Mommy Phil - I probably wrote this for the lulz
Phil Coulson arrived on the scene first. Having made a note of that fact with the Communications Officer, he stepped out of his car to survey the damage. As had been claimed by the farmers, something silver and disc-shaped had plowed into their field, starting their usual routine a month early.
Damn, it looked exactly like the common depiction of a UFO, if a little smaller than expected. The director would not be pleased if any photos were taken by the media. Which was why time was of the essence. Although it was not standard procedure, Phil wandered over to the end of the furrow to see what there was to be seen.
Strictly speaking, this was where the whole operation went south. Though he could see a few other agents pulling up, Phil should not have been so close to the alien craft. He turned to nod to Blake and Sitwell, both of whom had been equally close by when the call had come in.
“Look out, Phil, something’s happening,” urged Sitwell, reaching for his sidearm.
Turning back, Phil watched in mild surprise as a black line spread itself almost like a rapidly growing kudzu vine along the silver surface. He did take a step back. The line formed a wiggly arch, and then the area within it appeared to disintegrate.
The interior was nothing like as sleek as the outside. It was also, judging from the acrid smoke that issued from the hole, on fire or dissolving. What prevented Phil from taking a second, larger, step backward, was the being inside of the craft. She, and he was fairly certain of the designation, was stunning.
She wore hardly anything, and was humanoid in silhouette, save for a pair of enormous white wings that appeared made of paper. What coverings she had were brilliant silver in color, which set off her soft blue skin and golden markings. Her face was perfection itself, from its heart shape, tiny nose and small mouth, to her silvery white hair softening its edges. But these were accessories to her most beautiful feature: a pair of large, thickly lash-fringed, dusky blue eyes that pierced right through his sunglasses.
No stranger to unusual sights, Phil nevertheless felt himself awestruck and unable to move in as he had been trained. Somehow she held him entranced just by looking at him. He knew, without understanding why, that she was in terrible pain. The urge to assist was immense. Then she parted her lips and spoke.
“Phil Coulson?” she asked, in tones that shot hot fire down his spine. Her voice seemed to be almost two notes at once, as if she was always harmonizing with herself. It was like a song.
“Yes,” he gasped out, and tried to recover some dignity. “I am Agent Phil Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.”
She clearly was not following everything, and he also took note of two wire-thin silver antennae on her head that moved as he spoke. Each word seemed to evoke a different shape from them. When he was finished, they lay down over her forehead, shaping an intricate tiara or circlet.
“Phil Coulson,” she repeated, voice firmer. “I need your help.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he stupidly said.
Before he would rephrase that bit of idiocy, she reached carefully to her right and brought out a silver-wrapped bundle. “Take her.”
Every bit of protocol was screaming at him that agents did not grab alien objects. At the same time in the distance, Blake was also reminding him of the foolishness of picking up things he did not know anything about. But her eyes held him captive. She was in pain, and needed his help. Who could say no?
Gingerly, he stepped toward the entry. He held out his arms and accepted the package. In his grasp, it squirmed and made a noise like a glass breaking. Some crazy technology, no doubt. The alien’s words overrode his desire to peek.
“They will come for her. The poison green ones. You must wait for the others. They will protect her. She belongs to them now.”
Now Coulson could see the cause of the agony in her eyes. Something inside had burned her legs horribly. She was also oozing a clear liquid from an open wound in her side.
“We have to get you out of there,” Phil realized. “We have people who can help.”
Shaking her head, she put a delicate hand up to stop him. “I am already dying. Just take my child. Protect her, Phil Coulson. She is the last, and must not fall.”
Now Coulson looked more closely at the burden she had handed over. It was no package. It was a baby. Well, it was the size and approximate shape of a baby. Not many babies had red spines on their back, black, bronze and white markings, or two tiny black antennae on the tops of their downy white fuzz-covered heads. The way her dusky blues eyed him, he suspected she belonged to the alien before him.
Endless sorrow portrayed in her every syllable, the mother said, “If you kiss her between her antennae, she will be happier. I chose you, Phil Coulson. She is your child now.”
“Um,” was all Coulson could say. Clearly the mother was fading fast, from the way her body began to slump. But what would he do with a baby? There had to be someone better.
Slowly, the music dwindling from her voice, the mother went on, “If you do not take her, she will grow too soon. Please, give my only child her childhood. I wish it better than my own.”
Looking again at the baby, who was beginning to fuss at this stranger holding her, Phil could not hold out any longer. He had become an agent to help people, right? So, as her mother had suggested, he gave the baby a little kiss between her tiny antennae. With a little burble and hiccup, the infant changed. Shocked, he stared at the newly human baby before him. Gone was every sign of her alien status, except for the unusual color of her eyes. Gone too was her upset. She gave him a big baby grin, with only four teeth showing.
“She is too little to hold it on her own for long,” mumbled her mother. He looked up, seeing her slide farther and farther to the right. “If she is without you for long, she will change. And if you are away for too many moons, she will become like me. In your years, that should not happen until the end of the summer of her twenty-third year. She is not yet a year old.
“Let me touch her, just for a moment.”
Carefully, Phil held out the baby. Hands trembling, the alien laid gentle hands on her baby’s face. She hummed something enchanting and sweet, like a lullaby that had come from the very heart of music. Then, as the baby drifted off to sleep, she murmured,
“My Ani, my little Ani Phiritta, you will be safe and you will be loved.” She looked up for the last time. “Do you like music?”
“I play the piano,” Coulson said quietly. She smiled, eyes misting up.
“She will love that. Thank you, Phil Coulson. Thank you.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Neyna Sulong,” she answered and closed her eyes. Not having the heart to rouse her any more, Phil only reached out to hold her hand. No one should die alone without the touch of another person.
“You are the biggest idiot I have ever met,” Sitwell informed him once it became clear that the mother had passed on. “What the hell are you going to do with a baby?”
Looking down at the silver-wrapped infant sleeping so peacefully in his arms, Phil gave the only reply he could. “Love her.”
***
And as to the how he ended up chosen: She was monitoring radio communications and overheard him being identified as "The best child-protecting, bad guy-killing Agent SHIELD ever had." This, by the way, was an office joke, referring to his near-botched attempt to keep a bunch of teenagers from smoking on the school playground.