A/N: I wrote like six beginnings to this chapter but this one finally felt right. There's not a lot of bot boxing action yet, but it's coming. I promise! xD

And anyways, I don't know, I'm trying my hardest! Go easy on me, please? I'm like the Ambush of the fanfic world! I'm not so hot!

But nonetheless I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Enjoy!


He didn't sleep well, and when he finally woke up, his first thoughts were about Atom. Groggily, Max crawled off the air mattress, which had halfway-deflated during the night, and rolled against Corrine's crib, causing him to groan softly. His little half-sibling had kept him up with several bouts of late-night wailing, which were followed by Bailey staggering into the room, bouncing her daughter softly and singing softly and slightly out-of-tune under her breath while Max lay still, pretending to be asleep. Halfway through the night, when Corrine woke up for a second time, Max vaguely remembered giving up on sleeping, and decided to listen to music instead-his headphones had slid off his neck and onto the floor, and he scooped them up, tossing them haphazardly on top of his duffel bag.

"Good morning, Max. Did you sleep all right?" Bailey greeted him as he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. Across the table, Charlie sat with a mug of coffee, reading something on his phone. At the sound of Max's chair scraping against the linoleum floor, he looked up briefly, smiled, and continued to read.

Max shrugged, unsure of how to answer. His grogginess was already subsiding to the bright carbonation that bubbled in the pit of his stomach-he was finally going to see Atom again. "I slept alright. I guess."

"Sorry about Corrine," Bailey said. She was mixing something in a bowl by the stove, and poured the mixture into a pan, which began to sizzle violently. "You like scrambled eggs, right?"

"They're alright."

"Well, eat a lot of them," Charlie said suddenly, setting down his phone and taking a long swig of coffee. "We'd better head over to Tallet's first thing after breakfast. I've got a thing to go to at four-thirty-a photoshoot sort of thing, promotion for the big tour circuit through the east coast in the Fall, with Thunder Punch"-

Max snorted. "Thunder Punch? Really?" He laughed, looking across the table at his father. "Charlie, I really think that you should start calling me for advice on your new bots..."

"I didn't name the robot, kid. It's part of a sponsorship deal." Charlie's tone was a little bit testy.

"Can I come?"

"Well-it's boring, I don't know if you're going to like it. This sponsor crap, it pays the bills, but it's not that fun, I'll tell you that much." He must have seen the disappointment on his son's face, because he added, "You're not really missing out on anything. Just hang out here."

Bailey smiled at Max, shaking the frying pan with one hand. "It'll be more fun here, really," she said. "I think there's a boxing match tonight down in Atlanta. It'll be on TV. You'll watch that with me, right?"

"Yeah!" Max really liked Bailey-when he first met Charlie, back at Tallet's right before Charlie bought Noisy Boy, he liked her a lot more than he liked his father. To make things better, she liked robot boxing just as much as he did, and seemed to be making a concerted effort to make him feel at home. She wasn't inclined to cook, he knew-if the freezer and refrigerator stuffed with convenience food was any indication-and the scrambled eggs were a welcoming gesture, one much appreciated.

There was a moment of silence, filled only with the sizzling in the frying pan-and, suddenly, a loud and high-pitched sobbing that was rapidly becoming all-too-familiar. Max looked expectantly at Charlie, who looked at Bailey, who sighed, adjusting her hair in its' loose, curly ponytail. "Okay, okay. I'll get Corrine." She turned and disappeared into the hallway, and Max could hear her in the nursery as she tried to calm her daughter.

It didn't take long for his robot to resurface in Max's mind. "You've been taking care of Atom, right?" he asked, turning to Charlie, who was swallowing a long sip of coffee.

Charlie set the mug down, and gave Max a reassuring smile. "You know who you're talking to, right?" He asked, and Max's heart soared. "He's in pretty good order, kiddo. You'll have to thank Bailey, too-she's been the one polishing him up, keeping him looking nice. Says it's good for business." His face scrunched up for a moment, and he took another swig of coffee, then swirled the mug in his hand.

Since the re-flourishing on Charlie's career, Tallet's Gym had begun to refocus itself as a repair shop for boxing robots. Bailey also helped design robots for clients, and with her genius with mechanics, Tallet's Gym was thriving for the first time, really, since the end of human boxing. Charlie had told Max over the phone about a secret robot that Bailey was designing in her private workshop in the back, something that would change the sport, but Max halfway suspected that his father was trying to entice him to stay with them over the summer, instead of in Los Angeles with his aunt and uncle. As if he needed persuading.

"You know, he really has been good for business. You saw the posters in the windows, right? The 'People's Champion'...hey, um, do you smell something burning?"

As if on queue, Max's eyes began to sting, and he turned his head to look at a thick, dark stream of smoke billowing from the stovetop. "The eggs!" Bailey called, scrambling into the kitchen with Corrine still crying loudly in her arms. Charlie walked up behind her, picking up the pan from the stovetop.

"Well, I don't know if we can eat this, exactly." Charlie frowned, turning off the stove and setting the pan back on top. Curious, Max scuttled across the kitchen and peered into the pan. The eggs were cracked, plasticky-looking and yellow in the center, and burned blackish around the edges. His father chuckled and wrapped his arm around his wife. "I don't know, cooking was never really your thing..."

Bailey sighed, glancing at the clock on the countertop. "It's almost ten-thirty, Charlie. You boys had better get going." Corrine hiccuped, then fell silent, and she hugged her tightly against her chest. "There's probably some granola bars in the cabinet..."

Charlie kissed her on the side of the head, then turned to Max. "I'll take you out to breakfast," he said, already brushing past him and towards the front door. "There's this waffle place-you like waffles, right? But we better hurry." All too happy to be out the door, Max hurried after his father.


The breakfast rush was long gone by the time Charlie and Max got their food-a ham omelet for Charlie, and strawberry pancakes (extra whipped cream, please) for Max. There was a long silence as the two dug into their food-it was almost lunch-time by now, and they were both starving-which was finally broken by Charlie.

"So-how's school?"

"I hate it," Max said, outright. And he did-he hated the stupid preppy private school, with its uniforms and posh attitude. It just wasn't him, and he had tried to express this to Aunt Debra and, in desperation, to Marvin, both of whom insisted that he would thank them later, that he was getting a quality education.

"Hey-don't say stuff like that. School's important." Despite himself, Charlie smiled; he hadn't been one for school either. Knowing this, Max smiled too, around his mouthful of strawberries and whipped cream.

"No, I'm serious. They don't talk about robot boxing. They talk about"-Max wrinkled his nose in distaste-"well, whatever. This one boy in my class, he didn't even know about Atom's fight with Zeus!" He swallowed, then waved his arms in a universal motion of disbelief. "Who didn't hear about that?"

Now Charlie laughed, scraping his fork against his plate. "A little bit full of ourselves, huh?" He asked. "It was that important, huh?"

"Important?" Max said incredulously. "It was the biggest robot boxing fight in the world! It changed the sport of bot boxing! Nobody's ever going to see another fight like that, and he didn't even know, he just"-

"All right, all right." Charlie pulled his wallet out of his pocket, slipping a few bills onto the table. "Save that tough talk for after our fight in San Francisco. You're ready to go see Atom, right? You excited?"

"You're kidding, right?" Max slid out of the booth, raising his hands around his face like a boxer. "I've been waiting all year!"

"Okay then, kid." Charlie slapped Max gently on the back, which nonetheless caused him to stagger forwards a step. "Let's go."