulein Magician!" he cheered with a smile and all the approval of one showman addressing another. "That is impressive!"

She grinned when she saw him and bounced to her feet; the cards disappeared as she bounded over to him. "I was bored, so I thought I'd come down here and see what was going on. Papa's lurking around here somewhere, too. So how did your case go?"

…was it just his imagination, or was she making calf-eyes at him? Or rather, sparkling at him more than usual? She had been acting a bit strange in his presence as of late, but he hadn't paid it too much mind. He was rather accustomed to women acting oddly around him; it came with his night-job. "It went quite well," he said, grinning. "I won the case."

"Really?" she beamed.

Klavier nodded, then chuckled knowingly as a thought struck him. "If Herr Forehead were the defense attorney, you would not be cheering my victory, ja?"

She blushed a little. "I'm his assistant. What do you expect?"

He couldn't resist teasing her a little bit; after all, Forehead wasn't there for him to mess with. Sad, really. Justice had the best reactions. "Ah, Fraulein is cute when she blushes." This much, at least, was harmless.

Trucy's eyes grew wide and sparkly—

And the next thing Klavier knew, she had jumped up, thrown her arms around him, and was merrily pressing a big kiss to his cheek. He felt his eyes widen and his jaw drop in complete shock—had she really  just…

CLICK.

There was a flare of light nearby that Klavier only partially noticed, and subconsciously recognized as a camera flash. As Trucy let go of him and bounced away, giggling, he heard Ema Skye speak up. "Oh, Apollo's going to love this one…"

Okay. So she had just taken a picture of a fifteen-year-old girl going all Kissing Bandit on him. That was fine. Really. It wasn't like he was unaccustomed to women doing such things—but they usually weren't people he knew well. And it caught him off-guard. He would just recover and say something to her, and everything would be fine, so long as—

"Hi, Daddy!" Trucy cheered.

—Herr Wright didn't find out.

This was bad.

The prosecutor turned slowly. Ema was standing there, staring at the back of her digital camera and laughing her head off. Trucy stood next to her. And behind them both was none other than Phoenix Wright himself. Who was busily glaring daggers at Klavier.

With slow, deliberate steps, Wright began to walk towards him.

…was this what it felt like to be a deer caught in the headlights? Klavier couldn't move for love or money. All he could do was stand there with the weight of a father's glare pinning him to the spot.

Wright stopped an arm's length away. "Gavin," he said shortly. "You're a good kid, and a damned good prosecutor. You know I respect you." He pulled his hands out of his pockets and cracked his knuckles. "However, you realize that now I am going to have to kill you."

He had gone from being a deer in the headlights to a halibut on a fishing hook. He tried to stammer out some sort of an excuse—she had kissed him, he hadn't asked her to do it, it wasn't his fault!—but all he could manage was something that sounded more like he was speaking in tongues than anything else.

After a moment, Wright cracked a smile and patted Klavier on the shoulder. "I'm just kidding. If Trucy wants to make an idiot out of herself, it's her right," he said, ignoring the indignant cry from the girl behind him.

Klavier blinked.

Ema took another picture.

There was going to be hell to pay when Forehead saw these…

OMAKE

"Err…Herr Wright?" Klavier asked as calmly as possible. "Not to be rude, but…why are you doing this? This is illegal, is it not?"

Phoenix Wright grinned. "Well, I like to keep my daughter happy. And she decided she wanted you around. So you're just going to have to tolerate the handcuffs for a while."