Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball or any of its related properties.

Futile

Chapter Two

She was avoiding him.

It shouldn't have bothered him. After all, he could get more training done without her constant nagging and antagonism.

But it did bother him. It bothered him enough that it was interfering with his focus.

So he decided to catch her off guard while she was working in her lab, knowing that she wouldn't expect him.

She was welding when he entered, hair pulled back haphazardly and large dark glasses obscuring the top half of her face.

"Woman."

"What is it?" she asked. "I'm busy."

He bristled at her dismissive tone. "I'm growing tired of your insolence," he said. It wasn't really an answer.

She put the blowtorch down on the metal platform and pushed her protective glasses up on her head. "I've been a paragon of cooperation, Vegeta. You can't still be sulking about the fact that I try to stop you from killing yourself with training."

He stalked towards her, backing her up against the wall. This close, her smell enveloped him: the heady musk of her sweat cutting through the cloying sweetness of her various hygiene products. His head began to swim; he ached to taste her.

"Vegeta..." Her voice was low and husky.

He liked it when she said his name like that, so he leaned forward to nuzzle into her neck. "I can be forgiving," he said, hand curling around her hip, "given the right incentives."

She shivered, and he could smell her arousal spike. "Vegeta," she said again, squirming, "you need to stop."

Reluctantly, he pulled back, though his hand remained at her hip. "You want this as much as I do," he said.

"Maybe." She reached down and pried his hand away. He let her. "But we both know that it doesn't have the same meaning for me."

The words managed to cut through the growing haze of desire. Sneering, he said, "You're allowing that ego of yours to make you see things that aren't there."

She crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? What were Saiyan mating practices, exactly?"

He crossed his arms as well, if only to keep himself from reaching out to touch her. "We didn't have any. Children were grown in incubators." He didn't think it relevant to mention low-class deviants like Bardock. Radditz had at least been made the proper way, despite his parents' proclivities. It was really no wonder that Kakarrot had turned out so strange.

Her eyes narrowed. "And why did you do that? What was so bad about the way your species naturally evolved to make children?"

His stomach dropped.

The expression on her face wasn't quite triumphant, but it came close. She walked over to a filing cabinet and took out a folder. "I took a blood sample while you were unconscious in the infirmary," she said. "I needed to know more about Saiyan biology in order to better accommodate future treatment." She gazed down at it, mouth thinning. "I didn't have it analyzed right away, though. I was too distracted."

"You dare-"

"Yeah," she said, cutting him off. "I do." She let the folder flop down on the desk, displaying the contents.

Vegeta glared down at the chart, saying nothing.

"Your cortisol levels are off the charts," she said, "but I was expecting that. It's a stress hormone, and you're wound so tight that a gust of wind could set you off.

"High testosterone was a given, of course," she continued. "You're hyper-aggressive and crave dominance. But it's the levels of oxytocin and vasopressin that caught my eye." She quirked a brow. "If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you were taking some kind of drug."

Frustrated, he snapped, "Get to the point, woman."

"Oxytocin facilitates trust, affection, and a desire for closeness. And, in males, vasopressin leads to the formation of partner preference and even pair bonding. But I don't think any organism on Earth produces either on this scale."

Damn it all. She knew.

Her expression became disgustingly soft, and he wanted desperately to wipe it off her face. Preferably by shoving his head between her legs. "This sample came from before we slept together. If I'd have known..."

He scowled, hating the way his stomach twisted. He wasn't supposed to be weak like this. "You would have spared me?" he spat. "How compassionate."

She sighed, her arms dropping to her sides. "I always thought it was just a Goku thing, because of how naive he was when he got married. But I guess it's actually a Saiyan thing."

He wanted to leave. The fact that he shared this deficiency with Kakarrot just compounded his shame. Was she taunting him on purpose?

Rubbing the back of her neck, she said, "It's not that I don't like you, Vegeta. You're my hot, evil friend from space." She smiled weakly. "But...you're not exactly boyfriend material. Let alone anything more serious than that." Her hand moved to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "On account of being evil, I mean."

"You think I desire such a relationship with you?" he said. "Are all humans so prone to delusions of grandeur?"

She shook her head. "That's just it: I don't think it's what you want. I think what you really want is to train without any distractions."

She was right, but he didn't want to say so.

"And I'm a distraction, aren't I? Not because you actually like me, but because your brain is flooding you with hormones."

"This is only a temporary setback," he insisted.

"...Was it your first time?" she asked, looking at him like he was some kind of pitiful child.

He stormed out of the lab.

He spent the next week focusing on his training. The Damn Woman had installed safety restrictions on the gravity chamber, so he couldn't push his body as hard as he had before. But he could still feel himself getting stronger every day.

Still not strong enough to transform into a legend, though.

When the chamber broke, he finally decided to track her down. As usual, she was working in her lab.

"The gravity chamber is broken. Fix it."

She didn't look away from her computer screen, keys clacking obnoxiously beneath her dainty, manicured hands. "Give me a couple of hours. I want to finish my train of thought."

Today, he didn't have the patience for her insolence, so he fired a small ki blast into the tangle of power cords. The screen went black.

When she stood up and whirled to face him, she was was shaking with rage. "Congratulations," she growled, eyes flashing. "You just guaranteed that I won't fix it today at all. Happy?"

He couldn't help but grin. A few hours of lost training was almost worth the look on her face. No pity there, now. "I have other ways of securing your cooperation, you know." He took a step toward her. "I don't think you'd like them."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll have to go out and collect the dragon balls if you start killing random people. And I really don't feel like doing that, so, if you put me in that position, I'll make sure your precious gravity chamber never works again."

The grin faded, and he huffed out a breath. "It won't even take you long. I'm training to defeat the cyborgs threatening this planet, so you should show some gratitude."

"The cyborgs wouldn't be an issue if you and the others had let me take care of them the easy way." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "But this isn't even about the damn gravity chamber, is it? If it was, you'd be bothering my father. This is the evil Saiyan version of pulling my pigtails."

"I don't know what pigtails are, so I have no reason to pull them." He regretted the words the minute they left his mouth.

Her hand dropped away from her face. "I mean, you're trying to torment me because I've rejected you, and you have the emotional maturity of a toddler." There was that pity again, damn it all. "The feelings aren't going away, are they?"

"Stop looking at me like I'm an injured animal!" he yelled, rage welling up in his gut.

She bit her bottom lip. "Vegeta...what would you do if I slept with another man?"

He was too angry to bother lying. "I'd kill him, slowly, and dump his corpse at the foot of your bed."

"Right," she said flatly, then walked to the door. When she opened it, she turned to him. "Are you coming?"

His rage guttered out, and he blinked.

She let out a frustrated breath. "Look, Vegeta - abstaining obviously isn't making a difference, I have needs, and I don't feel like waking up to a mangled corpse." She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Do you need a written invitation, or what?"

He was still somewhat dazed as he followed her to her sleeping chamber.

"Just to be clear," she said, as she let her overalls fall to the floor, "I haven't forgotten the stunt you pulled, and I'm still not gonna fix the gravity chamber today."

In answer, he pushed her onto the bed and buried his face between her legs, breathing in her scent greedily.

She squirmed. "I need to have a shower."

"Don't you dare," he growled, ripping her underwear away. He nosed at her opening, warmth seeping like syrup into his muscles.

"You're so weird," she moaned. Vegeta had latched his mouth onto the little nub above her entrance. He remembered it only fuzzily from the last time, but he was warrior enough to know a weak spot when he saw it.

His perception fogged up as the scent of her arousal grew with each pass of his tongue, and he hummed approvingly when she slid her hands into his hair, pulling at it with each spike of excitement. She was soaking wet when he slid two fingers into her, her inner muscles twitching against them eagerly.

"Good boy," she murmured as she reached the precipice. "Oh yes, right there. Such a good boy."

The words sent him over the edge with her.

He only managed to speak about a minute later, and it took genuine effort to inject irritation into his voice. "I'm not your pet," he told her.

"No," she agreed, propping herself up on her elbows in order to gaze down at him through half-lidded eyes. "But a little positive reinforcement never hurt anybody."

He glared at her, even as he brought his fingers to his mouth to lick away the wetness she'd left on them. The taste sent a fresh wave of warmth through his body, pooling between his legs.

The smile she gave him was a soft, fond expression. "Do you want me to stop?"

His glare deepened into a frown as he felt his chest tighten. "No," he admitted grudgingly, cheeks growing warm.

"It bothers you that you like it," she observed.

Of course it did. Did she not know how thoroughly she was debasing him? "It must please you to have royalty kneeling before you, lapping up your condescending praise like some kind of wanton beggar," he said, cheeks flaring even warmer, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

"Sure," she said, quirking a brow. "But mostly just the 'wanton' part."

Moving faster than she could follow, he pinned her on her back and kissed her. He knew his tongue was probably clumsy compared to hers, but she still gave him a moan of pleased surprise.

Reaching down, he guided himself inside of her, shuddering bodily once he was buried to the hilt. He pulled back from the kiss so he could place his mouth by her ear. "So wet for me," he breathed, pulling out almost completely only to thrust forcefully back inside. "Such a good girl."

She moaned very loudly.

Well, she certainly wasn't a hypocrite. That was his last coherent thought as he lost himself in the rhythm of their bodies.

He moaned her name when he came.

Afterward, he buried his face in a pillow to hide his burning cheeks. Embarrassment churned in his gut, even as his body thrummed with contented lassitude.

"Well," she said. "At least now I know that you don't think my name is actually 'woman'." A tired chuckle. "Because that would've been awkward as hell." He heard her roll off of the bed, joints cracking as she stretched. "You're really good at this for a beginner, Vegeta. I guess those Saiyan battle instincts are good for more than just fighting."

He snorted into the pillow, but didn't say anything.

"Anyway, I'm gonna have that shower now. You can stay here if you need to sleep off how much I blew your mind."

True to her word, he heard the shower running a few moments later.

As he drifted asleep, he wondered fuzzily why she couldn't have stayed beside him for just a few more minutes.