Chapter Text
"Ordinarily the king's siblings do not have children," his dad tells him one evening. The heater in their apartment has broken down for the third time that winter so the two of them are sharing the bed. Erik doesn't think it's so bad. He doesn't have nightmares when he's curled up next to his dad. "It tends to make inheritance into a messy business."
"But it's okay with me, right?" Erik asks.
"It can be. In certain circumstances." N’Jobu looks up at the ceiling, one hand brushing Erik's head. "It's easier with girls usually, since they challenge for the throne less often."
"Could the Black Panther be a girl?"
"Certainly. If they won it."
Erik giggles. "No way."
"It's happened in the past. Some of our greatest warriors are women. Have I told you about the Dora Milaje?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Ah, that explains it. You would not doubt that a woman can be the Panther if you'd seen one of them fight. They're truly terrifying."
Erik laughs again.
"I'm not kidding," N'Jobu's voice is grave but he can't hold back his smile. "I once saw one of them throw her spear through a woman's earring and then the earing of the woman standing behind her to kill a spider. Ripped both of their ears clean off but the king was not bitten."
"Really?"
"No, not really." N'Jobu smiles bigger. "It was three women's earrings and a mosquito."
They both dissolve into laughter after that, N'Jobu squeezing his shoulder. Their next door neighbor punches the shared wall and tells them to shut the fuck up. N'Jobu switches accents to tell them to fuck off. He winks at Erik, as he often does when pretending to be an American around him.
"So if girls can fight for the throne then doesn't it mean it's bad if they're a boy or a girl?"
"Alright, maybe," N'Jobu says with a shrug. "But more often the girls can be married into the main family so they're usually easier to handle. Besides if one of our girls were to run off and marry an English prince or something then he could very well challenge us for the throne."
"Uncle could kick his ass though, right?"
N'Jobu laughs. "They don't raise their kings to fight, they raise them to sign papers and sit still for paintings. He would certainly not win. But all the same it isn't something we want to happen."
Erik shifts under the covers, an uneasy feeling settling into his stomach. "What happens if they can't marry into the family?"
N'Jobu goes still for a moment. Years later Erik will come to the conclusion that the familiar much too broad smile that his father put on is the same one he'd worn after telling him that the cops sniffing around the apartment were there because of a misunderstanding, and that his mother was going to get better.
"They are your family," N'Jobu says, smiling. "Once they know you I have no doubt that they will love you as I do."
Outside Erik hears a police siren go off. The people in the apartment above theirs are playing their music too loud and yelling over it. His father's hand is warm and heavy against his cheek and in his dreams he sees Wakanda.
He still believes after his father dies, and it takes a long while for that fairytale to leave him. Erik doesn't think he was stupid, but he was young and he was naive. Strange as it sounds to say it, he'd had things too easy. He’d watched too many Disney movies and spent too many nights learning about lives that weren't, and would never be, his. He’d had hope.
He isn't the first of his friends to lose a father. Shaun's dad has been in prison since he was four, and Jayden's was shot a couple years back. For a couple days his friends are a little nicer than usual but Erik doesn't really like it. He isn't the same as his friends, even if it looks like it. He's a prince, he reminds himself. Just because they grew up in the same neighborhood doesn't mean he is the same.
He doesn't say that out loud when his friends try to comfort him. He's not trying to get his ass beat talking about secretly being an African prince.
The way he sees it the rest of his family is coming back for him one day. They're going to take him home, and even though he's lost his dad, he'll have a new family. He'll meet his cousins. He'll see Wakanda.
After his cousin stabs him in the chest, Erik figures that his view of the sun setting over his father's homeland is the only one he's ever gonna get. At 11 he couldn’t have imagined the technology that Wakandans took for granted, and what his homeland would look like. His father had been a good storyteller, but there really weren't words that fit the moment. His dreams had been pretty far off.
Still, he doesn’t think it’s a bad way to go.
When he wakes up some time later, and sees the same sun rising outside of a large open window he isn't sure what to think.
The first conclusion that his sleep addled mind comes to is that he's dead. For some reason it doesn't quite feel like the ancestral plane. It doesn't have that same eerie sense of perfection to it that he'd felt when visiting his dad. There's a crick in his neck and the blankets he's under are a little too warm. He sits up.
The wound on his chest doesn't hurt anymore and he's breathing normally. Someone has dressed him in a soft tunic that reminds him of the texture of the black robe he'd stolen from his uncle's room. He's alive.
Erik clenches his fists. His body doesn't hurt but the abnormal strength that'd come to him when he'd taken the heart-shaped herb is gone. He can tell he's no longer invincible. He looks around and sees no chains or bars, nothing to indicate that he's anything but a welcome guest.
Laughter bubbles up in his throat. T'Challa was a lying sack of shit.
A few people come by after he wakes; a woman who says she's there to double check his wounds, and then later a girl there to bring him food and another with fresh clothes. They all keep their distance when they can and keep the Dora Milaje at their heels. For all the discomfort he feels coming from the maids there’s as much anger and disgust from them.
He tries to talk to the Dora Milaje, or rather taunt them, to see if he can get a rise out of them but gets nothing. They're well trained, but from the raw hatred Erik gets the one time he asks for the name of the woman who's throat he cut, he assumes they're holding back only because they've been ordered not to hurt him.
Erik doesn't try to escape, but he doesn't sit still. There isn’t so much as an ache from the mortal wound in his chest while he works out, which is freaky. He really didn't know shit about Wakandan tech. Apparently being stabbed in the heart was only fatal outside their borders.
A few hours later T'Challa stands at his door, out of breath. Erik continues doing pushups and doesn't acknowledge him yet.
T'Challa says something to the two women behind him and they fall back, leaving them in the room alone.
"You know," Erik says casually, “here I was appreciating the chance to die at the Black Panther's hands just like my old man, and you had to go and take that away from me."
He hears T'Challa take a few steps into the room.
"Not really sure what I was expecting. Your old man was a lying shit so why would you be any different?"
"N'Jadaka."
Erik freezes. He gets to his feet and faces T'Challa, muscles tight. "I thought we had an understanding."
T’Challa looks exhausted. Erik would bet money that he's been out on a mission and didn't get much sleep the previous night. The days before then hadn't been too kind to him either. The king wasn't used to that kind of hardship.
"We did," T'Challa says. His voice is steady and his hands are clasped behind his back. "If the choices were death or imprisonment then you would choose death."
"There wasn't an asterisk after that. I didn't say 'unless it's a real cozy prison, in which case I'm down' I said death over imprisonment!"
"I've not imprisoned you."
"What do you call the War Dogs outside then? A welcome party?"
"The Dora Milaje insisted on watching over you until I returned and we could speak. If you had bothered talking to them outside of antagonizing them, they could've told you as much."
"Bullshit."
"I wouldn't lie to you about this. I am not..." he trails off.
"Not what? Not your daddy?" Erik flexes his fingers. He wishes they weren't having this out as a conversation. He wants a weapon in his hands. Even if the odds were uneven. "What am I then if I'm not a prisoner?"
"For now you are a guest while I work through some formalities."
"No offense cuz, but whatever celebrity rehab bullshit you think you're gonna put me through won't work. You'll regret not killing me."
"I may be a warrior but I'm not a soldier. Regardless of what was a more rational choice I feared I would regret killing you more than I will regret keeping you alive."
Erik bears his teeth. "You say that now because I only got the chance to kill Zuri! You gonna feel the same when mama and your baby sister get the same treatment?"
Anger suits T'Challa more than kindness, he thinks, as T'Challa grabs his collar and yanks him forward. Much more than mercy. Anger he gets.
"As much as I'm sure you enjoy digging your own grave," T'Challa says tersely, "I do not intend to let you off that easily."
"Oh yeah? Whatcha got then?"
Slowly T'Challa lets go of his collar, though his expression remains icy. "I didn't save you to offer you a life of bondage. If I thought that was the only option apart from death I would've honored your wishes and let you die."
T'Challa reaches into his pocket. In his palm is his father's ring, still on its chain.
Erik snatches it from him. "Where the hell were you hiding this? I looked everywhere."
"Yes, I noticed what you did to my room." T’Challa brings his hands together, stroking his own ring with his thumb. "I came to the waterfall in Okoye's ship and left it aboard when we fought. I thought perhaps I would return it to you after we fought but clearly that did not work out."
Erik turns away. He slides the chain back over his head.
"My father left you in California because he believed that in order to maintain the line we could not have more than one potential male heir in Wakanda. Doing so was the greatest mistake of his life."
"Nah, your daddy was being pragmatic," Erik mutters. "The mistake wasn't leaving me there, it was leaving me alive."
"I want to believe that he did so as a mercy but I cannot see any mercy in abandoning a child.”
Erik stares and waits for him to continue. The anger doesn't fade from T'Challa's features but he lowers his voice.
"The royal family usually discourages the birth of extended family members."
"'Cause they can do shit like kill your friends and throw you off a waterfall," Erik says. "I get it."
"Yes, but things did not have to end up this way. If you'd been brought home that day—" Erik feels a sharp pain in his chest "—we wouldn't have come to this."
Erik shakes his head. "Just...get to the point."
"What I'm saying is that these children can be married into the main family."
Erik blinks. "Married into the main family?"
"It's an arcane practice, done mostly with the intent of keeping the royal family in line. Usually the siblings of the sovereign do not have children specifically to avoid this. But yes, this is something that can be done for you as well."
"I tried to kill you. I damn near started a civil war."
"You defeated me in a fair fight and upset the kingdom for a few days."
"What, you wanna hand over the princess to me?" he asks, laughing. "Let bygones be bygones?"
T'Challa holds his gaze. He doesn't smile. "I would sooner die than have you touch my sister."
"Then who's the blushing bride huh? You?"
"Yes," T'Challa says instantly. "Me."
The two of them stare at each other; T'Challa with his gaze never wavering in its strength. Slowly, Erik's face falls.
His father's ring digs into his palm as he squeezes it. The vibranium is already warm from the heat of T'Challa's pocket. In front of him T'Challa stands patiently, nothing but certainty in his eyes, even in the face of Erik nearly shaking with poorly suppressed anger and grief.
"So instead of killing me, you're proposing?"
"I am."
"You can't marry me."
"I assure you, I can."
"What about maintaining the line?"
"Shuri's children will inherit. It’s of no concern to you."
"Okay, try this on for size, your highness. I hate you, and you aren't all that fond of me."
"Ours wouldn't be the first marriage to start that way."
"Marriage." Erik listens to the word on his tongue. "What the fuck? And if I say no?"
"Then you go on trial. I won't be able to offer you a pardon without tying it to a proposal."
"I'm not going on trial."
"Then you're accepting, because those are your two options."
"I'm not taking either."
"Then we can continue where we left of previously, and you die!"
They both fall silent. At last the anger fades from T'Challa. He sighs. "I'm sorry. I couldn't let you die until I knew there was nothing else to be done. And since there is something to be done I'd like to do it."
Erik sits down on his bed, tucking the ring under his shirt. T'Challa stands his ground.
"You can do so much if you choose life,” T’Challa says, “especially the life of a Wakandan royal. But if you tell me in earnest that you would prefer to die I won't challenge it again."
Erik feels his rage cooling, his muscles relaxing and his heartbeat slowing. He's trying to form an image of what T'Challa's thinking in his mind but it's still vague. He doesn't know the man yet, despite how many years he's been waiting to meet him. And until he does he won't understand the situation that they're in.
"You didn't learn from your dad's mistake?" Erik asks.
T'Challa returns his smile somewhat bitterly. "I'm afraid not."