Daniel Sousa - Date Night

[womanofvalue]

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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[womanofvalue]

She knows that it sounds silly to think that a kiss could do that, but he hadn't been there to experience the kiss, which is something that Peggy knows had been intense and surprising and had made her want so many more, right up until she'd been robbed away. "At some point, we'll need to test the theory," she promises, heart beating ever faster as she eats her food.

"There are other things that happened, but I don't believe they directly pertain to either you or me," she admits. "So there you have it. The things I've been holding back, but the main thing is this. I want to give us a real try, an honest attempt," she says. "I'd like this to be the first date, not the only date."

[ssrsousa]

He ate his own meal as she spoke. He'd never heard of this place before her three invitations, but it was a good choice, with waiters that were discreet and aware when conversations among their patrons were not to be interrupted.

The problem with everything she was offering, even though in some ways it was everything he'd want to hear, was that he couldn't just accept it. He wasn't sure how to explain it without hurting her feelings, but he had to try.

"As much of an idiot as it makes me sound to say this, I'm not sure," he finally started.

"I'm not the man you kissed. I didn't move to LA or ask Violet to marry me or any of that. I don't want you to start something and then realize I'm not the man you want because I didn't go through all that. And I don't want to worry that I'm not living up to what that other Daniel did or how he would have reacted to things. A few months can be a lifetime. We both know that."

Did he want to try it? Damn right he did, but he didn't want to hurt her even more than that, so he looked her right in the eyes and he spoke as honestly as he could.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy isn't the sort of person who looks at something like rejection or even a pushback as something to make her stop, especially not when she doesn't see what Daniel is saying. "You are the man I kissed," Peggy says calmly. "Perhaps I should have been quicker to the point in New York, but I don't care about what happened between the time you came from and the one I did," she says.

"You used earplugs to defeat Ivchenko, you were clever and creative and you believed me, after a bit of time," she says, searching his face. "I don't want you to be that man, I want you to be you. I want Daniel Sousa, the man you are at dinner, this very minute." She gives him a calm look as she chides him with a single look.

"You're the same person," she says. "I know how to look past the differences on the surface."

[ssrsousa]

"And if the differences are deeper than the surface?" he challenged her. He'd always enjoyed knowing that he could challenge Peggy, that they could discuss and argue and exchange ideas. He didn't think he could ever be real friends with or involved with someone he couldn't have a real conversation with.

Having Peggy say she wanted him, and knowing she probably meant it in a physical way as well as an emotional one was something he'd remember, even if this evening didn't end well. He still hoped it would, but he wasn't counting on it.

[womanofvalue]

"Honestly, Daniel, if you've been smart enough and talented enough to con me as to the basic tenets of your personality, then I'll slap you first and then leave, but I know that's not the case. You bring chocolates to the girls on the phones, you don't put up with Thompson, you investigated me and believed I might be a threat."

"You have to at least allow me the chance to find out, even if I think you're utterly mistaken," she says, shaking her head and wanting to make it quite clear how ridiculous she thinks he's being.

[ssrsousa]

He chuckled at her promise to slap him and then leave. If he did try to con Peggy, a slap would be the least of what he'd expect to get. It'd be the least of what he deserved, for that matter. And she did have a point in that he as a person, deep down, wouldn't have necessarily changed that much in the months he hadn't lived, but he could still envision times when she'd expect him to react one way based on what she knew of him from LA and he might not do that. He still thought that might end up being a problem at some point.

"Alright, we'll give it a chance," he agreed. "I'll try not to consider whether I'm doing what you'd expect me to do after months of running an office and living in LA if you'll try not to consider my reactions different for not having done any of that."

[womanofvalue]

She can't help the sheer joy she feels at hearing that from him. She takes a moment to revel in the strange victory of it and lets herself have a few bites of food to do precisely that, not daring to take her eyes off of him the whole time. "I don't want you to think about a man you're supposed to be," she says, trying not to sound stern and officious, but she wants him to understand this.

"I want you, Daniel," Peggy says firmly. "You. I don't care what you think you ought to be doing because of Los Angeles. I want us to make new memories here, ones we both share."

[ssrsousa]

Winning the lottery couldn't feel this good. She was looking at him with the kind of expression any man would be glad to see, but he was especially glad, because it was her. He'd been attracted to her from pretty much the first moment she'd come walking into the New York office, although he'd admit at first it had mostly been physical. It wasn't just that anymore. It definitely wasn't just that.

"Well, we're gonna have quite a few new ones to make, because I haven't really seen anyone in, uh, about three years," he admitted. That wasn't to say he hadn't had dates, at least before Bastogne, but afterwards things had kind of dried up in the romantic department.

[womanofvalue]

"You and me, both, excepting the one dance I had in Los Angeles with Dr. Wilkes as part of an undercover investigation," she notes, giving him a long look. "I think there is something I want to be upfront about," she admits. "This is nothing to do with the differences in time, though, but rather, my own past."

"I never told you, but I was engaged to be wed, in '39," she says. "I was eighteen and young and I thought I was doing the right thing, but it wasn't what I wanted so much as what was expected of me. His name was Fred and I haven't seen him since the war began. He was also the last man I dated."

[ssrsousa]

He wasn't quite sure how that information fit with what everyone thought they knew about Peggy and Captain Rogers, but he wasn't about to bring up Captain Rogers right now. It was Peggy's story to tell, when she wanted to tell it, if she wanted to tell it.

"More of what your mother wanted you to be?" he said understandingly. "I was seeing someone all the way through OCS, but eventually, having a fella in uniform wasn't as romantic as it'd been at the start. Hard to stay in touch when mail might not arrive for months."

It hadn't been her fault or his. It just was, and Daniel didn't resent her for it at all.

[womanofvalue]

"I was working as a codebreaker, I thought that marrying and having children was all that I could do," she says. "His name was Fred and he was a decent man, but my brother wanted me to go into the field on his recommendation." She stares down at her plate, summoning up the courage to talk about this. "I wasn't going to," she admits, swallowing back the lump in her throat.

"Not until they came with the letter, telling us that Michael was missing in action, presumed dead." They never found him, but some part of her still lives in hope that he'll turn up, possibly without his memory to explain why he wouldn't just come home. "After that, there was really only ever Steve," she admits, "and even that was never really anything more than a very serious crush that amounted to one kiss." She was in love with him, to be sure, but it hadn't been dating, not in the least.

"What happened to your girl?" Peggy asks, smoothly easing the topic away from herself.

[ssrsousa]

He winced at all of that, especially her brother being MIA, presumed KIA. He was lucky that his little brother hadn't had any kind of telegram sent about him. Daniel's telegram was hard enough on his parents. If his brother had been wounded or killed, it would have been too much.

He briefly put his hand across the table to squeeze hers, since this couldn't be easy to talk about. It'd answered his questions about Captain Rogers, though, and he suddenly didn't quite feel so much like he was standing in the man's shadow.

"Nothing really. She stopped writing, and a while after that, my mae told me she'd gotten engaged to a guy who was 2-B - worked at the Navy Yard."

It had hurt, but not as much as it might have. Honestly there hadn't been much time for hurt. There was barely enough time for life.

[womanofvalue]

She doesn't let him retract his hand, sliding her thumb over his knuckles in a slow, careful motion, learning what this feels like, too. For all that she might have some months on him, she really barely got to explore anything with him, apart from a few touches to his hair and, of course, that one amazing kiss. "I'm sorry," she offers, "but at the same time, I'm not. If she hadn't been so blind, I never would have had this chance," she says frankly.

Eventually, she needs her hand back for food and allows her thumb one last brush before she retracts it to finish her dinner, setting the plate aside and sipping her wine when it's done. "Part of me is grateful you won't have to endure my mother. She can be a bit trying," Peggy notes wryly.

[ssrsousa]

Her hand was warm and soft in a way that showed she took care of them, but there were callouses too. Peggy Carter knew how to use her hands. She would never have been content to sit and be a good little housewife, not forever, even if her brother hadn't been KIA. She would have done her damnedest to do everything right, but she wouldn't have been content.

"She wanted a fella who wasn't on the other side of an ocean. I don't mind that she went out and found it, not anymore," he admitted. All of that felt like it had happened almost to another person. He could divide his life neatly into before and after he'd been hit.

They both maybe needed a little time after that series of topics, so they sat back and finished their respective dinners. The last bite was as good as the first, and he wiped his mouth contentedly when he was done.

"Ah, you never know. She might show up tomorrow," he teased Peggy.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy can't help the wide-eyed look of mild shock when Daniel suggests the possibility, taken aback by the prospect of her mother suddenly here. Her mother doesn't even know what she does, the prospect is a terrifying one to her. "As much as I would like you to meet her, the confines of this place are a bit too cramped for me to want that to happen," is what she says, letting out a soft huff.

"Your parents sound lovely, though, I think it's a shame you haven't got them here," she admits.

[ssrsousa]

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.

[womanofvalue]

"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.

[ssrsousa]

"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."

[womanofvalue]

"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?"

[ssrsousa]

"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.

[womanofvalue]

"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."

[ssrsousa]

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.

[womanofvalue]

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.

[ssrsousa]

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."

[womanofvalue]

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?"