Tales From Pre-Flashpoint: What if Bruce Wayne looked in the mirror in twelve years & realized he wasn’t aging.
One could argue one of the reasons for the reboot is the need for Bruce to never be “old”. I’d argue Batman could totally keep aging and just never slow down. Eventually become Batman Beyond Bruce, but with more family that likes him.
Or what if he looked in the mirror twelve years after flashpoint would have happened and noted the lack of lines and gray, not because he’s hiding them. They never appeared. It dawn’s on him, ‘Ah, so that’s what it was.’ it had bothering him, he noted his latent meta-gene long ago. Surely he’d been through more than enough “Stressful situations” but nothing had ever happened? It had bugged him- to the point this was honestly a relief in some ways.
So he sets out on disguising this. Letting Bruce Wayne age naturally in subtle and gradual ways. All of it is theater, but not much different than the persona. He adapts.
He figures, either the kids will have equally uncanny things happen to them, or he would die for good before it mattered. Damien had that marker too, didn’t he? He checked the family portraits against all known photographic databases & as much of the internet as possible, just in case,
