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Bruce heard a strange voice in a particular direction.
The statue was of a boy cradling a sphere as his eyes closed.
He was wearing a flowing cloak with a hood on his back.
The statue was near life-like when he first discovered it.
The statue was coincidentally right under the Wayne Manor, in which he's supposed to put his Batcave (no he did not pout at the fact that Alfred laughed in a subtle manner of how he names his place shut up!)
The statue was also right in the middle of a lazarus pit.
He doesn't know how deep that water is, nor does he want to, even if his detective senses said so.
His first thought about the statue on top of the lazarus pit was.
"A demon seal?"
"Well that's just rude." Bruce scanned the cave, only to see no life in sight.
"If I were a demon, wouldn't I be whispering you stuff to get closer to me? Bruce turned around at the statue.
Its closed eyes were now open with a smile plastered to its face.
Bruce was ready to throw a shuriken at it, but decided to be ready in case it retaliates.
"What are you?"
"I'm Phantom, I'm currently resting for energy in this pool of ectoplasm." the statue- Phantom said. But his mouth didn't move, telepathy probably.
"Why are you using the lazarus pits to heal?" Bruce has read about the lazarus waters and knows how dangerous these waters are.
"Is that what you mortals call it nowadays? We usually call it ectoplasm, or the blood of the dead." Bruce flinched at the implications.
"I repeat, what exactly are you?" He narrowed his eyes.
"I'm a ghost, as in my name, I was heavily injured, and with not enough places to heal my spirit. My mentor put me under this place for my protection and healing."
"Why were you injured?" He looked at the statue in a curious gaze.
The ghost went silent for a moment. "There are just things you can't say to people, even to the people you thought you loved." he whispered.
"... I apologize for saying something unnecessary."
"No, no, you have a valid reason to ask. Especially when you're going to be this city's future hero."
"You can see the future?" He lowered his guard a little at that.
"When your mentor is basically the master of Time, being able to see the future is not so fun anymore. But yes, I can see the future, the past, and the present."
"But you said that you were weakened?" He raised a brow.
"Being able to see and being able to move are two different things boy, you should know this." the ghost chided.
When Bruce was about to make a comment on that, the statue slowly closed its eyes as its smile disappeared.
The ghost yawned "as much as I want to talk about many things with you, hero of Gotham, I've already used whatever energy I have left to converse to you." it was evident in the Ghosts' tone that he really exhausted himself.
"... Will you still speak to me whenever I visit?"
The ghost- Phantom- made a noise of agreement. "As long as I'm awake at that time, then yeah… good night Bruce Wayne." was all he heard before everything went quiet.
He couldn't hear the ghost anymore, but with that promise, he always tries to visit when he can.
_________________________________
As soon as he became Batman, Bruce had gotten busy with his life.
With all the criminals on the street, his disguise as Brucie Wayne, his children. He could only visit Phantom- Danny at rare times.
"You know if you keep your stone hard face persona, your kids will be angry with you right?" that's what Danny told him as when he realized that his two eldest boys were becoming distant.
"It's fine Bruce, as long as we save Jason, I can stay a couple more weeks of sleep." the ghost reassured the tense father when Joker took Robin.
"Y'know, with all these black hair, blue eyed children, I'd be thinking that you just want kids to look like me and you at this point." he grumbled at that conversation when he told Danny about Tim.
"huh, two redheads in a row and one has the balls to smack back at you? Kinda wanna meet this kid. She sounds eerily like my sister, a descendant perhaps?" when he was complaining about Stephanie's arrogance during her 2nd week of being batgirl.
"It's a shame that she cannot walk anymore, but at least you reassured her that she's still part of the team right? Right Bruce?" he was slowly walking away when he mentioned Barbara's incident with the Joker.
"A tiny child capable of beating Batman in terms of spying, hah! That's hilarious!" he's pretty sure that Cass was this close to find this part of the cave but he shrugs it off.
"A meta boy this time huh? Tell me, did you clear up your reasoning about the whole no meta rule you implemented in gotham?" Bruce knows he lost when Danny popped it like a normal question.
(He and Duke had to make a public announcement about it.
And he's pretty sure his children were the ones making fun of him on the internet for that.)
"With your whole escapades of being Brucie Wayne and Batman, I'm surprised that there was only one child being sent." when he told Danny about Damian's murderous habits.
Bruce was planning on telling his children about Danny soon enough, so he made sure to use vague things to describe him whenever he mentions about him.
"Ah, you sound just like Danny, always telling me to communicate with my therapy session with Harley whenever he could."
"Danny would've loved to hear you ramble on about your new technology Timbers."
"Jason is not my favorite, but Danny told me that his favorite child would probably be Duke. Apparently for being a sweet child." His other children sounded offended by that but Duke just shined.
"If I had a nickel of everytime someone mentions my mental health, I owe Danny 50 bucks."
"Sometimes I think Danny's voice is like windchimes, he seems to twinkle at everytime we talk about something related to space."
"Pst, did Batman get dumped or something?" Flash whispers to Superman, in which the latter just shrugs as he listens to his friend talk about this 'Danny' guy.
"His eyes shine like the stars he keeps on rambling about, I can't help but smile."
"Sir, why haven't you started on marrying the poor chap, it has been too long."
Apparently that was a bad move cuz now everybody thinks that he got dumped by his only one, or that Danny's dead and that he's reminiscing about his time with him.
They aren't technically wrong but still-
One day out of the blue Danny was sitting right next to him holding a newspaper.
"Good to see you up and about."
Danny yawns "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say Batboy. How was your patrol last night?"
"It went quite well, until Joker tried to bomb one of the safe houses that I owned specifically." Danny hums.
When the children started to gather at the table, they all noticed the strange man sitting beside their father acting like a married couple.
"Uh B, who's that?"
"Ah, is this Dick? My he has grown! Y'know, the last time Bruce showed me a picture of you it was when you were as small as that boy!" The man pointed to Tim, which-rude!
Dick raises his hands as he backs away then the man looks at Jason.
"Oh the poor boy, I see that there were some leftovers huh?" He slowly holds Jason's head. But he flinched and thus stopped then looked at Damian.
"Aww!! There's the baby!!" He happily hoisted Damian like a teddy bear while the child was screeching in anger.
"Okay, B, who's this and why does he act like he knows us?" Jason asked his father.
"Oh? Haven't I told you about him?"
"About what?"
"He's Danny."
.
..
…
….
""HE'S WHAT!?!""