Work Text:
Several days have passed since Evil Morty was locked up in prison. Rick is no longer typing away on his mobile phone with his back to Morty, acting all mysterious, nor does he suddenly vanish for a while under the pretext of buying ice cream. All in all, life has returned to normal, and the world is once again left with the ever-unchanging Rick and Morty, and their wild adventures.
At least, that was how it looked from Rick's perspective.
Morty had been feeling restless.
Rick still refused to give him a straight answer about whether he liked him more or that eyepatch-wearing evil version of him. Every time he asked, Rick would just snap impatiently, telling him not to be so clingy and to focus on things that actually worth his time.
In a romantic relationship, this sort of thing was usually the beginning to a break-up, a sign that someone no longer wanted to provide emotional support anymore, that the love had worn thin, that they couldn't even be bothered to lie and had settled for dodging the issue instead. Of course, that was only a metaphor. He and Rick weren't exactly in a romantic relationship. But when you got down to it, what did it mean, really, to be two people locked into a permanent adventure together forever…?
The ship only had two real seats. The back seat was basically a trash can. It was where all those stinking empty liquor bottles belonged.
Whenever a third person tagged along, whether Summer or Jerry, Morty was always the one in the passenger seat. But the moment Evil Morty had shown up, he'd been shunted to the back. What a humiliation! Genuinely a first in his life!
Did that mean Rick actually liked Evil Morty more? That smarter, sharper, more decisive Morty who never held him back in a fight?
Look at it: concealment, lying, secret messages, private meetings, adventures, dates…That was practically every step of cheating!
What had they been whispering to each other all that time? What adventures had they gone on together? Did they talk about him behind his back, laugh at him? Just how close were they?!
All sorts of chaotic images flashed through Morty’s mind: the boy with the eye patch and his own Rick laughing heartily, fighting side by side, enjoying candlelit dinners together, and travelling joyfully through the cosmos… As he thought about it, he clutched his head, almost screaming in agony.
Damn it. He was going to work up the courage and ask Rick one more time.
Yeah. One last time.
But when Morty pushed open the garage door, he was surprised to find that Rick wasn't there.
He used to at least tell him before disappearing out of nowhere... A sour ache of hurt welled up inside him. He looked around, confirming there was indeed no sign of Rick. The basement door was shut as well. Only then did he find himself standing awkwardly in the doorway, at a loss for what to do.
Had he... had he gone off to hang out with some new Morty again? Or maybe he'd gone to visit his old flame in prison?
As Morty's thoughts spiraled, his eyes accidentally landed on a familiar flat rectangular object sitting on the workbench. Ah. Rick's phone. Ever since he'd discovered that Rick had been secretly communicating with Evil Morty, he hadn't touched it once. After that, Rick stopped carrying it around with him all the time or guarding it so carefully. Neither of them treated the phone as a big deal anymore.
And now, the very object that had caused so much trouble—almost enough to destroy whatever they had—was lying quietly on the table. As though nothing had ever been uncovered. As though it had never been the culprit in the first place. Its black screen reflected the garage lights overhead. The conspicuous scratch along its side was still there, left behind from the day he and Rick had fought over it. So small. So thin. Yet somehow absurdly destructive.
Morty glared at it furiously, wishing his eyes could fire death rays like Rick's and reduce the bitchy little thing to ash. By the time his eyes were aching from the effort, a thought suddenly struck him: since Rick wasn't here, couldn't he just sneak a look at the message history?
The moment the idea surfaced, it had him completely. Rick was rarely away like this, so it was a golden opportunity. As long as he hadn't already cleared the records in a fit of guilty conscience…
He glanced around once more, making absolutely sure Rick was nowhere in sight, then carefully picked up the phone. Right. He'd already peeked at the password before. Just never had a chance to use it.
After entering the long, complicated combination of numbers and pattern locks, he finally got into the home screen.
He immediately opened the contacts and searched for Evil Morty. Nothing. Weird. Frowning, he tried a few more affectionate nicknames instead—baby, sweetheart, honey... Still nothing. Finally, he resorted to scrolling through the entire contact list one by one, checking every number that could possibly belong to his evil counterpart.
Unfortunately, after tens of minutes of searching, and several mistaken guesses, he still couldn't find that familiar avatar of the smug little eyepatch-wearing jerk.
What was going on? Morty was baffled. Had Rick deleted him?
He tapped into the block list with one last shred of hope. Oh. There he was. That familiar gray profile picture was sitting right there among thousands upon thousands of other bizarre alien avatars... At this point, every lifeform on this list had probably become one of Rick's mortal enemies. The blacklist contained dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times more contacts than the actual address book. His grandpa's talent for making enemies had never failed to impress.
Morty quietly removed Evil Morty from the block list, then tapped into his message history with Rick. Luckily, all the records were still there.
〈Evil Morty〉: Old man, 3 p.m. this afternoon. Go patch the breach on Planet DFKEZ3271.
〈Rick〉: Watch yourself, you arrogant little brat.
〈Evil Morty〉: Oh, do we really need to go over this again?
〈Evil Morty〉: Or have you already decided you'd rather lose a family member forever?
〈Evil Morty〉: Let me guess. Jerry? Beth? Or Summer?
〈Rick〉: Fine. I'll be there 🙄
〈Evil Morty〉: Good boy 😉
...
〈Evil Morty〉: What's the Schilttson quantum spiral equation for the Central Finite Curve?
〈Rick〉: What do you want that for, kid?
〈Evil Morty〉: None of your business.
〈Rick〉: That's grown-up stuff. Kids shouldn't play with it.
〈Evil Morty〉: Maybe I should go chat with the you on Hostage Planet instead. Maybe he'll give it to me 😎
〈Rick〉: ......
〈Rick〉: ΚΤΞΧβγΩΣΤΧΨΤÈÉÏÌÅÉĪ
〈Evil Morty〉: That's more like it.
〈Rick〉: 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻
...
〈Evil Morty〉: Have you told Morty about our private little chat?
〈Rick〉: Why do you care?
〈Evil Morty〉: So you haven't?
〈Evil Morty〉: Afraid he'll get jealous? Or don't you want him knowing his beloved grandpa's been playing lapdog for someone else?
〈Rick〉: FUCK OFF.
〈Rick〉: Your days of pulling this won't last much longer, kid.
〈Evil Morty〉: Oh? Come up with something new, genius?
〈Rick〉: Stay away from my Morty. Don't say I didn't warn you.
〈Evil Morty〉: Ask my mood 😌
...
Other than Evil Morty occasionally threatening Rick into running errands and doing jobs for him, the two of them hadn't actually gone on many genuine adventures together. The entire chat history was usually loaded with hostility, as if they could start tearing into each other with the very next message. Occasionally, they'd discuss scientific or cosmic topics, but those exchanges were nothing but symbols and numbers that Morty couldn't make heads or tails of. Even then, the conversations never really strayed beyond academics.
After reading through everything, Morty let out a long breath of relief.
Rick looked nothing like someone who had any affection for the kid; the two of them could barely even be called friends. It was nothing more than a relationship of extortion and being extorted. Still, he had to admit that watching Rick get ordered around by another version of himself like some kind of trained dog was... weirdly fascinating. It was something he had never dared to imagine.
So Evil Morty had been lying the whole time that day: Boasting about how close he and Rick were, how they had dinner together all the time, claiming they were the perfect partners… He'd been saying it all just to piss him off. Morty pieced the clues together in his mind, seething. The absolute biggest bastard in the entire universe!
Hopefully prison was treating him horribly. The curse echoed through his mind as he stared at the avatar on the screen—the eyepatch-wearing boy with that infuriatingly smug grin.
He was going to tell Evil Morty that he'd seen through his scheme. Rick didn't care about him at all. There was no way he could hurt him.
No sane person would call a number whose owner was already in prison, but Morty was still riding the wave of his anger. Before he knew it, he had pressed the call button almost on instinct.
The line rang. And before the boy could even process what he'd done, the call connected.
"Rick C-137? What, still not done gloating?"
A sharp, icy voice came from the other end. Morty swallowed involuntarily. Suddenly, half the confidence he'd worked up before making the call vanished.
"E-Evil Morty?"
The other end went silent for a few seconds. "Oh, so it's his little sidekick." The tone shifted at once, becoming that familiar, mocking drawl he always used when he was being sarcastic.
"Shut up. H-how can you even answer the phone? Aren't you supposed to be in prison?"
"Do you want me to shut up, or don't you?"
What an asshole. Always picking apart every little thing he said. Morty puffed out his cheeks, his face turning red with irritation. "Just answer the question!"
"The phone's built into my eyepatch. These poor creatures whose brains consist of nothing but a single lonely testicle apparently didn't consider it a security risk."
"S-So you're still in prison?"
"Are you expecting me to thank you?"
Impossible to hold a conversation with him! Morty really wanted to throw the phone down, but then he suddenly remembered their conversation back at the restaurant. At the time, the boy with the eye patch had pointed at his furious expression and mocked him shamelessly, saying it was a sign of weakness. He took a deep breath, then another, vowing to keep his tone steady and not sound angry.
"I was just curious how you’re getting on in prison. You know, I've been having a great time lately. Rick and I have gone on a bunch of adventures together, traveled all over the place." He deliberately adopted a smug tone. "And I saw your messages with Rick. He clearly doesn’t give a shit about you!"
"You mean those messages where he obeys me like a dog? Fantastic. I was actually disappointed I never got the chance to show them to you. " The voice on the other end was still dripping with sarcasm. "Any other good news to report?"
Why didn't Evil Morty sound hurt at all? Morty already thought those last two remarks had been pretty mean, yet somehow after the exchange, the one with burning red cheeks was still him.
"I mean my Rick doesn't care about you at all. H-He only wants to go on adventures with me. You can never take him away from me!" He hurled out another bombshell.
"Oh. I see." The bomb seemed to have actually landed; the other end was quiet for a few seconds before responding. "You called me just to brag that you have Rick's love?"
"What else?" He answered blankly.
"Got to say, I never knew the Mortiest Morty was also the dumbest Morty." The voice on the other end sounded as though it was struggling not to laugh.
The dumbest? What the hell was that even supposed to mean? Morty didn't understand, but he could very clearly tell that he was being mocked and humiliated.
"You're the dumb one!" he shot back angrily, while once again wondering why Evil Morty could so effortlessly get under his skin. "At l-least I'm not the one sitting in prison right now! And weren't you trying to take my Rick away from me?"
"Okay. So from beginning to end, your poor little head has only ever had room for one Rick, and can only see your Rick. And you genuinely believe that I want to steal your Rick."
"Aren't you? I get it now. You don't actually care about my Rick. You just want to take him away to make me suffer!" Morty felt as though he was finally putting the pieces together. That was it. Evil Morty didn't really need a Rick, which was why none of this hurt him. The asshole just wanted to torment him!
"Thank goodness I haven't had dinner yet, or your little theory would have laughed my stomach right out of me." The other end took quite a while to respond. "Since you love your Rick so much, how about we make a deal?"
"Bro, you're in prison."
"Remember when I copied your grandpa's memories? They're still stored in my eyepatch database. I had some free time these past few days, so I dug through them. Guess what I found?"
Morty held his breath. His instincts told him this couldn't possibly be good.
"A memory. A memory of you, your grandad, and your sister. Oh, and tell me this, if I reported to those fourth-dimensional creatures that someone secretly stopped time for an entire month and killed their kind and got away scot-free, do you think they'd grant me my release on the spot? While certainly someone would find himself separated from his grandpa forever."
Morty remembered it all. That time they'd thrown a party and wrecked the house. The three of them had frozen time for an entire month and spent it having the time of their lives. He'd nearly forgotten the whole thing.
"W-what do you want in exchange?" He didn't dare imagine what would happen if those memories were seen by the Time Police; he might end up behind bars himself.
"I'm a little bored in prison. I need someone to provide some entertainment. This number. Call me once a day." The other end spoke slowly. "Don't tell Rick. If I find out, you know what I'll do."
A phone call? That was all he wanted?
Morty blinked in confusion. He couldn't figure out what this evil counterpart of his was actually after. Under the threat of imprisonment, however, he had no choice but to agree. "Fine. Is there anything else?"
"Just that one thing. Starting tomorrow. Guard's coming. Bye."
The dial tone returned. Morty stared blankly at the grinning eyepatch profile picture, completely at a loss. What was any of this supposed to mean? He turned it over for a long while without arriving at any answer, and could only scratch his head, copy Evil Morty's number onto his palm, and prepared to save it in his own phone later.
After returning Rick's phone to where he'd found it, he left the garage with heavy steps.
Damn it. He never should have made that call in the first place. Now he felt like a prey that had deliberately stepped on a bear trap just to prove its courage, only to end up leaping straight into Evil Morty's waiting hand.
The next day, Morty kept his word and called the number saved in his phone as "Asshole Morty."
A few seconds later, the call connected.
"Hey." He offered the greeting cautiously.
"Good boy." The tone on the other end sounded like he was praising a well-behaved puppy. "You listen well."
The words made Morty's skin crawl. "W-What do you want to talk about?" he asked rather stiffly.
"Weren't you asking about prison life yesterday? I'm doing quite well. Premium accommodations, a gym, and even a prison lackey who gives me massages. How about you?"
"I, uh..." Morty hesitated, unsure how much to reveal. "A few days ago I went to Planet Nirnaha with Rick. These past few days I've been playing video games."
"Seems we’re both doing quite well."
Yes, Morty thought. But that was a normal life. Why was Evil Morty living so comfortably in prison?
"If prison life is already so great, why were you bored enough to want me calling?" he couldn't help asking.
"There's no one worth talking to in prison. Language barrier. And you owe me."
"I owe you? I don't owe you anything! You’re in there purely because you brought it on yourself!"
"Is that so?" A soft, derisive snort came from the other end. "You know I never actually brought Rick C-137 to my base before? That day was the first time."
"Hmph. Caught out by your own arrogance."
"True. But my main purpose that day was to show you."
Show him? Morty frowned and turned it over for a few seconds; something flashed through his mind, too quickly to catch. "So?"
"It’s quite amusing to see you so jealous your face’s gone as red as a prawn, but unfortunately, things aren’t quite so funny as they get on."
"So you were just toying with me!"
"…You do know that without me and my advanced sampling technology, you and your grandpa would've never made it out of the Collective, right?"
"But that was your adventure idea!"
"Shall I count how many times I protected you?"
Morty had no comeback; he was somewhat perplexed. Well, it was true. Without Evil Morty and his compression algorithm that day, their whole group would have been assimilated by the Collective long ago. As much of an asshole as he was, he'd spent the entire trip protecting him. He hadn't let him get attacked. He hadn't allowed him to end up in any real danger...
"Okay." Morty conceded. "But don't think I'm going to thank you. You were such a jerk that day. You kept bragging about how close you were with my Rick, hogged both milkshakes for yourself, and kept insulting and making fun of me..."
The other end seemed to sigh. "Jesus. I had no idea you could be this hopelessly dense."
"What?"
"Nothing. I just feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Guard's here. See you tomorrow."
The call ended quickly. Morty had a vague sense that Evil Morty’s tone on the other end sounded rather unhappy, as if he were somewhat disappointed. Disappointed? Was he disappointed in him? But about what?
And what exactly had he meant by "I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall"?
Morty was puzzled. Perhaps his once-certain conclusion—that Evil Morty had been deliberately trying to provoke him, that he had genuinely intended to take his grandpa away—wasn't entirely correct.
Judging by today’s conversation, Evil Morty seemed to have another purpose, and that purpose still appeared to involve him.
Why was Evil Morty protecting him, exposing the location of his base because of him, and at the same time constantly going out of his way to do things that annoyed him?
Driven by curiosity, he resolved to find out. Starting with tomorrow's call.
At the same time on the third day, Morty called the number again.
"Hey." The greeting came naturally this time.
A harsh metallic scraping noise came through the receiver. Something was being dragged, followed by a series of scratches against the floor.
"Are y-you busy with something?" Morty asked carefully. Was Evil Morty trying to break out? Had he picked the wrong time to call?
"Building a device. Just killing time."
Morty was sceptical. "Really? They let you do that in prison?"
"As long as you don't get caught. These fourth-dimensional testicle creatures are idiots. They don't care about anything except time-related matters."
"Have you thought about escaping?" Morty wasn't sure why he'd asked. Logically, he should've wanted Evil Morty locked up forever, perhaps even suffering the entire time. But after two phone calls, that feeling didn't seem nearly as strong as before.
"Escape? Oh, I did try digging my way out with a spoon once, just to pass the time."
"A spoon?" The boy's eyes went wide. "Like… an eating spoon?"
"Mm-hm." The voice on the other end grew lighter. "Dug through a few scoops, made it through one wall, and then stopped."
Morty couldn't help being impressed. "Man, that sounds straight out of a movie."
"A shame these four-dimensional beings built so many walls, layer upon layer, shifting with time… I might just end up being the next Shawshank."
The image floated into the boy's mind and he burst out laughing. As he laughed, he finally remembered the reason he'd called today. "Oh, right. Yesterday you said, 'I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.' What did you mean by that?"
"Exactly what it says."
"So what you're trying to say is... you don't actually dislike me that much, and I got the wrong idea?" Morty ventured a bold guess.
"Wow. Surprise. Someone's IQ has finally crawled above the minimum threshold."
"Then w-why do you always bully me and make me angry?" The boy did his best not to let the mocking tone get to him.
"Because it's funny. Told you yesterday."
"You know that's a really shitty thing to do, right?"
"Yeah. And if I remember correctly, someone has plotted with Rick to kill me more than once." The tone on the other end grew a little cold. "And I've barely laid a hand on you."
That was true. Morty scratched his head, feeling a little guilty. But that was because he'd always thought Evil Morty was dangerous and afraid he would come after him and Rick. What else was he supposed to think, when the boy wore that eyepatch like some kind of villain and had killed a whole bunch of people right in front of him？
Still... Other than having a terrible personality, Evil Morty really hadn't done much to hurt him. He racked his brains for a long while; the only instance that came to mind was their confrontation in the bunker, and even then Evil Morty had merely thrown him aside. Beyond that, all he could recall was this evil counterpart showing him the truth about the Citadel and the Central Finite Curve, inviting him to leave together (the back seat was a toilet, admittedly, but apparently it could accommodate a person), helped him escape the oven trap, waited for him when Rick left him behind so they could enter the portal to Prime's base together, worked with him to destroy the Prime robots, protected him from being captured by the Collective...
Well, it seemed he’d actually been quite good to him. Heat slowly crept into Morty's face. Looking at it that way, it seemed he’d misunderstood Evil Morty and had been rather rude to him.
"Figured it out?" came the voice from the phone.
"Uh, okay. Maybe you're right," Morty admitted. "B-but you did hurt me too. It was you who said, 'We don't need to talk. It won't make us friends.' If you didn't want to be friends with me, then why were you nice to me?"
"You told me ‘I hate you’ too. We’re even."
"Hey! That's not the same at all! When I said that, I didn't know what you really thought... "
"And now you do?" The sardonic tone again.
"At least a little now. So does this mean you want to be friends with me?"
There was a pause before a reply came. "Don't overthink it."
Whatever the case, the response wasn't particularly convincing. If anything, it sounded a little lacking in confidence.
Morty was pretty sure his guess had been right.
So Evil Morty wanted to be friends with him? Wow. That was something he'd never dared imagine. To be honest, apart from fear, he actually had quite a bit of admiration for him: a Morty who’d been president, a Morty who’d left the Curve in a spaceship of his own making, a Morty who could toy with Rick like a dog, a Morty who could do whatever he wanted…
Smart, confident, unique, and rather cool.
If Evil Morty had simply asked, like a normal person, whether he'd like to be friends, Morty thought, he would have said yes without a moment's hesitation and struggled to stop himself from jumping up with excitement.
"Well, at least I'd be willing to be friends with you," Morty made the concession of his own accord. "I mean, as long as you stop acting like such a jerk all the time. You know, mocking me and making sarcastic comments and stuff."
"As if I need a friend." There was a snort on the other end. "Don’t flatter yourself. I just need a bit of fun."
There it was again. Those harsh, grating words.
Morty rubbed his earlobe, feeling he was gradually learning to read between the lines of what Evil Morty said. It was really much the same as dealing with Rick—If you wanted to understand what they really meant, you needed a decoder.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Then we'll just… talk."
"Yeah." The voice on the other end sounded lazy. "The guards are coming. Gotta go."
Tch. That sounded much more like evasion to him, Morty thought. He clearly did needed someone to talk to. He clearly did needed a friend.
He slowly put the phone down. For the first time, he feel that chatting with Evil Morty wasn't actually all that painful.
On the fourth day, when Morty called, the other side took quite a while to pick up.
There were still some strange noises coming through the line.
"Hi, how's your day been?" Morty asked.
"Fine. What about you and your Rick?"
"What? Geez, it's not like I spend every second glued to Rick." The boy pouted. "I was playing video games this morning, then worked on homework for a while. Man, you have no idea how much I hate math."
"Actually, I do." The tone on the other end sounded quite relaxed. "Let me guess. Derivatives? Construction lines?"
"Yeah… I feel like such a dummy. Spent over an hour and still couldn't solve one problem. So I gave up and went back to video games."
"Ha. Sounds pathetic."
"So how did you do it? Knowing all that advanced maths and physics stuff, talk to Rick about it, even build your own portal gun?"
"Hmph, I taught myself." There was a trace of pride in his voice. "There was a time I was just like you. But once I realized what mastering that knowledge could actually let me do, I swore I'd learn it no matter what."
"How?" Morty immediately perked up. "I-I want to make cool stuff too."
"What would you learn it for? I'm a Morty without a Rick, and I build what I want myself. You just need to play cute with your grandpa and you'll get whatever you like."
"Hey! That’s a bit harsh!" Morty protested.
"Then convince me."
"Uh... Rick can be pretty stingy sometimes. He won't make the things I want." Morty said, drawing his words out slowly. "So sometimes, sometimes I wish I could learn more myself. But he's basically got no patience for teaching me."
Whenever that happened, Morty always felt helpless. Mastering those advanced physics and maths, possessing a super-high IQ and a whole range of skills seemed to grant one a certain kind of power. Unfortunately, he’d never had any of that, so he’d always been stuck at the very bottom of the pecking order, being bossed about.
But what if, what if he could learn to make some of the things he wanted on his own instead of relying on Rick... Then maybe he wouldn't always have to go along with whatever Rick wanted. Maybe he wouldn't constantly worry that Rick wouldn't give him something he wanted. Or that Rick wouldn't take him on adventures anymore.
"All right. Remember, you’ll owe me another one," the voice on the other end said leisurely. "Go get your notebook."
"Really? You're actually going to teach me?" Morty's eyes lit up.
"Mm-hm. If I'm in the mood, I might even help you with a few more homework problems today."
"It's a deal!"
And so, rather strangely, for the rest of the call, Morty listened as Evil Morty shared his study tips, and under his guidance, actually managed to solve those complex maths problems that had been plaguing him all morning.
As the chat drew to a close, Morty felt a little reluctant to hang up. He looked down at the contact name on his phone and suddenly found it a bit jarring. A few seconds later, he deleted the original "Asshole Morty" and typed in "Evil Morty" instead. After a moment’s thought, he changed it again to "Eyepatch Morty".
The guy wasn't actually as much of a asshole as he'd imagined, and not particularly evil, either. Perhaps they really could become good friends?
Over the following days, his chats with Evil Morty were just as enjoyable. Most of the time, Morty would talk about whatever was happening in his life while Evil Morty listened and occasionally offered a comment or two. Sometimes he'd help him with homework, tell him scientific secrets Rick never bothered explaining, or even share a few tricks for dealing with Rick himself. It was like having an all-knowing, patiently guiding senior… Only a Morty-special edition.
Each time he called, he felt a twinge of guilt. After all, he had played a part in Evil Morty ending up in prison. He must be very lonely over there. Morty found himself wishing he could somehow make it up to him. Could you imagine it? God, he'd actually slapped him that day!
So their conversations grew longer and longer, stretching from after ten o’clock at night to straight after dinner, from half an hour to an hour, and gradually to the whole night. Little by little, Morty realised he was enjoying his chats with Evil Morty more and more. It had almost become the moment he most looked forward to each day.
So much so that when Rick's dramatic holiday came to an end and he wanted Morty to come along on adventures again, Morty found himself actually hesitating over whether it would interfere with his calls with the eyepatch boy.
"I can go on adventures with you, Rick," he muttered, "but I need some time for myself too, you know? Personal time! Evenings are my personal time."
"I wouldn't call jerking off all night personal time, Morty," Rick said dismissively.
"Who told you I was jerking off? King of stereotypes!" Morty's face flushed violently red. "I-I can do lots of things in my room!"
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"That's a secret! You don't need to know!"
"Tch. Teenage boys." Rick shook his head and walked away.
Morty rolled his eyes dramatically, then he slammed his bedroom door shut behind him and settled in for another long evening chat.
He and Evil Morty talked about everything. Insects, the shapes of clouds, strange creatures on planets they'd visited, their experiences with Rick, first adventures in space, the first words ever spoken to Jessica. It wasn’t until they talked that they realised, in so many ways, they were actually so alike.
Sometimes, after they'd exhausted their daily updates, shared every interesting thing they'd seen, and Morty wasn't particularly in the mood to learn anything new, they would simply stay on the call in silence, listening to the sounds of each other's lives on the other end of the line. Occasionally, they’d forget to hang up, and the call would stretch into the following morning, drifting off to sleep to the sound of each other’s breathing.
This was the second real friend Morty had had since Rick. A friend his own age.
He found himself liking the feeling.
So the contact name on his phone changed again. "Eyepatch Morty" became an eyepatch emoji accompanied by a tiny yellow heart.
His chats with Evil Morty began to feel more and more like secret meetings. Rick kept trying to pry into whatever Morty was getting up to in his room, growing ever more suspicious, but rarely succeeded. After all, when two boys put their heads together, there was no shortage of tricks.
Was this an online relationship? Morty wondered. But doing things behind Rick's back like this felt absolutely incredible.
However, it wasn’t long before Rick—his petty streak and catlike curiosity—found a way to crack the mystery of the room Morty had created. He managed to spy on Morty’s room.
So that evening, he strode up to Morty and pulled the video out of his pocket.
"Do you have any idea how high the resolution on my surveillance equipment is, Morty?" Rick said smugly. "None of your little secrets escape my notice."
Slowly, he zoomed in on the footage. Closer. Closer. The image showed Morty sitting on his bed, grinning from ear to ear. Then he dragged the recording downward toward the phone in his hands. Zoom in. Zoom in. The profile picture in the chat window became increasingly clear.
Short brown hair. Round face. Black eyepatch. That infuriating crooked smirk.
Evil Morty!
"What the hell is this?" Rick's brow furrowed. "You're still talking to that little punk? He just extorted me!"
"I'm protecting us, Rick," Morty retorted. "So neither of us ends up in prison. Besides, Evil Morty isn't that bad."
"Do you know what I’ve been through these past few months, Morty? That kid was basically a Satanic slave-driver!"
"Uh, yeah, I know, Rick. B-but you also sent him to prison."
"Prison? Ha. He broke out ages ago, the day after they sent him in. And threatened to take my precious Space-time spoon."
Morty was taken aback. "…What?"
"You didn't know, huh, kid?" Rick put his hands on his hips and let out a heavy snort. "That scheming little brat used my memories as leverage and threatened me into sending him a Space-time spoon to help him break out. You have any idea how hard that thing is to get?"
"But he never…" The boy looked a bit bewildered. According to Rick, Evil Morty had already been out of prison by the very first day they spoke on the phone. Then all those threats. All that loneliness in prison. All the things that had made him feel guilty...
Ding. The phone in his hand buzzed sharply. Morty looked down; it was a message from Evil Morty.
〈*Eyepatch* 💛〉: Say hi to your grandpa for me ;)
〈*Eyepatch* 💛〉: See you tomorrow. I cracked your house's security codes. I'll come find you in your room.
"Just how long have you been on the phone with him?" The blue-haired old man narrowed his eyes.
"I-I don't know." Morty felt as though a bomb had gone off inside his head; his whole body was spinning. He did was angry at Evil Morty for keeping it from him, yet at the same time, he also was excitedly looking forward to their meeting.
He looked at his phone, then at Rick, and scratched his head.
"Well, anyway, tomorrow I'm meeting my online boyfriend."