The Cheongs had money, that much was clear. Their Upper West Side apartment said as much, and Morgan was born into a family where she could have anything she could have ever wanted as long as she worked for it. Good behavior and even better grades were rewarded well, and she was given the freedom to pursue whatever interest caught her fancy. It wasn't that she was spoiled. The Cheongs, Michelle and Daniel, were merely all too easy to provide. Both worked long days (Michelle a cardiothoracic surgeon, Daniel a forensic psychologist). They had high hopes for their kid who seemed to hate being put into metaphorical boxes and yet was all too glad to leave her toys scattered everywhere, including Legos that often got in the way of the neighbors.

Michelle tried to keep a sense of normalcy in the household even with parents who worked long hours and the best nannies available to them that money could buy. But why pay for a nanny when your own mother was so eager to spend time with her granddaughter? And so Bora arrived a few weeks towards the end of the second grade, ready to take her place as Morgan's summer babysitter and companion. Together they would share meals and embark on adventures the city had to offer, with many of these trips leading them to the Central Park Zoo most days or the nearby American Museum of Natural History, which almost always had a Mister Softee truck nearby.

School seemed to come easily to Morgan. Maybe it was a natural gift, or maybe it was all of the extra tutoring from her grandmother. Whatever it was, teachers and administrators took notice and called her parents in for a special meeting after classes one day. Their message was clear: Morgan's standardized test scores suggested that she would be much better off were she to start high school in a more challenging setting. She ultimately landed at Friends Seminary near Union Square.

She missed the group of friends that she had grown up with, and was quick to grow resentful of her parents for forcing her into this situation to begin with. She began to rebel, starting with small transgressions that she thought to be harmless: pushing her curfew to the limits, neglecting chores, passive-aggressive snark and attitude. Daniel insisted that this new behavior was nothing of real concern now that they had a brooding teenager in their house, and he did his best to distract Morgan with his new business endeavor: private investigation. The work caught Morgan's attention, and before long, her father was able to sell his practice and transition to the world of PI work full-time. Though Morgan was too young to officially partake in the family business, she was tasked with smaller roles and relegated to administrative tasks. After developing a bad habit of breaking curfew, cutting class, using her emergency credit card for...well, everything, and letting her grades slip, the Cheongs handed down an ultimatum: stop messing around and get your grades up, or you're fired.

If Daniel's intention in involving his daughter in his work was to have more leverage over her, it worked. Morgan managed to get her grades back up and never strayed from the honor roll while spending a couple of hours each day devoted to transcribing notes and other mundane tasks. The work fascinated her and kept her attention long enough. In an unfortunate accident on the way home from school, Morgan was badly injured after sideswiped by a cab. With extensive injuries including a concussion, several cuts and bruises, a few broken ribs and a broken tibia and fibula in her left leg, surgery and several months of inpatient and home rehab were in order. Her skateboard had been replaced by a wheelchair before she could eventually graduate to crutches. School was put on hold despite that college admissions season was coming up, and once she had recovered enough and was able, the faculty at Friends worked with the Cheongs to ensure that Morgan's academics stayed on track while making accommodations for her extensive recovery time.

Recovery and rehab were challenges that eventually saw Morgan getting back on her feet after several months. Several months of her junior year were completed remotely, though she was able to return to classes for the last month or so of the academic year. Summer kicked off with a few remaining weeks of therapy and Morgan feeling almost as good as new, though of course, the PTSD caused by the car accident unfortunately continued to have longer lasting effects than a few broken bones.

Senior year came and went and with it, Morgan made a decision that surprised everyone who knew her: art school. Though she had told her parents that she had applied at more traditional colleges and universities, outside of some safety schools, most of her college application fees went towards art schools. Unbeknownst to her parents, she had a managed to build an art portfolio that caught the eyes of several admissions officers. Thus, she spent the next four years at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore where she earned a BFA in Interactive Arts.

She returned to New York after graduation and picked up a few design gigs here and there but realized soon enough that the work just wasn't gratifying enough. She began to wind down her freelance work while picking up more work with her father in preparation for becoming a licensed investigator.

Training and licensing came and went, but Morgan was beginning to feel claustrophobic. In yet another move that surprised everyone in her family, Morgan decided to strike out west and establish herself in Oakland, California. There, she would continue her PI work once she was licensed in California and open up the West Coast office of her father's business, Due Diligence, LLC.

Work came and went but wasn't as steady in a market that was flooded with other PIs, many of whom were much older and much more experienced than she was. Morgan had savings but it was clear that they wouldn't last long. Dipping into them each month to stretch her paycheck felt like cheating at first, but a few checks in, it felt like a necessity. Rent, utilities, BART fare, groceries, it all added up, and it added up fast. When the listing for a jack of all trades, master of none position at SNTV fell into her lap, she jumped at the opportunity to apply for the job. The network expected a competitive process and while Morgan wasn't sure that she could woo them with her old college reel, it was still worth a try.

Her life changed completely, again. The period of her life spent at SNTV was also when she discovered that she had a roommate living rent-free in her head: Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, aka Oracle. Her new body buddy didn't exactly have superpowers, but she did possess abilities and toys that Morgan could have only dreamed of: batarangs, batrope, grappling hooks, some pretty cool suits, and...bright heart raccoon? her new skillset came with responsibility and risk, and she was all too keen to look the other way. eventually, her luck ran out and she was badly injured, again, while trying to stop a violent mugging. this time, the fates had sent a mysterious brooding figure to her hospital room and made her an offer that she couldn't refuse: work for them and regain her mobility via a neural implant.

In 2024, Morgan decided that she'd had enough of the vigilante life. The Bay Area seemed to be overrun by supers and not always in the best way, so she made her way back east in hopes of living a quieter life. She would soon find that Babs (and Bright Heart Raccoon) were here to stay.