You're Fireproof, I Wish I Was That Way [closed]

[capsulecorp]

It's been a few days since he destroyed her television. Which is fine. Whatever. She bought a new, got it installed, fine. She's gotten the hole in her wall fixed too. She even managed to get his precious Gravity Chamber fixed which means she can get him out of her hair for a little bit. Which is good. It gives her time to work on other projects in her labs. She does have a business to run, after all.

The problem is he keeps creeping into her thoughts when she doesn't want him to. How weirdly jealous he had behaved that night. Sorry. Not jealous, possessive. Whatever the hell that meant. Half the time it seemed like he couldn't even stand her but he thought he had some weird claim over her?

It's not that she's never entertained the idea before but it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons not least of all him having an ego that almost rivaled her own.

She decides it's time for a break, exiting her lab to go outside to smoke a cigarette. He always bitched too much when she smoked in the house. Something about the smell offending his sensitive Saiyan sense of smell.

She taps the cigarette to let some of the ash fall. Really, that was almost reason enough to do it, sometimes.

Comments

[saiyan]

She's lucky enough to step out of the house about the time Vegeta's stepping out of the gravity chamber with her father's cat in hand, gently setting the little black thing on the grass a few yards away from the Gravity Room. It follows at his heels, bounding across the yard as it follows in Vegeta's wake on his way back. When he turns to glare down at it, it mewls up at him, tail swishing in a way that someone who once had a tail himself can easily read.

But he's having none of that. Vegeta launches himself into the air and flies the rest of the way. The cat runs after him, but isn't nearly as fast as a Saiyan, and by the time it reaches the door, Vegeta's already locked it up tight.

The cat yowls, pawing at the door in a futile attempt to open it.

Bulma's not the only one who's taken a shine to Capsule Corp's house guest.

[capsulecorp]

Bulma finishes up the last of her cigarette as she watches him place the cat down. She wonders if he's figured out yet that sometimes she leaves treats in there so the cat wanders in. Probably not. It's probably best he doesn't.

After she smashes out the cigarette but she makes her way over to where the Gravity Room is to pick up her father's cat, petting it as it still yowls in protest.

"You're going to have to give up this time, once he locks himself in there good luck getting him out."

[saiyan]

Fortunately (or perhaps, unfortunately) for the cat, Vegeta soon emerges from the chamber, grumbling and clearly irate. His eyes land on Bulma and he regards her with a sneer.

"You promised me 300 Gs. It's barely hitting 275." He points back at the open entrance, demanding, "Go fix it!"

[capsulecorp]

"I told you it could only hold that out so long or else you would blow one of the circuits. Which is clearly exactly what happened."

She doesn't make a move to actually go yet. That's not a very polite way to ask, Vegeta. So instead she'll just continue putting her efforts in petting the cat.

[saiyan]

The cat, utterly delighted to see Vegeta again, leaps out of Bulma's arms and bounds over to the Saiyan. It rubs up against his legs, nuzzling its face into his shoes. Vegeta practically recoils, lifting up into the air, out of the cat's reach — but to his credit, he doesn't snap at it or kick it away as he would any other creature (or person, in all honesty) that dared to invade his personal space like that.

"Then fix the circuit. I've already mastered all I can at 275 Gs. I need to to be at 300 or higher, unless you're admitting defeat."

He smirks. Vegeta shamelessly enjoys challenging the woman by insisting that her skills as a scientist and genius inventor aren't up to par.

[capsulecorp]

Bulma couldn't help but snicker a little as she watched Vegeta recoil and float away from the cats. Sometimes his reactions to things were just too entertaining.

At the comment about defeat she huffs a little in annoyance -- she shouldn't rise to his bait but of course her ego gets the best of her (they have that in common, egos).

"I'll show you who's admitting defeat."

She's walking away, but only to change into clothes more suitable for heavy repair work and to grab her tool box. When she makes her way back to the Gravity Room she looks at him expectantly.

"You don't expect me to work while you hover, do you?"

[saiyan]

His answer is to lift up into the air and do exactly that: hover. Literally hover near her, even though she hasn't even started on the repairs.

[capsulecorp]

She just rolls her eyes a little at that.

"You know sometimes I think I'm talking to a child and not a full grown man."

Not that she's much better in the maturity department but that is besides the point. In any case she makes her way inside of the GR now to start working on the repairs.

[saiyan]

"If your eyes are that damaged, maybe I don't want you working on my gravity room."

His gravity room, as if he didn't park his spaceship on her property and it isn't currently filled with state of the art Capsule Corp technology, some of which is experimental and not yet on the market. Vegeta isn't a fool. He knows that she's likely monitoring now much the room can take for marketing purposes. If it's durable by Saiyan standards, then used in human industry, it would be able to withstand more damage than anything else could.

Really, she should thank him for not saying anything about being a guinea pig.

[capsulecorp]

"Your gravity machine?" She asks in an offended sort of tone as she continues to work on the repairs. "And here I was thinking that it was filled with all of my equipment." It may have been his ship originally, but she was the one to make it what it is now. Well, her and her father.

And sure, she's been documenting his results with it and thinking of other ways it could be used so she could market it, but that's besides the point, okay?

[saiyan]

"Yes, but would you have gotten this far if you didn't have me testing it out for you?" Vegeta points out, though his tone is oddly professional and lacking the malice it out to have contained upon pointing out that he's essentially a glorified crash test dummy. "Who else do you know, besides the Namekian and that bumbling idiot, Kakarot, who could push your equipment to such extremes? One would be unwilling to assist and the other's harpy would have forbidden it."

[capsulecorp]

"You act as if you're doing me a favor." He kind of is in some ways but hell if she'll admit that. But Bulma is like Vegeta in that she loves a good challenge. The more he breaks her equipment the harder she works to build something that can stand up to him better. She may have brains more than brawn but she's still stubborn and competitive to the bone. Always wanting to be the best.

[saiyan]

Vegeta snorts, because he refuses to acknowledge whether he is or he isn't. They've already established that he finds her appealing — or, at least, in his mind he's made that much clear, but most people don't inform people that they find them fascinating enough to keep (hanging) around by declaring a sense of extraterrestrial possessiveness.

He tried. Kinda.

Touching his boots back to the ground, Vegeta stops hovering and moves to sit next to her on the floor.

"I take it you would protest were I to train around your repairs?"

[capsulecorp]

She pauses in her work to turn and look at him like he's insane (which she probably gives him this look often enough for him to recognize it at this point).

"Yes. I would protest. I'm not going to be fixing things while you're training and causing them to break down more. That would be counter productive."

And maybe it would be a little distracting too but she'll keep that thought to herself as she turns back to her work.

[saiyan]

It's true; he does indeed recognize it as her 'why so insane?' look. Granted, she's probably as familiar with his #confusion face as he is with this one. She baffles him enough on a daily basis for her to be well acquainted with look that speaks questions without the need to voice any of them.

He huffs irritably and reaches for one of her tools, a pair of needle-nosed pliers that he grabs by the pliers part instead of the handles.

"Then tell me how I can help make this go faster."

[capsulecorp]

It's true. She is used to his confused face. Just as much as he's probably used to her amusement over his confusion. She glances over to see what he grabbed, unable to hold back a laugh.

"Well for starters, you're holding the wrong end of those."

In all honestly him helping her might just slow her down as she'd need to explain to him how to use so many of the tools. Cultural differences can be a pain.

[saiyan]

Vegeta frowns, flipping the pliers over in his hand. He grabs a hold of the handles, one in each hand, and makes a show of opening and closing the pliers, watching intently as if the simple motion of the tool is the most fascinating thing he's seen in a long time — or maybe he just expects it to do something other than that.

"These are broken."

You don't even know what that is, Vegeta. Don't declare things you don't understand broke.

[capsulecorp]

"No they aren't. Give them to me." She waits for him to hand them over. When he does she shows how to use them to move some of the wires that are in tact so she can get to the ones that are damaged and fried.

"See? It has two purposes, it can move and onto things, but it can also cut them."

She hones in one of the damaged wires she's going to have to remove and replace and sides the pliers down so the wire gets towards the joint where they can be cut.

"Far from broken."

As much as she sometimes enjoys his confusion she does try to explain things to him when she can.

[saiyan]

"That's it? That's all they do?"

And just like that, he dismisses them. How simplistic the task they perform is takes away from the mystery and wonder of it all. Pinch, grab, cut... He could do that with his own two hands. He didn't need a tool for that. What a letdown.

"How do you expect to get anywhere with things that barely do anything at all?"

Vegeta picks a screwdriver out of her toolbox and drops it back in.

He is the most helpful assistant.

[capsulecorp]

"They don't barely do anything," She snaps in annoyance as she begins to carefully rewire the panel she's working on. "Besides, it's not about what they can do, it's about what I can do with them."

She is the genius after all. She likes to think if it came down to it she could be a pretty good McGuyver.

[saiyan]

Another snort, this time more indignant. "I can do what they do just as well—"

He reaches forward, grabs a handful of exposed wires, and yanks.

Power flickers inside the space ship turned gravity room before everything goes black.

Good job, moron.

[capsulecorp]

There's a moment of annoyed silence between them before Bulma speaks.

"Get out."

She has a flashlight in her tools so she can work to get the power back but clearly he is only creating more work for her.

"Go bother my mom for food or something until I get this done."

[saiyan]

"In case you hadn't noticed, since you were the one who built this faulty contraption—" Faulty? Vegeta, you're the one who busted the power. "The door doesn't open automatically. So unless you want me to blast my way out, which I can, there will be no getting out."

Even if he is hungry.

...great, now all he can think about is food. Curse this woman.

[capsulecorp]

"Fine. Then make yourself useful for once instead of breaking things more." She grabs the flashlight from her toolbox and turns it on and hands it to him.

"Hold this so I can see what I need to work on. Do you think you can handle that?"

Here she is going out of her way to help him and he's just breaking things more. Lovely.

[saiyan]

He grumbles in the dark that surrounds them, but takes it from her, pointing it at her face.

"I'm the Prince of all Saiyans. I think I can handle a flashlight."

Nevermind that he had no clue what a flashlight was up until about a month ago when her mother showed him how to use one. He insisted he didn't really need one, but she'd shoved one into his hands anyway, then proceeded to usher him out into the yard to help her find the cat. Really, he'd only helped to get the brainless woman to leave him alone.