A/N: Disclaimer: I don't know where "the next town over" mentioned in the show really is, but lilwoodb refers to it as Montreal in her awesome fic Ships Ahoy! (which you should totally check out if you haven't already!), so I'm jumping aboard that train and calling it that. All credit for that idea goes to her, though! Enjoy!

-------

The door to the Montréal Odd Squad Management Office swung open, and Olive stepped out to greet the young boy that stood there on the balcony.

"Agent Oxley, right?"

"Yes ma'am!" the little dark-haired boy replied, nodding very seriously. Olive smiled, already feeling fond of the young agent despite herself.

"Come on in."

Oxley, a brand-new agent fresh out of the Academy, followed Olive eagerly into the Management office. Before the door had even swung shut behind him, he was staring around at everything in awe.

"Wow..." he mumbled, and Olive couldn't tell if he was looking at the desk, the paintings in the walls, the iced tea machine, or the entire office in general, because he really seemed to be looking at it all at once.

Otto, who had been on self-proclaimed early lunch break, was chewing on a bagel, cup in hand. Mouth full, he raised the bagel to wave it in a friendly greeting.

"Here, sit down," invited Olive, taking a seat on one of the comfortable purple sofas. The messy-haired boy sat down across from her, blinking as he continued looking from one thing to another.

Finally, seeming to have absorbed as much of Headquarters as he could hold, Oxley turned and looked at Olive, then Otto, taking in their matching purple outfits with wide, wonder-filled eyes.

"So you're Mr. and Mrs. O?" he asked, awe seeping into his tone. A moment of silence passed as the two older agents blinked, trying to figure out what wasn't right about that sentence.

Then Olive suddenly stiffened, and from somewhere behind her, she heard Otto drop his paper cup. Now, ordinarily she wouldn't have been able to hear a paper cup fall, but... that cup wasn't empty. She also could practically hear her partner wince at the large splash it made as it hit the carpet.

"I'll clean it up!" he assured her quickly, though not without a bit of awkwardness still evident in his tone.

Olive facepalmed at this and took a quiet breath, trying to salvage the rest of her composure. She looked back up at the young agent and offered him a small smile, gently correcting him.

"It's... Ms. O, actually," she informed him politely, immediately feeling a little bad as the seven-year-old looked down guiltily.

"Sorry," he apologized, and pressed his thick blue glasses closer to his face, not seeming to notice as his lower lip stuck out a bit. "...I get those mixed up sometimes."

No! You're—that's fine; don't worry about it, she wanted to reassure him. However quickly she wanted to make him feel better, protocol required her to be a bit more formal.

"It's... all right," she replied simply, and he looked relieved, so that was that.

She opened her mouth to begin her usual new recruit speech, but she just as quickly closed it, trying and failing not to roll her eyes as Otto rushed back and forth behind her with varying amounts of paper towels. Finally, she just glanced over to where he was stepping on them in attempt to soak up the last of whatever he'd been drinking, and raised an eyebrow, clearly less than impressed.

He noticed this fairly quickly and stood still, offering her a sheepish grin in return.

Olive settled for merely rolling her eyes again, before turning back to the new agent.

"You're here for your new partner, right?" she asked, standing up from the comfortable purple sofa and heading over to the large desk she shared. The recruit hopped up and hesitantly followed, glancing around the office once more as if he expected his new partner to materialize from behind a potted plant.

Once he realized this was probably not going to be the case, he looked back at his new boss. "Mhm," the boy mumbled, nodding quickly before glancing away again.

Poor kid. I'm sure he's nervous about all this.

Trying her best to appear friendly, she gave the new recruit a warm smile, folding her arms on the desk.

"She'll be here in a few minutes," she informed him, discreetly glancing at her watch to make sure she was correct about the time. She was, of course, but it never hurt to check.

By this time, Otto had (hopefully) gotten up whatever he'd spilled, and strolled over to join his partner at his own chair behind the desk. He grinned at the new agent, raising his eyebrows curiously.

"So!" he began, leaning back comfortably in his swivel chair, bouncing himself back and forth slightly in it. "It's your first day, right?" he asked, genuinely interested. "Are you excited?"

Olive smiled in relief at her partner's questions, sinking a bit back into her seat. Phew. He always was better at talking to the younger agents than I was.

Oxley smiled shyly back, folding his hands behind his back and nodding in reply. "Yeah," he answered, grinning sheepishly at the older boy. "I hope I'll make lots of friends and solve lots of cases."

Olive glanced away to hide her smile, but Otto was already busy grinning, so he didn't bother.

"Oh, trust me," began Otto, and this time, Olive didn't manage to keep a straight face at the big dramatic way he was building up to whatever he was about to say. "By the time you leave Odd Squad, you'll have so many friends, and have solved sooooooo many cases, you won't even be able to count them!"

Here, Otto waved his arms in a large gesture to emphasize just how grandiose this number would be, causing Oxley to clap a hand over his mouth and burst into giggles. Otto grinned, snickering right along with him, and even Olive couldn't hold back a chuckle. Otto leaned forward again and grabbed a handful of pretzel sticks out of a pencil mug, before sliding the mug over in front of the new agent.

"Have a snack!" he offered, motioning to it and the several other small dishes of various snack items. He winked, crossing his arms on the desk again. "Gotta keep your energy up for all those cases you're gonna solve."

Olive shook her head fondly and rolled her eyes, but before she could add on to her partners' statements, her watch bleeped in notification. She glanced down at it, quickly looked up at the glass doors to the office, and finally rested her gaze on Oxley, at whom she smiled.

"Here's your partner now, Agent Oxley," she began, and the doors opened across the room. "She'd have gotten here at the same time you did, but I think there was a bit of a holdup in the paperwork because of her—"

Oxley had whirled around to see who his new partner would be, but she had spotted him first.

"Oxley!" a girl about his age exclaimed, stopping in her tracks to jump up and down, waving eagerly. Agent Oberto, who was their usual training instructor and had been escorting in the other new agent, nearly bumped into the girl on account of her abrupt halt. Just as quickly as she'd stopped, the curly-haired blonde quickly hopped across the room to where her new partner stood, not even seeming to notice the unevenness in her gait.

The younger boy's brown eyes lit up, and he grinned at his new partner in greeting. "Ossie!" he exclaimed back, all previous shyness gone. He jumped up, bouncing on his toes in time to the eager hopping of his friend. "I thought you were gonna be partnered with Olfrey and I'd be partnered with Orpah—" (Here, he made a face) "—or one of the new agents from that other squad that I wouldn't even know and—"

Olive and Otto watched the happy exchange in mutual satisfaction—Olive, with her arms folded neatly, and Otto while he crunched on pretzel sticks. After a minute, however, Olive leaned forward and cleared her throat.

Both young agents went silent and turned quickly to their boss, standing very straight and upright. To her amusement, they even both saluted—something that was last made mandatory in the 1927 Odd Squad Training Manual, if she remembered her Odd Squad History correctly.

She smiled briefly, waving for them to put their hands down.

"Now," she began, and they watched her in utmost seriousness. She continued, picking up and holding out a file for each of them. "Your desks are by the sandbox, and your lockers are your badge numbers. Ossie," she added, opening the second file and pointing to something inside it, "yours is 66B. Also, Dr. Osborne is always available to help if you need anything, alright?" Olive gave the agent a slightly pointed look, raising an eyebrow.

Ossie nodded vigorously in response, blonde curls bouncing wildly. Giving a slight smile, Olive then turned to her partner, who nodded and addressed the earlier agent.

"Oxley, I think you still need to fill out the other half of your Agent Profile," Otto advised, and Oxley flipped open his folder to see what was being talked about. A few pages spilled out, which he quickly dropped down to grab. "Everything else was good, but there's still the coloring pages to do."

Having scooped up his papers and stood back up, Oxley smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry," he mumbled, glancing away again before meeting Mr. O's gaze. "I did it at the park and didn't have any crayons."

Otto smiled triumphantly, giving the young agent a knowing nod. "Not to worry; you'll find a full set of crayons and colored pencils in your right-hand desk drawer," he announced. Both new agents' faces lit up, and they shared a quick look of excitement.

Otto grinned at this. Olive cleared her throat.

"All right. I'm sure you'll both be on your best behavior?" she reaffirmed, raising an eyebrow. The two agents nodded vigorously once again.

"Yes ma'am!" "Uh-huh!" they chorused.

Otto pitched in, raising an eyebrow as if he knew something they didn't. "And you'll both solve tons of cases?" he suggested teasingly, before Olive rolled her eyes and instinctively corrected him.

"You'll both do your best to fix odd problems?" she corrected, ignoring her partner's good-natured sigh.

Oxley nodded, and Ossie grinned in determination.

"We will fix 'em!" she answered, nodding resolutely. Her new partner nodded again in agreement, grinning and pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Finally, Olive chuckled, smiling right back at them.

"Well then?" she asked. Just a little bit of a smirk tugged at her face, and she raised an eyebrow. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

The two seven-year-olds lit up with excitement, jumping out of their chairs and nodding eagerly once again. They hurried towards the door, dodging the coffee table and—in Oxley's case—just barely avoiding knocking over a spare bowl of cheese crackers that Otto had left perched on the table's corner. The boy flashed a sheepish grin as he steadied it, before jumping to catch up with his partner.

"Thanks Mr. O! Thanks Mrs. O!" chorused the two young agents, scrambling out the door even as they beamed and waved goodbye. Olive and Otto, however, could only stop to stare.

Precinct #13579's newest agents hopped eagerly out onto the balcony, oblivious to the trouble they'd caused.

Otto chuckled sheepishly, glancing at his partner as he shook his head in wonderment. "...Again?" he chuckled, making a face. "I was told we didn't have to get married."

She only shook her head, still embarrassed.

"...We really need place cards," muttered Olive, rubbing her forehead tiredly.

----------

A/N: I admire people who can write Olive and Otto as liking each other while still being in character, because I have not yet mastered that ability. x'P I HOPE THIS TURNED OUT ALL RIGHT THOUGH

Feel free to pretend this doesn't exist if you want; I liked the last two one-shots better. ;P I do like Oxley and Ossie, though; they're your typical cute little kids! Bonus fact: Ossie has a prosthetic lower leg; that's why her skipping is kind of herky-jerky.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! I'm off to work on the next bunch of chapters! (Simultaneously, because everyone knows that's the best way to get any individual one done fast. XD) #actuallyfirstI'mgoingtogetsomesleep #thenwillprobablycomeschool #BUTAFTERTHAT #IT'SWRITINGTIME