WHO: Matt Holt & Tony Stark (904913) WHAT: Matt wakes up with a physical and memory update WHEN: Early Friday morning, Aug 24th WHERE: Holt house, Matt's room WARNINGS: Implied lack of clothing, suggestive/flirty comments
The dream was vivid and real. Matt woke up from it, sitting straight up in bed with a gasp, to find that the images didn’t fade. They were still in his head, as if he… remembered them. He was confused for a moment, his mind scrambling to work out why he had overlapping timelines of information, and disoriented, unsure of where he was. Then he finally recognized his surroundings, and he realized what must have happened.
So this was what a memory dump felt like. Man, they were weird.
He lifted a hand to his forehead, and let his head fall forward, and that was when he noticed the hair. His fingers went to it, ran through it, seemingly taking forever before finally reaching the end. “What the…”
--
The jostle of Matt sitting up nudged Tony awake. Blinking blurredly, he stretched to get more comfortable, but frowned when his arm reached out and found empty space beside him. That fact kicked his brain more awake and he propped himself up to scan the bedroom. Well, it was Matt’s bedroom still and not lying in an empty field somewhere, so that was a plus, right? Except…
His brow furrowed as he finally focused on the figure in the room, back to him, with… ok… He rubbed a hand over his eyes before taking a second look and… yeah, that was really long hair… He groaned slightly as he flopped over on his side, his face thumping down into the mattress.
“Matt? Please tell me, this isn’t another portal thing?” he muttered, his hand going up to run through his short hair. “We just got done with cartoons…”
--
Matt heard the groan and turned his head, which again made him more aware of the weight of hair on his head -- and how it felt at once completely new, and not new at all. It was definitely one of the strangest things he’d ever experienced.
But he focused on Tony, momentarily concerned about him, until Tony started speaking. “Definitely another portal thing,” he said. “Sorry.”
He looked down at himself. “I’ve gone and grown a few years overnight. Memories and all.”
--
Tony tilted his head to peek up at Matt at the actually familiar voice. Huh. He hadn’t been expecting that. His brows furrowed. And he didn’t expect the equally familiar face to be behind that new longer mop of hair. Granted, not exactly the same, but… Pushing himself up to sitting, his expression went more serious. Yeah, ok, the magical mishaps that happened likely weren’t something to take so lightly, but he was so used to them, especially after his years in that alternate dimension New York. But this…
“Hey, hey, no sorries,” he said. “And not what I meant with the portal thing, I just saw the hair and usually when that’s happened it’s more…” His hands went up to cup in front of his own chest as his eyes wandered down from Matt’s face. “... everyone yelling on the network yelling at the portal. That type of portal thing.” Although, ok, yeah, definitely seeing the ‘added a few years overnight’ although it looked more like a few years locked in a gym than just your every day life sort of thing.
“Not that I’m complaining about this portal thing… but you mentioned memories?”
--
“Oh,” Matt said. “No. Not that kind of portal thing. Just the memory… updating... thing.”
He brushed some of the hair back from his face. He was used to it being long, but now it was everywhere. He needed a way to tie it back, or something. Did they even have hair ties in this household.
He frowned, trying to make sense of what he remembered. At first it was all a confused jumble, but then a few things started to fall into place, lining up with what Lance had already told him about. “I remember finding my dad,” he said. “And… falling from the sky… no, that happened first. Beezer saved me -- a robot, that is. And then he wasn’t in the prison, but we made an exchange for him and it went badly. There was a fight in a spaceship.”
--
“Which can sometimes be worse,” Tony admitted. From what he’d seen, he’d lucked out in only having the one memory dump and once they arrived here soon found out why. If there were any more memories for him to get, well, there wasn’t a record of them. But others weren’t so lucky and, well, knew of things in the future that made new memories more of a threat than they’d even been before.
Reaching up, he tangled a hand in Matt’s hair, half to get some more of it out of his face and half to rub circles against the other man’s temple. Because boy, did he remember the headaches those extra memories caused. “What is it with new memories and falling out of the sky?” he said offhandedly. “That matches up, right? With stuff the others remember, yeah? Is there more?”
--
“Yeah, it matches,” Matt said. He leaned back on his elbows, and then onto one side facing his boyfriend, so that Tony could more easily reach him. His brow remained furrowed, though. “But there’s a lot of stuff they told me about that they don’t remember… I spent a lot of time with the rebels. And then… we all kind of got scattered… and Voltron was missing…”
He tried to remember what the last piece of news he’d gotten from them was. And whether he’d found them. He remembered spending a lot of time searching for them, and also running from the Galra, who were suddenly hunting them down, because Lotor was missing, too.
He frowned, suddenly worried. He knew from what people had told him here that Lotor had been defeated, but he hadn’t known that at home. And no one had told him what had happened after that… or had they? He was pretty sure that they hadn’t. Except for some of the stuff that had happened with Shiro...
--
Tony kept his fingers at Matt’s temple, hoping to ease whatever memory headache there might be, but also to absently play with the longer hair. Huh. He’d never really thought about it before, but he liked the look. At least on Matt. Granted, his hair had already been longish and shaggy, but the full on ‘you could do an up-do with this’ look was nice. Especially with the extra buff-ness added in.
Which was just a passing thought considering he knew that look. That was memories getting settled enough that thoughts could turn outwards. And with those last words, well, even with the best memories, people wanted to check on their friends and family. But if part of that was missing from the most recent memories…
Pushing himself up, he slid to the edge of the bed to grab his bag. He made a face as he dug around before finding the bottle of pain killers. Oh good, they were still in there and, from the rattle, sounded like the bottle wasn’t empty. He poured a few out and pushed them into Matt’s hand as he reached across to see if there was any water in the glasses on the nightstand. “Here, trust me, it’ll make dealing with stuff easier, even if your head doesn’t feel so bad right now.”
--
Matt was confused at first about Tony pushing something into his hand; it took him a few moments to catch up. Then he really did appreciate the gesture, because already he could feel a headache starting to form, and he suspected that there was a lot he was missing. He knew so little about what had happened to Voltron after the fight with Lotor and the explosion that had destroyed the castle.
At this point he didn’t really expect it to be great news. Though at least some of it might not be bad.
“Thank you,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to Tony’s forehead. “Also, sorry, but I need to go and check on Pidge. You can go back to sleep if you want.” Though he knew that might be difficult. At least if their positions were reversed, he would be worrying too much about Tony to sleep, even though it was still early in the morning. Either way, there was no reason why Tony had to leave.
--
Tony murmured as he shook his head. “C’mon, Matt, no sorries needed there,” he reassured as he ran a hand over Matt’s shoulder. “If I woke up with memories up to the points when I didn’t know what was up with my friends…” He chuckled as he shook his head. “I would’ve been out of the room already.”
He pecked Matt on the cheek and pat him on the shoulder. “Go. Make sure Pidge is ok. I might go get started on some work early. So, don’t you add me onto the list of worries.” Biting his lip, he couldn’t help his eyes wandering a bit. “But, ok, when everything is settled and as good as it can be-” He waved a hand at Matt. “- I need to take that for a test ride. Because aside from everything else, wow, that upgrade is getting some initial good reviews.”
--
If not for the fact that Matt was pretty sure Pidge would still be asleep in her bed, and that the only possible effect on her from home would be her own version of an upgrade (since they did tend to happen around the same time), and for the fact that it had taken him a moment to realize he’d never found Voltron, he definitely would have been out of the room already.
“Thanks,” he said hastily, as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and started to get up. But he glanced back over his shoulder, briefly, as Tony kept talking. “What -- oh.”
He looked down at himself, and then back up at Tony with a slight grin, before starting to pull clothes on quickly. Clothes which were definitely smaller than he remembered them being when he’d taken them off the night before. “Yes. Raincheck on that, but -- yes.”