After doing the DNA kit last night and then spending a couple of hours looking at what teenagers would wear to things such as homecoming, Anya's come to an uncomfortable conclusion.
These outfits seem to show a lot of skin. And she could get away with a suit - it's widely accepted for girls to do that and she dresses in a masculine way most of the time anyway - there's something exciting to her about wearing a dress. But dresses for the most part are revealing and all Anya's been able to think about is the fact that a sleeveless dress would show off the scar on her bicep and she doesn't know how to explain that one.
Her friends only know about the fact that her moms are superheroes. She's not a superhero, she's barely good with her history. And she really doesn't want to explain that she's a Black Widow. It feels almost like fear-mongering.
And it also sucks that she has other scars. Less visible, sure, but they're still there and she finds them every night when she showers. Her fingers will run over the brand on her hip when she pulls on her underwear and then her pants, her t-shirts slide over the scar on her bicep and her bra sits on the scar on her back that she doesn't even remember getting.
The scars between her thighs sometimes chafe when her pants don't fit her correctly, and if she doesn't put her watch on, Anya can see the the thin white scar from her handler when she wasn't complying with him. She thinks that it must've been when the control started to fade and she got her consciousness back before it was ripped from her again, but she tries not to think about it.
It's been on her mind all day between conversations with her friend group about the mall that they're going to and Kamala confirming that she can go to homecoming so long as she's home by nine, and Anya also manages to confirm to Zoe that she'll be going, much to the blonde's delight.
She also gets a second invitation for the party after homecoming, but Anya's still on the fence about it. It's a problem for later, though, because she's currently meeting up with Nakia and Kamala and Bruno.
She's still kind of exhausted from gym (they're learning volleyball and her forearms burn still), but she's excited to do something so insanely normal.
When she gets outside, the three of them are already together and with Aamir, Kamala's brother, and who Anya assumes to be bringing them to the mall.
"You're the new one!" are Aamir's first words to her.
He looks amused as Anya nods awkwardly. What is she supposed to say to that?
"She has a name, emo," Kamala retorts, "This is Anya."
"Nice to meet you, Anya," Aamir replies, pleased with himself before looking at all of them, "Who's sitting shotgun?"
Bruno ends up claiming the front seat while Nakia, Kamala, and Anya sit in the backseat with Anya in the middle.
Anya's glad that it's getting colder out and that today she's wearing a long sleeve shirt (this one's a hand-me-down t-shirt from Kate that she didn't get to wear much before growing out of it and from the reputation Stadium tour. Anya loves it). Being that she's wearing the long sleeve shirt, she doesn't have to worry much about her sleeve accidentally riding up and revealing the scar that's been looming on her mind all day.
She wishes halfheartedly that she had some kind of makeup to cover it up. Maybe she can go to a beauty store today and ask about that when the focus isn't on her and she can get a moment alone.
"Where should we go for lunch?" Nakia asks, "Food court?"
"I snacked my entire way through English, I don't have an appetite right now," Kamala replies, "Can we go to the comic store first, though? They have a shirt there that I want."
"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.
Kamala and Bruno immediately go for the comics, Bruno seeming to know what she's looking for and helping her, and Nakia hangs back with Anya.
"You seem overwhelmed," Nakia comments.
"You think?" Anya mutters, not really knowing what to do here. It's weird, almost, that this store is profiting off of people that she's met and some that are quite literally her family. There's a Natasha t-shirt. The haunting hourglass is on another t-shirt, just a tiny icon on the top left of the shirt. There's a Natasha bobblehead and when Anya gets a better look, she sees that they're all labeled as Pop! heroes.
It's so so so so so weird.
"You've said your mom has a record player, how about we look at some vinyls?" Nakia coaxes, leading her over to the large vinyl area.
Anya scans over the array of vinyls. They're organized by artist on this side and Anya finds herself reading the names of all the artists.
Ed Sheeran, Halsey, Billie Eilish, P!nk, Queen...
"The Taylor vinyls are over here," someone says and Anya snaps her head up.
There's a boy, maybe thirteen years old with bright green eyes, pointing to a section of the vinyls. He looks oddly familiar.
He blinks at her sheepishly when she doesn't respond, "Sorry, I just assumed from the shirt..."
"Thank you," Nakia intervenes, tugging Anya over to the Taylor Swift vinyls.
Anya's surprised to find that there's a plethora of vinyls, one being the evermore vinyl that Wanda got for her birthday and other various ones that Anya recognizes from Kate.
(None of reputation, though, sadly.)
When the twenty-minute mark passes, Nakia tells Anya that they're going to go ahead to the shops for her outfit and Bruno and Kamala can catch up.
Nakia takes her to a store that Anya doesn't catch the name of, but after walking through it for a couple of minutes, Nakia stops them at a dress display.
"I was thinking you could try on dresses and suits and then pick? Or if you know what you want, we can just go with that," Nakia runs her fingers over one of the dresses, "oh, and let me know what textures you like! I'm pretty good at finding things that aren't scratchy, but sometimes the pretty ones are and beauty is pain and all that."
Anya nods dumbly, eyes falling on all of the different dresses. The selection is almost surreal, from long flowing monochrome dresses to dresses with wild patterns to short dresses that leave so little to the imagination that Anya wonders how they classify as such in the first place.
The first hard part is over, though, when she knows that she'd rather wear a dress than a suit.
Once Nakia hears that information, she starts narrowing down colors, mumbling something about how greens would compliment her eyes but black looks good on everyone. She also mentions something about shoes, but Anya's wary to even begin thinking about that.
Anya has two dresses in her hands before Nakia shows her one that makes her a little excited to try on.
"How about this one?" Nakia asks, showing her the emerald green dress. It's short, ending probably a little bit above her knees and with poofy-ish sheer sleeves. Anya can't help but feel fucked in the head when her first thought is that the dress would let her scar be visible, even though she knows someone would really have to be looking to find it.
"I'll try it," tumbles out of her mouth anyway, and Nakia grins, handing her the dress to hold while she looks for another one.
"It's good to have options," Nakia tells her confidently, taking a break when their phones buzz with texts from Bruno and Kamala asking where they are.
Nakia responds and then goes back to finding dresses, picking out one more before leading her to the dressing room.
This, Anya learns, is a room where people just try clothes on. It almost feels weird that people just try on the clothes and what they don't like just goes back on the rack, but she goes along with it and neatly folds her clothes before trying on the first dress.
This one is a light green with no sleeves on it and just straps and Anya can't help but hate it. It's too much of her for one mirror and after spending so much time protecting her body, she can't imagine wearing something so vulnerable.
It goes on the discard hook.
The second dress is black. It has sleeves, which Anya likes, but it ends too close to her ass for her liking and the fabric that the sleeves are made out of make her wrists itch.
The third dress is another green one, this one much closer to the one that Anya liked, but has no sleeves and the skirt is far too short again.
It's as this one is on that she sees the scar on her shoulder the most clearly, only really because she turned the wrong way and the raised white flesh caught her eye. It's jagged and harsh and she's pissed that it never got the opportunity to properly heal.
She sheds the dress quickly this time, ignoring the way that her thumb catches on her underwear and she feels her brand against the pad of her finger and quickly changing into the final dress.
Her skin is on fire as she does, and she desperately wants to try it on and finish this hellish experience.
She pulls the dress on and adjusts the sleeves and zips up the back and she looks at herself in the mirror.
She wants to enjoy it. It's a pretty dress, the prettiest dress that she's ever been in. And she'll buy it. But she can't stop feeling her skin burning and she can't stop thinking about the scar on her arm and she really just wants to go home and curl up with Liho and sleep for a couple of hours.
"Anya, you okay in there? Find something you like?" Nakia calls out and Anya swallows the bad taste in her mouth.
"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute," she sheds the dress and hangs it up on the empty hook before pulling her regular clothes on.
Kamala and Bruno are bickering by some of the dresses and Nakia's the only one waiting outside of the dressing room with a hopeful smile on her face.
"Find something you like?"
"Yeah," Anya nods, avoiding her eyes and holding the dress, "Can we go check out now?"
Nakia seems to sense that something's wrong, but she doesn't say anything and instead just nods, "I'll show you where it is. And we can go get some food after, I don't know about you but I'm hungry."
Anya nods, not wanting to say anything. She doesn't think that this was supposed to be so draining.
They're standing in line when Anya's phone vibrates with a text from Wanda asking about how shopping's going.
She sends a simple one-worded text back saying good even though it feels way too far from the truth.
She just sets her sights ahead for Saturday.