A/N: DISCLAIMER: All public characters, settings, etc. are not mine and are property of DC comics. I am not making money off of this work. All my original characters/plot are property of me, the author, and I am not associated with DC comics in any way, shape or form.

TW: this story contains a suicide scene. if you are triggered by those things, along with behaviors exhibited during a hypomanic episode, please do NOT read this story. this TW is for your safety.

a/n: this two-shot would not be here if not for @ae-in! please check them out on tumblr! (@stargirl_interlude on A03)

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Damian Wayne was no normal boy. Never will be. Never has been. His mother never planned that for him. Nor his father, when he took Damian in.

Damian tried to blend it—to follow the social norms of American society while also understanding he was to never be truly 'normal'.

Never is a great, imposing word, Damian thought as he looked down upon the Gothamites, his feet mere inches from the edge of the building which was towering over the busy citizens. It was at least 500 feet above them, and the Robin costume felt like the proper barrier to remain hidden from those passing civilians. He didn't want anyone to know.

Wait—did he? Did he want someone to find his body? Did he want it to be respected, or passed by those same civilians which were on their way to the graveyard shifts? How would they react? Horrified? Or happy at the opportunity of finding the 'annoying Robin' dead in his own pool of blood?

Damian stilled. They would find out his identity, along with his splattered guts lying on the sidewalk.

Did he want that?

He thought he did. He wanted some way to end the pain and have everything go dark. To have everything to just...stop. For time to stand still forever. For the pressure. For the haunting, never ending memories.

He knew it was melodramatic. To kill oneself. Also, perhaps selfish. Selfish if one had a caring, normal family. But Damian didn't have that. He had an occupied, stony family that was plagued with one another's various traumas. His family protected, though, despite that trauma.

But Damian didn't protect.

Not like his father. Or brothers. Or sister.

He hurt. He ridiculed, attacked, and killed.

He was no better than his mother.

He deserved this.

However, the thought of having his insides possibly being consumed by rats on the sidewalk stopped him. For now.

Perhaps tomorrow. Or the day after that.

Father had accused him of going off-route on patrol. He was right. He did do that. Maybe not for the reasons he had thought of. Maybe instead to contemplate his life while one step away from falling off a tall building. But still.

"Damian," Bruce growled. "As Robin you have a responsibility to listen. If you fail to do so-"

"There's a possibility of death. I know, Father," Damian interrupted him. And to be completely honest, that made irresponsibility tempting.

Bruce clenched his jaw, and Damian could see the way he shut down. The way Damian does when he's too overwhelmed. When he can't take the frustration or sadness or anger. "You are still a child, Damian. And you are still your mother's son."

Damian didn't blink for a few moments.

Like his mother's son.

Despite everything: her placing a bounty on him, her attempting to kill him various times, her abusing, manipulating him for the majority of his childhood. He was still her son.

It seems as though everything he tries he can never escape her.

Except for one (little) thing that could stop this. The pain, the criticism, the looming figure of someone who was supposed to love him but failed miserably.

Death.

Bruce continued after shaking his head disappointedly, "I'm this close to benching you, Damian." Damian's breath stuttered. "You're reckless and irresponsible. We can't have you out on the field when you so blatantly disobey me."

Damian felt his fists creak under his skin, feeling as though he was itching to get out of his own body. To finally leave. Permanently. His fingers created crescent marks, almost breaking skin.

Bruce sighed heavily when he got no response from his son. Then: "Go to your room." Damian stiffly turned around and began soldiering to his room. He heard Bruce mutter under his breath, "Though you won't listen...never do." And his heart dropped down to his sore feet.

A surge of anger coursed through him as he trudged up the manor stairs. How could he? How could he feel this way when he did this to himself?

I'm the most ignorant, self-centered person I know.

Damian stared at the stripped blade in his hand. He had managed to break open a razor he had left in his bathroom cabinet, and couldn't help but think of his entire life leading up to this moment.

The irrefutably happy moments—where he had complete control of his life and was able to accomplish anything. Like a god. Like some powerful being neither his mother nor father could break. The moments where he thought he knew what he was doing, leading to more deaths. The moments where he hurt the people he was supposed to love. The moments where he was hated for being honest on a really important interview that was supposed to go well but couldn't because he was reckless and didn't care about the tomorrow. Just wanted to live so freely now. And forever.

But that always changed when he fell again.

It was subtle, when the euphoria faded and was replaced with guilt and this irrefutable sadness. When he could barely keep fighting to become a better person because he didn't care. He didn't care to become a better person because he would be dead tomorrow. Or the day after that.

This was one of those weeks. Months? It's felt like years.

He clenched his fist around the razor, and the blood seeped from his palm. He loved the feeling of the blood trickling down his tanned skin.

Skin he shared with his mother.

Damian didn't think when he began filling the tub with hot water. Didn't think when he got in with his clothes still on, the unorthodox feeling of wet clothing sticking on his skin not fazing him for one moment. Didn't think when he held the blade in his bloodied palm and pushed and pushed it into his skin. Didn't think when he closed his eyes and leaned back onto the tub and let the waves of relief wash over him.

Didn't notice when the clock struck midnight.

A few seconds? Minutes? Hours? Passed by in a single moment. He hated how slow this was to be—the blood was still gushing out of his forearm and yet he was still conscious. He wanted it to slip from him now.

"Alfred made ya' some dinner, Damian!" He heard Dick yell out. The man was most likely in his room and yelling out to the bathroom door thinking he was using the restroom. Damian didn't know why, but his heart rate jumped.

Damian didn't reply, but slumped lower into the now-lukewarm tub. He closed his eyes again and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He heard Dick hesitate, "Damian?"

Damian opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It suddenly hit him—what he had just tried.

He couldn't let Richard see him like this: so weak and impulsive. Dick usually visited once a week to talk about cases and 'hang out' with Damian, and Damian realized that with this he would never experience that again.

Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice when Grayson cracked open the door with worried eyes. He didn't notice when the door slammed against the wall and Grayson began shouting for Bruce. Didn't notice when his body was lifted into warm, broad arms and asked too many questions to comprehend. What came out of his mouth was a jumble of words that made no sense even to him.

Then dark.

He woke up with Tim at his bedside, the tapping on his tablet calming and lulling him back into sleep. However, when Tim looked up from the screen, eyes bleary and red, Damian suddenly felt as though he could never sleep again.

Drake had seen him. In this state. This embarrassing, shameful state that made him want to suddenly scream at the top of his lungs. To let everything out and let it be there in the universe for once. To not suppress so much.

Damian glanced down at his wrists, one of which was bandaged, and saw the handcuffs linking him to the bed. So he did just that.

Scream.

Screamed so much his voice turned hoarse. Until Tim called Bruce and Dick and he was injected with a fast-acting sedative and arrived back into sweet unconsciousness.

Bruce panted as he held the now-empty syringe and looked down at his son.

"He was-" Tim stopped himself as he looked down at his hands. "I don't know why-"

Dick interrupted him, eyes narrowed and helpless at the same time. "It doesn't matter, Timmy. What matters is that he's okay."

Bruce's eye twitched as his gaze broke from the syringe to his son. His unconscious, apparently suicidal son.

"I think he's doing this for attention," Bruce admitted.

Dick gaped at him while Tim lifted his head, his eyes unreadable. Dick's eyes suddenly turned angry. "That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard you say, Bruce-"

"He did this when I threatened to bench him, Dick. We've been focused on the recent case and didn't allow Damian to look over it for the fact that it was too brutal even for him."

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep, calming breath. There was no need to get upset when Damian was there in a fucking hospital bed after trying to kill himself. Dick needed to remain strong for Damian, his family.

"It makes sense, Dick," Tim whispered, as though he were scared of the reaction.

Dick bit his bottom lip, then scoffed angrily. "Whatever," he muttered. "We need to help him first."

"How do we help him if we don't know what's wrong?"

Dick wanted to scream at Bruce because he was right.

In this mood, time seemed to move slower. The colors were less vivid. The world around him seemed to change less. The faint specks of dirt on the windowsill were more noticeable.

"Are you still feeling suicidal?" His father would ask at least twice a day. Damian didn't know if it was out of concern or obligation, but it was still infuriating to be coddled over. Mostly due to the fact that Damian had never been coddled, and never wanted to be coddled. He's his own person and deserves privacy.

His privacy was taken away from him when he tried to slit his wrists.

Someone was always around him at all times (save for the restroom), whether that be Dick, Tim, Alfred, Cass, or even Barbara or Jason. Granted, most people had simply let him be in peace while only being in the same room to monitor, but it still felt like an invasion of privacy.

'Damian Duty,' it was deemed. A term for looking after their shameful youngest.

It was when he heard the term that his failure fully hit him. He failed at doing the one thing he had wanted to do for years before. Why would he do that to himself? How could he do that to himself?

He doesn't even deserve to die—to be a coward and avoid everyone and everything. He deserves to sit and sink into his misdeeds and mistakes. Memories he can't escape.

Cowards don't deserve to die. They deserve to suffer and live.

He had an prolonged anxiety attack, the day the implication hit him. It lasted the entire day. All because of the implication that he doesn't deserve to die because he is that much of a failure.

Everyone gave him water, petty reassurances, good hearted pats on the back but it was useless. He was nothing to them.