This is a mess. The hall looks like a battle field. There are empty bottles all on the floor, paired with too much confetti and plastic cups of sticky rest of alcohol. Paper streamers are hanging from the lamps on the ceiling and, however someone could lose them, shoes and jackets were lying around. Y/N even thinks she sees a shirt and a dress somewhere in all the garbage. How a party can take a whole tower to turn into a dump is a riddle to her. She sighs and grabs the key to the cleaning room. This will take a while, and she doesn't have that much time to clean everything up. Her boss told her that the hall must be clean at noon, because the owners of the tower would expect some guests. Y/N doesn't care much. They are like normal people to her, and she does not like them very much at the moment. The owners however are well-known to everybody and well-loved from most of them. The Avengers, especially Tony Stark, threw parties like this once a month and somehow, a fact totally oblivious to her, she's always on shift to get their mess back under control and make the fancy tower worth its status again. To Y/N it seems that he often just celebrates because he had the money to do so. It's her 2nd year that she works here now. It doesn't bother her that she's still cleaning the halls and some conference rooms. Y/N doesn't get promoted in all the time, but she loves the job down here. She gets to talk to many people and has free use of the cafeteria without needing to pay for anything. The work hours are nice, too. Sure she has to get up at four in the morning, but she was home latest at two pm. She even gets paid more than any normal cleaning person in other agencies. What was even better is that Y/N works alone most of the time. It's not that she's not getting along with people, but she likes it quiet and nice. So yeah, to clean up the mess the Avengers left for her was okay. Y/N takes her cleaning carriage and makes her way to the front door. She starts with picking up all the cups, bottles and glass shards and throws them into the bags in her carriage. After she fills three of the bags she collects the clothes she could see and places them into a box that she always has in the carriage, too, because this is not the first time that some guests misses their clothes in the morning after a party, and she knows better than to throw them away. As Y/N goes back to the carriage she feels her foot touch something. At first, she thinks that she hopefully didn't stumble against a guest, who was now in a coma in front of her, but then she remembers that she had to see him earlier, so this was not an option. Her second thought is that she stumbled against a glass or something that she missed earlier. Y/N looks down. It was not glass and far away from a human being. Instead, she sees a briefcase. It's made out off leather and looks nice and well cared for. She picks it up. It lies heavy in her hand. Y/N turns it around and opens it. A picture falls out and sails to the ground. She picks it up as well and turns it around, so she can see it better. It's a black and white picture of a woman. She has dark shoulder-length hair. Y/N can't other than to admit that she looks beautiful. But the clothes she wears seem to be from the military, but they were old. Maybe they were from the forties. She looks at the picture and gets a little lost in thoughts about the woman and who might have lost this. "Excuse me?" Y/N shrieks and twitches back, stumbles over her own feet and falls on her butt, the picture and briefcase falling out of her hands. "Holy shit!" She looks up and is met with the face of a blonde man. "Oh shit, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah. I think so." The man reaches out for her. She hesitates, but he smiles down at her and it looks so innocent and sincere, so she takes his hand and lets him help her up. She claps the dust from her clothes, but the confetti stuck on it like it was glued on. Then she stands up straighter again, while the man smiles kindly at her. She waits for him to speak up and tell her what he needs, but somehow it seems as if he's in his own space "So, how can I help you?"
"Ah right." He shakes his hand and a little bush appears on his face. He scratches the back of his head and points beside her with his other hand. "I wanted to ask if you happen to find a briefcase, but I see you did."
"It's yours then?" She picks it up, throws a last look at the woman on the picture before she carefully shoves it back in the briefcase and holds it out to the man in front of her. "She looks nice." A nostalgic look appears on his face as he takes it from her hands and takes the picture out again to look at it himself. "Yeah, she does. But it's a long time ago that I saw her."
"I'm sorry." Y/N looks at the sad look he shows the picture before he puts it back into the briefcase and shoves it into his jeans pockets. "My name is Steve. Steve Rogers."
"I know. It's hard not to if you work here. Besides, I have to clean up all the mess you all make, so I have to know who I'm going to murderer someday. I'm Y/N." She shakes his hand and smiles at him. "Yeah, well. Tony exaggerates it from time to time. Are you doing all of this on your own? It's kinda a lot of work."
"Yeah, well. I work better alone", she shrugs and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "It's not that much to do and some other girls are cleaning other rooms if it's really more of a dump than anything else." His beaming laugh lets her smile at him. She finds that she likes it when he laughs. "Capsicle, here you are." Y/N turns around to the voice that calls through the hall. Tony Stark leaves the elevator and walks up to them. "I was wondering when you come back to collect the tin man. He's destroying my lab down there. You better get a grip on him." His face is a look of pure agony. "Did provoke him again?"
"I did not!"
"So you did." Steve sighs and throws Y/N and apologetic look. "I'm sorry Y/N. It was nice to get to know you." He waves at her as he makes his way to the elevator Tony came from. "Hey!" Her gaze switches to the other man. "I think you missed something." He points at the confetti on the floor, a smirk on his face. Y/N glares at him and silently growls a death threat at Iron Man himself. Then she turns around and walks up to her carriage to collect the broom. A thought makes its way into her head. She walks up to Tony, who's still smiling, and starts to sweep the confetti together. She, totally accidentally of course, pushes the broomstick into his side. He groans and his hand comes up to the point Y/N just pushed the stick in. Now it was Y/N's time to smirk. "Oh, I'm so sorry Mr. Stark. I didn't saw you standing there."
"Woman, don't get to cocky on that."
"Oh, what? Did I just damage the ego of Iron Man?" Tony stares at her open-mouthed, but just a second later a smile appears on his face. "You're tough. I like that." He claps his hand hard on her shoulder so that she stumbles forward. "See you around." He walks past her and gets back to the elevator. Y/N stares at the closing door and shakes her head. "What did just happen? What did I do?"
* * *
It takes her the next two hours to get the whole hall and two rooms cleaned up. At some point she had to turn on her music box on full volume to distract her thoughts. Besides, with music all the work is a little easier to manage and it makes more fun than without it. Now it's time to get all the bags out to the trash cans. She had managed to fill six whole bags. They are heavy and Y/N knows that she has to at least go four times to get everything out. She grabs the first bag and lifts it up. She manages four steps before she hears a sound, familiar to one of something ripping apart. Suddenly the bag is much lighter. She turns around and lets the bag fall to the floor. "Noo... Shit! Stupid little-"
"Miss Y/N!" Y/N jumps and turns to her left. There stands her boss, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. "Mrs. Jenkins." Y/N swallows and lets the few cups fall down, which she just picked up. Mrs. Jenkins was a woman in her best years. She was tall, but a little overweight. Her red hair was wrapped into a short ponytail, and she was wearing a nice outfit, which she only wore when something was up, and she had to meet with important people. She's not only responsible for the cleaning stuff, but for the stuff in general. "Miss Langster. Please finish everything up here. I have to discuss something with Miss Y/N." Another woman comes up behind Y/N's boss and walks over to her. She crouches down and starts to clean the mess up Y/n just created. "Please follow me, Miss Y/N." Y/N swallowed again. Mrs. Jenkins has a firm tone which usually means that trouble is ahead. Y/N doesn't gets in trouble herself often, but she managed to get into it on one or two occasions and it was never a thrilling experience. With slumped shoulders she follows her to the elevator. It was quiet in there and Y/N feels uncomfortable. She dares to look at her boss, but she's just staring right to the door. As they get out, Y/N finds herself on a floor she was never on before. They walk past some rooms, then her boss stops and Y/N nearly walks into her. "Please, take a seat Miss Y/N." Her boss smiles at her and gestures into a room. Y/n almost lets her mouth fall open. Mrs. Jenkins was smiling? At her? She mentally shakes her head and walks into the room. It's small, with a table and some folder cabinets. She goes for a chair in front of the desk and sits down; her boss hot on her heals. "So, Y/N. May I call you by your first name?" Y/N nods and watches as the other woman sit on the chair behind the desk. "Good." A smile appears again as she reaches into a drawer. She places a folder on her desk and Y/N can clearly see her name on it. Y/N shuffles a little in her seat, wet hands clutching each other. "It's okay. Don't be nervous. It's actually a long time science I had the pleasure to do this, so I'm a little nervous myself." Y/N stares and bites her lip. Thoughts running wild in her head again. That's it. She's going to fire me, because I literally insulted Tony Stark. Where do I get a job which pays as much as this one? "You're there with me?" Her eyes switch up and meet the brown ones off her boss. She nods. "Good. So now that I call you by your first name, you can call me Melinda now as well." She shoots a kind smile at her again. "So I was informed about a new development in our cleaning team. Mr. Stark personally asked for this, so I do not have another choice then to obligate his request."
"Wh-what does that mean?"
"This means I have the pleasure to get you into a new field of working. You're not longer allowed to clean down here." A panicked expression shows on Y/N face and cold sweat tickles down her neck. "This", Melinda grabs a pile from one of the folder cabinets. "This will be your new work clothes. You're new section will be the floor 88 to 93." She frowns and looks at the clothes that now lay on her lap. "I don't understand. These floors are the personal space of-"
"Of the Avengers themselves. That's right. I have the pleasure to tell you, that on the request of Mr. Stark, you're now promoted to clean the personal rooms and living quarters." Y/N mouth hangs open, and she stares at Melinda. "H-how?"
"It seems you got an impression on Mr. Stark. I congratulate you, Y/N. It's been a long time since someone got promoted to this space. But it's not only a pleasure. There are certain things that you have to think highly of. You're not allowed to steal anything, of course. You're the only cleaning stuff up there, so you have a tight schedule and you're work hours will expand dramatically, which will show on the money you earn. There is a room especially for your use if you don't want to go home. Each of the Avengers has different rules in their rooms you have to acknowledge and respect. Everything else you will learn when you start working upstairs."
"This- is a lot to take in."
"I know, but I think you will manage. Mr. Stark awaits you on your first shift tomorrow morning at six. Until then, you're free to go up and look around and get familiar or to use you're free time to your liking. Again congratulations Y/N."
As she walks back down and out of the tower to her flat, she can hardly believe what just happened. Starting tomorrow she will be the personal cleaning stuff of the most known people of America.