Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The Citadel, with its usual clamor of a million Ricks grumbling, a million Mortys nervously trailing behind, and the general discordant symphony of interdimensional bureaucracy, was just another Tuesday for Rick C-137. The air tasted of recycled oxygen, desperation, and, faintly, regret. He was on a mandatory supply run—dimensional stabilizers, some rare Gromflomite parts, and a few vials of something that made interdimensional customs agents slightly less objectionable.
Then he saw it.
Not a thing. A person.
A flash of blonde hair cutting through the sea of blue shirts and lab coats. It was like a photon of pure sunlight punching through a nebula of shit. His head turned on instinct, neck muscles moving before his brain even processed the command. He tracked the color, that impossible, vibrant gold, as it wove through the crowd.
He didn't see the two Ricks arguing over a malfunctioning portal gun. He didn't hear the Morty crying because he'd just been traded for a box of alien cigarettes. The entire cacophony of the Citadel, the familiar backdrop of his multiverse, faded to a dull, monochrome static. All that remained in sharp, vibrant focus was her.
He pushed through the throng, shouldering past a Rick with an eyepatch and another with a frankly unnecessary number of belts. The crowd parted around him, a ripple in the pond of the Citadel. He got closer.
She was leaning against a kiosk selling "Certified Authentic Morty-Burritos," a concept Rick found both hilarious and deeply unsettling. She was laughing at something on her datapad, a real, unforced laugh that crinkled the corners of her eyes. Her hair was a cascade of honey-gold waves over the shoulders of a simple, deep-blue jumpsuit that hugged her figure in ways that made Rick's breath hitch in his chest. It wasn't overly tight, but it was... efficient. It revealed the specific, tantalizing architecture of her form: the swell of her breasts pressing against the fabric, the neat cinch of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips into an ass that was, for lack of a more scientific term, perfect. He could see the delicate lines of her thighs, the way they almost, almost met at the top, leaving that small, sacred space that promised softness and warmth.
Her face... her face was a goddamn catastrophe for his concentration. Pale skin with a faint dusting of freckles across her nose. And her eyes—when she glanced up, sensing his stare—he saw they were a rich, warm brown, like polished mahogany. They met his for a fraction of a second. A spark. Not of fear, not of annoyance, but of simple, unguarded curiosity.
And then she was gone. Lost back into the river of Ricks and Mortys.
Rick stood there, frozen. His heart was doing a frantic, amateurish tap dance against his ribs. He, a man who had witnessed the birth and death of stars, who'd conversed with sentient gas clouds and outsmarted cosmic entities, was completely derailed by a pair of brown eyes and a laugh. He let out a shaky breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. The Citadel's noise rushed back in, a tidal wave of mediocrity.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair.
He couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be buying. His list was gone. His priorities were vaporized. All that remained was the image of her, seared into his retinas like a brand. He felt a strange, unfamiliar heat pooling low in his gut, a thrumming biological imperative that was usually so easy to ignore, so easy to sate with a quick, mechanical fumble in the dark.
This was different.
This was a goddamn problem.