Note: This ignores all of Dragon Ball Super and the dumb thing about Vegeta having a brother.
She's in the middle of her acceptance speech—thanking her mother and father for giving her a drill as well as a dollhouse for her fourth birthday; championing the countless women in the field who should be sharing the stage with her; and encouraging all the young girls out there who will someday follow in her footsteps—when a hand claps onto her shoulder and shakes hard.
"Mama."
No.
"Mama, wake up."
Nope.
"You know I know you're awake, right?"
She doesn't even have to open her eyes to look at the clock to know that it's way too fucking early for this. It's her first day off in months and she made it very clear to everyone—her family, friends, and the entirety of the Capsule Corp conglomerate—that she wasn't to be disturbed unless there was an actual emergency—like the sun exploding—under pain of terrible and creative death. She'd left instructions. There's a printed copy taped to the refrigerator lest anyone conveniently forget. And all the little rat-faced reporters at NBS News that never let up in their quest to have her officially comment about the weird shit that goes down at Capsule Corp were sent memos to the tune of If you so much as call the CC automated public line, I will find you, I will end you, and I will salt the earth with your remains.
The only explanation for this is that her son has a death wish, and considering his father, it's not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it's probably coded into his goddamn DNA.
"Mama—"
"There are sixty-some-odd power tools underneath this bed right now, and I will not hesitate to use them. Even on my own progeny," she mutters, tugging the duvet up to her chin and rolling onto her side.
Trunks snorts. "Yeah, right. I'd like to see you try."
"Never underestimate the power of creative ingenuity, kiddo." Maybe if she presses her face into the pillow hard enough, she'll asphyxiate to death and achieve the eternal peace she's always wanted. "'s my day off. Remember—pain of death, sun exploding? Go hang out at Goten's—"
"There's a weirdo outside shouting that he's the king of the saiyans."
"I told you, just ignore him when he gets like this. He'll be fine by lunch."
"It's not Papa."
At that, she opens her eyes. "Huh?"
"It's not Papa," Trunks repeats, then pauses. "Well, he looks like Papa. He's wearing the same armor Papa wore when you got married. I thought the only full saiyans who survived Vegeta-sei were Papa and Goku."
She rolls onto her back and sits up, running a hand through her hair to scratch at the base of her skull. "You're right." Then she remembers Nappa. And Raditz. And Turles. And Brolly. "Well, for the most part. So where is this guy?"
A sly look crosses Trunks's face as he casts his eyes left, right, then presses a finger to his lips. He motions for her to follow him out of the room, tiptoeing out. She stares down at her sheets and wants to cry. She also wants to get Dende on the horn and demand to know what she did to piss him off, because this is just mean. Her one goddamn day off, and she's awake before seven.
With a grumble, she throws the duvet off and makes to get up, but even the bed doesn't want her to leave. One of her sheets is wrapped around her ankle, holding fast, and she flails her way to the floor with a loud "Oof!"
Trunks pokes his head back into the room. "Mama, seriously. What if this guy blows up the world because you were too lazy to get out of bed?"
"I will ground you for the rest of your life," Bulma threatens, struggling to her feet. She casts around for pants and finds a pair of sweats puddled by the closet door. They're too big, meant to fit over thighs that could crush a person's skull, but they'll do for now. There's no way she's facing whoever this is in nothing but a tank top and underwear with holes in the ass.
Together, she and Trunks meander down the halls of the main house, with Trunks stopping every so often to check out the windows for property damage. So far, there's nothing, but they haven't reached the front of the house yet. The street's probably on fire.
"All right, get down," Trunks whispers, ducking down and crawling to the bay window overlooking the front lawn. He presses his back to the wall, head just brushing the sill, and motions for her to follow suit.
For the love of Dende. "I'm too old for this."
"You built a death ray last week," he says. "A literal death ray. I'm pretty sure you're still young enough to crawl on the floor."
"Don't sass your mother." But she drops to her knees and, despite the unforgiving nature of the hardwood, shuffles her way toward him. She awkwardly turns to sit next to him, back to the wall, and then gives him an unimpressed look. "Now what, General Briefs?"
A thoughtful grin tugs at his lips. "'General Briefs.' I like the sound of that. Is he still there?"
"You're going to make me look? Me, the one who can't defend herself if she's spotted. You're a terrible general."
"Fine, we'll both look." He holds up a hand, fingers outstretched, then begins curling them inward one by one in a countdown. Once his pinky finger is pressed to his palm, they both twist and peek just over the window sill.
The gleam of chrome is the first thing she sees. Not unlike Capsule Corp's own civilian ships in size, this is meant for long-term space travel. The hull is grand and sleek, dressed in reds and golds, with a very familiar barbed insignia emblazoned just under the cockpit window. She wore the same symbol over her breast when she and Vegeta finally got over themselves and tied the knot. It's the symbol of the royal house, he had explained, thumbing it with uncharacteristic reverence, and she had covered his hand with her own, the mark of House Vegeta kept safe beneath the cover of their joined fingers.
Despite the relatively dirt-free exterior, this is a ship that has seen some shit. There are small shadows dotting the hull: marks from blasters, most likely, or even collisions with space rock or debris. At least twenty people could live in it comfortably. Her fingers itch with the need to touch, to study, and a glance at Trunks—who's staring back at her—tells her that she's not being subtle about her curiosity. She narrows her eyes at him and he rolls his own, and they both turn back to look at the ship.
In front of the ship, shouting something to an array of soldiers—all clad in saiyan armor, scouters curving their faces—is a fierce-looking woman with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and a mean-looking scar hugging her upper lip. She snaps something to the soldiers that has them immediately placing their right fists over their hearts and bowing.
"So, where's Papa's lookalike?"
Trunks scans the grounds, then jerks his chin. Bulma follows his gaze and—
"Mama, they'll hear you!" Trunks hisses frantically. "Shhh!"
She smacks a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. A man stalks down the ramp from the ship, decked out in the same armor-and-cape outfit that Vegeta had worn to their wedding, but she can't really look past anything but the thick goatee encircling the downward pull of the man's thin lips. Jeez, Trunks wasn't kidding. The guy's a deadringer for Vegeta, right down to the way he stands with his back slightly arched and crosses his arms. Behind him, puffed up and thrashing agitatedly, is a very familiar—
"Is that a tail?" Trunks curls his fingers over the edge of the sill and stares with wide eyes.
"Mm. Saiyan trait. You had one when you were born."
"I did? What happened to it?" With a curious hand, he reaches behind himself and palms the small of his back.
She shrugs. "The doctor removed it before I had a chance to say otherwise. I was a little zonked on pain medication at the time." That, and she'd spent 29 hours pushing the equivalent of a Ferrari through a keyhole. Saving the tail was on page six on the list of things she was worried about, right after What if I don't make Dynasty Magazine's World's Sexiest because of the baby weight?
"So?" Trunks nudges her. "Who do you think he is?"
Bulma sighs.
"C'mon, kiddo," she says, pushing up to stand. Below, all the saiyans jerk to attention, and she holds steady under the scrutiny of their king. "Let's go meet your grandpa."
/_\\_/_\\_/_\\
She thinks about making them wait so she can get dressed in something a little less informal, but fuck them. If they're going to come here on her goddamn day off, then what they see is what they get. They should be grateful she's even wearing pants.
"Grandpa?" Trunks is breathless with excitement, practically vibrating in place, the cell phone she regrets giving to him surgically attached to his ear. "Like, King Grandpa?"
"I will give you your entire trust fund right now if you call him that to his face."
"Papa's not picking up."
"Are you really that shocked? He's off with Goku, probably getting the shit kicked out of him. Try Gohan and tell him to find your father. Don't… Don't say why. Just tell him it's very important that Vegeta comes home as soon as possible."
"Goku's gonna be, like, super curious when Gohan shows up and cuts their training short."
"If Goku starts asking questions, tell Gohan to tell him it's a Briefs family issue and therefore none of his damn business. And if he has any thoughts about showing up anyway, tell him I have no problem telling Chi-Chi about The Thing."
"What 'thing'?"
"Oh, don't worry. He'll know what I'm talking about."
Trunks huffs, a million questions plain on his face, and leaves the room to make the call. Probably so she can't see the blush in his cheeks or hear him stutter through a greeting when Gohan picks up. Poor kid.
With every passing second that she stares at the front door, her skin tightens a little more until it feels like she's suffocating. It never once crossed her mind that she'd have to deal with a parent-in-law—it was supposed to be an impossibility. But, true to form, Frieza wasn't as thorough in destroying the saiyans as he probably thought, which means not only does she have to deal with Vegeta's father, but she has the dubious honor of explaining that his son married and fathered children with a human.
And considering that Vegeta thinks "half-breed" is a term of endearment, this ought to go swimmingly.
"All right," Trunks comes in, all smiles and pink cheeks. "Gohan's on his way to go find Papa and Goku, and he told me to tell you that using The Thing as blackmail is both brilliant and evil."
"Yeah, well, desperate times."
To his credit, Trunks waits an entire twenty seconds before venturing, "Are you going to tell me what The Thing is?"
"Nope."
"Aww, c'mon!" The way he wails it, you'd think he'd caught her and Vegeta in flagrante delicto in the kitchen again. "You can't say it and then not tell me about it!"
She beams. "I can, actually. I'm your mother—I don't have to tell you jack."
Trunks subsides with a grumble, because he's never been able to come up with a counter argument for that.
The Thing was going to be Goten's tenth birthday present from Bulma: a fully operational mathematics droid to tutor Goten in long division (a subject he couldn't understand for the life of him)... until Goku decided that it should be a battle droid instead. Bulma left him alone with it for maybe five minutes. By the time she came back, the droid had gone through a massive existential crisis and, having had its eyes open to the futility of long division, decided to destroy the planet. All from talking to Goku in the time it took her to grab the birthday card she left in the kitchen. It took Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Piccolo to subdue the droid long enough for Bulma to initiate an emergency shutdown. Never let it be said that Bulma Briefs does anything by half-measures.
They arrived at Goten's party three hours late, sans gift, and by that point Goten had already locked himself in the bathroom for two hours, sobbing hysterically because his father didn't love him enough to come to his birthday on time. Chi-Chi didn't speak to Bulma for a week.
A hard poke to her arm knocks her from the memory. Trunks gives her the stink eye. "Should we wait until Papa gets here?"
"You should never keep a saiyan waiting, especially a royal saiyan. Only had to learn that one time," Bulma mutters, rubbing her arm. Then she squints a little, because— "Did you change your shirt?"
Trunks straightens the collar on his only very slightly wrinkled dress shirt. "No."
"Uh-huh." He moves to walk past her for the door, but she reaches out and stops him with a hand. "Hold on a minute there, General."
"What?"
"I have no idea how this is going to go," she says seriously, because this isn't the time to be cavalier about this. This is the time to be smart. "We don't want to set them off, not before your father gets here. Don't mention Frieza, Goku, or any of the others. And don't tell them you're a super saiyan."
Trunks rolls his eyes. "Why not? I mean, wouldn't that make them like me more? I'm, like, the big gold legend come to life."
She remembers the indignant rage on Vegeta's face when some random, purple-haired kid went gold in front of him for the first time. It's not something she cares to deal with again. At least not without coffee.
"Keep it under wraps until I give you the OK. It's our trump card. We'll need it if they decide they're not feeling very diplomatic today."
He frowns at her. "Do you think something's going to happen?"
Something always happens. It's the law of the universe. "I know it's in your blood to show off but just let me do the talking, and for the love of every god, don't let them goad you into a fight."
"C'mon, Mama. What do you take me for?" Trunks scoffs, offended.
"My and your father's kid."
At that, Trunks opens his mouth to argue, then gives a thoughtful pause, subsiding. "Yeah, fair enough."
Sending a little F-bomb-laden prayer to Dende, Bulma straightens her shoulders, throws the front door open wide, and finds herself face to face with the saiyan collective. The soldiers, in perfect formation, turn in her direction as one, while their captain slams her stony glare upon Bulma, who doesn't even stumble once on her way over because she is the consummate professional and their goddamn queen.
Their prince, on the other hand, trips over something with a loud, "Ow, crap!"
This is exactly why her dad laughs every time she says she's doing a good job parenting.
Bulma comes to a stop maybe fifteen feet away, Trunks close behind, and tilts her chin up a little to meet the gaze of the captain.
She grew up around women like this—the ones who were told they were less simply because of their gender; the ones who clawed and sweated for everything they had; the ones who know what it truly is to fight for a place in the world. The captain is a woman who Bulma would never go up against in a meeting room, because Bulma isn't stupid. She's never had to battle to get where she is, and the women who have and do aren't women to challenge—they're women from whom she can learn. Intelligence and drive she has in spades, but her foundation was bricked by privilege and she would never pretend otherwise. She can't fathom what feats the captain accomplished to have gained favor with the king; it isn't hard to imagine that the bulk of these saiyans' success is owed to her. It takes all of Bulma's willpower to hold the woman's gaze, which burns right through her like a LCLS beam, getting right to Bulma's very atoms and finding the whole of them wanting.
Well, whatever. Despite being suddenly super conscious of the fact that she's not wearing a bra, Bulma's not going to give this woman anything less than her best. They both deserve that much.
So she lifts her hand in a wave and allows her lips to stretch into a smile—welcoming, but wary. "Hi there. Can I help you?"
With a chirp, the scouter resting over the captain's eye spits out a reading, and the captain tilts her head to the side to share an amused look with the king that seems to say The little insect is confronting us, how droll.
The king, in all his majesty, says nothing.
It's the captain who steps forth to make first contact. "Greetings. I am Echalot, general of the saiyan armed forces and second-in-command to King Vegeta, fifth of his name—"
All the hair on Bulma's arms stands on end. The last time she was so intuned with a display of power, Cell was in the process of reaching completion and she was miles above the earth. To have it directed at her like this, all up in her personal space, is really uncomfortably disconcerting. She kind of wants to hide behind something. Like her twelve-year old son.
"Wait, so he's Vegeta number six?" Trunks mutters incredulously next to her.
"—and Supreme Majesty of the saiyan empire. We have traversed an ocean of stars and destroyed countless foes to reach this…" Echalot glances around, makes a face, and then finishes with a lackluster, "... planet."
Uh-huh.
You know, if she could have one wish that she didn't have to wait a year for, it would be to see Vegeta-sei before its destruction just to be able to see firsthand what was so damn great about it. Vegeta may have accepted Earth as his home but it was under protest, and he takes every opportunity to tell Bulma just how lacking it is in comparison to his homeworld. Which is such bullshit. The exterior of the Capsule Corp buildings may not be a saiyan palace or whatever, but the work they do within those walls speaks for itself. She has a feeling that if she shoved the capsule tech in the saiyans' faces, they'd lose their damn minds. Echalot might actually die of joy if she ever stepped foot in the gravity simulator.
But in the name of not starting an intergalactic incident, she's shouldn't get into a bra-measuring contest. She should smile like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and welcome them to the planet.
Except Bulma Briefs has never once cared about what she should do.
"Wow. It's amazing that you came all this way." Years of dealing with EXxCorp's CEO has given her the ability to look very sincere while making it plain that she doesn't believe an ounce of the bullshit thrown her way. "You know, considering the saiyan race was destroyed years ago."
Echalot doesn't so much as twitch. "Familiar with saiyans, are you, little human?"
"I've had the—" shit luck "—good fortune of meeting one or two." She tilts her chin up and beams while, behind her, Trunks disguises a laugh as a cough. "Going by the few saiyans I've met, I can only say that they are an impressive people. Unlike anyone else I've ever met, really."
At that, a few of the soldiers relax their stance, pleased.
"How fortuitous that we should meet a native who has encountered our people and lived to tell of it," Echalot says with the same cheeriness Vegeta usually fakes before he starts shit over whose turn it is to chaperone a school trip.
"How 'bout that," Bulma agrees.
She must not have been able to hide the sarcasm in her tone, because the king finally spares her a glance.
Echalot shifts her weight onto the balls of her feet, suddenly so much taller than she had been a moment ago. Intimidation tactic. Great. "During our travels, it was brought to our attention that a saiyan of particularly great importance was residing here, on Earth."
Behind her, Trunks exhales sharply. Bulma lifts her chin and meets the captain's gaze head-on.
"It is imperative that we find him," Echalot continues. "Our information places him at this complex—the Capsule Corporation—under the employ of its owner, a scientist by the name of Dr. Briefs."
If she blows out a lung from holding in her laughter, it'll serve her right.
"Dr. Briefs, huh? Not sure if I know them."
The tail coiled around Echalot's waist unfurls with a graceful whisper, rearing up and swaying once like a cobra; its furry head nods once, a finger crooking, and one of the saiyan soldiers steps forward with a small device. With a press of a button, a small holograph winks into existence. Bulma's CC profile rotates slowly above the device, limned in blue.
"Are you still uncertain?" Echalot asks sweetly, waving the soldier back to join the line.
"Yeah, all right, you got me. I'm Dr. Briefs, but please, call me Bulma." She reaches back for Trunks, who moves to take the space to her right, and slings an arm around his shoulder. "And this handsome little heartbreaker is my son, Trunks."
"Uh, hey." Trunks gives a smirk that would make his father proud. "How's it going?"
Echalot doesn't grant Trunks more than a judging glance, which Bulma's gonna remember. No one dismisses her boy. "Do you know the whereabouts of the saiyan named Vegeta, Dr. Briefs?"
"Vegeta?" She feigns a shocked gasp and turns wide eyes onto the king. "Isn't he named Vegeta, too? Is there more than one?"
Despite the warmth of the sunshine, the temperature drops like ten degrees.
"As I said before, he is a very important individual," Echalot bites out. Her veil of diplomacy is beginning to flutter, revealing the boiling frustration behind it. "We must find him."
The line of saiyan soldiers shifts menacingly, which means one of two things: they have no problem locating Vegeta and are here only to destroy whatever life might keep him from leaving with them, or they literally have no idea where he is and are going to torture her to get it out of her.
Bless their hearts.
She gives a careless wave of her hand. "I'm so sorry, General Echalot. Couldn't tell you where he is."
"Enough games! Dr. Briefs, you are well aware of whom we seek," Echalot barks, all saiyan temper and impatience. Having been faced with it enough over the course of the last fourteen-ish years, it rolls off Bulma like water on a hydrophobic surface. "You will tell us the location of the saiyan prince or we will destroy your planet as recompense for your insolence and disrespect of King Vegeta."
Bulma rolls her eyes. "Oh no, not that."
"Do you doubt us?" Echalot looks positively apoplectic. "Do you honestly think I will not tear apart each and every member of your weak, pathetic race?"
"No, you definitely would. You just wouldn't get very far."
"You play a dangerous game, little human. Do you not care for the fate of your people?" Echalot says with a threatening grin, and the air around her begins to shimmer like summer over hot asphalt. "I will raze this city to the ground if you do not tell me the location of the saiyan named Vegeta."
Trunks snorts, unimpressed. "He's standing right next to you."
The scouter over Echalot's eye focuses on Trunks and chirps out a reading. Echalot's lips twitch. "I think I'll pull that insolent tongue out of your mouth, see if you show such disrespect in the presence of royalty again. Perhaps then your mother will learn that she cannot control a saiyan."
"Dude, do what you want. He's not my king," Trunks says.
"Technically, baby, he's not anyone's king," Bulma tells him, before turning a big smile onto Echalot, who continues to power up like it's gonna make Bulma start quaking in fear. "The Vegeta you're looking for isn't here at the moment."
"Oh, have you granted him a mealtime break?"
All the air in Bulma's lungs leaves her in one, long-suffering whoosh, and she pats Trunks on the hip before unwinding her arm from his shoulders and stepping forward. Echalot, chin tilted so she glares down her nose at Bulma, holds out a hand. In her upturned palm, light and energy begins to gather. Oooh, scary.
"Look, you seem to be operating under the impression that Vegeta works for me, which he really doesn't. Well, sometimes he does, I guess. You try keeping him out of R&D when we've got a new prototype that needs to be tested. He really takes way too much pleasure in destroying our shit."
"If he is not in your employ, then what keeps him here?"
Bulma shrugs. "If I had to wager a guess? His family."
At that, the menacing aura around Echalot disperses like cigarette smoke.
The king goes very, very still.
"H-His family?" Echalot echoes, eyes wide. She glances toward the king, then back at Bulma. "He has… He has a family?"
"You're looking at it, General. I'm not Vegeta's employer. I'm his wife."
It drops between them like a bomb and the blast radius decimates every one of the saiyans. The soldiers mutter amongst themselves while Echalot stares at Bulma as if she's never seen a more terrifying thing in her life. Bulma holds her gaze, daring her to try that ki-ball intimidation bullshit. Dares her. Because if she does, then Bulma's ready to fucking throw down. It will be loud and devastatingly unpretty.
But it isn't Echalot who finds her words first.
"You hideous, powerless wretch."
It startles her a little, makes her knees lock to stop her from losing her balance, but she turns her head to give him her full attention. His boots crush the grass under his even, purposeful gait, coming to a stop mere inches away from her own feet, his cloak slithering to puddle around them. There aren't many who are able to stare her down but Vegeta's father comes pretty damn close, using his height to loom over her, assert his power over her the way men have tried and failed to do all her life.
Trait heredity usually presents itself in physical similarities between parents and their children, but holy god on the Lookout, the saiyans take it to a whole new level. Saiyan gene dominance is off the charts. Explains why both of Goku's boys have so little of Chi-Chi in them. The king's resemblance to her husband was hilarious when she was creeping on him from the window, but up close? It's really unsettling.
But here he is, larger than life and bearing down on her like any of their bad guys of the week. Except those assholes never looked at her with the kind of hate that King Vegeta has for her.
"How dare you. How dare you. I will not stand here and have the House of my forebearers made mockery of—to insinuate that you trapped my son in a mixed marriage—" He's so angry he can barely get the words out. "—is laughable! I know my son like I know my own mind and he would never choose someone of low birth, let alone someone of such an inferior race."
Yeah, she's totally nixing the title of king from his name. He doesn't deserve it. He's totally Vegeta Sr. from here on out.
"I hate to break it to you, buddy, but at this point I've known your son way longer than you," Bulma snaps, getting right up in Vegeta Sr.'s big, red face. "You don't have a leg to stand on here, and you definitely don't get to come here and trash the life Vegeta and I have built together."
"If you think for a moment that spreading your legs constitutes as forging a union—"
"What did you just say to her?!" Trunks demands, and she knows he's going to power up and ruin all of this so she throws out her arm to stop him, keep him right where he is.
"Not now, Trunks." To Vegeta Sr., she snarls, "You're breaking my heart here. If you're going to insult me, try harder. Go for the kill. I thought you were a saiyan."
Someone could cut themselves on the wickedly sharp smirk that curls Vegeta Sr.'s mouth, and it's Vegeta's smirk from over a decade ago—on Namek, reveling in the pain he was about to cause, the fear he was about to inspire. To see it now hurts her more than anything he could ever say.
"I am," he says quietly, cruelly. "I am a saiyan and you are not, and so your supposed connection to my son ends before it even begins. You are nothing. You are a shade, a cypher, a placeholder for something he must have believed lost to him. Did you honestly believe you had anything with which to capture his attention? You pitiful creature. Look at you: no power to speak of, no visible markers of strength, with your garish coloring and low-born tongue. You are a simple convenience—a clunge with the ability to speak and nothing more. It matters not to me how much time he's spent betwixt your legs; he can find the warmth of a cunt anywhere in this universe. And to think I believed you to be in a position of power over him. I will take great satisfaction in wiping the stain of you from existence, with your planet to follow."
Her fingers drum against her hip. "You about done?"
But apparently he's rolling, because his gaze travels from Bulma to just over her shoulder. "I see you shit out a whelp, as well. I've never seen such an abomination: saiyan in stature with tainted coloring. I've seen it before—low borns rutting their spoils of war and filling their bellies with diseased curs, dirtying the bloodlines, twisting the genetics. Had we been on my homeworld, I would have had him thrown into the Pits to be raped and rent limb from limb, to stain the sand with his filthy blood. It would have been a kindness he wouldn't deserve. Tell me, whore: are you proud of this ugly, weak misborn? If you think I will recognize your beast offspring as a legitimate heir to the throne, you've more of an addled, ambitious mind than I could have fathomed."
Bulma stares for a long, silent moment, and then, "Trunks."
She can practically hear him jump to attention. "Yeah, Mama?"
"Now."
"Now?"
Vegeta Sr.'s gaze meets hers, locks, and she finally allows herself to grin.
"Now."
There comes the frantic sound of something beeping, a countdown in reverse, followed by Echalot's urgent, "My King—"
She feels it in the grass first—it shivers beneath her bare feet, then forces each blade to stand to attention before bowing beneath the initial shock wave. Then comes the compression of the shock and heating of the envelope, which causes the first flash of light from her son's body. It always interested her during the tests she's forced Vegeta and Trunks to do, that the shift from their normal states of power to the next level of super saiyan is so similar to the first stages of a supernova. That every time they go gold, they become a neutron star.
A symphony of exploding scouters fills the air, followed by the smell of ozone and a ripple of disbelief.
When Vegeta Sr.'s eyes go wider than the sea of stars he crossed to get here, huge with abject horror, with shock and awe, Bulma doesn't turn to follow his gaze. When his legs buckle and send him to the ground in supplication, Bulma stands firm.
She knows exactly what he's seeing.
"Sorry, what was that?" Bulma asks the man on his knees before her. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of my twelve-year old son becoming your legendary warrior."
Vegeta Sr. does his best impression of a landed fish. "He—He's—"
"Guess that 'dirty blood' isn't all that bad, huh? Did I mention that he avenged all you assholes by killing Frieza and his father?" Bulma very consciously leaves out the whole 'he was from the future' bit. It still counts.
Trunks takes a few steps toward the king and, with a big grin, smacks his fist into his palm. "Hey, Mama, he called you a slut. I'm gonna beat the crap out of him."
The king chokes.
"Easy there, kiddo. Mama can defend herself," she says, then pauses. "Wait, why do you know that word?"
Trunks gives her a shifty-eyed look. "Uh…"
"That's what I thought," Bulma mutters, then turns back to Vegeta Sr., who is cautiously climbing to his feet. He tries to cut a steady, hard figure, but the lingering shock glazing his eyes makes him just look obsolete. "Okay, so here's how this is going to go. We're going to put a moratorium on name-calling and then we're going to go inside and have some tea while we wait for my husband to come home."
Immediately, the shock gives way to indignance, and the king bares his teeth at her; gets as close as he dares without invading the glowing aura around Trunks.
"How dare you give me orders, you stupid cow! I am the king—"
Before Bulma can even inhale to call out a warning, Vegeta Sr. is flat on his back in the middle a small crater and snarling around what appears to be a seriously shattered jaw. His face sags.
Echalot shouts something and blasts toward them, ready to attack, but she's thrown back into the line of saiyan soldiers by a sudden flare of power.
Trunks lowers his fist, which is engulfed in gold flame. "No one calls my mother stupid."
"You are my favorite child," Bulma tells him seriously, her heart cramping with love for her brave, dutiful boy. So much that she ignores the implication that it's fine to call her a cow.
He squints through the gilded veil pulsing around him. "I'm your only child."
"Yup." And provided that birth control and condoms continue to stand up to super saiyan sperm, it'll stay that way.
She picks her way across the grass to scrunch the dirt at the edge of the crater with her feet. From there, Vegeta Sr. looks small and, despite his youthful appearance, old.
He looks beaten.
"I want to make something perfectly clear," she says, slowly, pointedly. "You're not the king of anything."
From the bottom of the crater comes a garbled protest, and the outrage in that one sound almost freezes her tongue.
Almost.
"You died. I don't know how you were brought back and I honestly don't care—it doesn't take away from the fact that you were dead. Do you know what happens when a king dies? His heir takes up the mantle, which means your son is the only one around here who can claim that title, and there aren't any take-backs. You died. You're not the king of anything."
She spares Echalot and the other saiyans a glance. Without the scouter to balance out her face, the scar hugging Echalot's lips looks impossibly big. Bulma stares at the cracked pavement of scar tissue leading up to that blunt nose and follows the suggestion of a line it makes up to meet Echalot's gaze. There's something there like realization.
Bulma gives her a short nod before turning back around, staring down to where a broken man struggles to his feet. When he's finally standing on steady feet, he gingerly cups his jaw and glares balefully up at her.
"Now we're all going to go inside and have some tea while we wait for Vegeta to come home. I'll even do you a solid and fix that jaw for you."
He doesn't move. Just stares at her like she's not making sense, like she's really the common whore he believes her to be. Men have looked at her like this her whole life, as if her blood hadn't been synthesized from jet fuel and polyresin, as if she hadn't worked every second of her life to prove herself in a world that saw her rise to prominence as little more than nepotism. Once upon a time, her own husband looked at her like the way his father looks at her now.
And she showed all of them.
"Oh, I'm sorry, is it my 'common tongue' that you're having a hard time with? No worries. I can put it into terms you'll understand. As your queen, I'm ordering you to get your ass in the goddamn house or I'll have my super saiyan son put it there."
/_\\_/_\\_/_\\
When Bulma was still pulling disgustingly frequent all-nighters—she'd made a bet with herself that she could get her third doctorate before she turned twenty-five—Chi-Chi introduced her to manna from heaven. Bulma hadn't known it at the time, but keeping up with a saiyan newborn was literally hell on earth, and to stay awake Chi-Chi swore by a mixture of peanut butter, coffee grounds, eucalyptus, and the powdered half of a senzu bean and then steeping it in ice water. It tasted like vomit, but it couldn't be denied that it kept her cognizant long enough to finish her dissertation and successfully defend it. Since then, she keeps a jar of the stuff stashed away for days when she needs to stay alert.
Days like today when, instead of catching up on some much-needed sleep on her day off, she's entertaining one of the in-laws.
"That concoction is an assault on the senses."
Bulma slurps it down as obnoxiously as she can. "I don't recall asking your opinion."
After Trunks's display on the front lawn, it wasn't all that hard to herd the saiyan contingent into the living room to await the arrival of their long-lost king. The soldiers lounge on various pieces of furniture or huddle in small cliquey groups near the far wall, occasionally pausing in their soft muttering to look at her in not a little confusion and interest. Ever since the senzu she gave Vegeta Sr. healed his broken jaw in seconds, the saiyans have acted like she'd performed some devastating magic spell and thus can't be trusted. Echalot flat out called her a witch.
Being a scientist, she's inured to politics—so much of Capsule Corp technology has become integral to modern society, so she and her father are often drug in front of King Koku's cabinet to answer questions or defend their no-weapons policy again—but nothing could have prepared her for the impasse she's suffering right now. Her history books in school often threw the word "detente" around, but there's not gonna be any easing of tensions here.
From where he sits in her father's favorite overstuffed chair, Vegeta Sr. has subsided into his mug of cocoa with a grumble. He didn't understand that cocoa wasn't commonly had during warmer weather. When she tried to explain, the bastard broke the kitchen table. Bulma didn't give enough of a fuck to push the issue, just got on the phone with four different pizza joints and ordered everything on each menu.
"General, can I get you some more tea?" Bulma asks with a big, fake smile, and Echalot grimaces down into her peppermint tea with a sharp shake of her head. "If you don't like it, just say so. I'm not going to be offended."
"It's fine." It's clearly not. Probably too sharp for her saiyan senses. Vegeta hates mint to a degree that is truly stupid.
Pressed against her side and still rocking the blond, Trunks glowers across the coffee table at his grandfather, who hasn't stopped staring since they sat down. It's kind of adorable, how much Trunks wants to defend her, how obvious Vegeta Sr. is in his silence.
But instead of asking his dirty blooded grandson about his ascension, he says, "It is impossible."
For all it should be said with the breathy weight of disbelief, it comes out flat and hard, tugged down by the other kind of disbelief. The kind that's going to make her son do something monumentally stupid.
"What, that a teenager managed to go gold or that I exist at all?" Trunks crosses his arms with a smug smirk.
Bulma reaches up and smacks him upside the head. "You're barely twelve."
"That's my point," Trunks says with a whine, rubbing at his head like she actually hurt him. "I went super saiyan when I was dumb and bored. Not my fault he didn't when he needed to. Good job on saving your people when the time came and pawning Papa off onto your worst enemy, by the way."
Vegeta Sr. bristles with outrage. "You would do well to teach your mutt some manners, woman."
"'Mutt'?" Trunks echoes. "Aren't we monkeys?"
Bulma winces.
With a dramatic gasp worthy of an award, Vegeta Sr. rears back as if struck, while Echalot is on her feet and gearing up to attack, and the wild look in her eyes says way more than the glowing light gathering in her palm. The rest of the saiyans are all losing their minds.
"What did you say?!" Echalot shouts.
Trunks shrugs. "Sorry, lady. I just thought—"
"I will enjoy wiping you from this horrible planet, you little maggot."
"Oh yeah?!" Trunks shouts back, and the air around him blazes with gilded rage. "You wanna try?!"
"You may have the power," Vegeta Sr. seethes, powering up. "But you are not the prophesied warrior—"
"I hate to break it to you, old man, but I'm not the onl—"
"Everybody SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
It's her 'you saiyans are gonna drive me to drink if you don't cork it' voice, which is really apropos, and it never fails. The first time she used it on Goku when they were kids, he managed to go four whole hours without uttering a single word. It used to work on Vegeta like a charm before he caught on, and now he just uses his 'your human shouting is no match for my saiyan lung capacity' voice, and the neighbors hate them both.
True to form, the room falls eerily silent.
She smiles and claps her hands together, determined to remain pleasant in the face of such absolute fuckery. "Thank you. Trunks, stop antagonizing your grandfather or I'm grounding you for a month."
"Aw, c'mon—"
"I do not acknowledge that whelp as my—"
"And you," Bulma says cheerfully, rounding on him, much to his surprise. "You can stick a sock in it. You are a guest in my home. If you don't have anything nice to say, keep it to your damn self."
By the time she closes her mouth, Trunks phases practically onto her lap, batting a ball of angry red ki away inches before it takes off her head. It goes careening with a whine through the ceiling and into the sky.
Across the table, Vegeta Sr. lowers his hand with a smirk. "Without your bastard to protect you, you are nothing."
Muttering an apology, Trunks climbs off of her and, shaking, she slides off the couch and onto the floor. The edge of the coffee table digs into her diaphragm.
She inhales. Exhales.
Then snatches the gun she keeps strapped to the underside of the table, aims, and fires.
The saiyans shout in horror as Vegeta Sr. goes crashing through the far wall, and through the ginormous hole he leaves behind, she watches him skid across the lawn before coming to a steaming, painful stop. She gets to her feet, gun trained on Echalot, and glances around the room.
"Anyone else want to talk shit? Please, I insist."
"B-But—This is impossible," Echalot breathes, eyes wide. She very tellingly doesn't make any sudden movements lest Bulma decide to fire her weapon again. "That could not—It's a simple blaster!"
There's a crumble of drywall as Vegeta Sr. climbs into the living room through the hole he made, the other saiyans giving him a wide berth. Bulma trains the gun on him.
He grins, and it's Vegeta killing Yamucha in the Wastelands, Vegeta threatening her on Namek. She clenches her hand into a fist and presents him with her chin. Whatever's coming next, she's gonna take it, and then blow a fucking hole in his heart.
"Clever weapon."
"Thank you."
"And who is responsible for such a dangerous thing?"
Bulma smiles and holds up the gun, waving it a little with pride. "Me, as a matter of fact. It's my own design—it creates energy by way of nuclear fission. After all, that's what your little ki blasts are: free neutrons released when subatomic particles collide. How you force that reaction through your skin is a bit of a mystery, but I'm gonna figure it out. And then bottle that shit up and sell it, because that's what I do."
Vegeta Sr. opens his mouth to let loose another barb, but she doesn't let him.
"You want to call me a whore? Fine. Think that I'm weak? Go for it. I mean, you're wrong, but I can't tell you what to believe. You look at me and see a tiny, frail creature who's somehow, what, ensnared your son? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a 10 in a world full of fives, but do you honestly think he'd be suckered in by a pretty face? That he'd be satisfied by admittedly good sex and nothing else? That he wouldn't take a partner who was his match in every way? If you do then you can get the fuck out of the kingdom he and I have built together, because the person you're looking for doesn't exist."
And that's all she has to say about that. With a huff, she drops back down onto the couch and tosses the gun onto the table, spent.
No one so much as breathes in the silence that follows. Each of the saiyan soldiers wait for an order, all of them visibly strumming with thwarted adrenaline and ready to act on orders. Echalot stares at Bulma, her expression unreadable, and for a moment Bulma thinks she's going to try and kill her anyway. Instead, Echalot sinks into her chair and picks up her mug of peppermint tea with a grimace.
Trunks hunkers down next to Bulma and crosses his arms, glaring defiantly at no one in particular.
Perhaps the reality of the situation is finally sinking in and this is as close to acceptance as she's ever going to get. Perhaps they'll stop looking at her like something sub-human, or sub-saiyan, or whatever they think she is, and start seeing her as what she is. They have been invited into her home, are on her turf, and no longer hold the high ground. This is uncharted territory and they aren't able to do the usual 'shock and awe' schtick that saiyans are known for. And as much as she'd like to kill them all so she can go back to bed, she needs to be the example. For her son, for the man her husband still idolizes after all this time, and for the monarchy that might have been hers in another life.
She needs to be a queen.
With an exhale, Bulma gestures to the chair across the table. "King Vegeta, would you care to sit down?"
The saiyans, Echalot included, all turn to regard their leader, who stares at her with a murderous expression, wordless and wrong-footed. But after a moment, the urge to kill leaves his eyes and he subsides by straightening up and sweeping his cape grandly behind him as he moves toward the chair. There's a tone of grudging admiration in his voice when he mutters, "I would… be interested to know more of your weapon."
She smiles like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "I'd be happy to show you. But pull rank like that again and I'll change its settings from concussive to penetrative force and bury your corpse in the backyard."
And miracle of miracles, it wins her a reluctant laugh.
Twenty minutes into an explanation of capsule tech to a very rapt audience, Bulma thinks about asking some of the soldiers if they'd like to try some ice cream when the front door goes flying off its hinges and embeds itself into the retaining wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. While the saiyans all jump to their feet, palms glowing and ready to face this new threat, Vegeta bursts in with a guttural battle cry, practically frothing at the mouth and wreathed in gold. The soft shush-shush-shush pulse of his aura, which usually lulls Bulma into a doze, just adds more unnecessary drama.
The saiyans don't lower their hands. Vegeta doesn't shut off the super saiyan. King Vegeta makes an odd choking noise.
Bulma sips at her fourth cup of tea and gives her husband a flat smile. "Hello, dear. Nice of you to finally join us."
He looks at her without turning his head away from the soldiers trained on him, ready to spring into action at the first hint of threatening intent. "You're unhurt?"
"I'm fine."
"Trunks?"
Trunks sits back with a smug grin. "Please."
But Vegeta's not paying attention to Trunks being a chip off the old asshole block. He's too busy staring at the man seated across from Bulma with wide, disbelieving eyes. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, and the sight of him at such a loss makes her shove her hands under her ass to keep from getting up and going to his side. He wouldn't appreciate it, not now.
"You—" Vegeta manages, taking a hesitant step forward. "F-Father?"
King Vegeta stands and gives him an almost tearfully proud look, moving around the chair to meet him. "My son."
"But—How?" Which is a damn good question because it's been eating at Bulma, too.
Echalot clears her throat and shrugs. "We located a quarry of wish orbs on a nearby planet and summoned a great beast. It brought back the king."
Great. Now she's gonna have to go to New Namek and fix whatever the hell they broke.
King Vegeta steps forward to clasp Vegeta's shoulder. "Look at you: draped in gold, just as the legend says. The prophecy has been fulfilled—you have ascended."
Family has always been a sore spot for Vegeta, something he rebelled against for so long. The moment after he finally acknowledged them he literally killed himself. Curled against her in their bed, under the covers and the cover of night, he's breathed to her his losses, shown her the scars left by the massacre of his people, the torture he endured during his tenure with Frieza; he'd been so lost for so long, so afraid of permanency lest it be taken from him like everything else.
"If I could have any wish granted, it would be to show my father who I've become. What I've accomplished. To introduce him to my worthy wife, my worthy son. To have him see for himself that even though there is no throne to call mine… House Vegeta will live on, and proudly."
He believed he'd never have the chance. And now—
As if compelled by a force greater than any of them, he immediately folds down to one knee, fist over his heart, head bowed. "My king."
Just as quickly, she's banging her shin on the edge of the coffee table like an idiot in her haste to stand up. "Hey, no, no, no! None of that! Get up!"
Vegeta lifts his head, surprised.
"You were the heir, you're married to the equivalent of royalty, you've produced a successor, and he—" She waves her hand at King Vegeta, who's making a face like he just swallowed a bucket of spiders. "—was super duper dead for, like, thirty years. Just because he decided to rejoin the land of the living all of a sudden doesn't change any of that. You don't bow to anyone, Vegeta, not even to him. The only king in this room is you."
Echalot is on her feet in an instant, the air around her pulsing with outrage. Her tail tightens and loosens angrily where it's coiled about her waist, puffed up like a cat with its hackles raised. "I knew you couldn't be trusted—"
But quelle surprise, King Vegeta just lifts a hand to forestall whatever else Echalot is about to say.
"General, that is enough."
"But my king—" Echalot begins, determined.
King Vegeta gives a firm shake of his head, his eyes still locked onto his son. "The woman speaks the truth. My son has ascended to claim what is rightfully his—in every sense." Then he barks to the other saiyans, "Bow before your rightful king."
It's an incredible sight to see—the destroyers of worlds all kneeling reverently before their long-lost king, who stands before them with wide, disbelieving eyes. Bulma has to cover her mouth so no one will see how hard it's trembling. One more second of this and she's going to lose it.
"You know what this needs?" Trunks whispers. "Like, epic music. And a wizard."
"Shut up," she hisses. Ruining a moment has got to be a saiyan thing, because all these assholes do it.
Vegeta exhales and catches her eye, then jerks his head to beckon her over.
Trunks blinks. "Holy crap, is he gonna acknowledge us?"
"Shhh. Don't say anything. He might change his mind."
"You two are hilarious," Vegeta snaps. "Get over here."
"Ask nicely and I might, asshole," she shoots back. God, she married a complete and utter dick. She makes her way over to him anyway, slotting up right up against his side like she belongs there. Which she does. Trunks sidles up on Vegeta's other side, comfortable and proud, and she slides her hand across the small of Vegeta's back to rest it on Trunks's shoulder. Her family. Her legacy.
She looks up into the bemused eyes of the former saiyan king and dares him to say something.
After a long moment, the hard cast to King Vegeta's expression softens and he turns his attention to Vegeta, who shifts against her, straightening up under his father's scrutiny.
"She is not who I would have chosen for you by any stretch—" Prick. "—but she is as formidable as any saiyan, if not more clever than any other race I can name. You have taken a fine queen and produced an impressive heir, who has done his ancestors proud by dispatching the Kolds. You have done well, my son. I am glad."
A familiar hand cups her thigh gently, touching her just for the sake of it.
She smiles. "Thank you, King Vegeta. I'm honored," Bulma says. She even means it.
"Thank you, father," Vegeta says. "I have been… fortunate in this life. It… It pleases me to know that you accept them. They are… essential."
Hard to believe that this is the same asshole who left her and their infant to die by Dr. Gero's hands. When you love someone long enough and hard enough, something eventually gives, but to have him openly acknowledge their place in his life is a dream fulfilled. They've truly come the distance. Heart cramping painfully with love, she presses closer to Vegeta and tightens her hold on Trunks's shoulder.
Not a terrible way to spend her day off, all told.
Then, true to form, her kid looks up at King Vegeta and gasps far too innocently, "But my lord! I thought you said that my mom was a clunge with the ability to speak and nothing more!"
Vegeta goes very, very, very still. "What?"
King Vegeta clears his throat and pointedly looks at Echalot. "General, I do believe it is time for us to depart."
Seconds later, there's a new King Vegeta-shaped hole in the far wall with a seriously pissed off super saiyan climbing through it to get to the steaming heap of monarch on the front lawn. The other saiyans pile out after them, with Echalot shouting for them to protect the king—but the soldiers don't know which one she means, so they just sort of watch their new king beat the snot out of their old king. There's a loud explosion that rocks the house, followed by shrieking and about twenty car alarms going off at once.
Trunks can barely stand, he's laughing so hard.
"Oh my god, you little shit. You're grounded until you die."
"So worth it."
/_\\_/_\\_/_\\
I'm rcmclachlan on Tumblr. Come find me!