They play niece and uncle on "Heroes," but are Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia acting more like kissing cousins? The rumor mill has been churning in recent days with chatter that the age-mismatched but chemistry-laden co-stars may be getting cozy.

But in what's sure to be a crushing blow to many a fanfic forum, the easy-on-the-eyes pair adamantly deny there's anything untoward going on.

As expected, rumblings of an offscreen romance began shortly after the apple-cheeked starlet confirmed her recent bust-up with reality D-lister Stephen Colletti, whom she dated for about a year.

Later, TMZ.com spotted them strolling "arm-in-arm" outside another post-awards bash and boldly asked the burning hookup question, prompting Panettiere to shoot back, "I'm holding onto him because I'm about to fall over in these heels!"

"Hayden and Milo are cast mates and good friends," Panettiere's spokeswoman pooh-poohs to MSN Entertainment. "There is nothing further to their relationship and all reports to the contrary are false."

A mouthpiece for Ventimiglia, who was briefly linked to Emmy Rossum after calling it quits with onetime "Gilmore Girls" amour Alexis Bledel, is also quick to downplay the dating reports, telling us they're just "not true."

In this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly (issue date is Sept. 28 and is on stands tomorrow), we have an exclusive first look at Masi Oka's 17th Century samurai gear…. on the cover! And as if that were not enough, the cover story included a ton of juicy tidbits about the new season -- who are these new heroes exactly? What will unfold this season? Etc.

"One of the more memorable relationships in Season One was Hiro's first love, the waitress Charlie. We were as smitten as Hiro by that story and seized the chance to tell the full adventure of Hiro's six months in the past. Aury Wallington was hand picked by the writers of the show for her brilliant voice for these characters. The novel is a welcome addition to the Heroes family," said Tim Kring, creator-executive producer, "Heroes."

The novelwritten with the full cooperation and consultation of the show's creatorswill tell the story of Japanese office worker Hiro, who, through the use of his ability to pierce the space-time continuum and manipulate time, bravely catapults himself into the past to save Charlie, a small-town Texas waitress with an extraordinary memory, from being brutally murdered by super-powered serial killer Sylar (Zachary Quinto). While fans of the television series were given only a brief glimpse into Hiro and Charlie's relationship as it grew into love over six time-changing months, but their history is told here with the depth and insight that only a novel will allow.

"This was not easy to pull off. But since we're an ensemble show, with many arcs playing out through the year, we found a way to jump into a small window in her schedule," Tim Kring, the show's executive producer and creator, said in a statement Monday.

Although initial reports suggested Anders was brought in as a series regular, I assure you that was not the case. Anders was technically hired as a recurring player, but apparently after seeing him in action as the 1,000-year-old Kensei, producers decided to keep him around full-time.

"There's a couple new villains," Kring said in a conference call on Aug. 2. "We're doing 11 episodes in a row that start on Sept. 24. And somewhere in that run of episodes we're going to introduce a very scary villain."

"At the end of last season we gave in the season finale a premonition of someone who is a very scary villain out there, who has invaded the dreams and nightmares of this character on our show named Molly Walker, who can locate people just by thinking about them," Kring said. "[We] teased the idea that there was another villain out there. And the audience can expect to see him somewhere in the first run of episodes."