'Cause Suicide Is Painless (Open)

[Lex Luthor]

For the duration of the war, Lex Luthor had been signed up with the Suicide Squad. He was the only one of the Squad to have to conceal his identity and even had to take another name to make the public team. During war-time, the Squad replaced the Avengers, the Justice League, and any other hero away in war. It wasn't the best of times.

Luthor had learned humility, if only slightly. He had learned under his alias he could communicate with those around him. He could even stomach being given orders. Even now, however, he was an agent of chance. He had a ticking time bomb implanted in his bloodstream. He knew to keep in line. Today marked a new victory for him. He was allowed three hours sabbatical after going through six consectutive missions. A victory awarded to his allies during their first week on the job.

Equipped with nothing but a wig of brown hair and a pair of ridged glasses, Luthor looked like an ordinary man. He wore brown slacks and black loafers, a bright purple button up shirt and a black jacket over top. He wore a flap cap on top of his wig. He looked like a man out of the 40's. He still sneered and had his issues with walking the Metropolis streets again, but it was freedom. Freedom he desperately wanted. Alexei Bozhenov, as he was forcibly called by his superiors, slummed through the streets getting reacquainted with his past. He had three hours to himself. Three hours of fresh air and none of the baggage of being Lex Luthor. It was so mind-mumbing that Lex found his way to Centennial Park and sat on the statue of his enemy. The alien. If ever there was a time Lex could use a distraction, something, anything he could focus on, this was it.

[beacon]

Her long and tedious journey to Westchester, NY was only further put on hold when Mackenzie Stevens found herself in Metropolis. Her car parked in a secure lot, she found herself wandering the streets in search of an answer to the questions that she’d never voiced aloud. The city seemed more serene than the last few that she’d driven through, and she found herself drawn to its lush greenery, though it seemed to be a bit sparse in places. Still, with hands tucked into the pockets of her comfortable jeans, Mack walked with her eyes focused on the distance, her thoughts whirling.

It seemed that her feet had a destination in mind when she found herself walking into a large and prestigious park that she quickly learned was known as Centennial Park. Unfamiliar with the city and the area in general, she merely cocked her head to the side in wonder as she took notice of the lovely park and the huge statue that rested inside. Intrigued, she slipped her hands out of her pockets and walked forward slowly, passing only a few disinterested looking citizens before finding herself at the statue of the man that had led the Untouchables to victory.

In awe, she stared up at the statue of Superman, wondering what it would have been like to fight at his side in the war that had left her tainted for life. Unfortunately, she Mack could not recall having ever run across the Man of Steel, or many of the more publicized men and women that had served in the war. Tugging at her hair in thought, she slowly let her gaze drop and was stunned to realize that she was standing so close to a figure that appeared to actually be sitting upon the statue of one of the greatest American heroes.

Taking a step back, her hands found their way to her hips as she let her gaze trail over the figure, which she quickly surmised was a man. He appeared to be in the wrong decade, as his clothes were horribly out of style. Yet, he held himself with a confidant air that made her decide that he could and would wear anything that suited his fancy. As she turned her gaze to a tree in the distance, she barely managed to stifle a gasp. Green eyes zipped back to the figure immediately and then away again, before returning again just moments later.

“Come here often?” The words rolled off of her tongue before she could stop them, and Mack quickly bit the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking again. She thought she recognized a man beneath the strange hat and glasses, as she had never seen a more smug and superior look on another man in her life.

[OOC: Sorry if it’s not great.]

[Lex Luthor]

Cold, shallow green eyes of intense arrogance found themselves on the form of a girl. He looked down at her, seemingly uncaring to the situation. He had felt her gaze the instant it fell on him. He half considered defacing the statue on which he respected less than the man himself.

He looked at the girl with an air of smugness unmatched. "Not often, it's not my favourite monument this whole damned world has to offer." He sneered. The girl was twenty something. Not that Luthor cared.


"Now I should ask why you care if I bother to sit on the statue of the almighty son of krypton's statue. Maybe you think it disrepectful. I consider it the smallest forms of payback. Not wonderfully fanciful like I imagine, but it is something that works for the time being.

"But I defended this country when he was gone. I've done more for these people than he ever could..." Came his voice, colder than ice and filled with spite. He seemed offended by being asked the simplest of questions and was already probing for a reaction to judge this person, no this whelp on.

[beacon]

Slightly stunned by the venom that lined his response, Mack took an involuntary step back and found herself on the defensive. She had been stunned to actually find a person sitting upon the statue of Superman, but she could not honestly say that she found it disrespectful, per say. In fact, she imagined that a number of people did it when visiting Metropolis, if only to take a picture with the beloved hero’s statue.

It was not often that Mack struggled to find her footing and speak in the presence of any other person, but at that moment, she found herself a bit out of her league. “No, I don’t think it’s disrespectful,” she declared quietly. “I guess it just seems rather ironic in my mind that of all the places to sit in this park that you would find your way here.” Slowly, she lifted her hand and motioned to the statue itself. But, Mack didn’t comment on the fact that he obviously found it a small form of payback, as he apparently meant for it to be a form of disrespect.

During the war, Mackenzie had pushed enough propaganda to make her own head spin, but never would she have pushed for the belief that men like the one before her could have had any significant impact in the world, save for a negative one. “You were with them, weren’t you?” she questioned, her mind whirling through the information stored compactly in her mind. None of the regiments that she was acutely aware of would have ever considered taking the man in, especially considering his position pre-war. But, due to her strange placements, she had been privy to small bits of information that never really added up.

“Huh, imagine that.”

[Lex Luthor]

"While others did go abroad I stayed here to protect these fat fools. The world is perhaps my greatest foe. I was their hero, their benefactor, now I sit here on the statue of the man who brought me down." Luthor coldly explained. His hate filled eyes showed almost reason. He clearly believed every word he uttered.

"How do I explain this, I am a great man who has been seated at the heado f this country. Only to be taken down time and time again by the alien. I've tried to better society. I've failed. Not only is society the same, they still look up to aliens to protect them. Aliens from distant worlds that possess the power to crush the planet and it doesn't bother them." He leaped down from the memorial to the Man of Steel made back when Superman died, taking a glance at it disapprovingly trying to portray his intense hate of the man.

"Were you Untouchable, child. Were you at war with enemies none of us care to remember any more? The war made me suicidal, you could say. It made me cover up my name and face in order to keep those quasi-technology obsessed morons out there happy. I was forced to face my mortality. I didn't much care for it, and I cared very little for the war. Even now I cover up my name to pretend in the simplest of terms I am not hated by those fools I spent the war-time saving. They called my recruitment redemption. I did discover a part of myself I never looked at before, but I lost my immortality by looking death in the eye when those they didn't recruit decided to start up trouble. Super-power riots and a normal man's bones..." The super-genius ranted in fury. The Untouchables were hardly his favourite subject. They were connected to Superman, that was enough. Truth be told he didn't mind them so much, he actually admired men like Tony Stark and Reed Richards. It was the press and the heroes bowing down to the alien's authority on the matter that annoyed him. With a sneer Lex took off his flap cap, clutching it in hs hands. His wig toppled forth, but remained on his head, and the ridged glasses kept his identity secret even if he was no longer interested in such.

[beacon]

Slightly stunned and torn between bolting and sitting down to watch as the man went on about his tirade, Mack merely crossed her arms over her chest and listened to his words with an open mind. It was still difficult for her to look the man in the eye when he seemed to be more human than she would have ever expected.

He seems proud but digusted at the same time, she thought to herself, agreeing silently. Still, she found herself at a virtual loss for words as she watched his wig slide forward slightly, and vaguely wondered if she would laugh or cringe if it fell off of his bald head.

She sucked in a deep breath before she found her voice in order to respond to his somewhat rhetoric question. "Yes, I am - was an Untouchable," she murmured, her green eyes trailing over the flap cap he clutched in his hands. "So what is it you're pissed about?" she found herself asking, temper flaring. "Is it because you didn't get to choose to join, or because you're not getting the credit you think you deserve?"

Momentarily, she was stunned that the words that had exited her own lips. She was rarely one for confrontations, unless it was called for. "Or maybe it's the fact that someone like you didn't come up with the whole team, right? Of course it was some big shot that didn't have to worry about how anyone else would fare. Do you think he feels the glory? That he feels self-righteous about it?" Her voice was calm and even, as she was honestly asking the man's opinion.

"How could anyone be proud of the time they spent slaughtering people, even if it was for the good of the country?" she whispered, her eyes focused on the grass nearby.