Ships Ahoy!

The Ignored/Unnoticed

A/N Happy August 4th! ;)

Agent Oksana liked to think of herself as too tough for most people to mess with.

After all, not everyone had escaped over the Berlin Wall from Soviet Germany and eventually made it to Canada, yet still found the time to get educated enough to join Odd Squad.

Not everyone had been charged with aiding and abetting a rogue agent and stripped of her rank, yet still managed not to get kicked off the force.

Not everyone had staunchly worked alone in her department for nearly a solid twenty years, refusing every kitchen assistant sent her way.

And not everyone had beaten Ms. O in a musical staring contest during the Odd Squad Talent Show—one year before the activity was permanently removed from the program.

But

the one thing she couldn't say

was that she was the only agent at Odd Squad who hadn't fallen for Agent Otto.

Because nothing could be further from the truth.

Oksana hated herself for it, of course. From Octavia to O'Guire, nearly every girl agent who'd ever passed through the break room to gossip had expressed some sort of interest in the rookie agent—how cute he was, how funny he was, how nice he was, how talented of a dancer he was, and especially how clever at problem-solving he was, even if he wasn't all that knowledgeable yet. They also very clearly expressed how jealous they were of Olive, and how good his partnership was with her. The worst were O'Higginz and O'Donnell: when they weren't working their Tube Operating shifts, the two did nothing but gossip, gossip, gossip about whatever interested them. And for the past two months, that had only been Otto. Oksana had seen this kind of thing many times before, of course, and knew how superficial it all was. Apart from his partner, no one was really truly interested in him for who he was as a person, rather merely because he was new and interesting. (Except maybe Dr. O, who wasn't the type to know what a superficial interest even was.) As always, the whole gossip situation disgusted her, and Oksana had resolved to never get involved in something so shallow and fake.

Until the quadrennial Captain Fun elections rolled around.

See, though she didn't know exactly what Captain Fun even did, Oksana definitely knew she didn't want Oren to get it. If he was going to dare to be rude enough to let her sneeze without saying "bless you" or "gesundheit" or "salud" or "vos souhaits" or whatever people said these days, then he clearly wasn't fit to hold any type of leadership position. Which only left Otto. Being the subject of annoying gossip is a quarrel between us, alright, she reasoned, but not a big enough one that I shouldn't back him in order to keep Oren from winning.

So that's how she found herself standing behind him at his desk, peering over his shoulder to notice he was...reading a Shmumberman comic? Instead of campaigning? Perplexed, Oksana racked her brain trying to remember if any of those girls had ever gossiped about Otto being lazy.

"Aah!"

Oh right, he's here. Took you long enough to turn around and notice.

Otto craned his neck upward to address her, which for some reason satisfied her. "Hey there, Oksana," he said, sounding a little confused.

Does he really not know why I'm here? Did he not just decide to run for Captain Fun? "What are you doing?" she demanded, stepping around his chair so that they were facing each other. So to speak.

"Waiting for people to vote for me," he answered with a shrug.

Oksana kept her straight face, but came close to dropping her jaw. Wow. Those girls were wrong when they said you weren't too knowledgeable. As far as campaigning goes, you're downright stupid. "You're never going to win Captain Fun that way. You need to walk around, shake people's hands…" a movement to her left caught her eye "...flip burgers." When Otto gave her a look, she pointed. "Look at Oren."