Something of an experiment - a word of advice, read the quotations and definitions. I know its easy to skip over them but I wrote it as a whole piece. Enjoy and please let me know what you think :)

Identity - the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

Age - the length of time that a person or thing has existed.

He was locked in a small cubicle; strong back half slumped against the door as calloused hands grasped desperately at unruly hair. Shuddering, he pushed himself upright and stumbled over to the toilet seat, sitting down heavily and tearing at the flowing silk neck tie, ripping it off and frantically loosening the shirt buttons until golden skin was revealed and a chest rose and fell in a ragged, intense rhythm. Rapid blinking, a convulsive swallow, a mouth working for more air, fingers twisting into a scrap of cloth, body flinching violently as the door to the toilets swung open, emitting a blast of noise.

What in hell's name was wrong with him?

Panic attack - a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and disabling anxiety.

He wanted to rip himself away from this state, to smash his fists against the walls, yell and roar out his uncertainties, run hard and fast and not stop for anyone…but he couldn't. Not here. Here he had to be polite, talk quietly, walk sedately, and if he damaged anything, deposits would be lost…Heero sighed. At some point during his internal wandering, his body had calmed itself, leaving only a sense of weariness and mortified embarrassment.

He had panicked.

Panic - sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety.

Heero Yuy, Gundam pilot and 'perfect solider', had panicked in the middle of the most civilised and secure of civilian peace celebration. The pilot who had face down armadas of mobile suits was unable to face peace-minded aristocrats and politicians.

He really didn't want to go back out there, so he hid. He sat on the toilet seat and drew his knees up to his chest like a child.

He wasn't a child, yet out there he felt suffocated, like he was being forced to act the sedate forty year old with the polite manners, or a bright 20-30 year old with a stellar career within his reach. He felt aged and wearied beyond belief.

Age was a curious thing. Ask a stranger to tell you about him or herself, and they will invariably impart their age. As if it mattered, Heero thought, as if it was some part of their identity. Maybe that was why he felt so lost, having no age. He remembered Trowa's rejoinder to a disbelieving ally.

'But you're only 15!'

'We are soldiers.'

'Age will not be defied.'
Francis Bacon, Essays (1625) 'Of Regimen of Health'

Soldier, warriors, pilots, killers…look what came before all else. They said war and peace demanded sacrifice. They also said the same thing of success in business, sport, and academia. And they had sacrificed…their innocence, their consciences, their futures. Their age seemed little in comparison. Suddenly all the sacrifices he had delivered gladly and with conviction had been reduced down to a congratulatory pat on the back, some circles of metal and the possibly of conviction of war crimes. He was left clinging to nothing, hugging his nameless, ageless nothing of an identity with a vulnerability that horrified him.

'"You"; your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.'
Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (1994)

'Never nothing.'

He looked up in surprise at the voice that spoke from the other side of the door.

'Heero Yuy, you are never nothing.'

To be continued...