Author's Note: Generally, I can come up with a stemming point for an idea but... I got nothing with this one. One moment it wasn't in my brain, and then it was in my brain.

Whatevs. I'll take it; it should be a fun idea.

Summary: Nia starts getting harassed at CatCo for being an alien. Brainy only realizes something's wrong when she tries to quit her job.

Spoilers: You, um. You need to know Nia is an alien. SORRY IF I SPOILED THAT XD XD XD Okay okay seriously tho- I'll just fill you in: the anti-alien community calls aliens roaches. Doesn't spoil anything, really. Just an FYI.

The harassment started small. Nia's coffee spilled over some important papers. Her work computer unplugged overnight so it took a considerable amount of time to boot up in the morning. Being purposefully excluded from group emails so she wasn't in the know about meetings and deadlines.

Kara said to just ignore it. Kara said it would go away. Granted, Kara wasn't getting harassed, but Nia just assumed that she knew what she was talking about.

Then things got worse. There was one morning when Nia walked out of the elevator and one of her coworkers plowed into her with a rolling dolly. Coffee had spilled all down her shirt and burned a large swath of area on her chest. A week after that, a different coworker had "accidentally" shut her fingers in a file cabinet, so hard that she had blood blisters all along her the space between her middle and top knuckles. Another day, she left her lunch at her desk and went to the bathroom during her break, only to come back to find the food gone and a note that read 'Roaches don't need to eat'.

Nia stopped telling Kara what was going on. She stopped talking to anyone about it. She hadn't been this badly terrorized since high school, since she had made the transition to physically become a woman.

The worst part, honestly, was that Nia knew who was responsible for all of it. Her harassers weren't being sneaky. They weren't trying to remain anonymous like the cyber-bullies in high school. It was as if they were daring Nia to do something about it; to tattle on them.

Well, she wouldn't. She had gone through this before. And maybe she stopped bringing coffee to work. And maybe she started keeping her purse in her lap and her earbuds out while she wrote because she was worried someone was going to steal her wallet. And maybe she made sure Kara was around every time she took a bathroom break so she would see if someone was messing with her things.

So Nia coped.

But it kept. Happening.

And then one morning, her computer was gone.

"That's it," Nia said, standing up with a jolt. Her voice came out even louder than she'd intended, all almost all the motion on her floor froze. "Who took my computer? I know you guys don't want an alien working with you but enough is enough. I need to do my job."

There was a long silence and a few undisguised glances were exchanged around the workroom.

"No one's got your computer," one of her coworkers, the one who'd hit her with the rolling dolly, said, and shook his head at her. Then, loud enough for her to hear, he muttered. "Roach."

And just like that, Nia was done. She picked up her purse, grabbed the picture frame and her favorite few office supplies from her desk, and walked out the door.

She had a date with Brainy that night. Even spending time with him had lost a lot of its joy over the past few months. Brainy loved her hear about CatCo; about her day, and she would have to constantly put on a smile and peppily talk about all the great reporting she was doing and the cool articles to had to investigate. She was worried that if she even let slip just a tiny bit of job-related unhappiness, even something that had nothing to do with the harassment, everything else would come out in a rush and that would be it.

But she couldn't lie to him tonight. So when the two of them sat down to pizza and wine, she brought up CatCo almost immediately. "I quit."

Brainy choked, and for a moment Nia thought she might get out of this conversation on the sole factor that he'd need to be taken to the hospital with the amount that he started coughing.

But he calmed down eventually, took a long sip of wine, and managed a strained, "What?"

"I quit," Nia replied, but only once she was positive he didn't have any food or drink in his mouth. "I quit CatCo today. Well. Not officially. I haven't actually told Andrea yet. But I'm going to tomorrow."

"Wha- Why?" Brainy asked, staring at her in bewilderment. "Nia- you love CatCo! You love to research, and write! I haven't heard you say a single bad thing about your job in months. This is the happiest you've ever been at CatCo."

The dam broke.

"No it's not, okay?!" Nia yelled, and she didn't care that people were staring, and she didn't care that she was probably going to start crying, and she didn't care that the whole restaurant was about to hear the truth instead of just her boyfriend. "I'm not happy, I've never been less happy, and the only reason you think I'm happy is because I've been lying to your face- everyone's faces- for months! Well, you know what? I can't do it anymore! I'm not! Okay!"

Brainy stared at her with wide eyes and Nia stopped speaking, feeling her blood pumping with every beat of her heart and the burn of embarrassment and anger singing her cheeks.

"I had no idea," Brainy murmured finally. "If I had known-"

"Well, you didn't," Nia said, her voice about three times more subdued. Her throat was raw and she realized she might have started screaming sometime during her confession. "Someone stole my computer today. Yesterday, someone dropped a paperweight on my foot. The day before that someone spilled coffee all over my bare legs. Last week all of my pens were taken. People took my lunch because roaches don't need to eat."

Brainy suddenly looked as shattered as Nia felt. "They're- they are doing this because you're an alien?" he asked, horrified. "They are doing this at you work place? Nia, when did this begin?"

"A few months ago," Nia said softly. "It wasn't a lot at first but it's gotten worse."

"And you said... nothing?" Brainy replied, his gaze skating over her face. "To me? To Kara? Even to Andrea, to let her know what was going on at her company?"

"No," Nia whispered. "I told Kara, at first, but she said it'd go away if I just ignored it. I didn't- I didn't want to worry you, Brainy, because I know you hate discrimination more than almost anyone and I was- I am- worried about what you'd do."

"What I'll do," Brainy said gently, getting up out of his chair and walking around the side of the table. For the briefest of moments, Nia thought he was going to walk all the way out of the restaurant; out on her. But instead he moved to her side and put his arms around her. "What I'll do is hug you because it's clear to me that no one has shown you the decency of common kindness in quite awhile."

Nia felt her chest tighten with a painful pressure. She hadn't cried over this yet, not once, in three months. In fact, she hadn't even cried at all, period, in three months. The weight of it all was pushing itself up her throat, trying to break the surface.

She let out one sob, and then another. Brainy somehow finagled his way onto her chair, so they were sitting side by side, then she was in his lap and was burying her face in his shoulder. The skin of his neck became slick with tears and the hem of his shirt dampened, but Brainy just held her. "You are not a roach," he said, almost too softly for Nia to hear over the sound of her own rattling breath. "You are a strong, beautiful, distinctly not bug-like, Nalturian-American. Do you understand me?"

Nia nodded, lifting her face from his shoulder to look him, rather stuffily, in the eyes.

Someone above them cleared their throat. "Ummm, I'm sorry... is the pizza not... good?" their server asked, looking a little alarmed.

Nia snorted with laughter, so hard that snot actually came out of her nose. She grabbed the napkin from the table and hurriedly wiped her face, flushing with embarrassment and tears and laughter.

"The pizza is sublime," Brainy replied sedately.

"Sorry," Nia apologized, knowing that there had been an unspoken question in the waiter's actual question. "It's been a... rough few months at work. Uh... sorry if we disturbed anything here. Can we get a to-go box?"

The waiter glanced at their table, on which lay entire pizza, sans one slice. "Um, sure," he said, frowning a little. "I'll bring that and your bill."

Nia started laughing again and was unable to stop, still half-crying and hiccuping along with that. "I'm a mess," she said, trying to untangle herself from Brainy without falling over or anything like that. "We're in the middle of a restaurant and I just unofficially quit my job and had a melt down and I'm a mess."

Brainy looked at her and let out a long breath. "You are still beautiful when you cry, though," he said with a shrug. "So at least you're not an unsightly mess."

Nia sat down in the chair that Brainy had initially occupied and let out a deep, long breath, trying to steady her breathing. She felt almost lightheaded with exhaustion and the fit of laughter that had finally calmed down, and took a sip from her wine glass.

"Nia," Brainy said cautiously. "If you would like... I will go in to CatCo with you tomorrow morning. We can speak with Andrea about the way your coworkers are treating you. We can deal with the issue together."

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his, tentatively, like he hadn't just been holding her entire body in his arms. "I... won't make a scene," he promised. "I will just support you. However you need me to. But I... I don't want you to give up on CatCo just yet. I will not let the bullies win. Alright?"

Nia nodded, a more mellow wave of tears beading in her eyes. She made no move to wipe them away, content to cover Brainy's hand so it was sandwiched with hers. "Alright," she agreed softly. "CatCo. Tomorrow."

"But for tonight," Brainy went on. "I believe we have some uneaten pizza and an episode of Phineas and Ferb on Disney+ with our name on it."

Nia smiled gratefully at him. "That sounds perfect."

And for the first time in three months, she thought that just maybe, she might be okay.

Author's Note: DON'T BE BULLIES GUYS! YOU SEE WHAT IT DOES TO PEOPLE! KINDNESS AND RESPECT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE ENTIRE FREAKING WORLD- EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN FANFICTION :O

Also... chapter 25! This is so exciting!