Author's Note: This is my first story that I will post onto this site. In this fanfic, I made one OC because I wanted to give Atom a backstory. Which makes me feel like a hypocrite because I don't like reading stories with OCs and yet I made my own OC. But anyway, I hope you enjoy the story. Atom and the other bots get sent to a research institution to be tested for sentience. Of course, some bot-love happens along the way. Warning, there is going to be yaoi in this story. I don't mind flames about the story - if anything, I welcome them so that I can make this story better - but please don't complain about the pairings. I put up a warning for a reason.
Disclaimer: I do not own Real Steel or any of the characters. I am only a fan.
In the days that followed the championship match, Atom was in a daze. Charlie and Max salvaged their bond once more, and Farra Lemkova along with Tak Mashido avoided the press as much as possible. Though it didn't seem that they gave up; they were simply attempting to retain their dignity in the face of such humiliating failure. A junkyard bot like Atom, and a WRB-league Game Breaker Bot like Zeus were never supposed to step into the same ring. But they did, and the results shocked and thrilled the world. Atom's story was the ultimate story of the underdog. Zeus became another great champion, knocked off his pedestal.
Of course, technically, Zeus still was the champion. But now, his cold, steel exterior has been dented, and the psychological wall of intimidation broke. For him, it would only be downhill from here. More bots will challenge him, and more will find a way to exploit Zeus' weaknesses now that they have been exposed.
Atom was still reeling from his fight with Zeus, and he felt the unfairness of it all; Zeus is an amazing, powerful bot that will likely be cast away as another has-been. Atom was really nothing special. He knew it in his circuitry and programming that he's nothing but a sparring bot. He was meant to train bots like Zeus, but never actually fight them. Without Charlie's training, Atom probably would never have reached the World Robot Boxing League. As a sparring bot, it's a natural ability for Atom to get up again and again even after so many hits. But then Charlie taught Atom to actually fight.
Atom couldn't lie. He loved Max for always believing in him and he was thankful to Charlie for turning him into something more than a G2 sparring bot buried under the mud. But sometimes, he would wonder what it would have been like if he really was sold to Farra Lemkova as Zeus' sparring bot. Atom would never have fought Twin Cities and therefore he would never have actually fought Zeus in a championship match.
It would have been like back then. Back when Atom was still young and new. When he was with Breaker.
"Rise and shine, Atom."
Blue eyes lit up. Machinery whirred and hummed. Light clanks echoed after sitting up. A row of bright red sandbags next to more punching bag equipment. A wall of tools with a single desktop computer in front. Everything seemed to be a shade of gray, silver, or white except for the sandbags and one single man in front of him.
"Atom. Atom? That's your name. You know that right?"
The man was middle-aged. Balding. His voice rasped rather than spoke.
"I guess you're still getting used to being on… Eh, what am I doing, talking to a robot anyway! You probably don't even understand a single thing I say." The man turned around and muttered to himself, "… Still getting used to things…"
Atom. That was his name…
That was the first memory that Atom ever had. A short, vague memory. Shortly after being turned on for the first time, he was turned off… until he powered on again a week later.
"Hey, Atom. Had a good recharge?"
Atom couldn't respond other than through the battery levels displayed on the computer beside him.
"Good, good. I want you to meet someone today. Someone special."
Meet someone? Meet who? Atom quickly surveyed his surroundings. Last time, he powered on at the opposite side of the room. The desktop computer was beside him and the red punching bags are on the left side now. On the wall, he could now see the table that he was perched on before, and the charging station next to it. But there was no one in the room other than Atom and the man.
"Wait a minute. I got to go get him."
The man hustled himself away to go get "him." Who "he" is, Atom will soon find out. Atom couldn't see around the corner that the man disappeared behind, and he struggled to fight the urge to move himself forward of his own will. He wasn't sure why, but he knew it in his programming that he should not move without being told to. He still struggled anyway. The curiosity inside of him was boiling hot and about to overflow.
Finally, after several minutes of hearing nothing but the sounds of the man huffing and the clanking of metal, something came alive. The air was filled with an invisible electricity, and it excited Atom for what was to come next. A thud. A second thud. More heavy footsteps followed and soon, a giant appeared around the corner following the middle-aged man. A metal giant.
At this point, Atom had never actually seen a robot despite being a robot himself. This was the first time he met Breaker, the robot titan.
A metal giant. Black and yellow, with a face sculpted into a perpetual grimace. His wide shoulders led down to thickly plated fists and chest, which led down black steel legs all the way to large feet made for supporting a heavy frame. This bot was a true menace, something Atom was about to find out all too soon.
Later, when fighting Zeus, Atom would mentally laugh at the irony of his life after learning the story of the titans and the Greek gods. Breaker was a robot titan and Zeus was based off of the Greek god. Atom was sad that he couldn't actually laugh. He could only keep it to himself, in the company of himself.
The next few weeks after meeting Breaker, were hell.
"Yeeah! That's what I'm talking about!"
The man, who Atom now knew as Marty, cheered as Atom was knocked down yet again, by Breaker. At first, it seemed that the training sessions were grueling to no one except Atom. But then once the bots were plugged back into their charging units, and all the dents in Atom were banged out, Marty would say good night and shut down the lights until nothing but the glow and hum of electricity remained. Atom woke up during one of these nights, and silently grasped for the first time, the full realization that he can move around on his own. He slowly swiveled his head about in different directions, looking around in the darkness and stopped when he heard movement beside him.
Breaker was awake as well. He actually stepped away from his charging unit, which surprised Atom. The bigger bot walked several steps forward before turning and stopping right in front of Atom's unit. Breaker gestured for Atom to step forward as well, and so the smaller bot did.
Atom felt… out of place. He felt as if he not only stepped away from his charging unit, but also his cage of isolation and restraint. He felt… free.
Atom joyfully looked up at Breaker, but stopped moving once he saw how dim Breaker's orange eyes were. It almost seemed as if he was still in hibernation mode, except he wasn't. His eyes seemed softer, gentler. A yellow fist uncurled and caressed the side of Atom's helmet ever so slightly that it barely registered in Atom's senses.
Confusion and shyness radiated throughout Atom's body. He tried to lean away from the other's touch, but Breaker's other fist held Atom in place.
That night, Breaker let Atom know how sorry he was that he had to hurt him every single day. It took Atom a while since they both couldn't talk, but Atom finally understood. The smaller bot patted the other's yellow chest to let Breaker know that it was okay.
It was okay. It was okay. As long as Breaker cared, it was okay. Eventually though, he stopped caring.
Blow after searing blow impacted with Atom's body, and the poor sparring bot struggled to get his hands up, to get some sort of barrier between him and the metal monster. Marty's voice was only a dull throb in Atom's head, along with everything else. He only felt the yellow fists, tightly curled, bash into his sides over and over again.
Atom knew he was going to break. He was going to break under this amount of abuse. He fell many times, but he never truly stayed down. That was about to change though. Breaker was on a vicious winning streak, and he seemed to be riding on a high of victory. The gentle titan was no more. There was only Breaker, the Robot Titan. The thrill of the fight was now like a drug for him; he's addicted; he can't get enough of the feeling of metal crumpling underneath his fists.
Atom was at his breaking point. He fell, but he wasn't going to get up. He was done. No more. No more…
When Atom woke up again, it was after he was caked with dust and mud from the junkyard and he realized that Marty had thrown him out. Max brought him home, and convinced Charlie to give him a chance. Everything kept rolling from there.
Atom was finally brought out of his reminiscing by the commands transmitted from his remote controls. Despite Atom's voice recognition, which was salvaged from the pitiful remains of Noisy Boy, and his Shadow Mode, it was still necessary to use the old G2 remote in order to conventionally move him around.
Max seemed perturbed by something and as Atom walked behind his little master, he realized he was heading outside Bailey's gym. Something was wrong. Or terribly strange. Charlie seemed unusually subdued; Bailey seemed to be annoyed. Atom could only describe his feelings as a complete mixture of confusion, worry, and apprehension.
No one said anything to each other too, which made everything even more difficult for Atom to decipher the situation. His three human companions seemed to be communicating via telepathy, while also excluding Atom from the conversation. Why can't they talk in front of him? If they talked about what's happening, Atom's life would be so much easier.
It sucked to have a will, but unable to use it freely.
Outside the doors of the gym, Max turned Atom to the right, and then led him down the street to a large truck similar to Charlie's, but of higher quality and obviously more expensive parts. The black paint of the vehicle gleamed without a single blemish of a name, which exasperated Atom even more. No name, meant he still didn't know what was happening and who the owners of the truck are.
Two men got out of the truck and strode towards Atom with papers in their hands. Now Max seemed to regret leading Atom here because he looked up at Atom with a look that clearly said, 'I'm sorry.' The men took – no, actually Max gave – Atom's remote and steered him on the lift and into the dark black truck. Atom now realizes that things are even stranger than he thought, but it was too late. The back door of the truck slowly lifted up, and Atom was left alone in the dark confines of what seemed to be his transportation to an unknown destination.
Atom couldn't hear anything from inside the truck, but he was beginning to think that the humans outside were probably signing papers of transferred ownership, and Atom has been abandoned again. No matter how he thought about his situation, he couldn't find any positive scenarios. Atom loved Max. He loved Charlie. He loved Bailey. Why are they doing this to him?
The truck lurched and Atom was saved from falling by the rails of the lift. Sad, blue eyes glowed in the darkness of the truck and a silent voice cried.