Sorry this one is really, really short but i didn't want to leave you guys hanging for much longer. I had a hard time writing this chapter so tell me how it is please. I'm a bit worried about it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Black Panther.
Erik is awakened from the throes of a nightmare by a beep from his tablet. He reaches out, grabs the tablet and flings it at the far wall in an explosion of violence. He slides of his bunk and sits on the edge breathing hard. He is drowning in death, in the look in his father's eyes, in blood bubbling up his throat.
When his heart stops rabbiting in his chest he staggers over to the tablet to see what message he had received. The tablet says 'rise and shine!' in cheery letters and there is a sun with a panther face in the middle. Erik instantly gets nightmarish visions of Teletubbies. He sorely wished he thought about finding whoever had made that stupid show and shooting them in the head. He'd taken great pleasure in shooting the terrorist whose little daughter had been listening to Teletubbies on repeat for the three hours he'd been waiting for the shot. Seriously kid, you were six, couldn't you have watched Pride Family or something? Hell Erik would have settled for Sesame Street by the end of the first five minutes of that job.
Still Erik taps the panther and is greeted with a countdown and a message.
30 minutes to interrogation. Hurry up and get dressed N'Jadaka, if you have any questions for the perp you caught.
Erik snorts and then turns to look up at one of the cameras in his cell.
"You gonna put a criminal to interrogate a criminal princess?"
His tablet vibrates and Erik accepts the call. Instead of princesses' snarky glare however, he finds himself meeting T'Challa's regal gaze.
"What up Cuz?" he drawls, smothering the blip of surprise.
"Erik," says his cousin, "Good morning. We are interrogating the perpetrator today. Since it was your investigations that lead us to him, I thought you would like to join us."
"First of," Erik says, "it ain't in no ways a good morning. Second, if I'm going to interrogate somebody I ain't doing it from a cell. And thirdly, I don't think you and I would agree much on my interrogation techniques what with the high moral standards you kings have got around here."
T'Challa flinches almost imperceptibly at his mocking tone and the dig against T'chaka.
"Very well," T'Challa says almost gravely. "But we shall still stream the interrogation to you…if you wish to see it."
"Reality TV," Erik drawls in a parody of excitement. "Just what I needed. Rot my body and my brain."
He cuts of the call before T'Challa can reply.
He watches the interrogation. Of course, he does. He notices that attached to his visual feed is a comm line that feeds into T'Challa's earpiece. Well Erik is assuming there is an earpiece because he can't see a damn thing. Maybe it's subdermal, like the control for the suit? Whatever. All that matters, is that T'Challa can hear him if he feels like talking to his dear cousin. Not that he will of course. But he is curious. He wants to see just how far T'Challa will go to get information for the safety of his country.
He watches as the prisoner is secured in a room with blank, white walls. It's the first place that Erik has seen where there are no warm Wakandan colors. The prisoner's hands are cuffed to the table and his legs are chained to the chair. Yet the prisoner wears none of the terror he'd had when Erik had dragged him out of his hiding space. Instead his face is set into an arrogant expression and confidence has his back straight and his muscles relaxed.
Footsteps sound down the hallway and Erik look up and cock an eyebrow wondering who was coming. He should have guessed really. Who else comes down to visit him?
Shuri doesn't really look at him. She's focused on her the display from her kimoyo beads but she plops down on the other side of his glass wall and crosses her legs.
"I thought they grew people up with manners here?" Erik drawls.
"Morning N'Jadaka," she said still focused on her display. She does take the time to wave a middle finger cheerily at him. "I didn't hear you greet me either," she adds as an afterthought.
"That's because I have no manners," Erik says flatly.
Shuri rolls her eyes and finally looks over at him. She pats the glass in clear invitation for him to come over.
Erik almost laughs. Damn but his cousins can be cold. Princess literally poisoned him yesterday and now she's all buddy-buddy. Sometimes Erik wonders if they really are any different from him. Maybe they're all monsters in here. Maybe monster runs in the blood. At least Erik tries to but his monsters to work for the greater good. All his cousins do is suppress theirs and end up doing nothing to help the people they're supposed to.
Shuri looks up again when he doesn't join her. "Come on N'Jakada, we don't have all day!"
"Oh it's N'Jadaka today," Erik says mockingly.
Shuri rolls her eyes so expressively Erik thinks it should become a new form of exercise. "Would you prefer I call you Erik? Or Stevenson? N'Jadaka Stevenson? Idiot-who-threw-my-brother-of-a-cliff?"
"Princess-brat-who-kept-her-medical-advances-away-from-the-rest-of-the-world-and-left-thousands-of-people-to-die," Erik shot back.
"Killmonger," Shuri shoots back.
"Family-members-who-I-will-kill-if-they-keep-going-on-like-this-through-the-interrogation," T'Challa's voice came form Shuri's kimoyo beads.
Both Erik and Shuri scowl at her kimoyo beads before realizing they're wearing matching expressions and smoothed their faces professionally.
After a moment though princess says softly, "N'Jadaka is your name isn't it?"
She knows it is but Erik knows what she's really asking. "Yeah," he says grudgingly. His name is all he's ever had to hold on from his father besides the ring. It's all he's had to hold on as his heritage from Wakanda save for the wardog tattoo on his lip. He's never going to deny it. And he won't deny his cousins the privilege to use it either.
He doesn't quite know why, but Shuri carried his father's ring so it wouldn't be left alone in storage and T'Challa hadn't let him fall into unconsciousness alone. Both of them had never denied his claim to wakandan blood and neither of them had ever denied him as their cousin even though it would have been much easier for them to have done so. And some subconscious part of him knew that their use of both his names meant that they accepted both parts of him, that they accepted that he had such varied heritage because of what their father had done and they weren't shying away from the truth of it.
Suri gives him an apologetic smile and Erik smirks at her and they're back to their usual level of hate.
Shuri turns back to her display. "What are you taking so long for brother?" She says to T'Challa.
"I am not even there yet!" T'Challa protested. Erik stifles a sigh. It's going to be a long interrogation.
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