self discovery 101

lesson seven: overstimulation is exhausting

"Yeah, we're not in a rush," Nakia shrugs, leaning back in her seat, "Anya, do you have anywhere that you want to visit? There's a lot of fun stuff we can go to."

Anya feels like her brain stops for a second. She's never been to a mall. She doesn't know what malls have or what she's supposed to do at them aside from the normally attached verb shopping. And "shopping" isn't something she's familiar with nor does she know how to do it, either.

Kate and Yelena were good about it, buying her clothes when they first started seeing each other again and Natasha handed her down some t-shirts that she never wore and Wanda taught her how to buy pants that would fit her. But she hasn't gone shopping traditionally like all of the movies that she saw over the summer and she knows that she doesn't know how.

"You guys can lead the way," Anya answers diplomatically, pulling at her fingers a little.

"Don't tell them that," Bruno whines, "They'll go to every single store. And trying to get Kamala out of the comic store is almost impossible."

"Well we're definitely going, Bruno," Kamala retorts, "Have you thought about what kind of outfit you want, Anya?"

"Not much," Anya responds, tugging at the sleeves of her shirt, "how formal is this?"

"Not at all," Nakia nudges her shoulder, "This is gonna be fun, alright? And I'm sure we'll find you something perfect."

Anya nods, tuning out the bickering that comes from Aamir and Kamala not two seconds later and checking her phone.

There's a couple of Instagram notifications (she really needs to go through and turn off the unnecessary this is what's happening around you!notifications because they're beyond annoying), two texts with one from the group chat she has with Wanda and Natasha and the other one from Lila.

She hasn't spoken to Lila much since school started, which wasn't exactly intentional but they both seem to have come to an understanding that time has gotten away from them. The text is just a TikTok, and Anya can't help but wonder why she's being sent this in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.

She tucks a reminder to watch it in the back of her mind and sends a response to Natasha, who's just sent a photo of Liho. She doesn't know whyNatasha's home already, but she can just ask about it when she gets home.

They arrive at the mall without too much traffic and Aamir says he'll be back in two hours before driving off.

He better be back in two hours, Anya can't help but think bitterly, our stuff is in the trunk.

They go into the mall and Anya can't help but immediately feel overwhelmed. There's kiosks littering the open walking space and stores everywhere all advertising different things. There's music playing somewhere where it's not loud but still audible throughout the entire space and Anya recognizes the song to be something that she's heard on the radio - something along the lines of so you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans.

She follows Kamala and Nakia throughout the mall, and after going up an escalator and taking a turn, they end up in one of the craziest stores that Anya's ever seen.

There's a wall of t-shirts of all sorts of heroes and shelving below to pick out the size, there are figures with bobbleheads in another corner that line their section of the wall and Anya's beyond shocked when she recognizes some of the figures to be her moms.

There's a section in the middle of the store with just vinyls (which, to be fair, Anya's seen before because Wanda loves record stores since getting that record player for her birthday). There are people flipping through them and there are other people flipping through the comic books and manga on the bookshelves and it's all almost insane.