Bulma describes to Vegeta all the ways she's going to kill him while bound hands and feet in the backseat of his car. Conveniently roped to the frame of the seat so that she's forced to lie down, the rolling road beneath them is a hum in her ear, a tranquil mockery to her inevitable doom.
"All the times I've wanted to tape your mouth shut, and I forgot the tape," he gripes from the front seat. He tsks.
At first, streetlights ebb in and out of the thick dark made by the cotton of her blinders, but that fades after a time. There had only been a few headlights since to wash the inside of the car in stark light before they flew away again. They'd been driving for maybe an hour? It was hard to tell, because who has mercy for time when it's counting down your last minutes on Earth?
"I hate you so much right now," she grits, cheek smashed against the cloth seat.
"You'll forgive me."
"I am going to skin you alive," she growls, a slur against the seat cloth. "I'm going to break your stupid arms and then play your head like a drum with your bones!"
His voice is a sexy purr. "You have been flirting with me the whole ride here."
"Hate you."
Once the car slows and drifts to a stop, he's out of his seat and popping open the back door. Vegeta deftly detaches her from the backseat, scoops her up and carriers her, like a bride, to her ruin.
The winter air bites her bare legs except where his hand curls round her thighs. From the backseat she's been practicing glaring in his general direction through the blinders until he explodes, although so far that's been a bust. Now pressed against his thick chest, she seethes against the crook of his shoulder.
"I'm not going to kill you," he grumbles as he shifts her to fit a key in a lock. There's that tell-tale metal slinking of teeth in a tumbler, the click as it opens. "You can quit fighting me now." The burr of his voice hits a lower register. "You're not going anywhere, anyway."
She braces as the front door shuts behind them. Hardwood floors, the dull slap of his sneakers. An effortless three stairs up despite the full size woman in his arms, nine steps down a hall and then left, where wood turns to carpet. She memorizes it all, so that way she can tell the jury in detail.
She is settled gently onto a mattress before he turns to pull the chain on a lamp, but she's caught so off guard by the care he took in placing her there that she spills backward, hair trapped under her shoulders, pulling at her scalp. She stubbornly ignores the discomfort, because the only way she's getting relief is to wiggle down the bed in her nightgown, and she doesn't have much dignity left as it is. "I'm going to punch you so hard you see stars."
The cloth of his pants brush her shins as he leans over her, a shadow in the glare of the light which she lies helplessly blinking against through the thin cotton blinder.
"Can't wait."
She squeezes her eyes shut. His shadow disappears. She makes him go away.
He won't be dismissed so easily. She feels the heat from his hands first, as if he hovers centimeters from her skin, uncertain, and then his fingers are under her head, working carefully at the knot of her blinders before tugging it tenderly to one side, where it falls loosely to the blankets.
"What the hell, Vegeta," she wheezes through clenched teeth, glaring at him.
Vegeta just stares back, weight on the edge of the bed, lips pulled into a line. "Let's set a few things straight." His voice is deep and easy in the quiet as he leans forward, and he is way, way too close, his proximity short circuiting her as his hands snake respectfully under the arch of her lower back to untie her wrists. "One." His voice is velvet-lined steel. "I'm not going to hurt you. Two: if you have anyone to blame for this, it's yourself. Because I asked you to come nicely."
As soon as her wrists are free, she's swinging her fist at his face. He grabs it—it arced wide—and pins her hands to the mattress by her ears.
He clucks his tongue. "You can do better."
She's strung tight as a bow. "Why would you kidnap me, you asshole! What is your problem?"
"This isn't the way I wanted to do this either, Bulma," he snaps. "I had this cute little fantasy that you'd use common sense and volunteer to stay alive."
"I've been trying to keep my distance from the predator in this room," she says through a wall of grinding teeth. "I think that's the most sensible thing I've done since you became my neighbor."
"That's the first smart thing you've said about me since you became mine."
They play that old favorite, the staring game, as he decides whether or not she's going to try to bolt if he undoes the knot at her ankles. Watching her warily, he shifts his weight and untangles his hands from hers, moving down the bed so that he's still got an eye on her as his hands slip around her ankles, holding them still. He waits, asking her if she's going to do something stupid. At her obstinate silence, the knot comes undone, but she does, too.
She jumps to her feet. Or tries to.
He has her feet out from under her and pinned to the bed faster than she can blink.
"Bulma Briefs," he snarls, "you have a bounty on your head in the criminal underground. You're now a kidnapping target. If you would zip that pretty mouth of yours and plant your ass, I'll explain why that's exactly why I've been trying to get you the fuck out of dodge!"
Her brain is not exactly firing on all cylinders. He's in between her legs, and she's a simple woman. After this week, she's only got two brain cells left to rub together. "Who wants to kidnap me?"
"Frieza, you goddamned idiot!"
Bulma is shot with adrenaline. "Don't you 'goddamn idiot' me," she just protests. She is not at her best here.
He runs his hands over his face, sitting on his heels. He's trying not to lose his temper. Vegeta. Of all people. He's giving her a look, however, like all he wants in the whole wide world is to lose his shit with her. She has that effect on him.
"This is a safe house," he continues. To her disappointment (which she does not want to examine), he stands. "Frieza and his crew won't know to look for you here. Until this is resolved...this is your new home. Welcome."
She steals a second to gawk at the room around her, which is not a dungeon or a graveyard like expected, but someone's bedroom. There are no prison bars. No manacles dripping from the serene green walls. There's only a heavy oak bureau, the bed, and an oversized leather armchair.
"Why did you tie me up? You could have—"
"Asked you to come nicely? I did. Three times. Then you tried to get the police involved."
"Why wouldn't you want—"
"Frieza to kidnap you? For the same reason I don't want you going after him!" His voice raises, losing restraint. "He'll kill you."
She startles.
He tosses away the strap that had bound her ankles impatiently. He's visibly straining at the seams. Because of her? Why? "Do you have any regard for my feelings about the matter? If you did, you wouldn't just storm headlong into death!"
Her brain sprints smack into a brick wall. Vegeta's feelings? Did Vegeta have feelings? Wait—what about her feelings? Her mouth parts, forming an argument.
But he's not stopping. "Do you think I want to see you hurt? Or worse? How could I live with myself knowing you're in his clutches? I'd try my best to extract you, but do you think it feels good knowing we'd both likely end up dead? You think you know best, Bulma, but in this, you just don't. Believe me, I'm the expert in this field. Heed my goddamn experience on this one!" He seems larger than life, standing there in the glow of the lamp, fists at his sides and crackling with energy. "I don't want you anywhere near him, and you act like your one goddamned goal in life is to do exactly what I tell you not to do."
He forcibly plants himself in the chair beside the bed as if that will anchor him from spinning out.
She doesn't know where the solid ground is to continue this fight. "You're not—"
"His underling? Fuck no," Vegeta snaps. "Bulma Briefs." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "I want him dead. I want him deader than dead. I want him humiliated."
She shoots up from the bed. Vegeta tenses, like he might have to spring out of his seat to tackle her, but she just paces.
"I have questions." She shoots him a hard look as she treads the cream rug. "I want you to answer each and every one. Or I'm walking out that door right now."
"Fine," he challenges. "Ask away. I have nothing to hide anymore."
"I'm serious." She stops to face him. "None of your token half answers. No evasion. I want full and utter transparency. You, an open book. I want every word on your pages. That's the deal. I'll accept nothing less."
"You want to play that game?" The burr of his voice gets rougher. "Would it make you feel better right now if you were the one in control? Fine. Tie me up, then. Make me spill the beans, Ms. Briefs." He grabs a tie from the floor and tosses it in her direction.
Reactively, she grabs it. But she stands there, uncertain.
Vegeta leans back, hands behind his head. "Well? Too scared to get close?" His teeth gleam in a crooked smile. "I don't bite."
Because they're crazy and terrible for each other, because he's trying to get under her skin, and oh boy, does he know how to burrow close, she storms over and begins looping the binding around his wrists. He doesn't protest, arms relaxed as she tugs the binding tight around the arm of the chair and knots it. Bulma has this moment of clarity, a glimpse of blue sky between thunderheads, the thought that this is not at all necessary. But there are no hard facts to rely on in this topsy turvy world, not since someone had shattered the illusion and stolen her dragon ball. Right and wrong isn't the same certain stuff it always had been, but a fluid gray area, the concepts as frail as gossamer. Vegeta had taught her that, and he'd taught her that sometimes the only thing you needed was a show of aggression. Now, the pupil would school the mentor.
She sits back on the edge of the bed and crosses her arms. It's the weirdest thing, having Vegeta tied up and at her mercy. And yet he sits, devil-may-care, watching her under hooded eyes.
"You want to know all my secrets? Ask."
This is it; this is her chance. She has been waiting for this moment for so long. She takes a deep breath, straightens her spine. "Who do you work for?"
A lopsided grin splits his face, but it's not at all nice. Here he was, that titan from the casino, the kind of man who looked like he'd enjoy someone else's pain. Despite that he is tied up and seemingly docile, she tenses. It would be stupid not to be on guard around this man. And yet, isn't that exactly what she'd failed to do? She'd never been scared of Vegeta. Only curious. Only thrilled.
The Vegeta in the casino and the man melting into her mouth in her bed were one in the same; if she could want the man who had kissed her stupid, then she would need to meet this man head-to-head.
"You want to know if I work for Frieza." He is a man who yields for no one.
Brows knit, refusing to rise to the bait, she waits.
"Yes," he drawls, looking up at her from his eyelashes. "And no." His eyes trail away and settle on something over her shoulder. He nods his head in that direction. "Look in the closet. Third drawer on the right."
She stands slowly, then makes her way to his closet. There is a dresser built into the wall, suits hanging crisp on either side. It smells like cedar and clothesline-dried laundry. She pulls the drawer, and it yields softly.
A stack of photographs greet her. As if time has slowed like molasses poured, she brings the photos to her face, and stares in absorption.
It's a black and white photo of Vegeta, sitting sulkily on the kind of gleaming iron table that one would only find in a doctor's office. One eye is sooty black and swollen shut, and gauze tape is wrapped around his ribs and tucked over the hard curve of his shoulder. Maybe it's just because she's grown to know his body, but the Vegeta in the photo is babying his left side. Her eyes run over this younger man, glaring out the window defiantly. He has no shoes on, only black pants. His feet are dirty, his jaw set. This younger Vegeta is leaner, more explosive.
Present day Vegeta watches her as she emerges from the closet, engrossed in the photographs, until she feels his eyes on her and looks up. Their eyes meet.
"Years ago, I had a family. A future. A legacy. In the dark of night, my family and everyone in their employ was murdered in their sleep. Every person on our estate, right down to my younger brother and our dogs. Only I was left, and there was no one left to take me into their care. Only the street." His voice is toneless, unaffected as he watches her. "I came up hard, like anyone would. I was a rich kid with a home, then I wasn't."
She finds a seat on the bed, crossing her legs, the photographs between her thumb and forefinger, burning for attention.
"All I had was the fight, and what I could prove of myself. In that, I was strongly motivated. I wanted to be the best. I inherited it. My family instilled that in me before they were gone. Most of the kids who picked a fight with me felt like they weren't worth a shit, but I was different. I had too much pride. And I wasn't content with things staying as they were. ...That made me vulnerable."
Vegeta's thumb runs over his swollen knuckles, sitting straight backed and gazing out the slats of the blinds woodenly. Then he glances at her. "I did odd jobs for the neighborhood gang."
She doesn't dare nod to prove she's listening for fear of breaking the spell.
"Word got around I was scrappy. There are plenty of kids who find a family in their neighborhood gang, but not many of them can resist. I did. I didn't want a family. I didn't want friends. I didn't want backup, because trust got you killed. I got a lot of practice fighting by refusing to bend the knee, fighting guys tougher than just the hungry ones with nothing to live for." He laughs darkly. "I got angry, fast. Angry at my parents for leaving me to this life. Angry at having to be constantly vigilant, so I didn't get jumped or didn't have my stuff stolen. I grew to be a deeply resentful kid. And with every fist fight, I had something more to prove. How angry I was. How much better I was than them." When he looks at her again, her breath catches in her throat.
"The first time...he...sent someone, I laughed and told them to go fuck themselves. You learn to cultivate a presence. People don't want to fuck with you when you look big, bad, and menacing, and definitely not when your name gets around. Then the people that want to fuck with you are the biggest and baddest. They want to try their mettle against you. You start getting a big head, because the only people coming after you are in the major leagues, and every time you win, you're stronger and bigger and badder than they are now. I didn't finish school; I had no field dreams about an education or a family or a career. They happened to people in another world, in movies I'd never see. All I had was this one thing I was really good at: fighting, and being angry. I had something purer than those families across the city had in their big homes and their big cars, with their hollow, polished self-importance." He pauses, gaze trailing out the window again. His body is taut. He wants to, needs to tell her, she realizes. He needs to hear it himself. "I thought I could hold my own by sheer force of will. But my pride got the best of me."
He exhales out his nose, and then meets her eye to eye. He is trying for grace. "There'd been rumors for years about the one who really pulled the strings around the city. His entourage was the best of the best. He had his fingers in politics and in its coffers. The gangs I had to fight off as a kid were grubs compared to him. He had the real power. He had the strength of mind." Vegeta's voice lowers. "That was the most appealing. I was a kid with a lot of raw intelligence. I was clever. I was a critical, tactical thinker. And there was no one to challenge that. Until he came along."
He stops talking. To think, to feel, to process. The quiet gets more intimidating as it goes on. He hesitates.
"Who?" Bulma presses, softly. She already knows.
"Frieza." His name is like something heavy Vegeta had to hold for too long and now gets to drop. "He found my weakness: my pride. And that's how he recruited me. That's how he made me think it was my grand decision, like I was the one with all the advantages, getting all the rewards of a partnership with him. I was groomed. I quickly worked my way up the ranks, until I was his lap dog, barking like he's bigger than he is. I thought I was so strong." Vegeta's fist clench. "But he was using me the whole time."
"You were young," Bulma reminds him quietly. "It's hard to see right and wrong when you're young. It's a selfish, emotional time where we feel like we're the only ones who understand the world and are the truest victims of it."
"It's more complicated than that. He makes sure he holds all the power. In everything he says, he is debasing you while giving your deepest self, your fears, your grief, a hope that you will earn his praise. He twists you. Until you're not you." Vegeta's jaw is tight. "At least when my parents died I got to stay true to myself."
Can a child really stay true to himself or make the right choices for himself when hobbled by a lack of choices?, she wonders. Vegeta had tried.
"Don't feel sorry for me," he interrupts throatily, discerning the direction of her thoughts. "I made all my own choices. Every one of them were mine to make."
"Judgment marred by circumstance," she counters softly.
"Isn't everyone's? He cultivated the worst in me. My pride could not stand another second of living among the city's scum. I was demanding, impatient, aggressive. It was just a matter of time until I was brought low."
"Hard to imagine you worse than you already are." She shoots him a small smile.
"I wouldn't have given you the time of day," he parries. He needs her to understand. "I wanted to make everyone in my presence lament their very biological inferiority. Every wrong look, every wrong gesture, and I was spoiling for a fight. Then, with him, it was more money, more cars, more everything, and it was never enough. I was ruled by the blackest emotions. Until I met Kakarot." Vegeta admits, annoyed.
When he looks at her, the mood shifts. "I made a deal with the devil to get out of the clutches of another. Who do I work for, Ms. Briefs? Both devils, with the intent to outsmart them both."
"Frieza," she says, trying out the name.
He nods, once, slowly.
"And?"
"And the Defense Department."
His eyes sharpen as she leaps to her feet. "What?"
The corner of his mouth hooks up at her expense.
"You're an double agent. A...a spy." She doesn't know why she's yelling. Her voice is thin. "Helping the Department infiltrate Frieza's ranks."
"Something like that."
It couldn't wait any longer. "Why were you helping me?"
"I'm in intelligence," he clarifies. "I'm not always an operative, because I'm too well-known. But I have certain...skills...that require my physical presence."
It takes her a minute, and then she's gritting her teeth, rocked by a gale of fury. "My project was your mission."
He leans forward, wrists straining against rope. "Imagine my surprise when I'm told I'll be relocated next to some braniac who's got what amounts to the next nuclear bomb in their house. My job is to watch. To guard. But not to engage. Now imagine when that egghead isn't some doddering old scientist but a wickedly smart, beautiful woman who seems intent on pestering me every chance she gets." How was I to win against you?, his expression says plainly.
She doesn't even hear the compliment. Bulma blinks through heat and swallows. "I was just a job to you?"
The flames are back in his eyes again. "You were never a job. You were a pleasure." He refuses to let her look away. "You haven't asked me the most important question."
It takes her a minute. "What?"
"You've asked me who I work for. Why I helped you. Now ask me when I first knew I wanted you more than I gave a shit about what either organization wants from me."
She doesn't say anything. She is physically unable to do anything but stare into his dark eyes, hands clutching her thighs against the force that threatens to blow her away.
"The first time you smiled at me. The day you introduced yourself." His body pulls against the bindings that she placed between them that she realizes aren't holding him back at all. "I didn't want to admit it then. You ask why I've been helping you. You wanted to know who I am, what motivates me. What my true goals are. Well, here you have it. Now the question is, knowing the truth you've so desperately wagered for, do you trust me now? Is everything just suddenly okay?"
Mouth parted, she stares, unable to agree.
"My point exactly, Ms. Briefs. If there's anything else you want to know, you'll have to learn it the old fashioned way and court me," he asserts with unusual cheekiness. "But rest assured we're on even ground now. If either Frieza or the Defense Department find me, I'm a dead man. I've absconded with the prize, after all."
"You could just turn me in," she finally says, looking back down at the photos that she'd placed on the bed beside her. At the vision of a man who, although beaten black and blue, refused to be beat. "I would buy your life."
"Doesn't matter if I turn you in with these stakes, Ms. Briefs. Once they learn I've been playing them both, I won't live another day. You've got no choice but to agree to a thorny truce to save both our hides. That, or walk out that door right now and try your luck without me." He is not letting her go anywhere, it's written all over his face. But he'd try to, if she wanted him to.
If she walked out on him right now, she'd be a free woman, but a hunted and unprotected woman. She couldn't pretend to know how to evade the city's largest mob or the spies in the Defense Department. He'd chosen his destiny. Now he was giving her a chance to choose her own.
It was all out on the table. Now that she knew the Truth, what would she do? Which direction would bring her to her dragon ball, and keep the skin on her back intact?
"Nothing is in the way anymore, Ms. Briefs," Vegeta tells her silkily, his hair falling over his eyes. "Now what are you going to do?"