light-hearted.

matilda 'matty' chapman. 22. they/them or she/her. light manipulation. aka hologram.

[matty-chapman]

jonahxwright​:

Fingers absently tap at his lips as Jonah looks at his whiteboard, eyes running through the scribbles he’d left there, his other hand coming up every so often to jot something down or scrub something off with the sleeve of his shirt. He didn’t hear the faint clicking of heels down the hall, or the small knock on the door. No, Jonah was lost in his own little world of problems and equations, so much so that he didn’t even hear the girl speak at first. His lips move silently, muttering things to himself, and it wasn’t until she reached the end of her statement that his mind clicked into the little hum that was her voice. Blinking, Jonah took another second to realize someone else was talking. 

Head turning, and tilting slightly, much like a dog, his eyes taking a second to take in everything that was going on behind him. The brightness of the other’s outfit distracted him, the word fire never making it to his ears, but the bright flames that had engulfed his sweater was enough to pull his attention away from her. 

“Oh crap! Crap, crap, crap, crap!” His eyes widen, taking another second to reach, the words coming out quick. Jumping into action, Jonah races across the room, grabbing the small fire extinguisher, fingers fumbling with it for a second, but he knew what he was doing. This had happened before. He knew he needed to be more careful–he’d almost burned down an entire lab back when he was at school. He knew better. 

In the next moment the white foam was spraying out over the counter, smothering his sweater and his surrounding papers and notes, a few that had caught fire as well. Jonah let the extinguisher go a few more seconds after the fire was out for good measure before just staring, the creeping sense of dread crawling up his back with a shiver. “Crap.” He says again, quietly, worried etched deep onto his features as he looks at the mess he made before quickly remembering there was someone else in there with him. 

His eyes drag over from the mess to the colourful figure standing there, and once again his words are caught in his throat. “I uh–thank you.” He says, flushing deeply, his neck and ears feeling hot. “I don’t um, I don’t suppose you um, would be able to pretend you didn’t just see that?” He asks, chewing on his lip nervously. 

It took longer than Matty expected to get his attention, but then, she supposed, she had taken a bit to get to the point. Matty let out a surprised little, “Oh!” when he jumped into action, taking a quick step back to make sure she’d be out of his way. 

Her lips turned down into a little frown as she watched him put out the fire--she didn’t know what was on the papers that had been caught in the mess, but in a lab like this it had to be important and the thought that he’d lost them made her sad. How many times had she lost weeks of notes from class because she got careless with glitter? Well, only once, actually, before she’d learned to take notes on a tablet, and okay, maybe these situations weren’t exactly the same in terms of gravity, but still.

That little frown went as quickly as it had come when he turned to look at her though, all flushed with embarrassment, because--well. He was cute. Matty found herself grinning at him, eyes flicking very briefly over him, from his sneakers to his floppy hair. Pressing her lips together, she mimed zipping them closed, even going so far as to summon a little light construct in the shape of a key, which she mimed using and then tossing away. The light construct dissolved long before it hit the ground, and Matty let out a little laugh.

“It’ll be our little secret. I didn’t see anything,” she assured easily, because embarrassment was a feeling Matty knew very well, and one she did not wish on anyone. “I’m Matty, by the way. Matilda, but no one calls me that. Do you want some help cleaning up? I was just looking for my Uncle, but he actually didn’t know I was coming, so it could wait.”

[matty-chapman]

matthewmorgenstern​:

@matty-chapman​

If this was going to happen every time he meditated whilst stoned, he was absolutely never doing it again. When he opened his eyes again, the room looked vastly different and he was wearing sweatpants he didn’t remember owning, but all of that paled in comparison to the ring on his left hand. Ring? He was very divorced, he had even given his ex-husband the band back after they signed the papers and…why did the clock on the wall say 2051? The condo felt empty of emotions too, just scraps clinging here and there like he had been the only one home for hours. Matt frowned, then set out to explore in the hopes of finding something, anything that would shed some light on this nonsense. He didn’t find much, but a knock at the door brought him face to face with his nibling, who had clearly come from the condo across the hall. “Tils, are you seeing what I’m seeing? I’m asking because I uh…Beth called it Lavender Breeze, but I feel like weed wouldn’t…” He held up his left hand with the ring, then frowned further when he realized that Matty looked older than he remembered them being this morning. “This is like that fucking movie we watched that one time or…I don’t like this, bubalah. At all.”

This always happened.

Well--not this precisely. Matty had never sat down before doing homework and said they’d just close their eyes for a few minutes and then opened them in a whole new room, but a few minutes was never really a few minutes, was it? This was what Matty got, really, for procrastinating, because they knew better, and they’d closed their eyes anyway, and now the date on their phone said it was 2051 and a few minutes had apparently been a few years.

The room they’d opened their eyes in was not their room, and yet was unmistakeably, well... their room. With the walls painted in a rainbow of colors and the bed covered in fluffy, brightly colored blankets, there was no one else it could belong to, and there was a picture on the nightstand, too, from Pride several years ago--Matty’s first, with Uncle Matt behind them, his face painted proudly. This was Matty’s room, and yet not the room they’d shut their eyes in--and that, it seemed, was not the only surprise.

By the time Matty made it to Uncle Matt’s front door--their door, last they’d checked--their face was very warm and they were a little breathless. Breathless and barefoot, and--and they didn’t have keys, which was how they ended up knocking frantically.

Matty breathed a sigh of relief when Uncle Matt opened the door, took in a little breath when he held up his hand. A little beam of light followed Matty’s focus, glinted off the ring almost comically, like a bad effect added to a film. “There’s a boy in my apartment,” Matty blurted, which was not an answer to Matt’s question, but wasn’t it though? “I mean--not here. Which is where I remember living. But in my apartment. And I sort of know him but only just and he’s really cute but it’s still confusing and I think he lives there, too. Is your hair more gray? Why don’t I live here anymore? Can I have a hug?”

[matty-chapman]

BACK TO THE FUTURE  → Matilda Chapman

Age: 27  Status: Alive, Metahuman Affiliation: Hero Squad

Matty has finished their degree and officially become a first grade teacher, their bright, colorful personality well suited for keeping kids engaged. Matty loves each and every one of her students and is fiercely protective of them. It breaks her heart that they’re growing up in such an uncertain and dangerous time.

The desire to protect not only her students, but everyone else in Pansaw, has kept Matty from retiring from the Hero Squad, though Hologram has become significantly more cautious. The flippy, shiny little skirts and lightweight uniform have been traded in for head-to-toe puncture resistant armored clothing made by Lachlan in an attempt to protect from H.A.M.E.R. and their cure. Matty spends their nights patrolling, hoping to protect innocent citizens, human and meta alike, from falling victim to H.A.M.E.R.

Matty no longer lives with their Uncle Matt, though she didn’t go far. Pressure from her parents and a desire to move in with her boyfriend drove her into an apartment of her own, in the same building as her uncle--close enough to be able to still roll into Uncle Matt’s unannounced to raid his freezer and borrow his oil infuser, but far enough that there’s no need to worry about her boyfriend being embarrassed about being heard in the bedroom, because speaking of her boyfriend--

He’s one Jonah Wright, CARMA scientist, who is very prone to embarrassment. Matty and Jonah live together in a very colorful apartment, with a cat, because they’re both entirely too busy for a dog--or a baby, though the thought has certainly crossed Matty’s mind. With Jonah’s help, Matty’s tech for Hologram has become much more advanced.

[matty-chapman]

jonahxwright​:

Light Up || Jonah & Matty

A few days into his new job and the nervous jitters hadn’t quite subsided. It didn’t help that he was significantly younger than most that worked at CARMA, and well, he wasn’t exactly the best at making friends. Before his power had emerged he’d had a few friends, just some of the other young boys he went to school with, but when he started surpassing them all, moving so quickly into graduation and college, any friends he’d had were lost in the whirlwind that was his mind. 

That day the lab he was working in was empty, other than for him. He was working at the whiteboard, thoroughly engrossed in his work, completely forgetting he’d left a bunsen burner on. The usual clutter that followed him was already scattered across much of the lab, including his sweater that he’d haphazardly tossed on the counter.  

So caught up in his thoughts, fingers tapping absently against his chin, Jonah didn’t smell the small billow of smoke that came from his sweater as it slowly caught light, and the attention of someone passing by. 

@matty-chapman​

There was a chance that Matty was not supposed to be in this part of the building. She was aware of that. Things had taken a turn for the scientific a couple of turns ago, and the guest pass pinned to her sweater was not exactly clearance, but, well, here was the thing--no one had stopped her. And it wasn’t like she was sneaking, either. She’d come looking for her Uncle Matt, and had stopped more than one person to ask if they’d seen him, and more than that--Matty wasn’t exactly subtle. Today’s outfit was a riot of color, her skirt shiny enough it would have made the cut for her Hologram gear if it hadn’t been bright red, and the transparent heels of her shoes were full of confetti that rattled with every step she took. 

So. She figured if it was really bad that she was here, someone would have stopped her. Which was why she didn’t feel bad about continuing to wander through the halls, peering through glass walls into labs in search of her uncle. It seemed sort of unlikely he’d be here, but she wasn’t in any hurry--sooner or later, she figured, she would find her way back to a more reasonable wing, but until then, at least the contents of the labs were interesting.

In the one she’d just passed, for example, there’d been a scientist examining some sort of goo that was the exact color Matty had been thinking of painting her nails, and in this one there was a young man considering a whiteboard with a sweater on fire behind him, and--

Matty stopped, took a step back, peered into that last lab again, taking a moment to consider the chances that the burning sweater was an experiment. Unlikely, she thought, given the complete lack of observation from the only person in the lab. She wasn’t a scientist, of course, but she was pretty sure you were supposed to pay attention to your experiments.

Rapping her knuckles against the door of the lab--which was, blessedly, open--Matty took a step inside and said, “Um, excuse me? Hi, sorry, you look really deep in thought, and I hate to interrupt that, cause I’m sure everyone down here is like, really smart, and you might be about to like, invent something really cool, or find a way to stop sour candy from making your mouth hurt after a while, but I just wanted to check--is that sweater supposed to be on fire?”

[matty-chapman]

matthewmorgenstern​:

His sister Abigail had more than once accused him of stealing her child’s affections away from her. Of treating Matty more like his child than the daughter he had cut himself away from twenty two years before, which Abby argued was the stupidest thing he had ever done to himself. Matt wasn’t so sure about that, but it was fair to say that he and Matty were closer than Matty was to their parents. They didn’t lie to each other, that had been a shared policy between the two since Matty was old enough to understand what a lie was. Matt sighed into Matty’s hair as he hugged them, shaking his head lightly at the minor explosion they had just navigated. Nothing good comes of lying to each other, he could practically hear a much younger Matty say in his head. “I always forgive you, baby. I’m sorry, you’re sorry, and clearly we need to have a weed brownie sundae night with Disney movies soon. Bonding time, just you and me.” 

Another omission came to mind, a bigger one, and as sleepy as he was, it seemed almost right to rip that bandaid off now before the wound festered. Besides, he might get more traction out of telling Matty now when they were feeling guilty about something else. “Something else I gotta tell you, while we’re here. Something your mom almost told you last year at Christmas before I distracted you all with that story about the time your mom and I stole the neighbor’s Barbie car.” Matt said, stroking his nibling’s hair gently as he tried to string words together just the right way. A monumental task indeed when he rarely could make it past eleven most evenings and it was now half past two. Ah well. “Something didn’t happen to me in law school, not the way she was trying to say it. I’m telling you now because my boss at work is the lady I dated in college, and you’ll cross paths with her. And maybe with…” He sighed, teeth catching on the words ‘my daughter’ like they were too big for his mouth. Matt pinched the bridge of his nose, waited a moment, then began again. “I got her pregnant. Not intentionally. Paid child support for many years. You might run into my daughter that I’ve never formally met, if you visit me at work. That’s what I’m trying to say here.”

“Weed brown sundae with Disney sing-a-long,” Matty said, and relaxed into her Uncle’s side, comfortable and secure and very tired herself, wrung out from the shock of adrenaline that had come from thinking of him being hurt. She didn’t even have it in her to worry about the fact that he’d discovered her secret, not when he’d already forgiven her, and might have proposed turning on the Food Network and passing out there on the couch together, except then he went and said that, and as quickly as her relaxation had come, there it went, shoulders tensing at the thought of more secrets.

“Okay,” was the only response Matty gave at first, waiting as patiently as she could for him to put the words together. She was determined to be calm about whatever it was, to spare him another hit of her emotions.

That determination went out the window when Uncle Matt said the word ‘pregnant’, Matty wrenching away from the hug to sit bolt upright, eyes wide with shock that turned into indignation the more he said. “You have a daughter?” She demanded, just as outraged as she’d been about the shooting. “I have a cousin?! And you’ve never met her? You work with her mom and you’ve never met her?!” 

Matty stood up then, too upset to sit still, paced the floor in front of him once, then twice, before stopping and demanding, “Does Gran know? Of course she does. And no one told me?! That’s a big lie, Uncle Matt! That’s twenty-two years of lie!”

[matty-chapman]

mysticscribe​:

Clipped Wings

This was the most shitty situation Kelli had ever found herself in, and that included being stuck in CARMA and an abusive ex-boyfriend. Having her identity as Firehawk revealed to the whole fucking world was bad enough but to lose her powers too? To have them ripped away by some deranged human supremacists, it made her feel violated and furious. 

Since she got checked out by the medical professionals and informed multiple times, they had no idea how to get her powers back, Kelli had been hiding in the Heroes’ base. It was the one place she felt safe still. That didn’t keep the outside world from trying to find her though. 

While she tried taking out her aggression on one of the punching bags in the training area her phone almost continuously was ringing or notifying her of new messages, all from unknown numbers flooding her with even more questions that she neither wanted to face nor answer.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” she couldn’t help but shout as she threw her cellphone as hard as she possibly could against the nearest wall, causing it to shatter on impact and the cheerful tune to die. Kelli let out a small sigh of relief when silence filled the room before she noticed one of her teammates in the doorway. “Sorry….I didn’t mean you.”

@xastcriiax | @hoperamirez | @fallenxangelxjude | @ionicmurray | @atlasdurham | @storiesof-mnemosyne | @matty-chapman

What had taken place at the tournament had shaken Matty--had shaken everyone, she imagined, but Matty had always had too much empathy for her own good. She’d shed more tears than she had any right to over the very thought of the metas who’d lost their powers--and over Kelli most of all. 

It was the tears that had prevented her from going looking for her teammate right away, not he fact that there was nothing Matty could do, that Kelli would need to be seen and tended to by doctors, that she might not even want to be seen. None of that had even crossed Matty’s mind, in truth, but she’d known she needed to get her own emotions in check first. It wouldn’t do for Kelli to end up having to comfort her, after all.

She’d found some calm now, but it threatened to shatter when she stepped into the training area and was met with a shout. Matty squeaked, jolted, warm milk splashing out of one of the mugs she held in both hands and dripping down the back of her hand. She was fully prepared to back out of the room and give Kelli space, wide-eyed and startled, but then Kelli spotted her, apologized, and Matty eased immediately, gave her a weak smile.

“It’s okay,” she assured gently. “I don’t even have to stay if you don’t want me to. I just, um, wondered if you might like some company? Maybe a hug? And I brought you some warm milk. It’s got vanilla in it! I hope you like vanilla. A warm drink always makes me feel a little better, so I just thought, um, maybe it would help you, too? I’m so sorry, Kelli.”

[matty-chapman]

Matty was no stranger to detaining criminals, but maybe she hadn’t thought this one through. For one thing, she wasn’t even Hologram right now--not a trace of gear on her person, except for a faintly glowing bracelet on her wrist, and it was old and nearly out of juice. For another, she’d never caught someone in her house, and though she didn’t live in her family’s Pansaw home anymore, hadn’t for years now, it was still the house she’d grown up in, which made this... weird.

But then, she supposed, she wasn’t planning on capturing this criminal. She’d only wanted to stop him fleeing out the window, and the beam of light currently wrapped around his ankle had come almost faster than the shouted request that he please wait. Now though, she had a masked man caught by his ankle in her mother’s pristine living room, surrounded by furniture still covered in sheets, and even she had to admit this wasn’t the best way to make a new friend.

“Sorry!” she said, and waved a hand to do away with the light that held him, wincing apologetically. “Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to! You don’t need to leave. Most of the good stuff is upstairs, I can show you, but can you help me lift up this couch first?” She gestured to the couch in question, the only piece of furniture in the room that was not covered, a big, imposing thing that was currently just a little bit out of place. She’d been trying to move it herself, but even with the help of her powers, it was just a little too heavy--it was the sort of couch meant for looking at less than sitting on, which had, in fact, been her mother’s rule before they’d moved. “There’s a loose floorboard under there and I used to stash things under it before my mom put the couch there and then I couldn’t get at it anymore and when we moved she said I shouldn’t have been hiding things in the first place, but I was playing pirate and they were treasure, and anyway, I want my mood ring back. I’m Matty, by the way. This is my house. Well, my parents house, I don’t live here. They don’t either! Do you have a bag? We’re gonna need a bag, for the stuff. You want stuff, right? That’s why you’re here?”

@leomontefiore​

[fashionarmies]

Amandla Stenberg for Wonderland — Summer 2018.

[matty-chapman]

matthewmorgenstern​:

“Matilda, dearest, I do read the newspaper. And there aren’t that many vigilantes out there coated in glitter, so I narrowed it down while I sat on the couch waiting for you to come home last night. But thanks for the confirmation.” Matt countered, watching his nibling show off her powers for the ten thousandth time. Always impressive, but he took umbrage at the last point of their argument and swatted away the jabbing finger aimed at the wrong shoulder. “Okay, wow! I am not squishy and defenseless. Nazir at the gym has me doing weightlifting along with yoga class, thank you very much.” Matt did not want to show off his scar, but he also knew that Matty would carry on until he showed them. Or yank the collar of his shirt out of shape. Probably both, if his past memories were anything to go by. Rolling his eyes, he pulled the collar down low enough to show the mottled scar left behind by his close encounter with an anti Meta activist two years before. 

“You were struggling with the move to D.C., Tils. The guy shot me as poorly as you possibly can, so I told your mother to lie. That I’d tell you later. Then I uh…” Matt explained, letting his shirt collar spring back into place. A sheepish look replaced his earlier annoyance and he sighed loudly, head flopping back against the back of the sofa. They were right, but he didn’t like to admit that he was wrong, which was a failing he had never quite mastered. Didn’t like it, but could shove himself in the right direction after a little procrastination. So he wriggled a little in his seat, fussed with the belt of his robe, and finally looked up at Matty with begrudgingly apologetic eyes. “Forgot. We fudged things for your graduation party. I didn’t break my arm, the sling was so the muscles could heal.” They were normally good about being open with one another. Certainly better than Matty was with her actual parents. Where had they fucked up here? Matt patted the sofa cushion beside himself and gestured for Matty to sit there, then squeezed their hand once they had settled in. “I think we pulled a mutual stupid here, babe. So I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the shooting thing. Your mother must have rubbed off on me there, I assumed you didn’t need my bullshit on top of your own stuff. But I shouldn’t have kept it from you all this time.” Matt reached over and kissed the top of Matty’s head, then smiled gently at them. “Forgiven?”

“Does weight-lifting make you bulletproof?” Matty countered immediately, a little bit hysterical in their concern, but that wasn’t terribly unusual. Matty had always felt things very strongly--their saving grace was that most of the time, what they felt was a wealth of joy and optimism and love. Now, though, as they leaned in to look at Uncle Matt’s scar, the love was there, but the joy and optimism? Not so much. Lower lip trembling slightly, Matty reached out a hand to touch the scar gently, fingertips just brushing over it before her hand fell back into her lap again. Even with evidence of how old the injury was right in front of her, Matty’s heart ached at the thought of Uncle Matt being hurt, and she hadn’t even known. 

“You should have told me,” Matty insisted, betrayal obvious on their face, but they needn’t have bothered, because Uncle Matt himself seemed to be coming to that same conclusion. Even in the midst of her anger at not being told, Matty didn’t hesitate to scoot closer to him, squeezed his hand back, some of the emotional turmoil settling with his apology, though there was still a big heap of concern and her own guilt to deal with. “Okay,” she said, after a moment, leaning into his side and wrapping an arm around his middle to hug him. “Forgiven. But just--don’t do that, okay? It’s one thing when Mom and Dad keep things from me, but when it’s you...” Matty trailed off, shrugged, did not know quite how to put into words the difference, except that Uncle Matt knew her. Her parents might have treated her like something fragile and silly and stupid, but he never had. 

“I’m sorry, too,” she told him after a brief pause, tipping her head up to look at him with wide, guilty eyes. “I won’t keep it a secret anymore, promise. And I’ll try to keep the glitter out of your laundry. Forgive me, too?”

[matty-chapman]

bethxhawthorn​:

Heels click against the pavement as Beth walks down the sidewalk, her long black skirt swishing at her ankles with each step. Hitching her bag up higher on her shoulder, she made the quick walk back from the bank where she’d had a meeting that went far better than ones previous to it. When Beth and her mother had been running the shop, or rather, a teen Beth was attempting to run it while her mother slowly forgot who she was, the meetings with the bank were something she dreaded. But now, with a little help and some hard work and creativity, the shop was doing better than it ever had. 

The bell above the door rang as Beth walks in, the familiar smells of burning incense hit her nose as she smiles up at the familiar bright face behind the counter. “Hey,” She says with a little breath as she leans against the front of the counter, grinning at Matty. “Thanks for watching the shop, the meeting went way better than expected. But thank goodness it’s done, I swear if I never had to sit in one of those stuffy bank offices again, I’d be happy. So, anyways, how’d it go here? Any customers?” 

@matty-chapman​

Matty loved Beth’s shop. It always smelled so nice--like incense and magic and secrets--and there were crystals to cast her light through to make patterns dance on the walls, not to mention Beth herself, who, in addition to being able to offer actual psychic readings, which Matty thought was about the coolest thing in the world, was also beautiful and kind and wonderful. It was the kind of place Matty would have liked to work, if her parents weren’t so insistent that she didn’t need a job while she was focusing on her studies. They were right, on that count, she supposed. She was lucky enough to be able to afford school without working, and her unofficial job kept her busy enough, but getting to look after the shop now and then when Beth was busy in exchange for discounts wasn’t really a job, which meant it was perfectly acceptable.

She was perched on a stool behind the counter when Beth returned from her meeting, humming to herself as she waved a hand to bend the sunlight coming in through the window so that it shone through a shelf full of crystals, rainbows refracting this way and that. As her attention shifted to Beth, the light snapped back to its natural path, the shop dimming just a tiny bit without it, but Matty hardly seemed to notice, too busy grinning at Beth. “It went well?” she asked, and then clapped her hands happily when Beth confirmed it, did a little dance atop her stool. “Everything was just fine here! I sold a nice lady a new deck of tarot cards, and a man came in for a reading but you weren’t here, obviously, so we made an appointment. He seemed nice, too, he had a kind smile. Oh! And, um, in the interest of honesty, I accidentally knocked over a jar, but it didn’t break and it only spilled a tiny bit and I’ll pay for what spilled. It was completely my bad, I saw a really cute dog outside and I was trying to stand up taller to see it better and my hand bumped it.”

[matty-chapman]

owenxjackson​:

“And don’t even think about coming back in here! I’ve had enough of you trying to pick fights.” 

The bouncer tossed Jackson out like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, leaving his staggering, and ultimately falling into a few bags of trash. Jackson grumbled a little from where he lay, the stink already trying to cling to him. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been here before, laying amongst the trash, too inebriated to even stand up. He tried, but ended up slumping back, shifting himself towards the door before the world started spinning and Jackson had to close his eyes to keep from vomiting. 

“Fuck.” He mutters under his breath, barely audible and slurred. Another minute and Jackson was well on his way to passing out right there in front of the exit he’d been thrown out of, where his head would likely be slammed by the next person that opened the door. Luckily for Jackson, the world had sent him a little shiny hero, not that Jackson would acknowledge that blessing. 

His eyes screw up tighter as light beams around him, and he’s pulled up and engulfed by the light. Too drunk to fight it much, Jackson still tried to struggle but ultimately ended up slumping into whatever was holding him. 

“Fuckoff.” He groans when his cheek is poked, waving a lazy hand at the person poking him. His eyes squint open a little, the figure in front of him looking angelic with light haloing around them, shining off of their rather reflective outfit. “’m fine, leave me alone.” He slurs unconvincingly as he tries to push himself up from whatever was holding him up, causing him to stagger forward into the other. 

“Not very nice,” Matty commented mildly at his dismissal, though the smile on her lips did not falter. He was clearly not fine, and that was coming from Matty, who’d been known to insist she was fine through tears, as if by denying she felt sadness she could make it go away faster. “You don’t seem fine, mister,” she told him, and then let out a squeak of surprise when he suddenly pushed himself up, nearly knocking himself out of the light hammock she’d made and taking her with him.

“Stop that,” Matty scolded, putting a hand up to draw in more light, careful to pull from multiple sources so that the lights near the mouth of the alley only dimmed slightly. Waving her hand, she formed a sort of lasso of light, wrapped it round the man’s middle and tugged it up snuggly under his armpits before releasing the hammock he’d been held in before. The little ring of light held him dangling a few inches off the ground, free to flail all he wanted without knocking either of them over, and Matty’s smile was pleased as she considered him, nodded once before cheerfully setting off down alley, her light bringing the man bobbing along behind her. 

“Are you gonna tell me where you live so I can take you home? Otherwise I’ll have to take you to the police, to um... dry up. I can’t just leave you out here to choke on your own vomit in an alley, so you can just save the swearing, buddy,” she told him as she clambered up a fire escape to the roof of the bar, still towing him along. “You’ve got a pretty face, you know that? What’s your name? I’m Hologram.”

[matty-chapman]

matthewmorgenstern​:

Leave it to his sister to rat him out with an unguarded word, without thinking of the consequences. She always did underestimate the depth of her own child’s emotions, and now Matt had to bear the burden of them just when he had his own fish to fry. “Goddammit, Abigail!” He spat, the sweater he was going to cite as evidence of just how glittery his nibling’s crime fighting outfits were still in his left hand. You couldn’t put Matty off once they were on a tear, Matt knew that as well as he knew anything in this world, and the wave of anger and fear radiating in their small form hit him like a freight train before he had the sense to bounce it off. Matt slid his glasses down and sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose for good measure. “Me getting shot has nothing to do with any of this, Tils. I got shot because I have a big mouth and I piss a lot of people off defending Metas, that’s all. And very clearly I’m still here, unharmed. So…” He opened his eyes again, setting the glasses aside on the coffee table. Calm, he needed to radiate calm, but it was a difficult thing to muster when you were as tired and annoyed as he was right now.

Looking up at Matty made it worse, as those huge brown doe eyes were like a kick aimed right at your heart to a normal person. For Matt, who was more their father in many ways than his brother in law, it was worse. Ten times worse. “Sit down, Tils. Sit down, we’ll talk about this like adults. But I think you fighting crime and glittering up my clothes thinking I wouldn’t notice that the laundry looks like My Little Pony threw up on it signifies too.” Didn’t hurt them like his reticence about getting shot did though, and that was deeply annoying if only because it meant he was going to have to linger on the subject till Matty let it go. So he was going to have to speed run through it to drag them back to the real elephant in the corner, if that would even work on someone as stubborn as Matty could be at times. “It wasn’t even that close, Tils. They had terrible fucking aim and they’re in jail now.” Matt said, tapping the spot on his left shoulder where the bullet had gone through. “You were struggling with the move and high school, you didn’t need my bullshit on top of that. Okay?”

Matty’s eyebrows rose slightly when Uncle Matt cursed his sister, a nervous glance cast around the room as if their mother might emerge to say she’d heard that despite knowing full well she was on the other side of the country. That was a skill Matty did not have, despite Uncle Matt’s best attempts to teach her--it did not matter how many times they were reminded that their parents were just people, the idea of arguing with them still made Matty sweat. 

Arguing with Uncle Matt was a different matter entirely.

“What do you mean it has nothing to do with any of it?” Matty said, their voice going a little high-pitched in their distress. “It’s--it’s--you got shot! You could have died! And you still have a big mouth and make people mad and you got shot! I’m--I’m going to hire you a bodyguard. Three bodyguards!”

And they might have done it right then, too, one hand already going for their phone again, but--well. Alright. So he had a point. He wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, and Matty paused, guilty, reluctantly took a seat on the couch. “The laundry always looks like that. That’s just my clothes,” Matty argued, and it wasn’t even really a lie, but--but of course Uncle Matt wasn’t stupid, and he knew Matty better than anyone--and he certainly knew Matty was lying when they came home in the middle of the night and swore they’d been studying. How many times had Matty seen him call people out on lies? He’d been doing Matty a kindness, giving them a chance to admit it first. 

Shoulders sagging with guilt, Matty sighed, admitted, “Okay, so I’m Hologram. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to worry,” and then, before he could say anything, Matty was holding up a finger and insisting, “But it’s not the same thing, because I can do this--” A pause, wherein Matty threw both hands up, formed a shield of light between them, maintained it with one hand long enough to knock on the back of it and demonstrate it’s sturdiness. The shield dropped then, and Matty reached out and jabbed Uncle Matt’s shoulder, said, “And you--you’re all squishy and defenseless and what if you’d died? Oh my god, Uncle Matt, you could have died--let me see it, where they got you, is it bad?”

[matty-chapman]

matthewmorgenstern​:

@matty-chapman​

It wasn’t that he didn’t, on some level, think these Hero Squad people were in the right with what they were doing. Some of the people they bagged could use a swift kick to the ass, and hell, he supposed the streets might be a tad safer because they were out there doing…whatever it was they did. That being said, the revelation that his dear, sweet Matty was out doing that kind of work had been eating at him for a few weeks now. He gave them time to talk to him about it, as he was used to them doing since they were little, but the conversation never happened. This wasn’t a text conversation, this was an in person one that potentially would need a little empathy woven into it. Unfortunately for Matt, it wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning when he heard the front door shut and Matty’s hoard of keychains smack against the table in the foyer. “Why Matilda! My nibling, my dearest of family members! In what universe did you think I wouldn’t notice you’re out half the night every other night and that there’s a new superhero drenched in glitter roaming the streets of Pansaw?” Matt said as he heard footsteps moving towards the living room. He craned his head to look behind him and smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m sure you’re tired and I’m tired because I’m an old fart, but I think we should uh…talk about this. Now. And no, I’m not going to tell your parents.”

Matty did not like to lie, and what’s more, they weren’t very good at it. It was why vigilante work was so impossible in D.C.--keeping that secret from Stephen and Abigail Chapman when they were right there was not a task Matty was up for. Of course, keeping it from Uncle Matt was worse, because lying to him was like swallowing rocks, and Matty was beginning to feel absolutely leaden with the weight of it, but--well, when Matty came home from a late night of heroics, it was not guilt that had them wearing an uncharacteristic frown, but a text they’d received from their mother earlier in the evening and only now seen.

They’d been expecting Uncle Matt to be in bed already, or at least knocked out on the couch, lulled to sleep by Iron Chef reruns, but it was just as well that he wasn’t. Matty followed his voice towards the living room, their heart skipping a beat at the question he called out--they were caught, then, but so was he, and that thought had Matty scowling as they stepped into the living room to find him.

“You’re right,” Matty said, crossing their arms over their chest and looking for all the world like a disappointed parent. “We should talk. Cause I sent my class schedule for this term to Mom last night, and she said--” and here Matty’s voice went up an octave, a little bit shrill in their distress, “She said I should be careful coming home from that evening class I had to sign up for, because you got shot two years ago! You got shot! And you didn’t even tell me! And Hologram isn’t drenched in glitter, I’m--she’s just a little shiny. And you got shot! With a gun, Uncle Matt!”

[matty-chapman]

A beam of solidified light preceded Matty into the alley, briefly illuminating the space in white and neon purple with light pulled from a street lamp and nearby sign. It stayed just long enough for Matty to come running down it, arms held out at her sides for balance--a little faster than she’d meant to go, but space was tight and it was a steep curve. She’d heard a commotion from this way while patrolling--yelling, and some faint scrambling, like a fight, and then a thud. It was quiet now, but a groan from behind a dumpster had Matty wondering if she’d been just a little too late to stop a mugging, if maybe there was a victim who needed help. Matty held up a hand, a small sphere of light forming above it, illuminating the alley once more as she stepped around the dumpster to find--

A man lying face down outside the back door of a bar, smelling of alcohol and half snoring. So not a mugging then--what she’d heard was the sound of someone too drunk to stand being tossed out of a bar, and one he’d wanted to stay in, judging by the way he seemed to have crawled closer to the door before passing out.

Matty sighed as she stepped over to him, gave his side a nudge with one shiny boot. This didn’t feel as good as rescuing someone, maybe, but clearly this guy still needed help, so Matty bent down, hooked her arms under his armpits, and heaved him up enough that she could pool light beneath him, forming a vaguely hammock-shaped beam that held him up for her. “Hey, Mister,” she said, pulling his prone form up until his face was next to hers and tapping his cheek, studying his face from behind her visor. “Wake up, buddy, where do you live?”

@owenxjackson​

[matty-chapman]

H E A D C A N O N  → matty chapman’s hologram uniform

Glowing in the dark may seem counterintuitive for a vigilante, but for a hero who’s near powerless without a light source, it’s downright practical. Matty’s costume is designed to reflect and amplify light with holographic, iridescent fabrics and LEDs. The fabric of both Matty’s Hologram dress and jumpsuit is puncture resistant, but neither offers a large amount of protection--Matty prefers to rely on their ability to create light shields for defense and favor clothes that allow easy movement and catch light. And as for the heels, well--they may not be practical, but Matty insists they provide an integral extra few inches of intimidation.

Accessories:

Like all of the Hero Squad, Matty is equipped with a communication device and a body cam.

A reflective visor protects both Matty’s identity and their eyes, as Matty is resistant to the occasionally blinding effects of their own light, but not immune.

Matty wears a fanny pack on duty, equipped with emergency glow sticks, bandages, and a flashlight clipped to the belt. A set of gloves equipped with laser lights in the fingers provide a quick, convenient light source and, on occasion, various LED bracelets.

Matty reluctantly wears knives in a thigh holster, as well as wearing a set of brass knuckles, though she’s hard-pressed to use either if she can avoid it, preferring to use light constructs, as she finds it easier to apprehend people without harm that way.

Matty’s primary method of transportation as Hologram is light surfing, but she also uses a skateboard and, less often, roller skates--sometimes combining them with the light surfing, if she’s feeling particularly daring or rushed.

[pasarelas]

Amandla Stenberg for Mission Magazine by Alana O'Herlihy