Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball Z.

Summary: His dark gaze settles on her hands, how they make and unmake the device in front of her, and for a fleeting and foolish moment Bulma thinks he just might see her in a different manner, one without intolerance. VegetaBulma, oneshot

Hello! Haven't written anything in a while and these two just kind of called out to me. Vegeta and Bulma are my favorite couple in DBZ and I guess that's why I was kind of hesitant about writing for them. But, here is this little thing. I hope that y'all enjoy this. It's just a little moment, set before the two of them actually got together. I guess I just really like the image of Vegeta being kind of fascinated by Bulma as she works, for some reason. Anyway! Let's get on to the fic. Please enjoy!

Epithet

He's watching her.

Bulma does not mind, of course. A part of her takes a silly kind of pleasure in knowing that she can distract him so. A part of her wonders why this is, and yet another part of her doesn't care. She continues at her work, fingers bending certain wires in certain ways. After a few moments, she brings out a screwdriver and begins to tinker with the more intricate machinery of the device she is currently mending. Sweat has started to bead on her forehead and she wipes it away haphazardly, strands of blue hair sticking to her skin in the aftermath.

She tries to not let on to the fact that she knows his eyes are on her. The blue-haired woman does her best to not let these things get to her - and, frankly, she knows that if she were to reveal that she was privy to his curious gaze on her back, he might up and leave. And that was certainly no fun.

For some reason, she finds her breaths come a bit less easily than usual, now that she knows he's watching. It's almost as if she were trying to become smaller, more insignificant, and the very notion of that is enough to baffle her - her entire persona is anything but minute.

Nerves, the word works its way into her mind. She almost pauses in her work. Nerves? Since when has she ever been nervous, especially when it came to men?

She hasn't, and that is the one thing that makes her pause and take notice.

Bulma cannot hear him as he makes his way around her, dark eyes scrutinizing her every movement. The very air in the room seems to have been sucked out, leaving the two in an impossible black hole of what feels like desire.

A bead of sweat rolls down the back of her neck, trailing along her spine until it disappears beneath her shirt. She wriggles just a bit, slightly uncomfortable, but in the end resumes her work without much distraction - well, distraction of the non-Saiyan variety.

In the end, out of his impatience with her, she supposes, he is the one who breaks the silence. "What are you doing, woman?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Saiyan?"

There is a small pause. She believes she has taken him off guard, and a part of her smiles as she continues with her work, not chancing a glance up at him lest she get lost in that dark, dark gaze of his.

He bites, though. "Repairing some useless human contraption, no doubt," he says. "You should be repairing - "

"I know, I know," Bulma says, shaking a hand at him. "Your little work room." She says 'work room' like it's an insult, a playful one, but an insult nonetheless. This causes him to stiffen.

"Do not speak to me as if I am a child."

"Then don't act like one," she sing-songs.

But he's not paying attention. Not at all. Somehow, despite his tense posture, his gaze is focused on her hands, which have not stopped fiddling with the device she is fixing. If Bulma were a much dimmer woman, she'd think that he was fascinated by her movements, by the way she worked with this piece of machinery, as if he had never seen a woman with such skill.

Of course, Bulma is more intelligent than that.

It does give her a slight fluttery feeling in her stomach to even imagine Vegeta - the prince of all Saiyans, she thinks dryly - even glancing twice at the little goings on of her workshop, at the way she is able to effortlessly repair machinery as if she were just piecing together a relatively simple puzzle.

Bulma allows her eyes to flicker upward to try and meet his own. For the first time, she catches him staring at her hands. There is an odd look to his eyes, one that may be hiding a strange kind of fascination as she works away. He has not noticed her gaze on his as of yet, so she just focuses her eyes on the way he holds himself, hands crossed over his chest, eyebrows furrowed, a thin sheen of sweat coating his chest. Even without the gravity chamber, he still trains himself to the limit and back again. It would be remarkable if it wasn't so stupid.

"What are you staring at, woman?" he snaps, now fully aware of her eyes on his.

Bulma internally curses herself at being caught, but she snaps back, unperturbed and yet a bit amused at the irony here, "I could ask you the same question."

Vegeta's eyebrow twitches, and he fights with himself - something she is not used to seeing. Restraint from this man is about as common as birds who can swim like fish.

"Nothing," he says, gruffly, quietly. "Nothing, woman."

However, as Bulma watches him walk away, the set of his shoulders as tense as a bowstring, she can't help but think he means the opposite.

End.