Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Honestly, the fact that it can get worse than what Todd’s already shared should be sign enough that Otto should be backing the heck away. And, admittedly, it took a lot in him to stay rooted in his position and not turn right around and go home and maybe stare at the wall blankly for a few hours. 

But he manages. Just like he always does. 

After all, Todd has to have something going for him. There’s no way he’s completely in the wrong here. Sure, everything he’s said so far is pretty bad, but… he believes in his partner. Todd isn’t a bad guy. There’s got to be some redeeming factor.

Otto clicks his tongue, jerking his head at the picture of Liv on the screen. “So, uh… How did we get from there to this point?”

Todd frowns. “I, uh…” He sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Okay, um, I recognize that this kind of speaks for itself, but I don’t…”

Otto blinks. “You don’t… what?”

Todd sighs harshly. “I don’t know what happens,” he spits. “I don’t. I wasn’t in the precinct at all. I don’t know what happened to her until the very end.”

Oh, come on. 

“Todd,” Otto groans, burying his head in his hands. “You are making it so hard for me to stay on your side.”

Todd holds up his hands in surrender. “Hey, trust me, I know!” He cries. “Nobody said you had to be on my side for any of this! You heard Oscar, the entire precinct isn’t!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to!” Otto responds, growing more and more distraught. “None of this seems in character for you, so, you know, I’m sorry for giving you the benefit of the doubt!”

Todd laces a hand through his hair, tugging at it slightly. The white streak flops over his forehead. “Otto,” he laughs, though his horrified expression doesn’t convey any joy at all. “All of this is more ‘in character’ than I’ve been this past year.”

Otto plugs his ears. “No, no, no, LALALA, I can’t hear you!” He shouts. “Todd, do not make this worse for yourself! I'm already mad at you about the picnic, stop pushing me!”

Todd flushes a bright red, before turning away. “That’s… yikes, the picnic.”

“Yeah, yikes indeed,” Otto snaps. “You’re already on thin ice, and now you’re stomping on it. So can you just… get on with it?”

“I already told you, I don’t—”

“Hey guys.”

Otto and Todd scream, taking a step back. 

Oscar is standing there, looking pretty solemn. Even the typically cheerful greeting was less enthusiastic than usual. With a glance at the screen, which still displayed a picture of Liv scowling at the picnic, he makes a weird, pained expression. 

“Oh, man,” he mutters, taking a deep breath in. “Olive, what have you done?” He’s looking straight at her streaked hair.

“What are you doing here?” Todd sniffs, crossing his arms. 

Oscar shrugs. “Well, I figured you’d start having a bit of trouble telling the story about halfway through it,” he says pointedly, stepping up to the terminal’s podium. “Unlike you, I was actually at the precinct when most of it happened, so, if Otto wants the full story then…”

“I think I’m fine telling it by mysel—”

“I want the full story,” Otto says quickly. Todd glances at him, scandalized. 

“Otto!” He protests. 

Otto crosses his arms. “I just think I’ll get a more accurate story if I get multiple points of view,”  he explains. “Don’t get me wrong, Todd, I trust you, but… I’m a little bit on edge right now, you know?”

Todd stares at him, his expression conflicted. After a few seconds, he sighs roughly, dragging a hand down his face. 

“Fine,” he growls, standing off to the side. “This’ll probably be my first time hearing about a lot of this too.”

Otto stares at Todd, incredulous. “That’s… not good. Like, at all.”

“Oh, whatever,” Todd snaps, much more callously than Otto would have ever expected. “Take it away, Oscar.” 

Oscar, who had been watching the exchange with slightly narrowed eyes, nods. He steps forward and takes control of the podium, switching the image from the Liv Otto knew to a poorly taken photo of a vaguely girl-shaped figure sleeping at Otto’s desk. 

Todd winces. 

“Things started getting really bad about three months in,” Oscar starts, his voice sounding a little bit sad. “She tried to hide it, but… things were really starting to have a visible effect on her.”

When Oscar clocks into work on Monday, Olive is still there, writing. 

That wasn’t a surprise. It’d stopped being a surprise for a long, long time now. To his absolute horror, Oscar was realizing that Olive had stopped being like an actual alive person and started becoming something more like… the furniture. Like a lamp, or a stool. 

Man, that’s depressing. 

She has her hair completely down, and the once-graceful waves have fallen into complete disarray, frizzing at the ends and sticking up in every direction. Her blazer has been shrugged off and draped over Todd’s vacant seat, and her tie is slipping off, the top button of her dress shirt undone. She looks like a mess. 

Olive’s desk, as usual, is absolutely covered in documents and reports. The size of the pile is genuinely unfathomable. There are several empty cans of energy drinks next to her, as well as a couple of granola bar wrappers. Todd’s desk is entirely covered in various empty wrappers, bags, and juice boxes. Eating full meals at the bullpen isn’t allowed because of the chance food could get on and damage the computers, so it looked like Olive’d just been surviving on snacks and pure determination. 

Oscar will never understand why she’s still doing this. 

But there’s something else on her desk that looks slightly out of place in the mess of papers and trash. There’s… a plant. A tomato plant, in a cute ceramic pot, right behind the pencil holders. It looks pretty big, about half a meter tall, with reddening cherry tomatoes growing on the vine. Right in front of the pot was something in a beaker that looked to be glowing slightly. 

Oscar stares at it. That wasn’t there before. 

“Morning, Olive,” Oscar says, jogging over to her desk. Olive blinks, saturnine, before she glances up. Her eyes are slightly unfocused. 

“Oh,” she croaks weakly. “Morning, Oscar. Is it Monday already?”

Oscar’s stomach twists with guilt. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it. “Yeah,” he says, checking his watch. “It’s 8 in the morning. Do you want me to grab you some cereal from the cafeteria?”

“It’s alright,” Olive says, halfway through a yawn. “Got something from Oksana earlier. Food isn’t allowed in the bullpen either way. I’m already pushing it.” 

“I’m sure Ms. O can make an exception,” Oscar says, frowning, “Were you in here all weekend?”

“I took a walk on Sunday,” Olive says, instead of yes or no. Right, so she has been here all week. 

Oscar runs a hand through his afro. Man, he really needed to change that hairstyle. “Olive,” he urges, leaning over. “You need to take more breaks. You can’t keep working on this forever.”

Olive blinks, before she suddenly glances up, with a movement swifter than Oscar’s seen in weeks. “Oh,” she says, reaching for the beaker on her desk. “Wait, I don’t think I’ve told you. I have been taking breaks, actually,” she says with a grin. 

Moderately surprised, Oscar scratches the back of his neck. “Oh. That’s great!”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” Olive says with a tired smile. "Don’t… don’t tell anyone, I don’t think this is allowed at all, but… you know how I interrogated Evil Landscaper on Friday?”

Oscar blinks. “Um, yeah?”

“Well, I’ve interrogated him so much that I’m pretty sure he thinks we’re friends now,” Olive says with a small smile, plucking a tomato off the plant on her desk and popping it into her mouth. “He invited me out for lunch with his friends on Saturday!” She says this with her mouth half full.

Oscar grimaces, taking a small step back. “Lunch? With villains?”

Olive shrugs. “Well, not technically,” she says. “I mean, they’re not on the clock on weekends, so it was basically having lunch with civilians, you know?”

Oscar still isn’t convinced. “I don’t know about that…”

Olive shrugs. “I know it’s wrong,” she says. “But isn’t this an awesome way to gain intel? Learn about their patterns? I could be an undercover agent!” She beams, clasping her hands together. “It’s so interesting how they operate… I didn’t even know they had a villain apartment just for themselves until a few days ago!”

Oscar so badly wants to tell her how this was definitely against Squad policy and how she could get in huge trouble for this. It has to violate at least three rules in the Agent Handbook, not to mention how mad Ms. O would be if she found out.

But…

“Shapeshifter is such a bore sometimes, but now I know that her weakness is spicy foods… and Noisemaker is a huge public disturbance, but he’s kinda funny.” She rattles on with a smile, giggling quietly. “The dynamic between all of them is very fun to watch.”

She’s smiling. 

Oscar hasn’t seen her smile in a very, very long time. 

So he keeps his mouth shut. 

“That’s nice,” he says as carefully as he can manage, trying as hard as he can to make sure none of his disapproval comes across. “Where’d you get that plant from?”

Olive beams. Despite himself, Oscar is happy to see her so lighthearted for once. She really hasn’t been like this in months. 

“It was a gift from Kyle!” She says, tapping the ceramic. “Oh! Evil Landscaper, his name’s Kyle,” she says. “He also gave me this growth serum for when I run out of tomatoes so they grow back instantly,” she continues, gesturing at the beaker of glowing fluid. 

Oscar frowns. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

Nodding, Olive rummages through the pile of papers on her left and pulls out a slightly crinkled A4 sheet of paper, handing it to Oscar. “I really hope you don’t mind, but I ran some tests on it over the weekend to make sure he wasn’t trying to control me or poison me,” she explains. “I had to use some of your equipment for it. Sorry, I should’ve asked.”

Oscar runs over the report, frowning. Everything seemed in check. The chemical analysis of the solution was interesting, he’d need to bring it over to the lab boys for them to examine it deeper later. “No, it’s alright, it wouldn’t be fair for you to wait all the way until Monday,” Oscar says. “How’d you figure out how to use the equipment?”

Olive shrugs, taking back the paper. “Once you do this much paperwork, literally everything else starts seeming less like a job and more like a game.”

Oscar blinks. “The passwords, though?”

With a quiet snort, Olive props her hands on her desk. “You might want to consider changing all your codes from ‘password1234’ to something else.”

Oscar grimaces. “It’s… it’s not that obvious, is it?”

“It’s a little bit obvious.”

Oscar gasps, several puzzle pieces suddenly clicking in his head. “Is that how people have been getting into my secret stash of snacks?” He cries. He blinks, before he stares at Olive’s desk. Wait a minute… none of those granola bars were available at the cafeteria…

Olive, who has a new, unopened granola bar in her hand, lets out a nervous giggle once she realizes what he’s looking at. 

“Olive!” Oscar cries, exasperated. He snatches the granola bar out of her hand. 

“I’m sorry!” She protests, laughing. “I’ll get you back, I swear.”

“You better! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find those? They only sell them at one location, and it’s in Attawapiskat!”

“They’re delicious.”

“Yeah, that’s the point!”

Olive laughs, and Oscar notices that she has a dimple on her left cheek when she smiles. It’s at that moment that he realizes he hasn’t seen it in so long that he actually forgot it was ever there. 

“You know,” he says, handing Olive the granola bar. “Just ask, next time, and I’ll pick some up for you on my next run.”

Olive smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners. It really feels like before, when Todd was still around and things were less depressing. “Thanks, Oscar.”

It hurts to think, but… maybe these villains were good for Olive. Maybe this was what she needed. 

“I have some wet labs to do soon,” Oscar says. “So I might need to go. Um, if you don’t mind, could I take the report you have of the chemical Evil Landscaper gave you? It could be useful for later.”

Olive blinks, something briefly flashing across her expression, before she nods. “Oh, sure. Here.”

She grabs a paper from the pile on her desk, handing it to Oscar. He beams at her. “Thanks, Olive! See you!”

“No problem, Oscar.”

Oscar waves at her, walking back towards the lab. As he walks, he scans the paper one more time, going over the details.

He stops at the chemical analysis, though. There’s something off about it. He swears he remembers it being drastically different the first time he read through the form. Confused, he turns the paper around, scanning the backside. Nothing suspicious, just a lab report. 

But the formula isn’t matching up. Oscar forgets a lot of things, but he never forgets a chemical formula. 

He blinks, as if it’ll clear everything up. It doesn’t.

Olive wouldn’t have given him the wrong form, right? Why in the world would she do that?

It was probably his mind playing tricks on him.

“Hey, Oxide,” Oscar calls. Oxide pokes his head out from behind the corridors. His hair is extra frizzy and slightly singed, with one lock of it on fire. The work day literally just started, so Oscar honestly has no clue what he could be doing in there to warrant any of that. Oscar gestures at his own hair, and Oxide pats out the flame without batting an eye.

“What?”

Handing him the form on his way in, Oscar heads into the corridors. “Can you run a check on this later?” he says. “The original sample is on Agent Olive’s desk, in the beaker in front of the plant. She got it from a shady source and I want to make sure it’s safe.”

Oxide takes a glance at the paper, scanning over the section that lists out all the chemical components. “This is all gibberish,” he says, turning the page over. “Is this forged?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Oscar sighs, “But I wasn’t sure. Olive should fall asleep in a few hours. Grab a sample when you can, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” Oscar sighs. 

Whatever was happening, Oscar really hoped Olive knew what she was doing.

“So Liv—Olive—was talking to villains?” Otto says with a frown. “But that’s, like, totally against code.”

“Right?” Todd snaps. “That’s what I’ve been saying! It was a dumb decision, and everything could’ve been totally avoided if—”

“If I were in her position, I would’ve done the exact same,” Oscar interrupts with a scowl. “I actually think she was nice about it. Way nicer than I would’ve been.”

“You think that was nice?!” Todd snaps. “Did some screws come loose when that gadget zapped you or what?”

“WOAH, guys,” Otto interrupts, stepping between the two of them. He holds up his arms, glancing between the other agents, trying not to show the fact that he’s pretty freaking terrified at their fuming. “Can we just… continue on with the story?”

“Of course,” Todd says snottily, crossing his arms. “How about I summarize it in a less dramatized soap-opera fashion?”

“Soap opera?” Oscar cries.

Todd snorts bitterly. “You know what I remember?”

Todd walks back into the precinct, preparing to do his monthly check-in. He has a few new gifts for Olive. 

When he walks inside, the bullpen is absolutely full of villains. Like, there are more villains than agents. And the room is completely empty.

Olive is right in the middle of it all, talking with one of the villains, a dumb little smile on her face. Suddenly, she notices Todd, the grin immediately crumbling. 

“You,” she growls, taking a step forward. Oscar, who’s right beside her, holds up a hand.

“Olive, wait—”

“You know what? Ignore everything we just said,” Olive calls to the villains. She points directly at Todd. “ATTACK!”

Several of the villains let out a battle cry, before unleashing chaos upon headquarters.

“That is NOT what happened, first of all,” Oscar protests. “And there was so much more to it than that. You think she just—invited every villain in town to the precinct to camp out and wait for you to come back to attack you?”

“That’s what I remember, and yes,” Todd says with a sneer. “That is exactly what I think happened.”

“Oh my God,” Oscar says, exasperated. He runs a hand through his hair. “And I thought you were getting better. Have you seriously not even considered—”

“What is there to ‘consider’, Oscar?” Todd enunciates ‘consider’ with air quotes, smiling disparagingly. “That’s exactly what it was! She led a squadron of villains right into HQ, and it set us all back years in casework!”

“But you know perfectly well why she did that! Haven’t you—”

“—But it doesn’t matter why she did it, it matters what happened after she did—”

“—Stop being so sanctimonious! You’re not—”

“—Oh, using big boy words now, are we—”

“STOP!”

Oscar and Todd reel back. Otto is tugging at his hair, staring at the two of them. Never, ever, ever in his career has he ever seen them this aggressive. Sure, they were quick to argue, but it was never this bad! Otto was trying to figure out what was going on, and since neither of them seemed mature enough to actually get the point across, his impatience was getting the better of him.

He points to the door. “If you two keep this up, I’m walking right out of the precinct and asking Liv to tell me instead,” he hisses. 

“Do NOT do that,” Todd snaps. Oscar nods frantically in agreement. 

“Then just—just tell me what’s going on! Stop arguing! It’s not helping anyone!” He massages his forehead, turning away to stare at the screen. “Jeez, I can’t believe I have to be the mature one for once.”

Todd looks off to the side.

Oscar nods sheepishly. “Sorry, Otto. I’ll take it from here, until we get to the part where you,” he turns to Todd with a slightly disapproving look, “Come back.”

Todd shrugs, crossing his arms. “Sure, whatever. Take it away, soap opera boy.”

“I’m not—ugh, whatever. Anyways, I thought—or, well, I hoped—that maybe it was just a passing thing. Maybe she’d come to her senses and realize that hanging out with villains so much wouldn’t be good for her. But as time went on, things only got worse.”

He sighs, adjusting his glasses. “She’d always be on her phone…”

A snort sounds from the bullpen. Oscar looks up from his tinkering to see Olive, laughing into her badge phone, with her legs propped up on her desk. The pencil she used to fill things out—now just barely a stub—was tucked behind her ear. A bunch of papers lay on the ground, discarded. 

“Don’t say that!” She giggles. “Jamie, that’s so mean!”

She falls silent, before ‘Jamie’ on the other end assumedly says something else. Flabbergasted, she slaps a hand to her mouth.

“Jamie!” She gasps, mouth agape, even though a laugh was laced into her tone. 

Oscar narrows his eyes. ‘Jamie’ isn’t an O name. Olive wasn’t talking to anyone on the Squad, which… wasn’t allowed for calls on a badge phone.

He sets down his gadget and heads towards Olive’s desk. Olive’s eyes go wide.

“Oh, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later!”

Hurriedly, she snaps her phone shut. Oscar jogs towards her desk, pretending not to notice. 

“Hey, Olive,” he says, gesturing towards his lab. “Can you help me out with something real quick?”

Olive’s expression is a teeny tiny bit annoyed, a stark contrast to how happy she looked just a few seconds ago. Which is incredibly strange, since Olive’s favourite parts of the day are when she’s pulled out on errands by Oscar and various other agents. 

“Oh, sure,” she says, smiling. It’s a little too tight to be genuine.

“Thanks!” Oscar says. He glances back at her. “Who were you talking to back there?”

For some reason, Olive blanches. “Oh, uh, nobody.”

Oscar is a little bit ahead of Olive, so she can’t see his face. He presses his lips into a thin line. “Okay!” 

His lighthearted tone doesn’t match the face he’s making.

“She’d randomly take gadgets and other things that she wouldn’t have needed, since she wasn’t on the field.”

“Hey,” Otto interrupts, crossing his arms. “I do that sometimes too.”

“Right,” Oscar responds. “But you don’t steal them. That’s what she did sometimes.”

"Oscar,” Orchid moans, poking her head into the lab. “Do you have an extra jar of werewolf fur? Someone stole mine, and I don’t know who it is.” She cracks her knuckles, scowling. “Whoever they are, when I find them, they’re going to pay.”

Oscar frowns. “Um, I don’t think I do,” he says, thinking. “Maybe Dr. O does? Go and ask her, ma—”

“Hi, Oscar! Hi, Orchid!” Olive pops into the lab, a wide, nervous smile on her face. Her hair is tied up again, though messily, and it looks like it’s going to be a disaster to untangle. “Sorry, let me just squeeze right past you here…”

She slips past the two of them and beelines right for the corkboard where several gadgets were hung up. Reaching for the gadget hung on the top—the toast-inator—she struggles for a second, before jumping up and snatching it. 

“I’m just going to borrow this for a bit, okay? Thanks, Oscar! I’ll fill out the signout sheet once I’m done with today's work.”

She squeezes past the two of them again, but in her haste, accidentally bumps into Oscar. He blinks, furrowing his brow.

Orchid raises an eyebrow, staring at Olive as she scurries past her desk and down one of the hallways. 

“That was weird,” she says. 

Oscar looks down at his lab coat, at where Olive had accidentally brushed against him when she’d left the lab. A tuft of brown fur stands out against the stark white of his coat. Before Orchid can spot it, he brushes it off. 

“Yeah.”

“But I think the worst thing was that as time went on, she started to get… how do I put this?”

He pushes up his glasses, frowning.

“She got happier. But the happier she got, she also got more distant. Like she stopped caring about a lot of things she used to care about.”

When Oscar clocks into work on Monday, something about the precinct seems… different. Emptier. He can’t put his finger on it, but something about the scene has something missing. Like if the girl with a pearl earring suddenly had bare ears.  

It takes him far too long to realize that it’s different because Olive isn’t at her desk. 

He blinks, squinting at the sight of the empty chair. It was frightening how foreign it was, honestly. Oscar really doesn’t remember the last time he’s walked into HQ and not seen Olive working. It was as natural as the giant insignia on the floor, or the double staircase, or the ball pit. 

But she isn’t here today. Huh. 

Come to think of it, the desk looks a lot emptier than usual. Cleaner, too. There’s still mounds of paperwork, sure, but like… a reasonable amount, not the colossal stacks that would slump over to Todd’s desk as well. Just a few dozen pages, ordered in neat stacks. The tomato plant has grown much bigger, and was moved to a wider porcelain pot with a bear painted on the outside. Bright red fruit hung on the vines.

The serum, which appeared to have been recently refilled, was still sitting in front of it. 

The fact that Oscar can even make out anything on Olive’s desk is a miracle. Or maybe a warning sign? He can’t really tell. Maybe Olive had just… managed to get through all of the documents? That didn’t make sense, though, since she’d been working less and less recently. 

Okay, yeah, something is very wrong. 

The door opens behind him, and Olive walks in, yawning. She’s not in her blazer at all today, and her badge isn’t on her chest. Her tie is neatly done for once, and her hair is down, as usual, but it’s combed in a way that has her curls looking elegant instead of unruly. Her side part doesn't fall over her eyes for once. 

As she’s been doing increasingly often recently, she’s talking on the phone. She’s also holding a sub sandwich, taking huge bites out of it while walking into the bullpen. So she’s talking and eating at the same time, which is kinda gross. Which wasn't a word Oscar ever knew he'd use to describe Olive, of all people.

“Right, yeah,” she says into the phone, taking a bite. “RIGHT? My gosh, is it even worth it anymore? I swear, if I see him again—”

“Morning, Olive!” Oscar calls, waving. 

Olive glances at him, her face blank, before she holds up a hand, signaling for him to wait. Oscar frowns. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Olive walks right past him and sits down at her desk, setting the sandwich down. A couple of the crumbs break off and fall onto the tabletop. “No, yeah, that’s what I’m saying! Just, you know, hold off on it a bit, okay? The more you do, the more work for me there is in the long run, y’know?”

Who is she talking to?

Olive rolls back in her chair and kicks her legs on her desk, in a way that she always used to side-eye other agents for. “Oh, relax. I just don’t like doing paperwork. I’ve already been slacking because of you guys recently, don’t make it worse. I have so much left to do.”

Silence for a second. Olive’s expression twists, her light demeanor crumpling as the person on the other end obviously says something that upsets her. She sits back upright, kicking her legs off the desk. “Don’t… don’t say that.”

Another, slightly longer silence. This time it’s because Olive looks to be thinking of what to say. 

“Yeah. He’s still my partner, even after everything. I appreciate it, though.”

Silence.

“Right. Thanks, Bruce. See you for lunch.” She takes the phone off her ear and pins it back to her chest, directly to her dress shirt since she’s missing her blazer. With a sideways glance at Oscar, she quirks up an eyebrow. “Did you need something?”

Oscar wilts a little bit. Olive always said hi to him in the mornings, that was their whole thing, since they were always the first ones in. “No, I was just saying hi.”

“Right,” Olive says distantly. “Sorry, Oscar, I’ve got a lot of work to get done.” She picks up her sandwich and takes a bite. A drop of sauce gets onto the keyboard of her computer. 

“Um, Olive,” Oscar says with a frown. “Food isn’t—”

“—Allowed in the bullpen, I know,” Olive finishes unenthusiastically. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up before Ms. O gets here. She won't know a thing.”

Oscar blinks.

“Okay!” He tries to say enthusiastically. It comes out a little flat. 

Olive doesn’t seem to notice. Or if she does, she doesn’t seem to care. She just keeps eating her sandwich. 

“That wasn’t the worst of it, though,” Oscar sighs. “Things got really bad when the other agents started picking up on things. And there was one agent in particular—you know the guy—who jumps at any opportunity to throw someone else under the bus.”

“Orchid,” Otto gasps. 

Oscar raises an eyebrow. “No, the other one.”

Otto frowns. “O’Brian?”

Todd growls. “Hate that guy.”

Shaking his head, Oscar continues frowning. “No, the other other one.”

Taking a second to think, Otto snaps his fingers. “Todd!”

“WHAT?!” Todd snaps. He stares at Otto, scandalized. “OTTO!”

“It’s the truth!”

Oscar frowns. “I’m starting to realize that we don’t have a lot of nice agents in our precinct.”

Slightly offended, Otto crosses his arms. “I’m nice!”

“I don’t know,” Todd muses, stroking his chin. “You’ve been kind of pushing it recently.”

Otto smacks him on the shoulder. “You have NO room to talk.” He gasps suddenly, making the ‘I see’ gesture with his pointer finger up. “It’s Oren, isn’t it!”

Oscar nods. “Yep. Oren never liked Olive, and vice versa. Besides Todd, the two of them were the only ones who could give each other runs for each others’ money.”

“There’s also the fact that the two of them hated each other in the Academy,” Todd supplies. 

Oscar blinks. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

With a small nod, Todd continues. “Oren was in a lot of our classes. He kept trying to cheat off Olive and would never do his part in group projects. Plus, he was an absolute jerk. They fought a lot.”

“Did he like you?” Oscar asks. 

Todd blinks, raising an eyebrow. “What do you think, genius?” 

“He doesn't,” Otto whispers helpfully. 

“Right, that makes sense,” Oscar muses. “Because he was the first one to report Todd to Ms. O.”

“Okay,” Otto says, taking a breath in through his teeth. “I was wondering when that was going to happen in the story. But seriously? Oren? He was the first one?”

With a sigh, Oscar nods. “I think it's a little embarrassing that Oren stepped up before anyone else did, but… you know him. He's stubborn, but his heart's in the right place. Or whatever he has in place of a heart, I guess.”

“Loving the implications here,” Todd mutters bitterly. 

“Did he do it because Todd was solving too many cases?” 

Surprisingly, Oscar shakes his head. “You won’t believe it, but Oren actually didn’t do it to get Todd fired,” he says. “He did it out of a place of—well, it’s kind of hard to tell what he was really feeling, since it’s Oren we’re talking about—but from what I can gather, it was almost like he did it because he was worried about Olive.”

Todd and Otto stare at Oscar like he’s grown a second head. “What?” the two of them say in tandem, drawing out the ‘a’.

“Right, that was my reaction too! So, I was helping Ms. O out with something in her office, when…”

There's been a bit of an issue considering Ms. O's new personal mentee. Oscar and Ms. O are leaning over a laptop, trying to connect to the girl's tracker and figure out where she'd run off to. As sweet as she was, that girl was a runner. 

Typing frantically, Oscar squints, trying to connect to the backup tracker, since she’d ripped out the primary one. A blinking red light suddenly flashes onscreen. “There!” He says, pointing. “She's on her way to the zoo!”

“Right,” Ms. O says, before leaning over to the intercom. She presses a button, speaking into it. “Agent Octavia and Agent Oz, report to case 31-B immediately. Instructions are on your tablets.” She turns it off, before turning to Oscar, sighing. 

“She can't have gone far,” Oscar says reassuringly. “We'll find her.”

“I hope so,” Ms. O responds. 

Suddenly, the glass door to the Management office slides open. The two of them look up to see… Oren. 

“Agent Oren?” Ms. O says. “What are you doing here?” 

Oscar is surprised too. Oren is always content to slack off and hang out in the ball pit whenever he's not on duty, which, to be honest, is most of the time. He's not the type of guy to come up to Ms. O to ask her for work. 

Oren's face twists, and he brushes some dust off his blazer, coughing awkwardly. 

“Ms. O,” He starts, his voice weirdly strained, as if he'd rather be boiling his teeth in pickle juice than having this conversation. “Have you… noticed anything off about Agent Olive recently?”

Oscar and Ms. O share a glance. Oh. So it's about this. Oscar had been wondering when someone else would speak up about it. 

Ms. O wasn't an idiot. She knew about the situation between Todd and Olive, and had known about two weeks in. She'd tried stopping it, but Oscar had stopped her from doing anything, since Olive had been incredibly vocal about not wanting to ‘bother Todd’. None of them liked it very much, but from a legal standpoint, there wasn't anything either of them could do until Olive herself stepped up. 

For her own conscience, Ms. O kept saying things about how it was a ‘valuable lesson’ for Olive to learn, and that she’d ‘gain a lot of character’ from the experience in the long run. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Oscar knew it was eating herself up from the inside to watch one of her agents suffer like this for so long.

“It’s such a waste,” She kept on saying, whenever the topic came up. “She’s such a good agent.”

On Oscar’s side, it was even worse. He knew that there was definitely something he should be doing about the situation, technically violating the code or not, because Olive was his friend. Besides, at this point, doing nothing and not doing nothing both had horrible implications—report Todd, subject Olive to worse, more awkward confrontations, and risk forcing a falling out with her closest and only friend. Don’t report Todd, and let Olive continue hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing who-knows-what all day.

Both options were terrible. Once was brutal, and the other was insidious. Oscar didn’t know which one was the ‘right’ one. He’d never admit it, but he lost a lot of sleep over it.

Needless to say, it’s a sore topic for both of them.

Oren clears his throat, and Oscar snaps back to the conversation. Ms. O blinks slowly, carefully choosing her words.

“In what way?” She asks, slow and measured. 

Oren turns a bit red. And then green. He looks like he’s about to throw up on Ms. O’s nicely carpeted floor. A quiet squeaking noise that sounds a little bit like two pieces of metal grinding against each other starts up, and it takes Oscar a little bit too long to realize it’s coming from Oren. 

“Ms. O,” He says, wringing his hands. He looks away, staring at one of the paintings of Ms. O on the wall. “ToddhasbeenoutonthefieldforthreemonthsnowandOlive’sbeenatherdeskdoingallhiswork.”

Ms. O blinks. “What?”

Oren groans. “Todd, Agent Todd, has been out solving cases by himself for three whole months, Ms. O! All the documents are being done by Olive! She’s just—she’s just been at her desk the whole time, and she hides under it when she sees you coming!”

He looks up, and his expression is… weird. Something between anger and frustration and pity. “You have to do something about it!”

Ms. O blinks, frowning. “Oren,” she says, more gently than she usually would. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

“No!” Oren interrupts, and Ms. O glares at him, before he tenses up and hangs his head. “Sorry, Ms. O, it’s just—that’s not the worst part.” Glancing around the room and then into the hallway for eavesdroppers, he walks up to Ms. O and Oscar, leaning over and placing a hand next to his mouth."

“Olive is fraternizing with the enemy,” He whispers. “She’s talking to villains.”

Ms. O’s eyes fly wide open. Oscar’s heart skips a beat. With an incredibly dirty look at Oscar, Ms. O gestures for Oren to stand back up. 

‘You didn’t tell me about that part,’ she mouths at Oscar, who smiles sheepishly. Right, he’d… omitted that part from his reports. 

“How do you know?” Ms. O asks, looking back at Oren. Oren grimaces. 

“Um, okay, don’t fire me for this, but, uh…” He coughs into his elbow. “I was going to prank Olive by putting a bucket of slime goo above the door to the interrogation room she was in, but while I was propping the bucket up, I heard the conversation she was having with—I think it was Noisemaker?” He frowns, crossing his arms. “They’re having lunch together, Ms. O! With a bunch of other villains! Apparently they go out every Tuesday! I don’t know what’s happening to her, but this isn’t good!”

Ms. O sits up straight, nodding professionally. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she says again, this time more firmly. “Proper action will be taken.”

Oren blinks. “Wait. Is she going to, like, get fired?”

With a sideways glance at Oscar, Ms. O shakes her head. “I hope not, but I can’t know for sure. I’m going to need to talk to Agent Olive first. Is there—”

“Please don’t fire her,” Oren spits, screwing his eyes shut. He turns a little green again. “Please. She’s… listen. I don’t like Olive, and I don’t think I’ll ever like Olive, but she doesn’t deserve to get fired. She’s just… so miserable, but she still works. I don’t know how she does it.”

‘Yeah,’ Oscar thinks. ‘I don’t know how she does it either.’

“Agent Olive is one of my best agents,” Ms. O says with confidence. “I want her to stay just as much as you do.”

Oren bristles. “Okay, I didn’t say that—” 

“You’re dismissed, Oren.”

Oren freezes up, before he nods, and scurries out of the office. Once Ms. O is sure he’s out of earshot, she turns to Oscar, her expression clouding over. “You didn’t say anything about Olive talking to villains."

Oscar shifts nervously, adjusting his glasses. “Um, well…”

“That is IMPORTANT!” Ms. O snaps, slamming a fist into her desk. “It’s not some detail you can leave out of your reports! All of us could get into serious trouble if this gets out! God forbid Oren tells the Xs instead of me, and our entire precinct gets shut down for villainous affiliations!”

“I’m sorry!” Oscar squeaks, taking a step back and holding up his hands in surrender. “I know it’s important, it’s just—”

“Just what?” Ms. O growls. 

“She’s happier,” Oscar presses, desperately. “Ms. O, this really isn’t something you’d understand without seeing her every day. She used to—just—pass out on her work, and go days without talking to anybody at all. Trust me, just trust me when I say, even if she’s talking to villains now, this is an improvement.”

“She could be leaking confidential information,” Ms. O responds curtly. “She could be telling our deepest secrets to them, and none of us would know.”

“She wouldn’t,” Oscar says, taken aback. “This is Olive we’re talking about!”

Ms. O sighs, massaging her forehead. “Oscar, I’ve lived for much longer than you have,” She says, suddenly looking much older than she did a second ago. “I’ve seen many, many cases like this. I’m a firm believer that people can change for the better.”

Her eyes narrow. “But that also means that people can change for the worse.”

“This is Olive,” Oscar protests weakly. “She wouldn’t.”

“I don’t like it either, Oscar,” Ms. O says, turning to her intercom. “But it’s something we have to consider, no matter if we like it or not.” She presses a button on the microphone, leaning down to speak into it. “Agent 63, report to my office immediately.”

Badge number instead of the name. This is serious.

Well, obviously it’s serious, this is probably the biggest issue in the precinct at the moment. But hearing proof of it spoken out loud is a grave reminder. 

‘Olive, please, please, please deny everything,’ Oscar thinks. ‘It’ll make everything so much easier.’ 

After a few tense minutes of waiting, the glass door slides open, and a horribly nervous looking Olive walks in. Guilt paints her face, and her hands are shaking slightly. 

“Take a seat,” Ms. O says, her voice firm, but not unkind. Olive nods nervously, before pulling out one of the chairs in front of her desk and sitting on it. 

Oscar stares at Olive sympathetically, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. She doesn’t meet anybody’s eyes, actually. She stares at her own feet, looking like she’s about to cry. 

Before anybody can say anything, she breaks the silence herself. With a sudden, jerky movement, she twists off her badge, screws her eyes shut, and juts her hand out for Ms. O to take the piece of shimmering bronze. Ms. O blinks, surprised. 

“I’m a traitor to the Squad,” Olive squeaks. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.”

Oscar curses internally. 

“Woah,” Ms. O says, hardly able to keep the shock out of her voice. “Put your hand down, Agent.”

Olive shakes her head violently. “That’s what you called me here for, right?” She looks up, and to Oscar’s horror, her eyes are swimming with unshed tears. “To fire me? Because you found out I’m talking to the villains?” 

Oscar cringes. Ugh, Olive, why do you always have to be so straight to the point?

“Well, yes,” Ms. O says, gently reaching out and pushing Olive’s hand down. Her arm drops, and she stares blankly at one of the pencil holders on Ms. O’s desk, her expression haunted. “But no, I’m not going to fire you. I just want to know what you’ve been saying to them.”

“Why?!” Olive cries. “Why won’t you just fire me?! People have been fired for so much less, why won’t you—I should be, I should be put away for this, I should be locked up, I’m a liability, I—”

“Olive,” Ms. O interrupts. “Please.”

Olive looks up. Her hands are trembling violently. She falls silent.

Eventually, though, she gathers the strength to speak.

“I haven’t—I haven’t told them anything,” she whispers. “Not about the Squad’s information. They keep trying to get me to, but I can’t. I won’t.”

Ms. O nods, taking out a clipboard and a pen. “How do you talk to them? Over the phone? In person?” She’s talking about this as if she’s discussing the weather, or a particularly interesting tree, instead of Olive potentially betraying the Squad. Oscar marvels at how well Ms. O is keeping her cool right now. 

“Both,” Olive says. “They keep me company on the clock, and I meet up with them for breakfast or lunch sometimes.”

“Who?”

Olive frowns. “...A lot of them. Everyone who Todd’s solved a case on in the past few months.”

“That is…” Ms. O’s calm facade breaks for a second. “Everyone.”

Olive shrinks into herself. “Yeah.”

Ms. O scribbles something else on her notepad. Oscar peeks over, and it’s just notes on what next moves she could potentially take, as well as several notes to Dr. O. While she’s writing, Oscar looks at Olive, who averts eye contact. 

Oh, no, what if Olive thinks he was the one who told on her?

As if reading both of their minds, Ms. O suddenly speaks up. “It wasn’t Oscar,” she says, flipping to another page in her notebook and continuing her writing. She shoots a pointed look at Oscar. “Even though he did know, and decided to withhold the information from me for who-knows-how-long.”

Oscar rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly. 

Olive blinks in surprise. “Who was it, then?”

Despite herself, Ms. O smiles. “Confidential. But you’ll never guess who it was.”

“It surprised me too,” Oscar chuckles awkwardly. 

Recognizing the attempt at humor, Olive relaxes slightly. 

Ms. O tears out a page in her notebook, handing it to Olive. “You’re not getting fired,” She says. “But you’re going to mandatory counseling with Dr. O, twice a week.”

Olive gingerly plucks the sheet of paper from her hands, staring at it like it’s a bomb about to go off. 

“From now on,” Ms. O says firmly, “You will no longer be doing interrogations one-on-one with villains. No more calling them, no more meeting up with them, no more talking to them at all. I won’t take your badge, but I trust you to only use it when you need to.”

Olive visibly wilts, but she nods. 

“We also need to tell Todd.”

“NO!”

Olive surges up, her hand inadvertently clenching into a fist. The paper in her hand wrinkles up, and her expression, having been almost calm, morphs into one of utter terror. Ms. O doesn’t flinch, just looks at her with something like pity flicking beneath her expression. 

“Don’t tell him,” Olive pleads, her expression raw and open. “Please. Please, don’t tell him. He’s going to be so mad at me.” Her voice tapers down into a whisper. “I haven’t seen him in ages. I don’t want the first news he hears in weeks to be that his partner’s become a villain sympathizer.”

She shudders. “He’ll never forgive me.”

“Olive,” Ms. O starts. “Half of this is Todd’s fault. He should’ve never left you alone for all this time.”

Olive looks up, horrified. “You knew?”

“I know what goes on in my own precinct, Olive,” Ms. O says sadly. “You can lie and hide things from me all you want, but don’t assume I’m blind.”

With a shaky exhale, Olive slumps down in her chair.

“Todd will be facing serious repercussions,” Ms. O continues. “Including suspension, and confinement to desk-duty for a while. You’ll be the agent going on the field.”

Olive’s face scrunches up. “No,” she moans, burying her head in her hands. “No, no, no, don’t…”

“Why are you so against this?” Oscar finally gathers the courage to speak. “You’re miserable at your desk.”

“Well, yeah!” Olive cries. She runs a hand through her hair. “But it’s—I don’t need to deal with Todd, when I’m alone.” Unable to string together the words, she just groans weakly and drags a hand down her face. “I just—he’s… I don’t know. I don’t even think I’ll be able to do cases properly anymore. I hardly have any use outside of interrogations and desk-duty anyways.”

“Olive, that’s not—”

“Oscar,” Olive interrupts with a wry smile. “It’s fine. You don’t need to patronize me. I’m bad at math, my athletics have gotten horrible recently, and I can barely even socialize anymore. I’m fine at my desk. Really.”

Ms. O frowns. “None of that is true in the slightest.”

Olive just shakes her head. “Ms. O, I’m being serious,” she says, determined. Oscar sees the fear peeking out through the cracks in her expression, though. “Please, please, please, don’t tell Todd. I’ll…”

She sighs.

“I’ll do it myself when the time comes. I want to be the one to do it.”

That seems to strike a chord with Ms. O.

With a conflicted expression, Ms. O stares Olive down, and the two of them hold each others’ gazes for what feels like an eternity. Eventually, Ms. O sighs, adjusting her necklace.

“So be it,” she mutters. Her gentle demeanor dissolves. “You’re free to go, Agent Olive. Don’t forget anything I said today. There will be more serious repercussions than counseling if any of this behavior continues.”

Olive nods, relief flooding through her figure. “Thank you, Ms. O.”

Ms. O waves a hand, and Olive turns around and practically bolts out of the office. 

Oscar glances at Ms. O, who’s staring at her notebook. “Was that a good idea? To just… let her go like that?”

“Absolutely not,” Ms. O sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That was the second worst decision I’ve ever made in my entire career.”

Oscar blinks. “What was the worst decision you’ve ever made?”

“Letting you think you have the right to hide things from me,” Ms. O growls. She slams a fist against her desk, surging up. Oscar takes a terrified step back. “AGENT FIFTY-SIX, OSCAR SEBASTIAN COLLINS, THE GALL YOU HAVE TO THINK YOU—”

“Okay, I don’t think you guys want me to continue beyond that point,” Oscar finishes, shuddering. “I don’t think I want myself to continue beyond that point either, actually.”

“She didn’t—” Todd lets out a frustrated cry, doubling over the podium. He slams a fist into the top of it repeatedly, before he gets back up, tugging at his hair and glaring at the picture of Liv on the wall. “OLIVE, YOU IDIOT!"

“Why would she just go back to doing paperwork?” Otto asks, utterly confused. “She got the chance to walk out of it clean! Why did she go back?”

Oscar sighs, taking his glasses off and wiping them on his lab coat. “She was scared,” he says. “That everything Todd implied about her was right. Even though she didn’t do much as a desk agent, she was at least good at what she did. If she filled something out wrong, she had an excuse that she was tired, or that it was just an honest mistake.”

He puts his glasses back on, and Otto notices that Todd’s face is draining of all its blood. “If she went back into the field and got something wrong there, it would be ‘proof’ that she wasn't good enough. That she’d prove everyone wrong that staying at her desk was a ‘waste of good potential’. A lot of her self-worth was tied to that.”

“She was being a martyr,” Todd snaps. 

“She was insecure!” Oscar bites back. 

“She never used to be!” Todd growls. “In the academy, she knew what she was worth. Even if she wasn’t the best, she was fine with that! That’s what I liked about her!” He screams again, stomping the floor. “Olive, come on! You’re better than that!”

“Todd,” Otto suddenly says. His brow knits together, and he tugs at the edge of his sleeve, feeling slightly nauseous.

Todd looks away from the screen and glances at Otto. “What?”

“If you left me to do all your paperwork for three months,” Otto continues, looking up to meet Todd’s eyes. “And I got more and more scared that the longer I stayed in the precinct, the worse of an agent I’d become… would you call me a martyr?”

Todd balks. “What? No!”

Otto blinks. “Then what’s so different about Liv?”

Todd opens his mouth, but falls silent. Oscar wrings his hands. Otto waits patiently for a response. 

“I wouldn’t leave you to do all my paperwork,” Todd says instead of answering the question. 

Disappointed, Otto looks away. “Right,” he mutters. “What was going on with you as this was happening?”

Almost inadvertently, Todd’s hand shoots up to toy with his whitestreak. 

“I’m going to be fully honest,” Todd sighs, “I wasn’t doing much better than Olive.”

Todd is bored.

That’s the horrifying reality he’s in. He’s bored. He’s sick and tired of solving cases. It’s not a challenge anymore, it’s become trite and banal and all the same, same, same. Every villain he encountered reused a pattern that he’d solved ages ago with another one. Skip counting, shapes, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, he’s seen it all. 

He’d learned things that nobody dared to use. Exponents. Logarithms. Trigonometric identities. He started on derivatives last week. He’d tried to teach the villains how to use them, to try to make things more challenging, more fun. They all stared at him as if he were speaking in tongues. 

And things stayed the same. 

Wake up. Solve cases. Send reports. Go to sleep. Wake up. Solve cases. Send reports. Go to sleep. Ad nauseum, ad nauseum, ad nauseum. 

He’s going to go insane.

“YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME THIS TIME, ODD SQUAD!” A villain, a dark-skinned man in a leather jacket who looked very lightning themed was shrieking at him. Without even looking up, Todd hits him with the net-inator. “Oh man, you caught me this time, Odd Squad.”

But Todd doesn’t have his eyes on the villain. No, he has his eyes on something else. 

His gloves.

There was a mechanism on the palms that allowed for the villain to channel lightning out of them. How in the world did they work without shocking the man himself? Did he have a natural immunity? Did the power come from him, or the gloves?

Come to think of it, how did most of the villains even cause oddness in the first place? Were they born with it? Or did they learn how to do it by developing their own technologies?

For the first time in a while, Todd is interested. 

He walks up to the villain’s writhing body, before crouching down and pinching one of the fingers of his glove.

“Hey! What are you—”

He pulls it off his hand. 

“MY GLOVE! GIVE IT BACK, YOU LITTLE—”

Todd stands up, staring at it. It’s made of black leather, but there are lightning bolts decorating the knuckles. He turns it around, and sees the contraption that he assumes concentrates the lightning to a single, controllable point.

Todd leaves.

“HEY! WAIT! DON’T JUST LEAVE ME HERE, GIVE ME BACK MY GLOVE!”

He slips it into hammerspace and takes the tubes back home. Maybe he should try reverse engineering it.

Fascinating.

Todd scratches his head. “Um, yeah, so, I had a bit of an inventor phase,” he says with a strained smile. “So what?”

Oscar blinks. “Todd, that is so illegal.”

Todd holds his hand up in surrender. “I’m just saying, how come you get to have all the fun? Is it really wrong for me to want to make some cool gadgets sometimes too?”

“First of all, yes it is,” Oscar snaps. “Second of all, taking villain technologies and reverse engineering them?” Oscar retorts. “That’s wrong!”

Todd rolls his eyes. “Everything I do is wrong according to you,” he hisses. “I was bored. I made some gadgets. It wasn’t like I tormented anyone with them anyways, I hardly even used the ones I made. I just made them for the sake of making them.” He crosses his arms, sniffing in distaste. “Everyone I did torment deserved it."

Oscar and Otto look at him in horror. But Todd just… keeps monologuing.  

“If anything, you should be thanking me! You don’t even know the ideas I was having back then. The fact that the precinct is still in one piece is a testament to my self-restraint.”

Otto stares at Todd in horror. Todd suddenly stops, realizing what he’d just said. He clears his throat. 

“I’m, uh, not like that anymore, though,” he says hastily, shaking his hands in a ‘no’ gesture. “It was a while ago. I’ve gotten better.”

Otto walks to one of Security’s rolling chairs, flopping into it. He buries his head in his hands. 

“Are you okay?” Oscar asks quietly.

He feels like throwing up. He’s tired. He’s hungry. He’s thirsty. He wants to go home. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to look Todd in the eye after this.

“Yeah,” Otto croaks. “Just… just finish the story.”

Oscar nods, not prying any further. “Do you want to tell this part together?” He asks Todd, who shifts awkwardly.

“Sure.”

“Everyone in the precinct knew that one day, the other shoe was going to drop,” Oscar sighs. “It hung in the air, every single day. Olive went right back to being miserable. Todd stopped appearing at the precinct altogether. It’s like… like balancing a coin on the thin side. Sure, it’ll hold, but if someone as much as breathes on it, it’ll fall right over.”

Todd looks off to his side. “I think I was the catalyst for that.”

“No kidding. You timed it on the worst possible day. too.”

Today is Olive’s birthday.

Oscar is trying to figure out what to get her. He has a few gadgets in front of him—basketball-inator, jersey-inator, random-sport-inator, but he can’t really decide on what to use. He’s about to reach for the jersey-inator, when—

“Oscar!” Oxide’s voice rings out through the lab, and Oscar turns to see the other scientist, clutching a small vial of liquid and a form. “I finally got to doing your thing. Sorry it took me so long, I totally forgot about it.” He hands Oscar the form and the vial. “So, great news! The liquid is pretty much harmless. Mostly.”

Oscar blinks, taking the items. “Okay, that’s good. Um, if it were harmful, though, Olive would’ve probably been twitching on the floor like… a month ago.”

Oxide snaps his fingers. “Yes! That’s why I’m sorry it took me so long. Glad she’s not dead, though!” He peers at Olive’s unconscious form on her desk. “Are you, like, 100% sure she’s not dead?”

“With a slight margin of error,” Oscar sighs. “What’s the bad news?”

Oxide blinks. “I didn’t say there was bad news.”

“I see it on your face. You make like, a little thing with your eyebrows, and I don’t really know what it’s called, but it’s like a little agitated meat line, and—”

“Okay, yeah, there’s bad news,” Oxide shrugs. “The form she gave you was garbage. Complete nonsense. Almost like she didn’t want you to find out the correct formula for it, or any specs for how to make it or what it really does.”

Oscar blinks. “Why would she do that?”

Oxide taps the vial in Oscar’s hand proudly. “‘Cause this thing is dangerous. And, like, super banned. You need to take that from her, like, right now. If I had access to this stuff and nobody else did, I wouldn’t want anyone finding out how to make it either.”

Oscar makes a face. “You said it was harmless!”

“Everything’s technically harmless!” Oxide says, raising his hands in surrender. “Just like anything is edible if you try hard enough!”

Oscar just sighs. 

“Pretty crazy stuff,” Oxide continues. “10 milliliters and it’ll make any plant grow like Jack’s beanstalk. I’m surprised she’s even allowed to have so much of it so close to her,” he muses. “Especially since she has that tomato plant right next to the original erlenmeyer.”

Oscar looks at the tomato plant. Come to think of it, it’s really starting to resemble a tree more than a shrub. The main stalk has grown robust and woody, and the fruit are pretty big, closer to the size of heirloom tomatoes than cherries.

“Maybe I should tell her to be careful with it,” Oscar muses. “Thanks, Oxide.”

Oxide gives him a mock-salute, before slinking into the back of the lab. Oscar squints at the three gadgets he had pulled out, before sighing and using all of them. A new basketball, a new jersey, and a new… pickleball? All three objects zap themselves into existence, and Oscar picks them up, ready to give them to Olive.

He’s almost at her desk, when—

CRASH. 

The din of an entire wall being absolutely decimated blasts through the air. Oscar drops all his stuff, and Olive wakes up, jerking to attention. The south wall collapses in on itself, rubble and dust picking up and throwing itself across the room. 

Someone lets out a high-pitched scream.

Everyone else follows. 

Oscar watches in horror as several dark silhouettes appear from behind the cloud of dust, materializing into human form as they grow closer and closer. Eventually, they reveal themselves to be… 

Villains.

So many villains. Fladam, Noisemaker, Tiny Dancer, Circle Sue, Jamie Jam, Mr. Lightning, Father Time, literally everyone Oscar can think of. Besides Shapeshifter, for some reason.

All of them are here. In HQ.

And they just blew up the wall.

Oscar’s never seen a break-in this bad before.

Olive, who’s right beside him, looks at the scene in horror. “Oh, no,” She whispers. 

Suddenly, the precinct lights up a bright red. Deafening klaxons blare. Lasers, traps, and hidden defense gadgets in the roof reveal themselves, pointing in the direction of the villains. 

“ALL AGENTS!” Ms. O’s voice suddenly rings from the intercom. “STAND READY!”

Immediately, every agent in the bullpen (although a great many of them were still screaming) whips out a gadget, pointing it at the group of intruders. Oscar follows, though the first thing he pulls out is a basket-ball-inator, which probably wouldn’t be much help. 

“FIRE!”

Every agent charges up their gadget. Multicoloured beams of light begin forming all across the room.

“WAIT!” 

Olive shoots out of her chair, scrambling to the centre of the bullpen. She holds her arms out, shielding the villains from the blasts. “DON’T SHOOT!”

A chorus of gasps rings out across the bullpen. The agents whose gadgets had already charged up divert the beams of light, hitting things like chairs, desks, the other walls, or the floor. Olive flinches violently. 

“STAND DOWN!” Ms. O’s voice suddenly barks. 

Every agent with an unfired gadget in their hand, although nervously, shuts off their gadget and lowers it. Oscar personally has no clue what’s going on.

“Agent Olive,” Ms. O booms, her voice even more thunderous than usual on the intercom. Oscar winces at the rage permeating her voice. “What’s going on?”

Olive gasps for breath, doubling over. She’d sprinted across the entire bullpen in barely three seconds. Guess she hadn’t lost her athleticism in all that time at her desk. 

Surprisingly, Olive doesn’t acknowledge Ms. O at first. She whips around, absolutely irate, and stomps on Mr. Lightning’s toes. He yelps in pain. 

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME!” She shrieks, whirling around to acknowledge every single villain, as Mr. Lightning clutches his injured foot, hopping to one leg. “I TOLD YOU TO STOP TALKING TO ME, AND WHAT DO YOU DO?”

She takes a step back, heaving with fury. “YOU BREAK INTO THE PRECINCT! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?!”

Her voice echoes through the entire room. The hushed sound of whispering starts up, and Olive buries her head in her hands.

“Hey, ‘Liv,” Jamie Jam starts. “You haven’t talked to us in ages. We just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“You could’ve done that in a way other than TAKING DOWN THE WHOLE BUILDING!” Olive gestures violently at the south wall, which genuinely was just a pile of rocks and rubble at this point. “Look what you’ve done! LOOK!”

Tiny Dancer shifts. “We’re sorry, ‘Liv.”

“Sorry,” Noisemaker continues. 

One by one, each villain mutters an apology, hanging their head. Olive crosses her arms, gritting her teeth. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” She snaps. “Now fix it!” 

Symmetric Al blinks. “We can’t just do that.”

“FIX IT!”

Hurriedly, Father Time swings his staff and slams the base of it against the ground. A bright blue energy surrounds the pile of rubble the villains are standing on, and in the blink of an eye, the fallen bricks revert back into a normal, unbroken wall.

“There!” Fladam says. “Are you happy?”

“Not at all,” Olive seethes. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“Well,” Noisemaker says, wringing his hands. The bells on his sleeves make a soft jingling noise as he fiddles with them. “We came here to wish you a happy birthday, but…”

“Clearly, we’re unwanted,” Mr. Lightning sniffs bitterly, still clutching his foot. “Party’s over, folks, pack it up.” He claps his hands, whirling around, before realizing that now the wall is rebuilt, nobody can leave. “Ooh, yikes.”

“Birthday?” Olive mutters. “It’s not my birthday.”

Jamie Jam holds up a calendar of the month December, with the number ‘10’ circled boldly in glittery purple gel pen. She taps the number repeatedly. “Yes it is!”

Olive blinks. “It… it is?”

“That is so sad,” Evil Teddy sighs. “How do you miss your own birthday?”

“‘Liv, don’t tell me you’ve gone back to pushing papers,” Evil Landscaper complains. “I thought we’d knocked some sense into you?”

“Okay, enough.” 

Ms. O’s stern voice cuts through the conversation. “Villains, Olive will lead you to interrogation room B. I really hope you have a good explanation for this, Olive.”

“Ooh, room B!” Noisemaker giggles, clapping his hands excitedly. Something makes a vaguely harpsichord-like noise as he moves. “That’s where we met!”

Olive flushes an ashamed red, burying her head in her hands. The eyes of every agent in the precinct are on her. 

“Come on,” she mutters, gesturing for the villains to follow her. 

Today is Olive’s birthday.

Todd is at a bakery instead of on a case. It was weird—villains were typically incredibly easy to track down, but he hadn’t been able to find a single one today. Well, technically he found Shapeshifter, but she didn’t even put up a fight. She was grumbling bitterly about everyone going to a party of some sort without her. Todd wasn’t really listening. He was trying to think of what to get Olive. 

He’d stopped by a couple of other stores before landing at the bakery. A sports shop was his first stop, but he’d realized after browsing several of the aisles that… he’d forgotten what her favourite basketball team was. It was either the Bears or the Rams, some kind of ferocious animal, but he genuinely didn’t remember.

Guilt tugs in his chest at that. He tries to brush it off, but it doesn’t go away. What kind of partner forgets something like this?

Not that he’d been much of a partner recently, Or one at all, for that matter. He hadn’t gone back to the precinct in ages, and Olive hadn’t reached out to him. To be honest, he was kind of scared to go back, for lack of a better way to put it. 

He kept saying to himself he’d check in with Olive later, since he didn’t know how she’d react to him now. And it’d been, what, a month since he’d actually seen her, face to face?

Yikes. 

He was only a little bit hurt that Olive hadn’t contacted him. Before, she’d shoot him a call or something every once in a while, checking in with him. Now, it was just… radio silence. Absolutely nothing, No calls, no messages, no news. No agents he bumped into told him anything about Olive. Just nothing.

The worst thing is, he can’t even say anything about it without being insanely hypocritical. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to talk to Olive, so if she felt the same way, why’s he getting all butthurt about it? Idiot.

“Hi there,” The baker says, looking slightly concerned. “Is there anything you’d like?”

Right, he’d just been standing there staring the whole time. Great. Incredible. 

“Um…” He stares at all of the pastries and baked goods in the glass cases, frowning. He remembers Olive used to like pies. Or was it tarts? Todd can’t even remember what pastries she likes? What a partner he is. “Excellent question.”

“What’s happening, Olive?” Ms. O and Oscar are sitting on the agent end of the interrogation room, while Olive, Noisemaker, Mr. Lightning, and Jamie Jam are on the villain side. The other villains were split up between the other rooms, being grilled by other agents. It is… horribly jarring to see Olive side-by-side with the villains. 

“I just want to say,” Jamie pipes up before Olive can respond, “That none of this is ‘Liv’s fault. Don’t get her in trouble for this.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Lightning grunts.“

I agree!” Noisemaker adds.

Olive, who looks like she’s atively being tortured, slumps. Now that Oscar is getting a good look at her, she really looks awful—dark circles line her eyes like bruises, and her hair, after a brief period of respite, is back to looking like a particularly ugly pigeon’s nest. It definitely does not look like today is her birthday.

“I told them not to talk to me again,” Olive says weakly. “I swear. I swear, Ms. O. I haven’t contacted a single villain since our meeting.”

Ms. O blinks, raising an eyebrow. “Then how come they still came?”

“I don’t know!” Olive bursts.

“We came because we didn’t want you to be working on your birthday,” Noisemaker helpfully supplies, twirling his mustache. “You stopped talking to us, ‘Liv! We were worried? What if something happened to you?”

“Your hair is terrible today,” Mr. Lightning huffs, flicking a tangle. Notably, his hand is bare—he’s only wearing a glove on his left hand. “When was the last time you combed it? 300 BC?”

“Bruce, shut up!” Jamie hisses, smacking him on the arm. “We’re embarrassing her!”

Olive does look incredibly embarrassed. She’s covering her face with her hands, and what little can be seen of it is red with mortification. 

“So…” Oscar says, scratching his head. “You’re not here to shut down the Squad?”

“We’re here to wish Olive a happy birthday,” Jamie responds, indignant. “Not everything we do is evil. Honestly, that’s really narrow-minded of you to think. I thought you agents were supposed to be the good guys?"

Noisemaker and Mr. Lightning mutter a few bitter words in agreement. 

“Honestly, it’s sad that a group of villains had to do it and not her own co-workers,” Jamie sniffs, disapproving. “That really says something, you know?”

Ms. O blinks, opening her mouth to bite back a snarky response, before she puts two fingers to her ear. Evidently, someone’s spoken into her earpiece. She listens to the person on the other end for a few seconds, before nodding. “Understood. Thank you.”

Turning to the villains, she nods. “Your story checks out with everyone else.”

“Of course it does!” Jamie huffs, crossing her arms. “It’s true!”

“All the other villains are being escorted out of the precinct,” Ms. O says. “No matter your motives, it’s dangerous for so many of you to be in the building at the same time.”

Mr. Lightning sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Ooh, yeah, that’s not happening.”

Ms. O blinks. “Why not?”

“We haven’t given Olive her birthday presents yet!” Noisemaker pipes up with a grin. 

Olive stiffens. “You guys got me presents?” She whispers, looking up with wide eyes. There’s still horror in her expression at the shock of the scene, but there’s a glimmer of naked wonder in her gaze that hits Oscar in the face like a baseball bat. It balances out the gauntness of her face, the bruises under her eyes—and for a second, she looks alive again. “But I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

“Of course we got you presents, dingus!” Jamie huffs. “Who do you think we are?”

“But I—I haven’t talked to you in ages,” Olive repeats, a bitter shadow flitting over her features. “That doesn’t make sense. Why are you still here?”

Oscar is beginning to realize what’s going on. Cold horror twists in his gut. With a shared glance at Ms. O, he starts to put together the pieces. Olive has been alone for so long that she’s started to think that friends were only friends if they were within view. 

Yikes. 

“We’re not just going to ditch you because you stopped talking to us,” Jamie insists. “That’s what friends are for, you know?”

Olive’s eyes go wide. 

“Hey, I know everyone’s thinking it,” Mr. Lightning says bluntly. “So I’m just going to say it. It’s kind of sad a group of villains are better friends to you than your own partner.” He turns to Ms. O. “Your association kind of sucks.”

The tension is snapped like a taut string cut with a pair of scissors.

Oscar grimaces. Someone actually said it out loud. Ms. O’s face curls into a scowl. Olive’s expression breaks, and she hangs her head, covering her eyes from everyone else.

Jamie smacks Mr. Lightning on the back of his head. “BRUCE!” She snaps. 

“He’s right, Jamie,” Noisemaker says sadly. “I was hoping Agent Todd would be here, but I didn’t see him at all.”

With a downtrodden expression, Jamie slumps. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“How come you hit me when I say something but you listen to him when he does?!” Mr. Lightning cries. Jamie elbows him in the solar plexus, and he doubles over, groaning.

“We’ve been telling you,” Jamie cries, turning to Olive and grabbing her by the shoulders, “That he’s not worth it! You don’t need him! Open your eyes, ‘Liv! You’re a strong, independent woman!”

“Not really,” Mr Lightning mutters. Jamie kicks him in the shins, and they bend the other way. He makes a strangled noise, before collapsing to the floor. 

“He’ll be here,” Olive mutters. “Just… give him some time.”

“‘Liv,” Noisemaker says softly. “It’s been four months.”

“You deserve better,” Jamie says, her fierce attitude abating. “You know that, right?”

Olive doesn’t say anything. 

“Thanks, guys,” she eventually manages. 

The moment is shattered by the sound of someone knocking on the door. Agent Octavia, upon getting the signal that she could enter, steps inside the interrogation room. 

“Ms. O,” She says nervously, wringing her hands. “The villains are refusing to leave.”

Mr. Lightning, who’s still on the ground, looks up smugly. “Told you,” he wheezes, before he falls back over. 

Todd is at a park near the precinct, repeatedly running a hand through his hair. 

He’s narrowed his choices down to two things: a pastry and a jersey. Should be an easy thing, right? Just take the things and hand them to Olive, no harm done? The pastry was easy, everyone likes both pies and tarts. They were basically the same thing. He just grabbed one of both and was done with it.

The jersey, though.

That’s not something he can get two of and get away with. He’s currently staring at the gifts draped out before him, straining his memory to remember if she liked the Bears or the Rams.

It’s bad, because he has memories of her talking about both. It’s just that he can’t quite pinpoint which one she was talking trash about, and which one she was praising. He vaguely remembers her showing him her own jersey, but he was never one to remember details that were insignificant to a case, so whether it was brown or blue was a mystery to him.

Ugh, Todd’s guessed true or false questions on MCQ quizzes and got them all right. This was the same concept, right? He has a 50/50 chance, it’ll probably be okay. Besides, any jersey at all was better than no jersey, right?

He grabs the Rams jersey. 

And he takes a deep breath in.

He’s just visiting his partner. It's just a day in the life. It’s not like the precinct is going to blow itself up, or anything. 

Yeah. 

He braces himself, and heads in the general direction of the precinct. 

A few more cases wouldn’t hurt, though. Just to soothe his nerves. 

For some reason, there’s a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Oh my goodness, I’ve always wanted something like this!” Olive squeals, unwrapping a fierce looking teddy bear wearing a baseball cap with the logo of the Bears, holding a basketball. “Thank you so much, Teddy!”

Teddy nods. “Some of my finest work,” She says proudly. 

Since the villains had utterly refused to leave until Olive opened all of her presents, most of the other agents in the precinct were instructed to go somewhere else until everyone was gone. Some of the agents in Security were stationed around the perimeter of the bullpen, but most of them were just watching as Olive unwrapped all of her gifts. They clapped for the nicer ones, and booed for the lamer ones. 

Oscar assumed that they, like him, were just happy that Olive had finally got herself some proper friends, villainous or not. Owen, who Oscar knew was one of Olive’s old friends, was watching proudly.

“Okay, mine next,” Mr. Lightning says, sliding Olive a crudely wrapped lump. She raises an eyebrow at it, before ripping the brown paper off. Inside is a packet of hair ties, as well as a hair brush.

“Booo,” The Security agents chorus. Olive picks up the brush, laughing quietly.

“Seriously?”

Mr. Lightning gestures at her. “Hey, look at yourself. I think I got you the most useful gift out of everyone.”

Olive starts combing her hair out, though she has a little bit of difficulty when the brush gets stuck halfway down. “Thanks, I guess,” she huffs, taking off one of the bands and tying her hair up with it. She pulls it into a low ponytail, though a few locks end up slipping out, and a few flyaway strands refuse to join the others.

“Okay, okay, my turn,” Jamie Jam says excitedly, clapping her hands. “We all pitched in a little bit for this one.”

She sets down a tiny box in front of Olive. It’s a small green jewelry box, with a little golden bow at the top. It’s also about the size of her palm, and when she picks it up, she moves it up and down a bit, as if weighing it. Eventually, she gives into her curiosity and opens it up.

She gasps.

Inside is a shiny golden tie pin, in the shape of an olive branch. With shaking hands, she takes it out of the box, marveling at the way it glittered under the precinct’s lights. Olive was never particularly one for fancy jewelry, but she loved things that were both pretty and practical. Oscar remembers giving her a small brooch for a previous birthday, something that could function as a hidden microphone as well. Olive had said that it’d go well with the necklace she’d wear when she became a Ms. O. 

That was far behind them now.

“Jamie,” Olive breathes, immediately clipping it to her tie. She stares at it, eyes glittering. “Thank you so much.”

Jamie ruffles Olive’s hair, smiling warmly. “It’s no biggie,” she laughs. “We felt like you deserved something nice after this mess of a year you’ve had.”

Mr. Lightning coughs into his elbow. “It’s a bit of a biggie,” he grouses. “That thing cost a fortune.”

Jamie whirls around, ready to punch him in the stomach, but before she can hit him, Noisemaker does it himself. Much lighter than Jamie would’ve, and on the shoulder, but he still punches him. 

"Kevin!” Mr. Lightning protests. 

“It’s the least we could do,” Noisemaker says over Mr. Lightning. 

Jamie holds her arms out. “Eh?”

With swimming eyes, Olive stumbles over and gives her a hug. Wiping away a small tear, Noisemaker joins in, multiple instruments on his costume playing discordant notes as he makes contact with everyone. One by one, each villain piles onto the group hug, until Olive is completely shrouded from view. 

Oscar sniffs quietly, and Owen hands him a tissue. He dabs at his eyes with it. 

Sneaking a small glance at Ms. O, he realizes that she’s… smiling. 

Eventually, everyone breaks apart from the hug, and Olive scrubs roughly at her eyes, rolling up her sleeves. 

“Happy birthday, ‘Liv,” All the villains chorus. 

“Thanks, guys,” Olive chokes out, her voice thick with emotion. 

Ms. O clears her throat. “Okay, great, wonderful, very touching,” she snaps, walking up. “Now, can all of you get out of my precinct? This has gone on for—”

The door opens.

Which is weird, since every agent in the precinct was instructed to avoid the bullpen until Ms. O’s call. 

Well, every agent in the precinct. There was one who wasn’t at the precinct at the time.

“Hey, Scri…bbles…” Todd’s voice calls, before it fades away slowly. 

Olive gasps, before whirling around to face Todd. He stares at her, and then at all the villains surrounding her, and then at all the open presents and empty gift boxes littering the floor, and then at the empty bullpen. Oscar can see gears turning in his head. 

Todd is holding a few boxes of his own, though they were unwrapped. A box of tarts, a pie, and a jersey. A blue jersey. Something that stood out drastically from all the deep brown merchandise Olive was sporting at the moment.

Jamie leans over, placing a hand on Olive’s shoulder. She whispers something in her ear. 

Oscar doesn’t catch most of it, but he catches the last part. 

‘You deserve better.’

“What the…” 

The first thing Todd sees upon entering is a sea of villains. Probably every single villain he’s encountered in the past year.

The second thing he sees upon entering is that the precinct is completely empty. There are a few Security agents scattered across the bullpen, but they don’t look like they’re doing anything. 

The third thing he sees is that on Olive’s desk is a bunch of Bears merch. Not Rams. Which means Todd got it wrong. Darn.

And the fourth thing he sees is that right in the middle of the crowd of villains stands Olive, who’s staring at him as if he’d personally kicked her only puppy. 

He doesn’t think before he unholsters a gadget. Without missing a beat, he aims the gadget at one of the villains—Tiny Dancer, he thinks—and fires. 

She shrieks, ducking out of the way of the beam of light, and the blast hits someone’s desk. It turns into a tree frog, which croaks quietly and hops away.

“TODD!” Olive cries. “What are you—”

“Oh, you did NOT!” Tiny Dancer squeaks indignantly, stamping her foot on the floor. “I’m going to—”

“Tina,” Olive snaps, holding up her hand. “Don’t. Let’s just… talk this out.”

“Scribbles, buddy, Olive,” Todd snarls, taking a step forward. “Do you care to explain why EVERY VILLAIN IN TOWN is at HQ right now?”

Olive sighs, dragging a hand down her face. “Okay, that’s actually a really long story, how about we just—”

“It’s like I can’t leave you alone for even a second!” Todd raves. “I finally come back, and this is what I see? What would’ve happened if I wasn’t here?”

Olive’s face clouds over. “Okay, first of all, nobody is in danger,” she says, crossing her arms. “Second of all, what do you mean by that? What are you talking about?”

“Yikes,” Mr. Lightning—who was still missing a glove, actually, which was kinda funny—huffs, puffing out his cheeks with air. “Yikes. We got Little Mr. Savior Complex over here.”

Todd bristles. “Excuse me?”

“Are you here to join the birthday party?” The one with a German accent—was it Noisemaker?—says, clasping his hands together. “What did you get Olive?”

Todd glances down at the jersey in his hands. The blue jersey. The one he got from the wrong team. 

Damn, he should’ve trusted his gut.

He spots Oscar in the corner, next to Owen, grimacing and sharing a horrified glance with Owen. Ms. O, who’d stood to Oscar’s left, was massaging her temple.

“YIKES,” Mr. Lightning laughs again, slapping his knee. “That is UNFORTUNATE.”

Olive blinks, staring at the bundle of blue fabric. “You shouldn’t have come back,” she whispers. Her hands are clenching and unclenching into fists, and there’s a muscle in her jaw that’s inadvertently twitching.

Despite himself, Todd feels a little miffed at that statement. It took him so long to work up the energy to come back, and this is how she responds? Like, sure, maybe she’s right, but he’s allowed to be a little bit bitter about it. “Hey, at least I got you something.”

Olive’s eye twitches. 

“Jamie,” She mutters, reaching out and grabbing a flask of some weird glowing liquid that Todd hadn’t noticed before on her desk. Her eyes are blown wide with rage, and she’s trembling slightly. “I think you were right.”

With the crash of shattering porcelain, a tomato plant behind Olive bursts to life, forming enormous, writhing vines that sway back and forth in undulating motions. They sweep across the bullpen, smashing desks and chairs into bits.

“OLIVE!” Oscar shrieks from the back of the room, taking a step forward. A swinging vine nearly takes his head off. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

Olive doesn’t respond to him. She stares into Todd with wide, crazed eyes, taking a step forward. “You think cases are boring, right?” She growls, dropping the flask to the floor. The glass shatters upon impact. “You think nothing’s interesting, right? Everything’s too easy? You’re sick of the days repeating?”

One of the massive vines smashes against the wall, and the entire thing caves in. Sunlight streams in from outdoors. The biting December chill floods into the room. 

“I AM TOO!” Olive shrieks, her hands clenched into fists. One of the vines slams into the neat piles of documents on her desk, scattering the papers into the air. “I’M SICK OF THIS!”

With a heaving breath, she turns to the villains. “Go do your thing,” she instructs, and all the villains grin and crack their knuckles threateningly. With a scathing look at Todd, Olive grabs her badge, twisting it off her chest. “Make sure it’s fun enough for him.”

She throws her badge to the ground and crushes it under her heel. 

“I quit.”

Todd’s about to say something in response, when a crackle of lightning nearly throws him off his feet.

“THIS IS FOR STEALING MY GLOVE, YOU LITTLE LOSER!” Mr. Lightning roars, as all the villains scatter. “DOWN WITH ODD SQUAD!”

The other villains let out a battle cry, and immediately start waging war. 

Ms. O’s voice barks out orders on the intercom. Sirens start blaring. Todd can’t really hear any of it over the ringing in his ears. 

Olive has slipped out of sight. Frantically, Todd scans the precinct, but he can’t see a trace of her at all. She’s gone.

Okay.

Fine.

So be it. 

Todd pulls out Mr. Lightning’s glove, slipping it on. He grits his teeth, taking aim at one of the vines.

Two can play at this game.

He fires. 

“So,” Todd sighs, twirling around his whitestreak. “Um, turns out using stolen villain equipment, no matter the context, isn’t generally a good idea. But, yeah. Then I kicked everyone’s butts and solved the case. That’s the story. Hope you liked it.”

The attempt at humor falls completely flat. While they were telling the story, Oscar had changed the image on the screen to one of the aftermath of the incident. Leaves and fallen tomatoes everywhere. Cracks in the precinct floor. Various things left behind by the villains—jam, scorch marks, singing chairs, teddy bears—it was a mess. A younger Todd, holding a small mirror and staring blankly at his reflection, is on his knees in the middle of the precinct, covered in soot stains, leaves, and crushed tomatoes. 

Otto glances at the corner of the Security section—there’s a crack in the wall that looked like it had never properly been repaired. 

“That’s why you’re scared of tomatoes,” Otto mutters. 

“I’m not scared of them,” Todd snaps. “I hate them. She took one of my favourite garden crops and ruined them for me. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

“I don’t think she’s the one who needs forgiveness,” Oscar mutters.

“Seconded,” Otto says sadly. 

Todd glances at Otto, a flicker of hurt in his expression. Guilt immediately drenches out any anger he might’ve felt. 

“Sorry,” Otto says, shrugging. “It’s just—wow. Wow, that sucks. Don’t get me wrong!” He says, before Todd can open his mouth and say something else. “I’m still friends with you. I think. But wow.”

He laughs disbelievingly.

“And you hid this from me for, like, a whole year,” he says, dragging a hand down his face. “And you only told me because Liv herself came back to get you. Wow.” 

“Listen, Otto,” Todd says. “I was going to tell you earlier, but—”

Otto holds up a hand, shaking his head. “No,” he interrupts. “You can explain later. I’m—I’m done. I’m going home. Bye, guys.”

He turns on his heel and walks right out, not looking back.

“Otto, wait—”

“I’ll tell Ms. O to sign you out,” Oscar calls. Otto holds up a thumbs up behind him, still not looking back.

The door to the tube lobby opens. 

“Park,” Otto says, instead of his typical greeting. 

O’Donnell seems to sense the issue. “Long day?”

“Don’t even,” Otto groans. 

She nods in sympathy. “Preparing to squishinate.”

Otto gets into position.

“Squishinating!”

He’s sent away. 

To his surprise, when he gets to the picnic spot at the park, Liv is there, waiting. 

It looked like she’d cleaned up the area while Otto was gone. The spilled lemonade had been wiped away, with the half-empty pitcher standing off to the side. All the pastas, fruit, baked goods, everything the three of them had brought—it was all reorganized, placed in neat stacks, the containers looking untouched, as if nothing had even happened. 

Liv is taking bites out of an heirloom tomato as if it’s an apple. When she hears Otto’s footsteps, she perks up.

“Otto!’ She says, waving. “You’re back!”

“You’re still here?” Otto says, befuddled. Nursing a headache, he sits down on the blanket, massaging his temple. “How long has it been?”

Liv shrugs. “Only a few hours. I was wondering when you were going to come back.”

“How’d you know I would?”

She gestures at the containers of food, as well as his blanket and utensils. “You left all your stuff here,” she responds simply. “I thought I’d stand guard until you came back so nobody stole any of the food. Which is delicious, by the way.”

Despite himself, Otto shoots her a weak smile. “Thanks.”

She hands him a plate with a scoop of lasagna and a few cookies, as well as a protein shake. He takes it all gratefully, shoveling the food into his mouth. He’s starving. He’d skipped breakfast to make food for the picnic, and they didn’t even end up having it, so to say that he was famished was an understatement.

“Did he tell you about me?” Liv asks, taking a sip of her protein shake. Otto freezes up, choking on a particularly dry chunk of cookie. 

He coughs, and Liv smacks him roughly on the back. “Sorry, sorry—” He hacks up the crumb that was caught in his throat, and wipes at his mouth. “Yeah. He and Oscar.”

Liv blinks. “Oh, Oscar. I haven’t talked to him in a while. How’s he doing?”

Otto shrugs. “Pretty well.”

The whole conversation feels insanely weird. Otto is talking to his predecessor. Liv is talking to her replacement. The two of them are on a picnic together. 

“Did he say anything?” Liv asks vaguely. 

Otto blinks. “Oscar?”

“Todd.”

Otto frowns, before shrugging. “About what?”

“About me.”

Thinking back to everything Todd had said, Otto realizes that Liv probably wouldn’t be super happy to hear any of it. “Nothing good.”

With a sigh, Liv reaches for the container of lasagna. “I don’t know what I expected,” she mutters, though Otto can see her disappointment in the slouch of her shoulders. “This is Todd. Being stubborn is like his whole personality.”

Otto snorts. “Tell me about it.”

The two of them lapse into an uncomfortable silence. Otto knows that in all technicality, he shouldn’t be talking to her at all. She’s a villain. He’s an agent. He could get in serious trouble for this. 

But she’s not doing anything wrong at the moment. She’s spooning lasagna into her mouth. She cleaned up Otto’s blanket for him while he was gone. Villains don’t do any of that. 

“Do you think,” Otto says after a while of silence, “That you’ll ever forgive him?”

Liv blinks. She looks down at her plate of food, and then up at Otto. It takes her some time to gather the words. 

"For a year,” she starts slowly, her voice quiet. “You sat where I had the worst months of my life. For an entire year, you sat next to the worst person I know, who knew you'd forgive him when the time came," Liv says, leaning back against the tree. She glances at Otto with a self-deprecating smile. "And look at that, you did. So if he has that forgiveness from you, what more would he need from me?”

Otto doesn’t know how to respond. 

“Todd doesn’t need my forgiveness,” she finishes, setting down her plate of food. “So I don’t have a reason to give it to him.”

Otto nods, though a bitter taste sits in the back of his mouth. The cookie he’s eating is suddenly incredibly unappetizing. “I guess that’s fair.”

Liv stares at him with an indecipherable expression. “I just want you to know,” she says, crossing her legs and clasping her hands together, “I’m not your problem. I think you’re a good person, Otto, and a good agent too."

Otto blinks. “Then whose problem are you?”

Liv smiles wryly. “His.”

Setting his half-eaten cookie on a plate, Otto shifts slightly, trying to find a comfortable position. Guilt eats at his chest. “Should I be, like, stopping you, right now? Is it bad that I’m having a picnic with you instead of taking you in? ‘Cause, like, you’re my partner’s archenemy. Should that make you mine too?”

Liv shrugs. “I don’t think so,” she says casually, like she’s not scared of the potential of getting arrested at all. “I think you have the right to decide that for yourself.” She laughs. “If you do want to be archenemies, though, I might need to kick you into shape a bit. Make you play some evil badminton.”

Otto laughs. “I’m bad enough at normal badminton.”

The blazing sun disappears behind one of the larger branches of the tree they’re sitting under, casting a cool shadow onto where they’re sitting. It really is a beautiful day. 

“I think I still want to be friends with you,” Liv says, picking up a cherry tomato and tossing it into her mouth. “Are you alright with that?”

Otto takes a second to process it, but eventually, he nods. “Yeah. I am.”

Liv beams.

“Awesome.”

Even though something in his gut screams that it’s wrong, Otto smiles back. 

Todd gets a call on his badge phone. He knows it’s Otto. He doesn’t pick up. 

He lets it ring for a very, very long time. Otto calls once. Twice. Thrice.

Eventually, he gives up. That’s when Todd flips open his phone to check his voicemail.

“Hey, Todd,” Otto’s voice says from the other end. “I know you know it’s me, and I know you’re ignoring me. Thanks a lot for that, bud.”

“No problem,” Todd mutters. 

“Anyways. Just calling because I know you’re probably having a crisis right now. Don’t go insane. I just wanted to let you know that it’s going to be okay. No matter what, we’re still partners. I’m not going to throw everything away just because of this.”

Todd lets out an exhale.

“It’s going to be okay,” Otto repeats. “But it’s going to be different. I hope you’re ready for that. I’m not.”

Todd frowns. 

“See you Monday, partner.”

The line goes dead.