He caught her by the wrist unblinkingly, a smirk writ across his lips. Vegeta canted his head at her fury, amused and intrigued with her fuming. "Nice try," he mocked her efforts to rip away from his grasp, and he threw her arm away with a snort.

"You're an asshole," Bulma seethed through clenched teeth as she launched herself forward, palms outstretched to push violently against his unmoving, solid chest. Under her feet, shards of glass crunched – the remains of a vase, and the petals of the housed bouquet wilted and scattered about the tile. She gave another shove, her comparatively smaller muscles straining with the motion. Proving to be an unsuccessful endeavor, Bulma tried another maneuver.

Her arm swung outward, bringing her palm to crack flat against his tilted cheek. To her dismay, he reacted with little more than a blink.

Snickers rippled out of his throat as once again his hands latched about her arms. A sinister flash behind onyx eyes, before Bulma found herself pinned against the kitchen wall, both of her arms pressed tightly against her chest. She struggled underneath his dominance, wriggling furiously about as his hands gripped at her tighter, and Bulma groaned in absolute frustration.

"You're getting awfully worked up, onna," Vegeta coolly observed, those typically stern brows perked in lofty wonder. "You ought to settle down, before I make you."

While the emphasis of his words definitely carried significance that ought to be heeded, Bulma barely felt the tug of caution behind her stomach. Her anger flared further, bubbling into droplets that dripped over her lashline. Bulma growled infuriately into his face, and her fingers flexed with the crashing waves of rage. "You always make such stupid threats!" She spat venomously. "Five years of the same bullshit, and for what?"

He laughed, and Bulma shouted out ferociously before she quickly moved forward to snap with glinting teeth at the thin flesh of the Saiyan's neck. Vegeta howled and jerked back from her, thrusting her body against the wall again with greater strength than perhaps intended. Bulma yelped as the back of her skull collided with the stone behind her, and several decorations teetered and toppled from their shelving above her.

Sniffling, she glanced up between the stars to find Vegeta glowering upon her with scarcely contained ire. She immediately recognized that predatory glimmer under his irises. It was rare, but there was no mistaking it.

The back of her hand coasted over her mouth, revealing a thin trail of red - similar in shade to the thickening patch at his pulse point. Bulma swallowed and tilted her chin up defiantly to his fierce countenance, her rubied lips trembling in betrayal. He began to advance again, a slow and silent creeping, and Bulma pushed herself flush back into the wall.

Both of his palms pressed against either side of her, and she twisted her head away from him, both blue eyes shutting hastily to avoid him – but he was still there. She grimaced against the trailing tip of his nose as he inhaled her fear and waning fury, as he registered his supremacy over her once more. He relished in the feel of her trembling beneath him, cowering away and trying to bury herself against the wall for shelter. Ribbons of adrenaline and pride fed into his veins and wound into his blood, and Vegeta smirked with a hint of teeth, pressing his nostrils into her hairline to breathe deep.

"You take things too lightly, onna," he warned her with a deeper intonation. Tauntingly, ominously. "It's very dangerous of you." Vegeta paused and listened closely, and he was rewarded by her panicked heart racing beneath her breast. "Shouldn't you know better?"

Cringing further from him still, Bulma wholly wished for him to disappear – to leave her alone for good; but he would do neither of those things, would he? It didn't seem to matter how much he hated it here, how much he loathed her or Earth or himself. Vegeta was always, always here, wasn't he? So, she'd just have to endure, wouldn't she?

Bulma sniveled reluctantly in response to his menacing closeness, her lashes tucked steadfast against her cheeks. She had to play dead, and then the predator would leave her alone, right? That's what they always say, isn't it?

With a frown, Vegeta glanced down and studied her crumpled expression; the bundle of skin knotted between her furrowed eyebrows, the tense line of her mouth, the rose of her cheeks. Whereas the sense of her terror had sent electric shocks prickling into his fingers, to witness it playing out over her painfully familiar features seemed to wither him inside to out.

So fleeting was his high and, growling, he pushed away from the wall and from her.

Author's Note: BY NO MEANS DO I CONDONE SPOUSAL ABUSE. Just putting that out there.

However, I don't think it's unrealistic to think Vegeta would have tried to intimidate Bulma a time or two throughout their relationship. I mean, you've seen this guy's temper - and Bulma's got a TERRIBLE mouth on her! For both of them, I think there'd be a bit of a power-play to their relationship and I'd imagine in the early stages it would be particularly so for Vegeta.

Though, admittedly, I maaaaaaay have written him a little dark here. Hey, this guy's hard to write for!

I'm not sure what they're fighting about here, but that's not what really matters. This is still set in the beginning of those seven years before the Great Saiyaman arc. When Bulma says "five years" I'm referring to the three prior to the Android saga, so this would be about two years post-Cell.