Zatanna Zatara arrived in the most dramatic way possible—surrounded by fireflies, wrapped in shadow, and dressed like she'd stepped out of a magician's fever dream.
Paradox had just finished rebuilding the molecular interface chamber when the lab's defenses triggered. DIA's voice cut through the quiet like a blade.
"Dimensional displacement detected. External magic signature inbound. High-level probability: homo magi. Name match: Zatanna Zatara."
Paradox's fingers froze over the controls. He didn't even sigh. Of course she would show up now.
He wiped his hands on a cloth, adjusted his neural bands, and walked to the teleport chamber—where the light shimmered, flickered, and then burst outward like a flower blooming from reality.
She stepped through it as casually as someone walking into a bar.
"Still brooding in ice caves?" she asked, brushing imaginary dust from her coat. "I figured you'd have traded up for a moon base by now."
Paradox raised an eyebrow. "Hello, Zee. You still making entrances like a Renaissance fair had a baby with Cirque du Soleil?"
Her smirk was instant. "You missed me."
"I tolerate you."
"And that's your love language. Charming as ever."
DIA beeped. "Should I engage intruder protocols?"
"No," Paradox said. "We're not killing her. Yet."
Zatanna strolled into the lab like she owned the place, boots echoing softly across titanium floors, blue eyes scanning every angle. She stopped at the floating schematic of a dimensional stabilizer and whistled low.
"You've been busy."
He folded his arms. "Why are you here?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she circled the console, eyes still scanning.
"I felt something. Two weeks ago. A break in the veils. The kind of wound that doesn't just seal on its own."
Paradox's shoulders tensed. He didn't reply.
Zatanna glanced back at him. "It happened near here."
"It's under control."
"That's what you said last time you nearly imploded a continent."
"That was one time."
"And the pocket universe incident?"
"Technically not my fault."
Zatanna exhaled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She suddenly looked less like a world-class magician and more like a tired woman chasing a ghost.
"I'm serious, Paradox. That thing wasn't a tear. It was a signal. Something out there is looking for anchors—and the longer you stay off the grid, the more likely it's going to find you."
He watched her for a moment. "You're not here because of the anomaly."
She didn't answer.
"You're here because you knew I'd be alone."
That stopped her. For a heartbeat, the silence between them was louder than any alarm.
"I know what it's like," she said quietly. "To have the weight of power in your blood. To feel like if you slip for a second, someone else pays the price."
Paradox looked away.
And then Ivy's voice came from the comms.
"Hey, Paradox? Are you still on for our walk? I brought lemon pastries today. I'm bribing you with sugar and bad jokes."
Zatanna blinked. "You've got company?"
"Don't start."
"Ohhh, I'm starting. Who is Ivy? Do I need to put her in a magic hamster ball to test for latent evil?"
"She's not like that."
Zatanna crossed her arms. "You mean she's normal?"
"I mean she's not wrapped in a self-righteous ego cocoon like some people."
"Rude," she said flatly, but there was a flicker of real emotion in her eyes—hurt, sharp, flickering just beneath the surface.
He sighed. "She's human. Civilian. Kind. And smart in ways that don't require ten PhDs and a trauma folder the size of a multiverse."
"That almost sounded like a compliment."
"I like her," he said.
Zatanna's expression didn't change—but her energy shifted.
Just a little.
Just enough.
He met Ivy later that afternoon on the same bench they always shared.
The pastries were warm. Her smile was warmer.
"You okay?" she asked, catching the edge of fatigue in his face.
"Just… ghosts from my past."
"You mean ex-girlfriends?"
He looked sideways at her.
She raised her brows. "Was I right?"
"She's… complicated."
"Sounds like you, then."
That made him laugh. For real this time. The kind of low, honest laugh that pushed the shadows back a little.
They sat together, eating pastries and watching clouds drift over the valley. The air was clean. The danger felt far away. For now.
But even as Ivy leaned into his side—her head on his shoulder, fingers brushing his—he felt it.
Zatanna's arrival had stirred something.
And she wasn't leaving.
Back in the lab that night, he found her in the forge chamber, tinkering with one of his graviton modulators like it was a Rubik's cube.
"You left your magic signature all over this place," he said.
Zatanna looked up. "So you were tracking me."
"I like to know which reality-bending demigods are poking around my toys."
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "You're happier than I've ever seen you."
He didn't answer.
"You should tell her."
"Tell her what?"
"That you're dangerous. That you've rewritten the laws of science more times than I've changed hats. That people like us don't get happy endings."
Paradox leaned against the wall. "You always assume tragedy is inevitable."
"Because it usually is."
"You're wrong this time."
"I hope I am," she said, softer than before.
They stood there in the hum of the forge chamber, surrounded by tools that could remake the world, both of them holding back more than either wanted to admit.
"Stay," he said at last.
Zatanna blinked.
He met her gaze. "Not in the lab. Not forever. But… stay in the area. Help me track the breach. Help her, if you can."
Zatanna hesitated.
And then nodded. "One condition."
"Name it."
"I want to meet her."
Paradox groaned. "You're going to be a menace, aren't you?"
"Oh absolutely."
Three days later, the first tremor hit.
Not seismic. Not magical.
Cognitive.
Something at the edge of thought. A pressure. Like the air around the valley had turned to glass, and something was tapping.
Paradox stood in the war room, staring at the simulation.
"Whatever's watching us," he whispered, "it just knocked."
DIA flickered beside him. "And?"
He smiled, slow and dangerous.
"I'm going to knock back."