Chapter Text
He followed the Citadel’s standard process to meet his Morty. Some radical Ricks had entered the Smiths’ lives earlier; some liked to meet their Mortys while they were still young and more malleable, and that’s where most of the unique Mortys came from, those with special skills in shooting, strength, or speed. Some turned them into musicians or dancers, and they’d show up at gatherings with their grandson who performed cute party tricks, others educated and modified them. Their particularly intelligent Mortys followed them everywhere until they inevitably struck back.
Special Mortys are nothing but trouble, intelligent Mortys are a ticking time bomb.
Rick Sánchez from dimension δ-519c takes advantage of the convenience of The Citadel of Ricks, the thousands of versions of himself in one place serve as a perfect and convenient guide to facts, all you have to do is ask the right Rick, and you’ll learn all the necessary variations to get what you want. Rick δ-519c wanted a normal Morty, so he followed the standard procedure. Research and consensus within the Citadel agreed that the key to a Morty who is adaptable enough and obedient is to appear in his life when the boy is between 12 and 13 years old, a fun initial approach followed by a rapid and aggressive escalation into the dangers of the universe would result in a 14 year old Morty capable of staying alive but still adaptable and inexperienced enough to follow instructions without too much questioning, as long as the lives of the local Beth and Jerry in that dimension aren’t too different from those of all their other versions on the central finite curve, every Rick should be able to obtain a normal, basic Morty, a “vanilla Morty” you could say, simply by following that straightforward series of steps.
At first, everything went more or less as it should have, his Morty was just as fearful, irritating, and hormonal as all the others. He’d compare notes with the other Ricks in the Citadel, his grandson screamed, cried, and had fun in amounts similar to those of his variants. He was useful, perfect brainwave camouflage meant fewer problems with the Galactic Federation. Having him around meant an extra pair of hands to carry things, he could develop decent shooting skills and serve as an assistant who passed tools during his experiments.
He makes sure to take him to places Morty might enjoy, some suggested by other Ricks, others that Rick himself thought might interest him, ice cream shops with flavors that don’t exist on Earth, movie theaters showing action films that Earth would never approve of producing, video game arcades, medieval-themed restaurants, and he even makes sure to take him to Boobworld sometimes.
Morty is a normal teenager, just like all his alternate versions, and just like the average Morty, he has an almost identical success and failure rate when trying to get dates, he gets distracted by any cute girl (usually redheads, whether alien or human) and typically is a mess trying to flirt, succeeding only when the girl in question is interested in him too or thinks his shyness is cute. This is where one of the first peculiarities of his Morty comes into play.
In practically every dimension where there’s a Morty, there’s a Jessica, the typically redheaded, confident, and popular girl, who is a recurring illusion among Mortys across the entire central finite curve, a deep longing, an unattainable dream, an image so deeply ingrained in the minds of the Mortys that the Ricks inevitably end up discussing it among themselves in the Citadel, typically out of irritation or when recounting embarrassing anecdotes about their grandchildren. Some particularly romantic Ricks speak of young love and even mention their late wives.
His Morty is a bit of a special case in that topic, he’s a blushing, stuttering mess around Jessica. He hasn’t managed to get a single date, and the redhead has a boyfriend who isn’t Morty, but the two teenagers talk, they talk a lot. When Rick picks Morty up from school, he usually finds them both laughing about something, Morty’s phone constantly vibrates with messages from her in the afternoons, and the girl even shows up every few weeks to stay for dinner. This is much more than most Mortys manage. Rick figures that as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with their adventures and his irritating grandson doesn’t get too cocky because of it, he can let it slide.
Mortys are nervous little things full of squeals and whimpers, if his Morty is happier at school because of his friend-love interest than the average Morty, that’s something no Rick other than himself needs to know. He doesn’t need the other Ricks’ opinions on how that might be beneficial or harmful.
Morty δ-519c likes clothes, he’s not obsessed like Rick g-526v’s Morty, the Rick calls himself “The Tailor Rick” and dresses his grandson like a mannequin or a teenage model with an eating disorder who’s about to walk the runway in heels he doesn’t know how to wear and clothes that no one would ever wear outside of that setting.
His Morty likes clothes, in other planets and in other dimensions he’ll stop for a few seconds to look at store windows, and whenever he has a free moment he sneaks into clothing stores and runs his fingers through soft fabrics and rows of garments. He never buys anything, he doesn’t start wearing a T-shirt with a hideous V-neck and consider himself superior to other Mortys because of his terrible taste in clothes, nor does he wear a T-shirt of a different color and make that his entire personality, he simply seems to enjoy looking at clothes.
Other Ricks have never mentioned this detail, and he wonders if perhaps he should bring it up.
The Mortys love their families, raised to be forgiving and bound by their invented human morality, they feel the need to love their families. It's pure love, but mostly superficial. They insist on living with their parents and trying to get along with their sisters, they seek to please their mothers and try to keep their useless fathers alive. But when the time comes, they can abandon all of that. Mortys are distributed like merchandise throughout the universe, many pass through dozens of Smith families, always adapting quickly to each new family dynamic. They love their families, but when a dimension runs out of Rick, when they’re left without an assigned Grandpa, they simply stay in the Citadel. They form communities easily and look back only in nightmares.
His Morty has a pure and genuine attachment to his family, but these bonds remain tenuous, sustained more by obligation than by mutual affection. Yet his grandson looks longingly at Beth and Summer, trying to talk to them and join in their conversations and activities, his efforts bear no fruit. His mother loves him in a forced interpretation of what a mother is supposed to do and out of a fear of becoming like her own father, while Summer loves him but is irritated with him far more often than she is happy.
The bond Morty seeks to form with them clearly stems from some longing that Rick is unaware of and that no alternate version has mentioned.
When peculiarities come together, they feel dangerous. Unique Mortys are problematic with unpredictable personalities and distinctive traits that carry deep backstories capable of altering entire stories and dimensions. They attract unwanted attention, and there are dozens of Ricks fed up with their Mortys who decide they need a different companion and try to keep the different Mortys, collecting them as pets or showing them off as collectibles.
Rick has to rethink some of his ideas about his Morty when he walks into his room during one of Jessica’s many visits, he’s not interested in seeing his grandson in the middle of whatever he’s doing with the girl, but one of his contacts has finally gotten his drugs and he has no time to waste, so after making sure he doesn’t hear any incriminating noises through the door other than a shrill pop song, he walks in unannounced.
It’s not that Rick thinks about it, but objectively speaking, his granddaughter is pretty, pretty in the same way her mother is. Summer has Beth’s laugh, nose, and eyes, her reddish hair comes from Rick’s own mother, and despite Jerry’s genes, the girl turns out to be a compilation of some of the best and worst traits the family has to offer. She has the explosive temper that he passed on to his daughter, and she’s damn smart and capable, she’s adaptable and resourceful enough to lead. She drew on her mother’s best genes and managed to sufficiently temper Jerry’s genes for complacency and unemployment. He’s even heard some Ricks mention that she reminds them of Diane, he can’t and won’t confirm or deny that. Diane disappeared, only her name and a memory blurred by alcohol are all he has left of her.
He never stopped to notice or didn’t allow himself to internalize those traits in Morty, too focused on the brown hair he’d inherited from his father, and his own nose and facial expressions which he’d devised to pass on to his grandson, skipping over his own daughter. The layer of mascara, the eyeliner, and the soft eyeshadow make it impossible to ignore that those are Beth’s eyes, Summer’s eyes, and presumably Dianne’s eyes, it all comes together in the curve of the cheeks and the forehead. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Rick looks at Morty and can think of only one thing:
“Cute”
Cute like a puppy with a hungry look in its eyes, like Mr. Frundles wriggling inside his little cage in the basement, like his daughter in her little overalls with her arms in the air demanding to be picked up.
Morty screams, his friend screams, and the two teenagers turn into a jumble of excuses and curses as they search for makeup remover. Once the initial surprise has passed, Rick couldn’t care less about how adorable his grandson looks within the confines of his dimension, far from the problems of the Citadel, so he simply grabs Morty by the arm and drags him onto the ship. Now the ship is filled with squeals and more silly excuses, and Rick who has traveled across thousands of planets is fed up with humanity’s narrow and archaic view of everything.
“Shut up, Morty, you useless little thing. There are thousands of worlds where makeup is war paint or some ritual crap. If you curl your eyelashes, nobody cares. Your made-up butt is less than an amoeba in the universe.”
Apparently, his words set something off, because after ignoring Morty’s tears for the rest of the trip, in their next adventures Morty began showing up wearing makeup, sometimes a little color on his lips, sometimes cheeks in a variety of shades ranging from orange to purple, making him look like everything from glowing flushed skin, to a summer heatstroke, to a poorly healed bruise. Secretly, he’s glad his purple-blush phase didn’t last, it suits Beth, but on Morty it just doesn’t go with his undertone… or whatever the hell teenage girls, movie stars, and drag queens say.
Sometimes he wears nothing at all, at times he seems calm about it, but other times he’s a nervous wreck, biting his fingertips and avoiding looking at anything reflective. It doesn’t take him long to notice it happens when he’s suddenly pulled out of school or when Jerry and Beth are bustling around the house insisting on silly family bonding activities or household chores.
It’s nobody’s business, especially not the stupid Ricks at the Citadel, if there’s a small bag of makeup in the ship’s glove compartment behind the weapons, between the Mr. Meeseeks box and the wafer cookies, makeup that he originally picked out but that Morty eventually modified.
Making sharp turns with the ship or activating the flat tire simulator becomes one of his favorite activities while Morty puts on his makeup, his expression of utter indignation, with smudged eyeliner and asymmetrical lips, is simply hilarious. He makes sure to create a makeup remover that doesn’t leave stains and then drives smoothly to avoid the screams and whining for the rest of the day.
Finding Morty with Jessica on the second floor of his lab was a surprise, they were both sitting on the floor on a blanket, with bowls of popcorn and a projector on the wall showing a movie he doesn’t bother to identify. His dozen carnivorous plants are torn between watching the movie and eating from the snack bowls instead of trying to devour the intruding teenagers. He’s too focused on his outrage at seeing them eat popcorn with forks, that it takes him longer than he’d like to admit to notice that they have nail polish on their nails.
Morty and Jessica look very proud as they show off their yellow nail polish with silver glitter, boasting about their “ingenious” system of eating popcorn with utensils to avoid ruining their nails while the polish dries.
He forgets what he had come down to his lab to do, and while his intruders finish watching their movie, he begins creating a nail polish that dries in exactly 3 seconds without the need for UV light.
“With starlight glitter!”
Anything to avoid having to watch them eat popcorn with a fork again.
Morty removes his makeup and nail polish every time they return from an adventure or Jessica leaves, so a steady supply of makeup remover and modified acetone is produced every week in Rick’s lab. Morty seems a little more shaken each time his makeup comes off and his nail polish chips away, no matter how many times Rick lectures him about how fragile he’s acting, or about how insignificant a little color on his nails is in the vast diversity of the universe, but his grandson is completely terrified that anyone other than Rick, Jessica, or unknown aliens might see him like that.
He’s tempted to create a formula that enters the brain and detects the pigments in the makeup and modified nail polish to prevent the brain from processing that information. It would be easy to slip it into Beth, Jerry, and Summer’s food at dinner, and then Morty would stop panicking every time they return from an adventure and he hasn’t taken off his makeup yet.
On Pletmor-13, while Rick is hungover, his contact is running late, and Morty keeps complaining that he’ll get in trouble for skipping school on exam day, Rick decides he’s had enough and gets rid of his grandson with a wad of cash and the instruction not to come back until Rick himself comes to pick him up. The deal goes south, the battery swap turns into a shootout, at least Morty has the sense to spot the chaos from a distance and assume his grandfather is involved, because while Rick is fleeing, his grandson is already heading toward him, and they’re back in the garage on Earth after a quick portal trip.
He wants to curse this shitty day, his excruciating headache, his useless, traitorous contact, but Morty stands in front of him, and instead of letting him rant, he has the look of a scolded puppy who needs all the attention he can get right now, so with a headache that’s getting worse and a good swig from his flask, he pays him attention.
His makeup is light and well-maintained despite the chase, his cheeks glow with a peachy hue, the green in his eyes stands out, and his lips have that strange Korean ombre look Morty hasn’t stopped raving about for the past few weeks. Everything looks fine there, so that’s not why his grandson is being such a nuisance.
His nails look good, they’re perfectly manicured, the nail polish of a higher quality than anything made on Earth remains intact even after chases and explosions, even the yellow shade that fades to green toward the tips that Jessica suggested on her last visit, retains its shine without a hitch. That isn’t the thing that his grandson decided it was more important than his grandfather’s need to get drunk to get through this shitty day.
Finally, he notices it, his yellow T-shirt has shorter sleeves, a more fitted cut, and is just the right length to reveal the waistband of the pleated blue skirt his grandson is wearing. The colors are boringly typical of Morty and don’t match at all with the athletic socks he put on that morning and are now visible, but he looks so happy and proud in his outfit even doing a little nervous dance just like the one Beth used to do as a little girl whenever she got a new toy, but with more fluttering of the hands due to nervousness and less of that psychotic laughter that promised trouble because there was one less child in the neighborhood.
He wants to scream and get rid of Morty, but his head hurts, he needs some sleep or a good beer, he doesn’t want to hear him screaming while he whines and cries “You look fine, okay?” he says, his voice raspy and aggressive. He couldn’t care less what Morty is wearing, but now his grandson is laughing and jumping, at least he’s not too loud, and now Rick can rest his head on the nearest surface.
Except for one detail, “That fabric is awful. Did you spend the money I gave you on that? That planet is a consumerist hellhole, Morty. It’s cheap clothing, people go out and buy it, wear it once and it falls apart, so then you have to go back and buy more. It’s fine if you want to do whatever you want with your money, but not with the money I give you, Morty.” He can’t let Morty start asking to buy nonsense on their adventures, at least he can choose better planets to buy clothes… it’s just that Rick can’t think of any particular good place.
He could keep ranting, but Morty raises his arm with a nervous yet smug smile, showing the price tag hanging from the end of his sleeve. “I saw the explosion, I ran toward you, and I might not have paid” finally, something that can cheer him up. It doesn’t fix his headache, but a flash of pride fills him as he imagines Morty running from a store wearing stolen clothes toward the most dangerous part of the city, where the store employees would certainly not dare to follow him.
In the following adventures, Morty seems to reveal his secret wardrobe full of skirts, blouses, and dresses, half the time they don’t match or end up stained with makeup, and Morty complains, Rick feels this is something Morty should discuss with Summer or Beth, but his useless grandson seems determined to make it his problem alone. His ship now has a bag of spare clothes, but Morty also complains that his clothes are wrinkled, Rick yells at him to get dressed at home, but that argument goes nowhere.
When his clothes inevitably end up torn, burned, or outright destroyed during some adventure, and Morty looks at him with teary eyes as if he’d committed a crime holding his stupid blue pleated skirt, now half-turned to ashes, Rick decides he’s had enough.
Rick δ-519c is your average Rick, an alcoholic with a budding substance abuse problem, a bad father, violent tendencies, good at building things, and definitely terrible at sewing. He’s not Tailor Rick, who insists on launching clothing lines in the Citadel that nobody buys, in that regard he’s more like Rick A-513, who is the leader in the textile industry and pretends in interviews that he rose to his position through hard work when he doesn’t even know how to hold a needle.
But δ-519c is going to lose it if he keeps getting complaints from his Morty about damaged clothes, poor quality clothing, or if Morty bothers him again about the blouse he saw in a catalog and making him travel through four solar systems to get to the right store, only to find out that that specific item was sold out.
The Citadel of Ricks has lately turned out to be useless and a form of self-flagellation more often than convenient, and his new need for new, durable, and aesthetically appealing fabrics remains unmet. The 8th floor of the garage usually filled with blueprints for her most creative weapons, has become a mess of fabrics and mannequins, because when he finally found a fabric that was flexible, resistant to friction, tearing, and fire, and didn’t need ironing, his poor sewing skills which in most cases transcend interdimensional barriers, came back to haunt him.
His plan to create a chip to implant in his brain containing all possible sewing information is somewhat derailed when he realizes how little he knows about the subject that never really interested him, and now he doesn’t know what information to include.
Absolutely no one needs to know that on the days he doesn’t pick Morty up from school while his grandchildren are in class and Beth is at work, Rick ends up joining a sewing class at the mall. Surrounded by moms looking to save money and girls following internet trends, he finds a certain peace in the activity, hand-sewing hems puts his mind in a pleasant state of blankness, free from the usual noise in his head. Pleated skirts are easy with the right fabric, an iron, and quick measurements, sewing zippers is deceptively difficult, and the amount of time it takes Rick to do so is peculiar but enjoyable.
His workshop on the 8th floor is filled with prototypes of pants, blouses, jackets, and dresses, the fabrics range from imitations of poplin to silk, denim, tulle, suede, and organza, all durable enough to withstand their adventures. When he finishes his first project that he’s satisfied with, a strange nervousness and shyness wash over him as he presents it to Morty.
The blue circle skirt with white petticoats to add volume seems to become Morty’s favorite piece of clothing, when he received it, he literally jumped for joy after overcoming his initial skepticism about a gift from his grandfather, and every time he wears it, a little of that joy seems to return.
Morty is happier than ever with clothes that don’t wrinkle, makeup that’s resistant to sweat, radiation, and certain types of acid, and nails with nearly indestructible polish, he complains much less during their adventures. What does a little danger on the other side of the galaxy matter if he can dress exactly as he wants without anyone saying anything?
Except that someone does say something, humans aren’t the only prejudiced species, in fact, backward, closed-minded societies that pigeonhole their inhabitants into dozens of different categories that despise one another, and punish anyone who steps outside their assigned role, are more common than those that understand the irrelevance of such classifications, which were invented in an attempt to tame nature. So it shouldn’t have been surprising that some idiot decided to pick on Morty for his dress when Grandpa and grandson were just looking for a good place to eat before an alien drug swap.
The problem is easy to solve, the puddle of liquefied remains left by a single shot from one of their weapons can’t spout nonsense anymore, but it does leave Rick thinking.
In hindsight, he should have noticed it sooner, the sensibilities of human society seem so archaic and boring to him in the face of the universe’s meaninglessness and the variety of worlds that sometimes he simply forgets to look at the world through human eyes. Morty is a weight that drags him down from the pinnacle of the universe into the depths of mere humanity, he laments deaths because “all life is precious,” seeks nonviolent solutions because “violence isn’t the answer,” remains his grandson and those dreadful family genes make him impulsive and cruel when he gets angry, but he’s still an annoying voice in his mind trying to act as his conscience.
Rick has lost his natural human sensibilities, objectively, he knows that the makeup, clothes, and the way Morty chooses to present himself go against human conservatism, he’s seen him hide it from his family and only reveal it to trusted companions or strangers in distant worlds, but he never gave it much thought, when the final answer arrives and everything falls into place like pieces of a puzzle, he feels a bit fool for never having considered it before.
Mortys are generally science fans, but they all have a soft spot for medieval magical elements, it’s not that Rick cares much about what the other Mortys like, but he knows that a medieval planet where anyone can challenge another to a champion’s duel to defend their honor is just what his grandson needs to lift his spirits after running into too many jerks with repressed jealousy over seeing someone else wearing the most beautiful dress they’ll ever see in their simple lives.
The plan is to arrive on the planet, wait for some poor fool to stare too intently at Morty, and then Rick can challenge them to a duel, thereby declaring himself his grandson’s champion. All of this goes a bit awry because of the redheaded girl in armor who Morty couldn’t take his eyes off of since they arrived and who within just a few minutes of meeting him, demanded a challenge and declared herself the champion.
It’s not what they expected, and Rick is now forced to wear a hideous hopalanda that he can think of at least 15 ways to make it more comfortable and durable, but the ultimate goal is achieved, Morty is wearing a pompous dress with too many layers, full of ruffles and gems, while being treated like royalty from the podium, where he can eat grapes and marzipan.
The level of respect accorded on that planet to those with a champion willing to defend their honor is impressive.
But as he kneels adjusting the dress they gave Morty, his grandson lacks his usual cheer, in the bedroom mirror he stares thoughtfully, clutching the skirt of the dress with his fists, not even Rick’s teasing about his redheaded champion elicits a reaction from him.
When he finishes adjusting the hem of the dress and is ready to complain about the quality of the tailoring, Morty finally looks at him, his green eyes, accentuated by makeup, shine with a determination and intensity that Rick has never seen before. “I’m not a boy,” he says, some of his confidence fades, replaced by nerves, but he just clenches his fists tighter and continues, “I know it doesn’t matter, there are thousands of civilizations where gender doesn’t even exist, and there really isn’t any point to labels like ‘man’ or ‘woman’ when the universe has no structure, they’re just attempts to bring order and understanding to it” these are echoes of words Rick himself has said before, they’re true, and yet he isn’t used to hearing them from someone else “But it matters to me that you know I’m not a boy” Morty looks down, bites his lip, and furrows his brow in concentration. “I’m a girl, my name is Morticia”.
Rick froze for a moment, nothing had changed, and yet at the same time it had, the meaning behind the makeup, the nail polish, and the clothes had shifted slightly, what he had interpreted as rebellion against an oppressive binary system was, in fact, an act of self-discovery, a self-understanding born of maturity, an act of liberation against the oppression imposed on her during her upbringing.
The universe has no meaning and nothing matters, everyone and everything will die sooner or later, and nothing will change that, but Morticia had decided that she could change what would happen until that moment arrived, for months she had been changing her small part of existence to make it the way she wanted, she looked at the life she’d been dealt and decided it wasn’t for her. Telling him this wasn’t a quest for validation, she simply stated it as if she were sharing an undeniable truth.
Pride is a strange feeling, feeling so much of it is new to Rick.
His granddaughter glows as she sits on the dais in her yellow dress, looking like a noblewoman. She makes more noise than is appropriate for the event, shouting with excitement as she watches the melee and the jousts.
“Now, Sir Avice takes the field to defend Lady Morticia’s honor” the announcement is repeated for each pair of champion and challenger, but Morticia smiles so brightly that Rick can’t help but smile back, together they shout with excitement when Avice wins the joust, leaving her opponent on the ground with a broken lance stuck in his side, still mounted on her horse she rides over to where they are standing. Rick can’t help but laugh when he has to remind a blushing Morticia that she’s supposed to offer her handkerchief as a token of respect to her champion who has won.
At the party afterward, with all the event attendees and the surviving champions, Rick lets himself get a little tipsy while a couple in the distance winks at him, he takes one last look at his granddaughter who believes is being discreet as she slips away from the venue hand in hand with her redhead, and decides she’ll be fine. He heads toward the man and woman on the other side of the room, he’ll look for his granddaughter in the morning.
When they return home, Morticia is a smiling mess in love and full of herself after convincing Rick to build a makeshift cell phone to give to the knight girl, whom she may or may not be dating.
Morticia starts letting her hair grow, her bob grows into chestnut curls that when they brush her shoulders, Jessica begins to braid during her visits and Jerry questions her at every opportunity.
“Morticia, sex is a construct of idiotic species that place too much importance on their genitals. Jerry is the kind of backward idiot who fell for that brainwashing because he’s too ashamed to admit his own problems with that system, Morticia, but I don’t think Beth and Summer are quite as stupid,” he replies when his granddaughter tells him she plans to tell their family.
At dinner, Morticia shows up wearing light makeup, her favorite skirt, and a yellow blouse that Rick also made. Summer comments that she wants to know where she got her clothes, Beth seems doubtful when she tells her she looks good and Jerry looks flustered, not knowing what to say. When they finish eating, her granddaughter stands up, and as she recounts the months of doubt, self-discovery, and experimentation, she once again becomes a bundle of nerves and tremors. Rick wants to stand behind her and make it clear exactly how he’ll make their lives miserable if any of them decide that his granddaughter’s identity is a problem, but the path away from restrictive social norms is a difficult one and Morticia has to learn to face it on her own.
That doesn’t stop him though, while Beth and Summer hug Morticia in a show of support, he joins the three women of the family in yelling at Jerry when he complains, insisting on calling Morticia by the wrong name and claiming he’s just looking out for her.
What else could you expect from the jerk who even when captured, with an uncertain fate and his species being enslaved, refused to accept calling Snowball by his new name?
The offer to erase Jerry’s memory and tweak his mind a bit so he’d be less of a transphobic jerk is rejected but makes Morticia laugh. The offer, made aloud during dinner to take his granddaughter to the dimension where they perform the best breast surgeries, makes Morticia scream with excitement and Jerry with horror, an absolute success.
At Beth’s insistence and in agreement with Morticia, they decide that puberty blockers will suffice for now; they get them on Trexos-2 where Morticia just has to register, and they’re provided as part of public health measures.
Morticia is still Morticia, a teenage mess who likes girls, with a slightly warped moral compass, always empathetic and forgiving. She likes to watch Ball Flanders while painting her nails, and Boobworld remains her favorite reward for doing well on their adventures with her grandpa.
But she’s much happier now that she can be herself; she grows close to Beth and Summer through a bond of understanding that Rick knows wouldn’t have been possible under different circumstances.
When she goes to school, free to show her true appearance, Rick has to reassure Beth, but he still finds himself in the hallways using the invisibility belt to calm his own unease.
Some jerk has his granddaughter by the arm, the horrible things he calls her enrage Rick, but before he can intervene, Morticia lands a right hook to the guy’s jaw with enough force to knock out at least one of his teeth. The only memory he has of his late wife is of them leaving a date at a bar together, the poor fool who shouted an inappropriate comment never stood a chance. Now his granddaughter, with bright green eyes full of determination and anger, possesses all of Diane’s resolve and willpower.
The conflict escalates, more people get involved and it all ends with a group of beaten-up, crying teenagers on the floor while Morticia accompanied by Summer and Jessica, all still shaken up from the fight, is taken to the principal’s office by the teacher who stopped them.
When the Smiths get a call at home, Rick forwards the call to his own cell phone, and as he heads to the principal’s office, he decides it’s his time to have some fun.
When he's done, he takes his granddaughters and their friend to the mall as a reward.
Rick has had enough of idiots’ opinions, so one night he and Beth sit down with Jerry, the conversation involves shouting, tears, and complaints about problems that were never resolved, but in the end, they agree to try to be better. When Jerry finally starts calling his daughter by her name, a satisfied Rick decides that maybe it isn’t necessary to replace Jerry with a more reasonable version from another dimension.
Life goes on, the adventures continue, and everything is easier now that Morticia can get ready from home, there’s no longer a need to stop before every trip so her granddaughter can change and put on makeup. The change of clothes and the makeup bag never leave her ship, just in case.
Her granddaughters are strong and determined; no matter how nervous and fearful Morticia may be at times, they possess all the decisiveness and fearlessness of their mother and grandparents. But that doesn’t change the dangers of the universe, it’s hard to be a woman in many parts of the universe, including Earth, and it’s even more dangerous to be a woman when an intolerant system refuses to accept you as such. All of Morticia’s skirts and dresses have pockets that serve as storage spaces with unlimited capacity, just like Rick’s own lab coats, the weapon he designs for his granddaughter for emergencies doesn’t compromise the cut of her clothes.
Summer, that ungrateful little brat, can complain all she wants about the enhancement to her ponytail, but Morticia is having the time of her life as she discovers how to control strands of her ever longer hair, watching her line her eyes, taking advantage of the perfectly steady movements of her hair, isn’t exactly what Rick had in mind when he made those improvements. But not complaining about the enhancement Grandpa worked so hard to make pays off, so while Summer complains that she doesn’t get specially designed, custom-made clothes, Rick has Morticia in the garage adjusting the corset of the most ostentatious, glittering, and astonishing dress ever made, it will be her outfit for her 15th birthday and will go down in history as the dress that put Georgian nobles, Disney princesses, and cosplayers to shame.
Jessica is there helping take measurements and still trying to convince Rick to make her an armor-dress for the themed birthday party. Rick is tempted to do it just because Aveci, the red-haired warrior, will be coming to the party, and the scientist wants to see how much fun he can have at the expense of the overwhelmed Princess Morticia when two girls fight over her attention.
He spends weeks designing the fabric and making the dress, and when he finally sees Morticia wearing it and his granddaughter runs to hug him, he thinks it’s all right, conformity has always been overrated, and the Ricks of the Citadel trapped in the oppressive lives they created for themselves, searching for guidance among thousands of versions of themselves on how to do everything in their lives instead of just going out and trying it themselves, have forgotten who they are, they’ve lost what made them Ricks.
The universe with its irreverent unpredictability, its infinite possibilities, and its indescribable vastness, feels more alive, the Citadel did not serve as a guide for him to meet Morticia, he is fed up with it serving as a guideline for his adventures, for his family, for his life. So many years ago when he accepted the portal gun from his variant’s hands, he did so out of weariness with human monotony, he had fallen into the trap of the false comfort that is the Citadel of Ricks.
He doesn’t know if other Ricks have Morticias like his, brave in their self-knowledge yet cowed by the terrors of the universe, self-assured yet nervous in public, who had to rebuild their worldview to understand themselves. Honestly, he doesn’t care, there’s no topic less relevant to him than the lives of other Ricks, not when his life finally feels like his own again.
Only idiots want to predict their opportunities, wanting an average Morty, wanting an average and predictable life, when the universe’s unpredictability makes everything more fun.