cp losing file's metadata

If you use man cp to read the manual page for the copy command you'll find the -p and --preserve flags.

-p same as --preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps

and

--preserve[=ATTR_LIST] preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,timestamps), if possible additional attributes: context, links, xattr, all

What this boils down to is that you should use cp -p instead of just cp.