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The fight had been hours ago, yet the anger was as fresh as ever, like a stubborn splinter that you couldn’t dig out of your skin. Morty stormed the school halls with a scowl on his face, ignoring the way people turned to look at him.
He and Rick had had arguments before. Some of them had been so intense, they wouldn’t speak to each other for days. But this morning had topped all other fights. And it wasn’t even their worst argument. It had been over something stupid, but then it escalated to the point that raw emotions erupted from both of them.
What had happened was: Rick wanted to go on an adventure. Morty said no.
It wasn’t the first time that happened, but it was the first time that Morty meant it. He said no and he stood his ground. Rick tried his usual tactic of coercion, ridicule, and lecture. The older man had been appalled to find nothing worked. Morty still insisted on leaving for school.
Rick had grabbed his arm then. Morty ripped his arm away and snapped at him.
“I’m not something you can control. I can make my own decisions and I decided to go to school!”
“You-you don’t know what your talking about, Morty. There’s nothing for y-you in that piss spot.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me!”
“Look, I get it, Morty. You’ve proven that you’re so independent. Bravo, M-Morty. Now come over here we…we wasted enough time already.”
Morty almost stopped in his tracks to argue with Rick some more. But he did the smart thing in walking away. Rick hadn’t like that. Morty was down the street when Rick called out from the house.
“Don’t ever ask me for adventures again. We’re through!”
“Good! Don’t go thinking I’ll come crawling back to you!” Morty had shouted back.
And now here Morty was, writing scribbles on a piece of paper when he was supposed to be taking notes. He frowned when he realized that Rick had been right. This was a waste of time. The material they taught was either useless, or too hard for Morty to comprehend.
He had thrown away any future adventure he could’ve had with Rick. And for what? Why did he want to go to school that badly in the first place?
Morty looked out the window at a bird perched on a tree branch. He wondered if maybe it had never been about school. Maybe he just wanted to make one decision without Rick. Maybe he wanted to defy Rick and show his grandpa that he wouldn’t always mold to his every whim?
Again, Rick had been right about that too. Morty wanted to be independent. He wanted to tell Rick no for the sake of showing Rick that he could. And it was too late for apologies now. Rick wouldn’t take him back, even if he did beg for forgiveness.
Morty sulked all the way back home. Mom would still be at work. Jessica was hanging out with friends. And Dad still lived in that shabby apartment, crying over the divorce every night. It was just going to be him and Rick at home for the next few hours. Morty made sure no one was in the garage before heading to the front door. In order to avoid Rick, he would go to his room and stay there the rest of the night. He would pretend to be too ill to eat dinner too.
When he reached his room, he clicked on the light. What he saw made him freeze. Rick was sleeping in his bed. He was clearly drunk off his ass, if the bottles were any indication. Before Morty could ponder his next move, Rick stirred awake. He blinked rapidly until his eyes set on Morty.
Then, with more strength than Morty had ever seen from a drunk Rick, he grabbed Morty’s arm. Morty yelped as he struggled out of his grasp. Rick harshly tugged him down the stairs and into the garage.
“What are you doing? Let me go. Dammit, Rick. Let me go!”
“S-shut up….bitch ass…c-can’t believe you’re making me….making me do this…it’s you…your fault, Morty. Don’t blame me for what’s about to happen.”
He sounded so serious. So cold. So angry. All of Morty’s anger turned to terror. He had never seen this side of his grandpa before, but somehow, he still knew that he was in danger.
His grandpa grabbed some strange looking claw shape device. At the tip of the claw looked to be some sort of microchip, like what you would see with computers.
“Rick? What are you going to do? What is that? TELL ME NOW.”
Rick forced the claw in between Morty’s open palm. It clamped down in an instant. The pain was sharp, but it all ended too fast for Morty to react. Only then did Rick let go. Morty looked at his hand that had been chipped to the deepest parts of his skin. He knew there would be no taking it off.
Tears welled up Morty’s eyes while Rick glowered down at him without an ounce of sympathy.
“What did you do? Rick, if you don’t tell me—”
“—Stop talking.”
Morty wanted to say more. But it was like an invisible zipper closed his mouth shut. Morty stared with fearful eyes wide. Morty turned to leave as fast as he could.
But before he could start sprinting the hell out of there, Rick said, “Stay here, Morty.”
And just like with his mouth, Morty’s feet obeyed Rick’s command. They glued themselves to the floor against Morty’s will. Morty wanted to scream, yet his mouth remained tightly shut.
“Morty. Turn around.”
Morty did, although not of his own free will. He looked at his grandpa and for the first time he hated him. He really hated him. Rick’s hazy drunk eyes lit up and a smirk crept across his face.
“There we go. That’s better, Morty. You know….a lot of Ricks have done this way sooner than I have. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to, Morty. But you-you gotta admit, you were being a little shit.”
Morty continued to glare. Tears fell liberally down his cheeks. Now that Morty was behaving, Rick decided to be nice. He leaned down to meet Morty’s eye, wiping the tears away with his thumb. He was too close. It felt like Rick was practically stealing Morty’s air.
“It will be…it will be a-alright, Morty. You don’t need to prove any-anything to me. I know you can do things on your own…..but defying me is a no go. You can be independent to an extent, Morty. But you cannot say no to me. I know…I know what’s best for you, Morty. I always will. And until you learn that…like really really learn that….this baby stays on,” he tapped at the chip.
Morty couldn’t say anything to that even if his lips weren’t forcibly shut tight. Rick stood up and rubbed his temples.
“Look. I’ll uh…I’ll buy you some ice cream. Let’s go to the ice cream parlor, okay? Don’t freak out or try to get anyone to help you. Just act like this is a normal trip with your grandpa. Ok? Let’s go.”
At that moment, Morty knew two things were to be true in the whole universe. 1) Rick would always win, no matter what. And 2) Ice cream would not fix the heartache that he felt at being treated like an object.