Chapter Text
His lasers burn through the last of his assailants, allowing him to catch his breath. He lowers his gun cautiously, eyeing the pile of bodies he’s created. None of them move.
His head aches but it’s distant. He rubs one of his eyes, a short breath escaping him. It sounds louder in the mostly empty hallway.
Someone speaks up behind him. “You clear?” He nods, running one more check to make sure. “Good. Come on then, Morty. Let’s— let’s blow this place.”
“Good riddance.” He mumbles, but something gives him pause. The air still feels tense, as if he’s missing a blaringly obvious sign of danger. All attempts to find it, however, get him nowhere.
The gun, the room, the bodies, his partner in crime… How… How did he—
“Morty.” Rick says again, louder. He’s loading up their loot from their adventure into the ship, raising his eyebrow at him. “You coming or am I leaving you here?”
Morty shakes his head and slides into the passenger seat, as expected of him. Rick gets them turned around and flies off into the endless expanse of space.
—
“Oh, hey Morty.” His dad, Jerry, is sitting on the couch when he returns. Morty stops dead in the entryway. He didn’t think he’d be there. Or anyone for that matter.
Jerry is there though, arm dangling off the back of the couch. He’s watching Interdimensional cable. Unlike Morty, he’s not thrown off by his presence.
“Fun adventure?” He prompts.
“Sure.” Morty says impassively, despite the strangely unsteady feeling he’s experiencing. Why wouldn’t his dad be there? He loves channel surfing. “I’m going up to my room.”
Jerry nods. Morty ends up standing there for a few moments longer, frozen and unable to take his eyes off his dad, before he can get his feet moving again.
—
Everyone is there for family dinner, including Space Beth. His non-space mom cooked breakfast for dinner— pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage— it’s all delicious. Perfectly cooked.
Morty can’t take more than a few bites. There’s a nausea he can’t explain. A pit in his stomach.
“How was your day, dad?” Beth asks, cutting into her pancakes. She’s in a good mood. Nearly everyone else is.
“Oh, uh, pretty alright.” Rick answers. He hasn’t eaten much either but smiles politely in a way that’s difficult to look at. “Tell me about yours, sweetie. Really, s-spare no detail.”
His mom’s voice becomes background noise. Morty stabs his fork into a sausage, eyebrows furrowing. There’s an itch under his skin. It’s all over— no one place to scratch it and get relief. Like a colony of ants have taken root in his chest and fully intend to eat him alive from the inside.
Someone nudges his arm. Summer gives him a look. “You’re playing with your food again. C’mon, eat.”
Morty stuffs the sausage in his mouth. The itch doesn’t fade. Neither does the nausea.
—
Morty rubs one of his eyes, giving a long and hard look at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
There was a moment just a second ago where he swore it moved on its own volition. It’s perfectly normal now however.
He must be more exhausted than he thought.
—
School is hell. Every second he spends there, he feels as though he is losing it and speeds through every assignment handed to him. It’s all so easy— to the point of being excruciating. Everyone else seems to be on a completely different wavelength than he is. Or maybe, likely, the other way around.
It doesn’t matter. The result is the same: he’s the odd one out.
With Space Beth staying a while, it’s a nearly full house. Morty receives warm greetings when he returns home and Beth asks him how his day was. Morty doesn’t know why his tongue feels like lead when he answers. He doesn’t know why his head hurts when he tries to think about why all of this feels so weird when it’s the same as it ever was.
Morty immediately retreats to his room the second he can slip away, but that’s no better either. He has a phone, computer, and a video game console. Morty tries each but none of them satisfy the itch. The burning need for something that drives him crazy.
There’s a knock on his door. Rick is on the other side, an unreadable look on his face.
“Hey. L-let’s get out of here.” He says, and Morty doesn’t argue.
—
The dust settles, revealing a smoking crater and all of the remaining mobsters dead. Rick emerges from where he took cover, catching his breath first before shooting him a dirty look.
“What— what the fuck was that?” He demands, marching over. Morty narrows his eyes, standing his ground, even as his stomach twists. Even as some buried part of him warns of danger.
“I dealt with them.”
“I said to distract them so I could—”
“Why does it matter who did it? You were going to kill them either way, I just did it faster.”
“You barely gave me any warning!” Rick argues, jabbing a finger in his chest. “You— you could’ve blown me up! Is that what you want, Morty? You want me dead?”
Morty’s blood boils. He sucks in a breath, lets it out, and meets Rick’s gaze again. His anger remains, but under his control. Less like a volcano erupting and more like a gun in his hand.
“If I wanted you dead,” Morty tells him calmly, “You’d be dead.”
Rick’s angry look morphs into a mixed one. A weird one. Morty moves past him, heading for their ship. “This adventure is over. Let’s go home already.”
He makes it to the passenger seat first, pointedly not looking in Rick’s direction when he settles down in the driver’s seat. He ignores Rick’s glances at him, gazing out the window instead.
The ride home is silent.
—
Morty stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Nothing looks out of place but he searches anyway.
It’s wrong. Something is wrong with him. It should be obvious but he can’t place it.
His knuckles turn white against the counter. Eventually, Summer knocks on the door and Morty turns away from his reflection. That itch remains with him even as he marches down the hall, but his sister’s voice makes him stop in his tracks.
“Whoa, what’s up with you?”
“Nothing.” Is his curt reply. “I’m going to my room.”
“You seem tense.” Summer leans against the door frame, frowning at him. “Something with Rick? Or school?”
He doesn’t want to talk. It feels— weird. That someone is asking him about it. Has anyone ever asked before? Does he want anyone to ask?
Summer takes a few steps forward in order to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Hey.” She says, sounding more concerned than before. “Something’s up with you. And I might not be sister of the year but… If anything is like, really bothering you, we can talk. I can listen— won’t tell anyone either.”
She means that. He can see it in her eyes.
Morty shrugs her hand off. “I’m fine.” He tells her, but her face still drops a little.
“Alright. Whatever.”
The bathroom door shuts with a click. The itch under his skin is near unbearable.
—
Morty tries searching the house. Then the school. Nothing is out of place, nothing odd or sinister.
Perfectly ordinary in every way. That’s what bothers him— perfectly ordinary. Manufactured. Intentional.
Nothing in life is perfectly ordinary, and yet he finds everything he expects to find exactly where he expects to find it. No surprises. No trace of anyone or anything acting outside of how they’ve been expected to.
It grates on him.
He only gets caught when he tries searching the garage. Rick kicks him out, shooting him a suspicious look.
“What are you doing? You— you looking for something?”
“Maybe.” Morty answers, the most non-answer he can give. Rick’s eyes harden.
“Stay out of my shit, Morty.” He warns him, then slams and locks the garage door.
Morty turns away but he’s already thinking about all the ways to break in and search when Rick isn’t there. He’ll expect that, of course, but Morty knows how he works. He just needs the right tools to get the job done.
—
A stereotypical bully straight out of a nineties movie tries shaking him down for lunch money. He doesn’t let Morty walk past him.
Ten minutes later, said bully is sobbing in the nurse’s office as said nurse calls an ambulance, and Morty is in the counselor’s office.
“Morty, what happened?” The counselor frowns, adjusting her glasses. “This isn’t like you— did he say something?”
Did he? Morty doesn’t remember. He remembers an obstacle in his way and an itch under his skin. He remembers a feeling of wrongness, not for what he did, but for everything around him. He remembers looking at the would-be bully’s face, how forgettable it was, how ordinary he was.
With enough pressure, anything will snap.
“He was trying to steal from me.” Morty tells her. “He wouldn’t let me pass, so I broke his legs.”
The counselor frowns at his bluntness. “Do you not feel sorry? For what you did?”
Morty knows what the right answer is. He knows, by definition, he didn’t do a good thing. It was violent, a bit senseless, definitely cruel. Good people don’t do that sort of thing. And if they do, they feel bad about it.
Morty doesn’t feel good about it. However, Morty doesn’t think he feels bad about it either. Or if he does, it’s buried somewhere. Under a pile of justifications, or self preservation, or something else entirely.
“I feel as though I should’ve dealt with it in a different way.” Morty answers, which is true. Maybe not for the right reasons, but it’s the best answer he has that she’ll like. He could lie outright, but he likes to settle into shades of gray.
The counselor nods, accepting that answer.
He’s suspended for the month, possibly longer if they feel he should be. All things considered, it could’ve been worse.
Jerry is the one to pick him up. He shoots him a worried look as he buckles his seatbelt. “A fight, Morty? You— you’re getting into fights now? What is this?”
“It won’t happen again.” Morty replies, but his heart isn’t in it.
“I…” Jerry lets out a long sigh. “Is something going on with you? You can tell us. It feels like you’ve been bottling something up and it’s coming out in incidents like this. Am I right about that?”
“Probably.” Morty answers, hoping it’ll end the conversation quicker. There’s a lump in his throat he’s trying to ignore. He doesn’t know why it’s there.
“Well… We’ll help. However we can.” Jerry pauses. “But you’re still grounded, young man. You did break a kid’s legs. How— how did you even do that? Is this Rick’s doing somehow?”
“It’s like you said. I have some issues to work out.”
Morty is barely listening to himself as he answers his dad’s questions. He remains fixated on the window, watching the scene go by as they drive home.
Perfectly ordinary, he thinks.
Fake. All of it.
—
His head hurts often. Morty hoards pain medication in his room, to the point where Rick complains that he can’t find any.
He must either get or make more, because he stops complaining eventually.
—
Rick doesn’t leave the garage much, only during family dinners. They haven’t gone on any adventures since the last one.
Morty searches the house again. Then a third time for good measure.
“You getting cabin fever?” Space Beth asks when she finds him in his parents’ room, checking the floorboards for loose panels, for wires where there shouldn’t be wires, and digging through their closet for anything that shouldn’t be there.
“Probably.” Morty huffs, putting everything back in the closet where he found it. Space Beth watches, neither helping nor ratting him out for going through his parents’ stuff.
“I noticed Rick hasn’t been taking you out so much.” She continues. “Tried talking to him but he’s being an ass, as usual. I could take you out if you want though.”
“Aren’t I grounded?” Morty closes the closet firmly. Space Beth hums.
“I might be your real mom, so technically, my authority is as valid as theirs. And I may or may not have killed one of my childhood friends so,” she shrugs, “Being fucked up and violent kinda runs in the family. You wanna go on a Space Beth And Maybe Son Adventure or not?”
He pauses, contemplating. “…Anywhere?”
“Within reason.”
“Can you take me as far as you physically can?”
“What, just in the empty vat of space?”
He nods, very seriously. She shrugs again and says, “Sure, kid. Let’s get off this rock.”
—
It keeps going.
Space always does, this isn’t a new fact for Morty. But it keeps going and going and going and going— other galaxies and planets and space stations and asteroid belts— it keeps going.
And it’s all perfectly ordinary, by space’s standards.
“Is this helping at all?” Space Beth asks, keeping her eyes in front of them as she pilots the ship. “Because I don’t really do emotional stuff. You’re better off with your at home mom for that.” She pauses. “Fuck, I’m becoming my dad.”
“Happens to the best of us.” Morty replies offhandedly. Strangely enough, the itch isn’t as bad around her. “This is fine. Keep going.”
“You got it, little man.” She says, and keeps on flying.
—
“Is there a point to this?”
“Yes. Keep going.”
“I’ll need to stop for more fuel.”
“That’s fine.”
They keep flying.
—
“Shit, your at home mom is calling.” Space Beth gives him a look. “If you wanna run away and be a space rebel with your space mom, I get it. But if that’s not what you want, we do have to go home eventually. Rick can probably get you back in school in no time if you ask.”
Morty gazes out into the empty void of space. It gives him nothing, for miles and miles.
Perfectly. Ordinary.
“Alright.” Morty says evenly. “Let’s go back.”
She turns them around and picks up the pace. Morty tunes her out when she answers the call, giving some excuse about what they were doing to cover their asses.
Perfectly fucking ordinary.
—
The lights are off in his room, but when Morty swings the door open, he knows he’s not alone.
“I know you’re there.” He says to a seemingly empty room. “Uncloak already and stop being a coward.”
A pause. Then a flicker of light as Rick drops his invisibility, standing in the middle of his room. His face is tight— hostile, Morty reads, and adjusts.
“How did you know I was there?” Rick accuses. Morty shrugs.
“I know you. Did you find what you were looking for?”
“You know damn well I didn’t.”
“Too bad.” Morty drawls. “Get out of my room.”
Rick does, shooting him one last suspicious look before he’s gone.
Morty hums to himself once he’s alone. Is this Rick’s version of perfectly ordinary, or is he an outlier? It warrants further investigation. If he’s the key, Morty will need him to get out of— whatever this is.
Something is wrong here. The itch is constant and his headaches are getting worse.
Morty pops some painkillers and starts running over possible scenarios based on the information he has.
He knows it’s fake. Morty would go so far as to say pretty much everyone else is a part of that fabrication, considering all of them are acting a little too much like he expects them to. There’s something wrong with him too however— like he’s out of place. Trying to jam a puzzle piece into a slot that doesn’t fit.
Morty might have memories of being a part of their family but it doesn’t mean they’re true. Maybe that’s why he feels so wrong all the time. None of this is his.
He needs a way out. Morty has no proof of it but every second he spends here feels like another second he spends suffocating under its presence. His headaches only ever happened when Morty began to question things more.
Someone or something doesn’t want him leaving, but Morty refuses to be eaten alive.
—
For a split second, his reflection is wrong. It moves, lurching towards him with a look of terror on its face, but when he reels back, it’s gone. Back to normal.
Morty’s jaw clenches. Even ‘Normal’ looks wrong. He wants to claw at his own face but doesn’t see how that would fix it.
Worst comes to worst, it’s a last resort.
—
“Space mom.” He greets, finding her on the roof where he knew she’d be. She doesn’t bother hiding her wine bottle, just nods in acknowledgment. “I need a favor.”
“If you want to do that whole ‘Keep flying and don’t stop’ thing again, it might be a minute. Your other mom wasn’t happy with me last time.”
“Not that. I need some tech.”
Space Beth raises an eyebrow but nods. “I’m listening.”
—
The only time Rick leaves his garage is for family dinner. So Morty has a double take his place and sneaks in while Rick is preoccupied.
The garage is packed full of failed experiments and coded scrawlings on paper. With some time, Morty would be able to decode them, but it would require time. He eyes them before moving on, poking around.
Rick hasn’t spent much time outside his garage and it shows. The writings of a mad man have been scribbled on the white board, as have diagrams of the whole family beside Rick himself. There’s notes on all of them, more code that Morty needs more time to work out, but the notes near the diagram representing him are underlined in bold red. His body has an X through it.
Morty narrows his eyes. He has a few guesses as to what it means and currently, none of them are good.
Yelling from the other room has him whipping around. The garage door is kicked down, banging against the wall as Rick storms in, a thunderous look on his face.
He tosses a damaged android on the ground, face torn off so it’s obviously no longer Morty. Morty spares a look at his double, then back up at Rick.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rick seethes. There’s a wild anger in his eyes. “I— I said not to fucking come in here!”
“You invaded my space, so I invaded yours.” Morty folds his arms behind his back to hide his clenching fists. “Since when do you write in code?”
“Since snot-nosed little bitches who invade my privacy and act like a fucking psycho like you made it obvious you couldn’t be trusted!” Rick jabs a thumb behind him. “Out. Don’t— don’t make me ask twice.”
Morty strolls out of the room, not looking back. Rick pointedly slams the door.
If anything is the outlier, it’s him. Everyone else is acting too normal to be anything else.
“Morty— are you okay? What were you doing in the garage?” Beth asks, glancing at the garage door. She bends down to hug him. He accepts it but doesn’t hug back.
“I’m okay.” He replies evenly. “Don’t worry about me.”
You’re kind, he thinks, but you’re not my real mom. Of all the things I know, I’m certain of this.
It’s a shame to leave all this behind, but Morty can’t stay. Somehow, he knows this innately.
—
Morty brings all his tools into the bathroom and locks the door. He turns on the shower to hide the noise as he fiddles with the laser gun in hand. It’s well made but he knows it can be improved. One look at the inside of it tells him this.
So he gets to work. Making it stronger, quicker, shorter recharging time, an option for stronger shots— everything he’ll need.
Out of the corner of his eye, his reflection moves. Morty lifts his safety goggles and looks up.
His reflection looks somewhere between scared and determined. Its hands are pressed up against the mirror like it’s glass, even if Morty knows it’s not.
“You— what are you doing?” The Reflection Morty asks, sounding out of breath. Morty raises an eyebrow at him.
“You talk.”
His eyes go wide. “Fuck— fucking finally— you can hear me? Do you— do you know how long I’ve been trying to get in contact with you? I— I mean it hasn’t been that long on my side but you— time goes so much faster for you!”
Morty examines him. He looks almost exactly like him, aside from sweat glistening on his forehead and what appears to be a gun at his hip. A bulkier one from the one he’s got on the bathroom counter.
“You’re not a part of the fabrication.” He notes. The Reflection Morty nods vigorously.
“Okay— okay, good! You know it’s not real. I’m— I’m trying to get you out but I think you need to do it from your side too? Like— like a hydra, you know? You gotta cut off all the heads and— and burn them or something?”
“Why are you referencing a myth you clearly don’t know much about?”
“Oh my god, stop being an asshole and listen to me!” The Reflection Morty shouts. “You gotta kill the thing! The— fuck, I don’t know what it is but you need to go to the Illith System and find the space station there. It’ll be big and— and kinda like one of those abstract paintings? Find the thing there! Kill it from your side and I’ll kill it from mine.”
“Is there a time limit to this?” Morty hums.
“Kinda? It just gets harder and harder trying to kill it from my end when it’s still alive on yours so I’m gonna wait until it looks weaker from you killing it to finish the job. All— all of that sound cool with you?”
“Sure.” Morty tells him. “I just need to finish my business here.”
“Your— your business?” The Reflection Morty knits his eyebrows together. Then, his eyes trail to the gun. “Wait— hold on, what were you doing before? You— you didn’t know about the creature so what are you doing with that— that gun?”
Morty picks his gun up, testing the way it feels in his hands. Lighter than what he’s used to but it’ll get the job done. “Killing Rick.”
The Reflection Morty’s eyes bug out of his head. “You— what? Don’t fucking do that! Why— why the fuck would you do that?”
“Because he’s going to kill me first.” Morty answers calmly. “I’m almost certain of it.”
“He’s— he’s gonna— fuck! Don’t— don’t do anything! Don’t kill anyone!” The Reflection Morty pulls on his own hair, anxiety painted all over his face. “I’m— I’m gonna talk to him so don’t do anything!”
“Sure.” Morty turns the gun over in his hand. It can be improved further.
“I’m serious!” The Reflection Morty tells him. “Don’t!”
“I’ll only act in self defense.” He tells him. He still looks nervous but he nods and when Morty looks over again, his reflection is his own.
His reflection is still wrong in a way he can’t place. In a way that something won’t let him place.
If the reflection is speaking the truth, Morty now knows his way out. A creature that needs to be killed from ‘Both sides’. And even if he’s become driven so mad that he’s hallucinating solutions, he’d rather be sure that it’s not a way out rather than assume it isn’t one.
He’ll follow the instructions, but only after he knows he won’t be followed by someone who wants him dead.
Morty adjusts his safety goggles again and returns to improving his weapon.
—
The rest of the family is asleep, faint snoring coming from his parents’ room. Every step he takes is silent, careful about where he’s stepping as he clutches the gun to his hand.
He doesn’t have as much tech on his side as he would like but Morty will make do. The bubble shield watch and improved gun is better than nothing.
Morty slips down the stairs, an eye on his surroundings. The tension is thick enough to be shot and when Morty eyes the garage, it’s wide open. A clear invitation and trap if he’s ever seen one.
Rick expects him not to go in. He won’t, because Rick also probably expects him to try and fake him out by going in, but Rick won’t be in there. He’ll be around, watching and waiting for Morty to make his move.
Morty considers the moves Rick would take, then activates his bubble shield to cover his front while he twists around and shoots behind him.
His repurposed robotic copy drops to the ground, shot straight through the head. Another shot rings out, absorbed by his bubble shield, and Morty turns his eyes towards the source.
Rick’s gun is trained on him, no visible shield up but Morty has no doubt he has one. Just in case however, he fires and watches a blue flicker of light block his shot. Rick’s eyes narrow further at the attempt.
“I fucking knew it.” He hisses. “Homicidal little asshole. You— you’re not my Morty at all, are you?”
He’s probably not, now that Morty thinks about it. Placed in a world he didn’t belong in, fitting in the slot of some other Morty and replacing him in the process— no wonder none of this ever felt right, even for a second. This is a fabrication of someone’s world and life, just not his.
Maybe this Rick is reacting perfectly ordinary to how he would if his grandson was replaced by another. But he knows that means he’s reacting irrationally and violently, so this was inevitable either way.
Ricks can be so predictable.
“No.” Morty replies. “I don’t think I am.”
Rick’s gun hums to life. “Thought so.”
—
Either the family is (rightfully) staying out of the way of the fight or something is preventing them from doing so, because when Morty gets smashed through the table, it definitely makes enough noise to wake them up.
The how of it doesn’t matter so much. Morty didn’t want them to get tangled up in it anyway.
When Rick gets close enough, Morty swiftly reels back and launches his feet straight into Rick’s stomach with enough force to knock him back against the wall. Morty rolls his shoulders, on his feet once again, and blocks the punch coming for him in order to twist around and try to sweep his legs out from under him.
Rick goes down but pulls a laser dagger out from his shoes. Morty puts his damaged shield up to absorb the initial hit, then drops it in favor of moving away, knowing his shield has a limited number of hits it can absorb left in it.
He retreats to the kitchen and swiftly locates the various different sized kitchen knives. Morty starts throwing them at Rick to keep him back and give him some time to search for where the hell his gun went in the earlier scuffle.
As they move throughout the downstairs rooms, Morty finally finds it by the couch and dives for it.
He feels the sting of the burning blade sink into his calf but swiftly shoots Rick’s shoulder in return. He nearly puts his second shot in his head, only blocked by Rick’s own damaged shield.
Another charged shot will put it completely out of commission however. With his gun in hand, it’s only a matter of time before Morty lands it.
—
The force of the explosion sends both of them out the window, tumbling onto the lawn.
The moment he’s recovered, Morty grabs one of the shards of glass and plunges it as far into Rick’s chest as he possibly can. Not as close to the heart as he would like but enough that he hears Rick cry out in pain.
Blood trickles down Morty’s head. His back is killing him and his hands are cut up and bloody but he’s not dying here— he refuses to die at the hands of a Rick.
He takes another shard and drives it towards him. Rick catches his hands, arms shaking with effort as he attempts to stop Morty from stabbing him again. Morty lays on the pressure, eyes blazing.
“STOP!” A voice rings out, startling both of them. “Fucking stop— what the fuck are you two doing!?”
Within the glass shards littering the ground around them, his reflection looks like it’s stuck between wanting to tear his own hair out or tearing both of their hair out. Both of them pause, catching their breath, and Morty squints at his reflection.
“He was going to kill me.” Is the first thing out of Morty’s mouth. “I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”
“You— you were going to kill me!” Rick spits back. “You’ve wanted me dead from the beginning!”
“If I wanted you dead, I would’ve tried long before now.” Morty shoots him an unimpressed look.
“Both of you, shut up!” The Reflection Morty yells. “Do— do I have to do everything around here? Jesus fucking Christ— I told both of you not to kill each other! Very explicitly! Rick, I-I told you he wasn’t going to do anything unless you did!”
“And I’m supposed to trust my reflection?” Rick scoffs. “I don’t trust myself, why the— the hell would I trust you?”
“I’m not actually your reflection! I— it’s the only way I can actually communicate here!” The Reflection Morty drags a hand down his face. “Just— stop fighting or so help me, I’m leaving you both here to— to die!”
Morty’s gaze flickers to Rick. Both of them watch each other carefully but when Morty slowly gets off of him, Rick doesn’t make any sudden moves to attack. It takes great effort to make himself let the shard go but he does. His hands are definitely fucked up but he’ll live. He always does.
“Good— great. Basic— basic instructions followed, thank fucking god.” The Reflection Morty deadpans. “Okay, uh, if you haven’t figured it out by now, you two are both real and the only real ones there. Besides me but, this is more like a weird video call than me actually being there so— I don’t know if I really count?”
“Get to the point, Reflection Me.” Rick sits up, glaring at the shards. Morty notes that Rick’s reflection is talking and gesturing in the exact same way that his is. It has the same differences to Rick too— looking more out of breath and with a bulky gun at his hip.
“The thing I told you before? Go do that. Now. S-seriously, you both should’ve listened to me before but— but no, you had to try and kill each other instead!” He rolls his eyes, face tight. “But guess— guess what! If you die in there, you’ll die out here, so just— work together on this one. I’m fighting on my own out here and keeping y-you two alive is a full time fucking job apparently! This isn’t easy, you know.”
“Stop whining, we get it.” Rick scoffs. “We’ll go kill the thing so you can kill your thing, blah blah blah— you happy?”
“No. But that doesn’t fucking matter right now, does it?” He shakes his head. “You owe me for this. Both of you.”
In the blink of an eye, the person in the reflection is gone again, leaving the two of them alone. His body is littered with bruises, cuts, and burns, but some part of Morty is tuning out the pain automatically. Aware of it, but making it nothing but background noise.
His head swims but Morty shakes it off. Rick is staring at him, calculating. Morty resists the part of him that wants to raise his hackles over it and gives a blank stare back.
“Garage.” Rick says.
“I’m not a dog, talk to me like a person.”
“Fucking— there’s medical supplies in the garage.” Rick spits out, irritated. “I’m— I’m not talking down to you, I’m simplifying.”
“Is there a difference with you?”
Rick grits his teeth and stomps towards the garage. Morty follows a few moments later, grimacing at the increasing volume his pain jumps to when he stands. Rick is digging through his cabinets, pulling out various serums and pills but eventually coming across a particular vial of liquid that he grunts in approval of.
To Morty’s surprise, he immediately marches over to him. “H-hold out your hands.”
Morty eyes the vial. He’s 80% sure it’s meant to speed up the way injuries heal, but there’s another serum that was made to look the exact same but do the opposite. To rip apart whatever part of the body that had the misfortune of coming into contact with it.
“Morty.” Rick’s eyes narrow. “Hands. I’m fucking trying to help— stop being paranoid for five seconds.”
“Awfully hypocritical for you to say.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the— the king of hypocrites. Just let me fix your fucked up hands already.”
Rolling his eyes, Morty presents his hands. The serum might burn like it’s tearing him apart but the results can’t be ignored. His hands are now completely unscarred, as if nothing happened to them in the first place.
Morty hums, flexing them. Rick is looking at him strangely again when he looks up. Morty narrows his eyes. “I’m not thanking you.”
“I know.” Rick swirls the remaining liquid in the vial, still frowning. “You didn’t— didn’t make a fuckin’ peep. This shit hurts.”
“So does getting stabbed.” Morty gestures to his calf. It still burns and judging by the look on his face, Rick suspects as much.
“Jesus, kid. Sit the fuck down already.”
Morty steals Rick’s chair, turning to the rest of the medical concoctions on his desk. “I’ll handle the rest of my injuries and you tend to yours. Sound fair?”
Rick doesn’t reply but he doesn’t protest either, so Morty gets to work. This, at least, feels familiar to him.
—
Rick goes back inside the house to grab a few of the weapons they dropped. Morty eyes the stairs and entertains the idea of saying goodbye to a family that isn’t his and doesn’t really exist.
He determines that doing so has an 11% chance of him not wanting to leave at all after, possibly increasing or decreasing depending on exactly how that goodbye goes. It’s not a high risk, but it’s not a risk Morty wants to take at all.
“Last chance to wrap up any loo-loose ends here.” Rick says as he packs everything in the ship haphazardly. The sound of bottles clanking around makes his skin crawl in a way he ignores.
“Let’s just go already.” Morty replies, keeping his eyes straight ahead of him.
—
The vast expanse of space allows little entertainment as they track down their destination. Morty was content with the silence, but Rick, as it turns out, is not.
“Are you actually a Morty or did this fucked up sim-simulation just make you one?” Rick squints. Morty lets out a long suffering sigh.
“It doesn’t feel like a perfect identity. My image is,” he eyes his reflection in the windshield, “Lacking. I think I am but whatever put us here is preventing me from remembering many details so at this point, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Well if you are a Morty, you’re a— a weird fucking Morty.” He takes a swig from his flask. “I knew something was up with you from the get go. Thought you were some— some parasite in this reality made to kill me over time. Maybe a nightmare about my Morty growing up to kill me.” Rick shrugs. “It was possible.”
“Do all Ricks fear their Mortys?” His eyes slide over to him, watching his face.
“The smart ones do. Because at some point, you realize you’re raising a— a kid with parts of you in them. And— and you see the similarities and you know that you’re either raising a good thing, or something that’s gonna come back to haunt you.” After a pause, Rick says, “Takin’ a shot in the dark here but something tells me that if you’re a Morty, you haunted your Rick straight to his grave.”
“I hope so.”
Rick takes another swig. Morty can feel his guilt from here. “If it’s any consolation—”
“I don’t need your consolation.” Morty snaps. “I’m not your Morty, I’ve never been your Morty, and I’m not your responsibility. Keep fucking driving.”
“Jeez. Touchy much?”
“Every second I spend in this fabrication is hell. Everything is fake except for one thing and that one thing is a Rick. Couldn’t be a Summer or a Jerry or even every single member of the Galactic Federation. It had to be a Rick.”
“I get it, you— you have a vendetta. You want nothing to do with me.”
“I’m sick of you. All of you. You and your endless versions of yourself, playing with lives like you’re a god, but you’re not. You’re a toddler with unimaginable tech and that makes you infinitely more dangerous to everyone around you.”
Rick shoots him another weird look. “What the hell did your Rick d-do to you to have you spitting shit like that?”
Morty opens his mouth to kindly remind him that he has no idea and all of this is spilling out on pure autopilot but he stops. Stares at his reflection again. At how… Wrong it looks.
“…Morty?”
His hand reaches up and digs into his right eye. Rick shouts, the whole ship swerving as Morty tugs hard enough to rip it out.
Wires come with it. The eye is solid and only slightly slimy in his hand, nothing like a real one would be. It hits him at last, what bothered him so much before. He is used to only seeing one of his eyes.
Rick stares at the cybernetic eye sitting in his hand. “Fucking hell— did you have to yank it out like that?”
“I forgot about it.” Morty tells him. Some part of him is soothed, a piece clicking into place. “It was bugging me.”
“I thought I was about to witness some— some psychotic break.” He huffs. “W-warn a guy next time.”
Morty turns the eye over in his hand to inspect it. “He took it.”
“Hm?”
“My Rick.” Morty says slowly. “He wanted to upgrade me to be more useful to him so he took my eye. Carved it out of my head.”
Discomfort forms on Rick’s face. Morty doesn’t waver for a second— him saying it out loud is for his own benefit, not him. His presence doesn’t matter in the slightest.
“I don’t know you. Or at least, I don’t remember you. But I know what Ricks are capable of so don’t tell me I’m wrong for having a vendetta.”
“I— I wasn’t.” Rick says. “I get it, believe me. I have one too.”
Morty doesn’t reply as he slots the cybernetic eye back into place. Rick doesn’t speak up again until they get there.
—
Morty doesn’t blame the person in the reflection for not knowing what to call the thing they find. It’s a mass of tendrils and teeth and goop— he’s never seen anything like it.
It seems to know exactly why they’re there, and it puts up one hell of a fight.
Morty finds himself getting slammed back into the wall, having to shoot the tendril wrapped around his leg to escape having it happen again. His head reels but he keeps his hands steady as he shoots.
The creature’s vital points are somewhere under the mass of tendrils and goop. Morty just needs to find it.
He’s forced to stay on the move, ducking and weaving around all attempts to pin him down. The creature roars— it’s more of a gurgle, really, but it’s loud enough to fill the room and hurt his ears.
One wrong move costs him— a tendril wraps around his neck and yanks him up, squeezing him by the throat. Morty kicks, fighting for oxygen as he raises his gun to fire at the tendril but hesitates.
He can see— something. At the height he’s been raised to, he can make out something glowing faintly under the mass. If he aims correctly, maybe he can hit it.
His arm raises shakily as the tendril squeezes harder. Abruptly, something hits it and it drops him, allowing him to gasp for air.
Someone grabs the back of his shirt and yanks. Morty immediately takes a swing at them but they catch it and pull him behind cover.
“Chill, I’m on your side.” Rick shoots him a look. Morty clenches his fists but forces himself to breathe, catching his breath again.
“Something was glowing.” Morty chokes out. “Under the mass.”
“The heart. Or the brain.” Rick’s eyes narrow. “Either way, that’s our win condition. Something vital enough to kill it.”
“If you throw me in—” he begins, but is immediately shut down.
“Fuck no.”
His teeth grit. “Listen to me.”
“I’m not throwing my— any version of my fucking grandson into that thing after it made you go b-blue in the face!” Rick counters, eyes narrowing. “I’ll survive, I’ll do it. You cover me.”
Morty bites back an argument. Worst comes to worst, Rick fails to get the job done and Morty has to improvise. He nods curtly and Rick counts down with his fingers before taking a running start. Morty turns his gun on the tendrils, shooting them down as they attempt to grapple Rick.
Rick leaps into the middle of the mass and quickly disappears under it. Morty starts counting, deciding if it takes longer than a few minutes, he’s going to do it himself.
Exactly one minute and sixteen seconds later, the creature lets out an ear piercing gurgle and goes still. Morty’s shoulders drop and he swiftly approaches to ensure it’s really dead.
Something floats in the middle of the mass. Morty takes one look at it and pulls out the unmoving Rick. He gasps the moment he’s out and Morty rolls his eyes.
“You didn’t have an exit strategy?”
Rick coughs up some dark goop, making a face. “I was improvising.”
“Improvising a plan should still mean you have a goal in mind. And said goal should include making it out alive.”
Rick waves his hand halfheartedly. “It w-worked out, didn’t it?”
Morty doesn’t get to reply. Everything goes dark before he can process what’s happening and Morty is swallowed whole.
—
The first thing he does when he opens his eyes is turn to his side and vomit dark sludge that absolutely should not have been in his body. It’s tasteless thankfully but it’s no less unpleasant coming out of him. His throat burns and he grimaces at the strangely iridescent shine the sludge has in the light.
Nothing coming out of him should look ‘Pretty’ in any way. He wipes his lips to be rid of the rest.
“H-hey.” An out of breath voice causes him to turn. His reflection— no, that’s not right. Morty stands not far from him, covered in blood that isn’t his and sludge, with that same bulky gun at his hip. He’s panting heavily but he looks relieved, as if a weight has been taken off his shoulder.
“Do you have any idea how— how hard it was to do all of that?” Morty asks. “Because literally no one made that easy. You— you two were as bad as the goop monster.”
His head is a mess of static but he still has it in him to frown. “He started it.”
Morty gives him an exasperated look. “What are you, five?”
“At least I’m not the senior citizen picking fights with a teenager.”
Someone vomits behind him just before saying, “F-fuck you, you don’t even count!”
Rick. He thinks. Rick C-137 and his Morty.
His memory returns to him slowly. Tracking the crystals he needed to upgrade his base, running into the pair by accident, trying to avoid them so he wouldn’t get sucked into their bullshit and then… The monster. The thing that literally sucked him into their bullshit. Trapping him in its world but as the wrong Morty. Attempting to override all his past memories of who he was with new ones.
Even now, he still has those memories of a family that wasn’t his, but he remembers now. Eyepatch Morty, Evil Morty, President Morty, then Mortimer. Three names given to him and one he gave to himself.
He remembers himself and everything he is.
Everything that was taken from him.
He rises to his feet, patting his pockets, then searching for wherever he dropped his portal gun. Morty notices, taking it from his back pocket to offer it to him. Mortimer accepts it with a nod, immediately beginning to input coordinates.
Despite the wide open space of the room, some part of him is convinced that the walls are closing in on him. He itches for an escape— to return to his self-made home and the quiet it brings. The certainty of knowing who he is when there are extra memories in his head.
“Wait, Mor— the other Morty.” Behind him, he hears grunts of effort not to slip as Rick makes his way down the mountain of dead slime to catch up to him. Mortimer doesn’t turn around. “This shit probably has side effects, y-you’ll need to run some tests—”
“I’m perfectly capable of running my own tests.” He’s used to it. Even before ending up on his own, Mortimer was used to his own independence. Relying only on himself. No one else would help him. No one else ever did once it was just him and his Rick. “I have everything I need.”
Rick scoffs. “We get it, you’re— you’re a genius, but you’re better off if there’s people watching the side effects and making sure it’s not some deep psychological shit.”
“Clearly there are some psychological side effects, because you still seem to think I’m your grandson.” Mortimer shoots a portal straight ahead of him just before he looks back.
Morty is glancing between the two of them, face tight. Rick looks like he has swallowed a lemon, which might’ve made him laugh once but his head still pounds with false memories and he doesn’t feel like laughing. Not when his chest feels more empty than ever before.
“Your Morty fixed things.” Mortimer says. “Thank him for a good job, and forget me. That way, we can all be happy.” His gaze shifts to Morty and because he’s not a hypocrite, he says, “Thanks for the save. May we never see each other again.”
Neither get another word out to him before he leaves through his portal.
Mortimer stands still once he’s on the other side. His slice of paradise remains the same as it always has. He mentally avoids the words ‘Perfectly ordinary’ like the plague and just breathes in, then out, and repeats.
No matter how many times he tries to mentally reset his mind, it still dances with false memories. His chest still feels tight and constricting— like he can’t breathe despite him clearly doing so. An alert pops up on his cybernetic eye, warning him that he’s on the edge of a panic attack but not quite tipping over.
His robotic butler arrives to offer him a glass of ice cold water. Mortimer hastily takes it and downs it, grounding himself in the chill and rubbing his left eye a bit harder than necessary.
His hands still have a slight tremble to them, even when he puts the glass down. Mortimer silences all of his tech trying to talk to him, marching right into his home and keeping all the lights off, as well as turning on all the soundproofing he can.
His house is intentionally built to be different than the one he grew up in. It used to be a good thing but now he just wants to throw up. Looking at anything makes him want to throw up.
Mortimer finds his bedroom and lays down, pulling the blanket over his head and curling up into a tight ball. He reminds himself it doesn’t matter if he’s still shaking because no one is around to mock him for it. This backfires on him however, because his usual relief that comes with being alone is no longer working. Now he aches in a way that he hasn’t in years.
In the end, Mortimer turns in early for the night and sleeps for a very long time.