Post-meeting. Thank you to all those who have read, reviewed, followed and favorited! You guys make my day!

Disclamier: I do not own Black Panther.

Once the doors are shut Shuri slides off his lap like she's being burned. She even brushes of the back of her clothes. Erik sneers at her.

"Can't wipe collusion off princess."

T'Challa sighs like he dealing with two unruly children. He's already off his throne and moving towards them.

"Thank you," he says to Erik first. He rests a hand on Erik's shoulder and Erik is torn between violently shrugging it off, or trying to, and relaxing into the touch because he's been denied human contact for too long and he was too distracted in the meeting to take notice of It when Shuri was on his lap. In the end he tenses under T'Challa's hand but doesn't actively try to shrug him of.

T'Challa turns to Shuri, "Yes the bribe of your choice has already been sent to your room."

"Wait she gets a bribe and i get a thank you?!" Erik demands craning his neck around to see his cousin "Typical."

Shuri sneers at him. Or at least she tries to. Princess doesn't actually have an evil bone in her body. It's a pretty sad state of affairs for someone who's gonna be a target for people protesting Wakanda's reveal.

"Did you learn anything?" T'Challa interrupts what might just become a bristling argument. Actually, watching Shuri put her game face back on, it mightn't have. Just when Erik has all this anger to burn. He puts it away though. If nothing else he can be a professional.

"Plenty," he says but doesn't elaborate.

There is a pause and then T'Challa says: "Care to elaborate?"

Erik pretends to think about it. "Nah,"

Shuri rolls her eyes and Erik smirks but settles back down. "Well you've got a problem with Elder Bitch Witch there," he says.

"Oh look," says Shuri, "it's the obvious."

"Oh look," says T'Challa, "it's an interruption."

"Oh look," says Erik, "I'm still talking."

T'Challa rubs his forehead like he was fairly certain they were all more mature than this but stays silent and lets Erik talk.

"You should check out if she's working alone," Erik says, "and maybe give me a heads up on what's her motivation.

"Brother died in your uprising," Shuri answered. "Little brother."

"Ahh," says Erik. "Still think there might be something else driving her."

"Why?" asks T'Challa.

Erik is silent for a moment and then he says. "She's too cold."

There's another moment of silence where Erik feels like both his cousins process something more than what he told them and then they refocus on him.

"You got too many opposers, too many neutrals and not enough supporters," he says bluntly. "A couple of your neutrals ain't and your people need a bit more reassurance cause they're all not on board with your move."

T'Challa and Shuri both glance at each other and Erik realizes that they've know this.

"We've suspected, T'Challa replied. "We wanted and outside opinion."

"So what you gonna do about it cuz?"

"Think," says T'Challa anticlimactically.

Erik is filled with a sudden desire to punch T'Challa in the face. "You should get rid of them" he says.

"Opposition is healthy," T'Challa says calmly.

"Opposition is opposition," Erik says.

"I do not kill my citizens when they're troublesome," T'Challa says.

"I didn't say kill them," Erik rolls his eyes for effect.

"We don't get rid of council members when they're troublesome in a particular subject," Shuri says. "It's bad form and it makes you look like a weak ruler."

Erik shrugs (or tries to) "Your funeral," he says.

"I do hope not," T'Challa says gravely then he nods to one of the dora milaje who comes forward with a syringe in her hand. She hands it to T'Challa who asks, "Leg or Shoulder?"

Guess the shows over. Back in his cage. "Shoulder."

T'Challa lifts his sleeve and pushes the needle in. His hand is surprisingly light. Erik barely feels a thing.

The sedative doesn't hit him right away. It takes about five minutes for his veins to start feeling sluggish and another five before he's blinking sleepily. Shuri spends the entirety of that time regarding him intensely and monitoring how his vitals respond to the sedative. Erik spends the time doing the same thing. He needs to know how fast this will knock him out and how deeply. If he'll have a ghost of a chance he'll take it. But the sedative does it work well.

In fifteen minutes he's fighting a heavy sleep. He's struggling to keep his eyes open, blinking hard but slow. He swallows and the motion feels sluggish. It feels like dying. The moment the thought hits him he remembers it, remembers dying. The panic bits a second later and he spends the next few seconds alternating between shock and fear.

T'Challa returns his hand to Erik's shoulder and isn't that the best idea, add in the person who killed him? But strangely enough T'Challa's hand does help. The last time this happened he was here and he's here now so Erik's pretty sure he'll wake back up. Erik's head clears and he calms in time for him to fall fast asleep.

"Goodnight cousin," he hears Princess say and then he's gone.

"I do not know why you think this will work," Shuri says. "He killed his own girlfriend. You couldn't even hate Nakia when she dumped you."

T'Challa eyes Erik and says. "Call it intuition."

"Your intuition, as the americans say, sucks," says Shuri but he knows she doesn't really think so. T'Challa signals for the dora milaje to release Erik and carry him back to his cell. They use their kimoyo beads to remove his shackles and then two of them lift his unconscious form between them and begin the journey bac to his cell. Once they're gone, T'Challa and Shuri both stoop down to the chair. T'Challa runs a hand over the base of the restraints. Shuri pulls up something on her kimoyo beads and stares at the numbers running there for a few seconds.

"Was I right?" T'Challa asks.

Shuri's eyes flickered to him. "You know you are," she said, grudgingly, watching at where Tchalla was rubbing his hand over the chair. "Vibranium restraints molded to a steel chair, enhanced with vibranium. He guessed we mightn't use a full vibranium chair and he was trying to weaken the areas where the restraints joined the chair."

"Did he get far?" Tchalla asks.

Shuri gives him a look. "No. Vibranium? But I can see where he attempted to stress the metal on the chair."

"I thought that was why he was being so expressive," T'Challa mused. "He was trying to cover his attempts to get out."

"He is dangerous brother," Shuri says worried.

"I know," said T'Challa. "But so too am I."

"Not like this," Shuri says. "You can't hate like he can. And he was trained to be a monster. You, you were trained to be a good king."

T'Challa smiles at her. "Exactly."

"Why don't you hate him?" Shuri asked. "He killed Uncle Zuri. We had to fight against our own people."

"Probably," T'Challa says, "Because I might have been him, if it were me that was left behind. And because you cannot hate so much with loving hard. There is a heart somewhere in our cousin and it cannot be reached by hate."

Shuri sighs. "See this is why you are king."

T'Challa laughs. "And you are my sister. I could not do this without you."

"Of course!"

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