That shrill, banshee shriek of his jolts Natasha – and frankly, himself – out of their stupor, and she slowly comes to, brows pinching with discomfort. This is really disconcerting, watching his own mouth twist as she groans, and his carefully-groomed moustache collecting cement flakes. He has just enough foresight to scoot away from Natasha, because when her eyes snap open and focus on his face –

Now he knows how he sound if he ever needs to scream at the top of his lungs. Not much different from Natasha's –

"Holy fu –"

"Yeah, I know," Tony nods, and holds both hands up placatingly. "What I said, too."

"You're – you're me! How are you me and I –" He smirks drily when she reaches a shaky hand down between her thighs and gropes, and screams again, "Stark, what did you do?"

"I'll be honest, I have no idea –"

"Bullshit –"

"Hey, you think this isn't hard on me? One minute my lab is collapsing on me, and by the next I'm sporting a rack!"

"Fix this!"

"Fix what? I need – need time to adjust, to recalibrate –"

"We mustn't let anyone know about this."

"Agreed," he nods furiously. Then, "… Why not? We can talk to Bruce about this. Or Reed. We need all the eyes and brains we have –"

"Two days, huh? Two days." She looks torn between livid and manic, and Tony decides that mixture of expression doesn't complement the general rugged handsomeness of his features. "We work on fixing this machine, see if we can go back to our bodies."

"You know, this isn't such a big deal. An experimental mishap," and dammit, never has he stared down such a fiery glare, not even one from Pepper, "which is indeed, a big deal. Yes, it is. I'll uh," his armpits are a mixture of sweat and sand, "I need a shower."

At once, something sharp and metallic twirls between Natasha's fingers. She's always moving like a blur, too quick to follow. Awestruck turns to horrified when she deftly angles the pointy end of his screwdriver to her crotch. "Nice try, Stark. You do anything weird to my body…"

Jesus Christ.

That's how he decides to forgo shower altogether, because staying alive with his dick intact is more important than smelling bad, and eff it, it's Natasha's body anyway, why does he care. He creeps under and over heaps of cables, working hard to diagnose the cause of the explosion while she keeps to her corner, tasking herself with restoring power supply to the lab. And after one full hour of passive-aggressively ignoring each other, they regroup to discuss progress.

"The bundle of wires down here is shot through and through." Tony carefully disentangles himself from the mess. "It's not a malfunction or a design mistake. It's a hardware flaw. I underestimated my calculations – which never happened –"

"Clearly, you just did."

"Anyway, we need a replacement conductor. Something with out-of-this-world dampening capacities, able to disperse electric, vibration and heat load dispensed from a device that consumes enough energy to feed twenty percent of West Coast."

Ding ding!

Vibranium is also exceedingly rare, but there still are two sources of that magical metal, both of which are certified pain in Tony and Natasha's collective asses. As she kindly puts it, "Either way, you're on T'Challa's speed dial, and Steve invited you to dinner, not me. So, you ask it."

"Which I'm more than happy to do," he crosses his arms across his chest, and is dismayed that he now has to lower his forearms to accommodate his newly gained body parts. "But, I'm not Tony Stark anymore, am I? So, you be a dear and FaceTime T'Challa for both our sakes."

That soon proves to be a mistake.

"For old time sake, T'Challa. Just loan me fifty grams of vibranium. Fifty grams, thirty-six hours. Name your price."

"I will not repeat myself, Stark. Money will not tempt me."

"For God's sake," Natasha hisses into the phone, and Tony shakes his head furiously. He makes a cross with his index fingers, his mouth a perfect "O". "I mean," she falters. "Pretty please?"

And Tony swipes his face with his hand.

"I can lend you vibranium in exchange for your expertise on the repulsor tech. You realise how that will revolutionise our research into sustainable energy in Wakanda."

"… Yeah, why not? What d'you want to know?" At that exact moment, when she looks over her shoulders at Tony with wide, expectant green eyes, he knows the game's already over. Checkmate.

"Have you been drinking again, Stark?"

"… No?"

"You're not behaving like yourself. Get some rest."

And that's it. The click! on the other end of the line resounds in the workshop that it echoes to their very marrows.

"Boy, you suck," Tony slides to the ground, too tired to stay on his feet any longer. By the way, he just kicked off Natasha's pumps because they're murdering his ankles. And while he's at it, so is Natasha-playing-Tony, because they're two vastly different beings! "You don't talk to the King of Wakanda like that!"

"He's your friend, isn't he?"

"Yes, but that's not the point – oh yeah, that's a trick question, Nat."

"What is?"

"The repulsor tech!" He runs his fingers through his hair and why is his hair never-ending? "You don't share notes with people about it evenif they waterboard you with a car battery strapped to your chest, OK? You don't. Christ."

At least she has the decency to look somewhat ashamed of herself. She squats to his eye level, lips pressed to a thin line. Now he feels guilty for putting that look on her – on his own darn face.

Slowly, she says, "The other option might be better than T'Challa."

"Yeah. I was hoping we won't have to come to that."

Outside of Wakanda, there's only one place anyone can get their hands on some vibranium. But first, they'll have to pry it off the cold, dead hands of Steve Rogers. See if they could.