Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Hello?" Cardi asked, tentatively. "I'm the new junior engineer?" 

The receptionist smiled. She was a matronly older woman who put Cardi immediately at ease. "Ah, yes! Cardi Gingham? Welcome to Capsule Corp!"

Cardi smiled nervously. "It's great to be here!" Working at Capsule Corp had been her dream for years. Dr. Bulma Briefs was the reason she got into engineering. She still wasn't sure how she managed to land this job so a part of her was still expecting to be told it was a joke. But so far, here she was, about to start work in the main Capsule Corp building, working in a lab directly supervised by her idol. 

"Jean will be around shortly to give you your tour. In the meantime, can you fill out these forms." The receptionist smiled as she handed Cardi a clipboard. 

Sitting down in one of the fashionable yet comfortable chairs, Cardi started to fill out the final employment forms, smiling at the generous healthcare package. Finally she would get to get that weird mole looked at without going into debt!

"Cardi?" A soft male voice asked, pulling her focus away from the forms. "It's great to see you in person." 

Jean was taller than he had seemed in the video conference interview. He smiled down at her, standing probably a full foot above her 5'3". He had a jovial, youthful smile, despite being in his early 40s at the youngest. 

Cardi fumbled to shake his hand while still holding the clipboard with the forms. "It's great to be here." 

His grip was firm and she hoped he couldn’t feel that her hands were sweaty. “Shall I give you a tour of the place?”

“I’m not quite done with my forms. . .” Cardi said, lifting the clipboard up awkwardly.

“No worries, I’m sure you will get a chance to finish them soon.” He smiled and started to walk towards the large door marked ‘Labs’. She hurried to catch up with him. 

“As you know, this Capsule Corp building is unique. Not only is this the headquarters, it also houses the Briefs’ family apartments. The whole south wing is where the family lives. So you probably will see them around a bit. The kids are really sweet.” He gestured towards another, smaller door.

She tried not to contain her excitement. “So I will actually get to see Dr. Bulma?”

“Oh definitely. She comes around the labs a lot. She’s pretty good at being hands on, even when she doesn’t need to be.” He led her down the hallway, pointing to various closed doors. “There’s IT, we will be going by there to pick up your laptop a bit later, the executive suite’s through there, don’t worry about them. Legal’s over there, be nice to them.” 

Cardi nodded, trying to remember the doors he pointed to and knowing it was pointless. 

“Down there’s the main cafeteria, the food is great but it can get pretty crowded. Mrs. Briefs, Dr. Bulma’s mom, herself designs the recipes herself so it’s very popular. There’s a little coffee kiosk near the grav-lab, so don’t worry, you will be well caffeinated.”

The grav-lab. That must be the colloquial term for the lab where they work on the latest gravity technology, which was her lab. Gotta get that corporate lingo down. 

“The central lounge is through here, a very essential place to know.” Jean took her though an open doorway and into a large central room with modern looking couches and angular tables spread around in it. Several people played ping-pong at the tables to one side, and several people stood around an elaborate coffee bar. The overall look was ultra modern and extremely classy. 

Jean waved at a woman standing with a cup of coffee. "Dessa! I'm glad you're here." 

The short dark haired woman turned away from her conversation. "Jean! Is that our fresh meat?" Her grin turned slightly feral as she turned towards Cardi. 

"Be nice." Jean said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. He turned towards Cardi. "You'll be working with Dessa a lot so I wanted to introduce you to her. Don't worry, she's not as scary as she seems. 

"Oh I am." Dessa assured them. "I'm the real monster of Capsule Corp." 

Cardi smiled nervously. "It’s great to meet you." 

Dessa grinned and leaned towards Jean. “Speaking of monsters, we got a visit from our favorite cryptid today.”

Cardi raised an eyebrow. “Cryptid?”

Dessa elbowed Jean. “You haven’t told her about our resident monster?”

"I'm not going to refer to him as such. It's disrespectful. And I would prefer to not get fired for insulting my boss's husband." Jean rolled his eyes. 

"Come on, she thinks it's hilarious."

"Still. . . We don't want to model bad behavior for the new employees." He gestured towards Cardi. 

"She's in the grav-lab, she's more likely than most to see him. You don't want her to be unprepared." 

"I'm definitely curious." Cardi said, laughing nervously. She definitely wanted to hear all the office gossip sooner rather than later. 

"How much do you know about the Briefs family?" Dessa asked, leaning in conspiratorially. 

"Uhhh. . . Not much. Dr. Bulma took over from her father. She has two kids and she's married." She struggled to remember anything about her husband but she was coming up blank. "Jean says the kids are sweet." 

"Sweet, yes. Rambunctious troublemakers, definitely." Another woman standing nearby said with a laugh. 

"Those babies are precious and I will hear nothing against them." Jean said firmly. 

"Trunks and Goten basically destroyed my lab last month." The woman said, rolling her eyes with a grin. 

"He's a teen! What do you expect, Sari?" Dessa said laughing. "Bulla is delightful though." 

"Oh of course. She's too cute." Sari said with a squeal. "She's talking now! Have you seen her recently?" 

"Yes!" Dessa clutched the other woman’s arm in delight. “She’s so precious. Bulma brought her into the lab last week and we pretty much got no work done because we were playing with her.”

Cardi wasn’t really a kid person, but she could appreciate an adorable baby as much as the next person. But that still didn’t answer the big question. “But their dad is a ‘monster’?”

Dessa laughed. “I mean, he’s not as bad as that. He’s just . . . unique. . .”

“He has never smashed your work to a thousand pieces, that’s why you say that.” A man getting coffee interjected bitterly. 

“You build those robots to get smashed, Polo.” Jean retorted harshly. 

“Yeah, but he didn’t have to smash it so much , you know?” Polo said, moping. “I work hard on them.”

“If it wasn’t for him, the grav-lab wouldn’t even exist, so I don’t mind him too much.” Dessa said. “He is just a bit. . . intense.”

He worked on the gravity technology? “Is he a scientist too?” She thought she remembered hearing that Bulma was married to an athlete of some kind? 

They all laughed. “Oh no, definitely not.” Jean assured her. 

“I just got an image in my head of Vegeta in a lab coat and it was hilarious.” Dessa said, giggling. 

“Oh. How did he contribute to the grav-lab then?” She was proud of herself for using the lingo, even if she had just apparently said something embarrassing. 

“The grav-lab work originated as Bulma’s personal project to help him out. He’s a martial artist and he likes to work out in high gravity.” Jean explained. 

“She developed cutting edge technology that has numerous applications to help her husband work out?” Cardi was incredulous. 

“I don’t even think they were together back then. So yeah, she did it to get in his pants, that’s my understanding.” Dessa said.

“Dessa! Inappropriate!” Jean looked scandalized. 

“Bulma basically says as much!” Dessa defended herself. 

“Still! Be respectful of your boss!” 

Something occurred to Cardi. “You said he works out at higher gravity? That can’t be healthy. The human body isn’t made to withstand high gravities.”

“Yeah, the human body.” Sari said. 

“Sari! Of course he is human.” Jean said, nodded his head jerkily towards Cardi.

“Oh! Has she not signed all the NDA’s yet?” Dessa asked.

“She has, but still, we want to ease the new hires into that sort of thing.” Jean said, sighing. “You guys never let me go through the proper training. Come on, Cardi, let’s finish your tour.” He ushered her out of the lounge, despite her protestations. 

It was several weeks before Cardi saw Vegeta Briefs in person. Bulma had been in several times, a friendly, bubbly woman who didn’t seem to notice how starstruck Cardi was. She saw the children in passing, Bulla with her mother one time, and Trunks walking suspiciously through the corridors with his spiky haired friend, clearly up to some mischief that was above her paygrade. 

But she had still never seen this allegend ‘monster.’ 

She saw the evidence of him. They frequently performed tests on the large Gravity Room, which apparently doubled as his workout gym. It stunk of sweat and there were occasionally discarded towels and water bottles scattered around the room as they increased the gravity to ridiculous levels. She still couldn’t believe someone could actually survive in that level of gravity. She had seen the pressure crush steel in seconds. What was this guy?

Jean had given her the whole briefing at the end of her first day but she wasn’t sure she believed it. He was an alien? A superpowered alien who could fly and was thousands of times more powerful than any human? It seems a bit far fetched. But the evidence was there.

And the rumors she heard! She followed the chat channel devoted to sighting of him and some of the other ‘cryptids’ and everyone loved to share their stories. She heard about how rude he was, but no one seemed to be all that offended by anything he said. She heard how he punched a hole through the walls, several times. She heard several stories about yelling matches that him and Bulma would get into, and one story, told by a long time employee, about the time they were caught in a compromising position in one of the labs. She heard he didn’t seem to go out much, except when he would disappear for months. 

But she hadn’t gotten a chance to meet him.

She met Bulma’s friend Goku, another ‘cryptid’ that she had been warned about and the father of Trunk’s best friend, before she met Vegeta. He appeared out of nowhere one day and asked if Vegeta was around. She shook her head and he disappeared into thin air. She had to confirm with her coworkers that, yes, that just happened and yeah, he does that. 

When she finally saw Vegeta, her first thought was that he was very short. 

The way people talked about him, she had been expecting this hulking figure, 6 and a half feet tall and made of muscle. Not a man who was barely two inches taller than herself. 

He definitely had the muscle though. That was a lot of muscle. Kind of too much muscle, if she was being honest. 

“Where’s Bulma?” He asked gruffly in her general direction. 

She looked away, not wanting to be the one to talk to this strange, intimidating man.

“Well? Girl, I haven’t seen you before. Where’s Bulma.” She snuck a look up at him and he was glaring directly at her. Looking around the lab quickly, she saw all of her coworkers looking at her expectedly. Fuck, she was supposed to answer.

She pointed towards the test chamber, where Bulma was working with a couple of senior engineers. “She’s doing tests.” Her voice came out a squeak.

He didn’t look at her again as he stomped over to his wife. 

“That was mean!” She hissed at her fellow engineers. 

“Sorry!” Trou, her desk neighbor, apologized. “Gotta haze the new hire.”

She rolled her eyes and joined the other engineers in watching their boss and her husband.

“Hey babe.” Bulma said enthusiastically, popping her head out of the test chamber to greet him.

“Bulma, your son is gone, again. Running off with his stupid little friend again when he is supposed to be training.” Vegeta said, crossing his arms and leaning against the test chamber.

“Just my son is he? I thought he was your heir?” She laughed, mirroring his posture. 

“Not when he acts so irresponsibly.” He responded, sounding almost like he was pouting.

Cardi watched the exchange between the married couple with fascination. It wasn’t often you got to see the casual marital discussion between two such incredibly powerful individuals. If she saw them individually, she would immediately get the impression that they didn’t do casual discussions. They didn’t do ‘mundane’. But they looked comfortable together, like they fit in some strange way. 

“I’m not sure what you want me to do about it.” Bulma said with an amused smile. She apparently thought this was very funny for some reason. 

“Call Kakarot’s wife and tell her to call her boy home. They’ve spent enough time together lately, surely she is sick of it too.” 

“You can call Chichi too, you know. I am busy.” She looked back at the test chamber, where Dessa and the other senior engineer were pretending to still be working. Several faces peeked in through the doorway of the lab. Someone must have alerted the CC Cryptid Watch chat channel.  

He snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t call her. I don’t even know her.”

Bulma rolled her eyes. “I’ll make sure you hang out at our next barbecue.”

“Don’t you dare.” The threat in his voice would have disturbed Cardi if it wasn’t for Bulma’s complete lack of concern. 

“Don’t use me as a go between then. Like I said, I’m busy.” There was a pause, and Bulma sighed. “Oh, alright. I will call her so you can have your precious father-son bonding time. This time!”

“I just want to make sure he trains.” He was definitely pouting now.

“I know, babe.” She patted him on the cheek and he held her hand against him for the briefest of seconds before letting go and turning away. 

“I’ll be in the gravity room. Tell him to meet me there.” Vegeta said as he strode across the lab. Cardi tried not to stare but she could see he had a small smile on his face. 

Okay. She understood now why the whole company was obsessed with him. 

He was just as rude and abrasive as everyone said. But there was something fascinating about the way he did things and him and Bulma made a strangely sweet couple. He was a big jerk, clearly. But she already felt like he was their big jerk. 

She couldn’t wait until her next sighting.

Chapter Text

Cardi had been working for Capsule Corp for 4 months and she was really starting to find her place. It was an ideal work environment and she was thriving. The work was engaging and the people were wonderful. Her and Sari had really bonded, and her team had a dynamic that kept her motivated and entertained at the same time. The Capsule Corp Cryptid watch group was still going strong. She saw Vegeta stomping around with relative regularity and she had even managed to catch a glimpse of the strange purple cat man that sometimes napped on the compound grounds. 

One day, while she was taking a coffee break, a young man carrying a toddler walked into the lounge and she blinked at the familiar face. 

"Son Gohan?" She exclaimed at her old college classmate. 

Gohan looked at her in confusion before recognition dawned. "Cardi? Do you work here?" 

"Yeah! I started a few months ago." She was grinning. Gohan had just been a casual friend in college, a friend of a girl named Erasa who she had dated for a while, but she always liked him and wished they had hung out more. He was just a genuinely nice guy. She only resented him a little bit for dating her childhood celebrity crush. Ever gay girl ever had a little bit of a crush on Videl Satan. 

"Awesome!" He grinned back as the toddler in his arms wiggled. "I've been a bit out of the social loop, between grad school and this one ." 

She laughed, not sure if Gohan had ever been in the social loop. "You get that PhD yet? Do I have to call you Dr. Son?" 

Gohan laughed. "Not yet but I'm working on it!"

"How's Videl doing?" She hesitated, remembering what she had seen on Videl's social media accounts. She had been very frankly discussing her struggles with postpartum depression. The question might be less casual than she intended. "I mean, I follow her so. . ."

"She's good!" Gohan said but his face turned more serious, shifting the toddler in his arms. "She's been doing a lot better. She's really much more like her old self again. She recently started working again! She's starting up a pro bono private detective agency." His eyes were shining with pride for his wife and Cardi smiled. Seeing how much he loved her was really sweet. They were too cute together. 

"That's great! A detective agency, huh? It suits her." 

The toddler squirmed. "Daddy! Where's Bulla?"

"I'm sure she will be here soon. Look, there's her toys." Gohan pointed to Bulla's playpen set up. Cardi always marveled at how child friendly the facilities were, and was impressed by Bulma’s refusal to choose between work and family. She worked hard to extend that balance to her employees, providing free onsite childcare to all staff, which was one of the ways Capsule Corp was leading in gender equality. Cardi didn’t plan on having kids anytime soon, but she appreciated it on principal. 

"Dr. Bulma is off with Bulla but they should be back soon." She said, smiling at the little girls pout. "What's your name?" 

"I'm Pan. I'm three!" She held out three chubby fingers. 

"Hi Pan. I'm Cardi. I'm 26." She waved. 

Pan regarded her with a complete lack of interest. "Daddy, I'm boooored!"

 "Pan. Let Daddy talk for just a little while." He set her down, looking at her with a tender smile.  Fatherhood suited him.

"What are you even doing here?" She asked, grinning as she thought back to college. 

"Playdate with Bulla." He laughed at her surprise. "Bulma's an old friend of my dad. I've known her forever. She practical my aunt." 

Huh, she was pretty sure Gohan said he grew up in the mountains. Maybe he had just been being modest about his family's wealth or something, if he was a family friend of the richest woman in the world. It made his relationship with Videl seem less like the romantic story of a country boy dating the world savior's daughter that she assumed it was. "Aw, man, if I would have known I would have leveraged my connections sooner." 

"Seems like you did okay without me -- Pan! No don't touch that!" Pan had somehow gotten onto the coffee counter and was reaching for the pot. 

Gohan was there to grab her faster than should have been possible. Damn, fatherly instincts really do give you superspeed. 

Gohan pulled a tablet out of his bag and handed it to Pan, sitting her down on one of the cushioned chairs. "Here, why don't you play reading for a little bit, just until Bulla gets here." Cheerful music played as the small girl was transfixed. 

Gohan looked guilty as he turned back to Cardi. "I know screen time is bad, but she's a handful sometimes. We limit it at home. And it's educational!" He assured her. 

"That's right! Cat starts with 'c'!  C-A-T! Cat! Meow!" The tablet declared cheerfully. Pan laughed and meowed back. 

"Hey, no judgement from me." Cardi wasn't about to judge a guy who was getting a PhD while raising a toddler at age 26. Gohan was always such a nervous people pleaser. 

He ran his hands anxiously through his short spiky hair. "So how's Capsule Corp treating you? Working here you probably see my little brother more than I do."

"Your little brother?" She asked, confused. Was he an intern?

"Goten. He hangs around here with Trunks all the time, causing trouble." He explained gesturing his brothers approximate height with his hand. 

Goten? That was Trunks's little partner in crime. Who, as she had witnessed irrefutably the previous month during a very eventful afternoon, was among these superpowered individuals. But, if he was Gohan's brother --

"Gohan." A deep voice from the doorway startled her out of her realization prematurely. 

Vegeta stood in the doorway, smirking. He was dressed for the gym and had clearly just come from the gravity chamber. "Fight me." He demanded.

The idea of anyone, especially sweet awkward nerdy Gohan, fighting Vegeta was laughable. Gohan was weirdly buff, but he wasn't aggressive enough to be a fighter. Cardi supposed if Gohan knew Bulma so well, he must know Vegeta as well. Maybe this was an inside joke between them? Because surely Vegeta didn't actually expect Gohan to fight him.

"Uncle Vegeta!" Pan pushed her tablet away and leapt out of the chair. And kept going. She flew through the air towards Vegeta, clinging to his arm. Vegeta frowned at the small girl, but it lacked malice.

"Uh, not today, Vegeta. I've had a rough week." Gohan nervously rubbed the back of his neck. 

Cardi watched, dumbstruck. Did Gohan's daughter just fly? She had seen a flying baby before, Bulla did it occasionally, but unsteadily. But she was half alien and Vegeta's daughter. Trunks and Goten also flew. And if Goten was Gohan's brother. . . 

"Are you even training her?" Vegeta asked, shaking his arm to try to detach the child. Pan just laughed. 

"I've been teaching her control." Gohan said with the tone of someone who has had this conversation many times. "And I've rather not have this conversation here." He gestured towards Cardi in a way she was sure he thought was subtle. 

Vegeta had finally stopped struggling with Pan and was allowing her to sit on his shoulders. "She works in the labs. She knows about Saiyans." 

"Y-you're one of them!" Cardi said, finally able to speak. 

Gohan sighed. "Yeah, but she didn't know about me." 

Cardi pointed at her casual college friend accusatorial. "You are an alien?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and didn't look at her. "I mean, half alien. My mom's human. But . . . Yeah." 

A realization hit her. "Spiky haired disappearing man!" She had never been clear on his name because there were several names she had heard for him, the most common being "the idiot". 

"Yeah, he's my dad." Gohan looked embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

The existence of superpowered alien wasn't too hard to accept. All one had to do was look at the events of the past 25 years and see how it fit. But that nerdy awkward kid with the weirdly hot girlfriend who she sometimes studied with and went to the same parties? She couldn't quite wrap her head around that. There had been that one time when they were chatting instead of studying and Erasa's pen rolled under a large library bookshelf. Gohan had lifted it slightly to grab it, but she always figured it just wasn't as heavy as it looked. 

"Are we going to fight or not?" Vegeta asked, making his familiar impatient face. A picture had been captured years before of him making a similar face and it was widely used as a reaction image on the chat to indicate frustration with slow processing speeds. 

"I'm doing a play date with Bulla and Bulma." Gohan said, glad to have an excuse. 

"It's Bullas nap time.” Vegeta explained. “Bulma keeps forgetting we switched her to two naps a day and changed the schedule around when she makes plans.” 

“Oh.” Gohan sighed. “We can run through some training for Pan, how about that?” 

Pan cheered and grabbed on to Vegeta’s spiky hair and Vegeta smirked. “Acceptable.” He turned away, headed out of the lounge, clearly expecting Gohan to follow. 

“Cardi, it was great to catch up. You still have my number, right? We should definitely do brunch some time soon!” Gohan said, giving her a quick hug. 

“Oh definitely. I definitely want to catch up .” She was not going to let this be one of those never realized promises to hang out. She had far to many questions for that. 

Gohan made a face but didn’t argue, instead hurrying out of the room after Vegeta. 

As soon as he left, she turned to her fellow coworkers, who were all staring at her. 

“You never told us you went to college with Saiyaman!” Sari accused. 

Cardi looked at Sari like she had grown two heads. Saiyaman was a known Capsule Corp Cryptid, and having lived in Satan City she was aware of the dorky superhero, but everyone knew he was blond. 

But then she remembered the phenomenon of Super Saiyan that she had learned about during Trunks and Goten’s destructive incident. 

Gohan had better prepare for a long brunch.