They weren't, really, those words--there wasn't enough of the man the asset had once been left to patronize or mock. There was only enough left to claim what was his due whenever he tasted the scent of his mate's heat. The tenderness was as real as his brutality had been, and if Rumlow tried to reject it he would be as savage as he would if the man truly attempted to fight him off and escape him. It was right to curl around him protectively, hiding him from the world: the asset's own, his mate, his omega, and he would guard him with all the unwavering conviction of a man who had been wiped clean too many times to experience uncertainty.

And there--his knot was beginning to subside, if only in the slightest sense, and with it his interest in dominating the weaker creature beneath him stirring again as Rumlow groaned at the shove of his hips, the dragging movement of his knot against his insides. The asset did it again, pushing his fingers deeper into his mouth as he did as though to fuck him from both ends. Somewhere in the distance there came a muffled trembling, crashing sound, some part of the wreckage of the building collapsing around and over itself, but here in their cocoon smelling of omega heat and alpha come they were still safe enough. There were still hours left to them, by the asset's judgement.

He withdrew his metal fingers from Rumlow's mouth and curled them around his throat instead. The tips pressed in hard, blunt points where Rumlow would wear bruises later, where he would be a spectacle of the asset's brutality before the eyes of his peers, who would all look at him and know exactly what had been done to him.