Chapter Text
“You don’t have to leave, y’know,” Jon said, walking up to the Collector. “I’m not saying you have to stay, but you don’t have to feel like you’re too bad to stay here.”
“Yeah?” the Collector asked in response.
“Yeah. Trust me, I know all about doing shitty things and feeling like everyone should hate me.” the Collector looked at Jon in curiosity.
“But you’re so nice!”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to hurt people, but it happened nonetheless.” Jon sat down on the ground near the Collector, patting the space next to him in invitation.
“Are you going to tell me about what you did?”
“Yeah. I think it’ll be good for the both of us.” Jon took a deep, calming breath. “I, against my will, started the apocalypse back where I’m from.” The Collector stared at Jon. “Really. Jonah tricked me into reading a statement that brought all the fears into our world. He-that’s not important. The reason I’m telling you this is because between the Eye ruling over the apocalypse and me being the one who brought it about, however unwillingly, gave me a lot of power. Like, straight up able to smite avatars, powerful. I’m…not proud of how I acted during that time, and I’d likely have been even worse if it wasn’t for my boyfriend sticking with me throughout. I kinda rolled around on a revenge tour, killing avatars who’d hurt me. The point is, though our circumstances and personalities are vastly different, I figured you could use someone who has a vague idea of what it’s like.”
“...thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
– - –
“Jon! Where are you going?” the Collector asked, seeing Jon headed towards the door. Jon stopped, turning to look at them.
“Ah, I’m going to see if there’s any way for me to help around town with the cleanup.”
“...can I come? It’s partly my fault, so I should help clean up, right?”
“If you want to come then I’m certainly not going to stop you. Honestly, that’s a rather mature attitude there, I’m proud of you.”
“Really?”
“Yep. It takes a lot to recognize your mistakes, and it’s nice of you to want to help.” the Collector smiled, hopping off the couch.
“Thanks!”
– - –
Unfortunately, as soon as the pair got to the outskirts of town, someone immediately got in their path. Jon coly raised an eyebrow.
“Can I help you?”
“What are you doing with that evil-”
“I’ll ask you to refrain from insulting my friend, thank you very much.”
“Friend! You must’ve been dropped on the head as a baby! That’s a-”
“Kid. He’s a kid. They didn’t know any better and now they’re trying to make up for their mistakes.”
“He’s a monster!” the Collector clutched Jon’s hand and pressed himself against Jon’s side, looking for all the world like a scared child, which he was. Jon’s eyes changed from a soft green to neon, and the air itself seemed to buzz.
“Oh no. If you want to see a real monster, then, well…” Jon smirked, gesturing to himself. “I’m right here.” suddenly, everything went back to normal. Jon’s eyes faded back to a soft green, and the buzz faded from the air.
“Fuck you!” the man said, and tried to walk away causally, though he was walking a bit too fast to be natural.
“Sorry you had to see me like that.” Jon apologized to the Collector. “I just can’t stand that word, and he was already pissing me off.”
“That’s ok. Let’s just go now.”
– - –
Thankfully the rest of their trip went smoothly except for a couple of glares, and soon they made it to the person managing the reconstruction of the town.
“Ah! What are you two doing here?” she-and she was a she, she was wearing a pin-kept any fear or hatred of the Collector out of her voice. Still, they tried to hide behind Jon, despite the fact that she’d already seen them.
“I suppose what everyone else is here for. We want to help with the cleanup.” Jon responded. “Though I’ll warn you now, I have the body strength of a noodle, so any heavy lifting is out for me.” she chuckled.
“That’s ok. There’s plenty of work that’s just cleaning up smaller pieces of trash and such like.”
“Um…do you have anything I could help with?” the Collector asked shyly.
“I’m sure I can find something….aha! I have a job you should be able to do, though it’ll rely pretty heavily on your powers, is that alright with you?”
“Yep!”
– - –
The Collector, or Coco, as Luz had nicknamed him, found himself on a street that looked to be mostly intact.
“Um, excuse me? I was sent here to help?” they called out. There was a crowd of well-muscled individuals who turned to look at him.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. I don’t know what you guys are actually doing, the nice lady that was managing everyone didn’t tell me.” after a brief moment, one of the large men stepped forwards.
“I’m Peter. He/him. I’m the leader of this team.”
“Peter! What are you doing?”
“Nice to meet you! What can I help with?”
“I think I know why Mary sent you here. I’ve seen your powers, and they’ll probably be quite useful for what we’re doing.”
“What are you doing?”
“We check unstable houses to see if they’re salvageable or not. It’s a very dangerous job, one wrong move and we could all die due to a house falling on us. But that’s where you come in. With your powers you could stop the house from falling on us, meaning we’d have time to get out.” Coco’s eyes lit up slightly.
“I can do that!”
“Great. Now come on everyone, we have work to do!”
– - –
Peter prided himself on how determined he was to give people second chances. He believed that everyone had the ability to change, although not everyone would want to. It was partly for this reason that he let the Collector onto the team. The other reason being that having someone with the Collectors powers would reduce the chance of death to what it was in normal jobs. He cared deeply for his team, and he constantly worried for them. Their job was incredibly dangerous. And the child-like being had proven that he would do his job, even if that was found out in a terrifying way. Someone had tripped over something on the ground and hit a support pillar that was a lot less sturdy than it appeared. A sequence of incredibly bad luck that would’ve spelled death any other time. In fact, they’d all ducked, doing their best to cover their head and necks. Praying, because that was all they could do. But the impact never came. They’d looked up to see the Collector, arm up and hand splayed, keeping the house from falling. Something that would stick in Peter's mind for a while was the second of pure terror on the being's face before he’d realized that he’d kept everyone safe. Peter had been the first up. He ordered everyone out of the house, and everyone had been able to watch from a safe distance as the house collapsed when the Collector released their powers. Peter’s heart had cracked slightly, however, when he’d thanked the being and seen the looking on his face. Eventually, it was lunchtime, and they’d all started to settle down. That was when the other man showed up. He had darker skin, and dark brown hair that was more grey than brown, despite how young he looked. He had green eyes and small round scars littering his skin, along with one on his neck like someone had tried to slit his throat, another one on his hand, a burn in the shape of a hand. He was wearing a light blue tee shirt and a soft yellow skirt that went just passed his knees.
“Coco!” to Peter's mild shock and delight, the Collector stood up and practically raced over to the man.
“Jon!” The man, presumably named Jon, just smiled.
“Hey kiddo. Everything going well?”
“Sorta? Like, nobody’s being mean but a house almost collapsed on them. But I kept it from collapsing so they could escape!”
“Nice job!”
“Thanks! Do you want to meet Peter? He’s nice!”
“Sure.” and just like that, the pair walked over to him.
“Hi. I heard them call you Jon?”
“Yep. And you’re Peter.” before Peter was forced to think of something else to say, Jon spoke again. “Thank you for keeping an eye on Coco.”
“Oh, no problem. He’s nicer than I think anyone expected.” the being in question actually seem to blush slightly.
“Yeah.”
“Is their name actually Coco?” Peter had to know. Jon laughed a bit before answering.
“No.” he sombered. “He doesn’t have a name, so Luz took it upon herself to give the kiddo something, anything.” And was there anything Peter could say to that?