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Mirai Trunks had always known that his decision to go back 17 years into the past to prevent Goku’s premature death would have large consequences. That had been the point of it, after all. Objectively, he knew that unintended, unforeseeable divergences would have come out of his actions.
But Trunks had to admit, of the many things he did not expect as a result of his time travel and changing the past, the growing closeness between the past versions of his father and Goku was very, very high on the list.
Trunks was the progeny of a warrior prince and heiress genius. He inherited some of their best, most badass qualities, including their sharp minds. He was a fighter like his father, a protector like his timeline’s Gohan, but he was a scientist at heart, like his mother. He fought to save his world, but in another life, Trunks might have chosen the path of science as his mother had. His thought process was methodical, and he rarely jumped to conclusions without examining evidence.
Thus, hard-based evidence was the approach Trunks chose to examine his theory of this developing affection between the past versions of his father and Goku.
Theory: Goku and Vegeta are made to be with each other, in every sense of the word.
Supporting point 1: how Vegeta and Goku had acted the first time he’d seen them again
“Mom! You’re still alive!”
Tears in Trunks' eyes, relief in his hitherto raw, grieving heart.
Landing into another timeline was always confusing, more so when you’d literally just escaped the heat of battle from a hated enemy and tormentor. Seeing his dead mother again as her younger form, looking much more youthful and carefree than his own had ever been, left Trunks disoriented and wracked with guilt. Not to mention seeing Goku and hallucinating him as Goku Black, despite the obvious differences in the kindness of his eyes.
"Sorry for, um, almost beheading you, Goku..."
"Nah, Trunks, when you left last time, I was kinda already dead, so it must've been a shock to see me again." Though they wore the same face, Goku's kind grin was the foil of Goku Black's malice. "Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Goku, how... exactly are you alive again?"
"Oh, Goku came back to life for just a day, then we had a little bit of a life-and-death situation with a pink bubblegum monster and your father kinda escalated things and everyone died but everyone's okay now, " Bulma explained brightly, and whoa was that a story Trunks had to find out later.
"And... Why are you back here, Trunks? … Is everything okay…?"
Trunks found his throat tightening up. "Actually...Things in my own timeline have gotten worse..."
"Worse than last time?" Goku's voice was high and expressive with shock, nothing like Black's darker timbre. Yet Trunks still couldn't relax.
As Trunks recounted the story of how Goku Black his timeline, relief and lightness at seeing his mother's face again faded into the familiar, suffocating despair.
Trunks felt himself sink into the depression that had made its home in his heart. He was well aware that he was basically precipitating a sombre, dark cloud to present company, and yet unable to do anything about it.
He finished his story with a whisper. “In the end, I was too weak… Mom's dead..." The wicked twin jaws of guilt and despair threatened to swallow him whole. "And it's my fault..."
"Oh, Trunks," Bulma’s earlier brightness at seeing her future son again had gone, her beautiful face turned grim.
Goku looked confused, alarmed and sympathetic all at once. And Vegeta... Trunks hadn't dared look at his proud father of the past until that moment, afraid of what he would see.
Oh, it was as Trunks has feared. Vegeta radiated with displeasure.
“Boy.” Vegeta’s harsh bark drew the attention of everyone present.
Oh. I thought we'd moved on from name-calling to first name basis...
Everything Trunks knew of Vegeta told him the prince would not appreciate overt shows of emotion, so Trunks chose to be polite. “Yes... father?”
"You let your own mother die ?" Bulma let out a sound of outrage, but Vegeta ignored her. "At the hands of a man who wears her best friend’s face?”
Trunks flinched. “I…”
“Don’t you make any excuses for yourself.”
“Yes, father.” It was true, anyway. Cruel as Vegeta’s words were, the sentiment was not unfamiliar: Trunks tortured himself with similar thoughts in his every waking moment, if not in so many words.
“Such a weakling,” his father from the past sneered. “All that power, everything you’ve learnt from us, and you couldn’t even save one damn human.”
“Father…? ” Trunks’ voice cracked. Well, that… kind of stung.
Trunks couldn’t believe his ears. He knew Vegeta could be cruel, but this was another level entirely.
“Once again you come crying to us asking for help,” Vegeta drawled, his every word stabbing into Trunks’ raw, shrivelled heart. “Like the useless, pathetic crybaby you are.”
From the corner of his eyes Trunks saw Goku’s face pulled into a frown- so familiar, but so different from Black’s hateful eyes, Trunks wanted to shudder and cry in relief all at once.
Goku stepped closer to Vegeta, mouth open as if to say something.
“Stay out of this, fool,” Vegeta snapped. And curiously, Goku heeded him and fell silent. Leaving Trunks at the mercy of his father’s cruel, cutting words.
Trunks already knew to dread the next words he would hear.
“With such a weakling as her legacy, your mother is better off dead, boy.”
Those words were the trigger.
“SHUT UP !” Trunks roared, hair igniting into a brilliant, furious gold. Electricity surged in his hitherto-weary body in a burst of agonized ki.
Trunks barely caught Vegeta’s satisfied smirk, before the bastard caught the first aggressive push with barely a flinch. His lack of response served to incense Trunks further.
“Is that the best you can do, boy?” Vegeta taunted. “No wonder she died so easily, you’re useless.”
“Shut up, you know absolutely nothing! ” Trunks charged at his cruel bastard of a father.
All the suffocating feelings of failure and guilt and -
- she’s dead they’re all dead I couldn’t save them it’s all my fault I’m drowning it’s all my fault-
All of it, eclipsed by a brilliant, raging fury. Trunks welcomed it. Trunks wanted it, this exploding flame of hurt and frenzy of rage that consumed his soul, anything that helped him feel anything more than the sludge or sorrow and guilt and numbness that he had been drowning in.
“Trunks, no !” He could hear Bulma, but her voice was faint amid the roar in his ears, just like his dead mother. “Vegeta you asshole, stop!”
This wrath scared him. He wasn’t this. Trunks didn’t burn off anger or use it as fuel, like his father and Goku did.
But gods did it feel good, to wear something other than self-loathing and uselessness for once. The fury brought him alive, if only for a moment.
“I know nothing?” Vegeta easily blocked Trunks’ flurry of punches and kicks. His laughter was cruel. “Don’t make me laugh, I can see it from your eyes- I know that you know that her death was because of you!”
Trunks let out a wordless scream. His charge this time forced Vegeta to ascend once to block.
All sense of time faded away in the exchange of their aggression. It felt - good.
“Is this the best you can do? How embarrassing!” It was infuriating, but Vegeta was right. Even drunk on rage Trunks was able to recognise that his movements were sloppy, reckless and had no finesse. Nothing like the efficient fighter his Gohan had trained him to be.
Gohan… I failed you too… again...
Trunks’ strike went wide at the sudden loss of focus. Oddly, Vegeta didn’t exploit the opening and go in for the kill, despite what Trunks knew of his ruthlessness. Perhaps cruel Vegeta wanted to play and taunt him some more.
“Call yourself a saiyan! You couldn’t even save one damn human!”
“I couldn’t help it, any of it!”
“Excuses from a weakling-”
“Vegeta stop this!” His young mother from the past sounded frantic and anxious. “Goku, do something!”
The other saiyan didn’t acknowledge her, his eyes grim and sharp upon them both.
“Look at me, boy!” The momentary distraction lost him a hit on Vegeta. “How easy it is for you to lose focus-”
(“Go, Trunks!” His mother shouted, voice strong and brave despite how fragile she looked with Goku Black’s wicked suffocating grip around her throat. “Don’t worry about me! You’re our only hope to save everyone!”)
“Too useless and weak to save anything-”
( Ashes upon ashes, where was the light? Black’s silhouette revealed, fire and destruction worse than the androids ever managed, Mai is dying oh god Gohan he’d failed- )
“You have no idea what I’ve been through!” Trunks screamed, as if the loudness of his words would make it less of a hollow lie. “I was injured, I had to get the time machine out-”
“Excuses.” Vegeta blocked his fist, and damn it why was he still not attacking?
“No,” Trunks welcomed the physical pain, it would be better than these vicious truths - “No, I couldn’t”
“Say whatever the fuck you want but make sure you believe it first, boy. I can see the guilt in your eyes-”
“Shut up!”
“- all your fault-”
“It’s not my fault she’s dead!” Trunks’ voice finally cracked. He was repeating himself on loop like one of his mother’s broken machines, but - Mother... “I had to get out for everyone else, I couldn’t save her, there was no choice!”
“Bullshit!”
“No! It’s-” Trunks swung wildly, Vegeta staggered but didn’t yield-
“-not-” why was his savage asshole of a father not attacking back, Trunks wanted the pain-
“-my-” come ON hit me BACK you bastard-
“- fault!”
It’s not my fault…
Trunks’ own words echoed back at him, and he came to a stunned halt.
His legs abruptly gave out as he fell out of his super saiyan form. Vegeta made no move to catch Trunks as he fell on his knees, but… Trunks slowly realised, there was no responding attack, no malicious intent in Vegeta’s ki either.
Past father and future son gazed at each other, both people of tragic, bloody pasts and lost, broken worlds.
“It’s not my fault…” Trunks whispered, for the benefit of absolutely no one , he realised now, but his own damn self.
Vegeta snorted. “Took you long enough to get there.” Abrasive words, but his eyes held none of it.
Trunks stared up into Vegeta’s eyes. Those eyes that he now realized were similar to his own, bleak and dead with the horrors both seen and committed. Similar weight of guilt and mistakes.
( Some things they could just never speak about)...
And in that moment, Trunks began to find something fragile, that was like a seed of forgiveness for himself.
Bulma stomped up to them. “Couldn’t you just have told him that nicely, you fucking asshole!” She phrased it like an attack, not a question, and apparently in every universe Trunks’ mother was both protective and brave as hell.
Vegeta didn't break his gaze away from Trunks. “No. It had to come from himself.”
Bulma blinked, and after a moment her gaze softened.
Trunks acknowledged the point silently. He rapidly reevaluated the last few minutes of their conflict and came to the stunned conclusion that his father had apparently grown a heart in all the years he’d been back in his own timeline.
“Go get yourself cleaned up, Trunks.” Vegeta’s voice was gruff as ever, but lacked the old derision. “We will plan for what to do next after you’ve rested.”
Trunks. We. Trunks felt light-headed. The sudden usage of his own name, something like a pearl from his proud father’s lips; and the phrase ‘we…’
(Trunks had been fighting alone as the strongest of them all in his timeline, yes there was Mai and Yajirobe and the Resistance but he was the helm and the strongest and it was lonely and scary and now he was no longer alone…)
“Thank you,” Trunks whispered in gratitude, voice breaking. Vegeta fidgeted a little impatiently, looking uncomfortable enough that Trunks felt something like a prickle of amusement.
“Wow! That was a good fight!” Goku came up from behind Vegeta. It was easy now to recognize that the kind-hearted saiyan had been respecting their privacy up until that moment.
Huh. The look Goku was giving the oblivious Vegeta was something like approval and warm fondness mixed into one. Trunks found himself wondering what would happen if Vegeta caught himself on the receiving end of that look.
“... sorry, I- I didn't want to involve any one of you, I just -
“Aww, come on Trunks, there’s no need for any of that.” Goku said cheerfully. “Of course we’re gonna help, we won’t just let this happen in your timeline, you helped ours so much back during Cell! If it weren’t for you I would be dead.”
“...you… were kinda dead, right, Goku? For a while?”
“Ah, you know what I mean. If not for you, I wouldn’t have been able to die the way I did! Right, Vegeta?”
And in what Trunks would have considered a suicide move, Goku cheerfully swung one arm around Vegeta, drawing his father close, completely invading his personal space as though Vegeta wouldn’t happily murder him for a lot less.
“That doesn’t even make sense, Kakarot.” And Trunks watched in stupefied amazement and nothing short of incredulity as Vegeta did not in fact murder Goku for the overt display of familiarity, though he did look supremely annoyed about it.
Huh, so some things had really changed. The Vegeta and father he knew from the Cell Games 17 year ago would not have tolerated this in the slightest.
“Here, Trunks, put this on.” Bulma handed Trunks an overcoat. That was when Trunks realised his whole body was trembling. Even his fingers shook badly as he buttoned the coat together.
Vegeta evidently noticed, his ever-present scowl deepening. “Cross your arms, Trunks,” his father instructed, after Trunks managed to do them up.
Trunks obeyed quickly, knowing his father wasn’t one to waste words. It didn’t stop his fingers from trembling, but to his surprise, it did help him feel steadier. He looked up gratefully at Vegeta, who dismissed it with a nod.
“Oh wow,” Goku commented. “Neat. I always wondered why you had that habit, Vegeta.”
“You have plenty worse habits, Kakarot.”
“Hey, that’s not true! ...Is it?”
“I’ve spent too much time around you against my will to be able to list off at least ten, you clown.”
“Well, name one, then!”
Vegeta shrugged. “You scratch the back of your neck when you’re nervous. You clasp your palms together when you want to plead for something. You look up to the left when you’re thinking, even though you don’t think much. Need I say more?”
“O--oh, huh, that’s true!” Suddenly Goku’s grin lengthened. “Wait, Vegeta, have you been watching me that closely?”
“W-what- that isn’t-”
Trunks mildly wondered how he’d gone from one of the most tension-filled moments of his life to suddenly bearing witness to this… interesting exchange.
Goku and Vegeta sniped back and forth with each other with the ease and familiarity of two people of close acquaintance who could tease trigger topics without triggering an apocalypse. It was like watching close friends, or vitriolic best buds, or even ...like a married couple.
Trunks’ amusement and confusion grew in equal measure. He looked to his mother for an explanation. SYounger Bulma simply shrugged back and winked , before fussing over Trunks to get a shower and rest and food and things the mothers of every timeline apparently fusses over.
(A pang. Trunks missed his late mother, was he bad for taking comfort in her younger alternate self? Trunks didn’t know, but the traumatised child within him wanted to clutch at her, whatever version of his mother she was, and didn’t want to let go.)
Perhaps he should take the lesson Vegeta had been so dysfunctionally trying to teach him about misplaced guilt, and where to shove it.
After all, it seemed Vegeta had written the book on how to spectacularly destroy life by going to bed with the monsters of his past, yet had still come out the better for it.
As Trunks watched his father finally begin to yell at Goku (who looked far too innocently nonplussed and even a little pleased for it to be a real argument) Trunks’ sorry, raw, shrivelled little heart felt lighter than it had in a long time.
Supporting point 2: his mother, his mother, his mother
The second piece of evidence to Trunks’ theory was directly handed to him in a neatly packaged metaphorical capsule by the past version of his mother. Like with all things involving Bulma, it did not start out as expected, and ended even less so.
Bulma was perusing some schematics for a ki dampener forcefield she had come up with when Trunks found her in the lab.
“Mom, if you don’t mind,” Trunks said politely. “Can I have a moment? Given how I last left, a lot of things are still quite confusing for me.”
“Trunks, you can have more than a moment -I’m your mom,ask away,” Trunks ignored tha pang at the first bit of the sentence, trying for a smile as Bulma waved one of the sheets at him carelessly. “I’m not making any headway with these anyway, perhaps you can take a look after we’re done later.”
“Okay, I will!” Trunks doubted he could add much to his mother’s brilliance, even the past version of her, but he could at least try.
The conversation started with the pink bubblegum reference from earlier, and culminated with Trunks giving in to his curiosity. “Father and Goku appear fairly close now, compared to the last time I was here. How did it happen?”
Because it was true - during the Cell Games, Vegeta had been an unstable ball of rage and pride, and while Goku had mostly portrayed a calm stable veneer, his interactions with Vegtea has sometimes bordered on the condescending.
So Trunks’ was just questioning how Goku and Vegeta had gone from the (largely one-sided) antagonism of the past to the rather endearing little banter they had now. Especially Goku being dead for about seven years as he’d gathered, etc.
What he hadn’t expected was for Bulma to smirk at him, an expression reminiscent of Vegeta’s sans the utter glee in it. With mirth in her eyes, she said, ‘So you noticed those two lovebirds too, huh? I knew you took after me in my brains. Well done Trunks!”
And Trunks was forced to rapidly reevaluate his choice of conversation.
Lovebirds ?
“Less slow burn and more two idiots on fire, honestly, it’s painful to watch them dance around each other…”
“Uh,” Trunks said, wishing he sounded a little more articulate. “Mom, are... we… talking about the same thing here?”
“Oh, so you didn’t notice?” Bulma looked disappointed.
Trunks couldn’t bear that expression on his mother’s face, whether the dead one or alive one, so he rushed to correct it. “N-no, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page. So many things are similar but different, so I am a little confused.”
“That’s fair, Trunks.” Bulma ruffled his hair kindly, the way Trunks’ mother used to do. Heartache, what heartache? Trunks was fine. “
“Well this is going to sound super crazy and crash theory and all that, but there’s no saner way for me to say it so…” she paused dramatically. “Chichi - hoo boy - Chichi and I believe,” his mother announced, and Trunks had to smile at his mother’s flair for the dramatic, a trait in every timeline, “that Goku and Vegeta are soulmates.”
....what?
Trunks was in fact, a genius too. He was. He took a moment to think through his answer. Asking ‘What do you mean’ was too vague, because Bulma knew what she said, it was clear she meant what she said. The best he could do was to anticipate and venture a guess.
“Soulmates?” Trunks finally repeated in a careful tone, in lieu of less stupid answer. “...You mean, in a romantic sense?”
“Well, we would like for it to be, honestly,” Bulma stated, rolling her beautiful eyes, and Trunks’ brain promptly went into reboot again. “All the constant flirting they do.”
“...flirting?”
“Like, when they constantly try to one-up eachother like they’re afraid to look somewhere else, how they argue like a married couple- they’re worse than Vegeta and me, seriously-”
“Maybe that’s a saiyan thing though, Mom?’
“Ha!” Bulma cackled, making Trunks’ worry rack up a notch, “You’ve only been with us for a bit so you won’t have seen. I’m sure they’d like to think so. Who knows with those two, saiyans are emotional invalids, I swear.”
“I’m half saiyan too,” Trunks couldn’t resist reminding her.
Bulma waved it away. “Yeah, yeah, but you’re half human, and you also have my genes of beauty and intelligence so you’re less dense about feelings, whereas your dad acts like it’s the plague.”
Trunks felt warm at her casual pride in him but quickly got back to the topic. “Can you explain a little, mom? I kinda feel like I’m missing a lot of things here.”
Because of course he agreed there was definitely something between Goku and Vegeta, he just assumed it was friendship of a very strange kind, some sort of saiyan brotherhood.
“You’re not the only one, those boys are so oblivious they wouldn't know it if it hit them in the face,” Bulma sighed. “Well, it won’t matter a whit if they don’t realise it themselves.”
So she’d told him the two womens’ point of view and how they’d steadily been collecting snippets of evidence that Goku and Vegeta were more than platonically interested in each other. Trunks listened in fascination and nothing short of incredulity, but somehow, it made… sense.
“But… why are you okay with this, Mom?” Trunks asked carefully. He knew his mother was an open person, but this was an entirely different matter.
“...you know, your father and Goku are destined to outlive us.” There was something sad about Bulma’s smile. “That’s just the truth. I'm not being morbid; We've died how many times now and I've had plenty of time to contemplate my very real mortality. We’ll all be dead and gone while they’re still in their youth - which annoys me, that I’m going to keep looking older while they look like teenagers, bloody hell,” she ranted, and Trunks had to contain a smile at the characteristic rant.
“Mom,” Trunks prompted gently, trying to bring her back to the topic at hand. “They’ll outlive everyone, so…? You don’t want them to be lonely?”
“Well, Trunks, I know Vegeta will always come back to me and Chibi Trunks, and Goku loves Chichi in his own dysfunctional way. Nothing would change for us physically. Neither of them would purposely do anything to hurt either of us, in fact I think we'd to kick things up ourselves if we want to see them form something now. At the end when we're all gone, at least they would have each other.” Bulma grinned wickedly, the sad smile gone. “Plus I’m a sucker for romantic fairytales, and what can be more romantic than two rival turning into best friends and finding out they’re soulmates?!”
She finished with a question: “So, what do you think, Trunks? Think we’re crazy gossiping wives, or our theories are valid?”
It wasn’t everyday that your mother told you she shipped her husband with his rival who was also her best friend, so Trunks defaulted to the scientific.
“Um,” Trunks stammered. “I need more data to reach a conclusion.”
“Spoken like a true scientist,” Bulma looked inordinately pleased, and Trunks felt the same small glow of pride he did whenever in the rare moments he managed to impress his father with his fighting prowess. “Okay, we can collate conclusions at the end.”
His mother winked, and only then did Trunks realise what he’d been roped into. This was the unstoppable force that was Bulma Briefs. “To be honest, if I was a guy and I’d met either of them, I’d question my sexuality too.”
“Mom !” was Trunks’ embarrassed response.
“Hmm? Don't tell me in the future things like this are still outdated,” Bulma asked curiously.
“It’s not that.. I.. just.. Don’t want to think about father and Goku in that way.” Trunks could feel his face reddening. In a way, the reaction surprised him- that he was still able to feel such emotion despite the suffocating numbness that had plagued him since Black’s wanton destruction was refreshing.
“Fair enough,” Bulma conceded, shrugging. “Now, back on these…”
And that had been the end of that conversation, though it was only the start of Trunks looking at Goku and his father in a completely new light.
Supporting point 3: the conversation with Goku
Over the next few days of being around Goku and Vegeta, Trunks became more and more fascinated by how close the saiyan duo had become in the years between.
The last time Trunks had come to the past, he’d been unable to stop staring at his father, as to be expected from a son whose Dad was deceased. In the same vein, he’d been unable to stop staring at Goku too, knowing him as the legend from his mother’s stories.
This time round, Trunks expected he would have been a little more jaded, but it was not to be - he was still secretly watching and taking mental notes, but for completely different reasons.
Goku let out a whoop as the final scoreboard for the game Chibi Trunks had roped them all into playing flashed across the massive display screen. He was sat next to Vegeta on the couch, so close that their elbows and shoulders brushed everytime he moved.
Both saiyans were clad in near identical sleeveless tops, Goku in white and Vegeta in black. It was almost adorable, really, the most relaxed he’d ever seen them, and it made Trunks’ heart squeeze something funny everytime he glanced their way. “Man, that was a good game!” Goku laughed, setting down the controller. “Thanks for that, Trunks!”
“Speak for yourself,” Vegeta grumbled, and apparently, his father played games now ?! Trunks didn’t know who the god of this timeline was, but he would really like to petition for his timeline to have some of this too. “That was utter bullshit and a complete waste of my time.”
Goku stuck out his tongue at the prince, whose face immediately became more stormy than ever. The shift in less than a second was magnificent to watch. “You’re just a sore loser, Vegeta.”
“Tch, how about we get out here and you let me plant my fists into your face, we’ll see who’s a sore loser then.” Despite the hostile words, Vegeta made no move to shift from where he was comfortably seated beside Goku, lounging in a way that was almost casual and relaxed from his normally uptight and tense posture.
Goku widened his eyes. “But Vegeta, if I let you do it, it wouldn’t count as losing,” he said innocently. Beside Trunks, Chibi Trunks grinned. “And you’d hate me for throwing a match like that.”
“Screw you, Kakarot -”
“You two shut it,” Beerus snapped, interrupting the bickering that was sure to follow. And okay, Trunks was never ever getting over the fact that this cat-guy was seriously, really, the God of Destruction, and the serene blue whimsical angel one was his attendant, not the other way round. “This game is stupid! Let’s go, Whis!” The console in his hands (paws?) erupted in a split second. Whis let out a quiet, long suffering sigh, and both holy beings left the room, with the remains of Beerus’ console smoking from where he’d destroyed it in his anger at losing. That made it the third console blown up in quick succession.
It was all rather funny really, because Beerus’ desire to blow up everything that displeased him reminded Trunks of his father in the past. He wondered if anyone else had noticed it.
“He’s never going to be able to win against us, we’re too awesome,” Chibi Trunks whispered at Trunks side cheekily.
“He won’t,” Trunks agreed, playing along. “Little me is too good.” After the initial shock of finding out the whole backstory of Cell, and that they were the same two people of different timelines, his younger self had wholly embraced the situation with an open-heartedness that was similar to their mother’s. In fact Chibi Trunks seemed to have decided to view Trunks as his long-lost older brother, something that Trunks didn’t see a problem with humoring.
“Okay then, this time I’m gonna play myself, and I’ll win by a wide margin, just you watch!” Chibi Trunks’ enthusiasm was infectious; Trunks couldn’t help but smile too, something that rarely came easily for him now...
“Do these activities amuse you, then?” Trunks turned to find Vegeta’s dark gaze watching him with a curious frown, one of his milder expressions. Trunks quickly made an effort to maintain his smile, he owed them that much, even though it felt like soldering a circuit board with all the wires in the wrong place.
“It’s not that,” he said honestly - he’d learnt not to try and bluff Vegeta, and he barely had the energy to function, now. “It’s just, well... it’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to sit around like this, without a care in the world...”
Too late Trunks realised how self-pitying that could have sounded and shut his mouth abruptly, fearing reprimand, but Vegeta had no scathing reply, another proof that he had changed. Instead there was a sudden darkness to Vegeta’s eyes and a certain set to his mouth that Trunks couldn’t read.
Goku seemed to notice too. There was that curiously fond look again, one that only his father seemed to ever be on the receiving end of when the Earth-raised saiyan thought no one was looking. Honestly, it was only because of the talk with his mother, but once Trunks knew what to watch out for, he couldn’t unsee it: all the stolen glances, silent conversations, humoring each other, the little looks of affection…
Goku suddenly turned to Trunks, and Trunks scrambled trying to make it look like he hadn’t just been watching the other man. “Don’t worry, Trunks,” the kind-hearted saiyan said confidently, “after we defeat Goku Black, your future will have peace in it too! I’m going to do a number on him, just you wait!”
The reassuring way he said it, with full confidence, like there was no possibility that they could fail, that they could do this, they could win, even if everyone else had fallen to their demise, made Trunks’ breath catch in his throat. Whatever had taken over Vegeta seemed to have broken its spell as he snipped, “Hey Kakarot, let me make this clear: I’m the one who’s going to defeat this Goku Black!”
Goku - there was no other word for it, he pouted - at the prince. “Hey,” he protested, “you can’t go deciding that on your own!”
“I damn well can, you idiot,” Vegeta huffed, with significantly less heat and diatribe than Trunks expected. “If he’s wearing your stupid face, using your body for his own ends, then I’m going to be the one to punt the living daylights out of him all the way to the other universe, and you’re going to stay out of it.”
Goku blinked, then grinned mischievously. Trunks immediately knew he’d want to bear witness to what came next “Aw, Vegeta,” Goku said, his tone teasing as he leaned into Vegeta, and whoa okay Trunks never realised there was a height difference between them until just then, “Are you worried for me? Is that why you’re so annoyed? Because he’s using the me of the future? That really touches me somehow!”
BAM! Goku blocked the predictable fist that aimed for his jaw, laughing loudly. “Kidding, kidding, I’m only teasing- oof!” he wheezed, as a pillow forcefully hit him dead-centre in the stomach. and caused him to slide off slightly. “Aww come on, Vegeta, where’s your sense of fun!”
“It rotted in hell before I was even born,” Vegeta stated as he stood up. Was- was that a flush on his face? Was his father, the proud, stoic prince of all saiyans, actually blushing? Trunks was trying very hard not to stare in fascination. “This conversation is over, Kakarot. Find me when you’re ready to be more mature, which for you means never.”
As the proud figure exited, Trunks looked back at Goku. He was sure the kind-hearted, goofy saiyan was fine -there was more reason to check on the state of the poor pillow, really- but it was an excuse to study the only person Trunks knew who could draw out his father’s silly side, besides his mother, possibly. Not that he was complaining: it really was nice to see the warmer sides of Vegeta’s personality.
Goku looked back at Trunks looking at him, and grinned. “Okay, maybe I went too far, but you kinda gotta rile him up to get him out of his head, sometimes.”
“Get him out of his head…?” Trunks repeated questioningly, replaying the last few minutes.
“Well, maybe it’s just me,” Goku looked serious suddenly, “but I think Vegeta feels bad and responsible when he sees you, ‘cos you’re very like him. You two’ve been through the wringer in many ways.” Kind eyes. Here was the intuitive wisdom behind Goku’s childishness that Trunks’ late mother had often spoken of. “I think Goku Black won’t like what’s coming when Vegeta gets his hands on him.”
“You and father… have gotten close, haven’t you,” Trunks asked, proving that despite being the progeny of a genius heiress and warrior prince, he was still perfectly capable of stating the obvious.
“Hm? I guess you could say so?” Goku scratched the back of his neck. “He's my best friend.”
“Does... he think you’re friends too?” Trunks dared to venture, because of the two, Goku was the least likely to blow him off.
Goku laughed lightly, as if he knew this as well. “Well, Vegeta doesn't say it in so many words, obviously, but I don't need him to,” he mused. “And with your father, you kinda have to listen and watch for things in between what he says. Which suits me just fine, I’m not all that good with words anyway.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Goku,” Trunks smiled. This was the only man in existence after all who’d turned countless enemies into friends, gods into buddies, and caused his dad to blush, apparently. Trunks was still questioning his eyes on that one.
Goku shrugged. “Anyway, Vegeta isn’t the type to shout about friendship and feelings and all that, can you imagine,” he said with a smile, and there was that fond look again. “If he did, he wouldn’t be our Vegeta. And I don’t want him to be a different Vegeta! Sorry, does that make sense?”
Trunks nodded, because it rather did. Accepting someone for who they were, all their faults, all the tragedy they carried, and caring for them anyway. He thought of his late mother, the late Gohan, of Mai. His heart ached.
The look of pride and fondness in Goku’s eyes. Trunks had seen it somewhere before. In Mai's eyes. In his mother's eyes. That was love, pure and simple, proper love, whatever form it took.
Chibi Trunks poked him in the side. Trunks jolted, not realising when the boy had come up to them. “You’re doing that brooding thing Dad does again,” Chibi Trunks said with a frown. “You can have the next turn on the console, if you want?”
Trunks was strangely touched at the uncharacteristically considerate offer. His younger self could be proud, selfish and perhaps slightly spoiled, according to his mother. Truthfully Trunks didn’t see any fault in this, if it meant Chibi Trunks was spared from the atrocities he himself had been forced to witness.
“That’s okay, thank you. I should head to bed soon,” he ruffled Chibi Trunks hair, for a moment wondering if his mother had survived, could he have had a sibling? “Father might not be happy with me if I wake up late and miss his training.”
Goku stretched and yawned. “Nah, Vegeta won’t, if you really needed the rest. He might act like that, but your dad’s just a big mean softie, really,” His smile turned into something gentler, like Goku knew something they didn’t.
Both Trunks shared a dubious look- softness was not a trait either of them would attribute to Vegeta, but Goku was known for his kind heart and forgiving nature for a reason. “That’s why we all love him.”
Hmm. Interesting. Goku was openly affectionate to anything that moved, but Trunks couldn’t help wondering if there was more to the statement and if even Goku was aware of it yet.
As they said their goodnights, Trunks’ mind whirred, like one of his mother’s machines. Even as dread threatened to submerge him as he thought of facing Black again, a little bit of lightness remained.
#########################################################################
Vegeta Interlude
Anger was a familiar emotion to Vegeta. It was like an old glove, a well-worn armour, easy to slip on. Anger was his weapon and protection in all his years of serving Frieza, and even in the years after when he'd been lost without a sense of purpose.
But even the brilliant thunderstorm of gold that characterised super saiyan fury could not compare to the murderous rage that whispered to his soul as he looked into Goku Black's hateful rose-coloured eyes.
Oh, he'd already been simmering since the moment he'd seen Future Trunks' traumatised, guilt-ridden eyes and figured out that the Bulma of the future had been murdered. The second he'd actually laid eyes on the motherf*cking perpetrator in person, wearing Kakarot's dumb face like a twisted mask, familiar sunlight smile turned into something sadistic, disturbing and just fucking wrong, his anger had boiled over to become murderous rage. It was like raking claws down his spine.
This rage was quieter. This rage was deadlier. This rage screamed.
How dare this absolute motherfucking joke of a God take the purest, dumbest, most naive fool in Vegeta's life only to possess his body and crush his spirit as though he were nothing.
As though he wasn't Vegeta's first reason for living again, as though he wasn't the once and forever rival and whatever else, one of the only people Vegeta had become ready to die for.
Everything that made Kakarot special, all of his heart and courage and compassion and playfulness - gone, like he was nothing more than a brief flicker of a moment in time.
...And this joke of a divine asshole dared to walk in Kakarot’s place, wearing his body like nothing more than a powerhouse shell, acting like divinity and goodness was something you were born into, not something you had to work towards; like loyalty and adoration and acquiescence was cheap and easy to get, not something you earned.
Vegeta couldn't stand it.
He wanted to rip that mockery of a divine face into shreds.
Goku Black's fingers grazed Vegeta's chin, lifting his gaze up so that their eyes met. He looked at the prince with an almost disturbing tenderness, all the while wearing a sadistic version of Kakarot's dumb sunlight smile.
Vegeta saw red.
#########################################################################
Goku Interlude
"Alright then Vegeta, have you got a plan?" He could always count on Vegeta, Goku knew it, but maybe this was finally the end, their time to go.
"What do you think?" Vegeta smirked at him, that arrogant little smirk with just a small hint of self deprecation in it that Goku had come to love. " I'm going to give them hell until I breathe my last. Nothing more, nothing less."
"I see..." They looked up towards the thousand copies of Zamasu facing them grimly, humorously. It forcibly reminding Goku of the time they'd faced Cooler together in what seemed like aeons ago, when Vegeta had once again come to his aid, just like this. Goku grinned. "Then let's both give them hell together."
Despite this likely to be their final stand, Goku felt no regret. This was how it was meant to be, him and Vegeta, in every universe, every timeline, standing at each other’s shoulders, a united front: taking on the world dead set against their existence. There was truly no one else Goku would have wanted more at his side in his final moments, both of them going down in a brilliant flare of ki and defiance, fighting fiercely to the bitter end.
Even so... to face the enemy whose face and body was half of his own..."I never thought it would end like this..." Goku confessed with a rueful smile.
Vegeta scoffed, careless smirk still lingering, with a touch of something fond. Goku knew him too well by now, he could see every emotion in those dark eyes. "After the huge pain in the ass you've been to me all my life, at least I'll get to see you die... that's enough for me."
Goku only grinned back, hearing the unsaid and letting the words slide off like so much white noise. "You sure know how to make a guy feel loved, Vegeta."
Once upon a time Goku might have been confused, maybe even half-offended by those cutting words. But he'd gotten good at reading Vegeta’s little tells over the years, a trait fusion had only amplified. Now, after what felt like a lifetime fighting alongside Vegeta, to the point that he could no longer remember clearly what it was like before; learning his tells, learning the meaning behind every indrawn breath, sometimes thinking so eerily similar as though their heartbeats aligned, it was easy to hear the unspoken behind the spoken.
If this is where we fall, there's no one else I'd rather go down fighting with, Kakarot.
Vegeta would literally go to his dying breath refusing to put a name on it, but the affection and trust between them had been firmly rooted. That was just how Vegeta worked, and Goku didn't want him any other way.
Supporting Point 4 : everything on the battlefield
For a race that Bulma had declared “a bunch of emotional invalids”, Trunks had to say, much of their strength came from the power of their emotions.
In their multiple face-offs against Goku Black and Zamasu, he’d watched in fascination Goku and Vegeta fight for and protect each other multiple times over the entire course of the battle.
He’d watch them fuse , for goodness sake (apparently not for the first time?! His father had actually blushed, so Trunks really had to dig out this story if they somehow made it out alive) and if fusion wasn't half an innuendo on its own, Trunks would be half a namek.
More seriously, Trunks had also watched in incredulity as the two headstrong saiyans adamantly insisted on taking turns to face the enemy, begrudgingly being fair and respecting the other’s turn. The way they easily caught onto eachother’s tactics, admiring from afar in a dysfunctional way, taking pride in the other’s speed or adaptability on the battlefield like it was a personal achievement. It was comical, really, if the situation wasn’t so serious: how these two complete titans on the battlefield bantered and interacted like children who were particularly enamoured with each other. If Trunks had had the presence of mind, he would have been busy documenting and cataloguing everything he observed. As it was, all he caught were snippets.
------------------------
They'd barely made it out of the first battle alive, and were then hiding out in the underground Resistance base. Trunks finished with sealing the last pipe of that particular area and looked around, only just managing to catch the tail end of Vegeta checking unconscious form of Goku for damage.
Trunks winced; Goku's slumped-over posture against the wall was a neck cramp waiting to happen.
Evidently Vegeta must have had similar thoughts. Trunks watched in quiet amazement as his father visibly hesitated, before bringing up his gloved fingers to Goku’s temple and jaw, gently tilting his head into a more comfortable position. From anyone else it would have been nothing remarkable, but from someone as emotionally constipated and harsh as his father, it was an oddly sweet gesture.
“I can’t take you anywhere, Kakarot,” Vegeta growled, as if Goku could hear him. His gloved fingers still brushed against the younger saiyan’s form, lingering a little longer than necessary against the bruise on his temple. “I can’t believe I have an idiot like you as my rival sometimes. Passing out like a little child…”
His tone was irritated, but Trunks could hear the underlying worry. More reliably, he could sense some of his father’s ki flowing into Goku, and understood that his father was sharing some of his life energy to the other man in an effort to mitigate the worst of his injuries.
The exchange of energy felt warm, caring, protective, even tender, none of which showed on the expression Vegeta wore. His father was such a contradictory man.
Even so, this was a far cry from the cruelly smirking Vegeta he’d seen years ago that had ‘saved’ Goku who had then been severely weakened from a heart attack by viciously kicking him towards Piccolo as they faced off against Android 19. His father had clearly changed, both in his temperament and his attitude towards Goku between the years, and Trunks was curious as to how.
“How did you and Goku become so close, father?” Trunks blurted out, before realising what he’d said, the utter inappropriateness of his timing. Vegeta’s head whipped around immediately with a glare and a flush that accompanied it, clearly not realising he’d had an audience.
Whoops. Well, Trunks was feeling extra-suicidal that day; if they were all going to die anyway by the time dusk fell, he was going in a dead man with his curiosity satisfied.
Vegeta scowled more fiercely at him. Trunks wondered if he could ever tell his father that the constant exposure to that expression had made it somewhat endearing rather than scary, just as Goku and Bulma had clearly found. “You’re being very brave today, Trunks.”
Trunks laughed weakly, attempting a morbid joke. “Well, I’m curious, father… if I’m about to die, I might as well ask.”
“We will not die here,” Vegeta stated harshly, the conviction in his voice setting fires in the dim-lit tunnel. “ You will not die here, Trunks. You keep going until it's time for you to go, do you understand? Your mother is waiting for us.”
“Father…” Trunks looked away. The miasma of guilt he’d been holding at bay suddenly bubbled up, threatening to eat him alive before Zamasu found him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I never should have come to the past and gotten you and Goku involved…”
“Trunks. Look at me.” There was no arguing that commanding tone in Vegeta’s voice, so Trunks reluctantly looked up. “Trunks. Think about some of the things that only were able to exist in our timeline because of your interference. As an outside observer, with no bias.” Vegeta demanded. “Look me in the eyes, and tell me that you didn’t think it was worth it.”
For the first time in his life, Trunks truly thought it over.
His mother, alive, vibrant, younger, with less worry in her eyes.
Eighteen marrying Krillin and having Marron, proving her humanity despite the cruelty of her alternate timeline counterpart.
The existence of Goten, Goku’s miniature and second son?!
Gohan. The Gohan of Trunks’ timeline had mentioned wanting a younger brother and that Trunks was the younger sibling he’d never had. He’d also mentioned wanting to be a scholar in a different life, and maybe having his own children, starting a family. Gohan of the past who survived what his timeline's Gohan did not, had managed to fulfil life as a scholar, as his timeline's Gohan had dreamt of becoming. And even his own child… Pan’s little giggles…
Even right down to the way Vegeta was still protectively hovering over Goku, the bond between the two saiyans clearly having developed into something unnamed as of yet, was made possible, even if indirectly, due to Trunks’ interference.
Finally, Trunks shook his head. “It was worth it, every bit of it. I don’t regret the first time I came back. But...” he whispered, knowing Vegeta was showing him legendary levels of patience by not snapping at him to show more pride at that moment. “...I regret this time, Father. I never should have come to you, and involved all of you. Now neither of our timelines are safe.”
Vegeta looked like he was working up to something at that moment. This was probably the emotionally constipated face his mother had mentioned in jest a couple of times, Trunks thought distantly, then immediately felt sorry for thinking something so incongruous to the present situation.
“Trunks, I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully.” The abrasive tone was there, but his father’s eyes said something else. “You made the best decision you could have made with the information you had at the time.”
“You didn’t come to us to run away, like a coward. You asked for our help so you could continue fighting and save your own timeline. That’s the best any warrior can do.” Vegeta paused for a moment, as if he was choking on something, before letting out in a rush. “I’m proud of you.”
Trunks stared at Vegeta. He hadn’t realised how much he wanted to hear those words from his father; how much of a balm it was to hear from someone he looked up to so highly. “Father…” You’ve changed so much...
Goku, who had been silent up until that point, let out a hacking cough, sounding like he was choking on his own blood. Trunks caught the split second in which his father’s eyes widened in alarm before the prince moved in a flash, tipping the other saiyan’s head back and manhandling his body into a more comfortable position. Trunks moved to help, but his father gestured sharply at him to stay in place.
“Come on, Kakarot, you did not survive getting mauled by a fucking copycat wannabee version of yourself just so you could end up dying by choking on your own blood,” Vegeta growled, as he rubbed half-circles into Goku’s back. Trunks hovered by uncertainly, wanting to assist but not wanting to cause more damage. He didn’t speak for fear of causing more confusion to Goku’s possibly addled mental state.
To Trunks’ relief, Goku’s cough slowly subsided, and the saiyan half-opened his eyes. “...’geta?” Goku rasped, his voice searching, the low tone a stark contrast to his usual higher notes.
“Who else, Kakarot.” Vegeta seemed to sag a little in relief. His father wasn’t being very careful with his tells today.
“What… happened…” Goku rasped again, sounding pained. Clearly his injuries were still healing; Zamasu’s blade must have had something that dealt more damage to a mortal body.
Vegeta had once again placed his gloved hands against Goku’s temple, this time a lot more gingerly. Trunks sat back as he sensed the earlier warm exchange of ki begin again and realised his help was not needed. He was content to simply watch this dialogue between them play out. “You got stabbed by Zamasu, that’s what, and he took all our Senzu beans,” his father said to Goku in a clipped tone. “As always, you get yourself into these stupid messes, and I’m the one who has to go saving your sorry little ass.”
The corner of Goku’s mouth lifted in a shadow of his usual grin. “...wouldn’t have… anyone else…”
“Really, Kakarot? That’s what you have to say for yourself?” Vegeta snorted. “How about you try not getting yourself into these messes in the first place, then there wouldn’t be any saving necessary, and I wouldn’t have to trouble myself so much.”
“...ahah… Bulma and Chichi would be happier with us, then… thanks, ‘Geta…” Goku murmured, probably drowsy from the warm ki and already fading out again. “..’ll… make it up to you…”
Trunks watched Vegeta watching Goku as his eyes slipped closed, absently brushing aside the younger saiyan's mess of bangs as if his father had forgotten there was someone else there. “Idiot,” Vegeta murmured, and from another person, that tone might have been a weary sort of fondness. “Always the bane of my existence...”
“Why do you spend so much time with him if you find him so annoying?” Trunks dared to ask.
Vegeta glanced up at him, as if only remembering he was there. Trunks half-expected the same hostile reaction as earlier, but his father seemed weary instead. Perhaps, in this strange, dim space where their fates hung in the precipice between life and death, where their inhibitions were lowered, where Trunks had shown his vulnerability; perhaps Vegeta could allow and Trunks could earn a modicum of truth.
“He’s a naively pure, mind-numbing idiot. Everything he does irritates and spites me,” Vegeta stated abruptly.
Well, guess not all inhibitions were gone. Trunks resisted the urge to roll his eyes like his mother would have, having heard his father utter these same words in the earlier curbstomp of Goku Black.
“But…?” Trunks prompted. He was walking over so many lines already, what the hell, may as well make a day of it. “ You’re not the type of person to spend time around someone if you don’t want to, Father.”
“You presume too much, Trunks.” Trunks winced, hoping he didn’t cross the line too far. To his amazement, Vegeta continued hesitantly. “But… if you must know... he and your mother are alike in that they have the same capacity and heart for forgiveness. The same with you and your younger self. It is a trait I do not share, nor do I wish to, but nevertheless have come to respect.”
“So… you’re saying… you can tolerate Goku’s company because… he and mom are similar?” Trunks asked carefully, fairly sure that was not it, but trying not to extrapolate anymore beyond the words his father stated.
“No. This is why I do not like to talk, words are so easily misinterpreted.” Vegeta grumbled.
“No, Kakarot’s foolishness and simplicity irritate me to no end, but he has some redeeming qualities, meagre though as they are. As does your mother.” Vegeta’s gaze grew distant, and somehow Trunks had the sense that his father wasn’t exactly with him at that moment. “I have done nothing to earn them, but I will do everything I can to deserve them.”
Trunks stayed silent. He recognized that Vegeta had just given him a very precious gift: the gift of openness and honesty, something that came really hard to his tough hardass father. He would not do it disservice with empty words or platitudes.
The hope in Trunks’ chest burned anew. He would survive Zamasu and Goku Black, he would make sure they all survived, if nothing else so that he could have more of these moments and ensure his younger self would too.
-----------------------
Several battles that felt like lifetimes later, Vegeta roared and struck out at the fused Zamasu’s maligned form in a reaction of utter rage and heartbreak that would have been very familiar, had Trunks not been too dead to see it last time. It was a magnificent display of explosive power, and Trunks understood more than ever why his father had been called the Prince of Destruction once upon a time.
It touched Trunks that his presumed death had been the source of that mindless rage, as it had been with Cell. Unfortunately, the attack predictably did not finish off the insane Zamasu once and for all, though it came close. Trunks activated the ki dampener field in order to hide their presence and buy them a little bit of precious time to catch their breaths, while drawing the unconscious Mai closer to his body.
The sound of Goku shouting made Trunks jump - it was one of the rare times Trunks had ever seen the usually-mild mannered saiyan yell at a friend. “Vegeta! What are you thinking using that attack in your current state?!”
As Vegeta’s knees gave out and his red hair faded to black, pushed to damaging exhaustion from using two limit-breaker states in quick succession, Goku had swooped in to catch him. The protective way he supported the prince promised hellfire to anyone who dared to step there.
“Shut up, Kakarot, don’t you dare lecture me about thinking,” Vegeta had the presence of mind to grumble up at him, though Trunks noted his father looked dazed and his gaze unfocused.
“Shh, Vegeta, try not to talk…” Goku hushed as he set the prince down gently, mindful not to jostle any visibly bad injuries. The kind -hearted saiyan had clearly chosen to set aside his anger in lieu of providing some comfort. “You’ve got to conserve your energy... we don’t have any Senzus left, and Trunks is too drained to heal any of us now.”
Vegeta’s unfocused dark eyes briefly found Trunks’. His father’s guard was clearly down from his weakened state, as his eyes showed clear relief. “Trunks… you’re alive…”
“Thanks to you,” Goku told him softly, and if Trunks wasn’t witnessing it himself he wouldn’t have thought the normally exuberant Goku could sound that gentle. “That was real risky though, Vegeta.”
“Don’t... coddle me… Kakarot...”
Goku gently adjusted his hold on Vegeta as the weakened prince faded out, using the very same hands that moments ago had smashed Zamasu’s sternum and broken his ribs. “I’ve got you,” Goku said, voice soft, seemingly more to himself than to anyone else. The tender way he cradled Vegeta’s body was similar to how Trunks was holding Mai at that very second. Trunks looked away, feeling like he was invading the privacy of a particularly intimate moment.
“Father…” Trunks hesitated, unsure if it was his place to say. “Father asked me to heal you over him, because... he said he trusted you to finish off Zamasu.”
Goku looked both stunned and impossibly, even softer. “...he said that?... Vegeta...” In a moment, his gaze hardened.
“Trunks,” Goku’s voice had that edge of steel in it, the one that made Trunks shiver and forcibly reminded him that as gentle natured as Son Goku acted , he was still the first legendary super saiyan in over a hundred aeons to come into existence. “Take care of your father... he’s done enough. It’s my turn now -I’m going to fight Zamasu and I'm going to win .”
Supporting Point 5: that moment on Capsule Corp’s balcony
As he savoured a juicy piece of steak after what felt like long years of being at war with only canned food as sustenance, Trunks reflected that still couldn’t get used to the luxury of all this food, even as the saiyan side of him eagerly roared its appetite.
In the aftermath of Zamasu’s defeat, the atmosphere of the celebratory dinner on the rooftop of Capsule Corp was flooded with happiness and relief.
To him however, the victory felt almost hollow, when everyone and everything in his timeline was now dead and gone, vanished into worse than oblivion by Zeno. He had still failed them all. Trunks choked, reminding himself to breathe. His father, Goku, everyone had done everything they could to help him and Mai. He would not dishonour their effort and willingness to die with his brooding and guilt.
At least, Trunks thought -- with a flicker of guilt at his own selfishness -- at least Mai was still alive and with him.
They looked up at where Zamasu and Goku Black was pontificating to thin air, as if his audience were not a dead world he had ravaged himself. ‘Trunks, you are to stay with the time machine. If we fall against Black,’ his father said calmly, a silent acknowledgment that failure was a possibility and Trunks was never going to get over how much his father had changed, ‘’at least you can survive by escaping into the past, and build your own future with your girlfriend .’
Trunks sputtered, that was not what he’d been expecting at all. Beside the prince, Goku looked startled and amused all at once. ‘I'm kinda shocked Vegeta would be the first one to say it, but he's right,’ the larger saiyan agreed, grinning at Trunks. ‘Plus she is pretty cute.’
Trunks’ face was burnt at the memory. Vegeta had been the first one to call it, but everyone else seemed to have already assumed the same thing. In the lighter atmosphere of the party Bulma had kicked the soft teasing of his and Mai’s relationship up to eleven.
Even in this timeline, it seemed his mother was determined to matchmake him, a thought that made him both smile and ache at the same time.
There was only so much teasing he could handle, though, not when he and Mai hadn’t yet defined this thing between them. Trunks looked up to where Goku and Vegeta were sitting right next to each other, a little closer than the rest of the group, shoulders brushing and elbows rubbing as they both devoured their food with speed that would have alarmed any onlooker unused to hanging around saiyans.
Being on the receiving end of unwelcome teasing himself was the only reason Trunks too hadn’t started ribbing the two or plotting to bring them together (that and the fact that it was likely Vegeta would literally blast everyone within a 3m radius to smithereens out of sheer mortification by accident. Trunks didn’t put it past his father to do that no matter how much he’d changed.) If he wanted to be petty, though, he would have plenty of cannon fodder to use.
To be fair, they’d probably say that about him and Mai too. Watching the younger version of himself being shy around the younger version of Mai, as Goten laughed in the background, Trunks allowed himself a small smile. It was miraculous, really that he was now able to think about all these lighter matters, when weeks ago Black was everything that consumed his mind. Trunks swallowed the taste of ash in his mouth and reminded himself to be grateful.
Trunks’ thoughts were interrupted by the small figure of Goten leaning across the table towards their fathers. “Uncle Vegeta, I have a question,” Goku’s youngest chirped, and some at the table paused in their conversations to listen in.
“What is it?” the prince grunted, looking annoyed that his methodical destruction of the banquet, neater than Goku’s own trail, had been interrupted.
“How do saiyans tell someone they like that they like them?” Goten asked, oblivious to Trunks’ younger counterpart poking him in the ribs. “As in, ‘like’ like them, not just like them.”
Trunks watched as Vegeta visibly restrained himself from snapping; changed as he might, his father had very low tolerance for what he considered to be inane questions. “They don’t, Goten, they just fight,” the prince said dismissively as he took a sip of water.
Goten’s eyebrows wrinkled in innocent confusion, and Chichi reached out to pat his head lovingly. It was this expression that Trunks would forever remember as the boy next said: “But you and dad fight all the time, does that mean you like each other?”
There was a beat of silence as the words registered. Vegeta sputtered over his drink. Then Bulma started cackling loudly, triggering others to join her, while Goku only looked confusedly at his youngest son, their expressions matching at that moment.
“What- what -” Vegeta broke off coughing, unable to speak more. Bulma slapped him on the back, grinning at Goten.
“I spend months dancing around the topic and he just gives it to them like that,” she crowed. “Your son is a savage, Goku!”
“I… don’t really understand what’s going on here,” Goku said. He looked utterly bewildered, the poor man. “What’s so funny? Of course I like Vegeta, Goten.”
This time, Trunks was surprised to hear his own helpless laughter joining the fray. Vegeta groaned and glared at the other saiyan, having finally recovered from his earlier choking. “You’re making this worse, Kakarot, shut up," the prince hissed.
Mai had a small, amused smile on her face as she watched their antics. Her smile was something Trunks rarely saw and thus treasured every time he caught sight of it. It took his breath away, how pretty she was.
“But Vegeta, I really don’t get it what the big deal is? Don’t you like me too, at least, a little bit?”
It was a real treat to watch the myriad of emotions that flickered like fireflies on Vegeta’s face. Trunks was impressed, he didn’t think his father had that much of an emotional range.
“Kakarot-”
“Do you think we should save your dad before this gets even more awkward for him?” Mai whispered to Trunks.
Trunks decided to take pity on his father and attempted to divert the topic, to Bulma’s visible consternation. “Father, could we please have one last spar before I leave tomorrow?” he asked loudly. Whoops, now everyone in attendance - save the still-confused Goku and the irate Vegeta - looked annoyed with him. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
Vegeta smirked at him, looking slightly relieved at the change in topic. “As if I’d let you go without whipping you into shape first, Trunks.”
“Hey, I’d like to try out against you too, Trunks!” Goku beamed at them both, earlier confusion easily dismissed (was it on purpose? Trunks really couldn’t tell, with this man.) “You’ve really grown a lot stronger in the time you’ve been here, Trunks!”
“Dad, can I join too?” Chibi Trunks asked excitedly. “I want to know how I’d do against Big-Me!”
“Oooh, I want to come too!” Goten exclaimed immediately.
Vegeta grunted at them all, humoring them for once. Perhaps because it was likely Trunks’ final quality time with him, his father was more amiable. “Gravity chamber, 8am tomorrow. Be late and I’ll lock you out.” It was his territory and turf, after all.
“Saiyans,” Bulma grumbled. “Always fighting over anything… just when things were about to get interesting…”
Trunks smiled at her. Knowing his mother, she would have her way and force them into a confrontation, sooner or later.
As Trunksand Mai bade them all goodbye the next day, in what would be their final farewell, Trunks felt a pang of bitter relief and sweet sorrow.
Relief because the ordeal that had made him seek them out in the first place was over.
Sorrow because this was goodbye, he had no more reason to stay.
Despite knowing he was welcome to stay, Trunks knew that to stay where he didn't belong would only end up bringing more pain to everyone involved.
The clear blue sky was reminiscent of the day he had left last time, and this time, Trunks really thought that he would not return again. Perhaps he would one day meet them in the afterlife, if different timelines had the same one.
Trunks looked over to his beautiful mother, wishing her a much happier life than his own late one had had.
His gaze swivelled over where his father and Goku were standing closely together, each bading him goodbye in their own way. Trunks felt the fondness in his heart multiply, somewhat impossibly.
In the end, the amount of time he’d spent around them was barely enough to scratch the surface of the sheer complexity that was Goku and Vegeta’s relationship. The two of them were really like nothing else he'd ever encountered. Trunks could easily visualise them in every universe, every timeline, standing at each other’s shoulders, a united front; fighting together back to back, steeped in magnificent power, wielding strength both in body and spirit only matched by the other .
Trunks hoped, hoped from the bottom of his healing ravaged little heart that they would give themselves the chance to explore whatever they had between them.
Hope was, after all, the only thing that had kept him alive up until that point.
“Goodbye everyone… and good luck, wherever you land next.”
