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“Grandpa,” she says, walking into the lab. “I need a favor.”
“What do you want, can’t you see I'm busy?” He’s not, he’s actually just cleaning out his photos, but Summer doesn’t need to know that.
“You’re cleaning out your photos,” she says. “Just pay for more storage like the rest of us, it’s a waste of time. Use the cloud.”
“There’s no fucking thing as the cloud, Summer, it’s just a giant fucking computer in the ocean. One EMP and all my dick pics and precious family moments are gone, done for, donezo.” He looks pretty good in that one; he adds it to his favorites.
“We don’t have precious family moments,” Summer says.
He feels a million years old. Ain’t that the truth.
“What was that favor you needed, the other day?” He asks her later.
She blinks up at him, half asleep, because he may or may not have barged into her room at 3am, drunk. He hasn’t done this in a while, but it felt right.
“What?” she says. “Grandpa, I'm trying to sleep.” Her hair is tousled and tangled and she looks half-asleep but not at all shocked to be jolted awake for something stupid.
“Oh, well, guess you don’t need whatever you don’t need,” he says.
“Can we discuss this in the morning?” She says. “Just crash here. You’ll never make it to your room and mom’s tired of mopping vomit off the baseboards.”
She has a point, and he’s pushed Beth enough, and sleeping in his granddaughter’s bed is hardly the weirdest thing this family’s done. His eyelids get heavier without him giving them permission to. Fuck it. “Scooch over,” he mumbles, and Summer rolls over, leaving a perfectly warmed space for him under blankets that manage to be ludicrously pink even in the low light of the hallway.
“You smell like gin and garbage,” Summer informs him before falling asleep, as if he never woke her in the first place.
He’s never had to wipe Summer’s memory, despite the increasing volume of fucked up things she’s seen and done. He offered, once, after a particularly grody adventure that involved her ex, his ex, and the poop-eating aliens from Fecaliom V, but she’d turned him down.
“Not really living if I'm running from every shitty thing in the galaxy," she says. “Although I do wish I could forget my standards were that low.”
“Happens to the best of us,” he says.
He should maybe be worried about her lack of conscience- she never protests lethal force, often encourages it, always enjoys it way more than any sane person should. So maybe he should worry, maybe he should intervene. He knows how much she looks up to him and if he’s anything he’s a fuckup and a terrible role model. But it’s hard to tell her not to become him. It’s easier to say it’s nature taking its course- but nature wouldn’t hand Summer a gun and say go wild. That’s all him.
“I need you to spay me,” she says one night as they share a joint in the garage.
“What,” he says. “Like a fucking dog?”
“What’s the human word for it,” she says. “I don't fucking know.”
“Sterilization,” he says, sober suddenly. “God, Summer, you killed my buzz.”
She rolls her eyes. “I wasn't gonna let you operate on me high,” she says.
“It’s not an operation,” he says. “It's a pill. You can get it at the galactic version of CVS. It’s easier to find than fucking aspirin.”
”Then can we go to CVS?” she says.
”Fuck,” he says. “I feel like I should ask you about this.”
“You don’t need to pretend to care,” she says. “Nobody put their thingy in my no-no place without permission. I just…want this.”
It’s quiet for a moment as their family’s history hangs between them. Accidental pregnancy, giant incest babies, sex dolls. The odds are not in their favor, he will admit.
“Good enough for me,” he says.
“So can we go?” she says, hopeful again and so fucking seventeen.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Can we get ice cream after?”
“You seem more excited for the ice cream,” he says, and she shrugs.
It’s quiet for a while.
“I can't believe you’re leaving this family’s genetic line in Morty’s hands.” he says.
“Emphasis on hands ,” she says, and he has to say, he's kinda proud.
It's kind of nice to have Summer around. She stuck around after she graduated high school, taking online courses at Galactic State University and running adventures for him. He's sure she steals the portal gun when he’s not looking. He's almost proud.
“A Federation degree is almost as useless as an Earth degree,” he tells her.
“Almost,” she says. but you can’t take courses in Mercenary Finance Management or Intergalactic Trade on Earth.”
“Why would you want to?” He asks, and he’s almost curious about what Summer intends to do, what Rick's granddaughter is really capable of.
“So I can smuggle shit and sell it, duh,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “Like, we learned that Karpolians outlawed chocolate. We could make a fucking fortune if we went out there with a couple Hershey’s bars.”
“Shit,” he says. Then, “Wanna hit up Costco and sell mediocre chocolate to Karpolians who don’t know better?”
And she grins at him, big and wide and full with the belief that the universe is hers to tame, and he fucking loves her for it.
Beth is not thrilled about losing her daughter and her son and her father and her self to space. He wishes he could explain it, but there’s just nowhere else they belong. He fucked up Morty, he’ll cop to that, he showed up when the kid was fourteen and eager to impress and now obviously he’s imprinted on this life. He never had a choice, even if it’s an obvious one.
Summer- wasn’t entirely on him. she was old enough that she could’ve stayed away if she wanted, but why would she want to stay away? That's what Beth could never accept- that space was just more than earth could ever offer.
He doesn't ask her why she goes into the family business after she gets her degree, just builds her a ship and hands her a to-do list. It's not long before she has an agenda of her own, imposing her will into the chaos of the universe.
“Here,” he says on her 18th birthday. He tosses something wrapped in pink on her lap. She looks at him questioningly but opens it. He is immediately rewarded for his good deeds by an ear splitting shriek.
“Oh my god, grandpa, a portal gun!”
“No fair,” Morty says, seething, "Why does she get one?”
“When you’re eighteen, Morty,” he says, without quite thinking about it, and realizes he’s planning on being here when Morty turns eighteen, fuck. When did that happen?
“Thank you so much,” Summer says, and before he can stop her she’s hugging him. He leans his head on hers for the briefest moment.
“Try not to die,” he says.
Non-Ricks really aren’t supposed to have portal guns, but fuck it, what’s the point of rules if you can’t break them every now and again? Besides, it’s programmed to send back her location to him and has an emergency beacon in case she gets stranded. He even splurged on AAA in case she needed spaceside assistance. Fuck, he thinks as the Council of Ricks yells at him again for giving Summer a portal gun, he’s getting soft.
To her credit, she doesn’t use the beacon for almost a year, and when she does it’s on an errand he asked her to go on. When he gets her out, it’s touch and go- he has to regenerate her left arm, right leg, and half her blood volume before they can even leave. She’s paler than he’s seen her, and he’s not a fan of the pang that sends down his spine.
“Shit,” he says. “Sum-sum, what happened?”
She doesn’t answer. It's quiet for a few light years.
Then, “I got your stuff,” she says.
She crawls into his cot that night, forces him to shove over.
“I can't sleep,” she informs him, “And since I almost died today you can’t kick me out.”
“I almost die on a daily basis,” he says. “You don’t see me making a big deal out of it.”
But he doesn’t kick her out and he doesn’t say anything when her body shakes with quiet sobs.
He’s less forgiving when she comes back the next night.
“Summer, you have your own room. This isn’t fucking sleepaway camp.”
“I can't sleep,” she says. “I want to stay here.”
“Take some of your mom’s Ambien,” he says, and oh god he’s a shitty grandfather.
“It won’t work,” she says, looking almost defeated. “I snorted it too much in middle school. I'm immune.”
“I can make you something like it,” he says, “But way better and less snortable.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to let me stay here?” she says. “You hate it when we treat you like a pharmacy.”
“It’s better than treating me like a roommate,” he says.
“Please?” she says, and he’s seen her across universes, killing entire planets and versions of herself, betrayed by people she loved, on the run from galactic governments, and he’s never seen her look anywhere near defeated. But she does now. And it’s maybe, kinda sorta his fault, so he scoots over and lets her curl up in a ball facing him.
“Tomorrow you’re going back to your room,” he says, and she nods.
They lay there in silence for a while.
“Do you want me to mindblow you?” he asks, finally.
“Is that your version of asking me if I want to talk about it?” she responds.
“No, it’s my version of asking if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “Because I don't.”
“I don't want to be mind blown,” she says. “The new arm and leg just hurt. So I keep thinking about why. And then I can't sleep.”
He shoots up. “They shouldn’t hurt. They should be perfect.”
He scans her. “They’re perfect,” he says. “Nothing’s wrong with them.”
She just looks at him. “Guess it’s just in my head.”
He sighs. “Guess so.” He lays back down so he’s facing her. The skin he regenerated looks pink, and tender. She looks wan and bone tired. He doesn’t quite know what possesses him to do it, but he strokes her hair. Once. Twice. “Go to bed.” he says, gruffly.
She shoves her feet under his legs while she’s texting and he’s trying to watch TV. She brings her homework to the garage and bitches about it but won’t not do it. She’s always underfoot and it’s really fucking annoying.
…really fucking annoying and not at all mildly comforting.
Summer’s the jealous type, and he knows it. He doesn't bring any of his conquests, flings, indiscretions, to the house, one because that’s gross, and two because he knows Summer would tear them limb from limb at the first false move or implication that they knew him better than she did. It was a dangerous, presumptuous thing to assume she knew Rick. It was ballsy and it was self important and it was almost incorrect.
He can almost feel it coming. He wakes up and feels something twitch in his left hand, and he knows something is gonna fuck up his day. He waits for it, bracing for something to ruin breakfast or blow up his lab or need his attention five star systems away, but nothing happens. All day, nothing happens, and as the possibilities narrow he feels the walls close in around him. By the time Summer enters his lab and locks the door behind her, it’s almost a relief. Almost.
“Don’t,” he says, not even looking at her.
“You don’t even know why I'm here,” she says, and he has a pretty good idea, but he’s a sucker for certainty.
“Pretty sure I do,” he says, bracing himself against the workbench, and “Sweetheart, you should turn around and walk away.” He shouldn’t have called her sweetheart.
“If I thought you actually wanted me to, I would,” she says, and he curses how well she knows him despite his best efforts and by then it’s all over and he’s powerless to stop her as she walks over and kisses him.
“I'm not your little boyfriend,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“That's not what we’re doing here, Rick,” she says. and he wonders who the fuck told her what exactly it was they were doing, and if they could tell him, too.
“We need to set some ground rules,” he says.
“I feel like rule number one of ‘Fucking Your Family Club’ is don’t talk about ‘Fucking You Family Club,’” she says, face pressed into his chest. “Like, do we really need ground rules?”
“Don’t be gross, Summer, ew,” he says.
“There is no part of this that isn’t gross,” she says. “It's all gross. It’s fucked up. Besides, aren’t you like, beyond puritanical judgment about sex? Aren’t there infinite Ricks and infinite universes where anything is possible and everything has happened?”
“Not this ,” he says, and she finally, finally gets it.
“Oh,” she says. Then, “Is it bad that kinda makes it hotter?”
They decide on two rules: the family can’t ever, ever find out. Yes, Beth is fucking herself, but what him and Summer are doing is a step too far, even for them. Morty might actually kill himself, and that’s just more trouble than its worth.
The second is that whatever they’re doing- it’s not a relationship.
“I ran into Unity,” she tells him one night over beers. “They’re doing well.”
“Did you fuck them?” he asks, because he assumes that’s what she means.
“Jealous?” she says.
“Fuck you,” he says. He may be. A touch. Jealous. But only because it’s weird that Summer would fuck his ex.
“Later. And no,” she says, “I didn't.”
“Too much for you to handle, Sum-sum?” he sneers.
She rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah,” she says. “I can handle you but Unity’s where I draw the line.”
“Most people would say a hive mind is harder to handle than a single person,” he says. He's slightly…relieved? she didn’t fuck Unity.
“Most people are idiots,” Summer says.
He will never, ever take her on a date. He will, however, take her to Boob World.
“Is this supposed to be romantic?” she drawls at him from behind an ice cream cone shaped like an areola.
“It is very explicitly not supposed to be romantic. As I have told you fifty fucking times. Because I’m-”
“Not my little boyfriend,” she says mockingly. “I know.” He grumbles at her a little but doesn’t stop her from holding his hand and pulling him towards the Tunnel of Tits.
He also doesn’t stop her from pulling him into a bathroom stall and pulling down her top and grabbing his hand and-
Anyways, he doesn’t stop her.
“Why are you in my bed,” she grouches at him, half asleep. He doesn’t answer, just shoves her over and straddles her hips and pulls her mouth to his. She doesn’t fight him, but doesn’t release any of the tension in her body.
“Thought we weren’t doing this in the house,” she says into his mouth. He doesn’t respond, just moves his mouth to her neck and scrapes, bites down.
“Fuck,” she says.
“That’s the general idea,” he says. She rolls her eyes at him.
“And we didn’t say
not in the house,
” he says. “We said
the family can’t find out.
”
“Right, well, they might get an idea something’s up if they walk in and you’re fucking inside me,
Grandpa Rick
,” she snaps back, pushing his head up so that he’s looking at her.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he says, suddenly furious. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She looks unimpressed, why isn’t she upset, why can’t he get a fucking reaction out of her.
“You got harder when I said it,” she said. And… there is literally nothing he can say to that.
“I soundproofed the room and put biometrics on the door.” He says finally.
“Hm,” she says, looks at him appraisingly, lays back. “As you were.”
She's furious.
“Calm the fuck down, Summer, Jesus. you can’t do this shit every time-”
“Maybe I wouldn’t if you stopped trying to rub my face in every one of your fucking conquests-”
“Jesus Christ Summer, you cannot be this fucking needy-”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you! I fuckin’ told you, I’m not your little boyfriend.”
“I don't want you to be my fucking boyfriend, Rick, I’m asking for some goddamn respect.”
“ Respect ? What the fuck are you talking about, what fucking respect have you earned, you little bitch-”
“Oh my god, you cannot keep doing this, you can’t keep picking up slam pieces at every fucking asteroid and act like I don't fucking exist.” Her face is red and eyes are shining with fury.”
“What do you want from me, I can fuck whoever I want to, what the fuck is wrong with you-”
“I don't care! Fuck who you want! But I'm your partner, not them. Not some alien slut you think is hot ‘cuz she has three boobs, me . That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.”
It's quiet between them.
“That was slut-shamey of me,” she said after a beat. “And not cool. But you’re out here with me. If you don’t want that, I can go and you can fuck your way through every star system in the galaxy, I don’t care. But if I'm here, you don’t get to blow me off every time you think you found something cooler and leave me to pick up the pieces when it falls apart.”
It’s quiet again, and god fucking dammit does he hate rising to the occasion.
He picks up the portal gun and programs it for summer’s earth, points it at the wall. She doesn’t bother saying anything as she leaves, too disappointed or angry, and as soon as she’s gone he reaches for the flask in his coat pocket and doesn’t come up for air.
He doesn’t see her for six months. She avoids the near side of the galaxy like the fucking plague, even Space Beth hasn’t seen her, and if he didn’t have a live reading of her vitals at all times, he might almost, possibly, be a touch concerned.
There’s infinite Summers, but this one would be, admittedly, difficult to replicate.
She doesn’t come home for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, and he’s a piece of shit father but even he can’t see Beth this upset, and goddamnit Summer, they weren’t supposed to drag anyone else into their bullshit. It was supposed to be simple.
“Fuck this,” he says, disrupting whatever conversation was happening at the table. “I'm going to get Summer.”
“Can I come, Rick?” Morty asks, and fuck, there would literally be no worse outcome.
“No can do, kid. Your sister and I have some business to take care of.”
“Ew,” Jerry says, and Rick’s too fucking over it to do more than glare at him as he storms out of the room.
It’s harder than he anticipated to find her. At some point, she jammed the signal from her portal gun so that he can’t immediately trace her location. It's probably a hack job, and isn’t going to stop him for long- harder does not mean hard , it means more work than it’s worth. But she probably knew that and did it anyway, that little brat.
It takes him longer than he cares to admit, and he’d almost consider being halfway to impressed at that if he wasn’t so fucking pissed . He jabs the coordinates into his portal gun, and goes in after her.
“I hope you brought my presents,” she says as he steps out of the portal, and-
“You goddamn pain in the ass, come on .” Fuck, not his best line.
She looks at him from where she’s splayed upside down on her couch, reading Humans Weekly.
“I take it that means there’s no presents.” she says, and it’s been six months and he hasn’t seen her, and he hasn’t admitted it but he’s been a little worried, and he hasn’t been with anyone since, not because there weren’t options, fuck you very much, but because Rick fucking Sanchez has standards, okay ?
All of which is why he’s on his fucking knees in front of her, her legs spread wide and her hand pulling his hair hard as he groans into her.
“ Come. Home.” He says as she pants, catching her breath. It’s quiet for a while and he’s still rock hard and he’s really going to need to fucking do something about that before they go home.
“Fine.” She says finally. “But not because you told me to.”