thatputawrites-blog - Tumblr blog

[thatputawrites-blog]

works in progress

erik ✅

thor 🔜

steve 🔜

m’baku 🔜

t’challa 🔜

[thatputawrites-blog]

erik ✅

thor 🔜

steve 🔜

m’baku 🔜

t’challa 🔜

[thatputawrites-blog]

changes

~~~~~~~~~~~~

pairing | erik x black!reader

heads up | angst & betrayal 

word count | 800ish

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It started out small. 

The changes.

Shifts that only you could see because of the situation. You’d known him for far longer than the people he now called subjects.

You knew how he hated when you left the closed captions on, or how he always poured his milk first and then his cereal. Or how he secretly loved when you made him watch Jason’s Lyric with you, the two of you intertwined on the old sofa in his apartment.

The little things allowed you a portrait of the man behind the name.

They saw Killmonger.

You saw Erik.

You saw the way pride filled his warm eyes when he arrived outside your apartment door late one evening, a one way plane ticket in hand. A flight on his private jet waiting for you two to board, to take you to his long lost home, his kingdom.

The kingdom you two would share given his new position as king.

The ride was long but occupied with his excitement as he relayed to you the events that transpired and allowed him to now hold the title of political and warrior. He spared you the “smaller” details which was code for violent, but you’d come to learn about them.

Gossip had no geographical restrictions, and the people of Wakanda were no different.

It wasn’t a sudden and unexpected surprise. For as long as you knew him, you knew of his dreams to return to his homeland and claim the throne that he was wrongly deprived of. Countless nights were spent with his head in your lap, your fingers redoing his dreads while he lamented about how his father was murdered and betrayed by his own brother.

He vowed to make it right

Retribution was what he called it.

Vengeance was how you saw it.

Regardless, you accepted, supported, and loved him.

From the moment he first asked you to be his girlfriend during a nightly viewing of Bad Boys to the day he proposed to you on the eve of your birthday.

Love. It was a whirlwind, splattered with tribulations, but layered with devotion.

At least, that’s how it used to be.

Once you came to Wakanda though, things started to change. Your imperfect but working relationship developed holes.

As king, he worked long nights and many evenings were spent falling asleep with the artificial comfort of your body pillow instead of his strong arms.

Meetings with the council often ended in heated debates over Erik’s policies, some you agreed with, and others, no so much.

But still, you were dutiful and loyal.

Even if you couldn’t see the vision, you trusted the dreamer.

Naturally, you accompanied him on many public outings, being paraded as Wakanda’s first “outside” queen. It was a title you secretly loathed as it was a constant reminder of your place in the kingdom.

A crown did not make a queen.

Yet, love, that burning fire within you, held you up and you stood beside your husband, chin up, tiara intact. You were supportive.

But as the seasons changed, so did dynamics.

His touch became brief, his gazes shortened. The conversations revolved around politics instead of relationships.

The idea of bringing a child into the world, something that you’d both discussed on multiple occasions, was now one-sided, Erik showing no interest in starting a family with you.

You took it though. You took it because you loved him, and you could only imagine what kind of pressure he was under.

Maybe that was your problem. Acceptance someway somehow morphed into complicity. You were just as guilty as him. Your mind tried to tell you what your heart refused to accept. His heart was no longer with you.

It was with his nation, his people, his title.

And even still, you naively tried to assure yourself that he would come around, that it was a phase, a premature midlife crisis. He’d return to you, to your chambers that he barely slept in.

But it was all for nothing. Along the path to securing the throne, you realized, he’d lost something, and that something was the glue that held your love together.

Now, that foundation was shattered, demolished, devoid of the integrity that persisted for almost two decades.

Gone was the stability, and you finally saw that. You swallowed the hard truth. Your heart still belonged to him, but he had no desire for it, casting it aside as he did your history together.

His focus, his new passion and meaning resided in the molding of Wakanda and ensuring his reign brought about change.

Change in allies, in aid, in image, in hierarchy.

Because, as you would come to learn, a queen was not required to birth the heir of a king.

Any women could provide her body as an outlet for longevity, and that was exactly what your handmaiden had done for Erik.

Yes, the changes.

Small at inception.

Monolithic at extinction.