#blackpanther2

Weeks. Three weeks since you and your loves last had a meal together. 

Shuri and Riri lay in bed as you dressed, the smaller girl of the two still soundly sleeping, tucked under the other’s arm. Her highness smiled a beautiful smile at you, one filled with pride and all the adoration in the world. “Have a wonderful day, sthandwa (my love). Go do amazing things.” 

A beautiful grin of your own spread through your cheeks as you bent down to kiss the woman you loved. “Thank you. I will see you two for dinner?”

“Kunjalo, sana (Of course, baby). I can not wait to hear all about your day.”

And off you went, thrill racing through your veins as you left the palace in trek of the school you helped Nakia establish in your home country, one which mirrored her own brilliant institution in Haiti. 

Returning home many hours later, exhaustion adorning your features, you were welcomed by loneliness. The room shared between you and the adjacent queens was empty, as were the kitchen and living quarters. 

“Griot,” your voice echoed the large walls, calling out to the AI that had made its way out of Shuri’s lab and into your living space. 

“Yes, My Queen?”

“Where are my wives?” the question lingered from your lips. 

“Queen Shuri and Queen Riri are currently in the lab. Would you like me to page them for you?”

The heart encapsulated in your chest swelled, knowing that both girls have had a hard time returning to their work since Queen Mother’s death. You couldn’t bring yourself to pull them away from that. 

“No, Griot. Thank you anyways.”

That night, you climbed into bed alone, body no longer able to fight the sleep that draped upon it. 

When you awoke the next morning, your queens were snoring next to you. They’d crawled in at some point in the night and the sandman whisked them to dreamland; neither girl stirred when you left the bed to prepare for another day at the school. 

The abnormality of abandonment that marked the previous day for you and your family soon became routine. One night turned into two and two into 21. Twenty one days since you’d gathered around the table to enjoy a meal with your loves. 

Two weeks since they’d stopped making excuses. 

“I’m so sorry, baby. Work has been fucking crazy, man. I got caught up. Can I make it up to you?” Riri hadn’t even had the decency to leave the lab for the moment it would’ve taken her to stand you up in person. Shuri was in America, sovereign duties unable to go ignored any longer. 

Even without her partner in crime, Riri still found ways to make her lab work more important than her time with you. 

“You can’t take a moment? Let’s have lunch, my love.” You were begging, a pathetic sight had Ri been able to pull her eyes from her project long enough to peer at you through the hologram provided via the beads. 

“Nah, ma. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Shuri was no better. 

“My Queen, where are you? The children are waiting, anticipating the Black Panther’s arrival.”

“Shit, usana (baby), that was today? Can we reschedule?”

“Can we re - No, Shuri! No, we can’t reschedule. These iingqondo ezincinci (little minds) have been waiting hours, missing lessons, to see their beloved protector. You promised.”

“I’m kind of caught up right now, y/n. Riri and I are about to do a test flight; the Iron Heart suit has to be able to reach speeds greater than Mach 5. We think we’ve got it.”

“Shuri plea-“

“Later, sthandwa (my love). I’ll make it up to you.”

And with that, her beads disconnected, erasing her face full of distracted features and leaving you with an auditorium packed with disappointed young ones. 

14 days ago, they stopped making excuses and empty promises, simply starting to just not showing up, not explaining. 

One week, exactly, since they forgot your birthday. 

It had been a hard year, you were well aware of that, but this day was one that never went by unnoticed by your queens. They spoiled you regularly, but on this day in particular, there was nothing that you couldn’t dream up that they wouldn’t move mountains to get you. 

You begrudgingly spent most of that special day alone this year. ‘They’re planning a surprise.’ you tried to convince yourself. Something so big, they had to spend the day away from you so they wouldn’t spoil it. 

Nakia and all the students at your school had wished you a happy birthday. Okoye granted you a year full of bliss as you aged up. Hell, even Griot spoke up when you arrived home from work, “Happy Birthday, Queen Y/n.” 

The damn AI had blessed your day before your wives had.

7 days later and they still hadn’t. 

You’d been patient; more than really. So when you awoke on the eighth day since your birthday to an empty bed, your thin restraint snapped, kindness fleeing with it.

You were angry, and you had every right to be.

The walk down to the lab was more of a march than a stroll. Rage preceded you, and when the lab doors opened before you, it permeated the space, quickly sucking out the focused atmosphere. 

“Queen Y/n has arrived,” Griot announded, oblivious to the fury preparing to reign down on the other Wakandan rulers. 

“Where are my queens, Griot?” You stood on the entrance platform, eyes scanning the room and coming up short of either girl. 

“Queen Riri is in the lab. Queen Shuri is thirty minutes out from the border, returning as we speak.”

Returning? Shuri had left the country and you weren’t even made aware.

“I’m down here, baby,” Riri’s voice was muffled among the buzz in the room, and you honestly couldn’t take it. 

“Wonke umntu ngaphandle (Everybody out),” your voice boomed. Riri was still struggling to learn the language and Shuri wasn’t here to translate, so you took command of the unfamiliar space. 

All around, the sea of white lab coats stilled, unsure. “Ngoku! (Now!)”

Their hesitations evaporated, and the scientists filed out of every exit in the room, leaving you and a confused Riri. You spotted your girl then, welder’s mask atop her head, slowly placing her tool down as you approached her. 

“Y/n, baby, I don’t have time for lunch today. These modifications have a deadline and-”

“Esihogweni ngomhla wakho wokugqibela (To hell with your deadline).”

Riri took a slight step back at your tone, “You know you’re gonna have to translate baby. I’m not there yet.”

At her retreat, you stepped forward, refusing to let her escape. “To hell with your deadline. My patience had a deadline too, Riri.”

Her guard drops, no longer taking your distraction in her lab as a serious matter. “Y/n, what are you going on about?”

When she raises her hand to drop the mask back onto her face, you scoff. She couldn’t even give you a moment to speak, nor an ounce of respect to hear your words. 

You step in front of her, risking being burned by the tool in her hands and not caring at all. Riri jumps back and switches the device off. “You gonna get yourself hurt, y/n! You know better than that; what the fuck is going on with you?”

“Queen Shuri has arrived,” Griot announces as she steps into the lab, panther suit still on, missing the mask. Her brows raise at the sight of her empty lab as she saunters over to you two.

“Y/n, what are you doing here?” Shuri questions with a kiss to the side of your head. “Where is everyone?” she asks as she repeats the action on Riri. 

If looks could kill, you and Riri would both be six feet under, neither of you removing your glare from the other. “Ask her,” Riri retorts. “She came in spewing some shit I couldn’t understand and risking her life with tools she don’t know how to handle and shit.” Throwing the tool to the ground, Ri steps closer to you. She’s so close she could kiss you, but the fury emitting from her tells you she won’t. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Shuri grabs Riri’s upper arm, stopping the girl from approaching you any further. With furrowed brows, she speaks. “Sthandwa (my love), what’s going on?”

A deep chuckle filled with rage leaves your body. It’s an ugly sound coming from you, brimming with emotions you don’t usually possess. “This is the most attention I’ve gotten from either of you in weeks.”

“Attention?” Riri cries. “This is about you not getting attention?” She turns to Shuri, “Baby, we don’t have time for this!” Swiveling back to face you and shaking her arm free of the Black Panther’s hold, Riri steps forward to you, an angry finger in your face joining her dangerous words. “You’re not a child, y/n! We don’t have to come running every time you beckon and call.”

“Ri, calm down. Y/n, my love, nceda uqonde (understand, please). This work is important to us. You know that.” Shuri is speaking to you gently while Riri paces back and forth, hands clasped and running over her tight braids. 

“Bast, Shuri, we don’t have time for this,” Riri repeats. 

Shuri raises her hand to silence Riri but then lowers it onto the small of her back, pulling her in close. “Y/n, sthandwa (my love), singakwenza oku kamva? (can we do this later?)”

That’s it. That small movement opened your foolish eyes.

They were a team. Shuri and Riri. The Black Panther and Iron Heart.

And right now, they were teamed up against you. 

The action almost caused you doubt, your brain wracking to think of a way you may be in the wrong. 

You came up with nothing.

“Ungacinga lomtshato uphakathi kwenu nobabini qha (You would think this marriage was only between the two of you.”

Shuri’s head dips and when she looks back at you, sadness is in her gaze. “Ungathethi loo nto, sthandwa (Don’t say that, my love). You don’t mean that.”

Riri’s head is spinning between you two. “What did she say?”

Shuri is hesitant to answer. “Sh-she said that it seems as though our marriage is only between the two of us.”

While Shuri is making the effort to be gracious with your feelings, Riri just isn’t. She laughs, “Are you serious, yo? You go a few days without any affection and you start tripping?”

“Three weeks.”

“What?” Riri asks.

“Three weeks,” you parrot. “It has been three weeks.”

“Quit being dramatic, y/n-” But Ri’s words are silenced when you throw the calendar upon her work station. Across it are little notes marking the important women in you life’s promises that went broken on those important dates. Big, bold x’s mark out those days. 

“Three weeks ago,” you point at the date. “Was the day I started my duties at the school. You missed the grand opening; couldn’t even be bothered to have dinner with me that evening to celebrate. I went to bed alone that night. Have been ever since.”

Shuri’s eyes are wide and full of hurt, having forgotten the vow she made that you on that day. “We haven’t eaten together in three weeks? Haven’t gone to bed together in that long?”

You ignored her questions. Your voice had finally found you and you refused to let it go. “Two weeks ago, Riri, we were supposed to have lunch together. You’ve been blowing me off ever since. You, ubungangamsha bakho (your majesty), promised to bless the school with your presence. You failed to do so, and I spent six hours consoling some very upset children.”

Next came the date with a bold red circle engulfing it. ‘My Birthday!’ the note read. “One week ago,” your voice cracks. “This one is pretty self-explanatory.”

Tears are falling from Shuri’s face. “How could we-”

Riri is belligerent. “Nah, nah. We wouldn’t miss your birthday. We had it all planned out, today’s only-” Her words fail as she pulls out her phone to check, as if she didn’t believe the calendar you placed in front of her. “Shit.”

“Ikaka ngokwenene(Shit indeed). So tell me again, Shuri, how I didn’t mean the words I said before.”

She doesn’t speak, face full of an apology she can’t vocalize. 

Riri isn’t backing down, anger riling her up again. “Hold up, so you been sitting on this shit for three weeks and you wanna come in and hold it over our heads now?”

“Hold it over your heads? Riri, my love, vuma ukuba awulunganga (admit you’re wrong)! It was you, nina nobabini (both of you), who forgot you had another wife to care for, not I!”

“If you’re so forgotten, y/n, why don’t you just leave?”

Her words knock the wind out of you. “Utheni? (What did you say?)” 

Shuri’s words find her again. “Riri, stop-”

“Nah, baby. She’s the forgotten wife, right?” She’s speaking to Shuri, but her eyes are on you. “We haven’t shown her how much we care over these past few years. How much she meant to us. It wasn’t enough for her.”

Readdressing you, Riri asks venumously “It wasn’t enough, was it, y/n? Huh, baby? We weren’t enough for you. So why don’t you go? Disappear? Vanish?”

A panic is rising in Shuri and she pulls Riri’s tiny body back, but the anger and frustration flowing through the small girl’s being strengthen her. “Cwaka, Riri (Silence, Riri.) Let’s cool off usana (baby), you’re going to say something you’ll regret.”

Riri takes no heed to Shuri's words, tears pouring down both girl’s faces, as well as your own. “Go, y/n. Bounce, baby. Find that woman who gives you more than either of us could, and when you do, wish the bitch luck!”

“Riri!” Shuri hisses, but then her attention is on you. Her eyes follow you as your hand moves to pull off your kimoyo beads. She rushes to you, her hand atop yours. “No, no, sthandwa (my love). She didn’t mean it. Yeka, hlala nam (Stop, stay with me.)”

You take the bracelet off anyways and place it in Shuri’s hand. She looks down at it in horror and tries a different tactic, taking your cheek in her hand to wipe your tears. “Umfazi wam, ndiyaxolisa (My wife, I’m sorry). Ndiyacela, ndiyacela, sukuhamba. (Please, please, don’t go.),” whispers from her lips. 

When you reach to remove the wedding ring from your hand, Shuri drops to her knees, begging. Riri even stops her pacing to peer at you with wide eyes, the weight of her words finally hitting her. 

The ring clinks as it lands on the table, a loud sound in the quiet room. “Ndiyahamba (I’ll leave).”