Finally managed to finish this Commission - so sorry that it has taken like a month, I've been generally knackered since about Christmas.
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It was a quiet time for S.H.I.E.L.D. With no threat to earth, the helicarrier hung lazily in the air, biding time until the next HYDRA agent, rogue AI or cosmic horror reared its head.
Natasha Romanoff hated the lulls between missions. Lying in her bunk, her mind always drifted back over her past, over her long history serving dubious taskmasters. Her memories were an endless supply of guilt and regrets.
‘One less thing to worry about,’ her soviet handler had explained to her after the Red Room’s surgeons had forcibly sterilised her. One less thing. And yet here she was, fifteen years later, and it was all she could think about.
Why did it bother her so much that she’d never have children? Banner had sworn off kids and she’d already accepted the fact she was a monster, and the world hardly needed her bringing a smaller version of herself into it. Still, after all the sacrifices she’d made saving the world, it would be nice to leave it to someone after her.
The harsh blare of the helicarrier alarm was music to her ears, and she was on her feet and racing to the command deck in an instant, past soldiers scrambling to their posts. Command was in chaos, screens of galaga switching to scrolling data feeds and satellite footage.
On the main screen was a blue and white marble - Earth - and a force, so bright it was burning out every satellite camera pointed at it, was careening down through the atmosphere.
“This can’t be right,” muttered a technician at the readouts. “It’s reading hotter than the sun.”
“Any idea where it’s going to land?” Fury was here for this.
The technician gulped. “It’s heading right for us.”
Overhead, the clouds peeled back and evaporated before its descent, revealing an almost bird-shaped stream of light stretching across the sky. The helicarrier manoeuvred. The creature angled its descent, homing in on them, seeming to condense as it neared. They fired missiles, flak, machine guns, all of it turning to slag before it even came close.
The ship reverberated under the thud of it landing on the flight deck. Heat penetrated through the bulkheads. If it ignited the munitions…
Fury ordered the evacuation just as the two inch steel plate of the ceiling glowed and sagged, as something like liquid golden fire poured into the command deck… surging towards Natasha. It enveloped her, pressing against her lips, streaming down her throat, her eyes, and elsewhere, as the alien lifeforce filled her regenerating womb.
It burned like molten metal in her veins. And yet she felt no pain, her flesh already transmuting into something else. At least the heat was contained within her. The glowing steel of the control room dulled. Fury climbed out from behind a congealing lump of a computer terminal, half his face scarred with burns.
“At least we’re still in the air,” he groaned. He reached o drag her to the escape shuttle, but snatched his hand back as they graced her arm, his fingertips smouldering.
“A fine host,” rang a piercing voice inside her mind, as the entity stretched out inside her flesh. “You cried out for aid. For new life. I heard. I came. As I have known the Universe, I have known you, Jean Gray, since the moment of your conception.”
"Who?" Natasha gasped.
There was a pause. It shifted within her, as if testing the shape of its new vessel. Was that embarrassment she sensed from the cosmic entity?
"I have made a mistake," it said.