The warm, golden light of the Waverider's bridge felt like a world away from the rest of Star Labs. Patty ran her hand over the smooth, living metal of the console, still trying to catch her breath.
"It's incredible, Barry," she whispered. "It feels… alive."
"It is, in a way," he said, looking at the pulsing core with a fondness usually reserved for a family pet. "But this one has a very specific job. The other one… its job is here."
He led her out of the ship and back into the main corridors of Star Labs. They didn't head for the Cortex or the labs, but downward, taking a service elevator deep into the building's foundations.
"Where are we going?" Patty asked, the sterile, industrial lights of the sub-levels a stark contrast to the Waverider's glow.
"The heart," Barry replied simply. "Or what used to be the heart."
The elevator doors opened into a vast, cavernous space. It was the main power relay station, a cathedral of technology. Towering, outdated generators stood silent and cold, like sleeping metal giants. Thick, dusty cables snaked across the floor, leading to a massive, dormant central core. The air was still and carried the faint, sad smell of old oil and ozone.
"This is what's been powering Star Labs since the beginning," Barry explained, his voice echoing slightly. "It's a relic. It's why the lights sometimes flicker. It's why we have to be careful with how much power the particle accelerator draws. It's… limping along."
He walked to the center of the room, to the silent, cold core. Patty followed, her footsteps loud in the quiet.
"And you're going to fix it with that?" she asked, gesturing to the second Mother Box he now held in his hands. It pulsed gently, a heartbeat of orange light in the gloom.
"Not fix it," Barry said, a determined glint in his eye. "Replace it."
He didn't put on a show. There was no grand gesture. He just knelt, placed the Mother Box against the cold, dead core of the main reactor, and phased his hand through the solid metal.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a soft ping echoed through the chamber, like a drop of water in a quiet cave.
The Mother Box sank into the reactor, disappearing from view.
A deep, resonant hum began, so low it was felt more than heard. It vibrated up through the floor, into their bones. One by one, the dormant generators lit up from the inside with the same warm, orange light, not with a harsh electric glare, but with a gentle, living radiance.
The thick cables on the floor glowed, the light traveling through them like blood through veins, spreading out from the core and racing up the walls, disappearing into conduits that led to every part of the building.
It was silent, beautiful, and utterly profound.
Above them, in the Cortex, the change was immediate.
Cisco was mid-sentence, arguing with Harry about the suit's power dampeners, when every screen in the room flared with a warm, golden light for a split second before returning to normal, their images sharper, their response time instantaneous.
"Whoa," Cisco said, staring at his holotable. "Did you guys just feel that?"
Harry adjusted his glasses, a rare look of surprise on his face. "The power grid… it just stabilized. Completely. The output is… impossible."
Gideon's voice, which usually came from specific speakers, now seemed to emanate from the very walls themselves, clearer and more present than ever before.
"The facility-wide integration is complete," she announced, her tone warm and satisfied. "All systems are now operating at four hundred percent efficiency. The particle accelerator is reporting zero energy drain. It is… a significant improvement."
Down in the power room, Patty watched, speechless, as the entire chamber transformed from a tomb into a sanctuary. The light was soft and warm, the air now fresh and buzzing with clean, limitless energy. The dead generators stood like honored statues, their work finally done.
Barry stood up, brushing off his hands. "That's it."
Patty looked around, then back at him. "That's it? You just… plugged a cosmic cube into the building and that's it?"
"What were you expecting?" he asked with a playful smirk. "Lightning and explosions?"
"I don't know! Something more than a hum and a glow!"
"The best upgrades are the quiet ones," Barry said, taking her hand. His touch was warm, charged with the same energy now flowing through the walls. "Now, Star Labs has a heart that will never fail. We'll never have a blackout again. We can run every experiment, power every suit, and keep the lights on forever."
He led her back to the elevator. As the doors closed on the newly-born power center, Patty took one last look. It was no longer a scary basement. It felt like the engine room of a starship.
When they stepped back into the Cortex, the difference was palpable. The light was softer, the air clearer. The usual faint, underlying hum of straining electronics was gone, replaced by a silent, potent stillness.
Cisco spun around in his chair, a huge grin on his face. "Dude! What did you do? I was just running a diagnostic and the computer finished it before I even pressed 'enter'!"
"Just a little household maintenance," Barry said casually.
Harry was studying a readout, his brow furrowed in scientific admiration. "The energy signature is… perfectly stable. Non-fluctuating. It's theoretically perfect."
Patty just leaned against a console, watching Barry as he was swarmed by his friends' questions. He took it all in stride, laughing, deflecting with easy jokes. He had just performed a miracle on a scale she could barely comprehend, and he was acting like he'd just changed a lightbulb.
She caught his eye across the room. He gave her a small, private smile, and she finally understood. This wasn't just about power. It was about building a foundation that could never be broken. A home for his family. A fortress for the future.
And as she stood there in the warm, golden light of a building now powered by a star in a box, she realized she was standing right in the center of it.