Snip!
Disclaimer: Premise and characters belong to Akira Toriyama, I'm just borrowing them for a bit of non-profit fun.
" 'Geta, I'd offer to Instant Transmission you home, but honestly I don't think I could manage it right now," Goku said as he sprawled bonelessly on the side of one of the many craters dotting the landscape. The air smelled of ozone and settling dust.
"As if I would accept help from you," Vegeta declared. His mouth tasted of iron and he spat out a mouthful of blood. He considered his rival for a time, tallying up their respective injuries and tentatively concluded that he'd won the spar. Vegeta knew that, had it been a real battle, Kakarrot would have used his Super Saiyan Three form or Kaio-Ken to amplify his Super Saiyan Two form, and would have decisively won the fight. But SSJ3 took too much out of Kakarrot for him to use it casually and he'd never depend on any strength beyond his own in a spar. That knowledge took some of the satisfaction out of winning but Vegeta still enjoyed seeing his rival coming out of a spar looking worse off than he did.
Unsteadily Vegeta took to the air. By the time he got back to Capsule Corp the Saiyan Prince was beginning to think that it might have been worth putting up with Kakarrot's company to rest for a time before making his way home. He staggered through the door and dropped onto the couch.
The sound of the Kuririn's car stopping outside and that of Vegeta's five-year-old daughter Bra slamming the door and shouting "I'm home!" at the top of her lungs were completely insufficient to disturb Vegeta's slumber.
Bra surveyed her father's battered and bloody appearance then in a fine imitation of her mother she put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Daddy! You blew yourself up training again!" she declared with more exasperated affection than worry. "Here, I'll fix you right up."
Bra dropped her backpack and ran upstairs to collect band-aids and a washcloth.
Bunny Briefs spotted her granddaughter digging through the medicine cabinet. "Sweetie do you have a boo-boo?" she asked.
"Huh-uh, I'm taking care of Daddy!" Bra proclaimed proudly.
Bunny patted her on the head. "You are such a little cutie," she declared.
Once Bra had her supplies she went back downstairs. She crawled onto the couch and industriously set about washing the blood and grime off her father's face.
Vegeta cracked one eye open to glare at the little girl leaning over him. "Brat, what are you doing?" he asked after a several moments.
"I'm making you better like Mommy does when you get hurted training," Bra informed him. She finished washing his face and slapped a rainbow adorned band-aid over the abrasions on Vegeta's cheek. The rainbow ones always made her feel better than the plain ones.
Vegeta considered the effort it would take to convince his daughter to desist and concluded it was just as easy to sleep through her ministrations. Vegeta sighed and closed his eyes again. Bra leaned down and kissed his cheek. "You rest, Bra-chan will make you all better."
Bunny watched her granddaughter and son-in-law from the doorway with a sappy smile. Bra had been born five years after the battle against Majin Boo, she took it for granted that her daddy would put up with all of her childish antics, but for Bunny, who'd known Vegeta since he'd first come to live on Earth, the changes in him were nothing short of miraculous. And Bra's easy relationship with her father was the culmination of those changes.
Bra finished applying her brightly colored band-aids to her father's face and moved on to tend to his hands. "Grammy?" she called.
"Yes dear?"
"Does Daddy need stitching?" she asked as she calmly showed Bunny Vegeta's hand. His knuckles were seriously split, the white of bone gleamed through the tatters of flesh, there were bits of gravel embedded in his flesh.
Bunny cringed at the sight of the wound. She wondered if it were genetics or environment that allowed Bra to be so matter-of-a-fact about it. Bra had certainly seen her father injured before and she'd seen the deep satisfaction that Vegeta found in battles that pushed him to his limits and beyond. But that satisfaction was a Saiyan thing, even little Pan showed traces of it. Gohan, the most articulate of the lot, had likened it to the feeling a human got after a heavy work-out but for a Saiyan 'no pain, no gain,' meant blood and broken bones not just sore muscles.
Bunny retrieved several rolls of bandages and a pan to soak Vegeta's hand in to deal with the debris. Once the wound was clean she showed Bra how to wrap the injury. "Daddy's a mummy!" the little girl giggled. She decided to wrap his other arm up past the elbow whether or not it needed such attentions.
Once Bunny had seen to all the first aid Vegeta actually required she left Bra to play nurse.
Bra carefully sorted through her box of band-aids and picked out the prettiest ones to adorn the cuts and scratches on Vegeta's chest, then she added a few more because they made a nice pattern. Once she was done with that Bra sat back and examined her father, looking for anything else that might need tending to.
She noticed that there were bits of dirt and debris caught in Vegeta's hair and went to fetch her comb. "Don't worry Daddy, I won't pull," she assured Vegeta.
Vegeta wondered how she'd known he'd only been faining sleep while Bunny had been in the room. "If you must," he sighed.
Bra giggled and went to work.
Vegeta wouldn't have admitted it but the feel of her playing with his hair was oddly hypnotic, and quickly lulled him into a true sleep.
Bra was fascinated by the differences between her father's hair and her own. Her hair was like her mommy's; fine and silky, it lay flat and was naturally straight. Her father's hair was corse and thick, the strands barely fit between the teeth of her comb and sprung back up as soon as she combed it flat.
Bra scowled at her father's hair as it determinedly resisted her efforts to make it neat. She trekked back upstairs and dug through her mother's beauty products until she found a bottle of hair-gel, thus armed she resumed her self-appointed task.
Alas, even heavy-duty hair-gel couldn't persuade Vegeta's wild mane to behave the way Bra thought it ought to.
"Only one thing to do," Bra sighed, echoing Eighteen's words from when she's gotten chewing gum in her hair while playing with Marron and Pan several weeks earlier. Bra went to find the scissors.
"Woman! Take your daughter!"
Bulma blinked in surprise. There had been many times when Trunks had been 'her son' according to his father, usually in the context of 'her son', 'his idiot friend' and whatever mischief the two demi-Saiyans had gotten up to. But Bra had been Daddy's little princess since the day she was born.
Bulma glanced up from her work and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Bra hung at the end of her father's arm like a chastised kitten. Vegeta looked shocked and betrayed as well as furious. His flame shaped shock of hair was missing a rather notable clump.
"I'm sure she didn't mean any harm," Bulma said as she took her daughter. Vegeta turned around and stalked out without another word.
"Daddy's mad at Bra," the little girl sobbed.
Bulma patted her daughter's back. "Don't worry, he'll get over it," she assured Bra. "But I think you'll be spending the rest of the evening sitting in your room contemplating what you did wrong. We did go over this after you decided to play barber-shop with your dolls remember?"
Bra gulped as she remembered her earlier lecture. "But you cut my hair," she said worriedly.
"Because you're half-human and your hair grows. Your daddy's doesn't, just like your dolls," Bulma explained.
Bra bit her lip remorsefully and tears welled up in her eyes again.
"Now scoot, on up to your room. I've got to go take care of your daddy," Bulma said.
Bra understood. All of her dolls now possessed cute, short, hairstyles.
"See, it doesn't look so bad," Bulma soothed. "It makes you look dignified this way. I like it."
"You mean it makes me look old," Vegeta grumbled.
"Older," Bulma modified. "Is that really so bad? I mean don't you get tired of the comments?"
The look in Bulma's eyes told Vegeta that Bulma was more than tired of having her husband mistaken for her son's older brother. Vegeta distastefully considered his reflection again. Then he shifted so that Bulma's reflection was caught in the mirror as well, they did look better matched than they had in some years. Maybe with a mustache...
"You like it this way?"
"It does make you look dignified."
It probably wasn't worth the bother of trying to fix it, it wasn't as if he was vain about his looks or anything.
Author's Notes: Based on something I actually did to my Dad when I was that age. And he though I was being so good, sitting quietly in the backseat of the car amusing myself by combing his hair... He just didn't know about the strawberry lip gloss, until he had to attend an Onion Grower's meeting while smelling like a fruit. :-)