Work Text:
Morty felt himself slowly wake up, his eyes blinking blearily as he squinted upwards towards his ceiling, his gaze landing on the simple lamp screwed into the room’s top plane.
The room was dark, but not quite as dark as the nights spent on the last surviving ring of the Citadel, the other legs cruelly sucked into oblivion. Any remaining Ricks and Morty’s who were unluckily enough to be aboard that day were long dead, their bodies listlessly tumbling through space.
The boy shook his head, forcing in a shaky breath as he swung his legs over the side of his wood frame, his gaze landing on his brown- tinted elephant lamp.
A lot had happened over the course of just two weeks, so much so that he wasn’t sure if his brain had truly processed everything yet:
How Rick had taken him to a Build a Morty shop to de-age him, the stiffening dinner with the Morty President, how said fourteen year old president gave the order to kill thousands aboard the floating city, Rick’s most painful memories flooding his own consciousness, the sleepless nights aboard the ship’s wreckage, wondering how the hell they would manage to get back to their own reality after each day spent scavenging for spare portal fluid came up empty...
He quickly shut down his spiral on the last thought, firmly planting his feet onto the green carpet below. They had found a way back, Morty waking up in his own room was proof of that, yet the sudden change back to normalcy had only just continued to screw with him.
He let out another breath as he rotated his head towards his alarm clock. It was a simple digital one, sporting a black casing with deep red numbers occasionally flashing back up at him. The teen had decided to invest in one after forgetting to charge his phone after one too many adventures, his alarms having been silenced by the completely drained rectangle.
The boy gingerly blinked up at the time, an unamused yet un-surprised expression crossing the teen’s face as his gaze bore deeper into the digital numbers.
3:22 AM
So he had slept a whopping five hours this time, though he supposed that that was better than yesterday. Being interrupted in his sleep by Rick used to be a normal occurrence, (his Mom had put a semi-stop to that behavior), yet the teen still sometimes found himself waking at odd hours, his internal clock still strung to the last alien time zone.
The freshman found himself rubbing his eyes with the underside of his palms, feeling the way that they almost sunk into his eyelids, his jaw unhinging into a silent yawn.
Jeez...my sleep schedule is pretty terrible.
Still, the teen didn’t even attempt to lay back down again. If his body wanted him up, it would remain up, besides he had a school project due the next morning anyway. Finishing it would at least give his hands something to do.
He began slowly trudging toward his workspace, his stiff legs creaking as he rounded closer to his desk chair.
Back on the Citadel, most of the ground was coated with a firm concrete, with only smaller parks speckled here and there throughout the other legs. The boy had spent most of his time traversing the cities during his time stranded there, occasionally people watching other Ricks and Mortys in boredom.
He thought he had already readjusted to Earth’s ground/gravity after a few days back, yet he still found his still-sore feet occasionally struggling to just cross his carpet. The teen internally cringed at the added pressure before stopping just shy of his school desk.
His setup wasn't exactly ideal, flooded with half finished worksheets and abandoned reports, but the boy had allowed the messiness to slide. Sometimes adventuring was just too time consuming to worry about organizing a ten-point math assignment.
The teen chewed his lip thoughtfully as he combed through his work, his fingers occasionally catching on papers and folders until he reached solid wood. He briefly paused upon seeing the empty space, blinking confusingly down into the dark oak.
“Of co...course it's not here.”
The teen found his eyes darting around the room for a while as he continued his search, his gaze tracing across his wooden cabinet and dresser until his face froze up in quick recognition, his hand flying up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Oh right...I left it in Rick’s garage.
The teen had been typing away on his laptop the day before while in Rick’s workplace, the Internet connection unsurprisingly being the strongest in the scientist’s own personal study.
His grandpa hadn’t helped him much on the project, his views on the stupidity of the education system remaining firmly the same, yet Morty still found himself wanting to remain by his side. Neither had mentioned Rick’s painful memories, no matter how much Morty wanted to bring it up, the echoes of them still wisping around his subconscious even now.
The teen sighed to himself again as he began walking towards the door, his mind instantly filling in the previously missing details as he stepped beneath its frame.
Morty had borrowed the scientist's printer at one point to make a hard copy of his work, yet he didn’t remember the paper ever leaving the room, and he doubted that Rick would care enough about the missing assignment to go on a quest just to return it to him.
The fourteen-year old Smith’s body turned a corner now, his eyes cringing slightly as he entered the family kitchen, the wood planks annoyingly creaking with each step. He quickened his pace a bit as he exited into another hallway, his walking pattern becoming more automatic the deeper he ventured into the now too familiar corridor.
A minute later and the teen found himself stopping in front of his grandfather’s small garage door, Morty’s dominant hand firmly morphing into a tight fist as he stared down the metal coated entrance.
He didn’t think that his grandfather would be inside, having seen him carrying a small flask with him to his room a few hours ago, but you never knew with Rick being the textbook definition of an insomniac. For all he knew the man had gotten up much like he had, gingerly tinkering away on a new project before exhaustion had forced him to once again face plant across his workbench.
The teen groggily blinked at the door for a while before feeling his face harden, firmly pushing his hands against the cool metal. He felt his lips curl into the beginnings of a smile as he heard the familiar click of the lock as the door swung open.
The apprentice gently planted his feet inside the room as he stepped forward, his gaze loosely sliding across the half finished inventions and odd tools that dotted the Rick-less interior.
The alien looking objects didn’t really bother the high-schooler now, it may have been more concerning if they did, having lived with the chaos that was his constant danger filled adventures for nearly a year now, though he still wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that nothing really surprised him anymore.
The teen had crossed to the middle of the room now, his mouth pressed into a determined line as he began scanning his surroundings for the familiar stapled booklet.
He first looked to his grandfather’s printer, yet the flat top only remained bare, most of its freshly printed copies now lazily occupying the floor or workbench. The teen then flicked his eyes to the plastic bins lined along the scientist’s walls, but none held his paper either.
Mory sighed to himself as he walked up to the room’s elongated desk, distantly remembering how Rick had turned himself into a Pickle upon the countertop. The teen had originally brushed it off as a convoluted way for the scientist to be lazy, yet, after recent developments at the Citadel had brought more of his grandfather’s past to life, he darkly wondered if there was a deeper reason as to Rick’s reluctance to accept help.
The teen shook his head slightly as he quickly resumed his search, snaking his hands through a collection of Rick’s smaller tools and blueprints. A few minutes of useless searching had passed before he side-eyed a fresh pile of folders, semi-frantically tearing through the new stack. The important thing now was to find his own work; he could worry about his older friend’s mental state later.
Just ten minutes had ticked by before Morty dropped his still empty hands to his sides, his fingers finding no sign of his research paper. He dimly considered just failing another assignment, (it was far from an unusual occurrence at this point), but the end of the year was quickly approaching. The last thing Morty needed was to be held back a grade.
The teen locked his teeth together as he pivoted back towards Rick’s bulletin board, thinking that the older man possibly pinned it onto the wall after drunkenly mistaking it for one of his sketches.
He had just started rotating his body around when he noticed a thin piece of paper sticking out of a cupboard beneath the workbench’s opposite end. It slid downward slightly as his locked eyes on it, a tiny speckle of something metallic glinting off the exposed corner’s end.
The teen smiled lightly as he paddled forward, quickly crouching down to grasp at the small cabinet. He tried tugging at the disk shaped handle yet the drawer held firm, the boy’s small fists shaking slightly with the effort.
His gaze slid over the cabinet again, this time scooting his body back a greater distance to better study the groves and indents. There interestingly seemed to be much more damage on this particular drawer than the others, almost like someone had slammed their fists repeatedly into its side.
“Huh…”
The teen lifted his pointer finger to prod at the metal handle again, tracing over the simple dips in the oval shaped bar. He pulled his hand away slowly, his head slightly cocked to the side.
“Ok… s...sss...so there's no physical lock.”
He quickly stood back up, scanning down at Rick’s workbench before his eyes landed on what looked like a slightly more advanced crowbar, this one sporting a smaller compartment etched into its pointed end.
The teen rolled the metal stick around his hands for a minute, admiring its cooling texture, before bending back down, shoving its sharper edge into an open sliver along the drawer's side.
The boy looked sheepishly back towards the door as he continued to prod at the edge, wiggling around the stick until he had started to just loosen the invisible locks hold.
Morty knew he was pushing it, digging through Rick’s stuff without his permission like this, though he didn’t exactly want to wake the old man up, lest he risk spawning a last minute adventure by doing so. Asking his grandfather in the morning was also out of the question if his recent hang over the previous day was any indication. Besides, the teen was actually sort of proud of his project for once, having picked his research topic on the possible signs of alien life.
The high-schooler continued digging the stick into the stubborn metal plated cabinet, twisting more sharply the deeper the rod slid until a small click sounded from somewhere inside the drawer.
The boy curtly nodded his head in satisfaction, gently setting the crowbar off to the side before re-locking his gaze onto the round handle, finally pulling the cabinet open.
The first thing to fall out was the paper, the teen gingerly picking it up as he flipped through each page, double checking that his work from the previous day was all accounted for. He felt a small smile snake its way up his face.
“Fo...found you.”
The high-schooler placed the paper down by the crowbar as he returned his attention to the cabinet, now trying to pop the door back into place, yet he only succeeded in dropping a few old tools and half-baked inventions onto the floor.
The boy let out a small groan as he began picking each device back up, carefully tucking them into the crook of his arm as he did so. Most of them looked familiar, a couple of old portal gun prototypes and death crystal’s inserted though a few wires scattered here or there, yet he paused after landing on a seemingly out of place invention.
It looked like a normal light bulb, except for the deep red emanating from its core, a tinted red glass shell encasing the filament’s scarlet frame. The teen slowly picked the bulb up, tracing his thumb across the vertical tipped bottom.
The structure looked familiar, Morty having seen the scientist repurpose lights like it for other inventions, the main one he pictured was when Rick had used one to power his memory projector.
Based on the time he spent in Rick’s lab, Morty had at one point figured that most loose pieces were typically saved to be later plugged in or attached to something else, many detached odds and ends acting as a sort of power source or catalyst for a new invention. Many of his more delicate designs were kept in separate rooms or containers, yet this one was almost haphazardly thrown into a desk.
The teen had continued to prod at the bulb for a while, sliding his thumb around the cylinders' steel- toned bottom before curiously glancing back down into the open cupboard.
His eyes immediately caught on an almost claw-like appendage awkwardly sticking out from the drawer’s bottom, (the teen dimly noting how similar looking the object was to that of the gabling claw in arcades), except this one was attached by a flexible stick of metal. Gingerly, Morty began lifting the object out of its hiding place, now just noticing the slight bend to the claws right prong.
Oh… so that's what the drawer was stuck on.
The teen didn’t fully understand why he was so curious about this seemingly random invention, having lost his childlike wonder for the magical quality of Rick’s work for a while now, yet this one only clawed for his attention, stubbornly refusing to lessen its hold on him no matter how long he told himself to ignore it.
It was then that Morty felt another vision flicker across his subconscious, stiffening slightly as he felt the half “memory” wisp its way around his skull.
He was standing in the garage, a screwdriver in his not-yet-vein spotted hands, his finger’s feeling almost calloused as he adjusted the tool in his palm. He didn’t feel quite right, a soft gurgling sound emanating from his chest, yet he only continued to stare down at the floor, a low buzzing building in his ears.
The teen felt himself turn towards something on the workbench, a few beads of sweat trailing his features as he approached it. His hand lifted to adjust a wire poking from an almost tripod like object towering up a few feet just behind the workbench’s outer edge. He felt his face twist into a silent frown as his hands moved to fondly stroke it, before digging his screwdriver into one of the legged invention’s sides.
Morty felt himself jerk up slightly, his breathing coming out in stiff gasps as the vision spots quickly receded from his mind. He mechanically felt his gaze shift back to the simple light bulb.
That was one of Rick’s downloaded memories, at least he thought it was, yet the high-schooler didn’t quite remember if he had seen it previously in his grandfather's “memory montage”. Come to think of it, this memory seemed much tamer than the others the teen had sat through, the old man’s solemn expression being the only thing out of the ordinary.
The teen gradually waited for his adrenaline spiked heart rate to slow a bit before glancing back up towards the desk, the tripod looking prototype from the downloaded memory now turned into a simple box looking object, the bulkier top portion screwed into a singular stick of metal.
The boy blinked up at the small green-painted contraption for a second before forcing his wobbly legs to stand, his hand now tightly gripping the red bulb’s frame.
The box-shaped device stood up from the floor, an almost cylinder looking piece sprouting out the end of it. A smaller hole was also neatly imprinted into the device's lower boxed portion, the deep hole questioningly yawning back up at him.
The boy found his eyes flicking back and forth from the bulb to the lower hole, his still sleep deprived mind slowly clicking two and two together.
“Ohhh…”
The teen was standing directly in front of the elevated box now, tracing his palm across the lower hole’s metal edge.
“So th…. these things connect then.”
The young Smith quickly swiveled his head back to the door, half expecting his grandfather to come barging into the room, before returning his gaze to the blood red bulb.
Something about this didn’t feel right, yet he wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps a part of him was hesitant that his curiosity would jump start another adventure, yet if the device was truly dangerous, wouldn’t his grandfather have it better protected? He had at least put in minimal effort to grandkid proof his devices in the past; his most recent example being a “Don’t touch my stuff message” hologram that activated after his sister had twisted the room’s doorknob.
Yet this one remained oddly still, no warnings or hints to its usage evident across its body. Perhaps even stranger was the lack of blueprints for the claw device, as if the man had built it solely on a whim.
The teen breathed in a silent prayer as his curiosity got the better of him, his hands quickly popping the bulb into the lower hole. The teen sucked in a breath as he waited, half expecting something to change, yet the bulb still remained rather dull, the only hint of its presence being the satisfying click that had sounded after first being inserted.
The young teen continued to trace his eyes across the device, his focus now solely on the second hole created by the metal cylinder, its small body pushing out of the device's end. He felt something else mentally shift into place as his gaze locked onto the steel toned claw, a bit of the reflective metal bouncing his now wide-awake expression back up at him.
The high school student bent down again to pick up the claw in question, gently gripping it from the attached stick's middle, his hands reaching for a nearby screwdriver as he noticed the loose bolts poking from the green box’s edge. The teen wasted no time in inserting the claw’s pole into the cold cylinder, supporting its top-heavy weight with one hand as he tightened a few extra screws with the other.
Before long the boy had reassembled the scientist’s invention, the teen having backed up slightly as both a safety precaution and to smugly admire his work. It was just as he had retraced his eyes over the claw for the umpteenth time did Morty begin to feel a slight heat pulsate from somewhere in the metal rod’s frame.
The high-schooler's smile instantly morphed into one of rapt attention as he watched to see what the mystery invention would do, cocking his head as the red lights imprinted along the metal rod began to light up one after another.
He studied the claw further as the red fire began to lick downward from the prongs’ elevated base, the plugged in light twisted into the bottom hole now just shy of blazing, a paper thin red laser now stretched between the two almost gun-shaped claws.
Morty gaped at the invention, poking through the reserve of Rick’s memories to find anything closely resembling the finished project, yet none revealed themselves. It almost felt like the memory of the completed invention was deliberately removed from the teen’s copy of his grandfather’s “crybaby backstory”.
The boy’s attention was now tuned entirely to the skinny laser stretching between the two hanging claws. He still wasn’t quite sure what its usage was for. Maybe it was made to shave down some particularly stubborn tools, or read the heat temperature of whatever was placed underneath it? Yet, neither of those explanations felt right, Morty having seen his grandfather get by with those issues in other ways.
Maybe… I could just test it with something?
The boy found himself reaching for the crowbar placed along the floor, beginning to inch the stick closer and closer to the airborne laser before unceremoniously shoving it underneath.
The first thing the teen felt was an instant increase in temperature, the heat vibrating from the rod back to his fingers before all but scorching his palm, his instincts screaming at him to drop the stick of metal just as the inserted end quickly morphed into a half choppy metal-splintered ash.
The teen had just retraced his arms from the inferno when he heard the telltale shattering of glass, his eyes wandering down to the invention’s lower hole to find the once pristine light bulb now shattered into pieces.
The boy began to blink wordlessly down at the slivers of glass, his mind trying to methodically understand the process he had just seen.
“W...was that su...supposed to happen? Di...Did I do something wrong?”
His gaze had just begun to trace over the half destroyed crow bar when he heard the smaller garage door frantically slam open.
“MORTY WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?”
The boy just awkwardly stood there for a while, his work lamely hidden behind his back as he forced his eyes to meet his grandfather’s.
“N...No...Nothing Rick. I was just looking for my paper and then I…”
“Oh… ye*burp*yeah you were just looking!”
There was new fire to the man’s voice now, his hands frantically gesturing as he talked, though Morty wasn’t sure if it was due to the now empty flask crushed in the scientist’s hands, or because of the loud sound of glass breaking.
“I wa...was just coming down the hallway wh...when I smelled something burning. At first I thought that it wa...was Jerry going through another stupid midnight cooking faze, until I heard something break inside my lab.”
The scientist had started to approach the teen now, his steps slightly uneven from the surplus of alcohol, his face close enough for the apprentice to see the slight glassy tint to the old man’s eyes. The lab-coated grandfather shook his head slightly as he kept ranting.
“A...an...and we just did this whole thing on trusting each other, but the se..second I turn my ba...back you blow up something in my lab!”
The teen could feel a few drops of condensation begin to sliver down his face but he held firm; chances were that with just a bit more alcohol in his system, Rick may not fully remember what had transpired tonight anyway, and besides, he wasn’t just a scared little kid anymore. He was past the point of being passive to his grandfather's behavior.
“Lo..look Rick, I was looking for my assignment because you took it.” The teen gestured firmly towards his packet, his little hands curled into tight fists. “I was just ta...taking it out when I.. I noticed a new invention and one of your memories came up!”
The old scientist paused at that, his eyes darting towards the now open drawer, an almost unreadable expression flickering across his face, his tone taking on a deadly sort of edge.
“What memory?”
The boy paused at that, just noticing the slight tremor creeping up his grandfather’s skinny frame.
Did you drink more than that flask tonight or something…”
“I said what memory Morty!”
“Uh…” The teen blinked up at that, now just noticing the scientist's almost sudden change in tone, the barely concealed fear just bubbling beneath the surface. “I..it was no...nothing Rick!” The teen had lifted his hands up into a sort of pleading gesture; his palms facing his grandfather’s oddly concerned expression. “I...I just saw a yo...younger you st..start to build a claw-box thing…”
The scientist didn’t even let the teen elaborate, pushing the boy off to the side before swiftly approaching the invention, the inventor immediately beginning the process of unscrewing its bolts, mumbling slightly in the process.
“Stu...stupid memory up-loader. Should have che...checked for viruses. Claw’s not made for inorganic objects, ho...hope it's not that irreplaceable…”
The freshman slowly approached the workbench, noticing the off-putting shake of his grandfather’s hands as he fumbled with his screwdriver.
The boy squinted his eyes slightly after the last sentence, flicking his eyes toward his grandfather’s head through the claw’s laser prong’s as he silently observed, the old man’s stuttering becoming increasingly noticeable.
“D..dumb h..han..hands, st...stupid fu.. fu...fucking piece of j...junk…”
Morty cocked his head slightly at the scene, noticing how the scientist’s unsteady grip seemed to only make the process worse, how Morty himself for once didn’t seem to be the brunt of Rick’s anger. The off feeling that the boy’s gut had alerted him earlier increased tenfold.
“Ri...Rick…?
“Du...dumb pi...piece o...of sh...shit. Wo...won’t ev...even de..detach right…”
The teen tried again, a more concerned feeling now overriding the puzzling one. He tried calling out, a bit firmer this time, but it was like his grandfather couldn’t even hear him anymore.
“Rick…?
“S...sss..shut up a...and un..unscrew you du...dumb…”
The teen backed up slowly, now just noticing how the claw’s outline was a perfect fit for his grandfather’s head, how the laser’s would have pointed perfectly at his cranium. The teen swallowed dryly, his stomach dropping as his brain slowly attempted to put two and two together.
“Rick?”
“A...a...and n...now I...I...I ne...need to go g...get more b..bulbs from th...the Textron sy..system…”
Morty had just started to reach his hand out now, a deer in the headlights expression crossing his features, his eyes flicking back and forth from the claw to the old man’s sweat soaked cranium, the boy’s mouth going dry at the realization.
“Rick.”
“Ju...just wh..what I...fuck...fucking needed at… thr...three in the d...dam m...morning Morty…L...Loving re..re...reminder...”
It made sense. It all made so much sense now, the alcoholism, the detachment, the constant distractions that were the “fun little adventures”, the frantic way that his old friend was just now behaving.
Morty had known that Rick was hurting, some part of him knew that way before returning to the Citadel, the memories of the unfruitful search for the killing Rick only confirming the “why ''. Yet, he hadn’t realized how bad it was up until now, the true meaning of the invention now sitting like a firm pit in the middle of his stomach.
“Rick!”
The scientist was in a full body shake now, his fingernails scratching ruthlessly at the green paint, his breathing struggling to remain even. Morty blinked up again, a new sense of resolve now sliding its way onto his features, he pushed the claw a bit to the side.
“Rick!”
The man’s face looked ghostly pale now, his once purely drunk features now flushed in complete terror, his brow scrunched up in an internal scream.
“CoComeOonyoyouststupidpioeceofshshitgggetbackheherebefbeforeI…”
“RICK!!!”
And then the old man stopped, his eyes blinking up questionably at his grandson, a new hint of recognition now fully present on his still sweat-coated face. Yet, just as Rick’s vulnerability had taken shape, it was soon gone, crudely replaced by the now normal mask of anger.
“Wh...what is it now Morty?”
The boy blinked to himself, the quick switch of Rick’s emotional state feeling akin to a small whiplash, yet he still pressed on. He had to ask his question, he wasn't sure if he would get another opportunity to say it again.
“Did...did you ma...make the claw thing... for yourself?”
The old man paused at that, his eyes wordlessly glancing back to the now shattered light bulb before fixating onto the teen’s face, his grandfather’s voice now taking on a rather condescending tone.
“Oh… I don’t know Mor*burb*ty. Wh...why do I ma...make anything at all? What kind of stupid question is that?”
Morty’s mouth only pressed into a thin line at Rick’s response, side eying the claw in the process. Once Morty may have gotten offended by his grandfather’s criticism, but nearly a year of anything will desensitize a person. He swallowed thickly, not even thinking about his grandfather’s next reaction as he finally popped the loaded question.
“Did...did you make it to kill yourself?”
If there was any color left in Rick’s face it was surely gone now, his condescending expression morphing from surprise to shock to poorly concealed sadness.
“What…? H..how did you…”
His grandpa had trailed off before he could finish his sentence, but his silence was answer enough. Morty knew Rick well enough now to not interpret it as anything other than what it was.
The scientist was blinking wordlessly ahead of him now. His eyes were on Morty yet it almost looked like he was seeing something else entirely. He frowned back at the teen again, wanting to expand on what he just said before Morty beat him to it.
“Tha...that's the only reason you co...could have built it right? How long ago did you design it?”
Rick continued to stare at him, his eyelids twitching the longer the duo was locked into their mental shootout, the old scientist face twisting into a low growl as he finally found his wording.
“Wh...what I build and why is no...none of anyone’s *burp*ing business!”
Ok, so he’s being defensive about it…
“It is my business! We...were partner’s Rick, y...you shouldn’t hide things like this!”
“Oh, so your Dr. Wong now huh?” The old man was pacing now, his screwdriver held hand flapping against his side with each word, his tone all but snarling towards his grandson. “Y...you think tha...that you can take the moral high ground huh, even though you went thro...through my shit without asking.”
Morty felt a retort beginning to bubble from his throat yet he pushed it back down. Arguing further would only continue to circle around the issue, each side screaming at the other until one of the two stormed off. The freshman sucked in a breath, calming himself slowly before uttering a reply.
“Lo...look Rick, I shouldn’t have looked through your desk without asking. It wa… wasn’t cool.” The teen had started to lower his back against the counter, his upper back lightly resting against the cool metal. “B...but keeping this to yourself wasn’t cool either.” The high-schooler half gestured to the killing box again, his fingers wagging slightly before tucking his hand back to his side.
The grandfather’s drunken scowl gently loosened as his eyes flicked from the box back to his work partner, an eerily familiar expression of defeat just starting to color his features.
“Ok.” The boy paused at this, his head cocking slightly as his grandfather shakily lowered himself into his chair, the old man’s eyes seething slightly as he rubbed his temples. “I’ll do y...your shitty “interrogation”, b...but only because you won’t stop whi*burp*ning about it and will probably try to tell Beth if I don’t.”
Morty nodded curtly at that, dragging a nearby lab stool behind him until he had managed to slide it over to his grandfather, the teen lightly hopping onto the seat's middle to hear what the scientist had to say.
A few awkward seconds passed before his grandfather began, his fingers sluggishly air quoting around his next sentence.
“So, what part of “Rick’s cry*burp*baby backstory” di...did you want to hear about this week?”
Morty paused at that, thinking thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering. Rick clearly wasn’t taking this seriously, if his half-drunken-false smile was anything to go by, but the teen opened his mouth in preparation anyway. He distantly wondered when he had become the one to steer the other back on track in this odd team.
“How...how long ago did you bu...build it?”
The old man cocked his brow for a second, loosely sliding his finger around the lip of his flask, his brain instantly working even through the slight haze.
“Sometime after Diane di..died and right before I had finished my last Citadel blueprints.”
“Oh…”
The boy watched as his grandfather continued to poke at his flask, occasionally lifting it to his mouth in a last ditch attempt to find remaining droplets stuck to the bottom, the motion almost feeling automatic at this point.
“S...so you g...got any other personal questions or…?”
“Yeah.” It was Morty now, his face taking on a rather stern expression, the freshman’s gaze staring concerningly into the elders half turned face. “Ha...have you ever thought about, you know… using it, like recently?”
“I…” The lab-cloaked scientist’s eyes seem to darken for a second, his brow squeezing tighter into his head. Morty briefly wondered how different this conversation would be if the man were any more sober, for once being thankful for the alcohol’s more open book effect. “Remember Unity?”
The question caught the teen off guard for a second, his mind instantly reeling back to the hive mind planet when the duo had started adventuring. It felt so long ago now.
“Y...yeah?”
Rick paused, seeming to mull over his next words for a bit, tipping what was left of the flask back into his mouth, his eyes forming a new layer of moisture.
“I used it after we broke it off. I...I went into the garage, set it up.”
The teen found his eyes widening again, his mind tracing back to the rather somber toned conversation in the living room between his Mom and Rick, the later saying that he just wanted to head up to the garage. A sinking feeling of guilt began to claw its way up Morty’s chest.
“Rick…”
“I got so...so far as to stick my head un...underneath it too, activated the stu..stupid laser and everything. Must have ju...just passed out before it could finish the job.”
He smiled darkly, the grey strands in the man’s hair seemingly more prominent now. The teen opened his mouth again, his rather horrified expression contrasting greatly with his grandfather’s barley convincing smirk.
“Y...you...Rick why didn't you say anything?”
The teen knew the answer even before the question flew from his mouth, yet it still felt warranted, the apprentice just now noticing the steadily increasing nature of his heartbeat.
“D...didn’t think it was necessary.” The old man had given up on sucking his flask dry, now using it as a sort of stress reliever, his fingers tapping up and down the chrome looking edge. “I just didn’t want to, kn...knew you would freak out if I did.”
“Rick…” The teen continued to stare up at his grandfather, the latter now staring deeply into the hole of his flask, his finger’s continuing to trace the chrome frame. “I...it’s not good to hide this stuff, It...it’s usually worse if you keep it to yourself.”
“Th...that another thing that Dr. Wong told you?” It was Rick again, his false bravado struggling to remain in place, the teen scooting slightly in his seat to better face Rick’s next words. “C...cause all th...things considered, it didn’t work. It could have been much *burp* worse.”
The two just sat there for a while, the younger unsure how to respond to the older, the only sound between the duo being the occasional tin of a flask or uneven breath. The boy looked up at the older scientist again, distantly watching the way his grandfather cradled his jug against his palms, how hard he was fighting to keep new moisture from collecting in his eyes.
Morty let out a watery sigh, lightly tapping his foot against the step stool's lower legs as he continued, his voice sounding much smaller now.
“How do you think... I would have felt.”
“Huh?”
The man looked up at that, his brow arching slightly at the younger, the scientist clearly not expecting the rather vague new question. The boy sighed, steadily increasing his foot tapping speed as he forced out his next sentence.
“How do you think I wo...would have felt if I walked in and ju...just saw you dead on the co...counter, what I would have to te...tell Mom and Summer?”
The teen felt his breath catch slightly, how the beginnings of moisture had at one point started to collect onto his face. He quickly wiped at his eyes, firmly pushing the droplets back down. This wasn’t about him right now.
“Oh co...come on Mor*burp*ty. Don’t pull that bull-crap.” The man had turned his face back towards the teen now. His features were scrunched up in mock anger yet his tone lacked the familiar bite it usually had, his hands taking on a slight shake as he forced down his own set of tears. “Th...These adventures we...were screwing with your life back then, y..you barely tolerated me as it was.”
The scientist’s eyes scanned the counter for something before darting back down, his usually smug smile now just held together in a frustratingly thin line. “I ha...hadn’t been a part of th...the family for too long at that point, you and Beth would have gotten o...over it eventually.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Of course we wouldn’t have!” The teen stood up now, his lab stool pushed firmly to the side as he advanced on Rick, the boy’s face a conflicting mess between desperate pleading and overflowing aggression. “You think that I...I would have just gotten over it? Y...you told Mom that you were...weren't going to run away again and then you up and p...pull this?”
He shouldn’t be yelling at his grandfather right now, he really really shouldn’t, but in that second it felt so right to just spill it out, tell it like it is. He distantly hoped that he wouldn’t regret screaming like this later.
“A..an...and you’d expect us to just forget about it? L..like my life wasn’t changed by you dr...dropping in?”
The old man paused at this, a flicker of confusion passing over his features as he looked up at his grandson, his mouth held slightly slack as he attempted to get his own word in.
“Morty…”
“And no... th...this doesn’t change the fa...fact that you can be kind of a jerk. Y...your one of the biggest assholes in the galaxy.” The boy was practically seething now, Rick could have sworn that if this was a cartoon, smoke would have been pooling out from the teen’s ears, the high-schooler’s eyes dangerously narrowed. “But after all th...this time I still find myself wan...wanting to go on adventures with you. Y...you think that my life would have been better, heck it was probably going to continue going poorly regardless.”
The old man didn’t think that he could speak up even if he wanted to, his grandson looking as red as a forever pent up firecracker. Still he tried again, feeling the need to calm the boy before he woke the whole damn house up.
“Ok Mo...Morty, just keep it down…”
“You are my only friend do you know that?” The teen’s voice knocked down an octave, his once booming speech now just shy of quivering, his fists held firmly at his sides. He didn’t try to hide his tears now. “I...I di...didn’t have anyone else, no one wanted anything to rea...really do with me.”
Rick looked at his grandson, really looked at him. Even through the tears there was an unwavering sense of resolve, as if the teen had accepted this part of him and moved on a while ago. One thing was clear; the boy standing in front of him wasn’t the same one that he had dragged on that adventure so long ago. He felt something in his chest loosen.
“Morty.”
“So yah, ev... even though what we have can be toxic, th...that there is really no excuse for it, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be worked on.”
The teen had flicked his gaze to the floor now, working through his final thoughts before turning his head back towards his grandfather, his eyes locking fully onto the seniors.
“And may...maybe it's because Morty’s are bred for forgiveness or so...something. Maybe some part of me still craves attention, I don’t know.”
Rick’s gaze was fully attentive on his grandson’s now, his digits twitching slightly in rapt attention as Morty steadily spelled out his final thoughts.
“Because at the end of the day, no matter wh…what screwed up planet or adventure I go on, no matter how scary or da… dangerous or stupid it gets... I still care about you.”
The boy’s eyes were completely filled with moisture now, streams of salty tears trailing down his face. He sucked in a single shaky breath before finishing.
“And I don’t think that anything can ever change that.”
-
The duo continued to sit there a while, both parties staring at each other until the youngest returned to his seat, his fingers tapping together lightly as the night only ticked on.
Rick wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been until the teen’s eyelids began to flicker, his small frame releasing a yawn before his body all but unceremoniously flopped against the older’s side.
The seventy-year old scientist flinched at the added pressure before continuing to stare down at the boy. His eyes tracing over his lab partner’s tiny frame, the beginnings of something akin to pride swelling from deep within his chest.
The scientist would never tell him of course, at least not when he was already feeling pretty emotionally drained, but the feeling wedged its way inside him all the same, pushing a traitorous smile out from the scientist's hardened features.
He gave out an annoyed twinged snort before tentatively wrapping his arm around his grandson’s middle, distantly feeling the way the teen’s chest rose and fell with each breath.
His eyes traced over the claw again, its half screwed in pole nodding flimsily off to the side. The old man let out a sigh, his more sober thoughts already putting together his next course of action.
He would take it down, all of it.
Every last screw, each sliver of metal, each bolt of steel. He didn’t think that he could destroy it exactly, not yet, not completely, but at least he wouldn’t be forced to look at it anymore. At least he wouldn't feel a deep-rooted sense of anxiety whenever he glanced in its direction.
Rick looked back towards his grandson now, absentmindedly rubbing his palm across the teen’s head, an awkward smile fully snaking its way across his features.
Those feelings of hopelessness, of detachment, they were still there, still locked beneath the surface, but they felt weaker now, almost as if Morty’s scorching anger had burned them, forcing them to crawl deeper into the cave they had crawled out of.
The scientist continued to pat the teen’s head, noticing how the boy loosely kicked out his leg in sleep. Rick rolled his eyes as he watched his tiny adventurer snuggle against his shoulder, digging deeper into the man’s embrace.
He didn’t know what the next day would bring, what life-threatening event would shake up the next adventure. He had promised himself a long time ago that he would never get attached to another version of his family again, that it would be easier that way. Yet here he was, his dumb human heart still craving the same family closeness that he was sure he had shut out all those years ago.
He sighed to himself, looking over the teen questioningly as the boy’s face relaxed further in sleep, his own features softening slightly in response.
No matter what happened, the kid seemed to always stick by him, whether it was a mess that the teen had gotten himself into or due to a heated argument the duo had had over breakfast. Of course the old man’s behavior wasn’t exactly stellar either, one trip to the crow planet having convinced him of that, but maybe he could work on that while staying close to his family this time.
He felt his brow loosen slightly, gingerly placing his palm across the fourteen year old’s short hair, his voice coming out in a soft whisper.
“Rick and Morty, one hundred years.”