Plurk paste

Diego cares.

That's really the first thing you can say about him. There's the posturing, sure, that little thing where he feels the need to prove himself, to do things his way. He wants to be bad-ass, he wants to be in charge, and he wants to be right.

But he fucking cares. He's good to Klaus. He seesm to get really personally hurt by Vanya's betrayal of them in the form of the book. He honestly seems pissed at Luther because he didn't leave and get out from under their abuser and make some kind of life for himself.

He joined the police academy because he still wanted to help people, but it didn't work out and probably never would have. So he takes what knowledge he got from there and goes vigilante. He handles things his way, but he helps people. Puts the skills he's learned to damn use in doing so. (And he fights, and mops, and it puts a roof over his head, but he's doing his own thing so what?)

The thing is that he covers up any perceived weakness. His heart goes over there next to where he used to keep his stutter. He tries to be cool and bad-ass and untouchable and kind of feels like he is. But if he's going to hide this away he needs to get rid of the shit that made him second best, doesn't he? Whether they were really the reasons or not.

He's constantly waiting for some kind of challenge because he wants to challenge the world. He stays on edge - how many times has his landlord/boss almost gotten a face-ful of knife when he wasn't expecting him?

He was probably taught to be ready, to hone the instinct and the reflex, the same way the limits of his ability to hold his breath were tested.

(He and Patch had a fling in and out of the Academy, once he'd gotten the boot. It wasa dumb rebel skirting danger relationship that ended as suddenly as it started. She's one of the only people outside his family he really connected with at any point, so he bugs the hell out of her.)