Author's Note: this was for a Fic swap and is totally finished on my Ao3, but I will be spacing out the chapter updated on this site by a few days. Also, while there is time traveling shenanigans and we see Goten at all ages, there is not going to be any weird underage stuff happening- so have no fear. Thank you to those of you who read it!

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Rain hit metal, and the resulting steam hissed in outrage as it fled the site of the collision. Trunks all but destroyed the button that released the hatch above his head and tore out of his overheated machine like a bat out of Hell.

A few tongues of flame persisted in devouring the machine's propulsion devices despite the rain, and Trunks ripped off his denim jacket and began to frantically beat back the conflagration. A string of curses a mile long ran out of his mouth until, finally, his temper flared and release in a gust of clumsy, unwieldy wind that not only snuffed out the fire, but sent the machine onto its side and backwards into the dirt. Trunks scurried forward to right the overturned machine, but hissed in hesitation as he burned his hand on the steaming metal.

"Augh!" he cried, nursing his hand and glaring at his machine. "Stupid thing! Don't give me this kind of grief for something as simple as a test run!" Trunks spread his fingers wide and let the cold rain wash over his burn. Beside him, his machine sat, still on its side, and continued to release generous portions of both white steam and ugly brown smoke. "Shit!" He looked at the rain bombarding him from above and rested his undamaged hand on his hip. "Dammit, dammit. If I ever get back home, I am never letting mom use me to test any modifications she makes to this thing ever again," he muttered.

The machine answered with a crackling pop and a bright spark aimed for Trunks' bare arm.

He yelped in pain on contact, and then and took a few moments to release his entire, uncensored opinion about the situation to the heavens above and the wooded mountain under his feet in the loudest voice he could conjure up.

Trunks finished his tirade with a deep breath, and ran one hand down his face before coating himself in a protective barrier of his own energy. Then, he finally succeeded in pulling his egg-shaped time machine to its four metal feet.

"Hey," a child's voice interrupted, "You're gonna get it wet inside."

Trunks jumped and bumped into his machine with enough force to knock it back down. "Who-?" He whirled around and panned his head back and forth until he finally looked down.

At his feet was a small boy of about seven or eight. He wore a bright orange raincoat over his unruly mess of black hair and big, dark eyes. "You gotta close the door on top first, or water'll get in there and do bad stuff." He pointed to the open hatch where Trunks had exited the machine.

"I, uh," Trunks cleared his throat. "Thanks, but I'm, uh, I'm a little more concerned with the fire coming out of the engine than I am about a little water, kid." He grabbed the machine again. "Don't stand so close. This thing is still hot."

The little boy moved as Trunks hoisted his time machine upright once again, but then quickly jumped into the air and pulled the hatch closed with his bare hands before easing back down to the ground.

"Kid!" Trunks shouted, lifting himself into the air and hanging there like dandelion fluff riding on the breeze, "What are you doing?!"

"You always get mad whenever water gets on your stuff," the boy said, "and when you get mad, you do things that make you even madder later."

"I what, now?"

"Well, the other you does. See, once, I splashed one of his new electro-whatchacallit cars and it sparked and blew up kinda like your big thingy here did, and he pitched a fit just like you did a second ago."

"The other-?" Trunks' eyes widened, and he turned red. "You heard me, just now?"

The little boy nodded. "Yeah. That's how I knew who you were, because you don't just look like Trunks, but you get mad the same way, too. Your ki moves like his does. It's all contained and messy, and then it just goes everywhere when you get tired of holding it in. Uncle Vegeta's does that, too, kinda, when he gets frustrated."

Trunks peered down at the boy. "Uncle Vegeta? Kid, who are you?"

The rain splattered on the ground in a progressively more aggressive beat around them. The trees of the woods around them shuddered when a gust of wind pushed at their branches and slanted the water into them.

The boy shuffled his feet and then screwed his mouth into a frown. "Mom says it's not polite to ask for somebody's name before giving out your own." He shrugged and adjusted his raincoat. "And I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers, even if they're not really strangers and I've met them before."

"Oh. Um, I'm sorry. My name is Trunks, too, like your friend. I'm, um, a time traveller. That big metal thing is my time machine."

The child's face lit up. "I knew it! So you really are a guy who came from the future like Gohan said!" His pearly white teeth peeked out from behind his lips, and his eyes gleamed even brighter than the sun fighting to peek down at them both through the clouds. "That's so cool! I'll bet you've seen all kinds of stuff! Oh! Oh! What's future me like? Is he as cool as you? Does he get a sword, too?"

Trunks spread out his palms as if to hold back to the excited child in front of him. "I don't, um, know? I don't know who you are?"

The boy shed his hood and a mop of wild black hair sprang forth in all directions around his head. Not even the water pelting them both from above could force it back down. "I'm Gohan's little brother, Son Goten!" he exclaimed, pointing at his own face. "Do I look familiar now? Do I? Do I? Huh?"

Trunks took in the child, his expression pensive, and then, slowly, his face bloomed into open disbelief. "I can't believe it didn't hit me earlier. You really do look just like your father," he said.

"Yeah, that's what everybody says. Does future me not, even as a kid? Oh! Was he born with cool hair, like, it's a crazy color, or something?"

"Son Goku has two sons in this time. That's," Trunks breathed. "Gohan has a little brother now. That's amazing." He broke out into a grin. "That's so amazing!"

Goten cocked his head. "Why? What's so amazing about that? Wasn't there a me with you in the future?" His cheeks puffed up as he frowned. "I mean, there was, wasn't there? There had to be! Where there's a you, there's gotta be a me!" He reached out and grabbed Trunks' pant leg. "That's the way it is, isn't it?"

Trunks looked down at the small hands holding his clothing captive. "Well, um, every timeline is different, so the things that happen in this one don't necessarily carry over to mine. I've never met a Son Goten from my time." He gauged the child's expression. "But, you know, maybe there is one! I suppose it's possible for him to be somewhere in the world! Maybe I just haven't come across him yet, you know?"

Goten's wide, round face pressed upwards as his brows scrunched together and made furrows between them.

Trunks's rigid smile wavered, and then cracked.

"I don't like it when you try and lie to me," Goten said. "That's not very nice." He pulled his hood back over his head and jammed his hands into his pockets. "I hate it when you treat me like just a little kid." The mud made a sucking noise as it pulled at Goten's galoshes with each step he took away from Trunks and deeper into the misty woods beyond.

"Uhm, Go…ken, kan, to, uh, nine?" His mouth searched for the child's name. "Um. K-kid! Kid! Wait!" Trunks called after him. "I didn't mean to make you mad. I just didn't want to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry."

Goten halted his footsteps.

"I only ever met your dad and your brother in this timeline, and in mine, there was only your brother, Gohan." Trunks moved a few wet locks of hair out of his eyes, and pulled his jacket off his back and over his head like a canopy.

"Really?"

"Really." Trunks abandoned his machine and made his way towards the boy. "They're all pretty amazing guys. I'm sure you're just like them."

Goten splashed in the sludge of the earth at his feet as he turned around again. His eyes, narrow and glinting, sought out Trunks from beneath the lip of his hood. "My name's Goten. Go as in wisdom and ten as in the heavens. Go Ten. Goten. I'm not my brother, and I'm not my dad. And you should know that better than anybody."

"Oh! N-no, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't your own person, I just thought that, um." Trunks watched his footprints in the mud slowly fill with water. "I would be proud to have a family like them, and I just figured you would, too."

Goten's guarded frown broke into a smile. "Well, you're right about that much. My brother's the greatest, and my dad is the strongest guy in the whole universe!" he said.

"Yes," Trunks said, smiling back. "That's certainly true."

Goten peered back up at the older boy. "Woah. You really are different than my Trunks," he said.

"Hm?"

"Yeah. Trunks never woulda said that my dad was the strongest."

"Oh? Who does he think is the strongest?"

Goten grinned. "His dad, of course."

Trunks cast his eyes to the ground and bit down on his lower lip with a chuckle. "I see!"

"And uncle Vegeta is pretty strong and cool, but Gohan says that our dad's the best. And it's gotta be true if Gohan says so. Besides," he added, "My dad is the one who finished off Majinn Buu, so that proves it."

"Do you two fight about stuff like this a lot?" Trunks asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. We fight about all sorts of stuff. It's fun. But it doesn't matter, really. I know what Trunks is really thinkin'. He just wants to show how much he loves his dad. It's not that important if he's really stronger than mine or not. He just makes it into a big deal to make me mad, and because he thinks it's like something he needs to prove no matter what."

Trunks tilted his head. "Huh. Is that right?"

"It kinda gets on my nerves, sometimes, though, that he says a buncha stuff but he's thinking something else. But I always know, though. It would be weird if I didn't." Goten turned to gaze at Trunks, intent written all over his face. "I wonder if I can know what you're thinking, too, since you don't have your own Goten to do it, after all."

Trunks looked back down at the boy. Goten's bright eyes pierced through the water's grey haze and the stormy air pulled at his clothing, but he paid it no mind as he focused on nothing but Trunks.

And then he sneezed.

"Oh! Bless you," Trunks said.

Goten snorted. "Maybe not."

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the sky drew a thicker curtain of white water over the horizon. It engulfed the top of the mountain and cascaded downward, towards Trunks and Goten both.

"It's gonna get really stormy, and I'm cold. I'm gonna go home before mom and Gohan get worried," Goten said. "You gotta go back and pilot your time machine thingy so you can get home, too, right?"

Trunks eyed the wall of water crawling towards them. "That would be nice, but I don't know if my machine is operational anymore. It was overheating, and I don't-"

"It'll be fine," Goten interrupted him. "The rain cooled it off."

"I don't think it's that simple," Trunks said. "See, when something overheats, usually that means that some part of it is working too hard, and then, when it breaks because of the heat, it doesn't-"

"'Scuse me, but, um. I don't wanna stand out here in the cold anymore," Goten interrupted. "And you're the one who told me to tell you to get back in it before it started to storm the next time I saw you. You said it would take you where you needed to go next even though you thought it was broken."

"What?" Trunks said. "When did I say that?"

Goten shrugged. "I dunno. Two weeks ago? I think. I can't remember, exactly. I lost count. But the first time we met."

Trunks blinked. "We've met before? But you got upset that I never told you my name. How can that be?"

"You didn't say much, you just told me to tell you that thing I just told you about the machine and the overheating, and that it was important. So I came out here to find you and tell you."

"Huh?"

Goten pointed at the time machine. "You should really go now, unless you wanna get really wet." He bowed, and then disappeared in the woods. "See you later!"

"W- wait, Goten!" Trunks cried. "Are you sure that I didn't-!" The raindrops increased their numbers and pelted Trunks in warning of what was to come. He pursed his lips, glared at the whole situation, and then raced for the cover of his time machine.