In a flash-forward, the Tony Stark AI stares at a birthday cake. He is sitting in a small wooden shack in Nevada's Painted Desert. He tries and fails to blow out the candle, then blasts the cake with a blast of energy from his armor and destroys part of it. He smiles slightly and marvels at the cake.
Steve "Captain America" Rogers gave a press conference in which he declared war on New Tian, the nation of mutants, and Wakanda. He claims that New Tian was set up illegally by radical mutant separatists and that Wakanda has been selling weapons of mass destruction in defiance of international law; in reality, he wants the cosmic cube shards that the leaders of those nations have. He insists his armies will not stop until the other nations' 'disobedience' is dealt with, then implores the citizens of those nations to beg their leaders to acquiesce to his wishes.
HYDRA's dreadnoughts and several members of the HYDRA High Council, including Daniel "Kraken" Whitehall, Ophelia "Viper" Sarkissian, and Tomi "Gorgon" Shishido, invade New Tian. They break through the nation's defenses and reach the palace of King Kuan-Yin Xorn, but even as they fight through Xorn's defenders such as Hank "Beast" McCoy and Alex "Havok" Summers, Shishido says that they know the real ruler of New Tian is Emma Frost. Frost reveals herself and gives in, saying a New Tian delegation will fly to Washington and she will personally surrender the cosmic cube shard that she took from Shang-Chi in exchange for a ceasefire. If her author is rejected, she says, she will use Xorn to lay waste to the HYDRA army.
In Wakanda, King "Black Panther" T'Challa oversees the defense of his realm alongside Hodari, a member of his Taifa Ngao council. T'Challa's troops are sufficient to drive away the HYDRA ground forces and he is also able to disable their dreadnoughts, but Hodari suddenly freezes up and says he is unable to deploy more troops. Johann "Doctor Faustus" Fennhoff enters alongside Zenzi, a Wakandan rebel, and Fennhoff reveals he has used his hypnosis abilities to take control of about half of T'Challa's army. T'Challa is skeptical but Fennhoff says that once Western capitalism infiltrated Wakanda, it was only a matter of time before Wakandan minds were open enough for him to affect them. He thanks T'Challa for giving him the chance to prove to Rogers that mass hypnosis is a workable and ethical manner of subjugating a populace, then threatens to have T'Challa's army surrender. T'Challa says his people will never give in but he's then attacked and knocked down by Helmut Zemo, who says he honestly hopes T'Challa will give him an excuse to kill him. Zemo points out that Fennhoff can easily just have T'Challa's army shoot themselves, and T'Challa gives in.
Back during the same day that Rogers declares war, Sam Wilson gives a speech to the other members of the Underground in the Nevada desert. He apologizes for giving up the mantle of Captain America and notes that he couldn't handle how people always came asking for help whenever things went wrong. He notes that this is why Rogers was able to take over: whenever things got hard, instead of taking responsibility for problems and trying to fix them, the superhero community decided it was easier to just let Steve Rogers handle everything. He adds that Rogers is now telling the nation every day that the reason he took over was because of the failures of the other heroes, including their perpetual civil wars, their grand ideas like Ultron that went haywire and caused devastation, and their pride and bickering that caused the heroes to lose touch with the common people they were supposed to be serving.
Wilson continues on to say that Rogers is right about all of the heroes' sins, but even so, they don't have to give up and can still fight back; if the heroes fought Galactus and the Skrulls, then they should still be able to fight HYDRA, even if they haven't truly been heroes in some time. Wilson says that they know of a prison camp in New Attilan with thousands upon thousands of captured Inhumans, and he thinks they should raid it to free the prisoners, even if the mission is danger and likely to be lethal. And the group of heroes decides to follow him in the attack.
When the heroes arrive at the prison camp they find it is already on fire and in the midst of a jailbreak. The heroes intervene anyways and help the prisoners drive off the remaining HYDRA forces. As they do so, they remember how to be heroes and begin fighting more assuredly.
When HYDRA has been driven off Wilson talks to Iso, the Inhuman leader, and a few of the other former prisoners. They tell him that the jailbreak was started by Brian "Barf" McAllister, the Inhuman with the power of being able to vomit up objects after seeing their picture. The Tony Stark AI gripes about how stupid McAllister's power is while McAllister explains that the other inmates got his mask off and he was able to see the guards' keys well enough to vomit them up. He explains his powers have a few limits—there's a size limitation, and he can't vomit up guns—and both Wilson and the Stark AI realize he might be able to create a cosmic cube shard. The Stark AI shows him a hologram of one, and moments later McAllister throws up the last cosmic cube shard.
24 hours later, the Stark AI shows Wilson, Raz "Giant-Man" Malhotra, and Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse the destroyed cake and tells them he has a theory. He notes that all the visions of Ulysses Cain came true except for the one of Miles "Spider-Man" Morales killing Rogers on the steps of the Capitol. The Stark AI noticed in a camera feed that Rogers was holding a cosmic cube shard during that fight, and he theorizes that the individual shards have power which enable a human user to "will" things to happen, even to the extent of overriding a fixed future. The Stark AI tested that theory by holding the shard McAllister provided and wishing for a birthday cake, and shortly thereafter he was stopped by a mother who says her son happened to take a cake with him when they were evacuating the Underground base. The mother gave the Stark AI the cake, proving the theory.
As Malhotra eats the cake, the Stark AI says that he tried wishing for bigger things and failed, leading him to believe the individual shards only have limited power. The team decides to try to use the shard to get the other shards so they'll have more power, and Malhotra confirms that he still has his time machine which will be able to send messages into the past before the Darkforce Dome and the planetary shield went up. This will enable the team to send a single message to the heroes trapped in space and in Manhattan, enabling everyone to coordinate an attack on HYDRA.
In Atlantis, King Namor McKenzie throws books around in his library and vents to a cloaked and masked figure that he's been made a fool of. He gave his cosmic cube shard to HYDRA to buy safety for his people, but now his people revile him as a coward and HYDRA continues to fill the oceans with warships anyways. He notes that he still has one trick up his sleeve, though, and asks the figure to remove his disguise. As the man does, Namor says he is at least pleased that he was able to keep something very important from Rogers—the survival of his closest friend. And indeed, as the figure removes his disguise, he is revealed to be Bucky "Winter Soldier" Barnes. Barnes shrugs off Namor's compliments and says he has a plan.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: Barf, who first appeared at the beginning of the event and seemed to be a random new character. Now he provides a cosmic cube shard, which turns the tables.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: HYDRA defeats the New Tian and Wakandan forces extremely quickly.
