Chapter 2 - Bra

Bra fidgeted in her chair again, glaring at the sheets haphazardly strung across her desk.

"This is infuriating.." she thought, letting out a half growl, half sigh. She couldn't focus. On anything; much less math. She closed her eyes as she rubbed her forehead with her right hand, her thumb and middle finger running through her finely kept aquamarine eyebrows. Math had never bothered her before; in fact she usually found it quite easy. But it'd been different lately. And it wasn't just math. She had much less patience lately for her brother's antics, her mother's meddling, and her father's relative indifference. Even her friends were getting on her nerves much more frequently lately. She just always felt on edge, ready to jump into a fight at a moment's notice. Sure she wasn't quite the fighter her father or brother were, but that didn't stop them from fearing one of her tantrums, or change the fact that she was pretty much the strongest teenage girl on the planet.

She'd had an inkling why she felt so distracted and angry lately, but the very thought seemed so surreal, so outlandish she'd always dismissed it before. And yet, there it was again. At this moment she wanted nothing more than to be outside watching Goten spar with her brother, his rippling and finely toned body flexing and bending as it engaged in superhuman feats of strength and agility.

"Stop!" She found herself yelling aloud in her empty room, the sound of her own voice snapping her out of the thought. It seemed like there was some sort of deeply internal struggle within her over this and that was the source of her agitation and anxiousness. She shook her head, shaking aside the remnants of her previous thought and pulling herself back into reality. She looked around her room. Normally the dark cool purples and blues, the enormous bed, the finely crafted antique furniture would help put her at ease, but it wasn't working this time. She frowned before running her tongue along her perfectly straight and white teeth. With the exception of a slight chip on one of the teeth in the back of her mouth (a training accident when she was little) she had perfect teeth. She squinted her eyes, staring back to the pages on her large and finely crafted desk. She grudgingly picked up the pencil from the desk, putting it to a blank sheet of paper. She held it there for a moment, her hand shaking slightly.

"Come on Trunks, give me a break!" She heard Goten's voice from outside her window, a sign that they had almost concluded their practicing for the day. She tensed slightly at his voice, but that tension was ample enough to cause the pencil to snap under her grip.

"Fuck… what is wrong with me!" she berated herself. She couldn't believe Goten was getting to her like this; she wouldn't believe it.

"No way Goten. You still owe me half an hour from Monday, and from that "teleportation" crap you pulled earlier." Trunks said accusingly.

"Yea, but.." Goten began, but was interrupted by a low, powerful rumble. His stomach. She heard her brother laugh, and found herself giggling slightly as well. She threw the remnants of her pencil onto her desk, conveying her decision of "screw this homework". She quickly moved to the window, looking into the vast yard below. Goten and Trunks were fairly close to the Capsule Corp. living quarters door, and were standing a few feet apart.

"Geez Goten, get that thing under control before it hurts someone." Trunks said, shaking his head disapprovingly, but a slight smirk evident on his face.

Goten instinctively moved a hand to the back of his head, scratching it slightly. He had his usual grin on.

"Sorry Trunks… you know I can't control it."

Bra noticed that he wasn't wearing his usual orange and blue gi today, but instead had a black tank top and shorts. His tank top was tattered and drenched in sweat, causing it to cling tightly to his well-formed upper body. She shook her head realizing she was staring.

Trunks sighed, with just the slightest hint of irritation in his voice as he realized training was, in fact, over for the day. "yea yea…"

"What are you two numbskulls doing?" Bra asked, casting her voice to them from her window, and letting them know she was watching.

"Oh, hey B-Chan!" Goten said happily, grinning to her with a slight nod. She smiled back. She found herself both annoyed and happy with that nickname at the moment. She liked the nickname to be sure, but it only reinforced the idea in her mind that Goten saw her like a little sister. That was sort of the way their relationship had always been, and up until recently, she thought that's how it always would be.

Trunks dismissed the insult of her question with a wave of his hand before replying. "Well we SHOULD be training some more, but Mr. Slacker here" Trunks squinted slightly, raising an accusing hand, index finger extended towards Goten. "seems to think we're done."

Goten waved his hands in front of himself defensively. "Come on Trunks. We've been fighting for like 3 hours already today."

Bra giggled slightly as she watched him try to get out of her brother's demands.

"2 hours and 48 minutes." Trunks replied with some annoyance, checking the time on his watch. Trunks was always a stickler for details.

"Isn't that enough?" Goten asked, probingly. Though he could already guess the answer Trunks would give.

"No."

"Come on Trunks, give him a little slack." Bra interrupted. "You're becoming more and more like Dad all the time."

Trunks' mouth went slightly ajar as he glared up at his sister. As much as Trunks respected (and feared) his father, he really wasn't too fond of the idea of becoming exactly like him.

".. Fine. Fine. You need to shower anyways Dude, you smell." Trunks took a last jab at Goten before walking towards the capsule corp entrance.

"Yea like you're one to talk, dirtbag. They can probably smell you all the way over in West City." Goten responded, playfully shoving Trunks. As he came closer to the Capsule Corp. entrance, Goten mouthed "Thank You" To Bra, looking up to her from the ground and smiling broadly. She returned the smile and nodded.

Once Goten was out of her sight, she found herself smirking in a somewhat Vegeta-esque manner at having successfully manipulated trunks. Manipulating Trunks was one of Bra's favorite past times; unlike most things, it presented some sort of challenge to the Saiyan Princess. Trunks would frequently dismiss her demands or just straight up say no. Manipulating her father on the other hand, was just too easy. He seemed wholly incapable of saying no to her, and offered very little in way of challenge to act on her every whim. That's not to say Vegeta never said no to her, but he always seemed befuddled and uncertain on the correct approach to raising her (an uncertainty that was painfully absent with regards to Trunks), so he usually simply went along with what she said. He seemed to regard any misbehavior on her part to be his fault, and he had to fix it; after all, to him she was his perfect little princess.

Most boys she knew her age were only too happy to oblige her most of the time. Though she knew the reason why they did was some pathetic attempt to impress her and catch her attention. Yea, like being spineless would really impress her. Girls her age would also generally bow to her whims, hoping to get a hint of the wealth and popularity she enjoyed. She honestly found ordering people around like they were her puppets pretty amusing; she'd have felt guilty if they didn't make it so easy.

Her mother often chastised her for playing people like that, but she was too busy between running the research division at Capsule Corp., researching some "great new way" Vegeta planned to "finally" surpass Goku, and fixing everything Trunks and Vegeta were constantly breaking to really intervene. Bra didn't really mind the fact that her mother was often busy. In fact she liked the privacy it afforded her. She even admired everything her mother had accomplished in spite of being "just human." Bra knew her mother loved her as much as any mother should, and that was usually enough for her. It did annoy her when her mother would occasionally try to jump into her life though, but those attempts were usually cut short by Bra's resistance.

Bra was sitting at the dinner table, playing with her fork as she waited impatiently for dinner to be ready. She slid herself down in her chair slightly. She knew her father would bark at her about proper posture when he saw her like that, but she didn't particularly care right now. As she slid forward, a strand of her deep aquamarine hair loosened and fell over her face. She frowned at it and made to tuck it back behind her ear, but instead found herself playing with it.

"… Am I realllllllly developing nervous ticks again?" she wondered, remembering how as a child she would do this exact same little thing (as well as numerous others) when she was anxious or upset. She was trying to stop herself from fiddling with her hair.

"No way Trunks." Goten spoke as the two approached the kitchen, having changed into more casual clothing from there torn and drenched training clothes. Goten could feel his stomach about ready to let out another earth trembling rumble if he didn't get some food in him soon.

"Yea totally Goten. You don't believe me?"

"No Trunks. I really don't." Goten said, laughing and shaking his head at Trunks. As he entered the room he saw Bra quickly pull herself up straight in her chair and turn away from him and Trunks. Goten could have sworn he saw a slight blush on her face. Thinking about it caused him to feel a slight rise in heat in his cheeks. He quickly moved away from Trunks, taking a seat across the table from Bra, not wishing for Trunks to see his blush. He knew Trunks likely wouldn't have made the connection between her blush and his own, but he learned long ago not to underestimate Trunks' intelligence. He sighed slightly in relief as Trunks took a seat beside him before trying to resume the previous conversation.

A few moments later the three young saiyans were joined by Bulma, Vegeta and several mountains of food. Goten watched with some amusement as Bra devoured the sizable mound of food on her plate as he tuned out the rest of the dinner table conversation. No other girl could ever hope to compete with her appetite, except perhaps his niece pan. But Pan was more a tomboy while Bra was much more feminine. Long well-kept hair, nearly trimmed eye brows, perfectly manicured nails – albeit shorter than other girls he'd seen. He guessed that they were shorter than normal for those few occasional times when she did train; no one would want to train with her if she had what were essentially claws on her fingers. That made him wonder how exactly she did keep her nails so neatly trimmed. The only way he could keep his nails short was by picking them or occasional training accidents. Whenever he tried to use nail clippers, they would simply crumple under his attempts. He wondered if she did them herself.

As he was watching her intently, she looked up at him. He tensed slightly at what her reaction would be, feeling like a kid who'd been caught doing something bad. She squinted slightly, looking somewhat mischievous before she smiled at him. He smiled back before he heard his name spoken.

"So Goten, Trunks, how was school?" Bulma asked pleasantly.

"It was pretty good mom, bit boring though." Trunks replied "But we're almost done Goten, 3 more weeks and we'll be done Undergrad." Trunks raised his hand, closed into a fist towards Goten. Goten quickly returned the gestures, knuckle bumping Trunks. He returned to his food, avoiding Bra's eyes, lest he be caught looking at her by someone besides her.

Vegeta grunted before speaking for the first time. "Then maybe you two will stop slacking on your training."

"Vegeta!" Bulma scolded him, frowning slightly at her husband and looking at him disapprovingly.

"What?" Vegeta said forcefully, indicating that he had, in fact, been completely serious. "They should be spending their time living up to their Saiyan heritage, their deep physical potential. If you ask me, all they need to know is on the battlefield, not in some book or in some pathetic human's idea of a classroom."

Bra decided this was a good opportunity to not only defend Goten, but to also show that she wasn't afraid to poke fun at her father. She was probably the only person on the planet who wasn't.

"Well, it's a good thing no one was asking you then, isn't it daddy?" Bra spoke as-a-matter-a-factedly, inflecting her voice towards the end of her sentence and purposely smirking in the most Vegeta-esque manner she could manage. She held that smirk for a moment, before she began giggling.

Trunks choked on the piece of bread he'd been chewing a moment earlier. He half expected his dad to just straight up slap his sister through the house or something. That's likely what he would have gotten if he'd said that and started laughing at his father. But the other half of him knew better. His dad couldn't seem to say or do anything against his sister, even if he knew she was manipulating him (which he usually did) or was laughing at him. This infuriated Trunks to no end. He wished he had that kind of freedom. Trunks looked to his left to see Goten was smiling across the table to Bra, trying to restrain a laugh. If Trunks hadn't then looked to his father, and seen the slight flush of red on Vegeta's face, indicating his desperate attempt to restrain his anger, Trunks probably would have laughed too.

Vegeta seemed to have had enough of the family dinner, and angrily stood up from the table, nearly knocking his chair at the head of the table to the ground. He grabbed his plate, mumbling something about his pride and destroying the planet before he left the table, leaving the remaining 4 in silence. Once they were reasonably sure he was out of ear shot, they all nearly burst out laughing.

"Dad really needs to learn to relax sometimes." Trunks said.

"Yea mom, maybe you should "help" him with that more often" Bra added, air quoting the word help, laughing slightly harder than before at her own antics.

"Bra!" Trunks and Bulma both said in unision. Trunks voice had been filled mostly with disgust, while Bulma's had a distinct tone of amusement, followed by a restrained laugh.

There were a few moments of silent, content eating before Goten began talking again. Goten had a problem with silences, and so frequently felt compelled to fill the silence with something. Conversation seemed the appropriate option at the moment.

"So Trunks man, we need to plan something big for graduation."

"Yea no kidding Goten. After our birthday party, people seem to have pretty high expectations of us." Trunks said, briefly remembering the insanity and mess that had occurred at his and Goten's combined party last summer. Their birthdays were nearly a month apart, but they decided to host one party together at one of Capsule Corp.'s complexes.

"That's okay right mom?"

"Of course boys – try not to trash the place too badly this time though, alright?" Bulma said with a slight tad of annoyance and amusement.

"Well, I'll try my best. I can't speak for mister alcoholic over here." Trunks said gesturing to Goten.

"What? Hey! Come on Trunks. That was the first time I'd ever drank enough to be drunk. It's not my fault I put a couple holes in the wall by accident."

"Yea yea, a couple holes huh Goten? You're lucky people were too drunk to remember what you did. Bra, you'll help me keep him under control this time right?"

"I'll try." Bra grinned, remembering Goten ripping his shirt halfway off (what a nice memory that was right now) and running through a wall at the party. She'd been shocked he hadn't gone full out super saiyan and completely destroyed the place. He hadn't been malicious about the destruction he'd caused; he'd just been far too excitable, with far too little common sense while drunk. Kinda like how he was in the stories her brother used to tell her. She and Trunks hadn't been completely sober at the party, that was true, but they also hadn't been the ones who put Saiyan-sized holes in the walls.

"I really am proud of you boys you know that." Bulma smiled to her two boys. True Goten wasn't really "her" boy, but she'd known him since he was just a baby, and probably saw as much or more of him then his mother did. He really was like a second son. Seeing him always brought back fond memories, not only of happy family times, but also of her past history with Goku. Besides the hair, Goten had been and still was the spitting image of his father. "On that note, Goten, I wanted to ask if you had any plans once school is over?"

Goten seemed quite caught off guard by the question, choking on the rice he had previously been shoveling into his mouth.

"Mom!" Bra yelled disapprovingly. She'd actually asked Goten a similar question a few weeks ago, and it seemed to upset him a bit.

"It's just a question hunny." Bulma said, casually dismissing her daughter's protest to that question.

"It's okay." Goten said after having safely gotten the food down. "Honestly I have no idea what I'm doing after graduation Bulma."

"Hmm well I ask because we have a number of positions at Capsule Corp. that we need to fill."

Goten smiled appreciatively but shook his head. "That's super generous of you Bulma… but I wouldn't feel right with a job I only got as a personal favor."

"Oh come now Goten. I know you're plenty smart enough to get one of these positions with or without my help. If anything you'd actually be doing me a favor. But if you'd prefer to go through the bureaucratic bullshit, that'd be fine too." She said with a wink to Goten.

"Plus you'd get to spend more time around here." Bra said, causing both Goten and Trunks to look at her quizzically. "With Trunks and that…" She added quickly, trying to avert their looks.

Goten looked back to Bulma after a moment, "Well to be honest, I was thinking about becoming a teacher – like my brother."

"Hm that's a respectable choice as well. But just know the Capsule Corp option will always be open." She sighed slightly. "It's not going to be an easy adjustment once my dad retires."

"When is Gramps stepping down anyways mom?"

"Well he had one last project he wanted to work on before he called it quits. As usual he's being pretty secretive about it." She smiled slightly. This type of behavior was typical on her father's part. He was always good at keeping things secret.

"Wait, so he's doing the entire thing by himself?" Goten asked, slightly shocked.

"Well of course." Bulma replied. "My dad always works up the prototypes of his ideas by himself before passing them off to the engineering teams." She sighed tiredly. "I have a hard enough time with the research and trying to keep up with Vegeta's special projects; I can't imagine doing CEO duties like my dad too. But enough about that. What are you kids up to tonight?"

Bra glared at her mother. "We're not kids mom."

Bulma merely laughed. "Right, right of course, my mistake. What are you young adults up to tonight?" Bulma said sarcastically, winking at her daughter. Bra just angrily sighed in frustration at her mother, dropping her fork onto her plate with a clang.

Trunks snickered slightly. It was funny watching how upset his sister became by any implication she wasn't an adult. Bra's hate filled glare quickly switched to him, and he coughed slightly as he stopped laughing. That glare, the flare in her eyes reminded him way to much of the anger he sometimes saw in his father's eyes for him to keep laughing.

"Anyways," he began, after recovering from his sister's stare. "I have a thing at 7:30."

He saw his sister's glare turn into a smirk, and saw the ever so come look of mischief in her eyes.

"What's her name Trunks?" Bra asked leadingly, really hoping to get under his skin.

"Ughhh… " he thought, mentally cursing his sister before he managed to blurt out a rather unconvincing lie. "Nothing."

"Nothing huh? That's an unusual name." Bra continued, daunting over her brother. She could see him squirming slightly.

"No, I mean… there is no girl." Trunks tried again.

Bra shook her head, her smirk widening before she spoke "You know you're a terrible liar Trunks." Well that wasn't entirely true. Trunks was actually a pretty good liar, but his sister and father always seemed to see straight through him.

Trunks looked to his mother, who was looking at him quizzically, no doubt just waiting to ask half a million questions. He looked to his left to see Goten, trying to restrain some dumb little giggle. Trunks rolled his eyes at Goten "Thanks a lot Goten." he thought before sighing. He realized his sister had him nailed, and the easiest way to throw her off now would just be to admit to it and offer up information before she had a chance to ask. He'd be sure and get her back for this.

"Okay okay. Her name is Kendra, and before you ask, yes I met her at school, she's studying philosophy, this is our first date, and no you don't get to meet her yet."

He saw Bra furrow her brow at him, no doubt annoyed that he had spoiled her fun. At least that was a bit of consolation.

"Geez Trunks, you act like we were going to give you the third degree." His mother said feigning insult.

"Are you saying you weren't?" Trunks quickly fired back.

"Well…"

"Yea. That's what I thought." Trunks said before he heard a stifled laugh finally escaping Goten. A quick glare from Trunks quickly put a stop to that. "Can we just drop it?"

"Okay, okay. Sorry Trunks." Bulma replied. "Have a nice time with your girlfriend."

Trunks half-growled, half-groaned in frustration. "She's not my girlfriend!"

Bra burst into a fit of giggles across the table causing Trunks to fiercely starred at her. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"You are, Trunks." She continued giggling at him.

Trunks clenched his fist tightly, trying to restrain himself. He eyed his fork sitting on his plate, and in a lightning quick motion he threw his fork at his sister. She dodged it of course, and only started laughing at him harder.

"A fork Trunks? Really? You could at least throw a ki blast at me or something. I'm insulted."

Trunks raised a hand towards Bra, contemplating obliging her. That smart ass look she was still giving him and her continued laughing weren't helping to change his mind.

"Enough you two!" Bulma said forcefully. Trunks lowered his hand, sighing irritably at his sister as her giggling began to slow.

"Let's go Goten." Trunks said standing up from the table.

"But Trunks!" Goten said incredulously, motioning towards the still ample amount of food on his plate. "I'm still eating!"

"Fine!" Trunks replied angrily, walking away from the table.

"Wait, Trunks, I'm still coming back here later right?" Goten said, quickly changing his tone to an apologetic one.

"Yea yea.." Trunks replied, his tone having softened before he left the room. He needed to get ready for his date anyways.

"Ohhh so you have a date too huh Goten?" Bra asked, forcing a sly tone into her voice and a smile onto her face. Why was she upset about hearing that?

"Yea.." Goten said, blushing. He was slightly dumbfounded at how easily Bra seemed to be able to put stuff together. "With Valese."

"Oh." Bra replied flatly. Try as she might, she couldn't force a happy expression or tone about hearing that. She'd only met Valese once or twice, but that had been ample enough to decide she didn't like her. After the problems she heard they were having, she had hoped Goten would finally drop her.

"Yea.." Goten said, feeling himself blush deeper. He wanted to get the attention off himself.

"But what about you? What are you doing tonight B-Chan?"

"Studying." Bra replied, rolling her eyes to convey her displeasure with this fact.

"Lucky you!" Goten replied sarcastically.

"Oh yea. Lucky me." Bra replied, even more sarcastically, but finding herself smiling at Goten.