Chapter Text
He wishes they picked a different diner.
The seats feel sticky and vaguely wet, and there’s a rather alarming stain in the corner of their table, and he only ordered something to keep his hands and mouth busy, but his stomach feels too tight to even think about food.
He tosses it around his plate absentmindedly.
Rick ordered coffee, which wasn’t that strange, but it took Morty slightly aback to see him take a sip without turning it Irish.
They haven’t said anything in a while.
The waitress passes their table for the fourth time, her tray suspiciously empty. Morty’s not really bothered.
People are always looking at them; maybe because they’re human, or maybe because there’s two of them, or maybe because they're a lot older than Mortys tend to get. Either way, he’s used to it.
But it seems to push Rick enough to finally say something, clearing his throat.
“You…” He starts, then thinks for a moment, maybe changing his mind. “You look well.” He lands on, finally.
Morty’s gotten a lot taller in the last couple of years; gained some weight and muscles and a couple of well-placed tattoos running up his arms in swirling patterns. He doesn’t think about the way he looks nearly as much as he used to. And eats at least semi-regularly, which probably makes all the difference.
“Thanks,” he answers. “You look… Different.”
Rick winces a little at that. He must’ve taken it as an insult, but there’s really no better way to put it.
He looks tired in a permanent but not necessarily unfixable sort of way, like an old toy full of dead batteries, forgotten somewhere at the bottom of a closet. There’s a smell of alcohol lingering around him, but only faintly, like it’s been a minute since he’s last had a drink. If Morty didn’t spend years basing anything he said or did on the strength of that very same smell, he might’ve not noticed it at all. He seems a lot older, too, and that might be the strangest part of it all.
Looking at him now, it’s hard to believe Morty recognized him at all.
“Yeah, well…” Rick starts, but then his voice tapers off, like he’s already lost the momentum. He runs a hand over his face, looks at the stained table, and then back again at Morty. His gaze softens. “Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?” Tim questions.
He’s been so quiet Morty almost forgot he was there at all, and the sudden reminder floods him with something like relief. He reaches out under the table to grab his hand.
Rick looks at him, a little like he forgot, too. His face does a funny thing.
“Fuck all, I guess. I wasn’t, like, looking for you– I mean,” he corrects quickly, like he’s scared of Morty of having the wrong idea, thinking worse of him. That’s something new, too. “I guess I never really, uhm, stopped looking. But… you know.”
He gestures to the small scar on Morty’s arm. That’s where one of the tracking devices Tim found in him used to lie, and the fact that Rick remembers it even five years later makes Morty feel… something.
“Isn’t it weird?” He asked when they were first getting them out, just outside of The Curve. He was looking at the small, clean wound in his arm. It didn’t really hurt. He kind of wished it did. “That there’s seven. That’s an odd number."
The other boy didn’t answer immediately.
Tim never hesitated or stuttered—his mind always made up before he ever opened his mouth, but Morty didn’t know that back then, and it felt all too easy to assume he was being ignored.
He scoffed and looked away, eyes landing on whatever was left of the trackers, crumpled and stomped on the ground next to him. It was so strange—seeing something of Rick’s so easily disarmed. It didn’t feel like something that could be possible.
“Not really,” Tim answered suddenly, snapping Morty’s attention back. He cradled his elbow, looking at his arm this way and that before starting to stitch it up. “I think he started with just one.”
“Yeah,” Morty says, rubbing at the spot absentmindedly. He had to let go of Tim’s hand to do that, and he’s already regretting it. “It was a bit excessive, honestly.”
“Wasn’t excessive enough if it didn’t work,” Rick murmurs, more to his coffee than to anyone else.
Morty doesn’t really know what to say to that. Tim looks like he does but holds it in, probably just for his sake.
There’s another beat of silence.
“So, w-what are you, uhm, up… to?” Morty stutters out. It’s been ages since he’s gotten tongue-tied like that, and the sudden shame almost makes him want to melt into the seat.
The way Rick keeps looking at him certainly isn’t helping.
“Not much,” Rick answers.
That’s a strange answer coming from him, and it makes Morty wonder.
“Did you… ever find Prime?”
It was something he always dreaded, deep inside. So much of Rick was held up by his anger and resentment—the love of the chase. He wasn’t sure his grandfather really knew how to exist without it.
Judging by the look on Rick’s face—he doesn’t really know, either.
“I don’t wanna fucking talk about it,” he replies, short and blunt, but more irritated with himself than anyone else.
It’s a subtle difference, and Morty knows he’d never pick up on it if his grandfather was just a bit more drunk. Sometimes he still wonders how many of the things Rick said to him were things he was really trying to say about himself.
(Sometimes, he’s scared it was none at all.)
“Summer’s in college,” he adds. “Thought you, um, would want to know that.”
Morty does know that.
He probably knew that before Rick ever did.
He considers telling him as much. That he knows what classes Summer will be taking next semester, and what kind of casserole Dad made for dinner last week, and what annoying things Mom’s coworkers said yesterday.
He doesn’t.
Morty never regretted leaving The Citadel. He didn't regret that being his one last adventure, he didn’t regret never getting to ride that motorcycle Rick spent a while fixing up in secret, and he didn't regret not saying goodbye to Jessica.
He didn't regret never looking back to see the look on Rick’s face.
But thinking about his family made his stomach twist.
Tim lost his parents and Summer way before he ever left his dimension for good, and it wasn’t really something he liked talking about, but it was more than clear he never really got this particular sort of longing. Everything Morty’s ever heard about Tim’s Rick led him to believe the man wasn’t exactly special in any sort of way. He just had a real talent for poisoning everything around him.
Either way, in this one aspect, Morty felt rather alone.
He didn’t really think he was searching for Space Mom when he found her, but Tim didn’t seem all that surprised when he told him. Space was vast and infinite, and they didn’t tend to linger outside of The Curve that much, and it seemed almost impossible, but maybe it was like Rick said.
Maybe he just never stopped looking.
He was seventeen then, and it felt like a whole lifetime almost slipped by while he wasn’t watching.
Rick didn’t live at home anymore, which didn’t really surprise him, but Summer was off to college too, and the sudden realization that he never got to see her graduate stung. It wasn't enough to make him stay, but it kept him coming back.
Morty knew Rick well enough to know he wouldn’t be looking for him at home, and it was easy enough to convince Moms and Dad to keep their mouths shut. But Summer was the only person that Rick bothered to keep a closer eye on, and she always felt far more responsible for their grandfather than she should've, and it took a lot more to buy her silence.
(A long family conversation and the gun still hidden in his bedside table, to be exact.
The looks on Mom’s and Dad’s faces didn’t leave his memory for a long time, but in that moment, Morty was only looking at his sister.
He used to feel jealous over Summer and Rick—how easily he trusted her, how freely he gave her the things Morty was used to begging for.
Maybe because she was older. Or a girl. Or smarter, wilder, and more fun than he could ever dream to be.
But that day, seeing that strange look on her face when he opened the drawer, for the first time in his life, he thought to question if maybe Summer used to be jealous of him.
That didn't seem to be the case anymore.)
Mom was the one who told Rick to leave. He found that out only after a few months, and it left him a little speechless and stargazed. Besides Tim, people didn’t really stand up to Rick, not often, not in his defense, and that felt like the closest thing he ever got to it with Mom.
It made him go a little soft.
And maybe also the fact that he missed them, and because they were still his parents despite everything, and because he was now the same age they were when they had Summer.
(And maybe because they seemed to like Tim well enough, or at least they didn’t question the best decision Morty’s ever made in his entire life, and that seemed like enough for the moment.)
Visiting Earth made him nervous despite everything, but his other mom made some of these things a lot easier, and over time, the interdimensional phone Tim got him started to feel less and less daunting in his pocket.
It seems like at this moment, Morty knows more about Rick than the man knows about him. Because Rick never changes, and his biggest mistake was always assuming Morty was the same.
“That’s nice,” he says simply.
“I’m assuming you didn’t…” Rick gestures with his hand.
Morty raises an eyebrow. “Go to college? No.”
Rick never wanted him to.
“School’s a waste of time,” he told Morty once. He was fiddling with something on his desk, but he didn’t tell Morty to leave, which meant he wanted him to say. Rick was always a tricky puzzle like that. “You really wanna get buried with a piece of paper this bad?”
“You’re not saying that to Summer,” Morty argued.
“Yeah, well, Summer can go if she wants,” his grandfather replied, not looking up. “It’s different for her.”
“The fuck you mean ‘different’?”
Rick sighed, finally sitting up straighter to meet his gaze. He was drunk, and his eyes narrowed a little, and for a moment—Morty was scared he was going to be cruel about it. Summer never did particularly well in school, but mostly because she never tried to, and she had a real way with people, the kind that made all the cracks in her walls look like windows of opportunities.
Morty never even had any potential to lose.
But then Rick’s face softened, just a little, like whatever happened to show on Morty’s face made him change his mind.
“Aw, shit, it means I need you here, alright, buddy?” He rolled his eyes a little, but maybe more out of habit than anything else. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Don’t make me get all sentimental.”
Rick needing and wanting people were two separate things. But Morty never really knew that back then.
“Right.” His grandfather quiets for a moment, clearly racking his brain for something more. He seems almost desperate with it. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of strange seeing you again.”
It takes Morty a moment to realize he’s not talking to him anymore.
Tim shrugs, reaching to fiddle with his eyepatch a little. That makes Morty realize that he might be scanning Rick for weapons, or bombs, or something like that. It’s reassuring to know he’s got his back and terrifying that he didn’t think of it himself. It’s been less than half an hour, and Rick already has him all out of sorts.
“Ditto. I can’t believe you’re alive,” he says it like it’s a bad thing, and that’s probably how he means it, too.
“Fuck, me too, I guess. I would’ve bet really good money you two would’ve killed each other within five minutes.”
That’s such an absurd idea now that it almost makes Morty laugh, but he sees how it would look from where Rick stands.
For the longest time, he didn't really know why Tim asked him to leave when he did. His ship didn’t seem fit for two—the backseat narrow and clearly meant for storage, and the space suit he gave Morty clung too tight despite them being the same size, like something he grew out of and forgot about.
It didn't seem like a well-thought-out decision, but Morty didn’t dare question him. Maybe out of fear that Tim will change his mind; like it would finally make him snap out of it and realize how much Morty lagged behind, that he could never be as smart, as brave. That the one thing he could never do was to make himself irreplaceable.
But over time, it became more than clear that Tim never thought of it that way. Somehow, that seemed like the strangest part of it all.
“No, seriously,” Morty nagged him one day, years later. “Why?”
They pushed their beds together earlier—Morty doesn’t remember why; not like they ever needed a reason anyway—which gave him the perfect excuse to lay back and look anywhere but at Tim, eyes fixed on the ceiling above.
Tim didn’t answer at first, but probably only because Edgar chose that moment to jump up on the bed with them, landing square on his chest and earning him a mouthful of orange cat.
“It was spur of the moment,” Tim answered finally, wiping at his face with a wince. “I already told you.”
“You don’t do anything spur of the moment, Timmy,” Morty argued, scratching Edgar between the ears.
Tim winced at that. It was a new nickname back then, and he was still standing his ground opposed to it, albeit only half-heartedly. Quickly enough, Morty came to realize that there weren’t many things the other boy would ever deny him if he was nice enough about it. He tried not to abuse that power.
“... You were different, I guess,” Tim said after a moment. “From the others, I mean.”
That was true, Morty supposed.
He fit in with the other Mortys well enough, but only at a first glance. Something always shoved him out of the crowd. He bent when pushed, but only to a certain point—snapping where other Mortys caved in on themselves, all hot anger and rage.
If it was the same gene that made Tim who he was, it didn’t fit them the same way. Morty could never do what Tim did.
He would’ve left his Rick to rot where he shot him.
“Is that really it?” He questioned.
“I don’t know, Morty,” Tim snapped a little at that, face flushed. “I never do things like that, but you made me do it, so I guess that’s your answer. Maybe I wanted someone there in case it went to shit. Maybe I just wanted to get back at Rick.” He quieted a little, trailing off. He knocked Morty’s knee with his own, and that finally made him look up to meet his gaze. “Maybe I wanted you.”
“Your little Curve-plan worked, then?” Rick asks, harsher now. That’s the tone Morty remembers.
It’s a strange question. Morty never really thought Rick doubted it would work—just whatever lay beyond that.
“Sure,” Tim says, all casual. “My Morty makes a killer getaway driver.”
Rick’s eyes narrow at that. Morty wonders which part of that sentence put him off this much.
“We make a good team,” he adds quickly, because both of their tones sound dangerously close to a slap-fight. Tim was holding back before, but Morty can feel him slipping.
“Right,” Rick repeats.
The atmosphere feels a lot less awkward and a lot more tense now; hanging thick around them like fog.
There are a million things they could be saying. Even more they should be saying.
Finally, Morty snaps.
“Look, man, I know you’re not…” He gestures with his hand. “You’re awful at small talk. Just– Say what you want to say.”
If Rick’s taken aback by that—he doesn’t let it show. He taps away at his mug, his coffee cold by now.
“Okay,” he says finally, looking up. Morty can’t read his face. It makes him feel fourteen years old all over again. “Why did you leave?”
For a moment, Morty thinks about lying. About swerving around the question, saying the miles and miles or reasons why he didn’t come back instead.
Rick was always lying to him, back in the day, back when they were still Rick and Morty. He was so obvious with it, so unapologetic, that it almost seemed like the only logical thing to do. Like the Earth turned around the Sun, and the wind filled his lungs with air, and Rick lied to him—like they were all things Morty could never live without.
“It was either that or blowing my brains out as soon as we got home.”
And that’s that.
It sits between them for a moment, heavy and crushing like a rock. There’s no real moving it now.
Rick was the one who gave him that laser gun; told him to keep it close to bed ‘in case you'll need it’. Even then, Morty could recognize it as the clumsy show of care it was, and the idea of twisting his grandfather’s words like that made him feel sick, but not enough to actually get it out of his head.
He didn’t want Summer to have to deal with awful school assemblies. He didn’t want Dad to hear the gun go off, because his son couldn’t be bothered to pick a day when he wasn’t home. He didn’t want Mom to be the one who’ll have to clean it up.
He didn’t want Rick…
But back then, it felt less like something he wanted and more like something that needed to happen. Or like it already did, and he was too much of a coward to see it; like it would change its mind and go away if he just pretended hard enough.
Summer used to do that with him, back when their parents argued more than they talked. She’d turn the TV up so loud they could barely think, throwing a blanket over their heads for a good measure. She’d tell him there was a ghost in their living room, or a werewolf, or whatever awful creature she recently saw in one of the many movies that Morty wasn’t allowed to watch with her, and that it would get them if they moved.
It was almost fun—sitting still, eyes glued to the screen, trying to make as little noise as he possibly could. Morty never liked being scared, but being scared with Summer felt like something else entirely.
His sister was always a lot better at that game than he was. In the glow of the TV, she looked very grown up.
She tried her best to teach him how to be invisible. At fourteen, he really started to feel like he was letting her down.
He’s not actually sure he would’ve done it. Probably not. He felt scared and alone, but he was stubborn before he was anything else. Although living on with the thought constantly in the back of his mind didn’t seem all that great either.
He knows now that there was no real hiding from it.
It took a while for him to finally gather enough pieces of himself and feel whole enough to face it, but once he did, without his fear and helplessness obscuring the view, it all looked a whole lot smaller than he always assumed.
It seemed so grand and all-encompassing when he was younger, when he thought of it as something almost unknowable, something he couldn't name. Putting it in plain words—killing himself seemed like nothing more than a waste.
Tim looks away, maybe because he never really likes hearing about this part of the story. Or maybe because the look on Rick’s face is pretty damn gnarly.
“Holy fucking shit,” he says, quiet, all in one breath. “Morty, I’ve...”
It’s been so long since he’s last heard his grandfather say his name. It’s been even longer since he’s heard him say it like that.
“Yeah, well,” he snaps, suddenly irritated, “it was a long time ago, so.”
Rick’s quiet for a moment before finally letting out: “Was it because of me?”
It’s like an iron brand, pressing onto his back without a warning. He feels his hands tighten into fists.
He’s not really sure what he expected Rick to say.
Something sappy? Something mean but well-intentioned? Something funny?
Anything, really. Anything about Morty would’ve been good enough.
“Gee, Rick, not everything’s f-fucking about you,” he bites. “It wasn’t you. It was that being around you made me want to drill a hole through my fucking skull.”
Rick flinches back, and that almost feels good. Almost like something Morty wanted.
Almost.
It wasn’t really about Rick.
It was about every adventure, about his finger on a trigger, about the bodies buried in their yard. About how normal it all started to feel after a while.
How steady his hand felt when he pulled the trigger on Rick.
Something’s wrong with me, he thought. An awful, vile part of him that’s been there since birth, rotting him from the inside out. Something’s wrong with me, and everybody knows it.
‘In case you’ll need it’, Rick said when he gave him the gun. It was so casual and offhanded, like he hardly had to think about it. He trusted Morty like he’d trust a fawn jumping in front of his car. Most it could ever do is some splatter.
In that moment, when Rick turned around, voice muffled by a sudden, deafening ringing—Morty thought how easy it would be to kill him right now. Aim and shoot, right into that soft spot between his shoulder blades. He’s done it a million times before.
One day, Morty was going to walk into someone’s garage.
“That’s not–” Rick’s voice wavers, falling and rising like a broken record. “Morty, if you told me something, I would’ve–”
“What, wiped out my mind? Fuck you. It sucked, but it was mine.” He raises a hand, pressing his fingers to his chest. “It was the only thing that was mine.”
Rick had control over everything in his life. It seemed like the only way his grandfather really knew how to love—all-encompassing and sharp like a knife between the ribs. It hurt, sometimes, and it stained and spilled over into every aspect of his life, but it kept him from bleeding out. That was something to be grateful for, he supposed.
“Shit, I don’t know, stopped taking you on adventures? Is that what you wanted?” Rick snaps, words slurring together.
“For you to leave me? What the fuck do you think?”
Sometimes, Morty felt less like a person and more like a thing. Something essential and mostly useful, always waiting in the same place to be picked up again, something that would ruin Rick’s day if he couldn't find it. Like a pair of keys, maybe.
Useful, sentimental, utterly replaceable.
“Why didn’t you get a new one?” Morty questions. Suddenly, it’s all he wants to know. “A replacement Morty. You probably still have that coupon somewhere.”
He waits for a reply, but it doesn’t come.
His face feels cold.
“... Did you?”
Rick doesn’t answer.
He’s got both of his elbows on the table, hand covering his forehead like he might just topple over at any moment, weak and fragile. Morty doesn’t know what the look on his face means.
No? Yes? I tried to?
“No. Is that what you wanted to hear? Does that make you happy?” The words seem cruel, but there's no real bite to them, like he doesn't think he could break the skin even if he tried. It's no fun without the taste of blood in his mouth. “Fuck. Not like you'll ever believe me anyway.”
He's right about that. Morty doesn't know why he even asked.
His ears are ringing.
“Okay.” Suddenly, there's a palm on his shoulder, pushing him up and out of the booth. “We’re done here.”
He wants to snap at Tim, too, because why does he get to decide that, but the look on the other boy’s face quickly makes him lose his nerve.
He looks back at Rick, and for a moment, he doesn’t recognize him at all.
He thinks about his grandfather—larger than life—bigger, greater, more important than anyone else, in a way that seemed so hard to disagree with. Things were always so hard with Rick; everything a puzzle, a trial, a wild guess, but he made Morty feel needed. Space and time were infinite, cold, and uncaring, but out of every person in existence, they chose Morty to give a real, tangible purpose to.
Rick & Morty. 100 years. Forever.
This isn’t him. It’s just a sad old man.
“I’m…” He doesn’t really know what to say.
He turns to leave.
And then suddenly there’s another hand, wrapping around his wrist, different but also familiar, and he freezes like a deer in headlights.
What is it?, he wonders. What is it that he’s so afraid of?
Nothing Rick throws out will ever reach him like it used to. Still and frozen, he waits for the impact.
“Morty. Morty, wait, I don’t…” Rick stumbles through his words, like he wants to get them out all at once, like it’s killing him to keep a hold onto them any longer. “I don’t… know. I don’t know what to say. I had this, fuck, this whole thing, you know? If I ever saw you again? I wanted to… I don’t know, fucking monologue at you until you felt bad enough to come back? I thought maybe you’d fuck that guy over and come to get me out, something like that. That’s what I would’ve done.” His voice breaks off a little at that, and he finishes with something like a whine. “But you were never gonna be like me.”
Morty feels another pull on his shoulder, and Rick’s hand lets him go, but not before pushing something between his fingers—light and thin.
He doesn’t say goodbye before he’s ushered out the door.
He didn’t say goodbye the last time, either.
***
Back in the ship, they sit quietly for a long, long time.
Morty turns the note Rick gave him in his palm until the ink smudges, just a little. It’s a phone number, he guesses. His grandfather had that ready, just sitting in his pocket. The paper looks old. He wonders what that means.
“What a joke,” Tim speaks up, finally.
He looks properly pissed, but in a distant way, like Morty won’t hear the end of it, but not before he’s able to get ahold of himself first.
“He’s changed a lot,” Morty says, more as a fact.
Now, far away and safe with Tim in their ship, he feels a little sheepish about his outburst. Maybe Rick deserved that, after everything.
Maybe. Definitely.
But he said Morty wasn’t like him. He didn’t want to prove him wrong on that part.
Seeing Rick again made him think about adventures, that old, quiet desperation, the need to be needed, harsh words and even harsher actions, a gun hidden in his bedside dresser, right under his school books.
But it also made him think of quiet affection, of adrenaline pumping through his ears, face stretched in a grin, of a steady hand on his shoulder guiding him along across the universe.
Rick showed him the stars.
In the beginning, he was always scared that his grandfather would find him despite everything. But a smaller, quiet part of him was afraid that he would never look for him in the first place. He knows now that could never be true. Five years gone, and Rick recognized him without a second glance.
Tim turns to take his hands, and it’s seemingly only now that he even notices the little scrap of paper. He grabs it, throwing it onto the console with a huff.
“You’re not going to call him, are you?”
Morty didn’t even have the time to really think about it. His head still feels fuzzy.
“He’s not as scary as I remember him being,” he says, like that answers it.
Maybe it does, because Tim’s eye narrows.
“Only because he knows he can’t hurt you anymore.” That’s reassuring, in a way, even if he didn’t mean it like that.
“I’m not gonna go on an adventure with him or anything,” he says ‘adventure’ like it hurts. It kind of does. “But I just–”
“Right. One last hit and then you quit?”
“Oh, shut up,” Morty snaps, but without any real bite, like an animal dying in a trap. Rigor mortis. “I know you’re trying to nag on him, but you’re just being a dick to me.”
Morty spent a long time trying to keep a short leash on that wild and soft creature inside of his chest. It felt embarrassing, sometimes, how no matter how hard it was beaten, the smallest scrap of affection would get it right back—tail between its legs, like a kicked dog.
He’s grown to see it more fondly now. It’s got its paws all over Tim, and he’s letting it inch closer to his family again, and that feels a little like watching trees unfurl come spring. But he knows that even when it wags its tail, its ribs still remember the sole of a boot.
Morty always liked dogs.
He's just not sure he's quite ready to be one again.
Tim’s face does a funny thing at that. Morty’s not angry with him, not really. He just kind of wishes he would just hold his hand again instead of talking.
Finally, Tim nods.
“My bad.”
They sit in silence for a moment longer. Tim reaches out a hand, palm up, and Morty laces their fingers together like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Things are always so easy with him.
“So?” Tim questions, finally.
Morty stares at the sky through the front window. It’s so vast and empty and so full of life; broader and narrower, and greater and smaller than they could ever even begin to comprehend. Looking at it now, he can’t believe he used to think Rick so much bigger than all of it.
He closes his eyes until all he can see is the light spots where the stars shine brightest.
“I want to go home,” he says.
He can feel Tim watching him for a moment before starting up the engine, but Morty knows he’s not going to question him further. He’s only looking at his face.
And whatever it was that he was looking for in there—it seems like he found it.