Chapter Text
After you ditched Rick and left him in the middle of fuck-knows where to finish your day out with the Smith kids, you were thoroughly exhausted. Your shoulders felt tense, your ass hurt, you had unclean wounds from the scuffle that was Rick’s adventure, and god knows just how badly you wanted to peel off that sweaty ass suit and lay naked on your floor-mattress.
“Y/N, come in!” Beth called out to you from the front door and beckoned you in when you pulled up to drop off Morty and Summer. Welp - there went your leisure time. The woman had two full wine glasses occupying her hands, so she couldn't really wave you over but you understood her body language enough to approach her.
“Hey Beth! Today was great.” Reflexively, you took a glass from Beth and sipped on it as you gave her a general rundown on what you did with the kids that day, “Summer and Morty are honestly such joys to have around. Surprisingly well behaved!” The two of you laughed and continued talking. Alcoholic mothers charmed you so easily, with their clown-napkin ropes of words, pulled deep from within their gullets to wrap around your brain and squeeze tight. Eventually your brain became so dead you would have to sit and listen; having a grown woman vent to you while laughing to not make it seem weird was strangely entrancing.
Beth was slowly but surely luring you into her home with small talk and wine, and you knew you couldn’t do a thing about it.
“So,” She started, in her typical suburban white mom manner, so you buckled in to be at the Smith house for at least another hour. What you weren't exactly anticipating with baited breath, was to wake up horribly nauseated on her couch the next morning. You didn't even know what happened, all you remembered was walking into the living room with Beth and taking another sip of wine. The whole night went by in a flash - one moment you were drinking, and with a blink, you were laying down with the worst headache known to man not entirely sure of your surroundings.
With a groan, you pushed yourself up into a sitting position before regretting everything and slowly laying back down. Even the slightest movement caused a wave of nausea to crash over you; you just laid there and stared at the ceiling as your vision pulsed with vertigo. You felt absolutely sea sick. What the fuck happened last night? You couldn't have gotten amnesia black out drunk from wine, unless you had an abhorrent amount of it, but you didn’t remember what else you could have possibly drank.
“Your first time getting shitfaced. Welcome to the neighbourhood.” A sarcastic tone snapped you out of your hungover daze, and you winced as the gruff voice rammed its way into your eardrums. Everything sounded bass boosted yet muffled; total sensory overload.
“Fuck off…” You sighed and covered your eyes with your palms. The sun was barely up, permeating through the room from the sliding glass door and casting a bright sheet of gold over your form. From what you could hear, Rick was already drinking from his flask and in your hungover state, even the idea of alcohol made you feel sick, “Can you put that down, for just like, 5 minutes?” You finally pulled yourself into a sitting position and frowned at the older man, who was sat in the armchair adjacent to the couch that you had spent the night sprawled over, “It’s fuckin sick dude, just, how much you drink.” Some form of surprise was evident on Rick’s face; it was easy to assume that he didn’t expect to be scolded so early in the morning by someone that got black out amnesiac drunk with his daughter the previous night. You noticed that he wasn’t wearing his lab coat - it wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity in general. His hair was a tousled mess and his clothes were wrinkled. He definitely wasn’t just an innocent bystander; he participated in the drinking and probably got equally as shitfaced as you did, but there he sat, one leg crossed over the other with that sickly flask in hand.
One thing that God cursed man with, was varying alcohol tolerance.
“Oh really?” Rick asked in response to your question, smirk audible in his voice. It made you cringe, and the urge to throw up became more intense, no thanks to the nausea, “I’ve always thought that my bottomless stomach for alcohol was- was uh, an interesting quality of mine.” You only scoffed back in response as you stood up from the couch.
“I really don’t want to be tasked with speaking to you this early in the morning - so zip it before I direct a stream of premeditated vomit at you.” With that said, you looked down to check the couch for anything you could have left on it, like your wine glass or maybe a stray liquor bottle, only to notice that the clothes you had on were not your own. You had on a white men's tank top and a pair of worn out shorts. Hungover and confused, you looked over to Rick again, to maybe gain some kind of answer from the man. He obviously knew what happened to your suit, he was sitting there and eyeing you with a shit-eating grin. The man clearly enjoyed watching you bumble around like a dementia ridden dog, so instead of questioning him you pulled a face and tutted. Rick's face alone just made you mad. No idea why you thought that he would give you any form of a coherent answer.
“Tell Beth I’m sorry about whatever happened last night - it must have been bad if I can’t remember it - I’m gonna get the fuck outta here before I throw up on something that isn’t you.” You ditched the idea of asking Rick about the whereabouts of your suit and turned around to leave; it would come to you in due time. You could whistle or say a certain word and the nanobots would flood to you in an instant; you just didn’t feel like it at that moment. Plus, you never know when you’ll need to equip your super suit at a neighbours house. Crossing the street barefoot and boiling yourself alive in a 5 hour long bath was the only thing on your mind at that moment.
“Yeah no, I, uh, probably won’t do that, but one thing that you can do, is thank me.”
Your face crumpled into that of bewilderment and disgust at Rick’s request.
“THANK, you?” The phrase left your mouth almost as quickly as it entered your ears, and you were in too much disrepair to care about your volume, “Thank you for what exactly?” The man's demand left you stun-locked in the middle of the living room. What would you possibly need to thank him for?
“I dunno, maybe for myaeEUGHerp my KIND DEED? Saving you and my daughter the embarrassment of running up and down the street butt ass naked at 2am?” Rick cocked an eyebrow at you, “N-Not like you would have remembered it even if you did do it - but the other neighbours would,” The blue-haired man rose from the recliner and ran a hand over his ruffled hair, “Don’t get me wrong - I reeeaally couldn’t care less - the only reason why I stopped you was because my daughter still has some form of dignity and reputation to uphold, might be scarce, but its there, and it needs upholding.” A hand travelled up to your face as you felt your cheeks flush. That is why you didn’t get drunk with others. “The two of you almost smothered poor pathetic little JeaAUGHerp Jerry - the guy was fading in and out of consciousness trying to get you off of him.” You ran both hands through your hair and grumbled under your breath. You did stupid shit when you were drunk, as did most people, but something about Rick listing off every embarrassing, regrettable thing you did that you couldnt remember with that sporadic tone of his made your face light up like fire.
“Bye!” You cut in, not letting Rick get another word in as you stormed out. Still barefoot and in clothes of unknown origin, you jogged across the street and up the cement path to your front door. You quickly noticed that your door was open, and inside was The Asset, accompanied by your suit, house keys, and a note. Upon picking up the note you immediately scrunched it up and threw it across the hallway.
‘You should thank me for this too, bitch’
After taking the bath that you promised yourself you would take, it was time to start putting your home together. Your eyes momentarily flicked over to the pile of crumpled up clothes of unknown origin that you had tossed to the side while getting into your bath. You didn’t know whose they were, but you knew that you definitely needed to give them back at some point. They were probably Jerry’s - OR Beth’s - you’re not the clothes police.
There were boxes of new furniture ready to be unpackaged and put together lining the downstairs hallway and living room walls. Little did those newborn pieces of furniture know that their only purpose was to be shoved into a corner for the sake of decor only to be broken at some point during a whacka-doodle turn of events funny moment. You reached down, pulled your radio from within one of the many boxes cluttering the hallway, set it down on the floor and turned it on. It was switched to your usual radio station and the music that was playing put a smile on your face - even if it was only small. Was it just you or did music always sound better coming from a radio? There was a certain nostalgia to the way music sounded from those old speakers - a certain crispness to the audio - it felt very refreshing and it motivated you to work.
Still hungover but slightly less nauseated, you plopped your ass down in the middle of the living room and began to unbox your first piece of furniture; a cute little coffee table. While your eyes skipped between IKEA instructions and the pieces of wood in your hands, you let your mind run away. Simple copy and paste type tasks, like putting a coffee table together, put your brain in aeroplane mode. It was like your consciousness split off from what you were doing but you were still able to focus on the job enough to do it right.
~
Rick swivelled across the garage and up to the desk, swirling some beer around the bottom of its can, other palm feeling across the cold metal surface. All of the dents, scratches and strange textures made for a nice sensory experience. The man had been lost in thought since you left the Smith house just a couple of hours ago.
Y/N.
Y/N.
Y/N, Y/N, Y/N.
Who are you, Y/N? Rick found himself asking on multiple occasions, but he was eventually interrupted by his phone, which vibrated aggressively. His own voice permeated through the air from within his pocket.
“What the fuck is this shit?” He muttered under his breath and gave his lip a sloppy wipe with his shirt sleeve as he pulled his phone up. Before Rick on his screen, was an ‘urgent alert’ from the Citadel Of Ricks, pretty much calling all Ricks to meet at what remained of the Citadel.
“Well don’t they regroup fast…” Rick sighed. He didn’t seem fazed by the alert, but in reality his mind was racing. How did they regroup that fast? It’s barely been a, what, a couple of months - a year - since the destruction of the curve? In all honesty, only God could know. As much as Rick didn’t like to admit it, constantly jumping between realities, galaxies, planets and timelines fucked with his perception of time.
Realistically, asking himself questions such as those was stupid, moronic even. There's an infinite amount of realities and those realities have an extensive amount of timelines to do with pretty much every choice anyone has ever been given. I mean, there was probably a timeline where he fucked up big time and accidentally reset portal tech - which would be unfortunate.
Better be glad this wasn't that timeline and this totally isn’t a cheap cop-out because the writer started writing this fanfiction before the premiere of season 6!
Rick decided to give everything a quick shrug to ground himself, and then follow that up with a swig of his flask for confidence. After rising from his swivel seat and pulling on his lab coat, Rick pulled out his functioning portal gun, input the coordinates that flashed up on his phone screen, and shot at the floor beneath him. Totally unprepared for what sort of situation he just got himself into, Rick looked around and was immediately met with his own face, everywhere, at least 300 times over - and there were more coming. They were all gathered in the Council of Ricks court room, with the Council themselves sitting up in their high chairs. It looked, good, in there. The place was clearly under construction, which brought Rick back to memories he cringed at the thought of.
Helping to build the Citadel was probably one of the biggest mistakes he ever made.
“Ah! Rick c-137! We were almost entirely sure you weren't going to show.” One of the council Ricks commented snarkily, and rolled his eyes as he pulled a crisp 20 out of his wallet and handed it to one of the other council Ricks standing beside him. There were no Mortys at this meeting, as the emergency alert had ordered, but what was more surprising than the lack of Mortys, was the unpleasant, familiar face that stood with the council.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”
As if the universe had read his mind, and decided to play the most foul joke known to man on him, before Rick, stood Y/N. Or at least a version of Y/N. Her hair was up in a bun instead of down her back like the Y/N from his reality, and her left arm was robotic.
“Rick c-137! So nice to make your acquaintance - I presume that since you're here you already know my name.”
“Jesus, I thought you guys needed help opening a jar of pickles or something - turns out we’ve all got the same rat problem.” Rick scoffs, breaking his gaze with this other Y/N to uncap his flask and take a hefty swig. So this was more than a petty rivalry in his reality - now every reality with a Rick had a Y/N. A couple other Ricks from the crowd chuckled at his snide remark, but didn't really dare to speak up and interject amidst this face off.
“We think that the rift in space caused by the Central Finite Curve being destroyed messed with time,” A council Rick spoke up, gesturing for another Rick across the room to pull down a diagram before gesturing to it, “According to all Earthly records, a woman named Y/N - same backstory across every reality - has existed since before Ricks invented portal technology - but according to our own data, those records didn’t exist up until shortly after the destruction of the curve.” He explained. Rick c-137 furrowed his brows in response, looking over the diagram and shaking his head.
“So - what, time- time and space just, p-pulled a random entity from a multiverse outside of ours, tore it to shreds and sprinkled it over our timelines in our multiverse like some sort of shitty surprise sundae?” Rick questioned, but it was more rhetorical than a question he would actually expect to be answered. The thought worried Rick, as he found himself looking up at the other Y/N again to cop a glance, only to find her already staring at him.
“Wonderful deduction - now, you know what that means, yes?” The woman asked, and Rick cringed. Of course he knew what it meant; and it didn't bode well for him. Hell, he could barely stand having one stupid sidekick - never mind one equally as intelligent equal.
“Wherever I go, she’ll always be there.”
“Wherever you go, your Y/N will always be there.”