The Mis-Rick-Education of Phoebe Johnson

by The Druid Is In

Phoebe Johnson didn't know what to expect when she went to live with her half-brother, Jerry, to attend graduate school. She certainly didn't expect interdimensional, space, and time travel with his hated father-in-law Rick and his socially awkward son Morty. Cross-posted on AO3.

20. Thank Fuck for Mortys

May ~ Part Three~

The direct hit happened to be to the shoulder of her gun-hand, and it instantly disarmed her. Stars briefly exploded behind her eyes when her hands and knees slammed into the hard stone floor, the electrocution pistol shooting out of her hand and skittering away from her. "Gàn," she screamed, curling in on herself in pain. "Cào nǐ mā!" This was the second time today that an alternate Rick caused her physical pain and it was not endearing them to her.

Distantly, she noted that the opposing Morty picked up the electrocution pistol, put the safety on and tucked it into his waistband. Suddenly, blue flashed in her peripheral vision and her Rick was at her side, an arm around her shoulders. "Phoebe, are you all right?" Concern laced through his words.

"I'm fine," she forced between grit teeth to avoid making any more embarrassing noises. She didn't want the other Rick to know how much he hurt her (though that ship likely sailed when she screamed), and she sure as hell wouldn't cry for him. She would not give him the satisfaction. For all she knew he was a sadist who would get off on any pain or fear she displayed, so she tried convincing herself that it didn't hurt all that much. The truth was that her knees throbbed as if someone had whaled on them with a mallet. Rick squeezed her shoulder consolingly, not under any illusions as to whether or not she was as fine as she pretended to be.

"While this is touching," the other Rick drawled, "I'm afraid we have to cut this sort." He said something in an alien language, and then in short order Phoebe and Rick found themselves seized by the odd lobster-like beings, one delicately holding each of their arms between their pincers. The alternate Rick released her Morty from his hold, letting him drop to the floor with a dull thud and a whimper. A moment later and one of the odd henchmen picked him up by the back of his rumpled shirt. With the three of them restrained, the opposing Rick and Morty started walking, a wall of lobster-like alien henchmen forming between them and the immobilized team C-137, with another section closing rank behind them.

"Fucking fuck," Phoebe sighed. "Out of the wolf's den, into the tiger's mouth."

"That's the biggest understatement of the century," Rick replied. He cut his eyes at her. "Why didn't you take the shot?"

"Because I couldn't risk losing either one of you. You're too important to me," Phoebe confessed. "We all get out or none of us do. I meant all that team crap, Rick."

"No I mean why didn't you take the shot before?"

"Because they saw me and I like you both better with all of your blood in your body and no mortal wounds."

Rick smiled thinly. "Well thank fuck for that at least." He looked ahead of him at the back of the other Rick. "I don't like the look of that Rick. Or the way he looked at you, for that matter, Phoebe. Guy's a total creep. We gotta escape."

"Yeah, and fast," Phoebe agreed. "He's already shown that he has no compunctions against injuring any of us, and I'm worried about how far he'll go with Morty."

"Probably torture, he's obviously fine with that." Rick looked at Morty. "If you see an opportunity, Morty, take it."

"I'm not gonna help either of you, Rick," Morty pouted stubbornly. "Y-you're both assholes. I-I'm just a replaceable tool to you."

"Oh for fu—you do realize I was bluffing?" Phoebe exclaimed in disbelief.

Rick groaned. "Don't be Rick-diculous, Morty."

"W-will you stop saying that? It's stupid."

Their conversation was cut short by the other Rick speaking to his Morty. "Take his Morty away."

"Come with me," the Morty said, leading Morty away.

"Yeah, gladly," Phoebe heard him remark. "Geez man, Ricks huh?"

"Now," the other Rick murmured, walking through the band of henchmen to stand in front of Phoebe. He reached out to caress her left cheek with one finger of his right hand. "What to do with you, hmm, Phoebe?"

She sighed and turned her face into his hand, pressing her lips against his palm as if for a kiss. The Rick smirked as she smiled at him, but the smirk quickly vanished when, swift as a striking serpent, she bit down on the fleshy part of his palm, her teeth sinking into his skin. He snatched his hand back, glaring at her. The sharp motion sent a few droplets of blood flying up onto her face. Phoebe gave him a bloody grin, her teeth stained red, then spit out some of his blood. "When we get free," she panted, "—and we will—I'll kill you myself, you sick bastard."

"Damn it, Phoebe," she heard her Rick mutter under his breath.

She braced herself for a strike across the face in retaliation, but instead, as the strange Rick cradled his injured hand against his chest, he looked at her with interest. "Playing with you will be very interesting," he finally murmured. "Very interesting. Especially after I kill your Rick. Shall I record it so we can watch together? No, you look like the type that needs a firsthand experience."

Phoebe trembled with both worry and rage, a surge of fierce protectiveness overcoming her. "If you hurt one hair on the head of my Rick or my Morty I swear to Ma Kali that you will have a painful death," she spat.

The other Rick had a cruel mouth. The dangerous smile flashed again. "You can try," he shrugged. He turned his back to her, walking back through the creatures at his command.

They continued until they reached a set of double doors. He walked through, then called out in the alien language again. The creatures restraining Rick and Phoebe followed him into the room while the others dispersed. The other Rick closed the doors and beckoned the creature with her Rick towards a metal examination table. A row of computers ran parallel to it on one side. The creature dumped Rick onto the table, smacking him with restrained force as it did so, apparently to stun him momentarily as the other Rick secured him to it with metal restraints. "Pay close attention, Phoebe," the other Rick drawled. "You won't want to miss anything. And while you're here, why not enjoy the view as well?" He gestured at the window.

Despite her better judgement, Phoebe glanced at it and recoiled in disgust as she saw what he indicated—the mass of tortured Mortys writhing in agony across the outer surface of the dome. "Ahh, isn't it beautiful?"

"You're fucking sick, you piece of shit," Phoebe spat.

Her Rick responded with half-sarcasm, half-inappropriate-but-biting humor. "Yeah, yeah, looks like payday at Neverland ranch in here. Zing!"

The creature standing over him seemed to snicker. "Hehehehehehehehehe."

"Well, that guy got it."

"Yeah, it was really wrong but kind of funny," Phoebe added. "Only you would crack a dark joke just before you're tortured and murdered."

"Oh, I won't be torturing him, and I won't be killing him just yet either. I have other plans for him, but that's neither here nor there. You're both missing my symphony." He pressed a button that magnified the sound, for which he mimed a conductor's motions.

Her Rick decided to crack another joke. "Hey, I'll take it over Mumford and Sons. Zip!"

Phoebe sighed. "Rick…"

The creature near his head cackled again.

Rick preened. "This guy is on it!"

The other Rick rolled his eyes. "He's not laughing at your dumb jokes, Rick. That's just a random noise it makes every ten seconds."

As if to prove his point, said creature cackled a third time.

Rick instantly deflated. "Awww."

"See, Rick, you're not as clever as you think you are. I wanted you to find me. We're not so—" belch "—different, you and I."

"Really? From where I am you definitely look like the bigger asshole," Phoebe retorted. If he came close to her again, she could give him a swift kick in the gut or the balls. She considered kicking backwards at the creature holding her, but it could easily maim her since it had both of her arms in its deadly grip, though perhaps a kick would stun it...

The other Rick scowled at her. "This is what I mean, Phoebe." The projector behind him flickered on, displaying a database of different Ricks. He fiddled with it for a moment, flicking through a few. "See this right here? I crunched the numbers, I created a spectrum of all the Ricks. I listed 'em out from most evil to least evil. Here's where I am. And look at right here's where you are, Rick." He flicked past her Rick's profile to yet another Rick. "This guy right here? Super weird."

"And I bet you're still the bigger cunt," Phoebe murmured.

Her Rick's eyes looked on calculatingly. "I get it. So you want me to team up with you to take down the Council of Ricks, right? Is that where you're going with this? 'Cause that's where I'd be going."

The other Rick brushed him off. "Please. I think I'm doing pretty good on my own. I'm simply going to download the contents of your brain, and then kill you while your Phoebe watches. Then I'll kill your Morty while she watches, and then I'll have a little fun with her."

Her Rick's eyes shot to her. "He's definitely the bigger cunt," he agreed, startling her because she wasn't sure he'd heard that remark.

The other Rick fit the scanning devices on her Rick's head, and his memories started flashing across the screen: his newly finished space cruiser, bothering Jerry, Snuffles/Snowball the dog, Rick getting down and dirty with a blonde alien woman, Rick destroying presumably enemy spaceships.

The other Rick watched with rapt attention. "You've lived quite a life, Rick. It's a real shame you're not gonna be around to see it through."

"That's what you think, ass breath," Phoebe objected.

He smiled nastily at her. "Oh, Phoebe, still haven't given up hope yet?"

"As long as there's breath in my body I'll never give up on my Rick!"

Just then her smiling face appeared on the screen, then Morty. As she watched, memory after memory of her and Morty, sometimes just one of them and sometimes both, played across the screen.

"You're crying?" The other Rick crowed suddenly, and when she looked over she could see tears in her Rick's eyes. "Over a Morty? Or over Phoebe?"

"Neither, I'm just allergic to dipshits." Phoebe didn't believe him, and she could tell that the other Rick didn't either.

"Oh, Rick," she breathed, her throat suddenly tight with emotion. "We'll get out of this, I swear."

The other Rick's face twisted in annoyance. "Ugh, pathetic. We both know that if there's any truth in the universe, it's that Ricks don't care about anyone, least of all Mortys."

"You're wrong," Phoebe defended him. "He's the Rickest Rick of them all, and he's got twelve times the heart you do."

"What did he do to make you so pathetically loyal to him," the other Rick snarled, turning to her. "All Ricks are heartless bastards who break everything they touch."

"Maybe you do," Phoebe persisted, "but he's better than you, better than you'll ever be."

Her Rick started to speak, head rising off of the table as far as the restraints allowed. "Phoebe—"

With a crash the room doors exploded inward as a wave of Mortys broke through and rushed the other Rick and one of the creatures, beating and kicking at them. As they swarmed and overwhelmed the other Rick, he shouted, "Do your worst, you little bastards! Kill me! Do it! Do it!"

Some of the Mortys finally reached her, jumping on top of the creature, which was forced to drop her to defend itself. She couldn't hold in the cry of pain as she fell on her still-aching, likely-bruised hands and knees. She scrambled unsteadily to her feet, immediately turning toward the examination table to get to Rick. To her immense relief, a Morty, her Morty, she thought fondly, was releasing the restraints holding down their Rick. She limped over to them as quickly as she could. As she got closer, her Rick disengaged the torture-generated shield, freeing the Mortys imprisoned within the matrix on the outside of the dome. She reached their side just as her Rick called the house to clue in the Ricks and Mortys no doubt occupying it. When he hung up, she wobbled right up to him and Morty, throwing her arms around both of them. She buried her face into Rick's chest and pulled Morty flush to her side. "I love you guys so much." Her voice came out muffled. Shifting her face to the side, she added, "I don't know what I would do without you two. Rick, Morty, and Phoebe, always and forever. We're the perfect combination, the dream team."

She expected Morty to still be mad at her, or for Rick to push her away or let his arms hang awkwardly at his sides. She did not expect both of them to hug her back, especially Rick, who seemed to be squeezing even tighter than she was holding onto them.

"Don't be dramatic," Rick scoffed, but she noted something ragged in his voice, as if he'd been as worried about their safety as she had been about his and Morty's.

"Ah, gee, Phoebe," Morty mumbled, "Y-y-you're gonna make me cry."

She let them go, barely composed herself. She could have lost both of them that day. They'd been close before, of course: the spider-beast, the demonic clones, Scary Terry before they convinced him not to kill them, Gazorpazorp, giant prison. But somehow they'd always found a way out. She or Rick always had a solution, but this time things had looked bleak, until the Morty's came and beat Douche-Rick to death. This time, Morty had saved the day. She pulled Morty to her again and gave him a second, individual hug, ruffling his hair with an almost imperceptibly shaking hand and kissing the top of his head. "You know you're my favorite nephew, right?"

Morty made a confused expression. "Um, I'm your only nephew, unless Mom's not telling us something."

Phoebe laughed and tweaked his nose playfully. "Oh, you."

When the Ricks from the Citadel came they rounded up the Mortys and escorted them back, murmuring about "poor Rickless bastards" and lamenting that many of them would be doomed to a hopelessly normal life. Phoebe rolled her eyes at their dramatics, more than happy to get the hell out of the creepy ass lair even if it meant returning to the Citadel. They stepped through the portal amongst the flood of Mortys. As soon as their feet touched down in the Citadel they were escorted back to the Council Chamber.

The Council was waiting for them, including the single Council Phoebe, who appeared to bear her no ill will.

"It seems we were a bit too hasty in our decision," she intoned as soon as the group from C-137 got close enough. "And for the hardship we put you through we extend our deepest condolences."

The Tri-hair Council Rick stepped forward, a box in hand. "Earth Rick C-137, the Council apologizes for its false accusation. And in the way of reparations for our terrible mistake, we would like to compensate you with this voucher for a free replacement Morty, in the event that—" belch "—your current—" belch "—Morty should—" out of the corner of her eye, Phoebe could see her Rick making a cut it out motion behind their Morty's head. She facepalmed.

The Council Phoebe cleared her throat pointedly, and Phoebe's Rick interrupted Tri-hair. "Uh, guys? Not a good time. Come on, Morty, let's hit it."

He started to walk off with Morty, but to her consternation darted back to grab the voucher. He raised his eyebrows at her as if to dare her to challenge him about it, then continued walking off. Phoebe hesitated a moment, looking around at the Council and settling on her alternate self. "I don't know if I'm the best of us Phoebes," she started, voice raised, "but he's the best of all of Ricks, and he's mine, and if any of you ever come for him again, you'll have me to deal with, and we all know that no Phoebe will go gently into that good night, so don't fuck with my Rick or my Morty, you fucking fucks." She scowled around at all of them, catching what almost looked like a proud smirk mixed with something else—understanding, knowing, respect—from her other self, then spun on her heel and marched away from them with her back ramrod straight and her head held high.

As soon as she was out of the chamber she hurried to catch up to her Rick and Morty, who were only a little way down the hallway. She was just in time to hear her Rick tell their Morty, "I-I-I'll explain when you're older."

She sidled up to them, nudging then both aside so she could walk between them. "Explain what?" She glanced between them.

They both looked at her, but Morty responded. "Hey, Phoebe. Something about not getting ahead of myself."

"Where did that come from?"

"Oh, Morty here was laying it on thick about saving us."

"Oh, well, he kind of did," Phoebe pointed out. She held her hand up for a high-five from Morty. "I mean, Team C-137 for the win, am I right?"

Morty high-fived her with a grin. Her poor hand gave a twinge of protest, but she ignored it. "You hear that Rick? Someone acknowledges my contributions."

Rick scowled, bumping her shoulder with his own. "Don't encourage him, Phoebe."

"Oh, am I only allowed to enable you?" She teased.

Rick narrowed his eyes as he activated a portal against a wall in an outdoor courtyard. "I could just leave you here with all of these lesser Ricks."

She snorted, eyeing him with amusement. "You wouldn't last a day. You'd miss me and you'd cave."

He scowled. "Don't test me."

Phoebe rolled her eyes. "Let's just go home, Rick. I need that bruise paste."

His scowl softened slightly, his eyes going to her knees and no doubt mentally picturing the dark purple, black, and blue marks that had probably already formed. "Well what are you waiting for, then? A welcome-home parade?" He reached for her and gently grasped her arm, drawing her to his side. He shifted around subtly so that he bore some of her weight, taking a little strain off of her aching knees. She bent her head to hide her smile as he helped her limp through the portal with Morty at their side.