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“You seem to have been busy since we last talked.”
Morty huffs, a sarcastic laugh following right after. He shuffles in his position, jeans scraping against the hard surface of the spaceship he’s on. Every inch of his body is tense, taunt as a string, the red lights in his mind, signaling danger, are going bright again and again.
Although he’s more focused on getting himself out of his bounds, he can’t ignore the fuzzy hologram that appeared from his watch. The screen was broken and the audio was scratchy at best, yet Morty could still see his look-alike, fidgeting with a gadget out of the teen’s vision.
“You really do enjoy dramatic lines, huh?” he comments, half-amused half-distracted. His hands tremble from the strain of using his body in the state that he is, pushing himself up to focus on the hologram and cell.
It’s no mystery that once more, he’s been kidnapped to be a bargaining chip, emotional leverage, and blackmail material. Though that’s nothing out of his usual deal of bullshit situations, it does take one of the top spots through the circumstances. This time around Prime had planted another trap right under Rick’s nose, setting him off like a hunting dog. From a casual trip to restock on ammunition for further expeditions into infinity, for Morty, it turned into a new hellish experience. Rick, of course successfully agitated, followed into the trap, taking off with only a short command for Morty to stay in place.
In the boy’s defense, he had tried, but having been cornered by six alien abductors of unknown origins and obvious malicious intentions wasn’t an ideal moment to follow Rick’s words, and disagree with hostile beings.
“Only sometimes. How is following your Rick going?”
“Shitty,” Morty responds with honesty he hadn’t expected from himself. “but I’m still alive.”
For better or for worse goes unsaid.
Evil Morty only responds with a noncommittal hum at first, focused on the object in his hands. There are faint sounds of wires being reattached and electricity zapping from the hologram, almost comical to Morty’s uneven breathing, unheard over the trashed watch. Despite everything, hearing someone’s more familiar voice in Morty’s case was soothing. It gave him patience and time to calm his thoughts, to stop him from unraveling and shattering into pitiful pieces.
“So, did he find out yet about you having my contact information?”
“N-nope. I just told him I made friends with a new Morty.”
Morty quietly takes a few labored breaths in, shuffling in his hunched position before refocusing on his watch with mild curiosity and relief.
“And he really bought that?”
“I kind of– went off on him after he kept being suspicious of me having an outside friend. Said something about him trying to isolate me from others again and that I wanted to have other people that aren’t part of my dysfunctional family to spend time with, and, somehow, it worked.”
“Using your emotional and physicological traumatic experiences as blackmail? Not how I’d go about it, but smart idea.” The hologram only nods in response, expression unchanging in contrast to the light compliment woven into the words.
“Th-thanks? Rick’s– sometimes surprisingly easy to persuade.”
“You’re smarter than a regular Morty. You know he has attachments to your family he doesn’t necessarily like, but can’t dispose of. If something works on him, don’t be afraid to use it. Remember all the advantages you have.”
Morty squints at the implication, glancing back suspiciously at the blue screening beside him. He raises his hands to rub against his forehead, pushing away the dirty strands of his hair. Some of the locks are stuck together, tied with dried blood he doesn't remember the exact source of. Maybe it was from the brutal knockout earlier before, but it was hard to tell how long ago with no way to check the time. Hell, he had thought his watch had broken too, considering the trashing he had gotten.
“I don’t want to blackmail Rick nor overpower him. Stop making it sound like every bad thing that’s happened to me is his fault.”
He explains with a narrowed gaze, sky-resembling eyes turning into a dark canvas, an unpleasant reminder unfurling before him.
The smarter Morty wasn’t someone he could fully put his trust in, no matter the intentions. (Although he recognized the exhaustion, he accepted the sense of instability that came with Ricks, he knew how sick he was at times simply from one ‘adventure’, just by one cold push away Morty could tell how frail were Rick’s attempts to get better. The only thing differentiating him from the other teen is that he had yet to abandon his faith and hope, naive and child-like as it was.)
“Not everything is his fault, I admit. But he is the cause of everything, one way or another.”
He hates how right the words are.
He hates how easily he understands the implied meaning.
Ricks started everything, they started the cycle, they forced timeline after timeline into repeating, making sidekicks for the arrogant space criminals, copying version after version just to have their own loyal meat shields.
There was an infinity of mistreatment and undeserved forgiveness that couldn’t be simply erased.
Blaming themselves, but never accepting the consequences of their actions, never pushing forward to a healthy life, and always guarding themselves from showing genuine care or attachment.
“You know I kept in contact with you for a reason.” The other him speaks up as soon as Morty starts to zone out, the concussion received from earlier slowly taking effect on his body.
“I can help you take an ‘out’ of your situation. Whether that means just leaving Rick, your family, or your whole universe behind, it doesn’t make a difference to me.”
The continuation of the earlier spoken words makes the teen frown, recalling a memory from weeks before. The Central Curve, the Citadel, Rick’s becoming… He doesn’t attempt to dissect or delve into it now, rationality frayed with fear and frustration, but it does bring back a particular thought Morty had shelved away for later.
He was still drained. From being a shield to a laughing stock, to bait, to a damaged holder, and on rare better days, a loving grandson. No matter what his role was at that moment, Morty was growing more and more weary.
Evil Morty and he weren’t that different in their views.
Morty takes the momentary silence between them to rotate his pained wrists, held tightly together by synthesized rope, leaving twin rings of bruised skin. The familiar pale shade of purple and green hadn’t quite faded into vision yet, though, by the aching spots all over his stomach and legs, he would have to use a healing salve.
Bred from obedience and forgiveness. Raised into tools.
He was almost thankful for his origins not being that of a ‘normal’ Morty. Almost.
“My answer hasn’t changed.” The teen murmured, gaze shifting onto his conversation partner, who had paused his tinkering at the quiet answer.
“But you’ve thought about it.”
The other concludes, tone constantly that of a monotone speaker, his voice only ever smudged with shadows of emotions. It was hard for Morty to deduce what exactly the other him had in mind, the dull look in his eye similar to that of Rick’s empty stare.
Nonetheless, the Morty seems– curious. Pleased, even.
“I have.”
The protagonist admitted, the quiet atmosphere following his words more at ease. Despite the implications of him considering the offer of simply just ‘leaving’, Morty’s body seemed less weighted down. He felt relieved.
Evil Morty for the first time in their conversation turns to fully look at Morty, eyeing him from the cranky hologram. The familiar eye patch flares up momentarily with a crimson light before immediately going out, the form of his look-alike tensing up. The gadget in his hands is carefully put away on the side, scarred patches of skin momentarily shown as the other teen pinches his nose bridge, taking an exasperated deep breath in.
Shit. So he had realized after all what kind of situation Morty was in.
“Morty– Where is Rick?”
“I don’t know. He fucked off on his ship into space after a nemesis of his.”
The teen answers part truthfully, ignoring the hard stare he gets from his look-alike and information of which nemesis exactly it is. There’s not much he can do about it either, left alone in a dusty cleaning storage unit. Although his groggy mind is beginning to turn into a spreading problem, he can still comprehend his surroundings. His hands and feet are bound together, keeping him from standing up or straightening out his limbs. The only positive in his current situation is the fact the ropes aren’t tight enough to cut off circulation as well as loose enough to hopefully get off.
“So the asshole left you all by yourself. Typical. Do you have any life-threatening injuries? Can you walk? What’s the damage?”
Morty glances back at the motionless hologram, wondering what is going through the other’s mind once more. It’s not concern or worry, he deems it too early and strange for their strained acquaintance, nevertheless, the tone ticks him off in a particular way. It reminds him of Rick’s guarded behavior, cutting edges and words, blunt to the point of being offensive, yet surrounded by crumbling walls.
It is a painfully familiar realization, knowing that another mirror version of himself was nearly as desensitized on the outside as his drinking grandfather.
Yet even so, in the other teen’s factual way of speaking, there hadn’t been any threats or insults thrown his way. There was no note of true malice or hurtful intentions, always clear with his motives.
Out of all the people that Morty had encountered during his space travels with his Rick, the ‘Evil’ Morty had not once attempted to directly hurt him.
Yes, there had been plenty of occasions where his actions were way past morally wrong, bordering on cruel and apathetic; hunting Rick down out of spite and to make use of his memories, sacrificing nearly everyone at the Citadel for his own gain, the almost condescending view on other Morty’s lives. There had been truths he had forced Morty to see, lies buried in his mind as deeply and thoroughly as months before had been the body of his copy in their family backyard.
The boy is not as naive as he used to be, of course, but something beneath his ribs aches at the thought that an ‘evil’ version of him had been more honest to Morty then had his own Rick since meeting for the first time.
“Morty, focus.”
He startles abruptly at the firm sentence, a wave of dizziness hitting him all at once as his foggy mind is forced back into reality. He swallows the lump in his throat, an apology dying in place as soon as he looks back at the hologram. It seems dimmer somehow, a fresh sense of unease taking over his previous self-inflicted misery the longer he has to stare at the other Morty.
“What did your captors do?” Sepia-resembling eyes pin him with the intensity of a burning sun, keeping his consciousness present and thrumming. It's colder than he had expected, steady and equally pushing.
“T-they, well, I mean– I think I have a concussion. My limbs are bound together so they’re starting to go limp and I might have a few harsh bruises or swollen areas in places I got kicked like my stomach.”
The other teen releases a harsh breath, somewhere on the border of an outright annoyed scoff. He murmurs something so quiet the hologram translates it as a static noise, making Morty wince before refocusing on his body. The uncomfortable position he’s in is starting to impact him strongly as time passes, leaving the boy with smaller chances of holding on through the kidnapping.
“What’s the chance of anyone walking in on you getting out of your bindings?”
“Low, I guess? No one came to check on me since maybe.. two hours ago. It’s a little hard to say.”
The other boy nods, most likely processing the information to work out the best route for Morty.
“Are the bindings made out of any form of metal?”
“No, it looks– looks like a fucked up type of stronger rope.”
There’s a soft sound of nails tapping against a wooden surface from the hologram, occasionally making broken sizzling noises. Morty rotates his wrists a few more times, his heart rate picking up slightly, thoughts changing to more fear-ridden ones. He couldn’t stay there in place forever, after all, he’d be brought out of the emptied unit sooner rather than later.
And Rick wouldn’t be there to save his ass again. His grandfather wouldn’t suddenly appear to break him out, cussing and slurring all the while dragging Morty out of danger.
Morty had to depend on his own abilities.
Evil Morty finally finished his silent scheming, leaning forward to his side of the hologram to speak to Morty.
“I’ve got an idea on how to help you out. Do you feel you can take a few more activities before fainting?”
A faint grin seems to appear on the other teen’s face, brown eyes hardening into a shade of certainty, confident in his mind and plans more than Morty had ever been.
He feels baited into accepting the Morty’s help, pitied by the other as if he were a weeping child forgotten in a store, giving him things to satisfy his copy’s guilty conscience.
Even so, he’s not being babied. His gaze is filled with nothing but surety. Morty’s not being comforted or shushed or pushed aside to let someone smarter and more capable than him take care of things.
It’s an opportunity for Morty to reassure himself of his own worth outside of his family’s bubble of toxicity.
It’s a chance.
“What did you have in mind?”
Somehow he makes it out alive. As following his other version’s instructions, he gets out of his binds, having left behind deep bruises. Thankfully, no one hears him slip out of his unit, leaving the whole ship unaware of Morty is about to do. He scouts through the void of life magazines, taking some food that the other Morty reassures him isn’t poisonous to humans as well as two grenades with a rusty blaster.
Afterward, it all becomes easier.
It’s near laughable how simple it is to eliminate his captors one by one, disorganized and unsuspecting, blind to the dangers of repressed emotions. Through blowing two hostiles up, sending bullets flying into bodies that are well dead, huffing in annoyance as soon as he’s covered in purple blood, from killing everyone on the ship, dirty inside and out, he does not notice even once other Morty’s knowing smile.
Hurt sympathizes with frustration. Frustration expands into fury. And fury is a form of suffering like no other.
One wrong move and it all melts into violence.
“So? Have you gotten your current coordinates?”
Morty rubs a hand over his cheek, grimacing as it leaves a bloodied smear across it. The faintest smell of copper and iron clings to his clothes, a subtle underline of acidic sweetness in it, most likely coming from the bodies that he couldn’t drag out of the main cockpit. Adrenaline had already long seeped out of the protagonist, leaving behind fogginess and exhaustion.
“Almost. Give me a few minutes to figure out the interface of this species.”
The technology across him isn’t too hard to navigate, causing slight problems because of its different symbols and letters. It takes him a few more minutes to figure out which branch of information leads to the location, but Morty eventually finds it, relief clashing against his body’s tension. He manages the ship’s system, giving it a new destination as soon as he realizes how to do so, grimy fingertips imputing commands and details into the command.
When Morty’s done, he collapses onto the nearest sitting spot, pulling his knees up to his chest. The blue screening of his different version follows after, quiet and contemplative as Evil Morty watches him exhale shakily.
(There is something familiar to the sight, bringing up repressed memories of isolation. Childish loyalty processed and crushed into obedience, and misplaced trust. Memories resurface of always following step by step after a collapsing black hole, damaging everything and anything in its way, no matter if pure or filthy.)
“Can I ask you something?”
The hologram sizzles in place as the other Morty looks away with a nod, going back to his relaxed tinkering.
Words freeze in the injured teen’s throat, pressing himself further into a small human ball. Repressed anger wavers on his face back and forth, struggling against sadness, before between them eventually sneaks in the well-known drain of resignation, filthy and dark in comparison.
“How long do you think I’ll last before snapping?”
Another metal piece goes into place, rotated into the correct angle before being clasped. Evil Morty continues his work, cogs and slips of undefined tech being refined into a small circular shape. The idea of providing fake comfort to the other merely passed once in his mind before being permanently discarded. They were both too similar to be fooled. Truths need to be shared.
“Maybe a month, maybe even half a year or a year if your Rick and family manage to keep up that long. Never as long as you wish they could have though.”
But that’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair-
“You can’t constantly sacrifice your own health, happiness, and peace for people who won’t even offer you half of themselves in return.”
“But they’re my family.” The hazel-eyed boy merely narrows his eyes, a doubtful snort escaping him at Morty's conviction. He ignores the look of misery clouding his look-alike's face, finishing his last words for him.
“They’re dysfunctional, suffocating and their attempts at healing are more of a joke than an actual attempt.” The teen lightly shakes his head in disagreement, his views swaying unsteadily. “It’s your choice, Morty. But salvage whatever’s left of your future before they take it too.”
The hologram cuts off, leaving behind a crowded uneasy silence. ‘Salvage his future.’
Morty doesn’t have one outside of his family.