#if you squint you can see some references to the myth of Apollo and Daphne

[wayhavenots]

Wooing Miss Wiseman

This has been sitting in my drafts for two years. 🙃 (Sorry for all the fic lately; frankly I’m just avoiding thinking about my future or doing anything productive towards it.)

~

If romance was a competitive sport, Taliaferro Parker would take home the gold medal. Not that he was the most experienced player, so to speak. But chief among his many skills as an MIV was strategy, and he'd been strategizing about romance since he learned how to read poetry.

"Daphne Wiseman," he called over Nick’s shoulder as the door swung open, "prepare to be wooed."

Nick chuckled and moved aside. “Good to see you, too, Glitch. What exactly do you have in store for Button?”

“It’s a surprise!” called Daphne brightly as she came into view at the top of the stairs. “Is this okay? For being wooed?” She gestured to her outfit as she started down the stairs.

“You look like sunshine,” he answered. Dressed in denim shorts and a flowy tank top, and with her ever-bright smile, Daphne was the picture of summer. (But more lovely, and more temperate.) “You look like you were born to be wooed.”

"Wood? Like a tree?" She wrapped her arms around his middle and gave him a cheesy smile, eyes almost closed and crinkled at the corners, face angled slightly upwards toward him.

He pressed a quick kiss to her waiting lips. "Like the way that I pine for you."

She grinned. "That's pretty acorny, Ferro."

A cleared throat. Nick Wiseman looked equal parts grossed out and delighted. "As arborable as this is..."

"Saint Nick has a date, too," whispered Daphne. "We should make like a tree and...leaf."

~

Her hand was clammy in his as they ascended the stairs to the roof of his building, and her rapid-fire guesses about the surprise he had in store for her had stopped completely. When he paused on the stairs and turned back to look at her, he saw that her face was paler than normal.

"Hey, are you feeling okay?" he asked.

She smiled brightly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Just hungry, I think. A little cold. Are we... We're going to the roof?"

“That we are. Is that okay?” 

She nodded quickly. “Mm-hm.”

He squeezed her hands, and then ran his hands over her arms. "I'll warm you right up, Firecracker," he said with a wink.

There came the real smile, one which never failed to light up her entire face and strike him just a little bit dumb. She squeezed his hand. "Then I feel better already."

It was easy to persuade the evil building manager to let him have access to the roof for the night, especially armed with his computer password (which was password). The hard part was dinner and dessert, which was waiting for them in a picnic basket. Daphne wasn’t a picky eater, but she was accustomed to better cooking than Glitch managed on a regular basis, and she deeply-appreciated home-cooked meals. He still wasn’t sure that the vegan pasta salad he’d cobbled together was good enough, but at the very least, he hoped that the view of the sun setting behind the Chicago skyline would be enough to make up for it. 

“What do you think?” he asked as they emerged onto the roof. He turned around with his arms outstretched, as if he had brought the sun out of the sky for her.

She swallowed and took a step onto the roof. When the door shut behind her, she winced. “It’s...beautiful.”

“What’s wrong?”

Daphne shook her head vigorously. “Nothing," she whispered. But her voice shook as she said it. “I just, I don’t... Heights.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and then gave him a weak smile. "But I’m fine. Really. This is such a sweet surprise, Ferro, and I’m fine..."

He cupped her face in his hands so he could brush the tears from her cheeks. “Oh, I know you’re fine,” he answered with a soft grin. “But let’s move this party downstairs, yeah?”

~

“I’m sorry, Ferro,” she mumbled into his hoodie.

They were curled up on the couch in his apartment, and Daphne hadn’t looked him in the eye since they came down off the roof.

“No, I’m Sorry-Ferro,” he said, shooting her a lopsided grin. “I wouldn’t have taken you up there if I’d known you were afraid. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m just so used to everyone already knowing,” she said softly, lifting herself off of him. “It guess it was nice to pretend that I wasn’t.” Finally, she looked at him, pretty dark brown eyes still wet with tears. “You’re just so...so...”

“Devastatingly handsome and charming?” He batted his eyelashes at her, which made her laugh.

“And smart. I’m afraid of heights, and enclosed spaces, and clowns. And pencils. Pencils, Ferro. Stupid things, irrational things.” She wiped her eyes. “You’re so out of my league. And I didn’t want you to know, because I wanted you to think I was smart and fun and adventurous."

"You are smart and fun and adventurous. Just, you know, not every adventure. Which is perfect. I don't have the time for every adventure, and I don’t want any adventure without you, Daphne.” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “It feels right to notice all the shiny things about you, about you there is nothing I wouldn’t want to know.”

“So you don’t...mind?” she sniffed. “That I’m...”

"Only human?" he finished gently. He shook his head and took her hands in his. "You came to tell your faults to me," he recited, before lifting one hand to his lips to press a kiss against the backs of her knuckles. He lifted the other hand---"You named them over one by one,"---and repeated the motion.

A kiss pressed directly below her left ear lobe, which made her expel a breathless giggle. "I laughed aloud when you were done,” he continued.

"I knew them all so well before." A kiss to the top of her head.

"Oh, you were blind," a kiss between her eyebrows, "too blind to see."

A final, gentle kiss to her lips. "Your faults had made me love you more."

She gazed back at him with fluttering dark eyes, smile wide and tears dried.

He had the urge to clarify that her fears weren't faults, and that she was easily the bravest person he knew, and that for all his brilliance and for all that he’d strategized, he could be something of a dunce when it came to relationships, and that a part of him was deeply terrified that she would realize she was too good for him—

But then she tugged him back towards her by the neck of his hoodie, kissed him sweet and tender, and he forgot what he was going to say, and every poem he'd ever read, and every word in the English language except Daphne.

~~~

Direct quotes from these two poems:

Lines Depicting Simple Happiness

Faults by Sara Teasdale