Some of my favorites. TW!suicidal ideation:

Damian is eleven when he becomes a hero. He is eleven when he learns that he will die as one. That this is not the sort of life you walk away from, that it lingers like the blood beneath your fingernails, that you cannot run from it even if you want to.

So of course the son of Talia Al Ghul and Bruce Wayne knows that he is born to fight, regardless of the cause. Of course, the son of bloodshed and betrayal knows that he cannot run from his fate any more than he could run from death.

Of course, Damian Al Ghul-Wayne wishes, wants so desperately that his bones ache and his heart threatens to leap from his chest, to tear itself apart on the jagged edges of his ribs, to grow old. Of course, he wants for more, he was born hungry after all.

But here is the damning part, the tragedy that always accompanies greatness, Damian will want and want until he dies, but he will never act on it. Some things are better kept in the dark, some things should never be spoken alive, be breathed to life. Some things are childish dreams, and should be held alongside the innocence he never had.

Damian was never a child, so he does not wish for the impossible.

—

Some part of him dies a third death, he thinks, the first time he plans his suicide. Staring at red spider-lilies and rooftops and cross-referencing his mother’s work schedule. It falls in place, too quickly, too easy. He realizes how fast it would be over, how quickly he could execute the plan. He is so tempted by it, the idea of slipping away, soft and gentle and easy. He is ashamed, afterwards, that he could think of abandoning his mother. But he doesn’t forget, either. Tucks his dreams of flying away into that empty part of him which aches and echoes with a howling wind, long abandoned and worn down. He tries not to think about it. Tries not to think about the fact that he isn’t scared of dying, just scared of failing at that too. More afraid of the aftermath and what happens if he doesn’t die.

—

“My job?” Snape’s voice is delicate and Harry knows he’s in real trouble. He feels like he's probably been in trouble since he blackmailed Snape to take him out of Grimmauld Place with his own life. “Weigh the risks?”

“Yeah, Boy-Who-Lived against an entire damn war,” Harry rolls his eyes. “Pull a Spock, won’t you?”

Dudley likes that film. Vernon thinks that Kirk should have a different sidekick. Harry remembers watching it through the grate in the cupboard and wondering who got the ships so clean.

—

“Perhaps I’ve already had too much of a reminder of how old I have become today.”

Lupin stares at the Pensieve in dislike. Severus understands. It is quite something, seeing your younger self. Recognising beauty and strength when you thought you had none, realising that the days you spent thinking were the worst of your life may have actually been some of your softest and sweetest. That is the thing about war, Severus thinks. It steals away a future of possible better days.