Written for the tumblr prompt "would you consider writing one where geets and bulma are in an arranged marriage?"

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It had been, oddly enough, Nappa's idea to strike the trade deal. In the skirmishes with the Agres, he'd seen them using odd contraptions that could shrink an object's mass to almost nothing. Whole armadas, carried in pockets. Imagine, sire: the ability to feed your entire army with the push of a button.

The prospect had been too good to resist, and upon capturing a few Agres soldiers and torturing the manufacturer's location out of them, the king sent Vegeta to enact a deal: planetary protection in exchange for the capsule technology. Since your own race seems to hold no joy for you, see if you can procure yourself a bride, as well. If Earth's advances are all as promising as their "capsules," a formal alliance can only better our chances against the Kolds.

The humans were glad for the promise of protection. It seemed the Kold empire had its gaze fixated on the capsule technology, as well, and had sent scouts to determine its value and blow up a few cities as a show of power. A contingent of pathetic warriors dispatched the scouts eventually, but the threat of a Kold invasion lingered. Joining forces with the saiyan empire was looking more and more like the best course of action. The deal was all but official.

An alliance with such a weak race isn't the hardest thing he's ever been forced to swallow, but the implications of the dossier his advisers had pressed into into his hands moments ago just might be.

Countless, sweet-faced women captured in brilliantly rendered color stare up at him from their respective applications—kind, compassionate, submissive, the assessments decide in indelible ink—and he doesn't need the gift of clairvoyance to know that every single one of them would crumble under the weight of the saiyan crown. The humans have had the presence of mind to include a few warriors in their offerings, but none of them light a spark of interest in them.

He doesn't know why he's surprised. This is a world of little disappointments that form an utterly ridiculous whole—everything is too soft here: the people, the food, the gravity. The humans are too eager to please, too quick to agree.

In the name of entertainment (and a test of mettle), he even fought a few of the famed "Z-Warriors" who had saved the planet from the Kold scouts, but they proved to be laughably below him in both ability and wit. There was one who showed up late to the event, all smiles and sheepish laughs, but while he had the strength of a saiyan, he didn't have the heart. Vegeta put him down, too.

There is no challenge to be found here.

It's a shame. From orbit, Earth looks as though it holds all possibilities within the wispy embrace of its atmosphere. Surviving the remaining days here will be a test of his diplomatic abilities, which–for some reason–are required of him if he is to ascend the throne. Destroying the planet before they get what they came for will not win him any favors, so he bites down the urge to send a blast straight into Earth's core and shuts the dossier with a pointed snap.

Making sure to bare all his teeth in some semblance of a smile, he slides the folder to the diplomats across the table. "Take me to meet the team responsible for the capsules."

His father would be so proud. He asked for something politely and killed no one.

The diplomat he hates the least—a woman with dark skin who's proven herself to be the only one among them with half a brain—lifts her head and gives him a nearly neutral expression. Perhaps he'll press his advantage and have her brought to work in the offices on Vegeta-sei. It's been in great disarray since his father executed the head of foreign relations; she could probably fill the role easily.

Her brow twitches, giving her away. "Your highness, I don't know if it would be wise to visit the labs without giving them notice."

"Oh?" His heart gives an interested thud. "And why is that, Lady Thebo?"

To her credit, she gives nothing else away. "The Capsule Corporation laboratories are, uh, notoriously unsafe spaces. We would need to give the team time to get rid of Bulm—um, prepare for a visit. There is also the matter of possibly contaminating sterile spaces, as we do not know if you are carriers of bacteria that could potentially—"

"I would be careful to whom you refer to as a carrier, human," Radditz growls from where he stands behind Vegeta. He has been uncharacteristically silent through the final proceedings, but then Radditz was always more at home on a council instead of a battlefield. His focus and observation had saved Vegeta from agreeing to a few terms that would have yielded small loopholes. Radditz is a credit to his race; he did nothing when Vegeta bested his brother in battle except make a comment about Kakarot being "infected with humanity."

Thebo's mouth flattens into a thin line as she inclines her head. "Apologies, highness, but I only meant—"

"I know what you meant," Vegeta barks. "I honestly couldn't care less if I contaminate your entire race with my very presence. So long as it doesn't affect the capsules, I will go where I please, and it would please me to meet the team in whom we are placing our trust."

It serves to shut her up but it also has the virtue of being true. He holds all the power in this deal, and making him angry will only serve to hasten what could be a violent end for Earth. The saiyans may be the lesser of two evils, but that does not mean they are in any way good.

Thebo gives him a long, hard look, then sighs as if she's too tired to fight anymore. Gods, but it's a wonder this planet has lasted so long. She gestures to the door. "As your highness wishes."

She leads both him and Radditz, as well as the rest of the diplomatic contingent, through a twisting maze of elevators, stairs, and corridors before they finally descend into a lower level that opens wide. He stands at the top of a tall staircase, overlooking the massive chrome cavern that stretches out before him, and breathes in the sharp scent of antiseptic and metal. Below, dozens of people in white lab coats scurry about like insects startled by a light while—

"I DON'T CARE," a woman screams into a headset, waving her arm and snapping her fingers rapidly to get the attention of the people nearest her. "GET ME FUCKING PERRY! I've got a bratty alien royal running around my compound somewhere and Perry still hasn't gotten me my matter compressor. You find him and you tell him that when I get my hands on him I'm going to shove him in a box and pump it full of fluoroantimonic acid until he's nothing but a fucking memory."

Vegeta's lips twitch into a grin.

One of the insects glances up, meets Vegeta's gaze, and shrieks. "Ms. Briefs—"

With a snarl, she rips off the headset and whips it at one of her minions, then she points at another and demands, "Did you replace all the depressor coils? I don't need these saiyan fuckwits reneging on this bullshit deal because of shoddy equipment."

It takes all his years of training to bite down on the laugh that bubbles in his chest. Somewhere in his gut something flutters and he curls his hands into fists to stem the mania trembling in them.

"M-Ms. Briefs, you really shouldn't—" The insect hasn't managed to struggle his way out of the grip of Vegeta's stare, but Vegeta takes pity on the poor bastard and looks elsewhere, releasing him.

"Don't tell me what to say in my own lab, Flournoy," she snaps. Her gloved fingers rake through the thick fall of her hair. Vegeta can't help but be drawn to it; he's never seen a color like that outside of a blue dwarf. "Please tell me that the vehicle capsules are at least packed and ready to go."

"Everything's ready, with the exception of the housing units, Ms. Briefs."

"Good, because I'm sweating lymph here," she breathes, then stalks forward. "Capsule tech in return for protection? What a fucking racket. These saiyans think they've got us backed into a corner, huh? King Koku really believes this is our only option? Fine. Just wait until they see what I've got in store."

His heart pumps a bloodlust that screams for recognition and release throughout his arteries, and a deep rumble of power demands to be pulled to the surface. The thought of a human having any kind of leverage on him ought to be laughable, but something tells him not to underestimate this loud-mouthed, fearless creature.

Out of the corner of his eye, Radditz looks appalled at the display before them, and at his side Thebo keeps glancing around desperately for something sharp to kill herself with. Snickering, Vegeta launches from the platform and descends slowly while the woman's minions fill the air with their shrieks of terror and scatter.

She stands firm, watching with eyes the color of gas jets as he lands before her, and there is nothing resembling fear in her face.

There are no words to describe the shock that ricochets through him when she meets his gaze with all the subtlety of a fist to the gut, nor the feeling that clings like oil to his insides, coating him in slick heat and the unbearable need to create a moon and rage. He once stared down Frieza, the butcher of the universe, and declared war in front of two armies, and was more in control of himself in that moment than he is before this woman.

Like the dawn over the broken bodies of the dead on a field of battle, a smile breaks across her face. "Prince Vegeta, I presume. I ought to kill you twice over for the shit you've put me through this week."

Finally.

A challenge.

He takes her hand—fragile thing with birdlike bones—carefully into his and flips it to bare her wrist. It tenses in his grip but she does not fight it when he brings his lips to meet her pulse. Somewhere above him, he hears Radditz suck in a sharp breath. To bestow such courtesy upon a saiyan of lower rank would invite swift and brutal scandal, never mind upon a human.

One must honor one's opponent. It is the way of war and union.

"Please," Vegeta purrs. "Tell me everything you have in store for me."

She inhales, rolls her shoulders, and slides her wrist from his fingers, only to curl her own and knock against the insignia embossed in the armor above his heart. "Where do I even fucking begin."

"Start at the beginning."

And what a beginning it will be.