Chapter Text
Paperwork sucks.
Otto and Todd stare down the absolute mountain of documents looming over them, utterly exhausted. They’d just taken down not one, not three, not five, but six villains in one go, since they were all linked in some way or another and horrendously annoying to track and capture. So after that six-for-the-price-of-one deal, they’d come back, panting, beaten up, and incredibly satisfied, only to be faced with…
“There is no way,” Todd grits out, staring at the stack Ms. O offers them. It has to be at least a meter tall. From behind the stack, the papers covering her face, Otto assumes Ms. O shakes her head, solemn. “Why is there so much?”
“You walked into this,” she says curtly, thrusting the pile towards him. It wobbles, the papers threatening to topple over. Todd hisses out a quiet ‘ shoot!’ and lunges towards the pile, hoping to balance it before it falls. Ms. O pays his struggling no mind, stepping back to examine her nails. “There’s that much because the team on recon found even more information on that villain team-up. There were more from behind the scenes, so good news! Villain count from that case is up to 12.”
Otto cheers.
“Bad news, all 12 fall under your responsibility to file out.”
Otto’s smile slips off his face.
“Also, about a third of that pile is mission reports and previous case files you need to read and analyze from recon.”
“It’s all us?” Otto cries. “There were like a million villains in the case in the first place! We can’t fill all of this out by ourselves!”
“Do I pay you to complain?” Ms. O snaps.
“You don’t pay us at all!”
Letting out a growl of frustration, Ms. O crosses her arms. “I’ll forgive you for that one because I know this is Todd’s fault. Todd, stop teaching my rookies disrespect.”
Not directly responding to her command, Todd lets out a quiet noise of frustration as he slowly but surely loses control of the absolute tower of paperwork.
“Ot—OTTO! Otto, come on, stop standing there and help me out!”
Otto squeaks and moves over, shifting around to try to gauge where to help him from. He puts a hand to the side of the tower, hoping to stop it if it tilted too hard.
It doesn’t work. It falls directly onto Otto, papers scattering everywhere. The sheer weight of the papers knocks Otto to the ground, where he lays, groaning.
From his spot sprawled out on the dirty precinct floor, he reaches over and picks a sheet up. To his dismay, he stares down what has to be at least a thousand words in size 10 arial font. On a single sheet of paper.
He turns it over, and to his horror, it's double-sided.
Ms. O sighs frustratedly, crossing her arms. “See, this is why you don’t talk back to me! Now DO YOUR WORK!” she shouts.
She whirls around and storms back up to her office, in typical Ms. O fashion. Once she’s atop the stairs, she barks an order at Oscar, before entering her office and disappearing from sight. Todd stares at how the glass doors of her office close slowly, desolate.
“Otto, this can’t be real,” he mutters, staring at the pile. “I’ve never done this much paperwork in my life.”
Wincing and squeezing a tiny papercut on his finger, Otto gets up and runs a hand through his hair. Now standing, he stares down at the surface area that the scattered papers cover, before he tears his eyes away and meets Todd’s in horror.
He groans loudly, before flopping back into the paper pile. It’s thinner than he imagined, so he grunts in pain as he faceplants into the cold stone floor.
“We can start tomorrow, right?” he asks meekly into the paper.
“We have cases to solve tomorrow,” Todd grits out, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is ruining my entire schedule.”
Otto flips around, lying starfish-style on the ground. He stares up at Todd. “I mean… a slow day won’t be the end of us, will it? Like, you’re still a few dozen cases in front of everyone else. One day won’t change much.”
Todd stares down at Otto, his expression incredibly conflicted. Otto feels a soft sense of pride. If he’d told that to the Todd he was partnered with on his first day as an agent, the Todd would’ve probably balked at the thought and then thrown a chair at him or something. This time, Todd seems to be actually considering it.
“Ughhh,” Todd groans, burning his face in his hands. “You know what, yeah. We might need the whole week off to get all of this done, at this point.”
Otto cheers loudly, throwing up documents in a sick mockery of confetti. Todd rolls his eyes fondly, before bending down to scoop the papers up.
“Come on, we’d better get started. Day isn’t over yet.”
“Yes, captain,” Otto says with a salute. He gets up to grab his own armful of paper, trying his best not to crinkle or fold any of it. Catching a glimpse of the density of the words on the pages, he winces. There aren’t even any pictures! It looks very much Todd-calibre and not Otto-calibre.
Oh, well. He’s along for the ride now. He’ll learn how to handle it.
“We should get through the reports from recon first,” Todd says, dropping his pile of paper on his desk. It makes a loud thunk noise. “We go at our own pace, and summarize what happened in what.”
Otto sighs, putting down his own messy stack of paper. Todd’s already in professional mode…
“Got it,” Otto says, picking up a report. He scans over it, narrowing his eyes. Half of these words are too big for him to understand, and printed too small for him to read. “Uh… what does ‘obscure’ mean?”
Todd groans and leans over the table, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. He looks over his own sheet, his expression twisted up and horrified. “I have no idea,” he moans. “I hate paperwork.”
By the end of the night, the two of them get through two and a half reports. Combined.
Only what, 61 to go?
Awesome.
When Otto clocked into work the next day, he'd kind of been hoping that the tower of paperwork he'd been given was some sort of horrible nightmare, and that when he went to his desk, it'd be clean and empty just like it usually is.
But of course, that wasn't the case.
“I cannot do this any longer,” Todd says sharply, slamming a hand on his desk and standing up. The chair he sits on rolls quickly away from the force he stood up with, and Otto scoots over to stop it before it rolls too far away.
There hadn’t been any cases today, so there wasn’t any excuse to leave the colossal stack of paperwork for later. Which was incredibly strange, since odd things happened every day for them. They’d been forced to actually put their time into reading every single report in every single file, which left the two of them (especially Todd)... more than grumpy.
“Hey, come on, we’re almost done!” Otto says, trying to stay positive despite the crick in his neck. He scoots back to his spot at his desk before pushing away a pile of filled-out papers, marveling at how much the pile of incomplete work had shrunk. Is this how adults feel?
Todd presses both hands against his temple. “No, dude, I’m actually going to go insane. Let’s go find someone to help around the precinct. Y’know, stretch our legs?”
He massages his wrist, wincing.
Otto glances back at his papers, before shrugging. It’s not like he enjoys doing this either. He has nothing against procrastination. “Sure.”
He stands up, stretching and feeling his back pop. Todd laughs. The two of them head towards Oscar’s lab, since he’s the one who always seems to be needing help. The lab is suspiciously quiet, but Otto’s sure something will pop up the moment they step inside.
“Ugh, everything hurts,” Otto groans.
“Need to see Dr. O?” Todd teases.Otto snorts. “For my eyes, maybe. Might need to get glasses fitted for me after all that squinting.”
“RIGHT?” Todd shouts, a wry grin blooming on his face. “Dude, I’ve never needed to google so many big words in my life. What possessed the recon agents to write that? Who were they trying to impress?”
“Not us, that’s for sure,” Otto sighs. “My brain hurts.”
Todd punches his open palm, grinning wolfishly. “Wait ‘til we’re done with the work,” he laughs wickedly. “Then we’ll track them down and make them regret ever using ‘proprioceptive’ in a sentence.”
He and Otto high-five, just as they reach the lab. It is suspiciously quiet for a place that’s usually bustling with frantic activity. Otto squints as he scans over the area, making sure there’s no ticking time bomb that’s about to go off in their faces.
“Oscar?” Otto calls, peeking into the lab. “Hello? Anyone home?”
One of Oscar’s assistants peek out from the back of the lab, glancing at the partners before whirling around and running off. A few seconds later, Oscar walks out, looking completely put together. No soot stains, no chemical stains, no rips nor tears in his lab coat. He looks like a fully functioning, completely sane scientist.
Huh.
“Oh, hey guys!” He greets, jogging up to them. He’s clutching a green manila folder decorated with stickers of the Science department insignia, with sheets of what look to be lab reports peeking out. “What’s up?”
Todd gives him a once-over, getting real close. Like, nose-to-nose close. Oscar backs up, vaguely uncomfortable.
“Um…”
Otto looks around the lab for what has to be the fifth time, not finding anything off about it. Everything is genuinely as it should be.
“This is so weird,” he says.
“Is it seriously a slow day for everyone?” Todd cries, tugging at his hair. “Oscar, come on, help a guy out. Blow something up. Set something free. Please.”
Otto laughs nervously, patting Todd on the shoulder. “Don’t… actually do that. We’re glad the lab is working normally for once.”
Todd stares at Otto with wide, crazed eyes. Otto frowns back at him, his signature ‘ no, Todd, boredom isn’t a valid enough reason to throw Oren into the Volcano Room’ face.
Oscar sighs in immense relief, his shoulders relaxing to reveal just how tense he was before. “Oh my gosh, you too?”
Todd tilts his head. “What?”
Rolling up his sleeves, and adjusting his glasses, Oscar sets down the manila folder and sighs heavily. “Nothing’s happened today. We did some experiments, but nothing new called for us, you know? So all we have to do are those old lab reports we’ve been putting off for ages.”
“YES!” Todd shrieks, grabbing Oscar by the shoulders and shaking him wildly. “IT’S NOT JUST US! We’ve been stuck doing case summaries and background checks for the WHOLE DAY TODAY. Oscar, we started YESTERDAY.”
Otto groans. “And we’re barely halfway through.”
Oscar sighs, hunching over a desk and massaging his forehead. “Slow days aren’t uncommon,” he sighs. “But I don’t think there’s been one this bad since—”
“Okay,” Todd interrupts. “There’s a—”
He pauses for a bit, his mouth still open. He glances at Oscar, apologetic.
“Uh, interruption. Sorry, What were you saying?”
Oscar shakes his head, a strange expression taking over his face, something Otto thinks is akin to a wry smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Right. Um, just saying, it’s real weird that everyone’s having a slow day out of nowhere,” he says, pacing. “There has to be some sort of connection. The villain team-up, and then the sudden quiet? Can’t be normal.”
Otto thinks for a second. “Maybe they’re just resting after that team-up.”
Todd pauses. “Hm.”
Ha, that’s the face he makes when someone else has a point. Otto feels a surge of pride swell within him. Take that, Todd.
“I say we ask around,” Todd continues. “Talk to everyone, see if they’re having a slow day as well, and if they are, then we know something’s going on.”
Oscar picks up his manila folder and throws it behind him, the folder opening in midair and all the papers slipping out and scattering. Papers now litter every surface of the lab, but Oscar doesn’t seem to care at all. A couple of assistants look out, scandalized.
“Sounds like a plan.” He says, grinning. “Anything to get me out of here, honestly.”
Otto cheers. “Um, I think we should skip the bullpen, since…”
The three of them look out at the bullpen, and sure enough, every desk is full, with Investigation agents halfheartedly scrawling things on documents in pencil crayons of various colours. Otto spots Orchid playing with plastic dinosaurs instead of doing work.
“Okay, Todd, I take that back, this is definitely weird,” Otto says. “Let’s check on Owen.”
Stretching and groaning at how their joints pop, the three of them make their way towards Security’s office, tucked into the corner. Sure enough, Owen is there.
Maybe not mentally, but he’s there physically.
Currently, Owen is lying down, twisted in what looks like a horrendously uncomfortable position over one of the rolling chairs in front of a screen. He’s sprawled over sideways on the chair. Like, body twisted in an upside down U shape, draped over the chair. Otto’s back aches for him. Like everyone else, he has a couple of documents spread in front of him, some on the screen, some on the chair, most on the floor.
“Should we…” Otto says quietly.
Todd has no such qualms.
“Owen? Owen!” He snaps, leaning down and snapping his fingers in Owen’s ear. The boy doesn’t even stir.
Todd sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Owen!” He hisses into the poor guy’s ear. When he’s faced with nothing, he rolls his eyes and decides to pull out the big guns. “Owen, wake up, Ms. O is coming!”
Owen snaps awake immediately, his head shooting up. As fast as lightning, he flips into a reasonable sitting position, grabbing a pen from behind his ear, a sheet of paper from the floor, and immediately pretending to fill out his work.
“Todd!” Oscar scolds, crossing his arms. Despite himself, he laughs. “There’s nobody coming, Owen, it’s okay.”
Owen untenses. “Oh, man.” He drops the pen, letting the paper drift to the ground. “Man, why’d you do that? I was having the best dream.”
His gaze goes faraway, as his figure sways.
Todd flicks him in the nose to wake him up again. Owen gasps and snaps to attention.
“We just wanted to ask if you’ve been having a super slow day too,” he says, eyeing the documents on the floor. “Seems like the entire precinct is on pause right now.”
Owen groans loudly, slumping back into his chair until his head is all the way at the seat. “You too?” he cries, burying his face in his hands. “Usually I get up to walk around and twirl my baton, or fight off some intruders if I’m lucky, but today the oddest thing I’ve found is a weirdly shaped pinecone! So I’ve just been, you know.”
He gestures towards the papers on the floor.
“Do you know if the rest of security has this problem?” Otto asks, crouching down to examine one of the documents. It’s formatted very similarly to Oscar’s case reports and Todd and his own files, with tiny, tiny font and grandiloquent (see, he’s learning something from all of this!) words.
“Take a look,” Owen says, jerking a thumb towards, well. The rest of security.
They’re all slouched over their chairs and desks, similarly to how Owen was when the three of them found him.
“I don’t know how I didn’t notice that,” Otto says quietly. “Um, this is great. Thanks for talking with us, Owen.”
“You can go back to your nap now.”
Still slumped in his chair with his head tilted at an absolutely horrendous angle, Owen gives them a thumbs up and falls asleep immediately. After not even five seconds, he starts snoring.
Todd stares at his sleeping figure with a grin. “Okay, okay, we’re getting somewhere with this! This is definitely something odd, right?”
Oscar hums. “There’s something off about it, but I wouldn’t say odd yet.”
Otto nods fervently. “Let’s look around even more, just to make sure.”
Todd nods, grabbing both of them by the arms and tugging them away.
“There’s a sign on the door,” Otto notes, as the three of them approach Dr. O’s office. “What does that say?”
“Do not disturb,” Oscar mutters. “Maybe we should—”
Todd breezes past the two of them and pulls the door open, peeking inside. “Onoma?” he calls.
“That’s Dr. O to you, Agent Todd,” comes a stern voice from inside.
Oscar and Otto peek in as well. Dr. O is sitting at a desk, posture perfect, with a laptop in front of her. She seems to be filling out something digitally, her fingers flying at unimaginable speeds over the keyboard.
“Did you not read the sign?” She says coldly, not even looking up to face the three of them. “No visiting unless you’re in a life-threatening condition.”
“Yeah, I am in life-threatening condition,” Todd says with a grin, slipping inside. “I’m going to die of boredom.” He gestures at the two others to follow. After a moment of deliberation, Otto shrugs and steps inside.
Dr. O sighs, closing her laptop and gesturing towards the chairs in front of her desk.
“You’re actually letting us stay?” Oscar says, surprised.
“He’s here, so I suppose something must be somewhat serious,” she says, throwing a side glance at Todd, who rolls his eyes.
“She just doesn’t want to do the rest of her work,” Todd translates, crossing his arms amusedly. Dr. O glares at him, but doesn’t deny anything. “Listen, it’s okay, it’s us too. Why do you think we’re here?”
“Has anything strange happened today?” Oscar asks. “Absolutely anything?”
Dr. O stares at them, unblinking. After a few seconds, her brow furrows.
“No,” she says slowly. “Well, yes. The fact that nothing strange has happened. It’s quite paradoxical, really.”
“EXACTLY!” Otto bursts, throwing his hands into the air. “It’s like all the villains went on vacation! Like, good for them, but we need something to do too!”
Oscar nods. “All of us, as well as all of security, haven’t had anything new to do other than paperwork for the whole day.”
Todd slams his fist into his palm. “And we really have nothing better to do, so we're checking if everyone else is bored out of their minds right now. What are your assistants doing?”
Dr. O glances at him. “Paperwork,” she says flatly.
“Fair enough!” Otto says.
Todd grins, before getting up and tucking his chair in. “Guys, if everyone’s having a slow day, maybe we can make an appeal to Ms. O that there’s something odd going on so we’ll be exempted,” he says gleefully.
“Or maybe you should just finish your paperwork,” Dr. O drones, opening her laptop and resuming her typing. Todd rolls his eyes and blows a raspberry at her. She pays him no mind.
“What’s our next stop?” Otto asks, getting up and waving to Dr. O. Oscar does the same.
“Transportation,” Todd says, a small smile spreading across his face.
“Oh my God, you too?” O’Donnell cries, running a hand through her pigtails. “I swear, there’s been absolutely nobody using the tubes today! I have nothing to do!”
Sprawled across the operator’s screen are several games of tic-tac-toe, with all of them ending in a tie. Otto raises an eyebrow.
“Have you been playing tic-tac-toe with yourself?” He asks, with a tiny grin.
O’Donnell bristles. “Well, there’s nobody else here, is there?”
Otto shrugs. “Touché.”
Crossing her arms and sweeping a couple of papers off the operator console, O’Donnell sighs. “Are you guys going to tell me why nothing’s been happening all day, or…”
“Oh! Right,” Oscar says, brushing off his lab coat. “The entire precinct is having a slow day. Nobody's using the tubes because we aren't being sent on any cases.”
“Like, a super slow day,” Otto adds. “A snail day. The snail isn’t even moving, at this point, it’s like when you kind of tap its shell by accident, and it just kind of sits there, and it takes forever for it to—”
“ PLEASE tell me you’ve been doing nothing but paperwork all day,” Todd interrupts. “And that absolutely nothing odd has happened here.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but paperwork all day and absolutely nothing odd has happened here,” O’Donnell parrots.
Todd lights up. “Seriously?”
O’Donnell sighs. “Now would be the time to be funny and say ‘no’, but… yeah, seriously, nothing’s been happening.”
Todd and Otto cheer as they jump up and high-five. Oscar crosses something out on a clipboard.
“Thanks, O’Donnell!” Otto cheers, waving at her as the three of them sprint out of the tube lobby. O’Donnell waves back. The door shuts with a his.
Once she’s alone again, O’Donnell pulls out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. She draws two vertical lines and two horizontal lines, and an X in the middle square.
“Damn,” O’Donnell mutters, squinting at the paper. “I always make it hard for myself.
“Okay, we don’t need to go in, we just need to have a little peek,” Todd says quietly. The three of them are tiptoeing into the corridor with Obfusco’s office. “If we see him doing paperwork, then we go.”
“Good idea,” Otto whispers theatrically. “I’m done with flowery language for the day. Maybe forever, actually.”
“Me too,” Oscar sighs, massaging his forehead.
“Me three,” Obfusco says.
Otto’s heart stops. He screams.
The three of them whirl around to be faced with nobody else but Obfusco, in all his mustached glory. The guy looks really tired, actually. Otto almost feels bad.
“Manila folder,” Todd notes, gesturing at the stack of folders Obfusco is clutching to his chest, before whirling around and striding out of the corridor. Oscar hurriedly follows.
“Hey, wait, aren’t you going to make conversation with me?” Obfusco cries, reaching out for them. “Come on, I’ve been stuck in my office all day!”
“Sorry, buddy!” Todd calls, already disappearing from sight. “We can talk another time!”
With a little twinge of guilt in his chest, Otto waves at Obfusco. “Love your mustache today!” he calls, as he runs after Todd and Oscar.
Obfusco stands alone in the hallway, before reaching to adjust his mustache. Satisfied, he nods and re-enters his office.
The kitchen is in absolute chaos, and Oksana is the root of it.
“THE FDA SENT ME A WARNING!” She roars, ripping a stack of papers about the thickness of a phonebook in half. Enraged, she throws the papers into an open fire, watching as they burn up and crumble to ashes.
Todd turns on his heel and walks right out. Otto and Oscar follow.
“Ms. O,” Todd says, back ramrod straight and expression steely. “After ample investigation, my team has found that—”
“That there’s something super odd about today?” Ms. O finishes for him. Todd’s eyes widen in surprise. “Yeah, figured. You think you’re the only agents to complain?”
“So, are you going to do anything about it?” Otto asks, hope blossoming in his chest. He really doesn’t want to go back to reading about Fladam’s sad childhood backstory in immense detail.
Ms. O sighs heavily, pushing aside her own enormous pile of papers.
“Listen,” She says, looking up at the three agents in front of her. “I don’t like doing paperwork either. But every once in a while, days like this happen. And until we have viable —” she looks directly at Todd and Otto when she says the word ‘viable’, “—proof that there really is something odd going on, we have no choice but to just get our work done.”
“But—”
“No buts!” Ms. O snaps. “The faster you get out of my office, the earlier you’ll get your work done.”
“Ms. O,” Otto pleads. “Come on, it’s everyone in the precinct!"
“There’s something going on,” Todd stresses. He takes a second to sniff the air for something, his scowl deepening as he evidently senses something strange. “Something odd. I can smell it.”
Oscar and Otto glance back at Todd with furrowed brows. Todd shrugs, before looking back at Ms. O meaningfully.
Ms. O stares at him for a second, but shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Todd. I don’t make the rules. You’re going to need to go back to your desks. Now.”
“But—”
“NOW!” Ms. O roars, slamming her desk and surging out of her chair.
Todd groans, whirling around and storming out of Ms. O’s office. With a nervous glance at his figure descending the stairs, Otto and Oscar hurriedly follow.
“Otto,” Ms. O suddenly says. “A word.”
Otto stops, halfway out the door. He glances tensely at Oscar, who shrugs and mouths ‘ good luck ’ before heading down the stairs and back into the lab.
Butterflies fluttering about in his stomach, Otto turns around and walks up to Ms. O’s desk. She gestures for him to take a seat, and the nerves worsen. Otto’s hasn’t had a one-on-one with Ms. O since his first day at the squad. “Hi,” he says lamely.
“Your partner sure gets grumpy when he’s cooped up, eh?” Ms. O asks offhandedly, sipping at a juice box. Grape flavour. Good choice, Ms. O.
Casual conversation. Weird. Otto clears his throat awkwardly, shrugging. “I mean, this amount of paperwork would have anyone grumpy,” he says, tugging at his sleeves. “Like, Todd’s an outside person, not an inside person. Of course he isn’t going to be happy, y’know?”
“Right,” Ms. O says, eyeing him strangely. “How’s work at the squad? You like your partner?”
An amused smile tugs at Otto’s expression. “Seriously?”
A flash of—something—flickers over Ms. O’s expression. “That’s not an answer, agent.”
“No—” he laughs. “No, like, that’s funny, actually. Of course I like Todd! He’s my friend!”
Something akin to relief floods Ms. O’s entire figure, and she lets out a tiny sigh. “Alright, good. That’s all.”
Otto cocks his head at her, confused. “That’s all?”
“That’s what I just said,” Ms. O hisses. “Now GET OUT AND GO DO YOUR WORK!”
Bolting out of his seat, Otto waves at Ms. O and heads back downstairs, finding Todd hunched over his desk. He runs over to him, pulling out a chair and plopping down. The reminder of the amount of work they have yet to do is not a fun one.
“Well,” Todd sighs. “That didn’t go well.”
Otto uncaps a pen with his teeth, testing it on the corner of a document. “Nope.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Todd says, his voice almost strangled, like he’d rather be boiling his teeth in pickle juice than doing this. To be honest, at this point, Otto wouldn’t blame him for that sentiment.
The two of them get back to work in silence, hyper-focused. Or, well, trying to be.
None of them get much work done by the end of the day, that’s for sure.
“Paperwork? Seriously?”
Two shadowy figures stand in a dark room, lit only by a small window in the corner. The taller one is leaning against the wall, arms crossed and face twisted into a mocking smile.
“You had us do all of that so they’d all have paperwork to do?”
The shorter figure stands with her hands clasped behind her back, facing away from the other. She glances back at the taller one, expression steely.
After a beat of silence, she laughs, a quiet, icy exhale.
“Just wanted him to know what it’s like,” she responds.