The Panther's IronHeart (Shuri x Riri)

You Can't Be Trusted

Shuri's steady hands moved diligently as she concentrated on the tedious task in front of her. Removing the mainframe from Riri's earrings was proving to be more challenging since the parts were so small, her movement was methodical and slow removing all the parts of the earrings.

The lab was silent for the past couple of hours due to Shuri demanding that no one speak until she disabled the audio piece completely.

As Shuri's progress continued her agitation rose with each piece she took out. Her thoughts were beginning to slowly consume her, breaking her down. How could she have fucked up this tremendously in not calculating if the earrings had been tampered with? She was so focused on rescuing Riri that the thought never even crossed her mind.

Was this what the elders saw in her?

A child destined to diminish the legacy of the people that ruled before her? Just a girl who wasn't fit to protect Wakanda wasn't fit to wear the suit. It wasn't like she believed in the mantle of the Black Panther anyway.

Would her brother have risked Wakanda's safety for one person?

She couldn't answer that.

Shuri eventually removed the audio chip inside both of the earrings and placed them on the white work table.

Unexpectedly soft tears began to fall as she looked that her technology, the very technology that could possibly put her entire country at risk with any information that could have been leaked

Suddenly Shuri felt a warm breeze around her as if a hand was on her shoulder, the slight smell of magnolias wrapped around Shuri like a blanket.

Mom. Shuri thought as the feeling slowly drifted away leaving her feeling cold and lonely.

Shuri smiled through her tears remembering what her mother sacrificed in protecting Riri, her mother believed that Riri was destined for more and she was willing to protect it. Her mother knew that keeping Riri alive meant endangering Wakanda but she knew that bowing down to the demands of others would lead to their downfall regardless.

Shuri was in awe of her mother and her sacrifice, her death still hurt but there were always glimpses of her presence when she felt the most alone in her thoughts.

Shiri softly wiped her tears and continued completely shutting down the earrings. She was careful in keeping Riri's original Stark design intact so all she would need to do is transfer the data into a new pair without any hassle. She turned off a couple more pieces of the earrings and they were completely disabled.

She exhaled deeply, stretching the joints in her back and fingers.

"Griot, I need you to run a scan of any files that were misrouted to any foreign servers that are not linked to Wakanda," Shuri called out as she threw the audio chip into Griot's holographic detector. The hologram immediately turned white as a graph with data and a world map in blue started analyzing the tampered technology.

"Right away Panther," Griot answered back "The data should be ready in a couple of hours Princess you should get some rest since you have been working for several hours," the AI added in

"I appreciate the concern but I think..." Shuri was cut off as the lab doors opened and Riri's features came into view.

"I think that Mr. Griot is right, you should take a break," Riri responded as she gave her a sad smile looking over the dismantled technology on the table.

Shuri's stomach started to flutter quickly as she pushed the feeling down. She turned her back to Riri as she picked up the Stark AI chip that Riri designed. Shuri smiled at the chip looking at the only non-vibranium piece of technology that was able to seamlessly work alongside the original design without any delay.