Eternity has sent three portions of himself out into the universe so that they may understand mortal life- but now they don't want to come back! Can the Defenders bring back the pieces of Eternity before their absence causes the universe to end?
Some of the Defenders are congregating at Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, with Nighthawk feeling despair over his contact with his ex-girlfriend Mindy (in Marvel Team-Up 101). However, while they are talking, tehy feel reality suddenly start to flicker on and off. Strange is suddenly pulled away to talk with Eternity, who explains that long ago, he split off parts of himself to get a sense of what "difference" and "otherness" means, since he normally is everything, and thus all the same. He eventually brought most of those parts back to himself, and thus learned about their lives and gained understanding from them. However, three parts were apparently kept away, and now the universe is in danger, because Eternity is not whole.
Strange contacts a few groups of Defenders, and sends them to different parts of the world to find the missing pieces of Eternity, while he and some other mystics try to keep Eternity together.
Daimon Hellstrom and Hellcat--who meet here for the first time, and begin to bond over their mutual problems with their parents--are sent to a temple in India. They are attacked by some temple followers, who think they kidnapped their yogi, who is missing. However, they realize the yogi is the piece of Eternity they're looking for, and they are given directions to find him. They battle a copy of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman, and follow a trail to another temple.
The Hulk and Nighthawk are sent to Siberia, where they battle some snow giants and protect a village. The villagers tell them that an orphan they adopted has been taken. They follow the trail, and are almost magically frozen, but break out of the ice and see an ice temple.
Valkyrie and Namor are sent to a Mediterranean shore, and fight some guards that attack them, but soon the woman in charge tells them that her husband has been taken. They go to a nearby island, fighting some mystical monsters on the way. When they arrive on the island, they too find a temple.
All three pairs go inside their own temples, and arrive in the same mystic interdimensional space. The three pieces of Eternity are there. They were not kidnapped, but have intentionally kept themselves separated from Eternity--their time among humanity has made them treasure their individuality. They defeat the other Defenders, but Nighthawk convinces them that they would be rejecting their humanity if they let the rest of the universe die. They go back to Eternity, and find peace.
When the Defenders return, Dr. Strange congratulates Nighthawk for showing his own worth and humanity. Nighthawk, however, is just sad for the families that are now going to miss the pieces of Eternity that they thought were humans.
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