Work Text:
Bulma glanced subtly at her cuffs while her captor told his boss how great a success the capture mission had been. They weren’t average metal handcuffs, but some sort of high-tech alien version. The only truly physical part was the little silver square between her wrists which generated the solid light that encircled them. That was probably the better option of the two, honestly. Bulma wasn’t a great lock picker, but she could find a way around a system in her sleep.
“Are you sure she’s the one?” The boss asked. She was a tall, broad humanoid with wings sprouting from her back and legs that ended in talons instead of feet. Her eyes were large and sharp, birdlike in a way Bulma didn’t know could be unsettling. “Saiyans are usually attracted to strong mates, and it looks like this one didn’t even put up a fight.”
Bulma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course this was about him. After the whole incident with Cell, Vegeta had followed her back to her home and flopped down on the bed in the guest room she’d assigned to him when he first got to Earth. He didn’t ask if he could stay or tell her he wanted to move back in, just walked inside like he owned the place.
(He didn’t offer to get up with the baby — his baby — either. She was annoyed until she saw him on the balcony every time she stumbled into the nursery, half-asleep. He never did anything, just watched her with that resting bitch face she was so attracted to for some reason. She was on the verge of losing her temper and yelling at him to stop just standing there, but he lost it first.
(”How could you not tell me that there’s something wrong with our son?!” He snapped.
(It was one-thirty in the morning and all she wanted to do was feed Trunks so he would stop screaming. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get to him. His father was holding his wailing, squirming body against his chest, almost protectively.
(”There’s nothing wrong with him.”
(”Then why does he cry constantly?”
(”He’s a baby. That’s what babies do.”
(Not Saiyan babies, apparently. Saiyan babies were extracted from their mothers as fetuses and kept in incubation tanks until they were about two and old enough to start their training. Bulma listened to Vegeta’s explanation, thought about the psychological studies on the importance of babies being held and interacted with, and decided that checked out.)
She was tuning out the conversation for the most part until she heard something that probably got through her filter because it was just that ridiculous.
“Prince Vegeta will come right to us if we have her. She’s the woman he loves.”
Bulma choked on her own air. The soldier guarding her patted her firmly on the back. Unlike most of the others, they wore a helmet that completely covered their face. Bulma couldn’t tell if they were concerned or annoyed.
“Don’t touch her, you creep!” Chi Chi snarled. She was being held by two soldiers, one that looked similar to the captain and one that was more like an anthropomorphic dinosaur.
The one that looked like the captain had a trail of blood running from her nose to her chin. That one had made the mistake of thinking Chi Chi would go quietly just because she was being held at gunpoint. The laser blaster had cut a sharp line across the side of Chi Chi’s abdomen, but it was a surface wound that had cauterized instantly. The smell of burning flesh had made Bulma want to throw up, but it seemed to only serve to make Chi Chi angrier. It wouldn’t be a surprise to find out there was a Saiyan somewhere in the Ox Princess’ lineage.
“I’m fine,” Bulma said. “It’s just — you morons think Vegeta loves me?”
“Of course he does!” Their captor snapped.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does.” The man turned back to his boss. “Captain, she’s lying to try and protect him.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Shut up!” He shouted at her. “My information is correct! You are the woman who loves Prince Vegeta!”
“Of course,” she lifted her chin. “I’ve never denied it.” She’d never outright said it either, but that was because she knew it wasn’t something he wanted to hear. “But whoever said he loves me back?”
“Bulma,” Chi Chi said in her soft voice.
Bulma clenched her fists and did not look at her friend. “He’s the Prince of all Saiyans, he doesn’t go around falling in love with people. And if you think he’s anything that small or that ordinary, then you haven’t the faintest idea who you’re dealing with.”
The soldier at Bulma’s side stiffened, clearly on edge. So was the man who had dragged her here (and Chi Chi when she’d refused to let them leave without a fight). He glanced nervously at his captain.
“It’s a trick!” he insisted. “Captain, I assure you, she is the perfect bait. When this woman is in danger, Prince Vegeta will always come.”
Magma swirled in Bulma’s belly. “Oh, you are a moron. No, he won’t!”
“He’s probably already here.”
“No he isn’t, of course he isn’t!” She shouted. She was shaking. If it wasn’t for the soldier’s hand on her arm, she might’ve fallen.
“Possibly already on the ship!”
“Well, go on! Scan it then, why don’t you?” Bulma screamed. Because this was common knowledge and she couldn’t believe she had to explain it to these people and she couldn’t believe that them being so confident in something false was making her feel like this. “Scan the whole ship!”
The soldier at her side shifted uneasily, but Bulma was too angry to stop.
“Come on!” She screamed. “Big hair, stupid broody face, you can’t miss him! Go on! Scan the whole atmosphere! He’s. Not. Here. God knows where he is right now, but I promise you, he’s doing whatever the hell he wants and not giving a damn about me! And I’m just fine with that!” (Maybe if she said it enough times she’d make it true.) “When you love Vegeta, it’s like loving the stars themselves. You don’t expect a sunset to admire you back! And if I happen to find myself in danger let me tell you, the Prince of all Saiyans is not stupid enough or sentimental enough, and he is certainly not in love enough to find himself standing in it with me!”
There was a stunned silence, broken only by Bulma’s heaving breaths. She felt like she’d run a marathon. She felt like she’d pushed herself too hard and now her heart was giving out.
Suddenly, the soldier beside her muttered a curse word in an alien language. She’d heard it once before, whispered in a bathroom by a man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her over a plastic strip with a pink plus sign. She had less than a second to process that before he formed a gun with his pointer finger and thumb and opened fire on the others.
Bulma’s mind, which in some countries was classified as a lethal weapon, completely stalled. It was a good thing the man was aware of her enough to block the stray shots that came her way, because she couldn’t move. The screams and laser blasts were deafening, but to her they seemed like background noise. Later, she wouldn’t even remember what happened with Chi Chi. Her brain was whirring. She felt like a computer without enough RAM to solve a simple equation.
Then there was silence and the rogue soldier was in front of her. He crushed the cuff emitter to free her hands, then pulled his helmet off and tossed it to the ground, and suddenly she was looking into the eyes of her son’s father. Vegeta held her gaze, and she knew what that meant because she’d been around him enough to notice that he never looked anyone in the eyes.
“You...were here the whole time?” she managed.
His eyes slid away. “You were bitching at me yesterday for ‘shooting first and asking questions never.’ Said a bunch of stuff about using an intelligent approach.”
“I remember, I just...” she shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think you were listening.”
Vegeta crossed his arms over his chest. “I always listen,” he muttered quietly.
Bulma moved without thinking, closing the distance between them and taking his face in her hands. He uncrossed his arms to let her closer, his hands resting lightly on her hips. She stroked his cheek with her thumb and thought about how lucky she was that he was shorter than her. She, at least, didn’t mind bowing her head to press their lips together. He relaxed against her mouth.
His arms wrapped around her waist slowly, gingerly, like he’d seen people hug but had never tried it before. It was maybe the bare minimum of physical affection, but he’d only survived as long as he had by closing himself off from everyone. The fact that he was willing to do this with her in a public space with the lights on filled her with warmth.
She hugged him back, sliding her lips from his mouth to his ear. “I love you,” she whispered.
His arms tightened around her. “I...” He cleared his throat. “I will be there. Whenever you find yourself in trouble. I will be there with you.”
She smirked at the callback to her rant. She knew what he meant, but she was so full of love for this man that she felt brave enough to push it. “Because you’re stupid enough?”
He took a deep breath. “No.”
“Because you’re sentimental enough?”
“...No.”
She kissed the spot where his jaw met his neck and smiled when he tensed to suppress a shiver.
Chi Chi cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but these handcuffs are kind of tight and I’m losing circulation in my fingers.”
Vegeta jerked away, flushing. He started chewing Chi Chi out for struggling against the cuffs when obviously that caused them to automatically tighten. Chi Chi yelled back, asking how she was supposed to know how this stupid alien technology worked and why did they even need fancy energy handcuffs anyway? What was wrong with good old-fashioned steel or rope? Bulma watched the two of them bicker, a small smile playing across her face.