Broken Wings

Chapter 1 Bets

*A/N I do not own Marvel, or any of its characters. I only own my own OC. Story contains spoilers for the MCU. Bold text in speech denotes spoken in Xhosa. Underlined text in speech denotes spoken in Korean.

20 years ago

Somewhere, South Korea

A young child sat on a snowy mountainside, pushing the cold white mush into little heaps with her bare hands. Despite her young age, she didn't seem to mind the cold as she began to shape the small lumps of snow. Curling her fingers in, she patted the first little ball she'd created with a satisfied smile before she set it down and started on the next. When she had a nice heap of artillery, the girl stood.

Brushing the snow off her skirt, she picked up the first ball and threw it suddenly across the forest. Her hair flew behind her at the abrupt motion but she was satisfied when the snowball smacked the bird sitting on the branch about fifty feet away, causing the creature to let out an indignant, shrill cry. The little girl, on the other hand, smiled delightedly at having hit her target. She reached down for the next snowball but a call stopped her.

"Sun-Mi."

A slight young woman with long dark hair and almond-shaped caramel eyes appeared from behind a tree without a sound. Her expression showed her disapproval and the little girl dropped her weapon reluctantly. The young mother moved to pick her daughter up in her arms but the little girl continued to pout.

"We've talked about this, Sun-Mi."

"That bird pooped on me yesterday!" The child, Sun-Mi, argued.

Her mother shook her head firmly, silencing her daughter. The young woman ignored the disgruntled bird that flew off and instead she looked down at the toddler cradled steadily in her arms as she imparted her stern words.

"You must be careful. No one must ever know the truth."

"But why, mama?" The little girl wondered, pushing back long white hair to look up at her mother in confusion. Her mother sighed and kissed the top of her daughter's head.

"It is dangerous, my darling. So you must hide this part of you from others. It will just be our secret, my little fox. Do you understand?"

"Yes, mama."

************

Present

June 2016

Undisclosed location

"Agent Ross!"

The voice called out above the din of training agents, drawing a few fleeting glances. Only a dark-haired woman's attention remained on the caller as she looked up from where she was midway through locking a fellow agent's head between her legs. But at a gesture from the agent who had called for her, the woman let go of her fellow. Tucking back short black hair, Talia Ross nodded briefly at her partner in acknowledgement of a good duel before she made her way over to the doors of the training room.

"Yes?" She asked a tad impatiently.

"Task force leader Ross is looking for you." The agent explained briefly. "He's in meeting room 238."

Cocking her brow in surprise, Talia nodded before heading off to the meeting room she had been directed to. Luckily, training had barely started when she was called so there was no need to clean up first. Although, Talia wondered, why was her father looking for her? With Zemo back in custody, she hadn't expected to be called back in so quickly. The CIA's Joint Counter Terrorist task force was busy enough cleaning up the mess left behind by the man who had successfully torn apart the 'mighty' Avengers. Not that this seemed like it would have been a difficult task. In all honesty, based on the little she had witnessed of their interactions, Talia had been more surprised by how long the Avengers had managed to work together.