womanofvalue | Daniel Sousa

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Daniel Sousa - Date Night

Ever since the party at Magnus' mansion and her conversation with Peggy, she's been singularly focused on one single thing. Her job search has fallen aside, the self-defense classes have only received a paltry amount of attention, and she's been glad that not much has come up to require her with Reese's project. Her birthday is in a matter of days and there's only one thing that she wants. It's time for her to tell Daniel the important truths about the time in between them.

She's sent him a proper postal invitation to dinner, but has followed it up with text and email just to ensure that he doesn't miss it. She's found herself a perfectly suitable blue dress that's equal parts modern and vintage and the heels match her lipstick perfectly. These are the easy parts, of course. Setting up plans is child's play for a spy like Peggy, but what matters is the part where she has to now execute the plans.

That involves her feelings and being honest about them. She'd struggled with that even back home to the point that she'd let her actions speak for her, but if she wants anything to happen, she needs to do something here. Near eight, she sits herself at the table she's reserved in her dress and her loose hair and a mission in mind.

Now comes her challenge in convincing Daniel that in the time between them, things have changed, and for the better when it comes to the two of them.

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Peggy's reaction was pretty close to what he'd expected based on what she said before about her mother's expectations of her, and he chuckled at it. It'd taken him awhile to be willing to tease Peggy because he'd always been concerned she'd assume he wasn't taking her seriously if he did. Now he knew her sense of humor was as well-shaped as the rest of her.

As for his own parents, he missed them a lot, and he didn't see a reason to hide that, especially from Peggy.

"It's Holy Week, so if she was here, my mae would be worrying about making sure she had all the ingredients for the folar. Somehow she always managed it during the war, even with rationing," he chuckled. HE'd never understood how she did it, but every year she did, and every year he heard about it in a letter. Sometimes the letter got to him in June, but that was fine.

"Are you going to go to church?" Peggy asks, curious whether that's one of the traditions that Daniel follows or if it's simply something that his parents might, given his mention of Holy Week. "I do have a little bit of a surprise for dessert," she confesses, when he brings up food. "I know it's my birthday dinner, but I couldn't help buying it, just in case things went well."

"You talk so fondly and well of your family's food, I wanted to give you a little bit of that back," she says earnestly.

"Of course," he replied, although he knew that wasn't something that anyone could just assume about anyone else. The war tended to increase a man's faith or totally destroy it, so Daniel counted himself lucky that it hadn't really changed his much. He'd done some yelling at God, but he kept going to Mass, too. Things had really changed with the Mass, but he liked the parish he'd found, and he couldn't say he minded not speaking Latin or seeing girls as altar servers.

"And here I was gonna suggest we have some cheesecake since it was your birthday," he noted. "Guess we'll have to have two desserts."

"I don't see why we can't have both, it's a special day," she says, arranging her fork to be ready for dessert (she'd asked the waiter to bring out the box she'd bought, after). "It's not every day that you get to turn twenty-seven, now is it?" she says cheerfully, sometimes forgetting yet that she's still as young as she is, seeing as she's practically old hat for some things that young women have beaten her to, but marriage and motherhood are secondary goals for Peggy.

Right now, she'd be happy to enjoy a career and pursue a relationship with the man in front of her. "What sort of cheesecake did you have in mind?"

"I'm not the cheesecake fan here," he demurred, and smiled briefly at the waiter as his dinner plate was removed. "And actually I don't even know if this place has it. I was just gonna suggest it in case they did."

He wasn't really sure how old he was in this place. It'd been nowhere near his birthday in New York and then he'd arrived five days after it should have occurred here, not to mention the decades in between. Maybe he'd just decide to celebrate the right day and add a year like Peggy was doing.

"Caramel, with a bit of sea salt," Peggy says, closing her eyes and thinking of that sweetness and the sharp little bursts of salt that it would provide. It's a combination she's only tried for the first time here, but now that she has, she can't imagine anything more delicious (though, death by chocolate does still stand to compete). She turns to the waiter and asks if they have it, though it seems they don't.

"Any cheesecake is fine, then, and coffee," she adds, "with the box I brought." Resettling her napkin in her lap, she gives Daniel a fond smile. "I want to thank you for a lovely night."

He was going to remember that. Caramel with sea salt. More caramel, so more for her than for him, but he'd remember that for the future. There might be a day when cheesecake was required.

Her smile was warm and caring and he couldn't believe he was here, with Peggy, with that smile. Her statement about thanking him reminded him though, and he pulled a small wrapped box out of his pocket and pushed it across the table.

"I wasn't sure if I would end up giving this to you tonight. I wasn't really sure how this dinner was going to go. I - I hope you like it."

Inside the box was a silver pin that he'd found at the festival a few weeks ago. He had liked that the securing pin could be removed completely in case she needed to use it for something, especially since he'd also asked for a sharper, pointier pin end.

She stares at him with a furrowed brow, because she'd been the one to invite him here and hadn't expected anything of him beyond his mere presence. Still, as she reaches out to take hold of the box, she eases back to open it slowly, her eyes softening as she takes it in with a fond smile that makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. "Daniel, it's beautiful," she raves, taking it out so that she can stare at it in the light, focusing on his face past it.

"Help me put it on?" she suggests, moving her chair slightly towards his and extending the pin as she brushes her hair back from her shoulder to give him a place on her dress' bodice to pin it.

Relief that she liked it warred with concern that she wanted him to help her put it on. That she wanted him to help her put it on her bodice, which would mean being pretty careful about where his hands and fingers brushed.

Still, he'd defused bombs, so surely he could help a woman put a pin on her dress, even this woman.

He leaned forward and took the pin from her, then placed it high on her bodice. He didn't want to prick her with the securing pin or seem like his hands were lingering too long, so he had to be careful, but he had it placed quickly enough. This close to her, he could smell her perfume. It wasn't quite the same perfume she'd worn in New York, but it had the same kind of fragrance.

"There. Looks good."

Peggy watches him without blinking for a single moment. Even if he does end up stabbing her with the sharp end, she's certainly had worse and doesn't intend to let on that there's any pain. She bows her head forward a little, inhaling the soft smell of the product he's using in his hair now, feeling nostalgic for the Brylcreem from before, though this will do just fine.

Easing back, she smooths her fingers over it and studies it happily. "It will go with everything I own," she says, with true delight. "I love the design, does it have a meaning?"

He hadn't expected her to like it quite this much, but he'd felt like it would suit her as soon as he saw it, so apparently there was a reason for that.

"Not that I know of. There were some that had meaning, but I think that one's just pretty," he shrugged. "The lady selling them said it could be a pin or a hair doodad or a shawl pin. I can't really picture you wearing a lot of shawls, though."

"Not unless I have cause to," she concurs, which might sound as though she's making a reference to hickeys, but in her case, it's far more likely that she's bruised up from an unexpected attack that's happened and would need to cover up as a result of this.

She can't imagine wearing it in her hair, but she knows that it will go with nearly all of her clothes and give her a reminder of him. Pressing her palm flat to it, again, she gives him a fond smile and doesn't move the chair back. "How old are you?" she asks, as the thought occurs to her. "At this moment, now?"

"Ninety-nine," he replied deadpan. "At least by this year's calendar. Look good for my age, don't I?"

He was glad to be here, now, in this moment, but Darrow as a whole was just strange sometimes. His birthday was just one of those things.

Maybe he should decide that he was 29? Or maybe he just wouldn't have a birthday for a year and a half by his own mental calendar. It wasn't like he much cared about his own birthday.

"If we're going by the current year, then I am positively spry for my ninety-six years old," she dryly notes with an amused look on her face, fetching through her pockets to ensure that she can pay for the dinner, seeing as she's the one who's invited Daniel out and she feels she ought to be paying for it.

"You look rather excellent for your ninety-nine years," she says, reaching over to slide her fingers through the hair at his temple. "Barely more than a few greys."

He actually did have one or two grey hairs, which he didn't even remember growing in, but there had been awhile where he hadn't really been focused on his appearance. It hadn't been important in comparison to everything else that had been going on.

He smiled warmly at her, more warmly than he might have before tonight. He was allowed to flirt with Peggy now, even encouraged to do it.

"Got a thing for older men?" he suggested. "Guess that works out alright for me."

The waiter came back, so he sat back on his side of the table. If the dessert was as good as the dinner, he was gonna enjoy this.

Peggy gives a thoughtful hum as she settles into her chair, arranging her napkin in her lap again as she opens the box of portuguese pastries to divide up, setting some on his plate. "Just a particular older man, at this point," she says with a very clear look that informs him which man that might be. She gives an even happier sound when they arrive with a slice of new york cheesecake and two forks.

The only thing missing is the coffee. "Would you like a cappuccino?" she asks, as she orders one. "I think I've already doomed myself with the sugar, I might as well add a strong drink."

"Just coffee, thanks," he told the waiter, since he still preferred good plain coffee to all the fancy drinks they had here. He didn't mind the fancy things, but he liked good coffee more. Bad coffee was a different story.

"What'm I gonna need to do to get the location of this Portuguese bakery out of you?" he asked. He hadn't found it yet, but he hadn't been looking, either. Most of the time when he got a craving for something sweet he went over to the Yeselevskys' store and got something from them.

Peggy gives him an amused look as she dabs at the corner of her lips and gives him a coy look. "If you want to know, you're going to have to give me something very high value," she says, like she's here to negotiate. In fairness, it did take her a very long time to find it, given that the items had been hiding in the back of the shop, but she's also curious what Daniel might do to get the information out of her.

"I'll start thinking about what that might be," he promised, and cautiously took a bite of one of the little tarts. He chewed for a moment, then nodded.

"I wouldn't say it's as good as my mae's, but that's partially because I know better than to say that anything is better than my mae's cooking. Whoever made these knew what they were doing, though."

Peggy can't help her small smile of victory when it comes to that promise. She watches Daniel, popping some of the dessert in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, not sure she really has anything that she can compare it to. "They're delicious," she says, reaching for her fork in order to take a slice and press to her inner cheek, reveling in the richness of it.

"Did you ever learn the recipes?" she wonders.

He shook his head. He had realized that the way he'd been raised had involved men and women having very different roles and very different lives. The war had changed that, in a lot of ways, but not in others. Now, here, even in 2017, there was still a little bit of that, but not nearly as much.

"Not a chance. Making these things was something mothers and grandmothers and aunties did. Men didn't touch them. I probably would have been kicked out of the kitchen if I'd even tried to learn," he chuckled. "And my avó had a way with a dishcloth, too."

"Well, it's a shame," she says, leaning over the table for another piece to pop past her lips, licking some of her lipstick off just to get at another one of the crumbs. "I suppose you could always learn here. It seems there's no shortage of things like cooking classes," Peggy feels compelled to offer. "If you'd like, it might even be something we do together. I'm a terrible cook, I can only imagine it will go well if I take a lesson or two."

"I can cook," he replied. "I don't know that I'd call it gourmet, but I can cook.. Someone I met here thinks my reliance on canned beans is a little overdone, but you can't really mess them up and you can make them whenever you have a chance to eat. Which, you know very well, wasn't really at traditional mealtimes in the SSR."

They'd had some days where they could get three squares at normal times, but they were just as likely to have lunch at seventeen hundred hours and dinner at oh dark thirty.

Peggy wants to ask if he would cook a meal for her, but they've only just come out for dinner, so she tells herself to take this in smaller steps, slowly, slowly. "Yes, when the sandwich order girl goes to Los Angeles, I'm not sure how they managed to eat," she notes, her tone dripping with the appropriate disdain, still grateful for Daniel's leeway in allowing her to work the zero matter case.

"What's your favourite thing to cook?" she asks, instead of lingering on that note.

No one could do disdain like the English. He'd noticed it at the convalescent hospital, but Peggy took it to a new level. More than one big burly guy at the SSR had been reduced to feeling like he was about five years old when Peggy got started. Daniel had fortunately not had too many of those experiences, but he'd had a few. He'd earned a few.

"Anything I wouldn't find in a ration kit," he joked. "I don't think I really have anything I'd call a favorite. Hot and filling is pretty much my criteria."

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