Chapter Text
On a Saturday morning, on a planet where words like ‘Saturday’ and ‘morning’ mean nothing at all—Morty’s really starting to regret his choices.
“This is the last time I’m going shopping with you,” he warns.
The air here is a little colder than what he’s used to now, and the hoodie he already stole off Tim isn’t doing much to keep him warm.
He should’ve brought a sweater. Or a hat. Gloves, maybe. Which is exactly what Tim told him before they left. He’s been annoyingly smug about it all morning.
Next to him, Tim raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t look up from the laser gun he’s eyeing.
“I think you’ve said this before.” He’s right, and he knows it, and he knows Morty knows it, and his vaguely amused expression only grows into a smile when the other boy turns with a huff. “Do you really hate haggling this much?”
“You’re not haggling, you’re making a scene.”
Morty’s right, too. So far they’ve received at least three stern warnings to ‘never come back’, and a few less tactful ones he would rather just forget about. But looking at guns and screaming about guns is Tim’s idea of fun, or something like that, which means it’s Morty’s problem, too.
They didn’t used to venture this far out past the border of The Curve, but the last two years left them bolder, more confident, and most importantly—positively bored. Morty loved their home, and it was hard to complain about what sometimes felt like an endless vacation, but he wasn’t used to spending this much time in one place. Tim never said Morty couldn’t go out on his own, and he’s done so many times before, but it didn’t really feel the same. For what it was worth, Tim seemed to share the sentiment.
Besides, he knows they’ll probably grab coffee afterwards, or tea, or whatever equivalent of a hot drink this planet might have, and Tim will say ‘I told you so’ when Morty grips the cup like his life depends on it, but he’ll smile too, and that will probably make it all seem worth it.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets, looking around the market.
And then, like a flipped switch, his attention snaps to one, precise point.
In the last five years—Morty’s seen a lot of different Ricks.
Tim always said they were never identical, ‘brothers but not twins’, but even with one eye less, he was always a lot more perceptive than Morty. To him, they all looked mostly the same.
Grey hair. White coat. Blue sweater.
The Rick standing next to a table a few feet away from him looks exactly like that, too.
Grey hair. White coat. Blue sweater.
A small scar just at the end of his jaw.
Morty asked where it came from, once. He doesn’t think the story he got in response was a true one.
But it was a nice story either way.
“Look at that.” Tim reaches out from where he’s standing, pulling on Morty’s sleeve to get his attention. “Where the hell did they get that price from? I could make something like that for a beer and a handshake.”
He says something else, but Morty’s not really listening anymore. He feels a bit dizzy, actually. He should probably sit down.
Tim paws at his arm all the way to his wrist, and then he’s shaking him a little, and then he’s standing so close he’s almost blocking his view—face drawn into a frown.
“What, what’s wrong?”
Morty doesn’t really know how to answer that.
Tim grabs a hold of his elbow before turning to follow his gaze, and suddenly—Morty wants to pull him away.
He wants to turn and never look back; he wants to get down on the ground and curl up under the table like a little kid; he wants to close his eyes and wake up as someone else entirely.
Something in his gut keeps him firmly in place. Something warm and vulnerable, longing and starving, burning its way up to his heart.
Love, for Morty, is a wild and untamed thing, always springing back up no matter how hard he tries to push it down. A dog wagging its tail at the rattle of keys.
And it’s been staring at that locked door for a long, long time now.
“Oh, shit,” Tim swears. It’s such a funny sound—all quiet and hushed, like a far more elegant word should go in its place. It almost makes Morty laugh.
He wishes it did. He feels like if he doesn’t start laughing now, he might do something far worse.
The Rick—his Rick, holy fucking shit—nods at the guy behind the counter, something casual and perfectly neutral, like it’s just something he does sometimes, like he’s just having a completely normal, pleasant day, or whatever Rick’s equivalent of that might be. He pushes himself to stand straight, and Morty knows how this goes now; can almost picture it in his head.
Rick searching through his pockets for his portal gun or keys, then turning to look if Morty’s following, but only once and only for a moment, like it’s something wrong, or excruciating, or useless, but he’s doing it anyway just for Morty’s sake. He was always really good at that. Making it seem like everything he did was a sacrifice. But maybe he’s having a good day; maybe he’s not drunk, or he’s just drunk enough to grin and ask if Morty wants to see something cool, and maybe even follow through with it, and maybe today will finally make the constant buzzing in Morty’s head go away.
It doesn’t happen.
Because Morty’s not fourteen anymore, and Rick hasn’t looked at him in five years, and he probably has a new ship now, a new portal gun, a new grandson to drag around.
What does happen when Rick finally looks at him—is that he goes perfectly, terrifyingly still.
In his first few weeks outside of The Curve, Morty had a million nightmares about Rick finding him.
Sometimes, in the dreams, he’d drag him through a portal by his arm, leg, hair; his grip so firm it was almost reassuring in its finality. Sometimes he’d only stand there, waiting for Morty to find his words; figure out what he should say, do, beg for. Sometimes Rick would apologize, face full of the kind of affection that Morty used to kill for.
But they always ended in him going back. That was the nightmare part.
“He never found Prime. He’s not finding you either,” Tim told him, which was as close to kind reassurance as he got back then.
“Yeah, well, if anyone can, it will be Rick,” Morty murmured, maybe more to himself than anything else. He didn’t really know how to talk with Tim yet.
“He probably thinks you’re dead. Or that I killed you.”
Morty wondered, in that moment, if the other boy really thought that that would ever be enough to stop Rick.
“You can kill me,” Morty felt himself say after a beat. “If he finds me, I mean.”
Tim looked at him for a long moment. He didn’t say anything.
That meant he wasn’t going to, but looking back, Morty found himself grateful he didn’t know it in the moment.
It helped him sleep a little better.
Tim hovers by his shoulder now, fingers squeezing his arm awkwardly, like he’s not sure if he wants them to fight or run, because he’s usually all cold confidence and bravado in everything except for Morty, so he’s not above simply hauling his ass back to the ship by the scruff when things get dicey, but he must know Morty won’t move now, no matter how hard he tries.
He says something, but Morty doesn’t hear it, because Rick’s walking up to them now, his pace slow at first, like he’s not really sure he’s doing it right, but then faster, until he’s almost running, pushing through the crowd.
Mom always told him he had Rick’s eyes. He knew it, vaguely, in the same way he knew the people he saw every few years at Christmas were his aunts and uncles—without any real reason to doubt it, but not particularly attached to the idea.
Rick’s eyes always seemed a lot darker, hazy or twisted in anger, or lit up in amusement, full of something greater and slightly crazed, like the whole world was an inside joke only meant for him.
Now—watching them fill with hope, doubt, fear—Morty sees what his mother meant.
He doesn’t know what to expect. His old nightmares—or maybe fantasies, really, they always assumed Rick would even bother looking—twist and repeat in his head like a broken cassette he can’t rewind.
He’s vaguely aware of Tim pulling out his gun, finger already on the trigger.
For a moment, Morty wonders which one of them he’d be aiming it at.
And then Rick’s crushing into him, so hard it almost pushes Morty over, knocking the wind out of his chest. He stumbles back, arms raised but frozen in place, anxious and unsure.
Rick holds him so hard Morty almost can’t breathe, and then something in his chest spills right over—warm and overwhelming, and he’s grabbing fistfuls of a lab coat and blue sweater, his eyes stinging like his head might split open from the inside out.
Rick last saw him five years ago, but Morty feels even younger than that. Before The Citadel, before infinite universes and possibilities, before his first adventure, when his mom put a hand on his shoulder and said ‘this is your grandpa, go say hi to him’.
He’s almost taller than Rick now. Isn’t that something?