womanofvalue | City Never Sleeps

It's been some time since the actual engagement, but Peggy's needed it to sink in.

Perhaps it's because it's not her first time being engaged that she's so hesitant to begin plans. The first time with Fred had been such a flood of planning and a hurricane of activity she'd hardly wanted to take place in (she'd wanted to work on the codebreaking), but this time, with Daniel, she knows it's going to be different. It's why she eventually remembers that while she doesn't have to go to the same lengths to plan, she still needs to take some steps.

The first and most important is making sure that she has the critical people at her side when she's standing there saying her vows, witnessed by the people she cares for. It's why she's sent out a few texts and is sitting at her favourite coffeeshop with a magazine filled with dresses, sipping her tea as she makes notes in the margins. While she's not expecting trouble, she still wants to be sure that if there is, she's well-equipped for it, which means any dress she buys is going to be one that at least allows for a thigh holster.

After all, you can't be underprepared for one of the most important days of your life, now can you?

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"Whatever you need, I'll be happy to help," he says. That's what bridesmaids are supposed to do, after all, and he really doesn't care what Peggy wants to call him but he knows he does want to help.

"And I think the rule is that you can wear whatever you like," he adds. He's never had many hard and fast opinions about weddings in general, but now that he's faced with a friend getting married, he feels very strongly that Peggy ought to do whatever makes her happiest. If she wants a white dress, then she should have one. He doesn't think it matters what else she's done in her life.

"I think that I'm going to need some hand-holding closer to the date," she says, wishing that she didn't admit that out loud, but John's one of her closest friends and she trusts him. "It's not Daniel I have reservations about," she wants plenty clear. "I just have poor associations with marriage, I fear."

"Sometimes, it's too much of a reminder of a life I nearly pinned myself into," she says. "Does that make any sense?"

"It does," John says and then he's quiet for a few moments, considering what he's about to say. There's no world in which he thinks anyone would come to him for romantic advice, because while he and Karen have a wonderful relationship and he feels secure in that, he's had a good few years of being a little bit lost.

"But I think it's important to remember whatever that life might have been, it's not the one you'll have with Daniel," he says. "There's a reason you didn't go through with it the first time."

And there's a different reason for why she's marrying Daniel now.

"Or the second," she admits, though that's far more complicated and has more to do with the option being taken from her. It's not like she can convincingly say that she and Steve would've made it there, but she'd like to think that's the case. "The first time, he wanted a good little wife," she says.

"Fred was lovely, but not for a woman like me," Peggy says ruefully, shaking her head. "I think he'd have passed out from shock if he saw half of what I've done since breaking off the engagement. With Daniel, there's no worry. He's seen my worst and my best."

"I'm not an expert, but I think that sounds like the right way to do it," John answers. For someone to want have a genuine relationship with him, they would need to know the dark parts of his life, not because John wants them to know, but because he thinks it's necessary to know who he is.

Karen knows enough. There are other things he can tell her, but he doesn't think any of them will be the sorts of things that will change her mind about him. She knows who he is, good and bad.

Peggy's rather pleased that John is so steady and good with this, which tells her that she's made the right decision. Reaching across the table to give him a squeeze of the hand, she now begins to think of the long line of tasks awaiting her. "There are whole reams of tasks that I'm not entirely sure how to do," she warns.

"So I may lean on you," she says. "For instance, what do I do next? This seemed the easiest, but I suppose a save the date? An invite list?"

"Don't you remember what I just said about not being an expert?" he asks with a smile, then leans forward a little. If he's going to be part of this, then he ought to give it a real try.

"I think it depends on what's more important, the date or the venue," he decides after a moment. "I might not know much, but I've seen enough television to know venues often book up months in advance."

Especially in New York. Darrow isn't quite the same, but he has to wonder if it's still not similar.

She gives him a look because while he might not be an expert, she certainly isn't either and if she's going to fail at something, then she's going to fail with company. "I'm not hell-bent on a specific date," she does feel inclined to admit. "And I think Daniel is simply happy so long as we don't go too big."

"I'm going to push for a courthouse wedding," she says. "Though I think I might need to concede on that, since I think Daniel might want it in a church."

"Then if that's the case, maybe you pick the date first," he says. A church can't be that difficult to book and the courthouse, if Peggy gets her way, will be available whenever she wants it, so long as it's within the regular business hours. If that's the way she wants to plan things, he doesn't expect she's going to run into much trouble at all.

"Do you really think a pink dress will be properly appreciated in the courthouse?" he asks, unable to help himself.

She can't help her proud and delighted smile at that. "I certainly think that it wouldn't have quite the same effect," she admits, because there are all sorts of ridiculous people who are at the courthouse on any given day, to the point that a pink dress on John might not even register.

"Also, if I haven't made it clear, I expect you to bring Karen as well," she says. "I'm not sure how long the invitation list will be, but she's certainly on it."

"I figured she would be invited," he says with a smile. He knows Peggy and Karen like each other, that they'd call themselves friends, and if he's to be part of the wedding, he can't imagine Peggy would decline to have Karen there.

"She'll be very happy for you two," he says. Karen always is. She's tough and smart, but there's a romantic in her, too. It exists in the same way his does, he thinks, which is probably why they've fallen into this relationship so well.

"I'm hoping that there's no one here that bodes us truly ill will apart from the organization that we've vowed to fight against," Peggy notes, seeing as she can't imagine any Hydra agent would be pleased for them, so maybe they won't go taking out full page ads anywhere.

"It will be hardest, I think, when it comes to defining myself as something else, as a married woman," she says, and even the words sound strange. "Though, perhaps that's the least strange difference in my life, since arriving here in the future."

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