Author's Note: I had this kind of humorous idea about how, if Brainia was around in the real world, how there would probably be some tabloid or something with an "are they dating?!" sort of theme to it.

So I'm running with that. Don't know how much I'll be able to squeeze out of it, but I think it could be fun.

Summary: In which DreamDox becomes a trending hashtag

Spoilers: This isn't a spoiler butttt for the sake of this story just pretend that people know Brainy by Agent Dox. Because otherwise the ship name won't work. Besides, I don't even know what his official superhero name is, anyway. Roll with it, folks XD

This was officially the oddest situation Nia had ever been in.

Here she was, at CatCo, and she'd just been assigned to write a tabloid-esc news article. That in itself wasn't so weird (CatCo was more tabloid than newspaper by every passing day), but the article was about the 'exciting possible relationship between two young superheroes'.

Namely, Dreamer and Agent Dox.

Nia felt exceedingly awkward. How could she pretend to look for clues in the few captured videos of Dreamer and Agent Dox, perusing them objectively to try and figure out if they were dating? It was her. She would be watching herself.

Besides, she and Brainy weren't even dating. They... flirted, occasionally, and were kinda in the dancing-around-each-other, who's-asking-who-out-first stage of their relationship. But they were not together, officially or unofficially, so the real conclusion in Nia's article would be a solid, sorry, no relationship here.

Except...

When you looked at the videos...

Well, if she was being honest, they did kinda look like a couple.

See, there were three videos. The first was from only a few weeks after Nia had become Dreamer. It was one of the first videos that had been taken of her as a superhero, period, and was footage of her, Brainy and Kara fighting a blue-haired humanoid who called herself Deceilia. Nia had just been knocked aside by one of Deceilia's powerful back-fists and had flown across the parking lot, landing so hard on the side of a car that she bent the metal.

In the video, Brainy was at her side in moments, abandoning the fight. There wasn't much audio on the video besides screaming people, and even though the videographer had zoomed in on the two of them, Brainy's lips were impossible to read. Still, Nia remembered what he'd say almost to the letter.

"Dreamer! Are you alright?"

Nia had groaned, trying to push herself up from the ground. Brainy grabbed her arm and helped pull her to her feet. "What are you doing, Brainy? You can't just leave the fight like that."

"I had to make sure you were okay," Brainy had replied, frowning. Even the blurry video feed caught sight of his hand lifting to carefully pick a piece of glass out of her hair. "Shall we return to the skirmish now?"

It hadn't been much, that was true. The picking-glass-out-of-hair thing had been sweet, Nia supposed, but she also supposed that he would have done the same to Kara. Or J'onn, if he had hair.

But the fact that he had left the fight, which most likely went against every logical programing in his stupid, genius brain? That's what really got Nia tingling.

She shook her head, changing videos. There wasn't any definite proof in that, and no unbiased reporter who hadn't been standing in Nia's shoes and hearing what she'd heard would take that video as confirmation of a relationship.

The next video was a confrontation between her and an alien who had remarkably similar powers. The camera was incredibly shaky, most likely because the world was almost-literally falling apart around whoever was holding it, but Nia could see herself trapped in a dream-energy battle with a long, thin man. Two streams of dream energy were meeting at the middle, and both Nia and the malefactor had looks of serious concentration on their faces as they struggled to get the upper hand.

And then Brainy came up behind Nia and put his hand at her back. His image inducer was off and his inhibitors glowed brightly, giving Nia's energy just that much of a nudge that she was able to send her opponent flying backward.

This was the third time Nia had seen the video, and the second time that afternoon, so she had the sound off. But it was about that moment that the guy holding the camera starting freaking out and jumping up and down with excitement.

When he remembered he was recording, he calmed down and refocused the video, just in time to see Nia hovering over Brainy, who was sitting on the ground. It wasn't clear to anyone watching the video exactly what had happened, but Nia remembered feeling Brainy's grip slip away from her back and hearing the cringe-inducing thump as he sat heavily down on the pavement, so exhausted that his legs had given out.

In the video, Nia put her hands on Brainy's shoulders, rubbing them lightly. CatCo Nia expanded the video, trying to get an idea of how much you could really see.

Yep. There it was. Brainy's hand was just barely visible on top of hers, holding it in place.

Nia frowned and exited the video. It still wasn't proof of a relationship but she had to admit, these pieces of footage were pretty incriminating.

Nia moved on to the next video, the last out of three that she had of her and Brainy while in the field. This was the video that had caused all of the queries about the possible relationship between Dreamer and Agent Dox, and it was pretty hard to ignore.

In truth, the video wasn't even one of them fighting. It was set after a fight, when one of their vlogger-fans had raced up to them and shoved a camera in their faces. "Hi! I'm Super Vids from youtube and my fans have been commenting like crazy to try and get me to interview you two. Can I just ask, like, two really quick questions?"

Video-Brainy looked uncertain, but Nia had been ecstatic. "Sure!" she'd accepted with a large grin and a voice so high-pitched with excitement that non-video-Nia cringed hearing it. "Go ahead."

"Awesome!" the vlogger chirped. "Alright. First question: Other than Supergirl because she's, y'know, Supergirl... who do you think is the most powerful Superfriend?"

"Dreamer," Brainy replied, at the exact moment Nia answered with, "Agent Dox."

They looked at each other and non-video-Nia watched her eyes grow large with emotion as she gazed at Brainy's face in the footage. She remembered the feeling she had gotten when Brainy had said those words in front of the camera. He wasn't the type to make up that kind of thing just to be nice. He really believed what he was saying.

"Awwwwww..." the vlogger crooned. "Okay, adorable. Guys, if you haven't hit that like button already you should be right about now. Anyway, second-slash-last question and then I prooooomise I will let you both go. Second and last question is... what's the hardest thing about being a superhero?"

In the video, Nia and Brainy both fell silent, thoughtful. Nia spoke up first. "Knowing you can't save everyone," she said quietly. "It's amazing to have these abilities and be able to save people's lives, but there's always those stray few that don't make it. And knowing -or, thinking, anyway- that it's your fault... that you didn't do enough... it's a heavy burden to carry."

Video-Brainy was watching her, his eyebrows furrowed seriously. If the vlog camera had just been angled a little differently, the footage wouldn't have caught his next move.

But the camera wasn't angled differently, and it was blatantly obvious when Brainy took Nia's hand.

Present-time-Nia let out a groan and stopped the video. She had already heard Brainy's response (both IRL and when she'd watched the vlog a few times afterwards), and didn't need to hear him repeat his fears of making the wrong choice and, like Nia had said, being responsible for someone's death or pain.

Darn Brainy. Darn him and his sweet comfortingness. Nia had been brimming over with butterflies when he'd taken her had in that moment, but now it was leaving her in a very tricky situation.

How could she say that they weren't dating when he went and did something like that?

Groaning again, but more petulantly, Nia exited Youtube and opened up a google doc. She had an article to write, and no matter how weird or awkward it would be, she knew how she had to write it.

Three days later, Nia was hesitant to walk into the DEO. But Alex had called her in to help out with Dreamer stuff, and she couldn't refuse just because her article that happened to be about her and Brainy happened to have been published in CatCo that morning, and because Brainy happened to read everything that she wrote. Nia had a feeling Alex wouldn't take that as an excuse.

Ughhhhhhh this morning was going to be so awkward.

True to form, Brainy wasted absolutely no time in approaching her when she arrived at the DEO. "I... saw your article," he said, squinting in a way that made his face nearly unreadable. "I... I wish to confirm with you that we aren't... dating."

At the very least, Nia had to give him props that he hadn't beat around the bush at all. Like, at all. Like... he hadn't even said hello. "I know," she replied, shaking her head. "Look, I was tasked with writing this stupid article about whether or not Agent Dox and Dreamer are together. And I tried to be objective because no one knows I'm Dreamer, you know?"

"I understand that..." Brainy murmured slowly. "But that does not explain why you settled on the confusion that a, and I quote, 'relationship between the two superheroes is pretty likely, though there's no way to be sure without asking Dreamer and Agent Dox themselves.' "

"Yes, I know," Nia sighed. "Again, I had to be as objective as possible, and when you look at the stuff of the two of us the public has seen..." She hesitated, but only for a second, because if he had been blunt then she could be, too. "Seriously, Brainy, we look like we're a couple. You literally held my hand in that interview we got on the street."

Brainy looked affronted. "It was purely to comfort you and provide reassurance!"

"I know!" Nia let out a groan and shook her head. "And I appreciated it so much. But it really did make us look like we're a couple." She shrugged her shoulders. "So what if the public thinks our superhero alter-egos are together? If anyone outright asks, we'll just break the news to them that we aren't actually dating then."

"Oh." Brainy's face fell a little. "So you don't wish... that is to say, your article didn't imply... you didn't actually want me to... you don't wish to date me?"

Nia felt a surge of butterflies swarm in her stomach and she turned to look at Brainy more fully in the face. "Wait... you're saying that you want to date me?"

"I didn't say that," he muttered, cheeks darkening. "I merely confirmed that the article you wrote about our superhero alter-egos being in a relationship was not, in fact, what Alex calls a... hint."

Nia was unable to resist a small snort of laughter. "No," she told Brainy. "I wasn't hinting that I want to date you through my article."

"Oh," Brainy repeated, his face falling a little more.

Nia looked at him curiously. "But that doesn't mean that I don't want to date you," she said cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction by going as slowly as she feasibly could without seeming weird. "I mean... I wouldn't mind. Dating you."

"Then let us date!" Brainy declared, a little too loudly. A couple of agents looked over, lips quirking, and Nia felt her cheeks color as she saw a newspaper from CatCo open on someone's desk.

But then the meaning of Brainy's words hit her and a grin broke over Nia's face. "Seriously?" she asked. "You're asking me out? Like, for real?"

"Yes," Brainy said, nodding. "Let us go on a date, Dreamer." He looked between the two of them, both in their superhero costumes and waiting to go out into the field. "Just... maybe not right now."

"Tomorrow," Nia said, nodding her agreement. "Sounds great."

Alex came over around them, halfway through pushing her gun into its hip-holster. "You guys are trending," she said with a smirk.

"What?" Nia asked, frowning a little. "What do you mean?"

Alex tugged her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen for a second before flipping it to show Nia. There were a few things on Alex's twitter feed that Nia would be interested in looking into further (including a couple of murder-themed memes and an advertisement for a very cute combat boot), but one thing specifically caught her attention.

#DreamDox

Author's Note: Hahahahaaaaa that was random but honestly really fun XD

Let's be real though- if superheroes existed in our world everyone would be trying to figure out if any of them were together. That's just the way media is.

Would you ship them IRL? I know I wouldddd :)))

Happy Supergirl Sunday, btw! I don't know if Brainy and Nia will be in this episode but if not at least you guys how this little nugget to enjoy :)