Chapter Text
Morty had a very quiet day. Rick hasn’t dragged him into any life-threatening adventures or had to shoot a horde of aliens trying to invade Earth for the one or three hundredth time. He even had time to go to school, get some lunch and look up some things on his computer in Incognito mode.
It was a perfectly normal day for a fourteen-year-old.
It had already gotten dark outside and Morty was drifting off in front of his lit up computer. He was dully clicking through the pages of social media and online comics when a loud crash and a blinding glow of green light to his left caught his attention.
Morty rubbed his eyes, the dark spots dancing across his eyes slowly fading. As his vision cleared, so did his bleary mind.
Stumbling out of the portal, bloodied and dishevelled, was Rick Sanchez.
“Grandpa Rick!”
He dropped his computer in alarm and scrambled towards his injured grandfather.
“Rick, are you ok? What are you doing here? What happened?” Morty gasped.
Rick said nothing; his eyes stared at him with a certain emptiness. Then he shuffled forward, getting closer to Morty.
“Rick?” Morty asked before being enveloped in a soft hug. His eyes widened in surprise before he intuitively hugged back. Morty felt something wet on his hand. Unlocking from the hug, Morty saw a crimson stain on it, soaked enough to have it dribbling down his fingers.
Rick headed back into the portal. Morty started to go after him, “Rick, wait!”
“Morty! Was that a crash I heard?!”
Sounds of quickening footsteps grew louder towards his room and Morty froze. Bemused, he recognised the voice as his grandpa’s. “W-What? Rick?”
The room suddenly went dark when the strange Rick disappeared through the portal. Two seconds later it was filled with light again when Rick charged into his room, almost kicking the door off its hinges. The gun held tightly in his hands whirred threateningly.
“ Show yourself, you son of a—!” Rick stopped mid-sentence. “Oh, it was just you, Morty.” He lowered the gun.
Morty stared at him silently, his mind struggling to process what had just happened.
“Can you keep it down, then? I’m trying to work.”
Rick left, closing the door behind him with a clunk.
Morty quietly sat back down on his bed, holding his bloodied hand and gazing at the wall where the unknown Rick had appeared.
“I wonder what that was all about…” Morty murmured.
The strange visit from last night plagued Morty’s mind the next day, questions of the mysterious Rick’s origins flittered in his brain, conceivable theories, probabilities of how he ended up so battered up and soaked in gore. Did he encounter a dangerous alien?
The red stain on his hand was starting to dry up and he hasn’t gone to wash it off. He decided to do that now. Heading to the bathroom, he continued to think about the events of last night.
He didn’t look that injured, and that amount of blood loss would have him in serious danger of falling dead on the floor. But he was still mobile and looking somewhat awake, except for that slight limp in his left leg. Was that even his blood, then?
Morty stopped in his tracks.
If it wasn’t Rick’s own… then who did it belong too?
Why did he, a complete stranger of this dimension and this Morty, decide to come here, just to give him a hug? Rick never gave him a hug before, let alone had other Ricks.
Frowning deeply, he de-railed from his current path to the bathroom and headed downstairs to the garage.
Rick was there, silently working over what could be a helmet of sorts. Metal pieces covered in soft, red padding stuck out in multiple directions. Morty has seen this thing many times on the bench in Rick’s garage, and only three or four times did he see Rick actually tinkering with it.
“… Rick?” Morty called out from the door.
Rick didn’t give him any sign of acknowledgement as Morty walked beside him.
“Can… I talk to you?” Morty asked hesitantly.
“I’m sure you’re about to, whether I like it or not,” Rick grunted.
“Uh, do you remember last night? When you came into my room to check out a noise?”
“No. I was probably drunk.”
“Oh.”
“Is that why you came in here? To ask me pointless questions?” A shower of sparks burst from the helmet, along with a low string of curses from Rick.
“No… well, yes, and to tell you… there was another Rick.”
Rick paused his work, but still didn’t look up. “A Rick? Did he get lost?”
“I, uh, he just came in through a portal? He didn’t say anything, he just… gave me a hug.”
Rick dropped the helmet and whipped around so fast his neck cracked. “He what?”
Morty stammered for a moment, searching for words. “Yeah, he… he was covered in blood and, and he hugged me and then he just… disappeared again.” Unconsciously, Morty held up his hand. He’d forgotten to wash the blood off, and his hand was streaked a crusty red-brown.
Rick examined the blood with a frown. “Huh. He musta been dying or something.”
Silence fell as Morty anticipated Rick’s next words. Inwardly, he was already preparing to leap into action, to act as the sidekick for the hero that some stupidly optimistic part of him still believed Rick to be.
Rick belched. “Well, that was weird. Don’t wake me up if it happens again.” Without another word, he turned back to his invention.
“What?” Morty blurted. “Shouldn’t we g-go find him? And help him?”
“Why bother?” Rick snorted. “He’s just another one of an infinite number of Ricks. Plus he’s probably dead already. Going after this one is pointless.”
“Rick!” Morty’s voice jumped an octave or two. “He’s a Rick and he’s in trouble! It’s our responsibility-”
Rick’s voice turned cold. “Our responsibility? Need I remind you, Morty, that I’ve killed more than my fair share of Ricks? If one of us can’t take care of himself, it’s his problem. We Ricks don’t stand up for each other, we don’t band together, and we don’t charge to each other’s rescue. Whatever’s up with this guy, it’s his problem.”
Morty’s face was flushed, his voice wobbling in that embarrassing way that it did when he was frustrated beyond words. “Rick, how would you feel if it was you? Wouldn’t you want someone to come help?”
“It is me, dumbass. And no, I still don’t care. Are you going to leave me be now, or will you keep *burp* pestering me with your pointless do-gooderism?”
“Rick, please-”
Dropping the helmet, Rick turned again to face Morty. “How is this not getting through your thick skull? It doesn’t matter. There’s a million Ricks, and a thousand of them probably die every day. And life will go on, completely unchanged, until it’s our turn to become worm food. And when that happens, some other Morty will probably be begging his Rick to come and save us. And do you know what he’ll say? The same thing I’m saying now. Because he’s going to care as much as I do. Which is none. Now please go back to whatever imbecilic pastimes take up your day whenever I’m not around.”
The duo stared each other down; Rick indifferent, Morty shaking with anger and on the verge of tears.
“Rick, if you don’t help, I’ll- I’ll-”
“You’ll what?” Rick challenged. “Cry? Go ahead. See if I care.”
Against his will, a few stray tears slipped down Morty’s face at the harsh words. Still, he continued to hold his ground.
After a few more long minutes of tense silence, Rick sighed heavily. “You really are more trouble than you’re worth, Morty.”
“D-does mean you’ll help?” Morty yelped, higher-pitched than he’d intended.
“You know what? Fine. Whatever. You’re obviously not going to let this go, and you’re even more useless to me than usual when you get emotional. Now get that bloody hand over here and we’ll pinpoint a target dimension.”
“Th-thank you, Rick. You won’t regret this,” Morty promised fervently.
“I seriously doubt that. Let’s just get this over with.”