Axel stood there with a wide smile as the agents slowly backed away.
Agent Phil Coulson thought carefully for a moment, then silently retreated down the corridor with Brock Rumlow, also known as Crossbones, and the other agents.
Watching them leave, Axel scoffed and walked back toward the sofa.
A few seconds later, far down the hallway, Rumlow muttered quietly under his breath.
"This is fucking bullshit."
Axel's head snapped around instantly.
"What the hell did you just say?"
His voice turned cold.
With a sharp kick, Axel blasted the door in front of him off its hinges. The heavy door flew down the hallway like a missile.
Rumlow jumped in shock and raised both hands.
"Shit, I wasn't talking about you. I meant him!"
While speaking, he frantically pointed at the terrified Coulson.
Axel moved in a blur.
In the blink of an eye, he stood directly in front of Rumlow.
Rumlow's eyes widened with fear.
Axel grabbed him by the throat and slammed him hard against the wall. Concrete cracked from the impact.
Then Axel drove his free hand into the damaged wall, ripping out a steel reinforcement bar.
Still coated with cement dust, the jagged steel rod gleamed in his hand.
Axel pressed the bar against Rumlow's collarbone and spoke slowly.
"I'll ask again. What the hell did you just say?"
The next second.
Pfft.
The steel bar punched straight through Rumlow's collarbone and deep into the wall behind him.
Rumlow was pinned in place.
A horrifying scream echoed through the hallway.
At that moment, Steve and Natasha rushed over.
"Wait, Axel! What did he say?"
Steve shouted from a distance.
Axel glanced at them briefly, then chuckled and shook his head.
Instead of answering, he shoved his left hand straight into Rumlow's mouth.
"Watch your damn words in your next life, buddy."
With brutal force, Axel pried Rumlow's jaw apart and tore sideways.
Half of Rumlow's face ripped away from his skull.
Blood splattered across Axel's clothes and face.
Rumlow's body twitched once, then went completely still.
Axel calmly released the corpse.
With clear disgust, he tore off the lower half of Rumlow's face and tossed it toward Coulson.
The bloody chunk landed directly in Coulson's hands.
Coulson froze for half a second before collapsing onto the floor in shock.
Down the hall, Steve had witnessed everything.
He stood there stunned before finally shouting.
"Axel!"
His voice was full of anger.
"You've crossed the line this time!"
Steve clenched his fists.
"It was just a sentence. Even if it was the dumbest insult imaginable, you didn't have to kill him, and definitely not like that."
"You could have broken his leg, restrained him, anything!"
Axel laughed.
"So what?"
He shrugged carelessly.
"Maybe I didn't have to kill him. But he ruined my good mood."
Axel walked over to Coulson, who was still trembling on the floor.
"Steve, when you're out in the world, respect is something you take for yourself."
He grabbed Coulson by the collar and pulled him to his feet.
"If I repeated that lesson a million times to someone like him, he'd never learn."
Axel wiped the blood from his hands on Coulson's suit.
"But now..."
He patted Coulson's face lightly.
"Do you understand how to respect me?"
Coulson nodded frantically.
"I understand. I always understood. That was his own stupidity, not mine. I swear!"
Axel smiled in satisfaction and patted his shoulder.
"Good."
He released Coulson.
Without another word, Axel walked out of Stark Tower and disappeared into the flickering city lights.
Silence filled the hallway.
Steve hurried to Rumlow's body, which was still pinned to the wall by the steel bar.
After confirming that Rumlow was dead, Steve slammed his fist into the nearby wall in frustration.
His knuckles sank into the concrete.
He turned toward Natasha with a heavy expression.
"I understand what you meant earlier on the comms."
Steve exhaled slowly.
"He may have saved the city. Maybe even the world."
"But Axel is not a hero."
Nearby, Tony Stark finally arrived, slightly out of breath.
He stared uneasily at Rumlow's corpse nailed to the wall.
"Only someone old fashioned like you would take this long to figure that out."
Tony crossed his arms.
"The moment I saw that guy, I knew exactly what he was. A complete bastard you don't mess with."
Clint Barton knelt beside the body and checked Rumlow briefly before sighing.
"Yeah. He's gone."
Clint stood up and shook his head.
"I've seen people like Axel before. Just not in real life."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"My nephew plays video games with this rule. If an NPC annoys him, the NPC dies."
Clint glanced down the hallway where Axel had left.
"Reality isn't a game, but for Axel, it sure looks like he's having fun."
He swallowed uneasily.
Then Clint waved urgently at Coulson.
"Agent, you and your team should get the hell out of here."
Coulson needed no further encouragement.
He grabbed the remaining agents and fled down the corridor as if a swarm of hornets were chasing them.
The Avengers watched them leave.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Finally Natasha closed her eyes briefly.
"He already proved he can't die in a nuclear explosion."
She looked at the others.
"So aside from nuclear weapons, does anything exist that can stop him?"
Tony immediately shook his head.
"If we can't figure out how his teleportation works, we won't even touch a hair on his head."
Tony's voice became more serious.
"I don't know where he came from, but I've got a bad feeling."
He looked out the broken window toward New York.
"That guy is going to cause massive trouble in this city, maybe across the entire United States."
Tony sighed.
"Instead of thinking about how to beat him, I'm upgrading my armor."
He pointed toward Rumlow's body.
"Forget stopping him. We need to figure out how to survive him."
Tony rubbed his temples.
"I hate to admit it, but Axel is a far more dangerous predator than Loki."
"And we're the prey."
With that, Tony turned and walked quickly toward his laboratory.
The floor containing his lab had partially collapsed, but he still needed to recover as much equipment as possible before S.H.I.E.L.D. took it.
Steve exchanged a grim look with Natasha and Clint.
Tony at least had technology to rely on.
But the three of them were still just human.
None of them knew how they could possibly deal with someone like Axel.
At that moment.
Boom.
A massive crash shook the wall.
Thor burst through the rubble, landing heavily in front of Steve while carrying Bruce Banner over his shoulder.
Thor stood proudly, holding Mjolnir in one hand.
His face was bruised and swollen, but he grinned anyway.
"Your green friend is incredibly strong."
Thor laughed.
"I almost lost the fight, but in the end I always win."
He looked down at Banner in confusion.
"Although I don't know what happened. In the middle of the battle he suddenly changed from a giant green monster into this weak man."
Natasha nodded calmly.
"Banner probably exhausted himself."
But Thor was already staring at Rumlow's corpse on the wall.
He pointed at it.
"What happened here?"
Thor frowned.
"Have the Chitauri started hanging dead bodies on walls?"
Natasha looked confused.
"Weren't you wearing your earpiece?"
She pointed toward his ear.
Thor shrugged sheepishly.
"My fight with the green giant destroyed most of the steel around us."
He laughed awkwardly.
"A small communication device didn't stand a chance."
"So what happened?"
Natasha answered simply.
"Axel killed him."
Thor blinked.
"Why?"
He looked genuinely puzzled.
"Isn't Axel your champion? Why would he kill one of your own?"
Clint crossed his arms.
"Because the guy insulted him."
Thor paused for a moment.
Then he nodded slowly and raised his thumb toward Rumlow's corpse.
"Very bold of him."
Thor grinned.
"And your champion handled it well. No one will insult him again."
Natasha shot him an annoyed look.
"It was just an insult, Thor."
Her voice sharpened.
"Would you execute one of your citizens in Asgard for insulting you?"
Thor waved dismissively.
"That would never happen."
He sounded confident.
"My people would never insult me or my father."
Natasha folded her arms.
"And if they did?"
Thor thought about it seriously.
Then he looked at Rumlow's body again and gave another thumbs up.
"If one of our citizens insulted my father, they would spend at least a thousand years in prison."
He paused.
"But if someone from another realm insulted him..."
Thor shrugged.
"That would probably start a war. Millions could die."
Thor then added thoughtfully.
"That was how I used to think."
He scratched his chin.
"After my exile, I finally understood what my father wanted me to learn."
Thor glanced at the corpse one more time.
"If someone from the Nine Realms insulted my father and me today, only the person who spoke would die."
He tilted his head.
"Although we probably wouldn't nail them to a wall."
Thor chuckled.
"Usually a single severed head is enough to scare people."