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For such a genius invention, Morty thinks, portal guns are surprisingly easy to mess up.
“Is it supposed to be making that noise?” He questions, watching the white shape in his grandfather’s hand sputter and startle, whining like a dying animal.
Rick doesn’t bother looking up.
“Morty, genuinely, what the fuck do you think?”
Morty huffs, turning to lean against a wall as Rick fiddles with the portal gun out of the corner of his eye. They had a rough landing earlier, and it left him sore all over.
The market they landed in is slow, clearly just setting up for the day, which is good, because it’s not loud enough for the blooming headache behind Morty’s eye to pick up, and bad—because it means that Rick won’t be getting whatever it is he might need to get them home for the next couple of hours.
Morty already regrets letting himself get dragged out of bed on a Sunday.
Rick curses under his breath, letting out a long, drawn-out sigh. “I need a drink.”
“What a surprise,” Morty mumbles under his breath, only because he knows Rick won’t hear it.
He’s in a pretty foul mood—was even before the portal gun broke—and the fact that Rick doesn’t seem to pay it any mind isn’t exactly making him feel any better. He kicks a nearby rock. The soles of his shoes are coming off a little.
Mom will be pissed when she sees it, because Morty seems to be going through eight pairs of shoes a season, and it’s mostly Rick’s fault, so he should be the one getting him new ones. He almost says it out loud.
He doesn’t get the chance to.
“Sorry?”
Morty jumps up, just a little. He’s more than used to this by now, and the distinct sense of strangeness that used to overwhelm him has disappeared almost completely.
But it’s always a little weird to hear your own voice.
He turns around, opening his mouth. The words die on his tongue.
“What do you want?” Rick grumbles from behind him.
The other Morty sways a little on his feet, hands tucked behind his back. He’s staring up at Rick like he’s a particularly hard puzzle.
“Uhm…” He starts, voice unsure.
“Spit it out.”
“You're a Rick, right? I can't find my grandpa.” He claps his hands in front of his chest. “I think I'm lost?”
“You think?” Rick says.
Morty doesn’t say anything. He’s too busy staring.
In his time trailing behind Rick, he’s seen a lot of different Mortys. It's always like looking into a mirror, but in a distinctly carnival-fun-house sort of way, all wonky and out of shape.
If he’s still inside that house now, he’s only staring at an exit.
This Morty doesn’t look anything like him at all.
His hair waves and curls, distinctly blonde and almost white in the hot sun. He’s got big eyes, dark and lined with pale lashes. His face is all different too; rounder and softer, cheeks and a button nose dusted with freckles.
Morty’s never seen anyone like him, but he’s so familiar, in a way he can’t quite put a finger on. It itches somewhere in the back of his brain.
That brings to his mind memories of parasites, shapeshifters, and every other awful thing that space seems to be, for whatever reason, packed full of. Almost on instinct, he reaches out, grabbing a fistful of Rick’s coat. If Rick notices, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“How is that my problem?” He questions, still not looking up from his portal gun.
Who does he remind him of?, Morty wonders. Mom? Summer? Other Mom?
The other boy doesn’t answer immediately. He stares down at his own feet, hands held close to his chest, shoulders hunched to make himself small—a kicked puppy with a tail between his legs. That’s an old-school Summer classic, back when adults still considered her cute enough to get away with murder. One that Morty was never able to pull off even half as well as this damn blondie does, and the thought startles Morty enough to finally speak up.
“Man, are you even a Morty?”
The other boy glares up at him sharply, all the timid hesitation gone in an instant. He looks at Morty like he’s being intentionally dense or accidentally suicidal. There’s something sharper in his gaze now, full of fire and spark, and that finally clicks something in the back of Morty’s mind into place.
Oh, he thinks.
It’s all he has the time to do.
The other boy doesn’t respond, but the question seems to be enough to peak Rick’s interest. He finally tears away from his gun, looking down at them. Morty pulls at his coat, but it’s far too late now.
“What?” Rick says. “What are you— Oh, wow.”
Morty can see the exact moment it hits him too, washing over his face in a wave of emotion. He stands there for a moment, frozen in the blaring light. He looks ten years younger.
Morty’s seen that look on his face before. It spills out of him, sometimes, always a little sudden and unexpected, quickly pulled back. But it’s there when he watches Mom twirl her hair around a finger, the way she’s always done; when Summer laughs, loud and unabashed, wholeheartedly un-ladylike.
Blondie’s expression smooths out when Ricks steps a little closer, crouching down to look him in the face.
“Huh,” Rick says, voice quiet. “You know, you really—”
“MORTY!”
Suddenly, there are two things jumping in between them.
A very angry Rick and a loaded gun.
Morty steps back, letting go of Rick’s coat but shuffling behind his legs like a little kid. He’s been doing that a lot lately, which probably makes him look a bit like a loser, but it also makes him not dead, and that’s a trade-off he’s willing to take.
His grandfather doesn’t flinch.
“Get away from my grandkid, you fucking psycho,” the other Rick spits, pushing and pulling his Morty behind his back. The other boy yelps at the sudden man-handing, almost tripping over his own feet. “One word and I’ll blow your fucking head off. Don’t even think about it.”
Slowly, almost lazily, Rick raises his palms. Morty doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove with that. He’s never without a weapon, even with empty hands.
“Grandpa!” Blondie shouts, struggling in the death grip his Rick has on his shoulder. It doesn’t look painful, but it keeps him in place. “Stop being a weirdo! I was just asking him for help.”
The other Rick’s head whips around so fast Morty can almost hear his bones snap into place.
“Asking for— What did I fucking say about talking to other Ricks?!” He’s loud but he doesn’t look drunk, and that’s a rather terrifying combination on any version of their grandfather.
Blondie only pouts at him.
“Well, maybe if you were better at watching me, I wouldn’t need to talk to him!”
“Don’t even start that shit, you’re grounded for the rest of the year!” He gives Blondie’s arm a little shake, but Morty notices the way his eyes soften, studying him for a moment, looking for any sign of trouble. Not finding any, he turns back to them.
He hasn’t lowered the gun, and Rick hasn’t stopped looking bored. He glances at Morty out of the corner of his eye, like he wants to check if he’s still there. Sometimes, a glance like this means ‘get the fuck out’. Sometimes, it means ‘stay put’. Morty never knows which is which.
“Hey, my hands are up here,” Rick says, waving his palms. “Don’t get your…” Suddenly he frowns, face pulled into a new expression, like he just woke up from a rather dull nap. “Wait, what’s your designation?”
“I’m not telling you shit.”
Rick looks at him for a moment before his eyes suddenly widen.
“Holy shit, Dick?” He lowers his hands. “D-100?”
The other Rick narrows his eyes suspiciously, but his hand wavers. Morty spots his finger slipping away from the trigger. “Do I know you?”
“You better, you old fart,” Rick laughs. “It’s C-137.”
D-100 opens his mouth, eyes wide. He doesn’t say anything for a beat. Finally, he spits out:
“You’re still alive?”
“Huh?” Rick sputters. “The fuck you mean ‘still alive’? I’m a god, you piece of shit.”
For a moment it looks like they might start fighting again, but then the gun disappears and they’re laughing, hands clasped in a strong handshake.
Now, without the active weapon in his hand, Morty can look at the other man a little better. He’s dressed in a pale-blue coat, his hair a little grayer around the temples, swept back into something almost presentable-looking.
“Man, I haven’t seen you since…” D-100 pauses, scratching at his head. “Uhm, shit, I’m not really good with dates anymore.”
“A while,” Rick sums up. Rick has a lot of enemies and not a whole lot of friends. It’s a rare look on him—being genuinely happy to see someone. Morty thinks it suits him. “What are you doing here?”
D-100 makes a vague gesture with his hand, which could mean anything, really, but Rick seems to get it. He points to the portal gun, haphazardly tucked behind Rick’s belt.
“Trouble in paradise?” He teases. Rick winces but pulls it out, letting the other man examine it. “Yeah, it does that sometimes in this Solar System. It’s an easy fix when you know what to look for.”
“Shit,” Rick says. “Real deus ex machina.”
D-100 looks up at him with a smug grin. Then, almost as if on instinct, he leans a little to the side to look at Morty. His face does a funny thing.
“Oh, wow, look at you. Family man, huh?”
Rick glances back, a little startled, like he forgot Morty was even there.
“Oh, uhm…” He looks almost flustered all of a sudden. “Go scram, kiddo. Grown-ups are talking.”
“Bullshit,” Morty snaps, but mostly just for the principle of the thing. He doesn’t really want to be here either. There’s only one thing worse than listening to Rick’s drunken rambles, and that’s listening to two of them at the same time.
Blondie lights up at that, finally managing to disentangle himself from his grandfather’s grip.
“We’ll be around!” He chirps. It takes Morty a moment to realize that the ‘we’ probably includes him.
He almost says something about that, but D-100 beats him to it.
“You’ll be right where I can see you, you little shit,” he says. “And I know you stole my keys. I’m not coming to pick you up if you get lost again.”
“Boo-hoo, you’re so boring.”
D-100 raises a hand, fingers flexing, but finally he only reaches out, lightly pinching the boy’s shoulder. Blondie jumps back, letting out a rather impressive whine, like a cat being skinned alive.
“Ow! I’m telling Mom you punched me!”
“Punched you?!” D-100 belts, face stuck between anger and disbelief. “I’ll show you a punch, you little—”
Blondie shrieks with laughter, quickly darting away. He grabs Morty’s wrist when he passes Rick.
“Wait, what—”
Morty doesn’t get to finish before he’s being dragged away. The other boy pulls him down the market, far enough away for a sense of privacy, before finally slowing down. It’s childish and dumb, and it makes Morty feel a lot more stupid now.
He looks behind his shoulder at the two men.
“You’re not in trouble, are you?” He asks, slipping his wrist out of the other boy’s hold.
He broke it earlier, after the rather unfortunate portal-landing. Rick fixed it up (complaining all the way through), but it still feels a little funny.
“Nah,” the other boy waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. He’s breathing a little fast. “He just gets all huffy like that when he’s stressed.”
‘Huffy’ is one way to put it. Morty rubs at his wrist.
Blondie seems genuinely unbothered, still grinning, but Morty’s seen that fledgling lightness on others before—Mortys with brand new Ricks, brand new bodies, brand new, blank minds. He’s seen it die out.
“You sure?” He questions. “He’s not gonna, like, beat your ass when you get home or anything?”
Blondie’s smile dims.
“What? No.” He looks at Morty like he can’t tell if he’s being made fun of. “Does— Are you being dramatic, or does that happen with Ricks?”
Morty doesn’t really know how to respond. He was being a little dramatic, but it’s not like he can say ‘no’.
“... You don’t talk to a lot of Mortys, do you?”
Slowly, the other boy shakes his head.
“Not a lot. Grandpa doesn’t really let me. He doesn’t like being around other Ricks.”
“Yeah, well…” Morty looks over his shoulder. His Rick’s leaning against one of the stalls, arms crossed over his chest, all casual and laid back. There’s something like a smile on his face. But Morty’s seen him fully relaxed with his guard down, sleeping with both eyes closed, and this isn’t it. “Ricks who like other Ricks are usually total psychos.”
They walk up to a nearby low wall, sitting down in a sudden flurry of dust and sand. Morty waves a hand in front of his face. The other boy coughs.
“You’ve met a lot of them? Umm, other us, I mean.”
“Mhm. Have you ever been to The Citadel?” Morty asks. “Before it, you know.” He closes and opens his first, mouthing ‘kaboom’.
“No. Grandpa says it was a hellhole, and he’s glad it’s gone.”
D-100 might be right about that, and it shapes Morty’s idea of him into something a little clearer.
Blondie shifts a little where he sits, wiping his hand on his shirt.
He’s dressed a little different—in denim shorts, with a white long-sleeve poking out from underneath his yellow tee. He’s rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, leaving him looking rather silly, like an unprepared Californian tourist. He’s even a little sunburned, too.
He reaches into his pocket, fishing in it for a moment, before pulling out his catch. He holds the vape up to his mouth, taking a long hit before letting the smoke out. It’s cotton candy. Morty winces.
Blondie notices him staring, and he must take the look on his face for something else, because he quickly says:
“Don’t worry, I won’t get in trouble.” Vaguely, he nods towards their grandparents, still in their general eyesight. “Grandpa knows I have it, he just doesn’t like it.”
Morty hasn't even thought of that. He doubts Rick would ever care about something like that, and he wouldn’t put that much faith in his parents either. That’s probably why he never picked up the habit.
He looks back towards their Ricks. D-100 sends them both a rather nasty glare, but he leaves them to it.
“Oh, right,” Blondie pipes up, putting a hand to his chest like a lady in an old black and white movie. “Where are my manners?”
He holds up the vape to him. Morty hesitates for only a moment before taking it. The smoke itches his throat, his mouth hot and vaguely tasting of burned plastic. He quickly exhales, trying his best not to cough.
“How does it feel?”
Morty thinks about it for a moment. He doesn’t really feel any different.
“Hmm…”
“Shit, right?” Blondie huffs, taking the vape back. “I think Summer swapped out all my stuff for nicotine-free ones.”
That’s oddly sweet, and exactly the kind of thing Morty can imagine his own sister doing. Only his Summer would probably use them all up herself, because that’s her breed of hypocrite.
“Yup. Summer’s a bitch like that.”
Blondie looks up at him sharply, his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t call my sister a bitch, dude.”
“Oh, okay.”
They sit in silence for a moment. Morty watches D-100 fumble with the portal gun, pointing out something that probably only he and Rick would ever understand.
And maybe Evil Morty, too.
Morty huffs a little at the thought.
“You know they used to hook up, right?” Blondie pipes up suddenly.
Morty turns to him, so wholeheartedly taken aback that he needs a moment to really digest all of it. It still sits in his stomach rather funny.
“Wha— How do you know?”
“You can tell,” he says simply. There’s a familiar sort of confidence in his voice, the same one Summer carries when she tells him things like that. She always notices before he does.
Morty turns back to their grandparents. They are standing kind of close now that he’s really looking at them. “Okay.”
“I think that happens a lot with Ricks,” Blondie continues, all casual. He takes another long drag, smoke pooling around his face like fog. “... And Mortys.”
He glances at him out of the corner of his eye.
Morty’s face goes very hot very fast.
“I’m not gay!” He stammers out, shoulders raised defensively.
“Cool,” Blondie replies, seemingly unbothered. “Me neither, I’m just bored.”
That’s not a very ‘not gay’ thing to say, and Morty almost tells him as much, but the other boy quickly beats him to it. He sits up a little straighter, eyes big.
“Wow, is that a real gun?”
Morty, still a little flustered from the previous comment, takes a moment to respond. “Uhm, yeah?”
His blaster sits by his side, tied up to his belt. He takes it out, handing it to the other boy without much thought.
Rick would probably have something to say about that, but judging by his own actions, he doesn’t seem to consider the D’s much of a threat either. Besides, Morty sees the other kid’s arms, thin and lanky under his shirt. He could definitely take him.
“That’s so sick,” Blondie says, turning it around in his hands like a plastic toy. “Can I try it?”
Morty shrugs.
“Knock yourself out.”
Blondie stands, wiping the back of his shorts with one hand, looking around. Finally, he straightens, shoving a finger into his ear, closing one eye. And—with perfect posture—he shoots the nearest tree. The blast burns a hole right through it.
He mouths a ‘wow’, ignoring his Rick’s distant shout to ‘put that fucking thing down’. He turns back to Morty, mouth stretched in a grin.
“You’re very easy to impress,” Morty tells him honestly.
It reminds him a bit of his own early adventures, when he saw the stars for the first time. He couldn’t stop looking, hands glued to the ship's window. Rick told him he would get fingerprints on it, but out of the corner of his eye, Morty could see him smiling, just a little.
He quickly pushes the memory down.
“Yeah, well, Grandpa doesn’t let me carry any guns after I shot myself in the foot,” Blondie sighs, handing Morty back his blaster.
There was just one time when Rick seemed to genuinely consider taking Morty’s guns away. That was after the Purge Planet.
Morty doesn’t really want to tell him that.
“My Rick doesn’t care if I live or die.”
Blondie laughs like it’s a joke.
“I miss it, but at least Dad takes me to the range sometimes.” He sits back down next to Morty. “Guns are sick.”
Morty looks at him for a moment.
“You ever killed anything with it?” He questions.
The other boy dims a little, wiping his hands on his shorts. “Umm, no? Well, we went hunting once, but that made me feel kind of bad…”
Morty smiles at him, a little archly. Usually, he doesn’t get a lot of chances to be a little patronizing, and he’s eager to take it whenever he can.
“Yeah. That’s why you still think they’re cool.”
The other boy narrows his eyes. He must think Morty’s joking or messing with him or something like that, because he looks mildly offended.
“You’re so grim.”
Has he never seen Rick kill someone? Morty wonders. What do they even do on their adventures?
Morty glances back at his new friend. His earlier rummaging almost turned his pockets inside out. There’s a set of ship keys poking out of one, and an obnoxiously blue keychain digs a little into the other boy’s hip. It tells Morty: ‘BEST GRANDPA EVER’.
“Why do you call him that?” He blurts out before he can think better of it.
“Call him what?”
“‘Grandpa’.”
Blondie looks at him like he thinks Morty might be speaking a different language. “‘Cuz he’s my grandpa?”
“Yeah, I know,” Morty huffs, suddenly defensive. “But most of us just say ‘Rick’. ‘Cuz you know,” he adds, a little waspishly now, “that’s his name.”
Blondie raises an eyebrow, but he looks more amused than anything. He’s quiet for a moment, taking another drag from his vape.
“I don’t really know what to tell you, man,” he says finally, shrugging. “Do you also call your mom by her name?”
“No, I’m not an incel.”
He grins at Morty, honest and good-natured. His smile’s a little different than Morty’s; his whole face lighting up with it, eyes crinkled.
“Well then, there you go,” he says, pulling his feet up to wrap his arm around his knees. After a moment he turns to look at Morty again. “Okay, it does also make him go all…”
He puts a hand under his chin, face smoothing out into a rather convincing impression of Rick’s softer look, the same one that flashed over his face earlier.
“What?” Morty says, pushing the other boy slightly away.
“All ‘grandpa of the year’, I’m telling you, dude. You should try it the next time you want something.”
Morty feels his mouth twist into a wry smile. He does remember Rick looking at him like that—just before last Christmas. Rick looking at him, ruffling his hair, holding onto his arm with strange gentleness.
Last Christmas…
The memory quickly sours in his mind.
“Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say when you look like that,” he murmurs, scratching at the skin around his thumb. He digs his fingernail in until it bleeds, just to make sure.
“Like what?”
“Like his dead wife.”
It comes out a little harsher than he wanted it to, and when he looks up, the other boy’s staring at him with big doe eyes. He looks a little like a deer in headlights.
“What?”
“Yeah, dude, how did you not— Oh,” he realizes after a beat. “You’re fucking with me, alright. Very funny.”
Blondie’s face melts into a grin. He’s a surprisingly good sport about Morty’s snappiness, and that makes him feel vaguely bad.
“Yeah, obviously I know, man.” He leans back a little, huffing out smoke. “But I never met her, so.”
Morty wonders if he knows about the Omega Device. Judging the look on his face, probably not.
“I don’t think that’s… I’ve never met a Morty who did, if that makes you feel better,” he says.
It’s not a lie, but it feels like one. Everything that happened in The Hole felt so oddly specific that it made him wonder if it wasn’t all his imagination. Not like he could ever ask about it.
Blondie hums, long and drawn-out. He doesn’t look upset, more so lost in thought.
“Not really. The way people talk about her, it’s kind of like she wasn’t even real, you know?” He puts down his vape, searching his other pocket for a moment.
He pulls out a wallet—a thick leathery thing full of zippers and buckles, an almost exact copy of the one Morty’s dad gave to him on his last birthday. Morty hated it, quickly throwing it to the bottom of his desk drawer and forgetting all about it.
It’s just as ugly as he remembers it being.
The other boy opens the front buckle, turning the inside to Morty to let him see.
Morty blinks once, twice.
“Oh,” he says. “Yeah, that’s her.” He’s never seen that particular picture of Diane before. She looks a little younger, eyes crinkled in a smile. “You just have that?”
“Yeah.” Her grandson closes the wallet, stuffing it back into his pocket. “It’s like, you know, a good luck charm.”
“... You carry a picture of your dead grandma in your wallet for ‘good luck’?”
“Hop off my dick, will ‘ya?” Blondie leans forward, resting his chin on his fist. He’s quiet for a moment.
Morty watches the Ricks. They’re speaking a little slower now, less frantic, glancing towards them every now and again. This time, Morty doesn’t need Summer to guess they’re talking about them.
“People always tell me I’m just like her,” he says, like it is some terrible chore he’s tired of doing. After a moment, he adds: “Or yell about it at each other.”
He twirls his vape around in his hand, clearly thinking.
From the other side of the market, Rick laughs so loudly a few people turn to look at them.
“Does your grandpa fight with your mom a lot?” Blondie says, very quickly, like it’s been building up inside him, and he needs to let it out.
Morty eyes him for a moment.
He seems a little nervous now, scratching the skin around his thumb. It makes him look a lot more like a Morty.
“Not often, but when they do, it’s bad,” Morty says, quiet at first, like he’s testing the waters. He doesn’t really talk about things like this with people other than Doctor Wong. “He fights with my dad a lot more.”
He’s not really sure how this is making him feel. He doesn’t really feel like stopping, though.
“Mine too. I think he blames Dad for Mom not being a surgeon yet. You?”
“I think he blames him for being alive.”
Blondie laughs a little at that but only quietly. He kicks out his feet, absentmindedly. His white shoes are a lot cleaner than Morty’s.
“When he fights with Mom, it just gets so…” He stops for a moment, looking for the right word. He doesn’t seem to find any. “They always go outside, like Summer and I won’t hear them. Like windows don’t exist.”
That’s kind of nice of them, in Morty’s opinion. Everyone in his house just fights in the open. Sometimes, it’s hard not to trip over a bloodbath.
“He left when she was a kid,” Blondie continues. Morty could’ve guessed that one, but he doesn’t say it. “After Grandma died. Contacted her when he found out she got pregnant. I think she’s still angry about it.”
He says it a bit strangely, like it’s something he’s heard so many times, in so many different versions, that he’s not really sure how to put it into words anymore.
“Makes sense,” Morty says, simply. If he started to talk about his Mom and Rick now, they’d be here all day.
“Maybe. I guess I’d be pretty pissed if he left me, too.”
“You would be,” Morty says without thinking.
The other boy looks at him for a long moment.
“I guess. But he was a drunk, so it’s not like she missed out on a lot.”
“He’s still a drunk,” Morty huffs. “And he lets you do shit like that, so maybe that’s your mom’s problem.” He gestures to the vape, still in the other kid’s hand.
Blondie blinks up at him, taken aback. Morty’s usually the first to nag on his mother, but he’s grown a little softer on her recently.
That first evening after they managed to escape whatever was left of The Citadel, Morty couldn’t sleep. He kept staring at his bedroom ceiling, waiting for something to happen.
Evil Morty’s offer replayed in his head, over and over again, so much that he almost fooled himself into thinking it was real. That he had the chance to turn over on Rick, do what he did to him.
But that was never going to happen.
He got out of bed, walking downstairs. Mom was up. He saw the warm TV glow spill onto the hallway before he saw her, sitting on the couch. Two glasses of wine sat on the table in front of her, but Space Beth was gone.
“Hey, honey,” she said, voice a little rough. “Why are you up?”
Morty didn’t answer. He sat on the couch next to her, eyes glued to the bright screen. The volume was so low he could barely make it out. After a moment he laid down, letting his head fall to her lap.
Mom ran her fingers through his hair. Her hands were warm.
She didn’t say anything, but Morty knew what she was thinking.
Morty shakes his head, trying to focus.
“Okay,” Blondie says, very slowly, and it makes Morty realize neither of them has spoken in a hot minute. “He, uhm… My grandpa doesn’t drink.”
“Oh.”
Morty doesn't really know what to say to that. His sudden defensiveness doesn't really fade, but he freezes, genuinely surprised.
“Yeah, he, uhm, quit when I was like six, I think?” Blondie scratches the back of his head, like he’s trying his best to remember. “He got really wasted at Summer’s birthday party. Dad kicked him out of the house, it was a whole thing.” Morty tries to imagine his own father standing up to Rick like that. He draws a blank. “I think he did, like, some really weird things to his brain to make himself stop. He says it made him forget how to tap-dance.”
Morty looks back at the two men lingering by the stalls. Rick reaches into his coat, taking a sip out of his flask. D-100 doesn’t.
“Oh,” Blondie says with sudden understanding. “Gee, sorry about that.”
Something hot bursts inside Morty’s chest. It’s been twisting all morning, poked and prodded, but he can feel it spill into every part of himself now, his fingers clutching into fists.
“Don’t fucking say it like that, alright?” He snaps, turning back to look at the other Morty.
Blondie blinks, pulling back a little. He looks almost scared now, eyes wide and dark.
“Sorry?” He stutters out.
“You think, what, that you’re better than us? Congratu-fucking-lations, your Rick’s just a regular fuck-up of a man now.”
“What the hell?” Blondie shifts away, face drawn into a frown, angry and hurt. Morty knows that look. He’s had a million nightmares about it after climbing out of that hole. “Why are you— I thought you didn’t like that he drinks!”
There’s no real pulling back down. Once Morty bites down, he’s not letting go till he tastes blood.
“You got that from Grandpa,” Rick told him once, because he always said things like that when he was really drunk. “Fucking rabid.”
Morty wondered which ‘Grandpa’ he meant. He wondered for a long time.
“I don’t care that he drinks!” He yells. “If I were him, I would’ve shot myself in the head years ago. And you know what? At least I don’t have to manipulate my Rick into hanging out with me.”
“I don’t manipulate him!” Blondie spits out, mouth moving afterwards like he wants to say something more, lost for words.
“Yes, you do! Your whole existence is a fucking masterful one. Look at you, with your big, sad eyes. You think he doesn’t know you carry that picture? You think that doesn’t just break his poor, old-man heart? Fuck you.”
Morty pants, the air in his lungs thin. He feels a little dizzy.
The other boy doesn’t say anything. He’s too busy staring.
Morty doesn’t take any of it back.
It’s the truth, anyway. Probably.
Rick’s not D-100. He’s not an old man with a soppy backstory worth a couple AA meetings. He’s the Rickest Rick, larger than life, bigger than the whole damn universe, with a shadow so heavy Morty fears he might get lost in it one day.
That’s what he needs the truth to be.
It’s not the same.
A couple of blond curls wouldn’t fix him.
“Gee, man,” the other boy says, finally. “Whatever. What are you, his watchdog?”
“Yeah, a damn good one. What are you?”
He doesn’t get a reply.
For the next twenty minutes, they sit in silence.
***
When Rick calls them over with a wide gesture, Blondie stops him for a moment, giving him a hard look. He looks like he wants to say something but then doesn’t.
Morty thinks he should apologize now, probably. When he’s burned through everything like this, he's always left kind of numb and empty. It’s easy for regret to slip in.
He follows the other boy down the market, trailing just a little behind. Blondie walks with his head up straight, but his shoulders are a little hunched, and it’s only when he reaches out a hand to wipe at his nose that Morty realizes he must’ve been close to crying.
Something in Morty’s chest squeezes painfully at that.
“Hey, uhm…” He says, finally, and that’s enough to stop the other boy in his tracks. He glances over his shoulder to look Morty in the eye. “Sorry. For, uhm… That. I don’t… I know you didn’t mean it like that.”
They look at each other for a long moment.
“Okay,” Blondie says, finally. He pulls a little on the edge of his shirt. Morty takes a step towards him, but he quickly steps back, eyes darting away. “Uhm, for what it’s worth… I don’t think your Rick doesn’t care if you live or die. He’s always watching you when you’re not looking.”
With that he turns around, picking up pace until he’s slamming into his Rick’s legs at full speed. D-100 lets out a quiet ‘oof’.
“There you are,” the man says.
Then he leans over, wraps his arms around the boy’s chest, and without a word—flips him in the air.
“Wh— Hey!” Blondie laughs, face lighting up one again. He kicks his legs wildly against D-100’s shoulder, letting out a rather impressive shriek when his grandfather shakes him in the air. “Put me down!”
“No, you’re in time out for the gun thing.” Something falls to the ground with a quiet clink. “Oh, my keys.”
Morty walks up to them, slowly. Rick looks down at him, nods, then frowns.
“Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
Rick takes a drink out of his flask before putting it away.
“Never mind.” He turns back to his friend. “Gotta bounce. Thanks for the assist, good seeing you again.”
“Don’t die in a ditch,” D-100 says, finally putting his grandson down like a sack of potatoes.
“Are you still mad at me?” Blondie asks, fixing up his hair.
“Yes, very,” he says, but then his voice softens again, just a little. He leans down to pick up his keys. “Come on, Superstar.”
They leave, Blondie reaching out a hand to hold onto his grandfather’s elbow. He turns to look over his shoulder before they leave.
Slowly, Morty raises his hand in a wave. The other boy doesn’t wave back.
Rick watches him for a moment, a strangely curious look on his face. “Did you have fun with your boyfriend?”
Morty looks up at him.
“Did you?”
He’s not really sure what sort of expression shows on his face, but whatever it is, it shuts Rick right up. He looks through his bag and coat for a moment, like he’s making sure they haven’t lost anything, which is pretty understandable. Ricks tend to have sticky fingers.
“He was alright,” Morty says, finally. “He let me hit his vape.”
“Wha— A vape?” Rick squawks, indignant. “Fucking hell, Morty, I’m buying you cigarettes on the next stop. No grandson of mine is gonna be smoking that sissy shit.”
“I didn’t like it!” Morty huffs, weirdly offended. “And you can’t say that.”
Rick raises his portal gun, firing towards the nearest wall.
“I can say whatever the hell I want.”
Rick walks up to the portal, but Morty stops him at the last moment, grabbing onto his coat. “Wait, hold on.”
Rick turns to look at him, eyebrow raised.
Morty stands there for a moment, not sure what he even wanted to say. He wonders what Rick would say if he heard his earlier fight. He can’t think of anything.
His hold on Rick’s coat loosens, but his grandfather doesn’t leave, strangely focused, like he’s trying to see past Morty’s skull right into his brain. Morty wishes he could, sometimes. It would make a lot of things easier.
“Uhm…” He starts, finally landing on something solid. “Can we, uhm, go out for ice cream, Grandpa Rick?”
Rick’s face does a very funny thing, very fast. Before Morty can really see his expression—he glances away, turning his back to him.
It’s quiet for a moment. Morty looks down at his own feet. His shoes are awfully dirty. Finally, Rick snaps.
“Jesus Christ— Fine, fine, whatever.” He fiddles with his gun, shooting up a new portal right next to their feet. “Sure. Throw off Grandpa’s whole schedule while you’re at it.”
Morty stares at the green glow a little dumbly.
“What?” Rick questions. “You coming or not?”
He reaches out a hand, grabbing onto the back of Morty’s shirt. Morty tenses, all instinct, but Rick doesn’t push him in, lingering behind his back.
Morty looks over his shoulder, palm raised to cover his eyes, finally seeing Rick’s face.
He smiles.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Stepping forward—he pulls Rick through the portal.