Marmalade
Written for the Steggy Week 2023 challenge. Headcanon: Orange marmalade reminds Steve of Peggy.
"Marmalade?" Peggy asks, pushing the jar towards him.
He'd never liked it much as a kid—the orange peel made it taste bitter to him. It was an expense his mother could rarely indulge in, so he didn't often get a taste of it. But here, sitting across a desk from Peggy Carter deep in the heart of the Cairngorm mountains, with the brisk Scottish breeze whisking in through the window, he can't possibly refuse.
"Just a little," he says, taking the spoon and spreading a bit on the scone he's holding. He and his new team had spent all day working hard at the secret training site in preparation for being sent out again on their next mission. But apparently even crack commando units get to stop for teatime.
Even if they spend half of it talking business with the British liaison agent.
Peggy takes a bite of her marmalade-laden scone with obvious relish—then catches him looking, and turns slightly pink. "I don't often get this anymore," she admits. "The war and all, you know. These days they're making it out of carrots." She shudders a little theatrically.
He grins, watching her. "Is it your favorite?"
She nods, taking another bite, and letting her eyes drift shut. "Mm-hmm," she says, mouth full.
He takes a bite of his own, and somehow the sticky orange spread on his scone tastes sweeter this time around.
Steve keeps a jar of marmalade in his refrigerator to remember her by.
Sometimes Nat pulls it out when she comes over and raids his place. He never minds, letting her eat as much of it as she wants, but he rarely tries any himself.
It makes him too sad.
This world is bright and new and noisy. At the store you can buy as much syrup or jam or preserves as you want, jar upon jar lined up in rows on the shelves.
There is so much of everything.
But occasionally, on nights when he wants to remember, he fires up the oven, bakes his best attempt at scones. He puts on a record—scratchy, comforting, the kind of song he'd once dreamed of dancing with her to.
And then he pulls out the jar, spreading just the slightest bit of marmalade on his scone before taking a bite.
It's always wrong, too sickly, too bitter. The scone is crumbly or burnt. But he closes his eyes and recalls her image, head tossed back, her eyes shut, hair loose in the breeze through the window as she enjoys her favorite treat. In that moment, it's almost as though he never lost her at all, as though he can reach out and touch her hand across the table.
Marmalade isn't supposed to be salty.
But no, that's his tears.
The teacup crashes to the floor.
It must be teatime, he realizes dizzily, somewhere in the tiny sliver of his mind that isn't wholly occupied with staring at the wide-eyed woman in front of him—a little older, a little more weary, but still, ineffably, his Peggy.
"Steve," she gasps. "Steve?"
"Yeah," he manages. His heart is pounding until he thinks it's about to pound its way clean out of his body and land amid the scattered china shards on the floor. "Yeah, it's me. Sorry I'm…"
He never finishes the sentence because suddenly, somehow, she's in his arms and then they're both holding each other tightly, her tears dampening his collar, his tears vanishing into her hair.
When she finally pulls back, there's caution and joy mingled in her eyes. "It's really you?"
So much to say—so many impossible things to express.
"I'm back," he manages. I'm here. I'm yours. "For as long as you want me."
I'll never leave you again.
She takes his hand, pulls him into the house without a word.
Her record player is nicer than the secondhand one he'd thrifted back in the future. They sway, holding each other close, slowly revolving around the table that holds her discarded tea things and a familiar orange jar.
When he kisses her—when she kisses him back—she tastes like marmalade, tart and bitter and sweet all at once.
He's never been happier in his life, even as the sorrow for all that he's lost twists in his heart, a pain that will never go away. They are not the same as they once were; they've both been through far, far too much for that.
But he is still Steve, and she is still Peggy, and they'll figure it out together.
He kisses her again, tasting the curve of her smile as she pulls him still closer, running her hands into his hair.
Perhaps life was never meant to be perfectly sweet. Perhaps the bitter is necessary to enhance the sweetness, when at last it's found.
And that's okay.
The End
Author's note: Elite commando troops were trained at secret training grounds in the Cairngorms in Scotland. It's always been a headcanon of mine that Steve and the Howling Commandos were transferred there for a crash course after they became a team and before they were sent back into Europe.
Also, I've long held the headcanon that Steve keeps a jar of marmalade in his fridge to remember Peggy by. (In fact, I directly reference it in my story Sarcophagus.) This gave me the opportunity to flesh out that headcanon a little more.
And yes, I did find a recipe for WWII marmalade made out of carrots and lemon peels. Google it—it's a thing.