Bella's parents have trouble being married.

It's not any one thing, exactly, they aren't cheating on each other, they don't fight, they don't have screaming differences of opinion about how to bring up their child. There's just this itchy, fluttering regret about Renée, a certain tired wit's-end character to Charlie's demeanor around her. They are trying. They are trying so hard. Bella isn't sure if it's for her or out of a sense of duty to their vows or what. But they are still married.

When Bella is eleven, Charlie brings in an envelope with a Stark Industries logo on it, and says he didn't think it would come to anything, but he applied for a job, and they've unexpectedly offered him an interview, and he'll show up to it if Renée wants him to.

She asks where's the job and he says Mars and she squeals and hugs him harder than Bella's seen her do before. So of course he goes.

And a few weeks later, he's sitting, bewildered, with an offer in his hand, and they put the house on the market and start packing, and Renée's so happy, she gets to live on Mars, her baby girl (Bella is eleven entire years old, thank you very much) gets to grow up on another planet before almost anyone else, it's so exciting.

Bella isn't sure what to think about it, and all her notebooks are packed, but she supposes living on Mars is, at minimum, cool, even if she'll miss Angie and her other friends. And she can't really do anything about it, anyway.

The trip is weeks long - although not months; that's part of why they're willing to hire people like this, now - and boring, after the initial tour of the ship.

Bella is almost the only child on the entire colony. There are some teenagers - prodigy interns, and one person's seventeen-year-old son - and then there's her and that's almost it, except that Howard Stark himself, and his family, are living on the colony now for hands-on work with the ruins, and Howard Stark has a boy her age.

Bella sets out to meet this boy, if he's going to be her only potential playmate in her own age range for the foreseeable future.

Author: hello_dolly	Bella's parents have trouble being married. It's not any one thing, exactly, they aren't cheating on each other, they don't fight, they don't have screaming differences of opinion about how to bring up their child. There's just this itchy, fluttering regret about Renée, a certain tired wit's-end character to Charlie's demeanor around her. They are trying. They are trying so hard. Bella isn't sure if it's for her or out of a sense of duty to their vows or what. But they are still married. When Bella is eleven, Charlie brings in an envelope with a Stark Industries logo on it, and says he didn't think it would come to anything, but he applied for a job, and they've unexpectedly offered him an interview, and he'll show up to it if Renée wants him to. She asks where's the job and he says Mars and she squeals and hugs him harder than Bella's seen her do before. So of course he goes. And a few weeks later, he's sitting, bewildered, with an offer in his hand, and they put the house on the market and start packing, and Renée's so happy, she gets to live on Mars, her baby girl (Bella is eleven entire years old, thank you very much) gets to grow up on another planet before almost anyone else, it's so exciting. Bella isn't sure what to think about it, and all her notebooks are packed, but she supposes living on Mars is, at minimum, cool, even if she'll miss Angie and her other friends. And she can't really do anything about it, anyway. The trip is weeks long - although not months; that's part of why they're willing to hire people like this, now - and boring, after the initial tour of the ship. Bella is almost the only child on the entire colony. There are some teenagers - prodigy interns, and one person's seventeen-year-old son - and then there's her and that's almost it, except that Howard Stark himself, and his family, are living on the colony now for hands-on work with the ruins, and Howard Stark has a boy her age. Bella sets out to meet this boy, if he's going to be her only potential playmate in her own age range for the foreseeable future.
Author: toblameforit	Howard Stark's boy is at Howard Stark's house, and he answers the door when she buzzes. "Hi!" he says. "Wow, you're a kid, I thought we were out of those. Did you come in on the last ship? What's your name? I'm Tony. Do you like science?"
Author: hello_dolly	"I came in on the last ship!" agrees Bella, pleased that he is so friendly. "I'm Bella and I think science is cool!"
Author: toblameforit	"Science is cool," says Tony. "Let's be friends!"
Author: hello_dolly	"Okay! What were you doing when I showed up?"
Author: toblameforit	"I," says Tony, "was building a robot. Come see!"
Author: hello_dolly	Bella is quite eager to come have a look at the robot.
Author: toblameforit	It is not a very good robot right now. But it will be a better one when it has all of its parts!
Author: hello_dolly	"Is it hard to get robot parts up here or did you bring lots?"
Author: toblameforit	"I build 'em special," he says, "out of other stuff, that's why it's taking so long."
Author: hello_dolly	"Can I help?"
Author: toblameforit	"I dunno! Can you?"
Author: hello_dolly	"You might have to teach me how," allows Bella. "I've never built a robot before unless you count pretend ones out of popsicle sticks."
Author: toblameforit	"I don't really know how to teach stuff," he says. "But I guess I'm the best you've got. Sure, okay."
Author: hello_dolly	"Well, how'd you learn it?" asks Bella, peering at the robot parts from a respectful distance.
Author: toblameforit	"Some of it I had to have a grown-up teach me 'cause there's safety rules and stuff for working with hot metal, but for most of it, I just kind of played around with stuff. And read a lot of manuals."
Author: hello_dolly	"That is what manuals are for," agrees Bella. "What is the robot going to do?"
Author: toblameforit	"Roll around by itself without running into things," he says. "That doesn't really sound impressive unless you know a lot about robotics. Not running into things is hard, and it's the kind of hard that humans are way better at than computers."
Author: hello_dolly	"I'm really bad at not running into things," giggles Bella. "I also trip a lot."
Author: toblameforit	"Maybe I should make you a robot to ride around on!"
Author: hello_dolly	"That would be awesome! Robot pony," giggles Bella. "Tripping hurts less here than it did on Earth. Because of lower gravity."
Author: toblameforit	"That is true," says Tony. "I will totally build you a robot pony anyway."
Author: hello_dolly	"Cool," declares Bella. "But first this thing. How do you teach it not to bump into stuff?"
Author: toblameforit	Tony answers this question! He is not, it turns out, a very good teacher. But it's possible to extract plenty of useful information from him by asking the right questions and steering him a little when he gets off course. And he really knows his stuff.
Author: hello_dolly	Bella is good at figuring out what questions she wants asked, at least when she gets a few tries to calibrate. And it turns out robots are interesting! She makes herself useful.
Author: toblameforit	Robots are so interesting. One thing Tony is not very good at is remembering where he put stuff a minute ago. Maybe Bella can help him out in that area too!
Author: hello_dolly	Bella is pretty good at that! Here is this thing. There is that thing, under this other thing.
Author: toblameforit	"Wow, you have like, an actual short-term memory," says Tony. "I wanna get me one of those."
Author: hello_dolly	"It'll take weeks to import one from Earth."
Author: toblameforit	"Yeah, it'd probably be faster to build you a robot pony and get you to follow me around reminding me where I put stuff."
Author: hello_dolly	"Yes. Absolutely do that," laughs Bella. "I might even write it down to be extra sure as a bonus."
Author: toblameforit	Tony giggles.
Author: hello_dolly	"I write a lot of things down. I think I'm good at finding your stuff -" She locates the wrench he was looking for - "because I have practice finding where in my notebooks I wrote something."
Author: toblameforit	"What do those things even have to do with each other?"
Author: hello_dolly	"If I can remember that the grocery list is three pages after the dog-ear in the notebook with the blue cover and the cat sticker, I can remember that you put your screws over there and then kicked the cloth corner over them," she says, revealing the screws.
Author: toblameforit	"I'm not sure I buy it," he says, grabbing them. "But hey, it sure does work like a charm." On he goes, bolting this plate to that one and then fastening the access panel in place.
Author: hello_dolly	"Maybe they're separate," shrugs Bella, "and I just got two totally different finding things powers."
Author: toblameforit	"Intuitive spatial reasoning is totally another thing humans are good at," says Tony. "I'm good at it too - I can remember where I keep stuff. It's just the putting it down and then forgetting about it that gets me."
Author: hello_dolly	"Well, I guess you could always put it down where you keep it, but then you'd have to open drawers a lot."
Author: toblameforit	"And also there is not really a permanent place where I keep, like - " He spins in a slow circle, eyes darting here and there, then swoops down on another robot part. "This thing. Because I made it yesterday and it is about to become part of a robot."
Author: hello_dolly	"Are you going to name the robot?"
Author: toblameforit	"I'm really bad at naming stuff. What should I name the robot?"
Author: hello_dolly	"If all it's going to do is not bump into things... that doesn't suggest much. Maybe just a person name. But then we have to decide if it's a boy or a girl, I guess."
Author: toblameforit	"I don't think it's a boy or a girl, I think it's a robot," laughs Tony. "Maybe like a pet's name? What do people even name pets?"
Author: hello_dolly	"Rover. Would that be cute or is it too punny? Since we're on Mars?"
Author: toblameforit	"That is adorable, I'm doing it."
Author: hello_dolly	"Hi, Rover," says Bella, patting the incomplete robot.
Author: toblameforit	Tony giggles.
Author: hello_dolly	"Do you suppose we can also get it to come when called and play fetch?"
Author: toblameforit	"Eventually. First the not running into things, though."
Author: hello_dolly	"Yeah, it'd probably be pretty bad to have a robot that came when called and also ran into things. You'd get bruised shins."
Author: toblameforit	"It's true!"
Author: hello_dolly	She looks at his plans, and picks up a part, and starts attaching it to the part it attaches to according to the blueprint. "I'm eleven. You look my age, are you?"
Author: toblameforit	"Yeah."
Author: hello_dolly	"I wonder why almost nobody has kids up here. They hired my dad, so they're not filtering out people with kids."
Author: toblameforit	"People with kids don't like to move places where there are basically no other kids," says Tony. "At least that's what my mom says. You might have noticed there's no actual school up here, just lesson plans and textbooks."
Author: hello_dolly	"My mom was a teacher. Well, a kindergarten teacher, but she says I'll be fine if she just sits me down with books every day."
Author: toblameforit	"My parents pretty much just leave me alone to build robots," says Tony.
Author: hello_dolly	"If I tell my mom that she will probably try to sit you down with me and books that are not about robots sometimes. For well-roundedness."
Author: toblameforit	"Books about what?" he says dubiously.
Author: hello_dolly	"Novels and history and non-robot kinds of science and art and stuff."
Author: toblameforit	"Meh," pronounces Tony.
Author: hello_dolly	"Should I not tell Renée about you getting left alone to do robots, then?"
Author: toblameforit	"She can't make me read about art, right?"
Author: hello_dolly	"Probably not. She might talk to your parents though."
Author: toblameforit	"Okay, then maybe don't tell her. I don't want them to argue."
Author: hello_dolly	"Okay."