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Morty stepped out of a yellow portal, and into his bedroom. Luckily, him going on solo adventures wasn’t that rare of an occurrence, so no one would likely question where he was.
Rick, or the rest of the family for that matter finding out he was spending time with his evil self was just not something Morty wanted to explain right now, especially since Morty didn’t even truly understand how he himself felt about it.
He felt better now, though, so spending the night with Em really paid off, it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. It was nice to hang out with someone not only his age, but someone who actually had been through the things he had. Morty had never really realized it, or at least, acknowledged it before, but having a friend... if... he and Em could even really be called that, other than Rick felt nice. Sure, Rick was definitely getting better, and Morty was grateful, but a part of the issue just seemed to be it wasn’t healthy to revolve your life around anyone that much. Morty never really had anyone else to be around, if he was mad at Rick, then both of them were just mad together all day. Em gave him an opportunity to not do that for once.
But that was that, he probably wouldn’t see Em again for a long time, if ever again at all, the next step was to repair his relationship with his actual friend: It was time to talk things out with Rick. But Morty found himself unable to recall what their argument was about- in the end, the argument was never about the argument at all, Rick and Morty would fight over something neither of them cared about then get heated anyway until they were just arguing to argue.
Right, Morty remembered now, they were on an adventure and he wanted to turn back to save this one older woman who was being tortured by some alien terrorists. Rick refused because he’s lazy and told Morty that the woman wasn’t going to be interested in someone his age anyway. Morty then got mad that Rick would imply that he only wanted to save the woman because he wanted something out of it, then Rick got mad and reminded Morty of all the times he did exactly that like on Purge Planet and called Morty a hypocrite. Then Morty said something about how it was not always like that and he was already against the purge even before seeing the girl and then it just snowballed... In hindsight, it was a stupid argument, especially for the two of them to get that heated about. But it was the next day, and Morty could admit he was not always full of pure intentions on every rescue mission.
Morty, having made up his mind on how to proceed, walked down to the garage, knocked on the door, and unlike usual, actually waited for Rick to say “come in” before barging in.
Morty walked in and immediately tried to determine Rick's mood before actually apologizing. Morty determined that Rick seemed to also have let it go, luckily, unless this was another Vat of Fake Acid situation or robot, but Morty was going to work on the assumption it wasn’t for the sake of simplicity. “Hey uh... hey Rick!” Morty said, watching his grandfather actually turn around from where he was hunched over to face him, which Morty noted as abnormal before dropping it. “Uh… Sorry about yesterday. I uh… overreacted... you were kinda right.”
Rick squinted at Morty with red eyes that either meant he had been smoking something or hadn’t slept in twenty four hours. Or both. “Oh! Uh... yeah.. It's.. whatever..” Rick said, avoiding eye contact before looking at Morty expectedly. Morty, however, not knowing what Rick was expecting just stared back until Rick said “...anything else you want to tell me?”
Morty squinted at Rick. What was this, a trap? What would Rick want Morty to say? ‘I’ll never say no to you again’? ‘I’ll grab you a beer’? Morty settled on saying “um... I love you?” and Rick just squinted in confusion. Right, Rick never did that lovey crap, that was dumb...
“Morty, when have I ever-” Rick started before pivoting to “uh... love you too, Junebug” whilst looking at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Eventually, however, Rick shook it off. “I uh... kinda thought you were gonna fill me in on the Evil Morty thing? You know, because we’re... ugh... a team..?” Rick said while cringing at himself. Morty started to mutter out something, caught off guard before Rick interrupted him “Evil Morty still could be a threat, it’s not my biggest concern because I’m fucking amazing and could easily kill the fucker if I wanted but I assumed you were gathering intel or something on what he was doing with the Omega Device, not- not playing Smash Bros- and- and whatever gay shit you were doing...”
Morty recollected his thoughts, right, the Omega Device, the whole thing somehow managed to not even cross his mind when he was hanging out with Em “sorry Rick I guess I just forgot to...” Morty said before squinting his eyes at Rick and starting to panic “w-wait, how did you know that we played Smash Bros?”
“What? You- you thought I’d just let you go to Evil Mortys without keeping a bit of an eye on you? The kid’s not exactly trustworthy. I’m not gonna tell you the specifics of how I watched you because then you’ll get mad but-“
“Why do you need to know what I did over there then if you were watching?” Morty suddenly butted in.
“Because I stopped watching not too far in! There's only so long I can watch a fourteen year old boy eyeball my fourteen year old grandson before I start to feel like a creep.” Rick said as Morty sighed in relief, which caused Rick to immediately squint in suspicion.
“I- I guess that makes sense.. But... why didn’t you just confront Em- er, Evil Morty before we left?” Morty said “and- and what do you mean... eyeballing?”
“I pick my battles, Morty! I know the turd likely wasn’t going to blow the place up so I thought I’d see what he was gonna do before I reacted!” Rick spat “also, don’t- don’t be stupid- I know you aren’t that dumb… anymore- he- he was staring at you real hard… can’t tell if he did that because he wants to wear your skin or because he has a little crush on you though… probably both…”
Morty wanted to respond with some quip, but it was lost on him. Now that someone was pointing it out, Em did seem to like Morty quite a lot. He even sort of implied that Morty inspired him in some way. Heck, Em did stare a lot, Morty only didn’t notice because… he was also staring. But Morty wasn’t gay, not that there was anything wrong with that, and he never thought Em was either… I mean, unless he was. Was this seriously how he found out he was gay? Or bisexual, more like it, he definitely still likes women. “… Do you really think..?” Morty finally muttered out.
“Hm? That he wants to wear your skin? Honestly… now that I think about it, sure he says he doesn’t want to be bothered and hates Ricks or whatever but why are we taking his word at face value? Kids probably- probably jealous. I mean whatever happened with his Rick clearly wasn’t pretty, seeing you actually have a proper family and morals while still being… well… one of the more… impressive Mortys probably angers him to no end… I- I saw him scanning for your DNA around the house… you know, hairs and fingerprints. That’s why he broke in. See, paid off to lay low and let him snoop a little, before confronting him, huh, Morty?” Rick said, putting his hands on his hips.
“Oh… uh… but what would he want to do with that? Don’t we have like… the same DNA?”
“Not exactly. There’s just such little- little difference that it hardly matters…” Rick said “you two have completely different eye colors this should be obvious.”
“Right! Right… but… why?” Morty asked. He didn’t know what this all meant but it scared him, Morty knew Em was evil yet this still felt like a betrayal.
“Look, I- I don’t know Morty, I’m working with the same information as you… maybe he’s so obsessed he wants to collect it… the whole uncaring and aloof thing could be an act…” Rick said before calming down and becoming much less paranoid “more likely? He needed DNA similar to his own for refrence… maybe he wants your brown eyes, so he’s using the DNA… he was staring at them… or more likely he messed up his DNA too much from mechanical implants and needed to use yours for reference to fix it… I’ve- I’ve had similar issues.”
“Really wish you led with the more likely explanation” Morty deadpanned, annoyed he was all riled up for nothing “why didn’t he just ask me for a sample, though?”
“He wasn’t planning on you staying the night or even spotting him, obviously” Rick said as Morty stared off. Morty sort of missed Em already. He finally got to know Em and then he left again. He’d probably never see him again, probably never should. “Morty” Rick snapped after watching Morty stare off “I’m not gonna stop you from having whatever you and your evil self have from happening because I’m not a hypocrite or a square. But if you’re gay can you just come out now? You know I support you so- so let’s just rip the bandaid off.”
Morty immediately started yelling and flailing in response “it’s- it’s not like that! I don’t… think? Look, I- I'll tell you if I think I’m gay or bisexual or whatever! But give me a minute to come to that- that conclusion! Jeez…”
Rick sighed. Morty was clearly bisexual, he figured that out a long time ago… Most Morty’s were bisexual, after all. But… he’d just have to wait for the obvious to become obvious to his oblivious grandson and Mortys socially inept counterpart… he wasn’t too annoyed, though. It was a little funny to watch. “Whatever, Morty. Hand me a screwdriver, will you? The- the one in my hands broken… don’t ask…