Chapter Text
There were quite a few things Vegeta had grown accustomed to in his time on Earth, freshly made food of a staggering variety was the first thing. Being able to sleep whenever and however long he wanted in something that wasn't the ground, a stasis pod, or a military grade cot was another. He blustered about it to whoever would pay him any mind that such luxuries made people soft and weak, clearly the reason why Earthlings were so weak, but secretly he enjoyed it. What he didn't enjoy, besides the overhanging knowledge that he owed these strangers a debt, was the Briefs themselves.
Well, that wasn't true, he simply didn't know what to make of them and their unrelenting kindness. The seasons on Earth, though they also confused him, made more sense than the Briefs.
Mrs. Briefs—called Panchy, though her favorite boys as she said called her Bunny—was a master cook and loved doing it despite the family being rich and not needing to cook for themselves. (It didn't matter to Vegeta in the end as he enjoyed eating her creations). Despite the constant feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that there was something more to her keen gaze whilst she chattered nonsense to him, something to how casual she was, almost pretending to be oblivious to his background, she didn't actually scare him. More perplexed and slightly unsettled him with the nagging feeling that there was something more to her than simple ditziness and flirtation.
Her husband, at least, was more straightforward yet confused Vegeta in a different way. Dr. Briefs—whose name also happened to be Briefs yet due to what he called a "clerical error" his family name in addition to first became Briefs—was the definition of non-threatening. But the thing was, he shouldn't have been—at least he shouldn't have been for what Vegeta had experienced and understood for people in Briefs' position. He was extremely powerful and rich, obviously well respected by other Earthlings, hell even the actual King of the Earth frequently contacted Briefs and spoke with him on friendly terms. He was practically nobility! Yet he was so…kind. He kept and brought home stray animals for fuck's sake, he couldn't be real.
Their daughter made the most sense to him, even while she confused Vegeta in many other ways. Bulma was not a fighter in any stretch, though he did know that part of her routine was self-defense classes at the gym, and while she did have the same generosity as her parents she was…different. There was a ruthlessness to her, a cunning mind just under the surface. It was quite apparent that none of Earth's fighters had any leadership qualities (besides automatically deferring to Kakarot's decisions, the idiots) or enough intelligence to power a lightbulb, yet she did.
Vegeta remembered that while the so-called warriors (and even he despite not wanting to admit it) were anticipating Frieza's arrival with anxiety, she was ready to face her doom head-on. She came up with the practical and delightfully vicious plan of killing Gero before anything happened with the androids. Both actions he had to admit respect for in his own way, though the latter he was the first to shoot down since he wanted to fight.
The woman had screamed at him that this wasn't a game and such selfish actions were going to get people killed, she had told all of them that afterward as he had heard. Their reaction to being called out didn't matter to him, what mattered was that Bulma had no qualms about standing up to him, frequently engaging in arguments with him which only entrenched Vegeta's bizarre respect for her. He didn't want to admit how much it ignited his blood in a way that had been lacking for quite some time. Something he had never felt, actually, no one had exchanged barbs with as much vigor and lack of fear as she. Such courage and show of guts brought to mind his fellow Saiyans deep down in his instincts (not that he would speak such a ludicrous thing aloud).
Contradicting any of that, Bulma's proclivity towards being so frivolous irritated him, her boasting, her arguments with her empty-headed pretty-boy paramour, it all grinded on his nerves. Her insistence on showing concern was maddening too, like she cared, which she couldn't have when in the next breath she would call him a stubborn asshole. (From what he understood humans generally didn't show their care by swearing at people, perhaps.)
Bulma Briefs, in general, took up too much space in his head. Right now on the frigid morning of he-didn't-know-or-care-what-month, Vegeta wanted to banish any thoughts of her except for the fact that she was being very slow about delivering on his request (demand) for a new uniform and armor set. Bulma had insisted she could make it so much better and yet she was dragging her feet with—
"Oh, good mornin', darling!" Panchy's cheerful chirp broke him out of his thoughts.
Dammit, while Vegeta was distracted with breakfast, Bulma had breezed in to get coffee and a piece of toast.
"Morning, Mom," she spoke between sips, either not noticing or ignoring that Vegeta was there.
Her lack of acknowledgement didn't bother him, he preferred not talking most of the time and she at least had the sense to respect that even through her attempts at "getting to know him."
Her not speaking to him, however, did allow him to observe that she was wearing her lab coat—good, that meant she was working in her lab. No, wait, he thought with a double take, not recognizing that he had dropped his bite of food with his jaw dropping open. Thankfully neither of the Briefs women noticed before he scrambled to compose himself, taking a breath, drinking his water.
Bulma had her lab coat on, but she was not dressed for lab work, he realized, not with the black pencil skirt stretched tightly over her thighs and the pink blouse with the barest hint of cleavage showing (significant and unusual for someone so proud of her body). He tried to tear his focus off but realized his gaze was trailing up to her face, turned away from him she didn't notice. Vegeta despised the color pink, but never seemed to mind it on her, the simple makeup she wore—indicating that she was going out—was complemented by the blouse nicely and her hair was tied up in a bun. His eyes, nearly against his own will, flicked down again to see she was wearing those black heels that he had no clue how she was able to walk in (but made her legs look very nice, he had to admit). She was doing something business-related today as opposed to "going out with friends" as she called it. Probably to dominate the corporate peons at the main offices, something he was learning was also part of her routine since Briefs didn't usually leave the house.
Sometimes Vegeta wished he had an excuse to demand she bring him along because he very much wanted to see her asserting her authority over the old fools. It would surely be entertaining, and the image of her looking like that with her eyes flashing, tapping her foot while glaring murder at someone, was more appealing than it had any right to be.
"—Anyway, Vegeta," her voice brought him out of his abnormal musings.
Vegeta, not missing a beat, raised his head to meet her eyes. If she noticed him staring, Bulma didn't comment on it, only delicately brushed some crumbs off her lapels and gave him a small smile. "I'll be home by the time you're done training—" She knew his routine just as well as he knew hers, something that should have bothered him but didn't—"So stop by the lab." Bulma threw a wink over her shoulder as she turned. "I've got a gift for you~"
He gave a short, quiet laugh in his throat despite himself, looking away to refocus on his breakfast. He pushed the inexplicable surprise he had felt at her appearance out of his mind and pretended it hadn't happened. Outward traits were nothing special, after all, he had never been one to note down anybody's in his time (besides prissy so-called warriors that fussed over their looks instead of training).
"Oh, my Bulma," Mrs. Briefs tutted to herself, "All work and no play."
Vegeta ignored her, as usual, anticipating in a small way what Bulma had dreamed up this time. He would give her some credit, in addition to her guts Bulma was brilliant and passionate about her work, everything she had created for him was valuable. While she did become a little dismayed by his training inevitably damaging whatever it was (and he by having to ask her to fix it, only adding to his debt, not to mention wasting time by having to halt his training to get equipment fixed) she only became more determined to improve it. Despite him never asking her to (as he much rather would not) she frequently grew dissatisfied and insisted on upgrading even if he was being careful about being rougher on himself instead of the equipment. Though Vegeta disliked the added debt immensely (he refused to believe while knowing how kind the family were that there was no price for their kindness) he didn't try to start arguments about it or yell (at least not on purpose to make her mad like he would for their other moments of repartee).
"I'll do the upgrades while you're asleep, I promise," she swore to him. "You won't even notice—well, except when they start kicking your ass," she finished with a cheeky grin.
"I'd like to see you try," he had replied with a smirk. "Although I am curious why you have such doubt in your own craft if you insist on continually working on equipment that's fine as it is."
"I don't doubt it," Bulma retorted with a click of her tongue. "Try to look at it like your training, you're trying to improve yourself for your greatest opponent? Well, so am I, but my opponent is myself."
What else could he do but respect that? Bulma Briefs was formidable indeed, it was only fortunate that she had never deigned to be a warrior (or wasn't born a Saiyan) otherwise he would have been in even deeper trouble.
Vegeta pushed it out of his mind for the rest of the day while he trained. He turned the level up as high as it would go for the training bots and focused on what really mattered: Super Saiyan.
Bulma was not there when he had finished training (still not ascending…) and cleaning up (she always complained that he stunk whenever he would come in directly post training). Vegeta tried to tamp down his annoyance at her being late, leaning his shoulder against the wall, tapping his fingers against his bicep. He idly cast his gaze along the other walls, bookshelves with texts that both contained Bulma's notes and other complicated science books.
It was the only neat thing in the lab. The rest of it was a mess of scattered ramen cups and papers. He lifted his foot to allow the cleaning bot that dutifully picked up after the careless woman to go by as he looked over at her desk.
The desk was also a mess, papers all shuffled together containing Bulma's mess of shorthand, some of her diagrams drawn by hand, different pens and pencils, measuring instruments.
His eyes stopped on an open book.
Oh, he thought, stepping over to get a closer look, this was her sketchbook. He had seen it once before, but hadn't looked inside of course, since he didn't care and it was none of his business. Right now it was opened on an impressively detailed draft of a new spaceship—how her lines could be so neat and straight while her handwriting looked like a child's scribbles he would never understand.
It wasn't his business, Vegeta told himself, and he didn't care about what was in the book. But if the woman was going to disrespect him by being late (or perhaps even forgetting, an even bigger show of lacking respect) he would find something to occupy his time. He flipped the page over and found drafts of designs for armor and found himself perking up in interest—so she had been working on it, she had just been doing that thing where she worked in secret. He flipped to another page and saw, much to his surprise, that she had been doing drawings of people.
Vegeta turned his head slightly to the side to get a better look at the sketches, noting that they were very lifelike, alarmingly so, almost like a photo. It looked to be people out and about in West City.
He turned the page, recognizing Yamcha immediately, though his back was turned in the drawing. Dark, thick lines that pressed into the paper gave him an uncomfortable feeling of anger and loneliness, he observed that there were other people, faceless and female-shaped all crowded around Yamcha's front. Vegeta turned the page again feeling his lip curl up in revulsion—why did she tolerate that impertinence? It didn't make any sense.
Speaking of annoying things, Kakarot was on the next. He had a guilty smile on his face for one image as he was being scolded by his wife, who seemed sincerely angry this time. The next image his expression was serious, almost pensive. The third he had bent down and kissed his wife on the top of her head, which Vegeta rolled his eyes at. The next couple of pages featured the wife—Chi-Chi if he recalled correctly—in a flattering way, he was surprised to see that Bulma had drawn her doing katas with emphasis on her expression of concentration. He could almost see the sheen of sweat on her, almost thought the image would start moving.
How did she find the time to do all of this, he wondered, flipping through the rest of the pages and noticing again that he could read certain emotions off of the compositions. Bulma must have been treating it partly like a picture diary, making him somewhat uneasy that he was looking through it without her permission. (He told himself again, why should he respect her when she wasn't showing respect to him?)
He froze.
Vegeta felt like he was looking in a mirror suddenly.
His own face with a stormy expression was looking back at him.
His eyes darted along the pages, trying to take all of it in—it was…it was him. She had drawn him. He hadn't even known she was paying him any sort of mind like that to do these drawings! There were expressions of anger, of course, the cockiness, even some of him training, that was all familiar to him, but oddly he didn't detect distaste or fear. Vegeta paused, looking at a drawing of himself sitting on his own balcony, staring off into the horizon.
Why did she draw me looking like some lonely and pathetic fool?
He wanted to be offended at that but the embarrassment and…strange feeling of flattery(?) that there were even more drawings of him than that overrode it.
Vegeta saw his hands were trembling. I should stop looking, he told himself.
…Well. Maybe one more page.
It was him, yet he was…disappointed that it was a detached turnaround of him in an armor set that Bulma had designed.
"Hm," Vegeta mumbled, turning back through the pages inexplicably. There were drawings of her friends and what she felt towards them along with it, there were her diagrams for inventions, there was him with…he didn't know what, respect? Admiration? Considering what the drawings conveyed left him feeling lightheaded and warm.
But there were none of her.
Why? With how often she boasted about how she was the most beautiful woman on Earth, he would have figured there would be at least one self-portrait in there, but there wasn't. Hell, there was more of him in the damn thing than anything of herself besides what the presses, lines, and strokes conveyed for what she was thinking.
He paused again on a drawing of himself stretching. He should have felt annoyed like she was objectifying him (after all, she occasionally flirted with him, even he wasn't oblivious to that). But…he looked powerful, proud, confident, very determined—was that…how she saw him? Was all of it how she saw him?
Vegeta realized to his horror that his cheeks were burning and heart was pounding. He shut the book with a snap when he heard the clicking of Bulma's heels hurrying down the stairs, automatically turning to be sure she didn't trip and fall (the gods only knew he didn't understand how she could move in those things).
"Sorry!" she was saying to him, digging into her coat pockets to pull out a capsule. "I'm sorry I'm late, Vegeta, the meeting went on way longer than I thought." She continued to babble about what happened during the time she was gone, opening the capsule to reveal a case and opening that up to pull out some items of clothing. "—I swear I wanted to drive my heel into that salty old prune's balls for how long he whined over stupid shit like—"
"—I would have been mad if you did that and I didn't get to see it," he blurted out, wanting to push all thoughts of the sketchbook out of his head.
Bulma paused, pressing her lips together into a thin line, the pink of her lip gloss disappearing. "Huh? You wanted to go with me?"
The two stared at each other, realizing they were now at an awkward impasse.
Luckily, Bulma decided to brush it off (maybe assumed it was just something weird Vegeta said and nothing more) with a shrug, neatly folding and presenting him with—as he expected—the new armor set. "Sorry that it took me so long," she breathed, cheeks flushed with the exertion of her day and rushing down to meet with him. "I had to make sure it was perfect."
Vegeta had a habit of ignoring how other people felt. It was precisely because he was an asshole and not interested in what sort of rubbish went through peoples' minds.
He could not miss (or ignore) that he had been foolish and misinterpreted all of Bulma's actions as disrespect. Actually, she seemed to hold him in very high regard and he didn't know what to make of that. He swallowed hard against his dry throat, taking the pieces into his own hands, wanting to look away from her but finding he couldn't. The proud Saiyan prince could, at least, will himself to stop trembling and blushing like a hormonal teenage boy around his first crush.
Now, what to even say to all of that?
"This…will do," he managed at last, turning on his heel to leave the lab and all of the awkwardness behind.
He balked when he heard a puff of a sigh coming from her—exhaustion, maybe disappointed but unsurprised that he didn't say anything else.
What now? Vegeta thought. What did people usually do in these sorts of situations? Nothing a Saiyan would do, surely?
He was two steps up before he looked over his shoulder at her. "Bulma," he rasped, trying to will himself to not squeak.
"Yeah?" she responded, looking up from her place at her desk.
"…Thank you."
Her eyebrows shot up, he turned around immediately to move up the stairs and not embarrass himself further.
Something stopped him again, he cursed himself, grinding his teeth together and turning around once more. "You know!" he spat out a bit more forcefully than intended, cringing internally when Bulma jumped. "…They're…um, they're…not bad. Your drawings."
Bulma stared up at him, eyebrows turned down and frowning deeply. "What…did you say?" she asked.
"I won't repeat myself!" he snarled back shutting the door to the lab a little more forcefully than intended, breaking at least one of the hinges.
Never mind it she can deal with it herself! Vegeta thought, practically flying to his room and slamming the door shut behind him, diving into his bed to shove his face deep into his pillows as if that would drown his humiliation. It was no use, he realized, he could see that open sketchbook of all the images Bulma had created from her skilled hands and earnest heart. His own heart pounded even more rapidly at the thought she viewed him as something like art.
What the hell is wrong with me? he groaned to himself, turning over in his bed but still planting his pillow over his face. What is wrong with me!?
The armor he had demanded from her and sneered to himself that she was "dragging her feet on" lay forgotten on the floor while he rolled around trying to work off his own restless energy. His mind cycled rapidly through different things, finally settling on the last drawing of him in Bulma's sketchbook. In his thoughts, Vegeta erased the other images until only one of him remained. Then, gradually, graceful lines formed and shaped an image of Bulma standing next to him, looking upon him with that genuine smile of affection.
The image comforted him. Brought things into perspective, made him realize that there wasn't a price to the Briefs' kindness, despite that being the rule of the merciless universe he grew up in. There was only kindness and warmth with this family. Quiet respect, admiration…caring. So much caring.
This is a hindrance, his dark thoughts clouded over the gentle image, obscuring any of his own sentimental emotions and turning them back to the callous person he knew himself to be. I cannot allow this to go any further.
Deep down in the darkness of his cynical mind, a small spark nurtured itself, gently swaying with the thoughts of a person who treated him as someone to admire and that he admired back, lulling him into sleep with dreams of blue eyes and a soft smile despite the maelstrom of turmoil with him.
It isn't…actually like that. She isn't as bad as I've thought after all…