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Quiet, aside from the low hum of something left on and the clanking of Rick tinkering with a new invention. Or maybe an old one. If it was, it was one Morty hadn’t seen before.
It was one of those odd moments where things were completely, unequivocally, quiet.
It wasn’t uncomfortable. Actually, Morty preferred it like this, sometimes. Where he could have a break to pretend that his relationship with his grandpa was something approaching normal— or at least not one where he was told he was replaceable and berated so often.
Rick grunted as he fumbled the tool he was using and fucked something up. Morty just watched from his spot on top of the desk, staring at the side profile of Rick’s diligent work. He resisted the urge to childishly, boredly kick his feet.
He was, quite honestly, surprised that Rick hadn’t gotten upset with him for sitting on top of the desk. He had good days and bad days. Morty supposed today was a good day.
A question laid on the tip of his tongue. A revelation, more so. Something Rick would never admit to him. Not to his face. It’d been in his head for a while, but there hadn’t been a good day to ask it. The days weren’t bad enough to use it as leverage in an argument, nor were they good enough to ask it earnestly.
Rick raised his brow at him. Morty realised he was sweating. Well, more so than usual. He swallowed.
“R-Rick?” He began.
He sighed, placing his tools down and turning to Morty. “Morty?” It was a question, asked with a hint of annoyance. What’s so important to say that you’re itching to ask it while we’re getting along?
Morty refused to meet Rick’s eyes. “What-… What makes me s-so important, Rick?”
Rick balked at him — for less than a second, but still, Morty had learned to read those little cracks in the mask. Then, he acted like it was such a stupid question that he could turn back to his work and answer with something intended to prevent further conversation on the matter. Morty knew he’d hit him.
He scoffed, “That’s a dumb fucking question, Mor-Morty. You’re not.” Rock picked his tools back up.
“Don’t- don’t do that,” he glared, “Ju-just don’t, okay? a-answer me.”
The groan that came from Rick was incredibly annoyed. But not angry. Just frustrated. Just inconvenienced. Not angry. He could keep going.
“Don’t do- don’t do what, Morty? Tell you the truth?” He shoved his project and tools to the side. Bingo. He’d set himself up to have the conversation, now.
Morty let his feet kick idly. He needed something to try and regulate the way his heart was going a million miles a minute. Fuck it if it was childish. Rick didn’t seem in the position to call him out on it right now, anyway. “But it’s not the tr-truth, Rick,” he protested. “If- if it was, I wouldn’t be here.”
That made Rick glare. “What? Morty that’s- Morty that’s stupid. I could literally- i could literally replace you anytime I want. You’re not even- you’re not even my Morty! I never even had a Morty. Don’t get- don’t get it in your head that you’re important. What even gave you that idea?” He grumbled.
“You- you haven’t, though,” Morty challenged. “A-and if I’m not your Morty, then- then w-whose am I?” The last bit was meant to strike a nerve. Meant to hurt.
It did, indeed, make Rick bristle. Morty could tell he was having trouble answering either question.
Rick refused, though, to divert his eye contact. He stared more intensely, leaning in closer. “You think I want you to not- to still be here? There- there’s a thousand better Mortys I could- I could choose from.”
Morty kept the focused look on his face. “You could- you could leave-… you could have left me anytime you wanted Rick. You- there’s so many times it would’ve been easier to just let- just let me die!” He crossed his arms.
He swallowed. “It was easier to save you than deal with the fuck-ing bitchfest your family would throw,” Rick was struggling.
Cracks in the glass. Morty didn’t think of himself as too smart, but when it came to Rick, eventually he had started to recognize each little tell that made the old man crack. His grip on his arms loosened. Red marks from where he’d been squeezing them so hard. “Y-you wouldn’t even have- you wouldn’t even have to talk- talk to them again! You could just f-fuck off and it wouldn’t matter!” Morty was raising his voice. That probably wasn’t good. “You-… we h-have before! My fam- my family never mattered to you! That’s- that’s why it’s- it’s weird that you keep—…” he trailed off, unsure of how to finish. “Why-why do I matter more than them?”
Rick looked like he was about to bash Morty’s head in. He turned away and buried his head in his hands violently. So violently that if Rick wasn’t Rick, it probably would have broken his nose.
He just let out a heavy sigh and didn’t respond.
“Why can’t you just say it? Why ca-why can’t you just say it, Rick?” Morty’s voice began to tremble.
He watched as Rick’s hand went up to run through his hair. He leveled Morty with a tired look. “Say what Morty? That I- That i, Rick fucking Sanchez, the fucking-“ he cut off the start of a tirade and began a seperate one, “Morty, I do-n’t care about anyone! I don’t lo-love anyone! That’s, like, a key- a key aspect of my fucking character, Morty!”
Morty wondered absently, as he hissed in rage, if maybe it would have been better to just leave this topic alone. “Your ch-character? What about my- what about my fucking feelings, Rick! What about- what about them?”
Rick glared, “Your feelings can eat my motherfu- cking ass, Morty. This is what you fucking- this is what you made me stop my incredibly important project for?” He seemed to declare this an appropriate close to the discussion, giving Morty one final look before picking up his tools again.
Unfortunately for him, Morty was not done. He also highly doubted whatever Rick was working on was even that important. “Rick.” He bit out.
He slammed his tools down in frustration, “What? What do you wann-a fucking hear, Mor-Morty? That I care about you? Is- Is that what it- is that what it fucki-ng takes to get you to shut up?”
Morty met Rick’s eyes easily, somehow, mercifully , not having lost his nerve. (He was sweating oh geez his pulse was so fucking fast his heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest and-) “You ca- you care about me more than you care about them!”
Rick didn’t respond, but he didn’t seem bothered by Morty’s words, either.
“You don’t even- y-y-you don’t even care about your own da-daughter as much as- as much as-“ He couldn’t finish the sentence. It felt dirty, to say it aloud. Sure, it was the truth, undeniably — but it was a very harsh reality that Morty lived in. On another hand, it was also difficult to believe that he could be cared about like that. It felt like his entire existence was him being drilled with the thought that he didn’t matter. He was inconsequential. (Until Rick came along. Despite how much he said as much, he made Morty feel like he was doing something. Good things? Not exactly. But he was making an impact, at least.)
He could see Rick’s mouth run dry. He watched Rick fumble and choke and then reach for his flask and down some just to wet his throat. Morty found himself hoping, not for the first time, that it burned when it went down. He hoped Rick didn’t like it. (It was a hopeless hope, he knew. It always burnt, and Rick never cared.) Finally, he spoke. “I never even met her, Morty. Not the fucking-“ he waved emphatically in the direction of the house, “Not her. My Beth? Shes fucking dead. Barely fuckin’ knew her, Morty,” he spat.
An opening. A weakness. “You- you never met me either. No, you didn- you didn’t meet me even- even more than you didn’t meet mom!”
Rick’s grip on the flask tightened. “Shut up, Morty.” His anger was so thick it could’ve been smog. Morty was entering a dangerous place. He still didn’t want to stop.
Miraculously, though, he listened. His mouth snapped shut. Morty was made of sweat and cowardice. He wasn't sure if Rick could smell fear. Surely not, right? If Rick knew Morty was so afraid, he would be bolder. It would be easier for him to shut it down. Morty’s fear was Rick’s advantage.
The words still bubbled uncomfortably in his throat. He could taste them trying to come up his throat. It was like vomit, like bile. He swallowed them down and felt the burn. They needed out.
Rick turned away from Morty pointedly and began working on his little project.
He watched the way Rick dug his screwdriver into the wires and twisted them just-so. He wouldn’t act like he understood it — he wouldn’t act like he was learning something by watching the way his grandpa worked — but the deftness and delicacy Rick could put in when working with something so small and complex captivated him. He poked at a motherboard within the thing. It looked like a gun. Of course it looked like a gun.
Morty could hear him breathing; it was ragged and laced with anger. He just had to wait for it to even out and calm down. What, you thought he was done? It was a tactical retreat. It was the smart thing to do, instead of continuing on with blazing guns in a fight he couldn’t win; a fight that was impossible because his opponent was Rick. To win a fight against Rick, the best thing you can do is not let him know it’s a fight. If he does know, then the next best thing you can do is make sure he’s not the molten-dangerous kind of angry. The kind that burned to touch.
Rick flipped the whatever-the-fuck-it-was over and took a look at the other side of it. An annoyed grunt, but not at Morty. He turned it back over to shove the guts of the device back in and screw the panel back on that gave him access to all the parts within him. It. He meant to say it. Why was he getting déjà vu?
He swallowed thickly. Rick seemed distracted by his work now. Morty cleared his throat. Rick stiffened.
“….Morty?” It was a warning.
it was one Morty did not heed. “You- you replaced mom. Y-y-you didn’t-… you didn’t care that you replaced mom. Sh-she isn’t important to you.”
Rick turned to him with a somewhat confused look. “…no shit, Morty. Wha- what’s your fucking point with this? I don't care about anyone. We’ve already fucki- fucking established that.“
Morty swallowed. “You never replaced-…” he gripped his pants tightly. Oh, what a dangerous game he was playing right Now. “You never replaced Diane.”
That comment seeped right into Rick’s gut. Right into his stony, caged up heart. He paused— not one of the kinds he usually did, where he composed himself so quickly afterwards. It was an honest to god bafflement. Probably at the fact that Morty dared to go there. How dare he, right?
His breath came shallowly. “What are we- what are we fucking doing here Morty? Bringing up old grief? What’s your fuck-ing point! Fucki- fucking of course I didn’t, Morty, she’s fucking- I’m not going to-…” he trailed off.
Sometimes it felt like Rick read from a character bible of things he was and wasn’t supposed to say. Things he was and wasn’t supposed to feel. Outlined rules. One of those seemed to be that the one time he was allowed to admit he cared about someone was when it was Diane.
That was the trick Morty was playing. He could admit he cared about Diane. He could say that. So all Morty had to do was to draw out the oh-so obvious parallels. Morty’s head felt thick as something stabbed itself into him. Was it weird, he asked himself, that Rick’s grandson drew so many parallels with his dead wife?
Pack that away for later. Morty was used to having to pack things away.
Morty pinched himself. “Y-you do care about people,” he insisted.
Rick relented. “No, Morty. I don- I don’t care about people. I care about a person. One who’s fucking dead, so we can stop bringing her up.”
He kept going. “You never-…you’ve never replaced me either,” he stated. It was quieter. Like it was an admittance rather than a jab. It was supposed to be a jab. Why did it feel like a confession?
It was clear, in the way that Rick didn’t respond, that Morty had a point. He found it funny. Earlier, trying to suggest he was irreplaceable was met with denial, but now, after comparing himself to Diane, he’d left Rick speechless. Something felt odd in his throat. He felt like he’d just learned something he shouldn’t have.
Rick was not angry. He was the farthest thing from angry. He was not, as Morty might have expected, the predator ready to pounce. He looked like prey. Meek and terrified. It was uncharacteristic of him.
“No,” Rick said quietly. “I have not.”
Something in Rick’s eyes told Morty that he was realising something. Something in Morty’s chest made him realise he was doing the same.
Neither of them spoke for a long time. Morty now had a very different question than he did originally. He had a question that might just have the same answer as his first one.
His original question: why am I more important than them?
His new question: do you care about me in the same way you cared about Diane? (Do you love me in the same way you loved Diane?)
They stared at each other. The air in the room had become suffocating.
“Rick,” Morty began, “a-am I-… am I important to you in the-… do you feel-… a-am I like Diane?”
“Morty,” Rick began, “I think we should both forget we had this conversation.”