The moment Earth's defenders saw Thor's axe cutting through Vibranium like butter, slicing through what they'd believed was an indestructible material as if it were tissue paper, they had already lost 90% of all their confidence.
This magical metal that could absorb kinetic energy, that was supposed to be the hardest material in the world, had been their last hope. Their ace in the hole. If Vibranium could hold, maybe they didn't have any weapons that could truly harm them. Maybe humanity had a chance.
Although they didn't know if it was specifically the axe that could do this or if it was mainly Thor's own strength breaking through, it didn't matter anymore. The distinction was academic.
If they couldn't kill him, in the end even if they managed to deal with the regular Asgardian soldiers somehow, they would still die. Thor alone could exterminate them all.
Now, looking at their strongest attack—Tony's molecular disintegration beam, powered by six Arc Reactors, concentrated enough to vaporize city blocks—being only capable of peeling off Thor's armor? They lost all remaining hope.
Should we just surrender? The same question rose in dozens of hearts simultaneously, unspoken but universal.
While they were desperately thinking about what to do next, weighing impossible options, they suddenly heard a loud shout from the Asgardian lines.
"SVEFNÞORN!"
And with that ancient word of power, an energy wave swept throughout the entire battlefield, rolling across the ruins like an invisible tide.
Tony and the other enhanced defenders also felt that wave pass through them—a strange tingling sensation, pressure without force.
"JARVIS! Check my body!" Tony commanded immediately. "Full diagnostic! Look for toxins, radiation, cellular damage, anything!"
After the wave passed completely through him, Tony felt nothing obviously wrong with his systems, so he quickly demanded answers from his AI.
"No, sir, there is nothing detectably wrong with your body," JARVIS reported after running full scans. "No contamination, no cellular damage, no anomalous readings. You appear completely unaffected."
"Oh, so what was the wave for then?" Tony asked, confused and suspicious. "Are they already celebrating or something? Victory lap before they've even finished beating us?"
"No, sir. Please look around you," JARVIS suggested. "At the soldiers positioned a little farther away from your position."
Hearing JARVIS's reminder, Tony quickly looked around, his helmet's enhanced optics scanning the battlefield.
"What the fuck..." Tony whispered, his voice hollow with shock.
All of the soldiers who had been fighting just moments ago—no, it couldn't even be called fighting anymore, more like desperately fleeing or futilely shooting at invulnerable enemies—but still, all of them now lay on the ground, completely motionless.
Thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands across the entire defensive line.
"Fuck! FUCK!" Tony's voice cracked. "Are all of them dead? That's a million people! That's a fucking MILLION people! Killed in an instant!"
Before joining this war, Tony had already mentally prepared himself for death. Had accepted that there was a very real chance that every one of them might die in this desperate defense. But now, actually looking at this, seeing a million bodies laid out across Manhattan, he found he couldn't accept this fact.
His mind refused to process the scale of the catastrophe.
"No, sir!" JARVIS's reminder sounded, cutting through Tony's spiral. "Fortunately, they are still breathing! Vital signs are present across all scanned targets!"
"According to their breathing rhythm and brainwave patterns, they are likely just sleeping," JARVIS concluded. "Deeply sleeping, but alive."
"What?! Sleeping?!" Tony sputtered. "WHAT? WHY? Who puts their enemy to SLEEP in the middle of a war?! That doesn't make tactical sense!"
But Cap's voice broke through his confused deliberation, carrying pure rage.
"You BASTARD!" Steve shouted toward Thor, his broken arm hanging uselessly but his spirit clearly unbroken.
"Captain, calm down! Calm the fuck down!" Tony tried to interrupt. "They're just sleeping! They're alive!"
"What?" Steve suddenly felt confused, the red haze of battle-fury clearing slightly. "What do you mean they're sleeping, Tony? How can an entire army be sleeping?"
"Are you—speechless," Tony muttered. "Did you forget how to understand English after getting hit in the head? They. Are. SLEEPING. Whatever energy wave the Asgardians just released put all of them into some kind of magical sleep."
"And we're mostly unaffected, probably because of the Vibranium suits," Tony explained. "The energy absorption properties must have filtered out most of the spell's effect."
"What? Why would they put them to sleep?" Steve asked the same question that was bothering Tony.
"I don't know. Maybe it'll be easier to capture us all this way?" Tony speculated. "Maybe they—"
"Look at this!" Thor's voice boomed across the battlefield, not aggressive but almost... reasonable? "Your army has been defeated without a single death! If you don't want anyone to die at all, just surrender obediently! There's no shame in yielding to superior force!"
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a new voice cutting through their comms—not Thor's, but Nick Fury's, transmitted from some remote command center.
"Stark," Fury's voice was flat, emotionless, carrying the weight of someone who'd already made an impossible decision. "We are sending 200 nuclear warheads your way. They will arrive in five minutes. Talk to your loved ones while you can."
Just two sentences. Twenty-three words total.
But they hit every person still conscious as heavy as a hammer blow to the chest. Every defender still awake felt their heart stop, the implications crashing over them like a tsunami.
Those shameless politicians, Tony thought with bitter clarity. They're using nukes. Actual nuclear weapons on their own soil.
Did they think that if Asgard didn't use mass destruction weapons first, that it was some kind of restraint? Scratch that—Thor himself IS a walking weapon of mass destruction, more dangerous than anything humanity has.
But Tony absolutely didn't believe that a cosmic civilization that was once capable of conquering the entire universe didn't have planet-destroying weapons. They clearly possessed the capability.
They just didn't use them, likely because they didn't feel like Earth was worth the effort. Like you wouldn't nuke an anthill.
Although 200 nukes wouldn't do shit to Thor himself—the God of Thunder could probably tank them all and walk away—Tony couldn't say the same for these Asgardian soldiers. They were tough, far tougher than humans, but concentrated nuclear fire would kill them.
So after their deaths, after humanity vaporized 50,000 Asgardian warriors in atomic fire?
Tony could imagine exactly what would happen next. Hela wouldn't accept negotiated surrender anymore. She'd bring the full might of Asgard down on Earth. Real extermination, not this restrained demonstration.
But Tony didn't have the strength or the will to deal with that future right now. He would also be dead in five minutes, vaporized in the nuclear hellstorm.
"JARVIS, call Pepper," Tony said quietly.
...
After several rings, a shaking voice answered.
"Hey, Tony! Did you win? Are you okay? I've been watching the feeds and—"
Silence.
Tony didn't answer her question. Couldn't find the words.
"Yo, Pepper," he said finally, his voice rough. "This might sound abrupt, but I think... I think I love you. Not think. I know. I love you."
"Tony, what do you mean?" Her voice shifted instantly, fear replacing hope. "Tony? TONY?!"
Tony didn't say anything else. He directly hung up, cutting the connection.
He didn't want her to hear him die. Didn't want the last sounds she heard from him to be screaming or the roar of nuclear fire.
Better to leave her with those three words.
.....
Clint's hands shook as he dialed, arrow still nocked but useless.
"Laura? Yeah, it's me. I know I said I wouldn't call during missions but—"
"Clint, what's wrong?" His wife's voice carried instant concern. "You sound—"
"Just listen, okay?" Clint interrupted gently. "Tell the kids their dad loves them. Tell them I was thinking about them at the end. Tell them—" His voice cracked. "Tell them I'm sorry I won't be there to see them grow up."
"Clint, no. No, don't you dare—"
He hung up before she could finish, before her fear could break his remaining composure.
........
Steve didn't have anyone to call. Everyone he'd loved was either dead or frozen in his own past.
But he pulled out the small photo he carried—Peggy Carter, young and smiling, from another lifetime.
"I'm sorry I couldn't make our dance, Peg," he whispered to the image. "Looks like I'm going to be late again."
He tucked it back into his suit, close to his heart.
.......
Thor seemed to sense something wrong, his eyes turning skyward. He stopped his advance, waiting patiently, almost curiously.
It didn't take much time for the first nuclear warhead to appear as a dot in the sky, growing rapidly larger.
Then another. Then a dozen. Then scores.
Two hundred points of light, streaking through the atmosphere toward Manhattan, toward ground zero, carrying enough combined yield to crack the continental shelf.
While everyone was looking at the incoming missiles, Thor's mocking voice sounded across the battlefield, carried on the wind.
"So this is your final struggle?" He sounded almost... disappointed. "This is how humanity chooses to end? Not with courage, but with fire?"
Thor raised Mjolnir to the sky. "HEIMDALL!"
At his shout, dozens of rainbow Bifrost beams suddenly descended from the heavens, each one intercepting a nuclear warhead mid-flight.
The missiles touched the rainbow light and simply... vanished. Teleported away to some empty corner of space.
More beams appeared. More missiles disappeared.
All 200 nuclear warheads, humanity's desperate final gambit, were removed from existence in seconds. Transported away as casually as sweeping dust from a table.
Everyone became completely dumbfounded, watching their last hope literally disappear into rainbow light.