The two of them emerged from the ship just as their hosts reached it. "Leopold and Jemma Fitzsimmons, right?" Sam held out his hand, and they both shook it. "Director Mackenzie sent us here. He said you might be willing to provide a few Avengers and their associates with some off the grid help?"
"Always happy to help the Avengers," answered the curly-haired man. "What do you need? I'm engineering, and Jemma here is biochem. She can provide medical help, too, if you need that."
"Surely there's someone better they can do to for that," his wife pointed out. She took a look over the jet; her husband was doing the same. "I think he probably helped design that, you know. You came to the right place, if you need repairs."
"We're hoping so," said Bucky. "Although the computer might be even more busted up than our engine. Were you involved in designing that as well, Mr. Fitzsimmons?"
"Call me Fitz," he answered. "And yes, initially, though we're probably a few updates behind on that by now. Although I know you had that long talk with Daisy about it, Jemma?"
"We'll both take a look," she replied, and the two of them followed Sam and Bucky into the jet.
That was, of course, when they got to see the full complement of who was currently with them, including the undisguised Mystique, up at the pilot's seat. To their credit, they didn't really react to the sight of her. Well, except that Fitz seemed to blush a little, and determinedly look only up at her face.
But then both their eyes fell on little Franklin, as he emerged curiously from behind his parents. At Jemma's delighted exclamation, he quickly lost all shyness and strode right up to them. "Are you going to introduce the rest of you, young man?" she playfully asked.
"My name's Franklin Richards," he said in response. "That's mom and dad." He pointed to them. "Dad should be able to help you fix the ship. And that's Mr. Lieberman, who can help you with the computer. And that's Ms. Mystique, who flies it."
"I don't know if I'll be that much help," said David Lieberman, who nonetheless stood up. "I've only been dealing with this computer for a couple of days."
"At this point you may well know things that we don't, though," Jemma offered, and the three of them headed up to the main console, Dr. Richards following.
The four of them spent several minutes talking quickly about both the engine and the computer-Sam could tell that much from what words he caught, but little more. Mystique stayed up with them, but Sam wasn't sure how much even she understood, either. Susan Storm was listening, too, and she probably understood more. He was considering going over to her and asking her to translate for the more technically ignorant when he heard a soft "Oh," from Bucky, and turned around to look back at the ramp.
The blonde girl standing there looked to be about ten years old, with a face vaguely reminiscent of her parents. Sam had heard about the Fitzsimmonses having a daughter, although he had heard absolutely nothing else about her, even her name. For a moment he worried about how her parents would react to her being seen.
But when everyone turned, and saw who had joined them, her father grinned, saying, "Don't suppose we really could've kept you in the house, then. Why don't you come up and help mummy and daddy out? Everyone, this is our daughter, Alya."
"Can she help out?" Franklin sounded a little skeptical. "She doesn't look that much older than me."
That got an indignant, "What did you say?" out of the girl, as she also marched up to the boy and tried to make herself look imposing as she stared down at him.
That didn't work on Franklin Richards, of course. "Well, can you really help out?" he asked. "This computer was designed by all of the smartest people in the modern world. I bet your parents aren't really as smart as them."
"My parents designed a space ship!" Alya yelled back. "And they can fix anything."
"My parents designed a space ship too," said Franklin. "And they did it first."
"What?" Alya, looked shocked, turned towards her parents. "Mum, dad, is that true? I thought noone designed a spaceship before you did." She sounded more than a little dismayed.
Her parents looked at each other, unsure exactly how to explain. Dr. Richards seemed to also consider it for a moment, before Susan Storm finally spoke instead. "They were the first to design one in this place," she said. "We were living in another place earlier, and we designed it first, but there wasn't any way for them to hear about it."
"So they did it without anyone doing it before to help them," said Alya, and that seemed to give her her confidence back. "But anyway, I can help. I help mum and dad in their experiments all the time."
"Really?" Franklin looked a little excited to hear that. "Your parents let you help like that?"
Three heads are better than two."
"Well," Franklin said after considering that for a moment, "four heads are better than three, as well."
Which, of course, was why they already had four heads working on it, though Mr. Lieberman was starting to look a little lost. Still, when, Alya said, "Good point. Let's go," and the two of them started walking over, her parents grinned, and so did the other two as Jemma asked, "So you've come to help us, then?" Mystique visibly rolled her eyes, but even she was smiling.
When Fitz finally said, "Okay, let's take a look under the panel. Check to see if there've been any effects from overheating," they of them clustered around. From the back, Sam couldn't actually see anything besides their quickly unscrewing and removing the top of the console, but from the exclamations of all of the adults, he thought they were seeing something in there they hadn't expected. "How long to do you think it's been like that?" Jemma asked her husband.
"Well, if this ship spent that long floating over that part of Latveria, even if they didn't spot them from the ground-you said that was two days ago?" he asked Dr. Richards.
"Yeah," said Dr. Richards, "but we were set up to hide from them specifically. There was this mystic in New York who helped us out."
"The residue's still very powerful," said Jemma. "Especially if you at any time descended into the troposphere." Sam didn't even know exactly what residue she was even talking about, and he didn't understand a word of the question Fitz asked then beyond the "Do you think..." he started it with, nor her responding comment.
Then she said, clearly addressing all of them, "The problem may only be the residue, and I think we can get most of it off. Not all of it, unfortunately, not with what we have here, but enough to get your flying properly again, at least temporarily, though I would strongly advise you to immediately proceed to a...." Then she must have seen the collective look on their faces, and sighed, "Well, if you must urgently fly back into your fight to save the world, we'll scrub off as much of it as we can."
"We have a choice of cleaners," Fitz said to Dr. Richards. "You'd better come see them, choose which one you think is best for this computer."
Can I come, too?" Franklin immediately asked.
Husband and wife looked at each other, perhaps not wanting to let too many strangers into their home. But then Alya said, "Yes, come on, let's show all of them what we've got!" and they couldn't help but smile at that.
In the end, they agreed to mother, father, and son coming, while the other four stayed with the ship. Sam and Bucky watched the two families head into the cottage while Mystique and Mr. Lieberman talked quietly by the computer.
"So," Sam asked softly, as they went in, "what do you think of them?"
"Good at what they do," said Bucky. "As the Director said. Though I'm also thinking about that other thing he said about them."
"Oh, I wouldn't want to get on their bad sides, either," Sam agreed. "They know too much about mechanics and computers and other things that can do a lot of damage that I don't for that to ever be a good idea. But so longer as we never threaten either them, their daughter, or any of their old friends, I'm pretty sure we should be fine there."
He was also thinking, though, about the thing Director Mackenzie hadn't directly said, but he'd easily been able to piece together, from what he'd known about both their and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s recent history. They'd been through enough, he knew, to have earned the retirement they had taken, and he honestly hoped they'd be able to keep it, the occasional visit from people like them notwithstanding.