That's Inadequate
Dr. Ivchenko really knew how to stir the pot. The office was dark, silent and completely deserted. The couch in his office that was his current bed lay like a welcoming lover calling to him to sleep. Roger couldn't get his mind to stop whirling in circles over what he and Ivchenko discussed. The file of the agent who apparently committed suicide this afternoon lay open upon his desk under the desk light distracting his attention. Rubbing his temples as a headache set in, he was reminded that phone call would be made in the morning.
Glancing over his shoulder, as his feet were propped up on his desk, he saw the still downturned picture of his wife and the visible one of his two kids. Instead of a jealous rage of a young husband boiling up, the quiet resignation of an older man surfaced like slow bubbles rising in syrup, each one a memory of his youth. Where did he go wrong, he wondered silently between sips of scotch.
A baby of the new century, he was a barely fourteen during the first Great War, too young and youthful to fight. Every day watching the doughboys ship out at the Newark port, there was an ache and wanting to join them in his mind and get away from New Jersey. His mom and dad kept telling him he was being a foolish kid following some war propaganda. They had already sent off one son and didn't want to risk another.
The soldiers came home, including his brother, thankfully. Roger now felt the need to so something meaningful with his life; to help people, like his brother did as a soldier. While reading the paper he was supposed to be selling, an advertisement for the police academy caught his eye. That seemed like a place for him. He did well enough in school and he could fulfill that dream of being someone bigger than just Roger Dooley, son of a tailor.
At eighteen he applied and graduated at twenty. He met his wife at a police charity ball and they were married soon after, because, well… that is what you did. Did he ever love her? Snorting with sarcasm and then taking another sip of liquor, of course he did. She waited up those long nights from his shift to make sure he came home alive and got a hot dinner. She packed him great lunches and ironed his navy blue shirts till the creases could cut paper. When he was promoted to Sergeant and then Captain, she stood by him like the perfect housewife. She balanced the budget when the Depression hit so all four of them could survive on his police salary, feeling fortunate that he still had a job. Their two kids were respectful and did well in school. So of course he loved her. What kind of question was that?
She cried with him after his first partner on his beat was killed from a random robbery. She salved his bruises he recieved from sting operation on some squatting bums down at the rail station. She always looked fresh, well dressed and … beautiful. Of course he loved her.
So what happened?
Oh yeah. That other War.
When America needed her young men again, he was ready but too old for the front lines. Leaving his wife and children behind, an older, wiser Roger Dooley answered the call by enlisting because at forty he knew he'd never be drafted. Using his police experience, he became a drill sergeant and then an underling of Colonel Phillips heard of him moving his service into the SSR. He swore up and down that he remembered that scrawny blonde boy that would become Captain America, but the recollection was fuzzy. There were so many "special" soldiers at Camp Lehigh. Perhaps he recalled Carter too, but they didn't share the same commanding officer.
That tenure was short and when Dooley was safely ensconced at the SSR office in a London suburb, his lovely wife went astray.
That plumber with flat feet, too much a coward to serve like the rest of America's sons. What did he have that Roger didn't?
She yelled at him when he confronted her about the affair. It was the first time she'd ever raised her voice to him. He recalled her saying things like the 'other guy' complimented her, gave her flowers, mentioned how much he appreciated her. Their own kids like him better than their father because he paid attention to them and not his job.
Sipping the drink, the liquor burning its way to his empty stomach like molten metal, his temper seethed quietly. Did she even know what he did? Of course not. He never told her. Did she even think for one moment that he fate of the United States could be resting on his shoulders? Of course not. It wasn't up for discussion. Did she even THINK for a second that he was doing vitally important work, probably more important than that atomic bomb that those egg heads invented? Of course not. She's just a … his mind searched for the right epithet… a woman.
His eyes wandered casually out his office door to Peggy Carter's empty desk when the thought reached out and practically smacked him across the face. Women. Peggy went off about the assassin girls and how Krzeminski's killer was probably a woman and she more than enough proved her field abilities in Russia. Thompson was clear as crystal about those facts.
His thoughts turned inward for a moment and then with a dawning clarity he realized all the things his wife had done for him. She may not be out gunning down Russian spies or decoding secret messages. Certainly, she wasn't chasing down leads in the murder of agents or double crossers like Howard Stark. But she was doing some very important work. She made sure their kids grew up right, in his absence. She made certain that he looked the most amazing he could. She was his pedestal. And the simplicity of it was that all she wanted was some acknowledgement of that in return.
With a cold emerging realization, he found himself woefully inadequate.
He put down the glass and picked up his coat and hat. Turning out the light on the dead Agent's file, he flipped up the photo of his wife, illuminated by the gentle streetlights from beyond the window.
He hadn't looked at it in so long, his breath was caught at the sight of her beauty.
Tracing her lips with his fingertip, he found himself smiling remembering their first kiss.
How long had it been? How long since he'd been such an inadequate husband?
"If I go home, I think the wife will never let me leave." He recalled saying to another agent. She was only trying to reclaim a bit of her marriage from the vast sucking hole that was the SSR.
Setting the photo down next to his kids, he put on his jacket and hat. There was some reckoning to take care of tonight and he was going to prove that he really wasn't inadequate.