Seven years later...

"Nena," Mrs. Garcia said to a now 22-year-old Roxanne, "can you and your sister pick up your brother from school today? I just got a call for a huge order, and I'll be busy with it for a while."

"Of course, Doña Andrea. I'll help you with the order when I get back," Ro replied as she took her coat from the coat hook. Unlike her old one, this coat was quite new-looking and fit her perfectly. She had also grown her light brown hair to almost waist-length, with bangs at the front.

She gave Doña Andrea her final goodbyes as she left the store with Camila. The two of them walked together towards the nearest elementary school where an 11-year-old boy stood waiting for them at the front steps.

"Hey, hermanito," Ro greeted as the boy ran up to hug her and Camila. "How was school today?"

"Oh, the same way it's always been," Manuel replied with a shrug. "I'm doing good in class, lunch was gross, and Fernando kept picking on me."

Camila rolled her eyes and answered, "Well, if you ever get tired of Fernando giving you problems, you just tell your big sisters, and we'll take care of it for you."

"Camila! We can't just show up to Manu's school and beat up a kid for picking on him," Ro protested.

"We're not going to beat him up," Camila argued. "I'm just saying. Would it be a bad thing if we confronted this kid, let him know that we don't like what he's doing, and make him stop it, or else we'll rip his ear off?"

Before the three of them could continue their conversation, the youngest sibling suddenly stopped in his tracks and stared at the sky with mouth agape, causing his sisters to halt as well and follow the boy's gaze. The young women's jaws dropped when they noticed a large black hole had appeared in the sky, and strange creatures were flying out of it. In a sudden panic, everyone around them began to scream and run away, some people even bumping into them.

"What's happening?" Camila cried out.

"I don't know," Ro shouted back, "but we gotta get to safety. Come on!"

Ro took her siblings by the hand and ran from the invading horde above, looking up and down the street for any place where they could take refuge. As they were running, they passed a woman standing by a car that was half buried in rubble, which she was desperately trying to move, to no avail.

"Somebody, please help!" the woman cried. "My son is trapped in there!"

Roxanne stopped running and looked from the woman to the black hole to the screaming crowds and back again. Every bit of sense in her told her to just take Cami and Manu and keep running, but she couldn't bring herself to just leave the woman and her child to fend for themselves.

Ro called out to Camila and spoke to her, looking her in the eye, "Take Manu and get the two of you somewhere safe."

"But—," Camila protested.

"GO!"

Camila groaned but reluctantly did as she was told. Ro ran to the woman and her car and began tossing rubble aside, even the pieces that should have been too big for her to lift. When she managed to uncover the door handle, Ro grabbed onto it and gave it one strong pull, dislodging the rubble that was still blocking the door and yanking the door clean off.

The woman pulled her son out of the car and gave Roxanne a hurried thank you before running away, feeling too relieved to question how Ro was able to do what she just did. Ro's two unexpected bystanders, on the other hand, were full of nothing but questions.

"How did you do that!?" Manuel asked in astonishment, calling attention to himself and Camila.

"What the heck are you guys doing?" Ro cried out. "I thought I told you two to get out of—!" But before she could even finish that sentence, she felt a tingle at the back of her neck, and everything inside her had suddenly become highly alert for an incoming danger, which was coming from above. She looked up just as one of the aliens collided against a nearby building, and a huge piece of rubble came tumbling down to where her siblings were standing. She ran forward, managing to push them out of the way, but couldn't move fast enough to escape herself.

"Ro!" Camila screamed, expecting to see her sister get crushed.

To everyone's relief and amazement, a red, white, and blue blur ran between Ro and the rubble, blocking it with something round and metal. When Ro looked up at her savior, the first thing she saw was a round shield with alternating red and white concentric circles and a white, five-point star in a blue field at the very center. Behind the shield was a tall, burly blond man, who looked down at Ro with a concerned expression.

"Are you alright, miss?" the man asked her.

"Uh-huh" Ro managed to answer as she continued to stare at him in amazement. "Thanks."

"You and your friends should get to safety. Don't worry. My teammates and I will take care of the aliens."

Right as he said that, a red and gold, human-shaped blur flew over them chased by more aliens. With nothing more to say, Ro's rescuer ran after the aliens, leaving Ro and her siblings gaping at him.

"Whoa," Manu gasped, thoroughly awestruck. Ro didn't say so out loud, but she agreed with him.

"Come on, you two. Let's get out of here." Ro said as she got up, once again grabbing onto her siblings and pulling them towards the nearest building to take shelter.

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Hours later, once the streets had calmed down and there were no more aliens in sight, the three siblings cautiously stepped out of their hiding place and, once they made sure the coast was clear, began running back to the diner. Andrea García, their mother, received the three of them with a suffocating hug, thanking the Lord and all the Saints in heaven aloud for allowing her children to have returned home safely. The order she had been working on earlier was all but forgotten, and the couple patrons that had been inside the establishment when the attack began had hurried back to their homes once they realized the commotion had passed. The middle-aged Latina woman thought it best to close the business for the day, and she and her children walked upstairs to where their apartment was. It hadn't been five seconds since she stepped on the second floor when Andrea's cell phone rang.

"¿Aló?" she answered. "Jorge! Yes, me and the kids are all here, and we're safe, gracias a Dios."

As she heard her adoptive parents speak on the phone, Roxanne and her siblings sat on a couch in the living room. Camila turned on the TV to see the news about the recent event. Unsurprisingly, nearly every channel was covering the breaking news of the terrifying alien invasion in New York, and the brave heroes that had fought the extraterrestrial threat.

"Look, that's him!" Manuel excitedly said as his sister's savior was shown on the screen. "Captain America. He's the one who saved your life, Ro!"

But as her adopted brother kept going on about how awesome it had been to have been rescued by The Captain America, Ro's mind was absent as she blankly stared at the screen. As the adrenaline began to pass, the girl couldn't help to remember the last time she had felt a similar rush, the last time she had felt this frightened.

The night she had lost her parents had become barely more than a blur as the years went by, but moments of clarity were resurfacing again. She remembered how she woke up inside of that tube, wearing an oxygen mask and a hospital gown. She remembered looking around to find people in lab coats taking notes, typing on computers, and mixing liquids in various beakers.

She remembered panicking and beginning to punch the glass that she was contained in, managing to break it in just a couple of punches. With a similar strength to the one she had used earlier today to move the rubble on top of that car and tear the door off its hinges. She remembered a similar tingling sensation coming from her upper spine that day, urging her to run away from the danger. At the time, she had simply assumed that sensation to have been a rush of adrenaline. But today, she had experienced both of these at separate times and noticed a clear difference. The tingle was more focused, like her body was wordlessly telling her exactly where the danger was coming from, prompting every muscle in her body to avoid it.

As Ro caught a glimpse of Captain America jumping from car to car and into buildings with superhuman agility and speed, an image she had long forgotten flashed in her head. In her mind, she was back inside that building, running away from the armed men that chased her nearly a decade ago and narrowly avoiding being hit by the bullets that were being shot at her. Before she knew it, the entire hallway was tilted, and afterwards, upside down. She spotted an open window near what she thought was the ground, and instinctively jumped through it, somehow managing to hold on to the smooth wall as she exited the building, like she was sticking to it with some sort of glue. As the guards exited through the doors and spotted her, she did not have time to question this unbelievable feat, and simply climbed on top of the building's roof and resumed her running.

At the time, the girl had assumed that all her distorted memories had been a result of whatever substance that the people who held her hostage had injected into her, but she soon began to realize that those images were too clear and vivid to have been mere hallucinations. Her senses had been far too acute during the escape. Could it be possible? Had all of it been real?

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Two days later, Roxanne sat at one of the diner's tables, browsing the internet on her laptop. El Rinconcito had reopened that day, and she was currently on her lunch break, but the last thing on her mind was having lunch. Since she and her siblings had returned home from the attack, she had spent nearly all her free time researching everything she could about this peculiar group of superpowered saviors, these Avengers. Little was known about a few of them, but there was a substantial amount of information on others. Particularly the likes of billionaire playboy turned superhero Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, and scientific miracle and WWII veteran Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, AKA the man who saved Ro's life.

 She had heard of Captain America before, both in the news, and in school. That is, before she had arrived in New York all those years ago. After Ro's adoption into the García family, they had tried to have her resume her studies from where she had left off before being orphaned, but reintegrating herself into the school system had proven difficult, thanks to a combination of nearly three years out of practice, a whole lot of material to catch up to, and an interracial adoption that not all her peers were accepting of. Andrea and Jorge were thankfully very understanding of how hard her situation was, and after thinking it over and discussing it at length, they all decided that it was best for Ro to drop out and continue working at the family's diner. After all, she always had the option of doing equivalent studies once she felt ready, which she still didn't feel, even years later.

Whatever information she had been missing about Steve Rogers before, she was now trying to fill in. The rest of the Avengers were surely an interesting bunch, but after Ro's encounter with their leader, it was no wonder he was taking up most of her attention. A decade before, he had been nothing more than another historical figure, a mere name and date she had to memorize for a few exams. She had certainly always thought his story was impressive. She remembered some of her classmates even questioning whether it had actually happened or if it was merely a legend or myth. That's basically all the man had been to her, but now, it was different. Now, he was real. He had stood in front of her and saved her from certain death. Risked his life to protect her. She still could not fathom such bravery.

As she replayed the scene in her mind, the one that occurred immediately before also invaded her thoughts. She had thought little of what she did to help that woman and her son. But could it be possible that they now thought of her the same way that she currently thought of Captain America? She certainly was nowhere near being as amazing or brave as him. But, could she eventually be?

"Roxanne," her brother Manuel called in a deadpan tone from a nearby table, snapping her attention from both her online research and her train of thought. "Your boyfriend's here."

At the sound of those words, all the thoughts that clouded her mind mere seconds ago were momentarily forgotten, as a wide smile appeared on her face. Just as she looked up at the diner's entrance a couple of tables in front of her, she caught sight of a tall silhouette entering through the door.

"Alejandro!" she gleefully called as she got up from her chair.

In walked a well-built, incredibly attractive Latino man in his late 20s. His wavy, dark brown hair was combed to the side. He wore a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses, which he removed to give the young woman who had called his name a flirty look.

"Hello, mi preciosa," he greeted. His smooth voice had a noticeable Hispanic accent.

Roxanne rushed toward her boyfriend and threw her arms around him as she spoke. "I'm so glad you're okay! It's been two days since the attack, and I hadn't heard from you since then."

"Oh, you know. A little too many damaged cars. Workshop's been packed, and I haven't even had time to look at my phone." Alejandro explained as he separated from Ro and walked towards the table she had been sitting at, subtly stealing a look towards the screen of her still open laptop. "But say," he continued in a more serious tone, "how come you didn't drop by, if you've really been this worried?"

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," she began, looking down and scratching the back of her neck, slightly embarrassed. "Things have been crazy around here, too. Plus, Doña Andrea's been a little scared of us going out so soon after what almost—"

"Yes, yes, you'll tell me all about it on the way, " Alejandro casually interrupted as he wrapped an arm around Ro's shoulders and began walking her towards the front door, slightly taking her aback.

The girl turned around to find her adopted mother picking up dishes from an empty table. The older woman simply threw a disapproving look the couple's way.

Unfortunately, Roxanne's family wasn't particularly fond of her boyfriend. Ever since the two had started their relationship a little over two years ago, Ro had noticed that both parties often tended to avoid interacting with each other as much as they could. Manuel had been the most vocal regarding his dislike of Alejandro, but Ro waved it off as simple younger brother jealousy. While she had to reassure Manu on several occasions that just because she now was in a relationship it didn't mean that she cared for her hermanito any less, she also had to remind him that her love life was her business and hers only. Alejandro was Ro's first boyfriend, and she was absolutely head over heels for him. He treated her well and made her happy, so whether her family liked it or not, they would simply have to accept that. Even if that often became a point of slight dispute.

"Heh, I'll just go out with Alejandro for a bit, Doña Andrea," Ro nervously excused herself as her boyfriend continued to walk her to the exit. "Hope that's okay."

"Well, okay, mi vida," the woman consented semi-reluctantly. "But PLEASE, be very careful out there."

"Don't you worry, future mother-in-law," Alejandro charmingly, and slightly cheekily, reassured her, pausing for a moment to allow Ro to grab her jacket. "I'll take good care of her."

"You better, young man," Andrea sternly replied as she crossed her arms. "And please, call me Doña Andrea."

"Whatever you say, doña," the man finished, turning his gaze from her to hide the slight contempt in his face, just as he and Roxanne finally walked out of the diner. Unbeknownst to him, Manu shot him a dirty look as he watched them leave.

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About an hour later, Ro and Alejandro were lying side by side on the grass at a clear and secluded area of Central Park, a spot they often frequented. As the sun was beginning to set, the young woman told her boyfriend about what had happened to her during the recent invasion, though for the time being, she decided to omit the part in which she rescued a child from a wrecked car that she by no means should've been able to move. If she herself hadn't been able to fully process what had happened, how could Alejandro? He probably would laugh it off and think of it as her being funny or attribute it to the great fear she had felt in the moment, making her confuse her imagination with reality. "You have always been a little dumb" he would probably tell her, as he often did, in a light-hearted and teasing manner. So, until she could figure out how to prove what had occurred, she was going to keep that bit of information to herself.

"So, I pushed the two of them out of the way," she recounted, with Alejandro comfortably lying by her side with his eyes closed, presumably listening. "But when I looked up, the debris was this close to falling on me! I didn't even have time to move..."

"And did those two just stand there doing nothing?" her boyfriend suddenly snapped, looking at her with an annoyed expression. "Even though it was their fault you were almost crushed in the first place?"

"What? No, it's not their fault, baby," she defended her siblings, slightly confused at Alejandro's reaction. "Sure, they should've left when I told them to, but it's not like they're the ones who made the building fall. Besides, it all happened so fast, I don't think they could've done much."

"Well, I guess that's true," he replied with a sigh, and then turned once again to look at his girlfriend. "I just worry about your safety, Roxy. Don't you know how important you are to me?"

"Aww, I know, amor," she answered, moved by his words. She continued on more excitedly. "But thankfully, I was fine, because Captain America arrived! In person! He got in between the chunk of building and me, and used his shield to protect me from it. Can you believe it? Saved by Captain America!"

Roxanne continued on gushing about how brave and impressive Steve Rogers' actions had been, not even paying attention to the sour frown that had been drawn on Alejandro's face. But before she noticed it, he quickly masked it with a sly grin and interrupted her again. "Woah, slow down, now. You're talking too much again, preciosa."

Ro stopped and covered her mouth, slightly embarrassed. That was a flaw of hers that Alejandro often helped her take notice of. Whenever she got excited about a topic, she would start talking unceasingly about it, possibly to an obnoxious point. And Alejandro was one of the few people who knew to tell her when to stop.

"Whoops, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blabber. I had just never seen a superhero in person before, that's all."

Alejandro returned to his more comfortable lying down pose, and once again closed his eyes. "If I didn't know better, my dear Roxy, I would think you were planning to leave me for this man."

Ro sat up and moved closer to Alejandro, looking down at him as she leaned on her palms. "Oh, Alejandro. I wouldn't dream of it! You know you're the only one for me," she tenderly reassured her often jealous boyfriend.

"Hmm. Do you mean it?" he teasingly asked as he opened one eye to look at her.

"Of course I mean it."

The man sat up as he kept looking deep into his girlfriend's eyes. He put a hand on the side of her neck and asked her in a whisper, "With all your heart?"

"With all my heart," she replied, dreamily and sincerely. "I love you."

"I love you too, Roxy."

The two of them leaned forward and shared a passionate kiss, and Ro felt as though she was on cloud nine. As a shy young girl, she never would've imagined catching the attention of someone as handsome, charming, and delightful as Alejandro. She still couldn't explain what had possessed him into asking her out when he walked into the diner almost two years ago, but boy, she could not be happier that he had done so. What did her family even have against him? He was simply perfect for her. Sure enough, they couldn't grasp the idea that their introverted little girl was now with such a stunning man, one that was almost 8 years older than her at that. But as much as she loved her new family, she didn't care what they thought of him. She didn't even care about how unworthy of him she felt. Alejandro had brought her the greatest and most thrilling moments of happiness that she had felt in years, and she was not about to let him go.

The couple broke up their kiss and embraced each other, with Ro closing her eyes and comfortably laying her head against her boyfriend's shoulder. Blissfully unaware that, as he held her back, the charming man was looking away from her, barely able to contain a scornful expression.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know what you're all thinking. And yes, it's purposeful. It's all going to payoff soon.

Now we know FOR SURE that we're in the MCU (or at least, an alternate MCU with added characters xD). Next chapter will be up in two weeks (updates will be on Saturdays from now on!), and I'd like to think the action will really kick off from there. So I hope you guys enjoyed these short intro chapters and will follow along for the rest of the ride! I'm by no means a great author, but with the help of my more skilled and more experienced writer friend, I'd like to think I have something enjoyable in my hands, and I hope you'll agree.

Don't forget to follow, vote, leave a comment, all that good stuff! ^^