The rise and fall of her spine is an easy thing, as if it were not forged from some unbendable alloy, and the soft part of her lips is an invitation obscured by the curtain of hair the color of an O-type star. Sleep has softened her edges, the unimpressed lines of her blurred by calm dreams. She is someone he's never seen before; a complete stranger, in repose.

Then he spies the half-finished bomb she's using for a pillow.

He grins. There she is.

Cheerfully, Vegeta hauls his parcel up and slams it down onto the table with a loud crash. She jerks awake with a shriek and grabs for the first thing within reach–a soldering gun–and brandishes it as if she means to attack him. After a moment the haze of sleep lifts from her eyes and is replaced by a mounting annoyance.

Her top lip curls in a sneer when she meets his gaze, and he's impossibly charmed by that.

"Oh, it's you," she grumbles, raking a hand through her hair and twisting it to sit over her shoulder. "What do you want?"

"I brought you a gift."

She blinks, stymied, and then follows his gaze to the armor he'd slammed down in front of her. A muscle jumps in her cheek. "Wow. Just what I've always wanted."

"Fix it."

The fury in her expression is tempered by curiosity, which is hardly surprising. She's said on more than one occasion that she'd rather have something called a "root canal" than spend five minutes with him, but the promise of studying new tech has never failed to win him time with her. Ever since Radditz sent a report back to Vegeta-sei about its prince's "display" upon meeting the scientist responsible for the capsule tech, Nappa has done nothing but give him shit for acting like a lowly pet bringing its master dead vermin in return for scratches behind the ears. His father, however, is intrigued. I've never seen you so addled by anyone. If she is as formidable as Radditz claims, do not let the opportunity pass you by. If she will not bear you heirs that are strong, I will settle for intelligent. Whatever it is she wants in return for a marriage deal, it's hers.

Therein lies the problem. She wants for nothing. What her money can't buy she creates for herself.

He's never experienced this before, being in thrall to someone else. Addled, his father had said knowingly. Until he came to Earth, he dealt with all his problems the same way: blew them up. He's not sure when that stopped being an option, but he can't even muster up a ki blast when in the same room with her. He's seen several physicians–both human and of his own entourage–about the palpitations he experiences when he catches a sniff of the soap she uses; he didn't even kill the ones who laughed in his face. He's written a list of the things that might appeal to her. It's been days since he's had a full night's sleep. He'd ask Radditz for help, but his most trusted advisor has taken to outright avoiding him.

So it was a matter of taking things into his own hands. In the name of proactivity, he's given her countless invitations to dine with him–none of which she's taken. On the days when she's left her lab or the chairs at the side of her pool to explore the deserts and jungles of her planet, a strange radar clutched in her hands, he's invited himself along and kept her on her toes by insulting her parentage and assuring her that her clothes are ugly. He thought maybe he saw gratitude in her eyes for his daring kill of a great, scaly beast that tried to eat her, but she shouted that his "GARLIC GUN BULLSHIT SHIFTED THE LANDSCAPE AND BURIED THE BALL, YOU FUCKING JACKASS, OH MY GOD, JUST GO HOME ALREADY." He should have killed her for that. For a great number of things. Instead, he was back the next day to see if she'd like to tour his own goddamn ship.

This is absurd. Nobody should have to live like this.

"So, what's wrong with it?" Bulma lifts the armor up to the light for a better look, turning it this and that way, studying the nicks and burns that mark the chest plate. Her throat is a long, graceful stretch, and his mouth fills at the thought of tasting her skin.

"It's an old model; it doesn't sufficiently shield me any longer, and there's a broken piece that digs into my ribs."

At that, she smirks. "Seems like it's in perfect working order to me."

Vegeta can't help it; he chortles. "I should execute you for your insolence. I am your prince–"

"Yeah, lemme put a little reality on the plate for you," she interrupts, tossing the armor back to him and then placing her fingers delicately upon the tabletop. "You're not my prince. You're a prince. And in like four days, you'll be a prince back where he belongs: twenty-thousand light years away and out of my hair for good."

"You'll miss me." Even as he says it, he cringes. Gods of blood and battle, is this what he's been reduced to?

She snorts. "Not even a little. And believe me, you'll be glad to be out of here, too. Just think! You won't have to deal with the–what did you call me? Oh, right–weak, inferior creature with a brain deficiency when it comes to palatable fashion."

In his defense, the blazer she was wearing when he said that was an assault to his eyes.

"You saiyans sure have a fucked-up way of doing business," she muses, picking up the soldering gun and turning her attention back to the bomb she'd been sleeping on. "Insulting your trade partners usually doesn't make for a happy trade."

"Implying what, exactly? What are you going to do?" He sneers. "Move against us? Don't make me laugh."

"Trust me: you wouldn't be laughing. My secret weapons have secret weapons." She makes a shooing motion with her free hand. "Now run along. You're blocking my light."

"I'm not in your light."

"You're blocking my brainwaves, then. Get out."

He could leave. He should. There are a million preparations to be made before the saiyan delegate departs in a few days, and he wants to triple check that all the capsules–which were encapsulated in 4 larger capsules–were as they should be. He's read human literature. He will not be responsible for a Trojan Horse unleashing havoc on Vegeta-sei.

Bulma's head is bent. If she were anyone else, it would be lowered out of fear and deference, but no. Her attention is entirely on her work, hands diligent where they delicately solder metal edges and twist wire. She's dismissed him.

The future yawns out before him: he will be back on Vegeta-sei, the rightful heir to the throne and leader of the opposition against the Kolds. Nappa will bring him to the see the latest recruits to their forces, and Radditz will no doubt hit the ground running on a way to get past Cooler's defenses. His father will spend time trotting princess after noble after duchess before him in hopes that an heir will be produced. The kingdom will look to their prince for guidance, for victory, and he will be too busy haunting the labs in the hopes that he'll turn around and a blue-haired woman in a white coat will be there, demanding to know how he plans to ruin her day this time.

A dishwater-colored existence is what he will be doomed to if she doesn't look up now.

"I didn't mean it like that," Vegeta hears himself say.

"How else am I supposed to take 'you're too stupid to live'?" She asks it of the bomb, which hums to life under her touch.

"It was… a compliment."

He was once captured as a child by the Kolds and the weeks-long torture he endured at their hands was easier than this.

"A compliment," Bulma echoes absently, screwing something into a metal plate. "Oh, please. What are you, a little boy too afraid to tell his crush he likes her so he pulls on her pig…tails…"

Suddenly, she goes very, very still. She stops breathing. She puts down her tools.

She looks up.

"Oh my god. I can't believe you," she says, and it isn't anger in her voice. It's complete and utter bafflement. He bites back the sudden urge to cough. His cheeks feel hot. "That's it, isn't it. You're pulling my pigtails because you like me."

"What are pigtails?" He asks, honestly curious.

Bulma sits up, throws her head back, and cackles. "Oh my god. That's what this was all about? With the insults and the hunting invitations–"

"You dare laugh at–"

She ignores him. "Why didn't you just say? Vegeta, you absolute idiot. No, I'm the idiot. I should've realized when you invited yourself to be my date for that charity thing and you almost tore that guy's throat out with your teeth for spilling wine on me."

Tagging along to that "charity thing" wasn't his brightest idea. He'd been bored to tears within twenty minutes of arriving and had been seriously contemplating setting something on fire to liven things up when a drunk pissant bumped into Bulma and dumped an entire glass of wine down the front of her admittedly stunning gown. He'd had the fool up against a wall in an instant, crushing his windpipe slowly while he turned a satisfying shade of blue. It was only due to Bulma breaking the empty glass over his shoulder that he released the man and stalked out of the event altogether, leaving her to clean up the mess.

"He insulted the companion of a prince! He's lucky I didn't make an example of him and his entire family," Vegeta snaps.

"Oh my god, shut up," she groans, raking her hands through her hair. She drops her hands to the table and peers up at him, a thoughtful tilt to her mouth. "So, what were you going to do about this?"

He looks at the wall and grits out, "Nothing."

"You were obviously going to do something."

"… I was… thinking of asking you to accompany me back to Vegeta-sei."

"… As your new head scientist?

It's so ridiculous that he whips around to bark at her, "As my wife!"

She laughs again. "Yeah, no. I've known you for like ten minutes. Head scientist on an alien world is about all I can handle right now."

He should have known. Why else would she prolong this agony if not to reject him so thoroughly? The gaping schism opening in his gut is not unlike the feeling he had when Frieza bested him on the field of battle the first time. It was his first and only taste of crippling, bloody defeat, and he wasn't sure he would ever recover from it. This, somehow, is worse, because it was a battle he was entirely certain would have a happy outcome.

Something hits him on the side of his head and he startles, watching as her screwdriver goes skidding across the floor. He turns to look at her, and she blinks up at him innocently.

"Before you fall into, like, a pit of despair, calm down. You didn't let me finish."

Swallowing, he forces himself to look her in the eye. If she has more to say, he will take it like the warrior he is.

"Head scientist on a foreign alien world is about all I can handle right now," she says again."We have plenty of time, okay? Aren't you supposed to court the person you want to marry? Court me, you dipshit."

"What the hell do you think I've been doing?!"

"For longer than a week, asshole!" In an instant, she's on her feet, slamming her hands down on the table and baring her teeth. "And you spent the time being a royal pain in my ass and insulting my shoes. If I'm going to marry anyone, I need to know it's not someone I'm going to kill five minutes into the honeymoon."

"What's a honeymoon?" If it's a moon-based ritual, it could be interesting.

She rolls her eyes. "Are you listening to me? I'll come back with you! Just stop being such a fucking child about everything and act like the goddamn prince you are!"

"Fine!" He shouts.

"Fine!" She shouts back.

They stare each other down for a long moment, the air between them burning with promise, until she breaks his gaze and sits back down. He waits for her to say something, but instead she goes back to her bomb.

"Okay, now you can get out," Bulma says. "Come back before six."

His fingers ache where they're balled into fists. "What's at six?"

She beams up at him. "We're going to on our first, official date. I'm taking you to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and if you don't get us kicked out you might even get lucky by the end of the night."

He can parse the meaning of "get lucky" from the way her voice drops salaciously, and he doesn't even try to hide the wicked grin that pulls at his mouth. "Very well. I will come back at six."

"Oh, and a word of advice? Unitards aren't sexy, Vegeta. Go find something with buttons. You know, in the name of easy access."

When she goes back to her bomb, he leaves the lab gladly, broken armor tucked under his arm. It doesn't feel like a dismissal this time, though. It feels like a challenge.

And he loves those.

Written for the tumblr prompt: Could you write more of the diplomatic marriage vegeta-and-raditz-come-to-earth-for-capsule-tech-and-vegeta-is-fascinated-by-bulma's-vulgarity au?