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The moment he wakes up, he’s in pain, as if he’s been carved out and there’s flames burning his skin from the inside.
It’s a disorienting kind of pain, making it difficult to think through it, much less focus on anything. But he’s had it worse and some part of him screams that he needs to survive so Mortimer pulls himself together and tries to get up. His limbs wobble badly as he shifts his weight onto them, but what makes him freeze is the fact that he hears someone.
“W-whoa! Don’t get up— take it easy, man!”
His eyes fly open, immediately locking onto a pair of familiar brown eyes. Ones that make his face twist with confusion and displeasure. He isn’t meant to be here. No one is, but him especially, because where he goes, so does his extremely irritating Rick.
Mortimer breathes through his pain, refusing to let it show. A quick mental check-up alerts him to the fact that he’s bleeding profusely from his right side, to the point where his shirt is soaked and sticking to his skin. His upper shoulder is burned to high hell and there’s blood trickling from his head. About a dozen or so other injuries come up as well and Mortimer’s body screams in protest when he attempts to sit up so he’s forced to make a compromise— propped up by his arms, staring down his counterpart.
Morty holds his hands up, as if trying to be reassuring, even if nothing about him being here is. “It’s cool, I’m here to help! You’re pretty banged up but I can fix that— been pretty banged up myself!”
“What,” he hisses through his teeth, unable to keep as calm of a composure as he would like when literal alarms are ringing in his head, “are you doing here?”
The list of injuries is one thing but the situation is somehow worse beyond it. His cybernetic eye is glitching, damaged, but even through the fuzzy screen, he can read the urgent report. Saying he’s ‘Banged up’ is the understatement of the year— he’s on emergency power and protocols. The cybernetic limbs on his back— two of them anyways— are online and primed to vanquish just about anything that comes too close.
Something inside him is trying to kill him. Some kind of poison or parasite or something— it needs to be dealt with and soon— but last Mortimer checked, he had been alone in his base, fending off an attack. A revenge attack, he remembers. Set in place so should Rick Prime ever die, whoever killed him would be targeted by what remained of his technology, and that guy had way too much time on his hands.
Mortimer took care of it, as he always did, then lost consciousness once it was over from overexertion. He had been alone, and yet, this damned Morty has invaded his life once again.
Invaded his home, because he hasn’t been moved from where he last was.
Said Morty looks at him and tells him, “We got attacked by the same things you did. I thought if it was hard for us to deal with together, it was probably hell for you to deal with alone so— I’m making sure you’re not dying on us.”
Mortimer breathes in and out, ignoring the fire in his lungs in order to speak clearly, “I don’t need you. Leave.”
Morty gestures at him wildly. “You’re fucking dying, you— you have no ground to stand on!”
“I’ll take you down with me if you don’t. The fact that you’ve invaded my home is bad enough, leave.”
“No! I don’t fucking care— it’s called returning a favor, asshole, so I’m not leaving until I’m certain you’re not gonna drop dead!”
“Last warning.”
“Fucking shut up!”
“Morty, I think—”
One of his cybernetic limbs fires and a yelp rings out. Mortimer’s gaze trails over to see Morty’s Rick, about fifty or so feet back, looking nervous. A laser burn has been painted in the wall next to him, as are two others nearby. Clearly not his first attempt to get closer.
Emergency protocols are still working then.
…Wait.
Mortimer double takes. His emergency protocol is one of the few untouched parts he has left. A quick diagnosis report, albeit a tad slower than normal, reveals that it hasn’t been tampered with or has any known glitches. It’s doing its job: protecting him from threats like Rick C-137 while his body is severely injured and unable to protect itself.
Which begs the question for why Morty C-137 is right next to him, completely untouched and unthreatened.
Run diagnostic on emergency protocols, Mortimer thinks and his cybernetics do the rest. The report comes back around two seconds later, once again, slower than usual. It reports nothing wrong and everything working as intended.
But that’s wrong. Clearly that’s wrong or Morty C-137 wouldn’t be able to get within fifty feet of him without getting blasted like his Rick was.
“Um, Other Morty?” Morty’s face is pinched together. “I— I don’t know what you’re doing but you’re still dying so— can we start fixing that or— or what?”
Mortimer wants to argue but he is, in fact, dying. Even if something has been fucked up with his protocols, he knows his sensors aren’t wrong about how utterly fucked his body is right now. The pain is still present and Mortimer decides that it’s probably the thing that’s fucking with him right now, both on a psychological and technological sense.
He spares one last glance at Morty, exasperated. “You’re not going away, are you?”
“Nope.” Morty tells him firmly. “So get used to it. What are we doing?”
Mortimer sighs through his nose and nods at his house. “Get me to my medbay. It’ll handle the rest.”
Morty nods and immediately gets far too close for Mortimer’s comfort, looping his arm around him and pulling him up. While his mechanical limbs remain fixated on Rick, forcing him to move out of the way or get shot, they are completely unhelpful in regards to his Morty.
Embarrassingly, Mortimer has to let Morty do most of the heavy lifting in getting him to his destination, barely suppressing a noise of pain when he tries walking unassisted. His body hates him and Mortimer is doing his best to tune it out by running more diagnostics on his systems— there’s a glitch somewhere. It’ll need to be fixed, the same as all the other broken parts of him.
Morty pushes the door open, glancing around. If he’s bothered by Mortimer’s blood soaking his shirt, he doesn’t show it. “Nice place you got. Very uh, very vacation house-y.”
“I am on vacation.” Mortimer mumbles. “Retired President. Former terrorist of the Citadel. It’s hard work when you’re almost fifteen.” Morty takes too long locating the medbay so he tells him, “Basement. Second door on the left.”
Morty nods and starts heading there. “Do we have the same birthday?”
“Take a wild guess.”
Morty pulls him even closer somehow as they make their way down the stairs. The basement air is cold and welcome when most of his systems are overheating, as if trying to cook him alive from the inside.
“What if either of us were clones?” Morty points out. “We might have different birthdays then. Or, creation days, I guess.”
“I’m not a clone so unless you are, we have the same birthday.”
“Cool.” Morty doesn’t need to be told where to go, helping him up unprompted to lay on the medical table. Mortimer reaches up, gritting his teeth when he has to strain, another nausing wave of pain hitting that he has to power through as he takes the hanging tablet in hand. “Do— do you celebrate your birthdays alone?”
“I celebrate everything alone.” Mortimer wipes his hand of blood on his jeans and starts typing, setting everything up to not only fix his body and whatever’s trying to kill him but his cybernetics as well, and get him in a fresh pair of clothes while it’s at it. The machine does run pretty well without any input but the more data he can give it, the better it’ll do.
“You don’t have to though. You— you could celebrate your birthday with like. Other people. With the same birthday. Just a thought.”
Mortimer pauses his typing, temporarily forgetting everything else going on, to give Morty a baffled look.
“…You cannot possibly be inviting me to your birthday party right now.”
“It’s as good of a— a time as any!” Morty replies, somewhat defensively. “It’s not like I ever see you because you got this whole ‘Outside the curve’ thing going on.”
“You—” He barely knows where to start, dozens of questions and statements hitting him at once. His cybernetic limbs however, fire once again, causing Morty to jump.
“Fuck!” Rick yells distantly. “Can you shut that shit down already? It already burned a fucking hole in my shields!”
“You’d think you’d get the point by now.” Mortimer replies, dry and unsympathetic. “You’re not needed, go back to your ship.”
He doesn’t hear a reply, only muffled cursing. Mortimer finishes entering the information into his tablet and not a moment too soon, already feeling what little energy he had starting to crash. His eyelids get heavier as he lays back down, suppressing a wince. Robotic arms activate and scans start being run on him by a computer he programmed to understand exactly what his body should look like, and what to do when it doesn’t.
Morty takes a step back, glancing over the screens as they jot down all the issues needing to be fixed. His eyebrows climb higher with every added bullet point.
“What the fuck?” Morty blurts out at last. “How the fuck are you still talking?”
“Practice.” Mortimer murmurs. His last and final Rick didn’t care if he was in pain or not; if he wanted an answer out of him, he’d get one. “I’ve had worse.”
“Not fucking reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Just a fact.” It's getting harder not to slur his words together, his tongue becoming like lead in his mouth. “Good job. I won’t die now and whatever debt you had is paid. You can leave now.”
Morty takes a few more steps back, watching Mortimer’s medical equipment handle the rest. His mouth is pressed into a tight line and as the darkness begins to overtake his vision, Mortimer doesn’t hear whatever Morty says when he opens his mouth.
—
Internal Threat Neutralized.
Condition: Stable.
Detecting no interior or exterior problems. Initiating wake up sequence in three, two, one—
Mortimer jolts up, shaking off any remaining aches. His cybernetic eye lights up with gold text, back at regular speed and clarity, and Mortimer idly reads the report as he takes notice of his surroundings.
The medical bay is as clean as always, not a hair out of place, except—
Except. Morty is still here.
What the hell is he still doing here.
He’s pulled up a stool to as close as he likely could’ve been without being in the way. His face is squished into the wall, having fallen asleep while Mortimer was under. Why he didn’t just leave is beyond him.
A quick scan gives him one relief however: his Rick is nowhere in the vicinity. At least one of them got the hint and left.
Mortimer focuses his sensors on Morty, running over the code for his emergency protocols. It shouldn’t have any instructions to ignore Mortys as threats and as he looks it over, there aren’t any. Mortys and Ricks alike are meant to be treated the same way. Upon further inspection, there’s no sneaky virus that has invaded his code to bypass Morty so he won’t be targeted. There’s nothing that should allow it.
With some digging, Mortimer finds the initial reports from when C-137 Morty and Rick showed up. They were both scanned immediately, running as intended. Rick, of course, was deemed a threat for a multitude of reasons and was never allowed to get within fifty feet of him, as intended. Morty was scanned as well.
In the report, Morty is recognized as Morty C-137, someone he has faced in the past. His sensors knew exactly who he was and every single interaction Mortimer had ever had with him.
Morty was simply deemed not a threat.
Mortimer stares at the report. He tells his sensors to run the scan again. They do. In green, the words ‘Morty C-137: Not A Threat’ pop up and Mortimer finally dismisses every tab he pulled up in favor of pinching his temple.
Mortimer created the program that runs his sensors. He knows exactly how it determines what is and isn’t a threat, ensuring that it won’t waste power over things like harmless animals when there might be actual threats nearby. It also means that if there are harmless people, such as paramedics only looking to help, they’ll also be allowed to get closer, unless they do something to betray the verdict.
Mortimer would’ve thought that Morty C-137 would’ve been deemed a threat not just by mere proxy, but by how many times he’s shown to have been against him. They might’ve left on neutral terms last time but Mortimer was under the impression that he made it clear how that was a temporary occurrence.
From the sound of it however, this Morty is particularly stubborn. Came all this way and for what? A sense of duty? Trading a favor for a favor? Simply because he had been worried?
Mortimer clicks his tongue. He stretches as he hops down from the medical table, strolling over and tapping Morty’s forehead. When he twitches but doesn’t rouse, Mortimer presses his finger there and administers a small but no less sudden and jarring shock.
Morty jolts with a surprised cry. Not a pained one, Mortimer essentially just jump-started his brain to wake it up. He’s done it to himself before, including how he woke up not a few minutes earlier.
“Wha— who— what did you—..?” Morty’s eyes dart every which way until his thoughts catch up to him. “Did— did you fucking shock me?”
“I don’t know what you mean, you must’ve imagined it.”
“You’re seriously gaslighting me right now?”
Mortimer waves him away. “Up. I’m leaving this room and I’m not carrying you.”
Morty mumbles something under his breath that Mortimer doesn’t care enough to listen to, but he does follow him out. His mini paradise has no real sense of time but Mortimer has set up the holographic sky to reflect his usual sleep cycle. Currently, although damaged in a few places from the attack, it looks like it’s dusk.
Mortimer tracks down one of his backup portal guns hidden within the floorboards by the spices cabinet and starts inputting coordinates. “Are you still living in the universe I last saw you in?”
“Yeah— oh, wait, hold on,” Morty holds up a finger and fishes out a portal gun from his back pocket. “I’m good actually. Rick— he left it with me when he left so— I can go at any time.”
Mortimer looks up from his portal gun with a raised eyebrow. “Then do it.”
Morty, noticeably, does not do it. He frowns instead, gesturing at him with the portal gun still in hand. “Is this it then? You— you just want everyone to fuck off all the time?”
“Generally, yes.”
“You could’ve died, you know.” Morty narrows his eyes a little. “Look, I— you don’t owe me anything. If anything, I owed you something.”
“You didn’t.”
“My Rick would’ve died if you hadn’t been there when we fought Prime. Do— do you understand that? Do you know how— how that feels? I was useless! That whole time, I was useless!”
Mortimer’s eyebrow climbs even further up. “I’d argue I technically beat him because of you.” He doesn’t mean it as a compliment, simply a fact that Morty is, for emotional reasons, ignoring. “Not to mention the aftermath.”
“The— the aftermath?”
“Actually getting your revenge isn’t pretty.” He knows that better than anyone. He remembers it well. He thinks it might’ve left scars deeper than any amount of time can heal. “I warned you before. Rick was in just as much danger after as he was during. Because once it was over, he had to deal with a reality where he actually succeeded.”
Thinking about the aftermath of his own revenge quest makes him want a drink. Mortimer mentally sends the request out, hoping that his robot butler is still intact and active. He’ll know for sure in a few minutes.
Mortimer shrugs and leans back against the counter. “You’re probably the reason he’s still here.”
“Still… Here.” Morty echoes faintly. Something in his eyes tells him that he already suspected as much before, but hearing it be told so plainly seems to be doing something to him.
“My uses tend to be physical ones. Violent ones.” Mortimer continues. “For better or for worse, it’s become my specialty. I’m sure you have your violent tendencies too, but you also seem a bit more…” He tilts his head at him. “Emotionally available, then I am.”
Morty is silent for a while. When he looks up, his gaze is scrutinizing. “Are you… Is this your attempt at comfort?”
“It’s more my attempt to make you leave me alone but whatever works.” Mortimer turns his head as his butler wheels in, accepting the drink. “Is it working?”
Morty watches said butler wheel away, then his eyes flicker to the drink in hand. Sugary, colorful, with a toothpick with a few different kinds of fruit skewered on it.
“You really go on in on the vacation vibe you got going on here.” Morty squints at him. “…How often do you drink?”
He shrugs and sips it. “Bad habit. We all have them. Seriously though, do I need to pay you to leave?”
“I wouldn’t say no to money but—” Morty sighs. “Does it have to be?”
“Have to be what?”
“This. Does— does it have to be just… Over?”
Mortimer lowers his drink, scanning him with his organic eye. “You’re awfully sentimental about someone you’ve been at odds with since the beginning.”
“S-sue me for being curious!” Morty throws his hands up. “I don’t know, I just— I know I would be lonely out here by myself!”
“We’re not the same person.”
“Just because you’re this— this genius with cybernetic enhancements and a neutral disposition doesn’t mean we’re not both Mortys.”
“I don’t go by Morty anymore.” He tells him. “And I don’t want to ever again.”
“Then tell me what to call you!”
“What are you trying to get here, Morty?”
“Does everything have to be some— some fucking exchange?”
“Technically everything is an exchange, no matter the intentions. Some people just get internal gratification or validation.” Mortimer takes another sip. He’s defensive— there is something going here.
Mortimer mentally runs over all their recent interactions from his memory bank. Every little offhanded detail or gesture, every little thing Morty tried to pass off as nothing. There weren’t a lot of lies. Morty was genuine almost the whole time, but there was something else there.
“It’s cool, I’m here to help! You’re pretty banged up but I can fix that— been pretty banged up myself!”
“I thought if it was hard for us to deal with together, it was probably hell for you to deal with alone so— I’m making sure you’re not dying on us.”
“You don’t have to though. You— you could celebrate your birthday with like. Other people. With the same birthday.”
“Is this it then?”
“My Rick would’ve died if you hadn’t been there when we fought Prime. Do— do you understand that? Do you know how— how that feels?”
“This. Does— does it have to be just… Over?”
“I don’t know, I just— I know I would be lonely out here by myself!”
Trying to be helpful. The small talk. The stubbornness to leave, as if he really will never see him again if he goes.
Mortimer lets out a sigh, shifting forward to lean over the kitchen island separating them, placing his drink in front of him. Morty frowns, crossing his arm on the island to lean on them.
“You’re lonely.” Mortimer says, not a question. Morty’s frown twists— bullseye. “Your choices in making friends are extremely questionable.”
“I hang out with Rick all day.” Morty points out. “I don’t think it was ever anything else. But I guess I’m just— what did you call it? ‘Bred’ for that sort of thing?”
“Mmhm.” Mortimer downs the rest of his drink. His foresight for when he’s gonna need one is uncanny. “Something caused this.”
“And you care?” Morty gives him a skeptical look.
“You’re making it my problem so congratulations, now it is.” Mortimer gestures for him to continue.
Morty holds his gaze for an impressive amount of time, but he does relent in the end. “I realized my greatest fear is relying on Rick too much. And I think I do, so… I— I need other people in my life. Rick— he’s getting better and I’m proud but…” He gestures weakly.
Mortimer hums. “And I was one of your choices.”
“Nobody at my school is gonna get me.” Morty says. “Maybe no one on Earth can get me. Other Mortys just… Made sense. And— and believe it or not, we left on better terms than most. My Rick is one of the most hated Ricks alive, and I’m his partner. So when Prime’s revenge bots showed up, I— I thought of you and… I really was worried! I just— you know. Thought maybe I could talk to you again.”
“By definition, you succeeded.”
Morty deflates. His portal gun is taken out again and fiddled with, Mortimer not taking his eye off of him the whole time. “I guess, yeah. I’m kinda glad you’re alive— you— I still think you’re an asshole but… You get it, you know? I’ll get out of your hair.”
He shoots a portal in the wall. As Morty turns to leave, he thinks of the emergency protocol again— the verdict made about this Morty specifically. About how one of his first first thoughts after being attacked, bafflingly, was to check on him.
Just before Morty crosses into the portal, he speaks up, “It’s Mortimer, by the way.”
Morty stops in his tracks, looking at him with wide eyes. Mortimer stands, putting the glass in the sink, and shrugging. “You did ask.”
“Mortimer.” He repeats, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Yeah, I like that. Not the most original but— neat.”
Mortimer shoots him a glare. “Get out.”
Morty bubbles a laugh. “I’m going, I’m going! I— uh— I’ll see you around?”
“Not guaranteeing anything. I meant what I said, Morty. I like being left alone.”
“But?” He prompts. His eyes shine with so much hope that it’s disgusting.
Mortimer narrows his eyes further. “You’re pushing your luck.” Morty laughs yet again.
“I’ll see you around!” He says, and walks through the portal. It finally closes with a pop and Mortimer’s gaze is drawn to the artificial sight, millions of stars now filling up the deep blue sky, though the screen is still sparking in a few places.
He needs to fix that. And he’s not tired enough to go to sleep right now so he might as well start repairs.
He also needs to decide if he’s going to be spending his birthday alone or not, and repairing is familiar enough work where he can effectively kill two birds with one stone.