You can't always get what you want

*Back to the present*

"Look Walt. You've done very well for yourself. You've made yourself wealthy and successful. You're the one contractor all the big names use for training their agents and operatives. Hell you were one of the first and the most successful of them! You practically wrote the book on doing the job. Every Bond, Bourne, Fisher, Snake, etc. wishes their adventures were as cool as yours." Roger kept trying to cheer his friend up. "You were the first to infiltrate and deep cover hundreds of worlds and realities, having adventures and you had a hand in changing the lives of every prime worlder and few of them will ever know it and-"

"And never finding the one thing I wanted, Rog." I sighed again, taking another drink of the green ****. "I am either directly or partially responsible for the plunder of countless worlds realities and for what? A fruitless search for the impossible? Sometimes it feels like a pointless joke."

Roger didn't know what to say to that. He looked around at all the prosperity that his friend had a hand in bringing to the prime worlders. Then thought about his friends words and realized something. "Wait, this isn't just about her! You feel sorry for them? For the characters I mean."

Another sigh. "I do."

Roger stared at his friend thoughtfully. "You didn't discover, invent or make the tech, Walter. You're one of the smartest people I know and I'm pretty sure you couldn't explain how it works to me."

Small rueful chuckle. "That's certainly true."

"So you have somehow weirdly mixed up your survivors guilt, mistakenly in my opinion, with that of the characters?"

Walt swished the drink around his glass. "Ok. Now you sound like a shrink."

Roger shrugged, "I like watching some Harley Quinns channels. There's one that's really getting popular dealing with characters and adjusting but there's some sound advice too and other Dr Quinns have been popping up. Maybe you should see one?" Roger snapped his fingers. "Maybe you should get one!"

Chuckle. "Do you want me to actually feel better or just go crazy, Rog? Hard pass on the owning one personally. Though the idea of seeing one has merit, it's just..."

Roger smirked. "You just can't reconcile conceding to needing help, cowboy?"

Walter actually laughed out loud at that one. "Accurate, but no. I dealt with that emotional hurdle a longtime ago. Some of the things I seen long before everything was like this made it a necessity. The world is actually a little crazy now and I am ok with it."

"What then?"

"I don't know if it matters anymore. I mean the world is crazy now. And that's the norm. Look at the Potter-hulk incident and while mildly shocking for some folks that's my life. Last week I had to train 300 spartan mutant ninja turtles for a client and that was just monday. I think their owner is planning on entering them into the arena... though maybe they just want a personal gaurd with flair." Walt finished his drink and before he could signal, Lloyd was already there raising the bottle questioning. Nodding assent continued. "And those are just the things I can talk about that aren't under NDAs or other things. No matter how I personally feel about it the genies out of the bottle and I'm partially responsible for that. If the world is a little crazy and I'm a little crazy I think that's probably ok, it's just... I think I'm going to stroll around a bit. Thank you, Lloyd." He placed a very generous tip hoping that Lloyd's owner had some complimentary credit system for providing good service.

"A genuine pleasure, Sir. If I don't see you again I hope you have a very pleasant evening," Said Lloyd as Walt stood and stretched and took his drink.

"I'll see you around Rog."

Roger watched his friend leave. "What was he trying to say then and what's it all about anyway?" He turned to Lloyd but found the bartender was already setting another martini in front of him and nodded after the departing Walt.

"I think you're friend was trying to say that in life you can't always get what you want but that he might be opening up to the idea that sometimes you might still find what you need." They smiled and nodded and silently wished the departing figure well in his quest.