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“Got an assignment for you, Agent,” Garrett announces, barging in without bothering to knock. Rumlow’s eyes flick up from his computer and he presses his lips together. He considers just telling him to fuck off, but with Garrett it’d just be a waste of breath. There's some some random fucking kid trailing after him, sullen and sulky, and Garrett's stalking into Rumlow’s small, windowless office like he owns it. Rumlow grinds his teeth.
“Please, come in, make yourself at home,” Rumlow snipes.
Garrett grins at him, settles on the edge of Rumlow’s desk like they’re buddies, just killing time during the work day. The kid stays standing, just behind Garrett's right shoulder, and determinedly looks at absolutely nothing.
“Well? Don’t you want the sitrep?”
“I don't take orders from you,” Rumlow informs him, turning his attention back to his computer. Blatant disinterest hasn't ever worked on Garrett before, but there's a first time for everything.
It wont be this time. Rumlow can practically fucking taste the anticipation rolling off the man, and that’s never a good sign, with Garrett.
A file lands on his desk with a slap. Rumlow closes his eyes. There's only one thing that could be in that file, and one of these days Rumlow's going to find all the copies, light them on fire, and shove them up Garrett's ass.
Garrett smirks. “I just got a mission from the Secretary. Level Six. I probably shouldn't even tell you that much to be honest,” he says, cheerfully. “It's gonna be a doozy, make no mistake, but I have a few responsibilities here that I can't just let fester while I'm off in Timbuktu, you know what I mean?” He laughs.
“I’m sure you’ll be getting around to the point any moment now.”
“Anyway,” Garrett continues, ignoring him, “I was just considering what to do about that, and then I had this thought. I mean, about that one op, where we first met? And I just started to wonder, you know, about your chances of ever getting within spitting distance of Level Six if the big man upstairs gets his eyes on that.”
Rumlow narrows his eyes. He knows where this is going, has known since Garret brought that up that fucking file, probably could have guessed as soon as he walked in the door. That op was Rumlow's first command involving the Asset, capital A, and the damn thing had slipped its leash on his watch. Well, Westfahl's watch, but as Westfahl was under Rumlow's command that meant fuck-all for his life expectancy, let alone a promotion to Level Six. Garrett had swooped in out of nowhere and cleaned the whole mess up, covered Rumlow's ass, and never let him forget it.
Someday, when Hydra sweeps across the world like a biblical flood and puts this crapsack planet in order, the smarmy, transparently opportunistic little weasels like Garrett will be shot and dumped in a burning ditch. Right now, in the dark underbelly of SHIELD, they can't afford that kind of ideological purity. Rumlow gets that, he does, but someday Rumlow swears to God he's gonna pull the fucking trigger that puts this man down.
Someday. “What have you got for me, sir?” Rumlow drawls, vividly fantasizing about putting a knife through Garrett’s eye socket.
Garrett claps his hands, rubbing them together with cheerful anticipation. “That’s the spirit! See that, Grant?” He looks up at the kid, who hasn't quit scowling at the carpet since they came in. “Rumlow here understands the order of things. He may not like it, he may not think it's fair, but he doesn't bitch and moan like a little crybaby when things don't go his way.”
The kid's – Grant's – eyes flash and his jaw clenches, but he says nothing. Rumlow wonders if he’s not the only one who would cheerfully stab this man to death and feels a small spark of curiosity, despite himself.
“Grant's going through a bit of a rebellious phase,” Garrett faux-whispers to him. Rumlow fixes him with his most deeply unamused stare. “Well, to be honest, his entire fucking life has been a rebellious phase. You'd think pulling the little brat out of juvie and giving him a future would get you some goddamn gratitude. Kids these days, right?”
The kid hunches in on himself, and it suddenly clicks who he is. New recruit, little young for the Ops Academy but sponsored personally by Garrett. He's not the only one; scuttlebutt says Garrett has a couple of the little critters under his wing. It's not uncommon for the higher level SO's these days – everyone seems to be trying to mimic Coulson's success with Barton and Romanoff – and a lot of Garrett and Rumlow's associates have jumped at the chance to bring in their own pet projects.
This must be the problem child, with more disciplinary write-ups and rumor mill fodder than the rest put together. Which which is mildly interesting, but why is he here? Garrett in particular has a reputation for jealously asserting control over his favorites; if they're not in class he usually stuffs them in the wilderness to fight bears for their breakfast or some shit. He doesn't drag them around headquarters like little ducklings, and he certainly doesn't introduce them to rival agents.
“So... what?” Rumlow says slowly. “You need a babysitter?”
“I'm not a kid, I don't need a fucking babysitter,” the kid snaps, clenching his fists like he's gonna throw a punch at one of them, for fucks sake. Rumlow flicks a look at him before raising a brow at Garret, who sighs.
“Op's looking like it'll take about a month,” Garrett says, ignoring the little outburst. The kid deflates and goes back to his staring contest with the floor. “I leave him alone that long, he'll be right out on his ass. Not gonna lie, that'd make my life simpler, but qualified candidates don't grow on trees, if you know what I mean.”
Rumlow does. Recruiting for a secret spy organization within a secret spy organization is a delicate process, to say the least. Garrett wouldn't bother with this pain in the ass if he didn't have serious potential as a skilled asset who could keep his mouth shut. He looks at the kid again, with a more considering eye. He's maybe eighteen or nineteen, pretty in a WASP-y sort of way, and holds himself like he's expecting an attack from any direction at any time. He’s clinging hard to this rebellious tough kid act but his body language, the way he’s tuned towards Garrett’s every word and slumps like a limp balloon every time Garrett ignores his cries for attention is unmistakable; the kid is practically drowning in daddy issues.
An idea blooms in Rumlow's brain and tingles tantalizingly down his spine. “So you want me to keep an eye on him while you're on a mission.”
Garret snaps his fingers and points at Rumlow. “Got it in one. I knew they gave you this fancy desk for a reason. Just look after him while I'm gone, whip him into shape.”
Rumlow rolls his eyes and gives Garret an assenting grunt. Garrett smirks and allows himself to be waved off, getting up and going to give the kid a fatherly clap on the back. Instead of removing the hand he grips the kid’s shoulder, white knuckled and too tight. “I have every confidence in your abilities, Agent Ward. I expect things to be different when I get back.”
He lets go, gives Rumlow a dangerously friendly parting smile as he backs out the open office door. “But I guess I'll know who to blame it on if they aren't, huh?”
It's a smart play. Letting the kid wash out will reflect badly on Garrett, and they don't have so many potential recruits that they can afford to let a promising one rot in a cell somewhere. But, put him in Rumlow's hands for a month, and now Garrett can either blame the kid's failure on Rumlow or swoop in and take credit for his success.
Bastard. The kid doesn't follow him out, so Rumlow guesses they're starting now.
Right now Grant’s staring at the empty doorway like a dog whose master has just abandoned him. It's pretty pathetic; Rumlow supposes he can’t blame Garrett for trying to cut the umbilical cord, though he can and does blame him for jerking him around while he does it. Rumlow whistles sharply to get Grant's attention and beckons him over with a wordless twitch of his fingers. The kid eyes him suspiciously, like Rumlow's gonna leap up and attack him, and Rumlow rolls his eyes and makes an impatient 'hurry the fuck up' motion until Grant is standing tense and miserable next to him behind the desk.
Rumlow rests his chin on his hand and just... looks for a moment. Grant’s black t-shirt stretches tight across his shoulders, and at his age that could be vanity or just putting on muscle faster than he can keep up with. His thick black pants and black combat boots have no SHIELD insignias, but otherwise he's dressed almost identically to Rumlow himself; field assets aren’t particularly towards individuality, Rumlow has found.
Grant starts to fidget under his gaze, sooner than expected. Kid's green as fuck, that's for damn sure, but Rumlow's starting to think he might enjoy that.
Rumlow catches the kid's gaze, holds it, and says “Kneel.”
Grant chokes. “What?!”
Rumlow, who had already started to turn back to his work, looks slowly back up to the kid's outraged face. He pauses, staying silent long enough for the kid to bite his lip, for his gaze to shy away.
“Did I fucking stutter?” Rumlow asks, keeping his voice deadly soft.
Grant swallows and clears his throat. “No, sir,” he says, but it's not until Rumlow's eyebrows climb pointedly towards his hairline that he sinks slowly to his knees.
Satisfied, Rumlow goes back to his paperwork, not allowing himself to be distracted by the warm, agitated body as his feet. Garrett wants him to make the boy more tractable and he will, in his own time.
In his own way.
Anticipation thrums quietly through Rumlow's veins, thick and sweet. Garrett doesn't – couldn't – know what a gift he's given Rumlow. He thinks he's handing off one of his problems to some poor sucker he's got some dirt on, but Rumlow has always been a good at turning circumstances around for his own benefit, for making do with what life gives him, and thriving.
“Keep your eyes on the floor, you don't have the clearance to be reading this shit,” Rumlow orders. He can see out of the corner of his eye how the kid's digging his nails into his palms, grinding his teeth together, and glaring at the gray-blue office carpet like it's personally responsible for all of his life's problems.
Rumlow pulls up the kid's file, to see what he's in for. Nineteen, trust fund brat, tried to burn down his own fucking house, tried as an adult for attempted murder at the insistence of his own family, who all seem to be in politics in one way or another.
His record at his fancy military school and his time at Ops Academy are nearly identical: a consistent string of brilliance punctuated by explosive disciplinary issues. Rumlow's got no patience for entitled rich brats determined to fuck up their lives for the fun of it, but he knows pain when he sees it. That's good. Pain is life's great teacher, if one bothers to listen, and Rumlow's going to help this kid learn all of its lessons. He smirks to himself. That’s him, always willing to help out.
Rumlow clicks out of the kid's file and goes back to reading reports, typing his own, and doctoring a few things here or there that might otherwise be inconvenient for the cause. He's not really a paperwork guy, and he's certainly not a desk guy, but he's got a brain in his head and he pulls his own weight. This shit is boring as fuck, but it's better him than some idiot like Westfahl or some self-serving blowhard like Garrett.
Though right now, with this kid kneeling at his feet, growing more frustrated and restless by the minute, it all somehow seems a little less tedious than usual. Grant knows this is his last chance before he's bounced right the fuck back behind bars, and not at some cozy little juvie summer camp this time either. Rumlow can feel his struggle to keep it together, to grit his teeth and endure whatever's about to get thrown in his direction, but Rumlow's gone off script and given him absolutely nothing to latch on to, to fight against. The kid in that file, the kid at his feet, is too full of formless rage to sit silent and pretty for long. All Rumlow has to do is wait for the pressure to build, for his control to slip, for his fear and apprehension to drown out his good sense and until he lashes out like a trapped animal...
“So how long do you expect me to sit here on my knees, you fucking perv?”
Yes.
Rumlow backhands the kid across the face. He doesn’t even look at him, doesn’t need to; anticipation for this moment has been coiling in Rumlow’s gut from the moment Grant’s knees touched the floor. Now he’s sprawled on the floor, legs splayed, touching his split lip and giving Rumlow the kind of hurt, bewildered look that makes him want to grab him by the hair and paint that pretty face with his come.
Keep your mind on your work.
“J-jesus... what the fuck?” Grant stammers after a few moments of shocked silence. Rumlow swivels his chair around and rests his elbows on his thighs, looming over the kid and looking him straight in the eye.
“That was for questioning my orders.” Rumlow explains, keeping his voice calm and tracking the motion of the boy's throat as he swallows nervously. “Assuming you don't wash out like a little bitch, you're going to be given a lot of orders that don't make sense to you, but you'll be expected to follow them anyway, without question. Do you know why?”
Grant's jaw clenches. “No, sir.”
“Because the people giving the orders have more information than you, and sometimes sharing that information can compromise the mission. And also because they're older and smarter and more experienced than you, which is why they're the ones giving the fucking orders in the first place. Understood?”
Probably not: every inch of this kid’s body language screams rebellion. It might turn out a good thing, that he has a spine, might make him a good SO one day. Right now, though, he doesn’t have any sense to back that up and all that fire is just getting him in trouble.
But he manages a terse “Yes, sir,” without biting off his tongue, so there may be hope for him yet.
Rumlow leans forward to cup Grant's chin, gripping tighter when he jerks away from his touch. “Stay still,” Rumlow snaps, like a whip cracking, and Grant freezes. He flinches when Rumlow strokes his thumb across his split bottom lip, eyes flicking all around the room and refusing to settle on Rumlow's face.
“Look at me,” Rumlow orders lowly and Grant's eyes lock to his, his breath growing unsteady and shallow. Rumlow holds his gaze and rests his thumb right where his lip is cut. He presses gently, making Grant's breath catch, and smiles as he steadily increases the pressure.
Rumlow hums approvingly when Grant doesn't move a muscle. He keeps hold of the kid's gaze as he presses down harder, watches him vibrate with tension, and listens to his breath stutter and shake in the silent room. He feels the small trickle of blood bloom under his thumb as he grinds the boy's lip against his teeth until he lets out a small, involuntary whimper.
“Does it hurt?” Soothing, approving.
“Yes, sir.” Shaken, confused and frightened.
“Good,” Rumlow affirms, releasing his chin and his gaze all at once. He returns to his computer screen briefly entertaining a fantasy where he fucks Grant’s mouth until his tears leak and blood dribbles down his chin. Work now, play later. “I've got shit to do that isn't dealing with one of Garrett's little favors. He doesn’t give a shit about my schedule, and I don’t give a shit about how you feel kneeling behind my desk while I get some real work done. You got class?”
“Not for another few weeks,” Grant says unsteadily. “Trimester just wrapped up.”
“I don't suppose you have anywhere to stay besides the dorms,” Rumlow asks, though he already knows the answer.
“No, sir. Usually I stay with – ”
“Garrett, of course,” Rumlow sneers, rubbing his eyes to hide the rising tide of anticipation. “You'll have to stay with me, then. And Garrett gets to fuck off without paying for your room and board on top of everything. Typical.” Fucking snake.
Rumlow can feel Grant's hackles rise. “I know how to take care of myself, you don't – ”
“What did I just say about questioning orders?” The kid's mouth snaps shut. “Better. Now keep quiet and let me work in peace, I'm behind enough as it is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And kid?”
“Sir?”
Rumlow gives him a warning look out the corner of his eye. “This is the last time I explain myself to you.”
Grant shudders and drops his gaze. “Yes, sir.”
~~~
One might think the low buzz of anticipation would make time drag on, but Rumlow actually finds that the rest of his work speeds along faster than before. He's a man well accustomed to long stretches of waiting before the surge of action, to stillness until the absolute perfect moment to strike. His mind is clear and focused like the moments before an op, when everything about him slips quietly into its appropriate place.
Grant hasn't once raised his head or shifted position since their conversation, a pleasant surprise. For such a rebellious little shit, he’s awfully eager to please; Rumlow has no idea how an agent of Garrett's caliber is managing to fuck it up with this one.
On a whim, Rumlow sinks his fingers into Grant's soft brown hair, watching with interest as the kid tenses, shivers, and then presses tentatively into the contact. Yeah, this kid is fucking wasted on the likes of Garrett.
“Good boy,” he murmurs, distantly unsurprised when Grant flinches and jerks away.
“I'm not a fucking dog – ” he snarls, and gasps when Rumlow grabs a fistful of his hair and wrenches his head back, exposing the long line of his pretty pale throat.
“Don't be a brat, I'm giving you what you want,” Rumlow admonishes, yanking back until the kid lets out a sweet little whimper, eyes going glazed and hazy. He swipes his tongue over his lips, breath quick and frantic, and Rumlow allows himself a moment to indulge in the picture he makes.
“Let's try again,” he murmurs, using his hold to guide Grant's head to rest against his thigh, loosening his grip on the thick strands of his hair to stroke his fingers through it. Grant only takes a moment to relax with a shuddery exhale, to press closer into the contact.
“Good boy,” Rumlow says again, watching the words tremble through the kid's whole body, savoring this first sweet taste of submission. He's going to make this boy cry. He's going to crack him open, smear tears and snot all over his face, make him limp and loose with pain and exhaustion and when he's through, Grant will thank him for it. Will beg him for more.
“Relax,” Rumlow croons. “I know exactly what you need.”
It takes time to wrap things up after finishing his work; running and supervising operations for a rogue cell infiltrating the foremost intelligence organization in the world leaves zero room for error, and Rumlow double- and triple-checks his work as though his life depends on it, because it does.
It's tedious as fuck. The slow, pleasant burn of anticipation has shifted to a darker, more insistent need. But Rumlow is a professional, and he knows better than to give in to temptation and cut corners. It'll take as long as it takes, with the kid a still and silent presence at his feet. He hasn't moved or spoken a word since Rumlow put him in his place, despite the fact that his legs must feel like they're about to fall off by now, and despite the thready, rabbit-scared thrum of his pulse that Rumlow can feel every time he traces one hand around his throat.
When he is one hundred and ten percent certain that everything is in order, Rumlow stands, stretches, and smiles with genuine approval when Grant waits for his signal to rise. Grant responds to even that little scrap of praise, his entire body tuned toward Rumlow’s every move as he grabs his jacket, locks his office, and stalks down the hall towards the parking garage.
If there is one difference between Garrett and Rumlow – and there are many, many differences between Garrett and Rumlow – it's that Garrett is absolutely in love with the sound of his own voice and Rumlow appreciates the value of a little fucking peace and quiet. So it's not terribly surprising that his silence seems to wind Grant up; with every moment that passes without a single word spoken, the kid's shoulders get tighter, his fragile mask of indifference cracks and falls slowly to pieces, and his hands curl into white-knuckled balls of tension. Not once, however, does he attempt to speak out of turn.
Rumlow observes the devolution from cocksure teenager to kicked puppy with no small amount of amusement. Shake him a bit by the scruff of the neck and feed him a few pathetic scraps of approval and the kid is putty in his hands. Rumlow could fucking weep at the incompetence of his peers, that not a single one of them has yet managed to figure out how to get this kid to behave.
For the entire car ride Grant sits still as a statue and ramrod straight. His eyes flicker around their surroundings and settle on nothing. Rumlow takes note from the corner of his eye as Grant tries not to look at him, as he starts to bite his lips and wring his hands together in his lap. Still, Rumlow gives Grant nothing to go on, no hint of what's to come beyond that little taste in his office, and leaves him to brood on the long stretch of terrifying uncertainty that is his immediate future.
“Sit still,” Rumlow snaps when the kid's leg starts to shake. Grant looks almost relieved to be reprimanded, like even that is better than the thick silence saturating the car.
Traffic isn't so bad tonight, and they make it back to Rumlow's apartment in good time. It's small, bare, soundproofed, and perfectly adequate for his needs; he's never understood people's compulsion to fill their houses with useless junk.
“Strip and put your hands right here,” Rumlow orders as soon as they walk through the door, slapping the living room wall at about shoulder height. The room isn't exactly large, but if he moves the coffee table over a little he'll have enough room to swing.
Grant chokes on his own air. “Wha – ”
“You really don't want to make me repeat myself, kiddo,” Rumlow says mildly, walking into the bedroom to lock his sidearm in the safe and put away most of his knives.
“Yes sir,” Grant says, an edge to his voice that makes Rumlow look up from what he's doing. The kid is bright red and his eyes are fixed on the floor, but he's doing what he's told, hands trembling a little as he slowly unbuttons his shirt.
Probably he knows, or at least suspects, that he's gonna get fucked tonight. Rumlow thinks about the long road they have until they get there, of how little the kid knows of what's in store for him, and smirks.
In Rumlow's closet, next to his gun safe, he has has a small collection of... less lethal weapons. Nothing fancy or ostentatious, but enough for his purposes. From it, he selects a thin cane of supple, springy wood, a wickedly sharp knife reserved specifically for this sort of occasion, and a longish coil of braided brown leather that's probably the flashiest thing he owns, and definitely the most expensive. Probably too expensive, considering he hasn't had anyone willing to take it since he bought it, but now he slides the length of it through his fingers and feels his cock swell and is incredibly glad he caved to the impulse.
He takes his selected items plus a little bottle of lube and heads back in the living room, where Grant has done as he was told – mostly. His hands are pressed firmly against the wall, the tight muscles on his back heaving as he breathes. The only stitch of clothing on him is a pair of black boxer briefs.
He looks up as Rumlow enters the living room and pure terror flashes across his face as he catches sight of the items in Rumlow’s hands. Rumlow grins wolfishly.
“Garrett wants me to whip you into shape,” he tells the kid, depositing the lube and the coiled whip on the shifted coffee table. The cane he keeps in his hand, the knife in his belt. He hasn't bothered to change out of his work clothes and he knows exactly the sort of statement that makes. “I've decided to take that literally.”
“Oh my god,” Grant whimpers. “Oh my god you sick fuck, oh my god.”
He looks sickened and terrified but he doesn't, Rumlow notes with satisfaction, even think about moving away from the wall. “Sure, if it makes you feel better,” Rumlow chuckles, stroking a gloved hand down Grant's back and feeling the way the kid shudders and flinches through just his bare fingertips. “But this is just as much for you as it is for me, kid.”
“You're sick and deluded you fuck, fuck you – ”
“Hush,” Rumlow soothes, placing his hand firmly across the back of Grant's neck. The kid quiets immediately, but he's practically fucking vibrating with tension and anger and fear bordering on panic. Rumlow makes another hushing noise. “Relax. You don't understand now, but you will when we're done tonight. Everything's gonna be fine.” He kicks Grant's feet apart and presses himself fully against the kid's naked back, hand still firm on the back of his neck, half-hard cock nestled right up against his ass.
“I'm pretty sure I understand exactly what's happening, thanks,” Grant hisses through gritted teeth.
“Kids these days, think they know everything,” Rumlow agrees mildly, shifting his grip to yank the boy's head back by the hair so he can scrape his teeth around one ear lobe. There's no use denying it – Rumlow is going to get off on hurting him – but that's not the whole story. Even when he has the opportunity to have a little fun, the job always comes first.
“I don't think I need to tell you,” Rumlow whispers in his ear, running the cane teasingly up the boy's legs, “what thin ice you're on. I've read your file, and sure, you're brilliant, Everyone agrees that you're fucking brilliant, but brilliant ain’t worth a damn if you can't control yourself. No one wants to deal with some loose cannon too busy having a shitfit to follow orders.
“I am your last chance, kid,” Rumlow tells him, tracing the cane up the inside of the his thighs and down again. “This is the end of the line. You fuck this up and you are done. There are no second chances. You got a plan B? If this SHIELD shit doesn't work out?”
Grant's breath hitches and his eyes squeeze shut. He shakes his head, tugging a little against Rumlow's grip.
“Then you better fucking make this work, huh?”
The kid nods, breath catching in his throat, and Rumlow releases his grip on his hair and stills the cane, giving him a little space to think. He's shaking, head to toe, Rumlow can feel it in every place they touch. They both know what he's going to say next, the only the only thing he can say, but Rumlow doesn't begrudge him a moment to pull himself together and blow out a few harsh breaths before he asks “How?”
It probably comes out more plaintive and desperate that he meant it too, and Rumlow doesn't even try to resist his slow, satisfied smile. “Just stand still and take it for me,” he rasps, The bitten off sound in the kid's throat goes straight to his dick. He can almost see the bruises blooming across the boy's skin, almost taste his blood on his lips...
But first. Rumlow yanks his knife out of its sheath, neatly slices each side of Grant's snug boxer briefs and yanks the ruined scrap of cloth away. Grant yowls with shock and pain, jerking away from the press of Rumlow's body as blood blooms from the shallow cuts at his hips and begins to trickle sluggishly down his thighs.
“When I said strip,” Rumlow tells him, sheathing the knife and stepping a measured distance away from the gasping, twitching kid. “I fucking meant it.”
Rumlow strikes. Grant screams. His knees buckle, fingers curling into claws, but he keeps his feet and never moves his hands from where they’re pressed into the wall.
The cane whistles through the air and lays the second bright red stripe across both cheeks of Grant's ass, and then the third right after that. The kid is writhing, trying to ride out the pain, shocked tears making his eyes shine in his bright red face
Rumlow pauses after the third strike and watches, satisfied, as Grant’s whole body shakes and he gasps for breath. He’s pressed against the futilely wall and he whimpers when Rumlow gently touches his hip to guide him back to posture; back arched gracefully and ass offered up for its due punishment.
And then Rumlow lays in, keeping up a steady pace that leaves Grant only just enough room to adjust. Stand still and take it, Rumlow had said, and he's trying, it’s painfully obvious how hard the kid is trying. He knows the score, sure. He knows the consequences for failure, Rumlow had hardly told him anything he didn't already know. But it’s deeper than that; Grant wants to be good. Rumlow can see it in the sick, vulnerable expression on the kid's face at any hint of praise, in the line of tension down his arms as struggles to stay where Rumlow put him. He wants, more than anything, to obey.
He's just very bad at it.
Grant screams with each fresh stripe. He twists and writhes with the pain as his body struggles to absorb it and endure, and it almost works. Each strike gets a little easier, his body, with so few places to go to begin with, writhes a little less. He slowly learns to accept the pain, to stop anticipating the next blow, to let his breathing ease and the tension to slowly leak out of his body.
It's beautiful, watching him learn to take pain, watching him start to ride on top of each fresh wave of it and let it carry him without a fight. It's beautiful, but it's not the point. This is just the warm up.
When Rumlow strikes one blow without a break after the last, Grant tenses and screams again, a high and desperate noise that tingles through Rumlow's blood and pulses in his cock. He grins, viciously, and layers a rapid, ruthless series of strikes on Grant's tender ass and thighs, leaving him no time to process the pain and no room to ride it out and float on it like he was only just learning to do. The kid twists, and wails, and plasters himself against the wall like he could escape through it, like there is anywhere he could go that isn't more pain.
“No, no, no, stop,” he begs, barely even able to draw enough breath to form the words, crying out with each strike. “Stop stop STOP, please. please I can't, I can't I – ”
“You. Will. Take.” Rumlow barks, each word punctuated with a vicious blow of the cane, “What. I. Give you.”
The air cracks with the force Rumlow puts behind the cane, almost his full strength. Grant bellows, voice raw with agony and rage, and he just. Snaps. He tears his hands free of their mental bondage and leaps at Rumlow with wild-eyed fury.
Rumlow hadn't just been anticipating this, he'd been deliberately pushing for it; shoving and beating and testing this boy's will and discipline until it broke, so that he might take the pieces and fashion something less brittle, something that could endure.
The kid's a damn good fighter, that much Rumlow can immediately confirm for himself. Scrappy and determined and focused. But he's still a few years from his full growth and Rumlow's got a good forty pounds of muscle and about a decade and a half on him. Pain and humiliation have driven him half out of his mind, making him sloppy. He leaves himself wide open when he throws a punch at Rumlow’s face. Rumlow ducks it easily, and the next, then sidesteps neatly and overbalances the kid with a shove to the shoulder.
He corrects faster than Rumlow would have credited him for and snaps a vicious kick to the knee. Had it landed it would probably have laid Rumlow up for months, but as it is he just sweeps away with a neat pivot that lets him bring his elbow around in a sharp jab to Grant's solar plexus.
A shocked “oof!” as the kid's breath leaves him and Rumlow is right behind him, twisting his arm firmly up Grant’s back and digging his fingers into the tender flesh at the join of Grant's ass and thigh, the cane tossed carelessly across the room. A sort of breathy, high pitched wail is all that escapes Grant's throat, too angry and panicked to take a full breath.
“Shh, baby, lie down now,” Rumlow murmurs in his ear. Grant resists a little, still keyed up from the fight and confused by Rumlow's gentle tone. He struggles weakly, but the wind has all spilled out of his sails and he ends up simply crumpling to the floor. Rumlow has to guide him down to make sure he doesn’t hurt something he’s not meant to.
Rumlow grips his hair and presses Grant down flat on his stomach, straddling his thighs so his dick is resting snugly between the red, welted cheeks of the kid's ass. He can feel the heat of the abused flesh even through the thick cloth of his pants, and he grinds a little against him just to hear the cracked, broken sound of pain spill out of Grant's throat.
“There, you see?” Rumlow murmurs. “Fighting the pain doesn't get you anywhere, does it?”
Grant whimpers and claws at the hardwood floor, trying weakly to scramble away. Rumlow puts a stop to that with a yank on the kid's hair and a mean thrust of his hips, and Grant goes limp at once. His breath is a hitching, shuddering mess, and he sounds like he's right at the edge of tears.
“Why?” he gulps. “Why are you doing this, please, I don't, why – ”
“Shhh, baby, relax,” Rumlow murmurs, letting his painful grip relax to a gentle caress. “I'm doing this because your SO put me in charge of teaching you a lesson, and I picked the fun way.”
Grant tenses underneath him. “He wouldn't... if he knew what you – ”
“He wouldn't give a fuck as long as he got the results he wanted,” Rumlow dismisses, then leans over the boy's straining back to press his lips behind on ear. “And we both want him to get those results, don't we?”
“And how, exactly, is you molesting me going to get Garrett what he wants?” Grant bites back. Rumlow chuckles and sits up, shoving Grant back down with a hand between his shoulder blades when he moves to get up, and removes the knife from his belt.
“Weren’t you paying attention, kiddo? Molesting you’s just the fun part.”
“Then what the fuck – ” the kid starts, and then his whole body freezes at the kiss of cold, sharp steel at his throat. Rumlow watches hungrily as he swallows, the nervous reflex pressing the skin of his neck just a little firmer against the edge, not quite breaking the skin.
“You can't kill me,” Grant says shakily after a few tense moments.
Rumlow laughs outright at that, husky and dark and with real amusement. “Who said anything about killing you, sweetheart?”
The idea flashes, unrestrained, through his brain. All he'd have to do is press a little bit firmer, hardly that much more pressure at all. Rumlow thinks about watching hot blood flow across bright silver metal, watching it pool over his smooth hardwood floors. He thinks about how the kid would struggle, movements growing steadily more sluggish, until finally he'd lie still and quiet, haloed in red.
It's kind of a compelling picture, in a dreamy sort of way, but he suspects it's one of those things that makes a better fantasy than reality. Anyway, nothing would be worth the massive shitstorm that would follow.
“Well, the knife at my throat is dropping a few hints,” Grant snarks, knocking Rumlow out of his reverie and making him huff a laugh.
“You always mouth off when you're scared, kid, or am I special?”
Grant gives a fair approximation of a derisive snort, visibly drawing together the tattered scraps of his composure to say, with a voice that nearly doesn't shake “You just said you're not going to kill me. What the fuck do I have to be scared of?”
“Mmm, no, you're right,” Rumlow allows, running the length of his knife around the curve of the kid's throat. “That’s solid logic. Although… logic ain’t helping much right now, is it? Isn’t turning down the volume in that primal part of your brain that’s shrieking with terror?” he asks huskily, feeling Grant's body tense between his thighs. “Because I'm older than you, and stronger than you, and I'm holding you down with a knife to your throat and my hard cock pressed right up against that sweet little ass of yours and every cell in your body is screaming about how much danger you're in.”
Grant's breath is coming in harsh, shaky gasps, his whole body is trembling. He twitches and clenches his fists, aching to fight back but knowing how utterly helpless he is.
“How’s it feel, huh sweetheart? All that fear?” He traces the edge of the blade lightly around the smooth curve of Grant's throat, listens to the sweet hitches of his breath. “You know I won't kill you, but I've already hurt you, haven't I? Already dragged my knife through your skin. Who's to say how much more I'll hurt you before I'm done?” He leans forward to lip a bit at the kid's ear, to grind more firmly against his ass, to whisper “I can actually see your pulse, you know. Fluttering against your pretty neck like a frightened rabbit. All I'd have to do is press just a little bit deeper and... oops.”
The effect is immediate. Rumlow watches in avid fascination as panic ripples through the boy's whole body, as the urge to struggle and escape wars with rational self-preservation; the need to not let the blade press deeper into his flesh.
The cut wasn't an accident, of course, and it's barely a scratch. Perfectly safe, but Grant is heaving for air and clawing at the floor with his free hand and trying to buck Rumlow off in desperate fear.
“Relax,” Rumlow admonishes, making soft shushing noises until Grant gets a hold of himself, trembling like a frightened animal. “It's barely more than a paper cut, see?” He brings the knife in front of the kid's face and keeps it there until his stiff, jerky nod.
Then he brings the knife to Grant's lips. “Lick.”
The kid flinches away, looking at Rumlow as best he can with the side of his face pressed against the floor, wide-eyed and recoiling with disgust.
“Don't be a baby,” Rumlow snaps. “The knife was perfectly clean before you bled all over it, now lick it off.”
Grant's eyes flick between the knife and Rumlow's face, his expression tense and shaken. Taking in Rumlow's steely expression he very slowly ducks his head to run the tip of his tongue along the knife edge.
“Good boy,” Rumlow praises. “Careful, it's sharp.”
Grant honest to god rolls his eyes at him, and Rumlow rewards him with a soft chuckle. A little sass never hurt nobody. As long as its just a little.
When the knife is wet and shiny with Grant's spit instead of his blood, he pulls it away. “There now, was that so hard?” he teases. “I'm going to let go of your arm now. You're not gonna make me give you some speech like 'if you struggle there will be consequences' are you?”
Grant shakes his head vigorously. “No, sir.”
“Good. I'd hate to be wasting all my precious time and energy on a moron.”
Rumlow releases his arm, but Grant waits for a light pat on the shoulder before even moving it. He stretches it with a pained wince, briefly checks the range of motion, and then buries his face in the cradle of both his arms. Rumlow waits, letting tension build as Grant starts shaking and smiles when he flinches from every small sound and movement. When does Rumlow press the knife back against his shoulder the kid startles so badly he almost cuts him – actually by accident this time.
“Hold the fuck still, I'm not explaining to some nosy ER doc why you need stitches.”
The kid takes his warning to heart, barely even breathing as Rumlow runs the blade across his back and shoulders. These first touches he keeps light, gentle, but the subtle threat of the keen edge is obviously right at the front of the boy's mind. Rumlow never actually lets the knife cut, but Grant is tense as strung wire, twitching each time Rumlow presses a little bit harder and leaves bright red lines in the wake of the knife. He's cut this kid three times already, and Grant has to know it's only a matter of time before Rumlow spills his blood again. It's the waiting that gets to him. At this stage of the game there's no way a little scrape is anything Grant can't shake off in a moment, but the knowledge that it's coming without knowing when, the thought that the next moment could bring fresh pain, or the next, or the next... that has the boy fit to rattle apart
When Rumlow finally places the tip of the blade on the top of the kid's ribs, when he presses down and drags the knife through his skin instead of trailing over it, when he finally opens a bright red line that spills over just a little with dark, shiny red, Grant's breath hitches, and catches, and spills over into wet, messy sobs.
Rumlow's cock is iron hard and hot in his pants and he's momentarily overwhelmed with the temptation to pull down his fly, take out his dick and plunge it into the kid's tight little asshole. It would be so sweet, the tight heat, the cry of pain, but he pushes the impulse away. There are lessons to be learned here before he can have some playtime.
Instead Rumlow waits, just long enough for the sobs to quiet, for the terrible anticipation to rise back up and choke him, before he presses his knife against flesh and opens an identical cut down Grant’s other side.
The tears well back up immediately, messier this time, louder, like Grant has given up on even trying to hold on to dignity. “Why,” he sobs, the word barely recognizable in his wobbly voice. “Why, why are you, why is this... please. Please, please, why?”
A year from now, Rumlow will never be able to have this. This little boy, crying from just a few passes of his knife, more from fear and bewilderment than an only moderate amount of pain. SHIELD will train that out of him, teach him to keep his head during torture. Hydra will reinforce those lessons more harshly, less constrained by ethical bullshit. And then life will happen, experience will strengthen him, and he will never break so sweetly and simply again.
Rumlow runs his tongue lightly over the tip of the blade, savoring this moment with bright, bittersweet melancholy. He strokes a soothing hand down the kid's back, smooth and unmarked for only a little longer, and shivers when it only makes the kid cry and shake harder.
“Why?” he whimpers again.
“Because there's a lesson you haven't learned yet, and I'm trying to teach it to you,” Rumlow tells him.
Grant sobs. He's scared, he's confused, he's in pain, and he's so sweet and pliable when Rumlow hooks a hand under his shoulder and flips him onto his back. His lashes are clumped and wet, his face red and smeared with tears and a little blood. The cut on his neck has bled a sluggish trail of smeared red down to his chest. He's already a wreck, and Rumlow isn't even near done with him yet.
Rumlow braces a hand just below Grant's throat, looking him straight in the eye, and opens a thin, shallow slice across one pec.
“Please,” he whispers,eyes wide and wet, as Rumlow studies the streak of blood along the knife edge. “Please, it hurts.”
Rumlow smiles down gently at him and strokes a thumb over his cheek. “That's the lesson, baby,” he says as he presses the blade to the cut on the boy's lip. “No one cares.”
The kid whimpers as the knife reopens the split and Rumlow smears the fresh drops of blood across his mouth, turning it red and shiny. “No one cares if you're hurt, or if you've had a rough time. No one's gonna cut you any slack because you're in pain, or coo over your booboos and kiss them all better. You don't get a prize for living through pain, you just get – ”
Rumlow slashes with his knife, opening the deepest cut yet across the other side of the kid's chest. He screams, a desperate, choked cry, and fresh tears spill onto his cheeks.
“ – more pain.”
The boy's a beautiful, bloody mess, cracked open and inconsolable, chest heaving with the force of his sobs. Rumlow leans over to run his lips through the mess pooled on Grant's chest, scraping his teeth over one hard nipple. The kid's breath hitches and his hips twitch from the small bolt of confused sensation.
“But I've got good news for you, sweetheart.” Rumlow continues, letting his fingertips trail through the tacky-slick spill of Grant's blood. The kid is looking at him with a wrecked, devastated, helpless expression and Rumlow strokes his face with bloody fingers, weaves them through his hair. “The pain is all you need.”
Rumlow kisses him then, bloody sharp and biting. Grant fights him only a moment before he hitches a little moan of surprise into Rumlows mouth, presses back a little against the demanding roll of Rumlow's hips, his cock twitching and filling beside Rumlow's despite the pain.
Grant tentatively rests his hands on Rumlow's arms where they're braced and caging him to the floor. He’s beautiful in submission but Rumlow still needs him to keep that fire. He shifts a little, moving his arms so he can dig his thumbnails into the cuts at Grant's sides, so he can feel warmth drip over his skin and soak into the leather of his gloves. So he can make Grant snarl in his mouth and go wild with the sharp bite of pain. The kid digs his nails into Rumlow's arms and, when he fails to claw through the shirt, he digs his fingers into Rumlow's hair and yanks with a near-feral growl.
Rumlow delightedly, takes the boy's abused lip between his teeth and bites, moaning as the coppery tang floods his mouth. He slides his hand from the kid's bloody side and grips the underside of his red, welted thigh to pull him against his body, to grind down in the vise of his tight, winding hips.
“See?” Rumlow demands, tearing his mouth from Grant's. “The pain makes you want to fight.” He grins viciously and pointedly grinds against the kid's hardening cock. “It makes you want to fuck. Pain is your greatest asset, if you quit whining about it and fucking use it.”
“I'm not,” Grant snarls through gritted teeth, grinding up against Rumlow, rubbing his bare, flushed cock over Rumlow’s clothed thigh, “whining.”
Rumlow uses his grip on the kid's hair to jerk his head back, forcing him to arch his back as he cries out and struggles, every movement hot and deliciously pressed against Rumlow’s body. “Yes you fucking are. Every goddamn discipline report, every tantrum, every time you fucking backsass Garrett in front of his fellow agents is you whining about how much you hurt. It's about you expecting someone to make your fucking trauma up to you and throwing a fit when they don't. It's gonna land you right back in prison if you don't. Fucking. Learn.”
Grant arches his back, meeting each ruthless thrust of Rumlow's hips. “Then teach me,” he demands through his clenched jaw.
“The fuck you think I've been doing, you little brat?” Rumlow growls, digging his nails into his grip on the kid's thigh, drawing a choked cry from his throat.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Grant cries, squirming with the pain. He swallows, squeezing his eyes shut. “Then keep... keep going. I'm listening.”
Rumlow stills and loosens his grip on the kid's hair. “You listening?” he prompts, sliding his other hand from his hold on the kid's thigh, up his side, and guiding Grant’s arms above his head. Rumlow pins his wrists to the floor with the hand still holding the knife. “You gonna listen to me, trust me to give you what you need?”
Hesitantly, Grant nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Rumlow says. “Then rub off on me.”
Grant's whole body startles and he looks at Rumlow, shocked. “What?”
“I said,” Rumlow murmurs, leaning to press closer to the kid and growl against his ear. “I want you to rub off on me. I want you to rut against me like a little bitch in heat until you come, pinned and helpless underneath me, covered in your own blood.”
The words aren't even all out of Rumlow's mouth before Grant lets out a shaky moan and starts doing what he's told, body arching and twisting against the immovable press of Rumlow's weight. The kid closes his eyes and bites his lip, shuddering all over as his cock swells, as his first tentative movements grow more desperate, eager. Pain flickers over his expression right along with sick pleasure, his face going red and flushed underneath the smears of drying blood on his cheeks.
“Look at you,” Rumlow croons. “It hurts, doesn't it. That's what you've been whining at me this whole time. 'It hurts, it hurts,' but it's just making your dick hard now, isn't it? It's just making you more desperate to get off, to come all over my gear and rut your cock through the mess. Don't fight it baby, that's what it's there for, just use it. Let it push you over the edge, let it make you come – ”
Grant's whole body tenses, a tight pained moan rips from his throat, and he comes shuddering in Rumlow's arms, pinned to the floor, his cock twitching and grinding all over Rumlow's own hard thigh. He writhes as the orgasm sweeps him up, and when it's all over he just stares, dazed, at the ceiling. Tears still trickle down his cheeks as he gasps for breath, and Rumlow looks at his flushed face and the glazed, overwhelmed look in his eye and thinks, Almost.
Rumlow sits back on his heels, straddling Grant's thighs and ignoring the mess on his pants, and watches the kid stitch himself slowly back together. He watches as Grant catches his breath, catalogs his hurts, and starts to take in his surroundings as his mind begins to clear. He meets Rumlow's gaze with a mostly lucid eye, licks his lips, and moves to get up.
“You don't think you're done, are you?” Rumlow smirks.
Grant's eyes snap back to his, fear and anticipation and defiance flooding back into his gaze. “I thought – ”
Rumlow cracks the back of his hand across the kid's face. Not as hard, this time, just enough to sting and snap his head back. “Don't think. That's your fucking problem, kiddo. Too much shit in your head, drives you crazy.”
He climbs to his feet and the kid glares up at him, flushed and naked and uncomfortable. “How am I supposed to be an agent of SHIELD if I don't think,” he demands, and Rumlow snorts. You're not, he thinks, but Grant's not to know that yet, so he just reaches down and drags the kid to his feet by the hair, ignoring the yelps of protest.
“Get your head in order first,” Rumlow tells him, flinging him back to his spot on the wall. “Then you can think.”
“How – ” Grant begins, then yelps when Rumlow smacks him hard on the ass.
“Question time is over. Get your hands back on the wall.”
Grant bites his lip, eyes flicking from the wall to the cane abandoned on the floor, to the singletail lying untouched on the table.
“I ain't askin' you twice,” Rumlow warns, and Grant finally shifts his ass, assuming the position against the wall.
Rumlow picks up the whip and runs the length of braided leather through his fingertips, taking a moment to just watch as the kid braces himself, his shoulders tight, his weight shifting from foot to foot. His back is smooth and pale, practically untouched. A blank canvas for Rumlow to lay his marks on. He wonders if anyone else has laid their marks on this boy's pretty skin. More than likely, but it's easy to pretend he's going into uncharted territory, that he's the first one to tear this boy up, to defile him.
Rumlow swings the whip through the air, a light whiff whiff whiff to reacquaint himself with the weight of it in his hands, the way it flicks through the air with each pass. It sends soft puffs of air over the kid's skin as it sails by without landing, setting Grant trembling even before the first stroke.
When he finally makes contact, just a light little lick across the skin, the kid actually jumps, pressing closer to the wall and letting a high little “ah!” drop from his lips. His shaking intensifies.
He doesn't move his hands.
The next stroke is an equally light little snap! that earns him an equally dramatic flinch, and so does the next, and the next. This is worse for him than the cane, Rumlow knew it would be, and the orgasm has cleared his mind and wiped out all those lovely endorphins. They might as well be starting from zero at this point.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I can't, I can't please,” Grant gasps, trembling and exhausted, as blows five, six, and seven meet their mark. Rumlow lays a vicious stroke across both shoulder blades, the hardest hit yet, and Grant screams, arching his chest desperately against the wall.
“That's not your call to make,” Rumlow reminds him, returning to the light little flick, flick, flicks of the whip against skin.
Grant sobs, twists, sobs again. He doesn't move from his place at the wall, he doesn't dare beg to stop, he doesn't dare do anything besides stand and take everything Rumlow gives him, to whimper and whine as Rumlow licks little red welts into his pale, milky skin.
Rumlow fixes his attention to the top of Grant's shoulder, concentrating every strike of the whip into a small cluster, and Grant's soft whimpers rise to high, desperate cries as he tries vainly to arch away from the cruel lash of the whip. He twists his shoulders to one side, then the other, then tenses stiff as a board before collapsing against the wall and stuttering into thick, messy tears.
“Good boy,” Rumlow croons, widening the area of his lashes once more. “You can't fight it, you can't escape it, so just accept it.”
The kid has utterly lost control of himself, weeping and sniffling, crying out like a child as Rumlow puts more strength behind his strikes, lets the whip land with more force, watches as he starts to open up Grant's lovely skin. Little dots of blood begin to well up from the lashes, making the kid's back look raw and exquisitely abused. Each strike brings a fresh wave of tears, pulls more whimpers from the boy's throat, and Rumlow can barely keep it together with how badly he wants to fuck this kid, how much he wants to sink in to him when he's helpless and shaking from the pain. But he's not ready yet. They're almost there, but Grant has just a little bit farther to go, a little bit more to break.
It's when the tears finally dry up that he makes a truly beautiful picture. When all the fight has been ground out of him, when all he can manage is the occasional soft whine as he just stands and shakes and shakes and shakes in overwhelming agony. He barely twitches when Rumlow opens another stripe of skin, the only sound he makes a soft, breathy keen.
The back of him is one solid mass of red and layered welts, smears and trickles of blood from the knife cuts and the split open whip lashes. Snikt snikt snikt, goes the whip against flesh, and part of Rumlow wants to push the boy further, wants to see where he goes on the other side of too far, when he well and truly cannot take one single moment more of agony. But only part of him. There's a reason he's doing this, and pushing Grant that hard would just be counterproductive.
One final parting lash, heavy and thick across Grant's whole back, barely gets more than thready, whistling whine out of him for all it rocks him onto his toes and against the wall. The silence, in the aftermath, has a strange buzzing quality. Grant's shoulders flex and his breathing deepens as he waits for the next blow. Or not waits, so much as he simply allows himself to exist, in this moment, without anticipating future pain, or dwelling on past and present hurts. Moments tick by and he doesn't tense, doesn't move, just breathes deep and shivers, resting his forehead on the wall.
“All done with the whip now, baby,” Rumlow says huskily, coiling it carefully in his hands. “Come over and kneel by me.”
Grant turns and stumbles to his knees, clutching at Rumlow's legs as he buries his wet, tear- and blood-streaked face into his hip. Rumlow drops the whip back on the coffee table and sinks his fingers into the kid's hair, shushing him tenderly as his shoulders hitch with fresh sobs.
“Shhh, sweetheart, it's alright, you were so good for me,” Rumlow murmurs, cradling the kid's head between his hands. He's such a mess, crying and bruised and bloody, stripped down into his smallest parts and utterly ruined. He soaks up Rumlow's touch with childlike abandon, and quiets down after only a few minutes. His breath evens out, his hands rest gently on Rumlow's thighs instead of curled in that desperate grip, and his body stills and quiets.
Rumlow shifts him back a bit so he can tip his chin up with one gentle hand. The kid's eyes are glazed and red, but utterly calm, almost dreamy. He doesn't hesitate to meet Rumlow's eyes, but he doesn't otherwise seem inclined to speak, or move, and there isn't a tense bone left in his body. Rumlow just looks at him, soaks in the picture this boy makes as he blinks slowly up at him, unquestioning and simply... still.
“There,” Rumlow tells him. “See?”
Mild curiosity bleeds in the kid's expression, but it doesn't seem to be enough to pull him out of his hazy mental space. “Sir?”
Rumlow smiles at him. “Order,” he says simply, gliding his fingers through the Grant's hair. “There's not a stray thought in your brain right now, is there sweetheart?”
“No sir,” he murmurs dreamily.
“How's it feel?”
“Good, sir,” The kid sighs with a lazy, slurred satisfaction that goes straight to Rumlow's dick.
“Yeah, looks like. You'd never have gotten here, without going through all that pain first,” Rumlow tells him, still carding his fingers through the kid's hair. “And I bet this is the best you've felt in a long time, isn't it?”
“Ever,” Grant agrees, mindlessly honest. Rumlow smiles covetously at him, watches his head loll complacently in his hands.
“That's good,” he praises. “So good, we're almost done. Lay out on the couch now baby.”
Grant goes where Rumlow puts him with mindless ease, not even bothering to question Rumlow about what's coming, or whine about not being done yet. He's so fucking high from the pain and Rumlow is practically shaking with the need to have him. He lays him out on his stomach, far past giving a single fuck if he gets blood on his couch, and Grant hisses at the pressure on his cuts but settles willingly, canting his hips up at just the angle Rumlow guides him to.
Grant is practically in another world right now, too far gone to notice Rumlow scooping up the little plastic bottle off the coffee table, or the click of the cap, or the slick wet sounds of Rumlow coating his fingers, and he hardly twitches when Rumlow sinks two fingers into his ass with surprisingly little resistance.
“Done this before, baby?” Rumlow asks, thrusting gently, rubbing the slick pads of his fingers all up inside him.
Grant shakes his head, tensing as it suddenly occurs to him what's happening, what's about to happen. Rumlow smoothes a hand across the small of his back, the only unmarked stripe of skin on him, it seems. “Hush, sweetheart, you're fine. Stay down, stay easy, everything's okay.”
He rubs directly on that sweet spot inside him, making the kid shudder and moan. He obeys Rumlow's quiet order and goes relaxed and easy all at once. He's learned already how much nicer it is to be where he is, with his mind quiet and his body too loose and complacent to struggle.
Rumlow meant to spend more time prepping him, he really did, but after that initial spark of worry all the kid seems to want to do is push back onto his fingers and grind his dick into the couch cushions. He's making all these high, sweet little noises, like all he wants in the world is to milk Rumlow's fingers and stretch his hole, and it's driving Rumlow wild.
He settles for adding more lube and coating his cock thickly, but then he can't wait a single second longer and he grips the kid's waist, digging his thumb into one bright raised welt. Grant mewls, and that one sweet little sound pushes Rumlow right past the limit of his control and he plunges into the tight grip of the kid's ass.
The heat gripping his cock is incredible, the sweet, kittenish sounds Grant makes utterly intoxicating. It takes willpower, more than Rumlow would like to admit, to keep from just railing into this kid straight off, but Rumlow wants to savor this for more than ten seconds. Grant is tensing up again at the intrusion, his cries getting more desperate and pained. Fuck, he fucking feels like a virgin, all tensed up and twitching around his cock. Rumlow stills, buried to the hilt, and gives them both a few moments to adjust, for him to back off from the edge and for the kid to absorb this fresh pain along with all his other hurts.
It's the kid who moves first, to Rumlow's distant surprise, pushing his hips up to move the cock inside him. He moans breathily, squirms a bit on Rumlow's cock as the pain eases off into pleasure far sooner than Rumlow would have guessed. Slowly, carefully, he pulls out and sinks back in, drawing a louder, needier moan from Grant's lips. He plasters himself against the kid's abused back, feeling with his whole body the way the he twitches and squirms, pinned and naked underneath him.
“So good,” Rumlow groans, setting up a easy, languid pace with his hips, feeling the kid shudder. “Taking it so good, you'll take everything I give you, won't you baby?”
“Yes,” Grant hisses, trying to twist away from the painful pressure and buck back against Rumlow's cock at the same time. Rumlow runs his hands up Grants sides, his chest, scraping the scabbing cuts with his nails and tweaking one nipple before twisting one hand into the kid's hair and shoving his face into the couch.
“So sweet like this, so tight. Can't believe no one's taken this pretty ass of yours yet, the way you look when you're all filled up and bleeding. Gonna make you beg for my cock next time. Will you beg for me, baby? Beg me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” Grant gasps, meeting each of Rumlow's thrusts with desperate abandon, grinding his dick against the couch cushions every time he pulls out. “Yes, yes please. I want, I need. Please.” Rumlow shifts, finding just the right angle to make this kid go wild underneath him, to make him mewl and cry mindlessly. Rumlow shoves his free hand between the couch and the boy's body, cupping his hard, leaking cock.
“Fuck, you love this, don't you?” he groans, snapping his hips to hit that spot again, to hear him gasp again. “You've already come once, I've got you all bruised up and whipped bloody, but you're about to go off in my hand at any second, aren't you?”
“Please,” Grant begs with a moan. “Please, please I'm so close...”
“You've been a good boy for me, you can come again,” Rumlow says generously, and cuts loose, pounding into the kid's loose, supple body. It's still a surprise when Grant tenses, shouts, and comes immediately all over Rumlow's clenched fist. The tight muscles of his ass grip Rumlow's cock with the force of his orgasm and he just lets it pull him over the edge, slamming balls deep into the kid and filling him all the way up with hot splashes of his come.
Rumlow collapses on Grant's back in the aftermath, completely uncaring of the cuts and welts and bruises, and the kid endures it without complaint, all fucked out and floating on sensation.
Reluctantly, he drags himself up after a moment or two and heads to the bathroom to grab the rubbing alcohol and the fucking cotton swabs, because its his ass if any of that shit gets infected and scars up on him.
Grant moves his head to look at him when he gets back, cloudy-eyed and utterly without resistance. He barely twitches when Rumlow sits on the floor next him and starts cleaning his back, but his face scrunches a little as Rumlow swabs alcohol over the open cuts.
“I think I get it,” he slurs.
“Hmm?”
“Order. Pain. I get it.”
Rumlow smirks. “Good. I'd hate to think you weren't paying attention.”
Grant snorts and buries his face in the crook of his arm, gripping his hands tight to keep from flinching too much as Rumlow takes his time to clean him up thoroughly.
It's sweet, Rumlow thinks, that the kid thinks he gets it. It all feels so clear now, in the buzzing afterglow of the pain, but he knows how quickly that certainty will fade without reinforcement. Fortunately for him, there will be plenty of opportunities for reinforcement over the next few weeks. Plenty of time for the lessons to stick, now that he's set on the right path. He'll make a proper Hydra agent out of this kid yet.