Chapter Text
“I’ve always wondered, would a fused person be fed with a meal for one, or do they need to eat twice as much?” Bulma poses the question to the only two people in the universe who knows what it’s like to be married to a Saiyan.
‘Actually, didn’t Vegeta mention he had a brother who survived? Maybe he got married at some point…’
Chi-chi gives her a blank stare while Videl actually seems to consider the question. She sets her teacup down and puts her hand on her chin, “Well, even though they’re fused, they still only have one stomach. So I’d guess they’d only be eating for one!”
“Oh, honey. You haven’t been married to a Saiyan long enough.” Chi-chi gives an exasperated sigh. “I swear. All of those boys have five stomachs each . And that’s not even when they’re hungry !”
“Ah, not just boys! Bulla’s been going through her formula like crazy.” The infant in question gurgles in response while being comfortably cozy on her mother’s lap. She slams her rattle a few times against the countertop, causing the table to shake. Bulma firmly takes the rattle out of her hand and gives her a small plush toy instead. “Hey now, I didn’t make you an indestructible rattle only for you to go and destroy other things with it.”
Bulla gurgles again in response and starts nibbling on the plushie’s ear. The toy was a gift from Dende, made in the Namekian’s likeness. The pointy ears are apparently Bulla’s favorite part.
Chi-chi sighs fondly. “I’m so glad you two had girls! There’s way too much testosterone with these Saiyans. I love my boys but it’s way too much sometimes.”
Videl giggles as she glances over at Pan sleeping soundly in her bassinet. “I dunno… looking at those Universe 6 women, we might have our hands full just as much!”
“Well, Caulifla’s a delinquent with or without the blonde hair! Bulla and Pan better turn out more like Kale! Calm and level-headed women are what we need more of!” Chi-chi huffs and crosses her arms.
Bulma considers that. ‘I guess she doesn’t know about what Vegeta told me on the topic of Kale… Legendary Super Saiyan… or something to that effect.’ She glances at Videl who seems to have the same thought with a quirked eyebrow directed at Chi-chi.
Bulla makes a grabby hand motion over towards her playpen. Bulma walks over and deposits the young Saiyan and leaves her to her own devices.
“Ah, speaking of Kale and Caulifla! They’ve fused too, actually! Gahh, I wish I could just meet one of these fusions, just once!” Bulma runs a hand through her hair in frustration.
“But why? What’s so interesting about them?” Chi-chi cocks her head to the side.
Bulma gasps dramatically. “Are you kidding?! Two people literally fusing into one being? How is that not interesting?”
“Well, I kinda see Chi-chi’s point. I mean, we deal with angels and gods and our husbands are literal aliens originating from space. Two people becoming one isn’t that interesting in the grand scheme of things.”
“No, no, no, I want to see them from a biologist’s perspective! I want to take a deep dive into their genetic makeup. What do their genomes look like?” Bulma’s expression changes into something that’s a bit too excited for thinking about her husband fusing with her childhood best friend. “Like for Vegito. What does his genetic makeup look like? Did he inherit 23 chromosomes each from Vegeta and Goku like a normal baby would from their mother and father? How does his genetic makeup compare to Gogeta’s? Biologically, are they considered brothers? Twins? The same person?”
As Chi-chi gives a long-suffering sigh, Videl seems to perk up a bit at these questions, seemingly genuinely interested. Chi-chi groans, “Argh, not you too!!”
“Ahh, sorry Chi-chi, but it got me thinking… What would the fusion be like psychologically?” Videl idly stirs her tea. “I took a psychology class in college once. Having two consciousnesses, having two sets of memories… wouldn’t that be a classic case of DID? I mean, Goku and Vegeta’s personalities are total opposites, so a perfect blend isn’t exactly possible.”
“They’re more similar than you think, though!” Bulma’s eyes sparkle with someone indulging her.
“Oh boy, you’ve set her off.” Chi-chi stands up. “Welp, it’s been fun–”
“Oh, no, no,” Bulma whipped her head around and pinned Chi-chi with her stare, “you’re staying. You have valuable input into this conversation! I’ll even give you some desert to take home with you if you stay a while longer!”
“So you’re resorting to bribes now?”
Bulma gave a wicked grin. “No, I just know how to win. I saw you grabbing those tiramisu cups at the last party. I have more of those…” she finished in a sing-song voice.
“Bulma, you have world-class chefs catering your every party, it’s no wonder that I’d…” the tiramisu cups flashed through her mind, “Argh, fine! But know that I don’t want to be here!”
“Oh that’s definitely a lie, you sure you haven’t thought about our husbands fusing before…?” Bulma arched her eyebrow and gave a knowing smirk.
“You– I– What are you implying?!” Chi-chi’s face reddened considerably.
Like a switch, Bulma’s face shifted to the picture of innocence, “Oh nothing, but I’m glad you stayed…”
“I–” Chi-chi sputtered and gave a valiant effort into making a coherent sentence but gave up. “With you and Vegeta as their parents, I have no idea how Trunks and Bulla will grow into well-adjusted adults…”
Bulma ignores the lighthearted jab at her and Vegeta. “Anyway, back to Videl’s point! It’s true that Vegeta and Goku aren’t super similar, but they’re like-minded when it counts! Especially when it comes to fighting…” Bulma thinks back to Zamasu, where her husband’s strategic mind blended perfectly with Goku’s creativity and almost beat the false god if it weren’t for that damn power limit or whatever! “But the real question is, how would Vegito react in a situation where Goku and Vegeta would do totally opposite things?” Bulma abruptly stands up and leaves the room quickly.
Chi-chi and Videl look at each other and shrug.
She returns before either of them really question it and starts wheeling out a whiteboard. “Figured it’d be easier to take notes like this!”
“What’s even the point of all this?” Chi-chi rests her hand on her chin as she turns and faces the whiteboard, resigning herself to her companion’s shenanigans.
“Hush, you! I think better like this!” Bulma clears her throat and makes a chart with four columns and a couple of rows. She titles the columns “Situation,” “Goku,” “Vegeta,” and “Vegito.”
“Okay, let’s say they’re at a party!” She inscribes “party” in the situation column. “What’s the first thing Goku would do at a party– ah, besides make a beeline for the food.”
Chi-chi closes her mouth at Bulma’s self-interjection. “Well, he’d go to his friends. Catch up. He’s quite the social butterfly, he can make friends with just about anyone.”
“Definitely.” Bulma writes “Social butterfly” under Goku’s column. “He could make friends with a rock if he wanted to. Vegeta, on the other hand, is a dumb antisocial loner. Honestly, he dodges social interaction better than he dodges attacks from enemies sometimes. He’s gotten better at it, but he’s still at the way other end of the spectrum compared to Goku.”
As she writes “Antisocial” under Vegeta’s column, Videl thinks out loud. “Total opposites, huh? Well, wouldn’t a fusion of them be somewhat in the middle then? Maybe someone who talks to a few people they’re close with, but otherwise reserved?”
“Maybe. But I also think it could be a little more nuanced than that.” She taps the flat end of the marker on her chin. “I think that a lot of Vegeta’s personality… ‘quirks’ can be explained with his experiences from childhood to adulthood. You’ve learned about CPTSD, right Videl?”
Videl frowned, but nodded slowly.
“Well I think his ability to talk to and make connections with others can be partially attributed to that. Same thing with Goku’s head injury! I think part of his memory trouble could be a result of severe head trauma as a child. So the question is, how far do those kinds of experiences and physical attributes transfer over to the fusion?”
“Hmm… I guess it is interesting to think about.” Chi-chi muses. “I mean, does Vegito’s brain have both sets of memories? Like, if I asked Vegito if he remembers our wedding, would he know what I’m talking about? Or would he only remember bits and pieces? Or nothing at all?”
Bulma cheers internally for getting Chi-chi fully wrapped up in this. “Let’s assume Vegito has both sets of memories. I mean, he knows who Goku and Vegeta are. I’m pretty sure he knows me and Trunks since he was able to recognize us when we saw him. He also knew that Zamasu was a threat immediately after he was summoned… although you don’t need much of a brain to figure that out.”
“If he has both sets of memories, then maybe his actions would be determined by whoever feels stronger about the situation?” Videl points her spoon at Goku’s column. “Goku’s part of the personality may want to socialize, but probably not as much as Vegeta’s part wants to self-isolate.” Her spoon points at Vegeta’s column. Then it’s pointed at Vegito’s column. “So the fusion would end up by himself at a party. Hypothetically speaking.”
“Oh, that’s a good point, it might be based on whoever feels stronger about the situation!” Chi-chi looks thoughtfully at Videl.
“Alright, fair point. But here’s another situation.” Bulma pauses for a bit to look at her two participants and sighs. “Now, I just want to say that I don’t mean anything bad about this. It’s a purely hypothetical scenario.”
Chi-chi and Videl look wary, but nod.
“Okay. What if Vegito’s put in a situation where both of our families are in danger? And he’s in a ‘you-can-only-save-one’ situation?” Bulma writes “Families in trouble” under the situation column, and “save family under both Goku and Vegeta’s columns. Chi-chi frowns. “Purely hypothetical! Knock on wood and everything!” Bulma knocks on a nearby wooden cabinet.
Videl hums in deliberation. “Well, I guess what I said would be thrown out the window. I mean, they’d both be feeling pretty strongly about saving their family.”
Chi-chi huffs. “Well, if he’s as strong as everyone says he is, he’d find a way to save both!”
“Oh come on, that’s not the point of hypotheticals! Just pretend that there’s a reason he can’t save both!”
“Well, I– I don’t know. It’s a difficult question. You can’t really quantify how much those two men care for their families.”
“Yeah, I know.” Bulma sighs. “I guess that’s a pretty pointless question anyways. It’d be like asking a parent to pick between their children. You just can’t.” Bulma dejectedly starts erasing her writing from the board.
Videl, eager to put the two of them in a better mood, speaks up, “I understand why you’re so curious though! I mean, aside from that last situation, it would be really interesting and pick his brain! If you ever got a chance to just talk to him without a world-ending disaster, I think it would be cool to just talk to him. See how alike and different he is compared to his parts!”
Bulma perks up. “Yeah, and it would be interesting to see how Vegito works biologically too. I mean, Goku’s virus from way back probably left his blood with a lot of those antibodies. Would those antibodies appear in Vegito’s blood?”
Chi-chi scoffs, “Well, good luck trying to get a needle anywhere near Vegito. If any percent of him is Goku, he’ll run away at just the thought of those getting close to him!”
Bulma laughs. “That’s true. I guess we’ll never know. I mean those guys don’t even like fusing during a world-ending disaster! They’ll never fuse to answer some of my own questions. Or..."
Videl still looks lost in thought. “I wonder if he has a sense of identity. I mean, he said that he’s ‘neither Goku nor Vegeta,’ right? That implies that he’s his own person. It’s actually kinda sad if you think about it. Someone who’s only allowed to exist if the world is in danger and there are no other options…” She trails off.
Chi-chi lightly swats Videl’s shoulder. “Don’t think so hard about it. I mean, they don’t even really have the time to think about that kinda thing when they’re in a fight!” Somehow that only devastates Videl more.
“Hey, you know what? Maybe it’s a lot more simple than we think. Maybe Vegito doesn’t really mind fusing and not fusing!” Bulma smirks. “Honestly, I bet we can convince them to join together for fun.”
“Are you crazy?!” Chi-chi looks at Bulma incredulously. “Goku, sure, maybe. He’s said before that he doesn’t mind it all that much. I actually think he’s said that he enjoyed it before… But Vegeta?! You’d have an easier time telling him telling him to dress up in a tutu!”
Bulma thinks back to the time Whis told her about Vegeta wearing an apron. “You know, I bet I could convince him to do that too.” She winks. “Besides, Vegeta still has the piercing he made when putting on the potara for the first time! It’s not like I can’t just slip it on him in his sleep.”
Videl gasps. “You want to fuse him without his permission?!”
“Eh, he’ll forgive me if it’s for science…” Bulma shrugs, “... eventually.”
Chi-chi squints at her. “Are you being serious? This sounds totally crazy!”
“Yup! But I won’t do it right away… gotta get my notes together on what I want to do and ask first… which you ladies will help me with!” Bulma smiles as if she’s already won.
“Oh no. No, no, no. You’re not roping me into one of your crazy schemes again!” Chi-chi buries her head in her hands.
“Oh yes, yes, yes! You’re complicit! See? Videl’s already taking notes!” Bulma gestures to Videl already writing on various sticky notes.
Videl reddens at her own eagerness. “I just– I feel kinda bad for the guy! He seems like his own person and it just doesn’t seem fair that he never gets to interact with anyone outside of battle!”
Another scientific mind!” Bulma looks at Videl with pride. Chi-chi groans. “Glad you agree Chi-chi! Now, onto planning…”