Jason would never admit some things about himself; not to anyone.

He would never tell anyone how much he really cared, or how much things hurt him. But mostly, he’d never admit how he wasn’t really Jason sometimes. Not the big, strong, twenty four-year-old Jason, at least.

It happened after a rough mission, sometimes, or when somebody yelled. Sometimes when he was just plain stressed. But it always confused him, afterwards. He didn’t know why it happened, or even what it was. He just couldn’t stop it. It was out of his control, which he hated.

This time, he couldn’t even really remember why it happened. A movie, he vaguely thought. It was something in a movie. Something somebody said? Something they did? He couldn’t think clearly enough. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care about what made it happen. Just that he was scared.

He let himself crumble down into nothingness, back down to the little, malnourished Jason who had fashioned a splint out of old tee-shirts and salvaged wood from his yard after his dad stomped down, hard, on his calf. Back to the Jason who curled up under his front deck to hide from his vengeful father. Back to the Jason who rolled his mom onto her side so she wouldn’t pass out and choke on her own spit.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe, or speak, or blink. Couldn’t do anything but stare at the wall and feel himself slip away.

He felt trapped, caught in a little box that only contained what he knew before, before any of it. Everyone- Bruce, Dick, Tim, Steph, Cas, Alfred, even Damian- turned fuzzy. Fuzzy like it had never happened. He wasn’t a vigilante anymore. He wasn’t big, or strong, or anything else.

He was just Jason.

Little, scared Jason.