Agent Daniel Sousa

Daniel Sousa works the SSR's New York bullpen, a war veteran who gets around on a crutch and one good leg. He is the quietest man in a loud room and, not coincidentally, the only decent one in it. When Ray Krzeminski slings a filthy crack about Peggy Carter across the office, Sousa is the agent who stands up and tells him to apologize. Krzeminski repays him by mangling his name into "Susan," and Sousa takes the jab without flinching. Peggy thanks him, then makes it plain she can handle these adolescents herself. He doesn't argue the point. He just admits he doesn't have to like watching them treat a real field agent like a secretary.

His war stays close to the surface. He tells Peggy about getting hit, about the field hospital and the chaplain who was already boxing up his effects for a funeral that never came. He jokes that he still can't find his leg anywhere. Peggy calls him one of the lucky ones, and he lets her have it. On the Stark manhunt he is the careful one, the agent who knows most fugitives are caught inside the first seventy-two hours and says so plainly while the rest of the room chases medals. Sousa pays attention. In an office busy overlooking him, that turns out to be the whole job.

Daniel Sousa works the bullpen of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. He is the rare agent who treats Peggy Carter like a colleague rather than a coat rack. He carries a crutch, a souvenir of the war his fellow agents never let him forget, and he absorbs their needling with a dry patience that says he has heard every "peg leg" jab twice already. When Peggy needs to slip out on "personal matters," Sousa covers for her without prying, banking the favor with an easy "you owe me one." He is also, unknowingly, the man hunting her. His detail is the society-page photographs from Spider Raymond's club, the shots that might finally put a face to the blonde seen with Spider before he turned up dead.

That blonde, of course, is Peggy. The one agent kind enough to help her is diligently building the case that could hang her. Sousa squints at the developed film, comes up empty, and mutters that she "really knows how to duck a camera" before vowing that "nobody's lucky forever."

Daniel Sousa is the one decent man in a bullpen full of swagger. While the rest of the SSR treats Peggy Carter like a receptionist, he treats her like an agent. Sadly, it earns him nothing but grief from his own crowd. When a stash of passports surfaces, he pegs their owner as one more soldier who was "dead before he died." Another casualty of the Battle of Finow.

His break comes over the phone from an anonymous caller handing him the location of Stark's stolen arsenal. Sousa and Krzeminski head to the pier and board the 'Heartbreak'. They are greeted with a cache of Stark's Bad Babies and a suspect. The night seems to be a win. The mood turns by dawn. Krzeminski and the lone witness turn up dead in a professional hit. Sousa, shaken, tells Carter he smelled something wrong in that tip from the start. He swears he will run the killer down.

Daniel Sousa continues investigating the circumstances surrounding the stolen Stark technology and the apparent deaths of Leet Brannis and Sasha Demidov. While Dooley travels to Germany, Sousa remains in New York and pursues a witness from the docks who may have seen the people responsible for moving Stark's technology.

Sousa brings Frank into the SSR for questioning and attempts to establish trust by sharing his own experience as a wounded veteran. His approach is considerably more empathetic than Thompson's, but Frank remains resistant until offered a drink by Thompson in which he divulges that he did, in fact, see a dark haired woman and a man in a fancy suit.

Daniel Sousa remains at the SSR while Peggy and Thompson prepare for their mission. Thompson deliberately creates an embarrassing situation by causing Sousa to walk in while Peggy is changing, but the encounter unexpectedly gives Sousa another clue about Peggy's hidden past when he notices the scars on her shoulder.

After Peggy leaves for Russia, Sousa investigates those scars by accessing her medical records. He discovers that the wounds were caused by gunshots. He then makes the connection between the old wounds and those found on the suspicious blonde that caused so much trouble at La Martinique.

Sousa interviews Sheldon McFee and secures a positive identification of Peggy as the woman who attacked him, located Brannis, and left with the nitramene truck. The evidence makes Peggy appear directly connected to Howard Stark’s criminal case. Sousa brings this information to Dooley despite the personal conflict it creates for him.

He joins the operation to arrest Peggy, then pursues her after she escapes. When he confronts her outside the automat, Sousa gives her a chance to surrender. Peggy refuses because she knows the SSR has mistaken her for the traitor rather than recognizing the larger threat. Sousa remains caught between his duty to the case and his growing belief that Peggy is not simply what the evidence says she is.

Sousa participates in Peggy's interrogation and presses her for an explanation of why she conducted a secret investigation rather than bringing her suspicions to the SSR. Peggy tells him that she believed her colleagues would not listen to her because of the way they viewed her as a secretary rather than an agent. After seeing Ivchenko communicating with someone across the street, she provides Sousa, Dooley, and Thompson with the details of her investigation into Howard Stark's stolen inventions and Krzeminski's murder.

The team accepts the information and launches the investigation into Ivchenko's communication with Dottie. Sousa works with Thompson and the other agents as they attempt to locate the Leviathan operative and understand the connection between Ivchenko and the stolen Stark technology.

Sousa investigates the aftermath of the Midnight Oil attack and experiences the gas's effects firsthand. He remembers becoming violent toward Thompson after exposure to the chemical and later apologizes to Peggy after recovering. He works with the SSR to determine how much Midnight Oil Fennhoff possesses and what target he intends to attack.

Sousa participates in the operation surrounding Howard's public appearance and pursues the kidnapping after Fennhoff's diversion succeeds. He helps determine that Times Square is the intended target and joins the search for Howard's aircraft. During the confrontation with Fennhoff, Sousa encounters the psychiatrist directly and, using earplugs, resists Fennhoff's attempt to manipulate him into shooting Thompson.