Brothers In Arms (Batfamily) - Completed

Chapter 19 ~ Bonding

"Again."

"I can't..."

"Why not?"

"Because my whole body is screaming for me to stop and you can't even imagine how painful my chest is right now!"

Jason started laughing lightly while Kyle growled. His clothes were completely soaked with sweat and he felt like his chest was on fire due to the intense training session Jason was forcing him to follow. Even though he knew perfectly well the young man's ribs were slowly healing, Jason wasn't sparring him. Indeed, Kyle had been told his way of fighting was style imprecise and his blows were not efficient enough so he needed to work more on this. Jason was forcing him to train at least three hours every day and with his injuries which had only started to heal, all his body was sore and painful at the end of every sessions...

Nightwing and Robin had sneaked inside one of the buildings owned by Matt Jensen three weeks ago and Tim had already started to freeze all of the man's bank accounts and made sure that his whole database got erased but the teen took a great care at keeping a copy for himself. Jason had sent some of his men on a mission to take down one of Black Mask's building and they had successfully got out of it. Jason claimed this newly acquired building as his new headquarters. It was slightly smaller than the previous one, but it was located closer to downtown, which was somehow a big advantage.

The building was made of old bricks and looked like it was only three floors tall. However, even though its appearance made it look like another of those common buildings you can find in Gotham's suburb, it had five floors under the ground. Jason had obviously reinforced the security around the whole area and the neighborhood was now under Red Hood's gang protection.

Kyle growled out a hiss of pain as he sat down on the floor. "I swear Jason, your training is gonna kill me one day..." he declared with a rather pissed tone.

"You have to train and you agreed to follow my training," the older man smirked maliciously.

'You never told me it would be that hard..." the young man replied as he wiped the sweat away from his face with a towel.

"It's the one I used to follow every day when I started though," Jason laughed while he slapped the young man's shoulder playfully. "But seriously, you're improving quickly and I'm positively impressed." The young man smiled weakly and gave a nod to thank him. He grabbed the water bottle which was just next to him and drank nearly everything in one gulp. Jason laughed at the man's behavior and outstretched his hand to help him up.

They both walked back to the apartment's living room. Indeed, in this particular safe house Jason owned, there was a training room with all the equipment one needed to train. There was a punching ball, a boxing ring, a sandbag, some weights and a treadmill. In order to train Kyle more easily, Jason had asked the young man if he wanted to move in his safe house during this training period. The young man had immediately accepted because the few things he owned had been pulverized during the headquarters' destruction... After this, he realized how lucky and privileged he was with Jason. He couldn't believe the man had revealed him his identity but Kyle trusted Jason as much as the man trusted the young man.

During those three weeks together, they had become really close. Kyle had opened up in his past and so did Jason. Kyle was actively helping the older man to put the gang back on tracks with those who remained. However, some people in the gang were looking at their friendship with a suspicious eye, such as Aaron, the man who had punched Kyle in front of all the lieutenants during one of their meetings. Kyle had noticed how much this man was provoking him, giving him death stares constantly, bumping into him on purpose every time they crossed path in a corridor... Of course, he did all of this when Red Hood wasn't around...