till forever falls apart

leaving new york

GOOD MORNING AND HAPPY BLACK PANTHER DAY TO ANYONE THAT CAN SEE IT TODAY! the movie officially comes out tomorrow and i'm seeing it tomorrow but some people can see it today so lmao anyway!!! the penultimate chapter - enjoy!

Packing this time is much harder than the last times that Yelena's had to pack.

She has to keep far more things in mind this time around. She has to make sure she has all of the things to care for her leg, both what's left of it and the part that now makes her feel like a discount robot and she has to pack warmer clothing despite it being summer because she's lost enough weight from chemo that retaining her body temperature has become difficult. (The good news is that she's slowly starting to gain it back with the far lighter chemo regimen she's currently on, but it still sucks.)

She also needs things for blister care - something that doesn't happen often but sucks regardless - and her stupid amount of medication that she has to take now. It's ridiculous.

And the most obnoxious thing she has to bring is the stupid stupid stupid wheelchair. It's something used as a just-in-case but Yelena's far too tempted to unscrew the wheels from it and send it to a junkyard. She hates the stupid thing. She'd much rather just use her crutches (which, she can, but only for short periods of time because of swelling).

She really hates that she has to think about all of this stuff. It's exhausting.

However, she's excited to leave New York for a couple of weeks. She's ready for a change of pace and her chemo wasn't so brutal earlier this week, leading to the rest of this feeling that much easier.

Most of her packing's done now, anyway. She's really just waiting on Kate getting Lucky's stuff packed and Natasha calling them with the all-clear for going to Avengers Tower and boarding the Quinjet.

"Oh, you're such a brat!"

Yelena looks up from the stuff that she's been recounting and at Kate, who's glaring at her dog.

She's suddenly grateful that she put the time in to train Fanny.

"What happened?" Yelena asks.

Kate huffs, "He's throwing a fit because I'm packing his things. I'm not selling you, you dope," she shakes her head, "we're gonna go see Nat. And Wanda and Anya and Clint and Laura and the kids, you're going to have a great time."

Lucky just continues to be underfoot and then sits on the couch when she goes to put his water bowl in her bag.

"Fanny, tell your brother to stop being ridiculous," Yelena tries, to which Fanny only flops over on her back, "This would be so much easier if Natasha picked up her stupid phone."

"She's probably packing," Kate responds, moving past Lucky to pack the last of his things before collapsing on the couch herself, "I hate packing."

"Me too," Yelena agrees, getting up off of the couch and slowly walking into the kitchen, needing to move around. She's packed. She has everything that she needs and then some and she's going to be out of New York.

Yelena's sure that this is the longest that she's ever spent in one place. Her whole life was built on moving around and even when she spent countless months in the Red Room, that was always moving.

New York is the first home that she's had since Ohio and part of her resents that her only homes have been in the United States. Why couldn't her soul have picked somewhere prettier? Like New Zealand or Scotland or Switzerland?

Then again, New York is where Kate Bishop is. And as she looks over at the woman laid out on the couch with her Doc Marten-clad feet dangling off the edge, she thinks it's pretty okay living here.