Work Text:
Stitches:
Bulma finished sewing the last stitches of the tiny blue suit she made per her three-year-old’s request.
Vegeta had insisted that Trunks was old enough to train. Sure, she knew this day would come, but she still felt uneasy about it.
“Just promise me you won’t use the gravity or the drones,” she insisted when he told her he would be training him in the gravity room.
“I don’t intend to,” he promised. “Not the first day, at least.”
“You’d better be joking.”
“Do you hear my laughing?”
“I’m serious, Vegeta,” she scolded, hands on her hips. “He’s just a baby.”
“You coddle him too much, woman,” he told her. “He’s a Saiyan and will be trained like one.”
Easel:
Trunks slipped into his new training suit and joined his parents downstairs. “I’m ready, daddy!”
“Go to the G.R. and wait for me,” his father ordered, to which the boy gleefully complied.
“Just be careful, okay?” Bulma stressed.
“A Saiyan doesn’t learn to fight by being careful,” Vegeta insisted, but Bulma’s expression told him her boy had better come out in one piece.
“I have a regime appropriate for his age. The boy will be fine.”
As she watched him leave for the G.R. Bulma thought of how differently her life had become from the picture she’d painted in her mind.
Pins and Needles:
Bulma went straight to her lab to get some work done, but she couldn’t help but be preoccupied with what could be going on in the training room.
Vegeta did promise to not use the gravity controls or the drones, but she couldn’t help but be on pins and needles over this.
Sure, Trunks was stronger than other kids his age. He did have his father’s Saiyan genes. She just had to remind herself that he was capable of handling whatever his father dished out.
Perfectly capable.
Stuck Like Glue:
“This is boring!” Trunks whined after an hour of katas. “When are we gonna fight?”
“Patience, boy,” Vegeta replied as he went into another pose, Trunk following. “These exercises warm up the muscles and help you stay focused.”
“But I wanna fight, daddy.”
“We’ll get there, son,” Vegeta assured. “Just stick with me and soon you’ll be one of the best fighters on the planet.”
“But I wanna fight, now!” Trunks demanded, no longer doing his katas.
“Do you want to get seriously injured? You want to die on the battlefield before you’re old enough to drive?”
“Uh,” he mumbled, backing down, “well, no.”
“Then, follow my instructions exactly or you will.”
The boy groaned. “Okay, dad.”
Dream Weaver:
Thank merciful Kami for spy cameras.
Bulma initially didn’t want to check on them, afraid Vegeta will think she didn’t trust him, but she couldn’t help herself. She let out a sigh of relief, seeing that they were only doing katas at the moment.
Vegeta was a skilled fighter. He knew what he was doing. She simply had to accept the fact that her son was not 100% human, that her dreams of a simple family life were not meant to be.
She married an alien warrior. He was the father of her little boy.
What else did she expect?
Palette:
“Okay, boy,” Vegeta said once they had finally finished katas. “I’m going to test your hand-eye coordination. I want you to punch me and I’ll block it.”
Vegeta crouched to his son’s eye level, holding his palms out to him. “Okay, boy, go for it.”
And he did, his father blocking each punch. “Hold your thumbs next to your knuckles,” he instructed, “not inside your fingers.” Trunks followed his directions as he continued to throw punches into his father’s palms.
“Okay, that’s good,” Vegeta said before standing. “Now, try to hit me.”
The boy lunged up to his father’s face, striking a blow that left a small splattering of blood on the floor like a paint palette.
Unravel:
Trunks covered his face in embarrassment… and terror.
“I’m… I’m sorry, daddy. I should’ve waited until you were ready.”
Vegeta grunted as he wiped the blood from his nose. “And you think your enemies will wait until you’re ready before they strike?”
“You’re… you’re not mad?” Trunks puzzled.
“Of course I’m mad,” Vegeta spat. “Now, let’s try again.”
“Are… are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. You’re in here to train, and part of that training is to take no pity on your enemies. So, don’t get unraveled on me, boy.”
Trunks posed, ready to launch another blow.
Thimble:
Vegeta lead Trunks through some simple self defense techniques, teaching him certain points of the body he could hit to disable his opponent and ways to dodge attacks.
They spared in short bursts, Vegeta stopping them periodically to correct his son’s mistakes.
“I know what I’m doing, daddy,” Trunks insisted.
“Of course you do,” Vegeta mocked, “If you want to bruise you pride, or lose your life.”
Trunks groaned but went right back into position before he and his father continued sparing.
By the end of their session, not even a thimble of blood was shed.
Button Up:
After two hours of sparing exercises, it was time to button up their session and stop for lunch. Vegeta had removed his shirt before they’d finished, and both were tired, sweaty and very hungry. It didn’t seem to dampen Trunks’ mood, though. He smiled and giggled as they crossed the lawn to their home.
Bulma would still be in her lab, but thankfully her mom was there making sandwiches for them, per Bulma’s request.
“So, how was your training, sweetie?” she asked with her usual chipperness.
“It was fun,” Trunks enthused, “once we actually started fighting.”
Panchi gasped. “Oh, my!”
“He means our sparing exercises,” Vegeta clarified.
Paper Thin:
Later that night, dinner eaten and Trunks tucked safely in bed, Bulma and Vegeta sat on their couch in front of the T.V. talking about their day.
Vegeta had expected his wife to still be wound up over their son’s first day of training, but she seemed surprisingly relaxed.
“You spied on us, didn’t you?” he accused, though not angry.
“Who,” she said with mock innocence. “Me?”
“Never mind,” he said with an eye-role.
“Oh, by the way, I want to show you something,” she said as she picked up a photo album from off the end table. She opened it to the desired page and showed it to him.
There on the pink page was a paper thin photo print of him and Trunks crossing the lawn. There was a caption scrolled underneath: Trunks 3 years old. First gravity room training with daddy.
Here's the beautiful artwork by GRSL that inspired this fic. <3
