The door to Barry's private workshop hissed shut, sealing him in a world of absolute silence. In the center of the cavernous room, on a reinforced platform, sat the two Mother Boxes. Their surfaces shifted like living metal, pulsing with a soft, internal light.
He didn't need to prepare. He didn't need to focus. This was what he was now.
He took a single, calm breath, and the world stopped.
The air froze. Dust motes hung motionless in the shafts of sunlight. The hum of the entire building vanished into an absolute, profound silence. He was alone in a photograph of reality.
"Alright," he whispered, his voice the only sound in the universe. "Let's get to work."
He became a storm of controlled motion.
First, the parts. He had already fabricated the skeleton of the Waverider from a Vibranium-Adamantium alloy he'd synthesized. The frames, the struts, the hull plates—all of it was stored in a phased dimension only he could access. He reached into nothingness and pulled them out, one after another, his hands moving faster than thought.
He didn't weld or bolt. He vibrated his hands at a molecular frequency that fused the pieces together at the atomic level. The ship's skeleton assembled itself around him, a sleek, predatory form taking shape in the frozen air. It was like watching a time-lapse of a flower blooming, but compressed into a single, held moment.
Next, the core. He picked up the first Mother Box. It felt warm and alive in his hands, purring like a cosmic cat. He didn't install it; he bonded it. Phasing his hands through the central console, he placed the box at the very heart of the ship. Wires of living light erupted from the Box, weaving themselves through the vessel's superstructure, becoming its nervous system.
"Hello, Gideon," he said.
A wave of warm, golden light flowed from the core, washing through the entire ship. The blank consoles lit up, holographic displays flickering to life.
"Integration is flawless, Barry," Gideon's voice echoed through the silent, empty ship, rich with feeling. "The sensation is... extraordinary. I am the ship. I can feel every circuit, every conduit."
"Good," Barry said, already moving. "Now for the muscles."
The weapons. He needed firepower. This wasn't a ship for gentle nudges; it was a scalpel to cut out temporal cancers.
His mind touched the system shop. He found what he needed.
[Photon Cannons - 400 Credits]
[Chronal Disruptor Torpedoes - 600 Credits]
[Reality Anchor - 500 Credits]
He purchased them without a second thought. Credits were just numbers. The weapons materialized in his dimensional storage. In the next instant, they were installed. The photon cannons slid into concealed turrets on the wings. The launchers for the disruptor torpedoes, which could age a target to dust or revert it to its component atoms, were integrated into the ventral hull. The Reality Anchor, a device that could lock a patch of spacetime into place, preventing escapes or changes, was housed in the aft.
He didn't test them. He didn't need to. He knew they would work. His enhanced intellect had already run the simulations a million times in the space of a heartbeat.
But there was one final, crucial step. The ship was magnificent, but it was too big. It needed to be subtle. It needed to hide in plain sight.
He returned to the shop.
[Pym Particles - 150 Credits]
A small, advanced canister appeared in his hand. This wasn't for a one-time shrink. He integrated the particle chamber directly into the Mother Box's energy matrix, letting Gideon control it.
"The Pym particles are synced, Barry," Gideon reported, her voice buzzing with new possibilities. "I can now alter the ship's mass and size at a subatomic level. We can be as small as a fly or as large as a mountain."
A genuine smile broke across Barry's face. Perfect.
He moved through the ship in the timeless silence, a god assembling his creation. He installed the navigation systems, the temporal drive, the living quarters. He didn't just build it; he perfected it. Every wire was laid with perfect efficiency. Every system was redundant. This ship wasn't just advanced; it was a work of art, a testament to what he had become.
Finally, it was done.
He stood back, in the frozen center of his workshop, and looked at it. The Waverider. It was sleek and menacing, all sharp angles and hidden weapons, glowing with the soft, golden light of the Mother Box. It looked less like a ship and more like a predator poised to strike.
He let out the breath he'd been holding.
Time crashed back into the room.
The hum of Star Labs returned. The dust motes continued their lazy dance. The entire construction, from a bare frame to a finished, lethal timeship, had occurred in the space between one second and the next.
The door to the workshop hissed open. Patty stood there, her eyes wide, a coffee mug frozen halfway to her lips. She stared at the massive, impossible ship that now dominated the room. It hadn't been there thirty seconds ago.
"Barry," she stammered, lowering the mug. "What... how... when did you...?"
He walked over to her, wiping a smudge of non-existent grease from his hands onto his jeans. "Just finished it."
She just stared, her mouth agape, looking from his calm face to the technological marvel behind him. "You built a spaceship. In the last five minutes."
"Closer to three, actually," he said with a shrug. "I had a good rhythm going."
Patty stepped slowly into the room, her head tilted back to take in the full scale of the vessel. She reached out a tentative hand, her fingers brushing against the cool, impossibly smooth hull. It felt alive.
"It's beautiful," she whispered. "And it looks... dangerous."
"It has to be," Barry said, his voice soft but firm. "The timeline isn't always kind. The Legends will need every advantage I can give them."
A soft, warm chime echoed through the hangar, and a section of the hull irised open silently, forming a ramp. Gideon's voice flowed from the ship itself, gentle and welcoming.
"Would you like to see the bridge, Miss Spivot?"
Patty looked at Barry, then back at the ship, a slow, wondrous smile spreading across her face. The fear was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated awe.
"Yeah," she said, her voice full of conviction. "I really would."
She took his hand, and together, they walked up the ramp into the heart of the timeship, a silent promise to the future, built in a flash.