"Glad you could see me." Luthor said, dressed in white as always, an eyebrow flickering as you step into his office.
"Well you made a very tempting offer." Slade said. "I've never considered losing my independence, but I do like the sound of Chief of Homeland Security, and the paycheck that goes with it."
"Nothing has been decided yet. For one thing, I think I'd be better at it. I even have a few schematics for new uniforms, that I'd like you to take a look at." He holds up some old newspaper scraps. "I designed them myself. In crayon."
Luthor raised an eyebrow, then decided he didn't want to ask. He'd never worked with Deadpool before, and so was little taken aback.
"Well, we'll see." He said diplomatically. "But first there is the matter of a job I'd like you to do."
"I'm not cleaning your pool. Money is no object at all, even for a man with no pride."
"Shut up."
"Not until the bald gentleman asks me to. He's the one cutting the checks."
"Silence."
"Not until I see some money." A terrible thought struck Deadpool. "Wait. This isn't one of those patriotic things, is it? Because my doctor tells me I have a natural deficient in moral fiber and am in desperate need of a spine transplant, making me therefore exempt from saving America."
"No it's not. We're all men of the world here."
"We are? That doesn't mean you're going to pay me in baseball cards, does it?"
"Would you like me to?"
"Yes. I mean no. I mean... I don't even know what I'm saying! Damnit, stop confusing me! You're the most infuriating man I've ever met!"
Luthor did the only thing he could think of to move the conversation on, and back into the direction he'd envisioned. He pressed a button on the remote in his hand, and let what it did speak for itself.
A light came on in another section of the room, revealing a table covered with all a manner of the latest of Luthorcorp weapons innovations, ranging from small gadgets that could double as surgical instruments to guns the size of your leg. Some Stark equipment fleshed it out for good measure.
"Sweet buttery biscuits!" Deadpool skipped over like a giddy school girl and picked up one of the shiny…oh so shiny…weapons. He couldn't help it. He squealed happily, then coughed. "I did that out loud, didn't I? That was meant to be an internal thing… You stabbed me in the medulla oblongata. How rude."
"Using surgical terms doesn't make you smart." Slade replies as he removes the bowie knife from the top of Deadpools skull. "Particularly when you use them to describe being stabbed in wrong portion of the brain."
"You think I'm stupid? I'd like to see you even talk when you have a knife in you're brain, let alone incorrectly label your grey matter."
"I have told you that I think you're stupid, to your face, almost as many times as I've told you I don't respect you."
"That's a very hurtful thing to say, when all I really want is to be just like you."
This time Slade stabbed him through the midsection and out the other side.
"ARGH! Ooo! Must…resist…iron in diet…jokes…"
"If the two of you could stop this delightful insight into the exact definition of the word dysfunction long enough for me to explain why you are both here."
"Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. It would really be a shame if I didn't have anyone to use all this shiny weaponry on."
Luthor pressed a button, activating the screens behind him. One showed a stately manor in Gotham, built in the gothic style that defined so much of that cities architecture. Another showed a huge man strapped to a table with tubes feeding directly into his bloodstream, a third a high class party somewhere.
Deadpool whistled, his quip about the fact that the remote only seemed to have one button that did everything dying on his lips. "Nice. You get Cinamax?"
Luthor shrugged. Cinamax, HBO, all the channels."
"Would you cut that out?" Slade asked, rolling his eye in exasperation. That was his little brothers effect. Even the most serious and stoic of people will become morons in his presence. He was immune himself, but that only made it worse. Because he had to put up with him all the time.
"Hey, if I had a buck for every time somebody said that, I wouldn't need this job."
"Well, if we could focus on that for a moment..."
"Of course Mr Luthor."
"Right. The man I want you to kill is Bruce Wayne. You all know who I mean, the billionaire philanthropist who continues to act like an adolescent playboy, and constantly makes a fool of himself on the tabloids. Hard to believe he won't see his forties much longer, he could be in his prime given his state of fitness, yet he's been injured more then any prize fighter. An incongruity I couldn't help but notice." Luthor says. "I've had my attention on him in general and Gotham in particular for a while now. And with some experimental therapy, I've managed to recover certain memories Bane had lost."
He indicates the screen where the big man was restrained "And came to some very interesting conclusions. Bruce Wayne is more then he appears. I considered simply publicizing it, and letting Gotham's underworld deal with it's own problem, but I decided I want to make sure."
"Is there a job in there somewhere?"
"Go to Gotham. Kill him. Frame somebody, preferably one of his erstwhile allies." Luthor says, than hands them a check. A blank check. "You do that for me, and you can fill in any number you like up there."
"Kill Batman? I always knew I'd amount to something one day. Look at me mom!" He fell silent, because Slade stabbed him again.
