The chapter you didn't know you were waiting for. Hope you enjoy! Thank to all you lovely people who have been reading,reviewing, following and have favorites this fic!
Disclaimer: I do not own Black Panther.
Since he's not patched into the operation going down Erik satisfies himself with going over the information on the philanthropist, trying to get every shred of information he can to pin all the man's crimes against him. It's while he's doing this that he comes across an oddity.
It's a subroutine, buried among the man's banking information. Erik follows it across and finds out that the purpose of the sub routine is to ensure that certain transactions can't be hidden. If they could have been, then Erik wouldn't have found the weird money trail, wouldn't have pinned down the philanthropist to the organ business in the first place.
What the hell?
It comes to him a second later. Set-up. It's a set-up. Either the philanthropist himself did it or someone bigger just sacrificed the philanthropist to get to T'Challa.
Well shit. He didn't stop all those assassins for his cousin to just up and die, especially when he's taking out that SOB philanthropist. He calls to his guards and sends out the warning.
It turns out though, that he's too late. But the time they get the warning, T'Challa is already in their grasps, unable to do anything or the people will blow the warehouse to bits with innocents still inside. And of course, his overly good cousin would never do that so T'Challa's gone, most likely to be interrogated and then killed.
Shit.
"Okoye!" says Shuri, "what now?!"
"We are already going after him," the general assured her. She sounds tired. Through her comms Shuri can hear frightened people chattering. The dora milaje managed to disarm all the bombs in time but it had been a close thing. They were now trying to calm the victims while some of them had bolted staring after T'Challa.
They would reach him. Shuri was sure. Twenty seconds head start wasn't too bad. The dora had taken their cars. They would catch up to them.
"General!" a call echoed through the comms.
"What is it?!" snapped Okoye.
"They didn't go far," the dora admitted. "They ran straight to a chopper they had hidden. They're already in the air and going fast."
Okoye let out a word that Shuri was not supposed to ever hear and then said, "Shuri can you track him?"
"Yes, I can track his suit," she replied. She entered commands on her san table and instantly a little dot came up, showing her brother's position. "He's heading east," she said. She rattled off more directions and then the dora who'd been trailing him, put their car in gear and went after their king.
Twenty minutes later though they had to admit defeat of a sort when the dora pulled up at a compound. It was far away enough from the city, heavily fenced, with guns strong enough to flip their vibranium cars if not to destroy them. There were quite frankly a ridiculous number of guards, a couple tanks and to top it all off, a string of teenage hostages.
"Keep watch then," Okoye commanded when the news was relayed to her. "The rest of us will get a plan to get him out of there."
In a few minutes Shuri and the dora milaje have set up communications.
"Do you have the schematics for the building?" Okoye asked her.
"Yes," said Shuri. She sent the schematics over to them. "My brother is mostly likely being held here. It's a fortified room in the middle of the building."
"The entire building is fortified," Okoye said.
"That room is more fortified," Shuri replied. "So even if we tried an all out assault, he'd probably be dead before we reached him, provided they get through the suit somehow."
"But the hostages will definitely be dead," Okoye said grimly.
"And everyone will know we've broken the accords and probably were the ones who took down the philanthropist and we'd lose him too."
"At the moment, I don't care about him," Okoye said.
"But T'Challa does," Shuri said. "I don't care about him either. But my brother would not buy his life with the lives of others that the philanthropist will take if he goes free."
There is a general round of sighs that said they all are proud that their king is so noble but it does cause problems as well.
"So we sneak in," said Okoye.
"Correct," said Shuri, "Only it's not that easy. I can get you retroreflectors to get past the guards at the fence but getting inside the building is going to be hell. Front door is locked biometrically by the guards and with a code. Walk in with a guard and you have to undergo a full body laser scan which will pick you up even with the invisibility tech. Once that happens everything goes into lock down. All the entrances into the building are like this."
"Once lock down occurs, then they'll shoot all the hostages," one of the other dora says.
"I assume so yes," Shuri replied.
"And even if we save the hostages first, they'll still go into lockdown and kill T'Challa if they manage to get him out of the suit."
"There must be another entrance," Okoye says.
"The vents," Shuri said. "When everything goes into lockdown, everything is sealed down, from doors to vents to the electric sockets that are outside the building. But they still need to breath in there. From what I can tell, the vents are (a) a tight fit, (b) have laser trip wires just inside which will sound of an additional alarm to tell them someone's coming in and (c) open for ten seconds every fifteen minutes to let air in."
"So only one person will get the chance to go in," said Okoye. "If we wait for a second opening to let another person in they might have killed him already."
"Yes," said Shuri. "That's what I figured too."
"But they'll have guards in the building," another dora pointed out. "And we don't know what shape the king will be in. This is not a one-person job."
"No," agreed Shuri. She took a deep breath and added. "Unless the person going in has the power of the black panther."
There is a sudden foreboding silence.
Okoye breaks it. "You have got to be kidding me."
Erik is pacing in his cell, feeling like he's slowly going mad with the lack of information, when the princess marches up to his cell.
"Hey princess," he greets. "You got yo stupid brother out yet?"
"No," she says and Erik snaps to attention because there's a dangerous light in her eyes and set to her jaw that makes him think that something is going down. She stiffens her spine even more and said, "We need your help."
Erik scoffs. "All your fancy tech, all your wardogs and your dora milaje and you need my help?"
"There are conditions," she continues as if he hadn't spoken at all. "You are going out there to save my brother only. You will be tracked and you will be injected with this." She says holding up a syringe. "It's a poison, synthesized by myself. There is no cure for it but the one I will make. It will not harm you until the time period is up and then it will kill you. So if you don't come back, you will be dead. The antidote is not currently synthesized so do not try to find it, it doesn't exist right now. When you come back you will ask me politely for it and then return to you cell. I'll bring it to you then. My brother is being held hostage in a building and we can only get one person in. It would be better if that person is you."
"Because I'm expendable," Erik sneers even as his mind whirls through her conditions. Princess aint pulling any punches.
"Because you still have the power of the heart-shaped herb," Shuri says flatly. "We'll do it without you, but you do know that my brother's protection is the only thing keeping you alive Erik Stevenson."
Erik almost flinches from the way she says his name. It's like a knife she digs into him, almost determined to dig anything Wakanda from him. It's a dare. A dangerous one to give to someone like him but princess is desperate and desperation makes people do stupid things.
Erik blinks and takes a few moments to think. It could be a chance to get out but no douct princess's poison will do what she said it would. He also doubts anyone he knows will be able to engineer an antidote for it in time anyway if he descried stop bounce. But it's an opportunity. If he can get them to make this a habit, he can speed up his escape process quite considerably. Better yet, maybe he can even get them to trust him a little.
So he shrugs and says, "Why the hell not? Not like I like this cage anyway."
Shuri almost slumps in relief and places a device on the glass. A hole in the glass wall suddenly appears, just big enough to fit his hand through. Shuri gestures for him to do just that and when he does, the guards on either side grip his hands tightly to ensure he doesn't try to grab the syringe. Shuri too does something with her kimoyo beads and the hole suddenly shrinks down pressing painful against the edges of his skin and preventing him from pulling back his hand into the cage.
Damn but Erik hates these people.
Shuri uncaps the needle and with smooth efficiency pushed it into his veins and then deposits the contents into him. She recaps the needle and lets the glass release him. He pulls back his hand and says with a smirk:
"Well what are you waiting for princess?"
First princess leaves. Then the guards open his cell and put him in vibranuim restraints. Finally, they lead him to his cousin's lab.
It's only the second time he's seen it and it's much busier than before. People are bustling around, doing incomprehensible things and speaking Xhosa so fast Erik can barely catch the words. More interestingly no one seems to pay him any mind.
"Hey cuz," he says.
Shuri looks up form where she'd been doing something at her san table and nods. "Good." She taps something into place behind his ear and uses her kimoyo beads to activate it.
"Tracking device," she explains. Then she pushes clothes at him. "I made it similar to your old outfit," she said. "Put it on." Erik blinks down at the clothes in his arms and realizes that's she made him tac gear. And she's right. It's similar to the gear he'd worn when he had come to Wakanda but it feels lighter somehow, and tougher.
"Can't put these on in chains," he drawls. The guards flash each other looks but they remove his chains. Erik has to take a moment to stifle the urge to kill all of them but living, living is in his blood now. This feeling of freedom, the feeling of actually being free flows through him and he can't do it. He doesn't want to die yet. Not while there's still a chance he can't get out of this shit alive. So he stifles the impulse, buries it where it'll fester until it rich and well honed and starts stripping.
"A little privacy?" he asks his guards just to see what will happen but they both stare at him with unmoving faces. Princess however has her back firmly turned and her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her.
Erik pulls on the clothes, stomps into the boots he's given and then says, "Knock, knock," to Shuri to catch her attention.
"Stranger danger," Shuri says almost absentmindedly before closing off whatever she has running and turning to look at him. She gives a nod of satisfaction and then goes over to the mannequin holding the suit of the golden jaguar. She removes the necklace from the suit and then drapes it almost ceremoniously around his neck.
"Do not disgrace the black panther linage, Wakanda's history, again while you wear this suit," she tells him, eyes locked onto his fearlessly.
"Oh, like it's so spotless," he snarls back to her.
"And you're so ready to add to the stain, right?" she snaps back. "Maybe leave another child fatherless, alone and scared, just like everyone you hate."
Erik had a hand around her throat before he can stop himself and his guards' spears are jabbing into his ribs.
"Shut up!" he snarls. "You don't know a damn thing."
She has a hand on his wrist but she doesn't move, doesn't say anything and after a moment he forces his fingers open and pulls his hand from her throat. He hadn't gripped her hard, just enough to scare but oh he'd wanted to crush her throat then.
He takes a deep breath and says. "Why don't you brief me?"
"You'll be briefed on the plane," she says and Erik gives her points for managing to keep her voice steady. "I just have one more thing for you."
"And it's not even my birthday," Erik says sarcastically.
Shuri snorts but says. "Turn around."
"What?" Erik narrows his eyes.
"Just do it," she said waving her hand at him.
He does so and then stiffens as he feels her come up behind him. Her hands come around his neck and for a moment he wonders if she's about to take her revenge and just choke him back for a minute when a familiar weight thuds onto his chest and the cool links of his chain slid around his neck where she clasps it.
Erik freezes staring at the chain with his father's ring on it. He opens his mouth once, twice, but no sound comes out.
"What the hell?" he croaks and is almost embarrassed at how hoarse he sounds.
"We can't let you have it in the cell," Shuri said shrugging. "But I thought you might like it when you were going out."
Erik feels…he doesn't know how to feel. His cousins are going to give him whiplash one day. What ever happened to them being predictable? He wants to hate her for comparing him to his own father's killer. He doesn't want to kill her because somehow, she knew how important the ring was to him, know he'd want to have it with him.
He grips the ring almost unconsciously, feeling like a part of him had been returned. It's warm, warmer that it should be if it was in storage.
"Were you wearing it?" he asks sharply.
"No," Shuri shakes her head. "I keep it in a pouch." She hesitates and then says. "My brother and I didn't want to lock it away somewhere."
There's a moment when the world sort of screams around Erik, when it all twists and swirls and he feels like throwing up, like screamingly, like crying and breaking all his bones and then it's over and reality has reasserted himself.
"Where's the plane?" he growls.
Action next!
And to the people who asked, I have no idea if I will write this through Infinity war.