Stepping through the door Jake is slightly confused at the sounds of an automated sliding door, but more importantly, he seems to be one of the many janitors inside the Avengers tower alongside some very thin but otherwise good-looking man.
Boss?: "(Talks like an old man as he cracks his back) Well newbie, time to get back to the daily grind!"
Jake: "(Without his will) Yes sir! Do you think we're going to actually be able to see some of the Avengers today!?"
Boss?: "(Shrugs) I don't know, kid; last I heard from them was going somewhere called Latveria and needed to do something with a Doctor D... (scratches his head) Honestly, I can't remember the rest, as they left really quickly and don't really like it when the help snoops around."
The world then just stops the second the young yet somehow old man picks up a broom, letting Jake walk around, but not that far, as he was only able to mess around with what appeared to be the janitor's closet/office area, as it was full of lockers and cleaning supplies all over the place.
Walking around the area, Jake tried to open them all up, but only a few of them could even be opened, and the ones that did only had three of them that had anything actually inside them, with some having different colors inside.
Looking through everything that was inside the lockers, Jake couldn't really understand why someone would still keep very old tech and very outdated clothes inside the lockers, especially when it was just the strange man and whoever Jake was possibly possessing.
Jake: "Okay, we got many lockers and storing areas, a basic coffee machine, and not Tony Stark basic but the kind of basic one that Aunt May got on clearance fifteen years ago and still uses... and nothing else."
Letting out a massive sigh, not really having any idea what else to do, Jake picks up the broom in his locker, as it was the only thing there, and the second he did, time started moving again as the young yet old man started humming something as both of them went through the sliding door and into the actual Avengers Tower.
Boss?: "Now I know it looks amazing, but this isn't really anything as we're not allowed to touch any of it without supervision and (tosses Jake a pair of red and blue goggles as he puts on his own pair). We're only to clean anything these make glow bright orange, and anything that turns red means we either broke it or it wasn't only in need of a repair but also a good clean cleaning."
The young yet old man gently places his broom on one of the walls and grabs a spray bottle and clean rag from his belt as Jake goes on sweeping the entire place up, but not of his own accord, as his body seemed to be on autopilot as he went around cleaning the entire place with the only thing to listen to being the young yet old man's humming.
Once the cleaning was done for the day, the young yet old man shook Jake's hand, and he went through the door only to return shortly after as the calendar next to the door marked a day down.
Boss?: "Morning, youngin. Today we're going to swap roles; I'm going to sweep around the place while you wipe everything down."
All while smiling as bright as he could, as the two made their way into the Avengers tower and began cleaning it, with Jake trying his best but apparently didn't do a good enough job at wiping everything down, as every time he failed, it seemed everything would restart.
And after failing to clean a freaking chair right for either the twentieth, fiftieth, or however many times, he had Jake eventually decided that he was going to take a break and threw the cleaning supplies in the air as everything around him froze once more.
This time letting Jake have an actual look around everything, but even when he did, everything seemed to be consumed in darkness as the fridge and cabinets seemed to have nothing in them, which shocked Jake, and not only because he could actually open the fridge this time.
But mainly because he knew what some of these things should look like, and even if he didn't, there's enough light in this place to make sure nothing dark can truly exist, and yet there were somehow just pure black areas like someone didn't draw them into reality yet.
The same thing went for Jake and his pockets, as he always felt a little bump, but whenever he tried to take the outfit off to fix it, his entire body seemed to be all black as well, like he was wearing a giant black bodysuit... again... for the third time... this year...
But that wasn't the weirdest thing, as that honor went to the fact that even after taking his little suit off, it still looked like there was someone inside of it, and whenever he tired looking through the pockets, he found nothing.
Pure nothingness as he reached his hand inside and kept going until it reached all the way to his torso, and when he retracted his hand, the only thing that he could find that he managed to grab inside was a card of a very sickly-looking man named Robert.
With everything but the picture and name being redacted, like he was ex-special forces or something, yet from his looks and the fact that no matter where he looked, it seemed the black bars moved to be the same shape and size.
As he bent the card at an angle to see if anything would happen, the black bars seemed to turn into three dimensions as they looked the same as before no matter how the card was angled.
But that's all Jake could figure out, as just like with the janitor's office, he couldn't leave the kitchen until he cleaned everything, which took him way too long for him to feel any sense of pride in doing so.
The next area he went to was the main area of the place, and while it could be considered the living room, that would be pushing it very heavily, as the only thing that would make the two similar is the fact that they both had couches and coffee tables.
Since this area had a giant little holographic projector of Earth, among other things, all around it that made the place look like a heist room from a sci-fi futuristic movie, the worst thing about it all had to be the fact that the only device that Jake could even come close to understanding was that one of the Avengers left a collectible Pez dispenser stand with all the Avengers heads.
Putting on the goggles, Jake goes on to scrub everything that he could and immediately makes everything glow brighter red than if Iron Man himself drop-kicked Jake in the face, and yet nothing reset, which meant that everything was good....
Or so Jake thought, as everything soon turned into the next day, where his boss seemed to be down in the dumps, and it was because apparently their cleaning wasn't that good... and also because Tony Stark just gave the Avengers one of his brand-new cleaning bots that would do everything they could do but better, as they could also repair anything broken.
Boss?: "It's just not fair! I've been doing this job since I was freaking 16, man! And they throw us away after firing everyone else to "cut costs" on their yearly bills! Of course we're going to be lacking since you fired everyone else!"
The boss didn't even seem to see Jake as he stormed through the sliding doors, and then everything reset back to the first day of this three-day shift that Jake had lived through once before.
And everything was the exact same from the amount of jokes the boss man tried to tell but messed up the entire timing, told the wrong punch lines, or just flat-out overexplained to the point it wasn't even funny anymore.
Along with that was everything being the same work-wise, as well as Jake swept up the same areas on the first day, failed more than once at cleaning the chair on the second, and then on the third day the boss man seemed to lose it once more and march into the Avengers tower before everything repeated itself again.
This kept going for about fifty or so cycles before Jake started to lose his mind, as there was nothing for him to do other than just accept what was going on and become one with the way the world worked and stop caring about how everyone might have been living.
Pretty soon that changed, however, when he saw a calendar of Spider-Woman lying in the locker room that wasn't there before in any of the previous cycles, and after seeing that, Jake started to see little white skulls in every reflection that he went.
One hundred or so cycles later, and Jake was happily cleaning up the Avengers tower until his white skull face reached through the mirror and pulled him through and into what looked to be the real world once again as everything inside the place was trashed.
Jake: "What? Who... who are you?"
???: "I'm the only thing remaining of Robert."
He said while his teeth clattered against one another since there was nothing there but just bone.
Robert: "Everything was fine as you have seen, but that's... that's not how it really went."
With a snap of his fingers, Robert revealed the hundred, nay thousands, NAY ONE MILLION rooms full of what he had just lived through countless times and was on the edge of possibly losing it all if not for the Spider-Woman calendar.
Jake: "Did... did you help me?"
Robert: "(Somehow sighs) Besides showing my face, no, how could I when all that I am is the fragmented remains of the once peaceful man the real Robert used to be." (Somehow spits on the floor) If that ##### didn't show up and promise a box full of lies."
Jake thanked himself and followed the skeleton called Robert as it soon showed the darkest parts of the place, the areas that seemed to be the real truths, as pretty soon the areas began looking damaged, and the face that was on the card showed up on all the janitors.
Except he looked a whole lot uglier in the picture than he did in real life; I mean, if he just worked out a bit and smiled more and maybe actually tried to make himself look nice, he'd look almost the same as the ideal version of himself since that version was a lot taller.
Eventually they came to the one area that wasn't like the others, as it was about the size of a promise box Jake, Penny, and Harry all used when they were kids to make promises forever by placing their most sacred and precious items inside.
Penny gave up the only necklace she still had of her, Uncle Ben, and Aunt May, all smiling and being happy with one another. Harry placed inside the box his mother's engagement ring, which was the only thing his father actually made with his own two hands, as his bride-to-be wouldn't accept anything else.
Flashback Young Harry: "(Talks like a ghost) She said the only way she'd accept a ring from my father was if he could promise it was the only one in the world, and after billions of dollars lost, he gave her the first ring he ever made, which even today I'm still amazed it's in one piece and that my mother decided to wear it all the time."
Jake, on the other hand... Jake was a bit different, as what he placed inside the box was none other than a box full of letters, one for each of the families that the homeless men he killed had, and the last one was his letter of confession and guilt.
It was the one thing at the time truly precious to him, as it was a reminder of the one thing he'd never let himself ever forget, and while everyone stopped him from sending the letters he wrote as a kid, even to this very day he writes everything out like a diary entry before sealing them up with the others.
Looking inside the little, solid, yet somehow crumbling box, Jake sees that within it Robert, or what used to be the actual Robert, seemed to have been beaten up in a fight and was drunker than a skunk during happy hour as he stumbled his way through the really bad parts of some street.
As the old Robert walks through the dangerous streets, he soon comes across someone that looks vaguely feminine and was entirely white, possibly the last real thing he saw of her, given how she seemed to pierce her claw-like hands into Robert as he screamed in pain before everything repeated once more.
Jake: "Why did you show me this?"
Robert: "Because after Antman backhanded me into Iron Man's armored rear, this was what the true Robert's fate was, and as the creature that is killing the real body, I wanted you to know the only real thing that was left of me, of all of us, before we soon disappear."
Jake: "Wha-What do you mean by eat you?"
Robert: "The entire point of the real Robert dragging you into itself was because it needed a new body as its old one was dying."
Jake: "So you mean—"
Robert: "(Looks very serious for a skeleton) Yes. Every frame you see besides this one are all the bodies that the monster Robert has become after forcibly converting everyone inside into being a better version of himself, doomed to repeat the last days he could ever want to remember."
Before Jake could ask anything else, everything went white... then green, and when he opened his eyes back up, he saw the entire area was destroyed, his suit was gone, and while he no longer remembers what happened, he still cries for the fallen innocent man as rage soon takes the place of the fleeting despair.
And that is all for now hope you all enjoyed and hope you all have a happy holiday and until next time stay safe and peace!